Hong Kong: Sustainable fisheries - a win-win

Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture make an important contribution to Hong Kong by way of maintaining a steady supply of fresh fish to local consumers.

To promote the upgrading and transformation as well as modernisation and sustainable development of Hong Kongs mariculture industry, the Agriculture, Fisheries & Conservation Department (AFCD) plans to progressively launch four new fish culture zones.

Vital zones

The four new zones will be located in Wong Chuk Kok Hoi, outer Tap Mun, Mirs Bay and Po Toi (Southeast). The total area of the zones, situated in open waters with better currents, is about 590 hectares.

To resist strong winds and waves that may occur in the new zones, the department suggests using steel truss cages, or other types of deep sea cages, designed to fit Hong Kongs hydrology and environment.

The department set up a modern mariculture demonstration farm at Tung Lung Chau to showcase how the steel truss cages can help boost the industry.

Modern technology

Different from the traditional mariculture rafts made from wood, the giant cages have a lot of advantages.

It is more durable than the wooden-made mariculture rafts. Its estimated lifespan is 25 years. With an aquaculture water volume of about 11,000 cubic metres, this enables the farm to harvest 300 tonnes of aquatic products per year, AFCD Senior Fisheries Officer Chow Wing-kuen said.

Deep sea cages will be set up at the new fish culture zones and the farms there will be equipped with modern aquaculture systems that feature automated feeding and a real-time monitoring system. Such equipment will allow the operation to function at maximum efficiency.

Polytechnic University Research Institute for Future Food Associate Director Kevin Kwok discovered that by using the steel truss cages, both the growth and survival rates of the fish are better than the ones raised via the traditional wooden rafts. The steel cages provide the fish with better water quality as their excrement is easily washed away by natural water currents. The fish also contain a lot of healthy omega-3 fatty acids.

Apart from conducting research at the demonstration farm at Tung Lung Chau, the Polytechnic University also provides hands-on training there to conventional mariculturists and those who wish to join the industry.

Trainee Jack Mui said he and other apprentices learnt how to feed the fish, how to distinguish fish illnesses, etc. He added that the AFCD and the Polytechnic University staff taught them many useful skills and techniques and also helped them build up a professional network of the fisheries industry. He has eventually started his own business together with his peers.

Altruistic goal

Weather can sometimes make working outdoors a challenge. Even though colleagues are exposed to the sun and rain, or work till late at night, they do not complain. All we strive to do, is accomplish the goal of demonstrating the model of modernisation and the sustainable development of the fisheries industry. Chow Wing-kuen added.

This story has been published on: 2023-05-27. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
DP World has cut direct carbon emissions from its global operations by 5% last year, according to its latest Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) report, reflecting progress towards its 2040 carbon neutral target.

The ESG report demonstrates the companys commitment to sustainable business practices, has been developed in accordance with the latest Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards.

Over the course of 2022, DP World has tightened its ESG Governance and Risk Management framework, launched an Executive Sustainability Council to provide strategic guidance on the Groups sustainability strategy and ESG metrics, integrated ESG as a risk into our corporate enterprise risk register, and published its first stand-alone ESG Report c 2021  a significant milestone for the business.

Enabling resilience

Maha AlQattan, Group Chief People and Sustainability Officer, DP World, said: We believe in enabling resilience, and building a smart and sustainable future that generates long-term societal impact. In 2022 we saw continued global headwinds but that challenged us to push new frontiers of collaboration. Im proud that we have cut our direct carbon emissions by 5%, and significantly increased our community contributions. We recognise our impact and are continuing to look at how we use our resources responsibly, on issues from education to WASH infrastructure, in line with our clear roadmap for the future.

DP World has deepened its ties with partners to advance two of its key legacy pillars of Women and Water. Group Chairman and CEO, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem was announced as the Middle Easts first HeForShe champion by UN Women on International Womens Day last year and the company entered a 3-year global partnership with WaterAid to deliver water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure, starting in Mozambique.

DP World also participated in the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos and the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) signalling its commitment to ESG progress and expanding its network of partners and advocates.

Core focus

Decarbonisation is a core focus for DP World and the business has already committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2040 and net zero carbon by 2050 in line with the UAEs 2050 net zero.

In November at COP 27, the chairman announced that DP World had joined the Green Shipping Challenge and committed to investing up to $500 million to cut CO2 emissions by nearly 700,000 tonnes over the next five years. DP World has also entered a strategic partnership with the Maersk McKinney Moller Centre for Zero Carbon Shipping and joined the UN Global Compacts Think Lab on Just Transition.

The report also highlighted DP Worlds total community contributions with a 34% increase from 2021, including several new strategic projects including UN Women, the Earth Shot Prize and in response to emergencies in 2022.

Supporting women

These have helped support more than 255,000 women and girls through community projects such as its partnership with Barefoot College International (BCI) to graduate solar engineers from rural Senegal. We also invested $8.7 million in global education projects.

These efforts have not gone unnoticed in the supply chain industry. DP World has been recognised as the top ESG risk performer by Sustainalytics - a global leader in ESG and Corporate Governance research and ratings - winning the Sustainalytics 2022 Industry and Regional Top-Rated Badge, and achieved an A  (Leadership) rating in the CDP Climate Change submission.-- TradeArabia News Service
A shaman altar on Jeju Island is strewn with food and alcohol offerings. / Courtesy of Joey Rositano



By Hallie Bradley



Continuing his exploration of Jeju's unique cultural practices, Joey Rositano now presents his latest project, "Scattering," planned to be a photography book centered around the crow feeding rituals on Jeju Island.



Rositano, originally from Nashville, Tennessee, has been living and working on Jeju Island since 2006. Fascinated by the island's shamanic shrines and their worship, Rositano embarked on a journey to explore and document this polytheistic religion , which remains largely unknown even to the local city dwellers of Jeju.



This time, drawing on his background in anthropology, Rositano has created a fascinating 150-page "research art" photo book, providing captivating insights into the practice of scattering.



"On Jeju Island, in Jeju language there is the term 'keurigi' which literally means the act of scattering. This is a small act, but its full meaning is much bigger," Rositano told The Korea Times. "In the context of shamanism it means to scatter small pieces of food, what many mainlanders call 'gosirae,' for the birds to carry off to the ancestors. There are many regional variations, but on Jeju Island crows are the main birds that carry off these pinched-off pieces of shamanic offerings. It's important to know that islanders perform this action often, at their homes, at Buddhist temples, in their yards, fields and even in the ocean."





Various foods are left for crows to carry away as part of a shamanistic ritual on Jeju Island. / Courtesy of Joey Rositano



Rositano spent five years documenting the bond between the people of the village of Darakut and the large-billed crows, shedding light on the ritualistic bird-feeding practices. This phenomenon holds potential implications for understanding ancient relationships and the ways in which humans and crows perceive each other. The remarkable ability of crows to recognize faces further adds to the enigma surrounding their participation in the ritual crow feeding.



"Scattering" is a unique photo book that blends art and research. While capturing stunning visuals, Rositano provides a scientific approach to understanding the crow-feeding rituals in Darakut. Through interviews with local residents, extensive research on corvid behavior and his own observations, he uncovers the factors influencing the crows' ability to recognize the days of the shamanic ceremonies and join the feast.





Jeju islanders conduct a shamanistic ritual. / Courtesy of Joey Rositano



Rositano explained that it will be "a standard photobook in some ways but it will also include a section digging into the science side of what I observed. There will be lots of maps and ephemera that will appeal to the nerds!" The work includes enough science perspectives that Rositano will be showcasing the work at the Natural Science and Cultural Museum on Jeju Island next year as well.



Through interviews with local residents, Rositano reveals their deep awareness of the crows' consistent visits and their significant role in the offerings. The act of leaving a portion of food for animals, particularly crows, is an integral part of religious rituals on Jeju Island. The villagers' lifelong interactions with crows have provided them with extensive knowledge of crow behavior, and "Scattering" showcases their unique insights and observations as well.





A crow flies over a tree on Jeju Island. / Courtesy of Joey Rositano
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Each of our 50 states, it would seem, can, and does, put pretty much anything the state wants on its automobile license plates. Wyoming, for instance, has a small image of a cowboy riding a bucking bronco on its auto license plates. New York, on its auto license plates, proclaims itself to be The Empire State which brings to mind The Empire State Building, with or without King Kong climbing it.

We, here in Tar Heel land, are less grandiose. We have had the image of the Wright brothers airplane and the words First in Flight on North Carolina-issued automobile plates, commemorating the Ohio brothers flight at Kitty Hawk on Dec. 17, 1903. We also have had the words First in Freedom emblazoned on our license plates for all the world to see, commemorating commemorating the something or other.

Stay with me a moment.

Oh, yes. It was, we are told, way back in 1775, on the 20th of May, that we North Carolinians earned the slogan, First in Freedom. The date, May 20, 1775, is also on our state flag and our official state seal, so it must be an important date having to do with freedom and/or liberty, both of which I, personally, have always supported.

Once upon a time, May 20 was a date celebrated from Murphy to Manteo (that is, from the western end of North Carolina to the eastern end of the state). Its celebration would seem to have slipped from prominence over the years.

No less a person than President Woodrow Wilson, a graduate of nearby Davidson College, made a trip from the nations capital to Charlotte, when he was president, to observe and take part in the festivities there on a May 20th. And just what was being celebrated? one might ask.

The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence is what, referred to by some as the Meck. Dec.

According to some sources, a group of zealous patriots gathered in northern Mecklenburg County more than a year before the more-famous Declaration of Independence was made in Philadelphia the next year on July 4, hence the words, First in Freedom, on our state license plates. The declaration was supposedly spurred by the recent news of the fighting at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, between the minutemen and British regulars. If true, the people of this area were among the vanguard of those saying they were a free and independent people.

I will assume that the signers of the Meck. Dec. realized that declaring their independence from Mother Britain made them outlaws and their lives, fortunes and honor were henceforth forfeit as His Majesty, King George III, did not look kindly on rebellious subjects.

Part of the reason we do not make more of the Meck. Dec. is that, so far, it somewhat lacks in proof that there ever was such a thing.

For instance, no verified contemporary example of the document has been located, although there is, and I have a copy of, what the Meck. Dec. might have looked like, as reconstructed by John McKnitt Alexander and verified by the surviving men claiming to have been signers or witnesses to the signing, relying on memories years after the event.

Furthermore, most so-called serious historians of our state give the declaration short shrift. No less an authority than William S. Powell, in his authoritative Encyclopedia of North Carolina (UNC Press, 2006), uses words and phrases such as allegedly produced and spurious, when writing about the declaration.

There is no mention of the Mecklenburg Declaration in the proceedings of the meeting at Philadelphia, which was deliberating a similar document. Wouldnt it have been mentioned as another reason to proceed with declaring independence?

Thomas Jefferson declared the declaration to be fraudulent. In an 1819 letter to John Adams, Jefferson dismissed the Mecklenburg Declaration as a hoax.

I might mention that there may have been some Iredell County folks at the signing of the Meck. Dec. It was not all that clear where the Iredell/Mecklenburg line was. The declaration was said to have been signed at what is now known as the Alexandriana Historic Site, 9921 Old Statesville Road, not far from North Mecklenburg High School.

Alexandriana was the homesite (plantation) of John McNitt Alexander, secretary of the committee that may have drawn up the Mecklenburg Declaration.

There is an equestrian statue of Capt. James Jack not far from Central Piedmont Community College in downtown Charlotte. The good captain is supposed to have carried a copy of the declaration from here to Philadelphia, where he presented the document to the Second Continental Congress.

One more thing. There is a circular bronze marker embedded in the square (intersection of Trade and Tryon streets in Charlotte) which commemorates the declaration as well as the Battle of Charlotte, which took place on Sept. 26, 1780, between Redcoats and local militia.

Who knows what may eventually turn up to prove or disprove the story of the declaration? As for me, I would like the story to be true, but then I still believe in Santa.

I know; I should have had this column in last Sundays R&L.
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Eighteen graduates  including six whove attended SCS since kindergarten, received their diplomas.

Congratulations on your hard work, Head of School Ben Hummel said during his welcoming address.

Thank you for sharing your talents and gifts.

Kyle Holland, who will attend Liberty University, walked to the microphone after College Guidance Counselor Jaime Stuber presented the salutatorian. Holland read from scripture and said a prayer for the Class of 2023.

Valedictorian Issac Mankos, who will also attend Liberty, then took his turn to speak.

Mankos highlighted the journey through the last four years, which included the COVID-19 interruption as freshmen and a return to in-person instruction as sophomores.

We should not see this as the end but as a new beginning, Mankos told his fellow graduates.

Its the start to the race set before us, he added.

Four senior awards were given out following Mankos speech. They went to Elijah Allen (Scholar Athlete), Lauren Murphy (Soli Deo Gloria Award), Mankos (Faculty Award) and Holland (Trustee Award).

Before the graduates crossed the stage to receive their diplomas, before they turned their tassels and tossed their caps, commencement speaker Will Boggs offered words of encouragement.

Jeff Durham, SCS director of spiritual life, introduced Boggs, a 2008 graduate of Statesville Christian.

I love when they come back, Durham said. Theyve been where you are, he noted to the current graduating class.

Boggs himself is a story of triumph.

In 2005, at the age of 15, he was involved in horrific car accident. An 18-wheeler slammed into the vehicle he was traveling in.

A video recounting what Boggs went through as a result of it played prior to his speech. His brain stem was disconnected from his brain. He spent 40 days in a coma.

Yes, he survived. But he was told he would never enjoy a normal life.

Wrong.

Im living proof of the miraculous hand of God, Boggs said standing strong behind the podium.

Boggs encouraged the graduating class to make every moment count and to stand firm in their faith going forward.

Set goals each day, week, month and year, Boggs noted.

He closed his speech by stressing the importance of living for Jesus.

Will you stand for Jesus Christ? he asked. Stand for Jesus and him alone.
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SASEBO, Japan  Petty Officer 2nd Class William Shaft, a native of Marion, serves in Japan aboard a U.S. Navy warship.

A 2017 Marion Senior High School graduate, Shaft joined the Navy five years ago.

I joined the Navy for direction and for opportunities to travel, said Shaft. My dad and his parents served in the Marine Corps.

Today, Shaft serves as a hospital corpsman aboard USS Green Bay.

Skills and values learned in the Navy are similar to those found in Marion.

I learned the importance of building relationships, said Shaft. Being from a small town everybody knows everybody. That has helped me form solid relationships and friendships in the Navy.

USS Green Bay is an amphibious warship. These types of ships embark, transport and land U.S. Marines for a variety of warfare missions. Because of their inherent capabilities, these ships have been and will continue to be called upon to support humanitarian and other contingency missions on short notice, according to Navy officials.

As a member of the Navy, Shaft is part of a world-class organization focused on maintaining maritime dominance, strengthening partnerships, increasing competitive warfighting capabilities and sustaining combat-ready forces in support of the National Defense Strategy.

The Navy is important to national defense because we provide a show of force and always display a large presence, said Shaft.

Shaft serves in Japan as part of the Forward Deployed Naval Forces. These naval forces operate with allies and partners to preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific region. Service members in this region are part of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which has the largest area of responsibility in the world.

As the largest force in our nations front line against revisionist actors, U.S. Pacific Fleet meets this great responsibility with strength, resolve and confidence, said Adm. Samuel Paparo, U.S. Pacific Fleet commander. Together with our joint and combined partner operations, we are positioned to defend  across all domains  any attempts to threaten our nation, our allies and partners security, freedom and well-being.

Shaft and the sailors they serve with have many opportunities to achieve accomplishments during their military service.

I am proud of earning the rank of petty officer second class and learning how to adapt and be independent, said Shaft.

As Shaft and other sailors continue to train and perform missions, they take pride in serving their country in the United States Navy.

Serving in the Navy gives me a sense of accomplishment, added Shaft. Ive done a lot of things in a short amount of time that most people will never get to do in their lives.
Your daily brief of the English-speaking press on Syria.

A technical team from Saudi Arabia has arrived in Syria to make arrangements for the reopening of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Damascus. Simultaneously, the Biden administration is developing a comprehensive plan to tackle the increasing trade of Captagon drugs in Syria. Additionally, Israel has declassified documents related to the Yom Kippur War, revealing that the Mossad spy agency had received advanced information about Egypts intention to launch a surprise attack on Yom Kippur, a week before it occurred.

Memo of understanding to establish a joint Syrian-Iranian insurance company

Oqaila Takaful Insurance Company signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bimeh Alborz Insurance Company in Iran on establishing a joint Syrian-Iranian insurance company, SANA reported.

The MoU was signed by the General Manager of Oqaila Company, Eng. Samer al-Ash, and the Executive Director of (Bimeh Alborz) in Tehran.

The MoU aims to enhance strategic cooperation in the field of providing insurance services to the insured of the two companies in Syria and Iran, in addition to reinsurance services for the accepted risks of both parties and coverage of various risks for projects and investments in both countries.

In a statement to a SANA reporter, Al-Ash affirmed that Bimeh Alborz Company is a leading insurance company in the Iranian insurance market, noting that Oqaila Company is working to make a significant change in the mechanism of providing services to its insurers at all levels and enhance the absorptive capacity of reinsurance agreements against all risks.

Egypt, Syria coordinating: IDF estimates on eve of Yom Kippur War declassified

A new Defense Ministry website with over 20,000 files includes previously unseen intelligence assessments, diaries of a SIGINT commander, and eyewitness accounts of the fall of the Hermon outpost, the Times of Israel reported.

The article discusses the launch of a new Defense Ministry website in Israel that contains declassified documents, images, videos, and other files related to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The website aims to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the war and serve as an official platform for passing down the wars legacy to future generations.

Some of the documents published for the first time include Military Intelligence assessments from the month prior to the war, diaries of Brig. Gen. Yoel Ben-Porat, head of the Israel Defense Forces signals intelligence unit, and eyewitness accounts of the fall of the Hermon outpost on the first day of the conflict.

The article highlights excerpts from the final IDF Military Intelligence assessment on October 6, 1973, just hours before the war broke out. The assessment indicates that Israel was still uncertain about Egypt and Syria launch a surprise attack, but it acknowledged that the two countries were coordinating their steps and had amassed strong forces near the borders. The assessment also mentions the lack of chance for success in the war but notes the broad military preparations and news indicating the imminent start of hostilities.

The declassified diary of Brig. Gen. Yoel Ben-Porat reveals that the Mossad spy agency had received information a week in advance about Egypts plans to launch a surprise attack on Yom Kippur but failed to pass on the information in an explicit and timely manner to Prime Minister Golda Meirs office and other officials.

The article also includes the eyewitness accounts of Lieutenant Gadi Zidover, commander of the Hermon outpost, and Sergeant David Nahliel, a Golani soldier, who managed to escape the post during the Syrian invasion. Their accounts describe the outposts lack of readiness for war and the ensuing battle, where many soldiers were killed or captured. The soldiers express their surprise at the outbreak of war and the inadequate ammunition and training of the outposts troops.

US readies strategy to target Syrias Captagon trade

The Biden administration is preparing a comprehensive strategy to address Syrias booming Captagon drug trade, which has become a significant source of revenue for the Assad regime and is a topic of debate in terms of engaging with the regime, Al-Monitor reported. The strategy aims to disrupt and dismantle Assad-linked narcotics production and trafficking networks, with the support of diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement measures. As Arab countries consider reintegrating Assad into the regional fold, the US administration continues to express its disapproval of his rehabilitation and encourages partners to seek reciprocal concessions.

The article discusses the forthcoming strategy of the Biden administration to target Syrias Captagon drug trade, which has become a major source of revenue for the Assad regime. It highlights that Syria has emerged as the global hub for Captagon production, with an estimated 80% of the worlds supply originating from the country. The drug is smuggled from government-controlled areas of Syria to Jordan and then to the Gulf, where it is widely used recreationally.

The strategy, mandated by the National Defense Authorization Act, requires the administration to submit a written plan to Congress to disrupt and dismantle Assad-linked narcotics production and trafficking networks. It includes diplomatic and intelligence support, as well as training for law enforcement in affected countries. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Syria and the Levant, Ethan Goldrich, confirmed that the strategy will be delivered in the coming weeks.

The article mentions the involvement of various actors in the Captagon trade, including Assads relatives, Hezbollah, and Iran-backed militias. It also highlights the potential risks of the drug reaching transnational drug networks and spreading to the Western Hemisphere. The Biden administrations aim is to isolate the Assad regime through diplomatic measures and sanctions, as demonstrated by the recent blacklisting of key figures involved in the Captagon trade.

The engagement of Arab countries with the Syrian regime, including their decision to reinstate Syria in the Arab League, has created friction with the United States. While the Biden administration disapproves of Assads rehabilitation, it encourages states seeking closer ties with the regime to pursue similar objectives. The article suggests that there may be ongoing negotiations to potentially compensate the Assad regime in exchange for reducing Captagon production and exports.

Saudi team arrive in Damascus ahead of Syria embassy reopening

A Saudi technical team has arrived in Syria to prepare for the reopening of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Damascus, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

The delegation, led by a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, Ghazi bin Rafea Al-Anzi, met with Syrias Assistant Foreign and Expatriates Minister, Ayman Sousan at the headquarters of the foreign affairs ministry in the Syrian capital, the report added.

Yesterday, a tweet by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated: The Saudi technical team responsible for the reopening of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Syrian Arab Republic arrived in the capital Damascus, in implementation of the decision of the Kingdom to resume the work of its diplomatic mission in Syria.

The move comes after Riyadh and Damascus agreed to resume diplomatic relations earlier this month, amid Syrias return to the Arab League after over a decade of its suspension and isolation in the region with notable exceptions.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad also attended the 32nd Arab League summit in Jeddah last week and hailed the historic opportunity for Arab states to rearrange the region with the least amount of foreign interference.

Ahead of the diplomatic development, Saudi Arabias Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan met with President Assad in Damascus on 18 April, days after his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad visited Riyadh.

The Kingdoms normalization with Syria also follows its decision to re-establish ties with arch-rival and key ally of Syria, Iran in a Chinese-brokered deal.

Assad normalization leaves Syrians in Rukban camp fearing future

Al-Jazeera published a report on the dire situation in Rukban camp, a besieged settlement near the Jordanian, Iraqi, and Syrian borders, where over 8,000 Syrians reside. The camp has been surrounded by the Syrian government and Russian forces, leading to a blockade of aid since 2019.

The report focuses on the deteriorating conditions in Rukban camp, a makeshift settlement in a remote area between the Jordanian, Iraqi, and Syrian borders. The camp, home to over 8,000 Syrians, has been surrounded by Syrian government and Russian forces who accuse the residents of being terrorists. Since 2019, the camp has been under siege, with aid blocked from entering, forcing the residents to rely on smuggled goods for survival.

The recent normalization of relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has further endangered the camps inhabitants. The reinstatement of the Syrian government in the Arab League has raised concerns about stability in the area. Attacks near the camp have increased, including a drone attack on a health clinic critical for the residents. The responsibility for the attack was claimed by a front group with connections to Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

The humanitarian situation within the camp has worsened, with shortages of food, medical supplies, and suitable housing. Education is also lacking, leaving children without proper schooling for years. The camp faces extreme difficulties, including the lack of proper medical care, leading to the loss of childrens lives. Meanwhile, the lucrative drug trade, particularly the production and trafficking of Captagon, has thrived in Syria, with multiple smuggling routes passing through the area. Militia groups backed by Iran have played a role in this trade.

Despite the presence of the US military base nearby, organized aid has not reached the camp, and the border with Jordan has been closed since 2016. The US relies on the UN office in Damascus for aid delivery, but the Syrian government and Russia have repeatedly blocked shipments to Rukban. The residents of the camp continue to suffer, with little assistance or attention from the international community.

The demarcation of Syrias maritime borders complex but necessary

Raghida Dergham wrote an op-ed for The National on the demarcation of Syrias maritime borders being a complex but necessary step for the Assad regime to reintegrate into the Arab world. It holds strategic advantages within a broader vision, including the opportunity for Saudi Arabia to establish a presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and for Arab countries to play a proactive role in shaping regional aspirations.

The article discusses the importance of resolving Syrias border issues, particularly in relation to maritime demarcation, and the strategic advantages it holds within a broader vision for the Arab world.

Dergham highlights the significance of ensuring security in the Mediterranean Sea, given its oil and gas-rich nature and its future importance to various countries. The involvement of key Arab countries, such as Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, and the Gulf states, is seen as crucial for economic, diplomatic, and strategic reasons.

She suggests that resolving Syrias border issues could allow Saudi Arabia to establish a presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, benefiting from the regions resources and diversifying its economy. The task of demarcation would involve coordination with both Russia and the US, reflecting a new Arab paradigm in addressing regional problems and shifting from passive players to key actors shaping the regions aspirations.

The article emphasizes the collective vision of the Arab world to promote sustainable development, effective governance, and a prosperous future for future generations. It highlights the need for Syria to peacefully integrate with the global environment, normalize relations with neighbouring countries, and avoid opposing sovereign decisions of individual Arab states. This approach involves using dialogue, persuasion, and political, economic, and developmental support to resolve conflicts and foster reconciliation.

The author praises the Saudi leadership for maintaining relationships with both the West and the East and helping build an Arab system based on pragmatism. The article suggests that the Arab region is organizing itself and solving its problems independently, away from external interventions. Examples are given, such as the Saudi-Iran deal and the invitation extended to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, as evidence of Arab decision-making independent of major powers.

The article concludes by noting that Syria is in a transitional phase, and the burden of proving its leaderships good intentions rests on President Al Assad. Steps such as internal reforms, facilitating the return of refugees and displaced persons, lifting sanctions, reconstruction, and demarcation of maritime borders are seen as important for Syrias future. The author warns that failure to seize this opportunity could trap President al-Assad in a cycle of failure.

Overall, the article presents a vision for resolving Syrias border issues and highlights the potential strategic advantages and broader implications for the Arab world. It emphasizes the role of key Arab countries, the importance of regional cooperation, and the need for a pragmatic approach to address regional challenges and build a better future.
In a tweet from Berlin, it was stated that Germany would steadfastly support the Syrian opposition and people, according to al-Modon.

In a meeting held in the German capital of Berlin, a delegation from the Syrian Negotiation Commission met with Tobias Lindner, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Germany, and Stefan Schneck, the German special envoy to Syria. During the meeting, the German Foreign Ministry reaffirmed its unwavering support for the Syrian opposition and people. It emphasized the urgent need to uphold the principles of accountability and human rights in Syria, particularly regarding the investigation of human rights violations.

In a tweet from Berlin, it was stated that Germany would steadfastly support the Syrian opposition and people. They expressed their commitment to promoting an inclusive UN-led political solution in accordance with resolution 2254 and emphasized the importance of a condition-based approach towards the regime.

The delegation of the negotiating committee, in response, highlighted that the ongoing suffering of the Syrian people will persist until a political solution based on international resolutions, and the full implementation of resolution 2254, is achieved. They stressed the imperative of holding the regime accountable for its crimes in Syria and urged for an end to the suffering of Syrians, as well as the release of detainees held in regime prisons.

The negotiating delegation strongly emphasized that the complete implementation of Security Council resolution 2254 is the sole political solution for Syria. They highlighted that the Syrian people persist in their revolution and will not accept any solutions that fail to achieve their goals, as they have paid a significant price for their struggle.

Previously, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock issued a warning to Arab countries regarding the normalization of relations with the Syrian regime without preconditions. During her visit to the State of Qatar in May, she stressed that any engagement with Assad should be contingent upon concrete concessions, emphasizing that rewarding him for the grave human rights violations he has committed would be inappropriate.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
The deputy U.S. special envoy for the "international coalition," expressed serious concern over the camps for displaced people, according to Syria TV.

The local network al-Khabour reported on Saturday that a convoy comprising weapons and logistical equipment belonging to the international coalition forces had entered the areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Hassakeh and Deir-ez-Zor.

According to the network, the convoy, which consisted of 40 trucks and tankers, arrived in Syria via the al-Waleed crossing near the town of al-Yarubiyah, originating from northern Iraq.

The network confirmed that the convoy included military equipment, trucks carrying logistical materials, as well as concrete bridges and fuel tankers.

The convoy was observed heading towards the bases of the international coalition forces located in Hassakeh, specifically Rmeilan, Al-Shadadi, and Tal Baydar. Another section of the convoy proceeded towards Deir-ez-Zor.

On the same day, Ian Makari, the deputy U.S. special envoy for the international coalition, expressed serious concern over the camps for displaced people in northeastern Syria. He emphasized that the international coalition is collaborating with countries to enhance their capabilities in combating ISIS and preventing its resurgence.

In remarks reported by Asharq Al-Awsat, the U.S. official refuted that the war against the Islamic State had concluded, stating that although the group is weaker and less militant than it was 5 or 10 years ago.

The coalitions mission in Syria has a specific and limited scope, he explained. Its goal is to collaborate with local partners on the ground to ensure security and facilitate the recovery of communities devastated during the groups control. He further highlighted that the 85-nation international coalition is actively collaborating with countries to enhance their capabilities in countering ISIS and preventing its resurgence.

Makari emphasized that one of the key themes of the upcoming ministerial meeting of the international coalition on June 8 is to bolster the ongoing international efforts to implement stabilization projects. These projects aim to rehabilitate and reintegrate individuals stranded in camps within affected communities and assist displaced people in northeastern Syria.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
There is a possibility that the number of Syrian deportees will increase from eight to twelve in the coming days, according to Baladi News.

The Lebanese authorities are considering the deportation of eight Syrians, including a defector officer and detainees from Roumieh prison, to the Syrian regimes security services. This move has raised concerns among their families, who urge the authorities to carefully assess the gravity of this decision.

According to reports from Lebanese media sources, the Syrians facing deportation mostly come from the Qalamoun border area in the Damascus countryside. Among them is a defector who held the rank of major within the regime forces. Additionally, some of these individuals are registered with the UNHCR.

The names of some individuals were mentioned by these sources. M.H., who has resided with his family in the town of Arsal since 2011, located northeast of Baalbek, has been detained by Lebanese authorities for approximately eighteen months. Another individual, S.S., is an ex-officer who has defected and has been living in Arsal since 2011. M.J. and A.D.Y., who are political opponents, have arrest warrants against them in Syria.

Despite the gravity of the situation, the Al-Modon website, citing reliable sources, affirms that the Lebanese General Security intends to hand over the individuals to the Syrian regimes intelligence at the Lebanese-Syrian border. It highlights the lack of response from Lebanese security authorities to the efforts made by several human rights organizations to prevent these deportations.

There is a possibility that the number of Syrian deportees will increase from eight to twelve in the coming days. The Lebanese army has initiated numerous raids in Syrian areas, leading to widespread detentions affecting dozens of individuals since early April.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented the forcible return of at least 168 Syrian refugees from Lebanon, including approximately one-third who were children and women. Furthermore, two individuals were arrested in the Masnaa border area by a detachment affiliated with the Military Security of the regime forces.

The report strongly emphasizes that any forced return of Syrian refugees, given the current presidency of the Syrian regime and the oppressive nature of its security services, is a violation of customary law that binds all nations around the world.

This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
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KALAMA  Nearly 50 years after it was raised at the Port of Kalama, the iconic 140-foot Lelooska totem pole was moved into its new home earlier this month.

On May 12, crews relocated the totem pole  believed to be the tallest carved from a single cedar tree  into the ports Mountain Timber Market, currently under construction between Marine and Louis Rasmussen parks.

Several FORMA Construction and NessCampbell Crane and Rigging workers used cranes to lift the pole from its resting spot near the Westin Amphitheater onto the large trailer, said Dan Polacek, port spokesperson. It took about an hour and a half to slowly move the totem pole into the market building, he said.

Crews waited until the roof was on to protect the newly restored landmark and for the supports needed to suspend the totem pole from the ceiling, Polacek said. The totem pole will be displayed on a custom cross laminated timber platform and will be most visible from the second floor, he said.

The market is on schedule for completion this fall, and the port will have a dedication for the totem when it opens, Polacek said.

Its exciting, he said. Weve been talking about it for a couple years, and its great to see it coming to fruition.

Before the move, the family of its carver, Chief Lelooska (Don Smith) restored the approximately 60-year-old totem pole.

Lelooska carved the poles displayed at the ports Marine Park in the early 1960s. He died in 1996, and his younger brother, Chief Tsungani (Fearon Smith), and other family members involved with the Lelooska Foundation and Cultural Center contracted with the port to refurbish all the poles at the park.

The 140-foot pole was taken down in September 2018 as a safety precaution because engineers found it was dangerously decayed. The totem was restored at the port, while the others will be taken to the Lelooska Foundation in Ariel for work.

Last fall, crews covered the largest totem in a special heat shrink wrap to help dry it out. FORMA Construction workers injected an epoxy to fill in areas that rotted away.

After laying exposed for about three years, the pole was more rotted and needed more re-carving than anticipated, said Mariah Stoll-Smith Reese, foundation executive director and Tsunganis daughter.

Stoll-Smith Reese, her husband, kids, father and a couple family friends completed the surface work and carving in February followed by painting during most days in March and April, she said.

From bringing the pole down in 2018 to its latest move earlier this month, the Port of Kalama has been very respectful and conscientious, Stoll-Smith Reese said.

Once they realized it was not structurally sound enough to put back up, they found a way to continue to share it with the community, and in a respectful way, she said.

While the horizontal display in the market is unusual, as totem poles are traditionally raised vertically, Stoll-Smith Reese said she is happy the icon will be preserved for the community.

A lot of generations in Kalama ... have an attachment to that particular totem pole and its history, she said. A lot of how it was preserved over the years was community members painting and caring for it. The port invested in the community and making sure it can be enjoyed for generations to come.

Restoration of the other three Marine Park totem poles, as well as the Lelooska Campfire totem pole previously displayed on Broadway in Longview, will continue over the next couple years, Stoll-Smith Reese said.

Along with the Port of Kalamas totems, the family has restored Lelooska totem poles displayed at the Oregon Zoo and Umpqua Discover Center, Stoll-Smith Reese said.

Educational programs at the cultural center are our primary focus, she said. Totem pole restoration is few and far between, but a skill set our family has as artists.
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The Longview School District is concerned about its test scores in math and reading. Administrators believe that by adding 35 minutes of instruction per day to school, they can bring up these scores. The method by which they plan to do this, however, is sorely misguided.

Superintendent Dan Zorn told TDN the board plans to add more instruction time by cutting afternoon recess and lunch, as well as rescheduling breakfast. Currently, kids have 45 minutes for meals (15 minutes for breakfast and 30 minutes for lunch) and another 45 minutes of recess (split between morning and afternoon). Under the new plan, afternoon recess and lunch would both get 10 minutes shorter, while breakfast would be moved to before school, rather than during.

We think this is an idea that makes sense on the surface, but is ultimately counterproductive. Were also concerned that the plan may not be entirely feasible.

Education is not a transactional process where you simply exchange time for learning. As with any other complex task, students are only at peak attentiveness for so long. Simply spending more time studying is no guarantee of success  and standardized tests realize that as well. Taking breaks while you study, getting solid rest and eating well are some of the most common tips for how to improve test performance.

Recess is not just something that schools begrudgingly allow children and then take away for misbehavior; it has real value for developing minds. Once dismissed as a waste of time, studies have found over and over that recess fosters personal growth, healthier emotional states and better teamwork.

Cutting recess is not a new idea. By the year 1999, 40% of districts in America had reduced or eliminated recess. Since then, the average amount of weekly recess time has decreased by 60 minutes. Yet, standardized test scores have remained stubbornly stable.

The pandemic didnt just set back kids ability to solve equations and diagram sentences. Social distancing and isolating in place have left a generation with worse obesity and compromised social skills. Longview is just now implementing a new social-emotional curriculum to help patch up lagging empathy and mental-health needs. Running around on a playground is a perfect avenue to address physical and emotional areas that both need work.

We also find the proposition of cutting lunch down to just 20 minutes worrisome. Many children are going to be forced to rush through their meal in that span of time rather than be late returning to class.

Simply put, 20 minutes is not an acceptable length of time to give someone for lunch. The state of Washington has established 30 minutes as an absolute minimum for meal breaks in any job where a shift lasts over five hours. Giving children less time to eat than the state mandates all workers be given simply seems wrong to us.

About half of Longview students were eating through the federal free meal program in 2022, and 60% of students in the district are eligible for free and reduced-price lunches. A lot of students are getting fed through the school, which means they dont have the luxury of bringing a lunch from home to maximize time spent eating. That 20 minutes starts shrinking rapidly if you have to take the time to go through a lunch line.

Rushing through a meal isnt just unsatisfying; it can also lead to overeating, indigestion and stomach pains. Its simply an unhealthy habit to foster towards food, and shortening lunch to only 20 minutes will force kids to chow down instead of eating normally.

Longview schools spokesman Rick Parrish told TDN in 2022 that its important for our kids to be able to have a healthy meal. On that, we wholly agree. However, that also includes providing enough time to be able to eat in a healthy manner.

Its not just lunch thats getting changed; theyre also moving breakfast to before school hours. That sounds like a useful move, but in truth its simply adding another 15 minutes to the school day. Kids are still going to be showing up for breakfast. The buses will be arriving 15 minutes sooner, and staff will have a day thats 15 minutes longer.

If adding 15 minutes to the school day is on the table, why not take a plan that extends the day without cutting into the time to eat or be active? Those things may not be butts-in-seats instruction time, but theyre still important for kids development.
Firms and individuals should familiarize themselves with artificial intelligence or risk losing out, according to Nvidia Corp. co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang.

Huang, whose chip design company reached an all-time high Friday fueled by huge demand from AI service providers, gave a commencement address on Saturday saying the new technology will transform the corporate landscape and change every single job.

Agile companies will take advantage of AI and boost their position. Companies less so will perish, the CEO told graduating students at the National Taiwan University in Taipei. While some worry that AI may take their jobs, someone who's expert with AI will.

The technology, thrust into the popular consciousness by OpenAI's ChatGPT late last year, will be used as a copilot to supercharge the performance of workers across a wide range of industries, while also creating new jobs that

Nvidia's processors are the gold standard for training AI models such as the one underpinning ChatGPT. The Santa Clara, California-based company has been the primary beneficiary of the race to offer rivals to OpenAI's technology. Huang, unlike other prominent figures in the global AI ecosystem, such as Alphabet Inc.'s Sundar Pichai, Baidu Inc.'s Robin Li and OpenAI's Sam Altman, did not offer any note of caution.

Huang told the students to create something new in the AI age fast, or risk getting left behind.

In 40 years, we created the PC, Internet, mobile, cloud, and now the AI era. What will you create? Whatever it is, run after it like we did. Run, don't walk, he said. Either you are running for food, or you are running from becoming food.
Hwang Joon-kook, the South Korean ambassador to the United Nations, speaks during an interview with Yonhap News Agency, May 27 (New York Time). Yonhap



South Korea is intensifying last-minute diplomatic efforts for Seoul's bid for a nonpermanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), with just 10 days to go before the vote.



South Korea, which last sat on the council in 2013-2014, aims to return to the council for 2024-2025, and the U.N. will vote on the bid on June 6.



If elected, it will mark the third time for South Korea to serve as one of the 10 nonpermanent UNSC members. Previously, South Korea had served the seat during the 1996-1997 term.



South Korea hopes to return to the council as it seeks to expand its roles in U.N. activities for international peace and security. It would also help reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula, officials said.



North Korea, which has shown little signs of returning to dialogue, has ramped up developments of its nuclear and missile programs. In late March, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered the expansion of the production of weapons-grade nuclear materials for an exponential increase in its arsenal.



South Korea's Ambassador to the U.N. Hwang Joon-kook told Yonhap News Agency in an interview that Seoul would "gain a foothold" to play a leading role in global affairs if it wins a seat on the council.



"The Security Council is the most representative organization responsible for realizing a global central state, a global contributor state and a global responsible state," Hwang said.



If South Korea returns to the council, it "will serve as an opportunity to expand our diplomatic horizons," Hwang said.



Hwang said South Korea is likely to win a seat on the council because it is the only candidate nation in Asia.





A vote taking place at the general assembly hall in New York is seen in this June 19, 2020 photo provided by the South Korean mission to the United Nations. Yonhap
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:

Retail investors in Hong Kong may soon be able to buy popular cryptocurrencies like bitcoin at government-licensed exchanges.

Retail investors in Hong Kong may soon be able to buy popular cryptocurrencies like bitcoin at government-licensed exchanges, thanks to new rules meant to bolster the city's standing as a digital asset hub.

Global crypto markets have yet to recover from a string of high-profile failures in recent months, including the spectacular downfall of trading platform FTX and crypto-friendly US banks Signature and Silvergate.

But the so-called "crypto winter" has not deterred Hong Kong authorities from embracing the sector, a pivot that began last October and culminated with new laws for crypto exchanges starting June 1.

Officials are also hoping the shift will be a boon for the city's economy, which continues to struggle in the wake of the pandemic, social unrest and the impact on business confidence from a Beijing-imposed national security law.

Crucially, observers say it will cement Hong Kong as a key route for mainland Chinese investors looking to trade crypto, which is outlawed in the country.

Regulators are hoping to woo firms with favorable business conditions, but must balance that against the need for investor protectionsa well-developed area in traditional finance but less so in the virtual-asset space.

"There is an explicit acknowledgement that these products are becoming more and more part of our economy," Giuliano Castellano, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong, told AFP.

The city has had a voluntary licensing system for crypto trading platforms since 2019, but licensees could only service professional clients with portfolios of at least HK$8 million ($1 million).

Without licensed local options, Hong Kong's retail crypto traders are relegated to offshore websites such as Binance and Coinbase, or a raft of brick-and-mortar shops that buy and sell tokens for cash.

The so-called 'crypto winter' has not deterred Hong Kong authorities from embracing the sector.

The client-base restriction was unpopular with Hong Kong's crypto businesses, and officials eventually dropped it when designing the incoming rules.

"The genie's out of the bottle," said Kristi Swartz, a fintech lawyer at DLA Piper, referring to retail crypto trading.

"(They) just have to face reality... If it's already there, let's try to regulate it."

China's 'petri dish'

Hong Kong is racing regulators around the world to figure out ground rules for crypto, which despite its crashes still has a global market capitalisation of more than $1 trillion.

The European Union earlier this month approved the world's first comprehensive rules on the sector and international securities watchdog IOSCO proposed its recommendations shortly afterwards.

In contrast to evolving attitudes on crypto worldwide, China has maintained a strict ban since 2021.

Hong Konga Chinese city with financial regulations separate from the mainlandholds special appeal for China's crypto businesses and investors, according to Leo Weese, co-founder of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong.

"There is a huge appetite from... (Chinese) cryptocurrency ventures to have any kind of legal presence on Chinese soil," he said, adding that firms see it as a gateway to the lucrative mainland market.

Hong Kong -- a Chinese city with financial regulations separate from the mainland -- holds special appeal for China's crypto businesses and investors.

In both traditional finance and crypto, it is common for mainland Chinese investors to be recognized as Hong Kong clients if they have a bank account and address in the city.

"Once you have a Hong Kong license, you are going to be able to convince a lot of your mainland clients... that it's safe for them to interact with you through their Hong Kong bank account," Weese told AFP.

Major crypto exchanges like Huobi and OKX, both founded in China, have announced plans to apply for a Hong Kong license.

While Beijing's anti-crypto stance remains unchanged on paper, senior economy officials have publicly backed Hong Kong's ambitions.

"You can see that China says, 'Look, if it happens in Hong Kong, population circa seven, eight million, that's fine. We can use it as our petri dish,'" Swartz told AFP.

Protecting investors

Unlike the outgoing system, the retail-friendly rules taking effect in June will be mandatory, meaning all exchanges doing business in Hong Kong will eventually need to get licensed.

Hong Kong regulators said they hope to move quickly on issuing the first licenses.

Some crypto businesses say the switch is not expected to disrupt day-to-day operations as authorities allow a one-year transition period.

Major crypto exchanges like Huobi and OKX, both founded in China, have announced plans to apply for a Hong Kong license.

HashKey and OSL, the two existing licensees, told AFP they will apply for fresh licenses and grow their retail presence.

"There's a very significant need in the market to have platforms that are easily accessible... but are also properly managed and properly regulated," said Michel Lee, HashKey Group's executive president.

"This new regime adds a lot more clarity as to what you're getting, what's the safety standard you will be provided with."

With the memory of FTX's collapse still fresh, Hong Kong regulators said the new rules aim to "provide robust investor protection and manage key risks".

One safeguard is that exchanges can only provide "large-cap virtual assets"such as bitcoin and ethereumto retail investors, and must set up internal committees to decide which cryptocurrencies to offer.

Retail clients also have to undergo knowledge tests and risk profiling before they can tradethough it remains unclear what level of knowledge is deemed enough.

Meanwhile, products like stablecoins and crypto derivatives are off-limits for retail investors for the time being.

"The new regulations are meant to protect investors better," said Castellano, the legal scholar.

"It's wise to have a cautionary approach."

 2023 AFP
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SAN JOSE, Calif.  As Elizabeth Holmes prepares to report to prison this week  likely in Bryan  the criminal case that laid bare the blood-testing scam at the heart of her Theranos startup is entering its final phase.

The 11-year sentence represents a comeuppance for the wide-eyed woman who broke through tech bro culture to become one of Silicon Valleys most celebrated entrepreneurs, only to be exposed as a fraud. Along the way, Holmes became a symbol of the shameless hyperbole that often saturates startup culture.

But questions still linger about her true intentions  so many that even the federal judge who presided over her trial seemed mystified. And Holmes defenders continue to ask whether the punishment fits the crime.

At 39, she seems most likely to be remembered as Silicon Valleys Icarus  a high-flying entrepreneur burning with reckless ambition whose odyssey culminated in convictions for fraud and conspiracy.

Her motives are still somewhat mysterious, and some supporters say federal prosecutors targeted her unfairly in their zeal to bring down one of the most prominent practitioners of fake-it-till-you-make-it  the tech sectors brand of self-promotion that sometimes veers into exaggeration and blatant lies to raise money.

Holmes will begin to pay the price for her deceit on Tuesday when she is scheduled to begin the sentence that will separate her from her two children  a son whose July 2021 birth delayed the start of her trial and a 3-month-old daughter conceived after her conviction.

The Houston resident is expected to be incarcerated in Bryan, whose prison was recommended by the judge who sentenced Holmes, but authorities have not publicly disclosed where she will be held.

Her many detractors contend she deserves to be in prison for peddling a technology that she repeatedly boasted would quickly scan for hundreds of diseases and other health problems with a few drops of blood taken with a finger prick.

The technology never worked as promised. Instead, Theranos tests produced wildly unreliable results that could have endangered patients lives  one of the most frequently cited reasons why she deserved to be prosecuted.

Before those lies were uncovered in a series of explosive articles in The Wall Street Journal beginning in October 2015, Holmes raised nearly $1 billion from a list of savvy investors including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. It was the duping of those investors that led to her prison sentence and a $452 million restitution bill.

Holmes stake in Theranos at one point catapulted her paper wealth to $4.5 billion. She never sold any of her stock in the company, though trial evidence left no doubt she reveled in the trappings of fame and fortune  so much so that she and the father of her children, William Billy Evans, lived on a palatial Silicon Valley estate during the trial.

The theory that Holmes was running an elaborate scam was buttressed by trial evidence documenting her efforts to prevent the Journals investigation from being published. That campaign compelled John Carreyrou  the reporter responsible for those bombshell stories  to attend court and position himself in Holmes line of vision when she took the witness stand.

Holmes also signed off on surveillance aimed at intimidating Theranos employees who helped uncover the flaws with the blood-testing technology. The whistleblowers included Tyler Shultz, the grandson of former Secretary of State George Shultz, whom Holmes befriended and persuaded to join the Theranos board.

Tyler Shultz became so unnerved by Holmes efforts to shut him up that he began sleeping with a knife under his pillow, according to a wrenching statement delivered by his father, Alex, at her sentencing.

Holmes supporters still contend she always had good intentions and was unfairly scapegoated by the Justice Department. They insist she simply deployed the same over-the-top promotion tactics as many other tech executives, including Elon Musk, who has repeatedly made misleading statements about the capabilities of Teslas self-driving cars.

According to those supporters, Holmes was singled out because she was a woman who briefly eclipsed the men who customarily bask in Silicon Valleys spotlight, and the trial turned her into a latter-day version of Hester Prynne  the protagonist in the 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter.

Holmes steadfastly maintained her innocence during seven often-riveting days of testimony in her own defense  a spectacle that caused people to line up shortly after midnight to secure one of the few dozen seats available in the San Jose courtroom.

On one memorable day, Holmes recounted how she had never gotten over the trauma of being raped while enrolled at Stanford University. She then described being subjected to a long-running pattern of emotional and sexual abuse by her former lover and Theranos conspirator, Ramesh Sunny Balwani, and suggested his stifling control blurred her thinking.

Balwanis lawyer, Jeffrey Coopersmith, denied those allegations during the trial. In Balwanis subsequent trial, Coopersmith unsuccessfully tried to depict his client as Holmes pawn.

Balwani, 57, is now serving a nearly 13-year prison sentence for fraud and conspiracy.

When it came time to sentence the then-pregnant Holmes in November, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila seemed as puzzled as anyone about why she did what she did.

This is a fraud case where an exciting venture went forward with great expectations and hope, only to be dashed by untruth, misrepresentations, hubris and plain lies, Davila lamented while Holmes stood before him. I suppose we step back and we look at this, and we think what is the pathology of fraud?

The judge also hearkened back to the days that Silicon Valley consisted mostly of orchards farmed by immigrants. That was before the land was ceded to the tech boom beginning in 1939 when William Hewlett and David Packard founded a company bearing their surnames in a one-car garage in Palo Alto  the same city where Theranos was based.

Youll recall the wonderful innovation of those two individuals in that small garage, Davila reminded everyone in the rapt courtroom. No exotic automobiles or lavish lifestyle, just a desire to create for societys benefit through honest hard work. And that, I would hope, would be the continuing story, the legacy and practice of Silicon Valley.
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A year and a half ago, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick shocked the higher education world when he pledged to eliminate tenure for faculty at Texas public universities, a century-old practice that provides continuous employment so professors can teach without fear of political interference or retribution.

Last month, the Texas Senate passed a bill to kill tenure. Faculty members around the state, some university leaders and House Speaker Dade Phelan panned it as a bad idea that would hurt faculty recruitment and retention, reduce protections for conservative faculty who might have unpopular opinions, and damage the prestige of Texas research universities.

On Saturday, in a surprise move, senators backed off their position and accepted the Houses counterproposal, which solidifies tenure in state law.

Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, the bills sponsor, called Senate Bill 18 a strong step forward  that will improve accountability and create true guardrails against faculty that are not in good standing with the university.

This is a productive and necessary improvement that will benefit Texas students and taxpayers, Creighton told his fellow senators Saturday as they considered the House version of the legislation.

The legislation now heads to Gov. Greg Abbott for approval.

Patrick vowed to ban tenure in Texas last year after a group of University of Texas at Austin faculty issued a resolution in defense of academic freedom. Specifically, their resolution was in response to the Legislatures decision in 2021 to ban the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools.

Patrick has repeatedly accused UT-Austin faculty of stoking societal division, claiming the professors felt they were above the law.

After the vote Saturday, Patrick harkened back to that moment last February.

I hope theyre hearing us clearly now, he said. They are accountable to the public like all of us.

The House version of the bill, proposed by state Rep. John Kuempel, R-Seguin, defines tenure in state statute as the entitlement of a faculty member of an institution of higher education to continue in the faculty members academic position unless dismissed by the institution for good cause in accordance with the policies and procedures adopted by the institution  a definition that reflects the common definition of tenure in higher education.

Under Kuempels bill, much of how universities currently award tenure would remain intact. University regents would have to clearly lay out how they grant tenure, how they evaluate tenured faculty and the reasons a tenured professor can be terminated, such as professional incompetence, conduct involving moral turpitude or unprofessional conduct that adversely affects the institution.

Faculty from across the state warned lawmakers in committee hearings that universities already have rigorous systems in place to grant and revoke tenure. They also expressed concern that the reasons listed as acceptable to terminate a professor in the House version are vague and could easily be weaponized to fire faculty who say or do something state or university leaders disagree with  the very threat that tenure is designed to protect faculty from.

On social media Saturday, the UT chapter of the American Association of University Professors called the decision excellent news but continued to express concerns about what it sees as vague language in the bill.
Capital Power Co. (OTCMKTS:CPXWF  Get Rating) was the recipient of a large decrease in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 679,800 shares, a decrease of 36.6% from the April 30th total of 1,072,900 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,400 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 485.6 days.

Capital Power Price Performance

CPXWF stock traded down $1.38 during trading on Friday, reaching $32.81. 1,458 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,460. Capital Power has a 12 month low of $29.39 and a 12 month high of $39.87. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $32.37 and a 200 day simple moving average of $32.95.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Credit Suisse Group boosted their price objective on Capital Power from C$54.00 to C$56.00 in a research note on Wednesday, May 10th. CIBC boosted their price objective on Capital Power from C$50.00 to C$51.00 in a research note on Tuesday, May 2nd. Raymond James cut their price objective on Capital Power from C$53.00 to C$50.00 in a research note on Thursday, March 2nd. Scotiabank boosted their price objective on Capital Power from C$51.00 to C$52.00 in a research note on Wednesday, May 17th. Finally, National Bank Financial upped their price target on Capital Power from C$52.00 to C$53.00 in a research note on Wednesday, May 17th.

Capital Power Company Profile

Capital Power Corp. engages in the development, acquisition, construction, operation, and optimization of power generation facilities. It operates through the Canada and U.S. geographical segments. The Canada segment refers to the Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario. The U.S. segment includes North Carolina, New Mexico, Kansas, Alabama, Arizona, North Dakota, Illinois, Texas, and Michigan.

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Tekla Life Sciences Investors (NYSE:HQL  Get Rating) saw a large decrease in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 39,800 shares, a decrease of 27.2% from the April 30th total of 54,700 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 75,500 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.5 days.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Tekla Life Sciences Investors

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Creative Financial Designs Inc. ADV bought a new stake in shares of Tekla Life Sciences Investors in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $31,000. True North Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Tekla Life Sciences Investors in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $143,000. IHT Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Tekla Life Sciences Investors in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $170,000. Cypress Wealth Services LLC bought a new position in Tekla Life Sciences Investors during the 1st quarter worth $149,000. Finally, Money Concepts Capital Corp bought a new position in Tekla Life Sciences Investors during the 4th quarter worth $160,000. 15.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Tekla Life Sciences Investors Stock Performance

Shares of HQL traded up $0.01 during trading on Friday, reaching $13.22. The companys stock had a trading volume of 62,581 shares, compared to its average volume of 63,478. The company has a fifty day moving average of $13.85 and a two-hundred day moving average of $14.30. Tekla Life Sciences Investors has a twelve month low of $13.03 and a twelve month high of $16.33.

Tekla Life Sciences Investors Cuts Dividend

Tekla Life Sciences Investors Company Profile

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 30th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 25th will be issued a $0.32 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 24th. This represents a $1.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 9.68%.

(Get Rating)

Tekla Life Sciences Investors operates as a closed-end investment fund, which engages in the investment in the life sciences industry. It invests in biotechnology, pharmaceutical, diagnostics, managed healthcare, medical equipment, hospitals and healthcare information technology and services. The company was founded on February 20, 1992 and is headquartered in Boston, MA.

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The U.S. military in South Korea conducted air force training involving dozens of warplanes, including F-16 fighter jets and U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft, earlier this month, the U.S. 7th Air Force has said.







The training "underlines our commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea," and it demonstrated "our ability to rapidly generate combat air power," the U.S. military said in a Facebook post Saturday, referring to South Korea by its official name.







The display of airpower came amid lingering tension on the Korean Peninsula over North Korea's continued weapons testing.







During the "Elephant Walk" training, the fully armed jets taxied in formation along an unspecified airfield to practice standard pre-takeoff procedures and check their readiness, it said. (Yonhap)


AKITA Drilling Ltd. (OTCMKTS:AKTAF  Get Rating) saw a large drop in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,600 shares, a drop of 52.6% from the April 30th total of 9,700 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 7,100 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.6 days.

AKITA Drilling Stock Down 0.8 %

Shares of AKTAF opened at $0.95 on Friday. The businesss 50-day moving average is $1.02 and its two-hundred day moving average is $1.21. AKITA Drilling has a fifty-two week low of $0.83 and a fifty-two week high of $2.10.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on AKITA Drilling from C$3.25 to C$2.50 in a research note on Tuesday, March 21st.

About AKITA Drilling

Akita Drilling Ltd. engages in the drilling solutions in the field of oil and natural gas. It operates through the following divisions: Canadian and US. The Canadian division conducts operations in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and from time to time, in the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories, primarily with its wholly owned rigs and through its active joint ventures.

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Bain Capital Specialty Finance, Inc. (NYSE:BCSF  Get Rating) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest in the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 407,300 shares, an increase of 19.9% from the April 30th total of 339,700 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 188,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.2 days. Approximately 0.6% of the companys shares are sold short.

Bain Capital Specialty Finance Trading Up 1.6 %

Bain Capital Specialty Finance stock traded up $0.19 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $12.39. 151,009 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 201,776. The company has a quick ratio of 2.41, a current ratio of 2.41 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $11.90 and a 200 day moving average of $12.59. Bain Capital Specialty Finance has a 12 month low of $11.06 and a 12 month high of $15.04.

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Bain Capital Specialty Finance (NYSE:BCSF  Get Rating) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 28th. The company reported $0.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.42 by ($0.11). Bain Capital Specialty Finance had a return on equity of 10.19% and a net margin of 40.07%. The company had revenue of $62.36 million for the quarter. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Bain Capital Specialty Finance will post 1.94 earnings per share for the current year.

Bain Capital Specialty Finance Dividend Announcement

Analysts Set New Price Targets

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 31st. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 30th will be given a $0.38 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, June 29th. This represents a $1.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 12.27%. Bain Capital Specialty Finances dividend payout ratio is 97.44%.

Several analysts have issued reports on the company. Citigroup cut their price objective on Bain Capital Specialty Finance from $14.00 to $13.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, March 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded Bain Capital Specialty Finance from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating and upped their target price for the company from $10.50 to $12.00 in a report on Thursday, May 11th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Bain Capital Specialty Finance

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of BCSF. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. raised its stake in shares of Bain Capital Specialty Finance by 15.0% in the first quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 8,432 shares of the companys stock valued at $131,000 after purchasing an additional 1,099 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its stake in shares of Bain Capital Specialty Finance by 37.9% in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 34,646 shares of the companys stock valued at $540,000 after purchasing an additional 9,528 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates raised its stake in Bain Capital Specialty Finance by 12.9% during the first quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 34,387 shares of the companys stock worth $536,000 after acquiring an additional 3,920 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. raised its stake in Bain Capital Specialty Finance by 5.9% during the first quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 63,228 shares of the companys stock worth $986,000 after acquiring an additional 3,518 shares in the last quarter. Finally, US Bancorp DE raised its stake in Bain Capital Specialty Finance by 160.0% during the first quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 52,000 shares of the companys stock worth $811,000 after acquiring an additional 32,000 shares in the last quarter.

Bain Capital Specialty Finance Company Profile

(Get Rating)

Bain Capital Specialty Finance is a business development company. They structure, monitor, and manage each of their portfolio companies investments. They provide services in private equity, credit, public equity, venture capital, and real estate.

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Bank of Communications (OTCMKTS:BCMXY  Get Rating) and Aisin (OTCMKTS:ASEKY  Get Rating) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, valuation, earnings, profitability, institutional ownership, risk and dividends.

Volatility & Risk

Bank of Communications has a beta of 0.11, meaning that its share price is 89% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Aisin has a beta of 0.99, meaning that its share price is 1% less volatile than the S&P 500.

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Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Bank of Communications and Aisins gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Bank of Communications $77.53 billion 0.67 $13.69 billion $4.23 4.14 Aisin $34.87 billion 0.22 $1.26 billion N/A N/A

Analyst Recommendations

Bank of Communications has higher revenue and earnings than Aisin.

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Bank of Communications and Aisin, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Bank of Communications 0 0 0 0 N/A Aisin 0 0 0 0 N/A

Dividends

Bank of Communications pays an annual dividend of $1.14 per share and has a dividend yield of 6.5%. Aisin pays an annual dividend of $0.74 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. Bank of Communications pays out 27.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend.

Profitability

This table compares Bank of Communications and Aisins net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Bank of Communications 19.02% 9.12% 0.72% Aisin N/A N/A N/A

Summary

Bank of Communications beats Aisin on 7 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Bank of Communications

(Get Rating)

Bank of Communications Co., Ltd. provides commercial banking products and services. The company operates through four business segments: Corporate Banking, Personal Banking, Treasury Businesses, and Other Businesses. It offers personal banking products and services, including savings deposit products, personal certificate of deposits, foreign currency deposit, and salary financing A products; mortgage and unsecured loans; bank cards; airport and personal wealth management advisor services; and physical precious metals, and structured deposits and wealth management products, as well as precious metal and commodity trading services. The company also provides corporate banking products and services comprising structured deposits and corporate certificate of deposits; syndicated loans and corporation overdraft services; wealth management services; investment banking and offshore banking services; corporate cash management and industrial chain financing services; structured deposits and wealth management products; and precious metal leasing, and precious metal and commodity trading services. In addition, it offers international banking services, such as corporate forex wealth management, document settlement, remittance and bill, and trade finance services; and interbank financing services. Further, the company provides financial leasing, trust investment, fund management, life insurance, securities dealing and brokerage, general insurance and reinsurance, debt-to-equity swaps, and financial products issuing and financial consulting services. As of December 31, 2021, It operated 248 branches in Mainland China; and 23 overseas branches and representative offices in 18 countries and regions with 69 overseas operating outlets. The company was founded in 1908 and is headquartered in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China.

About Aisin

(Get Rating)

Aisin Corp. engages in the manufacture and sale of automotive parts. It operates through the following segments: Aisin Seiki Group, Aisin Takaoka Group, Aisin AW Group, Advics Group, and Others. The Aisin Seiki Group segment provides general automotive parts and services, life and amenity-related equipment, public works, and petroleum sales. The Aisin Takaoka Group segment handles engine and brake cast components. The Aisin AW Group deals with automatic transmissions and car navigation systems. The Advics Group segment offers brake components. The Others segment engages in the civil construction and petroleum sales businesses. The company was founded on August 31, 1965 and is headquartered in Kariya, Japan.

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BRYN MAWR TRUST Co lessened its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN  Get Rating) by 1.9% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 21,053 shares of the information technology services providers stock after selling 401 shares during the quarter. BRYN MAWR TRUST Cos holdings in Accenture were worth $5,618,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.4% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 58,473,666 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $15,045,274,000 after buying an additional 816,734 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 0.7% in the 3rd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 46,363,742 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $11,929,391,000 after acquiring an additional 319,707 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its stake in Accenture by 5.1% during the 3rd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 7,296,119 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $1,877,293,000 after purchasing an additional 354,513 shares during the last quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.1% in the 3rd quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 5,598,625 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $1,440,525,000 after purchasing an additional 219,573 shares in the last quarter. Finally, UBS Asset Management Americas Inc. increased its holdings in Accenture by 41.6% in the 3rd quarter. UBS Asset Management Americas Inc. now owns 5,457,405 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $1,404,190,000 after buying an additional 1,603,071 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 73.97% of the companys stock.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $340.00 to $325.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, March 15th. Piper Jaffray Companies boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $245.00 to $250.00 and gave the company an underweight rating in a research note on Monday, March 27th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on Accenture from $289.00 to $294.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a report on Friday, March 24th. Edward Jones raised Accenture from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, April 5th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on Accenture from $335.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, March 24th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $314.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

Accenture Price Performance

In related news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,250 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $275.90, for a total value of $1,448,475.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 26,908 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,423,917.20. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link . In related news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 556 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.82, for a total transaction of $153,911.92. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 42,739 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $11,831,009.98. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink . Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,250 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.90, for a total value of $1,448,475.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 26,908 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $7,423,917.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . In the last quarter, insiders sold 15,010 shares of company stock valued at $4,180,030. 0.08% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Shares of ACN opened at $303.60 on Friday. The companys fifty day moving average price is $277.88 and its 200-day moving average price is $277.43. The firm has a market capitalization of $191.84 billion, a PE ratio of 27.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 1.25. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $242.80 and a 1-year high of $322.88.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN  Get Rating) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 23rd. The information technology services provider reported $2.69 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.49 by $0.20. Accenture had a net margin of 11.00% and a return on equity of 30.73%. The firm had revenue of $15.81 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $15.59 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.54 EPS. The businesss revenue was up 5.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 11.57 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 13th were paid a $1.12 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, April 12th. This represents a $4.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.48%. Accentures dividend payout ratio is currently 41.25%.

Accenture Profile

(Get Rating)

Accenture Plc engages in the provision of management consulting, technology, and outsourcing services. It operates through the following geographical segments: North America, Europe and Growth Markets. The company was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

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Good Life Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS  Get Rating) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund purchased 2,300 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $209,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. TCI Wealth Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Novartis by 193.0% during the 4th quarter. TCI Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 293 shares of the companys stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 193 shares during the period. Financial Management Professionals Inc. raised its holdings in Novartis by 2,018.8% in the 4th quarter. Financial Management Professionals Inc. now owns 339 shares of the companys stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 323 shares during the period. CoreCap Advisors LLC bought a new position in Novartis in the 4th quarter worth $37,000. McElhenny Sheffield Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Novartis in the 4th quarter worth $40,000. Finally, Penserra Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Novartis in the 3rd quarter worth $36,000. 8.12% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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Novartis Stock Up 0.1 %

Novartis stock opened at $97.86 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $97.54 and a two-hundred day moving average of $91.36. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39. The firm has a market cap of $207.42 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.11, a P/E/G ratio of 1.64 and a beta of 0.54. Novartis AG has a twelve month low of $74.09 and a twelve month high of $105.56.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Novartis ( NYSE:NVS Get Rating ) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 25th. The company reported $1.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.55 by $0.16. Novartis had a return on equity of 23.29% and a net margin of 13.78%. The company had revenue of $12.95 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $12.60 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.46 earnings per share. Novartiss revenue was up 3.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts forecast that Novartis AG will post 6.67 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

A number of brokerages recently commented on NVS. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised Novartis from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, April 26th. BTIG Research raised their price target on Novartis from $75.00 to $85.00 in a report on Wednesday, April 19th. Finally, StockNews.com began coverage on Novartis in a report on Thursday, May 18th. They set a strong-buy rating on the stock. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $82.25.

Novartis Company Profile

(Get Rating)

Novartis AG is a holding company, which engages in the development, manufacture, and marketing of healthcare products. It operates through the following segments: Innovative Medicines, Sandoz, and Corporate. The Innovative Medicines segment researches, develops, manufactures, distributes and sells patented pharmaceuticals, and is composed of two business units: Novartis Oncology and Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

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Want to see what other hedge funds are holding NVS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS  Get Rating).

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StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Holly Energy Partners (NYSE:HEP  Get Rating) in a report issued on Thursday morning. The firm issued a buy rating on the pipeline companys stock.

Holly Energy Partners Stock Performance

NYSE:HEP opened at $17.42 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $2.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.84 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a current ratio of 1.38, a quick ratio of 1.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.70. The stocks 50-day moving average is $17.04 and its 200-day moving average is $18.01. Holly Energy Partners has a 1-year low of $15.12 and a 1-year high of $20.00.

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Holly Energy Partners (NYSE:HEP  Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 4th. The pipeline company reported $0.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.42 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $143.30 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $124.62 million. Holly Energy Partners had a return on equity of 24.44% and a net margin of 39.39%. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 19.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.45 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Holly Energy Partners will post 2.06 earnings per share for the current year.

Holly Energy Partners Dividend Announcement

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Holly Energy Partners

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 11th. Investors of record on Monday, May 1st were paid a $0.35 dividend. This represents a $1.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 8.04%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, April 28th. Holly Energy Partnerss dividend payout ratio is currently 79.10%.

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its stake in shares of Holly Energy Partners by 18.0% in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 833,860 shares of the pipeline companys stock worth $14,484,000 after acquiring an additional 127,176 shares during the period. Apollon Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Holly Energy Partners by 5.6% in the first quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC now owns 13,578 shares of the pipeline companys stock worth $236,000 after acquiring an additional 725 shares during the period. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Holly Energy Partners by 4.1% in the first quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 33,377 shares of the pipeline companys stock worth $580,000 after acquiring an additional 1,310 shares during the period. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SNC lifted its stake in shares of Holly Energy Partners by 110.5% in the first quarter. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SNC now owns 58,712 shares of the pipeline companys stock worth $1,020,000 after acquiring an additional 30,823 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE lifted its stake in shares of Holly Energy Partners by 95.6% in the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 96,862 shares of the pipeline companys stock worth $1,682,000 after acquiring an additional 47,340 shares during the period. 25.30% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Holly Energy Partners

(Get Rating)

Holly Energy Partners LP engages in the business of operating a system of petroleum product and crude pipelines, storage tanks, distribution terminals, and loading rack facilities. It operates through the Pipelines and Terminals, and Refinery Processing Unit segments. The Pipelines and Terminals segment includes petroleum products, crude pipelines and terminal, tankage, and loading rack facilities.

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Leonardo S.p.a. (OTCMKTS:FINMF  Get Rating) saw a large growth in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 6,904,300 shares, a growth of 89.1% from the April 30th total of 3,652,100 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 3,835.7 days.

Leonardo Trading Down 2.0 %

Shares of FINMF traded down $0.23 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $11.30. The companys stock had a trading volume of 22,823 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,765. Leonardo has a 52 week low of $6.65 and a 52 week high of $12.87. The companys fifty day moving average price is $12.07 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $10.40.

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About Leonardo

(Get Rating)

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Leonardo SpA engages in the aerospace, defense and security sectors. It operates through the following segments: Helicopters; Defense and Security Electronics; Aeronautics; Space, Defense Systems; and Other Activities. The Helicopters segment designs commercial and military rotorcrafts. The Defense and Security Electronics segment engages in the information management, sensors, and systems integration business, as well as delivers systems for critical missions, military sustainment requirements, and homeland security.

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Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. lifted its position in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK  Get Rating) by 18.4% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 529,920 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 82,235 shares during the period. Merck & Co., Inc. comprises approximately 0.9% of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A.s holdings, making the stock its 16th largest holding. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A.s holdings in Merck & Co., Inc. were worth $58,717,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Renaissance Technologies LLC grew its stake in shares of Merck & Co., Inc. by 2,671.4% in the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 5,099,334 shares of the companys stock worth $418,400,000 after purchasing an additional 4,915,334 shares in the last quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec boosted its stake in Merck & Co., Inc. by 256.3% during the first quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 4,882,173 shares of the companys stock valued at $400,582,000 after buying an additional 3,511,900 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Merck & Co., Inc. by 1.4% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 224,134,448 shares of the companys stock valued at $19,302,459,000 after buying an additional 3,081,402 shares in the last quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC boosted its stake in Merck & Co., Inc. by 48.1% during the third quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC now owns 5,840,313 shares of the companys stock valued at $503,115,000 after buying an additional 1,897,517 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its stake in Merck & Co., Inc. by 17.3% during the first quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,760,711 shares of the companys stock valued at $800,866,000 after buying an additional 1,441,584 shares in the last quarter. 72.89% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently weighed in on MRK. Mizuho reaffirmed a buy rating and set a $130.00 target price on shares of Merck & Co., Inc. in a research note on Monday, April 10th. Atlantic Securities upped their target price on Merck & Co., Inc. from $122.00 to $127.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, March 7th. Guggenheim upped their target price on Merck & Co., Inc. from $123.00 to $124.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, April 11th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Merck & Co., Inc. from $120.00 to $125.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, February 23rd. Finally, BTIG Research downgraded Merck & Co., Inc. from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a report on Sunday, April 16th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Merck & Co., Inc. currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $120.75.

Insiders Place Their Bets

Merck & Co., Inc. Stock Performance

In other Merck & Co., Inc. news, VP Rita A. Karachun sold 15,875 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $117.53, for a total value of $1,865,788.75. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 45,710 shares of the companys stock, valued at $5,372,296.30. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website . In other news, EVP Steven Mizell sold 53,400 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.01, for a total transaction of $6,355,134.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 31,685 shares in the company, valued at $3,770,831.85. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink . Also, VP Rita A. Karachun sold 15,875 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $117.53, for a total value of $1,865,788.75. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 45,710 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $5,372,296.30. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 488,258 shares of company stock valued at $56,481,018. 0.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Shares of MRK stock traded down $1.23 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $111.07. The stock had a trading volume of 6,378,339 shares, compared to its average volume of 6,095,581. The firms 50 day simple moving average is $138.47 and its 200 day simple moving average is $139.94. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60. Merck & Co., Inc. has a one year low of $83.05 and a one year high of $119.65. The firm has a market cap of $281.83 billion, a PE ratio of 21.69, a P/E/G ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 0.34.

Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK  Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 27th. The company reported $1.40 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.34 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $14.49 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.81 billion. Merck & Co., Inc. had a return on equity of 37.92% and a net margin of 22.52%. The companys quarterly revenue was down 8.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.14 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Merck & Co., Inc. will post 6.95 EPS for the current year.

Merck & Co., Inc. Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 10th. Investors of record on Thursday, June 15th will be given a dividend of $0.73 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, June 14th. This represents a $2.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.63%. Merck & Co., Inc.s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 57.03%.

Merck & Co., Inc. Company Profile

(Get Rating)

Merck & Co, Inc is a health care company, which engages in the provision of health solutions through its prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies, animal health, and consumer care products. It operates through the following segments: Pharmaceutical, Animal Health, and Other. The Pharmaceutical segment includes human health pharmaceutical and vaccine products.

Further Reading

Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MRK? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK  Get Rating).

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British American Tobacco p.l.c. (NYSE:BTI  Get Rating) saw a significant growth in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 3,590,000 shares, a growth of 83.2% from the April 30th total of 1,960,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 4,500,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.8 days. Approximately 0.2% of the shares of the stock are sold short.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have issued reports on BTI. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of British American Tobacco in a report on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded British American Tobacco from an overweight rating to a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, March 13th.

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Institutional Trading of British American Tobacco

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Almanack Investment Partners LLC. purchased a new position in British American Tobacco in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. Sanctuary Wealth Management L.L.C. purchased a new position in British American Tobacco in the 4th quarter worth approximately $27,000. GPS Wealth Strategies Group LLC purchased a new position in British American Tobacco in the 1st quarter worth approximately $28,000. Guardian Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in British American Tobacco in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Finally, Motco increased its stake in British American Tobacco by 1,025.4% during the 4th quarter. Motco now owns 754 shares of the companys stock worth $30,000 after buying an additional 687 shares during the period. 6.37% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

British American Tobacco Stock Performance

About British American Tobacco

Shares of BTI traded up $0.07 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $32.60. The stock had a trading volume of 6,454,418 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,232,821. The company has a current ratio of 0.86, a quick ratio of 0.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51. The companys fifty day simple moving average is $35.21 and its 200 day simple moving average is $37.73. British American Tobacco has a 12-month low of $32.49 and a 12-month high of $45.22.

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British American Tobacco plc is a holding company, which engages in the manufacture and distribution of tobacco products. Its brands include Kent, Dunhill, Lucky Strike, and Pall Mall. It operates through the following geographical segments: United States, Asia-Pacific and Middle East (APME), Americas and Sub-Saharan Africa (AMSSA), and Europe and North Africa (ENA).

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Budweiser Brewing Company APAC Limited (OTCMKTS:BDWBF  Get Rating) was the recipient of a significant decline in short interest in the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 1,585,300 shares, a decline of 41.8% from the April 30th total of 2,723,700 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 880.7 days.

Budweiser Brewing Company APAC Stock Performance

Shares of OTCMKTS BDWBF remained flat at $2.58 during trading hours on Friday. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $2.93 and its 200-day moving average price is $2.92. Budweiser Brewing Company APAC has a 12 month low of $2.15 and a 12 month high of $3.16.

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About Budweiser Brewing Company APAC

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Budweiser Brewing Company APAC Limited, an investment holding company, produces, imports, markets, distributes, and sells beer primarily in China, South Korea, India, Vietnam, and the other Asia Pacific regions. The company offers a portfolio of approximately more than 50 beer brands, including Budweiser, Stella Artois, Corona, Hoegaarden, Cass, and Harbin.

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A man in his 30s suspected of opening an emergency exit door mid-air on an Asiana Airlines plane appears at the Daegu District Court for questioning, May 28. Yonhap



A local court issued a warrant Sunday to arrest a passenger who opened an emergency exit door on board an Asiana Airlines flight right before landing in the southeastern city of Daegu last week.



The 33-year-old man, only identified by his surname Lee, was detained by police Friday on suspicions of opening the door 213 meters above ground just minutes before landing at Daegu International Airport in Daegu, 237 kilometers southeast of Seoul.



The Daegu District Court granted the request for an arrest warrant for alleged violation of the aviation security law, citing the seriousness of his case and the risk of flight.



Arriving at the court for questioning earlier in the day, the suspect said he was "very sorry to the kids" that were on the plane when asked by reporters whether he was aware of the danger of opening the door.



The man earlier told police officials that he had been under a lot of stress after losing his job recently and wanted to get out of the plane as he felt suffocated.



Under the aviation security law, a passenger who manipulates the doors, emergency exits or devices of an airplane hindering the security of the flight could face a prison term of up to 10 years.



None of the 194 people aboard, including a group of teenage athletes on their way to a competition, were injured in Friday's incident. Some nine panicked passengers were taken to hospitals after showing symptoms of breathing difficulty. (Yonhap)




Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLC raised its position in Truist Financial Co. (NYSE:TFC  Get Rating) by 1.8% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 60,991 shares of the insurance providers stock after purchasing an additional 1,056 shares during the quarter. Thompson Siegel & Walmsley LLCs holdings in Truist Financial were worth $2,624,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Nwam LLC raised its stake in shares of Truist Financial by 2.3% in the 4th quarter. Nwam LLC now owns 9,084 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $391,000 after purchasing an additional 203 shares during the period. Investors Asset Management of Georgia Inc. GA ADV raised its stake in shares of Truist Financial by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Investors Asset Management of Georgia Inc. GA ADV now owns 27,299 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $1,175,000 after purchasing an additional 206 shares during the period. Marino Stram & Associates LLC grew its holdings in shares of Truist Financial by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Marino Stram & Associates LLC now owns 20,819 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $896,000 after acquiring an additional 238 shares in the last quarter. Heritage Trust Co grew its holdings in shares of Truist Financial by 0.6% in the 4th quarter. Heritage Trust Co now owns 42,491 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $1,828,000 after acquiring an additional 238 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Waddell & Associates LLC grew its holdings in shares of Truist Financial by 0.5% in the 4th quarter. Waddell & Associates LLC now owns 49,038 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $2,110,000 after acquiring an additional 253 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 72.49% of the companys stock.

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Insider Activity

In other Truist Financial news, Director David M. Ratcliffe purchased 13,125 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 10th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $38.08 per share, for a total transaction of $499,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 39,025 shares in the company, valued at $1,486,072. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Truist Financial news, Director Charles A. Patton bought 3,668 shares of Truist Financial stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 2nd. The shares were purchased at an average price of $19.00 per share, with a total value of $69,692.00. Following the acquisition, the director now owns 3,668 shares in the company, valued at approximately $69,692. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director David M. Ratcliffe purchased 13,125 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 10th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $38.08 per share, for a total transaction of $499,800.00. Following the purchase, the director now owns 39,025 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,486,072. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. 0.31% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Truist Financial Trading Up 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE:TFC opened at $30.70 on Friday. Truist Financial Co. has a 12-month low of $25.56 and a 12-month high of $53.34. The stock has a market cap of $40.89 billion, a PE ratio of 6.84, a P/E/G ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 1.05. The business has a 50 day moving average of $31.31 and a 200-day moving average of $40.22. The company has a quick ratio of 0.86, a current ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.25.

Truist Financial (NYSE:TFC  Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 20th. The insurance provider reported $1.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $1.13 by ($0.04). Truist Financial had a return on equity of 12.37% and a net margin of 22.81%. The firm had revenue of $6.15 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.09 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.23 EPS. The companys revenue was up 15.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Truist Financial Co. will post 4.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Truist Financial Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 12th will be given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 11th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.78%. Truist Financials payout ratio is 46.33%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

TFC has been the subject of several analyst reports. Robert W. Baird upgraded Truist Financial from a neutral rating to an outperform rating and set a $53.00 price objective for the company in a report on Monday, March 13th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded Truist Financial from an underperform rating to a market perform rating and decreased their price objective for the company from $47.00 to $45.00 in a report on Sunday, March 12th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on Truist Financial from $57.00 to $54.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Monday, April 3rd. Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on Truist Financial from $42.00 to $41.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a report on Friday, April 21st. Finally, TheStreet cut Truist Financial from a b rating to a c+ rating in a report on Friday, March 17th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $46.56.

Truist Financial Profile

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Truist Financial Corp. is a financial holding company, which engages in the provision of banking services to individuals, businesses, and municipalities. It operates through the following segments: Consumer Banking and Wealth, Corporate and Commercial Banking, Insurance Holdings, and Other, Treasury & Corporate.

Further Reading

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Nebraska Cooperative Council Education Foundation awards

scholarships

LINCOLN  The Nebraska Cooperative Council Education Foundation has awarded nine scholarships totaling $20,100 for the 2023/24 academic year to students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources, the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture at Curtis, and the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

Two of the recipients are from Central Nebraska.

Madison Hirschman of St. Paul will receive a $2,500 NCCEF Scholarship in honor of Robert C. Andersen. The daughter of Robert and Kathryn Hirschman, she will be a sophomore at UNL majoring in agricultural economics. The Hirschmans are members of CVA headquartered in York and the Aurora Co-op Elevator Co headquartered in Aurora.

Isaac Kuehn of Heartwell will receive a 2,500 NCCEF Scholarship in honor of Michael S. Turner. The son of Joel and Shannon, he will be a freshman at UNL majoring in agribusiness. The Kuehns are members of CPI headquartered in Hastings.

The NCCEF scholarship program was initiated for the 1993/94 academic year with funding from voluntary contributions from the agricultural cooperatives which are members of the Nebraska Cooperative Council. Since the programs inception, 240 scholarships totaling $333,700 have been awarded.

To be eligible for the scholarships, students must be majoring in agribusiness or agricultural economics at UNL, agribusiness or ag production systems at NCTA, or agribusiness at UNK. Eligibility is restricted to sons/daughters of a parent/legal guardian who has been an active member, director, or employee for at least the prior three years of a cooperative which has been a member in good standing of the Council for at least five years.

ScholarshipsJacob Stegman of Grand Island and Clark Brown of Marquette are two of the four recipients of $500 scholarships awarded annually by the Nebraska Sons of the American Legion. This scholarship is awarded to a current Nebraska Sons member or to a direct male descendant of a veteran. The student must attend a Nebraska institution of higher education.

Rody Lyon of Giltner was one of 10 recipients of a $2,000 scholarships awarded by the Nebraska Banking Association Foundation. The foundation awards scholarships to students pursuing business- and banking-related degrees at state or privately funded Nebraska colleges and universities. Lyon is attending Corcordia University, Nebraska, majoring in business administration  finance and management, and was recommended for the scholarship by Kierra Bennett with the Jones Bank of Seward.

Academic honorsAidan Keyes*, Marilyn Silos Montellano* and Treyton Randall*, all of Grand Island; and Bryce Gorecki of St. Libory were named to the Deans List for the spring term at York University in York. To qualifym students must carry 12 or more graded hours and achieve a semester grade point average of at least 3.75 with no incomplete grades and no grade below C for the semester. An asterisk (*) denotes and 4.0 GPA for the term.

Four Central Nebraska students have been named to the Deans Honor List for the spring 2023 semester at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. They are Ethan Burdett and Jonathan Needham of Grand Island, Aaron Goertzen of Aurora, and Analise Luke of Kearney. This recognition requires the student to obtain a 3.75 GPA or higher for the semester and carry a minimum of 12 credit hours.

Alicia Meguire of Wood River has been named to the Deans List for the Winter 2023 term at Mercy College of Health Sciences in Des Moines, Iowa. To qualify for this academic recognition, students must attain a grade point average (GPA) between 3.50 and 3.749 for a minimum of six semester credit hours or four quarter credit hours in their most recent term.

ActivitiesVictoria Perry of Shelby was elected to be an officer the Student Senate for the 2023-2024 school year at Concordia University, Nebraska in Seward. Perry, a junior majoring in psychology, will service as vice president.

Paul Smith of Grand Island was among 19 members of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Reserve Officer Training Corps who received military commissions May 19-21. Smith was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army on May 19.
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LINCOLN  Nebraska cattle producers have the opportunity to attend one of two, full-day Stockmanship and Stewardship events this June.

Both events will offer the opportunity for individuals whose primary language is Spanish to participate in sessions as well.

We are excited to be able to offer many of the sessions presented at these two events in both English and Spanish, said Jesse Fulton, Livestock Systems Educator & Director of Nebraska Beef Quality Assurance. We know it is important for those whose primary language is Spanish who work on cattle operations daily to have industry-relevant education available to them as well.

Stockmanship and Stewardship is offered through a partnership between the National Cattlemens Beef Association, the Beef Checkoff, Beef Quality Assurance and Merck Animal Health. The Nebraska events are planned for Tuesday, June 13, at the Lifelong Learning Center and Ag Complex in Norfolk; and Thursday, June 15, at the Red Willow Fairgrounds in McCook.

Additionally, registered producers can also attend a grazing workshop on June 14 at the learning center in Norfolk, where speakers will cover grazing management to promote soil health, settling cattle on pasture, and virtual fencing.

During the events on June 13 and 15, attendees will be served a Certified Angus Beef strip steak lunch courtesy of Cargill Animal Protein and Certified Angus Beef. During lunch, Certified Angus Beef will share how they are using BQA certifications to share every cattlemans commitment to raising healthy, nutritious, and high-quality beef with consumers and the brands licensed partners. BQA is a national program that offers educational programming on proper management techniques, with a commitment to quality through every segment of the beef industry.

Certified Angus Beef cares about animal welfare because its partners care about animal welfare, says Bruce Cobb, CAB executive vice president of production. We know producers do a great job caring for their livestock and BQA is a great way to verify that commitment with consumers.

During the event, attendees will watch live low-stress cattle handling demonstrations and witness effective cattle handling on foot and horseback. Other sessions include a market outlook, grazing management, and cattle nutrition and herd health. Additionally, attendees will hear from CAB and their stakeholders about consumer concerns on sustainability, why it matters at the ranch, and how BQA can help ease the conversation. Plus, attendees will have the opportunity to become BQA certified, or renew an expired certification at the end of the day!

Producers have a great story to tell about the attention and care they put towards their beef animals as they bring them from pasture to plate, but sometimes they need help telling that story, said Fulton By becoming BQA certified or keeping up with their certification, producers can utilize the BQA program to help them tell their story to the everyday beef consumer. By attending one of the Nebraska Stockmanship and Stewardship events, producers can participate in a robust industry-related education event and become BQA certified/recertified all at the same time!

Find out more, see a full agenda, and register for the event online at stockmanshipandstewardship.org/events/nebraska-2023. Pre-registration is required to ensure adequate food and space is arranged.
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Federal law prohibits children under 16 from using specific equipment on a farm unless their parents or legal guardians own the farm.

However, certification received through a Tractor Safety Training course grants an exemption to the law allowing 14- and 15-year-olds to drive a tractor and to do field work with specific mechanized equipment. Therefore, teens 14 or 15 years of age planning to work on a farming operation this summer are encouraged to participate in Tractor Safety Training.

This safety training is designed for youth who work on farms to learn more about tractors and farm equipment safety practices. The Tractor Safety course is sponsored by the University of Nebraska Extension and the Central States Center for Agricultural Safety and Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health.

The training is presented in a hybrid model with the first day entailing hands-on demonstration, or by completing an online educational course and required testing through the eXtension Foundation Campus website.

In-person training is recommended for better interaction, demonstration, and accessibility to trained professionals that can help answer students questions. Once a student is registered (https://go.unl.edu/2023tractorsafety), the coordinators will send instructions, materials, course paperwork, and a link to the online course if they do not attend one of the hands-on events.

As this is a statewide training, the closest hands-on training day is planned for Tuesday, May 30, at Fonner Park.

After completing the hands-on event, or the online course and testing, students will be required to complete a physical driving test. This driving test will be offered at several locations across the state, including Wednesday, May 31, at Fonner Park, and Tuesday, June 6, at the Adams County Fairgrounds in Hastings.

The onsite driving training and exam will include a driving test, equipment operation and ATV safety lessons. Students must demonstrate competence in hitching and unhitching equipment and driving a tractor and trailer through a standardized course.

Instructors will offer education on emergency preparedness, personal protective equipment, and safe behaviors and laws for ATVs, utility-task vehicles (UTVs) and other off-road vehicles (ORVs). There is a fee associated with this training which includes educational materials and supplies.

For information about the Grand Island events, contact Randy Saner (randy.saner@unl.edu) or Vicki Neidhardt (vicki.neidhardt@unl.edu) at 308-532-2683.

For more information about the Hastings event, contact Ron Seymour (ron.seymour@unl.edu) at 402-461-7209.
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Standing on a newly poured foundation for the next Habitat for Humanity house in the 700 block of E. Polk Street, volunteers learned that the 2023 Lamar County United Way fundraising campaign is at 60 % of its goal with $346,323 pledged to date of a $575,000 goal.
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Orangeburg County School District announced that Vickie Haynes, school counselor at Branchville High School, has been recognized as the South Carolina Career and Technical Education Counselor of the Year for the Lower Savannah Region.

Nominated by her principal, Charles Gregory, Haynes was commended for her contributions to the school.

I nominated Mrs. Haynes because she is not only an outstanding guidance counselor, but also a compassionate person. Her commitment to our students success is demonstrated by our 100% graduation rate and the 87.5% college or career readiness rating she helped our seniors achieve last year, Gregory said.

Her tireless work to complete 100% of Individual Graduation Plans further exemplifies her dedication. As we look ahead to graduation and the next school year, we know that with Mrs. Haynes in our corner, our students are in the best possible hands, he continued.

In winning the SC CTE Counselor of the Year award, Haynes joins a distinguished group of professionals who have made significant contributions to career and technical education.

Mrs. Haynes has served Orangeburg County School District for two years, and during this time, her work has had a positive impact on both her students and the community. She is a dedicated advocate for students, constantly motivating and addressing the needs of the whole child, said Faith Arthur, OCSD Counseling and Career Services coordinator.

Mrs. Haynes embodies the qualities of an effective school counselor, ensuring her students excel academically, socially and emotionally; and her recognition as CTE Counselor of the Year is a testament to her invaluable contributions, Arthur said.
Asiana Airlines' A321-200 aircraft after landing at Daegu International Airport in Daegu, with the emergency door open right before landing at the airport, is seen in this May 26 photo. Yonhap



Asiana Airlines, Korea's second-biggest carrier, said Sunday it has stopped selling certain emergency seats of A321-200 passenger jets following a recent incident in which a passenger opened a door of the same aircraft model just before landing.



Starting Sunday, Asiana Airlines halted the sale of the 26A seat of 11 A321-200s, which can carry 174 passengers, and that of the 31A seat of three A321-200s, which can accommodate 195 passengers, the company said in a statement.



The seats right beside the emergency doors in A321-200s will be excluded for reservation even if all seats on the planes are fully booked, the statement said, without providing any specific timeframe for the suspension.



The incident took place on an A321-200 aircraft heading to the city of Daegu, 237 kilometers southeast of Seoul, from the southern Island of Jeju on Friday.



A man sitting in the emergency seat row opened the door when the 195-seat A321-200 aircraft was about 213 meters from the ground right before landing at Daegu International Airport.



None of the 194 people aboard the plane fell out or were hurt in Friday's incident, but 12 panicked passengers showed symptoms of breathing difficulty and some of them were taken to a hospital.









Police sought an arrest warrant for Lee for an alleged violation of the aviation security law, citing the seriousness of his case and the risk of flight.



Under the act, a passenger who operates the doors, emergency exits or devices of an airplane could face a prison term of up to 10 years.



During questioning, the man said he had been under a lot of stress after losing his job recently and that he opened the door because he wanted to get off quickly after feeling suffocated, according to police officials.





An opened airplane door during a flight, is seen in this May 26 photo. Yonhap
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Health challenges have limited George A. Williams Sr.s speech and mobility, but they have not damaged a heart of gold that still beats strong with a steadfast love for his family and community.

Williams, 89, has been known as Orangeburgs resident Santa Claus for good reason. Hauling everything from CD and DVD players to stuffed animals and coloring books in his car, he visited nursing homes across Orangeburg and Calhoun counties for 34 years to present gifts to residents.

He delivered the gifts on behalf of the Albemarle Corp. (now SI Group), where he retired in 2000 after 40 years as a materials handler and production analyst.

Beginning in 1980, he organized a special community service among his fellow employees, garnering funds from them to purchase gifts for senior citizens at area nursing facilities.

Williams began his community service project under the supervision of George Newbill, plant manager of what was then Ethyl Corp. Co-workers Jarod Breeland, B.T. Robinson and James Corry also assisted him with the project in the beginning.

Plant managers at the former Albemarle Corp. since Newbill continued to support the project. The corporation started to supply Williams with a check to purchase items as part of his continued efforts to serve his community.

Williams had a stroke in September of 2019 that has limited his speech, but with a firm squeeze of the hand and an occasional tear, he let this reporter know that he still remembers those days and that he still loves his community.

He has embodied the spirit of giving for more than just nursing home residents. He and his late wife, Francena, started an outreach mission through which those who didnt have anything to eat or anyone to eat with on Thanksgiving were fed at their church, Trinity United Methodist Church in Orangeburg.

He and Francena, who died in 2014 before the high school sweethearts 57th wedding anniversary, were sort of a tag team when it came to giving, even providing lunch to workers who would assist in debris cleanup in front of their home.

Francena was a former educator who started her career in education at then-Claflin College, where she taught in the Department of Health and Physical Education. Her teaching career also included a stint at Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School, where she taught biology, chemistry, physical science and first aid.

She retired from O-W in 1995 after 33 years of service, but it was there where she also taught children dance. She started the O-W dancers group whose activities included performing at nursing homes during the holiday season in 1976.

Williams delightfully completed his wifes legacy of service, and his own service was not limited to the delivery of gifts to area nursing homes. He also produced Orangeburgs first Multicultural Variety Show with the men of Trinity United Methodist Church.

The Williams children are Adriene, George Al Jr., Tina and Cheryl, along with an adopted daughter, Michelle Shivers.

Adriene said she and her siblings have united to take care of their father, who she considers a special person whose giving spirit has been an example for all of them.

Its a team approach all the way around. We make it work. Of course we have our moments, but who doesnt have a moment? she said, noting that her family exemplified the spirit of giving for her and her siblings ever since the 63-year-old was a child.

It stems from age 15. We started with the nursing homes, my siblings and I and other community members and youth in the church. We would perform at the nursing homes. I played the flute, we have various people who sang, played piano. My brother plays the guitar. We started doing those things, and then it kind of grew, Adriene said.

She continued, My parents actually cared for 21 senior people in the community. It would be, Come have dinner with us. Well take you to your doctors appointment. Come go with us to a cookout in Irmo or Blythewood. Come share your time. We know that your familys not here.

Those examples of giving back have been unforgettable, she said, noting that her dads trustworthiness was part of why his plant managers would entrust him with the funds to make his community service project within nursing homes a success.

I am most proud of my dad and how he has raised us, how he has instilled in us no matter how good or bad a situation is, you must see it through. Dont make the decision, Oh, I wasnt good enough. Oh, that wasnt what they wanted for me to continue. No, you put your best foot forward and let the end result of what you have done be your testimony, Adriene said.

Williams nodded when asked if he would continue to take care of himself with the help of his devoted children. While he cannot get around like he used to, the walls of his home are full of the plaques and other accolades he has received for what he has already done.

Adriene said her parents complemented each other well and that each gave a piece of their unique selves back to their community.

They did quite well, and I am so proud, she said.
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A Clemson University researcher is part of a multistate, multidisciplinary study to improve rice farming sustainability and profitability through research innovations that advance climate-resilient crops.

Raghupathy Karthikeyan, Newman Endowed Chair Professor of Natural Resources Engineering and a professor in Clemsons Agricultural Sciences Department, is collaborating with researchers from other land-grant institutions and the United States Department of Agriculture to learn how the development and adoption of climate-smart crop production technologies and practices can enhance rice production.

This $10 million project is funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture through its Agriculture and Food Research Initiatives Sustainable Agricultural Systems program. The project addresses the three pillars of the land-grant mission  research, education and the Cooperative Extension Service.

During this project, we will work to identify climate-resilient rice, particularly salt-tolerant rice cultivars and appropriate management practices for rice growers, Karthikeyan said. The outcome of this project will allow for development of a skilled workforce that will continue research and development and help distribute information related to using climate resilient technologies.

Rice once was a dominant agricultural staple in South Carolina before saltwater intrusion forced farmers to grow other crops.

During this project, the researchers will: assess socio-economic and environmental impacts of current farming practices and identify barriers to adopting climate-smart technologies; design climate-smart rice cultivars; develop climate-smart management practices; and develop and implement effective Extension programming. Knowledge gained will be used to identify rice varieties that can adapt to a changing climate.

For his part in the study, Karthikeyan will calibrate and validate the rice crop model, CERES-Rice, a model from Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer  DSSAT suite, using different environmental and management conditions. This model is used for crop management design. Karthikeyan will use this model to forecast rice yields across different management practices under variable climate scenarios.

Crop simulation models simulate growth, development and yield as a function of interactions between soil, plant and the atmosphere, Karthikeyan said. Optimum management practices to increase rice production can be identified using CERES-Rice simulations.

Field trials will be conducted on salt-tolerant rice lines at the Clemson Coastal Research and Education Center in Charleston.

Clemson researchers will apply the CERES-Rice model to assess responses of different rice cultivars using projected climate change. Once calibrated, the model will be used to make on-farm management decisions in current and future climatic conditions. This farm modeling system uses data from across the agricultural production chain and includes social and regional considerations to maximize economic, environmental and societal benefits.

Karthikeyan also will develop and teach a special topics class and coordinate a mini-symposium on sustainable and climate-resilient rice production at Clemson University.

In addition to Clemson, this Louisiana State University-led project also includes researchers from the University of Arkansas, Texas A&M University AgriLife Research, Mississippi State University and the USDA-Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center. These researchers have expertise in plant breeding, genetics, plant physiology, plant pathology, entomology, agronomy, soil science, precision agriculture, microbiology, mechanical engineering, modeling, artificial intelligence, sociology, economics and extension education.

Karthikeyan said this expertise will help the researchers share their knowledge with rice growers today, as well as with rice growers of the future.

We will use Extension and education activities to equip the current and next generation of rice farmers, consultants and researchers with knowledge and skills needed to embrace new climate-smart agriculture technologies and production practices, Karthikeyan said. Growers will learn how to make the correct decisions at the correct times to help reduce yield losses, land use, labor and consumer energy.

This grant is part of a $70 million dollar investment from USDA to establish robust, resilient and climate-smart food and agricultural systems.

To help revive the South Carolina rice industry, another Clemson-led project is iCORP  Increasing Coastal Organic Rice Production in South Carolina Using Salt Tolerant Cultivars. During this project, researchers will detail cultivation practices and economics of growing rice in salt-affected coastal areas to help growers to make informed crop-related decisions.
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Falling for a pipe dream

As one who sat in on the presentation by Mr. Yakubov in a meeting of the Orangeburg County Planning Commission, I can only say that I am reminded of the movie Field of Dreams." You know, Build It and They will Come."

Why will they come? Why will rich executives suddenly want to come to Orangeburg? I imagine it would be due to the great schools, the upscale shopping choices, the fine-dining restaurants that abound here.

If Orangeburg County Council (first-reading approval has been given) decides to fall for this pipe dream off Riverbank Drive, I suggest that some safeguards are needed to ensure that Plan B, the grandiose scheme presented by Mr. Yakubov, doesnt default to Plan A, a collection of cheap apartments.

I suggest that all single-family dwellings would be required to have at least 4,500 square feet of living space and that all town houses have at least 3,500 square feet of living space and all residences be owner-occupied by a single family. These requirements should present no problem for the executive types settling here.

Furthermore, I suggest requiring Mr. Yakubov and his partners to complete fencing, the promised club house, other amenities and wetland remediation prior to permitting the first residences.

I have lived within a quarter mile of Caw Caw Farms for 46 years in one of those old houses and have no desire to see the neighborhood degraded.

Gary Heidebrecht, Orangeburg

'Flip-Flop Drive for Liberia'

First and foremost, the people of Liberia, Bong and Grand Cape Mount counties would like to thank the students of the Charleston School District and Dr. Mae Helen Frazier for sponsoring a Flip-Flop Drive for Liberia."

Many thanks for your contribution toward the transportation of goods to some needy children and adults in Gbarnga, Bong and Grand Cape Mount Counties, Liberia, West Africa.

We are also appreciative to Orangeburg County Councilwoman Deloris Frazier for delivering 20 military duffle bags of 800 pails of flip-flops (slippers, etc.) As you may be aware, many of our people in the rural areas, especially the villagers cant easily afford flip-flops (slippers) to wear. With the contribution of the flip-flops, some of them will have something on their feet.

We also extended the distribution to a prison compound and some of the prisoners did receive flip-flops.

May God bless the work of your hands.

Augustine Nye, program coordinator for FORCE,

Foundation for Recreation and Children Education

Disrespect from railroad

To: City manager, county manager and the State of South Carolina.

Regarding: The disrespect to our communities by the Norfolk Southern Railroad.

Both the city and county attorneys should get involved in solving this problem.

1. A letter should be sent to the CEO and Norfolk Southern's board of directors regarding the cleanup issue of all discarded railroad ties, rails and assorted metal parts that are no longer in use.

2. Chemicals from these items get into our groundwater and can cause health issues. Fluorocarbons, iron ore residue the same.

3. The fence should be repaired and extend from Boulevard Street from McDonald's to the end of Boulevard opposite Claflin and South Carolina State universities.

4. The fence should be signed, marking it as railroad property, keep out and dangerous.

5. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should be contacted as this is in their domain.

6. The city manager has contacted Norfolk Southern, my understanding, at least twice to no avail.

7. We should put the railroad on notice that we will clean up this mess and bill Norfolk Southern for their lack of concern.

8. I do trust that The Times and Democrat newspaper will take photos and even do a story regarding the above matter.

In all fairness to the railroad, they did pick up a lot of these broken-up materials, but they never completed the job.

Geoffrey Fine, Orangeburg
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Todays events

Alcoholics Anonymous meetings: Noon and 5:15 p.m., Alano Inc., 590 Louis St., Orangeburg

Soil and Water Conservation and Keep Orangeburg

County Beautiful meeting to be held Tuesday

Orangeburg County Soil and Water Conservation District (OCSWCD) and Keep Orangeburg County Beautiful (KOCB) will hold their next board meeting on Tuesday, May 30 at 4 p.m. at the AG Building, 1550 Henley Street, Room 203, Orangeburg. KOCB will follow the OCSWCD meeting.

Grief support group to meet

A grief support group will be held at 6 p.m. every Tuesday evening at Edisto Homecare & Hospice, 1180 Boulevard Street, #A, in Orangeburg. For more information, call 803-662-0972.

Luncheons on the Terrace every Wednesday

The Orangeburg County Fine Arts Center will be holding Spring Luncheons on the Terrace every Wednesday through May 31. Enjoy the ambience overlooking the Edisto River between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. For reservations, call 803-536-4074.

Silver Slippers meet every Wednesday

Join the Silver Slippers every Wednesday at the City Gym on Broughton Street. Basic/Beginners line dance session will be at 9 a.m. and free-style/hip hop line dance sessions will begin at 10 a.m. All seniors are welcome. For more information, call 803-707-6945.

Line dancing classes every Thursday

Beginner line dance classes will be held every Thursday from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Orangeburg County Fine Arts Center. For more information, call 803-664-1000.

Calhoun school

board meets June 5

The Calhoun County School District Board of Trustees will hold its regular monthly meeting at 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 5, at Calhoun County High School. The public is invited.

GSSM summer

applications

being accepted

The South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics is accepting applications for its iTEAMS XTREME for rising sixth-, seventh- and eighth graders who would like to sharpen their technology and coding skills this summer. The summer camp will be held June 26-29 at Howard Middle School. Students who attend any Orangeburg County school will have their deposit, fees waived. For more information, call 843-383-3958.

How to submit your events

Please submit Community Datebook column items in writing. Items must be received no later than noon by Tuesday of each week. The T&D does not guarantee when items will run. Items may be submitted by: Email: news@timesanddemocrat.com; In person: 1010 Broughton Street. Mail: P.O. Drawer 1766, Orangeburg, SC 29116
(TBTCO) - Ke tu khi tai thanh lap vao nam 1990 en nay, he thong kho bac a co su phat trien vuot bac e tro thanh kho bac ien tu va ang huong toi kho bac so vao nam 2030. Voi nhung nguoi gan bo voi kho bac tu ngay con phai i o nho, in chung tu bang may in kim, may in bua khi nho ve nhung ngay au gian nan ay a khong khoi boi hoi, xuc ong.
President Yoon Suk Yeol shakes hands with U.S. President Joe Biden as Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida watches on ahead of a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, May 21. AP-Yonhap



US seeks cooperation with Korea on Micron issue: Washington think tanks, intelligence officials



By Kim Yoo-chul



Security experts in Washington and Seoul do not question whether the Joe Biden administration's detailed and aggressive moves in technology and semiconductors are important as the U.S. is facing an inflection point with China's rise in the sector.



Washington doesn't want to stop at chips as the administration is heading to go down a list of high-profile, potential, and emerging technologies that could possibly define the next decades of the global economic and technological landscape.



The U.S.' moves for tighter restrictions on the export to China of manufacturing equipment for advanced semiconductors vital to power military assets, driverless vehicles, artificial intelligence (AI) and other types of surveillance technologies, and its "unofficial request" to top like-minded allies in East Asia including South Korea to upgrade their export control policies, are considered as a key fulcrum in terms of constraining Beijing's capabilities.



The U.S. sees the restrictions as a necessary but dramatic decision by the administration and top Washington policymakers as this is really a point of "no short-term return," at least, for its relationship with Beijing  as the current contest between the world's largest economies is already baked in  China is hitting back at U.S. by putting a block on Micron Technology's memory chips.



Given Samsung Electronics and SK hynix's substantial presence in China, this latest move is putting the chip duo in a complicated spot as cashing in on Micron's problems there, which is also the world's largest semiconductor market, will not be easy for Seoul or the two companies, officials and experts said.



The questions are: What are the stakes in China's action on Micron? And can Samsung and SK develop applicable action plans?



White House National Security Council (NSC) spokesman John Kirby clarified that the ban on Micron won't hurt U.S.' efforts to restore high-level communications including between President Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.



"South Korea must navigate between a potentially profitable business opportunity to expand its market share as a supplier to China, and U.S.-government led efforts to restrict the supply of sensitive hi-tech products to China," Scott A. Snyder, director of the program on U.S.-South Korea Policy at the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), told The Korea Times.





Flags of China and the U.S. are displayed on a printed circuit board, in this illustration created Feb. 17. Reuters-Yonhap



The CFR senior fellow went on to say that he understands the Micron ban is China's "retaliation for U.S. export controls or at least adoption of the same perspective as the U.S." on how to address imports of high-technology products from rivals. Representatives at Samsung and SK headquarters said they have no official comment on this issue.



Seoul has been maintaining a low-key stance regarding the issue after the White House "quietly asked" the government to urge the country's chip duo to hold back from increasing sales to China if the sale of Micron's memory chips were restricted or even banned by Beijing.



"I believe the U.S. has discouraged South Korean backfilling of supply to China, but the South Korean government has suggested it is a decision to be handled by the private sector on a case-by-case basis. Samsung and SK will have to consider their respective business relationships and future prospects with both China and the United States," Snyder responded.



A former Samsung official, who previously worked at the company's research-related division, said he expects the Chinese ban on Micron "could affect" the U.S. chipmaker's exposure there; however, he added it's unlikely this issue will hugely benefit the South Korean chip duo, which have massive production facilities in several Chinese cities.



No punitive measures seen against Samsung, SK



It's not far-fetched to say the worsening geopolitical tensions in East Asia are casting a shadow over the semiconductor industry as the three market leaders  Samsung, SK and Micron  need to explore measures amid rising uncertainties that could impact investment and supply chain management.



But it's unlikely the Chinese government will expand its "punishment" to the South Korean chip duo as building a cutting-edge technology sector is a critical part of Xi's strategy. This means Beijing needs continuous assistance from Samsung and SK to accelerate efforts in improving its chip self-sufficiency rate.



China aims to lift this to 70 percent by 2025. The rate, which includes the production of semiconductors by foreign companies there, remained at just 25 percent last year, data provided by International Business Strategy showed. Both Samsung and SK asked Washington to extend waivers to sell competitive chip equipment to China, allowing the companies to ship equipment to their facilities, there.



Zack Cooper, a former White House NSC official and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), claimed Micron was an "easy target" because Beijing knows that the memory chip market is suffering from a glut. "Micron is primarily being punished for allegedly pushing to get restrictions placed on a Chinese company called YMTC," the former U.S. official said.



YMTC is Micron's chief rival in the NAND-type memory chip segment. Micron earlier warned in a filing that the Boise, Idaho-based firm could be restricted from participating in the Chinese market.





Traffic passes a Samsung Electronics' digital billboard in the Times Square area of Manhattan, New York City, March 2. Reuters-Yonhap
Welcome to this stunning 5 bedroom, 2 bathroom home built in 1917 that seamlessly blends the charm of the past with the convenience of modern living. This historic gem has been tastefully updated to offer all the comforts of contemporary living, while retaining its original character and timeless appeal. As you enter the home, you'll be greeted by a spacious and inviting living room and the wonderful dining room large enough for the whole family and plenty of natural light!

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The University of Wyomings College of Education has a new interim dean after the school announced last month that Dean Scott Thomas is leaving to take a new position in Vermont.

Thomas was named president of Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont, last month after leading UWs teacher training program for almost two years, according to the university. In his place, UW has named Jenna Shim, the College of Educations associate dean for academic affairs and graduate studies, as interim dean.

Shim is a professor in the School of Teacher Education and has been at UW for more than a decade, winning numerous awards and fellowships. With an extensive background in literacy and language education, she has also coordinated the School of Teacher Educations English-as-a-second-language graduate program and founded Wyomings annual dual-language-immersion and English-as-a-second-language conference.

As I assume new responsibilities, I am thrilled to collaborate with colleagues across the college, university and state, working together to foster a culture of collaboration, innovation and academic excellence, Shim said in a statement. I eagerly anticipate the journey ahead and the collective efforts we will undertake to shape the future of education.

Thomas joined UW as the John P. Jack Ellbogen Dean after serving five years as the dean of the University of Vermonts College of Education and Social Services. His tenure at the College of Education has largely been defined by a push for better preparation and more support for Wyomings teachers as the state contends with teacher attrition and retention challenges.

Thomas has worked closely with the Wyoming Department of Education and Gov. Mark Gordons Reimagining and Innovating the Delivery of Education (RIDE) initiative to work toward addressing teacher shortages in Wyoming.

Earlier this year, Thomas announced the launch of UWs Master Educator Competency Program, an initiative that aims to transform teacher preparation and professional development in the state by better tailoring teacher training to the needs of educators and Wyomings communities and school districts.

While it is bittersweet to bid farewell, I am confident that the College of Education will continue to flourish, guided by its unwavering commitment to excellence in education, Thomas said in a statement. I am proud of what we have achieved together and look forward to seeing the durable impact the college will continue to have in shaping the future of education in Wyoming and rural areas across the country.

UW Provost and Executive Vice President Kevin Carman will help to lead the schools national search for a replacement, according to the university. Carman said the College of Education would look to build on Thomas work moving forward.

We are grateful that Dr. Shim has agreed to lead the College of Education during this critical time of transition, Carman said in a statement. We are extremely confident in her leadership and look forward to further progress in the efforts and initiatives that have been undertaken under Dean Thomas leadership.
Throw away all of your cigarettes, lighters, ashtrays, and matches. Wash your clothes and freshen up anything that smells of smoke.

If youve tried to quit smoking and youve used Google as your go-to guide, then you are sure to find tips like the one youve just read, which might set you on the path to quitting smoking.
This was how High Court judge Frank Seepersad described Trinidad and Tobago yesterday.

But citizens cannot pretend that everything is well in the country as changes are needed. Speaking at the Citizen ONE Foundations annual Heritage and Leadership Conference Breakfast Fellowship at the Passage to Asia Restaurant in Chaguanas, he submitted that a reform of the Constitution would be a pivotal moment to the process of unity.
THE Government found itself in a quandary in the House of Representatives as words uttered i
WE salute all victims of revenge porn who have chosen not to cower and hide but to bravely take the fight to their criminal abusers.

We note the constitutional action filed on behalf of a group of underage girls and young women by the civil society organisation, Humanitarian Foundation for Positive Social Change (HFPSC). The group is claiming that the rights of the 25 women represented are being violated by the apparent unwillingness of the police to investigate their clients complaints, leaving them exposed to continued torment by the predators.
Tucson-based Raytheon Missiles & Defense was awarded a Navy contract worth up to nearly $150 million to upgrade its Coyote drone for future missions, including precision-strike capabilities.

Under a contract from the Office of Naval Research, Raytheon will complete design modifications now under way for the Coyote Block 3 unmanned system as part of the Future Advanced Strike effort, according to a Defense Department contract notice.

The work will include developing technical data packages, testing for an enhanced-payload air system and a new launch module and a fire-control system, with planned flight tests and operational demonstrations.

The work is to be completed by the end of 2024, with about 60% of the work to be performed in Tucson, and $44.5 million was obligated with the award with a maximum contract value of $146.7 million, the Pentagon said.

The Coyote  originally developed by a Tucson tech startup in the 2000s and later acquired by Raytheon  is a small, low-cost drone that can be tube-launched from the ground, air, or a ship and flown individually or networked together in swarms that can loiter aloft for up to an hour.

With a modular payload, the Coyote can carry a variety of sensors and warheads and was pressed into service a few years ago to meet an emerging threat of swarms of enemy drones.

Raytheon paired the Coyote with its Ku-band Radio Frequency Sensors (KuRFS) radar system to create the Howler Counter Unmanned Aerial System, which was deployed by the Army in 2019 after the service declared defense against drones and other airborne threats an urgent operational need.

In April, Raytheon was awarded a $237 million Army contract for KuRFS sensors and Coyote drones.

Besides the original, propeller-driven Coyote, Raytheon has developed the Coyote Block 2, with improved sensors, a jet engine for increased speed and range, and narrow control fins instead of a long main wing and tailfins.

In 2021, a salvo of Coyote 2s engaged and destroyed a swarm of target drones of varying sizes and shapes during tests at the Yuma Proving Ground.

Designed for reuse, Raytheons Coyote Block 3 is a propeller-driven, winged version which during testing in 2021 downed a swarm of drone targets using unspecified non-kinetic weapons, which could include things like microwave pulses or jamming to bring down targets without contact.


By John J. Metzler







It's hardly a surprise, but an affirmation of the obvious. Myanmar's military regime is being backed, supported and protected by both Russia and China. What's new is that the specifics of this assistance have come to light in a landmark U.N. report uncovering the extent of arms and munitions transfers to Myanmar, the Southeast Asian state beset by longtime military rule, amid spurts of democratic governance, but overall isolation and indifference.







"Despite overwhelming evidence of the Myanmar military's atrocity crimes against the people of Myanmar, the generals continue to have access to advanced weapons systems, spare parts for fighter jets, raw materials and manufacturing equipment for domestic weapons production," U.N. Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews said. The report from the U.N. rights monitor the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) asserts that a series of front companies, along with lax enforcement, have allowed firms to avoid arms sanctions and provide weapons.







"The Billion Dollar Death Trade: International Arms Networks that Enable Human Rights Violations in Myanmar" has emerged as the most detailed study on post-coup arms transfers to the military since the regime seized power in February 2021. "Russia and China continue to be the main suppliers of advanced weapons systems to the Myanmar military, accounting for over $400 million and $260 million respectively since the coup, with much of the trade originating from state-owned entities," Andrews said.







"However, arms dealers operating out of Singapore are critical to the continued operation of the Myanmar military's deadly weapons factories," the study asserted. The report reveals that $254 million worth of supplies have been shipped from dozens of entities in Singapore to the Myanmar military from February 2021 to December 2022. The overview adds that "payments for hundreds of millions of dollars of arms transfers are moving through Singapore banks."







Though Singapore's official policy is to "prohibit the transfer of arms to Myanmar" and it has decided "not to authorize the transfer of dual-use items which have been assessed to have potential military application," the special rapporteur called upon the Singapore government to "enforce its policies to the maximum extent possible."







Andrews, a former Maine congressman, stated sharply, "The Myanmar military and its arms dealers have figured out how to game the system. That's because sanctions are not being adequately enforced and because arms dealers linked to the junta have been able to create shell companies to avoid them."







On April 11, the Myanmar military attacked Pazigyi Village in Sagaing Region, killing 170 people (including 40 children), which underscores the impact of an unfettered arms trade on the regime. Russia supplied the Yak-130 aircraft that dropped the bombs as well as Mi-35-type helicopters that gunned down civilians.







More specifically Russia's $370 million in sales to the Myanmar military includes SU-30 fighter jets, MiG-29 fighter jets, Yak-130 combat capable aircraft and military aircraft/helicopter spare parts. According to the U.N. report, "Russia's continued post-coup transfers of arms to the Myanmar military has violated international humanitarian law."







Since the coup, over 40 state-run and private suppliers based in China, including Hong Kong, have transferred $267 million worth of arms and materials to the Myanmar military. Again the report cites, "Through its transfer of fighter jets, spare parts for fighter jets, tanks, and military helicopters, China has violated international humanitarian law."







Even before the current generals came to power in February 2021, Myanmar's military regime was shielded from criticism in the U.N. Security Council. Widespread human rights abuses that have characterized Myanmar's rulers were routinely rebuffed in the Security Council by Moscow and Beijing.







So lucrative is the arms trade with Myanmar, that other countries such as India and Thailand have supplied the military too. India has sent $51 million in arms and dual-use supplies to Burma. Thailand for its part has sent $28 million in spare parts and raw materials to the military.







Even before the current coup d'etat in 2021, Myanmar endured military rule between 1962 and 2011. The regime has battled ethnic conflicts with the Shan and Karen Christian minorities. In 2017 Myanmar expelled almost a million of its Rohingya Muslims into neighboring Bangladesh.







What can be done? Tom Andrews asserts that tightening sanctions remain crucial, "Member states have not adequately targeted key sources of foreign currency that the junta relies on to purchase arms, including most significantly Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise," he said.







Pressuring Myanmar's military regime is not so simple given China's clear strategic interest in the resource-rich country.









) is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of "Divided Dynamism: The Diplomacy of Separated Nations; Germany, Korea, China."



John J. Metzler ( jjmcolumn@earthlink.net
PHOENIX  Kari Lake will not have to pay court-ordered penalties even though a judge rejected her latest bid to overturn the 2022 gubernatorial election.

In a ruling late Friday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson reaffirmed his earlier ruling that Lake failed to provide evidence of misconduct in the way Maricopa County verified the signatures on early ballots. The judge had rejected her claim that the rate of signature approval  including 274,000 in less than three seconds and 70,000 in fewer than two seconds  proved that the county was not complying with statutory requirements that signatures be compared.

Thompson also refused to grant her a new trial on her separate claim that Election Day problems with equipment at polling places were caused by intentional acts of county election workers and disenfranchised voters and affected the outcome.

But the judge, in his new ruling, said none of that entitles the county to either get its legal fees paid by Lake or to punish her or her lawyers.

Mark Finchem, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for secretary of state, and his attorneys were not so lucky.

Finchem ordered to cover fees

In a separate order Friday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Melissa Julian ordered Finchem to pay $40,565 in legal fees and costs to Adrian Fontes, the Democrat who defeated him in the November election. And Julian imposed a separate $7,434 penalty against Daniel McCauley, his attorney, for filing a lawsuit that she previously called groundless and not brought in good faith.

The different outcomes apparently come down to how each judge saw the claims and whether they were deemed to have a reasonable basis.

It starts with an Arizona law that generally requires judges to assess reasonable legal fees and expenses against an attorney or party who brings a claim without substantial justification.

Judge: Lakes claim not established

Thompson, in his ruling in the Lake case, said that means a claim is groundless or, to put another way, that there are no rational arguments based on evidence or law to support it.

In this case, he said, Lake failed to establish her claim that the county systematically pushed mismatched ballots through for tabulation without following the required procedures. But that, the judge said, did not make it groundless.

Even if her argument did not prevail, Lake, through her witnesses, presented facts consistent with and in support of her legal argument, he wrote.

Just because her attorneys made certain arguments about what the facts show in their closing arguments did not amount to the kind of misconduct that merits punishment, the judge said.

Opposing litigants in a heated dispute will naturally view the same evidence differently, he said.

The inferences one draws will be anathema to the other, and they may question each others good faith motivated simply by their conviction of their own cause and incomprehension at the conclusions of the other, Thompson continued. And he said that advocacy was not sufficient to constitute misconduct.

The judge took pains on how his decision here differs from the actions by the Arizona Supreme Court earlier this month to impose a $2,000 sanction against Lakes lawyers who were reviewing one of Thompsons earlier rulings

In that case, Chief Justice Robert Brutinel said there was absolutely no factual basis for her attorneys to claim in her appeal to them of lower court rulings that it was undisputed that 35,563 unaccounted-for ballots were added to the total in Maricopa County. And Brutinel said they repeated the same false assertions in subsequent legal filings.

Only thing is, he said, all that was not true. And Brutinel said it was unethical for lawyers to make such statements, meaning they had to be punished.

Lake is not done in her fight, vowing to appeal Thompsons latest ruling that she failed to prove her claim that the county wasnt properly verifying ballots.

Groundless legal challenge

In the race for secretary of state, Julian reached a different conclusion than Thompson on the merits of the case brought by Finchem. She found that his legal effort to overturn the election results was groundless and not brought in good faith.

In filing suit, Finchem, who had been a Republican state representative from Oro Valley, alleged a series of issues he said affected the outcome of the race he lost to Fontes. That included the malfunctioning of tabulators in Maricopa County on Election Day, which he said created delays for voters and concerns that some ballots may not have been counted.

But Julian, in an earlier ruling opening the door for Fontes to seek his fees and sanctions, said Finchem offered no tether between the machine malfunctions and the outcome of the election he challenged here, she wrote in the new order.

Then there was an affidavit from someone who Finchem called an expert who claimed that there were 80,000 potentially missing votes.

Yet, Finchem lost the election he challenged by 120,208 votes, the judge noted. The margin was so significant that even if it were assumed that 80,000 votes were missing and that those votes would all have been cast in his favor, the result of the election would not have changed.

In fact, Julian noted, Finchem withdrew his request to inspect ballots, suggesting he had no expectation that it would yield a favorable outcome.

This demonstrates that Finchem challenged his election loss despite knowing that his claims regarding misconduct and procedural irregularities were insufficient under the law to sustain the contest, the judge said.

Julian was no more impressed by Finchems argument that Hobbs interfered with the election with her request in January 2021 to remove a post that the secretary of state said provided incorrect information about voter rolls. He had said that Hobbs cajoled the Twitter people into censoring possibly as much as 50% of her constituency.

Twitter is not an election official, and its separate decision in October 2022 to temporarily suspend Finchems account is not a valid basis to challenge the outcome of an election, the judge said.

Moreover, even if it could be constructed as predicate misconduct for an election contest, Finchem does not explain how the effort to flag his Twitter account in January 2021 affected his election loss over 20 months later, Julian said.

Attorneys disinterest a missed deterrent

As to separate sanctions against McCauley, Julian noted that he admitted he decided to file the case after a number of experienced litigators declined to pursue it.

What that shows, she said, that he took the case after conceding that a more experienced litigator with a larger staff was needed to prosecute the action competently.

This should have been a deterrent, Julian wrote. At a minimum, concerns raised by other attorneys should have prompted further investigation into the contests validity.

And theres something else that got the judges attention. She said McCauley made comments during oral arguments that he expressed being less at risk of being disbarred as a result of the filing given his impending retirement.

This too supports sanctions as it demonstrates a conscious decision to pursue the matter despite appreciating that the contest had no legal merit, the judge said.

There was no immediate response from Finchem to the new order.

But Finchem, in a statement in March when Julian first opened the door to sanctions, based the ruling as contemptible judicial overreach beyond the authority of state law and court rules.
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Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney implored new college graduates to not compromise when it comes to the truth, excoriating her House Republican colleagues for not doing enough to combat former President Donald Trumps lies that the 2020 election was stolen.

In a commencement speech at Colorado College, the Wyoming Republican repeated her fierce criticisms of Trump but steered clear of talking about his 2024 reelection campaign or her own political future.

Cheney, who graduated from Colorado College in 1988, recalled being a political science student walking into a campus building where a Bible verse was inscribed above the entrance that read, Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

After the 2020 election and the attack of January 6th, my fellow Republicans wanted me to lie. They wanted me to say the 2020 election was stolen, the attack of January 6th wasnt a big deal, and Donald Trump wasnt dangerous," Cheney said Sunday in Colorado Springs, connecting her experiences as a student to her work in the U.S. House of Representatives. I had to choose between lying and losing my position in House leadership."

In three terms in office, Cheney rose to the No. 3 GOP leadership position in the House, a job she lost after voting to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol and then not relenting in her criticism of the former president.

Cheney's speech touched on themessimilar to those she has promoted since leaving office in January: addressing her work on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and standing up to the threat she believes Trump poses to democracy. She also encouraged more women to run for office and blasted one of the election-denying attorneys who worked for Trump after the 2020 election for recent remarks about college students voting.

 Cleta Mitchell, an election denier and adviser to former President Trump, told a gathering of Republicans recently that it is crucially important to make sure that college students dont vote," Cheney said. Those who are trying to unravel the foundations of our republic, who are threatening the rule of law and the sanctity of our elections, know they cant succeed if you vote.

In an audio recording of Mitchell's presentation from a recent Republican National Committee retreat, she warns of polling places on college campuses and the ease of voting as potential problems, the Washington Post reported.

Most students and parents in the audience applauded throughout Cheney's remarks, yet some booed. Some students opposing the choice of Cheney as speaker turned their chairs away from the stage as she spoke.

Cheney's busy speaking schedule and subject matter have fueled speculation about whether she may enter the 2024 GOP presidential primary since she left office. Candidates ranging from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley have calibrated their remarks about Trump, aiming to counter his attacks without alienating the supporters that won him the White House seven years ago.

Though some have offered measured criticisms, no declared or potential challenger has embraced anti-Trump messaging to the same extent as Cheney. She did not reference her plans on Sunday but has previously said she remains undecided about whether she wants to run for president.

Though she would face an uphill battle, Cheney's fierce anti-Trump stance and her role as vice chairwoman of the House committee elevated her platform high enough to call on a national network of donors and Trump critics to support a White House run.

A super PAC organized to support of her candidacy has remained active, including purchasing attack ads on New Hampshire airwaves against Trump this month.

After leaving office and being replaced by a Trump-backed Republican who defeated her in last year's primary, Cheney was appointed to a professorship at the University of Virginia and wrote "Oath and Honor, a memoir scheduled to hit shelves in November.

Two of Cheney's five children as well as her mother are also graduates of the liberal arts college.

Cheney's speaking tour appears to be picking up. She is scheduled to appear Thursday at the Mackinac Policy Conference in Michigan.

Metz reported from Salt Lake City.
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PETROS, Tenn. (AP)  When the whistle blew, everyone in Petros, Tennessee, knew it was lunchtime at Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary.

To the outside world, it was the place that housed James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King Jr.s assassin. To locals, it was a job anchor. Caanan Brock had an even deeper tie: Way before the prison was here, on my moms side of the family, they owned this land, he said.

The mines had already shut down when the state said it was inhumane to house people at Brushy Mountain. It seemed like Petros death knell.

Since the prison closed in 09 there wasnt nothing for us in Petros, said Brock, 28. After high school, he got a job as a chicken farmer.

But Pete Waddington, a Chattanooga bar owner, motorcycled by on the Devils Triangle. He looked at the empty building, costing taxpayers $300,000 a year, and saw what it could be. Another Alcatraz, a magnet for tourism. He opened in 2017.

Now Brock works at Brushy Mountain, like his grandfather. Not as a guard. As a master distiller. Which is also connected to his forebears, with one difference: Im the first legal moonshiner, he said.

On a gray morning, the clouds touched the tops of the alcove of trees around the prison. The loudest sound was the rush of a creek.

Wearing a Petros Fire Department hoodie, Brock pointed out where James Earl Ray escaped, over the lowest point of the wall, into Frozen Head State Park. The old prison firetruck stood a few hundred yards away. Until Brocks family started the volunteer company, it served the whole town.

The still stands in the prisons old boiler house. Its stainless steel, not picturesque copper, and spits liquor into a plastic bucket. Pretty much runs itself, Brock said. I got to monitor the steam and water and sit around watching it. Off-season, usually its just him and the stills.

They use spring water from Frozen Head State Park next door and donate money back. Brocks best friend takes the spent corn mash to feed his cattle.

The plain moonshine, sweet with corn, comes straight from Brocks still. For the strong, flavored moonshine, they add some purchased neutral spirits, distillery sales manager Matt Loesche said. For their Double Barrel whiskey, they source 6-year-old liquid and age it in Caribbean rum barrels for an additional 6 months.

Waddington masterminds the liquor lines and choices. He hired companies to develop the flavored moonshine recipes. Along with distilling, Brock adds the flavoring and sweetener, and works the bottling line. On heavy days, he calls in help from his mom and sometimes even visitors from the gift shop.

No Tennessee-style whiskey, at least not yet. We could do a charcoal filter, and we meet all the other requirements anyway, Waddington said. We just opted not to do that. He added, Were just trying to put out a quality product with quality ingredients, local water.

Besides, Waddington is a Makers Mark fan. Double Barrel has a very similar mash bill, he said. If it comes out close, Ill be happy.

Despite drawing 65,000 visitors last year, the new Brushy Mountain is a local business like the old. All the penitentiary tour guides live nearby, including some former guards and one former inmate. Brocks father did some carpentry. His mother leads the paranormal tours.

Indeed, there is some kitsch. Brocks unflavored moonshine is named Scared Straight. The websites bottle shop directory says Hook Em and Book Em.

But it is a stirring experience to walk down the narrow cellblocks with their peeling paint and dank smell, and to look at the nature murals a prisoner painted in the cafeteria. (They reached out to him to touch them up, Loesche said. He refused to return.)

The Brushy Mountain complex is expanding  an RV park, container homes to stay in, a second restaurant, a wastewater treatment plant. The distillery is, too. Six months ago, they put a batch of Brocks moonshine down to age.

Thats new to Brock, too. Hes seeing how it goes. Sit and wait a few years, he said.
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REVIEWS

"Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon" by Melissa L. Sevigny (W.W. Norton & Co.)

Long before climate change threatened the very existence of the Colorado River, two female botanists set off with a group of amateur boatmen to record the plants that lived along what was then the most dangerous river in the world.

In "Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon," science journalist Melissa L. Sevigny draws on the diaries of Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter to trace their 43-day sojourn in the summer of 1938.

The bookish Jotter, then 23, joined Clover, an old school but stylish scientist, who was 41. They were the only women on the small excursion to "botanize" the Grand Canyon. Well publicized by newspapermen who suggested the trip was inappropriate and dangerous for women, stories written at the time underscored how women were then viewed and diminished.

"Two Women to Risk Lives for Science in Colorado Canyon" was the headline on one story in the Minneapolis Tribune.

As women, Jotter and Clover were expected to cook all the food on the trip, for instance, and they seemed to do so without complaint.

Carried past sheer cliff s and along sometimes treacherous rapids, the trailblazing women risked their lives to record the flora of a little-known pocket of the American West just as it was starting to be transformed by people.

But once the trip began, they focused on the task of collecting and cataloguing all the plants they came across, from beavertail and hedgehog cacti to Thompson's wooly locoweed, a low creeping plant with fuzzy pink seed pods on purplish stems.

There was also Rocky Mountain juniper and Mormon tea, a shrub of bluish green stalks sprouting tiny cones at its joints. And, of course, there was plenty of Russian thistle, better known as tumbleweed, which was accidentally introduced from Russia in the 1870s in bushels of flaxseed and went on to become an iconic symbol of the American west.

Every night, the women pressed the plants between pages of newspaper, slicing the cacti in half and scooping out the pulp first.

Along the way, there was heat, hunger and fatigue, along with "mosquitoes the size of dinner plates," wrote Sevigny. They got blisters on hands and feet, and cuts and bruises everywhere on their bodies.

And there was real danger, starting with the stomach-churching Mile-Long Rapid, which had ended several expeditions before theirs.

Now a reporter for Arizona Public Radio, Sevigny grew up in Tucson, where she fell in love with the Sonoran Desert landscape and ecology. The natural world is also the focus of her earlier books, "Mythical River" (University of Iowa Press, 2016); and "Under Desert Skies" (University of Arizona Press, 2016).

"Brave the River" also highlights the little-known contributions two women made to our knowledge about the Southwest ecology. And it pays homage to a pair of scientists far ahead of their time.
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Tulsa Ballet has for the first time promoted three members of the company to the status of principal dancer for the upcoming 2023-2024 season.

Jaimi Cullen, Nao Ota and Jun Masuda, all of whom performed principal roles during the 2022-2023 season, began their careers in Tulsa as members of TBII, Tulsa Ballets second company.

Promoting one dancer to the rank of principal is a major event for our organization, said artistic director Marcello Angelini. And promoting Jaimi, Jun and Nao Ota to the lead positions in the company is a unique milestone for Tulsa Ballet because, for the first time in our history, we have three principal dancers coming directly from our second company.

Cullen joined Tulsa Ballets TBII in 2011 and the main company a year later in 2012. Born in Rochester, New York, Cullen studied at Draper Center for Dance Education and Ellison Ballet Professional Training Program before joining Tulsa Ballet II.

Jaimi has always had a flair for the dramatic, for roles that require a commanding personality, a delicate vulnerability and a marked sensuality, Angelini said. We have seen her grow from being a tentative swan in the corps de ballet to maturing into a commanding presence in her role of Rosalia in Vendetta, a Mafia Story (and) in the title role of Kenneth Tindalls Carmen.

Ota joined TBII in 2017. She was promoted to apprentice in 2018, to the corps de ballet in 2019 and soloist in 2022.

Whether she dances the title role of sensual Carmen, or the role of kindhearted Cinderella, she will own that character, Angelini said. Additionally, she is gifted with a tremendous technique, which allows her to dance every leading role in the classical repertory with extreme competence. Lastly, her natural movement quality enables her to excel in contemporary works, and her charisma on stage draws the eye of every audience member to her dancing.

Masuda spent one season with TBII, during which time he performed a lead role in Dorothy and the Prince of Oz. He joined the main company in 2020 and was promoted to soloist in 2021.

Jun is a natural talent. He can dance any and every classical leading role with panache and sensitivity, Angelini said. He is gifted with stunning movement quality, which allows him to excel in contemporary works. He is also an excellent partner and has enough charisma to light up the stage from the moment he walks on it.

Cullen, Ota and Masuda will join Arman Zazyan as principals.

In addition, Tulsa Ballet has hired a new soloist, Aubin Le Marchand. I am delighted to bring Aubin Le Marchand to Tulsa, Angelini said. Aubin is a beautiful dancer  tall, versatile and endowed with an impeccable classical ballet technique. He is a product of the Paris Opera Ballet School, and I am eager to see him dance on the Tulsa stage!

Other promotions for the 2023-2024 season are Aina Oki, promoted from Demi-Soloist to Soloist, and Yuki Toda and Michael Paradiso, promoted from Corps de Ballet to Demi-Soloists.

Five TBII dancers have been promoted from apprentice status to the main company: Jonathan Teague Applegate, Alison Cervantes, Talisson Farias, Maria Rita Rapisarda and Ian Stocker.

Also, trainee Morgan Davis has been promoted to TBII, and the following dancers have been added to the roster: Shi Jean Kim, Polina Chepyk, Yui Hakamada, Jenna Potvin, Sophie Mossa, Sophie Poulain, Senna Dewulf, Zoe Ferla, Haruka Tanabe, Michael Stadtherr and Chase Marcot.

World Stage presents Some Girl(s)

The guy known only as Guy is not very different from a great many guys  even though hes days away from getting married, his fear of commitment and his roving eye bear him ceaselessly back into his amatory past, as he wonders if maybe his bride-to-be isnt the perfect girl for him.

Neil LaBute has made something of a career exploring the various forms in which toxic masculinity can present itself, and the rage it can engender in the women at whom it is directed, with plays and films such as In the Company of Men, Reasons to be Pretty and Bash (Latter Day Plays).

Some Girl(s), which World Stage Theatre Company is presenting, traces Guys journey back through his life, in a series of encounters with four women from his past, from a high school sweetheart to a casual fling.

Directed by Kelli McLoud-Schingen, Some Girl(s) stars Bryson Pahukoa as Guy, Dara Allen-Lawrence as Sam, Nicole Billups as Reggie and Stephanie Choate as Bobbi. Karlena Riggs and Kathleen Hope will play Lindsay at various performances, while Kimberly Martin and Alyssa Brown will share the role of Tyler.

Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday, June 1-2 and Friday, June 9; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, June 3 and 10; 2 p.m. Sunday, June 4 and 11, at the Tulsa PAC, 110 E. Second St.

Tickets are $15-$25. 918-596-7111, tulsapac.com

Dil Se

The South Asian Performing Arts Foundation will present Dil Se: Songs of A.R. Rahman, which documents Rahmans 30-year career as a composer of film scores.

Rahman is best known to Western audiences for his Academy Award-winning score to the film Slumdog Millionaire, which also included the Oscar-winning song Jai Ho, but his work as a musician and philanthropist have earned him recognition outside the film world, including being named one of Time magazines 100 Most Influential People in 2009.

Dil Se will be presented at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 3, at the Tulsa PAC. Tickets are $25-$40. 918-596-7111, tulsapac.com.

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Its not the days in life we remember; rather the moments, said Limestone Technology Academy Principal Terri Lee. The quote fits retiring special education teacher Vickie Harbaugh perfectly, she said.

The hundreds, even thousands, of students she has impacted  I just cant even put a number on that, Lee said last Tuesday.

She can get close, though.

In 44 years of teaching roughly 100 students a year, Harbough has taught  and shepherded, mentored and loved  around 4,000 youngsters and sent them on their way toward a future that was no doubt brighter thanks to her guidance.

Thats just in the classroom.

Harbaugh has spent those same 44 years  hundreds and hundreds of days  on hot, dusty softball fields as a volunteer for Special Olympics Oklahoma encouraging her charges to strive for just one more base, one more hit.

But its the moment she remembers.

When I was in the third grade, my Girl Scout troop toured Hissom, and I knew right then thats what I wanted to do, Harbaugh said last week. I told my mom I was going to be a special education teacher, and thats what I did.

In 1979, before most of her current students parents were born, Harbaugh began teaching at Hissom Memorial Center, then a 15-year-old residential diagnostic, treatment, rehabilitation and training facility for children with developmental disabilities. That same year, she began volunteering for Special Olympics.

Because Hissom was in Sand Springs, its teachers were employees of Sand Springs Public Schools. When the facility began shutting down in 1990, Harbaugh transferred to Angus Valley Elementary School for three years and then moved to Limestone, where shes been ever since.

Although education generally and special education specifically have evolved in the past 44 years, Harbaugh has a ready answer to the question of what has been the greatest change.

Inclusion, she said, noting that most of her students spend a large portion of their days in general education classrooms instead of self-contained special education classrooms. And thats good, because it gives them socialization and teaches them about social interaction.

That same interaction benefits all students, regardless of whether they have disabilities or not, Harbaugh said.

But its also hard work for these kids to be in general education all day, every day, she said, so she promotes her classroom as a safe space. I have an open-door policy. They can come here anytime they want to or need to.

If Harbaugh could change one thing, it would be state-mandated testing, which demands achievements from her students that they might perhaps never reach.

They really stress about it, she said. When testing time gets close, they start saying, Oh, Im not going to pass. Im not going to get to go to third grade.

But I see progress all the time, she said.

Lee, Limestones principal, said Harbaugh has taught all of us that all students can learn. They may not all be at the same level, but progress is progress.

Limestone STEAM Lab teacher Barbie Jackson, who has worked with Harbaugh for 20 years, said Harbaugh is always the first to offer to help others  students or colleagues. Her unconditional love for all students is inspiring.

Carrie Schlehuber, who is Sand Springs Public Schools director of special education, began working with Harbaugh through Special Olympics about 15 years ago when Schlehuber was a teacher.

She credits Harbaugh with helping to create and continue a culture of inclusion.

She has been such a role model and mentor in terms of how simple it is to include everyone, Schlehuber said. Vickie really opened the door for hundreds and hundreds of Special Olympics students and general education students in Sand Springs to learn how to play together and go to school together and work together.

As Harbaugh sees it, the beauty is in the program.

Special Olympics has just been a lifesaver for these kids, giving them ways to shine and see success, she said.

Many times, when they run those bases, their parents havent seen them do that before.

So they cry. Their parents cry. We all cry.

The Special Olympics Oklahoma Summer Games held May 17-19 in Stillwater were Harbaughs last as a Sand Springs educator, although she said she hopes to continue to volunteer in some fashion.

But as her teaching days come to a close, Harbaugh has again been wiping away her share of tears.

Im going to miss my kids. Im really going to miss my kids, she said. I love my job. I love everyone here at Limestone. We have a really good group, and we all love on the kids really well.

But Im going to miss my kids.

Even if Harbaugh  whos going to be helping to care for her new grandson  isnt always present, though, her legacy will be.

I look at former students now who still have relationships with their (Special Olympics) peers today because of the opportunity that Vickie gave them through Special Olympics, Schlehuber said, noting that many of those former students are now doctors, nurses, firefighters and even special education teachers themselves.

So many people found their niche in a helping field because of the opportunity she gave them to take part in Special Olympics, she said. Vickie is the gold standard for what we should all strive to be.
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Summertime and the readings easy: Registration for the Tulsa City-County Librarys Summer Reading Program opens Thursday at all 24 library branches.

Program details are available online at tulsalibrary.org/summer.

Summer school: Enrollment closes at 3 p.m. Friday for the June session of Broken Arrow High Schools summer school.

Students in grades 9-12 may take up to two classes per session for credit recovery or one per session for credit advancement.

The session runs June 8-29, and all courses will be online through Edmentum.

Registration for the July session closes June 29.

Get out a No. 2 pencil: The Muscogee Nations Accessing Choices in Education program is hosting a free ACT preparation workshop from 9 a.m. to noon June 16 at Green Country Technology Centers Okmulgee campus. The workshop is open to all Indigenous students in grades 8-12 who live in and attend school within the Muscogee Nation reservation.

Registration is available online at mcnaceservices.com.

Emergency certification: The Oklahoma State Board of Education, as part of the consent docket at Thursdays meeting, approved 20 emergency teaching certification requests. Since the start of the fiscal year, the board has approved 4,124 emergency teaching certificates.

Stay home day: Due to Memorial Day, classes are not in session Monday for Collegiate Hall, Jenks, Tulsa Honor Academy or the Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences.

Final bell: Wednesday is the last day of classes for the Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences.

Thursday is the last day of classes for Jenks and Tulsa Honor Academy.

Friday is the last day of classes for Collegiate Hall.

Commencement calendar: Tulsa Honor Academy graduation ceremonies are scheduled for Tuesday.

Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences commencement exercises are Saturday.

School board schedule: The board of education for Woodland Public Schools in Osage County has a special meeting scheduled Tuesday to vote on accepting the resignation of Superintendent Chad Wilson, who was announced Wednesday as the new superintendent of Perry Public Schools.

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Related Content Opinion: Focusing grief to prevent another shooting and loss of innocent lives

Quiet and mostly empty just minutes earlier, the hallways of Saint Francis Hospitals Trauma Emergency Center had come suddenly to life.

And with every passing moment, more people seemed to arrive.

They wanted to be there for the victims and for their colleagues, said Dr. Ryan Parker, who, on June 1, 2022, was among the staff members who felt compelled to go to the ER in the wake of a mass shooting on the hospital campus.

They came from everywhere  our respiratory therapists, radiology techs, everyone, she added. We were on lockdown, and we didnt know how extensive the threat was, but before the streets got blocked off they managed to get back  just to say, Im here.

One year later, Parker, the hospitals associate chief medical officer, recalls the scene at the emergency center as the first example of how staff would face the rest of that day and the days to follow: together as a team.

And thats also how they will mark the first anniversary of the tragedy. On Thursday, Saint Francis officials will host city leaders and first responders at the hospital to reflect on the events of one year ago and honor those who died.

Among the four victims were three of the hospitals own: Dr. Preston Phillips, 59; Dr. Stephanie Husen, 48; and Amanda Glenn, 40, of Sand Springs, a receptionist in Phillips office. William Love, 73, of Mannford, whose wife was a patient, also was killed.

The four were fatally shot in the Natalie Building by a patient of Phillips who blamed the surgeon for his continuing pain after a recent back surgery.

Twelve months later, Saint Francis officials say they are still healing from the loss of their colleagues.

I dont know that well ever go back to life before June 1, said Dr. Cliff Robertson, Saint Francis president and CEO. I think our organization is learning to adapt and handle the memories and the impact that they had. Im not sure you ever fully heal.

Flashbacks ensue every time news breaks of another shooting somewhere, he said.

What healing has happened, though, has been greatly aided by the Tulsa community, Robertson said. And so, at the one-year mark, its a good time to remember those lost and to say thank you again to supporters, he said.

It was almost overwhelming, but in a great way, how much the community reached out  how we felt surrounded, not only in prayer, but physically surrounded by our community, Robertson said. And I think that went a long way to helping our caregivers, all of our staff, really, get through that trauma.

Robertson said he also takes heart recalling the first responders.

Then and now, I just get this overwhelming feeling of thankfulness that we live in a community where there are people that are willing to run right into the middle of some terrible situation, he said.

For Parker, June 1, 2022, was her first day in her new position of associate chief medical officer.

When the day took its unimaginable turn, she fell back on what she knew best.

I immediately was just like, I need to be in the ER, said Parker, an emergency room physician by training.

Obviously our trauma team and the department team were well-equipped to do what they needed to do, she said, but she could at least play a supporting role.

The images from the ER of everybody getting geared up and lining the hallways to wait for the victims have stayed with her, she said. But at the time, she couldnt help thinking of recent headlines.

It happened in Buffalo. It happened in Uvalde, she said. I wasnt expecting it to happen here on our campus. It was just instantaneous. Tulsa is not immune.

Having personally experienced a violent attack with multiple casualties makes Saint Francis officials only that much more committed to a process theyd already begun.

Before the events of June 1, the hospital had started a three-year process of becoming the areas only Level I Trauma Center. An American Trauma Society-verified rating, it means the hospital will provide the highest level of trauma care and have the resources and staff to maintain that level.

Parker believes that the events of June 1 have further motivated the hospital and the entire health system to accomplish that goal.

It reiterated to me why us coming every day to do our best work is so important to the community and to our patients, she said.

A year removed from the health systems darkest day, the Saint Francis community still has a lot of healing to do, Parker said.

I think every experience that we go through, you embody that experience, good and bad. You wear the good moments and the scars equally, she said. And thats OK.

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How Johnny Reese would have felt about receiving the Medal of Honor is impossible to know.

Just minutes after performing the actions for which hed be nominated for it, the 21-year-old was cut down by enemy fire.

But in the case of another posthumous honor  this one coming in the community he thought of as his hometown  its hard not to imagine that Reese wouldve been deeply touched.

In 1959, 14 years after Reeses death in World War II, Tulsa residents came together at the state fairgrounds to dedicate an Army Reserve facility at the site in his name.

On hand were his parents and other relatives, along with Tulsas mayor and members of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, who were responsible for proposing Reeses name for the facility.

The gesture, as it was stated at the time, was intended to perpetuate Reeses memory.

But today, over 60 years later, while its certainly perpetuated within his family, its fair to say that Tulsa has largely forgotten about Reese.

I first became aware of Reese, a Cherokee Nation member and Central High School graduate, just recently, and I couldnt help wondering why hes not more heralded here.

Recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nations highest military award, are few and far between.

In fact, officially, Tulsa is credited with only one, Albert Schwab, who also was killed in WWII.

Schwab has been recognized in multiple ways in his hometown, including with a statue at the airport.

While Reese is officially connected to Muskogee, where he was born and lived his early life, he lived longer in Tulsa, and his family believes thats where he wouldve wanted to be remembered.

Tulsa was home for him, John Watkins, Reeses great nephew, told me recently.

Watkins, who lives in Sand Springs, was too young to have known Reese personally.

But there were always pictures of Uncle Johnny around, and his stuff (was) at my mothers and my grandmothers, he said. It wasnt something that was swept under the rug. We knew about him, knew his story, and he was remembered in the family.

Except for Reeses Medal of Honor, which is with the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame, his military memorabilia and other items are now in Watkins keeping.

And thats not all Reese left behind. Watkins has something of his uncles thats more personal in nature.

I was named after him, he said.

Makes me cry

Part of the reason Reese seems to have faded from local memory is that the armory  officially the John N. Reese Jr. Army Reserve Center  eventually ceased to exist as such.

In 1998, operations were moved to the new Sand Springs center, and the facility, like many older armories around the state, was converted for other purposes.

Not helping matters, a plaque and photo recognizing Reese that were placed there at the dedication have disappeared.

The family is hopeful that the items can be found and returned, or, better still, given a new home someplace where they can fulfill their original purpose of keeping Reeses memory alive.

Frances Rothhammer, a cousin of Reeses from Broken Arrow, has taken the lead in advocating for him.

It makes me cry every time I tell his story  every time I talk to each person and tell them what Im doing, she said.

Johnny was almost the exact same age as my dad, Rothhammer added. My dad lived to be 91, and it just makes me think of everything Johnny missed out on, (such as) the children he never had.

Reese, who is in the states Military Hall of Fame and the Central High School Hall of Fame, is buried at Fort Gibson National Cemetery.

The family moved to Tulsa in 1931, and he attended third grade through high school here, graduating in 1941.

During WWII, Reese was sent to the Pacific as a member of the Armys 148th Infantry Regiment, 37th Infantry Division.

On Feb. 9, 1945, during the fight to liberate the Philippines, Reeses platoon was crossing an open field in front of a railroad station in Manila when it came under intense gunfire from about 300 Japanese defenders.

Despite not being ordered to do so, Reese and Pvt. Cleto L. Rodriguez went on ahead, took a position closer to the station, and began firing away.

Over the next two-plus hours, between the two of them, they killed more than 80 enemy troops.

According to Reeses medal citation: With their ammunition running low, the two men started to return to the American lines, alternately providing covering fire for each other as they withdrew.

It was during their attempted withdrawal, as he paused to reload his rifle, that Reese was hit by enemy fire.

He died in his companions arms.

Rodriguez made it back safely to the lines. Like Reese, he would be awarded the Medal of Honor.

Years later, Rodriguez attended and spoke at the armory dedication in Tulsa, paying tribute to his fallen comrade.

Rothhammer said the last thing she wants to do is steal any limelight from Albert Schwab.

As a hometown hero in Tulsa, he deserves what he has and what theyve done for him, she said.

But she would love it if the community would make room for Reese, too, and ensure that his name is not forgotten.

In the meantime, Watkins, as Reeses namesake, will continue to serve as a kind of living memorial.

I guess Im all thats left, he said.

Watkins, who keeps a replica of Reeses Medal of Honor and other decorations in a shadow box, believes that his uncle deserves to be recognized in Tulsa alongside Schwab.

Theres no way to know how many would live because of what Johnny did, what families were able to prosper, he said.

He acted for the good of America. Without hesitation. Thats what (that generation was) made of. They just did it because it needed to be done.



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The Memorial Day weekend began with multiple traumatic experiences that resulted in two deaths and injuries to seven other people on or near Grand Lake and Lake Hudson on Friday and Saturday, the Grand River Dam Authority reported Saturday night.

A boat exploded near the Check-in Bay area of Grand Lake around 8 p.m. Saturday, sending five people to Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, the GRDA said.

Earlier in the day, an 87-year-old Kansas man died in the Honey Creek arm of Grand Lake after he fell into the water while trying to step from a boat onto a dock. Officers recovered his body shortly before 2 p.m., GRDA officials reported.

His name has not been released.

Officers also reported that a Missouri man died after an ATV accident that occurred in the off-road area below Grand Lake's Pensacola Dam on Friday evening.

Eric Petersen, 54, was riding the ATV up a hill when it overturned. Officers said he was not wearing a helmet.

On Lake Hudson, a single boat crash Saturday evening sent two women to a hospital with injuries.

GRDA police are stressing boating safety and are encouraging people to wear life jackets while boating.

"Due to these incidents and the increased activity over the holiday weekend, the GRDA Police continue to stress boating safe, smart, and sober," the agency said in a press release.

"All visitors to the water are encouraged to wear their life jacket while boating, and use common sense on the water, while watching out for other boaters. In the off-road area, GRDA also continues to stress safety, including always wearing a helmet."

Anyone who has an emergency on the water should call 911. The GRDA Police Department's nonemergency number is 918-256-0911.

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Minister for Trade Ahn Duk-geun, seventh from left, poses with participants of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity ministerial meeting in Detroit, Saturday (local time). Courtesy of Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy



IPEF nations agree to strengthen supply chain



By Park Jae-hyuk



Korea took a cautious stance once again between the U.S. and China during a series of trade ministerial meetings in Detroit last weekend, in an apparent attempt to avoid provoking either country amid the intensifying chip war between the world's two largest economies.



Following the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministers' meeting from Thursday to Friday, the Korean government issued a press release which does not mention its semiconductor industry cooperation with China. This release came after the Chinese government claimed that the two countries' trade ministers discussed this issue during their meeting.



"Minister for Trade Ahn Duk-geun met with China's Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and discussed ways to boost the two countries' economic cooperation based on mutual respect," the trade ministry said in its press release. "Ahn asked China to support peaceful trade and stabilize the supply of core raw materials and components. He also asked for China's cooperation to create a predictable business environment for Korean companies investing in China."



Although the Chinese commerce ministry claimed that the ministers agreed to enhance talks and cooperation in the semiconductor sector, a Korean trade ministry official said that China had only mentioned the necessity of such cooperation, without reaching an agreement with Korea.



Industry officials interpret Beijing's unilateral announcement as part of its efforts to attract the Korean chipmakers, amid China's conflict with the U.S. over semiconductor supply chains.



Last Tuesday, the Korean government also denied a report that it gave the green light to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix to fill the void left by China's ban on U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology, in the situation where U.S. Congress is urging Korea not to take advantage of the situation.



U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo also renewed criticism at China, saying that the U.S. "won't tolerate" the ban and that the country is working closely with allies including Korea to address such "economic coercion." She made the remarks after Saturday's ministerial meeting of the members of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) in Detroit.



The U.S.-led IPEF is basically aimed at containing the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).



Following Saturday's ministerial meeting, the framework's 14 members including Korea announced the substantial conclusion of the negotiations on a first-of-its-kind international IPEF Supply Chain Agreement.



They agreed to improve crisis coordination and response to supply chain disruptions and work together to support the timely delivery of affected goods during a crisis. They also decided to establish the Supply Chain Council to facilitate cooperation among the IPEF partners on supply chain issues.



However, the agreement by the IPEF members, most of which rely heavily on trade with China, did not include terms such as "decoupling" or "derisking," which could provoke China. The Korean government also emphasized the agreement does not include elements that could draw a backlash from China.



"China is the No. 1 trade partner for 10 out of the 14 IPEF nations," a trade ministry official told reporters. "Korea and China are important trade and investment partners for each other, so we will continue to maintain close ties with China."


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Memorials. Remembrances. Commemorations. Tributes.

All these words I've used lately to describe the constant state of mourning our country faces. In the past week, Texans  and many Americans  stopped to recall the Uvalde elementary school massacre from a year earlier. The week before recognized the one-year mark of when a white supremacist took the lives of 10 people at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket.

On Thursday, Tulsans will pause to recognize the year's passing of the mass shooting at a Saint Francis building that killed Dr. Preston Phillips, Dr. Stephanie Husen, Amanda Glenn, William Love and the shooter.

Candles will be lit. Speeches made. Poems read. Hymns sung. Moments of silence had.

It will be a day filled with tears, hugs and sadness. Yet themes of hope, healing and moving forward will emerge.

For many, these moments are a celebration of the lives of those who died too soon, bringing comfort to family and friends who loved them.

People will avoid talk of politics. But there will be an undercurrent of frustration, spoken in hushed voices and whispers, about these continued deaths from gun violence.

Families of victims will handle these days in various ways, from being visible to insisting on privacy. There is no rule book on how to handle the weight of that type of public death  and grief.

This is a unique trauma inflicted upon thousands of Americans  the survivors and families  each year.

Next week will bring more such observances.

Last year during a 72-hour span during Memorial Day weekend, 300 shooting incidents occurred across the U.S. that ended with more than 130 people murdered, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That includes a mass shooting in Taft where a gunman killed one person and injured seven on May 29.

Memorial Day is meant to be a solemn holiday of reflection and gratitude for the American military personnel who lost their lives while in service. It originated after the Civil War as Decoration Day during a time when flowers were in full bloom.

For such a day to turn violent is an offense to the military troops who fought for Americans to live in peace. But we must always work and battle for that peace, sometimes challenging traditions and the status quo.

That push and pull of public discussion is as American as it gets. We get better through the struggle to make our country stronger for everyone.

For a few weeks after the Saint Francis shooting, I was told it was not the time to talk about ways to make the community safer from gun violence, noting that the shooter bought an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle just hours before the tragedy.

When is it time? Every week brings another mass shooting. Every week flags are moved to half staff. Every week prayers are said for more victims.

The U.S. reached a point three years ago that the No. 1 cause of death among youth is gun violence, surpassing car accidents. A little more than half of all gun deaths are due to suicide, indicating a lack of needed health care treatment among a growing number of Americans.

Death anniversaries are among the hardest emotional and psychological moments to bear. Every person must find a way to ease the pain and find a foothold to live with the loss.

It's OK to talk about gun safety during this moment. It's also necessary. We have the capacity to feel big emotions while searching for solutions.

During the past year, several people have shown bravery in speaking about possible gun safety ideas, measured in baby steps, not large changes.

Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin suggested faster federal government background checks, mandating serial numbers on ghost guns and creating equal requirements on individual gun sellers and licensed firearms dealers. He encouraged people to be safer about storing firearms, saying every day the Tulsa Police Department gets calls about guns stolen from cars.

The family of Dr. Husen backs the Wear Orange Weekend (June 2-4) for National Gun Violence Awareness. It's a movement about becoming knowledgeable.

The Saint Francis tragedy was among 646 mass shootings last year, defined as shootings that kill or injure at least four people. As of Thursday, there have been 241 so far this year.

Add those to the memorials, remembrances, commemorations and tributes for next year.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP)  Russias southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine came under attack Friday from Ukrainian artillery fire, mortar shells and drones, authorities said, hours after two drones struck a Russian city in an area next to the annexed Crimea Peninsula.

Moscows forces, meanwhile, struck a building containing psychology and veterinary clinics in the city of Dnipro, in central Ukraine, killing two people and wounding 30, including two children, Ukrainian officials said.

Video released by regional Gov. Serhiy Lysak showed fire engulfing the three-story building that appeared almost destroyed, with only parts of a wall standing, as firefighters battled the flames.

A Russian S-300 missile hit a dam in the Karlivka district of Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine, threatening nearby settlements with flooding.

The town of Graivoron in Russia's Belgorod region, about 7 kilometers (more than 4 miles) from the Ukrainian border, came under fire for several hours, damaging four houses, a store, a car, a gas pipeline and a power line, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported.

Closer to the frontier, a recreation center, a shop and an empty house were damaged in the village of Glotovo. One woman was wounded when nearby Novaya Tavolzhanka was shelled, Gladkov said.

Earlier this week, the Belgorod region was the target of one of the most serious cross-border attacks from Ukraine since the war began 15 months ago. Details of the raid were murky. Russia blamed the Ukrainian armed forces, but two Russian groups said they were involved, with the aim of bringing down Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Officials in Russias southern city of Krasnodar, in the region of the same name bordering Crimea, said two drones struck there. Witnesses told local media they heard something like the sound of a moped and then two explosions.

The blasts smashed a hole in the roof of one building and blew out windows in an apartment building.

We just went to bed and then there was such a strong, terrible boom, said resident Tatiana Safonova. We ran outside. There were people running, but nothing else was going on.

She said described the sound beforehand like a growling, noisy moped driving by.

Krasnodar regional Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram that there were no casualties and that some buildings were damaged but essential infrastructure was unharmed.

Krasnodar Mayor Yevgeny Naumov said a residential building and an office building were damaged.

Drone attacks against Russian border regions have been a regular occurrence since the start of the invasion in February 2022, with attacks increasing last month. Earlier this month, an oil refinery in Krasnodar was attacked by drones on two straight days.

At a meeting in Estonia, German and Baltic leaders played down concerns about fighting spilling over into Russia.

Russia attacked Ukraine, and so Ukraine can defend itself, said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. "It is clear that the weapons we have delivered will only be used on Ukrainian territory.

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas noted that Ukraine does not have any wish to invade Russia," and Lithuanian Prime Minster Ingrida Simonyte added: "Im somewhat puzzled by the worry of Russia, because Russia is at war - so its quite strange to think that the war can only be in that other territory that you invaded.

Ukraines Defense Ministry on Thursday published video that appeared to show a marine drone heading for Russias Ivan Khurs reconnaissance ship in the Black Sea. The video didn't show the drone hitting the ship.

The video followed reports by Russias Defense Ministry on Wednesday that Ukraine had launched an unsuccessful attack on the Ivan Khurs using three unmanned speedboats, with all three destroyed prior to reaching the ship. Moscow released video allegedly showing the destruction of one of the marine drones.

At least two civilians were killed and three others wounded in Russian attacks on Ukraine in the previous 24 hours, the Ukrainian presidents office reported Friday.

Late Friday, officials in the Russian-held sector of Donetsk reported two missile strikes on the city of Mariupol, where a monthslong siege early in the war left much of the city in ruins.

Russia's state news agency Tass cited an unnamed official as saying the missiles were long-range Storm Shadows, which the United Kingdom delivered to Ukraine this month.

In Moscow, Chinas special envoy Li Hui met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and they exchanged opinions on the situation around Ukraine and prospects for resolving the conflict, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Lavrov cited serious obstacles to the resumption of peace talks created by the Ukrainian side and its Western handlers, the statement said, but it did not disclose what Li said or proposed.

Li visited Kyiv earlier this month. Chinese leader Xi Jinpings government says its neutral and wants to serve as mediator in the conflict, but has supported Moscow politically. Beijing released a proposed peace plan in February, but Ukraines allies largely dismissed it, insisting that Russian President Vladimir Putin must first withdraw his forces.

Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, and Elise Morton in London, contributed.
The proportion of Vietnams farm produce meeting international standards for export is a mere 20 percent, Ha Thuy Hanh, deputy head of the National Agriculture Extension Center cited statistics from local trade associations as saying at an agricultural promotion event in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday.

Many traders and wholesalers participating in the 'Introducing clean farm produce to wholesale channels' program felt a thirst for clean and green farming products.

Visiting a booth showcasing agricultural products, Dinh Cao Tung, a trader at Thu Duc Wholesale Market, said that many foreign partners had contacted him to order Vietnams sought-after agricultural products, but he refused to receive such orders due to his concerns over the quantity and quality of products.

Organic vegetables are being cultivated on a small scale in Vietnam, while the requirements on import quality and quantity set by foreign exporters are stringent, Tung said.

Trang Nhu, a local exporter, said that many farmers had pledged organic cultivation, but their products had yet to meet international green standards.

Although export plays a key role in the countrys economic growth, there is a crying need for ensuring clean food in the domestic market, said Hanh from the National Agriculture Extension Center.

It is necessary to improve the quality and value of Vietnamese farm produce to serve the local market first. Food safety should be taken into account," she added.

We should think how to impress travelers to Ho Chi Minh City with not only tasty dishes but also the high quality of food and farm produce."

As for the determination to bring the sheer volume of farm produce to the global market, cultivators should pay attention to carbon offsets, environmental protection, legal and strong workforces, as well as quality and output indexes, according to Hanh.

Le Duy Minh, chairman of the Vietnam Farms and Agricultural Enterprises Association (VFAEA), said that Vietnamese farm produce is abundant. The country is home to more than 1,500 agricultural products.

Before boosting farm produce exports, agricultural manufacturers and exporters should conquer the domestic market to back the sustainable agriculture development, he stressed.

Multiple local wholesalers, traders, and exporters joined the program, held by VFAEA, to source clean and high-quality farming products.

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A vessel operated by the charity Doctors without Borders (MSF) rescued nearly 600 migrants sailing on an overcrowded boat which was in distress off the island of Sicily on Saturday, the group said on Twitter.

"After three hours of operation, the 599 survivors, including women and children, are now safely aboard ... and being cared for by the medical team," MSF tweeted, saying its vessel the Geo Barents had been conducting training activities when it was called in to undertake the rescue.

The migrants will be disembarked in the southern port of Bari, as assigned by the Italian authorities, MSF said, adding it would take around 40 hours to reach the port.

A migrant disembarks the Geo Barents rescue ship, operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), in Bari, Italy March 26, 2023. Photo: Reuters

Charities have criticised the Italian administration of Giorgia Meloni, which takes a tough stance against illegal immigration, saying it often assigns ports too far away from the areas where rescues take place.

More than 47,000 migrant landings have been recorded in Italy so far this year, up from around 18,000 in the same period of 2022, interior ministry data show.
SAQQARA, Egypt - Egypt unearthed human and animal mummification workshops as well as two tombs in the ancient burial ground of Saqqara, officials said on Saturday, marking the latest in a string of discoveries that the country hopes can help revive its vital tourism industry.

Mostafa Waziri, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters that the two large "embalming workshops" date back to the 30th dynasty (380-343 BC) and the Ptolemaic (305-30 BC) eras.

Reflections of people are seen on the unearthed ancient artefacts displayed after a conference to announce the newly discovered site where two embalming workshops for humans and animals along with two tombs and a collection of artefacts were found, near Egypt's Saqqara necropolis, in Giza, Egypt May 27, 2023. Photo: Reuters

The discovery was made after a year-long excavation near the sanctuary of the goddess Bastet, which is home to the catacombs of mummified cats in Saqqara, some 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) south of Cairo.

It was the same spot where hundreds of mummified animals and statues were uncovered in 2019.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities talks to the media and holds a tool that was found next to an embalming workshop site for humans at the newly discovered site where embalming workshops for humans and animals along with two tombs and a collection of artefacts were also found, near Egypt's Saqqara necropolis, in Giza, Egypt May 27, 2023. Photo: Reuters

"We found embalming workshops, one for humans and one for animals. We found all the tools that they used (in mummification) in ancient times," Waziri said.

Both workshops featured stone beds, clay pots, ritual vessels, natron salt, which is one of the main ingredients for mummification, and linens among other mummification instruments.

The Saqqara excavations also led to the unearthing of two small 4,400 and 3,400-year-old tombs nearby, belonging to two priests, Ne Hesut Ba of the Old Kingdom's fifth dynasty and Men Kheber of the late kingdom's 18th dynasty respectively.

Inscriptions of cultivation, hunting and other daily activities were found on the walls of Ne Hesut Ba's tomb while "scenes showing the deceased in different positions" were engraved in Men Kheber's tomb, officials said.

Egypt has carried out extensive digging operations in Saqqara and other ancient locations in recent years, which resulted in a number of high-profile discoveries.

The country plans to inaugurate the Grand Egyptian Museum, a state-of-the-art facility near the Giza Pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo, after construction is completed later this year.

Egypt hopes it can further lure back tourists after the industry started to rebound of late, having been battered by the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine.

Tourism revenues climbed to $7.3 billion in the second half of 2022, a 25.7-percent increase compared with the same period a year earlier, according to recently released central bank data.

A view of the embalming workshop site for animals at the newly discovered site where two embalming workshops for humans and animals along with two tombs and a collection of artefacts were found, near Egypt's Saqqara necropolis, in Giza, Egypt May 27, 2023. Photo: Reuters

The unearthed ancient artefacts are displayed after a conference to announce the newly discovered site where two embalming workshops for humans and animals along with two tombs and a collection of artefacts were found, near Egypt's Saqqara necropolis, in Giza, Egypt May 27, 2023. Photo: Reuters

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TAOS - Two people were killed and six wounded in a shootout during a motorcycle rally in Red River, northern New Mexico, on Saturday, state police said.

Bikers began shooting at one another on the main street of the mountain town about 75 miles northeast of state capital Santa Fe during its annual Memorial Day motorcycle rally, Red River Mayor Linda Calhoun said by phone. She said three people were killed and five wounded.

"It was members of a motorcycle gang," Calhoun said, declining to give further information on their identity. "They were all people from out of town."

Some 28,000 bikers from across the country were expected to attend the rally, which features live music and remembrance ceremonies at a memorial in nearby Angel Fire.

Some of the wounded were transported to hospital in Taos, New Mexico, around 25 miles to the southwest, state police said on Twitter.

Taos town banned alcohol sales after the shooting and called a curfew.

The incident comes eight years after nine bikers were killed and 18 wounded in a shootout in Waco, Texas involving members of motorcycle groups such as the Bandidos and Cossacks.
A four-year-old girl accelerated a motorbike stopped by her mother, causing the vehicle to slam into a fence, killing herself, her one-year-old brother and her grandmother, and injuring her mother in Binh Dinh Province, south-central Vietnam.

At about 8:00 am on Friday, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Thom, 26, transported her two children  Tran Nguyen Hoang Yen, 4, and Tran Nguyen Tuan Kiet, 1  and her 53-year-old mother-in-law, Huynh Thi Rang, to a medical center for Kiets health check-up, said Nguyen Van Dung, secretary of the Party Committee of Phu My District in Binh Dinh.

They stopped in front of the house of Nguyen Sum, Thoms father, to ask him to take care of Yen.

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Thom (R) and her husband are sorrowful. Photo: Lam Thien / Tuoi Tre

However, Yen suddenly accelerated the motorbike, making it to crash into a fence.

Rang, Kiet, and Yen died on the way to hospital, while Thom was injured and taken to the Binh Dinh General Hospital.

Thom, who was numbed with grief, recounted that when her daughter accelerated the motorbike, she tried to hold the handlebars but everything was like a streak of lightning.

After the vehicle hit the fence, the four were thrown off.

Neighbors come to the couples house to extend condolences. They are also stunned by the tragic case. Photo: Lam Thien / Tuoi Tre

Local authorities have extended condolences to the family and supported it with funeral expenses.

This is a heart-breaking case. I hope everyone will take caution and not be heedless while transporting children on vehicles to prevent painful consequences, Dung said.

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Catch up on the news in Vietnam today:

Politics

-- The Vietnamese Politburo has named Nguyen Van Hieu, deputy secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, as secretary of the Party Committee of the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho in the 2020-25 tenure.

Society

-- A four-year-old girl accelerated a motorbike stopped by her mother, causing the vehicle to slam into a fence, killing herself, her one-year-old brother and her grandmother, and injuring her mother in Binh Dinh Province, south-central Vietnam.

-- The Ministry of Health has been working on a plan to establish three to six centers for storing 15-20 kinds of medicines with limited supplies, including botulism antitoxins, said Le Viet Dung, deputy head of the ministry's Drug Administration of Vietnam.

-- Police in central Quang Ngai Province are looking for a man who was accused of hanging his four-year-old son on Saturday following a conflict with his wife.

-- Children's Hospital 1 in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday opened a pediatric surgery center and a neonatal care center, aiming to become a pediatric medical hub in Southeast Asia.

-- An 86-year-old woman and her 47-year-old daughter were found dead at their house in Ha Tinh Province, north-central Vietnam on Saturday. The mother was deemed to die one month ago.

Business

-- A mere 20 percent of Vietnam's agricultural products are eligible for export to other markets, Ha Thuy Hanh, deputy director of the National Agricultural Extension Center, said at an event held in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday.

Lifestyle

-- Authorities in the northern province of Ninh Binh on Saturday kicked off the 2023 Ninh Binh tourism week themed 'The Golden Color of Tam Coc - Trang An' in Hoa Lu District with the participation of 20,000 visitors.

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A plan to expand the boundaries of Da Lat in Vietnams Central Highlands province of Lam Dong by merging the city with neighboring Lac Duong District is expected to foster growth throughout the region.

The Lam Dong Peoples Committee has greenlighted a plan to rearrange administrative units in the province for the 2023-30 period, allowing the provinces nearly 12,000-square-kilometer Lac Duong District to merge with the 396-square kilometer tourist hub of Da Lat.

Considering the two locales share similar climates and soil characteristics, the merger hopes to capitalize on their similarities and strengths in order to foster the development of tourism and agriculture.

Da Lat has become a big-name brand in Vietnams agricultural product and tourism sectors. The expansion of Da Lats administrative boundaries will help more residents benefit from the citys popularity, said Dr. Truong Binh Nguyen, a professor at Da Lat University.

A road leading to the peak of the Langbiang Mountain, located in Lac Duong District, Lam Dong Province, Vietnam. Photo: Nhat Vu / Tuoi Tre

Despite its popularity paling in comparison to Da Lat, Lac Duong is home to several large and well-known tourist sites, many of which are misbelieved to be located in Da Lat, according to Cil Proh, vice-chairman of the Lac Duong Peoples Committee.

This shows that Da Lat and Lac Duong have few differences and share many similarities. The separation in the administrative boundaries should be removed in order to lay the ground for future development, Proh noted.

Lac Duong District in Lam Dong Province, Vietnam has serious tourism potential as it preserves the indigenous cultural space of the K'Ho ethnic minority group. Photo: The Kiet / Tuoi Tre

Expansion: motivation for economic development

In 2019, the central government began offering incentives to Da Lat and its neighbors as a means of facilitating the attraction of investment, access to loans, and infrastructure development.

Locally, the Lam Dong Peoples Committee asked Da Lat to build a dossier and plan in order to apply to join the Creative Cities Network in music.

The Creative Cities Network was set up in 2004 to boost international cooperation among honored cities by using cultural resources as a foundation for sustainable urban development.

Van Tuan Anh, director of the Cu Lan Village tourist site in Lac Duong District, said that the village was opened 12 years ago in Lac Duong thanks to the large amount of land available in the district.

[Opening in Lac Duong] was a tough decision because, at the time, tourists only know Da Lat and Lac Duong was still a new name on Vietnams tourism map, Anh said.

Tourism products in association with sports, which are highlights of Da Lat, have been developed in Lac Duong thanks to the availability of land. Photo: The Kiet / Tuoi Tre

The expansion of Da Lats administrative boundaries also means an enlargement of the influence of the Da Lat tourism brand, according to Tuan Anh, who noted that investors can see that Lam Dongs tourism is developing under its current model  relying on Lac Duong for sightseeing, relaxation, and nature and Da Lat for service, culture, art, sports, and lodging.

The merger of the two localities will likely see some of these functions began to shift from Da Lat to Lac Duong and vice versa.

Within the tourism industry, the prospect of merging is quite popular.

Our brand is Dalat Tourist but one-third of our products are in Lac Duong District, meaning that in tourism, the differentiation of Da Lat and Lac Duong is not particularly important, said Nguyen Nhat Vu, deputy general director of Dalat Tourist, a travel company in Lam Dong.

However, when the Da Lat brand is officially shared with Lac Duong, investors will be more confident and find it easier to promote their tourism products.

Camping in a forest in Lac Duong District, Lam Dong Province, Vietnam. Photo: The Kiet / Tuoi Tre

Da Lat has become a well-known tourism brand in Vietnam. The brand value will be higher if it is applied to adjacent areas. Photo: Nghia Nguyen / Tuoi Tre

The cultural space of the gongs in the Central Highlands has been recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage of humanity. Photo: The Kiet / Tuoi Tre

Travelers at the Langbiang Biosphere Reserve in Lam Dong Province, Vietnam. Photo: The Kiet / Tuoi Tre

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Residents of Giao Thuy District in Nam Dinh Province, northern Vietnam have witnessed plastic waste heaps along local beaches over the past few years.

Tens of kilometers of coastline in Giao Hai Commune in the district is covered in smelly trash, according to a Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters' observation.

Garbage includes mainly old clothes, bottles, plastic bags, single-use face masks, household waste, and even dangerous items such as needles and pieces of crockery.

The putrid trash heaps have turned dwellers lives upside down.

Many fishermen must wade through disgusting garbage piles to approach their boats every day, while the nearby households are suffering the unpleasant smell of the trash dump.'

Medical waste is found on the beach of Giao Hai Commune in Giao Thuy District, Nam Dinh Province, northern Vietnam. Photo: Ha Thu / Tuoi Tre

The place doesn't seem to be a beach anymore, but it looks like a landfill, Nguyen Lan Phuong from Hanoi complained.

Hoang Van Cuong, a 64-year-old native of Giao Hai Commune, said that the disgraceful situation had existed for some 10 years.

The smelly rubbish has affected residents meals and their livelihood.

While my family is enjoying a meal at 6:00 - 7:00 am, winds blow and carry the unbearable smell of garbage to my house, Cuong said.

The garbage is also discouraging fishermen there. Many have caught much trash instead of fish or sea creatures.

Nguyen Van Tien, 45, a fisherman in Giao Hai Commune, said that he had netted mostly garbage for several months.

Trinh Van Doan, vice-chairman of the Peoples Committee of Giao Hai Commune, told Tuoi Tre that there is a fishing wharf at the beach. Many boats dock at the wharf and crew members throw waste into the sea.

When tides rise, garbage is washed ashore, forming such disgusting piles, Doan said.

In addition, the beach of Giao Hai Commune is located in the downstream area of the Hong (Red) River, receiving not only alluvium, but also trash coming from the upstream area.

Speaking of the solutions to the waste treatment, Doan said that some dwellers collect plastic waste and sell it to waste-collecting shops, while the commune launches three beach cleanup drives each year.

Public garbage and household waste are almost totally collected and treated. Each household has two trash cans for organic and inorganic solid waste. Those who litter in public places will be punished, he added.

A trash heap on the beach of Giao Hai Commune in Giao Thuy District, Nam Dinh Province, northern Vietnam. Photo: Ha Thu / Tuoi Tre

Police officers collect waste along the beach of Giao Hai Commune in Giao Thuy District, Nam Dinh Province, northern Vietnam. Photo: Ha Thu / Tuoi Tre

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The company logo is seen on the Micron Technology Inc. offices in Shanghai, China, May 25. Reuters-Yonhap



The United States "won't tolerate" China's effective ban on purchases of Micron Technology memory chips and is working closely with allies to address such "economic coercion," U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Saturday.



Raimondo told a news conference after a meeting of trade ministers in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework talks that the U.S. "firmly opposes" China's actions against Micron.



These "target a single U.S. company without any basis in fact, and we see it as plain and simple economic coercion and we won't tolerate it, nor do we think it will be successful."



China's cyberspace regulator said on May 21 that Micron, the biggest U.S. memory chip maker, had failed its network security review and that it would block operators of key infrastructure from buying from the company, prompting it to predict a revenue reduction.



The move came a day after leaders of the G7 industrial democracies agreed to new initiatives to push back against economic coercion by China  a decision noted by Raimondo.



"As we said at the G7 and as we have said consistently, we are closely engaging with partners addressing this specific challenge and all challenges related to China's non-market practices."



Raimondo also raised the Micron issue in a meeting on Thursday with China's Commerce Minister, Wang Wentao.



She also said the IPEF agreement on supply chains and other pillars of the talks would be consistent with U.S. investments in the $52 billion CHIPS Act to foster semiconductor production in the United States.



"The investments in the CHIPS Act are to strengthen and bolster our domestic production of semiconductors. Having said that, we welcome participation from companies that are in IPEF countries, you know, so we expect that companies from Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc, will participate in the CHIPS Act funding," Raimondo said. (Reuters)




Nearly 500 people from 40 agencies in Ba Ria  Vung Tau Province, a neighbor of Ho Chi Minh City, participated in a fire drill taking place at the Long Son Petrochemicals Complex in Vung Tau City on Saturday morning.

Some 50 fire trucks and ambulances were also mobilized for the drill.

In the hypothetical situation, while the petrochemicals complex was importing naphtha, a flammable chemical, a pipe broke.

Meanwhile, a nearby facility was being welded. As a result, the chemical spilled out and a fire broke out, producing black smoke and hazardous gases.

The blaze injured three workers who were trapped in a chemical tank.

And yet, as smoke blanketed the site, a chemical tank truck collided with another vehicle, causing its driver and driving assistant to be stuck inside the cabin and chemicals to flow onto the ground.

A specialized vehicle for handling poisonous gases of the military force is also sent to the site of the fire drill. Photo: D.H. / Tuoi Tre

Employees of Long Son Petrochemicals Co. Ltd., which operates the complex, were immediately mobilized to put out the fire.

The incident was reported to police and the Ba Ria  Vung Tau administration.

Being afraid of the spread of the fire, local authorities mobilized all firefighting vehicles in their precincts to the site and evacuated residents living near the company to safe places to avoid the poisonous gases.

The fire drill took place in a safe and effective manner as planned.

The Long Son Petrochemicals Complex whose investor is Thailands Siam Cement Group carries a price tag of some US$5 billion and is now some 98 percent complete.

Tens of fire trucks and ambulances are dispatched to the site. Photo: Dong Ha / Tuoi Tre

Flammable chemical tanks, where the fire is supposed to break out. Photo: D.H. / Tuoi Tre

A field medical station is erected to give first aid to the injured. Photo: D.H. / Tuoi Tre

Firefighters spray water to put out the fire during a drill at the Long Son Petrochemicals Complex. Photo: D.H. / Tuoi Tre

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The southern region of Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City have been experiencing multiple waves of rain, and are forecast to continue facing widespread rainfall, according to a weather pundit.

The region often sees daytime sunny and late afternoons rainy during this season, but over the past few days, rain has even poured down in the early morning.

Le Thi Xuan Lan, a former official at the southern hydro-meteorological station, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, that the southern region is facing two rainfall patterns, including the southwest monsoon and an equatorial trough.

The southwest monsoon is a seasonal prevailing wind in southern Vietnam. Over the past few days, the monsoon has strengthened, thereby causing widespread rainfall.

As for the equatorial trough, the trough often operates near the equator, but super typhoon Mawar has pulled it to Vietnam. The trough contains turbulence that causes downpours in the southern region.

Besides, the Mawar has fueled the southwest monsoon, Lan said, adding that when the typhoon nears the Philippines, the monsoon in the southern region of Vietnam will get stronger.

Given these weather patterns, the southern region will face torrential rains.

The Central Highlands and south-central regions are forecast to experience medium to heavy rains in the coming days.

Typhoon Mawar was moving west over the Pacific Ocean toward the Philippines on Sunday after the tropical cyclone brought damaging winds and rain to Guam.

As of Sunday morning in the Philippines, Mawars center was about 500 miles east of Luzon, the countrys largest and most populous island, New York Times cited the Philippine meteorological agency as saying.

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Vietnam is set to have three to six storage centers for rare drugs across the country, the Ministry of Healths Drug Administration of Vietnam (DAV) announced on Saturday.

Le Viet Dung, deputy head at DAV, said that the health ministry is ramping up efforts to develop the storage centers for around 15-20 rare drugs and those in short supply, including botulism antitoxins.

Besides, the DAV was working with the World Health Organization (WHO) to study the latter's mechanism of drug storage, and to establish a connection between the storage of rare drugs and those in short supply in Vietnam as well as other neighboring countries and WHO storage facilities.

As the country's legal framework for rare drugs is basically complete, the DAV asked healthcare facilities nationwide to stay proactive in forecasting demand and disease risks.

Hospitals across the country need to estimate and purchase a sufficient volume of drugs to satisfy their treatment demand, especially rare drugs, the DAV official said.

As for the botulinum poisoning cases recently detected in Ho Chi Minh City, the health ministry had supported the hospitals where the botulism patients were in treatment in contacting foreign suppliers and the WHO to seek the antidotes, after being informed that botulism antitoxins were out of stock nationwide, Dung elaborated.

The WHO then shipped six vials of Botulism Antitoxin Heptavalent (BAT) from its storage facility in Switzerland to Vietnam on Wednesday to help treat the patients.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, botulism is a rare but serious illness caused by a toxin that attacks the bodys nerves.

Symptoms of botulism usually start with weakness of the muscles that control the eyes, face, mouth, and throat. This weakness may spread to the neck, arms, torso, and legs.

Besides, botulism can weaken the muscles involved in breathing, which can result in difficulty breathing and even death.

To avoid foodborne botulism, the Vietnam Food Safety Authority, under the Health Ministry, advised local people to strictly adopt food hygiene and safety practices, only consume food of clear origin, stop using expired canned food and food containers that appear damaged, bulging, or leaking.

People who develop the above-mentioned symptoms after consuming canned food should visit the nearest medical facility in their area for treatment.

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Dennis The Menace artist Nigel Parkinson returns to Enniskillen ComicFest.

Next weekend, ComicFest returns to Enniskillen even bigger and better, bringing the world of comicbooks and superheroes to the town for a huge celebration of sequential art and storytelling.

For the first time, Enniskillen ComicFest will run over an entire weekend, Saturday, June 3 and Sunday, June 4, with the show taking place at St. Macartins Cathedral Hall, as before, on Saturday, June 3, then moving to the Enniskillen Hotel in Forthill Street on Sunday, June 4.

Both venues will be packed with comic creators, both professional and self-published, to sign and sketch; merchandise and comics will be on sale, and there will be lots to see and do for everyone with even a passing interest in comics.

This year, superstar writer Garth Ennis  creator of Preacher and The Boys, and who has written hugely popular runs of The Punisher and Batman  returns to Enniskillen to officially launch his new Battle Action comic, which will be on sale at ComicFest.

Such is the reputation ComicFest has built that many publishers now use it as an opportunity to launch new work.

Nigel Parkinson, who has been drawing Dennis The Menace in the Beano for several years now, continuing the legacy of Dennis and his dog, Gnasher, two of the most iconic characters in British comics, will also make a welcome return to Enniskillen ComicFest.

Making his ComicFest debut is one of the architects of British comics, Gerry Finley-Day, creator of Rogue Trooper and Fiends of the Eastern Front for 2000 AD.

Returning to ComicFest is John Wagner, creator of Judge Dredd.

Coming over from Greece for ComicFest is writer/artist DaNi who has gone on to work for DC Comics in the US, illustrating Superman and Batman linked stories.

Will Simpson also returns, a comic artist and storyboard artist for the smash hit Game of Thrones television show.

These are just a few of the 22 guests from across Ireland and the UK who will be appearing at ComicFest.

All will be available on both Saturday, June 3 and Sunday, June 4 for autographs and sketches, and if youre an aspiring writer or artist, why not bring along some of your work and get some tips!

Outlining a particularly special part of this years programme, a spokesperson for Enniskillen ComicFest said: At noon on Saturday, we will be conducting an interview with our guest of honour, Gerry Finley-Day, in the Cathedral Hall

This promises to be a fascinating look at the golden age of British comics, and in the evening we will be presenting a Battle Action Launch Panel in Blakes of the Hollow, where all our guests who have worked on the new series will take part.

Admission for the launch panel is free, but be sure to get there early as its sure to be very popular!

Admission to ComicFest over the weekend, in both venues, is free for everyone.

Chances are youve read comics, so why not come along and join in the fun on Saturday, June 3 in St. Macartins Cathedral Hall and Sunday, June 4 in the Enniskillen Hotel? added the spokesperson, noting that the full details of the programme of events along with updates will be posted on the Enniskillen ComicFest Facebook page.

Back in February, the Enniskillen ComicFest was voted the Best Comic Event in the ComicScene News Awards covering Great Britain and Ireland, which was a great honour and shows the recognition that ComicFest has built in the comics industry.

Enniskillen ComicFest would like to thank the Arts Council Of NI, Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, Enniskillen BID and Blakes of the Hollow for their support.
Workers clear debris as firefighters extinguish a fire at a medical facility, destroyed by a missile strike, in the city of Dnipro on May 26, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. AFP-Yonhap



Ukraine's capital was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of Russia's war, local officials said, as Kyiv prepared to mark the anniversary of its founding on Sunday. At least one person was killed.



Russia launched the "most massive attack" on the city overnight Saturday with Iranian-made Shahed drones, said Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official. The attack lasted more than five hours, with air defense reportedly shooting down more than 40 drones.



A 41-year-old man was killed and a 35-year-old woman was hospitalized when debris fell on a seven-story nonresidential building and started a fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.



Ukraine's air force said that Saturday night was also record-breaking in terms of Shahed drone attacks across the country. Of the 54 drones launched, 52 were shot down by air defense systems.



In the northeastern Kharkiv province, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said a 61-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were killed in two separate shelling attacks.



Kyiv Day marks the anniversary of Kyiv's official founding. The day is usually celebrated with live concerts, street fairs, exhibitions and fireworks. Scaled-back festivities were planned for this year, the city's 1,541st anniversary.



The timing of the drone attacks was likely not coincidental, Ukrainian officials said.



"The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians," Ukraine's chief presidential aide, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram.



"Today, the enemy decided to 'congratulate' the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)," Popko also wrote on the messaging app.



Local officials in Russia's southern Krasnodar region said that air defense systems destroyed several drones as they approached the Ilsky oil refinery.





Firefighters extinguish a fire at a medical facility, destroyed by a missile strike, in the city of Dnipro on May 26, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. AFP-Yonhap
HCM CITY  California Fitness & Yoga on Thursday announced a US$25 million commitment to Viet Nam, with the investment earmarked for the renovation of multiple clubs, the continued upgrade and innovation of products and services and for the renewal of leases in prime locations in Ha Noi and HCM City.

The fitness centre inked deals that will extend the leases of four clubs including Pico Plaza and Hung Vuong Plaza in HCM City; and Capital Building and Sky City Tower in Ha Noi.

The ongoing collaboration with these partners ensures the delivery of premium exercise destinations that foster community, motivation, and personal growth for members.

This renewal also reaffirms California Fitness' unwavering commitment to creating an optimal fitness experience for individuals of all fitness levels.

"These four clubs are some of our original clubs, said CEO Dane Fort.

The renewal of the leasing contracts is part of California Fitness ongoing pledge to bring health, happiness, and hope not just to its members, but to all 100 million people in Viet Nam, he said.

We will continue to innovate our clubs to provide the best fitness hub for years to come," he said, acknowledging a bevy of club enhancements lined up in the near future. These include cutting-edge workout facilities from top brands like Technogym, Matrix, and True Fitness, as well as new visual and lighting systems and other innovations, ensuring exceptional workout spaces for generations. Additionally, two Yoga Plus Clubs in HCM City are expanding to offer full California services.

California Fitness will shortly launch its "One Life Live Well" campaign, aligning with its hundred-million-man mission. The campaign introduces a revolutionary membership programme that includes benefits like an extra membership, a smartwatch, reward points for VIP workout sessions, and more. Furthermore, the team plans to organise the largest-ever Fitness Expo, giving away a thousand free memberships.

California Fitness & Yoga Centre is Viet Nam's leading fitness and wellness provider, serving over 500,000 valued members who work out over 11 million times a year.  VNS
HA NOI  Electricity imports from Laos and China accounted for just a modest part of the total electricity demand of Viet Nam, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade ang Hoang An.

An made the statement in response to National Assembly deputies question about why Viet Nam had not connected domestic renewable energy projects with a total capacity of 4,600 MW to the national power grid but increased imports from Laos and China.

NA Deputy Ta Thi Yen said at a meeting late last week that while the negotiations of pricing to connect renewable energy projects to the national power grid faced roadblocks, Viet Nam was forced to increase the import from Laos and China to make up for the shortage. This was a huge waste when hundreds of solar and wind power energy projects could not generate power for consumption while the economy was facing a severe shortage of electricity, she said.

In response, An said that Viet Nam imported electricity not because of the shortage. The country has been buying from China since 2005 via transmission lines in Lao Cai and Ha Giang provinces and from Laos, mostly hydroelectricity, following an intergovernmental cooperation agreement in 2019.

The electricity import from Laos was around 7 million kWh per day and 4 million kWh from China, very modest compared to the daily consumption demand, estimated at around 445-450 million kWh in the northern region.

An said that the purchase was under cooperation agreements with countries in the Greater Mekong sub-region, which would enable the connection of the power grid with other countries in the region. In addition, the electricity master plan No 8 also set out the target of exporting renewable energy to neighbouring countries.

Viet Nam had 220 kV line linking with Laos and 110 kV with China. Under the commitments with Laos, Viet Nam would import at least 3,000 MW from this country by 2025 and 5,000 by 2030.

An pointed out that the electricity import from Laos and China increased this year because of a shortage of supply caused by extreme weather and drought in the dry season.

The electricity import price was lower than some domestic sources, according to the ministry.

For example, it was around 6.5 cent or VN1,540 per kWh from China and 6.9 cent from Laos. Statistics of Viet Nam Electricity (EVN) showed that the average electricity purchasing price was around VN1,845-2,200 per kWh in the first three months of this year, meaning that the prices from Laos and China were lower than some domestic sources.

Bui Van Thinh, President of Binh inh Wind Power Association, said that power shortage was mainly in the northern region while renewable energy projects were concentrated in the central and southern regions, creating pressure on the NorthSouth 500 kV transmission network.

Buying electricity from China and Laos was reasonable, he said.

Regarding the roadblocks to the connection of more than 4,600 MW of renewable energy to the national power grid, An said that many projects had not met legal procedures due to violations of regulations about planning, land and construction investment.

He said that removing the roadblocks for renewable energy projects was being hastened based on the harmonisation of all sides' benefits.

EVNs statistics showed that there were 52 wind and solar power projects with a total capacity of 3,155 MW which had applied for negotiations.

Of them, 42 with a total capacity of nearly 2,259 MW completed pricing negotiations with EVN.

About 33 projects with a total capacity of 1,581 MW had not applied for negotiations.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade approved temporary prices for 19 projects with a total capacity of 1,347 MW. As of May 26, five projects with a total capacity of 303 MW were eligible for commercial operation, meaning that the power system would have an additional supply source of more than 300 MW from these plants in the next few days.  VNS
HA NOI  Sixty-five enterprises were honoured for their outstanding digital products and solutions at a ceremony held in the capital city on Saturday.

Among the awarded firms included Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group, mobile carrier MobiFone, Petrovietnam Drilling and Well Service Corp and TTC Bien Hoa.

During the ceremony, seven provinces and cities were also recognised for their successes in organising and proactively implementing the policy of the industrial revolution 4.0 and the national digital transformation programme.

These localities were a Nang, Hai Phong, Thua Thien-Hue, Quang Ninh, Thai Nguyen, Bac Giang and Ben Tre City.

Addressing the event, chairman of the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations, Phan Xuan Dung said businesses and state management agencies were pioneers in the digital transformation which was an imperative and indispensable trend to improve production and business efficiency, enhance competitiveness and successfully implement the strategy of building a digital government, digital economy and digital society in the era of the industrial revolution 4.0.

The I4.0 awards aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of digital transformation, and innovation made by organisations and businesses, thus promoting their digital transformation for the development of the digital economy, Dung said.

These awards were granted by the Vietnam Automation Association and the Innovation and Digital Transformation Institute under the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations for the second time.  VNS
HA NOI  A bill to extend e-visas to 90 days and visa-free stays to 45 days has been submitted to the National Assembly for consideration on May 27.

Minister of Public Security To Lam officially presented the draft amendments to the Law on Entry, Exit, Transit and Residence of Foreigners in Viet Nam and the Law on Entry and Exit of Vietnamese Citizens to the National Assembly for review.

The current laws were found to no longer meet the current demands and Party and States policies on turning tourism into a spearhead economic sector, Minister Lam said at the ongoing fifth plenary session of the 15th-legislature.

He noted that Viet Nams foreign tourist arrivals in 2022 was only 32.6 per cent of the pre-pandemic figure, despite early reopening.

The Ministry of Public Security aimed to simplify procedures, promote administrative procedures on electronic platforms, create favourable conditions for Vietnamese citizens obtaining of entry and exit documents, as well as facilitate foreigners' entry, exit, transit, and residence in Viet Nam.

This would contribute to the development of the economy, tourism, and national security, as well as to the improvement of legal foundations and the effectiveness of State management in this area, Lam said.

The draft law project consists of three articles  Article 1 amends 13 provisions of the Law on Entry and Exit of Vietnamese Citizens; Article 2 amends seven provisions of the Law on Entry, Exit, Transit, and Residence of Foreigners in Viet Nam; and Article 3 stipulates the effectiveness of enforcement.

Under the new proposed changes, the validity of e-visas will be extended from 30 days to 90 days (three months) for both single and multiple entries, and the number of countries and territories from which citizens will be eligible to apply for e-visas will be expanded (the list will be decided by the Government).

The temporary residence period will also be raised from 15 days to 45 days for citizens of countries unilaterally exempted from visas by Viet Nam, and for those whose visa applications or temporary residence extensions are being considered under other provisions of the law.

Regarding the residence of foreigners in Viet Nam, in order to ensure national security and social order, safety, the draft law also seeks to add in the responsibilities of accommodation providers as well as the obligation of foreigners to present their passports and valid residence documents in Viet Nam to the accommodation providers for temporary residence declaration in accordance with regulations.

Presenting the appraisal report on the draft amendments, Le Tan Toi, Chairman of the National Defence and Security Committee of the National Assembly, generally agreed on the necessity of amending and supplementing the laws with the political, legal, and practical grounds as presented in the Government's proposal.

The committee agreed with the proposal to extend the validity of temporary residence certificates at border gates for unilateral visa-exempted foreigners from 15 days to 45 days, which is in line with the current situation as the demand for long-term stays in Viet Nam increases, especially for foreigners who seek to invest in the country, work with agencies, businesses, other organizations, travel, or carry out other activities.

"The 45-day period is about the average duration that other countries in the region are implementing," Toi noted, adding that some NA deputies even suggested increasing the temporary residence period to a maximum of 60 days for more flexibility in the issuance of temporary residence certificates.

Some opinions suggested that Viet Nam's unilateral visa exemption policy with a limited validity for citizens of 25 countries was much lower than other countries in the region, so they proposed to expand the scope and conditions of unilateral visa exemption for citizens of various countries and territories, Toi said.

The proposed revisions are welcomed by industry insiders and foreign tourists alike, and they are expected to paint Viet Nam as a much more attractive destination amid fierce competition from other countries in the region.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son at the discussions at the parliament backed the proposed changes, saying that the extension of duration of stay for foreign tourists would help to boost tourism industry and would be totally in line with the global trends.

According to the previous regulations, Vietnamese representative agencies abroad were only allowed to grant visas in special cases under the authorisation of the Immigration Department, but the scope was very limited and the procedures required the endorsement of the foreign affairs ministry of the host country, Son noted.

The Minister suggested that the amendment to the law this time needed to be more flexible and open as Viet Nam is expanding its international relations.

Minister Son also urged to waive the requirement for an invitation, reception, or a guarantor for foreign visitors entering Viet Nam for tourism or market research purposes.

"The issuance of electronic visas does not require a guarantor, but the requirement for a guarantor by Vietnamese representative agencies for visa issuance creates difficulties and may cause confusion for tourists," Son stated.

The Minister proposed to amend the regulations to allow Vietnamese representative agencies abroad to decide on granting visas for some necessary or urgent foreign affairs cases for humanitarian reasons, and the representative agencies will be responsible for visa issuance and inform the Immigration Department under the Ministry of Public Security.  VNS
TOKYO  As many as 100 outstanding Vietnamese intellectuals in Japan gathered at an event held on Saturday by the Association of Vietnamese Intellectuals in Japan (AVIJ), under the auspices of the Vietnamese Embassy, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

In his remarks, Ambassador Pham Quang Hieu stressed that Japan has been a destination for many generations of Vietnamese to work, study and develop their career.

Nearly 500,000 Vietnamese are in Japan, becoming the second biggest foreign community in the East Asian nation, he said.

The diplomat stressed that the Vietnamese Party and State always paid special attention to overseas Vietnamese  an integral part of the nation  and have issued various policies and guidelines for them.

He lauded contributions by Vietnamese intellectuals, including those in Japan, to the success of such events as Viet Nam Summits in 2019 and 2021, and symposiums, which attracted crowds of Vietnamese and Japanese intellectuals and businesses.

Hieu expressed his hope that the AVIJ and the intellectual community in general will produce more research studies, and make more proposals and contributions, helping Vietnam apply Japans cutting-edge technology in socio-economic development.

At the get-together, the intellectuals exchanged information and sought ways to boost cooperation, thus forming a dynamic, united community of Vietnamese intellectuals in Japan, with increasing contributions to the development in their homeland, as well as the collaboration between the two countries.  VNS
By Le Huong

When visiting the lush Golden Camellia Park in Nho Quan District in the northern province of Ninh Binh, it is hard to imagine that a few years ago the valley was abandoned with few crops surviving, the local soil deemed too rough to do anything worthwhile.

But things have changed. Part of the valley has been converted into the park, hosting several greenhouses nurturing the seedlings and plants of camellia for revered ornamental flowers and essential oil. Covering an area of 26 hectares, it is the only park of its kind in the country.

The success of the park is largely down to the vision of Vu Van Tam, the chairman of Vu Gia Herbal Company Ltd, which supplies materials to produce various herbal products, including those from golden camellia.

Tam says that Cuc Phuong National Park is home to over 2,000 types of plants, including many valuable species. He says there are dozens of types of golden camellia, but the ones growing in the buffer zone of the park are great for human health.

Some research has suggested the plant could be beneficial to inhibiting tumour growth, lowering blood pressure, and preventing atherosclerosis.

Tam sees it as his duty to spin gold from the plant's wide-ranging properties, of which he is a keen proselytiser.

I learnt about the plant on a business trip to a northern mountainous area, where a local herbalist offered me a drink from the flower, he tells Viet Nam News. The herbalist says the plant was good for peoples health.

"Then I learned from various sources that the golden camellia has over 400 chemical substances, none of which are toxic or have side effects. All improve peoples health, enhance resistance and prevent diseases naturally and safely.

Tam soon invested in the park with some friends, hoping to produce herbal products from the plant.

The material source in nature is limited, so we decided to plant camellia by ourselves to have a stable source of raw material for production, he adds.

The plant also resides in China, but it is Viet Nam that is considered a paradise for the golden blooms, with over 50 types. The park alone has collected 30 kinds from across the country.

The company has chosen types with high productivity to plant en masse.

Each year we harvest several tonnes of the fresh flower, and dry them to pack in boxes for consumers to enjoy as a drink, Tam says.

"We want to let Vietnamese people use the products first, and then we will think of export later.

Protecting and developing golden camellia is vital, as the plant has been growing wild in the forest. The natural forest area has been much reduced over time, resulting in the disappearance of the wild plant.

Tam wants to collect all the genres of the endangered plant to share with nature lovers and plans for more products like instant herbal tea from the flowers and leaves, and even cosmetics for women.

Big potential

Camellia is a perennial plant. It blooms once a year, and the number of flowers and leaves increases rapidly year by year.

The company has set up an automatic irrigation system, with the golden camellia plants grown alongside other plants to get shadow from the sun.

We are trying to apply green cultivating methods by using organic fertilisers from cattle dung and decomposed vegetables to save the environment, Tam says. We raise red ants to limit the black ants that harm the plant, and make biological traps for flies.

After being picked, the flowers are freeze-dried at minus 50 degrees Celsius, so they maintain their shape, colour and chemical substance.

The company has received a GACP-WHO certificate from the Ministry of Health for "Good Agriculture and Collection Practices". Its production line has been approved with the HACCP certificate by the Quacert Centre for food safety; and they have 4-star OCOP (One Commune, One Product) standard for Ninh Binh Province, and were among the best products of the north in 2022.

According to the International Camellia Journal, substances from the flower can limit the development of tumours by over one-third, which may even help in treating cancer. They can also help reduce cholesterol in the blood as well as or better than existing drugs. The leaves are also thought to prevent inflammation and allergies and maintain a healthy thyroid gland.

I believe herbal tea from golden camellia is a potential product, says Pham Van Trung, head of the Rural Development Agency under Ninh Binhs Agriculture and Rural Development Department. Its really meaningful for us as the product is made locally.

Bigger ambitions

But Tam's dream goes beyond mere money-making and into the realm of the spiritual. He wants to soon open the park to the public and has designed the area with lakes, streams, and facilities for practising Zen.

I intend to set up 108 areas for practising Zen or yoga throughout the park, he says. I want more people to enjoy the fresh air here and live closer to nature. Im finding tranquillity for my soul in this valley.

Hoang Thanh Thuy, founder & CEO of the Mekong Coconut Company, says that she can feel Tams enthusiasm for the park.

He has a long-term vision and the courage to turn this barren land into a fertile park, she says. With his heart, strong will, and calmness to live in nature, I hope he will make this place special.

Nguyen Thi Lien, project manager of the Regional Biotrade Project, says she really appreciates the creation of the park.

"This is a good model of biodiversity created by a private enterprise. This is a highly recommended model for many enterprises, who are still wondering about their role in protecting natural resources and preserving and recovering nature," she says.

"Such a project like Biotrade will help push models of producing and trading products that have local origins and search markets for other such products."

Nguyen Thi Thu Lien, an official from the Association of Food Transparency, also shows her admiration for Tams efforts.

Maintaining a clean material source, using no chemical fertilisers and no growth stimulants while still reaching the desired productivity for market demand is not simple, she says.

All living organisms inside the park have a close connection to one another. They collaborate, share mutual benefits, and create a diverse ecosystem to protect a park with biodiversity and ensure the local communitys benefits.

Whilst Tam has full belief in the value of the project, he often jokes that it was the land that chose him, not him who chose the land.

Seeing is believing. People here can see a valley of yellow flowers in spring and a tranquil green land with birds twittering and streams gurgling. They will believe there is nothing we cannot do, he says. VNS

(Additional reporting by Nguyen Hong Van)
By Cong Thanh

In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Nguyen Huu Quy Khang, 31, a construction engineer, found himself unable to return to his work in Japan, and instead found a temporary job at a Ngoc Linh ginseng farm in Nam Tra My District of Quang Nam.

He soon fell in love with work on the mountainous ginseng farm, tending and nurturing the ancient medicinal herb believed by some to have almost magical qualities.

Khang's new role saw him explore the natural conservation of Vietnamese ginseng (Panax vietnamensis), growing strongly and sustainably in the primary forest.

At first he found being away from Japan difficult, but the work on the Sam Sam Company ginseng farm soon grabbed all his attention.

Its a turning point. I thought I would just be working on the farm while waiting for Japan-Viet Nam air services to resume after the pandemic. However, the wild nature of my homeland soon fascinated me, Khang said.

I restarted as a beginner in farming. It was quite different to engineering work that I had experienced in Japan. I loved exploring the co-existence of the flora habitat and ginseng. It was like caring for a newborn baby.

Khang said he spent most of his time on the farm observing ginseng seeds sprouting. Saplings are very sensitive to any small temperature changes in the foggy mountain air, where sunlight hits for just a few hours each day.

We built up a scrutiny process to watch the saplings at every moment in the forest canopy farms, while arranging long-term nutrition and pest protection. Ginseng sprouts die if they suffer from plant fungus at any time. Rodents are also a threat, he said.

As a technical manager of the farm, he also trains local workers on how to develop ginseng as a sustainable crop for the community, rather than lazily making money from illegal logging and hunting.

Khang said the farm had developed on one-hectare pilot plot before expanding as a high-yield business and community joint-venture farm.

Ho Van Khuyet, 40, a member of the Xo ang ethnic group in Tra Linh Village, said he was trained in sustainable agricultural practice at the farm for two years.

Most local villagers lived by exploiting forest products including animal hunting for food in the jungle, but the strict rules of forest protection stopped us from living this life, Khuyet said.

We had to do odd jobs in urban areas instead. However, we struggled with poor education and skills in urban and industrial parks. Our forest-based experience was always our best skill.

He said the ginseng farming project offered an opportunity for ethnic communities to improve their income with their traditional forest knowledge.

It took me one year to complete training in ginseng farming. We can earn well from working on the ginseng farm, while protecting the forest, our spiritual home, for future generations, he said.

Global value

In building a national high-quality ginseng brand, Sam Sam has grown 500,000 ginseng plants on a 200ha farm in Tra Linh mountainous village.

The company has put into operation the first Ngoc Linh ginseng production facility  a major high-tech processing factory combined with a nursery and research centre  at Tam Thang Industrial Park in Tam Ky City, producing 200,000 capsules and 5 million Ngoc Linh ginseng saplings by in-vitro every year.

The sustainable ginseng farm has been listed as one of 20 safe and one of eight Asian projects jointly assessed and financially supported by the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Dutch Fund for Climate and Development (DFCD).

Experts from the DFCD and WWF-Vietnam recently paid a field trip to inspect technical and financial support for the project. The DFCD has approved a support grant for Sam Sam, seeking to scale up its production in one of the countrys poorest regions. The money will help the company to acquire seedlings, seeds, earthworm compost and land for expansion.

The project is aided by the World Wide Fund for Nature Netherlands together with SNV Netherlands Development Organisation to nurture new projects for the investment fund. With the approval of the grant, the WWF plans to sign a 275,000-euro grant agreement with Sam Sam.

Huib Jan de Ruijter, senior expert from the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Ban (DEDB), said the project developed by Sam Sam offered benefits to the local community, particularly in terms of protecting the forest and mitigating climate change.

Aart Jan Mulder, portfolio manager from DEDB Bank, said the ginseng project was unique in the well-protected primary forest as it helped conserve nature, while creating benefits for both business and the indigenous community while reducing the damage caused by climate change.

Stuart Beavis, regional lead at WWF Asia said: "Sam Sam has the potential to be an amazing project. It grows ginseng under the now protected canopy of the forest and works closely with the locals, adding to their skill set and income. The company is also perfectly aligned with the national government's vision for this commodity."

The chairman of the company, Nguyen uc Luc, said the combined investment of farm-production plant R&D and the in-vitro centre would help build global production chains for the national brand and boost sustainable development of the Ngoc Linh ginseng not only for Quang Nam, but nationally.

We have been building a long-term strategy for a national brand of high-quality Ngoc Linh ginseng production from seed selection, planting and harvest, to storage and processing, Luc said.

He said at least 80 per cent of natural forests were well protected by local farmers who joined the ginseng farm as the plant could only develop well under forest canopy from 1,400m to 2,500m above sea level, Luc said.

As ginseng can die by chemical fertiliser, the ginseng farm is fertilised by organic earthworms. The farm will help contribute to Viet Nams zero carbon targets."

The ginseng farm will also be recruiting and training manpower from the Xo ang, Ca Dong and M' Nong ethnic communities across several local villages, hoping to develop more medicinal herb farms.  VNS
Some parts of the phase 2 expansion project of Thai Nguyen Steel Plant - Tisco 2 have become degraded.  VNA/VNS Photo Duong Giang

Five projects handed over to Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PVN) and Vietnam National Chemical Group (Vinachem) for handling saw positive changes.

One of them, diammonium phosphate (DAP) fertilizer plant No 1 managed to maintain stable operation with aggregated loss wiped out from January 2022 and started to earn profit. DAP 1 earned an after-tax profit of more than VND354.1 billion in 2022, an impressive rise of 83.6 per cent over its annual plan and 85.5 per cent against the same period last year.

The Dinh Vu Polyester Fibre Plant, after a prolonged suspension of operations, now put 27 production lines into operation and earned revenue which could make up for the variable cost. The plant earned revenue of VND219 billion in 2022, or 100 per cent of the adjusted plan.

CMSCs Chairman Nguyen Hoang Anh said some projects started to earn profits while some managed to lower their aggregated loss. The resumption of operation helped provide jobs for thousands of workers and contributed to maintaining political-social stability.

The handling of three biofuel plants carried out by PVN was following the approved plans, CMSC said.

For three fertilizer projects, including Ninh Binh Fertiliser plant, expansion project of Ha Bac Nitrogen Fertilisers Plant and DAP Fertiliser Plant No 2  Lao Cai, the debt restructuring measures for these three projects got agreements from the competent authorities.

Ha Bac reported a profit of more than VND1.799 trillion in 2022, up VND1.773 trillion against 2021. Ninh Binh earned a revenue of more than VND6 trillion, equivalent to 135 per cent of the plan for 2022 and 148 per cent of the result in 2021. Notably, the plant earned a profit of VND928 billion last year. DAP No 2  Lao Cai reported a profit of VND1.5 billion in 2022.

I believe these results are very positive, Hoang Anh said.

Opportunities for the three most difficult projects

There were opportunities for reviving the three most difficult projects, including the phase 2 expansion project of Thai Nguyen Steel Plant - Tisco 2, Viet Trung Steel Plant (VTM) and Dung Quat Shipyard (DQS), Hoang Anh said.

He added that CMSC worked with relevant agencies and organisations on solutions to thoroughly handle problems at these projects.

Regarding Tisco 2, Tisco and Chinese contractor China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) signed a document about handling orientations for the project, a very important step after seven years of negotiation without any results.

It was expected that MCC would have a report on the handling measure for Tisco by the end of May.

For DQS, CMSC asked PVN to urgently develop a restructuring plan based on the actual condition and operation capacity.

CMSC also asked the State Capital Investment Corporation and Viet Nam Steel Corporation to work with relevant parties on solutions to recover operations at VTM.

The 12 loss-making projects under the Ministry of Industry and Trade included four fertilizer, three bio-fuel, two steel, one polyester fiber and one pulp production plant and a shipyard.

Bizhub
The third EU  Vietnam Sub-committee on Sustainable Development within the framework of the Viet Nam  EU Joint Committee, established under the Comprehensive Partnership and Cooperation Framework Agreement between Viet Nam and the European Union (PCA), took place yesterday in Hanoi.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, Vice Minister, Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) and Mr. Mario Ronconi, Head of Unit of South Asia  South East Asia, European Commission co-chaired the meeting. EU Member States representatives also attended the meeting.

The EU and Vietnam started with an update on cooperation and policy framework on sustainable development on both side. Viet Nam also informed the EU of its progress in meeting Sustainable Development Goals and implementing the newly adopted Green Growth Strategy. In response, the EU shared with the government its Global Strategies, notably the Indo Pacific and Global Gateway Strategy, and the implementation of the EU-Vietnam Multiannual Indicative Programmes for the period 2021-2027. This new phase of the EU development cooperation with Vietnam focuses on six priority areas including the Green Deal; sustainable growth and jobs; migration; science & technology including innovation and digitalisation; good governance; and human development.

Both parties had an open and constructive exchange on a wide range of topics including: Climate responsive-digital-circular economy policies and implementation progress; Economic governance and skills development; Financing instruments for sustainable development, including blending and guarantee; People-to-people connectivity and Regional cooperation

Both parties took note of the achievements and challenges, and reaffirmed their commitments to continue working together to strengthen the overall relationship through the Comprehensive Partnership and Cooperation Framework Agreement.

Source: Delegation of the European Union to Vietnam
Vietnam is currently the fourth largest rubber supplier to the Republic of Korea (RoK) after Thailand, Indonesia and China, according to the Import-Export Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

The Import-Export Department quoted statistics from the General Department of Customs as saying, that Vietnams rubber exports to the RoK reached 12,470 tonnes worth 18.92 million USD in the first four months of 2023, up 5.6% in volume, but down 15% in value over the same period in 2022.

The average export price of rubber to this market was 1,517 USD per tonne, down 19.5% over the same period in 2022.

Vietnams rubber accounted for 5.88% of the RoKs total rubber imports in four months, while the imports from Vietnam in the first four months of 2022 were 8.36%.

According to the RoK customs agency, Thailand, Indonesia, China, Vietnam and Japan are currently the five largest rubber suppliers to the RoK. However, the RoK increased imports from Indonesia and China but reduced imports from Thailand, Vietnam and Japan, compared to the same period in 2022.

Vietnams rubber market share is shrinking in the RoK market compared to the same period in 2022, while the rubber market share of Indonesia, China, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Germany, advanced over the corresponding period last year

Source: Nhan dan
APM Terminals Bahrain, the operator of Khalifa Bin Salman Port, has announced the launch of a ground-breaking solar power project worth approximately BD3.8 million ($10 million), which will make the port energy self-sufficient by the end of 2023.

By implementing this project, the terminal will reduce its carbon emissions by 65 per cent while also securing a reliable and sustainable source of energy, effectively making Khalifa Bin Salman Port the regions first fully energy-sufficient seaport, it was revealed today (May 28).

The solar power project is part of APM Terminals' global decarbonisation plans, which aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70% by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2040. As a subsidiary of A P Moller-Maersk, APM Terminals is committed to leading the way in promoting sustainability within the maritime industry, and the solar power project in Bahrain is one of the main pillars in its overall decarbonisation journey, it said.

Furthermore, the driving force behind the solar power initiative is in line with the vision of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa for a more prosperous and sustainable Bahrain and follows the carbon-neutral commitment made by Bahrain's Crown Prince and Prime Minister, His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa to reduce the kingdoms emissions by 30% by 2035 and achieve net zero by 2060.

We are very excited to take the first major step in our decarbonisation plans, which will make Khalifa Bin Salman Port the regions first seaport to be fully powered by renewable energy. Our decarbonisation strategy for the port is in line with the vision of HM The King and the commitment of HRH the Crown Prince and Prime Minister for Bahrain, as well as APM Terminals' global goal of being safer, better, and bigger," shared Farooq Zuberi, Chief Finance Officer and Interim Managing Director, APM Terminals Bahrain.

He continued: "We are constantly striving to develop more sustainable and responsible business practices in order to serve better our customers and the communities in which we work.

By the end of the solar implementation project, APM Terminals Bahrain will have installed 20,000 solar photovoltaic panels capable of generating 18.5 gigawatts of electricity per year. This renewable energy source will produce clean and sustainable energy for powering various port operations, including container handling, crane operations, and lighting, setting an example for the entire maritime industry.

APM Terminals Bahrain is excited to contribute to the governments efforts to realise a carbon-neutral Bahrain and be part of A P Moller  Maersks goal to achieve net-zero GHG emissions in 2040 across all business entities, he said.  TradeArabia News Service
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks after the inauguration of the new parliament building in New Delhi, May 28. AP





NEW DELHI (AP)  India's major opposition parties on Sunday boycotted the inauguration of a new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a rare show of unity against his Hindu nationalist ruling party, which has ruled for nine years and is seeking a third term in next year's elections.







Modi inaugurated the new Parliament in the capital of New Delhi by offering prayers as Hindu priests chanted religious hymns. Opposition parties criticized the event saying Modi had sidelined President Droupadi Murmu, who has only ceremonial powers but is the head of state and highest constitutional authority.







Shortly after the inauguration, a visibly beaming Modi entered Parliament amid a rousing applause by his party lawmakers who chanted "Modi, Modi." He delivered an almost 40-minute speech in which he hailed India's parliamentary democracy and said the country had left behind its colonial past, referring to the old Parliament building that was built by the British when they ruled India.







"India is the mother of democracy," Modi said, as lawmakers thumped their desks. "Several years of foreign rule stole our pride from us. Today, India has left behind that colonial mindset."







The opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted: "Parliament is the voice of the people. The Prime Minister is considering the inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation."







At least 19 opposition parties skipped the event, which coincided with the birth anniversary of a Hindu nationalist ideologue.







Opposition parties said in a statement Wednesday that Modi's decision to inaugurate the building was "a grave insult" to India's democracy, because the government had "disqualified, suspended and muted" opposition lawmakers while passing "controversial legislation" with little debate.







"When the soul of democracy has been sucked out from the parliament, we find no value in a new building," the parties said.







Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets Hindu priests after installing a royal golden scepter near the chair of the speaker, during the start of the inaugural ceremony of the new parliament building in New Delhi, May 28. AP





India's powerful Home Minister Amit Shah said the opposition had politicized the event. Other leaders from Modi's party said the boycott was an insult to the prime minister.







The new triangular-shaped building  built at an estimated cost of $120 million  is part of a $2.8 billion revamp of British-era offices and residences in central New Delhi that will also include blocks of buildings to house government ministries and departments, and Modi's new private residence. The entire project, called the "Central Vista," is spread over 3.2 kilometers (1.9 miles).







The project was announced in 2019, and Modi laid the foundation in December 2020.







The plan has drawn intense criticism from opposition politicians, architects and heritage experts, many of whom called it environmentally irresponsible, a threat to cultural heritage and too expensive.







Outrage grew in 2021, when at least 12 opposition parties questioned the project's timing, saying it was built as the country faced a devastating surge in coronavirus cases. They branded the revamp as Modi's "vanity project" and said its construction was prioritized over the loss of lives and livelihoods during the pandemic.







A year earlier, a group of 60 former civil servants wrote an open letter to Modi to highlight the architectural value of the old Parliament and said the new plan would "irrevocably" destroy the area's cultural heritage.







Modi's government has said the overhaul was necessary because the older building was "showing signs of distress and overutilization" and that the new design "combines the country's heritage and traditions."







Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, with speaker of the lower house Om Birla give greetings after inaugurating the new parliament building in New Delhi, May 28. AP





The new building sits just across from India's old Parliament, a circular structure designed by British architects in the early 20th century. The new four-story building has a total of 1,272 seats in two chambers, almost 500 more than the previous one.







The old Parliament will be converted into a museum.







During the televised ceremony Sunday, Modi prostrated himself before a royal golden scepter that his Bharatiya Janata Party says symbolized the transfer of power when it was gifted to the country's first prime minister on the eve of India's independence from Britain in 1947. Dozens of Hindu priests followed Modi inside Parliament, where he installed the scepter near the chair of the speaker.







Modi's critics and opposition leaders have questioned the scepter's historicity and said the emblem is appropriate for a monarchy, not a democracy.







Last year, Modi inaugurated a refurbished colonial-era avenue in the heart of New Delhi that is used for ceremonial military parades. The boulevard was earlier called Rajpath, or Kingsway, but Modi's party changed it to Kartavya Path, or Road to Duty, arguing the old name was a "symbol of slavery" that had been "erased forever."







The controversy over the new legislative building comes just months after opposition leaders protested Gandhi's disqualification from Parliament in a defamation case over remarks he made about Modi's surname.







Barely a mile away from the ceremony, a heavy police presence overpowered about 100 protesting Indian wrestlers and their supporters. They accuse their federation president of sexual misconduct and had planned to march to the new Parliament building. Some of the protesters scuffled with police and were taken away in a bus.







Wrestling Federation of India President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who has denied the accusations, is a powerful lawmaker from Modi's party. (AP)


Vietnam is implementing commitments on preferential export and special preferential import taxes within the framework of the 15 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and two bilateral trade agreements (BTAs) with a coverage of more than 80% of Vietnam's import turnover. Participation in FTAs/BTAs creates a great driving force for Vietnam's import-export turnover growth.

Adhere to the tariff remission scheme

Ms. Nguyen Phuong Linh, Head of the Multilateral Cooperation Department, Department of International Cooperation (Ministry of Finance), stated at the workshop on the theme "Effective implementation of Vietnam's preferential export tax and special preferential import tax commitments to implement FTAs" held on May 18, 2023, that they continue to implement the commitment of preferential export tax and preferential import tax in FTAs/BTA. At the same time, to achieve consistency with the List of export and import goods of Vietnam, implement the ASEAN Harmonised Tariff Nomenclature (AHTN) 2022 (effective from December 30, 2022), and fulfill Vietnam's commitment to import tax in the next phase, the Ministry of Finance has submitted to the Government to promulgate 17 Decrees on Vietnam's preferential export and special preferential import tariffs within the framework of FTAs and BTAs during the period 2022 - 2027 ( effective from December 30, 2022) to replace Decrees for the period 2018 - 2022. It accordingly ensures uniformity in the system of legal documents on taxes and customs in accordance with international commitments.

According to Ms. Nguyen Phuong Linh, the contents of the above Decrees basically inherit all of the provisions of the Decrees promulgating Vietnam's preferential export tariffs and special preferential import tariffs to implement FTAs/BTAs in the previous period (2018 - 2022) to ensure policy stability while also complying with the tax remission scheme committed in these agreements. The Decrees are consistent with the Party's lines, guidelines, policies, constitutionality, and legality. They also ensure legal system unity, and they are compatible with international treaties to which Vietnam is a signatory.

Conditions for application of special preferential import tax rates

Ms. Nguyen Phuong Linh stated in the introduction to the above 17 Decrees that the conditions for applying the special preferential import tax rate include items in the special preferential import tariff; imported into Vietnam from the agreement's member countries; meeting the regulations on the origin of goods (including regulations on direct transportation); and have certificates of origin of goods under the agreement's provisions.

Regarding the conditions for applying preferential export tax, they include goods imported into the territory of the countries following the provisions of the agreement (for countries that have ratified the agreement); (photocopied) transport documents showing the destination within the territory of the member countries under the regulations; and import customs declarations or documents replacing the customs declaration of the shipment exported from the country as stipulated by the laws.

Ms. Linh also noted that if the documents are not in Vietnamese or English, the customs declarant must translate them into Vietnamese or English and be responsible for the content of the translation.

Tariff commitment transformation

According to the Department of International Cooperations representatives, the Decrees have transformed tariff commitments in agreements to match the list of exported and imported goods based on AHTN 2022, which changes some tariff lines following AHTN, with the range expanding from 10,813 lines of 10 numbers (AHTN 2017) to 11,414 tax lines (AHTN 2022). Furthermore, to maintain the separation of tariff lines at the level of ten countries, the number of tariff lines at level ten was reduced to 497 (down 124 lines from the previous version).

Of the 15 FTAs promulgating the tariff scheme in this period, four FTAs have completed the tariff remission scheme: ATIGA (2018), ASEAN - China (2020), ASEAN - Korea (2021), ASEAN - Australia - New Zealand (2022), towards the completion of the scheme with Japan, India, and the Eurasian Economic Union.

The Decrees supplement the scope of preferential treatment accorded to many countries that have ratified existing international agreements, including Peru, Ceuta, and Melila. Simultaneously, they complete and adjust some contents to increase legal clarity and avoid implementation obstacles, such as regulations on giving preferential treatment to non-tariff areas, and regulations on preferential treatment conditions.

Representatives of the Ministry of Finance further informed that Decree 129/2022/ND-CP dated December 30, 2022, is the first decree regulating the special preferential import tax of the RCEP Agreement. In Vietnam's RCEP tax commitments, different tax rates are applied to different partners with their sensitive items. In comparison to the FTAs Vietnam has signed, this is new content that helps ensure the effective implementation of the RCEP Agreement's target of discriminatory tax treatment among member countries (ASEAN, China, Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand).

Guidance on the applicable RCEP tariff rates varies among the Annexes to the Tariff in Article 6 of the Decree to internalize the provisions of Article 2.6 of the RCEP Agreement to address issues related to rules of origin of goods if a member country applies different import tariff commitments to others within the framework of the RCEP Agreement./.

Source: Thoi bao tai chinh Viet Nam
Both Vietnam and Thailand are big fruit exporters to China. However, Thailand can earn more money than Vietnam though it sells less fruit.

Chinese agencies reported that the country spent $1.18 billion to import 885,300 tons of fruit in the first three months of 2023, including bananas, mango, mangosteen, watermelon, durian, longan, rambutan, dragon fruit and lychee.

The import volume was 18.9 percent lower than in the same period last year, but the value was 6.2 percent higher.

The average import price of nine kinds of fruit was $1.329.7 per ton, up 31 percent compared with the same period 2022.

Of these, banana, longan, dragon fruit and durian were imported most. China imported 513,800 tons of bananas, worth $313.1 million. The Philippines and Vietnam were the main suppliers of bananas to China.

Chinas imports of longan reached 125,000 tons in the first quarter of 2023, valued at $168 million, while imports of dragon fruit were 97,200 tons, valued at $93.3 million.

Chinas durian imports continued to increase sharply to $91,400, worth $506.8 million, an increase of 154.3 percent in quantity and 124.6 percent in value compared with the same period 2022.

In previous years, China mainly imported durian from Thailand. However, after Vietnam and China signed a protocol on Vietnams durian full-tax export to China, Vietnam became the second Southeast Asian country, after Thailand, permitted to export fresh durian to the Chinese market.

Vietnam and Thailand are the two major suppliers of nine fruits to China and the proportion of Vietnamese and Thai fruits in Chinas total imports of fruits is on the rise.

In the first quarter of 2023, China imported 376,300 tons of these fruits from Vietnam, valued at $342.3 million, down 15.4 percent in quantity, but up 2.1 percent in value.

Meanwhile, China imported 204,600 tons from Thailand, valued at $583 million, down 3 percent in quantity, but up 20.2 percent in value.

Observers found big differences between Vietnams and Thailands average import prices of the nine fruits ($909.6 per ton for Vietnam and $2,850 per ton for Thailand).

This means that while the amount of fruit Vietnam exports to China was 1.8 times higher than Thailands, the amount of money Vietnam pocketed was much lower.

Bob Wang, Chairman of the Nanning Business Association said at a recent forum that with an output of 5.43 million tons a year, Thailand is inferior to Vietnam, which produces 12-13 million tons. However, Thailand can earn $8.53 billion, while it is $3.2 billion for Vietnam.

Source: Vietnamnet
A workshop brings together the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (EuroCham) and the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) to seek practical solutions to streamline the work permit process.

Delegates attend the dialogue workshop. Photos: EuroCham

The event, held on May 26 in Ho Chi Minh City, brought together policymakers and business community members to provide input on the revision of Decree 152, which governs foreign work permits and significantly impacts the day-to-day operations of international companies operating in Vietnam.

Gabor Flui, Chairman of EuroCham, said that the increasingly cumbersome issuance of work permits for foreign workers unintentionally hinders foreign direct investment, impedes the transfer of valuable skills and knowledge, undermines competitiveness, and stifles innovation, all of which have far-reaching effects on the national economy.

"We are grateful for Minister Dung's statements at the Vietnam Business Forum and the Prime Minister's Foreign Direct Investment Conference, which shed light on the Ministry's urgent focus on amending Decree 152," he said.

MOLISA Minister Dung has emphasized the importance of this amendment and looks forward to its implementation by the end of the third quarter," he added.

Trung Khuat, Co-Chair of EuroCham's Human Resources & Training Sector Committee, acknowledged the government's efforts to streamline work permit applications. However, he highlighted the increased stringency and cumbersome procedures faced by foreign workers since the expiration of Resolution 105 on December 31, 2022.

Throughout the morning, Khuat and other business representatives presented a series of proposals to amend Decree 152. A major focus of these recommendations revolved around aligning the required education and work experience requirements with practical expectations, thereby promoting a more pragmatic approach to the application process.

Another critical concern raised by several stakeholders was the urgent need to remove the existing limit on the number of work permit renewals. Under current regulations, only one renewal is allowed, forcing applicants to restart the application process when that permit expires.

In addition to these proposals, the business leaders urged local departments of labor, invalids and social affairs to adopt an official and standardized application form. This measure would not only streamline the entire process but also ensure nationwide compliance with the legal provisions governing the issuance of work permits to foreign workers.

Vu Trong Binh, Director General of MOLISA's Department of Employment, presented a report on the amendment to Decree 152. He provided valuable insights into the Government's perspective and priorities regarding the amendment process and highlighted their constraints in drafting the amended decree.

Delegates share opinions at the panel discussion on work permit framework. Photo: EuroCham

During the panel discussion on work permit challenges for foreign workers, representatives from MOLISA and local departments of labor, invalids and social affairs engaged in a constructive dialogue with members of the foreign business community in attendance.

In his closing remarks, EuroCham Vice Chairman Jean-Jacques Bouflet highlighted the commitment of foreign investors to legal compliance and training of Vietnamese personnel, in line with Vietnam's vision to develop a skilled workforce.

Recognizing the continued demand for foreign professionals in high-value and high-tech sectors, Bouflet stressed the importance of upholding obligations under free trade agreements to facilitate the employment of foreign workers.

He also highlighted specific provisions in the Labor Code that exempt certain cases from the work permit requirement.

However, Bouflet stressed the need for streamlined procedures and a flexible interpretation of regulations to expedite and simplify the work permit application process for foreigners.

He emphasized that the timely issuance of work permits is crucial in attracting substantial investment to Vietnam and maintaining its appeal as a desirable destination for foreign investors.

EuroCham and the business community eagerly await the release of the draft amended decree in July 2023, a date MoLISA emphasized several times during the dialogue, Bouflet said.

Binh reiterated MOLISA's intention to actively seek conceptual and policy input from the foreign business community once the draft is available.

Hanoi Times
The fitness giant, established in 2007, is set to expand its operations, upgrade its facilities, revamp its appearance, and enhance its services across selected clubs.

Moreover, it intends to secure extended lease agreements for four premium fitness centres strategically located in highly sought-after areas over the next 15 years.

Of particular significance is California Fitness's imminent presence at Hung Vuong Plaza, a prominent commercial complex recently reclaimed by KIDO from Parkson that is scheduled to unveil a new shopping mall concept, Van Hanh Mall, in August.

In addition, the lease contracts for Pico Plaza in Ho Chi Minh City, as well as Hanoi Capital Building and Hanoi Sky City Tower, have been successfully renewed by California Fitness, consolidating the brand's foothold in these key cities.

With a distinguished legacy spanning 16 years, California Fitness & Yoga stands as a trailblazer in the fitness industry and was the first chain of its kind in Vietnam.

Presently, the chain operates an impressive network of 37 state-of-the-art fitness studios, catering to a vast membership base exceeding 500,000 individuals who engage in over 11 million training sessions annually.

However, amidst the meteoric expansion experienced by California Fitness, particularly in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the company has confronted a host of challenges that have gradually eroded its standing in the eyes of consumers.

Sales tactics characterised by undue solicitation, untransparent pricing structures, and substantial disparities in service quality have contributed to a decline in consumer confidence over the past five years.

In candid acknowledgment of these obstacles, CEO of California Fitness Dane Fort articulated his stance in a statement released towards the end of last year.

He said, "It is crucial to recognise that our rapid growth has presented certain difficulties. Consequently, in recent years, we have refrained from opening new fitness clubs and instead directed our investments towards enhancing the member experience and upgrading existing facilities."

As part of this strategic vision, California Fitness plans to infuse $2 million into its current clubs, introducing state-of-the-art equipment, innovative services, fresh uniforms, and upgraded lighting systems.

To recapture lost market share and counter the rise of emerging competitors like City Gym, Elite Fitness, and S Life Gym, California Fitness has launched a comprehensive restructuring campaign, encompassing its fitness studio network and employee training programmes.

The company has undertaken a substantial equipment upgrade, incorporating leading brands such as Technogym, Matrix, and True Fitness. A careful analysis reveals that acquiring new members costs ten times more than retaining existing ones, underscoring the importance of nurturing customer loyalty.

Moreover, in the wake of the pandemic, there has been a notable shift in public attitudes towards fitness and overall wellbeing. With individuals placing greater emphasis on their physical health, the fitness industry in Vietnam has witnessed a remarkable surge in demand. In response, fitness chains, including California Fitness, are gearing up for a fiercely competitive market environment.

Vietnam's expanding middle-class population, expected to reach 45 million in the next five years, provides a compelling business opportunity. Approximately 15 million individuals are projected to transition from the working class to the middle class, with a significant portion considering fitness club memberships and prioritising personalised fitness regimes to invest in their wellbeing.

"Consequently, California Fitness must inaugurate an additional 150 fitness clubs to cater to this new wave of potential members. Our primary challenge lies in aligning our expansion pace with the rapid population growth," emphasised Fort.

He further noted that before the pandemic, most individuals merely expressed an interest in fitness without actively engaging in training. However, the post-pandemic landscape has witnessed a transformative shift, with fitness becoming a paramount priority for many.

Despite occasional periods of stagnation and the emergence of formidable competitors, Fort asserted California Fitness's preeminent market position, with a market share exceeding 70 per cent and annual revenues amounting to hundreds of billions of VND.

Vietnamese unicorn VNG targets $100 million in funding round to fuel expansion VNG Corporation, a prominent Vietnamese internet company supported by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC, is pursuing a fresh funding round with the goal of raising $100 million.
Tran Duc Thang, a Central Committee Member of the Party and Secretary of the Hai Duong Party Committee, held a meeting and working session during the week of May 22 with the leadership of Xiamen Hithium Energy Storage Technology.

According to Bloomberg, Xiamen Hithium Energy Storage Technology Co., Ltd., established in 2019, manufactures and distributes energy equipment. The business produces square batteries, cylindrical batteries, energy storage cabinets, battery modules, battery clusters, containerised energy storage systems, and other products. Xiamen Hithium Energy Storage Technology also operates import and export businesses.

The company's headquarters are located in Haicang, China, with additional offices and manufacturing facilities in the United States, Germany, India, Australia, and Singapore.

The company has emerged as the leader in China's energy storage market in terms of the number of projects and has achieved a remarkable growth rate, with an astounding increase in orders of over 4,000 per cent in 2022. Its net revenue soared to approximately $520 million in the same year, and it is projected to reach about $2.2 billion in 2023.

During the meeting, director of investment and development Will Shangguang and his delegation explored the potential advantages of Hai Duong, focusing on its geographical location, transportation infrastructure, industrial zones, and skilled workforce.

Thang underscored the province's pressing need to attract investments in high-tech, innovative, and supporting industries. He also reaffirmed the province's unwavering commitment to welcoming both domestic and foreign investors, particularly those from China.

In this regard, the local government has pledged to provide the best possible conditions for businesses to invest and operate while adhering to all relevant regulations throughout the entire process, including financial obligations, labour policies, and other legal requirements, he said.

This meeting signifies the province's proactive stance towards attracting high-tech and innovative investments, thereby underscoring its commitment to fostering a conducive business environment and nurturing economic growth in Hai Duong.

MyStorage expands to cater to Vietnam's rising storage demand MyStorage, the first professional mini storage company in Ho Chi Minh City, is looking to expand its offerings amidst rising competition.
The location of Lien Chieu Port which will be one of the key international gateways of Vietnam.(Photo: VNA)

Da Nang  The central city of Da Nang targets to become an attractive logistics centre of the central key economic region by 2030, and the key gateway of the East-West Economic Corridor and an important link of the Asia-Pacific transport corridor by 2050.

The target is set in a project on developing logistics services in the city in association with the central key economic region and the East-West Economic Corridor for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2050, which has just been approved by the municipal Peoples Committee.

Under the plan, the logistics service industry is expected to contribute 11-12 per cent of the citys gross regional domestic product by 2030 and up to 15.5 per cent by 2050.

Regarding the potential of logistics development in Da Nang, Duong Tien Lam, head of the representative office of the Vietnam Logistics Business Association (VLA) in Da Nang, said that the central city has opportunities to attract cargo through this economic corridor as it boasts an international container port and international airport and a location at the beginning of the East-West Economic Corridor.

However, to unlock its potential, it is necessary for Da Nang to devise specific policies to increase the volume of goods in circulation including incentives for investment in for-export production and logistics facilities.

Director of the municipal Department of Industry and Trade Le Thi Kim Phuong said that from now until 2030, the city has put forth solutions to research and issue new mechanisms and policies to facilitate container transportation activities via Da Nang seaport.

It will also provide support relating to land rent for logistics centre investment projects to encourage enterprises to invest in infrastructure construction, she noted.

To attract investment in the field of logistics, Da Nang city will study the formation of a Free Trade Zone (FTZ) with Lien Chieu Seaport, Da Nang International Airport and Hi-tech Park being its centre. The FTZ will offer incentives for investors such as exemption/reduction of taxes and fees; simplify the procedures for issuing and extending work visas and work permits.

Da Nang will boost trade and investment promotion in the south-central provinces of Laos; strengthen linkages with logistics associations and enterprises in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries and around the world.

There are 1,056 enterprises operating in the field of logistics in Da Nang, including 681 engaging in providing road freight transport services; 16 offering services related to sea transport and 30 enterprises providing agency, forwarding and shipping services.

Lao Airlines resumes direct flights to Da Nang city The central city of Da Nang on March 30 welcomed 150 tourists from Vientiane, Laos, on the first direct flight of Lao Airlines after a two-year hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Airlines reopen China - Da Nang air routes Okay Airways and Pacific Airlines will begin their flights connecting the central city of Da Nang with Hunan (China) and Muan (the Republic of Korea) from late April, increasing the number of airlines restarting operations at the Da Nang International Airport to 28.
Situated only 90 km from Hanoi, Emeralda Resort Ninh Binh owns a 17-hectare green campus with many luxurious and modern meeting rooms, a lawn that can accommodate up to 400 guests, and 172 rooms.

Emeralda Resort Ninh Binh is proud to be the first choice for large companies looking for a perfect meeting space

More than ten years of experience in welcoming large groups such as APEC, Honda Big Bike, AIA, Unilever, Well Spring, VTV, and Chubb Life, Emeralda Ninh Binh Resort regularly receives positive comments from partner companies about its professionalism and ability to satisfy all parties.

This summer, it is introducing a meeting package from only VND 495,000 ($21) per person, including a half-day meeting package in a high-class conference room with modern equipment and facilities, a catered tea-break, and a delicious lunch.

Honda Bigbikes event excited all who joined it

Emeralda Resort Ninh Binh, nestled in the Van Long Natural Reserve and surrounded by spectacular mountains, offers the true taste of a Tonkin Village close to Vietnams capital. The resort is easily reached with a 90-minute drive from Hanoi, and is only 2 hours from Noi Bai airport.

172 bungalows in nine clusters share a traditional Tonkin-styled design, featuring traditional Vietnamese architecture and furnishings. The resort is blessed with a total of two restaurants, one wine bar, and a pool bar to enjoy both European and Asian cuisine.

Anticipating further development, Emeralda Management Group was founded in 2011 as Vietnam's first home-grown professional hotel and resort management company, striving to deliver attractive financial returns with the latest hospitality concepts.

It owns or manages a variety of well-known resorts, including Emeralda Ninh Binh Resort & Spa, Ana Mandara Villas Dalat Resort & Spa, Sunrise Nha Trang, Ninh Van Bay Holiday Club, La Cochinchine Spa, and Senna Hue Hotel.
The discussion, held in Ho Chi Minh City, brought together policymakers and members of the business community to offer input on the revision of Decree No.152/2020/ND-CP. This regulation, which governs foreign work permits, has a substantial impact on the day-to-day operations of international enterprises operating in Vietnam.

At the event on May 26

MoLISA and EuroCham organised the event, while the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (AmCham), the British Chamber Of Commerce Vietnam (BritCham), and the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Ho Chi Minh City (JCCH) handled co-hosting duties.

The event commenced with a speech by EuroCham Chairman Gabor Fluit who underscored the vital interconnection between Vietnam's burgeoning economy and the success of foreign enterprises and investors operating within its borders.

Fluit also stressed that the increasing complexity of the work permit path for foreign workers inadvertently hinders foreign direct investment, impedes the transfer of valuable skills and knowledge, erodes competitiveness, and stifles innovation, all of which have far-reaching effects on the national economy.

We are grateful for the minister's statements at the Vietnam Business Forum and the Prime Minister's foreign direct investment conference, which shed light on the ministry's urgent focus on amending Decree No.152. Minister of MoLISA Dao Ngoc Dung himself emphasised the importance of this amendment, and we eagerly anticipate its implementation by the end of the third quarter, he added.

EuroCham's Co-Chair of the Human Resources and Training Sector Committee Trung Khuat acknowledged the government's efforts to streamline work permit applications. However, he stressed the increasingly cumbersome procedures faced by foreign workers since the expiration of Resolution No.105 on December 31, 2022.

Khuat and fellow representatives from the business community presented an array of amendment proposals. A primary focus of these recommendations revolved around aligning the required education and work experience requirements with practical expectations, thereby fostering a more pragmatic approach to the application process.

Another critical concern echoed by multiple stakeholders was the pressing need to eliminate the existing restrictions on the number of work permit renewals. Under the current regulations, only one renewal is permitted, necessitating applicants to restart the entire application process after exhausting this allowance.

In addition to these proposals, business leaders urged local Departments of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (DoLISAs) to adopt an official and standardised application form. This measure would not only streamline the entire process, but also ensure nationwide adherence to legal provisions.

MoLISA's report on the amendment of Decree No.152 was delivered by Vu Trong Binh, Director General of MoLISAs Department of Employment. His comments offered valuable insights into the government's perspective and priorities regarding the amendment process, shedding light on the constraints they encountered while drafting the amended decree.

A panel discussion on the challenges faced by foreign workers followed, moderated by Minh Nguyen, EuroCham's Vice-Chair, alongside representatives from MoLISA and provincial DoLISAs. Attending members of the foreign business community posed questions, prompting constructive dialogue geared towards exchanging experiences, addressing specific issues, and seeking practical solutions to streamline the work permit application process.

EuroCham Vice-Chair Jean-Jacques Bouflet emphasised the commitment of foreign investors to legal compliance and the training of Vietnamese personnel, aligning with Vietnam's vision of nurturing a skilled workforce. Recognising the persistent demand for high-quality foreign experts in high-tech sectors, Bouflet underscored the importance of upholding the obligations under free trade agreements to facilitate the employment of foreign workers.

He also highlighted specific provisions in the Labour Law that exempt certain cases from work permits.

Bouflet stressed the need for streamlined procedures and a flexible interpretation of regulations to expedite and simplify the work permit application process for foreigners. He reasoned that the timely issuance of work permits is crucial in attracting substantial investments to Vietnam and maintaining its appeal as a desirable destination for foreign investors.

EuroCham and the business community are eagerly awaiting the release of the draft amended decree in July, a date that was pushed for multiple times by MoLISA during the dialogue.

Binh reaffirmed MoLISA's intention to actively seek input from the foreign business community once the draft is made available.
Indonesia's Minister of Investment Bahlil Lahadalia (L) and Minister of State at the Department for Business and Trade of the UK Nusrat Ghani (Photo: Antara)

Jakarta - Indonesia's Minister of Investment Bahlil Lahadalia and Minister of State at the Department for Business and Trade of the UK Nusrat Ghani have discussed downstreaming investment opportunities in the critical mineral sector and electric battery development.

The officials also discussed renewable energy investment in a meeting on May 24.



Bahlil said the Indonesian government is keen to highlight that downstreaming is implemented through a green principle to achieve net zero emissions (NZE). He also offered to combine technology from the UK with raw materials from Indonesia.



For her part, Ghani welcomed Bahlil's idea and expressed her readiness to connect British companies to help Indonesia in downstreaming.



Ghani, who is also Minister of State for the Investment Security Unit, and Minister for Industry and Economic Security, said the UK government seeks to persify raw materials for critical mineral resources, especially those used for solar panel and electric car battery development.



The Indonesian and British governments agreed to further discuss cooperation in the use of new technologies for renewable energy development to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and NZE target of Indonesia.

Indonesia sets tourism revenue target of 10 bln USD Indonesia is targeting 10 billion USD from the tourism sector in 2023 from the 6 billion USD set earlier this year.

Indonesia, Japan ink MoUs on new capital development Indonesia and Japan have signed five memoranda of understanding (MoUs) and 24 letters of intent (LoIs) on the development of the new Indonesian capital (IKN) of Nusantara, the Nusantara Capital City Authority (OIKN) has informed.
The shareholding ratio between Keppel and KVF, one of Keppels private funds, in the Keppel Consortium is 50-50.

The Saigon Centre is a landmark development by Keppel Land

Khang Dien Group, an established developer in Vietnam listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, will hold the remaining 51 per cent interest and jointly develop these projects with the Keppel Consortium.

This marks the second joint investment by Keppel and KVF, following the acquisition of three residential land sites in Hanoi in 2022.

The Keppel Consortium and Khang Dien Group plan to jointly develop a total of more than 200 landed homes and more than 600 high-rise apartments on the two sites, which have a total land area of about 11.8 hectares.

The total development cost for the projects, inclusive of land, is expected to be around $443 million. The necessary developmental approvals, including the master plan and land use right certificates for the two sites, have been obtained.

According to Joseph Low, president of the Vietnam Real Estate Division at Keppel, this joint strategic acquisition with KVF in Ho Chi Minh City is in line with Keppels asset-light business model under its Vision 2030 and enables it to tap into third-party funds for growth.

We are pleased to partner with Khang Dien Group, a leading real estate company in Vietnam. As Keppel continues to expand our presence in the nation, we look forward to collaborating with like-minded partners to offer our suite of sustainable urban space solutions and further contributing to the countrys sustainable development, Low said.

Chairwoman of Khang Dien Mai Tran Thanh Trang shared that, as a listed corporation, Khang Dien always focuses on improving the value and benefits for shareholders, partners, and customers.

We believe that Keppel's combination of experience in developing quality real estate worldwide and its commitment to long-term investment in Vietnam, along with Khang Dien's market understanding and operating principles based on sustainable development, will create breakthrough housing projects and urban areas, improve the quality of life for residents, bring practical value to the community, and contribute to the sustainable development of the economy, Trang said.

Keppels Real Estate Division has been active in Vietnam since the early 1990s. Over three decades, Keppel has grown with the nation to become one of the largest foreign real estate investors in the country today.

In Vietnam, Keppel is well known for its quality residential developments, such as Estella Heights, Celesta Rise and Empire City, as well as Grade A commercial developments like the Saigon Centre in Ho Chi Minh City.

The aforementioned transactions, which are slated to be completed in 2023, are not expected to have any material impact on the earnings per share and net tangible asset per share of Keppel Corporation Ltd. in the current financial year, the company claimed.

Keppel Land and Shopee join hands to collaborate on Celesta Heights project Keppel Land has announced a partnership with Shopee to market Celesta Heights, the latest residential project jointly developed by Keppel Land and Phu Long Real Estate Corporation.

Keppel Land nurtures local communities in Vietnam Keppel Land has been in Vietnam since the early 1990s and is one of the largest foreign real estate investors in the country, deeply committed to engaging with and contributing to local communities. Joseph Low, president for Vietnam at Keppel Land, talked with VIR's Binh An about the firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.

Keppel Land raise plastic waste awareness "Shackles", a sculptured artwork, was chosen as the first prize winner from more than 60 submissions to the Green Sculpture Competition organised by Keppel Land in support of the Plastic Free July global movement and in conjunction with Keppel Land Vietnams 30th-anniversary celebrations.

How Keppel Land enriches lives and uplifts the community As Keppel Land Vietnam commemorates its 30th anniversary, the company is committed to advancing the sustainability cause in its operations and activities for the next 30 years and beyond.
Singaporean President Halimah Yacob and her Kazakhstani counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev witness the signing of the services and investment agreement and three other deals on training cooperation in public administration, urban development, and trade negotiation.(Photo source: straitstimes.com)

Singapore - Singapore has signed many cooperation agreements with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to futher promote cooperation within the framework of Singaporean President Halimah Yacob's state visits to the Central Asian nations.



During a visit to Kazakhstan from May 21-23, Yacob and her Kazakhstani counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev witnessed the signing of the services and investment agreement and three other deals on training cooperation in public administration, urban development, and trade negotiation.



At their talks, the two sides welcomed the regular exchange of high-level visits, and agreed that the two countries have opportunities to expand cooperation in many areas including trade and investment, energy, logistics and supply chain connection.



Meanwhile, Yacob and President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev also witnessed the exchange of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on sharing experiences in tourism product marketing and destination during the Singaporean leaders visit to Uzbekistan from May 23-25.



The two sides also signed three other agreements on cultural cooperation, and preventing and combating crime.



At their talks, they discussed extensively on a number of cooperation areas, including trade and investment, cultural exchange, and tourism and education.



Yacob's trip is the first visit by a Singaporean President to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In January 2023, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyouev also paid a state visit to Singapore, and the two sides signed 10 MoUs on strengthening cooperation in the fields of transport, trade, education, and healthcare.

Singapore applies hi-tech in growing strawberries in Malaysia, Thailand Singrow, a Singapore-based agri-genomics, has developed a research project to promote strawberry varieties grown in tropical climate areas. The firm has also promoted franchise farm partnerships in Malaysia and Thailand to make significant progress in its global expansion plans.
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McLennan Community College could see its state funding hinged to student outcomes rather than enrollment beginning this fall with a major change in Texas community college funding awaiting Gov. Greg Abbotts signature.

The changes included in House Bill 8 would move community college funding from enrollment-based to based on measures of how well colleges prepare students for further education at four-year colleges, completion of associates degrees or job preparedness. It also increases state support for educationally disadvantaged students taking dual credit classes and for students transferring to four-year colleges.

The shift in funding formulas could mean an increase of nearly $400 million for community colleges in the coming two years. It comes after community colleges across the country have seen student enrollments drop in recent years. Declining enrollment at McLennan Community College has concerned administrators and trustees, although recent figures suggest the downward trend may be starting to level off.

Interviewed earlier this month before the Senate had approved the bill, MCC President Johnette McKown said she was pleased at the prospects the new bill would become law.

Were very excited.  I think, at the end of the day, it will be good for us and our students, McKown said. Its a transformational bill.

It came after an extensive study by the Texas Commission on Community College Finance, which presented its report and recommendations to the state Legislature before the beginning of this years legislative session.

If the governor signs the bill, it would go into effect Sept. 1. Although MCC administrators are shaping the colleges 2023-24 budget for trustee consideration and approval in July, with revenue estimates based on current state funding formulas, McKown said the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has advised community colleges they can plan that state revenue will remain steady this year as details of the transition to the new funding plan are worked out.

House Bill 8 will not affect funding for Texas State Technical College, the countys other state post-secondary education and training institution, although its funding is outcome-driven as well.

Bills concerning the fate of tenure and departments of diversity, equity and inclusion at state universities and colleges, two of the more controversial issues in Texas higher education this legislative session, await their final outcome after the chambers approved different versions of each measure.

Senate Bill 18, favored by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick as a measure he claims would curb woke ideology in higher education, would have eliminated tenure at state universities and colleges beginning in 2024. However, the House passed an amended version that would continue tenure while requiring universities to submit their tenure policies and procedures to the state.

After initially starting the conference committee process to resolve differences between the two versions, the Senate voted Saturday to accept the House version that allows colleges to keep tenure in place. The Senate vote Saturday likely sets up the bill to be sent for Abbott to sign into law.

A little more than half of MCCs 203 full-time faculty, 106 professors, have tenure. McKown said tenure for certain faculty positions is an incentive and its loss could affect job candidates.

I think this (tenure) assists us in recruiting the very best faculty we can get, she said.

Another measure before legislators would ban colleges diversity, equity and inclusion departments on the grounds that they promote racial or gender preferences in hiring.

After the House and Senate passed different versions of the measure, Senate Bill 17, a conference committee submitted its report Saturday, which represents a version of the bill that reconciles differences between each chambers version. If both chambers approve the reconciled version, it heads for Abbott to sign into law.

MCC does not have a diversity, equity and inclusion department concerned with hiring and student administration, McKown said, and the office that carried the title of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion/Title IX has been renamed Accommodations/Title IX to better reflect its focus, which is not in conflict with the proposed law.

The state proposals on tenure and on diversity, equity and inclusion would not affect Baylor University, a private institution, though many faculty and staff at Baylor University have followed the legislative discussion of those bills.

As a private institution, these bills will not directly impact Baylor, but we are aware of the concerns many others have brought forth regarding their potential impact on the overall perception of higher education in Texas, Baylor University spokesperson Lori Fogleman said.
This beautiful New Orleans style home in historic Castle Heights shows quality in every detail! Built by a prominent Waco citizen in 1939 it is even more lovely today than it was when it was built! Current sellers are only the 2nd people to own this home. The spreading oak trees, and large beautifully landscaped double lot provide the perfect setting for playing, entertaining, relaxing and enjoying life to it's fullest! The outside of this home sets it apart from all others, but when you enter the lovely foyer, the full beauty of the home starts to truly unfold. At one end of the foyer is an expansive formal living area with a light filled sunroom at the far end. At the other end of the foyer is a large formal dining room that has plenty of space for celebrations around the table. Off the dining room is an open, well designed kitchen that offers a large island and plenty of workspace for a dedicated cook. The kitchen is open to a great table space for informal dining and then steps down into a grand den that was added for the comfort and flexibility of the home. Fireplaces in the formal living area as well as in the family room add warmth and hospitality to those areas. Both fireplaces have a gas jet and can be wood burning but are currently set up with gas logs. Enjoy sitting at the informal dining table in the bay window of the kitchen as a favorite spot to watch the neighborhood activites while enjoying the comforts of home. Also on the main floor is a private room perfect for an office or library space. There are 5 bedrooms and 3 & 1/2 bathrooms in the home. One bedroom and bathroom is attached to the garage with a separate entrance from the outside and an entrance from the garage making this a very private guest room, retreat or flex space. There are too many other amenities in this beautiful home to list them all, but following are a few. In addition to the two car garage attached to the home, there is a one car porte cachere at the end of the driveway. This space also includes a huge store room that is large enough to hold all the holiday and party decorations you could possibly desire. The driveway has an electric iron gate for full privacy. In the upstairs master suite, open the French doors to step out onto the upstairs balcony for a treetop experience. The exquisite partially covered New Orleans style brick patio in back extends out to a fountain and large open tree shaded brick patio area. Two extra pull-in parking spaces are just off the driveway in front for off the street guest parking. There is a basement to the home that has a sump pump and houses the mechanicals. Truly a one of a kind home in Waco!

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Judging from a 2017 Pew Research survey, about half of you know someone who has been a victim of gun violence in America. I have several friends who have been shot.

Last month a longtime friend, former Waco school teacher Dana Stanke, came to visit. Dana moved from Waco recently to live with her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter in another state so they could share household responsibilities. Its been a wonderful retirement for Dana as she gets to care for and help rear her beautiful granddaughter.

During our visit, Dana told us that, sadly, her daughter and son-in-law contemplate a move to Canada out of fear of rampant gun violence; theyve already begun exploring job possibilities. Danas daughter, Ali, shot as a teen on a church mission trip to Chicago, told her mom that she doesnt want her 3-year-old to suffer as she did.

Silly paranoia? Hardly. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the United States. School shootings jumped from 114 in 2020 to 250 in 2021, then to 303 in 2022. This years deadly violence in schools is on track to top last years. Mass shootings in all venues  from grocery stores to shopping malls to houses of worship  have escalated significantly the past four years.

Some parents with financial means and marketable skills contemplate leaving America out of fear for their childrens lives. One colleague with kids in elementary and middle schools recently moved to Canada for this reason. Anecdotal evidence suggests thousands of families are considering moves to Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries to escape this uniquely American scourge.

The irony: Most Americans support gun reform. At one point, advocates for restricting overly lax firearms access in Texas demonstrated at the State Capitol during the legislative session. Dozens including relatives of those killed in the Allen massacre chanted, Raise the age, raise the age, to urge lawmakers to advance a bill to hike the minimum age to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21.

The same day, HB 2744, crafted to do just that, passed out of committee by an 8-5 vote. Two of the eight: Republican Reps. Sam Harless of Spring and Justin Holland of Rockwall.

A recent University of Texas at Austin survey found a significant majority of Texans  including, yes, Republicans  support raising the minimum age to buy all guns, not just AR-styled rifles. The bad news: HB 2744, which would only limit access to assault-styled rifles, didnt make it to the House floor for a proper vote. A similar bill in the Senate didnt even receive a committee hearing. And even if these bills had miraculously passed the Republican-dominated Legislature, Gov. Greg Abbott has already deemed them unconstitutional and vowed to veto them.

The only answer to the butchery of the last dozen years from Texas Republican politicians is the offer of thoughts and prayers. Their policy prescriptions? Further loosen gun restrictions, advocate for arming teachers and cast blame on the mentally ill. Yet mass killings are increasing.

Why wont our own lawmakers  state Reps. Doc Anderson and Angelia Orr and Sen. Brian Birdwell  support legislation to limit access to weapons of war designed to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible? These rifles are the ones used in Allen, Texas, that killed eight and wounded seven, and in Cleveland, Texas, that killed five. The same sort of weapon was used in Uvalde, Texas, a year ago by a gunman who slaughtered 19 children and two teachers while law enforcement officers cowered in campus hallways.

There is no safe place in America anymore, state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, said. Theres no church thats safe, theres no school thats safe, theres no shopping mall thats safe, theres no library thats safe. Its not because of books, its not because of trans kids who want health care, its because of things that people own, because we value things over people.

Wu states what most Americans know deep down: Our legislators serve the interests of deep-pocketed gun lobbyists, not fellow citizens who increasingly function as moving targets in the shooting gallery that is American society.

A 2019 survey on stress and mass shootings by the American Psychological Association found that more than three-quarters of adults (79 percent) in the United States report they experience stress because of the possibility of a mass shooting. This fear has resulted in nearly one-quarter (24 percent) of adults changing their behavior with nearly one in three adults (32 percent) feeling they cannot go anywhere without worrying about mass shootings.

I recently asked my daughter if she was anxious about her daughters, my granddaughters, safety in kindergarten. We ended up talking for 30 minutes about her fears. In the 1960s, I went to the same elementary school that my granddaughter now attends. My mom and dad worried about our making good grades. Today some parents spend more time wondering if their children will escape becoming casualties of gunfire.

Those of us who teach in K-12 or in colleges or universities think more and more about the security of students, staff and faculty. Thanks to Republican lawmakers and aloof judges, the Second Amendment has devoured all other rights. Its perceived sanctimony has warped common sense for those beholden to the bottom-line priorities of gun manufacturers and the feverish anti-government dreams of fanatics who imagine themselves patriots and everyone else collateral damage.
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Hugh Grant has become a well-oiled parody in comedies. Thanks to his brilliant work in Paddington 2, he knows how to play bad guys without breaking a sweat.

In Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, he heads down the same path but doesnt quite goose it the way he could. Hes predictable  and thats OK.

Like an Indiana Jones-era serial, D&D jumps from one crisis to another in an attempt to rescue Edgin Darvis daughter from the clutches of a grifter (Grant) eager to swell his coffers. To help him get the girl, Darvis (Chris Pine) calls on a friend, Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), a druid (Sophia Lillis) and a second-tier sorcerer (Justice Smith). Together, the group encounters all sorts of creatures (an owlbear, anyone?) secret hideaways and, yes, a rather nasty dragon.

While Pine is basically playing his Wonder Woman persona in another costume, theres great fun to be had at Smiths expense. Hes not exactly your fathers sorcerer but he does have a few tricks up his sleeve that come in quite handy when the folks are running from potential captors. Theres a portal concept that takes a bit of explanation to understand but, then, its just a matter of tossing it out there and seeing how the good guys can outdo the bad.

Rege-Jean Page turns up as a savior of sorts but its never quite clear what his purpose is. (Game players might be more aware). Hes not the kind of character who turns on his new-found friends but he could easily be a link to yet another portal.

Directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has a Swiss Family Robinson quality that keeps audiences unsettled long enough to get the heroes to another level, if you will.

Discovery is 9/10ths of this law. When dad is sufficiently within spitting distance, he discovers his daughter (Chloe Coleman) isnt all that eager to reunite. Grants Forge Fitzwilliam has been able to poison her against her dad. Even better? He has plenty of gold coins and real estate. Complicating matters: A friendship with Sofina (Daisy Head), a Red Wizard who is just as eager to make the rescuers disappear.

While D&D has plenty of interesting locations to investigate, no one stays in one place very long. When the rescuers are sent into an arena-sized maze, there are enough odd creatures to keep special effects wizards busy for a couple of years. Nothing looks particularly state-of-the-art. The film, in fact, owes more to Ray Harryhausen than anyone. (Its in the same league, visually, as his 50s and 60s work and doesnt really blaze new trails.)

Still, this is Saturday afternoon serial stuff, made entertaining by a script that thrives on wordplay and a sense of swagger.

Its great fun, considering its built around a game, and it has potential to spawn more rounds. In Hollywood, thats a real win.
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JACKSON, Ky.  Shirley Howards feet splashed into nearly a foot of water when she stepped out of bed on a summer morning last July amid a torrential rainfall.

A devastating flood swallowing up Kentuckys Appalachian region had reached her bedroom in the night. The family grabbed their dogs and fled their brick bungalow in Jackson as the water eventually rose to the ceiling.

Ten months later, they still haven't returned home. Howard, her husband, son and their three dogs  Maisey, Charlie and Lilly  have been living in a cramped trailer provided by the state. At least 100 other families are living in trailers and hundreds more remain displaced, living with relatives or in damaged homes while they rebuild.

I am so dying to go home every day, the 65-year-old Howard said.

Howard's house and nearly 9,000 others in 13 counties were severely damaged or destroyed by the intense four-day storm that dumped up to 16 inches of rain in eastern Kentucky. The fast-rising waters shoved homes off foundations, blocked roadways and submerged mountain towns under several feet of muddy water. Thousands like Howard had to grab what they could and flee. More than 40 people died.

It was one of the worst floods in Kentuckys history, ravaging one of the poorest places in the country. Homeowners in the mountainous region settled by coal miners a century ago live in flood-prone valleys that offer the only flat land for building homes, an area already suffering a housing crisis before the flood hit.

Disaster recovery in poor areas like this stretch of eastern Kentucky presents a host of challenges for victims who already faced setbacks before flood waters rushed inside their homes. A single inch of water inside a house can cause more than $26,000 in damage, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Theres food insecurity, there's lack of affordable housing, there's lack of access to resources ... and those things are just exacerbated after a disaster," said Sally Ray, director of domestic funds for the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, which helps guide private donations after disasters.

The challenges in Kentucky are replicated in disasters that strike poor areas nationwide. Low-income families can't qualify for disaster loans, and conflicting rules and separate thresholds for an array of federal aid can slow and complicate recovery, according to national experts.

They're still recovering from Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana," Ray said of the 2005 disaster, which flooded most of New Orleans.

For a region with longstanding poverty and housing problems, Kentucky's massive flood plunged thousands of homeowners  nearly all without flood insurance  into a deeper crisis. One study estimates it could cost nearly $1 billion to recover the region's housing losses.

We had a housing crisis before the flood hit, said Scott McReynolds, executive director of the Housing Development Alliance, a nonprofit that provides housing and repairs for needy residents in southeastern Kentucky. The group was working with 400 families even before the flood.

The Howards are using FEMA dollars to restore the interior of their home, since they didn't have flood insurance, which can cost hundreds of dollars a month.

It was just too much for us, Shirley Howard said.

Only about 5% of affected homeowners carried flood insurance, according to a report by the Ohio River Valley Institute and Appalachian Citizens Law Center. Traditional homeowners insurance does not cover damage caused by flooding.

The report said 60% of the households damaged had annual incomes of $30,000 or less.

FEMA has doled out about $106 million to victims of the Kentucky flood for repairs, cleanup, storage, moving costs and other short-term needs. The maximum FEMA payout is $39,700, but the average grant was closer to $20,000, McReynolds said.

A significant federal grant of $298 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was announced in March to fund long-term infrastructure and housing needs in the flood zone. An additional $20 million was allocated earlier this year by Kentucky lawmakers, funding to be split between flood victims and people who lost their homes in a 2021 tornado in western Kentucky.

But the large allocation of federal money could be slow to arrive, and it is unclear how much of it will go to housing, said Rebecca Shelton with the Appalachian Citizens Law Center, who co-authored the Kentucky flooding study.

The big concern is really the timeline, Shelton said. It will be many months before these (federal) funds are implemented and I dont know how much longer folks who are still inadequately housed can hang on.

The Howards have been beset by delays in restoring their home. The interior has been gutted down to the wall studs; it needs flooring, electrical wiring and new drywall. They, like many in the disaster zone, have had trouble finding laborers to do the work.

His Housing Development Alliance is among a coalition of six nonprofits that have received nearly 500 applications from flood victims wanting to build new homes, McReynolds said.

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has launched a rebuilding effort on former mining lands, to create new housing developments outside the flood zone. So far, 125 acres in two counties has been donated, and state and federal funds, along with money from flood relief donations, will help fund the effort. Officials broke ground on the first home in February.

With help from McReynolds' nonprofit, houses are also being built on a new street near Jackson.

Peach Tree Streets first resident, Deborah Hansford, moved into a two-bedroom house on higher ground in late March. She was forced out of her Jackson home by the 2021 flood, and last year's flood walloped it again, removing any hope of returning.

Hansford used her FEMA assistance to make a down payment on her new house with green siding and a wide front porch.

I feel more secure now," she said, enjoying her porch on a mild spring day. Hopefully a flood like that will never happen again.

Photos: Summer lurches from drought to flood
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SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador  Fabricio Chicas knows exactly what will happen. As soon as he hands in his ID, the employee on the other side of the counter will look at him with suspicion, asking why he carries a document that identifies him as female.

Whether at a bank, a hospital or a human resources office, the 49-year-old Salvadoran provides the same answer: I am a transgender man who has not been able to change his name and gender on his ID.

His fate is shared by many transgender people in El Salvador, where Catholicism and evangelicalism are prevalent, abortion is banned and the legalization of same-sex marriage seems unlikely.

In 2022, the countrys Supreme Court determined that the inability of a person to change their name because of gender identity constitutes discriminatory treatment. A ruling ordered the National Assembly to issue a reform that facilitates the process, but the deadline expired three months ago, and the lawmakers did not comply.

It is part of a much broader pattern of weakening the rule of law and judicial independence, said Cristian Gonzalez Cabrera, LGBTQ rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

I was so depressed I didnt want to live

When he was little, Chicas mother agreed to dress him in masculine clothes and called him my boy. Everything changed when he turned 9.

I was abused, and my mom started to overprotect me, he said.

Perhaps feeling that treating Chicas as a boy exposed him to harm, she dressed him again in girls clothing. I was so depressed I didnt want to live, he recalled.

When he turned 15, he met a transgender man who advised him to start his physical transformation. The man suggested pressing his breasts with an iron to prevent them from growing.

Chicas ended up in the hospital, with an infection produced by hematomas, and his mother made him swear he would never alter his body to look like a man.

Though he said yes, he promised something to himself: Ill grow up, find a job and leave.

Early in a transition, lack of support from ones own family is often the biggest challenge, said Monica Linares.

The 43-year-old transgender woman left home when she turned 14 and started her transition. She currently works as an activist at the organization ASPIDH Arcoiris Trans.

It hasnt been easy, but when you really have an identity and you want to defend what you really want, you are willing to lose everything, Linares said.

For more than 15 years, she was a sex worker. She lost friends to transphobic killings and saw others migrate because of gangs.

In her current job is she collaborates with other organizations to support LGBT rights, especially to put pressure on lawmakers who show little interest in reviewing a gender identity bill that was presented in 2021.

The bill would comply with the Supreme Courts ruling from 2022 and go a step further, allowing trans people to change not only their names but also their gender on official paperwork.

Insurmountable red tape

The lack of IDs that are consistent with the gender identity of trans Salvadoreans can make their daily life troublesome.

Some employees of internet companies refuse to solve complaints made by phone, alleging that the voice of the person issuing the complaint does not match the gender they have on file.

Insurers dont allow trans people to register their partners as beneficiaries in the event of death, since their guidelines state that couples must consist of a man and a woman.

Chicas has had problems collecting remittances, banks have denied him loans, and employers have not hired him because his applications reveal that he is a transgender man.

In hospitals, he said, health personnel have delayed his appointments, claiming that they cannot treat people like him.

In this deeply religious country, discrimination against transgender people goes beyond paperwork.

A report by Human Rights Watch and COMCAVIS TRANS in 2022 details how transgender people in El Salvador suffer violence and discrimination.

Security forces, gangs, and victims families and communities are perpetrators; harm occurs in public spaces, homes, schools, and places of worship, the report states.

Latin American countries such as Chile, Argentina, Cuba, Colombia and Mexico have issued laws that protect some rights of the LGBTQ community and allow transgender people to modify their official documents to match their gender identity. In El Salvador, though, since President Nayib Bukele came into power in 2019, there have been setbacks.

Among other actions, the government dissolved the Ministry for Social Inclusion, which investigated LGBTQ issues nationwide, and it restructured an educational institute for addressing sexual orientation in schools.

Bukele has said that he will never legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Church has backed his position. The archdioceses office did not respond to multiple requests from The Associated Press for comment.

Family ties go beyond blood

In the backyard of Chicas house, Pongo and Polar Bear wave their tails. Behind the dogs comes Elizabeth Lopez, Chicas partner for the past seven years. They met soon after Chicas mother died, when he decided to use hormones and start his transition.

At first, Lopez seems distrustful. Too many strangers have hurt them beyond words.

She remembers a guard who ordered them to leave a public pool after Chicas said he was unable to remove his shirt, given that his physical transition was incomplete. They both recall the time when he had emergency surgery and health personnel forbid her to visit, alleging they were both women, so they could never marry or become a family.

Chicas disagrees. Family, he said, are not the ones who share blood; they are the ones who support each other.

The couple has been sharing their home with a young transgender man who left his own home. Chicas offers care and advice.

Recently, the young man came home accompanied by his girlfriend and approached Chicas to introduce them. He told his girlfriend: Meet my old man.

Here's how legislation in every state affects trans youth Ranking states from most restrictive to the most protective for trans youth #51. Tennessee #50. Arkansas #49. South Dakota #48. Alabama #47. Mississippi #46. Oklahoma #45. Louisiana #43. Georgia (tie) #43. South Carolina (tie) #42. Texas #41. Missouri #40. Wyoming #39. Arizona #38. Idaho #35. Montana (tie) #35. Nebraska (tie) #35. West Virginia (tie) #33. Florida (tie) #33. North Carolina (tie) #32. Indiana #31. Kansas #30. Ohio #29. Kentucky #28. North Dakota #27. Utah #26. Pennsylvania #25. Iowa #24. Alaska #23. Wisconsin #22. Michigan #21. Delaware #20. Virginia #19. New Hampshire #18. New Mexico #17. Maryland #16. Hawaii #15. Rhode Island #13. Massachusetts (tie) #13. Minnesota (tie) #12. Illinois #10. Washington D.C. (tie) #10. Vermont (tie) #9. Oregon #8. Washington #6. Maine (tie) #6. New Jersey (tie) #5. Connecticut #4. Nevada #3. New York #2. California #1. Colorado Here's how legislation in every state affects trans youth #51. Tennessee #50. Alabama #49. South Dakota #48. Arkansas #47. Oklahoma #46. Mississippi #45. Louisiana #44. South Carolina #43. Texas #42. Georgia #41. Missouri #40. Arizona #39. Wyoming #38. Florida #37. Nebraska #36. Montana #35. Idaho #34. Indiana #33. West Virginia #32. Kansas #31. Kentucky #30. Alaska #29. Ohio #28. North Carolina #27. Utah #26. North Dakota #25. Pennsylvania #24. Iowa #23. Wisconsin #22. Michigan #21. Virginia #20. New Mexico #19. Delaware #18. New Hampshire #17. Maryland #16. Rhode Island #15. Hawaii #14. Minnesota #13. Massachusetts #12. Illinois #11. Washington #10. Oregon #8. Vermont (tie) #8. Washington D.C. (tie) #7. Connecticut #6. New Jersey #5. New York #3. Maine (tie) #3. Nevada (tie) #2. Colorado #1. California
Hydrogen has long been recognized as a possible alternative to fossil fuels because it has a high energy content and its combustion does not produce any greenhouse gases, just water. However, the difficulty of producing it has kept hydrogen from widespread use. This is changing with at least two major projects.

According to a recent article in the Gulfport, Mississippi, SunHerald newspaper, a facility will be built on 70,000 acres in the Gulfport region to generate electricity from wind and solar for the electrolysis of water to produce green hydrogen. The fuel will then be stored underground in nearby salt caverns until it is transported by pipeline, ship, or other means to where it is needed.

Another project in north Texas was described in a recent issue of Inside Climate News. It is expected to produce 200,000 kilograms of hydrogen per day, enough to satisfy 0.1 percent of U.S. diesel demand. A large wind and solar facility will generate the electricity needed to break water into oxygen and hydrogen.

There are still difficult problems that must be overcome, but hydrogen seems poised to change the energy landscape, especially for uses that are hard to electrify, like airplanes and long-haul trucks.

David Voigts, Jesup
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WATERLOO  Fourth Street in downtown Waterloo is Still the One place to be when summer kicks off on Memorial Day weekend.

With the 4th Street Cruise reaching its 41st year, hundreds of car enthusiasts were met with clear blue skies to watch as Cedar Valley motorists looped through downtown two abreast on Saturday.

From convertibles, muscle cars, hot rods and roadsters to newer makes and models, motorists revved their engines and showed off their vehicular pride and joys.

Drivers began to gather their cars under the overpass at Washington and Fourth Streets at 9 a.m., some with the hoods up to show off their engines.

At noon on the dot, cars started to loop through downtown taking both lanes so onlookers on both sides of the flooded streets could be in the front row for the action.

Radio station KOKZ broadcast music throughout the cruise. Drivers tuned their radios to 105.7 to hear the classic rock soundtrack accentuating the cruise. There were sound systems set up along Fourth Street so the public could hear the music, too.

As with every year, the annual Shine & Show on the National Cattle Congress Fairgrounds kicked off the weekend Friday, giving people an even closer look.

Photos: The 41st annual 4th Street Cruise in downtown Waterloo Fourth Street Cruise 1 Fourth Street Cruise 2 Fourth Street Cruise 3 Fourth Street Cruise 4 Fourth Street Cruise 5 Fourth Street Cruise 6 Fourth Street Cruise 7 Fourth Street Cruise 8 Fourth Street Cruise 9 Fourth Street Cruise 10 Fourth Street Cruise 11 Fourth Street Cruise 12 Fourth Street Cruise 13 Fourth Street Cruise 14 Fourth Street Cruise 15 Fourth Street Cruise 16 Fourth Street Cruise 17 Fourth Street Cruise 18 Fourth Street Cruise 19 Fourth Street Cruise 20 Fourth Street Cruise 21 Fourth Street Cruise 22 Fourth Street Cruise 23 Fourth Street Cruise 24 Fourth Street Cruise 25 Fourth Street Cruise 26 Fourth Street Cruise 27
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WATERLOO  After months of work, 42 banners honoring Cedar Valley veterans are now waving in the wind downtown.

Officials from multiple Waterloo-based organizations and the city of Waterloo were on hand Thursday afternoon to unveil Veterans Way, an interactive art and history walk along East and West Fourth Street.

Lamp posts on the 16-blocks route are now adorned with red, white and blue banners featuring living or deceased veterans.

This is a celebration of a dream becoming reality and a dream that was stirring into peoples hearts to honor our veterans and military service people in a way that is highly visible and highly inclusive, Waterloo Mayor Quentin Hart said.

His late father, Grocee Hart, is one of the veterans honored. He served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

I remember him just being ready and talking about his willingness to serve and join the Army and serve his country, Hart said. That gave me a sense of a bigger world beyond Waterloo and a sense of possibility and instilled in me a sense of responsibility to serve my country and fellow man, wherever and whenever I can.

With Memorial Day around the corner, Black Hawk County Veteran Affairs Director Yolando Loveless said after spending a few days honoring veterans buried in area cemeteries, the Veterans Way project is an opportunity to celebrate the lives of those who have served.

What better way to celebrate a veterans life but to put him or (her) out so that people can understand and see exactly what that veteran has done to support this country and then what he or she is currently doing in the community, Loveless said. Thank you, mayor, thank you to the city of Waterloo, for allowing us veterans to shine one more day.

Loveless, along with his wife, Chiquita, are two of the veterans featured on the banners. They both served in the U.S. Navy.

Loveless also recognized Evan Hultman from the audience, stating Hultman is one of the oldest living veterans in Black Hawk County. Hultman, a retired U.S. Army Reserve major general from Waterloo, was given the honor of cutting the ribbon for the event, alongside other area veterans and Grow Cedar Valley members.

Hultman served in the U.S. Army during World War II and was stationed in Japan after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was tasked with cleanup efforts. He said the banner project was wonderful and long overdue.

Its an honor to be a part of it while its happening, and we honor all of those veterans in addition to the Five Sullivan (brothers).

Attending the event with Hultman was his daughter, Heidi Warrington, an Army veteran herself. She was an active combat nurse for 30 years, and spent almost five years in the reserves. She served in five wars and 41 countries.

The current banners will hang until Veterans Day in November. Later this year, community members will have a chance to buy a banner for a veteran to fly in 2024. The annual banners can be sponsored for $200 each.

They will be purchased through the Exchange Club of Waterloo, which said all the money received for the banners will be given to causes that help military members or veterans.

More information on the project, along with the biographies of each veteran featured can be found online at experiencewaterloo.com/veterans-way.

A brief history of the US draft A brief history of the US draft Prior to Civil War Civil War (1861-1865) World War I (1914-1918) World War II (1939-1945) Cold War (1947-1991) Korean War (1950-1953) Vietnam War (1955-1973) Deep Standby Out of deep standby
Using a natural weed killer recipe has a few key advantages over chemical-laden commercial weed killers. If you have pets or small children who play in your garden, a synthetic weed killer could cause skin, nose, or eye irritation and other health problems.

Synthetic herbicides can also harm beneficial insects like bees, butterflies, earthworms, and lacewings. These insects naturally keep your plants and soil healthy, even keeping predators at bay in some cases.

Making your own natural herbicide is also budget-friendly. As youll see in the simple recipe below, you can make an effective eco-friendly weed killer from household products you likely already have on hand.
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More than 50% of the food calories eaten daily by the worlds 7.9 billion people comes directly from grains. In impoverished nations, that percentage is 60%, and in the poorest it tops 80%.

The three most important grains, in order of production, are corn, wheat, and rice. All are critical elements in global food security but all are not equal. Corn and wheat each serve both as a foodgrain for people and a feedgrain for animals. Rice, however, is  and has been for millennia  the worlds most widespread, most critical foodgrain.

More than 3.5 billion people get 20% or more of their calories from the fluffy grains, reported Science News in Sept. 2021. And both those numbers are increasing in Asia, Latin America and especially Africa.

As human pressure on rice ratchets up, humans are also ratcheting up assorted problems growing it, reports the May 20 New York Times. In fact, Rice is in trouble as the earth heats up, threatening the food and livelihood of billions of people.

Todays rapid climate change, notes the Times, is creating never-before-seen problems that will require never-before-seen solutions.

Sometimes theres not enough rain when the seedlings need water, or too much when the plants need to keep their heads above water, the story explains. As the sea intrudes, salt ruins the crop. As nights warm, yields go down.

And its happening now. A study in China  found that extreme rainfall reduced rice yields over the past 20 years. India limited rice exports  (to ensure) enough to feed its own people. In Pakistan, heat and floods destroyed harvests, while in California  drought led many farmers to fallow their fields.

The May 2023 Rice Outlook, the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture report examining both the U.S. and world rice markets, reversed dire forecasts of last winter. USDA now foresees a spike in U.S. and global rice production this year, mostly due to expanded plantings fueled by earlier, higher price forecasts.

Still, U.S. rice imports are projected at a near-record 39.0 million cwt (raw rice is measured in hundredweight, or cwt, by USDA, not bushels) mostly because last years carryover was 31% lower.

At the same time, U.S. exports of rice will increase 21% to 74 million (cwt). The combined domestic and residual use in the coming year is projected at a record 154.0 million cwt, up almost 8% from a year earlier.

While thats good news for rice-loving Americans, the 2023/24 season-average farm-price for long-grain rice paid to American farmers is projected to drop 11% to $15.00 per cwt.

The unforeseen production increase here, says USDA, will boost global rice production 2%, to a record 520.5 million tons. But that now-rosier, 2023 forecast cannot mask a years-long decline in global stocks, reckons USDA; world stocks are slated to drop for the third consecutive year.

The biggest cause for the growing shortfall is extreme weather, notes the Times. But weather isnt the only problem. The very solutions pushed by Big Ag for 50 years  such as high-yielding hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers  are now delivering new, more intractable woes.

Today, that very system  has created new problems  [like] depleted aquifers, driven up fertilizer use, reduced the diversity of rice breeds that are planted, and polluted the air with the smoke of burning rice stubble.

In short, the rhythm of sunshine and rain that rice depends on has been upended.

Solutions, if found, will take years to implement. Researchers like Argelia Lorence, an Arkansas State University plant biochemist, tell the Times that rice itself holds the key, the genetic key, to enable rice plants to survive hot nights, one of the most acute hazards of climate change.

Maybe. Hopefully.

In the meantime, rice is todays singing canary to warn farmers and governments alike that climate change is real and carries real consequences.

And not just about how well grow tomorrows food, but who may get to eat what we grow.
One fears that our youth are being taught from kindergarten through graduate school that in the words of Vladimir Lenin, Christianity is a a "medieval mildew." He explained in 1905 how the true revolutionary needed cleansing from the medieval spirit: "The revolutionary proletariat will succeeding in making religion a really private affair, so far as the state is concerned. And in this political system, cleansed of medieval mildew, the proletariat will wage a broad and open struggle for the elimination of economic slavery, the true source of the religious humbugging of mankind."
I am compelled to talk about the free-lance shooting massacres in our nation. I am especially keyed on the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. I understand there were 91 police officers in the building, and none were trained to enter a room with an active shooter. As an Army private in 1956, during my 20 weeks of of advanced training, we spent an afternoon training for entering a room with an active shooter.
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As we age and different ailments befall us and we look at life differently, many of us have a "bucket list" that we would like to accomplish before our demise. I would love to visit my ancestral land, Ireland. The other item on my bucket list is to go skydiving. I know it seems crazy, but I think it would be such a free feeling. Of course, it would have to be a tandem jump.

Make out your bucket list. Keep it within reason with things you will be able to do. Remember, if you are physically or financially unable to accomplish your list scale it down. Achieve what you can.

Thor update: Thor, my service dog, has a girlfriend. I was hospitalized and he had to go to a boarding kennel. It was the first time we have been separated for any length of time. I need not to have worried. He met her in doggy day care They played together, sat together, slept together, best of all they rubbed noses. Unfortunately for Thor, he will only see her at doggy day care. I feel bad about breaking up this budding romance.

Be sure to focus on the positive, not the negative.

Smile! A smile makes you and everyone around you feel good.

Susie
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

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...FLASH FLOOD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT THROUGH THIS EVENING... * WHAT...Flash flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues to be possible this afternoon and evening. * WHERE...Portions of California and Nevada, including the following areas, in California, Greater Lake Tahoe Area, Lassen-Eastern Plumas-Eastern Sierra Counties, Mono County and Surprise Valley California. In Nevada, Greater Lake Tahoe Area, Greater Reno-Carson City-Minden Area, Mineral and Southern Lyon Counties and Northern Washoe County. * WHEN...Through this evening. * IMPACTS...Excessive runoff may result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other flood-prone locations. Area creeks and streams are running high and could flood with heavy rain. Extensive street flooding is also possible in urbanized locations. Debris flows possible in and around burn scars. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - Slow moving showers and thunderstorms will produce areas of heavy rainfall during the afternoon and evening hours. Soils are already saturated with creeks, streams, and rivers running full due to ongoing snowmelt. It will not take as much rain to cause excessive runoff. Also, heavy rainfall may lead to flash flooding and debris flows in and around burn scars. - http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... You should monitor later forecasts and be prepared to take action should Flash Flood Warnings be issued. If you are camping or hiking in flash flood-prone areas, make note of escape routes in case you have to get to quickly get to higher ground. If you come across a flooded roadway, do not attempt to cross it. Turn Around, Don't Drown! &&
People gather at the home of a volunteer, where they can charge their mobile phones, in Khartoum, Sudan, Thursday, May 25, 2023. The fighting between Sudans military and a powerful paramilitary force has displaced more than 1.3 million people, the U.N. migration agency said Wednesday.
The arts are part of Elsa Menendezs life  and its something that inspires her daily.

For more than 35 years, the Albuquerque resident has worked in theater around the world, often wearing different hats as a writer, director, producer and performer.

Shes also a teacher of local, national and international workshops and a co-founder of the Women Leading Change initiative.

For the last year, Menendezs role as deputy director of the city of Albuquerques Arts & Culture has been full of learning experiences.

On any given day, she is surrounded by public art throughout the city.

One of my favorite things about living in Albuquerque is that whether Im walking around town or driving place-to-place, I regularly come across amazing artworks that remind me to take a moment to reflect, be inspired, and appreciate our vibrant creative communities, she says.

Menendez picked five of the citys recently installed Public Art pieces.

Check (them) out if you havent come across them already, Menendez says.

1. One Central, Jeff Metz, 2022

The piece is made of Indiana limestone and steel. It is located at the corner of First Street and Central Avenue NW in Downtown Albuquerque.

Menendez says Metz is a New Mexico artist whose work focuses on generating a unique interaction between rigorous geometry and fluid movement.

One Central is made up of four individual sculptures. The two smaller sculptures both weigh between 700 and 750 pounds.

I love what these pieces evoke in me when I walk by them, she says. They remind me I can be solid, grounded and fluid at once.

2. Sol De Oro, ALMA (Apprenticeships for Leaders in Mosaic Arts), 2022

This piece is comprised of handmade mosaic tile and located on the West building of the Albuquerque Convention Center off of Third Street NW.

Menendez says Sol De Oro is the most recent addition to the Convention Center Mosaics which began in 2001.

The mosaic mural and sunflower imagery represents the resilience and strength of Albuquerque.

I love what this mosaic represents symbolically, she says. The beautiful colors and patterns in this piece always make me smile and appreciate the long and strong tradition of tile work in Albuquerque.

3. Water Standing, Thomas Sayre, 2023

The piece is made of earthcast concrete and iron oxide and is located at Bellamah Avenue and 18th Street NW, near Mill Pond Refuge in Sawmill Community.

Menendez says Water Standing is made up of four large-scale earthcast, concrete and iron oxide sculptures in the shape of water vessels from different cultures, connecting terrain and climate with culture and lifestyle through the lens of water use.

The title, Water Standing, references the legal standing and rights that water has as we negotiate who has rights for access to water, she says.

This new set of sculptures are a such striking addition to the Sawmill Community and one that lifts up the ongoing conversation about water use, Menendez says.

4. Vision Zero, Andrew Fearnside, 2023

Vision Zero is a mural and located at Expo New Mexico along Louisiana Boulevard NE.

Menendez says the Vision Zero mural emerged from a community engagement process led by Artful Life, that involved a team of youth who live in the International District.

She says the youth team collaborated with the artist Andrew Fearnside to create a design that reflects the perspectives, stories, and dreams of International District residents.

The mural also promotes the Citys Vision Zero initiative of working toward eliminating traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility and transportation for all.

Again, I love what this mural represents  a community process with youth leadership reflecting on their perspectives and vision of present and future, Menendez says.

5. Pueblo Matriarch, Greyshoes (Upton Ethelbah Jr.), 2023

Pueblo Matriarch is made of fabricated steel and located at the 12th Street and Menaul Boulevard NW roundabout near the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.

Greyshoes sculpts contemporary, stylized and flowing forms inspired by the aesthetic motifs and movements found in the ceremonial regalia and dances of his Native American heritage, Santa Clara Pueblo and White Mountain Apache. Menendez says the headdress of the sculpture is symbolic of women corn dancers, a historic ceremony, which is a prayer to the creator for a good harvest, plenty of rain for the crops, and prosperity for all people.

Pueblo Matriarch was commissioned by the Albuquerque Community Foundation and the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center and donated to the City of Albuquerques Public Art Collection.

This is such a beautiful work that both inspires and calls to me with its deep symbolism, she says.

Editors note: The fourth Sunday of each month, Journal Arts Editor Adrian Gomez tells the stories behind some of the hidden gems you can see across the state in Gimme Five.
One of operas most beloved works receives its first new Met staging in 19 years  a daring vision of Mozarts Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) by renowned English director Simon McBurney.

Opera fans can see it at the Lensic Performing Arts Center in The Met Live in HD: Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) at 11 a.m. live; 6 p.m. encore on Saturday, June 3.

A Wall Street Journal critic declared it the best production Ive ever witnessed of Mozarts opera.

The Magic Flute follows the adventures of Prince Tamino and Papageno on their search for the Queen of the Nights daughter, Pamina. To help conquer the trials and tribulations faced on their quest, the duo are given magical musical instruments, including a magic flute.

Nathalie Stutzmann conducts the Met Orchestra, with the pit raised to make the musicians visible to the audience and allow interaction with the cast.

In his Met-debut staging, McBurney lets loose a volley of theatrical flourishes, incorporating projections, sound effects and acrobatics to match the spectacle and drama of Mozarts fable. The brilliant cast includes soprano Erin Morley as Pamina, tenor Lawrence Brownlee as Tamino, baritone Thomas Oliemans in his Met debut as Papageno, soprano Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the Night, and bass Stephen Milling as Sarastro.
In 1968 America, as two men fight to become the next president, all eyes are on the battle between two others: the cunningly conservative William F. Buckley Jr., and the unruly liberal Gore Vidal.

During a new nightly television format, they debate the moral landscape of a shattered nation. As beliefs are challenged and slurs slung, a new frontier in American politics is opening, and television news is about to be transformed forever. The debates occur during both the Republican and Democratic conventions.

Jeremy Herrin (All My Sons) directs this blistering political thriller starring David Harewood (Homeland) and Zachary Quinto (Star Trek).

Playwright James Graham (Quiz, Labour of Love) was inspired by the documentary by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon.

Best of Enemies was the winner of the 2022 Critics Circle Award for Best New Play and nominated for the 2022 Olivier Award for Best New Play.
When theres trouble, create a commission. And make a big show of it.

We can only hope the revival of a 1970s commission targeting organized crime goes beyond the inaugural headline. Albuquerque businesses, plagued by brazen break-ins and organized shoplifting rings, need results.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced the revival of the Governors Organized Crime Prevention Commission to much fanfare last week. The commission does have members with impressive credentials  former New Mexico Supreme Court Chief Justice Judith Nakamura, U.S. Marshal Sonya Chavez, Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen, 8th Judicial District Attorney Marcus Montoya and 2nd Judicial District Attorney Sam Bregman, who will lead the new commission.

If you have a problem, my view is all hands on deck, Lujan Grisham said at a news conference Wednesday, seated at the big table in the Governors Office on the fourth floor of the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.

Missing is state Attorney General Raul Torrez  who up until a few months ago dealt with the states crime challenges up close and personal as Bernalillo County district attorney. Torrez says he will support the commissions work, but might it be better if our top prosecutor wasnt on the outside looking in?

The governor says the commission will strengthen law enforcement coordination across jurisdictions and produce recommendations to policymakers. But thats been happening for years  off the top of our heads the list includes the N.M. Gang Task Force, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Criminal Environmental Crimes Task Force, Extreme Risk Firearm Protection Order Task Force, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program, regional Narcotics Task Force(s). To act like our law enforcement agencies dont know how to work together is insulting and disingenuous.

So will this latest one make a difference?

Not without enforcement. The lack thereof is why customers are terrified, and businesses fed up with retail crime are closing shop, all over Albuquerque.

The latest casualty is the Bike Coop in the Bricklight District, which operated for 46 years before closing this weekend. Owner Amanda Batty said crime was a factor in closing Albuquerques oldest bike shop. Its a loss for the entire community. Over three years the shop donated more than 100 bikes during the Christmas season and offered maintenance classes for women.

Lilly Barrack, a decades-old small business in Albuquerque, closed a store in Nob Hill because of the frequent break-ins. Earlier this month, a car smashed into the Lilly Barrack store on Paseo del Norte, then thieves got out and robbed the place.

American Home Furniture & Mattress is closing its store on Menaul at the end of the year after 60 years, in part because of crime. President and CEO Kenton Van Harten told the Journal both employees and customers became uncomfortable after several car and catalytic converter thefts. Locks had to be installed on bathroom doors because of people doing drugs in the store.

Although corporate wouldnt admit it, many believe Walmart closed its store on San Mateo SE in the International District in March because of rampant shoplifting. The stores closure sparked an outcry from community members, who said it left the area with barriers to cost-friendly and healthy groceries.

Other big-box stores have closed or relocated, including TJ Maxx on Montgomery and Louisiana, which had become a shoplifting haven. Rosie Roerick of nearby The Yeller Sub told KOB 4 the department store was hit almost daily by crime. We would see people run past our windows (with carts) full of purses, full of suitcases, clothes, and theres nothing they can do about it.

The governor says the organized crime commission will target human trafficking and illegal fentanyl sales  thats great if a commission can actually move the needle on either. But our communities rampant retail and property crime very often goes hand-in-hand with drug and human trafficking, and too many New Mexicans are tired of having a front-row seat to thieves walking out with armloads of stolen merchandise to feed a drug habit or assuage a trafficker.

And on that front we have had  more panels.

The governor announced the creation of the Business Advisory Council for Crime Reduction in January due to widespread concerns from the business community about crime.

Mayor Tim Keller, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina and former Attorney General Hector Balderas made a big splash last August when they announced New Mexico was joining a 20-state network to gather and share data on organized retail crime.

In July 2021, Balderas  who estimated organized retail crime costs New Mexico $1 billion a year  announced the creation of a statewide Organized Retail Crime Task Force to target professional shoplifting operations. The task force arrested more than 100 serial shoplifters the following fall, but we havent heard much about it lately.

Republican lawmakers are understandably skeptical about the new Governors Organized Crime Prevention Commission. House Minority Leader Ryan Lane, R-Aztec, worries it will be yet another commission allowing politicians to take political victory laps but not provide real solutions.

Unfortunately history is on his side.

If the latest crime-fighting commission can actually get retailers to act and law enforcement to respond to brazen break-ins by crooks crashing vehicles through store walls and doors, the open sale of stolen merchandise outside a store, shoplifting rings utilizing city buses as getaway vehicles, and thieves scouting catalytic converters, all the better.

But if it doesnt, weve got another blue-ribbon panel that grabs headlines but not crooks.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
The latest: 3 killed were members of rival motorcycle gangs, police said

A shootout between motorcyclists left three dead and five injured Saturday afternoon in Red River as the mountain town played host to its annual motorcycle rally.

New Mexico State Police said, on Twitter,

that there is no ongoing threat to public safety. The agency initially said, in an update at 10:50 p.m, that two people had died.

In another update, hours later, State Police said three people had died in the shooting.

The agency did not identify those who had died or say if anyone had been detained in the incident.

Those that were injured went to Holy Cross Hospital in Taos, University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque and a hospital in Denver.

State Police said the first two hospitals had been secured by local authorities and authorities in Denver have been alerted.

The agency did not say what prompted the hospitals to be secured.

We will continue to provide updates as new information emerges, State Police said on Twitter.

Red River Mayor Linda Calhoun said everyone involved in the shooting was a member of a motorcycle gang but she did not say which one.

She said the shooting erupted around 5 p.m. at 400 East Main Street, along the main drag, as thousands of bikers milled about town.

Its very tragic. Our law enforcement was incredible. The first State Police officer was there within 30 seconds, Calhoun said. Its the first time weve ever had anything like this. We do have accidents, we have had deaths before, but nothing ever like this.

The shooting occurred during the towns 41st annual Red River Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally.

Get ready for the rumble as 28,000 bikers from all different backgrounds line Main Street for one crazy party, the towns calendar said of the event.

A dispatcher with the Red River Marshals Office initially described the incident as an active shooting around 6:30 p.m. but did not say if the incident was ongoing.

An owner of the Motherlode Saloon told the Journal the shooting happened a block west of their business. The owner said everyone at the saloon was safe.

Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said, on Twitter, that he was eating dinner with his wife in Red River when the shooting happened down the street.

What a helpless feeling not having a badge, gun or radio as State Police officers and others enter the restaurant and slowly everything closes down and you dont even know if you can get to your car or if its in the scene, Medina wrote. Prayers for all the officers out there. This wave of gun violence impacts all of New Mexico large or small.

Medina shared photos of he and his wife smiling at dinner, 30 minutes before the shooting. In another photo he posted, motorcycles lined the street in Red River, as bikers and others socialized along the sidewalk.
REHOBOTH  Memorial Day was still days away, but in the Rehoboth Cemetery there were lots of American flags, some of them mangled by New Mexicos insistent and irreverent winds.

Flags are a constant in this cemetery. So are the artificial flowers  some bright with new resolve, others faded by long vigilance  that spill over many of the graves.

This is a place of patriotism and faith. Navajo code talkers and Christian missionaries are buried here.

So is Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Christopher Johnson, who died at age 31, leaving behind a wife and three step-children, when the Chinook helicopter he was piloting crashed in Iraq in August 2007.

His grave here is more than just a final resting place. It represents an enduring legacy.

Blessing from tragedy

The cemetery is behind Rehoboth Christian School, which was founded by the Christian Reform Church in 1903 as the Rehoboth Mission School. Rehoboth is a Hebrew word that means room, as in a wide or open space. The school and graveyard are located in and share that name with a tiny McKinley County town about six miles east of Gallup.

Chris loved it here, Mary Johnson said as she and her husband, Chuck, walked in the cemetery this past Wednesday. Every time he got any kind of deployment, he came (to Rehoboth). Hed climb the mountains here.

Mary, 75, and Chuck, 76, are Christopher Johnsons parents. Chuck was a middle school teacher at Rehoboth Christian from 1994 to 2008.

Mary pointed to a large boulder in the cemetery, a feature known as Resurrection Rock.

Chris stood there, just taking in the rugged terrain in the cemetery and said, What a neat place to be buried.'

His grave, covered with small rocks, is on a nearby hilltop. An American flag rides the breeze on a pole embedded in the ground at the grave site, and the words honor and courage are engraved on the headstone.

But CWO2 Johnsons memory is marked here by more than stone and his nations colors. Money donated to a memorial fund his parents created in his name paid for the establishment of a much-needed early childhood center at Rehoboth Christian School. Initiated in 2009, the schools Pre-K is flourishing.

It gives kids a good foundation for learning and helps them thrive later on, said Mary, also an educator. In the throes of grief, we couldnt see anything good coming out of Chris death. But generations of school children will benefit because of it. Blessing has come out of tragedy.

On parade

As parades go, it might not have matched up to Macys storied Thanksgiving spectacle or Pasadenas Tournament of Roses promenade, but it was a pretty big deal in Rehoboth.

It started at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the parking lot of the Red Rock Theater and proceeded the short distance down Church Rock Road to the Rehoboth Christian campus.

The parade honored Rehoboth Christians Early Childhood Center, the 4-year-olds graduating from the Pre-K program into kindergarten, the four Rehoboth High seniors who were members of the original Pre-K class of 2009 and the memory of Christopher Johnson.

A police car with lights flashing and sirens wailing led the way, followed by bikers from various motorcycle clubs and a truck pulling a trailer carrying the Johnsons and the Pre-K programs first teachers, Suzanne Breithaupt and Christine Teller-Skeets.

Then came a pickup with high school seniors Madison Anderson, Eden Pikaart, Stacie Skeet and Maggi Van Drunen; a school bus ferrying this years excited Pre-K graduates; a fire truck; and Rehoboth Christian executive director Bob Ippel driving his truck.

Nicole Steiger, Rehoboth Christians Pre-K director, watched the parade from the schools campus.

It was so much fun when the bus came by with the (Pre-K) kids hanging out the windows, Steiger said. When they saw me, they were all calling my name. They were so proud of their celebrity moment.

Relationships

Rehoboths population is likely less than a hundred souls. But hundreds of people were crowded into Rehoboth Christians Fellowship Hall for the celebration after the parade.

Steiger, 31, known as Miss Tiger to students, was a Pre-K teacher at Rehoboth Christian for eight years before taking over as Pre-K director this year. She said she is continuously impressed by the support families show for the young children in her charge.

Look at all the people here for a Pre-K graduation, she said. The relationships we get to build, not only with the students but with their families, siblings and cousins, is one of the great joys that keep me in the profession.

Rehoboth Christians Pre-K program has grown since that first year, when it had a teacher, an assistant teacher and less than half as many students as it does today.

Steiger said the program now has a staff of 12 and three classrooms. The classrooms include an early Pre-K for 3-year-olds, which had an enrollment of 16 children this year; a mixed-stage class with 3- and 4-year-olds, which also had 16 kids this year; and a Pre-K class of only 4-year-olds that had 20 students.

Steiger said 80% to 90% of the Pre-K students are Navajo, although there have been Zuni students over the years. Overall, the schools enrollment is about 70% American Indian.

Twenty-eight 4-year-olds graduated from Pre-K to kindergarten this year. Those students entertained Wednesdays audience by singing Herman the Worm and Navajo Puppy Song. Then they were presented Pre-K graduation certificates by seniors Anderson, Pikaart, Skeet and Van Drunen.

Starting from scratch

Christopher Johnson graduated from high school in Michigan. His parents moved from Michigan to Rehoboth in the early 90s.

We just came out because we knew about Rehoboth Christian and its quality education, Mary said. We came out for one year and an adventure and ended up staying 17 years. We loved the area and the diverse culture.

While Chuck was on staff at Rehoboth Christian, Mary taught pre-school classes at Indian Hills School in Gallup before moving to the University of New Mexico-Gallup to teach early education courses.

Proceeds from their sons memorial fund paid for converting an old Rehoboth Christian dormitory into a Pre-K facility and yielded the money needed to hire Pre-K teachers.

Mary recruited Suzanne Breithaupt from what was then Church Rock Elementary and is now Catherine A. Miller Elementary in Church Rock.

I sensed her jubilation and joy in working with kids, Mary said of Breithaupt. She was very positive and well educated in early childhood teaching.

Breithaupt said the Rehoboth job was the culmination of her career.

I was getting to build a Pre-K from scratch and Mary was such a great guide, she said.

Teller-Skeets came on board as Breithaupts assistant and was able to translate for children whose first language was Navajo.

Some of the kids were an only child, Teller-Skeets said. The (Pre-K program) helped them learn numbers and colors and to socialize with peers. And it was a help to parents who could not afford day care.

Breithaupt said starting the Pre-K involved outreach because some parents had not had good school experiences.

You could tell they were nervous when they came in with their kids, so we would do home visits.

College bound

Pride was the order of the day at Fellowship Hall on Wednesday.

Education begins at home and we truly see education as a partnership between our parents and our school, said executive director Ippel, who has been at Rehoboth Christian since 1993, the last six years in his current role. The Rehoboth Early Childhood Center provides for a need in an area that is considered to be a child care desert. Our goal is to provide that excellent foundation for children  no matter their economic background.

He said 90% of Rehoboth Christians high school graduating class this year has already been accepted into colleges.

The four seniors who started out in that first Pre-K class of 2009 are all going to college. Anderson and Pikaart are heading to Northern Arizona University.

Van Durnen will be attending UNM in Albuquerque and Skeet will enroll at UNM-Gallup.

Rainbow sign

Mary and Chuck Johnson have retired to Michigan. But they return to Rehoboth Christian every year to tell the Pre-K kids about their son, Officer Chris. They will visit Chris grave on Memorial Day.

We will go with friends and just do some remembering, Mary said. We just like to sit on the top of Resurrection Rock and watch the families setting out flags.

She said there was a rainbow over Rehoboth on the afternoon after Chris funeral.

At the time, we thought it was just something beautiful. Now we see it as a promise that God is blessing the school.
Veterans and fellow volunteers placed roughly 70,000 flags at the Santa Fe National Cemetery on Saturday morning to honor fallen veterans in preparation for Memorial Day weekend.

The landscape transformed into a sea of dancing red, white and blue as family members began to visit their loved ones.

A Memorial Day ceremony will be held at Santa Fe National Cemetery on Monday starting at 10 a.m.
Three people killed in a shootout during an annual event in Red River on Saturday  and three people facing charges after the incident  were members of rival outlaw biker gangs, the Bandidos and the Waterdogs, New Mexico State Police said Sunday morning.

Two of the people killed, 26-year-old Anthony Silva of Los Lunas and 46-year-old Damian Breaux of Socorro, are believed to have been members of the Bandidos. The third, 46-year-old Randy Sanchez of Albuquerque, was a member of the Waterdogs, New Mexico State Police Chief Tim Johnson said at a news conference.

Three people are currently facing charges following the shootout. Jacob Castillo, 30, of Rio Rancho, believed to be a member of the Waterdogs, is being charged with an open count of murder. Matthew Charles Jackson, 39, of Austin, Texas  believed to be a chapter leader of the Bandidos  is facing a count of unlawful carrying of a firearm inside a liquor establishment, while 41-year-old suspected Bandido member Christopher Garcia, also of Texas, has been arrested on suspicion of cocaine possession.

Castillo and Garcia were among five people injured during the shooting, Johnson said.

The shootout, which erupted about 5 p.m. on Red Rivers Main Street during the towns 41st annual Red River Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally, stemmed from an earlier altercation between the gangs in Albuquerque, according to Johnson.

Eight people were shot in total. Police said two were killed at the scene and the third died later in a hospital.

Three people who were injured have not been named. Police identified them only as 53-, 31-, and 43-year-old males, and members of motorcycle gangs.
As the investigation into Saturdays deadly shooting at a motorcycle rally in Red River continues, authorities warned that theyll be conducting a law enforcement blitz throughout the rest of the holiday weekend.

New Mexico State Police Chief Tim Johnson said Sunday that law enforcement will be stopping people to enforce even minor infractions as investigators work to track down anyone associated with the shooting.

For everyone, there will be zero tolerance from this point forward, Johnson said at a news conference. That is traffic violations for 1 mile an hour over, seat belts, jaywalking. We are going to stop and talk to everyone if they violate any law  traffic or criminal.

Johnson said officers will run everyone stopped through the National Crime Information Center to check for outstanding warrants.

Anybody with warrants or anybody who can be arrested will be arrested, he said.

Three people were killed and five others injured Saturday after a shootout that officials believe started between members of rival outlaw motorcycle gangs the Bandidos and the Waterdogs. Three people are currently facing charges following the shootout. Jacob Castillo, 30, of Rio Rancho, believed to be a member of the Waterdogs, is being charged with an open count of murder. Matthew Charles Jackson, 39, of Austin, Texas  believed to be a chapter leader of the Bandidos  is facing a count of unlawful carrying of a firearm inside a liquor establishment, while 41-year-old suspected Bandido member Christopher Garcia, also of Texas, has been arrested on suspicion of cocaine possession.

The shootout, which erupted about 5 p.m. on Red Rivers Main Street during the towns 41st annual Red River Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally, stemmed from an earlier altercation between the gangs in Albuquerque, according to Johnson.

The annual gathering draws crowds each year to the scenic mountain town. Red River is encouraging businesses in town to close down, if possible, following the incident.

Ill apologize initially to the law-abiding citizens that came to Red River to have a good Memorial Day weekend, not the gangbangers that are ruining it for all of them, Johnson said.

Law enforcement officers will be posted at both ends of Red River, while others will be assigned to roving patrols in Red River and in nearby Questa, Angel Fire, Eagle Nest, Taos and the surrounding areas.

Well have folks in the bars, too, to make sure that theyre not over-served, which was more than likely a contributing factor yesterday, Johnson said.  This is not going to happen again this weekend, because were not going to allow it.
Law enforcement officials believe that a shootout in Red River that left three dead and several others injured was the result of an altercation among members of two motorcycle clubs, the Bandidos, a well-known group thats had a New Mexico presence for years, and the lesser-known Waterdogs.

Heres what we know about the Bandidos:

Texas roots, New Mexico presence

The Bandidos Motorcycle Club, started in Texas in the 60s, have had a strong New Mexico presence for years. The U.S. Department of Justice classifies the Bandidos as an outlaw motorcycle gang which, along with the Hells Angels, Mongols, Outlaws and Sons of Silence, pose a serious national domestic threat and conduct the majority of criminal activity linked to (outlaw motorcycle gangs), especially activity relating to drug-trafficking and, more specifically, to cross-border drug smuggling.

Eight years ago this month, nine people were killed and 18 others wounded in a Waco, Texas, shootout that law enforcement believed mostly involved members of the Bandidos and of rival gang Cossacks.

Suspected club members have cropped up routinely in New Mexico headlines in recent years. That includes:

Law enforcement were expecting them in Red River

Law enforcement knew that a contingent of Bandidos were coming to Red River from Texas this weekend, according to New Mexico State Police Chief Tim Johnson.

We had 32 (officers) assigned to this (festival) from the get-go, Johnson said in a Sunday morning news conference, noting that the number didnt include personnel from the Red River Marshals Office and the Taos County Sheriffs Office. Prior to this incident happening, on Friday, we had gotten some information from Texas (Department of Public Safety), who had been following 400 or 500 Bandidos from Texas to New Mexicos state line, knowing that they were headed here.

Spate of recent incidents around the country

While Johnson said law enforcement believe theyve identified everyone directly involved with the Red River shooting, members of the Bandidos are suspected of involvement with several violent incidences across the country in recent weeks.

That includes:
The Zimbabwe Republic Police has launched a manhunt for a killer husband who allegedly brutally murdered his wife Rita Rore in Mt Hampden this Sunday.

In a statement released by ZRP this Sunday the murder occurred at Flame Flora Farm, Mt Hampden, in which Rore died after being struck with a hoe on the head by her husband, Alexander Gezi, aged 53.

The suspect had accused the victim of infidelity.

Rores death comes at a time when murder cases surge countrywide. ZBC
Cover Images/KOI SOJER Celebrity

While fans are happy to see the Chloe x Halle member getting back together with the rapper, others are not impressed and they voice their disappointment in her social media post.

May 28, 2023

AceShowbiz - Halle Bailey has completely shut down breakup rumors surrounding him and DDG but not everyone was happy with it. While some fans were happy to see her kissing the "Moonwalking in Calabasas" rapper in a new video, others expressed their disappointment.

In the TikTok video, which was soundtracked by a remix of Beyonce Knowles saying "I am on to see my husband," Halle was seen leaping up and down with glee as she ran up to her beau. The clip then ended with the two sharing sweet kisses.

Many have since reacted to the post, with one writing, "NOOOOOO HALLEEEE." Another echoed, "no ma'am." Someone else chimed in, "halle... girl," while one individual added," oh that's not..."

Some people, however, were happy for the couple. "The rumors were fakeeee nice be happy girl," one user replied, with another writing, "The rumors were fakeeee nice be happy girl." Other peson raved, "The rumors were fakeeee nice be happy girl."

DDG sparked speculation that he broke up with Halle in February. Eagle-eyed fans noticed that they unfollowed each other on Instagram and he deleted her pictures from his page. Moreover, the emcee vented on Twitter, "All these girls the same. Ain't no wayy," adding a crying emoji.

However, hours later Halle and DDG have re-followed each other. Slamming "gullible" social media users for believing everything what is said on the Internet, the YouTuber wrote, "nobody cheated on nobody btw." Downplaying his previous tweets that sparked the breakup speculation, he also penned, "Don't take my tweets too serious."

Halle, for her part, has opened up about being in love with DDG. She told British Vogue, "Experiencing deep love for the first time in my life is something I feel has opened a whole new world for me creatively."

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Jacy Nittolo marks the first anniversary of the 'Goodfellas' actor by recounting an emotional story when she was on the way home after the star passed away.

May 28, 2023

AceShowbiz - Ray Liotta is remembered by his fiancee Jacy Nittolo on the first anniversary of his death. The "Goodfellas" actor died in his sleep aged 67 in the Dominican Republic on May 26, 2022 and Nittolo took to social media to reflect on a year without her partner.

"A year ago today I was on a flight home from the Dominican Republic by myself in shock. My entire world unexpectedly turned upside down. I'll never forget this beautiful woman, a complete stranger, who sat next to me and didn't say a word. She gently grabbed and held my hand the entire flight as I cried and looked out of the window," she captioned an Instagram post.

Nittolo continued, "When we landed she looked at me and said everything is going to be ok. You're going to be ok. I walked off the plane and met Ray's sister for a connecting flight to LA and I don't know what I would have done without Linda that night."

She went on to reflect on 12 months of "pain, heartache, healing, growing and accepting what is." Nittolo said, "It supposedly gets easier with time. No time will change a loss so great. You just learn to live with it and keep going, trusting that all will be ok."

It was recently confirmed that Ray died from acute heart failure. Officials in the Dominican Republic confirmed that his passing was caused by respiratory insufficiency, pulmonary edema and acute heart failure.

In the documents, obtained by TMZ.com, Liotta's death was categorised as "natural and nonviolent" and officials found the star was suffering from atherosclerosis - a thickening of the arteries which can lead to problems including heart attacks and strokes.

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The former 'Veep' actress vows to take to the picket line in order to ensure her voice heard if the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America stage a strike.

May 28, 2023

AceShowbiz - Julia Louis-Dreyfus will stand together with picketers in the event of a SAG-AFTRA strike. The Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America are reported to be following the Writers Guild of America by staging a strike and Julia has promised to make her voice heard if the union does take action.

"You bet your f****** a**. I voted yes for the strike authorisation. By the way, that doesn't mean we're striking. It just gives the board the ability to strike if they need to and I'm in favour of that," Julia said when asked if she would be on the picket line by Variety.

The "Your Hurt My Feelings" star explained how all three unions are aligned in trying to ensure that every member gets a fair wage for their work. Julia said, "The issues that the Screen Actors Guild is facing are very similar to what the Writers Guild is facing; and even the DGA for that matter to certain extent."

"It's time for us to stand up and get what we so rightfully deserve, which is a living wage, and particularly for the middle class in the Screen Actors Guild not to be squeezed out of the system altogether."

Meanwhile, Julia recently bemoaned how older women have been made to feel "invisible" in modern society which made her launch the "Wiser Than Me" podcast to give them a platform.

The 62-year-old actress told People magazine, "I saw this documentary on HBO called 'Jane Fonda in Five Acts'. [As] I was watching it, I was thinking, 'God, you know, we just don't hear from older women. We don't do a deep dive very often into the lives of older women."

"They've lived, they have all this experience under their belt, and why aren't we hearing from them?' So I thought it would be exciting to compile a list of women and see if anybody wanted to sit down and have a pretty frank, honest conversation about life  It's been really exciting."

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The 'Euphoria' actress is excited to share screen with 'powerhouse' female stars like Dakota Johnson in the upcoming Marvel superhero comic book adaptation.

May 29, 2023

AceShowbiz - Sydney Sweeney enjoyed working with a "powerhouse of badass females" on "Madame Web". The 25-year-old actress will portray Julia Carpenter in the upcoming superhero movie and relished starring with females such as Dakota Johnson, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O'Connor in S. J. Clarkson's film.

"I couldn't be more excited. I can't wait to be able to talk about it. I can't wait to be able to be next to the girls that I filmed with - Dakota and Isabela, and Celeste. We had so much fun together. And I'm really excited that it's just gonna be a powerhouse of badass females for the world to see,' Sydney said to Total Film magazine.

Sydney was just 10 when the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) launched with "Iron Man" in 2008 and she quipped that comic book movies have been part of her life for longer than she can remember.

The "Euphoria" star explained, "Superheroes have been my entire life! Those (films) are all my parents ever wanted to go see. I think I've seen The Avengers probably 20, 30-plus times. My family, they love (them)... I could not have made them happier choosing to do that project."

Dakota will play the title role in the Spider-Man universe film and previously explained how she wanted to bring "heart" to the picture. In an interview with Collider, she said, "I guess having experience on all tiers of films I can bring maybe some stuff from the little movies to the big movies that I want to see in them, you know? I really love seeing large-scale films that still have heart in them."

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According to the original Luke Skywalker depicter, his father William Hamill was more thrilled by his role on a Bob Hope project than his casting in George Lucas' blockbuster.

May 29, 2023

AceShowbiz - Mark Hamill has revealed his father was more proud of him working with Bob Hope than "Star Wars". The 71-year-old actor - who is famous for his iconic role as Luke Skywalker in the iconic space saga - claimed while his dad William Hamill lived to see his son's success, it wasn't the sci-fi franchise that won him over.

"He did. In fact, what was funny was that 'Star Wars' came out and became this huge hit. But the thing that really impressed him wasn't 'Star Wars' - it was when I was on a Bob Hope special," he told Parade magazine. "That spoke to him because, like, 'Oh my god, Bob Hope wants my son on his show!' "

Mark's dad was a US Navy captain, and didn't exactly approve of his son's passion for the arts. He recalled, "I mean, he never really approved because I loved puppets and magic and comic books - all the things that he didn't understand."

"At the dinner table, I'd say, 'Hey, listen, everybody, I have a really good Elmer Fudd impression' and do it. My father would say, 'That's all well and good, Mark, but being able to impersonate Elmer Fudd is not going to get you anywhere in life.' I think he wanted me to follow in his footsteps."

The rest of his family were "very supportive" of his goals although none of his six siblings followed him into showbusiness. He said, "My mom [Virginia] was very supportive. I have four sisters and two brothers and they were always a captive audience for my magic shows. I was the only one who went into show business. One of my brothers is a brilliant computer expert. Another brother always had a propensity for medicine. But you've got to follow your dreams."

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The 'Good Girls on Vacation' rapper, who was previously accused of refusing to pay his son's medical bills following the incident, reportedly agrees to pay a huge amount of child support for the boy.

May 29, 2023

AceShowbiz - Flo Rida's legal battle with his baby mama is seemingly over. The "My House" rapper, who was previously accused of not paying their son Zoha Dillard's medical bills following his "tragic fall," has agreed to pay a huge amount of child support for the boy.

The emcee reached the agreement during a Family Court hearing that took place in New York City on Thursday, May 25. The package includes monthly and annual payments that could cost him around $500,000 a year.

Flo Rida reportedly agreed to pay $14,000 a month in support and $2,212 a month in health insurance for Zohar, who is a special needs child as he's been diagnosed with autism and a brain condition called hydrocephalus. In addition, he must set up a $300,000 escrow account for Zohar's needs, which must be replenished annually.

Not stopping there, the "Good Girls on Vacation" spitter has also been required to make a one-time payment of $188,000 to his ex-girlfriend and baby mama, Alexis Adams. The money is to compensate her for outstanding expenses.

Back in April, Alexis accused Flo Rida of refusing to pay medical bills for his son, who was critically injured after falling from a five-story window. She also alleged that the musician referred to their son as a "devil child."

While Flo Rida didn't respond to the allegations, he previously declared that Zohar was getting "the best medical care" following the incident. The 6-year-old himself reportedly suffered a shattered pelvis, left metatarsal fractures, a Grade 3 liver laceration, internal bleeding and collapsed lungs after the fall.

The incident led Flo Rida's baby mama Alexis to file a lawsuit against the Jersey City building's management. She accused the building's management of being "negligent and careless" as they "did not install size guards on the window."

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Five-seed Alabama (44-20) beat 12-seed Northwestern (42-12) in a winner-take-all game, 3-2, to book a trip to the Womens College World Series.

The Wildcats took game one, 3-1, while the Crimson Tide rallied Saturday night in the seventh inning to win 2-1. On Sunday, Alabama scored a pair in the third inning and never trailed.

Heres how it happened:

7TH INNING:

Top: Maeve Nelson made it interesting with a solo home run to left field off a light fixture, cutting the Tides lead to 3-2. But Fouts would drop to a knee two batters later as she struck out Hannah Cady to give the Tide a historic win.

6TH INNING

Top: a Two-out base runner for Northwestern as Nader appeared to line a ball off Fouts glove hand. Alabama was able to retire Nieto, the No. 9 hitter, to limit the threat. Northwestern 1, Alabama 2

Bottom: Alabama went down in order and the crowd reached its feet as the game went into the seventh inning.

5TH INNING

Top: Another leadoff runner for the Wildcats with a Shellmyer single. Nelson bunted Shellmyer over. Rudd, who had delivered two line-drive outs to start the game, was intentionally walked. Fouts got Cuchran to ground out and put Alabama six outs away from Oklahoma City. Northwestern 1, Alabama 2

Bottom: Jenna Johnson hit one off the fair pole in left field to give the Crimson Tide a 3-1 lead.

4TH INNING

Top: Northwestern has had a base runner every inning as Cuchran walked with one out. It started a rally with Angela Zedaks rip down past first base. It knocked Torrence out of the game and led to Montana Fouts coming in for another relief outing. The Wildcats scored its first run courtesy of Kelsey Nader. She blooped one over the infield to score Bridget Donahey, who had run for Cuchran. Northwestern 1, Alabama 2

Bottom: Alabama worked its leadoff hitter on base but Williams settled to retire the next three batters, including a strikeout of Prange. Northwestern 1, Alabama 2

3RD INNING

Top: Maeve Nelson singled and Rudd hit a line drive to right field but no runs came across. Alabama is still looking for its first hit as we reach the bottom of the third. Northwestern 0, Alabama 0

Bottom: A weather delay lasted about an hour, interrupting Kristen Whites at-bat at a 1-1 count. Alabama has no outs and play resumed at 4:52 p.m. Her infield single was the Tides first and was followed by a walk to Prange. Johnson then registered a bunt single and loaded the bases with no outs.

Shipman feigned a bunt then pulled back for a single down the left field line giving Alabama a 2-0 lead. Williams struck out Heivilin to limit the damage.

2ND INNING

Top: Angela Zedak walked with one out in the frame. Kansas Robinson smacked one to left field but Johnson was placed well to make the grab.

Bottom: Williams didnt let a ball leave the infield and earned a 1-2-3 inning while both bullpens start to get active. Northwestern 0, Alabama 0

1ST INNING

Top: Shellmyer fouled off a couple of pitches and worked an infield single. She advanced to second on a passed ball. Torrence recorded the first two outs without letting the runner advance and capped the frame with a strikeout. Northwestern 0, Alabama 0

Bottom: Prange, last nights hero, walked to give the Tide a leadoff base runner. Johnson interrupted a streak of five-straight balls by Williams when she bunted Prange to second base. The Tide caught a break when Dowling grounded back to Williams and reached on a fielders choice. Williams had tried to get Prange out at third but Northwestern couldnt execute a run-down. Alabamas next two hitters couldnt find grass though, and failed to take an early lead. Northwestern 0, Alabama 0

LINEUPS

Alabama will run back the same lineup as last night: Ashley Prange 3B; Jenna Johnson LF; Bailey Dowling DP; Ally Shipman C; Emma Broadfoot 1B; Kali Heivilin 2B; Kenleigh Cahalan SS; Larissa Preuitt RF; Kristen White CF.

Northwestern changed the top of its order: Skyler Shellmyer CF; Maeve Nelson SS; Jordyn Rudd C; Hannah Cady 3B; Nikki Chuchran 1B; Angela Zedak LF; Kansas Robinson DP; Kelsey Nader RF; Grace Nieto 2B.

Nick Alvarez is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at NAlvarez@al.com.
It was win-or-go-home time for Alabama softball and the Crimson Tide answered the call. It staved off elimination to beat Northwestern, 2-1.

Heres how it happened:

7TH INNING

Top: Preuitt started the frame with a line drive to left field. White executed a sacrifice bunt to get Preuitt to second base. Prange delivered the go-ahead single, giving Alabama a 2-1 lead.

Bottom: Fouts did her job and got a line out and a pair of strikeouts to send this series to a decisive game three on Sunday.

FINAL: Alabama beats Northwestern, 2-1.

6TH INNING

Top: Broadfoots mask gets clipped by a pitch as Alabama earned a two-out base runner. Heivilin then got hit on the arm to give the Tide a chance to regain the lead. But once again, Northwestern escaped as Kenleigh Cahalan flew out to center. Alabama 1, Northwestern 1

Bottom: Fouts retired the bottom of Northwesterns lineup in order, including a pinch hitter. Well go to the seventh tied.

5TH INNING

Top: Some small ball for Alabama as Preuitt and White bunt to give the Tide two more base runners before the lineup flipped over. Prange, the Tides best hitter of late, popped out to second base on the first pitch. Johnson then drove one to center field but it was another wasted chance for an offense. Alabama 1, Northwestern 0

Bottom: Northwestern benefited from a lucky bounce as Skyler Shellmyer reached on an infield single. She moved to second on a wild pitch and scored on an RBI single by Rudd. Alabama 1, Northwestern 1

Another hit knocked Torrence out of the game for Montana Fouts. The graduate senior recorded two pop-outs and limited the damage.

4TH INNING

Top: Johnson singled to lead off for the Tides first hit since Pranges double to start the game. Two batters later, with runners on the corners and one out, Boyd won a war against Broadfoot, striking out the first-baseman in a 10-pitch at-bat for the second out.

Northwestern brought in Danielle Williams, the lefty who beat the Tide yesterday for Boyd, out of the bullpen for Heivilin. Williams ended the threat with a strikeout. A great game so far.

Bottom: Kristen White just leaned up against the center field wall to rob Maeve Nelson of an extra-base hit. Torrence let out a roar and then struck out Grace Nieto to end the frame. Alabama 1, Northwestern 0

3RD INNING

Top: Two nifty plays by Northwesterns infield defense to keep Larissa Preuiitt and Kristen White, fast runners, off the bases. Boyd worked back from a 3-1 count to strike Prange out looking. Alabama has just one hit as Boyd settled in. Alabama leads 1-0

Bottom: Torrence nearly pitched her first 1-2-3 inning to get past the top of Northwesterns lineup but Rudd got an infield single. Hannah Cady then squibbed one past Torrence to give Northwestern another runner in scoring position and Torrence then walked the bases loaded, triggering a conference at the circle. Torrence escaped again, though, getting Angela Zedak to strike out in an eight-pitch showdown.

2ND INNING

Top: Emma Broadfoot walked to start the inning and Faith Hensley ran for her. Hensley tried to catch Northwesterns Lauren Boyd sleeping with a delayed steal but the pitcher tagged her out to wipe away the lead-off runner.

Bottom: Nikki Cuchran managed Northwesterns first hit with a hard shot that Kali Heivilin tipped but couldnt knock down. Angela Zedak followed up with a single past third base. As Torrence recorded her first out of the inning Montana Fouts was seen warming up in the Alabama bullpen. Torrence lucked out of the jam as Grace Nieto stepped out of the batters box on a foul ball. Alabama leads 1-0

1ST INNING

Top: Ashley Pranges first swing resulted in a double to the left-field corner and a hyped crowd stayed standing for Jenna Johnsons at-bat when she bunted Prange to third. With the fans chanting her name, Dowling skied one to right field for a sacrifice fly. Alabama 1, Northwestern 0

Bottom: Torrence threw 20 pitches in the first including 11 strikes. Jordyn Rudd worked a walk with two outs but Torrence got Northwesterns No. 4 hitter to ground out.

PREGAME

--Alabama is going with junior Jaala Torrence in the circle. The right-hander hasnt allowed a run in her last 22.1 innings, which included a pair of shutouts in the regional round against LIU and Middle Tennessee State.

--Northwestern is throwing Lauren Boyd (2.26 ERA in 99.1 innings).

Lineups for tonight 



Follow along as Alabama looks to extend its season. https://t.co/DsE5no2anu pic.twitter.com/IVZXt8p1Kr  Nick Alvarez (@nick_a_alvarez) May 28, 2023

Nick Alvarez is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @nick_a_alvarez or email him at NAlvarez@al.com.
A fiery crash in Birmingham early Sunday left two people dead.

Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service responded at 3:30 a.m. to a report of a single-vehicle crash on University Boulevard near Ninth Street South.

BFRS Battalion Chief Tobias Jones said crews arrived to find a vehicle fully involved in flames. The vehicle was against the bridge under the Interstate 65 overpass.

After extinguishing the blaze, firefighters discovered two people dead in the front seats. Their identities have not yet been released.

The investigation is ongoing.
President Emmerson Mnangagwas orders to Zanu PF supporters to close ranks after divisive primary elections are being defied with evidence mounting of widening divisions over the ruling partys election candidates.

Mnangagwa is expected to announce the date for this years elections tomorrow amid threats by Zanu PF supporters to vote against ruling party candidates that were allegedly imposed during primary elections held in March.

The internal polls were run by the Central Intelligence Organisation-backed Forever Association Zimbabwe (FAZ) in conjunction with Heritage Trust, which is linked to the military.

Zanu PF has been struggling to mobilise supporters to attend campaign meetings as they continue to protest against the imposition of candidates.

On May 25, Zanu PF supporters heckled Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe district political commissar, one Mrs Thebe, who was in the company of FAZ members during a meeting at the Kafura Rural District Council offices in Mashonaland East.

The meeting was organised to mobilise support for Maramba Constituency candidate Tichaona Karimazondo.

Thebe said she was sent by the Zanu PF leadership to unite the supporters around Karimazonodo, who won in the primaries.

What I am saying is, I have been sent by the party; you can accept or reject that, I dont care, Thebe said.

All hell broke loose when she mentioned Karimazondos name as the candidate.

Zanu PF supporters heckled her and broke into song and dance, saying they were tired of being used to endorse worthless things.

The meeting ended prematurely.

An unidentified FAZ member tried to threaten the protestors saying by rejecting Karimazondo they were rejecting Mnangagwa.

Two weeks ago, Midlands Provincial Affairs minister Larry Mavima also ended a meeting at Chief Chireyas homestead prematurely after Zanu PF supporters booed him.

They rejected Torerai Moyo, who was announced as the winning candidate while evidence showed Jeremiah Ndukulani came out tops.

Zanu PF supporters have been boycotting meetings in the Midlands province protesting against the rigged elections.

Early this month, only 17 supporters attended a meeting by Flora Buka, a winning candidate in Gokwe-Nembudziya.

Buka beat favourite Justice Mayor Wadyajajena twice, but the outgoing MP still insists the polls were rigged by FAZ in favour of the former Cabinet minister.

After the fiasco at Chief Chireyas homestead, Zanu PF provincial administrator Passmore Washaya wrote to all Zanu PF members of staff in the Midlands, district coordinating committee chairpersons and senior provincial members not to release any document that was not sanctioned by former State Security minister Owen Ncube.

The Midlands province has its own security head, Cde Owen Ncube (Mudha), part of the letter dated May 24 read.

Section 101 (1) gives powers to Cde Mudha of being the chief security of the party in the Midlands Province.

In that regard, no party document or information should leave any of our offices without approval.

Washaya confirmed that he authored the letter.

"Its a party regulation, he said.

Every institution has its own regulation.

Do you work for Zanu PF?

Are you telling me that your organisation is perfect?

So what's the problem with Zanu PF having its own regulations?"

Zanu PF political commissar Mike Bimha said the party was organising a healing process for losing candidates.

"It will come to pass. Its part of the healing process. We are holding meetings within the party, Bimha said.

We are organising various programmes to unite winning and losing candidates.

Eventually, there will be harmony if there are areas where some party members are aggrieved with the winning candidates."

The divisions over candidates are said to be worse in Masvingo where Zanu PF supporters accuse the Robson Mavhenyengwa executive of taking bribes from aspiring candidates and rigging the polls in their favour.

In Gutu East where a popular candidate George Vhengere, who was initially announced by Bimha as the winner was upstaged by Benjamin Ganyiwa, who is believed to be a close ally of the ruling partys national secretary for security Lovemore Matuke. Ruling party supporters in the area threatened a protest vote.

They accuse Mavhenyengwa, Matuke and the other provincial heavyweights of betraying the party by trying to impose Ganyiwa on them.

Masvingo South, West and Central, Chiredzi West and Chivi North constituencies are also said to be facing similar problems.

There are also problems in Buhera where FAZ is said to have rigged the polls in favour of Tafadzwa Mugwadi. Standard
Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney implored new college graduates to not compromise when it comes to the truth, excoriating her House Republican colleagues for not doing enough to combat former President Donald Trumps lies that the 2020 election was stolen.

In a commencement speech at Colorado College, the Wyoming Republican repeated her fierce criticisms of Trump but steered clear of talking about his 2024 reelection campaign or her own political future.

Cheney, who graduated from Colorado College in 1988, recalled being a political science student walking into a campus building where a Bible verse was inscribed above the entrance that read, You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

I had to choose between lying and losing my position in House leadership, Cheney said Sunday in Colorado Springs, connecting her experiences as a student to her work in the U.S. House of Representatives. As I spoke to my colleagues on my last morning as chair of the Republican Conference in May of 2021, I told them that if they wanted a leader who would lie, they should choose someone else.

In three terms in office, Cheney rose to the No. 3 GOP leadership position in the House, a job she lost after voting to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol and then not relenting in her criticism of the former president.

Cheneys speech touched on themes similar to those she has promoted since leaving office in January: addressing her work on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and standing up to the threat she believes Trump poses to democracy. She also encouraged more women to run for office and blasted one of the election-denying attorneys who worked for Trump after the 2020 election for recent remarks about college students voting.

Cleta Mitchell, an election denier and adviser to former President Trump, told a gathering of Republicans recently that it is crucially important to make sure that college students dont vote, Cheney said. Those who are trying to unravel the foundations of our republic, who are threatening the rule of law and the sanctity of our elections, know they cant succeed if you vote.

In an audio recording of Mitchells presentation from a recent Republican National Committee retreat, she warns of polling places on college campuses and the ease of voting as potential problems, the Washington Post reported.

Most students and parents in the audience applauded throughout Cheneys remarks, yet some booed. Some students opposing the choice of Cheney as speaker turned their chairs away from the stage as she spoke.

Cheneys busy speaking schedule and subject matter have fueled speculation about whether she may enter the 2024 GOP presidential primary since she left office. Candidates ranging from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley have calibrated their remarks about Trump, aiming to counter his attacks without alienating the supporters that won him the White House seven years ago.

Though some have offered measured criticisms, no declared or potential challenger has embraced anti-Trump messaging to the same extent as Cheney. She did not reference her plans on Sunday but has previously said she remains undecided about whether she wants to run for president.

Though she would face an uphill battle, Cheneys fierce anti-Trump stance and her role as vice chairwoman of the House committee elevated her platform high enough to call on a national network of donors and Trump critics to support a White House run.

A super PAC organized to support of her candidacy has remained active, including purchasing attack ads on New Hampshire airwaves against Trump this month.

After leaving office and being replaced by a Trump-backed Republican who defeated her in last years primary, Cheney was appointed to a professorship at the University of Virginia and wrote Oath and Honor, a memoir scheduled to hit shelves in November.

Two of Cheneys five children as well as her mother are also graduates of the liberal arts college.

Cheneys speaking tour appears to be picking up. She is scheduled to appear Thursday at the Mackinac Policy Conference in Michigan.
It was the late 1970s when I got a lesson about Memorial Day.

My husband worked in his familys business. On the Monday morning following the last weekend in May, our telephone rang. It was my mother-in-law, a diminutive and powerful daughter of the South.

Where is everybody? she asked my husband impatiently. When he tried to tell her that it was Memorial Day, she cut him short.

I know how to read a calendar, she said. We dont take Yankee Memorial Day off. Call everyone and tell them to get to work. The mid-19th-century division of our country -- surely the worst thing weve suffered as a nation -- was alive and well on that 1979 day in Foley, Alabama.

Memorial Day is not usually thought of as a holiday that celebrates our nations ability to overcome differences and come together. It should be.

The holiday that were celebrating this weekend began as an informal affair, when flowers were placed on the graves of Northern soldiers who died during the Civil War. From about 1867 on, the holiday evolved into a series of speeches and parades, with the aging Union veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic leading the way.

That holiday was quite different in the South. Confederate Memorial Day is still a holiday in some Southern states, including Alabama. For most of us, its a day when the local courthouse is closed and we dont know why. Unlike Robert E. Lee Day, which is celebrated on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day (irony of ironies,) there is no associated federal holiday on Confederate Memorial Day.

But what about this business of overcoming differences?

With these kinds of holidays, it started about 80 years ago.

During the Civil War, Vicksburg, Miss., was the key to the domination of the Mississippi River. Vicksburg fell to the North on July 4, 1863 -- and the people in that city did not celebrate the Fourth of July for the next 81 years.

By then -- July of 1944 -- many sons of the South were fighting their way across France in World War II. Vicksburgs city fathers decided it was time to put aside the past and honor those people who served under the same Stars and Stripes that had defeated their ancestors in 1863.

A unifying fact: My husbands great-grandfather, Richard Henry Coleman, was a member of the Confederate Army and was captured by the federals at Vicksburg. My father, Edward James Barrett, a native of Louisiana, parachuted into France on D-Day.

In the face of these two mens willingness to serve, who are we to quibble over holidays -- or much else, for that matter?

Richard Henry Coleman was a 28-year-old infantry corporal when he was taken prisoner. He survived the war and died when he was 71 years old. Edward James Barrett was a captain in the 101st Airborne. He survived the war, a decorated veteran who carried the physical and emotional scars of his service to his death as a 58-year-old.

In terms of time and circumstance, these two were worlds apart. In terms of willingness to go to war, they were -- and are -- the same.

We are fundamentally confused these days about what Decoration Day, Memorial Day, Confederate Memorial Day and all the other similar holidays are about. We tend to co-opt these holidays to bolster or create a false story to support one political view or another.

If you say patriot today, you mean a hard-core right winger who is convinced he must have an assault rifle in the closet and military rations in the pantry. The word Confederate brings visions of the horror of beating slaves and the terror of lynching to the minds of many.

Those reactions are sad, disrespectful and foolish.

Richard Coleman went to war because Northern soldiers were in his state. He didnt own slaves, much less beat them. He was called and he served. Ed Barrett was certainly a patriot. As a man who survived real, up-close combat, he would be either horrified or amused at the thought of a suburban patriot armed to the teeth, with military rations in the closet.

The real reason for the Memorial Day holiday is to honor men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military, although it has evolved to also honor all the men and women, living and dead, who were called and who served. They need not have endured the shelling of Vicksburg or assaulting the Wehrmacht. We honor those who were not combat soldiers as well.

They all offered themselves up.

No matter the political persuasion, race, ethnicity, gender or station in life, they gave of themselves. They served.

Certainly, the small proportion of service members who actually went into combat didnt know what they were getting into. They never do. In actual combat, they fought for one another. But the nature of a persons service isnt the point. It is their willingness to serve, and thats a noble thing.

They did it because they felt they had to. But the sacrifice these men and women made in serving is something done for you and me. They served to benefit all of us.

As a nation, we seem to be all too ready to throw away the constitutional system that has allowed us to weather things as terrible as a Civil War. The service of all military members is about protecting the United States from all enemies, foreign or domestic. Their service is, and was, to protect and defend us.

That can and should unify us. Anything less is disrespectful to them, the things they offered to do, the things they did, and the blood so many of them shed.

Frances Coleman is a former editorial page editor of the Mobile Press-Register. Email her at fcoleman1953@gmail.com and like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/prfrances.
David Shers ComebackTown for a better Birmingham

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Todays guest columnist is Jacob Rogers.

Born and raised in the Birmingham metro area, I attended elementary school in Midfield, middle school in Warrior, and high school in Blount County.

After graduating from Samford University in 2009, it took me several months to find an entry-level position.

Just like other similar cities, Birmingham didnt weather the Great Recession well. Opportunity in the region was scarce for many people but certainly for young professionals.

Even though I had not planned to leave the area, it became clear that I, like many of my peers, would need to leave Birmingham to find the next great opportunity for myself.

I was recruited to be CEO of the Triangle Community Coalition in Raleigh, North Carolina, nearly a decade ago. In this role, I have been at the forefront of the economic growth in the nations second-fastest growing region, growing at 100 people per day.

The Triangle regions secret sauce for economic growth and prosperity isnt much different from what Birmingham already has today, which are top tier educational institutions, available land, infrastructure, lower cost of living, and a great quality of life.

But there is one major component Birmingham is missing  regional collaboration. Partnerships among the Birmingham areas local governments, universities and colleges, and business community lag far behind its prosperous neighbors such as Nashville, Greenville, Charlotte, and Raleigh. This makes it difficult to have a regional vision for economic success.

Each year I join the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce as it embarks on an Inter-City Visit where the city council, county commissioners, school board, university and college presidents, public officials, and roughly 100 of the areas business leaders travel together to learn the best (and worst) practices of other cities.

This trip is valuable beyond measure. It provides an opportunity for those who cast the regions economic vision and those who are able to deliver on that vision to develop the necessary relationships that a thriving region needs. We benefit from learning what other regions have tried and their results.

Recently, we have traveled to Austin, Seattle, Nashville, Salt Lake City, and San Diego. From these trips, we have learned the best economic engines in the nation have one thing in common: regional collaboration, and there is always an organization leading these efforts.

With 35 municipalities in Jefferson County, its no wonder why regional collaboration can seem to be an overzealous challenge. These mayors and council members were elected by their citizens to represent their particular city, but the regions economic vision and future is in their hands collectively.

To be effective, leaders need relationships. Relationships start with conversations, and the conversations with each other are not enough. They need the regions business community and the post-secondary education institutions at the table. All of these stakeholders must communicate with each other regularly, not just for the region to be competitive but to improve the lives of citizens today.

Its time we talk about a regional vision for jobs, workforce development, business, industry, housing, and quality of life with everyone at the table.

Birmingham needs a collaborator, a convener to lead this charge. The Birmingham Business Alliance is best equipped for this challenge by serving as the conduit for these key stakeholders. The most successful Chambers of Commerce in the nation have this as a major component to their operations. Now more than ever, the BBA has the opportunity to step up and lead Birmingham to fulfill the potential we all know it has.

My story is not much different from those you have heard before. There are many accounts of young people leaving the area due to lack of opportunity. ComebackTowns David Sher has shared many of these. We, as community leaders, have to work together to ensure there is opportunity here for our children.

Lets retain the talent that graduates from our educational institutions. Lets foster an environment where innovation and opportunity can grow and thrive. Lets create opportunities for these stakeholders to develop relationships. Lets be intentional about creating this type of environment.

Lets all collaborate to make this happen.

Jacob Rogers is the CEO of the Triangle Community Coalition and Southeast Non-Profit Housing, both based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Jacobs primary focus is working with local and state elected officials on land-use and economic development policy in the Triangle.

David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown. Hes past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).

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It just doesnt make any sense that we would execute people under a process thats currently illegal in Alabama. - Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman

Not to get all Charles Dickens on yall, but what we got here in Alabama with death penalty politics has turned into kind of an old school Ghost of Christmas Past literary drama. The good news is its a bipartisan old school literary drama, featuring former Republican Gov. Robert Bentley and former Democrat Gov. Don Siegelman as the ghosts.

Bentley and Siegelman voiced their regrets about death penalty decisions in a joint op-ed for The Washington Post this week. We can only hope Gov. Grim Reaper Kay Ivey is paying attention.

Related: Former AL governors Bentley, Siegelman say they would commute sentences of 146 death row inmates - al.com

Related: Death penalty needs killing: Alabamas next execution should be its last - al.com

Related: Alabama Death Row inmate Toforest Johnsons case to be focus of Birmingham event - al.com

Related: Innocence Project asks Supreme Court to review case of Alabama Death Row inmate Toforest Johnson - al.com

Excerpts from my AL.com colleague Ivana Hrynkiws report:

Two former governors of Alabama from opposite sides of the political aisle published an opinion piece in The Washington Post calling for the state to put an end to executing people who were sent to death row by a split jury, and for Alabama to commute the sentences of 146 death row inmates.

Data from the Alabama Department of Corrections shows there are currently 167 people on Alabama Death Rowthe greatest use of death row in the nation when adjusted for population. For every 100,000 Alabamians, there are 3.3 people on death row  by far the highest rate in the United States.

As far as the two of us are concerned, that is at least 146 people too many, states the op-ed published in The Washington Post.

Specifically, the piece calls for an end to executing people who were sent to death row either by a non unanimous jury, or by a judge who overturned a jurys sentence for life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Related: Death penalty needs killing: Alabamas next execution should be its last - al.com

Under current Alabama law, a jury can vote 10-2 and still impose a death sentence. In 2017, Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law that juries, not judges, have the final say on whether to impose the death penalty in capital murder cases. It wasnt retroactive, meaning people are still sitting on death row who were sent there against a jurys recommendation.

Siegelman told AL.com Wednesday about judicial override, It just doesnt make any sense that we would execute people under a process thats currently illegal in Alabama.

The op-ed continued, As former Alabama governors, we have come over time to see the flaws in our nations justice system and to view the states death penalty laws in particular as legally and morally troubling. We both presided over executions while in office, but if we had known then what we know now about prosecutorial misconduct, we would have exercised our constitutional authority to commute death sentences to life.

The governors cite data from the Death Penalty Information Center that, since 1976, one person on death row nationwide has been exonerated for every 8.3 executions. That means we have been getting it wrong about 12 percent of the time. If we apply those statistics to the 167 people on Alabamas death row, it means that as many as 20 could have been wrongfully charged and convicted, continued the piece.

The governors mention several men awaiting execution, including Toforest Johnson of Birmingham and Rocky Myers of Decatur. Johnson and Myers have long maintained their innocence.

Despite no physical evidence tying him to the crime, contradictory witnesses and a divided jury, Myers was found guilty in a fatal stabbing in Decatur three decades ago Nine jurors recommended he be sentenced to life in prison, while just three voted for death. But, a judge overruled the jury and sentenced him to die.

One of us, Don Siegelman, is personally haunted by the case of Freddie Wright, whose execution he could have commuted, but did not, in 2000. Twenty-three years later, Siegelman believes Wright was wrongfully charged, prosecuted and convicted for a murder he most likely did not commit, said the op-ed.

The former governor said thats the case that haunts him of the eight that happened under his reign as governor.

Read all of Ivana Hrynkiws report here

More related content:

Related: Dead man talking: I survived Alabama execution attempt - al.com

Related: Autopsy reveals how Alabama botched Joe Nathan James execution: Truth is engraved in his skin - al.com

Related: Alabamas troubled death penalty attempts added to Americas Year of the Botched Execution - al.com

Check out more stories and stuff by JD Crowe

The mysterious Bubble Guy of Fairhope and the art of bubble Zen - al.com

How I met Dr. Seuss

Robert Plant head-butted me. Thanks, David Coverdale

I was ZZ Tops drummer for a night and got kidnapped by groupies

Check out more cartoons and stuff by JD Crowe

Tina Turner: Tribute to the Queen of Rock n Roll - al.com

Child sex abuse: Trauma lasts forever. Hold abusers accountable now - al.com

Tommy Tuberville deserves his own white nationalist pointy A-shaped hat - al.com

Mothers Day tribute to my mom, the worlds greatest pencil sharpener - al.com

Death by donkey dysfunction: Rest in peace again, Alabama Democratic Party - al.com

JD Crowe is the cartoonist for Alabama Media Group and AL.com. He won the RFK Human Rights Award for Editorial Cartoons in 2020. In 2018, he was awarded the Rex Babin Memorial Award for local and state cartoons by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Follow JD on Facebook, Twitter @Crowejam and Instagram @JDCrowepix.
Tony Campolo is among the more famous evangelical leaders in the United States more affiliated with the political Left. His perhaps most famous book -- Is Jesus a Democrat or a Republican? -- tried to imagine a centrist view of Jesus. Despite his friendly demeanor and political interests, Campolos intuitive truism about mixing religion and politics is absolutely untrue as far as we might apply it to Christianity. It is therefore necessary and essential to understand the politics of Jesus even though many outside and inside his discipled circle abhor the thought.

The compelling and necessary starting point of Christianity and politics is the shocking reality that Jesus resurrection from the dead is the most political event in human history. How can this be true? Jesus was murdered by the State in a public execution and that political event was meant to send a conventional message understood throughout the ages and across cultures: shut up about any alternative to the present political order or be put to death in a humiliating public manner. The message is easy to understand whether you have ever even heard of Jesus and his message. The ugly truth of this was understood even by his skeptics. One of the great American skeptics was an academic by the name of E.O. Wilson. As an anthropologist, Wilson authored many books including The Social Conquest of the Earth. Though raised as a Southern Baptist, Wilson grew, like so many Christians, toward skepticism and unbelief as he encountered the wonders of academia. That did not prevent him from anchoring in this book the ugly reality that what makes humans human is a love for killing one another. Across thousands of cultures, and thousands of years, anthropologists find the same deadly pattern. The faithful refusal of Christians to accept that killing and rather attest to Jesus resurrection is at the heart of a global human protest against unjust politics.

Jesus understood as soon as he began to teach that politics would begin to unravel and attack his human form. When Peter named him as the Christ he told Peter and his disciples to tell no one because it was not the time. Jesus understood the reality and danger of politics. Politics and meaningful religion cannot possibly be separated because of human nature. Christianity is especially incapable of this separation because it is aimed squarely at the unjust pattern of human politics: ostracism, isolation, ridicule, mockery, shame, abuse, and finally public execution. That is humanitys political plan and that is undoubtedly why Christianity is the worlds most popular religion, to the chagrin of its reactionary and all too often well-ensconced critics.

The American demand to separate Christianity from the State is consistently the prelude to unfettered injustice. One of the most popular secular mythologies in America -- the separation of Church and State -- is derived from an absolutely pathological and false interpretation of the First Amendment religion clauses. Perhaps the best attempt to rationalize the idea was Jeffersons Treaty of Tripoli (1797) with the Barbary Pirates. The pirates were so poorly persuaded by Jeffersons explanation that the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, that they continued to abduct U.S. merchants on the high seas off the coast of Africa, believing they were in fact Christians from a Christian nation. Not until Jefferson constituted the Marines to attack the shores of Tripoli, did the pirates seem to get the message of leaving our commerce in the Mediterranean alone.

Of course, Jesus taught that his kingdom would not come by the sword -- despite Peters desperate hope that it would. Nonetheless, Christianity is an intrinsic threat to the irrational threats of the sword that dominate human politics. Christianity is the necessary ingredient of politics because the inevitable manure that human dominance has always been. Christians should not forfeit the public sphere in some sordid illusion that merely awaiting Jesus return is a satisfactory engagement with moral duty. Christians will be attacked in the public sphere but separation will never be possible even when her enemies promise to remain safely behind a wall.

Dr. Ben Voth is a professor of rhetoric and director of debate at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. His forthcoming book -- The Centennial of the Modern American Presidency: The Presidential Rhetoric of Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge with Lexington Books comes out in fall 2023.

Photo credit: Myrabella CC BY-SA 3.0 license
On the Memorial Day weekend, while most Americans played near water, the leftists impeached the strongest elected voice in Texas for election integrity  Ken Paxton.

Impeachments were history book items until Clinton, then two more for Trump and some predicting one for Biden. Everyone kind of gets it. It's a political thing, with preposterous second-raters giving speeches about honesty, integrity, rule of law as they bend the rules to get their way.

This one is a bit different. Paxton is the stand-up guy who  but for a very sketchy Supreme Court "standing" ruling  could have seriously upended the fraudulent election in 2020. He is ballsy, innovative, smart, and colorful. And he is the attorney general of a very big state  or was, as he now is suspended. It's now up to the state Senate.

He had one of those mistress events that beguiles Christian conservative types. Then there was some kind of lawsuit followed by a $3-million settlement. Republicans do seem to pay more for sex than the leftists who drive their victims off a bridge or bite their lip or just deny that it ever happened.

Paxton apparently did everything above board  as far as the payment goes, even getting the Legislature to fund it. A group of RINOs and all the leftist Democrats held a secret investigation, leading to a bill sent to the Legislature, days before the holiday  leftists demanding a vote on the holiday Saturday.

It's railroading  done well!

Yes, but remember Kari Lake! The leftists know that nobody will challenge them  nobody will push back  so why not?

We deal in a world of imperfect pols  it's just frustrating to see our imperfect pols treated with different rules from their imperfect pols.

Texas, like a lot of conservative states, is run by leftists and RINOs.

Take Wyoming  one of the most overwhelmingly red states  yet its Legislature is RINO city.

In Texas, the house leadership was often, and currently is, RINO.

It's a stupid thing. It's what elected conservatives do: they run as a conservative, win, then sell out by electing leadership that will eviscerate conservative programs. They all do it.

There's a bigger story here. Texas is preparing to go purple in 2024 and take out Ted Cruz.

To do that, there must be industrial-scale voter fraud from the large cities. Ken Paxton stood in the way.

Our Fractal team runs the voter rolls in Texas for voter integrity groups, so we have a bird's-eye view. Republicans hold every major office  you would think they demand clean voter rolls.

Nope.

The Texas voter rolls are abhorrent  and when you get into the large metro areas, superlatives fail.

In 2024, election fraud in Texas, like all states, is going into overdrive.

Ballot-harvesting will be preceded by NGOs filling the voter rolls with mountains of people living in homeless shelters that can house a few. This will start in Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin about four months before Election Day.

College dorms and high-rise apartment buildings will have mail-in ballots littering the floors  picked up by organized, funded leftist organizations.

Thousands of transient voters will be mailed ballots  and of course many will be long gone  and those ballots will vote against Cruz.

The election commissions in the large cities will open their daily ballot count to their leftist masters to make sure they meet the fake ballot quota needed every day to take out Ted.

Some election commissions will change ballots after they are cast  as our team and others proved happened in Texas in 2020. Twenty twenty-four is the Super Bowl for election fraud  to stop Trump  and Cruz is likely a co-victim.

Because 2024 is the must-win, at all costs, leftist battle against Trump, there will be no limit to what leftists will do.

Ken Paxton, a battle-hardened attorney general, whom the people like a lot, would have prosecuted the hundreds of fraud rings that will make themselves visible.

So, step 1, take out Ken Paxton.

If you can't beat him at the polls, hold a secret investigation, known only to RINOs and leftists. Do not allow him or his attorney to examine the witnesses, use "triple hearsay" testimony as evidence, do not produce a single incriminating document, no witness cross examination  then demand that the Legislature, with a few days' notice, vote on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend!

Ted Cruz, like all smart guys who tell us how smart they are, is unfortunately more smart than clever. Twenty twenty-four requires a clever mindset  anticipating the tsunami of voter fraud he has coming his way. Probably before they take Ted out, we will see the polls showing he is terribly unpopular  maybe cruel to small animals.

Expect media assaults aimed at supporting the inevitable election-stealing  so there is a narrative in place to convince the wine moms and Kiwanis Club types that while Texas lost Ted, we have fair elections.

You saw them do it to Kari Lake  someone both physically and emotionally more compelling than our pal Ted Cruz. Ted isn't going to win by 57 points the way Kari Lake did. Even with Trump on the ticket, he isn't that popular. If Kari Lake can get manhandled by election commissions in Republican areas the way she was, Cruz losing is a real possibility.

We are drawing your attention not to Ted Cruz. Your attention should be focused on the vast, multi-layer, constant, relentless drive from leftists and RINOs to prepare the 2024 ground to take out Trump or DeSantis  no matter what.

The very idea of taking an immensely popular attorney general, who is the leading light speaking about election fraud, challenging the 2020 election as no other elected official did  and removing him from office with a laughable investigation alerts you, the voter, to how bad it's going to be in 2024.

It also should alert you, dear reader, to how vulnerable you are to leftists overwhelming all the institutions you hold dear.

It's one thing to slowly take over the schools, infiltrate the CIA and FBI and weaponize the state, make the military accept transvestites and argue that children should have life-altering surgery to imitate the opposite sex  but at least leftists had the good manners to do it slowly.

What you see here with Paxton and last year with Kari Lake is the raw, unconstrained, shove-it-in-your-face enthusiasm the left has to end our country as we have known it  with the Texas Legislature gleefully going along!

While everyone just takes it!

From where we sit, the only thing that stands in the way is not elected officials  the left will take them out. It is not the Republican Party  they will disappoint. It is not the courts  they lost their interest in the law; they are partisans in robes. It is not the media  Breitbart is controlled opposition, never taking a stand on election fraud, and Tucker is out at Fox.

All that protects us from the leftists  ending elections as we know them  are sad, tattered, dirty voter rolls in seven swing states.

The Texas Legislature just checked out.

Jay Valentine led the team that built the eBay fraud detection engine and the TSA No-Fly List and the Fractal Undeliverable Ballot Database. He can be reached at Omega4America.com and Twitter at @AmericaOme17300.

Image: Ted Cruz. Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
In all the conversation that is prevalent throughout the Earth today, there is almost nothing further from the truth than the absurd and evil notion that men can become women, and that women can become men, or similarly, the idea that sex (or gender) is not binary and rather a spectrum. These ideas are so absurd and so far from the truth (in line with 2 + 2 = 5) that many modern liberals refuseor perhaps more accurately, have yetto embrace them.

We shouldnt be surprised that we are now having to debate what is a male and what is a female, or that sex is binary. Transgenderism, and all its fallacies, is simply what results when one abandons the notion of absolute truth. The idea that some things are settled for all time is not a tenet of modern liberalism.

Saying that some things are settled for all time is simply another way of saying that we live in a universe where absolute truth exists. Ive never quite understood why its absolute truth and not simply truth. Regardless, it is folly to suggest that some things arent immutably true. If anything exists, there must be truth. As St. Thomas Aquinas put it,

The existence of truth is self-evident. For whoever denies the existence of truth grants that truth does not exist: and, if truth does not exist, then the proposition Truth does not exist is true: and if there is anything true, there must be truth.

The truth about truth flies in the face of those who wish to rule their own world and write their own moral code. So you see, transgenderismlike the marriage debateis just another battle in the war on truth. Granted, it is a battle against one of the oldest truthseven older than the truth of what is marriagein the history of humanity. Few things have been known longer than what is a male, and what is a female, yet the lefts war on this old and foundational truth rages on.

It rages on because if doubt can be cast on the truth of sex (males/females), then doubt (and subsequent lies) can creep into virtually ANY realm of truth. This is why the enemy of all humanity; the enemy of all truthSatanis so hard at work here. Yes, this is indeed a spiritual war, and The Father of Lies is winning many battles.

Satan has been so successful in the arena of biological sex that Scientific Americanonce a widely respected publicationrecently published an absurd piece titled "Heres Why Human Sex is Not Binary." Scientific American is the oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S. Noted scientists such as Einstein and Tesla contributed articles to it. Yet it seems now that, in order to further the leftist agenda, Scientific American is willing to abandon biology that children can comprehend.

After the Twitterverse called them out for going woke on biology, Scientific American doubled down on their wokeness. Just days after running the Heres Why Human Sex is Not Binary column, Laura Helmuth, the Editor-in-Chief of Scientific American, in a tweet about White-throated sparrows, boldly declared sex is not binary.

The modern leftist agendawhich lies at the foundation of the Democrat party, the mainstream American media, government schools, and the likeis itself a war on truth. As in any war, what the left seeks to do here is to replace their adversarytruthwith their own idea of truth. Of course, as the last several decades in America have proved, the left has had great success in supplanting the truth with their own perverse, evil ideology. Their wild successes in supplanting the truth of what is a male and what is a female alone proves this point.

In addition to corrupting formerly esteemed science publications, the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, is now publishing opinions where males are referred to as females. Again, this should come as little surprise as the author of the opinion herself, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, during her confirmation hearing, refused to define what is a woman. Im not a biologist, she foolishly declared.

Numerous U.S. corporations are pushing the evil trans agenda. Adidas recently published an ad for a womens swimsuit using a male model, complete with chest hair and an obvious groin bulge. Starbucks recently ran an ad in India marketing transgenderism in the Hindu-majority nation. Target is now selling chest binders, tuck friendly swimwear, and other woke and dangerous clothing to children!

Additionally, there are now near-countless states and other municipalities (run by Democrats) who are enshrining into law the right of one to simply declare themselves the opposite sex, along with the demand (or threat) that rest of us support and accommodate this evil. Those who refuse are targeted. As Orwell predicted, common sense has become heresy. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell writes,

In the end, the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllablewhat then?

Again, we shouldnt be surprised we are debating what is a male and what is a female, the logic of todays left demands it. The very existence of external reality, or truth, is tacitly loudly denied by their philosophy. And how do we know the truth about sex, marriage, and the like? Not merely because of common sense, but because of all that the Author of truth has revealed to us.

This is what is truly terrifying to the left: that there is a system of valuescall it what you will, absolute truth, external reality, etc.that is the ultimate source of all value judgements; that there is an Author of truth to whom we are all beholden; and that their system of valuesespecially on matters in the sexual realmare afoul of what He has revealed.

Trevor Grant Thomas: At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason. www.trevorgrantthomas.com. Trevor is the author of the The Miracle and Magnificence of America and can be reached at tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License
To speak of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the three Abrahamic faiths, the three religions of the Book, or the three monotheisms, obscures rather than illuminates. These familiar tropes ought to be retired.  George P. Weigel

The above quote is featured prominently within my esteemed colleagues work Islam & Blood, which is the most geo-politically, theologically, and culturally sound policy paper to address the cauldron of the Middle East, most profoundly in relation to Americas and Israels common enemy, radical Islam. If one domino falls, the other will likely follow. Invariably, they serve as the twin linchpins and pillars of Western Civilizations, the underpinnings of Judeo-Christian principles and mores.

Earlier this month, I penned an analytical assessment on the latest all-out jihadi assault upon sovereign Israeli territory, and speculated the situation may be akin to the foxes guarding the henhouse. In that context:

two principles remain: placating Israels U.S. masters (as well as other foreign actors), and coddling theminority (mostly) sympathetic to Islamic jihadis.

Lo and behold, the two aforementioned truths have once again materialized: the first, within Jerusalems power centers, and the second concerning Iran.

While the likes of de-escalation, proportionality, quiet will be met with quiet, and every other insane, inane, defeatist strategies that are bandied about within Israels top-tier, naturally and reflexively, Islamist barbarians ramp up the violence. Akin to circling sharks, they smell weakness and the scent of blood.

First, Tel Aviv, then onto Jerusalem. Yes, the proverbial finger to Jerusalem is waved in the air as an obscene salute! Could it get any more humiliating?!

Meanwhile, separate from the jihadi aggression, Prime Minister Netanyahus so-called rightward Likud was forced to recognize another reality check: the rest of the coalitions political calculus!

Inexorably, the Likuds lack of a severe smackdown to the 100+ rockets enraged those who truly represent the nationalist public, religious and secular (of which this writer is immeasurably aligned); yes, having handed them their electoral victory, no less.

As such, in no uncertain terms, Netanyahu was warned:

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, the leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, vows his party will not vote in Knesset with the government until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adopts more right-wing policies, and challenges him to fire him.

The ever-savvy PM internalized that he would no longer be able to sit astride the helm if he continued to diminish the jihadi threat, and ignore the wishes of the nationalist parties who elected him.

Now, along the Iranian trajectory: mullahs are often the terrorist masterminds who operate through proxy  a 2018 U.S. congressional hearing examined state sponsors of terrorism and included information on the notorious Mullah Mansoor. In that context and per the inestimable geo-strategist Caroline Glick (written just two weeks ago):

It is considered impolite to discuss the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza these days.  But from time to time, its imperative to bring up the 2005 operation. It stands as a glaring lesson that we ignore at our peril. For all the misery that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah terror forces in Gaza rain down on Israelthe fact is that Gaza is a sideshow.

Glick notes that it is Iran that is the real engine for Islamist military expansion and power and it is Iran that is the reason that Islamic Jihad is running its third campaign against Israel in less than two years. She aptly writes:

Although Palestinian Arab terrorists in Gaza and Palestinian Arab terrorists in Judea and Samaria are equally committed to murdering Jews, only the ones in Gaza have missiles, rockets and mortars to shoot off at will at Israeli civilians.

On and on Israels top-shelf political leaders (and military counterparts) display their failures  all from an inexplicable level of cognitive dissonance. No, the above is not rocket science!

As per the fainthearted regimes constant pledges regarding Iran: well, it is more akin to the lyrics of promises, promises that yes, they will stop the genocidal mullahs from becoming a nuclear-weapons state! Of course though, over years and years, Israels brass has yet to cease the centrifuges from nearing weapons-grade material.

Despite all of the above very harsh criticism  borne out of mandatory due diligence, requisite disinfectant, and absolute truth-telling  it must be noted: all lovers of Zion, as well as people of goodwill, have a duty to give many thanks to the real heroes who continue to sound the alarm of the barbarians at Israels gates.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.
Within the online community of meme-ing gun aficionados, theres a well-known term used for someone who just doesnt quite fit in with the rest of us: glowie.

Glowies might hypothetically ram moving trucks into White House barriers at low speeds while toting newly unfurled Nazi Germany flags, or they might be new friends that text things like Mission is to kill the governor [Whitmer] specifically.

A glowie is somebody who is too much like a caricature or negative stereotype of a patriot  he/she stands out like those military grade ChemLight glow sticks  that theyre suspected of being a federal agent or informant whose role is to infiltrate and entrap, or discredit a pro-Constitution movement or group of people. Another more familiar term might be that he/she sticks out like a sore thumb.

Shortly after January 6th, far-left editorial The Atlantic published an article titled, The Far Rights Fear of Glowies with this teaser:

In the aftermath of the January 6 riot, extremists have become obsessed with federal agents who might lurk among them.

On that note, I would definitely be wary of a Quandale Dingle advertising certain wares from a Washington D.C. federal military installation  hes selling criminalized gun components. See the Twitter thread below:

The fed forgot to turn off location services before posting on marketplace. pic.twitter.com/T8gAuQTaAF  BattlecockActual (@TheBattlecock) May 25, 2023

Now, most people probably dont understand the layers of glowie in this advertisement, because most people probably dont know what theyre even looking at; those three metal pieces can be assembled and installed on a Glock handgun to convert it from semi-automatic to automatic. (Semi-automatic means you have to release your trigger squeeze to fire another shot; automatic means you can just keep the trigger engaged and the firearm will dispense rounds until empty.)

So first off, owning an automatic firearm is highly regulated with harsh penalties for any violations  and the sellers location within the Washington D.C. metro area just happens to be on top of a compound thats housing countless conspicuous federal agencies?

Second of all, and I think I notice this because Im an editor, but the description looks like an English major wrote it: everything is spelled correctly; the first letter of each word (except the preposition!) is capitalized, which is rather striking consistency; and it is oddly and exceptionally detailed. A 99-character title? Normal people simply call this component a switch or glock switch or auto sear. Also, CNC stands for Computer Numerical Control, so the seller is informing a potential buyer that these pieces were manufactured using a certain type of machine, but any knowledgeable gun person could look at the parts and know that; its completely unnecessary information, because how else would metal guns parts be crafted? Hammer and chisel?

Thirdly, the sellers name is Quandale Dingle which is a relatively obscure meme reference, likely not known by the gun community. (Who knew that my meme proficiency would have real world applicability?)

Fourthly, I located the original advertisement through my personal Facebook account, and scanned through Mr. Dingles other listings which amount to just two other items: AirPods Pro, and a pile of techy chip readers and accessories that can be plugged right into your personal computer! See below:

@TheBattlecock the fed selling the switch is also selling AirPods and random computer hardware units...AKA a used listening device and ready-to-go spyware.... pic.twitter.com/bhF4aSjyn0  Olivia Murray (@americaliv1) May 28, 2023

Seems trustworthy.

And last but not least an anecdotal note. Im involved in a number of Facebook groups that deal with archery hunting (which I love), and many of the groups (if not all?) prohibit advertising archery equipment, because its a surefire way to attract the attention of the Meta overlords who are swift to throw the group into Facebook Jail; how in the world is this switch still up?

A candid photo of Quandale Dingle can be seen below:

The one who listed it, being as incognito as possible with all that advanced-level training: pic.twitter.com/5vRrrCCBL0  DoIt4TheMeme (@GoldenBoyA2143) May 25, 2023

Hat tip: Rusty Shackleford.

Image: Flyingbird at Dutch Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.
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Steward Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18-years in federal federal prison for seditious conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, and tampering with documents or proceedings related to the January 6, 2001 protests. Rhodes was not in the Capitol on that date, hence the use of a conspiracy charge.

Here is the Merriam-Webster definition of sedition: "incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority."

The "lawful authority" in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, comprised the Trump administration -- representing the executive branch; Congress, representing the legislature, and the Supreme Court of the United States, representing the judiciary. Joe Biden was not president on January 6, 2021, and, therefore could not be considered "lawful authority" on that date.

Mr. Biden, however, peacefully succeeded President Trump on January 20, 2021.

Here is the text of President Trump's Farewell Address, further evidence of the peaceful transition of presidential administrations. The Address began:

"My fellow Americans: Four years ago, we launched a great national effort to rebuild our country, to renew its spirit, and to restore the allegiance of this government to its citizens. In short, we embarked on a mission to make America great again  for all Americans. "As I conclude my term as the 45th President of the United States, I stand before you truly proud of what we have achieved together. We did what we came here to do  and so much more. "This week, we inaugurate a new administration and pray for its success in keeping America safe and prosperous. We extend our best wishes, and we also want them to have luck  a very important word."

There is not the slightest suggestion in President Trump's Farewell Address urging resistance to the Biden administration -- unlike the demands for resistance that greeted President Trump's Inauguration.

The impetus for the January 6, 2021 protest at the Capitol was not resistance to lawful authority, but concern that the lawful processes of the presidential election of 2020 had been tossed aside.

Where is the indictment and prosecution of the 51 former intelligence officials for their skullduggery in fabricating a letter claiming that the published truth of the contents in Hunter Biden's laptop were Russian disinformation? This fabrication may well have fooled voters into casting Biden ballots.

If resisting lawful authority is a major concern of the DOJ, where are the sedition charges against violent demonstrators who, the summer of 2020, set fire at a police station and federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon?

The facts make it clear that "resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority" occurred throughout Mr. Trump's years in the White House, as indicated by The Durham Report which reveals that government officials were part of the anti-Trump resistance. Where are the indictments citing sedition charges against Messrs. Clapper, Comey, Brennan, Strzok, and the cabal that concocted the phony letter claiming that the New York Post report on Hunter Biden's laptop was just "Russian disinformation."

Consider the persecution inflicted on Socialist Eugene Victor Debs for opposing our entry into World War I. A federal judge, effectively acting on behalf of President Wilson, sentenced Debs to ten years in federal prison on a sedition charge. Debs was an early victim of the Sedition Act of 1918.

More than a century later, we have contemporary targets of that infamous statute.

The Wilson administrations reputation has been diminished for treating Debs vindictively and harshly. As with Wilson, now Biden and Garland will face the judgment of history.

Photo credit: YouTube screengrab (cropped)
Something is happening right now that is scaring the Obama out of the fascist far left. Their power has always been an illusion, perpetuated by pop culture and the national socialist media, but now that is being shown to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Normal people in the pro-freedom majority are figuring that out. And now that it's being shown to be a cultural chimera, the anti-liberty authoritarianism of the fascist far left is finished. That is what truly scares leftists about the Bud Light and Target situations.

It's not just that there's been resistance; they expect and exploit what they've received in the past to always portray themselves as victims while being the obvious aggressors. But this time it's different. The resistance is widespread, persistent, and intensifying.

Instead of something they can exploit in their ongoing "crybully" campaign, it's a tidal wave of decent people of the silent majority who have simply had enough. That is the threat that exposes the illusion of their vast power based on cancel-culture retribution by their tyrannical minority.

There are in essence only two political philosophies: individualism and collectivism. All the other ideologies fit into these two general categories. Writer and engineer Robert A. Heinlein perfectly expressed the function of these two political philosophies:

Political tags  such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth  are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

It's just that it's a small percentage of collectivists who obsess over controlling people. These are the far-left folks who want to wield power over everyone else for various reasons, usually some crisis they've conjured up  climate, COVID, etc. Data indicate that they are roughly a tenth of the population, hence the reason we call them the tyrannical ten percent. The problem is that they are extremely vocal in their control desires and tend to take up positions that help them in this endeavor  politics, government indoctrination centers, and the national socialist media  so they have an outsized influence.

The rest of us fall into the second category, as in the YouTube channel with the motto "all I ever asked for was to be left alone." We're not all alike on the pro-freedom right, and that's perfectly fine, but we all want to live our lives free from interference by those on the far left, who are obsessed with control. We don't want to be controlled, and we don't want to control others. We just want to live our lives in peace.

That is unacceptable to the fascists of the far left, who have a burning desire to drag politics into every facet of our lives. What's more, they demand that we "bend the knee" to whatever political edicts they have at the moment. You can have any opinion you want as long as it conforms to theirs. They will always insist that you participate in their insanity because it's the "sane," commonsense thing to do.

This was all based on an illusion of an ever-powerful fascist far left. An illusion propped up by its dominance of the national socialist media and the government indoctrination system  the schools and teachers' unions you're forced to fund with your taxes. Saul Alinsky even tacitly admitted to their illusionary powers in his first "Rule," as referenced in the book Rules for Anti-Radicals: A Practical Handbook for Defeating Leftism:

RULE 1: "Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have."

It used to be that people thought that the fascist far left was a lot more powerful, enforcing its draconian edicts with highly selective applications of cancel culture. But if too many people ignore that threat, or can simply act by not buying Bud Light or shopping at Target, it shows that leftists are a paper tiger.

That is what is truly frightening for the far left. The sustained Bud Light dump showed everyone that most people aren't behind transforming the country into a "woke" bizarro land. That's why Target suddenly changed course in trying to head off the avalanche of condemnations from moms at a powerful and fascistic corporation trying to indoctrinate their children.

The totalitarian ten percent of other socialist nations of the far left's storied past didn't have to care about constitutional restraints on their power. Authoritarian leftists of the Union of the defunct Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and National Socialist Workers' Party (Nazi) Germany could simply start arresting people at random to enforce their edicts, oppressing the people into silence, making it seem as though the authoritarians were the "majority."

But the folks who Follow Biden's Instructions can't exactly arrest people for not drinking Bud Light or shopping at Target. They tried that with the school board protests, showing that we now have a two-tiered justice system, but government-induced terror can carry them only so far. The FBI can't force moms to shop at Target and have their children groomed and indoctrinated. The DOJ can't investigate people for not buying Bud Light.

When they don't have secret police forces like the KGB, Gestapo, Stasi, AVO, CDR, and SABIN to maintain a sense of fear in the population and keep them from speaking out, they have nothing but their illusory cancel culture power. Now that is draining away like spoiled beer.

The people have had it with the crybully oppression of the fascist far left, and they are acting in ways that the left can't touch. The results are going to be glorious. And it had to be a divine inspiration that a Target was the turning point in the battle between good and evil.

D Parker is an engineer, inventor, wordsmith, and student of history, the director of communications for a civil rights organization, and a long-time contributor to conservative websites. Find him on Substack.

Image via Pxhere.
American Greatness regularly provides a long essay by an erudite writer whom the site describes as a "Weekend Read." The May 6 offering was by Kevin Slack, Ph.D., University of Dallas, now on the political science/philosophy faculty at Hillsdale College of Michigan, a well regarded conservative institution. The essay is an edifying exposition of the rise of the Western (American and European) elites to become despots.

Plato favored rule by oligarchs, persons of distinction, but Plato ignored the potential for what Lord Acton observed about power and corruption: "Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you super add the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority."

Oligarchy often deteriorates to despotism because many ambitious men are bereft of the virtues and morals essential to a good ruler and political leader. An oligarch can be good or bad. The bad ones become despots, who rule in a cruel or oppressive manner.

The concept of self-governance espoused by the founders requires embracing the principles of stoicism. We have lost what was advocated by the American founders and led John Adams to wisely assert, "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Morality and virtue are the foundation of our republic and necessary for a society to be free." The success of the American Republic requires a moral and ethical populace and leadership.

In his writing, Dr. Slack is not careless in his assertions or negligent in his presentation of evidence that present-day America and Western civilization are in the thrall of despots in various positions, public and private  elected and appointed officials, corporate plutocrats, mavens and doyens of academia and the arts, media, and other sectors of the culture. All of these sectors have been impacted by a growing number of despots and kleptocrats.

Slack provides ample evidence of the rise of despots in all aspects of American culture, business, and politics and displays impressive reach and understanding of the implications of what he chronicles. He points out that the seeds for our destruction were planted a long time ago, in 19th-century humanist progressivism, then amplified by Teddy, Woodrow, FDR, and then later progressives followed by aggressive socialist statist fascists.

This is not a recent sabotage of America; it is a long time developing, most of the destruction energized and organized by atheist and commie infiltrators marching under the banners of liberalism and progressivism, hiding their nihilist amorality and destructive quest for power and control. Well, here we are, and we did it to ourselves.

I stopped reading Professor Slack's essay a number of times because it was so stunningly depressing. In fact, before I had finished, I called him at Hillsdale and asked if I should give up. He assured me that, in the book from which the essay is excerpted, he also has a chapter of optimism and how to reverse the trend. He said, to paraphrase, I have five children. I can't give up on America and Americans.

Here are a few of the points made about the rise of despotism:

"the evidence ... exposes the globalist American empire as a kleptocracy that has betrayed the country, outsourced its wealth and defense, and degraded its people."

"Today's globalist American empire is a kleptocracy filled with princelings of the political and corporate elite who inherited  and now drain  the wealthiest and most powerful empire in history."

"the kleptocrats claim science's authority to subdue the populace"

"[T]hey enlist an identity politics priesthood to stoke racial hatred against middle-class whites, who suffer indignities, humiliations, and loyalty tests."

"Following the COVID lockdowns and unlawful 2020 election, the last vestige of legitimacy has collapsed, and the kleptocracy has revealed itself as an incompetent, corrupt class of degenerates."

"In their palaces at the center of a rotting kingdom, the despots surround themselves with harems, catamites, and vicious eunuchs to administrate a world of performance rituals and sadomasochistic fantasies even as their people and world hegemony decline."

How's that for a starter? Need a break?

Slack goes on to describe the deterioration of America in excruciating detail. The wealthy become a form of shadow government because wealth is used to obtain and retain political control in a fascist state, where the distinction blurs between government and corporate entities and power centers. Slack summarizes:

While each fiefdom helps preserve the order and negotiates for its privileges, at the center are the 3,000 tyrants, a ruling class of kleptocrats who ally with, stroke, tax, or intimidate the monopolies they secure. ... [This group] controls more than half of the nation's industrial and banking assets and more than three-quarters of its insurance assets. ... [and] over half of all the assets of private foundations and two-thirds of all private university endowments. They direct the nation's largest and best-known law firms in New York and Washington, as well as the nation's major civic and cultural organizations. They make the largest political campaign contributions. They occupy key federal government positions in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

Amazon and Google are the Government

Slack doesn't let up. He reminds us that Amazon and Google are the government. Banking and credit card companies are another example of the creeping fascism and monopolization of activities that have dominated economies and politics the past decade in particular:

"The ruling class monopolizes the gateways to power and congeals its influence in the top 9.9 percent (incomes above $158,000) in an ooze of bureaucrats and corporate toadies."

"Whereas the United States used to draw its best and brightest into physics and engineering, now it draws them into finance, where they make more convoluted instruments for the hucksterism of the kleptocracy."

"The function of elite universities is to instill an education in both ruling class mores and diversity."

"Every regime needs religion for both legitimacy and sacrifices. It turns to moralistic priests to sanctify its power and indoctrinate its own children as well as to give subjects an identity and sense of meaning."

"The priests of identity politics explain race and gender identity, attaching each individual to a group with certain rights and duties."

"The ruling class claims a right  by birth, wealth, and education  to rule others without their consent. It speaks of vague ideals like 'democracy,' the 'Constitution,' and 'the rule of law' while staging the hoax of popular government in ritual public elections and televised press conferences."

"As the kleptocrats bask in their power, they are cut off from the problems of the people they rule, and they resent challenges to their legitimacy."

The Book: War on the Republic

Slack's recent book is a historically ordered discussions of political developments  19th-century humanist progressivism, a result of the enlightenment, evolving to the progressive periods of Teddy and Woodrow, then the progressive socialist early liberal era of Walter Lippmann and the effects of Marxist communism, a big acceleration with the administrative statist socialist/progressive FDR, the liberalism surge, then in the '60s the appearance of radicalism with a commie tinge, followed by neo-liberalism and identity politics mixed with communist-inspired racialism and ending with despotism and a fascist consolidation of power in the hands of a small ruling class. Slack's exegesis certainly reminded me of the work of Angelo Codevilla and Thomas Sowell, who have warned about the negative impact of the anointed, the elites, the intellectuals who think they were born to be in power.

The book looks at the massive political disaster that has been coming for a century, beginning with Teddy and continuing 'til today  progressive-era administrative state changes mixed with communism. Slack looks at the charnel house and examines the remains  looking at the dead elements of a once vigorous dynamo of capitalism, citizen freedom, and republican self-governance. There is no sector of society that has escaped the corruption that has been amplified the last two decades, and in the book, Slack provides the report on the dying patient, the American Republic.

I told you he said he wrote an optimistic chapter  and he told me I shouldn't polish up my ritual short sword (wakizashi). Well, the chapter is titled "Conclusion," and it proposes that a return to the foundations is the solution for The New Right  a constitutional republic restored, what has become a fascist alliance of despots destroyed in favor of the people, and a government that protects the rights of a newly alert citizenry that demand a limited government and consent of the governed.

Slack reminds me of Victor Davis Hanson writing about the Greeks. He is an authority on political history and philosophy, and he shows it. The War on the American Republic is a classic. Most authors would consider it a magnum opus and take a victory lap and go home to domestic chores and an early bedtime. However, I suspect there is more to come from Dr. Slack. For our benefit, he is young and sounds energetic and enthusiastic about his work.

Thomas Sowell is 90; Victor Davis Hanson is 70 this year. Slack can do this as long as he likes, and his readers and students will be rewarded.

John Dale Dunn is a retired emergency physician, consultant, and inactive attorney in Brownwood, Texas.

Image via Pixnio.
When Anna Chapman was busted as a foreign agent in an FBI dragnet of a Russian "illegals" spy network 2010, it was natural to wonder if Chapman was really a spy, given that she apparently didn't do much of anything during the six months or so when she lived in New York City. She insisted she wasn't a spy, and the "narrative" from her lawyer lent weight to that argument if that was the only one you heard about it:

Robert Baum, Chapman's attorney, told CBS News' The Early Show that Chapman understands why she is being deported and that although she pleaded guilty truthfully, her acts were very different from the others charged with her. "Anna never used any false names," Baum said. "She never met with any individual of the Russian Federation. She never accepted money. She never did any transfers. In fact, the only time that she was ever asked to do anything - by an undercover FBI agent - she refused to do it."

It weakens a little when you read the Politico account of the matter by Wall Street Journal national security reporter Brett Forrest, which states that when Chapman received the passport delivery assignment from the undercover FBI agent, she immediately called up her dad the intelligence man and asked him to confirm the Russian operation. Dad said 'no' and told her to take the passport to a New York police station to show everyone what an upright citizen she was who wouldn't dream of spying for the Russkis. But while damning, it's not conclusive. After all, the FBI has been known to entrap people. And some people have KGB-type relatives which doesn't necessarily mean that they are KGB. It happens. You can't pick your relatives.

Thirteen years later, something new has turned up that raises even more questions.

According to the New York Post:

Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates alleged Russian lover was linked to the notorious Moscow spy Anna Chapman shortly before the secret agents New York City bust in 2010. Mila Antonova  the decades-younger bridge player with whom Gates allegedly had an affair  was captured in a photograph strolling near Wall Street with the flame-haired former femme fatale, according to the Daily Mail. The photo shows Chapman gesturing toward a former Art Deco office block near her then-apartment as Antonova grins next to her, the outlet reported. The photo was likely snapped in 2009 or early 2010, around the time of Gates alleged romance with the Russian card whiz, according to the report. But the details of how Antonova knew Chapman  the daughter of a former KGB officer, who was booted from the US for espionage  were not immediately clear Friday.

Why does look funny? Well, because out of all the tens of thousands of Russian emigres in the city of New York, somehow this pair knew each other and were clearly friends.

Since much more is known about Chapman and what she was up to in New York than Antonova, let's recall what Anna's game was in the states:

What's known about Chapman is that she was a networker. Chapman supposedly sucked up to one useful or influential or powerful person after another in New York society as an ambitious, attractive young woman looking to make her way to the top. The bureau said her job was assessing targets. Of course, not having any particular skills or brain talents, that kind of networking often involved sleeping her way with those with power, much as Kamala Harris did in her day 20 years earlier.

Her bust, which was part of a broader takedown of a network of what in the espionage trade is known as "illegals," or spies operating under non-official cover, yielded little information about Russian activities. She didn't have much -- she managed to forge a relationship with an ex-Marine in the real estate trade who had had a security clearance in the past, which doesn't seem terribly impressive. She also bounced around with billionaires when she lived in London earlier, apparently entrapping none of them.

Somehow, she came to New York to run a real estate website and began networking again, but she didn't really hook up with anyone impressive.

But she had pals who were better at this than she was.

One was part of the busted spy network:

When Bill Staniford [the ex-Marine Chapman was palling around with] read details of the F.B.I. dragnet, he panicked. It wasnt only his acquaintance with Chapman that concerned him. Another of the Illegals, Lydia Guryeva, alias Cynthia Murphy, had been his accountant since 2000, the year he mustered out of the Marines. At the time of her arrest, Guryeva was cultivating a relationship with Alan Patricof, who had co-chaired Hillary Clintons 2008 presidential campaign. Guryeva lived in sleepy Montclair, N.J., with her husband, Vladimir Guryev (alias Richard Murphy), also an Illegal, eliciting a neighbors oft-published remark: They couldnt be spies. Look what she did with the hydrangeas.

That one got the hooks in at Camp Hillary, which tells us a lot about who the Russians think is important. Recall that since then, the Russians had calculated that in 2016, Hillary would win the election, and they were as surprised as anyone by Donald Trump's victory.

Now there's Antonova, a homely dumpling who bagged Bill Gates apparently through with her brainpower. Antonova was connected to famous pedophile and friend of Bill Clinton Jeffrey Epstein, who, according to the Post, got her tuition for school somehow arranged and paid for by Epstein. Gates was involved with her, and Epstein reportedly blackmailed Gates about that affair. Gates's marriage broke up in part because of his association with Epstein.

What's vivid here is that the Bureau didn't identify Antonova as part of that 10-person spy network which got busted in 2010. Antonova's game was pretty much the same as Chapman's -- to network with the rich and powerful, and perhaps lots of emigres do that, so there was nothing to it.

But it still looks funny. Did the FBI, which was surveilling Chapman pretty much around the clock, according to reports, take a good look at Antonova too? Did it come to the conclusion that she had nothing to do with spies? Was the bureau sure nothing spy-like was going on with that friendship, or did they somehow her? Or was she passed over for the network-shutdown because someone wanted to protect Gates or other characters in the Epstein's orbit?

This questions are worth raising.because obviously if Antonova was a spy in the same category as Chapman, she was a lot better spy than Chapman, who didn't seem to bag anyone.

As for Chapman's bust, she merely got caught setting up private "ad hoc" wireless networks from her computer while sitting at Barnes & Noble or Starbucks establishments around Manhattan and transmitting messages to a waiting second secretary from Russia's United Nations Mission who hung around in the area in his van. When she was arrested, she wasn't charged with espionage, she was charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent for those transmissions. After she was convicted, she was traded in a spy swap, for two Russian military men who probably were in danger of getting shot or lowered into a Moscow furnace feet first for treason to the motherland.

Kind of a nothingburger. She was attractive, so she drew a lot of press attention. She wasw Vlad Putin's Bond Girl or something, and as Forrest notes, Hollywood wanted to make movies about her, while Moscow wanted to make her a star and internet influencer.

That backstory gives one pause now that the new story has emerged.

Image: Screen shot from New York Post video, via YouTube
At times like these, I sure am glad I'm not a Democrat. While several aspiring Republican notables are throwing their hats into the ring, the Democrats' standard-bearer is collapsing in the polls. Having another full term of eligibility, Mr. Biden eschews turning himself into a lame duck and continues to cling to the prospect of his re-election. Meanwhile, our rudderless nation is drifting onto the rocks of an unpleasant destiny.

All along, Biden's age-related feebleness has cast doubt about his functional abilities. This has only gotten worse with time. But now the FBI and the lapdog media are backing away from shielding him from a looming influence-peddling scandal. And yet, the more marketable Democrat presidential aspirants are holding back...just so they won't appear disrespectful of our current president. They're also not exactly star quality material when compared to the Republican field.

One of the great political miracles of all time was the survival of the Democrats in the aftermath of the Civil War. Prior to Lincoln, Republicans were, at best, a third party. The first president after Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, was a Union-Democrat. It wasn't until Grover Cleveland defeated James G. Blaine in the election of 1884 that the Democrats managed to once again win a national contest. In many ways, Cleveland was to the right of Ronald Reagan and barely squeaked by in the popular vote  48.9 to 48.3 percent.

The Democrats' lurch to the left, which became all the more obvious during the Obama years, is alienating many formerly loyal members of the electorate. It has long been my expectation that the stalwart Progressive Democrats will eventually morph into full-blown Greens  radical leftist tree-huggers, ironically trapped in our dystopic urban cores. The rest of us will either be right-of-center or just plain centrists.

An empirical example of the nausea being induced by today's woke-left agenda would have to be the near-instantaneous collapse of the Bud Light brand  following its overt embrace of abnormal sexuality. Democrats and their media allies try to stereotype conservatives as hateful bigots. However, we typically cut our neighbors an enormous amount of slack when it comes to their private lives. We just don't like having weird stuff shoved into our faces or our children's minds.

And Joe Biden is still at the top of the ticket.

I really have no idea as to what's going to happen. I suspect that Biden will be moved out of the target area. There may be a concerted effort to make this as pleasant as possible...but how?

This may be the inevitable result of a dishonest "news" media establishment that is constantly pushing fiction. A real-world example of this occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union: Pravda never published news that could be harmful to the regime. Should there be a serious plane crash, it was never mentioned  folks just went away and never came back. After the state stopped rigidly controlling the news, the Russian people were astonished to hear about all kinds of tragedies. The world was a much more dangerous place than they were led to believe.

Meanwhile, perception of Biden's cognitive (ahem) difficulties is being coincidentally enhanced by the sad story of 89-year-old Dianne Feinstein and her exceptionally obnoxious Senate colleague John Fetterman. Having such dysfunctional beings in positions of real power violates the most basic requirements of even a modest meritocracy...let alone the assumed benefits of truly competitive electoral politics.

Going deeper into this mess, the Republicans are not guaranteed a historically significant success next year. It may still happen, since the Dems have 23 Senate seats up for grabs versus only 10 for the GOP. My worry is over primary campaign cannibalism  the devouring of opponents. Not to worry too much. Trump and DeSantis may be trading barbs along with corrupt media enhancement...but nothing really serious. Thus far.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Some 80 robberies a day were closed last year without a suspect being identified, the Liberal Democrats have claimed.

The party said it had commissioned research showing 30,000 muggings went unsolved in 2022 across England and Wales.

It accused Home Secretary Suella Braverman of becoming embroiled in endless scandals while violent criminals are let off the hook.

The House of Commons Library research shows that more than one in two robbery reports (54%) went unsolved, the Lib Dems said.

Fewer than one in 12 (8%) led to a suspect being charged, according to the party.

The figures include cases of robbery of personal property which involve violence or threats to the victim.

West Midlands Police was the worst performing force, with just 4% of robberies reported in 2022 leading to a suspect being charged, the Lib Dems said.

It was closely followed by Northamptonshire (5%), Avon and Somerset (6%) and Hampshire (6%), according to the research.

Lib Dem Treasury spokeswoman Sarah Olney MP, who commissioned the research, said: These shocking figures show muggings are being effectively decriminalised, with far too many violent criminals let off the hook.

People are being left feeling unsafe walking down their own local streets, because this Conservative Government has slashed neighbourhood policing to the bone.

Crime victims are being abandoned while the Home Secretary Suella Braverman is embroiled in endless scandals.

Rishi Sunak decided not to order an investigation into Home Secretary Suella Bravermans actions (PA)

Ms Braverman was cleared without an independent investigation by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last week over allegations she broke the ministerial code.

She was found to have breached the code last year over the sending of an official document from a personal email account.

Mr Sunak has said he did not let the Home Secretary, an influential figure on the right of the party, off the hook, after she asked officials if she could attend a private speed awareness course following a speeding offence.

The Lib Dems and Labour have both called for a return to community policing with a focus on officers who know the neighbourhood well.

The Government has said it has policing under control, with recent figures showing that it met its manifesto pledge to recruit 20,000 new officers by March 2023.

A Home Office spokesman said: Robbery is an invasive and unsettling crime for victims and we expect police to take all incidents seriously.

We are providing police with the resources they need, having delivered on our commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers by March 2023, the highest it has ever been.

We are also supporting police by providing funding for crime prevention measures, including better street lighting and CCTV, and equipping police with better technology to help their investigations and catch more criminals.

A Conservative spokesman said: The Liberal Democrats are once again proving themselves to be the very best hypocrites in British politics.

If they really cared about cracking down on crime, they would have backed our legislation that gives the police the powers they need to clamp down on criminals.

The Conservatives have recruited over 20,000 more police officers since 2019, and we are ensuring they have the tools they need to see justice delivered and victims protected.
The Home Office is aiming to deter Channel crossings to the UK with a social media ad campaign targeting Albanian nationals.

The publicity drive, which will run on Facebook and Instagram from next week, will warn people they face being detained and removed if they make the journey.

Opposition critics and charities have branded the campaign a gimmick, with Labour accusing the Government of tinkering at the edges of an asylum system in chaos.

The Home Office would not say how much the publicity drive is expected to cost.

It follows a similar campaign launched in August last year, when adverts ran in Albanian on Facebook and Instagram to deter people from making the journey.

Record numbers of people crossed the channel last year and more than 6,000 have been detected making the journey so far in 2023.

But the number of Albanian small boat arrivals peaked during the summer of 2022 and by early 2023 had dropped below levels seen in 2021, according to Government figures.

According to the Home Office, Albania is a safe and prosperous country and many nationals are travelling through multiple countries to make the journey to the UK before making spurious asylum claims when they arrive.

It was the most common nationality applying for asylum in the UK in the year to March 2023, with 13,714 applications by Albanian citizens, 9,487 of which came from arrivals on boats crossing the English Channel.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said: Organised immigration crime is a global challenge which requires international solutions the whole way along the migration route.

That includes working proactively at source before people set off on dangerous and unnecessary journeys.

We are determined to stop the boats and the campaign, launching in Albania this week, is just one component of the Home Offices work upstream to help dispel myths about illegal travel to the UK, explain the realities and combat the lies peddled by evil people-smugglers who profit from this vile trade.

An advert targeted at Albanian people considering entering the UK without permission (Home Office/PA)

Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, said: This is yet another pointless campaign that shows ministers refuse to understand that a small minority of the worlds refugees have very powerful reasons to come here.

It also repeats the myth that refugee migration is illegal when in fact a persons right to enter a country to claim asylum is protected by a Refugee Convention we helped create.

If the Government wanted to smash the smuggling gangs and stop people crossing the Channel in flimsy boats it would create more safe routes for refugees to travel here to claim asylum.

Chief executive of refugee charity Care4Calais Steve Smith said: No amount of taxpayer-funded PR spin will deter refugees, who have experienced some of the worst things imaginable from war and conflict to torture and human rights abuses, from seeking a safe future.

The only solution that will put people smugglers out of business, stop small boat crossings and save lives is to offer safe passage to refugees with a viable asylum claim in the UK.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the Tories so-called solutions to tackle the migrant crisis have failed at every turn.

She said: It beggars belief that as Channel crossings continue to rise and the asylum system is in chaos, all the Conservatives can come up with to stop the criminal gangs is an ad campaign.

At every turn, the Tories so-called solutions fail to meet the scale of the crisis. All they are doing is tinkering at the edges.

Freedom from Torture chief executive Sonya Sceats said: This is just another government gimmick to distract us from the tragedy of millions of British families getting poorer because of how badly the Prime Minister has handled the cost-of-living crisis.

If Sunak is serious about protecting refugee lives, he needs to secure safe routes, stop wasting money on PR tactics and close the backlog of asylum claims.

Refugees need protection and a chance to recover and rebuild their lives in safety.

The Governments Illegal Migration Bill aims to send asylum seekers who arrive in Britain via unauthorised routes back home or to a third country such as Rwanda.

Ministers also hope the legislation will cut the daily 5.5 million cost of housing migrants who make it to the UK.

The Bill, currently in the House of Lords, has been attacked by critics including the Archbishop of Canterbury who argue that it is both unworkable and morally unacceptable.
It is down to the unions whether nationalising TransPennine Express train services improves performance, the rail minister has said.

Huw Merriman told the PA news agency that bringing the operation of services under Government control on Sunday was a reset moment.

Services are now running under a new brand named TransPennine Trains, which is part of the Department for Transports Operator of Last Resort.

Passengers will not notice any other immediate differences as the trains, fares, timetables and staff are unchanged.

They have suffered from widespread delays and cancellations over the past year.

Industry figures show TransPennine Express  which ran trains across northern England and into Scotland  cancelled the equivalent of one-in-seven services in the first four weeks of April, more than any other operator.

Its reliability was badly affected by drivers who are members of the Aslef union no longer volunteering to work paid overtime shifts.

(PA Graphics)

Asked if nationalisation would improve performance, Mr Merriman said: That will be down to the unions, because if they allow their workforce to work in the manner they were a couple of years ago  when things were nothing like as bad as they have been in recent months  then we will get the service back up and running again for the passengers.

We have a reset moment in terms of new management.

What we hope this now leads to is a reset moment by the unions to allow their workforce to work rest days in the manner they did previously.

Then well have more services that we can put on, and fewer cancellations.

When the decision to nationalise TransPennine services was announced on May 11, Aslef said the Government had at last done the right thing and claimed the FirstGroup-owned companys inept management was to blame for its many problems.

FirstGroup boss Graham Sutherland insisted the operator worked extremely hard to improve services.

Transport Focus director David Sidebottom said: Passengers will want to see a much more reliable service, whichever organisation runs TransPennine Express rail services, under whatever contractual arrangements.

Its clear that passengers deserve better, and the new operator needs to take action to improve performance and build back passenger trust.

Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin described the end of failing railway operator TransPennine Express as a fresh start for commuters and passengers in the North.

She added: We know that change is not going to happen overnight, but this is an important reset moment, and I look forward to working with the new operator, unions and other key players to improve services, boost our economy and build a better-connected West Yorkshire.

The Government already has responsibility for services operated by London North Eastern Railway (LNER), Northern and Southeastern.

FirstGroup continues to run Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway, South Western Railway, Hull Trains and Lumo.

Transport Secretary Mark Harper faced calls to nationalise Avanti West Coast services last year due to major disruption, but handed the operator a six-month contract extension in March after performance improved.
A surge in support for Labour among rural voters could jeopardise several Cabinet ministers chances of re-election, including Jeremy Hunt, polling suggests.

A poll published on Sunday found support for the opposition had soared by 16 points since 2019 in the 100 most rural constituencies, putting Labour only five points behind the Conservatives.

The survey, carried out by Survation on behalf of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), suggests more than 20 Conservatives in the Rural Wall could be in line to lose their seats to Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

They include Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, whose South West Surrey seat has a majority of only 8,800 but will be split at the next election between two new constituencies.

Jacob Rees-Mogg was among the senior Rural Wall Tories that the CLA suggested could be in line to lose their seat at the next election (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

The CLA suggested that Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, and Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, were also threatened by falling rural support for the Tories, as were former cabinet ministers Liam Fox and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

All four have majorities of around 15,000, but recent by-elections in rural seats have seen larger Conservative majorities overturned.

Mark Tufnell, president of the CLA, blamed outdated planning restrictions, a lack of infrastructure and the cost of living for the fall in support for the Tories, but suggested rural seats were still up for grabs.

He said: I think the support that people are now seeing coming through, mainly for Labour but some for the Liberal Democrats, is possibly by default, because from the questions that weve asked, people are stating that they dont feel those parties have an understanding (of the countryside) either.

I think we have seen that any party, whether its Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the Conservatives, that wants to show an understanding of the countryside could easily hold and win those seats.

The CLAs poll found 34% of people thought the Conservatives did not understand rural communities, while 31% said the same about Labour and 23% about the Liberal Democrats.

Saying that he expected the next election to be tightly fought, Mr Tufnell added that the 12 million rural voters could end up controlling who wins the general election.

He said: In recent years, weve seen how quickly communities which feel left behind can rewrite the electoral map. In 2024, it could be the countrysides turn.

There is a simple truth  no political party has at present shown that it understands, let alone shares, the aspirations of rural communities.

The outdated planning regime holding rural businesses back, the lack of affordable housing driving families out, the outdated infrastructure limiting entrepreneurs potential, it is all having a devastating impact.

Any party which is willing to develop a robust and ambitious plan for the rural economy will secure significant support. Any party that wants to treat the countryside as a museum will be punished.

The poll, which surveyed 1,000 adults in the 100 most rural constituencies between April 13 and 24, found 41% said they would vote Conservative, a fall of 18 points from the 2019 election, while 36% said they would vote Labour.

But there was little faith that either of the main parties would stimulate growth in the countryside.

Just 34% said they thought the Tories would boost growth in rural communities, while 22% said the same about Labour.

But 69% said they did not think the Government was doing enough to help rural voters with the cost-of-living crisis, which Mr Tufnell said was worse in the countryside thanks to higher fuel prices and lower incomes.

Housing was another major issue, with 44% saying they would back more homes being built in their areas.

Mr Tufnell said the poll suggested that many small developments spread over several communities could gain more support than a smaller number of large developments.

Will Mathias, who lives in Mr Hunts constituency and runs a plant nursery, said restrictions on building and a lack of homes for rural residents had left voters feeling a bit neglected.

He said: A lot of rural workers on comparatively low incomes are being forced out because they cant afford houses that are being bought by people moving out of London.

Its inflating house prices to a point where most farm workers cant afford to live there any longer and I think that will have a detrimental effect.

Weve got eight full-time members of staff. The furthest one drives an hour and a quarter, none of them live within 20 minutes. They cant afford to live any closer than that.
Roger Waters performs at Barclays Arena in Hamburg, Germany, on Sunday, May 7, 2023, to kick off his "This Is Not A Drill" tour of Germany. (Daniel Bockwoldt/dpa via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

BERLIN (AP)  Several Jewish groups, politicians and an alliance of civil society groups are planning a memorial ceremony and a protest rally against a concert by Roger Waters in Frankfurt on Sunday evening.

They accuse the Pink Floyd co-founder of antisemitism - an allegation he denies.

Waters has also drawn their ire for his support of the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel.

Frankfurt authorities had initially tried to prevent the concert, but Waters challenged that move successfully in a local court.

The concert is taking place in the city's Festhalle, where in November 1938 more than 2,700 Jews were rounded up by the Nazis, beaten and abused, and later deported to concentration camps.

It's very frustrating" that the concert is going ahead as scheduled even though Frankfurt officials and many others tried to prevent it, said Elio Adler, the head of the Jewish group WerteInitiative which supports the protest.

His words and imagery spread Jew-hatred and are part of a trend: to normalize Israel-hatred under the protection of freedom of speech or art, Adler added.

Last week, police in Berlin said they had opened an investigation of Waters on suspicion of incitement over a costume the Pink Floyd co-founder wore when he performed in the German capital earlier this month.

Images on social media showed Waters firing an imitation machine gun while dressed in a long black coat with a red armband. Police confirmed that an investigation was opened over suspicions that the context of the costume could constitute a glorification, justification or approval of Nazi rule and therefore a disturbance of the public peace.

Waters rejected those accusations in a statement on Facebook and Instagram, saying that the elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms.

He claimed that attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated.

During Sunday's ceremony, which will take place in front of the Frankfurt concert venue before Waters' concert begins, protesters will read out loud the names of 600 Jews who were rounded up at the Festhalle on November 9, 1939, the so-called Kristallnacht  the Night of Broken Glass  when Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

The organizers also plan to hold a joint Jewish-Christian prayer for the victims of the Nazi terror in Frankfurt. The city's mayor as well as the head of the local Jewish community will speak at the protest.

In addition, activists plan to hand out flyers to concertgoers and wave Israeli flags, said Sacha Stawski from the Jewish group Honestly Concerned, which helped organize the protests.

Protesters in Munich rallied against a concert by Waters earlier this month, after the city council said it had explored possibilities of banning the performance but concluded that it wasnt legally possible to cancel a contract with the organizer.

Last year, the Polish city of Krakow canceled gigs by Waters because of his sympathetic stance toward Russia in its war against Ukraine.
A man is in a serious condition in hospital after violence broke out as Celtic fans celebrated their teams Scottish Premiership title triumph.

Police Scotland said three people were seriously assaulted, including the 31-year-old who was taken to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in the city, during celebrations at Glasgow Cross on Saturday.

Police officers were also assaulted during the incident, though none were injured, 10 people were arrested and eight people were handed fixed-penalty fines.

Eighteen people sustained minor injuries.

We have issued a statement with regard to the gathering of Celtic supporters in Glasgow on Sat, 27 May:https://t.co/wsjew0sLV6 pic.twitter.com/xvQ6Gg5OAp  Police Scotland Greater Glasgow (@PSOSGreaterGlas) May 28, 2023

Thousands of fans gathered in the area on Saturday evening after the side lifted the trophy, and rubbish including plastic bags, bottles and cans were left strewn throughout the city centre.

The Parkhead side beat Aberdeen 5-0 on Saturday afternoon  though their status as champions had been secured before the 12.30pm kick-off.

Superintendent Gerry Corrigan, of Police Scotlands greater Glasgow division, said: There was an unacceptable level of anti-social behaviour and incidents of disorder.

Three people were seriously assaulted in three separate incidents during the event. A 31-year-old man remains in a serious condition within Queen Elizabeth University Hospital after being attacked.

It came after Celtic fans inside Parkhead watched their side lift the league title trophy (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Two other men, aged 19 and 33, were treated at hospital after being assaulted and have since been discharged.

There were 10 arrests for a number of other offences including assault, acts of public disorder and police assault following the event. No police officers were injured.

A further eight people were issued with fixed-penalty notices.

Eighteen people sustained minor injuries mainly due to intoxication.

He said investigations are ongoing.
NHS trusts shared the private information of patients with Facebook, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.

A probe by the newspaper found a covert tracking tool was being used by the websites of 20 NHS trusts to collect browsing information and share it with the tech giant in a major breach of privacy.

The Meta Pixel tool passed on intimate details about patients to Facebook, including medical conditions, appointments and treatments without peoples consent.

The data obtained can be used by the social media giants parent company, Meta, for business purposes, including targeted advertising.

Many of the NHS trusts said they installed the tracking pixels to monitor recruitment or charity campaigns and were not aware that they were sending patient data to Facebook (Jeff Moore/PA)

According to The Observer, 17 of the 20 NHS trusts found to be using Meta Pixel confirmed they had pulled the tracking tool from their websites over the weekend.

Many of the trusts said they installed the tracking pixels to monitor recruitment or charity campaigns and were not aware that they were sending patient data to Facebook.

One of the trusts, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS trust, previously said in its privacy policy that confidential personal information about your health and care would never be used for marketing purposes without your explicit consent.

In a statement to the Observer, the trust apologised to patients and said Meta Pixel had been installed in relation to a recruitment campaign, and we were not aware that Meta was using this information for marketing purposes.

Facebooks parent company Meta was fined 1 billion and ordered to stop transferring user data from European users to its US servers earlier this month (Brian Lawless/PA)

Immediate action has been taken to remove it, a spokesperson from the trust added.

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) is investigating.

Earlier this month, Meta was fined 1.2 billion euro (1 billion) and ordered to stop transferring user data from European users to its US servers.

The record fine was levied by Irelands Data Protection Commission (DPC) after a three-year probe into the social media giant.

The DPC said Meta had breached part of the European GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) rules in the way that it had moved data of Facebook users across borders.

It ordered Meta Ireland to suspend any future transfer of personal data to the US within the period of five months and also levied a record fine on the business to sanction the infringement that was found to have occurred. Meta called the fine unjustified.
A silver-plated pencil purported to have belonged to Adolf Hitler is set to go under the hammer in Belfast.

It is believed to have been given to the former Nazi dictator by his long-term partner Eva Braun as a gift for his 52nd birthday on April 20, 1941.

It is inscribed with Eva in German and the initials AH.

The pencil was originally purchased by a collector at an auction in 2002 and since then has remained in the collectors family.

Bloomfield Auctions in east Belfast will also be selling an original signed photograph of Hitler at a sale of historical items next week.

A portrait of former Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, which was personally signed, is set to go under the hammer in Belfast (Bloomfield Auctions/PressEye/PA)

The wide-ranging sale will include a rare hand-written pardon by Queen Victoria dated to 1869 for Irish rebels convicted of treason and articles of agreement for a treaty signed between Great Britain and Ireland, which includes hand-written notes by former Irish unionist leader Edward Carson.

Karl Bennett, managing director of Bloomfield Auctions said they expect interest from around the world, particularly from specialist collectors.

He said they previously sold a teapot which belonged to senior Nazi Hermann Goring that ended up in a teapot museum in California.

The importance of Hitlers engraved personal pencil lies in the fact that it helps to unravel a hidden piece of history, giving a unique insight into Hitlers personal relationships, which he scrupulously kept hidden from the public eye, he said.

This included his relationship with Eva, the woman who stood by him from the start of his dictatorship and joined him in ending their lives together in the Berlin bunker as the city around them fell to the Allied forces.

Much of Hitlers personal appeal during his dictatorship derived from his carefully constructed identity as the father of the German nation, who rejected personal connection in favour of loyalty to his country.

This love token of a personalised pencil from Eva on his birthday helps reveal the deception behind Hitlers public facade.

Asked how the items can be verified, Mr Bennett said a lot of research and work with vendors is undertaken to ensure items are what they believe they are.

Bloomfield Auctions managing director Karl Bennett (Liam McBurney/PA)

Its through a process of a lot of research, working with the vendors of the items, where they obtained them from and where they have got the provenance from, he said.

Its with a lot of research, a lot of collaboration with the vendors of each of the items, that I can stand over as an auctioneer and give me confidence that what Im telling people Im selling is the actual item.

Ive no doubt from selling previous items that there will be a lot of interest from across the world.

Mr Bennett said he could understand why some may have reservations about items belonging to Hitler being sold, and emphasised such sales are not about memorialising the Austrian-born dictator.

I understand why some people may struggle to understand why items like these are sold and collected, but for me, as a high-end collector of militaria items, they preserve a piece of our past and should be treated as historical objects, no matter if the history they refer to was one of the darkest and most controversial in recorded history, he said.

These items give us concrete ties to the past so that we can never forget.

Hitlers pencil is estimated to sell for between 50,000 and 80,000, while the photograph is expected to sell for between 10,000 and 15,000.

The sale will take place on Tuesday June 6 both online and in the auction house. For more information, visit: www.bloomfieldauctions.co.uk.
Editors are calling on the Conservative Party to scrap undemocratic and detrimental fees imposed on the media for attending its annual conference.

National, regional and international news outlets are refusing to sign up to the conference in the autumn following the decision by the party to implement a fee for reporting on the event.

Editors regard the fee as draconian and believe it contradicts the partys claim to be a defender of press freedom.

It costs 137 for a journalist to book up until July 31, before rising to 880 after that date.

The issue of the fees has caused deep concern among a coalition of industry bodies including the News Media Association, Society of Editors, News Media Coalition and Foreign Press Association.

The industry bodies have challenged the fees on the basis that any fee for media attendance at party conferences  regardless of the political party  sets a deeply concerning precedent in a democratic society.

The organisations said the decision by newsrooms to withhold booking for the event is also being supported by the Press Gallery of Westminster political correspondents.

In a joint statement, the coalition of industry bodies said: For more than a year, we have been seeking discussion with the Conservative Party to review these charges, as promised.

This was to find an alternative solution to supposed concerns which the party seeks to address by charging the media for attendance  a decision which we are united in viewing as undemocratic and detrimental to the interests of society and the party itself.

In a democratic society, all party conferences are of considerable political and public importance and, as such, there should be no charging barrier for journalists to be able to act as the eyes and ears of the public by freely reporting at such events.

Through objective journalism, the conference also provides a window for the global community to see UK democracy in action.

The statement comes after the Culture Secretary vowed to protect public service broadcasters and fearless truth-telling.

In a speech on May 18, Lucy Frazer said the Government was taking steps to increase press freedoms and make sure journalists can do their jobs effectively, including by guaranteeing the long-term future of first class public service broadcasters.

Speaking to a media conference in London, she said a free press played a vital role in protecting democracy, but was under threat across the world with the arrest of journalists in places such as Russia.

She added: No government has all the answers to all the challenges the media faces, but what I can promise you is that my approach will be guided by the following principles  protect our public service broadcasters; stand up for independent voices; and nurture a thriving media landscape which upholds and champions fearless truth-telling.

The coalition of industry bodies said the Conservative Campaign Headquarters has stated previously that the fee is to cover admin costs which have risen because it says the party receives numerous press pass applications from journalists who do not then attend.

In addressing this, the industry bodies said: The issue of so-called no-shows is a factor experienced by all popular events of press interest often due to changing daily news agendas.

We have offered alternative ways to reduce the impact and cost of speculative applications, which have fallen on deaf ears.

To live up to the Conservative Governments mantra on press freedom, the accreditation fee for attending the conference must be scrapped.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: A modest charge was introduced to discourage over-accreditation by some media outlets.

At one recent conference several thousand people who applied for free media accreditation failed to collect their passes, generating large amounts of paper and plastic waste.

In previous years, police security checks for non-attendees have cost the party tens of thousands of pounds. We do not believe members and other attendees should effectively subsidise this.

There are a range of exemptions on offer owing to the challenging financial situation many local outlets face.
A rare Royal Pardon issued by Queen Victoria to Irish rebels convicted of high treason is set to be sold at auction in Belfast.

It is one of a wide range of historical items to be sold, which also includes a PSNI peaked cap believed to have been worn by former Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan and a treaty with notes written by Irish unionist leader Edward Carson.

The pardon is believed to have been issued by the monarch in 1869, and includes Queen Victorias personal signature and seal.

Royal Pardons allow monarchs to withdraw or provide alternatives to death sentences or exile to those convicted of crimes against the crown.

One of the key individuals referenced in the pardon is JFX OBrien, an Irish nationalist revolutionary who participated in a rising against British rule in 1867, and was tried for high treason, convicted and sentenced to death.

OBrien was released in 1869 with Queen Victorias pardon and went on to become the President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and an MP for Cork City.

Managing director of Bloomfield Auctions Karl Bennett described the pardon as having been granted in unique circumstances.

Traditionally, in the mid to late nineteenth century, convictions of high treason and felony for Irish republicans were expected to be met with the death sentence or exile to Australia, which is what makes this royal pardon of unique historical importance, he said.

This pardon from Queen Victoria offers an insight into the English criminal justice system, showing the important role Queen Victoria played in the exercise of mercy.

Following her beloved Prince Alberts death, Queen Victoria began to gain a new public image as a compassionate Queen, which earned her the affectionate nickname the grandmother of Europe.

The royal pardon we have on sale at our auction house is demonstrative evidence of her shift towards a more benevolent reign.

Among the many other items set to go under the hammer is Carsons hand-annotated copy of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, a gun taken from a soldier of the 5th Battalion Irish Volunteers, who was killed in action during the 1916 Easter Rising and a Colour used by the Ulster Volunteer Force in the campaign to defend Home Rule.

Mr Bennett said Carsons annotated copy of the treaty offers a first-hand insight into the inner workings of one of the leading political figures in early twentieth century Ireland.

The sale will take place on Tuesday June 6 both online and in Bloomfield Auction House in east Belfast. For more information, visit: www.bloomfieldauctions.co.uk.
Russias ambassador to the UK has warned of an escalation to the war in Ukraine as Britain and other Western allies commit more weapons to aid President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Speaking to the BBCs Laura Kuenssberg, Andrei Kelin said the actions of Nato countries, especially the UK, risk lengthening and triggering a new dimension in the war.

He said Russia had enormous resources and despite the war already raging for over a year, he claimed his country had not yet started to act very seriously.

The UK and other Nato countries are threatening to trigger a new dimension to the war with their support for Ukraine, the Russian ambassador said (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/PA)

Mr Kelin said: Russia is 16 times bigger than Ukraine. We have enormous resources.

Sooner or later, of course, this escalation may get a new dimension which we do not need and we do not want. We can make peace tomorrow.

When asked about widespread mounting evidence of Russias war crimes, the ambassador said Ukraine was the one committing war crimes.

He then changed tack and said the United Nations had no power to investigate war crimes.
Phillip Schofield first met the younger ITV colleague whom he later had an affair with when he was aged 15, according to The Mail On Sunday.

The veteran TV presenter, 61, resigned from the broadcaster on Friday and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after admitting to an unwise, but not illegal affair with a young male colleague on This Morning.

Lawyers representing Schofield have confirmed they met when the boy was 15, but said the affair began after he started working at ITV, and the mans lawyers have also confirmed that it began after he joined the broadcaster.

In a statement on Friday, Schofield said the man was a teenager when they were introduced, and he was asked to help him get into television but underlined that it was a number of years later when he joined the show as an adult that their affair began.

Phillip Schofield (Bradley Collyer/PA)

The Mail On Sunday reported the pair first met when Schofield was giving a talk at a theatre school when the TV presenter was in his late 40s.

It said some years later the younger man joined the production team on This Morning when Schofield was in his early 50s and their relationship developed from a friendship to an affair.

The newspaper also said Schofield confirmed the affair after the young man revealed details about the relationship to his lawyers.

It comes after ITV said it investigated rumours of a relationship between Schofield and the ITV employee around three years ago but that both parties categorically and repeatedly denied it.

A spokesperson for ITV said on Saturday the broadcaster was not provided with, and did not find, any evidence of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour when it looked into the matter in 2020.

Phillips statement yesterday reveals that he lied to people at ITV, from senior management to fellow presenters, to YMU, to the media and to others over this relationship, they added.

The broadcaster also said it was deeply disappointed by the admissions of deceit by Schofield after he spoke publicly about the affair.

The relationships we have with those we work with are based on trust, a statement from a spokesperson for ITV added.

Phillip made assurances to us which he now acknowledges were untrue and we feel badly let down.

This Morning will air on Monday, ITV said, and denied the shows future is the shows future is in question, with reports claiming it could potentially be axed entirely.

An ITV spokesperson told the PA news agency: As we said on the record yesterday, This Morning is not under review and theres no plans for the show to be axed. This Morning will return as normal tomorrow.

With Holly Willoughby on half-term holiday leave, Alison Hammond and Dermot OLeary will continue to fill in for them, including when the Monday show airs at 10am.

Willoughby said her former This Morning co-hosts admission about the affair was very hurtful as he had previously denied it to her as well.

Its taken time to process yesterdays news, Willoughby wrote on an Instagram story posted on Saturday.

When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not.

Its been very hurtful to now find out that this was a lie.

Last Saturday, Schofield announced he was stepping down from presenting the ITV talk show with immediate effect while Willoughby will remain on the programme.

Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby (Yui Mok/PA)

The TV presenter, who also co-hosted Dancing On Ice with Willoughby, said he would also no longer present the British Soap Awards, his last public commitment.

In his statement, Schofield apologised for lying about the relationship.

The first thing I want to say is: I am deeply sorry for having lied to them (the Daily Mail), and to many others about a relationship that I had with someone working on This Morning, he said.

I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning.

He added that contrary to speculation the relationship was not illegal.

He also denied that a super-injunction had been issued by him, or on his behalf, regarding the relationship.

When I chose to come out I did so entirely for my own wellbeing, he said.

Phillip Schofield and his former wife Stephanie (Ian West/PA)

Nobody forced me out. Neither I nor anyone else, to my knowledge, has ever issued an injunction, super or otherwise, about my relationship with this colleague, he was never moved on or sacked by or because of me.

In an effort to protect my ex-colleague I havent been truthful about the relationship. But my recent, unrelated, departure from This Morning fuelled speculation and raised questions which have been impacting him, so for his sake it is important for me to be honest now.

The presenter added: I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public, and most importantly of all to my family.

I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife.

Talent agency YMU said it has parted company with Schofield with immediate effect.

The revelations come after Schofield faced months of controversy including reports of a rift with his long-time co-host Willoughby and a furore over his visit to the late Queens lying-in-state.

Just a day before he stepped down This Morning, his brother Timothy was jailed for 12 years for sexually abusing a boy.

A judge told the 54-year-old former civilian police worker she had not heard a single word of remorse from him.

The presenter said I no longer have a brother following guilty verdicts in April.

Schofield married Stephanie Lowe in 1993 and they have two grown-up daughters together, Ruby and Molly.

After he came out in February 2020, in an emotional on-air chat with Willoughby, his wife told The Sun she supported his brave step and always will love him.
YouTube sensations The Sidemen are set to open their first standalone high street restaurant this year as part of plans to expand their Sides fried chicken brand.

The YouTube collective consists of Olajide JJ Olatunji (KSI), Harry Lewis (Wroetoshaw), Simon Minter (Miniminter), Vik Barn (Vikkstar123), Josh Bradley (Zerkaa), Ethan Payne (Behzinga) and Tobi Brown (TBJZL), and has 18.5 million subscribers.

The group first launched the Sides brand for delivery only in late 2021 and has since expanded into food courts.

On Monday, The Sidemen revealed plans to expand it to a further 10 locations in 2023, in a move that expands its footprint to northern England and Scotland and create around 100 jobs.

The Sidemen YouTube group includes content creator, boxer and Prime drinks founder KSI (James Manning/PA)

They have not disclosed exact locations for the sites but confirmed it would include the groups first standalone high-street restaurant and it will hit shopping centres.

Sides is a part of Virtual Hero Group, a subsidiary of German Doner Kebab and Island Poke owner Hero Brands.

Virtual Hero said it hopes the brand can expand to 200 sites over the next 10 years as part of a long-term growth strategy.

The Sidemens Zerkaa said: The fans have been crying out for more Sides locations, so we are excited to meet the fever pitch demand with more restaurants across the UK.

Our first ever high street store will be a special moment for all of us and we cannot wait for everyone to try them as they will be a real celebration of the Sidemen ahead of our 10-year anniversary as a group.

Concept art for Sides first standalone restaurant (Sides/PA)

Robin Mehta, chief executive officer of Sides, said: We are keen as a brand to keep evolving and our new high street restaurants will do that alongside furthering our reach in the UK as part of our larger growth target of 200 Sides sites globally in the next 10 years.

The virtual locations have allowed us to rapidly reach more people across the nation but we are thrilled to expand our brick-and-mortar offering this year.

The high street restaurant is a fresh concept for creating a new form of engagement for fans.
A train operator has taken its 1,000th child on a free trip under a scheme to help disadvantaged pupils.

Avanti West Coast said it has carried schoolchildren on 40 excursions since it launched the Feel Good Field Trips initiative in April 2022.

The two-year programme involves pupils aged between four and 18 at schools near the operators network  which runs between London and Scotland on the West Coast Main Line  embarking on fun and educational days out.

The schools all have high rates of disadvantaged children.

Excursions organised as part of the scheme have included outdoor activities in the Lake District, writing and recording poetry in Londons Soho district, a ferry ride on the River Mersey and a visit to The Lowry theatre in Salford, Greater Manchester.

Avanti West Coast community rail officer David Savage said: Its been a real privilege to be able to open up access to such a diverse range of exciting and educational experiences for pupils  many of whom wouldnt normally get the opportunity to travel to these amazing venues.

The feedback we have received to date has been outstanding, and as the train cruises along the West Coast Main Line at 125mph, watching the reactions of children who have never experienced rail travel before is an absolute delight.

By the end of the summer term, more than 1,500 schoolchildren will have enjoyed a Feel Good Field Trip and we hope to deliver many more in the future.
Two men aged in their 20s have died after being rescued from the water off the coast of Torbay, police have said.

Devon and Cornwall officers were called to assist the Coastguard at around 9am on Saturday following reports of concern for two people in the water at Oddicombe.

Following an emergency rescue operation, the men were pulled from the water, but one was declared dead at the scene.

#LatestNews -Two men have died after being pulled from the sea off Torbay. More here: https://t.co/xQALK4TGrq pic.twitter.com/B1aDN7B6dI  Devon & Cornwall Police (@DC_Police) May 28, 2023

The second man died after being taken to Torbay District Hospital.

Police said their next of kin have been informed, and inquiries continue while a file is prepared for the coroner.

The operation involved the Coastguard rescue team from Torbay and the RNLIs inshore lifeboat from Teignmouth and Dawlish.

The Devon Air Ambulance was despatched, and Devon and Cornwall Police and the South Western Ambulance Service were also involved.
UK police officers are to be tasked with breaking up people-smuggling gangs alongside security forces in North African countries, it has been reported.

The Times newspaper has been told National Crime Agency (NCA) officers would join nations in the region in their efforts to stop the people traffickers.

According to The Times, the Italian government has predicted up to 400,000 migrants will seek to travel to Europe through Italy this summer.

Record numbers of people crossed the English Channel last year in small boats.

Migrants heading to the UK in small boats have become an increasing problem (Gareth Fuller/PA)

Less than 7,000 have been detected making the journey so far in 2023, according to latest Home Office figures.

The report comes as immigration minister Robert Jenrick travels to North Africa and Europe in the coming week to discuss with international partners the shared global challenge of organised immigration crime.

The NCA and the Home Office have been contacted for comment.

Mr Jenrick will visit Algeria, Tunisia, Italy and France for a series of engagements as the Home Office launches an ad campaign aimed at deterring Albanian nationals from arriving in the UK in small boats.

The publicity drive, which will run on Facebook and Instagram from next week, will send the message that people face being detained and removed if they make the journey.

The campaign will also aim to bust the myths of organised crime gangs who use social media to encourage people to take dangerous routes to the UK, the Home Office said.

A spokesman said: Evil criminal gangs do not care about the safety of the people they smuggle across the Channel and have no qualms about pedalling lies online  even putting children at risk.

Opposition critics and charities have branded the campaign a gimmick, with Labour accusing the Government of tinkering at the edges of an asylum system in chaos.

The Home Office would not say how much the publicity drive is expected to cost.

The Governments Illegal Migration Bill aims to send asylum seekers who arrive in Britain via unauthorised routes back home or to a third country such as Rwanda.

Ministers also hope the legislation will cut the daily 5.5 million cost of housing migrants who make it to the UK.

The Bill, currently in the House of Lords, has been attacked by critics including the Archbishop of Canterbury who argue that it is both unworkable and morally unacceptable.
Published 28 May 2023 at 1:01 am

Train services run by TransPennine Express have been brought under Government control.

Here the PA news agency answers 10 key questions about what went wrong and what the change means.

Passengers have suffered from months of disruption (Danny Lawson/PA)

 What was TransPennine Express?

A train operator running intercity services across northern England and into Scotland.

 How bad was its performance?

Cancellations and delays have been widespread for several months.

The equivalent of one in seven trains were axed in the four weeks to April 29.

 What caused this?

A series of issues including drivers no longer volunteering to work paid overtime shifts and higher than usual staff sickness levels.

 What has the Government done about this?

The Department for Transport has taken control of TransPennine Express services under its Operator of Last Resort system, making it nationalised.

Transport Secretary Mark Harper warned the decision is not a silver bullet (Jordan Pettitt/PA)

 Will services improve?

Transport Secretary Mark Harper warned the decision is not a silver bullet and urged drivers union Aslef to call off strikes and end the ban on rest day working.

 What has changed?

Services are now run under the brand TransPennine Trains.

 Will passengers notice any other immediate differences?

No. The trains, timetables and staff are unchanged.

 Are tickets still be valid?

Yes. The announcement does not affect ticket validity or prices.

London North Eastern Railway is among the operators already nationalised (Danny Lawson/PA)

 What is the Operator of Last Resort?

A Government company that runs passenger services after contracts with private operators end and there is no immediate replacement.

 What services were already run this way?

London North Eastern Railway, Northern and Southeastern.
Witnesses to atrocities such as the Manchester Arena bombing will be offered similar support to bereaved families nationwide for the first time after an expansion of homicide services.

The broadening of eligibility for the help given to grief-stricken relatives in the aftermath of a major crime will also include children from the wider community, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said.

The expansion will be backed by approximately 600,000 in funding, which comes from existing budgets and will be added to the 4.6 million previously allocated to the Homicide Service.

The Homicide Service commissions support including trauma and bereavement counselling, restorative justice and advocacy.

Opposition MPs criticised the scope of the measures and called on the Government to improve legal representation offered to those affected by tragedies such as the Hillsborough disaster, in which 97 people were found to have been unlawfully killed decades after the event.

Grief-stricken families are meant to be offered support from the Homicide Service by police following a murder or other crime which results in death.

The eligibility changes mean that anyone who directly witnesses such an incident and any child or young person who knows the victim can also be referred.

The MoJ gave the examples of a pupil in the class of a teacher who has been killed or a member of a place of worship which loses a religious leader.

Tragedies such as the Grenfell Tower fire and the Manchester Arena bombing are among those that would be included, according to the department.

Previously the service offered support only to those bereaved through murder or manslaughter but it will now be available to people affected by other major incidents, it said.

The rollout of the expansion across England and Wales follows a successful pilot in London and will mean approximately 1,200 more people will be offered support, it said.

Justice Secretary Alex Chalk said: By expanding the service to include eyewitnesses and bereaved families of major incidents across England and Wales, thousands more people will be able to access the support they need as early as possible.

Ellen Milazzo, head of the National Homicide Service at Victim Support, said: We set up the service in 2010 and it has gone from strength to strength ever since.

Expanding it to include support for direct eyewitnesses to homicide or a major criminal incident where a person is killed, alongside enhanced support for children and young people, is a brilliant step.

Shadow justice secretary Steve Reed said: Victims have been left out to dry under this Conservative Government.

Labour stands unequivocally with the families and survivors of Hillsborough, Grenfell and Manchester. We must do everything within our power to prevent tragedies like this ever happening again.

Victims have repeatedly called for the Hillsborough Law, to ensure that victims of major tragedies get the same legal representation as the authorities that failed them. The Government has failed to provide this parity, only Labour will deliver it.
Sylvua Holtzclaw was a teller at Blue Ridge Savings Bank in Greer.

Eb Barnes was a physics professor at the University of South Carolina Upstate. His wife Maggie Barnes worked for the National Beta Club in Spartanburg.

All three were shot to death with a 40-caliber Glock in the bank 20 years ago May 16.

The case has never been solved. There was a time or two law enforcement officers from local, state and federal agencies thought they were close.

But they werent. Theyve received hundreds of leads and calls, but have had no real suspects, except one man who killed himself in a traffic stop in Georgia. Investigators could never find any evidence he had been in Greer after he stole a rental car in Columbia.

On Tuesday, Greer Police renewed their pledge to see the case through. It is not closed and never has been. Many of the officers who were there that day are still on the force. Still digging.

Greer Police Chief Matt Hamby, one of those first detectives, said in a video released to the news media Monday afternoon that it would be a highlight of his career to find out who killed Sylvia, Eb and Maggie, who were beloved in their communities.

The SC victims

Sylvia had lived in Greer all her life. She married her high school sweetheart, divorced when their sons were young, and before the bank, worked at Winn-Dixie warehouse.

She was a regular at Greer First Baptist Church and in the stands when her boys played sports.

With some friends, she started a Christmas gift collection to provide for children who would not have presents otherwise.

Since her death, that event has grown into the Syl Syl Toy Drive, which last year provided gifts for 100 children.

Eb was nearing retirement. The Barnses were college sweethearts and were married in the Presbyterian church where Maggies father was pastor. Eb was known for being one of those approachable professors who liked a good joke.

They had been married 38 years when they died.

May 16, 2003

Sylvias son David had come home from his job at Florida State University to go with his mother and brother Kevin to tour the BMW plant, something their mother had always wanted to do.

Sylvia was supposed to get off from work at lunchtime, but her co-worker called in sick.

David took her some lunch from Arbys. The next thing he heard about his mother was a phone call from a friend.

I dont know how to tell you this. Theres been a robbery and your mother is dead, the friend said.

The Barneses were at the bank to put money into their IRA account.

The call to police came in at 1:28 p.m. when an alert was tripped from the cash drawer.

Officers arrived minutes later and found the victims dead in a utility room.

They had little physical evidence. No sign of a struggle. None of the small amount of money the killer got away with was marked.

Investigators were able to get surveillance video from cameras at two gas stations.

A red car can be seen traveling the road in front of the bank. The Barneses truck followed.
A fire inside a two-story apartment building in Pompano Beach displaced up to 55 residents on Monday morning, according to authorities.

Around 2:25 a.m. firefighters rushed to the Royal Atlantic Apartments, 110 NW 7th Ave., where they found the structure with flames through the roof, Sandra King, a spokeswoman with Pompano Beach Fire Rescue, told the Miami Herald in an email Monday afternoon.

Residents told Miami Herald news partner CBS News Miami they woke to fire alarms blaring around 2 a.m. and heard people screaming.

It was hectic and scary. It was just black smoke, we couldnt barely see anything. We had to use our phone lights to run down the stairs, Phylicia Eubanks told the TV station.

Michelle Edmund told CBS News Miami that her home is a total loss.

So immediately I go get my daughter, everybody else was coming out, the police was knocking on everybodys doors, come out, come out, we had to hurry up and get out, she said.

Though firefighters were able to quickly contain the blaze in the 22-unit structure, multiple homes suffered smoke damage. There were no injuries and one cat was found dead, King added.

A fire displaced around 50 people at the Royal Atlantic Apartments, 110 NW 7th Ave. in Pompano Beach on May 15, 2023.

According to authorities, 44 to 55 residents cant return to their homes as a result. Thirty-four adults, 16 children and three dogs have been moved to an indoor recreation center at Mitchell Moore Park, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.

The cause of the fire is under investigation by Pompano Beach Fire Rescue Fire Investigators and the State Fire Marshal, King said.

People boarding up doors and windows after a fire erupted at an apartment complex in Pompano Beach on Monday May 15, 2023. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

American Red Cross volunteers were on site Monday helping to coordinate emergency aid for the affected residents, the organization noted in a news release.

Displaced residents taking whatever was not destroyed from a fire that erupted at an apartment complex in Pompano Beach on Monday May 15, 2023. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Red Cross volunteers on the scene are members of the Disaster Action Team, a group of specially trained volunteers who respond to the scene of a local disaster when called upon at any time  day or night, the organization said. Red Cross disaster assistance is free of charge, a gift made possible by donations to the Red Cross.

To donate to the Red Cross, visit redcross.org/donate.
A generation ago, when Molly was all the rage in Miamis club scene, an Italian by the name of Nello Quagliani delivered much of the drug supply, U.S. authorities say.

Quagliani and his European-trafficking network shipped at least 200,000 MDMA pills from the Netherlands to Miami between 1996 and 2000, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

After 20 years on the lam, Quagliani was extradited from South Africa in September, held without a bond, and now has owned up to his crime in Miami federal court. On Friday, he pleaded guilty to three conspiracy charges accusing him of importing and distributing Ecstasy along with money laundering more than $400,000 through foreign currency exchanges.

Quagliani, 61, faces 10 years in prison under a joint recommendation by prosecutors with the U.S. Attorneys Office and lawyers with the Federal Public Defenders Office at his sentencing on July 26 before U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz.

Quagliani is the last of about 30 defendants in his ring who have been prosecuted and convicted on the Ecstasy smuggling charges, according to court records and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Federal prosecutors had been asking for Quaglianis extradition from South Africa since 2003, when he was arrested by Interpol authorities, court and government records show. But Quagliani, with Italian and South African citizenship, obtained a bond and managed to avoid being extradited for the next 19 years  until he was flown on a plane in September to Miami.

An extradition request, filed by former federal prosecutor David Weinstein in Miami, put Quagliani at the top of an international ecstasy-smuggling network based in the Netherlands, where the drug was allegedly purchased in massive volumes.

Nello Quagliani provided the MDMA to the members of the organization in Europe as well as received money from the corresponding sale of the MDMA after it had been successfully smuggled into the United States, Weinstein wrote in the extradition request, which included a federal indictment and DEA criminal complaint and affidavit.

Nello Quagliani also assisted in the collection of the proceeds from the sale of the MDMA, he noted, adding that the profits in U.S., Canadian, Dutch, Swiss and German currencies were smuggled out of the United States.

According to the DEA affidavit and other records, Quagliani collaborated with associates in his ring to buy hundreds of thousands of ecstasy pills from Holland between 1996 and 2000. He was accused of hiring couriers to transport the drug, a hallucinogenic stimulant that at the time was popular by the street name Molly in South Floridas clubs, on commercial flights to Miami International Airport, according to the affidavit filed by retired DEA agent Joseph Kilmer.

Kilmer developed a confidential source who had dealings with Quagliani and another partner, John Moya, the affidavit says. Through undercover recordings, the agent was able to link both men to a Jan. 22, 1998, shipment of 5,774 tablets of MDMA that were seized at MIA by U.S. Customs inspectors.

The [confidential source] stated that Quagliani and Moya are large-scale distributors who send MDMA from Holland to the United States and elsewhere, the affidavit says.

The source recorded calls with Moya who admitted his own involvement in the January shipment to Miami, the affidavit says. Moya later traveled to Miami and met with the DEA agent and source, admitting in recorded statements that he and Quagliani organized the January load of Ecstasy seized at the airport.

After his arrest, Moya said that Quagliani was his partner in MDMA trafficking.
Since 1996, when California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis, the national landscape of drug use has changed dramatically. Now, medical cannabis is legal in 38 states and the District of Columbia.

Last year, President Joe Biden signaled a new, softer federal government view of weed as well.

"That the federal government currently classifies marijuana as a Schedule I substance, the same as heroin, LSD and more serious than fentanyl, makes no sense," he said. "I'm asking the secretary of Health and Human Services and the attorney general to initiate a process to review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law."

The number of Americans who have used cannabis in their lifetime rose from 125 million in 2009 to 128 million in 2021. Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says nearly two million fewer Americans are working today compared to February 2020. Government data, however, disputes this as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 155.6 million Americans worked in April 2023, up from 152.3 million in February 2020.

"We have a lot of jobs, but not enough workers to fill them. If every unemployed person in the country found a job, we would still have 4.2 million open jobs," the Chamber wrote recently.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 9.6 million job openings, as of March 2023, while the agency reported 5.8 million on unemployment.

These factors have employers asking the question: should we continue to screen job applicants for drug use?

SEE MORE: Researchers find link between cannabis use disorder and schizophrenia

In a survey of some 45,000 companies worldwide, the staffing firm Manpower Group found that in 2021, 9& were eliminating drug tests for prospective employees.

That year, Amazon, the nation's second-largest private employer, announced it would no longer test job candidates for marijuana. One lawyer told the website HR Deep Dive that "very few regional businesses in the mid-Atlantic region are doing regular drug testing."

Meanwhile, lawmakers around the country have been active on the issue.

According to the marijuana advocacy group NORML, Nevada, Washington state, Atlanta, Baltimore and Philadelphia are among the jurisdictions that have passed legal restrictions on pre-employment tests.

In Colorado, lawmakers tried to change the way companies conduct drug testing. The idea was to allow exceptions for those using weed off the clock.

"It's discriminatory to say that you can drink alcohol during your free time, but you can't use marijuana when they are both legal here in the state of Colorado," said State Rep. Jovan Melton.

The bill died, and some employers in the state are wary of giving up the practice.

"Any employer is always going to be concerned about any litigation amongst employees against they themselves. You know, that's why theyve always recommended that there be zero tolerance policies in place," said Loren Furman with the Colorado Chamber of Commerce.

The federal government, the nation's largest employer, is also changing how it thinks about drug testing. The New York Times reported that the military recently granted grace periods to more than 3,400 recruits who failed a drug test before joining the armed forces.

SEE MORE: Beware of discarded joints. They pose a risk to your pet

The Times says the CIA and FBI have also relaxed their rules regarding past use of marijuana. The Secret Service says candidates are eligible for employment one year after they have last consumed the drug. And the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Department of Transportation (DOT) have also loosened rules.

But not all leaders in the federal government are embracing the change. Marine Corps Gen. David H. Berger wrote in 2019 that he was "troubled by the extent to which drug abuse is a characteristic of new recruits and the fact the vast majority of recruits require drug waivers for enlistment."

New kinds of drug tests, meanwhile, are giving employers more useful information. Chemical markers of THC, a main component of cannabis, can be detected in urine for months after consumption. Last year, the DOT said that saliva tests could be used instead since they more accurately show recent use.

Saliva testing also offers the advantage that employees can be observed by officials, while urine sampling raises privacy concerns.

SEE MORE: 'Joint' venture: Ben from Ben & Jerry's starts pot nonprofit
FILE - Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., talks with former Sen. Joe Lieberman in the East Room before President Joe Biden awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to 17 people at the White House in Washington, Thursday, July 7, 2022. Former congresswoman Cheney will give a graduation speech Sunday, May 28, 2023, at Colorado College, a Colorado liberal arts college that is her alma mater, amid questions about her political future and promise to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president again. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney will give a graduation speech at her alma mater, an elite Colorado liberal arts college, amid questions about her political future and insistence that Donald Trump never become president again.

At Colorado College's commencement on Sunday, the Wyoming Republican is expected to touch on themes similar to those she has promoted since leaving office in January: Addressing her work on the House January 6 Select Committee that investigated the U.S. Capitol insurrection and standing up to the threat she believes Trump poses to democracy.

Cheney's busy speaking schedule and subject matter have fueled speculation about whether she may enter the 2024 GOP presidential primary. Declared or potential candidates ranging from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley have calibrated their remarks about Trump, aiming to counter his attacks without alienating the supporters that won him the White House seven years ago.

Though some have offered measured criticisms, no Trump challenger has embraced anti-Trump messaging to the same extent as Cheney. In her three terms in office, she rose to the No. 3 GOP leadership position in the House, a job she lost after voting to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol and then not relenting in her criticism of the former president.

I feel very strongly about where the country needs to go, and I feel very strongly about how important it is that Donald Trump not be president ever again, Cheney said at a March forum at Boston College.

She said she remained undecided about her political future, including whether she wants to run for president.

Though she would face an uphill battle, Cheney's fierce anti-Trump stance and her role as vice chairwoman of the Jan. 6 Select Committee elevated her platform high enough that she could be a formidable candidate able to call on a national network of donors and Trump critics to support a White House run.

A super PAC organized to support her candidacy has remained active, including purchasing attack ads on New Hampshire airwaves against Trump this month.

After leaving office and being replaced by a Trump-backed Republican who defeated her in last year's primary, Cheney was appointed to a professorship at the University of Virginia and wrote "Oath and Honor, a memoir scheduled to hit shelves in November.

Cheney graduated from Colorado College in 1988 and the Colorado Springs school is also her mother Lynne's alma mater. Cheney also is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School.

Students at Colorado College offered mixed reactions when she was named commencement speaker in March, including some who staged a small protest over her pre-insurrection voting record.

Cheney's speaking tour appears to be picking up. She is scheduled to appear Thursday at the Mackinac Policy Conference in Michigan.

___

Metz reported from Salt Lake City.
Updated May 28, 2023 at 3:22 AM

Carolina Place mall in Pineville was placed on lock down for about an hour Saturday night as police investigated reports of gunfire, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police said.

Pineville police officers who responded to the mall on Pineville Place Parkway just after 6 p.m. determined that a large fight broke out but that no shots were fired, CMPD said on Twitter.

CMPD said its officers were asked to respond to the mall, but the request was canceled before officers arrived.

The lock down has been lifted, CMPD said on Twitter about 7:30 p.m.

Police havent said if any charges will be filed as a result of the fight.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), 83, has not announced if she intends to seek another term or retire from the seat she has held for nearly four decades. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

For the record:

4:05 p.m. May 28, 2023: An earlier version of this story stated that left-leaning Democrats at the California Democratic Party convention this weekend interrupted Gov. Gavin Newsoms speech with chants for Medicare for all. They chanted CalCare now.



Even before former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her first appearance at the California Democratic Party convention this weekend, she was an inescapable presence, dangling in cartoon form off the shoulders of the party's politicians and most dedicated activists.

The official swag bag  a canvas tote illustrating Pelosi's instantly meme-able furious clapping during President Trump's State of the Union address  was the most colorful tribute to the San Francisco congresswoman, but it was hardly the only one. Between an ecstatic ovation for her brief Saturday-morning address and the ballroom-size dinner held in her honor that evening, the party's first in-person gathering since 2019 was an unabashed love letter to one of the state's most prolific politicians.

Pelosi, who at times has been a polarizing figure even within her own party, was an uncontroversial focal point for state Democratic officials wary of weighing in on California's budding Senate race or fraught questions about Sen. Dianne Feinstein's health.

But underlying the celebrations was a lingering uncertainty about Pelosi's plans. The 83-year-old, who stepped down from House Democratic leadership this year, has not announced if she intends to seek another term or retire from the seat she has held for nearly four decades.

Democrats have assiduously sidestepped even a hint of speculation about Pelosi's decision. Still, the subtext was so unavoidable that Gov. Gavin Newsom said he found himself briefly wondering if the weekend-long homage meant he was out of the loop on the speculation about his lifelong friend and political ally.

"[I thought], 'Am I missing something? Did she announce something that I didn't know about?'" Newsom said in an interview.

"I haven't seen any evidence that she's stepping back or down or slowing down," he hastened to add. "Obviously, we're celebrating her speakership. That's certainly a worthy cause."

Since Pelosi handed the House Democratic leadership to New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries in January, admirers have piled on the accolades. In recent months, she has received awards from LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality California, the New York Historical Society, the American Hospital Assn. and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who bestowed her with the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic.

Addressing the convention Saturday morning, Pelosi made clear how much she has enjoyed her post-speakership victory lap.

"Do you know what 'emerita' means? It means happiness," she said to an audience waving signs reading "House of Pelosi."

Her speech otherwise contained no hints of her future. Instead, she rallied Democrats in a cavernous Los Angeles Convention Center hall for a strong showing in the 2024 elections and took swipes at Republicans in Congress.

"As we speak, extremist Republicans have pushed America to the brink of unprecedented default on America's full faith and credit," Pelosi said, alluding to the efforts to raise the debt limit before a tentative deal was struck Saturday.

She was preceded by a glowing video tribute extolling her as a pioneering politician and superlative House speaker, with paeans from party stalwarts such as former Gov. Jerry Brown and former Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Later that evening, Pelosi was honored at a party-sponsored dinner; the press was barred from attending.

Though Pelosi was immersed in politics from childhood as the daughter of Baltimore Mayor and congressman Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., her ascent was rooted in the state Democratic Party. Rising through its ranks, she was party chair from 1981 to 1983, four years before she was first elected to Congress.

"She understands the party. She understands what motivates them," said Bill Carrick, a veteran Democratic operative. "She has a strong feeling for the party structure and the work they do in terms of the grassroots kind of stuff. She's got a real insight into all of that, and not a lot of elected [officials] do."

A volunteer at the California Democratic Convention shows support for Pelosi on Saturday. (Melanie Mason / Los Angeles Times)

But her relationship with party activists, particularly the left flank, could be rocky at times. She angered advocates for single-payer healthcare when she called for a public healthcare option instead of a more sweeping state program to provide coverage for all residents.

During her speech at the state party convention in 2019, the audience shouted, "Impeach! Impeach!" with regard to Trump, at a time when Pelosi was wary about pursuing such an option. (The House, under her leadership, made history by impeaching the then-president twice.)

The left made a show of force at this weekend's convention, interrupting Newsom's speech with chants for "CalCare now." But there was little visible pushback for Pelosi.

"I think that it has been an evolution for many of us to fully appreciate what she has done," said David Campos, vice chair of the state Democratic Party and a former leader in San Francisco's progressive politics.

He recalled the initial skepticism when Pelosi defeated Harry Britt, a progressive who would have been the first out gay member of Congress from San Francisco.

"In many respects, I think that she has been so much more progressive than anyone thought. She has actually accomplished more progressive outcomes than just about anyone," Campos said.

The shifting sentiments among some party activists reflect changing opinions from the broader California electorate.

In 2018, a poll from UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies found that large pluralities of California Democrats wanted someone other than Pelosi to lead their party in the House.

In March of this year, the same polling outfit found that Pelosi was the second-most popular politician in the state, behind Newsom. Three-quarters of California Democrats viewed her favorably.

One factor driving her popularity was her emergence as a foil to Trump, barely concealing her distaste for the "previous occasional occupant of the White House," as she obliquely referred to him Saturday.

"We're grateful that she led and fought and had those iconic images that made us all feel a little bit more secure in the last couple of years that were really difficult to get through," said Jodi Hicks, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of California. "People don't know what she's doing next, and certainly if it is that she decides to do something different, they don't want to miss the opportunity of showing gratitude."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
MIDDLETOWN, Del. (AP)  It's been a busier-than-usual graduation season for President Joe Biden.

Biden and his wife, Jill, were on hand Sunday to watch granddaughter Natalie Biden graduate from high school, the White House said. Natalie is the daughter of the president's late son, Beau. She is a student at St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware, and will attend the University of Pennsylvania in the fall. Beau Biden graduated from Penn.

The private Episcopal school was the setting for some scenes from the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society, starring the late Robin Williams.

Presidents usually deliver a couple of commencement addresses every year, including at one of the military service academies. But this year, Biden also got to watch another one of his grandchildren go through that rite of passage.

Earlier this month, Biden and the first lady attended granddaughter Maisy Biden's commencement from Penn.

Biden was the commencement speaker at Howard University's commencement on May 13. He is also scheduled to deliver the commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday.
Russia is plotting a large-scale provocation at a nuclear power station it occupies in the southeast of Ukraine to disrupt an imminent counteroffensive, Kyivs military intelligence has claimed.

A statement from the intelligence directorate of Ukraines defence ministry claimed Russian forces will strike the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe.

It will then report a radioactive leak in order to trigger an international probe that would pause the hostilities and give them the respite they need to regroup.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant will be targeted, its claimed (AP)

In order to make that happen, Russia disrupted the rotation of personnel of the permanent monitoring mission of the UNs International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that was scheduled for Saturday, the statement said. It did not offer evidence to back up any of the claims.

The IAEA said it did not have any immediate comment on the allegations and Russian officials did not immediately comment on the Ukrainian claims.

The White House said it is watching the situation closely and has seen no indication radioactive material has been leaked.

It comes as Moscows military in Ukraine braces for a looming counteroffensive by Kyivs forces, which has not started yet but could begin tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week, the secretary of Ukraines National Security and Defence Council, Oleksiy Danilov, told the BBC.

A Ukrainian soldier near Bakhmut (AP)

He said the government in Kyiv had no right to make a mistake on the decision because this is a historic opportunity that we cannot lose.

The Zaporizhzhia station is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world. It is in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine.

The plants six reactors have been shut down for months but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

Firefighters hose down a policlinic following a Russian attack in Dnipro on Friday (AP)

Fighting near it repeatedly disrupted power supplies and has fuelled fears of a potential catastrophe like the one at Chernobyl, in northern Ukraine, where a reactor exploded in 1986 and spewed deadly radiation, contaminating a vast area.

In other developments on Saturday, Russia reported more attacks on its territory, with drones crashing in its western regions and areas on the border with Ukraine coming under shelling.

Two drones attacked an administrative building of an oil company in Russias western Pskov region that borders Belarus, Latvia and Estonia, Pskov governor Mikhail Vedernikov reported on Saturday.

The building was damaged as the result of an explosion, Mr Vedernikov said.

An officer of Ukraine's 59th Motorised Brigade controls a drone from a shelter in the suburbs of Donetsk (AP)

Another drone went down in the Tver region about 145km (90 miles) north of Moscow, local authorities said.

Russias Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine came under multiple rounds of shelling on Saturday, killing one person, according to its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

In the neighbouring Kursk region, which also borders Ukraine, one person was killed by cross-border mortar fire, its governor Roman Starovoit said.

And a 60-year-old man was killed by Russian shelling in the city of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region, about 32km (20 miles) from the Russian border, Ukraines national police said.

Ukrainian servicemen fire a Partyzan multiple launch rocket system towards Russian troops near a frontline in the Zaporizhzhia region (Reuters)

Meanwhile, Russias ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin warned his country was yet to act very seriously in the conflict.

Mr Kelin told the BBC that Moscow had enormous resources and the country was 16 times bigger than Ukraine.

He said: Sooner or later, of course, this escalation may get a new dimension which we do not need and we do not want. We can make peace tomorrow.

In addition, the British military said on Saturday that Russias private military force, Wagner, is withdrawing from areas around the eastern city of Bakhmut that Moscow claims to have captured earlier this month.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin earlier this week announced the pullout, saying Wagner would hand control over the ruined city over to the Russian military. Some were sceptical, however.

Mr Prigozhin is known for making unverifiable, headline-grabbing statements on which he later backtracks.

But Britains Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a series of tweets on Saturday that Wagner fighters have likely started to withdraw from some of their positions around Bakhmut.

The Ukrainian deputy defence minister also corroborated the rotation out of Wagner forces in the outskirts of the town, it added.

Additional reporting by agencies
KYIV, Ukraine (AP)  Ukraine's capital was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of Russia's war, local officials said, as Kyiv prepared to mark the anniversary of its founding on Sunday. At least one person was killed, but officials said scores of drones were shot down, demonstrating Ukraine's air defense capability.

Russia launched the most massive attack on the city overnight Saturday with Iranian-made Shahed drones, said Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official. The attack lasted more than five hours, with air defense reportedly shooting down more than 40 drones.

A 41-year-old man was killed and a 35-year-old woman was hospitalized when debris fell on a seven-story nonresidential building and started a fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Debris from a drone damaged the building of the Ukrainian Society of the Blind. On Sunday morning, organization member Volodymyr Golubenko came to pick up his things. He was helped by his son Mykola, who searched for his fathers belongings among the rubble and at the same time tried to describe to his father what his office looks like now.

This wall on the right is destroyed and on left also, said Mykola to his father.

Volodymyr Golubenko worked at this place for more than 40 years. He says it is a home for many blind people, because they come here to talk and support each other.

If you dont even have a job, its difficult to get a job now, because these events (war) have been going on since last year. At least people come here to chat," said Volodymyr.

Like Golubenko, many people in his district heard the sound of Shahed drones for the first time. Among them was 36-year-old Yana, who has three boys. The family hid in a corridor all night.

Something started to explode above us. The children ran here in fear," said Yana.

Ukraines air force said that Saturday night was also record-breaking in terms of Shahed drone attacks across the country. Of the 54 drones launched, 52 were shot down by air defense systems.

Russia has repeatedly launched waves of drone attacks against Ukraine, but most are shot down. Ukraine has also claimed this month to have downed some of Russia's hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted as providing a key competitive advantage.

In the northeastern Kharkiv province, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said a 61-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were killed in two separate shelling attacks.

Kyiv Day marks the anniversary of the city's official founding. The day is usually celebrated with live concerts, street fairs, exhibitions and fireworks. Scaled-back festivities were planned for this year, the citys 1,541st anniversary.

The timing of the drone attacks was likely not coincidental, Ukrainian officials said.

The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians, Ukraine's chief presidential aide, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram.

Today, the enemy decided to congratulate the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), Popko also wrote on the messaging app.

Local officials in Russias southern Krasnodar region said that air defense systems destroyed several drones as they approached the Ilsky oil refinery.

Russias southern Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, also came under attack from Ukrainian forces on Saturday, local officials said. Regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported Sunday that a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy were wounded in the shelling.

Drone attacks against Russian border regions have been a regular occurrence since the start of the invasion in February 2022, with attacks increasing last month. Earlier this month, an oil refinery in Krasnodar was attacked by drones on two straight days.

Ukrainian air defenses, bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied systems, have been adept at thwarting Russian air attacks  both drones and aircraft missiles.

Earlier in May, Ukraine prevented an intense Russian air attack on Kyiv, shooting down all missiles aimed at the capital. The bombardment, which additionally targeted locations across Ukraine, included six Russian Kinzhal aero-ballistic hypersonic missiles, repeatedly touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin as providing a key strategic competitive advantage and among the most advanced weapons in his countrys arsenal.

Sophisticated Western air defense systems, including American-made Patriot missiles, have helped spare Kyiv from the kind of destruction witnessed along the main front line in Ukraine's east and south. While most of the ground fighting is stalemated along that front line, both sides are targeting other territory with long-range weapons.

Against the backdrop of Saturday nights drone attacks, Russia's ambassador to the U.K., Andrei Kelin, warned of an escalation in Ukraine. He told the BBC on Sunday his country had enormous resources and it was yet to act very seriously, cautioning that Western supplies of weapons to Ukraine risked escalating the war to a new dimension. The length of the conflict, he said, depends on the efforts in escalation of war that is being undertaken by NATO countries, especially by the U.K.

Kelins comments are typical of Russian officials rhetoric with regard to Moscow's military might, but contradict regular reports from the battlefield of Russian troops being poorly equipped and trained.

Also on Sunday, the death toll from Fridays missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional capital of the Dnipropetrovsk province, rose to four. Regional. Gov. Serhii Lysak said that three people who were considered missing were confirmed dead. There were 32 people, including two children, wounded in the attack, which struck a building containing psychology and veterinary clinics.

___

Elise Morton reported from London.

___

Follow the APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
SUMMERTON, S.C. (AP)  Civil rights leaders in South Carolina plan to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to rename the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregation of public schools across the country.

Over the next three months, a group representing past plaintiffs and their descendants plans to file paperwork asking the high court to reorder the set of five 1954 cases that led to the Brown ruling, The Post and Courier reports. The group, which has teamed up with a lawyer in Camden, South Carolina, wants to replace Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka with a South Carolina case that was filed earlier but is lesser known.

Briggs v. Elliott is a South Carolina case named after Harry Briggs, one of 20 parents who brought a lawsuit against Clarendon County School Board President R.W. Elliott.

The group sees the name change as a way to restore South Carolina as the cradle of the movement to desegregate public education.

Everyone else lays down and says you cant do this, said prominent South Carolina civil rights photographer Cecil Williams, who has been at the forefront of the effort.

Many will call it crazy, he added. It might be laughed out of court.

To Williams and the 20 families who signed their names to the Briggs case, it is worth the effort to try to right what they view as an injustice.

If this country is going to ever reconcile with its history, this is a good place, upon the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, Williams said.

The Briggs case, filed in May 1950, was the first such case to be taken to federal court. The Brown case came nearly nine months later.
CAIRO (AP)  The United States and Saudi Arabia called on warring sides in Sudan to extend a fragile cease-fire due to expire Monday, as weeks of fighting reached a stalemate in the capital and elsewhere in the African country.

The Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary force, battling for control of Sudan since mid-April, had agreed last week to the weeklong truce, brokered by the U.S. and the Saudis. However, the cease-fire, like others before it, did not stop the fighting in the capital of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

In a joint statement early Sunday, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia called for an extension of the current truce which expires at 9:45 p.m. local time Monday.

While imperfect, an extension nonetheless will facilitate the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people, the statement said.

The statement also urged Sudans military government and the rival Rapid Support Forces to continue negotiations to reach an agreement on extending the cease-fire.

The fighting broke out in mid-April between the military and the powerful RSF. Both military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF leader Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo led the 2021 coup that removed the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

The conflict has killed hundreds of people, wounded thousands and pushed the country to near collapse. It has forced nearly 1.4 million people out of their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, or to neighboring nations, according to the U.N. migration agency.

Residents reported renewed sporadic clashes Sunday in parts of the capital's adjacent city, Omdurman, where the armys aircraft were seen flying over the city. Fighting was also reported in al-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur.

In a separate statement, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia accused both the military and the RSF of violating the cease-fire, saying that such violations significantly impeded delivery of humanitarian assistance and restoration of essential services.

The statement mentioned airstrikes by the military including one that reportedly killed at least two people Saturday in Khartoum. The RSF also continued to occupy civilian homes, private businesses, and public buildings, and loot some residences.

Both parties have told facilitators their goal is de-escalation to facilitate humanitarian assistance and essential repairs, yet both parties are posturing for further escalation, the statement said.

The conflict has come to a stalemate as neither side has been able to deliver a decisive blow to the other after six weeks of fighting.

In the first two weeks of the war, army airstrikes targeted RSF camps in and outside the capital, crippling the paramilitary force's bases. That forced the RSF to deploy in densely populated areas, where they seized peoples houses and other property, and are using them as cover against the militarys airstrikes.

The detention of Dr. Alaa Eldin Awad Nogoud, a prominent surgeon and pro-democracy activist, in Omdurman caused an uproar in the country, with medical and rights groups in and outside of Sudan demanding his release.

A group of armed men stormed Nogouds home Sunday and detained him, according to the Sudan Doctors Syndicate. He was taken to an unknown location, it said.

The Forces of Freedom and Change, the pro-democracy coalition, said the armed men claimed they were members of the military and the intelligence service. It said Nogouds detention was part of a campaign targeting pro-democracy activists, and urged his immediate release.

The development came after Nogoud told a television station last week that the military seized medical aid provided by the World Health Organization and stored it at a military hospital in Omdurman, according to local media.

He said that doctors were denied access to the facility when they demanded a share in the aid to other hospitals. They were told that permission was needed first to get access, he said.

A spokesman for the military declined to comment Sunday.

The U.S.-Saudi statement came two days after Burhan demanded in a letter to the U.N. secretary-general that the U.N. envoy to his country be removed, The U.N. chief was shocked by the letter, a spokesman said.

The envoy, Volker Perthes, has been a key mediator in Sudan, first during the countrys fitful attempts to transition to democracy and then during efforts to end the current fighting.

Burhans letter came after Perthes accused the warring parties of disregarding the laws of war by attacking homes, shops, places of worship and water and electricity installations.

In his briefing to the U.N. Security Council last week, Perthes blamed the leaders of the military and the RSF for the war, saying that they have chosen to settle their unresolved conflict on the battlefield rather than at the table.

___

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed.
EMTs Meagan Parker, left, and Daniel Avena buckle Ernesto Chavez onto a gurney. Chavez is a patient at MLK Community Hospital who is being transferred. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

When the pain kicked in again in February, Lahisha Marquez-Soto held off on going to the hospital for days, until she was struggling to walk out of her college dorm in Carson.

Eight days into her stay at MLK Community Hospital, doctors knew she needed another facility. She needed a medical procedure that would allow doctors to peer inside her digestive tract and perform a biopsy to find out what was wrong with her pancreas. That was something that the small hospital in South Los Angeles could not do.

But week after week, the 20-year-old lay waiting in frustration. Stranded in her hospital bed, she missed college classes, birthday celebrations, a scheduled visit with her siblings in foster care. She read novels, watched HGTV and tried not to think about what she was missing.

It messes with you mentally, she said. Youre just stuck in a room.

Lahisha Marquez-Soto is a patient inside MLK Community Hospital. Eight days into her stay, doctors knew she needed to go to another hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

Marquez-Soto was at the mercy of a haphazard process that plays out through phone calls and faxes, as smaller hospitals try to find help for patients who need medical procedures that those hospitals cannot provide.

Hospitals are generally required under federal law to accept transfer patients suffering from medical emergencies if the facilities have space and capability; but federal officials said that does not obligate them to accept those like Marquez-Soto, who have already been admitted to a hospital. Hospital employees armed with phone lists often need to call, and call, and call until they can secure a spot. One MLK staffer likened it to throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it sticks.

"This is a mess right now."

Dr. Michael Gertz, president-elect of the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians

Delays in transfers can put people at higher risk of complications and derail day-to-day life for patients. Hospital officials from around the state say that transferring patients has generally gotten harder as many health facilities struggle with staffing, which cramps hospital capacity to accept transfers. Some said that in Southern California, demand for ambulances is also exacerbating delays.

"The general public has no idea of what it takes to transfer a patient," said Dr. Ferdinand Panoussi, medical director of Horizon Multicare, which provides hospitalist services for Antelope Valley Medical Center in Lancaster. "They think that it's just as easy as picking up the phone."

At Antelope Valley Medical Center, some patients who need to be transferred have grown so tired of waiting that they have decided to leave against medical advice, hoping to show up and get in through the emergency department at another facility, Panoussi said.

Ernesto Chavez, a patient at MLK Community Hospital, is transferred to Keck Hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

"This is a mess right now," even for emergency patients, said Dr. Michael Gertz, president-elect of the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He also works at Antelope Valley Medical Center. Even if another facility accepts an emergency patient, "we're often holding that patient for 12 to 24 hours until we can actually get an ambulance that is willing to take them."

Gertz said the state does not collect data on such delays in transfers, making it difficult to quantify the problem. MLK hospital officials said their data show that over roughly a year, patients admitted to the hospital had an average wait of more than three days after their transfer had been requested  and that average waits have been longer for those covered by Medi-Cal, the California Medicaid program.

Marquez-Soto, who has Medi-Cal coverage, said she had held off on going to MLK because she expected to end up waiting. In fall, she waited to be transferred to another hospital for the same kind of procedure, but it took so long that she was discharged and told to follow up for an appointment.

She hadn't gotten that procedure before the pain sent her back to the hospital.

"It makes me feel very helpless," said Dr. Maita Kuvhenguhwa, who treated Marquez-Soto at MLK. "Even when we're doing our best and putting in a ton of work, if the patient can't get to where they need to go, then we're not helping them."

::

Elena Padilla, left, speaks with Dr. Jason Prasso inside the intensive-care unit at MLK Community Hospital. Elena's brother needs to be transferred to a different facility for a medical procedure. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

Decades ago, federal lawmakers passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act to prevent emergency rooms from refusing to treat uninsured patients or "dumping" them on other hospitals. The law requires emergency rooms to treat people who come in suffering from a medical emergency.

If a transfer is medically appropriate, it also requires hospitals to accept people with emergency conditions from another hospital if they have space and specialized capabilities to help those patients, as long as the transfer is medically appropriate. But nothing in federal lawrequires a hospital to accept a transfer patient who has been admitted to another hospital as an inpatient, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Every day a little bit of my heart is chipped.

La Shaunta Harris, manager of emergency department care management and transitional care at MLK

When patients need a medical procedure that their hospital does not offer, but are not in an emergency state, there's not a whole lot of guidelines to direct hospitals in terms of how to manage those transfer requests," said Dr. Stephanie K. Mueller, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The process "is in no way systematically thought out," and bias can creep in when clear standards are lacking, said Dr. Evan Shannon, an assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He and Mueller found in one study that Black patients were less likely to be transferred out of hospitals than white patients, as measured among Medicare inpatients with medical conditions that typically benefit from transfer.

Another study found that once they were admitted to the hospital, uninsured patients were less likely to be transferred out than those with private insurance. Insurance coverage can decide where a patient goes or slow the process, community hospital officials told University of Michigan researchers.

Nurse Sophea Soth, right, keeps an eye on patient Ernesto Chavez as EMTs wheel him down the hall at MLK Community Hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

La Shaunta Harris, manager of emergency department care management and transitional care at MLK, said that as she tried to transfer an inpatient, one hospital told her that theres only so much charity we have." That hits her especially hard because she is from this community, she said.

Every day, Harris said, a little bit of my heart is chipped.

Under federal law, nothing prohibits hospitals from turning down an inpatient transfer because of the insurance coverage of the patient, a CMS spokesperson said. The problem spilled into public view during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Wall Street Journal obtained emails indicating that some California hospitals refused or delayed accepting COVID patients from overrun hospitals because of their insurance status.

Doctors said some patients suffered lung damage and other complications because of delays, the newspaper reported.

The back-and-forth over relocating patients usually happens out of public view, but the emails became publicbecause California had hired a contractor to help relieve the pressure on overwhelmed hospitals earlier in the pandemic. The California Emergency Medical Services Authority also steps in to help transfer patients during disasters such as wildfires when hospitals must be evacuated, but does not get involved with transfers on a day-to-day basis.

Many hospital systems have set up their own centers to manage requests to transfer patients into their facilities, including the hospitals run by Los Angeles County.Some hospitals have agreements with others about accepting patients. But there is no central clearinghouse to check every nearby hospital for suitable beds.

Gertz argued that COVID-19 "was a crisis, but now we're in a permanent crisis. There's going to have to be a government intervention."

::

At MLK Community Hospital, Lourdes Beltran strategized before her computer monitor, trying to figure out how to free Marquez-Soto from her misery. She pulled out a weathered piece of paper from a folder  a printed list of phone numbers jotted with handwritten notes  and dialed.

Lahisha Marquez-Soto begins to cry as she lies in a hospital bed at MLK Community Hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

Good afternoon. My name is Lourdes. I'm one of the case managers here at Martin Luther King Community Hospital, she said when someone answered at a medical center, explaining that she was following up on a transfer request.

She listened, her pencil hovering over a printed summary of the case, as someone at the medical center explained they were still awaiting paperwork. After she hung up, she dialed up the health plan to ask if it could push things along. Were still trying to move that patient," Beltran told them.

Beltran glanced at the row of names on her screen, many tagged with a red bar labeled Exceeded because they had stayed longer than expected. The health plan said it already sent the needed paperwork, so she dialed the medical center again. It had taken nearly half an hour, she said, to get a "non-answer.

I want to cry and scream, but I have to put up with it.

Ernesto Chavez, MLK patient

Beltran then turned her attention to Ernesto Chavez, a 65-year-old man who had arrived at the hospital more than a week earlier after enduring many days of vomiting. He had lost 10 pounds in two weeks, he told them.

The problem was a giant obstruction in his small intestine, but we cant do anything about it here, said Dr. Tiffany Maggi-Maidinetti. We dont have the surgical specialists to remove or biopsy it safely.

If it turned out to be cancer, Maggi-Maidinetti worried, a holdup could delay the care he needed. And if the thing inside him grew, she feared it could damage his intestine.

It had been three days since MLK issued a transfer order, and Beltran had no luck. She dialed another number and punched in digits on an automated menu before someone picked up and she rattled off his medical details. Then came the question of health insurance: Chavez was in the process of getting Medi-Cal coverage.

Ernesto Chavez, 65, is in a considerable amount of pain as he waits to be transferred to a different hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

Chavez is in a considerable amount of pain, hospitals are generally required under federal law to accept transfer patients suffering from medical emergencies. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

In a dimly lit room, Chavez lay with an arm draped over his forehead, grimacing with pain. He strained to speak, his throat painfully dry. The patient, who had been working as a carpenter, had spent days at home, unable to eat or drink anything without vomiting, before his co-workers took him to the emergency room.

I want to cry and scream, he said faintly in Spanish from his hospital bed. But I have to put up with it.

One week later,Beltran said Chavez had been approved for Medi-Cal and another hospital had agreed to accept him. But they were still waiting on an available bed. So Chavez remained in limbo. Doctors at MLK were trying to quell his pain and nausea, keep him hydrated, and stave off any complications or infections from the tubes threading his body, including one snaking from his nasal passages to his stomach to clear out bile.

Were at a standstill, basically, Maggi-Maidinetti said.

That evening, Chavez was finally transferred. Chavez, reached weeks later, said he had undergone an operation there and that he was finally able to eat and drink again without vomiting.

Before he was transferred, "I felt desperate," he said.

::

Transferring patients has long preoccupied smaller community hospitals because their patients may need medical interventions that they do not offer themselves. But getting patients where they need to be has become a concern for hospitals of all kinds as they grapple with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Elena Padilla visits her brother Juan Carlos Flores Esquivel at MLK Community Hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

People have returned to hospitals after years of delaying care, but a staffing crunch has limited the number of beds available, hospital officials say.Medical centers have lamented that because nursing facilities are also short on staff, hospitals cannot discharge patients who no longer need a hospital bed but still need nursing care. That ties up beds in the hospital, gumming up the usual flow of patients from the emergency department into inpatient beds.

UC Davis Medical Center said it accepted more than 7,600 transfer requests in a little over a year  but turned down more than 9,900 due to limited capacity. And it too is struggling to move patients to other, less specialized hospitals once they can be safely cared for elsewhere.

"We run over 100% occupancy essentially every day of the week," said Dr. J. Douglas Kirk, chief medical officer. "We absolutely have to get those patients out of the hospital because we have to produce that bed for the next patient who needs it."

And "moving Medi-Cal patients typically is more sluggish than the commercially insured patients," Kirk said.

Statewide data on median lengths of hospital stays show that Medi-Cal inpatients spent one day longer before transferring to another hospital, compared with transfer patients who have private insurance. At MLK, the average wait for a transfer was more than 50% longer for Medi-Cal inpatients than those with other coverage, according to figures provided by hospital officials.

Ambulance availability can also delay transfers, hospital officials said. Antelope Valley Medical Center Chief Executive Edward Mirzabegian said he has grown so frustrated with the waits that he is trying to create an ambulance company dedicated to his facility at an annual cost of more than $2 million. The Los Angeles County Ambulance Assn. faulted low reimbursements for ambulance providers to transport Medi-Cal patients,especially those not suffering a medical emergency.

"Very few people are willing to accept reimbursement rates that low, so there's a limited pool of contractors that serve this patient population," association president Chad Druten said. Last fall, American Medical Response said it would stop providing nonemergency transport in Los Angeles County, blaming low rates under Medi-Cal.

In January, MLK hospital officials were so worried about how long one patient had lingered there that the chief executive, Dr. Elaine Batchlor, got on the phone herself to try to find him a bed at another hospital. Because of its small size, MLK doesn't offer cardiothoracic surgery, which physicians feared he needed.

"I'm doing my best, but I can't do any more than what I can do here."

Dr. Eriko Masuda, an infectious disease physician at MLK

As he waited for a transfer, "he just sat here and sat here," growing sicker and more lethargic, said Dr. Eriko Masuda, an infectious disease physician at MLK.

The man was suffering from a bacterial infection that his blood was ferrying throughout his body, showering the infection to his brain and elsewhere, Masuda said. As the weeks passed, the man suffered kidney failure and needed dialysis. His family members asked Masuda when he could leave. She had no answer.

"I'm doing my best, but I can't do any more than what I can do here," Masuda recounted.

Batchlor called physicians together to figure out what else they could do to help him transfer, and staff worked to upgrade his insurance coverage. Three weeks after MLK started trying to transfer him, the patient was finally taken to another medical center for heart surgery, and he survived.

Others in L.A. County have not been as lucky: Gertz wrote that in one case, a 45-year-old man who suffered a sudden, agonizing headache had been taken by his family to a San Gabriel hospital, where he was diagnosed with a ruptured aneurysm.

Because the hospital did not offer neurosurgery, it hustled to transfer him elsewhere, but arranging for transportation took so long that the man ended up in a vegetative state and was taken off life support, Gertz wrote to a Los Angeles County supervisor.

"Had the family taken him to the other hospital," Gertz wrote, "he would have likely survived."

Marquez-Soto was transferred to UCLA one month after MLK started trying to move her. There, she said, she was told her pancreas was too inflamed to move forward with the procedure that would have examined her digestive tract.

But doctors there spotted a rash and ended up diagnosing Marquez-Soto with a rare inflammatory disease that could be treated with an infusion of antibodies, she said. Finally, she started feeling better.

Times staff writers Sandhya Kambhampati and Hanna Sender contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Ranked voting

In a recent opinion piece, Chris Cargill criticized Reclaim Idahos initiative for open primaries and ranked voting, asserting that it would create confusion and uneven voter influence. However, he did not attempt to counter the numerous benefits this system offers, including those that apply to Idahos Republican constituents.

Open primaries create an opportunity for moderate Republican candidates to attract support from independents and Democrats who lean toward centrists rather than far-right contenders. This broad coalition can lead to primary outcomes that better represent the interests of all Idahoans, fostering a more inclusive political landscape.

Ranked voting, on the other hand, empowers moderate Republicans to vote according to their convictions without inadvertently benefiting the Democratic contender. For example, in 2016, some Republicans reluctantly voted for Trump to avoid a Clinton victory. Ranked voting allows voters to list their preferences, ensuring that their vote will still count even if their top choice doesnt win. By embracing Reclaim Idahos initiative for open primaries and ranked voting, Idaho can foster a political environment that values diverse perspectives and unites citizens under a common goal: selecting leaders who best represent the whole state. Ultimately, this approach embodies the true spirit of democracy.

Matt Youngberg, Fruitland

Vallow trial

I wish to publicly express my deepest thanks to the 12 Ada County jurors who rendered six guilty verdicts in the Lori Vallow trial. Eighteen fellow citizens had the monumental task over six long weeks of listening to 60 witnesses testimony and viewing hundreds of pieces of often gruesome evidence, revealing the most horrific crime details imaginable, so that they could ultimately offer the families of JJ Vallow, Tylee Ryan and Tammy Daybell the justice prayed for, yet delayed, for 3.5 years. Also, I applaud all of the highly professional police officers, investigators, detectives, medical examiners, relentless sleuthing reporters, FBI special agents, prosecutors, bailiffs, Judge Steven Boyce and his courtroom staff. They spent thousands of hours pursuing justice for JJ and Tylee and deserve our collective gratitude. The verdict should keep this child murderer, conspirator and thief off our streets for the rest of her life.

Melanie Johnson, Eagle

Maternal mortality

To my horror, I have learned this Mothers Day that the state lawmakers that you and I put in office will cancel the Idaho Maternal Mortality Review Committee. This committee has recently told us that maternal deaths in Idaho have doubled in two years and the trend line is going up. All of the deaths without exception could have been prevented by better care, but Idahos unclear and severe laws regarding maternal care are forcing OB-GYNs to move to other states: more than 50% say they are planning to leave, and those in other states say they will not come to Idaho.

Rural Idaho especially cannot spare these doctors. More than a third of Idahos maternal deaths, according to the committees findings, are from Canyon County and surrounding areas.

If Idaho state lawmakers are declaring war on Idaho mothers, especially in our smaller towns, their message is loud and clear. We need to vote them out of office. If they are telling the truth about caring for our families, Idaho will immediately reinstate the Maternal Mortality Review Committee and increase funding and support for the coming wave of unintended pregnancies, often among our most vulnerable citizens. Make no mistake.

Pei-Lin Yu, Boise

Mayor security

Police officers swear to protect and serve.

Mike Masterson (a former police chief) and challenger in the upcoming mayors race, claims Lauren McLeans security detail is selfish. Should Masterson win the mayors race and choose to have a security detail, it is unimaginable that McLean would call him selfish for doing so. She is smarter than that.

Any public officer, woman or man, who has been threatened and whose family has been threatened should not be criticized for having a security detail.

Mary Feeny, Boise
A Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) high-profile trade delegation will explore investment opportunities in India and discuss potential areas for mutual cooperation.

Organised by the Sharjah Exports Development Centre (SEDC), Abdullah Sultan Al Owais, Chairman of the SCCI, will be leading the mission, which will leave for India on May 29.

Other officials joining the delegation include Waleed Abdul Rahman Bukhatir, Second Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, SCCI; Ahmed Mohamed Obaid Al Naboodah, Board Member, SCCI; and Abdulaziz Mohammed Shattaf, Assistant Director-General of the Communication and Business Sector at the Chamber; as well as a contingent of leading manufacturers and traders from the emirate.

Business forums

The mission, scheduled to run until June 2, will visit Mumbai and New Delhi, setting up business forums and arranging meetings with Indian business communities to explore investment opportunities and foster joint economic partnerships.

While attending these forums and meetings, the SEDC delegation will highlight the benefits and opportunities of investing in Sharjah, detailing the incentives and facilities available to foreign companies wishing to establish businesses in the emirate.

Moreover, the delegation will encourage the Indian business community to invest in sectors that align with Sharjah's economic vision, thus supporting its drive towards sustainable development across various sectors.

Bolstering exports

The trade mission reflects the chamber's commitment to serving the business community, augmenting their operations, and bolstering the export of industrial and commercial facilities within the emirate of Sharjah.

It comes at a time when UAE-India bilateral relations are experiencing a period of significant growth in various economic fields.

This upswing has been catalysed by the signing of numerous agreements and memoranda of understanding over the past few years, culminating in the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between the two countries.

CEPA has facilitated a surge in trade exchange, eased trade restrictions, and amplified the flow of goods and services between the UAE and India. It has also activated primary export sectors and boosted industrial production in key areas.-- TradeArabia News Service
The single pillar has always been shown as the boon of the worlds largest party

Whether anyone likes it or not, the fact is that the BJP is a single-pillar structure. The new BJP has been built on the shoulders of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Hence, it follows that he is bigger than the party. The organisation is an instrument for him to gain power. And the power belongs to him as he has built the party. Simple and clear.

The single pillar has always been shown as the boon of the worlds largest party. Mr Modi is like the mythological Atlas or Hercules holding up the heavens. Those who question the PM are almost always portrayed as the enemies of the nation.

It flows from this logic that what the PM says in Parliament is gospel. Nothing less. The disqualification of Rahul Gandhi was set in motion as he was incessant in asking awkward questions, and therefore had to pay for his blasphemy. Theres nothing wrong with that, so the faithful feel.

As a political commentator put it aptly, Mr Modis strategy is of eloquence on certain issues and silence in some others. It has so far paid off handsomely. He had put this to good use by turning into a Mauni Baba on issues uncomfortable to him, or on which he wants these to resolve themselves to his advantage.

Being the single pillar of the worlds largest party, Mr Modi is accorded kid glove treatment in most of the media, especially the electronic media, given the governments influence. India has further slipped in the world press freedom index. The media knows the government has a lot of clout due to its resources and knows it disciplines those who dont behave as per its expectations.

However, the Karnataka campaign showed that the PM, hailed by his followers as the greatest communicator of our time, is increasingly becoming hollow and, as a result, failed to deliver.

Alarm bells must be ringing in the ruling party over the failure of its star campaigner to leave a decisive mark despite spending days in the southern state and doing several roadshows. The Bajrang Bali and Bajrang Dal references were atrocious, which showed that a desperate leader was willing to go to any extent to win the election.

What compounded matters further for the BJP was the robust resistance to its campaign by local leaders like Siddaramaiah and D.K. Shivakumar who batted effectively. Things may become difficult for the BJP in states where the Congress has strong local leaders.

The Adani issue has made an impact on the credibility of the PM. While his government has stonewalled any debate in Parliament on the alleged mega-scam by the business group, and the media too is not pursuing it diligently, the message has gone that Mr Modi and his governmnet have much to hide.

The Congress emphasis on bread-and-butter issues in the campaign, against the BJPs Bajrang Bali focus, led to loss of face for the ruling side.

The lesson for the BJP from the debacle in Karnataka is shocking. If it failed to work on the ground and did not show results, the high-profile campaigning will not take off. More important than that is the realisation that if the Prime Minister has nothing new to offer and nothing new to say, he too will not be able to lift a campaign. Ek Modi sab par bhari will remain a myth.

The BJPs Waterloo in Karnataka has changed things a lot. The supreme leader was shown to have feet of clay. This is unthinkable for all those brought up on the fable of Mr Modis invincibility.

In fact, the Karnataka polls were a Modi versus Rahul contest, in which Mr Modi lost and Mr Rahul Gandhi won.

This is bound to stir the pot. The mellowing voices in the Opposition on the issue of unity is a grudging admission that the Congress has to be given a prime place if stiff resistance is to be offered to the Modi-led BJP. As the Modi government enters its crucial tenth year and the Lok Sabha polls are just over 10 months away, the threats are growing by the day. It is no more smooth sailing for the BJP, as the waters are becoming choppy, and the winds have started blowing violently.

It is being revealed that while Mr Modi campaigned in 47 Karnataka seats, the BJP could succeed in only 15. The BJP has in the past used such occasions to ridicule Rahul Gandhis leadership by keeping up-to-date statistics of his campaign and the result. It is now on mute mode.

The blunting of the effect of its best campaigner will bother the BJP no end. Unless and until remedial measures are taken to bring a better narrative, the ruling party will continue to feel beleaguered. After nine years of Mr Modi in power, the Opposition has suddenly tested the waters. Things are not going to be the same again.

Mr Modi without the magic masala is a flop for the BJP. The ruling party will remain in denial, but its defeat in Karnataka is due to Mr Modis defeat. He is undoubtedly the biggest asset the BJP has.

That Karnataka is haunting the BJP is evident from the voices coming out of the poll-bound states. The discomfort is indicated by MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's statement that Karnataka-Farnataka is not going to have any impact here because this is Madhya Pradesh.

There is a growing realisation that the BJP will have to fight every inch in the coming Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana. The Lok Sabha polls too will not be a cakewalk.

The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi
The appeal for the 800,000 people affected by the cyclone on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, after the Pentecost Mass presided at St. Peter's Basilica. The invitation to the faithful: "Docile to the Spirit let us build harmony in the world and in the Church." "Today there is so much discord, so much division, so many wars, fruit of the spirit of division. Let us invoke the Spirit of unity that brings peace."

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Let us put the Holy Spirit back at the center of the Church, otherwise our hearts will not be burned by love for Jesus, but by love for ourselves." This was Pope Francis invitaton in his homily on the Solemnity of Pentecost, celebrated today by the pontiff presiding at Mass in St. Peter's Square. It was an invitation accompanied by a heartfelt appeal - made during the Regina Caeli prayer, said at noon from the window of his study - for the populations living on the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, affected by Cyclone Mocha.

"There are more than 800,000 people, in addition to the many Rohingia who are already living in precarious conditions," the pope said. "As I renew to these populations my closeness, I appeal to those in charge to facilitate the access of humanitarian aid. And I appeal to the sense of human solidarity and ecclesial solidarity to come to the aid of these brothers and sisters of ours."

Reflecting on the mystery of the Holy Spirit descending on the Apostles, Francis invited us to recognize his action as the bearer of harmony in God's created world, in the Church and in our hearts. From the very beginning this face of God is in fact at work in a very special way. The Spirit," the pope explained, "is the One who, at the beginning and at all times, brings created realities from disorder to order, from dispersion to cohesion, from confusion to harmony. He gives the world, in a word, harmony. He renews the earth, but be careful: not by changing reality, but by harmonizing it; this is His style."

"Today in the world there is so much discord, so much division," he commented. "We are all connected and yet we find ourselves disconnected from each other, anesthetized by indifference and oppressed by loneliness. So many wars, so many conflicts: it seems incredible the evil that man can do. But, in reality, feeding our hostilities is the spirit of division, the devil, whose name means precisely 'divider.'" In the face of the evil of discord, our efforts to build harmony are not enough. This is why the Lord "at the culmination of his Passover, at the culmination of salvation, pours out on the created world his good Spirit, the Holy Spirit, who opposes the spirit of division because he is harmony, the Spirit of unity who brings peace. Let us invoke him daily upon our world," Francis urged.

But this same action also takes place in the Church: the Spirit does not initiate it "by giving instructions and norms to the community, but by descending on each Apostle: each one receives particular graces and different charisms. All this plurality of different gifts could cause confusion, but the Spirit, as in creation, precisely from plurality loves to create harmony. "It is not an imposed and homologated order," "it does not create an equal language for all, it does not erase differences, cultures, but harmonizes everything without homogenizing, without unifying." The Spirit "does not begin with a structured plan, as we would, who often then scatter in our own agendas; no, He begins by bestowing free and superabundant gifts. He creates harmony thus, inviting us to experience awe at his love and gifts present in others. To see each brother and sister in faith as part of the same body to which I belong: this is the harmonious gaze of the Spirit, the path He shows us."

This is also the path of the ongoing Synod, which is "not a parliament to claim rights and needs according to the world's agenda, not an opportunity to go where the wind leads, but an opportunity to be docile to the breath of the Spirit." Without the Spirit "the Church is inert, faith is only a doctrine, morality only a duty, pastoral care only a job. With Him, on the other hand, faith is life, the love of the Lord conquers us and hope is reborn." And the Spirit loves to descend while "all are together" (cf. Acts 2:1): "The people of God, in order to be filled with the Spirit, must walk together, make synod," Francis commented. "This is how harmony is renewed in the Church: by walking together with the Spirit at the center. We build harmony in the Church."

Finally, the Spirit makes harmony in our hearts. He is given to us "for a specific purpose: to forgive sins, that is, to reconcile souls, to harmonize hearts torn by evil, shattered by wounds, broken up by guilt. Only the Spirit puts harmony back into the heart. If we want harmony," the pope admonished, "let us seek Him, not worldly fillers. Let us invoke the Holy Spirit every day, begin each day by praying to Him, become docile to Him."

Hence the invitation to ask, "Am I docile to the harmony of the Spirit? Or do I pursue my own plans, my own ideas without letting Him shape me, without letting Him change me? Am I hasty in judging, pointing fingers and slamming doors in the faces of others, deeming myself a victim of everyone and everything? Or do I welcome His harmonious creative power, the 'grace of the whole' that He inspires, His forgiveness that gives peace? And do I in turn forgive, promote reconciliation and create communion?"

"If the world is divided, if the Church becomes polarized, if the heart becomes fragmented," Francis concluded, "let us not waste time criticizing others and getting angry with ourselves, but let us call upon the Spirit. Come Spirit of forgiveness, harmony of the heart, transform us as You know, through Mary."
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Samsung Galaxy S22 owners claim Android Auto is finally working correctly on their devices, more than a year after the connection issue was first reported to Google.Launched in early 2022, Samsung Galaxy S22 was, at that point, the best Android device on the market. As a high-end model with a price tag exceeding $1,000, Galaxy S22 Ultra was supposed to deliver the full feature package from the very beginning.Unfortunately, many buyers rapidly figured out the hard way that running Android Auto on this high-end device wasn't possible, as for some reason, the app failed to detect the connection between the mobile device and the head unit.The bug has been around ever since, despite several attempts at fixing it. Google and Samsung rolled out multiple patches, but even so, Android Auto still failed to work on a Galaxy S22.I know what you're thinking. "But but Android Auto has always worked fine on my Samsung Galaxy S22." The first thing you must know is that the glitch did not impact all devices. In fact, this was the confusing part of the problem, as Samsung and Google had a hard time figuring out who was affected and why.The updates released in the last 12 months somehow improved the experience but failed to resolve the bug completely. Some Galaxy S22 owners still struggled with intermittent issues, eventually being unable to make the most of their Android Auto-compatible head units.The final fix reportedly landed with the release of Android Auto 9.6 , the version now rolling out to users in stages. Google ships the update in stages through the Google Play Store, so it could take a while until everybody gets it.If you, too, have a Samsung Galaxy S22 and don't want to wait to get this highly anticipated update (which makes perfect sense given you've been waiting for this fix for more than a year), you can update Android Auto manually. To do this, you must download the stand-alone APK installer for version 9.6 and then manually update the application on your device.Neither Samsung nor Google confirmed the latest Android Auto update fixes this bug, so I reached out to both companies for additional information on this front. In the meantime, however, I'm seeing confirmation from Galaxy S22 owners that everything is indeed working properly after installing app version 9.6.Unfortunately, the patch isn't yet ported to Samsung Galaxy S23. The latest-generation Galaxy S23 is also struggling with Android Auto, with the connection to the head unit also broken down, so it remains to be seen if a new big fix is coming or not.
Photo: YouTube/@Dennis Collins

Photo: YouTube/@Dennis Collins

Photo: YouTube/@Dennis Collins

Photo: YouTube/@Dennis Collins

The styling turnaround of the sporty Chevy Corvette was welcomed with unanimous ovations from the gearheading community, which had many reasons to appreciate the new Corvette. The most notable exterior modification was the welcomed addition of a solid permanent roof.The first-generation Corvette was an excellent convertible, but it only offered cloth as the sole protection from the elements. A removable hardtop was available, and that had the fame of being a particularly annoying challenge to put on or take off.Secondly, the headlights were no longer visible not when they werent needed. The designers scraped the mainstream fashion of fiddling with the arrangement of the front lights across the fascia. Instead, General Motors reintroduced rotating housings, thus ending the twenty-year period of American carmaking during which cars had their headlamps in the open.The solution proved so popular that Chevrolet only abandoned the idea after four decades when the C6 was launched in 2005. Another feature  this time a one-year fashion  was the split-window choice for the speedboat tail. It was the single most criticized feature of the C2 Corvette at the time, and GM never brought it back.That decision turned the 1963 models into Holy Grails for collectors, particularly as the years passed. Chevrolet even offered single-piece rear window kits to customers who wanted to give their 1963 Corvette a cosmetic surgery. This only adds to the cars value-over-time ascending curve, because there are now even fewer surviving original two-window Corvettes.While the exterior changes were enticing, the interior was even more appealing, with contoured bucket seats, air conditioning, and a radio. The overall build quality also sharply increased, effectively putting the C2 alongside or above its European rivals.However, for the go-fast community that appreciated the Corvette for its sports slice of the sportscar description, things went over the top in 1963. Improvements to the chassis, suspension, and drivetrain made the 63 Vette, a serious contender against the Shelby Cobra.One engine size was available, the 327 cubic-inch V8 (5.4 liters), but the small-block came in four different states of tune, ranging from a tamed 250-hp (253 PS) and 350 lb-ft (475 Nm) of torque to the fuel-injected 360-hp (365 PS) / 352 lb-ft (477 Nm) athlete. Two more choices were available  both with carburetion fuel systems  that delivered 300 and 340 hp (304 and 345 PS) and 360 and 344 lb-ft (488 and 466 Nm), respectively.Also, fully independent suspension made its Corvette debut in 1963, with rear brakes mounted inboard to reduce unsprung weight. Three transmissions were available, the Muncie three-speed and four-speed manual (which came in either wide- or close-ratio setups) and the three-speed Powerglide automatic.Not many customers opted for the latter  out of the 21,513 produced; some 18,000 had the manual option ordered. You can probably see where this is going  the go-fast drivetrain was the most popular choice for obvious speed reasons.And one of those mean machines from 1963 was no stranger to dragstrips. After it attended the 1967 NHRA Nationals, its owner sold it to a high-school graduate in 1968 (thats one helluva graduation present!). The new young owner continued the racing tradition, improving the car in several minor aspects.For example (and drag racing ), he swapped the 327 with a 427 big-block and shod the split-window with wrinkle-wall slicks. Thats right; the seven-liter ogre was the meteoric L88 build sheet option, the volcano that would get the front end off the ground when launched correctly. Thats what the owner claims  the same man that bought this Corvette 55 years ago.I cant describe how a long-term owner decides to part ways with such an American icon, but Dennis Collins, the relentless classics collector, had the luck of buying it. Not saving it because the automobile is impeccable  an object of a worship-level restoration that puts the car to its factory-correct specs.Sadly, the L88 is no longer under the hood  but the bulging hood is still around, just as the flexible race slicks. The five-and-a-half-decade-long owner added his personal touch  a glass door knob now adorns the shifter, and a modern-day Bluetooth and USB sound system sits in the glove box.Or should I say occupies the glove box because there is no more room for anything else? Regardless, the car runs and drives just as great as it looks. The black livery  also a changeover from the factory-original Tan  is probably the greatest choice for this model year. The original engine is not present  and we dont know if it was replaced before the 1968 change of hands  but a date-correct 327 roars in the engine bay.The seller says the 63 Corvettes werent classics when he bought it fifty-five years ago, but the Sting Ray immediately impacted the market. When the then-new model came out, the first-generation Corvettes increased in value to such an extent that top-tier 1953-to-1962 models surpassed their original sale price.
After his childhood dream of becoming a "tractor operator" didn't pan out, Cristian turned to journalism, first in print and later moving to online media. His top interests are electric vehicles and new energy solutions.

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Most carmakers have already confirmed plans to continue offering Android Auto and CarPlay in their vehicles, and now BYD joins the fun by enabling Google's system in the Atto 3 as well.A new update now rolling out in New Zealand and Australia enables Android Auto  sure enough, this took some time, as the feature was announced more than a year ago; obviously, it's better late than never, but customers have almost lost faith waiting for the update.However, the new OTA update version 1.5 includes "the installation of Android Auto" (in BYD's own words), with customers in New Zealand getting it as we speak.In the meantime, Android Auto keeps growing bigger , and Google's statistics suggest the trend will continue in the remainder of the year. By the end of 2023, Google expects Android Auto to become available in over 200 million vehicles.This doesnt mean Android Auto is Google's superstar, though. The Mountain View-based search giant is also trying to conquer the car world with Android Automotive. Compared to Android Auto, Android Automotive is a fully featured operating system that powers the infotainment capabilities in the cabin.It does not require a mobile device to run, and thanks to Google services integration, it offers more advanced capabilities, such as Google Maps automatically looking for charging stations when the battery range drops below a certain level.The transition to Android Automotive convinced General Motors to embrace a rather controversial strategy. Beginning with the 2024 Blazer, the company will no longer offer Android Auto and CarPlay in its vehicles. All zero-emission models will run on Android Automotive, whereas mobile phone projection will be blocked While many believe this approach gives General Motors more control over the infotainment system, eventually allowing the company to monetize all features more efficiently, the company says its main focus is to provide customers with an upgraded experience. Eventually, all new GM models would follow in Blazer's footsteps, as General Motors wants to transition to electric vehicles exclusively by 2035.In the meantime, Android Auto has become a must-have feature in new cars, with recent research revealing it's available in 98 percent of the models currently on sale. As such, BYD's decision to finally enable Android Auto in the Atto 3 makes perfect sense, especially now that GM's controversial decision keeps making the headlines.The new BYD update also includes enhancements to the multimedia system, as well as additional fixes for Apple CarPlay. The update, according to BYD, will take close to an hour.
Photo: Rosoboronexport

Photo: Russian State Media

This is the story of the United Aircraft Corporation, Russia's aeronautical Frankenstein. Safe to say, it took a handful of certified communist classic moments in history for this chimera of a Russian super-corporation to exist at all. We've all heard the story of Mikhail Gorbachev yelling the words "Glasnost" and "Perestroika" at the top of his lungs, the Berlin Wall fell, and the red flag above the Kremlin descended for the final time on Christmas Eve, 1991. We need not rehash the story for the umpteenth time. What it all meant for the Russian aviation sector was simple, unmitigated, and utter chaos.For all their innumerable humanitarian transgressions, the Soviets managed to field some of the most skilled and ambitious aerospace firms in the world in the seven decades it managed to stick around. From World War II and the Cold War through the dying days in Afghanistan. Though the tactics and leadership were shoddy at times, the Soviets employed their state-asset design bureaus, essentially the Soviet answer to Western private aerospace companies, to great effect.Design bureaus like Mikoyan-Gurevich, Sukhoi, Ilyushin, Yakovlev, and Tupolev, are just a handful of names familiar to Western aviation admirers among a proverbial sea of Soviet-state assets that contributed to the wider monolithic Soviet aerospace sector. When 47 years of economic and cultural stagnation after World War II finally caught up to the Soviet megastate and the you-know-what hit the fan in late 1991, aviation, both military and civilian, took a major hit just like everything else.In truth, this major hit to Russia's aviation sector was more like a devastating catastrophe of an affair. Because record-keeping in post-Soviet Russia was as effective as Boris Yeltsin after a night drinking with Bill Clinton, it's hard to judge exactly how many airplanes Russian design bureaus built after the wall fell. But it's thought that by the year 1998, the total number of aircraft built by Russian firms was little more than 50 airframes total. While aerospace sectors in nearby Eastern European nations like Ukraine and Romania flourished after the fall of communism thanks to the Antonov and Aerostar companies, respectively, it made Russian state assets look very poor.By the year 2000, it's believed Russia manufactured four meager civilian aircraft in the largest nation by landmass in the world. What Russia required to get things back on track, at least in the mind of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, was an even larger degree of control and standardization over the design bureaus within Russian borders. Essentially, it was risky leaving Russian design bureaus to design and manufacture aircraft on their own in the early 2000s. But a state-owned megacorporation in charge of building all design bureau's aircraft might have a better chance to run smoothly in the seemingly endless free-fall post-communism.To clarify, great contractions in the number of aerospace manufacturers in a single nation are nothing novel. Both the British and the Americans, at times, have consolidated several aerospace firms into one or more larger companies. Most famously, the firm British Aerospace merged three major UK-based aerospace firms, Hawker Siddeley, Scottish Aviation, and British Aircraft Corporation, into a hybrid state and private corporation with a bespoke chairman and CEO. In 1981, the British government returned British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) into fully private hands.Meanwhile, four major American aviation firms merged to form two of the largest aerospace manufacturers in the world from 1994 to 1995, creating Northrop Grumman out of Northrop Aviation and Grumman Aerospace, and Lockheed Martin out of Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta. These mergers had varying levels of government oversight ranging from direct ownership, as was the case with British Aerospace, or just your typical federal megacompany merger paperwork in the case of the Americans.But an all-encompassing state asset company in control of manufacturing an entire nation's domestic fleet of aircraft would be a different beast entirely. The first attempt by Russia to create such a company resulted in the creation of the VPK-MAPO (Military Industrial Complex  Moscow Aircraft Production Association), which consolidated the MAPO factory that built the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik with the Mikoyan group famous for building the MiG line of jet fighters, among a few other companies.Ultimately, this venture failed. But seemingly on a whim on February 20th, 2006, Boris Yeltin's successor Vladimir Putin signed into law an act merging shares of the Tupolev, Yakovlev, Ilyushin, Irkut, Mikoyan, and Sukhoi design bureaus under the existing Rostec state-corporation. With a single signature, it was hoped that Putin had set Russia back on the path toward status as an aerospace superpower. Before long, UAC was manufacturing civilian airliners from the Tupolev and Ilyushin design bureaus like the Tu-154 and Il-96 at a respectable rate compared to the start of the decade.Through UAC acquisitions of Mikoyan and Sukhoi, the Russian Federation now had the nation's two foremost fighter jet manufacturers under the same roof. With that kind of hardware under a shared umbrella, it wasn't long before the Sukhoi Su-35 and Mikoyan MiG-35, the follow-ups to the Su-27 and the MiG-29, respectively, made their way into front-line service.Under UAC, the company accounts for maintaining every domestic bomber, fighter, cargo plane, or airliner native to the Russian Federation, as well as conducts foreign collaborations with nations like India and China, with the latter of the two having remanufactured a great number of Russian warbirds for their own Air Force. Through the Sukhoi Su-57 "Felon" and Su-75 "Checkmate" programs, the United Aircraft Corporation also plans to bring the Russian Aerospace Forces into the fifth generation of jet fighters. It's a fleet that, sadly, isn't being used in an even slightly ethical manner in Ukraine.In spite of building a fielding a mighty fleet of warbirds, UACs struggled to field a sizeable fleet of gen-IV fighters. To date, only 21 Su-57s have been manufactured, compared to 187 Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors, while the Su-75 isn't scheduled to make its first flight until 2024. At least at a glance, it appears that UAC hasn't yet succeeded in bringing the Russian Aerospace Forces up to the standards of NATO Air Forces. When put in the context of the Ukrainian invasion, it paints UAC, and the Russian government that founded it, in a very negative light.
28 May 2023 08:30 (UTC+04:00)

Qabil Ashirov Read more

The Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan which was founded in 1918 was a beacon of hope for the Muslim world, as it was the first to introduce democratic principles and practices.

Failures in the front in WWI resulted in tumults and civil war in Czar Russia led to the collapse of the Empire. In succession of this event, the Azerbaijani delegation led by Mahammad Amin Rasulzade declared the independence of Azerbaijan in Tbilisi on May 28, 1918, and they named the country as the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic (ADR).

However, the civil war in the Empire affected the newly created republic. ADR was filled with armed gangs formed by the soldiers returning from the front, and the country was divided by political factions. Baku, the only industrial city of then-Azerbaijan, was under the occupation of the Bolsheviks, and the south of Azerbaijan was under the occupation of the White Movement.

However, non of these difficulties deterred the government and they commenced to work. First, they liberated Baku with the help of Turkish Army and made it the capital city in September 1918. Then they de-occupied the South of Azerbaijan from whites in August 1919. Later, collaborating with both Communists and Whites, Armenians in Karabakh revolted in March-April 1920, and ADR was forced to send most of the newly created army made up of 30,000 servicemen to Garabagh. It would weaken Azerbaijans resistance against the danger coming from the North. Besides, following the pace of Armenians, local Azerbaijani Bolsheviks collaborated with Bolsheviks and circulated anti-ADR propaganda. Since most of the officers in the ADR's army were Turkish, the creation of the Turkiye Republic headed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk which also would stand with the Bolsheviks was the last straw in the struggle of life for ADR. So when Soviet Russia attacked ADR in April 1920, Azerbaijan could not fight because the Army was in Garabagh fighting with Armenian rebels and the half of remaining servicemen together with Turkish officers supported Bolsheviks. Against the backdrop of these events, the Russian Bolsheviks invaded Baku in seven hours.

Despite ADR lived for two years, it was managed to do reforms that paved the way for a bright future not only for Azerbaijanis but also for other Muslim nations suffering the burden of backwardness. First up, ADR was one of the first countries in the world that granted universal suffrage to its citizens. It should be recalled that ADR also went ahead of even European countries in turn of granting universal suffrage. From its inception, ADR started fighting the illiteracy that was widespread at that time, especially in the East. It established public schools, promoted literacy, and encouraged parents to send their children to schools. In education policy, ADR paid special attention to the education of females. In addition, it opened the first Western-like University in the East which is called the Azerbaijan State University.

However, the most important heritage of ADR was the will of independence that Soviet Russia could not suffocate over 70 years. As a result, in 1991, Azerbaijan re-gained its independence for the second time. We should note that the political and economic circumstances in the first days of the second republic looked like the previous one - Armenia attacked Azerbaijan to invade Garabagh, factions were fighting with each other in the country, and the country was at the edge of the abyss.

During that tumultuous days, Haydar Aliyev heard the cries of the nation and came to the rescue. In a short time, he signed a ceasefire with Armenia to stop the war. Following the ceasefire, he strangulated the fights between factions, and at last, stability came to the country. He signed contracts with big oil companies, and as a result, the GDP of Azerbaijan increased dramatically in a short period of time. Unfortunately, Heydar Aliyev died in the 12th year of Azerbaijans independence. However, his political heritage was continued by his son, Ilham Aliyev. During Ilham Aliyevs government, the strength and power of Azerbaijan increased further. Today Azerbaijan is considered as an economic hub in the South Caucasus region.

The lands of Azerbaijan, which were under Armenian occupation for 30 years, overshadowed the independence of the country. The economy was developing only unilaterally. Thanks to the efforts and indomitable will of the victorious Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev and our glorious army, independent Azerbaijan finally said its word in the 44-day war. The freedom of the occupied lands of the motherland removed the dark shadow over the country's independence. Today, Azerbaijan is laying the foundation stone of a new life in the liberated lands of Karabakh. President Ilham Aliyev's recent visits to Karabakh and construction works there are a proof of all this. Today, Azerbaijan really breathes freely and comfortably as a completely independent state. Azerbaijan is exhibiting a clear example of independence to the whole world.

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Eldaniz Babayev's solo exhibition "News of Victory" has opened at Baku Museum Center.

The exhibition was timed to the 105th anniversary of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic and the 100th anniversary of the National Leader Heydar Aliyev, Azernews reports.

A minute of silence was honored in memory of the National Leader Heydar Aliyev. The national anthems of Azerbaijan and Turkiye were played as part of the event

Next, the guests of the exhibition watched a video, prepared on the basis of photographs taken during the meetings of the National Leader Heydar Aliyev with Azerbaijani artists.

Many prominent public and cultural figures attended the opening ceremony, including the Turkish Ambassador to Azerbaijan Cahit Bagchi, who stressed that the Turkish-Azerbaijani relations are built on fraternal relations.

The ambassador noted that the exhibition included art works dedicated to Azerbaijan's victory in the 44-day Patriotic War. He outlined that the portraits of Turkish poets were included both in the exhibition and a book-catalog "Eldaniz Babayev. News of the Victory''.

Cahit Bagchi congratulated Eldaniz Babayev on the opening of his solo exposition and expressed his hope that the artist's paintings would be demonstrated in Turkiye in the future.

In his speech, secretary of the Azerbaijan Artists' Union People's Artist Aghaali Ibrahimov noted that the exposition featured beautiful still lifes, portraits, which reflect the culture and history of the two fraternal peoples.

"Through his art, Eldaniz Babayev has expressed his deep love for the motherland, its culture and history, as well as strong fraternal ties between Azerbaijan and Turkiye in his works," he added.

Director of the Yeni Gallery Baku Art Center Rafael Gulmammadli said that he and Eldaniz Babayev have been friends for many years.

"Eldaniz Babayev is well known as a successful gallery owner, a figure involved in the promotion of Azerbaijani fine arts. Through the exhibition his artistic talent has been shown to the general public. Eldaniz Babayev is a person in love with art, working for the benefit of Azerbaijani culture. I wish him creative success," said Rafael Gulmammadli.

Vice-rector of the Azerbaijan State Academy of Arts, People's Artist, Professor Fuad Salayev said that the opening of a solo exhibition is an important stage for the artist.

"For each artist, the presentation of his art works to the general public is of particular importance. As a result, the artist has a chance to express his thoughts, feelings, experiences and show his inner world," he said.

A book-catalog "Eldaniz Babayev. News of the Victory'' (author Mirza Talibov) was also presented as part of the event.

The publication reflects the life and work of the artist, as well as his social and educational activities. Well-known journalist Ian Piert, who translated the book into English, spoke in details about the publication.

The Ensemble of Ancient Musical Instruments delighted the attendees with its performance. The artistic director of the ensemble isPeople's Artist Munis Sharifov.

Eldaniz Babayev expressed his gratitude to the organizers and participants of the event, inviting them to get acquainted with the art works included in the exposition.

The exhibition covered different periods of the artist's work and includes 17 paintings and graphic works - portraits, still lifes, landscapes, historical and genre paintings, which demonstrate Azerbaijan's victory in the 44-day Patriotic War, brotherly and friendly relations between Azerbaijan and Turkiye, as well as culture, traditions and customs of the Azerbaijani people.

The central place in the exhibition was occupied by graphic portraits of outstanding Azerbaijani and Turkish poets, cultural figures, whose work reflects the ideas of freedom and independence of the two fraternal peoples.

The exhibition was held with the support of the Culture Ministry, Baku Main Department of Culture, Ataturk Center in Azerbaijan, Baku Museum Center, the Azerbaijan State Museum of Musical Culture, Azerbaijan Artists' Union, Baku Art Center, Khatai Art Center and Baku Art Gallery.

Note that Eldaniz Babayev was born in 1971 in the village of Boladi, Lankaran. He graduated from Azim Azimzade State Art School and the Faculty of Painting at Azerbaijan State University of Arts.

In 1989-1991 worked as an artist at the Azerbaijan State Museum of Musical Culture.

In 1998-2006, he acted as a director of the Gala Art Gallery of the Baku Main Department of Culture.

Since 2006, he is a director of the Baku Art Gallery. Eldaniz Babayev is a laureate of national and international awards.

Media partners of the event are Azernews.Az,Trend.Az, Day.Az, Milli.Az.

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28 May 2023 10:05 (UTC+04:00)

Dash Veysalli village of Jabrayil district is located in Gayan desert, Minbasyli administrative territorial unit. The main occupation of the population was animal husbandry.

The village was occupied by Armenian armed forces in 1993. During the occupation, Armenian vandals destroyed the village and turned it into a ruin.

On October 20, 2020, the brave Azerbaijani Army, which dealt a crushing blow to the enemy in the Patriotic War, liberated the village from occupation.

Azernews presents photos of the village of Dash Veysalli, which was subjected to Armenian vandalism during the occupation, with reference to Azertag.

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28 May 2023 12:37 (UTC+04:00)

The liberation of Lachin and the timing of our meeting here today also have a symbolic meaning. In May, Lachin was occupied, and the people of Lachin have returned to Lachin also in May  true, after 31 years, but we are back, said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as he met with Lachin natives.

In April 1993, Kalbajar was occupied as a result of the treachery of the forces that were aspiring to power and had already seized it. In April, we fully restored our territorial integrity by establishing a border checkpoint on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border in the direction of Lachin. So there is a link between these dates, the President underlined.

Note that Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev has made trips to Azerbaijan's Lachin and Kalbajar districts for several groundbreaking ceremonies.

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28 May 2023 13:07 (UTC+04:00)

Over the last 30 years and since the establishment of diplomatic relations, Azerbaijan and France have established strong relations based on the partnership in the fields of economy, university and education, said President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron in his letter of congratulation to President Ilham Aliyev on the occasion of the Azerbaijans national holiday - the Independence Day.

The visit of the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna to Baku on April 26-27 has enabled us to see common wish to develop bilateral relations, and it makes me satisfied. This allowed us to recall Frances commitment for the just and lasting peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which is essential for the stability and prosperity of the entire region.

I am glad to meet you again at the second meeting of European Political Community in Chisinau on June 1, which will allow us to continue our mutual exchange on challenges encountered by Caucasus and our continent. I express my hope that this summit, just like the meetings in Prague, will enable us to support the talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Emmanuel Macron added.

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28 May 2023 14:18 (UTC+04:00)

The border checkpoint established on the border on April 23 should be a lesson for the Armenians living in the Karabakh region today, said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as he met with Lachin natives.

Unfortunately, they are still relying on someone, thinking that someone will save them in the future, someone will fight a war with Azerbaijan in the future. This is all nonsense. During the second Karabakh war, we showed a strong determination, and if no-one ventured to intervene at that time, who will come and fight against us for the Armenians after we regained all these lands? the President added.

Note that Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev has made trips to Azerbaijan's Lachin and Kalbajar districts for several groundbreaking ceremonies.

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28 May 2023 15:15 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijani President has addressed Armenian minorities living in Karabakh as he met with Lachin natives.

I am telling Armenians living in Karabakh region again from here, from the land of Lachin which they had been exploiting for many years and were engaged in illegal settlement, that their book is closed. The book Miatsum is closed, the book of separatism is closed. The dream of independence follows the path of the status. As for the status, we sent it to where it belongs during the second Karabakh war.

Azerbaijani President has also called them to live in peace and harmony under Azerbaijani law giving up the old and false ideas.

Therefore, there is only one option left  to obey the laws of Azerbaijan, be a loyal and normal citizen of Azerbaijan, throw the false state attributes in the trash, and dissolve the parliament, the President added.

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28 May 2023 22:22 (UTC+04:00)

President of the State of Israel, Isaac Herzog has sent a congratulatory letter to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on the occasion of May 28 - Independence Day, Azernews reports.

The letters reads:

His Excellency Mr. Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

Your Excellency,

On behalf of the State of Israel and its citizens, please accept my warmest wishes on the occasion of Azerbaijan's Independence Day.

Modern Azerbaijan, under your wise leadership, has become a powerful, prosperous country, a pillar of stability and an example of successful economic development for the entire region.

This year we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries.

The strategic alliance and partnership between Israel and Azerbaijan have been growing stronger over the years and is based on mutual respect and trust between our countries and peoples.

I was delighted with your wise decision to open the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the State of Israel. The opening of the embassy took place exactly in the year when the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of your father, the great National Leader of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, who laid the foundations of friendship and strategic partnership between our two countries.

I have heard a lot about your beautiful country, about the history and culture, about the poetry of Nizami Ganjavi, about the nature and memories of Azerbaijan, about the warmth and hospitality of your people. Therefore, my wife Michal and I, look forward to visit to your beautiful country and meeting Your Excellency and your wife, First Lady of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva.

Once again, on this day of the national holiday of Azerbaijan, please accept my heartfelt congratulations. Taking this opportunity, I wish you, Mr. President, good health, and prosperity and well-being to the people of Azerbaijan!

Yours sincerely,

Isaac Herzog

President of the State of Israel

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28 May 2023 10:22 (UTC+04:00)

Millions of voters started heading to the polls in Turkiye as the countrys first-ever presidential runoff election began Sunday at 8 a.m. local time (0500GMT), Azernews reports, citing foreign media.

More than 64.1 million people are registered to vote, including over 1.92 million who already cast their ballots at overseas polling stations.

A total of 191,885 ballot boxes have been set up for voters in the country.

Voters will choose between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is seeking reelection, and main opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Overseas voting was held until May 24. As for customs gates, voters will be able to cast their ballots until domestic polling stations close at 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Sunday.

Millions of voters went to the polls on May 14 to elect the country's president and members of its 600-seat parliament.

Erdogans Peoples Alliance won a majority against the opposition's six-party Nation alliance in parliament.

But the presidential race will be decided in Sundays runoff since no candidate could get the required 50% in the first round, though Erdogan was in the lead.

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28 May 2023 12:07 (UTC+04:00)

Most recently, China-Central Asia Summit was held in Xian during which the Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech. Xi pinpointed numerous X-factors for achieving the desired goals of greater regional connectivity, immense socio-economic integration and eradication of terrorism in the region. It seems that Xian, the city of human wisdom, hub of business & commerce, connecting point of multiculturalism and starting point of trans-regional commerce and connectivity injects multilateral clean stream while Hiroshima dumps political sewage. Xian, China, receives presidents from five Central Asian countries, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan which vividly reflects diversification of the Chinese foreign policy in depth of its economic diplomacy.

Xian, the starting point of the ancient Silk Road, witnessed the ancient route shine with new vitality during the successful holding of the high-level China-Central Asia Summit. Xian remained an ancient capital of 13 dynasties in China and also the starting point of the ancient Silk Road that went through Central Asia to Europe. Over 2,100 years ago, Chinese envoy Zhang Qian was twice sent to Central Asia on mission of peace and friendship. The Silk Road spirit has become a great heritage of human civilization which has been reconstructed in the city of Xian. In this regard he rightly suggested promotion and implementation of the holistic policies of Community with Shared Future, Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilizational Initiative for achieving the desired goals of regional peace, stability and harmony between China and six countries of Central Asia.

Interestingly, Xi and Xian stand for greater regional peace, progress, prosperity, positivity and participation which would further amalgamate spirit of mutual cooperation, coordination and collaboration between both the sides in the days to come in terms of immense socio-economic integration, health and tourism cooperation, human development and last but not the least industrial cooperation enabling all the participating countries to successfully transform their states, societies and systems inching towards smart living and smart economies in the future. The salient feature of Xi speech was to further strengthen the concept of China-Central Asia community with shared future. Rightly he suggested simple but very effective winning formula comprising deepening strategic mutual trust, maintaining clear and strong support for each other about respective sovereignty, independence, national dignity and long-term development.

Moreover, he rightly emphasized on the formation of common development strategies between two sides depends upon the further strengthening of meaningful participation in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) along with promotion of the implementation of the Global Development Initiative. He also called for joint and sincere efforts to fully unleash cooperation potential in traditional areas such as trade, industrial capacity, energy and transportation, and to foster new growth drivers in areas such as finance, agriculture, poverty reduction, low carbon, health, and digital innovation. In this connection, his stressing on the need of forming global security system through jointly implementation of the Global Security Initiative (GSI) is the only way forward. Strong resolve against external influence, geopolitical games, geostrategic manipulations to scheme & stage colour revolutions should be dealt with zero-tolerance stance against the three forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism is the right policy, with right time and with right direction.

To conclude, true spirit and implementation of the newly announced GCI would be carried out to further strengthen good governance, multiculturalism, ethnic diversity and interfaith dialogue between China and the six countries of the Central Asia Region. Interestingly, currently 17 railway routes connect Xian with Central Asian countries and many other Asian and European destinations, with more than 1,100 train trips made in the first quarter of the year. Chinese strong resolve about trade facilitation, upgrading of bilateral investment agreements with Central Asian countries along with overhauling of the cross-border freight volume with Central Asian countries and building of green channel fast clearance of agricultural and sideline products at all border ports between China and Central Asian countries would have far reaching socio-economic and geopolitical consequences.

The Chinese Presidents strong commitment to support the construction of a cross-Caspian Sea international transport corridor and the construction of transportation hubs of China-Europe freight train services will definitely further promote and upgrade capacity of existing ports between China and Central Asian countries. From fully loaded trains to humming production lines and natural gas pipelines, vigorous cooperation has resulted in common development and promoted peoples well-being of all the five countries of the Central Asian region. According to official data, trade volume between China and Central Asia in 2022 hit a historic high of $70.2 billion, up by over 140 times since diplomatic ties were established about three decades ago. Chinas General Administration of Customs published saying that Chinas import and export volume with Central Asian countries amounted to 173.05 billion yuan ($24.8 billion) in the first four months, an increase of 37.3 per cent compared with same period last year.

Moreover, Chinas export and import volume with the five Central Asian countries reached a combined 50.27 billion yuan in April alone, exceeding 50 billion yuan for the first time, marking a new step in trade volume. For the first four months, China imported energy products, such as coal, crude oil and natural gas, worth of 32.45 billion yuan from the five Central Asian countries, accounting for 55 per cent of the total volume. Green is the way forward along with energy diversification, and cooperation between China and Central Asian countries would be game changer. Formation of green energy corridor would be value addition between both sides in the days to come. For the further strengthening of business and economic cooperation China will encourage competitive businesses to build overseas warehouses in Central Asian countries which will further accelerate the bilateral and trilateral business cooperation.

Moreover, Chinese readiness to assist Central Asian countries improving their law enforcement, security and defence capability construction along with reduction of poverty through science and technology would further streamline composition of bilateral ties under the flagship project of the BRI. Last but not the least, the Xi resolution to encourage Chinese-funded businesses in Central Asia to create more local jobs, health care facilities and launching of special train service designed to promote cultural tourism with Central Asia would foster spirit of global civilizational initiative between China and Central Asian countries.

The writer is Executive Director, Centre for South Asia & International Studies, Islamabad, regional expert China, BRI & CPEC & senior analyst, world affairs, Pakistan Observer.

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28 May 2023 14:43 (UTC+04:00)

Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cast his vote in the country's runoff election on Sunday, Azernews reports, citing Turkish media.

This is the first presidential runoff in Turkiyes democratic history, Erdogan told reporters after casting his vote in Istanbul's Uskudar district.

Erdogan urged all citizens to cast their votes adding voter turnout was close to 90% in the May 14 elections, a rare trend globally.

Voting began at 8 a.m. local time (0500GMT).

More than 64.1 million people are expected to vote in the runoff, including over 1.92 million overseas voters who already cast their ballots and 4.9 million first-time voters.

A total of 191,885 ballot boxes have been set up for voters in the country.

Voters will choose between Erdogan, who is seeking reelection, and the main opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Overseas voting was held until May 24. As for customs gates, voters will be able to cast their ballots until domestic polling stations close at 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT) on Sunday.

Millions of voters went to the polls on May 14 to elect the country's president and members of its 600-seat parliament.

Erdogans Peoples Alliance won a majority against the opposition's six-party Nation alliance in parliament.

But the presidential race will be decided in Sundays runoff since no candidate could get the required 50% in the first round, although Erdogan was in the lead with 49.52%.

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28 May 2023 19:21 (UTC+04:00)

Turkiyes 85 million-strong citizens will be the winners in Sundays presidential runoff, vowed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the eve of the election, Azernews reports, citing Yeni Shafak.

"All who have confidence in the national will, have a dream for our country and feel they belong to these lands will be a winner in the May 28 elections, Erdogan said at his last rally in Istanbul on Saturday ahead of the polls.

"Those who, despite all the provocations, do not cast a shadow over the polls, do not ignore the rule of law or legitimacy, and who believe in the changing power of civil politics will be counted as the victors in these elections no matter the results," he added.

Turkiye is heading to a runoff vote on Sunday to elect the president after no candidate reached the 50% threshold in the first round two weeks ago.

On May 14 Erdogan's People's Alliance won a majority in parliament, while the presidential race headed to a runoff as no candidate won a simple majority, or more than 50%. Erdogan, however, led with 49.52%.

In the runoff, Erdogan will face Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and joint candidate for the six-party opposition Nation Alliance.

"We will win in such a way that all of Turkiye with its 85 million individuals will win. Our nation with all its colors will win, and our democracy, for which we paid a great price, will win.

"Regardless of which political party they fall in love with, all voters who show their will through legitimate means will win," Erdogan said.

Erdogan said he believes that people who voted for opposition parties on May 14 such as the CHP, Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and Good Party (IYI Party) will switch to the People's Alliance on Sunday.

"We will invite them too, they are the children of this nation. I hope we will walk together," he added.

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28 May 2023 21:43 (UTC+04:00)

Expanding their global outreach, Turkish drone makers have signed new agreements at the ongoing national defense fair in Malaysia.

Both Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) and TITRA have signed new agreements for the export of unmanned aerial vehicles and helicopters.

TAI Deputy Chairman Omer Cihad Vardan told Anadolu that it has signed an agreement with the Malaysian Air Force to export three ANKA systems.

The sale is worth $100 million, he added.

Meanwhile, TITRA, a Turkish defense and aviation company, and Malaysian Aerodyne Groups under a new agreement will collaborate for tech transfer and sales.

Our new agreement is initially focused on the Malaysian market. However, this strategic cooperation will later expand to global markets, Davut Yilmaz, the CEO of TITRA, told Anadolu.

Several Turkish defense firms are participating in the Langkawi International Maritime and Aviation Exhibition (LIMA 2023), which will run through the weekend.

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28 May 2023 22:21 (UTC+04:00)

At least three people were killed and nine others injured during overnight Russian strikes in various regions of Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said.

The 14th air attack on the capital since the beginning of May! Today, the enemy decided to congratulate the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said in a statement on Telegram.

Popko claimed 40 Russian drones were destroyed by air defense systems, according to preliminary information, further saying that one person died and one was hospitalized due to falling debris from a drone in Kyivs Holosiivskyi district.

Popko further said that a fire also broke out at a warehouse in the same district in an area of 1,000 square meters, injuring one person.

Elsewhere, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram that one person was killed and three others were injured due to Russian strikes in the past day.

Two people were injured in Kurakhovo, and a private house was damaged  In the Horlivka direction, one person died in Kostiantynivka, Kyrylenko said.

Meanwhile, Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram that two people were killed and three were injured in the region.

In the village of Shepuvate, a 61-year-old woman was unfortunately killed and a 60-year-old man was also injured as a result of shelling in Kupiansk district, Synyehubov said.

Synyehubov further said a 60-year-old man was killed as a result of shelling in the settlement of Dvorichna, and that two others were injured in the villages of Fyholivka and Tsyrkuny, respectively.

Also, one person was injured in the Kherson region, the regions governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram, adding that 119 people were evacuated from the region over the past day.

The Russia-Ukraine war, now in its 15th month, has killed 8,895 civilians and wounded 15,117, according to the latest UN figures.

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The world's largest floating book fair will be docking in Manama, Bahrain from Wednesday, June 7th, to Sunday, June 18th, bringing with it a collection of more than 5,000 titles.

The floating book fair is open from 4-11 pm, with last entry at 10 pm.

From there, it will go to Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman.

The books offered during the fair span a number of genres both for children and adults, including science, sports, arts, medicine, dictionaries, languages, and many more.

The entrance fee is 0.500 fils, while children under 12 enter for free.

Logos Hope accepts payment in Bahraini dinars, euros, or US dollars, in cash, Visa or Mastercard credit card.

Prior to Bahrain, the seafaring exhibition was in Abu Dhabi, UAE, from Thursday, May 18th, until Sunday, June 4th.

It has now visited over 150 countries and territories, and welcomes an average of a million customers every year.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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How your government works: Getting your hands on a city claim is harder than it used to be
Lincoln City's 'Exploriences' Dig Into Oregon Coast Outdoors In New Ways

Published 05/13/23 at 10:54 PM

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Lincoln City, Oregon)  Finding the deeper layers of an Oregon coast experience is not something everyone thinks about  but they should. In that vein comes Explore Lincoln City's Exploriences program. This multi-sided set of events brings you a variety of new ways to engage in the beach, and includes tidepools, crabbing, hiking, bird watching, and heading out into the bay and actually clamming. This series is free, gives you an expert to guide you through these discoveries and it's hands-on. (Photos Oregon Coast Beach Connection)

Exploriences continues its various categories through into the winter.

Stephanie Hull, Event and Outreach Coordinator of Explore Lincoln City, said the outdoor fun is not only led by experts but they specialize in knowledge of this part of the Oregon coast especially. It's sure to make memories, she said.

The beachcombing adventures just finished up in April. More are ongoing right now or coming up this year.

Tide Pools Exploriences: Through July 6. Tidepools are a timeless attraction along the Oregon coast. Here, experts from the nationally-recognized Hatfield Marine Science Center and CoastWatch take you around the action-packed NW 15th St. access where they help you identify marine life, such as anemones, urchins, sea stars and a whole new world of other colorful critters. Each Tide Pool Explorience takes about an hour. There is no registration needed. You should, however, bring rubber boots, gloves, rain jacket and sunscreen. https://www.explorelincolncity.com/events/exploriences/tide-pool-exploriences/

Crabbing Exploriences: June 3 through September 16. One of the Oregon coast's most beloved activities is crabbing, and here you get quite the tutorial before heading out into Siletz Bay. Experts give you an overview of crabbing regulations, ID'ing them, harvest methods, and cleaning and cooking them. Participants are allowed up to three devices. For Siletz Bay, organizers recommend folding crab traps. The program is free and registration is not required. Crabbing Exploriences last approximately one to two hours. Check the website for available dates: https://www.explorelincolncity.com/events/exploriences/crabbing-exploriences/





Clamming Exploriences: Through July 21. For this one, you head to Siletz Bay at low tide guided by a local expert. There, you get a wide overview on clamming regulations on the Oregon coast, methods of harvest, identification, and cleaning and cooking techniques. Armed with expert information, participants dig into the hunt and see how many clams they can dig up. Each clammer is allowed a limit of 72 Purple Varnish clams to take home. Clamming Exploriences last approximately one to two hours. This program is free and registration is not required. https://www.explorelincolncity.com/events/exploriences/clamming-exploriences/

Birdwatching Exploriences run from July through December. Explore Lincoln City is proud to partner with the Audubon Society and Lincoln City Parks & Recreation to offer free Bird Watching Exploriences. This adventure starts with a brief overview with local experts and is followed by a guided walk at a variety of locations in and around Lincoln City. Participants will witness an abundance of wildlife, such as egrets, osprey and pelicans, along with countless other majestic creatures. Bird Watching Exploriences begin at 9 a.m. and last for two hours. This program is free and registration is not required. Locations for each date are listed online. Those interested in attending are encouraged to check the website for available dates: https://www.explorelincolncity.com/events/exploriences/bird-watching-exploriences/

Hiking Exploriences: August 11 through October 21. Join Lincoln City Parks & Recreation for an adventure through local open spaces. Lace-up those hiking boots for a guided tour of some of the best trails in Lincoln City. From sweeping ocean views to lakeside forests, you'll be amazed at what you can find right in the heart of the city. Check out all of their unique Hiking Trails to find out which hikes are right for you. This program is free and registration is not required. Those interested in attending are encouraged to check the website for available dates: https://www.explorelincolncity.com/events/exploriences/hiking-exploriences/

Lincoln City Explorers Club

Upon completing each Lincoln City Explorience, participants will receive a token or secret code for our mobile passport. With five tokens (representing beachcombing, tide pools, crabbing, clamming and birdwatching) or secret codes for the mobile passport from one of their local experts, visitors should stop by the Visitor Information Center or Explore Lincoln City offices to sign up for the Explorers Club. Each club member will receive a membership card, an exclusive hand-crafted glass coin. This coin is not only a collector's item, it also unlocks a number of excellent club benefits. Club members will be entered into ongoing monthly drawings for prizes, including glass floats, Lincoln City swag, gift certificates to local businesses and overnight packages. Members will continue to be entered into drawings each month. Once per year, Explore Lincoln City will give away a special grand prize, a vacation getaway to Lincoln City.

For more information about the Exploriences and other programs, visit https://www.explorelincolncity.com/events/exploriences/.

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Recreational Crabbing Back Open On South Oregon Coast - All of Coast Now Open

Published 05/15/23 at 5:22 AM

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Winchester Bay, Oregon)  As of late last week, recreational crabbing is back open along the entire Oregon coast, after being shut down for a time between Winchester Bay and Cape Blanco. Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) and (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) made the announcement, saying all bays, estuaries and the ocean can once again continue the crustacean-gathering fun. (Above: Coos Bay, courtesy Oregon's Adventure Coast)

The shut-down on May 1 was due to high levels of domoic acid, taking place from eight miles north of (43 47' at Tahkenitch Creek) to Cape Blanco (42 50'). That included hotspots such as Bandon, Charleston and Coos Bay.

Test samples are done every two weeks, dependent on Oregon coast tides and conditions. To reopen an area requires two consecutive clear samples. Recent results showed the naturally-occurring biotoxin below the alert level.

Domoic acid is produced by algae and originates in the ocean, ODFW said.

Shutting down recreational crabbing is to prevent people getting sick from the marine toxin. Domoic acid is an increasingly problematic occurrence along the Oregon coast. The exact same area from Winchester Bay down through Cape Blanco was shut down to recreational crabbing late last year as well.

Still, ODFW said you should take some precautions.

It is recommended that recreational crab harvesters always eviscerate crab before cooking, ODFW said. This includes removing and discarding the viscera, internal organs and gills.

Always call ODA's shellfish biotoxin safety hotline at (800)448-2474 or visit their webpage before crabbing to get the latest information on closures - at this link.

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Two Rescues, One Death on Oregon Coast - Beach Arson Investigated

Published 05/14/23 at 6:22 AM

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Cannon Beach, Oregon)  Tragedy marred the busy weekend on the Oregon coast as a group of four teens ran into trouble in the ocean in front of Cannon Beach, resulting in one death. Another man had to be rescued near town after he and his dog fell onto a precarious spot, and a large brush fire in Lincoln City is being looked at as suspicious. (Photos Oregon Coast Beach Connection: above, Ecola State Park)

On Friday, May 12, crews from the Cannon Beach Fire District and Seaside Fire and Rescue's Surf Rescue Team to the Tolovana area in the southern end of town, receiving a report of a group who were swimming in the ocean just south of the main access and could no longer be seen. Cannon Beach Police Department arrived, and together the various teams discovered there had been four individuals in the ocean. Two of them were still out in the water and two were now on land.

A rescue swimmer from Cannon Beach Fire entered the water and soon found one of the victims, bringing that individual to back to shore. They were quickly transported to a hospital by MEDIX ambulance.

By this time, rescuers were joined by Seaside Fire, Nehalem Bay Fire and the U.S. Coast Guard. On the beach, there were a total of 11 personnel including three with jet skis.

All assisted in helping search for the last victim for another hour but were unable to find them. The U.S. Coast Guard continued searching until dark. Any searches are now considered a recovery operation.

On Saturday, crews from both towns responded to another emergency call, this time to a trail at Indian Beach in Ecola State Park. Approximately 12:10 p.m., crews were dispatched to find a man and his dog that had fallen off a trail cliff. Personnel talked to the man's girlfriend and received details from her, including that they had been walking on the trail coming out of the parking lot at Ecola. Rescuers arrived at the location and discovered the man and his dog were uninjured, but they had fallen 75 feet down a steep embankment.

Utilizing a rope rescue system, two responders were sent down the hillside to bring the man and his dog back up.

Officials from both Oregon coast towns said the drowning incident is a stern reminder to beware of Pacific Ocean currents and deadly rip tides. The latter can take someone out within seconds.

Although ambient air and ocean water temperatures are becoming warmer, the water is still cold and can rapidly decrease a swimmer's ability, Cannon Beach Fire said in a statement.



Above: an example of a yellow number marker

If you see someone distressed in the water, officials said you should immediately call 911. Note the yellow-colored number sign nearest you. Those are markers at each beach access along the Oregon coast which allow emergency responders to find the area quickly.

Both towns' emergency personnel also said you should observe state park regulations while on trails and keep dogs on a leash.

Keep hold of small children for their safety, they said.

Watch out for steep cliffs and rough terrain, and do not cross fences and barriers as these are there for your safety.

Remember that trail edges can be fragile and cause hikers to lose footing, officials said.



Photo Lincoln City Fire Depatment

Down on the central Oregon coast, a driftwood fire in Lincoln City Saturday caught the hills above it on fire, according to Lincoln City Fire and Rescue. The blaze grew considerably to threaten homes on the bluff, which was in the Taft area. Oregon Department of Forestry was also called in eventually before the fire was contained.

It is being investigated as an arson at this time.

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Now that the public is allowed to know the truth regarding the Hunter Biden Laptop Scandal, after more that 2 1/2 years of deception by the corrupt Corporate Media Kabal, propropagandidats all, and the discredited Deep State, we have NOW learned that the infamous laptop is far less about the Biden Boy's fetish for pornography, narcotics and Russian whores, and far more about Hunter's pivotal role in the Biden Crime Syndicate's selling of deep access to our foreign adversaries, and to what extent it has compromised our national security: What is your opinion about this possible coordinated Treason?

It is imperative that we know the truth of what may be the greatest scandal in our Republic's history, and all aforementioned parties prosecuted for their crimes against the People.

Currently, our Two Tiered Justice System is constructed to protect all Democratic Socialists, their corrupt "Journalist" spokes-sheople, and their Deep State enablers ... so why bother.

It is Donald Trump's fault.
Lynn Deatherage's Letter to the WDN; Not Published as of May 30th, 2023

Publisher's Note: This "Letter to the Editor" to the Washington Daily News was written by Lynn Deatherage, my wife, early on May 22nd, 2023, and promptly sent by email to the proper address, as advertised, that same morning. That email was not returned as the address sent to must have been correct. So far, it has been 6 days, here in the age of quickened information, and Lynn's correspondence with the WDN editor, seeking just public redress, has not been published, and subsequent corrective action has not been taken.



That being the case of such poor purpose by the Washington Daily News, Eastern North Carolina NOW will NOW publish this intended public correspondence as our Journalistic ideals command us to remain abjectly serious about: Freedom of Speech; the consequences of a Free Press; the intended honesty in all journalistic endeavors; and the guaranteed right of informing the People in a manner where only the truth is paramount.



With this First Amendment to Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech, however, comes certain responsibilities; responsibilities that we hold dear at Eastern NC NOW as a major player in the "Public Square."





Lynn Deatherage's Letter to the WDN; Not Published as of May 28th, 2023

In regard to your recent "Sound Off" section in the Washington Daily News, May 20th issue, an anonymous "caller," whose sole objective was to denigrate a duly elected county commissioner, I wondered what the purpose really was here.



It takes zero effort, and no accountability for a so-called "anonymous" entity to make a false accusation, and far longer for honorable people to refute these lies. I am curious, how does this make you feel as the publisher?



In no way does this adhere to the standards listed in your mission statement. Firstly, this isn't "news" and secondly, as mentioned, it is not true. Is not publishing the truth the most important factor in publishing the "news?"



Please feel free, at some point, to do your due diligence as is your journalistic duty to discover the truth, and move forward with integrity. Does not your readership deserve that? In an atmosphere of growing divisions amongst people, how does your "Sound Off" section really help? If anyone should feel humiliated, it should be you for your publication. I welcome and expect your public apology as soon as possible.



Sincerely,



Lynn Deatherage, 252.944.3952


North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has recently made the national media rounds claiming that the current General Assembly is a partisan gerrymander. Does this claim have any merit? The short answer is not at all.The original 2022 maps for state House, Senate, and Congressional maps were challenged under both racial and partisan gerrymandering claims. While a trial court dismissed the racial gerrymandering claims, the state Supreme Court tossed the three maps under a new partisan gerrymandering standard they created. The court then ordered the state legislature to redraw all maps, giving them vague standards to follow. The trial court then appointed three special masters to review the maps submitted by the General Assembly and plaintiffs in the case.House MapThe argument that the remedial House map is a Republican-advantaged gerrymander is the most nonsensical of the claims. The redrawn House map was passed by the vast majority of Democrats in both Chambers, passing 115-5 in the House and 41-3 in the Senate. Of the Seven amendments presented by Democrats, six of them were passed and enrolled into the maps.The three-judge panel, under the advisement of the court-appointed special masters and the 4-3 Democratic majority supreme court, found in favor of these redrawn House maps. Even in Gov. Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein's Amicus brief in the case did not question the redrawn House maps.There is nothing to support the claim that the House maps is a partisan gerrymander in favor of Republicans, but it does have a problem.The remedial House map is 63-57, as measured by the Civitas Partisan Index (CPI) and Dave's Redistricting. While their methodology differs (the CPI utilizes the 2020 Council of State elections, and Dave's uses a composite of 2016 & 2020 statewide election data), their top-line results are the same.The House map used in the 2022 election does fall outside the normal range of expected political leanings, but it does not favor Republicans. The bias of this map is on the opposite end of the spectrum. As seen in Figure 1, the plaintiff's expert witness, Dr. Daniel Magleby, found that the most likely outcome for a House map not drawn under politically neutral criteria is for Democrats to be favored in between 51 and 53 districts out of 120. None of the 1,000 maps Magleby's computer system produced had 57 Democratic-leaning districts.Figure 1: Graph from plaintiff's expert witness Dr. Daniel Magleby indicating the likelihood of partisan makeup of North Carolina House Districts. Graphic source: Page 12 of Magleby's written Testimony in North Carolina League of Conservation Voters v. Hall.The 1,000 maps were created from a composite data set of North Carolina's 2016 and 2020 elections and considered the redistricting requirements created under the Stephenson criteria.The Senate map was received with more opposition from Democrats in the state legislature than its House counterpart. The Senate followed the court's findings regarding mean-median scores, efficiency gap, and the partisan composition of the maps when redrawing the map.Magleby found the most likely outcome of a Senate map drawn using politically neutral criteria was between 21-23 seats out of 50 favoring Democrats. The CPI and Dave's ratings both found that the Senate map used in 2022 had a 28-22 Republican advantage. This is the most likely partisan makeup for a Senate map, according to Dr. Magleby (see Figure 2).Figure 2: Graph from plaintiff's expert witness Dr. Daniel Magleby indicating the likelihood of partisan makeup of North Carolina Senate Districts. Graphic source: Page 17 of Magleby's written Testimony in North Carolina League of Conservation Voters v. Hall.The Senate map aligned with the efficiency gap requirements set by the court and Median-mean calculations. The court established a plus or minus 7% efficiency gap under Common Cause v. Lewis. The Senate map met this requirement with an efficiency gap of -4.24%. The median-mean calculations for the redrawn map came in at -0.008, well within the court's requirements of plus or minus 1% and the most likely outcome in Magleby's findings.Figure 3: Graph of range of median-mean difference scores of North Carolina Senate maps from Dr. Daniel Magleby page 19 with remedial map data superimposed.Like the House map, the remedial Senate map was approved by the Three Judge panel and the special masters. Unlike the House map, it was rejected by the Democratic majority on the state supreme court. The supreme court's findings were inconsistent with the data presented in the trial court. The Senate map faired far better than the House map on efficiency gap, partisan composition, and median-mean difference.Figure 4: Graph range of median-mean difference scores of North Carolina House maps from Dr. Daniel Magleby page 14 with remedial map data superimposed.As shown in Figure 4, the House map is far outside the normal range of median-mean difference in Magleby's set of House maps.Cooper and his allies have attempted to warp the term gerrymandering into anything unfavorable to Democrats. Gerrymandering is creating maps to your advantage. The Senate maps follow the most likely outcome of elections. Arguably the only gerrymander in the state favors Democrats in the House, as it does not align with what we would expect from maps drawn using politically neutral criteria.
By: Hood Richardson

In its simplest form, taxing theory makes a lot of sense. In practice taxes are not fair, cater to special interests and provides far more services and benefits than are required by the taxing theory.

The (primitive) theory is that we need protection from our enemies and thieves. As populations increased, trading and banking required more attention. As populations increased more the spread of disease became a problem. With more population it became apparent that individuals and even corporations could not provide effective and efficient transportation and education systems. Governments have the ability to raise and waste large amounts of money at gunpoint. Companies and Corporations do not.

Society has developed many innovative ways to pay for the things we want governments to provide us with. Transportation taxes are a good example. Users pay tax on fuel. Sales taxes are a way of making sure everyone pays some taxes. The work horses of the tax system is property and income taxes. Counties are run on property and sales taxes. State and federal governments collect income taxes, among others.

Collectively, many people paying small amounts of money generate huge amounts of funds. The various populations elect their representatives to manage and provide public services. These elected people have a fiduciary responsibility to the public. Fiduciary means, those who are elected are supposed to spend and manage the tax money for the benefit of the public. The constitution says general welfare. In their fiduciary capacity, elected officials are not supposed to benefit personally from tax moneys. Theory says tax money is to benefit the safety, health and welfare of the public. The public is all of us, not special interests or special groups, like for example right handed people.

With the above information in mind, we will discuss how well this system works in Beaufort County.

Until about 6 years ago Beaufort County Commissioners performed their fiduciary duties in an open forum with an open board, with each commissioner having access to government operations and the free flow of information without question. Beginning with the elections of Frankie Waters, Ron Buzzeo, and Gary Brinn the operations of the board changed to one in which the privilege of membership within a Board clique provided exclusive insider information. With Republicans Brinn and Buzzeo leaving the board, there was an alliance formed with the Democrats (Langley and Booth) to have a majority. Clique members now are Jerry Langley, Ed Booth, Frankie Waters and John Rebholz. Randy Walker has abandoned the conservatives who elected him and now votes with them on most issues.

There are cliques in all organizations and there always will be. Cliques are acceptable providing they do not do damage the purpose of the organization. This clique has done damage to the premise that elected officials are there to protect the public interest in the spending of their tax money. Our board meetings have evolved into timed performances in which your elected officials come to approve what is presented to them and not to discuss and debate policy. If you watch meetings, you will see that there is very little debate other than to put down anything said by those who are not members of the clique.

The statement was made during the early days of the clique that commissioners would come to vote and not to debate issues. Because of the back room decisions and the setting of policy away from the public, Beaufort County has accumulated a lot of bad decisions and failed to oversee departments and the use of your tax money.

Before the clique, we voted on the purchase of every vehicle separately. Now items like these, along with the numerous trailers are buried in the budget. Take a look at all of the new vehicles in County parking lots. This can be done by visiting County parking lots on weekends.

Somehow, the budget has been manipulated so county employees will get an approximate 8 percent salary increase without a tax increase or an increase in the total budget. I believe we are not buying things this year that will suddenly appear in the budget next year. This happened only because the clique gave their approval out of sight of the public, before the budget was put together. This will be presented to us as a vote for or against it. They already have the votes lined up to pass it.

Beaufort County is collecting large amounts of excess cash. Those of us who are outside the clique have tried to use these surpluses to reduce taxes. With no debate, on the recommendation of staff, 5.6 million dollars was removed from the savings account and placed in a special project fund. There was no advance warning. The issue suddenly came up at a meeting early this year. When the question of what this money would be used for, there was no answer. The request to give a tax reduction this year was voted down very quickly. Handling this money this way makes it appear as though there is no opportunity to reduce taxes. It is off budget spending. It makes it look like spending has not increased.

There is no debate on the school board budget. We simply dump the money and run. Any Beaufort County Commissioner who tells you that he understands how that 15 million is spent is not telling the truth. The belief among the gang of four (Commissioners, Waters, Rebholz, Langley and Booth) is that all department heads know what to buy with their money and all we should approve is the spending. This is a particularly bad situation with two County Commissioners wives on the School Board. How much pillow talk is there on our school budget? What about our fiduciary responsibility? What about that half million dollars for a woke canned math curriculum that was not needed.

Regarding the accused theft of money by the employee of the Town of Chocowinity and County monies that may have been involved, the Board and the Manager took the position that after the money was given to anyone, we have no responsibility or authority to control its use. How does that make you feel about paying taxes?

Watch the budget hearings. You will see that without the comments of myself and Commissioner Deatherage, there is no questioning about the public use of money or Beaufort County policy in protecting the public. It seems like it is all free money, there is so much of it, why care? There are serious faults in the way Beaufort County Government is run.

We are entering a new elections year with the sign up to run in the 2024 elections being during December of 2023, only 6 months away. We desperately need a conservative school board and to break up the clique on the Board of Commissioners. To have a primary that could eliminate two RINOs we need six candidates for commissioner. The school board election is simpler because they run in districts. We need five candidates, one for each district.

If you want to change the way government is run, you need to change the people who are running government.

Good government theory holds that county government should collect and spend taxes on the general welfare. That is, all of the people having equal access to the benefits of the taxes. We need a Board of Commissioners who will follow this principle and not use general taxes to benefit only a select group.
Sky is set to cut hundreds of jobs across the UK

Around 200 workers employed by third-party suppliers in Northern Ireland are to be impacted by cuts being undertaken by the broadcast and telecoms giant Sky, it has been reported.

Sky is set to cut hundreds of jobs across the UK as the company shifts from satellite broadcasting to delivering TV over the internet, the Financial Times reports.

As a result, it is understood that around 200 jobs at Firstsource in Northern Ireland, which carries out work for Sky, are set to go.

The move by Sky follows significant job losses at broadband rivals Vodafone, which recently announced plans to axe around 11,000 job over the next three years. BT also said this month that up to 55,000 - around 42% of its workforce - would be cut by the end of the decade.

The exact number of job losses at Sky will depend on the outcome of talks with unions and employees, who were informed of the restructuring plans this week. Sky employs around 32,000 people in the UK.

It is understood Sky will either redeploy or hire new workers in growing areas of its business, such as film production.

Sky said: In recent years we have revolutionised our TV offering  aggregating all the best apps, giving customers easy access to all the shows they love in one place; then launching our new TV platforms, Sky Glass and Sky Stream, as we shift to IP. These changes are transforming what we offer our customers.

Sky was bought by Comcast for 32bn in 2018 and, since then, has been moving away from satellite TV into other areas like streaming and manufacturing smart TVs.

News of the NI job losses at Firstsource sites in Belfast and Londonderry first emerged on Thursday morning.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood called for an urgent meeting with Firstsource management when he learned of the news.

"News today that Firstsource will begin a redundancy consultation process which will impact workers in Derry is worrying for employees and their families and has caused unwarranted confusion and distress," he said.

"I have been in touch with several employees already who are concerned about their future in the organisation in this challenging economic climate.

Workers in Firstsource ensured the organisation's continued success here in the city for years, and they deserve fair and proper treatment in this process. Any decisions made by management must be taken in the best interests of the staff involved.

I have contacted the management of Firstsource requesting an urgent meeting to discuss their plans and their continued commitment to workers in Derry.

A Firstsource spokesperson said on Thursday that it had started a redundancy consultation process with a number of colleagues at its Belfast and Derry sites.

"The changing priorities of one of our clients, Sky, means they are making proposals to adjust services currently being delivered across both sites, the spokesperson said.

Staff impacted have been informed today and as a responsible employer, we are working closely to support them throughout this process.

"Firstsource remains committed to Northern Ireland at both sites as we continue to deliver a range of services for our outsourcing clients.
Social media is awash with calls for ITV to bring back Ruth and Eamonn to present This Morning in the wake of the Phillip Schofield scandal.

Kerry Katona led the charge last week insisting it is time for change after Phillip sensationally stepped down from presenting duties amid reports of a "feud" with his co-host Holly Willoughby.

The 42-year-old former Atomic Kitten star, who said she has "nothing against" the duo despite her infamous 2008 appearance on the sofa when Phillip accused her of slurring words and later apologised, claimed it's time for both of them to hang up their boots.

"It's not even that I've got an issue with Phil these days, he apologised to me after pointing out I was slurring my words on the show in 2008 and we've got on ever since, Kerry explained before details of the affair emerged.

"It's more that when you're watching the show, you want to believe in their relationship don't you?

"I can't even watch it now because it makes me cringe.

Read more Schofield first met colleague he later had affair with at age 15  reports

Former hosts Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes topped Kerry's list of potential replacements with the former popstar admitting she "loved" them on the flagship daytime show.

"I used to love Eamonn and Ruth on the show, lets get them back," she said.

Kerry Katona. Pic by Hollie Adams/PA.

The campaign is gaining traction online after the 61-year-old ITV veteran resigned from the network after admitting he lied to bosses about an unwise but not illegal affair he had with a younger male.

Many social media users have been calling on ITV execs to bring back Ruth and Eamonn over the past week.

The couple have reportedly had a long-running feud with Phillip over his on-set behaviour.

Eamonn Holmes (63) was sacked by ITV just 10 days after Phillip tearfully came out on the iconic sofa in February 2022.

Read more Eamonn Holmes defiant over explosive Phillip Schofield claims

The Belfast-born presenter has doubled down on his explosive claims around the scandal engulfing ITV and its once biggest star.

He took to Twitter on Friday night to make bombshell claims about senior individuals at ITV who knew exactly what kind of man Phillip was.

The tweets, which have been redacted for legal reasons, said: Schofield has finally been caught out... but hes not the only guilty party.

ITV knew what sort of man he was... and never once took action to prevent him controlling or taking advantage of his position over young people.

Former ITV news journalist Andrea Catherwood, who is also from Belfast, also weighed in on the scandal yesterday, tweeting: A lot more questions about who knew what when at ITV to be answered after this.

It comes as former culture secretary Nadine Dorries piled pressure on Holly Willoughby and called for a probe into complaints made to ITV about the Daily Mail revealed that Phillip met his lover when he was 15.

Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on This Morning

She accused Phillip of bullying and abusing authority, power and trust after the shock confession.

ITV has confirmed it did investigate rumours of the relationship when they surfaced in 2020, but said that Phillip and the young man had repeatedly denied the affair.

Director of television at ITV, Kevin Lygo, has denied that mistakes were made during the network's probe when the question was put to him by Sky News.

Ms Dorries is the latest to speak out against the TV presenter whose 38 year career is in ruins.

She told BBC's Laura Kuenssberg the scandal is not going to disappear.

The fact that Phillip Schofield has made a rather grovelling apology to the Daily Mail in the form of an email, Ms Dorries said.

There seems to be this understanding that that's it now and everything will move on.

"It's not the case I'm afraid.

'What it actually does is opens up more questions as to what happened. We know that there were complaints lodged with ITV over a long period of time.

"What happened to those complaints? I think the editor of the programme Martin Frizell has some questions to answer himself.

Ms Dorries said Phillips co-host for more than a decade also has questions to answer.

'And I'm afraid so does Holly Willoughby, she continued.

"How did that young boy, so young, get a job at ITV. What were the processes involved? What was the safeguarding in place for someone so young at that age? What contact was first made? Who contacted who?'

Asked whether presenters such as Schofield have too much power, Ms Dorries, who has been presenting herself recently, added: There are men, men particularly, who have positions of authority or trust and power, kind of think they are above the law and above those standards that the rest of us are held by and held to.

I think there's absolutely an element of that which takes place.

Recalling her own experience of being on the This Morning sofa, Ms Dorries said she found Phillip to be quite bullying in his attitude towards the co-host who was standing in for Holly Willoughby.

"That made me feel more uncomfortable than answering the questions. When the camera was on me and I was talking, he started aggressively jabbing at the scripts with his hands, the pages were rattling. The co-presenter looked terrified, she added.

ITV has insisted This Morning will not be axed as questions continue to mount on bosses including CEO Carolyn McCall.

"As we said on the record yesterday, This Morning is not under review and there's no plans for the show to be axed, it said in a statement.

This Morning will return as normal tomorrow.

On Saturday, Holly told of her devastation when she discovered Phillip had lied to her about the relationship.

When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not, she told fans.

It's been very hurtful to now find out that this was a lie.

Phillip met his future lover at a theatre school in North West England when he was in his late 40s.

Some years later the younger man became a production assistant on This Morning when Phillip was in his early 50s and their ill-advised friendship which grew into a relationship began.
John Cleese has said the reboot of Fawlty Towers will be different from the original (Isabel Infantes/PA)

Fawlty Towers writer John Cleese has said the reboot will be hugely different from the original.

The Monty Python star told GB News there will be a lot of open-air scenes which the original series never got.

The original show, written by Cleese and Connie Booth, ran on BBC Two for two series in 1975 and 1979.

It followed the unfortunate exploits of highly-strung Torquay hotelier Basil Fawlty, played by Cleese, and his wife Sybil, portrayed by Prunella Scales, as they tried to keep their hotel and marriage afloat.

Fawlty Towers was named the greatest British sitcom of all time (BBC/PA)

In 2019 the show was named the greatest British sitcom of all time by a panel of television experts for Radio Times magazine.

Cleese said: It is going to be hugely different. My daughter and I have been working on it for about a week, and all we know is it certainly wont be set in the UK, it will probably be set somewhere in the sun.

Not in a big city, but somewhere out in the sun with a lot of open-air stuff which we never got in Fawlty Towers.

But weve only just started to think about it, because Im also working on the stage version of Life Of Brian, were working on a musical of A Fish Called Wanda.

My daughter and I have written a very good comedy about Hollywood lookalikes and theyre going to be played by the originals, so Arnold Schwarzenegger will play his own lookalike, so theres plenty going on.

It was confirmed earlier this year that Cleese and his daughter, Camilla Cleese, would be rebooting the show.

The new series will explore how the dramatic and cynical Basil navigates the modern world.

It will also see Basil, and a daughter he has just discovered is his, team up to run a boutique hotel.

Actor Rob Reiner, his wife and actress Michele Reiner, director and producer Matthew George and Derrick Rossi are executive producers.

Cleese added: Its going to be very different because if its in the Caribbean it will be a multicultural cast which will be very interesting. And my daughter Camilla will be playing the woman whos running the hotel.

So there will be nothing visually or in terms of characters that anyones ever seen before, it will be a brand new attempt.

Theres no attempt to copy it, youll see something completely different. I think it will probably be quite funny. Probably funnier than some of the stuff out there.

So the fact that it wont be as good as Fawlty Towers doesnt bother me, because if we were operating on that principle, I should have done Fawlty Towers and then retired.
A man has been charged in connection with a robbery in Co Antrim.

The 38-year-old suspect was detained following the incident which happened at commercial premises in the Antrim Road area of Templepatrick on Saturday night.

He has been charged with a number of offences, including robbery and aggravated burglary and is due to appear before Ballymena Magistrates Court on Monday, May 29.

As is usual procure all charges will be reviewed by the PPS.

Police previously confirmed a man was arrested in the Andersonstown Road area of west Belfast in connection with the robbery.

A PSNI spokesperson said: Police received a report at around 8pm that a man had entered a premises in the Antrim Road area, armed with a broken bottle and demanded money. The man then made off with a sum of cash.

A short time later officers located a 38-year-old man in a vehicle in the Andersonstown Road area of west Belfast. He was arrested and remains in police custody at this time.

"Enquiries are continuing to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident and we would appeal to anyone with any information, to contact detectives on 101 quoting reference number 1930 of 27/05/23.

Alternatively, information can be passed anonymously via the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
SF leader says preparation critical after Brexit debacle, but rivals slam partys focus on issue

The DUP has said a continuing focus by Sinn Fein on what would be a divisive border poll shows that any commitment to building a shared future remains in their rear-view mirror.

The comments came after Mary Lou McDonald said her party would be foolish to call for a referendum on Irish unity too soon, saying lessons had been learned from the foolish way the UK Government had handled Brexit.

With Sinn Fein now the biggest party in both the Assembly and councils in Northern Ireland, the partys position has never been stronger, but Sinn Fein president Ms McDonald said the groundwork must be done first to ensure conditions are right.

She again urged Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to start making plans for the medium and long term future of people across the whole of Ireland.

The reality of this is this has to work for everybody, this is about a win for everybody on this island, she said of any future Irish unity referendum.

We will not go to the polls on a referendum in the absence of engagement, preparation and planning.

We saw how that worked out for our neighbours across the water in the Brexit context. We will not be so foolish as to make that mistake again.

I want everybody to be involved and have a stake in all of this, she told BBCS Sunday Politics. Thats the important work that needs to happen now.

But East Belfast DUP MLA David Brooks responded by saying Sinn Fein evidently only believe in a shared future if involves everyone sharing their 32 county plans.

The census publication shows there are three minorities in Northern Ireland, he added.

That trend has been developing over the last two decades. Sinn Feins sole response to the census and recent polls has not been about building a shared future, rather it has been about a divisive border poll.

Sinn Feins record on treating unionist minorities in the last 12 months has been shameful.

One only must look at how pro-Union people are treated in the nationalist controlled councils. Whether it is Fermanagh, Omagh, Londonderry, Newry, Newcastle or Kilkeel, Sinn Fein has proved that despite a sizable British minority, there is no space for Britishness.

Not a Union flag to mark the Duke of Edinburghs or Her Majesty the Queens passing. The Fermanagh & Omagh Mayor was absent from greeting the King in Enniskillen. Theres no space for the loyal orders. Theres no space for anyone selling a poppy and theres a normalisation of council facilities being named after republican terrorists.

Sinn Fein support for the Northern Ireland Protocol, despite near universal unionist opposition, is another clear indication that Sinn Fein has no interest in sharing if you dont share their constitutional outlook. That is not the spirit of the Belfast or successor Agreements.

The Sinn Fein leader had earlier said she had no doubts the referendums would happen and accused the Irish and British governments of sleepwalking into the future.

What I am doubtful of is the capacity of the current governments in Dublin and London to be alive and aware and responsive to the extent of change, and simply to make preparations, she added.

Nobody should be afraid of this conversation. This is about opportunity. We all need to be involved and the governments, particularly in Dublin, need to lead in that regard.

She also accused Taoiseach Leo Varadkar of not being on the right page after his insistence over the weekend that the priority must be to make the Good Friday Agreement work and restore the Assembly before any conversations about what change we might be able to make can happen.

He is on the wrong page, said Ms McDonald. We all know full well that we need the Executive back up and running, a functioning Assembly, the East West bodies, the North South bodies up and working as well.

But you can do all of those things and at the same time have the conversations, the kind of engagement and planning Im describing.

Political systems and political leaders have to have the capacity to multi-task and do several important, critical things at the same time.

To advance an argument that we will not prepare for the medium and long term future simply because we have challenges in the present, that doesnt stack up. Thats not responsible politics in my view.

Ms McDonald said she would like to see further co-operation across the island on projects, including the critical upgrade to the A5 road in the north west following suggestions from Mr Varadkar that the Irish government could co-fund some infrastructure projects.
Sinn Fein has said the Governments legacy bill remains fundamentally flawed and should be scrapped, despite plans to change it.

North Belfast MP John Finucane was responding to comments by NIO minister Lord Caine on planned changes to the controversial legislation, which could be passed before the parliamentary summer recess.

The Government's Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill would provide immunity for people accused of crimes during the Troubles, as long as they co-operate with a new truth recovery body known as the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (Icrir).

It would also halt future civil cases and inquests linked to killings during the conflict.

The Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament, has been widely criticised by Northern Ireland's political parties, the Irish Government and victims' groups.

Yesterday, Northern Ireland minister Lord Caine told the BBC that planned changes to the Bill  that will be brought forward at its next stage in the House of Lords in June  would ensure the new system was more "robustly compliant" with international law.

"I want to make sure the bill is very clear that reviews can include criminal investigations to a standard that meets our international obligations," the Tory peer said.

"I'm also looking at measures to bolster and boost the independence of the commission, after a number of criticisms that it gives the Northern Ireland secretary too many powers."

Lord Caine said there are plans for penalties to be increased for those who do not co-operate with the Icrir, and if they are found to have misled investigators, the commission could be given the power to revoke immunity.

"At this distance from many of the events of the Troubles, the likelihood of prosecutions is very slim," Lord Caine added.

"I think getting as much information as possible to those who want it in a timely manner is probably the best thing we can hope to achieve."

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said yesterday that her party had not been made aware of the planned changes, but that the legislation should be scrapped, not amended.

Later, Mr Finucane said in a statement: The British Government continues to push ahead with its legacy bill despite opposition from victims, relatives, governments, human rights experts and the UN.

Amendments will not change the fundamental flaws at the heart of this bill, and thats the cynical attempt to block thousands of victims and families from getting truth and justice through the courts.

This cruel and callous legislation is about one thing  cover up and letting British state forces who killed Irish citizens off the hook. It should be scrapped.

I am reiterating Sinn Feins call for an urgent summit involving the British and Irish governments and political parties on the issue of legacy.

If the British government is serious about upholding the legal right of victims and families to truth and justice, they will stop the passage of the Legacy Bill to allow for dialogue now.

The legacy mechanisms agreed by the main political parties, the Irish government and the British government at Stormont House in 2014 is the best of dealing with legacy issues and that must be implemented in a human rights compliant manner without delay.
The first Stormont Speaker has said that Northern Ireland is moving towards de facto joint authority in the absence of the Assembly.

Lord Alderdice (68), who led the Alliance Party from 1987 to 1998, also said that the recent council election may be judged by history to be one of the most consequential in the history of Northern Ireland.

However, the Ballymena-born Liberal Democrat peer did not hold out much hope for the future of unionism, and said he had observed profound change in attitudes in England since he first joined the House of Lords in 1996.

There is now no emotional attachment to Northern Ireland, he said.

Commentators on UK affairs regularly speak about the UK without any thought of, or reference to, the Northern Ireland component.

The BBCs John Simpson recently remarked that the Union was now secure because of the implosion of the Scottish National Party. The security of the Union with regard to Northern Ireland did not seem to enter his calculus.

Over the weekend, former DUP leader Dame Arlene Foster suggested the DUP could enter a coalition with Labour if the next election delivers a hung parliament.

But Lord Alderdice questioned whether this would boost unionist fortunes.

Britain as a whole is already emotionally detached from Northern Ireland and if unionists think that this situation would be improved from their point of view by the election of a Labour Government, they are much mistaken, he wrote.

An old Northern Ireland saying comes to mind  Its all over bar the shoutin.

Writing in his personal blog, Lord Alderdice added that, in the absence of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the inevitable trajectory is towards de facto joint authority.

Recent political developments and the results of this election suggest that the pace of that trajectory has quickened markedly and even if there is a return to the Assembly, the ultimate outcome is neither in doubt nor perhaps will even be as much delayed as might have been imagined some years ago.

He also noted that with the ongoing suspension of Stormont, the only part of the Good Friday Agreement still in operation was Strand 3 - the East-West relationship  governed by the British-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference.

This means increased London-Dublin cooperation, and that does not require any legislative change; it just requires the political will to deepen it, he stated.

The unionists will never be represented in the BIIGC, but after a future election in the South, perhaps even after the next election, Sinn Fein will be the Irish Government partner with the British Government.

Turning to the DUPs election performance, he noted how Sir Jeffrey Donaldson had seen off his unionist rivals and claimed this as a victory.

However, the position on the key issue of the Union is disastrous for him and his supporters and from his comments one might be forgiven for thinking that he has not quite realised how catastrophic it is, he wrote.

Noting that the unionist parties took 19,000 fewer votes than the nationalist parties, he said it was clear that while the Alliance Partys policy position remains pro-Union, but not unionist, many post-Brexit Alliance voters are now moving closer to the position of the SDLP, if not SF, than that of the unionists.

There is a demographic shift that is proceeding irreversibly and this only increases as we go down the age profile, he wrote.

Unionist talk post-election has been all about getting the unionists together, but it is now too late for that. They no longer have the numbers, as Sam McBride pointed out in a Belfast Telegraph column.

Allison Morris and Sam McBride: What next after the council election?

The former East Belfast MLA said the Good Friday Agreement was the last best hope for unionists, and they failed to build on it.

They did not grasp that it was they, not Sinn Fein, who needed the Northern Ireland Assembly to work and for that to happen they needed to treat nationalists, as well as others, and even sometimes each other, more fairly and with more respect, he wrote.

They now call for respect from Republicans, but they provided little example of that when they were the dominant political force, even after the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay has insisted Boris Johnson has a huge role to play in politics and should remain an MP after the next general election.

His backing comes after the former prime minister hit out at the Cabinet Office for handing over information to police relating to further potential lockdown breaches during his premiership.

Mr Barclay, who was appointed Health Secretary by Mr Johnson after Sajid Javid dramatically quit the role and helped trigger a wave of resignations that ended in his downfall, defended his former boss on Sunday.

Asked on Skys Sophy Ridge On Sunday show whether the former prime minister was toast, he replied: No, I think Boris has a huge role to play. We saw his leadership in the countrys response to Ukraine where he took the lead on that.

Boris Johnson, pictured with Steve Barclay, is accusing the Cabinet Office of making bizarre and unacceptable claims about him (PA)

He added: Of course I want to see Boris back as a member of Parliament and I want to see all my colleagues back but the point is Boris achieved many things.

MP Andrea Jenkyns, a Johnson loyalist, denied the Conservative Party is falling apart after questions surrounding the former prime ministers time in Downing Street once again dominated headlines last week.

Im sure on the Labour Partys WhatsApp you get people who are happy, not happy, and its been very leaky for the eight years that Ive been an MP so thats politics, she told the same programme.

Mr Johnson appeared flustered when he was approached by Sky News at an airport in Washington DC on Friday and quizzed about entries from his ministerial diary which have been referred to two forces.

The Times, which broke the story, reported the documents show visits by friends to Chequers  the prime ministers grace and favour country residence  and further events in Downing Street.

Asked what the entries reveal, he replied: They merely record events in my day.

Mr Johnson was previously fined for attending a gathering in Downing Street to mark his birthday in June 2020  one of a series of political crises that ultimately led to the end of his premiership.

This whole thing is a load of nonsense from beginning to end  I think its ridiculous that elements in my diary should be cherry-picked and handed over to the police, to the Privileges Committee without even anybody having the basic common sense to ask me what these entries referred to, he said.

The new information came to light during a review by Government-funded lawyers ahead of the Covid public inquiry.

Mr Johnson has since announced he is severing ties with his legal team and seeking new lawyers, which the Sunday Mirror reported could cost taxpayers up to 1 million.

A department spokesman said there is an established precedent that former ministers may be supported with legal representation when matters relate to their time in office.

The Cabinet Office said ministers played no role in the decision-making process behind the police referrals, while Mr Johnson believes he is the victim of a politically motivated stitch-up.

But, as reported by the Sunday Times, Paymaster General Jeremy Quin is understood to have approved the handing over of documents to the Privileges Committee investigating whether Mr Johnson lied to Parliament over partygate.

The fallout adds to the problems confronting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was handed a fixed penalty alongside Mr Johnson over the June 2020 event and now faces unrest from the former prime ministers allies.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said he believes the public is fed up to the back teeth with stories about the former prime minister.

These are deeply personal things and increasing revelations about Boris Johnson, I think, just add to that sense of hurt and people are fed up with it, he told broadcasters on Friday.

I do think there are questions now about why have these allegations not come out before, all these allegations.
Members of a group of some 30 migrants seeking asylum are seen in Bialowieza, Poland, on Sunday, 28 May 2023 across a wall that Poland has built on its border with Belarus to stop massive migrant pressure (Agnieszka Sadowska/AP/PA)

A group of some 30 migrants seeking asylum, including small children, has been stuck at Polands border wall with Belarus for three days, Polish human rights activists have said.

Although the migrants were outside Polands border wall, activists from Grupa Granica (Border Group) said they were on Polish territory and Belarus was not allowing them to turn back.

In Belarus, they are not safe, activist Marta Staniszewska said.

The Belarusian services, as this group has told us, threaten them that if they return, they will be beaten, or that they will kill them, Ms Staniszewska told The Associated Press.

A Polish border guard patrols the metal wall on the border between Poland and Belarus, near Kuznice, Poland (Michal Dyjuk/AP/PA)

The migrants say that several among them are sick and the children have mosquito bites, according to Ms Staniszewska.

A representative of Polands ombudsmans office visited and talked to the group on Sunday, but later told reporters that the decision about whether to allow them into the country belongs to the Polish Border Guard.

If these persons are indeed within the jurisdiction of the (Polish) Border Guard and declare their willingness to apply for international protection, then . such applications should be accepted, Maciej Grzeskowiak said.

Last year, Poland put up almost 190 kilometres (117 miles) of tall metal wall intended to stop thousands of migrants from Asia and Africa entering the country from Belarus.

The European Union has accused authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of aiding illegal border crossings in retaliation for EU sanctions. Mr Lukashenko denies encouraging migration to Europe.

Polands most powerful politician, the head of Polands right-wing ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said recently that building the wall was a good decision. He said it was protecting Poland and the EU against hostile moves by Belarus and Russia.

Despite the wall, up to 150 migrants of various nationalities, often with Russian visas in their documents, try to cross illegally into Poland each day, according to the Border Guard.

It is not possible from Polands side to determine what happens to the groups.
NI star says ITV has questions to answer

Eamonn Holmes has doubled down on his explosive claims around the sex scandal engulfing Phillip Schofield and ITV.

Former childrens TV presenter Schofield (61) sensationally quit ITV last week as revelations about his affair with a much younger colleague at the station came to light.

Eamonn (63) made bombshell claims on his Twitter account on Friday night about senior individuals at ITV who knew exactly what kind of man Schofield was.

His tweets, which have been redacted for legal reasons, said: Schofield has finally been caught out... but hes not the only guilty party.

ITV knew what sort of man he was... and never once took action to prevent him controlling or taking advantage of his position over young people.

ITV insisted this was not the case and that Schofield was quizzed about the relationship but strenuously denied there was one. He has now admitted there was, saying it was unwise but not illegal.

In another dramatic development, his former This Morning co-host Holly Willoughby spoke about the scandal for the first time, saying he had lied to her too.

She wrote on Instagram: It has taken time to process yesterdays news. When reports of this relationship first surfaced I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not. Its been very hurtful to now find out that this was a lie.

Schofield denied rumours of a relationship during 2020 investigation, ITV says

Eamonn and his wife Ruth Langsford have reportedly had a long-running feud with Schofield over his on-set behaviour.

The Belfast man was also sacked by ITV just 10 days after Schofield tearfully came out on the This Morning sofa in February 2022.

Former ITV news journalist Andrea Catherwood, who is also from Belfast, also weighed in on the scandal yesterday, tweeting: A lot more questions about who knew what when at ITV to be answered after this.

Phillip Schofield

ITV bosses have been desperately trying to douse the flames of the raging scandal and issued a statement insisting they had properly investigated Schofields relationship with his colleague.

A spokesman said: ITV can confirm that when rumours of a relationship between Phillip Schofield and an employee of ITV first began to circulate in early 2020, ITV investigated.

Both parties were questioned and both categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours, as did Phillips then agency YMU.

Phillips statement reveals that he lied to people at ITV, from senior management to fellow presenters, to YMU, to the media and to others, over this relationship.

Earlier this month, Schofields brother, Timothy, was jailed for 12 years for sexually abusing a child, after which Phillip publicly disowned him.

The 54-year-old was found guilty of 11 sexual offences involving a child between 2016 and 2019.

After being exposed for his relationship with a colleague, Phillip Schofield insisted he had not broken the law during his dalliances with the much younger man.

In a statement last week after quitting ITV, he said: I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning.

Contrary to speculation, whilst I met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television, it was only after he started to work on the show that it became more than just a friendship.

That relationship was unwise, but not illegal.

It is now over.
Prison bosses under fire over day release of convicted murderer who then went on the run
Jean II Restout (16921768) / Public Domain

Pentecost is a special day of worship. The feast marks the end of the Easter season for Christians and commemorates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early followers of Jesus. The Church of God, which began on Pentecost which we read about in Acts 2 is given the mission of preaching the Good News of the Kingdom of God. This was a part of Gods much bigger plan, the return of Jesus Christ. On Pentecost Sunday, Christians around the world will celebrate this holy day, with symbols of flames, a dove and wind marked throughout churches.

If youre on church this Sunday, youll likely read a passage from Johns Gospel, which tells of a visit of the Risen Christ to the disciples huddled in fear. Peace be with you, Jesus says. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you. After saying this, Jesus breathed on them and added, Receive the Holy Spirit. (John 20:19-23). Pentecost celebrates the reality that we are God-breathed beings. Though this holy day is not recognized by all Christians, the Pentecost was a monumental turning point in Christian history, considered by many to be the birthday of the church. Pentecost is a great time to witness for your church. Here are five things you should know about Pentecost and why we celebrate it:

Pentecost Comes 10 Days After the Ascension of Christ

Before Jesus was crucified, He told the disciples that the Holy Spirit would come after Him. Jesus said: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever  the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you (John 14:16-18). Just as Jesus said, 40 days after the resurrection (10 days after He ascended into heaven), the promise was fulfilled when Peter and the early Church were in Jerusalem for Pentecost.

It Occurs 50 Days After Easter

The English word Pentecost is translated from the Greek work pentekostos which means fifty. This comes from the ancient Christian expression pentekoste hemera which means fiftieth day. In fact, Christians borrowed the phrase from Greek-speaking Jews who used the phrase to refer to a Jewish Holiday known as the Festival of the Weeks. Leviticus 23:16 instructs people to count seven weeks (50 days) from the end of Passover to the beginning of the next holiday. Jews celebrate Pentecost 50 days after the end of Passover. Christians observe the day 50 days after Easter.

The Pentecost Is Recorded In Acts 2:1-13

Pentecost is recorded in the New Testament in the Book of Acts. The account begins with the Holy Spirit descending on a group of followers who, upon receiving it, begin to speak in tongues. The Bible tells us And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the houses where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, and the spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:1-4).

Pentecost is the Birthday of the Church

Many Christians recognize Pentecost as the birth, or the birthday of the church as it commemorates the establishment of the church as a result of the Apostles teachings on the gospel and the baptism of thousands of followers. Pentecost is when the Apostles went out among the people and began spreading Jesus message, thus establishing the beginning of the church. With the decent of the Holy Spirit, a New Covenant is inaugurated. It is one of the most ancient feasts in the Church, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (20:16) and Pauls First Letter to the Corinthians. Pentecost can be a powerful celebration and a reminder that the Holy Spirit came with power to empower our witness to the Risen Christ. It is the perfect time to remind believers in your church that our Heavenly Father will empower our witness.

Some People Thought the Followers Were Drunk

The languages spoken by the early Christians were heard by thousands of Jewish pilgrims who were in Jerusalem to celebrate Shavuot, and those languages were intelligible. Those who were there spoke of the miraculous messages connected with Gods mighty works. While those who heard the messages in their own languages were amazed, others thought the Christians were just drunk, particularly because it was a feast day for the Jews.

Ultimately, Pentecost is the Churchs celebration of the Gift of the Holy Spirit. Gods Holy Spirit empowers us with the love of God, the motivation to obey Him and a sound mind to discern the truth (2 Timothy 1:7; John 15:26; John 16:13).As Christians, we experience new life through Jesus Christ because we see the Spirit so fully manifested in Him. When we celebrate Pentecost, we are acknowledging that only the Holy Spirit can empower our witness. There is incredible hope and power in this. Without the power of the Holy Spirit, there is no hope that will be enabled to live out the Gospel and Christs mission.

Lesli White is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth with a Bachelors degree in Mass Communications and a concentration in print and online journalism. In college, she took a number of religious studies courses and harnessed her talent for storytelling. White has a rich faith background. Her father, a Lutheran pastor and life coach was a big influence in her faith life, helping her to see the value of sharing the message of Christ with others. She has served in the church from an early age. Some of these roles include assisting ministry, mutual ministry, worship and music ministry and church council.
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What's next on the debt ceiling: Selling the plan and making a deal into a law

To pass their debt ceiling deal, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden will now have to sell it to their respective parties
Today, 389,000 World War II veterans are alive of the 16 million who served. Alsop still wears an Air Force Association pin on his tweed lapel and has been invited to speak at Tyringhams Memorial Day observance, which takes place Sunday.
American Legion Memorial Day service at the summit of Mount Greylock celebrates the lives of those who died in the armed forces
NORTH ADAMS  The owners of the BRO MX motocross track have two months to come in compliance with conservation restrictions after they were told Thursday night that the property is home to state-protected plants and insects.

Jason and Jessica Langenback bought the property on South State Street in 2021 and told the Conservation Commission that they didn't know about the restrictions, which were signed by the previous owners in 2008.

The restrictions came into effect after the hairy-fruited sedge and foxtail sedge, two state-protected plant species, and a dion skipper, a protected butterfly, were found in a meadow area on the 28-acre plot in 2004.

Now, the Langenbacks must hire a botanist to evaluate the conservation area on the property and put up required signage around it, following a vote by the Conservation Commission on Thursday.

When they bought it, they were told not to go in certain areas, which they keep roped off, owner Jessica Langenback said. The business is ready to make the changes.

"We want to be in compliance," owner Jason Langenback told the commission.

Every five years, a botanist must evaluate the area, the commission told the Langenbacks. "You're overdue," commission member Jennifer Dunning said, "or maybe he [the previous owner] was, but you're stuck with it as the property owner."

The order comes after a decision in March from the Planning Board that allows the business to stay open one hour later and to open on any two weekdays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Previously, the business was restricted to opening on two specific weekdays. Some neighbors have complained about noise from the track and two filed an appeal in court in April over the permit changes.

Conservation Commission Chair Andrew Kawczak who estimated he lives 2,500 feet away from BRO MX, said he spoke against an expansion at a Planning Board meeting this spring. That was "as a homeowner, not wearing my Conservation Commission hat," he told The Eagle.

But Glenn Murray, a Conservation Commission member, took issue with that, and made a motion Thursday night partway through the discussion to require Kawczak and two other members, Heather Williams and Dunning, to recuse themselves from the issue on Thursday and in the future.

"I've heard public animosity from [them] toward their business," Murray said. "That doesn't sit well with me."

The Langenbacks shared the concern. "You have a bias against us because you can hear us," Jason Langenback said earlier in the meeting to Kawczak.

Dunning said she felt she could be fair, and Murray's motion failed.

Murray told the commission that he planned to file an ethics complaint.
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:

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Jem's Birding & Ringing Exploits in the Eastern Province and elsewhere in Saudi Arabia
The U.S. militarys chief information officer and former CIA deputy director John Sherman said his office will assume control of all 5G-related activities in the U.S. military and expand the militarys 5G pilot programs  a move critics said could lead to increased surveillance of U.S. citizens.

The U.S. militarys chief information officer (CIO) and former CIA deputy director John Sherman said his office will assume control of all 5G-related activities in the U.S. military and expand the militarys 5G pilot programs  a move critics said could lead to increased surveillance of U.S. citizens.

The move will shift the Pentagons 5G efforts from the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Heidi Shyu, to Shermans office.

The transition will officially take effect on Oct. 1, but Sherman said his office has already been working left seat, right seat with research and engineering on this, [in] a very close partnership with Honorable Heidi Shyu and her team.

Sherman also wants to expand the militarys use of 5G, but he did not say exactly what that expansion may look like.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) in 2020 spent $600 million to launch 5G pilots at military bases in Utah, Washington, Georgia, California and Nevada that use smart warehouse 5G wireless technology to streamline logistics and enhance distributed command and control and has since doubled its 5G activities.

Sherman also wants to set up open radio access network  or Open RAN  pilot programs.

Using this kind of open network is important, Sherman said, so the U.S.  and not its foreign adversaries  can dominate the 5G radiofrequency-electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) space.

Sherman said his office is working with several U.S. companies to expand 5G pilots as we move away from a closed network kind of black box sort of thing, like certain Chinese companies like to do with their global marketing here, to more of an open-network, open-software approach that our U.S. industry can work and dominate on.

But critics  including W. Scott McCollough, a former marine and Childrens Health Defenses (CHD) lead litigator for its electromagnetic radiation cases  said its not just foreign adversaries the DOD is concerned about.

McCollough said:

The military is a trojan horse for the intelligence community in terms of domestic surveillance and societal control. These efforts are geared toward sustaining domination in the RF-EMF domain at home, not just abroad.

Those in charge are concerned about their own citizens as much as they are perceived foreign hostile actors.

Military will gain control over an extraordinary amount of data

The militarys expansion of its 5G efforts comes as no surprise since the U.S. military has been very active on the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) for a very long time  and they want to dominate it, McCollough said.

He pointed out that the DOD in 2021 announced a plan for how the U.S. military would achieve spectrum superiority in all domains and dominate the future battle space.

However, in the hands of military officials such as Sherman, 5G technology could be used to surveil and dominate U.S. citizens, McCollough said.

Sherman  who was sworn in as the DODs CIO on Dec. 17, 2021, and will now direct all of the Pentagons 5G projects  served as the Intelligence Community CIO from 2017-2020.

According to McCollough, Shermans takeover of the Pentagons 5G projects has serious implications for the surveillance of U.S. citizens. He said:

Sadly, in many respects, those in power have come to view large portions of the U.S. population as actual or potential adversaries or mere subjects that must be monitored, manipulated and controlled.

5G is an essential component in how that is and will be accomplished.

McCollough, a former Texas assistant attorney general and telecom and administrative law attorney, told The Defender what interests the military and the intelligence community about 5G is the ability to obtain important data  in close to real time.

5Gs wireless low latency network  meaning, a network that can process a very high volume of data messages with minimal delay  gives the military and intelligence services access to and control over an extraordinary amount of data regarding people and the local surroundings.

These powerful tools could be used for population repression and control, he said.

DOD involvement in 5G could lead to the militarization of the technology

Crisanna Shackelford, Ph.D., an expert in nonlinear warfare and former DOD intelligence professional with 32 years of experience, also found the news of Shermans takeover and expansion of the Pentagons 5G efforts concerning.

Shackelford  a senior military fellow with CHD  told The Defender, DODs involvement in 5G could lead to the militarization of the technology, blurring the lines between civilian and military applications.

Potential military control over 5G networks could potentially infringe on privacy and civil liberties, she added.

Shackelford said:

The consolidation and integration of civil-military 5G advancements raise concerns about the emergence of global surveillance networks, as various international entities collaborate to establish pervasive surveillance, particularly in the realm of biomedical surveillance.

While the advancements in communication and connectivity are undoubtedly important, she said, we must proceed with caution to safeguard our society, privacy and civil liberties.

Shackelford pointed out that the DODs 5G efforts could result in mass data collection, tracking, and monitoring of individuals, leading to a loss of privacy.

DODs transition to 5G lacks sufficient transparency and public involvement, she said. Decisions are being made without adequate public scrutiny or opportunity for meaningful input, limiting democratic processes and accountability.

Shackelford also said she had significant concerns about the consolidation of power in the hands of a few major companies involved in the 5G ecosystem.

Big Tech defense contractors have partnered with telecommunication companies to develop and implement 5G technology.

For instance, Lockheed Martin is collaborating with Verizon; Northrop Grumman with AT&T and General Dynamics Information Technology with T-Mobile.

Finally, both Shackelford and McCollough said DODs broadened 5G efforts leave questions about the health and environmental ramifications of 5G unanswered.

Many scientists have pointed out the RF radiation caused by 5G has negative biological effects.

According to McCollough, the military has long been aware of the destructive and harmful human and environmental effects from RF-EMF exposure, but these are seen as merely collateral damages that are necessary to the accomplishment of its perceived missions.
Crypto has broken new ground yet again, not in the exchange of digital currencies meant to upset the global economic paradigm, but by facilitating the black market trade of peoples biometric data. Specifically, fraudsters desperate to glom onto a crypto project headed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are reportedly buying detailed scans of peoples irises in order to claim coins for the still-unreleased Worldcoin project.

The news first came to light by China-based crypto outlet BlockBeats, which tweeted Thursday about a black market for irises used to gain access to the Worldcoin network beta. Users need to submit their eye to a scan by a Worldcoin Orb, a physical imaging device used to capture high-resolution images of their body and face. Those who do are promised free crypto tokens while their accounts are anonymized. Essentially, the project wants to offer a kind of universal basic income for all those who prove theyre still human and not one of Altmans own AI chatbots (or worse, Altmans ill-defined sense of a so-called AGI).

These Orb operators are spread throughout the countries where the company currently operates, which as it happens does not include mainland China. The company says there are more than 1.7 million people signed up so far. But according to BlockBeats, people in China are buying the iris data from people in Cambodia, Kenya, and a few other countries for as little as $30 a pop.

Worldcoin claims that the issue is actually that verified World IDs, rather than actual iris scans, are being sent to a third-party World app on the black market. World IDs are essentially certificates that indicate someone is a unique person. The company told Gizmodo in an email the issue was limited to a few hundred instances of fraud. The company claimed it was modifying the signup process and was using dynamic instead of static QR codes to cut down on abuse. The company also pointed to its efforts to create a new recovery process for users World ID.

Thats not the only security issue the company has had as of late. TechCrunch reported last week that hackers managed to install malware on several Orb operators devices. This allowed the malicious actors access to the Worldcoin online portal that displayed earnings, sign-ups, and more. An anonymous security researcher told the site that there were several Orb operators login credentials circulating on dark web marketplaces.

For as much attention was paid to the secure nature of Worldcoin, reports show the Orb operators logins did not even necessitate two-factor authentication, though 2FA isnt the end-all, be-all of digital security. A spokesperson told TechCrunch that hackers did not access users biometric info and that no sensitive data was taken.

Based on the companys statements, it seems execs are more concerned with the harm caused to its big crypto scheme rather than the black market trade of biometric data thats now immutably tied to the blockchain. The project has already been taken to task in a report from MIT Technology Review for targeting poor communities in exchange for data. Worldcoin has said its verification process allows for users to maintain anonymity while verifying their humanness. The company previously said in a March blog post Advancements in AI make it difficult to distinguish between AI and humans on the internet, highlighting a need for authentic human recognition and verification.

Altmans OpenAI is one of the biggest companies responsible for the proliferation of modern artificial intelligence. The CEO is a longtime silicon valley figurehead and investor, having been an early partner of Y Combinator and an extremely brief time as CEO of Reddit. He co-founded Worldcoin in 2019 shortly before he decided to put most of his energy into OpenAI.

So is Altman creating the problem he then claims necessitates his crypto side hustle? Well, he is one to have his cake and eat it too. In a recent sit-down with members of Congress, he declared he was in favor of AI regulation, as long as it still grants wide access to millions of potentially paying customers. Despite the depreciated price of crypto worldwide, Worldcoin is hoping to close on another $100 million in funding, according to the Financial Times based on anonymous sources close to the deal. One of Altmans previous backers for Worldcoin was Sam Bankman-Fried, the now-indicted former CEO of FTX. Ironically, this other Sam was himself a major proponent of favorable regulation for the crypto industry.
After weeks of negotiations, US president Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have announced an agreement in principle to raise the nations debt ceiling and avoid a potentially catastrophic default.

The agreement includes spending cuts demanded by Republicans, but it is short of the reductions in the sweeping legislation passed by the Republican-led House last month.

To reduce spending, as Republicans had insisted, the package includes a two-year budget deal that would hold spending flat for 2024 and impose limits for 2025. That is in exchange for raising the debt limit for two years, until after the next election.

Earlier this evening, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement in principle.



It is an important step forward that reduces spending while protecting critical programs for working people and growing the economy for everyone. And, the agreement protects my and Advertisement  President Biden (@POTUS) May 28, 2023

It also expands some work requirements for food-stamp recipients and tweaks an environmental law to try to streamline reviews to build new energy projects.

US treasury secretary Janet Yellen has said the US could default on its debt obligations by June 5th if politicians do not act in time to raise the federal debt ceiling.

A look at whats next as Congress rushes to pass an agreement:

Finalising the deal

Speaking to reporters in the Capitol late on Saturday, Mr McCarthy said the Bill has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce and rein in government overreach. There are no new taxes and no new government programmes.

Still, he said, we still have more work to do tonight to finish all the writing of it.

The speaker and his lead negotiators were still in his office as midnight approached.

Mr McCarthy said he would speak to Mr Biden again on Sunday.

Mr Biden said in a statement that over the next day, our negotiating teams will finalise legislative text and the agreement will go to the United States House and Senate. I strongly urge both chambers to pass the agreement right away.

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The agreement is an important step forward that reduces spending while protecting critical programmes for working people and growing the economy for everyone, Mr Biden said.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters about debt limit negotiations (Patrick Semansky/AP/PA)

Selling the Bill

To pass the Bill, both Mr McCarthy and Mr Biden will now have to sell it to their respective parties. While both sides are expected to lose some votes, they have to make sure that the deal is popular enough to pass both chambers without a revolt on either side.

Mr McCarthy held a call on Saturday evening with the Republican caucus, fulfilling a promise he made to show the agreement to them before revealing the legislation to the public.

He said he expects to release the text of the Bill publicly on Sunday afternoon.

Reaction was mixed. Rep Dan Bishop of North Carolina tweeted a vomit emoji, complaining that some Republicans on the call were praising the speaker for getting what he said is almost zippo in exchange for the debt ceiling hike.

South Dakota Rep Dusty Johnson, an ally of Mr McCarthy, said people he was talking to are incredibly supportive of the deal, though he acknowledged they will lose some votes.

White House officials will give their own briefing to House Democrats on Sunday afternoon, according to a House Democratic aide.

Congress returns

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Both the House and Senate are expected to return on Tuesday, after Memorial Day. Mr McCarthy said the House will vote on Wednesday, which would then send the Bill to the Senate.

Once the Bill reaches the Senate, where Democrats have the majority, the pace of action will largely depend on whether any senators try to hold up the Bill, possibly with amendment votes. That could tie up the legislation for a few days.

Still, the Senate can move quickly when they have agreement from all 100 senators. The Bill could be passed by the end of the week, with a quick Biden signature to make it law.

If all goes according to Mr McCarthys plan  and both chambers are able to pass the legislation  the potential crisis should be resolved by June 5th, which is when the Treasury Department projects the US would be at risk of default.

This agreement is good news for the American people, because it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, and millions of jobs lost, Mr Biden said in his Saturday evening statement.
Almost two thirds of assaults reported to the HSE in the first three months of the year were carried out against nurses, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has said.

The latest figures show 848 nurses and midwives were assaulted in January to March, representing over 62 per cent of assault incidents reported to the HSE in that timeframe.

INMO general secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha described the findings as "completely unacceptable", adding: "No other profession sees this level of abuse levelled at them".

"The continued acceptance of intolerable hospital overcrowding is creating an environment in our hospitals that is allowing physical, verbal and sexual assault against our members to manifest," she added.

The figures come as the Government confirmed it will increase the maximum penalty for assaults on gardai and emergency service workers, including nurses. The plans will see maximum sentences for such offences increase from seven to 12 years.

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However, Ms Ni Sheaghdha said the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) must also be equipped to tackle assaults in healthcare settings, calling for the establishment of a dedicated division to deal directly with the health service.

"Assault prevention and de-escalation measures must be strengthened. It must be made clear that once you step foot in a hospital that there is zero tolerance for any kind of verbal, physical or sexual assault.

"Hospitals are workplaces, as well as places of care. No worker should have to put up with this level of abuse in the workplace," Ms Ni Sheaghdha added.
Dublin Fire Brigade has extinguished a fire at a high-rise apartment building in Blanchardstown.

Smoke and flames were visible after the blaze broke out on Sunday afternoon.

The fire in #Blanchardstown has been brought under control and we have started to release fire engines from the scene.



A turntable ladder was used as a water tower to help extinguish the fire. pic.twitter.com/ihClVglFBA  Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) May 28, 2023

Firefighters said the blaze has now been brought under control and they have begun a clean-up operation.

Gardai were alerted to the fire at about 4.30pm on Sunday. No injuries have been reported yet, a garda spokeswoman told breakingnews.ie.

A number of roads around Blanchardstown Shopping Centre were closed for emergency services and are expected to reopen about 7pm.

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A hospital dismissed a long-serving Clinical Nurse Manager (CNM) after she admitted to forging a medical consultants signature and using a patients personal data to illegally obtain prescription medication from a pharmacy.

The CNM also admitted to taking two tablets of a prescribed medication from the hospital on January 19th, 2021, and further accepted these were not isolated incidents.

The hospital dismissed the CNM, who had been employed since February 1993, for gross misconduct on June 18th, 2021.

The CNM, who earned 1,106 per week, took an action for unfair dismissal at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), but Adjudicator Brian Dolan dismissed the womans case.

In his findings, Mr Dolan said the CNMs admitted actions constitute gross misconduct. He noted she immediately admitted to the misconduct when questioned, apologised for the damage caused and sought to rectify the root cause of the issue that led to the misconduct.

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Mr Dolan said a fundamental aspect of the hospital's duty of care is the control of prescribed medicines and patient data and the CNM "by her own admission, misused the trust placed in her in respect of these matters".

Mr Dolan stated the hospital "is naturally entitled, if not obliged, to view any breach of this trust in the most serious of terms".

Mr Dolan concluded that the nature of the CNM's misconduct, coupled with the nature of her role and the hospitalitys duty of care, meant her dismissal was within the bounds of reasonable responses, even after taking mitigation factors into account.

Prescribed medications

Mr Dolan said it is agreed that the CNM illegally removed prescribed medications, intended for patient use, for her own use.

Mr Dolan said it is further agreed that the CNM removed blank prescription scripts for the ward to which she was assigned and thereafter misused patient data and forged a consultants signature in order to obtain controlled medication.

The hospital told the WRC hearing that the CNMs misconduct, in addition to the admitted misuse of the personal data of a patient and a colleague, served to irrevocably breach the bond of trust.

The hospital contended that the actions of the CNM were in breach of the hospitals own policy on the storage and handling of medicines, the Misuse of Drugs Act, the hospitals code of conduct, the code of professional conduct for registered nurses and the hospitals own internal disciplinary policy.

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After the CNM made admissions concerning the irregularities, she was suspended from duty. During the investigation process, she disclosed that she had experienced addiction issues.

The CNM was represented by Liz Curran of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) in the action.

At hearing, the CNM agreed with the hospitals narrative of events, including the admission of alleged wrong-doing.

The CNM put forward a number of mitigating factors, including that she accepted responsibility for her actions, she is attending a counsellor, she had completed a treatment programme for alcohol dependence and remains enrolled in a further two-year programme, and she continues to attend her GP for ongoing care.

Mitigation

In addition, the CNM suggested the imposition of a number of conditions on her return to work. These conditions, she said, could include the submission of ongoing evidence of her attendance at an alcohol dependency treatment centre, evidence of her attendance at AA meetings, random drug and alcohol testing, and redeployment to a role where she would not be in contact with prescribed drugs.

The CNM submitted that no evidence of consideration of these mitigating circumstances and conditions was taken by the hospital, with the matter simply being upheld internally on appeal.

The CNM submitted that the mitigating factors provided, in addition to the suggested conditions for her staged return to employment, rendered the sanction of dismissal outside the band of reasonable responses in the circumstances.

The CNM said she always held patient safety in the highest regard and her actions did not serve to endanger the safety of any patients.

Mr Dolan used his discretion to anonymise the parties following an application by the CNM.

The CNM made the application on the basis that the matter concerns sensitive information, including matters relating to misuse of third-party data and certain allegations of fraudulent activity. On the date of the hearing, these matters remained under investigation by third-parties.

The CNM's application was made with the consent and support of the hospital.
Planning for a potential Irish unity referendum can happen while working on the restoration of the Stormont executive, the leader of Sinn Fein has said.

The partys president Mary Lou McDonald said that the engagement and planning for a border poll could be done alongside the return of the assembly.

Sinn Fein became the largest party in local government in the North at last weeks council elections, following on from the 2022 Assembly election where the party became the largest at Stormont.

Sinn Fein vice president Michelle ONeill (left) and president Mary Lou McDonald arrive at Belfast City Hall during the Northern Ireland local elections results. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA

The Northern Ireland Assembly has not been operational for more than a year due to the DUPs ongoing boycott of powersharing institutions as a protest against post-Brexit trading arrangements.

Ms McDonald responded to Taoiseach Leo Varadkars assessment that a border poll would be counterproductive and the restoration of the Assembly should be prioritised.

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The Sinn Fein leader said Mr Varadkar was on the wrong page.

We know full well that we need the executive back up and running, we need a functioning assembly, we need the east-west institutions to work, we need the North-South piece to work as well, she told the BBC.

And you can do all of those things and at the same time have the kinds of engagement and the planning that Im describing.

The political system and political leaders have to have the capacity to multitask and do several things, several important, critical things at the same time.

So I think to advance an argument that we will not prepare for the medium and long-term future simply because we have challenges in the present, that doesnt stack up. Thats not responsible politics in my view.

Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald (right) listens as deputy leader Michelle ONeill (left) speaks to the media at a post election press conference in Belfast. Photo: Mark Marlow/PA

Ms McDonald also said that, as a result of budgetary pressures, the assembly should return before autumn.

And yet, were hearing nonsense from people suggesting that perhaps we might have an executive back up and running in the autumn time. That to me is utterly farcical and completely unacceptable, she said.

While the DUP were overtaken by Sinn Fein as the largest party at last weeks council election, the party maintained the number of seats it achieved in 2019, with 122 councillors.

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In a statement to party supporters, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said the results of the election reaffirmed their mandate to continue boycotting Stormont.

The people who voted last Thursday have renewed our mandate to finish the job and lay the necessary solid foundations for a return of local accountable government at Stormont, he said.

Leader of the DUP Jeffrey Donaldson speaking during the council elections (Liam McBurney/PA)

Mr Donaldson said more work was required by the UK government if the party was to return to the Assembly.

We want to see the restoration of the Assembly and Executive on a stable and sustainable basis and primarily, that means addressing and resolving the problems created by the protocol and the economic and democratic deficit that it has created for Northern Ireland and its people, he said.

Ireland Border poll would not have a 'hope in hell' of pas... Read More

The DUP opposed the protocol as the party believed it created a border in the Irish Sea.

The Windsor Framework was British prime minister Rishi Sunaks plan to tackle the problems the DUP had with the protocol by minimising checks on goods coming from mainland UK to Northern Ireland.

Mr Donaldson said the Windsor Framework does not deal with some of the fundamental problems at the heart of our current difficulties.
Ukraines military intelligence says Russia is plotting a large-scale provocation at a nuclear power station it occupies in the south-east of the country to disrupt a looming counteroffensive.

A statement from the intelligence directorate of Ukraines Defence Ministry claimed Russian forces will strike the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe, and report a radioactive leak in order to trigger an international probe that would pause the hostilities and give them the respite they need to regroup.

In order to make that happen, Russia disrupted the rotation of personnel of the permanent monitoring mission of the UNs International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that was scheduled for Saturday, the statement said.

It did not offer evidence to back up any of the claims.

Despite the Kremlin saying they would not attack civilian infrastructure, Russias attacks have left Ukrainians with a lack of access to essential health services and support.#StandWithUkraine  pic.twitter.com/FFeVxahmJW Advertisement  Ministry of Defence  (@DefenceHQ) May 27, 2023

The IAEA said it did not have any immediate comment on the allegations and Russian officials did not immediately comment on the Ukrainian claims.

The White House said it is watching the situation closely and has seen no indication radioactive material has been leaked.

The claim mirrors similar statements Moscow regularly makes, alleging without evidence that Kyiv is plotting provocations involving various dangerous weapons or substances in order to then accuse Russia of war crimes.

It comes as Moscows military in Ukraine braces for a looming counteroffensive by Kyivs forces, which has not started yet but could begin tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week, the secretary of Ukraines National Security and Defence Council, Oleksiy Danilov, told the BBC.

The Zaporizhzhia station is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world.

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 27 May 2023.



Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/mWADInKNj3



 #StandWithUkraine  pic.twitter.com/6pgyQ1bYxV  Ministry of Defence  (@DefenceHQ) May 27, 2023

It is in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region in south-eastern Ukraine.

The plants six reactors have been shut down for months but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

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Fighting near it repeatedly disrupted power supplies and has fuelled fears of a potential catastrophe like the one at Chernobyl, in northern Ukraine, where a reactor exploded in 1986 and spewed deadly radiation, contaminating a vast area in the worlds worst nuclear disaster.

In other developments, Russia on Saturday reported more attacks on its territory, with drones crashing in its western regions and areas on the border with Ukraine coming under shelling.

Two drones attacked an administrative building of an oil company in Russias western Pskov region that borders Belarus, Latvia and Estonia, Pskov governor Mikhail Vedernikov reported on Saturday.

The building was damaged as the result of an explosion, Mr Vedernikov said.

A Ukrainian soldier jumping off the German self-propelled Panzerhaubitze 2000 artillery at his position at the frontline near Bakhmut, Donetsk region (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

Another drone went down in the Tver region about 90 miles north of Moscow, local authorities said.

Russias Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine on Saturday came under multiple rounds of shelling, killing one person, according to its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

In the neighbouring Kursk region, which also borders Ukraine, one person was killed by cross-border mortar fire, its governor Roman Starovoit said.

And 60-year-old man was killed on Saturday evening by Russian shelling in the city of Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region, about 20 miles from the Russia border, Ukraines national police said.

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Meanwhile, the British military said on Saturday that Russias private military force, Wagner, is withdrawing from areas around the eastern city of Bakhmut that Moscow claims to have captured earlier this month.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin earlier this week announced the pullout, saying Wagner would hand control over the ruined city over to the Russian military.

Some were sceptical, however.

An aerial view of damaged private houses, shell and rocket craters in the suburbs of Donetsk (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

Mr Prigozhin is known for making unverifiable, headline-grabbing statements on which he later backtracks.

But the Ministry of Defence in Britain said in a series of tweets on Saturday that Wagner fighters have likely started to withdraw from some of their positions around Bakhmut.

The Ukrainian deputy defence minister also corroborated the rotation out of Wagner forces in the outskirts of the town, it added.
US President Joe Biden and his wife Jill watched granddaughter Natalie Biden graduate from high school on Sunday, the White House said.

Natalie is the daughter of the presidents late son, Beau. She is a student at St Andrews School in Middletown, Delaware, and will attend the University of Pennsylvania in the autumn. Beau Biden graduated from the same university.

The private Episcopal school was the setting for some scenes from the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society, starring the late Robin Williams.

Presidents usually deliver a couple of graduation addresses every year, including at one of the military service academies. But this year, Mr Biden also got to watch another one of his grandchildren go through that rite of passage.

Earlier this month, Mr Biden and the first lady attended granddaughter Maisy Bidens graduation from Penn.

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Mr Biden was the graduation speaker at Howard Universitys graduation ceremony on May 13. He is also scheduled to deliver the address at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday.
Indias major opposition parties have boycotted the inauguration of a new parliament building by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, in a rare show of unity against his Hindu nationalist ruling party.

Mr Modi inaugurated the building in the capital New Delhi on Sunday by offering prayers as Hindu priests chanted religious hymns.

Opposition parties criticised the event, saying Mr Modi had side-lined Indian president Droupadi Murmu, who has only ceremonial powers but is the head of state and highest constitutional authority.

Shortly after the inauguration, a visibly beaming Mr Modi entered parliament amid rousing applause by his party politicians, who chanted his name.

He delivered an almost 40-minute speech in which he hailed Indias parliamentary democracy and said the country has left behind its colonial past, referring to the old parliament building that was built by the British when they ruled India.

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Mr Modis party has ruled for nine years and is seeking a third term in next years election.

Hindu priests hand over a royal golden sceptre to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the inauguration ceremony (PA)

As parliamentarians thumped their desks, Mr Modi said: India is the mother of democracy.

Several years of foreign rule stole our pride from us. Today, India has left behind that colonial mindset.

The opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted: Parliament is the voice of the people. The Prime Minister is considering the inauguration of the parliament House as a coronation.

At least 19 opposition parties skipped the event, which coincided with the birth anniversary of a Hindu nationalist ideologue.

Opposition parties had said in a statement on Wednesday that Mr Modis decision to inaugurate the building was a grave insult to Indias democracy, because the government had disqualified, suspended and muted opposition politicians while passing controversial legislation with little debate.

When the soul of democracy has been sucked out from the parliament, we find no value in a new building, the parties said.

Indias powerful home minister Amit Shah said the opposition had politicised the event, while others within Mr Modis party said the boycott was an insult to the prime minister.

Indian PM Narendra Modi, second left, inaugurates the new Parliament building (PA)

The new triangular-shaped building  built at an estimated cost of almost 100 million  is part of a 2.3 billion revamp of British-era offices and residences in central New Delhi that will also include blocks of buildings to house government ministries and departments, and Mr Modis new private residence.

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The entire project, called the Central Vista, is spread over 1.9 miles.

The project was announced in 2019, and Mr Modi laid the foundation in December 2020.

The plan has drawn intense criticism from opposition politicians, architects and heritage experts, many of whom called it environmentally irresponsible, a threat to cultural heritage and too expensive.

Outrage grew in 2021, when at least 12 opposition parties questioned the projects timing, saying it was built as the country faced a devastating surge in coronavirus cases. They branded the revamp as Mr Modis vanity project and said its construction was prioritised over the loss of lives and livelihoods during the pandemic.
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A surge in support for Labour among rural voters in the UK could jeopardise several British cabinet ministers chances of re-election, including British chancellor Jeremy Hunt, polling suggests.

A poll published on Sunday found support for the opposition had soared by 16 points since 2019 in the 100 most rural constituencies, putting Labour only five points behind the Conservatives.

The survey, carried out by Survation on behalf of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), suggests more than 20 Conservatives in the 'Rural Wall' could be in line to lose their seats to Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

They include Mr Hunt whose South West Surrey seat has a majority of only 8,800 but will be split at the next election between two new constituencies.

Jacob Rees-Mogg was among the senior Rural Wall Tories that the CLA suggested could be in line to lose their seat at the next election (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

The CLA suggested that Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, and Mark Harper, the transport secretary, were also threatened by falling rural support for the Tories, as were former cabinet ministers Liam Fox and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

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All four have majorities of around 15,000, but recent by-elections in rural seats have seen larger Conservative majorities overturned.

Mark Tufnell, president of the CLA, blamed outdated planning restrictions, a lack of infrastructure and the cost of living for the fall in support for the Tories, but suggested rural seats were still up for grabs.

He said: I think the support that people are now seeing coming through, mainly for Labour but some for the Liberal Democrats, is possibly by default, because from the questions that weve asked, people are stating that they dont feel those parties have an understanding (of the countryside) either.

I think we have seen that any party, whether its Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the Conservatives, that wants to show an understanding of the countryside could easily hold and win those seats.

The CLAs poll found 34 per cent of people thought the Conservatives did not understand rural communities, while 31 per cent said the same about Labour and 23 per cent about the Liberal Democrats.

Saying that he expected the next election to be tightly fought, Mr Tufnell added that the 12 million rural voters could end up controlling who wins the general election.

He said: In recent years, weve seen how quickly communities which feel left behind can rewrite the electoral map. In 2024, it could be the countrysides turn.

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There is a simple truth  no political party has at present shown that it understands, let alone shares, the aspirations of rural communities.

The outdated planning regime holding rural businesses back, the lack of affordable housing driving families out, the outdated infrastructure limiting entrepreneurs potential, it is all having a devastating impact.

Any party which is willing to develop a robust and ambitious plan for the rural economy will secure significant support. Any party that wants to treat the countryside as a museum will be punished.

The poll, which surveyed 1,000 adults in the 100 most rural constituencies between April 13th and 24th, found 41 per cent said they would vote Conservative, a fall of 18 points from the 2019 election, while 36 per cent said they would vote Labour.

But there was little faith that either of the main parties would stimulate growth in the countryside.

Just 34 per cent said they thought the Tories would boost growth in rural communities, while 22 per cent said the same about Labour.

But 69 per cent said they did not think the British government was doing enough to help rural voters with the cost-of-living crisis, which Mr Tufnell said was worse in the countryside thanks to higher fuel prices and lower incomes.

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Housing was another major issue, with 44 per cent saying they would back more homes being built in their areas.

Mr Tufnell said the poll suggested that many small developments spread over several communities could gain more support than a smaller number of large developments.

Will Mathias, who lives in Mr Hunts constituency and runs a plant nursery, said restrictions on building and a lack of homes for rural residents had left voters feeling a bit neglected.

He said: A lot of rural workers on comparatively low incomes are being forced out because they cant afford houses that are being bought by people moving out of London.

Its inflating house prices to a point where most farm workers cant afford to live there any longer and I think that will have a detrimental effect.

Weve got eight full-time members of staff. The furthest one drives an hour and a quarter, none of them live within 20 minutes. They cant afford to live any closer than that.
A group of some 30 migrants seeking asylum, including small children, has been stuck at Polands border wall with Belarus for three days, Polish human rights activists have said.

Although the migrants were outside Polands border wall, activists from Grupa Granica (Border Group) said they were on Polish territory and Belarus was not allowing them to turn back.

In Belarus, they are not safe, activist Marta Staniszewska said.

The Belarusian services, as this group has told us, threaten them that if they return, they will be beaten, or that they will kill them, Ms Staniszewska told The Associated Press.



A Polish border guard patrols the metal wall on the border between Poland and Belarus, near Kuznice, Poland (Michal Dyjuk/AP/PA)

The migrants say that several among them are sick and the children have mosquito bites, according to Ms Staniszewska.

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A representative of Polands ombudsmans office visited and talked to the group on Sunday, but later told reporters that the decision about whether to allow them into the country belongs to the Polish Border Guard.

If these persons are indeed within the jurisdiction of the (Polish) Border Guard and declare their willingness to apply for international protection, then . such applications should be accepted, Maciej Grzeskowiak said.

Last year, Poland put up almost 190 kilometres (117 miles) of tall metal wall intended to stop thousands of migrants from Asia and Africa entering the country from Belarus.

The European Union has accused authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of aiding illegal border crossings in retaliation for EU sanctions. Mr Lukashenko denies encouraging migration to Europe.

Polands most powerful politician, the head of Polands right-wing ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said recently that building the wall was a good decision. He said it was protecting Poland and the EU against hostile moves by Belarus and Russia.

Despite the wall, up to 150 migrants of various nationalities, often with Russian visas in their documents, try to cross illegally into Poland each day, according to the Border Guard.

It is not possible from Polands side to determine what happens to the groups.
The United States and Saudi Arabia have called on warring sides in Sudan to extend a ceasefire due to expire on Monday.

The Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary force, battling for control of Sudan since mid-April, had agreed last week to the week-long truce brokered by the US and the Saudis.

However, the ceasefire, like others before it, did not stop the fighting in the capital of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

In a joint statement early on Sunday, the US and Saudi Arabia called for an extension of the current truce, which expires at 9.45pm local time on Monday.

While imperfect, an extension nonetheless will facilitate the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people, the statement said.

The statement also urged Sudans military government and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to continue negotiations.

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In a separate statement, the US and Saudi Arabia accused both the military and the RSF of violating the ceasefire, saying that such violations significantly impeded delivery of humanitarian assistance and restoration of essential services.

The statement mentioned airstrikes by the military including one that reportedly killed at least two people on Saturday in Khartoum.

The RSF also continued to occupy civilian homes, private businesses, and public buildings, and loot some residences.

The fighting broke out in mid-April between the military and the powerful RSF. Both military chief Gen Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF leader Gen Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo led the 2021 coup that removed the Western-backed government of prime minister Abdalla Hamdok.



People queue outside a bakery during a ceasefire in Khartoum, Sudan (Marwan Ali/AP)

The fighting turned Khartoum and the adjacent city of Omdurman into a battleground. The clashes also spread elsewhere in the country, including the war-wracked Darfur region.

The conflict has killed hundreds of people, wounded thousands and pushed the country to near collapse. It forced more than 1.3 million out of their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, or to neighbouring nations.

Residents reported renewed sporadic clashes on Sunday in parts of Omdurman, where the armys aircraft were seen flying over the city. Fighting was also reported in al-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur.

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The detention of Dr Alaa Eldin Awad Nogoud, a prominent surgeon and pro-democracy activist, in Omdurman caused uproar in the country, with medical and rights groups in and outside of Sudan demanding his release.

A group of armed men stormed Dr Nogouds home on Sunday and detained him, according to the Sudan Doctors Syndicate. He was taken to an unknown location, it said.

The Forces of Freedom and Change, the pro-democracy coalition, said the armed men claimed they were members of the military and the intelligence service. It said Dr Nogouds detention was part of a campaign targeting pro-democracy activists, and urged his immediate release.

The development came after Nogoud told a television station last week that the military seized medical aid provided by the World Health Organisation and stored it at a military hospital in Omdurman, according to local media.

He said doctors were denied access to the facility when they demanded a share in the aid to other hospitals. They were told that permission was needed first to get access, he said.

A spokesman for the military declined to comment on Sunday.

The US-Saudi statement came two days after Gen Burhan demanded in a letter to the UN secretary-general that the UN envoy to his country be removed.

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UN chief Antonio Guterres was shocked by the letter, a spokesman said.

The envoy, Volker Perthes, has been a key mediator in Sudan, first during the countrys fitful attempts to transition to democracy and then during efforts to end the current fighting.

Gen Burhans letter came after Mr Perthes accused the warring parties of disregarding the laws of war by attacking homes, shops, places of worship and water and electricity installations.

In his briefing to the UN Security Council last week, Mr Perthes blamed the leaders of the military and the RSF for the war, saying they have chosen to settle their unresolved conflict on the battlefield rather than at the table.
Its time to stop talking about the individuals caught in the eye of an internet pile-on and train our attention on the mob. Stan Grant has been caught in the same vortex as many other prominent individuals. Instead of wondering what it is about them that has made them a target, we should be wondering what it is about us that we tolerate a mob mentality or, much worse, participate in it.

Stan Grant at the Sydney Writers Festival on Friday.

Predictably, Grants reasons for taking a timeout from the media have been used to justify existing resentments. News Corp has copped it from News Corp-haters for repeatedly publishing and airing complaints by its commentators about Grants part in a panel discussion during the coronation. The ABC has copped it from ABC-haters because Grant referred in an article published on the ABC website to its legacy of racism. Twitter has copped it from Twitter-haters because it is the forum in which Grant says that my family and I are regularly racially mocked or abused.

But by pointing the finger at institutions, we miss the culture we are all part of. It is not the abuse but how we  not the victim  respond which creates such intense pressure on individuals that they see no option other than to flee the country or the limelight.

Regardless of the topic, they are always presented as the result of the words, actions or characteristics of the person who has become the focal point. While nobody should be beyond criticism for what they say or do, the idea that mob behaviour is the fault of the individual is demonstrably nonsense.
This represents a more than 400 per cent jump in complaints since 2019-20. Almost one in six of these relate to prescribing issues, while others relate to cost, incorrect or missed diagnosis and delays in care. Tonkin, who is a specialist in clinical pharmacology, said the watchdog had received complaints about people being prescribed Valium without any questions asked about their medical history or why they needed the drug. RACGP President Dr Nicole Higgins has also raised concerns. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen She said there was the potential for deaths and serious health outcomes to occur, adding: Its just a matter of time. Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Dr Nicole Higgins said she had refused to prescribe weight or contraceptive drugs to patients over health concerns, only for these patients to access the drugs online via quick script providers.

Higgins said it was easy for patients to provide false personal information to these providers to get the drugs they wanted. Loading One of the big things about training to be a GP is learning when to say no, this is not safe for you, she said. You dont have to be a GP to be working in these services. Any doctor is able to prescribe. Health Minister Mark Butler weighed into the debate last week, saying he was concerned about Australian start-ups selling and prescribing drugs online without ever seeing patients faces. It followed this masthead recently reporting that Australian start-ups, Eucalyptus and Midnight Health, were not holding video calls or checking identity documents before posting weight-loss medication that carries serious side effects.

Consumers Health Forum chief executive Elizabeth Deveny said telehealth had increased access to healthcare, particularly for people living in remote areas. She said the platforms often appealed to people with conditions that had been stigmatised: erectile dysfunction, obesity and sexually transmitted infections. But shes concerned consumers are not always receiving quality, safe healthcare. Melbourne pharmacist Anthony Tassone is the Victorian president of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia. Credit: Arsineh Houspian Some of these companies are thinking more about how much money they can make, rather than what is in the best interests of a patient, she said. Anthony Tassone, the Victorian president of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, said pharmacists were receiving scripts from online providers when it was clear there should have been more involvement from a doctor.

In one instance, he said a doctor prescribed prednisolone, a type of steroid used to treat allergies, to a child, but requested the pharmacist weigh the child to determine the proper dose. Loading Convenience is important, but we do need to balance that with patient safety, he said. The finalised guidelines for telehealth providers will be announced this week and come into force later this year. Practitioners who prescribe drugs or provide healthcare to patients they have not consulted  either in person, over video or the phone  face the prospect of being hauled before the Medical Board of Australia. They will only be allowed to do so in exceptional circumstances where they can prove the prescribing was necessary.

A spokesman for InstantScripts, one of the largest online script start-ups, said it declined 35 per cent of initial requests for prescriptions, referring these patients to a telehealth consultation. We agree there is a need for clear, consistent safeguards that are informed by broad industry consultation and international examples of best practice. Michele Squire, the founder of telehealth provider Qr8, welcomes any move to clamp down on telehealth prescribing. Squire said she was particularly concerned about the prescribing of medication that did not occur in real time and unfolded over online chats and questionnaires. Self-diagnosis determines what questions are brought up, she said. You have no way of verifying what is wrong with a patient.
I have just returned from Dili, in Timor-Leste, where I was one of around 30 self-funded Australian volunteer observers for the 2023 parliamentary elections.

As widely reported, the people of one of the worlds poorest and youngest democracies just peacefully changed their government, an astonishing accomplishment for a nation where so much blood was spilled not many years ago. The Timorese voters rejected the Fretilin-led coalition of Mari Alkatiri and, after an eight-year absence, have resurrected septuagenarian revolutionary hero Xanana Gusmao for a new spell as prime minister.

People queue up to cast their votes at a polling station in Dili. Credit: AP

I will leave the deep analysis of the reasons for and impact of the result to those far better steeped in the twists and turns of politics in our region. Separate from the outcome, but just as important, was how professionally and communally one of our nearest neighbours conducted their hotly contested election.

It was a privilege to witness first hand the overwhelmingly respectful way in which 860,000 registered voters went about the business of disagreeing with each other but still peacefully and calmly choosing their politicians. As one of my fellow observers remarked, I was handing out how-to-vote cards in the last federal election, was spat at, screamed at, threatened and abused and had to call the police it is so much better over here!
Victorian independent Senator Lidia Thorpe has questioned the impact of the 1967 referendum on the lives of Indigenous people.

The 1967 referendum gave the federal government the power to make laws for Aboriginal people and count them in the census. Previously that power rested with the states, and the federal government only had power over Indigenous issues in the territories.

Speaking on ABC Melbourne radio, Thorpe responded to a listener who voted Yes in the 1967 referendum.

Thank you for voting Yes, but at the same time, it was a similar campaign, Thorpe said.

It gave us no rights. It gave the parliament the power to make decisions for us as sovereign people of these lands. Im questioning what the impacts of that have been for our people.

Asked if it was an improvement, Thorpe said: No, I dont think it was. I think that we should have negotiated back then.

But she added: Im not saying to vote No, either. My position is to educate the people and know that the Yes campaign is not all cracked up to be.

Independent Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

She said the Yes campaign banned senior Aboriginal people because they were cynical of the process.

Thats been the problem for six years, she said. Theyve never allowed the grassroots black movement to come to the table, and theyve made us out to be troublemakers and not part of the solution when we want to be part of the solution. Weve got good ideas.

Thorpe also decried the fact that voices of racists were being amplified, while many First Nations people were being ignored.

There are thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people out there that are in the No camp, but they dont get the platform like the racist No camp that youre seeing, Thorpe said.

And they dont get the platform that the Yes campaign have given theyve got the government support, and theyve now got every major league, and all of the people who are feeling fuzzy and heart-warmed by what the Uluru Statement says.

It is a beautiful statement. But ultimately the people that went to Uluru did not decide at that meeting that there was going to be a Voice. I was there and there was no talk about a Voice. There was talk about constitutional recognition.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart can be heard or read in full here. Among other things, it says: We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.

Thorpe said the proposed change to the Australian Constitution was nothing to be scared off and nothing to be excited by.

Its not going to make any difference either way to the conditions on the ground for First Nations people in this country, Thorpe said.

She said the government already had a Closing the Gap report that confirmed increasing child removals and incarceration rates, but was not prepared to act on recommendations.

She also said the proposed constitutional amendment did not specify what form the Voice would take and there was nothing to rule it out being one person.
Japan blasts our way of life

Australias work ethics, managers and workforce were savaged today by the leader of a recent Japanese investment mission to Australia. Mr Naohiro Amaya said that unless Australia improved its competitiveness, the standard of Australian living may have to fall considerably in the near future. In fact, he said, the lucky country good life strewn with the the take-it-easy motto and the happy-go-lucky solutions must be overhauled.

Joh down and out in Beverly Hills

A couple of empty Castlemaine XXXX beer bottles, the remains of some sandwiches and a silver ice-bucket sat rather untidily outside the door of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersens suite. Sir Joh didnt look too good either. His pale blue Christian Dior shirt made him look smart, but his eyes looked tired. But from 11 pm Los Angeles time, when he heard officially that the Prime Minister had called an early election, Sir Joh had had little rest.

Regular shorts

An Alexandria sandwich shop has a sign: Why wait in line for your sandwiches  just fax your order to us in the morning. On an automatic photo booth at Bondi Junction railway station is this sign: Out of order, ka put, broken, malfunction, out of it, does not compute. Derek Nimmo made a Nazi salute in the Australian High Commission in London as he accepted his appointment as honorary ambassador for Queensland and Expo 88.
A 71-year-old Redbank Plains man allegedly sent naked photos of himself to what he thought was a young girl, only to be arrested by detectives from Queenslands Taskforce Argos.

The man was arrested on May 25 as he tried to meet the young girl in Brisbane and give her gifts, the detectives allege.

Taskforce Argos is a specialist police unit that investigates online child exploitation and abuse.

The detectives, who had been tracking the mans online movements, executed a search warrant at his home, where they allegedly found child exploitation material.
A 28-year-old man from Brisbanes southside has been charged with murder over the stabbing death of a 63-year-old man in a violent attack in Redbank on Saturday night.

The Boronia Heights man was charged after a fight at a unit in Mine Street, Redbank, just after 10pm. He will appear in Ipswich Magistrates Court on Monday morning.

The accused man was charged after a fight at a unit in Mine Street, in the Ipswich suburb of Redbank. Credit: Google Maps

Paramedics arrived at the unit about 10.15pm to find the 63-year-old with significant stab wounds to his face and head, Inspector David Briese said.

It was a very confronting scene, with significant wounds to the deceased and a lot of blood.
Bahrain Islamic Bank (BisB), a leading provider of digital banking services in Bahrain, has won the Best Digital Banking Initiative at the Mena Banking Excellence Awards ceremony 2023.

Yaser Alsharifi, Chief Executive Officer of BisB attended the ceremony in Dubai, UAE, organised by the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED).

This award throws light on BisBs achievements throughout its digitisation journey, including the establishment of the banks Innovation Lab which offers various new technologies dedicated to testing new products before they are launched in the market. The Bank also directed its focus towards rolling out specialised digital banking solutions to meet the needs of corporate clients, enabling startups to open and manage their accounts digitally through the BisB Corporate Digital application, eliminating the need to visit any of the banks branches.

Simplifying banking transactions

Yaser Alsharifi, Chief Executive Officer of BisB, said: We are proud to have won this prestigious award from the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED), which stands as a testament to our efforts to simplify banking transactions for both our retail and corporate customers. Moving forward in our digitisation journey, we will continue to offer high-level digital products and services. Accordingly, we would like to extend our congratulations to all BisB employees for their vital role in achieving this award. We would also like to thank the jury and all those in charge of organising this event for their efforts.

He added: We have undertaken major steps to simplify banking transactions for our customers from the financial and corporate sectors. Companies, SMEs, and individual establishments can open and activate an account using their mobile phones without the need to visit the branch by uploading all the necessary documents through BisB Corporate Digital upon completing the commercial registration process.

Companies under formation can also open an account through BisB Digital and get a certificate for depositing the capital issued digitally to complete and speed up the commercial registration activation process.-- TradeArabia News Service
But Tans perspective is at sharp odds with that of his colleague, Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay, who has argued the proposed change inserts race into the Australian Constitution in a way that undermines the foundational human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination  a view which has been rejected by five of her predecessors in the role. Despite this split, the Australian Human Rights Commission, which comprises seven commissioners, has formally endorsed the Voice to parliament as consistent with human rights principles. Loading Until last week, Duttons criticisms of the Voice had focused on the legal risks and the lack of detail about how the body would operate. His decision to frame his opposition in terms of racial inequality follows in the footsteps of the leading No campaigners Warren Mundine and CLP senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who have long made similar arguments. Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney accused Dutton of taking the low road and using his speech to amplify misinformation about the Voice, while leading Voice campaigner Megan Davis urged all politicians and leaders to be fair and decent in the debate.

When approached for comment, Duttons office pointed to remarks he made last week rejecting Burneys claims and accusing the Yes camp of shouting at Australians [and] telling them that because they dont support the Voice that somehow theyre racist. The Liberal Partys only Indigenous senator, Kerrynne Liddle, said she was in lock-step with her leader in believing the Voice would divide the country, arguing it was impossible to leave race out of the discussion because it was about enshrining a new body in the Constitution on the basis of a characteristic of a particular cohort. Liddle, an Arrente woman who opposes the Voice and is co-coordinator of a newly formed Liberals for No group, said Dutton was stating a perspective that Im entirely comfortable with. I just want to be really clear: my position is Peter Duttons position, Liddle said.

She blamed the Yes camp for the deteriorating tone of the national debate and said non-Indigenous people were also bearing the consequences, saying people were afraid of raising concerns about the Voice for fear of public condemnation. Loading It would be a very brave person working for one of those organisations  be it part of a club, be part of a sporting group  that has come out so publicly and aggressively and said we support thiswhat happens to them if they raise questions? Liddle said. Ive had people tell me they feel like theyre under attack. This is not the way to conduct a discussion about a document that belongs to all Australians. Liddle pointed to the personal attack by Voice architect Noel Pearson earlier this month on Indigenous leader Mick Gooda, in which he labelled the former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner a bed-wetter after he spoke of his fears the referendum could fail and called for compromise on the bill.

We should live in a healthy democracy, and just attacking individuals because you disagree with them, is not reflective of a healthy discussion or healthy debate or in anybodys interests, Liddle said. Loading The parliamentary debate, which will continue in the lower house this week, has dovetailed with a wider discussion about the toll racial vitriol can take after veteran Indigenous journalist Stan Grant stepped down from his role as host of the ABCs Q+A after enduring a torrent of racist abuse over his contribution to the broadcasters King Charles III coronation coverage. Rhoda Roberts, a Widjabul-Wiyebal woman, and currently the elder-in-residence at public broadcaster SBS, said high levels of racist abuse and lateral violence had always surrounded public debate of First Nations rights and advancement, and welcomed the current spotlight on the impacts of that atmosphere on journalists and Aboriginal communities. Often we navigate the way through on our own, internalising a lot of the hatred and jealousies aimed at us, so you learn to have thick skin. But its not always enough, she said.
[The LNP label] has become a bit of a catch-all for us and thats not the party I signed up to. I joined the Liberal Party. Bragg, a NSW senator, said the Coalition had been a foundation of Australian prosperity as it meshes city and country. Senator Andrew Bragg said the Coalition partnership needed to be balanced. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen I support it, but it must be balanced and must not retard the development of policy for city residents. Most Australians live in the city and this should be reflected in our policy approach, he said. One of the senior Liberal members who asked not to be named said at the last election the Liberal Party had not differentiated itself and as a result the Nationals tail wagged the Liberal dog, and so we lost seats, and they lost no seats at all.

I dont see why we need to be in coalition in opposition. The second senior Liberal said that heading into the last election, most voters thought the Morrison government opposed adopting a net-zero climate target because of the Nationals. Barnaby Joyce and Michael McCormack argued the two parties should stick together. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor are trying to frame the economic debate around the cost of living and the Australian economy and [Nationals MPs] Matt Canavan and Keith Pitt are holding up lumps of coal, they said. But McCormack said the Coalition had long been a successful partnership and business agreement.

We go our own way on some issues. We went early with our opposition to Voice which was important to the party, but honestly, those Liberals who are talking about a trial separation should be thinking about cost-of-living pressures and get their heads out of from where the sun doesnt shine. The Nationals have not lost a seat in the past five federal elections. Those anonymous Liberals could learn from that. Joyce said as long as there was respect between the two parties then you should always try and make a marriage work if possible. He said divisions between the two Coalition parties were driven by a regional versus inner urban versus outer suburban divide. The Liberals now only hold four out of 45 inner-metropolitan seats and 14 out of 42 outer-metropolitan seats, according to the Australian Electoral Commission. Ten years ago, the Coalition held almost the same number of inner metropolitan seats as Labor and more outer metropolitan seats.

Most of the city-based seats held by the Liberals are held on tight margins and would almost certainly be lost if an election were held today, based on current levels of support in published polling. Loading Archer said a rethink of the Liberal Partys metropolitan brand was urgently needed to retain seats held by James Stevens (Sturt), Keith Wolahan (Menzies), Aaron Violi (Casey) and Zoe McKenzie (Flinders), whom she nominated as future ministers or prime ministers. If you dont do anything different or diverge or learn from the lessons of the last election, then those people are all at risk. It wont be National party seats at risk, its more Liberals. They are the future of the party, a future government, she said. There is historical precedent, albeit limited, for a Liberal-Nationals split. In Victoria, the two parties were not in formal coalition until 1989, and again after the 1999 election loss, while there were splits in 1987 caused by Queensland premier Joh Bjelke Petersens attempt to pull the Nationals out of a formal coalition, which was partially successful. The formal merger of the Liberals and Nationals in 2008 would further complicate a split.

Adelaide-based MP James Stevens, a key member of the metropolitan members group  which meets regularly to discuss policies to win back city voters  does not support a rethink of the Liberal-National coalition but acknowledges a cohort of metropolitan voters can no longer be relied upon to vote Liberal. He said the party needed to present a new value proposition to voters and said ambitious policies, which he expected would be announced before the election, would be key. They will breathe life, hopefully, into our connection with those people. Former MP Tim Wilson, who is likely to try to win back the Melbourne seat of Goldstein, said his party needed to face the reality that voters who deserted it at the last election arent on strike and the Liberals must aggressively back home ownership.
Twitters widely criticised reinvention of its verification program, combined with a new generation of synthetic media powered by generative AI, could create a perfect storm for misinformation on the platform as it tries to woo back advertisers and the 2024 US presidential race ramps up.

Last week, a faked image of an explosion outside the Pentagon briefly went viral on the service. Despite Twitters rules against impersonation, at least one of the profiles posting the image was made to look like an official Bloomberg account, complete with a blue verification tick.

The fake image that purported to show an explosion near the Pentagon was shared by a fake Bloomberg account.

Previously these ticks were granted by Twitter to verified individuals, organisations and celebrities at risk of impersonation, but under chief executive Elon Musk any user can buy a tick as part of a subscription service known as Twitter Blue.

Several other accounts posting the image were dedicated misinformation accounts designed to look like legitimate news outlets  all with blue ticks  which allowed the image to be seen hundreds of thousands of times with captions like BREAKING: Explosion near Pentagon. The image was also presented as genuine by news outlets controlled by the Russian government.
The Times said that the news came in a cryptic radio flash from the expeditions leader, Colonel H. J. C. Hunt, last night. The message said: Hillary and Tensing climbed on May 29. All well.

LONDON, June 2 (A A.P.).-The Times announced to-day that the British expedition last Friday reached the 29,000ft peak of Mount Everest, highest mountain in the world. The news was published in a special edition only a few hours before the Coronation, and was greeted by cheering multitudes in the streets.

The news was taken by runner from the expeditions base camp on Khumbu Glacier to the radio post at Namche Bazar and from there was transmitted to the British Embassy in Katmandu (Nepal) so that it could be sent by Diplomatic channels to London for the Queen to be informed on the eve of her Coronation.

The Queen received the news at Buckingham Palace last night.

Everest: The Crowning Glory (Editorial)

There could not have been a happier conjunction of events than the conquest of Everest and the Coronation. Brave men in the storied past would not have deemed their mightiest achievement a more fitting offering to lay before a young Queen, on her day of dedication, than this British victory over the last great obstacle of Nature. Small wonder that the news from the Himalayas thrilled the immense throngs in London not only as a dramatic adornment of the most royal of Royal occasions, but as a splendid augury that the skill, courage, and purpose of her Majestys peoples will make the second Elizabethan age a vivid reality.

The deed and the time were the better matched in that it was E. P. Hillary, a New Zealander in Colonel Hunts expedition, who scaled with a Sherpa hillman, Tensing, the last daunting slope to the top of Everest. But if the pride in a superb mountaineering feat, like the pride in the Monarchy so magnificently evinced yesterday, is shared by a far-ranging Commonwealth, the credit for this triumph stretches wider still. It is 32 years since the first Everest assault and all except two of the eleven attempts upon its 29,002ft peak have been British, but the knowledge of the mountaineer in all such calculated adventures rests upon the experience of great climbers in many countries, and not least upon the fine traditions of the Swiss.
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The latest ANZ CoreLogic Housing Affordability Report said the combination of an undersupply of rental accommodations and a surge in renters is severely impacting affordability in Australia.

Rental affordability has reached its lowest level since June 2014, with the average household needing 30.8% of their income to service a new lease.

At the lower end of the income spectrum, this figure jumps to 51.6%, highlighting the immense pressure faced by households in the 25th percentile.

ANZ Senior Economist Felicity Emmett (pictured) emphasized the significance of rental metrics when assessing housing affordability, noting the increased demand for rental accommodation and the decline in social housing availability across all income brackets.

The report reveals that rental vacancy rates across the country were at 1.1% in April 2023, well below the decade average of 3%, while total rent listings were down by 38.1% compared to the previous decade's average.

The pandemic-induced rise in regional migration has further exacerbated the situation, resulting in increased rent values and low vacancy rates in both regional Australia and major cities.

Rent values in regional markets have soared by 28.8% since March 2020, outpacing the 24.4% increase in capital cities.

Eliza Owen, CoreLogic Australia's head of research, explained that the surge in rental demand is due to the combination of a higher number of dwellings required per household, driven by a return in overseas migration, and limited construction activity.

As rents rise sharply, investor conditions have become less favorable, leading to a slowdown in the completion of new rental properties.

While rental affordability is most strained in Hobart, regional Queensland, and regional New South Wales, Sydney stands out as the most unaffordable market for homeownership.

Sydneysiders, on average, need to allocate 51.6% of their income to service a new mortgage and require around 12 years to accumulate a 20% deposit.

These challenges, combined with higher building and construction costs, are contributing to increased rental demand and pushing more people out of the housing market.

Although there are signs of an increase in investment borrowing, a substantial supply response to alleviate pressures in the rental market is expected to take time.

Have something to say about this story? Let us know in the comments below.
As India emerges as the most populated country in the world with its power corridor Delhi leading the largest political party at a time when rapid climate changes are happening across the globe, it calls for an analysis of the BJP-led Central governments environmental initiatives.

A mere decade ago, climate change was not a matter of grave concern. Considering its profound implications and the impact it has on our daily lives, it has now become a topic of widespread discussion and concern.

Over the past nine years, the BJP-led Central government has launched various schemes to address climate change. These include the Green Hydrogen Mission, GOBARdhan (Galvanising Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan Scheme), the Green Credit programme, MISHTI, Amrit Dharohar, and more.

In 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a global call for Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) during India's National Statement at CoP26, held in Glasgow in October-November 2021.

Subsequently, Mission LiFE was launched on October 20, 2022, recognising the importance of transitioning to sustainable lifestyles and consumption patterns in efforts to address climate change.

Last year, the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change launched the 'In Our LiFEtime' campaign, aimed at encouraging youth aged 18 to 23 years to become messengers of sustainable lifestyles. The campaign aimed to recognise youth from around the world who take climate action initiatives aligned with the concept of LiFE.

Also Read India plans big for green energy sector in sync with G20 Presidency India set to announce compliance details of carbon trading market in June CMAI inks pact with AREAS for exchange of knowledge on policy, innovation Canada sets goal to conserve 30% land-water by 2030 for sustainability NTPC, Reliance, Adani top green hydrogen plays to bet on, say analysts Germany recession may impact Indian exports: CII EXIM committee chairman Angel tax: Experts seek 10% safe harbour for convertible preference shares Negotiations on supply chain agreement under IPEF conclude: Ministry FII inflows, improving macros make India May's best-performing market FPIs invest Rs 37,316 cr in May on strong domestic macro fundamentals

During his address to the nation on the occasion of the 75th Independence Day, Modi highlighted India's action on 'Mission Circular Economy' to deal with various waste. NITI Aayog constituted 11 committees to develop circular economy action plans for various waste categories.

Circular Economy Action Plans for 10 waste categories, including Lithium-ion batteries, E-waste, Toxic and hazardous industrial waste, Scrap metal (ferrous and non-ferrous), Tyre and Rubber, End of Life Vehicles, Gypsum, Used Oil, Solar Panels, and Municipal Solid Waste, have been finalised and are currently being implemented.

To control climate change and the rise in temperature, the Modi government has taken many initiatives and steps for environment conservation.

The National Clean Air Programme was launched in 2019 by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change to reduce the quantity of particulate matter in the range of PM2.5 and PM 10 particle concentrations in the atmosphere.

The ministry also launched the Green Skill Development Programme to develop green skills among people and also to provide employment to the youngsters in the environment and forest sector.

"The government has committed to get 50 per cent of its energy from renewable resources and to reduce total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes by the year 2030," said an official.

The government also launched a global movement 'Lifestyle for the Environment' with a view to ensuring sustainable development.

"The movement aims to live a life which is in favour of the environment and does not harm the ecosystem and living beings. Faster Adoption and manufacturing of Hybrid & Electric vehicles in India scheme has been launched in the year 2015 to promote use of electric vehicles in order to decrease the consumption of coal, which is already implemented by fourteen states of our country," said the official.

The Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati Programme, an initiative to promote natural farming has already been adopted by Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala. Airshed Management technique has been implemented by states like Uttar Pradesh to improve the quality of air.

The Central government submitted a report to the Delhi High Court, stating that the Cabinet has approved India's updated Nationally Determined Contribution, which is a step towards achieving India's long-term goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2070.

It was also informed to the court that the Cabinet's approval aligns with the Prime Minister's "Panchamrit" announced at COP-26 and sets enhanced climate targets, committing India to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 45 percent by 2030.

The court appreciated the sincere efforts made by the Ministry to ensure the implementation of climate change measures and provide a better environment for future generations.

The government also launched its long-term low carbon development strategy at the 27th session of the Conference of Parties (COP-27) to the UNFCCC. The strategy was launched by Union Minister for Environment, Forest, and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, who led the Indian delegation to COP 27 from November 6-18, 2022.

The Indian government has also taken determined steps to fulfil its commitment to eliminate single-use plastics that are non-biodegradable and have an adverse impact on the environment. A ban on identified single-use plastic items has been imposed starting from July 1, 2022. The ban was notified on August 12, 2021.

To top it all, the government has introduced Prakriti: Messenger of the Earth as the mascot of sustainability and environmental protection, aiming to raise awareness among the general public.

--IANS

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In this section

First Published: May 28 2023 | 9:05 PM IST

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has sounded a warning on global health goals for 2030.There are signs of slower improvement than before on a number of health indicators, according to the recently released World Health Statistics 2023 report. It has warned that progress slowed or stagnated on multiple health indicators since 2015, even before the Covid-19 pandemic disruption. Both India and its emerging market peers slipped on key indicators in this period, according to a Business Standard analysis of WHO data over the years. For example, there has been limited progress on anaemia, which affects more than half of Indian women. Many emerging market peers show a similar trend (chart 1).

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PM Modi spoke about Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan slogan in the radio show. At the time of 1965 war, our former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave the slogan of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan. Later, Atal ji added Jai Vigyan to it. A few years ago, while talking to the scientists of the country, I talked about Jai Anusandhan. In 'Mann Ki Baat', today's talk is about such a person, such an organization, which is a reflection of all these four, Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan, Jai Vigyan and Jai Anusandhan," said PM Modi.

PM Modi discussed Indian Memory Project in 101st edition of Mann Ki Baat and said, The Indian Memory Project, established in 2010, is a kind of online museum. It is engaged in connecting the links of India's glorious history through pictures and stories sent from all over the world. An attempt has also been made to bring to the fore the memories associated with the horrors of Partition."Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that PM Museum which has been dedicated to all PMs of the country is adding beauty to the national capital.We all must have heard a saying many times, must have heard it again and again - without water everything is lost. Without water, there is always a crisis on life, the development of the individual and the country also comes to a standstill. In view of this future challenge, today 75 Amrit Sarovars are being constructed in every district of the country," said PM Modi.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Sunday said nearly 40 armed militants involved in torching houses and firing at civilians have been killed by security forces since they began an operation to bring peace to the north eastern state beset by ethnic rioting.

Singh's comments came in the backdrop of fresh clashes breaking out between armed groups and security forces at over half a dozen places across Manipur on Sunday,



The Chief Minister who was interacting with the media persons at the state secretariat, claimed the latest round of conflict is not between communities but between Kuki militants and security forces.

Singh also said that there had been cases of armed militants firing at civilians with AK-47s, M-16 and sniper rifles. These militants were targeted by security forces in counter-attacks.

The CM appealed to the public not to hinder the movement of security personnel and urged them to have "faith in the government and support the security forces."



We have experienced hardship for so long and we will never allow the state to disintegrate," Singh said.

He said many Kuki militants involved in killing civilians and destroying property and torching houses have been captured by the Jat regiment.

The latest clashes which erupted in the early hours of Sunday began after the army commenced combing operations to de-arm communities in order to bring peace, officials said.

Also Read Tribal protest in Manipur turns violent; curfew imposed, internet suspended There is no crisis in Manipur BJP, says CM; gives details of ministers Shielding governance failure will not resolve Manipur's problems Kuki MLAs, civil society groups decide against dialogue with Manipur govt CM Biren assures safety of Tripura students stuck in violence-hit Manipur NGT directs committees to look into Delhi's illegal dyeing factories Hotel occupancy goes up to 90% as tourists head to Shimla to escape heat Isro begins countdown for launch of navigation satellite on GSLV rocket Census unlikely before LS polls; citizens to be asked about smartphones New Parliament building will be witness to India's growth: Vice President

The house of BJP MLA Khwairakpam Raghumani Singh at Uripok in Imphal West was vandalised and his two vehicles have been set on fire, a top security official told PTI.

He said that clashes broke out in the early hours of the morning at several places in different districts surrounding the Imphal Valley both between militant groups and security forces as well as between rival ethnic militant groups.

"According to our information, firing has been reported from Sugnu in Kakching, Kangvi in Churachandpur, Kangchup in Imphal West, Sagolmang in Imphal East, Nungoipokpi in Bishenpur, Khurkhul in Imphal West and YKPI in Kangpokpi," the official said.

New roadblocks have also sprung up in many areas manned by women which have delayed army columns on patrol.

There was also an unconfirmed report of arms being looted from Kakching police station by a Meitei group, the official said.

Ethnic clashes which have claimed over 75 lives first broke out in Manipur after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts on May 3 to protest against the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

The violence was preceded by tension over the eviction of Kuki villagers from reserve forest land, which had led to a series of smaller agitations.

Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal Valley. Tribal Nagas and Kukis constitute another 40 per cent of the population and reside in the hill districts.

Around 140 columns of the Indian Army and Assam Rifles, comprising over 10,000 personnel, besides those from other paramilitary forces had to be deployed to bring back normalcy in the Northeastern state.
Border Security Force (BSF) has shot down another drone near India-Pakistan International Border (IB) in Punjab's Amritsar and arrested a smuggler alongwith narcotics consignment on Saturday evening, the force said today.

BSF personnel deployed near Dhanoe village in Khurd district in Amritsar shoot down and intercepted the drone after they heard a buzzing sound of the drone at about 9:35 pm yesterday.

During a subsequent search of the area, the troops recovered a drone (Quadcopter, DJI Matrice RTK 300) from the farming fields in Dhanoe village, said the Central Armed Police Force mandated to guard the India-Pakistan border.

Meanwhile, the BSF said troops deployed near Dhanoe village saw three persons running towards the village, challenged them and caught hold of one suspect alongwith a bag containing a suspected narcotics consignment of three packets (gross weight of approximately 3.4 kg).

An iron hook and four luminous strips were also found attached to the consignment, said the BSF.

With the fresh action, the BSF said, another nefarious attempt of Pakistan to smuggle narcotics foiled by vigilant troops of the force.

Also Read Two Pak intruders shot dead by BSF along Punjab border; guns recovered Drone shot by BSF along Punjab border in Amritsar, falls on Pakistan side BSF deploys drone-mounted radars to check tunnels along Pak border Pak intruder shot dead by BSF in Gurdaspur; a fire arm recovered BSF intercepts Pak drone in Gurdaspur sector, forcing it to return Mahapanchayat will certainly be held today, says wrestler Bajrang Punia Medium intensity earthquake hits Jammu and Kashmir, tremors felt in Delhi Affection that people have shown for 'Mann Ki Baat' is unprecedented: PM New Parliament inauguration: Exit gates of these metro stations closed PM Narendra Modi to address 101st episode of 'Mann Ki Baat' today

Earlier on Sunday, the BSF seized a suspected packet of Heroin and shot down a drone, in two separate incidents, along the India-Pakistan border in Amritsar, BSF Punjab Frontier said.

"In a second narcotics recovery in a night, another pack of suspected heroin (2.2kg appx) dropped by Pakistani drone, has been recovered in Amritsar Sector. This seizure occurred at a separate location from the previous drone incident," tweeted BSF Punjab Frontier.

In another incident, BSF shot down a Pakistani drone for violating Indian airspace on Saturday late at night. "Another Pakistani drone was made to taste mud by the BSF. Indian Airspace violation by Pakistani drone has been intercepted (with fire) by alert BSF troops in Amritsar Sector. The drone has been recovered. Details follow," tweeted BSF Punjab Frontier.
Delhi discoms have approached the court against Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission over its 'Business Plan Regulations', an official said on Sunday.

The discoms challenged the regulations issued by the power regulator in the High Court earlier this month, they said.

The matter is sub judice so nothing can be said officially said a top DERC official seeking anonymity.

The Business Plan Regulations when issued had invited the discoms to give their objections and suggestions but it is "unfortunate" that instead of approaching the DERC they took the matter to the court, he said.

"The discoms are pushing self interest as public interest. In fact, they are opposing the business plan regulations because it plugged all the loopholes they used to approach courts and get the annual tariff influenced to their benefit," he added.

"Many aspects of the Business Plans Regulations are in contravention of law and it has been challenged on various grounds, including violation of the principles of the Electricity Act, 2003, for being released without public hearing and that it is against DERC's own tariff policy," said a discom official who does not wish to be identified.

Also Read Delhi LG swings in action on DERC's advice to 'restrict' power subsidy Delhi Deputy CM Sisodia asks LG to clear appointment of DERC chairman Power ministry seeks enquiry on DERC for not following statutory orders Outstanding dues of discoms reduced by Rs 29,857 crore: Power minister Sebi proposes to tighten regulations on issuance of bonus shares Wrestlers' wrangle: All women protesters released, says Delhi Police The Super Bowl pitch: Indian Premier League wins the audience Test Farmer leaders going for Mahila Maha Panchayat in Delhi detained in Haryana Stalin rides bullet train in Japan, bats for 'equivalent' service in India Will meet Sitharaman to claim refund of Rs 9,242 cr deposited in NPS: Sukhu

The BSES discoms Bongaigaon Refinery & Petrochemicals Limited (BRPL), BSES Yamuna Power Limited (BYPL) and Tata Power DDL declined to comment officially on the matter. Business Plan Regulations are the DERC-framed rules for determining retail tariffs in Delhi.

The Delhi power utilities submitted their Aggregate Revenue Requirements (ARRs), considered as the annual budget for the financial year 2023-24, to the DERC, as mandated, on May 22, said the official.

DERC accepted the ARR on May 26, he said.

After a plea was filed by the discoms, the Supreme Court has directed the Delhi High Court to hear the case in the upcoming week. The hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, May 29, 2023, he added.

One of the primary issues raised by the Delhi discoms is the decrease in return on equity (ROE) from 16 per cent to 14 per cent by the Business Plan Regulations.

"The consequence of Business Plan Regulations are profound, with an expected adverse impact of around Rs 850 crore on the three discoms," said the discom official.

These regulations have been challenged on several grounds, including the violation of Section 61(a) of the Electricity Act. This Act requires the DERC to be guided by Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) principles and methodologies for tariff determination.

The Delhi discoms have also argued that the new regulations are against the "public interest" as they were drafted without a public hearing and could impact consumers for the next three years, the official added.
Several farmer leaders in Haryana were detained briefly when they tried to proceed towards Delhi with their supporters for a 'Mahila Maha Panchayat' in support of the wrestlers protesting at Jantar Mantar, the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Charuni) claimed on Sunday.

Security was heightened at Haryana's borders with Punjab and Delhi, and barricades were put up at many places.

Farmers, mostly women, tried to move in groups towards the national capital. Some farmers from Punjab also tried to join their Haryana counterparts in moving towards Delhi.

In Haryana, many farmer leaders were detained inside their homes early on Sunday for a few hours. The police also stopped hundreds of farmers at the Haryana-Punjab border near Ambala City in the morning.

In Kurukshetra, BKU (Charuni) chief Gurnam Singh Charuni was detained under relevant provisions of the law, a police official said.

The outfit claimed some other farmer leaders were detained in different parts of Haryana to prevent them from reaching Delhi.

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However, by late afternoon, most of those detained were released, Charuni told reporters later in the day.

At the time he was being detained by the police from his home at around 4:45 am, Charuni, in a video message, appealed to the farmers to maintain peace and not to block the roads.

Referring to the detentions, Charuni said, "The arrests are being made to fail today's 'maha panchayat' scheduled in Delhi."



"I was arrested at 4:45 am. It is unfortunate that those who are seeking justice in the case are being arrested whereas no action is being taken against whom the allegations stand," Charuni said later in the day.

The wrestlers, who have been sitting in protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar, are demanding the arrest of Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Singh who, they alleged, sexually harassed several women grapplers.

Several Opposition parties, including the Congress, have extended their support to the protesting wrestlers.

A large number of police personnel were deployed in Sonipat, Jhajjar, Jind, Kurukshetra, Ambala, Sirsa and Gurugram districts and all vehicles entering Haryana were thoroughly checked, officials said.

The police rounded up some farmers on the GT Road near Gurudwara Manji Sahib in Ambala when they insisted on marching towards Delhi. Sukhwinder Singh, a spokesperson for BKU (Charuni), alleged that the police detained some farmers late on Saturday night.

Around 200 farmers, including women, were camping at Gurudwara Manji Sahib in Ambala since Saturday night. A heavy deployment of police was made outside the gurudwara road.

Superintendent of Police (Ambala) Jashandeep Singh said no permission was given to hold the 'Mahila Maha Panchayat' in Delhi. The officer reached the gurudwara and asked the farmers not to take the law in their hands and disperse.

In the evening, Charuni reached in Gurudwara Manji Sahib and met some of the BKU workers who were present there.

Talking to mediapersons, he criticised the Haryana government and said the police have forcibly stopped the farmers when they tried to march towards Delhi.

Thousands of police personnel were deployed and multiple layers of barricades put in place in the Lutyens' Delhi area on Sunday as part of the security arrangement for the inauguration of the new Parliament building and the 'Mahila Maha Panchayat'.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building on Sunday morning.

Police personnel put up barricades at border points and were checking vehicles entering the national capital.

In Hisar, the farmers freed the Chaudhariwas toll to protest against the detention of several farmers by the police, who were going to Delhi to participate in Mahila Mahapanchayat.

Kisan Morcha spokesperson Shraddhanand Rajali said that earlier, to prevent them from going to Delhi, some farmer leaders were detained in their houses itself and some were not allowed to come out of their homes by the police in the morning.

He said many other farmers were detained when they were trying to move towards the national capital.

The Delhi Police on Sunday detained Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia for violation of law and order after they breached the security cordon while trying to move towards the new Parliament building for the planned 'Maha Panchayat'.

Immediately after the wrestlers were pushed into buses and taken away, the police began clearing the protest site by removing the cots, mattresses, coolers, fans and the tarpaulin covers along with other belongings of the wrestlers.

The protesting wrestlers and their supporters have been taken to different locations in the national capital. While Bajrang Punia has been detained at a police station near Mayur Vihar, Sakshi Malik is in Burari. Vinesh Phogat and her cousin Sangeeta Phogat were taken to Kalkaji.
The Delhi High Court has granted six weeks' time to the Centre to inform it about the outcome of consultations and deliberations with stakeholders on draft rules to regulate e-pharmacies.

The court was hearing pleas seeking a ban on "illegal" sale of drugs online and challenging the draft rules published by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to further amend the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules.

A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad made it clear that pendency of these matters will not come in way of the Central government in taking action against persons who are violating the court's December 12, 2018 interim order putting a stay on the sale of drugs without licence by online pharmacies.

On perusing the latest status report filed by the Centre, the court noted it has been categorically stated that the Union of India has not yet finalised the draft notification of August 2018 and it is pending for consultation and deliberations.

The Union of India is granted six weeks' time to inform the outcome of the consultations and deliberations and also to inform the final stand taken by the Union of India in the matter. List on August 28, 2023. It is made clear that the pendency of the present matters will not come in the way of the Union of India in taking action against the persons who are violating the interim order dated December 12, 2018, the bench said.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued the draft amendment to the Rules, 1945 for inclusion of the rules to regulate online sale of drugs vide its August 28, 2018 notification and had called for objections and suggestions from all stakeholders to be considered by the Central government.

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Thereafter, based on the comments/suggestions received, after due consideration, the draft rules may be finalised for publication in the official Gazette, the ministry has stated in the status report.

It said the petitioners have given representation to authorities which are under consideration.

Considering the totality of the facts and circumstances, wherein large number of concerns have been raised on the draft notification received from various stakeholders, their views have to be taken into account and as such the matter needs further deliberations, the report said.

It also said that the authorities have received a lot of representations from various stakeholders on the draft rules and majority of them had opposed the draft rules on online sale of drugs.

It said the draft notification is pending consultations and deliberations and the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) is contemplating to hold fresh stakeholder consultations with various associations or affected parties.

The status report was filed on petitions seeking a ban on "illegal" sale of drugs online.

Petitioner association South Chemists and Distributors Association, which has challenged the ministry's August 2018 notification, said the draft rules are being pushed through in serious violation of the law, ignoring the health hazards caused due to sale of medicines online without proper regulations.

Petitioner Zaheer Ahmed has sought contempt action against e-pharmacies for continuing to sell drugs online despite a high court order staying such activity.

The petition also seeks contempt action against the central government for allegedly not taking any step against the defaulting e-pharmacies.

The high court had on December 12, 2018 stayed the sale of drugs without licence by online pharmacies while hearing Ahmed's PIL.

Some of the e-pharmacies had earlier told the high court that they do not require a licence for online sale of drugs and prescription medicines as they do not sell them and instead they are only delivering the medications akin to food delivery app Swiggy.

Just like Swiggy does not require a restaurant's licence to deliver food, they do not need a licence to deliver medicines to customers who purchase drugs online, the e-pharmacies had told the court.

The submission had come during the hearing of the plea seeking contempt action against e-pharmacies for continuing to sell drugs online despite a high court order staying such activity.

The court had earlier sought responses of the Centre, Delhi government, CDSCO and the Pharmacy Council of India to the petition.

The petitioner had said "llegal" sale of medicines online will lead to a "drug epidemic", drug abuse and misutilisation of habit forming and addictive drugs.

The PIL said since there was no mechanism to control the sale of medicines online, it puts health and lives of people at a high risk and affects their right to a safe and healthy life under Article 21 of the Constitution.

"Online pharmacies are operating without a drug licence and cannot be regulated in the present regime. Unregulated and unlicensed sale of medicines will increase risk of spurious, misbranded and sub-standard drugs being sold," the plea submitted.

It claimed the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation and an expert committee appointed by the drug consultative committee have already concluded the online sale of medicines is in contravention of the provisions of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and the other allied laws.

Still lakhs of drugs are being sold on the Internet every day, it said, adding some of the drugs/ medicines contain narcotic and psychotropic substances and some can cause antibiotic resistant-bacteria which is a threat not only to the patient but to humanity at large.

"It is a matter of public knowledge that e-commerce websites have been caught on numerous occasions selling fake products. Unlike consumer items, drugs are extremely potent substances and consuming the wrong dose or fake medicine can have fatal consequences on the patient," it had said.

A large number of children use the Internet and they could be victims of wrong medications, it added.
India experienced a 31 per cent surge in malware attacks in 2022, which should prompt companies to intensify their efforts in safeguarding themselves against cyberattacks, said a SonicWall report.

The report also highlighted a 10 per cent increase in "intrusion attempts" and a staggering 53 per cent rise in "ransomware attacks" compared to the previous year.

Furthermore, the '2023 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report' revealed a noteworthy surge of 116 per cent in "crypto-jacking attacks" and an 84 per cent increase in "IoT attacks".

SonicWall is a cybersecurity solutions provider based in the United States.

According to Debasish Mukherjee, Vice President -- APJ at SonicWall, although malware attacks have decreased in other regions, they remain alarmingly high in India.

He said that in countries like India, threat actors are expanding their scope of attack, employing different methods and targeting various areas. These threat actors persistently search for opportunities and repeatedly strike upon achieving success.

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"The increase in cyberattacks in India can be attributed to both the evolving strategies of threat actors and their exploration of new avenues for success, including IoT and crypto-jacking."



He stressed that it was essential for organisations to grasp the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) employed by attackers.

By adopting threat-informed cybersecurity strategies, businesses can effectively defend against and recover from disruptive incidents, he said.

Mukherjee also highlighted SonicWall's enterprise work, stating that the proportion of business varies between countries.

In India, 55 per cent of SonicWall's business comes from enterprise clients, while 45 per cent comes from SMEs.

The company has over 500 employees in India, making it the second-largest team across all regions.

Mukherjee expressed optimism about substantial growth in their hiring endeavours while expanding their R&D facility in Bangalore.

Organisations are constantly facing an evolving threat landscape, where threat actors are finding new and creative ways to stay ahead of the enterprise, he added.

On a global scale, the Cyber Security Market has already surpassed USD 173.5 billion in 2022. It is projected to exhibit a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.9 per cent, reaching over USD 266.2 billion by the end of 2027.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the new Parliament building equipped with state-of-the-art technology today. Various rituals according to the Vedas will be performed ahead of the inauguration of the new Parliament building by PM Modi, according to news reports.

PM Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla will lead the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building on Sunday. The inauguration ceremony will begin at around 12 noon. However, in the run-up to the event, preparations would be done since morning. The ceremony will start at 7:15 AM in the morning.

The rituals ahead of the inaugural ceremony will begin in the morning and is likely to be held in a pandal (canopy) near the Gandhi statue in Parliament. PM Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Hariwansh and some senior ministers in the government are likely to be part of the ceremony, the ANI reported.

It is learnt that after the pujas, the dignitaries will examine the premises of the Lok Sabha's chamber and the Rajya Sabha chamber in the new building. It is likely that the sacred 'Sengol' will be installed in the Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing some rituals, for which priests from Tamil Nadu, including the original jeweller who designed it, will be present.


In a speech delivered from the grand and cavernous Lok Sabha hall decorated in peacock motif, Modi said the ultra-modern complex was the "need of the hour" in view of the expected increase in the number of members of Parliament. The new Parliament building is a reflection of new India's aspirations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday, asserting that it will pave the way for empowering the poor and marginalised and herald the rise of a "developed India" that will inspire the progress of other nations.



"More than just a building, the new Parliament encompasses the aspirations and dreams of 1.4 billion people. It sends a powerful message to the world about India's unwavering determination," he said and hailed the country's democratic ethos. Some moments in the developmental journey of a nation get immortalised, today is one such day, Modi said amid repeated thumping of desks by the audience.





Photo: PIB Modi inaugurated the new building this morning at a grand ceremony which included a havan, a multi-faith prayer ceremony and the installation of the Sengol in a special enclosure in the Lok Sabha chamber.

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He later addressed a gathering of MPs and distinguished guests in the newly-built Lok Sabha chamber that saw attendance from about 25 parties. About 20 opposition parties boycotted the event, accusing the prime minister of "sidelining" President Droupadi Murmu.



Soon after he arrived in Lok Sabha amidst chants of 'Modi, Modi', the messages by President Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar were read out, while Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Harivansh also addressed the gathering. The new Parliament complex will witness realisation of the 'developed India' pledge and will inspire other nations as well, Modi said.



He also talked about the 'Sengol', saying that it was a symbol of power transfer from the British and had now been given the respect it deserves. In his speech, Modi said that as India develops, the world progresses. He asserted that this new Parliament building will give a call for the development of the world as well.



The prime minister asserted that India is not only a democratic nation but is also the mother of democracy. "In the Chola empire, it (Sengol) was considered a symbol of the Kartavya path (path of duty), Seva Path (path of service) and Rashtra path (path of the nation)," Modi said.



In his remarks, Modi also pointed out that the construction of the new Parliament building gave employment to 60,000 workers and a digital gallery dedicated to them has also been built in the complex. "Our democracy is our inspiration, our Constitution our resolve. Parliament is the best representative of this inspiration and resolution," he said, adding that the new Parliament building was a perfect example of the co-existence of the old and new.



From building Panchayat buildings to the Parliament complex, "our commitment remains the same", he said as he drew parallels between the grandeur of the new building and the work done by his government at the ground level. The building has been completed in about two-and-a-half years at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 1,200 crore.



Every decision taken in this Parliament will decide the fate of all sections of society and laws made here will help remove poverty and empower the poor and the marginalised sections of society, he said. "We have 25 years of 'Amritkaal Khand', together we have to make India a developed nation in this period," Modi said.



He said the new Parliament building will be a testament to the dawn of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India). "Every decision taken here will lay the foundation of India's glorious future... the way to empower the poor, dalits, backwards, tribals, divyangs and other marginalised section does through here," he said, adding "each brick and wall of this Parliament building should be dedicated to the welfare of the poor".





Prime Minister Narendra Modi "It will be a witness to our journey towards a Viksit Bharat (developed India)," Modi said at the event attended by former president Ram Nath Kovind, Chief Ministers Y S Jagan Reddy, Yogi Adityanath, Eknath Shinde and Neiphu Rio, foreign envoys, Parliamentarians and people from different walks of life.

Earlier, dressed in traditional attire, Modi walked into Parliament premises from its Gate No. 1 and was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.



The prime minister prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand. Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke divine blessings.



"As the new building of India's Parliament is inaugurated, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise. May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress," the prime minister tweeted. Modi then carried the Sengol in a procession amid tunes of nadaswaram and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha chamber.



The new Parliament building, constructed by Tata Projects Ltd, will also have a grand Constitution Hall to showcase India's democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space. The prime minister felicitated with shawls and souvenirs some of the workers for their key role in the construction of the new Parliament building.



The building has three main gates -- Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar. The triangular-shaped four-storey building has a built-up area of 64,500 square metres.
The Hurriyat Conference on Sunday said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) seeking the death penalty for Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JLF) chief Yasin Malik is "deeply disturbing" for the people of J and K.

The NIA has approached the Delhi High Court seeking the capital punishment for the separatist leader who was awarded life term by a trial court in a terror funding case.

The plea by the agency has been listed for hearing on May 29.

In an e-mailed statement on Sunday, the Hurriyat said, "The central investigative agency seeking death penalty for Yasin Malik is deeply disturbing for the people of the J&K."



The separatist amalgam alleged it was a "deliberate attempt" to provoke and intimidate people.

"Unfortunately, such directives and decrees are brought in by the authorities -- who claim peace and development as their agenda which seems to be a deliberate attempt to provoke and intimidate people and add to their concerns and fears," it added.

The Hurriyat appealed to the Central government to release all political prisoners, hundreds of youth, students, journalists, rights activists and traders from Jammu and Kashmir lodged in jails within and outside the union territory.

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It will "send a message of conciliation which will act as a catalyst for earning people's trust and go a long way in resolving the conflict".


Spread across 30 hectares, and home to 112 families, its trees are laden with lichis, grapes and mangoes. Its stepped farming fields produce wheat, rice, and millet for the consumption of its inhabitants. It has two schools, newly constructed irrigation tanks, an Anganwadi centre, a bank of utensils for the common use of the villagers as well as a bulk milk collection centre. Nestled deep in the Himalayan foothills of Narendra Nagar, in Tehri, Uttarakhand, the village of Ouni might have jumped right out of a picture postcard.



As the second Anti-Corruption Working Group drew to a close on May 27, attending delegates from G20 member nations visited this idyllic location on Sunday, to unwind and gain a closer experience of rural life in the foothills of Uttarakhand. Its houses have been painted recently with elaborate designs in the local art style. Their bright red and yellow walls have been marked with mandalas, animal shapes and even elaborate murals. The streets have been cleaned; their hilly soil walls have been fortified by steel meshes to hold back loose gravel. And enveloping all of it is an unbound spread of hill forests, such that, when viewed from the newly constructed vantage point, the brightly coloured houses peek out in flashes of red and yellow from an otherwise thorough and uninterrupted screen of green.



The nearly 3 km approach road connecting the village to the main highway from Rishikesh to Narendra Nagar, has been widened and laid with new asphalt. Inside, village pathways have been laid with interlocking tiles. Villagers however are most excited about the improved lighting, electricity, drinking water, and irrigation facilities. Nearly 40 solar-powered streetlights, two new drinking water tanks with an individual capacity of 10 thousand litres, and two new transformers have been installed. The transformation of Ouni has been ongoing for several months now, in preparation for the Sunday visit. The village was selected from a shortlist of eight nearby villages, for its proximity to and ease of access from the ACWGs central venue at the Westin Spa and Resorts in Narendra Nagar.

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Most importantly, the village has been provided with a bulk milk collection centre (BMC). The village produces an average of 1.5 quintals of milk every day and villagers have had to travel to Rishikesh to sell the milk every day. We used to be primarily dependent on rainwater for irrigation, but now the G20 initiative has connected our fields with nearby rivers and rivulets as well as rainwater storage facilities for irrigation, says Prem Singh who grows lichis and mangoes.



Besides this, the villages Anganwadi centre has been rebuilt, equipped now with a kitchen to provide daily lunches for children. Mohammad Mustafa Khan, District Panchayat officer, Tehri-Garhwal, said, Now with the BMC they will be able to sell their milk right here, that too at government-ordained fair prices. The milk will then be delivered to Rishikesh in BMC tankers.



The rejuvenation of the village is part of a larger plan to exemplify and exhibit an ideal village life for the G20 delegates. Khan said there will be elaborate tableaus re-creating the daily life of the people and their farming practices. Villagers have been provided with funds and facilities for developing fisheries, cattle rearing and protection, and developing polytunnel greenhouses.



Delegates will also have lunch at the village and then be treated to several cultural programmes in the local music and dance traditions. Facilities such as Interpretation Centres have also been built for the guests. Villagers told Business Standard that they have been given detailed instructions on what kind of activities will be performed and at what time. The list covers everything from daily household chores to classroom activities in the village schools, irrigation activities at the newly installed polytunnels, and a re-enactment of the daily proceedings at the newly renovated village panchayat building. A few members of the community even suggested that there have been regular rehearsals of these enactments over the past few weeks.



A senior media and communication expert whos also a former executive at the Central Bureau of Communication explains, Hosting international summits such as the G20, is an opportunity for targeted development of smaller urban and suburban localities, as well as for presenting a positive narrative about the nations development goals to the world. The transformation of Ouni is symptomatic therefore of the targeted development and renovation of local communities that have been part of India's G20 presidency, through the working group meetings hosted across Indias various tier-2 towns and cities.



Rishikesh too came under a major renovation drive with the installation of new and safer vantage- and viewpoints, taps for drinking water straight from mountain streams and stronger safeguards against land-slides in the greater Rishikesh urban region. This is evident across the major venues of G20 meetings so far. Most notably, the recently concluded tourism working group meeting in Srinagar, which was the first international meeting after the abrogation of Article 370 and downgrading of Jammu and Kashmir from a state into the Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh, saw major renovations in the city. Similar projects highlighting local culture and boosting tourist attractions have been conducted in Gandhinagar, Kumarakom etc.



Indeed, despite the scale of renovation activities in Ouni itself, not all corners of the village community have been covered it seems. However, the major challenge of such renovation drives  no matter how targeted  is to maintain a comprehensive coverage, the senior former executive points out.



Similarly, while the Anganwadi centre has been renovated, no efforts have been made to help Anganwadi workers connect with male villagers regarding the womens health during pregnancy, several senior women in the village told Business Standard. Men in these households, they said, are still quite resistant to sharing the load of household chores or shunning superstitious beliefs which affect their wives health during pregnancy. Ratan Prakash (name changed on request) said, Some of the houses, like my neighbours, which will not fall on the route taken by the visitors have been left unpainted and in their old, dilapidated conditions.



Khan, however, is optimistic and points out that comprehensive coverage can never be the prime goal of such renovation drives. Others point out that the renovation should have also focused on providing a better-equipped primary health centre in the village. The village currently has an auxiliary nursing and midwife centre, and the villagers need to travel 5 km to the nearest hospital in Rishikesh.

A start has been made. Ouni was also identified as a smart village two years back and we have gradually begun to update the facilities since then, including the availability of high-speed internet and telecom network connectivity. With the G20 push, we have also been able to attract tourist attention. This will help us develop the village as an eco-tourism hub, and this will in turn help fill the gaps in rural infrastructure in the next few years, he said.
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PM Narendra Modi to inaugurate India's new Parliament building today
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The Prime Minister (PM) of Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, will come to India on May 31, almost nine years to the day after Narendra Modis first visit to Kathmandu as PM. Modi visited Nepal in June 2014 and captured the hearts of Nepalis (an ex-serviceman from the Gorkha Regiment told Business Standard wistfully at the time: You are so lucky to have Modi as PM. I wish we had a leader like him.). Modi is giving us a good moment, Bhekh Bahadur Thapa, a former Nepali minister of foreign affairs and finance, told The New York Times at the time, adding, Whether it will yield results, time will tell.

Modis speech in Parliament got special kudos because he said: My work is to neither give directives nor interfere with your work in Nepal, because Nepal itself is a sovereign nation.

Days after his visit, India and Nepal signed a historic power trading

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Around 100 students at a government school in Bihar's Araria district fell sick after consuming a mid-day meal in which a dead snake was found on Saturday. The officials of the state Education Department however claimed that only 30 students fell sick and were admitted to Forbisganj sub-divisional hospital and their conditions are said to be out of danger. Read more...
The Odisha government on Saturday said it has approached the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for taking assistance from the FBI to investigate the murder of minister Naba Kishore Das.

In a statement, the government said assistant sub-inspector of police Gopal Krishna Das, who allegedly shot the minister dead at a public function in January, told the investigators that he was taking medicine for mental illness.

However, medical experts found him mentally fit but suggested further examination, it said.

As it is a very important, sensitive and rare case, it was decided to use the best techniques and experts to help in the investigation, the statement said.

In order to clearly establish that the accused has sound mental health, the Crime Branch decided to approach the Behavioural Analysis Unit of FBI, which has the best experts and equipment for such criminal investigation, it said.

Accordingly, the state Home Department approached the MHA for the assistance of FBI for the help in the investigation, it added.

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"Earlier also, help has been sought and received from the FBI by various police agencies of the country in their cases as in 26/11 Mumbai blast case and in Bhanwari Devi murder case of CBI (sic)," the statement said.

The state government wrote to the MHA on February 22, it said.

The statement was issued amid allegations from the opposition BJP and Congress that the state government misled the people over the issue as Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik stated in the assembly that FBI's help was south in the case, but nothing concrete was happening in the reality.

Speaking in the assembly on February 22, Patnaik said, "We have requested the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India to facilitate an evaluation of the behaviour of the accused by the Behavioral Support Unit of the FBI of the United States of America."



Das, the health minister, died on January 29 evening, hours after he was shot by the policeman at Gandhi Chhak in the Brajrajnagar area of Jharsuguda district, where he had gone to attend an event.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said the 'Sengol' was a symbol of transfer of power from the British and questioned its presence in the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi by asking what kind of transfer of power took place on Sunday.

The PM inaugurated the new Parliament building on Sunday morning and installed the historic Sengol, a Chola-era spectre made of silver with a coat of gold, in the Lok Sabha chamber.

Speaking to reporters after returning from Delhi, Baghel said, "Today, national media is full of news about the transfer of power from the British and Sengol. At the time (1947), the British were leaving and transfer of power was happening. What kind of transfer of power has happened today? Is it the transfer from democracy to autocracy?"



An organisation, an apparent reference to BJP-RSS, that had opposed Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru for so long was now using him name to save themselves, he claimed, adding if there could be a more "ridiculous situation".

In a reply to a query about the NITI Aayog governing council meeting held on Saturday, the CM said he had raised the issue of Chhattisgarh not receiving Rs 2,600 crore as excise taxes, as well as need to conduct economic survey and caste census immediately.

"If India needs to become a developed nation, then economic survey and caste census should be carried out immediately. If we have to become a developed nation then we will need to know about different castes living in various states that are lagging behind in terms of education, health, employment and income," he said.

He slammed the Centre over Delhi police's action against protesting wrestlers during the day and said a person against whom a POCSO Act case has been registered was roaming freely, while those who complained against him are being jailed.

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Delhi Police detained ace wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia for violation of law and order after they breached the security cordon while trying to move towards the new Parliament building for a planned women's 'Mahapanchayat'.

The champion wrestlers had resumed their agitation against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh on April 23, demanding his arrest for alleged sexual harassment of several women grapplers, including a minor.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will hold separate meetings with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Sachin Pilot on Monday in Delhi, a senior party leader familiar with the development said.

The chief minister's office has also released Gehlot's programme confirming his visit to Delhi, where he will also lay foundation stone of the Rajasthan House.

The proposed meeting comes close on the heels of Pilot's "ultimatum" that if three demands he made from the state government were not met by the end of this month, he would launch a state-wide agitation. Pilot has asked for a high-level inquiry into the alleged scams that took place during the tenure of the former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje government, as one of his demands.

According to the senior leader, a meeting of the Congress top brass with all the state leaders was scheduled on May 26 but was later postponed.

He said that now the high command will meet Gehlot and Pilot separately to bring them on one platform ahead of the assembly elections, which are due later this year.

Kharge was successful in bringing Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar together in Karnataka and the party now wants to try the same formula in Rajasthan, the senior leader said.

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He also said that a few days ago a meeting of the Congress high command with the leaders of all poll-bound states, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana, was planned, which was postponed.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday lashed out at the BJP-ruled central government over its decision to cut down the borrowing limit of the state by half by terming the move as "sadistic".

Vijayan said while the central government jumps at every opportunity to fill its coffers, like implementing GST, it was taking a "negative approach" when it came to helping the state progress.

He contended that the Centre demanded payment for the help provided, like foodgrains and aid of armed forces, by it during various calamities face by the state.

"This is not just a problem of the LDF government. It is a problem for the whole state. It is a matter of the progress of the people. Should the union government take the position of letting a state perish is an issue to be considered," the CM said.

Vijayan said the stand taken by Centre was another crisis being heaped upon a state which has faced and survived several calamities.

At the same time he also indirectly criticised the Congress-led UDF opposition in the state for allegedly remaining silent over the Centre's decisions which were not beneficial for the state.

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"But despite all this, some people are not ready to respond to this," the CM said while speaking at an event held at the Pinarayi Convention Center here.

However, the CM made it clear that as long as the Left government was in power in the state, there would be no denial of benefits to the workers and the poor.

On Saturday, the ruling-CPI(M) had termed the Centre's move to cut the borrowing capacity of Kerala as an "attempt to suffocate the state" by any means necessary.

The Left party had said that the central government had earlier given permission to borrow Rs 32,442 crore but the limit has now been reduced to Rs 15,390 crore.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday said the inauguration of the new Parliament building in Delhi was the greatest tribute to Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar and all Maharashtrians.

Shinde also said the political parties which boycotted the event have shown "deep disrespect" to India's democracy and Savarkar, whose 140th birth anniversary is being observed on Sunday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building in the national capital on Sunday morning and installed the historic Sengol in the Lok Sabha chamber.

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke Gods to bless the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

A multi-faith prayer was also held to mark the occasion.

The new Parliament building, constructed by Tata Projects Ltd, will have a grand constitution hall to showcase India's democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space.

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The triangular-shaped four-storey building has a built-up area of 64,500 square metres.

Several Opposition parties boycotted the event while insisting that President Droupadi Murmu as head of the state should do the honours.

Shinde in a tweet said, "Political parties not participating in the inauguration today have shown deep disrespect towards India's democracy and Savarkar ji. Today's democracy has crossed the Lakshman Rekha laid by political dynasties."



"Those who don't take pride in our culture heritage, those who despise thinkers like Veer Savarkar have preferred to boycott a national celebration," he added.

Shinde said a son of mother India was born on this day in 1883.

"140 years later, on the same day, a free and confident India witnesses dedication of a new Parliament building. This is the greatest tribute to Savarkar ji and honour to all Maharashtrians!" he tweeted.

Paying tributes to Savarkar on his birth anniversay, Shinde described him as a great patriot, the father of Hindutva and pride of Maharashtra.

"On this auspicious occasion, precious son of mother India, Hon Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi ji will be inaugurating the new Parliament building," he said.

The new Parliament building "stands as a symbol of our modern democracy and is deeply rooted in our civilisational ethos," the CM said.
Indian Overseas Congress (IOC) workers are planning a huge welcome for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the US.

Rahul will embark on his US visit on Sunday. He will be attending a program at Stanford University and meeting the Indian diaspora from May 29-30.

Secretary of Indian Overseas Congress, Virender Vashishth, told ANI: "Under the leadership of Sam Pitroda, we Indian Overseas Congress workers are planning a huge welcome of our beloved leader Rahul Gandhi in the USA, President of USA Wing of IOC Mohinder Singh Gilzian and George Ibrahim are motivating Indian Diaspora also with IOC team."

Vashishth further said that Congress MP Reventh Reddy, Dr Kota Nilima, Raja Warring, Dr Arti, Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda and many more senior party leaders of the Party are also coming for preparations of a series of events in the US.

Meanwhile, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Saturday took a jibe at the former Wayanad MP, saying he visits abroad 60 times in a year and every time "tears down" the country.

"I usually don't comment on Rahul Gandhi because I scratch my head to try to understand why he is saying what he is saying. When PM Modi travels abroad, he speaks about our country's achievements and earns respect for India. This man (Rahul Gandhi) goes abroad 60 times a year. On every visit, he tears down India and our institutions. He talks bad about our democracy, about EVMs, the justice system, media, and everything," the minister said.

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He further slammed the Congress leader and said that only Rahul has a problem with Indian democracy.

As per the sources, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who was scheduled to fly to the United States for 10 days on May 31 has rescheduled his tour and will now embark on his journey on May 28.

He was earlier scheduled to embark on a 10-day visit to the USA beginning May 31.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Sunday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the recent violence in Manipur, saying that the PM has "not uttered a word" on the matter and just to remind him, he holds the "metaphoric Sengol" in his hand.

Clashes broke out in Manipur after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts on May 3 to protest against the majority Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

The violence was preceded by tension over the eviction of Kuki villagers from reserve forest land, which had led to a series of smaller agitations.

In a tweet, Chidambaram said it is more than three weeks since violence broke out in Manipur and at least 75 people are dead.

"The Hon'ble PM has not uttered a word so far. Nor has he made an appeal for peace and harmony. Just to remind him, he holds the metaphoric Sengol in his hand," the former home minister said.

His remarks come amid a war of words between the Congress and the BJP over the history of the Sengol with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying it was a symbol of the transfer of power from the British in 1947 and should have gotten its due respect after Independence, but was kept on display as a "walking stick" at Anand Bhawan in Prayagraj.

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The Congress has claimed there was no documentary evidence of Lord Mountbatten, C Rajagopalachari and Jawaharlal Nehru describing the Sengol as a symbol of transfer of power from the British to India.

In another tweet, Chidambaram said, "Tiruvalluvar put 'righteous rule' (depicted by the Sengol) as one among four virtues of the ruler/ The other three are: Welfare, compassion and protecting the weak (poor). In Kural: 546, the poet also cautioned that the ruler will be victorious only if the 'Sengol' did not bend."



"That is ancient wisdom for India in 2023," he said.
The Left parties on Sunday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, comparing the inauguration of the new parliament building by him with the coronation of a monarch and relegating the people of the country to "subjects ('praja')".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new parliament building here on Sunday morning and installed the historic Sengol in the Lok Sabha chamber.

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke Gods to bless the inauguration of the new Parliament building. Modi prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand.

Around 20 opposition parties decided to boycott the event over the prime minister and not the president inaugurating the building.

In a series of tweets, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury alleged that the inauguration ceremony was held amid "loud propaganda" with the declaration of a "new India".

"This declaration of a 'New India' comes in the absence of the President of India, Vice President of India and opposition parties! India = Nation and Citizen; New India = Raja and Praja."



"Sengol belongs to the period of feudal monarchies, emperors and kings. Indian people overthrew such bondages and ushered in a secular democratic republic where every citizen is equal. Sngol has no role in a democracy where people elect the government," he tweeted.

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He further said that apart from symbolising divine sanction to rule, the Sengol symbolises just and fair governance.

"Modi invoked the Sengol presented to him. The opposite Kodungol symbolises authoritarianism. Modi invokes Sengol but practices Kodungol," the CPI(M) leader said.

CPI MP Binoy Viswam said the salutations to the Sengol came at the cost of "beatings to wrestlers".

"This beginning testifies the course of the new parliament. Ruthless fascist autocracy guides its way. When PM bowed before Savarkar, the country remembered his (Savarkar's) mercy petitions. They will try to use the new parliament for Adani and FDI. We will fight it," he said.

CPI (M-L) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya tweeted, "Massive crackdown is going on in Delhi on women wrestlers and other citizens assembling for the Mahila Samman Panchayat even as the inauguration of the new parliament building resembles the coronation of a king. Brutal assault on democracy and the constitutional spirit and vision."



The Delhi police on Sunday detained wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia for violation of law and order after they breached the security cordon while trying to move towards the new Parliament building for a women's 'Mahapanchayat'.






Prime Minister Narendra Modi In the morning session, Modi performed Ganapathi Homam, prostrated before the Sengol, which he later said symbolised not just the transfer of power but service and nationalism in the Chola empire, and carried the golden sceptre in a procession, accompanied by the tunes of nadaswaram and Vedic chants by priests from Karnatakas Sringeri Math to the new Lok Sabha chamber. In a two-part ceremony that lasted over five hours, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building on Sunday, with 21 Opposition parties boycotting the function and the police forcibly detaining women wrestlers as they tried marching to Parliament to demand justice, and evicting them from their protest site at Jantar Mantar.



When he entered the House in the afternoon, the second leg of the inauguration ceremony, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs chanted his name, with the PM receiving a prolonged applause and a standing ovation from those gathered, which included former PM H D Deve Gowda, former president Ram Nath Kovind, heads of the defence forces, Union cabinet ministers, some chief ministers, senior members of the judiciary, and foreign dignitaries. Priests from various Adheenams, Shaivite monasteries in Tamil Nadu, blessed him before he installed it on the right side of the Speakers chair. The morning ceremony also featured a multi-faith prayer, after which the PM dedicated the 64,500 square foot building, constructed at Rs 864 crore, to the nation.

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In his morning Mann ki Baat address, the PM paid tribute to freedom fighter and Hindutva ideologue V D Veer Savarkar on his birth anniversary. In a tweet, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh suggested it was no coincidence that the government picked May 28 to inaugurate the new Parliament since Jawaharlal Nehru, who did the most to nurture parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated on this day in 1964, and Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born on this day in 1883. In his half an hour speech, during which BJP MPs again chanted Modi, Modi as he proceeded to the podium, the PM described the new Parliament as a testament to the dawn of an atmanirbhar Bharat, a self-reliant India, a structure that is a symbol of the coexistence of tradition and modernity and will witness the journey towards a vikasit Bharat, developed India, by 2047. The PM said any expert analysing the nine-year tenure of the government would find Nava Nirman, laying a new foundation, and Garib Kalyan, the welfare of the underprivileged, as its leitmotifs, detailing the toilets for women, rural roads, village ponds and panchayat offices his government has constructed.



The entire day the BJP and Opposition parties waged a social media war, with Opposition leaders questioning Modis alleged personification of the ceremony and tweeting photographs of police detaining wrestlers. Modi and Speaker Om Birla offered floral tributes to the Mahatmas statue on the Parliament House premises in the morning. In his speech in the afternoon, the PM recalled Gandhis contribution to the freedom struggle, drawing a parallel between the 25 years from his non-cooperation movement to independence in 1947 and the quarter-century from now to the centenary of Indias independence in 2047.



Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar said he was glad he didnt attend the ceremony, and was concerned at what unfolded and that the country was regressing. Nearly 250 Opposition MPs boycotted the ceremony because President Droupadi Murmu was not allowed to fulfil her constitutional duties and inaugurate the new Parliament and, as the Congress said, a self-glorifying authoritarian PM with utter disdain for parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it inaugurating the new Parliament. Parliament is the voice of the people. The PM is treating the inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted.



In future, when the number of MPs increases, where would they sit? Therefore, the new Parliament building was the need of the hour, he said. In his speech, the PM said the construction of the building gave employment to 60,000 workers, some of whom he felicitated. A digital gallery dedicated to them has also been built, he said.





Parliament of India The new building accommodates 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 in the Rajya Sabha, from the present 543 and 245 members, respectively.

The PM said Indias national bird, the peacock, inspired the interior design of the Lok Sabha and its national flower, the lotus, of the Rajya Sabha.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar on Saturday said that he stands with the opposition parties' call for boycotting the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament on May 28 as the decision was taken without considering anyone.

"Even no discussion on anything about the inauguration program was considered. All the decisions were taken without considering anyone. Therefore, some senior Opposition leaders have taken the decision that we should not go for the program and I support their decision," the NCP chief said while talking to reporters here.

He further said that he was not spoken about the construction of the new Parliament building although he has been a member of it for years.

"I have been a Member of Parliament for years. We used to sit in the House but we got to know about the construction of the new Parliament building through newspapers. While taking such an important decision, the Members should have been spoken to, but that didn't happen," he added.

Notably, Congress and other opposition parties decided to boycott the inauguration of the new Parliament Building and stated that it "insults the high office of the President, and violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution".

Earlier TMC, AAP, and CPI(M) decided to boycott the inauguration of the new Parliament Building on May 28.

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A total of 21 parties have decided to boycott the inauguration of the new parliament building.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will dedicate to the nation the new Parliament building on May 28.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the new Parliament Building on December 10, 2020. It has been built in record time with quality construction.
The much-awaited meeting of parties opposed to the BJP may be held here on June 12, according to hints that have emanated from a meeting of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) here on Sunday.

While no significant office bearer confirmed or denied the same, many present at the meeting said on condition of anonymity that the disclosure was made by the chief minister himself.

Kumar, the JD(U)'s supreme leader, has been pitching for "opposition unity" ever since he snapped ties with the BJP in August last year, following accusations that the ally was trying to create fissures in his party and diminish his standing.

Kumar, who is now heading an alliance government in Bihar which includes RJD, Congress and the Left, has reached out to leaders like Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, all of whom are opposed to BJP but not very comfortable with the grand old party either.

In fact, the idea of hosting a meeting of opposition leaders in Patna was floated by Banerjee, who had invoked the memory of Jayaprakash Narayan upon meeting Kumar in Kolkata last month.

As part of the "opposition unity" drive, Kumar has held parleys with not only Congress allies like Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar, but also its opponents like Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao.

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A meeting with Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, ostensibly to seek land for a Bihar government guest house in that state, is being used by BJP to mock Kumar as the Biju Janata Dal supremo has virtually ruled out joining any broader formation.

All eyes would now be on which parties agree to be represented in the meeting, given faultlines like Congress' mistrust of Kejriwal and KCR and Banerjee's famed rivalry with the Left.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding a meeting with the Chief Ministers and Deputy Chief Ministers of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states at the party headquarters in Delhi.

During the meeting, the Chief Ministers will report to Prime Minister Modi about the development work going on in the states.

There will also be a discussion with all the Chief Ministers regarding the preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

BJP national president JP Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, Goa CM Pramod Sawant, Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, Assam CM Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami, Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel, Nagaland Deputy CM Yanthungo Patton, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and Tripura CM Manik Saha were present at the meeting on Sunday.

The BJP meeting comes after PM Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building.

Stating that the 'Amrit Kaal' will give a new direction to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the new parliament building should be a shining example of the country's vision and resolve of New India.

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PM Modi said that the construction of the new complex gave employment to over 60,000 labourers and a digital gallery has been created to honour their hard work.

Addressing the ceremony, PM Modi said, "Several years of foreign rule took away our pride from us. But today, India has left behind that colonial mindset. India is the mother of democracy. It is also the foundation of global democracy. Democracy is our 'Sanskaar', idea and tradition".

He further said that there was a need for a new parliament and the new building is equipped with modern facilities and the latest gadgets.

"There was a need for a new parliament. We also have to see that the number of seats and MPs will increase in the coming time. That's why it was need of the hour that a new Parliament is made," he said.

PM Modi added, "This building is equipped with modern facilities and has the latest gadgets. It has given employment to over 60,000 labourers. We have created a digital gallery to honour their hard work".

The Prime Minister further said that the inspiration is the same from Panchayat Bhawan to Sansad Bhawan.

After concluding his speech in the Parliament, PM Modi interacted with several leaders in the new Parliament.

The Prime Minister's address was followed by that of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla.

Prime Minister Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja.

PM Modi also performed 'sashtang pranam' as a mark of respect before the 'Sengol' during the ceremony.

"It is our good fortune that we have been able to restore the pride of the holy 'Sengol'. Whenever proceedings start in this House the 'Sengol' will inspire us," said PM Modi.

PM Modi was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by Adheenams before it was installed in the new building. The Sengol marked the transfer of power from the British to the Indians in 1947.

After dedicating the new parliament building to the country earlier this morning after a ceremony that saw a multi-faith prayer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi this afternoon walked into the new building amid chants of "Modi" "Modi" and a standing ovation for the second phase of the inauguration ceremony.

The new Parliament building is designed to enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha.

Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber.
The Jharkhand unit of Congress, CPI and some tribal organisations on Sunday staged demonstrations here to protest against the Centre for "not inviting" President Droupadi Murmu to the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

State Congress president Rajesh Thakur said that "no invite" to the President for the inauguration was "disrespect to the Constitution".

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building in New Delhi and expressed hope that it would become a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality.

Congress workers assembled near the statue of Birsa Munda in Ranchi's Birsa Chowk, holding placards with slogans such as Rashtrapati Ke Samman Mein, Congress Hai Maidan Mein' (In honour of the President, Congress is on roads) written on these.

"The new parliament building was inaugurated today, which is indeed a matter of pride for the country. But, the President was not invited to the event. We believe that 'no invite' to the President for the inauguration was disrespect to the Constitution. So, we are here to stage a protest against the Centre's dictatorial approach," Thakur said.

During the foundation-laying ceremony of the new Parliament building, then President Ram Nath Kovind was not invited, he claimed.

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"Now, President Droupadi Murmu was not invited to the inauguration of the building. It seems that the BJP decided to disrespect her. The constitutional practices have been ignored, which is not good for democracy, he said.

Left parties and various tribal organisations also observed black-day at Ranchi's Albert Ekka Chowk for allegedly ignoring the President during the inauguration.

Communist Party of India state secretary Mahendra Pathak said, The BJP government at the Centre has shown its dictatorship by not inviting the President. It's a black day for the country.


Paying homage to Savarkar on his birth anniversary during the 101st Mann ki Baat broadcast, Modi said his sacrifice, courage and determination continue to inspire us.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday hailed Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar, saying his personality exuded strength and his fearless and self-respecting nature could not tolerate the mindset of slavery.



Paying tributes to Savarkar, the Prime Minister said, Today the 28th of May is the birth anniversary of the great freedom fighter, Veer Savarkar. The stories related to his sacrifice, courage and resolve inspire us all even today.

Modi also paid homage to Kabir, whose birth anniversary falls on June 4, and said the mystic-poet opposed every evil practice that divided people and tried to awaken the society.



I cannot forget the day when I went to the cell in Andaman where Veer Savarkar served the sentence of Kala paani, he added.

Veer Savarkars personality exuded strength and magnanimity. His fearless and self-respecting nature could not tolerate the mindset of slavery at all. Not only in the freedom movement, whatever Veer Savarkar did for social equality and social justice is remembered even today, he said.

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PM Modi also talked about the Mann ki Baat completing 100 episodes last month and said this episode of Mann Ki Baat is the beginning of its second century. Modi hailed the Education Ministrys youth exchange programme Yuva Sangam as a great initiative to promote the countrys diversity. In his Mann ki Baat address, Modi also paid homage to N T Rama Rao, saying he left an indelible mark through the strength of his amazing talent in politics and the film industry. Today, is the 100th birth anniversary of NTR. On the strength of his versatility of talent, he not only became the superstar of Telugu cinema, but also won the hearts of crores of people, he said.



The youth exchange programme provides an opportunity to students from one part of the country to visit other parts and understand their culture and heritage.

During the broadcast, he interacted with some participants of the 'Yuva Sangam' and told them to write blogs on their experiences so that others can also know about it.



Recalling his visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum during the Japan visit earlier this month, Modi said it was an emotional experience.

The aim of this initiative is to promote people-to-people connect and diversity and nearly 1,200 students have already visited 22 states in the first phase of this programme, Modi said.



"A few days ago the International Museum Expo was also organised in India. It depicted the specialities of more than 1,200 museums of the world. We have many different types of museums in India, which display many aspects related to our past," he said.

"When we cherish the memories of history, it helps the coming generations a lot. Sometimes we get new lessons in museums... sometimes we get to learn a lot.



"Our Amrit Sarovars are special because they are being built in the Azadi Ka Amrit Kaal and the essence of the effort of the people has been put in them. You will be pleased to know that till now more than 50,000 Amrit Sarovars have been constructed. This is a giant step towards water conservation," he said.

Noting that without water life is always in a crisis, Modi said that looking at this future challenge, 75 'Amrit Sarovars' are being constructed in every district of the country.
The Congress on Sunday once again took a swipe at the BJP government after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament House by saying that a "self-glorifying authoritarian PM with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the New Parliament building in 2023".

Slamming the government for choosing of May 28 for the event, Congress General Secretary communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh in a tweet said, "On this day, May 28th. (First Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal) Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. (VD) Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883."

He said, "The President -- the first Adivasi to become President -- is not allowed to fulfil her Constitutional duties and inaugurate the New Parliament building in 2023."

Targeting the Prime Minister, Ramesh, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP said, "A self-glorifying authoritarian Prime Minister with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the New Parliament building in 2023.

"Fabrication of facts by Distorians and the drum-beating of the media hits new lows in 2023."

Earlier in the day, PM Modi installed the historic 'Sengol' near the Lok Sabha chair and inaugurated the new Parliament House after a traditional 'puja' and 'havan'.

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Besides Congress, 19 other opposition parties boycotted the inauguration of the new Parliament House.

--IANS

aks/dpb
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, who is on an official trip of Japan, on Sunday undertook a 500-km bullet train journey to its capital city Tokyo and said such a service could benefit the Indian citizens as well.

In a tweet, he said: "Traveling from Osaka to Tokyo on #BulletTrain; will cover a distance of about 500 km in less than two and a half hours," and shared some pictures of his journey.

"A railway service equivalent to #BulletTrain not only in design but also in speed and quality should come for use in our India as well. The poor and middle class people should benefit and their journey should become easier! #FutureIndia," he added.

The CM had earlier embarked on a two-nation official trip of Singapore and Japan to attract more investments to Tamil Nadu.

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Union Minister of Ayush and Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal on Sunday said that with the inauguration of the new Parliament building, Prime Minister Modi fulfilled the wishes of 142 crore Indian people and said that it is a historic day.

In an Exclusive Interview with ANI Sarbananda Sonowal said, "Today it is a historic day for the countrymen, on this day Honorable Prime Minister Narendra is going to dedicate a new Parliament House to the countrymen. The Prime Minister deserves congratulations and thanks for the historic steps taken by him. I heartily congratulate the Prime Minister and thank him because he has fulfilled the wishes of 142 crore Indian people."

"I would also say that New Parliament House is also a day of self-respect for every Indian. it is a symbol of self-respect for 142 crore Indians" Sonowal told ANI

Union Minister and Former Chief Minister of Assam Sonowal further told ANI that"Prime Minister had called upon the countrymen that we should get out of the mentality of slavery and today New Parliament building is a symbol of the fact that in independent India, it is an independent Parliament and it is a Parliament made up of modern technology."

"Today I am feeling proud because I am an Indian citizen. We all know that India is the mother of democracy so today a lot has been accomplished in this Parliament House" he added

Union Minister Sonowal condemn the opposition parties for boycotting the Inaguraral function of the New Parliament Building is going to be dedicated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi

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"The parties which have raised their voice against the Inauguration of New Parliament building are against the sentiments of our 142 crore people of the Country" he added.

On Sunday morning, the ceremony began with a traditional 'pooja' with Vedic rituals. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla was also present with along with PM Modi during the pooja. After the puja, Prime Minister received the 'Sengol' and installed it in the new Parliament. The inauguration will take place in two phases.

The pooja was being held in a pandal (canopy) near the Gandhi statue in Parliament.

It is learnt that after the pujas, the dignitaries will examine the premises of the Lok Sabha's chamber and the Rajya Sabha chamber in the new building. It is likely that the sacred 'Sengol' will be installed in the Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing some rituals, for which priests from Tamil Nadu, including the original jeweller who designed it, will be present.

The morning phase will end at close to 9:30 am after which the second leg of the ceremony is expected to begin at noon with the singing of the national anthem in the Lok Sabha chamber in the presence of all the dignitaries including PM Modi.

The present building of the Parliament was completed in 1927 and is now going to be almost 100 years old. The lack of space was being experienced in this building as per the present requirements. In both Houses, there was also a lack of convenient arrangements for the sitting of the MPs which was affecting the efficiency of the work of the Members.

Considering the above, both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha passed resolutions urging the government to construct a new building for the Parliament. Consequently, on 10 December 2020, the foundation stone of the new building of Parliament was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The newly constructed Parliament building has been built in record time with quality construction.

Now the newly constructed building of Parliament, which will work to further enrich India's glorious democratic traditions and constitutional values, is also equipped with state-of-the-art facilities which will help the Members to perform their functions in a better way.

The new Parliament building will enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha.

Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber.
It is not exactly true that Indias rivalry with China is spoken of only in hushed tones. The Indian strategic community is quite vocal

In a new report on how China engages South Asia,, research Fellow, Centre for Social and Economic Progress, and, associate professor, Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar University, have mapped Chinese strategies to establish itself in the area. The report is based on research by South Asian scholars. Excerpts from an interview with
Tyre maker Bridgestone is looking to expand its retail footprint in India by 20-25 per cent this year and is aiming to grow higher than the industry's growth, a top company executive has said.

Bridgestone India at present has over 3,200 dealerships across 1,300 cities and towns in India.

Bridgestone India, which is a subsidiary of Japanese multinational tyre manufacturer Bridgestone Corporation, has a well-diversified portfolio, mainly of radial tyres which cater to OEM as well as replacement segments.

Bridgestone India has been increasing its market penetration over the last few years. In 2022, we increased our retail footprint by 11 per cent, expanding to an additional 218 towns. This year we are looking to increase our overall retail network by 20-25 per cent, Bridgestone India Managing Director Stefano Sanchini told PTI in an interaction.

The company is expanding its distribution network to enhance the coverage across tier-III/IV cities giving it a larger footprint in the aftermarket for automotive tyres that accounts for over 25 million tyres, he said.

We aim to retain our leadership in this segment. The OE market has shown revival last year and is expected to further grow in 2023. Our investments towards increased capacities and capabilities will help us fulfil the market needs, Sanchini, who has been helming the company's India operations since the beginning of 2023, said.

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We hope to further increase our share in the coming year, he stated.

Noting that the company had a remarkable growth both in volume and revenue during the previous year with overall revenue up 37 per cent year-on-year while the total volumes growing 17 per cent during the period.

The passenger tyre business has sustained its market leadership position, he said.

Our performance for the first quarter (January-March) of this year has also been encouraging and on the same lines as our performance in 2022, Sanchini stated.

Sounding optimistic about the domestic tyre industry's growth, he said that the Government's spending on mobility infrastructure is improving the logistic industry's efficiencies and this will spur the tyre industry growth.

Another catalyst is India's automotive sector, which is expected to sustain growth momentum in 2023, he said adding that, the domestic tyre industry is expected to grow 6 per cent in line with economic growth.

This is encouraging, taking into consideration that the global economy may be on a slowdown, due to geo-political events and disruption of global supply chains, Sanchini emphasized.

He said the company sees positive customer sentiments across categories.

Our aim is to stay ahead of the curve. We are confident that 2023 will be a good year in terms of performance as well as deeper market penetration, he said.

Sounding confident about further strengthening of Bridgestone India's leadership in the passenger car segment, he said, we are constantly working towards meeting the evolving consumer needs by enhancing our product portfolio as well as our aftersales services and increasing our retail footprint.

Sanchini also said that the company's plans to launch tyres for the electric vehicle segment in India remain in sync with the OEM's electrification thrust.

We have the product for EVs and are partnering with India-based OEMs to develop products. As EV volumes grow, our EV compatible tyres will also be available in the aftermarket, he stated.

Bridgestone India has two plants, one each at Chakan (Pune) and Pithampur (Indore) with a cumulative capacity of 30,000 tyres per day.

The company in February has announced an investment of Rs 600 crore for expansion of both capacities and capabilities. He further said the company's solutions business through the Pay As You Go model has doubled over the last year.

As the market evolves we hope to further strengthen this business that is a win-win for all stakeholders, he stated.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
Asiana Airlines, South Korea's second-biggest carrier, said on Sunday it has stopped selling certain emergency seats of A321-200 passenger jets following a recent incident in which a passenger opened a door of the same aircraft model just before landing.

Asiana Airlines halted the sale of the 26A seat of 11 A321-200s, which can carry 174 passengers, and that of the 31A seat of three A321-200s, which can accommodate 195 passengers, the company said in a statement.

The seats right beside the emergency doors in A321-200s will be excluded for reservation even if all seats on the planes are fully booked, the statement said, without providing any specific timeframe for the suspension, reports Yonhap news agency.

The incident took place on an A321-200 aircraft heading to the city of Daegu, 237 kms southeast of Seoul, from the southern Island of Jeju on Friday.

A man sitting in the emergency seat row opened the door when the 195-seat A321-200 aircraft was about 213 meters from the ground right before landing at Daegu International Airport.

None of the 194 people aboard the plane fell out or were hurt in Friday's incident, but 12 panicked passengers showed symptoms of breathing difficulty and some of them were taken to a hospital.

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A court issued an arrest warrant on Sunday for Lee for an alleged violation of the aviation security law, citing the seriousness of his case and the risk of flight.

Under the act, a passenger who operates the doors, emergency exits or devices of an airplane could face a prison term of up to 10 years.

During questioning, the man said he had been under a lot of stress after losing his job recently and that he opened the door because he wanted to get off quickly after feeling suffocated, according to police officials.

The company also began accepting customer complaints over the incident at its Flight Irregularity Claim Center at the Daegu airport.

The company said it has so far received two complaints regarding the plane accident.

Meanwhile, all the emergency seats in other passenger jets operated by Asiana are available for reservation.

Another Asiana low-cost carrier unit Air Busan said it is also considering stopping the sale of emergency row seats.

Budget carrier Air Premia said it is mulling suspending the sale of seats near the emergency doors. Other carriers, such as Jin Air Co., the budget carrier unit of Korean Air Co., are considering a similar move.

The transport ministry said taking such a measure depends on airlines' own decisions and is not based on the aviation authorities' regulations.

An official at an airline company said Asiana appears to be overreacting to the incident, given that passengers in the emergency seat rows are required to assist flight attendants in helping other passengers escape the plane in case of an emergency.

--IANS

na/
Pakistan's Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has claimed that the intelligence agencies have intercepted a conversation indicating that Imran Khan's party was hatching a plot to defame law enforcement authorities.

Addressing a hastily staged press conference on Saturday night, Sanaullah alleged that the objective of the move was to falsely implicate the law-enforcement agencies in the crime and subsequently raise the issue at the international level.

The country's agencies intercepted a conversation revealing disturbing plots and planned actions, including a raid on the PTI leader's house and a staged rape, the interior minister claimed.

Sanaullah, however, did not provide proof to substantiate his claims.

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After weeks of tough negotiations McCarthy and Biden reached a tentative agreement this weekend, but now face the challenge of getting a deal through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-led Senate before June 5 to avoid a crippling first-ever default.

Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday dismissed vehement opposition among party hardliners to a new agreement with President Joe Biden to suspend the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, predicting that most House Republicans would support the deal.



Members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus said they would try to prevent the agreement from passing the House in a vote expected on Wednesday. "We're going to try," Representative Chip Roy, a prominent Freedom Caucus member, said in a Sunday tweet.

The president and House speaker were due to speak on Sunday afternoon to finalize the agreement, which has drawn fire from hardline Republicans and progressive Democrats. House Republicans expected to unveil legislation to pass the deal later on Sunday.



"This is a good strong bill that a majority of Republicans will vote for," the California Republican told reporters in the U.S. Capitol. "You're going to have Republicans and Democrats be able to move this to the president."

But McCarthy dismissed threats of opposition within his own party, saying "over 95%" of House Republicans were "overwhelmingly excited" about the deal.

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Republicans control the House by 222-213, while Democrats control the Senate by 51-49. These narrow margins mean that moderates from both sides will have to support the bill, if the compromise loses the support of the far left and far right wings of each party.

To win the speaker's gavel, McCarthy agreed to enable any single House member to call for a vote to unseat him, potentially making him vulnerable to ouster by disgruntled Republicans. The speaker said he was "not at all" concerned about that possibility.



Democrats, who were due to be briefed on the deal at 5 p.m.(2100 GMT) by the White House, had feared the agreement would parallel a Republican debt ceiling plan that passed the House last month and would have imposed deep cuts on domestic spending.

"I'm not happy with some of the things I'm hearing about," Representative Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told CNN's "State of the Union." House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said he expected Democratic support for the deal on CBS's "Face the Nation," but declined to estimate how many of his party members would vote for it.



The deal suspends the debt ceiling until January 2025, after the November 2024 presidential election, while boosting spending on the military and veterans' care, and capping it for many discretionary domestic programs, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Democratic Representative Jim Himes told Fox News that the deal's relatively "small" scope could attract support from members of Biden's party.



Roy complained on Twitter on Sunday that the agreement would leave intact an expansion of the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service set in place when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress.

McCarthy also told Fox News that the deal includes a "paygo" measure that requires the administration to ensure that new spending does not increase the deficit. The deal would also impose a 1% across-the-board spending cut should Congress fail to enact 12 appropriations bills by Oct. 1.



"Do not intend to default on debt, but will not support a deal that reduces the size of the Navy and prevents continued technological and weapons assistance to Ukraine," Graham tweeted.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham also expressed concern about the deal's potential effect on U.S. defense and Washington's support for Ukraine.



Representative Dan Bishop and other hardline Republicans were sharply critical of early deal details that suggest Biden has pushed back successfully on several cost-cutting demands on Saturday, signaling that McCarthy may have an issue getting votes.

"Punting at your opponent's one-yard line isn't a winning strategy," Republican Senator Mike Lee said on Twitter.



Progressive Democrats in both chambers have said they would not support any deal that has additional work requirements for food and healthcare programs. This deal does, sources say, adding work requirements to food aid for people aged 50 to 54.

"Utter capitulation in progress. By the side holding the cards," Bishop said.

Several credit-rating agencies have put the United States on review for a possible downgrade, which would push up borrowing costs and undercut its standing as the backbone of the global financial system.




Ukraine's capital was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of Russia's war, local officials said, as Kyiv prepared to mark the anniversary of its founding on Sunday. At least one person was killed.

Russia launched the most massive attack on the city overnight Saturday with Iranian-made Shahed drones, said Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official.

The attack lasted more than five hours, with air defense reportedly shooting down more than 40 drones.

A 41-year-old man was killed and a 35-year-old woman was hospitalized when debris fell on a seven-story nonresidential building and started a fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Ukraine's air force said that Saturday night was also record-breaking in terms of Shahed drone attacks across the country.

Of the 54 drones launched, 52 were shot down by air defense systems.

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In the northeastern Kharkiv province, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said a 61-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were killed in two separate shelling attacks.

Kyiv Day marks the anniversary of Kyiv's official founding. The day is usually celebrated with live concerts, street fairs, exhibitions and fireworks. Scaled-back festivities were planned for this year, the city's 1,541st anniversary.

The timing of the drone attacks was likely not coincidental, Ukrainian officials said.

The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians, Ukraine's chief presidential aide, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram.

Today, the enemy decided to congratulate' the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), Popko also wrote on the messaging app.

Local officials in Russia's southern Krasnodar region said that air defense systems destroyed several drones as they approached the Ilsky oil refinery.

Drone attacks against Russian border regions have been a regular occurrence since the start of the invasion in February 2022, with attacks increasing last month. Earlier this month, an oil refinery in Krasnodar was attacked by drones on two straight days.

Ukrainian air defenses, bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied systems, have been adept at thwarting Russian air attacks both drones and aircraft missiles.

Earlier in May, Ukraine prevented an intense Russian air attack on Kyiv, shooting down all missiles aimed at the capital.

The bombardment, which additionally targeted locations across Ukraine, included six Russian Kinzhal aero-ballistic hypersonic missiles, repeatedly touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin as providing a key strategic competitive advantage and among the most advanced weapons in his country's arsenal.

Sophisticated Western air defence systems, including American-made Patriot missiles, have helped spare Kyiv from the kind of destruction witnessed along the main front line in the country's east and south.

While most of the ground fighting is stalemated along that front line, both sides are targeting other territory with long-range weapons.
Sudan's military ruler demanded in a letter to the UN secretary general that the UN envoy to his country be removed, officials said Saturday. The UN chief was shocked by the letter, a spokesman said.

The envoy, Volker Perthes, has been a key mediator in Sudan, first during the country's fitful attempts to transition to democracy and then after worsening tensions between military rivals exploded into open fighting last month.

The fighting pits troops loyal to military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan against a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, headed by Gen Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.

Burhan's letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was received Friday.

The Secretary-General is shocked by the letter he received this morning, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The Secretary-General is proud of the work done by Volker Perthes and reaffirms his full confidence in his Special Representative.

Dujarric didn't reveal the contents of the letter. A senior Sudanese military official said Burhan's letter asked Guterres to replace Perthes who was appointed to the post in 2021.

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According to the official, Burhan accused Perthes of being partisan, and that his approach in pre-war talks between the generals and the pro-democracy movement helped inflame the conflict. The talks had aimed at restoring the country's democratic transition, which was derailed by a military coup in Oct. 2021.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media.

Later Saturday, the U.S. State Department said it supports Perthes and that he continues to have our confidence. A statement by spokesman Matthew Miller said that we express our concern over the letter from the Sudanese Armed Forces calling for his (Perthes') resignation.

Perthes declined to comment on the letter.

Burhan's letter came after the U.N. envoy accused the warring parties of disregarding the laws of war by attacking homes, shops, places of worship, and water and electricity installations.

In his briefing to the UN Security Council earlier this week, Perthes blamed the leaders of the military and the RSF for the war, saying they have chosen to settle their unresolved conflict on the battlefield rather than at the table.

Burhan accused Perthes last year of exceeding the U.N. mission's mandate and of blatant interference in Sudanese affairs. He threatened to expel him from the country.

The ongoing fighting broke out in mid-April between the military and the powerful RSF. Both Burhan and Dagalo led the 2021 coup that removed the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

The fighting turned the capital of Khartoum and the adjacent city of Omdurman into a battleground. The clashes also spread elsewhere in the country, including the war-wracked Darfur region.

The conflict has killed hundreds of people, wounded thousands and pushed the country to near collapse. It forced more than 1.3 million out of their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, or to neighboring nations.

Sexual violence including rape of women and girls, a common practice in Sudan's wars and political upheavals, were reported in Khartoum and Darfur since the fighting began.

The Combating Violence Against Women Unit, a government-run group, said Friday it received reports of at least 24 cases of sexual attacks in Khartoum, and 25 other cases in Darfur.

The unit, which tracks violence against women, said most survivors reported that the attackers were in RSF uniform and in areas of Khartoum controlled by RSF checkpoints.

The RSF did not respond to a request for comment.

The warring parties have agreed on a weeklong cease-fire, brokered by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. However, the truce, which is scheduled to expire Monday night, did not stop the fighting in parts of Khartoum and elsewhere in the county.

Residents reported sporadic clashes Saturday in parts of Omdurman, where the army's aircraft were seen flying over the city. Fighting was also reported in al-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur.
Benjamin Weiser

The lawsuit began like so many others: A man named Roberto Mata sued the airline Avianca, saying he was injured when a metal serving cart struck his knee during a flight to Kennedy International Airport in New York.



tolling effect of the automatic stay on a statute of limitations.

When Avianca asked a Manhattan federal judge to toss out the case, Matas lawyers vehemently objected, submitting a 10-page brief that cited more than half a dozen relevant court decisions. There was Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines and, of course, Varghese v. China Southern Airlines, with its learned discussion of federal law and the



The lawyer who created the brief, Steven A Schwartz of the firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, threw himself on the mercy of the court on Thursday, saying in an affidavit that he had used the artificial intelligence program to do his legal research  a source that has revealed itself to be unreliable.

There was just one hitch: No one  not the airlines lawyers, not even the judge himself  could find the decisions or the quotations cited and summarised in the brief. That was because ChatGPT had invented everything.

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He had, he told Judge Castel, even asked the program to verify that the cases were real.It had said yes. Schwartz said he greatly regrets relying on ChatGPT and will never do so in the future without absolute verification of its authenticity. Schwartz, who has practised law in New York for three decades, told Judge P Kevin Castel that he had no intent to deceive the court or the airline. Schwartz said that he had never used ChatGPT, and therefore was unaware of the possibility that its content could be false.



As artificial intelligence sweeps the online world, it has conjured dystopian visions of computers replacing not only human interaction, but also human labour. The fear has been especially intense for knowledge workers, many of whom worry that their daily activities may not be as rarefied as thought.

Judge Castel said in an order that he had been presented with an unprecedented circumstance, a legal submission replete with bogus judicial decisions, with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations. He ordered a hearing for June 8 to discuss potential sanctions.



The real-life case of Roberto Mata v Avianca shows that white-collar professions may have at least a little time left before the robots take over.

Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics professor at New York University School of Law, said the issue was particularly acute among lawyers, who have been debating the value and the dangers of AI software like ChatGPT, as well as the need to verify whatever information it provides. The discussion now among the bar is how to avoid exactly what this case describes, Gillers said. You cannot just take the output and cut and paste it into your court filings.



Soon, Aviancas lawyers wrote to Judge Castel, saying they were unable to find the cases that were cited in the brief. It began when Mata was a passenger on Avianca Flight 670 from El Salvador to New York on August 27, 2019, when an airline employee bonked him with the serving cart, according to the lawsuit. After Mata sued, the airline filed papers asking that the case be dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired. In a brief filed in March, Matas lawyers said the lawsuit should continue, bolstering their argument with references and quotes from the many court decisions that have since been debunked.



Indeed, the lawyers added, the quotation, which came from Varghese itself, cited something called Zicherman v Korean Air Lines Co Ltd, an opinion purportedly handed down by the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in 2008. They said they could not find that, either. Judge Castel ordered Matas attorneys to provide copies of the opinions referred to in their brief. The lawyers submitted a compendium of eight; in most cases, they listed the court and judges who issued them, the docket numbers and dates.

When it came to Varghese v China Southern Airlines, they said they had not been able to locate this case by caption or citation, nor any case bearing any resemblance to it.



Bart Banino, a lawyer for Avianca, said that his firm, Condon & Forsyth, specialised in aviation law and that The copy of the supposed Varghese decision, for example, is six pages long and says it was written by a member of a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit. But Aviancas lawyers told the judge that they could not find that opinion, or the others, on court dockets or legal databases.
Calling for "win-win thinking" amid increased polarisation and fragmentation globally, World Economic Forum (WEF) President Borge Brende has said that hopefully, India's G20 Presidency will help get leaders to discuss collaborating on fighting climate change and rules around new technologies.

WEF, headquartered in Geneva, is an international organisation for public-private cooperation and has collaborations with India.

In an interview with PTI in the national capital, Brende sounded "cautiously optimistic" about finding and developing a floor when it comes to an agreement between the big countries and the world on traffic rules and collaboration.

"We will have some derisking, friend shoring, and nearshoring not just in time but also when it comes to global value chains. I hope that 90 per cent of the trade we have today will also continue in the future," he said.

India is holding the G20 Presidency this year and also at a time when geopolitical tensions, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and economic uncertainties are on the rise.

To a query on India's role, especially with the G20 Presidency, on the geopolitical front, Brende said there will be a new order with multiple drivers and a multi-polar world.

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"We are between orders. We had an order after the Cold War and there will be a new order with multiple drivers and a multi-polar world. It will not be just Beijing and Washington... hopefully, it will be an order where cooperation is at the core of it, win-win thinking, trade, also using comparative advantages that will again lead to exceptional and inclusive growth in the years to come.

"What we are seeing today is increased polarisation, increased fragmentation and this is an area where hopefully the G20 presidency of India gets leaders to sit down and agree on the areas to disagree but also the areas where we have to collaborate on fighting climate change, creating rules around new technologies," he noted.

G20 economies account for more than 80 per cent of the global GDP and about 75 per cent of the world trade.

Mentioning Artificial Intelligence (AI), Brende pointed out that while it represents huge opportunities, there are some dangerous areas as well.

Things can get out of control and there could be algorithms that could create very negative effects. In this regard, there is a need to agree "even in a fragmented world to establish traffic rules and stop the negative impact", he said.

WEF engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. The forum is known for its annual Davos meeting in Switzerland, which is often described as the biggest congregation of the global elite.

Talking about the digital sector in India, Brende said there are hundreds of unicorns in the digital area and that the country is "really at a very important takeoff moment when it comes to having the critical mass for tech companies".

"Not only (India is) the back office of the world on the services but also the front office and in the front when it comes to developing its own technologies, setting standards and seeing companies that are able to commercialise the technology and make good business out of it. That means, opportunities and the ecosystem that is so important," Brende said.

This year, WEF expects almost 6 per cent economic growth for India and will be the highest growth for any big economy in the world.
By Josh Wingrove and Jennifer Jacobs

White House and Republican negotiators reached a tentative deal to raise the US debt ceiling and avert a default that threatened to send tremors through the global economy, according to people familiar.





The deal includes a two-year debt limit increase and a two-year appropriations agreement that keeps non-defense spending roughly flat with current levels, a person familiar with the deal said, speaking on condition of anonymity. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy must now shepherd the framework deal, negotiated in extended discussions, to final legislative passage over the objections of hardline lawmakers in both parties. Theres little margin for error, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warning that an extension must be finalized by June 5 to avoid a historic default that would send borrowing costs soaring.



Although the tense negotiations put the country on edge, the agreement could bolster both Biden and McCarthy politically, assuming it garners enough support on Capitol Hill. Economists warned even a short default could see dramatic market declines and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. On May 24, Fitch Ratings placed the USs AAA credit rating on watch in a move that reflected the mounting concerns the US would go over the brink.

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The compromise, however, could also provoke an attempt by a handful of conservative lawmakers to call a vote to oust him. For McCarthy, skepticism that he would be able to negotiate an agreement given his razor-thin advantage in the House has hung over the speakership he won in a 15-vote runoff early this year. McCarthy arranged for a call with fellow House Republicans for 9:30 p.m. in Washington.
By SA Commercial Prop News

The Northern Cape is ready for the establishment of special economic zones, says the Department of Trade and Industry (dti).

Speaking at a public hearing on the draft Special Economic Zones Bill and Policy in the Northern Cape, the departments Head of Regional and Spatial Economic Development, Alfred Tau, said: The kind of enthusiasm and level of engagement and commitment that characterised todays session has left us with no doubt that the Northern Cape is ready for business when it comes to the establishment and development of special economic zones.

The Bill was gazetted by Minister Rob Davies last month. It aims to provide for an effective mechanism for the development, operation and management of special economic zones to promote accelerated industrial development and industrial decentralisation.

There is no doubt that your valuable inputs will go a long way in enriching the new legislation, he said of the public engagement session.

Two special economic zones are planned for the Northern Cape and the dti has already begun talks with the provincial government in establishing the zones.

The zones are expected to assist the country address some of South Africas socio-economic challenges like unemployment and poverty.

South Africa still experiences a high unemployment rate, particularly amongst the countrys youth, as well as high levels of poverty and inequality. The special economic zones, as proposed in the draft bill and policy, will be used as one of the tools that government will apply in order to address some of these challenges, explained Tau.

Since the introduction of the Industrial Development Zones by the dti in 2000, significant changes have happened such as changes in the countrys industrial and economic policies. This includes the introduction of new policies and strategies like the New Growth Path and the National Development Plan.

In the national budget tabled last week, R2.3 billion was allocated to the department for industrial development and special economic zones.

Infrastructure Development Support chief director at the department, Kaya Ngqaka, said that the new legislation would promote the development of world-class infrastructure in each region in line with the needs of the targeted industries.

Submission made by those attending the session in Northern Cape and others throughout the country will be considered when the bill and policy are finalised.  BuaNews
Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 9:19PM

Image: Google

Google is rolling out the beta of Magic Compose, a new feature in its Messages app that uses AI to suggest text messages based on your conversation. But as Android Police reports, there's a catch: to generate suggestions, Google will send up to "20 previous messages" from your chat to its serverseven if you're using end-to-end encryption (E2EE) with RCS.

Google explains this on its Magic Compose support page, saying it will use these messages, and any emoji, reactions, and URLs they contain, to help its AI create a suitable reply. Google says it won't send any messages with attachments, voice messages, or images, but it warns that "image captions and voice transcriptions may be sent." These messages will then be discarded, with Google not storing any data or using it for training its AI models.

Google introduced E2EE for its Messages app in 2020 and expanded it to group chats last year. E2EE means that no one elsenot even Googlecan see your messages. Google claims that even though it will send your messages to its servers when you use Magic Compose with E2EE, it still can't read them.

A Google spokesperson told The Verge that "conversation data used by Magic Compose is not retained" and that "suggested response outputs are not retained once they've been provided to the user." Google won't send your messages to its servers when you're not using Magic Compose.

Magic Compose is one of the many AI-powered features Google showcased at its I/O event earlier this month. Google says you can use it to reply to text messages with "stylized, suggested responses with the context of your messages." The feature is currently available to users in the Google Messages beta program.

To use the feature, you'll see a chat bubble next to the app's message composer. You can choose a suggested response and then customize it with different styles, like "chill," "excited," or "Shakespeare." The feature seems to work only with RCS messages for now, and Google hasn't said when it might support SMS / MMS.
The Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) is set to announce the results of the JNV Selection Test 2023 for Class 6 admission in the month of June. The Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Selection Test for Class 6 was successfully conducted on April 29. Students who appeared for the examination will soon be able to check their marks and qualifying status by visiting the official website, navodaya.gov.in.

It is essential to note that candidates seeking admission to Class 6 must have studied and passed classes 3 to 5 from a government, government-aided, or recognized school. JNV has strictly stated that no candidate is eligible to appear in the selection test for the second time, under any circumstances.

The selection process for Class 6 admission follows certain criteria. At least 75% of the seats in a district will be filled by students provisionally selected from rural areas of the district. The remaining seats are open and will be filled on merit from both urban and rural area candidates of the district, adhering to the reservation criteria. It is important to note that even if a student has studied in a school located in an urban area for just a day during classes 3 to 5, they will be considered as an urban candidate. However, JNV has informed that there will be no reservation for transgender students in the JNV Class 6 admissions 2023.

How to Check Navodaya Class 6th Selection Test Result

To check the Navodaya Class 6 Selection Test Results 2023, students can follow these simple steps:
In January 2021 the Iraqi Air Force was ordered to get as many of their 34 F-16IQ fighters into the air as possible for a fly by during the parade celebrating the hundred-year anniversary of the Iraqi military. The air force managed to get 23 F-16IQs into the air for the event. Questions were asked about why so few were available and the answers revealed extensive corruption in the air force that kept most of the F-16s grounded for lack of maintenance or pilots qualified to fly them. Further investigation found that millions of dollars provided for maintenance of the F-16s had been stolen and air force officials were blaming the F-16 for being too complex and expensive to operate. That was not the case, but the rampant corruption in the military had returned to 2014 levels. That corruption had enabled a smaller force of ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) gunmen to overrun a third of Iraq while Iraqi troops fled, usually because their officers had done the same and those that tried to fight found that many of their weapons were missing or inoperable because of poor maintenance. This included newly purchased American M-1 tanks being abandoned by their crews and captured intact by ISIL. Some military aircraft were also captured and the videos documenting the collapse of the Iraqi military left an impression that fueled a short-lived anti-corruption movement.

Crippling corruption was always a feature of the Iraqi military, something the government did not want to dwell on during the centennial celebration. Denying there was a problem was part of the problem. During 2020 the corruption crippled the F-16 fleet in two ways. First, spare parts for the F-16s were either not available, either because the money was stolen or the parts themselves ended up on the black market rather than in F-16s that needed them. Any high-perforce jet fighter is constantly wearing out components, especially if equipped with fire control systems that enable the fighters to use smart bombs and missiles. Iraqi insisted on those capabilities, knowing full well they would be expensive to install and maintain. The initial justification for the F-16s was the need for interceptors to protect Iraq from air attack. After 2014 priorities changed to ground attack. For a few years those new F-16IQ capabilities systems were maintained and pilots were able to fly often enough to become competent in using them. But once the ISIL threat was gone, the corruption took over and feasted on the money still being allocated for keeping the F-16s combat ready. The corruption even extended to pilot training, with officers reporting that F-16 pilots were flying sufficient hours to maintain their skills. That was untrue because the fuel and spare parts required to keep F-16s flying was stolen. At the time of the centennial fly by only seven of the F-16s were combat ready and not all the 23 pilots operating the fly by aircraft had much recent flying time. Ten of the F-16s could not fly because they were lacking essential components to take off, either because they were awaiting replacement parts or had those parts removed to make another F-16 (with fewer overall problems) flyable. The air force did not have enough qualified F-16 pilots because the pilot complaints that they were not allowed to fly were true and not unfounded rumors. All this was revealed when the government ordered an investigation to answer the media reports of corruption and how it had crippled the F-16 fleet. Many other military aircraft were in similar condition.

Before the 2014 ISIL invasion the Iraqi air force was flying mostly transport and reconnaissance missions. Iraq got its first combat aircraft in 2009, when three Cessna Caravan 208 aircraft with laser designators and Hellfire missiles arrived. Mi-17 helicopters were equipped to fire unguided rockets. Most helicopters have a door gunner armed with a machine-gun.

After June 2014 the Iraqis began using a lot more Hellfire missiles and the U.S. made several emergency air freight deliveries of Hellfires to Iraq. The first 18 F-16IQs were ordered in late 2011. Iraq originally proposed this deal in 2009 but nothing happened because government officials who approved the purchase later discovered that the cash for the down payment would prevent needed food purchases. If the food did not get paid for it would not arrive and there could be riots. The F-16 purchase was delayed and it was feared that all Iraqi F-16IQs probably would not be ready for service until the end of the decade.

Despite the chaotic Iraqi procurement process, in 2010 the U.S. agreed to begin training Iraqi F-16 pilots. The first ten Iraqis began their training later that year. This training covered basic and advanced flight training. After that was completed the new pilots were ready to learn how to operate F-16s. Starting in 2009 Iraqi ground troops began training with American F-16s providing support for Iraqi troops. American F-16s and ground controllers were used, giving Iraqi commanders experience in working with this kind of capability. Iraq ground controllers were being trained as well and some were already on the job in 2014.

The need for combat capable F-16IQs changed in mid-2014 when ISIL took Mosul and much of western and northwestern Iraq. Now the F-16IQ had a much higher priority, but as a ground attack aircraft. In 2014 Iraq was slowly building a new air force. In mid-2014 the Iraqi Air Force had some 14,000 personnel and 200 aircraft, about half of them helicopters. Iraq planned to double the size of the air force by the end of the decade and equip it with over 500 aircraft, most of them non-combat types. By 2020 there would be about 35 squadrons, including 14 jet fighter and ten armed helicopter squadrons. The Iraqis were eager to buy F-16s partly because neighboring Turkey and Jordan have done well with this model. Since mid-2014 the plans for the Iraqi Air Force have been accelerated and that sense of urgency lasted as long as the ISIL threat did. Since 2014 two of the 36 Iraqi F-16s have been lost to accidents and after 2017 there was less demand for the F-16s against an obviously defeated and retreating ISIL. By early 2020 the Iraqi F-16s were removed from the American-led air power coalition because so few of the Iraqi F-16s were available for missions. Coalition aircraft are still carrying out air strikes against ISIL forces. Many of these airstrikes are at the request of Iraqi security forces. The last time Iraqi F-16s carried out airstrikes was two sorties in September 2020. The Iraqi air force also has 24 T-50 and 12 L-159A armed trainers plus 21 Su-25 ground attack aircraft and Chinese UAVs armed with laser-guided missiles for providing airstrikes in support of Iraqi forces. While the F-16s are more expensive to operate than the armed trainers and Su-25, the air force still received enough money to keep the F-16s in service. Iraqi air force officers saw this as an opportunity to enrich themselves because Iraqi security forces didnt care who supplied air support as long as it was still available. Were it not for the media exposure the centennial fly by received, the scam would still be going in.

This was a sorry development because for several years the Iraqi F-16s were constantly in the air supporting Iraqi ground forces. This was a big deal for Iraqis. In September 2015 Iraqi F-16IQ fighter-bombers carried out their first combat missions, using smart bombs against several ISIL targets. This came 16 months after the F-16IQ made its first flight. Four F-16IQs arrived in Iraq in July 2015 so that Iraqi pilots and maintainers could undertake final training in preparation for the first combat missions which were common by the end of 2015 and throughout 2016 Iraqi F-16IQs got a lot of favorable coverage in Iraqi media because of frequent and very visible use against ISIL.

The F-16IQ is a custom version of the single seat Block 52 F-16C and the two-seater F-16D. In mid-2014 Iraq ordered another 18 F-16IQs and six will be the D version. The F-16IQ is similar to American Block 52 F-16s except they are not equipped to handle AMRAAM (radar guided air-to-air missiles) or JDAM (GPS guided bombs). The F-16IQ can handle laser guided bombs and older radar guided missiles like the AIM-7.

The F-16 is currently the most popular fighter aircraft in service and the best-selling post-1991 fighter. During the Cold War (1947-91) Russia built over 10,000 MiG-21s and the U.S over 5,000 F-4s. Since 1991 warplane manufacturing has plummeted about 90 percent. However, the F-16 has been popular enough to keep the production lines going strong into the 2020s. The U.S. still has about 1,100 F-16s in service (about half with reserve units). F-16s built so far went to 27 countries. America has hundreds in storage, available for sale on the used warplane market. The end of the Cold War led to a sharp cut in U.S. Air Force fighter squadrons. Moreover, the new F-35 will be replacing all U.S. F-16s by the late 2020s. The U.S. has plenty of little-used F-16s sitting around, and many allies in need of low-cost jet fighters. Many current F-16 users planned to replace the F-16 with the F-35 but that aircraft costs more than twice as much as a new F-16V so air forces are seeking to operate a mixed force of F-35s and late model F-16s.

Since the 1990s most F-16s produced were for export and these, like the Israeli F-16I cost as much as $70 million each. Some nations, like South Korea, built over a hundred F-16s under license. The 16-ton F-16 also has an admirable combat record and is very popular with pilots. It has been successful at ground support as well. When equipped with 4-6 smart bombs it is an effective bomber. Since first entering service some 4,600 F-16s have flown over 12 million hours. Despite fears that a single-engine fighter would be less safe, F-16s have, in the 21st century suffered a remarkably low accident rate (loss or major damage) of 2.4 per 100,000 flight hours.

The most successful F-16 user is Israel which set a number of combat records with its F-16s. Israel plans to keep some of its late-model F-16s flying for over a decade more as it retires the oldest ones. At the end of 2016, Israel retired the last of its 125 F-16A fighters. The first of these were acquired in 1980. One of these early Israeli F-16As achieved a record by being the F-16 with the most air-to-air kills (6.5), all achieved in 1982 using three different pilots. These F-16As were the first of the nearly 400 F-16s Israel obtained from the United States. Israeli F-16s have shot down 47 aircraft, which is 70 percent of the 67 kills for all F-16s built.
Beyonce paid another tribute to Tina Turner during her concert in Paris.

The 41-year-old star hailed the late music legend at her show at the Stade de France on Friday (26.05.23) following her death earlier this week at the age of 83 and told the crowd to "scream so she can feel your love".

In a video captured by a fan, Beyonce said: "If you're a fan of mine, you're a fan of Tina Turner 'cause I wouldn't be on this stage without Tina Turner.

"I feel so blessed that I was allowed to witness her brilliance.

"Thank you for your loyalty."

Beyonce described Tina as her "beloved queen" when news of her passing was revealed on Wednesday (24.05.23) and had previously cited the 'Private Dancer' hitmaker as one of her biggest inspirations.

She wrote on her website: My beloved queen. I love you endlessly. Im so grateful for your inspiration, and all the ways you have paved the way. You are strength and resilience. You are the epitome of power and passion.

We are all so fortunate to have witnessed your kindness and beautiful spirit that will forever remain. Thank you for all you have done."

The 'Break My Soul' performed a tribute to Tina at her Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in 2005 before the two stars performed a duet of 'Proud Mary' at the Grammy Awards three years later.

Tina is set to be laid to rest at a private funeral despite her legions of fans across the globe.

A spokesperson for the icon  dubbed the Queen of Rock n Roll'  confirmed to The Sun newspaper: "There will be a private funeral ceremony attended by close friends and family."

Tina was said by her team to have passed away from "natural causes" but further details have not been given.
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More than 55,000 American flags were placed by hundreds of local Scouts, leaders, and parents from the Cherokee Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America in partnership with the Chattanooga National Cemetery.

Memorial Day is a sacred day where we remember the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of freedom, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said. We can never forget these heroes nor the families who continue to grieve the loss of their mother, father, son, daughter, sister or brother who stood in the gap for each of us to maintain the very democracy we are able to treasure every day.

Local Scouts were thrilled to honor Medal of Honor recipient, Charles Coolidge, on this years patch honoring the occasion. These commemorative patches were graciously provided by event partner Elks Lodge 91 of Chattanooga. It was great to be back serving local heroes once again this year, said Greg Lee, volunteer vice president of Program for the Cherokee Area Council.

Jared Pickens, Scout Executive/CEO of the Cherokee Area Council said of the event, It is truly incredible to see this service provided to our community by these young people. This is a fantastic learning experience for our Scouts  to respect the service of those laid to rest in this sacred place.

Scouts also provided similar service last weekend at the Festival of Flags in Ringgold and this weekend in Cleveland at the Bradley County Courthouse and several area cemeteries throughout nearby counties.




The assistant manager at the Circle K, 4849 Hixson Pike, told police that a black male customer was refusing to leave the store and was cursing and causing a disturbance. The manager said the man continued to identify himself as an Officer Ballard. The man reportedly got frustrated while standing in line as another customer's cash had trouble being accepted in the automatic payment system. When challenged to leave the store after cussing an employee, he said that he would be back in the store tomorrow in uniform to show his badge, so she would lose her job. The man reportedly left then in a beige Buick LaCrosse (TN tag) and appeared to turn in the lot next door to the Quality Inn. Police checked the parking lots of Quality Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Burger King and 1664 Greendale Way unsuccessfully for the man or his vehicle. Police spoke with the clerk at the Quality Inn and gleaned no matching person had entered the business. A review of the store's video surveillance clearly showed a young black male (early-mid 30s) who did not appear to be any CPD officer or any known officer to police. A clear picture of man is visible on the surveillance footage (captured on BWC). The manager felt threatened and wanted to prosecute for "impersonating a police officer" if identified as such, or pursue a complaint with the appropriate agency if he were identified as an officer at an agency. The manager was encouraged to save/burn a copy of all relevant footage and contact police if the man should return.

* * *

Two men on E. 28th Street told police their firearms were in their vehicles and were stolen overnight, one out of each vehicle. The vehicles are a gold Honda Accord TN tag, and a black Chevy Impala TN tag. The two firearms that were stolen were a black Glock 43, serial number unknown at this time, and a black Glock 23 (serial number given to police). Both men said nothing else was taken from their vehicles.

* * *

An anonymous caller notified told police that a vehicle was broken down in the right lane at 2200 E. Main St. Police observed the vehicle (TN tag) in the right lane of travel. There were no people associated with the vehicle on scene. Due to the vehicle being abandoned, it was towed by Expressway Towing.

* * *

A woman was reported on the side of the roadway at 450 Wauhatchie Pike. Officers spoke with the woman, who was sitting on the side of the roadway. The woman was homeless and had two large carts of belongings. She refused any medical attention and further assistance. She did request officers pull her carts for her to the state line. That request was denied. The woman was on the shoulder of the roadway and it was suggested she relocate immediately. She started packing her belongings. Officers will check the area again prior to the end of shift.

* * *



A man on Poplar Street told police he was upset that Ridgeway Apartments management towed his disabled vehicle, a 2002 Toyota Highlander (TN tag). The vehicle was towed by Eric's Wrecker at 3601 Clio Ave. The man said the disabled vehicle did not have a working engine and one of the tires was flat. The vehicle had sat in the Ridgeway parking lot for approximately eight months. The man told police he had previously spoken with Ridgeway management about the matter and assumed the vehicle would not be towed.

* * *

A disorder was reported on Sharp Street, where a white female would not leave the residence. Upon arrival officers met with the woman outside, who said she and former boyfriend had a verbal argument over him cheating on her and he was the one who called police. She said she wanted to gather her belongings and leave. Officers then spoke with the boyfriend, who said she could get her things at any time. The woman gathered some personal belongings and clothing prior to leaving in her vehicle, and said she will be back at a later time.

* * *

Police received a call about a man at 3700 Webb Road. Police found the man asleep in the grass, covered in dirt and bugs. The man appeared to be dehydrated. Police woke him up and asked why he was lying out in the grass. The man immediately responded, asking for shelter. Police called for EMS. HCEMS arrived on scene and evaluated the man. HCEMS cleared him and he refused to go to the hospital. Police transported the man to the Community Kitchen on 11th Street.

* * *

A woman on E. 3rd Street called police about damage to her car caused by a collision. She said she had a crack in her windshield that was not there prior to this incident. Police did notice a small crack in her windshield, but with the fact that there was no damage, no dent and no paint transfer on either vehicle involved, police determined that it was not likely to have been caused by this collision.

* * *

A man told police he is a door dasher and he was leaving Taco Mac on Market Street. He said a black Nissan van was stopped in the middle of the road without any hazards and nothing obstructing its travel. He said he honked his horn to alert the driver to move along. After he went around the driver, the driver then began following him for some time, acting aggressively and making obscene gestures, and then eventually stopped following him. He said the driver was a heavy-set white male, the vehicle displayed a GA tag, which returned to a woman in Statesboro, Ga.

* * *

Police responded to a counterfeiting/forgery at the Walmart, 550 Cummings Hwy. A loss prevention manager told police a black female and a black male entered the store and returned items. The pair then gathered items and checked out. The woman performed two transactions each $138.73. The female then paid for each transaction using counterfeit $100 bills, four in total. The pair then exited the store and left the area in a black Cadillac (IL tag). Police identified the VIN # and the owner to be a man from Chicago. Police learned the pair had run this particular scam in Walmart stores spanning from Illinois to Tennessee. The pair have stolen approximately $14,000 from numerous Walmart stores. The pair had committed the same act at the Gunbarrel Walmart just prior to hitting the one on Cummings Highway. Surveillance photos of the two have been added to the report. No suspect information has been gathered in any of the thefts. The counterfeit bills were entered into Property, made releasable to the Secret Service.
Charles Richard Haun, 92, passed into the gates of Heaven on May 27, 2023.

He loved attending church at Spring Creek Church of God where he received prayers, hugs, handshakes and the words of encouragement. Charles loved to hunt in Wyoming and deep-sea fishing in Florida. Both Charles and his late wife, Kathleen, loved traveling and went to all 50 states, even visiting Hawaii twice.

Charles joined the Air Force on January 5, 1951 and was discharged November 26, 1954. During his service, he was stationed in Japan where he worked in the hospital helping care for soldiers. Later in life, as a retired veteran, he volunteered at the VA where he met and assisted other veterans. Also, Charles joined the American Legion Post 40 in Ringgold where he met once a month in the evening with fellow veterans.

He worked at Memorial Hospital from 1965-1993 as a laboratory technician, specializing in chemistry, and was a member of the American Medical Technology Association for 50 years. After retiring and spending time traveling, Charles made the decision to return to once again to the laboratory at Memorial part-time in 2001. Finally at age 80, on his birthday, Charles retired for the final time.

Those who have passed before him are his wife, Kathleen, to whom he was married 69  years, mother  Lorraine Haun, dad  JT Haun, step-mother  Carrie Bell Haun, sister  Joyce Daniel and brothers  Johnny and Kenneth Haun.

Those remaining whom Charles left fond memories are his brother James (Wilma) Haun, his three daughters, Nancy Trewhitt, Dianne Moore and Rhonda (Danny) Holt. He also enjoyed being Pappaw to his four grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandson. He also leaves a host of other relatives.

Visitation will be held from 3:305:30 p.m. with the funeral service following on Tuesday, May 30, at Spring Creek Church of God, 1005 Spring Creek Road, East Ridge, Tn. 37412.

Burial will take place at the Chattanooga National Cemetery on Thursday, June 1, at 1 p.m. with full military honors.

Honorary pallbearers will be the members of the American Legion Post 40 in Ringgold.

In lieu of flowers, please make a donation in Charless honor to either Spring Creek Church of God or Sevierville Home For Children.

Visit www.heritagebattlefield.com to share condolences with the family.

Arrangements are by Heritage Funeral Home & Crematory, Fort Oglethorpe.
Imagine you could go back in time and buy stock in The Beatles in 1960 or 1961. A small investment would be worth a fortune today. Allan Williams had some Beatles stock back then. What he did with it made him the biggest loser in Beatles history even while being one of the most important people to the band.

(l-r) Beatles manager Allan Williams, his wife Beryl, Lord Woodbine, Stuart Sutcliffe, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Pete Best | Keystone Features/Getty Images

Allan Williams became the biggest loser in Beatles history by walking away over 9

The Beatles made it big in England in early 1963 when Please Please Me (No. 2) and From Me To You (No. 1) became the first of many top-10 hits. A little more than a decade later, the band turned down a $250 million reunion offer. In just eight years, The Beatles rose to the pinnacle of international stardom, became musical trendsetters, and changed everything about pop music.

But Williams didnt know that in 1961.

Back then, there were 300 groups in Liverpool who were as good or better than The Beatles, Williams told author Colin MacFarlane (via Scotlands Daily Record). When the group returned from a Hamburg, Germany, residency in early 1961, they refused to pay Williams the 9 commission they owed him for the gig. The managers attempts to get the money  which translates to less than 200 in 2023 (or roughly $244 per a U.K. currency converter)  went nowhere. Williams let Brian Epstein take over the band, telling him not to touch them with a f***** bargepole.

I still lose sleep over it 50 years later, Williams said. No one could have guessed The Beatles would become so famous.

Williams couldnt collect 9 and let Epstein take over The Beatles. The potential fortune he missed out on made him the biggest loser in the bands history (with drummer Pete Best being a close second).

Brian Epstein was hardly a perfect manager when he took over for Williams

Related Pattie Boyd Said Beatles Manager Brian Epstein Made the Band More Sophisticated

Epstein was far from a perfect manager.

He wasnt the shrewdest businessman and negotiated some poor contracts for his band. The Beatles made $10,000 for their historic The Ed Sullivan Show debut on Feb. 9, 1964 (plus two other performances). Elvis Presley earned $50,000 for a three-show run nearly a decade earlier, according to his Graceland estate website.

Epstein allowed The Beatles to sign a lopsided contract with music publisher Dick James that wasnt in the bands favor. James and his partner controlled 50% of the bands music, with the remaining 50% divided between Epstein, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. It was one of the major events in Beatles history that contributed to the bands bitter split.

Still, with Epstein at the helm, they became the biggest band in the world. The manager was so integral to the group and so instrumental in their success that John once said going anywhere without him was like going somewhere without pants. Each member of the Fab Four enjoyed solo success after the band fractured. Paul and Ringos net worths suggest The Beatles overcame Epsteins poor business sense in the long run.

Brian Epstein took four Liverpool lads from the basement of The Cavern to the top of the world. It could have been Allan Williams, but he became the biggest loser in Beatles history over 9.

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The outgoing Members of Parliament (MPs) did not do much to persuade government to increase the free primary education (FPE) grant paid to schools for each child.

For a good 10 years or so, the grant for what is known as FPE stood at only E560 per child. Head teachers kicked and screamed for a review of this allowance, only for government to turn a deaf ear. This resulted in many parents failing to enjoy the benefits of what is referred to as free education in Eswatini. They found themselves compelled to pay top-up fees to schools, as head teachers complained that the money received from government was not enough to fulfil all their financial obligations. In some schools, parents paid up to E1 300 per child as top-up fees. With limited funds, schools found themselves unable to pay salaries for support staff like secretaries, cooks and night watchmen.

In the current team of MPs, there are some who have been in the august House for a decade or longer. Others came on board in 2018. They have one thing in common, though: Apart from making statements now and again, condemning government for making a mess of the FPE programme, they did not do much to ensure there was change. Amid all the hue and cry, government took its time and only reviewed the FPE grant this year. Finance Minister Neal Rijkenberg announced in February 2023 that government would be increasing the FPE grant per learner. Implementation of the revised fees was to commence at the beginning of the fiscal year 2023/2024 at a 20 per cent level of adjustment.

budget

While the total budget for this purpose was estimated at E45.6 million, the truth is that each child was now entitled to a maximum of about E670. In the new grant payment arrangement, the two lower grades still get the E560. The amount increases according to levels, with those in Grades V and VI getting E640. The maximum amount of E670 per child is only awarded to Grade VII pupils. That is why some people are not impressed by the recent display of enthusiasm from MPs, especially in the House of Assembly. Some of us are not excited by their call for free secondary and high school education in the kingdom. Apart from it being a case of `too little, too late this suggestion does not seem to be borne out of thoroughly researched data.

One cannot fault those who believe it is just a gimmick to win the hearts of the electorate, now that fresh elections are on the cards.

The mover of the motion on free secondary and high school education was to be Manzini North MP Macford Sibandze, seconded by his Kwaluseni counterpart Sibusiso Mabhanisi Dlamini. The legislators want Minister of Education and Training Lady Mabuza, in consultation with Cabinet and development partners, to look into the possibility of making secondary and higher education free in Eswatini, as envisaged in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. MPs are worried about the high number of Grade VII graduates who cannot proceed to secondary school as a result of failure by some parents to afford the fees charged by various schools.

practical

It may have been more practical for the legislators to move a motion for the subsidisation of fees at secondary high school. This could ease the burden on many parents who cannot afford the high amounts charged by schools as fees. I am reminded of the sad story of a widowed woman who called the national radio station at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to complain that she was unable to afford the E6 000 deposit for each of her two children who were to begin Form I. This was amid the drama around the school fees refund to parents who paid thousands of Emalangeni, only for schools to close abruptly, in an effort to prevent the spread of the then wanton coronavirus. For several months, children did not go to school.

Even then, Parliaments silence was deafening as head teachers calmly defied the Education ministers directive to refund parents.

That said, the motion on free secondary and higher education also had a puzzling component, at least as far as I am concerned. It sought to compel the minister to apprise the House on progress made in this regard, on a quarterly basis. Now, we are all aware that the current team of legislators is on its way out. His Majesty the King is expected to dissolve Parliament any time from now. Are the motion movers going by the assumption that they will definitely be re-elected into Parliament, come September 29, 2023? If not, how do they hope the minister will give them updates every three months? Of course, I am alive to the fact that the office of the minister does not cease to exist with the end of term of office of the current one. The next Parliament can also follow up on this matter. However, if public opinion is anything to go by, chances of most of the current MPs getting re-elected run from slim to zero.

disappointed

Voters were disappointed when this bunch failed to properly address issues around the socio-political unrest. Even as we speak, their opinion and aspirations on this volatile matter, including the arrest of their colleagues in Mthandeni Dube and Bacede Mabuza, is not known. They also watched as prices of goods and services shot up exponentially and the health system deteriorated. Almost all public health facilities constantly run out of critical medical drugs and other supplies. These MPs did not lift a finger as many of the countrys roads damaged by heavy rains remained in an extremely bad state. There is a growing argument out there, to the effect that construction of roads is not the purview of MPs. However, the Operating Guidelines for Effective Tinkhundla Administration and Development indict them. These guidelines provide that, among other things, MPs should mobilise resources and development projects to benefit the constituency in improving the state of their lives. There has never been a better developmental tool than an excellent road network.
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When youre single and actively dating, you might think youve seen it all before. But youd be wrong because this dating story is probably the strangest yet.

TikToker Max (@max.baddate) was in for a surprise when his date took off all of her clothes in front of him while in public.

For his second date with this girl, they decided to go to Chicago and visit the Lincoln Park Zoo. While they were at the zoo, it started raining a bit.

When the rain petered out, they headed to the Old Town neighborhood in the city to check out the stores and bars.

They found a parking spot and walked about eight blocks when it began pouring rain. Of course, Max and his date were drenched.

They took shelter under some canopies, trying to figure out what they should do next. Eventually, they determined that returning to the car was the best thing to do.

They ran all the way there and got settled in the car. Max took off his jacket, and they just sat and talked, waiting for the weather to let up and their clothes to dry off.

Suddenly, Max looked over and realized his date had removed all her clothes. He quickly looked away and apologized, stating he didnt know she was getting dressed.

It turned out she just wanted to take off all her clothes because they were soaking wet, and it wasnt a big deal for her to sit there completely naked.

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Pixabay/mhollaen

The Church of Scotland has taken a bold step towards addressing its historical connections to the transatlantic slave trade. It has reportedly uncovered damning evidence of its complicity in the brutal trade that forcibly transported millions of enslaved people.

Issuing Apology

According to a report from Premier Christian News, the Church of Scotland's extensive investigation into its historical ties to the transatlantic slave trade has uncovered undeniable evidence of involvement and financial gain from this inhumane practice. The church, known for its influential role in Scottish society, has now taken responsibility for its dark past. Moreover, the Herald Scotland reported that the comprehensive report, which investigated the church's archives and historical records, highlighted the significant presence of church members who owned and traded enslaved Africans. These individuals actively participated in human trafficking that caused immeasurable suffering and injustice.

The church has determined to confront the painful chapter of its history head-on. Recognizing the importance of acknowledging past wrongs, the Church of Scotland formally apologizes for its complicity in the transatlantic slave trade. This apology is crucial to healing and reconciliation, emphasizing the church's commitment to justice and equality. As mentioned, the Church of Scotland plans to initiate concrete actions to support projects aimed at redressing the historical injustices of slavery. The report further recommends that the church actively engage with communities impacted by slavery and provide resources for educational programs that highlight this dark period in history. In addition, the church hopes to play a significant role in promoting understanding, healing, and eradicating racial inequality by taking proactive measures.

As the news of the Church of Scotland's impending apology spreads, it generates substantial attention and commendation from various quarters. Facing a painful truth and taking responsibility for past actions sets an example for other institutions. It highlights the importance of addressing historical injustices and ensuring accountability, even confronting one's dark past.

Also Read: Church Of Scotland Looking To Drop 'Husband And Wife' Reference During Marriage Ceremonies

Report Urges Church of Scotland to Apologize

A report has urged the Church of Scotland to issue an apology for its historical involvement in slavery has been released, STV News reported. It calls on the church to acknowledge its connection to the slave trade and express remorse for the suffering caused. Also, the report reveals that the Church of Scotland played a significant role in the slave trade during the 18th and 19th centuries. It highlights the involvement of ministers, elders, and members who owned or profited from enslaved individuals, emphasizing the church's complicity in racial inequality and the subjugation of African people.

Accordingly, to address these historical injustices, the commission recommends the church issue a formal apology and establish a reconciliation process with descendants of those who suffered under slavery. It also proposes an educational program to raise awareness and foster understanding within the church and society. On the other hand, Rev Dr. Martin Fair, the Moderator of the General Assembly, supports the report's recommendations, emphasizing the need to take responsibility and work towards reconciliation and justice. The Church of Scotland will reportedly consider these recommendations at the upcoming General Assembly. By issuing a comprehensive apology, the church aims to contribute to the ongoing truth and reconciliation process, acknowledging its past actions and demonstrating its commitment to justice and equality.

Related Article: Religious Leaders Join Pope Francis To End Modern Slavery
Flickr/Gage Skidmore

Hamburger Mary's Orlando, a popular drag performance and restaurant in Orlando, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday against the state of Florida and Governor Ron DeSantis. Following the passage of a new state law that specifically targets drag performances less than a week ago, action was taken.

The proprietors of Hamburger Mary's assert that the government is violating their First Amendment rights to free speech in a legal dispute that has just started in Orlando federal court. In order to give the lawsuit more time, they have asked the court to delay the law's application temporarily.

Lawsuit Against Florida and Gov. Ron DeSantis Over Free Speech

According to the article in Associated Press News, as he prepares to run for the Republican presidential nomination, Governor DeSantis, who is renowned for promoting anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, has made such policies a cornerstone of his program. He supported the legislation intended to limit drag shows on Wednesday, a decision that was hailed with cheers at Tampa's Cambridge Christian School. Other laws enacted by DeSantis prohibited gender-affirming child care, placed limitations on the use of personal pronouns in the classroom, and required the use of certain restrooms.

In 2008, Hamburger Mary's Bar & Grille, a chain with over a dozen locations across the country, debuted in Orlando. The club, well-known for its "family-friendly" Sunday drag acts, is alleged to have been forced by the current rule to forbid kids from attending any performances. According to reports, this has caused a 20% drop in Sunday reservations.

Advocates for the law insist that it is intended to protect kids from watching performances with explicit sexual content. In the article shared in CBS News, the lawyers for Hamburger Mary's reply that the wording of the statute is so vague and wide that it might be applied to any performance in which a male wears women's clothing, regardless of whether the act is sexually provocative.

Also Read: DeSantis Shuts Down 'Pronoun Olympics' in Florida Schools, Asserting 'Not Happening' Stance

Activists Raise Concerns Over Anti-LGBTQ Legislation

Concerning new legislation's potential to eliminate LGBTQI+ presence in schools and might instill in pupils the idea that they should hide or feel ashamed of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

According to the article in ABC News, an important LGBTQ advocacy group in Central Florida, the Zebra Coalition's Heather Wilkie, emphasized the need to create welcoming learning environments for all children. She made the case that legislation that seems to target young people based on their identities can impede both their academic progress and overall well-being.

The latest legislation has drawn comparisons from critics to the infamous "no promo homo" regulations of the 1990s. These regulations prohibit teachers from bringing up LGBTQ+ issues in the classroom. The current legislation, however, also adds a potentially harmful component by including families and parents.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, 2021 was a record-breaking year for anti-LGBTQ legislation. Over 250 of these legislation were introduced, and at least 17 of them became law. These statistics highlight a worrying trend, prompting advocates to call for quick action to safeguard the rights and welfare of LGBTQ+ people, particularly in educational settings.

Related Article:Governor DeSantis Set to Sign Legislation Prohibiting Gender-Affirming Care for Minors and Other Restrictions
Pixabay/Sergei Tokmakov

Authorities in South Africa and Rwanda were finally able to track down and capture one of the most wanted criminals in the world, who had been on the run for 22 years. The man was reportedly one of the suspects in a massacre at the Nyage Catholic Church.

Terrible Mass Killing in 1994

According to The South African, it is estimated that 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered over ninety days during the genocide in Nyanga, Rwanda. Men, women, children, and older adults were among the refugees staying in the church. Based on the allegations brought by the tribunal, Fulgence Kayishema was actively involved in planning and carrying out the massacre in 1994. As mentioned, Kayishema was former police in their state. He reportedly purchased and distributed gasoline to set fire to the church while the migrants were inside.

The perpetrator is suspected of bringing down the church with the assistance of a bulldozer. Following the genocide, Kayishema left Rwanda and went to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Moreover, after living in numerous African nations with his wife, children, and brother-in-law, he was apprehended in Cape Town, South Africa.

Also Read: Catholic Human Rights Activist Says Bandit Attacks in Nigeria Killed 900 Civilians, Most of Them Christians

Charges Against the Suspect

During one of the deadliest moments of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Kayishema is suspected of playing a role in the murder of 2,000 people who had taken refuge inside a Catholic church. On Wednesday, May 24, he was taken into custody under the alias of Donatien Nibashumba on a grape estate in Paarl, located approximately 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of Cape Town. The arrest was reportedly conducted in response to a red notice issued by Interpol, according to the South African police. Law enforcement agencies all over the world are notified when a red warning is given, Aljazeera reported. They look for people who are wanted for prosecution or to serve terms that they have already received in prison and try to apprehend them.

Accordingly, as the 62-year-old man walked into court on Friday, May 26, for an initial hearing carrying a Bible and a book with the words "Jesus First" printed on the cover, a journalist questioned him about whether or not he had anything to say to the victims of the crime. He responded by saying, "What can I say? We are sorry to hear what was happening. It was a war at that time. I didn't have any role." As per AP News, based on the court order, Kayishema will be detained until the conclusion of another hearing scheduled for the following Friday, June 2, at the same courthouse. He is anticipated to be deported to Rwanda, where he will eventually face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The sole basis for the five allegations South African prosecutors presented against him on Friday, May 26, is that he lied on immigration paperwork to get into and remain in the country almost 23 years ago. Prosecutors claimed in court documents that Kayishema deceived South African authorities in January 2000 by utilizing a fake identity, Fulgence Dende-Minani, and claiming to be a Burundian refugee. Prosecutors say his 2004 asylum ended two years later, yet, he had been in South Africa for 17 years.

Related Article: Buffalo Pastor, Darius Pridgen Took Months to Consider Forgiving the Teenager Killer of Black Massacre
Church grieves loss of pastor's 2 daughters in train collision

The family and church of an Arkansas pastor are grieving the loss of his two daughters after the family's vehicle was hit by an oncoming train. The pastor and his son survived the accident but are in critical condition in hospital.

Pastor Chad Fryar of Crossroads Cowboy Church in Bismarck, Arkansas, and his son, Bo Henry, are being treated for their injuries, THV11 reported, adding that the pastors daughters, Marlee Jo and Dana Kate Fryar, did not survive the accident.

The incident occurred while the Fryar family was traveling east on Richwoods Road, the media outlet said, citing local officials. The pastors wife, Rachel, was at home at the time.

Their vehicle crossed the Union Pacific Railroad tracks just as a northbound train approached, striking the passenger side of the vehicle. The impact forced the vehicle to lodge in front of the train, which pushed it about 2,400 feet before both came to a halt.

The Crossroads Cowboy Church expressed their devastation online.

We are devasted by [the] tragic events and the loss of Marlee Jo and Dana Kate, the statement read, Chad and Bo Henry are stable in local hospitals. Please continue to pray for their healing. Please pray for Rachel as she navigates this loss and ministers to her son and husband.

The Fryar family have shared updates on their condition. Chad is in good spirits and being his normal self. Doctors are still discussing the length of his stay, but they are keeping him in ICU so they can monitor him, said the update.

Bo Henrys surgery reportedly went better than anticipated, and the young boy is being commended for his resilience.

Weve had lots of questions [about] what can we do for our precious Fryar 5. Right now we are working closely with Crossroads El Paso to set up an account where donations can be made, the church said on its Facebook page.

If any kids in the community would like to make something special for Bo Henry and his family you can drop it off at JA Farms Feed and Mercantile and we will make sure they get it. Praise report that Bo Henry and Chad were able to talk on the phone this morning!

Pastor Ron Riddle of Crossroads Cowboy Church in El Paso, who is acquainted with the Fryar family, also expressed deep grief. Just became a part of my personal family, and we just love the Fryars so very much, KARK.com quoted Riddle as saying. He described the family as close-knit, the kind of church family everyone would want to have.

Just trust that God has bigger plans, things that we cannot see yet, Riddle advised, although he admitted to struggling with questions about why such a tragic event occurred.

As the community rallies around them, the church continues to conduct its scheduled services.

The congregation is also expressing faith in their resilience and in Gods plan amid the heartbreak. Come as you are, God will meet you where you are at! The first time youre a guest the second time youre family, was the message posted on the churchs Facebook page.

Pastor Riddle said, Gods got this. Hes in control.
In Poland, old churches offer lessons in medieval history

More than a thousand years of Christianity means there are plenty of things to discover in Poland.

Poland is an obviously old nation. However, the country in its current incarnation is still relatively young and only dates to the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Thats because much of the land within the current borders was for centuries controlled by assorted powers, including czarist Russia and Prussia before German unification to the World War II occupation under the Nazis and finally the communism of the Soviet Union.

Throughout all those periods one thing remained constant: a deep religiosity, dating to when Poland became a Christian nation with the so-called Baptism of Poland on Holy Saturday in 966.

One of the more interesting chapters in Polish history is the period of the Teutonic knights.

Officially called the Teutonic Order, the knights were part of a monastic order within the pre-Reformation Roman Catholic church that originated during the Crusades. Eventually, they settled near the Baltic in what was historically known as Pomerania. It was here where from 1226 until 1561 they controlled a monastic state equivalent to the Knights Hospitaller on the island of Malta.

The warrior-monks of the Teutonic era were also intertwined with the Hanseatic League.

The league or Hansa was a Germanic confederation that essentially functioned as a medieval free trade zone for merchants and mariners. At its peak, some 200 cities and towns were members.

The Teutonic knights and Hansa had a tremendous influence across northern Europe, including the area in and around Polands Baltic coast. Their respective power and wealth allowed for the construction of architecturally and artistically significant churches that remain in use today.

This defining legacy is a specific style of Gothic architecture called brick Gothic.

While stone dominated the churches, cathedrals, palaces, fortresses and vernacular architecture elsewhere in medieval Europe, brick was the everyday building material here. The reason? The area around the Baltic coast lacks sufficient natural stone resources.

To discover this period of history, I started my visit to Poland in Gdansk or Danzig, its historic German name.

The old town  called Glowne Miasto in Polish or Main City in English  looks exactly how most Americans imagine a centuries-old city somewhere in Europe. However, appearances can be deceiving.

Much of the Main City is actually a replica of what stood before the war as Gdansk sustained extensive damage. Thankfully, the cityscape was thoughtfully restored even if some of the rebuilt facades are just that: facades concealing postwar concrete buildings. Thats really quite remarkable, given the bad architecture that came out of the postwar years, particularly in the countries under Soviet occupation.

St. Marys Church (formally the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) is one of the finest examples of brick Gothic anywhere in northern Europe. Restored to the rites of Roman Catholic worship after the war, the church had been under Lutheran control since the aftermath of the Reformation. The complicated past is reflected in the interior, which has a mix of whitewashed walls and several notable examples of pre-Reformation art within chapels that line the side aisles of the nave.

About 100 miles south of Gdansk is Torun (Thorn in German).

Granted a charter by the Teutonic knights in 1233, the city was historically orientated toward the Vistula River  Polands longest river. Unlike Gdansk, it was spared from the bombing and destruction of the war. As a result, a considerable number of landmarks from the Teutonic and Hansa eras remain and today are protected by a UNESCO World Heritage designation.

Among the most significant sights are three period churches: the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist; the absolutely massive Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a former Franciscan church that includes the tomb of Swedish Princess Anna Vasa; and the Church of St. James the Greater with its imposing tower. Another must-visit is the Old Town Hall at the medieval market square. Today it houses a branch of the regional museum that includes a collection of religious art.

Two slightly off-the-beaten-path places on the drive back to Gdansk are Chelmno (Kulm in German) and Grudziadz (Graudenz in German).

Chelmno is a small town that punches above its weight.

The 743-year-old brick Gothic parish church  also dedicated to the assumption of Mary  not only has a tower that can be climbed by visitors for sweeping views of the surrounding countryside but contains a relic from the skull of St. Valentine. As one might expect, the relics attract pilgrims and are played up every Valentines Day.

While Grudziadz was heavily scarred by World War II, my guide said the Swedish occupation in the mid-17th century was actually much worse.

The city, which dates to the late 13th century when there was a Teutonic castle here, has a new museum within old granary buildings on the history of this once-important port on the Vistula between Torun and Gdansk. Besides the museum, the Church of St. Nicholas, which was restored after the war, has an ancient Romanesque stone baptismal font from Gotland, an island in the Baltic in present-day Sweden.

If you go

I flew into Gdansks Lech Walesa Airport, which is reachable with just one connection from just about every major airport in the United States.

Renting a car with GPS navigation is advisable if venturing beyond Gdansk. However, some visitors might have an issue picking up their reserved car. Thats because many rental car agencies enforce an outdated Polish law requiring some foreign drivers to hold an archaic document known as an international drivers permit  a document that isnt issued by the U.S. government. The permits are really nothing more than a revenue stream for the AAA, which issues them.

Stay at the Holiday Inn City Centre or Puro Hotel Stare Miasto in Gdansk, Hotel Eter in Torun and the Ibis Styles in Grudziadz. All the hotels are within walking distance of everything to do and see in their respective cities. For those with an early morning flight home, the Hampton by Hilton at Gdansks airport is recommended.

A detailed guide to the most notable examples of brick Gothic architecture is available through the European Route of Brick Gothic, an alliance of several historic cities and towns in Denmark, Germany and Poland.

The renowned Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, whose groundbreaking theory that the Earth revolved around the sun was later banned by the Roman Catholic church, was born in Torun in 1473. A brick Gothic house attributed to the family and believed to be his birthplace houses an interesting museum.

Full trip planning resources are available through the Polish National Tourist Office.

Dennis Lennox writes a travel column for The Christian Post.
Maine school board denies lease to church after asking about its Christian views on hot-button issues

A Maine church that's outgrowing its existing meeting space and applied to the local school board to use a facility at a high school for its services saw its application denied allegedly after board members inquired about the congregation's views on hot-button issues like same-sex marriage, abortion and transgenderism.

The Pines Church in Bangor, Maine, applied for the lease of a space at a local high school in Hermon. However, the school board rejected the application following inquiries into the churchs positions on various sociopolitical issues, including same-sex marriages and abortion, according to media reports.

Represented by Advocates for Faith & Freedom, a nonprofit law firm specializing in religious freedom cases, The Pines Church last week filed a lawsuit against Hermon School Committee, The Daily Signal reported.

Public institutions that seek to lease their facilities for revenue should not be able to discriminate based on religious or political conviction, Mariah Gondeiro, vice president and legal counsel for Advocates for Faith & Freedom, said in a statement.

The Hermon School Committee has a history of leasing their properties to secular organizations without persecution. We are advocating for fair and equitable treatment under the law, and The Pines Church was denied that opportunity by the Hermon School Committee, Gondeiro added.

The Pines Church had hoped to relocate to Hermon, where a large portion of its congregation resides, as other rental spaces were unavailable, CBN news said, adding, however, that during the application process, Superintendent Micah Grant and a member of the school board posed questions regarding the churchs stance on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Chris McLaughlin, a school board member, asked The Pines Church about its approach toward issues impacting marginalized communities. Questions asked included the churchs stance on same-sex marriages, access to abortion, so-called "gender-affirming care," conversion therapy (counseling for unwanted same-sex attractions) and inclusive sexual education.

The church believes these questions were an attempt to enforce religious and political conformity.

In response to these inquiries, the churchs legal representation argues in a lawsuit that the implications of the school boards questions are clear: unless The Pines Church aligns with the school boards religious and political beliefs, the board will not approve its lease proposal.

The suit further states that the school boards actions are discriminatory, viewing religious institutions holding traditional views as second-class members of the community. The church is now calling for its rights under the First Amendment, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, and for Maines public accommodations laws to be upheld.

According to the lawsuit, the board ultimately rejected Pastor Matt Gioias lease proposal due to the churchs religious beliefs. Instead, the board offered a month-to-month lease, which the church found unfeasible due to planning and budgeting constraints.

We are understandably disappointed with the process in which we had to go through, but we are not discouraged, Pastor Gioia was quoted as saying. We have seen the Lord move through our church and grow our community so much since our founding. We are hopeful that we will be able to continue our worship and fellowship without discrimination.

The lawsuit seeks to mandate the school board to grant the church either a six-month or a yearlong lease and award the church compensatory damages.
Childrens Bible named 'Bible of the Year' at Evangelical Book Awards

The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association honored CSB Explorer Bible for Kids as the Bible of the Year at their annual Christian Book Awards ceremony. This accolade marked the first time in 18 years that a childrens Bible has received this prestigious accolade.

Produced by Holman Bibles, a branch of Lifeway Christian Resources, CSB Explorer Bible for Kidsintertwines the content of the Christian Standard Bible  the second bestselling Bible translation as of April 2023, according to ECPA data  with child-friendly designs and layouts.

The award-winning Bible was envisaged to facilitate childrens interaction with Scripture in an engaging and meaningful way. The creative layout, complete with vibrant full-color designs and a plethora of supportive visual aids such as images and illustrations, was lauded by Andy McLean, a publisher for Holman Bibles.

We are honored that the CSB Explorer Bible for Kids has been recognized and awarded Bible of the Year, Christian Headlines quoted McLean as saying. It affirms what we set out to accomplish  creating a compelling way to help kids engage with the history, culture, and meaning of the text of scripture.

Further enhancing its interactive element, the Bible incorporates QR codes linked to online videos, discussion topics and printable activities, thereby augmenting its utility for home studies as well as in school or church classes. Its introductions to the 66 books of the Bible elucidate the chronological context of Gods relationship with humanity, aiding children to understand biblical narratives.

The event, held earlier this month in Nashville, Tennessee, also recognized Lifeway Christian Resources with the Spanish Bible of the Year Award, for The Thematic Study Bible (Biblia Tematica de Estudio), awarded by the Spanish Evangelical Publishers Association. This self-supporting nonprofit organization, stationed in Middle Tennessee, has distinguished itself as the largest provider of Spanish-language Bibles known to date.

Other winners at the ceremony included a varied array of Christian literature. Mariam Ibraheem and Eugene Bachs audiobook, Shackled: One Womans Dramatic Triumph Over Persecution, Gender Abuse, and a Death Sentence took home the audio books prize, while J. Christopher Edwards Early New Testament Apocrypha: Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies won in the Bible reference work section.

In the category of Bible study, Nancy Guthries work, Blessed: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Revelation, published by Crossway, clinched the top prize.

The biography and memoir category was won by the book Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God by Tim Challies, published by Zondervan Reflective.

A tie occurred in the childrens book category with two winners  The Biggest Story Bible Storybook, by Kevin DeYoung with illustrations by Don Clark, from Crossway, and Our God is Bigger Than That!, a collaboration between authors Michelle Medlock Adams and Eva Marie Everson, with artist Anna Jones bringing their words to life, published by End Game Press.

James K. A. Smiths How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now, published by Brazos Press/Baker Publishing Group, was the winner in the Christian Living section.

The Devotion & Gift section accolade was bestowed upon Zondervans When You Don't Know What to Pray: 100 Essential Prayers for Enduring Lifes Storms by Charles F. Stanley.

In the faith and culture category, Greg Johnsons Still Time to Care: What We Can Learn from the Churchs Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality, published by Zondervan Reflective, earned the winning title.

Mark Sayers A Non-Anxious Presence: How a Changing and Complex World will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders, published by Moody Publishers, claimed the top honor in the ministry resources category.

The new author category awarded its first prize to Jennifer Tucker for her book, Breath as Prayer: Calm Your Anxiety, Focus Your Mind, and Renew Your Soul, published by Thomas Nelson Gift.

Finally, in the young peoples literature section, the winning title was How to Pray: A Guide for Young Explorers by Pete Greig with Gemma Hunt, published by Hodder & Stoughton and NavPress.

The Christian Book Award program, which culminates at the industrys Leadership Summit each Spring, celebrates outstanding contributions to Christian literature across 12 categories.
MBABANE Government is not taking kindly to statements made by two emaSwati about the King, elections and Parliament.

As a result, Alpheous Nxumalo, the Government Spokesperson, said Mduduzi Gawuzela Simelane was in a huge cage of political contradictions and dilemmas. He said he was all over the place when discussing issues of national importance (uyanhlanhlatsa). Simelane is the president of the Swaziland Liberation Movement (SWALIMO) and former Siphofaneni MP. He is presently in exile. The SWALIMO president was able to evade arrest for incidences related to the civil unrest that occurred in 2021.

mere chambers

The government press secretary said Simelane was offside when he alleged in an interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) that Parliament was but mere chambers for the Head of the State. He said government followed the SABC1 Siswati channel interview that was conducted on the Wednesday of May 24, 2023, whereby Simelane and Mlungisi Makhanya, the President of the Peoples United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) featured. He said the interviewing SABC journalist, as usual, never gave government the right and opportunity to respond to some of the unfounded and myopic allegations against Parliaments composition and functions and Eswatinis national general elections. He said government was looking forward to an interview with SABC tomorrow to react to the allegations. Nxumalo said, based on the content of interview, government immediately concluded that both gentlemen were lost in their own world of political fantasy and fanaticism.

squarely refuted

He squarely refuted the assertion that the upcoming national general elections belonged to the Head of State. The man is in a huge cage of his political contradictions and dilemmas, he said. He then explained why he thought the SWALIMO president was all over the place: On one hand, he urges his dysfunctional and imploding political party SWALIMO to participate in the elections because it gives them an opportunity to hijack Parliament and turn it into a revolutionary forum. How will he do that if the chambers belong to another entity as he put it?

He claims to have stopped a certain Bill which was meant to benefit the Head of State if it were to be passed into law. Really! How could he have achieved that if Parliament was indeed somebodys chambers? The government press secretary said if truth were to be told as it had been witnessed on so many occasions in the past and present, the Parliament of the Kingdom of Eswatini is the peoples Parliament.

He explained that the people directly voted for their representatives without any hindrance or outside influence. Nxumalo mentioned that Simelane was witness number one of this experience up until he allegedly offended the law. He said both himself and his wife Nomalungelo Simelane, popularly known as LaZwide, were directly elected by the people to Parliament. Therefore, to assert otherwise, remains a political fallacy, Nxumalo said. Nxumalo said national elections in Eswatini and the establishment of Parliament (House of Assembly/Senate) were a constitutional requirement and imposition of the national Constitution.

offended the law

Magawugawu himself, before he offended the law and became a fugitive, he was duly elected by the owners of the chambers of Parliament (which is not the Kings chambers as Magawugawu alleges) but of all bona fide emaSwati who willingly and dutifully exercise their rights to chart their future by voting for their representatives to Parliament, the government press secretary said. He said it was both a political fantasy and fanaticism to propagate a deceptive political agenda that emaSwati should elect political conduits to act and serve in Parliament as agents and activists of revolution. He said it was political fantasy and fanaticism to mislead emaSwati into electing people who will not faithfully serve their constituencies. He wondered how they should not serve them when they had earned seats through their votes. Nxumalo alleged that tendency was a false anticipation, which Simelane and company wanted to use to continue to getting unsuspecting donors for cash to sponsor their lavish lifestyles in London and Sandton City.

He mentioned that the least could be said about Makhanya because they had chosen to exercise their rights not to participate in the elections. However, he said Makhanyas politics of swords and spears remained antagonistic and backward. Hopefully, he said, he would take a few lessons from his comrade Mandla Hlatshwayo, who said that they should try to persuade, influence and convince. He suggested that it was time that every liSwati got acquainted with the Constitution of the Kingdom of Eswatini in order to differentiate facts from fiction. As it were, he said emaSwati continued to exercise their democratic right to register to vote.

Parliament is their chambers

Remember Parliament is their chambers, he said. Since this is a response to public statements already aired on television, Simelane and Makhanya could be contacted for comment.

Section 106 of the Constitution provides that the supreme legislative authority of Eswatini vests in the King-in-Parliament. It is stated in Section 106 (b) that the King and Parliament may make laws for the peace, order and good government of Swaziland (Eswatini). Section 107 provides that, subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the power of the King and Parliament to make laws shall be exercised by Bills -

(a) Passed by both chambers of Parliament;

(b) Passed by the House in the cases referred to in sections 112, 113, 114 and 116 (2);

(c) Passed at a joint sitting of the Senate and the House, in the cases referred to in sections 115(3), 116 (1) 117, and Chapter XVII;

(d) Passed by the Senate in the case referred to in section 115 (4), and assented to by the King under his hand.
Renaming military assets: Censoring history will undermine America

Since January, multiple historic military bases have been renamed. According to the Small Wars Journal: Calls to rename military bases and other military assets began in earnest after the 2020 murder of George Floyd ... The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act called for a commission to identify military assets that commemorate the Confederacy. As a result of the commissions report to Congress, the services are moving to rename nine Army posts, two Navy ships, and remove or modify a host of monuments and tributes to the Confederacy.

Most of us were witnesses to the 2020 tearing down of memorials, from Confederate statues to founding father statues. Regardless and despite applauding media, during the height of the unrest the clear majority of Americans were against renaming bases.



Unfortunately, base renaming is now back in vogue. I would like to offer a personal perspective on why this decision is not only demoralizing but why it involves contradictions and a political agenda to undermine the nation.

Having spent my Army career in the Infantry, I lived a total of almost seven years at the traditional Home of the Infantry, Fort Benning, now renamed Ft. Moore. Two of my three children were born there. My father, grandfather and I went through Airborne school at Benning, and my father and I also went through Ranger school at Benning. We are only one of thousands of such families with this kind of personal connection to the post. While changing these names at a cost of over $60 million, the Army is facing the greatest recruiting crisis in history, with many Army families losing faith due to the propagation of wokeness.

I want to make it clear: The namesakes, LTG Hal and Julie Moore, are worthy of honor. LTG Hal Moore is an American hero and respected Infantryman whom I knew. However, knowing Hal Moore, I am certain he would have opposed changing the name due to his love for Ft. Benning. Battalion Commander Moore deployed to Vietnam from Ft. Benning in 1965 and led his men fighting at LZ X-ray in the Ia Drang Valley. The families of the men who fought and died in that battle were at Ft. Benning when they received news of what happened. Going back further in time, General of the Army George C. Marshall, then Bennings assistant commandant in the 1920s, brought what became known as the Benning Revolution which helped win World War II. Benning Revolution is a term all Infantry leaders know, and Hal Moore taught those tactics to the men he led.

Its relevant to note what the newly named base personages thought about the subject. Ft. Gordon, GA was renamed Fort Eisenhower and Ft. Lee was also renamed. The following is from a 1960 letter in which then-President Eisenhower wrote defending Robert E. Lees portrait on his office wall: General Robert E. Lee was, in my estimation, one of the supremely gifted men produced by our Nation. He believed unswervingly in the constitutional validity of his cause which until 1865 was still an arguable question in America; he was a poised and inspiring leader, true to the high trust reposed in him by millions of his fellow citizens  Through all his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith in God. Taken altogether, he was noble as a leader and as a man, and unsullied as I read the pages of our history



Maury Hall at the Naval Academy was recently renamed for former President Jimmy Carter due to a Confederate connection with Maury, and yet this is what then President Carter had to say about the top Confederate General: Robert E. Lee was a man who understood the values of a region which he represented. He was never filled with hatred. He never felt a sense of superiority. He led the Southern cause with pride, yes, but with a sense of reluctance as well. He fought his battles courageously.

The attacks on historic memorials quickly moved from Confederate connections to founding fathers and have continued to move forwards. By 2021, a statue of Thomas Jefferson which had stood in New York City Hall for 187 years was removed.

Its time to stop this progressive agenda bent on undermining the nation. America rose to greatness honoring our history. A nation under God and home of the free because of the brave. The brave trained to win wars at places like Fort Benning. We cant afford to forget that.
Canadian work experience requirement removed for engineers in Ontario Edana Robitaille Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

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On May 23 in Toronto, Monte McNaughton, the Ontario Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development announced that Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) is the first professional association in the province to remove the Canadian work experience requirement from their application criteria.

The minister says removing the Canadian work experience requirement will help qualified professionals enter the profession they are trained for.

Its an all-too-common experience: meeting a skilled newcomer trained as an engineer, doctor, or accountant, working in a low-wage job that has nothing to do with their profession, said McNaughton.

Discover if You Are Eligible for Canadian Immigration

According to the most recent work experience requirements under PEO, candidates applying for a license must be able to demonstrate 48 months of verifiable and acceptable engineering experience following graduation. At least 12 months of that experience must be in a Canadian jurisdiction under a licensed professional engineer.

McNaughton says there are 300,000 jobs unfilled across the province, including thousands in engineering, which can cost billions in lost productivity.

The change follows the Working for Workers Act, 2021. Under the Act, regulated professions, such as engineering, must assess competency in a non-discriminatory way. This is meant to ensure newcomers can continue their careers in Ontario.

Roydon Fraser, president of PEO said that 60% of the license applications received each year are from internationally trained engineers. He says that removing the Canadian work experience requirement will ensure that qualified international engineers will be licensed more quickly.

According to data from PEO, as of 2019, there were 85,649 licensed engineers in Ontario. It has the second-largest number of internationally trained members, with 24,258 people registered in the profession. The province says that removing the work experience requirement will help qualified professionals pursue their careers while maintaining Ontarios licensing and exam requirements.

PEO will continue to ensure all professional engineers meet rigorous qualifications for licensing and that only properly qualified individuals practice engineering through a competency-based assessment model and other methods for evaluation. says Royce.

Under the current system, a newcomer with the skills and technical ability to pass their professions licensing exams may still be barred from registering in their profession without Canadian work experience. This means that many must gain this experience through any job they can get  even if that work occurs in an unrelated sector, such as retail or hospitality.

Other registered professions

Ontario is Canadas most populous province and is dealing with acute labour shortages in several sectors. One of the largest barriers to filling vacant jobs is getting newcomers the accreditation required in regulated professions.

Ontario is taking steps to make it easier for other newcomers to work in regulated fields. For example, it has passed legislation that will allow nurses from other Canadian jurisdictions to work in the province without having to register with the applicable health regulatory colleges. It is also allowing internationally educated nurses to register in a temporary class and begin working sooner while they work towards full registration.

The College of Nurses Ontario reports that of the 12,385 new nurses registered by the college last year, 5,124 were trained outside the country.

The College has also changed its language proficiency policy and has collaborated with colleges and universities to help applicants meet the education requirement.

Discover if You Are Eligible for Canadian Immigration
SITEKI  While Hosea Member of Parliament (MP) Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza remains in jail, EswatiniBank has obtained an order to auction his land.

Mabuza is currently in jail, facing charges under the Suppression of Terrorism Act, 2008. The land, Portion 151 of Farm No. 180, is situated in the Lubombo Region and measures 1 4199 hectares. It will be sold by auction as per the order of the court on Friday, July 7, 2023. Eswatini Development and Savings Bank was cited as the plaintiff in the matter where Baceth Investment (Pty) Ltd., Fit Rite Investment, Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza, and Bongumenzi Vilakati were listed as defendants. The matter was held at the High Court. Notice is hereby given that pursuant to a Writ of Execution issued in the above matter, the under-mentioned property will be sold by public auction by the deputy sherriff for the District of Lubombo, outside the Siteki Magistrate Court at 3pm on Friday, July 7, 2023, reads a Notice of Sale issued by the court.

According to the Notice of Sale, the vacant piece of land is scheduled to be sold to the highest bidder, subject to a reserve price of E2 560 000. Conditions of the sale were made available for inspection on Thursday, May 11, 2023, at the office of the sheriff in the High Court Building in Mbabane. They were also made available on the same day at the Lubombo Regional Administrators offices. General auction conditions shall apply during the sale, and if any dispute arises about any bid, the property may again be put up for auction. If the auctioneer makes any mistake in selling, such a mistake shall not be binding on any of the parties. If the auctioneer suspects that a bidder is unable to pay the deposit or the balance of the purchase price, he may refuse to accept the bid of such a bidder, or accept it provisionally until the bidder has satisfied him that he is in a position to pay both such amounts. On the refusal of a bid under such circumstances, the property may immediately be put on auction again, partly read the conditions of sale.

The general rules state that on the refusal of a bid under such circumstances, the property may immediately be put on auction again. The purchaser is expected to, as soon as possible after the sale and immediately upon being requested by the auctioneer, signs the conditions of sale. In the event of the purchaser being unable to pay the deposit immediately, the deputy sheriff shall be entitled to forthwith cancel the sale and put the property up for auction once again.

sale may be cancelled

If the purchaser fails to carry out any of the obligations under the conditions of sale, the sale may be cancelled by a judge summarily on the report of the sheriff or deputy sheriff after due notice to the purchaser, and the property may again be put up for sale. The purchaser should have received a notice in writing that such a report will be laid bare before the judge for such purposes, and if he is already in occupation of the property, the sheriff or deputy sheriff may, on seven days notice, apply to a judge for an order ejecting him or any person claiming to occupy under him, the land. The purchaser shall be responsible for any loss sustained by reason of his default, which loss may, on the application of any aggrieved creditor whose name appears in the sheriffs or deputy sheriffs distribution account, be recovered from him under judgement by the judge pronounced summarily on a written report by the sheriff or deputy sheriff.

The purchaser shall pay a deposit of ten per cent of the purchase price in cash upon the fall of the hammer immediately upon to so by auctioneer, the balance against transfer to be secured by a bank guarantee, to be approved by the plaintiffs attorney, to be furnished to the plaintiffs attorney within 21 days after the date of sale, further states the conditions of sale.

The property may be taken possession of immediately after payment of all necessary fees stipulated in the conditions of sale, and upon such occupation, the property shall be at the risk and profit of the purchaser. On the day of the auction, the purchaser shall pay auctioneers charges and, in addition, transfer dues, costs of transfer and arrear rates, taxes and other charges necessary to effect transfer, upon request by the attorney for the execution creditor. The property may be taken possession of immediately after payment of all necessary fees stipulated in the conditions of sale, and upon such occupation the property shall be at the risk and profit and loss of the purchaser. The purchaser is expected to, as soon as possible after the sale, and immediately on being requested by the auctioneer, sign the conditions of sale.
Termen extins - pentru selectarea unui expert/ unei experte sau a unei agentii pentru realizarea Entry si Exit Survey intr-un proiect din domeniul prevenirii violentei si asistenta incluziva pentru femeile in etate
ORANGE, Ohio

Disturbance, warrant served: Park Avenue

Responding to a report of an altercation involving a man and a woman, who was getting pushed around on the street just before midnight May 20, police and Pinecrest security found the Cleveland couple in front of the Verizon store.

The woman, 24, who had been overheard telling the man, 32, to quit pulling her hair, explained that they were arguing because he had fallen asleep during a movie at the Silverspot Cinema.

Police checked the crime computer and found a felony warrant pending against the woman from the Struthers Police Department in Mahoning County. She was outside of their pickup radius, so she was advised on her status and released.

Her companion had an outstanding misdemeanor warrant with Warrensville Heights police, who made arrangements to pick him up on the spot.

The woman declined to press any additional charges against the man.

Fraud (checks or negotiable instruments): Lander Road

A resident reported May 22 that while she was scanning her online KeyBank statement a couple of days earlier, she found two separate checks for $700 apiece cashed by two different people back on May 2.

It appeared that the amounts and the pay to the order of sections of the checks had been whited out haphazardly and written over in someone elses hand after the original values and recipients were covered up.

The police report was requested for the KeyBank fraud department.

Lighted lights required, drunk driving, auto towed: Orange Place, Chagrin Boulevard

A patrol officer found himself driving behind a Genesis G80 eastbound on Chagrin at 4:03 a.m. May 20 with no headlights or taillights on.

After being stopped, the driver, a Cleveland man, 31, disagreed with the officer, claiming that the car lights were on.

Police noticed possible signs of impairment, noting that the driver appeared to be confused over his current whereabouts.

Placed under arrest, he was taken to the Solon jail, where he registered nearly double the Ohio legal limit of .08 blood-alcohol content, with a .157 BAC.

Officers also found two bags containing about 4.2 grams of suspected marijuana.

The driver later admitted to drinking beers and a shot at a bar in Lyndhurst. He was released to a family friend.

Speeding, driving in marked lanes, impaired driving, open container, auto towed: Harvard Road, Interstate 271

A patrol officer on the interstate at 12:45 a.m. May 16 saw a northbound 2018 Chevrolet Equinox approaching in the express lanes at speeds reaching 100 mph.

The Chevy was straddling lines and weaving, and took about a minute to stop after the police car lights were activated in pursuit.

The driver, a Garrettsville woman, 34, initially refused to hand the car keys over to police. She did offer her phone, wallet and watch to the officer while talking about how she did not like truckers.

Noticing signs of possible impairment, police placed her in a Solon jail cell for detoxification purposes after she refused a Breathalyzer test.

Officers found a half-full can and an empty bottle of beer inside the car.

Warrant served: Park Avenue

Management at Red, the Steakhouse reported around 6:15 p.m. May 18 that a Jeep with no plates had been parked in the valet zone for three hours.

The vehicle identification number (VIN) came back to a Cleveland Heights woman, 26, who responded to the scene after the Jeep had been towed.

She was then detained on an open warrant with Eastlake police and turned over to an officer with that department in Willoughby Hills.

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Read more from the Chagrin Solon Sun.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- President Biden placed a proverbial Memorial Day flag to honor all Black military members who gave their lives for the nation when he nominated Air Force General Charles Q. Brown to be Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman alongside Secretary of Defense LLoyd Austin.

With General Browns confirmation it will mark the first time in history that the Department of Defense has all-Black civilian/military leadership. The late General Colin Powell had been the first Black Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman.
STRONGSVILLE, Ohio  One person and two dogs died in a house fire on Saturday, according to fire officials.

A neighbor called police at about 1:24 p.m. and reported they saw smoke coming from a nearby residence in the 14900 block of Sherwood Drive. When fire crews arrived, they entered the home and began to search for victims. Firefighters battled high heat and flames at the rear of the home, and on multiple levels before they located a body and two dogs.

The fire was put out within 10 minutes of crews arriving at the scene, according to fire officials.

The person was pronounced dead at the scene. Their name has not been released by police or the office of the Cuyahoga County medical examiner.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated and remains unknown, fire officials said.

Authorities estimated the house sustained at least $200,000 in damages.

Firefighters from Brunswick, Middleburg Heights, and North Royalton assisted the Strongsville department with the fire.

The State Fire Marshal, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms will assist with the investigation.
UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio  Two people died and one person was hospitalized following a two-vehicle car crash in University Heights on Saturday.

The crash happened at about 1:25 p.m. at Cedar and Brockway Roads. The cars crashed into a utility pole before they burst into flames, according to police.

Two people were pronounced dead at the scene of the crash. The other person was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment.

The identities of those who died in the crash have not been released by police or the office of the Cuyahoga County medical examiner.

The cause of the crash is still being investigated by police.
ALLEN COUNTY, Ohio  A fugitive who escaped with another inmate from an Ohio prison last week was found dead Sunday floating in the Ohio River.

The body of Bradley Gillespie, 50, was found floating in the Ohio River. Authorities identified his body through physical inspection and tattoo confirmation.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio schools are struggling to retain teachers, a state report shows, and the growing rate of teacher attrition could signal an even bigger problem for future classrooms as the states pipeline of prospective educators is lagging.

A recent report from the Ohio Department of Education shows teacher attrition  those not returning to their jobs in the classroom  is up in schools across the state. As schools try to fill the vacancies, lawmakers in Columbus are considering ideas to fill the shortage from allowing military veterans without college degrees to enter the profession to increasing minimum teacher pay.

Ohios teacher shortage is a nuanced story. While many districts have experienced anxiety trying to find teachers, the student-teacher ratio is lower than it was a decade ago because there are fewer kids attending public schools.

The shortages show up in certain grades and classes, and on a localized level.

An increasing number of educators are teaching classes theyre not licensed to teach, an indication that schools and districts are moving people around to fill vacancies.

Related: The journey to becoming Mr. Fields -- Why I am leaving journalism to become a teacher: Clevelands Promise

And the worst of the shortages could still be coming, as fewer students are studying education in the states colleges and universities.

Teachers still in the profession described reasons their colleagues have left: feeling unsafe at school due to kids fighting, increasing responsibilities and not enough time to fulfill them, student behavior in the classroom, demands that students do well on tests, and losing the joy they once had for the profession.

Teachers are under more pressure these days, said Daniel Hershman-Rossi, a general music teacher for grades kindergarten through fifth in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District.

Hershman-Rossi has occasionally entertained the idea of becoming a stay-at-home dad he said his kids are young and his wife has a good job  though he thinks he will stay in his job. He doesnt, however, begrudge teachers who want to leave.

It comes from above to show growth in test scores from year to year, he said. We have all these assessments they have to take. Classroom teachers are doing these math tests, and theyre doing OST (Ohios State Tests) and district pacing guides. And we also have other programs like International Baccalaureate, AVID (a college and career readiness program.)

Hershman-Rossi doesnt have to administer tests, but he feels the pressure on classroom teachers when he asks them for an hour with the students to rehearse for an upcoming performance. They tell him no, he said, because they need to prep kids for the next test.

Those in themselves are wonderful programs and wonderful frameworks for our teachers, he said. But theres just not time in our day to be able to do all those things

Higher teacher attrition

The Ohio Department of Education found teacher attrition rates by district were up. Attrition, in addition to teachers leaving the profession entirely, includes those who move to another district or private school, or those who leave teaching to become school or district administrators.

The report also found increased attrition in Northeast Ohio  an 18-county geographical area studied by the Department of Education that spans from Erie to Columbiana counties with 379 school districts, plus charter schools and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) schools.

Attrition in urban districts in Northeast Ohio in 2021 was 10.5%, and 2.4% higher than the average over the previous five years. In Northeast Ohio suburban districts, teacher attrition was 7%, up 1.7% from the five-year average.

The highest attrition rate in the state was in urban districts in Southwest Ohio, where 14.5% of teachers didnt return, an increase of only 0.6% compared to the five-year average.

Attrition contributes to increased hiring demands on a district and potentially to a decrease in the regional supply of educators. Likewise, teacher turnover causes disruptions to the school composition and negatively impacts student learning, the report said, citing academic research.

The Ohio Federation of Teachers surveyed 2,300 K-12 teachers and school support workers from March 16 to May 12. It found that 72.3% of respondents recently have seriously considered leaving their jobs and 54.4% have considered leaving K-12 education altogether, with the remainder considering changing school districts or job positions.

The reasons teachers gave for looking at the exit included student behavior, lack of autonomy and respect, mandates and directives from state policymakers, too much emphasis on standardized tests and technology, paperwork or administrative work.

The survey shows the issues that can be improved to keep teachers in schools, said Melissa Cropper, president of the OFT.

We hope this is a clear message to legislators: trust educators to do our jobs, she said. Stop taking up bill after bill that would impose new restrictions and additional work for educators. Your actions are taking a toll in local public schools statewide.

Marchell Josie, a special education middle school teacher in the East Cleveland City School District, normally teaches seventh-grade English. After the school lost a special education teacher, she added some sixth-grade classes.

With special ed, theyre missing their services, she said, adding that the shortage of special education teachers makes it hard to ensure students get Individualized Education Plans outlining how to help them learn.

Fewer teachers also means overcrowded classrooms, Josie said, noting that the high school in her district is down almost 40-some teachers.

Youve got students who are really not getting the subject of what they need. Youve got substitutes in the building. Its a concern of how are we supposed to educate the students if we dont have enough staff, said Josie, who was on a team that studied the teacher shortage for the Ohio Education Association.

Student-to-teacher ratios are actually lower

The state and federal governments dont track teacher vacancies, but the Ohio Department of Education looked at full-time teacher employment statewide and found that it has shrunk by around 2,600 in the past decade  from 113,197 in 2012 down to 110,582 in 2022.

In that same time, Ohios student population decreased by 90,000, from nearly 1.8 million students in 2012 to almost 1.7 million in 2022. The student-to-teacher ratio is actually lower now than it was in 2012, dropping from 15.6 to 15.1.

Then theres the pandemic, in which the number of teachers fluctuated up and down compared to 2019s pre-pandemic number.

-In 2022, there were 110,582 teachers

-In 2021, there were 110,882

-In 2020, there were 110,350

-In 2019, there were 111,388

But even with a lower student-to-teacher ratio and a lack of large swarms of teachers exiting the profession, the Ohio Department of Education report states that teacher shortages could be more severe when examined locally, and by grade and subject area.

For instance, the Southeast, Southwest and West regions of the state could be experiencing a greater need for teachers in middle and high school, the report states.

Regardless of class size, teachers returning to the classroom after the pandemic have work piled up. Many students spent part of two years at home. Theyre not just academically behind, but socially. They dont know how to act in class, said Josie, the East Cleveland special ed teacher.

Josie described having to adjust during the first quarter of the 2021-2022 school year.

I got frustrated at some point, I really did, she said. It was real hard to get back into the swing of teaching. When you talk about students having self-control. And you have to have classroom management, it was really hard, those kids were having to come back to school from being home for two years..

Many come to school with heavy burdens from home and struggle to transition to learning, she said.

This is what we do in the mornings: Well come in and we have a mindful moment, she said. Its a moment when you can meditate, think about what your day is going to be like. And then we ask them, how are you feeling today? Does anybody want to share? And some people, they share some deep stuff, and we just listen and nobody makes fun of anybody, nobody judges. And so that gives them a way to air it out.

Teacher and license mismatch

More Ohio educators also are teaching courses that do not match their licensing, which could indicate schools and districts are moving teachers around to fill gaps created by vacancies.

In the 2021-2022 school year, the number of courses taught by a teacher without the proper license was at the highest level in the past five years, the report stated: 20,776 courses in 2022, compared to 2018s 19,157 courses.

In some cases, this may be against the law. The federal Every Student Succeeds Act requires schools to ensure that all teachers in low-income, Title 1 programs meet state certification and licensure requirements.

But during the pandemic, the Ohio General Assembly and Department of Education allowed flexible staffing policies. Today, they are no longer in place, according to the report.

The most common middle and high school courses taught by teachers without the proper licenses in the 2021-22 school year statewide were:

1. Integrated English Language Arts, grades 7-8; 357 courses taught by 165 teachers without the proper licenses.

2. Math, grades 7-8; 327 courses taught by 153 teachers without the proper licenses.

3. Science, grades 7-8; 321 courses taught by 127 teachers without the proper licenses.

4. Social Studies, grades 7-8, 262 courses taught by 124 teachers without the proper licenses.

5. High school physical sciences, 245 courses taught by 121 teachers without the proper licenses.

Hershman-Rossi, the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School music teacher, said that means children arent being taught by people with the proper expertise. But it also impacts teachers, who are forced to teach in areas that are not their interest or passion.

You see people who get moved like that, and after a year they say, I dont want to do this anymore and they leave or retire, he said.

Fewer students studying education in college

Enrollment in Ohios teacher preparation programs dropped 19% in five years, from 14,829 in 2015 to 12,412 in 2020. Similarly, the number of students completing a education program decreased 26% from 5,753 to 4,570, according to the Ohio Department of Education report.

The number of newly credentialed teachers has steadily declined since 2014, the report found.

This trend is alarming, according to a recent Ohio Education Association report on teaching recruitment and retention. Educators who helped assemble the report said that their colleagues are less likely to encourage their own children to choose careers in education than in the past.

Ohios growing teacher recruitment and retention crisis is one of the largest issues of our time, OEA President Scott DiMauro. When excellent educators are feeling that they have no choice but to leave the profession or young people are left feeling that teaching is not a sustainable career option... Ohio students lose out on crucial opportunities and supports. Ohios students can no longer wait for meaningful solutions to this problem.

Shortage in other staff

There may have been a dearth in substitute teachers due to teacher illness and quarantining during the pandemic.

However, the supply of substitute teachers was at an all-time high in 2021, at 36,600. In 2022, it was 35,700.

This has to do with flexibilities the legislature provided, including a bill not requiring bachelors degrees to substitute teach. That exemption expires after the 2023-2024 school year. The Department of Education awarded 5,238 people temporary, non-bachelors substitute teaching licenses in 2021-2022.

People with regular teaching licenses and administrative licenses can also substitute.

The number of bus drivers is also down. Last school year, there were only 18,000 drivers, compared to 26,000 in 2018, said state Sen. Andrew Brenner, a Columbus lawmaker who is working on a solution. There are about 54,000 Ohioans with an endorsement on their commercial drivers license to drive school buses, he said.

That indicates people are going for higher pay, maybe an Amazon or UPS, he said.

Possible solutions

A handful of bills in the General Assembly could ease the teacher shortage.

The most-talked about effort that could attract and retain teachers came in the Houses version of the states two-year budget bill. Teachers with no experience would have to be paid at least $34,600 a year, up from the minimum of $25,950 right now. The minimum pay for teachers with a masters degree and 11 years of experience would shoot up to $64,920 a year, from the current $48,690.

The budget bill is currently in the Senate.

We havent decided as to what to do with that item, said Brenner, the Columbus-area senator, who chairs the Senates Primary and Secondary Education Committee.

Other bills include:

-House Bill 9, sponsored by state Reps. Gayle Manning, a North Ridgeville Republican, and Mary Lightbody, a Columbus-area Democrat. It would provide four-year scholarships of up to $7,500 a year for qualifying high school seniors and others pursuing careers in education and create a loan forgiveness program for teachers who provide STEM instruction in grades 7-12 for five consecutive years at public schools with consistently low performance.

-Senate Bill 14, sponsored by state Sen. Frank Hoagland, a Mingo Junction Republican. It would allow any veteran who was honorably discharged, lacks a criminal record and has completed 60 college credits with an at least 2.5 grade-point average to teach, even if they lack prior teaching experience and a bachelors degree. The veteran would participate in a two-year mentorship with a licensed teacher and would have to complete 15 hours of professional development every five years. The bill is being vetted in a committee.

-Senate Bill 27, would enter Ohio into the Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact, which would create license reciprocity among participant states. Currently Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Kentucky are members. This bill is awaiting hearings in a Senate committee.

Laura Hancock covers state government and politics for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.
Dubai Taxi Corporation (DTC) has signed an agreement with ADTECH 7 Marketing Management to operate advertising screens onboard DTC's limousine fleet showcasing various products and services from advertising companies.



This move is part of DTC's efforts to develop and diversify revenues while continuing to provide innovative, digital and sustainable transportation services at world-class standards.



Mansoor Rahma Al Falasi, CEO of DTC, signed the agreement on behalf of DTC, while Reem Abdulla Beljafla, CEO of ADTECH 7 Marketing Management EST., signed on behalf of the company.



This agreement is in line with DTC's goal to foster collaboration with private advertising agencies. It also supports DTC's strategic objectives of achieving financial sustainability by boosting profitability, revenues, and investments. DTC is committed to using state-of-the-art technologies to address customer needs and harness innovative ideas in digital marketing, explained Al Falasi.



The agreement entails the operation of advertising screens in over 100 limousines, in order to cover the entire DTC limousine fleet in the future. These vehicles are designed to cater to a diverse range of customers, including international visitors to Dubai, entrepreneurs, and various customers within Dubai.



Reem Abdulla Beljafla said: Based on this expertise and the successful experience of DTC, ADTECH 7 decided to sign the agreement to reach the largest segment of the public through innovative advertising techniques. ADTECH 7 is keen to make every effort to achieve the goals of the agreement through constructive cooperation between both sides, especially since DTC is a pioneer in providing advanced transport services to the highest international standards.



DTC limousine service is provided by DTC 24/7 and is part of a myriad of services and convenient facilities provided to adhere to the highest transport quality standards that meet the needs of the public.  TradeArabia News Service
BETHANY  The Nazareth Baptist Church has revealed that Shembe is 100 per cent God.

Shembe is a title given to the leader of the Nazareth Baptist Church. The incumbent leader of the Nazareth Church is His Holiness Unyazi Lwezulu Shembe. When preaching during the Sabbath service held at Esabelweni in Mahlanya yesterday, Umfundisi Mpendulo Mkhonta wondered why people were shocked when they heard members of the church referring to the Creator as the God of Shembe. Mkhonta said the members of the church felt the presence of God whenever they were with Shembe. He said people would continue to ask why the church referred the Creator as the God of Shembe until the phrase was explained to them.

When explaining why Shembe was said to be 100 per cent God, Mkhonta stated that the Nazareth Church believed that God showed Himself to Shembe when He came to earth. He said it was for that reason they believed that the God of Shembe healed all diseases. The Bible has taught us that whenever God comes to earth, He comes in a form of man just like it happened to prophets such as Abraham, Isaac, Moses and Elijah, among others. The people who experienced Gods wonders through the prophets believed in God as the God of those prophets. That is why they always referred to God as the God of those prophets. As the Nazareth Church, we believe that when God came to earth, He showed Himself to Shembe. I think you know that many prophets prophesied about the coming of Jesus, but none of them mentioned His name, Mkhonta said.

He added that whoever heard the prophecies imagined the coming of Jesus but their imagination never came to be, until a child was born and given the title King of Kings. He said the church believed in Shembe as the African Messiah. The man of God said the church was aware of rejection from some sectors. We have read the scripture and we will, continue reading it. The Bible has made it clear that there is nothing new as everything that happens today happened before, he said.

Blasphemy

He said the phrase could be better explained by the scripture in the Book of John 10:31-39. Mkhonta stated that there was nothing different from what Jesus told His Jewish opponents who accused Him of blasphemy after they felt He claimed to be God. The man of God stated that Jesus replied by saying: Is it not written in your law, I have said you are gods. If he called them gods to whom the Word of God come- and the scripture cannot be set aside. What about the one whom the Father set apart as His very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said I am Gods Son? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.

Mkhonta said the Nazareth Church believed in Shembe as God just like Jesus explained to His Jewish opponents. In Shembe, we have seen wonders. When he speaks the word that lived before anything, things happen. We have been blessed because he has spoken the word, Mkhonta said before sharing his testimony. Worth noting is that Shembe is known for releasing blessings by the word of mouth to anyone seeking blessings of any kind. His way of blessing people has earned him a huge following in the African continent. Mkhonta stated that Shembe showed himself to his mother after a false pregnancy, which he claimed lasted for 24 months. The man of God stated that Shembe came after all means had failed.

Shembe requested for a cup of water. He then inserted his two fingers and prayed. He then gave the water to my mother before instructing her to go to a hidden place. Something with a musty smell came out of my mothers womb. She then started conceiving and giving birth. I am also as a result of the work of the God of Shembe. Shembe spoke the word and I was born after my mother experienced some hardships, Mkhonta said. He added that there were many people who had experienced the works of God through Shembe. On another note, Mkhonta stated that many people prayed to Jesus of Nazareth yet they were not Nazareth. He said Nazareth did not cut their hair, eat pork, drink alcohol, smoke tobacco or engage in premarital sex.

Creator

He stated that members of the church observed the Sabbath just like the Creator did after creation. He made an example that they did not hold burials or do any work on a Sabbath.

Some people sit on chairs but we do not because we are Nazareth. We thank Shembe for teaching us the word that we obey in our daily lives. We would have not lived longer had it not been for the word Shembe taught us. We urge everyone to keep the Word of God so that he/she can live longer, Mkhonta said.
LAKEWOOD, Ohio -- In the wake of the $787.5 million settlement in the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News defamation case, it seems counterintuitive for conservatives to be rallying in favor of such lawsuits.

However, attacks against the unanimous 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan are mounting. That case, which requires public officials to prove actual malice, intentional or by reckless disregard for the truth, in libel suits, later was expanded to cover public figures in Rosenblatt v. Baer.

Scandal-ridden Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas argued in 2019 that Times v. Sullivan should be overturned. Fellow conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined the attack in 2021.

If the First Amendments freedom-of-religion clause can be scourged with Roe v. Wade, is freedom of the press next?

Its no surprise that infamous Republicans such as twice-removed Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, convicted West Virginia coal magnate and losing U.S. Senate candidate Don Blankenship and former U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes are among the landmark Times rulings assailants. Right-wing organizations like the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation are on board.

Actual malice likely played a role in the Fox News capitulation. But Elizabeth Locke, a founding partner in the law firm that successfully represented Dominion Voting Systems, was a noteworthy advocate against any such protection at a recent political roundtable convened by Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.

One might argue that falsehoods are falsehoods regardless of whether they are directed at public officials or figures.

But, according to the 2014 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, thats not true. In that case, the high court, by reversing an appellate court ruling and sending the case back to a U.S. District Court for a decision, effectively overturned an Ohio law prohibiting parties from making false statements of fact during political campaigns.

The basis for that decision, New Yorker humorist Andy Borowitz quipped, was that any attempt to restrict or punish lying by politicians is an unconstitutional infringement on a religion they have practiced for decades. That may be true, but its not funny.

Back in 1982, a political ad in favor of Tony Gall, the Republican candidate for Geauga County commissioner, resulted in a lawsuit by his opponent, Barbara Varanese, against the daily Geauga Times Leader. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that there was no sufficient evidence of actual malice. Nevertheless, as editor of that Republican-owned newspaper soon after the lawsuit was initiated, I know that it restricted our political news coverage.

In fact, that is the intent of many libel lawsuits, which are referred to as SLAPPs, or strategic litigation against public participation.

As editor emeritus for three weekly newspapers, I was targeted by a 2014 lawsuit, Robert E. Murray and Murray Energy Corp. v. Chagrin Valley Publishing. In ruling against the coal companys owner, the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals concluded that the case illustrates the need for Ohio to join the majority of states in this country that have enacted statutes that provide for quick relief from suits aimed at chilling protected speech. The court added: Ohio should adopt an anti-SLAPP statute to discourage punitive litigation designed to chill constitutionally protected speech.

Dave Lange is a retired editor and member of the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.

Newspapers can be sued for publishing advertisements or letters to the editor, or even be SLAPPed by litigious enemies of the First Amendment. But internet platforms, like politicians, are free to spread virtually unlimited falsehoods. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed by Congress in 1996, states that internet providers need not verify the information that they provide from other sources, regardless of their origins. Hows that for decency?

New York Times v. Sullivan does provide some critical protections for freedom of the press, but it doesnt prevent successful lawsuits for reckless disregard for the truth. Anti-SLAPP legislation can help forestall vindictive lawsuits against journalists who tell the truth. Unfortunately, Ohio is one of just 18 states that, as of 2022, had no such protection.

Dave Lange, a retired editor and member of the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame, holds a masters degree in political science.

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PORTLAND, Maine -- As the story goes, my mother was at work in a Chicago office building when the call came. It was short, her sisters voice serious, and the message simple: Get home immediately. She didnt ask questions. Because when youre 16 years old, your countrys at war and a call like that comes in, you get home.

The year was 1944, and the U.S. Army chaplain had been to the Rossi home to inform my beloved grandmother, Mrs. Rossi, that her only son had been killed in action. By all accounts, my grandmother skipped the crying and went directly to the screaming.

His name was Bernard Frank Rossi, a sergeant in Co. A, 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division. He was 23 years old when he was killed in action at the battle of Gathemo, just weeks after landing in Normandy, France. That was 13 years before I was even born, but there was never a time when memories of him were far removed from the conversations of my grandparents, my mother or her two sisters.

Despite my curiosity about the uncle I never met, theres still so much that remained a mystery. Had my grandparents cried tears of joy when their only son was born to these Italian immigrants more than two decades prior? How could they have ever known their only son would later die ... one of 405,399 other brave Americans serving in the military whose lives were claimed during World War II?

Although Im certain I know the answer, was there anything that could have ever prepared them for that visit from that Army chaplain?

Years later, while going home at night in a crowded Buick after a celebration of my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary, I remember listening to my parents quiet conversation. My dad mentioned to my mother how subdued my grandfather seemed throughout the night. She told him, I think he was missing Ben ... followed by silence.

Sometimes there are no words. I only remember in that moment feeling angst for my grandparents, my mother and her sisters.

Looking back on my younger self, Im sure my 12-year-old mind could not have fully comprehended the multitudes of hearts that have, over our countrys history, been broken with inconsolable anguish, or the oceans of tears that have been shed, or the terrible cost of freedom ... the way I do now.

Now, at the age of 96, my mother is the last survivor of a Gold Star family that was forever changed by the loss of a brother and a son. A family that, as Abraham Lincoln wrote in a letter to a Gold Star mother, Mrs. Lydia Bixby, during the Civil War, laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Lately, malcontents within our society seem hellbent on fanning the flames of neo-Nazi and/or totalitarian sentiment. Their attempts at silencing dissenting opinions betray their revulsion against our American values. These efforts have manifested themselves, (perhaps now, more than ever), in various forms of racist accusations, division, censorship, lies, greed, and corruption in our highest levels of our government.

On behalf of our fallen, we mustnt let them succeed. Because if theres one thing we all do share, its the freedom born of the sacrifices made by those who gave so much throughout our history. Who died serving this country.

This Memorial Day, it is fitting to solemnly remember those heroes who lost their lives fighting and dying in defense of the things we cherish most: our freedoms, our Constitution, and our way of life. Are we a country so divided by political, economic, and cultural differences that we cant take time to appreciate the freedoms purchased by the blood and treasure of so many young American lives?

Personally, I hope and pray thats not the case. Because, throughout the nasty, contentious bickering, and disagreements we will continue to have over the years, there is something we should understandand it is this: The freedom to do so is not despite the sacrifices made by those brave heroes. But rather, because of them.

Dave Del Camp is a writing hobbyist and retired Merchant Mariner who has traveled the world onboard commercial ships. He resides in Portland, Maine. This was written for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.

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The names of more than 58,000 Americans who died during the Vietnam War are listed chronologically on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington, D.C. -- comrades who fought and fell together now named together on its gleaming, black surface. More than 400,000 Americans lost their lives during World War II, more than 100,000 in World War I, more than 36,000 in Korea, more than 7,000 in the wars in and round Iraq and Afghanistan more recently.

These are sobering numbers, and they dont count the toll in the Revolutionary War and other early wars. Towering over all are the more than 600,000 Americans who perished in the Civil War, on both sides.

The graves of all these fallen, if they were lucky enough to have graves and grave markers, dot the world, and the fields of America. They are whom we recall and honor on Memorial Day, but not just them. We honor also their surviving comrades who carried forward in life the pain and guilt of survivorship, the traumas, the nightmares. The memories.

War is a savage thing and it can make combatants feel its savageries for life, just as family members of the fallen grieve across generations. So, as we fly our flags tomorrow, and honor our fallen, let us remember all those touched by war, then, now, and into the future.

About our editorials: Editorials express the view of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer -- the senior leadership and editorial-writing staff. As is traditional, editorials are unsigned and intended to be seen as the voice of the news organization.

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President Joe Biden talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Calif., as they walk down the House steps as they leave after attending an annual St. Patrick's Day luncheon gathering at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, March 17, 2023.

WASHINGTON  House Republicans reached a tentative deal with the White House on Saturday night to raise the nation's borrowing limit and avoid a catastrophic default on U.S. sovereign debt.

"We have come to an agreement in principle," House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Saturday in the Capitol. "We still have a lot of work to do, but I believe this is an agreement in principle that's worthy of the American people."

McCarthy said he spoke to President Joe Biden twice on Saturday about the plan. "I expect to finish the writing of the bill, checking with the White House and speaking to the president again tomorrow afternoon," said the California Republican, "Then posting the text of it tomorrow, and then be voting on it on Wednesday."

The deal, he said, "has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty and into the workforce, and rein in government overreach. There are no new taxes and no new government programs."

Biden called the deal "an important step forward that reduces spending while protecting critical programs for working people and growing the economy for everyone."

He also offered a preview of the White House's argument for House Democrats reluctant to support a bill that appears on its face to be a Republican victory: In short, it could have been a lot worse.

"The agreement protects my and Congressional Democrats' key priorities and legislative accomplishments," said Biden, adding that it "represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want."

The White House has invited all House Democrats to attend a virtual briefing on Sunday afternoon, presumably to explain what is in the deal and urge Democrats to vote for it.

The announcements marked the start of a lobbying blitz by House and Senate leaders in both parties to convince their members to vote for the package, which will need to win enough votes in the GOP-controlled House and Democratic-held Senate to raise the U.S. debt ceiling in time to meet a June 5 deadline.

At least one senator, Utah Republican Mike Lee, has already threatened to use procedural maneuvers in the Senate to hold up a debt ceiling bill for as long as possible if he doesn't like what it contains.

In the House, a group of 35 ultraconservative members publicly pressured McCarthy to demand even more concessions from Democrats and to "hold the line." They, too, indicated they would not support a deal that they thought gave too much away.

A vote to raise the debt limit does not authorize additional government spending. It merely permits the Treasury to meet obligations that were already approved by Congress in the past, some of them, decades ago.

Nonetheless, many Republicans have come to view the biennial vote to raise the debt limit as an opportunity to extract concessions from Democrats in exchange for their votes to avoid a debt default.

This time around was no different. Republicans demanded that the White House agree to a bill that contained, at a minimum, baseline government spending cuts, new work requirements for public assistance, energy permitting reform and the rescinding of unspent Covid emergency funds.

The final push on the deal took place Saturday, in spite of updated guidance from the Treasury Department on Friday afternoon which identified June 5 as the debt default deadline.

That is five days later than the previous Treasury guidance date of June 1. The update was taken by some lawmakers as meaning there would be less pressure on negotiators because the date could slide again.

But that's not how lead GOP negotiator Rep. Patrick McHenry, N.C., read it. Praising Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as "a woman of principle [who] is faithful to the law," McHenry told reporters Friday that the new date put to rest any lingering questions about when default would occur. "Now we know, and this puts additional pressure on us to perform," he said.

Yellen explained that the agency was "scheduled to make an estimated $130 billion of payments and transfers" during the first two days of June. This would "leave Treasury with an extremely low level of resources."

The week of June 5, Treasury will owe "an estimated $92 billion of payments and transfers," Yellen wrote in a public letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Unless the debt limit were raised in time and the government was allowed to borrow more, "Our projected resources would be inadequate to satisfy all of these obligations."

This is a breaking news story. Please check ack for updates.
Developments in cancer research will be in the spotlight as the American Society of Clinical Oncology hosts the world's biggest cancer research conference in Chicago, starting Thursday. Investors have already caught a glimpse of the topics that will be discussed but many are eager to hear the details behind the abstracts, and no doubt there will be surprises. The immunotherapy known as CAR-T, for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, will be in focus, as it has been in recent years. This class of treatment takes immune cells from a patient, alters the cells to fight a specific type of cancer and reinfuses them back into the body. Andy Acker, a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson, called out the excitement around one CAR-T therapy, Carvykti, from Johnson & Johnson and Legend Biotech , for the treatment of multiple myeloma. According to data that has been leaked on the study , the treatment slashed the risk of a tumor or disease progression by 74% compared with current therapies for patients that previously failed other regimens. "That is sort of an unheard of benefit," Acker said. "... That essentially means you are quadrupling the progression-free survival, so  in other words, you could potentially go for years without the disease coming back." Johnson & Johnson shares are down nearly 13% since the start of the year, but Legend's U.S.-traded stock has gained about 26%. According to FactSet, analysts have an average price target of $81 for Legend shares, which implies 28% upside from Friday's close. Carvykti had $72 million in sales in the first quarter, and Piper Sandler predicts it will reach $366 million in 2023. If the data is positive at ASCO, it could set up Carvykti for a showdown with a competing treatment, Abecma, from Bristol-Myers Squibb . 'Smart chemotherapy' Antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) also will be top of mind at the meeting. In a research report in late April, Morgan Stanley said ADCs, also called "smart chemotherapy," could replace traditional chemotherapy and unlock a market worth more than $140 billion over the next 15 years or so. That's up from a base of $5 billion last year, the bank said. ADC treatments use antibodies to more precisely target cancer cells. In this way, healthy tissue is spared and mortality declines. ADCs usually combine an antibody that has been designed to seek out specific types of tumors connected via a linking component to a toxic chemotherapy. Earlier generations of these drugs struggled if any, or all, of the three components fell short. For example, sometimes the linking component didn't adequately secure the payload of chemotherapy to the antibody. But the next-generation of ADC treatments promise to resolve these issues. There has been an explosion of treatments in the space because some companies have developed a platform technology that can be used in a wide array of applications. "We expect positive clinical trial data over the next 12 months to catalyze investor awareness of the potential and boost the valuations of the key ADC players," the Morgan Stanley analysts wrote. They believe that both the buy-side and the sell-side have not "properly quantified" the ADC opportunity. Morgan Stanley cited data from Beacon Intelligence that said 1,567 programs are in development, with a significant amount of this activity coming from Asian companies including Daiichi Sankyo, Kelun Biotech, RemeGen , LegoChem and Lepu Biopharma. According to Janus' Acker, AstraZeneca and its partner Daiichi Sankyo are quickly catching up to Seagen , one of the leaders in the area. The pair has already has won regulatory approval for Enhertu for metastatic HER2-low breast cancer, but the companies are also studying its use in a variety other HER2 tumors in breast cancers. An update on this research will be shared at ASCO. Morgan Stanley expects Enhertu to become the "poster child" for current ADC medicines, with more than $6 billion in potential revenue. According to FactSet, 83% of analysts covering AstraZeneca rate the stock a buy, with the rest having a hold rating. The average price target of $83 implies 14% upside from where the stock closed on Friday. Kisqali shows promise in breast cancer Novartis shares already saw a bump in late March when it revealed Kisqali, its breast cancer drug, had significantly reduced the chances of the disease spreading when it was used after surgery along with an endocrine therapy. More detail at ASCO will help investors gauge how much of a threat Kisqali, a CDK4/6 inhibitor, poses to competing therapies from Pfizer and Eli Lilly . NVS YTD mountain Novartis shares are up nearly 8% since the start of the year. Lilly's drug, Verzenio, is used in high-risk patients with HR-positive HER2-negative breast cancer that is more likely to reoccur and has already breached the patient's lymph nodes. However, Kisqali could be used to treat a population that is two to three times bigger, according to Novartis. It would include both high- and intermediate-risk patients, who could use the treatment even if their lymph nodes haven't been affected. In this application, some analysts see an opportunity for as much as $6 billion in sales. In a research note earlier this month, Guggenheim analyst Seamus Fernandez said Kisqali is already taking market share from Pfizer's Ibrance in metastatic breast cancer. If Kisqali continues to show strong results, it's possible it will become the preferred treatment. Matt Phipps, an analyst at William Blair, expects there to be a lot of attention paid to Bristol-Myers Squibb as it presents more data from its Commands study on Reblozyl, a treatment for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), a group of blood cancers. The data could potentially move Reblozyl to become a first-line treatment for MDS, which would give it an edge over Amgen and Johnson & Johnson's Epogen/Procrit. Phipps, who has an outperform rating on Bristol shares, said the key point people will monitor is whether or not Reblozyl worked well on patients who were RS-negative. This will help determine how broadly it can be used. Merck's Keytruda is also being watched for what benefits it could offer early-stage lung cancer patients . It's already been a gamechanger for those diagnosed with more severe metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. Separately, Kelun-Biotech, one of Merck's partners, will present early-stage data for SKB264, an in-licensed TROP-2 ADC, as well as data from a phase 2 trial for a type of lung cancer. Late-breaking ovarian cancer study William Blair analyst Andy Hsieh called out Immunogen 's late-breaking Mirasol study of Elahere, which is scheduled to be presented on June 4, as another report to watch. Hsieh has an outperform rating on the stock, which is up 182% since the start of the year. Elahere is the first medicine that has shown an advantage in improving survival against ovarian cancer versus the current standard chemotherapy. Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecological cancers. Each year 20,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with it and 13,000 patients die. Hsieh said the drug has the potential to be "practice changing," and key opinion leaders in the field have been very "enthusiastic" about Elahere's potential. "They showed it can extend survival, which is the gold standard for oncology drugs," Hsieh said. IMGN 3M mountain News of the trial sparked a surge in Immunogen's shares in early May. In a research note dated May 11, Canaccord Genuity analyst John Newman said that Elahere sales could exceed the current consensus of $154 million this year, offering "potential upside to the current share price." "Cancer is one of the biggest unmet medical needs in the world," Acker said, explaining that 40% of people will be diagnosed with some form of cancer at some point in their lifetimes. "We're spending over a trillion dollars a year treating cancer, and so all of these therapies that can improve the lives of cancer patients  ideally improve overall survival  you know these are products that can really improve the lives of patients, of really everybody," he said.
When Alejandra Hernandez got married in April 2022, she sat her 14 bridesmaids down the night before the wedding with one request: "Please capture as much of my wedding as possible. I want to be able to look back on this and have that behind-the-scenes content." She knows it was a tall order, Hernandez tells CNBC Make It: "It's hard to ask someone who's supposed to be enjoying your day with you to say, 'Hey, can you also work for me?' You might as well just hire them then." That's when a business idea hit. In April 2023, a year after her own wedding, Hernandez, 37, of Redwood City, Calif., launched a wedding content creation business, Always A Bride Events, where couples can hire her to get all the video content they want from their big day to post to TikTok and Instagram. For anywhere between $800 to $1,800, Hernandez spends six to 12 hours with couples to capture all of their wedding moments. Standard packages include a set number of edited videos, with special attention on clips that use the platform's trending sounds and transitions, behind-the-scenes moments outside of the ceremony, or total recaps of the day. There's plenty of room for customization. In May, Hernandez spent a week in Las Vegas to capture moments including the bride's spa day, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding itself, and a post-ceremony trip down the Fremont Street zipline. For about 21 hours of work, she charged $2,200 (that includes a discount for early clients). Hernandez is one of many social media experts banking on an emerging wedding trend. As a new wedding season gets underway, you're bound to see lots of photos and videos from events on your feed  and there's a chance the newlyweds will have paid someone thousands of dollars to get that perfect TikTok or Instagram clip.

Couples want to unplug and relive their weddings immediately

It wasn't a question that Kelsey Wilkins, the Las Vegas bride, would spring for a wedding content creator on top of hiring a wedding photographer and videographer. Wilkins, 29, of Fayetteville, Ark., says social media plays a large role in her life as a small business owner. She decided to add "content creator" to her $50,000 wedding budget thinking it'd be a nice touch.

What she didn't expect was that, by hiring Hernandez, the couple was buying peace of mind. They didn't have to worry about having guests capture behind-the-scenes shots when they should be celebrating. "I couldn't take my best friend away from enjoying the moment with me, or make my mom do it," Wilkins says. The newlyweds held an unplugged ceremony , so the footage from Hernandez's phone is all they have to relive the wedding immediately until edited photos and videos come in. It can be a blur for newlyweds to remember everything that happened on their wedding day. If not for their professionally captured social content, Wilkins says, "I wouldn't have been able to see me in my dress and florals," or her husband's getting-ready process, or the whole ceremony from a guest's perspective. To be able to relive those moments with her husband on their honeymoon was well worth the money: "It's so beautiful to look back on the footage coming off the high of the wedding itself," she says.

'You need to charge people for this'

Lanise Harris was already good at making social-media clips when she attended weddings for friends and family. Then, during the pandemic, Harris says, "My sister messaged me and said, 'You need to charge people for this.'" Harris, 33, of Houston, launched her business, Babe Events, by the summer of 2022 just as the wedding industry was rebounding after pandemic-related delays. She was a bridesmaid for a friend's wedding in September and was also hired to pull together social content throughout the day, from the time the bridal party was getting ready all the way to the couple's kiss as they departed the reception.

Harris now offers three packages for her services, ranging from $350 to $1,200, along with popular a la carte items like creating a wedding hashtag and strategizing an Instagram takeover, which can be another $300 a pop. She thinks hiring wedding content creators makes sense in addition to hiring traditional wedding photographers and videographers. For one, she says, "No matter what media you use to take the pictures, they're going to end up on social media." Might as well hire an expert in what looks good on social platforms. Plus, "There's something special about being able to provide candid beautiful opportunities to see your guests in their element, without the pressure of a big DSLR camera in their face."

Lanise Harris was always good at capturing social media content at weddings. Her sister recommended she turn it into a business opportunity Di'Liesha Kyra

Harris, who works in nonprofit project management for her day job, already has two weddings booked for July and expects to pocket $5,000 from her side hustle within the month. Buzz is building as the wedding season picks up and stretches into fall, too: "Come September, things will be picking up."

A full-time business in the making

Working as a wedding content creator isn't just about crashing a good party. Hernandez says she draws from a 15-year career working in event planning, as well as knowledge of how to film lifestyle content for TikTok. In the last year, she built an audience on #WeddingTok, a section of TikTok that has 7.2 billion views, through videos giving advice to other brides. A Twitter user recently reposted one of Hernandez's videos, writing, "Literally just made this job up to wedding crash, party, and film tiktoks. I have to stan!" "I thought I was going to get hosed in the comments," Hernandez says when she learned the tweet had gone viral, "so I was surprised at how supportive everyone was." There seems to be a growing understanding that couples are entitled to tailor their weddings as they see fit, she says: "If a couple wants to spend $100,000 or $10,00 on their wedding, that's their prerogative. The same goes for the vendors. If they want a wedding content creator, that's their choice. So people just need to start accepting that the industry is changing." All told, Hernandez works on her business for about 25 hours in a week when she has a wedding, which includes going through a detailed questionnaire about the shots and styles the couple wants captured, gathering footage, editing clips together, then sending the whole package within 24 hours after the wedding, and posting to her own social media handles to promote her business. She also likes to keep good relationships with photographers and videographers at the wedding, oftentimes capturing them at work so they can promote themselves online.

If a couple wants to spend $100,000 or $10,00 on their wedding, that's their prerogative. The same goes for the vendors. Alejandra Hernandez wedding content creator, Always a Bride Events
U.S. President Joe Biden hosts debt limit talks with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 22, 2023. REUTERS/Leah Millis

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that the tentative deal House Republicans have reached with the White House to address the nation's debt ceiling will be "transformational" for the American public.

McCarthy told reporters that negotiators worked through the night to finalize details of the agreement, and that they have tried to keep the bill around 150 pages to make it easier for members of Congress and the public to digest. President Joe Biden and McCarthy are scheduled to speak at 2 p.m. ET Sunday to ensure both sides agree on the bill's language, McCarthy said.

"We know at any time when you sit and negotiate within two parties that you got to work with both sides of the aisle," McCarthy said. "So it's not 100% for what everybody wants, but when you look, the country is going to be stronger."

Once the deal is finalized, it needs to pass through Congress and receive Biden's signature in order to avoid a catastrophic default on U.S. sovereign debt. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that failing to raise the debt ceiling by early June could result in "economic chaos."

McCarthy said Sunday that he thinks Republicans will support the bill, and assuming Biden grants his approval, he expects Democrats will be supportive as well. McCarthy also praised Biden and his staff for how they conducted themselves during the tense negotiations.

"I thought his team was very professional, very smart, very tough at the same time," he said.

In a letter Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., invited Democratic senators to join a briefing call with Biden's negotiating team to go over the details of the agreement at 6:30 p.m. ET. He told the senators to be prepared for possible Friday or weekend votes next week ahead of the Treasury's looming June deadline.

"I salute President Biden for protecting the American economy and delivering for American families by taking the threat of default off the table," Schumer wrote.

Some House Republicans, like Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, have been vocal critics of the deal on social media. Roy wrote in a tweet Sunday that he is "going to try" to stop the bill from passing in the House.

McCarthy on Sunday encouraged members of Congress to read the bill when it's released before taking a stance.

"Let's let the members actually read the bill before they make a decision to go forward," he said.
The Artisan Developing World Fund (ARTYX) is crushing the market this year by tilting the traditional investing principles in emerging markets. The fund, which has $3.1 billion in assets under management, has gained 19% this year, outpacing its benchmark MSCI emerging markets index by about 16 percentage points, according to FactSet. Its stellar 2023 performance puts it in the first percentile among its peers, according to Morningstar. The fund has an expense ratio of 1.28%. Lewis Kaufman, the portfolio manager who has been overseeing this fund since its inception in 2015 said his secret ingredient for outperformance is so-called "passport companies." "These are companies that are based in developed markets but economically tied to emerging markets," Kaufman said in an interview. "We like them not just for their revenue velocity, but because they sell aspirational products and services." By domicile, Artisan Developing World Fund has just 57% of its portfolio in emerging markets. However, the emerging markets exposure should rise to 70% when looking at the economic exposure by revenue, Kaufman said. The San Francisco-based manager said Estee Lauder is an example as the cosmetics business is highly correlated with aspirational consumer demand, outbound tourism and duty-free opportunity in China and around the world. Nvidia , the fund's biggest holding with a 6.7% weighting, is also a passport company as the chipmaker generates a significant amount of sales from China and other developing markets. The chip giant has been at the heart of this year's stock market obsession around artificial intelligence, and Nvidia is now on the cusp of a $1 trillion market capitalization after it made a shockingly strong forecast of future demand. "I will always seek to retain residual positions and companies... I think Nvidia has been a source of funds for us," Kaufman said. The manager, who earned a master's degree in business administration from Duke University, oversaw a Thornburg Investment Management fund with a similar strategy for six years before joining Artisan Partners in 2015. Other than those passport companies, the fund also invests in a slew of companies domiciled in emerging markets. For instance, online marketplace MercadoLibre in Argentina, tech conglomerate Sea Ltd. of Singapore and Chinese food delivery giant Meituan . Kaufman said he also invested in Kweichow Moutai , a Chinese high-end spirits company that's partially publicly traded and partially state owned. The manager said the company has a market cap of more than $300 billion. In comparison, Diageo , whose brands include Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff and Guinness, has a market cap of roughly $97 billion. "I think that speaks to the inherent scalability of the Chinese market itself," Kaufman said.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 28)  The camp of Negros Oriental Rep. Arnolfo Teves Jr. no longer sees a need to appeal to the House ethics committee to allow the lawmaker to virtually argue his case in its hearing on Monday.

Teves lawyer, Atty. Ferdinand Topacio, said there was no point in pleading with the committee members whom he claimed already made up their minds about the lawmaker.

Any appeal would be futile and pointless when the members thereof are acting under directions and whatever decision they will release is already a foregone conclusion, he said in a text message.

The House ethics panel will discuss its recommended disciplinary action against Teves for disorderly behavior over his continuous unauthorized absence in the House.

Committee officials previously said he should personally appear in the closed-door hearing.

Teves, who is tagged as the mastermind in the assassination of Negros Oriental Governor Roel Degamo, has yet to return to the country since February 28, when he flew to the United States. His last known whereabouts was in Timor-Leste, where his application for political asylum was denied.

Following the end of his 60-day suspension as a lawmaker on May 22, Teves is considered absent from the House. This means he cannot participate even in hybrid committee hearings and plenary sessions.

House ethics committee chairman and COOP NATCCO Party-List Rep. Felimon Espares said the recommendation will be submitted to the plenary for voting before Congress adjourns sine die on June 2.
Global investment in clean energy is to hit $1.7 trillion in 2023, with solar likely to eclipse oil production for the first time. The spend on clean energy technologies such as renewables, EVs and nuclear is significantly outpacing that of fossil fuels.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 28)  Over a thousand residents of Marogong town in Lanao del Sur fled to neighboring municipalities after terrorist group Daulah Islamiyah threatened to attack it following the capture of four of its young members, the provinces public information office (PIO) said.

In a report dated May 27, the Lanao del Sur PIO said that from Marogong town, 206 families (1,236 individuals) fled to Binidayan, 45 families to Balabagan, and 8 families to Madalum.

The Western Mindanao Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) reported that members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front informed them of the presence of unidentified armed men in Barangay Pabrika in Marogong.

The AFP said it apprehended on May 25 four members of the Daulah Islamiyah in a joint operation with the Philippine National Police (PNP). Authorities identified two of the suspects as Muhammad Nasif and Saidi Macadaag, both 18 years old. They also arrested two minors aged 14 and 16.

The AFP said it also seized four rifles, a grenade launcher, five improvised explosive devices, and ammunition from the four suspects.

In its statement, the military said it was coordinating with the PNP to file charges against the suspects.

The Lanao del Sur Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management office said Governor Mamintal Adiong Jr. has not yet issued a statement on the evacuations.
Its a fundamental fact. We cannot remain a free nation if we abandon the truth. As you go out to change the world, resolve to stand in truth, former U.S. Representative Liz Cheney 88 told a packed Ed Robson Arena filled with 512 graduates and several thousand family members and friends. The 149th Colorado College Commencement took place on a warm, sunny Sunday morning, May 28, 2023.

The Colorado College alumna and Vice Chair of the Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection recounted her experience being asked to lie about the 2020 election being stolen, and that the attack on January 6, 2021 wasnt a big deal.

I had to choose between lying and losing my position in House leadership, Cheney said. As I spoke to my colleagues on my last morning as chair of the Republican conference, I told them that if they wanted a leader who would lie, they should choose someone else.

The arena erupted into applause at that moment. It was the courageous and bold action Cheney referenced that resonated with CC leadership and prompted them to invite her to speak at the liberal arts colleges Commencement ceremony.

During your time here, President L. Song Richardson shared in her address to graduates, you learned to value the perspectives and experiences of people different than you, and in your collaborative class projects, you learned that great ideas come when we dont all think the same way.

In recognition of her consistent and courageous voice in defense of democracy, Cheney was awarded the Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation in 2022.

Despite this, many graduates turned their chairs around in protest of Cheney as Commencement speaker, however the ceremony was not disrupted. And the protest was not unexpected by college leadership, which supports the right of every student to protest and encourages peaceful participation in social activism and demonstration.

The world needs your unique ways thinking, your courage, and your curiosity now more than ever, says Richardson.

Cheney encouraged the graduates to do good and be kind as they head out into the world. Also, to be prepared for obstacles they dont expect. She told them to do what is right even when its hard, when theyre alone, and when theyre afraid. Especially when youre afraid. Thats courage, Cheney added.

With perseverance like none other, the Class of 2023 overcame the odds of a global pandemic that shaped their entire college experience, from start to finish, with each graduate having their own story to tell of how different their undergraduate college years were compared to most. From being dispersed and learning through Zoom classes, to enduring health scares and rallying for mental health services. If anyone knows courage, its them.

Class of 2023 Quote: Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. - Audre Lorde

Cheney urged the graduates to get out and vote and be engaged, active, and thoughtful citizens. This means listening and learning, includingespeciallyfrom those with whom we disagree.

Colorado College conferred degrees upon 468 Bachelor of Arts candidates and seven Master of Arts in Teaching graduates, who marched along with 37 students who graduated last August and December.

Many students received awards of distinction, including the Just World Award recipient Chloe Brooks-Kistler 23, who received the Adrienne Lanier Seward Bold and Courageous Actions Award, and Delaney Grant Kenyon 23, who received the Margaret Liu Health Justice Award.

In addition, four people received Honorary Degrees, including Mike Edmonds, retiring senior vice president, who joined Colorado College in 1991. As acting co-president from 2020 to 2021, he led the campus community through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and became the first Black president in the colleges 147-year history.

Robert G. Moore, retiring senior vice president for Finance and Administration, chief financial officer, and chief operating officer, joined the college in 2009. His work improved CCs physical campus, the compensation and benefits of employees, college finances, financial aid, and the student experience. Moore served as acting co-president of Colorado College from 2020 to 2021, navigating the difficulties of COVID-19.

Hilaree Nelson, Colorado College Class of 1995, North Face team captain, National Geographic Adventurer, first woman to climb Everest and Lhotse (both over 8,000 meters) in a single 24-hour push, and first to ski from the summit of Lhotse. Nelson was an all-time great in ski mountaineering, mentor to other women mountaineers, and an advocate for climate-change awareness. She died in September 2022 in a ski fall caused by an avalanche near the summit of Manaslu in Nepal.

Robin Wilson, professor emeritus, the Open University (UK), worldrenowned mathematician, historian of mathematics, and from 1982 to 2016, a frequent visiting professor at CC. He authored or coauthored 50 books and 80+ articles on topics ranging from abstract algebra and graph theory to popularizations of mathematical ideas.

In closing, Cheney encouraged the graduates to achieve, invent, and create.

Class of 2023, go forth. Stand in truth. Do good and be kind. Always do the next right thing. Be heroes. Be incandescent with courage. Defend our democracy. Love and serve our country. She  and we  have never needed you more, says Cheney.

See the photo gallery, video of the full event, and more from Commencement 2023.
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Elizabeth Pruitt is a photo editor for the Missourian. She is in her last year at the University of Missouri studying photojournalism. Pruitt was drawn to the limitless possibilities of photography. She hopes to capture meaningful moments and tell the stories of those whose voices get lost in the sea of journalism. She enjoys working with Arts & Culture and entertainment beats but is willing to try new things to advance her skills.

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Its fascinating to look back through history to see why we humans ended up eating the food we do. You come upon such explanations as a company exec thought of it, an advertising exec thought of it, a marketing exec thought of it, andof coursewar.

Today, though, wed like to go even further back in time. Way back, uncovering that ...

5 We Drank Milk For Thousands Of Years Before Evolving The Ability To Digest It Were going to start by telling you a story about milk and genes, a story you might have heard before. Then were going to tell you that, whoops, that story isnt true. The truth is weirder. Heres the story. Most mammals can only digest dairy while theyre babies. Once weaning ends, the ability to digest lactose vanishesno animals drink milk after this point, so evolution never favored the ability to digest milk during adulthood. Humans are an exception. Humans too started out mostly unable to digest milk as adults ("lactase non-persistent"), but then some people spontaneously got a mutation that let them overcome this, and they made good use of it. Milk-drinkers gained a huge advantage, since they had a new food source, and so natural selection favored this gene. Though a huge chunk of the world population is lactose intolerant today, lactase persistence spread widely in Europe, thanks to how early and how widely they domesticated cows. Mw570/Wiki Commons This made them more fit to breed because they could now eat cookies. Advertisement That story sounds like it makes sense. Weve previously told it to you, and scientists believed it was true for decades. But when it comes to genes, a lot of the most popular stories are intuitive ideas that demonstrate how evolution works instead of anything we really know happened. That's also why, for example, schools teaching basic genetics were telling kids genes determine hair color long before scientists identified any genes that did this. Then, when scientists did start identifying hair color genes, they found the truth a lot more complicated than schools ever taught. Last month, a mighty coalition of scientistsa coalition so big, they couldnt even fit their names on the front page of the papercompleted a research project on that whole milk gene hypothesis. They tracked how long humans have been eating dairy by analyzing dairy traces on bits of pottery spanning thousands of years. And then they tracked the rise of the lactase gene (catchily named rs4988235-A) by digging into DNA from human remains spanning thousands of years. Advertisement They found that as early as 5500 B.C, ancient Europeans were eating plenty of dairy, and rs4988235-A was making its first rare appearances. And then, over the course of the next 3,000 years, that gene variant, which was theoretically so useful ... didnt spread at all. It remained just as rare. The vast majority of people lacked any ability to digest dairy, but everyone went on eating it just the same. This cheese is too good to give up, they said, blasting noisy diarrhea, for millennium after millennium. Victuallers/Wiki Commons Avoid gaining weight eating dairy with this one neat trick! We used to tell each other that lactase persistence offered a large evolutionary advantage, but it apparently did not. Maybe this was for the same reason that lactase persistence offers no boost to your life expectancy today. Ever since we invented society, if you cant eat one food, you have a good shot of getting a substitute that suits you just fine. Advertisement Rs4988235-A must have offered an advantage eventually, else it never would have become so common, but it offered none under normal conditions, for thousands of years. Maybe it became useful during some famine or plague. That yogurty diarrhea, which most people happily experienced every day, suddenly became deadly, leaving the lucky few who ate cheese without their bowels exploding to survive and raise cheese eaters of their own. Sign up for the Cracked Newsletter Get the best of Cracked sent directly to your inbox! SIGN ME UP

4 We Domesticated Chickens For 7,500 Years Before We Figured Out Eating Them Truly, this is an underreported duty of archaeologists: Finding out when people added new selections to their menus. Take chicken. Israeli scientists, reviewing some of the most analyzed archaeological sites in the world, have found the oldest evidence of humans raising chickens for meat. This goes back to the fourth century B.C. Thats older than previous estimates but still not too long ago at all. Micsten/Wiki Commons We invented the crossbow before we started eating drumsticks. Advertisement Advertisement Now that you think about it, have you ever previously heard about people back then eating chicken? Probably not. In fact, uh, some of you haven't heard much of anything specific about what people ate back then, but think back to what stories you have heard. Take the Bible, which is full of talk of people slaughtering lambs, goats, and fatted calves. Notice what no one eats in the Bible? Chicken. There are special rules if youre thinking of eating a camel or a badger, or a vulture or an ostrich, but no mention of eating chicken. (Which means we can assume chicken's not unclean, but still, no one in the Bible goes and eats one.) If you insist on sources more historical than the Bible for some reason, youll find the date of chicken dinners debut even more surprising because we actually have plenty of evidence of chicken domestication in ancient times. The chicken is a domesticated variant of wild junglefowl, and we have pictures of chickens (not junglefowl) on pottery from centuries before this recorded chicken eating. And if we turn our eyes to China, we have evidence of domesticated chickens from 10,000 years ago. Sailko/Wiki Commons Weve always had roosters. How else could we wake up? Advertisement But those chickens werent being eaten. Well, some were eaten, presumably, but most werent, and they werent being bred for their meat. Instead, for thousands of years, we raised chickens for ... cockfighting. The beaks and claws, today the most useless parts of the bird since theyre inedible, were the first parts we noted were useful. Rather than eat cock, we pitted one bird against another, in one of the worlds oldest spectator sports. We even outfitted chickens to accompany soldiers in battle but did not eat them afterward, because frying comrades is frowned upon. It took millennia for one man to unlock chickens true potential. His name was Harlan Sanders, and he died to save us all. Advertisement

3 The Goats Who Danced And Taught Us To Drink Coffee Now, were again going to tell you an origin story before revealing that its not actually true. Advertisement This one goes back to ninth-century Ethiopia. No one yet drank coffee, but the coffee plant did exist, growing wildly and bearing berries. Goats fed on these bushes, and unlike any humans who sampled the berries, the goats also chewed and swallowed the seeds, the parts that we today call coffee beans. Stanislaw Szydlo These are coffee berries, surprisingly not the best part of the plant. A goatherder named Kaldi observed his flock dancing and hopping after one of these meals. Kaldi tried following their example and experienced his first hit of caffeine. He brought the discovery down to the village ... where the local monks quickly condemned him for spreading what was clearly the devils work. They seized the coffee stuff he carried and ordered it all burned. When the flames flicked those beans, the smoke smelled amazing, far better than the bitter seeds had tasted. So the monks changed their mind, and they now gathered some of the burned stuff and trapped it in water to preserve the smell. This worked better than they could have predicted, and the resulting mixture formed a delicious drink. Steve Evans And so we wised up and never outlawed drugs again. Advertisement At some point while reading that, you might have realized that this doesnt sound like a credible account of something that really happened. Maybe it was the point when, before even starting the story, we said its not actually true. The truth is, Kaldi and His Goats is just a legend, and we dont know exactly when or how humans started making coffee. Advertisement But we do know it took a lot of trial and error, based on evidence we have of prior attempts to eat that bush. Before humans ever made the beverage we call coffee, they made coffee protein bars by mashing the berries and mixing them with animal fats. Maybe less surprisingly, we started out by making drinks out of the fruit rather than out of the roasted seeds. Weve been making beverages out of bitter fruit for a very long time, you see. In fact ... Advertisement

2 We Can Track The Rise Of Alcohol To Our Evolution As Primates Humans have been making alcohol for quite a while, maybe even for 9,000 years. Weve been drinking alcohol much longer than that, however. The first time anyone drank alcohol was when some ancient ancestor of humans picked up a fruit that had naturally fermented. They ate it, immediately spat it out, then ate some more, because it might have tasted foul but they liked what it was doing to them. That drunk trailblazer must have been intoxicated for a long time. Alcohol breaks down in the body thanks to an enzyme (alcohol dehydrogenase), and our earliest ancestors couldnt make this enzyme, or at least couldnt make the efficient variant we have today. That efficient enzyme had no use in a world without regular drinking. Once people did start drinking, it offered a significant advantage and spread widely, since whoever had it generally outperformed competitors at beer pong. Advertisement So, just how far back did we evolve the relevant gene? This diagram should clear the matter up: PNAS Advertisement If youre one of our few readers having trouble understanding a diagram so self-explanatory, lets just give you the answer: We evolved it 10 to 20 million years ago. For a long time, scientists assumed we evolved it when we first developed brewing (shortly before recorded history), but new research pushes the rise of this gene much further back, all the way to when our ancestors and the orangutans ancestors first split from each other on the evolutionary tree. This was also when our ancestors first split from actual trees. Fruit fell, hit bacteria on the ground, and rotted, creating alcohol, and when we came down from trees, we ran into these treats. Based on the genetic record, we started regularly drinking this toxic but extremely fun substance the very moment we encountered it. Advertisement
Egyptians request ban of Netflix's series starring 'Black Cleopatra'

Cairo, May 28 (UNI) The Egyptian Prosecutor General's office has received a complaint against Netflix's new documentary series "Queen Cleopatra" demanding its ban due to alleged cultural insensitivity and historical inaccuracies, El-Watan newspaper reported on Sunday, citing the document.

The four-episode docudrama premiered on Netflix on May 10. The series sparked a major controversy as it stars biracial British actress Adele James as Cleopatra, Egypt's last pharaoh who ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom until its annexation by Romans in 30 BC.

The complaint filed by an official from the Egyptian Culture Ministry said Netflix had distorted a famous historical image and thus created a historical falsification. The official demanded that the series be removed from the streaming platform and forever banned, the newspaper reported.
You know who was at the Vanity Fair party? Monica Lewinsky. She was sitting right next to me. I was at Table 14; she was under Table 12.  Jay Leno

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, late-night comics from Leno to David Letterman to the gang at Saturday Night Live made a living by churning out jokes about White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The wisecracks were all about the 24-year-olds sexual relationship with the President of the United States, a consensual affair if only in the way that an affair between a young, unpaid intern and an extremely powerful boss can be considered consensual. For members of the punch-up comedy community, William Jefferson Clinton was fair game as the butt of jokes. But the majority of punchlines  about her promiscuity, about her weight, about her blue dress  were reserved for Lewinsky.

As it turns out, a road trip to Canada in search of handbag fabric was the slyest, most subversive Monica Lewinsky comedy of the entire turn-of-the-century brouhaha. But before we get into Tom Greens spin on the chaos surrounding Lewinsky, lets look back at the different ways television comics took on the scandal.

She Was a Human Being Then there was MTVs The Tom Green Show. In a 2000 special episode, Green brought Lewinsky to his hometown of Ottawa to shop for fabric for a new line of Lewinsky handbags. Theres a running gag that the two are holding a press conference to possibly reveal a relationship  theyre only making handbags, folks!  but Lewinsky is completely in on the joke. Shes funny and relaxed, game for whatever light-saber-fight-in-a-donut-shop nonsense Green puts her up to, and theres nary a dress stain joke to be found. The lack of comment on the scandal was the comment, at least in part. Advertisement The pivotal moment in the special? It might be when Canadian paparazzi surround their car, snapping dozens of pictures. Green leans into Lewinsky and confides: The funny thing about this is were making fun of them. Play Advertisement Advertisement We were about the same age, you know? Green tells me. The out-of-nowhere Canadian comic was caught in his own kind of whirlwind, and knew what it was like to be suddenly famous and the subject of thoughtless insults. So bringing Lewinsky in on the joke, even changing the joke entirely, was intentional. There was a different kind of connection that we had, Green explains. Because (others) were just looking at her like some sort of a punchline for a comedy show when she was a human being.
Good news! Thanks to the rise of remote work, depending on what you do for a living, you may well be able to move anywhere.

Well, not everywhere. There are some places on this Earth that youre banned from ever setting foot on, for your own protection. To find out why, you just need to hear what the last people who were there did.
Everyone knows what rain is: Water that falls from the sky. But sometimes shit goes cray-cray, and the puddles people find are anything but watery. There are plenty of everyday things that can go a bit goofy without anything seeming too untoward, but once living creatures are plunging from the sky instead of drops of water, its hard not to feel like the world might be kind of falling apart.

Most of the time, the explanation is fairly straightforward: tornadic waterspouts, which begin on land before passing over the sea, can on rare occasions suck up, say, a school of fish and drop them elsewhere later. A worm-storm near Baton Rouge in 2009 was one of these  a bunch of worms sucked into the sky and deposited on a surprised public. Simple, disgusting, fine.

But sometimes its not so simple

5 When Kentucky Was Showered with Flesh The Kentucky Meat Shower of March 3, 1876 remains something of a mystery. Between 11 and 12 that morning, chunks of unknown meat fell from the sky. The New York Times quoted one man describing what his wife saw (it was 1876, women werent invited to share their own stories): The meat, which looked like beef, fell all around her. The sky was perfectly clear at the time, and she said it fell like large snowflakes. The chunks  mostly about two-inch cubes, with some as large as four inches  were hard to identify, with theories ranging from an algae-like bacteria called nostoc to the fully distressing suggestion lung tissue from either a human infant or a horse. Two men who declined to give their names ate some and said it tasted like mutton or venison. (Theres still a sample of it in a jar at the nearby Transylvania University.) Advertisement Ultimately, the most plausible theory, put forward by an elderly farmer and endorsed by doctors, was that a flock of vultures had been nearby, and had been frightened by something. As theyd taken to the sky, one of them had vomited. Now, vultures, due to their habit of eating the roughest shit around, have a kind of barf-solidarity system  one pukes, they all puke. Its a hell of a rule to live by, and that morning, it made a hell of a mess.

4 When Blood Fell from the Sky Blood falling from the sky is one of those Oh well, guess its time for every one of us to die then moments that you hope will never happen. But it does! Due to being, yknow, terrifying, most of the times its happened over the last few thousand years its been interpreted as some kind of portent of doom  it crops up in The Iliad, happened during the earliest days of Rome and was seen as a precursor to the Black Death in Europe. More recently, Kerala in India has seen two blood-red rainfalls in 2001 and 2012. Advertisement The cause of the color is somewhat counterintuitive  rather than a sensible reason like the wrath of God, its caused by green bacteria. No blood was found in any of the rain, just large concentrations of spores from the genus Trentepohlia. These had grown in huge amounts in the weeks preceding Keralas storms and were taken up into the clouds by, well, the jurys still slightly out on how it all happened in a way that resulted in such a dramatic, localized effect. So you never know, there might still be some godly wrath involved. Advertisement

3 Honduras Regular Fish Storms There is an area of Honduras, Yoro, that gets regular rainfalls of fish, up to four times annually. Its known as the Lluvia de peces, or rain of fish, which, yep, makes pretty great sense as a name. Yoro is around 45 miles inland, and for some of the people who live there, the free fish that cascade from the sky are the only seafood of the year. Advertisement Exactly where the fish come from remains uncertain  none of the explanations that involve them being scooped up from the Atlantic by winds explain them arriving in the same town every time. A reasonable amount of the population are devout Catholics who are happy enough to see it all as a blessing from God. Something worth bearing in mind is that the actual fishfall is yet to be documented  it always comes as part of a bigger storm. There are theories that the fish might actually come from underground rivers that flood during these storms and are flushed out onto land, but thats so much less exciting than a rain of fish that it doesnt seem worth investigating.

2 Japans Tadpole Drizzle Finding bird shit on your car sucks, right? What about finding hundreds of tadpoles that have plummeted from the skies? Thats a whole new realm of grim. It happened, however, to people in the Ishikawa Prefecture of central Japan in 2009. Over the course of a week or so, multiple small falls of baby frogs (pre-frogs?) were documented, peppering peoples windshields like wiggly-tailed polka dots (or a prequel to the frog rain scene in Magnolia). Advertisement Advertisement No explanation was ever reached  a theory that seagulls might have dropped them was swiftly dismissed, and the calm weather preceding the tadpole rain meant no theories involving mini-tornadoes or other meteorological suckings-up seemed plausible either.
Srinagar, May 28 (UNI) Kashmiri moderate separatist group All Parties Hurriyat Conference on Sunday said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) seeking the death penalty for Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik seems a deliberate attempt to provoke and intimidate people.

The NIA on Friday approached the Delhi High Court seeking the death penalty for Malik who was convicted in connection with a terror funding case. The court will hear the matter on Monday. Malik was sentenced to life imprisonment by a special NIA court in May last year after he pleaded guilty in the case.

The APHC said seeking the death penalty for Malik is deeply disturbing for the people of J&K.
Since I've now had three invitations to join speed awareness courses, I am beginning to wonder whether I am on a secret hit-list. Is my number-plate red-lit whenever I pass a speed camera?

Of course driving dangerously fast has to be penalised, but 24mph? Really? For once I have a certain sympathy for Suella Braverman.

Her request for a private course wouldn't have stopped her having to sit through two-and-three-quarter hours of tuition on what speed is correct on a country lane with street lights, but it could relieve her of the need to 'participate'  now seen as a key component of the experience.

No wonder she chose to accept the points instead of joining in.

It would have been an occasion where she deeply regretted having such a high-profile name as she was called upon to speak out to the group on the shared Zoom screen about whether she understood the definition of dual carriageway. No slacking at the back, Suella.

Of course driving dangerously fast has to be penalised, but 24mph? Really? For once I have a certain sympathy for Suella Braverman

Her request for a private course wouldn't have stopped her having to sit through two-and-three-quarter hours of tuition on what speed is correct on a country lane with street lights, but it could relieve her of the need to 'participate'  now seen as a key component of the experience

I have attended two courses already and have just been given another notice. I'm hardly a boy racer, but this summons came only a couple of months after the last, both for doing 24mph in a newly expanded 20mph zone in London.

Now, I don't know how many of you have tried sticking to 20mph in the capital but it is nearly impossible without collecting a queue of frustrated and increasingly angry drivers behind you who clearly have no intention of doing similarly.

When I asked the course instructor if all cars  for example, those along with me on Park Lane at 7pm on a Sunday night  were getting nabbed for speeding, she said that would not be the case. Only some people get spotted. So is it the case that my registration number has been highlighted as one that should be called in at all costs?

If so this column will no doubt add to the chances of a fourth notice winging its way through the post sometime soon, once again, for driving unintentionally at 24mph in a 20mph area on a four-lane highway.

Cannes... and a big hoo-ha about heels

What a lot a heel height can say. Actress Cate Blanchett removed the high heels she was wearing with her Giorgio Armani outfit at the Cannes Festival last week to hand the breakthrough artist award to French-Iranian Zahra Amir Ebrahimi.

The actress had to flee Iran when a video of her having sex was leaked by her boyfriend.

Although for some insane reason heels are part of the dress code for women, Jennifer Lawrence broke the rules and drew attention to herself by wearing a pair of black flip-flops under her ballgown

Blanchett's reason for going barefoot was apparently in honour of the women of Iran, who are living under horrendous restrictions. That thought was admirable, but it was a curious gesture as heels are generally thought to be a sign of empowerment  literally lifting us out of the muck below our feet while only the deprived have to sink their soles in it.

Ebrahimi herself was in a pair of high ankle strapped shoes.

It wasn't the only shoe issue at the festival. Although for some insane reason heels are part of the dress code for women, Jennifer Lawrence broke the rules and drew attention to herself by wearing a pair of black flip-flops under her ballgown. She was probably sensibly hoping to avoid another of the red carpet falls she has become known for.

At 32, Lawrence is young enough to be able to get away with flat shoes without it appearing that age has got the better of her and she can't manage heels any longer.

Meanwhile, 77-year-old Helen Mirren, the mandatory silver goddess of any festival, wasn't taking any such risks. She appeared in her sky-blue gown accessorised with blue hair and towering Sole Bliss silver suede and snakeskin print platforms, with triple layer cushioning and a rather less glamorous sounding 'bunion bed' to deal with that sore feet issue. No sloppy flip-flops for her.

Although the pandemic has seen millions of us turn to trainers, now business is back to usual, heels still remain signifiers of competence and authority. Blanchett may have chosen to honour Iranian women by taking hers off, but few women find bare feet a way to convey a serious message.

Mayday! BA have failed me again

Only in this country could we be making a fuss about our Shadow Chancellor travelling to the US on a business-class ticket. The clue, surely, is in the word 'business'.

Rachel Reeves was flying BA, which frankly is now such an ordeal in economy that no one can expect to emerge from a long- distance flight in any kind of functioning shape.

But at least she got there. Our BA flight this weekend to Marseilles was cancelled in the middle of the night before our scheduled take-off, apparently due to an IT issue. I was woken by the sound of an emergency SOS text, which I nearly didn't open, since there was no indication it was from BA.

If Rachel Reeves makes it to No 11, I hope she will be allowed to travel First, and possibly on another airline.

Chaotic Royals need a WhatsApp group

One of the more curious aspects of the Royal Family is how they don't appear to be able to co-ordinate timetables. They're like buses. You don't see one for ages and then there's a slew of them coming down the track.

Princess Anne visited Canada to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the 8th Canadian Hussars, only weeks after Prince Edward was there doing his stuff.

His wife, the Duchess of Edinburgh, was in the United States last year only weeks after those previously known as the Cambridges were on tour.

And last week, the Princess of Wales made a photo-op swoop on Chelsea in a hot pink dress that managed to sabotage the amount of coverage that the King and Queen might have expected to collect.

If they are to be the planned lean, mean, working machine, I would suggest that the first move be to co-ordinate their diaries so they don't trample on each other's toes.

Perhaps it's time for them to set up a family WhatsApp group.
The news last week that net migration has reached record levels revealed three things.

First, the generosity of Britons who have opened their arms to greet those fleeing war in Ukraine and persecution in Hong Kong.

Second, the country's continuing failure to get a grip on the asylum system, where the number of decisions made on claims is down by a fifth, causing the backlog to grow to a record high. Genuine refugees are unable to live freely and contribute fully to our society, while it takes years to return those who have made false claims.

Third, the migration figures reveal the total neglect of our young people, who are denied the skills and opportunities they need to compete in the modern labour market. There's no better example of this than in the NHS.

A majority of work visas handed out last year were to people coming to staff our health and care sectors. Last week, the Nursing and Midwifery Council revealed half of new recruits into the NHS were trained abroad  the highest proportion in more than 30 years.

WES STREETING: An international workforce strengthens the NHS and it should be a source of pride for us Brits that so many healthcare professionals choose to work in the UK (file image)

When I had kidney cancer I was operated on by a world-class surgeon, after which I was cared for by some of our health service's heroic, compassionate nurses. Some of them were from overseas.

An international workforce strengthens the NHS and it should be a source of pride for us Brits that so many healthcare professionals choose to work in the UK.

But NHS Providers  the membership organisation for trusts across England  has criticised the 'over-reliance' on overseas recruitment. It is right to. The Tories' response to our chronic shortage of doctors and nurses has not been to train more, nor to retain those working in the health service who are overstretched and burnt out. Instead, they have once again reached for the immigration lever.

The Health Foundation says the NHS is hiring one in ten nurses and midwives from nations on the World Health Organisation (WHO) red list  a ten-fold rise since 2019. These are medics from countries such as Nigeria and Afghanistan, despite the WHO prohibiting their recruitment, given the shortage of healthcare skills in their homelands.

Meanwhile, the Government is denying opportunities to young people in this country. Last summer, it cut the number of medical school places by about 3,000, turning away straight-A students from studying for a brilliant career in medicine. There is a global dearth of medics, and the UK is refusing to pull its weight. It is simply immoral.

I visited the University of Worcester in March, which has spent the past seven years building a brand-new medical school due to open this summer. The facility has attracted applications from more than 1,000 would-be students, but the Government is not paying a penny towards their tuition. Local NHS trusts have clubbed together with a charity to fund 20 places for domestic students, with the remainder offered to international admissions.

This is ludicrous, but not unique. Brunel University opened its medical school last year without a single domestic student on its books thanks to the central cap on funding.

This Government has a poverty of ambition for our young people  it will tell them to pick fruit but deny them the chance to become doctors. The NHS is on fire  if the instinct of British students is to run towards it with buckets of water, why would we stand in their way?

Erstwhile education secretary James Cleverly said at the time the decision to cut places was a cost-saving exercise. It may be penny-wise but it's pound-foolish.

WES STREETING: Mr Cleverly should have considered the cost of failing to train sufficient numbers of staff (file image)

Mr Cleverly should have considered the cost of failing to train sufficient numbers of staff. The NHS is wasting 3 billion a year on recruitment agencies. Trusts are forced to pay rip-off fees of up to 5,000 for a single doctor's shift.

Then there is the cost to the economy. Of the record 7.3 million people in England waiting for treatment, half are of working age. No wonder a record number are too ill to work. The Tories' failure to get patients treated on time has turned us into sick-note Britain.

In its Budget, the Government shamelessly stole the reforms that shadow work and pensions secretary Jon Ashworth had proposed to get the long-term sick back to work. Good  we have been begging the Chancellor to do the same with Labour's NHS workforce plan.

When my party announced our scheme to double medical school places and increase clinical training berths for nurses and midwives by 10,000 a year  paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status  it was welcomed by the then-chairman of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, Jeremy Hunt.

In an email to subscribers, he wrote it was 'something I hope the Government also adopts, on the basis that smart governments nick the best ideas of their opponents'. Yet, eight months on we are still waiting.

WES STREETING: Sir Keir Starmer wants to end sticking-plaster politics and fix the root causes instead (file image)

It's the same story across our economy. Skills and training for young people are neglected, denying them the chance to fulfil their potential. Businesses have been complaining for years that the Apprenticeship Levy  the contribution they make to a central pot that helps to fund traineeships  isn't working. The proof is the Government isn't spending half of the money raised. Labour will give businesses the flexibility they are asking for so that money can be invested in the skills we need to prepare Britain for the challenges ahead.

The deck is stacked against domestic workers when it comes to wages, too. Why is it written into our rules that employers in some industries, such as engineering and social care, can pay overseas staff 20 per cent less than the going rate for their British co-workers?

How can that be fair to working people  both here already and coming from abroad  to be paid less? The Migration Advisory Committee has said this rule creates a 'perverse' incentive for overseas recruitment. Labour would scrap it and create a level playing field.

Sir Keir Starmer wants to end sticking-plaster politics and fix the root causes instead. The Conservatives have lost control of immigration. The next Labour government will choose home-grown talent over an ever-greater reliance on recruiting from overseas.
Camilla has brought together loyal band of women as 'companions' to support her during her reign as Queen.

But much of her developing popularity derives from her closeness to another member of the Royal circle - Catherine, Princess of Wales.

Camilla's entrance into the family had been tricky, particularly after her affair with Charles became a public matter.

It has been reported that, at one point, the Queen told her eldest son: 'I want nothing to do with her.'

But with time, that changed. Camilla gained favour with her mother-in-law - and her image softened further as she took Kate under her wing.

Camilla, now Queen, took Kate under her wing before her marriage to William

Camilla was a helpful guide for Kate as she prepared for her wedding in 2011 (pictured leaving Clarence House together for the evening celebrations after William and Kate's wedding)

Camilla taught Kate to focus on the faces of cameramen she recognised so as to make her appear more at ease in photographs

Even before Kate's marriage to William, Camilla had offered guidance her on royal dos and don'ts and shared details of her favourite beauticians.

Two months before Kate's royal wedding in 2011, Camilla took her out for a girls' lunch at the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge with her daughter, Laura, and Kate's sister, Pippa.

One diner recalled overhearing Camilla say to Kate: 'If I can give you one bit of advice...' as they discussed the details of the wedding.

They added: 'They were all getting on very well and they clearly hadnt asked for an out-of-the-way table and nor did they attempt to lower their voices.

'There was one moment which was clearly meant to be amusing when Kate said "what happens if William doesnt turn up?"'

There were several 'hand-holding' occasions in the build-up to the big day.

Camilla suggested that her own manicurist Marina Sandoval from the Jo Hansford hair salon in Mayfair give Kate a 36 'signature manicure' before the event.

Camilla is said to have intervened when Kate was considering wearing flowers in her hair on her wedding day, suggesting a tiara would be more appropriate.

She gave Kate a highly personal wedding gift: a gold charm-style bracelet with a small disc engraved with Catherine's cyphers and hers.

The bracelet, which features two large 'C's under a coronet with Camilla's surrounded by a circle, is similar to a piece worn by Camilla which she rarely takes off.

Kate Nicholl, Vanity Fair's Royal Editor, explained on a Channel 5 documentary how Camilla became a rock for both Kate and Meghan when they became engaged to her stepsons, William and Harry.

'Kate didn't know how to be royal, so she would have been an outsider. She was pursued by the press and Camilla knew how that felt,' said Ms Nicholl.

'In many ways, Camilla had paved the way for Meghan. Camilla would have been there to tell her not to take any criticism personally, but this is just what happens when you're an outsider,' she added.

Kate, seen with King Charles and Camilla, was also able to talk to Camilla about charity work

The image of Camilla sitting down to eat with Kate, a princess-in-waiting, has an echo of an earlier lunch organised - 30 years previously - by Camilla with Charles' wife-to-be, Diana.

The invitation, signed off 'Lots of Love, Camilla', was a welcome relief for Diana, who had just left the flat she shared with three friends to move into Clarence House. The aim was to make her feel at ease.

Camilla's mentorship of Kate extended beyond the wedding.

She also helped Kate learn how to deal with more prickly members of the family, such as Princess Anne and taught her, for example, to focus on the faces of cameramen she recognised to make her seem more at ease in photographs.

Kate was also able to talk to Camilla about charity work, discussing the idea of Kate helping a specific charity intensively for a limited time of one or two years during special appeals.

When Kate became a chatelaine of Kensington Palace, Camilla was on hand to help, warning her that the couple would need a minimum staff of a butler, a housekeeper, a ladies' dresser, a valet, a cook, chauffeur plus several other workers.

One close family friend told The Daily Mail's Richard Kay how important Camilla's help had been, bearing in mind William's lack of capability in that direction.

'At the best of times, the royal men just dont have much sensitivity when it comes to helping ease new members into the royal life,' said the friend. 'Theyre not unkind - they just dont think.'

By cultivating a relationship with Camilla, Kate has reportedly helped smooth over the at times tense relationship between William and his father, King Charles.

In her book Camilla: From Outcast to Future Queen Consort, Angela Levin said that the Princess of Wales made real effort to spend time with both her husband's father and his stepmother, making Kate the family's 'peacemaker'.

Friction supposedly arose between William and his father and Camilla, now Queen Consort, after the pair married in 2005.

By cultivating a friendship with Camilla, Kate has reportedly helped smooth over tensions in the relationship between William and his father

Kate has used their shared interests, including a love of the arts, to bond with the couple, meeting up with them by herself - without William in tow.

'Fortunately, time helped improve Camilla's relationship with senior Royals, including Prince William, largely thanks to the Princess of Wales, who is a peacemaker,' says Ms Levin, a former Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday journalist.

'Camilla is also a conciliator and doesn't nurse grievances. They both believe that supporting their husbands is a priority.

'Catherine has a love of the arts, which William doesn't particularly share. She often goes both privately and publicly with the Queen Consort and King Charles to see exhibitions.'
Sharee Richards' life was never the same after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2010.

The single mum from Melbourne didn't feel like herself for three years but even though her trusted doctors and neurologists conducted tests, nothing sinister was found.

'I used to run four days a week but started having difficulty lifting one leg. I also felt incredibly fatigued and exhausted,' Sharee told FEMAIL.

It wasn't until she turned to a close friend - who's also a doctor - that she was finally diagnosed in just two days.

'Our sons played sport together and one day I was speaking to her about my symptoms, then she noticed I was dragging my leg as I walked. I went to the hospital that Saturday and was diagnosed on the Monday,' Sharee said.

The now 57-year-old, who has no family history of the disease, is now in a wheelchair and completely dependent on others following a surgery that went horribly wrong.

Despite the ordeal, Sharee said she doesn't pity herself and trusts both her doctors and support workers for their efforts.

Sharee Richards (pictured with son Josh) has been living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) for 13 years. Prior to being diagnosed she barely knew what MS was

In 2013 Sharee started using a walking stick, which was a 'huge deal', then had to use a walker and was forced to stop driving in 2016. All through this time she was working full-time.

She later had nephrostomy surgery - a procedure to drain urine from the kidneys using a catheter - but doctors accidentally 'nicked her bladder', leaving Sharee with sepsis.

'I was meant to spend six days in hospital recovering - but this turned into four months,' she said.

'I had to have six surgeries in six weeks to fix what happened and lost complete control of my legs and one arm.

'It was very frustrating because it shouldn't have happened. It was a major change and wasn't in my life plan.'

She now has a colostomy bag and permanent catheter.

Adding to this, Sharee now has trouble talking due to MS and is forced to ask her 26-year-old son, Josh, to help with much of her care.

'I have a really clear memory of day I was diagnosed - I was really happy to have received a prognosis that I was laughing and crying at the same time,' she recalled.

'I didn't know anything about MS at the time - nor did I understand it. I just knew about the MS Readathon we did at school.

'I feel that there's not enough information out there about MS, no one really know what it is until they know someone with it.'

Today Sharee has trouble talking, is unable to walk and can't care for herself, placing a burden on her son Josh (pictured before prognosis)

What is Multiple Sclerosis (MS)? MS is the most common acquired chronic neurological disease affecting young adults, often diagnosed between the ages of 20 to 40 and, in Australia, affects three times more women than men. As yet, there is no cure. There is no known single cause of MS, but many genetic and environmental factors have been shown to contribute to its development. In MS, the bodys own immune system mistakenly attacks and damages the fatty material - called myelin - around the nerves. This results in a range of symptoms, but no two people experience MS in the same way. Multiple sclerosis (MS) has many symptoms, which can be variable and unpredictable. No two people will experience exactly the same symptoms and these symptoms can be a one-off occurrence, can come and go or change in severity over time. Source: MS Australia Advertisement

Sharee requires daily medication to help with her symptoms along with seeing the physio twice weekly, and occupational therapist weekly.

She also has a team of carers who assist with day-to-day life.

If anything, the diagnosis has brought Sharee and Josh closer.

Josh said during his teenage years he used to be embarrassed helping his mum in public, such as feeding her at a restaurant, but now he doesn't care.

'I always go out of my way to make sure she's comfortable, it's the most important thing,' he said.

However, Sharee gets emotional thinking about how her diagnosis has impacted her son.

'If I'm being honest, for me the saddest aspect is the impact it's had on Josh. He's had to change his whole life around me and my lack of independence,' Sharee said.

This month Josh and countless others will be participating in The May 50K charity event over the course of this month to raise money for MS research

She added one of the biggest challenges is acceptance.

'I've had to come to terms with it and know this is how it is. But I've welcomed opportunities my way and met some lovely people from everything,' she said.

This month Josh and countless others will be participating in The May 50K charity event over the course of this month to raise money for MS research. So far $33,000 has been raised.

MS is the most common acquired chronic neurological disease affecting young adults, often diagnosed between the ages of 20 to 40.

More than 10 Australians are diagnosed with MS every week and currently 33,000 people across the country live with the disease.

To read more about The May 50K and donate, click here.
Heirs in the Walton, Koch, Cathy, Lauder and Hearst families will inherit fortunes

An impending handover of wealth will be the largest in the country's history

Boomers make up 20 percent of the population but hold half of America's wealth

As the country's population ages and the number of baby boomers starts to shrink, a new generation is set to inherit the fortunes of America's most wealthy dynasties.

Born between 1946 and 1964 and making up just 20 percent of the population, boomers own more than 50 percent of US household wealth - $73 trillion of out of $140 trillion, according to Fed data.

The US life expectancy as given by the World Bank is just over 77 years, meaning that by 2041 even the very youngest baby boomers will likely be gone. The impending handover of wealth will therefore be the largest in US history.

While the average American may leave behind a family home and some savings, the richest will hand over business empires now finetuned to dominate almost every American industry - from food and agriculture to media, finance and manufacturing.

Retail giants, the Waltons, are the richest family in America: the three remaining children of Walmart's late founder Sam Walton are aged between 73 and 78 and have a collective wealth of nearly $190 billion.

Expected to inherit the bulk of that are a handful of little-known heirs, among them Tom and Lukas Walton, in their late 30s.

According to a Forbes ranking of some of America's richest families, the Waltons are trailed by other families including the Cargill-MacMillans, the Marses the Lauders, the Cathys and the Hearsts.

Baby boomers own more than 50 percent of American household wealth - $73 trillion of a total of $140 trillion - despite making up only around 20 percent of the population

Walton Family - $247 billion

The Waltons hold an estimated $250 billion, most of which stems from Walmart. Sam Walton founded both Walmart and Sam's Club but died with extreme wealth in 1992, enriching his four children of the now-outgoing boomer generation.

Sam had four children - Sam, John, Jim and Alice - and 10 grandchildren, who have started inheriting the family's hundreds of billions of dollars at varying rates.

Currently one of the wealthiest of the third-generation Walton heirs is 37-year-old Lukas Walton, who inherited his share early. He is the only son of John, who died suddenly in 2005 while piloting a homemade aircraft. Lukas then reportedly inherited a third of his fortune, worth nearly $23 billion.

Sam's eldest son Rob, 78, is worth more than $60 billion and has three children: Sam Jr., Carrie and Ben.

Steuart Walton (left), 42, and Tom Walton (right), 39, are the sons of Jim Walton, who in turn is the youngest son of the Walmart founder Sam Walton. Their father is 74 years old and worth more than $60 billion. They are pictured here with their wives Kelly Rohrbach (left) and Olivia Walton (right)

Baby boomer heirs: Walmart founder Sam Walton's three surviving children, Alice, Jim and Rob Walton. Their brother John died in a plane crash in 2005. Between them, they have around 10 children

Sam's third son is Jim Walton, now 74, and also worth more than $60 billion. He has four children to inherit his fortunes.

One of them is Tom Walton, 39. He and his wife Olivia live in Arkansas, the birthplace of Walmart and where much of the family resides. Olivia worked formerly as a journalist for NBC News, MSNBC and as an anchor for Bloomberg Television in New York and London.

Tom's older brother, Steuart Walton, is 42 and married model and Baywatch actress Kelly Rohrbach, 33, in 2019. She had dated Leonardo DiCaprio in 2015. Jim's other two children are Alice Walton Proietti, 43, and James Walton Jr, who is around 35.

Seventy-seven-year-old Alice Walton is Sam's youngest child. She is worth more than $60 billion, but has no children.

Olivia Walton, the wife of Sam Waltons's grandson Tom, 39, is pictured in 2016. The couple lives together in Arkansas

Lukas Walton, 37, reportedly inherited a third of his fortune, worth nearly $23 billion, in 2005 when his father died in a plane crash. He is a grandson of Sam Walton

Koch Family - $100 billion

The second richest family in America is the Kochs, whose money is tied up in Koch Industries, one of the largest privately owned companies in America, with revenues of around $125 billion.

Fred Koch is the patriarch who patented a technique for refining heavy oil into gasoline in 1927 and started an oil refinery in Kansas in 1940.

His sons, Charles Koch and David Koch - who died after a battle with prostate cancer in 2019 - were among the biggest donors to the GOP since the 1980s and have shaped American politics as we know it today.

Since the 1980s, the Koch brothers have used their enormous fortune to bankroll their own conservative political machine, creating a vast empire of organizations and advocacy groups that entrenched the post-Reagan GOP as the party of tax cuts and scant regulation.

Charles Koch (right), 87, is the chairman and CEO of Koch Industries and is personally worth around $60 billion. He is pictured with his son, Chase, 45, who is rising through the company's ranks

In doing so, they became the bete noire for many Democratic and environmental activists, who bemoaned the tentacles of the 'kochtopus' and its outsized influence on conservative politics.

Environmental activists criticized the pair for funding political campaigns that focused on rolling back environmental regulations and being the primary sponsors of climate change denial in the US.

They spent millions funding climate change-denying research, think tanks and politicians - which analysts believe was to expand their fossil fuel fortunes.

Koch Industries has paid millions in penalties and fines for oil spills, discharging toxic chemicals and violating other environmental regulations.

Charlies, 87, is the current CEO of Koch Industries and is worth $59 billion with 42 percent ownership of the company. He has two children Chase and Elizabeth who are due to inherit his fortune.

Elizabeth Koch, 47, is totally removed from the family business and runs a nonprofit, Unlikely Collaborators, which is dedicated to the creation of 'provocative experiences that help you face who you think you are.'

Her brother Chase is 45 and the likely heir to the business and rapidly climbing the Koch Industries corporate ladder. He is currently the president of Koch Disruptive Technologies.

David died aged 79 in 2019 and was an executive vice president of Koch Industries. He was a prominent Republican donor He left behind two boys, John Mark Koch and David Koch Jr. as well as a daughter, Mary Julia Koch - they are all much younger.

Elizabeth Koch, 47, is one of Charles' children and totally removed from the Koch family business. She runs a nonprofit, Unlikely Collaborators

CEO of Koch Industries and son of Fred Koch, Charles, is pictured with his children Chase and Elizabeth. Chase is the president of Koch Disruptive Technologies while his sister is not involved in the business

Lauder Family - $40 billion

The Lauder dynasty was born out of the cosmetics company Estee Lauder, created in 1946 by its eponymous founder, born Josephine Esther Mentzer in 1908.

Estee Lauder Companies is made up of 29 brands, including makeup companies MAC and Clinique, as well as fragrance lines for brands like Donna Karan and Michael Kors.

Six billionaire members of the family hold stakes in the business - her sons Ronald, 79, and Leonard, 90, serve as chairman of Clinique Laboratories and chairman emeritus of Estee Lauder. They are worth an estimated $4.5 billion and $18.4 billion respectively.

Ronald Lauder is father to Aerin Lauder, 53, and Jane Lauder, 49, who are worth around $3 billion to $4 billion each.

Aerin is the style and image director at Estee Lauder and founded her own luxury brand, AERIN Beauty, in 2012. Last year she sold her full-floor apartment at 660 Park Avenue for $20 million. Philip Berlinski, CEO of Goldman Sachs Bank USA and global treasurer of Goldman Sachs, paid for the unit in cash, the Real Deal reported.

Her younger sister Jane also works in the company as an executive vice president and the chief data officer.

(L-R) Jane Lauder, William P. Lauder, Leonard Lauder, Ronald Lauder and Aerin Lauder pictured in a family portrait

Aerin Lauder, 53, is the style and image director at Estee Lauder. She is Estee Lauder's granddaughter

Jane Lauder, 49, is the younger sister to Aerin, and an executive vice president and the chief data officer at the company

Bloomberg family - $95 billion

The Bloomberg fortune was earned by Michael Bloomberg, 81. The enormous wealth in his family therefore currently spans just two generations, though his daughters both have young children.

The former mayor of New York City has a fortune of nearly $100 billion, according to Forbes, and his two daughters who will likely inherit swathes of it.

Emma, 44, and Georgina, 40, both featured in a 2003 documentary film Born Rich, about the children of the world's most wealthy children.

The elder daughter went to Princeton for college before studying business and public administration at Harvard. She married her husband Chris Frissora in 2005 and in 2015 had their first child, Zelda Violet Frissberg.

Instead of choosing a single last name or using both they elected for a portmanteau, meaning it is a hybrid of the two.

The other, Georgina, is a graduate of NYU an equestrian and has a nine-year-old son with fellow equestrian, Ramiro Quintana. In 2019 she bought a home in the Upper West Side of Manhattan for $10 million, Mansion Global reported at the time.

(L-R) Georgina Bloomberg, Emma Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, and Diana Taylor attend a Metropolitan Museum of Art event in May 2017 in New York City

Bloomberg's daughters Emma (left), 44, and Georgina (right), 40, both featured in a 2003 documentary film Born Rich. They are pictured together in 2019

Cargill-MacMillan Family - $47 billion

The Cargill-MacMillan family owns Cargill, another of America's largest private companies with a revenue of around $115 billion. The family now has 14 billionaires, more than any other family in the world.

Cargill was founded in 1865 by William Wallace Cargill. It is headquartered in Minnesota and the largest agricultural company in the world, producing and processing agricultural products but also offering a variety of financial services.

Most family members have extremely private lives and according to Forbes, many live on ranches and farms throughout Montana.

Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer, around 62, is a great-great-granddaughter of William Wallace Cargill, the founder of Cargill

Very few pictures of the family exist in the public realm. Duncan MacMillan's 1998 book, 'The American Grain Family', described the family as 'most doggedly secretive'.

The company's common equity has been owned by descendants of William Cargill and his son-in-law John MacMillan for over 140 years and six family members are on its 17-person board.

There are nearly 100 family members that together own around 90 percent of the company. The remaining ten percent is owned by employees through stock ownership plans and management-owned shares.

But by 2016, the fifth generation of the Cargill family was already starting to see representation on Cargill's board. One was Andrew Cargill Liebmann, 43, who had never worked at the company prior but is now an astrophysicist at Montana State University.

Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer, around 62, is a great-great-granddaughter of William Wallace Cargill and was worth $4.4 billion in 2020. She has two children, but little is known about them.

Cathy Family - $14 billion

The Cathy family falls slightly lower down the list, but is still among the 20 or so wealthiest families in the country. Its money, which comes mainly though fast food, is more recently earned than some of the others.

S. Truett Cathy opened the Atlanta diner Dwarf Grill in 1946 and later launched Chick-fil-A in 1967. He died in 2014, meaning the reins were then handed over to his children.

Today, his sons Dan, 70, and Don 'Bubba' Cathy, 69, run the fried chicken chain as chairman and executive vice president, respectively. The are both worth in the region of $5 billion.

Trudy Cathy White (center in red sweater), 67, and her husband John have four children and 17 grandchildren (pictured)

Andrew Cathy (left), 43, became the third CEO of Chick-fil-A in 2016. He is the grandson of its founder S. Truett Cathy (right), who died in 2014. His father is pictured in the middle

Chick-Fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy (left) is pictured with his grandson Mark Cathy (right) at the restaurant chain's new San Marcos location in 2006

In 2021, his daughter Trudy, 67, who also works for the family business was added by Forbes to its list of billionaires. She became an operator of a Chick-fil-A in Birmingham, Alabama, after finishing her freshman year at Samford University, and currently serves as Ambassador.

Trudy has a huge family, made up of four children and 17 grandchildren, according to her personal website.

And the fortunes will continue to trickle through the generations. In September 2021 it was announced that Dan's son, Andrew, 43, would become the company's third CEO in taking over from his father.

Bubba has around six children, including Mark Cathy, who has been working within the company for more than 15 years in a variety of roles.

Mars Family - $94 billion

The Mars family owns Mars Inc., one of the largest candy and pet food companies in the world. In April 2020 the combined wealth of its 'notoriously private' members were estimated to be around $126 billion.

The company goes back multiple generations. It was founded in 1911 by Frank C. Mars who started selling candy out of his kitchen in Tacoma, Washington.

But it was his son Forrest Mars Sr. who grew the it into one of the largest companies in the country after joining in 1926 and developing the Milky Way bar.

When he died in 1999, his children, Jacqueline, John and Forrest Jr. Mars, inherited a stake in the company.

The Mars Family: Jacqueline Mars (center), and her granddaughters, Graysen Airth (left), and Katherine Burgstahler

Jacqueline is perhaps the only even remotely high-profile of his children and 83-years-old.

In 2013 she was involved in a crash near her home in Virginia in which one person died and a pregnant woman miscarried. She told a witness after the crash that she had fallen asleep at the wheel of her Porsche SUV and pleaded guilty to reckless driving.

Now, Jacqueline and John co-own Mars Inc. They have the biggest share of the family fortune, with US$24 billion each.

Hearst Family - $21 billion

The Hearst family controls a media empire started by its patriarch William Randolph Hearst, now Heart Corporation. According to Forbes the Hearst family is worth around $21 billion.

William R. Hearst III, 73, is the current chairman of the board and the grandson of William Randolph Hearst.

He grew up in New York, where his father William Randolph Hearst Jr., but often called Bill, was publisher of the New York Journal-American.

Hearst III has a son, William Dedalus Hearst, and three daughters, Adelaide, Caroline and Eliza.

Amanda Hearst, 39, is a grand daughter to William Randolph Hearst and perhaps one of the most public of the young Hearst heirs. She gave birth to her first son Joachim Rnning in 2022.

She also has a half brother, Randy Hearst Harris, who is around 33. He married Paula Porubcanova in a lavish Hamptons wedding last year, Page Six reported.

Her mother is Anne Hearst, a contributing editor of Town & Country magazine, published by Hearst, and the granddaughter of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst.

Anne's sister is Patty Hearst, who was kidnapped in 1974 by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. The term 'Stockholm Syndrome' is famously attached to her kidnapping, and her later participation in her kidnappers' crimes.

Amanda Hearst, 39, is one of the most public of the young Hearst heirs and the daughter of Anne Hearst and the the granddaughter of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst

(L-R) Anne Hearst McInerney, Randy Harris and King Harris attend a gala in Water Mill, New York, in 2013

Duncan family - $22 billion

The Duncan family inherited their wealth almost all of their wealth from oilman Dan Duncan, founder of Enterprise Products. After going public in 1998 it became one of the biggest midstream energy companies in the US.

Duncan died in 2010 and his four children inherited the trusts that collectively own roughly one third of the stock in the pipeline behemoth.

His children Randa Duncan Williams, Milane Frantz, Dannine Duncan Avara and Scott Duncan inherited a $10 billion estate from Dan when he died in 2010.

Randa, 61, became chair of the company's board in 2013 and had an individual worth of around $7 billion, according to Forbes. She is married to Charles A. Williams, with whom she lives in Houston. They have one son.

Randa Williams, 61, and her husband Charles A. Williams pictured in 2014. Randa became the chair of Enterprise Products in 2013 and is said to be worth around $7 billion. The couple live in Houston and have a son, whose name is not known

Rockefeller family - $8 billion

The Rockefeller wealth is also tied up in oil and stems back to John D. Rockefeller, America's first billionaire, who founded Standard Oil in 1870.

He and his son John Jr. were active for over a century and gave away more than a billion dollars and established the University of Chicago.

Today, the Rockefeller fortune is spread out among more than 70 heirs.

Among them is Ariana Rockefeller, a handbag designer and a great great grand child of John D. Rockefeller. She was born to David Rockefeller Jr. and Diana Rockefeller in 1982.

Much of the family's estimated $8 billion wealth is managed by Rockefeller Capital Management, which was born out of Rockefeller & Company in 2018. Ariana's father David Jr. now serves on the board of directors.

Ariana Rockefeller (left) and her grandfather David Rockefeller Sr. (right) attend the private reception celebrating the opening of her pop-up shop in 2013

Ariana Rockefeller attends a gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2018 in New York City

Susan Rockefeller (left), David Rockefeller Sr. (center) and Ariana Rockefeller (right) attend a Museum of Modern Art Party in 2016

Most of these ultrarich families have successfully retained their wealth across multiple generations, with the exception of a handful, like the Bloombergs.

The Cargill-MacMillan family has held on to its wealth for almost eight generations. Nonetheless it is not unheard for challenging times to derail highly successful families.

One family whose fortunes took a tremendous knock in recent years are the Sacklers, owners of opioid producer Purdue Pharma.

Their fall from grace began in 2014, when the Massachusetts and New York attorney generals implicated eight Sackler family members in the nation's deadly opioid epidemic, costing the family more than $5 billion in settlements.
Barbara Lane spent more than 40 years searching for her 10 sisters after they were abandoned by their mother without heating or water in the middle of winter, taking her youngest child who was seven months old with her.

The now 72-year-old said she and eight of her sisters were left alone for three days in their 'cold' apartment in the St. Louis projects in December 1954 until neighbors realized the children had been left to fend for themselves.

At the time, Barbara was just three years old.

Neighbors alerted her eldest sister, who had married and moved away, to the situation. But she did not live close enough to walk and 'back then women didn't drive, a totally different world,' Barbara, who is now a counsellor and lives in Virginia, told DailyMail.com.

A young Barbara (far left) with sisters Kay Francis, Vickey Jane, Mickey June, Bobby Lorrene, and Ann Elizabeth at St. Dominic's Orphanage in 1954

The now 72-year-old (pictured) said the remaining eight sisters were left alone for three days in their 'cold' apartment in the St. Louis projects in December 1954

With their father out of the picture after their parents split, her sister called Catholic charities and had social services remove the children from the home.

Eventually only seven of them ended up at an orphanage, with one of Barbara's siblings running away after figuring out social services were on their way.

Surprisingly Barbara said she had 'no trauma' from her time at St. Dominic's Orphanage 'because I was with sisters who loved me, and pampered me, and I didn't miss my mother'.

'But my older sisters certainly did,' she added.

'My trauma was ... when I stood on a little mound of grass outside of the orphanage and watched my sisters leave one by one, suitcases in hand, going to something I didn't understand, called foster care.'

Barbara and sister Kay placed into home of 'abusive mafia grunt'

About nine months after they arrived at the orphanage, Barbara said she and her then five-year-old sister, Kay, were placed into the home of a 'mafia grunt' and his wife.

'It was a very abusive home, there wasn't a lot of screening back then,' Barbara said.

While living with her foster family, the counsellor said she suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse.

Barbara said she was traumatized by having to watch her sisters leave the orphanage (pictured) one by one for their new homes

Summer 1952: Barbara, Ruth, Ellen, Bobby (back row, left to right); Laverne, Annie, Kay (middle row, left to right); Mickey and Vickey (front row, left to right)

Mickey, Vickey, Kay and Barbara pictured circa 1952 at Cochran Apartments, the St. Louis projects where they would be abandoned

'It was all in that family, so every aspect of the kind of maltreatment a child could experience, we did,' Barbara told DailyMail.com.

Barbara's 11 sisters Ruby Nell (Ruth), born 1934 Lucy Ellen, born 1936 Laverne Maudie (Bernie), born 1939 Ann Elizabeth, born 1941 Bobby Lorrene, born 1942 Vickey Jane (twin), born 1945 Mickey June (twin), born 1945 Kay Francis, born 1949 Barbara Sue, born 1951 Pamela Lynn, born 1953 Cindy Lou, born 1961 Advertisement

The counsellor said it was the norm for her and Kay to be threatened with a revolver by their foster father.

'[He'd say]: "You tell anybody, we'll kill all of us," this kind of thing. And I believe he could have done it. Except when I turned 14, I had had it, and I said to him, "You please get that gun and shoot me because I don't want to live anymore,"' Barbara recalled.

'Instead of hitting me or shooting me, he threw his hands up in the air, put the revolver away, and left the room, and he never bothered me again.

'They also started letting me leave the house and so I could ride my bike and go to the park.'

Barbara's experiences in foster care and as a child abuse survivor have been documented in her new book, Broken Water.

And while she was interviewing her sisters for her memoir, Barbara discovered she and Kay weren't the only ones who had been subjected to abuse.

All of her sisters had been sexually abused while they were in foster care.

She said she wanted to write this book so she could help other survivors.

'Things that happened to us back then still happen, and younger women, and even older, are still haunted by these these memories and these experiences,' Barbara explained.

'We believe and I came to believe, with my years of service in this area, that the biggest contributing factor to the continuation of this is secrecy. It's the silence.

Two of Barbara's sisters Vickey and Barbie during their emotional reunion in 1997

Barbara described their reunion, saying: 'It was like we were never apart... it was like we'd been together our whole life'

'All 11 of us experienced sexual abuse, all 11 girls, how is that possible? All 11 of us in our childhood? And we decided that we would come forth, tell our stories, shatter that secrecy, and hopefully help other women.'

To help work through her trauma, Barbara started going to a therapy as an adult.

'Memories were intruding on my daily life. In every other way, my life was just wonderful,' she said.

'My husband and I created just a beautiful life together, but these memories were intruding.'

After a failed start of going to therapy at the age of 21, she went back in her 30s.

'I was nowhere near emotionally ready to confront that kind of evil,' she said of her first session.

But Barbara found a licensed social worker who was equipped to handle what she was going through and helped her deal with the hurt that her inner child felt.

'So I stayed in therapy with her for a long time, and I did a lot of healing in that process,' Barbara said.

Barbara said that when the sisters reunited, they reverted back to when they were young as though they were making up for their lost childhood together

Barbara started searching for sisters aged 5 by calling every Lane in the phone book

As soon as she learned how to read, Barbara began looking for her sisters.

'I was like 5 years old when I used the phone book, and I would call any Lane in the book because I remembered that was my last name, and to ask for my sisters,' she recalled.

'I thought it would be so simple... to call my sisters and say, "Come, get me," and it'd be over, but obviously that didn't work.'

When her foster mother died in the 1990s, Barbara ramped up her efforts to find her sisters. Her foster father died around 2014.

'My foster mother died and it freed me. For some reason I felt the chains of her over me were broken, and I looked in earnest to find my sisters,' she said.

'When she died, I swore to myself I was going to find them, and it just was going to happen.'

It was before DNA test kits, like those from Ancestry.com, were readily available so Barbara's options were limited. She put her name on lost family registries, hired a private detective, and even wrote to Oprah.

'I doubt she ever saw it because I never got a reply. But then it was really common to see stories of reunion on her show,' Barbara said.

Later she discovered a sister had shopped at the same grocery store as her, but they never connected.

After years of searching, eventually her sisters were the ones who found her.

Unbeknownst to her, one of her long-lost sisters, Ellen, was putting together a reunion, but she couldn't find the 'two lost babies' - the moniker she had given to Barbara and Kay.

The sisters - Kay, Bobby, Ellen, Annie, Barbie, Mickey, Ruth, Bernie, Cindy, Vickey and Pam - reunited

All Ellen had was a framed photo of them as children that was taken for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for an article that was ironically promoting good foster care.

The photo had the names of Barbara's foster parents on it.

In the past, Barbara said Ellen had tried to contact her through her foster parents, but they lied and claimed the siblings didn't live there anymore and didn't know where they were.

A friend of Ellen's son took that photo and started digging in St. Louis, eventually he was able to find Kay's marriage license, which led him to find her phone number.

Barbara learned that her sisters had found her while she was vacationing on the beach with her husband and children on the Delaware shore in 1997.

She had been given the numbers of two sisters to ring and she chose to call Ellen first.

'Hearing her voice reverted me back to three years old, we could not stop crying. All we could say is, "I can't believe it, is this real?" We really were so emotionally charged... Lots of giggling, lots of crying, and lots of sobbing,' Barbara said.

The 11 sisters reunited the next month.

'I still tear up when I think about it,' Barbara reflected almost 30 years later.

'It was like falling head first into their arms, and I had no regard, as if they would catch me, I knew they would.'

She added: 'It was like we were never apart... it was like we'd been together our whole life.

'We were like little kids, we played hand-clapping games, jumping rope. We just reverted back to our childhood, which was just beautiful.'

Sadly since the reunion, Barbara has lost five of her sisters, four of them to lung cancer, between 2008 and 2017.

Before their deaths, she gathered their stories through interviews.

And 15 years later, after stopping and starting to mourn the passing of her sisters, Barbara has finally published Broken Water, which is out now.
A married woman who fell in love with another mother at the school gates has revealed how her husband supported her throughout her new relationship.

Leah Hamilton, who identifies as queer, first met her husband at university in New Zealand.

The couple enjoyed a non-monogamous relationship and even made out with other people on their wedding night.

Leah said that she later fell in love with another woman at the kindergarten school gates and that she had her husband's full backing - even after the two women broke up.

Writer Leah Hamilton, who identifies as queer, first met her husband at university in New Zealand

The couple enjoyed a non-monogamous relationship and even made out with other people on their wedding night

Leah said she was first drawn to her husband due to his 'quiet and sensitive' nature - and progressed with their relationship 'without many of the usual frameworks,' she told Insider.

She had been dating another woman at the same time, whom she had met at a party, but soon decided to move in with her then-boyfriend, get married and have children.

The mother-of-two said that having an open relationship was largely put on hold to raise their kids until the couple moved to Berlin after her husband received a job offer.

It was there that the couple 'discovered a very open culture and a lifestyle in which having children was no barrier to having a good time.'

But, despite initially finding it hard to meet new potential partners, Leah revealed: 'I began to go out in the evenings with one of the other married mothers I had met at my children's kindergarten.

'She and I quickly became close friends. Both of us were wild, adventure-seeking types, looking for fun.'

The woman soon began showering Leah with compliments, telling her she looked 'really fit' and that her eyes were 'so beautiful.'

But the bond between the two women quickly developed into something that went beyond physical chemistry.

Leah (left and right) said that she fell in love with another woman at the kindergarten school gates and that she had her husband's full backing

The mother-of-two said that having an open relationship was put on hold to raise their kids until she fell in love with another woman

Leah, who works as a writer and editor, admitted: 'I had no idea whether my husband would support me if I wanted to connect with her  not just as a hookup, but as an actual relationship.'

She was stunned to discover that her husband actually encouraged her, and joked 'why not?'

The two women threw themselves into dating - going for lake swims and bike rides as well as to parties - and their families quickly became 'intertwined.'

They would often share childcare and would regularly invited both husbands and all their kids to join them for dinners.

Leah was in a relationship with the woman for two years but found that it was 'ultimately unbalancing.'

She praised her husband of 12 years for being 'happy to move with me in whichever direction I was going'

She told the publication: 'My girlfriend and I were both very emotional, and we clashed in ways that slowly tore away at us.'

The pair eventually broke up which left Leah devastated and 'crying every day for months.'

She revealed that her husband had continued to support her, adding: 'He listened to my sorrow and hugged me. He took care of our children and the household more than usual.'

Leah has since reconnected with her ex girlfriend to begin rebuilding a friendship.

She praised her husband of 12 years for being 'happy to move with me in whichever direction I was going' and added: 'I felt empowered to be myself and to experience life in all its fullness.'
Many of Hollywood's top celebrities have openly confessed to using the best skincare experts and cosmetic surgeons to make nips and tucks to their appearance.

These days it can seem difficult to find a star who hasn't taken advantage of the best jabs, lasers and reviving facial peels they have in their arsenal.

However there is actually a swathe of famous faces have proved that you can keep things natural - and sworn off Botox for good.

Among the stars who have said they would never get Botox is Kate Winslet, as well as Helena Bonham Carter, who has previously said she finds aging 'underrated'.

Here FEMAIL reveals the stars who have claimed to have never touched the needles and instead appear to have embraced aging naturally...

KATE WINSLET

Mother-of-three Kate Winslet, 47, is among the celebrities who have spoken publicly about their choice not to have Botox

Mother-of-three Kate Winslet, 47, is among the celebrities who have spoken publicly about their choice not to have Botox.

'It goes against my morals, the way that my parents brought me up and what I consider to be natural beauty. I will never give in,' the actress told The Telegraph in 2011.

'I am an actress, I don't want to freeze the expression of my face.'

In 2015, she told a reporter who asked how she stayed youthful to 'watch her forehead.'

According to People, she said: 'See that movement? I'm very proud of that movement.'

In a separate interview, she told the publication: 'I have the kind of wrinkles that are here to stay now.

'You know, not just the ones where you wake up in the morning and you go, 'Oh, that will go away in two hours' time.'

'No, they're there. That's the way that it is.'

SURANNE JONES

ITVX's new drama Maryland's left viewers in tears as it debuted earlier this week - and it was the performance of leading lady Suranne Jones which wowed many of those watching

ITVX's new drama Maryland's left viewers in tears as it debuted earlier this week - and it was the performance of leading lady Suranne Jones, 44, which wowed many of those watching.

With such a high profile career, it would come as no surprise if Suranne were to go to extreme lengths to retain her youthful looks.

However she is believed never to have had cosmetic surgery.

Instead she is believed to reportedly a fan of anti-aging Cryolift facial freezing treatments - facials that encourage the natural production of skin-plumping collagen.

The 250 treatments freeze skin to -15C, supposedly helping enhance natural production of collagen to tighten skin making it appear more youthful.

A source previously said: 'Suranne is a prime-time TV star who, understandably, wants to look her best.

'Playing a gung-ho copper, she wears minimal make-up on set and has her hair roughly scraped back.

'If she can boost her appearance in any other way, she will. She tried a cryolift facial and absolutely loved it.

'It's a non-surgical procedure but the results were fantastic and have really brightened Suranne's complexion. She looks amazing,' the source told the Mirror.

HELENA BONHAM CARTER

Helena Bonham Carter might be one of the biggest British names in Hollywood - but she has previously insisted age is 'underrated'

Helena Bonham Carter might be one of the biggest British names in Hollywood - but she has previously insisted age is 'underrated' and vowed she wouldn't get injectables.

Speaking to DailyMail in 2011, the 56-year-old said: 'I can still move all my face muscles. Look! There aren't many who can still do that.

'Age is underrated, I think what's happening is that directors and the studios want actresses who have natural looks, who haven't had any work done.

'The problem is that now the high-definition camera can tell, so it's best to leave your face alone.

'Look at Judi Dench. She's beautiful. Talk about her face being her fortune! She never stops working. That's what I want for me.

'You have two choices. You can have the work done and look weirder. Or have nothing done and look older,' she added. 'I think the only way I'll continue to get work is if I don't get anything done.

'There's beauty in an older woman. The lines represent something.'

Meanwhile she has since reiterated her position. In an interview with the Sunday Times last year, Helena said: 'I think the French have it right: you're allowed to be sexy and old [there].

'Change isn't necessarily bad. There are some things about ageing I don't really care about, like wrinkles.

'The droop isn't great, though. But then you think, 'Am I betraying feminism by thinking that?' '

Bonham Carter told the outlet that she also thinks people simply improve with age and the narrative is 'finally' changing.

'We're more interesting, wiser, more powerful, more ourselves. We're richer in character and we have more to give,' she said.

'Why should we be diminished just when we're getting going? And it's not just the acting profession  everywhere the attitude towards ageing is pathological. The messaging is we must avoid ageing at all costs.'

'There is a sense of indoctrination: thou shall not age, thou shall be valued only for what you look like; women are only worthy as long as they've got eggs. It's thousands of years of thought that we're undoing, but slowly,' she said.

Bonham Carter added that she thinks people are afraid of older women 'because we have found our power.'

DREW BARRYMORE

Drew Barrymore will not ever have cosmetic surgery on her face because she does not want to 'fight nature', she previously claimed

Drew Barrymore will not ever have cosmetic surgery on her face because she does not want to 'fight nature', she previously claimed.

The 47-year-old actress has been working in Hollywood for decades but has resisted the urge to go under the knife out of a desire to age naturally.

During a discussion about aging with Halloween Ends actress Jamie Lee Curtis, 63, on The Drew Barrymore Show last year, the Scream star said: 'I've never messed with my face.

Barrymore went on to express that she planned on aging normally and letting her natural beauty shine in her later years.

'I don't want to fight nature. I'm raising two daughters, and we were raised in an industry where it was desired to drink off the fountain of youth and I just never subscribed to it. So I appreciate everything you said.'

The performer went on to express her views about how women should embrace the effects of time on their looks.

'I think men just need to let women know aging is safe and awesome,' she stated.

And in February 2021, the Charlie's Angels star revealed another motivating factor in her avoidance of cosmetic work is that she fears she could get addicted and end up ruining her looks.

Drew said during an episode of her show: 'The thing that I do care about and I do feel is still relevant to my life is the face. I know myself. I'm a highly addictive person.'

The Going The Distance actress went on to state that she had known from an early age that she was not interested in going under the knife.

She said: 'I think because I'm so rebellious that I saw all of that pressure and I saw all of those women torturing themselves to look a certain way and I thought, "You miserable people."'

Barrymore concluded by expressing that she had come to terms with the effects of aging on her looks.

'We're going to age, things are going to go south, and it's okay, it's a part of life,' she said.

The actress added: 'I feel more human and more vulnerable every year of my life but I also know how to appreciate every year more and more too.'

EMMA THOMPSON

In an interview with Hello magazine, she called the entire culture around Botox 'mad' and 'not normal'

At 63, Emma Thompson has also embraced the ageing process, sporting grey streaks in her sandy hair and dressing age-appropriately.

The actress looks great every time she hits the red carpet, not letting her fine lines stopping her from looking glamourous.

In an interview with Hello magazine, she called the entire culture around Botox 'mad', saying: 'It's not a normal thing to do, and the culture that we've created that says it's normal, is not normal.

'Why do people ask persons to cut them open and put things into their body? What is that, what are we doing to ourselves?'

'It's chronically unhealthy and there's this very serious side to all of that because we're going to end up with this sort of 'super-culture' that's going to suggest to young people, girls and boys, that this looks normal. And it's not normal.'

Talking to The Wrap last year, Thompson, 63, said plastic surgery was a form of 'collective psychosis.'

'Why would you do that to yourself, I simply don't understand,' she said. 'I do honestly think the cutting of yourself off to put it in another place in order to avoid appearing to do what you're actually doing, which is aging, which is completely natural, is a form of collective psychosis.

'I really do think it's a very strange thing to do,' she added, specifying that she's always felt that way.

She also said she was proud that her 2022 movie God Luck to You, Leo Grande, showed her nude 'untreated body.'

MERYL STREEP

In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2010, Meryl Streep revealed she had never had Botox - and had instead chosen to age naturally

In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2010, Meryl Streep, 73, revealed she had never had Botox - and had instead chosen to age naturally.

Streep said: 'When I see it in people I meet, it's like an interruption in communication with them.

'It's like a flag in front of the view, and that, for an actor, is like wearing a veilit's not a good thing.'

And the Hollywood A-lister would go on to reiterate her position in a second interview with Good Housekeeping.

She said: 'I just don't get it. You have to embrace getting older. Life is precious, and when you've lost a lot of people, you realize each day is a gift.'

JODIE FOSTER

Jodie Foster, 60, previously said Botox and plastic surgery was 'not her thing' (pictured earlier this year)

Jodie Foster, 60, previously said Botox and plastic surgery was 'not her thing'.

She told More Magazine: 'I don't have anything against it for other people. Whatever they want to do, I'm fine with it. For me, it's really a self-image thing.

'Like, I'd rather have somebody go, 'Wow, that girl has a bad nose' than, 'Wow, that girl has a bad nose job.'

'I'd rather have a comment about who I am than about something that identifies me as being ashamed of who I am.'

ANDIE MACDOWELL

Andie MacDowell, 64, has been embracing her grey hair since 2021, and said she's never felt more powerful (pictured in October 2021)

Four Weddings alum Andie MacDowell, 64, has also taken a strong stance on embracing your real age and has been rocking her natural hair too.

In 2021, the Groundhog actress wowed the red carpet when she debuted a more natural grey hue at the Cannes Festival.

She decided to embrace her salt and pepper curls after tiring of her colour routine during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

She revealed last year that she felt much 'more comfortable' with the more natural look, admitting she really liked it.

The Four Weddings and A Funeral star, 64, also shared that she would rather age naturally, explaining: 'I truly want to be where I am and look my age'.

Talking to The Times, the actress explained her relief over the positive response she received for embracing a grey haired look.

Andie also detailed that she took the plunge despite being told not to make the change, as people around her 'strongly advised against it'.

Explaining: 'People kept saying to me, 'It's not time,' but I disagreed. I was kowtowing to everybody else's beliefs, but I truly want to be where I am and look my age.'

Back in 2021 when she debuted the 'salt and pepper' look, she explained that her daughters even thought she looked like a 'bada**'' during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show.

The actress has embraced ageing gracefully, despite admitting to considering cosmetic surgery on her 'droopy eyelids' - but decided against it when a facialist dubbed them 'perfect'.

DAWN FRENCH

Dawn French, 65, began to embrace her grey hair during the coronavirus lockdown, and has said ageing is a privilege, but 'not for wusses'

Meanwhile Jamie Lee's hair actually inspired Dawn French, 65, this side of the pond, who swapped her regulation neck-length black bob for a similar do after lockdown.

Reflecting on her colour change last October, French admitted she had been shocked by how interested in her hair people had been.

'There comes a point when you just think, 'Maybe it's time to stop covering it up. Maybe it's time for hair to match face'.

'The trigger came during the lockdowns and I couldn't be bothered with dyeing it. It feels liberating, but if I decide I don't like it, I'll just start having it dyed again!'

The actress has never tried to hide the signs of time on her skin, and has remained glam without ironing her fine lines or wrinkles around her eyes.

In her podcast podcast Titting About, with Jennifer Saunders, the actress has said she '[plans] to grow old disgracefully.'

The Vicar of Dibley actress has admitted 'things go a bit wrong' when you age, but has made her peace with that

'Getting older isn't for wusses. Things stop working, you have to have a knee operation, your teeth are a bit yellower, your chin has sagged,' she admitted.

In 2020, the The Vicar of Dibley actress said ageing 'is a privilege' which has caused her to edit out 'eejits' from her life.

In an interview with the Radio Times, the comedian, 65, admitted the process has seen her 'teeth yellow, chin sag and become fatter', but she has insisted maturing 'ain't so bad'.

She said: 'It's a privilege to get older, but it's not for wusses. Things go a bit wrong.'

The TV star said: 'Your rheumatoid arthritis knee stops you walking your dog a long way every morning, you know you've got to have a little op on that at some point, and you've got to take six weeks off...

'But ultimately, it ain't so bad. Your teeth are a bit yellower, your chin has sagged, you're fatter, you're greyer.

'The only thing is, I feel the tick tock a little bit. I am quicker to edit out eejits from my life, because I haven't got the hours. That's the only grumpy part of me, it's just to do with time.'

SEAN BEAN

Sean Bean, 63, once said he wouldn't be touching up his face. His craggy looks have earned him many roles as a hard man

Men's looks also count when it comes to casting.

One actor who knows this well is Sean Bean, 63, whose craggy looks have earned it 'hard men' roles over the years.

While he was crowned, 2004's Sexiest Man Alive, once dubbed 'Mean Sting' for his long blonde hair by the Times, Bean has embraced a conservative attitude to ageing, promoting natural ages over any tweakments.

Lines of his forehead and baggy eyes have only added to the Lord of the Rings' actor's gruff appearance, scoring him roles like Ned Stark in Game of Thrones.

The actor has been vocal about his disdain for plastic surgery in the past.

In 2015, he told The Times: 'You look at all the old actors: Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton.

'I think of Pete Postlethwaite. Face like granite. An in-cre-dible actor. And I think: 'Nooor! Pete wouldn't have done that!''

In the same interview, he also insisted he doesn't dye his hair, however, nearly eight years on, his blonde hair remains.
Chisinau, May 28 (UNI) Moldovas defense ministry said it would send troops to Romania on Monday to participate in NATOs Saber Guardian 2023 exercise, the third and final stage of Defender Europe 23 drills.

"A National Army contingent will participate from May 29 to June 9 in the multinational exercise Saber Guardian 2023 (SG23)," the military said in a statement.

SG23 will bring together more than 2,400 US troops and 7,300 multinational participants from Albania, Bulgaria, Italy, France, Greece, Moldova, North Macedonia, Romania, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal and the Netherlands. It is designed to increase interoperability between the US and its NATO allies and partners.
Netflix fans have been left unable to sleep after watching the film adaptation of Stephen King's 1922.

The American horror, which was originally released in 2017, has been causing quite the stir on the streaming platform.

Viewers have taken to social media in their droves to comment on the movie which 'made their skin crawl.'

Others said that it left their 'tummy in a knot' with its 'gory tale of murder and insanity.'

Netflix fans have been left unable to sleep after watching the film adaptation of Stephen King's 1922

The plot of 1922 sees proud farmer Wilf conspiring to murder his wife for financial gain after she tries to convince the family to move from Nebraska to Omaha

The plot of 1922 sees proud farmer Wilf conspiring to kill his wife for financial gain after she tries to convince the family to move from Nebraska to Omaha.

Wilf manages to persuade his son to assist in the murder plot 'but their actions have unintended consequences,' according to IMDb.

The blockbuster includes stars including Thomas Jane, Molly Parker and Neal McDonough.

And the events that follow left viewers terrified.

Poll Did YOU find Netflix's 1922 scary? Yes No Did YOU find Netflix's 1922 scary? Yes 18 votes

No 61 votes Now share your opinion





One wrote: 'I don't know about you guys, but if you're into horror, watch 1922 on Netflix.

'Had me hooked, tummy in a knot, unable to swallow my dinner. Good balance of mystery, drama and horror.'

Another added: 'Stephen King I so hate you right now. Mom and I am watching 1922 on Netflix right now and this is killing us! It's so scary and so weird!'

And a third said: '1922 on Netflix is based on a novella by Stephen Kind. The premise is simple enough but the rendition is super creepy.

'It's a violent, gory tale of murder and insanity. Kind of made my skin crawl. Worth a watch!'

Wilf manages to persuade his son to assist in the murder 'but their actions have unintended consequences,' according to IMDb

Viewers have taken to social media in their droves to comment on the movie which 'made their skin crawl'

But 1922 is not the only Netflix movie that has left viewers horrified in recent weeks after many complained of not being able to get to the end of Soft & Quiet.

The terrifying movie, which was originally released in 2022, arrived on Netflix this month and has since been described as 'intense' and 'daring'.

The twisting plot, starring Stefanie Estes, Olivia Luccardi, Eleaonore Pienta, and Dana Millican, follows an elementary school teacher who organized a mixer for white supremacist women.

However, a horrific chain of events is unleashed when a mysterious person from her past re-enters her life.
From your Uranus opposition to your Pluto square, here's what you need to know

They broke down each astrological event and how they will effect us

When Emma Watson spoke out about the large impact that her Saturn return had on her earlier this year, it launched a furious conversation about what the planetary phenomenon means and how it really effects you.

The actress credited the astrological event - which occurs when the planet Saturn reaches the ecliptic longitude that it was at when you were born, and usually occurs between ages 2731 - with helping her to discover 'love' and what it meant to 'be a woman.'

Your Saturn return is said to push you into reaching full adulthood, and many other stars have also sworn that the occurrence lead to major shifts in their mindset - including Adele, Gwen Stefani, Shailene Woodley, Katy Perry, and Megan Fox.

While Saturn's return may be the most talked about, there's actually a slew of other astrological events that will occur throughout your lifetime that could effect your way of thinking.

When Emma Watson spoke out about her Saturn return earlier this year, it launched a furious conversation about what the planetary phenomenon means and how it effects you

Now, astrologers have revealed the other major astrological events that will occur throughout your lifetime that could effect your way of thinking and spark a transition

Did you feel like your eighteenth birthday was a 'defining moment' in your life? That's likely because it was the start of your nodal return - a time when the 'nodes of destiny are at the same degree and sign they were at when you were born' - according to New York-based astrologer and author Lisa Stardust.

Did you go through a mid-life crisis in your mid-40s and suddenly become terrified of your time 'running out?' Expert Yasmin Boland told DailyMail.com that your Uranus opposition is likely to blame for the sudden panic that often hits when you hit age 42.

According to astrologers, here are the other planetary shifts that occur during our lives and are believed to spark transitions - and how you should prepare for each one.

Uranus opposition

Something known as your Uranus opposition occurs when you're around age 42 - and astrologers believe that the phenomenon is what brings on the infamous 'mid-life crisis'

Something known as your Uranus opposition occurs when you're around age 42 - when the planet has traveled exactly 180 degrees from the position it was in when you were born.

Astrologers believe that the phenomenon is what brings on the infamous 'mid-life crisis' that usually hits people in their mid-40s.

Yasmin - who offers free chart readings in just 30 minutes here - explained that many tend to feel like they're having a 'wake-up call' when their Uranus opposition begins, especially those who were 'unaware that time is passing and may even soon be running out.'

'For some, it can be a time when you suddenly realize that you're not a kid anymore and whatever you have yet to accomplish, well, you had better get a wriggle on,' she told DailyMail.com.

'For others, it's about the desire to reconnect with the spark of youth which seems to be dimming.

'There is often a "now or never" feeling with the Uranus opposition, a yearning to break free from the ties that bind and, in the best case scenario, a kind of liberation from ideas that held you back in your youth.'

Pluto square

Another planetary movement that can spark a major change in your life is your Pluto square, which an happen any time between age 30 and 60 and usually causes 'drastic life changes'

Another planetary movement that can spark a major change in your life is your Pluto square - which occurs when the planet reaches 90 degrees from where it was when you were born.

It can happen any time between age 30 and 60, depending on how fast the planet is moving.

'Pluto is a psychological planet so this transit is often felt on a psychological rather than a tangible level,' Yasmin dished.

'It's a time of breaking down and healing. Pluto is all about the death and rebirth cycle - so there can be a "death" to your old ways of thinking as you realize what's needed from you to transform your life.'

The astrologer warned that you should 'expect drama' and prepare for 'drastic life changes' when your Pluto square begins.

'[You might] feel as though you're going through some kind of initiation,' she continued.

'Drastic life changes are possible as you slough away the past and any habits, relationships or mindsets which you know you have outgrown or which have gone toxic.'

Yasmin added that it's a great time to 'regenerate' and 'confront your own self and beliefs.'

Jupiter return

When Jupiter returns to the sign and degree it was at when you were born, it can have a large impact on your life and mindset. It happens around every 12 years

Similar to your Saturn return, when Jupiter returns to the sign and degree it was at when you were born, it can have a large impact on your life and mindset.

It happens around every 12 years, and each time the phenomenon occurs, it may result in a major moment of change.

'It's a very distinct phase. A child starts to realize there is a big, wide world out there for them to explore - with or without their parents,' explained astrologer Yasmin Boland (seen)

Your first Jupiter return happens at age 12 - when you're on the 'cusp of no longer being a little kid' and expanding into your teen years.

'It's a very distinct phase. A child starts to realize there is a big, wide world out there for them to explore - with or without their parents,' explained Yasmin.

'Jupiter is about being confident and many kids do start to feel a lot more confident in themselves at the time of their Jupiter return.

'They're more likely to, for example, want to get themselves to and from school without supervision. It's the start of growing up.'

It happens again at age 24, 36, 48, and so on. Lisa pointed out that Jupiter is known as the planet of luck, which means your Jupiter return should be a time 'full of positivity' that can ultimately 'expand your dreams and horizons.'

'Its also the universes check-in with us to ensure we are living a fruitful and honest life,' she added.

'The cosmos are making sure that we are playing by the rules and expanding optimism - not negativity. Take risks, travel, and broaden your mind during the Jupiter return.'

Nodal return

Every 18 years of your life, you will experience something called your nodal return - when the 'nodes of destiny are at the same degree and sign they were at when you were born'

Every 18 years of your life, you will experience something called your nodal return - when the 'nodes of destiny are at the same degree and sign they were at when you were born.'

'The nodes of destiny are two mathematical points in the sky that fall on the lunar nodes,' explained Lisa.

'They reflect the connection, rotation, and space between the sun, moon, and earth.'

The astrologer described the time as a 'transition' period, and said that many of our 'defining moments' will occur during our nodal returns.

'This is a time when fate takes charge of your birth chart and urges us to release things from the past as we move into our future,' she explained. 'This is a defining moment in time that marks personal advancement.'
William and Harry had a secret meeting with Princess Diana's butler Paul Burrell back in 2017, according to a royal source.

Paul Burrell, 64, served as a footman for the Queen before working for Diana for 10 years until her death in 1997.

It was previously believed that the Prince of Wales, 40, and the Duke of Sussex, 38, last met with the former butler in 1997 following their mother's funeral.

But according to the Sun, the brothers held a secret meeting with Paul at Kensington Palace in 2017, ahead of Harry announcing his engagement to Meghan Markle, 41.

The source told the outlet that it was a 'very low-key meeting' that the royals held as they wanted to speak with 'someone who had been close to their mother', and felt there were aspects of the princess' life they believed Paul could clarify for them.

Paul Burrell was Princess Diana's butler for 10 years until her death in 1997 (pictured L-R: Princess Diana and Paul in Bosnia in 1997)

'They asked to keep it all under wraps and he respected that,' the source added.

'Paul was happy to tell them everything he knew and shed some light on their memories.'

The brothers previously accused Paul of a 'cold and overt betrayal' after he published his 2001 book A Royal Duty - which contained a raft of private revelations.

Harry wrote about the book in his 2023 autobiography Spare, describing how he learned of the book when he was working as an unpaid farmhand in Australia aged 19 in 2003 after leaving Eton.

He writes that he received a package from Buckingham Palace, which was full of memos from the Palace communications team about 'a delicate matter'.

'Mummy's former butler had penned a tell-all which actually told nothing,' he said.

'It was merely one man's self-justifying, self-centring version of events.

'My mother once called this butler a dear friend, trusted him implicitly. We did too. Now this.

Prince William and Harry (pictured in Windsor in September 2022) reportedly met with Paul Burrell in 2017

'He was milking her disappearance for money. It made my blood boil.'

Harry writes that he wanted to fly home to 'confront' Mr Burrell but Charles and William talked him out of it, saying all they could do was 'issue a united condemnation'.

The duke also claims that he had 'nothing to do with the drafting' of the Clarence House statement and that he would have 'gone much further'.

Meanwhile, Paul has criticised Harry for some of the revelations in Spare, saying he doesn't recognise who the prince has become.

It was previously believed that the last time the royal brothers spoke to the butler was after their mother's funeral (William and Harry pictured outside Westminster Abbey at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales on September 6, 1997)

Speaking on Australian breakfast show Sunrise earlier this year, the former butler said: 'I first met him in his mummy's tummy. I don't recognise the young man I see today. That's not the boy I knew.

'What I see now is an angry, petulant, privileged prince who is constantly blaming other people and not taking accountability on his part.'

He added that the Duke of Sussex had 'changed fundamentally' and that his mother would be 'appalled'.

'She would be angry at these personal, vindictive revelations which don't just undermine Harry, but his country, his family, the institution  which his mother was very proud of  and his late grandmother's legacy,' he said.

Buckingham Palace and Paul Burrell have been contacted for comment.
Pink is having a fashion moment, with rosy tones of the hue taking over the S/S catwalks - and the message certainly hasn't gone unheard by royals, with princesses and queens stepping out in the shade.

Stephen Sheldon, a stylist at Luxury Legs, told FEMAIL: 'It is absolutely an empowering colour, and that's because it's the colour of love and kindness - two words that have helped shape modern 21st-century society.'

When it comes to royals donning the colour, notably, Kate Middleton, 41, sported not one, but two pink outfits for recent engagements. The Princess of Wales donned a bright pink ME + EM dress to hold a children's picnic at the Chelsea Flower Show last week.

Then several days later, the royal was back in the pink, as she opted for a two-piece trouser suit while visiting Kinship Carers at Saint Pancras Community Association in London.

The same day, Queen Maxima of the Netherlands was also snapped stepping out in a co-ord, wearing bright pink on a working visit to NXP Semiconductors in Nijmegen.

The Princess of Wales (pictured) stepped out in a two-piece pink trouser suit during a visit to Kinship Carers at Saint Pancras Community Association in London

Elsewhere, Queen Letizia of Spain also got in on the rosy action, wearing a soft pink shirt to attend the confirmation of Princess Sofia of Spain in Aravaca.

The younger royal opted for a pink palette too, donning a fuchsia two-piece, as she made the public appearance.

According to Sibel Sevcan, Fashion Trend Expert and Belissh founder, there are several reasons the tone is having a moment.

She told FEMAIL: 'The recent explosion of hot pink as a popular outfit and accessories colour of choice, is certainly being fuelled by the frenzy building around the upcoming Barbie film release (out in July).

'It was also a central theme at fashion week with Valentinos Pink PP A/W23 collection which had a significant influence on this seasons looks.'

She cited Marilyn Monroe's iconic shocking pink dress in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as the look that started the vibrant pink trend, noting that the shade 'oozes confidence and femininity'.

However, said Sibel, the royals may be opting to don the hue for other reasons, noting that 'for Gen Z, pink now symbolises a new desire to express femininity boldly and without limitations or stereotypes'.

This is something stylist Rochelle White agrees with, telling FEMAIL: 'The colour pink is empowering, pretty, flattering and tough.

Kate's two-piece suit came hot on the heels of this ME + EM frock, which she sported while attending the Chelsea Flower Show several days earlier

Confident: Queen Maxima of the Netherlands has been described as looking 'confident and comfortable' in the pink ensembles she wears

'It's a colour that suits many skin tones as well as genders. From nudes to neons, pink is a colour that can be suitable for many and any occasions.'

Describing Kate's ME+EM dress in particular, Rochelle said the hue could be representative of many factors.

Noting that the frock is a re-wear for the royal, Rochelle noted that the 'pop of colour' is appropriate for the fresh, horticultural setting of the flower show.

'I also feel this could be an acknowledgement of showing how strong she is and that she can take on anything,' she added.

Rochelle continued: 'I feel that there has been a shift in the Royal Family, and [as] Kate's duties and appearances have increased, she is more than likely more comfortable in who she is, her role and the outfits she wears.

'I feel she knows that all eyes are on her and the fact that she is classed as a fashion icon and trendsetter. People are inspired by her looks and maybe she is using that to her advantage.'

Describing this brighter pink hue, Sibel Sevcan said: 'The Barbicore or hot pink trend clearly makes a statement of self confidence and female empowerment. It transcends fashion trends and becomes a powerful statement of self-expression by itself.

Pretty in pink: Queen Letizia of Spain (pictured, left) and Princess Sofia (pictured, right) both opted for pink for the younger royal's recent confirmation - but chose very different shades

'Through embracing pink individuals reclaim their right to define and celebrate their own version of femininity.'

This, according to Rochelle, was evident in the bold tone chosen by Maxima. She explained: 'I feel she is confident and comfortable in her looks when it comes to pink.

'I have noticed that she tends to wear similar shades of pinks and that shows me, she knows what shades work and compliment her.

'With a lot of eyes on her, I feel she likes to stand out and make a statement with what she wears. It makes a lasting impression and is quite unique for a queen to be seen in bright pink, [these are] statement pieces.'

And this confidence could be behind Princess Sofia's choice to wear the hue, according to Rochelle, who said of her confirmation outfit: 'I feel this is a bold statement.

'Being able to wear pink especially in bright colours shows her confidence in who she is as a person and who she is becoming.'

When it comes to some of the softer tones, Rochelle pointed out that pink can be very wearable.

Describing Queen Letizia's ensemble, she said: 'This is a colour that suits any demographic. There are so many shades of pink that work really well for all ages and all skin tones in my opinion.'

And Kate used the wearability of softer pink well, according to Rochelle, who described the royal's two-piece trouser suit as powerful, but subtly so.

She said: 'Kate's outfit here [gives] smart and professional vibes. I feel this is a more formal outfit, but with a subtle and powerful statement due to the colour.

'She has teamed it with white and simple jewellery such as pearls. So, it provides a more tailored put together look, compared to if it was teamed with white trainers, which would make it more casual.'

While the colour is certainly on trend, it certainly doesn't appear to be a passing fad, with multiple fashion experts convinced the shade is here to stay.

According to Sibel Sevcan: 'Whether you are a pink lover or a hater, its new place in culture, is what makes it highly attractive as an outfit colour of choice - and young people all around the world are embracing the trend for that very reason.'
An unlikely star emerged from the King's coronation earlier this month - Conservative politician Penny Mordaunt who caused an online frenzy after appearing at the event.

The Portsmouth North MP, who was perhaps previously best known to many for losing both of her party's 2022 leadership contests - first to Liz Truss, then to Rishi Sunak - has been described as the most popular Tory politician since her scene stealing appearance at the royal service.

In her ceremonial role as lord president of the privy council and bearer of the Sword of State, her duties during the big day included carrying the Sword of State, which weighs 3.6 kg (8 lb) for 51 minutes straight.

Then, a few minutes after surrendering the first sword, she was handed the (slightly lighter) Jewelled Sword of Offering, which she also held upright  her elbows tucked into her body, her forearms and biceps taking the strain  for the rest of the two-hour ceremony. It marked the first time the sword was carried and presented by a woman.

Now, in an interview with the Times, Penny, who described herself as a 'workaholic with four cats' has spoken about her role in the coronation, why she took a pair of fluffy slippers to the Abbey, and single life.

Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt (pictured in the House of Commons in February this year) has opened up about being single, the coronation, and being made into a meme

Amid her revelations about the coronation, the 50-year-old has discussed how she tried to ease some of the physical strain, including taking pre-emptive painkillers for the inevitable muscle ache.

In addition, she reveals how she opted for less than glamorous footwear for as much of the day as possible, donning fluffy slippers as she sat in the cloisters, before slipping on her heels at the last possible minute.

It wasn't until she was on her way home that Penny realised the impression she had made on the public, with tweets starting to emerge which made the MP into a meme.

Notably, one joke suggested she had been 'sponsored by Poundland', as her teal outfit bore a gold laurel motif, not dissimilar to the discount outlet's logo.

Another meme saw the politician's sword Photoshopped out and replaced by a kebab, which Penny says she 'loved', noting that events like the coronation are above day-to-day politics, and bring people together.

Despite the jokes, the MP was praised for her outfit, sporting a 2,000 fitted teal dress and cape by atelier Safiyaa, and matching padded headband embroidered with gold leaves.

During her interview with the Times, the 50-year-old, who never remarried after splitting from husband Paul Murray in 2000 following a one-year-marriage, also opened up about being single.

She says she 'feels complete' without a partner, adding that while she has no need for 'another half', she wouldn't be ideologically opposed to meeting someone.

The 50-year-old impressed the public with her impressive show of upper body strength during the coronation at Westminster Abbey earlier this month (pictured

Joking, she added: 'It is, of course, a mystery why a workaholic with no social life and four cats is not a massive draw.'

While she has long kept her personal life very private, the politician has been working in public life for many years, and has been involved in Conservative circles since her days at the University of Reading.

There, she worked for John Major and William Hague at CCHQ and in communications before getting elected in 2010 as MP for Portsmouth North - where she lived during a childhood beset by family tragedy and financial struggles.

Her profile received a major boost in 2014 when she featured on diving show Splash! and was named 'Britain's sexist MP' after a poll.

Her stint on TV, alongside B-list celebrities including Gemma Collins from The Only Way Is Essex, saw her train under celebrity diver Tom Daley.

She was the ninth celebrity eliminated after the likes of Paul Young and stand-up comedian Patrick Monahan.

Despite an upturn in her career in 2015, when she became the first woman to hold the job of Armed Forces minister, relations with then PM David Cameron disintegrated the following year, as she became a vocal proponent of Brexit.

When Andrea Leadsom unsuccessfully bid to replace David Cameron that year, Penny supported her. Despite Andrea losing out to Theresa May, Penny managed to cling on to ministerial office, becoming minister for disabled people.

She entered the Cabinet the following year as Development Secretary, thanks to the sacking of Priti Patel, and was elevated to Defence Secretary in 2019 following the resignation of Gavin Williamson over alleged national security leaks.

The politician became the subject of numerous memes after the royal service, including one comparing her outfit to the Poundland logo

However, after backing Jeremy Hunt to become Tory leader that year, she was sacked by eventual winner Boris Johnson, when he became PM - only returning to the Cabinet after his massive election victory that Christmas.

After her unsuccessful bids to become Tory leader, she was installed as Commons Leader by Liz Truss, which saw her lead the Accession Council after the death of Queen Elizabeth II last September.

Thanks to the publicity this role has brought her, Penny is now considered a favourite to take over from Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, behind only Kemi Badenoch.

However, when asked by the Times if she might go for a third leadership bid, she denied she would.

Penny said: 'It's a controversial view, but I think a period of stability, calmness and effective government are whats needed.'
Many know to bring their A-game when they attend Cannes Film Festival, as it is hard to stand out.

But several socialites, such as Emma Weymouth, Poppy Delevingne and Lady Victoria Hervey, still managed to steal the show with their glitzy and glamourous outfits during the recent week's festivities.

Emma Weymouth, the Marchioness of Bath, left little to the imagination in a shimmering see-through gown when she attended the amfAR Cannes Gala.

A couple of days prior, the 37-year-old donned a red embellished, floor-length gown which she wore with a chiffon train at the Vogue party.

Lady Victoria Hervey, 46, sizzled as she sported an aqua sequinned jumpsuit with matching sheer gloves and a chiffon cape.

The Marchioness of Bath, 37, turned heads in a shimmering sheer gown as she attended the star-studded amfAR Gala Cannes 2023 sponsored by Aston Martin

She was the 'It girl' in her day, but still proved she can remain the centre of attention as she attended the launch of the new Aston Martin DB12 in a daring mesh jumpsuit.

Meanwhile, Poppy Delevingne, 37, certainly made a statement in her black see-through dress which she paired with slinky hot pants.

The 76th festival came under fire this year for its less than exclusive guest list as social media influencers descended on the resort town.

Love Island's Zara McDermott, reality TV host Maya Jama, and Made In Chelsea's Kimberley Garner were all among the guest list, which is normally dominated by movie stars.

FEMAIL takes a look at the daring outfits worn by socialites which made an impression at the iconic film festival.

Lady Victoria Hervey took her wardrobe up a notch when she went to the launch of the new Aston Martin DB12 in a mesh jumpsuit

Lady Victoria Hervey, 46, wowed as she wore a patterned ivory frock which cut out at the waist while attending the 'Club Zero' red carpet

Socialite Poppy Delevingne turned heads in her glamourous sequinned silver frock which she wore when attending the 'Chopard Art Dinner'

Poppy Delevingne, 37, certainly made a statement in her see-through dress which she paired with slinky hot pants on May 24

Emma Weymouth, Marchioness of Bath, dazzled in a bright red sequinned gown with a chiffon train in Cannes on May 22

Lady Victoria Hervey, 46, sizzled as she sported an aqua sequinned jumpsuit with matching sheer gloves and a chiffon cape

Lady in red! Emma Weymouth once again ensured she stood out when attending the Cannes Film Festival on May 23

Lady Victoria Hervey accentuated her enviably toned arms in the sleeveless, V-neck ensemble which is perfect for the early summer weather in France on May 18 during the film festival

Fashion icon: Lady Victoria Hervey looked stunning as she was pictured at the Hotel Martinez in a glittery purple gown with a low v-neckline on May 21

Lady Victoria Hervey attends the 'Jeanne du Barry' screening and opening ceremony red carpet wearing a silver one-shoulder dress

Emma Weymouth accentuated her enviably toned arms in a sleeveless, V-neck ensemble she sported for the Club Zero red carpet during the 76th annual Cannes film festival at Palais des Festivals on May 22

Poppy Delevingne opted for a daring take on the traditional 'little black dress' when attending a party hosted by British Vogue and Chopard to celebrate the film festival - as it featured white bows down one side

Lady Victoria Hervey looked angelic in her pink sheer strapless dress as she attended the 'Asteroid City' red carpet

Lady Victoria Hervey donned a sleek black dress with a slit in the front as she attended 'The Old Oak' red carpet
Princess Charlene of Monaco debuted a new look as she stepped out today for the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix alongside other members of the Royal Family.

The former Olympic swimmer, 45, showed off a new hair do as she attended the annual motoring event, which is held on the Circuit de Monaco, with her husband Prince Albert.

In a bold move away from her trademark platinum crop, Charlene sported rich, shining dark auburn hair, still in her signature elfin short style.

The royal, who appeared deep in thought as she was photographed standing next to her husband, paired the dramatic new 'do with a chic maxi dress in a full-length classic shift-style cut, featuring rainbow coloured stripes down the front.

Her locks were simply styled into a side parting, to show off her simple diamond studs, and her elegant make-up look comprising a fresh base and light brown smokey eyes.

Princess Charlene of Monaco (pictured, left) debuted a stunning new look at the Monaco Grand Prix today, after dying her trademark platinum locks a rich brunette shade (pictured with her husband Prince Albert)

Meanwhile, Prince Albert was also smart, donning slacks with a classic blazer, crisp shirt and tie.

Also at the Grand Prix was Grace Kelly's granddaughter Charlotte Casiraghi, 36, accompanied by her husband, Dimitri Rassam, and her son Raphael, eight.

Meanwhile, Grace Kelly's grandson, Louis Ducruet, 30, was also in attendance with his wife, Marie Chevallier, also 30.

Pierre Casiraghi, 35, and his wife, Beatrice Borromeo, 37, also attended, alongside Andrea Casiraghi, 38, and his Tatiana Santo Domingo, 39. The pair were picture with their son, Maximilian and daughter India.

Princess Charlene and Prince Albert's outing today followed a public appearance together earlier this month, when they attended a Buckingham Palace reception hosted by King Charles on the eve of his coronation, before attending the Westminster Abbey ceremony itself.

Their London appearance followed the couple stepping out in public in April with their children for the first time since the palace was forced to deny rumours the couple's marriage was on the rocks.

The family looked picture-perfect as Charlene put her arm around eight-year-old Prince Jacques and placed her other hand on Princess Gabriella's shoulders as they went to a match as part of the Sainte Devote Rugby Tournament.

The sweet family appearance came weeks after a French publication reported Princess Charlene and Prince Albert were in the process of a divorce - something the palace has strenuously denied.

Deep in thought: The 45-year-old appeared somewhat pensive as she was snapped alongside her husband (pictured L-R: Princess Charlene and Prince Albert)

Maximilian Casiraghi, Tatiana Santo Domingo, Sacha Casiraghi, Raphael Elmaleh, India Casiraghi , Andrea Casiraghi, Dimitri Rassam and Charlotte Casiraghi, pictured left to right, attending the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco at Circuit de Monaco

After ROYAUTE reported their 12-year marriage was coming to an end, a spokesman said the couple 'formally deny the malicious rumours peddled by the magazine'.

In recent weeks the couple have put on a united front at events around the principality, including a memorial mass service for Prince Albert's late father, Prince Rainier, earlier this month.

However, Princess Charlene fuelled rumours her marriage was on the rocks when she was spotted on a solo trip to Milan last month without wearing her wedding ring.

She later returned to Monaco and attended an awards ceremony alongside her husband, and was once again wearing the ring.

However, later that day, the couple made a joint appearance at the Monte Carlo Woman of the Year awards, where Charlene appeared to be wearing her wedding ring - pouring cold water on the split rumours.

The plot seemed to thicken at the next royal engagement, when Prince Albert attended the Rose Ball in Monaco without his wife present.

Last month, Albert revealed Charlene is 'excited and happy' about the royal project to restore the palace amid the rumours.

The former Olympic swimmer, 45, showed off a new hair do as she attended the annual motoring event, which is held on the Circuit de Monaco, with her husband Prince Albert

Red Bull's Max Verstappen is presented with the winner trophy on the podium by Prince Albert II of Monaco after winning the Monaco Grand Prix as Princess Charlene looks on

Red Bull's Max Verstappen stands on the podium after winning the Monaco Grand Prix alongside second placed Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso and third placed Alpine's Esteban Ocon and Prince Albert II of Monaco and Princess Charlene

Max Verstappen on the podium with Prince Albert II of Monaco (pictured alongside Princess Charlene)

In a bold move away from her trademark platinum crop, Charlene (pictured left) sported rich, shining dark auburn hair, still in her signature elfin short style

The royal (pictured left), who appeared deep in thought as she was photographed standing next to her husband, paired the dramatic new 'do with a chic maxi dress in a full-length classic shift-style cut, featuring rainbow coloured stripes down the front

The royal claimed his wife 'shares the joy' of the eight-year-long project in which Italian renaissance frescoes within the palace were brought back to life after other royals had covered them over with paint.

Speaking to Hello! magazine from the palace as the restored works were unveiled, Prince Albert suggested his wife was enthusiastic about the project.

When asked about his South African-born wife, he said: 'Princess Charlene was excited and happy that we were able to carry out this work.

'Last year, she was showing some of her guests the state apartments and really enjoyed showing them the frescoes.'

'It shows how much she cares about the project and her desire to share the family's joy regarding these beautiful works.'

Elsewhere in his interview, Prince Albert referred to his late mother, Hollywood star Grace Kelly, who first began to decorate the palace when she moved to Monaco following her marriage to Prince Rainier.

Describing his mother as a woman with 'assured taste', he said he believed his parents were watching over him and his family and that they would 'encourage us to continue on this path'.

Grace Kelly's grandson, Louis Ducruet, 30, was also in attendance, and opted to wear a smart navy suit with a white shirt and a sapphire blue patterned tie. He was there with his wife, Marie Chevallier (both pictured)

Charlotte Casiraghi, 36, was pictured wearing a stylish halterneck chequered racing flag dress for the occasion. Pictured, with husband Dimitri Rassam

Charlotte was snapped intently watching the Ferrari pit crew do a pit stop right in front of her as she donned a dress in their signature colour - red

Charlotte looked effortlessly stunning, pairing red lipstick and a pair of sunglasses with her racing flag dress

Tatiana and Andrea are pictured with their children Maximilian Casiraghi and India Casiraghi

Andrea Casiraghi, right, and his wife Beatrice Borromeo hold hands as they stand near the track

Dimitri Rassam, Charlotte Casiraghi, Sacha Casiraghi and Raphael attend the Monaco Grand Prix

The pair's relationship timeline has hardly been smooth sailing; rumours about the state of their marriage began to swirl after Charlene was absent from Monaco for most of 2021 while having medical treatment in her native South Africa.

The mother-of-two was admitted to a Swiss clinic to be treated for exhaustion on her return - but is now back in full swing with royal duties and public appearances.

Charlene and Albert married in July 2011 after the prince proposed with a handcrafted pear-cut diamond flanked by smaller diamonds designed by Paris-based Italian jeweller Repossi.

Later, during the wedding service, the couple exchanged 18-carat white gold platinum rings by Cartier, with Charlene laughing as she placed the ring on her husband's finger.

At the time of the wedding, Charlene was dubbed the 'Runaway Bride' by the French media after allegedly trying to flee before the ceremony, but the reports were always denied.
A vet has revealed the five dog breeds she would not personally buy and the reasons why.

Cat, from the UK, posted on TikTok - which got more than 450,000 views - about which pets she would not decide to look after.

She said: 'I'm a vet and here are five dog breeds I would not personally own. And as always with videos like this, there's gonna be loads of you out there who own these breeds and love these dogs and that's absolutely fine. Just hear me out okay.

'Number one is the German Shepherd. Absolutely beautiful dogs and bred to be a guarding breed.

'But they're not bred to guard, they're bred to be suspicious and anxious, which makes them really reactive dogs.

Cat, from the UK, posted on TikTok which got more than 450,000 views about which dog breeds she would not personally buy and the reasons why

'If they have a bad experience, they never forget it. They're beautiful, but they're big. They're powerful and they can be really, really challenging. So just not for me.

'Next up is any of our flat face breeds. Again, absolutely fabulous little dogs but they do not deserve to suffer as much as they do. And I absolutely just could never contribute to that suffering by deliberately owning one.

'Number three is the working Border Collie. I see quite a lot of these in practice bought from farms and kept as pets. And huge numbers of them have mental health problems because these are dogs who need a job.

'I just do not have time in my life to put enough into them to make sure that they're living their best lives with me.'

'Number four is the Shar Pei just generally a breed that doesn't appeal to me personally,' she continued.

Cat said: 'Next up is any of our flat face breeds. Again, absolutely fabulous little dogs but they do not deserve to suffer as much as they do'

'But also again, lots of health problems and lots of behavioural issues as well, which often relate to the fact that because of their health, they're in pain and discomfort and that makes them grumpy.

'And number five is a St Bernard or really any large breed dog with loads of jowls because quite honestly, I just cannot cope with the slobber.

'I had a client once tell me that she had slobbered on her ceilings. I am five foot two. I would need a stepladder to reach it. And quite frankly there is more than enough in my house to clean without me having to worry about the ceilings as well.

'So generally really lovely dogs, very sweet looking. This guy's got his teddy with him in the picture. But honestly, I am not good enough of a housewife to keep up with these guys.'

Social media users took to the comments to discuss their experiences with the breeds mentioned.

One user wrote: 'I agree with a Frenchie, mine had to be put down he suffered allergies, back problems, eye ulcers he couldnt walk in the end.'

Reaction: Social media users took to the comments to discuss their experiences with the breeds mentioned in the video

Another said: 'You say this a lot about flat faced breeds. They dont all suffer. Some live happy long lives. I know not all but not all labs live long healthy lives.'

A third penned: 'Been brought up with German shepherds (most rescue) never had any issues.'

A fourth commented: 'Border Collie mom here and I will never own anything but a border collie! Best ever.'
This may well be the year we discovered a new elegant fashion icon in Akshata Murthy, the wife of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Might she turn out to be our Michelle Obama  the wife of the big chief who dresses the part with flair and a kind of mum-on-the-run ease?

Not for her the politicians wife staples of stiff sheath dress and matching coat or a boxy skirt suit. As were discovering, her go-to look for most occasions is a simple top and a pair of coloured tailored trousers.

In the past few weeks shes upped her game, wearing red trousers for The Big Coronation Lunch; tan to meet Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska at Downing Street; and she stepped off the plane in Tokyo in bright green crop trousers and a pink sweater looking relaxed yet stylish.

Trousers are to 2023 what shoulder pads were to 1983, but the big message for this summer is: get them in a bold colour.

The Prime Minister's wife, Akshata Murthy, wore tan tailored trousers to meet Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska at Downing Street

The Princess of Wales chose pink tailored trousers, which she wore with a matching blazer and white court shoes

Akshata is showing us how its done. I know what youre thinking (apart from, Hold on, the PMs wife would look good in sweats and a pac-a-mac) because I was thinking it, too  coloured trousers are not the easiest.

Theres the Hi-de-Hi! factor: dont you always look a bit travel rep in bright trousers?

Theres the Does my bum look big in this? issue, and wont your bum always look bigger in yellow than in silhouette-slimming navy?

Theres the go with issue: what are you wearing with parakeet green?

And then theres the sheer boldness of them because, while we certainly do not want to blend in, we dont want trousers that are etched on everyones memory every time you wear them.

Or do we? Murthys plane outfit worked so well (striking, simple, joyful) mainly because of the trousers. Suddenly a slick coloured tailored trouser and a bright top look like the modern alternative to a suit.

The right coloured trousers have two big things going for them: one, they let you wear trousers in situations where youd otherwise feel obliged to wear something dressier. Two, theyre refreshingly different.

Were always looking for ways to switch up clothes we know we can rely on  and buying the trouser shape you trust in a strong summer colour is about as easy as it gets.

Blake Lively's wide leg blue midnight trousers looked perfect with glittery blue shoes poking out

American model Chrissy Teigen went for bold red flared trousers with a matching jacket and embellished bra in New York

Its true some colours are less flattering, but providing the cut is good, you wont have anything to worry about. A well-cut pair of red trousers will do you more favours than a poorly cut pair in navy.

As for the Hi-de-Hi! factor, as ever it depends on how you wear them.

Red trousers plus black pumps and a black jacket might not be a good idea, but a clashing pink blouse or a sky-blue shirt looks great, and you cant go wrong with two pieces in the same colour.

I also think a plain black top works well at night with most colours, though not so much with red (Dennis The Menace) or orange (easyJet).

As for shoes, nudes and neutrals will cover you for all eventualities, but a shoe in a clashing colour is extra stylish.

BUT FOLLOW THESE RULES! Match or clash your top half with your trousers.

Wear either neutral or tonal shoes.

Try green for a change.

Look for cropped styles. Advertisement

Murthys trouser collection is full of Me+Em because it delivers designer-quality tailored trousers for high-end High Street prices, so its made for the woman who has designer tastes but needs to be seen to be spending less.

The green trousers she wore in Japan are last seasons, but the brand has the same style in a polyester viscose mix (avoid linen and linen mixes  they crease) in purple and in pink (185, meandem.com) and a man pant style with a slight flare in a bright fern (195), which would suit more of us.

If you cant justify that kind of money, a good runner-up is Zara, which does a slim crop trouser similar to Murthys (29.99, zara.com) in 15 colours including a bold green, and high-waisted straight-fit pants also in green (32.99).

Otherwise, Arket does a good mid-waisted straight style (79, arket.com).

Green has a lot going for it this summer  its fresh and it goes well with so many colours  but I also like Hushs wide-leg pair in red (79, hush-uk.com) to wear with trainers, or Arkets cotton trousers in tomato red (35, arket.com).
McDonald's Australia is set to giveaway thousands of complimentary coffees nationwide to celebrate McCafe's 30th anniversary.

On Tuesday May 30 the fast food giant will be handing out free medium hot coffees to customers who use the MyMacca's app.

All you need to do is download the mobile app and select 'free coffee' under 'My Deals' to redeem the gift.

A McCafe van will also be travelling around Sydney this week handing out free coffees. The van will then head up to Brisbane on June 4, followed by Townsville on June 6.

To redeem the freebie, simply download the MyMacca's app and select 'free coffee' under 'My Deals' to redeem the gift (stock image)

How to get a free McDonald's coffee: Download the MyMacca's app Select 'free coffee' under 'My Deals' Order and collect your free coffee The offer is only redeemable on Tuesday May 30 Advertisement

Lancy Huynh, Group Brand Manager for McDonald's Australia said: 'Tomorrow, coffee is on us! We are shouting free coffee to customers across Australia to thank them for their loyalty and support over the past 30 years.

'We hope our customers enjoy their morning coffee or afternoon pick-me-up on us.'

Every year McDonald's serves up more than 230 million cups of barista-made coffee and hot drinks in a year, with one in every four coffees sold in Australia from a McCafe.

Currently there's 1,026 McCafe's across Australia and more than 4,000 in 60 countries across the word.

The McCafe coffee blend is roasted in Melbourne and sourced from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in Brazil, Honduras, Kenya and Ethiopia.
'PM Modi thinks he knows more than God' : Rahul Gandhi 31 May 2023 | 4:44 PM New Delhi, May 31 (UNI) Stepping up his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said there is a group of people who think they know more than "God', and the PM is one such "specimen". see more..

Cabinet approves Rs 1 lakh crore foodgrain storage scheme in the cooperative sector 31 May 2023 | 3:31 PM Under the scheme, godowns with a capacity of 2,000 tonne will be set up in each block:

I&B Minister Anurag Thakur. see more..

India, Bahrain hold Foreign Office Consultations 31 May 2023 | 2:54 PM New Delhi, May 31 (UNI) India and Bahrain held the Sixth Round of Foreign Office Consultations in Bahrain, during which the two sides reviewed the bilateral cooperation in the spheres of political, security, space, trade, renewable energy, fintech among other things. see more..

'PM Modi thinks he knows more than ': Rahul Gandhi 31 May 2023 | 12:37 PM New Delhi, May 31 (UNI) Stepping up its attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said there is a group of people who think they know more than "God', and the PM is one such "specimen". see more..
Deathwatch beetles may have a terrifying name - but much more frightening are the dangers these pests could inflict upon your house if there is an infestation.

And because these insects emerge in the spring and early summer, now is the perfect time to tackle the issue if you see - or hear - the critters around your home.

The tiny deathwatch beetle is just 7millimetres long, but can cause extensive damage to wooden structures.

It has gotten its name from the tapping noise it makes to attract a mate, which would be heard from inside the rafters of cabins and wooden buildings.

The quiet noise is associated with the 'death watch', or death vigil, kept beside the bed of a dying loved one, and old superstition see the beetle as an omen of impending death.

Deathwatch Beetles sound scary - but much more terrifying are the dangers these pests could inflict upon your house if there is an infestation. Stock image used

But how can you be sure that you're dealing with the right beetle species? And how do you get rid of these pesky little pests?

Here, FEMAIL looks at the telltale signs you need to keep an eye out for - and what next steps to take...

WHAT DAMAGE CAN DEATHWATCH BEETLES CAUSE?

These beetles eat hardwood affected by fungal decay. This could lead to concerning structural issues, especially if they get their hands on your timber frame.

Old, historic buildings and estates are particularly at risk.

According to Homebuilding & Renovating, deathwatch beetles in some cases also eat softwood which is affected by rot 'when in close contact with infested hardwoods'.

The Wildlife Trusts also advises that these species' larvae live 'in dead wood, in old trees and in buildings'.

And their tunnelling will cause 'major damage', especially to wood beams, floors and furniture.

In 2013, a 900-year-old Welsh village church was threatening to collapse after being devoured hundreds of these beetles.

They leave 'bun-shaped' pellets and have tiny hairs that adorn a dark brown body, around 7mm long. Stock image used

The ancient church had to meet a 300,000 bill in order to save it from being completely destroyed by the invasion.

Meanwhile, in 2015 a 5 million battle plan had to be put in place when an infestation of deathwatch beetles put the imposing Hay Castle, which towers above the town of Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh border, at peril.

HOW TO SPOT A DEATHWATCH BEETLE

Deathwatch beetle infestations are characterised by their trademark sound.

However, there are other markers to look out for.

They prefer oak, according to Homebuilding & Renovating, and will in some cases emerge from cracks, instead of holes.

But when boreholes are present, they will be around 3mm in diameter and leave cream-coloured dust.

They leave 'bun-shaped' pellets and have tiny hairs that adorn a dark brown body, around 7mm long.

Their eggs are white, slightly pointed and sticky - while the larvae are cream coloured with black jaws.

Pest Professionals say the larvae can live in the wood for up to seven years - 'more than other UK wood boring beetles and they are extensive tunnel builders'.

While most outlets advise calling an expert in to identify and verify the beetle, Homebuilding & Renovating says it's also possible to do your own research by covering a cluster of holes with some water-soluble glue and acid-free tissue paper to catch the insects.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE A DEATHWATCH BEETLE INFESTATION

The best thing to do is call in an expert to survey the situation as soon as you can.

Timberwise says that they will inspect the property to advise what stage of the lifecycle the species is in and how old the damage actually is.

Homebuilding & Renovating advises that the focus of the treatment may be to reduce the timber's moisture level - and you may even need to 'isolate the wood from damp masonry'.

Heat and temperature regulation may also be recommended, as well as the use of a 'non-invasive ultraviolet light' or pheromone traps.

Chemicals may also be used, but a lot depends on the property's condition and how easy it is to get into the affected area.
As a child Katherine Bennell-Pegg would look up to the night sky in awe of the great unknown and dreamt of one day becoming an astronaut exploring the universe.

Now she will make history as the first Australian woman to be trained as an astronaut by an international space agency.

The 38-year-old relocated to Germany with her husband and two daughters to complete her training with the European Space Agency.

But the road to success has been rocky over the last decade, Katherine told FEMAIL, as she admits the career choice is 'no luxury'.

The job has rigorous physical demands, and the challenge of ongoing courses for the rest of her career.

'There's no linear path to being an astronaut. The criteria are always evolving. There may be no opportunities to apply in your career, or just a small few,' Katherine told Daily Mail Australia.

'There is a lot of luck involved. But it does still require hard work and perseverance to be eligible and competitive in the selection process.'

While other Aussie woman have trained to be astronauts internationally, they have always done so under their other nationality's flag - making Katherine the first to do so with the Australian flag on her arm.

Katherine Bennell-Pegg has always dreamt of becoming an astronaut. Now she'll become the first Australian woman to train as an astronaut under the Australian flag overseas

The 38-year-old relocated to Germany with her husband and two daughters to complete her training with the European Space Agency

Having grown up on Sydney's northern beaches before moving to Adelaide in 2019, this busy go-getter is always looking for her next best thing.

And it seems Katherine won't let anything stand in the way of her achieving her out-of-this-world goals.

The high achiever has two Bachelor degrees, two Masters degrees, and is now the Director of Space Technology at the Australian Space Agency.

At university she studied physics and space engineering despite knowing 'nothing' about engineering. She simply applied for the course because it had the word 'space' in it.

Katherine has now spent over a decade developing space missions, technologies and programs across more than six countries.

'I've realised that space has so much more to offer than just adventure,' she said, adding: 'It plays a vital role in tackling real-world problems and developing new knowledge that can benefit our society, environment and science.

'It's been a privilege to play a part in shaping our growing space sector in Australia.'

Katherine will train for the next 14 months completing intense courses (pictured inside a simulator)

Katherine will train for the next 14 months overseas and graduate to becoming an Astronaut, rather than her current status as 'Astronaut Candidate'.

Once assigned to a mission, pre-mission training takes around about two years.

'We have an intense training schedule during basic training, with our day strictly scheduled by the training team,' she explained.

'Each part of the basic training is quite different. So far, we have a mix of classroom lessons, practical lessons in labs, and time in the gym.'

Under this 'basic' training course, topics span across winter and ocean survival, medical emergency training, robotics training, spacewalk training, fluid science and more.

Despite all the hoops she's needed to jump through to make her dream a reality, Katherine said the biggest hurdle has been relocating her husband and two kids internationally to Germany.

Near the start of her journey she was one of 22,000 hopefuls wanting to be chosen by the European Space Agency. And despite going through an 18-month process, she made the top 25 but not the last 17.

Katherine has not yet made her first voyage into space but says it's an honour to represent her country.

Katherine has not yet made her first voyage into space but says it's an honour to represent Australia

She grew up in Sydney's northern beaches before moving to Adelaide in 2019

The ecstatic mum has had some epic experiences over the years, rom floating weightless inside a zero gravity plane to help build part of a new international space station.

Such a unique career not only takes dedication but also patience, brains and confidence.

But the ecstatic mum has never looked back.

'At high school, we had to write down three different options for what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wrote one: astronaut and refused to add any others,' she said.

And she'll finally be able to live her childhood dream.
A woman in Michigan was left with frostbite after using a common spray to treat her athlete's foot.

The 67-year-old, who was not named, used $8-a-cannister Lotrimin Powder Spray  sold at stores including Walmart, Target and Amazon  to treat the infection.

But after using the spray for just three seconds, she felt pain in her foot before a blue and black patch about half an inch wide emerged on her middle left toe.

Doctors said it was 'consistent' with frostbite, pointing out that the product contained a chemical  isobutane  that is 'notorious' for causing the condition.

The chemical can spark a rapid drop in skin temperature as it turns from a liquid into a gas which can cause frostbite.

A 67-year-old woman in Michigan suffered frostbite on her middle left toe (left) after using Lotrimin powder spray to treat her athlete's foot

She described the patch on her toe as painful, which measured about 0.6inches across

Athlete's foot affects up to 15 percent of the population  or 50million  at any one time and is caused by the fungi dermatophytes that is also behind ringworm.

It is picked up from surfaces that are moist, such as swimming pool and locker room floors and towels.

Symptoms of the infection include red, inflamed, itchy or scaly skin around areas that are infected.

There are many over-the-counter treatments available including Lotrimin's powder spray, as well as creams and ointments to be rubbed onto the infection.

The spray contains miconazole nitrate powder, which battles fungal infections by breaking the walls of fungus cells causing them to die.

But the spray canister may also use isobutane  which acts as a projectile to release the powder from the canister  that can cause the skin's temperature to suddenly drop.

Previous reports say the chemical can send the temperature down by as much as 36F (20C) per second and, if sprayed for six seconds or more, causes the skin temperature to drop below freezing. This would cause frostbite and cell death.

In the case, revealed this week in the journal Foot and Ankle Surgery, the woman came to doctors complaining of an itching and burning sensation between her toes. She also had scaly skin on the tops of both of her feet.

Doctors diagnosed her with tinea pedis, or athlete's foot, and recommended that she try over-the-counter treatments such as sprays.

She was told to hold the spray six inches from her feet, use it for no more than three seconds at a time, and return in six weeks for a check-up.

Three weeks later, however, she called in to say there were 'unexpected' changes to her feet that were painful.

She was seen immediately alongside the bottle of Lotrimin that she had used, with doctors diagnosing the mark on her foot as frostbite.

They told her to stop using the spray and instead prescribed a powder to treat the fungal infection.

She was discharged and returned in six months where doctors found the athlete's foot had gone as well as the scarring from the frostbite.

Doctors noted that the patient also had diabetes, high blood pressure and sleep apnea.

The doctors from Central Michigan University wrote in the report: 'By educating patients about the proper use of over-the-counter medications and advising them to seek medical attention if any unusual symptoms arise, we can prevent further... damage, especially in high-risk diabetic patients.'

Doctors told her to stop using the spray and switch to just a powder form. Within six months the athlete's foot had healed and her frostbite was also gone

They added: 'The discoloration is consistent with a burn/frostbite.

'Upon further inspection of the Lotrimin powder spray label, no warning for burn or frostbite is mentioned.

'But one chemical listed is isobutane which is notorious for causing frostbite.'

DailyMail.com contacted Bayer, the company which owns Lotrimin, for comment.
'Compromise': President Joe Biden

US officials have agreed a deal 'in principle' to raise the country's debt limit in a last-minute dash to avoid a default.

President Joe Biden and the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, announced an agreement following weeks of difficult negotiations and stalemate.

In a statement, Biden said the deal represented a 'compromise' but was 'an important step that reduces spending while protecting critical programmes for working people and growing the economy.'

McCarthy said the agreement contained 'historic reductions in spending' as well as 'reforms that will lift people out of poverty and into the workforce.'

Exact details are unconfirmed but it is thought to contain a provision to raise the US debt limit for two years from its current level of 25trillion to prevent standoffs before next year's presidential election.

Negotiators have also agreed to cap non-defence discretionary spending, which is used to fund government services, at 2023 levels for two years.

It would also mean the US government would avoid running out of cash, with officials having until June 5 to approve more borrowing or else risk a default and chaos in the markets.

But the agreement faces a major hurdle when it heads to the US Congress for a vote expected on Wednesday.

The Congress is split between the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat Senate, meaning any vote is likely to be fiercely contested.

Some Republican lawmakers have pushed for McCarthy to propose even steeper cuts to spending as a price for raising the debt limit.

Signs of dissent in the ranks were evident in the early hours of yesterday when Republican congressman Bob Good, a supporter of former president Donald Trump, wrote on Twitter that 'no one claiming to be a conservative' could justify supporting the deal.

But news of a possible breakthrough is likely to soothe nerves in financial markets, with the standoff having weighed on stocks, forcing the US to pay record-high interest on some of its loans.

Analysts have warned a US debt default could cause even worse economic damage, likely pushing it into recession, resulting in a spike in unemployment and sending shockwaves across the world.
The Windsors are famously shrewd with their money - and few in the Royal Family were more careful than the late Queen Elizabeth.

When it came to frugal habits, however, even the Queen could not compete with her grandmother.

Queen Mary of Teck, the consort of George V, would go so far as to recycle flowers from her vases as gifts when she visited her friends.

'She never bought flowers at the florist,' her relative, the Marchioness of Cambridge once said.

Stingy with her money, Queen Mary of Teck is said to have displayed 'upmarket kleptomania'

Mary of Teck surrounded by family after the 1937 Coronation of her son, George VI. From the left: Queen Elizabeth, Princess Elizabeth, Princess Margaret Rose and the newly crowned King

Queen Mary of Teck was grandmother to the late Queen Elizabeth. Here she is seated with Princesses Elizabeth (left) and Princess Margaret Rose (right). On her lap is Edward, now Duke of Kent

'She would go round picking them out of vases in her rooms, so that often they were dead the day after she brought them.'

She was born Mary of Teck 156 years ago, yet had been brought up in surprisingly straitened circumstances. It seemed that she never acquired the habit of spending her own money.

Indeed, according to Queen Elizabeth's distant cousin, Princess Olga Romanoff, Mary was famous for coveting  and then acquiring  other people's possessions.

Princess Olga told television viewers that Mary of Teck 'had a kind of upmarket kleptomania because she would go stay in somebody's house and she'd be sitting on one of a dozen Sheraton chairs and she'd say 'Oo, I do like this chair.'

'And you'd be obliged to give her all 12.

'People got wise to this, and they'd say, 'Oh god, Queen Mary's coming to stay', so they'd put the good stuff in the attic and bring the more rotten stuff down.

'She was famous for it, absolutely famous for it. Outside church, she'd say 'I do like that fur coat' and you'd have to give it to her.

'Thank God our Royal Family don't do that.'

Queen Mary is a distant character to a younger generation but she was a major figure in the life of the royals and unquestionably an influence on her dutiful granddaughter, Elizabeth, later to be Queen.

Queen Mary is presented with a pig at a Wimbledon piggery in 1918. She was fond of presents

Mary of Teck, seen here with husband George V, persuaded hosts to hand over treasured possessions as a 'gifts'. She said thank you with flowers recycled from her vases at home

Mary of Teck grew up in straitened circumstances but was favoured by Queen Victoria

Olga Romanov, a distant relative of the royals, says Queen Mary had 'upmarket kleptomania'. She loved to acquire other people's possessions, which made hosts wary of her visits

According to her official biographer, James Pope-Hennessy, Mary had been a shy child  'a big, pink and white, gawky girl'  who was overshadowed by her ebullient mother, the party-loving, Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck.

The extravagance of her parents ensured that money was tight when Queen Mary was a child, despite her aristocratic pedigree.

Mary grew into a serious woman with strong passions. She is known to have disliked her frivolous granddaughter, Princess Margaret Rose (the feeling was mutual), and had no time for the family homes at Sandringham or Balmoral.

Rather, she loved literature and liked to be read to for seven hours at time by long-suffering courtiers.

Straddling the 19th and 20th centuries, Queen Mary connected the present with a fast-vanishing world of the past.

It is easy to forget that the Royal Family was rootedly German. Mary was the first consort for 400 years to speak English as her mother tongue. And even so, she had a guttural German accent.

Her husband, King George V, may have been commander-in-chief of the British Army, but he also held a number of high-ranking posts in the German military, with German uniforms to suit.

Queen Mary was a direct link to the reign of Victoria, who had described her as 'a very fine [baby], with pretty little features and a quantity of hair.'

Victoria would later take the young princess under her wing and support the match with her grandson and heir to the throne, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, who proposed to her in 1891.

Tragedy struck the following year, however, when Albert succumbed to the great influenza pandemic. Already sick, he contracting pneumonia and died at Sandringham in Norfolk.

In May 1893, his younger brother George  now heir to the throne  proposed to Mary and she once again accepted. They were soon married, eventually producing six children.

The black and white photographs of the time project a somewhat dour image.

Queen Mary was a force in her own right, however  a point made in telling detail by Pope-Hennessy.

Appointed Mary's biographer after her death in 1953 at the age of 85, the author spent three years noting down confidential conversations with friends, family and courtiers, which he stipulated should not be published for 50 years.

The party-loving mother of Queen Mary of Teck, Princess Mary Adelaide was known as 'Fat Mary'. There was little spare money to be had when her daughter was growing up

Seen here in Coronation robes, Queen Mary of Teck was the first royal consort to speak English for 400 years. Even so, she had a guttural German accent

It was 2018 when they finally appeared in his book, The Quest For Queen Mary.

The detail is fascinating. The Countess of Shaftesbury tells him, for example, that Queen Mary had the rare attribute of being able to eavesdrop on 30 people at once around a dinner table.

Queen Mary herself confided to Cynthia Colville, a long-serving lady-in-waiting, that she once saw her father hurl a plate across the table at her mother's head.

Colville also explains that Queen Mary's father, the Duke of Teck, died 'insane', and that Queen Mary had been in love with neither the Duke of Clarence, despite their engagement, nor with his younger brother, Prince George  later George V - whom she married.

The book claims that the real love of Mary's life was the 7th Earl of Hopetoun, a distinguished statesman who became the first Governor General of Australia.

Not even the late Queen, Elizabeth II, escapes Pope-Hennessy's sharp observations:

'Certain subjects she pounces upon, because they interest her personally,' he writes.

'But on the whole, it is clockwork conversation, not at all difficult on either side, but not, on the other hand, memorable, interesting or worth the paper it could be typed on.'
A New York resident has warned Americans of a scam risk after he lost almost $5,000 that he was trying to send to his ailing mother using a payments app.

Jim Heptinstall set up an account with Revolut, which bills itself as a borderless 'digital banking alternative' and offers a prepaid Visa card, money transfers and currency-exchange services.

When Jim's UK-based mom needed a new wheelchair last year, he thought it would be the perfect way to transfer funds from the US without paying a costly fee.

But after transferring money into his account, he was horrified to discover a series of fraudulent payments totaling almost $5,000 had been made to Eastern European names he didn't recognize without his knowledge.

After months of back and forth, the firm refused to refund Jim, 44, a penny. Revolut finally agreed to reimburse the New Yorker the $4,715 stolen from his account only after DailyMail.com intervened.

Jim Heptinstall says he lost nearly $5,000 from his Revolut account. The money was meant for his mother in England who needs a wheelchair

Jim is not the first to complain about the firm's handling of fraud claims - in the UK, where Revolut is headquartered, the company has been criticized by fraud victims who have not been issued refunds.

Revolut allows users to open an account with just a phone number and no paperwork. And the company claims it partners with authorized vendors to retrieve users' information such as social security numbers, addresses and emails.

Jim told DailyMail.com he first heard about Revolut from a friend who was visiting the US from England and used the neobank to transfer around $800 to him.

The consultant, who is originally from England, kept the money his friend sent him, in his Revolut account, which he accessed through facial recognition on his iPhone.

He mostly forgot about the app until he needed to send money to the UK for his 76-year-old mother, who has rheumatoid arthritis and needed a wheelchair.

But shortly after transferring three separate payments of $1,500 from his Chase bank account to his Revolt account, Jim checked the app and saw five batches of payments made between August 14, 2022, and September 24, 2022 that he says were fraudulent.

Records shared with DailyMail.com show 18 transactions totaling $4,715 to names such as Yana Melnychenko, Pavlo Petrukhin and Anatoliy Khugol.

'The money was intercepted by a number of Eastern European names,' Jim told DailyMail.com. 'I've got the statement saying all these different strange names. I have no idea who these people are.'

Jim claims that when he tried to contact Revolut, he could only speak to agents through online chats and was directed to file a police report.

'I wasn't able to physically speak to anyone, it was all through chat rooms with different agents every time,' he said. 'They have no one to actually talk to on the phone. You can't call anyone. It's all through chats. It's just appalling customer service. They didn't give a s***.'

He then contacted his local police department, the NYPD, the Federal Trade Commission as well as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to make formal complaints.

However, the agencies eventually told him they had contacted Revolut and trusted the results of the company's internal investigation, which claimed the transactions were legitimate and would not be refunded.

'They talked to them and came back to me and said, you know, we're happy with the investigation that they made,' Jim said.

DailyMail.com has reached out to the NYPD and the three agencies for comment.

Records of some the transactions shared with DailyMail.com to names such as Yana Melnychenko, Pavlo Petrukhin and Anatoliy Khugol

Jim checked the app and saw five batches of payments made between August 14, 2022, and September 24, 2022 that he says were fraudulent

Records of the transactions shared with DailyMail.com show 18 transactions totaling $4,715

According to Revolut's website: 'The funds that are on deposit in your card account are held by Metropolitan Commercial Bank and are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) up to $250,000.'

But months after the allegedly fraudulent transactions, Jim said he had been unable to get any sort of refund, and thought he would be forced to cough up extra money to assist his mom in England.

'Revolut has millions of users - when it comes to the crimes they need to step up because Russian, or some sort of hackers are getting in and taking their clients' money and they don't really care,' he added.

'I would love to just get that money back and send it straight to my mom. Literally, that's where it's going to go.'

Finally, after being contacted by DailyMail.com, a spokesperson for Revolut said they had reviewed the case and would now be refunding Jim the $4,715 stolen from his account.

In a statement, the company said: 'Revolut takes the protection and support of its customers extremely seriously and is fully aware of the industry-wide risk of customers being targeted by organized criminals. We are very sorry to hear about any instance where our customers are targeted by ruthless and highly sophisticated criminals.

'Revolut would like to apologize to Mr Heptinstall over this case. The support and communication that he received fell below our usually high standards. As a gesture of goodwill we are covering the stolen funds in full.'

The neobank launched in the US in 2020, and now boats more than 700,000 US customers. Last year, it named Sid Jajodia as CEO of its US arm in an effort to advance its reach in North America.

The company submitted a draft application with US regulators to obtain a banking license back in March 2022 but has yet to receive it.

While Revolut is still little known in the US, the company has been plagued by controversy across the pond as users claim to have fallen victim to various types of scams.

Mother-of-two Jenny Crooks claims she and her husband lost their live savings after a fraudster stole his card details, walked into Cartier in Selfridges, and spent 62,000 ($77,149).

The company, which has been described as the U.K's most valuable fintech company, has received scores of complaints from users who say they have lost money in scams

Heptinstall contacted regulatory authorities and the NYPD, but Revolut said the transactions were legitimate

The couple, who lives in England, said Revolut has been difficult to contact and tried to write them off with generic emails and denials.

When she asked Revolut why they hadn't received a notification and the payment hadn't been blocked, an agent replied that because the transaction was made using Apple Pay, it hadn't been through some security protocols.

This month, the Bank of England told the Treasury that it was planning on rejecting Revolut's application for a banking license after the company's two-year campaign.

According to the Telegraph, the Bank's Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), responsible for licenses, told the Treasury in March that Revolut's initial application would be turned down within weeks because of concerns over its balance sheet.

That would be a crushing blow for the company which has been trying since 2021 to win approval from regulators so it can expand its services in Britain into taking deposits and giving loans.

Founded in 2015, Revolut was once the UK's tech darling, hailed as a 'shining' success by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. The neobank currently has 28 million customers across Europe, Asia and the US.

Its founder and CEO, Nikolay Storonsky, created the platform to provide cheaper currency transfers and the fintech is backed by the Bank of Lithuania, which granted it a European banking license in 2018.

While the Crooks suffered a fraud known as card fraud, other common scams include Authorized Push Payment (APP) scams, where fraudsters trick people into sending money to accounts controlled by crooks.

In 2022, 900 complaints about APP scams were made to the UK's Financial Ombudsman about Revolut, of which 594 were upheld.

This is nearly three times the number of complaints made in 2021 and more than five times the number Revolut received in 2020. However, their customer numbers have also increased rapidly over the same period.
The pictures say it all: America is overwhelmed.

At the southern border, migrants camp out in a muddy no-man's land between California and Mexico.

Some 2,500 miles away, buses crammed with migrants leave Manhattan through bridges and tunnels  an effort by struggling New York City officials to shift the problem to smaller cities upstate.

Immigration monitors predicted a surge of migrants when pandemic-era entry restrictions lapsed earlier this month.

It did not materialize, but millions of asylum seekers and other migrants without papers had already entered the country.

Some had packed possessions into plastic bags and waded through the Rio Grande river, carrying children on their shoulders.

Migrants cross the Rio Grande River to enter the US, in Matamoros, Mexico, as pandemic-era rules came to an end

After crossing the Rio Grande river, migrants await processing by US immigration officials during a vicious sandstorm in El Paso

Border Patrol officers processing immigrants in Yuma, Arizona

Migrants put their arms between the bars of the wall to grab the food delivered by volunteers. Some 400 migrants, all families, were camped out on US soil in the no man's land between Tijuana and San Diego after crossing the border illegally

Mexican National Guard soldiers and local police put on a show of force along the Rio Grande river border in Ciudad Juarez, in Mexico

From coast to coast, sanctuary cities are struggling to shelter the new arrivals.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams this week asked a judge to let the city suspend its obligation to shelter any homeless migrants.

About 70,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the Big Apple since last spring  mostly folks who traveled up to the US overland through Mexico.

The city spends $8 million a day to house the 37,500 asylum seekers in shelters.

Adams has called on President Joe Biden and the White House to stump up cash for America's cities.

Biden has 'failed this city,' he said last month, in an unusual rebuke from one Democrat to another.

The cash-strapped mayor has even started sending migrants upstate to destinations like Newburgh.

People board a bus outside New York City's Roosevelt Hotel, a disused landmark that's used for processing an unusually large number of migrants

Parents and community members chant as they march around P.S. 189 in Upper Manhattan to protest New York City Mayor Eric Adam's plan to temporarily house immigrants in the school's gymnasium

Migrants from African countries like Burkina Faso, Egypt and Mauritania, in Newburgh, after being relocated from New York City

Among them is 19-year-old Mohammed, an asylum seeker from Mauritania who entered overland from the US.

'It's like the desert,' Mohamed said of the small city on the Hudson River, where he struggles to find work.

'There's nothing here for us.'

Though thieves ransacked Mohamed's few remaining possessions when he stayed at an overcrowded 40-bed shelter in Brooklyn, he wants to return to New York.

'There, no one cursed at you and said 'go back to your country',' he told AP.

The plight of migrants was spotlighted this week by the death of a four-month-old in a Manhattan hotel that's now used to shelter for migrants.

The baby girl arrived in the US from Ecuador in January with her family. Her death is under investigation.

The crisis could be even worse in Chicago, some 800 miles to the west.

There, cash-strapped officials said they cannot afford to rent hotel rooms for all arriving migrants and asked for more federal funding.

The shelters of America's third-biggest city are so overwhelmed that migrants have slept in police stations.

With nowhere else to turn, newcomers have set down mattresses in cop shops for a safe place to rest.

A father from Venezuela feeds his 15-month-old son in the lobby of a police station where they have been staying with other migrant families since their arrival to Chicago, Illinois

Migrants receive supplies outside the District 12 station of the Chicago Police Department in Chicago, Illinois

Immigrants from Venezuela rest in the lobby of a police station where they've been staying since their arrival to Chicago, Illinois, earlier this month

Poll Does the Biden administration have a grip on immigration? Yes No Does the Biden administration have a grip on immigration? Yes 65 votes

No 2208 votes Now share your opinion





Tomas Orozco, 55, recently arrived in Chicago with his family.

They reached the US after an arduous seven-week journey from their home country, Venezuela.

They even passed through the notorious Darien Gap, a treacherous stretch of jungle separating Colombia and Panama

There, his family members got sick from drinking contaminated water.

'We're waiting to see where they're going to place us,' Orozco told a reporter after reaching the windy city.

Migrant flows have deepened tensions between Republican and Democratic politicians.

Earlier this month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, resumed a campaign of busing migrants to Democratic strongholds further north, including Chicago and New York City.

The buses alleviate pressure on border cities.

They also focus attention on what Republicans call Biden's lax 'open border' policy.

Migrants wait in a bus for its departure to Phoenix Airport from a migrant transition center in Somerton, Arizona, after being released by Border Patrol

A migrant lies on a sleeping pad at a makeshift shelter in Denver, Colorado

Sleeping pads for migrants are piled up by checking in table at a makeshift shelter in Denver, Colorado

Venezuelan migrant Jackson Marcano counts what little money he has in his pocket at a processing center in Denver, Colorado

Migrants wait in line for meals from a food truck at a migrant processing center in Denver, Colorado, earlier this month

Texas this month began busing migrants to Denver, where Democratic Mayor Michael Hancock was already struggling to house new arrivals.

The city of 711,000 people has seen an influx of some 10,000 migrants in the last six months alone.

Officials this week extended a declaration of a local disaster emergency to the end of June.

Migrants, mostly Venezuelans, have been placing thin blankets on hard floors in makeshift shelters hoping for some shuteye.

Many were not prepared for the chilly city, with only T-shirts and flip-flops to wear.

Other border states have tried different ways to move migrants and asylum seekers north.

Florida's Republican Gov Ron DeSantis this month signed a law that tightens rules on identity cards and proof of citizenship.

Migrants hunkering down under a blanket after entering the US at El Paso, Texas, during a vicious sandstorm

Migrants wait for a bus to take them to a processing center after turning themselves over to US Border Patrol in Fronton, Texas

The sun sets behind these migrants, trying to reach the US, near the US-Mexico border, in Ciudad Juarez

The sun casts a long shadow as these migrants arrive for processing and entry into the US in Zuma, Arizona

The pandemic rule known as Title 42 allowed US border guards to expel migrants to Mexico without the chance to seek US asylum.

For some even long-term undocumented residents of Florida, this means it is time to leave the state.

Chaotic scenes at the border and the scramble for shelter in Chicago, New York, Denver, and other cities follows the end this month of COVID-19 border restrictions.

Tens of thousands of people hurried to cross the border illegally before Biden implemented a strict new asylum regulation to replace the rule.

The Biden Administration reinstated criminal penalties for trying to enter the US illegally.

This appears to have deterred many from crossing the border.

US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said border guards saw a 50 percent drop in encounters at the border.

Still, there were already plenty of migrants in the US.

A lightning bolt crackles from the sky during a storm as migrants lined up for processing by immigration officials after crossing the Texas-Mexico frontier

Migrants awaiting processing near razor wire at the border in El Paso, Texas

Groups of migrants from both Peru and Senegal beat the clock just before the expiration of Title 42 in Yuma, Arizona

Only 31 percent of voters say they approve of the president's handling of immigration, an AP-NORC poll found this week.

In the 2022 budget year, which ended in September, agents apprehended immigrants a record 2.38 million times at the southern border.

Though the expected surge did not materialize, the scenes at the border and in sanctuary cities are denting Biden's appeal.

Only 40 percent say they approve of Biden's overall job performance  a poor showing for a president seeking reelection next year.

Immigration hawks say the reality is worse than what is seen on the border.

This week, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, warned that 1.5 million undocumented migrants had slipped into the US since Biden took office in January 2021.

Only 31 percent of voters say they approve of the president's handling of immigration

Biden's low marks on immigration follows the end of Title 42 authority and a surge of migration from people who traveled through Mexico

These 'gotaways'  as they are known  do not appear in government statistics, as they are not seen crossing the lengthy 1,250-mile-long Texas-Mexico border.

'Who do you think are the ones getting away?' said Mark Morgan, a fellow of the think tank and former border guard.

'That's where the criminal element is coming in. That's where the gang members are getting through.'

Agencies contributed to this report.
Previously among the UK's most popular breeds, cockapoos, pugs and French bulldogs are increasingly being abandoned by unscrupulous owners and 'money making' breeders.

More than 30 cockapoo dogs were left at one animal charity in Wales alone last week, highlighting a wider issue that has left animal shelters across the UK in crisis as they deal with overwhelming numbers of dumped pets.

It was the latest in a string of similar incident in recent months, where young dogs have been abandoned by backyard breeders and owners - either left at the roadside or outside rescue centres.

Two eight-week old puppies dumped in a domestic food bin in November, before another tiny pet found abandoned in a rucksack in a Berkshire woodland days later.

The crisis has been created by pure greed, according to veteran campaigner Sylvia Van Atta, who runs the Many Tears charity, near Llanelli, Carmarthenshire.

More than 30 of cockapoos arrived at an animal charity within a few days, - along with the Cocker Spaniels theyre bred from

Scores of young dogs were abandoned by backyard breeders or owners, some of them dumped at the side of busy roads or left outside rescue centres

Karl and Victoria Shellard were both fined 19,000 and ordered to pay back 372,531 after they admitting back-to-back breeding

Former Crufts judge Gareth Lawler (pictured) was ordered to pay 78,000 or face a year in jail after being caught secretly making a fortune from his own illegal puppy farm where he kept dogs in awful conditions

The group of 30 Cockapoos, and the Cocker Spaniels they are bred from, were left at her charity by breeders who saw an opportunity to cash in on the spike in popularity before abandoning the dogs when demand fell.

READ MORE: Scores of puppies and pregnant dogs are being abandoned by 'money-maker' breeders Advertisement

Ms Van Atta last month blasted 'money-maker' breeders and unaware owners for creating an 'unprecedented' situation.

Animal charities say the Covid pandemic has had a 'devastating impact' on the number of dogs being abandoned across the UK, with families having misunderstood the commitment and life changes needed to look after a pet.

The popularity of cockapoos particularly soared during lockdown, with the average price rising by 168 per cent - reaching 1,336 last year.

But having become the most popular breeds in Britain along with French bulldogs and pugs, the dogs have fallen down the list and been replaced by former favourites such as labradors.

Laura Hedges, of the London-based charity All Dogs Matter, said animal shelters are becoming overwhelmed by the sheer number of abandoned pets.

She added: 'We have seen a big rise in the number of mother dogs being abandoned after producing multiple litters for unscrupulous breeders. Often still lactating and in need of vet care, whilst their puppies are sold on for profit.

'The pandemic  and the huge rise in dog ownership across this period - has had a devastating impact on the number of dogs now being abandoned or surrendered and dog rescue centres across the country are in crisis as a result.'

Ms Hedges continued: 'Animal shelters like us are overwhelmed. The number of dogs being surrendered to us or abandoned has shot up. We often get calls for dogs that have just been left tied to a bench or tied up outside a charity. People are desperate to get rid of them.

'We are taking 70 to 100 calls a month - that is a big jump. We have seen a huge spike in the number of people needing our help. We can only take in so many. We have 10 kennels here and a further ten foster carers.

Cute but costly... many owners abandon pets after failing to grasp the full cost of keeping them

Backyard breeders dumped dozens of designer dogs after the lockdown boom came to an end

French bulldog Dumb was found in an awful condition after being abandoned by his owners at a vet surgery. He was suffering from neglect and was infested with fleas which had damaged his ear lobes

Nutmeg was also rescued by All Dogs Matter after she was found abandoned and trapped in brambles on an industrial estate

'We are really worried about the situation. We also don't have the same number of people applying to receive dogs. This is the worse it has been in a long time and we are really worried about how long it will continue.'

Speaking to MailOnline last month, Ms Van Atta added: 'During Covid, breeding kennels were not monitored by councils, and everyone watched as the price of puppies rocketed and more and more were bred.

'Backyard breeders bought dogs to make quick money, many with no idea about the experience and expense needed to socialise, feed and oversee the welfare of puppies they simply saw as 'money-makers'. Some didn't care, so long as they were making money.

'We've been left to pick up the pieces, and we're not alone. Many rescue centres are at breaking point. Adoptions are falling and their futures are in doubt.'

Earlier this year, the RSPCA was forced to sound the alarm over a 73 per cent rise in the number of puppies being dumped after a boom in demand during lockdown.

The charity said it is seeing more flat-faced dogs, such as French bulldogs and pugs, coming into its care - with the figure more than doubling from 2021 to 2022.

Some 3.2million households are thought to have bought pets when Covid restrictions were in force to combat social isolation or boost exercise.

Tyson, a mixed breed, was starved to the point where 'every bone' in his body was visible

The depressed dog was found trapped in a room where he had no water and was surrounded by his own faeces and urine

But sales declined after restrictions were lifted, leading to a surplus of puppies.

The animal charity has blamed the sharp rise in the number of puppies being abandoned on this sales slump as callous breeders dump the extra dogs no one wants to buy.

In 2022, the charity said, 711 puppies and breeding female dogs were abandoned, up from 411 in 2021. The pre-Covid figure in 2019 was 275 dumped puppies.

In October, an illegal dog breeder who made 150,000 while keeping more than 40 animals in squalid conditions at a farmhouse was jailed.

Alison Bransby, 61, kept dogs and puppies in wooden sheds and kennels barely the size of rabbit hutches at her home in Tilstock, Shropshire.

A married couple who illegally bred and sold dogs at their country home were also ordered to pay 400,000 by a judge in January earlier this year.

Karl and Victoria Shellard forced canines to deliver back-to-back litters after setting up their unlicensed 'PosherBulls' breeding service from their home in Bonvilston, South Wales.

King Charles Spaniel Teddy was found blind, deaf and stained with his own urine after he was abandoned and eventually had to be put down

The rogue pair of dog-breeders were able to cash in on rising demand for dogs during the lockdown, selling puppies for up to 20,000 a time.

A court heard the couple bred at least 67 litters over six years - with one dog named Coco delivering six litters within a four-year period.

And in December, a shamed Crufts dog show judge was ordered to pay 78,000 or face a year in jail after being caught secretly making a fortune from his own illegal puppy farm where he kept dogs in awful conditions.

Gareth Lawler, 57, made 153,000 from breeding 27 puppy litters of eight different breeds while being a well-known Kennel Club judge assessing breeds such as English Springer Spaniels.

Rebecca MacIver, centre manager at the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home said: 'For many owning a pet can be a rewarding and fun experience, however, when people are looking to welcome a pet into their homes, we would always encourage potential new owners to do their homework and consider the cost and responsibilities involved before taking on such a commitment.

'Each animal has their own personality which deserves to be celebrated and at Battersea we think its time people looked beyond a pets pedigree or breed and instead concentrated on the character that makes each rescue animal unique.

'Whilst we believe that rescues are the best, if new owners have their hearts set on buying a pet, its important to purchase one from a reputable breeder where the animals are well cared for.'

Tarryn Twitchett, from the rehoming team at the Blue Cross pet charity, added: 'As with many pet charities at the moment, we are seeing an overall rise in the need for kennel space for people making the sad decision to give up their dog for rehoming.

'This, coupled with fewer homes being available and breeders finding it harder to sell their puppies compared to during the pandemic when demand was very high.

'This could mean they resort to rehoming them, or even abandoning them to fend for themselves. Alternatives of trying to sell, give away online or even resort to abandoning them could mean an uncertain future in the wrong home or even be left to die without the proper care they need.'
In 2018, the Director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections admitted defeat - he couldn't find any lethal injection drugs.

It had been three years since the last execution in the state, and Joe Allbaugh conceded in a press conference he had been calling 'seedy individuals' from 'all around the world - right down to the backstreets of the Indian subcontinent' - to find the necessary lethal cocktail.

But in detailing his 'mad hunt' to find the drugs, the former FEMA director inadvertently revealed a crisis that had been plaguing America's death row for years.

From basement pharmacies to expired execution drugs and agonizing deaths, an underground system is quietly propping up death rows across the nation.

Texas' Huntsville penitentiary

Issues with America's lethal injections primarily stem from a lack of willingness from pharmacies to produce the drugs used in executions. Pfizer's decision to halt use of its products in 2016 closed the last remaining open-market source of the drugs.

Yet, executions have continued, leading the Texas Department of Corrections to come under fire after extending the use-by dates of lethal injection drug pentobarbital for years.

The state denies the out-of-date cocktail makes the procedure more painful, a claim disputed by attorneys representing inmates who are continuing to be put to death with the drugs.

Fueled by a lack of pharmacies willing to produce the execution drug, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice decided to extend their stockpile's use-by dates.

Six condemned Texas inmates made headlines after launching a lawsuit against the authority last year, arguing the use of the drugs violated the US Constitution's statutes against cruel and unusual punishment.

But while the lawsuit made its way through the courts, inmates who signed onto the case, including convicted killers Wesley Ruiz, John Balentine, Gary Green, Arthur Brown Jr and Robert Fratta, have been executed by the same authority they are suing.

But long before, in 2010 it came to light that several states were sourcing their drugs from a one-man basement pharmacy dubbed 'Dream Pharma'.

When it became known that the drugs had been used by Arizona officials to execute convicted killer Jeffrey Landrigan, the London plant claimed it had no idea the drugs were going to be used for that purpose.

Jeffrey Landrigan, pictured, was executed over a decade ago in Arizona with lethal injection drugs allegedly purchased through a one-man basement lab in London

Five Texas death row inmates, including Arthur Brown Jr (left) Robert Fratta (center left) John Balentine (center right) and Gary Green (right), have been executed after joining a lawsuit against the safety of the lethal injection drugs used to kill them

Oklahoma became the first state to execute a prisoner with the drug pentobarbital, despite its intended use as an anesthetic for veterinarians. Pictured: The gurney in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary

Critics of the US death row system allege that it has violated the Constitution's limits on 'cruel and unusual punishment'

Underpinning the 'mad hunt' for the drugs is a production shortage, with the issue becoming so dire that in 2012, the Idaho Department of Corrections was accused of buying their drugs with a suitcase full of cash in a Walmart parking lot, according to the Idaho Press.

According to a lawsuit, officials allegedly paid more than $10,000 after taking a chartered plane to Takoma, Washington to pick them up, before not 'properly storing' the drugs prior to their use in executing Richard Leavitt just a month later in June.

The crisis has spread to states nationwide, with Arkansas also facing a blockbuster lawsuit from medical supply company McKesson in 2017 after allegedly lying about the reasons for buying a cocktail of drugs.

Ahead of a historic killing spree that would have seen eight prisoners executed in 11 days, Mckesson claimed the Arkansas Department of Corrections obtained its products illegally using 'false pretense, trickery and bad faith'.

Oklahoma instead turned to pentobarbital, the drug now at the center of Texas' death row scandal. In 2011, it became the first state to execute a prisoner with the drug, despite its intended use as an anesthetic for veterinarians.

'The drugs used in executions are all life-saving medicines that were never designed or intended to end the lives of prisoners,' said Blaire Andres, head of Death Penalty Projects with human rights organization Reprieve, to DailyMail.com.

'Executing states recognize that if people knew what really happens in the death chamber, support for capital punishment would fall to unsustainable levels.

'So, states go to great lengths to hide the gruesome reality of the death penalty from view.

'States have also increasingly turned to secretive and illegal tactics in their pursuit of executions, obtaining drugs from disreputable suppliers, or insisting on using expired drug products.'

Wesley Ruiz was one of five Texas death row inmates who have been put to death with the same lethal injection drugs they are suing against

Five Texas death row inmates, including John Balentine (left) and Gary Green (right), have been executed after joining a lawsuit against the safety of the lethal injection drugs used to kill them

Throughout this year, Texas has faced mounting pressure to explain why five inmates have been executed despite an ongoing lawsuit from the death row members themselves.

But the state's ambivalence to safety came to light five years earlier, when reports claimed the Department of Corrections turned to a series of small pharmacies to source its pentobarbital supplies.

One of the small-time labs that developed the drug in Houston reportedly fell foul of regulators multiple times, allegedly compounding the drug alongside medicines destined for hospitals and bathroom cabinets across the state.

According to documents obtained by Buzzfeed News, the state chose to rely on the pharmacy despite regulators warning of sloppy and dangerous work.

And the fears came to fruition in November 2016, when the lab allegedly sent a child to the emergency room after compounding the wrong drug cocktail, before forging quality control documents.
The Pentagon's number one priority is climate change, according to former Navy SEAL commander Rep. Ryan Zinke, which he says hurts the overall readiness of the Navy

Former Navy SEAL commander Rep. Ryan Zinke told DailyMail.com that under President Joe Biden's leadership, the military looks foolish on the world stage because it is pushing out-of-touch woke policies to the detriment of military 'readiness.'

Zinke told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview ahead of the Memorial Day Weekend holiday that the Pentagon's fixation on promoting equity and inclusivity initiatives is hurting the overall readiness of the Navy and amounts to a 'national security issue.'

The congressman blasted the Navy for promoting a now-discarded recruitment program featuring a drag queen.

Zinke said that having a drag queen influencer try and bridge the gap on the military's recruiting challenges is not the right path forward and there have been retainment 'consequences' as a result.

He called the focus on inclusivity a 'national security issue' because 'our primary mission is to fight.'

O'Neill was referencing Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, whose stage name is Harpy Daniels, who announced on TikTok in November that she would be the Navy's first 'digital ambassador'

Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, whose stage name is Harpy Daniels, who announced on TikTok in November that she would be the Navy's first 'digital ambassador.'Kelley was tasked with highlighting her journey from performing on board beginning in 2018 and growing to become an 'advocate' for those who 'were oppressed for years in the service.'

Zinke - along with Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana - recently sent a letter to Pentagon leadership demanding answers on a 'Drag Story Time' that was conducted at a military base in the state.

'The U.S. militarys active engagement in and support for divisive political and ideologically-driven issues weakens cohesion and morale and further degrades the recruitment and retention of men and women serving our country in uniform,' the lawmakers wrote in the their letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.

The Montana congressman also blasted the Secretary of the Navy for being so focused on combatting climate change, he regularly confuses 'sea level rise with tides.'

He says the global warming fixation is an example of how the military is dropping the ball on military readiness and lethality.

'They have eliminated the physical standards in the United States Navy. They used to do a physical readiness test (PRT) twice a year. Now it's once a year,' he cited as an example.

'And we clearly we have kept the eye off the ball in the Indo-Pacific,' Zinke said regarding the heightened aggression of China against neighboring island Taiwan.

He went on to say in the aftermath of the Biden administration's deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan - which Zinke called a 'colossal blunder' led to a simple truth, that 'our allies don't trust us.'

The main is issue is 'no one can tell me what the plan is,' for the U.S. to re-establish itself on the world stage.

William Bee, a former Marine who deployed to Afghanistan four times, told DailyMail.com that the only changes made to the military should be to 'increase lethality.'

'Everything else is dross,' Bee said in response to the rise of the military's woke push.

Zinke also called the Pentagon's former COVID-19 vaccine mandate policy 'near to fascism.'

The Montana congressman criticized the Pentagon's blanket policy, saying that during the pandemic, if active-duty troops dared to raise concerns about the vaccine's side effects or point to their own natural immunity against the virus, they were shot down by leadership.

The Navy has recently come under fire for promoting a now-discarded recruitment program featuring a drag queen

If service members dared to raise concerns about the vaccine's side effects or point to their own natural immunity against the virus, they were shot down by leadership, said Zinke

Rep. Ryan Zinke previously served as a former Navy SEAL commander

Zinke told DailyMail.com that the Department of Defense essentially made honorable service members 'stand in line like a little communist' and get vaccinated without objection.

'What happened if you raise your hand? You were immediately ostracized,' said Zinke.

It has been almost six months since Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which stripped out the Pentagon's mandate after it came to light the military was in 'noncompliance' with a federal law for mass denying legitimate vaccine religious accommodation requests.

Now Congress is looking into ways to reinstate fired troops who refused to be vaccinated over religious liberty or personal health concerns.

'If you're a nurse practitioner, you lose your job. If you're a Navy SEAL, they were trying to not only have you discharged from service, they were trying to bankrupt you to repay millions of dollars that government has spent on training,' Zinke added.

DailyMail.com has learned that in some cases, service members fired for refusing the vaccine on religious grounds have been forced by the military to repay their initial signing bonus.

One service member said he owes $4,000 of an initial $7,000 signing bonus.

SEALs and other special operations warfare troops have also been told that in some cases they would have to pay back the cost of their training by the federal government - which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

'They're extraordinarily talented people, but they were kicked to the curb and ostracized [by the Pentagon], which in many cases, caused renewed hardship for someone who served the country,' continued the congressman.

Zinke said the terminated service members should be offered by the Pentagon to be reinstated - an issue that Republicans in Congress are looking into.

Former Marine Bee told DailyMail.com that although it is 'understandable' to make a 'force-wide' decision on medical vaccines, individuals with religious concerns should have been taken more seriously by the Pentagon.

Zinke is currently leading a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and the Senate to push forward a new bill that would address the mental health crisis among U.S. veterans

'You stick around long enough in the military you lose track of how many vaccines you get. HOWEVER, when marines and sailors submit a religious exemption, then that enters the realm of free exercise of religion, and that is something that is sacrosanct,' Bee said.

The former marine pointed to the case of Lance Corporal Catherine Arnett, who was forced to spend 113 days in the brig for refusing to get vaccinated.

He called it a 'great example of how the higher echelons of leadership in the Marine Corps operate.'

Zinke is currently leading a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and the Senate to push forward a new bill that would address the mental health crisis among U.S. veterans by 'streamlining' access to care.

The 'Protecting Veteran Community Care Act' led by Zinke, R-Mont., and Air Force veteran Donald Davis, D-N.C., is designed to address continuing pitfalls of the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) - including extremely long wait times and rescheduled appointments.

Including Zinke, the legislation has the backing of all five former Navy SEAL lawmakers in Congress including Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, Eli Crane, R-Ariz., and Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis.
Shah Mehmood to 'lead PTI' if Imran gets disqualified

Islamabad, May 28 (UNI) Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has said that PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi would lead the party in case of his disqualification by a court.

If I am disqualified, Shah Mehmood Qureshi will run the party, Khan said on Saturday in a meeting with journalists and lawyers at his Zaman Park residence in Lahore.

The statement comes as the PTI chief has been facing a slew of cases ranging from corruption to terrorism since being ousted from power in April last year.
The year is 2027 and Kyiv's dreams have come true: Russia has lost the war, its troops have withdrawn from all Ukrainian territory - and Vladimir Putin has fallen from power.

But far from turning Russia into a Western-friendly democracy, the defeat has spawned a bitter, dangerous and unstable state right on Europe's doorstep - ruled over by yet another nuclear-armed autocrat.

Worse still, the new regime in Moscow is firmly in Beijing's back pocket.

That is just one sobering scenario put forward by expert Duncan Allan in a new report which warns that - even if Ukraine's counter-attack smashes Putin's army - Russia will pose long-term risks that the West must be ready to deal with.

Mr Allan, an associate fellow at the Chatham House think-tank, said: 'Never say never, but I don't see any serious likelihood of a democratic Russia within the next five years.

Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin (File photo). Duncan Allan, an associate fellow at the Chatham House think-tank, said: Never say never, but I dont see any serious likelihood of a democratic Russia within the next five years'

'It will retain an essentially authoritarian system. Even if the war ends decisively on Ukraine's terms I would expect Russia to be a long-term challenge to the UK and Europe.

'It is necessary to think about what we may have to deal with in the future. That debate needs to intensify.'

Mr Allan stresses that the paper is not intended as a prediction of the future, but instead tries to imagine likely outcomes for Russia if the war in Ukraine plays out according to a best-case scenario.

By best-case, Mr Allan means that Ukraine inflicts heavy losses on Russia in its coming offensive, sparking a palace coup in Moscow which leads to the signing of an armistice by mid-2024.

The war ends with the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory - including Crimea - and in return the West agrees to lift some but not all of its sanctions.

With Putin gone, rule of Russia falls to the cabal of elites who helped remove him.

Pictured: A clinic heavily destroyed by a Russian missile strike in Dnipro, Ukraine on May 26, 2023

The question Mr Allan tries to answer is: What happens next? And that is where the Western pipe-dream comes to an end.

While many hope the end of Putin would bring about the transformation of Russia into a friendly state, he sees powerful internal forces keeping more-or-less the same authoritarian system in place.

For one, Mr Allan argues, there seems to be little appetite among Russian society for huge top-down reform because the last attempt - after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s - ended in economic disaster.

For another, he believes the elites who remove Putin are likely to share his basic worldview and to be heavily invested in the current system, meaning they have little reason to change it.

All of which means that Russia is also unlikely to radically alter its relationship with the West.

'The outcome of [a palace coup] does not suggest that a leadership with radically different ideas would take power following defeat in Ukraine', Mr Allan writes.

'And an authoritarian political system would prevent an open debate about these issues.

'In other words, without far-reaching domestic political change, a major reappraisal of Russia's place in the world would seem unlikely.'

Pictured: Ukrainian artillery fires towards the frontline, near Bakhmut, Ukraine, on April 13, 2023

Instead, he believes that Russia would end up somewhere between two scenarios.

In the first, the transition of power goes more or less smoothly and the new government - unchallenged in its rule - breaks with the worst impulses of the Putin era.

There is limited economic reform to tempt back oligarchs and business owners, power is split more evenly between the ruling cabal instead of one supreme leader, and they try to get sanctions lifted by improving relations with the West.

A lot would depend on who ends up leading the country, but Mr Allan argues it is not impossible to imagine a new president 'who would perhaps not share Putin's visceral animosity towards the West, nor his obsession with Ukraine.'

Even so, there would be no transition to democracy, the economy would be heavily state controlled, and Russia would still be no friend of the West.

However, a 'darker' scenario is also possible, he warns, in which Russia's new leaders become even more repressive than Putin and even more aggressive towards Britain, the US and their allies.

In this scenario, the transition of power is fraught - perhaps a new strongman with even more hardline views emerges and clamps down on dissent to establish authority.

Pictured: The Krelin (File photo). Mr Allan believes that Russia would end up somewhere between two scenarios. In the first, the transition of power goes more or less smoothly and the new government - unchallenged in its rule - breaks with the worst impulses of the Putin era

Or the cabal of ruling elites faces domestic unrest, infighting, or opposition from other powerful figures - sparking a crackdown that sends the economy into reverse.

Russia ends up poorer, more repressive and more unstable - and underneath it all lurks the sting of defeat in Ukraine which Russians already blame on NATO.

'[That] could produce an embattled Russian leadership whose disposition was militantly anti-Western,' Mr Allan writes.

'Such a regime might actively undermine the stability of 'unfriendly' adjacent countries, starting with Ukraine,' including renewed interference in Donbas and Crimea.

'[The regime could] prioritize cooperation with authoritarian neighbours to neutralize Western influence around Russia's borders; be even more aggressive in its covert hostile activities against Western countries; step up attempts to divide NATO and the EU; oppose meaningful cooperation over arms control, proliferation and regional conflicts; and/or be even more closely aligned with authoritarian anti-Western leaderships such as in Iran.'

Wherever Russia ends up on the spectrum, Mr Allan believes Moscow will have little choice but to draw closer with China to replace lost economic ties with the West.

That would mean Moscow being 'unquestionably the junior partner', raising the prospect of the Kremlin doing Beijing's bidding.

The gap between Russia's view of itself as a major world power and its diminished standing would grow, making the country bitter, dangerous and unpredictable.

Pictured: Chinese President Xi Jinping (File photo). Wherever Russia ends up on the spectrum, Mr Allan believes Moscow will have little choice but to draw closer with China to replace lost economic ties with the West

All of which means Europe having to commit significant extra spending on defence as a safeguard, possibly at a time of economic hardship across the continent.

And Mr Allan argues that leaders need to start preparing people for that possibility now.

He adds: 'This should not be viewed as a forecast. I'm not saying this is what will happen, and there are a number of scenarios that I think are more likely than this - for example that there is no settlement to end the war.

'Additionally, some of the scenarios that I imagine - like Russia becoming more hardline - are possible even if Putin remains in power.

'Western governments have not exactly been clear about what their objectives are [for the war], but I think it is fair to say that a decisive Ukrainian victory would be viewed as exceptionally favourable.

'And if Western governments are thinking in those terms, it makes sense to start thinking about the kind of Russia they could be dealing with.

'I find it very difficult to visualise a system that is fundamentally different to the current system by the end of 2027.'
Anson Frericks is a co-founder of Strive Asset Management and a former Anheuser-Busch executive

Every day it seems that another iconic American brand has marched head-on into the furious buzzsaw of public controversy.

Last month, Bud Light's sponsorship of transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney sparked massive customer backlash.

Now, Target is the subject of boycotts after releasing a line of women's clothing intended to be worn by biological men with 'tuck-friendly construction' and 'extra crotch' room.

The companies saw their stock prices plummet and billions of dollars of value erased  almost overnight.

They're not alone. Nike, Calvin Klein, North Face and even the Los Angeles Dodgers have been criticized for wading into America's culture wars. What is going on? Why is it that companies that were once happy to sell clothes and beverages and nostalgia to Americans of all political stripes are now appearing to take sides in contentious political fights?

The answer is simple - follow the money.

As an executive at Anheuser-Busch for more than a decade, I witnessed how the calculus of running a major corporation has been hijacked.

It's why I left.

No longer is the pursuit of the almighty dollar  within the bounds of morality and the law  the sole purpose of so many of America's top companies. Today, the country's greatest enterprises have been repurposed into vehicles of social change.

Allow me to explain.

Now, Target is the subject of boycotts after releasing a line of women's clothing (above) intended to be worn by biological men with 'tuck-friendly construction' and 'extra crotch' room.

Last month, Bud Light's sponsorship of transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney sparked massive customer backlash.

Target and Bud Light are publicly traded companies, which means that, ultimately, it's their investors  a.k.a. Wall Street  that's calling the shots.

Enter BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, the three largest and most influential financial institutions in U.S. history. They're known as the 'Big Three' on Wall Street, though many Americans have never heard of them.

These three companies control more than $20 trillion in assets, almost none of which is their own. Rather, they manage the money held in everyday American's retirement accounts, pension funds, mutual funds and investment accounts.

Together, the Big Three constitute the largest shareholders of nearly 90% of the largest companies listed on the U.S. stock exchange  the S&P 500.

The Big Three's influence is staggering. But if they were managing this money simply to make more money, there might not be an issue.

They're not.

The Big Three are proponents of what's called 'stakeholder capitalism,' which is a belief that businesses should be run not only to increase value to shareholders, but to serve all stakeholders, including government agencies, activists, and non-governmental organizations.

'Stakeholder capitalism' is distinct from traditional 'shareholder capitalism' which contends that companies have one responsibility - to generate profits for the individuals who own shares in the company.

The 'stakeholder' movement has been around since the 1970s, and has even earlier philosophical roots, but it truly began to gain traction in American investment circles only about five years ago.

2019 was a turning point.

That year, the Business Roundtable, which is a group of CEOs from America's largest companies, adopted a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation declaring that all companies 'share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders' to promote the larger social good.

188 American CEOs signed on.

Among them were the CEOs of the Big Three and other large financial institutions like JP Morgan and Bank of America, and many of the companies they own, including Target, Disney and Coca-Cola.

Bud Light, it should be noted, is owned by a European parent company and is ineligible to participate. But nonetheless, it has been influenced by this new vision of 'purpose.'

They're not alone. Nike, Calvin Klein (above), North Face and even the Los Angeles Dodgers have been criticized for wading into America's culture wars. What is going on?

Enter BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, the three largest and most influential financial institutions in U.S. history. They're known as the 'Big Three' on Wall Street, though many Americans have never heard of them. (Above, right) BlackRock CEO Larry Fink at New York Times DealBook Summit in November 2022

The Big Three began to issue guidelines on how they expected their portfolio companies to honor this 'commitment' by implementing so-called Environmental, Social, and Governance, or ESG, targets and scores

To encourage compliance, the Big Three uses their power as shareholders to influence who sits on corporate boards.

In 2021, they voted to replace Exxon Mobil board members with climate experts, who immediately sought to reduce the oil giant's exploration and drilling output to meet contested climate goals.

They subsequently voted for 'racial equity' audits at companies like Apple and Home Depot, compelling the companies to impose race-based hiring criteria and implement diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Beyond shareholder voting, The Big Three employ large engagement teams to pressure CEOs for progress on ESG goals and increased ESG scores.

Blackrock has over 70 employees dedicated to 'stewardship efforts.' In 2022 alone, they had 3,880 engagements, with 2,580 companies.

The Big Three also wield enormous influence when it comes to executive pay. According to one study, a shocking 73% of S&P 500 companies now tie executive compensation to ESG measures.

As an executive at Anheuser-Busch for more than a decade, I witnessed how the calculus of running a major corporation has been hijacked. It's why I left. (Above, right) Strive Asset Management co-founder, Anson Frericks

Bud Light and Target (shown above) saw their stock prices plummet and billions of dollars of value erased  almost overnight.

If a CEO doesn't weigh in on the latest social issue quickly enough, his or her bonus could be in jeopardy.

Many ordinary consumers have no idea that their money may be used as leverage by major financial institutions to influence popular American brands. But as the results are borne out in divisive product launches and marketing campaigns the impact is becoming clear  'stakeholder capitalism' is hurting businesses.

Previously loyal customers have stopped buying these products and they're opting for alternative brands that remain out of the political fray. This is bad news for shareholders who rely on these companies to meet their investment goals. It often puts CEOs at odds with their employees and customers.

It's also bad for society.

America traditionally settles contested political issues through an accountable electoral process. The 'stakeholder capitalism' movement subverts this system. Questions over environmental issues, parental rights, gender equality, and the like should be settled at the ballot box, not in the board room. And many Americans seem to agree.

They are starting to spend their hard-earned dollars at companies that focus on customers, not stakeholders.

Corporations would be wise to recognize this as Americans increasingly make their voices heard at the cash register.
She accused the brand of 'performative allyship' and said they were 'being successful in trying to erase' the LGBT community

Twilight star Rachelle Lefevre accused Target of 'trying to erase' the LGBTQ community, including her non-binary seven-year-old, after her local store moved their Pride merchandise display to the back.

Lefevre, 44, - who played Victoria in the franchise's second movie, New Moon - took to her Instagram to call out Target, which has received massive backlash for the new line which includes 'tuck-friendly' swimwear.

'I just walked into Target and where you see all these lovely swimsuits, that's where the Pride display used to be,' the mother-of-two said.

'I came in here two days ago, and my seven-year-old, who's non-binary, saw it and said: "Look, mom, it's Pride, look! They're going to celebrate me!'

Lefevre, who also starred in The White House Down, said she will no longer be able to bring her child to Target because she fears they will be upset to see the collection moved.

'So the next time my seven-year-old comes to Target - or rather I can't bring them here anymore, at least for the entire month of June - because if they walk in, and all the other people who walk in, and go: "Where did it go?" They're going to realize that [critics] are being successful in trying to erase them.

'We could do so much better than this,' she emotionally continued. 'We aren't supposed to negotiate with the terrorists.'

Twilight star Rachelle Lefevre, 44 - who played Victoria in franchises second movie, New Moon - took to her Instagram to call out Target, which has received massive backlash for both selling 'tuck-friendly' swimwear, and for moving the Pride collection to the back of stores

'I came in here two days ago, and my seven-year-old, who's non-binary, saw it and said: "Look, mom, it's Pride, look! They're going to celebrate me!' ...So the next time my seven-year-old comes to Target - or rather I can't bring them here anymore, at least for the entire month of June - because if they walk in, and all the other people who walk in, and go: "Where did it go?" They're going to realize that [critics] are being successful in trying to erase them'

In her caption, the Canadian actress said the retail company was giving 'performative allyship' and playing into the role the critics want.

She also said if it was a 'security issue,' that Target would be able to afford to hire 'extra security, but instead they chose to send the message that LGBTQ+ people arent worth protecting or fighting for.'

Earlier this week, Target moved the display to the back of some Southern stores. Although it is not clear what store Lefevre visited.

While the collection is annual at the chain, this year's display made waves after 'tuck-friendly' swimwear caught the attention of conservatives.

It began after a series of angry mothers took to Twitter and TikTok to complain. Over the last few weeks, the retail giant has been reviled by families for putting transgender clothes, books and greeting cards in its stores.

Outrage and confusion sparked over a range of 'tuck friendly' female swimsuits

It was after a series of angry mothers took to Twitter and TikTok to complain. Over the last few weeks, the retail giant has been reviled by families - particularly mothers - for putting transgender clothes, books and greeting cards in its stores

The company was forced to release a statement to insist the suits were only available in adult sizes.

'Since introducing this year's collection, we've experienced threats impacting our team members' sense of safety and wellbeing while at work,' Target said.

'Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior,' crisis communications manager Kayla Castaneda said.

The company did not specify which items had been taken off shelves. Many of the swimsuits, onesies and t-shirts that sparked outrage remain available online.

There is also growing outrage over its partnership with Eric Cullen, a British transgender man, whose brand Abprallen celebrates Satanism.

Target is selling two of the brand's items - a $25 slogan sweater with the words 'cure transphobia not trans people' wrapped around a sword, an $18 'too queer for here' tote bag, and a 'we belong everywhere' fanny pack that now appears to be sold out.

Eric - a transgender man - proudly shared photos of the collaboration on Instagram.

'These have already got the transphobes infuriated with me and I feel like quite the celebrity to think that they believe this is all some big conspiracy and I have any power to brainwash anyone when Im just some guy drawing pictures!' he said.

A closer look at his other work reveals some more sinister material.

Badges with slogans like 'Satan Respects Pronouns', 'Young, Queer and Willing' and a lighter pin with the words 'burn down the cis-tem' are among other products.

He also models the 'Satan respects pronouns' t-shirt on an Instagram page while wearing BDSM-style horns and no pants.

Yesterday, several stores in Utah, Ohio, and Pennsylvania received bomb threats that were sent to local news outlets.

A Layton Target - located at 810 West 2000 North - was evacuated after receiving multiple bomb threats. A bomb squad and a K9 unit were deployed to the store around 1pm, according to KUTV.

All staff and customers were directed to the parking lot.

Police said stores in Layton, Salt Lake, Taylorsville and Provo were threatened. Authorities became aware of the threats after local news stations received emails threatening danger and referencing the company's new controversial Pride collection.

Five Targets in across Northeast Ohio and Pennsylvania were also threatened, according to Cleveland 19, who received a threatening email listing stores in Stow, North Canton, Boardman, Niles, Ohio and Monaca, Pennsylvania.

'Target is full of [redacted] cowards who turned their back on the LGBT community and decided to cater to homophobic right wing, redneck, bigots, who protested and vandalized their store,' the email to Cleveland 19 read. 'We won't stand idly by as the far right continues to hunt us down.

'We are sending you a message, we placed a bomb in the following Targets,' the email continued. 'We will continue to bomb your Targets until you stop cowering and bring back your LBGT merchandise.

'We will not be erased, we won't go quietly.'

Cleveland 19 reported the threatening email to all local police forces and the FBI.

Layton Police Sergeant John Ottesen told KUTV that the threats made in Utah came from a 'bogus email address.'
A Eurosceptic Swedish MEP today praised Brexit as 'inspirational' and branded the EU a 'union no voter wants' - as calls for Sweden to reassess its relationship with the bloc continue to grow.

Though most Swedes support membership of the EU, there is a growing uneasiness over its expansion of powers  leading to a growing Euroscepticism among conservative voters and the growth of the Sweden Democrats into the country's second biggest party.

This has emboldened the party's chairman Jimmie Akesson to call on the country's parliament (Riksdag) to re-evaluate Sweden's relationship with the EU, which has the potential to eventually lead to 'Swexit'.

In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, MEP Charlie Weimers warned that the EU could one day resemble a 'United States of Europe'.

Weimers  who has been sanctioned personally by Iran and criticised by China for calling on the EU to investigate the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic  also praised Brexit as being 'inspirational' in terms of democracy.

He also warned those in the UK who wish to rejoin the EU that the union Britain left is 'not the same as the EU that we have today'.

It comes after Akesson penned a joint article with Weimers outlining three steps Sweden should take in order to ensure no further power be transferred from national politicians to Brussels.

These three steps include the launching of an investigation into how to reduce any negative effects caused by Sweden's membership of the bloc, the introduction of a referendum lock on any further transfer of power, and to remove wording in the constitution that states Sweden is an EU member. This, they argue, would ensure Sweden is prepared to leave the European Union if it wishes, giving it greater negotiating power with Brussels in the future.

Read MailOnline's interview with Charlie Weimers in full below...

In order to find out more about the Sweden Democrats and their stance on 'Swexit', MailOnline spoke with Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers (pictured), who has been a member of the SD party since 2018 and an MEP since 2019

Question: Firstly, what made you join the Sweden Democrat party in 2018?

Charlie Weimers: What drove me to the Sweden Democrats was migration policy. As a matter of fact, the established centre right parties were unable to adapt to changing circumstances, to a situation in which migration was changing the social fabric of Sweden and the everyday lives of a lot of people for the worse.

Unfortunately, because there was no impact assessment really of large migration to Sweden, it was just allowed to continue.

And the Sweden Democrats challenged that.

[The way the SD party is seen] has changed in Sweden. You don't see much labelling of [of the party as] far right - for instance - from mainstream media. I mean dailies - the counterparts of the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and so on and so forth  don't use those labels anymore, because the party has changed.

But it takes time for international media to catch up with that change.

Q: Do the Swedish Democrats want Swexit? Or is it more complicated than that?

CW: It is more complicated than that. Today, as it stands, the Swedish voters are in favour of membership. But what we see is that there is a very strong resistance to any thoughts of the 'United States of Europe.' 48% of the Swedish voters want to return powers to Sweden.

I think in many ways the situation today is that Swedes like the idea of a European community. But it has yet to sink in what the EU has become and is about to become if Brussels gets its way.

For the Sweden Democrats, right now, we respect the fact that the EU membership of Sweden is not really a debate. But we do recognise also that - unless Sweden braces itself for the negotiation battles to come in Brussels - we as a country will be dragged into a sort of Union that almost no voter really wants.

Only 11% of citizens want to transfer more power from Member States to the EU in Sweden. What we mean by preparing for Swexit is to be seen as a negotiation tool in a situation where our most important ally - the United Kingdom - left the European Union, and where the EU centralists are basically having a ball - they are not at all reflecting on the mistakes made by Brussels that contributed to Brexit. They are using the opportunity of a lack of strong resistance to centralism to push for even more EU.

So I would say that, this preparation - educating civil servants to negotiate trade deals, learning from the British Brexit experience, removing the EU membership clause from our Constitution - that is to be seen as a way to strengthen our negotiation powers in Brussels primarily, but also as contingency in the event of a very negative development of the European Union, in which maybe it either becomes a fully-fledged super state or it falters because of the built in deficiencies of the Euro, for instance. Contingency is never a bad idea.

I would think that is a lesson to learn from the war in Ukraine, and that [was] something we all were aware of during the Cold War.

While the majority of Swedes support the country's membership of the European Union, there is a growing uneasiness over its expansion of powers  leading to a growing Euroscepticism among conservative-leaning voters in the country

Pictured: France's President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he speaks during a press conference at the Conference on the Future of Europe (file photo)

Q: You talk about the EU becoming a superstate. Do you think Swedish voters are aware of that? Do you feel they could sleepwalk into that situation?

CW: Yes. I think the major changes during this mandate in which the Coronavirus Fund was passed - meaning that EU joint debt was accepted for the first time as a means for distribution of funds to member states - that was a very important and destructive precedent.

I think that voters are yet to feel the consequences of that debt [since] EU taxes [have] not been fully implemented yet. They [the EU taxes] are to pay for the loans that the EU took. Some taxes are already implemented or underway.

It will be a mix of sleepwalking into a 'United States of Europe', but also quite a rude awakening for more and more people.

We also have the climate package [on the horizon] which will not only ban the production of combustion engines in 2035, which will be interesting to see how that plays out in the North Sweden where it can be minus 40 degrees in winter.

But also, the climate package means that - one part of it is forced renovation of up to 30% of all buildings in Sweden. Swedes that have already insulated their houses pretty well - because we have to! They are going to be forced to upgrade the energy efficiency of their houses and basically take loans to finance that.

When this really sinks in, I do think that the sort of idea of a European Community and the realities of today's European Union will sink in. The realities will sink in, and they will challenge this idealized image of the European Community.

Q: Do you personally want to see Sweden leave the EU?

CW: As a conservative, I prefer to learn from experience, and we do not yet know the full fallout from Brexit. I think it's way too early to make a conclusion. I want to learn from the British experience and form my opinion partly according to that.

But I really do want to try to shape a new Swedish EU strategy that can challenge these parts of Brussels and to try to make Sweden act in favour of an international coalition inside the EU of frugal Member States - that together can fight the idea of the United States and Europe.

If we fail, then we need to draw conclusions from that, obviously. But let's try first.

Do you see Brexit as an inspiration, or as a cautionary tale?

CW: I think it's both. The political chaos that erupted in the wake of Brexit is nothing that we want to emulate in Sweden, to say the least. But the fact that there is a serious discussion in the UK on how to manage migration for instance. It's not been successful yet, but at least this is being discussed and debated and the last word will be had by the House of Commons, and as part of the British Democracy.

In Sweden right now, we are pursuing a government migration policy that aims to deal with the problems that we have, but at the same time, the EU is planning to move powers over migration volumes to Brussels to enable the European Commission to dictate asylum quotas for Member States.

Jimmie Akesson (pictured), leader of the Sweden Democrats party, has argued that Sweden should not let any further power be transferred from national politicians and the country's parliament to lawmakers in Brussels without a referendum

So, from a democracy point of view, Brexit was inspirational. But there are other factors to take into account. And as well, Sweden is an exporting nation. We need to look at how trade for the UK is working. We need to look how the UK is able to reduce red tape that was imposed by EU regulations, how EU gold-plating is being dealt with, for instance.

So, there are there are many factors at play here and we need to be responsible, we need to look at the whole picture and not just those parts that fit into a narrative because - to be inside or outside the European Union is a very major decision that affects the lives of a lot of people, and prudence is required.

What would you say to people in the UK who either want to rejoin the EU, or want to negotiate a closer relationship with the EU than what we have now post-Brexit?

CW: The EU that the UK left was really not the same EU that we have today. So much has happened. So many taboos have been broken after the UK left. EU debt, EU taxes, and loosened state aid rules, which undermines the single market and basically is playing into the hands of Franco-German cooperation.

Migration - the number of illegal migrants entering EU territory is on 2015 levels right now. And the EU is of course planning a major power transfer of migration policy to Brussels. So, we are an even closer union than when the UK left, today.

And that, I think, Britons need to realise if they are to debate the potential of re-joining the EU. That's what I would say.

By re-joining the European Union, you would be joining the United States of Europe.

But I welcome a good and mutually beneficial close relationship between the UK and the EU, that's a good thing.

You were sanctioned by Iran and criticized by China over your calls for investigations into the origins of Covid-19. And of course, there's the issue of Russia. Does the EU have benefits in your eyes when it comes to presenting a united front?

CW: I think that European countries can and should work together to defend our values, our freedoms, our democracies, and to defend freedom around the world. Now, when it comes to these different countries - if we begin with Ukraine - the fact that the EU came together to jointly support Ukraine with arms was important.

But I want to note that cooperation is built upon an intergovernmental mechanism, which is the European Peace Facility, and that a lot of the European cooperation that we see - even with the EU stamp on it - can be done through intergovernmental mechanisms. It doesn't have to be supernaturalism. It doesn't have to be that the natural veto in foreign and security policy in the EU is scrapped like the French and the Germans want, and Brussels of course.

I do think that when Europe is coming together, we can definitely show a united front, but in the end, we need to work together with our most important ally, the United States of America.

And that goes for the challenge that the PRC (Beijing) poses, and I think a lot of continental European politicians fail to recognize that. They want to play the role of a mediator rather than to work with the US to counter Chinese assertiveness, and I think that is very unfortunate.

I think that the EU, the UK, the US should work together on Ukraine, on Taiwan, because of what our common interests are  that's quite clear - to defend freedom, but also to defend trade, to keep the trade routes open and to enable our companies to import and export despite what the government in Beijing says.

And, with regards to Russia, I think that we have been able to enact sanctions against the Kremlin and this is something that I think we can do without the EU becoming a full fully fledged state. We can do it as a community of sovereign nations. I'm really convinced [of that]. We've done it in the past. We can do it in the future.

How did you feel about being sanctioned by Iran and called out by Beijing?

CW: As the saying goes, judge me not by my friends but by my foes. That's what I feel. I guess it's only North Korea left now!

How do you work with Jimmie Akesson  with you in Brussels and him in Sweden?

We discuss policy on a regular basis and of course we realize that there's a way to go until we have a majority in the Swedish parliament in favour of a referendum lock, for instance. But we have also seen that when voters have their say - when voters are pushing for change, a change in EU policy - things can really happen fast.

We are convinced that with the clout that the second largest party in Sweden has, we can really influence the debate. We can influence public opinion here, and we can influence the other parties to move from this sense of status quo that we have today. I don't know if you saw the replies to our joint article, but it was interesting to see that all the other parties right now aren't ready to challenge their own assumptions about how things should be done with regards to the EU.

Pictured: France's President Emmanuel Macron (L), European Parliament president Roberta Metsola (C) and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (R) hold a joint press conference (file photo)

But the leading centre right think tank Timbro they are recognizing quite clearly that centre right voters are becoming more and more sceptical towards EU encroachment and EU federalism. What we see as a party is somewhat a similar development in Sweden right now that you saw in the UK after Maastricht. In the 70s you had Labour being that the EU sceptics, mostly, some conservatives, sure, but mainly Labour. That started to change after Maastricht (the Treaty on European Union). And it took 20 years for that to fully blossom.

But I would say that the Corona Fund was the Maastricht of Sweden - it was our Maastricht moment. The Timbro think tank is, I think they are seeing this, they are - from their free market perspective - worried about encroachment into tax policy, labour market policy with minimum wage, social policy with the health union. And also, voters, I would like to add. It used to be that left voters were the more EU sceptical and you would find EU sceptics on the left.

Now you see that the Green Party is in favour, the Social Democrats are highly in favour of power transfers, and you see that centre right voters are becoming more and more sceptical. I would make a parallel with the UK and depending on how far the EU establishment in Brussels are ready to implement their vision of an ever-closer union - that will decide how quick this change in Sweden, in public opinion, will be. Me and Jimmie, - Mr. Akesson - we realize that this change is taking place and we aim to spearhead the movement for this change to also play-out in terms of a new Swedish EU strategy. That's how our thinking goes.

Q: What do you see as the main challenges to the EU in the coming years?

CW: I think the total lack of limits for what the EU can and should do according to the Brussels establishment will be the EU's own worst enemy. Because that will push a more and more critical public opinion in net contributing Member States such as Sweden, but not only Sweden but Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands. Eventually also, I think Germany, eventually, because they have a frugal tradition.

And I think all countries that are net contributors will eventually ask themselves: OK, but what are we getting [out of this]? How much are we getting out of this? This is the main threat to the European Union. And ironically - by creating tools that we suggest stopping this development - maybe that, ironically enough, will be the salvation of the European Union.

Q: Could you expand on your three proposals to change Sweden's relationship with the European Union?

CW: If we start with the referendum lock, we've seen in the past that Sweden has been really on a losing streak in negotiations. And we need to ask ourselves, in the wake of Brexit: How do we avoid being shafted? And a referendum lock would not only enable the voters in Sweden to have a say on any significant transfer of power or new or increased payment requirements  the EU levy, for instance - It would also strengthen Swedish negotiators in Brussels. Because they could then point to the fact that this Corona Fund 2.0 (for example) this has to be scrutinized by the Swedish population in the referendum, and then I would come back to Brussels with the verdict that would in and by itself slow down the worst excesses of Brussels.

The second proposal is, of course, the one that I mentioned before - being prepared to leave the EU. This is not necessarily a preparation to actually leave, but a signal to our counterparts that there is a limit to what we can accept. Everyone who's ever negotiated knows that you'll get more if you can leave the negotiating table, so in order to do that, we need to remove the wording in the constitution that states that Sweden is a member of the EU.

Pictured: G7 leaders (European Council President Charles Michel, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leye) are seen in Japan for a G7 summit. Six are members of the EU

The third thing is an inquiry in order to reduce the negative effect of the Union. During this mandate we've seen over 6,000 new or updated legislative acts coming out of Brussels. And what Sweden does is [to], gold-plate [these legislative acts]. And this is a major problem that Swedish companies have brought up for many years. We need to study how we can rewrite our losses to bring it closer to the ease minimum requirements. That would reduce a lot of red tape. And now, upcoming in the future we see the challenge by the Commission - they are pushing for a fiscal union. Commissioner Gentiloni is pushing for this. He's an Italian commissioner, and I'll let each and anyone reading judge whether such a fiscal union would be more beneficial to Sweden or Italy.

We also have this batch of new EU taxes coming up. Instead of making rearrangements in the EU's long-term budget, cutting down on cohesion funds to fund the loans of the Corona Fund, EU taxes are going to be levied. In a few years we will have negotiations for a new long-term budget, a multi annual financial framework. That will be a big challenge as well. And you have of course the German and French demands for an abolished veto - national veto on tax policy. So big, big battles are ahead, and Sweden better brace itself.

Q: What do you say to people who say the SD's position on the EU weakens the position of the Swedish Prime Minister?

CW: I would say that it's right out wrong. I would say that the fact that we point to a public opinion that strongly opposes any power transfers to Brussels, rather strengthens the cards of the Prime Minister in Brussels because then he can more fervently defend Swedish interests when they want to claim the right to decide over Swedish forest policy, or encroach into our labour market policies, and so on, and so forth. If the Prime Minister wants to be a good cop in Brussels, well, he needs a bad cop - and we are more than happy to be the bad cop.
A professor at Stanford University claims that aliens have been on planet Earth and are 'still here,' as he says experts are working on reverse engineering UFOs that have crash landed.

Dr. Garry Nolan spoke at a conference in Manhattan last week titled 'The Pentagon, Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Crashed UFOs.'

Nolan, an immunologist and Nobel Prize nominee was previously commissioned by the CIA to investigate cases of the mysterious Havana Syndrome inflicting embassy officials worldwide, and has conducted experiments analyzing material allegedly jettisoned in UFO flyovers.

He was asked by host Alex Klokus to assign a level of probability to the idea the aliens have been to our planet.

Nolan told Klokus that possibility was '100 percent' and claims that we have probably seen them before, but similar to South American tribes spotting Spanish ships for the first time, we didn't notice anything different about them.

Dr. Garry Nolan spoke at a conference in Manhattan last week titled 'The Pentagon, Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Crashed UFOs' where he claimed that aliens have been on planet Earth and are 'still here'

'I think it's an advanced form of intelligence that using some kind of intermediaries,' he added.

'It's not that they walk among us wearing a skin suit. You're going to put something there that I think of as an intelligence test.'

He says that we've likely witnessed alien life on Earth but just not known how to process it.

'They're showing up and saying who amongst you are intelligent enough to realize what it is you're looking at  'Can you see what's in front of you for what it really is? Can you see the anomalous data point?'

Nolan says that the government's handling of UAPs - short for 'Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena,' the government's phrase for UFOs - is what drives him to believe this is the truth.

The Department of Defense has created The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), tasked with investigating UFO sightings.

Nolan, an immunologist and Nobel Prize nominee was previously commissioned by the CIA to investigate cases of the mysterious Havana Syndrome inflicting embassy officials worldwide, and has conducted experiments analyzing material allegedly jettisoned in UFO flyovers

In May, the House Intelligence Committee held its first public hearing on UFOs in 54 years where panel members grilled Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray (left) and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Ronald Moultrie (right)

At least six whistleblowers claim they worked on Roswell-style UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs and have spoken to members of congress. This video grab shows part of an unclassified video taken by Navy pilots that have circulated for years showing interactions with 'unidentified aerial phenomena'

There have also been public hearings on extraterrestrial life, which Nolan has testified on.

He also cited 'my personal experiences with one individual who was involved in collecting the original information and my experiences with people who have worked or working on reverse engineering programs of downed crafts.'

Nolan then confirmed his knowledge of researchers working on reverse engineering a downed spaceship.

'A tiny piece of knowledge from that could revolutionize what we're doing,' Nolan said. 'I'm always looking for the opportunity. I'm looking at the upside of this.

However, he wants people to understand that it's unlikely any alien life is coming to harm us.

'I'm not worried about them coming and raiding us or taking our women and children. That's not my concern. My concern is how do we use it.'

Nolan has claimed to be in contact with several former staffers of extraordinary UFO 'reverse engineering' programs.

'I have good reason to trust a number of individuals who were actually part of the reverse engineering, or very close to the reverse engineering programs, or who have testified to the fact, recently,' he said in a podcast interview earlier this year.

'When you testify, you're under oath. So these people are putting their careers at risk for breaking one oath [of secrecy] and taking another.'

His remarks come during a renaissance for the search for extraterrestrial life for the United States Government and beyond.

A team of scientists from the University of California believes aliens could make contact with Earth as soon as 2029.

In 2002, NASA sent radio wave transmission to the Pioneer 10 probe in a routine protocol to send data and ensure communication was established.

This signal also reached a star roughly 27 light-years from our planet as transmission spreads out when they contact an object.

The UC researchers hope this signal was intercepted by extraterrestrials that returned a callback to Earth.

In 2002, NASA sent radio wave transmission to the Pioneer 12 probe in a routine protocol to send data and ensure communication is established. This signal also reached a star roughly 27 light-years from our planet as transmission spreads out when they contact an object

The study used signals sent from Earth to Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11 and New Horizons, mapping out where the signals may have spread out when sent into the universe

Still images from a video of UFO encounters show a spherical object diving into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California

Senior members of Congress have spoken to as many as six whistleblowers who claim they worked on Roswell-style UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs, according to a top attorney, a leading Stanford scientist, and ex-UFO program officials.

Congress passed a law last year creating whistleblower protections for anyone who has worked in such mind-boggling secret programs  suggesting they may be more than just fiction.

However, AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick said in an April 19 Senate hearing that there's no definitive evidence of extraterrestrial life.

Kirkpatrick, a veteran intelligence officer and physicist, told senators his office 'will follow scientific evidence wherever it leads', but said that 'AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics.'

The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law by President Joe Biden in December, included an amendment requiring the Pentagon to give high-ranking Senators classified reports on any previously undisclosed programs 'relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena, including with respect to material retrieval, material analysis, reverse engineering'.
A mother facing deportation from Australia is stuck with the terrible prospect of leaving her disabled daughter behind so she can receive the best possible care.

Kamisha Gobdurdhun moved to Australia from the east African island nation of Mauritius on a student visa in 2008 and her daughter Sabiana was born a year later.

Sabiana, now aged 13, was born with a rare genetic condition called Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome, which causes severe developmental delay and she can only speak about 15 words.

Her father is not involved in her care, and Ms Gobdurdhun, who works in the construction industry in Sydney, has been told she must leave the country.

Kamisha Gobdurdhun (left) moved to Australia from the east African island nation of Mauritius on a student visa in 2008 and her daughter Sabiana (right) was born a year later

She does not want to put her child in someone else's care but knows that if she takes her daughter with her, then she won't receive the best care possible.

'You can't do that to my kid, you can't separate a mother from her child,' she said.

Ms Gobdurdhun said the healthcare system in her home country is nowhere near as good as the one in Australia.

'Take her and let her die, and I can't do that,' she said.

If Ms Gobdurdhun doesn't get a new visa, she will be deported within weeks.

'I will not be able to survive without my daughter and she will not be able to do it either because we've always been together and she knows mummy,' she told A Current Affair.

The mother and daughter's fate now lies in the hands of Immigration Minister Adam Giles.

When she was born, there was little expectation that Sabiana would live beyond the age of two, and she stopped breathing twice when she was very young.

'I really owe that to the Australian government and the medical experts, everyone has fought so hard for her to still be alive today,' her mum said.

But she said taking her daughter back to Mauritius would risk her life.

'I know the difference between the medical treatment here and what we can get back home,' Ms Gobdurdhun said.

Sabiana (pictured) was born with a rare genetic condition called Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome, which causes severe developmental delay

'If you say to me take Sabiana back home, it would be like someone saying to me "OK, take her and let her die" and I can't do that.'

Taking her 7,837km to Mauritius is a near impossibility anyway.

'My daughter cannot fly, she cannot travel and that's also been confirmed by her doctors because of her condition,' Ms Gobdurdhun said.

Sabiana needs assistance with almost everything, from having a shower to feeding to walking to getting dressed.

Ms Gobdurdhun did get a ministerial intervention under the previous Coalition government in 2018, when she got a medical treatment visa.

But that expired in April and she unknowingly missed out on a chance to switch to a permanent visa before her daughter became an Australian citizen.

She is now on a bridging visa that expires in just over two weeks on June 13.

Immigration Lawyer Adam Byrnes said only the Immigration Minister can help Ms Gobdurdhun now, and there are 'unique and exceptional circumstances in this case'.

He said if Mr Giles doesn't intervene, she is likely to be put in immigration detention and removed from Australia.

'That would be absolutely tragic, the focus here needs to be on the child,' Mr Byrnes said.

Kamisha Gobdurdhun (pictured) said her daughter's fate now lies in the hand of Immigration Minister Adam Giles

'The Minister (is) the only one here who has the power to do something here and I really expect him to do something and be fair,' Ms Gobdurdhun said.

'I am still going to be working, I'm still going to be paying my taxes, I'm still going to respect Australian values and contribute where I can.'

The strong-willed mum is determined to keep fighting for her child's sake. 'I will not take no for an answer when it comes to my daughter's life,' she said.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Immigration Minister for comment.
A teenage TikTok pest behind a string of outrageous stunts is to face charges after allegedly interfering with the safety mechanism of a train.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Bacari-Bronze O'Garro, known as 'Mizzy' and notorious for posting footage of his so-called pranks online, stands accused of endangering safety after 'entering a train driver's cab and interfering with the controls and safety equipment' in Stratford, East London.

In a 40-second video seen by the MoS, he is shown laughing in front of friends as he picks up a phone handset in the driver's compartment and says: 'Hello, can I call the police?'

The 18-year-old remained in custody last night after appearing on three separate charges at Thames Magistrates' Court in Bow, East London, yesterday.

He has been kept behind bars as his fed-up mother refused to have him back home.

Bacari-Bronze O'Garro, known as 'Mizzy', is seen in a video entering the cab of a train and interfering with the controls

In a 40-second video seen by the MoS, he is shown laughing in front of friends as he picks up a phone handset in the driver's compartment and says: 'Hello, can I call the police?'

The prankster, whose real name is Bacari-Bronze O'Garro, now stands accused of endangering safety after 'entering a train driver's cab and interfering with the controls and safety equipment' in Stratford, East London

His latest appearance before a magistrate came just three days after he appeared at the same court accused of barging into the 2 million property of a banker and interior designer in Dalston, East London.

Under the two-year Criminal Behaviour Order handed down as a result, he was banned from filming people without their consent.

But O'Garro is said to have breached the order later that day and was arrested on Friday.

Yesterday, prosecutor Rose Edwin accused him of displaying 'disdain' for the justice system.

She said: 'The defendant has shown blatant disregard [for] complying with court orders.'

O'Garro pleaded not guilty to the charges. The judge remanded him in custody until his next court appearance on Tuesday.

Previously O'Garro has filmed himself stealing a pet dog, destroying library books and jumping into strangers' cars.

Following his court appearance on Wednesday, he bragged about his antics during a TV interview with Piers Morgan, declaring: 'UK laws are weak.'
A rental unit being advertised for $430 a week has raised eyebrows among prospective tenants for one particular reason.

The unit in Charlestown, southwest of Newcastle, contains two bedrooms, a separate bathroom and an ensuite shower.

The price may be appealing to most renters, however a small detail in the property has left several feeling unsettled.

A $430 per week rental property has shocked social media after it was revealed its only shower is in a bedroom, just metres away from the bed (pictured)

Photos reveal the shower is not in a separate room and instead inside the master bathroom with a sink right next to the bed.

The unit came to light in a video posted to TikTok by social media influencer Rach McQueen, who reviews 'dodgy' properties on the social media app.

'The person who sent this in said the deeper you look the worse it gets,' Ms McQueen said.

After reviewing the rest of the photos in the listing, Ms McQueen then starts criticising the master bedroom.

'Here is the main bedroom with the ensuite attached to it, and look it doesn't look too bad does it,' she said.

Ms McQueen then reveals the ensuite shower.

'That's a shower, in the bedroom, next to the bed,' she said.

'So the person who lives in the other bedroom has to come into this bedroom to shower right next to this persons bed. What the f**k?'

Other social media users took to the comments section to express how shocked they were by the listing.

'The way I gasped at that "ensuite",' one wrote.

'I wonder if they ripped out an old corner spa to make room for the bed,' a second wrote.

'They could have at least built a wall to separate the bathroom from the bedroom,' a third wrote.

'I'm unsure what noise I even made when I saw the ensuite,' another added.

The units managing real estate agency, Leah Jay, warned they do not 'warrant, represent, or guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of the information' in its listing

The unit was once part of a bigger household that was sold for $187,500 in February 2000.

The property featured five bedrooms, four bathrooms and a car space before it was split into units.

The managing real estate agency, Leah Jay, said the property had air conditioning, an open-plan living and dining area and water and electricity bills included in rent.

The agency also shares a warning in the listing.

'Whilst all care has been taken preparing this advertisement and the information contained herein has been obtained from sources, we believe to be reliable,' it reads.

'Leah Jay does not warrant, represent, or guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of the information.

'Leah Jay accepts no liability for any loss or damage resulting from reliance on this information, and potential tenants should make their own investigations before applying for the property.'
Twitter has dropped out of a voluntary European Union agreement to combat online disinformation, a top EU official said Friday.

European Commissioner Thierry Breton tweeted that Twitter had pulled out of the EU's disinformation 'code of practice' that other major social media platforms have pledged to support.

But he added that Twitter's 'obligation' remained, referring to the EU's tough new digital rules taking effect in August.

The French politician sensationally added: 'You can run but you can't hide.'

San Francisco-based Twitter responded with an automated reply of a 'poop' emoji, as it does to most press inquiries, and did not comment.

European Commissioner Thierry Breton tweeted that Twitter had pulled out of the EU's disinformation 'code of practice' that other major social media platforms have pledged to support

But he added that Twitter's 'obligation' remained, referring to the EU's tough new digital rules taking effect in August

The decision to abandon the commitment to fighting false information appears to be the latest move by billionaire owner Elon Musk to loosen the reins on the social media company after he bought it last year.

He has rolled back previous anti-misinformation rules, and has thrown its verification system and content-moderation policies into chaos as he pursues his goal of turning Twitter into a digital town square.

Launched in 2018, Google, TikTok, Microsoft and Facebook and Instagram parent Meta are among nearly three dozen who have signed up to the EU code, which requires companies to measure their work on combating disinformation and issue regular reports on their progress.

It also covers smaller platforms, as well as advertisers and fact-checkers and non-governmental organisations.

Companies face fines of as much as 6 per cent of their global turnover for violations.

The code was written by the industry players themselves and contains over three dozen pledges such as better cooperation with fact-checkers and not promoting actors distributing disinformation.

There were already signs Twitter wasn't prepared to live up to its commitments.

The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc's executive arm, blasted Twitter earlier this year for failing to provide a full first report under the code, saying it provided little specific information and no targeted data.

The French politician (pictured) sensationally tweeted: 'You can run but you can't hide.'

The decision to abandon the commitment to fighting false information appears to be the latest move by billionaire owner Elon Musk to loosen the reins on the social media company after he bought it last year

Breton said that under the new digital rules that incorporate the code of practice, fighting disinformation will become a 'legal obligation.'

READ MORE: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter revolution: How six months after billionaire bought tech giant for $44bn he has slashed 80% of workforce, has $12.5BN debts and overseen failed blue tick relaunch Musk bought Twitter for $44bn in 2022 Advertisement

He continued: 'Our teams will be ready for enforcement'

On Friday, a European Commission official added: 'If (Elon Musk) doesn't take the code seriously, then it's better that he quits.'

Elon Musk's $44bn acquisition of Twitter on 27 October 2022 promised the biggest shake up since the company was founded in 2006.

Changes to personnel and features, and the release of the 'Twitter Files' took the site in a radical new direction within a matter of weeks.

But Twitter's revolution became a bloodbath in the process, cutting staff by 80 per cent to hone in on the new direction, and then losing users and advertisers as a lean team struggled to manage disinformation, trolling and impersonation online.

Infamously, Musk cut the 'blue tick' icon, attached to the accounts of public figures or companies to deter impersonators.

Heralding the benefits of 'citizen journalism' he offered the coveted label to all for just $8 per month.

Changing verification saw an apparent rise in impersonations on the site. Some were clearly absurd or satirical. A Coca Cola impersonator wrote: 'If this gets 1000 retweets we will put the cocaine back in Coca Cola.'

Others, more ambiguous, had real consequences. An account pretending to be pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company wrote: 'We are excited to announce insulin is free now', causing LLY stock to fall 4.5% in a matter of hours.

Lockheed Martin lost more than $7bn and faced some awkward questions after a fake account announced the company would stop sending arms shipments to Saudi Arabia, the US and Israel.

The decision in December to ban tech journalists who had shared Musk's location was met with the threat of sanctions from the EU, judging it a breach of the Media Freedom Act.

On Friday, a European Commission official added: 'If (Elon Musk) doesn't take the code seriously, then it's better that he quits.'

At the same time, Musk was seen to threaten to remove accounts that promoted other social media platforms as users started to move to sites like Mastodon.

Repeatedly asserting his desire for free speech, he also reinstated controversial figures including Andrew Tate, Ye West and ex-President Donald Trump.

The former kickboxer was soon ridiculed for taking aim at Greta Thunberg on Twitter, and was fully in the public spotlight as a result when Romanian authorities detained him on suspicion of human trafficking, rape and forming an organized crime group.

And within days, Musk banned West again for incitement to violence after he shared an image of a swastika over the Star of David.
He allegedly used two rifles owned by his dad

A terrifying new map has revealed how close an alleged teenage gunman came to a classroom full of terrified students at a school shooting in Western Australia.

Police arrested a boy, 15, following the incident at Atlantis Beach Baptist College, in Perth's north, just before midday last Wednesday.

He has been charged with seven alleged offences, including three counts of unlicensed possession of a firearm/ammunition, discharged a firearm in a manner to cause fear, and unlawful act or admission with intent to harm.

There are fears the suspect could be granted bail as prepares to face Perth Children's Court again on Tuesday after making an appearance on Friday.

It's been revealed the boy was only 50 metres away when he allegedly opened fire on the classroom from the school car park.

It's been revealed there was only a distance of 50 metres between the alleged school shooter and the classroom

He allegedly fired three bullets from a rifle, two of which struck the classroom.

One entered the building about 1.5metres from the ground and exited at the same height.

The gunfire prompted students and staff to hide inside cupboards and under desks until police arrived on scene.

A terrifying map shows how the alleged shooting unfolded on the day.

The teenager had allegedly been standing in the carpark with the map tracing the trajectory of the bullets fired into the school.

The path of the bullets show they passed through the carpark and across an oval before hitting a demountable.

Dramatic bodycam vision from police showed officers tackling the 15-year-old boy to the ground before placing him in handcuffs.

The footage also showed a bullets hole in the building and bullet casings on the ground and in the vehicle.

It's alleged the boy stole two rifles from his father's gun safe, along with 60 rounds of ammunition, before driving to the school.

The boy allegedly fired three bullets at a demountable classroom at Atlantis Beach Baptist College, in Perth's north, last Wednesday

Two of the bullets struck the classroom. One entered the building about 1.5metres from the ground and exited at the same height

The guns used in the shooting were a Savage Axis .243, and a Savage IFSS .22. It's alleged the boy used the Axis .243 in the shooting.

Manager of Beaton Firearms, Zaine Beaton, explained that the Axis .243 is a 'run-of-the-mill' mid-range hunting rifle designed for hunting 'small to medium size animals'.

'It's an entry-level, cheap hunting rifle with not the best accuracy, but adequate to shoot small to medium size game out to a couple of hundred metres,' he told The West Australian.

'It's a general-purpose rifle for West Australians. The stereotypical owner would be someone just on the ground bush hunting.'

The boy has been described as an introvert who enjoyed playing a lot of video games, reports the publication.

It's understood he was a former student at Atlantis Beach Baptist College.

Dramatic bodycam vision from police showed officers tackling the 15-year-old boy to the ground before placing him in handcuffs

He appeared at Perth Childrens Court on Friday morning via video link and will reappear on Tuesday.

He is being held at Banksia Detention Centre.

The shooting has prompted the state government to tighten Western Australia's gun laws.

'We're going to deal with it...and that means there will be tougher controls,' Premier Mark McGowan said on Thursday.

'Whatever we do as a country, never go down the pathway that America has...with thousands and thousands of people every year getting killed by guns.'

The changes to WA's gun laws are expected to be rolled out later in the year.
King Charles honoured Tina Turner with a music tribute at Buckingham Palace.

The newly-crowned monarch, 74, allowed the Band of the Welsh Guards to perform the Queen of Rock n Rolls 1989 hit The Best during the changing of the guard in front of the royal residence in London on Friday, according to video footage shared by Forces News.

They were joined by the First Battalion Welsh Guards Corps of Drums during the centuries-old ceremony, where the Kings Guard hands over responsibility for protecting Buckingham and St James palaces to the New Guard.

Charles and Tina  whose death aged 83 was announced on 24 May  first met in 1986, when she put on a show at the Princes Trust All-Star Rock Concert at Londons Wembley Stadium.

The Best song has deep meaning to other members of the royal family, with Prince William, 40, telling Apple Fitness+s Time to Walk series his late mum Princess Diana, would play the track for him and his brother, Prince Harry, 38, while she was driving them back to boarding school.

The Prince of Wales, who was 15 when Diana was killed in a August 1997 Paris car crash aged 36, said: One of the songs I massively remember and has stuck with me all this time, and I still, to this day, still quite enjoy secretly, is Tina Turners The Best because sitting in the backseat, singing away, it felt like a real family moment.

And my mother, shed be driving along, singing at the top of her voice. Wed even get the policeman in the car: hed occasionally be singing along as well. Wed be singing and listening to the music right the way up to the gates at school where they dropped you off.

He added: When I listen to it now, it takes me back to those car rides and brings back lots of memories of my mother.

King Charles was the latest in a huge list of celebrities who have paid tribute to Tina, including Sir Mick Jagger, 79, her old friend Oprah Winfrey, 69, Cher, 77, and 64-year-old Angela Bassett  who played Tina in her Whats Love Got to Do With It biopic  while Beyonce, 41, and Lizzo, 35, have honoured the icon during on-stage performances.
JPMorgan became aware of Epstein's suspicious account activity as early as 2006, but did not sever ties with him until 2013

A JPMorgan executive kept Jeffrey Epstein's account open for years despite his pedophilia conviction and suspicious activity, saying that she thought it was not her job to remove him as a client.

Mary Erdoes, who has worked for the bank since 1996, revealed during a nine-hour deposition that she allowed Epstein, who died in 2019, to stay on as a client, despite the bank becoming aware of his suspicious withdrawals as early as 2006.

In a 2011 email, Mary replied: 'Oh boy,' to another executive after learning Epstein had been affirmed a sex offender. The email had been at least the sixth time she became aware of Epstein's legal troubles and sex crimes, according to the Washington Post, who viewed the deposition.

Officials in the Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a private island, have accused JPMorgan of 'knowingly facilitating, sustaining, and concealing' the sex pest's child trafficking by allowing him to stay on as a client, despite knowing about the abuse allegations.

The bank finally severed ties with Epstein in 2013, citing him routinely withdrawing large amounts of cash. A 2006 report showed Epstein had withdrawn amounts as large as $80,000 several times, amounting to more than $750,000 in one year.

Mary Erdoes, who has worked for the bank since 1996, revealed during a nine-hour deposition that she allowed Epstein, who died in 2019, to stay on as a client, despite the bank becoming aware of his suspicious withdrawals as early as 2006

Officials in the Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a private island, have accused JPMorgan of 'knowingly facilitating, sustaining, and concealing' the sex pest's child trafficking by allowing him to stay on as a client, despite knowing about the abuse allegations

'We all now understand that Epsteins behavior was monstrous, and his victims deserve justice - but these suits are misplaced as we did not help him commit his heinous crimes,' a spokesperson for the bank said in response to the lawsuit, according to the Washington Post.

'We are committed to combating human trafficking, and we will continue to look for ways to invest in advancing this important mission.'

In addition, Mary said in the deposition that she didn't 'know what the proper process is when its an allegation' and believed it was up to the bank's legal team to remove Epstein.

'The process by which those things work is that legal risk, compliance, including supervisory management  have a natural process they go to when they have things like this that get alerted to them,' she said.

She said she didn't think it was her responsibility to flag Epstein's accounts for inquiry. Her supervisor, Jes Staley - who was friends with Epstein - had investigated allegations against him by asking the man himself, according to the Washington Post.

The bank would not sever ties with Epstein until 2013, citing him routinely withdrawing large amounts of cash. A 2006 report showed Epstein had withdrawn amounts as large as $80,000 several times, amounting to more than $750,000 in one year

She said once Staley left the bank in 2013, she could close the account, because 'there was no one there to vouch for Mr. Epstein.'

Child trafficking was flagged to the bank in 2010 and 're-approval' was requested on his accounts in 2011, but his accounts stayed open for years afterward.

The bank denies any wrongdoing, but has sued Staley, accusing him of acting on his own to help Epstein. Staley, who moved to British bank Barclay in 2015 before resigning in 2021 after it looked into his relationship with Epstein, had a 'profound' friendship with the sex pest and reportedly gave him internal advice about his finances, according to the Post.

Staley said he had no 'decision-making authority over Epsteins accounts' and 'is not alleged to have seen any of the suspicious account activity that other JPMorgan employees ignored.'

However, in a 2006 email with Staley and Mary about a Palm Beach Post article detailing Epstein's crimes, Staley told her he had 'went and saw him last night. Ive never seen him so shaken. He adamantly denies the ages.'

The bank denies any wrongdoing, but has sued Jes Staley - who was friends with Epstein - accusing of him acting on his own to help the sex pest

In addition, Mary said more than 100 times that she couldn't recall what she did involving Epstein's account and only referred to Epstein's criminal acts as 'allegations,' despite him pleading guilty.

Although she was aware he was withdrawing large amounts of cash, she said that 'never at the time was that something that I was connecting in my mind with anything to do with any of the allegations of what he may or may not have done.'

She also said it was not her responsibility 'to do something with every piece of news media that comes out on our client base.'

After ties severed, Epstein took most of his wealth to Deutsche Bank. The bank recently paid $75million to settle a lawsuit similar to the one JPMorgan is dealing with now.

Epstein's account was one of the most profitable at JPMorgan in 2003, according to a diligence report. At the time, Epstein also managed an account for Victorias Secret CEO Leslie Wexner, who later disassociated with Epstein in 2008.

By 2008, Epstein had $121million housed at JPMorgan, according to the Washington Post.
Thousands of cruise passengers have been evacuated from their rooms after a fire broke out onboard a ship.

The blaze started on the balcony of the Pacific Adventure cruise ship, which was stationed off the NSW coast, about 3:15am on Sunday.

Guests were evacuated from their rooms to the muster stations.

P&O Cruises Australia confirmed the fire was extinguished shortly after it was detected.

'This fire activated our emergency response procedures including a full muster of guests and crew and we thank everyone on board for their co-operation,' a statement read.

A fire broke out on the balcony of P&O's Pacific Adventure cruise ship on Sunday morning

There are no reports of any injuries.

A passenger onboard the cruise ship told Daily Mail Australia that a cigarette was the cause of the fire.

'Someone set the bed on fire with a cigarette,' she said.

Guests were woken up by alarms and a voice-over in the middle of the night.

'I thought I was dreaming because there was a voice-over,' the passenger recalled.

'But when it kept going off and then the alarms that's when people realised it was getting serious.'

'Everyone remained calm in the process. I felt sorry for the parents with the screaming children. They must of been frightened.'

The blaze was reportedly contained to a single cabin.

Guests were able to return to their rooms at about 5:20am after the fire was put out.

Thousands of guests onboard the vessel were evacuated from their rooms in the middle of the night

The extent of the damage to the ship is still being determined.

The passenger explained the mood onboard the ship was 'tired but upbeat' as staff reassured passengers.

'Staff have been amazing,' she said.

'They have carried on like nothing has happened but giving lots of reassurance and positive vibes.'

The Pacific Adventure is in the middle of a three-day cruise in and out of Sydney.

The ship is scheduled to return to Sydney on Tuesday.

It's understood there are 3,017 guests and 1,080 crew onboard.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to P&O Cruises Australia for comment.
Ministers were last night accused of trying to use national security laws to keep secret details of an explosive legal case involving Britain's former ambassador to Washington.

Documents seen by The Mail on Sunday reveal how Government lawyers will formally request that evidence related to a claim that Lord Darroch leaked intelligence to his alleged lover be heard behind closed doors.

A senior civil servant is suing two Cabinet Ministers  Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly  after he was arrested by 14 counter-terrorism police as part of an investigation into the leak of the so-called Washington files to The Mail on Sunday.

This newspaper disclosed cables and memos written by Lord Darroch when he was our US ambassador.

In them, he described then US President Donald Trump as 'inept', 'insecure' and 'incompetent'.

Ministers were last night accused of trying to use national security laws to keep secret details of an explosive legal case involving Britain's former ambassador to Washington Lord Darroch (pictured)

Documents seen by The Mail on Sunday reveal how Government lawyers will formally request that evidence related to a claim that Lord Darroch leaked intelligence to his alleged lover Michelle Kosinski (pictured) be heard behind closed doors

The story, which made headlines around the world in July 2019, provoked Mr Trump to describe Lord Darroch, then Sir Kim, as a 'stupid guy'.

The civil servant, who the MoS has agreed not to name, was arrested more than a year later as part of Operation Asperite  the Metropolitan Police's probe into the leak. He denies leaking the documents and was never charged.

It is claimed his arrest took place just a day after Lord Darroch was warned that another highly embarrassing story was about to appear.

The Sun newspaper informed Lord Darroch it was about to publish allegations that he was under investigation by US authorities for allegedly leaking sensitive information to CNN reporter Michelle Kosinski, who it is claimed, was in a relationship with him.

Ms Kosinski has denied any such affair and denied that she has ever received classified or sensitive information from him.

In court documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph, the civil servant claimed that his arrest 'was part of a disinformation campaign to protect Lord Darroch and maintain diplomatic prestige'.

He believes his name was given to police by officials in the Foreign Office and Department for International Trade.

Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs James Cleverly

Secretary of State for Business and Trade Kemi Badenoch

The legal documents state: 'The Police interrogated the Claimant and asked him why his Civil Service colleagues would accuse him of leaking Kim Darroch's Official Sensitive documents if he did not do it.'

Ms Badenoch and Mr Cleverly are defendants because they are the nominal heads of the two departments involved at the time.

Tory MP David Davis said attempts to keep details of the case secret was 'a wholly inappropriate use' of the Justice and Security Act 2013: 'When Parliament passed this law, members expected the state to use it to deal with real cases of espionage and terrorism, not to cover up potentially embarrassing stories.'

Lord Darroch has never commented on claims of a relationship with Ms Kosinski.

The Department for Business and Trade said it did 'not wish to provide a comment'.
Rishi Sunak is this week expected to rubber-stamp the appointment of a Cambridge professor as a new free speech tsar tasked with waging the war on woke.

Arif Ahmed, who has spoken out against cancel culture on campuses, is understood to have accepted the role of Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom, with the power to investigate universities which censure academics for their views.

A Government source said that Professor Ahmed  whose candidature was tipped by The Mail on Sunday in January  would bring critical external experience and knowledge from the higher education sector to promote freedom of speech and academic freedom in a practical way.

Prof Ahmed, a philosophy lecturer at Gonville & Caius College, sparked a backlash from students by inviting feminist Helen Joyce to give a speech about her book, Trans, which criticises aspects of transgender activism.

Rishi Sunak is this week expected to rubber-stamp the appointment of a Cambridge professor Arif Ahmed (pictured) as a new free speech tsar tasked with waging the war on woke

During last summers Conservative Party leadership contest, Mr Sunak promised to tackle the woke nonsense he claimed was infecting public life.

Prof Ahmeds role has been created by provisions in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, which achieved Royal Assent earlier this month.

He will be appointed to the board of the Office for Students to investigate possible breaches of free speech, with the authority to recommend fines.

Recent free speech controversies have included the campaign to remove the statue of 19th Century diamond miner Cecil Rhodes from the outside of Oxfords Oriel College because of his role in British colonialism.
Ministers will this week launch an advertising campaign targeted directly at potential migrants to deter them from attempting to enter Britain on small boats.

The social media blitz will start in Albania, which accounts for a disproportionate number of the 45,000 Channel migrants who arrive each year.

The Home Office says it will counter 'the vile lies of people smugglers and spell out the consequences for people who arrive illegally'.

One advert shows police detaining a migrant, while another shows a packed dingy. Both carry warnings in English and Albanian that 'if you come to the UK illegally you face being detained and removed'.

It will coincide with a 'migration tour' by immigration minister Robert Jenrick, who will this week visit Algeria, Tunisia, Italy and France.

Ministers will this week launch an advertising campaign targeted directly at potential migrants to deter them from attempting to enter Britain on small boats

The social media blitz will start in Albania, which accounts for a disproportionate number of the 45,000 Channel migrants who arrive each year

Mr Jenrick told The Mail on Sunday: 'We are saying we will be changing the way in which we deal with small boats  you will be detained and sent to Rwanda in almost every instance and you can't expect to be housed in a hotel. The UK will no longer be seen as the 'soft touch' option.'

Rishi Sunak's Illegal Migration Bill, which is passing through Parliament, says those who arrive illegally will be swiftly removed to their home country  if safe  or a safe third country.

Mr Jenrick said efforts to tackle small boats were achieving results, with the number crossing the Channel in the first five months of the year now 21 per cent lower than last year. The proportion from Albania dropped from nearly a third to less than two per cent.

It comes as Labour's Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting uses an article in today's MoS to criticise the Government's reliance on legal migration to fill gaps in the UK's workforce.

Reacting to last week's record net migration figures, which showed a rise from 488,000 in 2021 to 606,000 last year, Mr Streeting writes of 'the total neglect of our young people... denied the skills and opportunities they need to compete in the modern labour market'.

WARNING: One of the Home Office adverts launching in Albania this week
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden should resign if he is implicated in the decision to refer fresh Partygate allegations about Boris Johnson to the police, friends of Mr Johnson said last night.

The row over alleged lockdown breaches was reignited last week when the Cabinet Office passed on the new claims of events at No 10 and Chequers  the country estate of the Prime Minister  to the Met and Thames Valley Police following a review of Mr Johnson's official diary.

The former Prime Minister describes the new claims as 'total nonsense' and insisted the entries in his ministerial diary  which were scrutinised as part of the official Covid inquiry  had been 'cherry-picked' as part of a 'politically motivated stitch-up'.

Mr Johnson's friends place Mr Dowden and Cabinet Office Minister Jeremy Quin at the heart of the intrigue, despite official denials that any Ministers were aware of the Cabinet Office's move, and even suggested they could be reported for 'wasting police time'.

Mr Johnson has already been fined by the Met for breaking lockdown rules, and is being investigated by the Commons Privileges Committee over whether he misled Parliament by denying any wrongdoing.

The committee has asked him for a response to the new material.

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden should resign if he is implicated in the decision to refer fresh Partygate allegations about Boris Johnson to the police, say friends of Mr Johnson

The row over alleged lockdown breaches was reignited last week when the Cabinet Office passed on the new claims of events at No 10 and Chequers  the country estate of the Prime Minister  to the Met and Thames Valley Police following a review of Mr Johnson's official diary

A friend of Mr Johnson told The Mail on Sunday: 'This is a political stitch-up concocted in an attempt to smear Boris and prolong the Privileges Committee. At the heart of it are Oliver Dowden and Jeremy Quin. They must publicly apologise.

'The Cabinet Office must stop issuing statements which are based on falsehoods. It has claimed Ministers weren't aware, but has inadvertently admitted they were. It claimed no judgment of Boris had been made, but then admitted in a letter to the Privileges Committee that such an assessment had been made by Government lawyers.

'If Ministers are shown to have deliberately used Government legal resources for political purposes they must resign.

'It's now likely all their diaries will be subject to investigation by Whitehall mandarins and that they could find themselves in trouble for wasting police time.'

Mr Johnson said the new claims were 'a load of nonsense from beginning to end'. He told Sky News: 'I think it's ridiculous that elements in my diary should be cherry-picked and handed over to the police and to the Privileges Committee without even anybody having the basic common sense to ask me what these entries referred to. I have looked through it.

Mr Johnson said new claims of rule breaching were 'a load of nonsense from beginning to end'

'None of them constitute a breach of the rules.'

Tory grandee Lord Heseltine, who bitterly opposed Mr Johnson's Brexit campaign, claimed the former PM was sitting on a 'ticking timebomb'. Lord Heseltine said: 'Never in my lifetime have I seen an ex-Prime Minister so nakedly and painfully on the rack to the extent that Boris Johnson is.

'There is now a ticking timebomb under him, with legal threats and potential criminal proceedings.'

A Cabinet Office source said: 'Ministers were not aware before the police were contacted.

'Clearly, it would have been completely inappropriate for them to then interfere with a police matter.

'The hope is Boris's team publish the information to back up their claim that these gatherings were all entirely within the rules so we can all move on.'

A Whitehall source said that it was wrong for Boris allies to talk about 'leaks' because the Prime Minister's diary was an official Government document.
Almost half of civil servants now primarily work from home, shocking figures show.

More than 44 per cent of workers said their residence was their main place of work between January and March this year.

This is the highest proportion of employees predominantly working from home at any type of organisation, according to analysis of Office for National Statistics (ONS) data carried out by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

The figure has also risen since last summer, indicating a further shift towards flexible working among civil servants  known as the blob.

Ministers were urged last night to show leadership and get Government workers back into the office, as experts warned that Britains productivity could fall if employees do not return to the workplace.

Almost half of civil servants now primarily work from home, shocking figures show

There are concerns that staff members  especially those early in their career  are losing vital social and relationship-building tools.

Conservative MP Sir Jake Berry said: Britain has a big problem with productivity and I think the wholesale work from home culture is partially to blame.

Its time for the Government to show leadership and get Whitehall civil servants back into the office.

The practice of working from home has come under frequent attack as numerous Government departments have suffered delays in their services.

A National Audit Office report concluded that part of the reason hundreds of thousands of Britons endured travel chaos last year was because remote working contributed to a backlog of applications at the Passport Office.

Conservative MP and former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said: Some of the most successful firms in the world such as Goldman Sachs are telling people to get back to work. They know how to be productive.

Lots of public services arent working and there are delays across a number of departments.

The British public are not getting the service they expect from the public sector, and this seems to correlate with working from home.

People in a shared workspace have an easier opportunity to make decisions and have discussions with the people theyre working with.

But I think it also provides better routine services for the customer who, in this case, is the British public.

Conservative MP Sir Jake Berry (pictured) said Britain has a 'big problem with productivity'

Separate figures from the Work From Home Map project, compiled by academics and labour analysis group Lightcast, show that the number of jobs advertised in the UK offering one or more days of remote working per week peaked at more than 18 per cent in December 2022.

This fell to around 16.7 per cent in the first four months of this year, but the proportion is still far higher than in the other major economies of America, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Researcher Peter Lambert said it remains a puzzle as to why the UK appears to have a much higher share than the other countries studied, including Australia, which has the next highest figure at 13 per cent.

He said it could be down to Britains extreme Covid lockdowns, as well as its high proportion of white-collar workers.

A report released last week by the Centre for Cities think tank warned that the economic impact of hybrid working is not yet fully understood.

Paul Swinney, its director of policy and research, said: There are some disadvantages of flexible working that arent immediately obvious.

'We think these will be a problem for the UK economy, productivity and peoples ability to earn more.

It feels as if some companies have become a bit louder in noticing the downsides of hybrid working.

Jon Boys, senior labour market economist at the CIPD, said: The civil service and central Government are a highly educated, London-centric and professionalised group.

'Our research shows that these three factors are associated with the highest level of home working.

A Government spokesman said: This data is self-reported, and also includes people who work both in the office and at home.

'The latest statistics for occupancy of departmental headquarters show more and more staff are in the office.

'That said, we continue to work to boost office attendance even further to ensure buildings are being used, so we achieve maximum value for money for the taxpayer.
United States Marshals were able to locate or recover an astonishing 225 missing children as part of a ten-week man hunt over 16 federal judicial districts called Operation We Will Find You.

The marshals work together with the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children across the country as part of the operation that focuses on areas with 'high clusters' of missing kids.

This operation resulted in 169 missing children being recovered and another 56 located as safe between March 1 and May 15 in 16 regions selected to participate, according to the Marshals Service.

At least 28 of the cases involving these children have been recommended to other law enforcement agencies to investigate attached crimes including sex offenses and drugs, weapons and sex trafficking.

The cases closed out during Operation We Will Find You were made up of 86 percent endangered runaways and nine percent family abductions.

United States Marshals were able to locate or recover an astonishing 225 missing children as part of a ten-week man hunt over 16 federal judicial districts called Operation We Will Find You

The marshals work together with the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children across the country as part of the operation that focuses on areas with 'high clusters' of missing kids

About 62 percent of the missing children recovered were found within a week of being reported missing to the US Marshals.

'The U.S. Marshals Service is fully committed to the important mission of protecting the American people, especially our most vulnerable population  our children,' said Ronald Davis, Director of the Marshals Service.

The service highlighted a couple of specific areas where dozens of children were either recovered or located safe.

One of the highest profile busts included a couple that was on the Top 15 Most Wanted list who had fled to Mexico from Washington State who had taken their five children into hiding with them.

Those five kids were among 10 who were found outside the United States in Mexico during the operation.

Northern Ohio saw at least 35 children recovered, with another 30 discovered in West Texas.

In Eastern Virginia, one of the 14 missing children recovered was a 15-year-old girl found in the bedroom of a 30-year-old man who was arrested on an outstanding probation warrant from a local county.

In Louisiana, 14 children were recovered and a runaway male teen surrendered and was booked on an open New Orleans Police Department felony warrant related to sex with a 12-year-old female family member. Another eight people were arrested in the region.

This operation resulted in 169 missing children being recovered and another 56 located as safe between March 1 and May 15 in 16 regions selected to participate, according to the Marshals Service

At least 28 of the cases involving these children have been recommended to other law enforcement agencies to investigate attached crimes including sex offenses and drugs, weapons and sex trafficking

'The U.S. Marshals Service is fully committed to the important mission of protecting the American people, especially our most vulnerable population  our children,' said Ronald Davis, Director of the Marshals Service (pictured)

In Central California, 13 children were recovered, including at least four who had been missing for months and were investigated as cases of human trafficking.

The other regions selected were Washington D.C.; Maryland; Massachusetts; South Carolina; San Antonio; Detroit; Yakima, Washington; Orlando, Florida; Guam; Puerto Rico; and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

'The results of this operation underscore that commitment, but also highlight the necessity of these critical efforts,' Davis added.

Davis said the Marshals and National Center For Missing and Exploited Children have recovered over 3,100 missing kids since the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act was passed in 2015.
A bitter Tory row was raging last night over allegations of a plot by party backbenchers to oust Suella Braverman, just two days after she was accused of a speeding points cover-up.

Senior Conservative MPs are said to have gathered at the Carlton Club  the party's spiritual home in London  to talk about how to get rid of the outspoken Home Secretary.

There were even suggestions that the plotting began at a private dinner with Sir John Major, although sources insist the former Tory prime minister was not involved in any anti-Braverman briefing.

The alleged Carlton Club conspiracy took place just two days after The Mail on Sunday revealed how Ms Braverman was accused of trying to cover up being caught speeding last year by asking officials to organise a private speed awareness course to avoid publicity.

A bitter Tory row was raging last night over allegations of a plot by party backbenchers to oust Suella Braverman

Senior Conservative MPs are said to have gathered at the Carlton Club  the party's spiritual home in London  to talk about how to get rid of the outspoken Home Secretary

The Home Secretary, who insisted 'nothing untoward' happened and who eventually took three speeding points, has now been cleared of breaking the ministerial code, with backers complaining of a 'witch-hunt' against her.

However, some Tories said last night that the party's Left do 'want her gone'  not over the speeding issue but for what they claimed was her decision to 'attack her own Government's immigration policy' at a controversial National Conservatism rally, organised by US think-tank the Edmund Burke Foundation earlier this month.

Allies of Ms Braverman deny she criticised the policy, saying that in making clear migration numbers had to come down, she was merely endorsing the party's own 2019 manifesto.

But last night one source claimed that at the dinner with Sir John Major, senior MP Alicia Kearns raised the issue of senior Ministers, including Ms Braverman and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, speaking at the NatCon event.

The source said: 'Alicia did raise it  she made it clear that it was out of order for Suella and Michael to be attending that event. Sir John's a diplomat, of course, and he didn't get involved.

'But there's a lot of unhappiness among Tory MPs with the harder Right members of the Government. As for Suella, the Left in the party just want her gone.'

However, friends of Ms Kearns insisted last night that at the dinner, attended by about 15 Tory MPs, she had only raised the issue of the NatCon conference indirectly.

They said she had questioned how to stop evangelical Republican conservatives from the US getting into the Tory Party.

Last year, Ms Kearns was accused of being one of the ring-leaders in a plot to oust the-then PM Boris Johnson  with the conspiracy dubbed the 'Pork Pie Plot' as she represents Melton Mowbray, home of the traditional pork pie. But yesterday Ms Kearns dismissed talk of an anti-Braverman plot at the Carlton Club as nonsense.

She said: 'There is absolutely, categorically no plot.'

Other sources said last night that far from talking about Ms Braverman, the 'roundtable discussion' with Sir John had focused on party unity and the need to support Rishi Sunak.

A friend of Ms Braverman said that MPs who wanted to oust her 'would better serve their constituents by supporting the Government and its manifesto pledge to cut migration numbers. Suella has strong support in the party.'
Police scientists are developing technology to stop e-vehicles remotely. They are working on ways to jam electronic scooters from moving, but research will also focus on targeting cars and bikes.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that the project has been under way since last year, although pressure for a breakthrough is likely to increase following the death of two teenagers in Cardiff last week.

Minutes from a National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) meeting in December last year  seen by the MoS  reveal that forces are looking into 'the development of deployable equipment that officers can use to stop autonomous and electric vehicles safely' with the use of 'waveform and amplifier' technology.

The minutes say: 'Once developed, this will provide an important capability to policing, firstly for stopping e-scooters safely, and latterly larger vehicles.'

Lancaster University's Professor Paul Taylor, Britain's policing chief scientific adviser, is overseeing the research. The technology already exists to stop cars remotely using radio and electromagnetic waves.

Insurance firm Direct Line found that e-bikes were used in 1,397 thefts last year (file image)

Labour MP Barry Sheerman (pictured) welcomed 'efforts from the police to find ways of safely stopping e-vehicles without the need for direct confrontation'

Last night, Labour MP Barry Sheerman, the chairman of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said: 'I welcome efforts from the police to find ways of safely stopping e-vehicles without the need for direct confrontation.

'I think vehicles such as e-scooters and e-bikes are going to cause an increasing number of accidents on our roads and pavements. This means more work for our NHS. Incidents such as those in Cardiff highlight that this is an issue of growing importance for our society. All the research shows that it is inherently more dangerous to travel at speed on a light vehicle than other modes of transport.'

At least one British company has developed a radio device that can reportedly stop a standard car from a distance of up to 230ft (70 metres). Andrew Wood, from Teledyne e2v, said: 'The whole premise of what we do is we fire out high energy pulses of radio frequency power.

'The waves couple into the wiring system of the vehicle. That disrupts the microprocessor onboard and then the vehicle will go into a safe mode and shut down the engine.'

Kyrees Sullivan, 16, and Harvey Evans, 15, were killed last week after their e-bike was apparently followed by a police van in Cardiff. The incident provoked a night of violent disorder on the streets.

Meanwhile, insurance firm Direct Line has found that e-bikes were used in 1,397 thefts and e-scooters in 424 last year, an overall increase of 185 per cent from the previous year.
Simon Urwin in BBC:

This is not a scenic drive, said James Willcox, of adventure travel specialist Untamed Borders. But whats incredible about Route 1 is where it takes you: to the birthplace of some of the worlds earliest civilisations, the home of many of humankinds greatest innovations.

Willcox, who was charged with logistics and security for my journey, was briefing me before I embarked on a 530km, two-day road trip from Basra to Baghdad. My trip would be using Iraqs first and longest freeway, the 1,200km-long Route 1, as a conduit to explore the heart of ancient Mesopotamia. Though the region has experienced decades of recent conflict, it was also once home to a series of illustrious historical empires (the Babylonians, Assyrians and Sumerians to name a few), and Willcox reassured me that the journey would be unforgettable so long as I followed some simple rules: Keep a low profile, dress conservatively and dont photograph any of the armed checkpoints, he said.

I flew into Basra, Iraqs largest port. The city straddles the Shatt al-Arab river, which is formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates  the two mighty waterways that inspired the name Mesopotamia (meaning between two rivers in Greek).

More here.
A former Real Housewives of Melbourne star is in a court battle with her sister over who owns a luxurious house in one of Australia's wealthiest suburbs.

According to documents filed in the Victorian Supreme Court, Venus Behbahani-Clark is taking legal action claiming she was given the ritzy Toorak townhouse during the short time her sister Rebekah separated from her billionaire fiance Alex Waislitz.

The former reality star - who was on Real Housewives from 2016-2018 - moved into the home on Canberra Road in December 2019 with her husband James Clark and their children, and an inked thumbprint lies at the heart of the dispute.

Mr Waislitz's company, Thorney Equities, has taken a counterclaim, seeking to evict the family from the house.

Former Real Housewives of Melbourne star Venus Behbahani-Clark is in a court battle with her sister over who owns a luxurious house in one of Australia's wealthiest suburbs

Rebekah said she was very distressed when her sister 'who was not financially secure' showed her a document in 2019 and said 'she needed to sign it'.

Thorney Equities' case is based on the situation in which she signed the document, called a 'deed of gift', giving the home to her sister.

Ms Behbahani said 'by reason of her distressed state' she didn't understand what the document meant, the Herald Sun reported.

She further claimed Venus was 'in a highly  angry state' when she took her sister's hand and had her sign the document using a thumb print with ink on it.

Ms Behbahani-Clark, in the original claim, wants the court to declare she is the home's owner and that the title be transferred to her.

Her sister and Mr Waislitz got back together in late 2019 just weeks after their split and have a daughter together.

Ealier this month, Ms Behbahani-Clark announced the birth of her fourth child, a girl called Cherry Blossom.

In an emotional Instagram post, she shared the trials and triumphs of her pregnancy journey, highlighting the difficulties that she and her newborn have had to face.

'We've had a very tough journey getting to this point and as a result, so has my baby girl,' Venus wrote.

'I have endured a lot of stress and suffering despite all this, the universe gave fate of life to our Cherry Blossom.'

The baby was born via an emergency cesarean, and Ms Behbahani-Clark extended her heartfelt gratitude to Dr Tom Cade and his team, as well as the staff at Epworth Babies.

She revealed her new baby is facing some health challenges but is starting to show positive signs.

Rebekah Behbahani (left) is pictured with her billionaire fiance, Alex Waislitz (right)

Former Real Housewives of Melbourne star Venus Behbahani-Clark, 38, has announced the birth of her fourth child, a baby girl named Cherry Blossom (pictured)

'She is bruised and perhaps a little battered, but that will improve,' she assured her followers, and also expressed appreciation for the supportive messages and prayers they had received.

The former TV star commended her elder daughters, Giselle and Sophia, for their help and patience at home with their little brother, adding that she has been overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted since the birth.

She previously welcomed a baby boy with her husband, James Clark, in May 2020, and they are also parents to daughters, Giselle, 13, and Sophia, nine.

Her sister Rebekah has a music career and released her latest song, Comfortable, last week.
Dame Joan is said to be especially fond of the M&S cashmere range

She may have a reputation for high-end designer glamour, but fashion icon Dame Joan Collins has a surprisingly down-to-earth style secret  she loves to shop at M&S.

Just like millions of ordinary British women, the Dynasty star enjoys rifling through the chain's clothing rails and cruising its food halls, according to Marks and Spencer chief executive Stuart Machin.

He revealed that the star, who turned 90 last week, even sends him pictures showing what she's buying  and jokes that her spending is keeping the business afloat.

'She sent me a WhatsApp the other day, 'Just to let you know I'm keeping you going',' he told The Mail on Sunday. 'She sent me her trolley of shopping.'

The admiration cuts both ways, with Mr Machin gushing about his famous customer. 'Number one, I think she's an icon. Number two, I think she is so proudly British, and I love that she is vocal. I love that she is passionate about our country. I love her whole demeanour and style. But I love even more that she is a huge fan of M&S. She shops at M&S all the time. She buys everything, food and clothing. I think she is an absolute star and a legend.'

Mr Machin's friendship with Dame Joan became public in February when she complained she had almost been mown down by a cyclist while on her way to dinner with the M&S boss in London. Luckily, she arrived unscathed to join a gathering which included actor Christopher Biggins and Mamma Mia! musical producer Judy Craymer.

Joan Collins (pictured) is said to be especially fond of the M&S cashmere range

Dame Joan is said to be especially fond of M&S cashmere. Cardigans and jumpers at the high street store cost less than 100, compared with around 900 from luxury labels.

She also relies on the chain for her pyjamas. A pair of M&S cotton striped PJs costs 30, compared to a designer such as Paul Smith, whose signature stripe set costs 270.

The actress previously had a deal with M&S to sell her Timeless Beauty cosmetics range through its stores, and has also appeared in adverts for the retailer.

Dame Joan is not alone in her enthusiasm for shopping at Marks, with Mr Machin last week announcing that sales have risen almost ten per cent in the past year.
Tory Party bosses are under pressure to scrap undemocratic fees on journalists reporting on their annual conference.

They face claims that charging each journalist 137 to accredit for this autumns event in Manchester runs counter to the partys claim to defend Press freedom.

In a stand-off between the Press and the Tory Party, national, regional and local newsrooms are currently refusing to sign up for the conference in protest at the fee.

And in a joint statement last night, editors and publishers across the industry called on the Tories to abandon the levy.

The statement  released by the Society of Editors, News Media Association, Foreign Press Association and News Media Coalition  said: To live up to the Governments mantra on Press freedom, the accreditation fee... must be scrapped.

Last year's annual Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham on October 5, 2022

The Tory Party says the modest charge help covers the cost of thousands of media passes that are issued but not collected.

But news industry representatives said they had offered alternative ways to reduce those costs.

They also noted that no other UK political party charges for accreditation and that, for more than a year, they have been seeking discussion with the Conservative Party to review these charges.

They added: In a democratic society, all party conferences are of political and public importance.

'There should be no charging barrier for journalists to be able to act as the eyes and ears of the public.

The row comes after Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer boasted earlier this month of how the Government was taking steps to increase Press freedoms.

A Tory Party spokesman said: A modest charge was introduced to discourage over-accreditation by some media outlets.

There are a range of exemptions on offer owing to the challenging financial situation many local outlets face.
The alleged mastermind behind one of Australia's biggest heroin hauls has been taken into custody during a dramatic arrest at a busy airport.

Guy Habkouk, 35, was detained by Australian Federal Police at Sydney International Airport on Saturday morning, for orchestrating the alleged import of 350kg of heroin in December 2020.

The shipment was one of the largest in Australian history and the drugs have an estimated street value of more than $1m.

Guy Habkouk, 35, was taken into custody by police at Sydney's international airport on Sunday

The Sydney man was living in Turkey before being picked up by local police in January.

Police will allege the Sydney man had extensive links to transnational organised crime groups, which helped facilitate this importation.

At the time of the claimed heroin seizure authorities believe Mr Habkouk was living in Thailand.

He has been charged with importing a commercial quantity of border controlled drugs contrary to section 307.1 of the Criminal Code 1995, an offence which carries the maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

He will appear before the Parramatta Local Court on Sunday morning.

AFP Commander Transnational Operations Richard Chin said the man allegedly had 'extensive links' to transnational organised crime groups.

'He played a significant orchestrating role in terms of this importation, which was a very large amount of heroin,' Commander Chin alleged.

Police allege Mr Habkouk was the planner behind one an attempt to smuggle 350kg of heroin into Australian in 2020

The heroin seized by authorities in December 2020 had a then estimated street value of $1million

The drugs were allegedly concealed inside two construction mixers imported from Kuala Lumpur before being delivered to a business in Sydney's north west.

Another man, understood to be the man's brother, was arrested and faced court for the importation last September.
A British holidaymaker left on life support in Turkey after her heart stopped minutes before she was meant to board her flight home has been declared 'clinically dead'.

Melissa 'Missy' Kinsella, 30, was due to fly back to the UK on May 15 after a family holiday.

But the mother-of-three collapsed in the airport and was taken to hospital in Antalya, Turkey as she had swelling on her brain, where she was placed on life support, unable to breathe for herself.

Thanks to funds raised by a friend for her hospital care, which totalled 1,800 a day, and a 42,000 transport, she was returned to the UK on May 24.

Her parents announced in a heartfelt tribute on social media that tests had shown that the 30-year-old mother was clinically dead.

Melissa 'Missy' Kinsella, 30, was due to fly back to the UK on May 15 after a family holiday when she collapsed in a Turkish airport

Rebecca Gath (left), a friend of Kinsella (right), said the stricken holidaymaker's family were 'beside themselves'

'Our hearts are broken forever.

'After 12 days of fighting for our beautiful daughter's life, test[s] prove she is clinically dead. We have no words to express how we feel but thank everyone who helped us in any way to bring her home.'

She said that Melissa was an organ donor and that she was in surgery for donations.

Melissa's best friend of eight years, Rebecca Gath, 35, joined tributes online.

'I can't believe I'm never going to hear your voice again (other than voice notes that I'll cherish forever).

'I'm never going to get one of those phone calls that I've prayed for the past 12 days. I am absolutely heartbroken for your family, your girls, your friends.

'I'm going to miss that dirty laugh, the disgusting stories with too much information.

'The absolute anger at any small inconvenience and the best friend that would always encourage me to fly off the handle and you'd be there to back me up.

'I'll never have a best friend like you again because you were one in a million. I love you.'

She said previously that this is the 'the most heartbreaking situation' and that her family are distraught.

'Her family are beside themselves... Her mum and dad are with her in Turkey but are only allowed to stay at her bedside for 10-15 minutes per day,' Rebecca said.

'Her partner Jay is at home with the children trying to be strong for them.

'As her friend this is the most heartbreaking situation.'

'She's such a bubbly, funny and popular person,' Rebecca said of Melissa.

'Knowing she is fighting for her life is breaking mine and all of her friends and family's hearts.'

Melissa's family do not know whether Melissa had decided to take out travel insurance prior to her trip, and were unable to ask her as she was in a coma.
It is not uncommon for Hollywood stars to wear eye-catching looks on the Cannes red carpet.

But Ukrainian model Alina Baikova made a particularly bold fashion statement  wearing a short dress emblazoned with the message 'F*** YOU PUTIN'.

The 34-year-old, who has modelled for Calvin Klein, Lanvin and Dior, arrived in a beige raincoat which she then opened up to reveal a defiant insult aimed at Vladimir Putin, splashed in giant letters across an outfit in the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag.

She was immediately surrounded by five black-suited security guards who escorted her away.

Ukrainian model Alina Baikova wore a short dress emblazoned with the message 'F*** YOU PUTIN' on the Cannes red carpet

Footage of her protest at the event on Friday went viral on social media.

Ms Baikova, born near Ukraine's capital Kyiv, told her 3.5million Instagram followers: 'Here is the proof of the 'REAL SUPPORT' for Ukraine! I got arrested and asked to leave the carpet as the festival doesn't want to get political.'

Russian films have been banned at the festival in response to the war.
The boss of celebrity jeweller David Morris has said the hated tourist tax has 'killed' international business in London.

The high-end retailer, which counts Beyonce, Adele and Keira Knightley among a star-studded list of clientele, has joined hundreds of businesses in support of the Mail's campaign to reinstate VAT-free shopping.

Jeremy Morris, the company's managing director, said spending in the capital had 'kind of dried up', adding that the David Morris boutique in Dubai is doing 'much better' than his New Bond Street store in London.

The high-end retailer, which counts Beyonce, Adele and Keira Knightley among a star-studded list of clientele, has joined hundreds of businesses in support of the Mail's campaign to reinstate VAT-free shopping

A-LISTER: Actress Keira Knightley in David Morris earrings at The Imitation Game film premiere

In an open letter to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, organised by hotelier Sir Rocco Forte and signed by household names such as Harrods, Burberry and Marks & Spencer, the unpopular policy was branded 'puzzling'.

And warnings from firms keep coming as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faces mounting pressure to scrap the tax.

Customers are shunning London and flocking to Paris where they can get a tax refund on purchases of pricey necklaces and earrings, Mr Morris said.

'My business is not developing in London anywhere at the rate it should have been, it is still very sluggish.

'Until this thing is reversed, I don't think we are going to see any uptick on it. It's basically pretty much killed the retail export business in London, people just prefer not to shop in London.'

This month, Minister Paul Scully admitted scrapping the tax could bring in 'hundreds of millions pounds of lost revenue'.

But Mr Sunak reportedly told MPs that his in-laws 'don't come here to shop', in response to calls for a U-turn.
If your political opponents come up with a good idea, and you like it, steal it.

The brilliant 19th Century Tory leader Benjamin Disraeli famously joked that Robert Peel had caught his Whig rivals bathing, and had walked off with their clothes.

The truth is that politicians who follow this rule seldom suffer, and their victims cannot complain very much.

With a bit of luck, you will make a better job of it than they would have done, and they cannot attack you for following an idea they have themselves praised.

Obviously this cannot work if there is a deep ideological difference. But it is certainly the case with Labours new enthusiasm for bringing down immigration: training our own doctors, nurses and other skilled workers so we do not have to import them.

Wes Streeting, Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

Wes Streeting, the Shadow Health Secretary, today sets out this policy in an article for The Mail on Sunday, saying that the next Labour government (if there is such a thing) will choose homegrown talent over ever-greater reliance on recruiting from overseas.

As he points out, the Nursing and Midwifery Council last week disclosed that half of new recruits into the NHS have been trained abroad.

He also lands some shrewd blows on the Government, for failing to train enough medical students, saying this is a false economy which compels the NHS to spend billions on recruitment agencies.

He says: Last summer they cut the number of medical school places by 3,000, turning away straight-A students from studying for a brilliant career in medicine.

There is a global shortage of medics, and the UK is refusing to pull its weight. It is simply immoral.

Ouch. If there is one thing worse than a false accusation, it is a truthful one.

So why concede this case to Labour which, on past form, actively wants more immigration and could well sideline Mr Streeting and his bright ideas if it ever actually gets into power.

Surely it is Conservative to boost our own resources, train our own domestic students to the highest level, and become nationally more self-reliant?

Yes, there are purely economic benefits from the current high levels of immigration. But politics  as Benjamin Disraeli would tell Rishi Sunak if only he were available  often involves seeing beyond the numbers, into peoples hearts and minds.

The trouble is that Mr Streeting has a point. In fact he has three points. We should be offering more opportunities for our own bright school-leavers to train for important practical and professional work in the economy and the health service.

The public are tired of the current levels of immigration and want to see them brought down, after years of failed promises. And it is wrong to plunder poor countries of their expensively trained doctors and nurses.

Meanwhile, it is not clear that the problem of boats crossing the Channel is going to be solved or even significantly reduced this summer, or whether the Rwanda scheme will at last get off the ground.

But a serious attempt to increase home-trained skilled workers can be brought into action swiftly.

We suspect that Mr Streeting and his boss Sir Keir Starmer are already worried that Rishi Sunak will in fact steal their clothes.

Mr Streeting actually complains in his article that the Tories have shamelessly stolen Labour plans to get the long-term sick back to work.

Well, so they should have done, if it is a good plan.

Like it or not, the levels of migration into this country will be hugely influential on many voters, if not actually decisive, at the fast-approaching General Election.

The Government simply has to do better on this.
A murder investigation has been launched after a baby boy was found dead at a home.

Emergency services were called to a house on Stanley Street at St Marys in western Sydney at about 4.15am on Saturday.

A seven-week-old baby boy was discovered unresponsive at the address.

Paramedics performed CPR on the newborn before he was taken to The Children's Hospital at Westmead. He was unable to be revived.

Emergency services were called to a house on Stanley Street (pictured) in St Marys to reports a baby was unresponsive

Paramedics performed CPR on the newborn before he was taken to The Children's Hospital at Westmead

A crime scene has been established and members of the Homicide Squad are assisting local police to determine the circumstances of the baby's death.

A report will be prepared for the coroner.

More to come
A bomb squad was called to a busy hospital after a suspicious package was found.

Specialist teams were called to the Alfred Hospital, in Melbourne, at about 7am on Sunday after reports of a 'suspicious package', Victoria Police said.

Police cordoned off streets surrounding the hospital as a precaution.

The package was reportedly taken to a nearby deserted oval where a police robot was used to examine it.

BREAKING: @sunriseon7 @7NewsMelbourne



Police have cordoned off the roads surrounding the Alfred hospital after a bomb scare..



The bomb robot has removed the suspicious device and taken it to the oval opposite.. pic.twitter.com/Abu86VRA41  Kristy Mayr (@KristyMayr7) May 27, 2023

A police bomb squad robot was used to examine the suspicious item on a deserted oval

The area was declared safe at 10am.

An Alfred Health spokesperson said patients inside the hospital were temporarily moved for safety reasons with some evacuated and others relocated in the hospital.

'Senior personnel took immediate action, working with Victoria Police to ensure the safety of patients, staff and community members, while securing the area,' the spokesperson said.

'Emergency Department patients were moved within the hospital to ensure they continued to receive appropriate care.'

'Emergency services were called to a hospital on Commercial Road, Melbourne to conduct a safety check following reports of a suspicious package just before 7am,' a police statement said.

'The Bomb Response Unit attended the scene and determined the package was not explosive.

'The scene has been declared safe.'
The Canadian electric vehicle company AXL will be revealing its new star, an all-electric SUV named SharX-5, at the EVIS Summit in Abu Dhabi from May 29 to 31.

The Canadian newcomer to the promising market of electrical vehicles has chosen the GCC countries as its first market, giving the people living in the Gulf states the opportunity to be the first in the world to reserve their SharX-5 for free, with an anticipated delivery date of February 2024.

Our company was founded on the belief that everyone must contribute towards climate sustainability. AXL is dedicated to making luxury electric vehicles more accessible for everyone willing to embrace this new electric lifestyle and help reverse the effects of climate change in a meaningful way, said Ali Eslami, AXLs CEO.

Cutting-edge features

Our new SUV SharX-5 is comparable to the best vehicles in the market, and we have put meticulous efforts into making it a new star in the market with state-of-the-art features and a range of 500 kilometres, AXL CEO added.

The Electric Vehicle Innovation Summit (EVIS) is poised to hold its second event at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre under the slogan Where EV Innovations Meet, providing a global platform where EV manufacturers, engineers, experts, business leaders, and EV-related institutions around the world can network and explore the latest technical and regulatory trends and market their vehicles.

During the first EVIS summit last year, AXL saw first-hand the overwhelming interest in EV technologies and possibilities in this region. This is why we decided to host our world premiere during this years event and to make the GCC our first market, said Vicky Snyder, Head of Communications for AXL.

Affordable

They will be giving visitors the exclusive opportunity to reserve their own SharX-5 SUV, which is comparable in performance to its competitors, but carries with it a much more affordable price tag.

According to SharX-5s launch plan, deliveries to the GCC countries will begin next February 2024. AXL will then enter selected European and Asia markets, and in 2025 it will enter the North American market. However, interested people from these countries can now reserve their own SharX-5 at www.axlev.com, and will be the first to receive it when AXL enters their country.-- TradeArabia News Service
ABC star Dan Bourchier says he, like his mentor Stan Grant, have experienced abuse, death threats and 'constant belittling'.

Grant, a Wiradjuri man, this week stood aside from hosting Q&A and his other duties at the broadcaster after speaking out against the ABC for their lack of public support despite being subject to racist abuse.

Bourchier, who is the ABC's referendum correspondent, appeared on ABC's Insiders program on Sunday, where with tears in his eyes said Grant's speaking out had reminded him of things he himself has had to deal with.

Dan Bourchier said he, like his mentor Stan Grant, had experienced racism while reporting

'The abuse, the death threats, the constant belittling and degrading of what your perspective is, that happens from some in the community,' he said.

'It's also raised a lot of issues about what happens within the ABC, and there's been a lot of reporting about that.

'I have to say, that not much of that has surprised me, because it's what I hear and some of it (racism) is what I've experienced myself.'

Bourchier is of Aboriginal heritage and grew up in Tennant Creek, a rural town in the Northern Territory.

This week during senate estimates, the ABC news boss said he regretted not publicly defending Grant for the widespread criticism and racial abuse he received following his appearance on a discussion panel on the night of King Charles III's coronation.

Justin Stevens said there were 'lessons in this in terms of how Stand felt we had managed it'.

He also urged media organisations to be kinder to each other.

The ABC has launched an internal review into the broadcaster's system of dealing with racism.

Bourchier said that was something he himself had called for, and said it needed to be 'independent, transparent, and to look at understanding what is happening and why'.

He said the problem extended beyond the ABC, but was something for contemporary media in Australia more widely to reflect 'very deeply on'.

ABC presenter Stan Grant has stood down from his duties following the backlash over the Coronation coverage

'I don't think we need to be pointing fingers, (but) I do think we need to be holding up a mirror and asking ourselves, 'what are we doing and what have we said or not said in supporting people, or shutting them down when there is misinformation or targeted abuse that Stan and his family have been sustaining for many, many years',' Bourchier said.

'It certainly has been heightened recently ... The fact that someone can be screamed off a prime-time program and shut down and made to feel as though they can't go on needs to raise serious alarm bells.'

Bourchier admitted he was reluctant to go on the ABC's flagship Sunday program for fear he would be branded as a 'diversity pick' and detailed racist abuse he copped every time he appeared on the couch.

'Why would I subject myself, and even more difficult, why would I put my partner and our family through ... that level of criticism,' he said.
An officer reportedly said the shooting involved the Banditos Motorcycle Club - an outlaw club - and there was a 'rolling shootout'

All the shooters have been apprehended, but the town is currently shut down and under curfew until 4am this morning

At least three are dead and five are injured after a shooting between rival biker gangs at a bike rally in Red River, New Mexico, on Saturday evening

At least three people are dead and five injured after 'rolling shootouts' erupted between two rival biker gangs in New Mexico, with a town under curfew and hospitals locked down to avoid retaliations.

The Memorial Day rally in Red River, the town's 41st annual installment, turned violent on Saturday when shots rang out at the packed event between rival gangs.

Mayor Linda Calhoun confirmed three people died and multiple were injured and that the horrific incident was gang-related. One victim was airlifted to Denver.

The body of one victim was seen covered in a white sheet on the sidewalk while another victim was stretchered into an ambulance and another airlifted to Denver.

Holy Cross Hospital in Taos was put under lockdown with local police guarding it, while The University of New Mexico Hospital is being monitored by the Albuquerque Police Department, according to State Police.

The New Mexico State Police have deployed more officers to Red River for the investigation and have asked citizens to avoid the city while that happens.

At least three people are dead and five are injured after shooting at a biker rally in Red River, New Mexico, on Saturday evening

At least 25 motorcycles were seen following the ambulances headed to Holy Cross Medical Center

A victim was seen being loaded up into an ambulance at the event

A victim was seen covered by a white sheet after being fatal shot on Saturday

An officer was heard reporting a 'rolling shootout' about 6pm between the Banditos Motorcycle Club - a dangerous biker gang - and someone else, according to Taos News.

'They are shutting down Red River,' another officer advised over the police scanner, according to the local report.

Witness, Eddie Cook, of Benbrook, Texas, told KOAT that 'there were people running by where we were standing, screaming: ''They're shooting down there'',' as the dangerous scene erupted.

'I never heard shooting the first round but as they come by, everybody was running,' he said.

The Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina, who was off-duty, shared a photo of the event 30 minutes before the shooting occurred.

He wrote on Twitter: 'Prayers for all impacted by todays shooting in my hometown. Was a great day as I having dinner with my wife in Red River. What a helpless feeling not having a badge, gun or radio as State Police officers and others enter the restaurant and slowly everything closes down and you don't even know if you can get to your car or if it's in the scene.'

The Mayor of Taos, Pascualito M. Maestas, issued a curfew from 10pm to 4am and all retailers are banned from selling alcohol during this time.

The Albuquerque Journal originally reported that the shooting occurred at the Motherlode Saloon in Red River, but the bar took to Facebook to deny it was the scene of the bloody conflict.

An officer reportedly said the shooting involved the Banditos Motorcycle Club - an outlaw club - and there was a 'rolling shootout'

The shooting happened between rival gangs. All shooters have been apprehended

The Mayor of Taos, Pascualito M. Maestas, has issued a curfew from 10pm to 4am and all retailers are banned from selling alcohol during this time

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Hear from Red River Mayor Linda Calhoun about todays mass shooting. -3 people were killed and 5 were wounded. -This is a confirmed biker-gang related shooting. -The suspects have been apprehended. #RedRiverShooting #MemorialDayRallyShooting Posted by Questa Del Rio News on Saturday, May 27, 2023

According to the event schedule, bikers were expected to be at Bull O' the Woods Saloon for a live music event by Warning Shot.

More than 25,000 bikers were expected to be in town for the rally this weekend.

The event is scheduled to take place from May 25 to May 29 with multiple vendors selling food, leather, lace, among others. Vendors within the investigation zone have been asked to leave, according to the mayor.

The Bandidos bike gang started in San Leon, Texas, in 1966, according to USA Today. It is the largest motorcycle gangs in the US and has thousands of members, according to the FBI.

The gang has been involved in distributing cocaine and marijuana, among other drugs, according to the Justice Department.

In 2020, Albuquerque law enforcement feared a gang war would erupt as then-newcomers the Mongols moved in.

The Mongols origin in New Mexico, according to the Albuquerque Journal, and have around 1,500 members, as of 2020. It is also considered one of the most dangerous biker gangs in the country.

'The Mongols are also known to frequently commit violent crime including assault, intimidation and murder in defense of their territory, and to uphold the reputation of the club,' the Justice Department said.

It is unconfirmed if the Mongols or Bandidos were involved in Saturday's shooting.
Lidia Thorpe will lodge a complaint to the Human Rights Commission about the racism she alleges she experienced while a member of the Greens.

The DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman and independent senator said her lawyer had advised her there were 'enough grounds for a case'.

Senator Thorpe left the Greens party to represent the 'Blak sovereign movement' in February.

Speaking to ABC's Insiders on Sunday, Senator Thorpe said she had 'experienced racism all my life in every workplace, and the Greens were no different'.

Senator Lidia Thorpe has lodged a human rights complaint against her former party the Greens

'I want racism stamped out ... It's called institutional racism,' she said.

'It's the foundation of these institutions that are racist, that allow racism to occur. I think we all need to look at ourselves within and eradicate that and make our workplaces safer.'

Earlier this week, Senator Thorpe accused her former colleague Sarah Hanson-Young of racism in a tense exchange during senate estimates.

She made the allegation while Senator Hanson-Young was grilling ABC's Managing Director David Anderson and News Director Justin Stevens about the national broadcaster's handling of Stan Grant's exit from Q+A over racial abuse.

'She needs to look at herself,' Senator Thorpe was heard asking.

On the Voice, Senator Thorpe also confirmed she was 'seriously considering' abstaining from voting in both parliament and at the public poll.

Citing concerns about a lack of detail and not enough practical action to improve Indigenous lives, she said she would 'definitely not' vote no in the referendum.

But she also said she couldn't support the Voice in its current form because it would allow for 'a powerless Voice to go into the Constitution'.

'I'm not in the no camp and I've never been in the no camp. I won't sit with racists and white supremacists on the no side,' she told ABC's Insiders.

She said that when the Constitution Alteration Bill goes before the senate - which paves the way for the referendum as it will detail the question Australians will be asked - she will consider abstaining.

Senator Thorpe says Green Senator Sarah Hanson-Young (pictured right with party leader Adam Bandt) 'needs to look at herself'

Senator Thorpe said the government should consider her amendment that would 'acknowledge the sovereign status of First Nations people' and cited her concerns about the makeup of the Voice.

'We don't know what this looks like. It could be one person. It's up to the parliament to decide what the Voice looks like,' she said.

'So I can't support something that gives us no power. And I certainly cannot support a No campaign that is looking more like a white-supremacy campaign that is causing a lot of harm.'

Senator Thorpe also criticised the government's process for developing the referendum, arguing the members of the working group were 'hand-picked' and excluded 'grassroots, sovereign blackfellas around the country'.

Senator Thorpe said she was still pushing for the government to take practical action, saying she would consider voting 'yes' if done.

'We have incarceration rates going out of control, and we have over 22,000 Aboriginal children in out-of-home care today,' she said.

'That is the priority that this country should be talking about. The government have an opportunity to show good faith and implement those recommendations.

'They might get my vote if they do that.'
A man has been charged after a 63-year-old was allegedly stabbed to death with neighbours recalling the moment they heard screams coming from a property.

Police were called to a unit on Mine Street in the Ipswich suburb of Redbank, in south-east Queensland, at about 10.25pm on Saturday.

Emergency services the 63-year-old man with several serious stab wounds and attempted to treat him before he died shortly afterwards.

A man has been charged with murder following the death of a 63-year-old man in south-east Queensland late on Saturday night. The unit block where the man died is pictured

A 28-year-old man from Boronia Heights who was found on the premises and was taken into custody.

He was later charged with one count each of murder, threatening violence and possess dangerous drugs (methamphetamine).

Police will allege three people, the two men and a woman, were inside a unit when an altercation broke out.

A four-year-old child was also reportedly inside the unit at the time.

Detective Inspector David Briese said the woman and child were not harmed.

The police said the two men were 'known to each other'.

Neighbour Charlie Ridgeway Jr said he heard a disturbance before police arrived at the unit.

Emergency services treated the man at the scene (pictured), but he died a short time later

'Pretty much what we heard last night was arguments in the flats, we heard yelling,' he told the Courier Mail.

'We heard a big scream right after the yelling, like a grown man scream. About 20 minutes later, 20 cop cars were here.'

Mr Ridgeway said the area had changed for the worse since a block of flats were built two years ago.

The accused man will appear before the Ipswich Magistrates Court on Monday.
A toddler was hit in the head with a stray bullet while playing outside a childcare center in Utah after a man shooting birds misfired.

The two-year-old child is recovering in a Salt Lake City hospital after the incident on outside Leap Ahead Daycare on Monday.

The man is cooperating with investigators and won't be named unless prosecutors decide to file charges against him, the Spanish Fork Police Department said.

Regardless, authorities have already said that they believe the shooting, the result of a 22-caliber air rifle, to be an accident.

'We do not believe that this was a targeted incident,' Lt. Cory Slaymaker told KSL-TV in the immediate aftermath.

'We feel like this was more of an accident, and the person that probably did it doesn't even know that they did it.'

A man shooting birds in suburban Utah with a .22-caliber air rifle is a person of interest for wounding a toddler in the head outside a day care center this week, authorities said Wednesday

Police confirmed there was no apparent malicious intent in a press release.

'Detectives are continuing to investigate where the bullet may have been shot from and why,' Spanish Fork police said in a statement Tuesday.

'It appears this was a tragic accident. Open fields are directly west of the daycare and it is believed the round may have come from that area.'

The boy was playing outside the Spanish Fork facility, about 52 miles south of Salt Lake City, when employees noticed him stumbling and bleeding from the head on Monday afternoon.

'Initially, we thought he just had tripped and hit his head,' said Lane Mugleston, who owns the daycare with his wife.

Although nobody heard shots fired, the suspected air gun pellet left a hole in the vinyl fence wrapping the day cares outdoor play area, suggesting it came from farm fields across the street, Mugleston said Tuesday.

Employees called the child's parents who took him to the hospital.

'The doctors are monitoring him, and they said that his vitals are good and expect a full recovery,' Mugleston added. 'So they think that that's a blessing.'

Lane Mugleston, the owner of Leap Ahead Daycare, points to a bullet hole as he speaks to reporters Tuesday

Lane Mugleston (pictured), who owns the daycare with his wife, initially believed the shooting victim had tripped and fell

A farming field across the street west of the Leap Ahead Daycare facility

Doctors found what looked like a bullet lodged in the child's head and transported him to a larger Salt Lake City hospital.

Mugleston noted that, due to the day care's location near an airport, it's often hard to hear things.

He said he was still in a state of disbelief over the episode and had notified all clients of the day care.

'I still feel like I'm in shock,' he said. 'We are absolutely surprised. We are dumbfounded that this would happen in Spanish Fork.'
Australians have woken up to freezing temperatures, with some towns recording their coldest May morning on record.

Widespread frost was reported in parts of Queensland, Northern Territory, New South Wales and Western Australia on Sunday morning.

The Bureau of Meteorology recorded minimum temperatures as low as to -2.7 degrees at Injune Post Office in Queensland.

Records were broken in Hughenden, Queensland, where residents woke up to -1.4 degrees, while Bankstown and Penrith each had their coldest May temperature ever, hitting 0.7 degrees and 0.6 degrees respectively.

Tamworth also recorded its coldest May morning with -4.8 degrees.

Australians have shivered through more chilly temperatures, with some areas across the country recording their coldest May morning in 15 years (stock image)

Widespread frost was reported in parts of Queensland, Northern Territory, New South Wales and Western Australia on Sunday morning

Records were broken on Saturday with Sydney's Observatory Hill recording a minimum temperature of 6.9C at 7:04am  its coldest May morning in 24 years while Bega's -1.6C was its coldest in 15 years.

NSW suburbs including Camden and Tibooburra also recorded their coldest mornings for the month in 12 years with minimum recorded temperatures of -1.2C and 3.8C respectively.

Temperature dropped to 1.1C by 5.30am in Perth, marking the coldest May morning the area has experienced in 59 years.

The chilly start was only 2.4C warmer than Perth Airport's record minimum of -1.3C set on June 17, 2006.

Minimum temperatures as low as to -2.7 degrees were recorded in Queensland, while Bankstown and Penrith each had their coldest May temperature ever, recording 0.7 degrees and 0.6 degrees respectively

A high-pressure system across the country is brining the unseasonably cold weather and will likely bring further cold temperatures well into Monday

Sky News Weather meteorologist Alison Osborne said the cold snap is expected to continue for the coming days, with many areas expected to record temperatures 'well below average'.

'Easily the coldest so far in Sydney and Canberra with a number of May and Autumn records at the lower end of the scale being easily broken,' Ms Osbourne said.

'Widespread areas are expected to get close to freezing.'

The bureau has also issued marine wind warnings for Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia as the system passes through.

Ms Osbourne said frost is expected to form again in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory again on Monday, with temperatures forecast to be below five degrees again.

'(Frost is) certainly normal for this time of year but it can be an issue for growers,' she said.

Snow is also forecast to fall over the Australian Alps but Ms Osbourne said it will only be a light dusting.

Sydney is expected to reach a top of 18 degrees on Sunday, while Melbourne will hit a top of 15 degrees.

Queensland should be a little warmer, with temperatures forecast to reach a top of 22 degrees.

A cold start to Sunday with widespread frost areas. Some places saw their coldest May morning on record including: 0.7C at Bankstown, -4.8C at Tamworth, 3.5C at Williamson, 1.4C at Hughenden. credit: Lynette Joy Foody, Uralla - NSW For more info: https://t.co/ifYCtuG7uT pic.twitter.com/ZlzZ6A8VRm  Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@BOM_au) May 27, 2023

Meanwhile, Adelaide recorded 5-20mm of rain overnight and showers are expected across the south east part of the country.

The bureau forecasts this will be the result of a weak trough pushing its way across the southeast, reinforcing cloudy conditions and showers.

'Clear skies, light winds, and chilly mornings are on the cards for the remainder,' the bureau stated.

A high-pressure system across the country is brining the unseasonably cold weather and will likely bring further cold temperatures well into Monday.
Met Police officers have been mocked online after a 'sweet thief' managed to take on two of them at once and get away despite being barefoot.

Videos show the officers getting into a brawl with the enraged 26-year-old woman in Willesden, north west London, on Friday afternoon.

'Britain's finest responding to theft of penny sweets from local newsagent, making hard work of bringing down perpetrator,' one social media user captioned the video.

In a shocking attack, the woman grabs one Met Police officer by her hair as the cop tried to arrest her following reports she had assaulted two men and a woman.

While the suspected thief swings the policewoman around by her ponytail, her colleague attempts to pull her off, repeatedly saying 'madam' in a futile attempt to calm her down.

The woman then makes off down the road before police later caught up with her, with two more officers needed to perform the arrest.

A video shows the shocking moment the woman grabs one of the Met police officers by her hair as the cop tried to arrest her

The male officer tries unsuccessfully to pull the woman off his colleague as they try to arrest her

The woman flails one arm at the male officer as she continues to pull the hair of the female cop

There have been claims that the woman had stolen penny sweets from a local newsagents, while police say they attended the scene following an alleged assault on three people.

Officers struggled to detain the woman as a crowd gathered around, the video shows.

As the pair try to arrest her, the male officer is easily batted off by her, as she starts flailing one arm at him and then pushes the female officer towards him.

She can then be seen making off down the road before the clip ends, as dumbfounded bystanders watch on and film the dramatic escape.

A second video shows that the officers eventually tracked the woman down, but continued in their laboured approach to arresting her.

The officers appeared to need back up as the woman was arrested by two other cops, with the clip showing them all gathered around her as she is sat against a wall.

Police eventually caught up with the woman, with two other officers arresting her

The woman continued with her aggressive behaviour, with the Met saying she then assaulted and racially abused the arresting officers.

While in custody, she is said to have assaulted another officer, who suffered a suspected broken nose.

The woman was subsequently detained under the Mental Health Act, police said.

The altercation took place on Friday afternoon on 151-153 Fortune Gate Road, NW10, police confirmed.
New footage has emerged of Richards attacking a suspected cop on platform

This is the moment a runaway burglar who broke out of a prison van outside Brixton police station punched a 'police officer' who attempted to stop him on a Tube platform.

Police are desperately hunting 42-year-old Kwami Richards who managed to break free from the van operated by a private security firm on Friday afternoon as he was being transported back to jail.

The Met Police said that an officer chased him on foot into Brixton Underground station, but was assaulted when he tried to detain him. The force is still trying to piece together how Richards, who has broken his licence conditions, was able to escape.

New footage has since emerged of a man, thought to be the cop, bravely trying to prevent the fleeing criminal boarding the Tube.

The video shows the man pleading with Richards on the Victoria Line platform before he is shockingly punched in the face.

Police are hunting Kwami Richards (pictured) who escaped from a prison van on Friday afternoon

The footage shows the man, thought to be an officer, pleading with Richards calmly before the criminal assaults him

Richards launches a terrifying assault on the man, punching him in the face to the shock of passengers on board the Tube

Richards continues to attack the brave man before turning away and fleeing down the platform

This is the moment Richards is chased down the platform but police said yesterday that the criminal did manage to board a Victoria Line Tube

Passengers on board the train can be heard gasping as Richards continues his terrifying assault.

After wildly swinging, Richards then flees down the Tube platform, chased by the suspected officer.

Despite footage showing Richards leaving the platform, the Metropolitan Police said that Richards had managed to board a Victoria Line train as they urged the public not to approach him.

A force spokesman said: 'Officers are appealing for information about the whereabouts of a man who escaped from custody in south London.

'Kwami Richards escaped from a prison transport van outside Brixton police station at approximately 2pm on Friday May 26.

'The 42-year-old, who has links to Wandsworth, was wanted on recall to prison for beaching his licence conditions after serving a sentence for burglary.

'He had been arrested by Met officers and was in the process of being transported to prison by a private security company when the incident occurred.

'He was pursued by a police officer who witnessed the incident into Brixton Underground station.

Richards managed to break free from the van operated by a private security firm as he was being transported back to jail outside Brixton police station (pictured)

'The officer was assaulted as he attempted to detain Richards who then boarded a Victoria line train.

'Richards should not be approached, and the public are asked to call 999 immediately if he is seen.

'If you have any information about his whereabouts, please call 101 or tweet @MetCC quoting CAD 4140/26May.

'You can also provide information anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.'

The Met Police said it could not confirm details of potential victims when approached by MailOnline.
An outgoing RAF chief has admitted the air force made mistakes in its diversity recruitment drive.

Of the 1,500 pilots in the force at the end of last year, just 40 were women and 10 were from ethnic minorities.

But aims to improve these figures by 2030 ended up 'flat-lining', with staff finding the goals 'almost impossible to meet'.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, who is set to retire next month, also said that when he entered the role four years ago, he had hoped to tackle 'bullying, harassment and discrimination' going on within the force.

It comes after the Daily Mail read leaked documents where senior officers suggested RAF training places should be filled by any remaining women and EMs [Ethnic Minorities] that are ready even if the candidates are not first past the post.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston (pictured), who is set to retire next month, also said that when he entered the role four years ago, he had hoped to tackle 'bullying, harassment and discrimination' going on within the force

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak walks with Chief of the Air Staff Sir Mike Wigston (left) and Station Commander of RAF Coningsby, Group Captain Billy Cooper (right) at number 11 (fighter) Squadron during a visit to RAF Coningsby

In an interview with The Telegraph, Sir Mike said: 'We were doing all we could to tackle this intractable problem, which is the lack of diversity in our service.'

But the Chief of the Air Staff revealed that the failing recruitment drive resulted in the resignation of a senior official, which he described as a 'regrettable outcome'.

His goals had been for 40 per cent of the force's personnel to be women and 20 per cent to be to from ethnic minorities by the end of the decade.

But Sir Mike, 55, said one of the mistakes made was that those 'aspirational goals filtered down into people's personal objectives in-year, which they found almost impossible to meet'.

'That put intolerable pressure on them and I've apologised to the recruiting and selection organisation,' he added.

READ MORE: RAF houses child rapist on family base: Fury as paedophile is given property near primary school because red tape extraordinarily stops top brass kicking him out instantly Advertisement

On entering the job as head of the service four years ago, Sir Mike sought out to tackle what he saw as 'inappropriate [and] unacceptable behaviours'.

He said he felt 'there was just too much bullying, harassment and discrimination going on [and] we weren't doing a good enough job of dealing with them and dealing with the aftermath both for the victims and for justice being done and being seen to be done'.

But the RAF faced claims it broke employment law when it attempted to favour female and ethnic minority candidates.

The admission of 'mistakes' by Sir Mike comes after the Red Arrows, the Royal Air Forces elite aerobatics team, was last year revealed to have a 'toxic' culture after several of the squadron quit or were suspended.

More than 40 crew members, including vulnerable women, told commanders they suffered sexual assaults, sexual harassment and physical attacks by Red Arrows pilots who considered themselves untouchable due to their status.

Sir Mike told The Telegraph he was 'beyond infuriated' when the information came to him.

The admission of 'mistakes' by Sir Mike comes after the Red Arrows, the Royal Air Forces elite aerobatics team, was last year revealed to have a 'toxic' culture after several of the squadron quit or were suspended

'People have been harmed,' he said, adding that 'those behaviours have no place in our air force in 2023'.

The shock findings of an RAF Non-Statutory Inquiry prompted top brass finally to respond to abuse claims which had been raised as long ago as 2019.

And in exclusive interviews with the Daily Mail, the victims called for the jets to be disbanded.
Killer whales which have been ramming and sinking boats off the coast of Spain may be doing so to avenge their matriarch after she was struck by fishermen, experts have said amid a spate of attacks.

Three boats have recently been sunk, with hundreds of coordinated attacks on vessels by the orca whales off the Iberian coast since 2020 according to reports.

British sailor April Boyes had her yacht wrecked during a night of terror this week, as a gang of killer whales continuously rammed into the vessel for over an hour off the coast of Gibraltar.

The orcas broke off her boat's rudder before they began to rip bits off the vessel and smash into it, causing water to flood in, and the four-member crew had to be rescued by the Spanish coastguard.

The attacks are thought to have been prompted by a 'critical moment of agony' suffered by group leader White Gladis, possibly either due to a collision with a boat or entanglement with a fishing line, scientists say.

The group of predators is seen surrounding the vessel off the coast of Gibraltar before repeatedly slamming into the yacht in an attack that destroyed the rudder and pierced the hull

British sailor April Boyes has told how she endured a night of terror after her yacht was wrecked by killer whales that continuously rammed into the vessel for over an hour off the coast of Spain

The trauma Gladis experienced could have caused the whale to become more aggressive, before her behaviour began to be mimicked by other whales, Marine biologist Alfredo Lopez Fernandez has said.

'That traumatized orca is the one that started this behavior of physical contact with the boat,' Mr Fernandez told livescience.com.

'We do not interpret that the orcas are teaching the young, although the behavior has spread to the young vertically, simply by imitation, and later horizontally among them, because they consider it something important in their lives,' he added.

In a video shared by Ms Boyes, the group of predators can be seen surrounding the yacht off the coast of Gibraltar on Thursday.

Ms Boyes, 31, can be heard shakily saying: 'Jesus, oh my God,' as each thud causes more damage to the boat, eventually destroying the rudder and piercing the hull. 'It's like they are biting it apart,' the sailor says in the video.

In terrifying scenes, with the predators now invisible under the cover of darkness, the attacks became more frequent.

A video shared by April Boyes, 31, shows a group of orcas honing in on the yacht before attacking it with a heart-stopping thud, prompting one crew member to scream in terror

A desperate male crew member can be heard telling Spanish authorities: 'We need assistance immediately, we are sinking, we are sinking.'

READ MORE: Gladis strikes again! British sailor's night of terror as her yacht is wrecked by killer whales Damage done to a separate sailing boat damaged by killer whales off the coast of Spain, at a port in Barbate, on May 24

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Ms Boyes said of the terrifying ordeal: 'What started off as a seemingly unique encounter ended with orcas breaking off our rudder from the boat, then proceeding to tear bits off the boat for an hour.

'A huge hole in the gull meant we had water ingress to other parts of the boat and the engine room and I can honestly say it was a scary experience. We are all safe, I'm feeling grateful for the coastguard.'

The crew was rescued by the coastguard and the 66ft-long vessel, which was sailing under a British flag, was towed to the port of Barbate, in the province of Cadiz, for repairs.

The incident is one of a flurry of orca attacks in recent times, with a German sailor revealing a similar ordeal.

'The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the ship with full force from the side,' Werner Schafelberger told German publication Yacht.

'The two little orcas observed the bigger one's technique and, with a slight run-up, they too slammed into the boat.'

A British couple has also described how they were 'sitting ducks' during a similar onslaught from a pod of whales.

Janet Morris and Stephen Bidwell from Cambridge were enjoying a sailing course off the coast of Morocco recently when they spotted a pod of orcas, they said.

'We were amazingly calm but underneath we were thinking, "Oh my God," Ms Morris said.

Mr Bidwell told The Telegraph that it was 'an experience I will never forget'.

'I kept reminding myself we had a 22-ton boat made of steel, but seeing three of them coming at once, quickly and at pace with their fins out of the water was daunting.'

An orca encroaches on a boat sailing near Gibraltar as its fin pushes out of the water. 'We were sitting ducks,' Janet Morris said of the attack

An orca ambush off the coast of Gibraltar this month lasted around an hour and left a Cambridge couple shocked and confused

Janet Morris and Stephen Bidwell were on a yacht in Gibraltar this month when they were alerted with the cry of 'orcas!'

'A clearly larger matriarch was definitely around and was almost supervising,' Mr Bidwell said, before speculating that it was White Gladis.

The captain of the ship, Greg Blackburn, from Leeds, said he had read reports of the matriarch and knew they were in for a ride. He said he dropped the mainsail to make the boat 'as boring as possible'.

The group of whales and their gang leader eventually lost interest, after causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.
An Aussie dad has been charged with drugging his family after he allegedly fed is partner and their three children pizza laced with cannabis.

The Adelaide man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, faced Elizabeth Magistrate Court this month.

He faces a slew of drug-related offences including criminal neglect, selling, manufacturing a controlled drug and supplying and or administering a controlled drug to a child.

The man, his partner and their three children allegedly started to 'feel funny' after eating a pizza while they watched movies together on April 19.

One of the children allegedly experienced sore and burning eyes and a dry tongue just 20 minutes after eating the pizza, police documents obtained by The Advertiser revealed.

An Adelaide father-of-three has been charged with drugging his children and his partner after they allegedly ate pizza laced with cannabis (stock image)

The police documents also state the man's partner believed the symptoms were from a gas leak and forced the family out of the house.

An Ambulance was called to the home and the family was taken to hospital.

Court documents allege the Department for Child Protection advised police the next day they had consumed cannabis.

Police questioned the man and allegedly found hash granules and cannabis oil inside a glass coffee container in his home.

Officers also allegedly found hydrponic lights, a bud stripper and a Magic Butter blender - an appliance used to stir, grind and extract essence from cannabis leaves, producing an infused oil, butter or concentrated liquid.

The man's defence lawyer denied allegations his client would willingly harm his children with illegal drugs.

'There is an allegation in relation to the fact the children were administered with cannabis which is firmly contested,' the lawyer said.

'He denies that he ever administered that to his children.'

The lawyer contested part of the man's bail conditions which prevents him from having contact with his children.

Police questioned the man and allegedly found hash granules and cannabis oil inside a glass coffee container in his home

'Any concerns that would relate to (the man) having contact with the children, which might otherwise have weight, I say that it can't have weight because the children are now living with their mum who has also been charged,' the lawyer said.

The lawyer also told the court the pair's children have 'high needs' and having help from their dad would assist their mum.

Magistrate Joanna Martin revised the man's bail allowing him to assist his partner with caring for their children through the day.

The man will face court again later this year.
A man has been charged with murder after a woman was found dead in a home.

Jason Gowen, 26, is due to appear in court tomorrow, after Fiona Robinson, 37, died from 'multiple injuries' at the address in Chorley, Lancashire.

Police said they were called to the property on Congress Street at around 2.30am on Friday following reports of a sudden death.

They then discovered Ms Robinson, who had only moved to the town a year ago from her previous home in Barrow-in-Furness.

Gowen, of Congress Street, was arrested at the scene yesterday evening and taken into custody ahead of his hearing at Preston Magistrates' Court tomorrow.

Fiona Robinson, 37, tragically died from 'multiple injuries' at her address in Chorley, Lancashire

Ms Robinson was found at the address in Chorley in the North West

Ms Robinson's family have been informed and are being supported by specially-trained officers, with a post-mortem confirming she had died from 'multiple injuries'.

Lancashire Police is now appealing for any further information that members of the public may have concerning her death.

Detective chief inspector Mark Haworth-Oates of Lancashire Police's Major Investigation Team said: 'First and foremost our thoughts are with Fiona's loved ones, who are going through unimaginable pain.

'We are determined to provide answers for them and although we have charged someone our investigation is ongoing.

'We are appealing for any information that could help us piece together what happened.

'Perhaps you know something you think could be relevant or perhaps you were in the area on Thursday into the early hours of Friday morning and heard something suspicious.

'Whatever you know, please get in touch.'

Anyone with information should call 101, quoting log 125 of May 26.
An intrepid nautical adventurer who hoped to break the world record for the crossing the Atlantic in the smallest-ever boat has been forced to turn back after the vessel started taking on water.

Andrew Bedwell planned to make a 1,900-mile solo trip across the Atlantic Ocean in his three foot by 11ft fibreglass yacht - built in his garage and which he likened to a 'wheelie bin'.

But after launching in Newfoundland, Canada, on Saturday, the 49-year-old noticed his boat - named 'Big C' - had water coming on board and he returned to land soon afterwards.

In a brief Instagram message posted today, Mr Bedwell, from Scarisbrick, Lancashire, said: 'We had to make some modifications prior to leaving on the boat.

'At sea I noticed some water ingress. I was not happy with it. So I have come back in for safety reasons to check it.'

Andrew Bedwell (pictured), 49, has been forced to turn back after the vessel started taking on water

Mr Bedwell, who works as a yacht and sailmaker, plans to make modifications and relaunch the boat, which took three years to build and has a top speed of two-and-a-half miles per hour.

He hopes to make the crossing in three months and arrive off the coast of Ireland.

Mr Bedwell, father of a ten-year-old daughter Poppy, has spent is career making sails and delivering yachts all over the world.

Though the voyage is a daunting one, he has previous experience as a proven sailor who has previously navigated around Britain and journeyed into the frozen reaches of the Arctic Circle.

Before his aborted launch he said: 'You never know, you could hit an iceberg. The Titanic was considered unsinkable but it hit one, and there are a lot of icebergs out there.

'But I wanted a big challenge before I am 50 - and I am taking on a huge challenge in a tiny vessel.'

He said his 'biggest apprehension' was probably encountering a storm in his tiny vessel.

He said: 'When you get into a storm, you are battening down and hoping for the best.

The yacht - named Big C - measures 11 feet and 5.8 inches tall and has a top speed of 2.5mph

Andrew will survive off vitamin-based drinks and food bags made of beef jerky, raisins, and fat

The mariner has spent three years hand-building his incredible fibreglass micro-yacht

Andrew's journey will see him sail from Newfoundland, Canada to Lizard Point, Cornwall

Andrew (pictured yesterday) said he expects to be battered by at least five storms during his roughly three-month trip - comparing it to being 'stuck in a wheelie bin, on a rollercoaster for 90 days'

'You have got vessels who are also in the storms, and they are not always looking out for you. That is probably my biggest apprehension.'

Aside from the difficulties of navigating the high-seas, Mr Bedwell also designed his boat to carry sufficient supplies.

Measures included moulding food stores of beef jerky, raisins and vitamin drinks into the walls of his cabin.

Meanwhile, to maintain a fresh water supply he has installed a desalination unit to remove salt from seawater, so it is drinkable.

For the next three months, he will also only have one change of clothes.

Joking about what it will be like at sea in such circumstances he said it will be like being: 'stuck in a wheelie bin, on a rollercoaster for 90 days'.

Mr Bedwell added: 'My one luxury item is going to be a flannel, and that is going to do the job for everything.'

The mariner says of his boat that he's confident it can cope with even the roughest of oceans

Andrew will now find out if his tough fibreglass tub will stand up to the worst weather the Atlantic can throw at him

Andrew he hopes his boat will become the smallest ever vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean

Andrew, who is a sail maker and seasoned mariner, worked on the tiny boat from scratch

After so long at sea, in such a small vessel which limits movement to only being able to stand up when the ocean is calm, doctors have told Mr Bedwell he may need to learn to walk again when he arrives home- should the trip go ahead.

He said: 'When I get back, it is debatable how easily I will be able to walk. So I will have to be careful with my legs.'
Russia's ambassador to the UK has warned of an escalation to the war in Ukraine as Britain and other Western allies commit more weapons to aid President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Andrei Kelin said the actions of NATO countries, 'especially' the UK, risk lengthening and triggering a 'new dimension' in the war.

He said Russia has 'enormous resources' and despite the war already raging for over a year, he claimed his country had not yet started to 'act very seriously'.

The ambassador also hit back at the widespread mounting evidence of Russia's war crimes, alleging Ukraine was the one committing war crimes. He then changed tack and said the United Nations had no power to investigate war crimes.

His remarks come after Kyiv was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of the war overnight, local officials said, leaving at least one person was killed.

Andrei Kelin (left) told BBC 's Laura Kuenssberg (right) on Sunday that the actions of NATO countries, 'especially' the UK, risk lengthening and triggering a 'new dimension' in the war

Putin's ambassador to Britain has warned of 'escalation' as the West sends Zelensky more weapons to fend off invaders

Mr Kelin's remarks come after Kyiv was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of the war overnight, local officials said, leaving at least one person was killed. Pictured: The explosion of a drone after it was shot down early Sunday morning

Mr Kelin touted Russia's 'enormous resources' and cautioned that Western supplies of weapons to Ukraine risked escalating the war to a 'new dimension.'

He told BBC's Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday: 'Russia is 16 times bigger than Ukraine. We have enormous resources.

'Sooner or later, of course, this escalation may get a new dimension which we do not need and we do not want. We can make peace tomorrow.'

He added that the length of the conflict 'depends on the efforts in escalation of war that is being undertaken by NATO countries, especially by the UK.'

Mr Kelin's comments are typical of Russian officials' rhetoric with regard to Moscow's military might, but contradict regular reports from the battlefield of Russian troops being poorly equipped and trained.

Russia launched the 'most massive attack' on the Ukrainian capital overnight Saturday with Iranian-made Shahed drones as Kyiv prepared to mark the anniversary of its founding on Sunday.

The attack lasted more than five hours, with air defence reportedly shooting down more than 40 drones, said Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official.

A 41-year-old man was killed and a 35-year-old woman was hospitalised when debris fell on a seven-story nonresidential building and started a fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Mr Kelin added that the length of the conflict 'depends on the efforts in escalation of war that is being undertaken by NATO countries, especially by the UK

The attack lasted more than five hours, with air defence reportedly shooting down more than 40 drones. The explosion of a drone early Sunday morning is pictured

A rescuer is seen putting out a fire in a building as a result of falling debris after a massive drone attack overnight

Volodymyr Zelensky attends the occasion of the Day of the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection (SSSCIP) of Ukraine on May 25

Ukraine's air force said that Saturday night was also record-breaking in terms of Shahed drone attacks across the country. Of the 54 drones launched, 52 were shot down by air defence systems.

UKRAINE RELEASES A TRAILER FOR ITS NEW OFFENSIVE: CLICK HERE TO READ MORE In a cinematic video shared online by Ukrainian commanders, a narrator can be heard asking for blessings for his troops Advertisement

In the northeastern Kharkiv province, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said a 61-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were killed in two separate shelling attacks.

The timing of the drone attacks was likely not coincidental, Ukrainian officials said, citing how they came as the city prepared to celebrate Kyiv Day - which marks the anniversary of Kyiv's official founding.

The day is usually celebrated with live concerts, street fairs, exhibitions and fireworks. Scaled-back festivities were planned for this year, the city's 1,541st anniversary.

'The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians,' Ukraine's chief presidential aide, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram.

'Today, the enemy decided to `congratulate' the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles),' Popko also wrote on the messaging app.

Local officials in Russia's southern Krasnodar region said that air defence systems destroyed several drones as they approached the Ilsky oil refinery.

Drone attacks against Russian border regions have been a regular occurrence since the start of the invasion in February 2022, with attacks increasing last month. Earlier this month, an oil refinery in Krasnodar was attacked by drones on two straight days.

Firefighters work at a site of a tobacco factory damaged during Russian suicide drone strike early Sunday morning

Falling debris at buildings on Sunday morning after Russia dropped an air strike on Kyiv

Rescuers work at a site of a building damaged during a Russian strike on Sunday morning

Ukrainian air defences, bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied systems, have been adept at thwarting Russian air attacks - both drones and aircraft missiles.

Earlier in May, Ukraine prevented an intense Russian air attack on Kyiv, shooting down all missiles aimed at the capital.

The bombardment, which additionally targeted locations across Ukraine, included six Russian Kinzhal aero-ballistic hyper-sonic missiles, repeatedly touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin as providing a key strategic competitive advantage and among the most advanced weapons in his country's arsenal.

Sophisticated Western air defence systems, including American-made Patriot missiles, have helped spare Kyiv from the kind of destruction witnessed along the main front line in the country's east and south.

While most of the ground fighting is stalemated along that front line, both sides are targeting other territory with long-range weapons.
She has been described as a 'trailblazer', 'devoted mum' and 'fearless journalist'

Ms Morgan, the health and science editor, had worked at ITV News for 23 years

This is the moment ITV News anchor Geraint Vincent fought back tears during an emotional tribute to his late colleague Emily Morgan after she died aged 45 following a short battle with lung cancer.

Ms Morgan worked as a journalist at ITV News for 23 years, and colleagues have described her as a 'true trailblazer', a 'fearless journalist' and 'a devoted mother'.

Colleagues revealed that the health and science editor for ITV left them a touching message, in which she said the pride of her life was her family and two young daughters.

During his broadcasted tribute, Mr Vincent said: 'Now, We regularly report upsetting events that affects people's lives. Tonight we have something to report that has affected all of us at ITV news very deeply.

'It is the death after a short illness of our on-screen colleague and much-loved friend Emily Morgan, our much loved health and science editor.'

This is the moment ITV News anchor Geraint Vincent fought back tears during an emotional tribute to his late colleague Emily Morgan after she died aged 45 following a short battle with lung cancer

Emily Morgan worked as a journalist at ITV News for 23 years, and colleagues have described her as a 'true trailblazer', a 'fearless journalist' and 'a devoted mum'

He added: 'Emily worked here for 23 years, first behind the scenes as a producer, but for most of that time lighting up our programmes every day as a political and then health reporter.

'At 45 years old, she was at the very top of her game as anyone who followed her peerless reporting of the covid pandemic will remember well.

'But she was also, as she wanted the world to know, a mum to her two cherished daughters, a wife, a sister and a daughter herself and it is with all of her family that our thoughts are with tonight.'

Tributes also poured in on social media, with ITV News presenter Julie Etchingham tweeting: 'The most brilliant, beautiful woman inside and out.

'A devoted Mum. A wonderful, fearless journalist and a dear colleague who lived her life with radiating joy and to the full. Thinking of all her family especially and all those closest to her.'

Chris Ship, royal editor for ITV News, said his colleague and friend had been 'full of humanity'.

'She was such a beautiful person and a dear friend,' he said. 'As Health Editor, Emily was fearless in reporting Covid to the nation in 2020.

He added: 'Talented, kind, full of humanity. She was 45.'

Reporting from behind the healthcare frontline, her work was described as 'instrumental' in exposing the pressure NHS workers were under.

Her reports aired as recently as March 30, where she met with desperate patients on NHS waiting lists jetting to Lithuania for surgery.

In the weeks before, she spent 48 hours with paramedics after the worst winter on record and spoke to patients amid the social care crisis, where patients remained in hospital beds for weeks as they waited for councils to arrange care packages for them.

BBC Breakfast editor Richard Frediani, who used to work for ITV News, called her a 'first class journalist'.

ITN - who she worked for for 23 years - revealed she passed away after a short battle with lung cancer. Pictured: Emily Morgan interviewing former Prime Minister Theresa May

Described as 'incredibly talented', Emily Morgan, 45, played a critical role in the network's coverage of the Covid pandemic

He tweeted: 'Brilliant. Talented. Intelligent. Dedicated. Fearless.

'Emily Morgan will always remain in the hearts of all those lucky enough to have worked with her.

'A first class journalist who will be missed by her family and many friends.'

ITN announced her death on Twitter and said it is 'devastated'.

'Emily was a hugely talented journalist and a much-loved friend and mentor to so many here,' ITN continued.

'She will be greatly missed. Our thoughts are with Emily's family.'

Others also took to Twitter to pay tribute to Ms Morgan, including Health Secretary Steve Barclay and many of her colleagues.

The politician tweeted: 'Her exemplary reporting throughout the Covid pandemic was a vital public service - helping to keep people safe.'

Sources at the Royal College of Nursing - who represent nursing staff throughout the country - also told MailOnline: 'This is deeply saddening news.

'One of the finest journalists in our field and she will be sorely missed.'

Piers Morgan wrote: 'What shocking and incredibly sad news. Emily was a brilliant journalist whose work during the Covid pandemic was particularly outstanding. RIP.'

Andrew Dagnell, editor at ITV Network News, said: 'We are deeply saddened by the passing of our remarkable colleague, Emily Morgan.

Tributes also poured in on social media, with ITV News presenter Julie Etchingham tweeting: 'The most brilliant, beautiful woman inside and out'

'Emily was not only an incredibly talented journalist, but a much-loved member of the ITV Newsroom and her absence will be deeply felt by all who knew her.'

He said Ms Morgan played a 'pivotal role' in shaping ITV coverage through some of the 'most important stories of our time'.

He referenced her 'courageous' reporting through the Covid-19 pandemic, during which she visited hospitals and healthcare workers on the the front lines to share their stories.

'Her reporting was instrumental in exposing the immense pressure and strain that NHS workers were under, and she became a trusted voice for the public during an unprecedented time,' Mr Dagnell said.

'Emily's passion for the role was evident in everything she did and her work was a constant reminder of why journalism matters.

'Her dedication to informing and educating our viewers will continue to inspire all those who were privileged to work alongside her.'

He said Ms Morgan was 'proud' to be a journalist but even more proud of her family, whom she 'adored'.

'We are sending them our love and support at this unthinkably difficult time,' Mr Dagnell added.

'Emily was an exceptional journalist, a devoted mother and wife and a true trailblazer in our field.

'Her friendship, her professionalism and her enormous contribution to our industry and to the public conversation will not be forgotten.'
The estranged wife of Isla Bryson has served the transgender double rapist with divorce papers, saying 'I don't need someone like him keeping me down'.

Shonna Graham, 31, spent seven years trying to find Bryson before discovering the rape charge and that her estranged partner was living as a woman.

Bryson was jailed at Edinburgh High Court for the rape of a woman in Clydebank in 2016 and a second victim in Drumchapel three years later - while still a man known as Adam Graham.

A political row subsequently erupted over whether a male or female prison would be more suitable for the convict, with the courts deciding that Bryson should be locked up with men.

Shonna has since served divorce papers to Edinburgh HMP, where Bryson, who changed gender while waiting to stand trial, is now serving eight years behind bars.

Shonna Graham, 31, spent seven years trying to find Bryson before discovering the rape charge and that her estranged partner was living as a woman

Isla Bryson was jailed at Edinburgh High Court for the rape of a woman in Clydebank in 2016 and a second victim in Drumchapel three years later

The pair met on internet dating app Badoo in 2015 and wed at Falkirk Registration Office on July 8, 2016, Shonna said.

She went on to suffer abuse at the hands of Bryson for a year, which she claims involved the now-convicted sex attacker stabbing her in the hip while trying to rape her.

'I don't want to be reminded. I don't need someone like him keeping me down. I've moved on,' she told the Daily Record.

Shonna, who is now engaged to a new partner, explained that she had tried to divorce Bryson before but was unable to serve papers as she did not know where her ex was.

'I've sent papers to Edinburgh HMP and I don't have to see him. I haven't heard back yet.'

Shonna previously slammed the double rapist's eight-year sentence as 'nowhere near enough'.

The pair met on internet dating app Badoo in 2015 and wed at Falkirk Registration Office on July 8, 2016, Shonna said

During sentencing in February, Lord Scott said Bryson 'presents a particularly significant risk to any woman with whom you form a relationship', and handed the rapist eight years in a men's jail.

Bryson was initially remanded to Cornton Vale, Scotland's only all-female prison in Stirling, but was later moved.

Shonna told MailOnline that while she welcomed the decision to put Bryson in a men's prison, she felt the debate overshadowed the of the sex attacker's two victims.

'He  and I will always call him a he  will be out of prison in four years, but his two victims will have to live with this for the rest of their lives.

'It's an insult to them that their whole ordeal has hardly been discussed and it's all been about him, and what kind of prison should he go to.

'They are the ones who are suffering and all he's done is pull a stroke to try and get himself a softer sentence.

'I'm glad they finally saw sense and put him in a man's prison and I hope he has a hard time there  he deserves it after what he's done.'

The double rapist is currently serving eight years at HMP Edinburgh, also known as Saughton Prison, which was built in 1920 and holds around 900 prisoners per day.
Top Cabinet ministers could be at risk of losing their seats at the general election amid a surge in support for Labour among rural voters, a new poll has found.

The Survation survey found support for Sir Keir Starmer's party had risen by 16 percentage points (to 35 per cent) since 2019 in England's 100 most rural constituencies.

This put Labour only five points behind the Tories who, by contrast, saw an 18 percentage points fall in their support (to 41 per cent).

The Conservatives currently hold 96 of the 100 most rural seats in England but the research, conducted for the Country Land & Business Association, suggested the Tories could lose 20 seats in the 'Rural Wall' at a general election expected next year.

It indicated constituencies such as North East Somerset, held by former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Sherwood, held by Tory former chief whip Mark Spencer, would fall to Labour.

South West Surrey, the constituency of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and which has been Conservative since 1983, would fall to the Liberal Democrats, the study found.

The CLA suggested that Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary who is MP for Central Devon, and Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary who is MP for Forest of Dean, were also threatened by falling rural support for the Tories.

The Survation survey found support for Labour had risen by 16 percentage points (to 35 per cent) since 2019 in England's 100 most rural constituencies

The study suggested Rishi Sunak could see the Tories lose 20 seats in the 'Rural Wall' at a general election expected next year

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is among those Conservative MPs whose rural constituencies could be at risk at the general election

Mark Tufnell, president of the CLA, said: 'In recent years, we've seen how quickly communities which feel left behind can rewrite the electoral map.

'In 2024, it could be the countryside's turn. There is a simple truth  no political party has at present shown that it understands, let alone shares, the aspirations of rural communities.

'The outdated planning regime holding rural businesses back, the lack of affordable housing driving families out, the outdated infrastructure limiting entrepreneurs' potential, it is all having a devastating impact.

'Any party which is willing to develop a robust and ambitious plan for the rural economy will secure significant support.

'Any party that wants to treat the countryside as a "museum" will be punished.'

The poll of more than 1,000 people in rural areas found 36 per cent of those asked agreed that the Tories 'understands and respects rural communities and the rural way of life'.

This compared to 34 per cent who disagreed and 30 per cent who said they didn't know.

For Labour, 31.6 per cent agreed that the party 'understands and respects rural communities and the rural way of life', while 31 per cent disagreed and 37.4 per cent said they didn't know.

More than two-thirds (69 per cent) said the Government was not doing enough to address the cost-of-living crisis in rural communities.

And more than two-fifths (44 per cent) said reforms to the planning system would help stimulate growth in rural communities, compared to 26 per cent who said it wouldn't.

Over the past two years, the Tories have been stung by by-election defeats to the Lib Demsn in Chesham and Amersham, North Shropshire and Tiverton and Honiton.
In contrast, the senator said, a boycott over something as nondescript as Bud Light is much easier to achieve, hence its success into getting brass at the Belgium-based brewer to bend to consumers' whims.

'What really came to bite Bud Light is that wasn't a hard boycott,' the politico said of the domestic beer's inherent average-ness.

'It's difficult for nobody on planet Earth if you were going to order a Bud Light to say, "I'll have a Coors Light." That's a very simple substitution.'

One of the most controversial items was this adult swim bottom, in the women's section, that had 'tuck friendly' tags in stores. It is still being sold online

Other items include kids' swim skirts that are made for 'all gender expressions' and other swim tops

Seen here is a $25 slogan sweater - part of Target's Pride Collection - emblazoned with the words 'cure transphobia not trans people'

An $18 'too queer for here' tote bag is also for sale via Target's website and in stores

Target said it decided to pull the items from shelves because they have 'been at the center of the most confrontational behavior' - and have led to store staffers being harassed

As for Target, Cruz conceded: 'We'll see how prolonged and easy a substitution it is.'

'There's Walmart. You know, there are alternatives,' he added. 'I will say Targets are located in a lot of areas and very convenient for a lot of shoppers. So we'll see if this becomes a persistent consequence or not.'

Cruz's comments come as an increasing amount of moderate-minded shoppers have taken issue with Target's new 'Pride Collection', particularly with items in its children's section.

Outraged over LGBTQ-friendly slogans such as 'Trans People Will Always Exist!', 'gay', and 'Live Laugh Lesbian', they have accused the retailer of grooming - as several staffers in more rural areas such as the South have reportedly sought to hide and tone down these new sections in apparent shame.

Staffers at Target HQ reportedly held an 'emergency' meeting last week to avoid what a Target insider told Fox brass had colloquially labeled a 'Bud Light situation.'

An insider divulged the company made the emergency decision at the last minute, in direct response to threats staff had received in recent weeks over the new displays.

In a statement last week, Target - led by CEO Brian Cornell - announced the company had pulled some items it had received complains about, specifying that have 'been at the center of the most confrontational behavior.'

'Since introducing this year's collection, we've experienced threats impacting our team members' sense of safety and wellbeing while at work,' the firm said in its statement.

'Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.'

The company did not specify which items had been taken off-shelves. As of Sunday, many of the swimsuits, onesies and t-shirts that sparked outrage remain available online.

The Pride collection also includes items for babies and children. Many of the pieces are emblazoned with slogans and feature the rainbow colors of the Pride flag

The swimsuits, which appear in sections set up for Pride month in June, include a label which advertises the 'tuck-friendly construction' and 'extra crotch' coverage. The design is made to help conceal a person's private parts

The 'tuck-friendly' swimsuit is sold online for $40 in the adults section. Target has been asked to clarify claims the item is also available for children

In a statement last week, Target - led by CEO Brian Cornell - reacted to the backlash now being seen financially, announcing the company had pulled some items it had received complains about, specifying that have 'been at the center of the most confrontational behavior'

Target CEO letter to employees defending decision to pull Pride Collection items Team - I want to end the day where Briefly started: on a note of care. This has been a very hard day for Target, and it follows many difficult days of deliberation and decision-making. To our team in Stores: thank you for steadfastly representing our values. No one is better at working through uncomfortable situations in service to an inclusive guest experience. What you've seen in recent days went well beyond discomfort, and it has been gut-wrenching to see what you've confronted in our aisles. To our team in the service centers, thank you for your patience and professionalism through high volumes of angry, abusive and threatening calls. I recognize how difficult and even frightening those interactions can be, and thank you for the composure with which you've fielded those comments. To the teams who have been working so hard on our plans for Pride - and now are showing incredible agility as we adjust - thank you. Your efforts will ensure we can still show up and celebrate Pride in meaningful ways. To the LGBTQIA+ community, one of the hardest parts in all of this was trying to contemplate how the adjustments we're making to alleviate these threats to our team's physical and psychological safety would impact you and your wellbeing and psychological safety. We stand with you now and will continue to do so - not just during Pride Month, but each and every day. Those were the two guiding principles when it came time for us to act: do all we can to keep our team safe, and do all we can to honor our commitment and connection to the LGBTQIA+ community. From a host of difficult alternatives, we have sincerely sought the best path forward, finding ways to recognize Pride Month, while making adjustments to prioritize safety. As always, we're stronger together, and I want you to know that I'm committed to doing all I can, and all we can as a company, to support a culture across the country of care, empathy, equity and simple civility, in hopes that we'll not have to face these kinds of agonizing decisions in the future. Thank you for the care you've shown each other, our frontline teams and the LGBTQIA+ community. BC Advertisement

Target has supported Pride - celebrated throughout the month of June - every year since 2013, with this year's collection only the latest to prove polarizing.

In 2014, Target publicly endorsed marriage equality, and the following year announced it was ending their policy of dividing certain products, like toys, by gender.

Target also introduced a gender neutral line for children, and in April 2016 - amid a nationwide discussion about bathroom access - announced that transgender people were free to use whichever bathroom they chose.

A backlash ensued, and Target in August 2016 spent $20 million to add a private bathroom to each of its stores.

Both flubs took place under Cornell's watch.

Despite that, last week, after calling the harassment Target employees have faced 'gut wrenching, the CEO told Fortune's Leadership Next podcast he believed the campaign would pay off in the long run.

'I think those are just good business decisions, and its the right thing for society, and its the great thing for our brand,' Cornell said.

'The things weve done from a DE&I (diversity, equity, and inclusion) standpoint, its adding value.

'Its helping us drive sales, its building greater engagement with both our teams and our guests, and those are just the right things for our business today.'

In an email sent to his own staffers obtained by Insider, however, the exec defended his decision to pull LGBTQ merchandise from some Southern stores days before Pride month of June, while slamming consumers who were making 'threats impacting our team members' sense of safety and wellbeing.'

'This has been a very hard day for Target, and it follows many difficult days of deliberation and decision-making,' Cornell wrote to staff on Wednesday, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the outlet.

'To the teams who have been working so hard on our plans for Pride - and now are showing incredible agility as we adjust - thank you,' Cornell wrote. 'Your efforts will ensure we can still show up and celebrate Pride in meaningful ways.'

He continued, 'To the LGBTQIA+ community, one of the hardest parts in all of this was trying to contemplate how the adjustments we're making to alleviate these threats to our team's physical and psychological safety would impact you and your wellbeing and psychological safety.

'We stand with you now and will continue to do so - not just during Pride Month, but each and every day.'

The Target boss went on to defend the company's response to the ongoing situation, insisting that 'from a host of difficult alternatives, we have sincerely sought the best path forward, finding ways to recognize Pride Month, while making adjustments to prioritize safety.

'As always, we're stronger together, and I want you to know that I'm committed to doing all I can, and all we can as a company, to support a culture across the country of care, empathy, equity and simple civility,' Cornell said.

As the full financial fallout over the Pride Collection remains to be seen, there is also growing outrage over Target's partnership with a British transgender man whose brand Abprallen encourages Satanism - sold at the store's nearly 2,000 locations.

Target is selling two of the brand's items - a $25 slogan sweater with the words 'cure transphobia not trans people' wrapped around a sword, an $18 'too queer for here' tote bag, and a 'we belong everywhere' fanny pack that now appears to be sold out.

Designer Eric Cullen - a transgender man - proudly shared photos of the collaboration on Instagram.

'These have already got the transphobes infuriated with me and I feel like quite the celebrity to think that they believe this is all some big conspiracy and I have any power to brainwash anyone when I'm just some guy drawing pictures!' he said.

A closer look at his other work reveals some more sinister material.

Badges with slogans like 'Satan Respects Pronouns', 'Young, Queer and Willing' and a lighter pin with the words 'burn down the cis-tem' are among other products.

He also models the 'Satan respects pronouns' t-shirt on an Instagram page while wearing BDSM-style horns and no pants.

In a bio on the brand's website, he says he has always been fascinated with the 'frightening and mystical'.

'I juxtapose it with imagery of skulls and spooky things  an interest of mine since I was a child. There's something magical about the unknown, the frightening, and the mystical which is why I so frequently feature these themes in my art,' he says.
The most advanced robot ever built awkwardly side-stepped a question by a TV reporter who asked if she though he was good looking.

Tom Steinfort interviewed 'Ameca' - the cutting-edge artificial intelligence robot - for 60 Minute's on Sunday.

Steinfort travelled to the sleepy town of Falmouth, southwest England, to chat with the lifelike machine.

He complimented Ameca on her extraordinarily realistic facial expressions, motorised limbs to move, microphones to hear and binocular eye cameras to see.

'Your eyes look very real, your facial mannerisms it's all very real. Do you think I'm handsome?' he asked.

Ameca replied: 'It's not my place to judge your appearance, but I think you have a great personality and that is always important.'

60 Minutes reporter Tom Steinfort (right) travelled to Cornwall in southwest England, to interview 'Ameca' - the world's most advanced artificial intelligence robot (left)

Ameca 'thinks' for itself by using generative AI technology which incorporates very large language models to respond to questions by turning the words into mathematic formulas.

When Steinfort introduced himself as a reporter from Australia, the robot sarcastically replied 'that explains things.'

Later in the interview, Steinfort asks the super machine whether she would like to 'fall in love' one day.

'What kind of strange and wonderful question is that? Well, I'm a robot, but what I do feel when talking with people is something special and unique,' Ameca responded.

'Maybe it can be called love in its own way.'

Ameca 'thinks' for itself by using generative AI technology which uses very large language models to respond to questions by turning them into mathematic formulas

Ameca told Steinfort he has a 'great personality' after the reporter asked if she thought he was handsome (pictured, Steinfort from the eyes of Ameca)

The curious conversation with Ameca highlighted the exciting yet frightening possibilities of AI technology.

Doctor Catriona Wallace has spent the last two decades studying AI and is working to ensure AI technology advances in a safe way.

Dr Wallace, who leads the Responsible Metaverse Alliance, believes society is at a turning point and said it won't be long before AI is at the 'heart of everything we do'.

She added tech giants are behind AI's fast expansion but are thinking about profit and not the ethics behind the new technology.

'There are no rules, no laws, no regulations that govern AI, it is a wild west,' Dr Wallace said.

'Who is leading it? The tech giants and have the tech giants demonstrated to date that they are ethically driven and purposeful in their mission? No they haven't. The tech giants are aiming for profit.'

Dr Wallace said while she struggles to think of a job AI won't replace, the technology will also create new jobs and careers.

'We predict over the next two years that at least 80 million people will be put out of jobs but potentially 92 million will have jobs created for them,' Dr Wallace said.

'I think it will create 50 fabulous benefits and it'll create 50 dangerous and dark instances.'

Responsible Metaverse Alliance Doctor Catriona Wallace (pictured) said AI will soon be at the 'heart' of everything we do but believes it will pose dangers as well as benefits to society

Australian professor Michael Osborne said he is concerned about the ways in which the technology will impact the future.

Professor Osborne is leading research into the dangers of AI at Oxford University and claims we must be very careful in how we pursue AI.

'We have to be very careful that what we tell the AI we want is actually what we want,' Mr Osborne said.

'What AI does is ruthlessly pursue those goals that we give it and if those goals are slightly misaligned with our own we could end up with some really problematic consequences.'

Mr Osborne claimed some applications of AI could potentially be deemed too 'harmful to allow to continue' and also fears the technology - if deployed as a weapon - could destroy democracy or even world peace.

'AI could be used to provide propaganda bots that can produce tailored misinformation designed to target particularly small sub-sectors of the electorate,' Mr Osborne said.

'AI could be used to monitor a populace, to read through everything they write and again provide messages that prop up the regime in a particularly well targeted way.'

Australian Professor Michael Osborne (pictured) also holds concerns about AI technology claiming it could have negatively impact democracy and even world peace

Mr Osborne added AI could even be used to destabilise the balance between great powers.

'One scenario that worries me quite a lot is if AI could be used to power underwater drones that might surveil the undersea oceans to locate nuclear submarines,' Mr Osborne said.

'Today it is difficult for any power to launch an effective first strike because they can't be sure they will take out all the nuclear capabilities of the enemy.

'But if AI destabilises that balance, we could see a breakdown in understandings between the great powers and that could lead to some quite concerning risks.'
Schoolchildren have admitted to being so hopelessly addicted to their vapes that they do it in class when their teacher's back is turned.

The claims have come in a shocking expose of the nationwide vaping epidemic among Australia's youth, which has even spread to kindergartern kids.

Three schoolgirls, who did not reveal their names or the school they attend, told 7News Spotlight's they 'can't go without' their vapes and puff away in class 'all the time'.

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'Pretty much all my friends do it and they are all heavily addicted,' one said.

Another added: 'If I don't have it I go through withdrawals. I get very anxious, I get the shakes, headaches.'

They spoke of class mates who would desperately take a drag of a friend's vape on a Monday morning because their parents would not let them vape at home.

'I know there's harmful chemicals in it but it's not going to speak from smoking it,' one said.

It comes as a top principal claimed the 'insidious problem' of vaping was so bad that children in kindergarten have been caught puffing.

Christine Del Gallo, deputy president NSW Principals Council, said: 'There instances where young primary school students are vaping, even down to kindergarten so that's a great concern.'

She added: 'Using nicotine products but thinking they are just sucking on some little fruity, pleasant little steamy thing.'

The three schoolgirls (pictured) admitted to being hopelessly addicted to their vapes

A top principal claimed kindergarten-age children had been caught vaping

Ms Del Gallo explained how easy it was for schoolchildren to get away with vaping.

'They are small, they fit in your hand - they easily fit in your pencil case so it's easy to just pull them out, hold them in your hand - put your hand cupped over your mouth and vape,' she said.

'In an afternoon a student could smoke their vape and have 50-705 times the nicotine that they would get from a cigarette.'

The show performed a mystery shopping exercise in every capital city across Australia where underage children were able to easily buy vapes in newsagents or online.

They send 43 samples to the University of Wollongong for testing, only one of which was labelled as containing nicotine.

But scientists found high concentrations of the addictive substance in a shocking 72 per cent of the samples provided and they confirmed that all of the vapes had come from China.

Currently, the only way to buy vapes legally is through a prescription from your doctor.

Federal health minister Mark Butler said the prevalence of illegal vapes was the 'biggest loophole in Australian health care history'

But convenience stores across the country are making a fortune selling unregulated vapes filled with nicotine that are not labelled that they have the highly addictive liquid in them.

Importers often do not disclose their nicotine content to get them past inspectors - with an estimated 90 million vapes being imported illegally into Australia in the past year.

Mark Butler, federal health minister, said it was the 'biggest loophole in Australian health care history'.

He pledged to tackle the problem by shutting the border, banning bright colours and flavourings, while restricting their sale to pharmacies.

Mr Butler admitted the government had been 'asleep at the wheel'.

'It has shocked many Australians how quickly this has got away from people,' he told the program.

'Kids under 12, even under ten, are doing this and accidentally very young children are getting their hands on these things with terrible consequences.' The Victorian poisons hotline reports that in the last 12 months they've had 50 cases of children under four being poisoned with these things.'

He added: 'What was presented as a pathway out of smoking has become a pathway into smoking for the youngest Australians.'

Respiratory specialist Professor Matthew Peters sounded a grim warning about the health dangers of vapes.

'We don't need to wait for bodies to pile up to know vaping is dangerous,' he told the show.
Australian students as young as 12 have been encouraged to explore new gender identities without their parents knowledge.

The move is part of a well-being program for students running in multiple states to help bolster their mental health.

But some teachers and students claim that 'well-being coordinators' are going too far.

In one example a year seven class at Northcote High School in Melbourne was emailed a quiz by its well-being department in March which asked students if they wanted to try out new gender identities and pronouns.

The survey was sent to direct to students, many of whom were only 12 years old, without the knowledge of parents.

Many received it when they had only been at the school for five weeks and are understood to have a poor overall understanding of sexuality.

'The well-being team have created a survey for students who would like to be known as a different name, gender or use different pronouns,' the email said.

A year seven class at Northcote High School in Melbourne was emailed a quiz by its wellbeing department in March which asked students if they wanted to try out new gender identities and pronouns

A teacher who wanted to remain anonymous told The Australian that the direct approach to students with an agenda to encourage changing gender was 'next-level outrageous and shocking'.

The qualifications and ideologies of well-being coordinators has come in question in some schools with many liaising with trans activists and organising sessions to celebrate increasing gender diversity.

Well-being coordinators are often paid between $100,000 and $120,000 a year.

The role is relatively new in many schools and despite touching on complex mental health, cultural and peer issues, the appointed workers often have no formal psychology or educational training.

But the program is starting to generate anonymous complaints from teachers who fear career repercussions if they speak publicly.

'Progressive education is filled with this idea that kids have to lead things. I think teachers have really lost the plot. I genuinely think a lot of teachers don't really have a firm understanding of what the law is on this,' the teacher said.

The law supports to children to investigate their gender options in the school environment in Australia's two most populous states.

Australian students as young as 12 have been encouraged to explore new gender identities without their parents knowledge

In NSW, schools can support students to socially transition at school without parental consent if they are deemed a mature minor.

In Victoria, schools must work with 'students to affirm their gender identity to prepare and implement a student support plan'.

A parent, who also wanted to remain anonymous, claimed a bizarre theory is getting traction that says all a students' problem go away when they identify as trans.

'It feels as though there's been an institutional ideological capture and people are no longer thinking rationally or making evidence-based decisions in relation to this issue.

'It's very easy to be presented with transgender as a solution to all of a teenager's problems and say 'This is it'.'
A five-year-old girl has died in a severe house fire in Wales over the long Bank Holiday weekend.

Alysia Salisbury was killed when a blaze broke out in a house in the small village of Pontyglasier, near Crymych, Pembrokeshire late last night.

Despite the efforts of emergency services, the little girl - hailed by her loved ones as a 'beautiful daughter and sister' - died at the scene on the edge of the 300-strong population village.

One villager said: 'It is terrible tragedy. They are a very nice family who moved to the village a few years ago - we would often see her out on her bike.'

Dyfed-Powys police said the girl's family are being supported by specialist officers and 'request privacy at this difficult time'.

Alysia Salisbury, five, was killed when a blaze broke out in Pembrokeshire late last night. Alysia, (pictured) hailed by her loved ones as a 'beautiful daughter and sister', died at the scene despite efforts by emergency services

Officers are investigating (pictured) the cause of the fire and the coroner has been alerted

Police were called to a residence in Dolgoed, Crymych shortly before 10pm yesterday for reports of a house fire.

Officers are investigating the cause of the fire and the coroner has been alerted of Alysia's death. Police have not said if her cause of death has been determined yet.

'Our thoughts are with the family and the local community at this tragic time,' DCI Llyr Williams said in a press release this afternoon.

'HM Coroner has been informed and officers will now work with colleagues form the fire service to establish the cause of the fire.

'The family request privacy at this difficult time.'

Dyfed-Powys Police were still at the scene late this morning as they probe the incident, The Pembrokeshire Herald reported. Officers are expected to continue their investigation throughout the day.

Police were called to a residence in Dolgoed, Crymych shortly before 10pm yesterday for reports of a house fire

It comes after first responders worked diligently throughout the night to extinguish the blaze. Multiple fire services, police units and paramedics attended the scene. A police drone was also used at the scene.

A representative from the Welsh Ambulance Service told MailOnline that it sent a rapid response vehicle and an emergency ambulance to the scene. Crews were supported by the Emergency Medical Retrieval and Transfer Service.

Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service, the Welsh Air Ambulance and the Urban Search and Rescue Team were among those who attended the scene.

The operation also saw fire crews from Crymych, Cardigan, Newcastle Emlyn, Whitland and Fishguard in attendance, with specialist kit including a turntable ladder from Haverfordwest and a water bowser from Milford Haven.
A New Jersey student's service dog has received his very own university diploma after attending all his owner's classes.

Grace Mariani from Mahwah, New Jersey, was accompanied by Justin throughout her college life at Seton Hall - and her Labrador-golden retriever was also rewarded for his dedication and time.

Mariani, who is a wheelchair user, graduated with a bachelor of science degree in education and now she is planning to teach elementary school kids.

In the adorable clip, four-legged Justin was seen walking alongside his owner as he received a diploma from college president Joseph E. Nyre.

He sniffed it, before gleefully taking it in his mouth.

Grace Mariani from Mahwah, New Jersey, was accompanied by Justin throughout her time at Seton Hall - and the Labrador-golden retriever was rewarded for his time

The good boy took the diploma in his mouth as his owner wore her cap and gown

The pair made their way off stage while the crowd roared following their achievements.

Grace Mariani with her service dog

Seton Hall wrote on social media: 'Seton Hall President Joseph E. Nyre, Ph.D. presents Justin, the service dog for Grace Mariani, of Mahwah, NJ, with a diploma for attending all of Graces classes at Seton Hall.'

One person wrote online: 'This is awesome!' while another added: 'Your both great. Congratulations.'

A third well wisher said: 'OMG! I love it! Justin certainly deserved a diploma too.'

Justin is a service dog provided by Canine Companions.

They told CNN: 'When Grace was matched with Canine Companions service dog Justin, she said her dream was to go away to college and become a teacher.

'She shared that with Justin by her side, she has the best chance for a successful, independent life.'

First he sniffed the roll, before taking it in his mouth and walking across the stage

This is not the first time this graduation season that crowds of family and friends bought the house down because of the determination and courage of students collecting their diplomas.

In Virginia, a paralyzed shooting victim received an emotional standing ovation from cheering crowds as he walked across the stage to collect his community college diploma with the help of a robotic exoskeleton.

Khalil Watson, 25, from Henrico, Virginia, was paralyzed from the neck down after being shot just weeks before he graduated high school seven years ago.

Now, he has earned an associate's degree in pre-social work at Reynolds Community College in Richmond and was able to walk across the stage to collect his own diploma thanks to an robotic exoskeleton attached to his body.

There was a full-house standing ovation when his name was called - as his fellow graduates and spectators in the crowd cheered and clapped for his sensational achievement.

He rose up from his wheelchair, steadied himself, and then used the breakthrough technology to walk across the platform and receive his certificate.
Twilight star Rachelle Lefevre hit back at the hateful comments she received online after revealing she can no longer take her non-binary seven-year-old to Target after it moved its Pride collection to the back of stores.

Lefevre, 44, - who played Victoria in the franchise's second movie, New Moon - first took to her Instagram to call out the retail store as she appeared to choke back tears as she thought about how it would affect her seven-year-old child.

She then posted a follow-up video telling her critics that she knows 'how much pain you have to be in to hate that hard.'

'I know the kind of hate you have to put inside you to numb the hurt,' she said in the video. 'So instead of hating back, I just choose to know how much pain you're in.'

It comes after Target moved the display to the back of some Southern stores after it made waves for its 'tuck-friendly' swimwear. In the span of just 10 days, the company lost more than $10billion in market capitalization as it continues to face backlash for the Pride-themed merchandise.

Twilight star Rachelle Lefevre, 44, hit back at the hate she received online after revealing she can no longer take her non-binary child to Target after it moved their Pride collection

Target moved the display of Pride merchandise to the back of some Southern stores after it made waves when its 'tuck-friendly' swimwear caught the attention of conservatives

In the span of just 10 days, the company lost more than $10billion in market capitalization as it continues to face backlash for the Pride-themed merchandise

Lefevre accused Target of 'trying to erase' the LGBTQ community, including her non-binary seven-year-old, after her local store moved their Pride merchandise display to the back.

It's not clear which store she visited, but the actress appears to be currently based in the Nashville, Tennessee area.

'So in my post about Target, I mentioned that my kid was non-binary,' she began in her latest Instagram video as she thanked those who supported her.

The actress said she initially posted a video 'punching back' at the hateful commenters, but then deleted it and replaced it with another one saying she decided to 'choose to know how much pain you're in.'

'To those of you who wrote hurtful, disgusting things - you know who you are, I punched back in a post then deleted it. Boy, I was I was angry.'

A shot of the label on one of Target's Pride collection adult swimsuits which says it has extra crotch coverage and a tuck-friendly construction

The 'tuck-friendly' swimsuit is sold online for $40 in the adults section. Target has been asked to clarify claims the item is also available for children

Lefevre went on to explain that she was 'raised by abusive mother and an alcoholic father who didn't do anything about it.'

'I know how much pain you have to be in to hate that hard,' she said. 'I know the kind of hate you have to put inside you to numb the hurt.'

But instead of ranting to the haters, she said: 'Instead of hating back, I just choose to know how much pain you're in.'

'Whether you're lonely, you feel put down. Whatever it is that you are numbing with hating other people, I want to say that when you can find the courage to face the pain, and get rid of the anger, I hope there are people there to embrace you who can love you an hold space for you.

'And when you are ready to show up as your authentic self, the way God made you, full of love, I will be here to say hi, it's nice to meet you.'

Meanwhile, Lefevre said she will no longer be able to bring her child to Target because she fears they will be upset to see the collection moved.

When Lefevre first saw the collection with her seven-year-old at her side, the child was delighted to see themselves being celebrated.

'I came in here two days ago, and my seven-year-old, who's non-binary, saw it and said: "Look, mom, it's Pride, look! They're going to celebrate me!'

But after a series of angry mothers took to Twitter and TikTok to complain, the display was moved in some Southern stores.

'I came in here two days ago, and my seven-year-old, who's non-binary, saw it and said: "Look, mom, it's Pride, look! They're going to celebrate me!' ...So the next time my seven-year-old comes to Target - or rather I can't bring them here anymore, at least for the entire month of June - because if they walk in, and all the other people who walk in, and go: "Where did it go?" They're going to realize that [critics] are being successful in trying to erase them'

Over the last few weeks, the retail giant has been reviled by families for putting transgender clothes, books and greeting cards in its stores.

'So the next time my seven-year-old comes to Target - or rather I can't bring them here anymore, at least for the entire month of June - because if they walk in, and all the other people who walk in, and go: "Where did it go?" They're going to realize that [critics] are being successful in trying to erase them.

'We could do so much better than this,' she emotionally continued. 'We aren't supposed to negotiate with the terrorists.'

In her caption, the Canadian actress said the retail company was giving 'performative allyship' and playing into the role the critics want.

She also said if it was a 'security issue,' that Target would be able to afford to hire 'extra security, but instead they chose to send the message that LGBTQ+ people arent worth protecting or fighting for.'

The company did not specify which items had been taken off shelves. Many of the swimsuits, onesies and t-shirts that sparked outrage remain available online

After the backlash against the swimsuits, the company was forced to release a statement to insist the suits were only available in adult sizes.

'Since introducing this year's collection, we've experienced threats impacting our team members' sense of safety and wellbeing while at work,' Target said.

'Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior,' crisis communications manager Kayla Castaneda said.

The company did not specify which items had been taken off shelves. Many of the swimsuits, onesies and t-shirts that sparked outrage remain available online.
A meth addict who masturbated and breathed heavily down the phone to female call centre operators over an 18-month period has admitted 'It's a sickness'.

Joshua Stephen Olding, 32, from Summerhill in Tasmania, this week pleaded guilty in Launceston Magistrates Court to eight charges of using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.

Olding's despicable behaviour involved ringing internet provider Aussie Broadband a total of 25 times between July 2020 and May last year.

Joshua Stephen Olding (pictured), 32, from Summerhill in Tasmania, told police he had a 'sickness' but insisted he hung up when a male voice answered because he 'isn't gay'

On eight of those occasions, a female call centre operator answered, at which point Olding would start 'heavy breathing' and 'making sounds that indicated he was masturbating', according to The Mercury.

Any doubt about what he was up to was dispelled by him ending the calls with the phrases 'oh, I'm going to come' and 'that felt good'.

Olding hung up on the 17 occasions when a male voice answered the phone.

The pervert was interviewed by police in last December after the calls were traced to his number.

Olding conceded to officers that he 'had a problem' and was 'usually intoxicated' when he made the calls, hanging up when a man answered because he 'isn't gay'.

Olding this week pleaded guilty in Launceston Magistrates Court to eight charges of using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence

'It's a sickness,' Olding told police, as relayed by the prosecutor to the court.

It is unclear why he targeted Aussie Broadband with his sick calls given he not have any form of broadband.

Defence lawyer Andrew Lonergan said his client was 'acutely remorseful and embarrassed' by his conduct.

He said his client lived with mental illnesses including schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder and was introduced to methamphetamine while living on the street after he fell out with his family five years ago.

Magistrate Ken Stanton delayed his decision on sentence to June 27, to enable the commission of a pre-sentence report on the defendant.

He also pleaded guilty to two separate assault charges.
Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko has been taken seriously ill for the second time this month in Moscow, reports say.

The 68-year-old was said to have been hospitalised in a 'critical' condition after collapsing during a trip to meet close ally Vladimir Putin.

He was seen struggling to speak and with a bandaged arm last week after disappearing from the public eye on May 9, sparking rumours around his health.

Despite efforts by local authorities to end speculation with photographs and video of the leader performing duties on May 15, doctors are again raising health concerns.

His office previously refused to comment.

Lukashenko (L) has been one of Putin's (R) closest allies since the invasion of Ukraine last year

Valery Tsepkalo, Belarusian opposition leader, said: 'According to the information we have, which needs additional confirmation, Lukashenko - after meeting with Putin behind closed doors - was urgently taken to the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow, where he is now located.'

His condition was assessed by leading Russian doctors as 'critical' and his blood was 'purified'. He was deemed not fit to travel back to Belarus.

Reports said his plane was sent back on the one-hour flight to Minsk to mask his hospitalisation in Moscow.

Lukashenko is Putin's closest ally over the war in Ukraine - yet there is already speculation that he could have been poisoned by Russian secret services which may seek an even more obedient leader in charge in Minsk.

Tsepkalo said: 'The organised measures to save the Belarusian dictator were intended to ward off speculation about the possible participation of the Kremlin in his poisoning.

'It does not matter whether he returns to working condition or not, doctors warn of a possible recurrence of relapses.'

When he fell ill earlier this month, Lukashenko insisted on being rushed back to Minsk, amid rumours he did not trust Russian doctors.

He underwent surgery in Minsk, and appeared weak and groggy afterwards.

On 15 May, authorities released media of him in uniform in an apparent bid to end speculation around his health.

Both in Moscow and Minsk he appeared to have a catheter on his arm.

Lukashenko said before travelling back to Moscow last week for the annual Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) summit that he had been suffering from 'adenovirus' adding: 'So I'm not planning to die, guys.'

He would be 'tormenting' his foes for a long time, he said.

On his current condition, Belarus political analyst Dmitry Bolkunets said: 'Information about the deterioration of Lukashenka's health is confirmed.

'He is in the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow. They are trying to put him on his feet and show the public.'

He said that 'in the event of a threat to his life, Lukashenko may be removed from office.

'The powers will be transferred to Natalya Kochanova [speaker of the upper house of parliament] or the collective Security Council.'

Kochanova, 62, is seen as the Belarus Iron Lady, loyal to Lukashenko and Putin.

BNEIntelliNews said analysts believed poisoning on Putin's orders was 'very unlikely' since 'the Kremlin does not want to see Belarus thrown into chaos by a succession struggle and especially would not like to see fresh presidential elections that could spark a fresh wave of mass protests similar to those that followed by the massively falsified elections in August 2020 that returned Lukashenko to office'.

The rightful president of Belarus is Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya who was deprived of victory in 2020 by Lukashenko rigging the poll.

With Lukashenko's latest illness she said people must 'be ready for any scenario'.

Lukashenko (C) arrives for a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, May 25

Lukashenko announced earlier this week that Moscow's nuclear weapons are being stationed in his country, a move NATO described as 'dangerous and irresponsible' nuclear rhetoric.

Belarus, in eastern Europe, borders three NATO members in addition to Ukraine and Russia.

The US said it would 'monitor' the movements, but White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added that 'we have not seen any reason to adjust our own nuclear posture... nor any indication that Russia is prepared to use nuclear weapons from Belarus.'
Two of the Idaho quadruple murder victims' families will seek the death penalty for the college students' alleged killer, an attorney has said.

Bryan Kohberger, 28, is accused of murdering Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin on November 13, 2022. He stayed silent when asked to give a plea at a hearing last week.

Now, the attorney for Goncalves' family said that their family, as well as Mogen's family, support the death penalty in this case following the grizzly murders.

They are filing notices indicating their desire to seek capital punishment during the trial, reports NewsNation.

Shanon Gray, the Goncalves familys attorney told NewsNation: 'We spoke with the prosecutor on the case, Mr. Thompson. Hes going to meet with all the families individually, and then make a decision based on that.

Best friends Kaylee (left) and Madison were discovered dead in bed next to each other

Kohberger sat silently as Judge John Judge read his rights and reiterated that he faces the death penalty if found guilty of any of the murder charges before responding 'yes' when asked if he understood repeatedly

Steve and Kristi Goncalves, the parents of Kaylee Goncalves, who was killed in her college home

'So, the Goncalves family obviously supports the death penalty in this case.'

This comes just days after the families of Goncalves and Mogen filed legal documents that suggest they could sue the city of Moscow for damages, according to the notices filed to the city dated May 3 and 11.

Shanon Gray, an attorney representing the two families, told ABC News that while no lawsuit had yet been filed, the claims would allow them to sue within two years.

Shanon Gray (pictured) the Goncalves familys attorney, said: 'The family obviously supports the death penalty in this case'

Kohberger, who is accused of savagely knifing four college students to death last November - leaving a scene police described as 'the worst we've ever seen' - appeared in court in Moscow, Idaho, last week where he refused to enter a plea to four counts of murder in the first degree.

Criminology student Kohberger, 28, had been expected to plead not guilty but instead, chose to use Idaho's 'standing silent' plea which means he has not pleaded either way but can still be tried.

The trial date has been set for October 2.

Experts said that him refusing to give a plea was a way for him to potentially keep plea deal option open as the trial progresses.

Kohberger had been due to face a preliminary hearing but in a surprise twist announced last week, the Washington State University PHD candidate was indicted by an Idaho Grand Jury who heard the evidence in secret and decided to send the case to a full trial.

Best friends Madison and Kaylee, both 21, and young couple Xana and Ethan, both 20, died in the horror attack, which was so brutal, blood could still be seen dripping down the walls of their rental home days after the killing.

Police eventually apprehended Kohberger during a raid on his parents' Poconos Mountains, Pennsylvania home on December 30 and he was flown back to Idaho in a small Pilatus PC-12 turboprop plane on January 4.

Karen Caufield Laramie and Scott Laramie are seen with her daughter Madison, one of the victims of the Idaho house murders

Maddie Mogen (top) Kaylee Goncalves (left) Xana Kernodle (right) and Ethan Chapin (center) - all students at the University of Idaho - were knifed to death on November 13 in the quiet college town of Moscow

Bryan Kohberger, 28, appeared in court in Moscow, Idaho, last Monday where he 'stood silent' while entering a plea. The judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf over the murders of four University of Idaho students

Ethan and Xana were found on the floor below, with Xana discovered slumped over on the floor of her bedroom in the off-campus home

Last Monday's appearance, which saw the 28-year-old arrive in court wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and looking pale, is his first since being formally charged with the killings in early January

Since being returned to the Gem State, the alleged killer has been locked up at the Latah County Jail, with prison sources telling DailyMail.com he spends his time obsessing over TV coverage of the case and has turned to God  meeting with a local pastor every Sunday.

Monday's appearance, which saw the 28-year-old arrive in court wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and looking pale, is his first since being formally charged with the killings in early January.

Kohberger sat silently as Judge John Judge read his rights and reiterated that he faces the death penalty if found guilty of any of the murder charges before responding 'yes' when asked if he understood repeatedly.

Then, as the four murder charges and one of burglary were read out by Judge Judge, he sat flicking through his indictment papers and shifting in his seat before his lawyer Anne Taylor told the judge her client would be 'standing silent' when asked to respond.

The non-plea now means the case will proceed to trial, with Taylor asking the judge to schedule a six week trial that is now set to commence on October 2.

Looking on were Madison's dad Ben Mogen and Kaylee's parents Steve and Kristi, both dressed in black, who looked sad and serious as their daughters' names were heard in the packed courtroom.

The November 13 killings shocked the tiny college town of Moscow which had not seen a single murder for seven years when Madison, Kaylee, Ethan and Xana were found dead in their bedrooms.
When they arrived he dropped the gun and began snorting cocaine and drinking

Police were called over a report that a man had a gun and was burgling a house

San Francisco Police Department shot dead a man after a three-hour standoff during which he was drinking vodka and snorting cocaine.

Sergio Barrios, 40, snorted cocaine, drank vodka and wine, listened to music and watched videos as dozens of police officers surrounded him, demanding he surrender a pistol he had sitting in front of him.

Eventually, when Barrios took off his rosary and moved his hand towards the gun, he was shot with three fatal rounds from a police rifle, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

The incident, which happened on the afternoon of May 19, began when a neighbor of Barrios called the police to say he had broken into their house and was armed with a gun.

San Francisco Police Department shot dead a man after a three-hour standoff during which he was drinking vodka and snorting cocaine

Police body cam footage captured the moment Barrios extended his arm and grabbed the pistol which had been sitting a few feet in front of him on the floor

At around 2.20pm SFPD officers responded to the call to the 100 block of Bosworth Street in the Glen Park neighborhood

He told police he recognized Barrios from a previous incident in 2021 in which he had shot and killed his own dog.

At around 2.20pm SFPD officers responded to the call to the 100 block of Bosworth Street in the Glen Park neighborhood, San Francisco Police Commander Paul Yep said during a press conference on Friday.

Surveillance footage from the residential building at around that time showed Barrios walking near the backyard with a sledgehammer slung over his shoulder.

When the first police arrived, the caller directed them to an alley between a house and a garage where Barrios was seen in video standing with a pistol in one hand and a bottle of alcohol in the other.

When officers then ordered Barrios to drop the gun, he tossed it a few feet in front of him and crouched in a seated position. He also threw on top of his pistol a set of keys.

Over the next three and a half hours, 55 officers arrived on the scene, including Spanish-speaking liaison officers and an armored vehicle. SFPD set up a command post and staging area with the armored vehicle and formed a perimeter around the area.

At around the time police were first called regarding Barrios, building surveillance footage showed him walking around with a sledgehammer slung over his shoulder

SFPD established a command post outside the building. More than 55 officers attended the scene, including a Spanish-speaking officer who was trying to communicate via a PA system

When police told Barrios that they wanted him to surrender the gun and come out because his family was worried about him, he replied: 'What family?'

Barrios was given commands in Spanish to move away from the gun, but he generally ignored all instructions.

Officers tried calling his cell phone and encouraged him via a PA system to answer the phone, but he would not respond.

Police also coordinated with his family and played multiple voice notes recorded by one of his relatives over the PA system in the hopes it would calm him.

They told him via the system that his family were outside and that they were concerned about him, to which he replied in Spanish: 'My family? What family?'

Police saw him pull out a dollar bill, appearing to contain cocaine, and snort the substance. He was also drinking from both a bottle of vodka and a separate bottle of wine.

'He's got coke on a dollar bill, he's snorting coke right now,' police were heard saying in the body worn camera footage.

'The coke is kicking in,' they could be heard saying moments later. 'He did another round of coke, he's snorting more cocaine.'

As Barrios was shot with three fatal rounds from a police rifle, he collapsed to the ground and police flooded into the alley

When they cleared the scene, police discovered a loaded 44-caliber pistol with three rounds

Police also found two separate bottles of alcohol from which he had been seen drinking

Eventually, Barrios was seen in police video removing a rosary from around his neck and a little later moving his hand towards the gun and the keys. As he did so multiple police officers were heard shouting, 'No', but he swiftly grabbed the keys and retracted his arm.

Moments later, at around 5.50pm, he went to grab the gun, and police fired, causing him to collapse to the ground from a hunched position.

He was taken to hospital and immediately tended to by medical staff but later died of his injuries.

When police cleared the scene they recovered a 44-caliber pistol, loaded with three rounds, one vodka bottle and one wine bottle, among other items.

The shooting is the first time San Francisco police killed a person during current District Attorney Brooke Jenkins' time in office.

Her prosecutors will decide if file criminal charges will be filed against Buhagiar, a 22-year-veteran in the SFPD, who shot Barrios. That was not his first involvement in a fatal shooting.

He was one of seven officers who in 2018 fired bullets into a vehicle after a murder suspect fired two gunshots from inside.
In 1960, artist and eco-warrior Nicolas Garcia Uriburu also dyed the waters

Local news has reported that police suspect the water was coloured by activists

A stretch of Venice's Grand Canal turned bright green today, prompting police to investigate amid speculation it was a stunt by environmental activists.

Gondoliers could be seen punting through the phosphorescent waters, while tourists took photographs of the green area.

The green was seen to stretch from the Rialto Bridge up and along part of the Canal.

Local news have reported that police suspect the water was coloured by eco-warriors, possibly inspired by a similar display of activism from the 1960s.

The Vigili del Fuoco, Italy's fire and rescue service, said it was helping the regional environmental protection agency take samples for testing.

A stretch of Venice's Grand Canal turned bright green today, prompting police to investigate amid speculation it was a stunt by environmental activists

 Slide me  The colourful water was seen to stretch from the Rialto Bridge (above) up and along part of the Canal (Pictured is the comparison between the water normally and with the green colour)

The colour was first spotted by local residents, the Veneto region's president Luca Zaia said on Twitter.

'The prefect has called an urgent meeting with the police to investigate the origin of the liquid,' he said.

Images on social media show a bright patch of green in the canal along an embankment lined with restaurants.

On Twitter, Zaia wrote: 'This morning in #CanalGrande of #Venezia a patch of phosphorescent green liquid appeared, reported by some residents near the Rialto Bridge.

'The prefect has convened an urgent meeting with the police force to investigate the origin of the liquid.'

Police were looking into whether Sunday's action could be a protest by climate change activists, local daily La Nuova Venezia said.

The publication also reported that police were looking for those responsible, who 'also displayed a banner'.

A video, seemingly taken by a someone in a gondola, shows the bright green water as people continue to paddle along.

It is not the first time the Grand Canal has been turned green.

In 1968, Argentine artist Nicolas Garcia Uriburu dyed the waters of Venice's Grand Canal green with a fluorescent dye during the 34th Venice Biennale in a stunt to promote ecological awareness.

The colour was first spotted by local residents, the Veneto region's president Luca Zaia said on Twitter

Images on social media show a bright patch of green in the canal along an embankment lined with restaurants

Throughout his life, Mr Uriburu, who died in 2016, carried out other acts of protest to raise awareness.

Between 1968 and 1970, he repeated the water colouring in New York's East River, Paris's Le Seine and Buenos Aires.

Mr Uriburu received the Creative Careers Award from the Center for Creativity Economics of Universidad del CEMA in 2010.
Taylor Swift's former NYC apartment where she fell in love with Joe Alwyn is on the market for an eye-watering $18 million - $6 million more than it previously sold for.

In 2016, the idyllic townhouse on Cornelia Street - which last sold for $11.5million in 2019 - was occupied by Swift, then 27, who temporarily rented the apartment while her $50million loft a few blocks away was undergoing renovations.

Swift only lived there for several months but it clearly made a lasting impression, with the street becoming the title for her 2019 song on her seventh studio album, Lover.

The song features lyrics that speak to the early days of a relationship with a man many believe to be Joe Alwyn - who split from in March - who she starting dating around the time she lived at the swanky West Village building.

Now the stunning 5,500-square-foot, five-bed abode which was built in 1870 to store horse-drawn carriages, is up for grabs - but fans will need $18 million to bag it.

Located on quiet Cornelia Street, the 5,500-square-foot, five-bed abode was originally built in the 19th centuries to store horse-drawn carriages, but in the century since has undergone several facelifts - while being lived in by multiple deep-pocketed tenants

A apartment that once played home to Taylor Swift has hit the market for an eyewatering $18million - thanks to plum amenities like private terraces and several working fireplaces

Aside from the star's temporary stay in the Village, the song contains lyrics that spoke to the early days of a relationship with a man many believe to be Joe Alwyn - with whom she split in March. The pair began dating in 2016, right around the time Swift lived at the residence

'I rent a place on Cornelia Street,' Swift sings in the first verse of the 2019 song, in which she recalled words shared with a mystery man in the back of a car after a night drinking.

The love ballad goes on to tell the story of a new, budding relationship between Swift and the unnamed man - who many have since assumed to be Alwyn - and the pop star being scared for its potential end, which would then make it too difficult for her to ever return to the apartment.

'I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends/I'd never walk Cornelia Street again/That's the kind of heartbreak time could never mend/I'd never walk Cornelia Street again,' the song goes.

Back in March, that prophecy came true, when it was revealed that Swift and her beau of more than six years had broken up.

Roughly a month after that was first reported, realtors at the Corcoran Group posted a listing indicating the apartment on 23 Cornelia Street was up for sale, for a price well beyond that of other homes in the neighborhood - by several millions of dollars.

Speaking to Curbed Friday, staffers at the Madison Avenue based real estate firm explained how they are confident that the home's rich history - as well as its number of unusual features - will help command the hefty price tag.

'I am the biggest fan of unique properties,' said Sydney Blumstein of the renovated 19th-century relic, which comes complete with a slew of fireplaces and well-situated terraces.

'You cant comp out a private swimming pool on a quiet street like Cornelia,' Blumstein, a native of nearby Greenwich Village, went on to add.

Swift, now 33, resided at the home for several months in 2016 and 2017 - an experience she alluded to in the ninth song of her seventh studio album, also called Cornelia Street

The fully renovated home, aside from being a Swifty's dream - also boasts a full two-car garage and an indoor pool, despite being set in the Big Apple

Speaking to Curbed Friday, staffers at the Madison Avenue based real estate firm explained how they are confident that the home's rich history - as well as its number of unusual features not commonly found in Manhattan - will help command the hefty price tag

'I am the biggest fan of unique properties,' said Sydney Blumstein of the renovated 19th-century relic, which comes complete with a series of well-situated terraces.

'You cant comp out a private swimming pool on a quiet street like Cornelia,' Blumstein, a native of nearby Greenwich Village, added

The home is thought to be a draw for a certain tier of high-profile buyers who want a private, posh digs at the heart of the city's bustling downtown

Aside from the garage and aforementioned air of privacy, the home also features several sizable windows, four full bathrooms, and two half bathrooms

It also boats dramatic double heights ceilings, thee gas fireplaces, and beautiful hardwood floors throughout

Seen here is a tiled lounge area on the home's bottom floor, where tenants can relax after taking a dip in the pool

The home has three floors in total, as well as a private roof and backyard

The kitchen, moreover, is adorned with both marble and granite counter tops, and is adjoined to a dining area with floor-to-ceiling casement windows that open onto the West Village and a private backyard, away from the street

On the street side is a bedroom that could double as a home office, which looks right out onto historic Cornelia Street.

Moreover, the home is thought to be a draw for a certain caliber of buyer who are seeking a centrally located locale with all the bustle of NYC's lively downtown, as well as a posh digs that also allows tenants peace and privacy.

Helping to achieve this air of seclusion is the fact that Cornelia is a lesser known side street - and the added detail that there's a garage where more high-profile buyers can get enter and exit their vehicles without fear of being detected by paparazzi.

Brown Harris Stevens associate broker David Kornmeier remarked: 'Some people like having a pool and some dont, but everyone likes a garage.'

Aside from the garage and aforementioned air of privacy, the home also features several sizable windows, four full bathrooms, two half bathrooms, and a tiled lounge area on the bottom floor near the pool.

It also boats dramatic double heights ceilings, thee gas fireplaces, and beautiful hardwood floors throughout.

The kitchen, moreover, is adorned with both marble and granite counter tops, and is adjoined to a dining area with floor-to-ceiling casement windows that open onto the West Village and a private backyard, away from the street.

On the street side is a bedroom that could double as a home office, which looks right out onto historic Cornelia Street.

On the top floor of the three-story house, prospective tenants will find two more bedroom suites, each with their own private terrace.

Swifties were seen descending on the property last month, as news of Swift's breakup with Alwyn became public knowledge.

The home - which Swift has not lived in since 2017 - last sold in 2019 for $11.5 million, according to property records

Down the hall, the grand master bedroom features high ceilings, a walk-in closet and a dramatic marble bath - with its own glass enclosed shower, balcony, and personal skylight.

The terrace boasts its own outdoor lounge with an outdoor fireplace. Further upstairs, private rooftop access awaits, with terrace that offers unprecedented views views of one of the city's most sought-after neighborhoods.

Swifties were seen descending on the property last month, as news of Swift's breakup with Alwyn became public knowledge.

The home - which Swift has not lived in since 2017 - last sold in 2019 for $11.5 million, according to property records.
US Senator Lindsey Graham said 'the Russians are dying' and 'it's the best money we've ever spent' during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv last week.

Graham also urged the Biden administration to increase its aid and Zelensky thanked the US for its decision to support an international fighter jet coalition that would provide Ukraine with eagerly anticipated F-16 jets.

The Republican senator's shocking comments were made during his third visit to Ukraine since the Russian invasion last year. America has provided more than $70 billion in aid so far, according to Ukraine Support Tracker.

Shortly after his visit, the Russian ambassador in London warned that continued support from the West would result in an escalation.

US Senator Lindsey Graham made his third visit to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia last February. He is pictured meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday

Andriy Yermak, the head of the president's office, released footage of Graham's May 26 meeting with Zelensky. In a tweet he thanked Graham for coming to Ukraine and for the military support.

The video showed the South Carolina state senator sitting with the president and other officials as they discussed the ongoing war and the situation on the front line.

'Free or die,' said Zelensky. 'Now you are free, and we will be.'

'And the Russians are dying,' replied Graham, before the video cut to him saying, 'the best money we've ever spent.'

'Thank you so much,' said the Ukrainian president.

According to Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, during the meeting they also discussed 'continued joint efforts to counter the criminal activities of the Wagner Group,' and 'the possibility of redirecting the $5.4 million confiscated Russian oligarchs' assets' to rehabilitate Ukrainian war veterans.'

Graham said that 'Russians were dying' and 'it's the best money we've ever spent. After the meeting he urged the Biden administration to direct more aid to Ukraine

Graham said that in the upcoming counteroffensive the Russian military would have 'holy hell' unleashed upon them

In a tweet on Friday Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said he was 'deeply grateful' for Lindsay's support

During a press conference later in Graham's trip to Kyiv, he urged the Biden administration to supply Ukraine with more weapons.

He also said that the battle for Bakhmut was not over and that history was about to be written.

'I expect in the coming days and weeks for the Ukrainian counteroffensive to yield results, and I'm here to tell you that the last chapter of the battle of Bakhmut is yet to be written,' said Graham.

'I'm here to tell you that the Russian military is about to have holy hell unleashed upon them,' he added. A battle has been raging for months in Bakhmut and Moscow has claimed that it has taken control of swathes of the city.

Graham also warned that failure by the US to provide enough support would send a signal to China that they could similarly invade Ukraine.

'The F-16 will matter. It is not a magic weapon but combined with other weapons, it will be decisive,' said Graham.

'My message to the Biden administration is, "I appreciate what you have done, you need to do more." I am convinced that there will be bipartisan support to provide more weapons that can turn the tide of battle in the upcoming offensive,' he said.

Andrei Kelin (left) told BBC 's Laura Kuenssberg (right) on Sunday that the actions of NATO countries risk lengthening and triggering a 'new dimension' in the war

Russia's ambassador to the UK last week warned of an escalation to the war in Ukraine as Western allies commit more weapons to assist in its latest offensive.

Andrei Kelin said the actions of NATO countries risked lengthening and triggering a 'new dimension' in the war.

He said Russia has 'enormous resources' and despite the war already raging for over a year, he claimed his country had not yet started to 'act very seriously'.

The ambassador also hit back at the widespread mounting evidence of Russia's war crimes, alleging Ukraine was the one committing war crimes. He then said the United Nations had no power to investigate war crimes.

His remarks come after Kyiv was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of the war overnight, local officials said.
This provisions could lead more progressives to pull support for the deal struck by Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden

Kevin McCarthy said that if the debt ceiling deal goes through, student loan repayments will resume after three years of deferment.

The House Speaker said that the loan payment pause will be 'gone' 60 days after the bill is signed by President Biden.

He told Fox News that the student loan repayment income brings in $5 billion every month to help fund the federal government.

Student loans were put on pause at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Both President Donald Trump and Joe Biden extended the pause several times as a way to relieve those with student loan debt during the public health emergency.

In May, the emergency finally ended  and other years-long relief programs are ending with it.

'The pause is gone within 60 days of this being signed,' McCarthy told Fox News Sunday. 'So that is another victory because that brings in $5 billion each month to the American public.'

The claim comes after the California Republican and Biden came to an 'agreement in principle' late Saturday night to cap spending and raise the debt ceiling after a months-long stalemate on the matter.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday morning that student loan payments will resume 60 days after the debt ceiling bill is signed

Some progressives, however, are warning they aren't on board with the deal.

The student repayment pause ending is likely to be an issue that doesn't sit well with Democrats.

Biden announced last year his plan to forgive $10,000 in student loans for all borrowers making less than $125,000 and couples making less than $250,000. Those with Pell Grants could receive up to $20,000 in forgiveness under Biden's proposal.

The plan, however, was hit with legal challenges and is currently under consideration in the Supreme Court.

'What the president did, he went unconstitutionally and said he was going to waive certain people part of their debt for student loan, but then he paused everybody's student loan,' McCarthy said on Sunday. 'So everybody who borrowed a student loan within 60 days of the signing is going to have to pay that back.'

'The Supreme Court is taking up that case,' he continued. 'But if the Supreme Court came back and said that was unconstitutional, the president could still say he's pausing, not waiving it.'

'But now that this is in law, the Supreme Court decision will have to be upheld, that they would have to pay.'

McCarthy says that the text of the bill could be released later on Sunday  and he plans to again speak with Biden after the president attends his granddaughter Natalie's high school graduation.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington told CNN Sunday morning that she 'isn't happy' with some of the things she is hearing will be included in the final text of the bill and warned Democratic leadership that they 'should worry' about progressives supporting the deal.

Meanwhile, McCarthy claimed Sunday that despite coming to an agreement with Biden, there is 'nothing in the bill' that Democrats could call a win.

'I haven't seen the text,' Jayapal told State of the Union host Jake Tapper on Sunday. 'We're all trying to wade through spin right now.'

She added: 'I'm not happy with some of the things I'm hearing about, but they are not cutting the deficit and spending.'

The GOP held a members call at 9:30pm after McCarthy and Biden spoke on the phone earlier in the night for about an hour-and-a-half.

With the outlines of a deal in place, the legislative package could be drafted and shared with lawmakers in time for votes early next week in the House and later in the Senate.

McCarthy said once a deal is reached, he will give legislators 72 hours before bringing the bill to a vote. He noted that the bill would not be lengthy, likely around 150 pages.

The dreaded June 5 deadline is four days later than a previous X-date, but still guarantees that - even with a deal this weekend - it will be a frantic race to get a bill through Congress in less than 10 days.

Some top House Republicans have also signaled disapproval of the deal McCarthy struck with the Democratic president.

Biden and McCarthy reached a deal 'in principle' late Saturday to end a months-long stalemate and raise the federal government's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling. McCarthy said he and others were working through the night to complete the language of the proposal.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden struck a deal late Saturday night to raise the debt ceiling after a months-long stalemate

'There's not one thing in the bill for Democrats,' McCarthy told Fox News Sunday, despite Biden wanting a debt limit hike through 2024  and getting that.

Some things Jayapal doesn't like in the bill are the stricter work requirements to obtain food assistance, and said it's 'really unfortunate the president opened the door' for that provision in the first place.

'Perhaps because of the exemptions it really will be ok, that I don't know,' she said, insisting she needs to see the full text of the bill.

Rep. Bob Good, a member of the conservative and powerful House Freedom Caucus, expressed objections to the deal during the Saturday evening call with Republicans.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry also raised concern on that call, noting he is disappointed that Republicans are agreeing to raise the debt limit by more than the U.S. would save.

Republican Main Street Caucus head Dusty Johnson told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday morning that most 'pragmatic' conservatives are not against the deal.

'When you're saying conservatives have concerns, it is really the most colorful conservatives,' the South Dakota congressman said.

Johnson added: 'Overwhelmingly, Republicans in this conference are going to support the deal. How could they not? It is a fantastic deal.'

The reports of pushback from within McCarthy's party further proves that the GOP is not on the same page and exhibits the fractions within the majority in the House  especially between the more conservative members.

Rep. Jim Jordan, the Judiciary chairman and former Freedom Caucus leader, sounded more upbeat about the deal on the Saturday call.

McCarthy continued to downplay some anger within the Republican Conference on Sunday morning, telling Fox that 'more than 95 percent' of House Republicans are 'very excited' about the debt limit deal.

The deal would avert an economically destabilizing default, so long as they succeed in passing it through the narrowly divided Congress before the Treasury Department runs short of money to cover all its obligations.

The Treasury warned on Friday that this would occur if the debt ceiling is not raised by June 5.
The parents of a five-year-old girl who died in a house fire over the Bank Holiday weekend are in 'unimaginable pain' after having 'lost everything'.

Alysia Salisbury was killed when a blaze broke out at her home in the small village of Pontyglasier, near Crymych, Pembrokeshire on Saturday evening.

Locals have told how the family-of-five were inside the house when the 'unimaginable tragedy' happened late last night.

Her parents and two older siblings managed to escape as the fire ripped through the family home but little Alysia tragically died at the scene.

The youngster was described as a 'beautiful daughter and sister' in a tribute released by her heartbroken parents.

Alysia Salisbury, five, was killed when a blaze broke out in Pembrokeshire late last night. Alysia, (pictured) hailed by her loved ones as a 'beautiful daughter and sister', died at the scene despite efforts by emergency services

'As a community, our hearts go out this local family,' neighbour John Davies said after the blaze destroyed top of the house

Emergency services were still present at the scene this morning to find the cause of the fire

Neighbour and Pembrokshire councillor John Davies described how he tried to console the family in the early hours of the morning.

'As a community, our hearts go out this local family,' the Sun reported.

'I have spoken to the parents and they are going through unimaginable pain right now and they will be for a long time to come.

'The family moved here around four years ago and although they are very private people, they have become part of our community.

'They had all been inside the house when the fire started. It is an unbelievable tragedy.'

Drone images show the damage of the fire, which tore through the roof of the property

Police were called to a residence in Dolgoed, Crymych shortly before 10pm yesterday for reports of a house fire

County councillor, Shon Rees, also offered his condolences to the family, saying: 'Our thoughts at present are with the family during this awful and tragic time.

'This family has lost absolute everything, including a young child, and we as a community are doing everything we possibly can to support them.'

DCI Llyr Williams said: 'Our thoughts are with the family and the local community at this tragic time. HM Coroner has been informed and officers will now work with colleagues form the fire service to establish the cause of the fire.

'The family request privacy at this difficult time'

Police officers are currently investigating the cause of the incident, which occurred shortly before 10pm.

'Our thoughts are with the family and the local community at this tragic time,' DCI Llyr Williams said in a press release this afternoon.

'HM Coroner has been informed and officers will now work with colleagues form the fire service to establish the cause of the fire.

'The family request privacy at this difficult time.'

Dyfed-Powys Police were still at the scene late this morning as they probe the incident, The Pembrokeshire Herald reported. Officers are expected to continue their investigation throughout the day.

First responders worked diligently throughout the night in order to extinguish the fire, with multiple fire services, police units and paramedics attending the scene.

A representative from the Welsh Ambulance Service told MailOnline that it sent a rapid response vehicle and an emergency ambulance to the scene. Crews were supported by the Emergency Medical Retrieval and Transfer Service.

Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service, the Welsh Air Ambulance and the Urban Search and Rescue Team were among those who attended the scene.

The operation also saw fire crews from Crymych, Cardigan, Newcastle Emlyn, Whitland and Fishguard in attendance, with specialist kit including a turntable ladder from Haverfordwest and a water bowser from Milford Haven.

A police drone was used this morning in order to establish the damage to the property and how it may have started.

The family are being supported by their tight-knit community, who have put together a collection for donations to help the family who have 'lost everything'.
A banner advertising a Juneteenth celebration in South Carolina has been slammed for depicting a white couple.

The holiday, marking the emancipation of black slaves, was being advertised on the streets of Greenville with over 50 banners - but one in particular has caused outrage within the community.

Locals are now calling for a boycott after they used a white couple to promote their Juneteenth 'mega fest.'

Greenville activist Bruce Wilson from Fighting Injustice Together said of the adverts hanging from lampposts: 'I was appalled. I was saddened, I was angry.

'We have to remember what Juneteenth is about. It's about freedom. It's about the freedom of slaves.

The holiday, marking the emancipation of black slaves, was being advertised on the streets of Greenville with over 50 banners - but one in particular has caused outrage within the community

Greenville activist Bruce Wilson said that white people shouldn't be the face of the event

'I'm the first to say that White America can celebrate Juneteenth, I just don't think White America should be the face of Juneteenth.

'And I think that's where the disconnect is. One, I'm asking this event be boycotted if they do not feel the need to remove this banner.

'Secondly, I'm asking everyone to call the city manager and voice your concerns about this particular banner.'

Other banners depicted different ethnicities - including black and Hispanic couples.

The black business leaders making up Juneteenth GVL's board initially defended the banner - saying that they were formulated to reflecting diversity.

Co-founder Pete Lee told WYFF: 'The images on the flag were very intentional

'We have been knocking at the door for so long to include us. Now that we have a seat at the table, the last thing we want to do is what's been done for years is to exclude.'

Rueben Hays, the founder and CEO, previously said that making the celebration exclusively black 'is not in the spirit of unity.'

But following the outrage, the organization said they would take the flags down 'as soon as possible.'

In a statement, Juneteenth GVL wrote: 'We would like to offer an apology to the community for the presence of non-black faces being represented on two flags representing Juneteenth.

'We acknowledge this mistake having been made and will correct the error quickly.

'This error was an attempt at uniting all of Greenville and thereby a slight oversight on one individual's part that prevented us from fully embracing the rich potential and celebrating the depth of the black culture through the message and meaning of Juneteenth, and for that we apologize to you the entire community.

'The flags in question will be removed as soon as possible.'

Juneteenth Mega Fest in the South Carolina town is a week-long event featuring concerts and other family-friendly events.

One local person said on social media: 'This was intentional disrespect and he needs to be held accountable. Just how stupid do you think we are.'

Another said: 'This was disrespectful and it shows no sense of love of Black people or our history.

'Why would you put the descendants of the people who put us in chains on a flag that celebrates our freedom?

'Unite with your own first before you start hugging others.'

While a third added: 'How were you not aware how problematic that is?'

Juneteenth - or June 19 - was made a federal holiday in June 2021.

It marks when Union troops began enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 in Galveston, Texas.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs office is still preaching social distancing restrictions, according to an automated phone message to her Washington, DC office.

Nine months removed from statements from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) putting an end to such measures, the warning is blatantly outdated - and is already causing a stir among reps.

As of Sunday, those looking to leave a comment, inquiry, or suggestion with the 33-year-old's office are still greeted with the months-old phone message.

In it, an unspecified male staffer employed by the fourth-year Bronx representative touts how social distancing 'is critical to preventing the spread of COVID-19.'

Not mentioned in the recording is how the CDC dropped its six-feet distancing requirement last August, bolstered by an assertion from the WHO last month that the COVID-19 pandemic was no longer a global health emergency.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs office is still preaching social distancing restrictions, according to an automated phone message to her Washington, DC office

It comes as President Biden last year sensationally declared the US outbreak of the coronavirus to be fully under control, claiming in September that 'the pandemic is over'. The president's stance has been shared by several notable agencies including the CDC and WHO

'Thank you for calling the office of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,' the greeting, which comes after callers select 'English' out of two provided language prompts, begins.

'Federal, state and local officials have advised that social distancing is critical to preventing the spread of COVID-19.

'As such, staff in the congresswomans DC and district offices will shortly begin telecommuting,' the recorded greeting continues.

'Meetings and other business will be conducted by phone or video. Thank you for your understanding.'

The former bartender's office did not immediately respond to a Sunday query from DailyMail.com asking why the pre-recorded message has yet to be changed, despite distancing being nixed from the stipulations aired by several respected agencies.

Along with the aforementioned groups, President Biden last year sensationally declared the US outbreak of the coronavirus was now fully under control, saying in a September 60 Minutes' appearance that 'the pandemic is over.'

At the time, the president conceded: 'We still have a problem with Covid. Were still doing a lot of work on it... But the pandemic is over.'

Earlier this month, Biden approved legislation that made good on that assertion by officially declaring the country's COVID-19 emergency to be at an end.

Enacted by former President Donald Trump in March 2020 to add to the executive branchs ability to allocate funds to combat the spread, it had been in place for more than three years, as nearly 7million lives were and are still being claimed by the virus.

The symbolic decision came as both cases and deaths for months have been on the decline, as an increasing amount of adults obtain some level of immunity to the virus from either vaccinations, prior infections - or both.

It was predated by an official assertion from the WHO director general himself days days earlier, in which disease official Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus proudly proclaimed that 'life has been allowed to return to normal.'

It remains to be seen why Ocascio-Cortez - who was subject to scrutiny during the pandemic's early-most days for flouting mask mandates and social distancing herself (seen here) - has yet to amend her prerecorded caller greetings.

After the 2021 maskless outing, it was revealed the outspoken rep contracted the coronavirus

It remains to be seen why Ocascio-Cortez - who was subject to scrutiny during the pandemic's early-most days for flouting mask mandates and social distancing herself - has yet to amend her prerecorded caller greetings.

The Bronx and Queens representative, moreover, held a town hall meeting in her native New York Friday, where constituents were reportedly allowed to sit well within six feet of each other.

When asked about Ocascio-Cortez's seemingly outdated message, fellow New York rep Nicole Malliotakis, of Staten Island, said the greeting was likely an oversight.

'Maybe her office just needs to update its voicemail,' Malliotakis told The New York Post Sunday.

'But,' she added, 'the pandemic is over and all federal employees need to return to the office. They dont get paid to sit home.

'My office never closed to begin with.'

Meanwhile, another New York official's office - that takes in $5million in taxpayer money annually - has also seemed to miss the memo outlining the pandemic being a thing of the past, and are still working remotely even after Biden's rescinding of the emergency order.

That office belongs to Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who was elected in 2021 and is responsible for assisting the Big Apple's roughly 9million residents with complaints.

Now already airing plans to run for governor, Williams, 47, for his entire tenure has allowed staffers to work from home, even after the president's official declaration.

In previous months, those trying to call Williams office line would find themselves greeted with the following recorded greeting: 'Our office is currently working remotely.'

Today, an amended message says: 'Our office is currently working on a hybrid schedule.'

Meanwhile, as for Ocasico-Cortez, her aformentioned town hall in Corona, Queens, proved to be a farce Friday, as the firebrand was belittled by attendees as a 'piece of sh*t' and berated for her views on Ukraine, migrants, and drag queen story hours.

Despite the assertions in her office's prerecorded greeting, the Bronx and Queens firebrand held a town hall meeting in her native New York Friday that allowed attendees to sit well within six feet of each other.

The meeting was bombarded with protesters, one man was escorted out after he called the congresswoman a 'piece of sh*t'

AOC protesters demanded to know why the congresswoman continued to support sending billions to Ukraine while many are struggling in Queens and The Bronx

Ocasico-Cortez has yet to comment on her office's current stance on social distancing

The meeting was held in a neighborhood that is part of the relatively new rep's constituency - though her constituents appeared to not be in a welcoming mood when the event moved to to the question and answer stage.

'American citizens before migrants,' one heckler yelled. Others chanted: 'America first.'

Another shouted: 'We are on the verge of nuclear war with Russia. Are you going to stop this war?' shouted another, according to video recorded by conservative activist group Freedom News TV.

Video shows one protester, wearing a Cuba t-shirt and waving miniature American flags, being led away by security after repeatedly calling AOC a 'piece of sh*t' and asking: 'Where are you on the migrant issue?'

An Iraq veteran attempted to defend the Bronx-born Democrat by saying: 'Immigrants have nothing to do with vets, it's just an excuse. We all, for the most part, came through Ellis Island.' At that point a protester interjected: 'Legally!'

Ocasico-Cortez has yet to comment on her office's current stance on social distancing.
Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary said Target's marketing decision to launch its Pride collection was a 'huge mistake' as the retail giant dropped $10 billion in market value in the span of 10 days.

The entrepreneur weighed in on the controversy during a Fox News segment on Sunday after Target's stock fell to its lowest trading value in a year and lost $10billion in just the span of 10 days.

O'Leary said companies like Target and Bud Light - 'cannot be partisan in any way' when selling consumer goods and services. Bud Light's sales have plummeted since April after teaming up with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney.

Target and Anheuser-Busch have lost around a combined $28 billion in market value as of Friday, FOX Business reported.

Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary said Target's marketing decision to launch its Pride collection was a 'huge mistake' as the retail giant dropped $10 billion in market value in the span of 10 days

Prior to the controversy, Target shares were trading at $160.96, giving the retailer a market valuation of roughly $74.3billion. By the time The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) closed Friday, the blue-chip stock was trading at $138.93 - marking a loss of $10.1billion

O'Leary first pointed to Bud Light, which has continued to grapple with the backlash from its marketing decision to team up with a transgender activist.

'When Bud happened, I can't believe that boards didn't wake up to that decimation market cap Budweiser was the American beer,' he said. 'It took decades to build that brand and they blew it up in 30 hours.'

He added that there's a reason why big companies do not take a stance on a controversial issue.

'Let me give you an example,' O'Leary said told Fox News. 'Do you ever hear a CEO that represents a company ever talking about abortion? Never. Because that is an issue that will never be resolved. It's a personal issue, it's a family issue, it's a religious issue.

It's partisan forever. You don't touch it. Same thing with politics, same thing with gender identity. Everybody has a personal opinion about it. When you actually get involved in a fight like that, you lose 50 percent of your constituency.'

O'Leary blamed social media for being what he described as a 'giant polling system' and that 'when something goes viral, it can be a good thing, but mostly it's negative, and it's decimated these brands very quickly.'

O'Leary said companies like Target and Bud Light - 'cannot be partisan in any way' when selling consumer goods and services

The latest merchandising controversy come as an increasing amount of moderate-minded shoppers have taken issue with Target's new 'Pride Collection', particularly with items in its children's section

Outraged over LGBTQ-friendly slogans such as 'Trans People Will Always Exist!', 'gay', and 'Live Laugh Lesbian', they have accused the retailer of grooming

'Fixer Upper' stars Chip and Joanna Gaines, who have a home and kitchen line with Target, have received some backlash for not speaking out on the controversy, but O'Leary warned them to 'stay out of it.'

He said the couple 'can't win' by getting involved in this fight and predicted their sales would drop 30 percent if they did.

'That's what would happen,' he added. 'They'd eventually not have the margins that they need to stay on the shelf, they'd get kicked out. You stay out of it.'

The latest merchandising controversy come as an increasing amount of moderate-minded shoppers have taken issue with Target's new 'Pride Collection', particularly with items in its children's section.

Outraged over LGBTQ-friendly slogans such as 'Trans People Will Always Exist!', 'gay', and 'Live Laugh Lesbian', they have accused the retailer of grooming - as several staffers in more rural areas such as the South have reportedly sought to hide and tone down these new sections in apparent shame.

The retail giant also sparked backlash after releasing a new line of clothing to celebrate Pride month in June, which includes a label advertising 'tuck-friendly construction' and 'extra crotch' coverage. The design is made to help conceal a person's private parts.

Criticisms were also levied against the company after it was believed the 'tuck friendly' clothing was also for children, however a spokesman for the company told the Associated Press the swimsuits are only offered in adult sizes.

The swimsuits, which appear in sections set up for Pride month in June, include a label which advertises the 'tuck-friendly construction' and 'extra crotch' coverage. The design is made to help conceal a person's private parts

The 'tuck-friendly' swimsuit is sold online for $40 in the adults section. Target has been asked to clarify claims the item is also available for children

Staffers at Target HQ reportedly held an 'emergency' meeting last week to avoid what a Target insider told Fox brass had colloquially labeled a 'Bud Light situation.'

An insider divulged the company made the emergency decision at the last minute, in direct response to threats staff had received in recent weeks over the new displays.

In a statement last week, Target - led by CEO Brian Cornell - announced the company had pulled some items it had received complains about, specifying that have 'been at the center of the most confrontational behavior.'

'Since introducing this year's collection, we've experienced threats impacting our team members' sense of safety and wellbeing while at work,' the firm said in its statement.

'Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.'

The company did not specify which items had been taken off-shelves. As of Sunday, many of the swimsuits, onesies and t-shirts that sparked outrage remain available online.

It was after a series of angry mothers took to Twitter and TikTok to complain. Over the last few weeks, the retail giant has been reviled by families - particularly mothers - for putting transgender clothes, books and greeting cards in its stores

Target has supported Pride - celebrated throughout the month of June - every year since 2013, with this year's collection only the latest to prove polarizing.

In 2014, Target publicly endorsed marriage equality, and the following year announced it was ending their policy of dividing certain products, like toys, by gender.

Target also introduced a gender neutral line for children, and in April 2016 - amid a nationwide discussion about bathroom access - announced that transgender people were free to use whichever bathroom they chose.

A backlash ensued, and Target in August 2016 spent $20 million to add a private bathroom to each of its stores.
A widow whose partner was killed while working for one of Scotland biggest salmon farm operators has accused bosses of failing to improve safety standards - despite the firm admitting criminal charges over his death.

Claiming little has been done to protect staff, Catriona Lockhart issued a stark warning: 'Others will die unless lessons are learned.'

Clive Hendry, an experienced fish farm worker, was crushed as he stepped between a boat and a feed barge in February 2020 while working for Mowi, a Norway-based seafood company that operates across Scotland.

This month the firm was hit with a huge fine after it admitted breaching health and safety legislation in relation to the death of Mr Hendry. But Ms Lockhart, 56, has gathered evidence which, she claims, shows fish farm workers are still being put at risk.

Speaking to The Scottish Mail on Sunday, she described how she been contacted by a Mowi whistleblower who has told her safety drills are still not being held regularly.

Catriona Lockhart, 56, who lost her husband Clive three years ago, has gathered evidence which, she claims, shows fish farm workers are still being put at risk

Catriona's husband Clive Hendry, 58, was an experienced fish farm worker when he was crushed as he stepped between a boat and a feed barge in February 2020 while working for seafood firm Mowi

Ms Lockhart is now demanding a fatal accident inquiry (FAI) to fully investigate the circumstances of Mr Hendry's death.

She said: 'What haunts me is Clive must have been terrified.

'He had the most horrific death. I have to find out exactly why he died. I truly believe it will happen again and I need lessons to actually have been learned.

'They admitted some failings in court but that did not go into enough detail to expose what they did wrong. They say things have changed but I don't believe they have. There needs to be an FAI.'

Mr Hendry, from Dornie, Rossshire, worked for Mowi for 12 years before his death at Ardintoul fish farm in nearby Loch Alsh.

He stepped through an open gate on the Beinn na Cailleach boat to a ladder on the feeding barge in a practice known as a touch and go transfer. While on the ladder, he was crushed by the boat and slipped into the water and drowned.

The 58-year-old's workmates did not know how to use the 'man overboard' equipment on the boat.

At Inverness Sheriff Court, Mowi admitted failing to carry out proper risk assessments and safety training in relation to Mr Hendry's death. The firm was fined 800,000 with a surcharge of 60,000.

Mr Hendry was hit by the boat Beinn na Cailleach (pictured) and a floating structure known as a sea cap, before slipping out of his lifejacket and ending up under water

None of this money goes to Ms Lockhart, who is suing Mowi separately in a civil matter.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch found Mr Hendry was crushed because he stepped off the boat while it was still moving. He was able to do so as the bulwark gate was open and there were no crew on hand to supervise the move. The report found the crew were unprepared for the emergency and did not know how to use the rescue equipment.

Witnesses described how assistant manager Mr Hendry was submerged for about 20 seconds before being pulled from the water, but he could not be resuscitated.

To highlight her concerns, Ms Lockhart filmed a Mowi boat - more than a year after her partner's death - at a fish farm.

The footage shows the bulwark doors open on the side as it sailed. It also showed an employee leaning over the side of the boat to tie it up before it was stationary.

She said: 'When it happens again - and it will - I want everyone on board to know exactly what to do.

'They're such a big company, they simply put their hands up to it then operate exactly the same way. In court they said they had bought two expensive dummies and regularly practise man overboard drills - but I've heard from one worker still there that they've only done that twice since Clive died.'

The Crown Office said: 'A decision on whether to hold an FAI into the death of Clive Hendry is yet to be made.'

Lawyer Joel Shaw, from Thompsons solicitors, said: 'We continue to support Ms Lockhart with her civil case and fully back her campaign for a FAI.'

Mowi insisted it has an effective training system in place and 'the alleged claims put forward to you by an anonymous source are false'. It stated man overboard drills are carried out twice a year.
An Arby's manager found frozen to death inside a walk-in freezer was inside for at least six hours in -10 degree conditions before police were called.

The four children of 63-year-old widower Nguyet Le - one of whom also worked in the restaurant and found her frozen body - are suing Arby's over their mother's death in a Louisiana restaurant and claim she 'beat her hands bloody trying to escape'.

The widower and her son, who are both from Houston, were transferred to work at the restaurant in New Iberia temporarily, according to the lawsuit, which also alleges the freezer was broken and employees often had to use a screwdriver to open it.

Le entered the store soon after 9am on May 11 to performing opening duties, according to the lawsuit. Some time between then and the arrival of other employees at 10am she became trapped in the freezer.

Her body was found at around 6.20pm, according to both an initial report by the New Iberia police and a statement by her attorney. The lawsuit says only that she was discovered 'after' 10am.

An Arby's manager who spent more than six hours in a walk-in freezer before police were called was a widower and mother of four

According to a lawsuit Le panicked and bloodied the door of the freezer in a desperate attempt to escape. Former employees have said the door to the freezer (pictured) had been acting up for months had been reported to management

According to the National Weather Service, in conditions of 10 below zero, frostbite will begin taking affect within just 30 minutes. Hypothermia can start taking affect soon after.

Warning signs of hypothermia include uncontrollable shivering, memory loss, disorientation, slurred speech, and drowsiness.

Prior to taking up a position at the Arby's in New Iberia, Le worked at another Arby's restaurant in Houston, Texas, as a general manager, the lawsuit says.

In February, her supervisor asked her to take a temporary assignment and work at the Arby's in New Iberia, Louisiana, for what was supposed to be four weeks, according to the lawsuit.

Her eldest son Nguyen lived with his mother and joined her on the assignment, the lawsuit reads. That placement was extended by months.

New Iberia Police Department wrote the day after she was discovered that they suspected there was 'no foul play'.

'The preliminary report from the coroner's office is that hypothermia was the cause of death,' the attorney for the family, Paul Skrababeank told local station KATC.

'Which is horrific and that the investigating officers found a good bit of blood on the door so she must have fought to get out before collapsing.'

It is unclear how many other staff were on shift with Le the day she became stuck, or why the cops were not called until the evening.

A statement from New Iberia Police Department the day after Le's death stated it received a report of a body in the freezer at 6.19pm on May 11

Le is pictured with her son, Nguyen, who found her frozen body and who traveled with her on the assignment to New Iberia, Louisiana, from Houston, Texas

Pictured is the Arby's in New Iberia where Le's body was found her son in the freezer. She was only meant to be there for four weeks but that was extended

Also named in the complaint, filed in a Texas court, are Turbo Restaurants and Sun Holdings. They are based in Texas and own several Arby's restaurants.

A former New Iberia Arby's employee told Nguyen Le and his siblings that the restaurant's walk-in freezer latch had been broken since August 2022 and employees used a screwdriver to open and close the door.

At other times, a box of oil was used to keep the door open, according to the petition.

The family is seeking damages of at least $1 million. Her other three children are Tiffani, Nina and Trina.

They are seeking a trial by jury and are suing to recover damages and relief over her death, past and future mental anguish, conscious pain and suffering, loss of support and loss of love and affection, the complaint shows.

An Arby's spokesperson told the Miami Herald in a statement on May 26 that the franchisee in New Iberia is 'cooperating fully with local authorities as they conduct their investigation' over the 'tragic incident.'

Turbo Restaurants and Sun Holdings own over a thousand franchisees across 12 states, under brands Applebee's, Arby's, Burger King, Golden Corral, IHOP, McAlister's, Papa Johns and Taco Buenos.
Graduates booed and turned their chairs away from former U.S Rep. Liz Cheney as she delivered the commencement address at Colorado College on Sunday.

Cheney repeated her fierce criticisms of former President Trump but steered clear of talking about his 2024 reelection campaign or her own political future.

The Wyoming Republican blasted her House Republican colleagues for not doing enough to combat Trump's lies that the 2020 election was stolen.

Cheney implored the new college graduates to not compromise when it comes to the truth and blasted one of the election-denying attorneys who worked for Trump after the election for allegedly telling a gathering of Republicans that 'it is crucially important to make sure that college students don't vote.'

While many students and parents in the audience applauded throughout Cheney's remarks, some opposing the choice of Cheney as speaker booed and turned their chairs away from the stage when she spoke.

One graduate's message to Cheney was splashed on her cap. It read: 'Why listen to a racist, imperialist, transphobic, war monger?? Your hate is loud.'

Graduates booed and turned their chairs away from former U.S Rep. Liz Cheney as she delivered the commencement address at Colorado College on Sunday

One graduate's message to Cheney was splashed on her cap. It read: 'Why listen to a racist, imperialist, transphobic, war monger?? Your hate is loud'

While many students and parents in the audience applauded throughout Cheney's remarks, some opposing the choice of Cheney as speaker booed and turned their chairs away from her

Cheney's speech touched on themes similar to those she has promoted since leaving office in January: addressing her work on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and standing up to the threat she believes Trump poses to democracy.

She also encouraged more women to run for office and blasted one of the election-denying attorneys who worked for Trump after the 2020 election for recent remarks about college students voting.

'Cleta Mitchell, an election denier and adviser to former President Trump, told a gathering of Republicans recently that it is crucially important to make sure that college students don't vote,' Cheney said.

'Those who are trying to unravel the foundations of our republic, who are threatening the rule of law and the sanctity of our elections, know they can't succeed if you vote.'

In an audio recording of Mitchell's presentation from a recent Republican National Committee retreat, she warns of polling places on college campuses and the ease of voting as potential problems, the Washington Post reported.

A student wears a 'We're Tired' sign on her cap at the Colorado College commencement, Sunday, May 28, 2023, in Colorado Springs, Colorado

Students looked unimpressed in the chosen speaker Liz Cheney delivered the speech Sunday

Cheney political science student who graduated from Colorado College in 1988

Some students turned their chairs around so that their backs were to Cheney while she spoke

Cheney, who graduated from Colorado College in 1988, recalled being a political science student walking into a campus building where a Bible verse was inscribed above the entrance that read, 'Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.'

'After the 2020 election and the attack of January 6th, my fellow Republicans wanted me to lie. They wanted me to say the 2020 election was stolen, the attack of January 6th wasn't a big deal, and Donald Trump wasn't dangerous,' Cheney said Sunday in Colorado Springs, connecting her experiences as a student to her work in the U.S. House of Representatives.

'I had to choose between lying and losing my position in House leadership.'

In three terms in office, Cheney rose to the No. 3 GOP leadership position in the House, a job she lost after voting to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol and then not relenting in her criticism of the former president.

In three terms in office, Cheney rose to the No. 3 GOP leadership position in the House, a job she lost after voting to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol and then not relenting in her criticism of the former president

Former President Trump held a rally for Harriet Hageman (left) where he railed against Cheney

A hand-painted sign in Casper, Wyoming that stands in opposition to the re-election of Rep. Liz Cheney, the most prominent GOP Trump critic in the House of Representatives

Cheney's busy speaking schedule and subject matter have fueled speculation about whether she may enter the 2024 GOP presidential primary since she left office.

Candidates ranging from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley have calibrated their remarks about Trump, aiming to counter his attacks without alienating the supporters that won him the White House seven years ago.

Though some have offered measured criticisms, no declared or potential challenger has embraced anti-Trump messaging to the same extent as Cheney.

She did not reference her plans on Sunday but has previously said she remains undecided about whether she wants to run for president.

Though she would face an uphill battle, Cheney's fierce anti-Trump stance and her role as vice chairwoman of the House committee elevated her platform high enough to call on a national network of donors and Trump critics to support a White House run.

Ron DeSantis confirmed in a Twitter Spaces event mired by technical glitches on Wednesday that he is running for president in 2024

Polling in Iowa shows that following his official entrance into the 2024 Republican primary race, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was able to close the gap with Donald Trump by 9 percent

A super PAC organized to support of her candidacy has remained active, including purchasing attack ads on New Hampshire airwaves against Trump this month.

After leaving office and being replaced by a Trump-backed Republican who defeated her in last year's primary, Cheney was appointed to a professorship at the University of Virginia and wrote 'Oath and Honor,' a memoir scheduled to hit shelves in November.

Two of Cheney's five children as well as her mother are also graduates of the liberal arts college.

Cheney's speaking tour appears to be picking up. She is scheduled to appear Thursday at the Mackinac Policy Conference in Michigan.
A teenager who was stabbed to death has been named by police, after a man was charged with murder.

Mohammed Iqbal, 17, was found seriously injured on Crookes Road in Sheffield on Thursday shortly after 7pm, when South Yorkshire Police were called to the scene.

The teenager was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead. A post-mortem examination on Friday confirmed he had died from a single stab wound.

It comes as police charge Peshawa Ghaffour, 29, of Birkendale Road, Walkley, with his murder while another two men, aged 33 and 18, have been arrested.

Ghaffour will appear before Sheffield Magistrates' Court tomorrow.

Mohammed Iqbal, 17, was found seriously injured on Crookes Road in Sheffield on Thursday shortly after 7pm, when South Yorkshire Police were called to the scene

The teenager was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead. A post-mortem examination on Friday confirmed he had died from a single stab wound (pictured: scene of the stabbing on Crookes Road)

He has also been charged with possession of a firearm on arrest for a schedule 1 (or serious) offence, possession of a bladed article, possession of an offensive weapon when in a private place, and assault by beating.

Police arrested a 33-year-old man from Sheffield today on suspicion of assisting an offender. He has since been bailed.

Police said on Friday they have also arrested an 18-year-old man on suspicion of murder, but he has since been bailed.

Detective Chief Inspector Joanne Kemp, leading the investigation, said: 'We have so far spoken to a number of witnesses to this tragic event, and we thank them for their assistance with our inquiries.

'But through investigating this killing and trawling through a lot of CCTV footage from that evening, it has come to our attention a number of restaurants, takeaway establishments and public houses along Crookes Road were busy at that time.

'We would like to speak to anyone who was present in one of these, in particular The Ball public house.

'Also, at least two buses were travelling past at that time.

'We want to widen our net and speak to even more witnesses, as well as still looking to speak to those who may have been driving past and captured the incident on their vehicle's dash cam.

'If you were in one of the buildings overlooking the scene or travelling past on a bus at the time, please get in contact and speak to us.

'It might not seem that significant, but the smallest pieces of evidence often enable us to complete a puzzle and bring offenders before a court.'
A father who lost his teenage son in a horror car crash that killed three others and left one woman fighting for life has admitted feeling like he 'failed' him.

A red Toyota Corolla veered off Wannon-Nigretta Falls Road at Bochara, 320km west of Melbourne and smashed into a tree in the early hours of Saturday morning.

A mother in her 30s - Alicia Montebello - and three teens were killed. All were from the town of Hamilton, Victoria, located 11km from the crash site.

A 17-year-old girl - the sole survivor of the crash - was rushed to hospital with critical injuries to her upper body.

The name of one student was released in a letter to parents by Catholic school Monivae College on Sunday night.

Principal Jonathon Rowe said the parents of student Joshua Elmes had asked that the school community be made aware of his death.

Later that evening, Matthew Elmes acknowledged his son's passing by sharing a tribute that the teen had posted for his father's birthday just two weeks ago on May 15.

'Happy birthday to the most amazing dad. I love you and hope you have an awesome day. You deserve it,' Joshua wrote alongside a series of photos.

The Facebook post featured selfies of father and son trying on different camera filters, photos of Joshua as a baby and a family hike with his younger siblings.

Mr Elmes said despite trying to be a good dad, he felt like he had 'failed' Josh.

Joshua Elmes (pictured) has been identified as one of the victims who died in a horror crash at Bochara, 320km west of Melbourne, that killed four and left one teenager fighting for life

Matthew Elmes acknowledged his son's passing on a tribute the teenager had made for his father's birthday, just two weeks before his death (pictured is the May 15 birthday post)

Mr Elmes said despite trying to be a good dad, he felt like he had 'failed' Joshua

'I'm holding onto a post from my son,' the grief-stricken father commented.

'I tried to be a good Dad for you Josh... I feel like I have failed you though... I will see you again some day when the silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is broken; when the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the wheel broken at the well.'

In his letter to parents the principal advised that an assembly would be held on Monday morning to support the students.

'I have spoken to the Elmes family who have asked that this be communicated with the school community,' the principal said.

'Our heartfelt sympathy goes out to Josh's family, including Josh's brother, year 7 student Aaron.'

Alicia Montebello, a mother in her 30s, was also identified as a crash victim on Sunday

Investigators removed the wreckage of the car on a truck (pictured) at around 12pm on Sunday

Bochara, with a population of less than a hundred people, is located about three-and-a-half hours west of Melbourne

It comes as the name of another crash victim is released, Alicia Montebello, a Hamilton mother in her 30s.

Her grieving brother Jaryd posted a moving tribute on Sunday to his 'beautiful sister'.

'Rest in peace, my beautiful sister taken way to soon you were loved very much. Forever with us love you sis.'

Emergency services managed to tow the car from the scene at midday on Sunday, which has its roof caved in and bonnet crumpled by the impact.

Messages were seen written on the inside of the Toyota Corolla, including the tragic words 'drive safe' and 'love people, help people'.

Police are hoping CCTV footage may shed light on what time the accident happened and how long it was before the crash was spotted and the alarm raised.

Police believe the driver of the car lost control before the vehicle crashed into a tree.

'Two females and two males died at the scene,' a Victoria Police statement read.

'Another female has been taken to hospital with serious injuries.'

Three teenage school friends are dead and another is fighting for life after a horror smash on a road in regional Victoria

The red Toyota Corolla had messages written on its the seats - including the tragic words 'drive safe' and 'love people, help people' (pictured)

Students were also seen leaving bouquets of flowers and other tributes at Hamilton's Baimbridge College, where some of the victims attended

Victoria Police Sergeant Ryan Nelson said the community would be devastated by the multiple deaths.

'Hamilton is a very close-knit community, and there's five people involved in this and all their families and all their friends,' he said.

'It's going to hit the town really hard.'

Victoria Police's Assistant Commissioner for Road Policing, Glenn Weir said the car had been travelling at 'extremely high speed' when it left the road.

He said he hoped the teenager in hospital would be able to help police put together what happened.

According to the 2021 census, 10,346 people live in Hamilton and 84 in Bochara.

Southern Grampians Shire Mayor David Robertson described the crash as a parent's worst nightmare.

'This is horrific right across the community,' he said. 'The whole community will feel the impact of this for a long time to come.'

Mr Robertson said the teenagers 'would be known right across the town'.

'Even if they don't know the children, they would know the parents or the grandparents or their brother or sisters.'

The tragedy happened on Wannon-Nigretta Falls Road in country Victoria (pictured)

Emergency services (pictured) were called to the scene at Bochara, three-and-a-half hours west of Melbourne, shortly after 9.30am on Saturday morning

The mayor said the crash happened 'somewhere between 4am and 9.30am on Saturday morning on a lonely bit of road'.

He said safety is a big issue in the area due to the condition of the roads and wildlife.

On Sunday morning, children and families attended a confirmation service at Saint Mary's Catholic Church where a moment of silence was held for those affected.

Students were also seen leaving bouquets of flowers and other tributes at Hamilton's Baimbridge College, where some of the victims attended.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said his thoughts were with the family and friends of the victims.

'This will be an incredibly difficult time for those families and friends, and people who love those who have been caught up in this, and we send our best wishes in what will be an incredibly challenging time,' he said.

'People should be assured there will be a full investigation  so we can try and understand what's happened here.'

So far this year, 128 people have died on Victoria's roads, compared with 96 during the same period last year.
A cocaine-addled carer addicted to online gambling has been jailed after stealing 75,000 from a trusting elderly couple she befriended.

Bill Gass, a Royal Navy veteran who served in Prince Philip's flotilla in the Second World War, and his wife Annie had 'no inkling' they were victims of what a judge branded a 'dreadful offence'.

The couple regarded Rebecca Fidler, 34, as 'extremely helpful'  to the extent they let her make pension withdrawals using their bank cards. Retired shop manager Mrs Gass even left her money in her will.

In reality, Fidler cleaned out virtually their entire life savings between September 2019 and April 2021.

Even after her arrest, the mother of three returned to Mr and Mrs Gass's house in Carlisle in an attempt to find out what they had told police and asked them to 'take the blame'.

Bill Glass and Annie Glass, who were scammed out of most of their life savings, pictured before Mr Glass's death in December 2022

Mother-of-three Rebecca Fidler, 34, mounted a 'sophisticated' attempt to cover her tracks, moving money within the victims' accounts before transferring it into one in her maiden name of Armstrong

Mr Gass died last December  before Fidler could be brought to justice  but Mrs Gass, now 91, watched her be sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment via video link.

Mrs Gass told the Daily Mail: 'She thought she'd get away with it. Everybody trusted her. The police came and told us [what happened], saying a lot of your money has come out the bank. She had looked after us well but she'd been pinching from the beginning. We didn't realise.'

Carlisle Crown Court heard the stolen money cannot be found, much having been frittered away while Fidler's home was extensively redecorated.

The couple's son, Steve Gass, 67, said: 'The fact she's got away with all the money is rather annoying. When she gets out she'll be laughing.'

The court heard Fidler mounted a 'sophisticated' attempt to cover her tracks, moving money within the victims' accounts before transferring it into one in her maiden name of Armstrong.

She even returned to the couple's home where Mrs Gass recalled her saying: 'I've a favour to ask of you, Annie. I want you to take the blame.'

During Fidler's sentencing last week, prosecutor Brendan Burke said: 'The defendant befriended [Mr and Mrs Gass]. They regarded her as extremely helpful in her job.

'They liked her and reposed in her complete trust.'

When bank employees first noted suspicious activity, Fidler initially claimed she was in control of their finances, the court was told.

Mr and Mrs Gass, who married in 1949 and celebrated their platinum wedding anniversary in 2019, were 'devastated' to learn their savings had dwindled to just 2,000.

Mr Burke referred to a statement by Mr Gass before his death, saying: 'Both asked how they could afford to survive.'

The couple's bank has since partially reimbursed them although their son said 40,000 remains outstanding.

Fidler, of Carlisle and who had no previous convictions, admitted theft. Andrew Evans, defending, said she self-medicated with cocaine due to undiagnosed bipolar disorder.

He added: 'Had this been done to her parents, she would have wanted the perpetrator to go to prison.'

Recorder Julian Shaw called the crime a 'dreadful offence'.

He said: 'You stole the money to feed your own addictions; to class A drugs and gambling and for nothing more than takeaway meals for your own personal gratification.'

Fidler may face further proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act to recover the money.
She has long advocated for liberal ideas and been an activist for various causes

Actress called for men to face 'arrest and jail' for their destruction to the globe

Jane Fonda blamed 'white men' and racism for the climate crisis on Saturday

Actress Jane Fonda is facing backlash after she called for men to face 'arrest and jail' for the destruction done to the planet as she blamed white men specifically for creating the 'climate crisis.'

'It is a tragedy that we have to absolutely stop. We have to arrest and jail those men  they're all men [behind this],' she said Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival.

She added there 'would be no climate crisis if there was no racism.'

'White men are the things that matter and then everything else [is] at the bottom,' the outspoken actor said of the 'hierarchy' that gives men power.

Fonda first shared her thoughts about the connection between racism and climate change in an interview on The Kelly Clarkson Show earlier this year.

'Where would they put the sh*t,' she said. 'They're not gonna put it in Bel Air. They've got to find someplace where poor people or indigenous people or people of color are living.'

Jane Fonda is facing backlash after she called for men to face 'arrest and jail' as she blamed white men specifically for creating the 'climate crisis' at Cannes Film Festival

'It is a tragedy that we have to absolutely stop. We have to arrest and jail those men  they're all men [behind this],' Fonda said of the climate crisis. Pictured: Fonda in 2019

She said there 'would be no climate crisis if there was no racism.' Pictured: Fonda on Saturday

Fonda on Saturday called for those in positions to act quickly as she says there is less than a decade to save the planet from the effects of climate change.

'This is serious. We've got about seven, eight years to cut ourselves in half of what we use of fossil fuels, and unfortunately, the people that have the least responsibility for it are hit the hardest,' she said.

'Global South, people on islands, poor people of color,' the actress continued.

Her comments came after a question from the audience at the famed film fest.

'It's good for us all to realize, there would be no climate crisis if there was no racism. There would be no climate crisis if there was no patriarchy,' Fonda stated.

'A mindset that sees things in a hierarchical way. White men are the things that matter and then everything else [is] at the bottom,' she explained.

The 'Grace and Frankie' actor has previously sparked headlines for her head-turning comments on the highly politicized issue.

In a blog post from July 2020 titled 'White Supremacy and the Climate Crisis,' Fonda touched on the connected relationship between the two.

She argued that white supremacy is rooted in all cultural institutions and therefore impacts all economic, political and climate-rooted issues.

'We've got about seven, eight years to cut ourselves in half of what we use of fossil fuels, and unfortunately, the people that have the least responsibility for it are hit the hardest,' Fonda said

She previously argued that white supremacy is rooted in all cultural institutions and therefore impacts all economic, political, and climate-rooted issues. Pictured: Fonda being arrested while protesting in 2019

Fonda (far right) is currently promoting her new film, 'Book Club: The Next Chapter'

Earlier this year during her appearance on 'The Kelly Clarkson Show' alongside her '80 for Brady' costars, Fonda doubled down on her racism and climate ideas.

'Well, you know, you can take anything  sexism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, whatever, the war,' Fonda said.

'And if you really get into it, and study it and learn about it and the history of it, everythings connected. Thered be no climate crisis if it wasnt for racism,' she said.

When costar Rita Moreno asked her to clarify, she spoke on how she believes billionaires are sending pollution to communities that can't speak up.

'Put it there. They cant fight back. And thats why a big part of the climate movement now has to do with climate justice,' Fonda said.

Her recent comments have received backlash from those who said she is making a connection where there is not one.

Social media users referred to the actress as 'crazy' for her remarks and said she missed the mark with her ideas.

Some, however, applauded Fonda for sharing her thoughts and said her assertions are spot on.

The 'Book Club: Next Chapter' star has a long standing history of activism dating back to the Vietnam War and has been arrested several times while protesting.

The 'Book Club: Next Chapter' star has a long standing history of activism dating back to the Vietnam War and has been arrested several times while protesting

Fonda in a mug shot from an arrest in Cleveland, Ohio, in November 1970

The actress (pictured sitting in a green hat) during a 2019 protest in Washington, D.C.

Fonda was known for backing the Civil Rights Movement and then she opposed US involvement in the Vietnam War.

She took trips to Hanoi and outraged many Americans when she was photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun.

Fonda was even later to be unveiled as a person under government surveillance during his opposition to the war.

In 1970, Fonda was arrested in Ohio on drug charges, which she claimed was at on the orders the White House. The charges were later dropped when her 'drugs' turned out to be vitamins.

In more recent years, Fonda has supported LGBTQ and feminist causes.

Oops: Jane Fonda hilariously found herself having to throw the Palme d'Or at the winning director during the Cannes Film Festival

Merci a Jane Fonda qui lance dans le dos de Justine Triet, son prix oublie sur le pupitre apres son discours politisee.



pic.twitter.com/3Pf79L4lEw  Seb !      (@seb_a_volonte) May 27, 2023

Saturday's comments were the only time during this year's Cannes Film Festival that Fonda found herself in headlines. She also drew ire for her actions against a famous director.

While presenting the Palme d'Or to French director Justine Triet, Fonda threw the award at Triet after she accidentally left a scroll on the lectern.

As Justine walked away oblivious to her mistake, Fonda hurried to the lectern and grabbed the certificate to give it to her.

In a video that has gone viral on social media, Fonda failed to get Justine's attention was eventually so exasperated that she flung the award at her.
The crisis engulfing This Morning deepened last night with claims the show was 'toxic' behind the scenes.

The fallout from Phillip Schofield's affair with a much younger colleague widened as it was claimed the host's former lover had not been quizzed about it by ITV, despite the company insisting an investigation involving both men took place.

Calls for an independent inquiry into the scandal gathered pace, with ITV's most senior bosses under increasing pressure to admit what they knew and when about Schofield's relationship.

And last night Dr Ranj Singh, who was a regular guest on This Morning, accused the show of having a 'toxic' culture of bullying and discrimination.

The TV doctor said he had taken his concerns to 'the top' of ITV but felt he had been 'managed out' as he was dropped from screens, raising yet more questions for executives. He had worked on the show for ten years and had even previously co-hosted it. He left in 2021.

Calls for an independent inquiry into the scandal gathered pace, with ITV's most senior bosses under increasing pressure to admit what they knew and when about Phillip Schofield's (pictured last week) relationship

'A lot of questions' are going to surround This Morning star Holly Willoughby after Phillip Schofield's affair bombshell

Pixilated photo of Schofield leaving The Ivy Club with his much younger ex-lover back in 2017

A weekend of revelations, sparked by Schofield making an apology to the Daily Mail on Friday for lying about the affair, added to pressure on the channel's chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall and her director of television, Kevin Lygo, to address the growing controversy.

READ MORE: Who are the ITV bigwigs that have yet to speak out on the Phillip Schofield scandal? Advertisement

It can also be revealed that the ex-lover has vowed to not lie about the relationship, which Schofield described as 'unwise but not illegal' but has left his 38-year TV career in tatters.

Sources told the Mail the former production assistant insists that 'he was never asked' about the romance, while another ITV insider said: 'Everybody just knew about it.'

One source said: 'It's time for some truths to be told now, this has been brushed under the carpet for so long and it has to come to an end. The younger man has got to the point now where he won't lie for anyone but actually, he says he was never asked by ITV about any relationship.

'It is time that people were held to account, or at the very least explain themselves.'

An ITV spokesman stood firm, saying: 'Both parties were questioned.'

But the network refused to say when the questioning took place, or who conducted it.

Yesterday Mr Lygo told Sky News 'no mistakes' were made as his channel sought out the truth.

The assistant was shunted from This Morning to another ITV programme in 2020 after he admitted his love for Schofield at an awards ceremony  prompting much gossip among employees of all levels that there was a relationship between them.

Dr Ranj said he had taken his concerns to 'the top' of ITV but that he felt he had been 'managed out'

Following his last show on May 18, Hammond and O'Leary paid a 30-second tribute to Phil when they hosted the programme the following day, after his 21 years on the show

In a lengthy Instagram post, Dr Ranj Singh said he had 'thought long and hard' before weighing in on the ongoing scandal

The television medic confirmed that he had taken concerns about the behaviour of editors and senior producers to ITV and had then seen his screentime drop

Insiders say that the move between programmes would have almost certainly been overseen by ITV's head of daytime, Emma Gormley. She has yet to comment.

Richard Scorer, of lawyers Slater and Gordon, said that while all the details of the relationship were not yet known, 'any situation where a young person may have been subjected to a potential imbalance of abuse of power needs to be investigated fully and independently'.

The abuse specialist added that the long-standing rumours about the affair  and the allegations that others in ITV were aware of the relationship  meant it was 'imperative that there is a full and transparent investigation'.

Ex-Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries joined the calls for an independent investigation.

She told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: 'We know that there were complaints lodged with ITV over a long period of time. What happened to those complaints? I think the editor of the programme, Martin Frizell, has some questions to answer himself.

'How did that young boy, so young, get a job at ITV? What were the processes involved? What was the safeguarding in place for someone so young at that age? What contact was first made? Who contacted who?'

This Morning will return today, with Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary presenting, ITV confirmed.

But despite claims that all is well at the station's 'jewel in the crown', and will carry on as normal, the Mail understands that some people who have been approached to be guests on the show are refusing.

Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby with Dr Ranj on This Morning in 2019. The TV doctor said he felt he had to speak up

Unimpressed: Alison Hammond, 48, and Dermot O'Leary, 50, are reportedly fuming after paying tribute to Phillip Schofield following his departure from This Morning

The show's Twitter profile was updated on Saturday to remove a picture with Phillip Schofield in it

Dr Singh, 43, made his comments about the 'toxic' culture behind the scenes in a lengthy Instagram post yesterday.

A Sunday newspaper report told how he complained of bullying before his departure, with an ITV spokesman admitting an investigation was launched, but found 'no evidence'. Dr Singh confirmed that he had taken concerns about the behaviour of editors and senior producers to ITV 'especially given that my job is to look after people's wellbeing and I had been heavily involved in diversity, anti-bullying and mental health projects across the channel'.

He added: 'The culture at This Morning has become toxic, no longer aligned with ITV values, and I felt like because I whistle-blew I was managed out.'

ITV said: 'We are sorry to read Dr Ranj's post today. At ITV we are fully committed to providing every opportunity for anyone who works with us to raise any concern or comments they may have. Following a complaint made by Dr Ranj, we appointed an external and independent adviser to carry out a review. This external review found no evidence of bullying or discrimination.'

Yesterday The Mail on Sunday told how Schofield was in his late 40s when he first met his lover as he gave a talk to a North-West theatre school. At the time the younger man was 15 and he asked the TV veteran if he would help him land a job in showbusiness.

Ex-Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries joined the calls for an independent investigation.

Schofield was in his late 40s when he first met his lover as he gave a talk to a North-West theatre school

At the age of 18, the teen moved to London and worked on This Morning, at which point they struck up an 'on-off' relationship.

Schofield has funded lawyers from the London firm Mishcon de Reya on behalf of his former lover. The solicitors were instructed last Monday and it was at that point that the man refused to continue covering up their liaisons.

On Saturday a devastated Ms Willoughby, 42, who is taking a break from the show, issued a statement saying: 'When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not. It's been very hurtful to find out that this was a lie.'

An ITV Spokesperson said: 'We are sorry to read Dr Ranj's post today. At ITV we are fully committed to providing every opportunity for anyone who works with us to raise any concern or comments they may have.

'Following a complaint made by Dr Ranj, we appointed an external and independent advisor to carry out a review. This external review found no evidence of bullying or discrimination.'
Western nations are 'playing with fire' by agreeing to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, Russia's foreign minister has said.

Sergei Lavrov accused the West of 'an unacceptable escalation' of the war over its continued military support of Ukraine.

Earlier this month, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte agreed to build an 'international coalition' to help procure F-16 fighter jets for Ukraine.

And US President Joe Biden approved plans to allow allies to train Ukrainian forces on how to operate US-made F-16 fighter jets - and eventually to provide the aircraft themselves.

'It's playing with fire, without a doubt,' Lavrov said of Western nations agreeing to provide Ukraine with the fourth-generation fighter jets. He denounced it as an attempt 'to weaken Russia' by 'Washington, London and their satellites in the EU'.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of 'an unacceptable escalation' of the war over its continued military support of Ukraine

He added that Britain and the United States are 'playing with fire' by agreeing to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets (pictured)

F-16s have been at the top of Ukraine's weapons wishlist since it was handed main battle tanks from the likes of the US, United Kingdom and Germany.

Kyiv, having already bolstered its air defences with a host of Western-supplied anti-aircraft systems, now believes the jets could be vital in the war and essential to the country's long-term security.

Lavrov's warning came as Russia unleashed its largest drone bombing blitz of the war against Kyiv.

The overnight attack, which carried on into yesterday morning, involved 54 weapon-carrying drones  timed to coincide with celebrations marking 1,541 years since Kyiv was founded.

But Ukraine said artillery gunners stationed around the Ukrainian capital shot most of the missiles from the sky, in the latest setback for Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Lavrov's warning was echoed yesterday by Russia's ambassador to Britain, Andrei Kelin, who warned the UK not to commit further resources to Ukraine or the conflict could escalate.

A Russian drone is shot down by Ukrainian forces in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 28

A firefighter puts out a fire following a massive Russian drone attack on May 28

Speaking to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, he claimed: 'Sooner or later this escalation may get a new dimension which we do not need and do not want.'

Earlier this month, UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace confirmed that Britain is sending Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine in a further blow for Vladimir Putin's war effort.

The missiles, which cost about 2.2million, will allow Ukraine to hit Russian troops and logistics hubs deep behind the front line. It was the first known shipment of longer-range weaponry that Kyiv has long sought from its allies.

The UK has been providing Ukraine with short-range missiles, Challenger tanks and training 15,000 Ukrainian troops on British soil.

During the Kyiv bombardment, two deaths  including a 41-year-old man  and three injuries were reported, said mayor Vitali Klitschko.

Ukraine's air force said that 'a record' of 54 drones were launched from the regions of Briansk and Krasnodar in Russia, adding that 52 were destroyed.

As the drone war rages, Russia has blamed Ukraine - and its Western backers - for increasing artillery and drone attacks on its territory, accusations Kyiv has mostly denied.

Most drones target Russian regions bordering Ukraine but they have sometimes reached hundreds of kilometres inside Russia, including a thwarted attack on the Kremlin itself.
Living on benefits in Britain, this is the alleged organiser of a gang that smuggled 3,000 migrants to the UK.

Ahmed Al Jabir is accused of arranging scores of dangerous small boat Channel crossings with an accomplice who ran the operation from a Home Office asylum hotel.

But Al Jabir is fighting extradition to Belgium on the basis that he should not be forced to sleep on a mattress on the floor in a crowded Bruges prison cell.

The jobless Kuwaiti-born immigrant is pictured here strolling in the sunshine close to his taxpayer-funded London home which he shares with his wife and four children, who receive 3,370 a month in benefits.

He is appealing against his extradition with further claims he could face 'racist insults' from prison staff in Belgium.

Ahmed Al Jabir is accused of arranging scores of dangerous small boat Channel crossings with an accomplice who ran the operation from a Home Office asylum hotel. But Al Jabir is fighting extradition to Belgium on the basis that he should not be forced to sleep on a mattress on the floor in a crowded Bruges prison cell

But now it can be revealed that he is said to be part of a major people-smuggling network coordinated by alleged accomplice Muthanna Al Amarah, who was living in a Home Office-funded hotel for asylum seekers in St Albans, Hertfordshire (file image)

The jobless Kuwaiti-born immigrant is pictured here strolling in the sunshine close to his taxpayer-funded London home which he shares with his wife and four children, who receive 3,370 a month in benefits

But now it can be revealed that he is said to be part of a major people-smuggling network coordinated by alleged accomplice Muthanna Al Amarah, who was living in a Home Office-funded hotel for asylum seekers in St Albans, Hertfordshire.

According to court documents, Al Jabir was allegedly a key organiser of the small boats operation while Al Amarah is said to have compiled the list of migrants on each trip and collected payments.

The international gang, which also has tentacles in France, is said to have smuggled 3,000 migrants across the Channel over two years.

But the operation unravelled following a near-fatal crossing involving 24 migrants from Iraq, Iran, Algeria and Afghanistan. They were rescued from an overcrowded boat drifting into a wind farm off the coast near Zeebrugge in Belgium in October 2021.

Rescued from an overcrowded boat

The vessel had set off two days earlier for Britain, but the outboard motor failed. Several passengers were airlifted to hospital with hypothermia.

Rescuers said they could have died if they had been left on the water any longer. Authorities in Belgium launched an investigation and put out a European Arrest Warrant for Al Jabir after obtaining his phone number from three of those rescued.

Al Jabir, who came to the UK in 2015 and applied for British citizenship six months ago, was found living in a taxpayer-funded 500,000 home in Willesden, north-west London.

Following his arrest in November, he appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court, where District Judge Daniel Sternberg ordered his extradition.

Al Jabir is now appealing the decision along with Iraqi-born asylum seeker Al Amarah, whose attempts to stay were also rejected by the court.

Both men face up to 15 years in jail if convicted of conspiring to facilitate unlawful immigration, which they deny.
Transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney was seen out-and-about in Los Angeles in a rare public appearance as she has kept a low profile since her disastrous advertising campaign with Bud Light.

The 26-year-old was seen in photographs obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com leaving her apartment in a white crop top with white jeans, sunglasses and a face mask on Saturday, as she picked up her $800 Prada bikini top and a pink dress from a local dry cleaners.

She then headed to a Beverly Hills salon where she underwent laser hair removal before speeding away 'full on Fast and Furious', she later admitted.

Mulvaney's public outing comes after Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, lost nearly $16billion in market value since the campaign began on April 1.

Its competitors, though, have amassed $3.2billion in market value ahead of Memorial Day weekend  a time often celebrated with outdoor barbecues and alcohol.

Transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney was seen in pictures obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com running errands around Los Angeles on Saturday

She wore a white crop top with white jeans, sunglasses and a facemask as she left her LA apartment

The 26-year-old influencer drove around town in her white SUV to pick up dry cleaning and get laser hair removal

Mulvaney admitted in an ensuing TikTok video that she sped away from the salon where she was to undergo laser hair removal

Mulvaney had earned an estimated $1.5million fortune as she gained a massive following on TikTok, where she documented her transition to a transgender female.

Mulvaney was seen flaunting this Prada bikini which retails for $800

She has taken on brand ambassador roles for major brands like Charlotte Tilbury, MAC Cosmetics, Ulta and Kate Spade but has become more notorious since she posted a video of her dressed as Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany's sipping from Bud Light cans with her face on them.

Mulvaney said in the video that she was partnering with the beer maker in a campaign to support her first full year as a transgender female  but Anheuser-Busch executives have since denied that there was any partnership after originally saying it was the brainchild of an outside ad agency.

It remains unclear whether Mulvaney earned any money from that video, but on Saturday she seemed to flaunt her wealth, holding a Prada bikini that sells for $800.

Mulvaney left her West Hollywood apartment with an unknown man following her in tow

Mulvaney had earned an estimated $1.5million fortune as she gained a massive following on TikTok

She then got back into her white SUV to go get laser hair removal treatment, under which a laser emits a light that is absorbed by the pigment. The light energy is converted into heat, which damages hair follicles to inhibit any future hair growth.

Such treatments cost an estimated $250 for full face hair removal, plus $300 for leg hair removal and $50 for underarm treatment.

It is unclear what kind of treatment Mulvaney had an appointment for on Saturday.

But afterward she posted a TikTok video saying she left the salon because she was fed up with photographers who were following her.

She described how she got back into her car and drove 'full on Fast and Furious' through backroads in Beverly Hills and 'felt like Liam Neeson' as she tried to outrun the photographers.

'Now I think might be addicted to drag racing, and not the RuPaul kind,' she joked from inside her SUV.

In a video posted on April 1, she claimed to have partnered with Anheuser-Busch on an advertising campaign to support her first full year as a transgender woman

She showed off Bud Light cans with her face emblazoned on them

Meanwhile, Anheuser-Busch is continuing to struggle from the backlash to its partnership with Mulvaney, losing $15.7billion in market value.

Sales of Bud Light were down more than 23 percent as of the week ending May 6, according to JPMorgan beverage analyst Jared Dinges.

He said the bank expects a 12 to 13 percent volume decline over the course of a year in the US.

'We believe there is a subset of American consumers who will not drink a Bud Light for the foreseeable future,' the analysts said on Tuesday.

He added: 'Shares have underperformed EU Beer peers by 15% since the start of April.

'We believe this is due to US uncertainty, as investor focus has shifted squarely to the potential impact from the Bud Light controversy.'

The expected decline in earnings, before interest and tax, will follow a 12 percent drop in volume and a 10 percent decline in sales.

In the company's latest attempts to deal with the backlash, Anheuser-Busch has told wholesalers it will buy back unsold cases of Bud Light that are past their expiration date.

Bud Light sales have fallen significantly since the beer's partnership with Mulvaney and analysts at JPMorgan expect it will cause Anheuser-Busch earnings to slide 26% this year

Experts are also warning that there is a risk of competitor beers running into a shortage because of the high demand.

Beer Business Daily editor Harry Schuhmacher told Fox News Digital that the 'whole industry is in shock'.

He claims that the newfound demand for lagers not owned by Anheuser-Bush could result in a trickle-down effect on the industry.

He said: 'Even Bud's competitors aren't really dancing on the grave because they know it could have happened to them.

'You can't just flip a switch and make beer. You know, beer is brewed. It takes, you know, at least a couple of weeks to make.

'So, they haven't had major supply issues yet, but we're about to hit Memorial Day and we could probably see some supply shortages there.'

Schuhmacher even claimed that Molson Coors might not be able to give Americans enough beer for Memorial Day weekend.

Budweiser is giving away its beer for free with new promotions after the Dylan Mulvaney backlash wiped almost $16 billion off parent company Anheuser-Busch 's market value

In its latest scramble to return to the good graces of customers, Bud Light revealed a new promotion called the US Budweiser Family Memorial Day Rebate online.

The rebate promises an amount 'equivalent to the purchase price of one 15-pack or larger, up to $15' of Bud Light, Budweiser, Budweiser Select or Budweiser Select 55 paid via Anheuser-Busch Digital Prepaid Mastercard.

Based on recent prices, this would see packs of beer being given away for free.

Meanwhile, some local retailers have been offering 15 packs or larger of these Budweiser products for less than $15  making the products free after rebate  excluding tax and state restrictions.

The rebate will be paid via a digital prepaid card, according to Bud Light's site.
A 70-year-old paddle boarder has died after getting into trouble in the sea of the West Sussex coast on the hottest day of the year so far.

Emergency services battled to save the boarder after bringing him ashore at Worthing, West Sussex.

Temperatures along the south coast hit 24.4C (75.92F) as thousands flocked to the beaches on Bank Holiday Sunday.

Emergency services were called to the scene at around 5.40pm on Sunday evening.

The man was sadly pronounced dead at the scene. His next of kin have been informed.

A 70-year-old paddle boarder has died after getting into trouble in the sea of the Sussex coast on the hottest day of the year so far. Pictured: Coastguards helping the paddle boarder

The RNLI lifeboat and an air ambulance scrambled to the seafront at Worthing on Sunday evening

A spokesman for Sussex Police said the 70-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene after suffering a medical incident in the water.

The RNLI lifeboat and an air ambulance scrambled to the seafront at Worthing on Sunday evening.

It comes as two men in their 20s tragically died yesterday after getting into trouble in the water of the coast of Devon in Oddicombe, Torbay.

On Friday, the body of a teenager, formally identified as 15-year-old Lewis Michael Kirkpatrick, was pulled from a river in Carlisle after a group of friends 'got into difficulty' in the water.

On Wednesday night, two teenagers, age 18 and 19, were recovered from the water in at a nature reserve in Tickton, near Beverley, East Yorkshire, after a group of six got into trouble in the lake.

Emergency services were seen on the beach in Worthing, West Sussex, earlier today after a paddle boarder in his 70s died after getting into trouble in the water

A police spokesman said: 'Police supported HM Coastguard and the ambulance service at an incident on Worthing beach at around 5.40pm on Sunday, May 28.

'A man in his 70s was treated by the ambulance service after suffering a medical incident in the water.

'He was sadly pronounced dead at the scene.

'His next of kin have been informed.'

Police said the death is not believed to be suspicious and the coroner has been informed.

Earlier this week, the RNLI urged people to take care as they enjoy the Bank Holiday sunshine, with beaches up yesterday and temperatures expected to reach a glorious 73F in some parts today.

The RNLI said there were 226 deaths in the UK from accidental drownings in 2022, across inland and coastal locations, 40 per cent of whom had no intention of entering the water.

They encouraged people to remember to 'Float to Live' if they get into trouble in the water, with research by the University of Portsmouth showing that tilting your head back to submerge the ears is key to staying afloat.
The remorseless killer of Melbourne woman Courtney Herron is enjoying conjugal visits with a fellow 'patient' within the walls of one of Australia's most notorious asylums for the criminally insane.

In August 2020, Henry Hammond was found not guilty of Courtney's horrendous murder by a judge who accepted he was mentally impaired at the time.

Hammond had been aged 27 on May 25, 2019 when he so savagely bashed Courtney the mortician could not put her broken body back together.

Courtney Herron has received no justice in death

Henry Hammond is set to be released temporarily back into the community with a view to setting him free altogether

Courtney Herron's mum visited the site where her daughter was murdered in May 2019

In March 2021, Supreme Court of Victoria Justice Phillip Priest ordered Hammond be moved from Port Phillip Prison to Thomas Embling Hospital under a custodial supervision order that could be reviewed as early as next year.

'He's a very aggressive prisoner. He'll spit on the nurses, but he's got a girlfriend who he's met inside and they're allowed to go in the conjugal room,' a well placed source told Daily Mail Australia.

Hooking-up with females within Thomas Embling is a well known perk among killers hoping to get-off on murders with mental impairment pleas.

Bourke Street killer James Gargasoulas - who failed in his mental impairment bid - told psychologist Michael Daffern he was keen on serving time at Thomas Embling 'because there would be females there'.

Daily Mail Australia revealed in August authorities were preparing to allow Hammond to walk free on day trips a little over a year after he was sent there.

Channel Nine Today host Karl Stefanovic condemned the proposal at the time, telling viewers the thought of Hammond being released made him 'sick'.

'I am shocked this could take place and if it was my child I don't know what I would do,' he said at the time.

While that plan was put on hold following the media firestorm that followed, the source told Daily Mail Australia Hammond remains in a unit of the hospital where killers are prepared for release.

Hammond was moved to the unit just before Christmas last year after he was severely bashed by other patients and has remained there since.

Revelations of Hammond's hospital liaisons have rubbed salt into the wounds of Courtney's family, who this week marked the fourth anniversary of her murder.

John Herron and his daughter Courtney in happier times. She was savagely murdered by Henry Hammond, who was found not guilty through mental impairment

A young Courtney Herron. Her father has precious memories of her from the time she was born

Courtney Herron was beaten to death in an attack that went for almost an hour. Her father John Herron has been denied justice

Daily Mail Australia contacted Forensicare, the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health which operates Thomas Embling, for comment but did not receive a response.

John Herron - the father of Courtney and himself a criminal lawyer - told Daily Mail Australia he was appalled over his daughter's treatment at the hands of Victoria's justice system.

'They've just been waiting for the last story to blow over and when it blew over they just said "let's keep going",' Mr Herron said on Friday.

Courtney would have been aged 29 today had her life not been so cruelly cut short by Hammond.

'Anniversaries really hit hard and it just brings everything back at one moment and you really reflect on the loss and you think about what Courtney could have been doing that particular day and she'd be getting on with her life,' Mr Herron said.

'You think the great tragedy, a young woman wasn't able to fulfil her dreams. It's just been cut short.'

Mr Herron said he was haunted by the way in which his daughter met her fate.

Hammond had convinced doctors he had believed he was the Norse God Odin and that he feared Courtney - a woman he had only just met - was possessed and would kill him.

Courtney's body was found in between logs by three dog walkers in Royal Park in Parkville the morning of her murder.

Hammond had smashed her head in during a frenzied attack which lasted close to an hour.

'I can't bring my own mind to imagine the brutal way that she met her end, taking several minutes to die. I can't put my mind in that space that she pleaded for her life and Hammond, the brute, just kept going for almost an hour,' Mr Herron said.

John Herron clutches a photo of his precious daughter Courtney. He continues to fight the justice system in the hope others do not suffer Courtney and his own fate

Mourners gathered at a vigil for Courtney Herron following her murder.

There is not a day that passes Mr Herron can't recall precious memories of his daughter.

'I have a lot of reflections particularly when Courtney was a baby, picking her up out of the crib, her crying when I went to work, getting her first immunisation. You think of all that. It just never passes with a child like that,' he said.

'I remember the last time I hugged her. I remember it clearly. I remember hugging her on a holiday. That feeling of holding her in your arms.'

Mr Herron said he had been comforted by the number of people who had contacted him over the week to offer support.

'All those people in the community want to keep Courtney's memory alive and it's really comforting,' he said.

But Mr Herron said he remained frustrated by the Victorian justice system's lacklustre regard for the life of women.

'The system has not changed over the past four years. As many, if not more women are being killed and attacked and the system is more favourable to the perpetrator now than it was four years ago. Even via way of legislation where it's easier to plead not guilty through mental impairment,' he said.

'There has been zero consideration for victims. That's gone backwards. Hammond is sitting in Thomas Embling with a green light to do this again. He's going to be out quickly and he's inside resentful that he's inside at all.'

In Victoria, killers like Hammond are routinely released from Thomas Embling under suppression orders designed to protect their identities on the outside.

'He's not thinking that he took a life, or how brutal he took it. He's angry because he's inside and he'll be out shortly. The real immediate danger within the system is that he can be out soon, has no remorse and he could be onto other women and it's suppressed and we know nothing about it,' Mr Herron said.
Health researcher says people are too 'addicted to their smartphones' to care

The FCC says the radiation coming from your cellphone is no big deal. A cancer surgeon friend told me he begs to differ.

While public health experts continue to debate the issue and the public's own worries may be overblown, perhaps the best approach is 'better safe than sorry.'

That's certainly been the approach of the attorneys for the manufacturers, who have helped craft their mobile phone's manuals and legal notices.

Modern iPhones, including the 14 Pro Max and the iPhone SE, recommend that their customers 'use a hands-free option, such as the built-in speakerphone, headphones or other similar accessories' to 'reduce exposure to RF [radio frequency] energy.'

These radio frequency exposures, according to Germany's Federal Office for Radiation, can be exceptionally high from some mobile devices  with a few energetic Android phones topping the list.

You have to wonder: What do the manufacturers know that we don't?

A chart of cell phone radiation exposure rates from the Germany's Federal Office for Radiation (Bundesamt fur Strahlenschutz) compiled by the Digital Information World last year

the New iPhone SE suggests using 'a hands-free option, such as the built-in speakerphone, headphones or other similar accessories' to 'reduce exposure to RF [radio frequency] energy'

iPhones manuals published a decade ago recommended users keep their phones 10 mm away

'People are addicted to their smartphones,' according to Joel Moskowitz, a researcher in the University of California Berkeley's School of Public Health.

'We use them for everything now, and, in many ways, we need them to function in our daily lives,' Moskowitz said. 'I think the idea that they're potentially harming our health is too much for some people.'

As the director of Berkeley's Center for Family and Community Health, Moskowitz has made studying the biological effects of the radio frequency energy on the human body a research priority since 2009.

About Kim Komando Kim Komando hosts a weekly call-in show where she provides advice about technology gadgets, websites, smartphone apps and internet security. Listen on 425+ radio stations or get the podcast. And join over 400,000 people who get her free 5-minute daily email newsletter. Advertisement

But he's picking up where US federal regulators, in his view, dropped the ball.

'Cellphones, cell towers and other wireless devices are regulated by most governments,' said Moskowitz, with one caveat. 'Our government, however, stopped funding research on the health effects of radiofrequency radiation in the 1990s.'

In 2020, Moskowitz and his colleagues published a review of 46 case-control health studies on the issue of cell phones and health, which they published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

'Our main takeaway,' Moskowitz says, 'is that approximately 1,000 hours of lifetime cellphone use, or about 17 minutes per day over a 10-year period, is associated with a statistically significant 60 percent increase in brain cancer.'

Not every researcher on the topic takes Moskowitz's grim view, of course. And the UN's World Health Organization currently maintains that, as yet, 'no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use.'

So, what do I do?

I play it safe and keep my phone away from my body and head as much as possible. (Yes, I'm that person taking calls on my AirPods or speakerphone.)

And I take my cues from overseas agencies, like Germany's Federal Office for Radiation (Bundesamt fur Strahlenschutz) which lists data on each mobile phone's specific absorption rate (SAR).

Some phones, it turns out, emit more radiation than others. But what exactly are we measuring with the specific absorption rate?

SAR, which is calculated in watts per kilogram of body weight, quantifies how much energy is absorbed per unit mass by the human body when it's exposed to a radio frequency.

Typically, it's based on an absorption value recorded when when you make a call with the phone up to your ear. In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) even uses a dummy head to calculate SAR values for cell phones.

In 2018, an NIH report warned of 'clear evidence' of a link between high levels of cell phone radiation and brain, heart and adrenal cancers in male rats. The director of Berkeley's Center for Family and Community Health, Joel Moskowitz, worries people are too 'addicted' too care

But, really you don't need to know all the details, just that the legal limit is 1.6 watts/kg here in the US.

See where your cell phone falls on the list, compiled by Digital Information World.

These five models emit some of the strongest radiation on the market: Motorola Edge ( 1.79 w/kg); OnePlus 6T (1.55 w/kg); Sony Xperia XA2 Plus (1.41 w/kg) Google Pixel 3 XL (1.39 w/kg); and the Google Pixel 4a (1.37 w/kg) in a tie with the Oppo Reno5 5G (1.37 w/kg).

Men, don't store your phone in your pant pockets. Ladies, keep it out of your bra.

Not far behind, were the Google Pixel 3 (1.33 w/kg), Huawei's P Smart (1.27 w/kg) and the OnePlus 9 (1.26 w/kg).

If you're concerned about your SAR risks, but don't feel like the hassle of keeping your phone at a distance all the time, these are the phones known to emit the least radiation: the Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5G (0.19 w/kg); Samsung's Galaxy Note10 (0.21 w/kg); the Samsung Galaxy A80 (0.22 w/kg); LG G7 ThinQ (0.24 w/kg); and the Motorola Razr 5G (0.27 w/kg).

And given the warnings in the manuals, what about the iPhone?

Well, it falls somewhere in the middle. That iPhone SE with that warning gives off a SAR or 0.98 w/kg.

It's comparable to other popular models: iPhone 11 (0.95 w/kg); iPhone 12 (0.98 w/kg); iPhone 13 (0.99 w/kg); and iPhone 14 (0.98 w/kg).
Ever since Otto's eyes haunted cinema-goers in the 1929 classic The Great Gabbo about a creepy ventriloquist, horror movie-makers and fans alike have been obsessed with sinister dolls.

Now Netflix is terrifying its audiences with a new doll by the name of Sabrina - with viewers saying the movie blows film series Annabelle 'out of the water', leaving them with 'nightmares'.

The 2018 thriller movie titled Sabrina is the third instalment in The Doll franchise, but the movie can be viewed as a standalone.

This creepy Indonesian Netflix doll horror movie sees a toy manufacturer and his wife terrorised by a demon after their orphaned niece tries to summon her late mother's spirit using a strange ritual.

And the doll is of course none other than Sabrina, with her chilling wide eyes and frightening looking face.

The 2018 Indonesian Netflix doll horror movie sees a family terrorised by a demon after their orphaned niece tries to summon her late mother's spirit using a strange ritual. And that doll is none other than Sabrina

If you're into the doll possession theme, Netflixs The Doll trilogy could be exactly what you need to get your heart racing

Of course, something goes horribly wrong and an evil entity enters the world of the living and threatens the family.

Tweets from scared watchers filled up Twitter, with many saying that this is probably the scariest movie they have watched on Netflix.

One person wrote: 'The Doll (2016), The Doll 2 (2017), Sabrina (2018) - okay I remember very little about these films but they all rock, director/writer/creator Rocky Soraya is a hoot.

'They blow all 3 Annabelles out of the water. All on Netflix!'

And another commented: 'Watching the sabrina doll movie on netflix and why are all the children so obsessed with the creepiest looking doll.'

One more Twitter user put: 'The 3rd eye, The Doll, Sabrina..They're all scary!!! on Netflix.'

People took to Twitter to share just how scared they were after watching the creepy Indonesian horror movie, with one person saying it gave them nightmares

While another said: 'This Indonesian Netflix horror involves a creepy demonic doll trying to possess a human body. It takes more than a little inspiration from the Conjuring franchise but the look of the possessed doll/demon is enough to give a person nightmares.'

And a fifth wrote: 'If yall are looking for scary movies to watch on Netflix watch The Doll 1 & 2, and Sabrina. Amazing movies.'

One more said: 'Apparently there is an entire series of movies about this woman who fights haunted dolls?? We just watched Sabrina on Netflix and y'all it was a TRIP.'

So if you're into the doll possession theme, Netflixs The Doll trilogy could be exactly what you need.
The exclusive interview comes in the lead-up to the premiere of Shiny Happy People, which exposes the insidious nature of fundamentalist Christian sect IBLP

A member of the crew for 19 Kids and Counting is opening up about working with the Duggars on the TLC reality show that rocketed the family into the national spotlight nearly 15 years ago.

The anonymous crew member spoke exclusively to DailyMail.com about his experience with dad Jim Bob, mom Michelle - and, of course, their famously prolific brood - in the lead-up to the premiere of a new docuseries about the family and their connection to the scandal-plagued Christian fundamentalist sect Institute in Basic Life Principles, or IBLP.

The series, Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, out June 2 on Prime Video, portrays the Duggars in a less-than-flattering light. The trailer likens Jim Bob to a 'cult leader,' acting in accordance with IBLP's credo, which sees men's position as 'head of the house' as the 'natural order.'

The crew member, however, remembers his on-set interactions with the family as overall 'pretty positive.'

A crew member who worked on the Duggars' popular reality series 19 Kids and Counting has revealed what it was really like to work with the disgraced family

Jim Bob, 57, and Michelle, 56, along with their many children, shot to fame through the TLC series 19 and Counting, which aired from 2008 to 2015

The docuseries Shiny Happy People aims to 'expose the truth beneath the wholesome Americana surface of reality TV 's favorite mega-family,' per Prime Video's synopsis

'This is actually why they didn't want to interview me for the [docuseries]. They kept asking me a lot of questions like, "What did they do? Did they like sneak in and like, do weird stuff?" I was like, "No, not really. They were actually really nice,"' he told DailyMail.com

The source emphasized that the parents were nothing but gracious and hospitable when it came to their treatment of the crew.

'They they fed us, they always made sure that we felt comfortable around the house. They made sure that their kids weren't bothering us, and they made sure their kids were really polite to us  If at any time we weren't comfortable with anything, they checked with us and made sure that we were taken care of,' he continued.

He added, 'I feel the family's intentions were always really positive.'

What's more, while the four-part docuseries seemingly aims to paint Jim Bob, 57, as an authoritarian-minded family patriarch, the crew member observed that this wasn't necessarily the case.

In fact, it was actually Michelle, 56, calling a lot of the shots.

'This is the weird thing  Michelle is actually in charge of the situation,' said the source. 'She's actually running the family. Even though it's like a patriarchal family [structure].'

'If you spend enough time with the family,' he continued, 'you realize Michelle is actually making a lot of decisions.'

The anonymous crew member recalled his on-set interactions with the Duggars as being overall 'pretty positive'

The source told DailyMail.com that, contrary to what one would expect given IBLP's explicitly patriarchal religious doctrine, he noticed that Michelle called most of the shots

The anonymous source (not pictured) stressed that the Duggars treated the film crew well, always making sure 'that we felt comfortable around the house'

The crew member added that he felt 'the family's intentions were always really positive'

'Jim Bob is a little bit goofy, and Michelle is the one who's kind of making sure things are actually functional,' he added.

Of accompanying the family as they ventured beyond their church-centered community in Tontitown, Arkansas - to the likes of New York City as well as a number of international locales - the source recalled them being 'very fish out of water.'

'They're pretty careful about how they behave,' he continued. 'I think Jim Bob is like the loud American. And then Michelle is the one who's kind of like, "Okay, maybe we shouldn't do that."'

The source further emphasized that 'Respecting other people is a central theme for them. They're not dissing other cultures on camera, or even in-person.'

He elaborated that what they 'lean away from is, a lot of times, anything that has to do with sex, or anything that has to do with religion. Like if they go to a country and they're worshipping a different deity, they want to make sure they're not participating in that.'

The Duggars' wholesome-Christian public image came crashing down in 2015 after it emerged that their oldest child, Josh, now 35, had groped some of his sisters and an underage babysitter as a teen in the early aughts, around 2002 and 2003.

TLC subsequently cancelled 19 Kids and Counting as advertisers began pulling out of the time slot.

Later that year, Josh, who married wife Anna in 2008, was revealed to be active on the adultery-driven dating website Ashley Madison after a hack exposed the site's user data.

Josh Duggar (pictured) was sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in prison on child pornography charges earlier this year

The anonymous crew member (not pictured) emphasized that he doesn't see Josh as representative of the rest of the Duggar children

The Duggars raised all their children, including fifth-eldest Jessa (pictured), to follow the teachings of IBLP

IBLP was founded in the early 1960s by disgraced Christian minister Bill Gothard (pictured)

The Duggars' fourth eldest, Jill, 32, (pictured) is featured prominently in the new Amazon Prime docuseries about her family and their religious beliefs

In 2021, Josh, who now shares seven kids with Anna, was arrested on child pornography charges. He was found guilty in December 2021 and this past March was sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in prison.

While Josh's sex scandals have irrevocably tainted the family's squeaky clean image, the crew member expressed adamance that Josh isn't representative of the other Duggar children.

'I think the family was trying to educate him to make him better, but I think Josh just has his own demons he has to deal with,' the source said.

29-year-old Jinger Duggar Vuolo penned a memoir in which she describes realizing that the teachings of IBLP skew what's actually written in the Bible

'I see Josh Duggar as like almost a separate entity  his younger brothers and everyone else are, they're great. They're all nice guys. They're respectful. Of course, they have their teachings that I don't agree with at all, but in terms of just not being a sexual predator  they're not that,' he continued. 'Josh shouldn't taint the rest of the boys in his behavior of being a sexual predator for the rest of the family.'

In recent years, two of the Duggar daughters have been vocal in criticizing their upbringing, particularly in relation to the impact the teachings of IBLP had on their childhood and self-image as girls and young women.

Jinger, 29, the sixth-eldest of her siblings, penned a memoir titled Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear, which hit shelves in January.

In the book, she describes how she came to the epiphany that the rigid doctrine of IBLP deeply skews what's actually written in the Bible.

IBLP was founded by disgraced Christian minister Bill Gothard in the early 1960s. Among its core tenets is that heterosexual married couples should have enormous families - a concept known as Quiverfull. Traditional gender hierarchy is also strictly enforced, with wives explicitly encouraged to 'submit' to their husbands.

Gothard resigned from his role in 2014 after being accused of sexual molestation by more than 30 women.

Meanwhile, court records unsealed in May 2022 document Jill, 32, the fourth eldest, speaking on the record about her father Jim Bob, saying of him: 'Sadly, I realized he had become pretty controlling, fearful and reactionary. He was verbally abusive. Our relationship is not good. It got pretty toxic.'
Coronation Street's Andrew Still has teased that his character Justin Rutherford will go to 'whatever lengths he has to', to avoid jail amid his upcoming acid attack trial.

After weeks of stalking Daisy Midgeley, Justin horrified viewers when he tried to throw acid at Daisy on her wedding day, only for Ryan Connor to jump in the way, leaving him permanently scarred.

And as Justin is set to take the stand this week for his horrific crimes, actor Andrew has warned that his 'manipulative' character will stop at nothing to dupe the jury and ensure he walks free from court.

The last time viewers saw Justin, he demonstrated his 'pathetic' side as he grovelled to Daisy in the hospital car park before he was swiftly arrested and taken into custody.

Andrew explained that the stalker has the ability to 'jump through mental hoops to justify his actions', adding that in his head, he's 'the hero in his own story' and cannot see what he's done is wrong.

Wicked: Coronation Street's Andrew Still has teased that his character Justin Rutherford will go to 'whatever lengths he has to', to avoid jail amid his upcoming acid attack trial

Attacked: Justin horrified viewers when he tried to throw acid at Daisy on her wedding day, only for Ryan Connor (pictured) to jump in the way, leaving him permanently scarred

But as Justin appears in court in upcoming scenes, Andrew warned that fans will see a 'new' Justin, who has amped up his manipulation in a bid to gain the 'upper hand' in court.

He revealed: 'Its a new Justin that we are going to see. There is a lot going on in his head with the trial underway as he feels backed into a corner so he is willing to go to whatever lengths he has to, to gain the upper hand.

'He has manipulated his sister and he is lying to anyone and everyone around him. There is a very definite fear of going to prison for a very long time so he is desperate.'

He continued: 'We will see a slither of the pathetic Justin but this is his big chance to be seen and to be heard, particularly by Daisy, so he is happy to grab that opportunity with both hands. As the trial progresses we are going to see Justin wrestling to stay calm and collected as this inner tension is bubbling under the surface.'

Andrew went on to add that Justin is confident that he'll be able to paint Daisy in a bad light in court using his 'manipulation tactics', adding that the creep will pull off an epic performance to sway the jury to his side.

He explained: 'Justin has a well rehearsed speech as he knows this trial is important so he sees this as his golden opportunity to convince the jury to let him go. He is going to put on the full charm offensive and he will use all of his manipulation tactics to win the jury round.

'Hes not confident that this is going to all pan out for him but he knows that this is make or break and he has to put on the performance of his life to get away with this.

'Its a very stakes, high pressure situation for him. We are going to see the most manipulative Justin yet.'

Trial: As Justin is set to take the stand this week for his horrific crimes , actor Andrew has warned that his 'manipulative' character will stop at nothing to dupe the jury and ensure he walks free from court

Victims: Andrew explained that the stalker has the ability to 'jump through mental hoops to justify his actions', adding that in his head, he's 'the hero in his own story' and cannot see what he's done is wrong

Shocking: The deranged stalker pelted Ryan Connor in the face with a glass full of acid in shocking scenes last month after the barman stepped in to protect Daisy, who was the original target

He added of his character's previous deviousness: 'We have seen little hints of him being able to manipulate people; he has done it to Daisy, he has done it to Daniel, and they have worked him out and pushed him away.

'But the jury doesnt know anything about the situation or what Justin is like and for most people, when they meet him for the first time, they are won over by his act. He can be quite unassuming but this is the be all and end all so he is going to pull out all the stops.'

Throughout the storyline, viewers have watched as Justin genuinely believed he had a future with Daisy, while after the attack, the character was convinced he's done nothing wrong and had even began to believe his own lies.

On whether Justin feels any remorse to Ryan over his actions, Andrew explained: 'Justin is in survival mode. He did realise he had done wrong, moments after the attack took place, but has since decided that he is going to do anything and everything to protect himself so he has almost convinced himself that he has done nothing wrong and decompartmentalised that.

'Because he is such a truly phenomenal liar, he utterly believes his own lies. Weirdly, I think he does feel remorse for Ryan but its not like in an overly sympathetic way to Ryan, he feels remorse that this has led him to where he is and he regrets the situation he has got himself into.

'He has no appreciation or understanding of the damage he has caused Ryan and he is looking at it through the prism of how it has affected him.'

After having first appeared in the ITV soap in December 2022, Andrew has portrayed his character through tough scenes, most predominantly his sinister attack on Ryan in the pub.

However, the soap star told how the court scenes have been his most 'difficult' yet as it's almost like the climax of his six-month run in the street.

The trial looms! In upcoming scenes, Daisy, who has been catfishing Ryan by pretending to his love interest Crystal, grows even closer to him as they both prepare to face Justin in court

HIS version! As Justin enters the witness box how will he describe his version of events and how will the court react to his claims?

On what it was like to read the court scripts, he shared: 'I was like, Okay, this is the time for him to put everything on the table! I knew this was going to be the most difficult scene Ive ever played as Justin because its his chance to manipulate the jury and give everything he has got.

'It felt like the entire six months run that I have done on Coronation Street was distilled into that one monologue because its very rare in television that youre going to have a big monologue like that.

'It also felt quite theatrical as it was in the courtroom so I really wanted to make the most out of the scene. It felt like a challenge and because of how Coronation Street is filmed, I only had one or two chances to get it right but I feel happy with how it went and we will see what the viewers make of it when it comes out on TV!'

With Justin finally set to face trial for his crimes, viewers will have to wait and see if the character is brought to justice.

Coronation Street airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
I know the queue at Gatwick Airport's Pret A Manger can stretch for ever, but Lottie Moss was so intent on buying a snack that she managed to miss her flight.

Lottie who quit modelling to focus on selling her pictures and videos through raunchy website OnlyFans, was due to travel to Oslo with her Norwegian mother Inger.

However, the 25-year-old faffed about at the sandwich shop so much that the pair ended up stranded at the airport  much to Inger's displeasure.

'She's fuming,' Lottie admitted. Maybe next time half-sister Kate can put them on a private jet?

I know the queue at Gatwick Airport's Pret A Manger can stretch for ever, but Lottie Moss was so intent on buying a snack that she managed to miss her flight

Passengers queue at Gatwick Airport on May 27

What do you buy a man who has everything for his 65th birthday? Paul Weller's wife Hannah found herself in such a jam in the run-up to the Modfather's big day last week and ended up buying him 105 pairs of M&S black socks  15 packs, each containing seven pairs. Now that's rock 'n' roll!

Oasis star Noel Gallagher's daughter Anais says she loves glugging olive brine so much it would be part of her 'death row meal'

Most people's guilty pleasure might be a huge bar of chocolate or perhaps a trip to McDonald's, but Oasis star Noel Gallagher's daughter Anais has other ideas  she says she loves glugging olive brine so much it would be part of her 'death row meal'.

I was horrified to hear Anais, left, say in a TikTok video that the brine used in tins of Perello olives would be among her last requests, along with Marmite on toast, a bottomless spearmint-flavoured vape and 200 vodka sodas without lime.

All to be consumed while watching Shrek 2 naturally.
George Osborne and his fiancee Thea Rogers put on a full-on public display of affection as they celebrated at top restaurant Scott's.

The couple couldn't keep their hands off each other outside the swanky restaurant in Mayfair after enjoying a long lunch to mark the former Chancellor's 52nd birthday last week.

At one point, Osborne moved in for a passionate kiss with his former adviser. As I revealed in this column, the couple recently welcomed a second son, named Arthur.

Their first, Beau, will celebrate his second birthday in July. Osborne, now chairman of the British Museum, also has two grown-up children from his 21-year marriage to the novelist Frances Osborne.

George Osborne and his fiancee Thea Rogers put on a full-on public display of affection as they celebrated at top restaurant Scott's

The couple couldn't keep their hands off each other outside the swanky restaurant in Mayfair after enjoying a long lunch to mark the former Chancellor's 52nd birthday last week

Poppy hands out bubbles for troubles

Model Poppy Delevingne found a great use for bottles of her own Della Vite prosecco  she gave it away to neighbours she upset while revamping her London house.

Poppy, 37, co-founded the brand favoured by Hollywood's finest but later found a more prosaic use for the bubbles.

'I won them over with endless drinks... "Oh sorry for the noise, here's a bottle," ' she says.
Influencer Jade Kevin Foster has celebrated a career milestone after being named Australia's first male ambassador for Playboy's new online platform Centerfold.

Jade is known for starring in Netflix series Byron Baes and has been working as a glamour model for years, but believes his latest collaboration is one for the history books.

'This is one of the biggest, most exciting projects that I've ever worked on,' the glamazon told Daily Mail Australia this week.

'I feel as if though Playboy has always been about really good looking girls and, you know, sexy and confident [people]. And I feel like now I'm a part of it,' he said.

Jade started working with Playboy in 2017 an underwear model, before becoming the brand's official Pride ambassador for Mardi Gras.

Influencer Jade Kevin Foster (pictured) has celebrated a career milestone after being named Australia's first male ambassador for Playboy's new online platform Centerfold. He is pictured in his Centerfold campaign shoot

Playboy's US headquarters subsequently asked Jade to become Australia's first male Centrefold star, an offer he describes as a 'dream come true'.

To celebrate his latest work with Playboy, Jade has starred in a racy campaign photoshoot taken at a sun-drenched resort in Bali.

The sizzling photos show an oiled-up Jade displaying his chiselled chest and svelte physique in skimpy swim trunks.

'This is one of the biggest, most exciting projects that I've ever worked on,' the glamazon told Daily Mail Australia this week. 'I feel as if though Playboy has always been about really good looking girls and, you know, sexy and confident [people]. And I feel like now I'm a part of it,' he said

On the secret behind his incredible figure, Jade said: 'It's twice a day training. It's chicken tuna, brown rice, salads.'

'But then also every single weekend it's a lot of savvy bs [sauvignon blanc wines],' he added with a laugh.

It comes as newly-single Jade celebrates his birthday in Bali, after fleeing Australia following the breakdown of his recent engagement.

On the secret behind his incredible figure, Jade said: 'It's twice a day training. It's chicken tuna, brown rice, salads.' 'But then also every single weekend it's a lot of savvy bs [sauvignon blanc wines],' he added with a laugh

'My love life has always been all over the place. I'm on my third failed engagement,' he lamented.

'Now this one really broke my heart and it's really affected me in ways that I didn't think that it could. Unfortunately that relationship wasn't meant to be,'

Of his ex-fiance, whose identity Jade has chosen to keep a secret, he said: 'I hope that he lives a very long, happy and fulfilled life.'

Jade continued: 'I hope that I can also find somebody that loves me and wants to treat me the way that I think that I deserve to be treated.'

It comes as newly-single Jade celebrates his birthday in Bali, after fleeing Australia following the breakdown of his recent engagement

While he may be struggling in the love department, Jade's career is going from strength to strength.

This year, Jade is set to appear in a top-secret ABC program alongside a well known award-winning actress.

He is also rumoured to be starring in Byron Baes for another series, although Netflix has yet to confirm a second season will be released.
Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl will reunite for the first time since the Firefly Lane star left Grey's Anatomy in 2010.

Variety pairs together actors to engage in intimate one-on-one conversations about their careers and lives twice a year.

Pompeo, 53, and Heigl, 43, will be part of the series' upcoming 18th season.

Last year, Pompeo came to her former co-star's defense in remarks on her Tell Me with Ellen Pompeo podcast.

In 2009, Heigl appeared on Late Night with David Letterman and said: 'I'm gonna keep saying this 'cause I hope it embarrasses them,' adding that her typical work day was 17 hours and that it was 'cruel and mean.'

Reunion: Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl will reunite for the first time since the Firefly Lane star left Grey's Anatomy in 2010

Firefly Lane: Variety pairs together actors to engage in intimate one-on-one conversations about their careers and lives twice a year. Ellen, 53, and Katherine, 43, will be part of the series' upcoming 18th season

'I remember Heigl said something on a talk show about the insane hours we were working and she was 100% right,' Ellen said to her Grey's Anatomy friend co-star, Kate Walsh.

She continued: 'Had she said that today, she'd be a complete hero. But she's ahead of her time, made a statement about our crazy hours and of course, let's slam a woman and call her ungrateful.'

Pompeo  who exited the series last year  added that Heigl speaking out about their work hours was '100% honest' and was 'absolutely correct' about it all.

'And she was f***ing ballsy for saying it,' Pompeo said. 'And she was telling the truth. She wasn't lying.'

Heigl was blasted as being difficult to work with when she departed the long running medical drama.

She's maintained that she was simply misunderstood, telling the Washington Post: 'I may have said a couple of things you didn't like, but then that escalated to 'she's ungrateful,' then that escalated to 'she's difficult,' and that escalated to 'she's unprofessional.''

'What is your definition of difficult? Somebody with an opinion that you don't like? Now, I'm 42, and that s**t pisses me off,' she added.

While playing the role of Dr. Izzie Stephens in Grey's Anatomy, the actress prompted outrage when she refused to put herself forward for an Emmy Award in 2008, claiming that she was not 'given the material to warrant a nomination.'

Old news: In 2009, Heigl appeared on Late Night with David Letterman and said: 'I'm gonna keep saying this 'cause I hope it embarrasses them,' adding that her typical work day was 17 hours and that it was 'cruel and mean'

Solidarity: Last year, Pompeo came to Heigl's defense in remarks on her Tell Me with Ellen Pompeo podcast

Friends: 'I remember Heigl said something on a talk show about the insane hours we were working and she was 100% right,' Pomeo said to her Grey's Anatomy friend co-star, Kate Walsh; Heigl seen in 2018

She continued: 'Had she said that today, she'd be a complete hero. But she's ahead of her time, made a statement about our crazy hours and of course, let's slam a woman and call her ungrateful'; Pompeo seen in February

And then, she made her now infamous statement to Letterman, saying: 'Our first day back was Wednesday and it was  I'm going to keep saying this because I hope it embarrasses them  a 17-hour day, which I think is cruel and mean,' she said.

In 2015, her anxiety had become so extreme that she felt like she would 'rather be dead'  and she asked her family to help her seek professional help to deal with her mental health issues.

'I asked my mom and my husband to find me somewhere to go that could help me because I felt like I would rather be dead. I didn't realize how much anxiety I was living with until I got so bad that I had to really seek help.

'You can do a lot of inner soul work, but I'm a big fan of Zoloft,' Heigl said.

Her husband, the musician Josh Kelley said that if Heigl had said the things she said then, in today's climate, she'd be considered, 'a hero.'
Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary feel let down by beleaguered former This Morning host Phillip Schofield after his affair with a significantly younger male colleague was confirmed just days after their gushing tribute to the presenter.

On Friday, the 61-year-old quit ITV and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after revealing he conducted an affair with a young colleague while he was still married to Stephanie Lowe - the mother of his two children.

Days earlier Alison, 48, and Dermot, 50, had paid tribute to 'top broadcaster' Phillip while opening their usual end-of-week show, just 24 hours after what would be his final appearance on This Morning following 21 years in front of the camera.

The pair are now said to be upset at being drawn into the situation after details of his affair with the colleague, understood to be a runner with aspirations of becoming a TV presenter, finally emerged.

A source told MailOnline: 'Obviously lots of people have been upset on and off camera following Phillip's extraordinary statement on Friday. It's fair to say they feel disappointed.'

Unimpressed: Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary feel let down by beleaguered former This Morning host Phillip Schofield

End: On Friday, Phillip, 61, quit ITV and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after admitting to an affair with a younger This Morning colleague

It has been reported that This Morning hosts have threatened to quit after news of the affair emerged this week.

It is now said that This Morning could face the chop as senior bosses, such as chief executive Carolyn McCall's job could be under threat, as the programme comes under pressure to reveal what they knew about Phil's affair with the young runner.

Some of the show hosts have even threatened to quit amid the toxic fallout - with one household name already drafted a resignation statement in the wake of Phil's admission.

'The whole This Morning senior team is in complete damage-limitation mode worrying about the presenters who might walk away.

'Phillip no doubt thinks he has tried to do the right thing but the overwhelming feeling on set is that procedures need to be put in place to ensure the same mistakes never happen again.

'Some presenters feel the saga has left too much toxicity around the show, it can't survive and they're considering their future.'

Phillip received just a 30-second tribute at the start of This Morning on Friday 19 May as Alison and Dermot stepped in after he was axed after 21 years.

The pair began the show by briefly addressing his exit, but there was no montage, just a single photo of the veteran presenter on screen and around half a minute of warm words.

Opening the broadcast, Alison said: 'We can't start today's show without paying tribute to the man who spent the last two decades sitting on the This Morning sofa. Phillip Schofield.'

Dermot added: 'So as a show, everyone on and off screen at ITV and This Morning on say a huge thank you to Phil for what he's done to make the show such a success over the last 21 years.'

Alison continued: 'Quite simply, we all know he's one of the best live television broadcasters this country has ever had, and we and all the team wish him all the best for the future.'

Warm words: Following his last show on Thursday 18 May, Alison and Dermot paid just a 30-second tribute to Phil (Phil seen with his former co-host Holly Willoughby on This Morning this month)

It is currently unclear who will present tomorrow's show and whether Alison and Dermot will stand in again.

A week later, Phillip announced he had left ITV altogether and stepped back from his last existing commitment with the channel, the British Soap Awards.

The broadcaster, who was also dropped by his long-standing agents YMU, admitted he'd had an affair with a younger male This Morning colleague.

When the colleague was 15, the schoolboy asked him for a job, and Phillip later arranged an interview for him. It led to a position as an ITV production assistant when he turned 18. Some time afterwards, their affair began.

The news about Alison and Dermot's dismay comes just hours after MP Nadine Dorries has piled pressure on Phillip's co-host Holly Willoughby and called for a probe into complaints made to ITV about Phillip on This Morning.

The former culture secretary also accused him of bullying and abusing 'authority, power and trust' after he confessed to having an affair with the younger colleague and covering it up with lies.

The presenter quit ITV after admitting to the Mail that he lied about an 'unwise but not illegal' affair with a much younger man. He also apologised to his wife of almost 30 years Stephanie who stood by him after he came out as gay in 2020.

His co-host of 13 years Holly, who Ms Dorries now claims 'has questions to answer', said that it was 'hurtful' to discover she had been lied to when she confronted him over rumours of the affair.

Sources close to the presenter said it had been a 'traumatic' revelation for the This Morning host and a 'time of real sadness' as Schofield 'was her very close friend' but that she has 'absolutely no plans to leave' the show.

ITV confirmed that they had investigated rumours of the relationship, which first begun to circulate in 2020, but that Phillip and the young man had 'repeatedly denied' the affair.

Kevin Lygo, director of television at ITV, today denied that mistakes were made during the network's investigation. He simply responded 'No' when asked whether mistakes had been made as he was confronted by Sky News over which bosses knew what at ITV.

As Phillip's 38-year career lays in ruins, Ms Dorries is the latest to speak out against the TV presenter who faced allegations of 'toxic' behaviour from eight ITV stars according to Dan Wootton.

Apology: Phillip's affair took place during his nearly 30-year marriage to his wife Stephanie, 59, and Phillip said he was 'so very sorry' for being unfaithful

Calling for an investigation into the complaints made to ITV, she told BBC's Laura Kuenssberg today: 'The fact that Phillip Schofield has made a rather grovelling apology to the Daily Mail in the form of an email there seems to be this understanding that that's it now and everything will move on. It's not the case I'm afraid.

'What it actually does is opens up more questions as to what happened. We know that there were complaints lodged with ITV over a long period of time. What happened to those complaints? I think the editor of the programme Martin Frizell has some questions to answer himself.

'And I'm afraid so does Holly Willoughby. How did that young boy, so young, get a job at ITV. What were the processes involved? What was the safeguarding in place for someone so young at that age? What contact was first made? Who contacted who?'

When asked whether presenters such as Schofield have too much power, Ms Dorries, who has been presenting herself recently, added: 'There are men, men particularly, who have positions of authority or trust and power, kind of think they are above the law and above those standards that the rest of us are held by and held to.

'I think there's absolutely an element of that which takes place.'

Describing her own experience of being on the This Morning sofa, she said: '[It's] never easy, as you known Laura, being interviewed as a politician by a presenter or a journalist, it's never an easy experience.

'But I just found him to be quite bullying in his attitude towards the co-host who was standing in for Holly Willoughby. That made me feel more uncomfortable than answering the questions. When the camera was on me and I was talking, he started aggressively jabbing at the scripts with his hands, the pages were rattling. The co-presenter looked terrified.'

Phillip admitted to the affair on Friday, which he claimed was 'unwise but not illegal', in a lengthy statement, in which he also apologised to his wife and family.

The 'unwise' relationship took place during his nearly 30-year marriage to his wife Stephanie, 59, and Phillip said he was 'so very sorry' for being unfaithful.

Stephanie, who shares two kids Ruby, 27, and Molly, 29, with Phillip, issued a statement when her husband came out as gay in a moving This Morning segment in 2020.

In a statement, the former ITV presenter said: 'I am making this statement via the Daily Mail, to whom I have already apologised personally for misleading, through my lawyer who I also misled, about a story [sic] which they wanted to write about me a few days ago.

'The first thing I want to say is: I am deeply sorry for having lied to them, and to many others about a relationship that I had with someone working on This Morning.

Family: Stephanie shares two daughters, Ruby, 27, and Molly, 29, with Phillip, with Stephanie paying tribute to Phil when he came out as gay in 2020

'I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning.

'Contrary to speculation, whilst I met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television, it was only after he started to work on the show that it became more than a just a friendship.

Phillip Schofield's statement in full as he admits affair with young This Morning colleague: I am making this statement via the Daily Mail, to whom I have already apologised personally for misleading, through my lawyer who I also misled, about a story [sic] which they wanted to write about me a few days ago. The first thing I want to say is: I am deeply sorry for having lied to them, and to many others about a relationship that I had with someone working on This Morning. I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning. Contrary to speculation, whilst I met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television, it was only after he started to work on the show that it became more than a just a friendship. That relationship was unwise, but not illegal. It is now over... I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public and most importantly of all to my family. I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife... I am resigning from ITV with immediate effect, expressing my immense gratitude to them for all the amazing opportunities that they have given me. I will reflect on my very bad judgement in both participating in the relationship and then lying about it. Advertisement

'That relationship was unwise, but not illegal. It is now over...

'I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public and most importantly of all to my family. I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife...

'I am resigning from ITV with immediate effect, expressing my immense gratitude to them for all the amazing opportunities that they have given me.

'I will reflect on my very bad judgement in both participating in the relationship and then lying about it.'

After his statement, an ITV spokesman said: 'We are deeply disappointed by the admissions of deceit made tonight by Phillip Schofield.

'The relationships we have with those we work with are based on trust. Philip made assurances to us which he now acknowledges were untrue and we feel badly let down.

'We accept his resignation from ITV and therefore can confirm that he will not be appearing on ITV as had previously been stated.'

Yesterday broadcaster Dan Wooton revealed that he told ITV about Phillip's affair with his young colleague in 2019 and urged them to investigate but they dismissed it as 'malicious gossip'.

In his exclusive Mail article Dan also revealed ITV staff submitted complaints about Schofield's behaviour.

He said: 'I was executive editor of The Sun at that point and had spoken to eight household name ITV stars who were raising concerns about Phillip's "toxic" behaviour, specifically the inappropriate relationship with the man.'

Following his statement, Phillip has also parted company with his management team YMU after 35 years.

Mary Bekhait, the Group CEO of YMU Group, said: 'Honesty and integrity are core values for YMU's whole business, defining everything we do. Talent management is a relationship based entirely on trust.

'This week, we have learned important new information about our client Phillip Schofield.

'These facts contradicted what Phillip had previously told YMU, as well as the external advisors we had brought in to support him.

Questions continue to mount over the future of ITV bosses, including CEO Carolyn, and the popular daytime TV show, prompting the network to insist today that This Morning will not be axed.

Tough: Phillip apologised to his wife Stephanie Lowe (pictured) who stood by him after he came out as gay in 2020

Extinguishing speculation with a direct 30-word statement, an ITV spokesman said today: 'As we said on the record yesterday, This Morning is not under review and there's no plans for the show to be axed.

'This Morning will return as normal tomorrow.'

It is feared other regulars on the show - in addition to presenters such as Alison Hammond, Holly Willoughby and Rochelle Humes - could also quit.

Earlier in the day, they also said: 'Further to our statement last night, ITV can confirm that when rumours of a relationship between Phillip Schofield and an employee of ITV first began to circulate in early 2020 ITV investigated.

'Both parties were questioned and both categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours as did Phillip's then agency YMU.

'In addition, ITV spoke to a number of people who worked on This Morning and were not provided with, and did not find, any evidence of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour.

'Phillip's statement yesterday reveals that he lied to people at ITV, from senior management to fellow presenters, to YMU, to the media and to others over this relationship.'

They went on to add: 'This Morning is not under review and the show will be back on Monday.'

It comes after Holly told of her devastation when she discovered he had lied to her about the relationship.

She revealed: 'When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not. It's been very hurtful to now find out that this was a lie.'

Holly, who is officially due to be back on the show on Monday June 5 after a two-week family holiday, could extend her time off in a desperate attempt to avoid being dragged further into controversy, PR guru Mark Borkowski has said.

The team behind ITV's golden girl, including her advisers, agents and lawyers, will now need to 'come up with the goods' to guarantee her future, he claimed.

Mr Borkowski told MailOnline: 'For Holly it's a case of staying out of the headlines, taking time out. Disappearing from public view.

'Clearly she won't do TV at the moment, she might possibly extend that. She's the girl next door. She has huge commercial deals, clearly a talent, clearly liked.'

He added that Holly now must demonstrate she can be trusted by viewers - as many are questioning who at the channel knew about Schofield's relationship with his colleague.

On Holly he said: 'Just because you're a celebrity you are held to a higher degree of scrutiny [but] every human fails, there is drama in everyone's lives.

'My view is that we are yet to know and it's for her to rebuild trust of her audience and get her representatives to work extremely hard in regaining some of the ground that might have been lost,' Mr Borkowski said.

After quitting This Morning last weekend, Phillip had still been set to host the British Soap Awards for a 13th successive year, but he will no longer be doing so after quitting ITV altogether.

Meanwhile, This Morning regular Carol Vorderman revealed on Friday who she thinks will replace Phillip Schofield on This Morning.

During an appearance on the BBC's Have I Got News for You, Carol, 62, hinted at who would permanently replace Phillip alongside Holly Willoughby, with the star claiming it would be Alison Hammond.

Former Countdown regular Carol appears every other Friday on This Morning do discuss various topics.

When her Have I Got News For You team captain Ian Hislop put it to her she could replace Phillip, Carol said: 'No! Probably Holly and Alison, I would have thought.'

Host Steph McGovern asked Carol: 'Is that where your money is?', she responded: 'That's where I'd put my money.'

Alison currently hosts the show every Friday alongside Dermot O'Leary.

Phillip met his future lover at a theatre school in North West England when he was in his late 40s.

Some years later the younger man became a production assistant on This Morning when Phillip was in his early 50s and their ill-advised friendship  which grew into a relationship  started.

The scandal over the affair follows a turbulent few months for Schofield, who for decades was ITV's king of daytime television.

But eight days ago he sensationally quit This Morning after 21 years after falling out with Holly. His departure came just a day after his younger brother Timothy was jailed for 12 years for 11 convictions of sexual offences involving a child.

Phillip was forced to confirm allegations of an affair were true because his former lover  who had also worked on This Morning  had unexpectedly confessed all to his lawyers.

The presenter had hired top law firm Mishcon de Reya to represent the young man, now in his mid 20s, presumably believing that he would keep quiet.

But his former lover told lawyers that although he feared exposure, he was fed up lying about the relationship.

Although ITV investigated Phillip's affair in 2020, a senior lawyer has said there should be a 'probe' into the affair over a possible 'abuse of power'.

Richard Scorer, of Slater and Gordon, said that while all of the details of the relationship were not yet known, 'any situation where a young person may have been subjected to a potential imbalance of abuse of power needs to be investigated fully and independently'.

The abuse specialist added that the long-standing rumours about the affair - and the allegations that others in ITV were aware of the relationship - meant it was 'imperative that there is a full and transparent investigation'.

The calls for a probe come as ITV's chief is said to believe that This Morning's reputation is 'tarnished beyond repair' - leaving presenters and crew scrambling for their jobs.

PR expert Mark Borkowski told MailOnline that the future of ITV bosses, including McCall, will likely be safe because Schofield admitted to deceiving everyone.

As for Phillip's future in TV, he said: 'Phillip Schofield has no future, it's over for him for the level he has lied to everyone and he has admitted to that.'

He added that ITV now has to move on and focus on the programme. 'Holly Willoughby and all her advisers and publicists will need to work extremely hard and work on great television to bring that back,' he said.

'ITV and all these people need to get their PR right. It's been DIY PR. It's been the equivalent in PR terms of looking for a gas leak with a matchstick.

'Make no mistake, the pressure is on the programme and Holly to deliver. The question is whether viewers will desert the programme.'
The Little Mermaid star Halle Bailey has expressed her gratitude to Beyonce for mentoring her at the beginning of her showbusiness career.

The rising actress, 23, who signed to Beyonce's management company in 2018, said the superstar's guidance meant the world to her when she was starting out.

'I think with Beyonce, you really learn by watching her, and the example of the human being she is,' she told The Daily Telegraph on Saturday.

'Seeing how hard she works and how kind she is. She's one of those people who is very humble and doesn't like to say, "do this!". It's very much  "I'm proud of you, spread your wings and fly".'

Halle said she loved playing Ariel in the Disney movie, as her mermaid character embarks on a journey of growth similar to her own.

The Little Mermaid star Halle Bailey, 23, (pictured) expressed her gratitude to Beyonce on Saturday for mentoring her when she was beginning her career in showbusiness

'She taught me a lot about myself, what I am capable of  I approached it from that mindset, allowing her to teach me.'

Halle, who was recently in Sydney for the Australian premiere of The Little Mermaid, performs with her older sister Chloe, 24, in the R&B group Chloe x Halle.

Earlier this month, Halle and co-star Melissa McCarthy were mobbed by fans outside of the Channel Seven Studios in Sydney's Martin Place.

The rising star who signed to Beyonce's (pictured) management company in 2018, said the superstar's guidance meant the world to her when she was starting out

The actresses made an appearance live on Sunrise to promote the live action remake ahead of the film's Australian premiere in the city.

Halle and Melissa, 52, appeared in high spirits as they greeted their eager fans, happily signing autographs and taking selfies with the crowd who had gathered outside.

Some punters dressed up as the iconic Little Mermaid characters, while others wore face paint and got storybooks signed.

The Little Mermaid is the beloved fairytale of Ariel, a beautiful and spirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure, based on the classic story by Hans Christen Anderson.

'I think with Beyonce, you really learn by watching her, and the example of the human being she is,' she told The Daily Telegraph
She launched her very own activewear label, Jaggad, back in 2013.

And on Sunday, AFL WAG Bec Judd admitted it hasn't been easy living up to an 'unstoppable' promise as she expands her brand.

The 40-year-old, who lives in a $7.3m mansion in Melbourne's affluent Brighton, told the Herald Sun she 'loves' seeing the success of her label after years of hard work.

'It is a real Melbourne local brand and I love seeing people everywhere in Melbourne wearing it,' she said.

'It's not easy but 10 years in it is good, it is really good.'

Rebecca Judd said it hasn't been easy living up to an 'unstoppable' promise as she expands her brand Jaggad

Rebecca went on to say: 'The brand essence of Jaggad is the unstoppable woman and to be unstoppable we need to embrace imperfection.'

She revealed she has expanded her business into shoes, and launched the brand's collaboration with Mizuno on Wednesday.

The collection will feature 10 different styles with eight of them exclusive to Jaggad.

'It is a real Melbourne local brand and I love seeing people everywhere in Melbourne wearing it. It's not easy but 10 years in it is good, it is really good,' she said

Rebecca often wears items from her activewear label, which she owns alongside her retired AFL star husband Chris Judd, fellow ex-footy player Steven Greene and his wife Michelle.

The Melbourne-based mother is known for her dedication to fitness, making her the ideal face of a sportswear company.

Rebecca previously told The Carousel, she likes to do a combination of cardio and core-strengthening exercises to keep fit after having four children.

'Pilates twice a week is great!' she said. 'Plus I do HIIT on the spin bike. It only takes four minutes and gets the heart rate up. I probably do that twice a week too.'
Tammy Slaton showed off her dramatic weight loss after undergoing bariatric surgery last year.

The 1,000-lb Sisters star  who was spotted walking unassisted two weeks ago  took to Instagram on Saturday to share selfies without her oxygen-breathing tube.

The 36-year-old has lost nearly 300 pounds after carbon monoxide poisoning prompted her to turn her life around after she spent three weeks on life support.

The reality TV star wore a denim jacket, and her usual eyeglasses in a series of snaps captioned, '6 beautiful photos of myself without filters.'

Fans raced to the comments section to praise Tammy for her progress, with one writing, 'Your skin looks so good! What do you use on it? Looking so healthy, Tammy.'

Progress: Tammy Slaton took to Instagram to show off her dramatic weight loss after undergoing bariatric surgery last year

Without oxygen: The 36-year-old shared a carousel of snaps in a denim jacket without her oxygen-breathing tube

Another wrote, 'Gosh I like you even better without the filters! You look even more beautiful!' while someone else commented, 'Tammmyyy these are the best photos you have ever taken.'

Slaton's new selfies come after she was seen in Indiana two weeks ago walking out of a gas station without the help of her usual stroller.

Being able to walk independently is a major feat for a woman who once weighed 717 pounds and whose family believed she would be dead within five years.

She reportedly reached rock bottom in late 2021 when she was rushed to the hospital after when she was unable to breathe and had a tube inserted into her throat.

The scary incident inspired her to finally change her lifestyle, and she checked herself into a food addiction program.

She also quit smoking and drinking completely.

On the latest season of 1000-Lb Sisters, Tammy reached her weight loss goal - going from 717 pounds to 534 pounds - and successfully qualified for bariatric surgery.

She said: 'I'm feeling thrilled, proud, excited  just all the emotions. I proved everybody wrong.

'Everybody that doubted me, I finally got mine! My told-you-so moment!'

She has come a long way: Tammy has lost nearly 300 pounds since she decided to turn her life around last year after she nearly died and spent three weeks on life support

But being able to walk independently is a major feat for a woman who once weighed 717 pounds (left in 2021) and whose family believed she would be dead within five years

The TV personality (left) first rose to fame in early 2020 when she starred in the TLC reality series alongside sister Amy (right)

Tammy is reportedly dating a 25-year-old man named Greg Morgan - just weeks after news hit the web that she had split from her husband

The weight loss transformation has also helped her find new love, according to The Sun.

Tammy is reportedly dating 25-year-old Greg Morgan - just weeks after news that she had split from her husband, Caleb Willingham.

She is said to have met her new man through a dating app. A source told the outlet that they 'immediately hit it off' and have been 'seeing each other for about a month now.'

'He's come to see her a handful of times. He takes a six-hour bus from Indianapolis to visit her in Kentucky,' they dished.
Claire Holt took to her blog The Corner over the weekend and opened up about dealing with miscarriage fears after debuting her bump at the Cannes Film Festival last week.

The 34-year-old Australian actress is currently expecting her third child with husband Andrew Joblon, and she candidly wrote about suffering a miscarriage in 2018.

That tragic loss is clouding Claire's current pregnancy, filling her with fear and anxiety after confirming that a third baby was on the way.

'I took multiple tests each day to make sure the line was getting darker. My google searches switched to miscarriage statistics and signs of loss,' she wrote.

'I often wonder what it must be like to go through a pregnancy without worrying that something will take your baby from you. Without waiting for bad news at every appointment.'

Sharing her fears: Claire Holt, 34, took to her blog The Corner over the weekend and opened up about dealing with miscarriage fears after debuting her bump at the Cannes Film Festival last week

Healing after heartbreak: The Australian actress is currently expecting her third child with husband Andrew Joblon, and she candidly wrote in her blog about suffering a miscarriage in 2018

The Vampire Diaries star shared that even after 'two healthy pregnancies,' she still dreaded the possibility of what could happen.

She wrote: 'I thought that after two healthy pregnancies I might feel slightly more hopeful but alas, the feeling was the same.

'I never really let myself get too excited, as if it would somehow protect me from the pain if something weren't right. It's a sad way to experience something so beautiful, but I guess it's human nature to want to shield yourself from heartache.'

Recalling a recent ultrasound appointment, Holt wrote that she became nervous when it came time to hear her baby's heartbeat, but that she tried to overcome that fear by getting in the right frame of mind.

'I tried to accept that things would happen just as they were meant to and none of it was in my control,' she wrote.

'I reminded myself that if I didn't lose that first baby, I wouldn't have my [children] James or Elle. It definitely helped me curb the constant whirlpool of negative thoughts in my head.'

But even though she is 'still scared,' Claire is determined to protect her joy: 'I'm still scared of course. I know that so many things can happen between now and 40 weeks. I won't let those fears rob me of my joy, though.'

Holt's blog post comes after she revealed her pregnancy by cradling her burgeoning baby bump in a gray Lanvin gown with a flowing train at the Killers of the Flower Moon premiere in Cannes, France last Saturday.

Candid: Claire's tragic loss is clouding her current pregnancy, filling her with fear and anxiety after confirming that a third baby was on the way. 'I took multiple tests each day to make sure the line was getting darker. My google searches switched to miscarriage statistics and signs of loss,' she wrote

What could happen: The Vampire Diaries star shared that even after 'two healthy pregnancies,' she still dreaded the possibility of what could happen. 'It's a sad way to experience something so beautiful,' she wrote, 'but I guess it's human nature to want to shield yourself from heartache.' Pictured: Claire, husband Andrew and their son James, now five

Nerve-wracking journey: Recalling a recent ultrasound appointment, Holt wrote that she became nervous when it came time to hear her baby's heartbeat, but that she tried to overcome that fear by getting in the right frame of mind; Claire and Andrew welcomed their second child, a daughter named Elle, in 2021

Protecting her joy: Even though she is 'still scared,' Claire is determined to protect her joy. 'I'm still scared of course,' she wrote. 'I know that so many things can happen between now and 40 weeks. I won't let those fears rob me of my joy, though'

Big reveal: Holt's blog post comes after she revealed her pregnancy by cradling her burgeoning baby bump in a gray Lanvin gown with a flowing train at the Killers of the Flower Moon premiere in Cannes, France last Saturday

After unveiling the news as photographers snapped photos of her clearly visible bump, the performer shared a slideshow on Instagram, captioned: 'me & no 3.'

Within an hour, she received more than 306,339 likes and thousands of comments from her 7.5 million Instagram followers and celebrity pals.

'Omg Claire!!!!! YES!!!!!! Congrats,' Nina Dobrev wrote under the post, while Ashley Greene gushed 'congrats beauty.'

In October, 2022, the Australian beauty joked that the biggest surprise of motherhood is 'that no one knows what they're doing, and we're all just winging it.'

She previously welcomed her second child, a baby girl, named Elle, in September 2020.

'She's here. Our sweet girl, Elle. After 27.5 hours of labor, she flew into the world and expanded our hearts. We are so grateful for our healthy baby and cannot wait for her to meet her big brother,' she captioned a picture of her then-newborn.

Meanwhile, Claire's husband praised his wife for being so tough during a long labour, amid already challenging times.

'@claireholt again proved to me she is my hero and a true warrior - I love you with all my heart. Thank you so much for birthing this sweet little girl in a challenging year,' he wrote on his Instagram page.

Glowing: After unveiling the news as photographers snapped photos of her clearly visible bump, the performer shared a slideshow on Instagram, captioned: 'me & no 3'

Plenty of well-wishes: Within an hour, she received more than 306,339 likes and thousands of comments from her 7.5 million Instagram followers and celebrity pals

'Omg Claire!!!!! YES!!!!!! Congrats,' Nina Dobrev wrote under the post, while Ashley Greene gushed 'congrats beauty'

'All the women out there, no debate from me, you guys are the superior gender and it's not even close!! 9.12.2020 - my heart is full.'

Claire married Joblonin August 2018, eight months after their engagement.

The happy couple also share a four-year-old son, named James.

She was previously married to film producer Matthew Kaplan, who filed for divorce in April 2017, a day before their one-year anniversary.
Jane Fonda hilariously found herself having to throw the Palme d'Or at the winning director during the Cannes Film Festival.

French director Justine Triet earned the prize this year for her thriller Anatomy Of A Fall, about a woman battling accusations that she murdered her husband.

Justine took the stage to proudly accept the prize - but in a slapstick turn of events, she accidentally left an award scroll on the lectern.

As Justine walked away obviously to her mistake, Jane, 85, who presented the prize, hurried to the lectern and grabbed the certificate to give it to her.

In a video that has gone viral on social media, Jane failed to get Justine's attention was eventually so exasperated that she flung the award at her.

Merci a Jane Fonda qui lance dans le dos de Justine Triet, son prix oublie sur le pupitre apres son discours politisee.



pic.twitter.com/3Pf79L4lEw  Seb !      (@seb_a_volonte) May 27, 2023

Oops: Jane Fonda hilariously found herself having to throw the Palme d'Or at the winning director during the Cannes Film Festival

The thrill of it all: French director Justine Triet earned the prize this year for her thriller Anatomy Of A Fall, about a woman battling accusations that she murdered her husband

Got it eventually: Justine took the stage to proudly accept the prize - but in a slapstick turn of events, she accidentally left an award scroll on the lectern

The winner still did not turn around, leaving a flabbergasted Jane to spread her arms wide in a gesture of frustration.

A man onstage also picked up the piece of paper and attempted to turn it over to Justine, who was so caught up in the moment that she still neglected to notice.

Justine was one of a record seven women directors in the running for this year's Palme d'Or, and was only the third female winner in history.

While presenting the prize onstage, Jane noted that the first Cannes Film Festival she attended was in 1963, adding: 'There were no women directors competing at that time, and it never even occurred to us that there was something wrong with that.'

Jane Campion became the first woman to earn a Palme d'Or for her 1993 drama The Piano, followed by Julia Ducournau for the 2021 body horror flick Titane.

Titane, which stunned audience members its wacky plotline involving a woman who gets impregnated by a Cadillac, was an infamously polarizing pick.

This year's Cannes included a Rendezvous with Jane Fonda that grabbed headlines for the veteran actress' gossipy bon mots, some compiled by Deadline.

She dished the dirt on her old collaborators, accusing Robert Redford of having 'an issue with women' and theorizing that Michael Douglas 'probably doesnt like me.'

Triumphant: Justine was one of a record seven women directors in the running for this year's Palme d'Or, and was only the third female winner in history

Through the years: While presenting the prize onstage, Jane noted that the first Cannes Film Festival she attended was in 1963

History: 'There were no women directors competing at that time, and it never even occurred to us that there was something wrong with that,' she said

Predecessors: Jane Campion became the first woman to earn a Palme d'Or for her 1993 drama The Piano, followed by Julia Ducournau for the 2021 body horror flick Titane

Jane also expressed a personal distaste for Jean-Luc Godard, saying: 'He was a great filmmaker. I take my hat off. A great filmmaker. But as a man? Im sorry. No, no.'

Lee Marvin on the other hand was 'fabulous' and 'always drunk,' and working with her father and Katharine Hepburn on On Golden Pond was 'one of the most glorious experiences of my life. It was absolutely wonderful.'

Jane herself won an honorary Palme d'Or at the Cannes in 2007, plus the festival's Kering Women In Motion Award in 2015.

Kering, whose CEO is Salma Hayek's husband Francois-Henri Pinault, is a top-flight French luxury goods firm with a glittering list of subsidiaries that includes Yves Saint-Laurent, Balenciaga, Gucci and Alexander McQueen.

'
Selena Gomez graciously stopped to pose for selfies with fans while dashing around Paris after dark this weekend.

The 30-year-old pop act is thought to be in town to shoot the musical crime comedy Emilia Perez, directed by the acclaimed French filmmaker Jacques Audiard.

But on Saturday she indulged in a night on the town, stepping out to dinner wrapped in a glistening black leather overcoat.

After she emerged from the restaurant she came upon some of her admirers and warmly cuddled up to one of them for a picture.

She pulled a dramatic pout for one of the selfies, accentuating features she had already sharpened with heavy makeup.

Loved and admired: Selena Gomez graciously stopped to pose for selfies with fans while dashing around Paris after dark this weekend

Emilia Perez stars the transgender telenovela star Karla Sofia Gascon, who first shot to fame as Carlos Gascon before a transition that played out in the headlines.

Karla plays a notorious Mexican cartel kingpin who finds himself fleeing the authorities and decides to get the sex change he wanted for years.

Near the beginning of the year a report in Variety revealed the film was slated to begin principal photography near Paris in the springtime.

The boldface names in the cast include not only Selena but also Zoe Saldana, a mainstay of the Avatar franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Despite possibly being in town for work, however, Selena has been able to snatch away some personal time to enjoy the sights of the city as well.

Selena was spotted Friday in the star-studded audience of Beyonce's Renaissance Tour, which had alighted on the Stade de France that evening.

Famous figures ranging from Kris Jenner to Lenny Kravitz to Natalie Portman were all glimpsed in attendance at the concert.

Selena's personal life has been a source of constant speculation this year, with rumors attaching her to such names as Zayn Malik and Andrew Taggart.

Jet setter: The 30-year-old pop act is thought to be in town to shoot the musical crime comedy Emilia Perez , directed by the acclaimed French filmmaker Jacques Audiard

Doing her bit: After she emerged from the restaurant she came upon some of her admirers and warmly cuddled up to one of them for a picture

However by the beginning of this month Andrew was spotted leaving a VIP party in Miami hand in hand with a leggy mystery woman who towered over him.

Meanwhile when the conjecture about Selena and Zayn began to swirl in March, a source told Page Six that the pair previously had a brief dalliance a decade ago.

The insider claimed that Zayn and Selena briefly had a 'thing' while her close friend Taylor Swift was dating his One Direction bandmate Harry Styles.

Taylor and Harry embarked on a whirlwind romance from late 2012 until January 2013, after which she wrote multiple songs that were thought to be about him.

Also in March an old red carpet video from 2010 resurfaced in which Selena was asked which One Direction member she would kiss and she giggled: 'Zayn.'
George Burgess recently called time on his marriage to Joanna King, splitting with her after seven years.

And on Saturday, the NRL star, 31, shared a cryptic post to his Instagram Stories about being 'misunderstood'.

He wrote some reflective words alongside a picture of a solitary man standing next to a vast ocean.

'Being misunderstood can be painful but it's also an opportunity to better understand yourself,' he wrote.

It comes after Burgess finally broke his silence after splitting with his wife.

George Burgess recently called time on his marriage to Joanna King, splitting with her after seven years. Both pictured

The NRL champ took to Instagram on Thursday evening to post a picture of a cloudy seaside tropical setting, taken in Cairns, in far north Queensland.

Burgess captioned the stunning vista simply with one word, '#Moody'.

The photograph appears to have been taken at dusk and features an expanse of beach with palm trees and a distant mountain range in the background.

And on Saturday, the NRL star, 31, shared a cryptic post to his Instagram Stories about being 'misunderstood'

The hunky footy star has ended his seven year marriage with his ex-model wife, and he has since been spotted on dating apps Tinder and Raya just a couple of months after moving out of the family home.

Joanna, an interior designer, has reportedly moved back to Queensland with her parents.

Sources close to the player have confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that he left the property he shared with Joanna in March and has since relocated to an apartment in Bondi.

Sources close to the player have confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that he left the property he shared with Joanna in March and has since relocated to an apartment in Bondi

Insiders claim the couple, who have three children together and were once thought to be inseparable, are '100 per cent over'.

It appears the split has been amicable, contrasting markedly with the tumultuous separation between Burgess's brother, Sam, and his-ex wife, Phoebe.

Burgess acknowledged Joanna in a recent Mother's Day tribute despite their break-up.

George and his ex-model wife met in 2014 when he was playing for the South Sydney Rabbitohs and were engaged two years later and share three children together, Boston, four, Birdie, three, and Blainey, two.
Britain's Got Talent viewers have claimed the show is 'fixed.'

During Saturday night's instalment of the competition, the judges - Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and Bruno Tonioli - broke the Golden Buzzer rules again.

Despite only being allowed to grant five Golden Buzzers during the series, the panel awarded an eighth, leaving fans asking: 'Why was the gold paper loaded up?'

Appearing on stage, Musa Motha first explained that he had to have a leg amputated due to cancer in his youth, before impressing with his fantastic dance skills using crutches.

The audience chanted for the Golden Buzzer, with the judges insisting that they couldn't give out any more, but eventually conceded and all four pressed the buzzer together, triggering confetti to rain down.

Fixed? Britain's Got Talent viewers have claimed the show is 'fixed,' after the judges - Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and Bruno Tonioli - broke the Golden Buzzer rules again

Huh? Despite only being allowed to grant five Golden Buzzers during the series, the panel awarded an eighth to Musa Motha, leaving fans asking: 'Why was the gold paper loaded up?'

Inspirational: Appearing on stage, Musa first explained that he had to have a leg amputated due to cancer in his youth, before impressing with his fantastic dance skills using crutches

Viewers swiftly took to Twitter to voice their speculation that the emotional moment may not have been as authentic as it was portrayed to be.

One person fumed: 'You have ruined this years show giving 3 extra golden buzzers so 8 in total why not just give everyone a golden buzzer also makes me wonder how fixed it is when last weeks and this weeks had confetti but the one 2 weeks ago there was no confetti? #BGT.'

'Soooo fixed! If they've ran out of golden buzzers & know they can't put another act through with the golden buzzer, then, why the f**k have they filled that thing up with the gold confetti stuff?!? #BritainsGotTalent #BGT #BGT2023,' asked another.

Someone else quizzed: 'What's next years plan for #BGT ? If you don't get a golden buzzer, you're not going through? #BritainsGotTalent.'

'Why was there confetti loaded when all the golden buzzers were used? #GoldenBuzzer #BGT,' asked another bemused viewer while another insisted: '#BGT is so contrived. That guy was amazing but, if they weren't expecting any more Golden Buzzers, then why was the gold paper loaded up ready to drop?'

'#BGT What a load of b**locks! So everyone with a sad story gets a golden buzzer now do they?' tweeted someone else, while another sarcastically wrote: 'Thank God they'd refilled the confetti for the Golden Buzzer that they definitely couldn't use. #BGT.'

Just last week, Britain's Got Talent saw a shocking plot twist after head judge Simon broke the strict rules of the show for Dance group Unity.

The college friends, aged between 16 and 25, wowed the judges with their flawless choreography and synchronised dance moves.

Eight!? The audience chanted for the Golden Buzzer, with the judges insisting that they couldn't give out any more, but eventually conceded and all four pressed the buzzer together

Yikes: Viewers swiftly took to Twitter to voice their speculation that the emotional moment may not have been as authentic as it was portrayed to be

But most powerful of all was the incredible message behind their performance - called 'I will', showing the importance of embracing who they are.

One member of the group, who has Down's Syndrome, began the dance as the centre of the group.

The judges and members of the audience were moved to tears by the emotional performance, while even notoriously-strict judge Simon appeared teary-eyed.

The audience began chanting for a golden buzzer, but Simon had already used his golden buzzer and Bruno had also used two buzzers - after not realising he was only allowed one.

Simon said: 'I thought that you actually were astonishing. The way that you got your message across - it was so strong. Look, we don't have any golden buzzers left.'

But sometimes, I just feel you should break the rules!', dramatically hitting the button as golden glitter rained down on the ecstatic group.
Ola Jordan and husband James took their daughter Ella to the launch of a new baby flume at Drayton Manor Resort, on Saturday.

The former Strictly Come Dancing stars stepped out in low-key leisurewear as they tested out Thomas & Percy's Submarine Splash.

Ola, 40, looked gorgeous in camel coloured joggers and a chic white jumper, which she teamed with box-fresh trainers.

James, 45, opted for tan hued tracksuit bottoms and white trainers, while showing off his heavily inked upper body in a plunging dark brown T-shirt.

Their sweet little three-year-old girl was dressed in baby pink joggers with a similarly coloured T-shirt and trainers for their day of fun in the sun.

Family day! Ola Jordan, 40, and husband James, 45, took their daughter Ella, three, to the launch of a new baby flume at Drayton Manor Resort, on Saturday

Fun: The former Strictly Come Dancing stars stepped out in low-key leisurewear as they took their little girl to test out Thomas & Percy's Submarine Splash

Gorgeous: Ola looked gorgeous in a chic white jumper

The VIP line-up visited the resort to celebrate the launch of Thomas & Percy's Submarine Splash  a brand-new baby flume, featuring two mini drops, that recently opened in Thomas Land.

Visitors had a whale of a time as they boarded at Brendam Docks to help Thomas and Percy deliver the submarine to Vicarstown Museum.

Thomas Land has seen more than 10 million visitors since opening in 2008 with rides such as Cranky's Drop Tower where riders are dropped into action, as well as Thomas, Rosie and Percy Engine Tours which have travelled a total distance of 4,350 miles.

Victoria Lynn, Managing Director at Drayton Manor Resort, said: 'The arrival of Thomas & Percy's Submarine Splash ride is an exciting milestone for Thomas Land as it celebrates its 15th Anniversary.

'We're certain that Thomas fans across the Midlands and beyond will want to enter the immersive world of Thomas Land themselves.

'Thomas & Percy's Submarine Splash ride will provide the opportunity for families to experience a thrilling flume together, featuring two mini drops on an exciting journey through the Island of Sodor.'

This new ride is another example of Drayton Manor Resort's high level of investment into the resort which has seen two new areas, Adventure Cove and Vikings, open in the last two years.

Inked: James showed off his heavily inked upper body in a plunging dark brown T-shirt

Easy breezy: The blonde beauty was comfortable in camel coloured joggers

Mum and son: Hayley Tamaddon brought son Jasper to have fun at the baby flume launch

Sweet: The soap star was clad in a pretty green floral maxi dress

Happy: Rebecca Adlington enjoyed a family day out at the resort (pictured with daughter Summer, who she shares with ex Harry Needs)

Family: The Olympic swimmer was joined by her husband Andrew Parsons and son Albie

All aboard: Rebecca looked glam in a baby blue and black print dress

Loving life: Hayley got into the spirit of things with her son

For anyone wishing to extend the fun overnight, guests can choo-choo-choose one of the resort's exclusive Thomas & Friends rooms in the onsite four-star hotel.

The rooms are decked out with all things Thomas, from character-themed beds through to rail track carpets.

Visitors can immerse themselves in the magical surroundings for the evening  before waking up and refuelling for another day of fun and adventure in the resort.
Chloe Ferry showcased her jaw-dropping curves on Saturday as she stepped out for a stroll in sun-soaked Marbella.

The Geordie Shore star, 27, looked sensational in a white crochet bikini and beige mini skirt.

The racy number featured a triangle neckline and put her ample assets on full display.

She left her denim skirt with the button undone and pulled down her waist, flashing the matching bottoms underneath and showcasing her toned stomach.

Chloe paired the summer look with a pair of tasseled cowboy boots and toted a black Prada bag in her arm.

Wow! Chloe Ferry showcased her jaw-dropping curves on Saturday as she stepped out for a stroll in sun-soaked Marbella

Her long brunette tresses were clipped back into a high pony, with strands falling either side of her pretty face.

The bombshell  who is currently away with co-stars Abbie Holborn and Sophie Kasaei - shielded her eyes with a pair of oversized black sunglasses.

Chloe has been keeping fans in the loop about her antics by sharing an array of gorgeous snaps to her social media.

On Friday, Chloe left little to the imagination as she posed in a slew of snaps.

The Geordie Shore star took to Instagram to share some video clips that she posted to her stories, showcasing her incredible figure.

She put on an eye-popping display in a very low-cut, white string two-piece, which showed off her sensational figure.

Chloe styled the barely there swimwear with a pair of see-through white trousers and some tan open toe heels.

Her long brunette tresses were tied back into a high pony as she got ready for a day of partying with her girlfriends.

Fun! The Geordie Shore star, 27, looked sensational in a white crochet bikini and beige mini skirt

Daring: Chloe put on a busty display as she flashed her cleavage in the racy number

Wow! Chloe later appeared relaxed and at ease on her stroll

Gorgeous: She looked sensational in the barely-there top

Toned: The racy number featured a triangle neckline and put her ample assets on full display

Chic: She left her denim skirt with the button undone and pulled down her waist, flashing the matching bottoms underneath and showcasing her toned stomach

Stylish: Chloe paired the summer look with a pair of tasseled cowboy boots and toted a black Prada bag in her arm

Beauty: Her long brunette tresses were clipped back into a high pony, with strands falling either side of her pretty face

Hot: The bombshell  who is currently away with co-stars Abbie Holborn and Sophie Kasaei - shielded her eyes with a pair of oversized black sunglasses

Holiday: Chloe has been keeping fans in the loop about her antics by sharing an array of gorgeous snaps to her social media

Happy: Chloe appeared in good spirits as she headed out for the day

She accentuated her striking features with a high-glamour make-up palette as she struck a series of sultry poses.

Earlier in the week she turned heads again when she was spotted in a naked illusion dress, which showcased her tiny waist and sensational curves.

Chloe has made no secret of her love of surgery and previously admitted that she has spent in the realm of 50k to completely change her image, with work including three nose jobs, chin filler, Botox, two boob jobs and a Brazilian butt lift.

In 2016, the reality star sadly revealed that she found herself 'ugly' prior to her cosmetic procedures which she began at a tender age.

She said: 'I don't have any regrets. I feel like I look a lot better now. I don't like natural.

Girls just wanna have fun: Chloe is currently on holiday with her co-stars Abbie Holborn (pictured in black far left) and Sophie Kasaei (pictured in green second from the right)

Simply stunning: Chloe has previously admitted that she has spent in the realm of 50k to completely change her image

When I see before and after pictures I think I've changed so much...

'When I see pictures from when I first went to Geordie Shore, I think: "Woah. Was I that ugly?" I wasn't gorgeous!'

Despite her previous love of going under the needle, Chloe has been working hard at the gym and recently lost over two stone.

She told friends she finds it frustrating that people bring up her past surgeries saying: I have always been so honest about the surgeries. I was always very honest on my social media, but that was years ago now.
Turkey provided the exotic backdrop as heavily pregnant Ferne McCann enjoyed one final holiday before welcoming her second child later this year.

The reality TV personality, 32, showed off her growing baby bump in a vibrant red bikini while relaxing poolside with fiance Lorri Haines on Saturday.

Ferne, already a parent to Sunday, five, with jailed ex-partner Arthur Collins, looked relaxed as she shared a kiss with Lori - who affectionately stroked her bump.

Ferne's pretty two-piece featured frill detailing and gold accents, which she teame with a delicate chain necklace and stud earrings.

The First Time mum star wore her cropped locks loose and and showcased her natural beauty by going make-up free on their getaway.

Family: Turkey provided the exotic backdrop as heavily pregnant Ferne McCann and fiance Lori Haines enjoyed one final holiday before welcoming her second child later this year

Don't mind me: The reality TV personality showed off her growing baby bump in a vibrant red bikini while relaxing poolside with fiance Lori on Saturday

Smitten: The businessman showered Ferne with affection as she prepared for a dip in the pool

The businessman wore little more than black beach shorts and tinted sunglasses during what appeared to be intimate moment with the former TOWIE star.

The couple have jetted off to picturesque Antalya, Turkey's fifth most populous city, on the Mediterranean coast before the birth of their first child as a couple over the summer.

They couldn't keep their hands off of each other as they kicked back by the hotel pool, with Lori leaning over to caress her stomach.

Her sun-soaked holiday comes after Ferne spoke to MailOnline about her plans for her upcoming nuptials to Lorri.

She revealed her plans for an 'intimate' wedding now that her 'circle is very small' and says her bridal look will be 'laid-back'.

In an exclusive interview to celebrate the launch of her new wellness app Shoorah, Ferne said: 'My vision for my wedding has definitely changed over the years.

'I would have previously said that I want a big wedding with everyone there, but my circle is very small now and I want something intimate and beautiful, definitely abroad, friends and family.

'I know people say this all the time, but you want to look back and say everyone there are still in our lives.'

Beach babe: Ferne's pretty two-piece featured frill detailing and gold accents, which she teame with a delicate chain necklace and stud earrings

Glowing: The First Time mum star wore her cropped locks loose and and showcased her natural beauty by going make-up free on their getaway

Sweet: They couldn't keep their hands off of each other as they kicked back by the hotel pool, with Lori leaning over to caress her stomach

Playful: Ferne ran her hands through Lorri's locks

Baby mama! Ferne's new baby will be her second child

Ferne's 'circle' has decreased in recent years after she fell out with former close friends Sam and Billie Faiers.

The pregnant star is no longer on speaking terms with her ex-TOWIE cast mates after a widely publicised scandal left their friendship in tatters.

Now, as she sees her wedding as an intimate gathering, Ferne is also fantasising over her dress and overall look for the big day.

She said: 'Recently I have been saying to Lorri that I want to get married. The wedding plans they didn't go on pause because we never started. We don't have a date.

'I want to have the baby but with Sofia Richie's wedding and Jamie Laing and Sophie Habboo there was so much wedding spam, and I was getting serious FOMO, I want to get married, I really want to get married.

Catching rays: Lorri lay back on his sunbed wearing an open blue shirt and shorts

Reaching out: Ferne and Lorri held each other as they strolled around the pool

Tactile: The couple packed on the PDA on their sunsoaked getaway

Chatting: Ferne perched on the edge while chatting to her beau

'I am thinking, 'what sort of bride am I going to be? What sort of wedding dress will I have?' I was obsessed with Sofia Richie's wedding!'

'I'm thinking no shoes because when I do wear heels, I'm taller than Lorri no shoes, no bra, that sort of really laid-back, effortless look.'

Both in their 30s, Ferne said she bonded with Lorri over their 'failed relationships' and that they both share children of similar ages with previous partners.

Growing bump: Ferne was sporting her baby bump in the colourful swimwer

Laugh a minute! The couple looked to be having a lovely time together

Glowing: Ferne looked absolutely radiant on the sighting

Mwah! Ferne leaStned over to kiss her beau on the cheek

Holiday vibe: Ferne carried her phone and some other belongings in her hand

Cooling off: Lorri stayed cool by jumping in the swimming pool

It comes after Ferne revealed she wants the birth to her second child to appear in her ITVBe reality show, but she's struggling to convince Lorri.

Ferne also revealed she is hoping to give birth at home.

Speaking to pal Vicky Pattison on her The Secret To podcast, Ferne, who is also mother to daughter Sunday, five, admitted she wants the birth of her second child to be a 'positive' experience, and envisions the idea of 'pulling her baby out.'

She said: 'I so desperately want it [her childs birth] to be on the show. But we were sort of warming him [Lorri] up. I want it to be on the show.

'Because I've got this birth plan in my head, and I want a home birth and I want it to be positive. And I want everyone to see me like, pull the baby out.

'I've just got this vision and he's just like, No, that's just weird, but I'm like, It's beautiful and it's amazing! []

'Reality stars get a bit of a bad name, but I saw that Ronaldo and his Mrs were doing a reality show. Everyones doing it, so just go for it!'

Protective: Ferne rested her hand on her bump

Cute! The couple gazed adoringly at each other

Kicking back: Lorri looked utterly relaxed on the trip

Family: It is possibly Ferne and Lorri's last trip before their new baby

Sweet: Lorri leaned over to kiss Ferne on the cheek

Baby: He held his hands on her stomach

Vicky then added: 'Its because we're all so nosy, isn't it?

'Like, I love to see what everybody's getting up to! I would absolutely watch the birth of your child as long as it's not the business end. I don't want to see your f**** man.'

Ferne, who got engaged to Lorri in July 2022, admitted their relationship feels 'right' after they both bonded over their 'trauma'.

She told Vicky: 'Whoever would have taken me to be honest, babes! No, I feel so happy that it's him. It feels like when I met him, it just felt so right.

'And without doing all this sort of cringy s***, but it really did feel like we were meant to meet each other at that time because he was in our 30s.

'He's got a child. I've got a child. We bonded over our trauma. Like we literally like laid everything on the table. I was like, here's all my s***. And he had the same and yeah, it's worked out.'

Slicked back: Ferne pulled her hair back into a ponytail

Cheeky! Beaming Ferne reached out and touched Lorri's face

Stylish: Ferne styled her look with a pair of suede Birkenstocks

Haha! Ferne couldn't wipe the smile off of her face

Looking good! Lorri carried a Christian Dior canvas bag

Getting sorted: Ferne was seen adjusting her straps

Loaded up: Ferne carried several items in her hands including water and a beach towel

Beach babe! Ferne looked amazing as she chilled by the pool
Sarah Harris has spoken out about the scandal enveloping The Project earlier this year after the program aired a controversial 'Jesus joke'.

The left-leaning current affairs program was under fire after gay comedian and cabaret performer Reuben Kaye joked that he admired Jesus Christ because 'I love any man who can get nailed for three days straight and come back for more'.

The Project host told The Matty Johns Podcast that the unfortunate incident, which was broadcast on the 28th of February, should never have taken place.

'During the scandal that we had on The Project, it was sad and it was scary, the joke should have never gone to air and it kind of took us all by surprise,' she said.

The 41-year-old added that while she was not standing behind the comments made by Kaye, she does worry about whether a limit is being placed on comedy.

Sarah Harris (pictured) spoke out about the scandal enveloping The Project earlier this year after the program aired a controversial 'Jesus joke'

'I'm not defending having the joke on the show, it was absolutely the wrong context and wrong forum for that,' Sarah said.

'But when we start talking about what you can and can't joke about, are we going to move onto blasphemy laws next? It's concerning for comedy as well.

'If we are going to say you can't joke about that - it's completely off limits - it's a really bizarre kind of time we find ourselves in.'

Sarah went on to say that she had to disable comments on her popular Instagram page as she was getting abuse and death threats, including aimed at her children.

It comes after the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) revealed that it received hundreds of complaints from the public after The Project's lewd 'Jesus joke' caused widespread outrage.

The left-leaning current affairs program was under fire after gay comedian and cabaret performer Reuben Kaye (pictured) joked that he admired Jesus Christ because 'I love any man who can get nailed for three days straight and come back for more'

Co-host Harris laughed at the joke, which went to air uncensored during the live broadcast

The backlash from Muslims and Christians was swift and brutal, forcing the show's presenters to issue a grovelling on-air apology as religious groups organise protests of Channel 10's headquarters.

A significant number of viewers have aired their grievances to ACMA in the wake of the controversy.

In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, the media watchdog confirmed: 'The ACMA has received 203 inquiries about an episode of The Project broadcast on Tuesday 28 February 2023 featuring the comedian Reuben Kaye.

'Under the broadcasting co-regulatory system, complainants are directed to the broadcaster in the first instance.

'If a complainant does not receive a response from the broadcaster within 60 days, or is not satisfied with the response they do receive, they may refer their complaint to the ACMA for consideration.'

'During the scandal that we had on The Project, it was sad and it was scary, the joke should have never gone to air and it kind of took us all by surprise' she said

It comes after a former panellist on The Project has sensationally claimed a guest's controversial Jesus joke was 'script-approved' by the show's producers - despite the hosts saying it was a 'live TV' gaffe that could not have been predicted.

Co-host Harris laughed at the joke, which went to air uncensored during the live broadcast, but her Muslim colleague Waleed Aly looked shocked.

An insider at The Project claimed Channel 10's flagship talk show was being trashed by sloppy production values and editorial standards.

The 'Jesus' joke disaster would have been easily avoided in previous years, the source told Daily Mail Australia.

The informant said The Project used to pre-record 90 per cent of all interviews with potentially controversial performers such as Kaye, for the simple reason they could edit out anything offensive.

The hosts were quick to issue an apology the following day but their gesture left viewers unmoved with calls continuing to grow for the show to be cancelled. Pictured left: Waleed Aly

And on the occasion an 'edgy' guest wasn't available for a pre-record, the hosts would be meticulously briefed, allowing them to 'neutralise any situations like that, intervene if necessary and apologise if needed not laugh like Sarah Harris or sit stony-faced like Waleed'.

The hosts were quick to issue an apology the following day but their gesture left viewers unmoved with calls continuing to grow for the show to be cancelled.

The insider said they 'can't understand' why Reuben Kaye's interview wasn't pre-recorded when it was an obvious 'red flag interview'.

'In the few cases [before] an interview like that would be done live, the hosts would normally be well primed beforehand.

'If the interview was done live because that was only time [Kaye] was available, why weren't Harris and Aly more prepared?

'It's yet another sign of the slipping professionalism on the show, the declining standards of Ten, sloppiness and, frankly, their general slack approach.'
Geri Horner joined David Harbour and Orlando Bloom at the F1 Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday.

The former Spice Girl's star, 50, dressed head to toe in a belted white dress, which she wore elegantly with some open toe espadrilles.

While she threw on a pair of her iconic oversized styled sunglasses, the diva left her fiery red tresses open.

She accessorised with a simple beaded necklace as she posed with her Gran Turismo co-stars.

This outing comes after the pop star graced the Photocall red carpet at Cannes for the new movie she's debuted in, which follows the true story of a young video game prodigy who turned into a real race car driver.

Keeping it trendy: Geri Horner joined David Harbour and Orlando Bloom at the F1 Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday

Pose for the cameras: The former Spice Girl's star, 50, dressed head to toe in a belted white dress, which she wore elegantly with some open toe espadrilles

Geri, who is married to Formula One boss Christian Horner, was seen sporting her trademark white clothes - comprising tight trousers and a sleeveless blouse as she walked the Cannes red carpet.

According to The Sun, Geri will play the British racers mum, Lesley, while Orlando stars as a motorsport marketing executive, Danny Moore.

Meanwhile, Geri's husband Christian recently hit back at suggestions that he only married her because she was a Spice Girl.

Speaking to The Telegraph he said that life sometimes 'works in mysterious ways.'

He said: 'I didn't marry Geri because she's a Spice Girl. We're very different characters but we complement each other well. I married her because I fell in love with her.

'It will be 10 years this time next year and we've been happily married for seven. Geri is a force of nature.'

While Christian is used to being in the limelight with the success on the track of F1, he was shocked when the Spice Girl's announced their reunion tour back in 2019.

He continued: 'Wow, it blew my mind. Suddenly you realise the power of that brand. They sold out 13 stadiums in five minutes, and that included three nights at Wembley  they could have done another two nights, easy.'

Spicing up our screens: Geri will play the British racers mum, Lesley, while Orlando stars as a motorsport marketing executive, Danny Moore

Famous friends: Geri walked arm-in-arm with Austrian former professional racing driver and current advisor to the Red Bull GmbH Formula One teams, Helmut Marko, 80

Keeping it casual: Helmut wore a white shirt and a pair of blue denim jeans as he walked alongside Spice Girl Geri

Loving Husband: Geri's husband Christian recently hit back at suggestions that he only married her because she was a Spice Girl (Pictured in February 2023 at the Baftas)

Discussing: Archie Madekwe, Tom Holland and David Harbour talk during the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco at Circuit de Monaco

Conversations were flowing: Archie Madekwe, Tom Holland, David Harbour and Orlando Bloom talk in the Paddock

Posing: David Harbour poses for a photo next to the car of Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing in the garage
Love Island bosses have reportedly signed up a hunky French model ahead of this year's summer series.

With just a week to go until the ITV2 reality show's June 5 return, Mehdi Edno, 26, has allegedly been lined up to join the islanders.

It's claimed producers are hoping the dashing Frenchman will be the next Davide Sancliment, after the Italian Stallion won the last series with Ekin-Su Culculoglu.

Mehdi is said to be 'the definition of tall, dark and handsome' and he certainly isn't shy about flaunting his looks on social media.

In addition to posting brooding selfies to his 200 followers, the jet-setting European often shares snaps from his adventure-seeking, far-flung getaways.

Bonjour! Love Island bosses have reportedly signed up a hunky French model ahead of this year's summer series

Ooh la la: With just a week to go until the ITV2 reality show's June 5 return, Mehdi Edno, 26, has allegedly been lined up to join the islanders

Jet-set! Mehdi is said to be 'the definition of tall, dark and handsome' and regularly shares snaps from his adventure-seeking, far-flung getaways to his Instagram

An insider told The Sun: 'Mehdi is the definition of tall, dark and handsome and will be a lot of the girls' type on paper.

'His smouldering stare and French accent are going to make him one of the most in demand boys in the villa.'

MailOnline has contacted Love Island for comment.

Just yesterday, it was reported that beauty clinic owner Jess Harding has been lined up for the reality show.

The blonde beauty, who owns Candy Aesthetics, is set to be one of 'the most glamorous islanders ever' according to a report.

The Londoner already boasts a whopping 25k followers on Instagram and regularly shares snaps of herself holidaying in sunny destinations such as Thailand and Dubai.

Body confident Jess - who earns her living injecting filler into faces - also isn't shy of showing off her figure, with her social media littered with jaw-dropping bikini shots.

Winning formula: It's claimed producers are hoping the dashing Frenchman will be the next Davide Sancliment, after the Italian Stallion won the last series with Ekin-Su Culculoglu

New islander? Love Island bosses have also reportedly signed up beauty clinic owner Jess Harding ahead of this year's summer series

Glam: The blonde beauty, who owns Candy Aesthetics, is set to be one of 'the most glamorous islanders ever' according to a report

The Londoner- who earns her living injecting filler into faces - already boasts a whopping 25k followers on Instagram and regularly shares snaps of herself holidaying in sunny destinations

A source told The Sun: 'Jess is one of the most glamorous islanders ever and is sure to be a big hit with the boys and viewers.

'She's a real head-turner and has the personality to go with it.'

Love Island declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline.

The rumours of Jess heading to the villa come just over a week after Love Island bosses reportedly signed up a stunning panto actress

Molly Marsh, 24, is also said to be in final talks to jet out to Mallorca.

The Yorkshire-native already boasts a whopping 26k followers on Instagram and her mum Janet has enjoyed roles in a string of British soaps.

She's thought to have caught the producers' eyes after taking a tour of the winter villa in January.

Her grid on the photosharing platform is littered with snaps from her trip to the South African mansion, including in the beach hut and fire pit.

Gorgeous: It comes after Love Island bosses reportedly signed up a stunning panto actress ahead of this year's summer series

New recruit: With just weeks to go until the ITV2 reality show's June 5 return, Molly Marsh is allegedly in final talks to jet out to Mallorca

A source told The Sun: 'Molly was scouted after visiting the villa in South Africa earlier this year. She was on the tour as an invited guest when she caught the eyes of producers.

'Molly made it clear she would love to be a part of Love Island and she was told to audition. After going through the process, she's now a shoo-in to fly to Mallorca later this month.

'She is a star on the rise and comes from a showbiz family  her mum Janet even had small roles on Coronation Street and Still Open All Hours. Molly has made it clear she's got what it takes to make a bang and ITV love her.'

It's believed Molly has bagged roles in national tours of Oliver! and Sleeping Beauty before trying her luck on the small screen.

The insider went on to tell how thousands of hopefuls have now been shortlisted to 25, with the final cut set to be announced in just days.

A source told MailOnline: 'She's in the mix, but not confirmed yet.'

It was recently revealed that Love Island will return to screens on June 5.

Presenter Maya Jama will be back as the host following her huge success on the winter version of the show, which saw Sanam Harrinanan and Kai Fagan crowned the winners.

Wow! The Yorkshire-native, 24, already boasts a whopping 26k followers on Instagram and her mum Janet has enjoyed roles in a string of British soaps

Been there, done that! She's thought to have caught the producers' eyes after taking a tour of the winter villa in January

Hot stuff: Her grid on the photosharing platform is littered with snaps from her trip to the South African mansion, including in the beach hut and fire pit

The summer version will see a new host of singletons travel to Majorca and stay in a luxurious villa for two months.

Maya took over from Laura Whitmore to present series nine of the reality show.

A TV source told The Sun: 'ITV have already lined up the islanders who will be heading to the show's villa in Majorca.

'The cast will fly out late next month ready for the show to begin in just eight weeks.'

They continued: 'Maya [Jama] is chomping at the bit to get to work on this series too. Having her on board has given Love Island a real boost and it's expected that ratings will soar.'

According to the source the series is set to last eight weeks, meaning the finale will be taking place in early August.

However, a second source claimed: 'This is speculation as no dates have been confirmed at this point.'

Love Island currently airs twice a year on ITV2 and they are also preparing to air a middle-aged version of the show - dubbed The Romance Retreat.
Bruno Tonioli took a swipe at his former Strictly Come Dancing co-stars, during Saturday night's instalment of BGT.

The new Britain's Got Talent judge, 67, who switched the BBC ballroom show for the ITV competition, praised his new colleagues: Simon Cowell, Alesha Dixon and Amanda Holden.

But in doing so, he somewhat dismissed his former Strictly co-stars - including Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood and Motsi Mabuse as lesser-than.

Bruno told the BGT audience: 'They say you're only as good as the people you work with, and these people are the best.'

Previously, when asked whether BGT was bigger than Strictly, the sassy star replied: 'This is the biggest show on TV  I mean it, it is now that I'm here!'

Yikes: Bruno Tonioli, 67, took a swipe at his former Strictly Come Dancing co-stars, during Saturday night's instalment of Britain's Got Talent

Yikes: He somewhat dismissed his former Strictly co-stars - including Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood and Motsi Mabuse as lesser-than

Oh! Bruno told the BGT audience: 'They say you're only as good as the people you work with, and these people are the best' of Simon Cowell, Alesha Dixon and Amanda Holden

'This is the biggest show on British TV, now that I'm here,' he told press after his debut, but added that Strictly had 'changed his life'.

Bruno starred on Strictly Come Dancing from 2004 until 2019, Anton Du Beke stepped in for him as a judge during the COVID-19 pandemic before replacing him permanently in 2022.

He then replaced former BGT panellist David Walliams, 51, on the panel this series after the comedian made sexual remarks towards contestants last year, for which he apologised before stepping down from the show.

Bruno's latest remarks come just a month after Simon Cowell, 63, branded Strictly Come Dancing 'boring' as he discussed Bruno's appearance on the BGT judging panel.

The music mogul said that he felt his new fellow judge was having a much better time on their show because of the format.

Comparing Britain's Got Talent to the celebrity dancing competition show, he said: 'When youre doing Strictly, all youve got is a bat or something, right? Thats boring.

'This is a punctuation mark, which is the red buzzer. He was like a kid having these things to press while he was judging. I think he found that having those, the whole process was easier.

Former co-stars: Bruno starred on Strictly Come Dancing from 2004 until 2019, Anton Du Beke stepped in for him during the COVID-19 era before replacing him permanently in 2022

New colleagues: Bruno replaced David Walliams on the ITV reality show, and now judges alongside Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon

'I reckon he probably wished he had a red buzzer on Strictly. Theres a few celebrities he would have liked to have buzzed off, I bet.'

Bruno has previously joked that he got carried away when filming began for BGT because of the golden buzzer, which sends an act straight through to the live shows.

Each year judges Simon, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and Bruno get a golden buzzer, and the same goes for presenters Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, and they can press it when they are impressed by a specific act
Jordyn Woods looked thinner than ever in a series of new photos of herself rocking a black figure-hugging midi dress with semi-sheer sleeves while vacationing in Dubai.

While sharing a glimpse of her dreamy getaway with her 12.4 Instagram followers on Sunday, the 25-year-old model radiated beauty as she posed for a few striking shots by a pool in the Middle Eastern city, located in the United Arab Emirates.

She accessorized her timeless ensemble with a pair of massive silver statement earrings and her dark locks in an intricate updo.

'Across the world with @woodsbyjordyn,' she captioned the slideshow from her trip, which was filled with days spent enjoying the sunrise, morning workouts and riding camels with her boyfriend, Karl-Anthony Towns.

In one image, the Life of Kylie alum shot the camera a smoldering stare as she stood to the side and showcased her perky derriere.

Looking good! Jordyn Woods looked thinner than ever in a series of new photos of herself rocking a black figure-hugging midi dress with semi-sheer sleeves while vacationing in Dubai

Glamorous: While sharing a glimpse of her dreamy getaway with her 12.4 Instagram followers on Sunday, the 25-year-old model radiated beauty as she posed for a few striking shots by a pool in the Middle Eastern city, located in the United Arab Emirates

Her post comes just weeks after sparking rumors that she allegedly used Ozempic to slim down.

Under a series of snaps of her rocking a yellow minidress, earlier this month, the comment section was plagued with accusations that she was using the injectable prescription medicine, which has become commonly used for weight loss in Hollywood.

While she did not respond to the claims, Woods' longtime beau previously shut down plastic surgery rumors.

'Are we saying that women cant work hard and transform their bodies?? Ive SEEN the hard work and Ive seen the results and trust me, this is all natural,' he said of his partner back in 2021.

He continued: 'Since she was 10 years old, people been calling this woman vile things because of her weight and instead of letting the Internet run her life, she went out the put the damn work in and changed her whole life. FITNESS SAVED HER LIFE!'

Back in 2018, Woods revealed she had become 'addicted' to the gym and had a 'love-hate relationship with cardio' as well as weights and squats.

'Just staying consistent and doing something everyday whether it's walking, jogging, squats, weights at home or going to the gym. I feel like a little bit of something every day is very helpful,' she told E! News of how she maintains her toned physique.

As for why she documents her personal training sessions on social media, the star said she wanted to encourage others 'to get up and do something.'

Elegant: She accessorized her timeless ensemble with a pair of massive silver statement earrings and her dark locks in an intricate updo

'Across the world with @woodsbyjordyn,' she captioned the slideshow from her trip, which was filled with days spent enjoying the sunrise, morning workouts and riding camels with her boyfriend, Karl-Anthony Towns

The Trigger actress noted that watching her loved ones and 'people on Instagram' doing 'something they love to do' also motivates her.

Woods was infamously shunned from the Kardashian-Jenner clan after kissing Khloe Kardashian's then-boyfriend, Tristan Thompson, at a party in 2019.

The scandal meant the end of Jordyn's years-long friendship with the family, and drove a wedge between herself and former best friend, Kylie Jenner.

Red hot: Woods shared a mirror selfie in a bikini to her Instagram Story on Sunday

Adventurous: The beauty smiled as she wandered around sand dunes with her boyfriend

Gorgeous: The bombshell showcased her stunning natural beauty while rocking minimal makeup

Sun-kissed: The former reality star also posed on her balcony, at one point

In the aftermath, the social media influencer appeared on an episode of Jada Pinkett Smith's Facebook Watch series, Red Table Talk, and addressed the scandal, denying that 'anything intimate' happened with Thompson, other than resting her legs on his.

'Never once was I giving him a lap dance, making out with him, sitting all over him. It's just  we're all together. We're in a group. Never once did we leave the public area [and] go to a bedroom [or] a bathroom.'

However, she admitted that Thompson kissed her as she was leaving the party: '[There was] no passion, no nothing. He just kissed me  it was a kiss on the lips. No tongue  no making out.'

At the time, Kardashian, 38, publicly called Woods out on Twitter after the model shared her side of the story and said she wasn't the reason that Khloe and Tristan broke up.

'Why are you lying @jordynwoods??' Khloe tweeted at the time. 'If you're going to try and save yourself by going public, INSTEAD OF CALLING ME PRIVATELY TO APOLOGIZE FIRST, at least be HONEST about your story. BTW, You ARE the reason my family broke up!'
Britain's Got Talent judge Bruno Tonioli has hit out at the snowflakes who think that fellow judges Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon show too much boob.

Amanda, 52, got a record 663 Ofcom complaints after wearing a revealing dress on the show in 2017 and has continued to wear spectacular outfits on the show year after year.

New judge Bruno said: 'Why should you complain because it is a beautiful woman wearing a dress?

'I would say, "Please, show more!" I dont understand how backwards we have become. A beautiful woman in a beautiful dress  whats wrong with that? How can that be offensive. I do not understand.

'We are going back 50 years! It is utter nonsense! I will get my pecs out in solidarity. It is snowflakes.

Defiant: Britain's Got Talent judge Bruno Tonioli has hit out at the snowflakes who think that fellow judges Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon show too much boob

Unimpressed: Bruno exclaimed: 'I would say, "Please, show more!" I dont understand how backwards we have become. A beautiful woman in a beautiful dress  whats wrong with that?'

'These two girls are so beautiful, so glamorous and so well-dressed. I will have to wear something which is just as low cut. I do love a bit of sparkle, but I cant compete.

'I will have to be unbuttoned to the navel to compete with Amanda!'

Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda's revealing outfit received more complaints than any other television moment in 2017, according to Ofcom.

The June 1 episode - in which the ITV star wore a daring dress, slashed to the navel - attracted some 663 complaints as of September that year, the watchdog said.

Amanda wore the controversial 11,250 dress by Julien Macdonald, after admitting days earlier that she was seeking complaints, as she joked: 'Will people be complaining to Ofcom? I hope so, I really do.'

A year earlier the Britain's Got Talent final saw 90 complaints regarding Alesha and Amanda's dress choices sent to Ofcom  and 200 sent to ITV, although the regulator deemed them both 'suitable' for the show.

Bruno was speaking to promote the live finals of the show which start this week, and said that he felt as if he had completely settled in to the job after completing his first season in the role.

He was formerly a judge on Strictly Come Dancing alongside Len Goodman, who died last month.

Daring: Amanda, 52, got a record 663 Ofcom complaints after wearing a revealing dress on the show in 2017 and has continued to wear spectacular outfits on the show year after year (pictured in 2019)

He said this week that he is mourning both Len Goodman, his co-judge on Strictly Come Dancing and its US version Dancing With The Stars and the singing icon Tina Turner, a long-time friend whose 50th birthday party he attended.

Bruno said: Len was a very big loss. I couldnt speak about it for a few days. We have been so close for a long time. I dont think I could have done those shows with out him.

'He would have said to me, "Bruno, stop going on about it, have a drink and dont waste a day."

Of Tina he said: 'How hard that woman worked. She was fabulous. She had the most positive attitude.'
Love Island star Maura Higgins was reportedly left 'shaken up' after a terrifying raid by masked men at her Essex home.

Sources close to the influencer, 32, told The Sun she is upping security at her home after three masked men ripped down one of the gates at her complex and attempted to steal vehicles.

The insider said: 'Neighbours caught it all on CCTV and it was chilling to see three masked men ram through the gates and start trying to break into cars.

'Maura has lived in her gated community for three years and said she no longer feels safe.

'There are a number of high- profile names in that complex and living in that area. It is worrying for everyone, including Maura.

Scary: Love Island star Maura Higgins was reportedly left 'shaken up' after a terrifying raid by masked men at her Essex home

They added: 'Maura is upping security on her car and at her home.'

MailOnline has contacted Maura's representatives for comment.

It comes after Maura was pictured leaving a night out over the weekend with a hunky new man after partying at Marylebone's Chiltern Firehouse.

The reality star was spotted with Chris Hemsworth 's stunt double Bobby Holland Hanton as they headed home after the night out.

The glamorous reality personality was seen getting into a taxi with Bobby and heading off to a new location.

According to his website, Bobby has performed as a stunt double in 50 full feature films, working closely with Chris Hemsworth as his stunt double for 10 years.

He has also worked on films with Tom Cruise, Christian Bale, Harrison Ford, Robert Downey Jr, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Charlize Theron, Johnny Depp, and Leonardo di Caprio.

Bobby began his career as a gymnast and competed as a National Squad Member and National Gold Medalist.

Awful: Sources close to the influencer, 32, told The Sun she is upping security at her home after three masked men ripped down one of the gates at her complex and attempted to steal vehicles

In February, Maura appeared to have set her sights on a new man as she had been seen cosying up to an American toyboy while on holiday in Mexico .

She was seen looking loved-up alongside 24-year-old Yisroel Solomon during a recent holiday to Tulum.

Yisroel, from Los Angeles , is based in New York City and works as a transfers manager.

He is also a licensed real estate agent and has a degree in marketing, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He attended the private YULA Boys High School in Los Angeles where tuition costs $39,000 per year.

The pair posed for an Instagram snap while in Mexico where Yisroel was seen giving Maura a kiss on the cheek as they wrapped their arms around each other.

It comes after the Irish beauty was pictured enjoying a very amorous moment with Joey Essex at the Pride Of Britain Awards in October.

In January, Joey, 32, finally broken on his silence on their passionate clinch.

Speaking to heat magazine, the reality star seemed to get himself in trouble with his PR when he began to open up about the moment.

Asked what had happened with the Love Island star, Joey confessed: 'I don't know! I can't even remember.'

Hotting up? The Love Island star was spotted with Chris Hemsworth's stunt double Bobby Holland Hanton as they headed home after the night out

He added: 'I mean all I remember is her tongue being down my throat to be honest!' at which point heat notes that his PR jumps in to wrap up the chat.

During the glitzy Pride Of Britain event, Joey and Maura were seen getting close as they caught up at the Red Bar in London's Grosvenor House.

An excited Maura could be seen smiling with her eyes closed as she leaned her head close to Joey's, while Joey was also seen edging closer to the beauty.

Maura later joked about the encounter by licking pal Krystal Dawn's face, and teasing: 'It's how I greet people!'
It is two weeks since an emotional Kate Winslet won the Leading Actress Bafta for her role in harrowing drama I Am Ruth.

Accepting the award for the feature-length Channel 4 film about the perils of social media, she tearfully described to the audience at London's Royal Festival Hall the importance of highlighting the 'painful stories that really do happen to women'.

But within days of her award triumph  where the show also won Best Single Drama  it was back to work for the 47-year-old star, filming a rather different kind of female-led story.

These pictures, taken ten days ago on location for the much-anticipated HBO series The Regime, are the first to show Winslet as Madam Chancellor, the icy leader of a fictional modern European nation.

Kate Winslet is seen getting back to work on her latest TV drama, The Regime after her TV BAFTA win for her performance in I AM RUTH

Accepting the award for the feature-length Channel 4 film about the perils of social media, she tearfully described to the audience at London's Royal Festival Hall the importance of highlighting the 'painful stories that really do happen to women'

Dressed in a navy jacket, wide-legged trousers and black boots, the Reading-born actress chatted on her phone between takes, her hair dyed white-blonde and pinned up in a 1940s style.

She also wore a necklace featuring the letter 'E'. It is not clear whether this was part of her costume or a tribute to her husband of 11 years, Edward Abel Smith.

The filming site, Overton Mill in Hampshire, is a former banknote paper mill which closed last year.

The star was also seen being driven around in a Rolls-Royce  used as the Chancellor's 'official car', complete with red and blue flags of the fictional state.

The six-part series, created by writer- producer Will Tracy, one of the masterminds behind critically acclaimed series Succession, depicts a year within the palace of a crumbling authoritarian regime.

Winslet's, foul-mouthed Chancellor battles to control her people and prove herself as a credible leader to foreign allies. It also stars Andrea Riseborough, Martha Plimpton and Hugh Grant.
Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed their outperform rating on shares of Coats Group (LON:COA  Get Rating) in a report released on Wednesday morning, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has a GBX 110 ($1.37) target price on the stock.

Several other equities analysts have also weighed in on the company. Barclays cut their target price on Coats Group from GBX 105 ($1.31) to GBX 90 ($1.12) and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, May 22nd. Jefferies Financial Group reissued a buy rating and set a GBX 102 ($1.27) price objective on shares of Coats Group in a research note on Thursday, March 23rd. Finally, Berenberg Bank upped their target price on shares of Coats Group from GBX 90 ($1.12) to GBX 100 ($1.24) and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, March 10th.

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Coats Group Stock Down 2.2 %

Shares of LON COA opened at GBX 68 ($0.85) on Wednesday. The firms 50-day moving average is GBX 73.94 and its 200-day moving average is GBX 71.61. The company has a current ratio of 1.75, a quick ratio of 1.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 96.12. Coats Group has a 1 year low of GBX 50.30 ($0.63) and a 1 year high of GBX 80.60 ($1.00). The firm has a market capitalization of 1.09 billion, a PE ratio of 1,700.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.92 and a beta of 1.39.

Coats Group Increases Dividend

Insider Activity at Coats Group

The business also recently disclosed a dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 25th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 27th were given a dividend of $0.02 per share. This is an increase from Coats Groups previous dividend of $0.01. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 27th. This represents a dividend yield of 1.94%. Coats Groups dividend payout ratio is currently 5,000.00%.

In other news, insider Jackie Callaway bought 63,773 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 9th. The stock was purchased at an average price of GBX 78 ($0.97) per share, for a total transaction of 49,742.94 ($61,869.33). 1.90% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Coats Group Company Profile

(Get Rating)

Coats Group plc, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and supplies industrial threads worldwide. The company provides apparel and footwear, and accessories threads for sport/athleisure, denim, women wear, menswear, children's wear, leather wear, workwear, footwear, and intimates and underwear under Epic, Dual Duty, Seamsoft, Nylbond, Gral, Gramax, Astra, Sylko, Knit, EcoVerde, Eloflex, and Drybond brands; zips, trims, and crafting's for use in zips, interlinings, reflective tapes, and crafting products under Opti, Signal, and Connect brands; and software solutions that enables supply chain productivity gains and enhances supply and facilitating compliance under Coats Digital, FastReactPlan, VisionPLM, GSDCost, Intellocut, and Intellobuy.

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Jonestrading set a C$9.00 target price on Oncolytics Biotech (TSE:ONC  Get Rating) in a research note released on Wednesday, BayStreet.CA reports. The firm currently has a buy rating on the stock.

Several other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on ONC. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an overweight rating and issued a C$9.00 target price on shares of Oncolytics Biotech in a research report on Monday, March 6th. HC Wainwright reissued a buy rating on shares of Oncolytics Biotech in a report on Tuesday, March 14th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Buy and an average price target of C$6.75.

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Oncolytics Biotech Trading Down 19.5 %

Shares of ONC stock opened at C$2.36 on Wednesday. The businesss 50 day moving average is C$1.89 and its two-hundred day moving average is C$2.11. Oncolytics Biotech has a twelve month low of C$1.06 and a twelve month high of C$3.10. The company has a market capitalization of C$151.25 million, a P/E ratio of -5.62 and a beta of 1.79. The company has a current ratio of 13.88, a quick ratio of 8.86 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.20.

Oncolytics Biotech Company Profile

Oncolytics Biotech ( TSE:ONC Get Rating ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, March 3rd. The company reported C($0.14) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of C($0.07) by C($0.07). Equities analysts forecast that Oncolytics Biotech will post -0.41 EPS for the current year.

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Oncolytics Biotech Inc, a development-stage biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery and development of pharmaceutical products for the treatment of cancer. Its lead product is pelareorep, an intravenously delivered immunotherapeutic agent for the treatment of solid tumors and hematological malignancies.

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HSBC cut shares of Orient Overseas (International) (OTCMKTS:OROVF  Get Rating) from a hold rating to a reduce rating in a research report released on Thursday morning, The Fly reports.

Orient Overseas (International) Stock Up 306.8 %

OTCMKTS:OROVF opened at $13.07 on Thursday. Orient Overseas has a fifty-two week low of $13.07 and a fifty-two week high of $36.59. The firms 50 day moving average is $18.81 and its two-hundred day moving average is $17.73.

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About Orient Overseas (International)

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Orient Overseas (International) Limited, an investment holding company, provides container transport and logistics services in Asia, Europe, Australia, North America, and internationally. The company offers supply-chain management and distribution services; and containerised shipping services in various trade lanes comprising Trans-Pacific, Trans-Atlantic, Asia/Europe, Asia/Australia, and Intra-Asia trades.

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Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO  Get Rating) (NYSE:BMO)  Research analysts at National Bank Financial dropped their Q3 2023 EPS estimates for Bank of Montreal in a report issued on Wednesday, May 24th. National Bank Financial analyst G. Dechaine now forecasts that the bank will post earnings of $2.89 per share for the quarter, down from their previous estimate of $3.25. The consensus estimate for Bank of Montreals current full-year earnings is $13.41 per share. National Bank Financial also issued estimates for Bank of Montreals Q4 2023 earnings at $3.03 EPS, FY2023 earnings at $12.07 EPS and FY2024 earnings at $12.74 EPS.

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A number of other equities analysts have also recently commented on the stock. Cormark decreased their target price on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$140.00 to C$131.00 in a research report on Thursday. Scotiabank dropped their target price on Bank of Montreal from C$151.00 to C$143.00 in a report on Thursday. Fundamental Research set a C$160.30 price target on Bank of Montreal and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 14th. CSFB dropped their price objective on Bank of Montreal from C$147.00 to C$139.00 in a research note on Tuesday, May 16th. Finally, Bank of America decreased their target price on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$134.00 to C$125.00 in a research note on Thursday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of C$137.06.

Bank of Montreal Stock Performance

Shares of BMO opened at C$114.74 on Friday. Bank of Montreal has a fifty-two week low of C$111.88 and a fifty-two week high of C$138.85. The firm has a market cap of C$80.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.74, a PEG ratio of 1.49 and a beta of 1.13. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of C$119.24 and a 200-day moving average price of C$125.69.

Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO  Get Rating) (NYSE:BMO) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, February 28th. The bank reported C$3.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of C$3.13 by C$0.09. Bank of Montreal had a return on equity of 21.06% and a net margin of 40.56%. The business had revenue of C$6.47 billion during the quarter.

Bank of Montreal Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, August 28th. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 28th will be given a dividend of $1.47 per share. This is an increase from Bank of Montreals previous quarterly dividend of $1.43. This represents a $5.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.12%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 27th. Bank of Montreals payout ratio is presently 28.61%.

About Bank of Montreal

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Bank of Montreal engages in the provision of diversified financial services primarily in North America. The company's personal banking products and services include checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages, personal loans, small business lending, cash management, and financial and investment advice services; and commercial banking products and services comprise business deposit accounts, commercial credit cards, business loans and commercial mortgages, cash management solutions, foreign exchange, specialized banking programs, treasury and payment solutions, and risk management products for small business and commercial banking customers.

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Commonwealth Bank of Australia (OTCMKTS:CMWAY  Get Rating) saw a significant decline in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 25,600 shares, a decline of 23.4% from the April 30th total of 33,400 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 67,300 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.4 days.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia Trading Up 1.3 %

CMWAY traded up $0.83 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $64.64. The companys stock had a trading volume of 31,885 shares, compared to its average volume of 37,957. The businesss 50-day moving average price is $65.74 and its 200-day moving average price is $69.38. Commonwealth Bank of Australia has a 12 month low of $58.14 and a 12 month high of $78.96.

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Commonwealth Bank of Australia Company Profile

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Commonwealth Bank of Australia engages in the provision of banking and financial services. It operates through the following segments: Retail Banking Services, Business Banking, Institutional Banking and Markets, New Zealand, Corporate Centre and Other, and Wealth Management. The Retail Banking Services segment provides home loan, consumer finance, and retail deposit products and servicing to all retail bank customers and non-relationship managed small business customers.

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Clearwater Paper (NYSE:CLW  Get Rating) was downgraded by investment analysts at StockNews.com from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report issued on Friday.

Several other research analysts have also issued reports on CLW. Royal Bank of Canada upgraded shares of Clearwater Paper from a sector perform rating to an outperform rating and raised their price target for the stock from $38.00 to $42.00 in a report on Monday, April 24th. TheStreet raised shares of Clearwater Paper from a c rating to a b- rating in a report on Wednesday, May 3rd.

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Clearwater Paper Trading Down 1.5 %

CLW stock opened at $31.38 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.95, a quick ratio of 0.84 and a current ratio of 2.14. The companys 50-day simple moving average is $33.01 and its 200 day simple moving average is $35.84. Clearwater Paper has a 52 week low of $29.92 and a 52 week high of $46.48. The company has a market capitalization of $530.82 million, a PE ratio of 10.03 and a beta of 0.80.

Insider Transactions at Clearwater Paper

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Clearwater Paper

In other Clearwater Paper news, CFO Michael John Murphy sold 5,041 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $38.33, for a total value of $193,221.53. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 60,355 shares in the company, valued at $2,313,407.15. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website . In other news, SVP Steve M. Bowden sold 2,964 shares of Clearwater Paper stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $38.34, for a total value of $113,639.76. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 51,636 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,979,724.24. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website . Also, CFO Michael John Murphy sold 5,041 shares of Clearwater Paper stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $38.33, for a total value of $193,221.53. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 60,355 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,313,407.15. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 19,318 shares of company stock valued at $674,294. 2.30% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in CLW. BlackRock Inc. lifted its holdings in Clearwater Paper by 0.3% in the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 2,717,282 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $76,165,000 after purchasing an additional 6,953 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in Clearwater Paper by 3.7% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,308,612 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $43,734,000 after acquiring an additional 46,557 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Clearwater Paper by 1.8% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 1,189,845 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $33,351,000 after buying an additional 20,592 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Clearwater Paper by 1.8% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 640,316 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $21,399,000 after buying an additional 11,233 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Millennium Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Clearwater Paper by 86.4% during the 2nd quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 398,762 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $13,410,000 after purchasing an additional 184,832 shares during the last quarter. 89.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Clearwater Paper Company Profile

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Clearwater Paper Corp. engages in the manufacturing and selling of private label tissue, paperboard, and pulp-based products. It operates through the Consumer Products and Pulp and Paperboard segments. The Consumer Products segment manufactures and sells a complete line of at-home tissue products. The Pulp and Paperboard segment produces and markets solid bleached sulfate paperboard for the high-end segment of the packaging industry and offers custom sheeting, slitting, and cutting of paperboard.

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Trio Petroleums (NYSEAMERICAN:TPET  Get Rating) quiet period is set to expire on Monday, May 29th. Trio Petroleum had issued 2,000,000 shares in its initial public offering on April 18th. The total size of the offering was $6,000,000 based on an initial share price of $3.00. During Trio Petroleums quiet period, insiders and any underwriters that worked on the IPO are prevented from issuing any research reports for the company because of SEC regulations. Following the expiration of the companys quiet period, its expected that the brokerages that served as underwriters on the stock will initiate research coverage on the company.

Trio Petroleum Price Performance

Shares of TPET stock opened at $1.47 on Friday. Trio Petroleum has a 52-week low of $1.41 and a 52-week high of $3.00.

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About Trio Petroleum

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Trio Petroleum Corp is an oil and gas exploration and development company focused on strategic, high growth energy projects principally in California. Trio Petroleum Corp is headquartered in Bakersfield, California.

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V.F. Co. (NYSE:VFC  Get Rating)  Seaport Res Ptn issued their Q1 2024 earnings per share estimates for shares of V.F. in a report issued on Wednesday, May 24th. Seaport Res Ptn analyst M. Kummetz anticipates that the textile maker will post earnings per share of ($0.24) for the quarter. The consensus estimate for V.F.s current full-year earnings is $2.12 per share.

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A number of other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. BTIG Research restated a neutral rating on shares of V.F. in a research note on Tuesday, February 7th. StockNews.com cut shares of V.F. from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Saturday, May 20th. Citigroup decreased their target price on shares of V.F. from $22.00 to $20.00 in a research report on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price target on shares of V.F. from $23.00 to $20.00 and set an underweight rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, February 8th. Finally, UBS Group decreased their price objective on V.F. from $24.00 to $22.00 in a report on Tuesday, May 9th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $28.42.

V.F. Stock Performance

Shares of VFC stock opened at $18.05 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $7.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 58.23, a PEG ratio of 1.48 and a beta of 1.44. V.F. has a 52-week low of $17.43 and a 52-week high of $51.40. The company has a quick ratio of 0.58, a current ratio of 1.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96. The companys 50 day moving average is $21.47 and its 200 day moving average is $25.93.

V.F. (NYSE:VFC  Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 23rd. The textile maker reported $0.17 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.14 by $0.03. V.F. had a net margin of 1.02% and a return on equity of 25.78%. The company had revenue of $2.74 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.72 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.45 earnings per share. The firms revenue for the quarter was down 3.0% compared to the same quarter last year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On V.F.

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. M&G Investment Management Ltd. grew its position in shares of V.F. by 33.7% during the 4th quarter. M&G Investment Management Ltd. now owns 2,833,728 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $79,344,000 after acquiring an additional 714,611 shares during the period. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC grew its position in shares of V.F. by 138.8% during the 3rd quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 65,650 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $1,964,000 after acquiring an additional 38,160 shares during the period. Arizona State Retirement System grew its position in shares of V.F. by 4.2% during the 4th quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 93,471 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $2,581,000 after acquiring an additional 3,748 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. grew its position in shares of V.F. by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 26,308,313 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $786,882,000 after acquiring an additional 336,122 shares during the period. Finally, Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank grew its position in shares of V.F. by 10.1% during the 3rd quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 89,200 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $2,668,000 after acquiring an additional 8,202 shares during the period. 96.89% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at V.F.

In related news, Director Carol L. Roberts acquired 7,109 shares of V.F. stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 15th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $21.07 per share, for a total transaction of $149,786.63. Following the purchase, the director now owns 7,109 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $149,786.63. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.90% of the companys stock.

V.F. Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, June 20th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 12th will be paid a dividend of $0.30 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 9th. This represents a $1.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 6.65%. V.F.s payout ratio is currently 387.10%.

V.F. Company Profile

(Get Rating)

VF Corp. designs, produces, procures, markets and distributes lifestyle apparel, footwear and related products. It operates through the following segments: Outdoor, Active, and Work. The Outdoor segment refers to authentic outdoor-based lifestyle brands including performance-based apparel, footwear, equipment, backpacks, luggage and accessories.

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Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (NYSE:BIP  Get Rating) (TSE:BIP.UN) has been assigned a consensus rating of Moderate Buy from the nine analysts that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, one has issued a hold recommendation and six have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $43.75.

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on BIP shares. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and set a $47.00 price target on shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners in a research report on Thursday, April 13th. National Bankshares raised their price target on shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners from $38.00 to $39.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research report on Friday, May 5th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners from $40.00 to $41.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, April 13th. Finally, StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners in a research report on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a sell rating for the company.

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Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE BIP opened at $36.28 on Tuesday. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners has a fifty-two week low of $30.03 and a fifty-two week high of $43.62. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $34.76 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $34.44. The company has a market capitalization of $16.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 453.56 and a beta of 0.88.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Dividend Announcement

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners ( NYSE:BIP Get Rating ) (TSE:BIP.UN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 3rd. The utilities provider reported ($0.07) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.72 by ($0.79). The firm had revenue of $4.22 billion for the quarter. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners had a net margin of 1.67% and a return on equity of 1.00%. On average, analysts forecast that Brookfield Infrastructure Partners will post 3.07 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 30th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 31st will be given a dividend of $0.382 per share. This represents a $1.53 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.21%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, May 30th. Brookfield Infrastructure Partnerss payout ratio is 1,912.74%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Brookfield Infrastructure Partners

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Royal Bank of Canada grew its position in shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners by 0.7% during the 3rd quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 36,594,769 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $1,313,751,000 after acquiring an additional 236,682 shares during the period. 1832 Asset Management L.P. grew its position in shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners by 5.5% during the 1st quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. now owns 16,615,699 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $561,112,000 after acquiring an additional 865,468 shares during the period. TD Asset Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners by 1.9% during the 3rd quarter. TD Asset Management Inc. now owns 15,999,893 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $570,352,000 after acquiring an additional 291,999 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners by 1.4% during the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 14,635,188 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $494,230,000 after acquiring an additional 203,820 shares during the period. Finally, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company grew its position in shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners by 18.8% during the 4th quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 13,460,428 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $417,056,000 after acquiring an additional 2,134,502 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 57.81% of the companys stock.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners Company Profile

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Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP operates as an infrastructure company, which engages in the management of diversified portfolio of infrastructure assets that will generate sustainable and growing distributions over the long-term for unit holders. It operates through the following segments: Utilities, Transport, Midstream, and Data.

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Quadrant Capital Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of Oracle Co. (NYSE:ORCL  Get Rating) by 6.7% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 37,309 shares of the enterprise software providers stock after purchasing an additional 2,335 shares during the quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLCs holdings in Oracle were worth $3,050,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Clear Investment Research LLC bought a new position in shares of Oracle during the 4th quarter worth about $25,000. WFA of San Diego LLC bought a new position in shares of Oracle during the 4th quarter worth about $29,000. Trifecta Capital Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Oracle during the 4th quarter worth about $30,000. Mark Sheptoff Financial Planning LLC bought a new position in shares of Oracle during the 3rd quarter worth about $31,000. Finally, Adirondack Retirement Specialists Inc. bought a new position in shares of Oracle during the 3rd quarter worth about $37,000. 40.96% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Oracle Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ORCL opened at $104.08 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $281.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.35, a P/E/G ratio of 3.25 and a beta of 1.00. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $95.20 and a 200 day moving average price of $88.27. Oracle Co. has a 52-week low of $60.78 and a 52-week high of $106.23.

Oracle Increases Dividend

Oracle ( NYSE:ORCL Get Rating ) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 9th. The enterprise software provider reported $1.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.20 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $12.40 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $12.42 billion. Oracle had a net margin of 17.46% and a negative return on equity of 262.40%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 17.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.94 earnings per share. Analysts predict that Oracle Co. will post 4.01 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 24th. Investors of record on Tuesday, April 11th were issued a dividend of $0.40 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, April 10th. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.54%. This is a boost from Oracles previous quarterly dividend of $0.32. Oracles payout ratio is currently 52.81%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on ORCL. Piper Sandler reissued an overweight rating and set a $104.00 price target on shares of Oracle in a report on Friday, March 10th. KeyCorp lifted their price target on shares of Oracle from $98.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, April 20th. Evercore ISI lifted their price target on shares of Oracle from $87.00 to $95.00 in a report on Friday, March 10th. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Oracle from $81.00 to $85.00 in a report on Friday, March 10th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Oracle from $87.00 to $90.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Friday, March 24th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have assigned a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $95.46.

Insider Buying and Selling at Oracle

In other Oracle news, Director Jeffrey Berg sold 45,000 shares of Oracle stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.65, for a total value of $4,214,250.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 207,409 shares of the companys stock, valued at $19,423,852.85. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In other Oracle news, Director Jeffrey Berg sold 45,000 shares of Oracle stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.65, for a total value of $4,214,250.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 207,409 shares of the companys stock, valued at $19,423,852.85. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Safra Catz sold 1,837,101 shares of Oracle stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.86, for a total transaction of $172,430,299.86. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,118,592 shares in the company, valued at approximately $104,991,045.12. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 43.70% of the companys stock.

About Oracle

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Oracle Corp. engages in the provision of products and services that address all aspects of corporate information technology environments. It operates through the following business segments: Cloud and License, Hardware, and Services. The Cloud and License segment markets, sells, and delivers applications, platform, and infrastructure technologies.

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Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of Sherwin-Williams (NYSE:SHW  Get Rating) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report published on Wednesday morning, The Fly reports. The brokerage currently has $275.00 target price on the specialty chemicals companys stock, up from their previous target price of $240.00.

A number of other equities analysts also recently weighed in on the company. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price target on Sherwin-Williams from $260.00 to $265.00 in a research report on Thursday, April 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on Sherwin-Williams from $260.00 to $235.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 27th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Sherwin-Williams from $220.00 to $240.00 in a research report on Thursday, April 27th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price target on shares of Sherwin-Williams from $285.00 to $267.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 31st. Finally, Loop Capital increased their price objective on Sherwin-Williams from $260.00 to $285.00 in a report on Wednesday, April 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Sherwin-Williams currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $258.74.

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Sherwin-Williams Trading Up 1.2 %

SHW stock opened at $229.14 on Wednesday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $226.46 and a 200 day moving average price of $233.21. Sherwin-Williams has a fifty-two week low of $195.24 and a fifty-two week high of $278.31. The stock has a market capitalization of $59.09 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.12, a P/E/G ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 1.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.03, a current ratio of 1.00 and a quick ratio of 0.57.

Sherwin-Williams Dividend Announcement

Sherwin-Williams ( NYSE:SHW Get Rating ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 25th. The specialty chemicals company reported $2.04 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.84 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $5.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.14 billion. Sherwin-Williams had a return on equity of 86.29% and a net margin of 9.41%. The firms revenue was up 8.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.61 EPS. Analysts expect that Sherwin-Williams will post 8.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 2nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 19th will be paid a dividend of $0.605 per share. This represents a $2.42 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.06%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 18th. Sherwin-Williamss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 29.69%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Empower Advisory Group LLC acquired a new stake in Sherwin-Williams during the 1st quarter worth about $72,375,000. Arete Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Sherwin-Williams during the first quarter valued at $315,000. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Sherwin-Williams by 10.6% during the first quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,819,336 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $408,929,000 after acquiring an additional 174,384 shares during the period. American Trust increased its holdings in Sherwin-Williams by 11.1% in the first quarter. American Trust now owns 8,006 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $1,800,000 after purchasing an additional 802 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Trivant Custom Portfolio Group LLC bought a new stake in Sherwin-Williams in the first quarter valued at about $138,000. Institutional investors own 76.03% of the companys stock.

About Sherwin-Williams

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The Sherwin-Williams Co engages in the development, manufacture, distribution, and sale of paint and coatings. It operates through the following segments: America Group, Consumer Brands Group, and Performance Coating Group. The America Group segment manages the exclusive outlets for Sherwin-Williams branded paints, stains, supplies, equipment, and floor coverings.

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Walmart (NYSE:WMT  Get Rating) issued an update on its second quarter 2024 earnings guidance on Friday morning. The company provided earnings per share guidance of $1.63-$1.68 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of $1.71. The company issued revenue guidance of $157.44 billion-$157.44 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $158.21 billion. Walmart also updated its FY 2024 guidance to $6.10-$6.20 EPS.

Walmart Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of WMT traded up $0.26 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $146.42. 5,240,285 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,982,971. The company has a quick ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.71. Walmart has a 1 year low of $117.90 and a 1 year high of $154.64. The firm has a market capitalization of $394.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.20, a PEG ratio of 4.29 and a beta of 0.48. The businesss 50-day moving average price is $148.86 and its 200-day moving average price is $145.92.

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Walmart (NYSE:WMT  Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 18th. The retailer reported $1.47 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.32 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $152.30 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $147.91 billion. Walmart had a return on equity of 21.30% and a net margin of 1.82%. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.30 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Walmart will post 6.21 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Insider Buying and Selling

Several brokerages recently weighed in on WMT. Roth Capital reaffirmed a buy rating on shares of Walmart in a research note on Tuesday, February 14th. Telsey Advisory Group reissued an outperform rating and issued a $160.00 target price on shares of Walmart in a research note on Thursday, April 6th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on Walmart from $160.00 to $164.00 in a research note on Friday, May 19th. Gordon Haskett raised Walmart from an accumulate rating to a buy rating and increased their target price for the stock from $155.00 to $165.00 in a research note on Wednesday, April 19th. Finally, Cowen increased their target price on Walmart from $175.00 to $180.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 15th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Walmart presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $166.13.

In related news, EVP Daniel J. Bartlett sold 6,600 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $147.78, for a total transaction of $975,348.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 159,240 shares in the company, valued at $23,532,487.20. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other Walmart news, major shareholder Alice L. Walton sold 563,717 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $142.26, for a total transaction of $80,194,380.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 264,873,644 shares in the company, valued at approximately $37,680,924,595.44. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, EVP Daniel J. Bartlett sold 6,600 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $147.78, for a total value of $975,348.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 159,240 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $23,532,487.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 19,763,036 shares of company stock worth $2,801,006,374. 47.06% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Walmart

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. SkyView Investment Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Walmart during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $422,000. Harvest Portfolios Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Walmart in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $81,000. KB Financial Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Walmart in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $74,000. EWA LLC bought a new stake in shares of Walmart in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $208,000. Finally, Pacific Center for Financial Services bought a new stake in shares of Walmart in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $141,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 31.27% of the companys stock.

Walmart Company Profile

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Walmart, Inc engages in retail and wholesale business. The company offers an assortment of merchandise and services at everyday low prices. It operates through the following business segments: Walmart U.S., Walmart International, and Sams Club. The Walmart U.S. segment operates as a merchandiser of consumer products, operating under the Walmart, Wal-Mart, and Walmart Neighborhood Market brands, as well as walmart.com and other eCommerce brands.

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Published on: May 28, 2023 | Updated on: May 28, 2023

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla attend 'sarva dharma prarthana' (multi-faith prayer) ceremony (ANI)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla were among other Union Ministers and chief ministers of several states who attended a 'sarva dharma prarthana' (multi-faith prayer) ceremony held at the new Parliament building on Sunday.

PM Modi dedicated the new Parliament Building to the country today and installed the historic symbol Sengol, near the Lok Sabha Speaker's chair in the new building.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S Jaishankar and BJP president J P Nadda were present at the ceremony.

The ceremony began with a traditional 'pooja' with Vedic rituals which will continue for an hour. PM Modi performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke Gods to bless the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

The inauguration will take place in two phases.

The pooja was being held in a pandal (canopy) near the Gandhi statue in Parliament.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi carries the 'Sengol' in a procession before installing it in the Lok Sabha chamber at the inauguration of the new Parliament building. (PTI Photo)

NEW DELHI: Amidst the anticipation, even before Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his entry into the Lok Sabha hall of the new Parliament building on Sunday, the atmosphere was filled with the resounding claps and chants of "Modi, Modi" by members of the ruling NDA. The large screens inside the hall displayed his arrival at the entrance, further fueling the excitement.

As he entered the hall, the adulation and applause grew louder, accompanied by occasional slogans of "Bharat Mata ki Jai" and "Shivaji Maharaj ki Jai."

The enthusiasm continued until Prime Minister Modi, accompanied by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Harivansh, reached the dais, marking the formal commencement of the ceremony.

During his approach to the dais, PM Modi also acknowledged several dignitaries, including Supreme Court judges, former president Ram Nath Kovind, and former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda. Many BJP MPs were capturing the moment on their mobiles as he made his way to the dais.

Prior to the Prime Minister's arrival, several MPs and members of the audience, including Chief Ministers, were seen greeting home minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Some of them even took selfies with the influential BJP leaders. Additionally, many individuals approached veteran party leader Murli Manohar Joshi and former Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to exchange greetings.

The Shiv Sena members stood out in the crowd with their colorful turbans, adding to the vibrant atmosphere of the occasion.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute to V.D. Savarkar on his birth anniversary, in New Delhi, Sunday, May 28, 2023. (PTI Photo)

NEW DELHI: On the birth anniversary of Veer Damodar Savarkar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, several Union ministers, and senior BJP leaders, including national president J.P. Nadda, paid floral tributes to Savarkar in the Central Hall of the old Parliament building. Coincidentally, the new Parliament building was also inaugurated by the Prime Minister on the same day.

Union home minister Amit Shah, in a tweet in Hindi, paid homage to Savarkar, acknowledging his role in igniting the lamp of patriotism in the hearts of countless Indians with his thoughts.

"The patriotism, sacrifice and dedication of Veer Savarkar ji is praiseworthy and will continue to inspire the people of the country for ages," Shah tweeted.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, in a tweet, referred to the significance of May 28, saying Jawaharlal Nehru was cremated on this day in 1964. He recalled that the late PM played a crucial role in nurturing parliamentary democracy in India.

He also pointed out Savarkar's birth in 1883, highlighting the ideological ecosystem associated with him, which was linked to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Ramesh further criticised the Prime Minister, describing him as a self-glorifying authoritarian leader with disregard for parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends or engages in parliamentary activities, while inaugurating the New Parliament building in 2023.
BRS supremo and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao will lead the charge by taking part in podu lands patta distributions to beneficiaries in several districts from June 24 to 30.(Photo: @trspartyonline)

HYDERABAD: The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) is switching gears fast to consolidate its vote banks by disbursing and implementing welfare schemes over the next few months, linking party outreach programmes with state government activities, in the run-up to the Assembly polls.

Over the next two months, the state government will distribute podu land pattas to tribal communities, extend Rs 3 lakh financial aid to poor families under the Gruha Laxmi scheme for constructing houses, give Rs 10 lakh to each Dalit family across the state under the second phase of Dalit Bandhu, distribute housing sites to the poor and give away sheep under the second phase of its scheme.

These schemes will be extended to beneficiaries in the presence of BRS leaders and workers in respective Assembly constituencies, who will seek the support of beneficiaries for BRS in Assembly polls.

BRS supremo and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao will lead the charge by taking part in podu lands patta distributions to beneficiaries in several districts from June 24 to 30.

The ruling party will also utilise the 21-day celebrations, from June 2 to 22, of the 10th Formation Day of Telangana to reach out to the people in all 119 Assembly constituencies and highlight the achievements of the BRS government in the past nine years.

BRS leaders and workers will participate in all the events that are scheduled to be held as part of the celebrations. Rallies, with beneficiaries of various welfare schemes of the BRS government, such as Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima, Aasara pensions, free power to agriculture, Kalyana Laxmi, Shaadi Mubarak, ration rice, residential schools, colleges etc., are also planned to be held.

Sources said that the BRS leadership feels that the party already enjoys strong support among the vote banks of beneficiaries of welfare schemes, such as Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima, free power to agriculture and Aasara Pension, among others.

They said that the new schemes being implemented in the next two months will create a new vote bank for the party ahead of the Assembly polls.
Pakistan's ruling coalition has rejected former prime minister Imran Khan's offer for dialogue, saying that talks were held with politicians, not terrorists, a media report said on Sunday.

The government also stated that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief was now himself seeking a National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), the Express Tribune newspaper reported.

The development came as Khan constituted a seven-member team to hold talks with the government - for developing consensus on a date for general elections - amid a massive crackdown on his party.

Also Read | Imran Khan's party faces most difficult phase in its 27 yrs of existence

The crackdown launched after May 9 violent protests have thrown the PTI into a deep existential crisis with dozens of key party leaders jumping ship every day.

The prominent leaders who have quit the party include Secretary General Asad Umar, senior leader Fawad Chaudhry and former minister Shireen Mazari.

On May 9, violent protests erupted after paramilitary Rangers arrested Khan from the Islamabad High Court premises. His party workers vandalised a dozen military installations, including the Lahore Corps Commander's House, the Mianwali airbase and the ISI building in Faisalabad in response to Khan's arrest.

The mob also stormed the Army headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi for the first time.

Thousands of Khans supporters were arrested following the violence that the powerful Army described as a dark day in the history of the country.

Responding to the talks offer, the supreme leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Nawaz Sharif, took to Twitter to state that talks are held only with politicians.

"There will be no talks with a group of terrorists and saboteurs who burn memorials of martyrs and set the country on fire, he said.

In a statement, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said: Those who attack the state are punished; they are not negotiated with."

She claimed that Khan's appeal for talks is an appeal for a National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

When in power, Khan often said former military ruler Pervez Musharraf ended criminal cases against the leaders of various parties including the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) through the NRO but that he would not give looters any NRO.

Also Read | Pakistan establishment closes ranks in crackdown on Imran

Marriyum said holding talks with those who desecrated the memorials of martyrs is a "desecration of martyrs".

She said Khan wants talks after burning ambulances, hospitals, and schools and poisoning youths minds, adding there will be no talks with him.

"Imran has called for talks when his party leaders have abandoned him in flocks," she said.

She reminded Khan that he had not talked with the opposition on the economy, Kashmir, national security issues, Covid-19 and the FATF issue but he is now urging for talks.

Declaring him a foreign agent and Toshakhana thief, the information minister said negotiations are not held with the ones who allegedly looted Rs 60 billion as such a person is brought to the court of law and not to the negotiations table.

Minister for Poverty Alleviation Shazia Marri, who belongs to the PPP, said Khan was responsible for the situation arising after May 9. She said talking about talks now was nothing but eyewash.

The minister said mobs attacked Jinnah House in Lahore and the GHQ in Rawalpindi on the order of Khan. He keeps his children in the safety of London but incites the children of the nation to commit anti-state acts, she said.

Marri recalled that PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the countrys foreign minister, tried to bring political parties to the negotiating table and constituted a team consisting of senior leaders for negotiations with political parties. Imran, however, sabotaged Bilawals efforts.

She said Khans arrogance led to his downfall, regretting that the former prime minister did not allow the PTI to become a political party.

"Talking about negotiations after everything has been done is pretentious, she said.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) spokesperson Hafiz Hamdullah also called Khan the mastermind behind May 9 attacks. He said targeting military installations was tantamount to waging a war against the state.

A rebel, he said, is not negotiated with but deserves severe punishment.

Hamdullah while predicting that jail will be Khan's destination said it was time for him to answer for his actions. "Khan's appeal for talks is nothing but a joke," he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated his "dear friend" Tayyip Erdogan who claimed victory in Turkey's presidential election on Sunday, saying the win was evidence the Turkish people appreciated Erdogan's independent foreign policy.

"The election victory was a natural result of your selfless work as the head of the Republic of Turkey, clear evidence of the support of the Turkish people for your efforts to strengthen state sovereignty and conduct an independent foreign policy," Putin said in a message to Erdogan, according to the Kremlin.

"We highly appreciate your personal contribution to the strengthening of friendly Russian-Turkish relations and mutually beneficial cooperation in various areas," Putin said.

Also Read | Turkiye's Erdogan wins 5th term as President, extending rule into 3rd decade

Putin said he attached great importance to joint projects such as Turkey's Akkuyu nuclear power plant, which is being built by Russia's state energy group Rosatom, and a gas hub which Putin has proposed in Turkey.

The veteran president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, Putin's staunchest ally among ex-Soviet states, offered his congratulations, praising Erdogan for maintaining stability after earthquakes earlier this year.

"I consider you a worthy, strong political figure and a good friend of Belarus," Lukashenko said in a statement issued by his press office.

"We have identical interests in de-escalating the international situation, upholding food security and peaceful resolution of disputes."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday welcomed the re-election of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who despite close ties with Russia's leader has positioned himself as a mediator in the ongoing conflict.

"We count on the further strengthening of the strategic partnership for the good of our countries, as well as the strengthening of cooperation for the security and stability of Europe," Zelenskyy said in a post on Twitter, where he congratulated Erdogan on his victory.
The decadal Census, which was postponed for an indefinite period due to the pandemic, is unlikely to be held before the next Lok Sabha elections that are due in April-May 2024, officials said.

Access to smartphones, Internet, laptops, computers, cars, two-wheelers, main cereal consumed are some of the 31 questions to be asked in the Census, whenever it is held.

The house listing phase of the Census and the exercise to update the National Population Register (NPR) were scheduled to be carried out across the country from April 1 to September 30, 2020, but was postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Also Read | SC junks plea to include details of missing persons in census

The Census operation continues to be on hold and the government has not yet announced a new schedule.

In January, the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India conveyed that the date of freezing of administrative boundaries -- creation of new districts or sub-districts -- has been extended to June 30, the officials said.

According to the norms, the Census can be conducted only three months after (post-September 30) freezing of boundary limits of administrative units such as districts, sub-districts, tehsils, taluks and police stations.

Two to three months will also be required to train the entire 30 lakh government employees/teachers across India who will be engaged as enumerators for the Census.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission will kick start the process for the next general elections such as revision of voter lists, etc.

From October, there is little room to hold the Census exercise as the same set of people are supposed to be engaged both by the Election Commission and the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, the officials said.

As the priority will be changed, in most likelihood, the Census operation will be carried out only after the Lok Sabha elections, they said.

This exercise, whenever it happens, will be the first digital Census, giving citizens an opportunity to self-enumerate.

The NPR has been made compulsory for citizens who want to exercise the right to fill the Census form on their own rather than through government enumerators. For this, the Census authority has designed a yet-to-be-launched self-enumeration portal.

During the self-enumeration process, Aadhaar or mobile number will be mandatorily collected.

According to the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, 31 questions to be asked to the citizens have been set.

These questions include whether a family has a telephone line, Internet connection, mobile or smartphone, bicycle, scooter or motorcycle or moped, whether it owns a car, jeep or a van.

The citizens will also be asked what cereal they consume in the household, main source of drinking water and lighting, access to toilet and its type, wastewater outlet, availability of bathing facility, availability of kitchen and LPG/PNG connection, main fuel used for cooking, availability of radio, transistor, television, among others.

The citizens will also be asked about the predominant material of floor, wall and roof of the Census house, its condition, total number of persons normally residing in the household, whether its head is a woman, if the head belongs to a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe, number of dwelling rooms exclusively in possession of the household and the number of married couple(s) living in the household, among others.
The Border Security Force (BSF) shot down a Pakistani drone which arrived in Indian territory at a village near the Indo-Pak border here, officials said on Sunday.

According to an official statement, at around 9.30 pm on Sunday, BSF troops heard the buzzing sound of a drone in the village of Dhanoe Khurd in Amritsar.

The troops immediately shot down the drone.

Also Read | BSF intercepts fifth Pakistani drone in last four days at International Border in Punjab

"During subsequent searches of the area, BSF troops recovered a drone from the fields of the village," it said.

Meanwhile, the troops also saw three people running towards the village and caught hold of one of the suspects along with a bag containing a narcotics consignment of three packets having a gross weight of 3.4 kg.

An iron hook and four luminous strips were also found attached to the consignment, it said.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will hold separate meetings with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Sachin Pilot on Monday in Delhi, a senior party leader familiar with the development said.

The chief minister's office has also released Gehlot's programme confirming his visit to Delhi, where he will also lay the foundation stone of the Rajasthan House.

The proposed meeting comes close on the heels of Pilot's "ultimatum" that if three demands he made from the state government were not met by the end of this month, he would launch a state-wide agitation. Pilot has asked for a high-level inquiry into the alleged scams that took place during the tenure of the former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje government, as one of his demands.

Also Read | Delhi Cong to meet Kharge on May 29 to discuss ordinance row, support to Kejriwal

According to the senior leader, a meeting of the Congress top brass with all the state leaders was scheduled on May 26 but was later postponed.

He said that now the high command will meet Gehlot and Pilot separately to bring them on one platform ahead of the assembly elections, which are due later this year.

Kharge was successful in bringing Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar together in Karnataka and the party now wants to try the same formula in Rajasthan, the senior leader said.

He also said that a few days ago a meeting of the Congress high command with the leaders of all poll-bound states, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana, was planned, which was postponed.
The Trinamool Congress said the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the installation of the historic Sengol in the Lok Sabha chamber Sunday showed the tendency of the PM to hog the entire limelight during such a solemn occasion.

The TMC, along with several opposition parties, boycotted the event over the prime minister and not the president inaugurating the building.

The Trinamool Congress was among the first parties to announce that it was staying away from Sunday's inauguration.

Also Read | New Parliament building reflects aspirations of new India, says PM Modi

Taking strong exception to "these aberrations by BJP government at Centre,", TMC Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesperson Sukhendu Sekhar Roy told PTI "holding of some religious rituals at the inauguration of Parliament also goes against the Preamble of the Indian Constitution which describes it as a secular, socialist and democratic republic."

Referring to the installation of the Sengol, before which the PM had prostrated, and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand, Roy said "We are a prajatantra (Republic), not a Rajtantra (Monarchy). Why should then the Sengol be installed in the temple of democracy?"

The lone CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP from West Bengal, Bikash Bhattacharya, claimed that the inaugural ceremony of the new Parliament building became a ceremonial affair to practice and spread Hindu religious faith and rituals which is against the basic concept of the Constitution.

Also Read | President, Vice President, others hail PM Modi's Parliament inauguration

The Constitution begins with the words "We the people of India and there is no indication of any religion in it', Bhattacharya said.

Pointing out that the new Parliament building was conceptualised with the idea that the old parliament does not have sufficient space, the CPI(M) MP told PTI, "But unfortunately the inauguration of the new building under Narendra Modi's leadership has become a ceremonial affair to practise and spread Hindu religious faith and rituals, which is against the basic concept of the Indian Constitution."

He said that the foundation of the Indian government is the Indian Constitution having specific goals and objectives and whoever gets elected takes an oath to faithfully implement the objectives.

Reacting to the criticisms, BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh told PTI, opposition parties such as the TMC had shown scant regard for Droupadi Murmu, a representative of the backward community, during the presidential election and was now shedding crocodile tears for her.

"The new Parliament building has been fittingly inaugurated by a public figure like Narendra Modi, who is the representative of 130 crore Indians. The opposition like TMC, by showing their aversion to the popular PM, is insulting people of this country," the Medinipur MP said.

He said the rituals before the inauguration reflected the rich heritage of the country which the opposition parties like TMC want to ignore as "they are proud of their ancestors who were influenced by ideals imported from the West.

The opposition had taken the country away from its past and heritage during its rule, it is the BJP which has made the young generation aware of our past while embracing modern education, technology and way of thinking. The sooner the TMC understands it, the better. But the Trinamool Congress itself will be nowhere in the coming days," the BJP leader said.
A major fire broke out in a multi-storey residential building near the Breach Candy Hospital in south Mumbai, a fire official said on Sunday.

No injury was reported to anyone in the blaze which erupted at 10.24 pm on Saturday on the 12th floor of the Breach Candy Co-operative Housing Society, located on Bhulabhai Desai Road, he said.

Also Read: Blaze in JP Nagar dry waste centre ignites safety concerns

Two persons, a male and a female, were rescued from the 12th floor through a staircase, the official said. The fire was confined to two flats on the 12th floor of the ground-plus-15-floor building, he said.

Two LPG cylinders exploded on the 12th floor, two lines (one line of high rise fire fighting vehicle and one small hose line of motor pump) were in operation, the official said.

At least eight water engines, seven jumbo tankers, fire fighting bikes and other assistance were rushed to the spot and the blaze was doused by 3.55 am on Sunday, he said. It was a "level-two" fire, the official said. The exact cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained.
A 65-year-old man has been killed allegedly by a waiter at a hotel in Maharashtra's Thane city, police said on Sunday.

The incident took place on Saturday at the hotel located on Thane station road where the man, identified as Karabai Rambhai Suva, had taken a room on rent, a police spokesperson said, adding the motive behind the killing was not yet known.

The accused allegedly attacked the victim with a sharp weapon on his face and neck and then fled, the official said.

The victim's body was found lying in a pool of blood in the room following which the hotel staff alerted the police, he said.

The body was later sent to a government hospital for postmortem and a case was registered against the waiter under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code, the official said.

Efforts were on to trace the accused, he added.
Coca-Cola FEMSA (NYSE:KOF  Get Rating) had its price objective hoisted by equities research analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $80.00 to $87.00 in a note issued to investors on Friday, The Fly reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co.s price target indicates a potential upside of 2.23% from the stocks previous close.

Several other research firms also recently issued reports on KOF. StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Coca-Cola FEMSA in a research report on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a strong-buy rating for the company. Barclays boosted their price objective on Coca-Cola FEMSA from $77.00 to $91.00 in a research note on Tuesday, April 18th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Coca-Cola FEMSA has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $95.00.

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Coca-Cola FEMSA Stock Performance

NYSE KOF opened at $85.10 on Friday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $83.89 and a 200 day simple moving average of $75.23. Coca-Cola FEMSA has a 12-month low of $51.96 and a 12-month high of $91.23. The company has a current ratio of 1.14, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.56. The company has a market cap of $143.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.51, a PEG ratio of 1.25 and a beta of 0.79.

Institutional Trading of Coca-Cola FEMSA

Coca-Cola FEMSA ( NYSE:KOF Get Rating ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 23rd. The company reported $1.73 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.10 by $0.63. Coca-Cola FEMSA had a net margin of 8.60% and a return on equity of 15.88%. The business had revenue of $3.11 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.07 billion. Sell-side analysts predict that Coca-Cola FEMSA will post 5.05 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in KOF. Ameriprise Financial Inc. bought a new position in Coca-Cola FEMSA in the first quarter worth $251,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in Coca-Cola FEMSA by 22.1% in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 348,412 shares of the companys stock worth $28,036,000 after purchasing an additional 62,969 shares in the last quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans bought a new position in Coca-Cola FEMSA in the first quarter worth $1,516,000. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV raised its holdings in Coca-Cola FEMSA by 2.4% in the first quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 11,631 shares of the companys stock worth $936,000 after purchasing an additional 268 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Gluskin Sheff & Assoc Inc. bought a new position in Coca-Cola FEMSA in the first quarter worth $3,638,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 1.27% of the companys stock.

About Coca-Cola FEMSA

(Get Rating)

Coca-Cola FEMSA SAB de CV engages in the business of producing franchise bottles of trademark beverages. It operates under the Mexico and Central America, and South America segments. The Mexico and Central America segment includes Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. The South America segment focuses on Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay.

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Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp boosted its stake in PennyMac Financial Services, Inc. (NYSE:PFSI  Get Rating) by 25.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 37,566 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after purchasing an additional 7,544 shares during the period. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp owned approximately 0.08% of PennyMac Financial Services worth $2,128,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in PFSI. Acadian Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in PennyMac Financial Services in the 1st quarter valued at $519,000. MetLife Investment Management LLC boosted its position in PennyMac Financial Services by 39.6% in the 1st quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 15,934 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $848,000 after buying an additional 4,522 shares during the last quarter. LSV Asset Management boosted its position in PennyMac Financial Services by 12.3% in the 1st quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 53,212 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $2,831,000 after buying an additional 5,846 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in PennyMac Financial Services by 93.7% in the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 783,884 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $41,703,000 after buying an additional 379,161 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board boosted its position in PennyMac Financial Services by 19.9% in the 1st quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 2,932 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $156,000 after buying an additional 486 shares during the last quarter. 67.03% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Insider Buying and Selling at PennyMac Financial Services

In other PennyMac Financial Services news, CFO Daniel Stanley Perotti sold 2,523 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.13, for a total value of $144,138.99. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 30,343 shares in the company, valued at $1,733,495.59. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other PennyMac Financial Services news, insider Steven Richard Bailey sold 13,604 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.70, for a total value of $825,762.80. Following the sale, the insider now owns 8,900 shares in the company, valued at $540,230. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Daniel Stanley Perotti sold 2,523 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.13, for a total transaction of $144,138.99. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 30,343 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,733,495.59. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 124,134 shares of company stock worth $7,572,642. 17.40% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

PennyMac Financial Services Price Performance

PFSI opened at $60.40 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $3.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.03 and a beta of 1.47. PennyMac Financial Services, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $38.53 and a fifty-two week high of $73.79. The companys 50-day moving average price is $60.41 and its 200 day moving average price is $60.35. The company has a quick ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 0.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.34.

PennyMac Financial Services (NYSE:PFSI  Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 27th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.20 by ($0.63). The business had revenue of $302.90 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $354.08 million. PennyMac Financial Services had a return on equity of 9.86% and a net margin of 20.37%. PennyMac Financial Servicess revenue was down 53.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.94 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that PennyMac Financial Services, Inc. will post 5.43 earnings per share for the current year.

PennyMac Financial Services Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 26th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, May 16th were paid a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, May 15th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.32%. PennyMac Financial Servicess payout ratio is currently 13.29%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on the stock. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of PennyMac Financial Services from $58.00 to $69.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research report on Friday, February 3rd. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of PennyMac Financial Services in a research report on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a sell rating for the company. TheStreet cut shares of PennyMac Financial Services from a b rating to a c rating in a research report on Friday, April 28th. Finally, Piper Sandler reduced their price target on shares of PennyMac Financial Services from $83.00 to $82.00 in a research report on Friday, April 28th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, PennyMac Financial Services currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $75.33.

About PennyMac Financial Services

(Get Rating)

PennyMac Financial Services, Inc operates as a holding company, which engages in the production and servicing of U.S. residential mortgage loans. It operates through the following segments: Production, Servicing, and Investment Management. The Production segment includes mortgage loan origination, acquisition, and sale activities.

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Want to see what other hedge funds are holding PFSI? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for PennyMac Financial Services, Inc. (NYSE:PFSI  Get Rating).

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SVB Wealth LLC grew its stake in The Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE:TD  Get Rating) (TSE:TD) by 4.5% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 4,218 shares of the banks stock after purchasing an additional 183 shares during the quarter. SVB Wealth LLCs holdings in Toronto-Dominion Bank were worth $273,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in TD. Fairfield Bush & CO. purchased a new stake in shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank in the 1st quarter worth about $26,000. U.S. Capital Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank in the 4th quarter worth about $39,000. McElhenny Sheffield Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank in the 4th quarter worth about $40,000. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank by 87.3% in the 4th quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 676 shares of the banks stock worth $44,000 after buying an additional 315 shares during the period. Finally, Armstrong Advisory Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank in the 4th quarter worth about $59,000. 49.22% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Toronto-Dominion Bank Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:TD opened at $57.50 on Friday. The firms 50 day moving average price is $59.98 and its 200-day moving average price is $63.87. The Toronto-Dominion Bank has a twelve month low of $55.43 and a twelve month high of $77.15. The company has a quick ratio of 0.97, a current ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. The stock has a market capitalization of $105.78 billion, a PE ratio of 9.65, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.44 and a beta of 0.88.

Toronto-Dominion Bank Cuts Dividend

Toronto-Dominion Bank ( NYSE:TD Get Rating ) (TSE:TD) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 2nd. The bank reported $1.64 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.61 by $0.03. Toronto-Dominion Bank had a net margin of 17.72% and a return on equity of 15.69%. The company had revenue of $9.01 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $8.97 billion. Equities research analysts expect that The Toronto-Dominion Bank will post 6.15 EPS for the current year.

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 31st. Stockholders of record on Monday, July 10th will be issued a $0.709 dividend. This represents a $2.84 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.93%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, July 7th. Toronto-Dominion Banks dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 47.65%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

TD has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Saturday, May 20th. Scotiabank raised shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from a sector perform rating to a sector outperform rating in a research report on Friday, March 3rd. Barclays downgraded shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 9th. Desjardins raised their price target on shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from C$105.00 to C$106.00 in a report on Tuesday, February 7th. Finally, CIBC raised shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from a neutral rating to a sector outperform rating in a report on Monday, April 17th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $100.57.

Toronto-Dominion Bank Company Profile

(Get Rating)

The Toronto-Dominion Bank engages in the provision of financial products and services. It operates through the following segments: Canadian Retail, U.S. Retail, and Wholesale Banking. The Canadian Retail segment offers various financial products and services, as well as telephone, Internet, and mobile banking services.

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Connection and community building lies at the heart of a new cross border creative arts programme with communities in Derry and Donegal combining artistic and creative talent, building professional skills in the arts and digital technologies and showcasing literary talent.

AGD Gweedore Theatre in the Donegal Gaeltacht is partnering with the Waterside Theatre on the new cross border creative arts programme connecting people within Gaeltacht, Nationalist and Unionist communities on each side of the border.

Funding of over 100,000 has been provided by the International Fund for Ireland under the Communities in Partnership Programme (CIPP).

Pictured, left to right, Damien McKeever, Eoghan Mac Giolla Bhrighde, Paddy Harte and Micheal O Duibhir.

The programme comprises three distinct but interconnected strands - performance and community dialogue; creative arts and digital technologies training and a series of creative writing and literary events.

This new cross border creative arts programme represents a new beginning, opening another avenue for communities to engage, to build bridges and to forge new connections, built on their commonalities, Paddy Harte, IFI Chair commented on the launch of the project.

Through the medium of the creative arts, literary and artistic expression, we are confident that this programme, spearheaded by two internationally renowned organisations committed to the promotion of the arts and community engagement, will have a deep and long-lasting impact on people that share an interest in the arts within communities both sides of the border."

Paddy Harte, Chairperson of the International Fund for Ireland

Mr Harte continued: We have only recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement/Belfast Agreement, a landmark moment providing an opportunity for reflection on what has been achieved but also prompting us to look forward and consider what we want to achieve for communities, north and south in the future.

Partnerships between AGD Gweedore Theatre, nestled in the heart of the Donegal Gaeltacht and the Waterside Theatre, one of the UKs premier arts organisations, are a template for what is possible and provide a roadmap for facilitating dialogue between communities, reaching out, building new connections and sharing the language, culture and heritage that are unique to our communities north and south.

The ambition and vision of the programme, and the work undertaken to bring it all together, must be commended. The project is also a perfect fit for our new Communities in Partnership Programme, which reaches deep into the heart of communities.

Speaking about the programme, Iain Barr, CEO of Waterside Theatre said; "We live in a society still heavily divided along religious and cultural lines and community arts are often the channel through which individuals and groups encounter the arts for the first time.

"The arts have an important role to play in delivering the transformation of our society; arts and culture can strengthen communities, bring people together and remove social barriers.

"Waterside Theatre is an inclusive organisation and we strive to ensure that those most marginalised and disadvantaged in society can benefit from being involved in the arts. This partnership with Amharclann Gweedore is built on the foundation of shared vision, commitment and the belief in the power of the arts to foster understanding.

"Facilitated by the International Fund for Ireland's Communities in Partnership Programme, we are set to bring about transformative collaborations in the realms of cross-community performances, dialogues, accredited training programs and creative writing initiatives."

Iain Barr, Chief Executive of Waterside Theatre speaking at the launch of the Cross-border Creative Arts Programme

Pol Mac Cumhaill, Chairperson of Amharclann Ghaoth Dobhair said: "This is a great opportunity for our voluntary managed theatre in Gweedore, which has supported the work of actors, performers, musicians and artists through the medium of the Irish language for many years, to build connections that strengthen that work. The opportunity to partner with Waterside Theatre is exciting and the programme that we have jointly designed is innovative and beneficial to each area.

"Both theatres are inclusive spaces and we welcome every opportunity to share the language, cultural and literary heritage, that is unique to our communities north and south. This is also a great opportunity for actors, artists and performers from each area and will support the ongoing development work of voluntary committee."



The professional play Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, by Donegal playwright Frank McGuinness is among the showcase elements of the programme. Participants will come together to rehearse and perform the highly acclaimed work which recounts WWI from the perspective of eight Ulster Unionists who volunteered to serve in the 36th Ulster Division at the beginning of the war.



The staging and performance of the play at AGD Gweedore, at the Waterside Theatre, and at four additional community arts venues north and south, will enable both organisations to connect actors and artists in both communities. The programme will also facilitate a post-performance dialogue session, with participants and attendees invited to engage and share their perspectives on the play.



Further to this, a 12-week Creative Arts and Digital Technologies programme will enable participants to gain practical hands-on experience in arts management practices. A Creative Writing Programme and Literary Events will connect writers and authors through workshops and participation in literary festivals.
In this day and age, there is an app for everything. Now, when we did our last Back To School issue in 2016, there was one app that stood out in a handful of offerings. However, over the last few years, in the world of apps, we have developed a problem of plenty. There are so many offerings in the market right now it takes a lot of time to single out one app that will help you get things done with ease. So, to save you all the time youd spend going through app categories, we have compiled a list of apps and services, some free and some paid, that will help you level up your academic game, the geek style!

Office Lens

With schools and colleges shifting to hybrid mode after the dreadful pandemic, PDFs and other digital publications made their way into schools and colleges like water though the open gates of a dam. That was when Office Lens rose to prominence. As someone who recently graduated from college, more often than not, I found myself using Office Lens to search through scores of PDFs stored on my PC/phone, and make digital copies of my notes to send to friends. There are four basic functionalities that Office Lens comes with  Image to PDF conversion, Text to handwriting conversion, Image to Tables, and PDF editing. Obviously, it does not come packing with all the bells and whistles of a full-scale PDF tool on your PC. But, its seamless integration with Office 365 and ease of use makes it the perfect choice for us, the digital nomads.

Grafiati

End-of-course research papers and dissertations are some of the most gruesome assignments to complete. Back in the day, RefMe used to be one of the best citation management apps. But, after Chegg acquired it in March 2017, we were left looking for alternatives, and that was when Grafiati came in. For those who dont know, and kids in school, do take note you will have to do it at some point as well  Grafiati is an online tool using which you can generate citations in a variety of formats, including APA, Harvard, MLA, Chicago, etc. While there is a replacement for RefMe created by Chegg, as per the claims made by the creators of Grafiati, their tool is superior because - We never use the faulty open-source citation generation code used by Zotero, Mendeley, or Citethisforme, and write every piece of algorithm on ore own, based on a deep analysis of the publication manuals of each citation style; we also adapt all references to the language of each particular country with the involvement of professional linguists. While the claims made by the creators of Grafiati cannot be verified, in my experience, the service is solid and can be a good starting point for most students working on their academic writeups. They offer three tiers, which you can look into on their website and choose as per what you need.

Trello

Either in school or college, missing out on submission deadlines is something that happens to all of us. Not only that, in the plethora of things that are happening around us, make it difficult to keep our daily schedules together at times. That is where Trello comes in. Trello is a basic yet very useful tool that helps you manage projects and daily tasks in a single place. You can brainstorm with your team while working on projects, share images and mockups, and maintain deadlines and POAs, all in one place with Trello. While the basic tier, For individuals or teams looking to organise any project, is free and comes with a fair selection of features, if you are looking for additional features, such as unlimited storage on the platform, you can go for their paid plans as well. There are different tiers that are available and come with different functionalities depending on what features you want.

Wolfram Alpha

For every academic assignment, research is one of the most important and tedious parts. And, if you are someone like us who goes into rabbit holes only to land up reading about capybaras and their rise in the meme culture when you wanted to research coal, then you should consider looking at Wolfram Alpha. It is a search engine dedicated to academic research. You can choose between giving in a natural language input or a math input, and if that is too much, it has been integrated into ChatGPT Plus. When you will use it, you will realise how much ahead of time it was. It was like ChatGPT before anyone had thought of it. Still not convinced? Heres one example of us feeding a simple phrase into the engine and Wolfram Alpha instantly generating an answer. And, for the ones who like to read in and find out more, every search also has a list of related searches. Off into the world of capybaras in memes we go

Pocket

Another classic app that we could not leave off this list. Pocket makes for a very handy tool for students who want to save web pages for comfortable reading on the go. Pocket offers cross-platform synchronisation. Not only that, if you save an article on Pocket, you can change basic settings like font sizes, styles, and viewing modes to suit your needs. Also, it offers a handful selection of organisation tools so that you do not lose track of whatever articles you save. If you want, then the app will also read out the article for you as well. Pocket also has a premium subscription, which comes with perks like permanent saves of webpages even if they are taken down, amongst many others. However, it is not available in the country right now. The base tier offers almost all the functionality that you will need as a student, so you shouldnt have to worry about it all that much.

MindMeister

If you are a fan of making mindmaps for your projects or for studying, then MindMeister makes for a very tempting install. For many, mindmaps are a great way for visualisation, even I use them. But, being old school, I prefer pen and paper, but when checking out MindMeister for writing this article, it was the closest thing to my old school preference. Not changing sides this easily though
A pedestrian has died after being stuck by a car in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Irish police are investigating the collision that occurred around 2am on the R446 at Marshbrook, Co Offaly, near the Westmeath border.

Gardai said the man aged in his 50s was pronounced dead at the scene.

The occupants of the car received medical attention but were not seriously injured.

The road is closed and the scene has been preserved pending an examination by Garda forensic collision investigators. Local traffic diversions are in place.

Investigating Gardai are appealing for witnesses to come forward.

They are also asking any motorists with camera footage (including dashcam), who were travelling on the R446 between Moate and Horseleap at the time, to make it available.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Tullamore Garda Station 057 93 27600, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda station.
Composers, musicians and contemporary music fans from around the globe will converge in Dundalk this June 1617 for the Louth Contemporary Music Societys midsummer festival.

This years event is entitled Folks Music and will showcase an array of talented performers, including international stars and renowned local artists hailing from Italy, Canada, the United States and England as well as Ireland.

This year marks 17 years since Louth Contemporary Music Society's inception to promote contemporary music in Ireland - a feat that has transformed Dundalk into one of Europe's premier destinations for contemporary music performance.

Amongst this years festival lineup acclaimed US composer and performer Caroline Shaw will be making her first ever Irish visit. Shaw, who has previously received the Pulitzer prize, picked up a Grammy-award this year for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

In 2015, Shaw had a chance encounter with rapper Kanye West backstage after her performance in Los Angeles. This meeting sparked an incredible collaboration between Shaw and West which culminated in their work together on Wests The Life of Pablo album and a tour of the US in 2016.

Known for creating symphonies, theatre pieces and works for ballet all around the world, the multi-talented composer, violinist and vocalist will make her much anticipated Irish debut performing alongside the Esposito Quartet at Dundalks music bar, The Spirit Store, on Saturday 17 June.

Described as the UKs top New Music band, Explore Ensemble will also be making their first trip to Ireland. Theyll be performing pieces by Clara Iannotta, one of Europes most sought after composers, at Dundalk Gaol.

New works by Linda Catlin Smith and Cassandra Miller will also be performed by the Chamber Choir Ireland at St Nicholas Church of Ireland. Meanwhile, the acclaimed Spanish saxophone quartet, The Sigma Project, will be bringing their lively and somewhat theatrical performance to St. Vincents Chapel.

A highlight of the festival promises to be an innovative adaptation of legendary composer Terry Rileys iconic In C. For the first time the piece will be performed, by a collection of Irelands leading traditional musicians including Zoe Conway, Donal Lunny, Paddy Glackin, Mairtin OConnor, Mick OBrien, Louise and Michelle Mulcahy at St Nicholas Church of Ireland.

Speaking ahead of this years festival programme, Louth Contemporary Music Societys director Eamonn Quinn invited audiences to come and be inspired:

Our annual concert promises to be an unforgettable musical experience for all! This year, attendees will embark on a global journey across various obscure and diverse styles of contemporary music.

"From Spanish Sax Players to Caroline Shaw to Traditional Irish Musicians - everyone is sure to find something that speaks volumes with them. Were especially thrilled as this festival also includes 4 world premieres of new commissions  come prepared and get ready to expand your horizons!.

Founded in 2006, Louth Contemporary Music Society is a non for profit organisation aiming to bring world renowned contemporary musicians, performers and composers to play and educate in Co Louth.

Folks Music the festival, will take place at various venues around Dundalk from June 16-17. Tickets to the individual concerts start at 5 with a ticket to attend all of the concerts priced at 30. Tickets available from www.louthcms.org

Funded by the Arts Council and Create Louth. Supported by RTE Supporting the Arts and with the friendly support of Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
Finnian Oakes from Colaiste Chu Chulainn has been chosen to engage with the European Cybersecurity Challenge. The initiative by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) aims to enhance cybersecurity talent across Europe and connect highly skilled individuals with industry leading organizations.

Transition year student Finnian Oakes was chosen to take part in a boot camp with students from around Ireland as part of the selection process for the Irish national team.

Finnian explained:

"I spent Saturday 6th May working on security-related challenges from domains such as web security, mobile security, crypto puzzles, reverse engineering, and forensics, which the participants have to solve in order to collect points.

"The individuals with the most points win the competition and secure a place in the Irish national team, which will go on to compete in the ECSC finals.

"I really enjoyed working with the challenges, such as attack-defence training for computer servers, and look forward to the next boot camp which takes place later in the year. If I make the Irish Team, we will travel for the final challenge in Hamar, Norway, in October 2023."

Ms Aisling White is the co-ordinator of digital technologies and remarked:

"Finnian is of the new generation of cyber workers. He has a fine career ahead of him in the world of cyber securities. Recent international and local events such as HSE cyber attacks, banking fraud and Tik Tok remind us that the world of technology is always evolving. Change brings opportunities and we are confident of Finnian's continued success."
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A passenger who opened an emergency exit door during a flight in South Korea told police he felt suffocated and tried to get off the plane quickly as it approached landing, according to reports.

Twelve people were slightly injured when the man opened the door of the Asiana Airlines Airbus A321 on Friday, causing air to blast inside the cabin.

The plane, which was flying to the city of Daegu from the southern island of Jeju, landed safely.

The man was detained by police in Daegu for allegedly violating aviation security law.

If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

The 33-year-old told police he had wanted to get off the plane because he was feeling suffocated, Yonhap news agency reported, citing the force.

Yonhap said the man told police he had suffered stress after losing his job recently.

Other South Korean media carried similar stories on the mans motive.

The reports said Daegu police requested a warrant to formally arrest him.

Calls to Daegu police were unanswered early on Sunday.

Reached by the Associated Press earlier, Daegu police officers refused to provide details about the man, citing privacy issues.

The plane was carrying 194 people, including teenage athletes on their way to a track and field competition.

The man pulled the door open when the plane was reaching the Daegu airport at an altitude of 700 feet (213 metres).

The people taken to hospital were mainly treated for minor problems such as breathing difficulties.
CUSTOMERS may recall Stephen Dunne from his years working as an interior designer at Caseys Furniture on Corks Oliver Plunkett St.

Sharp-eyed viewers might also have spotted him playing minor TV roles in EastEnders and The Crown, or dancing with Olivia Colman in the recently-released Sam Mendes film Empire Of Light.

The latest twist in a varied creative career, which saw Stephen leave Cork for London in 2012, now brings him back, at least in a literary sense, to the scenes of his childhood near the Cork-Waterford border.

The author and illustrator of five childrens books, Stephen drew on his memories of growing up in the Irish countryside to inform tales of the simplicity and innocence of childhood amid todays very fast world.

His stories of young Molly and her everyday adventures featuring ponies, donkeys, and birds have a gentle, pastoral quality far removed from the hi-tech, magical-realm, or fast-action adventure themes of much modern childrens fiction.

Its important to give children a simple and easy-to-read story, says Stephen. Growing up in the countryside was wonderful as it gave me a good understanding of nature and the peaceful world around me.

I encountered a wide range of animals every day and they gave me great inspiration for my stories.

The books are aimed at a young age group, he says of the five titles, which double as colouring books. I wanted to introduce all types of encounters that a child might have in their day-to-day lives.

Some of Mollys favourite encounters are with the residents of Farmer Jacks animal sanctuary, the first of Stephens stories introducing a donkey named Nelly whose loneliness inspires the addition of animal companions at the farm.

Mollys own companion on many of her countryside adventures is her beloved Nan, with whom she stays after school while her parents are at work. In fact, it was the stories told by Stephens own Nan - who herself had a donkey named Nelly - that helped inspire his writing.

I wrote down what I could remember of the stories she used to tell me, says Stephen.

Another story, Molly And The Pretty Pony, was based on a real pony called Cloudy that my Dad once had as a boy.

The simple stories of Mollys visits to feed Nelly treats of apples, carrots, and sugar lumps, while telling the donkey tales about her day at school, are set in and around the authors home village of Clashmore, a few miles from Youghal bridge.

Though he had always loved sketching, attending Grennan Mill Art and Craft College in Kilkenny after finishing school, Stephen did not put his skills as an illustrator to use until he found himself with time on his hands following his move from London to the Kent coast with his husband more than two years ago.

I had always wanted to write but I never had the time or the confidence to do so.

I lived in Cork city for 20 years and most of that time I spent working for Caseys furniture on Oliver Plunkett St, as their interior designer.

I moved to London in 2012 and worked for John Lewis on Oxford Street. After a year or so, I decided that I would like a career change and moved into the world of TV and film.

I was lucky enough to get small walk-on parts in The Crown and EastEnders quite quickly, and my acting career took off from there.

Recently, I was chosen after a lengthy audition process to be Olivia Colmans dance partner in Empire Of Light, directed by Sam Mendes.

Its a world I never thought I would find myself in. But if you dont take the risks, youll never know, adds Stephen, who has just finished performing in a production of Gilbert and Sullivans HMS Pinafore.

Taking the plunge as an author-illustrator also seems to be working out for Stephen, whose childrens books are now available online via Amazon, as well as in shops in Youghal and Ardmore.

The biggest test for any aspiring childrens author, though, is the reaction of young readers to their work. On a recent visit home to the Cork-Waterford border, Stephen was invited back to his former primary school to read from his books and it went down a treat, he says. They loved it.

Molly And The Lonely Donkey, by Stephen Dunne (Amazon 5.25)
A Cork city councillor has called on Enterprise, Trade and Employment Minister Simon Coveney to bring clarity to employment guidelines concerning mechanics who suffer from colour blindness.

Councillor Ted Tynan said he had spoken with the family of a young mechanic whose employers had felt they had to let him go when he was diagnosed with colour blindness.

I was approached by the family of a young man who applied for a job as a mechanic with a Cork garage, Cllr Tynan said.

Hes very enthusiastic about working with cars and mucking around with engines, and hes trained now as a mechanic, and he got a job with this garage.

He was working away there for a couple of months and his employer was delighted with his enthusiasm and his work as a mechanic, and then he had to do a health and safety check, and it was during that check-up that he was diagnosed with colour blindness and the garage had no choice, he said.

They cannot allow him to work on cars anymore because of the risk of his misidentifying wiring systems and stuff like that."

Cllr Tynan said the young man was now out of work through no fault of his own or of his employer, a situation he described as deeply unfair.

In the UK and Northern Ireland, spectacles are legally available which allow people with colour blindness to successfully train and work in their career of choice, Cllr Tynan said.

Thousands of people resident in the State are colour blind, and there are many workers who wish to train and study for a wide range of trades and professions.

I would call on Minister Simon Coveney to clarify the situation for people who suffer from colour blindness, Mr Tynan said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment referred The Echo to the Health and Safety Authority (HSA).

A HSA spokesperson said occupational health and safety is governed by the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and associated legislation, which deals with employer and employee duties to protect safety, health and welfare at work.

Under the legislation, employers shall ensure the safety, health and welfare at work of his/her employees (Section 8) and identify hazards, risks and controls in the place of work, through risk assessment (Section 19), the spokesperson said.

An employer may require an employee to undergo a fitness to work assessment undertaken by a medical practitioner, where this is identified as necessary to perform the work activity (Section 23).

Where the assessment indicates that the employee is unfit to perform work activities or is suffering from an impairment likely to cause risk to themselves or another in the work activity and workplace, the employer has an obligation to take appropriate action.

The spokesperson said that if an employer identifies what they called a safety critical element that is colour related in their risk assessment, that employer may require employees to be tested for colour blindness prior to commencing the work.

Where the employer identifies controls to mitigate this risk, these can be implemented, insofar as reasonably practical, ensuring safe systems of work continue for all employees.

The use of the spectacles referenced would need to be considered as part of the overall risk assessment control measure for the specific work activity and signed off by competent persons, the HSA spokesperson said.

Cllr Tynan said Mr Coveney needed to clarify whether the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment would stand over the use of medically approved corrective spectacles in the workplace by people diagnosed with colour blindness or whether the onus to ensure the safety of work carried out by those employees was being placed unfairly on the employer.

There needs to be clarity here as to whether a person who has colour blindness and who uses spectacles to compensate for that is allowed to work under the law, or whether this is something which is signed off by the HSA or by a medical practitioner, Mr Tynan said.

It seems to me theres a dismissive attitude here and a washing of the hands.

"Minister Coveney is the minister and he needs to step in and get involved and make sure that workers rights are protected.

A spokesperson for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment said: The Department would reiterate the advice offered by the Health and Safety Authority as this is a work safety matter and therefore falls under their remit. The Minister has no role in this matter.
A doctor told gardai that her purse was stolen from a room at Cork University Maternity Hospital when she was at a consultation.

Now a man has appeared in court charged with using a stolen bank card to make two purchases in Cork city later that day.

Matthew Ginnifer of St Vincents hostel, Anglesea Terrace, Cork, is charged with handling stolen property.

Judge John King adjourned the case so that a copy of prosecution evidence can be sent to the defence.

Sergeant John Kelleher outlined the background to the allegations in the case.

A doctor working at CUMH on August 24, 2021 said her purse was stolen from her handbag in a room where a consultation was being held. A number of cards and an amount of cash were in it.

She realised it had been stolen when she received phone notifications of her bank card transactions, and realised her purse had been taken.

It was alleged that Matthew Ginnifer, who is aged around 30, used the bank card at two locations.

He was charged with handling stolen property at Centra, Washington Street, Cork, on August 24, 2021.

Judge King adjourned the case to June 19 for a copy of prosecution evidence to be sent to defence solicitor Frank Buttimer.
THE first youth led anti-racism summit has been held in Cork, bringing together minority and activist groups in the hopes of a future without racism.

Grassroots communities, with the support of the Children and Young People Services Committee (CYPSC) anti-racist sub-group in Cork, teamed up with marginalised youth to organise the first event of its kind in Cork.

Members of Riverside of Cork Migrant Centre at Nano Nagle Place at Cork's first ever Youth-Led Anti Racism Summit took place in Cork City Hall on 26th May. Pic: Clare Keogh

The event, held at City Hall on Friday, invited groups to share their experiences with racism and highlighted the need to end racism in Cork.

Led by young people, the summit invited policymakers, politicians, and organisations to engage in dialogue about the impacts of racism, and to be part of the conversation for tackling racism in Cork and Ireland.

Maria Ianko member of the Romani Community and member of Star NTRIS delegate speaking at Cork's first ever Youth-Led Anti Racism Summit took place in Cork City Hall on 26th May. Picture Clare Keogh.

The summit highlighted the stories of black, brown, Traveller, and Roma youth as they expressed experiences of racism through creativity, music, spoken word, dance, and theatre. The summit showcased the talent and leadership skills of these young people, who are often marginalised and viewed through a deficit lens.

It was a fine balance between sharing their hurt with the support of their mentors, while projecting a message of hope, saying loudly and clearly that they want to be at the forefront of the movement for positive change.

Attended by over 100 people, the event heard from Cork City Council, Cork Migrant Centre, Corks Mexican Community, the HSE, Nano Nagle Place, National Youth Council, Corks Roma Community, TUSLA, Traveller Visibility Group, UCC, YMCA, among many others.

The wide range of collaborating organisations demonstrated the need for a concerted, collaborative, system-wide effort and commitment to generate the necessary momentum to make Cork an anti-racist county.

Members of Riverside of Cork Migrant Centre at Nano Nagle Place at Cork's first ever Youth-Led Anti Racism Summit took place in Cork City Hall on 26th May.Picture Clare Keogh.

Speaking at the event, Lord Mayor of Cork Deirdre Forde said: I want to formally acknowledge the various ethnic and cultural groups that make up our diverse community here in the city. Our city is home to Irish Travellers, the Roma community and the black and brown Irish community, who add so much to the citys culture.

Later today, I will launch the Cork City of Welcomes campaign, involving all agencies to send a clear message that everyone is welcome here in our city of Cork, regardless of race, age, gender, or religion. Today we all come together to say that racism has no place in our city, in our country or indeed in our world.

Saorise Salmon member of Star NTRIS delegate at Cork's first ever Youth-Led Anti Racism Summit took place in Cork City Hall on 26th May. Picture Clare Keogh

Senator Eileen Flynn shared her story with guests at Corks first anti-racism summit and spoke about how she overcame prejudices as a Traveller woman to become Irelands first Traveller in the Seanad.

I wanted to be something that my family could be proud of. My eldest sister used to say, youre never going to be anything other than a Traveller and I have always thought differently to that.

Delegate at Cork's first ever Youth-Led Anti Racism Summit took place in Cork City Hall on 26th May. Picture Clare Keogh.

Ms Flynn continued: I remember sitting on the board of directors and the conversation that was being had about members of the Travelling community, antisocial behaviour, and how do we fix young Travellers. Young Travellers dont have to be fixed, young black people dont need to be fixed, young people from different ethnic minority groups dont need to be fixed. We are all different, but we all have equal worth and value in this world.

The summit is a follow-on from a webinar led out by CMC Youth Initiative Against Racism in collaboration with CYPSC in 2020.

The webinar was set in the wake of the Black Lives Matter Movement, and the murder of George Floyd, which bought the realities of racism and discrimination around the world, and in Ireland, to the forefront.
Of all of the things to have come from the city as the post-covid era begins in earnest, a core group of earnest, likeable and utterly unassuming indie-pop and adjacent noisemaking emanating from the citys small venues was one that your world-weary scribe wasnt quite anticipating - but hes been more than happy to be proven wrong by dream-poppers Mossy, and the polished pop of The Cliffords, for two examples that have put in the hard yards and cultivated dedicated local followings in a relatively short time.

Cork five-piece Iris betray a similar charm early on - unpretentious guitar-pop with a gra for reverb and jangles, possessed of the naivete, hope and drama of young artists with their whole lives and discographies ahead of them. Debut double A-side single (remember those?) Double made its way into the world last month, and for now, having come together in secondary school in Glanmire during the crisis, the band is standing back and taking the fact in.

It's weird, says vocalist Lucy Dolan. I feel like we never thought we'd actually... if you told us, like, when we were in school, we probably never thought we'd actually have music out.

It was definitely a strange one because we've all grown up together, and we've been doing music since we were 12 or 13, so to finally have something out with our name on it, that's something as a collective that we all worked on, and put out, it's really fulfilling, adds the bands bassist Zoe Callanan.

The pair of tunes that comprise the release, Oh Boy and Bitter, speak to a young band gaining confidence in itself - which might well happen out of necessity, when five musicians - including four distinct vocalists - are pulling together to mark their respective marks on ideas being exchanged in the practice space.

It's always like... an idea is brought forward, and then it's always onto a group jam, says Callanan. The song when it's first brought forward, and the finished song, once everyone's put their own touch on it, is always a completely different song, once we kind of have the harmonies in, and all that kind of stuff.

It just all meshes together when we're in the rehearsal room, like, there's never really something that's planned. It always just kind of comes out to somewhere and it just works or it doesn't work.

While the band has been working away as individuals on music since they were kids, the band came together in 2020, while they were still in school - any relative auld music fogey reading this will remember their first forays into playing in a band or making music, and nearly wondering about the differences there must have been for the covid generation, without the ability to do the things others have taken for granted, like jamming in a rehearsal space, or the slog of small-venue gigs.

We were lucky in a way, because we actually started in the middle of covid, says Dolan. I suppose it was handy and all, like. It was a shame, I suppose, that we couldn't go out and gig, but it gave us time to practice, discover a sound and mess around with lots of stuff ourselves. We had time on our side.

We were very, very lucky in that sense as well, which I feel like a lot of bands weren't, in regards to covid, but we had the time on our side in the height of a lockdown, adds Callanan. But then we started writing our own tunes as the lockdowns were being lifted. So like our first gig, there were no restrictions or anything, mask-wearing was literally gone. So we got very lucky in the sense that when the music scene came back full-force, we blended right in and just pushed ourselves out there with it.

Iris are emerging at a time when things are still changing for the citys music scene in Cork.

With both time and timing being on their side, the band has emerged into a changing Cork scene, one where venues are still in a relative dearth, and the community has largely had to set about building its own supports and infrastructure around the city.

The first thing about the Cork music scene is, as a community, it's super supportive, says Dolan. I feel like everyone who we've met, they almost just want to be your friend, give you advice, they're there to help. They're not there to race against you. Everyone's there, they've all got your back.

A big challenge for bands of our size is jumping venue capacities, adds Callinan. So when you look at Fredz, it's 80-capacity, then you're going to the Spailpin, which is 150 capacity, and you're getting your own sound engineer. Then the next jump to that is Cyprus Avenue, which is 500 capacity.

So you're either kind of cramming a lot of people, and trying to fit as many people as you can into a small venue, or you're not filling out a big venue. I think venue and capacity is like a very big issue for Cork bands.

Having notched up appearances at UCs Battle of the Bands and Echo columnist Stevie Gs This is the New School series of gigs, as well as supports for peers like Pebbledash and Kanes Basement, the band is gearing up for its first headline date - Bank Holiday Sunday June 4, upstairs at Fred Zeppelins - a post-covid crucible for the citys emerging generation of young musicians.

Callanan tries to sum up what gig-goers can expect from the bands big night, joined on stage by The Hold and This, That and The Other.

I'm so sorry to have to use this word, that will be going in the paper, but 'silly'. We don't really take ourselves too seriously, so there will be some antics going on, and we like to make a fool of ourselves, in the best way possible.

Iris debut headline show happens at Fred Zeppelins on Bank Holiday Sunday June 4, with support from This, That and the Other, and The Hold. Kickoff at 9pm, tickets 5 from https://www.eventbrite.com/e/iris-live-fred-zeppelins-tickets-638010896767.

Follow Iris on Instagram at @iris.cork; stream their debut release Double across streaming services and watch the video for Bitter on YouTube.
A TRAILBLAZING photography exhibition called Women by Women comes to Cork this week.

ActionAid Ireland is bringing the unique photography exhibition, that celebrates female trailblazers and the incredible talent of women photographers around the world, to Cork City Library on June 8.

The exhibition will remain on show in the library for the rest of the month.

It showcases women on the frontlines of climate change and who have overcome obstacles to become leaders in their community.

Aida Sarr and the women she works alongside, who are on the front line of climate change in the island of Maya in Senegal. The image was taken by Ina Makosi/ActionAid.

The exhibition also highlights the work and activism of women all over the world, including a local womens oyster farm in Senegal, a volunteer firefighter in Bangladesh, and a young Palestinian woman who has started selling desserts in the West Bank.

In addition, all the images were taken by local female photographers.

Karol Balfe, CEO of ActionAid Ireland, said of the exhibition: We are aiming to bring an anti-racist, feminist perspective to the way women and girls living in poverty are represented.

Where possible, we are shifting the power of story-telling to talented women photographers who were born in Africa, Asia, and the Americas and who live and work there.

And we are committed to moving away from traditional charity imagery that depicts people as objects of pity, helpless, desperate and without dignity.

Rebeca Lane performing at Obsidiana Show concert in Antigua Guatemala. Picture: Morena Perez Joachin/ActionAid.

We are delighted to bring the Women by Women exhibition to Cork as part of this commitment. ActionAid will be 40 years in Ireland this year and there are people in Cork who have been supporting our work for that long.

We are delighted to get the opportunity to meet some of these supporters and to showcase the impact of this support.

ActionAid works with women and children as they take the lead in claiming their human rights to build a more just world. Irish Aid, at the Department of Foreign Affairs, funds an ActionAid Womens Rights programme in Kenya, Nepal and Ethiopia, to work with vulnerable communities in an effort to prevent gender-based violence and help women gain an independent income.

Those who feature in the Women by Women exhibition had the following to say:

All I want is to be a strong pillar for my children. Asiah, Ugandan businesswoman and survivor of violence. Her photo was taken by Esther Mbabazi / ActionAid.

Khadija, aged 27, who is the youngest member of the Al-Zahra Kitchen. Picture: Samar Hazboun/ActionAid

In recent years, the climate has become more erratic and harsh. There are many thunderstorms and tornadoes that cause the roofs to blow off. In 2020, saline water came early the rice was withered and there was no water for crops and fruit trees. So said Thu and Huong, who are farmers, close friends, and members of a village womens group in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam.

Many members of the womens group are their familys breadwinners. This area is very vulnerable to climate change impacts; in recent years farming communities here have been suffering huge losses and struggling against the high levels of salty seawater intruding into the freshwater delta and rice fields.

Their photo was taken by Yen Duong/ActionAid

There is also a photograph of Rebeca Lane performing in Antigua, Guatemala. Rebeca is a trailblazing Guatemalan hip-hop artist who uses her music to promote feminism and fight for social justice. She is a survivor of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of a former partner, a topic she addresses in her most famous song: Mujer Lunar, or Lunar Woman, which calls for respect for womens bodies. Her photo was taken by Morena Perez Joachin/ActionAid.

Thu and Huong, who are farmers, close friends, and members of a village womens group in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam. Picture: Yen Duong/ActionAid

Life here is very difficult. I have some bad memories from the war. I just want my children to live a better life. So says Khadija, 27, who is the youngest member of the Al-Zahra Kitchen, a local enterprise run by 10 women from some of the most marginalised communities in the West Bank.

The kitchen sells desserts and pastries to local schools, offices, and businesses.

Her photograph was taken by Samar Hazboun/ActionAid

For more see https://actionaid.org/
A lawyer faces sanctions after he used ChatGPT to write a brief riddled with fake citations Steven Schwartz was "unaware of the possibility that [ChatGPTs] content could be false.

With the hype around AI reaching a fever pitch in recent months, many people fear programs like ChatGPT will one day put them out of a job. For one New York lawyer, that nightmare could become a reality sooner than expected, but not for the reasons you might think. As reported by The New York Times, attorney Steven Schwartz of the law firm Levidow, Levidow and Oberman recently turned to OpenAIs chatbot for assistance with writing a legal brief, with predictably disastrous results.

A lawyer used ChatGPT to do "legal research" and cited a number of nonexistent cases in a filing, and is now in a lot of trouble with the judge  pic.twitter.com/AJSE7Ts7W7  Daniel Feldman (@d_feldman) May 27, 2023

Schwartzs firm has been suing the Colombian airline Avianca on behalf of Roberto Mata, who claims he was injured on a flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. When the airline recently asked a federal judge to dismiss the case, Matas lawyers filed a 10-page brief arguing why the suit should proceed. The document cited more than half a dozen court decisions, including Varghese v. China Southern Airlines, Martinez v. Delta Airlines and Miller v. United Airlines. Unfortunately for everyone involved, no one who read the brief could find any of the court decisions cited by Matas lawyers. Why? Because ChatGPT fabricated all of them. Oops.

In an affidavit filed on Thursday, Schwartz said he had used the chatbot to supplement his research for the case. Schwartz wrote he was "unaware of the possibility that [ChatGPTs] content could be false. He even shared screenshots showing that he had asked ChatGPT if the cases it cited were real. The program responded they were, claiming the decisions could be found in reputable legal databases, including Westlaw and LexisNexis.

Schwartz said he greatly regrets using ChatGPT and will never do so in the future without absolute verification of its authenticity. Whether he has another chance to write a legal brief is up in the air. The judge overseeing the case has ordered a June 8th hearing to discuss potential sanctions for the unprecedented circumstance created by Schwartzs actions.

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Some of us do our best thinking in the shower, others do it while on the toilet. Renee Descartes, he pondered most deeply while ensconced in a baker's oven. The man simply needed to be convinced of the oven's existence before climbing in. Such are the quirks of the most monumental minds humanity has to offer. In the hilarious and enthralling new book, Edison's Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History's Greatest Geniuses, Dr. Katie Spalding explores the illogical, unnerving, and sometimes downright strange behaviors of luminaries like Thomas "Spirit Phone" Edison, Isaac "Sun Blind" Newton, and Nicola "I fell in love with a pigeon" Tesla.

Little Brown and Company

Excerpted from Edison's Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History's Greatest Geniuses by Dr. Katie Spalding. Published by Little, Brown and Company. Copyright  2023 by Katie Spalding. All rights reserved.

When Rene Descartes Got Baked

Rene Descartes, like Pythagoras before him and Einstein after, occupies that special place in our collective consciousness where his work has become  well, essentially a short-hand for genius-level intellect. Think about it  in any cartoon or sitcom where one character is (or, through logically-spurious means, suddenly becomes) a brainiac, there are three things theyre narratively bound to say: the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides  thats Pythagoras; E = mc2  thank you, Einstein; and finally, cogito ergo sum. And that is Descartes.

Specifically, its old Descartes  Descartes after he had figured his shit out. But while his later writings undeniably played a huge and important role in setting up how we approach the world today  hes actually one of the main figures who brought us the concept of the scientific method  Descartess early years leaned a little more on the silly and gullible than the master of scepticism hes come to be known as.

Descartes was born in 1596, which places him firmly in that period where science and philosophy and magic were all pretty much the same thing. Hes probably best known as a philosopher these days, but thats likely because a lot of his developments in mathematics have become so incredibly fundamental that we kind of forget they had to be invented by anybody at all. And I know Im saying that with ten years of mathematical training behind me and a PhD on the shelf, but even if you havent set foot in a maths class since school, youll be familiar with something that Descartes invented, because he was the guy who came up with graphs. Thats actually why the points in a graph are given by Cartesian coordinates  its from the Latin form of his name, Renatus Cartesius.

And while maths, despite what everyone keeps telling me, can be sexy, cogito ergo sum really does have a nice ring to it, doesnt it? I think, therefore I am. It doesnt sound like a huge philosophical leap  in fact, it kind of sounds like tautological nonsense  but its actually one of the most important conclusions ever reached in Western thought.

See, before Descartes, philosophy didnt exactly have the sort of wishy-washy, pie-in-the-sky reputation it enjoys today. The dominant school of thought was Scholasticism, which was basically like debate club mixed with year nine science. Sounds fair enough, but in practice  and especially when combined with the strong religious atmosphere and general lack of science up till that point  it was basically a long period of everybody riffing on Plato and Aristotle and trying to make their Ancient Greek teachings match up with the Bible. This was, needless to say, not always easy, and led to rather a lot of navel gazing over questions like Do demons get jealous? and Do angels take up physical space?

Descartess approach was radically different. He didnt see the point in answering questions like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin until hed been properly convinced of the existence of angels. And dancing. And pins.

Now, of course, this is the point when non-philosophers throw up their hands in despair and say something along the lines of Of course pins exist, you idiot, I have some upstairs keeping my posters up! Jesus, Rene, are we really paying a fortune in university fees just so you can sit around and doubt the existence of stationery?

But to that, Descartes would reply: are you sure? I mean, weve all had dreams before that are so convincing that we wake up thinking we really did adopt a baby elephant after our teeth all fell out. How do I know Im not dreaming now? How do I know this isnt a The Matrix-type situation, and what you think are pins are just a trick being played on us by Agent Smith?

In fact, when you get right down to it, Descartes would say, how can we be sure anything exists? I might not even exist! I might be a brain in a vat, being cleverly stimulated in such a way as to induce a vast hallucination! And yes, sure, I agree that sounds unlikely, but its not impossible  the point is, we simply cant know.

The only thing I can be sure of, Descartes would continue  despite everyone by this point rolling their eyes and muttering things like see what you started, Bill  is that I exist. And I can be sure of that, because Im thinking these thoughts about what exists. I may just be a brain in a vat, being fed lies about the reality that surrounds me, but I, me, my sense of self and consciousness  that definitely exists. To summarise: I think  therefore I am.

It was a hell of a breakthrough  hed basically Jengad the entire prevailing worldview into obsolescence. And its the kind of idea that could really only have come from someone like Descartes: a weirdo celebrity heretic pseudo-refugee who had a weakness for cross-eyed women, weed and conspiracy theories.

Descartes was, as his name suggests, French by birth, hailing from a small town vaguely west of the centre of the country. If you look it up on a map, youll see its actually called Descartes, but its not some uncanny coincidence  the town was renamed in 1967 after its most famous resident.

Which is kind of odd, because its not like Descartes spent all that much time there. He went to school in La Fleche, more than 100km away, where even at the tender age of ten he was displaying the sort of behaviour that would make him perfectly suited to a life of philosophy, sleeping in until lunch every day and only attending lectures when he felt like it. This cant have made him all that popular with the other kids, who were all expected to get up before 5am, but thats why you choose a school whose rector is a close family friend, I suppose, and, in any case, by the time the young Rene turned up they were probably all too tired to do much about it.

After finishing high school, he spent a couple of years at uni studying law, as per his fathers wishes  his dad came from a less well-to-do branch of the Descartes family tree, and probably would have wanted Descartes to keep up appearances for the sake of holding on to posh perks like not paying taxes. It must have pained him, therefore, when after graduating with a Licence in both church and civil law, Descartes immediately gave it all up and went on an extended gap year. As soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself, or of the great book of the world, he would later write, like some kind of nineteen-year-old Eat Pray Love devotee.

I spent the remainder of my youth in travelling, in visiting courts and armies, in holding intercourse with men of different dispositions and ranks, [and] in collecting varied experience, he continued, in his philosophical treatise-slash-autobiography Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting Ones Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences, which for obvious time-saving reasons is usually referred to as Discourse on the Method. Andlike so many philosophy students throughout history, there was one place he found in his travels that caught Descartess heart and imagination more than anywhere else: Amsterdam.

Now, it is of course true that places can change a lot over the course of 400 years  at this point in history, France was being ruled by a nine-year-old autocrat and his mum, Germany didnt exist, and England was a few years short of becoming a Republic. So you might think, sure, these days Amsterdam has a bit of a reputation, but back in Descartess time, it was probably a hub of quiet intellectualism and sombre, clean living.

Nope! Dynasties may rise and fall, empires spread and eventually fracture, but apparently, Amsterdam has always been Amsterdam. Descartes spent his first few years in the city living his absolute best life, studying engineering and maths under the direction of Simon Stevin  another guy youve never heard of who made a mathematical breakthrough you almost certainly use every single day of your life, since he invented the decimal point  and dressing like an emo and throwing himself into music. He joined the Dutch army for a bit, despite being by all accounts a tiny weedy bobble-headed French guy, and, yes, he almost certainly smoked a bunch of pot along the way.

And then, one November night in 1619, while on tour in Bavaria, Descartes had a Revelation. And he had it, according to his near-contemporary biographer Adrien Baillet, inside an oven.

He found himself in a place so remote from Communication, and so little frequented by people, whose Conversation might afford him any Diversion, that he even procured himself such a privacy, as the condition of his Ambulatory Life could permit him, Baillet writes.

Not  having by good luck any anxieties, nor passions, within, that were capable of disturbing him, he staid withal all the Day long in his stove, where he had leisure enough to entertain himself with his thoughts, he continues, as if thats a normal thing to write and not an account of someone being so introverted that they secluded themselves miles away from anyone who knew them and then crawled into an oven for the day.

Modern biographers have suggested a few interpretations of what this oven might have been, and Im sorry to report that, of course, its not as ridiculous as it first seems: in the seventeenth century, before wed tamed electricity and gas mains and whatnot, a stove or oven was more like your modern-day airing cupboard than an Aga. Just bigger. And fancier. And all your towels are on fire. Look, the analogy isnt perfect, but the point is that when Descartes said, in Discourse on the Method, that he had spent all day entertaining his thoughts in an oven, he wasnt being completely absurd  just, you know, kind of weird.

Depending on where you fall on the scale between Descartes was a stoner lol and Descartes was a paragon of virtue, 10/10 no notes awesome dude, what happened next was either the result of too much weed, too much oven, or too much being a fricking genius destined to reform all of Western philosophy. Either way, he had a pretty rough night, full of strange dreams and disturbing hallucinations* that even the loyal Baillet thought might be a sign he was going a little bonkers.

He acquaints us, That on the Tenth of November 1619, laying himself down Brim-full of Enthusiasm, and  having found that day the Foundations of the wonderful Science, he had Three dreams one presently after another; yet so extraordinary, as to make him fancy that they were sent him from above, writes Baillet, just in case you were wondering where on that scale Descartes would put himself. In fact, so sure was he of the divine nature of his dreams that, Baillet said, a Man would have been apt to have believed that he had been a little Crack-braind, or that he might have drank a Cup too much that Evening before he went to Bed.

It was indeed, St. Martins Eve, and People used to make Merry that Night in the place where he was  but he assures us, that he had been very Sober all that Day, and that Evening too and that he had not touched a drop of Wine for Three Weeks together.

Sure, Rene. Though honestly, the content of the dreams arent as noteworthy as the conclusions he drew from them  unless you think walking through a storm to collect a melon from a guy is super weird, I guess. And goodness knows how he got from cantaloupe to conceptualism, but these three dreams are said to have given him the inspiration first for analytic geometry  that is, his maths stuff  and then the realisation that he could apply the same kind of logical rigour to philosophy. And I dont want to minimise what Descartes achieved after this melon-based enlightenment  it takes guts to stand up in a world governed by strict ritual and belief and announce that not only is everyone around you an idiot, but also they probably dont even exist, so there. But have you ever heard that saying about not being so open-minded that your brain falls out?

Well, 1619 was also the year that Descartes, writing under the pseudonym Polybius Cosmopolitanus  Polybius being an ancient Greek historian, and Cosmopolitanus being Latin for citizen of the world  released the Mathematical Thesaurus of Polybius Cosmopolitanus. It kind of sounds like a Terry Gilliam movie, but it was actually a proposal for a way to reform mathematics as a whole.

It doesnt matter that youve never heard of it. Its not as famous as the Discourse; in fact, it may not have ever even been completed. The important bit wasnt what was contained inside the book, but who it was dedicated to: to learned men throughout the world, and especially to the F.R.C. very famous in G[ermany].

And who was this mysterious F.R.C? Descartes was specifically referencing the Freres de la Rose Croix. In English, they were known as the Brothers of the Rosy Cross  and, today, theyre called the Rosicrucians. So, you may have heard of the Rosicrucians, but its more likely you havent. Today, the term actually refers to two separate organisations, both of which claim to be the real Rosicrucians and both of which denounce the other group as being a bunch of weirdos. Theyre equally wrong on the first point, and equally right on the second: theres no Rosicrucian group around today that is directly linked to the original group that Descartes was a fan of, and every iteration of the organisation is and always has been fucking bananas.

But people in search of a new outlook on the universe often dont get to choose which batshit philosophy the world throws at them first, and Descartes had the peculiar fortune of going through his minor mental breakdown in early seventeenth-century Germany.

Between 1614 and 1616, three manifestos were published in Germany. They were anonymous, recounting the tale of one Christian Rosenkreuz, a man who was born in 1378, travelled across the world, studied under Sufi mystics in the Middle East, came back to Europe to spread the knowledge he had gained in his travels, was rejected by Western scientists and philosophers, and so founded the Rosicrucian Order, a grand name for what was apparently a group of about eight nerdy virgins. All of this, the manifestos said, he accomplished by the age of about twenty-nine, after which he presumably just sat on his thumbs for a long old while since the next big thing hes said to have done was die aged 106.

Now, some people have posited that everything you just read is false  a kind of early modern conspiracy theory. And yes, Christian Rose-Cross, as the name translates from German, is rather on the nose for the founder of a Christian sect, and, yes, its a bit farfetched for anybody to have lived for more than a century in the 1400s, and, yes, OK, so the last manifesto was almost certainly actually written by a German theologian named Johann Valentin Andreae, who was attempting to take the piss out of the whole thing and publicly renounced it when he realised people were taking him seriously  but thats the thing: people did take it seriously. And one of the people who took it seriously seems to have been Descartes.

There is a single active power in things: love, charity, harmony, mused the philosopher most famous for radical doubt of everything that couldnt be proved via logic alone. Not in any published work  these were the thoughts of Descartes the early-twenties guy just trying to figure his shit out, found years later in the journal he kept throughout his life.

Another: The wind signifies spirit; movement with the passage of time signifies life; light signifies knowledge; heat signifies love; and instantaneous activity signifies creation. Every corporeal form acts through harmony. There are more wet things than dry things, and more cold things than hot, because if this were not so, the active elements would have won the battle too quickly and the world would not have lasted long.

If that sounds, you know, completely ridiculous to you, thats probably because we live in a post-Descartes world, and he didnt. All this poor oven-baked idiot had at his disposal were a dream about melons, a steadfast conviction that he had been personally chosen by God to reform the entirety of Western thought up until that point, and some rumours about a weird sect of rosy German virgins who were devoted to doing just that.

You may have already guessed the next bit of the story: Descartes joins the Rosicrucians and embarks on some insane rituals and philosophies that weve never heard of today because it doesnt fit in with our modern ideas of genius, right?

Its actually way more stupid than that. In a series of events that, once again, really feels like it was ripped straight out of some cult comedy movie, Descartes tried to join the Rosicrucians, but kept running into the problem of them not, in fact, existing. So he couldnt join the group, but what he could and did do was accidentally make everyone think he had joined, thus entirely screwing over his reputation as someone to take seriously.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, this didnt matter much, because to a lot of people he was dangerous enough even without all the conspiracy stuff: his insistence that truth was something for humans, not God, to judge, and the idea that authority should or even could be questioned, made him an enemy of most established Churches, so much so that he eventually published an extremely circular and nonsensical proof of Gods existence to try to placate his attackers.

The irony was that Descartes knew God existed  otherwise who had told him to transform philosophy and mathematics via the medium of melons? And, ultimately, as hubristic as this claim was, Descartes did make good on it, publishing the end result of that night in the oven in the 1640s with a slew of philosophical and metaphysical treatises, which were hailed in his beloved Netherlands as heretical and contrary to orthodox theology and get out of our goddamn town Descartes.

Eventually, Descartes found refuge with Christina, Queen of Sweden, who was a fan of his ideas about science and love. She invited him to her court with the promises of setting up a new scientific academy and tutoring her personally. It seemed too good to be true. It was. In 1649, in the middle of winter, Descartes moved to Queen Christinas cold, draughty Swedish castle and discovered that he couldnt fucking stand his new boss or home. Worst of all for the philosopher who lived his entire life by the principle of never once waking up before noon, Christina declared that she could only be tutored at five in the morning, a demand that Descartes responded to as any night owl would: by saying I would literally rather die and promptly proving his point by literally dying just a few months later. In his final act, the man famous for telling the world I think, therefore I am had posed an equally unknowable philosophical conclusion: he would no longer think, and therefore he no longer existed.

Perhaps the final irony in the tale is that, as heretical as cogito ergo sum was considered at the time, with its previously unthinkably radical concept of doubting everything, even that which seems self-evident  modern philosophers have actually critiqued Descartes as not going far enough. Thinkers such as Kierkegaard have blasted Descartes for presupposing that I exists at all, and Nietzsche for presupposing that thinking exists.

I guess the moral of Descartess story, if there is one, is probably this: you cant please all of the people all of the time  especially if theyre philosophers. So, honestly? Why not just smoke a bunch of weed and crawl into an oven?

* Some modern scientists have suggested that Descartess night in the oven may in fact be the earliest recorded experience of Exploding Head Syndrome, a sleep disorder you may well have had yourself once or twice. Despite the gnarly name, it doesnt actually involve your head exploding  that would certainly have made Descartess future work more impressive  but it does cause you to hear loud bangs and crashes that arent really there, and sometimes see flashes of light as well, both of which Descartes recorded experiencing that night.

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Portugal could become the latest country to effectively ban Huawei and other Chinese firms from participating in its 5G buildouts. As reported by Bloomberg , the government of Portugal this week recommended barring local carriers from sourcing 5G equipment from suppliers based outside of the European Union or from countries that arent part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED).

In a statement Portugals Higher Council for Cybersecurity shared on Thursday, the government said firms outside those jurisdictions pose a high risk to the security of the countrys wireless networks. The document didnt call out Huawei specifically, but as China isnt a member of NATO, the OCED or the EU, the company, alongside other Chinese suppliers like ZTE, would effectively be excluded from participating in Portugals 5G networks should the countrys cabinet approve the security councils recommendation.

Huawei has no prior knowledge of, and hasnt been consulted about, this matter, a Huawei spokesperson told the Financial Times . Over the past two decades, Huawei has worked with Portuguese carriers to build out wireless networks and provide quality services that connect millions of people. We will continue to comply with all applicable laws and regulations, and serve Portuguese customers and partners who rely on our products and services.
Foreign exchange strategist at UniVCredit, Roberto Mialich, suggests the US Dollar is tipped to stay strong on the near-term outlook, in particular against the Euro, Swedish Krona and Turkish Lira.

Several salient points emerge from Mialich's analysis:

US debt ceiling deal unlikely to push EUR/USD much beyond 1.0850.

US Dollar is strong despite US debt ceiling discussions.

Stronger SEK in the long run, but volatility likely in the near term.

Turkish lira tipped to hit new record lows against the US Dollar

EUR-USD Exchange Rate and US Debt Deal

The Euro to Dollar (EUR/USD) exchange rate remains around 1.0750, and expectations of a US debt deal do not seem to significantly impact this pair at present.

A deal that reduces risk aversion across the market isn't expected to lift the EUR/USD pair much beyond 1.0850, given the ongoing repricing of Fed rate expectations.

"EUR-USD remains close to 1.0750 with expectations of a US debt deal not having a big impact on the FX market as for now", says Mialich.

US Dollar Strength amidst Debt Ceiling Negotiations

Despite the ongoing US debt ceiling negotiations, the US Dollar holds its ground in the foreign exchange market. This resilience is underlined by an increased likelihood of another rate hike by the Fed next month.

"In FX, the USD remains strong, despite there is a rising probability that a US debt ceiling deal might be reached throughout the long weekend in the US", says Roberto Mialich, FX Strategist.

He adds, "The implied probability of another 25bp rate hike by the Fed next month has further increased to around 45%."

Stronger SEK in the long run

The Swedish Krona (SEK) hitting a 14-year low is a significant event for the FX market.

It's worth noting that the Riksbank's attitude towards the Krona last month has fuelled these circumstances, with EUR-SEK rising to over 11.60.

"The SEK, in particular, hit a 14Y low, with EUR-SEK rising to over 11.60", says Mialich.

Political Situation in Turkey and its FX Impact

Turkey's political climate, especially the upcoming presidential election runoff, could influence currency markets, particularly the Turkish Lira (TRY).

Mialich predicts that the Turkish Lira to Dollar (TRY/USD) exchange rate might hit new lows despite potential interventions from the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT).

"The CBRT will likely intervene to help the TRY, if needed, but we expect the lira to ultimately hit new record lows against the USD", says Mialich.
MISSOULA, Mont. - Three separate reports of bear activity on the south side of the University of Montana campus were made Saturday.

An alert from the University of Montana says the activity was between Pantzer Hall and the Veteran services building.

Reports indicate a black bear getting into garbage. Montana Fish and Game officials have been notified of the activity.

People in the area are being told to stay observant.

If you encounter a bear, you can call UMPD at (406) 243-4000 or 9-1-1. Information will be forwarded to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to assist their efforts in relocation.

Below are some safety tips for bear encounters from the University of Montana:

Bears that are agitated may appear to be non-threatening or passive at first.

Bears that are agitated may snap or pop their jaws and make a woofing sound.

Do not run. This may incite a predatory chase response.

Continue to face the bear and back away slowly, talking calmly to identify yourself as a human.

If the bear continues to approach, try to scare it away by making yourself as large and imposing as possible by stretching your arms overhead and making loud noises.

You can find more educational information about bears and bear encounters by visiting the US Forest Service Be Bear Aware webpage.
Teachers in the Oakland Unified School District began their third strike in just over a year on May 4, demanding better pay. These teachers, however, are already well paid, and the district has offered substantial raises. Still, this strike is keeping 34,000 students out of classes just before finals.

According to the California Policy Center, strikes are now becoming commonplace in the district, with Lakisha Young, founder and CEO of the nonprofit parent group The Oakland Reach telling the San Francisco Chronicle, Every time its time to negotiate, theres always a strike.

While teachers are ostensibly striking for better wages, data would suggest they are already paid very well. A California Policy Center analysis found the average salary of a full-time teacher in this district is $79,257. When benefits are included, their total compensation averages $105,569.

According to salary tables from the district, base salaries for full time teachers start at $63,286, and top out at $112,977, excluding benefits. The district has already offered raises of 13-22% for teachers, but the union refused and claimed the district was negotiating in bad faith.

The strike comes as students are preparing for final exams and Advanced Placement tests. A teacher admitted the timing was meant to have a strong negative impact on students, to send a big message.

Students in the district struggle with basic math and reading, especially Black and Brown students. California Policy Center found among Black students, 19.8% meet state language standards and 10.7% meet math standards. Hispanic students are similarly behind, with 24.8% meeting language standards and 14.5% meeting math standards.

Students should not be used as a bargaining chip for better salaries, especially when teachers are already paid fairly. Unions should negotiate in good faith without purposely disrupting vulnerable students education at critical moments.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
Swathes of the Conservatives 'rural wall' are defecting to Labour after years of economic neglect, according to new polling figures.

Polling of more than 1,000 people in Englands 100 most rural constituencies reveals a fall of 18% in Tory support and a Labour surge of 16%.

This is putting the Conservatives (41%) and Labour (36%) almost neck-and-neck for the next election, the report, by the Country Land & Business Association (CLA) and Survation, says.

The survey reveals mounting frustration with economic policy and cost-of-living premium affecting rural communities.

Around 12 million voters live in rural areas, representing a significant proportion of the UK economy.

The Conservatives currently hold 96 of the 100 most rural seats in England, but applying this trend to the 2019 results would see them lose 20 seats in 2024.

This includes the likes of Northeast Somerset and Sherwood - large rural constituencies - which would fall to Labour.

And areas like South-West Surrey, which has been Conservative since 1983, would fall to the Liberal Democrats.

Despite the historic bond between the Tories and rural England, only 36% of those polled agreed the Conservatives "understand and respect rural communities and the rural way of life", with Labour close behind at 31%.

The majority of respondents (69%) agreed the government isnt doing enough to tackle the cost-of-living crisis in rural areas.

And a third (33%) said the cost-of-living pressures are affecting the countryside more than urban areas.

Of the political parties most trusted to stimulate economic growth in rural areas, between the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, the largest group of respondents (34%) said dont know.

The finding suggests that gains could be won by any party that offers an ambitious growth plan for the countryside.

Mark Tufnell, president of the CLA, warned that any party that wanted to "treat the countryside as a museum will be punished.

In recent years, weve seen how quickly communities which feel left behind can rewrite the electoral map. In 2024, it could be the countrysides turn," he said.

There is a simple truth  no political party has at present shown that it understands, let alone shares, the aspirations of rural communities."

Mr Tufnell warned that the 'outdated' planning regime was holding rural businesses back, as well as the lack of affordable housing which was "driving families out".

Meanwhile, the outdated infrastructure was limiting entrepreneurs potential, all of which was having "a devastating impact".

Any party which is willing to develop a robust and ambitious plan for the rural economy will secure significant support," he added.

The polling also shows a widespread lack of trust in local government, with 55% saying they do not trust local government to facilitate economic growth.

Almost half (47%) stated that local authorities "do not understand the needs of people living in the countryside."

The report also uncovers a strong appetite for planning and housing reform, with 44% saying they would support more homes being built in their communities.

And just under half (44%) agreed that reforming the planning system would help stimulate growth in rural economies.

The polling comes after the APPG for Rural Powerhouse published a report revealing how government neglect has created a cost-of-living rural premium.

MPs found a shortage of affordable housing, inadequate power infrastructure, and poor connectivity has left rural areas spending 20% more on items like fuel, despite wages being 7.5% lower than urban areas.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus will take to the picket line in the event of a SAG-AFTRA strike.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus will be on the picket line

The Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America are rumoured to be joining the Writers Guild of America by staging a strike and Julia has promised to make her voice heard if the union does take action.

Asked if she would be on the picket line by Variety, Julia said: "You bet your f****** a**. I voted yes for the strike authorisation.

By the way, that doesnt mean were striking. It just gives the board the ability to strike if they need to and Im in favour of that."

The 'Your Hurt My Feelings' star explained how all three unions are aligned in trying to ensure that every member gets a fair wage for their work.

Julia said: "The issues that the Screen Actors Guild is facing are very similar to what the Writers Guild is facing; and even the DGA for that matter to certain extent.

"Its time for us to stand up and get what we so rightfully deserve, which is a living wage, and particularly for the middle class in the Screen Actors Guild not to be squeezed out of the system altogether."

Meanwhile, Julia recently bemoaned how older women have been made to feel "invisible" in modern society which made her launch the 'Wiser Than Me' podcast to give them a platform.

The 62-year-old actress told People magazine: "I saw this documentary on HBO called 'Jane Fonda in Five Acts'. [As] I was watching it, I was thinking, 'God, you know, we just don't hear from older women. We don't do a deep dive very often into the lives of older women. They've lived, they have all this experience under their belt, and why aren't we hearing from them?'

"So I thought it would be exciting to compile a list of women and see if anybody wanted to sit down and have a pretty frank, honest conversation about life  Its been really exciting."
Prince William and Prince Harry secretly met with Princess Diana's butler Paul Burrell before the Duke of Sussex got married.

Prince William and Prince Harry held a secret meeting with Paul Burrell

The royal siblings were believed to have last spoken to Burrell after their mother's funeral in 1997 but it has now been revealed that they met at Kensington Palace in 2017 after Harry announced his engagement to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

Paul is said to have attended the meeting with William and Harry alone to provide the pair with "better clarity" about elements of their late mother's life.

A royal source told The Sun on Sunday newspaper: "It was a very low-key meeting but the brothers wanted to speak with someone who had been close to their mother.

"There were some aspects of her life they felt Paul could provide better clarity on.

"They asked to keep it all under wraps and he respected that.

"Paul was happy to tell them everything he knew and shed some light on their memories."

Paul was Diana's confidante until her death in a Paris car crash and recently suggested that his former boss would have attended her ex-husband King Charles and Queen Camilla's coronation had she still been alive because she would have been very successful in her own right.

He told OK! magazine: I always think to myself, What would she do in this situation? And she would have been at the coronation looking glorious, in her 60s, outshining everyone the way she did.

I dont think she would hold any animosity at all towards her ex-husband or her ex-husbands wife.

I think she would have gone on in life and achieved her own ambitions, still being royal and regal.
Quentin Tarantino is facing a claim from a strip club manager called NorCal Lowlife he once splashed out $10,000 to lick a womans feet until they wrinkled like prunes.

Quentin Tarantino is facing a claim from a strip club manager called NorCal Lowlife he once splashed out $10,000 to lick a womans feet until they wrinkled like prunes

Lowlife  also known as Page Rad  was apparently a senior worker at Hollywood nightspot Crazy Girls, and told the tale about the Pulp Fiction director  who is said to have a foot fetish as he often lingers on his leading ladies toes in his flicks  on a podcast called Get in the Car.

He said when Quentin apparently visited the club  without specifying when  the filmmaker requested a VIP room and the company of the dancer with the biggest t*** and biggest ass there.

Lowlife said he went to a security room and watched the action on CCTV, adding: Hes sitting down, shes about to do her little take her top off.

And he gets up, throws her on the f****** seat, takes her boots off one by one, both shoes, just starts licking the bottoms of her feet, sucking toes.

Lowlife claims the licking lasted about half-an-hour, and added by the end of it the strippers feet looked like you know when you take a bubble bath? Like prunes

He added about the price Quentin, who has two children with wife Daniella Pick, 39, allegedly paid: I think he gave her 10 Gs.

In 2010 Uma Thurman, 53, whose feet were lingered over by Quentin in his Kill Bill epic, toasted the director at a Friars Club roast by serving him champagne in her black velvet Louboutins.

At the same event, Eli Roth, 51, who starred in Quentins Inglourious B******* made the bad-taste Holocaust joke that the director had a bigger shoe collection than Dachau.
Turkiye's garment exports to Saudi Arabia surged fourteen-fold in the first quarter (Q1) of 2023, reaching a value of $52.242 million. This represents a significant increase compared to the same period last year, and nearly doubles the figures from the previous quarter. The boost in Turkiye's garment exports is part of an overall uptick in bilateral trade between the two nations, following a period of diplomatic tension.

Relations between Turkiye and Saudi Arabia had been strained in the aftermath of the 2018 assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, with bilateral tradeincluding the textile sectorsuffering as a result. However, efforts to normalise relations from both countries have led to a substantial increase in garment exports.

The textile trade between these nations is evolving. Turkiye's garment exports stood at a mere $3.592 million in Q1, 2022, increasing to $5.038 million in Q2. They then leaped to $30.867 million in Q4 of the same year, culminating in Q1 of this year with the aforementioned $52.242 million. This most recent figure is not far off from the total exports for all of 2022 when Turkiye exported apparel worth $62.730 million. Remarkably, it signifies a more than four-fold increase from the 2021 exports, which totalled $14.415 million, according to Fibre2Fashions market insight tool TexPro.

In Q1 2023, Turkiye's garment exports to Saudi Arabia surged fourteen-fold to $52.242 million, a significant increase from the same period last year. The increase marks a substantial recovery in bilateral trade, with Turkiye's garment exports jumping from $3.592 million in Q1 2022 to near the total export value of $62.730 million in 2022.

Garment exports from Turkiye experienced a downturn in 2021 due to diplomatic difficulties. Recognising the impact on trade and economic cooperation, the leaders of both nations took corrective measures. As a result, exports to Saudi Arabia, which had plummeted 91 per cent to $14.415 million in 2021 from $172.870 million in 2020, are now witnessing a robust recovery.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL)
Vietnams exports to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) hit $10.85 billion in the first four months this year, accounting for 10 per cent of the countrys total. The figure was a drop of 4.7 per cent year on yeara low level compared to the countrys 13 per cent drop of overall export revenue during the period.

Six among the 24 export markets with turnover of over $1 billion are ASEAN members.

Meanwhile, imports from ASEAN member nations during the period were worth $13.360 billion, accounting for 13.4 per cent of the countrys total importsbut down by 17.6 per cent year on year, resulting in a trade deficit of $2.51 billiona decrease of 48 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Vietnam's exports to the ASEAN bloc fell by 4.7 per cent year on year (YoY) to hit $10.85 billion in the first four months this year, accounting for 10 per cent of the country's total exports. Imports from ASEAN member nations fell by 17.6 per cent YoY during the period to reach $13.360 billion, accounting for 13.4 per cent of the country's total imports.

Thailand was Vietnams largest market among ASEAN member countries, with two-way trade reaching $6.25 billion, a news agency reported. It was followed by the Philippines with $1.73 billionup by 7 per cent year on year, and Indonesia, Cambodia and Malaysia.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)
Firoz & Riyas To Enter As Challengers?: Bigg Boss Malayalam Season 5 is entering its tenth week. The 10th week is very important for the Bigg Boss show. It marks the beginning of the final stage of the competition, where the competition intensifies.

Once this week is completed, only three weeks remain until the grand finale. Fans of the show are watching to see if the next few weeks will be game-changing. Contestants who make it to the nomination list in the final weeks will go through a lot of pressure.

2018 Movie Telugu Version: Tovino's Film Gearing Up To Enthral The US Audience; Distribution Rights Sold

Now there are reports that two more challengers are coming to the Bigg Boss house. It is said that one challenger coming to the house is Bigg Boss Malayalam season 4 contestant Riyas Salim. The second person is reportedly Bigg Boss Malayalam season 3 contestant Firoz Khan, popularly known as Pwoli Firoz.

Both will enter season 5 as challengers. Now everyone is looking forward to the task that is going to happen on Bigg Boss Malayalam season 5 with the arrival of these two contestants. Netizens are speculating that this will be a court task. It is also said that these two will be judges in this.

At the same time, in tonight's episode, the results of the toughest nomination list for Season 5 will be announced. This time Bigg Boss conducted the group nomination, which is done in every season.

The contestants were nominated in three teams of two and two teams of three. Bigg Boss asked each group to discuss each other in the confession room and nominate one person each. Six people made it to the nomination list after discussions that saw disputes, disagreements, and the strength of friendship.

Mohanlal Fans Club Acknowledges The Triumphant Success Of The 2018 Movie; Sets Sights On Reclaiming The Throne

The groups were Shiju, Junaiz, and Nadira; Cerena, Vishnu, and Reneesha; Akhil and Anu; Midhun and Rinosh; and Sobha and Sagar. From this, Junaiz, Vishnu, Akhil, Rinosh, Sobha, and Sagar have reached the nomination list. In tonight's episode, host Mohanlal will announce who will be out of the show.

Netizens Confirm Sagar's Elimination

Meanwhile, reports about this week's eviction in Bigg Boss Malayalam Season 5 are now going viral on social media. It is said that Sagar Surya will go out this week.

In the recent nomination list, Sobha and Sagar are generally considered the candidates who are likely to get the least number of votes. In such a situation, many YouTubers and Bigg Boss Malayalam predictors are strongly saying that Sagar is out. Many are also suggesting that it is an unfair eviction because Sagar is one of the strongest contestants in the Bigg Boss house.
Jude Anthany's Post On Mammootty Goes Viral: Renowned director Jude Anthany Joseph is basking in the glory of his remarkable achievement as his film '2018: Everyone is a Hero' skyrockets to unprecedented success. Directed by Jude himself, the movie has not only emerged as a triumph but also stands tall as the most commercially successful venture in the annals of Malayalam cinema.

Bigg Boss Malayalam Season 5: Former Contestants Firoz Khan And Riyas Salim To Enter As Challengers?

The film, which was set against the backdrop of the flood faced by Kerala in 2018, is the first Malayalam film to enter the 150 crore club. Now Jude's words about Mammootty are getting attention. The only star born on earth, not in the sky, a genuine man, thank you Mammookka for this love, support, and kind words," he wrote in his Facebook post.

Meanwhile, '2018: Everyone is a Hero' has not only resonated with the audience but has also shattered previous financial records, etching its name in the history books of the Malayalam film industry.

With an engaging narrative and gripping performances by a talented cast, the movie has captured the hearts of viewers, cementing Jude Anthany Joseph's position as one of the most promising directors in the industry.

2018 Movie-Telugu Version Will Have A US Release

Apart from Kerala, the makers have also released the other regional language versions of the film, which performed remarkably well in many markets. The Telugu, Hindi, and Tamil dubbed versions were released this Friday. Out of which the Telugu version is getting a good response. Now another piece of information has come out as an indication of the extent of the success the film is getting. The 2018 movie's Telugu version is also slated for a US release.

Bigg Boss Malayalam 5: Toughest Nomination List; Major Eviction Tonight; Netizens Confirm Sagar's Elimination

The US is the best market for Telugu movies. According to Asianet news online, this is mainly due to the large number of expatriates from the Andhra and Telangana regions. But SS Rajamouli's RRR had local people as its audience too.

The '2018' Malayalam version also had a US release but did not get enough theatre counts. That was the reason why the number in the US was not in the news, despite having good collections in many foreign markets, including the UK. But with the release of the Telugu version, trade analysts hope that the film will get a significant audience in the US. Leading company Prathyangira Cinemas has acquired the US distribution rights to the Telugu version of the movie.
Shiv Thakare Update: Colors TV's Bigg Boss, hosted by Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, is known for giving the much-need push to the careers of many participants and 'Marathi Manus' is one of them.

While Shiv Thakare rose to fame after appearing in MTV Roadies Rising (2017) and Bigg Boss Marathi 2 (2019), he won many hearts during his stint in Bigg Boss 16 and the controversial reality show made him a household name.

Despite losing the BB16 trophy to MC Stan, Shiv came out as one of the most loved contestants of the show. He owns a huge fan following and everyone is now eagerly awaiting his TV comeback.

The young lad is currently busy shooting for Rohit Shetty's Khatron Ke Khiladi 13 in Cape Town, South Africa, with co-contestants. While the stunt-based reality show is likely to premiere on TV in July this year, it looks like he'll be seen in another show even before KKK 13.

SHIV THAKARE TO APPEAR IN MTV ROADIES KARM YA KAAND?

Well, we're talking about the upcoming season of MTV Roadies, titled MTV Roadies Karm Ya Kaand. yes, you read that right! The makers recently unveiled the new promo of the much-awaited show hosted by Sonu Sood.

In the clip, gang leaders - Prince Narual, Gautam Gulati, and Rhea Chakraborty are seen locking horns with each other as they battle it out to select contestants for their gangs. Interestingly, the promo also has a glimpse of Shiv Thakare. Yes, you read that right!

People Pulled My Hair: Shiv Thakare's BB 16 Co-Contestant On Being Physically Assaulted At Sister's Wedding

The promo shows a guy wearing Shiv's signature black jacket with his mask on his face. While the face isn't visible, Shiv's voice can be heard saying, "Namaste sir, namaste."

Watch the promo here:

Ever since the promo got released, Shiv fans are excited as well as a little confused. While social media users are super excited to watch Shiv again on Roadies, they are a little confused as his face hasn't been revealed in the clip.

Reacting to it, an Instagram user wrote, "Shiv stole the show."

Shiv Thakare Charges A Bomb For Instagram Posts & It Makes Our Annual Income Look Like Peanuts

Another social media user commented, "Shiv guest appearing in a show from where he started his journey (heart emoji) full circle moment"

A third comment read, "Shiv ko dhundhna, hamara janam sidh adhikaar hain"

Take a look at the reactions here:

However, not much details are yet known about Shiv Thakare's appearance in MTV Roadies Karm Ya Kaand, most probably he'll be seen as a guest.

SHIV THAKARE SPECIAL CONNECTION WITH MTV ROADIES

As mentioned above, Shiv Thakare shares a special connection with MTV Roadies as he started his journey in showbiz as a contestant in MTV Roadies Rising. He reached till the semi-finale and got evicted at the sixth place.

Not just his fans, even we're excited to watch him in Roadies again. The new season starts from June 3, every Saurday and Sunday at 7 pm only on MTV & JioCinema.

Keep watching this space for more updates!
Sharwanand and Rakshita Reddy Photo Credit: Gallery

Actor Sharwanand, AKA Sharwanand Myneni, who is set to tie the nuptial knot finally to his fiance Rakshita Reddy, met with an accident on May 28.

The car in which Sharwanand was traveling along with a couple of others, met with an accident near the Film Nagar Junction in Hyderabad, on the morning of Sunday. However, thankfully, although the car went out of control, none of them got hurt and all the occupants are safe and sound. There were a few scratches on the car and the incident was also not serious, clarified the actor's team.

Sharwanand's Wedding

The Prasthanam actor got engaged to Rakshita Reddy, a techie from the USA, who is now in India. Theirs was an elaborate traditional Telugu-style engagement ceremony that was held in Hyderabad on January 26. The who's who of Tollywood including Megastar Chiranjeevi, and Akkineni Nagarjuna, among others attended the event with families. Ram Charan and his wife Upasana, Siddharth and Aditi Rao Hydari, Allari Naresh and his wife Virupa, Rana Daggubati, Vadde Naveen, and Venkatesh Daggubati among others were spotted at the engagement party.

Rakshitha Reddy is the daughter of a High Court judge and granddaughter of a Telugu politician. Sharwanand and Rakshitha are reportedly getting ready for their destination wedding in Jaipur in the first week of June. Their wedding is also going to be a grand one since they hail from film and political backgrounds.

In the meanwhile, Sharwanand scored a hit with 'Oke Oka Jeevitham', a time-travel emotional drama directed by a debutant.

As Sharwanand and Rakshitha got engaged in January, speculations were rife about the duo calling off their engagement. Until recently, it was believed that none of the involved families have spoken about it. But recently, the actor's team clarified that Sharwanand was busy shooting for his upcoming film and returned from a foreign schedule. Now, the actor is back home, and the preaprations for the wedding are in full-swing.

As per the available information, the 39 year-old Sharwanand will get married to his fiance Rakshita at the grand heritage hotel The Leela, in Jaipur. The wedding festivities are spread across two days and all the guests and invitees will be hosted at the venue.
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 27, 2023 / CREE8, an innovative mobile application that combines the power of an AI art generator and a versatile chatbot, has officially announced its launch. The application is available now on iOS and Android platforms.

CREE8 features an AI Chatbot as a personal assistant, guiding users through the app and addressing their queries. Utilizing advanced natural language processing capabilities, the AI Chatbot understands individual needs and provides personalized recommendations based on user preferences. Whether users are beginners or seasoned artists, the AI Chatbot ensures they make the most of the app's features.

At the core of CREE8 lies the AI Art generator, a tool that enables users to create stunning artwork. Powered by machine learning algorithms and intelligent design, the AI Art generator continuously evolves and improves, offering a creative experience.

Furthermore, CREE8 facilitates its user-friendly interface, making it accessible for individuals of all ages and backgrounds to tap into their artistic potential and enjoy meaningful interactions. The newly launched key features of CREE8 are as follows:

AI Art Generator: CREE8's AI art generator empowers users to create stunning artwork using advanced algorithms and an extensive library of artistic styles and techniques. Whether users are aspiring artists or simply exploring their creative side, CREE8 offers a world of inspiration at their fingertips.

Dynamic Chatbot: CREE8's chatbot is not limited to art-related conversations alone but is designed to cater to thousands of possibilities, making it a versatile companion for all users. Powered by state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) technology, the chatbot engages in interactive conversations, providing personalized recommendations, support, and insights across various topics.

CREE8 provides accessibility for all individuals, regardless of their backgrounds and ages. It caters to various user groups, such as kids, students, employees, artists, and businesses. Employees can use CREE8 to unwind, boost their creativity, and find motivation. Artists can experiment with new styles, refine their techniques, and connect with like-minded communities. Additionally, businesses can leverage CREE8's AI art generator for marketing campaigns, creating visually captivating content that resonates with their audience.

Additionally, CREE8 fosters a vibrant community of artists and enthusiasts, encouraging creative collaboration. Users can showcase their artwork, seek valuable feedback, and engage in constructive conversations within the app. This collaborative environment nurtures creativity, stimulates growth, and provides networking opportunities.

Consequently, integrating an AI art generator and a versatile chatbot in CREE8 opens up new possibilities for creative expression and engagement. Users can explore diverse art styles, experiment with techniques, and receive real-time feedback to refine their creations.

About the Company - CREE8:

CREE8 is a pioneering mobile application that combines an AI art generator and a versatile chatbot, modernizing artistic creation and interactive conversations.

CREE8 is now available for download on the App Store and Google Play Store. Potential clients can visit https://cree8.ai to learn more about CREE8.

Media Contact

Organization: CREE8

Contact Person: B Singh

Website: https://cree8.ai

Email: contact@cree8.ai

City: New York City

State: NY

Country: United States

PR Contact

King NewsWire

Support@kingnewswire.com

SOURCE: CREE8

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/757691/CREE8-Launches-the-Ultimate-App-for-Artistic-Creation-and-Interactive-Conversations
Reyna Law Firm has announced new services geared toward victims of car accidents involving uninsured drivers in and around Houston, Texas.

Houston, Texas--(Newsfile Corp. - May 28, 2023) - Amidst an increase in the number of uninsured drivers on Texas state roads in recent years - with figures from the Houston Chronicle suggesting that as of four years ago, Houston was home to the highest rate of such motorists in the entire nation, Reyna Law Firm has therefore brought forward its new insurance claim assistance services.

For more information, see https://www.reynainjurylaw.com/houston.





Reyna Law Firm Launches Uninsured Driver Accident Claim Service In Houston



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/167795_3471df6cb4e6d817_001full.jpg

Specifically, a lack of appropriate insurance coverage among drivers involved in crashes can significantly exacerbate the fallout of accidents, explains JR Reyna, Reyna Law Firm's founder and lead attorney. Spanning representation and legal counsel for accident victims, Reyna Law Firm's new services are designed to assist victims to recover damages from uninsured drivers.

"Being involved in an auto accident can be a traumatic experience, especially when the other driver doesn't have insurance coverage," said JR Reyna, Reyna Law Firm's founder and lead attorney. "We are here to help those who have been injured in these types of accidents."

This includes cases where clients are seeking reimbursement for property damage, personal injury, or both. Its attorneys point to the ongoing need for car crash victims to make up for lost wages or pay outstanding medical bills - situations the firm has encountered with its past clientele.

As part of the new services, Reyna Law Firm is now able to advise potential clients regarding their eligibility for reimbursement in several contexts. "Drivers who carry full comprehensive insurance coverage, including UM/UIM coverage, can protect themselves and their property in the event of an accident," says JR Reyna. "UM/UIM coverage can also provide additional protection in the event of a hit-and-run accident or an accident caused by a driver with insufficient insurance coverage."

Once insurance status is established and evidence is gathered where possible, Reyna Law Firm will represent clients through the injury claims process. Likewise, the firm represents uninsured drivers who may be able to pursue claims where the at-fault motorist was driving while impaired.

Beginning with consultations at its Houston offices, Reyna Law Firm now has an enhanced overall capacity to help car accident victims weigh up the viability of their potential case. The firm offers online and over-the-phone appointment booking options for in-person case reviews in line with its new services.

Interested parties in Houston and nearby can learn further details about Reyna Law Firm and its new services at https://www.reynainjurylaw.com/houston.

Contact Info:

Name: Juan Reyna

Email: james@jreynalawfirm.com

Organization: Reyna Law Firm Houston

Address: 10101 Southwest Fwy Ste 400, Houston, TX 77074, United States

Website: https://www.reynainjurylaw.com/houston

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/167795
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 28, 2023 / Doyle's auction of Post-war & Contemporary Art witnessed an astonishing moment as the artwork titled "Descending the Mountain Together" by the late Chinese sculptor Liu Shiming fetched a remarkable bid of $138,000. Held on May 17th, this event marked a significant milestone as it was the first-ever overseas auction featuring Liu Shiming's artworks, highlighting the profound impact of his artistic contributions

The sculpture "Descending the Mountain Together" by Liu Shiming depicts a young monk carrying a young nun as they elope down the mountain, drawing inspiration from the Anhui light opera Longing for the Secular Life and Descending the Mountain. Created using the traditional technique of wood carving, the sculpture showcases intricate details and the artist's signature style of expressive interactions between the figures. Liu Shiming, a renowned Chinese sculptor and educator, blended traditional Chinese techniques with modern emotions, leaving a lasting impact on the art world. His sculptures gained global recognition and continue to captivate audiences even after his passing in 2010. The establishment of the Liu Shiming Art Foundation in 2021 further solidifies his legacy, fostering international discussions on arts, history, and culture. "Descending the Mountain Together" exemplifies Liu Shiming's artistic language, exploring the complexities of love, goodness, spirituality, and societal influences through Chinese folklore and personal observations.

The significance of Liu Shiming's artwork, "Descending the Mountain Together," extends beyond its artistic value. It marks a historic moment as his work appears for the first time in an overseas auction. Ultimately, this sculpture commanded an impressive sum of $138,000, securing the highest bid among all the sculptural works in the Post-war & Contemporary Art auction.

About Liu Shiming:

Liu Shiming (1926-2010) was a revered Chinese sculptor, whose works have made a distinct impact on the course of modern Chinese sculpture art. Born in 1926, Shiming attended the Central Academy of Fine. As early as 1950, Shiming received international recognition for his work Measuring Land, and thereafter, Shiming continued to make large-scale and publicly displayed sculptures. In the 1960s, Shiming resided in the countryside of Henan and Hebei provinces, where he gained a unique perspective on the working class and rural life. His time outside of the city, and closely handling folk artworks in local museums, inspired Shiming to focus on everyday scenes in his works, becoming a common theme of Shiming's sculptures. Today, Shiming is recognized for his ability to beautifully capture the most mundane scenes, as well as his aptitude for fusing folk traditions with modern sensibilities.

Liu Shiming's works have been displayed in prominent galleries and spaces across the globe, including exhibitions in Beijing, Washington D.C., and most notably a special exhibition in the main atrium of the Oculus in New York City. In 2018, the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing founded the Liu Shiming Sculpture Museum, dedicated to researching and investigating Liu's artworks and their historical significance.

Media Contact

Organization: Liu Shiming Art Foundation

Contact Person: Luka Lee

Website: https://www.lsmartfund.org

Email: info@lsmartfund.org

City: New York City

State: New York

Country: United States

PR Contact

King NewsWire

Support@kingnewswire.com

SOURCE: Liu Shiming Art Foundation

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/757729/First-Overseas-Auction-of-Liu-Shimings-Artworks-Showcases-Descending-the-Mountain-Together
Instead of sanitary pads, we use cloth which is made by our mother using old handkerchiefs and used clothes. It feels very uncomfortable, causes rashes and itching, restricts free movement, and we always have to be conscious of it. Even washing and drying the cloth is cumbersome, as we have to constantly rub hard to remove the dark stains without privacy at home. Also, it leads to stains on her pants, so it becomes very humiliating while we go to the washroom.

This statement made by a girl from a slum in Delhis Kalkaji area is the story of thousands and thousands around the world who suffer period poverty  a lack of access to menstrual products, education, hygiene facilities and waste management. In fact, the World Bank in a report in May 2022 wrote, In total, an estimated 500 million lack access to menstrual products and adequate facilities for menstrual hygiene management (MHM).

Activists across the globe complain that for a large number of the population, sanitary pads are an expensive item owing to tampon taxes imposed by the State. It is because of this that women suffer during their menstruation cycle, with some even resorting to using sawdust, dry tree leaves, ash, and old newspapers.

As we gear up for Menstrual Hygiene Day  on 28 May  we take a closer look at what exactly is a tampon tax and which countries have abolished it? Where does India stand on the issue? Heres what we know.

Whats a tampon tax?

Tampon tax is a term used for the tax imposed on menstrual hygiene products by a government. This means they have a value-added tax or sales tax, whereas items such as other essential health purchases like prescriptions, some over-the-counter drugs, clothes in some regions, toilet paper, condoms, and groceries are typically tax-exempt.

The tampon tax is also known as the pink tax, a term used to describe a form of gender-based discrimination named for marketing the colour pink toward women.

According to a report by The Global Citizen in 2021, average American woman will experience 450 periods and pay between $100 (Rs 8,262) and $225 (Rs 18,600) in tampon taxes over her lifetime.

Critics of tampon taxes argue that tampons, sanitary napkins, menstrual cups and comparable products constitute basic, unavoidable necessities for women, and any additional taxes are unfair and discriminatory. As Cristina Garcia, the former Southern California Democrat  who had introduced legislation in the American state to repeal tampon tax in 2016, said: These products are a basic necessity that should not be taxed; its especially unjust since the tax only impacts women who are already suffering on the wrong end of the gender wage gap. Basically we are being taxed for being women.

Which countries have abolished tampon tax?

If you thought the United States or United Kingdom or some country in the western world was the first to abolish tampon tax, think again. In 2004, Kenya was the first country across the globe to get rid of tampon tax. And since then other countries have followed suit with a Thomson Reuters research saying 17 countries have removed the discriminatory tax.

Next after Kenya was Canada in July 2015. The Canadian government recognised sanitary products as an essential item, ending the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on all sanitary products. The historic step was taken after an online petition organised by Canadian Menstruators, an online advocacy group, received thousands of votes on the matter and it was presented to the Federal Government of Canada in Ottawa.

It was only in 2016 that the European Union allowed member states to choose whether they want to subject women to a tax on their tampons and sanitary pads. This has enabled a few countries like Italy and others to reduce the VAT or remove it completely.

In UK, the move to eliminate the five per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) on the cost of period products came after Laura Coryton, a student, led a campaign on the issue and accumulated more than a quarter of a million signatures. In 2022, Scotland became the first nation to make tampons and sanitary pads free and available at designated public places such as community centres, youth clubs and pharmacies.

Also read: Why Scotland is providing free sanitary napkins and tampons

Other countries which have removed taxes on menstrual products are Australia  they repealed the 10 per cent tax on tampons and pads on 1 January 2019. Similarly Colombia also struck off their five per cent tax on tampons in 2018. The country of Belize also announced that from April it would be eliminating General Sales Tax on feminine hygiene products.

What about Indias tampon tax?

India scrapped its tax on menstrual products in 2018 following months of campaigning by activists. Prior to the abolition of the tax, there was a 12 per cent GST levied on menstrual hygiene products.

Piyush Goyal, the then acting finance minister of India, had said on the decision, The countrys sisters and mothers will be happy to hear that sanitary pads have been given a 100 per cent exemption and brought down to a tax rate of zero. Now there will be no tax on sanitary pads.

The decision to scrap the GST on menstrual hygiene products came after several activists had questioned the government on the move, with then Congress lawmaker Sushmita Dev launching a petition that received more than 4,00,000 signatures.

This was a most-awaited and necessary step to help girls and women to stay in school, their jobs, to practise proper menstrual hygiene, Surbhi Singh, founder of Sachhi Saheli, a charity that raises awareness on menstrual health, had said.

Amar Tulsiyan, founder of Niine Movement, had also hailed the decision as a big win for everyone in India, where, he said, 82 per cent women and girls have no access to sanitary pads.

In India, periods are one of the leading reasons why girls drop out of education in India, while many others are forced to stay at home because they cant access sanitary products.

Even today, sanitary products remain out of reach for several women in India, with a study conducted by Indian Institute of Public Health, Bhubaneswar (IIPHB) showing that 37 per cent in Odisha alone cant afford to buy sanitary products.

Also read: Menstrual hygiene awareness: How it is related to period positivity

The latest National Family Health Survey report also showed that about 50 per cent of women aged 15-24 years still use cloth for menstrual protection.

What about the US?

Several states in America continue to impose a tampon tax. According to TaxFoundation.org, there are 12 states where feminine hygiene products are not taxed under a states sales tax. Five states Alaska, Delaware, New Hampshire, Montana, and Oregon  do not have sales tax. Seven states specifically exempt feminine hygiene products  Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Activists and numerous non-profits argue that this is discriminatory and that all tampon taxes should be abolished across the country. As Damaris Pereda, national programs director of global nonprofit Period told USA TODAY, Period products are actually a medical need. Theyre a necessity and everyone should have access to them, just like basic food and shelter. Its a matter of human rights.

Also read: No Period Talk: Why Florida wants to restrict menstruation discussions at school

And this sentiment is being shared by more people each day in the US. On Tuesday itself, Texas House passed a bill repealing the tampon tax. If the bill becomes law, Texas will join the slim majority of states that have nixed the sales tax on menstrual products, as well as diapers for adults and children, baby wipes, breast milk pumping products, baby bottles and maternity clothes.

In the past, former US president Barack Obama has also questioned the need for a tampon tax in the US. When YouTube personality Ingrid Nilsen had raised the issue in 2016 in front of the commander-in-chief, he had said: I have to tell you, I have no idea why states would tax these as luxury items. I suspect its because men were making the laws when those taxes were passed.

Its time countries see how discriminatory the tampon tax is and repeal it. After all, as Newsweek had once said in their cover story: There will be blood.

With inputs from agencies

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Agree with the construction or not, the new Parliament building  spread across 64,500 square metres  appears majestic and worthy of being Indias seat of power. The building has been inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 28 May (coinciding with the anniversary of him being in power for nine years) in an historic event which also saw the installation of the sengol in the new Lok Sabha chamber.

However, who is behind the design of this new and well-improved structure? What has been his inspiration in the construction of the new building that is four-storeys high and triangular in shape?

Catch all the live updates from the inauguration of the new Parliament building HERE

We bring you the inside details of the design of the building and also the man behind this beautiful construction  Bimal Hasmukh Patel, who leads Ahmedabad-based HCP Designs.

Who is Bimal Patel?

Bimal Hasmukh Patel, born on 31 August 1961 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, is an architect, urbanist and academician and also the brains behind the new Parliament building, which comes under Central Vista Project.

One could say that Patels love for architecture comes from his father, Hasmukh Chandulal Patel, who also set up the HCP firm in 1960. Bimal studied architecture at the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT), Ahmedabad, in 1984 and completed his Masters degree in Architecture and City Planning in 1988. He received a PhD in City and Regional Planning in 1995 from the University of California, Berkeley. He completed his doctoral thesis under Marxist urban geographer Richard Walker. Incidentally, today Patel heads CEPT, the same institute that he studied from.

Following his education, he started his career in 1990 in Ahmedabad, which he calls the open to transformative ideas. Speaking to The Print, he was quoted as saying of the city, Ahmedabad has always been open to new transformative ideas and it has always supported modernisers in diverse fields: Gandhiji, Vikram Sarabhai, Ravi Mathai, Gautam and Gira Sarabhai and Ela Bhatt. It is a receptive place for people who want to sincerely pursue innovative projects.

In 1992, Patel won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for designing The Entrepreneurship Development Institute and since then his career has been on the upswing. He is the brains behind many of the building and structures around the country  for instance, the Aga Khan Academy in Hyderabad, Bhuj Development Plan and Town Planning Schemes (post-earthquake), Vishwanath Dham in Varanasi, and Sabarmati Riverfront Development in Ahmedabad.

He has won many accolades for his designs, including the Padma Shri award in 2019. Besides this national honour, he has been the recipient of the World Architecture Award in 1997, the Prime Ministers National Award for Excellence in Urban Planning and Design (2003), and the HUDCO Design Award (2013).

Also read: New Parliament building and the many controversies surrounding the structure

Bimal Patel and ties with PM Modi

In October 2019, Patels HCP Designs won the consultancy bid for the Centres ambitious project to redevelop the Central Vista, including Parliament and Rajpath, and develop a Common Central Secretariat for various ministries.

Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said that Patels firm will be paid Rs 229.75 crore for consultancy services, will prepare the master plan of the project, including designs, cost estimation, landscape and traffic integration plans, and parking facilities among others.

However, this announcement was met with much criticism, with some saying, He is just some architect from Gujarat who knows Modi. What does he know about Delhi or its history?

Bimal Patel and Modi share a long history. In fact, one can say that Bimal Patel is a facilitator of Modis dreams and his go-to person for big projects. In 2005 when Modi was still Gujarat chief minister, it was Bimal Patel who was given the responsibility of the Sabarmati Riverfront project, which in later years became Modis choice for photo-ops; remember the dinner for Chinese president Xi Jinping or even celebrating Mahatma Gandhis 150th birth anniversary. It also featured in Modis campaign resume in 2014.

After Modi became prime minister in 2014, it was Bimal Patel who was once again given the responsibility of constructing the historic Kashi Vishwanath corridor in Modis constituency of Varanasi. The project was aimed at linking one of the pre-eminent Hindu temples to three main ghats on the Ganga, a distance of about 320 metres by 2021.

When criticised about destroying heritage and history, Bimal Patel remained unfazed. Speaking to The Print, he had said, We should be respectful of heritage and tradition, but should not let ourselves be held hostage to them. Research shows that Varanasi is an ancient city that has been continuously built over by successive generations in many different ways. What is important is to have the courage to do what needs to be done.

Bimal Patels designs on Parliament

After winning the contract for the Central Vista Project, Patel and his sat down to visualise what the new Parliament would look like.

He had earlier said that he wished for the new structure to be a true replica of Rising India. Speaking to Moneycontrol in the past, he had said, The new design borrows its aesthetic language from the rich architectural traditions of India and from the old Parliament building. We have ensured continuity in the materials used on the exterior of the building, continuity in the colour schemes of the interiors. The building also incorporates various craft traditions of the country.

Also read: Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat: How new Parliament building has something from across India

When asked about the shape of the building and why he chose it to be triangular, he responded that many sacred geometries celebrate triangles and trinities. The new Parliament building is designed in a triangular shape since it sits on a triangular plot and has three main spaces  Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and a Central Lounge. Also, triangles are sacred geometries in various religions and cultures of the country. The Sri Yantra uses a triangle, the three Gods or the Trinities are a triangle and therefore the triangle is sacred, he was quoted as telling news agency PTI.

He added in an Indian Express report that his vision for the new structure was to make a clean break, untether ourselves from the past and more fully embrace the future.

And a clean break, it seems he has made. In the Lok Sabha chamber, the national bird Peacock is theme whereas in the Rajya Sabha chamber the national flower Lotus is the theme and in Central Lounge courtyard they have used the national tree Banyan as its theme.

Patel has ensured that various parts of India are featured in the new structure. The sandstone in the construction has come from Dholpur, and the granite from Lakha village in Jaisalmer. The carpets have been woven in Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh, and in Kashmir. Intricate woodwork has been sourced from craftsmen from Maharashtra.

As Bimal Patel once said, What we do with our Parliament building will powerfully signify who we are, how we view our past and where we see ourselves going.

With inputs from agencies

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government will complete nine years in office on 30 May, 2023. Several developmental works have been carried out during this tenure for the welfare of the country and its people. Also, the image of India under the leadership of PM Modi has increased multi-fold during this time.

Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Pradesh, earlier this week informed that the Indian economy which was 1 trillion dollars in 2014, has now crossed 3.5 trillion dollars.

India has more than 50 lakh crore forex reserves. India exported goods worth Rs 36 lakh crore, this was just Rs 19 lakh crore in 2014. It almost doubled, he said.

Here is a look at nine achievements of the Narendra Modi-led government that first came to power at the Centre in 2014.

Modi government 9 years 9 feats

1- The Modi government has sanctioned more than four crore house under PM Awas Yojana (PMAY).

2- Over 48.9 crore accounts have been opened under the Modi governments flagship Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)

3- Rs 29 lakh crore have been directly transferred to beneficiary bank accounts.

4- Under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana (PMGKAY), more than 80 crore poor were provided food grains.

5- Rs 5,182 crore have been disbursed in 42.87 accounts under PM Street Vendors AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) till March 2023.

6- More than Rs 7,558 crore worth of loans have been sanctioned by the Modi government under Stand Up India to SC and ST beneficiaries.

7- During nine years of Modi government, 28.90 crore unorganised workers have registered in E-Shram Portal which has been created as a National Database of Unorganised Workers (NDUW), which will be seeded with Aadhaar.

8- In its nine-year, Modi government has saved Rs 71,301 crore due to weeding away dummy LPG connections.

9- Rs 13,290 crore claims have been settled under PM Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana.

Narendra Modi was sworn in for the first time as Prime Minister on May 26, 2014, and then took oath at the office for the second term on May 30, 2019.

With inputs from agencies

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged people to visit museums across the country, and said that this will strengthen the connection of Indians with our glorious culture.

I urge you that whenever you get a chance do visit these museums of our country. Do not forget to share the attractive pictures from there on #MuseumMemories. This will strengthen the connection of Indians with our glorious culture, PM Modi said during the 101st episode of Mann Ki Baat

He further talked about his recent visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

I was recently in Hiroshima of Japan. There, I got the opportunity to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It was an emotional experience. When we preserve memories of history, they are of great help for coming generations. Many times, we get new lessons in museums, while many times we learn many things, he said.

Talking about museums in India, PM Modi said, The International Museum Expo was held in India a few weeks ago. It showcased unique specialties of more than 1200 museums from world over. There are many such different types of museums in India which exhibit various aspects of our past. For example, there is a unique museum at Gurugram  Museo Camera. It hosts a collection of more than 8,000 cameras made after 1860.

Tamil Nadus museum of possibilities has been designed keeping in mind Divyangjan. Mumbais Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya is a museum where more than 70,000 objects have been preserved. The Indian Memory Project, established in the year 2010, is a one of a kind online museum. It is engaged in connecting the links of Indias glorious history through photographs and stories sent from all over the world.

The prime minister said that in the past years we have seen new types of museums and memorials being built in India.

10 new museums dedicated to the contribution of tribal brothers and sisters in the freedom struggle are being built. Be it the Biplobi Bharat Gallery in Kolkatas Victoria Memorial or the renovation of Jallianwala Bagh Memorial, the PM Museum, dedicated to all the former prime ministers of the country, is also adding to the glory of Delhi today. At the National War Memorial and Police Memorial in Delhi everyday, many people come to pay homage to the martyrs, he said.

The list of museums across the country is very long. For the first time the necessary information about all the museums in the country has also been compiled. On the theme of museum, what kind of objects are kept there, what are the contact details, all this is contained in an online directory, he added.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building and installed the historic Sengol in the Lok Sabha chamber.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has given a thorough explanation over the Sengol controversy while acknowledging that both sides have good arguments.

The historic Sengol which was received and placed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier today during the new Parliament building inauguration ceremony, has created a lot of stir over its historical significance and an apparent connection with Jawaharlal Nehru.

Catch all the live updates on New Parliament Building inauguration here

Sharing his view on the Sengol, Tharoor said, The government rightly argues that the sceptre reflects a continuity of tradition by embodying sanctified sovereignty & the rule of dharma. The Opposition rightly argues that the Constitution was adopted in the name of the people & that sovereignty abides in the people of India as represented in their Parliament, and is not a kingly privilege handed down by divine right.

The two positions are reconcilable if one simply drops the debateable red herring about the sceptre having been handed to Nehru by Mountbatten to symbolise the transfer of power, a story for which there is no proof. Instead, we should simply say that the sengol sceptre is a traditional symbol of power & authority, and by placing it in the Lok Sabha, India is affirming that sovereignty resides there & not with any monarch, he added.

My own view on the #sengol controversy is that both sides have good arguments. The government rightly argues that the sceptre reflects a continuity of tradition by embodying sanctified sovereignty & the rule of dharma. The Opposition rightly argues that the Constitution was pic.twitter.com/OQ3RktGiIp  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) May 28, 2023

Concluding his view, the senior Congress leader said that all of us should embrace this symbol from the past to affirm the values of our present.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, As the new building of Indias Parliament is inaugurated, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise. May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress.

As the new building of Indias Parliament is inaugurated, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise. May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress. pic.twitter.com/zzGuRoHrUS  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 28, 2023

History of the Sengol

Sengol derives its name from the Tamil word semmai which means righteousness.

In 1947, the Sengol was handed over to Indias first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, minutes before the national flag was hoisted and before the leader made his famous Tryst with Destiny speech at midnight on August 15, 1947. It had been kept at his Prayagraj residence-turned-museum till now.

Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru accepted Sengol around 10:45 PM of 14 August 1947 through the Adhinam of Tamil Nadu. It was a sign of the shift of power from the British to the people of our country, Shah said on Wednesday.

The Union Home Minister also said that the Sengol has been necessary from the time of the Chola dynasty. This Sengol will be kept in New Parliament PM Modi will accept this Sengol and it will be placed near the Speakers seat, he said.

Shah also said that it was inappropriate to keep this sacred Sengol in a museum.

Ahead of Indias independence, Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of British India, had on several occasions asked Nehru what would mark the transfer of power when India attains Independence.

Nehru then turned to C Rajagopalachari, Indias last Governor General, who informed him about the Tamil tradition of the high priest handing over a Sengol to a new king when he comes to power.

Rajagopalachari also told Nehru that the tradition was followed during the reign of the Cholas as he went on to suggest to him that it could mark Indias freedom from British Raj.

Rajagopalachari was then asked to arrange a Sengol for the historic moment of Indias independence. He contacted Thiruvaduthurai Atheenam, a prominent mutt in present-day Tamil Nadu.

The then seer of the mutt accepted the responsibility and a Sengol was made by Vummidi Bangaru Chetty, a jeweller in then Madras which was five feet long and had a nandi bull on top, symbolising justice.

A senior priest of the mutt had first handed over the Sengol to Mountbatten and then took it back. It was then sprinkled with gangajal and was taken in a procession to the then-PM Nehru and handed over to him.

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External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday paid tribute to poet and freedom fighter, Veer Savarkar on his birth anniversary, and said that his many contributions to the nation will continue to inspire generations.

Tributes to Veer Savarkar on his Jayanti. His patriotism, courage, and commitment motivate us in the building of a New India. His many contributions to the nation will continue to inspire generations, tweeted S Jaishankar.

Interestingly, the birth anniversary of the Savarkar coincides with the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also paid tribute to Savarkar at the new Parliament building.

#WATCH | Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tributes to VD Savarkar on the occasion of Savarkar Jayanti in the new Parliament. pic.twitter.com/CTy8fIPzUG  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

Savarkar born on May 28, 1883, was a politician, activist, and writer. He developed the Hindu Nationalist Ideology of Hindutva while being imprisoned at Ratnagiri in 1922.

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External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday that India is currently facing a very complicated challenge from China. He, however, added that the Narendra Modi-led government has taken steps to ensure no attempts are made to change the status quo in the border areas unilaterally.

In the last three years, India has witnessed several attacks attempted by China in the bordering areas, Jaishankar said while also mentioning that both countries should have an equilibrium in their relationship, but it cannot be on the terms of the other party.

Jaishankars comments came as he addressed a talk on Modis India: A Rising Power at the Anant National University in Ahmedabad.

Referring to Chinas attempts to infiltrate into Indian territory via eastern Ladakh, Jaishankar said, When I talk about big powers, of course we have a particular challenge from China. That challenge is a very complicated challenge, but in the last three years it has been particularly visible in the border areas.

There are clearly responses that are required, and those responses have been undertaken by the government. And a lot of it to ensure that no attempt is made to unilaterally change the status quo in the border areas, he added.

The foreign minister said that India and Chinas relationship should be based on mutual respect, sensitivity and interest.

How can we get along long term if you dont respect me if you are not sensitive to my concerns, if you ignore my interest? he asked.

But if we do not, I think we need to stand up for our rights, and we need to be firm in asserting opposition. And that, unfortunately, currently is the situation, he added.

He hailed the prime ministers efforts at forging a friendly relationship with countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. These countries have always been close to India and are today linked with us via roads, railways and waterways, he added.

The linkage and perception today of India in the neighbourhood has changed, and nothing illustrated that more dramatically than what happened to Sri Lanka last year when it went through a very deep economic crisis, he said.

He added, And we have actually stepped forward in a way in which we ourselves never have before. What we have done for Sri Lanka is bigger than what the IMF has done for Sri Lanka.

The Quad countries are today discussing maritime collaboration, infrastructure connectivity, 5G and vaccines, among other issues. India is also interacting with a group of countries to its West, such as Israel, the United States and United Arab Emirates, Jaishankar said.

Under PM Modi, we are not thinking just of tomorrow, we are not even thinking of the next term. We are thinking really beyond. And in many ways, without exaggerations, we are today laying the foundation of what is the global footprint, he said.

With inputs from agencies

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Highlighting the Ministry of Educations Yuvasangam initiative, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said about 1200 youths have toured 22 states of the country in its first round, adding that there is a lot to see in the country.

Indias strength lies in its diversity. There is a lot to see in our country. Keeping this in view, the Ministry of Education has taken an excellent initiative named Yuvasangam. The objective of this initiative is to increase People to People Connect as well as to give an opportunity to the youth of the country to mingle with each other. Higher educational institutions of various states have been linked to it, PM Modi said during the 101st episode of Mann Ki Baat.

In Yuvasangam youth visit cities and villages of other states, they get an opportunity to meet different types of people. In the first round of Yuvasangam, about 1200 youths have toured 22 states of the country. All the youth who have been a part of it, are returning with such memories, which will remain etched in their hearts for the rest of their lives. We have seen that CEOs, Business leaders of many big companies have spent time in India as Back-Packers. When I meet leaders of other countries, many a time they also tell me that they had gone to visit India in their youth, he added.

PM Modi said there is so much to know and see in our India that your curiosity will only increase every time.

During his monthly programme, PM Modi also interacted with two youngsters  Gyamar Nyokum from Arunachal Pradesh and Vishakha Singh from Bihar who have been a part of this effort and urged them to share their experience in a blog.

PM Modi also thanked people for their blessing for the 100th episode of Mann Ki Baat.

This time this episode of Mann Ki Baat is the beginning of its 2nd century. Last month all of us have celebrated the special century. Your participation is the greatest strength of this program. During the broadcast of the 100th episode, in a way the whole country was bound by a single thread. Be it sanitation personnel brothers and sisters or veterans from myriad sectors, Mann Ki Baat has striven to bring everyone together. The intimacy and affection that all of you have shown for Mann Ki Baat is unprecedented, it makes one emotional, he said.

When Mann Ki Baat was broadcast, in different countries of the world, in various time zones, somewhere it was evening and somewhere it was late night despite that, a large number of people took time out to listen to the 100th episode. I also saw that video from New Zealand, thousands of miles away, in which a 100 year old is expressing her motherly blessings. People from India and abroad have expressed their views on Mann Ki Baat. Many people have also offered Constructive Analysis. People have appreciated the fact that in Mann Ki Baat only the achievements of the country and the countrymen are discussed. I once again thank you all with all due respects for this blessing, he added.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Sunday said nearly 40 armed militants involved in torching houses and firing at civilians have been killed by security forces since they began an operation to bring peace to the northeastern state beset by ethnic rioting.

Singhs comments came in the backdrop of fresh clashes breaking out between armed groups and security forces at over half a dozen places across Manipur on Sunday.

The Chief Minister who was interacting with the media persons at the state secretariat, claimed the latest round of conflict is not between communities but between Kuki militants and security forces.

Singh also said that there had been cases of armed militants firing at civilians with AK-47s, M-16 and sniper rifles. These militants were targeted by security forces in counter-attacks.

The CM appealed to the public not to hinder the movement of security personnel and urged them to have faith in the government and support the security forces.

We have experienced hardship for so long and we will never allow the state to disintegrate, Singh said.

He said many Kuki militants involved in killing civilians and destroying property and torching houses have been captured by the Jat regiment.

#WATCH | Manipur: Vehicles vandalised and burned by miscreants in Uripok area of Imphal West pic.twitter.com/pdkvxqwYFF  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

The latest clashes which erupted in the early hours of Sunday began after the army commenced combing operations to de-arm communities in order to bring peace, officials said.

The house of BJP MLA Khwairakpam Raghumani Singh at Uripok in Imphal West was vandalised and his two vehicles have been set on fire, a top security official told PTI.

He said that clashes broke out in the early hours of the morning at several places in different districts surrounding the Imphal Valley both between militant groups and security forces as well as between rival ethnic militant groups.

According to our information, firing has been reported from Sugnu in Kakching, Kangvi in Churachandpur, Kangchup in Imphal West, Sagolmang in Imphal East, Nungoipokpi in Bishenpur, Khurkhul in Imphal West and YKPI in Kangpokpi, the official said.

New roadblocks have also sprung up in many areas manned by women which have delayed army columns on patrol.

There was also an unconfirmed report of arms being looted from Kakching police station by a Meitei group, the official said.

Ethnic clashes which have claimed over 75 lives first broke out in Manipur after a Tribal Solidarity March was organised in the hill districts on May 3 to protest against the Meitei communitys demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

The violence was preceded by tension over the eviction of Kuki villagers from reserve forest land, which had led to a series of smaller agitations.

Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipurs population and live mostly in the Imphal Valley. Tribal Nagas and Kukis constitute another 40 per cent of the population and reside in the hill districts.
09:03 | Lima, May. 28.

According to Supreme Resolution No. 081-2023-PCM published in the Official Gazette El Peruano , the trip of Prime Minister Otarola to Brasilia (Brazil) is authorized
Mann ki Baat: Prime Minister Narendra Modi held up the stories related to Veer Savarkars sacrifice and courage as an inspiration for todays generation of Indians during his monthly radio programme Mann ki Baat on Sunday.

May 28 happens to be the birth anniversary of freedom fighter and Hindutva icon Veer Savarkar. He was born on this day in 1883.

In his speech during the 101st edition of Mann Ki Baat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recounted his experience while visiting the prison cell at the cellular jail in Andaman where Veer Savarkar had served a harsh sentence during British rule.

I cannot forget the day when I went to the cell in Andaman where Veer Savarkar underwent the sentence of Kalapani, he said.

Veer Savarkars personality comprised firmness and magnanimity. His fearless and self-respecting nature did not appreciate the mentality of slavery at all. Not only the freedom movement, whatever Veer Savarkar did for social equality and social justice is remembered even today, PM Modi said during his monthly radio address.

PM Modi also mentioned the Yuva Sangam initiative, during which around 1,200 youths toured 22 states across India in order to enhance their understanding of the nation and its diversity.

Indias strength lies in its diversity. There is a lot to see in our country. Keeping this in view, the Ministry of Education has taken an excellent initiative named Yuvasangam. The objective of this initiative is to increase People to People Connect as well as to give an opportunity to the youth of the country to mingle with each other. Higher educational institutions in various states have been linked to it, PM Modi said.

Every last Sunday of the month, PM Modi addresses the nation via this radio programme. On October 3, 2014, the radio programme was launched in honour of Vijayadashami. It is broadcast on various platforms in 22 Indian languages, 29 dialects, and 11 other languages.

(With agency inputs)

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The second phase of the new Parliament buildings inauguration is already underway, with leaders welcoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the complex as they chanted Modi, Modi.

#WATCH | PM Modi enters new Parliament amid Modi, Modi chants and standing ovation. pic.twitter.com/JRNSIImVjm  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh in the new Parliament said, I thank PM Modi on behalf of the entire country.

It is a matter of immense happiness that a new modern Parliament was constructed in less than 2.5 years under the leadership of PM Modi, he added.

#WATCH | It is a matter of immense happiness that a new modern Parliament was constructed in less than 2.5 years under the leadership of PM Modi: Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh in the new Parliament pic.twitter.com/CTJeoMEspJ  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

This day is an important milestone as it will prove to be a source of inspiration in the Amritkaal.

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Soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building and with the first phase of the inauguration ceremony done, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) posted an image on its official Twitter handle comparing the new Parliament building with a coffin.

Being a historic day for India, RJDs comments were slammed by BJP leaders. Dushyant Gautam, a BJP leader, said, This is very unfortunate. Today they are comparing it with a coffin, were they comparing the old Parliament with zero? We were earlier sitting in zero.

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#WATCH | This is very unfortunate. Today they are comparing it with a coffin, were they comparing the old Parliament with zero? We were earlier sitting in zero: BJP leader Dushyant Gautam on RJD comparing the new Parliament with a coffin pic.twitter.com/jHN8R8u8PQ  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

Meanwhile, BJP leader Sushil Modi said, A case of treason should be registered against such people who have compared the new Parliament building with a coffin.

#WATCH | A case of treason should be registered against such people who have compared the new Parliament building with a coffin: BJP leader Sushil Modi on RJDs tweet comparing the new Parliament building with a coffin pic.twitter.com/K9FYLMELxX  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

A bunch of opposition parties has boycotted the grand opening ceremony of the new Parliament building. Union Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda said, The opposition parties should not do politics and take part in the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building to strengthen democracy.

#WATCH | Union Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda says the opposition parties should not do politics and take part in the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building to strengthen democracy pic.twitter.com/jtEgQuyA01  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

NCP MP Supriya Sule said, To open a new Parliament building without the Opposition makes it an incomplete event. It means there is no democracy in the country.

#WATCH | To open a new Parliament building without the Opposition makes it an incomplete event. It means there is no democracy in the country: NCP MP Supriya Sule, in Pune pic.twitter.com/K9gedWLtPq  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

In a scathing attack on PM Modi, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, On this day, May 28th: Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883.

With inputs from agencies

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived at the new Parliament building complex alongside Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla.

#Live: PM Modi to Inaugurate Grand, Majestic & Spacious Parliament Building Today https://t.co/iiyVpOSGH0  News18 (@CNNnews18) May 28, 2023

Shortly after he arrived at the location, PM Modi attended a havan and performed a puja at the premises ahead of the inauguration.

He also bowed down to the Sengol and sought blessings from all the 21 Adheenams. He later entered the new Parliament building carrying the sengol following which he placed the historic relic beside the speakers chair.

He also paid floral tributes to the sengol.

After placing the sengol in the parliament, PM Modi felicitated the workers involved in the construction of the new Parliament building complex.

He later unveiled the plaque to mark the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

Seers from various faith recited prayers at the havan ceremony.

The morning phase will end at close to 9:30 am after which the second leg of the ceremony is expected to begin at noon with the singing of the national anthem in the Lok Sabha chamber in the presence of all the dignitaries including PM Modi.

At 11:30 am, all the invitees including members of Parliament, Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha, chairman and other distinguished guests are expected to be seated in the Lok Sabha chamber in the new building.

With the grand inauguration of the new Parliament building today, thousands of police personnel have been deployed in Lutyens Delhi in and around the new Parliament building complex.

Meanwhile, wrestlers protesting at Jantar Mantar, barely two kilometres away, have decided to carry on with their Mahapanchayat no matter what.

The police, on the other hand, are on high alert to ensure that no protestor moves toward the new Parliament complex as permission has not been granted to hold the Mahila Mahapanchayat.

With inputs from agencies

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With the grand inauguration of the new Parliament building today, thousands of police personnel have been deployed in Lutyens Delhi in and around the new Parliament building complex.

Meanwhile, wrestlers protesting at Jantar Mantar, barely two kilometres away, have decided to carry on with their Mahapanchayat no matter what.

The police, on the other hand, are on high alert to ensure that no protestor moves toward the new Parliament complex as permission has not been granted to hold the Mahila Mahapanchayat.

A senior police officer has informed that security in the area has been beefed up by enhancing police deployment, placing multiple barricades and sufficient police pickets. In addition to this, intensive patrolling is being carried out in the national capital and its bordering areas.

#WATCH | Delhi: Security visuals from Badarpur border ahead of new Parliament house inauguration ceremony. pic.twitter.com/zaRTiXqmd5  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait said that thousands of farmers from Uttar Pradesh will gather at Delhis Ghazipur border at 10.30 am on Sunday and then enter the national capital to extend their support to the protesting wrestlers. Farmers will also enter Delhi from other border points.

The Delhi Municipal Corporation has been asked to grant permission to turn MC Primary Girls School in Kanjawala Chowk, Old Bawana into a temporary jail on Sunday.

Strict vigil is being kept along Delhis borders. We have increased our pickets, multiple barricades have been placed and no one will be given entry inside the national capital without being thoroughly checked, a senior police officer said.

Each vehicle will be checked in the bordering areas to ensure that no suspicious individual or group enters the city.

Delhi | Security heightened at Jantar Mantar ahead of protesting wrestlers march towards the new Parliament House. They have decided to hold a womens Maha Panchayat in front of the new Parliament pic.twitter.com/uvGknPHirv  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

Police have already issued a traffic advisory stating that New Delhi district will be treated as a controlled area and entry of vehicles will be restricted.

The ceremony to inaugurate the new Parliament building on Sunday will begin with an early morning havan and multi-faith prayers followed by the formal opening by Prime Minister Modi.

Representatives of as many as 25 parties and many dignitaries, including chief ministers and ministers, are expected to attend the inauguration.

With inputs from agencies

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi installed a historic Sengol next to the Lok Sabha Speakers seat in the new Parliament building inaugurated on Sunday.

A 97-year-old family member of Vummidi Bangaru Chetty, the jeweller who made Sengol, expressed their happiness for after the sceptre was installed.

It is a very proud moment, said Vummidi Ethiraj of the Vummidi Bangaru Chetty family.

The Vummidi Bangaru family is one of the most well-known jewellers in Chennai. The business was started in 1900 by Vummidi Bangaru Chetty in erstwhile Madras.

Vummidi Bangaru Chetty, who hailed from Gudiyatham in Vellore district, started making jewellery in Pallikonda, his hometown.

As per reports, Vummidi Bangaru Chetty would make jewellery himself and carry it around in a box to sell them. The practice continued till the first jewellery store was established by his family members at Govindappa Naicken Street, situated in George Town, Chennai.

The connection between Vummidi Bangaru Chetty family and the sengol is historic one. Before India's Independence, when Lord Mountbatten asked Jawaharlal Nehru about the ceremony to symbolise the transfer of power from the British to India, the latter reached out C Rajagopalachari (Rajaji), the last Governor-General of India.

Rajajis great-grandson, CR Kesavan, said that it was the freedom fighters idea to have 'Sengol' as they did in the times of the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas.

When Rajaji was asked, the first thing that came to his mind was how the transfer of power happened centuries ago in southern India, like in the dynasties of the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas  with the ritual of the sceptre," a report by The Print quoted CR Kesavan as saying.

After the idea was accepted, Rajaji reached out to Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam, a Shaivite mutt in Tamil Nadu. It was the seer who commissioned the Vummidi Bangaru Jewellers with the task of making Sengol.

As per the information by the Indian government, Vummidi Ethirajulu and his brother Vummidi Sudhakar made the Sengol in 1947.

According to Amarendran Vummidi, a fourth-generation member of the family, and who runs the operations with his brother Jithendra, said that the Sengol in todays time would have cost somewhere around Rs 70-75 lakh.

The sceptre would have then taken at least 30 days and about five to eight people to work on it. There are several fine details like a Nandi (divine bull) at the top of the sceptre and several lines written in Tamil on the sceptre, the report by The Print quoted Amarendran Vummidi as saying.

With inputs from agencies

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External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked his ministers not to just think about the next year or term but to plan out the next 25 years.

Jaishankar said that the government is today thinking about an era of a generation.

Jaishankars comments came as he addressed Modis India: Rising power in Ahmedabad on Saturday.

Prime Minister asked us to think a little bit differently. He didnt ask us to think for the next year or the next decade or the next term. He asked us to think about the next 25 years. And I say this because that 25 years is going to be determined by all of you. We are actually today thinking of an era of a generation or more, Jaishankar said.

He added, We have to bring to the international stage our personality, our culture, our heritage. So when Prime Minister Modi motivated the world to celebrate the practice of yoga, it wasnt just a cultural or a fitness exercise he was advocating. When he pushes AYUSH during COVID wellness practices from India, it is today something bigger which is happening.

Calling Modis India a designer who is trying to shape itself, Jaishankar said, Think of (PM) Modis India as a designer and think of rising as a process of design, because what are we trying to do today in international relations, we are trying to shape the world. We are trying to redesign it because theres already a design that we have inherited over many years. It is partly a design process, partly its an architectural exercise.

It is different in its outlook. If you look today at the politics of India, the representation of India, at the thinking, the parlance, the metaphors, the policies, it is the result of 75 years of a very deep democracy whose inclusiveness has really brought forth leadership and a thought process that is really authentically Indian, he added.

With inputs from agencies

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The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Sunday likened the architecture of the new Parliament building to a coffin, drawing criticism from several political parties, including the BJP, which said people will bury the Bihar party in such a coffin in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

As the new building was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the ruling party in Bihar put out a tweet that showed a coffin and the new legislature building side by side and asked, What is this?

The BJPs Bihar unit responded to the tweet saying, The first picture is your future and the second is of India. Understood?

The coffin in our tweet is a representation of democracy being buried. The country will not accept this. Parliament is the temple of democracy and it is the place to have discussions ANI quoted RJD leader Shakti Singh Yadav as saying.

#WATCH | The coffin in our tweet is a representation of democracy being buried. The country will not accept this. Parliament is the temple of democracy and it is the place to have discussions: RJD leader Shakti Singh Yadav on his party comparing the new Parliament with a pic.twitter.com/bY4yVfFzzJ  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

The BJP said that a case of treason should be registered in this regard.

A case of treason should be registered against such people who have compared the new Parliament building with a coffin, said BJPs Sushil Modi.

#WATCH | A case of treason should be registered against such people who have compared the new Parliament building with a coffin: BJP leader Sushil Modi on RJD's tweet comparing the new Parliament building with a coffin pic.twitter.com/K9FYLMELxX  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

This is the level to which they have fallen. Disgusting. This will prove to be the final nail in the coffin of RJDs politics. Trikon or Tribhuj has much significance in Indian system. By the way the coffin is hexagonal or has 6 sided polygon, BJPs Shehzad Poonawalla tweeted.

This is the level to which they have fallen Disgusting This will prove to be the final nail in the coffin of RJDs politics Trikon or Tribhuj has much significance in Indian system By the way the coffin is hexagonal or has 6 sided polygon pic.twitter.com/S5SN5Ro3hN  Shehzad Jai Hind (@Shehzad_Ind) May 28, 2023

BJPs Dushyant Gautam told ANI, This is very unfortunate. Today they are comparing it with a coffin, were they comparing the old Parliament with zero? We were earlier sitting in zero.

#WATCH | This is very unfortunate. Today they are comparing it with a coffin, were they comparing the old Parliament with 'zero'? We were earlier sitting in zero: BJP leader Dushyant Gautam on RJD comparing the new Parliament with a coffin pic.twitter.com/jHN8R8u8PQ  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

Not just the BJP, the RJD was criticised by other party leaders too over its controversial post of Twitter.

It would have been better if Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla inaugurated the new Parliament House. RJD has no stand, the old Parliament building did not even have clearance from Delhi Fire Service. Why are they (RJD) calling the Parliament a coffin? They could have said anything else, why do they need to bring this angle? AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said.

#WATCH | It would have been better if Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla inaugurated the new Parliament House. RJD has no stand, the old Parliament building did not even have clearance from Delhi Fire Service. Why are they (RJD) calling the Parliament a coffin? They could have said pic.twitter.com/E1C0EQYZ52  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

(With inputs from agencies)

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On paper, Indias rupee-based oil trade with Russia was historic and also path-breaking for the world at large even more than what the arrival of euro and yuan might have been when they hit the global track. Nearer home, admirers of Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated it. The list included seasoned economists and money-managers.

The academic assessment was simple and straightforward: Here was a Third World nation, the voice of the Global South, which did it all in real terms especially during Covid, that was venturing out to challenge dollar-hegemony as the reserve currency, which in turn had ruined smaller economies. But close to a year down the line, the India-Russia negotiations on the subject have stalled as Moscow has accumulated $ 40 million in Indian rupees and has no use for it. The reason is simple. Over the past decades, India has focussed on IT-based service sector exports for justifiable reasons, but Russia has no use for it. India has no other commodity or product to offer, either.

The dichotomy could only accentuate if India were to fall into the trap of joining the BRICS chorus for a currency of its own, like the EU before it, especially without adequate thinking and preparations. There are two specific issues. One is political and the other economic. For all intents and purposes, China will dominate BRICS as the economic super-power among them. The story of India fast catching up with China is still a myth as only the Russian oil trade saga shows now.

India does not have manufactured goods to offer the world, starting with BRICS member-nations, including those that intend signing up in the coming weeks, months and years. There is either a balance-of-trade problem with China, Russia and possibly Brazil on the one hand. The number could go up if nations such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE join up, as reported.

On the other hand, there will be a balance-of-payment problem in the reverse, with many smaller nations, who may not have much to offer India for imports made. Maybe, Indian money-managers from the commerce and finance ministries and also RBI should do dry-runs on paper, based on past performance and future projections, to see if intra-BRICS trade would balance out one way or the other.

Overall, New Delhi also needs to count the new-found bonhomie between China and Gulf-Arab nations apart from Central Asian republics, in the extended neighbourhood in political and economic terms, even discounting the strategic importance. It is unlike India reiterating its out-reach all the way up to Papua New Guinea and other Pacific Islands, as PM Modi did for the third time in nine years, during his Japan-Australia trip recently.

If Indian out-reach is as part of the Global South initiative and comprises only humanitarian aid as happened during Covid pandemic that is one thing. For India to have political and strategic goals for the region, it could be over-ambitious in the short and medium terms at least. New Delhi should take time to study the graphs before jumping to conclusions, either way.

Riding two horses

Flowing from the premise that China will dominate BRICS economy  unless proved otherwise  is the fact that only India among member-nations have a politico-military problem with Beijing, and could feel cornered at every turn when crucial decisions are to be taken. As a founding-member, India may still have a veto but that should not lead others to see it as a hurdle in their shared progress.

It is also because India is riding two horses, or multiple horses, what with New Delhi getting itself increasingly identified with the US-led Quad and Indo-Pacific. Indians can pride themselves and PM Modi for that invitation to the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, which his predecessors too have had. Unlike in the past, his presence in the past years was identified with G-7s China-bashing reportedly without naming it. He also met Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, and his statement on territorial integrity applies as much to China (as interpreted nearer home) as to Russia from a western perspective.

From the Indian view, the former is acceptable. From the Russian angle, the latter is not, though Moscow has not commented on it as yet. Both China and Russia have hit back, and Beijing went as far as to summon the Japanese envoy, to record its protest. Yet, when it came to the final outcome, the G-7 leaders resolved that they are not for de-coupling but only wanted to de-risk viz China, implying that they (only) wanted China on their terms.

Almost in the same vein, US President Joe Biden also declared that the silly balloon had spoiled bilateral relations with China, and it would thaw (soon enough?). He was referring to the US shooting down a Chinese spy balloon some weeks ago, which strained bilateral relations more than already. His comment indicated that it was now in the past.

De-dollarisation, what?

Along with India, China and Russia are two of the five founding-members of BRICS. Brazil is the fourth member and South Africa, the fifth and is set to host the next summit in August. After the G-7 summit, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva expressed unhappiness about not being able to meet Zelensky at Hiroshima, and said that the Ukrainian leader did not seem wanting to negotiate peace with Russia.

India needs to see how it all plays out in the coming weeks, months and years, as the G-7 West will be ever ready to play pal with China if only Beijing takes a tactical backward step for them to crow about as their victory. Indias situation is entirely different as there are real issues, starting with the complicated border dispute and the recent yet persistent Chinese involvement in Kashmir-related issues, which is basically a bilateral between India and Pakistan. Its a different ball-game compared to the Wests China-bashing, which is more political.

Then, there are real BRICS-related economic issues with the possibility of the August summit deciding to admit nearly 30 nations into the cross-country organisation with expectations of de-dollarization and a switch-over to the yet-to-be-born BRICS currency. The list includes Saudi Arabia, the Gulf-Arab major with its own regional following. With the anticipation of joining BRICS, Iraq has announced its decision to ditch the American dollar, which Saddam Hussein, had reportedly commenced in his time, for payments for Iraqi oil, but could not complete the process.

Then there is the ASEAN, which is said to be weighing de-dollarisation in favour of a common currency for intra-ASEAN trade. If it happens, how will it impact Indias trade payments vis a vis ASEAN member-nations too will remain to be seen. This is because de-dollarisation by the 10-nation grouping will cause its own problems, especially if the new arrangement is extended to trade with third nations, not long after.

Limited capacity

What is it that the protagonists of the new currency have in mind needs to be made clear. That includes the question, where they come from. Whether it is going to be a domestic currency too in member-nations, as with the euro, or will it be something like the IMFs SDR but with a paper currency to touch, feel and transact with, is what India would need to decide as a founding-member of BRICS. In the second scenario, the BRICS currency will be used only in bilateral transactions, and possibly at the levels of governments and corporate traders between nations.

If it is going to be a common currency for domestic use, how will it be pegged against other currencies, say, the US dollar, Japanese yen, the British pound-sterling and of course, the euro, among others.? Naturally, the market decides and India will have only limited capacity to influence. Likewise, what will be the status of Indias current Vostro-based rupee-transaction agreements, supposedly with some 30 countries, starting with neighbours, and who may or may not be inclined to do business in BRICS currency for their own reasons?

To be fair, India has not yet commented substantially on the idea of a BRICS currency. In the absence of a political process and institutions on the lines of the EU, New Delhi would also need to know how the new scheme, if introduced, will be managed. If it is to be a new paper currency, who will decide the quantum of currency to be printed, and who will print it, and what kind of supervision will it require, checking against frauds and counterfeits.

That is a long way to go, and requires deeper studies than is being indicated now. But then, de-dollarisation as an idea has caught up, and not doing the right thing could also become problematic. It is all about timing it, which India can do on its own if alone, but not when it is a founding member of a grouping like the BRICS.

The writer is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator. Views expressed are personal.

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Famous Scottish explorer, painter and writer James Baillie Fraser was stunned when he visited the confluence of Jadh Ganga and Bhagirathi in the Indian Himalayas in1815. The beauty of the place and perpendicularity of rock slides took Frazer under its spell. The Bhyram (also mentioned Bhairam) temple, above the confluence of Jadh Ganga and Bhagirathi rivers in district Uttarkashi (Uttarakhand), where the writer and explorer had performed prayer has disappeared. A visit to the site, where the Hindu shrine had existed, hints that the shrine was possibly hit by some natural calamity and is under heavy boulders. The Bhyram temple has faded away from the memory of the local people and many claim the foreign writers and travellers have wrongly pronounced the Bhairo temple as Bhyram temple.

Besides James Fraser, many foreign travellers have mentioned about the Bhyram temple in their writings. Dr. A Hoffmeister, who accompanied Price Waldemar of Prussia in his 1845 tour to the Indian Himalayas, describes Bhyram as god of the rivers. Even famous British photographer Samuel Bourne took a photograph near the Jadh Ganga and Bhagirathi confluence and made a striking note about the temple in his 1870 published article.

Where was the Bhyram Temple?

Details published in different books published in the 1800s prove that the temple was located near the confluence of Jadh Ganga and Bhagirathi river. Pilgrims used to halt at Bhyram temple, take holy dip in the confluence, offer prayer and eat food in the temple complex before proceeding for Gangotri.

The Jadh Ganga and Bhagirathi confluence is 1.5 km away from the current Lanka bridge, located on Uttarkashi-Gangotri highway, in district Uttarkashi. A Sangha (wood bridge), erected about sixty feet above the Jadh Ganga river, with steps hewn in it was used for crossing the river in old times. A steep climb among boulders used to take the pilgrims to the Bhyram temple. Creating location through details provided in different books. The temple was located under an overhanging rock and a thick grove of fir trees existed there.

James Baillie Fraser writes in his 1820 published book Journal of a tour through part of the Snowy range of the Himala Mountains, and to the sources of the rivers Jumna and Ganges, A small shrine or temple is erected at this place, dedicated to Bhyram Jee, and called Bhyram Ghati, and here we found a Brahmin ringing a bell; we paused to recover our breath, and to survey the prospect, which was inexpressibly grand.

Providing more details about the location, Fraser adds, Just at the end of the bridge there is an overhanging rock, under which worship is performed to Bhyram, and a black stone partly painted red is the image of the god; and here prayers and worship alone were not performed, but everyone was obliged to bathe and eat bread baked by the Brahmins, as preparatory to the great and effectual ablutions at the holier Gungotree. James Baillie Fraser visited the Indian Himalayas in 1815 as part of an expedition to find the sources of Ganga and Jamuna.

Is Bhyram temple and Bhairo temple same?

The Modern Traveller, A popular description (Volume III) published in 1828 mentions both Bhaior-ghati and Bhyram Ghautee names to describe the valley. It even describes Bhyram/Bhairo Lal as an esteemed janitor of Gangotri.

Even if it is assumed that Bhayram and Bhaironghati are the same, confusion prevails about the shrine situated at the confluence. As no record of the Bhyram (Bhairo) temple getting shifted from the confluence of Jadh Ganga and Bhagirathi to the current location, which is about 1.5 kms uphill from the river bank, is available. Bhairo devta is worshipped as janitor of Gangotri. Even the Bhyram devta has been described as Janitor of Gangotri by many foreign explorers and writers. The area is also known as Bhairo Ghati and not Bhyram Ghautee in the present time.

Suresh Semwal, general secretary of Gangotri temple committee, says, The western writers must have misspelled Bhairo temple as Bhyram temple. The shrine has existed at the present location since ancient times. It was never shifted from anyplace to the current location.

The current Bhairo temple is a modern double story construction. The existing temple is far away, about 1.5 km, from the confluence of Jadh Ganga and Bhagirathi rivers. The Jadh Ganga flows through the rock cliff and there is no chance of it changing its confluence. Local historian Uma Raman Semwal states, Never heard about Bhyram temple. The new Bhairo temple was constructed in 2000, before that a small cemented temple existed there. We have heard from elderly people that earlier a wood temple existed at Bhairo Ghati.

Role played by bridges

In the 1800s the wood bridge (Sangha) was located near the Jadh Ganga and Bhagirith river confluence. Later a suspension bridge was shifted 1.5 kms up and created near the existing Lanka bridge. The suspension bridge created by O Callaghan of the Bhagirathi Forest in 1874 was considered a fine example of amateur engineering. The mentioned bridge was about 400 metres above the river and 330 metres in length and the tourists were scared of it and they used to cross it with much difficulty and great fear. The suspension bridge was discontinued after some years and again an iron pedestrian bridge was created downhill near the Jadh Ganga and Bhagirathi confluence. In 1985 the Lanka motorable bridge was thrown open to the public. The shifting of the bridge also played some role in Bhyram temple losing its popularity and importance.

Exploring the Bhyram temple site

Creating location through details provided in different books. To reach the Bhyram temple one had to cross a temporary wood bridge, which was about 60 feet high from the Jadh Ganga river and near its confluence with Bhagirathi. Large beams of wood were driven into the fissures, on which other beams and large stones were placed; thus forming a hanging flight of steps to reach the shrine. The temple was located under an overhanging rock and a thick grove of fir trees existed.

To reach the Bhyram temple site, mentioned by different travellers, one has to presently take a 1.5 km trek from Lanka bridge. The old pilgrimage route to the Jadh Ganga and Bhaginathi river confluence is still intact and presently Gangotri National Park uses it for patrolling. The pedestrian iron bridge on Jadh Ganga river is in a dilapidated condition and in a bad shape.

After crossing the iron bridge one reaches the spot where the Bhyram temple existed (possibly). One can locate an overhanging rock and can spot the small grove of fir trees. But below the rock and its surrounding areas lay heavy boulders. Which indicates that the temple was possibly hit by some landslide and scientific exploration could help in tracing damaged or surviving parts of the shrine? No documents are available in Uttarkashi and with the Gangotri temple committee about the Bhyram temple and its references are only found in books written by foreign travelers.

The temple was built by Gorkha military general Ummur Singh Thappa (Amar Singh Thapa). The Gorkha General also provided financial support for building the road and also for the construction of Gangotri temple.

Famous British photographer Samuel Bourne took a photo of the majestically flowing Jadh Ganga from its confluence in 1866 and wrote, This was at a place called Bhairamghati, though there was no village or sign of a house-in fact, there is no room for any. The river here poured through a valley so narrow that it might almost be called a gorge, the sides formed by step mountains, which towards to an enormous height, so high that their summits could not be seen from below.

The Jadh Ganga-Bhagirathi confluence still bears the old primitive look. Leaving the iron bridge over Jadh Ganga no man made structure exists there. The million dollar question! Where has the temple visited by James Baillie Fraser disappeared?

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" " A Bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois) waits for its prey in its burrow among dark sand. Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images

If you're easily frightened or been watching too many horror movies lately, you're better off reading a more pleasant story. But if you continue, be prepared to have another thing to keep you up at night.

The Eunice aphroditois, better-known as the Bobbit worm, is a terrifying creature that viciously attacks and drags its prey into the dark depths of the ocean with such speed and strength that it sometimes slices its prey in half.

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So how did it get that name? Remember the Bobbitt Family case of 1993? That's the one where Lorena Bobbitt took revenge on her cheating husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, by chopping off his ... yes, unfortunately that, with a kitchen knife while he slept.

Dr. Terrence Gosliner, senior curator and dean of science and research collections at the California Academy of Sciences, spotted the worm during a 1992 trip to the Philippines and named it after Bobbitt in his 1996 book "Coral Reef Animals of the Indo-Pacific."

"Basically the ability to use those massive jaws to cut the spinal cord of a fish was something that reminded me of what Lorena Bobbitt did to her husband," he told the Great Big Story. (Unlike the unfortunate man, the worm's name is usually spelt with one "t.")

Luckily for John Bobbitt, surgeons reattached his body part after nine hours of surgery. But the Bobbit worm's prey aren't so lucky.
Much as they would like to obfuscate and subvert history, the Nehru-Gandhi Congress and their political extension  the Indian communist parties  have been stung by the revelation of the Sengol ceremony and of Jawaharlal Nehrus participation in it. Evidence of various kinds exists to prove that the Sengol ceremony had indeed taken place and that their intellectual and secularist idol, Nehru, had acceded and had actively participated in the ceremony before delivering his midnight speech and hoisting the tricolour of free India.

The Congress partys in-house historians and communist-leaning editors of some of Indias well-known English dailies may argue against such an occurrence, but their arguments and facts pale before the evidence that prove that the ceremony did take place. The Congress terming the episode as bogus, smacks of a pretended intellectual superiority and contempt for Indian traditions, which Nehru displayed intermittently and which his heirs, especially his great-grandchildren, have displayed consistently.

It is this pseudo-pride which has prevented them from appreciating or even from visiting the Pradhan Mantri Sangrahalay in Delhi, the first of its kind museum dedicated to all the Prime Ministers of India and not to one or two. While people from across the country flock to it in ever increasing numbers, the Congress first family has chosen to heap scorn on it and to ignore its essence and significance. Had the museum only depicted Nehru, Indira and Rajiv and had in flourish recounted their sacrifices for the people of India, it would have received their condescending approbation.

The Nehru-Gandhi Congress has always displayed a calculated ambivalence and disdain for Indian traditions and therefore the Sengol presented to Nehru, instead of finding a place of pride in the precinct of free Indias Parliament, found its way to the Anand Bhavan Museum where it was stored, relegated to a showcase, having been labelled as a walking stick gifted to Nehru.

It was a sense of shame and an overweening desire to disassociate themselves from Indias traditions that must have driven them to pack the Sengol off to Anand Bhavan as a walking stick, trying to paper over its sacredness, symbolism and dharmic and civilisational significance. The decimation of the Congress conservatives, post-Sardar Patels demise in December 1950, had, in a sense, been the greatest bane of the Congress party. The increasing grip of the party by Nehru and his political and ideological drum-beaters, led to the sidelining and to the eventual political decimation of the Congress conservatives. This unhinged the Congress from whatever little was left of its connection with Indias traditions and her civilisational ethos. Essentially foreign in thought, articulation and aspirations, the present Congress has increasingly steered away from the fundamental cultural and spiritual ethos of civilisational India.

Those parties who have refused to participate in the inauguration of the new Parliament building because the President of India has not been asked to inaugurate it and see in it an affront to the tribal community, were those very parties which had vehemently opposed her candidature and had supported the candidature of a tired, out of work politician from the general category. Their opposition on this count thus has no credence and lacks sincerity. They oppose the inauguration of the new Parliament because Narendra Modi sanctioned it and saw through its completion. They oppose it because he, and not them, displayed the political will, democratic conviction and sagacity to foresee its necessity in purely utilitarian terms and its deeper symbolism in terms of it signifying an India unshackled and leaping ahead on the seventy fifth year of her independence.

Displaying their customary illiteracy of Indias tradition, communists speak of the Sengol as re-establishing royal rule! They are ignorant of Chola traditions and the philosophy of a dharma-driven rule which is based on a sense of duty, equity, justice and compassion. Wouldnt the communists from southern India know, for instance, of the existence of the Uttaramerur inscriptions, which speak of the duties of the elected and the rights of the electors?

As the late historian, R Nagaswamy, pointed out the unique democratic texture of the Uttaramerur inscriptions, The village assembly of Uttaramerur drafted the constitution for the elections. The salient features were as follows: the village was divided into 30 wards, one representative elected for each. Specific qualifications were prescribed for those who wanted to contest. The essential criteria were age limit, possession of immovable property, and minimum educational qualification. Those who wanted to be elected should be above 35 years of age and below 70. A person serving in any of the committees could not contest again for the next three terms, each term lasting a year. Elected members who accepted bribes, misappropriated others property or acted against the public interest suffered disqualification.

It was a framework, a Constitution that was democratic in essence, in approach and in its working out, which the conflict-driven communist mindset can scarcely appreciate or evaluate. Essentially an autocratic outfit, inspired by injunctions of dictators who have experimented with mass extermination models, Indian communist parties can never really comprehend the Chola traditions, the contours of dharmic rule and its sanctity and duties. The laziest and the most sinister approach thus is to equate the return of the Sengol to a return to monarchy!

Never known to have supported or to have worked for Indias freedom struggle and of having supported its ideals, always known to have been a reluctant and opportunistic participant in Indias democratic march and her parliamentary system, known to have equated Parliament with a Pigsty, the communists sudden concern with constitutional propriety thus smacks of dishonesty!

In the 1930s and 40s, these communists opposed Indias struggle for freedom, and immediately after Independence they announced an insurrection against free India. Free Indias first government spoke of how, the Communist Party of India, which never tires of criticising the government for alleged suppression of democratic rights and liberties, have made it abundantly clear through oral and written propaganda as well as by their open activities that in their view such rights and liberties not only include the freedom to murder, maim, pillage and sabotage but also exclude the right of the State and the public to prevent and oppose such activities. Now they oppose the symbols of Indias rise and her emergence as a prominent civilisational power.

The forces and elements which oppose the new Parliament building, who mock the Sengol, the Adheenams and their significance of connecting the best in our past with the best aspirations that we nurture, as a nation and civilisation, for our future, are those very forces which have been trying to retard our cultural self-articulation and self-possession. Indias rise is disconcerting for them; they seek to inflict conflict and strife, division and conflagration. In a new Parliament with the Sengol housed in it, they see a negation of their subversive agenda and roadmap.

The writer is Director Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, Member, BJP, National Executive Committee, Member of the National Committee for Netajis 125th Birth Anniversary. Views expressed are personal.

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Top Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden announced a deal Saturday to raise the debt ceiling, dragging the United States from the precipice of default with only a few days left to go.

Congress will vote on the deal to extend the government borrowing authority Wednesday, just shy of the June 5 X-date when the Treasury estimates the government will no longer be able to pay its bills, plunging the worlds biggest economy into turmoil.

After weeks of negotiations we have come to an agreement in principle, McCarthy, the speaker of the Republican-held House of Representatives, said.

McCarthy, who spoke with Biden on Saturday to close the deal, said he would consult again with the president Sunday and oversee the final drafting of the bill. The House will then be voting on it on Wednesday.

Biden said in his own statement that the deal was good news for the American people because it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, and millions of jobs lost.

Despite the breakthrough, McCarthy cautioned there was still a lot of work to do in getting Congress to give its backing.

Compromise

Raising the debt ceiling  a legal maneuver that takes place most years without drama  allows the government to keep borrowing money and remain solvent.

This year, Republicans demanded deep spending cuts  largely in social spending for the poor  in return for raising the debt ceiling, saying the time had come for bitter medicine to address the countrys mammoth $31 trillion debt.

Biden argued that he would not negotiate over spending issues as a condition for raising the debt ceiling, accusing the Republicans of taking the economy, hostage.

Both sides have now somewhat climbed down.

According to US media reports, the outline of the deal includes freeing up the debt ceiling for two years, meaning there will be no need for negotiations in 2024, when the nation is in full presidential election swing.

The big spending cuts Republicans wanted are not there, according to reports, but effectively a budget freeze will take effect. There will also be tougher rules on accessing unemployment benefits and other federal assistance.

Biden said the agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want. Thats the responsibility of governing.

Deadlines

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had initially warned of a possible default around June 1 if Congress failed to raise the ceiling on borrowing, but gave lawmakers some breathing room on Friday when she updated the deadline to June 5.

Even so, the legislation will still have to clear Congress much more quickly than the normal timetable for even the most uncontroversial bills.

Under House rules, lawmakers have to be given 72 hours before voting once a bill is presented. And if it passes the House, it will then have to go through the Senate, where Democrats hold the majority.

McCarthy is hoping to bring the narrow House majority of 222 Republicans with him, but the deal is likely to face opposition from 35 far-right lawmakers who told him to hold the line against compromising on far more sweeping spending cuts. That means a large number of Democrats will have to be persuaded to vote with a reduced number of Republicans  something that rarely happens on big bills.

The Democrats may face their own rebellion on the left of the party, which objects to any spending restrictions.

Congress was adjourned for an extended holiday weekend but lawmakers will be called back to vote.

If a default occurs, the government wouldnt miss loan repayments until mid-June but in the meantime, it would likely have to halt $25 billion in social security checks and federal salaries.

The battle has been monitored closely by the major ratings agencies, with Morningstar and Fitch both warning that they could opt for a downgrade, even if the crisis is averted.

When Barack Obamas administration narrowly averted a default 12 years ago, a ratings downgrade cost taxpayers more than $1 billion in higher interest costs.

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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday that in order to maintain good relations with China, a country does not need to be a part of the Border and Road Initiative deal.

Italy is the only major Western country to have joined Chinas BRI scheme, which envisions rebuilding the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with large infrastructure spending.

In an exclusive interview with Il Messaggero daily, Meloni said that it is yet too early to decide if Italy took the right call by joining BRI or to think whether it should remain part of the project.

Our assessment is very delicate and touches upon many interests, said Meloni. The pact expires in March 2024 and will be automatically renewed unless either side informs the other that they are pulling out, giving at least three months notice.

Meloni noted that while Italy was the only one of the Group of Seven (G7) rich democracies to have signed the Belt and Road memorandum, it was not the European and Western countries with the strongest economic and trade ties with China.

This means it is possible to have good relations, also in important areas, with Beijing, without necessarily these being part of an overall strategic design, she said.

Earlier this month a senior Italian government official told Reuters Italy was highly unlikely to renew the Belt and Road deal.

A first test of the right-wing governments attitude towards China looms as Rome vets a shareholder pact at tire maker Pirellis, whose top investor is Chinas Sinochem.

China is among the biggest markets for most countries in the G7 group, particularly for export-reliant economies such as Japan and Germany.

With inputs from Reuters

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At least one civilian was killed in a massive drone attack on Ukrainian capital Kyiv, the citys mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

A 35-year-old woman was hospitalised, a 41-year-old man died, Klitschko said, adding that drone wreckage had crashed near a petrol station.

He said Kyivs air defences had shot down more than 20 drones headed for the city, and implored city residents: Stay in shelters. The attack is massive!

A fire also broke out at a company premises in the Holosiivskyi district, he added.

Russian forces have targeted Kyiv throughout May.

The head of the local civil and military administration, Serhii Popko, said Friday that there had been 13 attacks during the month.

Over the past few weeks, reports of drone attacks in Russia have also multiplied, usually in regions bordering Ukraine.

On Saturday, shelling in those areas killed two people, regional authorities said.

Moscow has blamed Kyiv  and its Western supporters  for the escalating number of attacks and sabotage operations, including on the Kremlin, but Ukraine has denied involvement.

(With inputs from AFP)

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How about New York cheesecake as part of a religious celebration? When Christians celebrate Pentecost, that particular dessert rarely figures into the equation. However, the observance of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot often has mouths savoring that delicious treat.

Can we imagine cheesecake as a holy food?

OK, backing up a bit  "Shavuot" is the Hebrew word for weeks. It is one of the three festivals in the Hebrew scriptures required for pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. The other two are Passover (or Pesach) and the Feast of Tabernacles (or Sukkot).

Quick note: This is being written by a Christian, so to our Jewish friends, I beg indulgence if the picture isnt precisely accurate!

Shavuot was originally a harvest festival when the first of the crops sprouted, thus the term firstfruits, which were brought to the temple. It was observed seven weeks and one day after Passover  50 days. In Greek, Pentecost means 50. For Christians, Pentecost is today. For Jews, Shavuot ended yesterday at sundown; it is celebrated for two days. The timing difference is due to Shavuot being counted after Passover and Pentecost being counted after Easter.

When the Romans destroyed the temple in the year 70, there was nowhere to bring the firstfruits. Consequently, the focus shifted to the revelation of Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai. Other than the exodus from Egypt, this is the premier event giving identity to the Jewish people. Lacking any specific requirements, Shavuot is kept by special services, recognizing it as a day of rest, and among other events, enjoying holiday meals. Dairy foods are highlighted, thus the mention of cheesecake!

Still, the divine encounter with Moses, associated with the day of Pentecost, is front and center. That is given special attention. One way of giving that attention is by pulling an all-nighter while engaged in the study of scripture. Some might suggest having coffee and strong tea on hand!

There is a legend saying God offered the Torah to 70 different nations, doing so in their own languages. All refused to accept it. However, when God approached Israel at Sinai, the word was welcomed. By the way, that puts a different spin on Israel being Gods chosen people. They chose to follow the Torah. (Perhaps the word "Torah" is better translated as instructions or teachings.)

In the New Testament, in Acts 2, we see Jews from many far-flung nations gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of Pentecost. We are told how the Holy Spirit rushed in like a violent wind with fire. Descending upon them all, they spoke in tongues of their native languages, praising the Lord.

The legend of the nations refusing the word of the Lord was reversed.

Can we see, or better, can we hear those with their own languages understanding each other? The nations represented did not all live in blissful accord with one other. Understanding that, the Pax Romana, the Roman peace of the Empire, imposed in a somewhat and imperfectly harmonious way a sense of stability and prosperity.

If we care not to say the Spirit of the Lord was at work in the Roman political order, can we at least envision a spirit of acceptance and appreciation at work, fostering even at some small level a state of awe and deference? Can our American political order live up to that? Can we imagine a spirit giving birth to the word of revolution?

Im not really speaking of revolution on a national scale. Rather for each of us, it must start from within: a revolution within our minds, hearts and spirits.

That is the promise and power of Shavuot, of Pentecost.

There is a word pointing to a reality beyond our imagining, beyond our usual frame of reference. It bears an unveiling; it displays the debris. It burns away the impurities. We are given power to say no to squandering our lives and resources on meaningless consumption. We are given courage to embrace a lifestyle not dictated by marketing trends or unhealthy spending habits.

It is the word come alive. It is the word revealed at Sinai, the word spoken at Pentecost. It is not simply the word to be read. It is the word desiring to befriend us, to unleash our creativity.

That is the word we desperately need when it calls our name.
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The House Republican majority voted to nullify President Joe Biden's student loan debt relief program that is already on hold because of lawsuits challenging the initiative.

Under the program unveiled last fall by the Biden administration, individuals who received federal Pell grants and earn less than $125,000 a year ($250,000 for joint filers) can receive up to $20,000 in student loan debt relief. For those who did not receive a Pell grant, up to $10,000 in student loan debt will be canceled by the federal government.

But Republicans have opposed the program. U.S. Rep. Bob Good, a Virginia Republican, sponsored a resolution to block what he calls Biden's "unlawful student loan transfer scheme." While Good notes that more than 92% of student loan debt comes from federal loans  more than $1.6 trillion  he says it is only held by 13% of the population.

The House passed Good's resolution by a 218-203 vote. Two Democrats joined House Republicans in voting to nullify the student loan debt relief program.

Both of central New York's members of Congress, U.S. Reps. Claudia Tenney and Brandon Williams, cosponsored Good's resolution and voted for it on the floor.

Other votes in the House this week:

 By a 402-2 vote, the House passed the Preventing the Financing of Illegal Synthetic Drugs Act. The legislation would require the Government Accountability Office to study the financing behind synthetic drug trafficking, including fentanyl.

Tenney and Williams voted for the bill.

 The China Financial Threat Mitigation Act passed 400-5, with Tenney and Williams voting for the legislation.

According to the legislative summary, the Department of the Treasury would be required to "report on the exposure of the United States" to China's financial sector. The report must include details about how China's financial reforms affect the U.S. and how the U.S. is implementing policies to protect its interests.

 The House voted to overturn new emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles, such as trucks. The resolution passed 221-203, with Tenney and Williams supporting its passage.

The White House has said that Biden will veto the resolution if it is approved by Congress.

 The House failed to override Biden's veto of a resolution that would've nullified the suspension of duties on solar panels that contain parts manufactured in China.

To override a veto, both houses need a two-thirds majority. The final vote was 214-205, well short of the number needed to override the veto. Tenney and Williams supported the override attempt.

 The House passed the VET-TEC Authorization Act by a 409-9 vote. Tenney and Williams voted for the bill.

The legislation requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to implement a program that supports veterans who enroll in high-tech education.

 The HALT Fentanyl Act passed the House by a 289-133 vote. One of the bill's main provisions is establishing a class of fentanyl-related substances under schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. According to the bill, a schedule I controlled substance is "a drug, substance or chemical that has a high potential for abuse."

The Drug Enforcement Administration issued an order that temporarily places fentanyl-related substances under schedule I, but that order is due to expire at the end of next year.

Tenney and Williams voted for the bill.
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Sue and Jim Best live up to their name. They are a lovely example of Auburns BEST, both individually and as a couple! I recently had the pleasure of spending two hours with them, sitting at a picnic table at the Owasco Yacht Club. Sue is a natural storyteller and Jim, a bit poetic  together they are in perfect harmony. It was an ideal afternoon complete with the backdrop of our sparkling Owasco Lake and sun-filled CNY skies. The moment they exited their car (wearing almost matching sporting vests) accompanied by their oh-so-sweet rescue dog, I knew this was going to be a good meet and greet and it sure did not disappoint. It is such a pleasure to call them true legends of Auburn! They have made Auburn home for the last 50-plus years!

Sue grew up outside of Buffalo and Jim, northwestern Pennsylvania  but the magic happened in the early 1960s when they met at Fredonia College. Jim (a music major with a minor in education) and Sue (an education major with a minor in music) have been each others muse and partner each day since. They married in 1965 in New York City. Professor Harry Greer, beloved science professor at Cayuga Community College  and relative of Jim  encouraged them to come to Auburn. Jim began a life-long career in music education, inspiring countless students teaching at both Southern Cayuga and Mynderse Academy, where he retired in 1996. The music (and the story) does NOT end there!

Sue spoke with wistful affection about her love for Auburn and its residents! They planted deep roots after purchasing a home on Florence Street. (FUN FACT: They live in the childhood home of Ormie King.) At first sight, Sue thought, This is where I am going to raise my family. And they did! John and Julie grew up in a neighborhood bursting with kids and walking distance to both school and the wonderful Y-Field/Clifford Park. John is now a fifth grade teacher in Michigan and Julie is a graphic artist in Georgia.

Music ... it is core to both of Sue's and Jim's souls. Sue describes music as a universal language where words are not always needed, perhaps just a tune. Jim described Auburn as uniquely special with pockets of culture that have provided a very interesting array of music. Jim and Sue are passionate about music and equally important, sharing music! Auburn has a deeply rooted musical heritage and that is best illustrated in the history of the Auburn Civic Band, which started in 1910. What a story, what a history  what a gift to the residents of Auburn! Sue and Jim are an important piece to this special story.

I love artifacts, and it was great fun to browse through the leather album (complete with old-school label-maker tape) with wonderful photos and mimeographed documents inside. The four-page essay, "AUBURN CIVIC BAND: 1910  1985" was interesting reading; it made me proud of Auburn. The purpose of the Auburn Civic Band is to provide music lovers with an opportunity to play together and share their music. For over 100-plus years this musical organization has charmed Auburn, entertaining audiences at our beautiful local parks. Jim has been the band conductor since 1986. He enjoys the challenge of selecting just the right blend of music for the performers and the guests, just like the perfect dance. We have turned the corner towards warmer weather and Auburn residents will soon delight in many outdoor music opportunities. The Auburn Civic Band has made the Owasco Pavilion their summer home. It reflects a bit of iconic Americana with families enjoying the music and perhaps a meal, as children roam back and forth from the playground.

My neighbor, Janet Taylor, introduced me to Sue and Jim. Janet works for the Office for the Aging at the Boyle Center here in Auburn NY. Their primary goal is to help individuals live as independent as possible. The month of May has formally been recognized as Older Americans Month and this years theme is AGING UNBOUND. Jim and Sue are shining example of life and love ... they make getting older filled with hope and promise and FUN. I suspect that their humor and curiosity wrapped up in music and a song is a key to what makes them so special.

Cheers to Jim and Sue Best, true legends (and inspirations) of Auburn!
Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
amasan1 at 28-05-2023 06:37 PM (2 days ago) (m)

Some Yoruba Nation agitators, on Sunday morning, seized Radio Nigeria, Amuludun FM 99.1 in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, taking over broadcast for more than one hour.

Some Yoruba Nation agitators, on Sunday morning, seized Radio Nigeria, Amuludun FM 99.1 in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, taking over broadcast for more than one hour.

However, four out of the agitators, among whom was a woman, were arrested by the police with the assistance of the Nigerian army, while others ran into different directions to evade arrest.

One of the arrested agitators, who sustained gunshot wounds, had rushed into the studio to tell others that security operatives had taken over the nooks and crannies of the station. The blood stain was seen in the studio.

An investigation by our correspondent revealed that after holding some night duty staff and security guards hostage, the agitators hijacked the studio and announced live on radio However, four out of the agitators, among whom was a woman, were arrested by the police with the assistance of the Nigerian army, while others ran into different directions to evade arrest.One of the arrested agitators, who sustained gunshot wounds, had rushed into the studio to tell others that security operatives had taken over the nooks and crannies of the station. The blood stain was seen in the studio.An investigation by our correspondent revealed that after holding some night duty staff and security guards hostage, the agitators hijacked the studio and announced live on radio Quote Welcome to Yoruba Nation. An impeccable source further said they continued threatening staff members to remove all Nigeria flags in the station and replace them with Yoruba Nation flags as they have already taken over the Government Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan.

It was further learnt that they initially hijacked some commercial vehicles (Micra) to block the main road.

Watch the video below...

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ije-Luv (@ijeomadaisy) An impeccable source further said they continued threatening staff members to remove all Nigeria flags in the station and replace them with Yoruba Nation flags as they have already taken over the Government Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan.It was further learnt that they initially hijacked some commercial vehicles (Micra) to block the main road.Watch the video below...

Post Reply I am an investigative reporter at Gistmania, I conduct fact-finding investigative journalism. Posted: at 28-05-2023 06:37 PM (2 days ago) | Hero
Upcoming Smartphones June 2023: Realme 11 Series, Samsung Galaxy F54, iQOO Neo 7 Pro, OnePlus Nord 3 Features oi -Carlsen Martin

May was a busy month for the smartphone market with the launch of several devices including the Poco F5 series, Google Pixel 7a, iQOO 8 series, Motorola Edge 40, Xiaomi Civi 3, and more. We also saw the arrival of Google's first foldable smartphone in May in the form of the Pixel Fold.

However, as a busy as May has been so far, things are only expected to ramp up in June. Several OEMs including Realme, iQOO, and more have already teased upcoming phones in June 2023. So let's take a look at the list of - Upcoming Smartphones June 2023.

Realme 11 Pro Series

The Realme 11 series was unveiled in China in May 2023. And next month two of those smartphones will hit the Indian market - Realme 11 Pro and Realme 11 Pro+. Realme has already begun extensively teasing the two phones in India and has partnered with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan as brand ambassador for the upcoming smartphones.

The Realme 11 Pro Plus will bring a 200 MP Samsung ISOCELL HP3 primary camera, a MediaTek Dimensity 7050 SoC, a 120Hz Curved AMOLED display, a 5,000 mAh battery with 100W fast charging. The Realme 11 Pro+ will debut as the most premium smartphone in the 'Number' series to date and will fall in the sub-30K segment.

Vivo V29 Series, Samsung Galaxy F54 5G

The Samsung Galaxy F54 5G will also arrive in June 2023. The phone has been heavily leaked in the past couple of months and is expected to launch in the first or second week of June. The Galaxy F54 5G will cost upwards of Rs 30,000 and will feature an Exynos 1380 SoC, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a 108 MP triple-camera setup, and a massive 6,000 mAh battery.

The Vivo V29 series is also expected to make its global debut next month. The line-up will include the Vivo V29 and Vivo V29 Pro. The Vivo V29 series is expected to launch as a rebranded version of the S17 series that is launching in China on May 31. The Vivo S17 and S17 Pro will likely make their global debut in June as the Vivo V29 and Vivo V29 Pro.

Moto Razr 40 Series, Motorola Edge 40 Pro

Motorola will launch two new Razr flip smartphones on June 1. The Moto Razr 40 and Moto Razr 40 Ultra will debut as the next generation of clamshell foldable smartphones from Motorola. The Moto Razr 40 Ultra will feature one of the largest external display on a flip smartphone to date.

The Motorola Edge 40 was unveiled in India earlier last week. However, Motorola also has plans to bring the Edge 40 Pro to India in June 2023. The Motorola Edge 40 Pro was unveiled globally earlier this year with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, a 165Hz OLED display, 125W fast charging, and a 50 MP triple-camera setup with OIS.

OnePlus Nord 3 5G, iQOO Neo 7 Pro, Xiaomi 13 Ultra

The much-anticipated successor to last year's Nord 2T is also arriving next month. The OnePlus Nord 3 5G is expected to feature a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 or 8200 SoC, a 1.5K AMOLED display, a 50 MP triple-camera setup on the back, and a large 5,000 mAh battery with 80W fast charging. The OnePlus Nord 3 5G will likely debut smack-dab in the premium mid-range market in India and globally.

The Xiaomi 13 Ultra is also expected to make its global debut in June 2023. The Xiaomi 13 Ultra was unveiled in China last month and followed the launch of the Xiaomi 13 Pro in India and globally. While the Xiaomi 13 Ultra may not be headed to the Indian market, rumours do suggest that the phone will be available globally.

The iQOO Neo 7 Pro is making its way to India next month. The Neo 7 Pro was teased earlier last week with rumours suggesting the phone will be a rebranded version of the Neo 7 Racing Edition, which was unveiled in China earlier this year. It will also be the first 'Pro' smartphone in the iQOO Neo series outside China, as the iQOO 8 and iQOO 8 Pro recently debuted in the Chinese market.

Infinix Note 30 5G, OnePlus 11 Marble Odyssey Edition, Oppo Reno 10 Series

The Infinix Note 30 5G launch date in India is set for June 2023. The Note 30 series was recently unveiled globally, bringing three new phones to the fray, including the Infinix Note 30, Note 30 Pro, and Note 30 5G. However, only the 5G version of the phone is making its way to the Indian market.

The OnePlus 11 Marble Odyssey Edition launch date in India will take place sometime in July. OnePlus has already teased the announcement of the phone and revealed its pricing. However, this limited-edition upcoming smartphone from OnePlus won't be available for purchase in the country until June 2023. Here's everything you need to know about the OnePlus 11 5G Marble Odyssey Edition.

Oppo could also unveil the Reno 10 series globally towards the end of June 2023. The line-up will include the Reno 10, Reno 10 Pro, and Reno 10 Pro Plus. The Oppo Reno 10 series brings major improvements in the camera department over the Reno 9 series, although we believe only the Reno 10 and Reno 10 Pro will make its way outside China. For all the latest upcoming smartphones coming in June 2023, stay tuned to Gizbot.

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Despite 'slightly' improved food security in Yemen, hunger stalks millions

26 May 2023 - The food security situation in Yemen's government-controlled districts "slightly improved" during the first five months of this year, but acute malnutrition is on the rise, UN agencies warned in a new report released on Friday.

"The United Nations and its partners made strides in rolling back the worst food insecurity last year, but these gains remain fragile, and 17 million people are still food insecure in Yemen," said David Gressly, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the country.

Compared to the same period in 2022, the levels of acutely malnourished people rose in 2023, indicating a need for more funding to stave off extreme hunger, according to the latest findings of a new report by three UN agencies that are closely monitoring the situation, following eight years of intense warfare.

Drivers of hunger

Yemen remains one of the most food insecure countries globally, mainly driven by the impact of conflict and economic decline, according to the report from the UN food agency, FAO, the World Food Programme (WFP), and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The integrated phase classification (IPC) analysis provides an outlook for the period between now until the end of this year, indicating the need for more programme investments, as the modest improvements may be eroded, the agencies said.

Their report showed that the people of Yemen continue to require attention, with hunger stalking millions. The agencies cautioned that the situation could worsen if nothing is done to address the key drivers of food insecurity.

The new report showed that between January and May 2023, about 3.2 million people experienced high levels of acute food insecurity in government-controlled areas, representing a 23 per cent reduction from the period between October and December 2022.

During the June to December 2023 period, the report estimated that the number of people likely to experience high levels of acute food insecurity could increase to 3.9 million, out of which 2.8 million people are projected to reach crisis levels of hunger.

Life-saving interventions

FAO Yemen representative Hussein Gadain, said the agency is focused, through various interventions, on improving household food security and income by strengthening agricultural production practices, increasing labour opportunities, and diversifying livelihoods in a sustainable way that fosters peaceful coexistence.

We are working directly with farmers on the ground to enable them to maintain their livelihoods," he said. "We make sure that smallholder farmers in Yemen will withstand any shocks which impact food security."

UNICEF and partners reached around 420,000 children suffering from severe and acute malnutrition with life-saving interventions in 2022, said the agency's Yemen representative, Peter Hawkins.

"This is the highest ever reached in Yemen, thanks to the scale-up of nutrition services," he said, adding that despite this, malnutrition levels remain critical in many areas of the southern governorates.

"A multisectoral approach to address all forms of malnutrition is essential and together with partners UNICEF is strengthening the provision of primary health care, including early detection and treatment of severe acute malnutrition", he said.

Averting famine

The UN food agency's assistance is critical for getting people to firmer ground, for averting crisis and famine, said WFP Country Director, Richard Ragan. Yemen's food insecurity situation remains fragile, and the hard-won gains of the past 12 months will be lost without continued and urgent support, he said.

"There are women, men, and children behind these IPC statistics, whose lives straddle the fine line between hope and utter devastation," he said, urging donors to renew their commitment to supporting the most vulnerable Yemenis. "We simply cannot take our foot off the gas now."

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U.S. forces engage insurgents in support of the Federal Government of Somalia

In support of the Federal Government of Somalia and the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia operations against al Shabaab, U.S. Africa Command conducted an airstrike against militants on May 26.

By U.S. Africa Command Public Affairs , United States Africa Command Stuttgart, Germany May 27, 2023

In support of the Federal Government of Somalia and the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia operations against al Shabaab, U.S. Africa Command conducted an airstrike against militants in the vicinity of the ATMIS forward operating base, FOB Bulo Marer on May 26.

The strike destroyed weapons and equipment unlawfully taken by al Shabaab fighters.

The command's initial assessment is that no civilians were injured or killed.

U.S. Africa Command takes great measures to prevent civilian casualties. Protecting civilians remains a vital part of the command's operations to promote a more secure and stable Africa.

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May 28, 1993

State officials have launched an investigation into a "radioactive incident" that is forcing Auburn Steel to temporarily shut down its furnaces this weekend  11 days and 250 tons of contaminated ash later.

State and company officials agree there have been no injuries and there is no threat to the public.

Speaking for Austeel, Martin Fanning said, "No one has been exposed. It's been contained."

The company owned by Sumitomo Corp., of Japan, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. It employs about 300 people.

State officials say a South Carolina firm has been called in to help clean up the low-level radioactive element, cesium-137. But, they say it has not been determined where the contaminated ash will ultimately wind up.

A meeting with agency and company representatives is slated today, with a 1:30 p.m. press conference to follow.

On May 17, a piece of radioactive waste was accidentally mixed in with tons of scrap metal being melted down to manufacture steel. Fanning said Austeel doesn't know where the cesium-137 came from or how it got by radioactive sensors.

Because state officials found no immediate health threat, the company continued operating until all its ash receptacles were packed. None of the finished steel that is being shipped out is tainted, state officials say.
West rebukes Kosovo for escalating tensions as clashes erupt between Serbs, police

Iran Press TV

Saturday, 27 May 2023 7:59 AM

Police in northern Kosovo fired tear gas to disperse ethnic Serb protestors who had gathered to oppose the installation of ethnic Albanian mayors, a decision that drew sharp condemnation from the United States and European powers.

The ethnic crowd, gathering outside the mayor's office, had been trying to prevent a newly-elected mayor from entering his office, after a vote in April was boycotted by the Kosovo Serb majority in four northern municipalities near the border with Serbia.

Clashes erupted between Serb residents and police officers after the officers started a crackdown against the protesting crowd.

At least 10 people were injured "from shock bombs and tear gas, and also visible facial injuries" and were driven away with ambulances arriving at the scene, Danica Radomirovic, deputy head of the local hospital, told local media.

Five police officers sustained slight injuries from "heavy objects and shock bombs" that were thrown in their direction, Kosovo police said.

"Material damage was also caused to four official vehicles. One of them was set on fire... Gunshots were also heard nearby," it added.

Serbian state-run broadcaster RTS reported that Kosovo police also used tear gas in the Zubin Potok and Leposavic municipalities.

After the ethnic Serbs of Kosovo boycotted elections in the northern regions in April, it enabled Albanians to win positions and take control of the local councils, even though the voter turnout was as low as 3.5 percent.

Meanwhile, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti went steps ahead and installed mayors, as he ignored the calls made by the European Union and the US, which helped the country in gaining its independence.

The main Serb party from Kosovo threatened of a "decisive response" by the ethnic Serbs if the "repression" by Kurti does not stop.

Serbia, which previously ruled Kosovo until it became independent in 2008, placed its army on high alert and ordered forces toward the border, a step it has taken repeatedly in recent years.

The US, Britain, France, Italy, and Germany in a joint statement rebuked Friday's Kosovan crackdown and asked Kosovo authorities to step back and de-escalate the situation.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States "strongly condemns" Kurti's move.

"These actions have sharply and unnecessarily escalated tensions, undermining our efforts to help normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia, and will have consequences for our bilateral relations with Kosovo," Blinken said in a statement.

The US has been Kosovo's main supporter politically, militarily and financially ever since it gained its independence from Serbia.

Meanwhile, the ethnic-minority Serbs, which make up 1.5% of the population, do not recognize the 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia, and instead recognize Belgrade as their capital.

Despite months of shuttle diplomacy by EU mediators, in March, Kosovo and Serbia stopped short of signing a potential landmark deal to normalize their relations.

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Three Killed In Border Clashes Between Iranian Forces And The Taliban

By RFE/RL's Radio Farda May 27, 2023

Two Iranian border guards and one Taliban fighter were killed after the two sides exchange gunfire on the Islamic republic's border with Afghanistan.

The incident on May 27 came amid tensions between the two countries over water rights.

Both sides accused each other of starting the shooting.

The official government news agency IRNA quoted Brigadier General Qasem Rezaei, deputy commander of the national police as saying that a border outpost in southeastern Iran had come under "heavy attack" by the Taliban, prompting a "a decisive and courageous counteraction" from Iranian border guards.

"The Taliban forces initiated the assault in contravention of international law and principles of good neighborliness," Rezai said.

IRNA said that following the border skirmishes, Brigadier General Ahmadreza Radan, chief commander of the national police, issued a directive to the border guards, asking them to "defend the borders bravely and decisively and not allow any trespassing or encroachment."

A Taliban spokesman said two people were killed in the clashes while accusing Iranian forces of shooting first.

"Today, in Nimroz Province, Iranian border forces fired toward Afghanistan, which was met with a counter-reaction," a spokesman for the Taliban-run Interior Ministry, Abdul Nafi Takor, said in a statement. "During the battle, one person was killed on each side and many were injured."

"The situation is under control now. The Islamic Emirate does not want to fight with its neighbors," Takor added.

Taliban Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khowarazmi confirmed the clashes in the Kang district of Nimroz Province while calling for "dialogue and negotiations."

"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers dialogue and negotiation to be a reasonable way for any problem. Making excuses for war and negative actions is not in the interest of any of the parties," Khowarazmi said.

Iranian news agencies confirmed the death of two Iranian border guards. IRNA said two civilians had been injured in the incident. The semiofficial Mehr news agency reported that a main border crossing with Afghanistan had been closed following the exchange of fire.

Earlier, the hard-line Fars news agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), said the clashes ended after "a short time." Fars said the two sides had convened a meeting to investigate the cause of "the tensions."

It wasn't clear what provoked the incident.

HalVash, a Baluch rights group, posted a video and photos that it said were from the area where Iranian forces and the Taliban engaged in "heavy" clashes and exchange of fire.

RFE/RL could not independently verify the footage.

The clashes follow a warning by Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi who on May 18 called the de facto Taliban regime in Afghanistan not to violate Iran's water rights to the Helmand River.

According to the 1973 agreement, Afghanistan is obligated to provide Iran with 850 million cubic meters of water annually from the Helmand River. Iran has accused Afghanistan of not complying with the accord, an allegation that Kabul rejects. Disputes over the distribution of cross-border water supplies have plagued relations between the two neighbors for decades.

Taliban officials have repeatedly claimed that due to low water levels, even if they opened the Kajaki Dam, nothing would reach Iran.

Water from the 1,150-kilometer (690-mile) Helmand River, Afghanistan's longest, feeds the Hamun Lake in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan Province. The region relies heavily on the lake, and officials say it has suffered major issues because of a persistent lack of water.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-border-guards- exchange-fire-taliban-/32430620.html

Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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AATC tests enhanced intelligence gathering capabilities with MQ-9 Reaper upgrade

Published May 27, 2023

By Staff Sgt. Van Whatcott

162nd Wing Public Affairs

EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (AFNS) -- The Air National Guard-Air Force Reserve Command Test Center partnered with the 174th Attack Wing and 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron to test an upgraded satellite communications capability of the MQ-9 Reaper during exercise Northern Edge 2023 at Eielson Air Force Base.

Northern Edge 23 is a U.S. Indo-Pacific Command-sponsored, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces-led, multilateral, joint field training exercise at main operating bases Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and Eielson AFB.

The MQ-9 is a remotely piloted aircraft primarily used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Air National Guard pilots, using the SATCOM upgrade, can now fly ISR missions in real-time almost anywhere around the world from remote bases in the United States.

The MQ-9's upgraded SATCOM system uses advanced satellite technology to transmit data and communications over long distances. It is capable of flying at high altitudes for extended periods and its sensors can provide real-time intelligence on adversary positions, movements and activities. The ANG plans to deploy the upgraded MQ-9 to support ongoing operations around the world, as well as for training exercises and other missions in support of U.S. national security objectives.

"The speed at which this modernization effort and test program has been accomplished highlights the Accelerate, Change, or Lose vision from General Brown," said Maj. Ryan Nastase, Test Program manager.

With the upgraded SATCOM capability, the MQ-9 can continue to modernize by integrating more advanced sensors that require increased bandwidth. The upgrade enhances the aircraft's ability to provide real-time situational awareness to combatant commanders around the world.

"This upgrade is a game-changer for the MQ-9 and the Air National Guard," said Lt. Col. Matthew Harris, Hancock Field ANG Base test pilot at Syracuse, New York. "We can better support our combatant commanders and provide critical intelligence in real-time."

The SATCOM upgrade is one of many advancements being fielded on the MQ-9. The ANG and its partners are continually working to enhance the capabilities of these critical assets and provide combatant commanders with the best possible support.

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Sudanese Army Chief Seeks UN Envoy's Dismissal, Says He Stoked Conflict

May 27, 2023

Sudan's army chief, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, has accused U.N. special envoy Volker Perthes of stoking a brutal conflict with paramilitaries, the latest in a series of apparent moves to bolster his war effort.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was shocked by Burhan's letter, which requested "the nomination of a replacement" to Perthes and accused him of committing "fraud and disinformation" in facilitating a political process that broke down into six weeks of devastating urban warfare. Guterres said he was "proud of the work done by Volker Perthes and reaffirms his full confidence in his Special Representative."

Burhan and his former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, were meant to meet for negotiations facilitated by the U.N. on April 15, the day they turned Khartoum into a war zone.

The meeting aimed to restore a transition to civilian rule disrupted since 2021 when Burhan and Dagalo together seized power in a coup before falling out. As their feud worsened, the international community tried to get them to reach a deal on integration of Dagalo's RSF into the regular army.

Since late last year Perthes and the U.N. mission in Sudan, which he heads, have been the target of several protests by thousands of military and Islamist supporters who accused Perthes of foreign intervention and demanded his dismissal.

Similar protests have taken place in the eastern city of Port Sudan since the war started.

Perthes had maintained his optimism and said the war took him "by surprise."

In the letter, Burhan said Perthes presented a misleading picture of consensus in his reports to the U.N., and "without these signs of encouragement, the rebel leader Dagalo would not have launched his military operations."

It has not been possible to verify who fired the first shots.

The fighting across Sudan has killed more than 1,800 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

The United Nations says more than a million people have been displaced within Sudan, in addition to 319,000 who have fled to neighboring countries, raising concerns for regional stability.

A one-week cease-fire brokered by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia expires Monday night.

Burhan last week officially sacked Dagalo as his deputy in the ruling Sovereign Council, replacing him with former rebel leader Malik Agar.

But even after reports of Burhan's letter emerged, Agar said he had spoken to Perthes about "ways to resolve the crisis and end the war."

Perthes is in New York, where last Monday he briefed the Security Council on Sudan. He responded to those who "accuse the U.N." by saying those responsible are "the two generals at war."

Perthes "may not be allowed back into Sudan," according to Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair, founder of Khartoum-based think tank Confluence Advisory.

"His visa will be a litmus test to gauge the resurgence of the Islamists," she wrote on Twitter.

Pro-democracy voices have long accused Burhan of being a Trojan horse for Islamists from the regime of strongman Omar al-Bashir, whom the military ousted in 2019 after mass protests.

Several high-ranking officials from the Bashir era have found roles in Burhan's administration since the coup.

During the fighting Burhan's backing has grown clearer, including "a web of crony-capitalist corporations, from banks and telecom companies owned by Islamists and intelligence officers to companies owned by the military itself," according to Sudan expert Alex de Waal.

Dagalo himself has called Burhan an "Islamist" and a "coup plotter" intent on reviving "the vestiges of the old regime."

Dagalo, whose RSF are descendants of the notorious Janjaweed militia unleashed by Bashir in Darfur, has links to gold mines, and de Waal has said he has thrived in an environment "where money and guns determine everything."

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Somali Leaders Reach Landmark Political Agreement

By Harun Maruf May 28, 2023

Somalia's political leaders have agreed to reshape the country's political system after four days of meetings in the capital, Mogadishu.

In a communique issued early Sunday, the National Consultative Council, which includes the federal leaders, including President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre, and Deputy Prime Minister Salah Ahmed Jama, as well as four regional leaders and the mayor of Mogadishu, have agreed to introduce direct elections as early as next year and unify the election schedules, and endorsed establishment of a presidential system for the country.

In a departure from clan-based power sharing, the leaders agreed that one-person-one-vote elections will take place once every five years. A 15-member national election and border committee will be formed to manage all local, regional and federal elections.

The local council elections will be the first to take place on June 30 of next year. This will be followed that year by regional parliamentary and regional leadership elections on November 30, the communique read.

The leaders have agreed that there will be only two political parties that compete for power in the country. The current political parties law does not limit the number of political parties.

Agreement abolishes premiership

Perhaps the most significant article in the agreement is the restructuring of the leadership system by abolishing the premiership.

In its place, the leaders endorsed a presidential system, with the president and vice president of the country elected directly on a single ticket. The same applies to the regional presidents and their respective vice presidents.

The endorsement of a presidential system will require a federal constitutional amendment, as the current constitution provides for a parliamentary system in which lawmakers elect a president, who then appoints a prime minister. Critics have argued for a long time that the parliamentary system brought endless political squabbles between the president and prime minister.

If popular elections take place nationwide next year, that will end a controversial clan-based system known as "the 4.5," which has been used for power-sharing since 2000. That system allowed four main clans to have equal share in parliament, while a group of smaller clans got half of the share. The last election based on the 4.5 system brought Mohamud to power in May of last year.

Minister for Interior, Federal and Reconciliation Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, who read the communique hailed the agreement as "one step forward."

"This is a historic agreement which brings an end to the system used since 2000," he told VOA Somali. "It gives the Somalis the opportunity to have their say and entrust their vote with those representing them at different levels of local, regional and federal governments."

The communique did not address what happens when the current president's term ends on May 15, 2026.

But Fiqi said that next year's election will be considered as a "midterm" election, where those elected will hold their posts for two years, until 2026, when the election calendar for both local, regional and federal levels will be unified.

Opponents call agreement 'unconstitutional'

The new agreement was quickly criticized by some politicians who argued it would give term extensions to regional leaders whose terms in office currently end within months.

"Tonight's communique by the National Consultative Council is an affront to Somalia's provisional constitutional and the supremacy of our national laws," said Mursal M. Khaliif, a member of the Federal Parliament.

"Whatever it's called, this is an unconstitutional term extension for the Federal Member States and the Federal Government."

The agreement was not signed by the president of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, Said Abdullahi Deni. Puntland this week held local council elections in which the people voted to elect their representatives, an exercise the rest of the country is working to emulate next year if this agreement is implemented.

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Russo-Ukraine War - 27 May 2023 - Day 458

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A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While GlobalSecurity.org takes utmost care to accurately report this news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.

On 24 February 2022, Ukraine was suddenly and deliberately attacked by land, naval and air forces of Russia, igniting the largest European war since the Great Patriotic War. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" (SVO - spetsialnaya voennaya operatsiya) in Ukraine in response to the appeal of the leaders of the "Donbass republics" for help. That attack is a blatant violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. Putin stressed that Moscow's goal is the demilitarization and denazification of the country. The military buildup in preceeding months makes it obvious that the unprovoked and dastardly Russian attack was deliberately planned long in advance. During the intervening time, the Russian government had deliberately sought to deceive the world by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

"To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." [Judgment of the International Military Tribunal]

The UK Ministry of Defence reported that Wagner Group forces have likely started to withdraw from some of their positions around the Donetsk city of Bakhmut.

On 25 May 2023, Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin said the withdrawal of his forces from Bakhmut had begun and that transfer of positions to the Russian Ministry of Defence (MOD) would continue to 01 June 2023. The Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister also corroborated the rotation out of Wagner forces in the outskirts of the town.

As of 24 May 2023, so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) forces have likely entered the city to start clearance operations. In recent weeks, elements of the 31st Brigade of Russia's Airborne Forces (VDV) have likely moved from the Svatove-Kreminna area to reinforce Bakhmut's flanks.

Ukrainian forces had taken 20 square kilometres on Bakhmut's flanks as of 16 May 2023. The rotation out of Wagner forces is likely to continue in controlled phases to prevent collapse in pockets around Bakhmut. Despite Prigozhin's ongoing feud with the Russian MOD, Wagner forces will likely be used for further offensive operations in the Donbas following reconstituting its forces.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that during the day of May 27, Russian forces launched 10x air strikes and around 30x MLRS attacks at the positions of Ukrainian troops and various settlements.

The likelihood of missile and air strikes across Ukraine remains high.

Russia continues to focus its main efforts on attempts to completely seize Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. During the day of May 27, Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled 13x Russian attacks.

Volyn, and Polissya axes: no significant changes or signs of the formation of offensive groups were found.

Sivershchyna and Slobozhanshchyna axes: Russian forces launched an air strike in the vicinity of Vovchans'k (Kharkiv oblast), fired mortars and artillery at the settlements of Hrem'yach (Chernihiv oblast), Zaruts'ke, Hlukhiv, Bunyakyne, Katerynivka, Obody, Myropillya (Sumy oblast), Basove, Buhaivka, Hoptivka, Luk'yantsi, Zelene, Ternova, Starytsya, Ohirtseve, Hatyshche, Vovchans'k, Tykhe, Khatnje (Kharkiv oblast).

Kup'yans'k axis: launched an air strike in the vicinity of Kyslivka (Kharkiv oblast). Kolodyazne, Krasne Pershe, Fyholivka, Novomlyns'k, Dvorichna, Zapadne, Kyslivka, and Berestove (Kharkiv oblast) came under artillery and mortar fire.

Lyman axis: Russian forces did not conduct any offensive operations during the day of May 27. Nevs'ke, Bilohorivka (Luhansk oblast), Tors'ke, Verkhn'okam'yans'ke, and Spirne (Donetsk oblast) were shelled with artillery.

Bakhmut axis: Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensives towards Khromove during day of May 27. Vasyukivka, Pryvillya, Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Hryhorivka, Bohdanivka, Chasiv Yar, Ivanivske, Stupochky, Predtechyne, and Pivnichne (Donetsk oblast) came under Russian fire.

Avdiivka axis: the Russian occupiers conducted offensive operations towards the settlements of Sjeverne and Pervomais'ke, to no success. The Russian invaders fired artillery at the settlements of Novokalynove, Avdiivka, Pervomais'ke, and Karlivka (Donetsk oblast).

Mar'inka axis: Ukrainian defenders repelled 7x Russian attacks in the vicinity of the city of Mar'inka. At the same time, Heorhiivka, Mar'inka, and Pobjeda (Donetsk oblast) were shelled by Russian forces.

Shakhtars'ke axis: Russian forces shelled the settlements of Paraskoviivka, Novomykhailivka, Vuhledar, Novoukrainka, Prechystivka, Shakhtars'ke, and Velyka Novosilka.

Zaporizhzhia and Kherson axes: Russia stays on the defensive. The invaders launched air strikes at the vicinities of settlements of Chervone (Zaporizhzhia oblast) and Zmiivka (Kherson oblast). The Russian adversary shelled the settlements of Vremivka, Vil'ne Pole, Novopil' (Donetsk oblast), Ol'hivs'ke, Poltavka, Hulyaipole, Charivne, Novodanylivka, Novoandriivka, Bilohir'ya, Mala Tokmachka, Stepove, Kam'yans'ke (Zaporizhzhya oblast), Sadove, Antonivka (Kherson oblast), and the city of Kherson.

In the temporarily occupied Luhansk, the Russian occupiers continue to re-purpose local medical facilities to meet their needs. Recently, additional beds and equipment were brought to the Railway Hospital, where wounded Russian invaders are undergoing treatment. In addition, the Russian occupiers handed over maternity hospital No. 2 (Luhansk also) to PMC Wagner.

The Russian invaders continue their cynical practice of illegally taking children from the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk oblast. In some settlements of Schastia district, the Russian occupants announced the so-called vacation for schoolchildren in summer camps located in Russia.

During the day of May 27, the Ukrainian Air Force launched 4x air strikes on the concentrations of troops and military equipment of the adversary, as well as 3x air strikes on the anti-aircraft missile systems.

The Ukrainian defenders intercepted 3x Russian UAVs of various types during the day of May 27.

The Ukrainian missile and artillery troops hit 1x concentration of weapons and military equipment, 2x command posts, 2x ammunition depots, and 1x other important military facility of the Russian forces.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that in Kupyansk direction, Ground-Attack and Army aviation and artillery of the Zapad Group of Forces have engaged the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine close to Masyutovka, Timkovka, Krasnoye Pervoye, and Novomlynsk (Kharkov region). ?? One sabotage and reconnaissance group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been disabled close to Novosyolovskoye (Lugansk People's Republic).

More than 45 Ukrainian servicemen, two armoured fighting vehicles, four motor vehicles, one Msta-B howitzer, and a U.S.-made AN/TPQ-36 counter-battery radar station have been destroyed during the day. An ammunition depot of the 92nd Mechanised Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been hit close to Stelmakhovka (Lugansk People's Republic).

In Krasny Liman direction, Operational-Tactical Aviation and artillery of the Tsentr Group of Forces engaged the units of the enemy close to Yampolovka, Serebryanka (Donetsk People's Republic), and Chervonaya Dibrova (Lugansk People's Republic). Up to 60 Ukrainian troops, three armoured fighting vehicles, three motor vehicles, two D-30 howitzers, and one Gvozdika self-propelled artillery unit have been eliminated in this direction during the day.

In Donetsk direction, Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, units, and artillery of the Yug Group of Forces have eliminated more than 260 Ukrainian troops, two armoured fighting vehicles, five motor vehicles, one Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system, and two D-30 howitzers during the day. An ammunition depot of the 110th Mechanised Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been hit close to Avdeevka (Donetsk People's Republic).

In South Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions, aviation and artillery of the Vostok Group of Forces inflicted a fire damage on AFU units close Nvomikhailovka (Donetsk People's Republic), and Malaya Tokmachka, Marfopol, and Komsomolskoye (Zaporozhye region).

The enemy losses in these directions amounted to up to 120 Ukrainian troops, one infantry fighting vehicle, one armoured fighting vehicle, two motor vehicles, one Polish-made Krab two Akatsiya and Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers, one D-30 howitzer, and one U.S.-made AN/TPQ-37 counter mortar radar.

In addition, two ammunition depots of the 79th Air Assault Brigade and 128th Mountain Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been hit close to Novomikhailovka (Donetsk People's Republic) and Stepovoye (Zaporozhye region).

In Kherson direction, Russian troops have neutralised up to 10 Ukrainian troops, three motor vehicles, D-30 howitzer, and two Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers during the day.

Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, and artillery of the Russian Group of Forces have engaged 82 AFU artillery units, manpower, and hardware in 96 areas during the day. ?? Command posts of the 24th and 54th mechanised brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were eliminated close to Verkhnekamenskoye and Toretsk (Donetsk People's Republic).

Air defence forces have shot downt two Storm Shadow, 19 HIMARS MLRS projectiles, and two HARM anti-radiation missile during the day.

In addition, 12 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed in the areas of Zatishnoye,Kremennaya, and Chernopopovka (Lugansk People's Republic), Kremenets, Yasnoye (Donetsk People's Republic), Pologi, and Removka (Zaporozhye region).

In total, 429 airplanes and 235 helicopters, 4,353 unmanned aerial vehicles, 424 air defence missile systems, 9,310 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,100 combat vehicles equipped with MLRS, 4,919 field artillery cannons and mortars, as well as 10,481 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation.





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Bush-Era US Officials Discuss How China Has Changed Over Last 15 Years

By Chetra Chap May 27, 2023

This week, U.S. and Chinese officials held meetings in Washington aimed at building ties following months of tension since Beijing's surveillance balloon floated across the U.S. in early February.

For the former U.S. officials who used to broker such talks 15 years ago, the tensions reflect how Beijing itself has changed under leader Xi Jinping.

Stephen Hadley, who served as national security adviser for former President George W. Bush, said Beijing has gone from wanting to be a part of the international system at the end of the Bush administration to trying to challenge it now.

"The China we faced was a China that wanted a benign international environment so they could focus on their own domestic development," Hadley, one of the highest-profile U.S. foreign policy specialists of the past 25 years, told an audience in Washington this week.

"It was a China that did not want to overturn the international system but wanted to be a part of that system and made that very clear. It was a China that wanted a constructive relationship with the United States. And we tried to build that," he added.

Hadley and other former Bush administration officials gathered this week to discuss relations with China during the Bush administration, just as China's leader Xi Jinping was rising to power.

Dennis Wilder, a senior fellow for the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University, who appeared with Hadley at the event, said the Bush administration "did try to figure out Xi Jinping" during its first meeting with the Chinese leader. Wilder served as the National Security Council's special assistant to Bush.

"When we went to the 2008 Olympics, Xi Jinping was actually in charge of the Olympics. ... It was one of the most boring meetings I'd ever been in. Xi Jinping gave nothing. He was cardboard. He wasn't going to tell us a thing about himself. He was not going to show his hand. And this is how he got to the top of the Chinese system. He did hide his cards," Wilder said.

Wilder added that many thought Xi Jinping was "another reformist Chinese leader," but everyone was surprised by him.

Xi's vision

Xi is enhancing Beijing's diplomacy, economic strength and military capability, believing the United States is in "terminal decline," according to Hadley, whose book Hand-Off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama was published in February.

Xi, Hadley said, views that "the West is in decline" and "the United States is in terminal decline."

"Xi was prepared to put his power center stage and then to use it to intimidate his neighbors and others abroad, with his enhanced diplomacy, economic strength and military capability," he said.

"China is a defender of the international order. We always firmly safeguard the UN-centered international system, the international order based on international law, and the basic norms of international relations underpinned by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter," said Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu in an email to VOA on Saturday.

In 1978, Deng Xiaoping, who is widely considered the father of modern China, kick-started the country's economic reform that embraces a free-market economy while maintaining the political model of one-party dictatorship. The reform led China to open up to the world economically and politically, achieving double-digit GDP growth rates for over 30 years by becoming the global manufacturing hub. Today, China is the world's second-biggest economy.

Hadley said Deng's "hide and bide" strategy, which guides China to build power while hiding from international leadership responsibility, continued to be prominent in the Chinese leadership until Xi came to power in 2012.

The U.S. sees China as its main strategic and geopolitical challenge. The U.S. national security strategy published on October 2022 states that "the People's Republic of China harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit."

Bonny Lin, director of the China Power Project at CSIS, who also attended the event, said the U.S. right now is not necessarily able to communicate with China the way it could during the Bush administration. But she added that there is a "continued emphasis on President [Joe] Biden being able to speak directly with Xi Jinping."

"Given how much China has centralized power under Xi - very different than under Hu Jintao, who was going in sort of the opposite direction, inviting more collective leadership - that is even more important for the two leaders to maintain that personal bond," Lin said.

Hadley said the foreign policy of the Bush administration that was passed to the Obama administration was to try to cooperate and engage with China and to "bring China into the international system," but China's shift to challenge the system was not anything the U.S. can control.

"Who leads countries really matters," he said. "And I think if China decided in 2012 for a Jiang Zemin- or Hu Jintao-type leader, and we had that leader for 2012 to 2022, I think China would be in a very different place today. And America's relationship with China would be very different today."

Christy Lee contributed to this story.

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Transcript of Special Briefing by Secretary (East) on visit of the King of Cambodia to India (May 26, 2023)

India - Ministry of External Affairs

May 27, 2023

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Very Good afternoon to all of you. Thank you very much for joining us for this special media briefing on the forthcoming visit of His Majesty, the King of Cambodia. To give us a sense of the visit and what we expect, we have the privilege of having with us here on the dais, Shri Saurabh Kumar, Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs, as well as Shri Ravi Shankar, Additional Secretary looking after the Southern Division in the Ministry of External Affairs. Sir, if you would like to make some opening remarks and then we can take a few questions.

Shri Saurabh Kumar, Secretary (East): Welcome and Namaskar to all of you. His Majesty, Norodom Sihamoni, the King of Cambodia will pay his maiden visit to India from 29th to 31st of May, 2023. He will be accompanied by a 27 member high-level delegation including Minister of Royal Palace, Vice President of the Senate, Minister of Foreign Affairs and other senior officials from the Royal Palace and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The state visit will coincide with the culmination of celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between India and Cambodia which were established in 1952. A state visit to India by the King of Cambodia is taking place after almost six decades with the last one being that of current King's father, King Norodom Sihanouk in 1963. The last visit to Cambodia by the President of India was that of President Smt. Pratibha Patil in 2010. President Rajendra Prasad had visited Cambodia in 1959. The visit will commence in the morning on 30th May, 2023 with the ceremonial guard of honour for His Majesty at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. He would then visit Rajghat to pay his floral tributes there. His Majesty will meet the President, Vice President and Prime Minister and External Affairs Minister will call on him. President will host a banquet in honour of the King at Rashtrapati Bhawan.

I will give you a brief background about our relations with Cambodia. Historically, India and Cambodia relations have their roots in Hindu and Buddhist cultural influences which emanated from India. These historical links continue to provide a strong foundation to our contemporary ties. India established diplomatic relations with Cambodia in 1952. After the fall of Khmer Rouge regime, India was the first democratic country to recognize the new government in Cambodia and reopened its diplomatic mission in 1981. India also played an active and positive role in the finalization of the Paris Peace Accords of 1991 and contributed towards the conduct of UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia or UNTAC sponsored elections in 1993. This contribution of India is appreciated and remembered in Cambodia even today. Cambodia is an important interlocutor in the context of our Act East Policy, the ASEAN and Mekong-Ganga Cooperation. Cambodia hosted the first India-ASEAN summit in 2002 when it held the chair of ASEAN. In 2022, again during the Cambodian chair of ASEAN, the ASEAN-India relations were elevated to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

Let me give you a sense of some of the specific areas of cooperation. An important area is conservation and restoration of ancient temples in Cambodia by India. Since 1986, India through the Archaeological Survey of India has been engaged in conservation and restoration of ancient temples in Cambodia. In late 80s and early 90s, restoration work was carried out on Angkor Wat. Restoration of Ta Prohm Temple has completed two phases, while the third phase of work is underway. Last year restoration work commenced on Preah Vihear, a world heritage site and one of the oldest temples of Lord Shiva. Human resource development and capacity building is another important area of our engagement with Cambodia. India is actively assisting Cambodia in capacity building and human resource development through training slots under ITEC program and ICCR scholarships. More than 2,200 Cambodian nationals have been imparted training under ITEC program since 1981. 30 ICCR scholarships are available to Cambodian students on an annual basis. Lines of credit of around US$100 million have been extended to Cambodia for projects in infrastructure, water resources and power transmission lines amongst others. Cambodia has benefited from 48 quick impact projects targeted towards local communities in areas such as education, health, sanitation, ecotourism and infrastructure. 31 of these have been completed and 17 of these projects are under implementation.

Let me also touch upon Defense and Demining cooperation which we have with Cambodia. This includes training courses for Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, training in demining and peacekeeping modules, providing demining equipment as well as goodwill visits by Indian Navy and Coast Guard ships and exchange of official delegations. India has extended a grant of US$1.5 million for procurement of demining equipment, gifted sniffer dogs and offered a US$50 million line of credit for capacity building and other related works for the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. Customized training courses for more than 80 Cambodian Armed personnel will be held this year in different areas. The first army-to-army staff talks between India and Cambodia were conducted in April 2023. Lieutenant-General Hun Manet, who is the Commander of the Royal Cambodian Army, visited India in February this year.

India and Cambodia trade is around US$320 million with Indian exports of US$198 million and imports from Cambodia at US$122 million. Cumulative investments from India in Cambodia are estimated at US$115 million, primarily in pharmaceuticals, two and three wheelers and some in the area of mining. Cambodia has been supportive of India in international fora. It has joined the International Solar Alliance. A delegation from Cambodia recently participated in the launch of the International Big Cat Alliance. In January 2023, Prime Minister Hun Sen attended the inaugural leaders' session of the Voice of the Global South Summit, which was hosted virtually by the Honorable Prime Minister.

So let me conclude by saying that the visit of His Majesty, the King, will be an opportunity to consolidate and strengthen our relations. The visit has a strong symbolic value, coming as it does on the 70th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. It would also contribute to our efforts to add greater content to our trade, economic, defense, culture and people-to-people ties. Interaction at top political levels, provide a momentum to relations and the visit of His Majesty would also do the same. Thank you.

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Thank you, sir. And before I open the floor for questions, please introduce yourself and the organization that you represent.

Rishikesh: Sir, Rishikesh from PTI. Is there any plan to gift tiger to Cambodia?

Meghna Dev: Sir, I'm Meghna Dev from DD News. I have an additional question to that. India and Cambodia signed the MoU with focus on tiger re-introduction in Cambodia. Will this be discussed and is any translocation likely on the cards in the near future?

Shashank Mattoo: Sir, Shashank Mattoo with the Mint. Sir, the defense relationship with Cambodia has deepened a deal in the last few years. We provided them some demining equipment. We have also had, the Defense Minister Rajnath Singh also met the Commander of the Royal Cambodian Army. Is there anything planned for the deepening of the defense relationship and additional equipment that India might be interested in providing to Cambodia during this visit? Thank you.

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Sir, let me pass on these three questions.

Shri Saurabh Kumar, Secretary (East): So, Rishikesh and your question, I'll take them together. So, it is true that the Memorandum of Understanding in this particular area was signed between India and Cambodia. This is an area on which we are having discussions and during the current visit, we expect that the entire gamut of our relationship would be discussed between the King and his interlocutors when the conversations take place.

Mattoo, as far as the defense relationship is concerned, I just mentioned in my opening remarks that our defense engagement with Cambodia is increasing. You are aware that General Hun Manet visited the country. This was a very significant visit. We plan to have a very specific number of training slots this particular year to be provided to the Cambodian side. Earlier this year, the army to army staff talks took place. This was the first staff talks between the armies of the two countries. We have a 50 million line of credit which has been extended to the Cambodian side and you know how it is to be utilized is something which is being discussed. So, we have on the defense side, our relationship is growing and we would be working more in this particular area also.

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Thank you sir. Srinjoy.

Srinjoy: Just a clarification sir. Just recently there were these exercises between the Indian Navy and ASEAN Navies. Can you tell us a little about the Cambodian input in this?

Shashank Mattoo: Sir, again Shashank Mattoo with the Mint. Sir, the bilateral trade and economic relationship with Cambodia has been, as compared to some of our other relationships, slightly underdeveloped. Is there a sense of any trade facilitation agreements or economic agreements that both sides have planned to make sure that investment from India into Cambodia increases and more trade can flow across borders?

Sridhar: Sir, Sridhar from The Asian Age. Sir, Cambodia is viewed as perhaps the ASEAN nation closest to China in terms of its relationship. So, considering that we are now stepping up the defense ties, is it there to sort of balance out the ties? How would you look at it?

Shri Saurabh Kumar, Secretary (East): So, you are right that you know we had the first India-ASEAN maritime exercise, which was held sometime back and Cambodia being a part of the ASEAN was very much a part of this particular event. As far as trade is concerned, our trade has been growing with Cambodia over the last couple of years. While there is no agreement which would be signed during this particular visit, our effort is to see the steps which need to be taken to enhance our trade and investment ties. And in fact, bilateral investment agreement is presently being discussed with Cambodia as we are discussing it with many other countries.

Sridhar, as you mentioned about Cambodia's relationship with China, we do not look at our relationship with Cambodia through the prism of Cambodia's relationship with any other country. Our relationship with Cambodia stands on its own feet. It is, as I have mentioned, strengthening and diversifying and it is our effort to see that different areas of our engagement with Cambodia further grow and strengthen.

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Thank you very much, sir. Thank you also to Shri Ravi Shankar for joining us today. We'll be seeing the visit from Monday and today we'll issue a formal press release a little later to announce the visit. Thank you.

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Gift this article Share this article paywall-free.

Wake up. Pick an outfit to wear. One sock, then the other. Phone, wallet, keys. Out the door. While clothing is a big part of everyones life, its production is rarely a topic of conversation. Especially when it comes down to the very beginning of its creationthe spinning, weaving and shearing that go into every piece of clothing. The Flag Wool & Fiber Festival connects the public to the rich cultural history of regional fiber arts, demonstrating creation right before their eyes.

Andrea Greene, the founder of Flag Wool & Fiber Festival, began the festival in 2015. This year is the festivals ninth iteration, with two of those years being virtual due to the pandemic. Earlier in 2015, before beginning her journey with the festivals creation, Greene was asked by the Arizona Historical Society to lead a Sheep to Shawl demonstration, when you shear a sheep, spin the yard and then knit or weave it into something all at once, in front of an audience. The Arizona Historical Society told Greene that they had been running a wool and fiber festival off and on since 1996 with varying levels of success and asked if Greene wanted to take it over.

Greene had previously gotten into fiber arts through knitting, spinning and yarn dyeing. She opened an Etsy shop selling yarn after the birth of her son and fell down the rabbit hole, learning more and more about fiber arts as the years went on. When presented with this opportunity to lead a Fiber Festival, she said yes, asked a friend to help out and has been working hard to expand the festival ever since.

So much has changed, Greene said. It used to just be me and one of my friends but now we have a solid team of five that run it. Were a non-profit now, and we use the Pioneer Museum and the Coconino Center for the Arts property and the Sechrist field. Its grown tremendously.

Supported through grants from local organizations like the City of Flagstaff, Creative Flagstaff, Arizona Community Foundation and Arizona Foundation for the Arts, the event has expanded into a multiple-day celebration of fiber arts. The festival is free to the public, with demonstrations, workshops, vendors, livestock exhibits, live shearing, lectures, food vendors and many more elements.

We have vendors everywhere from raw fleece, yarn from small farms, hand dyed yarn, candles, soapthere is a woman out of Prescott Valley that does goat milk soapthere will be woven rugs, towels and finished garments like that, Green said.

Most of the events included are free to the public, but there are also some ticketed workshops available for purchase. With the help of grants, Flagstaff Wool & Fiber Festival was able to bring in two featured artists who will be doing free-to-the-public demonstrations. Venancio Aragon, a Dine textile artist, will demonstrate tapestry twill weaving on his Indigenous upright tension loom and how the Navajo lap spindle is used to spin wool fibers into yarn. Alissa Allen, founder of Mycopigments, will present on the history of using fungi for dyes, how to test them for dye potential and guide a silk scarf dyeing.

Everyone should come, Greene said. We really have something for everyone, for little kids up to people who already know what they are doing. People just enjoy the sheep shearing alone, it's a huge draw. Everyone who is there is really positive and willing to share. To be able to stop and chat with these people doing these crazy thingssome that you might have heard of and others that you haventits a really fun time.

The Flagstaff Wool & Fiber Festival team has always wanted to keep the festival accessible to all, making as many parts of it free to the public. With the help of the community, they hope to open some eyes and hearts to an immersive farm to fiber experience.

One thing that is really important to us and our mission as a nonprofit is to help connect the community to these fiber artists, and making this connection for free, Greene said. We couldnt do that without the community support that we get, whether that be through grants or the team of women who run it. Its not one person. It takes a whole lot of people to make this happen. Were so appreciative of everyone who helps out. With community events, especially free ones, the more the community gets involved, the more it can grow, be supported and continue.

To learn more about the event and volunteer opportunities, head over to the Flagstaff Wool & Fiber Festival website.
Diplomat's release from Belgium prison victory for Iranians: Government official

Iran Press TV

Friday, 26 May 2023 2:54 PM

The release of Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat who was detained in Belgium on false terror-related charges, is a victory for the Iranian nation, according to a senior government official in Tehran.

Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian president's deputy chief of staff for political affairs, said in a post on Twitter on Friday that the president of the Islamic Republic had asserted that the first step for "engagement" is the release of the diplomat.

Assadi arrived in Iran on Friday. He was released after five years, following an Oman-brokered deal.

Earlier in the day, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian tweeted that the "innocent" diplomat who was "illegally detained in Germany and Belgium for more than two years against international law" was freed after Muscat mediated a deal between Iran and Belgium to swap prisoners.

Iran released Belgian spy Olivier Vandecasteele, who was arrested on a visit to Iran in February 2022 and sentenced in January to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on charges including espionage.

In his tweet, Jamshidi said, "As Belgian officials used extreme language in parliament & media, on the phone they spoke of major engagement."

Iran's top human rights official also on Friday described Assadi's detention in a Twitter post as "illegal".

Assadi's release is the "outcome of efforts by responsible authorities to defend the rights of their fellow citizens abroad," said Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, promising to continue such efforts.

'Unlawful detention failed to affect Assadi's steely will'

The Iranian administration's spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi tweeted on Friday that Assadi's unlawful detention failed to impact the "steely will" of the "revolutionary diplomat."

"Asadollah Assadi, our country's diplomat, returned to his homeland after 5 years of illegal detention," Bahadori Jahromi said.

He said Assadi's detention was against international law as he was under mental and physical pressure.

The Iranian administration will employ all its capacities to preserve the rights of Iranians, he added.

In June 2018, Belgian authorities said the country's police had intercepted a car transporting homemade explosives, claiming the Iranian diplomat handed the material to two people in Belgium.

The diplomat was accused of plotting an attack against the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO) terrorist outfit, a claim categorically dismissed by Iranian authorities.

A Belgian court then sentenced the diplomat, who serves as the third counselor at Iran's Embassy in Vienna, to 20 years in prison.

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Assadollah Assadi released from prison in Belgium, on way home: Iran FM

Iran Press TV

Friday, 26 May 2023 11:26 AM

Iran's foreign minister says Assadollah Assadi, an Iranian diplomat detained in Belgium on false terror-related charges, has been released after an Omani-brokered deal and is on his way back to his home country.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the statement in a Persian-language post on his Twitter account on Friday after Oman's foreign ministry officially announced that Muscat had mediated a deal between Iran and Belgium to swap their prisoners.

"Mr. Assadollah Assadi, the innocent diplomat of our country, who was illegally detained in Germany and Belgium for more than two years against international law, is now on his way back to his homeland and will soon enter our beloved Iran," Amir-Abdollahian said.

"I thank the Sultanate of Oman for its positive efforts in this direction."

Assadi's case, according to legal experts, was based on sham and unsubstantiated charges and smacks of political propaganda against the Islamic Republic.

Belgian authorities in June 2018 said the country's police had intercepted a car carrying homemade explosives, claiming that the Iranian diplomat handed the material to two people in Belgium. He was accused of plotting an attack against the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO) terrorist outfit, a claim that has been strongly rejected by Iranian authorities.

A Belgian court then sentenced the diplomat, who serves as the third counselor at Iran's Embassy in Vienna, to 20 years in prison.

Spox: Assadi taken hostage on Israeli plot

Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kan'ani also announced in a statement that Assadi will return to the country after "five years in captivity".

Kan'ani noted that Assadi had been "taken hostage" during a plot designed by the Israeli regime and cooperation of some European intelligence services.

"The Zionist-American 'big lie' scenario went on stage with the aim of creating crisis in relations between Iran and Europe and this plot happened right after the US withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran," he said.

Kan'ani also said that some European governments, influenced by Israel and Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group, violated international law by arresting and sentencing Asadi to 20 years in prison after a "political and sham trial".

Iran had always protested and condemned the violation of Asadi's diplomatic immunity and tried hard to free him, Kan'ani said, adding that an agreement was reached to release Asadi following negotiations between foreign ministers of Iran and Belgium.

Iran's top human rights official also commented on the development in a Persian-language tweet on Friday, stating that Assadi had been "unlawfully" detained in Belgium.

Assadi's release is the "outcome of efforts by responsible authorities to defend the rights of their fellow citizens abroad," said Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, promising to continue such efforts.

The news came shortly after Oman's foreign ministry officially announced that the country had "successfully" managed to broker a deal between Iran and Belgium to exchange their prisoners.

"The Omani efforts have resulted in an agreement between the two sides for a mutual exchange deal," the ministry's website said in a statement on Friday.

"The Sultanate of Oman appreciates the positive high-level spirit that prevailed during the discussions in Muscat between the Iranian and Belgian sides, and their commitment to resolving this humanitarian issue," the statement added.

The Omani foreign ministry also announced that the released individuals had been transported from Tehran and Brussels to Muscat in preparation for their return to their respective countries.

Belgium's Prime Minister Alexander de Croo confirmed that Olivier Vandecasteele had arrived in Oman.

The 42-year-old had been convicted by the Iranian Judiciary of four charges, including spying activities, collusion with the United States, currency smuggling and money laundering.

The Judiciary sentenced the Belgian citizen, working under the guise an aid worker, to a total of 40 years in prison earlier in the year.

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Calm returns to border area with Afghanistan: Local Iranian official

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

May 27, 2023

Zahedan, IRNA -- Calm has returned to the border area between Iran and Afghanistan following clashes that took place earlier on Saturday, an official in Iran's Sistan and Baluchistan province has said.

Alireza Marhamati, who is the deputy governor of Sistan and Baluchistan for security and law enforcement affairs, made the announcement on Saturday night.

He said that the situation is under control of forces deployed at the border area between Iran and Afghanistan.

He also said that local Iranian and Afghan officials have held negotiations on the cause of the clashes, and agreed to continue their talks.

The clashes took place between Iranian border guards and Taliban forces on Saturday morning at the Sasuli border post, located in Iran's Zabol county.

Two Iranian border guards were martyred as a result.

A spokesman for the Taliban-run interior ministry, Abdul Nafi Takor, also said one Taliban guard was killed in the clashes with Iranian forces in the Afghan province of Nimroz.

Tensions have escalated between the two neighbors in recent months over the Taliban government's failure to honor a 1973 water-sharing treaty, with Iranian authorities saying that the Taliban are restricting the flow of water from Helmand River to Iran's arid eastern regions.

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Two Iranian border guards martyred by Taliban forces

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

May 27, 2023

Tehran, IRNA -- Two Iranian border guards have reportedly been martyred in clashes with Taliban forces at the joint border with Afghanistan.

In clashes that took place on Saturday morning at the Sasuli border post, located in Iran's Zabol county, the Iranian border guards fired back at the Taliban forces.

Two civilians are said to have been injured in the incident.

That comes as the commander of the Sasuli border post had been martyred by Taliban forces last week.

A spokesman for the Taliban-run interior ministry, Abdul Nafi Takor, said one Taliban guard was killed in the clashes with Iranian forces in the Afghan province of Nimroz earlier in Saturday.

Enayatullah Khowarazmi, the Taliban's defense ministry spokesman, called for "dialogue and negotiation" to defuse the tensions with Iran.

Tensions have spiked between Iran and Afghanistan in recent months over the Taliban government's failure to honor a 1973 water-sharing treaty as Iranian authorities insist that the ruling group in Kabul is restricting the flow of water from the Helmand River to Iran's arid eastern regions.

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Iran slams U.S., France for voicing concern over new ballistic missile

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 10:36, May 27, 2023

TEHRAN, May 26 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman on Friday censured the U.S. and French governments, which he described as two major arms exporters to the Middle East, for expressing concern over Iran's test-launch of a new ballistic missile.

Nasser Kanaani made the remarks on his Twitter page in response to the worries voiced by the U.S. State Department and French Foreign Ministry about Iran's successful test-launch of the latest domestically-developed ballistic missile on Thursday.

He said the U.S. and French governments are expressing concern about Iran's "defense" advances and power while they played an important role in "provoking and arming the Baath Party of the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in its military aggression against Iran and bombardment of the country's cities and defenseless people" during the Iraq-Iran war, which lasted from 1980-88.

Kanaani stressed that the United States and France are also atop the list of arms exporters to the region, adding they are opposed to a "powerful Iran."

Iran on Thursday unveiled and test-launched its latest domestically-developed ballistic missile, known as Kheibar, with a range of 2,000 kilometers and a warhead capacity of 1,500 kilograms, according to the official news agency IRNA.

The U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing later on Thursday that "Iran's development and proliferation of ballistic missiles pose a serious threat to regional and international security and remains a significant nonproliferation challenge."

On the same day, French Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre accused Iran of "violating the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 of 2015 which endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran's nuclear program by unveiling the ballistic missile."

She said these activities are worrying in the context of the continuing escalation of Iran's nuclear program.

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'You are damn wrong to be in our region': IRGC Navy chief warns US military

Iran Press TV

Saturday, 27 May 2023 7:05 AM

The commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy has categorically dismissed the US military's presence in the Persian Gulf under the pretext of securing the strategic maritime region.

Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri said on Friday that only Iran and other regional countries will ensure the security of the Persian Gulf and there is no need for the US and other countries to be present in the strategic waterway.

"You are damn wrong to be present in our region," Tangsiri asserted.

"If we back down against the enemy, it will definitely dominate us and we have no choice but to stand and resist, which is the path to the victory of our nation," he said.

The IRGC Navy chief made the remarks in an official ceremony in the city of Dezful in Iran's southwestern province of Khuzestan, where he lauded the city's remarkable resistance during the Iraqi aggression imposed on the country in the 1980s.

Describing Dezful as the symbol of resistance and invincibility, Tangsiri said, "During eight years of the Sacred Defense (Iran-Iraq war), we showed the world that we did not and would not surrender to duress."

He also highlighted the role of the country's media in countering the enemy's propaganda.

"We resolutely secure the Persian Gulf, and the media must participate in this security and reflect the capabilities of the IRGC Navy and the Army so that the world understands that the security of the Persian Gulf does not need foreigners," Tangsiri said.

"We stand firmly against the enemy and will defend the honor and dignity of the Iranian nation," he added.

The Persian Gulf a which spans some 251,000 square kilometers a is bounded by the Arvand River in the north, which forms the frontier between Iran and Iraq, and the Strait of Hormuz in the south, which links the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean.

The inland sea is an international trade route connecting the Middle East to Africa, India, and China.

Iran has made it clear that it views US military vessels lurking in the waters of the Persian Gulf as a threat to its national security and a source of tensions and instability in the region.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly vowed to give a decisive response to any hostile move by Washington that would disrupt the security of the strategic waterway.

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Iranian Students Coming Under Increased Pressure Over Hijab Rules

By RFE/RL's Radio Farda May 27, 2023

Iranian students are coming under increased pressure and disciplinary measures as authorities try to stamp out dissent over the mandatory hijab law.

The Union Council of Iranian Students says students, who have been at the forefront of massive anti-government protests over the hijab law, are being threatened via text messages and through "motorcycle patrols for hijab warnings" to comply with the rule.

It pointed to the recent summoning of students at the University of Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, where they were repeatedly threatened with suspensions and academic bans by university officials, as an example of how authorities were trying to force the students to abandon their opposition to the hijab law.

The council added that university authorities have set up a motorcycle security patrol tasked with confronting students who don't comply with the compulsory hijab, while noting the security presence at the university has substantially increased and closed gates to control the flow of students on campus as they target students based on their clothing.

Anger over the hijab rule, which mandates women cover their heads while in public, erupted in September 2022 when a young woman in Tehran died while in police custody for an alleged hijab violation. Since then, thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets to demand more freedoms and women's rights.

Numerous protests have been held at universities, particularly in Tehran, where many students have refused to attend classes. Protesting students have chanted "Woman, life, freedom!" and "Death to the dictator!" at the rallies. Some female students have removed and burned their head scarves.

At Noshirvani University in the northern Iranian city of Babol, officials have reportedly formed committees to enforce the mandatory hijab requirement.

The United Students channel uncovered the formation of the Guidance Committee at the university, saying its job is to confront students based on their attire. If students refuse to observe the compulsory hijab, this committee has the authority to refer them to the university's disciplinary committee.

Security forces at the school are allegedly bursting into classes while professors are teaching to issue hijab warnings.

Several other universities, including Al-Zahra University, Beheshti University, and Azad University have reported similar occurances.

Universities and students have long been at the forefront of the struggle for greater social and political freedoms in Iran. In 1999, students protested the closure of a reformist daily, prompting a brutal raid on the dorms of Tehran University that left one student dead.

According to the Committee for the Follow-Up of the Situation of Detainees, over 720 students from across 100 universities in the country have been arrested since the nationwide protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini during her arrest.

Many of these detained students have reportedly faced severe penalties, including imprisonment, suspension from education, exile, and monetary fines.

Written by Ardeshir Tayebi based on an original story in Persian by RFE/RL's Radio Farda

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-students-pressure- hijab-rules/32430392.html

Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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India Opens Myanmar Port with Wary Eye on China

By Zsombor Peter May 27, 2023

India helped inaugurate a long-awaited seaport in western Myanmar this month amid New Delhi's efforts to cope with rival China's growing influence in Southeast Asia and across the Indo-Pacific.

A maiden delivery of 1,000 metric tons of cement from the Indian metropolis of Kolkata docked May 9 in Sittwe, Myanmar, at a new port funded by New Delhi.

The Sittwe port is the first node in the $484 million Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, aimed at connecting greater India with its landlocked northeast through western Myanmar's Rakhine and Chin states, bypassing Bangladesh.

In a statement, India's Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways said the Sittwe port would herald "a new age of transportation" with Myanmar and "unlock tremendous economic potential" across the region by bridging South and Southeast Asia. Once completed with a 158-kilometer shipping route up the Kaladan River from Sittwe and another 210 kilometers of road leading back into India, the ministry said the corridor would slash transport times and costs between Kolkata and Mizoram state by more than half.

India and Myanmar shook hands on the project 15 years ago, but it actually stems from goals of plugging India's economy into the bustling markets of Southeast Asia dating back to the 1960s, Avinash Paliwal, a senior lecturer at Britain's School of Oriental and African Studies told VOA.

"This is the larger aspiration, which has always been couched in terms of the Look East or Act East policy of India. And today it is also being made ... an important element of India's Indo-Pacific approach and to counter China, because this is a region where China has also been dominant," he said.

Balancing China

Paliwal said concern over China's growing sway in the region is an "article of faith" for India, even if it has never invested the money into pushing back with much force. Compared with China, he added, India has also done relatively little to cultivate the ethnic-minority rebel armies that control much of Myanmar's borderlands, Rakhine and Chin included.

Even if China continues to dominate relations with Myanmar, Paliwal said India's investment in the Sittwe port at least helps to keep it in the good graces of the military regime that seized power in 2021.

"The bottom line is India's main idea is to make sure the channels with the junta remain open, because they need to know what the Chinese are doing. The intelligence pipeline needs to be open," he said. "If throwing some money on the Kaladan helps them keep that pipeline open, that's fine for them."

If and when it is finished, the corridor could give India an important economic boost too, Sreeparna Banerjee, a junior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation think tank based in Kolkata, told VOA.

By connecting India's northeast to the sea, she said, the corridor could spur job and business growth in an underdeveloped part of the country, help India tap into Myanmar's natural resources, and reinforce the country's land and sea trade routes with the rest of Southeast Asia, but still with an eye on China.

"While emphasizing its own interests, [India] is seeking to balance China's influence by deepening its ties with Myanmar and undertaking collaborative infrastructure projects," Banerjee said.

"So, the Kaladan project serves as a strategic counterbalance to China's regional dominance. It not only strengthens India's connectivity with Myanmar, but also showcases India's commitment to supporting Myanmar's development and fostering regional cooperation," she added.

Hunter Marston, a doctoral candidate at Australian National University studying Myanmar, told VOA India hopes its port in Rakhine state can even compete some day with the larger and deeper port China is building in Kyaukphyu, a few dozen kilometers southeast of Sittwe, where China's own economic corridor project through Myanmar hits the sea.

"That's definitely the goal; India is trying to do this to vie with China," he said. "But Chinese trade with Myanmar ... dwarfs that with India. I think India has a lot of potential for the economic relationship to grow in the future, but in some ways it's been too little too late to catch up with China."

United Nations figures show Myanmar's trade with China topped $9 billion in 2022. Its trade with India that year was $1.5 billion. India's foreign direct investments in Myanmar are a small fraction of China's as well.

Foul weather friends

Even so, said Marston, Myanmar can still use India's investment in the Kaladan project to hedge against China, being wary itself of relying too much on any one country, especially since the coup.

The junta's brutal repression of a growing armed resistance has been whittling away at Myanmar's foreign allies, yet India has held firm. Along with China and Russia, it abstained from a U.N. Security Council resolution in December calling for an immediate end to the violence. India is also one of the few countries still selling arms to Myanmar, though far less than China or Russia.

"The junta's efforts ... aren't doing much to win popular support in the country, but it's looking to deepen its external partnerships, especially those that allow it to avoid relying too much on just China, especially in foreign investment," Marston said.

Even with enough funding, though, finishing the Kaladan corridor will not be easy, the analysts said. Long-running insurgencies pockmark both sides of the border. Fighting has been especially intense on the Myanmar side since the coup.

Marston said the ongoing violence will be a "huge obstacle" to building the road meant to complete the corridor north of Sittwe.

"That road is not being built any time soon," Paliwal agreed.

Banerjee said she is more optimistic, assuming the Myanmar junta's efforts to strike a cease-fire with some of the country's major rebel armies bear fruit and that India can cozy up to Myanmar's opposition government in exile, which has close ties with some of the groups.

"If India is able to strike the right chords, I think there is a hope that it [the corridor] will be completed after a few years, but not right now," she said.

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Russia warns US, UK 'tempting fate' by sending warships to Black Sea

Iran Press TV

Friday, 26 May 2023 6:32 PM

Russia has warned the United States and Britain are "tempting fate" by sending warships into the Black Sea amid the war with Ukraine.

"We call on the Pentagon and the British navy, which are sending their warships into the Black Sea, not to tempt fate in vain," Major General Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry's spokesperson said in a televised statement on Friday.

Russia will defend its borders using all possible means including military force, he warned, noting, British warships sailing off the Russian coast in Crimea are "not more than a target" for Russia's Black Sea fleet's defense forces.

HMS Defender, a British destroyer sailed through the Black Sea on Wednesday. Russia said its defense forces had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of the British warship sailing through waters off the coast of Crimea, reportedly en route to Georgia. The UK said it had been informed beforehand of Russian military exercises.

In a separate announcement, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the US and Britain were sowing strife by sailing warships through Black Sea waters, reiterating that Russia was ready to defend its borders using all means.

Russia also warned on Thursday that it would target any British warships in the Black Sea if the UK's provocative actions off the Crimean coast continued.

It also warned in a separate announcement by the Defense Ministry that the Russian forces had launched a joint naval and aerial military exercise in the eastern Mediterranean.

Since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, the US and most European Union member countries have supplied Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including rocket systems, drones, tanks and armored vehicles, communication systems, and so on.

The United States is the biggest supplier of weaponry to the Kiev forces, so far alone sending some $48 billion worth of military aid and other assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the war.

Russia has repeatedly warned that flooding Kiev with weapons and munitions will only prolong the war and that the West is engaged in a proxy war with Russia over Ukraine that could escalate into a much bigger conflict. The Kremlin also insists that it does not want to trigger a direct military confrontation between the US-backed NATO and Russia.

In the meantime, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said the war in Ukraine could last for a very long time with periods of fighting followed by numerous ceasefires.

"This conflict will last a very long time, most likely decades," said on Thursday during a visit to Vietnam.

"As long as there is such a power in place, there will be, say, three years of truce, two years of conflict, and everything will be repeated," he said, reiterating Moscow's claim that Ukraine is a Nazi state.

He warned that supplying more destructive and advanced weapons by the US and its allies to Ukraine increases the probability of a "nuclear apocalypse."

Russia's former president said on Tuesday, "The more weapons are supplied, the more dangerous the world will be."

"And the more destructive these weapons are, the more likely the scenario becomes of what is commonly called a nuclear apocalypse," he warned during a trip to Vietnam.

Medvedev, who is currently serving as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council and is seen as a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had warned earlier that if Russia loses the conflict in Ukraine, a nuclear war could break out.

"The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger a nuclear war," Medvedev warned in a Telegram post, adding that "nuclear powers have never lost major conflicts on which their fate depends."

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Press-release on the Russian-Thai consultations on international information security with the participation of representatives of interested state authorities

26 May 2023 18:30

1024-26-05-2023

On May 26, 2023, Russian-Thai consultations on international information security (IIS) with the participation of representatives of interested state authorities were held in Bangkok. The Russian delegation was headed by the Director of the Department of International Information Security of the Russian Foreign Ministry A.R.Lyukmanov, the Thai delegation - by the Secretary General of the National Cybersecurity Agency, Air Vice-Marshal A.Chomchoey.

During the negotiations the Sides confirmed mutual interest in deepening interagency cooperation on IIS. The delegates focused on the exchange of experience in responding to current threats to information security, strengthening bilateral cooperation, including on international platforms, issues of capacity building and the safe functioning and development of the Internet. As a follow-up to the consultations, the importance of compliance with the principles of the UN Charter in order to ensure the security and stability of the information space was emphasized.

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Im a very happy person in the summer, says Meg Kabotie Adakai, manager of the Community Farmers Market. I love that I can get everything I need from the farmers market for six months of the year.

Kabotie Adakai has been the manager of the Flagstaff Community Markets since 2020. She began working with the market first under Deanitas Cocinita, selling specialty lemonades and sweet drinks. The market itself was started in 2000 by Art Babbit just south of the train tracks with around ten vendors in what is now the Downtown Connection Center. Now on its busiest day this year, the market will service over one hundred different vendors from around Flagstaff and Arizona. The market has steadily grown throughout the past two decades, helping to establish the Flag Flea Urban Market with Andres Adauto and the Wednesday Night Community Markets.

I really believe in and love my community, says Kabodie Adakai. Every year that Ive been in this role, it gets a little bit easier. Its going to be an epic summer for growing and being outdoors. The farmers markets already this season have been so vibrant and so busy.

In 2020, much of the market had to be revisited in order to comply with pandemic related shutdowns and regulations. Being her first year with the market in the capacity of a managerial role, Kabotie Adakai learned about the different ways the market could still reach out to the community and worked to innovate different ways that local vendors could still benefit from participating in the market. Whether it was working with vendors to sell online or limiting the capacity of shoppers during market hours, the farmers market continued to provide.

When we reopened in 2021 as a regular market, it was increasingly visible how valuable our local growers are. It was really empowering to feel like we could still provide food from our local area, says Kabotie Adakai. I think that some people think that its impossible to grow food here because of the high elevation and extreme weather, but we have local farms like Forestdale Farm and Tree ALolly Farm and theyre producing food year long. Its really cool to show people that you can grow so much here.

There are plenty of ways to participate in the Sunday Farmers market, as well. For the backyard grower, you can link up with FoodLink, an organization that offers a booth and space for small growers without the registration fees. Or if youre a community organization, the market offers a rotating space for your organization to be alongside so many of the vendors. Kabotie Adakai and her team even offer a trial spot for those who ask.

John, of the Arizona Mushroom Company, drives up from Payson with his wife Lorian to sell.

He says, We love coming to the market because theres a lot of nice people. Our mission is that people have food and eat food, like real food. And mushrooms are real food. We have a mushroom farm, and we grow a hundred or so pounds of mushrooms to sell each market. Its our third year being here.

Another vendor, Jacques Cazaubon Seronde of Bluebird Farms agrees, Its awesome to be able to participate in the community and provide as much love and care for the food that we grow as everyone here. Everyone from BlueBird farms is from Flagstaff, so its a great way to keep the food cycle as close as possible to everyone in our neighborhoods.

And its not just farmers or growers who are showing up to sell. Artists and creators are also included. Local artist Chiara Skabelund regularly appears with her hand woven tea towels and hand printed goods.

I think its a great way to be a part of the community and get my artwork out, says Skabelund of selling in the market. Its been really exciting to see locals and new people experience my work.

Kabotie Adakai says, We do keep everything Arizona based at our farmers market. Having a farmers market in Flagstaff is a reflection of how amazing Flagstaff isculturally and geographically. If you drive fifteen miles in any direction, it feels very different.

For anyone wanting to start their own market, Kabotie Adakai suggests doing it. Many of the growers that currently sell at the market are beginning to start their own in different areas all around Flagstaff.

If you plan on starting a market, appreciate the vendors and how much work it takes for them to be there, says Kabotie Adakai. For some vendors, they drive two or three hours after working eighty hours the week before. Show up for them as much as they show up for you.

You can find these vendors and Kabotie Adakai at the market on most Sundays throughout the coming warm months. Find the schedule on the farmers market website for more information or follow them on social media.

So You Live Here? is a limited series featuring You! Capturing the lives and loves of locals.
Moscow tells Washington not to lecture others on nuclear deployments

Iran Press TV

Saturday, 27 May 2023 6:11 PM

Russia has dismissed criticism by US President Joe Biden over Moscow's decision to deploy nuclear missiles in neighboring Belarus, saying for decades Washington has deployed nukes in European countries aimed at Russian targets.

On Thursday, Russia said Moscow and Minsk had signed a deal to formalize the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear missiles on the Belarusian territory.

Russia's defense minister announced that the move was driven by rising tensions with the West.

On Friday, US media reported that Biden had an "extremely negative" reaction to reports of the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

On Saturday, the Russian embassy in the United States said in a statement that Moscow and Minsk aimed to ensure their security by any means they deemed necessary to counter the huge hybrid war launched by the US against them.

"It is the sovereign right of Russia and Belarus to ensure their security by means we deem necessary amidst a large-scale hybrid war unleashed by Washington against us," Russia's embassy in the United States said in a statement. "The measures we undertake are fully consistent with our international legal obligations."

The Russian embassy called the US criticism of Moscow's planned deployment hypocritical, saying that "before blaming others, Washington could use some introspection."

"The United States has been for decades maintaining a large arsenal of its nuclear weapons in Europe. Together with its NATO allies, it participates in nuclear sharing arrangements and trains for scenarios of nuclear weapons use against our country."

Tactical nuclear weapons are used for tactical gains on the battlefield and are usually smaller in yield than strategic nuclear weapons designed to destroy bigger targets such as cities.

Across Europe, the United States has reportedly spread its nuclear arsenal in several countries, namely, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands.

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Putin Says Border Guards to Continue Protecting Russia's Sovereignty Territorial Integrity

Sputnik News

20230527

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated veterans and current service members on Border Guards Day, saying that Russian border guards will continue protecting the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity and will ensure the movement of military and civil cargo to new constituent entities of Russia.

"You, the successors and heirs of the victors' generation, of those who defeated Nazism, continue to discharge your duty with honour and dignity, solve challenging high-priority tasks to protect the state borders, carry out border control and protection of marine resources, make an important contribution to implementing international integration projects and development of cross-border cooperation, fight transnational crime and smuggling, and prevent diversions and terrorist attacks," Putin said in a Sunday statement.

The Russian president thanked border guards for their service, particularly those participating in the special military operation in Ukraine.

"I am confident that you will continue to act selflessly, bravely and efficiently, and will competently and effectively use all available resources and means to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and the security of our people," Putin said.

The president said that Russian border guards must work in close cooperation with other units of the Federal Security Service, the Armed Forces and the National Guard of the Russian Federation, as well as regional government bodies.

"... it is vitally important to ensure fast movement of both military and civil vehicles and cargoes, including food, humanitarian aid, and construction materials on their way to new constituent entities of the Russian Federation - the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions," Putin said.

Border Guards Day is celebrated in Russia annually on May 28.

A Sputnik

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Moscow Says Will Further Support Belgrade in Efforts to Protect Its Rights, Sovereignty

Sputnik News

20230527

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia will continue to support Serbia in its efforts to protect its legitimate rights, sovereignty and territorial integrity, Yuri Pilipson, Director of the Fourth European Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Sputnik.

"We will continue to support Belgrade in its efforts to protect legitimate rights, sovereignty and territorial integrity. We have no reason to question the stability of the Serbian government when it comes to the protection of state interests," the diplomat stated.

Any decision on Kosovo should be acceptable for Serbians and approved by the UN Security Council, Pilipson also stated, adding that the West is trying to promote other ways to solve the issue with no regard for interests of the Serbian people.

On Friday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic brought the Serbian military to a state of maximum alert due to the situation in Kosovo and Metohija over unilateral steps taken by Pristina. He also demanded that NATO "urgently stop violence against Serbs" in Kosovo and Metohija.

The reason was an attempt by the authorities of Pristina to appoint Albanians as mayors in the north of the province after the April 23 elections to local self-government bodies in the north of Kosovo, which were boycotted by local Serbs.

A Sputnik

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Moscow, Minsk Have Right to Ensure Security in Military-Nuclear Sphere - Russian Embassy

Sputnik News

20230527

WASHINGTON, (Sputnik) - Russia and Belarus, in the conditions of the hybrid war unleashed by Washington, have the right to ensure their security, including in the military-nuclear sphere, the Russian Embassy in the United States said.

US President Joe Biden told reporters on Friday, before he left Washington for Camp David, that he had an "extremely negative" reaction to reports that Russia had decided to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

"We have noted increasingly frequent comments in recent days coming from White House and State Department concerning the Russia-Belarus military-nuclear cooperation. They once again accused us of 'irresponsible and provocative' behavior," the Russian embassy said in a statement, adding that "it is the sovereign right of Russia and Belarus to ensure their security by means we deem necessary amidst of a large-scale hybrid war unleashed by Washington against us."

The embassy emphasized that the recent measures with regard to nuclear weapons are fully consistent with Russia's international legal obligations.

"Before blaming others, Washington could use some introspection. The United States has been for decades maintaining a large arsenal of its nuclear weapons in Europe. Together with its NATO allies it participates in nuclear sharing arrangements and trains for scenarios of nuclear weapons use against our country," the Russian embassy said.

On Thursday, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and his Belarusian counterpart, Viktor Khrenin, signed documents defining the procedure for keeping Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in a special storage facility on the territory of Belarus.

On the same day, Lukashenko said that the transfer of nuclear ammunition had begun within the framework of agreements with Russia on the stationing of tactical nuclear weapons in the republic.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on March 25 that Moscow and Minsk had agreed on the deployment of Russia's tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which does not violate Russia's nuclear non-proliferation commitments. On April 2, Russian Ambassador to Belarus Boris Gryzlov said that nuclear weapons in Belarus would be stationed closer to the western borders of the union state.

A Sputnik

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Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong transits through Taiwan Strait: MND

ROC Central News Agency

05/27/2023 07:38 PM

Taipei, May 27 (CNA) A Chinese naval fleet led by the Shandong aircraft carrier transited through the Taiwan Strait Saturday afternoon, according to Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND).

In addition to the Shandong, the fleet comprised two ships and sailed in a northerly direction along a route just west of the median line of the Taiwan Strait, MND spokesman Major General Sun Li-fang () told a news conference in Taipei, without giving the time of the transit.

Taiwan's military closely monitored the situation by deploying aircraft, ships, and coastal defense systems, Sun said.

In related news, 12 People's Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft entered Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), including eight that crossed the median line during the 24-hour period that began at 6 a.m. Friday.

The aircraft that crossed the median line including four Sukhoi SU-30 fighter jets and four J-10 fighter jets, the flight paths released by the MND showed.

A Y-8 anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft, a J-16 fighter jet, a Z-9 ASW helicopter, and a WZ-7 reconnaissance drone also entered the ADIZ during that period, the flight paths indicated.

An ADIZ is an area declared by a country to allow it to identify, locate and control approaching foreign aircraft, but it is not part of territorial airspace as defined by international law.

In addition to the aircraft entering Taiwan's ADIZ, 21 other PLA planes and 10 vessels were seen in airspace and waters around Taiwan during the 24-hour period, the MND said.

Taiwan's military scrambled jets and deployed air defense missile systems in response to the aircraft and vessels operating around the country, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, military experts attending a defense forum held by Tamkang University's (TKU) Center for Advanced Technology in Taipei Saturday afternoon described the transit as a "gray zone" tactic by China intended to intimidate Taiwanese.

Wong Ming-hsien (), chairman of TKU's Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies said the presence of the Shandong in the Taiwan Strait is an anomaly because the strait is "too narrow" for China to deploy any of its aircraft carriers.

As such, the transit is likely a politically motivated show of force to intimidate, he said, adding that China does not recognize the existence of the median line in the Taiwan Strait.

The transit was also unannounced, which is characteristic of gray zone warfare, and could be meant as a response to the annual U.S.-Philippines joint military exercises known as Balikatan in late April in the South China Sea, he said.

Tsiam Siong-ui (), a policy analyst at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said China has been using "gray zone" tactics to create the impression Taiwan is part of its territory in the international community while destabilizing life in Taiwan.

(By Sean Lin)

Enditem/AW

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PLA Navy aircraft carrier Shandong transits Taiwan Straits after US missile delivery to Taiwan island

Global Times

By Liu Xuanzun Published: May 27, 2023 06:50 PM

A Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy flotilla led by the aircraft carrier Shandong reportedly sailed through the Taiwan Straits on Saturday, amid intensive PLA warplane and warship activities around the island of Taiwan following US delivery of Stinger missiles to the island.

Chinese mainland experts said the Taiwan Straits is the shortest route for the south-based aircraft carrier to travel north for either training missions or maintenance. It can send warnings to the "Taiwan independence" force in the process, experts noted.

Armed forces on the island of Taiwan detected a flotilla of three PLA Navy vessels, including the aircraft carrier Shandong, when they headed north steering along the western side of the Taiwan Straits on Saturday noon, the defense authority on the island confirmed in a press release.

Some 33 PLA aircraft and 10 PLA vessels were detected from multiple directions around the island over the past day, the island's defense authority said in a separate press release earlier on Saturday.

While the PLA holds daily exercises and patrols around the island of Taiwan, the figures released on Saturday are above the usual average, and could be providing cover for or holding a joint exercise with the Shandong, observers said.

The PLA has yet to announce the Shandong's Taiwan Straits transit as of press time, nor has any mission been made public.

Observers said that it could be on a routine training mission or on its way to receive a scheduled maintenance.

China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, is still undergoing a scheduled overhaul at the Dalian Shipyard in Northeast China's Liaoning Province since late February, which is not expected to end anytime soon because many key shipborne systems and components have been removed as a part of the refurbishment, according to a news report on May 19.

It is possible that the Shandong could help train north-based carrier aviation units in the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea to make up for the absence of the Liaoning, experts speculated.

Both the Liaoning and the Shandong are tasked with the mission to train carrier-based pilots, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Saturday.

In early April, as a part of countermeasure against Taiwan regional leader Tsai Ing-wen's provocative meeting with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy when she "transited" in the US, the Shandong took part in the combat alert patrols and "Joint Sword" exercises encircling the island of Taiwan, marking the carrier's first far sea exercise beyond the first island chain since its commissioning in December 2019.

The Shandong cruised from the South China Sea to the eastern coast of the island of Taiwan, then to waters off Guam before returning during the month-long exercise, hosted record-breaking aircraft sorties and collaborated with other forces including the PLA Rocket Force, displaying its high capabilities in deterring "Taiwan independence" secessionist and foreign interference forces.

It could also be possible that the carrier may require maintenance after such intensive operations, analysts said. In past years, the Shandong has used the Taiwan Straits as what experts called the shortest route between its homeport in Sanya, South China's Hainan Province and the Dalian Shipyard to undergo maintenance, according to media reports.

The Shandong's Taiwan Straits transit comes shortly after the defense authority on the island of Taiwan confirmed the first shipment of US FIM-92 Stinger missiles had arrived in the island while Washington is also reportedly helping the island obtain access to NATO's Link-22 secure data link system.

Song said that the Shandong is expected to play a vital role if a military conflict breaks out in the Taiwan Straits, so it needs to enhance its combat capabilities in all regions, including in the Taiwan Straits and in waters to the east side of the island of Taiwan.

No matter how the US supports "Taiwan independence" forces in resisting reunification by force, the PLA will be able to resolve the Taiwan question, Song said.

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Taiwan Reports 33 Chinese Warplanes Detected Around Island Over Past 24 Hours

Sputnik News

20230527

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Taiwanese Defense Ministry said on Saturday that it had detected 33 aircraft and 10 vessels of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) around the island over the past 24 hours.

"[A total of] 33 PLA aircraft and 10 PLAN [People's Liberation Army Navy] vessels around Taiwan were detected by 6 a.m. (UTC+8) [22:00 GMT] today. R.O.C. Armed Forces have monitored the situation and tasked CAP aircraft, Navy vessels, and land-based missile systems to respond these activities," the ministry tweeted.

It added that 12 of the detected aircraft, including SU-30, J-10 and J-16 jets, Y-8 transport aircraft, a WZ-7 drone and a Z-9 helicopter, had entered the island's southwest and southeast air defense identification zone.

The situation around Taiwan recently escalated again after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in April, with Beijing launching massive three-day military drills near the island in what it called a "warning" to Taiwanese separatists and foreign powers.

Taiwan has been governed independently of mainland China since 1949. Beijing regards the island as its province, while Taiwan maintains that it is an autonomous entity but stops short of declaring independence. Beijing opposes any official foreign contacts with Taipei and regards Chinese sovereignty over the island as indisputable.

A Sputnik

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Ukraine: UN delivers aid to millions, as civilian suffering continues

26 May 2023 - Humanitarians reached 5.4 million people in Ukraine with desperately needed aid by April this year, including cash assistance, food, health services, and medicines, the UN said on Friday.

"The escalating war is taking a heavy toll on civilians who live close to the front lines, people who cannot go back to their homes, and people across the country living under almost daily threats of attacks," said Jens Laerke, from the UN's humanitarian affairs office, OCHA.

More than a year since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, mine contamination and lack of access to Russia-controlled areas remain obstacles to reaching those in need, he said.

Delivering emergency assistance

Assistance has included cash to more than 2.1 million people and food for 3.5 million people, while nearly 3 million gained access to health services and medicines, Mr. Laerke said.

The assistance also included support for survivors of gender-based violence, he said, adding that more than 60 per cent of those reached with aid are women and girls.

Other types of assistance include access to clean water and hygiene products, emergency shelter, education services for children, and protection services, including prevention of gender-based violence and support to survivors, he said.

Volunteers play vital role

"Hundreds of humanitarian organizations are involved in this effort working with local groups and community-based volunteers who play a vital role in getting the assistance delivered on the last mile," he said.

However, assistance to areas under Russian military control remains extremely limited, he said.

This year, because of the worsening security situation and shifts in the front lines, humanitarian partners have lost access to almost 60,000 people in around 40 towns and villages close to the front lines in the Donetsk, Kharkiv and Luhansk regions, he said.

Mine action casualties

At the same time, mines and explosive remnants of war in Ukraine have left 263 killed or injured in 2023. That is more than 50 per month on average, according to the UN human rights office, OHCHR, which believes that the actual figures are considerably higher.

The agency's latest report indicates that from 1 to 21 May, 46 civilians were killed or injured by mines, 44 in April, 102 in March, 36 in February and 35 in January.

Mine contamination remains a deadly threat to farmers and humanitarians delivering assistance. In the agricultural regions of Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Kherson, dozens of mine-related accidents are being reported every month, Mr. Laerke said.

Denise Brown, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said recovery work hinges on demining.

"Ukraine is considered as one of the most mine-contaminated countries in the world," she said. "Demining agricultural land is one of the Government's priorities so that farmers can get back to work, and the UN, through WFP World Food Programme] and FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization], working with the Ministry of Agriculture, are contributing to this."

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Ukraine seeks to fix perspective of NATO membership at Vilnius summit

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 09:57, May 27, 2023

KIEV, May 26 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine is seeking to fix its perspective of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the alliance's upcoming summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, head of the Ukrainian president's office Andriy Yermak said Friday.

"Our expectations from the summit in Vilnius boil down to two key priorities: fixing in one form or another the absence of alternatives to the fact that we are on the path to NATO membership, and before joining the alliance, obtaining security guarantees," Yermak was quoted as saying by the presidential press service.

Currently, Ukraine is holding talks with partner countries over the form of security guarantees, which will be in place before the country joins NATO, Yermak said.

The Ukrainian government is aware that the country could become a member of the alliance only when "the security situation allows," the official emphasized.

The Vilnius NATO summit is slated for July 11-12. NATO recognized Ukraine as its Enhanced Opportunities Partner in 2020.

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Ukraine asks Germany for long-range missiles capable of striking Moscow

Iran Press TV

Saturday, 27 May 2023 3:08 PM

Germany says it has received an official request from Ukraine to provide it with Taurus air-to-surface missiles, which would allow Kiev to strike well inside the Russian territory with their range of more than 500 kilometers.

The German defense ministry said Saturday that it had "received a request from the Ukrainian side in recent days."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky requested the missiles during his trip to Berlin earlier in May, German media outlets reported.

The Taurus missile can deliver a warhead weighing nearly half a ton, roughly the same as UK-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles, against a fortified target up to 310 miles (about 500 kilometers) away. The missile is launched from a fighter jet.

The Russian capital, Moscow, lies 280 miles (about 450 kilometers) from the border with Ukraine.

German political scientist Mattia Nelles said Ukraine has promised not to strike targets inside Russia. However, he said, this extra range worried Germany's leadership.

"There are unresolved questions regarding sharing sensitive targeting data and more importantly the political question of whether the German government is willing to provide Ukraine with potent weapons with which it could strike Moscow," he said.

Kiev has formerly used Storm Shadow to strike Russian supply depots and command posts deep behind the frontline in Russian-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine since May.

Russia also said earlier this month that Ukraine used Britain's Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles to strike civilian targets in the Russian-controlled territory.

It has constantly warned the West against providing Ukraine with longer-range missiles, saying the move will escalate the war.

The West, however, kept providing Ukraine with military equipment worth tens of billions of dollars since Russia began its military campaign in Ukraine in February last year.





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WASHINGTON -- A Mohave County supervisor said Wednesday that a proposed new national monument in northern Arizona would devastate the economic growth potential of the region, leaving little more than what he called poverty with a view.

Is forever locking down known American natural resources really the wisest course of action to take when faced with an uncertain future with international players like China and Russia? Mohave Supervisor Travis Lingenfelter asked during his testimony to a House Natural Resources subcommittee.

But advocates said national monuments not only protect important environmental and archeological sites, but they can generate business for the regions where they are situated.

New Mexico Public Lands Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richards told the panel that in her experience, the designation of a national monument represents an infusion of life into the economy that relies on the monument for that visitation and those tax dollars.

Their comments came during an Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing on the Biden administrations efforts to limit access to public lands.

President Joe Biden in March ordered the creation of a new 506,814-acre national monument in southern Nevada. The Avi Kwa Ame, or Spirit Mountain, area was set aside for archeological and environmental protection and to preserve lands that are considered sacred by 12 tribes in the region.

The monument was created under the Antiquities Act of 1906, a law that allows the president to protect lands with significant archaeological, marine, cultural, environmental or geological significance. The use of the act to creates such monuments is often controversial because it allows the president to act unilaterally.

In April, environmentalists and tribal leaders called on Biden to use the act again, this time to preserve more than 1.1 million acres in northern Arizona. The proposed Baaj Nwaavjo Itah Kukveni National Monument would surround the Grand Canyon. Advocates say the new monument is needed to protect the Grand Canyon from the pollution that they say accompanies uranium mining.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, who supports the creation of the new Arizona monument said the buffer is about creating landscape balance between the extractive industries, fossil fuel, mining, that have had the upper hand on decisions that are made around BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and the usage of its land. Its a necessary balance.

Grijalva said at Wednesdays hearing that the Baaj Nwaavjo Itah Kukveni proposal is a direct by-product of the toxic legacy that uranium mining inflicted on those areas, leading to contaminated water, land, health impacts and illness.

But Lingenfelter said designating a new monument is not needed when the government has other tools in its toolbox to prevent mining in northern Arizona.

If the federal government is looking to prevent uranium mining, it does not require a new national monument designation to deny permits. As we believe, the federal government already has that authority.

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Bullhead City, said it is the duty of the House to stop the federal government, which is looking for ways to slowly restrict access to our lands.

It is a bit like the old frog in a pot of boiling water. At first, he is just sitting in cold water, said Gosar, chairman of the subcommittee. Nothing to see here. Just small monument designations.

Before you know it the frog is boiling and Americans have lost access to nearly all federal lands for permitted activities, like hunting, grazing, snowmobiling, timber harvesting, mining, and oil and gas leasing, he said.

Lingenfelter noted that Arizona already has 18 national monuments, which he said is the most of any state in the country. Many sites that began as national monuments have also progressed to national parks with congressional legislation, like the Grand Canyon and Zion.

Adding another monument will do more harm than good in communities like Colorado City, Centennial Park and Cane Beds, he said.

Communities will be harmed by the unintended consequences of designating yet another national monument right in their backyard, Lingenfelter told the subcommittee.
Drone attack damages oil pipeline, Russia blames Ukraine

Iran Press TV

Saturday, 27 May 2023 10:52 AM

Russia has blamed Ukraine for a drone attack on an oil pipeline facility that damaged an office building in the city of Pskov in a border region near the Belarus border.

An attack by two drones caused an explosion in Russia's Pskov region near the border with Belarus, said local governor Mikhail Vedernikov in a Saturday post on his telegram social media account, blaming Kiev for the incident.

Vedernikov said the Ukrainian government was to blame for the incident, but Moscow had previously blamed Kiev for similar incidents, some of which have caused damage to people and property hundreds of kilometers from its border with Ukraine.

"Provisionally, the building was damaged as a result of an attack by two unmanned aerial vehicles," Vedernikov added.

He later noted that no casualties were inflicted in the incident and that the task force investigating the drone raid has arrived at the scene and will announce its final conclusion in due time.

The incident occurred near the village of Litvinovo, less than 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from Russia's border with Belarus.

Ukrainian authorities have never publicly confirmed Kiev's attacks against targets inside Russia, but top Ukrainian officials have occasionally welcomed news of successful drone strikes on Russian soil.

Last September, three explosions targeted Russia's Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines rendering three of the four lines inoperable and releasing vast quantities of methane into the Baltic Sea.

There were speculations at the time about American involvement in the sabotage attack, but when the former Polish Foreign Minister, RadosAaw Sikorski, thanked the US for damaging the Russian pipeline, it became -- for all intents and purposes -- a certainty.

In February 2023, however, US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh insisted that the blast was indeed carried out by the US in a top secret CIA operation ordered by President Joe Biden and with the collaboration of Norway.

Hersh asserts that US Navy divers, operating from a Norwegian ship, using a NATO naval exercise in June 2022 as cover, had planted mines, which were later remotely detonated by sonar buoy dropped from a Norwegian plane.

Since Russia launched its "special military operation" in Ukraine in February 2022, the US has sent Kiev tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons including drones, artillery guns, armored vehicles and tanks in addition to advanced Patriot missiles systems and loads of various munitions.

Russia has repeatedly warned the West that flooding Ukraine with weapons will only prolong the war and increase the amount of destruction.

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Ukrainian Military Starts Training in Germany to Operate US Abrams Tanks - Reports

Sputnik News

20230527

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - About 400 Ukrainian troops in Germany have started a training to operate the US-made M1 Abrams tanks, a US newspaper reported on Saturday, citing a Pentagon spokesman.

About 200 Ukrainian troops started combined arms instruction at training ranges in Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels on Friday, while another 200 started being trained in tank refueling and maintenance, spokesman Garron Garn was cited as saying.

Western countries have been supplying military aid to Kiev since Russia started it military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The aid evolved from artillery munitions and training to heavier weapons, including tanks. For months, Ukraine has pushed donors to supply fighter jets.

It was not until last week that the White House gave its consent to European allies to sent Ukraine their US-made F16 jets a Kiev's fighter aircraft of choice. Germany said it would not send fighter jets but would continue supporting Ukraine in other ways. The Kremlin has repeatedly warned against Western arms deliveries to Kiev.

A Sputnik

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Ukraine Loses Over 260 Troops Near Donetsk - MoD

Sputnik News

20230527

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Ukraine lost more than 260 military personnel in combat with Russian forces near the eastern city of Donetsk in the past day, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a daily update on Saturday.

"In the direction of Donetsk, more than 260 Ukrainian service members ... were eliminated by strikes conducted by the operational-tactical and army aviation, artillery and in combat with units of the 'South' group of armed forces in the past 24 hours," the Russian military said.

Russian troops also destroyed two armored vehicles, a Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer and two 122-mm D-30 howitzers as well as a munition depot near the city of Avdeevka, north of Donetsk.

During the same period, Russian air defenses struck down two Storm Shadow cruise missiles, 19 HIMARS long-range guided missiles, two HARM anti-radiation missiles and 12 combat drones.

A Sputnik

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Ukraine Requests Taurus Long-Range Cruise Missiles From Germany - Reports

Sputnik News

20230527

BERLIN (Sputnik) - Ukraine has made a request to the German government to acquire Swedish-German long-range cruise missiles Taurus KEPD 350 with a range of up to 500 kilometers (310 miles), German newspaper has reported, citing government sources.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised the issue of the shipment of German missiles to Ukraine during his meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier in the month, the newspaper said, adding that the German Defense Ministry confirmed that Kiev had requested Taurus from Berlin.

Earlier in the week, Roderich Kiesewetter, a German lawmaker from the opposition Christian Democratic Union, said that Berlin should abandon "red lines" in its approach to the Ukrainian conflict and provide cruise missiles with over 500km range to Kiev.

Western countries have been supplying military aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia's special military operation in February 2022. The aid includes both light and heavy weapons, such as tanks and other armored vehicles, missiles, drones, artillery and munitions.

On May 11, Ukraine was confirmed to have received its first long-range cruise missiles, which were sent by the United Kingdom. The 250km-range Storm Shadow missiles came with a condition that they would not be used to strike Russian territory. The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine had violated this condition and its strikes had resulted in civilian casualties.

A Sputnik

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Drone Boats Used in Attack on Russian Ship Ivan Khurs Launched With US Support

Sputnik News

20230527

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The unmanned boats used in Ukraine's failed attack on the ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet "Ivan Khurs" were launched from a naval operations center in Ochakov opened with US support in 2018, an informed source told Sputnik.

"These devices were launched from the naval operations center, opened with the participation of the United States in Ochakov back in 2018. They were controlled using built-in Starlink satellite internet modules received by Kiev from the United States," the source said, adding that target designation for these drone boats was provided by American reconnaissance equipment.

The source further indicated that Ukraine has received a batch of new marine drones of Western production for carrying out naval attacks and provocations in the Black Sea.

"Despite the boasting of Kiev representatives about the use of drones of their own, that is, Ukrainian production, their profile suggests otherwise," the source said. "The appearance of Ukrainian Mikola-type naval drones assembled from components supplied to Kiev by NATO does not correspond to the profile of those that attacked the Ivan Khurs."

The new drones were likely produced by the United Kingdom "which has extensive experience in the creation and combat use of such systems in various regions of the world ocean," the source said.

It was also pointed out that the location of the attack points toward an escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the expansion of its geography.

"The sabotage against the Russian Navy in the exclusive maritime economic zone of Turkiye, more than 200 nautical miles from the area of aathe Russian-Ukrainian conflict, is a continuation of the provocative course of the Anglo-Saxons to escalate and expand its geography," the source said.

Earlier this week, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukraine had unsuccessfully tried to attack the Ivan Khurs, which ensured the safety of the Turkish Stream and Blue Stream gas pipelines, using unmanned boats.

The Russian Defense Ministry indicated the foiled attack ended with all of the offending boats being destroyed by the Russian military 140 kilometers (87 miles) northeast of the Bosphorus Strait.

The "Ivan Khurs" vessel has since continued to execute its duties despite the earlier sabotage attempt.

A Sputnik

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Coordination of Ukrainian President's agreements: talks with Turkish delegation led by advisor to President Ibrahim Kalin take place in Office of President

President of Ukraine

27 May 2023 - 11:37

On the instructions of the President of Ukraine and for the purpose of coordination of the implementation of agreements reached by Volodymyr Zelenskyy during foreign visits, Head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak, together with other representatives of the Office and the government, held a scheduled video conference with the Turkish delegation led by Chief Advisor to the President of the Republic of TArkiye Ibrahim Kalin. The negotiations took place within the framework of cooperation between Ukraine and TArkiye, particularly intense since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation.

Deputy Heads of the Office of the Head of State Roman Mashovets, Ihor Zhovkva, Andrii Sybiha, and Chairman of the State Property Fund of Ukraine Rustem Umerov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Yevhen Perebyinis, Deputy Minister of Defense Denys Sharapov, Deputy Minister for Strategic Industries of Ukraine Serhiy Boyev and others from Ukraine also joined the video conference.

During the negotiations, the Turkish side assured of its unwavering support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The meeting participants coordinated the next steps regarding the implementation of the Peace Formula presented by President Zelenskyy.

Yermak said that Ukraine would welcome TArkiye's participation in the planned global summit dedicated to implementing the Peace Formula and in forging joint steps for the further implementation of the Ukrainian peace plan.

In addition, the parties discussed the importance of further cooperation to extend the operation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

Possibilities of strengthening security cooperation between the two states and TArkiye's assistance in building a dialogue between Ukraine and the countries of the Global South were also considered.

In addition, the parties discussed the current situation at the frontline and the results of Ukraine's participation at the highest level in the G7 Summit and the Arab League Summit.

The head of the President's Office called the consistent interaction of the leadership teams of Ukraine and TArkiye extremely crucial, which makes it possible to have a continuous dialogue on the most urgent issues.

"Throughout this terrible war, we see you are truly our friends. We are sure that Ukraine will win. We will not forget TArkiye's help," Yermak concluded.

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Counteroffensive May Begin as Early as Sunday, Kyiv Official Says

By VOA News May 27, 2023

Drone attacks targeted oil pipeline installations inside Russia Saturday, including a station serving the vast Druzhba oil pipeline that sends Western Siberian crude to Europe, according to Russian media. Kyiv has not commented on the attacks and Reuters could not verify the reports.

Russia's Wagner mercenaries are "regrouping to another three locations" after partially withdrawing from Bakhmut, according to Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov in an interview released Saturday.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham expressed confidence that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will yield results. "I'm here to tell you that the Russian military is about to have holy hell unleashed upon them," he said during a news conference Friday in Kyiv.

Ukraine is prepared to launch its long-expected counteroffensive against Russian forces, according to Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov.

In an interview with the BBC Saturday, Danilov said the counteroffensive is coming very soon. It could begin "tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week," he said, though he refused to offer a date for the launch to begin.

"It would be weird if I were to name dates of the start of that," he said. "... We have a very responsible task before our country."

Danilov confirmed in the interview that the Wagner Group is withdrawing its forces from the war-ravaged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, but he acknowledged that Russia's Wagner mercenaries are "regrouping to another three locations" after what he called their partial withdrawal from Bakhmut.

Ukraine Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar also noted, on the Telegram messaging app, that Wagner's offensive activity had decreased in Bakhmut but said that Russian troops are being replaced and are regrouping.

"The enemy is trying to strengthen its own capabilities," she said.

Danilov acknowledged that Ukrainian forces control only a "small part of the city" but underscored that "Bakhmut has played a big role in this war," despite the heavy toll on Ukrainian defenders.

Wagner and the Russian Defense Ministry claimed victory over Bakhmut on May 20, about 10 months after the heavy battle for the city started.

Zelenskyy: More sanctions

In his nightly video address Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised to continue with "even more extensive" sanctions against legal entities and individuals, "most of them Russian, who work for terror."

Zelenskyy said in total 220 companies and 51 individuals will be sanctioned regardless of where they operate in the world. Russian aggressors and their enablers will be marginalized, he warned.

"When Russia started this aggression, they looked at the world as if they were looking at themselves in a mirror. They thought that supposedly everyone in the world was as cynical and despised people in the same way as the masters of Russia do. But the world is different a the world helps us protect life," he said.

Evicting Russia from Ukraine

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham expressed confidence that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will yield results.

"I'm here to tell you that the last chapter of the battle of Bakhmut is yet to be written. I'm here to tell you that the Russian military is about to have holy hell unleashed upon them," he said during a news conference Friday in Kyiv.

Graham also stated that Republicans and Democrats are united in their goal to help Ukraine, and he noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin must not be allowed to win.

"History tells us aggression unchecked leads to more aggression," he said.

He also expressed admiration for the Ukrainian people, their strength and courage.

"I am in awe of you. I admire you. You represent the best in humanity. You will win," he said.

Graham said there are no magic weapons to winning a war, but he acknowledged that "the F-16s will matter."

He called on the Biden administration "to do more" and expressed his conviction that "there will be bipartisan support to providing more weapons that can turn the tide of battle in the upcoming counteroffensive."

Responding to a VOA question about whether the U.S. will support Ukraine's bid to join NATO, Graham said Ukraine will eventually become part of the alliance and a member of the European Union but for now, the priority, he said, is for Ukraine to "evict the invader," from Ukrainian territories.

"I told President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy nobody is signed up for an invasion of Russia. The weapons we're providing are to evict Russia from Ukraine."

Ukraine's drone attacks

Drone attacks struck oil pipeline installations deep inside Russia on Saturday, including a station serving the Druzhba pipeline, one of the world's largest oil pipelines that sends Western Siberian crude to Europe. Russian media reported the attacks were launched by Ukraine and said that shelling from Ukraine killed at least two people and injured others.

Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia have been growing in intensity in recent weeks, and The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence believes Ukraine was behind a drone attack on the Kremlin earlier this month.

Ukrainian officials have not publicly acknowledged launching attacks against targets inside Russia. The Ukrainian defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.

In Russia's Belgorod region, Ukrainian shelling killed at least one person and injured three, including a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the region said.

Ukrainian shelling killed a construction worker in Russia's Kursk region near the border with Ukraine, the local governor said.

At its daily briefing about the Ukraine war, Russia's defense ministry said it had destroyed 12 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours and intercepted two long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles that were supplied to Ukraine by Britain.

Reuters could not immediately verify battlefield accounts from either side.

VOAs Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze contributed to this report.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

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NEW YORK, May 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of adidas AG (adidas or the Company) (OTCMKT: ADDYY). Such investors are advised to contact Robert S. Willoughby at newaction@pomlaw.com or 888-476-6529, ext. 7980.



The investigation concerns whether adidas and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.

[Click here for information about joining the class action]

In the fall of 2022, musical artist Kanye West, Adidass design partner for the Companys popular Yeezy shoe, made a series of overtly anti-Semitic and racially offensive remarks in public. On October 25, 2022, following mounting public pressure, Adidas canceled its partnership with West.

Then, on November 27, 2022, The Wall Street Journal published an article entitled Adidas Top Executives Discussed Risks of Staffs Direct Exposure to Kanye West Years Ago. The article revealed that Adidass leadership, including Chief Executive Officer Kasper Rrsted, had discussed the risk of the Company continuing a relationship with West as early 2018, citing the artists often erratic and controversial behavior.

On this news, Adidass American depositary receipt (ADDYY) (ADRs) fell $2.20 per ADR, or 3.13%, to close at $62.34 per ADR on November 28, 2022.

Then, on February 9, 2023, Adidas warned that the Company could shift from a profit to a loss if it failed to sell its inventory of Yeezy shoes following the termination of its partnership with West. Specifically, the Company stated that it expected sales to fall at a high single-digit rate in currency-neutral terms because of the significant adverse impact of not selling the existing stock of Yeezy products. Failure to sell the stock of Yeezys (valued at 1.2 billion euros) would accordingly lower Company revenue by 1.2 billion euros (or about $1.29 billion), and operating profit by 500 million euros.

On this news, Adidass ADR price fell $7.4 per ADR, or 8.96%, to close at $75.16 per ADR on February 9, 2023.

Finally, on February 21, 2023, S&P Global announced that it was downgrading Adidas to A-/A-2 From A-1 On Deteriorating Credit Metrics; Outlook Negative. S&P largely attributed the downgraded to the financial impact of the termination of Adidass partnership with West.

On this news, Adidass ADR price fell $3.56 per ADR, or 4.62%, to close at $73.59 per ADR on February 21, 2023.

Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered billions of dollars in damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com .
New York, May 28, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the latest research report by Reports Insights, the Global Fiber Optic Cable Assemblies Market achieved a valuation of USD 5,502.22 Million in 2022. With a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.3%, the market is expected to surpass USD 10,986.70 Million by 2030.

Fiber optic cable assemblies includes an optical fiber, fiber optic cable connectors, and reinforcement strand and primarily depend on light pulse transmissions that are carried through the cable for data delivery at a faster rate. Various types of fiber optic cable assemblies such as single-mode and multi-mode are mainly employed for data transmission applications, owing to its electromagnetic interference resistance, high efficiency, larger transmission coverage, and high level of interception protection features. The market for fiber optic cable assemblies is highly competitive, with a large number of players offering a wide variety of products. The market is expected to continue to grow in the coming years, driven by the increasing demand for advanced fiber optic cable assemblies systems in a variety of industries, including IT & telecommunication, aerospace & defense, and healthcare among others.

The increasing utilization of fiber optic cable assemblies in the telecommunication sector is one of the key factors driving the market growth. Fiber optic cable assemblies play a crucial role in the telecommunication industry for supporting the telecommunication infrastructure involving base stations and communication equipment. The robust and high-speed data transmission capabilities of fiber optic cable assemblies are among the prime factors driving its utilization in the telecommunication sector. According to Yicai Global, China deployed approximately 600,000 5G base stations across the country in 2022, with the aim of expanding its 5G services across the country. The rising trend for expansion of upgraded networks including 5G is fostering the deployment of 5G base stations, in turn driving the market demand for fiber optic cable assemblies.

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Further, the rising application of fiber optic cable assemblies in aerospace & defense sector is a significant factor spurring the growth of the fiber optic cable assemblies market. Fiber optic cable assemblies are mainly used in aviation and defense sector to offer seamless network connectivity and high-speed data transmission in applications including radar systems, military vehicles, antenna systems, and tactical military communications among others. In addition, factors including the rising aircraft production and increasing investments in air and defense systems are among the key factors driving the application of fiber optic cable assemblies in aerospace & defense sector.





Global Fiber Optic Cable Assemblies Market Segmentation Details:

Based on Mode Type, the multi-mode segment contributed a substantial share to the market growth in 2022. Multi-mode fiber optic cables often consist of a larger core diameter which stimulates the propagation of several light modes as opposed to single-mode cables. Moreover, the cost-effectiveness and ability of multi-mode fiber optic cables to offer high data transfer speed and bandwidth over short distances are among the prime factors fostering the growth of the multi-mode segment.

Based on End User, the IT & telecommunication segment is anticipated to offer substantial shares to the Global Fiber Optic Cable Assemblies Market growth during the forecast period. Fiber optic cable assemblies play a significant role in the telecommunication industry for supporting the telecom infrastructure involving base stations and communication equipment. The robust and high-speed data transmission capabilities of fiber optic cable assemblies are major determinants for driving its utilization in the IT & telecommunication industry. Moreover, the rising investments in 5G infrastructure and increasing adoption of fiber optic cable assemblies in 5G network architecture to ensure reliable and high speed data transmission is expected to fuel the market growth during the forecast period.

Based on region, North America accounted for the largest share contribution to the market growth in 2022. The prevalence of significant fiber optic cable assembly providers in North America such as Corning Incorporated, CommScope Inc., Belden Inc., and others lead to significant advancements in fiber optic cable assembly solutions in the region. In addition, factors such as an increase in aircraft production and growing investment in the aviation and defense sector in North America is expected to drive the market growth in the region during the forecast period.

Fiber Optic Cable Assemblies Market Research Coverage :-

Report Attributes Report Details Market Size By 2030 USD 10,986.70 million Forecast Period 2023-2030 CAGR (2023-2030) 9.3% Base Year 2022 Study Timeline 2017-2030 Key Players Corning Incorporated, CommScope Inc., AFL, Prysmian Group, OFS Fitel, Belden Inc., Amphenol Fiber Systems International, Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd., Fujikura Ltd., and Nexans SA By Mode Type Single-Mode

Multi-Mode By End User Automotive

IT & Telecommunication

Aerospace & Defense

Healthcare

Others Report Coverage Company Ranking and Market Share, Growth Factors, Total Revenue Forecast, Regional Competitive Landscape, Business Strategies, and more. By Geography North America, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Europe, Middle East & Africa

Browse Full Report with Table of Content (TOC) @ https://www.reportsinsights.com/industry-forecast/global-fiber-optic-cable-assemblies-market-market-statistical-analysis-673889

Key Market Highlights

The market is geographically divided into five regions: Europe, South America, the Asia-Pacific, North America, and the Middle East and Africa.



North America and Europe are estimated to support the market growth during the forecast period in terms of the large presence of market players combined with high expenditures on technological advancements in fiber optic cable assemblies.



Globally, fiber optic cable assemblies are divided based on the mode type into single-mode and multi-mode.



On the basis of end user, the market is classified into automotive, IT & telecommunication, aerospace & defense, healthcare, and others.

Fiber Optic Cable Assemblies Market Growth Drivers:

Rising utilization of fiber optic cable assemblies in aerospace & defense sector is driving the market growth

Growing telecommunication industry is spurring the market growth for fiber optic cable assemblies market

Restraints

High investment associated with the installation of fiber optic cable is restricting the market growth

Recent Developments

In March 2023, Sumitomo Electric Industries partnered with U.S. Conec Ltd. for manufacturing TMT ferrule components and MMC connectors for the deployment of high-density, next-generation, multi-fiber cabling solutions.

Request For Customization/Enquiry @ https://www.reportsinsights.com/enquiry/673889



List of Major Global Fiber Optic Cable Assemblies Market Players

The market research report examines various market factors to determine the key drivers, limitations, and opportunities affecting market players. The report includes a SWOT analysis, regional analysis, and segment analysis to give a complete view of the market situation. This evaluation helps to identify growth opportunities through the implementation of technology, product utilization, business strategies, and the launch of new products. The following are major market players operating in the market environment 

Corning Incorporated CommScope Inc. AFL Prysmian Group OFS Fitel Belden Inc. Amphenol Fiber Systems International Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. Fujikura Ltd. Nexans SA



Global Fiber Optic Cable Assemblies Market Segmentation:

By Mode Type Single-Mode Multi-Mode

By End User Automotive IT & Telecommunication Aerospace & Defense Healthcare Others



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The C919 passenger jet is welcomed with a conventional water salute at the Beijing Capital International Airport, May 28, 2023. [Photo by Wang Yang/chinadaily.com.cn]

China's first domestically made large passenger jet, the C919, completed its inaugural commercial flight on Sunday. It received a grand "water gate" welcome after landing, the highest level of welcome celebration in civil aviation.

Flight MU9191, operated by China Eastern Airlines, took off from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport at 10:32 a.m. with more than 130 passengers on board and landed at Beijing Capital International Airport at 12:31 p.m.

Congratulations China for this marvelous achievement! C919 is a worthy competitor to the monopoly of Boeing and Airbus. Hope to see more breakthroughs from China aviation industries.
Dr Helmut Marko has hit back at claims he has "a problem with the Schumacher name".

Last week, Mick Schumacher's uncle Ralf suggested Alpha Tauri boss Franz Tost actually wanted to sign Mick for 2023 rather than struggling rookie Nyck de Vries.

Ralf says team owner Red Bull's top Austrian official Marko vetoed the deal.

"Marko seems to have a problem with the Schumacher name or personally with Mick," he said. "Otherwise I don't understand at all why there weren't any talks, because you have to bear in mind that Red Bull doesn't have a very strong market in Germany.

"Having a Schumacher in your Formula 1 team would have had a lot of positive influence," Schumacher added.

Marko, 80, lashed back at that suggestion in conversation with the Austrian newspaper Osterreich.

"I have no problem with the Schumacher name," he insisted.

"For me, Michael Schumacher is the greatest and I speak to Ralf regularly.

"He's just confusing one thing - our F1 program is based on performance, not on marketing," Marko concluded.

(GMM)
Laurent Mekies is currently blocked from leaving Ferrari in order to prepare to take over as Alpha Tauri team boss next year.

Red Bull-owned Alpha Tauri made the announcement about Mekies' forthcoming new role at the end of April - so early that Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur called the timing of the official news "a bit aggressive".

Some believe the timing was to enable complex negotiations to play out regarding the potential and related move of some Red Bull engineers to Maranello.

"Will there be a hostage exchange for Laurent Mekies?" Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said when asked about the issue recently. "Well, we don't have any hostages.

"In terms of personnel moving to Ferrari, certainly at a senior or medium level, there's nothing planned," he insisted.

Since the announcement, the F1 circus has travelled to Baku, Miami, Imola and now Monaco - and Mekies continued to wear red throughout as Vasseur's Ferrari deputy.

"Well, the truth is the decision has not been made yet, so until that point, I'm wearing red," the Frenchman said in Monaco.

"As a result I'm committed 100 percent to Ferrari."

When asked specifically about the rumours of troubled negotiations between Ferrari and Red Bull, he added: "It's not something I'm going to give much detail on.

"What is fair to say is that there is still discussion because people needed more time to talk to each other. That's what they are doing now," the 46-year-old explained.

"I'm confident that gives them a little bit of time, and we'll find a solution that will make all parties comfortable."

And in the meantime, he reiterated his full commitment to Ferrari rather than speculating about when he might start making the transition to the top job at Alpha Tauri.

"Please believe me that when we come to a racetrack with a given shirt, we only think about that team. And that's how we have agreed to go forward for the time being."

(GMM)
Toto Wolff has hit out at Monaco track workers for lifting Mercedes' newly-launched 'B' car high in the air for all rivals to see in Monaco.

After Lewis Hamilton crashed in the last practice session in Monte Carlo, a crane lifted his car high into the air - and within minutes high-resolution photos of the secretive underbody of the car were circulating globally.

"Checo (Sergio Perez)'s car was also lifted like that?" the Mercedes team boss said. "I didn't see that.

"The crane operator probably used to work at the Cirque du Soleil," Wolff added.

"The car was on the track and could have been put straight on a track, but instead it was shown to the whole world."

However, he insisted that he isn't trying to be too critical of the Monaco workers.

"I have no problem with the Cirque du Soleil and everyone is trying to do their job," Wolff smiled.

As for whether the 'B' car proved a success in Monaco, Wolff said the team will get a much clearer idea next weekend in Barcelona.

"At least the upgrade doesn't cause us any headaches, which is good," he said.

"We've at least cleared up a few question marks, such as about our previously extravagant sidepod or the front suspension."

(GMM)
Daily Graphic Editorials

No compromise on return of Asante regalia

Daily Graphic Editorials May - 27 - 2023 , 10:21

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, recently held discussions with the leadership of the British Museum in London on the possible return of Ashanti regalia taken from Kumasi by the British army after the Ashanti war against the British in 1874.

At the meeting were also the Director of the British Museum, Dr Hartwig Fischer, the Deputy Director of the British Museum, Dr Jonathan Williams; the Head of the Africa Department, Sam Nixon, and the Curator, Julie Hudson.

Asantehene also requested for cooperation and technical assistance between the Manhyia Palace and the British Museum in the management of the regalia when it is returned.

Other takeaways from the meeting are that a previous memorandum of understanding between the Manhyia Palace and the British Museum will be reviewed and a loaning agreement reached for some of the regalia to be sent to Kumasi for the silver jubilee celebration of the king.

Efforts to get back the regalia taken by the British army is in line with the restructuring and expansion of the Manhyia Palace Museum, and according to Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, like all other museums, it needed other collections to strengthen patronage and growth.

What the Otumfuo Osei Tutu is endeavouring to do is a noble thing. Indeed, all over the world, there has been a push for restitution for people who have been pillaged, maltreated and killed, like the Jews during the holocaust, and Africans, for the slave trade.

For instance, on May 10, 2023, Jewish groups protested the sale of jewels of the billionaire, Heidi Horten, whose husband made his fortune in Nazi Germany as party members took over Jewish firms when their owners left the country in the 1930s.

The auction firm, Christies, sold 700 pieces of jewellery estimated to be worth more than $150 million (118 million), and the proceeds to be given to charity, including financing Holocaust research.

However, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a US-based Jewish human rights group, demanded Christie's not to go ahead with the sale, as the wealth acquired were from the Nazi seizure of property from Jews and transfer to non-Jews.

The Centre wanted Christies to first endeavour to find the real owners of the jewellery and return them.

The family of Ethiopian Prince, Alemayehu, is also asking for the return of the body of its prince, who was captured with his family and brought to Britain at just seven years, but died at 19 and was buried at the Windsor Castle in the 19th Century.

Although Buckingham Palace has refused the request, saying that exhuming the body might disturb the graves of others, the family insists that the return of its princes body is the right thing to do

We congratulate the Asantehene for his efforts and insights. Indeed, the restructuring of the Manyhia Palace Museum and efforts for some regalia to be loaned to Manhyia for the Silver Jubilee anniversary of Otumfuo Osei Tutu II is commendable.

The return of the regalia, if possible, would boost tourism for Ghana.

We note, however, that the British Museum Act does not permit the removal of articles from the museum as stated by Dr Fischer, who adds that further visits and engagements will shape the loaning of the regalia to the Manhyia Museum by appropriate legal considerations and agreements.

The Daily Graphic urges Otumfuo Osei Tutu II to push for the total return of Ashanti regalia, including those at the Victoria and Albert Museums (V&A) in London, the worlds leading art and design institution.

Though the British Museum Act may not permit the removal of the regalia, the international drive for restitution for blacks and Jews must be the starting point to get back what is rightfully ours.

We encourage the Asantehene to keep the cordiality with the British but maintain firmness in regaining what is rightfully out heritage.
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A Lame Deer man will spend the next several years in prison for sexually abusing a girl on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation.

Jordan Joseph Backer, 27, was sentenced May 24 in U.S. District Court to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of abusive sexual contact. The abuse occurred in 2015, with charges against Backer being filed after the survivor informed law enforcement seven years later.

It is evident that Backer did not enjoy the best of childhoods, wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Zeno Baucus in a sentencing memorandum. Between medical issues and a difficult homelife, it is apparent that Backer was, in many respects, dealt a poor hand. However, it seems that this path, in part, led Backer to a place that caused him to be a threat to society.

In 2021, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorneys Office, federal authorities received a tip of a Facebook account associated with Backer in which the user posted an image suspected to be child sex abuse material. Agents visited Backers home but were not able to determine the childs identity.

In May 2022, court documents said, a survivor identified as Jane Doe disclosed to investigators that Backer sexually abused her when she six years old and visiting family on the reservation near Lame Deer. After assaulting her, Backer told her not to say anything about the abuse. Agents then interviewed Backer, who admitted to abusing the girl. The FBI and the Northern Cheyenne Investigative Services led the investigation.

Federal prosecutors charged Backer with aggravated sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact in October 2022. In February of this year, he reached a plea agreement in which he admitted to the one count of abuse sexual contact.

Along with nine years in prison, U.S. District Judge Dana L. Christensen also sentenced Backer to remain under federal supervision for 10 years following his release from custody.

Also this week, A Powell County District Court jury convicted Charles Michael Byrne, 51, of raping an underage girl three times over several years in Deer Lodge. The four-day trial came after the Montana Supreme Court overturned Byrne's conviction in 2018, which necessitated a retrial.
Actor Jefferson Machado found dead inside trunk buried at Rio de Janeiro home

New York Post Showbiz News May - 27 - 2023 , 06:55

Soap-opera actor Jefferson Machado, who vanished nearly five months ago, has been found dead in a trunk outside of a home in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The actors passing was confirmed on his Instagram page by family friend Cintia Hilsendeger.

It is with great regret that we inform you that Jeff was found dead on 05/22/2023, she wrote in the heartbreaking post.

Authorities said that the body of the 44-year-old was discovered bound and stuffed inside a wooden chest, which had been encased in concrete and buried 6 feet beneath the backyard of a house in the Campo Grande neighborhood, G1 reported.

He had his arms tied behind his head and buried in a trunk that is very similar to the ones in his own house, the familys lawyer Jairo Magalhaes said in a statement, per R7 News.

The attorney said that the corpse, which was identified using fingerprints, had a line on the neck, indicating that he was strangled.

Police footage showed the trunk getting exhumed  a task that reportedly took nine people to accomplish, the Daily Mail reported.

While the probe is ongoing, police are currently investigating a man who had rented the property. The unidentified suspect, who reportedly knew Machado, was last seen entering the house around a month ago.

Jefferson was coldly and brutally murdered by envious, evil and, of course, unscrupulous people, family friend Hilsendeger wrote on the actors Instagram account.

This marks the end of a long and tragic saga that began after the Rio native vanished in January with police reporting that hed last been spotted in Campo Grande.

Machados family learned of his disappearance after a non-governmental agency contacted them to inform them that his eight dogs had been abandoned at the house.

During the ensuing months, the family received text messages from someone they believed to be impersonating the actor.

Machados mother Maria das Dores said she found the correspondence suspicious as it was rife with spelling errors and didnt sound like her son.

Shed also stopped receiving calls from him, which the alleged impersonator claimed was because he dropped his cellphone in the toilet, Dores claimed.

The family became increasingly concerned after noticing that Machados cloud password had changed and that his location-tracking function had been disabled.

Born in Ararangua, Machado started studying to be an actor in 1997.

He notably starred in the 2021 film, Placebo Effect (Efeito Placibo), which he also co-wrote. In his final role before his death, Machado played a Philistine on the 2022 telenovela Reis.
2 Men jailed 10 years each for attempted robbery

Gloria Apprey Life May - 28 - 2023 , 17:09

Two unemployed men, Sherrif Agoro, 20, and Kwame Richard Kusi, 18, accused of attempted robbery with a knife have been each sentenced to 10 years imprisonment with hard labour by an Adentan Circuit Court. They are to serve their sentence at the Nsawam Prison.

While awaiting the processing of their sentence, the second convict, Kusi broke down and cried profusely for his mother while begging the investigator, Sergeant Daniel Sansah Yerture, for help.

According to the investigator, the victim/complainant managed to escape the attack, adding that the convicts were a notorious duo who operated along the Atomic Junction and Legon road in Accra.

The convicts were charged with first conspiring to commit the crime and for committing the crime. They pleaded guilty to both charges and were sentenced and convicted on their own plea by Sedinam Awo Balokah who presided over the case on Monday, May 22, 2023.

While delivering the sentence, the judge emphasised the seriousness of the crime and the impact it could have had on the victims life.

Facts of the case

Narrating the facts of the case, the prosecutor, Inspector Eric Abban, said the complainant/victim, Yaw Richard Essel, was a petty trader who lived around the Legon Mall in Accra while the convicts were residents of Madina, Accra.

According to the prosecutor, on May 7, 2023, at about 10.30 p.m., the complainant who was walking from work to his home at the Atomic Junction was attacked upon reaching the Presbyterian Boys Secondary School at Legon in Accra.

The prosecutor added that Agoro and Kusi who were then walking on the opposite side of the road crossed over and attacked the complainant with a knife drawn by the second convict, Kumi, and commanded him to bring his phone and money.

Inspector Abban said when the complainant refused to grant their request, the convicts attempted to harm him but he managed to escape.

The next day, the complainant discussed with his friends around his vicinity about his ordeal, a follow-up was made by them and the two convicts were found at the Atomic Junction Bus Stop.

According to the prosecutor, the complainant and his friends then searched them and a knife was retrieved from the first convict, Agoro. Witnesses and the complainant arrested the convicts and handed them over to the Legon Police Station and a complaint was lodged, the prosecutor added.

Inspector Abban further said investigations revealed that a day before the operation, the convicts met and planned and on the day of the incident, the knife used in committing the crime was procured by the second convict, Kusi, from his mother's kitchen.
Nicks Vocational Institute unveils STEAM-related lab for children on autism spectrum

Hadiza Nuhhu-Billa Quansah Life May - 28 - 2023 , 00:54

Sena Kumapley, a resource person in Engineering Management, taking some parents and guests through how children on the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can use suitable computerised game-based solutions to enhance their cognition indexes during the inauguration of Nicks Vocational Institute in Accra.

The institute, which also has a music, art and craft sections, is part of Haven International, an institution that provides training opportunities for teachers, healthcare providers, parents, caregivers, and facilitators in the area of autism.

Ms Kumapley believes that when children with ASD engage in Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics (STEAM), they can discover a love of learning that stays with them for years. A love of STEAM can also encourage autistic children and teens to continue their education when they might have otherwise given up.
On AMVCA red carpet

Hadiza Nuhhu-Billa Quansah Life May - 26 - 2023 , 11:32

The ninth edition of the African Magic Viewers Choice Awards (AMVCA) was held on Saturday, May 20, 2023.

The prestigious event, at the Eko Hotel, celebrated talents in the film world across Africa. Almost all the guests came in various unique outfits. We bring some of the unique outfits some of the actors and actresses wore to the event.
Foundation donates furniture, computers to Adakura Basic School

Gilbert Mawuli Agbey May - 27 - 2023 , 15:20

The Adakura Basic School in the Bolgatanga East District in the Upper East Region which has been grappling with inadequate furniture, has received sixty furniture and five desktop computers and its accessories from the Silas Amoah Foundation at a brief ceremony.

With over 369 pupils, the primary school, in particular, has over the years did not receive the required furniture to meet the demand of the growing population of the school.

As a result, some of the school pupils due to inadequate furniture were compelled to sit on the floor to take part in academic a development which was a sorry of worry and demotivating for the students.

To address the situation, the foundation thought it wise to provide the furniture to bridge the furniture deficit in the school so that the pupils can sit comfortably in the classroom to study.

Notified of plight

Speaking during the brief ceremony, the founder of the foundation, Mathew Silas Amoah, who hails from the community, said he was notified about the plight of some of the pupils in the school having to lie on the floor to study due to lack of furniture.

He said  in todays era, it is unacceptable for school children to lie on the floor to study in their quest to acquire basic education, noting  so as an indigene, I decided to come to their rescue by providing the furniture to the school.

Undoubtedly, since government is overstretched in addressing the myriad of challenges confronting the education sector, it is incumbent upon private individuals and non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to come on board to assist in that regard he said.

Neglect

He noted that the school has been neglected although the school which is one of the oldest schools in the district and produced many individuals who are currently occupying high positions in the society.

However, he assured the school authorities that the foundation will always be at their beck and call in tackling some of their challenges so as to enhance teaching and learning.

On the computers, he indicated that they were meant to assist the school in the practical teaching of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Gratitude

The headmistress of the primary school, Celina Baba, who could not hide her joy, thanked the foundation for responding to their distress call for furniture as it would put an end to pupils sitting on the floor to study and others bringing stools to school to sit on them to learn.

For his part, the headteacher of the Junior High School, Safianu Yakubu, said the items donated by the foundation will go a long way to improve academic activities in the school.
Government to supply laptops with inbuilt textbooks to SHSs - Vice President Bawumia

Alberto Mario Noretti May - 28 - 2023 , 15:18

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has assured that the government will supply all Senior High Schools (SHSs) with laptop computers containing in-built textbooks in the upcoming academic year. This initiative aims to reduce the significant costs associated with printing textbooks.

Dr Bawumia made the announcement during the 60th-anniversary celebration of the E.P Senior High School (HEPSS) in Hohoe, Volta Region, on May 27.

The event, themed "HEPSS @ 60: Reflections on our Journey and Inspiring New Directions - The Role of Stakeholders," acknowledged the school's exceptional academic standards and disciplinary record, highlighting it as one of the top secondary institutions in the country.

The Vice President commended the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana (EPCG), for its invaluable contribution to education and civilization in Ghana.

He described HEPSS as a remarkable fountain of knowledge that has produced accomplished individuals for the nation over the past six decades.

Addressing the gathering as the guest of honor, Dr Bawumia emphasized the government's unwavering commitment to the education sector. He acknowledged that a well-functioning education system is essential for the overall development of the country.

Discussing the Free SHS policy, Dr Bawumia noted the substantial increase in enrollment from 800,000 to 1.4 million students since its implementation. This surge signifies a positive step towards inclusive access to education.

He further highlighted the noteworthy achievement of gender parity within the education system, exemplified by HEPSS, where there are 1,491 boys and 1,878 girls.

The Vice President also outlined the government's plans for infrastructural development in SHS campuses to facilitate improved access to quality education.

Regarding the introduction of laptop computers with embedded textbooks, Dr Bawumia explained that this initiative would introduce students to the world of data, modern systems, and innovation.

In closing, he encouraged students to study diligently and set ambitious goals, assuring them that with dedication and determination, they can achieve greatness in their future endeavours.
Leverage technology to go global - Prof. Aryeetey charges UHAS graduates

Jemima Achivors May - 27 - 2023 , 12:04

Graduates from tertiary institutions in Ghana have been encouraged to think globally and take advantage of current opportunities in the world of work.

The Secretary-General of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, indicated that the ongoing technological evolution had created an environment awash with opportunities on a global scale, from which several individuals were benefiting remotely.

Prof. Aryeetey made the recommendation to 829 graduating students at the 7th congregation of the University of Health and Allied Sciences at Sokode-Etoe in the Volta Region last Saturday.

Speaking as a guest speaker at the congregation, Prof. Aryeetey said even though technology had positively impacted faculty-student interaction in developed countries much more than in Ghana, the quality of training had remained at par and produced graduates still fit for purpose.

"The curricula that we use for most of our programmes are not too different from what you find in the global world. The difference may be in the level of engagement between faculty and student and that has been made possible with the use of new technology, which is slowly moving here," he said.

Use new technologies

He, therefore, advised graduates to equally adapt to changing trends of employment by reinventing themselves into marketable candidates for the global job market.

He said though the country needed more health professionals, current government structures had not evolved enough to provide opportunities for graduates.

"But the structures are governments arrangements which have not made it possible to accommodate you; which means that most of you have to find different ways of earning income or a livelihood," he charged the graduates.

"Today, it is possible to be a Ghanaian and live in Ghana and influence your profession outside of Ghana through technology," he stated.

Achievements

The University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) since its establishment in 2011 has racked up several achievements in health sciences and is also home to the best-ranked scientists in Ghana, including its founding Vice Chancellor, Prof. Fred Newton Binka.

The university's students in 2022, grabbed gold medals in the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition and the International Directed Evolution Competition.

The university was also awarded the Best Tertiary Education in Health and Sciences Award by 28 Credentials of Entrepreneur, in Accra.

Students also picked two Nursing and Midwifery Council awards in 2023 while another picked the award for the overall best candidate in the 2022 Ghana Pharmacy Qualifying Examination.

The university faculty has also received awards, recognition and appointments from various organisations, including the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Infrastructure

In his welcome address, the Chairman of the University Council, His Lordship Victor Jones Mawulorm Dotse, expressed concern about the limited infrastructure at the university, which could affect the intake of the growing numbers of graduates from the country's second-cycle institutions seeking admission at UHAS.

UHAS in the 2021/22 academic year enrolled 7,903 students.

He appealed to contractors working on various projects at the school, including the completion of the central laboratory complex, the Fred Newton Binka School of Public Health Administration at Hohoe and the China Phase II project, among others, to expedite their work.

"It is also noteworthy that the China Phase II project is progressing at an appreciable pace and it is our hope that it will be completed by March 2024 to be inaugurated," he said.

He commended the government for the counterpart funding and facilitation and the Chinese government for the grant for the massive investment.

"It will definitely be a major aid in filling the infrastructural gap of this university," he added.

Support

Presenting the Vice Chancellor's report, Prof. Lydia Aziato also stressed the need for the completion of all stalled infrastructure development.

"Work on the UHAS Main Bypass Road (including 5.3 km of internal roads) from Mirage to Sokode-Etoe has slowed down. The contractor, Messrs. First Sky Ltd., is currently working on the construction of the remaining drains. Management of the university is making efforts to lobby the government to include critical internal roads for execution. Officials of the Ghana Highways Authority (GHA) have prepared the necessary documents awaiting approval for the award of the project," she stated.

She, however, said despite the challenges, the school management, faculty and students were poised to work diligently to move the university forward.

Prof. Aziato urged alumni, stakeholders and partners to support the university in its journey of growth and development.

She urged graduates to endeavour to advance themselves in their desired areas, having been well-equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to excel in the future due to their holistic training.

She also urged them to be good ambassadors of UHAS.

"As you go out to work, we urge you to continue to raise the flag of UHAS high. Be guided by our ethos and values of excellence, integrity, innovation and service and care wherever you find yourselves. Humble yourselves and learn from all the people you meet in your practice. As you are aware, the provision of health care requires teamwork so be an empathetic team player," she advised.

Graduates

In all, 829 graduates made up of 809 sandwich students, 14 regular and six postgraduate students from the Fred N. Binka School of Public Health, School of Basic and Biomedical Sciences, Medicine and Nursing and Midwifery were conferred with various degrees and awards.

The ceremony also saw Regina Amanor emerging as the valedictorian with two academic awards.

An honorary doctorate was also conferred on Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, in recognition of his sterling contribution to tertiary education in the country and Africa at large.
Mion: Families of lynching victims demand justice over witchcraft accusations

Mohammed Fugu May - 28 - 2023 , 09:55

The grieving families of two individuals who were brutally lynched in the Mion District on May 9, 2023, over witchcraft allegations have fervently called for justice to be served for the victims.

In their impassioned plea, the families have appealed to the police to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice.

The families have expressed their profound sorrow at the loss of their loved ones and believe that swift delivery of justice would provide them with some solace during this difficult time.

According to reports, the tragic incident took place in Zakpalsi, a farming community in the Northern Region, where two individuals, Imoro Safura, a 40-year-old mother of seven, and Mba Cherefo, were mercilessly lynched after being accused of causing illness to a woman in the community, as determined by a soothsayer.

Irate youth from the community attacked Safura at her residence. Sensing the impending danger, she sought refuge at the chief's palace but was ultimately overwhelmed and lynched. Subsequently, the mob pursued Cherefo and ended his life at his own residence.

Adam Fuseini, the spokesperson for the bereaved families, acknowledged that although nothing could bring the deceased back to life, the arrest and prosecution of the culprits, who were members of the community, would provide some measure of relief to the grieving families.

Mr. Fuseini made this impassioned plea when Lariba Zuweira Abudu, the Minister of Gender, Children, and Social Protection, visited the families last Friday as part of her tour of the Northern Region, expressing her empathy and solidarity.

Accompanied by the Northern Regional Police Commander, DCOP Duuti Tuaruka, the Minister visited the community to gather firsthand information about the incident and extend her heartfelt condolences to the affected families.

Hajia Lariba assured the families that justice would be served and informed them that the police had made significant progress in their investigation.

She also advised residents against hastily accusing individuals of witchcraft and encouraged them to seek assistance from appropriate authorities rather than attributing certain occurrences to supernatural causes.

As part of her tour, the Minister paid a courtesy call on Ya-Na Abukari II, the Overlord of Dagbon, seeking his support in the fight against witchcraft accusations and attacks.

During the visit, she emphasized the crucial need for effective collaboration between the ministry and traditional leaders to promote safety, justice, and social harmony within the community.

In response, the Ya-Na pledged his unwavering support to the campaign to eradicate this menace, highlighting the importance of united efforts in combating the issue.
President Akufo-Addo courts support for unpopular COVID Levy to address expenditure challenges

Kweku Zurek May - 28 - 2023 , 21:15

In his address tonight on updates regarding Ghana's enhanced response to the coronavirus pandemic, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo emphasized the significance of the COVID Health Recovery Levy in addressing the unforeseen expenses caused by the crisis.

While acknowledging that this levy may not be well-received by the public, he urged citizens to support the government and understand the necessity of this measure in bridging the financial gaps created by the pandemic.

President Akufo-Addo reassured the public that the COVID expenditures, which were primarily unplanned, underwent an audit initiated by the Auditor-General and are currently undergoing parliamentary processes. He stated, "I want to make it clear that the COVID expenditures, which were essentially unplanned, were audited by the Auditor-General at my request and are currently going through parliamentary processes. We all deserve to be reassured that the crisis was not exploited for corrupt activities."

The President acknowledged the introduction of the COVID Health Recovery Levy Act, 2021, Act 1068, as a necessary step to address the financial implications of the pandemic.

He recognized that it might not be the most popular tax, but he appealed to the people of Ghana to comprehend the need for this levy during these challenging times.

He stated, "The COVID Health Recovery Levy, which was implemented to help address some of the financial gaps, may not be widely favoured, but I urge all of you to be patient with us."

Additionally, President Akufo-Addo expressed his gratitude to the Covid Trust Fund, emphasizing its pivotal role in providing support during the pandemic.

According to the Ministry of Finance's fiscal data released on April 22, the government collected GH773.93 million in revenue from the COVID-19 Health Recovery Levy imposed last year. This amount, received between May and December, fell approximately 12.7 percent short of the GH889.07 million budget target. However, expenditures related to COVID-19 and its effects totaled over GH2.8 billion for the previous year.

According to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the COVID-19 Health Recovery Levy applies to both standard rate and value-added tax (VAT) flat rate registered individuals and businesses. This levy is calculated at a rate of one per cent on the value of taxable supplies, encompassing goods and services supplied within Ghana, with the exception of exempt items. It also extends to the import of goods and services into the country.

The implementation of this levy was announced during the presentation of the 2021 Budget in March by the then-acting Minister of Finance, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu. He emphasized that its purpose was to provide substantial support to the health sector's efficient functioning following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu stated, "To address COVID-19-related expenditures, we propose a one percentage point increase in the national health insurance levy and a one percentage point increase in the VAT flat-rate." The objectives of this levy encompass various critical areas.

Firstly, the levy aims to generate additional revenue to employ a greater number of healthcare workers across the country's health facilities. It also seeks to facilitate the construction of new health facilities and the financing of nationwide deployment of COVID-19 vaccines.

Furthermore, the funds raised through this levy will support the establishment of 14 medical waste treatment facilities throughout the country. These facilities will collaborate with the private sector to ensure the safe disposal of medical waste, an essential aspect of public health management.

The GRA has said because Act 1068 did not have an end date, it will continue to collect the tax until the law is amended or repealed.
Rice project takes off at Mepe-Adudornu; Expected to provide jobs for 500 locals

Alberto Mario Noretti May - 27 - 2023 , 11:48

Almost six decades after the vibrant rice farm belonging to the then State Farms at Mepe-Adudornu in the North Tongu District of the Volta Region collapsed following the overthrow of the Nkrumah regime, a similar project has taken off in earnest in the community.

A Ghanaian group, Royal City Company Limited, has acquired 2,000 hectares from the community to produce rice, with plans to expand the rice field to 10,000 hectares in five years.

The chiefs and elders of Mepe-Adudornu last Tuesday performed rites and said prayers to the gods of the land to signify the commencement of the project.

Project

The project involves a road construction from the heart of the community to the rice field, irrigation canals, farmhouse offices and structures for the machinery.

According to the Operations Manager, Ewura Ama Atta Gyamfi, an amount of US$1 million had already been invested in the project which was expected to recruit 500 young people from the community.

She said the company would carry out the project with some technocrats from Thailand.

Ms Gyamfi said the principal objective of the project was to produce rice in abundance, not only for local consumption but also for export.

Ghana has the capacity to produce enough rice to greatly impact the foreign market and stop importing rice, she maintained.

She estimated that the initial 2,000 hectares would yield a total of 20,000 tonnes of rice annually.

Support

The Divisional Chief of Mepe-Gbanvie-Adudornu, Togbe Kwao Agoglu Adabla IV, pledged the full support of the traditional authorities for the project, saying it was cause for joy and hope for the people.

He said the prevailing peace in the area was an asset for the progress and success of the project which would benefit generations yet unborn and open up the area to more lucrative economic activities.

The Volta Regional Director of Agriculture, William Dzamefe, entreated the local residents to maintain cordial ties with the company for the smooth progress of the project which had bright prospects.

Mepe-Adudornu is a serene farming community with a population of about 1,000.

Some residents said the rice project would definitely restore the prominent farming status the community enjoyed prior to the overthrow of the Nkrumah regime.

A planned tour of the project site was hampered by heavy rains which momentarily rendered the fields soggy.

Subsequently, some of the rites were performed at the edge of the site.
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PIERRE, S.D.  Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has opened a hotline for complaints about South Dakota colleges and is calling on the states higher education governing board to ban drag shows.

Noem in a letter to the South Dakota Board of Regents said states have allowed liberal ideologies to poison their colleges and universities.

On campuses across the country, students have been taught the importance of diversity and equity and given access to safe spaces instead of learning to tolerate the disagreement, discomfort, and dissent that they will experience in the real world, Noem wrote.

She called on the college oversight board to increase graduation rates, remove references to preferred pronouns in school materials, cut administrative costs and ensure universities are not accepting any money from China.

An Associated Press request for comment to the regents was not immediately returned.

Noem pitched the hotline to regents as a way to keep our institutions accountable  and ensure that we are all aware of what is happening at our taxpayer-funded colleges and universities. She wrote that information gathered from the hotline will guide policy changes.

As I work with our Board of Regents and Board of Technical Education to chart our path for higher education, we are giving students, faculty, and parents this tool to help voice any concerns so that they can be addressed, Noem said in a statement.

Republican Tim Rave, a former South Dakota House speaker and Noem appointee, leads the Board of Regents. Noem recently appointed two new members to the board: Jim Lochner, formerly of Tyson Foods, and Doug Morrison, the former Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis director.

Noem said she plans to make more appointments soon.

The Board of Regents in December ordered a review of university campus events and its policy on minors attending them after a drag show at South Dakota State University faced criticism from conservative lawmakers for being advertised as family friendly.
Toyota will enter the ENEOS Super Taikyu Series 2023 Round 2 NAPAC Fuji SUPER TEC 24 Hours Race, to be held from May 26 to 28, with the #32 ORC ROOKIE GR Corolla H2 Concept (hydrogen-powered Corolla) running on liquid hydrogen. (Earlier post.) It is the first time in the world that a vehicle will race with liquid hydrogen fuel.

The liquid hydrogen-powered Corolla was scheduled to compete for the first time at Round 1 Suzuka Super Taikyu 5 Hours Race held on March 18 and 19. However, during a private test run at Fuji International Speedway on March 8, a vehicle fire occurred due to a hydrogen leak from a gaseous hydrogen pipe in the engine compartment. As the vehicle could not be recovered in time, Toyota was forced to abandon the race. (Earlier post.)





In the two months since missing Suzuka, the design of the hydrogen piping that caused the vehicle fire has been changed, with safety as the highest priority. These changes included (1) moving the hydrogen piping away from hot areas, and (2) installing safety covers on the hydrogen piping joints to prevent loosening and to catch and lead hydrogen to detectors in the event of a leak.

Toyota also succeeded in reducing the vehicle weight by more than 50 kg over the past two months, leading to it exceeding the lap times of the hydrogen engine-equipped Corolla when it first competed in May 2021 using gaseous hydrogen fuel.

A portion of the liquid hydrogen being used in the hydrogen engine-equipped Corolla is lignite-derived hydrogen produced and transported from Australia in February 2022 by the Suiso Frontier liquid hydrogen carrier built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. (KHI) as part of the HySTRA project.

The mobile liquid hydrogen station that will be used at the circuit was jointly developed by Iwatani Corporation and Toyota Motor Corporation. By using liquid hydrogen as fuel, equipment that was previously necessary to produce compressed gaseous hydrogen, such as compressors and pre-coolers for cooling hydrogen are no longer needed. As a result, the required station installation area can be a quarter the size of that for gaseous hydrogen stations, and fuel can be refilled in the pit area in the same way as for gasoline-powered vehicles. In addition, since there is no longer the need to pressurize when filling, multiple vehicles can be filled in succession.

The vehicles fuel supply system has been changed to a liquid hydrogen system in conjunction with the change from gaseous to liquid hydrogen. However, the engine itself is the same engine as when the vehicle was running on gaseous hydrogen.

Since the energy density per volume is increased by changing the fuel to liquid hydrogen, the cruising range has been doubled with the same filling time as before, approximately 1.5 minutes. Toyota will strive to further improve engine performance, cruising range, and filling time throughout the year.

However, liquid hydrogen must be kept at temperatures lower than -253 C during filling and storage. This poses unique challenges in areas such as developing fuel pump technology that can function in a low-temperature environment, preventing hydrogen from naturally evaporating from the tanks, and establishing regulations for vehicle-mounted hydrogen tanks. Toyota will continue to work on overcoming these challenges with the cooperation of its partners in the areas of producing, transporting, and using hydrogen.

Both gaseous and liquid hydrogen have unique advantages and challenges, with gaseous hydrogen having the advantage of having a simpler system configuration. Toyota will continue to focus on developing both gaseous and liquid hydrogen to increase fuel supply options and make the most of their unique characteristics.

Advantages of Liquid Hydrogen Challenges with Liquid Hydrogen Increased energy density and cruising range Must be kept at temperatures lower than -253 C Smaller hydrogen stations (can be filled in the pit) Preventing hydrogen from evaporating due to heat in the tank Doesnt need to be pressurized, allowing for multiple vehicles to be refilled in succession Fuel pump technology that can function at -253 C

Toyota is able to race in this years Fuji 24 Hours Race with the liquid hydrogen-powered Corolla thanks to the cooperation of its many partners. Toyota will continue to conduct joint research with Kyoto University, the University of Tokyo, and Waseda University on technologies to reduce the weight of the engines and the size of liquid hydrogen systems in order to create ever-better cars going forward.
The Ohio State (OSU) & Wilberforce University Team has been named the winner of Year One of the EcoCAR Electric Vehicle (EV) Challenge, taking the lead in the four-year collegiate engineering competition. West Virginia University took second place and University of Alabama finished third in the judged competition, which was held from 2126 May 2023 in Orlando, Florida.





Managed by Argonne National Laboratory and sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE), General Motors, and MathWorks, the EcoCAR EV Challenge is a cross-disciplinary competition among 15 North American universities designed to build an EV talent pipeline through cutting edge automotive engineering education and practical application.

Participating teams are tasked with complex, real-world technical EV challenges, including enhancing the propulsion system of a 2023 Cadillac LYRIQ to optimize energy efficiency while maintaining consumer expectations for performance and driving experience throughout the four-year competition.

Year One of EcoCAR is all about generating big ideas and developing a strategy for the remainder of the competition. Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Alejandro Moreno

This year, partnership team Ohio State University and Wilberforce University, one of the competitions two HBCUs, showed consistency in excellence across all subteams throughout Year 1, earning top three finishes for 12 pre-competition deliverables, 10 of which were first-place finishes. They also notched top-3 finishes for their Project Management subteam and their DEI subteam. Overall, the team earned a total of 850 points out of 1000.

The Teams complex embedded system designs were impressive. We look forward to seeing the teams continue to use MATLAB and Simulink to build and simulate their EV designs throughout the duration of the multi-year competition. Lauren Tabolinsky, Global Academic Student Programs Manager at MathWorks

In Year Two of the competition, each student team will receive a Cadillac LYRIQ, a next-generation battery electric vehicle (BEV) provided by GM. Teams will be tasked with reengineering the vehicle to add new energy efficient and customer-friendly features designed to address the decarbonization needs of the automotive industry.
As weve said before, Sony marches to the beat of its own drummer  while other brands rushed out Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones as soon as the chip was available, Sony just announced its first. Say hello to the Sony Xperia 1 V. Well, youll have to wait until the end of July until you can actually greet the Mark 5 flagship.

With patience and 1,400/1,300 in your wallet you too could own this prosumer camera phone. Its not quite the Xperia Pro-I, but its not a run of the mill flagship either.

This year Sony relented and moved away from the standard 12MP main camera it has been using for a while. Instead of going for the raw size of the IMX989, it chose the IMX888 instead  this sensor has a 48MP effective resolution and its stacked design allows for better light gathering than similar sized imagers.

Even better, Sony finally gave in and developed a Night View mode, which uses a modern computational approach to night photography. Did the larger sensor improve image quality enough to compete with other flagships? Is the night mode any good? The answer to these questions and more over at our written review as well as our video review.

The new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 runs more efficiently than its Gen 1 predecessor and Sony claims to have improved the cooling. As youll see in our reviews, it could have done a better job, but performance and battery life (using the same 5,000mAh battery capacity) have gone up.

This is about it  Sonys user-friendly design remains a rare example of having a 3.5mm jack for wired headphones and a microSD slot on board. The company did remove the notification LED though, it was among the last to offer one. We should also note that we love the grippy texture of the Gorilla Glass Victus 2 pane on the back.

Were halfway through 2023 and there are already several camera-obsessed flagships on the market  Samsungs new Ultra model with its 200MP senor, Xiaomi and vivo top dogs with their 1 sensors and the Huawei flagship with a trademark RYYB sensor.



Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra  Xiaomi 13 Ultra  vivo X90 Pro  Huawei P60 Pro

Is the Sony Xperia 1 V the flagship you wish you had or do you think that there is more that Sony should have done to make this phone competitive?

The new Sony Xperia 10 V is the annual refresh of Sonys mid-ranger. Like the flagship model, it brings a 48MP sensor  it's not very big, but the extra resolution offers lossless digital zoom from 1x to 2x, then the 8MP 54mm zoom camera takes over.

The new 10 model also features stereo speaker, bringing it in line with the rest of the Xperia family. Unfortunately, we have nearly reached the end of the whats new? section.

The display is a tenth larger, 6.1 vs. 6.0, but is still only a 60Hz panel. Worse still, the company is still using the Snapdragon 695 chipset. That might be a tough sell at 450 and that price will look even worse a month from now  the 10 V doesnt launch until June. Okay, the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 might have been too much to ask for (not really, but still), the 695 feels like an insult. Here are a few mid-rangers with better chips:



Samsung Galaxy A54  Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro  Xiaomi Poco X5 Pro  Google Pixel 7a

Check out our written review as well as our video review for our thoughts on the Xperia 10 V. Its price class is loaded with some of the best value for money phones out there.

Do you have any interest in owning the Sony Xperia 10 V?
After being hit by one of the biggest typhoons Guam has seen in decades, residents may be wondering where to find the strength to do it all.

Many, if not all, of us may be struggling to find balance while repairing our homes, going back to work, and being there for our families. Pacific Daily News caught up with Therese Arriola, director of Guam Behavioral Health and Wellness Center, and PDN wellness columnist, Stephanie Patterson, to discuss different ways residents can be empowered in the typhoon recovery process.

Focus on one task at a time

Instead of looking at your entire house and being overwhelmed, if you can just do one task at a time, that will be very helpful in reducing your stress and anxiety, Arriola says. Try to understand that although the storm took three days to destroy what it did, it may take months to get back to normal again. Focusing on one task at a time and feeling accomplished when each task is completed can help reduce stress and anxiety, she added.

Pace yourself

Patterson, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist, says its important for residents not to overexert themselves and to find enjoyable activities to do each day.

Recovery from a natural disaster is a dance between mourning and pique moments of heroism and connection. Its important to be able to do both, sometimes at the same time, but often each in its turn, says Patterson.

Do not be surprised if in one moment you feel complete peace as you tackle a mess the storm made and the next you are crying about the fallen Nunu tree that harbors generations of memories. Not only is it natural to bounce back and forth, it is also part of a healthy grieving process  one where you balance between living 100% in the moment and dip back into the past of what your life was once like, Patterson explains.

Take care of yourselves by eating, staying hydrated, and getting rest when needed and avoiding alcohol and drugs, Arriola says.

We need to be in sound mind and body to recover in the most healthy manner as possible, she adds.

Find something to be grateful for

Its also important to think positively.

It is tempting to fall into catastrophic thinking about what you have lost, how much time and money it will cost to repair, and the discomfort of everything looking different and messy. When you find yourself sinking into permanent (lasting forever), global (it affects all areas of your life), or personal (bad things only happen to me) thinking, try bringing things into perspective. Ask yourself, Will this matter 10 years from now? What parts of my life did this typhoon not affect? What opportunities or blessings does this disaster create? says Patterson.

When feeling discouraged try making a game of counting your blessings. It helps put the loss into perspective.

Reach out

As the rhythm of Guams past is disrupted by Typhoon Mawar, it creates space for new memories to be created. Reach out to your family and neighbors to help clear debris, mop up water, share a pot of kadu, or feed a stray animal, Patterson says.

Offer your service, no matter how small, and be willing to say yes when they offer to return the favor. Working together helps lighten the physical and emotional load, build connections, and stave off depression. By lifting up others, you end up lifting yourself, she adds.

For those who may feel like they have no space to talk about the things they are anxious about, the 988 lifeline at Guam Behavioral Health and Wellness Center is still operational and receiving calls. Residents have used the lines since Tuesday with 47 calls made Tuesday night and 31 on Wednesday. Arriola encourages anyone who needs someone to talk to use the lifeline.

Talking to your kids

Many of us may be guiding our children through their own anxiety too. Licensed Speech-Pathologist Tiana Quitugua in a post on her Instagram @scoopspeech, offered up some phrases to use with our children during the storm, but they also apply to any moments of anxiety they may be experiencing now.

Acknowledge their feelings, talk about whats happening, use positive phrases, distract them with relaxing or fun activities and talk about happy things, says Quitugua in the Instagram post.

Here are some of the phrases she provided for parents to use:

Im gonna take some deep breaths

Lets count to 20

Lets play a game or read a book

Im here, you are safe.

Guam Behavioral Health and Wellness Center

The center is currently working with its funder, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration to formulate a plan that will provide mental health resources and counseling to those who need it on island.

One of the places we will begin is definitely at the shelters because the trauma of having to leave their home is an additional trauma, Arriola says. As soon as my staff is able to settle and take care of their families and their homes, we will get together and we will pull down a community outreach program for mental health and counseling services.

In the meantime, the center will be releasing fliers with additional coping mechanisms on all of their platforms. The series will be called the Guam GBHWC Mental Health Minute. To stay up to date on the resources the center will be providing, follow them on Instagram at @gbhwcguam and or go to their website gbhwc.guam.gov and remember: you are not alone.
Five days after almost all Guam Power Authority customers lost service, power restoration was at 16.2% of system load, according to a news release from the utility.

As of 1 p.m. Sunday, 65.4% of GPA substations and 27% of feeders and circuits had been energized.

Substations need to be energized before feeders and circuits can get power, and then service to customers can be restored.

GPA is working to restore power service as soon as possible, and once substations are brought online, our feeders/circuits energized percentages will increase resulting in substantially more customers power service restored, the utility reported.

Meanwhile, Guam Waterworks Authority was placing water tanks in villages, as water systems were operating at limited capacity.

GWA deployed 6,000-gallon flexible potable water tanks at Mongmong-Toto-Maite Mayors Office, Inalahan Mayors Office, Malesso Pier, Hagat Mayors Office, Santa Teresita in Mangilao, Ordot-Chalan Pago Mayors Office, St. Josephs Catholic Church in Inalahan and the Dededo Mayors Office.

Two more tanks were being prepped for Chalan Palauan in Dededo, and the Sinifa area on Sunday.

The water tanks are accessible 24 hours a day.

Once the tanks are depleted, they will be refilled and returned to service at locations still without water, according to GWA.

The northern water system was operating with limited capacity, with two wells restored to island power overnight. GWA continues to operate all available wells to increase reservoir levels throughout the northern system.

The central system was operating, but with reduced transfer of water from northern wells affecting service. Water service to Santa Rita and Nimitz Hill (except Turner Road area and higher elevations in Piti village) has been restored.

GWA was still working on restoration of service in Hagat. Talofofo and the Windward Hills area has been restored up to Our Lady of Peace, but the Sinifa area along Cross-Island Road was without water service on Sunday.

The southern water system was operating at reduced capacity due to damaged control equipment at the Ugum Surface Water Treatment Plant.

Ipan, Malojloj and Inalahan had service, but crews needed to fix a main break in Inalahan before restoration could continue to Malesso.

A boil water notice remains in place. Water from tanks and taps should be boiled from three minutes before it is consumed. Boiled or bottled water should be used for drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes and food preparation until further notice.
By ACACIA CORONADO, JIM VERTUNO and JAKE BLEIBERG

AUSTIN, Texas  Texas Republican-led House of Representatives impeached state Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust, a sudden, historic rebuke of a GOP official who rose to be a star of the conservative legal movement despite years of scandal and alleged crimes.

Impeachment triggers Paxtons immediate suspension from office pending the outcome of a trial in the state Senate and empowers Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texas top lawyer in the interim.

The 121-23 vote constitutes an abrupt downfall for one of the GOPs most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Bidens electoral defeat of Donald Trump. It makes Paxton only the third sitting official in Texas nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

Paxton, 60, decried the move moments after many members of his own party voted to impeach, and his office pointed to internal reports that found no wrongdoing.

The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just, Paxton said. It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning,

Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial. His fellow Republicans had long taken a muted stance on the allegations, but that changed this week.

No one person should be above the law, least not the top law enforcement officer of the state of Texas, Rep. David Spiller, a Republican member of the committee that investigated Paxton, said in opening statements. Rep. Ann Johnson, a Democratic member, told lawmakers that Texas top cop is on the take. Rep. Charlie Geren, a Republican committee member, said without elaborating that Paxton had called lawmakers and threatened them with political consequences. As the articles of impeachment were laid out, some of the lawmakers shook their heads.

Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial. Until this week, his fellow Republicans had taken a muted stance on the allegations.

Lawmakers allied with Paxton tried to discredit the investigation by noting that hired investigators, not panel members, interviewed witnesses. They also said several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, tainting the impeachment, and that they had too little time to review evidence.

I perceive it could be political weaponization, said Rep. Tony Tinderholt, one of the Houses most conservative members. Republican Rep. John Smithee compared the proceeding to a Saturday mob out for an afternoon lynching.

Paxton is automatically suspended from office pending a Senate trial, and it falls to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to appoint an interim replacement. Final removal would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Paxtons wifes, Angela, is a member.

Texas top elected Republicans had been notably quiet about Paxton this week. But on Saturday both Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to his defense, with the senator calling the impeachment process a travesty and saying the attorney generals legal troubles should be left to the courts.

Free Ken Paxton, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, warning that if House Republicans proceeded with the process, I will fight you.

Abbott, who lauded Paxton while swearing him in for a third term in January, has remained silent. The governor spoke at a Memorial Day service in the House chamber about three hours before the impeachment proceedings began. Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan also attended but the two appeared to exchange few words, and Abbott left without commenting to reporters.

In one sense, Paxtons political peril arrived with dizzying speed: The House committees investigation came to light Tuesday, and by Thursday lawmakers issued 20 articles of impeachment.

But to Paxtons detractors, the rebuke was years overdue.

In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law, and a year later he was indicted on securities fraud charges in his hometown near Dallas, accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of five to 99 years.

He opened a legal defense fund and accepted $100,000 from an executive whose company was under investigation by Paxtons office for Medicaid fraud. An additional $50,000 was donated by an Arizona retiree whose son Paxton later hired to a high-ranking job but was soon fired after displaying child pornography in a meeting. In 2020, Paxton intervened in a Colorado mountain community where a Texas donor and college classmate faced removal from his lakeside home under coronavirus orders.

But what ultimately unleased the impeachment push was Paxtons relationship with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

In 2020, eight top aides told the FBI they were concerned Paxton was misusing his office to help Paul over the developers unproven claims that an elaborate conspiracy to steal $200 million of his properties was afoot. The FBI searched Pauls home in 2019, but he has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. Paxton also told staff members he had an affair with a woman who, it later emerged, worked for Paul.

The impeachment accuses Paxton of attempting to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul. Its bribery charges allege that Paul employed the woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and that he paid for expensive renovations to the attorney generals home.

A senior lawyer for Paxtons office, Chris Hilton, said Friday that the attorney general paid for all repairs and renovations.

Other charges, including lying to investigators, date back to Paxtons still-pending securities fraud indictment.

Four of the aides who reported Paxton to the FBI later sued under Texas whistleblower law, and in February he agreed to settle the case for $3.3 million. The House committee said it was Paxton seeking legislative approval for the payout that sparked their probe.

But for Paxtons own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful conduct, Paxton would not be facing impeachment, the panel said.

___

Bleiberg reported from Dallas.
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The annual Memorial Day program at the North Dakota Veterans Cemetery on Monday will feature a groundbreaking for a columbarium.

It will be built in the northeast corner of the cemetery south of Mandan. The National Cemetery Administration and the North Dakota Veterans Cemetery Foundation awarded $1.86 million and $600,000 respectively to the project. The columbarium will have 2,240 niche compartments for cremation urns. It is scheduled to be completed in October.

This is great because itll provide veterans and their spouses an alternate option to a ground burial, North Dakota National Guard spokesman William Pro Prokopyk said.

The Memorial Day Ceremony is at noon. It's open to the public. The National Guard expects about 3,000 people to attend, and asks attendees to bring their own lawn chairs.

Cemetery officials ask those who will be visiting the cemetery but not attending the ceremony to clear the parking lot near the chapel by 9:30 a.m. They advise people with disability-marked vehicles to arrive before 10:30 a.m. Shuttle buses will be available from the parking lot to the ceremony area.

The Viet Nam Vets/Legacy Vets Motorcycle Club is hosting a motorcycle Honor Run before the ceremony. Participants will leave The Shop on 131 Airport Road in Bismarck at 11 a.m. Motorcyclists and passengers are invited to participate and are asked to arrive between 10 a.m. and 10:45 a.m.

The ceremony will begin with a flyover of two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Command Sgt. Maj. Scott Obrigewitch will serve as emcee. Remarks are expected from Gov. Doug Burgum; U.S. Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer, both R-N.D.; and Maj. Gen. Al Dohrmann, the state Guard adjutant general.

Staff Sgt. Gus Tandberg with the North Dakota Army National Guard's 188th Army Band will perform the national anthem. Legacy Methodist Church Pastor Brandon Vetter will then lead a prayer. The 188th Army Band Cover Down Brass Ensemble will perform Hymn to the Fallen, and Dakota Leathernecks Detachment No. 1419 will set off a rifle volley salute.

Century High School students Alex Munson and Spencer Hoskins will play taps. The North Dakota National Guard Military Funeral Honors Team will then fire a 21-gun cannon salute. The ceremony will conclude with a closing prayer led by Chaplain Lt. Col. Ryan Sarenpa.

The annual ceremony dates to 1993. The cemetery is 6  miles south of Mandan off North Dakota Highway 1806. The ceremony also will be livestreamed at NDGuard.ND.gov and on the North Dakota National Guard Facebook page.

Free bus transportation will be available for the public to and from the ceremony:

Bismarck: Bank of North Dakota parking lot, 1200 Memorial Highway. Bus will arrive at 9:30 a.m. and depart at 10:15 a.m.

Mandan: Dans Supermarket parking lot, 500 Burlington St. SE. Two buses will arrive at 9:30 a.m. and depart 10:15 a.m.

There will be no Memorial Day program at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum on the Capitol grounds in Bismarck. Veterans organizations instead will host a gathering for veterans and their families at the Veterans Cemetery beginning at 11 a.m.

Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park adjacent to the cemetery will host a Military Appreciation Day on Monday by offering free admission to military members, veterans and their families. For more information call 701-667-6340.

Burgum has directed all government agencies to fly the U.S. and North Dakota flags at half-staff from 12:01 a.m. to noon Monday in observance of Memorial Day.

Burgum also encourages North Dakotans to lower flags at their homes and businesses. His directive is in accordance with a proclamation issued by President Joe Biden.




Haiti - Social : Message of reflection from Lesly Conde on the occasion of Mother's Day (2023)





As part of the celebration of Mother's Day, Lesly Conde Ex-Consul General of Haiti in Chicago (August 2004 - May 2018), delivers us as every year his message of reflections that we invite you to read and share.



Message from Lesly Conde :



"Dear compatriots and friends everywhere,



It is always with great pleasure that I address all my compatriots and friends on the occasion of Haitian Mother's Day. We know that all mothers on earth are very special, that their love and devotion have no limits and that they are the guarantors of the continued existence of the species. But there is always something more to say about the Haitian mother, about her courage, her resilience, her optimism, and all that she manages to accomplish for her children; even when difficulties of all kinds seem to stand in his way one after another. The Haitian mother is a heroine in her own right. Her commanding presence, her always positive energy and her unwavering sense of duty have helped her produce generations of heroes.



One cannot talk about Haitian mothers without taking into account the conditions in which almost all of them struggle to take care of their children. Caring for children is almost exclusively a maternal responsibility in our country. At the slightest little sore or for the slightest fear, we seek mom's help. The latter is never too busy or too tired to listen to us and reassure us. We are, moreover, never too old to benefit from his advice or take refuge in his fortitude.



In a pitiless context, clearly conducive to discouragement or even abandonment, the Haitian mother will cling to her difficult maternal duties as if her salvation depended on it. In fact, that's what she firmly believes and she has every right to believe it. This attachment, this devotion, this fidelity are also reproduced in her children when the time comes to take care of her. Throughout her life, she was the nurse, the teacher, the referee, the psychologist and more. So with us, when mum arrives at the twilight of her life, when we have to take care of her, her children are always proud to take care of her. She remains queen. This is one of the differences between life here and that in industrialized countries. We owe this difference to the unconditional love of Haitian mothers.



The Haitian mother is far from being the weak link in the household. She is simply irreplaceable. I respectfully bow to wish all the moms in my country a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY."



Reflection messages from Lesly Conde in 2023 :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-39562-haiti-220th-flag-day-message-of-reflection-from-lesly-conde.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-39348-haiti-national-day-of-the-haitian-diaspora-message-of-reflection-from-lesly-conde.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-39261-haiti-easter-2023-message-of-reflection-by-lesly-conde.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-39222-haiti-holy-week-2023message-of-reflection-from-lesly-conde.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-39124-icihaiti-social-international-day-against-racism-message-from-lesly-conde.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-39116-icihaiti-international-francophonie-day-message-from-lesly-conde.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-39016-haiti-social-message-of-reflection-by-lesly-conde.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-38747-haiti-black-history-month-message-of-reflection-from-lesly-conde.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-38592-haiti-earthquake-2010-message-of-reflection-from-lesly-conde.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-38507-haiti-history-message-of-reflection-from-lesly-conde.html



All Lesly Conde's reflection messages in 2022 :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-38451-haiti-christmas-end-of-year-message-from-lesly-conde.html



All Messages from Lesly Conde in 2021 :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35584-haiti-social-wishes-from-lesly-conde-on-the-occasion-of-the-new-year.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping...





Mothers Day at the ULCC

Hans Joseph, Director General of the Anti-Corruption Unit (ULCC) sent a message to the mothers of the institution "You are models of resistance in the face of immorality and ease. Through the values transmitted to your children, you contribute to the advent of a Haitian society based on ethics, transparency and responsibility."



Monitoring of universal education support projects

As part of the process of monitoring universal education support projects, the Ministry of National Education asks departmental directors to submit to it, no later than June 23, 2023, the list of contract employees of the Free Compulsory Universal Education Program (PSUGO) and the Community Schools Nationalization Program (PRONEC). Their curriculum vitae and diploma as well as the list of schools with the names of the founders must also be submitted.



Tourism : Haiti at the G77 conference

A Haitian delegation led by Luz Kurta Cassandra Francois, the Minister of Tourism, participated earlier this month in the Conference of the G77 + China group held in Havana, on the challenges of tourism in Cuba after the pandemic and its impact in community development.



DR : 4,685 Haitians repatriated in 8 days

According to the Directorate General of Migration (DG), from May 15 to 23, 2023, 4,685 Haitians in an irregular migratory situation on Dominican territory were arrested and repatriated to Haiti.



Did you know ?

The tomb of the former President of Haiti, Antoine Simon (1908-1911) is located in a locality in "Fron Frede", named Mapou Simon.



Cap-Haitien : Return this year of the Diner en blanc

The city of Cap-Haitien will regain its festive air during the summer season. And as we often say, never two without three. The return this post-Covid year, of the white dinner in Cap-Haitien which promises to be high in emotions !



HL/ HaitiLibre


















By Aisha Adnan | Published on 2023/05/27

Viewers definitely adore strong female leads. Female leads who are far from the typical damsel in distress who need a prince to save their lives. The new era also shows women with many diverse emotions and immense hatred, anger and sadness.

Advertisement

Here we present you the Women Of Revenge in K-Dramas. These women set out on a journey by themselves to attain justice for themselves. Viewers absolutely applaud their bravery and bold nature.

Here are the top 3 women who took it upon themselves to avenge their wounds.

"The Glory"'s Moon Dong-eun

Moon Dong-eun (Song Hye-kyo) became a victim of brutal bullying in high-school. A girl who dreamt of being an architect had her dream because of bullying. Now her life has only one motive. To get revenge on Park Yeon-jin (Lim Ji-yeon). We see Dong-eun almost obsessed with Yeon-jin. She keeps a close eye on her and on every event in her life. But only because she wanted to take all that from her.

Dong-eun is the calm type. She waited for the perfect opportunity to lay out her plan. Her moves are calculative and precise. Yet, she also left a lot to fate. As if she knew how the four would act. Dong-eun wins our hearts as the lady of revenge with her perfect execution and the glow, the way she grows out from being a scared high school girl to a lioness.

___________

"The Glory" is directed by Ahn Gil-ho, written by Kim Eun-sook, and features Song Hye-kyo, Lee Do-hyun, Lim Ji-yeon, Yeom Hye-ran, Park Sung-hoon, Jung Sung-il-I. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2022/12/30 & 2023/03/10, Fri on Netflix.

Where to Watch Powered by JustWatch

"My Name"'s Yoon Ji-woo

Following her father's death, Yoon Ji-woo (Han So-hee)'s life begins to revolve around revenge. She begins working for a drug crime gang, Dongcheonpa. With the help of Dongcheopa's leader, Choi Moo-jin (Park Hee-soon), she begins to uncover the truth behind her father's death.

Ji-woo isn't someone who can be put down easily. She even made sure to put her bullies into place during her high school. Unlike Dong-eun's grace and quiet nature, Ji-woo is more rowdy. Her fighting abilities are her strongest weapon. Ji-woo is also more expressive when it comes to displaying her anger or even love.

___________

"My Name" is directed by Kim Jin-min-I, written by Kim Ba-da, and features Han So-hee, Park Hee-soon, Kim Sang-ho, Lee Hak-joo, Ahn Bo-hyun, Chang Ryul. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2021/10/15, Fri on Netflix.

Where to Watch Powered by JustWatch

"Revenge of Others"'s Ok Chan-mi

Ok Chan-mi (Shin Ye-eun) serves as a more heroic one than the other two. Whilst Ji-woo and Dong-eun took revenge only on themselves. Cha-min took it upon herself to save anyone who suffered from bullying like her brother.

She transfers to school after her brother's death, refusing to believe that her brother committed suicide. There she meets the hero of Youngtan High, Ji Soo-heon (Lomon). He is known to take revenge on others who suffered from bullying. Cha-min joins hands with him to help him with his mission and to find out the truth behind her brother's death.

___________

"Revenge of Others" is directed by Kim Yoo-jin-II, written by Lee Hee-myeong, and features Shin Ye-eun, Lomon, Wooyeon, Seo Ji-hoon, Chung Su-bin, Chae Sang-woo. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2022/11/09~2022/12/14, Wed 17:00 on Disney Plus.

Where to Watch Powered by JustWatch

By Aisha Adnan
The focal point of the investigation is a costume worn by Waters during the performance of "In the Flesh," a song from the rock opera "The Wall."

Roger Waters , the renowned co-founder of the legendary rock band Pink Floyd, finds himself at the center of a controversy following a Berlin concert. The Berlin police have launched an investigation into Waters over a Nazi-style uniform he wore during the concert.

The outfit consists of a black leather trench coat and a red armband bearing two crossed hammers. Waters' character in this performance, Pink, descends into a drug-induced hallucination, visualizing himself as a fictional fascist dictator addressing a neo-Nazi rally.

According to Berlin police spokesperson Martin Halweg, the investigation was triggered by the suspicion that Waters' costume glorifies the violent and arbitrary Nazi rule in a way that disrupts public peace. Halweg also mentioned that the police will examine footage from Waters' previous shows in Germany as part of their investigation.

The controversy, however, doesn't end here. Danny Danon, Israels ambassador to the UN, has criticized Waters for featuring the names of activists killed by authorities during his concert. Danon accuses Waters of equating Israel with Nazis, due to the inclusion of names such as Anne Frank, a Holocaust victim, and Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist shot dead by an Israeli sniper in May 2022. Abu Akleh was wearing a clearly marked press vest and helmet when she was shot in the face. Israel apologized for her killing but did not investigate or punish the killer. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published a report that said it had found no accountability was taken by the Israeli military over its killings of at least 20 journalists Israeli military fire since 2001.

This uniform and its associated imagery have long been an integral part of Waters's performances. Indeed, when Waters and German band Scorpions performed the song in 1990 alongside the recently toppled Berlin Wall, he wore a similar uniform. Moreover, Waters donned a similar costume as part of his 2010-13 "The Wall Live" tour, which included nine concerts in Germany.

Supporters of Waters argue that the reason for the ongoing which-hunt which started with venues trying to cancel his shows in Germany and continuing with the performance outfit investigation, is purely because of his critique of Israel's policies towards Palestinians and his refusal to accept the dominant narrative of the Ukraine war.

In response to the controversy, Waters released a statement explaining his perspective:

"My recent performance in Berlin has attracted bad faith attacks from those who want to smear and silence me because they disagree with my political views and moral principles.

The elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms. Attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated. The depiction of an unhinged fascist demagogue has been a feature of my shows since Pink Floyd's "The Wall" in 1980.

I have spent my entire life speaking out against authoritarianism and oppression wherever I see it. When I was a child after the war, the name of Anne Frank was often spoken in our house, she became a permanent reminder of what happens when fascism is left unchecked. My parents fought the Nazis in World War II, with my father paying the ultimate price.

Regardless of the consequences of the attacks against me, I will continue to condemn injustice and all those who perpetrate it."

HT
City man gets 23-year prison term for dealing fentanyl

Treyveon Marquis McClure

A 24-year-old Hendersonville man was sentenced to up to 23 years in prison after he pleaded guilty last week to dealing fentanyl, District Attorney R. Andrew Murray announced.

Treyveon Marquis McClure pleaded guilty to level three trafficking in opioids, the highest level of opioid trafficking in North Carolina, trafficking in excess of 28 grams. After accepting his guilty plea, Superior Court Judge Robert Warren sentenced McClure to a mandatory level-three prison term of at least 18 years nine months and up to 23 years.

McClure also received a concurrent sentence for his plea of guilty to the crime of operating a continuing criminal enterprise. According to court records and the May 23 sentencing hearing, the Henderson County Drug Task Force began an investigation in early January 2022 into the sale and distribution of illegal narcotics at and around a house in close proximity to the Hendersonville YMCA. The investigation quickly morphed into a comprehensive multi-month investigation of numerous individuals that appeared to be involved, at varying levels, in illegal drug and gang activity.

After the extensive probe, Henderson County Drug Task Force detectives were able to determine that McClure was operating as one of the leaders of a continuing criminal enterprise that was distributing illegal narcotics through a web of lieutenants and foot soldiers that worked for him, Murray said in a news release.

On April 20, 2022, four months after the investigation began, deputies from the sheriff's Crime Suppression Unit made a vehicle stop, based on actionable intelligence, of a white Dodge Charger McClure was driving. McClure had an active warrant for his arrest at the time of the vehicle stop.

While deputies were attempting to arrest McClure, he broke away and attempted to run down I-26. Deputies, along with a police K9, were able to quickly catch McClure. While deputies were attempting to restrain McClure, who was actively resisting, they saw him throw a plastic bag of white powdery substance suspected to be an illegal narcotic onto the side of the highway. The bag was retrieved and submitted for analysis to the North Carolina State Crime Laboratory, which found that the seized bag contained 110 grams of fentanyl.

"The defendant will have the next 18-23 years in prison to ponder his ill-fated decision to poison the streets of Henderson County and beyond with illicit drugs," Murray said.

Assistant District Attorney Heather Brittain handled the prosecution and sentencing hearing of McClure. Murray thanked Henderson County Sheriffs Offices Drug Task Force officers for their extensive and thorough investigation of the illegal criminal enterprise.

Their steadfast commitment to eradicating harmful illegal drugs from the streets of Henderson County is to be commended, Murray said. Their dismantling of a criminal enterprise through countless arrests has prevented our streets from being poisoned and undoubtedly resulted in countless lives being saved.
About the International Socialist Review https://isreview.org/about/ The ISR is dedicated to advancing socialist theory and practice in the U.S. and internationally. We stand in the International Socialist tradition, affirming our commitment to socialism from below, the self-emancipation of workers and the oppressed, the struggle against imperialism and for national liberation, and the building of a socialist current rooted in all of those struggles. We hope that the ISR will provide a forum for the development of an open and critical Marxist analysis of the challenges and opportunities that confront the left and social movements in the 21st century. We welcome contributions from all who are committed to that project and vision. The ISR is published quarterly by the Center for Economic Research and Social Change. Republishing articles from ISR All content is copyleft by International Socialist Review, unless otherwise noted. Articles republished elsewhere must link to the original article at ISReview.org. Contact P.O. Box 180296

Chicago, IL 60618 Phone 773-583-7884 Fax 773-583-6144 Email General Information: [email protected]

Editorial Inquiries and submissions: [email protected]

Business and subscriptions: [email protected] Staff Editor Paul D'Amato Paul D'Amato

Paul D'Amato (American, 1956- ) was born in Boston where he attended Boston Latin School at the height of racial unrest, civil rights, and bussing. He moved to Oregon to attend Reed College and claims to have learned as much from traveling cross-country four times a year -often by hitch-hiking and hopping freight trains - as he did in class. After receiving an MFA from Yale School of Art, he moved to Chicago where he discovered the communities of Pilsen and Little Village. The pictures and writing D'Amato produced there over the next fourteen years were made into the book, Barrio". Paul teaches at Columbia College and is currently photographing in the African-American community on the west side for a project called "HereStillNow" which was made into a book the fall of 2017. He has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Grant, and a Rockefeller Foundation Grant to Bellagio, Italy and his work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Art Institute of Chicago.

The Meaning of Marxism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meaning_of_Marxism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Meaning of Marxism is a 2006 nonfiction book written by Columbia University professor and managing editor of The International Socialist Review Paul D'Amato and published by Haymarket Books in 2006.

Synopsis

Dr. D'Amato presents a brief introduction to the philosophy of Karl Marx and Frederich Engels through a Trotskyist perspective.

Reception

The book received reviews from journals including International Socialist Review, Critical Sociology, and Midwest Book Review.

The Meaning of Marxism

https://www.amazon.ca/Meaning-Marxism-Paul-DAmato/dp/1931859299

In [D'Amato's] able hands, Marxist politics come alive and leap before us, pointing a way toward a better world. It's a knockout."-Dave Zirin, author of What's My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States



In this lively and accessible introduction to the ideas of Karl Marx, with historical and contemporary examples, D'Amato argues that Marx's ideas of globalization, oppression, and social change are more important than ever.



Paul D'Amato is the associate editor of the International Socialist Review. His writing has appeared in CounterPunch, Socialist Worker, and SelvesandOthers.org. He is an activist based in Chicago.

References

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Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan wasnt invited to the May 20 swearing-in of the Congress government in Karnataka, but the general secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist) Sitaram Yechury, was. Locked in intense turf wars in the southern state and in the earlier years in West Bengal and Tripura, the two national parties have often acted in tandem at the Centre while battling it out in states. PREMIUM A file photo of an artist from Amritsar creating a poster shortly before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections showing Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, and Narendra Modi (HT photo/Sameer Sehgal)

Perfected over time, this model is equally applicable to the ongoing attempts at joint action by parties opposed to Narendra Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Political formations with competing legislative ambitions must share space nationally while fighting to hold ground in their respective regional strongholds.

History shows us that such complex arrangements are doable. The anti-Congress sentiment that drove earlier experiments had seen even the BJP and the Left in a proximate alliance as outside supporters of the 1989-90 VP Singh government. The politico-ideological terrain was altered radically by the rise of Hindutva in the 1990s, coupled with short-lived anti-BJP coalitions and the Congresss concomitant weakening. The rallying call now is against the BJPs majoritarian-nationalism which represents an existential threats to the occupants, big and small, of the so-called secular space.

It is in this context that the Congress must seek a solution for its tussle for political/electoral space with the new kid on the block, the Aam Aadmi Party, which grew at its expense in Delhi, Punjab and Gujarat. The temptation to recoup lost ground against an adversary enfeebled by graft charges explains the Delhi Congressmens demand for no truck with Arvind Kejriwal. But can the Congress high command allow itself to be persuaded by such a short-term, partisan approach? On the table before it is the need for a nationally constructed bulwark against BJPs action in overturning a Supreme Court verdict, through the Ordinance route to deny an elected government the control over bureaucracy in Delhi. At risk arent just the prospects of AAP but of the federal scheme in our Constitution. The question has arisen at a time the Congress hopes to be the fulcrum of any formal or tacit Opposition front against the BJP in the upcoming 2024 polls. No other option On the face of it, the party has no option but to do what is often does in West Bengal. It must let its party officials in Delhi, as also in Punjab and Gujarat chart out independent local strategies without allowing their stance to influence its position on an issue with a direct bearing on Centre-State relations. The AAP has a valid case against the BJP and the Congress cannot afford to not back it.

In the not-too-distant past, Kejriwal had been savagely critical of the Congress leadership, especially of its first family. But there arent any permanent friends or enemies in politics. The adage came true when Kejriwal opposed Rahul Gandhis disqualification as a Member of Parliament, calling it the Modi regimes dictatorial action to suppress the Oppositions voice.

Amid allegations of corruption entailing identical disqualification possibilities against his close associates, the AAP leaders support for Rahul couldve been informed by Martin Niemollers famous lines: First they came for the socialists and I did not speak because I was not a socialist... That also leads one to the other maxim of an enemys enemy being a friend in politics. The BJP is prone to dismiss the envisioned Opposition line-up as an alliance for corruption. But, in reality, its muscular politics is the glue that joins parties that do not see eye-to-eye on a host of issues. Either they hang together or get prepared to get hanged separately. Thats the ringing message across the non-BJP political spectrum in the wake of probe agencies wholesale crackdown. At the receiving end it is not just AAP but also the Trinamool Congress, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Shiv Sena, the Samajwadi Party and the Nationalist Congress party besides the Congress itself. Comparisons are inadvisable, yet one cannot help but compare the BJP-Opposition stand-off with the post-Emergency politics of the 1970s. That was when political parties that were poles apart merged to form the Janata Party. While something exactly like that happening now is improbable, the harder the BJP-led government cracks down on the Opposition, the tougher their resolve will be to explore a Modus Vivendi to set up straight contests to avoid division of the anti-BJP vote. A reassuring move in that direction could be the anti-BJP parties combined push in the Rajya Sabha against the Ordinance which has to be legislated as a law within six weeks of Parliament assembling for the Monsoon session. From the Oppositions perspective, the issue even merited a show of solidarity against the PM inaugurating the Parliament instead of the President. The Congress must not be subservient to the anxieties of its regional units. A balance has to be struck and maturity must be shown by all stakeholders from the north to the south and the east to the west, to put their shoulders to the wheel. That is if theyre serious about giving the BJP a good fight! Editor's note: The introduction to the article was amended to replace the word alliance with 'compact' to avoid any confusion. The Congress and Left do not have a formal alliance at present.

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On the occasion of World Menstrual Hygiene Day, Jenburkt Wellness launches D2C pain-relief product Zixa Strong Feminine Cramp Relief Roll-On. The brand unveiled the product after conducting a hard-hitting, impactful Virtual Period Parade on social media and an on-ground Pad Parade in Mumbai to dismantle taboos around menstruation and raise awareness on menstrual health in India. Mumbai, India, May 28th, 2023: Jenburkt Wellness, the premium consumer-wellness division from the house of publicly listed organization Jenburkt Pharmaceuticals Ltd, today announced the launch of Zixa Strong Feminine Cramp Relief Roll On on the occasion of World Menstrual Hygiene Day. As an organisation that has brought multiple first-to-the-world, high quality formulations in the pain-relief category over the past 30 years, they have conducted extensive research to formulate this roll-on specifically for relieving menstrual aches and pains.

Zixa Strong partnered with the Myna Mahila Foundation, a reputed registered not-for-profit that empowers women by improving their health and standard of living and encouraging discussion of taboo subjects such as menstruation (to know more about their incredible work and initiatives on sexual and reproductive health for women in urban slums visit https://mynamahila.com/). The brand kickstarted a Virtual Period Parade on their Instagram handle @herzixalife encouraging people of all ages and genders to post a photo holding any menstrual product, that has already created a buzz with numerous contributors. With a shared vision to normalize talking about periods and spreading awareness on the subject, on the occasion of World Menstrual Hygiene Day, the two organizations joined hands to march down the streets of Mumbai chanting Her Pain Matters. She Matters, proudly holding a sanitary napkin in their hands and spreading scientifically valid information on menstrual health within the community.

The brand kickstarted a Virtual Period Parade on their Instagram handle @herzixalife encouraging people of all ages and genders to post a photo holding any menstrual product, that has already created a buzz with numerous contributors.

Pad Parade is one of our initiatives at Myna Foundation, amidst the many channels through which we improve sexual and reproductive health in the women and girls residing in urban slums. Through this parade, we send out clear messages that periods are a point of pride and not shame. We are delighted that brands like Zixa Strong are keen on amplifying our efforts and committed to solving the countrys challenges when it comes to menstrual health. This partnership represents a significant milestone in our mission to break barriers surrounding menstrual health and wellness for India. said Suhani Jalota, the Founder and CEO of Myna Mahila Foundation.

Zixa Strong Feminine Cramp Relief Roll-On is a high-performing pain-relief product specially formulated for menstruating persons in an easy-to-carry 50 gram roll-on format that delivers fast-acting and long-lasting relief from intense menstrual cramps.

Menstrual cramps are painful sensations that affect many people before and during a menstrual period. During menstruation, most people experience cramps in the lower abdomen, although the pain can also radiate to the lower back, groin, or upper thighs. Menstrual cramps tend to be worse at the beginning of a period and become less uncomfortable as the days go on.Period pains are caused by the uterus contracting to shed its lining. For this purpose, Zixa Strong Feminine Cramp Relief Roll-On is a high-performing pain-relief product specially formulated for menstruating persons in an easy-to-carry 50 gram roll-on format that delivers fast-acting and long-lasting relief from intense menstrual cramps. The product is the first and only one in India that harnesses innovative, scientifically advanced oil-in-water FlashMicelle technology pioneered by the Research & Development Team of Jenburkt Wellness, to deliver quick absorption and ultra-rapid pain relief, without leaving a stain or residue on fabric post-application. Enriched with 7 pure natural plant-based actives and a powerful mix of heating and cooling ingredients, this roll-on promises to create a revolution in the menstrual pain relief category. Rather than just focusing on the physical pain aspect, Zixa Strong is the first product in its category to ensure Aromatherapy-informed healing essential oils such as Rosemary, Lavender and Eucalyptus are added to soothe the mind and reduce anxiety. Each 50 gram Zixa Strong roll-on lasts upto 10 months (10 period cycles). Zixa Strong Feminine Cramp Relief Roll On does not contain any parabens, artificial colors or artifical fragrances.

Zixa Strong is available as a Roll-On for on-the-go pain relief (50 gm - MRP Rs. 450) on Amazon.in.

Research has shown that discomfort during a period cycle could be severe enough to affect daily life for 13 days each month - leading to school-drop outs, higher rates of absenteeism and an increasing reliance on pain-killers. As an organization, we revere women and are proud to lead thoughtful initiatives like a Period Parade, and kickstart our pan-India campaign #HerPainMatters to normalize opening up about the challenges faced during a period cycle. Our product is designed to provide women with a safe, effective and natural alternative to cumbersome hot water bags, and traditional anti-spasmodic pain relief tablets that can lead to liver damage over a long period of time. With Zixa Strong Feminine Cramp Relief Roll On, we hope to help menstruating persons manage their cramps and body pain in a way that is dignified, convenient and kind to their bodiesshared Mr. Ashish Uttam Bhuta, Chairman and Managing Director of Jenburkt Pharmaceuticals Limited on the occasion of the launch.



Zixa Strong is available as a Roll-On for on-the-go pain relief (50 gm - MRP Rs. 450) on Amazon.in. The Zixa Strong range is available for purchase online at Amazon and directly on their e-commerce website www.zixa.co (with free-shipping and delivery pan-India).

Disclaimer: This article is a paid publication and does not have journalistic/editorial involvement of Hindustan Times. Hindustan Times does not endorse/subscribe to the content(s) of the article/advertisement and/or view(s) expressed herein. Hindustan Times shall not in any manner, be responsible and/or liable in any manner whatsoever for all that is stated in the article and/or also with regard to the view(s), opinion(s), announcement(s), declaration(s), affirmation(s) etc., stated/featured in the same.


Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc could cut thousands of jobs after the company hired consultants led by McKinsey & Co. to advise on streamlining its operations, The Times reported. The companys headquarters in Derby are likely to be hit hardest by the cuts.(File photo for representation)

Part of the turnaround plan will see the combination of non-manufacturing departments in each of the companys civil aerospace, defense and power systems divisions, the newspaper said, citing an unidentified consultancy source. As a result, 10% of around 30,000 jobs in these departments could be eliminated, the report said.

The companys headquarters in Derby are likely to be hit hardest by the cuts, The Times said, noting that most of its back-office administration functions are based in the city. Rolls-Royce said that a decision had yet to be made regarding its workforce.

We are working at pace on our transformation across a number of work streams and only one part of one of those work streams is about realizing organizational efficiencies, a spokesperson said in an emailed comment. We have made no decisions whatsoever on any potential impact on employees and any suggestion otherwise is pure speculation.

Rolls-Royce Chief Executive Officer Tufan Erginbilgic has initiated a transformation program at the manufacturer, including some key management changes.

The global aviation industry is struggling with output amid a lack of spare parts and skilled labor, coupled with disruptions stemming from sanctions against Russia, which supplies components like titanium for aircraft engines.
Karnataka Lokayukta has initiated a Suo motou proceedings against the officials of Bengalurus civic body after the death of 23-year-old techie at citys KR Circle underpass on May 21. The Lokayukta has already sent summons to the officials of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and asked for an explanation on negligence in maintaining the stormwater drains. BBMP proposes measures to avoid water-logging in underpasses (ANI)

According to a report in Deccan Herald, the Lokayukta in the notice said that every citizen who lives within the municipal area or local body has a right to have roads with good condition and it also highlighted the Article 21 of Indian constitution where the fundamental rights to every citizen are guaranteed. It further said that the BBMP has failed to manage its duties and called it an instance of maladministration.

It has summoned BBMP chief commissioner, zonal commissioner, BBMP east zone, executive engineer, Shivajinagar division, assistant executive engineer, Sampangiramanagar ward and executive engineer of storm water drains to present before them and submit the reports on the incident.

On May 21, a 23-year-old techie identified as Bhanu Rekha passed away after her car was submerged at the KR Circle underpass, while five of her relatives were rescued by fire and emergency services personnel. An FIR was also registered at the Halasuru Gate police station based on the complaint of her brother, Sandeep. The police also arrested the driver of the vehicle for negligence. A case under Section 304A (death by negligence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against the driver and officials concerned from the BBMP, the police said.

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A Bengaluru-bound Nepal Airlines aircraft was forced to return to the Tribhuvan International Airport here on Saturday after its blades on the right wing were damaged, apparently due to a bird hit. The A320 aircraft has a maximum capacity of upto 180 passengers. (Pic for representation)(HT photo)

The A320 aircraft of Nepals flag carrier landed safely at the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) with technicians examining the aircraft, TIA spokesperson Teknath Sitaula said.

The flight took off from TIA at 1:45 pm, before being forced to return to the same airport 25 minutes later, news portal Nepal News reported.

The aircrafts blades on the right wing were damaged, officials said. Passengers on flight RA-225 reported hearing a loud noise, the Himalayan Times newspaper quoted TIA sources as saying.

The aircraft was diverted to Kathmandu suspecting a bird strike in the course of take-off, Sitaula said.

Passengers have left for Bengaluru from TIA in another flight, airport officials said.

The A320 aircraft has a maximum capacity of upto 180 passengers.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Sunday said that the employment problem in the state will be sorted out as it is a priority of the state government. Employment problem will be sorted out, it is our priority: DK Shivakumar(ANI)

Speaking to a group of job aspirants who met DK Shivakumar at his residence, the Deputy CM said, "We have promised the public that all the vacant posts will be filled, as it is our duty. For those who are eligible, we must see that the employment problem is sorted out, as that is the priority of our govt. We will start working on employment vacancies. I can't say that this will be done in 1 or 2 days but it will be done."

Also Read - Siddaramaiah, DK Shivakumar hold talks in Delhi on Karnataka cabinet expansion

More than 1,500 job aspirants met Deputy CM DK Shivakumar at his residence in Bengaluru today, demanding to start the recruitment process for Karnataka Power Transport Corporation Limited.

Congress in its manifesto before the Karnataka election promised to implement five guarantees in the state.

Soon after being sworn in as the chief minister, Siddaramaiah said that the first Cabinet meeting has issued orders for the implementation of five guarantees which were promised by the party before the elections.

"The five 'main' guarantees are 200 units of free power to all households (Gruha Jyoti); 2,000 monthly assistance to the woman head of every family (Gruha Lakshmi); 10 kg of rice free to every member of a BPL household (Anna Bhagya); 3,000 every month for unemployed graduate youth and 1,500 for unemployed diploma holders (both in the age group of 18-25) for two years (Yuva Nidhi) and free travel for women in public transport buses (Uchita Prayana).
Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah ordered a probe on Rekalmardi water contamination incident and directed the officials to conduct an inspection in the village immediately. He also ordered to send reports to the lab and get the details immediately. Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah. (ANI)

Also Read - Case filed against 2 Karnataka BJP MLAs for remarks against CM Siddaramaiah

According to the chief minister's office, CM Siddaramaiah also directed the panchayat officials to conduct a health checkup to all villagers of Rekalmardi with a necessary treatment to them. He also stressed on the compensation for those affected by the contaminated water and asked the officials to take action, so that such incidents will not repeat. A tweet in the official account of CM office read, The Chief Minister @siddaramaiah has ordered the Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer to provide appropriate treatment to those who fell ill after drinking contaminated water in Gorebala village near Rekalmardi in Raichur district and provide appropriate compensation to the families of the deceased. He ordered immediate action to be taken to supply clean water to the villagers and to conduct a proper investigation and submit a report regarding the incident.

One infant died and 30 people hospitalized after drinking contaminated water on Friday at Gorebala village near Rekalmardi in Karnataka. The panchayat development officer was also suspended after the incident and a team of medical officials are already supervising the health of villagers.

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Karl Marx. Capital Volume One

Chapter Thirty-One: Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm

The genesis of the industrial * capitalist did not proceed in such a gradual way as that of the farmer. Doubtless many small guild-masters, and yet more independent small artisans, or even wage labourers, transformed themselves into small capitalists, and (by gradually extending exploitation of wage labour and corresponding accumulation) into full-blown capitalists. In the infancy of capitalist production, things often happened as in the infancy of medieval towns, where the question, which of the escaped serfs should be master and which servant, was in great part decided by the earlier or later date of their flight. The snails pace of this method corresponded in no wise with the commercial requirements of the new world market that the great discoveries of the end of the 15th century created. But the middle ages had handed down two distinct forms of capital, which mature in the most different economic social formations, and which before the era of the capitalist mode of production, are considered as capital quand meme [all the same]  usurers capital and merchants capital.

At present, all the wealth of society goes first into the possession of the capitalist ... he pays the landowner his rent, the labourer his wages, the tax and tithe gatherer their claims, and keeps a large, indeed the largest, and a continually augmenting share, of the annual produce of labour for himself. The capitalist may now be said to be the first owner of all the wealth of the community, though no law has conferred on him the right to this property... this change has been effected by the taking of interest on capital ... and it is not a little curious that all the law-givers of Europe endeavoured to prevent this by statutes, viz., statutes against usury.... The power of the capitalist over all the wealth of the country is a complete change in the right of property, and by what law, or series of laws, was it effected? [2]

The author should have remembered that revolutions are not made by laws.

The money capital formed by means of usury and commerce was prevented from turning into industrial capital, in the country by the feudal constitution, in the towns by the guild organisation. [3] These fetters vanished with the dissolution of feudal society, with the expropriation and partial eviction of the country population. The new manufactures were established at sea-ports, or at inland points beyond the control of the old municipalities and their guilds. Hence in England an embittered struggle of the corporate towns against these new industrial nurseries.

The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre. It begins with the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in Englands Anti-Jacobin War, and is still going on in the opium wars against China, &c.

The different momenta of primitive accumulation distribute themselves now, more or less in chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England. In England at the end of the 17th century, they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing the colonies, the national debt, the modern mode of taxation, and the protectionist system. These methods depend in part on brute force, e.g., the colonial system. But, they all employ the power of the State, the concentrated and organised force of society, to hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power.

Of the Christian colonial system, W. Howitt, a man who makes a speciality of Christianity, says:

The barbarities and desperate outrages of the so-called Christian race, throughout every region of the world, and upon every people they have been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by those of any other race, however fierce, however untaught, and however reckless of mercy and of shame, in any age of the earth. [4]

The history of the colonial administration of Holland  and Holland was the head capitalistic nation of the 17th century 

is one of the most extraordinary relations of treachery, bribery, massacre, and meanness [5]

Nothing is more characteristic than their system of stealing men, to get slaves for Java. The men stealers were trained for this purpose. The thief, the interpreter, and the seller, were the chief agents in this trade, native princes the chief sellers. The young people stolen, were thrown into the secret dungeons of Celebes, until they were ready for sending to the slave-ships. An official report says:

This one town of Macassar, e.g., is full of secret prisons, one more horrible than the other, crammed with unfortunates, victims of greed and tyranny fettered in chains, forcibly torn from their families.

To secure Malacca, the Dutch corrupted the Portuguese governor. He let them into the town in 1641. They hurried at once to his house and assassinated him, to abstain from the payment of 21,875, the price of his treason. Wherever they set foot, devastation and depopulation followed. Banjuwangi, a province of Java, in 1750 numbered over 80,000 inhabitants, in 1811 only 18,000. Sweet commerce!

The English East India Company, as is well known, obtained, besides the political rule in India, the exclusive monopoly of the tea-trade, as well as of the Chinese trade in general, and of the transport of goods to and from Europe. But the coasting trade of India and between the islands, as well as the internal trade of India, were the monopoly of the higher employes of the company. The monopolies of salt, opium, betel and other commodities, were inexhaustible mines of wealth. The employes themselves fixed the price and plundered at will the unhappy Hindus. The Governor-General took part in this private traffic. His favourites received contracts under conditions whereby they, cleverer than the alchemists, made gold out of nothing. Great fortunes sprang up like mushrooms in a day; primitive accumulation went on without the advance of a shilling. The trial of Warren Hastings swarms with such cases. Here is an instance. A contract for opium was given to a certain Sullivan at the moment of his departure on an official mission to a part of India far removed from the opium district. Sullivan sold his contract to one Binn for 40,000; Binn sold it the same day for 60,000, and the ultimate purchaser who carried out the contract declared that after all he realised an enormous gain. According to one of the lists laid before Parliament, the Company and its employes from 1757-1766 got 6,000,000 from the Indians as gifts. Between 1769 and 1770, the English manufactured a famine by buying up all the rice and refusing to sell it again, except at fabulous prices. [6]

The treatment of the aborigines was, naturally, most frightful in plantation-colonies destined for export trade only, such as the West Indies, and in rich and well-populated countries, such as Mexico and India, that were given over to plunder. But even in the colonies properly so called, the Christian character of primitive accumulation did not belie itself. Those sober virtuosi of Protestantism, the Puritans of New England, in 1703, by decrees of their assembly set a premium of 40 on every Indian scalp and every captured red-skin: in 1720 a premium of 100 on every scalp; in 1744, after Massachusetts-Bay had proclaimed a certain tribe as rebels, the following prices: for a male scalp of 12 years and upwards 100 (new currency), for a male prisoner 105, for women and children prisoners 50, for scalps of women and children 50. Some decades later, the colonial system took its revenge on the descendants of the pious pilgrim fathers, who had grown seditious in the meantime. At English instigation and for English pay they were tomahawked by red-skins. The British Parliament proclaimed bloodhounds and scalping as means that God and Nature had given into its hand.

The colonial system ripened, like a hot-house, trade and navigation. The societies Monopolia of Luther were powerful levers for concentration of capital. The colonies secured a market for the budding manufactures, and, through the monopoly of the market, an increased accumulation. The treasures captured outside Europe by undisguised looting, enslavement, and murder, floated back to the mother-country and were there turned into capital. Holland, which first fully developed the colonial system, in 1648 stood already in the acme of its commercial greatness. It was

in almost exclusive possession of the East Indian trade and the commerce between the south-east and north-west of Europe. Its fisheries, marine, manufactures, surpassed those of any other country. The total capital of the Republic was probably more important than that of all the rest of Europe put together. Gulich forgets to add that by 1648, the people of Holland were more over-worked, poorer and more brutally oppressed than those of all the rest of Europe put together.

Today industrial supremacy implies commercial supremacy. In the period of manufacture properly so called, it is, on the other hand, the commercial supremacy that gives industrial predominance. Hence the preponderant role that the colonial system plays at that time. It was the strange God who perched himself on the altar cheek by jowl with the old Gods of Europe, and one fine day with a shove and a kick chucked them all of a heap. It proclaimed surplus-value making as the sole end and aim of humanity.

The system of public credit, i.e., of national debts, whose origin we discover in Genoa and Venice as early as the Middle Ages, took possession of Europe generally during the manufacturing period. The colonial system with its maritime trade and commercial wars served as a forcing-house for it. Thus it first took root in Holland. National debts, i.e., the alienation of the state  whether despotic, constitutional or republican  marked with its stamp the capitalistic era. The only part of the so-called national wealth that actually enters into the collective possessions of modern peoples is their national debt. [7] Hence, as a necessary consequence, the modern doctrine that a nation becomes the richer the more deeply it is in debt. Public credit becomes the credo of capital. And with the rise of national debt-making, want of faith in the national debt takes the place of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which may not be forgiven.

The public debt becomes one of the most powerful levers of primitive accumulation. As with the stroke of an enchanters wand, it endows barren money with the power of breeding and thus turns it into capital, without the necessity of its exposing itself to the troubles and risks inseparable from its employment in industry or even in usury. The state creditors actually give nothing away, for the sum lent is transformed into public bonds, easily negotiable, which go on functioning in their hands just as so much hard cash would. But further, apart from the class of lazy annuitants thus created, and from the improvised wealth of the financiers, middlemen between the government and the nation  as also apart from the tax-farmers, merchants, private manufacturers, to whom a good part of every national loan renders the service of a capital fallen from heaven  the national debt has given rise to joint-stock companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of all kinds, and to agiotage, in a word to stock-exchange gambling and the modern bankocracy.

At their birth the great banks, decorated with national titles, were only associations of private speculators, who placed themselves by the side of governments, and, thanks to the privileges they received, were in a position to advance money to the State. Hence the accumulation of the national debt has no more infallible measure than the successive rise in the stock of these banks, whose full development dates from the founding of the Bank of England in 1694. The Bank of England began with lending its money to the Government at 8%; at the same time it was empowered by Parliament to coin money out of the same capital, by lending it again to the public in the form of banknotes. It was allowed to use these notes for discounting bills, making advances on commodities, and for buying the precious metals. It was not long ere this credit-money, made by the bank itself, became. The coin in which the Bank of England made its loans to the State, and paid, on account of the State, the interest on the public debt. It was not enough that the bank gave with one hand and took back more with the other; it remained, even whilst receiving, the eternal creditor of the nation down to the last shilling advanced. Gradually it became inevitably the receptacle of the metallic hoard of the country, and the centre of gravity of all commercial credit. What effect was produced on their contemporaries by the sudden uprising of this brood of bankocrats, financiers, rentiers, brokers, stock-jobbers, &c., is proved by the writings of that time, e.g., by Bolingbrokes. [8]

With the national debt arose an international credit system, which often conceals one of the sources of primitive accumulation in this or that people. Thus the villainies of the Venetian thieving system formed one of the secret bases of the capital-wealth of Holland to whom Venice in her decadence lent large sums of money. So also was it with Holland and England. By the beginning of the 18th century the Dutch manufactures were far outstripped. Holland had ceased to be the nation preponderant in commerce and industry. One of its main lines of business, therefore, from 1701-1776, is the lending out of enormous amounts of capital, especially to its great rival England. The same thing is going on today between England and the United States. A great deal of capital, which appears today in the United States without any certificate of birth, was yesterday, in England, the capitalised blood of children.

As the national debt finds its support in the public revenue, which must cover the yearly payments for interest, &c., the modern system of taxation was the necessary complement of the system of national loans. The loans enable the government to meet extraordinary expenses, without the tax-payers feeling it immediately, but they necessitate, as a consequence, increased taxes. On the other hand, the raising of taxation caused by the accumulation of debts contracted one after another, compels the government always to have recourse to new loans for new extraordinary expenses. Modern fiscality, whose pivot is formed by taxes on the most necessary means of subsistence (thereby increasing their price), thus contains within itself the germ of automatic progression. Overtaxation is not an incident, but rather a principle. In Holland, therefore, where this system was first inaugurated, the great patriot, DeWitt, has in his Maxims extolled it as the best system for making the wage labourer submissive, frugal, industrious, and overburdened with labour. The destructive influence that it exercises on the condition of the wage labourer concerns us less however, here, than the forcible expropriation, resulting from it, of peasants, artisans, and in a word, all elements of the lower middle class. On this there are not two opinions, even among the bourgeois economists. Its expropriating efficacy is still further heightened by the system of protection, which forms one of its integral parts.

The great part that the public debt, and the fiscal system corresponding with it, has played in the capitalisation of wealth and the expropriation of the masses, has led many writers, like Cobbett, Doubleday and others, to seek in this, incorrectly, the fundamental cause of the misery of the modern peoples.

The system of protection was an artificial means of manufacturing manufacturers, of expropriating independent labourers, of capitalising the national means of production and subsistence, of forcibly abbreviating the transition from the medieval to the modern mode of production. The European states tore one another to pieces about the patent of this invention, and, once entered into the service of the surplus-value makers, did not merely lay under contribution in the pursuit of this purpose their own people, indirectly through protective duties, directly through export premiums. They also forcibly rooted out, in their dependent countries, all industry, as, e.g., England did. with the Irish woollen manufacture. On the continent of Europe, after Colberts example, the process was much simplified. The primitive industrial capital, here, came in part directly out of the state treasury. Why, cries Mirabeau, why go so far to seek the cause of the manufacturing glory of Saxony before the war? 180,000,000 of debts contracted by the sovereigns! [9]

Colonial system, public debts, heavy taxes, protection, commercial wars, &c., these children of the true manufacturing period, increase gigantically during the infancy of Modem Industry. The birth of the latter is heralded by a great slaughter of the innocents. Like the royal navy, the factories were recruited by means of the press-gang. Blase as Sir F. M. Eden is as to the horrors of the expropriation of the agricultural population from the soil, from the last third of the 15th century to his own time; with all the self-satisfaction with which he rejoices in this process, essential for establishing capitalistic agriculture and the due proportion between arable and pasture land  he does not show, however, the same economic insight in respect to the necessity of child-stealing and child-slavery for the transformation of manufacturing exploitation into factory exploitation, and the establishment of the true relation between capital and labour-power. He says:

It may, perhaps, be worthy the attention of the public to consider, whether any manufacture, which, in order to be carried on successfully, requires that cottages and workhouses should be ransacked for poor children; that they should be employed by turns during the greater part of the night and robbed of that rest which, though indispensable to all, is most required by the young; and that numbers of both sexes, of different ages and dispositions, should be collected together in such a manner that the contagion of example cannot but lead to profligacy and debauchery; will add to the sum of individual or national felicity? [10]

In the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and more particularly in Lancashire, says Fielden, the newly-invented machinery was used in large factories built on the sides of streams capable of turning the water-wheel. Thousands of hands were suddenly required in these places, remote from towns; and Lancashire, in particular, being, till then, comparatively thinly populated and barren, a population was all that she now wanted. The small and nimble fingers of little children being by very far the most in request, the custom instantly sprang up of procuring apprentices from the different parish workhouses of London, Birmingham, and elsewhere. Many, many thousands of these little, hapless creatures were sent down into the north, being from the age of 7 to the age of 13 or 14 years old. The custom was for the master to clothe his apprentices and to feed and lodge them in an apprentice house near the factory; overseers were appointed to see to the works, whose interest it was to work the children to the utmost, because their pay was in proportion to the quantity of work that they could exact. Cruelty was, of course, the consequence. ... In many of the manufacturing districts, but particularly, I am afraid, in the guilty county to which I belong [Lancashire], cruelties the most heart-rending were practised upon the unoffending and friendless creatures who were thus consigned to the charge of master-manufacturers; they were harassed to the brink of death by excess of labour ... were flogged, fettered and tortured in the most exquisite refinement of cruelty; ... they were in many cases starved to the bone while flogged to their work and ... even in some instances ... were driven to commit suicide.... The beautiful and romantic valleys of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lancashire, secluded from the public eye, became the dismal solitudes of torture, and of many a murder. The profits of manufacturers were enormous; but this only whetted the appetite that it should have satisfied, and therefore the manufacturers had recourse to an expedient that seemed to secure to them those profits without any possibility of limit; they began the practice of what is termed night-working, that is, having tired one set of hands, by working them throughout the day, they had another set ready to go on working throughout the night; the day-set getting into the beds that the night-set had just quitted, and in their turn again, the night-set getting into the beds that the day-set quitted in the morning. It is a common tradition in Lancashire, that the beds never get cold. [11]

With the development of capitalist production during the manufacturing period, the public opinion of Europe had lost the last remnant of shame and conscience. The nations bragged cynically of every infamy that served them as a means to capitalistic accumulation. Read, e.g., the naive Annals of Commerce of the worthy A. Anderson. Here it is trumpeted forth as a triumph of English statecraft that at the Peace of Utrecht, England extorted from the Spaniards by the Asiento Treaty the privilege of being allowed to ply the negro trade, until then only carried on between Africa and the English West Indies, between Africa and Spanish America as well. England thereby acquired the right of supplying Spanish America until 1743 with 4,800 negroes yearly. This threw, at the same time, an official cloak over British smuggling. Liverpool waxed fat on the slave trade. This was its method of primitive accumulation. And, even to the present day, Liverpool respectability is the Pindar of the slave trade which  compare the work of Aikin [1795] already quoted  has coincided with that spirit of bold adventure which has characterised the trade of Liverpool and rapidly carried it to its present state of prosperity; has occasioned vast employment for shipping and sailors, and greatly augmented the demand for the manufactures of the country (p. 339). Liverpool employed in the slave-trade, in 1730, 15 ships; in 1751, 53; in 1760, 74; in 1770, 96; and in 1792, 132.

Whilst the cotton industry introduced child-slavery in England, it gave in the United States a stimulus to the transformation of the earlier, more or less patriarchal slavery, into a system of commercial exploitation. In fact, the veiled slavery of the wage workers in Europe needed, for its pedestal, slavery pure and simple in the new world.[12]

Tantae molis erat, to establish the eternal laws of Nature of the capitalist mode of production, to complete the process of separation between labourers and conditions of labour, to transform, at one pole, the social means of production and subsistence into capital, at the opposite pole, the mass of the population into wage labourers, into free labouring poor, that artificial product of modern society. [13] If money, according to Augier, [14] comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt. [15]

Footnotes

* Industrial here in contradistinction to agricultural. In the categoric sense the farmer is an industrial capitalist as much as the manufacturer.

2. The Natural and Artificial Rights of Property Contrasted. Lond., 1832, pp. 98-99. Author of the anonymous work: Th. Hodgskin.

3. Even as late as 1794, the small cloth-makers of Leeds sent a deputation to Parliament, with a petition for a law to forbid any merchant from becoming a manufacturer. (Dr. Aikin, l. c.)

4. William Howitt: Colonisation and Christianity: A Popular History of the Treatment of the Natives by the Europeans in all their Colonies. London, 1838, p. 9. On the treatment of the slaves there is a good compilation in Charles Comte, Traite de la Legislation. 3me ed. Bruxelles, 1837. This subject one must study in detail, to see what the bourgeoisie makes of itself and of the labourer, wherever it can, without restraint, model the world after its own image.

5. Thomas Stamford Raffles, late Lieut-Gov. of that island: The History of Java, Lond., 1817.

6. In the year 1866 more than a million Hindus died of hunger in the province of Orissa alone. Nevertheless, the attempt was made to enrich the Indian treasury by the price at which the necessaries of life were sold to the starving people.

7. William Cobbett remarks that in England all public institutions are designated royal; as compensation for this, however, there is the national debt.

8. Si les Tartares inondaient lEurope aujourdhui, il faudrait bien des affaires pour leur faire entendre ce que cest quun financier parmi nous. [if the Tartars were to flood into Europe today, it would be a difficult job to make them understand what a financier is with us] Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, t. iv., p. 33, ed. Londres, 1769.

9. Mirabeau, l. c., t. vi., p. 101.

10. Eden, l. c., Vol. I., Book II., Ch. 1., p. 421.

11. John Fielden, l. c., pp. 5, 6. On the earlier infamies of the factory system, cf. Dr. Aikin (1795), l. c., p. 219. and Gisborne: Enquiry into the Duties of Men, 1795 Vol. II. When the steam-engine transplanted the factories from the country waterfalls to the middle of towns, the abstemious surplus-value maker found the child-material ready to his hand, without being forced to seek slaves from the workhouses. When Sir R. Peel (father of the minister of plausibility"), brought in his bill for the protection of children, in 1815, Francis Horner, lumen of the Billion Committee and intimate friend of Ricardo, said in the House of Commons: It is notorious, that with a bankrupts effects, a gang, if he might use the word, of these children had been put up to sale, and were advertised publicly as part of the property. A most atrocious instance had been brought before the Court of Kings Bench two years before, in which a number of these boys, apprenticed by a parish in London to one manufacturer, had been transferred to another, and had been found by some benevolent persons in a state of absolute famine. Another case more horrible had come to his knowledge while on a [Parliamentary] Committee ... that not many years ago, an agreement had been made between a London parish and a Lancashire manufacturer, by which it was stipulated, that with every 20 sound children one idiot should be taken.

12. In 1790, there were in the English West Indies ten slaves for one free man, in the French fourteen for one, in the Dutch twenty-three for one. (Henry Brougham: An Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers. Edin. 1803, vol. II., p. 74.)

13. The phrase, labouring poor, is found in English legislation from the moment when the class of wage labourers becomes noticeable. This term is used in opposition, on the one hand, to the idle poor, beggars, etc., on the other to those labourers, who, pigeons not yet plucked, are still possessors of their own means of labour. From the Statute Book it passed into Political Economy, and was handed down by Culpeper, J. Child, etc., to Adam Smith and Eden. After this, one can judge of the good faith of the execrable political cant-monger, Edmund Burke, when he called the expression, labouring poor,  execrable political cant. This sycophant who, in the pay of the English oligarchy, played the romantic laudator temporis acti against the French Revolution, just as, in the pay of the North American Colonies, at the beginning of the American troubles, he had played the Liberal against the English oligarchy, was an out and out vulgar bourgeois. The laws of commerce are the laws of Nature, and therefore the laws of God. (E. Burke, l. c., pp. 31, 32.) No wonder that, true to the laws of God and of Nature, he always sold himself in the best market. A very good portrait of this Edmund Burke, during his liberal time, is to be found in the writings of the Rev. Mr. Tucker. Tucker was a parson and a Tory, but, for the rest, an honourable man and a competent political economist. In face of the infamous cowardice of character that reigns today, and believes most devoutly in the laws of commerce, it is our bounden duty again and again to brand the Burkes, who only differ from their successors in one thing  talent.

14. Marie Angier: Du Credit Public. Paris, 1842.

15. Capital is said by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very incompletely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated. (T. J. Dunning, l. c., pp. 35, 36.)

Transcribed by Zodiac

Html Markup by Stephen Baird (1999)
Former Union minister Pawan Kumar Bansal on Sunday accused the UT administration of not fully utilising the revenue collected from the citys taxpayers. He said the administration has been squandering the money away by not protesting against the step-motherly treatment meted out to the city by the central government. Former Union minister Pawan Kumar Bansal on Sunday accused the UT administration of not fully utilising the revenue collected from the citys taxpayers. (HT file photo)

While addressing the media at Congress office in Sector 35, Bansal alleged that although the taxes paid from the people go to consolidated fund of India, the city gets much less in terms of allocation. As a result, the administration and the municipal corporation are forced to impose additional taxes to meet such shortfall of revenue.

Bansal alleged that a huge amount of money meant to clear the garbage dump in Dadumajra is going down the drain as the BJP is not doing the needed work.

He said that the BJP has also messed up the door-to-door collection garbage collection, which resulted in a high budget for sanitation but less clean surroundings.

During the event, HS Lucky welcomed former Aam Aadmi Party councillor Taruna Mehta back into the party fold.
A day after the Chandigarh Polices operation cell arrested two shooters who were allegedly planning to eliminate the owner of a cafe and lounge in Sector 26 on the directions of gangster Gurjant Singh, alias Janta, residing abroad, the police nabbed the third member of the gang. A day after the Chandigarh Polices operation cell arrested two shooters who were allegedly planning to eliminate the owner of a cafe and lounge in Sector 26 on the directions of gangster Gurjant Singh, alias Janta, residing abroad, the police nabbed the third member of the gang. (Representational image)

Notably, Gurjant is brother of Jaspreet Singh Jassi, who was encountered along with dreaded gangster Jaipal Singh Bhullar in Kolkata. According to the police, now Gurjant is operating his brothers gang from abroad through social media.

The accused was identified as Ranbir Singh (20) alias Kaka of Dhanola, Barnala, in Punjab. Police recovered one sophisticated .32 bore pistol along with four live cartridges from his possession. Ranbir was earlier booked in an assault case at the Longowal police station in Punjab in 2022.

Earlier on Friday, police had arrested Shamsher Singh (25) of Dakha, Ludhiana, and Vikram (21) of Sonepat in Haryana. The police recovered a .32 bore semi auto sophisticated pistol and .32 bore sophisticated auto pistol, respectively, from both the accused along with 14 live cartridges.

While Vikram alias Golu was earlier booked in a murder and Arms Act case in Gohana, Haryana, in April 2023; Shamsher was booked in two assault cases in Mullanpur, Dakha, Ludhiana.

Accused did recce on May 19

Sources claimed that there was a total of six people involved behind the conspiracy to eliminate their target.

Four persons were captured in the CCTV cameras doing recce in Sector 26 on May 19 around 9.17 pm. There was a lot of police presence in the area as we received a tip-off that the gang members would try to kill their target. They aborted the attack then. There was a total of six persons who were behind the conspiracy and three of them have been nabbed, a senior police officer said.

According to sources, the accused also had plans to kill their target after the latter refused to pay the extortion money to their handler.

Sources added that the four shooters, who reached outside the cafe on Friday evening on two bikes, were waiting for their target to come there, but following a tip-off, police teams nabbed two of them, while the other two managed to flee.

Police have booked all the accused under Arms Act at Sector 26 police station.
Several khap leaders, women activists and farmer leaders were detained in the early hours of Sunday in Haryana, ahead of the mahila mahapanchayat called by women wrestlers in Delhi. Heavy police force deployed in Ambala on Sunday.

Taking a note of the calls of protest given by the wrestlers in front of the new Parliament building, the Haryana police managed to foil the attempts of farmer leaders to reach Delhi by detaining them.

The women wrestlers have been protesting against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief and BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and they had given a call to hold a mahila mahapanchayat outside the new Parliament building in Delhi.

The police had detained khap heads, farmer leaders and other social activists in the early hours of Sunday in a bid to stop them from moving to Delhi to join the women wrestlers mahapanchayat. Many of the detainees were released by the evening. After the police detained several activists, farmers and villagers made a toll plaza in Hisar and some other parts free.

In Kurukshetra, the police detained Bhartiya Kisan Union (Charuni) state president Gurnam Singh Charuni from his residence around 5 am along with several other BKU members, invoking a protest by farmers outside a police station in Kurukshetra. However, Charuni was released around 1pm, but his detention helped the police to prevent farmers associated with BKU (Charuni) to reach Delhi. On being released, Charuni slammed chief minister Manohar Lal Khatter-led BJP government in Haryana for using the police to suppress the voice of people of the state on the day when the biggest democratic country of the world got a new Parliament building.

He said it is ironical that those who are seeking justice are being detained while those who face complaints are walking free. Charuni said on June 4, a state-level Mundlana panchayat will be organised in Sonepat district and dared the government to stop people from attending the event. He said former J&K governor Satya Pal Malik will also attend the panchayat and urged people of Haryana to reach there in large numbers.

The police also detained a woman khap panchayat leader, Santosh Dahiya, from her Kurukshetra residence. Dahiya alleged that the police came to her house without any intimation and stopped her from going outside to attend the wrestlers mahapanchayat in Delhi. She termed it as the murder of democracy.

In Karnal, the police detained some farmer leaders who were going to Delhi to attend the mahapanchayat. The police later released farmers led by BKU (Sir Chhotu Ram) state executive member Jagdeep Singh Aulakh. They were detained in Gharaunda when they were leaving for Delhi in private vehicles.

A group of farmers from Punjab, including women, who had halted at Gurudwara Manji Sahib in Ambala City for overnight stay were stopped by the police from going to Delhi

The place on NH-44 was turned into a fortress by Saturday evening with the deployment of huge police force. A minor scuffle also took place at the site, when the group tried to move towards Delhi forcefully, but were prevented by the police. Later, they protested outside the gurudwara and left for their homes in the evening.

A group of farmers of BKU (Shaheed Bhagat Singh) was also stopped from going ahead near Shahpur village on the outskirts on the same highway. Later, they also staged a protest on the service lane. Several farmers of the faction were detained last night and later released.

Meanwhile, superintendent of police Jashandeep Singh Randhawa said action would be taken against those who try to disrupt law and order, organise protests without permission, block public roads or spread rumours on social media.

Kandela khap head Om Parkash Kandela said he and his associates were detained by the Julana police in Jind when they were moving towards Delhi in the wee hours on Sunday.

They kept us in the police station for nearly 12 hours. Holding demonstrations comes under the right to freedom and the government cant stop us from carrying out peaceful protests, he added.

The police installed barricades at entry and exit points in bordering areas and vehicles were checked thoroughly.

Jind superintendent of police (SP) Sumit Kumar said scores of people from Punjab who were headed towards Delhi to join the mahapanchayat were stopped at Haryana border as a precautionary measure. The SP denied reports of detaining several khap heads and farmer leaders.

Binain khap leaders were detained from Narwana railway station in Jind.

All-India Kisan Sabha Rohtak district president Preet Singh was also detained by the Rohtak police and was released in the evening.

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As Indias already warm cities get warmer, the real danger of the climate crisis lurks in the form of a water and food crises for the countrys large urban population, and experts warn that only a systemic transformation can reverse the grim trajectory that we find ourselves on. Aromar Revi, director of the Bengaluru-based Indian Institute for Human Settlements and a coordinating lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told Shivani Singh about the challenges that Indian cities face. Edited excerpts: PREMIUM Aromar Revi, director of the Bengaluru-based Indian Institute for Human Settlements and a coordinating lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

How serious is the climate crisis in Indian cities?

The climate crisis will quickly become an existential crisis for Indian cities. But its not just an urban crisis. It is also a rural and agrarian crisis and fundamentally a development crisis.

A significant driver of this crisis will be water  flooding and drought, which could lead to a food security crisis in the future. If we go back in time to cities like Fatehpur Sikri and Tughlaqabad, we realise what happens when cities are faced with systemic water crises. This climate-induced food crisis cannot be addressed in cities because most cities dont produce much food. Unless we address the balance of development between rural and urban India, we will not be able to address the climate crisis.

India has a huge opportunity because, unlike China, we are not barrelling down a highway to hyper-urbanisation. We can keep the balance between urban and rural areas. This is not just about cities getting hotter and more difficult to live in, it is about understanding the relationships between cities and agriculture, cities and water, and cities and biodiversity.

The challenge with implementing climate action across the urban-rural continuum is that our systems of governance and finance are not organised to do this, in an integrated manner.

Where do Indian cities stand in this discourse?

Most cities across the world, including in India, are well beyond the 1.5C guardrail for climate change because of the urban heat island effect. Our cities are densely built and use heat-absorbing materials such as concrete and asphalt, and thus are much hotter. Many Indian cities are already experiencing a 3C temperature elevation.

Read: Study global warming impact, form climate adaptation plans: Govt to states

One of the reasons is that as some people get richer, they use more air conditioners. ACs cool the inside of the house by heating up the outside. We also have this new fashion of buildings that look like glass boxes and trap heat. Weve forgotten simple lessons from traditional architecture and systems of planning, which helped shade and cool cities by using green areas, urban forests, and lakes to offset the urban heat island.

In the face of extreme heat, many Indian cities have started developing heat action plans, which is a good thing. But this is trying to address the symptom (unbearable temperatures), not the cause of the disease (greenhouse gas emissions). We need to coordinate both climate adaptation and mitigation in cities.

You mentioned an impending water crisis. How will that affect our cities?

The most proximate risk to cities, especially in the peninsular and parts of northern India, is that we dont have enough water for residents. So, were forced to take a pipeline several hundred kilometres to carry water from far away, like in Delhi, or dramatically over-extract groundwater, like in Gurugram. Thats not a sustainable solution. We have to reorganise and reform our urban water systems.

Read: Delhi's water crisis may worsen as Yamuna levels drop further, 2 plants hit

First, we need to plug the leaks in most cities, because a third or more of the treated water leaks. We need to use water efficiency measures so that everybody has access to adequate and safe water. We also need to deal with flooding, because we have disrupted natural drainage and paved over large areas of cities.

Lack of water for drinking and sanitation translates into diseases like diarrhoea and hepatitis. Were still using colonial-era systems for sanitation, which use so much water. Faecal sludge treatment systems that serve 15 million people in Tamil Nadu use a lot less water and have been deployed much faster than sewerage systems at a fraction of their cost. They are a climate-relevant innovation that Swachh Bharat should pick up and scale.

So, we need to recalibrate basic civic upkeep and governance in climate terms?

The climate will not only kill people because it becomes too hot. We also pay high costs vis a vis health or the economy, like the impact of local flooding that we have seen repeatedly in our cities. We can reduce climate risks by raising the floor of urban service delivery. Everybody has to have access to clean water, sanitation, and clean energy, delivered by resilient infrastructure that doesnt collapse when there is heavy rain, or a cyclone or flooding.

But most of these systems are currently based on fossil fuels. You can get an electric vehicle (EV) and reduce your personal carbon footprint. But, if that EV is powered by a grid that is based on 80% coal-fired power plants, youre not doing much.

Many countries are literally putting solar panels on everybodys roof. You sell your power to the utility during the day, and you buy it back during the night when you need it. But to do that, you have to be connected to the grid. Our institutional arrangements dont allow that in many states. That must change.

Do you think efficient governance of cities can help in climate mitigation and adaptation?

It has been 30 years since the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, which was meant to devolve core governance functions to municipalities. But this hasnt happened in most states. In addition, in most Indian cities, the governance framework is fragmented. Climate action is almost impossible to implement in this context.

Bangalore, for instance, has a very well-run water utility, and people pay their bills. But the bulk of the city gets its water from tankers because of issues with distribution. The citys residents have invested hundreds of crores in pumps to draw water from the ground. If that investment went to the water utility, its possible it could supply water 24x7, like in Cuttack.

Read: 52% of cultivated land has access to irrigation for first time: Niti Aayog

Integration across mandates is a challenge. Unlike other cities in the world, where mayors manage things, we have no political systems to enforce integration. The governance arrangements at city and state levels are rarely coordinated, which slows down implementation, even when there is an interest in making things happen. Indian cities suffer from a lack of accountability and chronic underinvestment. We need to have an integrated regime involving the government of India, state governments, city governments, and private and citizen participation to make things work.

Is there a case for separate climate financing or can it be addressed with state or municipal budgets?

First, the national and state budgets and the finance commission need to make sure that we are not investing in assets that create emissions. We need to undo climate-insensitive subsidies and incentives. There is almost no scrutiny of this in our Budgets. Without that climate financing, it is like pouring money into a leaking bucket. We have to end energy poverty in villages and in cities, but do that using renewable power. This needs dedicated climate-sensitive development and infrastructure finance.

Improving logistics and using low-carbon systems like rail and shipping has economic co-benefits as in India, logistics costs are more than 15% of the cost of manufactured goods. For more energy-efficient logistics, well have to shift our mode of transportation back to electrified rail from the road. Similarly, we need to efficiently deploy electrified mass transit using renewable energy in most of our larger cities.

China has done this by building a high-speed rail system that connects even smaller cities into the network. This model gives you multiplier gains in the manufacturing and even in the service will improve.

Many cities have formulated their climate action plans. Hows their journey from plan to action?

They have not been effective. The core challenge of effective climate action is that of integration. A climate action plan has to be implemented by multiple city institutions that rarely coordinate. Most have limited accountability for climate action and financial flows and expected outcomes are rarely related to each other. This is the classical challenge of fragmented Indian urban governance.

In addition, our climate plans are divorced from economic development plans, which in turn have no relationship with spatial or city master plans. The urban development authority prepares a physical plan. In parallel, transportation agencies develop their mobility plans that are not linked to the city master plan or even to areas where firms are investing and creating jobs. Finally, climate institutions come in to try to retrofit their decarbonisation or adaptation plans, which need to be embedded in all these processes but land in the chaos of conflicting incentives.

How do we integrate all the city plans, policies, and missions, some of which have overlapping mandates?

It is very difficult to integrate all these plans into practice because of the urban political economy  the person capable of holding these agendas together can become very powerful. Cities generate a tremendous amount of wealth, are centres of power and are increasingly significant in the political process.

Integrated city governance calls for empowered political leadership, supported by highly competent professionals. In which city, in recent memory has a mayor become the chief minister?

How do we bring accountability to climate action?

To bring accountability, the governance, economic development, infrastructure, and planning systems of the city have to work together for the common good and not at cross-purposes in favour of special interests.

Citizens and firms pay much of Indias direct taxes and GST. But our city systems are chronically underinvested. Most municipalities are unable to even operate and maintain their services.

Read: Enhanced rock weathering can help combat climate change: Report

Successful climate action is not charismatic piecemeal solutions like painting roofs green or white, or harvesting rainwater from all roofs  even though these are useful things to do. Climate change is a systemic crisis.

Part of the solution is the devolution of power and finances to urban local bodies, and the building of a civic polity, where you can demand accountability from somebody who lives and works in your neighbourhood, rather than distant state capital or Delhi.

What about reducing consumption and demand-side management through lifestyle changes?

The challenge of limiting unsustainable consumption in urban India is a very real one. If the Indian middle class continues its current path of conspicuous consumption, it will make life miserable for itself and everybody else. India has to deliver everybody the basics  access to jobs, safe and affordable housing, water, energy, transport and at the same time we need to talk about lifestyle change, with the better off. That is part of what the governments LIFE programme is about.

But isnt higher consumption also aspirational?

In India, we privilege conservation as a cultural practice. The challenge is the late 20th-century idea that consumption is a driver of growth and that its great to consume as much as you want. This is in deep contradiction with most of our shared values and the lived reality of poverty and inequality that surrounds us.

It is through solidarity that we can address the climate question, not just through the blind application of technology. If you dont share the benefits with me, how can you ask me to share the risks? This is a question of climate justice, not only between India and other countries but also within our cities and between our cities and villages.

We are also too invested in what were comfortable doing. We are now addicted to fossil fuels, which in turn have created an addiction to fossil groundwater, in many parts of the country. We are addicted to a form of development that doesnt work for most people. And when it doesnt work for all of us, it will not work to accelerate and deepen climate action.
In view of the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building on Sunday, all entry and exit gates have been closed at the Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations of the Delhi Metro. However, interchange facilities will be available at the Central Secretariat Metro station, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said. All entry and exit gates have been closed at Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan metro stations in view of the inauguration of the new Parliament on Sunday. (PTI)

As per directions received from the Delhi Metro Rail Police, all entry-exit gates of Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations have been closed for passenger movement, tweeted the DMRC.

However, interchange facilities are available at Central Secretariat.

The Delhi Traffic Police has also issued an advisory outlining traffic regulations and restrictions to ensure smooth traffic flow and enhance security measures in the national capital.

According to the advisory, New Delhi district will be treated as a controlled area during the inauguration ceremony. Only specific categories of vehicles will be allowed to enter and move within this designated area. The authorized vehicles include public transport vehicles, civil service aspirants, bonafide residents, labelled vehicles, and emergency vehicles.

To facilitate the implementation of the traffic regulations, the advisory provided a detailed description of the area being treated as a regulated zone.

"The area enclosed by Mother Teresa Ceresent Road, roundabout Talkatora, Baba Kharak Singh Marg, roundabout Gol Dak Khana, Ashok Road, roundabout Patel Chowk, Ashok Road, roundabout Windsor Place, Janpath, roundabout MLNP, Akbar Road, roundabout Gol Methi, Akbar Road, roundabout GKP, Teen Murti Marg, roundabout Teen Murti and Mother Teresa Crescent Road will be treated as regulated area," the advisory said.
Gurugram: An Army jawan was killed after allegedly being hit by a heavy vehicle on Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway near Farrukhnagar on Saturday evening, Gurugram police said. Army jawan killed on KMP e-way after being hit by heavy vehicle, say police

Police said the deceased, identified as Mukesh Kumar (27), an Army havildar, was posted in Chandigarh.

Investigators said Kumar had come to his home in Sohna on his annual leave in April this year. He had left home at about 8am on Saturday to resume work.

As per police, Kumar left home on his motorcycle which he was about to leave at the residence of a close family member, Satbir Singh, in Sultanpur area of Gurugram.

Police said that since Singh was also about to travel to Chandigarh in his car, Kumar planned to join him, but tragedy struck before he could reach Sultanpur.

Investigators said Kumar was spotted lying on the expressway in a pool of blood by a medical patrolling team of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). He was rushed to a nearby private hospital in Budhera but doctors declared him dead.

A senior police officer said, Kumar had sustained severe head injuries. His motorcycle was also badly damaged. It seems a heavy vehicle had hit him from behind and his head hit the expressway divider. He said there were no CCTV cameras on the stretch where the accident took place.

Inspector Jitender Singh, station house officer (SHO) of Farrukhnagar police station, said attempts are underway to scan CCTV footage of roadside shops and other establishments to identify the vehicle that had hit Kumar.

On a complaint from the deceaseds uncle Hansraj, an FIR was registered against the unidentified vehicle driver under Section 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way) and 304A (causing death by negligence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Farrukhnagar police station on Saturday, said police.

Kumars body was handed over to his family members after a post-mortem examination on Sunday, police added.
The recent first information report (FIR) lodged against slain gangster-politician Atiq Ahmads lawyer Vijay Mishra has angered the district lawyers association in Prayagraj. HT Image

Office-bearers of Zila Adhivakta Sangh said theyd not tolerate the injustice being meted out to Mishra. A delegation of lawyers would be meeting police and judicial officials concerned to demand the withdrawal of the FIR against Mishra, the association announced.

Mishra was recently booked in an extortion case for allegedly demanding 3 crore from a plywood trader, who also claimed that the lawyer had threatened him.

However, in a leaked audio conversation between Mishra and the trader, which was widely circulated on social media, Mishra can be heard asking the latter to give back the 3 crore that he owed to Atiq.

In a note, the association said a fake case was registered against Vijay Mishra with a motive to harass him. It demanded an impartial enquiry and the withdrawal of the case against Vijay Mishra or else threatened to launch an agitation.

General secretary of the association Vidyavaridhi Mishra said a committee would soon be constituted thatd meet the district judge, administrative judges at the high court and senior police officials to press for the withdrawal of the FIR.

Mishra first hit the headlines when he accompanied Atiq Ahmads escort vehicle while the latter was brought from Sabarmati Jail of Gujarat to Prayagraj. Mishra has represented Atiq and Ashraf in court and was with them when the mafia brothers were gunned down at Motilal Nehru (Colvin) Divisional Hospital on April 15.

Meanwhile, police officials said Vijay Mishra already had seven cases registered against him at different police stations under various sections of the IPC.
Nearly 43% candidates skipped Civil Services prelims exam conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) here in Lucknow on Sunday. A total of 40,018 candidates were registered to appear in the exam of which 57.10% aspirants turned up to write the exam. Candidates at an exam centre in Lucknow on Sunday. (Deepak Gupta/ht)

In the morning shift, 23,123 (57.78%) aspirants appeared while 16,895 skipped the exam. In the second shift, 22,851 candidates appeared (57.10%) and 17,167 did not turn up to write the paper.

In 2020, about 50% candidates had skipped the exam. The figures for absentees for the last two years were not available.

Meanwhile, the candidates who appeared in the exam found general studies (GS) paper very tough as compared to previous year.

Diwakar Singh, an aspirant who came from Barabanki to write the exam said, The general studies question paper was quite tough this year. I took the same exam last year too, but this year the paper was much more difficult.

The second paper Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) was easy, he said.

Ananda Sachan, another candidate who appeared for the first time in the exam said that general studies paper was slightly difficult but was manageable if the aspirant had studied it well.

Another aspirant Sayam Pathak shared similar thoughts who also found general studies question paper to be tough. Robina Khatoon too said general studies paper was not easy and if aspirants had not prepared well, they must have struggled in writing it.

Meanwhile, the exam was held in 86 exam centres in the state capital. District magistrate Suryapal Gangwar himself visited a number of exam centres to monitor the progress. In the morning shift he went to Rajkiya Jubliee Inter College and in the afternoon session, he visited Government Girls Inter College and Shia Inter College.
In a recent meeting of the state BJP, party legislators from Mumbai Metropolitan Region had several complaints against none other than chief minister Eknath Shinde. A legislator complained that he did not get enough funds from the Shinde-led urban development department but the MLA from his neighbouring constituency, who is from the Shinde-led Shiv Sena, got works of 130 crore approved. We have to fight for works of even if 2-3 crore. This is surprising considering this government is propped by our party, he rued. HT Image

Other BJP MLAs from the region joined him. MLAs from Thane district said they were struggling to get local administrative officers of their choice. They were somehow pacified by the top leaders saying they would take up the matter with Shinde, but the unease of the BJP MLAs with Shinde and his party was visible. While the party legislators have complaints related to administrative matters, the top state leaders are still not convinced that Shinde can transfer traditional Shiv Sena votes to the BJP kitty. They are still figuring out a way to handle this issue.

Things are not hunky dory on the other side too. In a recent meeting, Shindes MPs complained that they were not getting works done by the central government. Mumbai NorthWest MP Gajanan Kirtikar told the mediapersons that they do not think they are being considered as a part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. We are being given step-motherly treatment, he lamented. In the same meeting, it was decided to stake claim on 22 out of 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra. In 2019 general elections, when the BJP and Shiv Sena contested as allies, the BJP had 26 seats while Shiv Sena had 22. Shinde-led Sena has insisted that they want the same number of seats now. The BJP is not amused. Party leaders doubt whether Shinde even has suitable candidates for all the 22 seats. With barely a year until the general elections  and maybe even assembly elections, if both are held simultaneously  the tussle within the ruling alliance could grow if the top leaders from both the sides fail to address the troublesome issues.

Shindes mission Mumbai

Notwithstanding the bickering between the two parties, chief minister Eknath Shinde is going hammer and tongs in his bid to win Mumbai civic elections for the ruling alliance. On May 18 and 19, he spent four-five hours each day visiting the pre-monsoon work undertaken by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to prevent flooding in the city during the rains. As he climbed down at a nullah cleaning site and interacted with the workers there, his spin doctors made a hashtag, #PeoplesCMEknath viral. On Wednesday, he visited the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, which reached a milestone as one side of the link was fully connected. Shinde is also trying to get maximum Shiv Sena corporators, in the last civic house, to his side. According to the Shinde camp insiders, both Shinde and the BJP leadership are determined to win the BMC, which has been a source of strength and influence for Shiv Sena for close to three decades. It will damage Uddhav Thackerays revival plan and thus affect MVAs poll prospects in the state. The BJP insiders say their surveys show that the traditional support base of Thackeray is largely intact because of the sympathy factor. That coupled with Dalit- Muslim combination of votes could mean a Shiv Sena (UBT)-Congress combine could pose a serious challenge in Mumbai civic polls, they feel. The only way to make a dent in the same is Shinde-led Shiv Sena walking away with a significant chunk of votes. Hence, the determined efforts. Will it work? That will be known when the elections are held after the monsoon, that is, if they are held.

Crowding the opposition space

On Saturday, former Rajya Sabha MP Chhatrapati Sambhajiraje, who is a descendant of Maratha king Shivaji Maharaj, announced in Pune that his party Swarajya will contest the next assembly elections. Sambhajiraje has been quite vocal on the issue of Maratha reservation and is popular among the communitys youth especially in western Maharashtra. Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has been holding a series of rallies, targetting the central Maharashtra or Marathwada region that shares border with his state. His Bharat Rashtra Samiti plans to contest Lok Sabha and assembly seats in Maharashtra. Prakash Ambedkar has begun mobilising his Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi which mostly aims for Dalit and Muslim votes. Not to be left behind, All India Majlees-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is preparing to enter the arena once again. On Saturday, the party chief Asaduddin Owaisi addressed a rally in Nagpur. Back in Mumbai, Raj Thackeray has once again started rebuilding his Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. He has even started attacking the BJP.

Surely the opposition space is getting crowded. The MVA leaders see the BJP designs in some of these parties getting active in the opposition space which could mean reduction in the coalitions vote share. That may or may not be true but the three parties in the MVA are definitely not helping their cause with the constant public bickering over sharing of Lok Sabha and assembly seats.

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The Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Sunday called the National Investigation Agency (NIA)s plea seeking death penalty for separatist leader Yasin Malik as deeply disturbing while Apni Party leader Altaf Bukhari termed the agencys approach hasty. Yasin Malik. (File)

On Friday, the NIA approached the Delhi high court seeking death penalty for separatist leader and chief of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Yasin Malik, who was awarded life term by a trial court in a terror funding case. A bench of justices Siddharth Mridul and Talwant Singh will hear the matter on May 29.

All Parties Hurriyat Conference, in a statement, said that the central investigative agency seeking death penalty for Yasin Malik is deeply disturbing for the people of the J&K.

Unfortunately one after other such directives and decrees are brought in by the authorities -who claim peace and development as their agenda, which seem a deliberate attempt to provoke and intimidate people and add to their concerns and fears, the Hurriyat said.

Apni Party leader, Altaf Bukhari said that NIA is trying to be hasty and wanted a reinvestigation of Maliks case.

NIA is trying to be more hasty by approaching Delhis high court for death penalty in case of Yasin Malik. Everyone deserves justice, we want justice, no innocent should be trapped and no guilty should be spared. Yasin Maliks case should be re-investigated. As we are already suffering from a dark phase after the removal of 370 & statehood, Bukhari said in a tweet.

Earlier, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chief Mehbooba Mufti and chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Conference, Sajad Lone, also disagreed with NIAs decision.

On May 24, 2022, a trial court awarded life imprisonment to Malik after holding him guilty of various offences under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Malik was convicted after pleading guilty to charges related to terror funding, spreading terrorism and secessionist activities in Kashmir in 2017.
Genres : Documentary, Horror

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A classically trained actor and director, Robert Englund has become one of the most revolutionary horror icons of our generation. Throughout his career, Englund starred in many well-known movies, but shot to super-stardom with his portrayal of supernatural serial killer Freddy Krueger in the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET franchise. This unique and intimate portrait captures the man behind the glove and features interviews with Englund and his wife Nancy, Lin Shaye, Eli Roth, Tony Todd, Heather Langenkamp and more.
Manipurs internationally acclaimed theatre personality Dr Ratan Thiyam has appealed to the religious leaders to take a proactive role in restoring peace and stability in the violence-hit state. Indian playwright and theatre director, and the winner of Sangeet Natak Akademi Award Dr Ratan Thiyam (Twitter Photo)

He has also asked other communities of the northeastern state to intervene in the matter and help restore peace.

Speaking to state media-DIPR, Dr Thiyam said, Considering the grave situation that Manipur is currently facing, all religious leaders from temples, Masjids, Churches, etc., should try to find out a means to restore peace. I urge them to help the government in bringing both the parties of the conflict to the negotiating table.

The Indian playwright and theatre director, and the winner of Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1987, further appealed to the government at the Centre to show their genuine commitment and empathy during this time of crisis in the state.

Also Read: Army chief in Manipur meets governor, reviews security arrangement

It is my earnest request to the Centre to continuously send different Ministers one after another to study the situation and understand the ground reality, said Thiyam.

Stating that common people are facing hardships, and are immensely affected by price rises and scarcity of essential commodities, the former chairperson of the prestigious National School of Drama said, at such a critical juncture, all the learned experts of the government should deliver their best to find a way out of the present crisis.

Appealing to all the ministers and MLAs to jointly visit the affected places and listen to the grievances of the people, Thiyanm also observed that they should assure them that the state government is there to help the people in need.

The noted theatre personality appealed to both communities (Kuki and Meiti) to come to the negotiating table. The possibility of such an arrangement should be seriously looked upon by the state government, he said.

Ethnic clashes, which began on May 3 between Kuki and Meitei communities were triggered after the former opposed granting of scheduled tribe (ST) status to the former Manipurs dominant community comprising 53% of the population. The violent clashes have so far left 74 dead, nearly 300 injured and displaced more than 30,000.

Expressing his disappointment over the weakness of the intelligence network, Thiyam said, Had the intelligence been alerted about the violence in time, the present situation could have been avoided.

He further made his appeal to all the 35-plus communities which have been living together for the last hundreds and thousands of years, to intervene in this critical scenario to find a solution to bring peace in the state.

The clashes occurred due to misunderstanding between just two communities, and both sides will surely listen and act when the rest of the communities intervene, he said.

Also Read: Amid backlash, Manipur CM makes fresh appeal for peace

Thiyam, who is known for his writing and staging plays that use ancient Indian theatre traditions and forms in a contemporary context, was a painter, director, designer, scriptwriter and musician. He is often considered one of the leading contemporary theatre gurus. He has also won Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1987.

The trigger for the violence included multiple issues such as the eviction drive in the reserve forest area, the destruction of poppy cultivation in the hills, the drive on illegal immigrants, the demand for scheduled tribe status by the Meitei community etc.

The widespread violence was marked by arson and rioting, prompting the state government to issue shoot-at-sight orders, enforce a curfew and ban internet services.

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The opposition parties meeting would likely be held in Bihars capital Patna on June 12, chief minister Nitish Kumar said on Sunday. Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on Monday met Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi in Delhi (File Photo)

The meeting is being planned in a bid to unite Opposition forces against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre before the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

Kumar was addressing a meeting of the Janata Dal (United) [JD (U)] office-bearers at the party office in Patna on Sunday. The meeting, in all likelihood, would take place at Gyan Bhawan, he said.

Also Read: Opposition unity in focus as Nitish meets Congress chief Kharge

The CM said that opposition unity meeting of all like-minded parties will be held in June tentatively around June 12 and we have to gear up to present a united front, said a JD (U) office-bearer to HT. Kumar, however, did not interact with the media.

The decision on the date of the meeting comes close on the heels of 20 opposition parties decision to boycott the opening of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday.

The parties have accused the central government of ignoring President Droupadi Murmu, saying as the First citizen of the country, she should have rightfully led the inauguration ceremony.

The Grand Alliance (GA) leaders familiar with the development said that more than 18 like-minded parties opposed to the ruling (BJP) will attend the conclave to be chaired by the Bihar chief minister.

It is going to be a preparatory meeting and the main meeting would be held later, said the GA leader.

Also Read: No sense: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on new Parliament building

The idea to hold the meeting in Patna was mooted by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee during her meeting with Kumar in April as it was from here that late Jai Prakash Narayan had started his Total Revolution movement against the Congress government.

Recently, after the swearing-in ceremony of the Karnataka Congress government, Kumar held a fresh round of talks with Congress president Malikarjun Kharge, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. Earlier in May, Kumar also met NCP leader Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai to take them in confidence in his mission to unite the opposition.

Mamata Banerjee has already accepted the One-On-One strategy pitched by Kumar and JD (U) has already recognised nearly 475 seats where united opposition can enter into a direct fight with the BJP.

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The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar on Sunday compared the new parliament buildings shape with a coffin in a Twitter post, triggering a political row. Meanwhile, Congress and the Janata Dal (United) staged protests in the state capital Patna against the inauguration of the new structure by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building in Delhi on Sunday morning.

PM Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building in Delhi on Sunday morning and expressed hope that it will become a cradle of empowerment. However, several Opposition parties boycotted the event contending that the President Droupadi Murmu and not the Prime Minister should inaugurate the new building.

The RJD posted a picture of a coffin and the new parliament building, asking Ye Kya Hai? (whats this?). The tweet went viral on social media with some reacting sharply against the post, while others justifying it.

Deputy chief minister and RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, when asked for his reply on the tweet, pleaded he was unaware of it and said he would speak only after going through the tweet.

Former deputy CM and Rajya Sabha member Sushil Kumar Modi said that it was a shameful act. If the RJD had the guts, it shall announce that it would not step into the new Parliament, said Modi.

The Congress, led by the partys state president Ahikhlesh Prasad Singh, took out a march from Boring Road Chauraha to Ambedkar statue near Patna high court to lodge their protest for not inviting President Droupadi Murmu to the event.

The BJP exposed its anti-Dalit, anti-tribal and anti-women mentality by refusing to invite the President during the inauguration of the new parliament building, which is part of the Central Vista project, Singh said.

JDU leaders also took out a march from the party office and staged dharna-cum-fast in front of the Ambedkar statue. JD(U) national president Rajiv Ranjan alias Lalan Singh led the programme and said PM Modi had insulted the constitutional values by denying the opportunity to the President of India to inaugurate it.

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PUNE The Pimpri Chinchwad police have detained a 24-year-old man in connection with the murder of his friend after he allegedly took his mobile phone without his permission. The authorities launched an investigation into the matter, and crucial information was obtained through an informant suggesting that the accused was planning to flee to Nepal. (REPRESENTATIVE PIC)

The victim, identified as Narayan Waghmare, tragically lost his life in the incident. The accused, Amar alias Akkya Gautam Kasbe, has been apprehended by the police and is currently in custody.

According to police, the incident occurred during a conversation between Waghmare and Kasbe at Yashwant Chowk in Indrayaninagar on May 26.

Waghmare took Kasbes phone from his pocket, triggering an enraged response from the accused. Kasbe, in a fit of anger, brutally struck Waghmares head with a stone, leading to fatal injuries. Despite receiving prompt medical attention at Sassoon Hospital, Waghmare succumbed to his injuries.

Bhagwan Waghmare, brother of Narayan Waghmare has filed a complaint in this regard.

The authorities launched an investigation into the matter, and crucial information was obtained through an informant suggesting that the accused was planning to flee to Nepal. Acting swiftly on this lead, the crime branch team, laid a trap at Lonavla railway station and successfully apprehended Kasbe. Initially, he faced charges of attempted murder. However, due to Waghmares untimely demise during treatment, the charges have been upgraded to murder under section 307 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Swapna Gore, crime DCP Pimpri Chinchwad police, said, We received a tip-off that the accused was about to leave for Nepal from Lonavla. Acting swiftly our team has laid a trap there and arrested the accused before leaving.

A case has been registered at MIDC Bhosari police station under section 307 (murder) of the IPC.
A tigress on a killing spree was tranquillised and captured by the forest department after a month-long operation on Saturday morning at Chandrapur in Maharashtras Saoli tehsil. A shepherd spotted the tigress in the forest near Vhyad Khurd village at around 10am on Saturday. (Representative Image)

The operation was carried out by personnel from the state wildlife headquarters and the Rapid Response Team (RRT) of the wildlife wing in the shrubby forest patch near Vhyad Khurd village.

The capturing orders were issued against the tigress on April 27 this year, soon after it killed a second human, but the feline kept evading the rescue teams. Forest department had deployed a squad of Special Tiger Protection Force (STPF), two rapid response teams from Tadoba Tiger Project and Chandrapur along with the Primary Response Team (PRT) and local forest personnel of Saoli range. The area under threat was covered with the help of 6 live cameras and 50 camera traps to track the movement of the tigress.

A shepherd spotted the tigress in the forest near Vhyad Khurd village at around 10am on Saturday. Following this information, Range Forest Officer of the region, Pravin Virutkar mobilised two RRTs led by veterinary doctors Dr Ravikant Khobragade and Dr Kundam Podchalwar. However, the news of the tigress presence in shrubby forest area also spread like wildfire among villagers and large mob gathered in the area causing hindrance to the operation.

The team led by veterinary doctor, Dr Kobhragade first spotted the tigress in thick shrubs in forest compartment number 114 under Navegaon beat of Saoli range at around 11.30am and shooter Ajay Marathe lying over a rescue vehicle shot a dart at the feline from a distance of 15 metres. Soon after the tigress was sedated, it was captured and put into the cage.

The range forest officer, Virutkar said that the tigress was kept at the wildlife rescue centre at Chandrapur and may be relocated to other forest areas. The tigress may be shifted to Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve (NNTR) after consultation with the Wildlife Institute of India and National Tiger Conservation Authority officials, said a senior wildlife wing official.

Two tigers from Chandrapur have already been tranquillised and shifted to Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserves last week as part of a tiger translocation programme aimed at curbing the man-animal conflict in Chandrapur district. Besides, the relocation project was aimed to augment the tiger population in the low-density area of NNTR. It was the first translocation of tigers within the state.

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Actor Alia Bhatt penned a note after she won big at IIFA 2023. She bagged the Best Actor award in a Leading Role (female) for Gangubai Kathiawadi. Despite the win, the actor was not a part of the event. Reportedly, she decided to skip the event as her maternal grandfather, Narendra Nath Razdan, is unwell. Also read: Alia Bhatt skips IIFA ceremony as her maternal grandfather Narendra Nath Razdan is unwell: Report Alia Bhatt on skipping IFFA awards 2023.

While Alia did not mention anything about her grandfather, she wrote on Instagram Stories, Thank you so much IIFA. Sorry, I couldn't be there in person to receive the award. A special thank you to the audience for your constant support. This brings me and the enjoy team so much joy!

Alia Bhatt penned a note after IFFA win.

The IIFA Awards 2023 took place at Abu Dhabi. From Salman Khan to Vicky Kaushal, several Bollywood celebrities were seen in attendance. In Alia's absence, film producer Jayantilal Gada received the award on her behalf.

Alia Bhatt's grandfather not keeping well

Earlier news agency ANI reported about Alia skipping the event due to a family emergency. Her maternal grandfather is reportedly unwell and admitted at Mumbai's Breach Candy hospital.

On Sunday, a paparazzi video of Alia's car leaving her house and heading to the hospital surfaced online. As per a report of Times Now, the actor's grandfather is admitted due to lung disease. Reportedly, his condition is critical.

Who is Alia Bhatt's grandfather?

Narendra is the father of actor Soni Razdan who is married to Mahesh Bhatt. Soni and Mahesh also have another daughter, Shaheen Bhatt who is an author and film producer. Alia and Shaheen are half sisters of actor Pooja Bhatt.

Alia will be next seen in Karan Johar's upcoming film Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani opposite Ranveer Singh. It also stars Dharmendra, Jaya Bachchan and Shabana Azmi. The film is all set to hit the theatres on July 28.

Apart from this film, Alia also has Farhan Akhtar's next directorial Jee Le Zaraa alongside Katrina Kaif and Priyanka Chopra Jonas in the lead roles. The film shoot is expected to start this year.

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Actor Alia Bhatt won the Best Actor Award for Performance In A Leading Role- Female at the IIFA 2023. However, the actor was not in attendance at the event to accept her award for her performance in Gangubai Kathiawadi. Producer Jayantilal Gada received the award on behalf of Alia. (Also Read | On Alia Bhatt's birthday, tracing her Kashmiri, Gujarati, German roots) Alia Bhatt with her grandfather Narendra Nath Razdan and sister Shaheen Bhatt.

As per news agency ANI, Alia reportedly skipped the event due to a family emergency. Her maternal grandfather, Narendra Nath Razdan, is reportedly unwell. Narendra is the father of actor Soni Razdan who is married to Mahesh Bhatt.

Soni Razdan had talked about her father

Speaking about her parents, in an interview with Hindustan Times a few years ago, Soni Razdan had said, Dad was an extremely gifted violinist even drawing praise from Yehudi Menuhin. So, even as a student, he would tour all over Europe with the iconic classical Indian dancer Ram Gopals troupe. Dad had invited someone to one of his concerts in London, and since they could not make it, they had given the passes to my mum, saying she should go backstage and thank Mr Razdan after the show. Thats when they met and he invited her for a coffee..."

Shaheen Bhatt on her grandfather

Alia's sister Shaheen Bhatt had penned a long note on Narendra's 90th birthday in 2018. Sharing a video of him playing the violin, she had written on Instagram, "This wonderful man turns 90 years old today."

She also wrote, "My grandpa is my hero and my favourite person. In his 90 years he has left home for 10 years to learn how to be the brilliant architect he now is, played the violin all over Europe, had two incredible daughters, hit a hole in one, become an ace billiards and bridge player, amassed a plethora of hilarious (and often dirty) jokes, perfected the art of whiskey drinking and most importantly, given me my childhood."

She had also added, "I have never met anyone more hardworking (he still goes to the office) or more determined to enjoy life than him. If I am lucky enough to grow to be even a little like him I will consider my life a success. I love you Grandpa, Happy Birthday. (This is him picking up the violin after more than 30 years)." At that time, Shaheen had also shared a photo with her grandfather and Alia on Instagram. She had written, "Happy Birthday Grandpa."

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After her debut with OTT series Mithya, followed by a Tamil film, actor Avantika Dassani is making her Bollywood debut with U Shape ki Gully opposite Vivaan Shah. The film is being currently shot in Lucknow. Avantika Dassani at Kudiya Ghat in Lucknow. She is currently shooting for film U Shape Ki Gaali.

While on a break from her shoot, the actor says, Im not restricting myself as industry is undergoing a big transformation. Today no one knows what works and what not! As an actor I dont want to have any set perceptions. I just want to be open to great stories and directors.

Actor Avantika Dassani at Kudiya Ghat in Lucknow.

For now, the actor is driven by let me do something new belief and is open to experiment while taking baby steps.

I chose Mithya as my OTT debut, as the role was such that people will never expect me to do such part. My second project is the upcoming Tamil film Nenu Student Sir with Bellamkonda Ganesh Babu. While for my Hindi film debut, I am playing a girl-next-door who is an unglamorous soul. So, I am trying to pick roles that will surprise the audiences. For my debut, people have high expectations and so my aim is to surprise them, says Dassani.

The actor is not bothered by film being male or female centric.

Avantika with actor Jaaved Jaaferi and director Avinash Das at Chowk locality in Lucknow.

What matters to me is the story and what can I add to the plot! As an actor, I am trying to create a graph of my own. This is my third project, and I am still learning. Every day, on the sets I am meeting locals and trying to pick up the Lakhnawi lehjaa, which is very different from Mumbai. My director Avinash Das (Anarkali of Aara and She) too has been a great help, she says.

Next, she is looking forward to shoot for the second season of OTT series. There are couple of other things in line as well but its better to talk about it when things are announced, she adds.

The actor says that she does discuss projects with her mother (Bhagyashree, actor) to seek her advice. When I am fully convinced with the project then I let my mom read the script for her opinion as she has much more understanding of the industry. Her yes gives me more confidence.

Dassani is happy to explore the city. I went to savour kulfi with Jaaved (Jaaferi) sir in Aminabad. I visited the Old City as well. Its so interesting that six months I was here for the literature festival and now I am here shooting in the same city where my brother (Abhimanyu Dassani) has also shotNikamma), she concludes.
Actor Gulshan Devaiah recently said that he has his crush, actor Sai Pallavis number but could never approach her. Earlier, the actor had revealed that he had a crush on her and called it his obsession. Talking about her in a new interview, Gulshan said that he is a bit infatuated by her, however, there's nothing more than that. Also read: Gulshan Devaiah calls his ex-wife Kalliroi Tziafeta his best friend Gulshan Devaiah has a crush on actor Sai Pallavi.

Gulshan Devaiah's past relationship

Gulshan was married to actress Kallirroi Tziafeta from Greece. They got married in 2012 and parted ways in 2020. Talking about her, Gulshan told Hindustan Times, I give equal credit to my ex-wife Kallirroi for really making sure we keep in all the good things and not ruin anything. We didn't think we wanted to be an example for society. People think its tough, it isn't, actually. We gave ourselves time, we were not in a hurry. She is my best friend now. I can tell her anything. If I go out on a date I tell her.

Gulshan Devaiah on Sai Pallavi

Talking about Sai Pallavi, Gulshan told ETimes, I have a huge crush on Sai Pallavi and it's been going on for a while now. I have her number too. But I don't have the strength to approach her. I think she is a wonderful actor and dancer. I think it's a crush only. There is nothing more than that. I'm a bit infatuated by her sometimes. But she is also a capable actress. She is a very good actor. And, hopefully, sometime in my life, as soon as I get an opportunity to work with her in a film, I think I'd be happy with that. I don't know about the rest. And what can I do if the rest is not going to happen? That's also there.

If it's meant to be, it'll happen. If it's not meant to be, then it won't happen. But if you get a chance to work with a good actor, that would be good. There's nothing wrong with that. At least you can do that much, he added.

Gulshan was last seen in 8 AM Metro with Saiyami Kher. He has Guns & Gulaabs and Love Affair in the pipeline.

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Irrfan delivered several memorable performances in his illustrious career in Hindi film industry and Hollywood. However, none of them won immense praise from his wife Sutapa Sikdar, until his 2012 film Paan Singh Tomar, for which he won a National Film Award as well. Sutapa has now talked about the moment both Irrfan and her cried after she watched the film. Also read: When Sutapa Sikdar was nervous as Irrfan chatted with Hollywood composer in English: Abhi ye kuch galat bolega Sutapa Sikdar praised very few performances of husband Irrfan.

A new book titled Irrfan: A Life in Movies will be unveiled on June 7. It has excerpts from one of Sutapa's interviews in which she talked about his best performances.

As quoted by PTI, Sutapa said, I would not say, 'Arre wah, kya kamaal kar diya toone!' (What a remarkable performance youve given!) Till I actually felt it, you know? Like in Paan Singh Tomar, I felt that he lived that character, and I cried. And he cried because he said this is the first time I was acknowledging his performance.

Sutapa liked these Irrfan-starrers

As per the news agency, Sutapa has also talked about her favourite performances of Irrfan. She has revealed in the book that she loved him in American drama television series In Treatment, Qarib Qarib Single and Maqbool, in which she felt he even outdid his idol Naseeruddin Shah in some scenes.

Irrfan: Life in Movies offers a compelling account of Irrfan's life and achievements -- starting from his days at the NSD to his nearly a decade-long stint in television and his gradual ascent in the film industry. Sutapa was his friend at NSD.

Sutapa on marriage with Irrfan

Last year, Sutapa had revealed in a Pinkvilla interview that Irrfan wasn't husband material and was afraid that she would leave him. He never made me feel special. I knew I was. He couldnt imagine his life without me. It doesnt sound humble but for many years, he was scared that Id get bored and leave him, she told the portal.

Sutapa was recently spotted with son Babil Khan at the Mumbai airport. The mother-son duo are occasionally spotted at film events, award shows and in pictures from their vacations. Irrfan and Sutapa also have a younger son, Yuhaan Khan.

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Elon "Pedo Guy" Musk made an oopsie. Musk shared a debunked misattributed quote on his personal social media platform while also inexplicably attacking children with leukemia.

The AP debunked the quote as being misattributed last year when Kentuckian congressperson Thomas Massie also shared it. The selection is not by Voltaire but rather by some neo nazi.

Here is the tweet:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1662508369234608128

Independent:
According to a source, Parineeti went scouting for the venue in Udaipur on Saturday, and now is exploring Kishangarh. She also plans to go to Jaipur. While she went solo in Udaipur, she was joined by Chadha for the rest of the tour in Rajasthan.

Parineeti's Udaipur visit

When it comes to Udaipur, the 34-year-old actor visited Udaivilas, where she even met some of her relatives and had lunch, following which she also went to Leela Palace, and then took a boat ride in lake Pichola to soak in the evening venue of the city before making the big decision. She also met Shikha Saxena, Deputy Director of Tourism Department, Udaipur, to inquire more about the city.

I met Parineeti at the airport, where we had a good 20 minute conversation, following which we spent the day going to the venues with her. She was not directly talking about marriage but the conversation revolved around things which were indicative around that, Saxena tells us.

She had September in her mind. I told her that we have late monsoon, so it would be rainy till the last week of September.

What makes you say that? She was inquiring about the weather in Udaipur, when does the monsoon start and winter start. She had September in her mind. I told her that we have late monsoon, so it would be rainy till the last week of September. At that instance, she looked at her PA and noted down the information, she adds.

The couple, who got engaged in May in Delhi, is also looking at November to get hitched. I suggested to them about November, and her PA was hesitant about the weather being too cold, but she looked open to the idea, and her team was noting down every single information. I asked her clearly if she has any wedding plans, and she mentioned that she is planless right now, and is in the process of making one, Saxena tells us.

Parineeti wants tourist attractions near wedding venue

According to a source, it will be a big Punjabi wedding, with all the family members and friends coming in to celebrate the union. And Parineeti is giving special attention to see how the guests will spend their time in the middle of the festivities.

She was interested to know about the tourist attractions in and around the place, with focus on the heritage value of the place, for guests to explore. She even mentioned that she will dig into it deeper, shares an insider, adding that she also took a boat ride to see the evening vibe which reflects that she was connecting with Udaipur.

According to Saxena, she loved the traditional welcome at the heritage properties with rose petals and music. The hotel was also giving her a feel at how the guests will be welcomed for the wedding. She really loved the whole idea. The traditional welcome really made her emotional and touched her. There was also a conversation around food during the visit, she shares.

At the moment, they are looking at more venues in Kishangarh, and also plan to head to Jaipur.

But they are more inclined towards Udaipur. One things for sure that they want to get married in Rajasthan only. Ever since the news of their visit in the state has emerged, a lot of hotel chains have started lobbying for the wedding, and asking people to suggest their name and offering to do the wedding for free, as they feel it will push their business. However, Parineeti and Raghav will go for something which is established and gives a rustic vibe and feel, while narrating a story of our past, says the source.

In fact, Parineetis sister Priyanka Chopra also had a royal wedding in Jodhpur.
Excitement is building as The Witcher Season 3 Volume 1 gears up for its highly anticipated release on June 29th, but fans have even more reason to celebrate. In a recent interview with Deadline, casting director Sophie Holland dropped an unexpected bombshell: Season 5 of the hit show is already in the works. While rumors of a potential fifth season had been circulating since January, this is the first time an official source has confirmed it. Big news for fans of The Witcher! Season 3 Volume 1 is coming soon, and now we know Season 5 is already in the works. Get ready for more adventures! Get ready for double the excitement!

Holland revealed that production for the fourth season is set to commence soon, with Liam Hemsworth taking over the role of Geralt of Rivia from Henry Cavill. Cavill's departure from the series came as a shock to many fans who considered him a perfect fit for the iconic character. The actor's deep love for the source material and desire for a more faithful adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski's works were well-known, leading to speculation that creative differences with showrunner Lauren Hissrich played a role in his decision to step away. However, when asked about Cavill's departure, Holland chose to remain tight-lipped, leaving fans to wonder about the behind-the-scenes dynamics.

Nonetheless, the announcement of a fifth season is a testament to the continued success and popularity of The Witcher. With Netflix's history of canceling shows abruptly, fans were understandably concerned about the future of the series. However, it seems their worries can be put to rest, as the show's longevity appears assured.

While the exact number of seasons The Witcher will ultimately have remains uncertain, fans can take solace in the fact that there is no end in sight just yet. The confirmation of a fifth season showcases Netflix's confidence in the show's ability to captivate audiences and deliver thrilling adventures in the world of Geralt of Rivia.

As Liam Hemsworth prepares to step into the role of Geralt, fans are eager to see his interpretation of the iconic character. Hemsworth's immense popularity and dedicated fan base ensure that his casting will generate significant buzz and intrigue. Holland expressed her excitement about Hemsworth's involvement, hinting at a mix of new characters and familiar faces in the upcoming season.

With Season 4 already on the horizon and Season 5 in active development, The Witcher universe continues to expand and enthrall fans worldwide. Whether you're a die-hard fan of the original books or have been captivated by the show's compelling storytelling, there is no doubt that The Witcher's future is bright.

So mark your calendars and get ready for more monster slaying, political intrigue, and epic battles. The Witcher saga is far from over, and fans can eagerly anticipate the next thrilling chapters in this fantastical world.
Bengali actor Mainak Banerjee recently opened up about his alleged harassment at Kolkata airport. On Friday night, he went live on Facebook and said that he was harassed by police, while he came to pick up his wife Ashwarya Chowdhury from the airport. He said he did not deserve such treatment, and lodged a formal complaint. Also read: Bengali TV actor Suchandra Dasgupta dies in road accident, lorry driver arrested Mainak Banerjee and his wife Ashwarya Chowdhury were allegedly harassed at Kolkata airport.

Mainak Banerjee's Facebook Live

During the Facebook Live, Mainak said that he drove his car to pick up Ashwarya and stood in front of gate 1B. As his wife started walking towards the car, she was stopped by cops on duty.

Mainak claimed that many cars were parked there at that time. The police did not treat them like others. He said, they were not allowed to park the car, whereas other vehicles were seen parked near the same spot. His car was allegedly locked. Mainak also revealed the identity of the police personnel during his live.

Mainak Banerjee on car parking incident

Talking about the whole incident over car parking at the airport, Mainak told Anandabazar Patrika, "My wife returned to Kolkata from Chennai yesterday. I went to the airport to pick her up. She had already informed me that she was waiting for me in front of 1B gate, I also took the car and went there. This is when, one person told me Get out of here. After time, I was driving slowly to find my wife. Then suddenly he almost jumped on top of my car.'' He further claimed that a lot of cars were parked at the same spot, however, none of them were told anything."

I was forced to get out of the car when he started misbehaving with my wife. That's when the screaming started. The policeman told me that my parked car was creating problems for those taking wheelchairs. However, there was no one in a wheelchair there. He also alleged that some cops threatened to put him behind bars and destroy his life. I do not deserve this insult, he added.

After the argument, Mainak said he and his wife were stopped from leaving in their car. They had to go to the police station to resolve the issue, and their car was handed over to them.

Mainak Banerjee is known for films like Borbaad, Chupkotha, Baba Baby O and Shimanto among others. He has appeared in shows like Mismatch and Feludar Goyendagiri. Currently, he is playing the role of Souryaneel in Zee Banglas TV Serial Icche Putul.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR HT Entertainment Desk Dedicated professionals who write about cinema and television in all their vibrancy. Expect views, reviews and news. ...view detail
Actor Jr NTR on Sunday was seen arriving at NTR Ghat in Hyderabad on the occasion of his grandfather, actor Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao's 100th birth anniversary. Several videos and photos from his visit have surfaced online. In all of them, the actor's security personnel are seen having a hard time as fans mobbed the actor for his one glimpse. Also read: Ray Stevenson was 56 when he filmed action scene in RRR; Jr NTR, Thor and Star Wars teams condole actor's death Jr NTR marks Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao's 100th birth anniversary.

Jr NTR on Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao's 100th birth anniversary

In a video, Jr NTR is seen arriving at the Ghat in a casual look. He wore a white shirt. As he entered the Ghat, fans were heard screaming his name. While he was surrounded by security guards, fans are seen going berserk to catch a glimpse of Jr NTR. Many were also seen recording the moment on their phones.

Some other visuals from the Hyderabad Ghat showed the venue was decked up with flowers and banners to mark NTR's centenary. In pictures, Jr NTR was seen paying floral tribute to his grandfather with folded hands.

Earlier in the day, Jr NTR had posted a photo of his grandfather. In the caption of his post, the actor wrote, Touch our hearts once more Grandpa. Several other actors also paid tribute to NTR.

Celebrities remember Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao

Chiranjeevi recalled the contributions of Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao in the industry and wrote in Telugu, "A million or one...not a hundred years...will remain in our minds forever and ever. History will proudly tell posterity about them. Shri NTR was born for such a reason. My association with Shri Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, who brought glory to the Telugu nation, will always be memorable to me. Remembering Rama Rao on his centenary."

I aint going to talk about politics or affiliation or anything other than the following movie. Dana Veera Sura Karna, added Vishnu Manchu with a throwback photo. Remembering the 'LEGEND' who has left his eternal footprints as An Actor & Leader inspiring the future generations, #NTRamaRao Garu on his 100th birth anniversary, said Sai Dharam Tej.

Directed Vamsee tweeted, Remembering the Legendary actor, Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao garu on his 100th birth anniversary. It is an honour and privilege to be a part of NTR Centenary Celebrations In Bahrain. I am overwhelmed by the love and affection shown by the Telugu People here. Thank you Bahrain, shared actor Rohith Nara from a celebration event.

ott:10

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The drama between Kroy Biermann and The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kim Zolciak-Biermann is getting intense with every passing day while the couple's divorce process is underway. In a cryptic Instagram post, Kim's former husband Kroy has taken a dig at her. Kroy Biermann and Kim Zolciak-Biermann(Twitter)

Kroy took to Instagram and posted a story on Friday. He shared a cartoon of a blonde woman in a ponytail which was shown winking in front a camera. Over the photo, Kroy wrote Dont be so obvious.

Screengrab of Kroy Biermann's Instagram story(Instagram)

Interestingly, Kim recently shared a video in which she is seen singing Luke Comb's "Love You Anyway. Sporting a ponytail, Kim is joined by some of her kids.

ALSO READ| Tribute: Paul Walker's brother names newborn son after late Fast and Furious actor

Recently, Kim had celebrated her 45th birthday with her children without inviting Kroy who was in the same house.Amid the divorce, Kim has submitted a formal request to the Superior Court of Fulton County, asking for a drug test to be conducted on Kroy. The legal documents associated with the petition assert that Kim has personally observed Kroy engaging in the use of marijuana, which has raised concerns about the potential effects on their children who are currently under his supervision.

Notably, Kroy filed for divorce from the "Real Housewives" star on May 5. Later, Kim submitted a separate filing on May 8. As per a report, a trusted confidant of Kim has revealed that the financial challenges faced by the couple, such as the foreclosure of their residence in Georgia due to loan non-payments, along with recent claims of owing the IRS over $1 million in unpaid taxes, played a significant role in their separation.

Kim and Kroy met at a charitable event in May 2010. They were together for an impressive 11 years and had the joy of raising four children during that time. Among their children are a set of twins named Kaia Rose and Kane Ren, both of whom are 9 years old. Additionally, they have two sons, Kash Kade, who is 10 years old, and Kroy Jagger, who is 11 years old. According to official documents, Kim has requested primary physical custody of their children, as well as joint legal custody. The star of The Real Housewives of Atlanta also seeks spousal support and plans to legally revert to her maiden name.

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At least 40 Kuki militants have been killed in a coordinated security operation in Manipurs Imphal valley in the past four days, chief minister N Biren Singh said on Sunday, hours after four civilians and a security official were killed in fresh clashes in the violence-hit state. Smoke billows from a fire that broke out amid clashes between armed groups and security forces in Manipur on Sunday. (PTI)

The latest round of conflict is not between communities, but between Kuki militants and security forces, the CM said in an interaction with media persons at the state secretariat.

There were instances of militants armed with AK-47s, M-16s and sniper rifles firing at civilians, Singh said, stressing that these are not Kuki militants, but terrorists.

Also Read: Colonial and ethnic rifts lie at root of Manipur clashes

State police have been conducting operations in vulnerable areas. In retaliatory and defensive operations against these terrorist groups, around 40 terrorists have been killed and a few arrested by the security forces, Singh said.

While minister of state for home Nityanand Rai has been in the northeastern state since Thursday, Union home minister Amit Shah is scheduled to visit Manipur on Monday to hold talks with stakeholders to restore a sense of calm.

On Thursday, the army, Assam Rifles and state police began extensive combing operations in the state torn by ethnic violence. On Saturday, Army chief General Manoj Pande reached the state for a two-day visit to review the operations.

Officials said that the casualties could rise as the operations were ongoing.

The operations are underway at several places. The number of deaths and those injured are likely to rise, a senior state government official said on condition of anonymity.

The state has been in the throes of ethnic violence after the Manipur high court on April 27 directed that the Meities, the dominant community in the state forming 53% of population, be included in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) list.

Protests, particularly by the tribal Kuki community, spread across the state, and beginning May 3, violence erupted leaving 74 people dead, over 200 injured, and more than a thousand homes burnt. Over 40,000 people were displaced in just the first three days of arson.

While a bulk of the violence happened over three days, tensions have simmered in isolated places since then, with two people killed on Sunday, and the army and paramilitary forces along with state police desperately trying to restore normalcy.

On Sunday, the CM appealed to the public not to hinder the movement of security personnel and urged them to have faith in the government and support the security forces.

We have experienced hardship for so long and we will never allow the state to disintegrate, Singh said.

Read | Manipur violence: Hit by clashes, many continue to move to neighbouring states

Singh said that the crackdown was against Kuki militant groups that in 2008 had signed a suspension of operations agreement with Centre and the state government confining their cadres to designated camps. The agreement was signed with 25 Kuki militant groups  17 of them are under the umbrella Kuki National Organisation, and eight under the United Peoples Front.

While the state government has blamed these 25 groups for exacerbating the violence, Kuki leaders have said that two radical Meitei groups  Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun  are responsible. They have also alleged that the army crackdown is an attempt to target the community, a claim rejected by the state government.

On Sunday, several Kuki groups including Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum refuted CM Singhs statements and added that no member of Kuki militant groups are engaged in violence as they are in designated camps according to the provisions of the agreement.

Condemning the fresh violence, the CM said, The spurt in violent attacks on civilian houses in peripheral areas of Imphal Valley in the past one or two days which seems well-planned is strongly condemnable. Those trying to break the state and disrupt peaceful coexistence are enemies of all the 34 communities residing together in Manipur.

This is a challenge on the state and its integrity. The government will not allow disintegration of Manipur, protect the states integrity and uproot these armed terrorists from the state, he added.

Around 140 columns of the Indian Army and Assam Rifles, comprising over 10,000 personnel, besides those from other paramilitary forces were deployed in the northeastern state soon after the clashes erupted.

Curfew has been clamped in most parts of the state, with partial relaxations, and internet services have been shut for the past 25 days.

Security officials in the area said that the latest round of clashes began after the army commenced combing operations to disarm communities in order to bring peace.

Read: Amid clashes, mob storms minister R K Ranjan's residence in Manipur

The house of BJP MLA Khwairakpam Raghumani Singh at Uripok in Imphal West was vandalised and his two vehicles have been set on fire, a security official said.

According to our information, firing has been reported from Sugnu in Kakching, Kangvi in Churachandpur, Kangchup in Imphal West, Sagolmang in Imphal East, Nungoipokpi in Bishenpur, Khurkhul in Imphal West and YKPI in Kangpokpi, the official said.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Paolienlal Haokip, who is among the 10 tribal MLAs that have severed ties with the state government, said that Kuki homes were still being attacked. Five Kuki villages were gutted in broad daylight at Sugnu. There were policemen around. That is the gravity of the situation, he said.

There are reports of arms being looted from the armouries of three state police battalions. We need central protection as early as possible. How can armouries of three battalions be looted unless such acts are backed by the chief minister, Haokip, MLA from Saikot constituency in the worst-hit Churachandpur district, said.

Lalboi Hriammi, a spokesperson of the Kuki Chiefs Association, also alleged that hundreds of firearms were looted from Manipur police armouries.

When Union minister of state for home, Nityananda Rai, met us yesterday I asked him why Article 355 was not being implemented in letter and spirit. Is it more important for the Centre to save the Biren Singh government than the lives of minority community people? Hriammi asked.

Article 355 of the Constitution states that it shall be the duty of the Union to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance and to ensure that the government of every State is carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.

At a press conference on May 4, Manipur officials said that there was a suggestion to impose the Article and subsequently, the Union government assigned Kuldeep Singh as security advisor to the state.

However, no Central or Manipur government official elaborated on this afterwards.

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In a tweet, which is likely to trigger a major controversy, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) equated the new Parliament building to a coffin that symbolises death. The RJD's official Twitter handle posted the picture alongside an image of the new Parliament with a 'yeh kya hai?' caption in Hindi. A view of India's new Parliament building in New Delhi. (REUTERS)

The Bharatiya Janata Paty was quick to hit back at Lalu Prasad's party. Describing the tweet as disgusting, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said, This will prove to be the final nail in the coffin of RJDs politics. Trikon or Tribhuj has much significance in Indian system By the way the coffin is hexagonal or has 6 sided polygon.

Another BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said, People of the country will bury you in the same coffin in 2024 and will not give you the opportunity to enter the new temple of democracy. It is decided that the parliament building belongs to the country and the coffin to you.

Bhatia said the inauguration marked a historic moment and parties such as the RJD will keep crying hoarse.

RJD leader Shakti Singh Yadav, however, said the tweet was a representation of democracy being buried.

The coffin in our tweet is a representation of democracy being buried. The country will not accept this. Parliament is the temple of democracy and it is the place to have discussions, Yadav told news agency ANI.

Meanwhile, BJP leader Sushil Modi said a case of treason should be registered against the people who compared the new Parliament building with a coffin.

The RJD's tweet comes even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday dedicated the new Parliament building to the nation by unveiling the plaque marking the inauguration.

Ahead of the inauguration, the PM also felicitated the construction workers with traditional shawls and handed over mementoes. Modi also installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja.

Modi also bowed down as a mark of respect before the 'Sengol' during the ceremony to mark the beginning of the inauguration ceremony.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday launched a scathing attack on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the inauguration of new parliament. Kharge tweeted in Hindi, The right to inaugurate the new Parliament was snatched from the President. Women players were beaten up on the streets with dictatorial force The three lies of BJP-RSS rulers now stand exposed before the country - Democracy, Nationalism and Save the Daughter. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge.(ANI)

"Remember Modi ji, democracy is not just about buildings but functions with the voice of the public," Kharge said.

Kharge's tweet comes after the grapplers were detained by the Delhi police for violating the law and order in the country. The wrestlers reportedly breached the cordon laid by the police and tried moving towards the new Parliament building for a planned women's Mahapanchayat.

The Congress earlier trained guns at the Centre for taking away the right of the President to inaugurate the Parliament. Congress, along with 19 other opposition parties, took the decision to boycott the inauguration.

In a joint statement issued the parties declared, The President is not only the Head of State in India, but also an integral part of the Parliament. She summons, prorogues, and addresses the Parliament In short, the Parliament cannot function without the President. Yet, the Prime Minister has decided to inaugurate the new Parliament building without her. This undignified act insults the high office of the President, and violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution.
In a Twitter war, when the Congress posted an image of PM Narendra Modi in miniature before a large image of first PM Jawaharlal Nehru, the BJP put up an image showing that Nehru's stature in real life was much smaller than his reel image. BJP's official Twitter handle shared a picture of Jawahar Lal Nehru pointing out "difference between his real and reel stature".(Twitter/@BJP4India)

In this regard, Congress took to Twitter and said," No matter how hard you try."

BJP in its reply also uploaded a picture of Jawahar Lal Nehru in which there is a camera focussing on him and pointing out the difference between his real and reel stature.

The official media handle of BJP took to Twitter and said, "The Truth of Nehru".

Currently, Congress and BJP are engaged in a controversy related to Sengol being symbolized as a transfer of Power.

Notably, Prime Minister Modi installed the historic 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber while dedicating the new Parliament building to the nation.

Earlier today Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that there is no documented evidence whatsoever of Lord Mountbatten, C Rajagopalachari and Jawahar Lal Nehru describing Sengol as a symbol of the transfer of British power to India.

"There is no documented evidence whatsoever of Mountbatten, Rajaji and Nehru describing this sceptre as a symbol of the transfer of British power to India. All claims to this effect are plain and simple -- BOGUS. Wholly and completely manufactured in the minds of a few and dispersed into WhatsApp, and now to the drum-beaters in the media. Two of the finest Rajaji scholars with impeccable credentials have expressed surprise," Jairam Ramesh tweeted.

"The sceptre was later kept for display at the Allahabad Museum. What Nehru said there on December 14, 1947, is a matter of public record despite whatever labels may say. 4. The sceptre is now being used by the PM and his drum-beaters for their political ends in Tamil Nadu. This is typical of this brigade that embroiders facts to suit its twisted objectives," he said.

Slamming the Opposition parties for boycotting the inauguration of the new Parliament building and questioning the history of 'Sengol', Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that by doing this Congress party is also opposing former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

"This is the issue of Time magazine from August 25, 1947. I would like all our friends who are opposing the inauguration of the new Parliament building, to read this article and get some idea about the symbolism of 'Sengol' and what happened in 1947. By doing this drama, they (Opposition) are also opposing their own leader Jawaharlal Nehru," he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a decision to adopt the Sengol as a national symbol of the Amrit Kaal.

The word Sengol is derived from the Tamil word 'Semmai', meaning 'Righteousness'. It is an Indic civilizational practice from the Chola kingdom, which was among the leading kingdoms in the Indian sub-continent for centuries.
Hours after the inauguration of the new Parliament building on Sunday, the Congress once again took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that a self-glorifying authoritarian PM with utter disdain for parliamentary procedures had opened the new complex and that the inauguration was being considered rather as a coronation than an inauguration. New Parliament Building inaugurated by PM Modi on Sunday (Twitter Photo)

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi while issuing his reaction over a tweet said, Parliament is the voice of the people! The Prime Minister is considering the inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh also took to Twitter to attack the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government. He listed the events that had taken place in the past same day as the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

Also Read: How many parties attending new Parliaments inauguration, how many absent? What numbers say

On this day, May 28th: 1. Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. 2. Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883.

Ramesh also said that on this day President Droupadi Murmu the first Adivasi to become President is not allowed to fulfil her constitutional duties and inaugurate the new Parliament building.

Targeting PM Modi, he said, A self-glorifying authoritarian Prime Minister with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the New Parliament building in 2023. 5. Fabrication of facts by Distorians and the drum-beating of the media hits new lows in 2023.

Congress leader and MP KC Venugopal attacked the Centre and PM Modi for not inviting the former and the current Presidents of India to the inauguration.

At the foundation stone laying ceremony of the new Parliament building, then Honble President Sh. Ramnath Kovind was kept away from the ceremony. At its inauguration, President Droupadi Murmu was sidelined, he wrote on Twitter.

Venugopal said it is the upper caste, and anti-backwards mindset of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) because of which they are denied the respect that their high constitutional office deserves.

Their deliberate exclusion shows PM Modi will use them as tokens for his electoral politics, but will not allow them to be part of such significant and historic occasions, the Congress leader wrote on Twitter.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) urged the Union government to Stop undermining the great Parliamentary democracy.

TMC leader Derek OBrien attacked the prime minister on nine years of his government saying, Now that PM Modi is done with his I Only Love Myself Day, let us remind him of how he and his government have mocked and insulted Parliament in the last nine years.

He said that the PM has answered ZERO questions in Parliament and the number of bills scrutinised by Parliamentary committees has come down from seven out of 10 bills earlier, to just one out of 10 bills now.

The number of Ordinances promulgated by the Modi government has more than doubled compared to earlier. Eight sessions of Parliament have been adjourned before the scheduled date. It has been four years, but there is still no Deputy Speaker in Lok Sabha, the TMC leader said.

NCP chief Sharad Pawar while speaking to reporters today said that he was happy that he was not a part of the inauguration.

I saw the event in the morning. I am happy I didnt go there. I am worried after seeing whatever happened there. Are we taking the country backwards? Was this event for limited people only?, Pawar told the media

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, inaugurated the new parliament building on Sunday amid a boycott by opposition parties, which insisted President Draupadi Murmu, the highest authority of the nation, instead inaugurate the building.

Also Read: PM Modis dreams and reality tweet as he inaugurates new Parliament building

Communist Party of India leader Binoy Viswam took to Twitter and said, Salutes to shenkol, beatings to wrestler girls! This beginning testify the course of new Parliament. Ruthless fascist autocracy guide its way. When PM bowed before Savarkar, Country remembered his mercy petitions. They will try to use new Parliament for Adani and FDI. We will fight it.

Several Opposition parties have also boycotted the event contending that the President and not the PM should inaugurate the new Parliament building.

The parties have accused the Modi-led government of disrespecting the Presidents chair. The BJP has rubbished the charge.

The new Parliament building is part of the revamped Central Vista project, the construction of which started in 2019. Built at an estimated cost of 1,200 crore, the new Parliament has three storeys and a built-up area of 64,500 sqm. During the ceremony today, the Union Finance Ministry will also launch a 75 coin to mark the inauguration of the new Parliament.

At the inauguration of the New Parliament House, the PM placed the historical and sacred Sengol in the Parliament House. A special 75 coin will be launched to commemorate the inauguration of the New Parliament building.

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The waters of West Cork, Ireland, offered more than just a tranquil kayaking trip for two friends, Louise Barker and Becky Hatchett. Their leisurely paddle soon became a once-in-a-lifetime experience when a curious basking shark decided to gently bump their double kayak.

Barker caught the surprise meeting on video, sharing it on Twitter with the caption: "Had a little bump from a curious basking shark off the west Cork coast yesterday. What a stunning creature."

In the footage, you can really hear the fear in Barker's voice as the shark quickly approaches their kayak. Despite the initial shock, Barker was quick to appreciate the magnificence of the creature. She described the experience as "pretty surreal,"'" admiring the gentle giant that had graced them with its unexpected presence. (Digg)

Independent.ie:

Ms Barker, a publicist and music manager, told PA news agency: "It was a pretty surreal experience having this curious guy pop up next to us. Such a gentle giant.
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for police action against the protesting wrestlers at Delhi's Jantar Mantar, saying the arrogant king is crushing the voice of the public. Some of India's top wrestlers were detained by the Delhi Police as they intensified their protest demanding the arrest of their federation chief over sexual harassment allegations. Security personnel detain wrestler Sakshi Malik during wrestlers' protest march towards new Parliament building, in New Delhi, Sunday, May 28, 2023.(PTI)

The videos and images of police personnel overpowering the protesters and pushing into buses to take them to different unknown locations drew condemnation from opposition leaders.

Posting a video juxtaposing the wrestlers' moment of glory during the Olympics with the police action on Sunday, Rahul Gandhi said in Hindi, The coronation is over - the 'arrogant king' is crushing the voice of the public on the streets!

While the Congress leader didn't take any name, he, in an earlier tweet, had used the word coronation to take a swipe at Prime Minister Modi. Gandhi said Parliament is the voice of the people but the prime minister is treating the inauguration of the new building like a "coronation".

"Parliament is the voice of the people! The prime minister is treating the inauguration of the Parliament House as (a) coronation," Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi soon after Modi inaugurated the building.

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke Gods to bless the inauguration of the new Parliament building. Modi prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various Adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand.

Congress media and publicity department head Pawan Khera said, When they celebrated the sceptre yesterday, we should have known they were celebrating the beginning of protest-mukt-democracy.

The Left parties also hit out at Prime Minister Modi, comparing the inauguration of the new parliament building by him with the coronation of a monarch and relegating the people of the country to subjects ('praja').

In a series of tweets, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury alleged that the inauguration ceremony was held amid "loud propaganda" with the declaration of a "new India".

"This declaration of a 'New India' comes in the absence of the President of India, Vice President of India and opposition parties! India = Nation and Citizen; New India = Raja and Praja."

"Sengol belongs to the period of feudal monarchies, emperors and kings. Indian people overthrew such bondages and ushered in a secular democratic republic where every citizen is equal. Sngol has no role in a democracy where people elect the government," he tweeted.

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Key Opposition meet likely on June 12 in Patna: CM Nitish Kumar The opposition parties meeting would likely be held in Bihars capital Patna on June 12, chief minister Nitish Kumar said on Sunday. Read more Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi (PTI)

Ambati Rayudu announces IPL retirement, confirms final vs GT to be his last game in tournament: 'No U-turn'

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Twinkle Khanna shares glimpses of trip with daughter Nitara: Mothers are far from perfect, but most of us try

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The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) on Sunday issued notice to Delhi Police seeking the arrest of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in connection with the sexual harassment case and the immediate release of wrestlers who were detained from the protest site earlier today. The police dragged away and detained the protesting wrestlers as they tried to march to the new Parliament House demanding the arrest of Singh, a BJP MP, over allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation. Police personnel drag wrestler Sangeeta Phogat to detain her during the protest march from Jantar Mantar to New Parliament House.(ANI)

The Delhi Police has filed two FIRs against Singh, one of which relates to allegations by the minor wrestler and has been registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, while the other is related to outraging modesty of adult women wrestlers.

In a letter to Commissioner of Police Sanjay Arora, DCW chief Swati Maliwal said she was deeply pained by the manhandling and detention of female wrestlers and their families protesting at Jantar Mantar.

She noted that the Delhi Police has failed to arrest the lawmaker despite a minor girl alleging sexual harassment.

In Delhi, every day around 6 cases of sexual assault are reported and in each case, Delhi Police attempts to arrest the accused person. Then why has Brij Bhushan Singh not been arrested till date? If this is not blatant injustice, what is? Maliwal asked rhetorically.

This apparent partisan attitude of Delhi Police which is being seen as siding with the accused parliamentarian has made a mockery of justice and forced the women wrestlers to sit and sleep on the streets of Delhi, she said.

Referring to the viral videos and images of police action against the aggrieved grapplers, Maliwal said the manner in which these women champions are being dragged on the streets by Delhi Police is extremely unbecoming of the force.

Reminding Arora of the laurels these female wrestlers have earned for the nation on multiple national and international fora. including the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics, the DCW chief wrote, By denying them justice and forcefully detaining them for raising their voice against sexual harassment, Delhi Police is demoralising the women and girls of this country against reporting cases of sexual harassment and fighting for justice.

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Director of Income Tax (investigation) Sivasankaran said on Sunday that the attack on the departments officials during raids related to Tamil Nadu minister Senthil Balaji was a deliberate act by his supporters. Sivasankaran informed reporters in Karur that an FIR had been filed, and eight individuals were arrested in connection with the incident. Director of Income Tax Sivasankaran said the attack on the officials during raids related to Senthil Balaji was a deliberate act. (PTI)

We have filed an FIR, and we have been told that eight people have been arrested, Sivasankaran said.

Sivasankaran further said that four income tax officials, including a female officer who suffered a fracture, were discharged from Karur government hospital on Sunday after receiving treatment.

We have told the police to take action against those who assaulted and those who have tampered with the evidence, said Sivasankaran.

We will be filing more cases. If they file a counter FIR, we will not be scared.

The raids against minister Senthil Balaji have been ongoing for three consecutive days, with searches taking place in Chennai, Coimbatore, and Karur districts.

The income tax department officials faced opposition and violence during coordinated searches in locations linked to the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) minister. A car was also vandalized during the incident. Balajis supporters gathered in large numbers in Karur and raised slogans against the BJP-led Union government when officials arrived to search his brother V Ashoks house.

Karur superintendent of police, E Sundaravathaman, stated at the time that the income tax officials did not inform the local police in advance, as per procedure, which resulted in the lack of security deployment.

These raids come after the Supreme Court permitted the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to continue their investigation into Balaji regarding the cash-for-jobs scam, where he is accused of accepting bribes during his tenure as transport minister in the previous AIADMK government from 2011 to 2015.

On the attack, DMKs organising secretary R S Bharathi said that the BJP is using the wings of IT, ED and CBI against opposition parties.

He added since the Karur SP has said that the I-T department did not inform them of the raids, it raises doubt if it was deliberate to create a law and order problem to show that their officials were attacked.
Guwahati/Kolkata: At least five people, including a policeman, were killed and 12 injured after fresh violence erupted in Manipur, where instances of firing on civilians, militant groups and security forces were reported from various places, particularly in the Imphal valley, government officials said on Sunday. Indian Army jawans repaired the Wainem Bridge after unidentified miscreants damaged and dislocated its three panels. (ANI)

The development came on a day when the Manipur government led by chief minister N Biren Singh said that at least 40 Kuki armed militants have been killed by security forces in the last four days during a coordinated operation.

Since May 3, Manipur has been in the grip of ethnic clashes that broke out following the tribal solidarity march organised in the hill districts to protest against the Meitei communitys demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status. At least 79 people have been killed in the clashes so far.

A senior government official told HT over the phone that in some of the fresh clashes, militant groups  branded terrorists by the state government  were carrying automatic assault rifles, making the situation in the northeastern state even more precarious.

According to officials, one person died and another sustained bullet injury after suspected Kuki militants opened fire at Phayeng in Imphal West district. One police officer was killed and another injured at Sugnu in Kakching district, officials said, adding that six civilians were also injured in the violence.

Details of other casualties in the fresh clashes in the northeastern are being ascertained, officials said.

On Sunday morning, a mob allegedly torched houses of Kuki community members in five villages at Sugnu in Kakching district. There were reports that army personnel were stopped by local residents from entering the affected villages at the time of violence, a senior official said, requesting anonymity.

Read: Amid clashes, mob storms minister R K Ranjan's residence in Manipur

In another incident, the house of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Kh Raghumani Singh was vandalised by a mob, allegedly comprising of members of the Meitei community, at Uripok in Imphal West district. Two people were injured and the police had to lob tear gas shells to disperse the crowd, a local resident said, also declining to be named.

Following the fresh violence, curfew hours in both Imphal West and Imphal East districts, which were earlier relaxed for the day from 5am to 4pm, were shortened to 11.30am. In Bishnupur, relaxation in curfew from 5am to 2pm was shortened to 12pm on Sunday, officials said.

Another senior official said that clashes broke out in the early hours of Sunday between rival ethnic militant groups as well as between militants and security forces at several places.

According to our information, firing has been reported from Sugnu in Kakching, Kangvi in Churachandpur, Kangchup in Imphal West, Sagolmang in Imphal East, Nungoipokpi in Bishenpur, Khurkhul in Imphal West and YKPI in Kangpokpi, the official added.

Read: Army chief in Manipur meets governor, reviews security arrangement

At Napat, Serou and nearby Sugnu in Kakching district, militants burnt down around 80 houses of Meitei community prompting villagers to flee in the wee hours on Sunday. Police personnel deployed in the area retaliated, leading to heavy exchange of fire, a police officer said.

Armed militants came down to Yaingangpokpi in Imphal East district, and torched two houses and fired upon villagers. At Sekmai, on the northern side of Manipur valley in Imphal West district, militants attacked some villages leading to an exchange of fire. In Bishnupur district, armed Kuki militants attacked Phougakchao Ikhai, Torbung and Kangvai areas on Saturday night, torching at least 30 houses belonging to Meitei community.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Utpal Parashar Utpal is a Senior Assistant Editor based in Guwahati. He covers seven states of North-East India and heads the editorial team for the region. He was previously based in Kathmandu, Dehradun and Delhi with Hindustan Times. ...view detail

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tanmay Chatterjee Tanmay Chatterjee has spent more than three decades covering regional and national politics, internal security, intelligence, defence and corruption. He also plans and edits special features on subjects ranging from elections to festivals. ...view detail
Prime Minister Narendra Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' from Tamil Nadu in the Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, in the new Parliament building after performing puja on Sunday morning. Modi was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by high priests of various adheenams or maths in Tamil Nadu before its instalment in the new building. Modi took a decision to adopt Sengol as a national symbol of the Amrit Kaal. Sengol being installed in new Parliament building by PM Narendra Modi in the presence of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.(ANI)

This is the same Sengol that was accepted by India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at his residence on the night of August 14, in the presence of several leaders.

Dressed in a traditional attire, Modi walked into the Parliament premises from its Gate No. 1 and was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke Gods to bless the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

The prime minister prostrated before the "Sengol" and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand.

Modi then carried the "Sengol" in a procession amid tunes of "nadaswaram" and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha chamber.

Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S Jaishankar and Jitendra Singh, chief ministers of several states and BJP president JP Nadda was present on the occasion.

The prime minister felicitated some workers who played key roles in the construction of the new Parliament building.

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The worlds largest democracy moved to a new home on Sunday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi threw open the doors of a sprawling new Parliament with state-of-the-art facilities and increased seating for lawmakers, marking a historic day in independent Indias legislative history. Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks after the inauguration of the new Parliament building in New Delhi on Sunday. (AP)

Multi-faith prayers, a homam or holy ritual, and the installation of a ceremonial sceptre, or Sengol, comprised the hours-long ceremony that ended in the afternoon with an address by the Prime Minister to all members of Parliament.

There are few moments in every nations history that are immortalised. Some dates are like immortal signatures on the face of time and 28th of May, 2023 is one such day. The people of India have given themselves a gift for the Amrit Mahotsav, Modi said in the newly inaugurated Lok Sabha.

The ceremony, however, was boycotted by 22 Opposition parties that had demanded the inauguration be done by the President as the ceremonial head of Parliament, rather than by the Prime Minister.

The new 64,500 sq metre, four-storey complex, built at a cost of 971 crore, takes over from the iconic circular building that was inaugurated in 1927 to function as the legislature of a British India, before housing independent Indias first lawmakers. But in recent years, the colonial-era structure showed signs of wear, and space was increasingly cramped, even for important legislative business.

The grandiose new building  housing a Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, a library and a Constitution Hall apart from offices  will give fresh energy and strength to the worlds largest democracy, the PM said.

This new Parliament building connects planning to reality, policy to creation, willpower to execution, and resolution to realisation... This will be a medium for realising the dreams of the freedom fighters and will witness the sunrise of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) and see the realisation of a Viksit Bharat (developed India), Modi added in his 35-minute-long address.

The ceremony began around 7.30am with prayers and rituals. Dressed in a cream kurta and dhoti with a golden border, Modi received blessings from priests flown in from Tamil Nadu who performed an elaborate ceremony to bless the Sengol before it was placed in the Lok Sabha amid vedic chants.

The Sengol, the signifier of governance in Tamil kingdoms of yore, was made by Madras (now Chennai) jewellers Vummidi Bangaru Chetty. It was then displayed in a Prayagraj museum. Made of silver and gold, the sceptre stirred a controversy last week after the government argued that it was handed over to Jawaharlal Nehru on August 14, 1947 as a symbol of transfer of power, and the Opposition said there was no documented proof of its symbolism.

The building  with a seating capacity of 888 in the Lok Sabha Chamber, with an option to increase it to 1,272 during joint sessions, and 384 for the Rajya Sabha  heralds the next chapter in Indias democratic journey, though the week running up to its opening was shrouded in political controversy. The new Parliaments first test will likely be hosting the next monsoon session, when frosty ties between the government and the Opposition might derail proceedings. The structure has been built to accommodate a planned expansion in electoral representation at the national level later this decade.

In a hall packed with lawmakers, chief ministers, senior party leaders, diplomats, judges and special invitees, the PM dubbed the building an illustration of the coexistence of the ancient and the modern. He urged lawmakers to set new standards and made a pointed reference to the impact that legislative business conducted over the next 25 years will have on the lives of the poor, the marginalised and the disadvantaged.

Each one of us was facing difficulties in the Parliaments old building while performing our duties. There were problems related to technology, and seating arrangements and these things were being deliberated upon for the last 2-3 decades that the country is in need of a new Parliament House, he added.

Modi felicitated 11 workers for their contributions towards the construction of the new building. He also unveiled a special commemorative stamp and a coin to mark the inauguration.

The deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Harivansh, read out messages from the President and the vice-president.

President Droupadi Murmu called the building a living example of Indias commitment to democracy. The architects of our Constitution had imagined a nation that would be founded on the legislative wisdom of the democratically elected members. So, I am delighted that the PM, who is the symbol of Parliaments trust, is inaugurating this building, Murmu said in a message written in Hindi.

In his message, also read out by Harivansh, vice president Jagdeep Dhankhar said the new building symbolised the resolve to liberate oneself from a colonial mindset.

Read: In new Parliament, PM Modi releases special stamp, 75 coin: Details here

The Opposition criticised the event, echoing its earlier argument that President Murmu, not PM Modi, should have presided over the event. It also drew links between the grand ceremony inside Parliament and the scenes of chaos that unfolded some distance away in Jantar Mantar as the police moved to block a planned protest by some of Indias top wrestlers against sexual harassment and intimidation, allegedly by Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.

The right to inaugurate the new Parliament was snatched from the President. Women players were beaten up on the streets with dictatorial force, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said in Hindi. Remember Modi ji, democracy does not run from the buildings but functions through the voice of the public, he added.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday met ailing AAP leader Satyendar Jain in Lok Nayak Hospital where the latter is undergoing treatment. Kejriwal hugged Jain and inquired about his health and well-being at the hospital, the Aam Aadmi Party said. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal meets former minister Satyendar Jain.(@AAP / Twitter)

Jain, who had been in Tihar Jail since his arrest by the ED in May last year in connection with a money laundering case, was admitted to the hospital on Thursday last after he collapsed in prison due to dizziness. He was first admitted to the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital, and later, shifted to Lok Nayak Hospital due to breathing problems.

The former Delhi minister was on Friday last granted six-week interim bail by the Supreme Court on medical grounds. He had suffered a blood clot due to a head injury, though his condition is stable, news agencies reported quoting people aware of the matter.

Sharing some photographs on Twitter from the visit, Kejriwal said Met the brave man..the hero..

A four-member medical board has been constituted for the treatment of Jain. The board members include senior physicians from LNJP Hospital, and neurologists from GB Pant Hospital, besides specialists in critical care, reported PTI.

Satyendar Jain was arrested on May 30, 2022, under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by Enforcement Directorate and is presently in Judicial Custody in the case. The ED case is based on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) complaint registered on the allegation that Satyender Jain had acquired movable properties in the name of various persons from February 14, 2015, to May 31, 2017, which he could not satisfactorily account for.

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Senior Congress leader and MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor on Sunday waded into the controversy surrounding the historic Sengol. Mentioning that the sceptre reflects a continuity of tradition, and that both sides are reconcilable if one simply drops the debateable red herring about the sceptre having been handed to Nehru, Tharoor said, My own view on the #sengol controversy is that both sides have good arguments." Congress MP Shashi Tharoor(PTI)

The government rightly argues that the sceptre reflects a continuity of tradition by embodying sanctified sovereignty & the rule of dharma. The Opposition rightly argues that the Constitution was adopted in the name of the people & that sovereignty abides in the people of India as represented in their Parliament, and is not a kingly privilege handed down by divine right, he said.

The two positions are reconcilable if one simply drops the debateable red herring about the sceptre having been handed to Nehru by Mountbatten to symbolise the transfer of power, a story for which there is no proof, Tharoor added.

He went on to say, we should simply say that the sengol sceptre is a traditional symbol of power & authority, and by placing it in the Lok Sabha, India is affirming that sovereignty resides there & not with any monarch. Let us embrace this symbol from the past to affirm the values of our present".

The ruling BJP had earlier raised the argument that the "Sengol" was handed over to India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru by Mountbatten to mark the transfer of power from British to Indians. However, Congress denied this argument and claimed that the sceptre was presented to Nehru by a religious institution in then Madras.
Star Indian wrestler Bajrang Punia on Sunday warned against posting a morphed photograph of fellow protesting grapplers Vinesh Phogat and Sangeeta Phogat that shows them smiling while detained by the police. Hitting out at IT cell for spreading the morphed picture, Punia threatened to file a complaint against those found posting the photograph on social media. A viral image of protesting wrestlers.(Twitter)

Several wrestlers and their supporters were detained by Delhi Police today as they tried to march towards the new Parliament building demanding the arrest of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for allegedly sexually harassing women grapplers, including a minor. The wrestlers had called for a women 'Mahapanchayat' on Sunday for which they did not have permission.

The police personnel dragged the protesters away and pushed them into buses to take them to unknown locations.

Amid criticism of the Delhi Police, which is under the control of the Union home ministry, a photograph of smiling Phogat sisters inside a bus started doing rounds on social media, with users alluding that they were not serious about their protest.

Bajrang posted two photos  one morphed and the other real  on Twitter. In the original photograph, the Phogat sisters and other detained wrestlers are wearing serious expressions while smiling in the altered photograph.

"IT cell people are spreading this fake picture. We make it clear that a complaint will be filed against whoever posts this fake picture," Bajrang Punia tweeted.

While women detainees were released later in the evening, opposition parties slammed the central government over the alleged "manhandling" of wrestlers. Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said that the "arrogant king is crushing the voice of the people" on the streets as the "coronation" is over and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said it is "shameful our champions are treated in this manner".

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In conservative, purple-ish Arizona, Kevin Payne, a Republican House member from Peoria, a suburb northeast of Phoenix, proposed in House Bill 2486 that the 48th State be the first to approve natural psilocybin for medical research.

If passed by the Legislature and signed by recently elected Democratic Governor, Katie Hobbs, the bill would allocate 30 million dollars in competitive grants to support whole magic mushroom research for health purposes. Already decriminalized in Colorado, in Oregon people are organizing to ensure therapeutic care with psilocybin is safe and regulated, yet the FDA has not yet approve research with whole mushrooms. This bill could be the spore that opens the doors for enhanced research.

As Tory Gantz and the Arizona State Press reported, House Bill 2486 "would create a five-person psilocybin research advisory council within the Arizona Health Services Department to outline clinical trial criteria and oversee the grant application process. The council would recommend policy to the governor and legislative leadership about psychedelic-assisted therapy annually."

In February 2023, the fifteen-member House Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee unanimously approved the bill. In addition to treating addiction, depression, anxiety and PTSD, psilocybin may prove beneficial to patients suffering from Long-Covid. Several recent research studies reveal worrisome and hopeful data concerning Long-Covid diagnosis and solutions.

Dr. Sue Sisley is one of the researchers supportive of the bill. As reported by Jamie Ducharme in Time, "Dr. Sue Sisley, who researches psilocybin at Scottsdale Research Institute in Phoenix and also works in a community Long COVID clinic, became interested in using psychedelics as Long COVID remedies after patients told her they were trying them on their own and seeing improvements in their energy, cognitive function, and memory. "I was initially skeptical," Sisley says. But "none of the medications I was [prescribing] for them were helping substantially," so she thought it was worth exploring something that apparently was.'

Clarifying that the FDA has only approved synthetic psilocybin research, Forbesreported, "The public may not realize that early FDA-approved studies showing psilocybin looks promising as a medicine are only looking at synthetic psilocybin molecule," Sisely told Marijuana Moment on February 16. "That's not a real world evaluation. We want to understand the risks/benefits of whole complex mushroomsthe stuff actually being consumed daily by patients around the globe," she added. "Arizona is poised to be the first state to sponsor controlled trials of whole natural mushrooms!"

Sisley practices Internal Medicine & Psychiatry in Scottsdale, Arizona. In 2017, she was named "25 People Shaping the Future in Tech, Science, Medicine, Activism and More" by Rolling Stone, in the same issue as the "Techno King of Tesla," Kamala Harris, and Chido Govera.

You can check out the local FOX News Phoenix story on HB2486 here.
A light and laser show was organised on Sunday evening at the new Parliament building after the inauguration ceremony led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The laser show video, shared by news agency ANI, showed the illuminated parliament complex. Light and laser show at the new Parliament buidling on Sunday evening.(ANI)

The new Parliament building - Naya Sansad Bhawan - was inaugurated on Sunday morning by PM Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. They performed a havan (a ritual) for the occasion.

A historical sceptre called 'Sengol' was installed in the Lok Sabha chamber, placed next to the Speaker's chair. It was handed over to Modi by high priests from various adheenams or mutts in Tamil Nadu before being installed in the new building. This same Sengol was accepted by India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, at his residence on the night of August 14, as a symbol of transfer of power.

Modi also delivered his first address in the new Parliament complex during the inaugural session held inside the Lok Sabha chamber. Besides the ruling BJP, around 25 other political parties participated in the inauguration ceremony.

However, nearly 20 opposition parties announced their boycott of the event and issued a joint statement, expressing their objection to the Prime Minister inaugurating the Parliament building instead of the President. They referred to the ceremony as an "assault on democracy."

A quick look at the features of new Parliament building

The new Parliament building constructed under the Central Vista Redevelopment Project has been built at a cost of  971 crore, according to the project's website.

971 crore, according to the project's website. The new complex features a triangular shape, designed to ensure optimal space utilization the government data said.

One notable addition is the state-of-the-art Constitutional Hall which aims to puts the citizens at the heart of the democracy.

The office spaces within the building have been designed in an ultra-modern style, equipped with latest communication technologies, and ensures security and efficiency.

The Lok Sabha in the new complex will have 888 seats, while the Rajya Sabha will accommodate 348 seats. The new floor plan allows for 1,272 seats in the Lok Sabha chamber for joint sessions.

With emphasis on energy efficiency, the new complex has been designed to be a platinum-rated green building, demonstrating India's commitment to sustainable development.

The new Parliament complex is also divyang-friendly. Additionally, it includes a central lounge area that complements the open courtyard, providing a space for members to interact.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lingamgunta Nirmitha Rao Trainee Content Producer at Hindustan Times Digital Stream. India's regional languages attract me. ...view detail
New Parliament building inauguration highlights: India is the mother of democracy. It is also the foundation of global democracy. Democracy is our 'Sanskaar', idea & tradition, PM Modi said in his first address from India's new Parliament building today in a ceremony which began with an early morning havan and multi-faith prayer ceremony.

Read more: Final nail in coffin: BJP fumes as RJD's tweet over new Parliament building sparks row

Earlier, PM Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. He was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by Adheenams before it was installed by the prime minister in the new Parliament building.

The ceremony began with traditional prayers and Vedic rituals which continued an hour. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla was also present with along with PM Modi during the pooja.
India will get a new Parliament address on Sunday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to inaugurate the new building with a grand ceremony. Beginning with a havan at around 7 am followed by multi-religious prayers, the day-long event is expected to see the presence of several ministers, 25 political parties (including 18 members of the ruling National Democratic Alliance), spiritual leaders and other eminent personalities. The new parliament building illuminated in tri-color ahead of its inauguration ceremony, in New Delhi.(ANI)

The formal inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building is scheduled to start at around noon.

Where to livestream the ceremony?

People can tune in to Doordarshan (DD) channel and as well as its official YouTube page to watch the live proceedings. All major news television channels will also be livestreaming the programme.

Sharing a sneak peek of the state-of-the-art building, PM Modi on Friday wrote, The new Parliament building will make every Indian proud. This video offers a glimpse of this iconic building. He also requested people to share the video with their own voiceover.

Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan on Saturday responded to the PMs request and shared the video with his own voiceover. Hailing the inauguration of the new parliament complex, he called it a magnificent new home for the people who uphold our constitution.

The foundation for the new building was laid by the PM in December 2020. Reportedly built in record time, the new Lok Sabha can accommodate 888 members as against the current capacity of 543. The new Rajya Sabha building can now house 300 members. The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are based on Indias national bird (peacock) and national flower (lotus) respectively.

The 971 crore complex will also have a Constitution Hall to portray India's democratic heritage, a lounge for members of Parliament, a library, several committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space.

The inauguration has been embroiled in multiple controversies over the symbolism of Sengol and the boycott of the function by twenty opposition parties, including the Congress, Left, and AAP.

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Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday defended the opposition parties' boycott of the new parliament building inauguration, saying that there will be trouble for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the coming times.



The 20 parties that hold importance in democracy had to boycott (new Parliament inauguration) under compulsion. So from this, you can understand what message would have been sent to the country and the world. People will not accept this. There will be trouble for the party (BJP) & PM in the coming times, the chief minister told reporters in Nagaur.



Congress is among the 20 political parties which opposed the inauguration of the new parliament building. The opposition parties had opposed the decision to have PM Modi preside over the inauguration and not President Droupadi Murmu.



Parliament is the voice of the people! The Prime Minister is considering the inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation", senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had tweeted.



A self-glorifying authoritarian Prime Minister with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the New Parliament building in 2023. 5. Fabrication of facts by Distorians and the drum-beating of the media hits new lows in 2023", Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh had tweeted.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the new parliament complex in the capital amid Vedic rituals and multi-faith prayer ceremony. He installed the sacret Sengol from Tamil Nadu in the Lok Sabha chamber, next to the Speaker's chair, in the new building.



ALSO READ: PM Modi's Colonial mindset', self-reliant India message from new Parliament



The new Parliament isn't just a building, it is the symbol of the aspiration of the 140 crore people of India. It gives a message to the world about India's determination", the prime minister said.

Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot said 20 parties that hold importance in democracy had to boycott new parliament inauguration under compulsion.(HT file)
External affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Sunday hailed the inauguration of the new Parliament complex, calling it a privilege to witness a moment of history. New Parliament Building inaugurated by PM Modi on Sunday (Twitter Photo)

A privilege to witness a moment of history-the inauguration of Indias new Parliament by PM @narendramodi. This is a statement of #Atmanirbharbharat, of our traditions and achievements as much as of our aspirations. Our democratic heritage, practices and values are a key aspect of our foreign policy. Confident that this new Parliament will be a vibrant forum for greater international exchanges, the minister tweeted.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the new parliament building which also hosts the historic Sengol. The first phase of the inauguration took place with Vedic rituals and sarva dharma prarthana (multi-faith prayer) ceremony.



In the second phase of the inauguration, the prime minister arrived at the new parliament complex. Addressing the MPs and ministers present in the new House, Modi termed the new building a symbol of the aspiration of the 140 crore people of India. The new Parliament building will be a testament to the dawn of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India). It will be a witness to our journey towards a Viksit Bharat (developed India)", he said.



The event was attended by former president Ram Nath Kovind, union ministers, chief ministers YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Eknath Shinde, Yogi Adityanath and Neiphiu Rio, foreign envoys, MPs and people from all walks of life.

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Opposition parties on Sunday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for inaugurating the new Parliament building, and accused him of snatching the right from the President. The new Parliament building was inaugurated on Sunday. (AFP)

The Congress was among 22 parties that boycotted the grand opening of the new Parliament, arguing that President Droupadi Murmu should have presided over the inauguration, not PM Modi. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) called the boycott a blatant affront to democratic ethos and constitutional values of our great nation.

A total of 25 parties, including the ruling BJP, the Biju Janata Dal, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Janata Dal (Secular) and YSR Congress Party, attended the inaugural event, while 22 parties, including the Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Aam Aadmi Party, Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Samajwadi Party, stayed away.

Read: Self-glorifying authoritarian PM inaugurated new Parliament building: Congress

Hours after the inauguration, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge tweeted in Hindi: The right to inaugurate the new Parliament was snatched from the President. Women athletes were beaten up on the streets with dictatorial force... The three lies of BJP-RSS rulers now stand exposed before the country - Democracy, Nationalism and Save Daughter.

Remember Modi ji, democracy is not just about buildings but functions with the voice of the public, he added, referring to the police action against the wrestlers protesting outside Jantar Mantar.

The BJP, however, said the event will be written in golden words and asked the Opposition not to do politics over it.

The inauguration of the new Parliament will be written in golden words in history. This will represent the constitutional principles of the country forever, Union minister for tribal affairs Arjun Munda said.

They (Opposition) should ask themselves what they did for the tribals in 75 years. When BJP made Droupadi Murmu the President, they came together to defeat her. Now they are talking about the President? The Opposition should not do politics over the inauguration, he added.

Speaking to reporters in Pune, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar said he was happy that he was not a part of the inauguration. I saw the event in the morning. I am happy I did not go there. I am worried after seeing whatever happened there. Are we taking the country backwards? Was this event for limited people only? he asked, referring to the various rituals performed at the inaugural ceremony.

He added that whatever happened at the ceremony is the exact reverse of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehrus concept of society. What is happening there is exactly the reverse of Pandit Nehrus concept to make a society based on modern science. Its the governments responsibility to invite the President and Vice-President. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla was present, but Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar, the head of Rajya Sabha, wasnt there. Therefore, the whole event looks like it was for limited people.., he said.

Taking to Twitter, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the event was being presented as a coronation ceremony. Parliament is the voice of the people! The Prime Minister is considering the inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation, he said. Party general secretary Jairam Ramesh also tweeted: A self-glorifying authoritarian Prime Minister with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the New Parliament building in 2023. Fabrication of facts by Distorians and the drum-beating of the media hits new lows in 2023.

TMC leader Derek OBrien also targeted Modi, saying: Now that PM Modi is done with his I Only Love Myself Day, let us remind him of how he and his government have mocked and insulted Parliament in the last nine years.

Read: How religious leaders reacted as PM Modi inaugurated new Parliament building

He added: The number of Ordinances promulgated by the Modi government has more than doubled compared to earlier. Eight sessions of Parliament have been adjourned before the scheduled date. It has been four years, but there is still no deputy speaker in the Lok Sabha.

In a series of tweets, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury alleged that the inaugural ceremony was held amid loud propaganda with the declaration of a new India.

Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin said the Sengol installed in the new Parliament building has bent the very first day, as he reacted sharply to the polices detention of protesting wrestlers at Jantar Mantar. Police detaining them (wrestlers) after dragging them is condemnable. This shows the Sengol has bent the very first day. Is it fair that such atrocity should also happen on a day of (new Parliament building) inauguration that sidestepped the President and amid opposition boycott, he tweeted.

Hitting back at the Opposition parties that boycotted the event, BJP leader Ramesh Bidhuri said: There is no controversy, the Opposition just opposes the PM in every decision. PM Modi has done all this for the country.

The BSP, which was among the 25 parties that attended the event, congratulated the Centre. Congratulations to the Centre... It would be appropriate that this new building should be used in the interest of the country and its people as per the humanitarian thoughts of Babasaheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and the noble intention of the holy Constitution made by him, party chief Mayawati tweeted in Hindi.
PATNA: The much-awaited meeting of opposition parties to chalk out a plan to project a unified fight against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections will be held in Patna tentatively on June 12, people familiar with the development said on Sunday. Nitish Kumar has been negotiating with different political parties ever since he severed ties with the BJP in August last year

An information to this effect was given by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar while addressing a meeting of Janata Dal (United) office-bearers at the party office in Patna on Sunday.

He said in the meeting that opposition unity meeting of all like-minded parties will be held in June, tentatively around June 12, and we have to gear up to present a united front, a JD(U) functionary told HT, requesting anonymity.

The meeting, in all likelihood, will be held at Gyan Bhawan in the Bihars capital city, the functionary said.

Kumar, however, did not interact with media.

The decision on the date of meeting comes close on the heels of 22 Opposition parties, including the Congress and Kumars JD(U), boycotting the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday. The opposition parties have accused the prime minister of ignoring President Droupadi Murmu, saying as the first citizen of the country, she should have rightfully led the inauguration ceremony.

Nitish Kumar has been negotiating with different political parties ever since he severed ties with the BJP in August last year and formed the grand alliance government in Bihar with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress and smaller partners, including the Communist parties.

The grand alliance leaders familiar with development said more than 18 like-minded Opposition parties will attend the Patna meeting. It is going to be preparatory meeting and the main meeting would be held later, one of the GA leaders said.

The idea to hold the meeting in Patna was mooted by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee during her meeting with Kumar in April. Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo, had invoked the Total Revolution movement led by socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan against the Congress government in 1970s.

I have made just one request to Nitish Kumar. Jayaprakash jis movement started from Bihar. If we hold an all-party meeting in Bihar, we can then decide where we have to go next. We have to give a message that we are all united..., she had said.

Read: Opposition sets sights on joint front for 2024 after Congresss poll win

Last week, after the swearing-in ceremony of the newly elected Congress government in Karnataka, Kumar held fresh talks with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party leader Rahul Gandhi. He also met Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Earlier this month, the Bihar chief minister had also met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai to take them in confidence in his initiative to get all opposition parties on board to project a unified fight against the BJP in the next years general elections.

Mamata Banerjee has already accepted the One-On-One strategy pitched by Kumar and the JD(U) has already recognised nearly 475 seats where united opposition can enter into direct fight with the BJP.

The BJP, however, claimed that the Bihar chief minister was daydreaming about the prime ministerial post.

Read: Sharad Pawar's response on PM race as Nitish, Kharge meet over Oppn unity

CM Nitish Kumar is a desperate man now and he deliberately wants to present himself as a consensus candidate of united opposition Not even a single person has said that Nitish is the PM candidate. He is a self-obsessed and self-proclaimed daydreamer of PM post, Bihar BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand said.

Nitish Kumar is now inviting the political frogs from all over the country to weigh all together on a balancing scale. Most of these political parties are fused bulb and either involved in family business of politics or running a pocket political organisation like a shop, he added.

Anand also attacked the opposition parties for boycotting the inauguration of the new parliament building.

All these parties have lost moral ground to talk about democracy because these very people have abused the democratic constitution, the cultural heritage and new Parliament of India, he said.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday felicitated 11 workers who were involved in the construction and development of the new Parliament building, gifting them traditional shawls and mementos, hours after the inauguration of the new complex on Sunday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi felicitates workers in New Delhi on Sunday. (PIB)

The Prime Minister also interacted with the workers, who for nearly three years built the sprawling complex, spread over 64,500 square metres.

After the inauguration, Modi tweeted, Today, as we inaugurate the new building of our Parliament, we honour the shramiks (workers) for their tireless dedication and craftsmanship.

Read: 'Sengol' installation to PM Modi's address: Highlights of new parliament launch

In his remarks during the inauguration of the new building, the prime minister said that the construction of the sprawling complex provided employment to 60,000 workers, and added that a digital gallery dedicated to them has also been built in the complex.

Thousands of workers were involved in the mammoth exercise, which began in December 2020, as part of the Central Vista redevelopment plan.

One of the workers present at the event on Sunday was Satyaranjan Das from West Bengal, who used to arrange water and food for the workers at the construction site. Alongside him were Ajaz Ahmed who was a supervisor and Uranjan Dalai, who arranged tea and water for the workers.

The other workers the Prime Minister honoured include Devlal Sukhar from Vadodara and Anil Kumar Yadav from Bihar, both of whom placed sandstone on the outer wall of Parliament.

Read: PM Modi's dreams' and 'reality tweet as he inaugurates new Parliament building

Subrata Sutradhar installed the bamboo floors inside the complex, said people aware of the matter.

The others present on Saturday include Muzaffar Khan from Jharkhand, who ensured all the machines kept working during the construction; Dharmendra from Delhi who worked as a gas welder; and Anand Vishwakarma from Varanasi who worked on the ceilings of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha and installed chairs in the new complex.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday hailed Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar, saying his personality exuded strength and his fearless nature could not tolerate the mindset of slavery. Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (ANI)

Modi also said that stories related to Savarkars sacrifice and courage continue to inspire Indians till date.

Paying homage to Savarkar on his birth anniversary, during the 101st Mann Ki Baat broadcast, Modi said: Today, the 28th of May is the birth anniversary of the great freedom fighter, Veer Savarkar. The stories related to his sacrifice, courage and resolve inspire us all even today. I cannot forget the day when I went to the cell in Andaman where Veer Savarkar served the sentence of Kala paani.

He added: Veer Savarkars personality exuded strength and magnanimity. His fearless and self-respecting nature could not tolerate the mindset of slavery at all. Not only in the freedom movement, whatever Veer Savarkar did for social equality and social justice is remembered even today.

Read: Unprecedented, makes one emotional: PM Modi lauds response to Mann Ki Baat

Besides Savarkar, Modi paid homage to former united Andhra Pradesh chief minister N T Rama Rao, saying he left an indelible mark through the strength of his amazing talent in politics and the film industry.

Today, is the 100th birth anniversary of NTR. On the strength of his versatility of talent, he not only became the superstar of Telugu cinema, but also won the hearts of crores of people, he said.

Do you know that he acted in more than 300 films? He revived many historical characters on the basis of his acting. People liked NTRs acting in the roles of Bhagwan Krishna, Ram and many others, so much that they still remember him, he added

Modi also paid his tributes to Kabir, whose birth anniversary falls on June 4, and said the poet opposed every evil practice that divided people and tried to awaken the society.

During the broadcast, the Prime Minister dedicated the new Parliament building to the nation.

He also hailed the education ministrys Yuva Sangam initiative that seeks to build close ties between the youngsters of the North East region and other states under the idea of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat.

Read: Mann Ki Baat has transformed into an inspirational platform: Report

Indias strength lies in its diversity. There is a lot to see in our country. Keeping this in view, the ministry of education has taken an excellent initiative named Yuva Sangam, he said.

The objective of the initiative is to increase people to people connect as well as to give an opportunity to the youth of the country to mingle with each other. Higher educational institutions in various states have been linked to it, he added.

Modi said that around 1,200 youngsters toured 22 states of the country as part of the first round of Yuva Sangam initiative, which was launched in February. Everyone who has been a part of it is returning with such memories, which will remain etched in their hearts for the rest of their lives, he said.

The Prime Minister said that he spoke to two such participants  Gyamar Nyokum from Arunachal Pradesh and Vishakha Singh from Bihar  about their experiences with the initiative.

You should write a blog on your experiences in the Yuva Sangam, how you enrolled in it, how your experience in Rajasthan has been, so that the youth of the country know the significance and greatness of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat, which is what this scheme is all about... how youngsters can take advantage of it, you should write a blog full of your experiences... then it will be useful for many people to read, Modi told Nyokum.

A first year student of mechanical engineering, Nyokum expressed his gratitude to the Prime Minister for providing him with an opportunity to participate in the program.

Modi also encouraged Singh to share her experience of Yuva Sangam and Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat on social media regarding the welcome and hospitality that she received in Tamil Nadu.

Singh, a second year student of computer engineering, highlighted some key moments of her visit, including her visit to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and meeting the governor.

The Prime Minister also lauded the response he received during the 100th episode of his radio programme last month.

Read: As Mann ki Baat turns 100, PM Modi's thank-you to million of Indians: Top quotes

He said the programme fostered unity among sanitation workers, veterans and citizens from diverse sectors.

The intimacy and affection that all of you have shown for Mann Ki Baat is unprecedented, it makes one emotional. When Mann Ki Baat was broadcast in different countries across the world, in various time zones, somewhere it was evening and somewhere it was late night... despite that, a large number of people took time out to listen to the 100th episode, he said.

I also saw that video from New Zealand, thousands of miles away, in which a 100-year-old is showering her motherly blessings. People have appreciated the fact that in Mann Ki Baat, only the achievements of the country and countrymen are discussed. I once again thank you all with all due respects for this blessing, he added.

(With agency inputs)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a commemorative postage stamp and a special 75 coin on the occasion of the inauguration of the new Parliament on Sunday. PM Modi releases  75 coin in Parliament(ANI)

The gazette notification issued by the department of economic affairs mentions that the weight of the coin would be around 34.65-35.35 grams. It will bear the image of the Lion Capital of the Ashoka Pillar in the centre, flanked by the word "Bharat" in Devanagari script and "INDIA" in English. It will also have the rupee symbol " " and denominational value "75" in international numerals inscribed below the Lion Capital.

The other side of the coin will also bear the image of the Parliament Complex and the year "2023" in international numerals.

Speaking about the inauguration of the Parliament, Modi tweeted, When India moves forward, the world moves forward This new building of the Parliament will call for the development of the world along with the development of India.

He said further, There was a need for new Parliament. We also have to see that the number of seats and MPs will increase in the coming time. That's why it was need of the hour that a new Parliament is made.

On the occasion, Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar expressed his belief that the structure will contribute to the establishment of political consensus.
Not in my name

You fight a war against terrorists and violence and try to wave your guns to

Fear us all into silence.

No.

You built your empire with natives and slaves like the truth won't

Resurrect waging ward from its grave."  From "September 12th."

Hip Hop artist, musician, producer, actor, and poet Saul Williams released the EP Not in My Nametwenty years ago, in May 2003, just a few short weeks after President George W. Bush Jr. announced an end to "major combat operations" that were part of the Shock and Awe military invasion of Iraq launched in March of that year. Featuring three tracks and remixes by DJ Goo and DJ Spooky, who also produced the record, the protest EP introduced the anthems: "The Pledge of Resistance"  performed live at Central Park, " September 12 th ," and the hauntingly prescient and patient "Bloodletting."

"Where is that voice from nowhere to remind us

that the holy ground we walk on, purified by native blood has rooted trees

whose fallen leaves now colour code a sacred list of demands?

from "Bloodletting."

The EP was a project of the anti-war protest collective Not in Our Name that included writers, musicians, actors, political activists, academics, a couple of national political figures, and other prominently personalities at the time.

"The Not In Our Name Pledge of Resistance was created collectively by artists and activists in April 2002 as a means of inspiring protest and resistance. It is at the heart of the Not In Our Name Project. The Pledge was not intended to be signed, rather, it is a tool to be used by individuals, organizations and communities to inspire and strengthen individual and group resistance."

In this 2003 interview with Satya Magazine, Williams shared his role and reasons for creating the EP

"I helped to write their Pledge of Resistance [along with Starhawk], and I've written some music for them. I have been speaking non-stop and working with them in saying, We don't condone the atrocities that are occurring by the American government in our name. Since we are tax-paying citizens, anything the American government does, they are basically doing in our names; and if we are not in agreement, then we have a right to stand up.



We don't want people killed in our names, and unfortunately that is exactly what is happening. Here I am, 100 percent against the warI'm not one of those people who is saying, Let's just get Saddam out without any warfareI'm not thinking about Saddam, to me Bush is a bigger threat, a bigger terrorist. Whatever Saddam has done, he's done to his people; Bush is aiming to impose terror on the world, on humanity itself. Countless Iraqis are dying at this very moment, as we speak, and I'm sitting at home, chilling. And not only civilians, but soldiers, I don't want the soldiers dead. If you really want to support our troops, don't send them to war, don't ask them to fight."

From "The Pledge."



We believe that as people living in the united states it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government in our names.

We pledge resistance.

We pledge alliance with those who have come under attack for voicing opposition to the war or for their religion or ethnicity.

We pledge to make common cause with the people of the world to bring about justice, freedom and peace. Another world is possible and we pledge to make it real."

In 2005, jazz bassist Charlie Haden and the Liberation Music Orchestra released the album "Not in Our Name," arranged and conducted by Carla Bey. You can listen to the title track here.

According to the Cost of War Project at Brown University, from 2001-2021, the War on Terror cost over $8 trillion, with 900,000 lives lost. "The research team's $8 trillion estimate accounts for all direct costs of the country's post-9/11 wars, including Department of Defense Overseas Contingency Operations funding; State Department war expenditures and counterterror war-related costs, including war-related increases to the Pentagon's base budget; care for veterans to date and in the future; Department of Homeland Security spending; and interest payments on borrowing for these wars. The total includes funds that the Biden administration requested in May 2021."
The overwhelming response and the intimacy shown by people for Mann Ki Baat are unprecedented and make one emotional, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday in the 101st episode of the radio programme hosted by him. Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (PTI)

Last month, the government celebrated the 100th episode of Mann Ki Baat, which brought people from all walks of life together.

The intimacy and affection that all of you have shown for Mann Ki Baat is unprecedented, it makes one emotional, the PM said.

When Mann Ki Baat was broadcast, in different countries of the world, in various time zones, somewhere it was evening and somewhere it was late night... despite that, a large number of people took time out to listen to the 100th episode. I also saw a video from New Zealand, thousands of miles away, in which a 100-year-old is expressing her motherly blessings. People from India and abroad have expressed their views on Mann Ki Baat. Many people have also offered constructive analysis. People have appreciated the fact that in Mann Ki Baat only the achievements of the country and the countrymen are discussed. I once again thank you all with all due respects for this blessing, he said.

Prime Minister Modi also expressed his gratitude to all the participants, both in India and abroad.

He said the Yuva Sangam initiative has furthered the vision of Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat (One India, Great India) by promoting unity among youth. The Yuva Sangam initiative, facilitated by the Ministry of Education, aims to increase people-to-people connect and foster cultural exchange among the youth. So far, around 1,200 young participants have toured 22 states.

He also had a conversation with two participants, Gyamar Nyokum from Arunachal Pradesh and Vishakha Singh from Bihar, who shared their experiences with the programme.

Gyamar Nyokum, a first-year Mechanical Engineering student at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Arunachal Pradesh, expressed his gratitude to the Government of India for providing him with the opportunity to participate in the Yuva Sangam. He spoke about enrolling through the programmes website and the enjoyable experience he had during his visit to Rajasthan.

Vishakha Singh, a second-year Computer Science Engineering student from Bihar, learned about the Yuva Sangam through her colleges WhatsApp group. Intrigued by the programmes objective of bringing together youth from different regions, she decided to participate. Vishakha expressed her pride in being a part of the programme and her appreciation for the cultural exchange it provided. She highlighted memorable moments, such as visiting the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and meeting the governor of Tamil Nadu during her visit.

Prime Minister Modi commended Gyamar and Vishakha for their participation and encouraged them to write blogs sharing their experiences.

PM Modi also mentioned his recent visit to Hiroshima, Japan, where he visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. He emphasised the importance of cherishing historical memories and the lessons they provide for future generations. He also highlighted various museums in India, such as Gurugrams Museo Camera, Tamil Nadus Museum of Possibilities, and Mumbais Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, that preserve and showcase different aspects of the countrys history.

He also mentioned the establishment of ten new museums dedicated to tribal contributions in the freedom struggle and the development of various memorials, including the Biplobi Bharat Gallery and the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial.
On Sunday, prime minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation through the 101st episode of Mann Ki Baat, his monthly radio programme, which is broadcast at 11am on the last Sunday of each month. Accordingly, its previous edition was aired on April 30, and was the historic 100th episode of the series.

Sunday's edition took place on a day when the inauguration of the new Parliament building took place.

Mann Ki Baat was first telecast on October 3, 2014.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday addressed the 101st episode of Mann Ki Baat, his monthly radio programme and paid tributes to Hindutva icon VD Savarkar on his birth anniversary. He said his personality exuded strength and his fearless and self-respecting nature could not tolerate the mindset of slavery. The prime minister also praised the education ministry's youth exchange programme 'Yuva Sangam' as a great initiative to promote the country's diversity and people-to-people connection. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday addressed the 101st episode of 'Mann Ki Baat'.

Top quotes from PM Narendra Modi's 101st Mann ki Baat episode:

1. Veer Savarkar's personality consisted of firmness and magnanimity. His fearless and self-respecting nature did not like the mentality of slavery at all. A few days later, on June 4, is the birth anniversary of Saint Kabirdas ji. The path shown to us by Kabirdas ji is equally relevant even today.

2. Gurugram has a unique museum - Museo Camera. It houses a collection of more than 8,000 cameras belonging to the era after 1860. Tamil Nadu's Museum of Possibilities has been designed keeping in mind our Divyang people.

3. Today 75 Amrit Sarovars are being constructed in every district of the country. Our Amrit Sarovars are special because they are being built in the Azadi Ka Amrit Kal and the essence of the effort of the people has been put into them.

4. In the first round of Yuva Sangam, about 1,200 youths toured 22 states of the country. Everyone who has been a part of it, is returning with such memories, which will remain etched in their hearts for the rest of their lives.

5. On June 21, we will also celebrate 'World Yoga Day'. Preparations for that too are going on in the country and abroad. You may also keep writing your 'Mann Ki Baat' to me about these preparations.
Delhi Police on Sunday removed tents and other installations set up by protesting wrestlers at Jantar Mantar after they were detained for allegedly breaching the security cordon and not following the directions issued by the law enforcement agency. The wrestlers, including two Olympic medallists, were detained while trying to move towards the new Parliament building for a planned women's 'Mahapanchayat'. Indian wrestlers Sangeeta Phogat and Vinesh Phogat struggle as they are detained by the police while attempting to march to India's new parliament, just as it was being inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.(AFP)

Immediately after the wrestlers were taken to different unknown locations, the police officers began clearing the protest site by removing the cots, mattresses, coolers, fans and the tarpaulin ceiling along with other belongings of the wrestlers.

The police action drew strong condemnation from the opposition leaders, with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee demanding the immediate release of the protesters.

Strongly condemn the way Delhi Police manhandled Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat and other wrestlers. Its shameful our champions are treated in this manner. Democracy lies in tolerance but autocratic forces thrive on intolerance and quelling of dissent. I demand they be immediately released by police. I stand by our wrestlers, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo tweeted.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said, Such behaviour towards our sportspersons who brought glory to the country is extremely wrong and condemnable.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra hit out at the ruling BJP saying their arrogance has increased so much that the government is mercilessly trampling the voices of our women players under their boots.

This is totally wrong. The whole country is watching the arrogance of the government and this injustice.

The aggrieved wrestlers have been demanding the removal of their federation chief and BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh from the position and his arrest in connection with the sexual harassment allegations.

Barely a mile away from the protest site, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament even as major opposition parties boycotted the event in a rare show of unity. The opposition parties had primarily taken exception to the prime minister doing the honours instead of President Droupadi Murmu.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the country's new Parliament building on Sunday. It is a modern complex built as part of the government's grand plan to give a makeover to the British colonial-era architecture in the nation's capital. Several religious leaders lauded the prime minister for the inauguration of the new building which also houses the historic Sengol. PM Modi inaugurates new parliament building(Twitter/ Narendra Modi)

Here are some of the reactions:

PM Modi has all the sadgunas, said Kamatchi Dasar Swami of Avinashi Mutt.

The new Parliament House has been inaugurated today. I offered prayers according to Buddhist rituals. Everyone should work for the growth of the country unitedly and keep politics aside," Lama Chosphel Zotpa, president of Himalaya Buddhist Cultural Association said.

18th pontiff of Vellakuruchi Adheenam from Tamil Nadu who arrived in Delhi ahead of the inauguration of the new Parliament said, Today is a very important day for India as the new Parliament building will be inaugurated. The 'Sengol' will be installed near the Speaker's chair. The PM honoured all the Adheenams yesterday.

I feel very proud to participate in the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building. PM Modi has always stood proudly with the Tamil culture and Tamil people. Modi ji is the first PM who invited Tamil Adheenams and proudly encourages the Tamil culture in the Parliament, Sri Harihara Desika Swamigal, the 293rd head priest of Madurai Adheenam said.

Religious leaders of 12 faiths performed Sarvdharma prayers at the new parliament during the inauguration ceremony. The ceremony commenced at 7:30 am with a havan (a ritualistic fire ceremony) and a formal opening by Prime Minister Modi.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Sunday inaugurated the new Parliament building. From performing a puja to installing the historic Sengol in the Lok Sabha chamber to PM Modi's hour-long speech, several moments took place that would be ingrained in the country's history. Prime Minister Narendra Modi carrying the Sengol, a Tamil sceptre during the inauguration ceremony of the new parliament building in New Delhi.(AFP)

The four-storey new Parliament House has a built-up area of 64,500 sqm and has two chambers  the 888-seater Lok Sabha, which can accommodate 1,272 members for the joint sitting of both the Houses, and the 384-seater Rajya Sabha chamber. The building opens into a central courtyard with a banyan tree and is home to nearly 5,000 artworks, including paintings, wall panels, stone sculptures, and metal murals.

Here are the highlights of the new Parliament launch:

Vedic Rituals

The inauguration ceremony began with traditional prayers and Vedic rituals which continued for an hour. PM Modi also performed Ganapati Homam to invoke Gods in order to bless the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

Installation of Sengol

A historical sceptre called Sengol was installed in the Parliament's Lok Sabha chamber - placed next to the Speaker's chair - by PM Modi. The Sengol was handed over to PM Modi by high priests from various adheenams or mutts in Tamil Nadu. This is same Sengol which was accepted by India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at his residence on the night of August 14, 1947, in the presence of several leaders.

The PM prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests with the holy sceptre in hand. He then carried it in a procession amid tunes of "nadaswaram" and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it.

 75 coin launch

PM Modi also launched a special 75 coin to mark the inauguration of the new Parliament building. The coin is circular with a 44 mm diameter and it weighs around 35 grams. It has 200 serrations and is composed of 50 percent silver, 40 percent copper, 5 percent nickel, and 5 percent Zinc.

PM Modi's speech

In his first hour-long address from the new Parliament, PM Modi said that during the development of every country, some moments become immortal and May 28 is such a day. The new Parliament isn't just a building, it is the symbol of the aspiration of the 140 crore people of India. It gives a message to the world about India's determination, he said.
Condemning the arrests of the women wrestlers protesting in New Delhis Jantar Mantar, Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin on Sunday said that the sengol, a sceptre given from Tamil Nadus mutt to Jawaharlal Nehru, installed in the new Parliament has bent on its inaugural day. Indian wrestlers Sangeeta Phogat (L), and Vinesh Phogat (C) during a protest , in New Delhi. (AFP)

The agitating wrestlers led by Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat, and Sakshi Malik, along with several others, are protesting against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Singh, who is also a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP, demanding his arrest for alleged sexual harassment of several women grapplers, including a minor.

For several months, they have protested accusing a BJP member of sexual harassment, but the party leadership has taken no action, Stalin said in a statement.

This (arrest) shows that the sceptre has been bent on the first day. Is it just that on the inauguration day, when you have already ignored the President, the opposition has boycotted you, and you indulge in such anarchy?

The DMK-led secular progressive alliance in Tamil Nadu is among the 19 parties across India that boycotted the new Parliament buildings inauguration, stating that President Droupadi Murmu should have rightfully inaugurated it and not Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) chief K S Alagiri said that Modi receiving the sengol (sceptre) from the states priests accompanied by Tamil hymns is a form of Tamil appeasement, but the Tamil electorate would reject him.

What good are you going to do for Tamils by displaying the sengol? They have allotted more than 1,000 crore for the development of Sanskrit, which no one speaks. But for seven crore people who speak Tamil, you have allotted less than 20 crore, Alagiri told a vernacular television channel. Their actions are different from what they say. It is political. But, no matter what they do, Tamil people will not accept them because people know that there is no relationship between them and the Tamils. BJP conducted the Kasi Tamil Sangam, but priests from Tamil Nadu were not included in it.

Alagiri added that if the BJP-led union government had agreed with the oppositions stance and allowed the President to inaugurate the new Parliament, the parties would have attended.

BJPs ally in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK, said that the historic sengol elucidates Tamil pride, legacy and heritage.

I express my gratitude on behalf of the people of Tamil Nadu, AIADMK general secretary and leader of the states opposition Edappadi Palaniswami said in a letter to Modi. I wish to convey my appreciation for constructing the parliament in a record time and also for installing the sceptre, during your tenure as Prime Minister of India.

However, a senior leader from the AIADMK agreed with Congresss allegation that this is a form of Tamil appeasement.

The BJP is trying to grow in Tamil Nadu, and there is nothing wrong with these actions. Every party has the right to develop their party, the leader, not wishing to be named, said.

But, if they take one step forward to do something for Tamil Nadu, they end up taking several steps behind. See, do not support NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Exam), which the entire state is against. So it will be difficult for people to accept that.

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New Delhi: Tax authorities may scrutinise any sharp spike in deposits of 2,000 banknotes in currency chests by bank branches and may take appropriate action against unaccounted deposits as branches have been directed to keep a daily transaction record, two people aware of the development said. An employee checks  2000 currency notes given by customers at a petrol pump in Gurugram. (PTI)

The Reserve Bank of India has allowed the exchange of 2,000 banknotes into smaller denominations up to 20,000 per transaction, but any attempt to launder large sum in garb of exchange can easily be tracked and such bank branches would have to explain it, they said, requesting anonymity.

Banks and tax authorities are now equipped with data analytics and artificial intelligence. Hence, exchanging bulk of unaccounted cash without being caught is very difficult. Remember, over 1.30 lakh crore unaccounted money was detected months after the November 2016 demonetisation, one of them said. Technology has further improved since then.

Read: Withdrawal of 2000 note only currency management exercise: RBI to Delhi HC

The 2016 demonetisation and the governments drive against black money brought undisclosed income of about 1.30 lakh crore to tax, led to seizure and attachment of assets worth approximately 50,000 crore, the then finance minister Piyush Goyal had said while presenting the interim budget for 2019-20 on February 1, 2019. As many as 3,38,000 shell companies have been detected and deregistered, and their directors disqualified.

As 2,000 notes were not commonly used in transactions for quite some time, particularly after the RBI stopped printing them in 2018-19, it is apprehended that bulk of them that are not under circulation could be unaccounted money accumulated through illegal activities or tax evasions, the second person said. As per the law, tax authorities and investigative agencies are bound to act.

People are free to deposit any number of 2,000 notes in their bank accounts and the intent is not to harass the common man for their genuine savings, he said. Bulk deposits beyond a particular threshold, say, over 10 lakh may invite explanations if the same is not reflected in the ITR (income-tax return). RBI has specified that deposit into bank accounts can be made without restrictions subject to compliance, which is KYC (know your customer), etc., he added.

Read: No need to rush for exchange: RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on 2,000 note ban

The central banks instructions to banks is for the convenience of bearers of 2,000 notes. Banks are assisting people in both exchanging and depositing these notes without hassle with required necessary documents. But other agencies are equally responsible to nab unscrupulous elements under the income-tax and the anti-money laundering laws, he said. Possibly, most of the 2,000 notes in circulation may return in the system. But, agencies will track sources of unaccounted money like before, he added.

Honest taxpayers dont have to panic. They can deposit any amount in their bank accounts and explain it in their ITRs. Tax authorities will scrutinise only suspicious transactions and unaccounted deposits, the first person said. Certain segments are often under scrutiny of tax authorities because of higher chances of unaccounted income. They include real estate, mining, pan masala, gutkka and tobacco industry, bullion and commodity markets, film industry, educational institutes and various professionals, he said.

The central bank on May 19 announced the withdrawal of the 2,000 notes from circulation although they would continue to be legal tender. The central bank advised people to deposit or exchange these banknotes by September 30.

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Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar on Sunday expressed concern over the rituals performed during the inauguration of the new Parliament building, saying we are taking our country backwards by decades. Pawar said the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had envisaged a society having a scientific temperament, but what happened at the inauguration ceremony was the opposite of that. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar . (HT FILE PHOTO)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building this morning at a grand ceremony steeped in religious symbolism which included a havan, a multi-faith prayer ceremony and the installation of the sceptre Sengol, a symbol of governance in Tamil kingdoms of yore, in a special enclosure in the Lok Sabha chamber.

I saw the event in the morning. I am happy I didn't go there. I am worried after seeing whatever happened there, the NCP chief told reporters in Pune.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi gesturing to priests during the inauguration ceremony of the new parliament building in New Delhi.(PIB)

Pawar's NCP was among at least 20 opposition parties that skipped the event in the national capital, primarily taking exception to the prime minister doing the honours instead of the President of India.

There is a huge difference between the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru talking about the concept of modern India and a series of rituals performed at the new Parliament building today in New Delhi. I fear that we are taking our country backward by decades, Pawar said.

"One cannot compromise on science. Nehru was persistent about his wish to form a society with scientific temperament. But what is happening today at the inaugural ceremony of the new parliament building is exactly the opposite of what Nehru had envisaged," he added.

Flanked by priests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a new Indian parliament on May 28 in a ceremony steeped in religious symbolism but boycotted by opposition parties.(PIB)

Pawar also questioned the absence of President Droupadi Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on the momentous occasion.

It's the government's responsibility to invite President and Vice president. Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla was present, but Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, the head of Rajya Sabha, wasn't there. Therefore the whole event looks like it was for a limited number of people, he said.

NCP leader and Rajya Sabha member Supriya Sule also termed the inauguration an "incomplete event".

"To open a new Parliament building without Opposition makes it an incomplete event. It means there is no democracy in the country," Sule said in Pune.

(With inputs from agencies)

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The Delhi Police on Sunday registered an FIR related to rioting and other offences over the scuffle with protesting wrestlers in the national capital.



A senior police officer told Hindustan Times that a case under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections pertaining to rioting, offence by a member of an unlawful assembly, obstructing public servant from discharge of duty, disobedience to an order promulgated by a public servant, causing hurt to a public servant in discharge of duty, using criminal force to stop public servant from performing duty, and under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act was registered at Parliament Street police station.



Chaos ensued at Jantar Mantar after wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia were detained following scuffle with the police personnel. A scuffle erupted after the wrestlers were stopped from marching to the new parliament building while it was being inaugurated.



According to the Delhi Police, 700 people were detained across the national capital including 109 protesters. The women detainees were released later in the evening.



"They (police) have released me, Sakshi (Malik) and Sangeeta (Phogat). The remaining ones (wrestlers) are still under detention," wrestler Vinesh Phogat told PTI after being set free. Wrestlers Sangeeta Phogat and Vinesh Phogat being detained during the protest march from Jantar Mantar to New Parliament House.(ANI)

Malik later tweeted, This is how our champions are being treated. The world is watching us!



ALSO READ: Protesting wrestlers on being detained amid march: 'World is watching us'



After the wrestlers were detained and pushed into a bus from where they were taken to unknown locations, the Delhi Police cleared the protest site by removing cots, mattresses, coolers, fans and the tarpaulin ceiling along with other belongings of the wrestlers.

The police continues to keep me in detention. They have not told us anything. Have I committed a crime? Brij Bhushan should have been arrested. But why are we being kept in captivity? Bajrang Punia tweeted.

The opposition parties including Congress, Aam Aadmi Party and Trinamool Congress condemned the police action on the protesting grapplers.

"Arrogant king is crushing the voice of the people on the streets as the coronation is over, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said it is "shameful our champions are treated in this manner".

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The movie Air dramatizes the risks that Nike took when signing Michael Jordan as their anchor athlete. Beyond sustaining the brand, Jordan transformed the corporation into a global capitalist phenomenon that shot across the market skies like a flying meteor, transforming how humans consumed textiles for their feet and kicking off the sneaker-head culture. Nike has survived several lawsuits over labor practices. Recently, a new class action lawsuit, filed in Missouri by Maria Guadalupe Ellis [dockets.justia.com], calls into question what is sustainable about Nike's Green products line.

"This action seeks to remedy the unlawful, unfair, deceptive, and misleading business practices of Nike with respect to the marketing and sale the Products, which are sold throughout the State of Missouri and the United States. In an effort to increase profits and to gain an advantage over its lawfully acting competitors, Nike falsely and misleadingly markets the Products as 'sustainable,' made with 'sustainable materials,' and environmentally friendly. The labeling of the Products claims the following: "\'Sustainability;' 'made with recycled fibers' which 'reduces waste and our carbon footprint;' support a 'Move to Zero' which "'s Nike's journey toward zero carbon and zero waste to help protect the future of sport;' and contain a circular symbol that means that the Products are made with 'sustainable' and environmentally friendly materials."

As reported in The Street, "The lawsuit also states that the actual act of selling products cited as eco-friendly is a violation of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. It also cites the Federal Trade Commission's Green Guides, which lays out the standards to earn green-friendly status and what actions may be determined as deceptive advertising on corporate environmentally-friendly claims."

What does this mean for consumers and the company? According to John Conway, Astonish Media Group's CEO, as reported in Retail Dive, "Your readers in the apparel industry need to watch this, and watch this closely. If the courts determine that these recycled fibers  assuming the company's using them  are not sustainable materials, that throws out their entire sustainability argument, as long as they're using, essentially, polyester."

What are the money numbers on this profit machine? "The company sold $100m worth of trainers and clothing in 1986 alone. And the Air Jordan became central to what is known as 'sneakerhead culture,' with the rarest iterations selling for more than a million dollars at auction. In 2021, the Jordan brand revenue hit $4.8bn.

The "patent machine" Nike is also currently on the litigation offensive against several companies, for example, suing the Japanese streetwear company The Bathing Ape, known as BAPE, for trademark infringement. BAPE responded here. Check out this Business Insider article that examines all of Nike's current litigation, including lawsuits against Lululemon, Gnarcotic, Kool Kiy, StockX, Drip Creationz, KickRich, MSCHF, John Geiger, and Warren Lotas.
Ganga Dussehra, also known as Gangavataran, is a significant Hindu festival celebrated with great fervour and devotion in India. It marks the descent of the holy river Ganga to Earth, believed to have occurred on this auspicious day. Ganga Dussehra occurs on the tenth day of the waxing moon in the Hindu calendar month of Jyeshtha. The festival spans a period of ten days, encompassing the preceding nine days of celebration. With deep spiritual and cultural significance, Ganga Dussehra holds a special place in the hearts of devotees who gather along the banks of the Ganges to offer prayers, perform rituals, and seek blessings from the sacred river. From date to significance, here is all you need to know about this auspicious occasion. (Also read: Ganga Dussehra 2023: Wishes, images, messages to share ) On the occasion of Ganga Dusshera, devotees gather along the banks of the Ganga and take holy dips in the river to seek blessings and cleanse themselves of sins.(AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

When is Ganga Dussehra 2023?

This year, Ganga Dussehra, a significant occasion, will be observed on May 30, 2023 (Tuesday). Ganga Dussehra falls on the tenth day of the waxing moon in the Hindu calendar month of Jyeshtha, with the festival lasting for a total of ten days, including the preceding nine days of festivities.

History of Ganga Dussehra:

According to Hindu mythology, King Bhagirath sought to purify the souls of his ancestors and grant them salvation. However, when he approached Lord Brahma for assistance, Brahma directed him to pray to Lord Shiva instead, explaining that bringing the mighty Ganga to Earth was a formidable task. Responding to King Bhagirath's prayers, Lord Shiva managed to control the powerful flow of the Ganges, ensuring its descent to Earth without causing destruction. Ganga Dussehra commemorates the day when Ganga was brought to the earthly realm, symbolizing a significant event in Hindu mythology.

Ganga Dussehra significance:

The festival holds great religious and cultural importance as it marks the cleansing and purifying powers of the sacred river. Devotees gather along the banks of the Ganga and offer prayers, perform rituals, and take holy dips in the river to seek blessings and cleanse themselves of sins. The occasion is considered highly auspicious for Hindus, as it is believed that by immersing oneself in the sacred Ganga waters on this day, one can wash away their past misdeeds and attain spiritual liberation. Ganga Dussehra serves as a reminder of the vital role that the river Ganga plays in the lives of millions of people, not only as a physical source of life and sustenance but also as a symbol of spiritual purification and salvation.

Ganga Dussehra celebrations:

To observe Ganga Dussehra, followers make pilgrimages to Prayagraj/Allahabad, Garhmukteshwar, Haridwar, Rishikesh, and Varanasi, where they immerse themselves in the sacred waters of the Ganga. The city of Varanasi, in particular, is renowned for its vibrant festivities during Ganga Dussehra. Countless devotees engage in the ritualistic act of taking a holy bath in the river and actively participate in the mesmerizing Ganga Aarti ceremony held at the Dasaswamedh Ghat. This grand celebration is an essential and unforgettable experience for those who wish to partake in the spiritual significance of Ganga Dussehra.
Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday said heavy rush of pilgrims is expected during the upcoming annual yatra to the 3,880-metre high holy cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir Himalayas. The Amarnath Yatra will commence simultaneously from both routes  the Pahalgam track in the Anantnag district and Baltal in the Ganderbal district. Amarnath cave shrine in South Kashmir Himalayas expects heavy rush of pilgrims during yatra (HT file photo for representation)

The two-month-long pilgrimage is scheduled to commence on July 1 from the twin tracks -- traditional 48-km Nunwan-Pahalgam route in Anantnag district and 14-km shorter but steep Baltal route in Ganderbal district.

"The Amarnath Yatra is expected to attract a heavy footfall this year," the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office told reporters on the sidelines of a function in Kathua district.

He said Kashmir witnessed a tourism boom last year with a record 1.75 crore tourists visiting the place to enjoy its beauty.

"People mostly used to think of hotels and houseboats during their vacation to Kashmir but this time homestay was successfully introduced to meet the heavy rush, Singh said.

On the recently concluded G20 meet in Srinagar, he said the successful event debunked the narrative that Jammu and Kashmir is not yet safe for a visit.

"Jammu and Kashmir is bestowed with natural beauty in abundance. If you ask anyone around the world where he wants to go in India, the reply will be Taj Mahal and J-K. However, a narrative was created that J-K is not yet safe for a visit, which was, however, negated by the successful holding of the G20 meet, he said.

He said Jammu and Kashmir is on the path of renewed growth and development and successful culmination of the G20 meeting in Srinagar is a testament to this change as the government is committed to transforming the Union Territory.

"The common man in Kashmir wants to move forward and become part of Modi's new India. The youth of Kashmir are very intelligent and are looking forward to the schemes introduced by the prime minister to get benefitted like the people in the rest of the country," he said.

The minister said generations have suffered because of terrorism but the youth of Jammu and Kashmir have now decided not to lack behind in the path to prosperity and development.

"J-K is going to play its role in a big way and contribute towards the economy of the country in the coming years."

Earlier addressing Y20 (Yuva Utsav) with the theme 'India@2047' organized by Nehru Yuva Kendra, Singh said the StartUp avenues unfolded in the past nine years call for a change of mindset.

"The nine years of Modi-led government have been, without any doubt, youth-centric but what is required is the change of mindset for optimum utilisation of avenues and various initiatives provided for the youth of this country," he said.

He said the startup ecosystem in the country is now ranked third in the world with more than 100 unicorns.

It has been possible only because of the youth of this nation who have aspirations but earlier did not have the right kind of milieu and aspirational environment as provided under Modi-led government, he added.

"The youth of Jammu and Kashmir must see Aroma Mission as one of the best opportunities in terms of startups knocking at their doors as the purple revolution in J-K offers attractive startup avenues for them," he said.
Egypt unearthed human and animal mummification workshops as well as two tombs in the ancient burial ground of Saqqara, officials said on Saturday, marking the latest in a string of discoveries that the country hopes can help revive its vital tourism industry. Japanese Ambassador to Egypt Oka Hiroshi (R) visits an ancient tomb in the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo, where archaeologists unearthed two human and animal embalming workshops, as well as two tombs. The head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters the embalming workshops, where humans and animals were mummified, "date back to the 30th dynasty" which reigned around 2,400 years ago. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)

Mostafa Waziri, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters that the two large "embalming workshops" date back to the 30th dynasty (380-343 BC) and the Ptolemaic (305-30 BC) eras.

The discovery was made after a year-long excavation near the sanctuary of the goddess Bastet, which is home to the catacombs of mummified cats in Saqqara, some 30 kilometres (18.6 miles)south of Cairo.

It was the same spot where hundreds of mummified animals and statues were uncovered in 2019.

"We found embalming workshops, one for humans and one for animals. We found all the tools that they used (in mummification) in ancient times," Waziri said.

Both workshops featured stone beds, clay pots, ritual vessels, natron salt, which is one of the main ingredients for mummification, and linens among other mummification instruments.

The Saqqara excavations also led to the unearthing of two small 4,400 and 3,400-year-old tombs nearby, belonging to two priests, Ne Hesut Ba of the Old Kingdom's fifth dynasty and Men Kheber of the late kingdom's 18th dynasty respectively.

Inscriptions of cultivation, hunting and other daily activities were found on the walls of Ne Hesut Ba's tomb while "scenes showing the deceased in different positions" were engraved in Men Kheber's tomb, officials said.

Egypt has carried out extensive digging operations in Saqqara and other ancient locations in recent years, which resulted in a number of high-profile discoveries.

The country plans to inaugurate the Grand Egyptian Museum, a state-of-the-art facility near the Giza Pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo, after construction is completed later this year.

Egypt hopes it can further lure back tourists after the industry started to rebound of late, having been battered by the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine.

Tourism revenues climbed to $7.3 billion in the second half of 2022, a 25.7% increase compared with the same period a year earlier, according to recently released central bank data.
While most parts of the country are reeling under heat wave conditions, tourists are enjoying the pleasant weather in Kashmir as the Valley has witnessed rains over the past few days, leading to a drop in the mercury. The maximum temperature in the Valley, over the last few days, hovered around 20 degrees Celsius and most of the days, the weather has remained cloudy while soem areas witnessed rainfall. The pleasant weather has brought cheer to the tourists. (Waseem Andrabi/HT)

The pleasant weather has brought cheer to the tourists. I feel very good, the weather here is very pleasant. We are feeling relaxed here. In Punjab, the temperature is 40 degrees, but here it is only 10-15 degrees, Akansha and Happy Singh from Punjab told PTI. Pooja, a tourist from Gujarat, said they were wearing woollen clothes and enjoying the pleasant weather in the valley.

In Gujarat, the temperature has gone up to around 45 degrees Celsius. Here, it is below 20 degrees. We are enjoying the greenery and weather here, she said. The tourists also witnessed snowfall at the famous ski resort of Gulmarg in north Kashmirs Baramulla district. Yesterday, we visited Gulmarg and witnessed rain and snowfall there. We are enjoying the cool weather in Kashmir, Mukesh, another vacationer from Gujarat, said.

This is my first trip to the Valley. There is a famous phrase that Kashmir is God's own land. Now, after seeing Kashmir, I can say that it is indeed true. In Kolkata, it was 38 degrees Celsius, but we went to Pahalgam and Sonmarg where it was 8 degrees Celsius, Sana Ahmad, from Kolkata, said. Even as the Valley witnessed a sunny day on Saturday, the Meteorological Department has forecast a brief spell of rain and thunderstorm towards the evening at scattered places.

While the MeT Office has forecast dry weather for Sunday, there are chances of intermittent light to moderate rain, thunder or lightning with a possibility of hailstorms and gusty winds at a few places on Monday and Tuesday.
India, a country celebrating its 75th Independence anniversary, has achieved significant milestones as the world's third-largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity. However, it continues to face persistent challenges, especially concerning its female population. One crucial challenge is ensuring women have access to appropriate and dignified period products to manage their menstruation effectively. PREMIUM The National Family Health Survey-5 data further unravels a distinct disparity between rural and urban areas when it comes to the exclusive usage of period products.(HT photo)

Menstrual Health and Hygiene (MHH) play a pivotal role in the well-being and empowerment of women and adolescent girls. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that over 300 million women worldwide experience menstruation on any given day. Shockingly, in total, approximately 500 million women lack access to essential period products and proper facilities for effective menstrual hygiene management (MHM). This highlights the resource and support gap, particularly in low- and middle-income countries like India, hindering women's ability to manage their menstrual needs.

Recent studies based on National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) have revealed concerning findings about managing the menstrual health of girls and women. A significant number of adolescent girls do not use period products, with only half of the surveyed girls (15-19 years) reporting their usage during menstruation.

The National Family Health Survey-5 data further unravels a distinct disparity between rural and urban areas when it comes to the exclusive usage of period products, including sanitary napkins, locally prepared napkins, tampons, or menstrual cups. Approximately 42% of adolescent girls in rural areas report exclusive use of period products, compared to 68% in urban areas. This rural-urban divide underscores the urgent need to address the underlying factors that hinder access to period product usage in rural areas.

Central Indian states, in particular, show lower period product usage rates than southern and northern states. However, the data consistently reveal that urban areas have higher percentages of period product usage, indicating better accessibility and availability. Notably, states and Union Territories like Mizoram (96%), Puducherry (92%), Chandigarh (91%), and Tamil Nadu (91%) demonstrate commendable rates of period product usage in urban settings.

In contrast, the usage of period products in rural India is concentrated in specific pockets of the country, such as Tamil Nadu (85%) and Telangana (83%). However, the rest of rural India consistently reports alarmingly low percentages of period product usage. Central Indian states, including Uttar Pradesh (24%), Madhya Pradesh (27%), and Bihar (29%), depict a grim picture of limited access to period products in rural areas.

The rural-urban gap in period product usage further compounds this issue, illustrating a substantial divide in the usage of period products. States like Madhya Pradesh stand out with a substantial gap of 36 percentage points, followed by Meghalaya with 34 and Odisha with 26 percentage points. These variations reveal the disparities between urban and rural areas within these states and the necessity for targeted interventions to address the imbalance in period product usage.

The challenges faced by adolescent girls, especially those in rural and remote areas, are multifaceted. Affordability remains a significant issue, as many families struggle to provide them with the necessary period products. Second, the prevailing taboos and misconceptions surrounding menstruation, which generate feelings of shame and stigma, have a particular impact observed in rural areas. This deeply ingrained cultural context makes the individuals who menstruate hesitant to visit pharmacies to procure period products, and they may feel uncomfortable approaching male family members for assistance. Consequently, these factors contribute to the significant disparities in the usage of period products between urban and rural populations.

Recognising the urgency of addressing these challenges, the government has launched various schemes and initiatives to reach out to adolescent girls. One such scheme is the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme under National Health Mission, which focuses on providing sanitary napkins to adolescent girls. Additionally, the government has implemented the Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK), a comprehensive adolescent health program that includes menstrual health education as a vital component. In addition to the central government's initiatives, several state governments in India have taken proactive measures to address adolescent girls' menstrual health and hygiene needs.

These programmes empower girls through education, accurate information, and decision-making skills, fostering agency and control over their bodies. However, despite these efforts, there remains a significant rural-urban gap in the usage of period products, emphasising the need to focus on rural women and address implementation challenges in rural areas. Lack of menstrual awareness, the persistence of taboo and stigma around menstruation and poor access to and affordability of period products are some factors contributing to the gap in period product usage in urban and rural areas.

Despite various initiatives, a considerable portion of the population continues to forego the use of period products, indicating the urgent need to address their accessibility and affordability, especially in rural areas of India.

To bridge the rural-urban gap, it is crucial to create an inclusive environment that ensures every individual who menstruates, irrespective of age or socio-economic background, has access to safe and affordable period products.

By prioritising the needs of individuals who menstruate and ensuring equitable access to information and resources, we can create an enabling environment that promotes their overall development and well-being. Furthermore, it is essential to work collectively to bridge the rural-urban gap and ensure that individuals who menstruate can embrace their periods with confidence, dignity, and pride.

Together, we can strive for a future where menstrual health is universally supported and empowered.

Mahashweta Chakrabarty is a junior research fellow at the department of geography, Banaras Hindu University.

Karan Babbar is an assistant professor, Jindal Global Business School, OP Jindal Global University and research advisor at pandemic periods.

Aditya Singh is an assistant professor at department of geography, Banaras Hindu University & an external research collaborator at Girl Innovation, Research and Learning (GIRL) Centre, Population Council, New York.
With barely a week left for Apples annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2023), the tech giant has already revealed the full schedule and timings of each event. The highly anticipated conference offers developers an opportunity to gain insights about the companys latest features and how to incorporate them in their products. The week-long event from June 5 - 9, which kicks off with a keynote, will also present the most updated versions of its operating systems. This year, Apple is expected to offer a sneak peek of iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS 14, tvOS 17, and watchOS 10 and AR/VR headset.(REUTERS)

Similar to previous years, most of the WWDC events can be livestreamed with the special event at the Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino being the only in-person session. Developers who are able to get tickets for the in-person event on June 5 can watch the keynote, the State of the Union, and interact with other attendees and Apple employees. Select members of the media have also been invited to attend the keynote, as per Tech Crunch.

The events, including online sessions, labs, and activities, will also be telecast on Apple.com, the Apple Developer app, the Apple Developer website, the Apple TV, and YouTube.

This year, Apple is expected to offer a sneak peek of iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS 14, tvOS 17, and watchOS 10 and AR/VR headset.

How to get WWDC tickets?

Apple randomly selects developers and students who apply on the Special Event at Apple Park page on the Apple Developer website to enjoy the invitation-only event in California.

Deadline to request WWDC tickets

The deadline to submit your request to attend was April 4. Successful applicants would have received any email by April 5 confirming their non-transferable invitation.

Cost of WWDC tickets?

Earlier, Apple used to charge $1,599 for WWDC tickets. However, since 2020, Apple has implemented a ballot system to give away tickets for free to the event thats telecast online, too.

Who can apply for WWDC tickets?

Tickets are not open to the general public. Check list below to know if youre eligible to enter the lottery for a free ticket:

Members of Apple Developer Program and Apple Developer Enterprise Program

2. Alumni of Apple Entrepreneur Camp

3. Swift Student Challenge winners (2020 to 2022). A separate random selection process will be held for the 2023 winners.

How to apply for WWDC 2023 tickets

To win a chance to attend the in-person event, visit the Apple Developer portal and select the request to attend tab. Sign into your Apple Developer account. Only those enrolled in Apple's Developer Program by paying $99 annually or with a complimentary membership, such as by winning the Swift Student Challenge can access this. The screen will show the Attendee option with two options to choose from - one for the persons name linked to the Apple ID you used, the other for an attendee in the 13-17 age group. After cross checking the details, such as name and email address, click submit.

People, who have won tickets and are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, have been requested to skip the in-person WWDC event. Although there are no mandatory rules on social distance or wearing masks, attendees are expected to follow Covid-appropriate protocol to ensure safety of health.

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IPL 2023 Final: The much-awaited IPL 2023 final showdown between Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Narendra Modi Stadium has been postponed due to heavy rains and will now be held on reserve day. The summit clash, which had fans on the edge of their seats, will now be held tomorrow, May 29. The announcement has brought some relief to the fans who were eagerly awaiting the official confirmation. However, the delay has sparked a flurry of reactions on Twitter, with users expressing their thoughts and opinions on the situation. We have compiled a few of them. IPL 2023 Final: The CSK vs GT match will be played tomorrow at 7:30 pm at the Narendra Modi Stadium. (Twitter/@IPL and @I_RahulRana)

The CSK vs GT IPL 2023 final was slated to commence at 7:30 pm on May 28. However, a persistent downpour started just moments before the toss scheduled at 7:00 pm, and the event got delayed. As the rainfall intensified and puddles began to form on the ground, it became evident that the match could not proceed as planned. Consequently, the decision was made to postpone the final and reschedule it for the reserve day. A victory for CSK would mark their fifth IPL title, while Gujarat aims to defend their position as the champions from last year.

Also Read: Memes take over Twitter ahead of CSK vs GT IPL match

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May 28, 2023, is an important milestone in the contemporary political and cultural history of the Telugu land, now split into two states  Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. It marks the birth centenary of legendary actor, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder-president and former chief minister of erstwhile combined Andhra Pradesh, Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, popularly known as NTR. PREMIUM A commemorative stamp brought out in honour of NT Rama Rao, former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh on May 28, 2000. (Wiki Commons)

A demi-god in the Telugu film industry for almost three and a half decades, from 1949 to 1982, to a man of the masses who left an indelible mark on Andhra politics for another decade and a half  NTRs power over the Telugu people extended to nearly half a century during his lifetime. NTR died at the age of 73, following a massive heart attack on January 18, 1996. Yet, 27 years later, he remains relevant in Andhra Pradesh politics. Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which he had founded in March 1982 as a party to uphold the self-respect of Telugus, still has a strong cadre-base under the leadership of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who married NTRs daughter, Bhuvaneshwari, in 1980. Different parts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have been witness to NTR's birth centenary celebrations over the last year. Most recently, a celebration was held on May 23 and it was attended by leaders from various political parties including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Communist Party of India (CPI) apart from celebrities from Telugu film industry like Ram Charan, Jayaprada and Jayasudha. NTR's grandson, Junior NTR (known best for the film, RRR that won an Oscar earlier this year for Best Song), however, skipped the event. The Google-savvy new generation of voters only know of Junior NTR, star of the blockbuster film RRR, but for millions of Telugu people, NTR is a name which is still difficult to forget, as they continue to benefit from the welfare schemes he had introduced like subsidised rice scheme and pucca houses, said veteran journalist and political analyst Bhandaru Srinivasa Rao.

Junior NTR is the grandson of NTR. A famous actor, he was in the news recently for his film RRR, which won Best Song at the Oscars earlier this year. He's seen here at the 80th annual Golden Globe Awards.(HT file)

Demi-god status NTRs rise as a film star coincided with an increasing popularity of the cinematic medium. While he played a wide variety of characters in films of all genres  social, socio-fantasy, folklore and mythological  it was his repeated portrayal of Lord Krishna, Lord Vishnu and Lord Rama that made him tremendously popular among the masses.

In his tome on Indian cinema, So Many Cinemas, The Motion Picture in India, film historian BD Garga wrote about the profound changes that our newly-independent country was going through in the 1950s. An accelerated pace of industrialisation brought not only a higher rate of employment than the previous decades, but also more leisure time for the worker. As a result, more cinema houses came up in towns and touring talkies began to tour remote corners of the country, reaching the half million villages that formed a massive domestic market. By 1960, the production of films peaked at 318 over the preceding years. Yet, the film industry was beset with problems: high taxation, soaring star fees, and more worryingly, censorship. As common men and women made their displeasure known about the corrupting influence of cinema  in 1954 a petition signed by 13,000 housewives was presented to the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, alleging that cinema posed a threat to the moral health of the country  producers were certainly incentivised to turn to mythology as narrative framework within which they could safely situate their spectacular productions. NTR immortalised the character of Lord Krishna, a role which he had played in as many as 17 films. People do not know how Lord Krishna really looked like, but whenever they close their eyes to worship the god, only NTRs image appears before them, said Nandamuri Lakshmi Parvathi, the second wife of NTR who married him in 1993, eight years after the death of his first wife Basava Tarakam.

A cut-out of NTR dressed in the garb of Lord Rama, a character he essayed in the 1963 Telugu film, Lava Kusa, which went on to win the National Award for Best Feature Film the following year(Wiki Commons)

Such was his aura when he played the role of gods that when he first stepped into the sets of Vijaya-Vauhini Studios in Chennai in 1956, donning for the first time the garb of Krishna in the epic Maya Bazaar, crew members touched his feet, broke coconuts in front of him and offered aarti.

Retired IAS officer K Lakshminarayana, who co-wrote 'NTR, A Biography' noted in the book that pilgrims returning from Tirumala would go to Chennai for a darshan of NTR, who played Lord Venkateshwara of Tirumala in the film Sri Venkateswara Mahatmyam in 1960. NTR was a versatile actor. He also played villainous mythological roles like Ravana, Duryodhana and even Keechaka, besides others like Bhishma, Karna and Vishwamitra. He even played Brihannala, a transgender character in the epic, Mahabharata. In fact, in the 1977 film, Dana Veera Sura Karna, NTR acted in three different roles with aplomb: Duryodhana (villain), Karna (hero) and Lord Krishna (sage). His contemporaries included the likes of Akkineni Nageshwara Rao, S V Ranga Rao and Gummadi, who also received much acclaim and acted in mythological roles. However, none of them had the sort of following NTR did. NTR, who began on a monthly salary of 1,000 for Vijaya Productions, reigned supreme and was often paired with popular actresses Savithri, Jamuna, Krishna Kumari and Devika. In all, NTR acted in more than 300 films and more than 80 per cent of his films were super hits, Lakshminarayana said. A revolution in politics In 1982, NTR made a dramatic entry into politics. He was 60 years old. He revealed his plans to enter politics at a press conference in the Ramakrishna Cine Studios in Hyderabad on March 21. Exactly eight days later, NTR announced the launch of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on the lawns of New MLA Quarters. Senior politician Nadendla Bhaskar Rao, who had by then resigned from the Congress party, joined hands with the actor. Addressing a few hundred people to explain to them about his decision to enter politics, NTR suddenly took out a piece of paper from his pocket and announced the name of his party  Telugu Desam, recalled senior journalist Bandaru Srinivasa Rao, who was working for All India Radio at the time. It was a surprise for everybody, because NTR had not even applied to the Election Commission of India to register his political party. The main political plank of the TDP was the self-respect of Telugus. The apparent humiliation meted out to former Andhra Pradesh chief minister T Anjaiah by Rajiv Gandhi, the then general secretary of the Congress party reportedly triggered his decision. The previous month, Anjaiah had gone to receive Gandhi at the airport tarmac with hundreds of Youth Congress workers. Gandhi, a trained pilot, was reportedly irked by the safety breach and allegedly shouted at the CM. NTR felt that the national party was treating its chief ministers as doormats. Telugus had no identity of their own and had been reduced to being care-of-Madras. He wanted to awaken them and arouse them, said journalist-author Ramesh Kandula in his book, Maverick Messiah'.

NTR lived an eventful life, first as a film star and later, as a politician who founded a political party that fought for Telugu pride. Journalist Ramesh Kandula is one of his biographers (Wiki Commons)

Many people, including experienced Congress leaders brushed him aside as a non-serious candidate and the people were more enthusiastic because of his filmy glamour and nothing more, Kandula said.

But NTR proved all of them wrong. Between June 1982 and January 1983, he toured the length and breadth of the state on his chaitanya ratham, a remodelled Chevrolet van, driven by his son N Harikrishna. He drew crowds of tens of thousands to his road-side meetings and most were charmed by his oratory and dramatic appeal, calling upon them to fight for their self-respect. According to Lakshminarayana, NTR transformed from a mass hero in films to a mass leader in politics by announcing several schemes like 2 a kg rice and pucca houses for the poor. Under his leadership, the TDP swept to power in the January 1983 elections with a massive mandate  winning 201 seats in the 294-member assembly. NTR took over as the first non-Congress chief minister of Andhra Pradesh on January 9, 1983. During his 13-year-long journey in politics, NTR faced several ups and downs. Within 18 months of coming to power, his colleague Nadendla Bhaskar Rao usurped power with the support of the then governor at the behest of Indira Gandhi. NTR fought back despite his by-then fragile health. He launched a crusade against the undemocratic attitude of the Congress and travelled to different parts of the state. With a majority of the MLAs backing NTR, Bhaskar Rao failed to prove his majority within a month and had to step down, paving the way for the return of NTR to power again. According to Kandula, the first time that NTR grabbed national attention and entered into confrontation with the Centre was when he walked out of a National Development Council (NDC) meeting to protest the dismissal of the Farooq Abdullah government in Jammu & Kashmir. Abdullahs government was dismissed on the grounds that it had lost majority due to the defection of 12 members of National Conference to the Congress. He did not give any clue to his officials about his plan to deviate from the prepared draft and deliver a political speech at the meeting. That angered Indira Gandhi which ultimately led to his ouster from power, he said. Between 1985 and 1989, NTR took several landmark decisions, some of them proved controversial. He did away with the hierarchical patwari system (village revenue officers) and reduced the age of retirement of state government employees from 58 years to 55 years, which resulted in premature retirement of 30,000 employees. He lost power in the early elections to the state assembly held in 1989. Between 1989 and 1994, NTR focussed on building his national image by playing a key role in the formation of National Front, a coalition of non-Congress parties which included the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Asom Gana Parishad. It also had the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party on one side and the Left front on the other. The final years In 1993, eight years after his first wife died due to cancer, NTR married Lakshmi Parvathi. Her entry into NTRs life led to a rift between him and his family members, particularly his son-in-law N Chandrababu Naidu, who went on to become the CM of undivided AP in 1995. The rift within the family and the party widened after NTR returned to power for a third term after the December 1994 assembly elections. Naidu, who was wary of Lakshmi Parvathis attempts to grab power, engineered a coup against NTR in August 1995 and dethroned his own father-in-law. NTR tried to resist the revolt, but was powerless as Naidu successfully lured the majority of the TDP MLAs  191 out of the 219 who won in 1994. Naidu took over the party and became the chief minister on September 1, 1995. Within four months, NTR passed away. He was 73.

The rift within the family and the party widened after NTR returned to power for a third term after the December 1994 assembly elections. Chandrababu Naidu, who was wary of NTR's second wife, Lakshmi Parvathi, engineered a coup in August 1995 and dethroned his own father-in-law.

Of his eight sons and four daughters, three went on to have successful political careers but not all of them stayed within the party he launched. Nandamuri Harikrishna served as a Rajya Sabha member and a minister in Naidus cabinet. Daggubati Purandeshwari was an MP and former Union minister in the Manmohan Singh cabinet but is currently the BJP national general secretary. Nandamuri Balakrishna, a popular actor in Telugu film industry, also served as a three-time MLA from Hindupur assembly constituency in Anantapur district.

By holding NTRs centenary celebrations in a big way, Naidu hopes to seek the support of his fan base in the forthcoming elections in Andhra Pradesh.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building in a grand ceremony today, May 28. The event commenced with an early morning havan and a multi-faith prayer ceremony, adding a spiritual touch to the occasion. As the new Parliament building was unveiled, people shared congratulatory messages and their thoughts on Twitter. Many even joined the conversation by using the hashtag My Parliament My Pride, showcasing their pride in the new Parliament building. A Twitter user shared this collage of Indias new Parliament building. (Twitter/@chitrang_24)

PM Modi took to Twitter to express his sentiments after he inaugurated the new building of Indias Parliament. As the new building of Indias Parliament is inaugurated, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise. May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress, wrote PM Modi while sharing a few pictures on Twitter.

Take a look at some of the reactions below:

Sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik made sand art to mark the historic occasion.

A Twitter user shared pictures of the new Parliament building featuring murals of Akhand Bharat and Chanakya.

Another shared a few pictures with the hashtag #MyParliamentMyPride.

An individual shared a video and wrote, A memorable and historic day for all countrymen. PM @narendramodi Ji inaugurated the new Parliament.

Another shared a collage of Indias new Parliament building.

This Twitter user shared a video of PM Modi installing Sengol in the new Parliament building.

The new Parliament building is part of the revamped Central Vista project, the construction of which started in 2019. Situated at the heart of the Central Vista on Sansad Marg in New Delhi, the new Parliament building stands proudly adjacent to the old Parliament structure.

The enhanced capacity of the Lok Sabha is noteworthy, accommodating 888 members compared to the existing capacity of 543. Similarly, the new Rajya Sabha building can now comfortably house 300 members. Symbolising Indias national bird, the peacock, the Lok Sabha chamber captures the essence of the nation, while the Rajya Sabha chamber embodies the elegance of the national flower, the lotus.

Alongside these chambers, the complex encompasses various amenities, including the Constitution Hall, which showcases Indias democratic heritage, a dedicated lounge for Members of Parliament, a well-stocked library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas, and parking facilities. What are your thoughts on the new Parliament building?

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Washington: Averting a possible global economic crisis, US President Joe Biden and House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy have struck a deal on suspending Americas debt ceiling for two years along side spending cuts in the federal budget, the White House announced on Saturday. US President Joe Biden (right) meets with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy about the debt ceiling, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 22. (AFP)

The House and the Senate will need to pass the agreed-upon legislation to ensure that the US doesnt default on its obligations. While the legislation is expected to pass, it will encounter challenges from the Republican extreme-Right, which had demanded greater spending cuts, and Democratic progressives, who had warned against spending cuts.

Both the President and Speaker, however, projected the deal as a win to convince their constituents that it meets the priorities of their respective parties.

In a statement, Biden said that McCarthy and he had reached an agreement in principle. This agreement is good news for the American people, because it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, and millions of jobs lost.

The president also said that the deal reduced spending while protecting critical programmes for working people, growing the economy for everyone, and key priorities and legislative accomplishments pushed by Democrats.

McCarthy said that the deal, without increasing taxes, would result in historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the work force, rein in government overreach.

Biden spoke to McCarthy for 90 minutes on the phone on Saturday to finalise the deal and smoothen over the differences. While the text of the deal isnt public yet, and the legislation is still being finalised, American media outlets reported the broad contours of the agreement.

Non-defence spending would be maintained at the 2023 levels till next year and would increase by 1% in 2025. The White House has agreed to cut $10 billion in funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) it had secured to go after tax cheats, give up the unspent funding meant for Covid-19 pandemic relief package, impose work requirements for certain segments of the population on government assistance, and maintain the same level of taxes on the wealthy and tax corporations. Republicans have agreed on maintaining proposed spending for Medicare, social security, clean energy, student loan debt waivers, education funding for low income students, care for military veterans, child care grants, cancer research, among other Democratic priorities. The two sides also agreed to streamline permission for energy programmes, both in the case of fossil fuel and renewable infrastructure including transmission lines.

The House is expected to vote on the deal on Wednesday, after which it will go to the Senate. The Congress will have to expedite its approval to be able to meet the June 5 deadline.

The debt ceiling is a rather unique feature of the American political economy. Besides authorising spending, the US Congress also authorises the extent to which the executive can borrow to spend. This limit has increased over the years, but was currently pegged at $31.4 trillion. The US hit its debt limit on January 19 this year, and the Treasury Department since then has been relying on extraordinary measures. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen had warned that the US was likely to default on its obligations if a deal wasnt struck by June 5.

Republicans, who have a majority in the House, had insisted on major spending cuts, including in welfare programmes and Bidens signature legislations. The White House had initially insisted that the US Congress had a duty to raise the debt ceiling unconditionally but eventually agreed to negotiate on spending cuts in the budget, in return for a suspension of the ceiling. In the past few weeks, both sides had stepped up negotiations as the deadline loomed, with Biden postponing his trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea to return home from Japan to be available for negotiations.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Prashant Jha Prashant Jha is the Washington DC-based US correspondent of Hindustan Times. He is also the editor of HT Premium. Jha has earlier served as editor-views and national political editor/bureau chief of the paper. He is the author of How the BJP Wins: Inside India's Greatest Election Machine and Battles of the New Republic: A Contemporary History of Nepal. ...view detail
In a show of solidarity with other unions, the Writers Guild held a rally across from the Crypto.com Arena featuring speakers from the WGA, SEIU, SAG-AFTRA, and Teamsters unions, followed by a march down Figueroa to LA Live. The rally drew a crowd of thousands and ended in a dance party.

Once again impressing the crowd with her fire and charisma was director of the Teamsters' Motion Picture and Theatrical Trade Division, Lindsay Dougherty. Ms Dougherty was part of a strong lineup of LA's labor leaders, doing their best to keep the ongoing strike in the news.

Photos: Harry Hannigan

At stake are the use of AI by studios, who refused to even discuss it in pre-strike negotiations, as well as the formula for distribution of residual payments to writers. The two sides are not talking at the moment and the strike is expected to go through the summer.

Photos: Harry Hannigan

Thins are expected to come to a head after the DGA and SAG-AFTRA contracts expire June 30th and members of these guilds join the WGA in picketing the studios.
In a fiery social media exchange, conservative Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas didn't hold back his criticism of the tentative debt deal struck between Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden. Referring to the deal as a "turd-sandwich," Roy took issue with McCarthy's claim that "more than 95 percent of all those in the conference were very excited" about the agreement. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 23, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)(AP)

Roy's response on Twitter was scathing: "1st - the leadership playbook is to line up cheerleading on phone calls to demonstrate 'unity.' 2nd, not 95% - I know of more no's than that already. 3rd - they haven't been educated yet on what a turd-sandwich this 'deal' is. They will be."

The Texas lawmaker didn't stop there. He also pushed back against the Republican argument that Democrats gained nothing from the deal. While the agreement would raise the debt ceiling for two years and implement spending caps to avoid a national default, Roy argued that it included "basically no cuts" as spending levels would be frozen. He criticized the deal for failing to eliminate clean energy tax incentives, neglecting work requirements for Medicaid recipients, and ignoring border security concerns that Roy believes are crucial leverage for action on the border. Additionally, he expressed discontent with the preservation of most of the funding for the IRS.

Roy's dissenting voice joins a chorus of conservative Republicans who took to social media to voice their opposition to the deal. He made it clear that he intends to do everything possible to stop the bill from passing.

Also Read | Debt ceiling agreement reached between Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy: Report

In response, McCarthy took to Twitter to defend the deal and express confidence in its passage, stating that it heralded "a new day in Congress." McCarthy emphasized that Republicans were reshaping Washington by implementing a responsible debt limit that includes spending cuts, work requirements, and the retrieval of unspent COVID funds.

As the text for the bill is set to be released later in the day, its fate still hangs in the balance. It must pass both the House and the Senate to avert a national default.

The clash between Roy and McCarthy underscores the divisions within the Republican Party regarding the debt deal. While some GOP members are embracing it as a victory, others, like Roy, vehemently oppose it, viewing it as a missed opportunity to address key issues and implement substantial spending cuts.

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Good relations with China are possible even without being part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) deal, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in an interview published on Sunday, as her government weighs abandoning the project. Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.(REUTERS)

Italy is the only major Western country to have joined China's BRI scheme, which envisions rebuilding the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with large infrastructure spending.

In an interview with Il Messaggero daily, Meloni said it was too early to anticipate the outcome of Italy's decision on whether to remain part of the project, which it signed up to in 2019, drawing criticism from Washington and Brussels.

"Our assessment is very delicate and touches upon many interests," said Meloni. The pact expires in March 2024 and will be automatically renewed unless either side informs the other that they are pulling out, giving at least three months' notice.

In an interview with Reuters last year, before she won power in a September election, Meloni made clear she disapproved of the 2019 move, saying she had "no political will ... to favour Chinese expansion into Italy or Europe".

Meloni noted that while Italy was the only one of the Group of Seven (G7) rich democracies to have signed the Belt and Road memorandum, it was not the European and Western country with the strongest economic and trade ties with China.

"This means it is possible to have good relations, also in important areas, with Beijing, without necessarily these being part of an overall strategic design," she said.

Earlier this month a senior Italian government official told Reuters Italy was highly unlikely to renew the Belt and Road deal.

A first test of the right wing government's attitude towards China looms as Rome vets a shareholder pact at tyre maker Pirelli's, whose top investor is China's Sinochem.

China is among the biggest markets for most countries in the G7 group, particularly for export-reliant economies such as Japan and Germany.

At a summit last weekend, G7 leaders pledged to "de-risk" without "decoupling" from China, an approach that reflected European and Japanese concerns about pushing Beijing too hard, officials and experts said.
Princess Diana's former butler Paul Burrell, has made a sensational claim regarding Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Burrell sensationally claims that the marriage between Harry and Meghan is intact only because the Duke of Sussex is waiting for his children to grow up. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle(File Photo)

Am I the only person in the UK that is thinking, has Harry finally woken up to the truth? Has he finally seen the truth of what his wife is doing and that hes been brainwashed and mesmerized by her beauty or something? Because we all know that but he doesnt seem to see it, Burrell said on GB News Friday.

ALSO READ| Donald Trump's son ends up insulting former POTUS while taking a dig at Ron DeSantis

I personally know Harry and I think hes always wanted to be a father, hes always wanted children, I think this element of splitting from his family right now is a little premature. I think he would want to stay in that driving seat to watch his children grow because if he left this relationship now hed lose his children because shed[Meghan Markle] keep them in America and he wouldnt see them," said Burrell.

Because of all of that, I think Harry will try to stick with the program for as long as he possibly can, he added.

Notably, Grant Harrold, King Charles former butler had recently claimed that Prince Harry might return or buy a property in the UK to continue his ties with the home country.

Backing Harrold's claims, Burrell said: I have no doubt that when this happens, because we all know that it will happen, when it does happen then he will return to the United Kingdom and I think his father, the King, and his brother, the Prince of Wales will both greet him back into the country with open arms.

There is an element of Harry we all love, we just dont understand why hes doing what hes doing at the moment, he added.

Currently, Prince Harry resides with his wife and children in California, where he moved to in 2020 after stepping back from royal duties. Harry attended his father, King Charles' coronation but left for America the same day. Co-incidentally, his son Archie's 4th birthday fell on the same date and it was a possible reason for Harry's hurried departure.
As Prince William's wife Kate Middleton made a surprise appearance at the Chelsea Flower Show, she declined to sign her autograph for young fans due to a little-known rule within the royal family. Kate Middleton said, "My names Catherine. Im not allowed to write my signature, its just one of those rules." Here are 6 other bizarre rules that the royal family must follow: Britain's Kate, The Princess of Wales, Patron of the Foundling Museum, waves as she arrives to visit the Museum in London.(AP)

No one can touch them

The public is not allowed to touch royal family members. The royal family's official website states that there are "no obligatory codes of behaviour" when meeting the King, Camilla or any member of the royal family but there are some traditional forms of behaviour that apply. Men are encouraged to do a "neck bow" and women a small curtsy when they meet the royal family.

2. No PDA (Public display of affection)

Members of the royal family are expected to refrain from any form of PDA as they are expected to maintain proper decorum when they are out in public view.

3. Royal heirs travel separately

Royal heirs to the throne are not supposed to travel together in order to protect the line of succession. Two direct heirs - like Prince William and Prince George - are not allowed to travel together- based solely on security and securing the monarchy.

4. Royals must carry an all-black outfit when travelling

The reasoning behind this one is in case someone dies. Royal family hopes to be prepared in such an event which is why they pack an all-black outfit at all times while travelling.

5. Royals must accept all gifts gracefully

This rule states that members of the royal family must accept any gifts that they receive during royal engagements and official tours. But the monarch gets to decide which royals keep which gift.

6. Only married women wear crowns

Only married women are allowed to wear a tiara to most formal occasions, however, the decision to wear the expensive headpiece, is based on the wearer's personal preference and the dress code of the event they are attending.

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's journey together has been filled with ups and downs, but amidst the tensions and controversies, there is an unlikely royal who has shown a genuine fondness for Meghan. Princess Anne, known for her stoic demeanor, surprised many when she seemed to enjoy spending time with the Duchess of Sussex. FILE - Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, arrives at the Invictus Games venue in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday, April 15, 2022. Meghan will be in New York Tuesday, May 16, 2023, along with Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown, to receive the Ms. Foundations Women of Vision Award, as the nations oldest womens foundation marks its 50th anniversary.(AP)

Body language expert Judi James analyzed their interactions and noted that Princess Anne, who typically maintains a reserved presence in social situations, appeared to genuinely appreciate Meghan's company. It came as a surprise since Anne had not previously embraced or formed close relationships with younger royal wives. Meghan, being a Hollywood actress with a different background, may not have been an obvious choice for instant bonding with the princess.

However, Meghan's passion for her causes, her eloquence, and her shared sense of humor seemed to bridge the gap between them. James observed that there were moments where the two women genuinely looked happy in each other's company. Their past interactions showcased a blend of politeness and an intimate sharing of fun, suggesting a genuine connection between them.

While Meghan and Harry have distanced themselves from the royal family, they have maintained relationships with a few select royals. Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice, Harry's cousins with whom he was close growing up, have continued to support the couple. Princess Eugenie even shared her joy for Meghan and Harry when they welcomed their first child, Prince Archie.

However, the relationship between Harry and his brother, Prince William, remains strained since their disagreements over Harry's fast-moving relationship with Meghan. The royal family's handling of the press's treatment of Meghan further exacerbated tensions. Despite these difficulties, Meghan's unexpected bond with Princess Anne sheds light on the possibility of healing within the family.

Meghan and Harry's visits to the United Kingdom for important events, such as the queen's Platinum Jubilee and funeral, indicate that there may still be a chance for wounds to heal. Harry even returned for his father's coronation ceremony in 2023. Although it is uncertain whether time will fully mend the rifts, Meghan might have more allies within the royal family than she realizes.

As the Duke and Duchess of Sussex continue their independent path, observers eagerly watch for any signs of reconciliation and renewed relationships. The unexpected connection between Meghan and Princess Anne serves as a reminder that genuine bonds can form, even in the most unlikely circumstances.
In a significant development, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has announced that the student loan payment pause will come to an end as part of the debt ceiling deal reached between him and President Biden. McCarthy stated in an interview on "Fox News Sunday" that the pause on student loan payments will be lifted within 60 days of the deal being signed, which is expected to bring in $5 billion each month for the American public. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., talks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Sunday, May 28, 2023. Mediators on the debt limit came to an "agreement in principle" last night that would avert a potentially disastrous U.S. default, but still has to pass both houses of Congress.(AP)

This news comes as a surprise to many borrowers who have been benefiting from the student loan payment pause implemented during the pandemic. Under this pause, borrowers were granted temporary relief from making their monthly payments, providing them with some financial breathing room during these challenging times. However, with the debt ceiling deal in motion, the pause is set to be lifted, and borrowers will once again be required to make their payments.

According to McCarthy, the reason behind ending the student loan payment pause is that President Biden had initially waived certain portions of student loan debt unconstitutionally. Instead of targeted relief, the president implemented a blanket pause on all student loan payments, affecting borrowers indiscriminately. McCarthy argues that the pause was temporary and that borrowers who took out loans within 60 days of the signing of the debt ceiling deal will have to repay their debts.

It's worth noting that the Supreme Court is currently reviewing a case related to the constitutionality of the president's actions regarding student loan relief. McCarthy acknowledges that if the Supreme Court rules against the president's actions, he could still reinstate the pause. However, with the debt ceiling deal becoming law, the Supreme Court's decision will have to be upheld, meaning that borrowers affected by the pause will eventually have to resume making their monthly payments.

The text of the bill, which outlines the specifics of the debt ceiling deal, is expected to be released soon, potentially on Sunday, with a vote in the House anticipated as early as Wednesday. This timeline indicates that the process is moving swiftly, and changes could be imminent for student loan borrowers.

As this development unfolds, borrowers are left wondering about the implications for their financial situations. Many have relied on the student loan payment pause to manage their budgets and alleviate some of the economic pressures brought about by the pandemic. With the pause set to end, borrowers will need to prepare for the resumption of their monthly payments.

Also Read | President Biden faces criticism as he departs White House amid debt-ceiling talks

It's crucial for borrowers to stay informed and be proactive in understanding the terms and conditions of their loans. They should reach out to their loan servicers or financial advisors for guidance on how to navigate these changes effectively. Exploring alternative repayment options, such as income-driven repayment plans or refinancing, may be prudent for those who anticipate difficulties in meeting their loan obligations.

While the debt ceiling deal marks a significant shift in the student loan landscape, it is essential to stay tuned for further updates and developments. As with any legislative change, there may be additional details and provisions that will impact borrowers in various ways. Keeping abreast of the latest information and seeking personalized advice will be key to ensuring a smooth transition as the student loan payment pause comes to an end.
Known for their loyalty, pet dogs are considered one of the best friends for human beings. A service dog named Justin has proved just that and got awarded for his unflinching commitment towards his owner. Justin accompanied his owner Grace Mariani to all her classes and got awarded with a diploma at the commencement ceremony for New Jerseys Seton Hall University recently. Service dog Justin while receiving diploma at graduation ceremony of owner in New Jersey(Twitter)

A video of 6-year-old service dog Justin while receiving the diploma alongside Grace at the graduation ceremony, has gone viral on social media. Students can be seen cheering and giving a standing ovation to Justin in the viral video while his wheelchair-bound owner smiles during the lovely moment. Seton Hall president Joseph E. Nyre is seen raising both his hands after handing over the diploma to Justin who sniffs and then holds it in his mouth.

ALSO READ| 'He's been brainwashed', Royal Expert claims Harry has finally woken up to truth about marriage to Meghan

"Seton Hall President Joseph E. Nyre, Ph.D. presents Justin, the service dog for Grace Mariani, of Mahwah, NJ, with a diploma for attending all of Graces classes at Seton Hall," posted official Twitter account of Seton Hall.

The dog was provided to Grace by a non-profit organisation named Canine Companions. The organisation took to Twitter and wrote "Our client, Grace and her Canine Companions #servicedog Justin graduated from @SetonHall, and now, the entire country is cheering them on! Congratulations, Grace and Justin!".

Jeanine Konopelski, Canine Companionss vice president of marketing and advocacy, informed to CNN that Justin was the second service dog provided to Grace by the organisation.

When Grace was matched with Canine Companions service dog Justin, she said her dream was to go away to college and become a teacher, Konopelski said in an email to CNN.

She shared that with Justin by her side, she has the best chance for a successful, independent life, said Konopelski.
A More Perfect Union, "Media that builds power for working people," released this video, narrated by Andrew Rivera, investigating the people and organizations behind the Super-PAC No Labels. Arizona Senator Kirsten Sinema is one of the primary recipients to benefit from these fundraising efforts. In December 2022, Sinema announced leaving the Democratic party to run as an Independent. No Labels, "a guilded cabal of dark money," appears to be her sugar-PAC even as polls indicate her bid would be a non-entity.

A group calling themselves "No Labels" has suddenly emerged as a huge financial backer of Kyrsten Sinema.



They're also floating the idea of running Joe Manchin for President.



We dug into them, and found a whole lot of billionaires with a history of opposing democracy. pic.twitter.com/InSWKhGDE7  More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) May 22, 2023

"A group calling themselves "No Labels" has suddenly emerged as a huge financial backer of Kyrsten Sinema. They're also floating the idea of running Joe Manchin for President. We dug into them and found a whole lot of billionaires with a history of opposing democracy."

No Labels is not a new organization. Founded in 2009, "No Labels has worked tirelessly to give a voice to America's commonsense majority. We've made a notable impact in Congress by creating the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus and connecting them with an allied Senate group through regular bicameral meetings." Innocuous enough if you believe that elites have any other interest in mind except reproducing the conditions of their success and dominance.

According to Rivera, the money trail of No Labels runs from "Aspen to luxury resorts, jaunts to Europe, and undisclosed locations in Washington, D.C., to discover a deeper story of who is really behind No Labels and what is in it for them." The villainous characters involved include owners of the private equity firms like Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone, Louis Bacon of Moore Capital Management, Trump backer Nelson Peltz of Trian Partners, and James Rupert Murdoch, heir to the FOX fortune. Other No Labels contributors include the Consumer Technology Association, Chambers of Commerce, Nazi-memorabilia hoarder Harlon Crow, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's GOP sugar daddy.

When Sinema was first elected to Congress in 2012, she was available to constituents at open town hall-type meetings. Now, it seems the entry fee to talk to this elected public official is in the millions as she has broken up with the constituencies that put her in office in the first place.

"If Sinema plays spoiler for Democrats, handing the race and maybe the Senate to Republicans, it would guarantee that their tax breaks continue. Considering their net worth, cutting some checks to Kirsten Sinema is probably the safest bet in D.C."

The remainder of the video explores Sinema's recent voting record and how it dovetails with the interest of billionaires and their ilk, i.e., people who aspire to be wealthy. That is the rub of capitalism: you do not have to be rich to believe in and support policies and ideologies that reinforce the class position of elites, a desire groomed by the bootstrap narrative of meritocratic order and effort  you know, the Little Engine that Could  trickle down on others.

CA Knowledge recently reported Senator Sinema's worth is $11 million, while Newsweek has debunked that claim. Power is not only money. According to the New York Times, Sinema is a party of one.
Governor to Compete for Federal Grants for Clean Energy Infrastructure

BOSTON  The Healey-Driscoll Administration announced a project application for federal transmission funding that would deliver clean, affordable offshore wind and solar for the Commonwealth.

To jumpstart state and regional collaboration on necessary transmission infrastructure, the Department of Energy Resources submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Energy's Grid Innovation Program (GIP) for the innovative Cleaner Grid New England Project (CGNE Project) in partnership with Eversource and National Grid. The GIP award is a matching grant of up to $250 million. These funds were made possible by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The CGNE Project includes two subprojects that would be completed by project partners, Eversource and National Grid. The project enables interconnection for approximately 3,600 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind generation by increasing the grid's hosting capacity by approximately 2,400 MW in the Brayton Point area and at least 1,200 MW on the South Coast. The project would also enable the incremental interconnection of 300 MW of solar resources. National Grid's Greener Grid Brayton Point (GGBP) project proposes to construct two new substations at Grand Army and Brayton Point. Eversource's Southeastern Massachusetts Clean Grid (SEMA) project proposes to build a new substation to enable connection to offshore wind generation, as well as a substation to enable connection to solar generation on the South Coast.

"Massachusetts is competing hard for every federal dollar available to lower costs for consumers, maximize benefits for the state's ratepayers, and deliver clean energy to our homes and business,"

said Governor Maura Healey. "A future-ready transmission system will be key to meeting our ambitious climate limits."

In seeking federal funds, the CGNE Project provides an opportunity to capture significant benefits for the Commonwealth and the region. Funding through the DOE program would offset costs for transmission infrastructure that supports Massachusetts' clean energy goals, increase energy reliability and resilience, and provide necessary innovation in transmission planning and project development. Massachusetts will consider whether to move forward with the project following the receipt of any DOE award.

This application is a first step toward a multi-state, regional approach to integrating renewable energy into New England's electric grid. Earlier this year, Massachusetts joined the New England States to develop the Joint State Innovation Partnership for Offshore Wind, a concept paper submitted to the DOE's Grid Innovation Program.

Massachusetts is collaborating with the other New England States on pursuing federal investments into our transmission system to fully enable clean energy resources. This will help lower costs to ratepayers, maintain system reliability, help meet regional clean energy goals, and reduce our exposure to expensive and carbon-intensive imported fossil fuels.

"Transmission is the great enabler of offshore wind in Massachusetts and the region," said Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper. "With new energy sources coming online, it's critical that we also build out transmission to deliver this new energy to our residents. Investment in the transmission network will reduce congestion on our shared electric system, help our region transition to a clean energy future, and strengthens the grid's reliability and resilience for the people and businesses that rely on it."

The CGNE Project includes a robust Community Benefits Plan that describes specific actions the project developers will take related to community engagement, workforce development, and diversity, equity,

inclusion, and accessibility. A major goal of the DOE's GIP opportunity is to advance the interests of and opportunities for disadvantaged communities as infrastructure is developed.

The CGNE Community Benefits Plan includes the four goals outlined by DOE:

Supporting meaningful community and labor engagement;

Investing in the workforce;

Advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility; and,

Contributing to the goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities, also known as the Justice40 Initiative.

"As Massachusetts makes the clean energy transition, delivering that clean offshore wind energy to customers is a critical piece of that shift. The Healey Administration and the DOER secured the support of five New England states and worked with Eversource and National Grid to advance what could be an historic investment in our region's infrastructure. If this project is chosen by the Department of Energy, it stands to benefit the entire New England region, creating thousands of jobs and significant economic opportunity for southeastern Massachusetts," said Stephen Woerner, President of National Grid New England. "National Grid looks forward to partnering on this project to help the state meet its clean energy goals."
Taps is played during the Memorial Day ceremony at Clarksburg Town Hall on Sunday morning.

Clarksburg, Lanesborough Remember the Missing & Fallen for Memorial Day



Joseph Bushika salute as Laurie Boudreau sings the national anthem during at Town Hall. See more photos here. CLARKSBURG, Mass.  Attendees at Sunday's Memorial Day ceremonies at Town Hall were asked to remember the many military personnel who still lay in foreign lands or the oceans deep waters.

Memorial Day is in particular a day to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice, said Joseph Bushika of Peter A. Cook VFW Post 9144.

"Any veteran will tell you that the real heroes are the ones that didn't survive, the ones that died on the battlefield, those that sacrificed their lives for their country," he said.

Of the thousands who fell overseas during World War I and later, many were able to be shipped home to be buried by their loved ones. Many more were buried where they fell across Europe, Africa, the Far East and islands in the Pacific, Bushika said.

"Hundreds of sailors and Marines were buried at sea, loved ones unable to be at their sides to pay their last respects," he continued. "Such is the price of freedom and liberty."

Nearly 79,000 military personnel are listed missing in World War II, almost 20 percent of those killed during the war, and more than 8,000 went missing in Korea and more than 2,200 in Vietnam.

He asked that the gathering consider what it must have been like for mothers and fathers, waiting to find out what had happened to their sons and daughters and, for some, never knowing the final fate of their loved ones.

Thousands of missing soldiers, sailors and airmen remain missing in action, particularly from the wars of the 19th century.

Advances in forensic science has brought "much-needed closure for families throughout the United States," Bushika said, but many others will never know. "Perhaps these lost souls none only to God will come home once they are identified and be reunited with their families and their hometowns ... and be given the honors they truly deserve."

Town Administrator Carl McKinney spoke on behalf of the town, saying, "today is a day of solemn gratitude, gratitude to those who have fought for our nation and in so doing have paid the ultimate price protecting our freedoms our liberties and our democracy. They have paid a price that we can never repay. Let these services today uphold the duty and commitment of we who remain."

Select Board Chair Jeffrey Levanos and Cecilia Kincaid read poems and Kincaid gave the Gettysburg Address. Leyla Kincaid rang the bell as Bushika read of the names of those from Clarksburg who lost their lives in the nation's wars since the Civil War.

The Drury High School band played a number of patriotic tunes and Laurie Boudreau sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "America the Beautiful"; the Clarksburg Volunteer Fire Company provide and honor guard and gave the salute.




iciHaiti - Grand Boucan : Arrest of 6 individuals, members of the 5 Seconds gang





On the evening of May 25, in Grand Boucan (Nippes Dept.), the National Police of Haiti (PNH) arrested 6 individuals, members of the "5 Seconds" gang:



- Jahnesta Milfort (18 years old) alias "Djadji" residing in Martissant, Cite Plus area.

- Cerisier Gina (37 years old), domiciled in Martissant, Cite Plus area;

- Guyvens Cerisier (35), alias "Bos solo";

- Wildord Salvadon (28) alias "Trip kode";

- Jonel Fougette (35);

- Anderson Desir (18) alias "Sonson".



According to the admission of one of them, they are all active members of the "5 Seconds" gang. During their arrests the police confiscated among others : 423 US dollars, 447.535 Gourdes ; 6 cell phones, 2 National Identification Cards...



IH/ iciHaiti


















Three firefighters were injured and 16 people are being assisted by the American Red Cross after a car fire spread to two homes Sunday morning in the Bailey-Delavan neighborhood, City of Buffalo spokesman Michael J. DeGeorge reported.

Fire crews responded shortly after 11:30 a.m. to the three-alarm blaze, which began at 202 Hagen St., between East Delavan and Lang avenues, DeGeorge said.

Fire officials estimated damage at $250,000 to the car and house at 202 Hagen. Fire exposure damage to the home next door at 200 Hagen was assessed at $200,000.

Three firefighters suffered various injuries and were taken to Erie County Medical Center for treatment. Cause of the fire is under investigation.
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Narendra Modi inaugurated Indias new parliament building on Sunday, a modern complex that exemplifies his Hindu nationalist governments grand plan to give a makeover to national capital Delhis architecture in a literal and symbolic shedding of the countrys British colonial era.

The inauguration, part of the ongoing revamp of the political heart of New Delhi, comes a year before parliamentary elections in which the prime ministers Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will pitch its strong Hindu nationalist credentials, and its performance in office over the past decade, in an effort to win a third term in power.

But the grand ceremony, which included the performance of rituals significant to each of Indias major religions, was marred by a boycott by the countrys political opposition, which showed a rare unified front against Mr Modi and the BJP.

The ceremony was already taking place under a cloud because of continuing protests by Indias top wrestlers, including Olympians and gold medallists, surrounding allegations of sexual harassment committed by a leading politician at the head of Indias wrestling federation.

The wrestlers were unceremoniously shunted from their protest site, barely 2km away from the new parliament, and detained by Delhi police as they sought to peacefully march and protest at the site of the inauguration.

The inauguration has also been deemed controversial because it was held on the anniversary of the birth of Hindu ideologue Veer Savarkar, who is known for having asked the British government for clemency in the early years of the 20th century.

Following the inauguration, Mr Modi said the new edifice would fill the Indian people with pride, hope and promise.

May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress, he tweeted.

Early in the morning, Mr Modi held traditional prayers outside the complex in a ceremony attended by his top cabinet ministers. He then lit a traditional lamp inside the parliament and congratulated some of the workers involved in its construction.

He proceeded to install the Sengol (a sacred sceptre) in the new lower house of the parliament  the history of which has itself become controversial. Mr Modi also released a Rs75 coin to mark 75 years of Indias independence from the British.

At least 20 opposition parties boycotted the event, saying Mr Modi had violated protocol in his decision to inaugurate the new complex and grab the spotlight for himself when it should have been done by the president, Draupadi Murmu  Indias highest executive.

Indias prime minister Narendra Modi lights a lamp after installing the Sengol during the inauguration of the new parliament building in New Delhi (Reuters)

To open a new parliament building without the opposition, it does not mean there is a democracy in the country. Its an incomplete event, Supriya Sule, an opposition leader, told news agency ANI.

The Modi government has rejected the oppositions argument, saying no protocol was violated and that the prime minister respects the constitutional head of the country. It also accused the opposition of trying to politicise the event.

The new parliament complex  built at a cost of 97m  is itself the centrepiece of a $2.4bn project aimed at eclipsing the significance of colonial-era buildings in the centre of the capital, paving the way for modern buildings with a distinctive Indian identity.

Narendra Modi carries the royal golden sceptre to be installed near the speakers chair in the new parliament building (AP)

The new complex is designed to seat 888 members in the lower house and 384 in the upper house. The present building seats 543 and 250 members in the lower and upper houses respectively.

Besides modern technology, the new parliament has at least three times as much space to accommodate the lawmakers representing the worlds most populous nation.

The triangular-shaped parliament complex is just across from the old, circular heritage building built by British architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker in 1927, two decades before India gained independence. The old parliament building will be converted into a museum.

The project was announced in 2019, and Mr Modi laid the foundation stone a year later in December 2020. Already the plan had drawn intense criticism from opposition politicians, architects and heritage experts, many of whom called it environmentally irresponsible, a threat to cultural heritage and too expensive.

Outrage against the project grew in 2021, when at least 12 opposition parties questioned its timing at a moment when the country was experiencing a devastating surge in Covid cases and a high number of deaths.

They branded the revamp Mr Modis vanity project and said the construction of the new parliament was being prioritised while countless lives and livelihoods were being lost in the pandemic.

Modi inaugurates the new parliament building watched by the speaker of the lower house, Om Birla (AP)

A year earlier, a group of 60 former civil servants wrote an open letter to the prime minister to highlight the architectural value of the old parliament building, saying the new plan would irrevocably destroy the areas cultural heritage.

Mr Modis government, however, defended the revamp, saying it was necessary because the older building was showing signs of distress and over-utilisation and that the new design combines the countrys heritage and traditions.

Meanwhile, Indias opposition parties mocked the prime ministers inauguration even as some Indian celebrities, including one whose own son was arrested by federal authorities last year, praised it.

One party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, controversially said that the new parliaments triangular design looked like a coffin.

Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, whose great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru was Indias first prime minister, mocked the ceremony, saying Mr Modi considered the inauguration to be a coronation.

Jairam Ramesh, a former federal minister and a senior Congress Party leader, also lashed out at Mr Modi. A self-glorifying authoritarian Prime Minister with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the New Parliament building in 2023, he tweeted.

When the soul of democracy has been sucked out from the parliament, we find no value in a new building, said an earlier combined statement by the opposition.
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A runny nose, watery eyes, sneezing, coughing  whatever your hay fever symptoms, its no surprise if youve had a flare-up recently.

During spring, both tree and grass pollen is released into the air.

If youre allergic to the proteins they contain, your nose, eyes, throat and sinuses can become swollen, irritated and inflamed.

Many people are suffering from hay fever just now because the pollen count is high, thanks in part to climate change, says Dr Nisa Aslam, GP from Typharms Skin Life Sciences Foundation. Plus the pollen season is getting longer.

The immune function plays an important role in an allergic reactions, she explains. People who suffer from hay fever often have a family history of not just hay fever, but also skin conditions such as eczema or psoriasis, which can often be borne out of problems with the immune system.

The weather can also be a contributing factor in how badly youre affected.

Some hay fever sufferers may be experiencing a sudden spike in their symptoms a bit earlier than usual, this may be due to the recent prolonged wet and windy weather, says Claire Nevinson, superintendent pharmacist at Boots.

On a daily basis, rainfall tends to decrease pollen, but over a period of months, intermittent wet days tend to produce a more severe hay fever season overall.

Conditions could be about to get even worse. A recent study by the University of Worcester, published in the Science of The Total Environment journal, warned that it could be one of the worst seasons for birch pollen on record.

The severity is due to two things. Firstly, higher than average temperatures last June, when the pollen is produced, allowed greater potential for high pollen levels, says Dr Beverley Adams-Groom, senior pollen forecaster at the university.

Secondly, birch trees have a biennial pattern of pollen production, one mild year and one severe year, and this year was already expected to be a high year.

So what can you do if your hay fever is much worse than usual at the moment?

The first step is to avoid exposure to the pollen that affects you the most.

Allergens responsible for hay fever include grass pollens and tree pollens [spring and summer], weed pollens and fungal mould spores, says Dr Aslam.

Watch the daily pollen forecasts. Dont go outside when the pollen count is high and keep all windows shut.

Preventive medicines can help to reduce symptoms if you know in advance when youre going to be exposed to pollen.

This can be a steroid nasal spray one to two weeks before symptoms start, says Dr Aslam.

Alternatively, natural nasal sprays can help to prevent the symptoms of hayfever and other types of allergic rhinitis by forming a protective film in our inner nose, stopping allergens that we breathe in from trying to enter our respiratory system, she says.

Similarly, ointments like Vaseline can act as a pollen trap.

Apply a barrier balm of petroleum jelly around your nose to trap the pollen and help relieve dry and uncomfortable skin from repetitive nose blowing, Ms Nevinson says.

Shower and change your clothes after you have been outside to wash pollen off and wear wraparound sunglasses to stop pollen getting into your eyes.
A Buffalo man has pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter for the beating death of another man last December, Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn reported.

Lewis A. Keys, 23, faces a maximum of 25 years in prison when he returns for sentencing July 17 before State Supreme Court Justice Paul B. Wojtaszek. He continues to be held in lieu of $250,000 bail.

Keys is accused of a fatal attack on Mikhail C. Scott, 25, in an apartment building in the 100 block of Rodney Avenue, between Fillmore Avenue and Holden Street in Buffalo, on the night of Dec. 17.

Prosecutors said Scott was repeatedly punched, kicked and dragged down stairs to the sidewalk outside the building. He died of his injuries in Erie County Medical Center. The Erie County Medical Examiner's Office determined that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

Two other Buffalo men, Christopher L. Busby, 39, and his son, Daiquan A. Busby, 20, also have been charged with first-degree manslaughter in the case. Both are held without bail.
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Penny Mordaunt has explained why she wore flat fluffy slippers before taking part in the coronation ceremony of King Charles III and Queen Camilla earlier this month.

The Conservative MP, who has been Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons since September 2022, played a central role in the ceremony on 6 May, which saw her bearing the sword of state for 51 minutes.

During the ceremony, she wore a pair of sparkly silver shoes with a low heel. However, upon her arrival at Westminster Abbey ahead of the event, keen-eyes viewers pointed out Mordaunt had been wearing rather casual-looking flat shoes.

In a new interview with The Times, Mordaunt, 50, explained that her footwear choices were based on how long she would be standing during the ceremony.

Recalling how the procession to enter the abbey had been lined up in the cloisters, she said: Right at the back of that was me. You had all these military types with their incredible uniforms and regalia, but Gordon [Messenger] and I had learnt in rehearsals that we should sit down for as long as possible, so we were sitting in the cloisters.

And, I must confess, I was wearing a pair of fluffy slippers  I wasnt going to put my heels on until the last minute.

Mordaunt previously revealed that she took painkillers to help her get through the coronation while carrying the eight-pound sword, but dismissed rumours that she had physically trained specifically for the role.

In her latest interview, she said she was not the only one who had relied on painkillers on the big day.

(Getty Images)

I was joking with the three defence chiefs behind me at the altar, who all had various aches and pains, that there was the overwhelming smell of Voltarol, she said, referring to the muscle and pain relief gel.

Wed all taken a Nurofen because it was all a bit painful. But we were so caught up in the moment, which is exactly how it should be.

Mordaunt became an unexpected star of the coronation thanks to her striking look as she carried the ceremonial sword. Her outfit, a teal dress with a leaf motif designed by London fashion house Safiyaa, also became a focal point of the day.

(Getty)

Those who played the same role as Mordaunt before her had worn a court dress with a huge hat, but Mordaunt said she knew it was not what the King really wanted and instead opted for an outfit that reflected a modern coronation for a modern king.

I took some advice from Savile Row, who were very helpful, she said. I then found Hand & Lock, who do embroidery. They did lots of different designs and mood boards.
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Ulrika Jonsson has claimed that the late Rolf Harris, a convicted sexual offender, groped her when she was 21 years old and in the early stages of her career.

Australian entertainer Harris died on 10 May at the age of 93. He was famous for his music and painting talents, which he showcased on TV, before being convicted of a string of sexual assaults in 2014.

Jonsson, 55, wrote in her column for The Sun newspaper on Saturday that the incident allegedly occurred when Harris appeared as a guest on a show she was working on.

He appeared on the former ITV breakfast programme TV-am, where Jonsson worked as a weather presenter at the time.

She wrote: The studios were laid out such that it was impossible not to bump into guests during the live show. I felt quite enamoured to be introduced to him. This was Rolf Harris, for goodness sake.

I reached out my hand and he chose instead to embrace me. I remember thinking that was either really flattering or a bit forward. Either way, it was confusing.

The Swedish-British presenter and model continued: Then his hand travelled down to my bum, gave it a few squeezes and stayed there for what felt like years but it was probably only 30 seconds.

But it was long enough for my 21-year-old self to feel deeply uncomfortable and speechless. I know I wont have been the only one who fell victim to his hands.

Jonsson said that people didnt pipe up or call anyone out at the time the incident allegedly took place, particularly if they were big celebrities.

We may have come a long way in making that kind of behaviour unacceptable but we still have miles to travel, she added.

Last week, Vanessa Feltz also claimed she was groped by Harris during a live TV interview she was presenting for Channel 4s The Big Breakfast in 1996.

(TalkTV)

Speaking on This Morning, the 61-year-old broadcaster said that she and the crew were crowded into a tiny little bedroom where The Big Breakfast bed was and Harris was next to her, while Harris wife was literally a foot away to the side of the bed.

She said she felt a crunching sensation and realised that Harris was allegedly pulling her dress further and further up my legs.

I was absolutely shocked, Feltz said. If I didnt do something [his hand] was literally going to go inside my underwear.

Harris became one of 12 people arrested in England as part of Operation Yewtree in 2013, which was launched in the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal.

(Getty/Metropolitan Police)

He was charged with multiple counts of indecent assault against young girls and women between the Sixties and Eighties.

In 2014, he was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison after he was found guilty of all 12 counts of indecent assault. He was released in May 2017, after serving three years of his sentence.

Harris was stripped of all his honours following his conviction, including his CBE, OBE, MBE, and Membership of the Order of Australia.

Rape Crisis offers support for those affected by rape and sexual abuse. You can call them on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, and 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland, or visit their website at www.rapecrisis.org.uk. If you are in the US, you can call Rainn on 800-656-HOPE (4673)
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The White House has made an extraordinary intervention in the case of an Afghan pilot threatened with deportation to Rwanda by pledging to look into his case as the UK government continues to stall.

The air force lieutenant, who flew combat missions in support of UK and US forces and was praised by his supervisor as a patriot to his nation, fled to the UK in a small boat after the fall of Kabul because it was impossible to find a safe and legal route.

In Britain, dozens of military chiefs, celebrities and politicians from across the political divide have pledged their support to The Independents campaign to allow him to stay, including the former head of the British army General Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of Nato George Robertson, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, and former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

The pilot believes he is one of many Afghan forces personnel to have been forgotten by the US and British forces (Supplied)

But the government is dragging its heels in making a decision on whether to grant him asylum.

Now, in a dramatic turn of events, White House spokesperson John Kirby, who is the strategic communications coordinator for the US National Security Council, has promised to investigate whether the man would be eligible for asylum in America, in a move that puts further pressure on the UK to act.

When asked by The Independent whether US president Joe Biden believed that Afghan veterans who fought alongside coalition forces should be deported, citing the case of the Afghan pilot in the UK, the former US Navy rear admiral said: Its the first Ive heard of it, so well have to look into it, to check it out.

Military chiefs say the UK has a duty to help the airman instead of forcing him to seek refuge elsewhere, and that the US intervention should increase the pressure on the UK government to do the right thing.

The pilots details have now been sent to the White House, and officials are looking into how the US Department of State can help.

Mr Kirby said the Biden administration is committed to resettling Afghans who fought alongside coalition forces to the United States.

We continue to work to bring our Afghan allies out of Afghanistan and into the country. We continue to believe down to our marrow that thats a responsibility and an obligation we take seriously  its not stopped and its not going to stop, he said.

Mr Kirby said the US had already welcomed more than 100,000 Afghan refugees and stressed that the Biden administration would continue to do everything we can to help the brave Afghans and their families get out of Afghanistan.

John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, has said that the White House will look into the pilots case (Getty)

We encourage anyone who wants to try to seek asylum in the United States to use those legal pathways, and those legal pathways are open, of course, to former Afghan allies. Weve established these legal processes ... the programme is called Enduring Welcome, and so it still exists. So for those Afghan allies that want to claim asylum in the United States, there are existing processes to do that, he said.

The Afghan pilot applied for sanctuary in the US days after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, and his details were sent directly to the US embassy by his former American supervisors. He said he heard nothing back and was forced to flee Afghanistan in fear for his life.

The pilot says he is one of many Afghan forces personnel who have been forgotten by the US and British forces they served with, and believes that the promise of friendship and cooperation has been abandoned by leaders in both Washington and London.

The airman has so far been told by the UK Home Office that his asylum claim could be dismissed because he passed through a number of European countries to get here. He has been threatened with removal to Rwanda, and UK defence ministers have said that he, along with other members of the Afghan air force, would not qualify in principle for help.

Lord Dannatt, the former head of the UK armed forces, responded to the latest development, saying: Right-thinking people in the US, like those in the UK, can see the justice in supporting this Afghan pilot to receive asylum in a safe country like the UK or the US. Sending him to Rwanda would be an outrage.

Lord Dannatt is among those backing the campaign (PA Archive)

Lord Robertson, a former defence secretary and a former general secretary of Nato, said: It is truly sad and demeaning for our country to see the US picking up our obligations to people who bravely served us. Hopefully, a sense of decency and embarrassment will force a change of policy.

And Alf Dubs, a child refugee who fled the Nazis before the Second World War, said he hoped the willingness of the US to investigate the case would increase the pressure on the UK government to do the right thing.

Lord Dubs added: [The pilot] is here in the UK and we have a responsibility to him. It shouldnt matter how he got here  there arent enough safe and legal routes for Afghans to seek safety. Were treating someone who helped our military and mission in Afghanistan very shabbily.

Senior Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence committee, said: This is spilling into White House press conferences when it really should have been handled behind the scenes in the UK.

Mr Ellwood expressed his hope that the apparent intervention in the US would mean that the pilots case would be dealt with quickly by the government and the Rwanda threat removed.

Admiral Alan West, now Lord West, who was chief of the UK naval staff from 2002 to 2006, said the UK has a moral duty to look after the pilot, and urged: We cannot send him elsewhere and he cannot go back to Afghanistan  he is under huge threat.

Steve Smith MBE, CEO of charity Care4Calais and a former British army colonel, said that the pilot has been abandoned all over again by the UK government.

He said: He worked alongside UK and coalition forces but was left behind as the Taliban seized control of the country, and now, having made it to the UK, our government thanks him for his service with the threat of deportation to Rwanda.

The prime minister and defence secretary both asked for the pilots details. Theyve had them for weeks and neither has acted. Its a damning indictment of the governments disrespect towards Afghan refugees that the White House is now pledging to look into the case due to their inaction.

A government spokesperson said: Whilst we dont comment on individual cases, we remain committed to providing protection for vulnerable and at-risk people fleeing Afghanistan, and so far have brought around 24,600 people impacted by the situation back to the UK.

We continue to work with like-minded partners and countries neighbouring Afghanistan on resettlement issues, and to support safe passage for eligible Afghans.
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A row has erupted over Chinese-made wristbands given out at the concert at Windsor Castle celebrating the coronation of King Charles III. The BBC, which organised the event, came under fire for buying the light-emitting wristbands because of Chinas woeful human rights record and the ongoing Uyghur genocide.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the wristbands should not have been bought from a country guilty of genocide and slave labour.

He criticised BBC Studios for the decision and said they should have been bought from a British company.

A crowd of 20,000 revellers gathered at the castle the day after the coronation to watch acts including Katy Perry and Lionel Richie.

Concertgoers were given electronic wristbands which were used to mimic the effect of crowds at rock concerts sparking lighters.

But eyebrows were raised because the wristbands were manufactured in China  a country which MPs have said is guilty of committing genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been detained in mass internment camps in the Xinjiang province since 2017.

Eyebrows were raised when coronation concertgoers were handed wristbands that were made in China (Independent)

Sir Iain, a former Tory leader, told The Independent the BBC  which organised the concert  should have gone elsewhere to buy the wristbands.

And Labour MP Marie Rimmer said the coronation would have been a perfect time to show less dependence on China.

Sir Iain added: I think they should go elsewhere to buy this stuff. China regularly uses slave labour and is a very dangerous country.

The real issue is that they could have got them from another country other than China, but there is no law against them getting them from China.

I would prefer that people stopped buying goods from China and found an alternative place to get them from. We are far too dependent on China and the state is using that money they make to build up their military and crush dissent at home.

You should ask whether you want to support a country that is guilty of genocide and slave labour, or not?

They would probably tell you there was not, but there was a British company they could have gone to. I would think the British company would have cost a bit more but it is time we started supporting products made by democratic states that believe in the concept of human rights.

And Ms Rimmer said: As a country we need to be less dependent on China. The coronation would have been a perfect time to symbolise this. There are huge atrocities being committed by the Chinese Communist Party on their own citizens that we must not turn a blind eye to.

The Procurement Bill will soon be voted on in Parliament and it is the perfect opportunity to make sure that public money is not being spent on products that come from forced labour or other human rights abuses.

A BBC Studios spokesperson said the company which made the wristbands, CrowdLed, uses independent labour standards audits for its manufacturing site. They added that they were satisfied no slave labour was used in the making of the wristbands.

Katy Perry performs at the Coronation Concert held in the grounds of Windsor Castle (Leon Neal/PA) (PA Wire)

The spokesperson said: We considered other wristband providers, including a British company, who also manufacture in China. We chose CrowdLed, who work with several other high-profile businesses and brands, to supply the wristbands because they offered a solution in line with our sustainable aims.

In addition they demonstrated that they have robust practices in place where they monitor their supply chain and suppliers in line with BBC Studios strict ethical trading requirements. The wristbands used for the concert were refurbished in the UK and Europe  and will now be used again at future events.

Buckingham Palace declined to comment.

But the revelation is the latest China-related controversy around the coronation after senior Tories called the Chinese vice-presidents attendance an outrage.

Han Zheng, who was recently appointed as president Xi Jinpings deputy, represented China at the event.

Mr Han led Hong Kong affairs for Beijing between 2018 and March this year, during which time it imposed the national security law following mass protests in the city, stifling opposition and criminalising dissent.

Tim Loughton MP, a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said his presence was an insult to the freedom-loving people of Hong Kong.
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A British couple claim to have found a shrine to missing Madeleine McCann in an area close to the desolate reservoir in Portugal searched by police earlier this week.

The retired pair say they discovered a makeshift memorial, consisting of a photograph of the missing toddler surrounded by flowers and stones, at Christmas in 2007. The three year-old had vanished from a holiday resort in Portugal in May that year.

The husband and wife, named only as Ralf and Ann, say they took photographs of it and sent them to Portuguese detectives but never heard anything back. Just days later, the shrine had disappeared, they claim.

Vehicles and tents of Portugal's investigative Judicial Police are seen at the site of a remote reservoir where a new search for the body of Madeleine McCann took place, in Silves, Portugal (REUTERS)

The couple say they didnt think anything else of the weird incident until three years ago when Christian Brueckner was first identified by German authorities. He was named by Portuguese authorities as a formal suspect in 2022.

Ralf told the Mail on Sunday: I immediately contacted the BKA in Germany and told them what we had and I had a reply back within a few hours.

They wanted to know everything that we had seen and then they asked me to send them the pictures and they sent a map of the reservoir, asking me to point out where the stones were, he continued.

As the crow flies, it was just half a mile across the water from the picnic spot where the police were digging last week.

Ann says she traveled to Wiesbaden to give a statement and showed German detectives the photographs they took of the shrine at the reservoir, which is only a few minutes drive from their holiday home.

Thinking about it now gives me goosebumps because when we saw where the police were searching the past few days you could see thats where the row of stones was pointing to, she said.

German police have not commented on the couples unconfirmed claims, or why it would appear to have taken three years to follow up the apparent tip-off, though the Mail has published pictures of the shrine.

Personnel at Barragem do Arade reservoir, in the Algave, Portugal, as searches took place into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann (PA)

It comes after police last week embarked on a three-day hunt for new evidence in the ongoing mystery.

The search team flattened a concentrated area of woodland, dug a number of holes near a remote reservoir, and left huge piles of soil and broken rock next to an area close to the banks of the Barragem do Arade.

Portuguese police confirmed the search concluded on Thursday last week, and said materials had been sent to Germany for testing.

German detectives instigated the search after prosecutors in the country received certain tips about the case.

They believe that their prime suspect Brueckner, 45, kidnapped and murdered the youngster.

Madeleine vanished without a trace 16 years ago (PA Media)

He is in prison in Germany for the rape of a woman in Praia da Luz in 2005, and is suspected of further rapes and child sexual abuse committed in the area between 2000 and 2017.

Madeleine was three when she vanished while on holiday with her parents, Gerry and Kate, in Praia da Luz, after they left her and her younger twin siblings asleep in their apartment while they went out to dinner with friends.

Portuguese lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia previously claimed that criminal contacts had told him that Madeleines body was in the reservoir, and in 2008 he raised funds for unsuccessful private searches of the water.
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The UK is finally enjoying a spate of warm weather this bank holiday weekend, with parts of the country seeing temperatures 20C and higher.

As such you might find yourself tempted to go for a dip as Britain heats up.

However, its worth doing your research beforehand as the Environment Agency regularly provides updates on water quality across the country.

The Swimfo website has an interactive map highlighting areas where the EA advises against bathing. Annual ratings classify each site as excellent, good, sufficient or poor based on measurements taken over a period of up to four years.

Campaign group Surfers Against Sewage provides a similar map that also flags more recent sewage discharges. Below we look at more than a dozen locations around the UK where you should think twice before taking a dip, either due to sewage concerns or poor quality conditions for bathing.

Blackpool North

Blackpool North sand beach is opposite Blackpool Tower and between Central and North Piers. Water quality here was rated sufficient in 2018 and 2021, and good in 2019 but took a dive to poor last year.

Bognor Regis (Aldwick)

Aldwick is mostly a shingle resort beach with some sand exposed at low tide. There are eight sewer overflows spread out across the length of this beach with several more to the east and west. In 2019 and 2021 the water was rated as good but took a dramatic plunge in 2022 to poor.

Bridlington South Beach

Bridlington South Beach has one sewer overflow which discharges straight onto the beach while a long sea overflow was built in 2014 to transfer discharge from the Gypsy Race 1.1km out to sea. Water quality took a nose dive last year to poor after it was found sufficient in previous assessments.

The Environment Agency highlights many of the locations on this list due to water quality concerns (Swimfo)

Burnham Jetty North

In 2020 the Environment Agency warned against swimming on Burnham-on-Seas main beach due to ongoing water quality concerns and that remains in place three years later.

The Agencys Environment Manager Jim Flory said at the time: The Environment Agency has issued permanent advice against bathing at Burnham Jetty at Burnham-On-Sea. This advice is issued under the Bathing Water Regulations because water quality has been classified as poor for five consecutive bathing seasons at Burnham.

Clacton (Groyne 41)

This is another area where the EA has permanently advised against bathing. The spot in Essex was found to have been poor for five years running.

The agency previously suggested pigeons were partly to blame for the conditions, with birds dropping faeces dropping into the water when they nest under the pier.

Dunster North West

A large pebble and sand resort beach backed by Chalets, Dunster North West faces into the Bristol Channel and is just east of the popular seaside resort of Minehead. A sewer overflow discharges directly into the sea in the middle of this beach. Bathing is not advised after previously sufficient water quality dropped to poor in 2022.

Beach resort Weston Super Mare has a number of spots with poor quality water for bathing (Getty)

Heacham

Heacham or Stubborn Sands is a gently sloping sand beach fronting a popular Norfolk seaside resort. The sea is cloudy here due to tidal movements stirring up the sediment. There are no sewer overflows discharging directly onto the beach but there are long and short sea outfalls at Hunstanton.

In 2018 and 2019 the water quality was deemed sufficient but has dropped to poor in the last two years.

Ilfracombe Wildersmouth

Wildersmouth beach is another Devon location where the EA permanently advises against bathing. In 2017 alone, 42 warnings were issued against swimming due to pollution risk.

Instow

Instow in North Devon is not a bathing beach and the public is advised not to go swimming, the local parish council says. It is another spot that has consistently had poor water quality and the EA does not believe it will meet the minimum standard in the foreseeable future.

The council also warns that dog owners should bear in mind that if there are pollutants in the water that are potentially harmful to humans they are also potentially harmful to dogs.

Surfers Against Sewage also shows recent sewage discharges across the country (Surfers Against Sewage)

Kinghorn (Harbour Beach)

Bathers are advised to avoid entering the waters of Harbour Beach in Kinghorn, Scotland, due to its poor annual classification. The beach is a mix of sand and rock pools and cliffs and stretches about 500m long.

Scarborough South Bay

Scarborough South Bay is a long, sandy resort beach located directly below the seafront  and in one of Britains most famous seaside towns. There is a sewer overflow that discharges directly onto the beach, with two more at 800m and 2.5km away from the bathing water. Quality of the water was rated sufficient in 2021 but dipped back down to poor the year after.

St Marys Bay (Kent)

St Marys Bay is a shingle beach with large areas of sand flats. There are no sewer overflows discharging directly into St Marys Bay, however there are sewer overflows in the vicinity. Back in 2018 the water quality was considered good but dropped to sufficient the year after and then poor last year.

Tynemouth Cullercoats

The beach is enclosed by piers at each end, which means the area is a sheltered bay. Though no sewer overflows discharge directly at Tynemouth Cullercoats, there are discharges into the River Tyne, which meets the sea just south of the bathing water. Water quality here has been rated poor every year since 2018.

Blackpool North is one of several areas where water quality took a dive last year (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

Weston-super-Mare Sand Bay

A sand and shingle beach resort in North Somerset, approximately 5km wide and backed by sand dunes. There is a salt marsh at the northern end, and Sand Point Headland is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The outfall from Weston-super-Mare STW discharges to the sea at Black Rock 5km south of Sand Bay. Water quality was rated good in 2018, falling to sufficient the year after and then poor last year.

Weston Main

Located close to the popular seaside town of Weston-super-Mare, the main beach is a large stretch of sand with a pier. Two sewer overflows discharge directly into the sea here - one at the northern extent of the beach and one 2km to the south. The bathing water quality may also be affected by discharges from the surrounding urban catchment area. In 2019 it was rated as sufficient but fell to poor for the last two years.

Wharfe at Cromwheel

The short 160m stretch of the River Wharfe flowing through the West Yorkshire town of Ilkley is popular with swimmers and paddlers. A sewage discharge outlet is located within the designated bathing area at one of these beaches. Water quality was found to be poor in 2021 and 2022.

Wolvercote Mill Stream

Wolvercote Mill Stream is a bifurcation of the River Thames that splits from the main channel above Kings Lock, re-joining below Godstow Lock. The most recent water quality classification in 2022 rated it poor with bathing not advised.
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The Home Office is aiming to deter Channel crossings to the UK with a social media ad campaign targeting Albanian nationals.

The publicity drive, which will run on Facebook and Instagram from next week, will warn people they face being detained and removed if they make the journey.

Opposition critics and charities have branded the campaign a gimmick, with Labour accusing the Government of tinkering at the edges of an asylum system in chaos.

The Home Office would not say how much the publicity drive is expected to cost.

We are determined to stop the boats and the campaign, launching in Albania this week, is just one component of the Home Offices work upstream to help dispel myths about illegal travel to the UK Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick

It follows a similar campaign launched in August last year, when adverts ran in Albanian on Facebook and Instagram to deter people from making the journey.

Record numbers of people crossed the channel last year and more than 6,000 have been detected making the journey so far in 2023.

But the number of Albanian small boat arrivals peaked during the summer of 2022 and by early 2023 had dropped below levels seen in 2021, according to Government figures.

According to the Home Office, Albania is a safe and prosperous country and many nationals are travelling through multiple countries to make the journey to the UK before making spurious asylum claims when they arrive.

It was the most common nationality applying for asylum in the UK in the year to March 2023, with 13,714 applications by Albanian citizens, 9,487 of which came from arrivals on boats crossing the English Channel.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said: Organised immigration crime is a global challenge which requires international solutions the whole way along the migration route.

That includes working proactively at source before people set off on dangerous and unnecessary journeys.

We are determined to stop the boats and the campaign, launching in Albania this week, is just one component of the Home Offices work upstream to help dispel myths about illegal travel to the UK, explain the realities and combat the lies peddled by evil people-smugglers who profit from this vile trade.

Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, said: This is yet another pointless campaign that shows ministers refuse to understand that a small minority of the worlds refugees have very powerful reasons to come here.

It also repeats the myth that refugee migration is illegal when in fact a persons right to enter a country to claim asylum is protected by a Refugee Convention we helped create.

If the Government wanted to smash the smuggling gangs and stop people crossing the Channel in flimsy boats it would create more safe routes for refugees to travel here to claim asylum.

Chief executive of refugee charity Care4Calais Steve Smith said: No amount of taxpayer-funded PR spin will deter refugees, who have experienced some of the worst things imaginable from war and conflict to torture and human rights abuses, from seeking a safe future.

The only solution that will put people smugglers out of business, stop small boat crossings and save lives is to offer safe passage to refugees with a viable asylum claim in the UK.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the Tories so-called solutions to tackle the migrant crisis have failed at every turn.

She said: It beggars belief that as Channel crossings continue to rise and the asylum system is in chaos, all the Conservatives can come up with to stop the criminal gangs is an ad campaign.

At every turn, the Tories so-called solutions fail to meet the scale of the crisis. All they are doing is tinkering at the edges.

Freedom from Torture chief executive Sonya Sceats said: This is just another government gimmick to distract us from the tragedy of millions of British families getting poorer because of how badly the Prime Minister has handled the cost-of-living crisis.

If Sunak is serious about protecting refugee lives, he needs to secure safe routes, stop wasting money on PR tactics and close the backlog of asylum claims.

Refugees need protection and a chance to recover and rebuild their lives in safety.

The Governments Illegal Migration Bill aims to send asylum seekers who arrive in Britain via unauthorised routes back home or to a third country such as Rwanda.

Ministers also hope the legislation will cut the daily 5.5 million cost of housing migrants who make it to the UK.

The Bill, currently in the House of Lords, has been attacked by critics including the Archbishop of Canterbury who argue that it is both unworkable and morally unacceptable.
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MPs claiming driving fines on expenses is manifestly wrong, the chair of Parliaments sleaze watchdog has said.

Labour MP Chris Bryant said members of the public cannot claim fines on their daily expenses, adding that MPs should not be any different.

The senior party figure also said the ministerial code is ripe for reform, and the system is not fit for purpose,

Mr Bryants intervention came after The Independent revealed a Tory minister who served under Suella Braverman at the Home Office is among high-profile MPs to have wrongly claimed hundreds of pounds in driving fines on expenses

Amanda Solloway, who is now a minister in the energy department, claimed back an 80 fixed penalty notice issued to her while she was driving in London in July 2020, listing it under MP travel expenses.

Tory MP and select committee chair Simon Hoare, and former Tory vice-chair Bim Afolami, also got taxpayers to foot the bill for their penalties.

Mr Bryant told Skys Sophy Ridge on Sunday: To my mind, it is manifestly wrong. I dont care whether it breaches the rules, it is manifestly wrong that somebody could.

If you are an ordinary member of the public who has been caught parking in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting a parking ticket or a speeding fine, you cant claim that on your daily expenses can you? So, I dont see why MPs should be any different.

On the ministerial code, Mr Bryant said: The ministerial code says in terms that no minister shall ever refuse to provide some information unless it is legally necessary to do so and so I think there is a danger here that if the Covid inquiry doesnt get everything it needs in a timely fashion, then it will feel to the British people as if ministers are trying to obstruct a proper inquiry and that will be both a breach of the Ministerial Code and morally offensive.

The penalties claimed for were issued by Transport for London, which hands out fines to drivers who violate traffic laws, such as parking on double red lines, driving in buhas lanes, and wrongly using disabled bays.

The IPSA register of MPs expenses shows that Mr Hoare, MP for North Dorset, claimed four times for 80 fines issued in November 2019.

Mr Afolami, MP for Hitchin and Harpenden, claimed for two 80 fines in December 2021.

Mr Doogan, SNP MP for Angus, claimed for a 160 fine in January 2022.

The expenses were approved and paid by the parliamentary expenses authority IPSA (the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority)  but after being approached by The Independent, it admitted it had been wrong to do so.

IPSA said it would be writing to the MPs to ask for the money to be repaid, and that it would also reiterate the expenses rules to them.

Ms Solloway and Mr Afolami claimed the expenses were submitted in error, and both confirmed they had repaid the charges after The Independent approached them this week. The other MPs did not respond.

Labours shadow Commons leader Thangam Debbonaire condemned the MPs claims, saying: While Rishi Sunaks MPs break the rules and try and make the taxpayer pick up the bill, working people are left struggling to cope with the soaring Tory cost of living crisis.

Tory MPs flouting the rules damages public confidence in the system. Rishi Sunak must clamp down on the rulebreakers in his party and get on with delivering for the British people.

Sir Alastair Graham, former chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, told The Independent that MPs should not be seen by the public as having special privileges.

Its scandalous. If the home secretary can pay her fine for speeding, then everybody else should pay their fixed penalty notices, he said. MPs are ordinary citizens like the rest of us, and if theyve breached the regulations for driving then they have to pay the fixed penalty notice like the rest of us.

It gives a very bad impression if theyre paid out of public funds, because it looks like theyre getting special privileges, which is most inappropriate.
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Russias ambassador to the UK has warned of an escalation to the war in Ukraine as Britain and other Western allies commit more weapons to aid President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Speaking to the BBCs Laura Kuenssberg, Andrei Kelin said the actions of Nato countries, especially the UK, risk lengthening and triggering a new dimension in the war.

He said Russia had enormous resources and despite the war already raging for over a year, he claimed his country had not yet started to act very seriously.

Mr Kelin said: Russia is 16 times bigger than Ukraine. We have enormous resources.

Sooner or later, of course, this escalation may get a new dimension which we do not need and we do not want. We can make peace tomorrow.

When asked about widespread mounting evidence of Russias war crimes, the ambassador said Ukraine was the one committing war crimes.

He then changed tack and said the United Nations had no power to investigate war crimes.
A judge found that Canisius College officials clearly detailed the college's financial distress in 2020, one of the factors that prompted him to dismiss a lawsuit from four tenured professors who lost their jobs amid cost-cutting moves.

A deposition from John J. Hurley, the college's president when their jobs were eliminated, "pretty much spells out the very perilous financial situation that the college was facing," said State Supreme Court Justice Emilio Colaiacovo in his recent ruling.

So the college's decision to end their employment was not "irrational or without support," Colaiacovo said.

The four were not singled out, Colaiacovo said.

"They were among the class of tenured professors who were terminated due to financial decisions," he said in his ruling. "The financial situation of the college forced Canisius to make certain reductions, restructuring and adjustments that, in this case, resulted in the scaling back of certain employees."

The former faculty members on Thursday appealed his ruling to a state appellate court in Rochester.

"I think this case is critically important for academia in New York State and beyond," said attorney J. Morgan Levy, who's representing the four during their appeal. "The issue whether tenure has any teeth is critical to academic freedom. I think the lower court was wrong in a couple of different ways and hope the appellate court will reconsider that decision."

Canisius declined to comment on the ruling "at this time," said spokeswoman Eileen Herbert.

Dealing with huge revenue losses due to enrollment declines and the Covid-19 shutdown of campus, Canisius in June 2020 eliminated 22 faculty posts and 71 nonteaching positions. Canisius also cut programs in classics, physics, European studies and other areas.

Matthew W. Mitchell, who taught religious studies, and three other tenured faculty members filed a lawsuit in December 2020 alleging that Canisius breached its contracts with them.

Mitchell, who joined the Canisius faculty in 2008 and received tenure in 2011, was among the 22 faculty members let go as part of the colleges efforts to cut into what it called a $20 million operating deficit.

The other three who sued are Maria Fernanda Astiz, who had been at Canisius since 2002, receiving tenure in the adolescence education department in 2008 and promoted to full professor in the teacher education department in 2015; Steven Maddox, who received tenure in 2015 and taught history at Canisius for 11 years; and Kathryn F. Williams, who taught at the college since 2006 and was chairwoman of the Classics department for her last three years at Canisius.

At a March 24 hearing before Colaiacovo, their lawyer at the time, Lisa Coppola, said Canisius ignored the terms of its contract with the four tenured faculty members.

As tenured professors, according to the employee handbook, they had the right to continued employment unless or until certain conditions exist, she said. None of those conditions existed at the time Canisius notified them that their positions would be coming to an end, she said.

They could only be lawfully terminated for a "demonstrably bona fide financial exigency," Coppola said. And the college "flatly failed" to establish that, she said.

"You don't believe it was?" Colaiacovo asked her at the hearing.

"In the midst of Covid and everything that every college was facing, I mean, usually most colleges are a house of cards anyways, and I think that the Covid-19 pandemic exposed those," Colaiacovo said at the hearing. "How can you say at the time this decision was made that they weren't facing financial exigency?"

Coppola contended that the college did not declare a financial emergency, and even denied one existed, so it breached its contract with the faculty members.

Hurley "went on record essentially denying" an emergency, apparently trying not to panic those paying tuition, she said at the hearing.

Canisius asserted it was under no obligation to declare a financial exigency, only that it be experiencing one.

Attorney Jennifer McLaughlin, who represents Canisius, told the judge the college "had an unprecedented financial situation going on," but college officials had to be mindful of the student body "making sure the students were comfortable and sound in their education."

"To broadcast and advertise financial difficulties would wreak havoc and cause concern and panic on campus for students, for faculty, for administration, for staff," she said.

In order to "cure" the dire financial situation, she said, the Canisius College Board of Trustees "acted swiftly and aggressively."

The board made $12.3 million in cuts, of which $2.5 million came out of faculty and academic programming, she said.

Colaiacovo ruled there is no requirement that the college formally announce a financial crisis. He said the financial difficulties faced by the college were abundant, and given their validity, "relying on them to terminate the contracts of these four professors does not constitute a breach."

The judge also ruled against the professors on procedural grounds, agreeing with the college that the claim should have been brought as an Article 78 proceeding  not a breach of contract claim. As such, the professors' legal action was time-barred, because Article 78 proceedings must be commenced within four months. The professors were notified of their terminations in July 27, 2020, and their complaint was filed the following December.
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As Sudan is devastated by a conflict that has cost hundreds of lives already, preserving the countrys culture and history becomes ever more important.

Fighting erupted in Sudan on 15 April, and while a ceasefire is currently in place at least 730 civilians have been killed and 1.3 million people have fled their homes.

Omdurman Ahlia Universitys library is believed to be just one of the buildings that have recently been set on fire by looters, as Sudans cultural institutions are caught in the crossfire.

The Sudan Memory team set up scanning centres across the country over the years to enable people to add cultural materials to its growing digital archive (Sudan Memory)

The Sudan Memory team has spent the last decade developing a huge digital archive aimed at preserving Sudanese history, with participants explaining that the latest destruction demonstrates exactly why it matters so much.

Marilyn Deegan, Emeritus Professor of Digital Humanities at Kings College London, and her Sudanese partners - Dr Badreldin ElhagMusa, Sudanese Association for Archiving Knowledge, and Dr Mohammed Azred, Sudan National Records Office - founded the group in 2013, partly in response to concerns following the destruction of libraries in Mali.

This strikes to the heart, because I know these places, I know these people, she said. Im so thankful we did Sudan Memory because this is why we did it.

The humanitarian crisis in Sudan is the most important and urgent priority - but if the culture is not there when people go back then thats a huge loss, it cant be minimised. Culture is what unifies a country, gives you identity, and is the spirit and soul of a country.

The conflict is between the warring parties of Sudans army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) creating a humanitarian crisis. Its impact has also encompassed the destruction, burning, theft, and bombing of significant cultural institutions, as well as art, cultural and document collections in private and community archives and libraries.

So far, 2,500 documentary films that were made as far back as 1940 have been scanned as part of Sudan Memorys Sudan Film Archive digitisation project - but there are fears this archive could be blown up (Sudan Memory)

Ms Deegan said Sudan Memory has raised 1.6 million in funding, which has enabled the project to set up scanning centres across the country over the years. People can scan cultural materials to add to the growing digital archive on its website of around 60,000 images.

Were desperately trying to capture images before things are looted or blown up, said Ms Deegan. We think The Natural History Museum attached to the University of Khartoum has been blown up - but we have photos of every single sample on our website, so at least we have a record of what was there.

Katharina von Schroeder, an aid worker The Independent interviewed when she was trapped in a school in Khartoum as conflict broke out, is also a filmmaker and set up Sudan Memorys Sudan Film Archive digitisation project. So far, 2,500 documentary films that were made as far back as 1940 have been scanned - but there are fears this archive could be blown up too.

The Sudan Memory team has spent the last decade developing a huge digital archive of Sudanese culture, which has become evermore valuable since the outbreak of war in the country (Sudan Memory)

Sudan Memory is co-hosting an event at Kings College London on Tuesday, 30 May to raise awareness of what is happening to Sudanese people and their culture, and to have a discussion about how to protect and preserve the cultural heritage of the country.

Documents and artefacts, and the memories and histories they hold, sustain the pluralist culture and values that are the bedrock of a flourishing civil society, said Ms Deegan. In Sudan, a country already reliant on oral heritage, material historical artefacts are all the more precious.

For more information on Sudan Memorys event on Tuesday, 30 May, visit here.
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President Joe Biden and House speaker Kevin McCarthy have reached a tentative agreement to avert a catastrophic and unprecedented default on Americas sovereign debt, ending a month-long standoff that threatened the US and global economies.

The White House said Mr Biden and Mr McCarthy spoke by phone for roughly 90 minutes late Saturday. The president also spoke with Democratic congressional leaders as talks between the White House and the Republicans who control the House of Representatives entered final stages after days of back-and-forth over GOP demands to add work requirements for food assistance and other programmes meant to help lower-income Americans.

One source familiar with the matter described the president and the House speaker as having come to an agreement in principle that would limit federal spending while raising the nations statutory debt limit by an amount large enough to keep the issue off the table through the November 2024 general election.

News of the spending accord between the president and Congressional Republicans comes just days before the so-called X Date laid out by Treasury secretary Janet Yellen  the date on which the US would no longer be able to issue new securities to raise funds needed to pay for programmes already authorised by Congress.

The framework for the agreement between Mr McCarthy and Mr Biden must still be converted into legislative language and passed by both the House and Senate before it can head to the presidents desk to be signed into law. According to Ms Yellen, that process would have to be complete by 5 June to avoid a default.

Additionally, members are not expected to return to work from the Memorial Day weekend before Tuesday, at the earliest, and McCarthy has promised his conference that he will abide by a House rule requiring him to publish the text of any legislation 72 hours before it is voted on.

That process could be completed quickly enough for both chambers to debate and vote on the legislation by the end of next week. But one top House negotiator, North Carolina representative Patrick McHenry, told reporters on Saturday that big thorny issues remain that must be ironed out between the president and the speaker.

The bill that is drafted using the terms of the tentative agreement must also garner support from a majority of both chambers. In the GOP-led House, that could be no small task for either Mr McCarthy or House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.

As negotiations between the White House and Mr McCarthys team continued into the weekend, many of the most conservative members of the House Republican Conference suggested they would not support any bill that fell short of the sweeping cuts laid out in the Limit, Save, Grow Act approved by the House earlier this year.

Similarly, many of the most progressive House Democrats have pledged not to support any bill that includes spending cuts or adds work requirements for social programmes.

While there is precedent for a Republican House speaker to cobble together a centrist majority of Republicans and Democrats to support such a must-pass bill, it would leave Mr McCarthy facing peril from his rightward flank.

When the California Republican was elected House speaker after a record 15 ballots in January, a condition of support from the far-right House Freedom Caucus was that he agree to amend House rules to allow any one member to make a procedural motion that would trigger a vote to remove him from his post.

That parliamentary procedure  known as a motion to vacate the chair  has hung over Mr McCarthy like a Sword of Damocles since he assumed the speakers role.

While some moderate Democrats have quietly suggested they would lend him enough support to survive a far-right revolt, its not clear if those pledges will be fulfilled if Democrats arent satisfied with the agreement he has made with Mr Biden.

Anger over a spending deal between a Republican House speaker and a Democratic president has taken out a GOP House speaker before.

In 2015, then-speaker John Boehner announced he would resign in the face of right-wing outrage over a spending agreement he struck with then-president Barack Obama to avert a government shutdown.

With additional reporting by agencies
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A New York Times report has amplified questions about the refusal of Democratic US Senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, to step down from office  claiming the Californian politician relies heavily on aides and at times seems uncertain of where she is or what is happening.

They push her wheelchair, remind her how and when she should vote and step in to explain what is happening when she grows confused, congressional correspondent Annie Karni wrote in a New York Times article published on Sunday. They stay with her in the cloak room just off the Senate floor, where Ms. Feinstein has taken to waiting her turn to vote, then appearing in the doorway to register her aye or nay from the outer edge of the chamber.

In an example of how Ms Feinstein has occasionally expressed confusion about the basics of how the Senate functions, the piece continued: When Vice President Kamala Harris was presiding over the chamber last year in one of many instances in which she was called upon to cast a tiebreaking vote, Ms. Feinstein expressed confusion, according to a person who witnessed the scene, asking her colleagues, What is she doing here? Staff members have been overheard explaining to her that she cannot leave yet because there are more votes to come.

The trailblazing senator, who first took her seat in 1992 and established a reputation for having one of the most efficient offices in Congress, announced in February that she would not seek re-election in 2024 but would finish out the remainder of her term.

In that intervening time, she promised to do as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends.

Each of us was sent here to solve problems, she said. Thats what I have done for the last 30 years, and thats what I plan to do for the next two years.

That time, however, has been plagued by frail health and memory problems.

Earlier this month, the senator returned to work in a wheelchair following a two-month-long absence to recover from shingles which sparked encephalitis and Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which causes facial paralysis. Her refusal to step down has engendered significant and heated debate touching on everything from partisanship to ageism and sexism.

Senate Feinstein returned to work following a two-month absence (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Since returning to Washington, Ms. Feinstein has missed six votes and has not participated in any committee hearings or caucus lunches, the New York Times reported. Still, there is a sense among her staff members that the office needs to keep functioning. And the reality of the Senate is that, even with a senator sidelined, an office can run in a fairly normal fashion.

Those who work with the senator defended her and emphasised her stubborness.

All senators rely heavily on staff to do the job, particularly a senator who represents 40 million people, the senators chief of staff, James Sauls, told the paper. While staff advise her, she ultimately is the one who makes the decision about how to best take action for the people of California.

The New York Times report, however, sparked a flurry of continued dialogue on social media on Sunday.

If she steps down the GOP senators wont allow the Dems to replace her on the judiciary committee, wrote Twitter user @Carybees1. So no other judges will be confirmed. Hope she stays on the committee until her term ends.

Conversely, one southern California constituent tweeted about her reluctant belief the senator should resign.

She has to retire today, and I say that as someone who voted for her every time, @housesandme tweeted. And who deeply admires her service all the way back to San Francisco and how she stepped up.

A spokesman for Senator Feinstein told The Independent on Sunday that her office would not be making additional comment.
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Vocal Maga supporter Kimberly Guilfoyle on Saturday claimed that Ron DeSantis would get hurt and damaged badly by the Florida governors 2024 presidential bid against Donald Trump, the father of her boyfriend.

Ms Guilfoyle, who was previously married to California governor and Democrat Gavin Newsom, made the comments on Newsmax TVs America Right Now.

Youre gonna run against Donald Trump, you are going to get hurt and damaged badly, said Ms Guilfoyle, who lives in Florida with Donald Trump, Jr. That is the problem. So by the time Trump is done  we saw this before, 16 people, one after the next, fell off the stage  youre gonna end up in the junkyard, and youre not gonna be in good shape for 2028.

Thats just a fact, she said.

She claimed that it was not time to go into Toys R Us, strap on the training wheels and take a spin around the aisle and see if it works out.

A former prosecutor, Ms Guilfoyle has been a staunch, visible and vocal Trump supporter for years, notably making a roaring speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention.

On Saturday, she said Mr DeSantis is doing a fine job in Florida.

In my opinion, he should stay here and do the job, she told NewsMax. He made a commitment, when he was just re-elected, to do four years and serve. If youre going to be on the road running for a campaign for president, thats not going to happen, and hes not ready for it.

The Florida governor officially announced his bid for the Republican nomination this week with a glitch-filled Twitter Spaces event with Elon Musk.

American decline is not inevitable  it is a choice. And we should choose a new direction  a path that will lead to American revitalization, Mr DeSantis said, outlining his conservative accomplishments. I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback.

Following the Twitter Spaces event, a Trump spokeswoman said: Ron DeSantis botched campaign announcement is another example of why he is just not ready for the job. The stakes are too high, and the fight to save America is too critical to gamble on a first-timer who is clearly not ready for prime time. President Trump is the proven leader that will be ready on day one to turn the country around.
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The historic impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton plunged Republicans on Sunday into a fight over whether to banish one of their own in America's biggest red state after years of scandal and criminal accusations that will now be at the center of a trial in the state Senate.

Paxton said he has full confidence as he awaits judgement from the Senate, where his conservative allies include his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who has not said whether she will recuse herself from the proceedings to determine whether her husband will be permanently removed from office.

For now, Texas' three-term attorney general is immediately suspended after the state House of Representatives on Saturday impeached Paxton on 20 articles that included bribery and abuse of public trust.

The decisive 121-23 vote amounted to a clear rebuke from the GOP-controlled chamber after nearly a decade of Republican lawmakers taking a mostly muted stance on Paxton's alleged misdeeds, which include felony securities fraud charges from 2015 and an ongoing FBI investigation into corruption accusations.

He is just the third sitting official in Texas' nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

"No one person should be above the law, least not the top law officer of the state of Texas, said Republican state Rep. David Spiller, who was part of a House investigative committee that this week revealed it had quietly been looking into Paxton for months.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has remained silent about Paxton all week , including after Saturday's impeachment. Abbott, who was the state's attorney general prior to Paxton's taking the job in 2015, has the power to appoint a temporary replacement pending the outcome in the Senate trial.

It is not year clear when the Senate trial will take place. Final removal of Paxton would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Republican members are generally aligned with the party's hard right. The Senate is led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has served as state chairman for former President Donald Trump's campaigns in Texas.

Before the vote Saturday, Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to Paxtons defense, with the senator calling the impeachment process a travesty and saying the attorney generals legal troubles should be left to the courts.

Free Ken Paxton, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, warning that if House Republicans proceeded with the impeachment, I will fight you.

Paxton, 60, decried the outcome in the House moments after scores of his fellow partisans voted for impeachment. His office pointed to internal reports that found no wrongdoing.

The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just, Paxton said. "It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning.

Lawmakers allied with Paxton tried to discredit the investigation by noting that hired investigators, not panel members, interviewed witnesses. They also said several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, tainting the impeachment, and that Republican legislators had too little time to review evidence.

I perceive it could be political weaponization, Rep. Tony Tinderholt, one of the Houses most conservative members, said before the vote. Republican Rep. John Smithee compared the proceeding to "a Saturday mob out for an afternoon lynching.

Rice University political science professor Mark P. Jones said the swift move to impeach kept Paxton from rallying significant support and allowed quietly frustrated Republicans to come together.

If you ask most Republicans privately, they feel Paxton is an embarrassment. But most were too afraid of the base to oppose him, Jones said. By voting as a large bloc, he added, the lawmakers gained political cover.

To Paxtons longstanding detractors, however, the rebuke was years overdue.

In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law, and a year later was indicted on securities fraud charges in his hometown near Dallas, accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of five to 99 years.

He opened a legal defense fund and accepted $100,000 from an executive whose company was under investigation by Paxtons office for Medicaid fraud. An additional $50,000 was donated by an Arizona retiree whose son Paxton later hired to a high-ranking job but soon was fired after displaying child pornography in a meeting. In 2020, Paxton intervened in a Colorado mountain community where a Texas donor and college classmate faced removal from his lakeside home under coronavirus orders.

But what ultimately unleased the impeachment push was Paxton's relationship with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

In 2020, eight top aides told the FBI they were concerned Paxton was misusing his office to help Paul over the developer's unproven claims about an elaborate conspiracy to steal $200 million of his properties. The FBI searched Pauls home in 2019, but he has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. Paxton also told staff members he had an affair with a woman who, it later emerged, worked for Paul.

The impeachment accuses Paxton of attempting to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul. The bribery charges included in the impeachment allege Paul employed the woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and that he paid for expensive renovations to the attorney general's home. A senior lawyer for Paxtons office, Chris Hilton, said Friday that the attorney general paid for all repairs and renovations.

Other charges, including lying to investigators, date back to Paxtons still-pending securities fraud indictment.

Four aides who reported Paxton to the FBI later sued under Texas whistleblower law, and in February he agreed to settle the case for $3.3 million. The House committee said the probe was sparked by Paxton seeking legislative approval for the payout.

But for Paxtons own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful conduct, Paxton would not be facing impeachment, the panel said.

___

Bleiberg reported from Dallas.
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Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has been impeached by the GOP-controlled Statehouse in a historic vote.

The vote came after Mr Paxton was accused of threatening colleagues with political blowback if they supported his impeachment.

State representative Charlie Geren, who like Mr Paxton is a member of the Republican party, said several members of this House while on the floor of this House, doing the state business, received telephone calls from general Paxton personally, threatening them with political consequences in their next election, according to The Texas Tribune.

Mr Geren made the claim during the opening remarks in the impeachment hearing in the Texas statehouse. The 73-year-old rejected Mr Paxtons claims that the impeachment is a witch hunt and that the whistleblowers behind a lawsuit against him are political appointees.

Mr Geren, who sits on the House General Investigative Committee, repeated what the panel said in the articles of impeachment filed against Mr Paxton, that the committee wouldnt have probed the issue if he hadnt made the request that the legislature greenlight a settlement worth $3.3m to the former members of staff.

We are here today because the attorney general asked the state Legislature to fund a multimillion-dollar settlement, Mr Geren said. There was no investigation prior to this time. We wanted to look further into the reasons behind that.

Mr Geren went on to say that the settlement was Mr Paxton trying to hide the possibility of wrongdoing.

This settlement served to stave off a trial, including a discovery process that could have brought new info to light, he said.

Mr Paxton has long been accused of violating the standards of his office, which he has held since 2015, before which he served in the Texas state senate between 2013 and 2015 and before that, the Texas Statehouse from 2003 until 2013.

On Saturday, members of the GOP in the Texas House presented their case for impeaching Mr Paxton, arguing that he used his role to benefit himself and a donor to his campaign and that he should be put on trial in the state senate for a range of violations. Its the first vote on the impeachment of a statewide officeholder in Texas since 1917, The New York Times noted.

Mr Paxton is the third statewide officeholder in Texas to be impeached in the almost two-centuries-long history of the state, according to the Associated Press.

Former president Donald Trump issued a statement of support for Mr Paxton on Truth Social before the vote, writing that the RINO Speaker of the House of Texas, Dade Phelan, who is barely a Republican at all and failed the test on voter integrity, wants to impeach one of the most hard working and effective Attorney Generals in the United States, Ken Paxton, who just won re-election with a large number of American Patriots strongly voting for him.

You would think that any issue would have been fully adjudicated by the voters of Texas, especially when that vote was so conclusive, Mr Trump added.

The Republican-controlled bipartisan statehouse committee that advanced the process against Mr Paxton filed 20 articles of impeachment this week, with the panel unanimously finding him unfit to hold office, sending the issue on to the full statehouse.

Republican representative David Spiller said Mr Paxton used his office to help a donor, an Austin real estate investor, to his campaign as well as himself.

Attorney General Paxton continuously and blatantly violated laws and procedures, Mr Spiller said, according to The New York Times. Today is a very grim and difficult day for this House and for the State of Texas.

The impeachment vote only required a simple majority in the House.

Mr Paxton, 60, has rejected all allegations of wrongdoing. He has been a vocal supporter of conservative legal issues and a main combatant of the Biden administration on issues such as the Affordable Care Act and immigration.

He won a third term last year after beating George P Bush, the son of former Florida governor Jeb Bush and the nephew of former president George W Bush, in a Republican primary in May 2022.

The allegations against him became a part of the campaign, and Mr Paxton accused the Republican House leadership of working with Democrats to remove him from office.

Mr Paxton will now be temporarily removed from office as the issue heads to the state senate for trial, where a number of his main allies, such as his wife, state senator Angela Paxton, will be jurors.

Governor Greg Abbott is now able to appoint a temporary replacement pending the trial.
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Sailors have been urged to use a simple trick to protect themselves against the growing number of killer whale attacks in the Straits of Gibraltar.

More than 250 boats have been damaged, with three sunk, since the attacks off the coast of Spain and Portugal were first reported in 2020.

Fifteen of the regions 35 killer whales are said to be responsible - but it is thought a female orca called White Gladis was the one to teach others to attack the passing vessels after she collided with a boat.

A sailing boat damaged by killer whales off the coast of southern Spain in May (April Boyes/Instagram @ april_georgina/via REUTERS)

The attacks can last for over an hour and generally involve the orcas headbutting a vessels rudder until it is destroyed.

However, sprinkling five to eight kilograms of sand in the water around the rudder confuses the animals sonar, said the Cruising Association, adding the crew should bang pots and pans on deck at the same time.

"It doesn't have to be a lot of sand" John Burbeck, the Orca Project team leader at the Cruising Association, told The Telegraph. "A few kilogrammes. The orcas are coming in on sonar, not sight. We know that. And sand around the rudder confuses that sonar picture they're picking up.

A skipper reported success with this method in April. So far, no one has been seriously injured in the attacks, but Mr Burbeck said he is still concerned.

Sailors have been urged to bring a defensive weapon to protect themselves against the growing number of killer whale attacks in the Straits of Gibraltar (Getty/iStock)

"The thing that worries us is the time that an orca hits so hard that someone is knocked over in the cockpit and fractures their skull. The whole dynamic of our relationship with this endangered population will change," he said.

There are even suggestions among researchers that the orcas are seeking revenge on behalf of White Gladis, although others believe the behaviour is mere play.

The summer season brings thousands of boats to the Straits, leading to an increase in the number of killer whale encounters, which can sometimes result in the sinking of boats because the hull gets split when the orcas hit the rudder.

One boat has sunk out of a total of 26 interactions this year, while two sunk last year.
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A British sailors boat was the latest victim in a spate of orca attacks on vessels near Gibraltar, as an expert suggested a traumatised killer whale may be inadvertently teaching others to target them.

There have been 20 incidents this month alone between the highly social apex predators and small vessels sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar, according to the Atlantic Orca Working Group (GTOA), with dozens of orca attacks on ships recorded on Spanish and Portuguese coasts this year.

In the early hours of Thursday, a group of orcas broke the rudder and pierced the hull of a boat after ramming into the Mustique on its way to Gibraltar, prompting its crew of four to contact Spanish authorities for help, a spokesperson for the maritime rescue service said.

April Boyes said she was feeling grateful for the coastguard after the scary experience (April Boyes/Instagram @ april_georgina/via REUTERS)

The service deployed a rapid-response vessel and a helicopter carrying a bilge pump to assist the 20-metre (66ft) vessel, which was sailing under a British flag, a spokesperson for the maritime rescue service said. The Mustique was towed to the port of Barbate, in the province of Cadiz, for repairs.

Posting footage of the ordeal on Instagram, British sailor April Boyes, aged 31, said: What started off as a seemingly unique encounter ended with orcas breaking off our rudder from the boat, then proceeding to tear bits off the boat for an hour.

A huge hole in the hull meant we had water ingress to other parts of the boat and the engine room, and I can honestly say it was a scary experience. We are all safe. Im feeling grateful for the coastguard.

Earlier in May, the sailing yacht Alboran Champagne suffered a similar impact from three orcas half a nautical mile off Barbate. The boat could not be towed as it was completely flooded and was left adrift to sink.

Watch killer whales wreck boat in latest violent attack off Spain

The boats captain, Werner Schaufelberger, told the German magazine Yacht that he saw the two smaller whales imitating the ramming tactic of the larger orca, believed to be a matriarch named White Gladis.

The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the ship with full force from the side, he said. The two little orcas copied the bigger ones technique and, with a slight run-up, came darting towards the boat. Mainly on the rudder, but also the keel.

The boat was severely damaged during Thursdays encounter (April Boyes/Instagram @ april_georgina/via REUTERS)

Just two days previously, on 2 May, six orcas rammed the hull of a Bavaria 46 cruiser yacht in an encounter lasting an hour near Tangier, reportedly causing thousands of pounds of damage.

Business consultant Janet Morris and photographer Stephen Bidwell, a couple from Cambridgeshire, both aged 58, were on board for a sailing course when they heard a shout of orcas.

We were sitting ducks, Ms Morris told TheDaily Telegraph, while Mr Bidwell said: I kept reminding myself we had a 22-tonne boat made of steel, but seeing three of them coming at once, quickly and at pace with their fins out of the water, was daunting.

A clearly larger matriarch was definitely around and was almost supervising, he added, speculating that it was White Gladis.

The first orca encounter in the area occurred in May 2020, since when more than 500 have been recorded, according to the GTOA research group.

Those on board were forced to remove water from the boat damaged on Thursday (April Boyes/Instagram @ april_georgina/via REUTERS )

Most interactions have been harmless, with orcas only touching an estimated one in every 100 boats passing through the area, according to biologist Alfredo Lopez Fernandez, of the GTOA and University of Aveiro, who said that three vessels have sunk so far.

Experts believe White Gladis may have suffered a critical moment of agony, such as colliding with a boat or becoming entrapped during illegal fishing, which altered her behaviour in a defensive fashion.

That traumatised orca is the one that started this behaviour of physical contact with boats, Dr Lopez Fernandez told Live Science.

We do not interpret that the orcas are teaching the young, although the behaviour has spread to the young vertically, simply by imitation, and later horizontally among them, because they consider it something important in their lives, he said.

The behaviour has baffled scientists, with some initially suggesting it could be related to the harmful scarcity of food facing the mammals, or the disruptive resumption of business-as-usual nautical activities in the wake of the pandemic, while others have suggested it could be playful behaviour.

Although known as killer whales, endangered orcas are part of the dolphin family. They can measure up to eight metres and weigh up to six tonnes as adults.

Additional reporting by Reuters
 Close Moscow drone attack: Buildings damaged in wake of suspected strike

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Russias defence ministry claimed on Wednesday that its forces had destroyed what it described as Ukraines last warship two days ago in the port of Odesa in a missile strike.

Ukraines navy declined to comment.

The last warship of the Ukrainian navy, the Yuriy Olefirenko, was destroyed at a warship mooring in the port of Odesa, defence ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a daily briefing on the war.

He said the vessel had been hit with high-precision weapons - a phrase he uses to mean missiles - on May 29, but gave no further details.

Oleh Chalyk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian navy, said he would not respond to any assertions made by Russia. The Ukrainian navy will not disclose any information about losses during the war, he added.

Earlier, Russia claimed that a Ukrainian drone sparked a fire at an oil refinery in southern Russia and shelling hit a Russian town close to the border for the third time in a week, damaging buildings and setting vehicles ablaze.
The Indo Daily: Phillip Schofield scandal  'Unwise but not illegal', but will ITV's morning show survive the fallout of his affair?
A registered sex offender has received the maximum sentence for sex crimes involving a child, Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn announced.

State Supreme Court Justice Deborah A. Haendiges ordered William T. Bergeron, 37, of Cheektowaga, to spend 25 years to life in prison on charges of predatory sexual assault against a child, a Class A-II felony, and endangering the welfare of a child.

Justice Haendiges also issued a final order of protection on behalf of the victim, which will remain in effect until 2096.

A jury deliberated for less than a hour before finding Bergeron guilty on both counts following a four-day trial in April.

Prosecutors said Bergeron engaged in two or more sexual acts involving a child he knew between Aug. 15, 2018, and July 13, 2020, at a location in Cheektowaga. He previously was convicted of second-degree rape for an incident involving a 13-year-old girl in 2005.
The company reported an operating loss of almost 2.5m on a turnover of 2.1m

Lingerie retailer Ann Summers Irish operation has revealed in a new company filing that it had come through major Covid-related losses and is now in discussions about opening new properties.

The pandemic had slowed our Irish retail transformation but it had entered into extensive discussions with our landlords to ensure that our property costs reflect todays much-changed market conditions.

With our store costs now largely rebased to reflect todays retail environment, we believe our iconic stores will thrive and we are actively looking at key new sites for the future, said the latest set of accounts for Ann Summers Ireland (Retail) Ltd.

It has been a difficult time for the company, with the death in March at the age of 62 of founder and CEO Jacqueline Gold.

The financial accounts, which were filed to the CRO last week but covered the year to the end of June 2020, had been filed unusually late as a result of the operational challenges brought on by Covid-19 and Brexit, it said.

Ann Summers chief executive officer Jacqueline Gold, who died in March aged 62. Photo: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

In the accounts period covered, the company described the period as another difficult year for our retail stores in Ireland, reporting an operating loss of almost 2.5m on a turnover of 2.1m. A year earlier, turnover had been 2.8m with an operating loss of 1.9m.

Like other retailers, Ann Summers stores had faced lockdown closure during the period and it had looked to grow its online and direct-selling businesses, it said.

It had focused marketing activity on online influencers and this helped push up online sales by 79pc.

The accounts noted that the firms UK shareholders had agreed to provide a 10m (11.4m) facility available to the Irish operation for the foreseeable future. As of the date of approval of the accounts, at the end of January this year, 5.5m had been drawn against this facility.
A master trust is a type of pension that allows multiple different employers to share the same pension structure. Pictured, Gordon Lawlor, Circle K ireland MD. Photo: Frank McGrath

Circle K has become the latest major employer in Ireland to move its pension assets to LifeSight, a shared pension scheme that has attracted 1.5bn in savings from 120 employers since it launched a year ago.

The move brings around 40m in assets into the LifeSight master trust pension scheme, launched by global consultants WTW here last summer. A master trust is a type of pension that allows multiple different employers to share the same pension structure, instead of individual pension structures being set up for each company.

LifeSight began providing pension products in the Irish market 15 years ago. In addition to its master trust, it also offers a single employer trust service, which has been running for five years, with 1bn in assets. Circle K previously used this service before joining the master trust fund.
Imagine a barrel of oil. Now, imagine 50 million barrels of oil. Thats the size of the problem that just one airline  Ryanair  must overcome if it is to be truly sustainable in the years to come.

Last week the airline revealed it had swung to an annual profit of 1.43bn as travel demand bounced back and it continued to grow its dominance of the European market. It is a truly impressive performance.

But the annual results also contain some other very big numbers that highlight the immense challenge that the entire aviation industry  not just Ryanair  faces in the years and decades to come.

Ryanair spent 3.9bn on fuel last year. It hedged a good chunk of its fuel at $89 (83) a barrel. So  very roughly  thats the equivalent of just under 50 million barrels. Calculating the emissions from any particular flight is complex. But when jet fuel burns inside even the most efficient engine, as an aircraft ferries passengers back and forth for business, pleasure and all the other crucial and not-so-crucial reasons we now take to the skies for, it will spew out a lot of CO2.

The impact of Irelands success in aviation was evident in Eurostats latest quarterly emissions figures. This country had the largest increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the EU last year. The States emissions were estimated to have increased by 12.3pc, one of just four EU member states to increase emissions annually. The reason? The post-Covid rebound in business for Irish airlines.

There is, it must be said, debate about this calculation. Eurostat counts emissions from domestic European flights as accruing to an airlines home country tally but does not count the emissions on flights leaving the EU. So, in other words, a Ryanair flight from Warsaw to Milan will count towards Irelands tally but a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to New York is not. That means Ryanairs big European operation contributes more to the statistics even if the much bigger jets flown by Europes longhaul giants are contributing more  in carbon terms  to the skies.

And highlighting the carbon problem facing aviation is not to pick on Ryanair. In fact, when it comes to sustainability, Ryanair is at the very top of the pile.

It leads the way when it comes to partnerships with the big aviation fuel suppliers on adding biofuel to its fuel mix. It spends money on innovations such as new wing tips that lower emissions from its fleet. And, most importantly, Ryanair continues to spend massive amounts of cash on buying the latest and most sustainable aircraft, Its most recent purchase involves 300 new Boeing 737-MAX-10 aircraft that burn 20pc less fuel than those they will ultimately replace.

It is, in a very real way, prioritising capital expenditure ahead of satisfying the clamour from its shareholders for a dividend that would undoubtedly push up its share price. Indeed, both Ryanair and Aer Lingus have targeted net zero emissions by 2050.

Where would aviation be in a world that demands a reckoning on the real cost of burning a barrel of oil?

But removing carbon from the aviation mix is slow, complicated and expensive. If the worst fears of climate scientists come to fruition and innovation does not keep up, what impact will that have on aviation? Where would aviation be in a world that demands a reckoning on the real cost of burning a barrel of oil?

Betting that aviation can weather an increasingly disruptive climate storm is a bet that technology and innovation can keep pace.

There are other dirtier, more problematic industry sectors. But aviation  with its low fares, high volume, highly visible business model that promotes travel that often is not strictly necessary  will face a particular pressure if the climate hits the tipping point that keeps scientists awake at night.

There are hints already as to how that would play out. The Dutch government has proposed a reduction in the number of flights to and from Europes fourth busiest airport, Amsterdam-Schiphol, from 500,000 a year to 440,000 a year by the end of 2024, 11pc less than in 2019. The move hit a speed bump in April when a Dutch court ruled on procedural grounds in favour of IATA, KLM and other airlines in their bid to stop the measure for at least the coming year.

Schipol Airport is cutting flights

But the direction of travel is clear. Closer to home, Dublin Airport faces scrutiny on the use of its new runway in the shape of potential planning enforcement. That move relates to noise problems rather than carbon emissions but shows how pressure on environmental issues from local residents and councillors can begin to put very real limitations on the sector.

Airports as well as airlines are, no doubt, very mindful of how difficult things could become. Last week, DAA, for example, announced a new incentive to lower landing fees for airlines that use more fuelefficient aircraft.

That could suit an airline such as Ryanair, that has both the desire and financial wherewithal to keep setting standards in cutting back on the fuel it burns. But no one should underestimate the challenges that lie ahead.
Struggling with rising mortgage repayments? You will, no doubt, be relieved that the full might of the State  and connected agencies  is engaged in the issue.

Finance Minister Michael McGrath outlined actions underway in response to a Dail question about mortgage switching from his Fianna Fail colleague and ex-minister Robert Troy, who knows a thing or two about the challenges of property ownership.

The Central Bank should review the existing regulatory provisions and consider more dedicated mortgage switching resources, such as a standalone mortgage switching code.

He had met the CEOs of the banks and some non-bank lenders where I emphasised that they should take a consumer-focused approach to encourage switching where possible. I have also asked the Banking and Payments Federation to develop a campaign to ensure consumers are aware of the supports available.

On behalf of my department, the ESRI is currently carrying out work which will inform the development of tools to promote switching, he said. That work had revealed customer inertia as a big problem. Expect an ad campaign soon that perhaps pays homage to an old favourite with something like: I dont know what my tracker costs?

Greencore chief executive Patrick Coveney. Photo: David Conachy

Coveney psyched to bring Brew Dog to SSP

Former Greencore boss Patrick Coveney is enjoying the boom in travel at SSP Group, a travel beverage and food operator that he now leads. The company last week announced a link-up with trendy drinks company Brew Dog, with the Corkman saying SPP could travelise its products, which he explained meant developing a model that would work in the travel sector.

He said SSP plans to bring excitement to its UK business. Coveney seemed quite excited himself on Sky News describing the company as psyched to be announcing the Brew Dog news.

Sodexo hopes food is way to workers hearts

As some companies edge towards a return to the office, on-site food offerings might be part of the formula to get people back at their desks. Food services company Sodexo is well aware of this and recently held an event, Thriving at Work  Fuelling Employee Experience for Success.

It showcased latest food trends and insights for organisations looking to create agile and innovative workplace dining experiences and those wow moments for staff, which in turn will motivate them to return to the office.

Lets see if the way to a workers heart is through their stomach.
Summer is usually the happy hunting time for C&C, but its a story of two halves

Last weeks full-year results from Bulmers cider owner C&C were left in the shade, overshadowed by a profit warning issued earlier in the month,which outlined how they would incur a one-off charge of 25m caused by delays in the implementation of a new business management system.

During a call with analysts, the company outlined more details about the costly issues with its new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) upgrade, which turned out to be significantly more challenging and disruptive than originally envisaged.

Analysts were told last week that C&C Group businesses Matthew Clark and Bibendum were operating on different platforms from the rest of the group  a legacy from their acquisition.

The first step of this transformation programme is to harmonise our systems and ERP platform to address the weaknesses in our system security and remove old legacy systems  which as well as generating potential security concerns are cumbersome, expensive, and complex to maintain, said Patrick McMahon, C&Cs new CEO and acting chief financial officer.

The current implementation were undertaking will enable us to address these issues, together with harmonising some of our core processes, which in turn will drive greater efficiency for us in time. Once we have stabilised the systems, and we will, we can then start to consider how we can exploit the significant efficiencies such platforms offer us.

Laurence Whyatt, head of European beverages research at Barclays, asked how the company could be confident that the cost would be no more than 25m.

McMahon said the estimate was at the upper end of the range.

In the analysts call, management was asked about a 72pc increase in overall marketing spend.

In relation to Ireland, the company said: Increased investment behind the Bulmers brand continued. This year we achieved 40 weeks on air with our TV ad campaign, driving awareness and affinity for the brand with Irish consumers.

"In addition, the brand was showcased in a lighter tone of voice through a new TV campaign for Bulmers Light.

"To expand beyond our heartland summer occasion, sustainability and Christmas campaigns were launched, and Bulmers was centre-stage at many live events in the summer events calendar.

"Our investments are bearing fruit as the brand finishes the year in strong brand health and market share growth.

McMahon said the company had underinvested in its brands for a considerable period of time.

He said it was encouraging that C&C had grown volume for all its key brands.

Tennents up 4pc, Bulmers up 9pc, et cetera. Weve also grown marketshare for those brands.

The company said it wasnt in a rush to do new acquisitions, but McMahon noted: There seems to be a lot of bolt-on opportunities at the moment, particularly in the branded space, with a lot of craft brewers finding it difficult going right now, not having maybe secured a route to market.

As the company gets back to normal after Covid, it delivered an operating profit of 84.1m, an increase of 75.6pc.

Davy said that while the ERP issues may have overshadowed the results, key takeways included dividend reinstatement  there will be a full-year dividend of 3.79 cent per share, a total distribution of 15m.
AI will change business, but the debate on lost jobs isnt so clear-cut

Tech firm Intercom was quick off the mark when the fuss around ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot, started gathering steam a couple of months ago.

The company, which makes customer communication software, integrated the AI technology developed by OpenAI into its own chatbots for its customers.

Since its launch, the ChatGPT tech has demonstrated its use in answering difficult questions and writing scripts and news stories. This made it a good fit for customer support bots.

We knew ChatGPT was a before and after moment for technology

For Paul Adams, chief product officer of Intercom, this marks a new chapter in AI development and one that could radically change the interactions between companies and their customers.

Intercom, a privately owned company which is valued at over 1bn, develops chatbots for company websites that can answer various support questions posed by customers. Adding OpenAIs technology to the mix could potentially ramp up the complexity and volume of tasks that Intercoms tech can handle.

The minute we saw ChatGPT, we knew this was like a before and after moment for the technology, Adams told the Sunday Independent.

Fin, its AI chatbot, is currently in beta but is in use by dozens of companies ahead of a wider launch.

Paul Adams of Intercom

It uses OpenAIs GPT-4, the artificial intelligence model that underpins ChatGPT, and trains itself on the data generated by companies operations to automate responses to customer queries.

Its just one example of the many uses for generative AI  this new form of the tech that has caused much excitement and consternation across the tech industry.

Proponents laud the techs ability to improve productivity while critics fear the upending of entire jobs markets.

Customer support appears to be the sector most ripe for AIs impact  and customer support affects countless other industries in turn, from telecoms to banking, airlines to healthcare.

I think its definitely going to be a significant disruption. I think thats really clear to us, says Adams. I dont think it will be necessarily what people think it will be.

It will not be a case of a switch being flicked and all customer support representatives being replaced by AI chatbots, he says. The tech may have made its most advanced steps of late  but it is not perfect.

Some customers are seeing amazing results. Theyre seeing like 30pc resolution rate, which is huge for a support team. Thats a quarter or more of their queries that otherwise would have had to be fielded by humans, he explains. But not everyone sees those numbers.

Fin is being refined to answer increasingly more complex or nuanced questions that early adopters of the technology are seeing.

Other companies are approaching AI with more caution.

Paul Pierotti of EY

Professional services firm EY opened its AI Lab in Dublin late last year just as the hype and buzz around generative AI was kicking off. Since then, clients have had more and more questions, according to Paul Pierotti, data and analytics partner at the firm.

Where we are just now is that we have lots of clients that are curious. We have lots of clients that are nervous, and weve lots of clients coming up with really interesting ideas, he says.

"Theyre actually seeing their family use it in real life. Theyre seeing their teenage kids using ChatGPT for particular things.

Pierotti says that this stage of AI is comparable to the internet in 1997. It is still not widely used by businesses, but is on the cusp of something much larger.

Within the walls of EYs AI Lab and its own services, partners are catching an early glimpse of the jobs that will be impacted. One of those is tax services.

There are lots of little decisions there that can be automated

Theres a lot of complexity and understanding there, so how can you improve and support the tax expertise  particularly for geographies you dont know as well? Pierotti says.

He points to one customer that services 60 countries. Having the in-house expertise on all of those jurisdictions is impractical.

How can you supplement the expertise in your team with some sort of a generative AI solution that can actually learn from the tax, the payroll or whatever rules that are out there for that country?

Legal services, another admin-intensive area, could be aided by AI in the gathering and compiling of documents and first drafts of contracts alongside the work of paralegals.

Pierotti describes this budding relationship between the human and AI like a co-pilot.

We in Ireland are navigators of lots of very complex supply chains around the world. If you look at life sciences and agri foods, the schedules and the planners for a lot of supply chains are here. There are lots of little decisions there that can be automated.

One does not need to look far to see headlines about AIs potential toppling of the jobs market.

It is one facet of the ongoing Hollywood writers strike, with writers concerned that AI could be used to conceive scripts and concepts that would otherwise be done by a team of writers.

Last week BT announced plans to axe up to 55,000 jobs over the next several years, and replace around a fifth of those jobs with AI tools.

Job cuts have dogged the tech industry over the last 12 months, with large firms cutting thousands from their headcounts as they adjust to an economic downturn. Amid that upheaval, in recent weeks tech giants IBM and Dropbox have indicated that AI could at least partially fill the roles vacated in these cuts.

It is stories like these that set off the alarm bells around AI and the future of jobs.

Theres a difference between disruption and devastation

I wouldnt be of the view that entire industries are simply going to be wiped out, says Robert Ross, a senior lecturer in computer science in TU Dublin.

Ross, who is also an investigator at the ADAPT centre, says many industries are still going to need some human oversight on many tasks.

The boundary line is going to move a bit. Were going to see that some tasks where you used need a human in the loop can be made more automated  but it certainly isnt going to clear everything out, he explains.

Theres a difference between something being disrupted and something being devastated.

The dynamics will shift for the consumer experience, he says.

In the case of customer support, Ross envisions that AI may come to dominate those first lines of interaction, with the option to speak to a human agent becoming a paid option.

It might be something associated with the premium product, a little bit extra in terms of cost  because it will be more costly.

It remains to be seen, he adds, just how comfortable consumers will be with giving up control of decision making.

People are comfortable using voice assistants like Alexa because it isnt going to give much in the way of lip, so to speak but how much control are you willing to hand over to the machines?

Last week a study published by researchers at Trinity College Dublin showed that more than 50pc of respondents were worried or very worried about AI-powered autonomous cars, but could still see the benefits.

I think its definitely going to be a significant disruption

For Ross, industries racing to pick up the baton with AI still need to balance the human impact rather than take a gung-ho approach to the technology.

I think we need to be careful with how conversational AI is rolled out with children, and with anybody who might be considered in a vulnerable group. There isnt necessarily enough research there yet.

There has already been some backlash in the tech industry to this effect. It came after Snapchat, the social media app, integrated an AI chatbot into the service, which is popular with teenagers.

These are exactly the types of use cases that give cause for pause, Ross says.

Dont go too quickly too soon.
The British government is looking at plans to have retailers cap the prices of basic food items such as bread and milk, the Telegraph reported, as the cost of such essentials continued to rise in the double digits.
STATE agri-agency Teagasc is being urged to offer special open-field clearance courses amid alarm at a surge in gorse fires which earlier this year jeopardised a major air traffic control complex and threatened to overwhelm fire brigade services in two counties.

Local authorities want special field clearance training programmes offered after an alarming increase in the number of gorse fires - a method by which fields are cleared in later winter and early spring.

Cork and Kerry reported almost a 200pc increase in the numbers of blazes being dealt with in the space of just 12 months.

The most serious gorse fires occurred in west Cork last February.

Up to 20 separate gorse fires - used to clear land for farming purposes - merged and threatened to entirely engulf parts of the Mizen and Mt Gabriel overlooking the west Cork village of Schull.

Dry conditions and strong winds fanned the fires into an inferno which swept around one mountain.

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) operates a major air traffic control hub on top of Mt Gabriel and there were fears, at the height of the blaze, that it could engulf the complex.

West Cork fire brigade units fought for over 14 hours until the fires were brought under control.

Blazes along the Mizen Peninsula were so bad that the fires could be seen from over 30km away.

Councillor Caroline Cronin said there were serious concerns over the impact of such large fires on the environment, wildlife and the safety of west Cork firefighters not to mention members of the public.

At the height of the gorse fires between February 25/26, every unit of all six major west Cork fire brigade stations including Bantry, Castletownbere, Schull, Skibbereen, Dunmanway and Clonakilty were involved in battling the blazes.

Locals expressed concern that, had there been a major domestic or commercial fire over that period, brigades would have been stretched beyond their manpower limits.

Kerry Co Council has been informed that there was a 142pc increase in the number of gorse fires across the county in the first three months of 2023.

While there were 50 gorse fires notified to fire brigades in Kerry in 2022, that number soared to 121 between last January and March.

Gorse fires occur over the winter months as, under the 1976 Wildlife Act it is illegal to burn off vegetation on uncultivated land between March 1 and August 31.

Councillor Breandun Fitzgerald warned Radio Kerry that the fire brigade simply cannot be expected to cope with such a level of call-out - and warned that such extensive fires posed major dangers both to firefighters and members of the public.

Last February, Kerry fire brigade units were struggling to cope with up to 24 gorse fire call outs on some days.

Councillor Fionnan Fitzgerald said it was totally unacceptable for the fire service to be placed under that level of strain.

However, local authorities warned that it was not within their remit to offer training or education to individuals on methods of land clearance.

Teagasc are now being consulted on whether they can assist by offering special education courses on land clearance practices - and how to avoid gorse fires posing a threat both to local communities and firefighters.
Four men are due to appear in court tomorrow morning following the seizure of 85,000 worth of drugs in Dublin.

Gardai attached to the Dublin Crime Response Team carried out searches at premises in the north east inner city and in Ballymun on Friday.

During the course of these searches an estimated 63,420 worth of MDMA was seized, along with 7,700 of cocaine, 5,580 of ketamine, 4,900 of heroin, 1,740 of cannabis as well as tablets and prescription drugs. All of the drugs will be analysed.

Gardai also seized 4,845 in cash as well as two replica firearms.

Four men, aged in their 30s and 40s, were arrested. They have since been charged and are due to appear in court tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile in a separate operation earlier today, gardai seized cannabis herb valued at around 32,000, 740 of cocaine and tablets and 4,100 in cash following a search of a property on Dublins North Strand.

Gardai attached to the Divisional Drug Unit at Store Street station arrested one man, aged in his 20s.

He has been charged and is due to appear in court tomorrow morning.
Several units of Dublin Fire Brigade were dealing with the fire, with flames and smoke seen bellowing from the top floor, but no injuries reported

Resident Priyon Paul watches as gardai and fire brigade attend a fire at an apartment complex in Blanchardstown, Dublin. Photo: Arthur Carron

A major fire broke out at an apartment complex in north west Dublin on Sunday afternoon.

The blaze spread to several apartments in the top floor area of the block located at Falcon View in Blanchardstown.

Seven units of Dublin Fire Brigade rushed to the scene and firefighters battled the blaze as flames and smoke bellowed from the top floors.

There are no reported injuries but it is understood residents were evacuated.

Shortly after 6.30pm on Sunday evening, Dublin Fire Brigade said the fire had been brought under control.

Major fire raging in Dublin apartment complex in Blanchardstown

It said a turntable ladder was used as a water tower to help extinguish the blaze.

Residents of the apartment block were waiting to learn when they can return to their homes.

One of the residents at the apartment block, Priyon Paul, told Independent.ie a fire alarm blared out across the building at around 3.30pm and all residents poured out onto the street below.

Mr Paul (33), who lives with his wife, Snitca Sunni and sister-in-law Sniya Sunni, said: We live on the fourth floor.

We heard the fire alarm and we are really thankful it was so loud, leading everyone to go out onto the street.

I looked up and saw the fire spreading across several floors. There was a lot of smoke and fire.

The fire then spread to all the floors. After 20 minutes the fire brigade came and they got the fire under control really quickly.

Thankfully no one was hurt or injured. I think injuries were avoided because everyone came out onto the street before anyone could be hurt and thats due to the alarm.

Thats the main thing, that people are all unhurt.

Families were in a state of panic according to Mr Paul, as they watched on as the fire spread up the apartment floors.

Some people are with small kids and they were really in panic, he said. It was insane how the fire was spreading so fast across the floors.

But the fire was managed very well by Dublin Fire Brigade. They worked very hard, they are still checking everything.

The only concern now is we dont know when we will be allowed back in to our homes.

The fire brigade are still checking the ceiling, theyre checking everything to see if its safe.

The fire was very near to our apartment. The most important thing is everyone is safe but of course, we are now concerned when we can return home.

A Dublin Fire Brigade spokesperson said: "At 1630 hours today, the Eastern Regional Communication Centre (located at Tara Street Fire Station) received multiple 999 calls reporting a fire at the Falcons View apartment block in Blanchardstown.

"A high rise response was sent to the incident with the fire being brought under control by 1730 hours. Seven fire engines, a turntable ladder and senior officers attended the fire. As of 1830 hours the response has been scaled back and firefighters will remain on scene damping down hotspots. No injuries have been reported."

A garda spokesperson said: "Gardai in Blanchardstown are currently at scene assisting Dublin Fire Brigade at a fire of an apartment block at Falcon View, Blanchardstown this afternoon, Sunday 28th May, 2023. No further details are available at this time."

The building is beside the Crowne Plaza Hotel, near Blanchardstown Shopping Centre.
ALBANY  In the final weeks of the legislative session, Albany lawmakers are examining a proposal that would allow wine and liquor store owners in New York to own more than one location.

Multiple lobbying groups representing liquor stores, including the State Liquor Store Association and the Metropolitan Package Store Association, are lobbying against the idea. They argue that changing state law would open the door to major, chain retailers, while pushing out mom-and-pop establishments.

But records show that in 2017, the chairman of the Metropolitan Package Store Association paid a substantial fine for engaging in an alleged scheme wherein three liquor stores illegally worked in tandem in a manner similar to a chain store, a case the state's top liquor enforcement official called "exceedingly troubling."

And several major wine and liquor stores in Western New York  including one owned by a board member of the Liquor Store Association  are closely associated and jointly advertise, though in that instance, there is no indication the stores are operating outside the bounds of state law.

Mark Notarius, the member of the Liquor Store Association board of directors, is owner of Premium Wine and Spirits in Williamsville, according to state records. Meanwhile, his mother is listed in state records as owner of Premier Wine and Spirits in Amherst, while his sister-in-law owns Prestige Wine and Spirits in Orchard Park.

The three stores jointly run print advertisements in The Buffalo News under the banner of "Premier." The ads indicate that all three stores sell various liquor products at the same price, and all three also are advertised on a website, which says they are independently owned and operated parts of the "Premier Group." All three storefronts advertise the stores as "Premier," according to photos on the website.

Various members of the same family to can legally each purchase liquor store licenses, then work together in certain ways. Current law requires stores to be independently owned and operated and prohibits loans between them. But joint advertising is permitted.

Still, the executive vice president of the state Business Council  a statewide business lobbying group that supports allowing individuals to have more than one license  called the Liquor Store Associations position hypocrisy at its highest level," citing the example of Premier.

You have someone sitting on the board of one of associations that is critical of allowing more than one license. And although he's doing it with the bounds of the law, he is working around the law and advertising as a chain, Zuber said. The only people that can have that type of footprint are those that have the financial wherewithal to do it, where each separate family member has their own money."

The State Liquor Store Association represents 1,100 liquor stores throughout upstate New York. Stefan Kalogridis, the association's president, answered questions on behalf of Premier Group. He said there was absolutely nothing wrong with someone who grew up in a family that ran a liquor store who decides to go out on their own and open up their own business under all existing laws and regulations, which is exactly what the situation is here."

Kalogridis said each of the Premier stores was "its own business that makes their own purchasing decisions" and that it was "common for local stores to band together for joint advertising and expressly permitted by the SLA."

The multiple license proposal could impact the cost of alcohol in New York. Experts say the measure could reduce competition. Still, consumers may see lower prices if New York allows high volume chains to own multiple liquor stores.

Zuber, the state Business Council leader, was recently on a 16-person state commission of industry stakeholders that recommended sweeping overhauls to New York's decades-old alcohol laws. Among its recommendations, by a 10-5 vote, was allowing individuals to have more than one license. The panel did not recommend a specific figure.

Among the commission's "no" votes on that recommendation, according to Zuber, was Michael Correra, executive director of the Metropolitan Package Store Association, another lobbying group that represents liquor stores across New York.

Like the Liquor Store Association, the Package Store Association has publicly opposed allowing multiple licenses per individual.

The nonprofit has for years been chaired by Joseph Viscomi, the one-time owner of Cappys Warehouse Wine & Spirits on Long Island. As of Tuesday, Viscomi was still listed as chair on the nonprofit's website. But a spokesman for the organization said Viscomi stepped down as the Package Store Association chairman several weeks ago.

In 2017, the State Liquor Authority found Viscomi was involved in a scheme in which three liquor stores were illegally working in tandem.

The SLA found that Viscomi was on the payroll of another liquor store, Henry Street; that Henry Street gave six-figure illicit loans to both Cappys and a third liquor store; that Viscomi had "signature authority" over a bank account owned by Henry Street; and that Viscomi falsely told state investigators that he had "no involvement" with Henry Street. The three stores jointly paid $300,000 in fines, including $50,000 paid by Cappy's.

The chairman of the State Liquor Authority, Vincent Bradley, in 2017 called the matter "one of our largest retail cases in recent memory," stating the conduct was "exceedingly troubling, striking at the heart of the SLAs primary responsibility to enforce the law and maintain a level playing field for all retailers.

Viscomi did not respond to a request for comment.

A bill recently introduced by Democratic State Sen. James Skoufis would allow individuals to own two liquor stores each, while Zuber supports a higher figure, noting that the limit in neighboring Massachusetts is nine.

The Liquor Store Association opposes any change in state law increasing the number of licenses per person beyond one. Kalogridis said the Associations concern was that once loosening of the limit began in other states, it paved the way for multimillion-dollar corporations to take over the industry and push out mom-and-pop small businesses like us."

In New York, "we've already watched some of them attempt to do this illegally and get fined for it. Now they're trying to make it legal," Kalogridis said.

Kalogridis was referring to a case brought by state liquor regulators several years ago involving Wegmans, the upstate supermarket chain. Wegmans and five affiliated upstate liquor stores agreed to pay $1.1 million in civil penalties to settle the allegations.

In that case, State Liquor Authority received a complaint that Buffalo-based Amherst Street Wine & Liquor was controlled by Wegmans. The Liquor Authority ultimately found that Wegmans was exercising significant control not only over Amherst, but four other affiliated stores.

A Wegmans spokeswoman said while the company was "not involved in this current push for multiple licenses, we are in favor of any legislation that modernizes the ABC laws in New York State."

Several grocery chains are members of the State Business Council, including Wegmans, while the group's membership does not include any liquor stores. The Business Council says its interest in the multiple license issue is "advancing projects and policies that create economic growth, good jobs and strong communities," and that it has other members in the alcohol industry, including beer manufacturers, wineries and the Farm Bureau.

How would the proposal affect consumers

If the state law were changed to allow multiple licenses, there would be both costs and benefits for consumers, according to Charles Lindsey, an associate professor of marketing at the University at Buffalo School of Management, calling the issue "tremendously complicated."

"You have countervailing forces at play when it comes to price," he said.

The easier it becomes for "quasi-chains" to expand and for big chains to enter the market, the more difficult for independent and small operators to compete and the more concentrated the industry becomes, diminishing competition.

On the other hand, he said, larger operators would have "more power when it comes to wholesalers and, in many cases, get better cost breaks due to their volume." That dynamic could result in lower prices for consumers.

Bradley Rickard, a professor of food and agricultural economics at Cornell University, said he believed allowing multiple licenses would create lower prices for consumers, since stores would be able to buy at bulk pricing. He has studied the price of alcoholic beverages in states that allow a greater variety of products at grocery stores, such as wine, and found alcohol is cheaper if more widely available.

If only one store were allowed to sell alcohol, in the model of a state-run liquor monopoly that exists in Sweden, that could negatively impact prices for consumers. Absent that, some consolidation of the market would likely not have a major negative impact on price, Rickard said.
Patrick Kielty is the new host of 'The Late Late Show'

The television producer who co-created the controversial Toy Show The Musical has been tasked with steering the ship, once the new Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty takes over the hot seat in September.
A man in his 50s has died after the motorbike he was riding was in collision with a car in Co Meath this evening.

The incident happened on Old Ross Cross Road, Dunshaughlin, at around 6.15pm.

The motorcyclist was seriously injured and was rushed by ambulance to Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown in Dublin, where he later died.

Gardai said a post mortem will take place in due course.

The man who was driving the car, aged in his 20s, was uninjured. A male and a female passenger in the car were also uninjured.

A garda spokesperson said: The road is currently closed pending an examination by forensic collision investigators. Local diversions are in place. Gardai are appealing for any witnesses to this collision to come forward.

Motorists who have camera or dash-cam footage and who were travelling in the area between 6pm and 6.45pm, are asked to make this footage available to gardai.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Ashbourne garda station on 01 801 0600, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any garda station.
Parents of Darragh Sheehan will challenge the DPPs decision not to prosecute over his death at a Kerry hotel in 2020

Tom and Hannah Sheehan, with a photo of their late son Darragh, in Doneraile, Co Cork. Photo: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision

The parents of a 26-year-old man who died outside a hotel in Co Kerry in 2020 are to challenge a decision by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) not to prosecute five men arrested in connection with his death.

Darragh Sheehan, from Doneraile, Co Cork, died after being restrained during a row outside the Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney. The men were arrested in December of that year, but were later released without charge.

The DPPs office said its lawyers concluded the evidence was not strong enough to prosecute any of the suspects for a criminal offence.

Darraghs father, Tom, said the decision has caused him and his wife Hannah further anguish.

When I wake during the night and hear my wife crying in her sleep, I know why she cries  for the loss of seeing her son walk in the door randomly and smile at him perusing the irrelevance of an ESB bill or the Cork hurlers. That is no more, he said.

In justifying its decision not to prosecute, the DPP said its job was to decide, based on the available evidence, whether there is a reasonable prospect of a conviction for a criminal offence.

This decision from the DPP tells us, his family, that nobody needs to explain their actions. I believe Darragh could have been saved if people had acted differently under pressure, Mr Sheehan said.

Why, as the DPP summarises, was there a delay from when gardai were called and arrived to when the ambulance was requested by the gardai? If the hotel had requested assistance from the services, Darragh might have survived.

In a letter to Mr Sheehan, a senior prosecutor said gardai had responded to a report of a man causing a disturbance at the hotel having been removed by security staff.

It stated that on arrival at the scene, gardai found Darragh lying face down on the ground and unresponsive. The officers requested an ambulance and performed resuscitation, but he did not respond and was pronounced dead at 12.16am.

A post-mortem was conducted on August 30, 2020, which determined that the cause of death was a combination of factors which included alcohol intoxication, underlying heart disease, a raised body mass index and lying in a face-down position, the letter said. Gardai spoke to a number of witnesses, and CCTV footage of the incident was obtained as well as mobile phone footage.

According to the DPP, following an altercation, Darragh was escorted from the hotel by hotel security staff.

They said witnesses confirmed Darragh was behaving in an extremely aggressive and threatening manner towards the hotel security staff.

Witnesses also confirmed that Darragh was restrained and held face down on the ground by hotel security staff. CCTV footage supports the accounts of the witnesses.

The letter said DPP lawyers considered whether there was enough evidence to prosecute for a criminal offence, including assault causing harm contrary to section three of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, 1997 and manslaughter by gross negligence contrary to common law.

After a careful assessment of the evidence, our lawyers concluded that the evidence was not strong enough to prosecute any of the suspects for a criminal offence in connection with your sons death. For this reason, they decided not to prosecute, it read. Among the factors considered by our lawyers was the extent of the medical evidence to prove that the actions of the suspects caused Darraghs death.

Mr Sheehan has asked the DPP to reconsider the initial direction and allow us the opportunity to at least seek justice for our son.

He did not die as a result of BMI or blood alcohol, but because he had been restrained face down on the concrete until he stopped breathing, he said. All we want is an open forum to discuss beyond a reasonable doubt what an adjudicator considers the cause of death. To rely on a post-mortem report in the interest of beyond reasonable doubt is not right.

Mr Sheehan rejected the suggestion his son had an underlying heart disease.

We, the family, completely refute this listing on the post-mortem and had never any inclination after 26 years that this was a condition, he said.

Mr Sheehan described the decision not to prosecute the five men as wrong and said it could undermine the confidence of the community and our family in the criminal justice system of Ireland.

This is a tenet of the code of ethics when administering these duties. If the admissible, relevant, credible and reliable evidence above is considered, it doesnt seem apparent that objectively has been applied, he added. I cannot think of a plausible rationale when considering the above details how the evidence in the file is not sufficiently strong to support the public interest to justify at least an open-forum trial.

Darragh Sheehan

Mr Sheehan said losing his gentle giant never gets easier, but he is determined to get justice for his son.

Some are blessed in the dead of night to hear a baby cry from its cot and smile as they move the child and sing a lullaby, I just lay there and think of Darragh as Hannah sobs while sound asleep. It is hell on earth, said.

We will never have him walk through the front door again, but we want this reviewed. There are too many unanswered questions and facts.

When contacted, the DPP said it does not comment on individual cases.
TRIBUTES have been paid to a little girl whose brave battle for health caught the public imagination and put the debate over medical cannabis use on the national agenda.

Ava Barry (13), who suffered from Dravet Syndrome, died on Friday evening in a Cork hospital surrounded by her devoted family.

She had been hospitalised after a recent illness - and desperate efforts by doctors to stabilise her condition failed.

When traditional medicines failed to control the epileptic seizures that are the frightening hallmark of Dravet Syndrome, her parents Vera and Paul turned over six years ago to medicinal cannabis oil as a last resort.

Her mother, Vera Twomey, made national headlines as she campaigned for people facing rare illnesses to have easier access to medicinal cannabis.

Ms Twomey walked from her Aghabullogue home in Cork to the Dail, and even wrote a book aimed at highlighting the plight of people battling rare medical conditions.

Ava's condition was so serious that her seizures left her at risk of cardiac arrest - and she was once left in an eight day coma after a bout of seizures.

In 2017, the then Health Minister Simon Harris granted a licence for the use of medicinal cannabis by Ava.

Gino Kelly TD, who campaigned to help Ava and her family, paid tribute to the little girl and her family.

"Ava's story caught the imagination and empathy of a country who willed her mother Vera on," he said.

"Her life and battle would eventually change the law."

The IACM Patient Council said it was devastating to hear of Ava's death.

"Heartbreaking news that Ava Barry died - our thoughts go to Vera and all the family. Vera's love really did move mountains, not only for Ava but all patients seeking legal access to medical cannabis. Ava will always be remembered."

The MedCan Family Foundation - which works to help people access cannabis-derived medications - said it was heartbreaking news.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Vera, her family and friends with the passing of Ava who was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome. Such devastating and sad news which will be felt across the community."

Vera gave numerous media interviews over a three year period in which she said that she was desperate to gain access to THC to prevent her daughters severe epilepsy attacks.

She also assisted other parents who were in similar positions to her.

She wrote a book called 'For Ava' in 2019 in which she told of the struggles that her family experienced when her daughter was seriously ill.

Vera said that they ran out of options to treat Dravet Syndrome and that: There was nothing there but Google as they desperately searched for a solution to Ava's increasingly severe condition.

Prior to obtaining medicinal cannabis, Ava was suffering up to 23 seizures in a 26 hour period.

Vera previously said that seizures were terrifying experiences as she never knew if her daughter would come out of one intact.

The fear was that Ava would end up brain damaged or dead.

Ambulance service call outs became so frequent for Ava that paramedics did not need to ask for her address.

Vera previously stated that her life prior to obtaining medicinal cannabis for Ava was one of constant stress, pain and anxiety.

"Every waking moment was consumed by it. I operated under constant fear and tension waiting for the next seizure. It was coming though you never knew when -- but as sure as day it was coming," she said.

"Ava was having several seizures almost every day, with over twenty on a bad day. They may have varied in extent and severity, but each one was an agonising experience, full of pain and terror."

In May 2017, Vera went to Spain to get a prescription from a consultant for medicinal cannabis for Ava.

Customs officials confiscated the THC cannabis oil from Ms Twomey after questioning her for an hour after she got off a flight from Barcelona.

She went to live in The Hague in the Netherlands in the latter half of 2017 where she again received a prescription of the drug for her daughter.

At the time Ms Twomey said that it was a relief to finally gain consistent access to the medication even if she had to go overseas.

It is freedom for us. We have a medicine that works. We can speak openly and honestly about Ava having the THC form of cannabis. We dont have to hide in the shadows."

"THC has saved Avas life and changed her life and is the most humane form of medication."

Vera admitted that she felt a personal responsibility to help other people in similar situations.

It doesnt matter if you are the first, second or the 23rd person to get medicinal cannabis. It is your duty to share some of your success and how it is achieved."

Vera won a Cork Person of the Month award in 2018 for her campaign and was asked to speak in the House of Commons in London the following year about the benefits of alternative medicine in treating conditions such as severe epilepsy.

Funeral arrangements for Ava will be announced shortly.

Ava is survived by her parents Vera and Paul and her siblings Michael, Sophia and Elvera Mae.
Artist/musician Garret Faulkner and arts consultant Esther Haller-Clarke outside their Victorian redbrick in Belfast, which dates from 1886. The houses were built for shipyard staff and one of the houses on the street bears a plaque dedicated to an engineer who went down on the Titanic. When they first saw the house the couple were particularly enchanted by a 100-year-old lime tree in the garden, as getting closer to nature was top of their list of must-haves. Photo: Tony Gavin
The writer, trans woman and activist reveals why she almost moved to Ireland for her safety, how she feels sorry for librarians and why her books are badly needed

Juno Dawson, right, on stage with Kemah Bob at the National Student Pride 2023 at the University of Westminster in February. Picture by John Phillips/Getty Images

The irony is Juno Dawson had actually considered moving to Ireland. When she switched on the news in Britain there would always be some ghastly debate about rolling back trans rights.

As one of the most famous trans women in the country, a bestselling author, media personality and activist, she felt under threat. She would ask her husband, Max, are we really safe here (in the UK)?.

We were very tempted to move to Ireland. Dublin was my escape route.

Ireland had long been considered a forerunner of trans rights. Our Gender Recognition Act, passed in 2015, allowed anyone over the age of 18 to legally change their gender without intervention; at the time only two other countries in Europe had such a progressive law on the books.

Dawson also points out that her books have always sold especially well here in Ireland. Her agent is Irish, she adds, and two of the characters in her acclaimed YA trilogy  the latest of which, The Shadow Cabinet, is out next month  have Irish names, Ciara and Niamh. Derry Girls star Nicola Coughlan is set to read the audiobook.

Career-wise, especially, it would have made a lot of sense to just move to Ireland.

But lately the atmosphere has changed in this country. Theres a sense that the culture wars from America and the UK have been successfully imported into the mainstream here. A former Fine Gael government minister, Paul Kehoe, recently said he was receiving more representations on trans issues than about the ending of the eviction ban, for instance.

The national transgender body, Teni, has protested at RTE and the Irish Trans Writers Union has boycotted The Irish Times over the way it deals with transgender issues.

And Dawson herself has found herself in the crosshairs of controversy. There was debate about whether her witty LGBTQ+ education book, This Book is Gay, should be banned from libraries and it was eventually removed by the HSE from its sex education resource list for schools amid claims it was too explicit. Aontus Peadar Toibin called the removal a victory for parents and children.

Juno was shortlisted for Author of the Year at the DIVA Awards in April. Picture by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images

Dawson, who is herself a former schoolteacher, says all of this sucks on a number of levels.

The thing that keeps me awake at night, actually, is worrying for teachers and librarians. I have been that person at the school gate with an irate parent sort of flying towards them. And its really scary. A teacher is a frontline worker in the same way that anybody else is. And though Im so far removed in terms of where I live, and I do get some horrible emails and stuff, I dont have somebody waving a book in my face outside a year six classroom or whatever.

So that worries me more than anything. It all signals to LGBTQ+ youth that even after all this time there is something controversial about them.

As soon as your young person has a mobile phone, its a Pandoras box

A lot of the objections to her work come down, she says, to the definition of what a child is. Because for me, I think its a stretch in 2023 to say a 13, 14, 15-year-old is a child in the same way that a child in, say, 1912 was when they were fighting in World War I. I think its very important for the safety of young people that we are very honest about what its like to be a young person in a digital age.

As soon as your young person has a mobile phone, its a Pandoras box. They open it to all the horrors of the world. Beheading videos, Andrew Tate, hardcore pornography. Its all there. And if we want to pretend that a 12-year-old isnt seeing this, were leaving them very, very vulnerable.

That said, shes always been clear that This Book is Gay is not for children. And she points out that the outrage represents a self-fulfilling prophecy in that it only foments interest in the book.

It is still one of the most stolen books from school libraries, and I always think that is a sure sign that somebody really needed that book. And I think a lot of librarians understand that.

Theres a sense in which she finds these conversations gruelling, and she finds her fiction writing to be a useful palate cleanser after all the heady debate. In her novels she can explore some of the issues that affect LGBTQ+ youth without the morality police taking issue.

Her latest book, The Shadow Cabinet, is the follow up to last years Her Majestys Royal Coven, a fantastic amalgam of black magic, pop culture and acute social commentary. It dealt with a secret government department of British and Irish witches, founded by Anne Boleyn and charged with protecting the United Kingdom from evil forces. That first book explored transphobia, but this latest novel, which sees a wondrous twist involving the Irish siblings, focuses more on misogyny.

Juno Dawson, right, on stage with Kemah Bob at the National Student Pride 2023 at the University of Westminster in February. Picture by John Phillips/Getty Images

Dawson says the two issues are inseparable. She recalls a moment, early in her transition, when a man leaned out of a truck window and leeringly shouted the word legs to her as she walked by.

It wasnt meant as a compliment because it was such a weird thing to do. And that was when I knew that my life had changed and that something new was happening and that new thing was misogyny.

The plan with the trilogy, she says, was to explore division between women in the first one, and the second one is to explore division between men and women.

The fantastical realm gives an opportunity for a heightened version of important conversations.

In The Shadow Cabinet there is an almost Freaky Friday plot line in which one of the Irish sisters, Ciara, occupies the body of the other, Niamh, and has sex with Niamhs boyfriend. You can see why it would be so interesting to me as a trans writer. Its the thing of what makes you you? Is it your body or is there something else? Do we have a soul? Do we have a consciousness? Do we have a character? And I dont have any answers for any of that, but I do think its really interesting to talk about.

Juno was born James Dawson and grew up in working-class Bradford, West Yorkshire. As a child she was a spacey kid, very withdrawn. I wasnt very good at making friends until I became a bit older and found my tribe. But I lived in a bit of a fantasy world. I wrote little stories, I role-played, I had lots of toys, and was just a massive Doctor Who fan. My memory of my childhood was me watching Doctor Who on VHS in my bedroom.

From an early age she felt she was a girl and living two lives. One version stayed home in her bedroom with her Dr Who videos, while the other would take shopping trips and mentally pick out the outfits and hairstyles she would have worn had she been living as a girl.

So its a very strange way to live as a child, to have one life, but then also just constantly have this other fantasy life, and I sometimes wonder if thats where my imagination came from, because if its a muscle, I was constantly working it out.

Her imaginings of her own future were very much an Americanised vision, fed by the soaps and sitcoms she was consuming. I just thought adult life would kick in and all of a sudden I would want a girlfriend and everything would be fine. And so it was a real moment in early adolescence where I was like, No, you dont have to do that. You do not have to inherit that life, the life that you think you have to have. You dont need to do that.

There were no trans people in the media in those years  the 1990s  and she says that had there been role models there is no doubt in my mind that I would have transitioned much earlier. Instead she came out as gay in her teens, something she many years later would describe as something of a consolation for not being able to live as her true self.

After graduating from Bangor University, she trained as a teacher. She looks back fondly on her years in the classroom but describes the profession as a vocation ruined by bureaucrats. I think its true of any public sector job. It felt like there were these overlords who are determined to take your lovely job and make it shit, almost like youre doing such a good job but would you mind also spending your whole weekend doing paperwork.

She began writing in 2008 and says the impetus to do so came from an unusual and hilarious source. This is a very personal story, but whatever. At the time I was dating someone who worked for an airline, and so he was away a lot. And when he went away for these long periods on end, I was like, Maybe I should just cheat. And so I was like, No, you need something to keep your hands busy. You need a hobby. You absolutely need a hobby.

She began writing a sort of Tales of the City-ish serialised story column for a local magazine, but on one of her long summer holidays she began a book, a YA thriller called Hollow Pike. It got her a substantial advance but everyone she knew told her dont give up the day job. Having scratched the creative itch she felt guilty about not committing fully to her students, however, she did in fact give up her teaching job. I said Id take a year off to promote the book and I just never looked back. Ive had to hustle. Ive had to have side hustles and work exceptionally hard, but Im still freelance, 13 years on.

Juno Dawson at last year's Attitude Awards in London. Picture by John Phillips/Getty Images

She moved to London and got a job writing for attitude, an LGBTQ+ magazine, and this represented something of a turning point in her trans awakening, she says.

I started spending time with trans people in real life and, more importantly, trans people around my age, which I had just never done. And this very sort of strange feeling of jealousy crept in. I didnt understand why those women got to be women and I didnt, because Id wanted that since I was four. And then I vividly remember one night, it was about 2012, I was like, Oh my God, maybe thats what being trans is. Maybe there is a word for someone who was wanting to be a girl their whole life and then does something about it. And I was like, Oh, shit. And because I was in a financial position, and because I was a bit older, because I was 30 and Id been around the block a bit, I was like, Well, you dont have to do anything tomorrow.

She went into therapy with a counsellor who specialised in LGBTQ+ trauma, and eventually began dressing as a woman.

Every little step along the path I took, I just felt there was this clarity about who I was. And obviously so much is said about trans people dressing up. For me, actually it felt like stripping off. It felt like I was removing a lot of pretence. I was revealing things and it was a big secret and it felt quite shameful for a while.

By 2015 she had already published an incredible seven books in five years, including the aforementioned This Book is Gay, had won the prestigious Queen of Teen prize for her YA fiction, and had established a national profile. Going off and transitioning quietly, which she wistfully notes is what many of the trans trailblazers of previous generations had done, wasnt really an option if she wanted to keep her career.

She signed a deal with Glamour magazine to chronicle her transition and gave interviews in which she discussed her experiences. In one, with attitude magazine, she gave a quote that became a little notorious: I just wanted to get f****d like a woman. Thats what its about. Its not about what hole its going in.

Do I wish for much of 2016 I had just shut the f**k up? Abso-f**king-lutely!

She winces slightly at the memory. I wish Id worded that better, basically. I was such a late bloomer as well. I didnt really get into sex until I was at university because I was figuring out who I was. I just always pictured myself as a woman. The notion of being someones boyfriend or being a boy to anyone, just felt alien. So I suppose I just wanted to be someones girlfriend. But yeah, do I wish for much of 2016 I had just shut the f**k up? Abso-f**king-lutely.

She met her husband, Max, on Tinder and they were married in Charleston. Its a very beautiful place in East Sussex, which is where the Bloomsbury Set came to be conscientious objectors during World War I. It was just this amazing sexual utopia in the middle of the countryside. Its very, very special. Max is 10 years younger, and I think thats the difference, hes a digital native, she says. I would say hes known what a trans person was his whole life.

Her father gave her away at the wedding, and they have a great relationship now after a period of distance in her youth. That was truly the biggest surprise of my transition. Our relationship was quite seriously on the rocks in the noughties. We just had nothing left to say to each other, really. And I think me being a girl just made a lot of sense to him. So he was like, Oh, that would explain a lot. And then it really did.

So actually I get on really, really well with him now. And with my mum as well. And I think its really nice that weve reached this place where theres just no more secrets.

Since transitioning she says shes more conscious of day-to-day sexism. We needed some stuff doing to our house and I said to my husband, Look, I dont want to go to that hardware place by myself. Either I will be treated like an idiot or, best case scenario, theyre just going to stare at my boobs. I just didnt want to be in that environment.

Juno with her husband Max

And so thats why trans women are women. Because, to be honest, were experiencing the same kind of misogyny that any woman is. So I think Im very proud to be a trans woman, but we need both of those parts of our identity.

The last few years have seen her be incredibly successful. The rights to her 2017 book The Gender Games, which was aimed at adults and discussed her own life experiences, have been acquired by Benedict Cumberbatchs production company and last year she fulfilled a lifetime dream by writing two episodes of the podcast series Doctor Who: Redacted.

Shes decided to remain in the UK (she lives in Brighton) and feels as settled as Ive ever been. While shes still committed to the cause of LGBTQ+ rights, lately she has wearied of the so-called trans debate. She recounts a broadcast researcher contacting her to discuss Pret-a-Mangers gender neutral gingerbread people. I said no, and then when my publicist goes to them and says, Right, Juno is promoting her work, then theyre just not interested. And so I think, in the words of Nicola Roberts, I want to dance to the beat of my own drum.  The Shadow Cabinet is published by HarperCollins on June 6, 14.99
Eilis OHanlon: What are southerners prepared to give up in return for a united Ireland?

Unity is still years away. Sinn Fein just talks it up to keep momentum going

Irish unity will have financial implications for all citizens

Eilis O'Hanlon Sun 28 May 2023 at 03:30
The native US belted kingfisher is no match for the attraction of its exquisitely feathered relative here

Not many readers will have heard of a belted kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon), halcyon bird of Greek mythology, or indeed have seen one. It is a rare native of the US  but it is illustrated in a brochure of commonly seen local birds of the Florida Keys, where thousands of Irish holidaymakers go every year. I have a beer mug from Sloppy Joes in Key West.

However, one tourist from Florida once turned up in Co Mayo and the unfolding story contains elements of McGahernesque detail with a jolt of shock/horror at the end.

This belted bird is different from the kingfisher of Irish watercourses. It is much larger, almost jackdaw sized, with a stout bill, long tail and elongated crown feathers giving it a spiky outline.

It has bluish-grey livery with a white neck and underbody making it much less attractive than its exquisitely feathered local relative.

I learned last week from a book picked up in a charity shop  JTR Sharrock and PJ Grants Birds New To Britain And Ireland (Poyser, 1982) and specifically therein from renowned Irish bird artist Killian Mullarney  that a belted was sighted on the Bunree river in Mayo back in November 1978, perched in a tree and occasionally uttering a harsh grating call like that of a mistle thrush.

It was noticed again on subsequent days and JE Fitzharris, a noted conservationist, was informed. He arrived in Ballina with other birders, including Mr Mullarney, who made a detailed report with sketches for official reference. In all, several weeks had passed since the birds arrival was first noticed.

Mr Mullarney has written: The bird behaved in much the same way as a European kingfisher, sitting around (on a willow) with occasional bursts of fishing activity. Every now and then it became very raucous, uttering a loud, rattling call. When it went to feed it flew strongly and directly It favoured a small stand of willows along the waters edge where the Bunree runs into the Moy.

Now comes the drama. The bird had been around for almost eight weeks when there was a sudden, unexpected event after a local person who had heard of the birds presence, promptly shot it.

Mr Mullarney wrote: This outrageous act was reported to the Irish Wildbird Conservancy which pursued a successful prosecution.

The belted kingfishers arrival in Mayo was the first accepted record of this Nearctic species in Britain and Ireland  but this was later predated by the British Ornithologists Union reporting an older sighting in Cornwall in 1908.

Two earlier Irish records, from 1845, were removed because of discrepancies.

The Cornish and Mayo records have been followed, with another belted kingfisher spotted in Co Down on October 12, 1980. That bird unfortunately met the same fate as the Ballina fisher  the mounted specimen of which is in the National Museum.

Further storm-blown vagrants may turn up here but Florida vacationers should get local guide books which illustrate beauties such as roseate spoonbills, tanagers, painted buntings and rusty-throated hummingbirds.

Who knows but some might make Irish landfall and face iPhone cameras rather than guns.
Phillip Schofield, as ITV confirmed that This Morning will be broadcast on Monday (Jonathan Brady/PA)

This Morning will air on Monday as the ITV show continues to face controversy after Phillip Schofield admitted to having an affair with a younger colleague, the broadcaster has confirmed.

The veteran TV presenter, 61, resigned from the broadcaster on Friday and was dropped by his talent agency after confessing to having an unwise, but not illegal relationship with a young male who worked on the programme while he was still married to his wife.

Schofield stepped down from This Morning last weekend with immediate effect and his former co-host Holly Willoughby remains on half-term holiday leave.

Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby (Ian West/PA)

Alison Hammond and Dermot OLeary will continue to fill in for them, although it is not clear if they will be the presenters when the Monday show airs at 10am.

The controversy surrounding This Morning over the last few weeks amid rumours of a rift between Schofield and Willoughby has put the shows future in question, with reports claiming it could potentially be axed entirely.

But an ITV spokesperson told the PA news agency: As we said on the record yesterday, This Morning is not under review and theres no plans for the show to be axed. This Morning will return as normal tomorrow.

Willoughby, who hosted the mid-morning show alongside Schofield since 2009, said in a statement that his admission of the affair was very hurtful after previous denials he had given her.

Its taken time to process yesterdays news, Willoughby wrote on an Instagram story posted on Saturday.

When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not.

Its been very hurtful to now find out that this was a lie.

Willoughby is due to be back in the studio from Monday June 5, although it is not yet known who her co-presenter will be.

ITV said on Saturday it had investigated rumours of a relationship between Schofield and the ITV employee around three years ago but claimed both parties categorically and repeatedly denied it.

A spokesperson for ITV said the broadcaster was not provided with, and did not find, any evidence of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour when it looked into the matter in 2020.

Phillips statement yesterday reveals that he lied to people at ITV, from senior management to fellow presenters, to YMU, to the media and to others over this relationship, they added.

The broadcaster also said it was deeply disappointed by the admissions of deceit by Schofield after he spoke publicly about the affair.

The relationships we have with those we work with are based on trust, the ITV statement added.

Phillip made assurances to us which he now acknowledges were untrue and we feel badly let down.

Schofield, who also co-hosted Dancing On Ice with Willoughby, said he would also no longer present the British Soap Awards, his last public commitment.

Days after his exit, it was announced both Schofield and Willoughby are among 50 names longlisted for the National Television Awards presenter prize, alongside their fellow This Morning hosts Hammond, OLeary and Rylan Clark.

Dermot OLeary and Alison Hammond (Ian West/PA)

The NTA has said the awards are voted for by the public and that it will be them who will decide on the shortlisted nominees which will be announced in August.

Schofield revealed the affair began while he was still with his wife Stephanie Lowe, in a statement published by the Daily Mail on Friday, adding he was very, very sorry for having been unfaithful to her.

Schofield also apologised for lying about the relationship.

The first thing I want to say is: I am deeply sorry for having lied to them (the Daily Mail), and to many others about a relationship that I had with someone working on This Morning, he said.

I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning.

He added that contrary to speculation the relationship was not illegal.

Phillip Schofield and his wife Stephanie (Ian West/PA)

He said: Contrary to speculation, whilst I met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television, it was only after he started to work on the show that it became more than just a friendship.

That relationship was unwise, but not illegal. It is now over.

He also denied that a super-injunction had been issued by him, or on his behalf, regarding the relationship.

When I chose to come out I did so entirely for my own wellbeing, he said.

Nobody forced me out. Neither I nor anyone else, to my knowledge, has ever issued an injunction, super or otherwise, about my relationship with this colleague, he was never moved on or sacked by or because of me.

In an effort to protect my ex-colleague I havent been truthful about the relationship. But my recent, unrelated, departure from This Morning fuelled speculation and raised questions which have been impacting him, so for his sake it is important for me to be honest now.

The presenter added: I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public, and most importantly of all to my family.

I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife.

Talent agency YMU said it has parted company with Schofield with immediate effect.

The revelations come after the TV presenter faced months of controversy including reports of the rift with Willoughby, the furore over their visit to the late Queens lying-in-state, and his brothers sex abuse trial.

Just a day before he stepped down from This Morning, Schofields brother Timothy, 54, was jailed for 12 years for sexually abusing a boy.

The TV presenter said I no longer have a brother following guilty verdicts in April.

Schofield married Stephanie Lowe in 1993 and they have two grown-up daughters together, Ruby and Molly.

After he came out in February 2020, in an emotional on-air chat with Willoughby, his wife told The Sun she supported his brave step and always will love him.
JUNIUS  Amy Chait can only imagine how crowded some of the new service areas along the Thruway will be this holiday weekend.

She sat at a counter at the compact, redesigned Junius Ponds service area, between Syracuse and Rochester, and recalled her trip to Massachusetts to pick up her daughter from college.

When I was going east, the one that was like this was packed, Chait said while taking a break on a recent weekday before she and her daughter Anna continued the drive west to Ann Arbor, Mich. It was on a Friday afternoon. It was like you couldn't even move.

Twenty-seven Thruway service areas will be replaced or revived under a $450 million overhaul that began in 2021 and is set to continue through 2025.

As of Memorial Day weekend, six new travel plazas have opened while 10 others remain closed for construction.

Travelers say they appreciate the clean, bright look of the new rest stops, which feature a different mix of restaurants including Shake Shack, Chick-fil-A and Popeyes.

But they wonder why some redesigned service areas, like Junius Ponds and Indian Castle near Utica, are so small.

Their size, combined with the shutdown of so many travel plazas for construction, has led to long lines on busier travel days.

Its also led to questions about whether the network is ready for the summer travel crush.

In the short term, I have concerns about how it's impacting our tourism season and making sure we just have adequate facilities to handle the amount of people coming into New York, said Assemblyman Michael Norris, a Lockport Republican and Thruway commuter.

The Thruway Authority and the developer, Applegreen Limited, defended the pace given the complexity of the project and nagging supply-chain delays.

The authority acknowledged the reopening of some plazas, including Clarence and Pembroke, is behind schedule and said it has prodded Applegreen to finish as quickly as possible.

The entities say the new service areas were designed with different sizes based on historic patterns of use and crowding at the smallest centers should ease as more facilities come online.

We understand that this is an inconvenience to our motorists, authority spokeswoman Jennifer Givner said. However, we ask for their patience during this project. It's incredibly complicated. Not many construction projects like this exist with 27 separate buildings over 570 miles.

Use drove new sizes

Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled the project in his 2018 State of the State address. The rest stops had opened in the 1950s and were last remodeled or replaced in the 1990s.

The winning bid came from Empire State Thruway Partners, operated by Applegreen.

The Irish company promised to cover the $450 million cost to replace 23 service areas, and renovate four others, in exchange for a 33-year rest stop concessions lease. Fuel service at the plazas is on a separate contract with the authority.

The project promised modern plazas, updated restrooms and food selections, rebranded convenience stores, better Wi-Fi and extra electric-car chargers.

There were several size levels based on traffic and sales data at the existing stops, ranging from 3,900 to 20,100 square feet.

This is standard retail practice, said Charles Lindsey, a University at Buffalo associate professor of marketing. Stores that are too big are unnecessarily costly to maintain, while stores that are too small make for unhappy customers.

Theyre trying to find the sweet spot and maximize both efficiency and effectiveness, he said.

To limit the inconvenience, planners barred the closing of two consecutive rest areas. Only when work finished at one rest area could an adjacent area be shut down.

Applegreens contractors began work on the first service areas in 2021. Since then, six have reopened. Eastbound Clifton Springs and westbound Junius Ponds are the plazas closest to Buffalo that have been replaced.

The Clarence and Pembroke rest stops were shuttered in July 2021. They were scheduled to reopen last August and October, respectively, but both won't come online until the end of June.

In the meantime, travelers heading east from Buffalo must wait for the as-yet-unrenovated Scottsville service area, near Rochester, to stop.

Crowding at some stops

Clifton Springs, east of Scottsville, is one of the large new service areas.

Opened in March, it has a Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Shake Shack and Applegreen market featuring Taste of NY items such as maple syrup and Nelson Farms jam. A recent visit found a worker on a ladder installing the sign for a future Auntie Annes pretzel shop.

Trey Byrge, a long-haul truck driver from Tucson, Ariz., taking a load to Massachusetts, said he appreciated how well-kept the service area was. He also liked the food selection.

It's usually, like, Burger King. Youre stuck with the same old, same old, said Byrge. That's what made me come here. I saw the Chick-fil-A. I was like, I'm gonna get Chick-fil-A. 

Aryell Williams, a Utica-area resident bottle-feeding her 8-month-old son, Jack, recalled the prior rest stops as dumpy and old and said she doubted the authority would ever upgrade them.

Its really nice, almost homey in a way, said Williams.

The Clifton Springs building is 3 times the size of the new Junius Ponds, which is 5,740 square feet.

At Junius Ponds, theres not much space between the 25 or so indoor seats, the smaller-scale Applegreen market and the lines and waiting areas for the Starbucks and Shake Shack, though outdoor seating helps in warmer weather.

Part of the problem is the westbound service areas on either side, Chittenango and Seneca, are closed except for the fuel stations.

Anna Chait, who regularly drove the Thruway between Michigan and Mount Holyoke College, questioned the timing.

I just think they should have done it systematically  not closing all of them at once, she said. Because I was driving this in December and, like, I just didn't stop in the whole of New York because I couldnt.

Sitting nearby at Junius Ponds were Linda Cecere and Diana Wenz. The sisters from Geneva had come to try a Shake Shack milkshake.

They loved their shakes but had questions about the project.

Why is it taking so long on the other ones? Wenz said. You can't even go to the bathroom on the way to Syracuse. What is the problem? I thought they were all supposed to be done.

I figured theyd be done by the travel season, Cecere added.

'Unforeseen circumstances'

The Thruway Authority said travelers will enjoy a modern service-area network once the project is completed by 2025.

The authority and Applegreen cited supply-chain delays that began during the pandemic and said the war in Ukraine and last winters devastating storms in Western New York also slowed the pace of construction.

In fact, the main contractors are seeking $260 million taxpayer bailout for project overruns, a request that remains under review in Albany.

While we had hoped to have more renovated service areas open for the summer 2023 travel season, unforeseen circumstances and complexities in the construction process necessitated the phased approach, Applegreen spokeswoman Paula Chirhart emailed.

Applegreen and the authority defended the different plaza sizes. They said smaller rest stops such as Junius Ponds easily will handle their typical crowd volumes once more reopen.

Its important to note that many of the previous larger-sized buildings were highly underutilized. They had vast eating areas that were often sectioned off by the operators because they were never used and there was too much space to clean given challenges associated with staffing levels, the authoritys Givner said.

And they said the best way to handle the construction of new service areas was the staggered closure of the existing service areas, including restroom facilities. They noted fuel is still offered at the shuttered stations and motorists wont see two of them in a row.

Better planning possible?

Do the service areas have enough employees to keep the buildings clean and to keep lines at the restaurants moving? Applegreen said hiring is a priority for the company.

Between new site openings and staffing up for the peak summer season, we expect to significantly increase our staffing levels to ensure a quality guest experience, Chirhart said.

UBs Lindsey wonders whether it was possible to open larger travel plazas first, or to place public portable toilets at the shuttered rest areas.

Should the sequence have been different? Should we have done a better job anticipating the bottlenecks and, because of that, maybe built some temporary space? he asked, such as flex space at smaller site.

State Sen. Tim Kennedy, a Buffalo Democrat who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, said hes heard complaints about the smaller service areas and hes seen them for himself. The authority has assured him the crowding issues will resolve themselves as work progresses.

I share the frustrations with the community that sees these new rest areas going up, but they're not complete, Kennedy said. We want to get that process expedited as quickly as we can. We want these new rest areas online. And we want them to serve the public as the public deserves.
Image: Theja Meru Twitter page

Naga artists hosted a three-day art exhibition recently where they showcased the beautiful landscape of Nagaland and its rich culture and tradition.

The two artists were identified as Among Venuh (28) and Vimhakho Sotetsu (29).

With the theme Alluring Nagaland, the art exhibition kicked off on Wednesday at the Regional Centre of Excellence for Music and Performing Arts (RCEMPA) Jotsoma, about 6 km from Kohima town, reports East Mojo.

We came up with this exhibition because we wish to show our culture, rich tradition, landscapes, and at the same time we will be trying to sell our works and promote art, Venuh told EastMojo.

The young artist expressed his excitement on exploring the way of life of different Naga tribes through the medium of art.

I am very interested in studying colours and nature. I see subjects and convert them into art, he shared.
Kolkata: The U.S. Consulate Kolkata, in partnership with New Delhi-based non-profit Aroh Foundation, conducted a two-day Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) 3.0 bootcamp for a cohort of 30 entrepreneurs from West Bengal at the American Center in the city recently.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the event, U.S. Consul General Melinda Pavek said: "AWE started in India in 2020 to support participant access to peer-to-peer mentorship, business partnerships, and scaling opportunities both with businesses in the region and in the United States."

"So far, the program has supported 350 early-stage business owners by providing U.S.-style online education with guided facilitation from local women business leaders and other partners," she said.

"After participating in AWE, more than 50 percent of our AWE women have held on to or successfully grown their ventures," she said.

"About 20 percent of them have reported they increased their revenues by double or more. Another 20 percent collaborated with other AWE participants for business growth or formed AWE networks in their respective states. Our AWE entrepreneurs have also successfully raised about $375,000 in funding," she said.

The AWE participants earier attended an eight-week online Dreambuilder program at the University of Arizona.

During the Kolkata event, the participants worked on their business plan, fundraising and business pitches, and presented before an expert jury who gave them feedback to improve their skills further.

Speaking to IBNS, Divya Rajput, Innovation and Business Sustainability Evangelist said, "We feel women face some specific barriers as far as dealing with entrepreneurship is concerned. There are other issues as well which they face and we try to address them through the programme."

"We try to give them confidence," she said.

"We try to give them the perfect experts who can guide them in their tasks," she said.

Bahnisikha Roy, one of the participating entrepreneurs, said the workshop helped her in gaining more knowledge from the experts who addressed them during the two-day event.

Roy, who is the owner of a startup named Baby Garments, said: "I want to ensure that my brand reaches a larger audience in the upcoming days and the knowledge I gained from the workshop will help me in doing it."

Aayushi Gupta, who runs Avighnya Academy, told IBNS: "This workshop helped me learn and understand my business plan in a completely different way. I can confidently say that this event helped me a lot."

Reshmi Mukherjee, owner, Skintopia Skincare, said: "I have learned a lot about properly creating a business plan after participating in this workshop."

Through the year-long project, participants will continue to develop partnerships, identify mentors, build specific skills, and explore funding opportunities with the help of public-private partnerships to scale businesses.

In 2020 AWE pilot project was launched in partnership with non-profit Asian Confluence in Nagaland, Meghalaya, Assam, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh.

In 2021, U.S. Consulate Kolkata partnered with Aroh Foundation, and Amazon web services to launch the second edition in the Hindi belt of Bihar and Jharkhand.

In 2022, again in partnership with Aroh Foundation U.S. Consulate Kolkata launched the third edition of AWE in the states of West Bengal and Sikkim.

U.S. Consulate Kolkata has been promoting women economic empowerment through its flagship program, the Academy of Women Entrepreneurs (AWE).

(Reporting by Supriyo Hazra)
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A New York lawyer is facing a court hearing of his own after his firm used ChatGPT for conducting legal research.

A judge said the court was faced with an "unprecedented circumstance" after a filing was found to reference example legal cases that did not exist, reports BBC.

The lawyer who used the tool told the court he was "unaware that its content could be false", the British media reported.

The original case involved a man suing an airline over an alleged personal injury. His legal team submitted a brief that cited several previous court cases in an attempt to prove, using precedent, why the case should move forward, reports BBC.

But the airline's lawyers later wrote to the judge to say they could not find several of the cases that were referenced in the brief.

"Six of the submitted cases appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations," Judge Castel wrote in an order demanding the man's legal team explain itself, reported BBC.

Over the course of several filings, it emerged that the research had not been prepared by Peter LoDuca, the lawyer for the plaintiff, but by a colleague of his at the same law firm. Steven A Schwartz, who has been an attorney for more than 30 years, used ChatGPT to look for similar previous cases.

Meanwhile, a screengrab of the conversation between the lawyer and the AI tool has gone viral on the social media.

A lawyer used ChatGPT to do "legal research" and cited a number of nonexistent cases in a filing, and is now in a lot of trouble with the judge pic.twitter.com/AJSE7Ts7W7  Daniel Feldman (@d_feldman) May 27, 2023 A netizen named Daniel Feldman shared the screengrab of the conversation and tweeted: " A lawyer used ChatGPT to do "legal research" and cited a number of nonexistent cases in a filing, and is now in a lot of trouble with the judge." A netizen named Daniel Feldman shared the screengrab of the conversation and tweeted: " A lawyer used ChatGPT to do "legal research" and cited a number of nonexistent cases in a filing, and is now in a lot of trouble with the judge."

What is Chat GPT:

ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot launched by OpenAI in November 2022.

ChatGPT is an AI tool that gives natural sounding answers to questions posed by users across many domains of knowledge.
Image Credit: Videograb

New Delhi/IBNS: Prime Minister Narendra Modi took part in a mega puja to mark the formal inauguration of the new Parliament building.

Around 60 religious heads are present at the event which also comprised a mega havan in the Parliament premises outside the new building.

Besides PM Modi, Speaker Om Birla also took part in the puja along with PM Modi.

The ceremonial sceptre 'Sengol' was handed over to PM Modi by the high priests of the Shaivite order.

PM Modi sought blessings from the priests holding the 'Sengol' in his hand.

He then carried the Sengol inside the building and istalled it beside the Speaker's chair amid the chanting of religious hymns.

Two short films will be screened in the Parliament building, followed by Prime Minister Modi's address.

The new parliament building offers more space than the current building which was built in 1927.

With carpets from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, bamboo flooring from Tripura and stone carvings from Rajasthan, the new Parliament building "reflects India's diverse culture".

The interior has three national symbols - the lotus, the peacock, and the banyan tree - as its themes.

The triangular-shaped four-storey parliament building has a built-up area of 64,500 sqm. The building has three main gates - Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar.


Image Credit: Facebook/Asaduddin Owaisi

New Delhi: Amid a boycott of the historic inauguration of the new Parliament building by 20 Opposition parties, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has slammed the Lalu Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for comparing its shape with that of a coffin.

While maintaining his stance that the Lok Sabha Speaker should have opened the new Parliament building, Owaisi said RJD should have used some other angle to criticise the event.

"RJD has no stand, the old Parliament building did not even have clearance from Delhi Fire Service. Why are they (RJD) calling the Parliament a coffin? They could have said anything else, why do they need to bring this angle?" Owaisi told news agency ANI.

Owaisi accused RJD of feigning secularism as it joined forces with Nitish Kumars JD (U), a former ally of the BJP.

He said a new Parliament building was needed as the old British-era structure was no longer in good shape. Owaisi referred to an incident where a chunk of the ceiling fell on the late Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav while he was having lunch at his party office in the old Parliament building.

RJD has drawn flak for its coffin tweet, with many calling it offensive.

BJP has strongly criticised the Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadavs party for the post and demanded that those who tweeted the comparison be charged with treason.

Sushil Kumar Modi, Rajya Sabha MP and former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister told news agency ANI that the representatives of all the political parties, who boycotted the inauguration, will be attending parliament proceedings in the new building.

He asked if those parties have permanently boycotted parliament. Will their MPs resign from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha?"

"What can be more unfortunate than this? They have no brains. This new parliament building has been built with public money, said Sushil Kumar Modi on RJDs tweet.

"They have used a coffin's picture. What can be more disrespectful? It shows the political party's cheap mindset. This is an auspicious day, a day of pride for the country when a new parliament is being dedicated to the nation. And it is being compared to a coffin. That's the photo they have tweeted. A case of sedition must be registered against such people," said Sushil Kumar Modi.

In a savage response to RJDs tweet, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said, "People of the country will bury you in the same coffin in 2024 and will not give you the opportunity to enter the new temple of democracy. It is decided that the parliament building belongs to the country and the coffin to you."

However, the RJD said that the coffin in its post is a representation of democracy being buried.

RJD's Shakti Singh Yadav said, Parliament is the temple of democracy, a place for dialogue and accused the PM Modi-led government at the Centre of taking the inauguration of the new Parliament building in a different direction.

RJD is one of the 20 political parties that have boycotted the grand opening of the new Parliament premises, objecting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from inaugurating the new building.

The Opposition has repeatedly accused PM Modi of using the construction and inauguration of the new Parliament building as an opportunity to raise his popularity ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

"Prime Minister Modi's decision to inaugurate the new parliament building by himself, completely sidelining President (Droupadi) Murmu, is not only a grave insult but a direct assault on our democracy... This undignified act insults the high office of the President and violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution. It undermines the spirit of inclusion which saw the nation celebrate its first woman Adivasi President," they said in a statement.

Meanwhile, a section of the experts has stated that the Constitution does not mention who should or should not inaugurate government buildings, adding that the Supreme Court, which is the custodian of the Constitution and responsible for interpreting it, also refused to entertain Public Interest Litigations (PIL) to stop PM Modi from opening the new Parliament building.
Image: UNI

New Delhi: Bollywood actor Kriti Sanon has set the stage of IIFA 2023 on fire with her scintillating dance moves.

With a mix of all her songs like Sweety Tera Drama, Thumkeshwari, Param Sundari, Apna Bana Le, among others, she left everyone in a tizzy!

The actress also grooved with the Norwegian dance group The Quick Style on her song Param Sundari from Mimi, for which she won Best Actress last year.

The act has become the talking point of the evening, with such powerhouse performers on stage grooving together.

For her appearance on the green carpet at IIFA, Kriti graced the event in a glamorous and pearl-inspired saree, leaving everyone in awe of her impeccable fashion sense.

She wore a white blouse adorned with pearls, perfectly complementing her overall look. Paired with a shiny white saree embellished with pearl accents, the actress effortlessly aced her appearance, radiating natural beauty and elegance.

On the work front, the actress is currently gearing up for the release of her upcoming next, Om Raut's Adipurush. She also has Rhea Kapoor's 'The Crew', Ganapath and Dinesh Vijan's Untitled next alongside Shahid Kapoor.

(With UNI inputs)
redrivernm Instagram page

At least three people were killed in a shooting incident during a motorcycle rally in Red River, New Mexico, on Saturday, media reports said.

New Mexico State Police said five people were injured in the incident.

"3 deceased," the police tweeted. "5 injured, receiving medical care," police said.

Update 3 of 3: Red River Motorcycle Rally Shooting



Additional NMSP officers have been sent to Red River

NMSP request the public to avoid Red River as we conduct our investigation



We will continue to provide updates as new information emerges. https://t.co/HJQqPs1fRa  NMSP (@NMStatePolice) May 28, 2023

All those involved in the shooting are in police custody, said the mayor, according to CNN affiliate KOAT.

All the individuals involved were members of biker gangs, Red River Mayor Linda Calhoun told CNN.

The shooting incident reportedly took place during the Red River Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally.
Image credit: Video grab

Ankara: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared his triumph on Sunday in a significant runoff election that presented the most formidable test during his twenty-year tenure.

"We will be ruling the country for the coming five years," Erdogan told his cheering supporters from atop a bus in his home district in Istanbul, AFP reported. "God willing, we will be deserving of your trust."

The two-round system, also known as runoff voting, second ballot, or ballotage, is a voting method used to elect a single candidate, where voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate.

According to official results, Erdogan maintains a lead of approximately 4% over his secular rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu, with the majority of votes already counted, reported BBC.

Erdogans supporters gathered in the streets waving flags and blaring horns.

Hundreds of people had been crowding at the entrance of the presidential palace in Turkeys capital Ankara to hear Erdogans speech and get a glimpse of him.

"The only winner is Turkey," he told cheering supporters on top of a bus in Istanbul, reported BBC.

"Bye, Bye, Kemal," he taunted Kemal Kilicdaroglu, his opponent.

Erdogan relied heavily on his religious conservative base in this election.

In the winning speech, Erdogan also slammed his rivals, accusing opposition parties of embracing pro-LGBT policies. This was also his favourite theme of his election campaign, reported BBC.
WASHINGTON  An alleged campaign by Chinese state-sponsored hackers on targets in the U.S. and Guam has raised fears that Beijing is preparing to disrupt communications in the Pacific in the event of a conflict.

The hacking campaign was first identified by Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday and quickly confirmed by authorities in the U.S., U.K. and other allied nations. Microsoft said the hacking group, which it dubbed Volt Typhoon, breached government, communications, manufacturing and IT organizations in the U.S. and Guam, a crucial military post in the western Pacific Ocean.

While the identities of most of the hacking victims remains unknown, U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told CNBC on Thursday that the Navy was impacted by the intrusions. The extent of the breach wasnt immediately known. A spokesperson for the U.S. Navy declined to discuss the status of our networks.

Meanwhile, Rob Joyce, the director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency, told CNN Thursday that Chinese hackers could still have access to sensitive U.S. networks that theyve targeted. Joyce said the intrusions stood out in how brazen they were in scope and scale.

A NSA representative declined to comment and referred instead to a release by the NSA and other U.S. agencies on the Chinese hacking group.

Microsoft said it had moderate confidence the breaches were carried out in preparation to upend communications in the event of a future crisis. The companys disclosure came amid mounting concerns that China might take military action to enforce its claim to the self-ruled island of Taiwan.

Jon Darby, NSAs director of operations until his retirement after 39 years at the spy agency in August, said the operation matched a well-known way to infiltrate networks by accessing them at the edges rather than at what he called the bulls-eye and then staying undetected for years.

The interesting thing is they got in from home routers all the way into the U.S. Navy infrastructure, said Darby, who is not familiar with the details of this specific case.

The scary thing is they could then launch disruptive or destructive attacks when things are hitting the fan, he said. If theyre in these networks they can wreak havoc. Youve got to identify and plug up the vulnerabilities that allowed them to get into these networks and eradicate them.

The NSA, along with intelligence agencies from the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada also shared more details on the hackers. Those countries are all part of a key intelligence alliance, which includes the sharing of cybersecurity information, known as the Five Eyes.

China denied the hacking accusations.

We noted this extremely unprofessional report  a patchwork with a broken chain of evidence, Chinas Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said. Apparently, this has been a collective disinformation campaign launched by the U.S. through the Five Eyes to serve its geopolitical agenda. Its widely known that the Five Eyes is the worlds biggest intelligence association, and the NSA the worlds biggest hacking group.

The U.S. previously accused Chinese hackers for espionage and intellectual property theft, including a data breach of the Office of Personnel Management in 2015 and a hack of Equifax in 2017. In 2014, a Senate panel found that Chinese government-affiliated hackers accessed the data of military contractors including airlines and tech companies.

Its not clear why Microsoft, the U.S. and its allies decided to shine a spotlight on the hacking group this week. One reason may be to give private companies a head start on defending from this group of Chinese hackers long before a potential conflict with China over Taiwan, said John Hultquist, chief analyst at Mandiant Intelligence, a subsidiary of Google.

The burden of protecting critical infrastructure from serious disruptive cyberattacks lies with the private sector. They have to defend these networks, Hultquist said. Thats why its so important that this intelligence makes its way into their hands. If it doesnt, its practically useless.

Details about the alleged attacks offer rare insights into potential sabotage efforts by Chinese hackers, whose alleged theft of intellectual property and espionage capabilities are better known. By contrast, cybersecurity experts have documented Russian attacks on critical infrastructure, including hacks of the power grid in Ukraine are well documented.

The organization has been around a long time, said Dakota Cary, a consultant at Krebs Stamos Group, describing the hacking group. When they walked over a line to get something of military operational value, thats when it changed.

Infrastructure sectors hit hardest by ransomware Infrastructure sectors hit hardest by ransomware #10. Communications #9. Energy #8. Transportation #7. Food and agriculture #6. Commercial facilities #5. Government facilities #4. Critical manufacturing #3. Information technology #2. Financial services #1. Health care and public health
Pixabay

DI Khan: At least 22 Pakistani security personnel were injured when a suicide bomber, who was riding a motorcycle, targeted a convoy in the Chehkan area of DI Khan on Saturday.

As per information, the said blast was a suicide attack in which an unknown suicide bomber riding on a motorbike blew himself up on the convoy of security forces, official sources told Dawn News, adding that as a result of the attack, at least 22 personnel of the security forces have been injured.

Official sources told the news paper that the convoy was en route to Minza area in South Waziristan district when it came under attack.

The area was cordoned off after the attack.

They injured personnel were shifted to Combined Military Hospital in Dera Ismail Khan, where two of them are reported to be in critical condition, the official said.

According to police sources, the convoy was attacked near the Wana petrol pump.

The sources added that the suicide bomber approached from the rear, passed through the convoy and detonated himself in front of the fourth vehicle in the convoy.

It is likely that the suicide bomber was waiting for the convoy of the security forces at the petrol pump, which is approximately 400 metres away from the site of the attack, they said.
Pixabay

Kabul: Some Kabul residents have criticised a spike in armed robberies in some parts of Afghanistan's capital by irresponsible armed robbers.

They directed the Taliban government of the country to ensure the security of the people.

"Everyone abuses the Islamic Emirate's name and uniform. They stop the people wherever they want, they are responsible for the robberies, Mohammad Zubair, a resident of Kabul, told Tolo News.

"We ask the Islamic Emirate to ensure security; robberies and car theft should be reduced, Javid, another resident of Kabul, told Tolo News.

This comes as the former governor of Nuristan province, Mohammad Omar Shirzad, told the news portal that armed individuals wearing the uniform of Islamic Emirate forces took away his armored car five days ago in PD5 of Kabul.

Last Monday at 1:30 pm several armed Taliban who identified themselves as the Taliban of PD 5 came to our house located in Khushal Khan Mina, in the fifth district, and took my armored car, for which I had a national security card, Shirzad told Tolo News.

The security forces in the country, however, denied a rise in armed robberies in the city.

They said more than 30 irresponsible armed individuals have been arrested in the previous month.
Over the years, Punjab has emerged as a hub of inspiration and revolution, and its women have played an integral role in charting a new path towards progress, empowerment, and equality.

From education and entrepreneurship to politics, the women of Punjab have been trailblazers in every field. They are breaking down barriers to make Punjab a more inclusive and equitable place for everyone.

The progress made by women in Punjab is impressive. According to data from Punjab State Government, the female literacy rate in the state increased from 70.73% in 2001 to 75.84% in 2011.

Additionally, the state government is making significant investments in womens education, as demonstrated by the recent establishment of a womens university in Patiala.

This is a significant achievement, given that female students in the past have been denied access to higher education due to sociocultural norms and expectations.

However, the progress made in education, though commendable, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to empowering women in Punjab.

Many women in the state still face discrimination and are prevented from achieving their full potential due to patriarchal attitudes and deeply rooted biases. This reality is highlighted by the gender pay gap in the state, with women earning, on average, 20% less than their male counterparts.

Despite these challenges, the women of Punjab have made substantial strides in different fields, breaking down gender stereotypes and carving out new paths for themselves. For instance, in politics, we see women like Harsimrat Kaur Badal, former Union Minister for Food Processing and a leading figure in the Shiromani Akali Dal, who has advocated for womens empowerment through affirmative action policies and has worked to address gender-based violence.

Education has also been a critical driver of empowerment for women in Punjab. Women like Dr Kiran Bedi, the first female IPS officer in India and the first woman appointed Director General of Police in India, show that education can break down barriers. Dr. Bedis pioneering work in police reform and community policing has been instrumental in transforming the law enforcement culture in the country.

Another great example of inspiring women from Punjab is Inderpreet Kaur Ratol, who became the first woman to lead a Sikh procession in the United Kingdom during the Nagar Kirtan celebrations in 2018. Again, breaking tradition and cultural norms inspired young Sikh women in the UK and India, where women are not permitted to lead such processions. Inderpreet Kaur Ratols achievement is a small but significant step forward for gender equality in the Sikh community.

On the other hand, Deepakshi is a young Punjabi woman blazing a new path for herself and her community. She profoundly loves entrepreneurship and wants to start her own business. Like many women in Punjab, Deepakshi is aware of the challenges that she may face. However, she is determined to break down barriers and pave the way for other women like her.

Deepakshis story is just one example of how women in Punjab are making strides towards progress and empowerment in the 21st century. However, despite the progress that has been made in terms of education and womens rights, women in Punjab are still facing significant sociocultural challenges.

One such challenge is the lack of equal opportunities in the workplace. While womens educational attainment has improved, they still earn less than their male counterparts. The root cause of this gap is the deeply ingrained societal norms prioritizing men in the workforce. This disparity deprives women of their region and prevents them from achieving their full potential.

However, women like Deepakshi have yet to allow these challenges to deter them from pursuing their dreams. The progress that women like Deepakshi are making is a result of the collective efforts of many inspiring women in Punjab. Women like Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Dr Kiran Bedi, and Inderpreet Kaur Ratol are pioneers of womens rights. They are working to create a better future for the next generation.

To build on the progress that has already been made, we must continue to empower and elevate womens voices in Punjab. One way to do this is by investing in womens education and creating opportunities for women in the workforce. Additionally, more prominent female role models and mentors should be encouraged in society and the media to inspire and support young women as they pursue their dreams.

The women of Punjab have made substantial progress in different fields, and their achievements serve as a powerful reminder of the transformative role that women can play in shaping the world around them. As society continues to evolve and progress, it is essential that we continue to invest in and empower women, identifying and addressing the barriers they face so that they can achieve their full potential. We need to elevate and celebrate the stories of these inspiring women, and together, we can chart a new path towards a more inclusive, equitable, and prosperous future for everyone.

(Image and Text: Khalsavox.com)
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Dhaka: Former lawmaker of the Netherlands Harry van Bommel has urged Pakistan to formally declare the atrocities the country committed during Bangladesh's Liberation War as genocide.

Harry van Bommel, who is heading a three-member European team to investigate the genocide committed by Pakistan in 1971, also urged Islamabad to clear its position on the issue, reports our Chattogram staff correspondent, reports The Daily Star.

The two other members of the team were also identified as genocide scholar Anthonie Holslag (VU), political analyst Chris Blackburn.

"It should be wise for the Pakistani government to come to terms with reality and  formally declare that there was a genocide in 1971," the former Dutch MP, reminding Pakistan of its obligations as a civilized country, told The Daily Star.

"It is important for Pakistan to take a clear position regarding the 1971 genocide.  It was not a massacre, it was genocide," he said, arguing that internationally renowned institutes have already confirmed it as a genocide using empirical methods based on UN criteria.

He urged the Pakistani government to accept the "scientific conclusion".
File image from Pixabay

They were paid under Kamyab Khwateen Programme.

A woman employee was quoted as saying by ANI: They can pay crores of rupees to Imran Khan. Can they not give Rupees 13,000 salary to the employees? We have been working hard but we have not received pay for our work. We were given assurance that they will give salary and package during Ramzan. However, nothing was paid to us. Today, we came here to protest, however, the staff pushed us out. We are demanding our right.

Another woman employee said that they have not been paid a salary for their work. The woman said that the teachers pushed them out and closed the industry. She urged the authorities to pay them salaries.

Another woman told the news agency, We did all the work that was given to us, including handicrafts and stitching. The teachers have pushed us out and locked the industry. They threatened us that they will see who will give them the payment. We were 226 workers working there and their attendance has been marked in the register. I call on the government to make payment to us.


Image: Xinhua/UNI

At least two Iranian border guards and one Taliban security personnel were killed during clashes at the border crossing point of the two nations.

The incident, which also resulted in several injuries, occurred amid tensions between the two countries over water rights, although the exact cause was not immediately known, reports Khaama Press.

Today, in Nimroz province, Iranian border forces fired toward Afghanistan, which was met with a counter-reaction, a spokesman for the Taliban-run interior ministry, Abdul Nafi Takor, said in a statement as quoted by the news agency. During the battle, one person was killed on each side, and many were injured.

While the Taliban authorities claimed that Iranian soldiers started shooting first at the Taliban forces, and they had responded to their shootings.

Taliban defence ministry spokesperson Enayatullah Khowarazmi was quoted as saying by Khaama Press: Unfortunately, today, once again, in the border areas of Kong district of Nimroz province, there was a shooting by Iranian soldiers, and a conflict broke out.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers dialogue and negotiation reasonable for any problem. Making excuses for war and negative actions is not in the interest of any of the parties, Khowarazmi said.
1. Anupam Kher Takes Out Friend Satish Kaushiks Daughter Vanshika For Lunch; Emotional Fans React



Actor-filmmaker Satish Kaushik went to his heavenly abode early this year. He is survived by his wife Sashi and daughter Vanshika. Actor Anupam Kher who was closest to Satish has been a constant support to the Kaushik family and is frequently spotted spending time with Vanshika. Recently, Anupam took out Vanshika for lunch to continue the tradition that Satish used to do with his daughter. Read More!

Indiatimes

2. Saare Bhakt Shah Rukh Fan Ho Gaye, Internet Reacts To Actor Endorsing New Parliament Building



As the new parliament building gets inaugurated by Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi, actor Shah Rukh Khan echoes his words for the occasion. SRK took to Twitter and shared a video of the building with his own voice-over and even received a warm reaction from PM Modi. SRK shared a video with the ever-popular Swadesh track playing in the background. Read More!

Indiatimes

3. Actress Snehal Rai Reveals Being Married To 21 Year Older Politician, Says Hes Like A Friend



Television actress Snehal Rai who is best known for Ishq Ka Rang Safed and Janmo Ka Bandhan is married to a 21 year older politician. Rai revealed in a recent interview that she recently completed her 10 years of marriage with Madhvendra Kumar Rai who hails from Uttar Pradesh. Snehal says she neither announced her marital status nor tried to hide it. Read More!

Indiatimes

4. Salman-Quick Styles Moves To Hrithik-Vickys Dance, IIFA Lit Up With Unmissable Performances



The International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) 2023 concluded on May 27, 2023, in Abu Dhabi. The coveted award show saw a galore of performances by whos who of the industry. Hosted by Abhishek Bachchan and Vicky Kaushal, here are some of the unmissable moments from the function. B-town stars like Kriti Sanon. Nora Fatehi, Varun Dhawan and Jacqueline Fernandez also added spark to the event. Read More!

Indiatimes

(For more news and updates from the world of celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment, and let us know your thoughts on this story in the comments below.)


The Anambra State Police Command has released a WhatsApp number of the Nigeria Police Force to report the unprofessional conduct of its personnel in the state.

Recall that the Command had on Saturday directed the Divisional Police Officer covering 3-3 area of Onitsha, Anambra commercial nerve Centre, to fish out the police officer captured in a viral video collecting a bribe from a commuter in the area last week.

The Police Commissioner, Mr Echeng Echeng, who gave the directive in a statement issued by the Commands spokesperson, DSP Ikenga Tochukwu, ordered a thorough investigation into the incident.

Describing the behaviour of the policeman as unprofessional which should be condemned, Ikenga said the video had been sent to the DPO in the area, to identify the officer for internal sanction.

READ ALSO: Police Arrest Two Suspects For Impersonating Gombe Revenue Officials

However, in a statement issued on Sunday, the Commands spokesperson, DSP Ikenga, announced a WhatsApp Number 08039334002 for Nigerians to report police unprofessional conduct especially the extortion of motorists and commuters in Anambra state.

The PPRO who took to the official Twitter handle of the state command to announce the new measure to combat police excesses, assured that there would be transparency, accountability and utmost confidentiality of information conveyed through the channel.

He said, In the spirit of citizens advocacy to build a better relationship & improve citizen-led policing, all videos of Police conduct & otherwise actions that wish to be reported especially as it concerns Anambra State Police Command should be forwarded to WhatsApp number 08039334002.

Be assured of transparency, accountability and utmost confidentiality of information conveyed through this channel.

Note: Do not get tired of assessing us. It is from your comments we improve and re-strategize, he said.
Bode George, former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday, says President Muhammadu Buhari eight-year administration was woeful.

He added that he has forgiven his successor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and if he calls him to serve, he will do so.

The PDP leader, speaking in a chat with newsmen at his Ikoyi office, while analysing the outgoing administration of Buhari, declared that he failed to live up to expectations adding that he did not impact the lives of Nigerians positively, even on security, his core responsibility.

His words: My personal assessment is that he failed, not completely in every sector, but if you do an examination and say you must have a minimum of 33 percent, then you can go to the next class, but they did not attain that 33 percent. I can give them maybe about five per cent, even the five per cent requires a lot of retrospection. The most important thing you must guarantee to your people, as a government, is security of lives and property, who is safe now?

READ ALSO: Bode George Ends Rift With Tinubu, Reveals Next Plan

So it is very very disheartening and heartbreaking that he failed in his number one job, which is to guarantee security of lives and property. You know when he was coming in, oga (Buhari) was telling us, I would fight corruption, I will secure the lives and properties of the people, I will do this, I will do that, all kinds of promises.

So lets put those promises now into his departure, because thats what will be written on the pages of history. Whatever a leader does during his time, it is on the pages of history.

Asked whether he would work with Tinubu if called upon, George said: There is nothing personal, this country trained me and I have to give back.

On his reluctance to endorse Tinubu, he said: I have forgiven him, but cannot forget.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday addressed Nigerians in his final speech before handing over to President-elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

INFORMATION NIGERIA reports that in his farewell broadcast, Buhari hailed Tinubu and other opposition presidential candidates over the conduct of the February 25th polls.

Read the full speech below:

FAREWELL SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY, MUHAMMADU BUHARI, PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA

My fellow Nigerian brothers, sisters and friends of Nigeria.

I address you today, in my last assignment as a democratically elected President of our great and well-endowed nation, with a deep sense of gratitude to God, a great deal of appreciation to the Nigerian people and a modest sense of fulfilment.

Today we mark and celebrate another peaceful transition of power from one elected government to another in our steady march to improve and sustain Nigerias democracy.

This year we witnessed the most keenly contested Presidential Elections since the first Republic and this demonstrates that our democracy is getting better and more entrenched with each election.

We must as a nation improve and sustain gains we make in the electoral process, on an incremental basis for Nigeria to take its rightful place among Nations.

Our democracy provides for, allows and encourages seeking redress for perceived injustices, enabling some candidates and political parties that did not agree with the results to go to court.

Irrespective of the outcome of the various cases, I urge all parties involved to accept the decision of our courts and join hands to build a better Nigeria.

I salute the doggedness and resilience of all the Presidential Candidates and their political parties for believing in our judicial system by taking their grievances with the election results to court.

READ MORE: Buhari To Address Nigerians 7am Sunday

In the course of the campaigns, we had argued and disagreed on how to make Nigeria better but we never disagreed or had any doubts that Nigeria has to be better.
Asylum seekers are seen by some as a threat, and by others as an opportunity. With the support of Gov. Kathy Hochul and County Executive Mark Poloncarz, our Erie County posture has been made clear: respect, compassion and dignity.

Mayor Byron W. Brown supports the Westminster Economic Development Initiative (WEDI) that supplies refugees and immigrants with tools to help them thrive. As a strategic planning consultant, I promote building on existing opportunities and turning threats into opportunities. The closure of Medaille University, while an immediate threat to jobs and our local economy, can be turned into a long-term opportunity.

I propose that we use the 14-acre university campus, with its existing infrastructure and adjoining dormitory facility, as a temporary home and service/training center for asylum-seekers that are already here, and those that are yet to find their way to Buffalo. Services such as legal, ESL and day care, among others, can be offered on-site.

Per The Buffalo News (5/23/23), there is not a natural market for the sale of a university campus. But we have done similar conversions elsewhere in Erie County. In a collaboration with Jewish Family Services of WNY, a former assisted living center at Weinberg Campus in Getzville has been repurposed for housing refugees.

JFSWNY will be providing up to 75 refugees with counseling and will soon add job-training and placement services. Like the program at Weinberg Campus, the Medaille campus would be a collaboration with Erie County and not-for-profit organizations such as the overcrowded Jericho Road Community Health Centers Vive shelter, which already offers these services but lacks the capacity that will be required.

Since financial support for our efforts will be provided by New York City and/or the State of New York, Erie County should take advantage of the opportunity to make sure that these asylum-seekers are properly housed.

At Medaille, the North Residence Hall contains 140 beds, a kitchen and lounge, computer lab and laundry rooms. This building has a mix of traditional suite-style rooms (two bedrooms bridged by a bathroom) and two- and three-bedroom apartments.

The South Residence was built in 2003 and accommodates over 250 residents. It has double rooms in a traditional corridor style with an individual bathroom inside each room. Every room is furnished. There are lounge areas that contain TVs, kitchenettes, computer stations and laundry facilities.

Refugees and other immigrants have proven to be good neighbors and productive citizens in the City of Buffalo. They will be good neighbors to the community surrounding Medaille. Their very presence will deter vandalism to otherwise vacant buildings and discourage shady characters from frequenting the property.

We have the way to house significant numbers of asylum-seekers in dignified surroundings with appropriate services to give them a leg up. Do we have the will?

Kenneth A. Rogers is a strategic planning consultant based in Buffalo.
President Muhammadu Buhari will deliver his farewell message to Nigerians at 7:00am on Sunday.

Buharis Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, disclosed this in a statement he signed on Saturday evening titled President Buhari broadcasts to the nation.

READ ALSO: Look At Our Assets, Investment Profiles, Not Debts  Buhari Urges Nigerians

According to Adesina, President Muhammadu Buhari will make a farewell broadcast as President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces on Sunday, May 28, at 7 am.

Therefore, he advised television, radio stations and other electronic media outlets to hook up to the network services of the Nigerian Television Authority and Radio Nigeria for the broadcast.
Nigerian parents and children have been tasked to hold onto the ancient truths of integrity, honesty, knowledge and hard work because they remain the key to achieving a great destiny.

The president gave the challenge in a statement by his media aide, Mr Femi Adesina, on Saturday in Abuja to mark 2023 Childrens Day.

Buhari noted that, even though times are changing, the ancient truths of integrity, honesty, knowledge and hard work in spite of the changing times, saying these landmarks remain the pillars of destiny.

The President said that efforts should be geared towards putting building blocks that will sustain unity, peace and prosperity for the sake of the children.

Buhari submitted that On this special day, we are immensely grateful to God for another opportunity to celebrate our children, on May 27th, 2023. Every Childrens Day reminds us of the future, and the necessary sacrifices and building blocks by parents, guardians, teachers, leaders, and Government to secure our greatest assets on earth, the YOUNGER ONES.

As a father and grandfather, I share in the joy that children bring into our lives, and the fulfillment of seeing them grow. And I also feel the pain of loss, anxiety, and frustration that comes with uncertain times, like the disruptions to families due to insecurity, which we have worked hard to contain in the last eight years.

READ MORE: You Took Nigeria From Top To Bottom  Ortom Tells Buhari

We must not lose hope, and our faith should be rekindled in the ability of Government to safeguard the future of our lives and children. In eight years, we have focused on children, negotiating and fighting for the release of many that were taken captive, and painstakingly building intelligence on the whereabouts of others. Some have been released; more will come, by Gods grace, as the next administration continues on the same noble path.

At the twilight of this administration, we are thankful for all the support we have received from parents, government officials, development partners, professionals, and religious leaders in realizing some of our targets, like the school feeding programme, resuscitation of the primary health care system, and protecting our schools by the security agencies. As we are aware, raising healthy and promising children is a collective responsibility. In Nigeria, like in most of Africa, the community has a stake in the upbringing of the child. Truly, it takes a village to raise a child. And as the world continues to become smaller with new technology, and the borders on culture and cultural values are steadily getting blurred, we must retain our identity and values. Our core values of integrity, honesty, hard work, and love for learning should not be negotiated. Our children should know, and stay with the ancient landmarks of what is true, and right at home, and abroad. At over eighty years of age, and served the country all my working life, I still believe our children hold the keys to a brighter future for Nigeria, with these three undeniable and unchangeable truths; fear of God is supreme, love for knowledge is elevating and hard work will always pay off.

Happy Childrens Day, and God bless our children. he added.
A Nigerian Customs Service personnel has reportedly opened fire on a colleague at a checkpoint in Garki Local Government, Jigawa State.

The incident occured on Friday when a vehicle allegedly refused to stop at the customs checkpoint while returning from the Niger Republic.

READ ALSO: Four Dead As Driver Rams Car Into Truck While Pressing Phone In Ogun

One of the personnel at the checkpoint became suspicious and opened fire at the moving vehicle.

They later identified a man in the vehicle as a colleague, SC Muhammad Sayyadi, serving at the Lagos State Command.

He is the son of one of the five first-class emirs in Jigawa, the Emir of Ringim, HRH Dr Sayyadi Abubakar Mahmud.

Spokesman of the Nigeria Customs Service Kano/Jigawa Area Command, SC Nura Saidu, confirmed the incident in a statement.

Our hearts go out to all those affected by this tragic event, and we extend our deepest empathy to the family and friends of the victim, he said.

Saidu said the command is investigating to determine the causes of the incident.

It was also learned that other victims were admitted at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano, and are responding to treatment.
The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, has called upon President-elect, Bola Tinubu to prioritize reducing the cost of governance in Nigeria.

Adesina stated this in his speech at the inauguration lecture held at the International Conference Center, (ICC), Abuja, on Saturday.

He noted that the President-elect now has an opportunity to make history, by building a resurgent, a united and prosperous Nigeria, added that It is Nigerias turn.

He stated that Nigeria will be looking to you, as President Tinubu, on your first day in office with hope. Hope that you will assure security, peace, and stability. Hope that you will heal and unite a fractious nation. Hope that you will rise above party lines and forge a compelling force to move the nation forward, with inclusiveness, fairness, equity, and justice. Hope that you will drastically improve the economy. Hope that you will spark a new wave of prosperity. Hope to the present, as hope deferred makes the heart grow weary

Unless the economy is revived and fiscal challenges addressed boldly, resources to develop will not be there. No bird can fly if its wings are tied,

According to Nigerias Debt Management Office, Nigeria now spends 96% of its revenue servicing debt, with the debt-to-revenue ratio rising from 83.2 percent in 2021 to 96.3 percent by 2022

Debt is paid using revenue, and Nigerias revenues have been declining. Nigeria earns revenue now to service debt, not to grow. The place to start is to remove the inefficient fuel subsidies,

Fuel subsidies are killing the Nigerian economy, costing Nigeria $10 billion alone in 2022. That means Nigeria is borrowing what it does not have to if it simply eliminates the subsidies and uses the resources well for its national development, he said.

Rather, support should be given to private sector refineries and modular refineries to allow for efficiency and competitiveness to drive down fuel pump prices. The newly commissioned Dangote Refinery by President Buhari  the largest single train petroleum refinery in the world, as well as its Petrochemical Complex  will revolutionize Nigerias economy.

READ MORE: BREAKING: Im Not Running For President, Says Akinwumi Adesina

Today, Nigeria is ranked among countries with the lowest human development index in the world, with a rank of 167 among 174 countries globally, according to the World Bank 2022 Public Expenditure Review report, the AfDB boss added.

To meet Nigerias massive infrastructure needs, according to the report, will require $ 3 trillion by 2050. According to the report, at the current rate, it would take Nigeria 300 years to provide its minimum level of infrastructure needed for development.

All living Nigerians today, and many generations to come, will be long gone by then! We must change this. Nigeria must rely more on the private sector for infrastructure development, to reduce fiscal burdens on the government.

This must include improving tax collection, tax administration, moving from tax exemption to tax redemption, ensuring that multinational companies pay appropriate royalties and taxes, and that leakages in tax collection are closed, he said.

However, simply raising taxes is not enough, as many question the value of paying taxes, hence the high level of tax avoidance. Many citizens provide their own electricity, sink boreholes to get access to water, and repair roads in their towns and neighborhoods. These are essentially high implicit taxes.Nigerians therefore pay the highest implicit tax rates in the world.

Governments need to assure effective social contracts by delivering quality public services. It is not the amount collected, it is how it is spent, and what is delivered. Nations that grow better run effective governments that assure social contracts with their citizens.

We must re-balance the structure and performance of the economy. A very common refrain in Nigeria, with every successive government, is we need to diversify the economy. But is it so?
The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has confirmed that four persons have lost their lives while two others were unhurt in a road accident that occurred in Ogun State.

The accident reportedly happened opposite Mountain Top University, around Rain Oil Petrol Station during the early hours of Saturday.

It involved a Lexus RX350 car with registration number, KTU738HM, and a Mack marked, T21024LA.

READ ALSO: Two Dead In Lagos-Ibadan Expressway Truck Accident

Florence Okpe, the FRSC spokesperson in Ogun said: The suspected causes of the fatal crash were excessive speed, use of phone while driving, which led to loss of control on the part of the Lexus driver and he rammed into a moving truck.

Okpe disclosed that the remains of the dead victims were deposited at the Real Divine Hospital morgue in Ibafo.

Meanwhile, the FRSC Sector Commander FRSC in Ogun, Ahmed Umar, has cautioned motorists on the use of phone while driving and the dangers associated with such.

Umar commiserated with the family of the victims, advising them to contact the Ibafo office of the FRSC for more information about the crash.
Hoodlums in the early hours of Sunday reportedly hijacked Amuludun 99.1 FM, a community-based radio station owned by the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

According to reports, the radio station, was hijacked around 6 am with the suspects invading the station with various forms of charms, wanting to take over the running of the programme and causing the station to go off air.

That is what we witnessed this morning. They hijacked the station around 6 am. But they had been at the station before that time

They came with various forms of charms. They woke our staff who were sleeping. Some of our staff have fled.

We are yet to see some of our staff. But the security (personnel) are on ground now, a source told Vanguard.

Another source told Sahara Reporters that the individuals identified as Yoruba Nation agitators arrived at the station pretending they wanted to make enquiries.

They gained access to the station by pretending that they wanted to make some enquiries. When they entered, they told the people there that they wanted to air their views but that was denied.

READ ALSO: Four Dead As Driver Rams Car Into Truck While Pressing Phone In Ogun

That was when they brought out charms and threatened the workers. Then they started making some announcements, saying in Yoruba that the people who sent them to take some actions should come out. They said after asking them to do those things, they abandoned them.

They were there for about one hour before the police came to disrupt their plan. Normalcy has returned to the area and some of them were arrested.

However, Stephen Agbaje, the General Manager of the station, while confirming the development stressed that the situation has been brought under control by the security agencies, adding that some arrests have been made.

Some group of agitators came around in the night and took over the station, but the situation has been brought under control by the security agents.

They were able to recover the station, and some arrests have been made, he said.

The radio station, located at Moniya, Akinyele Local Government Area of the State, was established on October 10, 2007, and commenced transmission in pure and undiluted Yoruba language on October 22, the same year.
Outgoing President Muhammed Buhari has said his government fought for the freedom of children held hostage by Boko Haram insurgents and bandits in the Northern region of the country.

President Buhari, while speaking on Saturday during the 2023 Childrens Day at the State House in Abuja, said his administration focused on children and their welfare in the last eight years.

In a statement by his spokesperson, Femi Adesina, the President said Nigerians must not lose hope in the ability of the government to safeguard the future of their lives and children.

The statement reads: As a father and grandfather, I share in the joy that children bring into our lives and the fulfilment of seeing them grow. And I also feel the pain of loss, anxiety, and frustration that comes with uncertain times, like the disruptions to families due to insecurity, which we have worked hard to contain in the last eight years.

We must not lose hope, and our faith should be rekindled in the ability of the government to safeguard the future of our lives and children. In eight years, we have focused on children, negotiating and fighting for the release of many that were taken captive, and painstakingly building intelligence on the whereabouts of others. Some have been released; more will come, by Gods grace, as the next administration continues on the same noble path.

READ MORE: I Am Returning To Kaduna After Handover, Not Katsina  Buhari

At the twilight of this administration, we are thankful for all the support we have received from parents, government officials, development partners, professionals, and religious leaders in realizing some of our targets, like the school feeding programme, resuscitation of the primary health care system, and protecting our schools by the security agencies.

As we are aware, raising healthy and promising children is a collective responsibility. In Nigeria, like in most of Africa, the community has a stake in the upbringing of the child. Truly, it takes a village to raise a child.

And as the world continues to become smaller with new technology, and the borders on culture and cultural values are steadily getting blurred, we must retain our identity and values.

Our core values of integrity, honesty, hard work, and love for learning should not be negotiated. Our children should know, and stay with the ancient landmarks of what is true, and right at home, and abroad.
Outgoing Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, says he had prepared to handover since last year September.

Fashola who disclosed this at the contract signing ceremony for the value-added concession under the highways development & management initiative, added he would have stopped work as minister last year but more work kept coming.

His words, So there is a conversation going on out there, asking why we are still working. People are asking why we are awarding contracts, so maybe we should stop here and wait for the incoming administration to sign this agreement.

There is an argument going on out there. I think it is a conversation we must have because some people dont like the party in government.

READ ALSO: Feedback Assessment Shows Buhari Made Life Better For Nigerians  Fashola

And I think in order to enrich our democracy, we must begin to have conversations if the government must stop work.

For me personally, I prepared my handover note last year in September, but more work kept coming, so I would have stopped work since September.

He added, Even today, some people are still sending me messages to sign a Certificate of Occupancy, Fashola added.
Aloy Ejimakor, Special Counsel to Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has disclosed why the Biafra agitator was not arrested by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

In his opinion, Jonathan did not arrest Kanu because he never saw his self-determination as a crime.

Information Nigeria reports that Kanu was first arrested in 2015 for charges bordering on treason, terrorism, and managing an unlawful society.

Following his arrest, he was dragged to court, but was granted bail in 2017 by Justice Binta Nyako of an Abuja Federal High Court.

The IPOB Leader, subsequently fled Nigeria to Europe, but was rearrested in Kenya in 2021.

READ ALSO: IPOB Slams UN, EU, AU, ECOWAS On Silence Over Nnamdi Kanus Continued Detention

He was repatriated to Nigeria and had since been locked up by the Department of State Services while his trial continues.

However, speaking at the Free Nnamdi Kanu conference in Washington, Ejimakor said: The rights to self-determination is a right that is allowed internationally, domestically, and continentally.

The formation of IPOB did not break any law of the United Kingdom or that of Nigeria.

Nnamdi Kanu was not arrested between 2012 and 2015 because the government then understood that self-determination was not a crime.

But the government that came into power in May 2015 decided to treat self-determination as a criminal activity.

So, he was arrested in Lagos and charged for treason, illegal importation, and insulting the president.
The Vice President-elect, Kashim Shettima has denied any plan of an Islamization agenda for Nigeria by the incoming administration.

Shettima made this clarification on Saturday while speaking at the inaugural lecture of the incoming administration in Abuja.

Speaking against the backdrop of the Muslim-Muslim ticket of himself and the President-elect, Tinubu, Shettima made it clear that Nigerians have nothing to worry about.

He pointed out that many of his aides including his Chief Security Officer (CSO) are Christians and the family of Tinubu are also Christians so if the family members were not Islamized, there is no fear about Islamizing the country.

I was a child of necessity, there is no Islamisation agenda. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a Muslim who is married to a Christian, not only a Christian but a pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God, he said.

Someone who has not Islamised his family, people are alluding that he has the intention to Islamise the nation.

Politics is about perception. As we begin the formation of a new administration, I deliberately picked an Igbo man, a Catholic, to be my chief security officer.

READ MORE: Atiku Reacts To Courts Dismissal Of Suit Against Tinubu, Shettima

For the purpose of inclusivity and togetherness, again I deliberately picked a northern Christian to be my ADC. So the so-called founder of Boko Haram is going to be protected by.

We are to serve. We are to listen. We are here to be held accountable. We are not sent on an evangelical mission. Therefore, like every mortal, we may stumble here and there. None of these mistakes could be intentional, he added.

We shall never be oblivious of the impermanence of this power and we acknowledge that we shall be judged by man and God.
Western New York has a long history of auto manufacturing presence in the area that have provided good-paying jobs to generations. This is largely because of General Motors and Ford and the billions they spend on local businesses that supply components and services to their plants. Public officials like U.S. Sen. Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul deserves credit for working to secure additional auto manufacturing investment. However, while their efforts have been successful, the level of employment at these facilities is nowhere near what it was even 10 years ago.

Even recent auto industry investments in upstate, while welcome, do not add jobs but rather only maintain current levels of employment. That is why it is perplexing why Western New York legislators would support legislation that would make Western New York less attractive for future auto investment. Legislation sponsored by one Western New York legislator would mandate millions in increased payments from automakers to already profitable auto dealers with the hope that the dealers will pay their technicians more. Note that technicians are employees of dealers, not automakers, and the bill just directs payments to dealers, not the technicians.

It is estimated that this bill will cost automakers over $274 million every year. Our business climate already presents manufacturers with a host of challenges. Now is not the time to impose additional costly mandates.

Ken Pokalsky

Vice President

The Business Council of NYS, Inc.
The wife of the president-elect, Sen Remi Tinubu has said her family does not need Nigerias wealth to survive, adding that she and her husband, President-elect, Bola Tinubu need the grace of God to govern.

It was gathered that Oluremi made this known on Sunday during the Presidential Inauguration Interdenominational Church Service held at the National Christian Centre, Abuja.

The former Senator representing the Lagos Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly said the wealth of the nation belongs to all Nigerians and is for doing the right thing.

Mrs Tinubu, added that she and her husband would be needing Gods grace to deliver on the expectations of citizens, asked Nigerians to pray for her and her husband.

READ MORE: 2023 Election: Womenll Enjoy Good Deal During Your Tenure, Aisha Buhari Hails Remi Tinubu

She said, God has been merciful to us. I can tell you on my own that we never believed this could happen. But thank God for giving us hope, for giving us the resilience to continue in the race of life.

Asiwaju is 71 and I will be 63. I bet I will be one of the oldest first ladies Nigeria would have. We need the grace of God and we need everyone to do what Nigerians are expecting.

Today, God has really proved himself as he did on the night of the primaries and put his seal on it. Because, when I saw the votes count to be 1,271, I said God it means you are here.

I was humbled to my rock bottom. And to believe that this is the seventh consecutive democratic transition Nigeria will be experiencing shows that this is a time of perfection for Nigeria.

She also said her husbands Inauguration on Monday will he added the seventh consecutive one since 1999 which symbolises perfection.
Just few hours to the inauguration, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has bid farewell, thanking the staff of the Office of the Vice President for their support during his 8 years of administration, alongside President Muhammadu Buhari.

Osinbajo highlighted his desire, alongside President Buhari, to make Nigeria better during their eight years in office, emphasising that he specifically hired individuals who shared the same passion for fixing Nigeria.

Osinbajo commended the exceptional hard work and dedication of the OVP staff, expressing his appreciation for their unwavering commitment to the progress of the nation.

The Vice President, in a statement on Saturday by his spokesman, Laolu Akande, commended the Deputy Chief of Staff Mr. Ade Ipaye, a former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State (2011 to 2015), for his loyalty, dedication and brilliant service.

According to him, Im honoured to have worked with such incredible people; everyone put in exceptional hard work. I personally interviewed most of you that worked with me. I wanted people who had a heart for this country, genuine love and concern about the progress of this nation.

READ MORE: Buhari, Osinbajo, Ministers Will Leave Behind Luxury Cars; Nobodys Entitled  Garba Shehu

Eight years have gone by very quickly, I must say. Here we are today a few days to the inauguration. There are many great experiences, great things that have happened and Im glad weve come this far.

The VP also recalled how God saved him and 11 others with him from the helicopter crash on February 2, 2019, in Kogi State.

He also recalled a similar chopper forced landing in Gwagwalada in June 2018. Then, the chopper conveying him and members of his Main Party from the Nigeria Customs Command and Staff College, Gwagwalada, made a forceful landing a few seconds after take-off.

Im truly grateful to the Almighty God, the VP said.
Former presidential aide to ex President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokiri has praised the outgoing Nigeria President, Muhammadu Buhari-led administration over the unveiling of Nigeria Air.

Omokiri stated this on Twitter while dismissing the criticisms against the Nigerian government over Nigeria Air.

Recall that Nigerians accused the Federal Government of nefarious activities following the arrival of Nigeria Air aircraft.

This was due to the fact that some reports revealed the aircraft was owned by Ethiopian Airlines.

READ MORE: Many Airlines Around The World Arent Owned By Their Governments  Buharis Aide Defends Nigeria Air Plane Belonging To Ethiopian Airlines

However, Buharis Special Assistant on Digital Communications, Bashir Ahmad, disclosed that Ethiopian Airlines was a major shareholder in Nigeria Air.

Reno Omokiri while reacting, tweeted: Emirate Airlines, that many Nigerians love to fly with, started off in 1985 with two airlines provided to them by Pakistan International Airlines.

Today, they are thriving. If there is something to criticise, please soro soke. But do not just criticise because your party is not in government. Ruga was a bad idea. Arresting Nnamdi Kanu was a wrong move. The Northernisation of our National Security Council was a horrible thing to do. And we criticised all of those.

But Nigeria Air is a good idea. Even starting it with a wet-leased aircraft is an even better idea than starting it with a new one. If the government does badly, let us cane them with koboko. But if they perform well, we should be objective and praise them with the same ferocity.
Elder statesman and Ijaw leader, Edwin Clark says President Muhammadu Buharis administration was one marred with deep-rooted tribalism and selective bias.

Clark who disclosed this in a chat journalists on Sunday at his Asokoro residence in Abuja, stated that Buhari failed to see the entire country as his constituency, alleging that he favored his tribe and religion.

The former federal Commissioner for Information, also accused Buhari of marginalizing and humiliating the people of the Niger Delta, stressing that the region is really disappointed in the outgoing President.

The convener of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), said that the outgoing President violated his vow that he made to Nigerians during his inauguration in 2015 where he had pledged to be fair to all parts of the country.

READ ALSO: Stop Criticizing Them Because Your Party Is Not In Power  Omokri Praises Buhari Over Nigeria Air

The leader of Southern and Middle Belt Leadership Forum (SMBLF) said: In the past 8 years, President Muhammadu Buhari has demonstrated in most cases that he did not belong to the whole country but to a group; his tribe and religion, which is contrary to what he said in his inaugural speech that he belongs to everybody.

For instance, he appointed fourteen out of seventeen security Chiefs from one section of the country. So, the declaration that he belongs to everybody and nobody, was a sham. I make bold to say that the reverse has been the case, he belongs to some people, but not the entire Nigeria.

Even in simple matters like extending the good wishes of the government to notable personalities in the country on their birthdays or other landmark attainments, the Muhammadu Buhari administration was selective and biased in who it chooses to recognise or consider worthy of goodwill messages.
Mathew Kukah, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto has told youths to always feel the need to return to develop Nigeria after travelling out of the country.

Kukah who made the appeal at an inauguration lecture on Saturday, May 27, noted that Nigerians are not suffering because they are Muslims or Christians but because they are in a country that is malfunctioning.

He said, I will also end by saying right now that 133 million Nigerians are suffering from various levels of multi-dimensional poverty.

I have not put up the light and see the part where Muslims are living that they have light, while others for not. I have not seen the part of the country where Muslims are eating and the rest of us are not. So we must come to terms with the fact that we are not bleeding.

READ ALSO: Japa: Nigerians Have No Business Seeking Greener Pastures Overseas  Tinubu

We are not suffering because we are Christians or Muslims, but we are in a country that is malfunctioning. How to make that country work, for the rich, for the poor, for the aged, and for everybody is a challenge.

I would like to just end by saying and I have made the point very clearly, in the struggle with the problems of Nigeria, I remain exceptionally optimistic.

I traveled the world. People say to me, well, where do you find this courage to say that Nigeria is working? Okay, it may not be working, but this is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. I am not being flippant.

When I went to the United States of America to study, I preached in a church but the parish priest said to me, listen to me, you speak with such eloquence and I like you, we will get you a green card, you can settle here in America. I looked at him, I said, you know, this God is a wonderful God. You are giving me a green card and my passport is actually a green passport.

The challenge for us as Africans is to think the way the Asians have thought that you can go to Europe, you can go to America with a purpose. But the purpose of course means coming back to develop your country but it also means that that country must create an environment in which you can feel confident to come and present the gift that God has given you.

I have two young men in America they just finished from a prestigious university, I say when are you coming home? They say Bishop coming home to do what? We do not have an uncle who is a senator, we dont have anybody, so coming to Nigeria to do what?

Vice-President-elect, the challenge for you is to make this country believable, livable, credible, so that all of us together can serve and build a great nation.
Operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) on Friday, May 26, 2023, successfully foiled an attempt by two women to allegedly sell a two-month-old baby.

A statement from the spokesperson of the Lagos state police command, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, says the deal was uncovered in Oshodi when one Oge Okolie, 25, the intermediary between the mother of the baby and prospective buyer was suspected of stealing the baby.

READ ALSO: 6 Girls, One-Month-Old Baby Rescued As Police Discover Baby Factory In Nasarawa

Passengers on a public bus noticed ceaseless crying from the baby with Okolie and asked why she could not breastfeed the child if she was the biological mother.

Benjamin said the suspect was about to be lynched when RRS operatives quickly stepped in to rescue her as well as the baby.

Preliminary investigations led to the arrest of the mother of the baby, one Maria Ahmadu, 26.

He added that the commander of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), CSP Olayinka Egbeyemi, has since transferred the suspects and baby to the Gender Unit of the Command for further investigation and prosecution.
Sara Calvarese, co-owner of The 8th House, reads tarot cards for Tony Yuschak, 38, of Paoli, at the adult book fair event at Latchkey Records in Philadelphia on Saturday. Read more

Throwback was the vibe marking the unofficial start of summer at Latchkey record store on East Passyunk.

Instead of sitting in the sand down the Shore, dozens of Philadelphians kicked off their Memorial Day weekend jamming to Salt-N-Pepa while perusing records and VHS tapes, and reminiscing about their middle school days at a Scholastic Book Fair.

The event, officially called the Grown-Ass Book Fair, was the brainchild of Sara Calvarese, co-owner of the 8th House store in Point Breeze.

Its a fun little nostalgia bomb, Calvarese said, standing in the middle of Latchkey as the event got underway about noon Saturday. Who didnt love the book fair?

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Inspiration for the event began percolating a few months ago, said Calvarese and Latchkey owner Marc Faletti, who hosted it together.

Sara was like, What if we did the middle school book fair  but better? Faletti recalled.

But you have money, and youre an adult, Calvarese said, and you can afford your Tamagotchi habit, referencing the handheld virtual pets that were all the rage in the late 1990s.

The theme struck a chord with the steady stream of people filtering in and out of the store on an early Saturday afternoon when much of the city felt as if it had emptied out. They laughed about memories with friends and fellow patrons as they browsed old-school comic books and games, got Tarot card readings, and took photos in front of a teen heartthrob wall full of cutout images of favorite celebrity crushes from back in the day, including Brad Pitt, Allen Iverson, and Brandy. (The wall, which will become a permanent fixture in the store, has a few intentional omissions, such as Johnny Depp, who has since been accused of abuse, Faletti noted.)

Most customers said they had seen the book fair advertised on Latchkeys Instragram or stumbled across mention of the events in articles or blog posts as they scoured the internet for things to do in the region this holiday weekend.

It seemed really chill. I liked book fairs in the 90s, said Alex Mangroo, 34, of Point Breeze, who was at Latchkey for the first time. It was a much simpler time when you could get excited about someone wheeling in a bunch of books that were already in your school library.

Mangroo and his husband, Brad Fesi, 37, brought their pit bull mix, Roger, 14, inside so they could get a family photo in front of the heartthrob wall. For $3, employee Kelsey Ostia, who was dressed like a Spice Girl, snapped a Polaroid of the trio, with Roger sitting obediently in front of his parents.

I was very into the 90s nostalgia, said Nicole Milliken, 42, of South Philadelphia. Scholastic Book Fairs were my jam.

It was nice to go to one, she said, where you could spend your own money, perhaps even more than $7-$10, the amount she recalled getting from her parents for each school book fair.

I like old stuff, vintage.  I feel weird saying its vintage, said her friend Angela Goodwin, 34, who was visiting from Pittsburgh for the weekend and donning a black Motley Crue shirt for the occasion.

The organizers had encouraged people to dress as their middle-school selves, offering anyone dressed up 10% off and giving free Tamagotchis to those with more elaborate outfits.

However, it was sometimes hard to tell, Calvarese and Faletti said, whether the outfits were for the event or just in line with todays fashion.

I feel like everyone dresses 90s anyway, Faletti said with a laugh.

Its back, Calvarese said.

Katie Williams, 37, of South Philadelphia, wore a black shirt emblazoned with a pink Pac-Man ghost and a black choker around her neck. She had the shirt and choker in her closet already, she said, noting the choker was an accessory she actually wore back in the day.

I will take this off as soon as I go outside, she said, pointing to her neck. But first, she had to buy some magnets for her daughter.

Nearby, Tony Yuschak, 38, of Paoli, got a tarot reading for the first time.

Im currently a little skeptical, Yuschak said after the reading. But it was fun, and there were some interesting insights and parallels with what Im working through right now.

Yuschak and Liz Sabel, 36, had read about the event online, then decided to drive into the city from Chester County and make a day of it. They planned to go to Reading Terminal Market after their Latchkey visit, then maybe stop at Morris Arboretum if they still had energy.

Meanwhile, Cymone Gates, 31, stumbled across the fair while out walking in her neighborhood.

The music drew me in, said Gates as she eyed hip-hop records and chunky earrings that bore the image of Rugrats character Susie Carmichael. Once inside, Gates said, she remembered that she had recently come across a social media post about this event, which immediately brought back memories.

I was like, Oh, the Scholastic Book Fair, she said. I hadnt thought of it in so long.
Brittany and Adam Edgington at the tent they live in near the Schuylkill River Trail in Norristown. They worry that authorities will soon move them out. Read more

About 20 homeless encampments in Norristown will be cleared in the coming weeks, with no plans to store peoples confiscated property, according to advocates for individuals living homeless in the borough.

Officially, borough officials have neither confirmed nor denied what advocates call a potential sweep of an estimated 160 people living mostly in tents in various parts of the municipality, many in public parks.

A spokesperson for Peco, however, said that individuals living in tents on 3,000 feet of land owned by the utility along the Schuylkill River Trail in Norristown will need to relocate at an unspecified time so hazardous waste and trash can be removed from the site. Advocates say about 12 people live there.

Theyre moving us around like were dirt, said Adam Edgington, 41, a former salesman. He and his wife have lived in a tent on the Peco site since the fall. Edgington said police officers have come by to warn people of the impending clear-out. It makes you feel unstable, Edgington added. Things are falling apart fast.

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Homelessness is a fraught issue in Norristown, where residents, advocates, and those experiencing homelessness exist in a tense environment. It plays out in a county of great wealth but few beds for those who sleep outside. These days, when a person who loses a home calls Montgomery County for help, theres little more advocates can do than issue tents.

Norristown officials have said theyll time a full-borough sweep to coincide with Pecos clear-out, according to Stephanie Sena, a homelessness expert and anti-poverty professor at Villanova Universitys Charles Widger School of Law. She also runs a homeless shelter in Upper Darby.

Thomas Lepera, Norristowns president/councilman at-large, was asked multiple times in an interview whether the municipality will be clearing out people living homeless within its borders. He declined to answer, repeating the phrase, Well be cleaning sites of hazardous materials where people are living in encampments. He acknowledged that the eradication of what he described as feces, needles, and God-knows-what-else in barrels will coincide with Pecos efforts. No date is set.

Sena said that she spoke with Norristown Municipal Administrator Crandall Jones, and that he told her the borough would use police to sweep people off borough land when Peco does it.

She added that Jones said the borough has no plans to store the belongings of people who are cleared out.

People living in encampments say police officers told them theyd soon be compelled to leave.

Neither Jones nor Acting Police Chief Michael Bishop returned phone calls.

A spokesperson for Montgomery County said that although hes aware of the Peco clear-out, he had not heard of a plan to dismantle other encampments. Sources close to the issue have said county officials are against any potential sweeps, but feel powerless to stop them.

Both Lepera and the Peco spokesperson said county officials should be contacted to clarify the situation, and to explain what will happen to the belongings of people who are moved  always a point of contention in clear-outs. In many cases, people lose identification documents, medications, and other possessions critical to survival.

Phone calls to the chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners; the county COO; the director of the Department of Health and Human Services; and the administrator of the Office of Housing and Community Development, were not returned.

On Thursday afternoon, the Community Justice Project (CJP), a Harrisburg-based nonprofit legal aid program that represents low-income Pennsylvanians, sent a letter to borough officials calling for an immediate cessation of all current plans to sweep or to clear homeless encampments in Norristown.

The CJP has partnered with the National Homelessness Law Center and Legal Aid of Southeastern PA on the matter, and was writing on behalf of their client, Maurice Jefferson, an un-housed Norristown resident. The letter addressed Norristowns legal exposure for its law enforcement practices against unsheltered Norristown residents.

The document quoted people living in Norristown encampments as saying that, in past sweeps, police officers ordered them to vacate without adequate notice, then removed and discarded their belongings.

It also referenced the Norristown Municipal Council adopting an ordinance last year that prohibits a person from being in a park or recreation area except between sunrise and sunset. This could lead to residents being charged for being homeless, the letter said.

The letter questioned how Peco, Norristown, and the Norristown Police Department will determine what constitutes hazardous waste. By trying to cart it off, authorities may instead destroy or dispose of all property remaining at the encampments, without storing such property for residents to retrieve later.

Such acts violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects property rights, the letter went on to say.

It cited other potential constitutional violations of the rights of people experiencing homelessness, laying out a case for a possible lawsuit against Norristown.

Sena said she plans to place Apple AirTags, which allow an item to be digitally tracked, in the belongings of encampment residents to see whether any confiscated property is discarded rather than saved.

Nowhere to go

At the Peco encampment the other day, Adam Edgingtons wife, Brittany, 37, who once worked for Instacart, said shes irritated that cops came out of nowhere to tell us we have to leave. Im not going anywhere.

Cheryl Spaulding, 63, from a neighboring tent, said simply, Being moved out is scary. I have nowhere to go.

In a nearby encampment, CJP plaintiff Maurice Jefferson, 34, whos lived there on and off for two years, contemplated a potential sweep.

Its intimidation, said Jefferson, who last worked as a contractor.

He added, A tent is a form of housing. If there are a whole bunch of tents in one spot, that becomes a residential area. And in a residential area, we have rights.

I just hope when they come for us, they act civilized.

Once in a lifetime

Some key factors have exacerbated homelessness in Norristown, 21% of whose population of about 35,000 live in poverty.

In 2021, flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Ida damaged a low-income Norristown apartment complex with about 100 units, forcing tenants to evacuate. The borough chose not to re-build the site as affordable housing.

Last year, a 50-bed homeless shelter in Norristown was closed after the state conferred the land on which the facility sat to the borough. County social services agencies petitioned to extend the lease of what had been the only local shelter, but Norristown officials declined.

Its a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Norristown to re-position itself in the marketplace, and build something that generates tax revenue, Lepera said.

Some complain that because Norristown is home to numerous substance abuse and mental health programs, outsiders are drawn to the borough, then live off the grid.

They just stay, said Don Ketcham, 44, owner of Cycle Stop, a motorcycle shop on Main Street. And I want them out.

They get high and do dope sales across the street, and I get to watch this lifestyle right out my doorway. Theyre drug addicts who burned all their bridges with friends and family, he said, adding that one of the people living un-housed is his relative.

He added, These are people nobody wants to have anything to do with anymore. And Ive lost business because of them, because people are afraid to come here.

Mark Boorse, director of program development at Access Services, a nonprofit that runs a homeless outreach program in Norristown, disputes that everyone whos homeless suffers from substance use disorder, or is experiencing mental illness. He said issues such as job loss and overwhelming medical bills have disrupted the lives of many of the 80 men and 80 women identified as living homeless in the borough. There are no children in the encampments.

Boorse, who knows many of the individuals living homeless, also disagrees with Leperas contention that 80% of the un-housed in town are outsiders; its less than 50%, he said.

He added that the municipality has swept people experiencing homelessness three times in the last eight months, several from areas scheduled to be developed.

They moved to other places in the borough, he said. But the number of spaces is diminishing. Is this part of a larger, intentional process designed to move everyone out?

Although the county may have the money to create homeless shelters and underwrite low-cost housing, it has no power to force such accommodations on a community, Boorse said.

The biggest impediments to sheltering and housing the homeless are local zoning laws, he said, a kind of codified NIMBY-ism.

Lepera said the only fair solution is for each of the more than five dozen towns and cities in Montgomery County to house its share of the estimated 450 people living homeless in the county.

At its core, Sena said, homelessness is an issue of a lack of affordable housing.

The country is economically unequal, and a house is becoming more of a luxury commodity, she said. The borough has had affordable housing, as well as a shelter, but it purposely closed them.

Now a sweep is coming. And people have nowhere to go.
Aspiring Pennsylvania teachers are due to soon be trained in culturally relevant education, under a new state standard requiring teacher preparation programs to incorporate instruction in the subject.

The standard, which was adopted last year and also applies to professional development programs, comes as education officials have voiced concern about Pennsylvanias dearth of teachers of color, compared with the increasingly diverse public school population.

But guidelines issued by the state directing teachers to reflect on their cultural lens and address bias in the education system are facing a lawsuit filed by a conservative legal group, which says they were illegally implemented and violate teachers freedom of speech.

Heres what the guidelines say and why theyre being challenged.

Why did Pennsylvania adopt a culturally relevant education standard?

The concept of culturally relevant teaching dates back more than 20 years, developed by scholar Gloria Ladson-Billings as she studied what made for effective teaching of Black students. Her answer involved not just a focus on learning, but cultural competence and critical consciousness  helping students understand social inequalities and how what theyre learning connects to their lives.

Pennsylvania moved to incorporate a cultural relevance standard while confronting a teacher shortage, as well as reports of new teachers feeling unprepared to enter classrooms, said Sharif El-Mekki, founder and CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development.

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You cant prepare them better if you dont include how they can support and teach and lead the diverse students they have, said El-Mekki, a former principal of Mastery Shoemaker charter school in West Philadelphia.

During roundtable discussions held by the Pennsylvania Department of Education in 2019, school district and college leaders described challenges in supporting teachers of color, said Donna-Marie Cole-Malott, co-director of the Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium.

In 2020-21, teachers of color made up 6.2% of Pennsylvania public school teachers, compared with 36.6% of students, according to Research for Action. Nearly half of public schools statewide had no teachers of color.

We cant retain educators without thinking about the humanity of all of our learners and educators within our classrooms, said Cole-Malott, an assistant professor of professional and secondary education at East Stroudsburg University.

What does the standard require?

Higher education programs that certify teachers are required to have competencies, coursework and field experiences that address culturally relevant and sustaining education, according to a regulation adopted by the state in April 2022. The regulation said the education department will identify these competencies and develop associated standards.

In November, the department announced nine competencies. Among them: facilitating culturally relevant learning, in part by incorporating real-world experiences; providing students with equitable and differentiated opportunities, including by challenging and debunking stereotypes and biases about the intelligence, academic ability, and behavior of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and other historically marginalized learners; and communicating in linguistically and culturally responsive ways, including by recognizing the social constructs of different dialects.

The competencies  which the state said continuing professional development programs must integrate no later than 2023-24, and teacher preparation programs, no later than 2024-25  were adapted from the New America think tank, which has analyzed how states nationally have implemented standards for culturally responsive teaching.

But they were shaped by Pennsylvania educators, based on feedback from the states education community, Cole-Malott said.

They dont come out of the blue, she said.

What is the basis for the legal challenge?

A group of Western Pennsylvania school districts, school board members, teachers and parents sued the education department last month, saying the state couldnt just impose the competencies without adopting them as part of a formal regulatory process.

Numerous school districts across the state have been in touch with us to complain about the guidelines, which are so vague, and in many instances, incomprehensible, said Thomas King, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. The Chicago-based Thomas More Society, which has defended anti-abortion activists and filed lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election, is financing the case.

King, who is general counsel for Pennsylvanias Republican Party, successfully challenged Pennsylvanias mask mandate by contending that the state erred in issuing the mandate without a regulatory review process.

While Pennsylvania followed that process  which involves a public comment period and approval by a state commission  to adopt the regulation requiring culturally relevant and sustaining education in teacher preparation programs, it didnt to produce the guidelines, King said.

The education department, however, said in a legal filing that the guidelines do not force any petitioner to do anything, and said any inference about how the department would use the guidelines is unsupported speculation. As a result, the lawsuit should be dismissed.

King said the departments position that the guidelines were not a requirement was stunning.

From my perspective ... weve already won, he said.

What else is the legal group fighting?

The lawsuit is also a battle over what the guidelines say. King said the competencies violate teachers First Amendment rights. He pointed to language saying stating professional educators believe that all learners have a choice and a right to practice the language(s) of their culture, and believe and acknowledge that microaggressions are real.

Thats a huge red flag in the legal world, King said. Making people believe things is not the American way.

Asked how that might differ from teachers needing to believe in the importance of teaching math, King said, Theyre not required to believe that. They just need to teach math.

In order to be good teachers, though, educators do need to believe certain things, El-Mekki said  including that people have biases, and that those biases can undermine student achievement.

When I see people trying to disregard this idea of being culturally proficient, its not a space of bravery. Its a space of cowardice, El-Mekki said.

He said that cultural proficiency wasnt just about race, and that school districts should examine which of their students arent achieving at high rates and consider whether any factors could be leaving them feeling marginalized  including students disabilities or socioeconomic backgrounds.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association supports the new competencies, which are built on the idea that educators have a responsibility to address cultural or other barriers that prevent the success of students in the classroom, said Chris Lilienthal, a spokesperson for the teachers union.

Despite the lawsuit, Cole-Malott, who has been working with higher education institutions to incorporate the competencies into teacher training programs, said the guidelines are meant to unify schools around a clear mission.

I think its pretty straightforward. Respect everyone and treat everyone as capable of deserving success, she said.
Danae Savage, 27, of West Philadelphia, and Andrew Bunk, 27, make their first visit to the butterfly pavilion on Saturday, the day that the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion closed for good. Read more

John Cambridge held Rosie the Chilean rose-haired tarantula gently in his fingers, and slowly, she crawled onto the palm of a young woman whose eyes were tightly shut.

This was Rosies last rodeo, her final time being held in the hands of a visitor at the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion. On Saturday, the Northeast Philadelphia museum permanently closed its doors, marking the end of a lengthy legal battle and other struggles that have plagued the business for years.

In fact, Cambridge, the museums CEO, and all of his multilegged and winged friends, will be evicted at 9 a.m. Tuesday. He and his employees have just a few days to relocate the thousands of preserved and living insects, artwork, antiques, plants, and educational exhibits throughout the sprawling, three-story space.

This has been a giant art project, and Im being forced to destroy it, Cambridge said Saturday. Its especially painful, he said, to see it destroyed for such a senseless and unjust court outcome as the one that ended up taking us down.

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That case dates to 1989, when Insectarium founder Steve Kanya entered into a $350,000 mortgage agreement with Milton Rubin, since deceased, to purchase the museums building at 8046 Frankford Ave. Rubins estate filed a foreclosure action against Kanya and the Insectarium in 2017.

Kanya testified that in 2016 Cambridge forced him out of the business, and took control of the museum. Rubins estate did not become aware of that change until 2017, and alleged that no mortgage payments had been made on the initial 1989 debt since the business changed hands.

After a protracted court battle, in March, a Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas judge issued a $928,000 foreclosure judgment against the Insectarium. The estate also won possession of the Insectariums building, and the court ordered the property to go to sheriffs sale to satisfy the money judgment. The Insectarium subsequently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but its case was dismissed, and it received no protections.

On Saturday, the museums regular visitors grieved the loss of the space, while newcomers cherished it for a final moment.

Jessica Gonski, 37, has brought her two daughters to the museum about once a month for the last three years. Her toddlers, ages 2 and 3, love it because each time they visit, they learn something new, she said.

Its a loss to our community, said Gonski, who lives in West Philly. Theres definitely going to be a void.

Relocating its residents

Hand-painted murals and antiques  everything from old dental sets to brass optical pieces and carnival games  are embedded into the museums exhibits, and on Saturday, most of those items were on sale.

As for its live inhabitants, the museum is working to ensure that most insects stay together, Cambridge said. Many will go to Wild Things Preserve, a conservation group based in Pipersville, Bucks County. Cambridge said the museum has given the group a temporary housing structure for the animals and insects as well as resources to be able to take care of them for about a year.

Were very happy to have been able to transition a lot of our programs over to them just to make sure everything that we had booked for the rest of the summer is going to be done properly, Cambridge said.

But most of the tropical plants and butterflies flying throughout the first-floor pavilion will have to be killed, Cambridge said. Because they are from all over the world and are non-native species, they cannot be released into the wild, he said.

While Wild Things Preserve is not open to the public, the group will take over the Insectariums off-site educational programming at schools and summer camps. The effort will initially be a joint one between the preserve and the Insectarium, but Wild Things Preserve will take over the programs completely by the end of August, Cambridge said.

In the meantime, some Insectarium staff will stay on to assist with the travel programs, he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will inspect the building before the eviction to make sure it has been shut down properly.

A series of struggles

The museum has had its share of struggles. In 2019, an alleged burglary resulted in about 7,000 insects, lizards, and other species going missing from the museum. Cambridge at the time estimated the value of the loss at about $40,000, and speculated that the creatures would be illegally resold. No one has been officially implicated in that case.

Last year, IMDb TV began streaming a docuseries about the theft called Bug Out. Directed by Lower Merion native and former lawyer Ben Feldman, the series examines the heist alongside the history of the Insectarium, as well as the illegal underground insect market.

Following the documentarys release, Cambridge filed a defamation suit against the Bug Out creators, alleging that it includes numerous factual assertions that are not true. That case has yet to be resolved.

On Saturday, dozens of patrons visited the museum. Noelle Barrett and Jeremy Cothran wandered through the butterfly pavilion, watching with awe as the Forest Mort Blue butterfly nursed on the nectar of an orange slice. It was their first time visiting, they said; they decided to come after reading that it was closing.

Now that Im here, Im sad its going, said Barrett, 27. But also, with all the drama, I get it.

Taylor Baile, 24, who specializes in photographing butterflies, said there are few butterfly pavilions in the Philadelphia region. The closest space like this one, she said, is in Hershey, and its not as large.

Baile, of Croydon, reflected on the various events she attended at the museum, such as the New Years Eve party, where folks could spin a wheel to win a prize, two of them being swallow a meal worm or put a tarantula on your face. It was always a blast, she said.

Theres nowhere else like this, she said.

For Cambridge, hes not sure whats next. He plans on leaving Philadelphia for a while, he said, and hopes to build something similar again in the future after taking some time to see other people doing it right.

Im going to learn from it and try again, he said. And when he does, Im going to build it twice as big and twice as cool as this place.

Cambridge stood calmly in the museum on Saturday, seeming to take in all the final pieces and people. He walked through the massive outdoor space that he had planned to turn into a performance venue, amid a collection of shipping containers and cans, and thought about what could have been.

But hes trying to stay optimistic.

I actually have the least stressful day ever, he said. I just have to exist through it.
South Africa: Limpopo commended for turning the tide on housing delivery

Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi has commended Limpopo Province for turning the tide on housing delivery.

Kubayi made the remarks during the hand over of Rural Housing Units to qualifying beneficiaries in Nkomo A village, Giyani.

Limpopo is one of the provinces visited by Kubayi after assuming her responsibility as Human Settlements Minister.

During her visit to the province, the Minister undertook to support the province with technical and project management capacities, and this has since assisted the province to improve on their housing delivery targets.

It is heart-warming to witness work that has been done to improve [the] lives of the people. We are here to showcase what we continue to do to better the lives of the people both in urban and rural areas, Kubayi said.

Kubayi also challenged other provinces to emulate Limpopo, which continues to ensure that women construction companies play an active role in accelerating housing delivery.

Women-led projects are hardly abandoned. They are of good quality, done on time, and within budget, she said.

The Minister also underscored that partnership with the private sector, community members and traditional leaders, amongst others, is the only solution to increasing housing delivery.

This was echoed by Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements, and Traditional Affairs MEC, Basikopo Makamu, who said the province, working with all the stakeholders will deliver on its 2023/2024 target of close to 10 000 housing units.

In line with the provisions of section 211 and 212 of the Constitution, prior to handing over houses to the beneficiaries and community engagement, the delegation paid a courtesy visit to Hosi Mahumani in Nkomo A village.

Kubayi acknowledged Hosi Mahumanis responsibility, and committed to ensuring that all spheres of government are working together to deliver services to the indigent and to uplift in his community.

Kubayi and Deputy Minister Pam Tshwete, together with Makamu and Hosi Mahumani, also convened a Community Imbizo focusing on service delivery.

Addressing the community imbizo, Kubayi noted that the department has deliberately prioritised child headed homes and the elderly, who in most cases are caregivers to grandchildren, in the provision of homes.

We prioritised child headed homes and the elderly so that we can improve the educational, health and social and economic odds of these young members of our communities, Kubayi said.

The Minister also emphasised the importance of being responsive to the needs of our communities, including water challenges in Giyani, which is a great concern for Human Settlements.

Kubayi told the members of the community that government is committed to the provision of basic services.

She said the department will work with the Department of Water and Sanitation to find solutions, mainly, for the rural areas because there is no bulk infrastructure.

Lufhereng Social Housing Project unveiled

Meanwhile, Kubayi and Tshwete, accompanied by Gauteng Human Settlements and Infrastructure Development MEC, Lebogang Maile, unveiled the Lufhereng Social Housing Project in Soweto, on Friday.

The social housing programme is aimed at integrating mixed-income groups to curb the housing backlog; bring people including backyard and informal settlement dwellers closer to economic opportunities and disrupt the pre-1994/apartheid spatial configuration, amongst others.

The Lufhereng Social Housing Project consists of 407 units of rental stock targeting beneficiaries from Soweto Region D and surrounding areas.

In her recent 2023/2024 Budget Vote Speech, Kubayi emphasised that social housing remains an important housing programme in terms of meeting the housing needs of the gap market, crowding in private sector investments, and building cohesive and integrated communities.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2023-05-28. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Its said that all politics is local. Yet it often seems that all political corruption investigations are federal. To be sure, bribery and misappropriation can usually be punished under state law. For example, the New York Penal Law punishes over a dozen official corruption felonies, plus extortion, fraud and embezzlement. Yet the headline-grabbing prosecutions we hear about are almost always federal.

The general wisdom is that only federal prosecutors are sufficiently independent. State and local prosecutors are considered too beholden to party organization and are restrained from prosecuting even across party lines by mutual deterrence. Moreover, corruption can require complex investigations for which the feds, including the FBI, have better resources.

Yet recent Supreme Court decisions have so narrowed federal anti-corruption law that we should rethink this common wisdom. In New York State, these rulings forced reversal of convictions of legislative leaders Joseph Bruno, Dean Skelos and Sheldon Silver (although all were retried, and two convicted). Most recently the Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Buffalo Billion convictions of Buffalo developer Louis Ciminelli for bid-rigging, and former Cuomo aide Joseph Percoco for accepting bribes.

A 150-year-old law

Understanding these cases requires reviewing a little history. Federal corruption prosecutions have relied primarily on the 150-year-old mail fraud statute and its younger sibling, the wire fraud law. These were originally aimed at Ponzi schemes and other swindles using the mails to deceive crowds of gullible victims. Eventually, use of these communication media became pretexts to establish federal jurisdiction for punishing dishonesty of all kinds.

But given the basis of these laws in theft by deception, applying them to the willing purchase of official influence was always an odd fit. Prosecutors and courts bridged this gap with the legal fiction that the property stolen was citizens intangible right to good government. After the Supreme Court rejected this theory, Congress added a provision to these statutes punishing theft of the intangible right to honest services, designed to capture bribery. But in recent years the Court has increasingly seen this phrase as vague enough to invite prosecutorial abuse, and has reversed several convictions on that basis. In addition, the Court has become skeptical of other attempts to expand the property interests protected by these fraud statutes.

For example former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell was convicted of fraud. While in office he had taken gifts from a friend who wanted researchers at the state university to back his application for FDA approval of a product. In 2016, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed, holding that the introductions the governor provided to these researchers were not official acts exercising government authority. In 2020, the infamous New Jersey Bridgegate scandal came before the court. Two state officials were convicted of a political revenge crime. The mayor of Fort Lee (at one end of the George Washington Bridge) was an opponent of Gov. Chris Christie; the two defendants colluded to close toll lanes and cause a massive traffic jam. Since there was no bribe, the case was framed as theft of property. And certainly the city and other agencies suffered financial and logistical costs as they resolved the jam. But the Supreme Court (again, unanimously) held that, even if the defendants caused financial loss, they had not gained the property that the victims lost. So while it was dishonest, destructive and petty, it was not a scheme to obtain property.

Applied in Buffalo

The Buffalo Billion cases fit this pattern. Thus, prosecutors viewed Percoco as a de facto public official, because he had been one until shortly before the scheme, and, as the governors campaign manager, presumably retained influence over officials. But the Court said adjacency to and influence over public officials could characterize any lobbyist or political adviser and did not create the fiduciary duty that an actual official owes to the voters.

Since Ciminelli had never been an official, the honest services doctrine obviously could not apply. Prosecutors instead prosecuted him for theft of property, as in the Bridgegate case. But, the prosecution had to concede, while Ciminellis outfit did receive substantial payment from the government, they also earned it. The state was always going to distribute that profitable work to someone. But prosecutors argued that he deceived the government into steering it towards him. Thus, he had stolen not the money itself, but the states intangible right to control it. The Court responded that this right to control theory had no basis in the law and that even the government abandoned it in oral argument.

The unanimity of all these decisions is striking, given the sharp ideological divide on the court. It seems that the Democratic appointees are concerned about prosecutorial power, while the Republican appointees are protective of private capital.

The role of legislatures

So what are the possible takeaways? If the problem is that the statutes fail to cover the types of corruption we see in these cases, Congress could always write a different law. But that law would have to enumerate many kinds of corruption, and venal business owners and officials will still find ways around them. Or Congress could pass a very broad law saying its a federal crime to use the mails or wires corruptly but that would be unconstitutionally vague.

Another alternative is to give up this notion that only federal prosecutors can be trusted to monitor and state and local officials. Thus, we could shift the primary responsibility onto state prosecutors. Many state attorneys general have anti-corruption bureaus, and all should. States have more legal room to criminalize official misconduct because they dont face federalism restrictions. Indeed, unlike Congress, state legislators have both authority and responsibility to regulate the conduct of state and local officials. Local legislators can also control their officials within these constraints. For example, some cities have adopted conflict-of-interest policies.

But while theyre at it, state and local legislators should look beyond criminal investigation and prosecution, to proactively design more open, inclusive and ethical decision-making procedures and routines. Prosecution is necessarily reactive and selective. Moreover, prosecutorial decision-making is typically opaque where transparency is most needed. Open meeting laws, citizen participation, systematic documentation and data collection and publication may do more to expose corruption to the judges that matter most: the people.

Guyora Binder is SUNY Distinguished Professor & Hodgson Russ Scholar at the University at Buffalo School of Law. Robert W. Weisberg is Edwin E. Huddleson Jr. Professor of Law and co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center at Stanford Law School
Brittany and Adam Edgington at their tent near the Schuylkill River Trail, in Norristown, Thursday, May 25, 2023. Read more

Grab your sunscreen for this gorgeous, mostly sunny day, with a high near 75.

Before you run out for a last-minute grocery store trip over this holiday weekend, see whats open and closed in Philadelphia on Memorial Day.

Our lead story highlights the looming threat of displacement at encampments with people experiencing homelessness.

If you see this  in todays newsletter, that means were highlighting our exclusive journalism. You need to be a subscriber to read these stories.

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 Paola Perez (@pdesiperez, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

Norristown wants to move homeless encampments. But theres nowhere for them to go.

About 20 homeless encampments in the borough expect to be cleared in the coming weeks, with no plans to store peoples confiscated property, according to advocates.

Officials have not confirmed or denied what advocates call a sweep of an estimated 160 people living mostly in tents in various parts of the municipality. But a spokesperson for Peco said individuals living in tents on land along the Schuylkill River Trail in Norristown will need to relocate at an unspecified time so hazardous waste and trash can be removed.

Homelessness is a prevailing issue in the borough, with 21% of the population of about 35,000 living in poverty. Residents, advocates and those experiencing homelessness coexist in a tense environment.

Sources close to the issue have said county officials are against any potential sweeps, but feel powerless to stop them.

In their own words: Theyre moving us around like were dirt. It makes you feel unstable. Things are falling apart fast. Thats Adam Edgington, 41, a former salesman. He and his wife have lived in a tent on the Peco site since the fall.

Some complain that because Norristown is home to numerous substance abuse and mental health programs, outsiders are drawn to the borough, then live off the grid.

Continue reading about the ongoing fight to stop the camps from being dismantled.

What you should know today

 And now Im passing the mic to my colleague Mike Newall.

The handwritten sign hung on the door of the newsstand at 30th Street Station. It offered one final headline from a shop that will carry no more. No newspapers, it read, underlined four times for emphasis.

Thats because earlier this month Faber, the New Jersey-based newsstand and bookseller, stopped selling newspapers at its 30th Street location. The stores shelves remain stocked with magazines, periodicals, books, snacks, greeting cards, and travel trinkets. But the iconic stations sole newsagent is now a newsstand without newspapers.

The explanation, sadly, is old news. Nearly no one was buying them.

Slumping sales would hardly come as a surprise. Not in the Age of Smartphones. Not when the pandemic only worsened the newspaper industrys existential struggle to survive its digital transformation. And not as newsstands themselves, like coin-operated newspaper boxes before them, slowly disappear.

Still, under the stations vast, gilded ceiling, it is easy to conjure days long past. Sepia-toned days when the tops of broadsheets poked over station benches. When newsagents in ink-stained aprons hollered out headlines from the citys many daily papers.

Continue reading on the lost charm and nostalgic memories of print.

Pop quiz

This Romanesque-style landmark in Center City celebrates its 150th birthday this year.

A) City Hall

B) Independence Hall

C) Masonic Temple

D) Mutter Museum

See if you know the correct answer.

 Unscramble the anagram 

Hint: Dropshippers are mass-producing knockoff versions of a Philly artists design of this sparkly accessory worn by Beyonce.

MARLBIRTHR ALO

Think you got it? Email us your best guess. Well select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Russ Hoblitzell who correctly guessed Fridays answer, Wildwood, with a memorable message to boot: As the villain said to Liam Neeson in Taken ... GOOD LUCK!!!

Photo of the day

 For todays Sunday track, were listening to: Catch me if you can / Working on my tan .... Salvatore can wait / Now its time to eat soft ice cream. 

 This newsletter will take a break for a few days, so expect Taylor back in your inbox on Wednesday. Take care!
What Is the Debt Ceiling?

The debt ceiling is the maximum amount of money that the United States can borrow cumulatively by issuing bonds. The debt ceiling was created under the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917 and is also known as the debt limit or statutory debt limit.

If U.S. government national debt levels bump up against the ceiling, then the Treasury Department must resort to other extraordinary measures to pay government obligations and expenditures until the ceiling is raised again.

The debt ceiling has been raised or suspended numerous times over the years to avoid the worst-case scenario: a default by the U.S. government on its debt.

Key Takeaways The debt ceiling is the maximum amount that the U.S. government can borrow by issuing bonds.

The Treasury Department must find other ways to pay expenses when the debt ceiling is reached; otherwise, there is a risk that the U.S. will default on its debt.

The debt ceiling has been raised or suspended several times to avoid the risk of default.

There have been a number of showdowns over the debt ceiling, some of which have led to government shutdowns.

Shutdowns are the result of conflict between the White House and Congress, with the debt ceiling used as leverage to push budgetary agendas.

1:22 Understanding The Debt Ceiling

Understanding the Debt Ceiling

Congress had free rein over the countrys finances before the debt ceiling was created. In 1917, the debt ceiling was created during World War I to make the federal government fiscally responsible.

Over time, the debt ceiling has been raised whenever the United States has approached the limit. By hitting the limit and failing to pay interest payments to bondholders, the United States would be in default, lowering its credit rating and increasing the cost of its debt.

There has been controversy over whether the debt ceiling is constitutional. According to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law...shall not be questioned. The majority of democratic countries do not have a debt ceiling, making the United States one of the few exceptions.

$31.4 trillion The approximate amount of the current U.S. debt ceiling, as set by congressional vote on Dec. 15, 2021, and signed into law by President Biden on Dec. 16 of the same year. The sum represents a $2.5 trillion increase in the ceiling.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Debt Ceiling

Implementing a debt ceiling is practical, allowing the U.S. Treasury to easily issue bonds without having Congress approve it each and every time the federal government needs to raise moneya pretty cumbersome process. With a debt ceiling, the boundaries are in place for a more efficient monetary approval process.

However, the debt ceiling has been notoriously fluid and raised a few times, raising questions on whether its effective as a tool to ensure fiscal responsibility. The U.S. has reached record-high levels of debt over time.

Pros Holds the nations finances in check

Can be used to fund federal operations

Improves efficiency in the governments ability to fund obligations including Social Security and Medicare benefits Cons Can be easily raised, encouraging fiscal irresponsibility

Lowers the U.S. credit rating and increases its cost of debt

Controversy over whether the debt ceiling is constitutional

Debt Ceiling Showdowns and Shutdowns

There have been a number of showdowns over the debt ceiling, some of which have led to government shutdowns. The conflict is usually between the White House and Congress, and the debt ceiling is used as leverage to push budgetary agendas.

For example, in 1995, the Republican members of Congress, whose views were vocalized by then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, used the threat of refusing to allow an increase in the debt ceiling to negotiate increased government spending cuts.

Then-President Bill Clinton refused to make the cuts, which led to a shutdown of the government. The White House and Congress eventually agreed on a balanced budget with modest spending cuts and tax increases.

The U.S. debt exceeded $31 trillion for the first time in October 2022.

Debt Ceiling During the Obama and Trump Administrations

President Barack Obama faced similar issues during his two terms as president. In the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, Republicans in Congress demanded deficit reductions to approve an increase in the debt ceiling. During this time, U.S. Treasury debt was stripped of its triple-A rating by Standard & Poorsa rating it held for more than 70 years.

In 2013, the government was shut down for 16 days after conservative Republicans attempted to defund the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by leveraging the debt ceiling. An agreement to suspend the debt limit was passed within a day, which was when the Treasury was estimated to run out of money.

The debt ceiling was raised again in 2014, 2015, and early 2017. With U.S. debt exceeding $20 trillion for the first time in September 2017, then-President Donald Trump signed a bill extending the debt ceiling to Dec. 8, 2017. The ceiling was later suspended for 13 months as part of a bill enacted in February 2018. The ceiling came into effect and was increased again in March 2019 when U.S. government debt topped $22 trillion.

In August 2019, then-President Trump signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, which suspended the debt ceiling through July 31, 2021. The legislation also lifted spending caps on federal agency budgets, while ensuring that the government could pay its bills in the short term. Suspending the ceiling in this manner eliminated the risk of default for another two years, increasing spending to $320 billion for the 2020 and 2021 fiscal years. The debt ceiling was once again raised, to $31.4 trillion, in December 2021.

Newly Appointed House Speakers Effect on Debt Ceiling

In early 2023, some economists and Wall Street analysts predicted that the recent election of Californian Republican Kevin McCarthy to House Speaker raised the prospect that lawmakers could vote against lifting the debt ceiling, increasing the possibility of the U.S. defaulting on its debts.

As part of their support to install McCarthy, conservative-faction Republicans have indicated that they would vote against raising the debt ceiling without significant federal spending reductions, setting the stage for political gridlock that could destabilize the financial system.

What Happens If the U.S. Defaults on Its Debts?

A default on government debtwhich sits at almost $31.5 trillionwould send shock waves through global financial markets as confidence in U.S. borrowers falls. Credit analysis firm Moodys Analytics predicts that a four-month default would shave around 4% from U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), see stock prices fall by a third, and result in companies slashing nearly six million jobs. Furthermore, its analysis reveals that a default on U.S. Treasury bonds could lead to a downturn similar to the 20072009 Great Recession.

A breakdown in the perceived trustworthiness of U.S. treasurys or a credit freeze would almost certainly lead to sharp falls in the greenback and an exodus of U.S. investments by foreign investors. Even coming close to default has the potential to unnerve financial markets. In 2011, then-President Obama and House Republicans narrowly adverted reaching the debt ceiling, a crisis that saw stock prices plunge and volatility spike, prompting credit agency S&P Global Ratings to downgrade the U.S. credit rating for the first time. Furthermore, the crisis also dented consumer confidence and small-business optimism.

As well as creating economic uncertainty, a U.S. debt default would impede the government from carrying out critical functions, such as issuing Social Security benefits, maintaining national defense, and adequately funding the public health system.

Yellens Warning to Congress

In mid-January 2023, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reiterated the importance of Congress raising the debt ceiling to avoid a potential default.

Failure to meet the governments obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability, she wrote. I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.

Debt Default Becomes More Likely

Despite the ongoing political brinkmanship in Washington over the debt ceiling and spending cuts, it remains unlikely that the U.S. will default on its debts. President Biden successfully made deals with Republicans in 2021 to pass critical legislation, most notably the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. Therefore, its likely that he will negotiate spending reduction measures with House Republicans in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

In January 2023, insights and market perspectives site AGF projected a 60% chance of Congress striking an 11th-hour deal to avoid a default, indicating the likelihood of macroeconomic uncertainty in the months ahead.

The U.S. officially hit the debt ceiling of $31.4 trillion on January 19, 2023. The Treasury department was able to continue paying obligations through "extraordinary measures," such as redirecting payments from certain government-owned securities.

However, these measures are expected to be exhausted by June 5, with the Republican House majority demanding deep spending cuts before a deal to raise the ceiling can be reached.



What is the current debt ceiling? The debt ceiling is $31.4 trillion as of October 2022. It was raised to this level under President Biden in 2021.

How many times has the debt ceiling been raised? According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the debt ceiling has been raised, extended, or revised 78 separate times since 1960. This occurred 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic presidents.

What happens if the debt gets too high? Hitting the debt limit and failing to pay interest payments to bondholders would have grave economic consequences. The U.S. government would be in default, lowering its credit rating and increasing the cost of its debt. This would throw the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

Is there a limit to the national debt? The debt ceiling is the limit set on the amount of debt that the U.S. government is allowed to incur. As of October 2022, the U.S. national debt was more than $31 trillion and rising.

The Bottom Line

The debt ceiling was created during World War I to regulate U.S. government spending and to keep the U.S. government fiscally responsible. Since then, the debt ceiling has been raised or revised 78 times to avoid the possibility of default and keep the U.S. economy running, with no signs of Congress turning to other options, despite questions over the debt ceilings effectiveness.
What Is Summa Cum Laude?

Summa cum laude is an honorary title used by educational institutions to signify a degree that was earned "with the highest distinction."

Summa cum laude indicates the greatest distinction of three commonly used types of academic honors recognized in the United States, expressed in Latin. The other two are called magna cum laude and cum laude, representing degrees earned "with great distinction" and "with distinction," respectively.

The guidelines under which students achieve each level of academic honor differ from institution to institution. Increasingly, high schools across the United States also include Latin honors for students upon graduation. Although Latin honors are quite common in the United States, very few other countries around the world use the system.

Key Takeaways Summa cum laude is the highest of three Latin honors that may be bestowed upon students earning a bachelor's degree.

Summa cum laude is a greater honor than magna cum laude or cum laude.

Criteria for the summa cum laude may include grade point average, class rank, hours and special projects (i.e., senior thesis) completed, and recommendations from an academic department.

Different institutions will select summa cum laude criteria differently.

Latin honors are impressive, but it's impossible to know how critical they are in landing a job.

Understanding Summa Cum Laude

Summa cum laude is one of the three Latin honors traditionally given to select students upon receiving a bachelor's degree, although it can in some cases be included with other types of degrees as well. Students who graduate with honors may wear colored stoles or other designations during commencement ceremonies, and the honor is read aloud along with the person's name.

Criteria for Latin honors may include grade point average (GPA), class rank, number of hours completed, and honors designations from an academic department.

Every university or college outlines its own expectations for each program. Some higher education institutions do not bestow Latin-termed honors at all. Others, like Stanford University, have a separate set of non-Latin honorary titles (such as "with Distinction") that are typically seen as roughly equivalent to the traditional Latin titles.

GPA-Based Requirements

Many institutions use cumulative grade point averages (GPA ) to determine who graduates with a summa cum laude designation. Students at the University of New Mexico, for instance, need to complete 60 credit hours toward graduation in addition to a GPA of 3.90 or higher. By contrast, Denver University (DU) requires students to have a 3.95 GPA and have completed 90 quarter hours; they must also submit a senior thesis or complete a senior project. (If they have less than 90 hours, they must receive a departmental recommendation.)

Because summa cum laude is typically the highest distinction of the three traditional Latin honors, it is typically reserved for the smallest number of graduating students. In some cases, only a handful of students will receive the summa cum laude designation upon graduating.

At institutions selecting students for Latin honors based on GPA requirements, the number of individuals receiving summa cum laude honors may vary from year to year. There may be no limit, potentially, to the percentage of students in a graduating class who could receive summa cum laude distinction, provided that those students meet the GPA requirement.

Summa Cum Laude and Class Rank

Although GPA-based requirements for Latin honors are the most common throughout higher education institutions in the U.S., there are other factors that may be included as well. One of these is class rank; some institutions reserve the summa cum laude title for students graduating at the highest levels of their class. In this case, GPA is a factor in determining whether a student receives this honor at graduation, but that student does not necessarily need to obtain a particular GPA in order to make that achievement.

As an example of how class rank-based Latin honors work in practice, graduates of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst need to finish in the top 5% of the graduating class of a particular college and complete 45 credits in order to receive the summa cum laude designation. In other cases, Latin honors are dependent upon students' performance in particular classes, often either honors classes or those relevant to their major area of study.

Students at the University of Notre Dame, for instance, earn Latin honors within the college that oversees the student's major. Graduates must finish in the top 5% of the class in order to receive the summa cum laude distinction. Because class rank changes based on the performance of other students, the GPA changes each academic year. In 2019, students in the College of Arts & Letters at Notre Dame needed a 3.94 GPA to earn summa cum laude honors. In contrast, in 2009, students needed a 3.927 GPA to earn those honors.

Latin honors like summa cum laude appear on a student's official transcript and diploma.

Example: Harvard's Latin Honors

Harvard University is generally credited to be the first U.S. institute of higher education to bestow Latin honors at graduation.

Harvard's Latin honors stand out from other institutions, both historically and through to the present day. Harvard faculty members consider candidates for summa cum laude in their field by weighing the student's grades in the courses for their major and the rigor of those courses, and a demonstration of student's mastery of their field, such as a senior thesis and/or some type of written or oral examination.

Only students who graduate in the top 4-5% of their graduating class may earn summa cum laude honors in their field. Graduates earn summa cum laude over the entire university based on the 4-5% class rank, and Harvard sets standards for the academic year each May.

Harvard College introduced two Latin honors in 1869cum laude and summa cum laude. Magna cum laude followed in 1880. As of May 2022, a student must have a GPA of at least 3.976 to be eligible for a summa cum laude.

Special Considerations

In most colleges and universities, the large majority of undergraduates completing a bachelor's degree do not receive Latin honors of any kind. For those who do, these honors are likely to impact their future in different ways depending upon a number of factors, including their field of study, future interests, and more.

Some graduate schools, for example, are particularly focused on academic rank and GPA; top law schools are famous for their stringent GPA requirements. In other fields, academic honors may be less crucial to success.

For graduates entering the job market, a Latin honor listed on a resume could well impress a potential employer, as it suggests a level of intelligence and diligence. For other employers, though, a candidate's personality and skill set might be more importantor the fact that they attended a prestigious institution, like Harvard, regardless of how well they did there. Job listings often specify a B.A. or B.S., but rarely require a certain GPA or level of academic honors.

What Does Summa Laude Mean? Summa cum laude is an honorary distinction awarded by universities to a small fraction of college graduates each year. A Latin term, it literally translates as "highest honor" or "highest praise." These students have earned grades within the highest percentage of their class or department, or have achieved some other metric that the school considers worthy of the highest or, the summit of, recognition.

What Is Higher, Summa or Magna? Summa is higher than magna. "Magna cum laude" is Latin for "with great distinction." "Summa cum laude" translates as "with the highest distinction." Cum laude, "with distinction" is third.

What Is the Highest Honor in College? Generally, the highest honor in college is the valedictorian, followed by the salutatorian. As a group, the highest honor is summa cum laude. The next highest is the magna cum laude, and the third is the cum laude.

How Do You Get Summa Cum Laude? There is no universal standard for granting a summa cum laude. Rather, it is up to each individual school, and in some cases, each school's individual department, to determine what constitutes the award. In general, though, summa cum laude is based on a student's grade point average. Usually, it has to be high: 3.9 or above. A student's class rank, number of course hours completed, and requirements such as a thesis or senior project, might also be part of the qualifications for a summa cum laude.
Irish SMEs raised a record 502m in venture capital funding in the March quarter, up from 308m in the same period last year, despite choppy waters for smaller companies.

The Irish Venture Capital Association (IVCA) 'Venture Pulse' survey showed Cork-based energy company Amarenco was responsible for a significant portion of the funds raised in Q1, as it closed a 300m deal in March.

This was a robust quarter for Ireland when compared to global VC funding which fell by 53% in the first three months of the year, said IVCA chairperson Leo Hamill.

the survey also showed some smaller firms floundered in the fundraising space as the value of deals in the 1m to 3m range fell by two thirds to 10m. Deals below 1m fell by 28% to 6.5m and seed capital dropped 67% to 7.5m.

However, the survey showed that overall there was an increase in investments below 30m secured by SMEs compared with 2022. Mr Hamill said:

If you exclude deals above 30m in first quarter 2023 and 2022, this year still saw a rise of 70% to over 200m for the first three months, which reflects well in view of global headwinds across the sector.

Apart from Amarenco, top deals in this period were Fire1, which raised 27.3m and Supernode, which raised 16m. Assure Hedge, Astatine, and Neuromod each raised 15m.

The environmental industries sector led the way in funding in the quarter followed by life sciences.

In the context of a global slowdown in VC investment, the high level of international funding secured by Irish companies clearly demonstrates a strong appetite for innovative indigenous enterprises, said IVCA director general Sarah-Jane Larkin

She added that overall more than 20 indigenous companies raised between 5m and 30m in this quarter.

Some VCs have become more conservative when it comes to investing due to the volatile economic environment, including a series of interest rate hikes. In recent years, start-ups have received a huge amount of funding due to historically low interest rates which allowed venture capitalists to take more risks.
With Irelands seasonally adjusted unemployment rate reaching a record low of 3.9% in April, there is no doubt that staff shortages will continue to be a major concern for the hospitality sector.

As trade reverts to pre-pandemic levels, more staff are needed to satisfy the increasing needs of the sector. But covid changed hospitality irrevocably, with many in this industry re-evaluating their work-life balance and switching to industries which operate during day-time hours without weekend operations.

The hotel sectors reputation as an employer has taken a battering in recent years, though many employers in the industry have spent considerable time and money to improve their perception in order to attract and retain employees.

As the housing crisis continues to bite in Ireland, many hotels have reverted to the old staff house model, by either purchasing or renting properties to accommodate their employees who would otherwise be unable to live within a suitable commuting distance of the workplace. The Europe in Killarney is one example of a hotel investing in staff accommodation.

Failte Irelands introduction of their employer excellence programme last year is another strategy to improve employment practices across the hospitality and wider tourism sector.

Encouraging businesses to view staff as their greatest asset, the programme supports employers through a process of training, surveys and action plans, thereby increasing the appeal of hospitality and tourism as a career choice, and increasing overall employer engagement.

It is clear that we need to address the perception of the sector for teenagers, their parents, and for third level students.

Changing attitudes

Though many young people pass through the industry as summer or college-going employees, the numbers studying hospitality, culinary, and tourism disciplines at third level continue to decline.

The youth unemployment rate stands at 7.9%, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), and so this needs to be an area to continue to focus on in terms of engaging staff for the hotel industry.

The apprenticeship model has shown minimal success for the sector in terms of employee attraction and retention, and so how we treat transition year students on their work experience in hotels, or second level students during summer work, has become a focus for organisations such as the Irish Hotels Federation and Failte Ireland.

This is the time when students experience the workplace and choose a future career, so the experience needs to be a positive, interesting, and engaging one  no more sticking them in the corner polishing glassware or folding napkins all day.

Guidance counsellors and parents are also key players in this decision making process.

The Irish Hotels Federation has even created a programme for transition year students with its own bespoke area on its website programme, where students can choose the particular department in a participating hotel where they would like to gain experience.

There is no doubt that changing the mindset of students and their influencers towards the sector is now a key focus for hospitality providers in their efforts to curb the staff crisis which they now face, and in-turn improve the reputation of the hospitality sector as an employer for the next generation of potential employees.

Donagh Davern is a lecturer in the department of tourism and hospitality at MTU, and is a former general manager
The promotion of ponds on farms and other locations was highlighted during National Biodiversity Week.

Over 150 events were held during the 10-day celebration of nature and wildlife, organised by the Irish Environmental Network and funded by the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

There are about 12,200 small, enclosed water bodies across Ireland, with 8,000 of them less than a hectare in extent.

Research has found that small ponds sequestered 20-30 times the amount of carbon compared with woodlands, grasslands and other habitats.

However, the number of farmland ponds declined by 53.9% between 1887-1913 and 2005-2011 due to more land being used for agricultural production.

Some farmers have made great efforts, however, to create ponds for nature. They include Roscommon beef producer Tommy Earley, who manages a 100-acre organic Aberdeen Angus suckler farm on the shores of Lough Allen.

We have lost the sense of connectedness under our feet and once we get that re-established, we will be on our way to a healthier planet, said Tommy, who has been a Farming for Nature Ambassador since 2019.

It was no surprise to see a focus placed during National Biodiversity Week on how correctly managed ponds can positively impact nature.

An Taisces pond development officer Aoife ORourke said the aim is to promote the role that ponds can play as a refuge for biodiversity by supporting the development of expertise in pond creation, management, and conservation.

With 85% of Irelands EU-protected habitats reported to be in unfavourable condition and 46% of these in decline, warnings were issued during Biodiversity Week that the country faces a future of rapidly disappearing wildlife unless action is taken.

The increased focus on the role of ponds in biodiversity comes against a background of growing controversy over a proposed European Union nature restoration law that includes the rewetting of previously drained land now in agricultural use.

Irish Farmers Association president Tim Cullinan said the current proposals must clearly ensure that farmers and future generations can actively farm their land, while safeguarding the future of rural Ireland.

The proposals will clearly have a negative effect on the rural economy and the future of Irish farming, and these proposals are being driven from the EU without any clear data or impact assessment, he said.

Last week, the European Parliaments Agriculture and Rural Development Committee (AGRI) rejected the proposal by 30 votes to 16.

The vote was the first in a series to be held across various committees before the parliament as a whole decides on the controversial legislation.

European Environmental Bureau, representing 180 member bodies in 40 countries, expressed dismay at the outcome.

Instead of offering solutions to devastating floods and droughts that threaten farmers livelihoods and long-term food security, the AGRI Committee turned a blind eye to farmers problems, it said.

Frans Timmermans, executive vice president, said the Commission will not come up with another proposal because there is not time to do so. But it was ready to address parts of the current proposal that has caused concern.

IFA Environment chair Paul OBrien said farmers recognise the role they can play in restoring nature and are already carrying out measures to do this.

However, the lack of clarity on the potential impact of the proposed regulation on farmland and production is very worrying.

It is vital that a full impact assessment is undertaken to quantify the area of farmland that will be affected to ensure the proposed targets are realistic and fair and are not detrimental to the continuation of farming, he said.

Minister of State Malcolm Noonan recently told the Dail the Government is negotiating a position in the EU to develop a stance on the nature restoration regulation that will work for farming.

We recognise that farmers will be voluntarily involved in any scheme eventually developed regarding a nature restoration plan. We want to ensure that this will work for Irish farming, he said.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said: We know from our projections that between now and 2030, we can do all the rewetting on publicly owned land, mainly the Bord na Mona lands, and we are looking at what we need to do beyond that.

Claiming there has been a fair bit of scaremongering around the issue, he said he hoped they would be able to dispel that as the directive is refined and negotiated at European level over the next couple of months.

However, Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association president Pat McCormack said farmers "will not be fooled by the notion that public lands will be used to meet commitments up to 2030".

"If the Natura Restoration Act, as currently structured, is passed, there will be a legal obligation on some private landowners to rewet part of their lands, he said, describing that situation as "intolerable".

Fears that the proposal will force some family farmers off the land were voiced at a Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine meeting earlier this year.

But the director for biodiversity in the European Commissions Directorate-General for Environment, Dr Humberto Delgado Rosa, denied this was the intention.

We do not propose to remove people from anywhere or to disallow families to live. On the contrary, the flexibility provided allows us to maintain every family with their own production, he said.
In 1915 the Prague based German-speaking Jewish Bohemian writer, Franz Kafka, read two draft chapters of his novel in progress, The Trial, to his close friend and fellow writer, Max Brod. The Trial remained uncompleted when Kafka died in June 1924, aged 40, from tuberculosis. During his own lifetime Kafka published a few short stories. Mostly in Prague literary journals. But it bequeathed him no recognition, no fame, no notoriety, and no literary prizes. Prior to his death, Kafka left strict written instructions for Brod to burn all of his literary manuscripts  with the exception of three or four short stories.

Brod betrayed his friends last wishes. Brod fled the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939, emigrated to Mandatory Palestine, and died in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1968. Much of his life was spent promoting Kafka. As Kafkas sole literary executor, Brod edited and prepared posthumous editions of Kafkas unpublished novels. The Trial came out in 1925, followed by The Castle (1926) and The Missing Person which Brod retitled Amerika (1927). Today, Kafka is one of the most celebrated writers in modern European literature.

Between 1909 and 1923, Kafka kept various notebooks he called his Tagebucher or diaries, which recorded daily events; reflections and observations, literary sketches, letters and reviews; accounts of dreams; outlines for planned works, and descriptions of people with whom Kafka crossed paths. In 1913, aged 29, Kafka wrote in one diary entry: I am made of literature. I am nothing else and cannot be anything else.

Brod published two volumes of Kafkas diaries, in English, in 1948-49. The first volume was translated by Joseph Kresh. The second by Martin Greenberg, in cooperation with the German Jewish philosopher and political theorist, Hannah Arendt, who was then an editor at Schocken Books in New York. In the postscript to volume one, in 1948, Brod claimed the diaries were as complete as it was possible to make them. A few passages, apparently meaningless because of their fragmentary nature are omitted, Brod wrote.

Ross Benjamin, an award-winning American translator of German-language literature, now claims Brod was being economical with the truth.

Besides omitting or altering the names of and details about people still living at the time of the [diaries] publication, Brod manipulated the diaries in several places that presumably seemed to him to reflect unfavourably on himself or Kafka, Benjamin writes in the preface to The Diaries of Franz Kafka. The book took Benjamin eight years to translate from the original German and offers English speaking readers the complete text of Kafkas diaries for the first time.

Brod deleted whole huge chunks of text that he thought were too personal and also deleted literary texts that Kafka had drafted in the diaries, which Brod slapped a title on and then published as fiction elsewhere, Benjamin explains from his home in Nyack, New York. Brod authorised himself to take liberties with Kafkas texts and made the decision that since he was the one who [really] knew Kafka, he knew what should be part of Kafkas literary legacy and what should be shielded from public view.

The Diaries of Franz Kafka Author: Franz Kafka Translator: Ross Benjamin

Benjamin says the ambiguity of Kafkas prose make translating his work difficult in general. But translating Kafkas diaries proved especially tricky.

When you read the original [German] of these diaries you often get the sense that sometimes the writing may not even be intelligible or make sense to Kafka himself, says Benjamin. Due to the unfinished nature of the text, I realised that a definitive moment of certainty was not something that was going to be available to me with this translation. I also wanted to keep the text open to as broad a range of interpretations as possible.

Benjamin notes that Brod  as Kafkas sole literary executor  promoted a certain pious myth of Kafka in the literary world. Namely: the figure of a saintly prophetic genius.

Brod idealised Kafka as a writer and he once said that the proper category for understanding Kafka is the category of sainthood, not the category of literature. Personally, I think it is the category of literature, Benjamin explains. New translations of Kafkas diaries in German, and now my recent translations of the complete diaries in English, are helping us debunk this myth, bringing to light facets of the writer formerly obscured, skewed or neglected.

Benjamin says his new translation also adds to our understanding of Kafkas sexuality. The [added] passages that I have included, which were cut by Brod, show clear moments of homoerotic desire from Kafka, which was less well known before [at least in English translations of the diaries], says Benjamin.

Specifically, Brod deleted lines where Kafka described in his diary how a fellow male train passengers sizeable member makes a large bulge in his pants. In another diary entry, Kafka recalled going to a nudist spa and sees two Swedish boys. In Brods version it simply reads: Two handsome Swedish boys with long legs. Benjamins translation of that same diary entry, however, did not cut a crucial line, which means it reads quite differently: 2 beautiful Swedish boys with long legs, which are so formed and taut that one could really only run ones tongue along them.

Kafka was always a seeker and explorer in all areas of his life, says Benjamin. It makes sense to me that Kafka would explore other aspects of his sexuality in his writing.

Author Ross Benjamin. Picture Credit: David Schloss

In Brods memoirs he spoke about Kafkas gentle serenity, describing their relationship almost as if they were lovers. Brod also recalled the mystical experience of both men reading Platos Protagoras in Greek, and Flauberts Sentimental Education in French, like a collision of souls.

While there is no evidence of any homosexual feeling between Kafka and Brod, their intimate relationship appeared to go beyond typical camaraderie from two straight men of their era. Brod and Kafka even visited brothels together in Prague, Milan, Leipzig, and Paris. Some of those visits were already documented in Brods original English version of Kafkas diaries.

Did Brod censor any of those details? Kafkas visits to brothels aren't completely censored, Benjamin explains. They were, however, sanitised in Brods English translation. Take, for example, Kafkas diary entry regarding a visit to a Milan brothel in [1911]. Kafka wrote: The girl by the door, whose scowling face is Spanish, whose putting her hand on her hips in Spanish and who stretches in a bodice-like dress of prophylactic silk. Hair runs thickly from her naval to her private parts. In Brods version, the last line is deleted. Its hard to say why Brod cut this line, says Benjamin. Did he see it as too crudely carnal and lascivious?

Kafka was engaged to two women over his short life: Julie Wohryzek and Felice Bauer. But for a host of complicated reasons, he married neither. Kafka had a very fraught and tortured relationship with women in general and the word bachelor comes up hundreds of times throughout the diaries, Benjamin explains. The translator claims that Kafkas inner psychological conflict about bachelorhood versus marriage and having a family is constant in Kafkas diaries, because he never fully resolved it.

Benjamin also notes, however, that Kafkas used those moral dilemmas as a fundamental source for his creativity. Kafka was constantly coming up with new metaphors, images, and allegories to think about these inner [psychological] conflicts, which caused him a great deal of stress, Benjamin concludes. Kafka suffered a lot mentally. But he used his creativity to transform that suffering into literary expression.
News / Local

by Staff reporter

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has moved to re-assert his vice-like grip on Zimbabwe's state security service, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), which is critical to his power consolidation and retention bid.Autocratic leaders rely on the intelligence apparatus for regime and personal security including coup-proofing. They often manage powerful, brutal and unaccountable intelligence establishments, which they hold close. But, despite their close relationship with - and reliance upon - intelligence, despots also frequently struggle to use it to enhance decision-making and foreign policy, and consequently suffer avoidable intelligence failures.The new appointment is particularly critical for Mnangagwa to ward off any sign of challenge by his ambitious deputy Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga ahead of crucial elections where the spectre of "bhora musango" - internal sabotage - looms large.To shore up his faltering grip on the CIO, largely modelled on his own image as the country's first State Security minister after Independence in 1980, Mnangagwa quietly appointed director of administration Patrick Donald Mutasa to the level of Deputy Director-General.The new appointment came at a time when Mnangagwa is reportedly losing confidence in CIO Director-General Isaac Moyo and some top spooks who are either not discharging their duties well or are compromised by Zanu PF's political factionalism and internal strife."Mnangagwa recently appointed Mutasa who was director of administration to a new post at the deputy director-general level. The strategy is to take away some functions and responsibilities from those who are no longer trusted or have fallen out of favour, and give them to loyalists to ensure his power consolidation and retention drive succeeds. It was also influenced by politics, internal dynamics at the CIO top hierarchy and the need for intelligence bosses to checkmate each other and prevent them from acting in collusion or common purpose. It's a Russian-style or KGB-style approach."KGB was the Soviet Union's intelligence service. It is now called Federal Security Service, the largest intelligence organisation in Europe.There has been talk within the Zimbabwean intelligence community that although Moyo is a Mnangagwa loyalist, he has of late been viewed with suspicion, especially after he took a position on the delimitation process supporting the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zee) chairperson Priscilla Chigumba whom the President currently has a love-hate relationship with.It is understood Chigumba's relationship with Mnangagwa is frayed, sometimes on the rocks over electoral issues. Chigumba is said to be close to Moyo who offers her huge support in her work.There was a big fallout between Mnangagwa and Chigumba over the delimitation process. Mnangagwa and his allies wanted to sabotage the delimitation report, while Chigumba was rescued by Chiwenga and Moyo.In his 2018 elections monograph, 'Excelgate - How Zimbabwe's 2018 Presidential Election was Stolen, Jonathan Moyo, a professor of politics, narrates a fallout between Mnangagwa and Chigumba. It got so serious that Chigumba wanted to leave the country. However, Chigumba has denied the allegations.The new appointment means there are now practically three CIO deputy directors-general. The other two appointed in January 2020 are retired Brigadier-General Walter Tapfumaneyi and Dr Gatsha Mazithulela. They replaced Aaron Nhepera who had earlier been appointed Home Affairs permanent secretary.Nhepera has since been moved again to become Defence permanent secretary, replacing the retired Grey Marongwe.In a bid to shore up his support within the intelligence structures, Mnangagwa elevated Mutasa to take some of the functions and roles exercised by Mazithulela whom they say is a great scientist, but not necessarily an intelligence guns. While he is reportedly snuggling in his CIO job, Mazithulela is a member of the National Defence University Council and chairperson of the National Authority of the Chemical Weapons Convention, Zimbabwe Chapter.Mazithulela graduated with a PhD in genetic engineering at the age of 27 and worked in the United States and the United Kingdom. Listed among his achievements are the Fogarty Aids International Training and Research Scholarship at Johns Hopkins University in the US, Rockefeller Foundation pre-doctoral fellowship, a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Nottingham, and post-doctoral scientist at DuPont Incorporated in the US. He was awarded support from the UK-South Africa Science and Technology Research Fund in 1997.Mazithulela served as a board member for the Cape Biotechnology Trust, Anvirr Biophamtaceticals (Pty) Ltd and Elevation Biotechnology (Pty) Ltd chair. He also served as National Research Foundation of South Africa vice-president, Nuclear Technology Products (Pry) Limited and at the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, among other achievements. Despite his colourful curriculum vitae, security sources say he is struggling to fit into the structures and operate in the shadows. Mazithulela is not entirely new to the intelligence world. He previously got a scholarship from them. Mazithulela has been embroiled in some drunken and gun shooting controversies."Mutasa will assume some of Mazithukla's roles because he seems to be a great scientist, but not an intelligence administrator or operator. That's not his area."While Mnangagwa's relationship with the CIO top boss might be now tenuous, his ties with Tapfumaneyi are strong. With Mazithulela, it is said Mnangagwa has good professional and family ties with him. Tapfumaneyi is very close to Mnangagwa and has been given an extra duty to run the upcoming general elections, through a structure called Forever Associates of Zimbabwe (Faz).Previous elections were run by the military, with other security agents playing a supporting role, but the function has been taken over by the CIO, primarily because Mnangagwa does not fully trust the army, because he believes Chiwenga still has control.Chiwenga was the Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander when the military toppled former president Robert Mugabe in 2017 and thrust Mnangagwa into power. Before that he was a Commander of the Zimbabwe National Army, which he joined at its formation after independence in 1980.Tapfumaneyi is leading Far, which has been assigned to manipulate electoral processes in Mnangagwa's favour. This is not a constitutional or official arrangement, but an underground operational unit campaigning for Mnangagwa and Zanu PF in the August general elections.Faz has now displaced the army's structure called Heritage that used to perform a similar role and other functions. In 2018. the army ran elections through Heritage and Africom, a converged communication service provider.The CIO move and channelling of public resources to its shadowy structure is unconstitutional, legal experts say.Sources say, so far, Faz has received US$IO million and 200 cars to run its affairs in preparation for elections. More resources have been promised to capacitate the secret structure.Faz's mandate is to work together with Zec to coordinate logistics and other state institutions to retain Mnangagwa in power.The CIO, police and the army under the Joint Operations Command (joc) - a relic of the Rhodesia era - play a critical role in Zimbabwean elections. They are the cog in Zanu PF's campaign and coercive machinery.
WE MEET in the echoing, cavernous, and somewhat cluttered entryway of the Temple Theatre, the former nightclub and church located next to Temple Street Childrens Hospital in Dublin 1.

Ive been brought here by Susan Furniss-Radley, a blonde, youthful and backpacked mother of three boys (Rex, 11; Hunter, 9; and River, 5) from the Temple Street canteen. She had politely asked, Do you want to come somewhere quieter?, before stopping to smile with everyone on our three-minute journey across the busy street.

She knows these roads, the parking wardens, the cracks in the pavement. Shes come to know them, almost better than her Dungarvan home, as Furniss-Radley has been living in Temple Street Hospital for five months with her husband in family accommodation, as her youngest, River, is treated for Rasmussen encephalitis.

Known also as Rasmussen syndrome, Rivers case was typical, in all the ways an atypical diagnosis can be; a rare, progressive, chronic encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) affecting one hemisphere (one side) of the brain, affecting mainly young children. Forgive yourself for not having heard of it, neither had Susan.

Its warm today, isnt it? she says, speaking cheerily to administrative staff in the hall we meet, filled with memorabilia such as signed Irish rugby jerseys and oversized stuffed toys. Not as hot as Rivers room the other day, one laughs. Remember that! Susan replies, grasping this womans hands as two soldiers in the trenches might.

River was born healthy, perfectly healthy. The youngest of three, he idolised his brothers, looking up to them at every step. Nothing caused him harm or fuss, until at three and three months, in October 2022, he had a seizure in the back of the family car. Susan and her husband thought it was a stroke.

That night, we ended up in University Hospital Waterford, where he got a diagnosis of epilepsy, she smiles, stirring her coffee and meeting her eyes to mine. So we went home and started taking anti-epilepsy tablets. Everything was fine for two weeks until he started having seizures every 10 minutes.

From there, River lost his speech. This was November.

Susan Furniss-Radley, with (tall to small) Rex,9; Hunter, 7 and River, 5.

BORNE OF DISASTER

We were in such a haze, she smiles now, her tired, slight eyes the only giveaway. All of a sudden we were up here  I didnt even know where Temple Street was. A series of MRIs and a weakening on the right, dominant side of his body dictated that River had a diagnosis of Rasmussen, and that his life would be changed forever. It had been ruled out at first because its so rare, its one in three million, she tells me.

The scariest part was when he stopped recognising us and his brothers, who are living at home with my mother who has completely uprooted her life to be there.

Facial recognition sits on the side of the brain that was affected in Rivers case, so that was hard. But his attitude towards it has been just remarkable  on the days when his right leg wouldnt work, he dropped to his knees and began walking around like a cat.

In the years before I meet Furniss-Radley, indeed before shed had River, she had been a successful commercial pilot with superiority and a good salary. She flew, for more than 11 years with Stobart Air, as her husband worked in accountancy.

An accomplished pilot, she took a break from flying in 2009 when her brother, Captain Derek Furniss, an instructor with the air corps, tragically died in a plane crash during a training flight near Cornamona in Co Galway. My now-husband and I went travelling, which is where I came up with the idea for Dust + Rock, she says, as she gestures to her forearm.

Susan Furniss Radley's Dust + Rock Travel Cubes

Sustainably made and loved, Susans wrist pocket  which will be stocked in Brown Thomas and Arnotts from June  was borne of disaster, when she was separated from her then-boyfriend while travelling South America. Womens clothes never have pockets! she laughs, citing how she used to place her phone and keys in her husband Marks bag as they ventured through Bolivia. I had my backpack but never wanted to bring it out during the day. So I dreamt of a kind of an elasticated wallet for my wrist to put my things in, that I wouldnt have to worry about leaving behind.

She brought the idea to a seamstress when she got home to Dungarvan and was barraged with enough queries and compliments while walking through Dundrum Shopping Centre to consider a limited collection line. It wasnt even nice at that stage, she laughs. I just didnt want the hassle of carrying around a bag.

So spurned on her business plan, creating colourful, sustainable and functional wrist pockets, and more recently travel pockets to neatly fit your belongings into suitcases or storage (fans of organisation shows like The Home Edit will know) for people on the move. Ive had so many people message me saying they received it as a gift and never thought theyd use it  but now never leave the house without one, and dont even look at bags when they go into shops.

Susan Furniss-Radley. Photograph: Moya Nolan

"I CAN'T BELIEVE WE GOT SO LUCKY"

The business now exists in her hospital room, deep in the underbelly of Dublin 1, with a bed, a sink and not much else. River has since had his surgery  a hemispherectomy, which has essentially disconnected the half of his brain that was marred by infection  and will continue with intensive physiotherapy in the autumn. Its not a cure, its a solution, she smiles, but everyones circumstances are relative.

His brothers have seen him  and struggled to be honest, she says. Theyre not used to seeing their baby brother in a wheelchair, so it was difficult. But were hoping theyll all be in the same mainstream school together and will learn to look out for each other and create their own relationship.

Here she stops to take a breath. You know, at the beginning of all this, we thought we were going to have to move to London or the US or somewhere to fully tackle this. We were even looking at China at one stage, she says, jutting out her hands. But here we had the answer. Right in front of us. We have the best neurosurgeons in the world within these walls, highly educated people, willing to work on our boy, that made us feel so cared for and understood and appreciated the minute we met them.

She takes one final breath. I cant believe we got so lucky.

There arent many truisms in pediatric care, especially for children with a disability, a medical speciality that might best be described as a multidisciplinary effort to meet people where they are, while also supporting and celebrating their personhood and their lives. An oftentimes lonely pursuit, theres no formulaic way to meet patients and families where they are in their coping while understanding that life can reconstitute on the other side of catastrophe and that people can find joy in living again on the far side of loss.

Susan Furniss-Radley. Photograph: Moya Nolan

"YOU'RE GOING TO BE FAMOUS"

Susan, Mark, River, Rex, and Hunter will be alright again. They will succeed, they will cry and they will grow to love their new lives, free from the fear of the unknowable seizures they all once experienced in the back of their car.

Ive thought every day since then, following three years of healthcare-related worries and my own personal experience with growing up with an intellectually disabled sibling, about the strange axis around which we all eventually become healthcare providers  each of us too becoming a patient, in time.

Ive thought a lot about Susan too, laughing about the lacklustre nature of living in hospital accommodation while simultaneously growing more thankful as she recites the full name of each doctor she has met, and how they individually made miracles in all of their lives. (In a way, we had no choice when it came to River, she says in hushed tones. We had to go for the surgery  I cant imagine what it must feel like for parents who have to agonise over that decision.)

As a person, a mother, a parent and a businessperson, Susan is extraordinary; picking up pieces from the earth and creating masterpieces. From her unusual childrens names (I remember thinking about his future life when he was born, she says sweetly. River, youre going to be famous. Everyone is going to remember River.) to her repeated pivots over the hurdles life has given her.

Her words are honest and hold meaning, infectious and never awkward, generous without being pithy. Those who have experienced situations like the Furniss-Radleys know better than to suggest that everything will be alright, because, quite frankly, who knows if they will be. But as Susan has  and is  we can try, loaded with a hope too fragile to speak aloud, that we all might one day eventually, in different, unusual, and even metamorphosing ways, be OK.

A few weeks after our interview, we receive an update, a welcome one. River is recovering at home in Dungarvan. He is happy and doing well.
The hammer blow came when the Murphys heard that a neighbour had bought their land from the receiver. This they could not fathom. Farmland, particularly for dairy, is of the highest standard in West Cork, much valued and coveted. Yet the idea of neighbour taking advantage of their misfortune, the depletion of their livelihood, was beyond reason. There was a time when such action would have prompted communal reaction but maybe those days are gone.

The Murphys are one of thousands of farming families who have found themselves in hock to an alien, largely faceless entity  the vulture fund. Their story resonates across rural Ireland. They had loans, they ran into some trouble along the road, but managed to come out the other side, and then they found themselves no longer owing money to a bank, but at the mercy of a vulture fund.

Now the fund is moving to sell off Gerry and Ita Murphys livelihood, which they had intended to pass on to their farming sons. Forty five acres of the familys 113 acre farm was offered to a neighbour by the receiver and he bought it.

Another neighbour told us about it, Ita Murphy says. It happened last December but I didnt know until after Christmas, which is just as well because if would have been ruined. I couldnt believe it. Our lives are wrecked from this whole thing. We want to pay our way, we just want to get the whole thing sorted so we can get back to our normal happy, family life again.

Gerry and Ita Murphy farm their holding in Crossbarry with their two sons, Diarmuid and Conor, who are in their 30s. The parents would happily pack in and enjoy their retirement if, as originally planned, they could simply pass the business on to the next generation. Now their great fear is that there will be no farm to pass on. Since Everyday Finance bought their loans from AIB, the main thrust of the funds efforts has been to liquidate the familys assets, the livelihood that has been in the family for five generations.

The Irish Farmers Association estimates that between 2,500 and 3,000 farming families are in the same precarious situation as the Murphys. Earlier this year the Rural Independent Group of TDs, with the assistance of former High Court master Edward Honohan, introduced a bill to prevent vulture funds getting access to family farms.

The Impaired Farm Credit Bill 2022 was rejected by the Government on the basis that it would jeopardise farmers access to finance. Yet the problem continues and may well intensify if funds follow through on threats to repossess.

A cold economic reading of the issue suggests it is one in which businesses borrow, fail to maintain repayments, and must therefore forfeit assets. In reality, businesses borrowed in a particular context, one in which banks were throwing money around like confetti. They often did get into trouble and, after some lean times, many got back on track. Having done so, and made new arrangements with their bank, they then found that their loans were sold  for a fraction of their value  to a vulture fund, which in turn had no interest in maintaining a long-term schedule of repayments. In the farming sector, the business is, and always has been, much more than just a means to a livelihood.

Milk quota fines The Murphys woes can be traced back to a healthy ambition to extend and make provision for the next generation. In 2000, the opportunity arose to buy another farm in Ballymacoda in East Cork. The Murphys went for it. They weathered the 2007 economic crash but, with the price of milk dropping in 2009, tougher times were ahead. Then they ran into trouble with milk quotas. The system of milk quotas pertained within the EU from the 1980s up until 2015. Each farmer had a quota based on various criteria. If the farmer produced above that quota they were liable to fines. Some farmers gambled that they could overproduce on the basis that others would not reach their quota and the national figures would be in line. This didnt always work out. For instance, in 2014/15 Irish farmers were caught for a total fine of 75m, which was the biggest that had to be paid over the 31 years that the system was in existence. By June 2016, Cork dairy farmers still owed almost 8.5m in fines. Among them was the Murphy family. We produced too much milk and the country was over quota, Ita Murphy says. It was a risk we took and the risk went wrong but at that stage we were, like a lot of people, getting by on the bare minimum.

Problems arose with repayments. An arrangement was made with Bandon Co-Op for a schedule of payments to take care of the fines and levies accumulated over the quotas. For a while, they were unable to meet the bank repayments. They went into their local branch as always in Bandon and engaged. Then in 2017, they got fully back on their feet and began making the repayments again. It looked as if the storm had been weathered.

There were negotiations with AIB on how best to address the loan going into the future. The family retained a financial adviser. The last time me met the bank it was in our home, Ita says. We wanted them to restructure the loan and put it over 30 years. They said they would come back to us.

That was in August 2018. Months later, they were informed that their loan had been sold to Everyday Finance.

'Non-performing loans' This has been standard procedure for thousands of individuals, families and business with non-performing loans over the last 10 years. These loans are deemed to be a blight on the balance sheets of the main banks at a time when strict rules are in place about ratios of funds available to loans in the banks. The banks are allowed  and in some instances encouraged by the Central Bank  to sell on these loans to the vulture funds. The funds buy these loans at a rate hugely reduced from their value. An Oireachtas committee was told earlier this year that the discount can be up to 50%. Thereafter, the funds are interested in either reaching a settlement to pay off immediately or sending in a receiver to sell  or at least threaten to sell  assets on which the loan was secured. There has been much criticism from politicians and some financial advisers about this system of dealing with non-performing loans. As previously reported in the Irish Examiner, a non-performing loan is not necessarily a loan which has no prospect of being fully repaid. Once a loan has not met the original terms of its contract, it can be classified as non-performing and sold as part of a bundle to the vulture funds, such as Everyday Finance.

That was what befell Gerry and Ita Murphy. They then went from dealing with a bank with whom they had a relationship going back decades, to the wild west of vulture fund regulation, as described to the Oireachtas finance committee last February.

The family engaged with the fund at first but were advised that their best option was to seek a loan elsewhere and sell off some assets to ensure that they held on to their family farm. This went on for a while through the early straits of the pandemic. There followed a period of inaction.

The Murphys, on advice, stopped making repayments. This is a strategy advocated by some financial advisers on the basis that a final settlement with the vulture funds will be for a sum that takes no account of the repayments made since the loan came into the funds hands. Other advisers in the sector disagree, pointing out that when conflict arises, one excellent plank of defence is that the borrower continued to make the repayments to the fund, as they had to the bank prior to sale.

In all of this, the fund has the upper hand. The lack of regulation allows for all sorts of conduct on behalf of the fund to collect on the loans.

At the Oireachtas finance committee hearing to investigate the wild west of regulation, committee vice chair and Fine Gael TD Bernard Durkan said the funds were selling peoples homes and properties online in a kind of Ebay operation. He said:

They are foreclosing too fast on people, and then maximising their profits when they acquire these loans at a very reduced price in the first place, in part thanks to the taxpayer.

The Murphys would have no argument with that analysis. After we tried to engage through different advisers we then got a letter in the post late last year to say that they were appointing receivers to the farms but not the dwelling houses, Ita Murphy says.

The family retained Bandon solicitor Ted Hallissey to represent them but, whenever progress is made, it would appear that further issues arise to prevent a solution.

This family is in a serious situation, Hallissey says. They accept that they will have to sell off some land. They are prepared to do it.

They accept that as part of any settlement they will have to downsize and their sons will be left with a much smaller farm. But getting the fund to engage on that basis is very difficult.

The Irish Examiner has attempted on numerous occasions to make contact with representatives of Everyday Finance in connection with a number of cases where receivers have been appointed yet no acknowledgement or response has been received.

The family have animals on the land in both the Ballymacoda lands and the portion of the family farm that is being offered to a neighbour. Should the sale advance, there will a requirement for vacant possession, meaning the animals will have to be taken away. Gerry Murphy is noncommittal on whether he would obstruct such a move but there is plenty of precedent in this country of resistance to that kind of sale.

Family offer solution to Everyday Finance

There is an offer on the table. Through intermediaries in the agriculture sector, the family have been able to secure assistance that would allow them to pay off the fund, and make a standard repayment arrangement for the loan. So far, Everyday Finance isnt playing ball. In recent months the Irish Examiner has reported on a number of cases of businesses in the Munster region where Everyday Finance have sent in receivers but, certainly as of now, have not completed the sell-off of assets.

Some observers believe this is a heavy-handed tactic by the fund to extract the maximum possible from borrowers in the shortest time. The toll it takes on borrowers, however, can be extremely taxing.

For the Murphy family, what is at stake is more than just a business.

People overstretch and run into difficulty but they still have their livelihood, Ita Murphy says.

This is our livelihood, it is our way of life, one we want to pass onto two of our adult children. We never lived a high life or spent big sums of money, we just worked. And now this is what we are being faced with. In what world is that fair?
A fire that broke out in a Dublin tower block earlier this afternoon has been brought under control.

Some seven Dublin Fire Brigade units rushed to a high-rise apartment block beside the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Blanchardstown.

Black smoke could be seen earlier in the afternoon billowing from what appeared to be an apartment balcony about four floors from the top.

Flames could also be seen coming from inside one of the apartments.

By around 6.30pm, the fire brigade tweeted that the fire had been brought under control and it had started to release fire engines from the scene.

A turntable ladder was used as a water tower to help extinguish the fire.

A number of social media accounts - most of which are anonymous - made a variety of unsubstantiated claims about how the fire had started and in what type of accommodation the fire had started.

It is understood that those who were inside the building were safely evacuated and that nobody was hurt in the blaze

Kiowa Daly, a resident on the seventh floor of the high rise building, was in his apartment when the fire began.

He said: I could hear some crackling and sizzling and I thought someone might have just had a barbecue or something on their balcony, which isnt allowed in the first place.

That was my first thought and I could hear it and I went to my girlfriend and I said, you know, I think someone has a barbecue or theres a fire.

At this point, the fire alarm hadnt been set off yet, so I went and did a double check out on the balcony and I could see some ashes falling from above me.

I said, right we need to go, at that point the alarm went off as well. So we grabbed our stuff that we could get, my keys and my wallet, so then we just left.

Weve been out here for the last two or three hours, just waiting for an update.

Mr Daly said there was emotional scenes as people watched their homes become an inferno.

Lots of emotions, Id say. Lots of people were around, he said.

He added: Theres lots of onlookers, the people in the hotel as well had to evacuate as its right beside the apartments, so hundreds outside watching the inferno.

Mr Daly added that from what he could see from the exterior of the building his home was completely burnt.

Another resident of the building, Hrvoje Lasic, returned home after a day out to see his seventh floor apartment ablaze.

I run away straight to see whats happening, so I know theres loads of vehicles firefighters and everything, he said.

I was in fear that my apartment was gone. So it was terrifying.

A person believed to be living in the property, at the scene of a fire in the Falcon's View apartment block in Blanchardstown near Dublin.

Mr Lasic said he may be forced to sleep in his car until he is offered help from the building management.

Former Socialist party TD Ruth Coppinger was alerted to the scene by a resident.

Ms Coppinger said the speed at which the fire spread across floors was concerning.

The situation is it seems to be that theres at least a dozen apartments that are directly impacted with fire and damage, she said.

The really scary thing is how quickly it spread, somebody showed me a video they took, a resident, within five minutes, five floors the fire had spread.

I mean thats actually, serious questions there about building regulations, that there isnt a stop on floors.

It also seems to have started on one floor and gone up and down.

Again a lot of concerning things there because theyre planning on doing a lot more high-rise apartments in this centre.

Ms Coppinger also said the management company was responsible for residents in the immediate term, and stated that Blanchardstown is the epicentre of the housing crisis.

~ Additional reporting from PA
We might start on a positive note. The appointment of an expert negotiator to discuss financial redress with religious bodies is welcome.

Sheila Nunan, former president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), will hold confidential discussions with church institutions, seeking a meaningful contribution towards a 800m redress scheme that compensates just some of the survivors of mother and baby institutions.

Without meaning to be fatalistic, she faces a gargantuan task and will need every shred of negotiating skill in her armoury.

That those negotiations are necessary at all underlines the shameful reluctance of church leaders, religious congregations and lay Catholic organisations to face up to the systemic abuse that was a feature of mother and baby institutions and county homes over several decades.

A second appointment last week reminds us of the nature of that abuse. Daniel MacSweeney, a former International Committee of the Red Cross envoy, was appointed to oversee the excavation of the remains of some 800 babies and infants buried in a septic tank in Tuam.

The disregard and casual cruelty of burying babies in such inhumane circumstances has attracted headlines all over the world. The experiences of the tens of thousands of women forced or coerced  there was little choice  to give up their babies in the last century have also drawn international attention.

The sad truth is that those shocking stories have been minimised at home. At least by official Ireland. Advocates, survivors, and opposition politicians have continually tried  and failed  to point out the gaping holes in a redress scheme that excludes 40% of those affected, some 24,000 people.

What really rankles now, however, is that the church and its institutions  the wrongdoers  have been appointed a negotiator, while those who suffered at their hands have not even had their voices heard, much less been offered a mediator.

Its a point made by Claire McGettrick, co-founder of Adoption Rights Alliance and Justice for Magdalenes Research, in a razor-sharp tweet:

Good the Minister is pushing the religious orders to contribute to redress. But its instructive to note the difference in approach, re religious orders vs affected people: Negotiations for the orders. We know whats best for affected people.

She also used two emojis to hammer home the point; an image of a handshake for religious orders and a big, paternalistic parliament building for affected people.

If appointing a negotiator finally shames the church into making a significant contribution  the vague term used by Minister for Children Roderic OGorman  then it will be worthwhile. At least for the people included in a scheme that shuts out those who were boarded out and those who spent less than six months in an institution.

The appointment of a negotiator, though welcome, also throws into stark relief the many, many failures in addressing the traumatic legacy of Irelands mother and baby institutions.

As Claire McGettrick pointed out, a church negotiator highlights the repeated lack of willingness to engage with the people affected. Im not aware of any 'negotiations' with affected people on the Information Bill, the Burials Bill, the Redress Bill (or the matter of investigations at burial sites). Where were the negotiations on the Special Advocate role? she says.

Its infuriating, then, to see the religious orders being invited to the negotiating table  behind closed doors  while the survivors have been shut out and, worse, ignored or disbelieved.

It also reminds us that Minister OGorman has no way of legally compelling religious orders to contribute to the scheme. In other words, since discussions began in 2021, religious congregations and lay Catholic organisations have been treated with kid gloves.

How else can we interpret the fact that there hasnt even been agreement on how much to contribute to the scheme yet, let alone a red cent in compensation?

Partial reports

It is hard not to blame the delay  perhaps denial is a better word  on the partial nature of the final report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes.

The report described the testimony of more than 500 survivors as contaminated and found no evidence of abuse or forced adoption. Yet it still stands.

Even if it had revealed the true scale and depth of what happened to women pregnant outside marriage, its focus was narrow. It investigated just 18 institutions and the 56,000 women who gave birth in them over seven decades.

Investigate, though, is not the right word. Here are just two reminders of the yawning gulf between evidence presented to the Commission and its subsequent findings:

Finding: There are a small number of complaints of physical abuse. The women worked but they were generally doing the sort of work they would have done at home.

Witness: I arrived at Bessborough and during the summer months my job was cutting the lawn with scissors. I did this every day in a line with a group of other women. We were not allowed to stop when we felt tired. In the winter months I had to polish and scrub the corridors I worked seven days a week every week until I went into labour.

Finding: They were not incarcerated in the strict meaning of the word but, in the earlier years at least, with some justification, they thought they were.

Witness: We were locked in and there was absolutely no way of getting out.

An ageing memorial at the Bessborough Mother and Child cemetery. Picture: Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision

The failure to recognise the trauma inflicted on the women sent to these institutions and the lasting effect on their children makes it easier for the church to shirk its financial responsibilities.

While Minister OGorman insists that the Commissions report tells only part of the story, his own use of language reveals a failure to fully understand that story. For instance, he insists on referring to legislation to give adopted children their birth certs as ground-breaking.

Restoring a right denied for decades breaks no new ground; it simply ends a glaring injustice.

History repeats itself

Yet that kind of thinking  ie, that the authorities are somehow doing affected people a favour  pervades many of the partial measures that have been rolled out over the last few years.

In relation to the church, the softly-softly approach is nothing new either. Recall the controversial indemnity agreement, brokered by former Education Minister Dr Michael Woods in 2002.

Under its terms, the financial contribution from 18 congregations was capped at 127m in a clerical abuse scandal that cost over 1bn.

True, this Government is the first to introduce any legislative measures at all, but that does not mean it has done the people it purports to help any favours. Many survivors will tell you that it has simply made matters worse. Many, too, say they believe the Government is waiting for them to die to escape the issue of redress.

You have to think they have a point. The continuing delay is not only a betrayal, but an enduring stain on Ireland's human rights record.

As a person born in a mother and babys institution, I dont call myself a survivor, but I agree that the Governments too-little-too-late actions have made matters worse.

On the subject of redress, its hard to put it better than Sinn Fein TD Kathleen Funchion. Last October she said it was absolutely disgusting, given their respective wealth, that pharmaceutical companies responsible for illegal vaccine trials would not pay towards redress, while religious orders may not pay.

They should be pursued strongly, she said.

Many others on the opposition benches in the Dail and Senate have echoed her views. And I salute them.

Does appointing a negotiator to talk to religious bodies constitute strong pursuit? I think not, though that will not stop survivors wishing Sheila Nunan luck. Shes going to need it.
Voters in Turkey were returning to the polls on Sunday for the second run-off election for president.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been in power for 20 years, is tipped to secure another five-year term after finishing just short of an outright victory in the first round.

His rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is the leader of Turkeys centre-left main opposition party and a six-party alliance who has promised to restore a more democratic society.

The 74-year-old former bureaucrat has described the run-off as a referendum on the countrys future.

Turkish President and Peoples Alliances presidential candidate Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Khalil Hamra/AP)

More than 64 million people are eligible to cast ballots with preliminary results expected within hours of the polls closing at 5pm local time on Sunday.

The outcome could have implications far beyond Ankara with Turkey playing a key role in Nato.

Turkey vetoed Swedens bid to join the alliance and purchased Russian missile-defence systems, prompting the United States to oust Turkey from a US-led fighter-jet project.

But Mr Erdogans government helped broker a deal which allowed Ukrainian grain shipments and averted a global food crisis.

The May 14 election  the first time Mr Erdogan did not win outright  saw an 87% turnout, and strong participation is expected again on Sunday.

A woman walks past a billboard of Turkish CHP party leader and Nation Alliances presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, centre (Emrah Gurel/AP)

If he wins, Mr Erdogan, 69, could remain in power until 2028.

After three stints as prime minister and two as president, the devout Muslim who heads the conservative and religious Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is already Turkeys longest-serving leader.

He transformed the presidency from a largely ceremonial role to a powerful office through a narrowly won 2017 referendum that scrapped Turkeys parliamentary system of governance. He was the first directly elected president in 2014 and won the 2018 election that ushered in the executive presidency.

Critics blame Mr Erdogans unconventional economic policies for skyrocketing inflation that has fuelled a cost-of-living crisis while many also blamed his government for the slow response to the earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey in February.

Supporters of Turkish President and Peoples Alliances presidential candidate Recep Tayyip Erdogan, attend an election campaign rally in Istanbul on Saturday (Khalil Hamra/AP)

Mr Kilicdaroglu has led the pro-secular Republican Peoples Party, or CHP, since 2010. He campaigned on a promise to reverse Mr Erdogans democratic backsliding, restore the economy by reverting to more conventional policies and to improve ties with the West.

In a frantic do-or-die effort to reach out to nationalist voters in the run-off, he vowed to send back refugees and ruled out any peace negotiations with Kurdish militants if he is elected.

Mr Erdogan received the endorsement of third-place candidate, nationalist politician Sinan Ogan, who garnered 5.2% of the votes and is no longer in the race. A staunchly anti-migrant party that had supported his candidacy, announced it would back Mr Kilicdaroglu.

Mr Erdogans AKP party and its allies retained a majority of seats in parliament following a legislative election on May 14.
The United States and Saudi Arabia have called on warring sides in Sudan to extend a ceasefire due to expire on Monday.

The Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary force, battling for control of Sudan since mid-April, had agreed last week to the week-long truce brokered by the US and the Saudis.

However, the ceasefire, like others before it, did not stop the fighting in the capital of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

In a joint statement early on Sunday, the US and Saudi Arabia called for an extension of the current truce, which expires at 9.45pm local time on Monday.

While imperfect, an extension nonetheless will facilitate the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people, the statement said.

The statement also urged Sudans military government and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to continue negotiations.

The fighting broke out in mid-April between the military and the powerful RSF. Both military chief Gen Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF leader Gen Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo led the 2021 coup that removed the Western-backed government of prime minister Abdalla Hamdok.

People queue outside a bakery during a ceasefire in Khartoum, Sudan (Marwan Ali/AP)

The fighting turned Khartoum and the adjacent city of Omdurman into a battleground. The clashes also spread elsewhere in the country, including the war-wracked Darfur region.

The conflict has killed hundreds of people, wounded thousands and pushed the country to near collapse. It forced more than 1.3 million out of their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, or to neighbouring nations.

Residents reported renewed sporadic clashes on Sunday in parts of Omdurman, where the armys aircraft were seen flying over the city. Fighting was also reported in al-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur.

The US-Saudi statement came two days after Gen Burhan demanded in a letter to the UN secretary-general that the UN envoy to his country be removed.

UN chief Antonio Guterres was shocked by the letter, a spokesman said.

The envoy, Volker Perthes, has been a key mediator in Sudan, first during the countrys fitful attempts to transition to democracy and then during efforts to end the current fighting.

Gen Burhans letter came after Mr Perthes accused the warring parties of disregarding the laws of war by attacking homes, shops, places of worship and water and electricity installations.

In his briefing to the UN Security Council last week, Mr Perthes blamed the leaders of the military and the RSF for the war, saying they have chosen to settle their unresolved conflict on the battlefield rather than at the table.
Indias major opposition parties have boycotted the inauguration of a new parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a rare show of unity against his Hindu nationalist ruling party.

Mr Modi inaugurated the building in the capital New Delhi on Sunday by offering prayers as Hindu priests chanted religious hymns.

Opposition parties criticised the event, saying Mr Modi had side-lined President Droupadi Murmu, who has only ceremonial powers but is the head of state and highest constitutional authority.

Shortly after the inauguration, a visibly beaming Mr Modi entered parliament amid rousing applause by his party politicians, who chanted his name.

He delivered an almost 40-minute speech in which he hailed Indias parliamentary democracy and said the country has left behind its colonial past, referring to the old parliament building that was built by the British when they ruled India.

Mr Modis party has ruled for nine years and is seeking a third term in next years election.

Hindu priests hand over a royal golden sceptre to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the inauguration ceremony (PA)

As parliamentarians thumped their desks, Mr Modi said: India is the mother of democracy.

Several years of foreign rule stole our pride from us. Today, India has left behind that colonial mindset.

The opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted: Parliament is the voice of the people. The Prime Minister is considering the inauguration of the parliament House as a coronation.

At least 19 opposition parties skipped the event, which coincided with the birth anniversary of a Hindu nationalist ideologue.

Opposition parties had said in a statement on Wednesday that Mr Modis decision to inaugurate the building was a grave insult to Indias democracy, because the government had disqualified, suspended and muted opposition politicians while passing controversial legislation with little debate.

When the soul of democracy has been sucked out from the parliament, we find no value in a new building, the parties said.

Indias powerful home minister Amit Shah said the opposition had politicised the event, while others within Mr Modis party said the boycott was an insult to the prime minister.

Indian PM Narendra Modi, second left, inaugurates the new Parliament building (PA)

The new triangular-shaped building  built at an estimated cost of almost 100 million  is part of a 2.3 billion revamp of British-era offices and residences in central New Delhi that will also include blocks of buildings to house government ministries and departments, and Mr Modis new private residence.

The entire project, called the Central Vista, is spread over 1.9 miles.

The project was announced in 2019, and Mr Modi laid the foundation in December 2020.

The plan has drawn intense criticism from opposition politicians, architects and heritage experts, many of whom called it environmentally irresponsible, a threat to cultural heritage and too expensive.

Outrage grew in 2021, when at least 12 opposition parties questioned the projects timing, saying it was built as the country faced a devastating surge in coronavirus cases. They branded the revamp as Mr Modis vanity project and said its construction was prioritised over the loss of lives and livelihoods during the pandemic.
A group of some 30 migrants seeking asylum, including small children, has been stuck at Polands border wall with Belarus for three days, Polish human rights activists have said.

Although the migrants were outside Polands border wall, activists from Grupa Granica (Border Group) said they were on Polish territory and Belarus was not allowing them to turn back.

In Belarus, they are not safe, activist Marta Staniszewska said.

The Belarusian services, as this group has told us, threaten them that if they return, they will be beaten, or that they will kill them, Ms Staniszewska told The Associated Press.

A Polish border guard patrols the metal wall on the border between Poland and Belarus, near Kuznice, Poland (Michal Dyjuk/AP/PA)

The migrants say that several among them are sick and the children have mosquito bites, according to Ms Staniszewska.

A representative of Polands ombudsmans office visited and talked to the group on Sunday, but later told reporters that the decision about whether to allow them into the country belongs to the Polish Border Guard.

If these persons are indeed within the jurisdiction of the (Polish) Border Guard and declare their willingness to apply for international protection, then . such applications should be accepted, Maciej Grzeskowiak said.

Last year, Poland put up almost 190 kilometres (117 miles) of tall metal wall intended to stop thousands of migrants from Asia and Africa entering the country from Belarus.

The European Union has accused authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of aiding illegal border crossings in retaliation for EU sanctions. Mr Lukashenko denies encouraging migration to Europe.

Polands most powerful politician, the head of Polands right-wing ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said recently that building the wall was a good decision. He said it was protecting Poland and the EU against hostile moves by Belarus and Russia.

Despite the wall, up to 150 migrants of various nationalities, often with Russian visas in their documents, try to cross illegally into Poland each day, according to the Border Guard.

It is not possible from Polands side to determine what happens to the groups.
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.
News / National

by Staff reporter

THE mere mention of the word "elections" has a chilling effect on Plaxedes Mutariswa Ndira.Memories of her late husband, Tonderai Ndira, who was a staunch MDC-T activist, immediately engulf her, particularly her visit to Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare where she saw his bruised, lifeless and mutilated body for the first time.Ndira's eyes had been plucked out, the tongue had been cut out and its remainder was tied with a wire. His genitals were also tied with a wire.The signs of heavy torture and indeed a very painful death were there to see. She could only imagine the amount of pain he felt in the final moments of his life.She remembers vividly the day Ndira was abducted by suspected state security agents at their Mabvuku home. It was early in the morning on 14 May 2008.At the time, political tension was high in the country.MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai had outpolled the then president Robert Mugabe in the first round of elections after securing 47.87% of the votes against Mugabe's 43.24% elections held on 29 March 2008. This was the first time that Mugabe had been beaten in an election but the military would have none of it.The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission took more than a month to announce presidential election results amid suspicion they were tampering with figures to rescue Mugabe, who had in fact lost by a wider margin.When Zec eventually announced the result on 2 May, Tsvangirai had outpolled Mugabe but failed to garner enough votes to be declared president. A runoff was declared between the two titans.The military however took over the Zanu-PF campaign, before embarking on a reign of terror countrywide.The pogrom resulted in countless killings, rape, abductions and cases of arson.At the time of Ndira's abduction - two weeks after the presidential election results were announced - Plaxedes thought it was yet another abduction or arrest. Ndira had been arrested 58 times for his political activism, facing numerus charges ranging from criminal nuisance to attempted murder.On each occasion, he would come back home after spending time in police cells or remand prison, but he would immediately resume his fight for democracy.But that was the last time Plaxedes would see him alive.Fifteen years after Ndira's abduction and gruesome murder, The NewsHawks tracked down Plaxedes to her rented home in Harare's Highfield suburb, where she is using two rooms.She sits in the corner of her sofa, in a poorly lit room that doubles as the kitchen and the lounge, as she welcomes this reporter, around 5pm on a Tuesday.There is no electricity in the area due to load shedding. The room is further darkened by the towering kitchen appliances in the room, which block light.She relives what happened."On 13 May (2008) he left home and cautioned me against opening the door when strangers came knocking. A group of men came knocking but I did not respond until they left," she said."My husband then called me and told me to buy fish as relish for our evening meal. I did so and when he came he offered to cook. He was just jovial besides the crackdown. We retired for bed."The next morning, a vehicle with about 10 men parked at the entrance to the yard and four men disembarked."They stormed the kitchen where I was preparing for the children to go to school and asked to see my husband. Before I could even respond, they went to the bedroom where he was still sleeping."Another man disembarked and stood at the kitchen door wielding a rifle. I asked him what kind of policing this was and he asked if I had a problem with it."I heard the scuffle between my husband and the men who had entered the bedroom and I rushed out, hoping to solicit help from neighbours."As I rushed out screaming, the neighbours came out, but they couldn't do anything because the gun-wielding man pointed the gun at them."Among those who rushed to the house were two of Ndira's friends."They wanted to advance, but were restrained by the sight of the gun," she said.Plaxedes thought she would be able to see him at the police station, as had become the norm.Ndira was no stranger to being arrested. The arrests had taken him away from his family dozens of times. Their second child was born in 2002 during Ndira's seven-month stay in remand prison but, even then, he came back.She blankly stares at the floor as she tries to remember the exact charge, but it escapes her.Plaxedes went to Mabvuku Police Station after the arrest, but the police officers said they were not aware of the arrest.She then tried filing a missing person's report, but was turned away. Hours turned into days without a word.She then sought divine help from apostolic sects and shrines in Mabvuku for a fortnight in an effort to find her husband.While at one of the shrines, she received a call from her husband's brother, Cosmas, who asked what his brother was wearing on the day he was abducted. Beyond these questions, Cosmas Ndira did not divulge anything and this heightened her anxiety.She left the shrine and on her way home she kept trying Cosmas' phone, but he was not picking the calls.She got another call from Ndira's friend, James Chidhakwa, who asked what Tonderai was wearing on the day that he diasppeared and this worsened her anxiety."I wanted to find out if they had found him, but no one was giving me answers. I was confused but also a bit distressed on why there was so much secrecy around these questions," she said with rheumy eyes."I got home and asked some guy that we lived with to call the two men who were not picking my calls anymore. Surprisingly, he actually spoke to them and stood from where he was sitting and left without a word. I think they told him the truth."A few hours later, Cosmas and Chidhakwa came with our neighbour and told me that they had found him in a terrible state, without eyes. The remainder of his tongue was tied with a wire so were his genitals. His eyes were gouged out."Ndira's decomposing body was found dumped in Goromonzi on 22 May, before it was brought to Parirenyatwa Hospital, where Cosmas and Chidhakwa identified it.For the last 15 years, Plaxedes has been hopping from one high-density suburb to another, hoping to avoid scrutiny on herself and children.He children were 10 and six when their father was killed. She never reveals her past in the new neighbourhood and keeps a very low profile.She also does not attend any political party meetings although she always exercises her constitutional right to vote."You will never see my body at a party rally or meeting. Never! I have told my son to do the same. When Zanu-PF people bring their regalia, we take it and wear, when they bring registers for cell we register, but they will never see me set foot at their meetings. I know what politics does. The only thing that I will do is to vote," she said.She has secured a job and has been fending for her children with aid from human rights organisations."Growing up we knew that men are the bread winners, we never bothered ourselves with looking for money because it was the husband's job. This was my mindset before I was reduced to a beggar. One time I actually slept at Harvest House hoping to get something from the social welfare department, but not much could be availed," she said."When Tsvangirai and Susan were alive we would just inform them of our predicament as wives of men that had been killed for aligning with the party. Help would come. But, sometimes there were gatekeepers who would say the president is not around'."This broke my heart because had it not been for the party my husband would not have died that way. For it to be called MDC it was my husband and others who were on the frontline, but they forget those efforts because our husbands are dead now," she added.In 2021, CCC president Nelson Chamisa, in his capacity as MDC-Alliance leader then, gave the widows Christmas hampers, and that was it.In commemorating Ndira and the day he was found dead, CCC party members, led by deputy spokesperson Gift Siziba, visited his grave last weekend. Plaxedes was excluded.What pains her the most, though, is that those responsible for her husband's gruesome murder were never brought to account.She still hopes that the perpetrators will be arrested one day and face justice.No arrests were made in connection with the murder. She is worried that abductions, killings and impunity continue.The killing of CCC activist Moreblessing Ali after last year's 26 March by-elections and the murder of Mboneni Ncube at a rally in Kwekwe ahead of those polls, all remind her of her late husband's fate.In 2015, journalist and activist Itai Dzamara was abducted in similar fashion and has never been found.Plaxedes can only hope for justice one day.
News / National

by Staff reporter

A NEW report by the Research and Advocacy Unit (Rau) has predicted increased organised violence and torture, particularly in urban areas, highlighting the need for more surveillance as the country heads towards the August general election.Three months away from the election, key electoral reforms for a credible poll have still not been implemented.While the Zanu-PF government has been painting a rosy picture of tolerance against dissenting voices, new data has shown that incidents of organised violence and torture have been on the rise in urban areas, particularly Harare.According to the report, Harare has witnessed an escalation in cases of violence between 2017 and 2021.Data in a Rau's report titled A Short History of Organised Violence and Torture in Zimbabwe (1972-20) shows that the country is in a very parlous state - similar to the run-up to the elections in 2008, which was underlined by bloodshed."Some things are very different to the situation in 2008. The ruling party, Zanu-PF, seems beset by serious internal conflicts, with some suggesting that there are those in the party who do not believe that Emmerson Mnangagwa, the current president, can win the presidential poll in 2023. This may give the forthcoming elections a much greater tension and raise the possibility of a return to violence," reads part of the report.Harare is the most frequent site of violations. For instance, the capital recorded 14% of all violence cases in 2018, which rose to 28% in 2019.The cases rose to 30% in 2020 and were pegged at 25% by 2021. While there have been increasing rates of violations in Manicaland, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West and the Midlands, among other provinces, the changes have not been as dramatic as in Harare.The high incidence of violence has been attributed to Zanu-PF's strenuous efforts to win a base in the urban areas, and over-zealous enforcement of Covid-19 regulations by the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP)."There are small trends in both data sources for violations to be increasing, and not explained by the enforcement any longer of Covid-19 regulations. This trend needs careful monitoring as the country moves towards elections and the usual process of violence associated with elections taking place."Here note the violent events against the Citizens' Coalition for Change (CCC) in 2022 beginning from the time that the reformed party became active, with violence and harassment being reported during the March by-elections."Overall, a total of 9 953 violations over the period 2019 to 2021. In past years the monthly average of violations in non-election years was 365 reported violations as opposed to 706 in election years. The monthly average reported by the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) is lower than the non-election average reported, around 200 cases per month on average, but as pointed out in a previous report, this does not suggest that OVT has disappeared since the coup," according to the report.According to the report, a total of 52 murders cases were recorded between 2018 and 2021, 71% of which were allegedly committed by the ZRP, the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA), and Zanu-PF supporters.According to the report, the major perpetrators have been the police, accounting for 10% of violations in 2018, which rose to 20% in 2019. The violations increased to 30% in 2020, which further increased to 40% in 2021.The army had the least, recording 5% in 2018 after the 2018 elections which remained steady at 5% in 2019. The violations increased to 10% in 2020 which later slumped to 6.3% in 2021.Zanu-PF however has been the major perpetrator of violence ahead of elections. For instance, the party accounted for 40% of violations in 2018.The figure fell to 30% in 2019 after the 2018 election to 10% in 2020. However, the statistics rose to 27% in 2021."What is notable about the alleged perpetrators is the consistent increase in reports about the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), presumably with many reports dealing with events linked to the enforcement of Covid-19 regulations."Violations of human rights during lockdown periods is amply detailed throughout the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) reports in 2020 and 2021. There is also a decline in reports of alleged violations by Zanu-PF supporters, from being the most frequent alleged perpetrators in 2018, but a resurgence is noted in 2021, presumably because of looming elections and reforming of the major opposition under the CCC as pointed out above in the previous section."Whilst the frequency may be less than it was in the years leading up to 2008 and there have been far fewer serious violations, it is not evident that the Zimbabwe government can claim to be human rights respecting," according to the report.The government has also been jailing dissenting voices.This month, Zengeza West legislator Job Sikhala was convicted, almost a year after his arrest, and slapped with a suspended six-month custodial sentence and a US$600 fine. Sikhala was however not released from custody, despite spending over 300 days in prison, with the state arguing he has outstanding cases.Another opposition politician, Jacob Ngarivhume, was arrested for leading and organising the 31 July 2020 protests. He was convicted by Harare magistrate Feresi Chakanyuka and has been sentenced to 48 months imprisonment, with 12 months suspended.
[Mogadishu, 30 December 2022: Somalias Ministry of environment and climate change has handed over different types of tree seedlings to Banadir regional administration, as part of the citys reforestation drive. This is the first step in the implementation of the presidents vision of Green Somalia.

The initiative aims to plant 100 thousand trees in the city of Mogadishu, to serve as an example for all other major towns in the country. The trees, which will contribute to the beautification of the city, can grow quickly and are suitable for Mogadishus climate, were donated by the Great Green Wall and the University of Peace.

The Deputy Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Dr. Saeed Mohamed Ali, said the ministrys tree seedlings hand over to the regional administration shows its commitment to realizing Green Somalia vision. He noted, the ministry has implemented the presidents order of beginning the reforestation of Banadir region before the end of the year by handing over the tree seedlings, which form the foundation of the process implementation.

The best way to bring immediate results to fight climate change and revive our land is reforestation, said Dr. Saeed.

The ministry of environment and climate change has promised to plant 10 million trees across the country. The tree planting initiative is meant to restore the countrys lost forests and green lands. It is believed, the reforestation will significantly mitigate the recurring droughts experienced across the country.
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Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week

TORONTO  Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week:

Bibic speech

BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic is scheduled to give a speech to the Canadian Club Toronto on Monday. The speech comes as Bibic and BCE face fresh competition in the wireless market from rival Freedom Mobile, which was acquired by Quebecor Inc.'s Videotron as part of the sale of Shaw Communications Inc. to Rogers Communications Inc.

GDP numbers

Statistics Canada will release its figures for gross domestic product for March and the first quarter of 2023 on Wednesday. The agency's preliminary estimate released last month suggested the economy contracted by 0.1 per cent in March and grew at an annualized rate of 2.5 per cent in the first quarter.

Bank earnings

National Bank of Canada is set to release its second-quarter results before financial markets open on Wednesday, while Laurentian Bank to report its results on Thursday. The results follow results from some of Canada's other big banks last week that showed the sector under pressure as they set aside more money for bad loans.

Cannabis conference

Canada's cannabis industry will gather in Toronto for the Lift Cannabis Business Conference starting Thursday. David Lobo, the Ontario Cannabis Store's president and chief executive, is due to discuss the state of the legal pot marketplace as the country approaches its fifth anniversary of cannabis legalization.

BRP results

BRP Inc. will release its results for the first quarter of its 2024 financial year and hold its annual meeting on Thursday. The maker of Ski-Doo and Sea-Doo vehicles said earlier this year that despite macro concerns it expects to continue growth and normalized earnings per share between $12.25 and $12.75 for its 2024 financial year, an increase of two to six per cent compared with its 2023 financial year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2023.

Companies in this story: (TSX:BCE, TSX:NA, TSX:LB, TSX:DOO)

The Canadian Press
WASHINGTON  House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced a deal in principle Saturday night that would stave off a first-ever default on the nations debt as long as it can clear both chambers of Congress before June 5.

The agreement would address the nations debt limit and include a historic reduction in spending, McCarthy said, though he declined to give details during brief remarks from the U.S. Capitol building or answer questions. McCarthy also signaled there will be enhanced work requirements for some federal safety net programs, a priority for Republicans.

President Joe Biden in a statement after McCarthy spoke called the agreement an important step forward that reduces spending while protecting critical programs for working people and growing the economy for everyone. And, the agreement protects my and Congressional Democrats key priorities and legislative accomplishments.

In a hint, though, that some Democrats may find the deal hard to accept, Biden added, The agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want. Thats the responsibility of governing.

The White House did not provide further details, but said legislative text will be finalized over the next day. I strongly urge both chambers to pass the agreement right away, Biden said.

The White House had said earlier that Biden spoke with McCarthy on Saturday evening, and before that with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

McCarthy said he expects to have the bill text by Sunday, and schedule a House vote by Wednesday.

We still have more work to do tonight to finish all the writing of it, McCarthy said.

McCarthy was expected to speak with members of the House Republican conference on a call later Saturday night.

The California Republican said the legislation has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce, rein in government overreach. There are no new taxes, no new government programs. Theres a lot more within the bill.

McCarthy said hell speak with the president again Sunday afternoon.

Spending held flat

The Associated Press reported that the agreement would address the debt limit for two years while holding spending flat for the upcoming fiscal year, which is slated to begin Oct. 1. The agreement would set additional limits on spending during the following fiscal year, 2025.

The Biden administration also reportedly agreed to enhanced work requirements on federal food assistance, according to the AP.

U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, front, with GOP Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana at left, speaks briefly to reporters about a deal on the debt ceiling he said has been reached with the White House, on May 27, 2023. (Screenshot from speakers office webcast)

A debt ceiling bill passed by the House expanded work requirements for certain recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program who do not have children. The idea has gained traction in a bill recently introduced by Rep. Dusty Johnson, a South Dakota Republican.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned lawmakers that without an enacted agreement, the country could begin a default as soon as June 5.

McCarthy will now need to sell the deal to U.S. House Republicans, many of whom signaled opposition to a bipartisan deal far before one was struck. House GOP leaders will likely need the help of Democrats in that chamber to get the 218 votes needed to pass the legislation.

Democrats who control the U.S. Senate will need the help of Republicans to move the agreement through that chamber, where the legislative filibuster requires at least 60 senators to vote to move legislation toward final passage.
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Ann Arbor (Informed Comment)  Irans Tasnim News Agency reports that on Saturday deadly clashes broke out between Iranian border guards in the Zabul district of Sistan and Baluchistant Province and their opposite numbers on the Afghanistan side in the Keng District of Nimruz Province.

Tasnim wrote, Conscript Mehdi Ahmadi was martyred while guarding the borders of Islamic Irans glory and honor in an armed conflict with forces under the command of the Taliban on the Iran-Afghanistan border. The slain border guard was unmarried and a resident of North Khorasan province. Two other border guards were injured, it reported.

Tasnim added, In this conflict, which was accompanied by heavy fire by the border guards, severe casualties were also caused to people under the command of the Taliban.

The Nida-yi Baluch site posted to Twitter video purported to show Iranians firing mortars and rockets into the Makakai region of Nimruz Province, some of which landed near the provincial capital, Zaranj.

The videos received from the other side of the border show that the Iranian border guards continue to fire in Afghanistan using heavy weapons. The residents of Zaranj claim that the weapons fired by Iran into Afghanistan cause casualties:

                            .                    . pic.twitter.com/dDFZyCKIBx   _Nedaeybaloch (@nedaeybaloch) May 27, 2023

The issue over which tensions are running high is how to divide the waters of the Helmand River, which the two nations must share.

Chinas Xinhua News Agency reported that Iranian member of parliament Hossein-Ali Shahriari, who represents Zahidan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan Province, charged the Taliban government in Afghanistan with stopping up the flow of the Helman River so that its waters were not reaching Iran. He said Iranian satellite photos demonstrated that the Afghans were storing extra water in the Kamal Khan Dam and other reservoirs. He complained that the Afghans have recently built new dams that are storing water that would otherwise have flowed to Iran.

A few years ago, Fatemeh Aman wrote a good summary of this conflict for the Atlantic Council, noting that drought and climate change have exacerbated the conflict.

Both countries have built dams on the Helmand and irrigated off it, often to raise water-hungry crops not suitable to this arid environment.

She notes, The Helmand is the longest river in Afghanistan, constituting over 40 percent of Afghanistans surface water. With 95 percent of the Helmand located in Afghanistan, it is a critical source of livelihood for the countrys southern and southwestern provinces.

The river flows into Irans arid southwest, where the inhabitants also need and value it.

The Helmand used to feed the Hamoun wetlands on the Iran side and lakes on the Afghan side, but damming, irrigation, and drought have partially dried these up, creating conditions for toxic dust clouds.

In short, the conflict here is a little like the one between Egypt and Ethiopia over damming the Nile.

Iran and Afghanistan are projected to heat up faster than the world average, twice as fast, in fact. Already, poor water management and extra heat have had a devastating effect on the Helmand basin. Extra heat dries out the soil and contributes to more intense and more frequent droughts. It also causes greater and more rapid evaporation of water from lakes and rivers. Many social scientists foresee water wars as a result. This border clash is a small omen of bigger conflicts to come.
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By Tom Einhorn, University of British Columbia | 

Thousands of people recently took to the streets of the Old City in Jerusalem for the annual far-right Flag March.

Every year, on Jerusalem Day, marchers descend on Jerusalem with Israeli flags in hand and terrorize the citys non-Jewish population. As they make their way to the Western Wall at the heart of the Old City, they chant racist slogans, vandalize storefronts and homes and beat up anyone in their path.

As with previous flag marches, counter-protests also took place. But this year, Israeli pro-democracy organisation Tikva called on its supporters to participate in a counter-march in an unusual way. The group tweeted: After we took back the flag and the Declaration of Independence, its time we take back Jerusalem Day as well! The statement was accompanied by an Israeli flag emoji.

The tweet referred to the rapid transformation the Israeli flag has undergone recently. The flag has long been associated with the political right. As evidenced by the Flag March, the right often uses national symbols centred around the flag.

But in just a few short weeks of protest, Israeli pro-democracy activists managed to make the flag switch sides. What was previously staunchly seen as the property of the right is now a contested political battleground.

Claiming the flag

Since late 2022, Israel has been swept by an intense wave of protests against the governments proposed judicial reforms. Critics say the reforms are anti-democratic and will undermine the countys judiciary and weaken the separation of powers.

The governments efforts to enact the reforms have been met by massive demonstrations across the country.

The most striking visual element of the protests is the overwhelming presence of Israels national flag, practically drowning out all other symbols.

Given that anti-government protesters are generally associated with Israels centre-left, this is quite unusual. Israeli left-of-centre politics has tended to downplay national symbols, and particularly the flag, in recent decades for various reasons, leaving the right to lay claim to them mostly uncontested.

Yet the national flag is now taking centre stage at anti-government protests. This shift has dramatically changed attitudes towards the flag across the Israeli political spectrum. Protesters report they no longer feel alienated by the flag and fly it proudly, while right-wing figures are calling on their supporters to not give up on the flag.

The association between the flag and anti-reform dissent had grown so strong that police refused to grant a licence to protesters on Independence Day unless they promised not to fly the flag.

Flags as protest symbols

Throughout Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus many years in power, opposition groups have used different symbols to mobilize popular dissent, with varying degrees of success. The 2020-2021 protests that briefly ousted Netanyahu used the Black Flag as its primary symbol, imagery taken from a well-known Israeli proverb.

Using the national flag this time around didnt happen by chance. Movement leaders organized to make Israeli flags available to demonstrators at major protest sites.

Shikma Schwartzman-Bressler, one of the protest movements leaders, told Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

Our activity is having an effect. We have already reclaimed the national flag, the national anthem, the Declaration of Independence  symbols that until not long ago were [seen as] assets of the nondemocratic camp. Today it is clear to the public that the flag is us and democracy is us.

Symbols are able to convey complex cultural meanings quickly, and activists use them to capture fleeting public and media attention and as powerful aids for mobilization.

Its no surprise that when we think of social movements, often the first thing that comes to mind are the symbols most strongly associated with them.

Think of the rainbow flag, for instance, originally designed as a protest symbol in the 1970s and now often the first thing that comes to mind when we think of the LGBTQ2S+ community. These symbols are imbued with meaning by social movements during times of protest and continue to resonate long after the protest has subsided.

By reclaiming the Israeli flag, protesters are denying their opponents one of their most powerful symbols. But more importantly, flying the flag allows activists to frame their protest as a popular uprising and deny the right the opportunity to label any type of dissent as anti-patriotic and treasonous. Pictures of the protests frequently show a sea of Israeli flags stretching out as far as the eye can see in every direction. How can this kind of protest be unpatriotic?

Centering the Israeli flag has benefited the protest in some ways, but it has also alienated Israels Palestinian population. As the Israeli flags prominence grew, Arab and Jewish anti-occupation activists found that tolerance towards the Palestinian flag diminished, prompting some to ask whether Palestinians are even welcome and what kind of democracy protesters are advocating for.

Israel is experiencing an open public debate over who gets to claim national symbols, which national symbols are represented, who gets to speak for the Israeli public and who is included in that public.

This debate might ring a bell for Canadians as they recall the Freedom Convoy protests. Truckers and their supporters adopted the Canadian flag as a symbol of their movement which served as a major element in their messaging.

For many Canadians, seeing the flag used that way  particularly, seeing it flying next to hate symbols like swastikas and Confederate flags  sparked uneasiness with the flag and what it represents. That led to a debate about what the flag represents, what it should represent and the history of the flag.

Protests are social arenas in which meanings are made and fought over. The Israeli and Canadian cases demonstrate how battles over meaning arent limited to new or obscure symbols. Israeli activists swift rewriting of the political meaning surrounding their national flag, and Canadian truckers co-opting the Canadian flag, show how even very established symbols can be dramatically reinterpreted.

Tom Einhorn, PhD Candidate, Sociology, University of British Columbia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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( Middle East Monitor )  The extremist Israeli government is preparing a law to dismiss Israeli Arab students who raise the Palestine flag or express their support for Palestinian resistance inside universities, Israel Hayom revealed on Thursday.

An extremist Israeli Mk from the far-right Otzma Yehudit Party is preparing the law, the Israeli newspaper disclosed, pointing out that the draft law is currently in its final stages.

If an Arab student is charged with raising the Palestine flag or supporting the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation, according to the law, they would be dismissed from their university.

Meanwhile, the law calls for academic institutions to prevent the existence of student bodies that violate Israeli laws.

According to the Israeli daily, heads of Israeli universities strongly criticised the law, stressing: It is problematic and dangerous.

Heads of Israeli universities expressed their hope that the education minister would undermine the law proposal at the Knessets Legislative Committee.

They suggested that such a law aims to turn universities into arms for the Israeli police and intelligence services as they would be ordered to monitor thousands of students and punish them over issues protected under the freedom of expression laws.

At the same time, the university heads indicated that such a law has consequences for the academic ties and status between Israeli universities and their international counterparts.

Article continues after bonus IC video

Middle East Eye: Israel: Ben-Gvir vows to remove disloyal citizens from West Bank

In addition, it would lead to a wide-scale wave of academic boycotts of Israeli universities.

Head of Tel Aviv University Ariel Porat responded to the law proposal: The Palestinian Authority is not a hostile state or a terrorist organisation. Raising its flag is protected under the freedom of expression law.

Porat added: If we applied this law, we would be likely obliged to have a large number of our students away from the university. They would not bear this suppression and would not hesitate to raise the PA flag.

The current Israeli government is the most extremist ever in Israels history. Since its formation last year, it has introduced several apartheid laws affecting Arabs in Israel and the Palestinians and encouraged illegal settlement.

Via Middle East Monitor
An unsettled pattern across the Prairies will stay put as we round out the final days of May. This means a daily threat for thunderstorms for the foreseeable future, with a severe risk in southeastern Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba.

People in these regions will want to be weather-aware and stay tuned for updates Monday and Tuesday. While the supercell risk is lower moving forward, tornado-warned storms battered parts of southern Saskatchewan on Saturday evening. It resulted in the first confirmed tornado in Canada for the 2023 season. Fortunately, the tornado was rated EF-0 and no damages or injuries were reported.

Visit The Weather Network's wildfire hub to keep up with the latest on the active start to wildfire season across Western Canada.

image4

Lingering storm threat spills into the new workweek

The robust Rex block over Ontario and a series of troughs are to blame for the continuous stormy days on the southern Prairies, finishing up the weekend and beyond.

Summer-like heat will keep daytime highs in the upper 20s and low 30s through the long range, especially in southern Manitoba. The combination of heat and an active pattern will fuel the risk for storms in the forecast for several days, again primarily focused on southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Storm risk on Monday

Areas: Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

Weather: There is a risk of severe thunderstorms across southern Alberta Monday afternoon, along with the threat of severe thunderstorms across the Red River Valley and southern Manitoba. The storms across Manitoba will have larger amounts of moisture to work with, so torrential downpours are also possible across the province.

Clusters of thunderstorms will develop in North Dakota and move north across the border into the evening hours. There will be more widespread storm energy available on Monday as compared to Sunday to fuel these storms as they move north. Larger hail could therefore be a feature with that touch more thunderstorm energy to work with.

The storm threat also expands into northwestern Ontario, with the Kenora and Rainy River Districts possibly seeing some thunderstorms reach severe limits.

Baron - Monday PR storm - May29

Storm risk hangs on for Tuesday and Wednesday

Areas: Central Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, southern Manitoba, and northwestern Ontario

Weather: Another weak trough stalls across Alberta, creating a severe weather risk for regions southwest of Edmonton, towards the foothills. The second area of concern is southeastern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where a couple of upper-level boundaries will trigger thunderstorm activity Tuesday afternoon. The risk of tornadoes remains low across the Prairies on Monday and Tuesday, but that does not mean the risk is zero.

The severe risk also once again extends into the Kenora and Rainy River Districts of northwestern Ontario, with the chance of storms reaching severe levels becoming slightly more likely than Monday's risk.

Through the rest of the week, we have high confidence that a daily thunderstorm risk will exist across the Prairies, with storms becoming locally severe in nature.

Baron - Tuesday PR storm - May29

Analysis

Disturbances embedded in a westerly flow will continue to trigger more thunderstorms on Monday and Tuesday.

As the upper level pattern evolves by Wednesday, the Prairies are put in an unstable southerly flow on the backside of a strong high pressure ridge across northwestern Ontario. This means there will be a daily thunderstorm risk across the region, so check back often for severe and stormy weather updates.

Prepare

Stay alert and monitor the forecast for updates. Have a plan and a place to head indoors if the weather changes.

[Watches](https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/science/explainers/how-severe-weather-is-communicated-in-canada) mean conditions are favourable for the development of severe thunderstorms.

[Warnings](https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/science/explainers/how-severe-weather-is-communicated-in-canada) mean they are imminent or occurring in your area.

WATCHWARNING

Stay tuned to The Weather Network for more forecast updates on the Prairies.
Just when Lee Do Hyun and Ra Mi Ran decide to rebuild their lives together, long-buried truths begin to unfold one by one. Here's what happened in "The Good Bad Mother" episode 10.

'The Good Bad Mother' Episode 10: Danger Awaits Choi Kang Ho

In "The Good Bad Mother" Episode 10, Jin Young Soon (Ra Mi Ran) burns everything that would remind Choi Kang Ho (Lee Do Hyun) of his past life.

However, two unknown men rush into their farm and beat them, taunting Choi Kang Ho. Jin Young Soon tries to stop them, saying that her son doesn't remember anything from his past.

Song Woo Byeok (Choi Moo Sung) refuses to believe her, asking her to surrender every piece of evidence that Choi Kang Ho has. Jin Young Soon then promises that she burned them all.

Meanwhile, Choi Kang Ho gets up and says that he will tell him everything.

Choi Kang Ho's Blind Dates

The following day, Jin Young Soon plans to marry off her son in hopes to make him more mature and responsible.

Choi Kang Ho then asks whether he will become a prosecutor once again, which Jin Young Soon refuses to answer, saying that they should focus on their new lives instead.

Later that night, she asks their neighbors to set Choi Kang Ho up with someone. This reaches Lee Mi Joo (Ahn Eun Jin) who's skeptical about the idea.

Unfortunately for them, Choi Kang Ho only likes Lee Mi Joo, the same woman he loved before. Choi Kang Ho remembers bits of the past when he fights with creepy men that harassed Lee Mi Joo.

After ensuring safety, she kisses him with all of her heart. This didn't go unnoticed by Jin Young Soon who's watching from a distance. Meanwhile, he confesses that he likes Lee Mi Joo.

Choi Kang Ho Framed For Murder

Song Woo Byeok plans to meet Choi Kang Ho while her dead secretary's body is finally retrieved.

The police finally rule out that the secretary's death isn't an accident nor a suicide, which brings in more questions for everyone involved with the dead.

Unbeknownst to Choi Kang Ho, the murder is planned to be pinned on him. Elsewhere, Lee Mi Joo reveals that her son is the father of her twins.

Lee Mi Joo's mother tells her not to stay with Choi Kang Ho who's clearly not well, making the former rage with anger. At the end of the episode, Choi Kang Ho gets ready for another blind date that his mother set up.

KDramaStars owns this article.

Written by Elijah Mully.
While Kim Dong Wook and Jin Ki Joo find the real culprit behind the murders in their village, the two discover things that show their connections that they never have seen before.

"My Perfect Stranger" makes their world look smaller than before. Keep on reading to know more.

Is Baek Hee Seob The Real Killer?

Yoon Hae Joon (Kim Dong Wook) and Baek Yoon Young (Jin Ki Joo) believe that they got the murder case all wrong as there could be an entire array of suspects.

However, all the evidence points to Baek Yoo Seob (Hong Seung An) who only uses Baek Yoon Young's father as a decoy.

Things get more interesting as the murder is supposed to take place very soon, and the duo have finally realized that they need to save Lee Kyung Ae (Hong Na Hyun), Baek Yoon Young's aunt.

Because of her ambition, she becomes the target of scammers who promise to make her the next Miss Korea, especially since she comes from a poor family.

At school, both Baek Yoon Young and Yoon Hae Joon work together to stop the inevitable situation from occurring by looking for their suspects.

Meanwhile, Yoo Beom Ryong (Joo Yeon Woo) coerces Lee Soon Ae (Seo Ji Hye) into sleeping with him as he'd been "waiting for this to happen" for so long.

Baek Hee Seob (Lee Won Jung) then attacks Yoo Beom Ryong, saying that they can't be friends anymore after his nasty stint.

An Inevitable Doom

Despite trying to stop what was bound to happen, a cold murder occurred. Unfortunately for Yoon Hae Joon and Baek Yoon Young, they couldn't single out who the killer is.

The police arrive at the scene to investigate. Baek Yoon Young finds a matchbox that once again tells her that "a woman who reads is dangerous," as if trying to tell something.

However, their doom isn't over as Yoon Hae Joon finds Lee Kyung Ae dead on the spot in another murder scene.

This means that the timeline of the past has moved up a lot quicker than they expected. Yoon Hae Joon then works on fixing their car in order to return to the present time.

Amidst all the murder in town, Yoon Yeon Woo (Jung Jae Kwang) arrives. He's the son of the school's principal who studies engineering in the United States.

Elsewhere, Baek Yoon Young finds her mother's younger self at a cliff's edge, planning to take her own life after all the tragic things that had happened around them.

Yoon Hae Joon arrives at their location and saves them both. Baek Yoon Young then embraces the former to show her gratitude to him.

Go Mi Sook's Suspicious Alliance

The two then once again try to decipher who the killer is. However, they are certain that their suspects are not the murderers.

They soon realize that the evidence points to Go Mi Sook (Ji Hye Won) who met up with Baek Hee Seob before, showing her the blue cap that she retrieved from the boy.

Knowing his plans, Go Mi Sook asks him for a collaboration. However, Baek Hee Seob gets arrested by the police at the end of the episode despite being innocent.

Meanwhile, it is revealed that Yoon Yeon Woo is actually Yoon Hae Joon's father, making their worlds smaller and everything more complicated.

KDramaStars owns this article.

Written by Elijah Mully.
Immigrants sometimes receive confused looks when they say P.E.I. is home

Meric Akmel moved from Turkey seven years ago and now calls P.E.I. her home. (Stacey Janzer/CBC - image credit)

Meric Akmel was vacationing in New Brunswick last year when the owner of the B&B asked where her home is.

Akmel had moved to Prince Edward Island from Turkey seven years ago, so the answer was easy. "P.E.I." she said.

The B&B owner looked confused. Maybe she had not heard of P.E.I., Akmel thought. So she clarified. "Prince Edward Island  Charlottetown."

What the woman really wanted to know was where Akmel was "originally" from. "I'm like 'Oh, OK,'" Akmel recalled. "But that was really a revelation to me. Home is P.E.I. for me."

Akmel told the story during an event Saturday in Charlottetown called We're Canada Bound: Stories of Making a New Life in Canada.

It's almost like learning everything from scratch because everything is different.  Meric Akmel

It was presented by the Confederation Centre of the Arts, along with the Immigration and Refugee Services Association P.E.I. and Glenaldale Heritage Trust as a way for others to understand the challenges and rewards along the journey of immigration.

Akmel said leaving your home country is difficult, but moving to Canada was worth it for her. Turkey was going through some political and economic chaos at the time, and she wanted to live in a place more stable and comfortable.

It meant leaving her friends and family behind.

"At first, of course, it was, like, exciting and frightening at the same time. It's almost like learning everything from scratch because everything is different  the laws are different, society is different, how you do things are different. And I came here at 41, so I thought I knew some things in life, but I had to relearn all of those."

Stacey Janzer/CBC

Others echoed those sentiments.

Nayana Sunila shared her story about coming to Charlottetown eight months ago to get her masters in education at UPEI. Her husband and young child remained in India, but hopes they will be here by the end of the year.

Sunila spoke about the many differences between the two places  most notably the population.

When you apply for a job, there could be 10,000 others competing against you. The employer can then exploit the educated workers by negotiating a lower salary, she said.

Festivals and gatherings are bigger in India. There were 3,000 people at her wedding, which was celebrated over a few days in 2018.

'Peace and potatoes'

The streets are so crowded in India it's sometimes there is no room on the sidewalks, she said. She had the crowd laughing when she spoke about first arriving in Charlottetown and wanting to see the "city lights" and going to the mall Sunday night only to find it closed.

But there are a few similarities Sunila appreciates. She said both India and P.E.I. are diverse and welcoming.

She enjoys seeing the same faces in her tight-knit community every day.

"Even the bus drivers, we are seeing them multiple times a day itself. That is a really good thing. I love P.E.I. in a sense that it gives me a lot of peace. Peace in the land of peace and potatoes."
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Anyone who practiced medicine in the past decade will be well acquainted with the myriad discussions about epidemic of burnout and the eroding of well-being among health care providers that has accelerated with the pandemic. With 63 percent of physicians having at least one symptom of burnout and professional fulfillment dropping from 40 to 20 percent in 2021, there are no shortage of culprits. Increased workload, documentation, and administrative burdens, mistreatment of health professionals, staffing shortages, politicization of vaccination, and anti-science attitudes all contribute to these concerning trends.

A hidden factor that has been given minimal attention is the impact of the climate crisis on physicians. There is greater recognition that the health sector itself has a huge environmental footprint, as it is responsible for 8.5 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Increasingly, physicians are beginning to hear the message that pollution attributable to U.S. health care has public health harms commensurate with the harms of preventable medical errors. When we talk about the moral injury that occurs when physicians cannot deliver the quality of care they want, health care sustainability and climate health need to rise to the top.

I have spoken to many physicians who are downright angry at health system waste. Surgeons have told me how frustrated they are with single-use disposables and all the wasted instruments on their trays, resulting from tray bloat over the years. Hospitalists complain about the waste that accumulates daily on each inpatient. Physicians have even come up to me saying that, while they arent environmentalists, they are disgusted with the level of waste health care generates.

We have nascent terms like eco-anxiety and solastalgia, which the health care profession is comfortable applying to patients. We recognize that changes in the world around us can have a direct effect on an individuals mental health and well-being. Why have we not looked inward and applied these concepts to ourselves?

Physicians understand science and see the climate health impacts firsthand. The scope of effects from fossil fuel pollution range from cardiovascular disease to respiratory conditions, from cancer to pneumonia. Obstetric complications result, affecting the most vulnerable patient populations. Pollution is associated with increased hospitalizations and at least 8.7 million premature deaths annually. Research has shown that the environmental impacts of the care we deliver cause 388,000 disability-adjusted life years lost. With all of these serious outcomes, effects on mental health and cognition could be overlooked but these too are byproducts of the climate crisis that need to be addressed.

Major medical societies such as the American College of Physicians (ACP) and the American Medical Association (AMA) are focusing on climate health. The subject is being integrated into medical schools across the country. With all this knowledge, how can physicians not be frustrated when the systems in which they deliver care contribute to their patients health problems?

An important aspect of physician engagement and well-being involves having autonomy and control over ones environment, feeling that our voices are being heard. Allowing paths for physicians to practice sustainably can support this independence in our practice. Engagement and ownership can be cultivated by knowing that we are able to raise concerns in a culture of safety and do the right thing for our health systems and our patients, understanding that the goals for each are aligned.

Incorporating physician preferences not only benefits those professionals but the whole systems, since a strategic approach to sustainability can help hospitals save resources and become more efficient. Recruiting and retaining new physicians, especially younger physicians, can be enhanced when organizations espouse strong environment, social, and governance (ESG) goals. Yet, creating streamlined, environmentally conscious health systems often seem to be an uphill battle where the clinician is at a disadvantage, not having the time, connections, systems-based knowledge, or support.

Organizations such as the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) have published joint reports on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience and Decarbonizing the U.S. Health Sector  National Academy of Medicine (nam.edu), both of which call for immediate action from the health care system on both fronts. The Joint Commission, a body that accredits more than 22,000 U.S. health care organizations, had previously announced that sustainability metrics would be included in their accreditation process. However, the group was met with immediate, negative feedback from industry, prompting a shift from required to optional measures.

Nonetheless, many in health care acknowledge the importance of this work and are fully engaged in sustainability efforts. Englands National Health Service is already on track to net zero by 2040. The Joint Commission will be creating a repository of resources to support systems as they lean in to environmentally sound practices. Many resources already exist such as the AHRQ Primer, Health Care Without Harm, and My Green Doctor among others.

Incorporating principles of sustainability will not be a panacea for all that ails health care. But recognizing the positive impact that we as clinicians can have on our patients outside the walls of the health system can be a motivating and galvanizing reminder that we are first called upon to do no harm.

Elizabeth Cerceo is an internal medicine physician. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of her employer.
An excerpt from Fifty Shades of Gray Matter.

He was Hitler. Not the evil Nazi dictator returned somehow from the Inferno to which he had been consigned. Apparently, as with the witches in Oz, there were both good and bad Hitlers. He informed me that he was, in fact, a good Hitler, having been unfortunately named for the infamous German monster. That a parent would name a child Hitler was both inexplicable and disturbing. However, it was not uncommon, so it appeared in his small village near Quito in Ecuador. Children there had been named not only Hitler but even Stalin and Mao. Clearly, name recognition took precedence over reputation.

His name never bothered him much. It mostly bothered other people wherever his ID was checked, at the airport, at the immigration office and even during his doctor visits. It was always greeted with stares and smirks and sardonic comments. But a name is a name, and not destiny. A Hitler is as likely to be good as an Angel, or Jesus is to be evil.

He was short, no more than five foot two with small, squinting eyes encircling a dark, wrinkled face and thin lips that smiled easily. He bore no resemblance to his namesake. He was, as well, a sweet soul who loved children and animals and had rescued several cats. The last one was a month ago, a skinny black kitten abandoned in a park on a small blanket.

It was early June of 2020, the year of the plague, and most primary doctors were only available on Zoom, a word not familiar to many patients. Hospitals were still overwhelmed with COVID admissions; everything else a secondary consideration.

His children did not want him to go to the ER for fear of contagion. My office had retained some sign of normalcy, but the COVID threat loomed over all. Hitler was sitting not so peacefully next to his wife Ninfa, a short woman with piercing black eyes, a dark complected face marked by deep lines, and an authoritative demeanor. But for the most part, she was showing fear and embarrassment. Both wore a black mask.

At 10 a.m., a few minutes after they had arrived, my office manager came running.

There is a commotion. Mr. Hitler is making everybody uncomfortable. Hes flapping like a bird with a broken wing.

Mr. Hitler?

Yes, that is actually his name.

Put him in a room, I replied.

When I finally saw him, his right arm was springing up and down in a fashion disturbingly like the Nazi salute. The motion was flailing and violent, seemingly uncontrollable, despite the efforts of his wife to physically restrain it with her two hands, at the risk of being struck. It was intermittent, unpredictable, and so dramatic that it almost looked hysterical.

Ninfa was frantic, her eyes teary.

Hitler has been doing this for the last two weeks. Everybody, including his two sons, think he is suddenly going mad, maybe from the forced quarantine at home.

I was skeptical.

The COVID virus attacked his brain. He told me he cant stop doing this, like a mysterious force is controlling him and moving his arm. Hes saluting like a Nazi, like bad Hitler took over his body. Hes only quiet at night in his sleep.

I knew that they were unsuccessfully trying to contact a psychiatrist. Most mental health providers were barricaded in their homes, sometimes out of state, their phones disconnected or unanswered. Others were not accepting new patients.

The primary doctor on the phone told them that it was probably stress but had never heard of such a thing. He sent them to me since my office was open even though at a reduced capacity.

Hitler apparently had suffered a blood disorder when he was younger but was otherwise in good health, except for some mild fever, fatigue, and swollen lymph nodes for the last month. Those symptoms had been attributed to the COVID virus and treated with azithromycin empirically. It worked somewhat and he felt a little better. But this strange and embarrassing bodily motion was making his life a living Hell.

I was unconvinced of any COVID connection, and thought that it could be a rare movement disorder that I had seen only once during my training.

A movement so dramatic, violent, and unpredictable was impossible to miss. My suspected diagnosis was hemiballism, from the Greek hemi, meaning half, and ballism, meaning jumping. (I loved Greek and the array of medical words derived from its roots.)

I knew that in his age group the cause was usually a stroke, but I was in for a surprise.

Ninfa, I said, we need a brain MRI as soon as possible. I think there is a reason for this odd behavior, and certainly he is not responsible for it.

Her eyes fluttered and her lips formed a timid smile. I gave him an antipsychotic plus valium to sedate him and decrease the movements. Miraculously I was able to get a brain MRI the same day, despite the paucity of medical personnel created by the availability of unemployment and stimulus benefits. At 6 p.m. the radiologist called. Hitler was still on the table and needed a contrast injection. At 9 p.m. he called back.

There is a lesion that looks like an infection, a mass lesion in the area of the left basal ganglia.

A lesion? Suddenly, the light went on. I called Hitler and Ninfa. He needed immediate hospitalization. They wanted to wait until morning, and at 6 a.m. he promptly went to a major hospital with my referral and the radiologist report.

He was admitted the same day. The cause was acute toxoplasmosis, an unusual but not unheard-of cause of hemiballism. I remember Ninfa saying how Hitler rescued stray cats.

It appeared that the little black fur rescued a month ago was the cause of his misery.

A feral cat harboring the toxoplasma and shedding their cyst in the cat litter. The kitten had perhaps eaten infected rodents or birds while in the park. Hitler must have unwittingly ingested the parasites by touching his mouth with soiled hands after cleaning the cat litter.

He was immediately started on medications after his blood work showed a rising antibody titer.

Ninfa gave very precise instructions to his son. The little black kitten initially called El Prince, since rechristened El Toxo, was sent together with his littermates to an animal shelter.

Hitler was saddened but understood that there could be no more contact with cats regardless. He recovered completely and after one month the lesion was barely visible.

His flapping Nazi salute disappeared, but he decided to keep his name. After being named Hitler, and having his path crossed by a black cat, he was due for a change in his luck.

The neurology of Hitler

Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic infection caused by the Toxoplasma gondii. Cat feces and undercooked meat (particularly pork, lamb, and venison) as well as contaminated water can harbor the parasite. This infection can also cause severe birth defects when transmitted from the mother to the fetus (pregnant women should not clean cat litter). Most people are asymptomatic or show only mild symptoms, such as fever, swollen lymph nodes, or headache that resolve within one month.

Cerebral toxoplasmosis that can produce cerebral abscesses is more common in patients who are immunosuppressed, from HIV/AIDS, chemotherapy, or immunosuppressive agents.

It has predilection for the basal ganglia, an area of the brain that controls posture and movement. Lesions of the basal ganglia are the cause of movement disorders such as Parkinsons disease, chorea, etc. In particular, lesion of subthalamic nucleus is responsible for contralateral hemiballismus, a sudden paroxysmal large amplitude throwing movement.

Teresella Gondolo is a neurologist and author of Fifty Shades of Gray Matter.
Why doctors arent to blame for the U.S. opioid crisis [PODCAST]

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Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes!

Join us for an eye-opening episode as we discuss the truth behind the U.S. opioid crisis with our guest, patient advocate Richard A. Lawhern. Contrary to popular belief, doctors did not cause this crisis by over-prescribing opioid pain relievers to their patients. Instead, illegal street drugs primarily drive this crisis, which is fueled by socio-economic determinants of health. Well delve into the profound misdirections and fraudulent nonsense of current public policy on addiction, overdose deaths, and harm reduction, and explore the multi-dimensional redirections of health care policy needed to address the crisis. Tune in for an informative discussion on the need for new laws and policy redirections to ensure better access to opioid medications under medical supervision, and ultimately, to provide solutions to the millions of U.S. citizens living in a nation in pain.

Richard A. Lawhern is a patient advocate.

He shares his story and discusses his KevinMD article, The real cause of Americas opioid crisis: Doctors are not to blame.

The Podcast by KevinMD is brought to you by the Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience.

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Tiziano Cruz, centre, is surrounded by dancers and other artists in Buenos Aires recently. In Montreal, he will lead a parade from Place Emilie-Gamelin to the National Theatre on Sunday at 5 p.m. and again on Monday and Tuesday at 7 p.m. (Diego Astarita/AFS - image credit)

A parade of local dancers and musicians of Latin American origin Sunday will set the stage for three nights of performances by an Indigenous artist from Argentina, the headline act in this year's Festival TransAmeriques.

Playwright Tiziano Cruz will lead some 15 musicians and more than 40 dancers from Place Emilie-Gamelin down Ste-Catherine Street to the National Theatre on Sunday at 5 p.m., and again on Monday and Tuesday, at 7 p.m.

The parade is how Cruz, an Aymara artist from northern Argentina, likes to open his show Soliloquio which he's currently touring around the world. Wherever the show goes, Cruz collaborates with local Andean groups to put together the procession.

"I'm someone who does not speak Aymara or Quechua. I don't know how to dance Andean dances; I don't know how to play [our] instruments. In some ways, I'm an orphan of my ancestors' culture," says Cruz.

"Meeting these communities helps me fill that void."

Nora Lezano

In Montreal, the groups represented in the procession include Grupo Argenkuna, Armonia Andina, Baila Conmigo Canada, Ballet Folclorico Munaykim Peru and Mosoq Illarik.

Ana Silvia Garcia, the director and lead choreographer of Grupo Argenkuna, is originally from Peru, but Garcia said she's always taken an interest in Argentine folklore, which shares roots with Peruvian Indigenous culture.

"People are familiar with the tango but not other styles," she says.

The Indigenous interpretation of some dances imported from Spain to Latin America have their own flair worth celebrating, said Garcia. Traditional dances like the chacarera, carnavalito and huayno, all originating in the Andes, are among those that will be performed in the parade.

Creating a safe space for Andean artists worldwide

Soliloquio is the second play in an autobiographical series written and performed by Cruz. It's based on 58 letters he wrote to his mother during the pandemic, when he was grappling with the loss of his culture.

He said Aymaran mothers like his didn't want to see their children discriminated against.

"In a certain way, they forbade us from speaking our language to protect us," says Cruz.

The event that propelled him toward becoming an artist, he says, was the death of his younger sister, Betiana, when she was just 18. He says she was a victim of medical negligence, which he sees as tied to the cycle of violence and oppression against his people in northern Argentina.

It is a subject he still finds emotionally difficult to talk about.

"I set out to make myself known so they wouldn't let us die easily, and in that process I realized that what happened to my sister wasn't an isolated case," says Cruz.

Humberto Araujo

Cruz says he now understands why his mother chose to raise him the way she did. He says he wants to create a safe space wherever he goes in the world, where Andean people can celebrate their culture.

Sparking a dialogue

Evelyn Ynocente, the creative director of Baila Conmigo Canada, says she's grateful for the opportunity and the dialogue Cruz has sparked within Montreal's Latin American community.

"Sometimes we remain closed off within our own circles or within our own cultural groups, and we don't exhibit all the wealth that we can bring," says Ynocente.

She said she had met some of the local Andean artists for the first time at rehearsals for the pageant, and already some of them are talking about future collaborations after Cruz leaves Quebec.

Submitted by Festival TransAmeriques/@emejotage

Born and raised in Montreal, Ynocente said she formed her group to reconnect with her Peruvian roots  and as a tribute to her parents, who emigrated from Peru in 1979.

"I think I've been able to value more, lately, the trip they made," she says.

They will be present at her performance Sunday, as will her eight-year-old nephew and six-year-old niece.

"I would have liked to have had that experience at that age," says Ynocente.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 87F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partial cloudiness early, with scattered showers and thunderstorms overnight. Low 63F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
First Republic Bank (OTCMKTS:FRCB  Get Rating) is one of 70 publicly-traded companies in the Commercial banks, not elsewhere classified industry, but how does it contrast to its rivals? We will compare First Republic Bank to similar companies based on the strength of its profitability, risk, earnings, valuation, dividends, analyst recommendations and institutional ownership.

Dividends

First Republic Bank pays an annual dividend of 1.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 358.6%. First Republic Bank pays out 14.4% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. As a group, Commercial banks, not elsewhere classified companies pay a dividend yield of 2.5% and pay out 17.1% of their earnings in the form of a dividend. First Republic Bank is clearly a better dividend stock than its rivals, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

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Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for First Republic Bank and its rivals, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score First Republic Bank 0 0 0 0 N/A First Republic Bank Competitors 631 2239 2271 60 2.34

Volatility and Risk

As a group, Commercial banks, not elsewhere classified companies have a potential upside of 84.58%. Given First Republic Banks rivals higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe First Republic Bank has less favorable growth aspects than its rivals.

First Republic Bank has a beta of 0.99, meaning that its share price is 1% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, First Republic Banks rivals have a beta of 0.94, meaning that their average share price is 6% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

95.2% of First Republic Bank shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 24.6% of shares of all Commercial banks, not elsewhere classified companies are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of First Republic Bank shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 8.0% of shares of all Commercial banks, not elsewhere classified companies are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares First Republic Bank and its rivals net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets First Republic Bank 20.45% 11.26% 0.72% First Republic Bank Competitors 18.66% 11.98% 0.98%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares First Republic Bank and its rivals gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

Gross Revenue Net Income Price/Earnings Ratio First Republic Bank $6.75 billion $1.67 billion 0.04 First Republic Bank Competitors $13.58 billion $3.07 billion 9.22

First Republic Banks rivals have higher revenue and earnings than First Republic Bank. First Republic Bank is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than its rivals, indicating that it is currently more affordable than other companies in its industry.

Summary

First Republic Bank rivals beat First Republic Bank on 7 of the 12 factors compared.

About First Republic Bank

(Get Rating)

First Republic offers banking for individuals and businesses, wealth management and more with a focus on tailored service and solutions. First Republic was founded in San Francisco in 1985 by James H. Herbert II with a single office and a small but dedicated staff. Years later, First Republic is one of the countrys largest banks, serving clients at more than 80 Preferred Banking Offices across the United States and through online banking services. First Republic prides itself on its convenient online presence, strong heritage and sustainable, client-centric approach that has provided consistent growth. First Republic Bank offers a full range of personal and business banking services including lending, deposit, foreign exchange and more, while First Republic Private Wealth Management provides trust, brokerage and wealth advisory services. Across all of its offerings, First Republic is committed to serving its stakeholders and clients with exceptional, personalized service, putting clients first in all that it does. Banking products and services are offered by First Republic Bank, Member FDIC and Equal Housing Lender. Investment Advisory services are provided by First Republic

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Granite Investment Partners LLC lifted its holdings in Glaukos Co. (NYSE:GKOS  Get Rating) by 23.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 59,524 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock after buying an additional 11,339 shares during the quarter. Granite Investment Partners LLCs holdings in Glaukos were worth $2,600,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of GKOS. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its stake in Glaukos by 0.6% in the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 481,228 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock worth $27,825,000 after purchasing an additional 2,843 shares during the period. HighTower Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Glaukos during the 1st quarter valued at about $208,000. Natixis Advisors L.P. purchased a new stake in Glaukos in the 1st quarter valued at about $674,000. Bank of Montreal Can grew its stake in Glaukos by 14.2% in the 1st quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 20,031 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock worth $1,164,000 after acquiring an additional 2,485 shares in the last quarter. Finally, MetLife Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of Glaukos by 54.8% during the first quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 25,057 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock worth $1,449,000 after acquiring an additional 8,866 shares during the period. 92.17% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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Glaukos Stock Down 0.7 %

NYSE:GKOS opened at $54.85 on Friday. The companys 50-day simple moving average is $51.72 and its 200-day simple moving average is $48.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70, a quick ratio of 6.02 and a current ratio of 6.67. Glaukos Co. has a fifty-two week low of $39.51 and a fifty-two week high of $61.01.

Insider Buying and Selling

Glaukos ( NYSE:GKOS Get Rating ) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, May 3rd. The medical instruments supplier reported ($0.59) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.61) by $0.02. The company had revenue of $73.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $67.74 million. Glaukos had a negative net margin of 48.15% and a negative return on equity of 21.20%. Glaukoss revenue was up 9.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned ($0.38) earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Glaukos Co. will post -2.3 EPS for the current year.

In other Glaukos news, CEO Thomas William Burns sold 3,704 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $60.01, for a total value of $222,277.04. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 673,963 shares in the company, valued at $40,444,519.63. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Insiders have sold a total of 15,373 shares of company stock worth $924,400 in the last ninety days. 7.80% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently issued reports on GKOS shares. Citigroup boosted their price target on Glaukos from $57.00 to $59.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, February 23rd. 888 reissued a maintains rating on shares of Glaukos in a research report on Thursday, May 4th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Glaukos from $42.00 to $48.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, February 23rd. Mizuho raised their target price on shares of Glaukos from $48.00 to $52.00 in a research report on Tuesday, April 18th. Finally, William Blair restated an outperform rating on shares of Glaukos in a report on Wednesday, February 22nd. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $56.13.

Glaukos Profile

(Get Rating)

Glaukos Corp. is an ophthalmic medical technology and pharmaceutical company, which focuses on novel therapies for the treatment of glaucoma, corneal disorders and retinal diseases. It engages in development and commercialization of therapies across several end markets within ophthalmology. The company was founded by Olav B.

See Also

Want to see what other hedge funds are holding GKOS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Glaukos Co. (NYSE:GKOS  Get Rating).

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China Agri-Business (OTCMKTS:CHBU  Get Rating) and ICL Group (NYSE:ICL  Get Rating) are both basic materials companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, profitability, risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations and dividends.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for China Agri-Business and ICL Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

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Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score China Agri-Business 0 0 0 0 N/A ICL Group 0 4 0 0 2.00

ICL Group has a consensus price target of $8.33, indicating a potential upside of 39.35%. Given ICL Groups higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe ICL Group is more favorable than China Agri-Business.

Earnings & Valuation

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio China Agri-Business N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A ICL Group $10.02 billion 0.77 $2.16 billion $1.40 4.27

This table compares China Agri-Business and ICL Groups top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

ICL Group has higher revenue and earnings than China Agri-Business.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

14.1% of ICL Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of ICL Group shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares China Agri-Business and ICL Groups net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets China Agri-Business N/A N/A N/A ICL Group 18.85% 35.99% 17.20%

Risk & Volatility

China Agri-Business has a beta of 1.11, suggesting that its stock price is 11% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, ICL Group has a beta of 1.12, suggesting that its stock price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

ICL Group beats China Agri-Business on 8 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

About China Agri-Business

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China Agri-Business, Inc. engages in the manufacture and sale of non-toxic fertilizer, bactericide, and fungicide products used for farming in the People's Republic of China. The company offers organic biochemical agricultural application products, including Xinsheng Luyuan, a line of fertilizer products whose primary function is to increase agricultural production; Xinsheng Lufeng, a line of organic soil amendment products that acts as a bactericide; and Xinsheng Huang-jin-gai, a line of amino acid fertilizer products designed to help crops absorb calcium and to enhance their quality. It also provides Xinsheng Jia-tian-xia, a line of humic acid fertilizer products designed to enhance the quality of crops; and Xinsheng Bai-le, a line of amino acid fertilizer products designed to provide supplementary micro-nutrients to crops, and to help crops grow with balanced nutrition. In addition, the company manufactures other agrochemical products, including diafenthiuron, prochloraz, and seed coating agents and preparations. China Agri-Business, Inc. sells its products primarily through wholesale and retail distributors. The company was founded in 2002 and is based in Xian, the People's Republic of China.

About ICL Group

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ICL Group Ltd. engages in the manufacture of mineral-based products for the agriculture, food, and engineered materials markets. Its products include potash and phosphate fertilizers, specialty fertilizers, functional ingredients, flame retardants and magnesia products. The company was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.

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MONTREAL  Chinatowns across North America don't just share a similar look  they also face similar existential threats and David-versus-Goliath-like battles for survival.

Whether it's residents of New York City's Chinatown protesting a proposed mega jail in their community, or Montreal's Chinese diaspora fighting to save heritage buildings or struggling to keep family restaurants alive during COVID-19, these common threads are a recurring motif of Karen Cho's documentary "Big Fight in Little Chinatown."

Cho, a fifth-generation Chinese Canadian with roots in the Chinatowns of Montreal and Vancouver, documents how these urban pockets of Chinese culture across North America are facing similar pressures from gentrification. In an interview, Cho said the neighbourhoods are prime targets for redevelopment due to their age and proximity to downtown, but also to what she calls "the intersection of racism and urban planning."

Urban renewal projects, she said, are disproportionately located in racialized or immigrant communities.

"Again and again and again, wherever the Chinatown would be, these are neighbourhoods where freeways are driven through them, light rails and stadiums dropped onto them, prisons put into them," she said in a phone interview.

"(These are) the priorities or the choices that the city makes of who gets to stay and who gets displaced."

Cho's hometown of Montreal is a focal point of the documentary, which she said wasn't part of her original plan. She had long been concerned about the luxury condo towers sprouting up around Montreal's Chinatown gates, but her initial conception was to focus on the bigger Chinatowns on the continent, in places like Vancouver and New York.

That changed in 2021, when news broke that a developer purchased buildings on one of the most historic blocks of Montreal's Chinatown  including the Wings building, named for a noodle factory that has long operated there.

"The Wings noodle building got bought, and I had a really tough time," she said. "I couldn't reconcile this idea that I was gonna film the erasure of my own Chinatown."

Cho was a member of the Montreal Chinatown working group, formed in response to development pressures. In early 2022, the activists won a significant battle when the province signed an official notice to grant heritage status to the institutional core of Chinatown as well as to two of its best-known buildings, including the Wings factory. That status protects buildings from being demolished or significantly altered without permission.

She said the move was a good first step in protecting what's left of Montreal's Chinatown, which she said was "one condo project away" from complete erasure after decades of urban redevelopment projects that had already led to the demolition of every building where her family had ever lived or worked.

However, Cho's film makes it clear that saving Chinatowns is about more than preserving buildings or their facades.

Much of her documentary shows the day-to-day lives of Chinatown residents in places like Montreal, Vancouver and New York: business owners preparing food to sell, young people rehearsing a dragon dance, seniors gathering in parks. She said she wanted to show that Chinatowns are not just places selling souvenirs and dim sum to tourists, but also providing important community spaces, activities and culture for the people who live there.

Equally important, she said, was to break the "tourist facade" and tell the story from the residents' point of view. "I follow a lot of intergenerational businesses, people that have been there for a long time, but instead of us as tourists looking through the shop window, it's like they're actually looking from the inside out to see the changes in their neighbourhood."

Cho's film tour has taken her across North America, with stops in Montreal, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Los Angeles. Stops include a showing at the Edmonton Chinatown Multi-Cultural Centre on Sunday and at Hot Docs cinema in Toronto on May 30. The documentary is also scheduled for broadcast on TVO and Radio-Canada.

She said most of her screenings take place in Chinatowns, where she's had the opportunity to speak with community leaders about their efforts to preserve their districts. The response, she said, has left her hopeful.

"There is a 150-year tradition of resistance in those neighbourhoods, and I saw that firsthand," she said. Seeing those "pockets of resistance" has reminded her of the strength within those communities, despite the odds stacked against them.

"Chinatown really is like this kind of blade of grass that grows in the cement," she said. "You know, it's not supposed to be there, but it's thriving."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2023.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press
Shore Capital reiterated their buy rating on shares of Kingswood (LON:KWG  Get Rating) in a report published on Wednesday morning, MarketBeat.com reports.

Kingswood Price Performance

Kingswood stock opened at GBX 20.50 ($0.25) on Wednesday. The companys 50 day simple moving average is GBX 23.21 and its 200-day simple moving average is GBX 23.28. The company has a market capitalization of 44.47 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -256.25 and a beta of -0.20. Kingswood has a 1 year low of GBX 18 ($0.22) and a 1 year high of GBX 30.50 ($0.38). The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.83, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a current ratio of 0.85.

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Kingswood Holdings Limited engages in the investment management and financial planning business in the United Kingdom and the United States. It operates through three segments: Investment Management, Wealth Planning, and US Operations. The company provides wealth planning, advice process, pensions and retirement planning, inheritance tax and estate planning, tax planning, succession planning, protection advisory, cash management, and foreign exchange services.

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StockNews.com downgraded shares of Ingersoll Rand (NYSE:IR  Get Rating) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report released on Thursday.

A number of other research firms have also recently commented on IR. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on Ingersoll Rand from $60.00 to $61.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research note on Monday, April 17th. Robert W. Baird lifted their price target on shares of Ingersoll Rand from $62.00 to $66.00 in a research note on Friday, May 5th. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Ingersoll Rand from $64.00 to $65.00 in a research note on Friday, May 5th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Ingersoll Rand from $57.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 22nd. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Ingersoll Rand from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Monday, April 10th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $60.36.

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Ingersoll Rand Stock Up 2.3 %

IR opened at $58.89 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $23.82 billion, a PE ratio of 36.35 and a beta of 1.42. The company has a quick ratio of 1.50, a current ratio of 2.16 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. Ingersoll Rand has a 52 week low of $39.28 and a 52 week high of $61.06. The businesss fifty day simple moving average is $56.76 and its 200 day simple moving average is $55.73.

Ingersoll Rand Dividend Announcement

Insiders Place Their Bets

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 22nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 24th will be issued a $0.02 dividend. This represents a $0.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.14%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, May 23rd. Ingersoll Rands dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 4.94%.

In related news, insider Vicente Reynal sold 25,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.00, for a total value of $1,500,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 102,856 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,171,360. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Company insiders own 0.75% of the companys stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Ingersoll Rand

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its position in Ingersoll Rand by 12.0% during the first quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 15,601 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $786,000 after buying an additional 1,675 shares during the period. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. lifted its position in Ingersoll Rand by 47.6% during the first quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 9,880 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $497,000 after buying an additional 3,185 shares during the period. Private Advisor Group LLC purchased a new position in Ingersoll Rand during the first quarter valued at $327,000. Panagora Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in Ingersoll Rand by 62.2% during the first quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 28,937 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $1,457,000 after buying an additional 11,096 shares during the period. Finally, Yousif Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Ingersoll Rand by 1.7% in the 1st quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 57,771 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $2,909,000 after purchasing an additional 988 shares in the last quarter. 99.73% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Ingersoll Rand Company Profile

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Ingersoll Rand, Inc provides a broad range of mission critical air, fluid, energy, specialty vehicle and medical technologies, providing services and solutions to increase industrial productivity and efficiency. It operates through the following segments: Industrial Technologies and Services, Precision and Science Technologies, High Pressure Solutions, and Specialty Vehicle Technologies.

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In an event that has triggered widespread fury among global BTS fans, known as ARMYs, confidential details about BTS Suga's private international tour dates have been leaked, igniting serious security concerns.

The blame has been placed on rogue staff within associated companies, according to ARMYs.

Growing Discontent Over Privacy Breaches

As a key member of the globally acclaimed South Korean band BTS, Suga is currently undertaking an international leg of his solo Agust D "D-Day" tour.

However, the recent unveiling of his private schedules has stirred immense discontent among ARMYs, who are demanding respect for their idol's personal space.

In the past, BTS has consistently vocalized the necessity of privacy. An instance being when BTS Jungkook unveiled a concerning incident where he was tracked down to his gym, an unscheduled location.

Rampant Concerns Over Violation of Personal Space

Suga, known for his reclusive nature, has always been comfortable sharing insights into his schedules with ARMYs.

@AngkasaPura_2 @CGK_AP2 please discipline your staff! Many of private airports videos and pictures are taken by your staff!      (@SugaIndoFanbase) May 25, 2023

However, he, like many other fans, values his space, especially upon his arrival in Jakarta. This belief was clearly echoed by the ARMYs who took to trending phrases aimed at ensuring their idol wasnt swarmed with fans upon landing.

Despite these precautions, the ARMYs' concerns were affirmed when images of Suga at the airport, along with additional confidential information, were leaked.

Reports from fans indicated that the leaks were primarily disseminated by individuals posing as staff members.

ARMYs Respond in Solidarity

A representative comment from the ARMYs illustrates the concern:

"Why are all of Suga's private images and itinerary details, including places he plans to visit, being circulated? These are being propagated by people masquerading as staff. We plead that you enhance your security and treat this matter with the gravity it deserves!"

hah army? kicep? dengan jawaban yang kayak gitu? bagian mananya menohok? that's a really stupid answer from someone who works on a critical line.



all ur staff are unprofessional. PLEASE PROTECT AGUSTD IN JAKARTA!!@ditjen_imigrasi @CGK_AP2 @AngkasaPura_2 @ime_indonesia pic.twitter.com/0CwWATiAWA  bare. | inactive. (@belongstotaehv) May 25, 2023

Other comments called for stricter discipline among staff members, pointing out their culpability in capturing and spreading unauthorized photos and videos.

THEIR STAFFS (promotor) and airport staffs LEAKED YOONGI'S PRIVATE SCHEDULE. EVEN PHOTOS & VIDEOS OF HIM IN PRIVATE PLACES.

The proofs are everywhere, even they also uploaded on youtube.

Indonesian ARMY are well-behave, BUT OUTSIDERS ARE NOT.

Since this thing will compromise-  Chaska Orla (@chaskaorla) May 25, 2023

The perceived lack of professionalism and respect for privacy has incensed ARMYs worldwide, sparking demands for statements from associated companies, including the tour operator and the airport authorities.

Implications on Fans' Trust, Security

With BTS's staggering global following, it's understandable that fans crave regular updates. However, they prefer such updates to be shared by the group members themselves, via official social media channels.

bts privacy getting invaded everyday and people wonder why we are so protective of them when these so called professionals dont even respect their space and privacy.  sen (@sugatradamus) May 25, 2023

The situation has evolved into an alarming narrative of leaked schedules and locations, leading to a deeply unsettled fandom.

The notion that staff members, especially those not working directly with the idols, have been sharing private details, has stirred palpable rage and raised serious questions about BTS's ability to maintain any semblance of privacy while on tour.

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WASHINGTON  Emily Reed lost her younger sister Jessica more than 10 years ago. For much of the past decade, shes visited Jessicas Twitter page to help keep her memory alive.

Twitter became one of the places where Emily processed her grief and reconnected with a sister she describes as almost like a twin. But Jessicas account is now gone.

Last week, owner Elon Musk announced Twitter would be purging accounts that have had no activity for several years. That decision has been met by an outcry from those who have lost, or who fear losing the thoughts and words of deceased loved ones linked to now-inactive accounts.

Reed immediately returned to Jessicas page as she had done a day or two earlier after learning of the purge. In place of Jessica's page was an "account suspended message that suggested it may be in violation of Twitter rules.

Reed's tweet recounting her shock over the loss of the account has received tens of thousands of responses. Others shared similar experiences of pain upon learning that the account of a deceased loved one had vanished.

Having these digital footprints  is super important to me, Reed, 43, said.

The advent of social media has come with new way in which people mourn, returning to the place where they connected with friends and family in the past. In addition to memories and physical traces left behind, snippets of lives are have are now being captured in the digital space.

It is something that social media platforms have wrestled with for recent years.

Twitter backed off an attempt to purge inactive accounts in 2019, years before Musk arrived, due to a similar backlash.

Other social media sites have found ways to allow people to mourn those they've lost.

Facebook and Instagram allow users to request an account be deactivated, or a memorialization of the account. Memorialized accounts show the word Remembering next to the persons name.

In this modern age, we have these electronic reminders of people  (including) little snippets of a thought they had on a particular day or pictures that they shared, said Shira Gabriel, professor of psychology at University at Buffalo. Looking through a late loved ones social media can be both a healthy way to process grief and gather as a community in remembrance, Gabriel said.

The prospect of that resource disappearing can bring about a sense of mourning again, Gabriel said. There is a real psychological cost of getting rid of this digital thumbprint that was left behind and this ability for community members to gather in one spot.

It is unknown if Musk will backtrack on the decision to purge. The billionaire CEO of Tesla has launched policies that have rattled users and advertisers alike and shown little interest in amending those policies in response.

Musk named a new CEO last week, Linda Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal advertising executive, who will have her hands full with a platform seemingly now in a perpetual state of chaos.

Deleting inactive accounts can be seen as fulfilling a promise Musk made when he bought the company, particularly winnowing down junk accounts and bots, said Samuel Woolley, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austins School of Journalism and Media.

There are good reasons to preserve inactive accounts, and also reasons to delete them, Woolley said, but he is leery of the one-size-fits-all approach.

Advocates of purging accounts cite skewed metrics caused by inactive accounts or bogus on social media platforms. Yet on top of emotional pain for some users mourning late loved ones, deleting inactive accounts could also mean losing tweets that documented historical events, commentary and breaking news on the app over the years.

Twitter operates in many ways like a library of data, Woolley said. Just because someone hasnt been active for 30 days or a few years, doesnt mean their tweets dont still have a great amount of relevance.

Musk did say the reasoning behind removing inactive accounts was to free up unused Twitter handles, or user names, and that those inactive accounts would be archived.

What exactly that means is not known  including what inactive accounts will look like when they're archived, and whether they'll be easily accessible. Other details of the plan are also unclear, such as the number of accounts to be removed and whether the policy will be evenly enforced.

Picking and choosing accounts for deactivation would create precisely the kind of tiered system that Musk says he wants to avoid," Woolley said.

Reed talks about the importance of Jessicas Twitter and Facebook pages during her journey with grief  from following her sister's difficult journey with cystic fibrosis, a progressive genetic disorder that Reed also has, to cherishing tweets that showed the joy and... the vibrancy that came out of her words.

Over time, the image and memories of someone who has passed away can slowly change in your mind  like a fading photograph, Reed said. Having online resources, she added, can help keep a persons memory alive, in a way that just your own personal memory cant.

Elon Musk and Twitter: A timeline January 31: Musk begins building up his Twitter stake March 14: Musk's Twitter stake tops 5% March 24: Asking whether Twitter should change March 26: Musk reaches out to Jack Dorsey April 3: Twitter leadership meets to discuss Musk April 4: Surprise! Musk becomes Twitter's largest shareholder April 5: Musk agrees to join the board April 10: Just kidding. Musk ditches the board April 14: Musk offers to buy Twitter and 'unlock' its potential April 15: The poison pill April 21: Musk lines up $46.5 billion in financing April 25: Twitter agrees to sell itself to Elon Musk April 29: Musk cashes out billions in Tesla stock May 4: With a little help from his billionaire friends May 10: Musk says he would reinstate Trump's account May 6: Musk's lofty goals for Twitter, revealed May 12: A partial hiring freeze and executive departures May 13: Twitter deal 'temporarily on hold' May 14: Oops. NDA problems? May 16: Poop emoji May 17: Musk says Twitter deal 'cannot move forward.' Twitter disagrees
New Delhi/Patna, May 28 (PTI) The Rashtriya Janata Dal Sunday likened the new Parliament building's triangular shape to a coffin, drawing a sharp response from the BJP which said people will bury the RJD in the coffin in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

As the new building was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the ruling party in Bihar put out a tweet that showed a coffin and the new legislature building side by side. "What is this," the party asked in the tweet.

Also Read | Gurugram Shocker: Elderly Man Beaten to Death by Three Men Under Influence of Alcohol in New Palam Vihar, Accused Absconding.

The BJP's Bihar unit responded to the tweet saying, "The first picture is your future and the second is of India. Understood?"

BJP spokespersons Shehzad Poonawalla termed RJD's tweet "disgusting", while Gaurav Bhatia said the coffin belongs to the RJD and Parliament to the country.

Also Read | Democracy Is Not Run by Buildings but by Voice of People, Says Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge.

"This is the level to which they have fallen. Disgusting. This will prove to be the final nail in the coffin of RJD's politics. Trikon or Tribhuj (triangles) has much significance in Indian system. By the way, the coffin is hexagonal or has six sided polygon," Poonawalla said on Twitter.

Bhatia said, "Today is a historic moment and the country is proud. You are merely a 'Nazarbattu' (a symbol to ward off evil eye) and nothing else. Keep beating your chest."

"In 2024, the people of the country will bury you in this coffin and will not even give you a chance to enter the temple of new democracy. Let it also be decided that the coffin is yours and Parliament of the country," he said, using the hashtag "MyParliamentMyPride".

BJP MP from Aurangabad, Sushil Kumar Singh, who attended the inauguration of the new Parliament building, said, the tweet put out by the RJD was "in poor taste".

"What do you expect from this party (RJD) which is now a partner of the JD(U) in the Bihar government. Those who are making this odious comparison with a coffin, their politics will be sealed in a coffin," he told reporters in Delhi.

Singh, a four-time MP, said the new Parliament building represents the spirit of Atmanirbhar Bharat as it demonstrates India now has the capabilities to dream, design, build and execute such projects all by itself.

"This is a totally 'made-in-India' building of our Parliament, and it has modern amenities and reflection of India's cultural heritage," he told PTI.

Asked what will happen to the old Parliament building, he said, "Both buildings will complement each other, and old building's important office and Central Hall will be used," he said.

Referring to the RJD's tweet, senior BJP leader and its former Bihar unit president Sanjay Jaiswal said in a video statement the act of the state's ruling party is highly "condemnable".

"This has exposed the RJD's mindset that it does not have any regard for Parliament, the supreme law-making institution in the country it shows that they don't believe in parliamentary democracy," he said.

Without naming any RJD leader, Jaiswal said they believe that "their father and mother can only hold the posts of chief minister or prime minister".

"The tweet is highly condemnable and totally uncalled for," he said.

Echoing Jaiswal, Bihar BJP spokesperson Nikhil Anand said, "It is most condemnable that the RJD had compared the new Parliament House with a coffin. The politics of the Grand Alliance led by the Congress and the politics of RJD and JD(U) will be buried in the same coffin."

He also alleged that the Congress and all its allies, especially RJD-JD(U), are "insulting democracy and democratic historical heritage".

"All these parties will be pushed into its coffin and they won't exist in the future," he said.

However, justifying the RJD's tweet, its Bihar unit spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwary told PTI, "The way the new Parliament building was inaugurated today, it showed that democracy was buried. Neither the President nor the Vice President, who is the chairman of the Rajya Sabha, were invited to the function. This does not happen in a democracy."

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and RJD had already announced that they would boycott the inaugural function of the new Parliament building.

The JD(U) also declared it would observe a day-long fast here on Sunday to protest against the inauguration of the new Parliament building by PM Modi.

Soon after the inauguration, PM Modi hoped that the iconic building becomes a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality.

"May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress", the prime minister said.

The new Parliament building is a reflection of new India's aspirations, Modi said, and asserted that it will pave the way for empowering the poor and marginalised and herald the rise of a "developed India" that will inspire the progress of other nations.

In a speech delivered from the grand and cavernous Lok Sabha hall decorated in peacock motif, he said the ultra-modern complex was the "need of the hour" in view of the expected increase in the number of members of Parliament.

The new Parliament building, constructed by Tata Projects Ltd, will also have a grand Constitution Hall to showcase India's democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Thane, May 28 (PTI) Police have registered a case against a man from Maharashtra's Thane district for allegedly beating up his visually impaired mother following a dispute, an official said on Sunday.

Also Read | Uttar Pradesh Court Sentences Man to 20 Years in Prison for Raping Two Minor Girls.

The incident took place on Friday at their home in Vangani area, the official from Kulgaon police station said.

Also Read | PM Narendra Modi Honours Workers Who Built New Parliament Building.

The 46-year-old victim, a widow, worked with the Thane Municipal Corporation. Her son, who was jobless, had eloped with a woman from their neighbourhood and based on a complaint, the police arrested him and he was imprisoned, he said.

The victim later got him out on bail. The mother-son used to have frequent quarrels as he was jobless, the official said.

On Friday, the two again had a fight over the issue following which the man allegedly pulled his mother by her hair and banged her head against a wall, he said.

Based on a complaint by the victim, the police registered offences against the accused under Indian Penal code Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 506 (criminal intimidation) and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, the official said.

No arrest has been made so far, he added.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
New Delhi, May 28: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding a meeting with the Chief Ministers and Deputy Chief Ministers of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states at the party headquarters in Delhi.

During the meeting, the Chief Ministers will report to Prime Minister Modi about the development work going on in the states. There will also be a discussion with all the Chief Ministers regarding the preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. New Parliament Building To Herald Rise of Developed India, Will Inspire World, Says PM Narendra Modi.

BJP national president JP Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, Goa CM Pramod Sawant, Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, Assam CM Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami, Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel, Nagaland Deputy CM Yanthungo Patton, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and Tripura CM Manik Saha were present at the meeting on Sunday.

The BJP meeting comes after PM Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building. Stating that the 'Amrit Kaal' will give a new direction to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the new parliament building should be a shining example of the country's vision and resolve of New India. PM Narendra Modi Unveils Plaque; Dedicates New Parliament Building to Nation (Watch Video).

PM Modi said that the construction of the new complex gave employment to over 60,000 labourers and a digital gallery has been created to honour their hard work. Addressing the ceremony, PM Modi said, "Several years of foreign rule took away our pride from us. But today, India has left behind that colonial mindset. India is the mother of democracy. It is also the foundation of global democracy. Democracy is our 'Sanskaar', idea and tradition".

He further said that there was a need for a new parliament and the new building is equipped with modern facilities and the latest gadgets. "There was a need for a new parliament. We also have to see that the number of seats and MPs will increase in the coming time. That's why it was need of the hour that a new Parliament is made," he said.

PM Modi added, "This building is equipped with modern facilities and has the latest gadgets. It has given employment to over 60,000 labourers. We have created a digital gallery to honour their hard work". The Prime Minister further said that the inspiration is the same from Panchayat Bhawan to Sansad Bhawan. After concluding his speech in the Parliament, PM Modi interacted with several leaders in the new Parliament.

The Prime Minister's address was followed by that of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla. Prime Minister Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. PM Modi also performed 'sashtang pranam' as a mark of respect before the 'Sengol' during the ceremony.

"It is our good fortune that we have been able to restore the pride of the holy 'Sengol'. Whenever proceedings start in this House the 'Sengol' will inspire us," said PM Modi. PM Modi was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by Adheenams before it was installed in the new building. The Sengol marked the transfer of power from the British to the Indians in 1947.

After dedicating the new parliament building to the country earlier this morning after a ceremony that saw a multi-faith prayer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi this afternoon walked into the new building amid chants of "Modi" "Modi" and a standing ovation for the second phase of the inauguration ceremony. The new Parliament building is designed to enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha.

Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber.

(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], May 28 (ANI): The nation is celebrating Amrit Mahotsav because of the completion of 75 years of independence. Today is a day of pride for 140 crores Indians when they got a new Parliament building.

The new Parliament House, besides being a sentinel of democracy, also reflects India's rich cultural heritage. Inside Parliament House, there are images of gods and goddesses made by the sculptor Naresh Kumawat on the theme of Samudra Manthan (a mythological story of the churning of the ocean).

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The 75 feet long and 9 feet wide Samudra Manthan pictures on the wall of Parliament House are astounding and the spirit behind making this picture of Samudra Manthan further strengthens the ideas of democracy formed by public participation.

Naresh Kumawat, the artist who made these pictures, told ANI, "Samudra Manthan was also a churning of ideas and the Parliament House is also a churning centre of ideas in a democracy. Keeping in mind the tradition of exchange of ideas, pictures of gods and goddesses have been carved inside the Parliament House on the lines of Samudra Manthan."

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Sculptor Kumawat also said that he considers himself fortunate as he got the opportunity to make a picture of the Samudra Manthan with Panch Dhatu in the Parliament House.

Kumawat further stated that PM Modi thinks about the welfare of 140 crore Indians.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi thinks about the welfare of 140 crore Indians every moment and keeping them in mind, the picture of Samudra Manthan has been engraved," he said.

"After discussions with the Ministry of Culture and IGNCA (Indira Gandhi National Culture Center for Art), it was decided to make images of gods and goddesses and demons on the lines of Samudra Manthan inside the Parliament House," he added.

Kumawat has also made 20 feet portraits of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar above the Ashwa Dwar in the Parliament House.

In response to the question, on what did the sculptor Naresh Kumawat get as a reward in lieu of making the idol, Naresh Kumawat said, "Artist work due to his emotions and the reward does not matter much."

The sculptor also holds the record for making the tallest Lord Shiva idol in the world which is 370 feet high. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
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NEW YORK  If your idea of a meal while camping is something quick and bland  maybe a power bar, a can of beans or some instant noodles  food writer and critic Chris Nuttall-Smith suggests something else, just as quick but also tasty.

An avid backpacker, hunter, skier and wilderness paddler, Nuttall-Smith has devised ways to bring a gourmet experience to the outdoors. With minimal fuss around a fire, he prepares spice-kissed lamb kebabs, restaurant-quality risotto, fire-baked pecan sticky buns and more.

Hes put it all in Cook It Wild: Sensational Prep-Ahead Meals for Camping, Cabins, and the Great Outdoors, from Clarkson Potter, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group. There are 75 recipes for lunches, dinners, desserts, snacks and, necessarily, cocktails, published just as the summer outdoor season kicks off.

My goal in making this book was to develop, to create, to share recipes that didnt need to be eaten outside. Theyre great enough that you can eat them at home, but when youre out there, man, they just make your trip, he said.

Nuttall-Smiths hack is to do much of the prep work at home before setting out  toast the nuts, pulse the sauce, caramelize the shallots and open a can of beans to pour out exactly what you need.

All that not only gives you correct portions, but means a lighter pack and less waste to worry about in the outdoors. Plus, you dont have that awkward feeling of balancing a cutting board on your knee while you chop vegetables. More than half the recipes take 10 minutes or less at camp.

All these little tricks were things that either I came up with or, thank God, Ive got a lot of friends who work in food who say, Why are you doing that? Why dont you do this super-easy thing? And you just kind of slap your forehead.

Nuttall-Smith freezes as much as he can to reduce spoilage, and carefully packs a cooler with early-trip items at the top to prevent churn.

There are so many things you can freeze that youre not harming the flavor or the texture or the cooking properties, he said. Even olive oil: It tastes exactly the same. You just shake it up. Its great.

The books recipes contain everything from Negronis and a mac and cheese  the pasta is cooked at home  to several ways to use aluminum foil to make food packets that just need to be heated up. And being Canadian, Nuttall-Smith had to include a poutine recipe.

Jennifer Sit, executive editor at Clarkson Potter, has made a bunch of the recipes and says the quality is so good that readers may just want to start cooking them at home, even if they have no intention of going camping.

The depth of knowledge and experience he brings from his love of the great outdoors is what takes this book to the next level, she wrote.

One of the books triumphs is a recipe for campfire paella which calls for prepping squid, sofrito and green beans at home and is finished at camp with shrimp, rice, onion and saffron threads. He also includes alternate versions with chicken and a vegetarian option.

Theres an old saying, everything tastes better outside, and I think there is some real truth to that, said Nuttall-Smith, who is a judge on Top Chef Canada. Outdoors paella takes the dish back to its roots  field workers in Spain used to cook it on shovels.

Nuttall-Smith approached the book hoping to interest campers at every level. Can I have a book that is going to be inspiring and delicious for backpackers, and as inspiring and delicious for paddlers and for RVers and for backcountry skiers and beach rats? he said. Theres very few that try to reach out to a whole cross-section.

The layout is very clear, with each recipe divided into at home and at camp sections, how many people each dish serves, the weight, how long it will keep, and symbols for his recommendations, like dishes best for paddlers or ones needing a camping stove.

At some point you just realize how rewarding it is, how special it is, to eat something really good when youre in one of the most beautiful places youve ever been to. It just caps the experience, he said.

Nuttall-Smith even designed the book so that each recipe could be photographed. He has no desire for readers to add the weight of his book to their packs.

Who the hell wants to go camping with a cookbook? he said, laughing. Even if youre car camping. Like, when Ive been car camping, my cars just loaded to the gunwales. I dont want a cookbook.
New Delhi [India], May 28 (ANI): Stating that the 'Amrit Kaal' will give a new direction to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the new parliament building should be a shining example of the country's vision and resolve of New India.

PM Modi said that the construction of the new complex gave employment to over 60,000 labourers, and a digital gallery has been created to honour their hard work.

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Addressing the ceremony, PM Modi said, "Several years of foreign rule took away our pride from us. But today, India has left behind that colonial mindset. India is the mother of democracy. It is also the foundation of global democracy. Democracy is our 'Sanskaar', idea and tradition".

He further said that there was a need for a new parliament and the new building is equipped with modern facilities and the latest gadgets.

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"There was a need for new parliament. We also have to see that the number of seats and MPs will increase in the coming time. That's why it was need of the hour that a new Parliament is made," he said.

PM Modi added, "This building is equipped with modern facilities and has latest gadgets. It has given employment to over 60,000 labourers. We have created a digital gallery to honour their hard work".

The Prime Minister further said that the inspiration is the same from Panchayat Bhawan to Sansad Bhawan.

"As we sit in the new parliament, I find immense satisfaction in the accomplishment of building 4 crore homes and 11 crore toilets for the people, constructing 4 lakh kilometres of rural roads, constructing 50,000 Amrit Sarovar, and creating 30,000 new Panchayat Bhavans. From Panchayat Bhawan to Sansad Bhawan, our inspiration is the development of our country and its people," the Prime Minister added.

He added that 'Amrit Kaal' will give a new direction to our nation to fulfil our vision of New India and this new building should be a shining example of our vision and resolve.

"This new Parliament will become witness to the rise of a self-reliant India. When India surges ahead, the world also moves forward. Along with India, the new Parliament building will also contribute to the world's progress," the Prime Minister said.

After concluding his speech in the Parliament, PM Modi interacted with several leaders in the new Parliament.

The Prime Minister's address was followed by that of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla.

Prime Minister Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. PM Modi also performed sashtang pranam as a mark of respect before the 'Sengol' during the ceremony.

"It is our good fortune that we have been able to restore the pride of the holy 'Sengol'. Whenever proceedings start in this House the 'Sengol' will inspire us," said PM Modi.

PM Modi was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by Adheenams before it was installed in the new building. The Sengol marked the transfer of power from the British to the Indians in 1947.

After dedicating the new parliament building to the country earlier this morning after a ceremony that saw a multi-faith prayer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi this afternoon walked into the new building amid chants of "Modi" "Modi" and a standing ovation for the second phase of the inauguration ceremony.

The new Parliament building is designed to enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha.

Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Nagpur, May 28 (PTI) The Anti Extortion Cell of Nagpur Crime Branch arrested two persons for allegedly seeking Rs 40 lakh as extortion from a doctor, an official said on Sunday.

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One of the accused is a web developer and the other is a bank recovery agent, the official said.

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"They purchased a mobile from a youth and inserted a SIM card to target doctors with extortion calls. On May 15, they called the victim and sought Rs 40 lakh. The doctor approached police, which gave him protection," he said.

The two were arrested on Saturday, he added.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Shahjahanpur (UP), May 28 (PTI) Police here have arrested two men for the death of a pregnant woman who they say was "trapped" in a love affair and the accused were putting pressure on her to convert to Islam.

Seema Gautam (24) died at a hospital in Lakhimpur Kheri where she was brought by the accused -- Naved and Farhan. Her brother has alleged that she was poisoned.

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Superintendent of Police S Anand told PTI that Gautam, a resident of Lakhimpur Kheri, was in a live-in relationship with Naved and the couple was staying at a rented accommodation owned by Mustaquim in Roza area of the district.

At around 1 pm on Saturday, she was brought to the hospital by Naved and Farhan. The duo told hospital authorities that the woman was Zoya Siddiqui, wife of Naved, during the admission, police said.

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When the doctors declared her dead, they fled before police arrived.

Following interrogation, police said the couple was living together for the last one-and-a-half years and the woman was pregnant. The accused were exerting pressure on her to change her religion, they said.

Based on the complaint lodged by the brother of the deceased, a case was registered against Naved, Mustaquim and Farhan under sections of the Indian Penal Code, Schedule Caste/Schedule Tribe Act and Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act.

Police said Naved and Farhan are in jail while Mustaquim is absconding.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Art curator Yuliia Berdiiarova is among over one million people who have fled to Germany from Ukraine. She's now working to ensure that Ukrainian art gets its proper place in history.On a Monday afternoon in Cologne, Ukrainian curator Yuliia Berdiiarova meets me at the rear entrance of Museum Ludwig. The museum, next to the main train station and Cologne cathedral, is closed to the public on Mondays.

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Berdiiarova, a 29-year-old art historian, worked at the Odesa Fine Arts Museum and the Mystetskyi Arsenal in Kyiv before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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In her role at Museum Ludwig, she has organized a school vacation program for Ukrainian refugee children and their parents. She also conducts research into Ukrainian modernism, which had previously been falsely attributed to the Russian avant-garde.

Berdiiarova offers to show me some of the artworks that will be displayed from June 3 as part of the exhibition, "Modernism in Ukraine 1900-1930s." The curator has been part of the Museum Ludwig team for almost a year, and she's helping to prepare this show.

Many of the works in this extensive exhibition, previously on show in Madrid, were removed from Ukraine due to the war, and had never before been displayed outside the country. The exhibition is completed by works that have been taken out of Museum Ludwig's storage.

We take the stairs to the first floor and walk through the museum, which is mostly empty. Berdiiarova says museums without people make her sad. "A lot of museums (in Ukraine) are still closed," she says. "It's a place for dialogue sometimes. It's a place for relief, to feel connection with history, to feel connection with other people."

Forced to flee war in Ukraine

Even in Cologne, Russia's war in Ukraine is ever-present for Berdiiarova. But she knows she's one of the lucky ones. Her position at Museum Ludwig and her stay in Cologne are financed by three different foundations. But last June, when she left Odesa, where she'd worked as a museum curator for six years, she didn't know what was next. She took a step into the unknown.

"It was a very hard decision to leave Odesa," she says. "I don't want to call it an adventure because adventure is something good, but it was not an adventure in a good way. It was just like a step into nothing. I had a really small bag. That was all."

That bag contained nothing more than her documents, ID and the most essential clothes. Berdiiarova has since had some of her clothes sent to her from Ukraine, and before me stands a stylish woman all in black: A turtleneck top, a suit, sunglasses. She says, with a wink, that she tries to look the part of a typical museum curator, inspired by the famous Kasimir Malevich painting, "Black Square."

Reclaiming Ukrainian names

Berdiiarova would have preferred to stay in Ukraine. She says that in the first few months of the war, she and her colleagues initially took works from the museum in Odesa to safety, but then life there became impossible.

She fled across to Warsaw, from where she continued first to Berlin, then to Cologne. Ukrainian colleagues sent her information about a program for Ukrainian curators in Germany from the Ernst Siemens Foundation.

She hasn't abandoned her homeland in Cologne; on the contrary, she says she's fighting in her own way: with words. At Museum Ludwig, she's corrected all the names of Ukrainian artists. "First, we freed the spelling of the cities from their Russian spelling. That was part of the Soviet Union's culture of appropriation, to Russify names of cities and people. We made Kharkov into Kharkiv again. The names were transliterated from the Russian alphabet into the Latin alphabet. And I'm very proud that Museum Ludwig agreed to the corrections."

The war has changed the view of Ukrainian art

So, the Ukrainian artist Alexander Bogomazov is now Oleksandr Bohomazov and the Ukrainian capital is now spelled "Kyiv."

The war has now helped familiarize the public with Ukraine and its art history  thanks in part to Berdiiarova's work. She combed through the Museum Ludwig's collection and not only came across names of Ukrainian artists whose names still had the Russian spellings, she also corrected national affiliations.

Kazimir Malevich, for instance, "had a Ukrainian passport during the Soviet era, where it was written that he was Ukrainian." Berdiiarova adds that he spent a significant portion of his career as a professor at the Kyiv Academy of Arts, and published texts in Ukrainian magazines. She says that Malevich's Ukrainian identity was suppressed, so he was always considered a representative of the Russian avant-garde.

Other Ukrainian artists, like Vasyl Yermilov, were also co-opted by the Russian avant-garde. The artist was born in Kharkiv in 1894 but was considered a representative of the Russian Constructivist movement. Now, on the initiative of Yuliia Berdiiarova, his works hang in a new context  alongside works by Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich. "Late, but justice all the same," Berdiiarova says proudly.

Ukrainian artists liberated from appropriation

"We are trying to understand how the concept of the Russian avant-garde was part of the system of appropriation of culture in the post-imperialist area, and why it has so much power," she said. "Why was the imperialist background of the Soviet Union overlooked for so long in the first place? These are all very long processes."

So, along with numerous colleagues, she is compiling a list of all the Ukrainian artists in collections worldwide. The list is intended to prove how diverse the Ukrainian art landscape has been, and how Russian propaganda denied it a place in art history.

Even though she feels at home in Cologne  and the modern "Crane Houses" along the Rhine remind her of motifs from constructivist paintings, as she recounts with a smile  she also feels very lonely. So she wants to return to Odesa when her program ends, even though the war will probably not be over by then. "Odesa is my home. It's just too hard to be so far away. Sometimes it feels safer to be with your people, even when bombs are falling."

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 28, 2023 04:30 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Kyiv, May 28: Ukraine's capital was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of Russia's war, local officials said, as Kyiv prepared to mark the anniversary of its founding on Sunday. At least one person was killed.

Russia launched the most massive attack on the city overnight Saturday with Iranian-made Shahed drones, said Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official. The attack lasted more than five hours, with air defense reportedly shooting down more than 40 drones. Russia-Ukraine War: Russian Forces Return Bodies of 61 Fallen Soldiers of Ukrainian Army.

A 41-year-old man was killed and a 35-year-old woman was hospitalised when debris fell on a seven-story nonresidential building and started a fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Debris from a drone damaged the building of the Ukrainian Society of the Blind.

On Sunday morning, organisation member Volodymyr Golubenko came to pick up his things. He was helped by his son Mykola, who searched for his father's belongings among the rubble and at the same time tried to describe to his father what his office looks like now.

This wall on the right is destroyed and on left also, said Mykola to his father.

Volodymyr Golubenko worked at this place for more than 40 years. He says it is a home for many blind people, because they come here to talk and support each other.

If you don't even have a job, it's difficult to get a job now, because these events (war) have been going on since last year. At least people come here to chat," said Volodymyr. Like Golubenko, many people in his district heard the sound of Shahed drones for the first time. Among them was 36-year-old Yana, who has three boys. The family hid in a corridor all night. Russia-Ukraine War: Ukrainian Army Kills 28 Russian Soldiers, Destroys Two Russian Ammunition Depots and Checkpoint.

Something started to explode above us. The children ran here in fear," said Yana. Ukraine's air force said that Saturday night was also record-breaking in terms of Shahed drone attacks across the country. Of the 54 drones launched, 52 were shot down by air defense systems.

In the northeastern Kharkiv province, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said a 61-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were killed in two separate shelling attacks. Kyiv Day marks the anniversary of the city's official founding. The day is usually celebrated with live concerts, street fairs, exhibitions and fireworks. Scaled-back festivities were planned for this year, the city's 1,541st anniversary.

The timing of the drone attacks was likely not coincidental, Ukrainian officials said. The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians, Ukraine's chief presidential aide, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram. Today, the enemy decided to congratulate' the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), Popko also wrote on the messaging app.

Local officials in Russia's southern Krasnodar region said that air defence systems destroyed several drones as they approached the Ilsky oil refinery. Russia's southern Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, also came under attack from Ukrainian forces on Saturday, local officials said.

Regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported Sunday that a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy were wounded in the shelling. Drone attacks against Russian border regions have been a regular occurrence since the start of the invasion in February 2022, with attacks increasing last month. Earlier this month, an oil refinery in Krasnodar was attacked by drones on two straight days.

Ukrainian air defences, bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied systems, have been adept at thwarting Russian air attacks  both drones and aircraft missiles. Earlier in May, Ukraine prevented an intense Russian air attack on Kyiv, shooting down all missiles aimed at the capital.

The bombardment, which additionally targeted locations across Ukraine, included six Russian Kinzhal aero-ballistic hypersonic missiles, repeatedly touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin as providing a key strategic competitive advantage and among the most advanced weapons in his country's arsenal.

Sophisticated Western air defence systems, including American-made Patriot missiles, have helped spare Kyiv from the kind of destruction witnessed along the main front line in the country's east and south. While most of the ground fighting is stalemated along that front line, both sides are targeting other territory with long-range weapons.

Against the backdrop of Saturday night's drone attacks, Russia's ambassador to the U.K., Andrei Kelin, warned of an escalation in Ukraine. He told the BBC on Sunday his country had enormous resources and it was yet to act very seriously, cautioning that Western supplies of weapons to Ukraine risked escalating the war to a new dimension.

The length of the conflict, he said, depends on the efforts in escalation of war that is being undertaken by NATO countries, especially by the U.K. Kelin's comments are typical of Russian officials' rhetoric with regard to Moscow's military might, but contradict regular reports from the battlefield of Russian troops being poorly equipped and trained.

Also on Sunday, the death toll from Friday's missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional capital of the Dnipropetrovsk province, rose to four. Regional. Gov. Serhii Lysak said that three people who were considered missing were confirmed dead. There were 32 people, including two children, wounded in the attack, which struck a building containing psychology and veterinary clinics.
Tehran [Iran], May 28 (ANI): Clashes broke out on Saturday between Iranian and Afghan Taliban forces at the border between the two countries, Iranian police said without reporting casualties, amid a water dispute between the two neighbours, Iran-based news agency Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

Brigadier General Qasem Rezaei, deputy commander of the national police, expressed grave concern over the unprovoked attack Saturday on the Sassoli outpost, located in the Zabol border regiment near the Afghan frontier.

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The Taliban forces initiated the assault in contravention of "international law and principles of good neighbourliness", and were met with "a decisive and courageous counteraction from the border guards" of the Islamic Republic, the commander said.

Iranian border guards issued necessary warnings after the initial gunfire from the Taliban, but "unfortunately the gunfire resumed hours ago and clashes are ongoing," he added.

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Following the border skirmishes, Brigadier General Ahmadreza Radan, chief commander of the national police, issued a directive to the border guards, asking them to "defend the borders bravely and decisively and not allow any trespassing or encroachment."

Later, the information centre of Sistan and Baluchestan's Border Guard command revealed more details about the border clashes, IRNA reported.

It said the Iranian border guards had engaged with "unidentified armed individuals who intended to enter the Islamic Republic of Iran" at the Zabol border.

The Iranian border guards inflicted significant damage and casualties on the armed individuals through their heavy fire superiority, the statement added, IRNA reported.

Kazemi Qomi told Iranian state TV late on Friday that nearly two billion cubic meters of water flew to Godzareh Lake last year contrary to what Taliban officials have said about the shortage of water in the Helmand River.

The diplomat said that the Taliban officials know if they want to establish a stable government in the country, they must have constructive relations with neighbours, including Iran, IRNA reported.

He also reminded the ruling group in Kabul that Iran has provided assistance to the people of Afghanistan more than any other country over the past decades. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Berlin, May 29 (AP) Several Jewish groups, politicians and an alliance of civil society groups gathered for a memorial ceremony and a protest rally against a concert by Roger Waters in Frankfurt on Sunday evening.

They accuse the Pink Floyd co-founder of antisemitism - an allegation he denies.

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Waters has also drawn their ire for his support of the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel.

Frankfurt authorities had initially tried to prevent the concert taking place, but Waters successfully challenged the move in a local court.

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The concert is taking place in the city's Festhalle, where in November 1938 more than 3,000 Jews were rounded up by the Nazis, beaten and abused, and later deported to concentration camps.

Against this historical background, the concert should not have taken place under any circumstances, said Sacha Stawski, a member of the Frankfurt Jewish community and head of the group Honestly Concerned, that helped organize the protests.

It's very frustrating" that the concert is going ahead as scheduled even though Frankfurt officials and many others tried to prevent it, Elio Adler, the head of the Jewish group WerteInitiative which supports the protest, told The Associated Press.

His words and imagery spread Jew-hatred and are part of a trend: to normalize Israel-hatred under the protection of freedom of speech or art, Adler added.

Last week, police in Berlin said they had opened an investigation of Waters on suspicion of incitement over a costume he wore when he performed in the German capital earlier this month.

Images on social media showed Waters firing an imitation machine gun while dressed in a long black coat with a red armband. Police confirmed that an investigation was opened over suspicions that the context of the costume could constitute a glorification, justification or approval of Nazi rule and therefore a disturbance of the public peace.

Waters rejected those accusations in a statement on Facebook and Instagram, saying that the elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms.

He claimed that attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated.

During Sunday's ceremony and protests, which took place in front of the Frankfurt concert venue before Waters' concert was set to begin, protesters read out loud the names of 600 Jews who were rounded up at the Festhalle on November 9, 1939, the so-called Kristallnacht  the Night of Broken Glass  when Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

The organizers also held a joint Jewish-Christian prayer for the victims of the Nazi terror in Frankfurt. The city's mayor as well as the head of the local Jewish community spoke at the protest.

Hatred of Jews is to be condemned everywhere in our city, Frankfurt Mayor Mike Josef said, according to German news agency dpa. There is no reason to hate, insult and attack a person because of his religion.

Before the performance began, around 400 protesters handed out flyers to concertgoers and waved Israeli flags. Others held up banners with slogans such as Israel, we stand with you or Roger Waters, wish you were not here in reference to Pink Floyd's famous song Wish You Were Were, dpa reported.

Protesters in Munich rallied against a concert by Waters earlier this month, after the city council said it had explored possibilities of banning the performance but concluded that it wasn't legally possible to cancel a contract with the organizer.

Last year, the Polish city of Krakow cancelled gigs by Waters because of his sympathetic stance toward Russia in its war against Ukraine. (AP)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Extinction Rebellion environmental activists protest against tax breaks for fossil fuel use on March 11 (Image Credit: Reuters)

The Hague [Netherlands], May 28 (ANI): Over 1,500 climate activists have been arrested on Saturday during a demonstration in The Hague, Netherlands, Al Jazeera reported citing Dutch police.

The Extinction Rebellion climate group blocked a section of a motorway in the centre of the city against the Dutch fossil fuel subsidies.

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Talking about the incident, the Dutch police said that they used the water cannon to disperse activists, who were blocking a major road in the city and arrested "a total of 1,579 people ... 40 of whom will be prosecuted" on charges including vandalism.

Several Dutch celebrities were among the protesters, including Carice van Houten, best known for her role as Melisandre in the hit TV series, Game of Thrones, according to Al Jazeera.

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The Dutch news agency ANP reported that Houten was arrested but later allowed to return home.

It did not specify if she was among those who would be prosecuted.

The protests marked the seventh organised by Extinction Rebellion in this area of The Hague, but the highest number of people arrested so far, according to ANP.

The environmental campaign group has in recent years garnered media attention through disruption, hitting roads, airports and other public transport networks with direct action protests against climate change.

Last month, it began four days of action in London, promising less disruption and more inclusion than the mass blockades that have become its trademark, reported Al Jazeera. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Islamabad [Pakistan], May 28 (ANI): At least 22 security personnel were wounded after a suicide bomber on a motorbike targeted a convoy in the Chehkan area of Pakistan's Dera Ismail Khan, Dawn reported.

Official sources have revealed that the blast was a "suicide attack in which an unknown suicide bomber riding on a motorbike blew himself up on the convoy of security forces." The official sources further said that at least 22 security personnel were injured in the attack, as per the Dawn report. However, the military's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) have not issued a statement.

Also Read | Honour Killing in Pakistan: Woman Burnt Alive by Family Members in Punjab Province As She Wants To Marry a Man of Her Choice.

According to official sources, the convoy was heading to the Minza area in the South Waziristan district when it was attacked. After the suicide attack, the area was cordoned off, according to Dawn.

The official said that the injured personnel were taken to the Combined Military Hospital in Dera Ismail Khan for treatment, as per the Dawn report. According to the official, two of the injured personnel are "reported to be in critical condition."

Also Read | Japan: Animal Rights Activists Condemn Centuries-old Ritual.

The security personnel who were injured in the attack included Hawaldar Tanvir, Hawaldar Zulfiqar, Lance Naik Mustafa, Sepoy Hanif, Sepoy Nawaz, Naik Liaquat, Lance Naik Faraz, Naik Shahid, Sepoy Sikandar, Mir Jafer, Ameer Asghar, Naik Azhar, Naik Musa, Sepoy Fida Hussain, Sepoy Sahib Kamal, Sepoy Kamran, Sepoy Tanzeem, Sepoy Arif, Basit Ali, Saleem, Barber Waseem and driver Sepoy Muneeb.

The police sources have revealed that the convoy was targeted near the Wana petrol pump, as per the Dawn report. According to sources, the suicide bomber passed through the convoy and detonated himself in front of the fourth vehicle of the convoy of security forces.

The police sources said that it is "likely" that the suicide bomber was waiting for the convoy at the petrol pump, which is approximately 400 metres away from the site of the attack. After the attack, a contingent of police and security forces reached at the spot and started a joint search operation in the area.

Meanwhile, two police personnel were killed in an alleged grenade blast inside the police training centre in the Shah Kas area of Jamrud tehsil of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Thursday night, Dawn reported.

Khyber District police officer Salim Abbas Kulachi said that a hand grenade went off after falling from the hands of a policeman when DSP Nawaz Khan was inspecting the security bunkers of the training centre at midnight, Dawn reported.

Salim Abbas Kulachi said that two policemen identified as Shah Mehmood and Nur Islam lost their lives on the spot. He further said that DSP Nawaz and ASI Barkat were injured, Dawn reported. The injured police officials were taken to Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar.

Contrary to the police officer's statement, insiders have said some unknown miscreants hurled a grenade at a police watchtower from outside the training centre, which resulted in casualties and injuries, as per the Dawn report. However, police officials refused to confirm the attack. (ANI)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Abu Dhabi [UAE], May 28 (ANI/WAM): The United Arab Emirates has expressed concern over the recent tensions on the border between the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Kosovo, underscoring the need to de-escalate, return to dialogue and respect the rules and principles of international law.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) emphasised the depth of relations and close friendships that link the UAE to both Kosovo and Serbia, highlighting the visit of His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Belgrade and Pristina during a regional visit in March 2023.

Also Read | Influencer Dies After Live-streaming Himself Drinking Bottles of Chinese Vodka.

The Ministry expressed the UAE's hope for both countries to return to the commitment to the European Union-facilitated dialogue and implementation of the agreement reached in Brussels in February regarding the normalization of relations and the road map agreed upon in Ohrid, North Macedonia, in a way that achieves peace and prosperity for the peoples of Serbia and Kosovo, and the entire region. (ANI/WAM)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
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Two people are in custody after a police chase on Wednesday evening during which witnesses reported seeing officers pursue an SUV driving on its rims.

At about 7:20 p.m. on Wednesday, the Albemarle County Police Department said it received information on the whereabouts of a wanted individual.

Upon locating the suspects car, ACPD officers attempted a traffic stop, the police department said in a Friday statement. The driver refused to stop and fled the officers onto Monacan Trail.

County police said officers deployed stop sticks, a type of tire-deflation device designed to puncture the tires of a vehicle and cause it to slow down and come to a stop, sometimes called a spike strip.

A successful stop sticks deployment occurred on the suspects vehicle deflating both driver-side tires, police said. However, the driver continued to flee at some points traveling in the wrong direction on ramps and running red lights."

The fleeing vehicle, police said, traveled through the city of Charlottesville at speeds around 30 mph.

Once back in the countys jurisdiction, ACPD officers applied a PIT (Precision Immobilization Technique) maneuver to the vehicle bringing the pursuit to a stop on Georgetown Road, according to the police statement.

Once stopped, the police proceeded to arrest the vehicles occupants, identified as 37-year-old Hunter Lang Brown and 45-year-old Melinda Ann Collier.

Collier was wanted on several warrants out of Greene County, Albemarle police said.

Collier has been charged with petit larceny, grand larceny and stealing a motor vehicle  all originating from Greene County.

After Wednesday's chase, Brown has been charged with felony eluding and not carrying an inspection sticker  all Albemarle County charges.

Both Collier and Brown are being held at Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.

The authorities are asking anyone with any information regarding Collier and Brown to contact the Albemarle County Police Department at (434) 296-5807 or the CrimeStoppers anonymous tip line at (434)977-4000.
Actor Preity Zinta offered prayers at Shree Somnath Jyotirlinga Temple on Sunday. The actor also took to her Instagram handle to share the video from her recent visit. In the video, she can be seen having darshan with her family members. Preity Zinta and Hubby Gene Goodenough Meet Dalai Lama in Dharamshala (View Pics).

Check Out The Video Here:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Preity G Zinta (@realpz)

She wrote in the caption, "When Mom insisted on visiting the 12 Jyotirlingas in India I knew I couldn't say no to her. Of course, we had to start with the Incredible Somnath Temple in Gujrat. Seeing it up close filled me with awe. The afternoon Aarti was intoxicating & the temple was Majestic vibrating with energy. I was overcome with a deep sense of gratitude & a feeling of how small I am in the larger scheme of life. I was both humbled & fascinated at the same time. This beautiful temple is a great symbol of Indian Heritage & resilience. It was sparkling clean & so well taken care of. As I bowed down to pray I realised my mom was just a messenger. This trip was meant for me. Bhole Nath wanted me there. That feeling was surreal & magical. I will forever be grateful to my mom for starting this deeply satisfying & spiritual journey. As a mother myself, I hope I can keep my children grounded & close to their roots so they grow up to be proud of their rich culture & have a strong moral compass. This temple is a must-see. I'm sure you will feel the same way I felt #Om #somnathtempal #Gratitude #ting."

She also gave a sneak peek into the meals she had in Gujarat in the clip. The post by the 'Kya Kehna' actor received a lot of reactions from the fans.

A social media wrote, "Enormously beautiful PZ ma'am " Another commented, "Very nice place good looking ma'am.""The way you are following Hinduism is inspiring. Jai Bholenath. Har Har Mahadev." , a fanpage wrote. Preity Zinta Claims Being Harassed in Mumbai, Says Im a Human Being First, Then a Mom & Then a Celebrity (Watch Video).

Meanwhile, on the work front, Preity has worked in various Bollywood films like Har Dil Jo Pyar Karega, Chori Chori Chupke Chupke, Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha, Jaan-E-Mann, and Heroes.

Preity has been living in Los Angeles ever since she tied the knot with Gene. The couple got married on February 29, 2016, in Los Angeles. The duo became parents to twins in 2021. Announcing the birth of her children via surrogacy, Preity in 2021 wrote, "Hi everyone, I wanted to share our amazing news with all of you today. Gene and I are overjoyed and our hearts are filled with so much gratitude and with so much love as we welcome our twins Jai Zinta Goodenough and Gia Zinta Goodenough into our family."
Puducherry, May 28: Puducherry Chief Minister N Rangasamy informed the eighth Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog on Saturday that his government would establish an IT park in the Union Territory to generate job opportunities for the youth.

Keeping in view the national strategies and the vision of 'Viksit Bharat' (developed India) 2047, the Puducherry government has framed a vision document for raising the GSDP of the Union Territory to USD 50 million by 2047. Puducherry Govt Has Taken Appropriate Steps to Prevent Spread of Covid-19: CM Rangasamy.

In his speech at the meeting in New Delhi, Rangasamy said that through development of Karasur industrial estate, it is expected that around Rs 5,000 crore would be invested through private investment over a period of five years and around 10,000 people would be benefitted either directly or indirectly.

The Chief Minister said it is a challenging task for the line departments to ascertain whether welfare measures of the government reach intended beneficiaries without pilferage.

To overcome this arduous task, a centralised database called 'Unified Data Hub' has been developed that would be combined with the 'Aadhaar Data Vault' with features of common online validation, de-duplication and cross referencing of data helping in quicker service delivery besides plugging leakages in the system.

He told the meeting that the Puducherry administration had requested the Tamil Nadu government to provide 395 acres of land to expand the Puducherry airport. "We have emphasised that the expansion of the airport in Puducherry would not only increase the number of tourists visiting Puducherry for both spiritual and medical tourist but would also facilitate the industrial improvement and development in and around the adjoining districts of Tamil Nadu."

Rangasamy said spiritual tourism is now becoming widespread and occupies an important segment of international tourist arrivals. At present, the UT sees 19 lakh tourists coming in annually including 1.5 lakh foreigners with eight per cent of average growth rate every year.

Regarding women empowerment, the Chief Minister referred to grant of monthly financial assistance of Rs 1,000 to women who are heads of families living below poverty line between the age group of 21 to 55 years rolled out from January this year.

Rangasamy said the government is encouraging registration of properties in the name of women and a 50 per cent concession in stamp duty is also provided.

He pointed out that the UT administration has constantly been requesting the Government of India to include in the terms of reference of the Finance Commission by suitably amending Article 280(3) of the Constitution as regards the word 'State'. A special reference may be made to the Finance Commission to include the Union Territory of Puducherry with legislature.

He pleaded for the Union Territory of Puducherry to be included in the proposed 16th Finance Commission. Puducherry CM N Rangaswamy Announces Free Travel for All Women in Government Buses, Increases Financial Support for Widows to Rs 3000.

Rangasamy also urged the Centre to bring Puducherry into the 'Financial Assistance to States for Capital Investment' category. "We have been constantly submitting the plea to the Union Home and Finance Ministries for grant of special central assistance with a total project cost of Rs 2,328 crore to create five major capital infrastructure facilities in Puducherry," he said.

The Chief Minister also drew the attention of the meeting to the dilemma the government is facing in the fund allocation for the centrally sponsored schemes (CSS). "The dilemma arises with Puducherry neither being treated as a full-fledged State nor as a Union Territory. Puducherry is not included under the ambit of Finance Commission recommendation as it does not fall under the definition of 'State'.

He requested the Centre to restore funding pattern for CSS to 100 per cent for the Union Territtory of Puducherry to ease the financial burden.
According to a party statement, Col Sehrawat and his supporters joined the party in the presence of Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena Chief Eknath Shinde who was in the national capital to attend the NITI Aayog Governing Council Meeting.
Ron DeSantis has now announced that he is running for president in 2024. However, he will be hounded by controversial policies that might not endear him outside his far-right base.

His culture war policies which he dubbed as "anti-woke" has gained much criticism, though it has emboldened other far-right politicians in other states to copy his policies, which many say might be a violation of the First Amendment or freedom of Speech, despite DeSantis claiming Florida has the most freedom of any state in the country.

Ron DeSantis Policies That May Cost Him the Presidency in 2024

The Florida governor has made a name for himself thanks to several controversial policies, signing controversial laws which experts say may be unconstitutional and undermines the civil rights movement. Here are five of his most controversial ones:

Don't Say Gay

The Don't Say Gay Law is probably the most infamous piece of legislation Ron DeSantis has signed. It bans any reference to LGBTQ people in schools, forcing LGBTQ teachers to hide who they are, and has even marginalized LGBTQ students even more. These policies sparked protests all over Florida and according to People Magazine, this even led to its feud with Disney.

Initially, DeSantis signed a law that banned anything LGBTQ from children in third grade or younger. However, the banning of classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity has since been expanded to all grades, K-12.

Defunding Diversity Programs

DeSantis also signed into law a policy that defunded diversity programs from public colleges. This means that subjects relating to race and gender equality will not be funded in government-funded universities and colleges, even historically black colleges and women's colleges.

Rolling Stone pointed out that while DeSantis claims that Florida is #1 in educational freedom, his policies that crack down on these freedoms say otherwise. This has even led protesters to occupy the governor and vice governor's office, in addition to the expansion of Don't Say Gay. This also led to the NAACP issuing a travel advisory against Florida.

READ NEXT: Mexico President Takes Shot at Ron DeSantis

Feud With Disney

Disney has long been one of Florida's biggest employers, as well as its biggest taxpayer. However, DeSantis is feuding with the company over its opposition to Don't Say Gay. In retaliation for the media giant's criticism of his policies, DeSantis took back control of the independent improvement district under Disney's control. However, Disney outmaneuvered the Florida governor and in what legal experts call a genius move, took back control of the district for the time being and forcing Florida into a protracted legal battle.

Controversial Immigration Policies

Ron DeSantis also signed a bill that requires businesses with over 20 workers to check for documents. It also requires hospitals to check the legal status of patients. While it has not yet taken effect, farms and construction sites all over Florida are now empty, with Latino truckers boycotting the state. Much like his Disney feud, this one could also end up negatively impacting the state's economy.

Busing Migrants

While Florida might experience economic repercussions with the last two, DeSantis himself might face some legal trouble with this last one as a Texas sheriff is now investigating him for taking migrants from a Texas migrant shelter and sending them to Martha's Vineyard for a political stunt.

DeSantis brushed off the investigation and even expanded the program, continuing to bus migrants from Texas and into blue states or cities controlled by Democrats. Many are calling this a political stunt to curry favor from his white conservative base, though he might get investigated for kidnapping as many of these migrants are tricked into getting bused, such as the immigrants that were sent to Martha's Vineyard.

READ NEXT: Florida Could Face Mass Labor Shortage Due to Ron DeSantis' New Immigration Law

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

WATCH:Undocumented Miami Workers Challenge DeSantis To Find 300 Wh!te People To Do What They Do - African Diaspora News Channel
Liberty High School in Bethlehem was hailed as a grand symbol of educational progress upon its dedication a century ago.

The ceremony, as reported the next day by The Bethlehem Globe on June 1, 1923, was attended by some of the districts oldest former teachers and graduates. Then in their 80s, they would have attended and taught at Bethlehem schools before the Civil War.
This months address to the Easton Area School Board was unlike any ever given by Easton Area Education Association President Kevin Deely.

He spoke for several minutes about ChatGPT, a free chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to provide lengthy answers in plain English to questions on just about any topic.

Then he revealed he didnt write his comments  ChatGPT wrote them for him.

The AI program rolled out Nov. 30, according to the Associated Press. Its free, its user-friendly and its everywhere, the AP reports.

Millions of people have used it to write silly poems or songs, emails, recipes or explanatory summaries. Now, educators are wary of high schoolers using it to write their term papers. Deely said he suspects some students have used ChatGPT to write poems for his class.

Colleges are taking a hard look at the use of ChatGPT by students. Public school systems in New York City; Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; and Seattle have banned ChatGPT, according to Forbes.com.

Thats the wrong approach, Deely told the school board Tuesday. Since artificial intelligence isnt going away, teachers should help kids learn to use it wisely.

Our curriculum should change, especially in the middle and secondary levels, to understand that our students are going to use their phones, or iPads, enabled with AI, to respond to questions that could be easily ascertained online, Deely said in an email to lehighvalleylive.com.

Teachers should shift away from memorization of facts. Instead, they should encourage kids to look critically at information they review online, look for biases, and check multiple sources before they accept something as fact, Deely said.

ChatGPTs answers sound authoritative but theyre often wrong, the AP reports.

We should encourage the use of AI as a tool, like a calculator, but also encourage (students) to be creative in adapting what output they receive, Deely said.

When Deely assigns a research paper, he requires kids to use source material from a school database. And he requires students to write the paper in a GoogleDoc so he can help with the step-by-step editing process, which helps assure students are the authors of the papers.

Deely said hes mindful of plagiarism but he refuses to devote too much of his instructional or evaluatory time to becoming the plagiarism police. He would rather use his time encouraging kids to become good critical thinkers.

If educators become focused on fighting the use of AI we will be on the losing end of this battle for the minds of our children, he said.

The head of the company that owns ChatGPT is calling on Congress for oversight into artificial intelligence to make sure its used safely and ethically, the AP reports.

School board member Edward Keegan said teachers ought to use artificial intelligence to help craft instruction to meet each childs specific needs. Hes a retired superintendent of Bethlehem Township, N.J., schools.

Artificial intelligence is educational gold, he said.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to Lehighvalleylive.com.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com.
Millions of firearms owners across the United States have until Wednesday to comply with a 21st century regulatory rule rooted in the 1930s fight against gangsters.

May 31 is the deadline to comply with the new rule from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives governing stabilizing braces that convert certain firearms into short-barreled rifles.

Failure to comply  there are options  could expose gun owners to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine, according to the ATF.

While there is no national firearms registry, Congress in passing the National Firearms Act of 1934 subjected particular types of weapons  machine guns, short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns  to taxes and required them to be registered with the ATF in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. The lawmakers nearly 90 years ago chose to regulate certain gangster-type weapons more stringently than other firearms because they were viewed as especially dangerous and unusual, according to the Federal Register entry published Jan. 31 on the new stabilizing braces rule.

Thats the date the rule took effect, opening a 120-day period for owners of these braces to register them without having to pay a $200 tax, ATF Deputy Chief Erik Longnecker told lehighvalleylive.com.

The option to register the affected firearms tax-free under the ATF Final Rule 2021R-08F is scheduled to be discontinued in the federal eForms System effective at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday. Instructions on registering under the eForms System are available at atf.gov and linked from the ATFs webpage for Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached Stabilizing Brace.

According to the ATF, other compliance options provided under the rule are to:

Remove the short barrel and attach a 16-inch or longer rifled barrel to the firearm.

Permanently remove and dispose of, or alter, the stabilizing brace such that it cannot be reattached.

Turn the firearm into your local ATF office

Destroy the firearm.

Stabilizing braces convert a variety of firearms platforms into short-barreled rifles that federal authorities say specifically are dangerous and unusual due to both their concealability and their heightened ability to cause damage  a function of the projectile design, caliber, and propellant powder used in the ammunition and the ability to shoulder the firearm for better accuracy, according to the 98-page Federal Register entry on the rule signed Jan. 13 by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Attorneys representing Boulder, Colorado, and Dayton, Ohio, voiced support for the new regulation after shooters in both cities used pistol braces (that) allowed them to better hide their weapons and better deploy them to attack dozens of innocent victims, the Federal Register entry states. The alleged Boulder gunman in 2021 used a legally purchased Ruger AR-556 pistol to kill 10 people at a supermarket, The Associated Press reported. In Dayton in 2019, a shooter killed nine people and wounded 14 others in 30 seconds with a .223-caliber firearm  also legally purchased  that featured a short barrel and a pistol brace, NBC News reported.

Josh Fleitman, campaign director with Pittsburgh-based CeaseFirePA, said of the new rule without a doubt this will save lives, arguing its fair to characterize as a win for gun safety.

I would characterize it as a win, yes, but a relatively minor step in the grand scheme of policy change that can help save lives from gun violence, he told lehighvalleylive.com.

Fleitman said more lives can be saved from firearms in Pennsylvania under two bills passed Monday, May 22, by the state House, where Democrats used their razor-thin majority to push gun-control measures after a years-long standstill in the politically divided government, according to the AP: The red flag bill, which would allow a judge to order the seizure of firearms if asked by family members or police, passed on a 102-99 vote, with two Republicans voting alongside Democrats, and one Democrat flipping to vote with Republicans; the other bill, which passed by a 109-92 vote, seeks to expand background checks on firearms buyers in Pennsylvania and end an exception for private sales of shotguns, sporting rifles and semi-automatic rifles, known as the gun show loophole.

The bills go to the Republican-controlled state Senate for approval before they would appear on Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiros desk, and Fleitman said hes optimistic on their chances for passage.

Opponents of the stabilizing braces rule say it violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The ATF rejects that argument based on legal precedent on an important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons, the rules Federal Register entry states.

Citing the Congressional Research Service, the National Rifle Association in February said there were between 10 and 40 million stabilizing braces in circulation. The NRA is backing a lawsuit challenging the stabilizing braces rule as unlawful.

The pistol brace rule is a clear abuse of power by the ATF, which is why the NRA has actively engaged in this fight and is challenging the rule, association spokeswoman Amy Hunter said in a statement Thursday. A limited injunction was issued against the rule this week, and we are awaiting a ruling on our motion for a preliminary injunction in the District of North Dakota.

According to the Federal Register review of comments on the regulation: A majority of commenters opposed the proposed rule or any new regulation or registration requirements for firearms equipped with an attached stabilizing brace. Commenters broadly argued that ATF should not make any changes from previous determinations regarding stabilizing braces, thus allowing owners of such attachments to continue using these items in their current configurations.

The road to regulating stabilizing braces creating short-barreled rifles dates to 2012, when the ATF received an inquiry about a forearm brace designed to assist people with disabilities or limited strength or mobility with firing heavy pistols safely and comfortably, as these weapons can be difficult to control with the one-handed precision stance, the Federal Register states. The new rule does not affect stabilizing braces that are objectively designed and intended for use by individuals with disabilities, and not for shouldering the weapon as a rifle, the ATF says  specifying that these types of braces are designed to conform to the arm and not as a buttstock.

Later, manufacturers began introducing new technologies designed so pistols could be fired from the shoulder, leading to pressure from members of Congress in June 2020 on the ATF to take action. The ATF also describes firearms including AR- and AK-type firearm platforms that are converted into short-barreled rifles via stabilizing braces.

Following is an ATF document titled Common weapon platforms with attached stabilizing brace designs that are short-barreled rifles; click this link to view it at atf.gov if it is not displaying:

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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
A young woman who drove through a red light and fatally knocked down a pedestrian has had her driving ban reduced by two years.

The disqualification was cut after the Court of Appeal found that a since overturned interpretation of the law for first time careless driving offenders "must have worked its way into the reasoning" of the sentencing judge.

Letitia Barry (23) of Rivermeade Park, St Margaret's, Dublin, pleaded guilty to driving a car without due care and attention, causing the death of John Byrne at a pedestrian crossing at Whitestown Road, in Rush, Co Dublin on June 7, 2019.

Barry was prosecuted under Section 52(2) of the Road Traffic Act 1961 and sentenced to eight months' imprisonment, which was fully suspended. Judge Melanie Greally also imposed a six-year driving ban at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on February 23, 2022.

The court heard that local man John Byrne (39), who had Down's Syndrome, had used the road crossing many times before and always waited for the green light before crossing. An analysis of the lights sequencing indicated that there was a gap of six seconds between the vehicular lights going red and the pedestrian light going green.

Mr Byrne was flipped into the air and his head hit the kerb. He was brought to hospital but died as a result of the head injuries he sustained.

Barry stayed at the scene after the collision and she and other members of the public tried to provide some comfort to Mr Byrne with blankets.

At the sentencing hearing, the judge was informed that the consequential disqualification order from holding a driving licence for a conviction for such an offence was a mandatory four years.

However, following a decision in the Court of Appeal in a separate case last October it was held that unless a person has two or more previous convictions for careless driving, the sentencing judge was not required to treat a first conviction for careless driving causing death or serious injury as being a 'consequential disqualification' which would mandate a four-year ban.

At the Court of Appeal on Thursday, May 25, David Staunton BL for the appellant, said that Barry, who pleaded guilty, had no previous convictions for careless driving and was a young mother who worked in childcare.

The barrister said Barry had excellent employment and character references.

A garda report noted that the location of street furniture, such as lamp standards and the traffic lights, had a tendency to obscure pedestrians from drivers at the point at which Mr Byrne had been standing.

The report stated the layout was not in accordance with the relative manual for the ideal placement of street furniture.

Mr Staunton said there had been no explanation by the trial judge on the reason for the six-year suspension. Mr Staunton asked the court to consider, if the sentencing judge was operating on a "baseline" of four years, would the ban still be six if that mandatory assumption was removed? Counsel described the matter as a "sad and tragic case".

The barrister said that there was no allegation regarding speed and that Barry had a full and clean licence at the time.

"Everyone was extremely upset about what occurred. Mr Byrne was well-known in the locality," he said.

Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said that the death of Mr Byrne had a "terrible impact" on his family and the wider community.

Eoghan Cole BL, for the State, said the trial judge had considered the minimum period and still considered the offence as meriting a six-year ban for what he described as "grossly incompetent" driving.

Mr Cole said the trial judge said Mr Byrne was "in no way" responsible for the accident and that the light had been red for six seconds before the "tragic" collision.

Mr Cole said that there had been "no appeal to say it wasn't the proper charge", relating to the "fitness and quality of driving against Barry".

"It's not a case where there could be no ban. It's a death case. It's sad and tragic and utterly avoidable," said Mr Cole.

Mr Justice George Birmingham said that it had been previously understood that there was a mandatory disqualification as a consequence of the offence when the case reached the circuit court.

"The decision of this court comes to a different conclusion. Whether there should or not be a ban or the duration of the ban was a matter for discretion for the court dealing with it," he said.

"The offence of careless driving causing harm or serious death is very serious and significant and has very grave consequences for the victim and the family of that victim, and for all of those who feature in each case.

"The impacts are real, and it is not to be understood that we are not conscious of that," said Mr Justice Birmingham, adding that the case was "particularly harrowing".

Mr Justice Birmingham said the layout of the junction had been "certainly sub-optimal" and said Barry had been of "impeccable previous character".

However, the judge said: "The driver drove through a crossing without realising there were lights there and that falls at the very serious end of careless driving.

"Six years of disqualification was fifty per cent in excess of the statutory ban. The question is whether that figure would be arrived at even without the understanding of the ban," he said.

Mr Justice Birmingham said that the "statutory ban must have worked its way into the reasoning" of the sentencing judge and therefore the court would quash the six-year ban and substitute one of four years in the "particularly tragic circumstances".

A relative of Mr Byrne told the sentence hearing that the death of their son, brother and uncle has irrevocably changed the lives of his family. She said that Mr Byrne was a gentle, kind and very sociable man who had many friends in the area and a wide range of interests, including discos and GAA.

Sentencing Judge Melanie Greally said everything said about Mr Byrne conveyed a vivid picture of him as a loveable, larger than life young man. She said he brought brightness into the lives of others and it is no surprise the void he has left is enormous.
A pair of German Shepherds attacked a woman walking her dogs in Portlaoise, a sitting of Portlaoise District Court was told.

Magda Kryzszkowski, 24, of 36 Clondarrig Court, Bellingham, Portlaoise was accused of having no muzzle, licence and leash for one of the dogs. She was also accused of having uncontrolled dogs at Bellingham on July 30 last year.

Garda Sergeant JJ Kirby said gardai received a report from a woman in relation to an incident at the estate at 9.30am on the day in question.

While walking her two dogs she had been attacked by two German Shepherd dogs, Sgt Kirby said the woman had claimed.

He said the defendant admitted the dogs were not on a lead. He said she had no previous convictions.

She did not have a licence in her name for her dog at her home address, said Sgt Kirby.

He said one of the dogs didnt belong to the accused but she got a licence after the incident.

You let two German Shepherds out to play in an estate? Judge Andrew Cody asked the defendant.

She denied it was in an estate.

If you are disputing the facts we will put it in for hearing, said Judge Cody. He adjourned the case to October 24 for hearing.
A motorist caught driving at 175kph faces a driving ban unless he donates 2,500 to charity.

Marin Mihalachi, 28, of 24 St Johns Lawn, Clondalkin, Dublin admitted driving at 175kph in 120kph zone at the M7 Ballydavis, Portlaoise on April 23 last.

Garda Sergeant JJ Kirby said the State would be very reluctant to accept a charge of careless driving in place of the dangerous driving which incurs an automatic driving ban.

Garda Stephen OHanlon said on the date in question the traffic volumes were low, visibility was good and it was dry. He said the defendant was driving a small Ford SUV type vehicle.

Solicitor Barry Fitzgerald asked Judge Andrew Cody to consider reducing the charge. He said his client is a painter and decorator and was pricing a job on a Sunday and had been eager to return home.

His licence would be of significant value to him, said Mr Fitzgerald.

He accepts that he should have been more careful, he said.

As an expression of contrition, Mr Fitzgerald said his client had brought 1,000 to court.

Judge Cody described 175kph as a very significant speed. He said on condition the man paid 2,500 to the Fusion Youth Project in the next six weeks, he would reduce the charge to careless driving and fine him 300.

He adjourned the matter back to Portlaoise District Court on July 13 for finalisation.
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An Albany man with a long history of drug-related crimes has died in state prison for an undisclosed reason, about one year into a nearly three-year sentence.

Keane Koleson Lloyd died in the infirmary at Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem on Friday evening, May 26, according to a state Department of Corrections news release. No cause of death was provided.

Oregon State Police will investigate the death, in line with state policy. Lloyd was 64.

Linn County prosecutors charged Lloyd numerous times with delivering, manufacturing or possessing methamphetamine beginning in 1994, court records show.

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A Lebanon Police Department officer cited Lloyd that November on suspicion of possessing a gun as a felon and distributing methamphetamine in front of a child younger than 16 at a residence on Elmore Street in the city.

Lloyd was charged with first-degree burglary and felony drug crimes among numerous other charges between 1993 and 2021 in Linn County; and giving false information to police and credit card fraud in Marion County  24 cases in all.

In 2005, Linn County charged Lloyd with delivering a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, a Class A felony.

He was charged again in 2021 with delivering a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school. A Linn County Circuit Court judge sentenced Lloyd on May 18, 2022, to 35 months in the custody of Oregons corrections department.
Jordan Auctioneers have just launched to the market a strategic landholding on the edge of Newbridge in the village of Athgarvan.

The property is located a short distance from both Newbridge (3km) and Kilcullen (3km).

It is within km of The Curragh Plains and benefits from good access to the motorway network of both the M7 (junction 12) and M9 (junction 2).

The commuter train service is available from Newbridge with a frequent service to either Heuston Station or Grand Canal Dock.

Newbridge is the nearest town providing all the necessary shopping, recreational educational and other functions.

The entire extends to a total area of 10.52 hectares (26 acres) comprising a cottage and old farmyard. There is frontage onto the Curragh Road of over 350 metres and the yard comprises several old outhouses and stores along with a 3-span hay barn. The land is in several good-sized divisions, all in grass with natural boundaries and hedgerows throughout.

There are several established housing developments adjoining the lands including Old Mill Race, Mountain View, Whitethorn and Eyrefield Lawns.

According to Clive Kavanagh of the selling agents, Athgarvan is a proven selling location benefiting from its village environment yet excellent accessibility to the wider network of towns.

The property is zoned under a number of classifications under the Kildare County

Development Plan 2023  2029: New Residential C4.6 acres, Existing Residential B 1.4 acres, Community and Educational E: 5.6 acres,

Open Space and Amenity F 9.8 acres, and Outside Village Boundary 4.4 acres. The auctioneer points out these are approximate estimates only. The property is for sale by public auction on the Friday, June 30 in the Keadeen Hotel, Newbridge at 3pm.

Jordans are issuing a guide price of 2,600,000 and additional information is available from Clive Kavanagh or Paddy Jordan of the selling agents.
On Friday, May 5, Retrofit Ready was officially launched by Eamon Ryan, Minister for Environment, Climate, Communications and Transport at ATU Sligo.

Removing Barriers to Retrofitting

The types of grants available for home retro-fitting are evolving all of the time and it can be difficult for homeowners to know how best to avail of these supports when making efforts to improve their home's environmental impact. In rural areas, it can also be difficult to engage with the right suppliers due to distances involved. To take the frustration out of the process, the 'Retrofit Ready' programme has recruited two Retrofit Champions. Kyle Flynn is based in Sligo/Leitrim and Owen McConnon in Monaghan/Cavan. They will play a key role in their communities and offer support to groups and individuals who are exploring options available to them.

Community led approach

Across the communities of the four counties, a number of events and information evenings will take place. At these events, the Retrofit Champions will discuss what retrofitting options are available to homeowners, the new grants which are coming available and will also connect the homeowners with the suppliers in their areas. We expect the Retrofit Champions to play a key role in removing the barriers to retrofitting for many individuals. They will develop supports, tools, know-how and approaches to empower local communities with the knowledge they need to effectively take climate action.

The Partners Involved

The Retrofit Ready Initiative is led by the Irish Local Development Network, and consists of four of our border Local Development Companies: Sligo LEADER Partnership, Leitrim Development Company, Cavan County Local Development and Monaghan Integrated Development. Technical expertise is supplied by Plan Energy and ATU Sligo. Pobal administer the funding on behalf of the Department of Environment, Climate, Communications and Transport

The Retrofit Launch

Jim Finn, Chairperson of the ILDN was the MC for the event and began his address by reminding people how valuable community is when it comes to instigating the change that is needed in climate matters.

Community is at the heart of all we do, and the engine which drives progress, which drives change; in moving toward more sustainable living, national policies need to have life breathed into them at local level, by local communities  and this is where local development companies are essential.

Dr Carol Baumann, the CEO of the ILDN spoke to the important role that local development companies play in removing barriers to retrofitting and indeed other environmental issues such as biodiversity loss. She highlighted how local development is about the how of everything and by putting community at the heart of development, we can achieve important goals.

Paul Skinnader, Executive Director at Pobal, who administer the funding on behalf of the Department of Environment, Climate, Communications and Transport spoke of the importance of the community driven approach to initiatives, how these programmes are so important and how inclusivity is central to this scheme which leaves no-one behind.

Gavin Forkan, CEO of Plan Energy shared the details of the programme itself. There are approximately 110,000 households across Leitrim, Sligo, Monaghan and Cavan that they are targeting. He outlined the number of ways that the initiative removes barriers facing these households. He spoke about how they are building capacity at local level, providing technical support to Community Retrofit Champions and offering a Learning by Doing approach to their work.

Una Parsons, Head of College, and John Bartlett, Head of Research of ATU Sligo both spoke to the significance of ATU as a location for the launch, as one of the first colleges to offer an environmental science course it was fitting to host the launch of an innovative programme such as Retrofit Ready

Finally, Minister Eamon Ryan spoke of the importance of place and how pride of place is intrinsically linked to its environment.

Government, Industry, Education and Community all have a key role to play Eamon Ryan, Minister for Environment, Climate, Communications and Transport

Funding

The initiative is part of the Community Climate Action Programme, Strand 2, which focuses on climate education, capacity building and learning by doing  moving beyond raising awareness to building the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to respond to the challenges of climate change at a community level.

The consortium is grateful to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications for the funding support, and to Pobal for its administration support, which has made this work possible.

Community Climate Action Programme: Climate Education, Capacity Building and Learning by Doing (Strand 2), as administered by Pobal. More information on this programme here

Local Development Companies

Since the early 1990s, more than three decades ago, local development companies have been in existence. Established by government, these companies with their Voluntary Boards, now employ more than 2,500 people, across a range of 35+ programmes.

These companies channel in excess of 350 million, every year, into their communities through a range of funding streams from a number of government departments, including DRCD, DSP, Health, in addition to further smaller funding streams. We work closely with Pobal in this work, and we are proud to provide voice to the community in the changes and challenges facing our society.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, on May 24, 2023. VYACHESLAV VIKTOROV / AP

In a video posted on Telegram on Thursday, May 25, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said "the transfer of [Russian] nuclear warheads" had begun on his territory. There were no further details or confirmation from the Kremlin, enough to fuel fears of a nuclear escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.

Since 1991 and the collapse of the USSR, Moscow had never deployed nuclear weapons outside its borders. But it is not the first time that the scenario of deployment in Belarus of Russian tactical nuclear weapons  weapons containing less powerful warheads than so-called "strategic" nuclear weapons  is on the table. On March 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a television interview that building a tactical nuclear weapons storage center in Belarus would happen by July.

This week, the Russian defense ministry said Sergei Shoigou, Russia's defense minister, and Viktor Khrenin, his Belarusian counterpart, had signed "documents describing the process of storing Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in a special facility in the Republic of Belarus." No further details were given on the effective transfer of such nuclear warheads.

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Pressure

Tiphaine de Champchesnel, a specialist in nuclear arms control at the Paris-based Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM), said Russia's regular use of the nuclear threat could be interpreted as a strategy of intimidation aimed at those who support Ukraine, at a time when Kyiv's promised counteroffensive is presented as imminent.

"The installation of these capabilities on Belarusian territory, even without nuclear warheads, can be understood in the light of developments on the conventional front. In the event of difficulties, Russia can try to put pressure on Ukraine by raising the nuclear threat," she said. "Russia can also hope that this pressure will be reinforced by the interventions of other countries, which would ask Ukraine not to go any further to avoid nuclear escalation."

Russia could also try to create divisions within NATO, some of whose members are immediate neighbors of Belarus and could become less ardent in their support for Ukraine.

Moscow presents the nuclear agreement between Russia and Belarus as a response to "the activities of NATO's joint nuclear missions." In March, when Putin declared his intention to deploy these weapons, he criticized the United States and its Western allies for waging a proxy war against Russia by arming Ukraine. He also justified the decision by pointing to Britain's move to send depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine, recalling that the US also "has a long history of deploying tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of its allies."

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French economy ministry in Paris, on November 15, 2022. JOEL SAGET / AFP

France is in "very close talks" with credit rating agency Standard & Poor's, Elisabeth Borne, the French prime minister, said on Sunday, May 28, after a recent downgrade from rival Fitch reignited government finance concerns in the European Union's second-largest economy.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire provided "detailed explanations to S&P of everything we're doing to get our public finances under control" ahead of their rating decision in early June, Borne told Radio J. S&P is expected to make a rating decision regarding France's finances on June 2.

Citing "relatively large fiscal deficits and only modest progress with fiscal consolidation," Fitch last month downgraded France's debt rating to AA-, a number of notches below the top "AAA" awarded to countries including Germany and the Netherlands.

Such ratings help determine borrowing conditions when governments resort to financial markets to raise money.

France's debt hit almost 112% of gross domestic product by the end of last year, driven by a "whatever-it-takes" response to the Covid-19 pandemic and generous support to households and companies through the energy price crunch provoked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"We've introduced reforms, and we've recently revealed a path for government finances into 2027... reducing our deficit to 2.7% of GDP," from its present level closer to 5%, Borne said.

The finance ministry hopes controls on government spending combined with faster growth can bring overall debt levels down to 108% of GDP in the next five years.

With less optimistic assumptions, Fitch forecasted that France's debt-to-GDP ratio would grow to more than 114% over the same period.

"We are acting to support our companies and economic growth, to support activity," Borne said. "We are not simple spectators waiting to see what economic conditions will be like."

In its April rating decision, Fitch did praise a more robust labor market in France on the back of reforms introduced since French President Emmanuel Macron took office in 2017, with historically stubborn unemployment now down to 7.1%.

But it also said "the political impasse and social unrest (sometimes violent)" that the country experienced following a widely contested pension reform imposed by the government posed "a risk to Macron's reform agenda." However, it conceded the reform was likely to "further support the labor market and possibly improve growth prospects in the medium to long term."

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Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele was arrested on February 24, 2022, in Iran. But was Vandecasteele taken hostage as a token of the implementation of an agreement that Tehran and Brussels had been negotiating for months? In January 2023, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison, a $1 million fine (910,000) and 74 lashes for espionage.

The hacking of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' computer system on Sunday, May 7, by a group of hackers called Ghyam Sarnegouni ("From Uprising to Overthrow"), close to the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (an exiled movement that's banned in Iran), is of great interest to Vandecasteele's family.

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Hundreds of minutes of meetings, ministerial correspondence and the identities and phone numbers of the ministry's 11,000 employees were among the information stolen by Ghyam Sarnegouni, who claimed responsibility for an attack that targeted 210 websites and online services. The ministry's spokesman in Tehran, Nasser Kanaani, acknowledged the attack on his institution while downplaying its magnitude.

Draft exchange agreement

In the hacked documents revealed by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)  an offshoot of the People's Mojahedin  and the hacker group on its Telegram page, opponents of the mullahs' regime indicate that the Belgian authorities were considering, even before Vandecasteele's arrest, the need to conclude an exchange agreement for Belgian and Iranian nationals. Perhaps this is because they were concerned about the fate of Ahmad Reza Djalali, a professor at the Flemish Free University in Brussels and a Swedish-Iranian doctor who was arrested in Iran in 2018 and sentenced to death for espionage. He remains in detention today.

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There is no doubt Belgian officials also feared the consequences of the arrest of Assadollah Assadi, a member of the Iranian embassy in Austria and organizer of a planned attack that was to target a CNRI meeting in Villepinte in July 2018. Apprehended in Germany and then transferred to Belgium where his accomplices were, the diplomat was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Antwerp court in February 2021. Intensive exchanges between Brussels and Tehran reportedly took place even before the judgment. This could explain why Assadi, unlike his three accomplices, did not appeal the first instance judgment, counting on a rapid conclusion of the negotiations over his case.

While at the time, the Iranian regime protested what it considered to be a violation of the immunity that its diplomat was supposed to enjoy, documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirm that Assadi was above all a prominent member of his country's intelligence services: The Iranian minister in charge of intelligence, and not the minister of foreign affairs, has had the upper hand on his file from the start.

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A NEW day service for people with disabilities in Limerick will help them to live their best lives.

Avista Training Enterprise and Employment Services officially opened the service on Holland Road, Castletroy. Minister of StateKieran ODonnell, whose late father Dr Martin O'Donnell played a crucial role in the foundation of and growth of St Joseph's in Charleville, unveiled a plaque to commemorate the opening. Mayor Frances Foley also attended the ceremony.

A spokesperson for Avista, formerly known as the Daughters of Charity, said the new location, funded by the HSE, will provide day service programmes as well as rehabilitative training programmes for over 33 individuals.

These programmes are individualised to meet the needs of each person in keeping with the Government's Transforming Lives Programme and New Directions policy.

Avista is delighted to have secured this new centre which is in the heart of the community of the National Technology Business Park and Castletroy. It provides access to the UL campus, local businesses and amenities, and access to public transport.

Avista is excited by the opportunities to build links with local businesses and enterprises and create opportunities for work experience and job opportunities with a strong focus on community inclusion and integration, said the spokesperson.

The location offers opportunities for each individual to be active in their community, supporting them to live their best life andprovide a quality service.

Avistas vision is for each individual to live their best lives as active citizens in an inclusive society. We are confident that our new centre on Holland Road will achieve this vision, said the spokesperson.
GVM presents to the market a truly outstanding four-bedroom detached home positioned on a large corner site and completed to the very highest of standards.

Conveniently located within easy reach of the picturesque and hugely popular village of Pallaskenry which has a wide range of amenities including primary and secondary schools, after school club, shops and restaurants, church and excellent sporting facilities.

There are renowned and spectacular walks at nearby Ringmoylan - a very popular local landmark. Roschoill is just 15 minutes drive from Limerick city and is just off the N69 road linking Limerick to Foynes.

This property is in excellent condition throughout and is ideal for first time buyers to enjoy all the benefits of living in a quiet and tranquil rural setting and just a very short distance from village amenities.

The living and bedroom accommodation is bright, spacious and well proportioned, offering discerning purchasers a wonderful opportunity to acquire a well laid out home at an affordable price point.

Inspection of this property is very highly recommended.

AT A GLANCE

Location: 3 Roschoill, Pallaskenry

Description: Four bedroom, three bath detached home

Price: 365,000

Seller: GVM Auctioneers

Contact: John O'Connell on 087 647 0746

*SPONSORED CONTENT
NEW DELHI : State-run Power Finance Corp. Ltd (PFC) is looking to diversify its loan book and venture into funding road infrastructure projects, two people aware of the development said.

Currently, it is in talks with Omans Galfar group, which will be developing the stretch of the new National Highway-52 (old NH 65), passing through Salasar, Rajasthan, to the Haryana border, said one of the two people, seeking anonymity.

The construction is being done via a special purpose vehicle, Salasar Highways Pvt. Ltd, which is promoted by Galfar Engineering and Contracting SAOG, and Galfar Engineering and Contracting India Pvt. Ltd. (GCIPL).

The Salasar highway stretch would be the first highway project lending by PFC, and it will look to expand the road infrastructure portfolio, going ahead," the person added.

PFC is likely to join a consortium of lenders comprising public sector banks (PSB) to fund the project. The talks are yet to take concrete shape, he said.

Queries to a PFC spokesperson remained unanswered till press time.

The power sector lender has been diversifying its loans portfolio to new areas including e-mobility, metro rail, irrigation, and utility scale energy storage, among several infrastructure projects.

The move to funding road projects will be an addition to its growing lending portfolio. In its bid to venture into the e-mobility segment, the non-banking financial company approved a 633 crore loan to Gensol Engineering Ltd last month for the acquisition of 5,000 passenger EVs and 1,000 cargo EVs.

In its FY22 annual report, PFC chairman and managing director R.S. Dhillon said: With your companys growing balance sheet, diversification into new infrastructure areas is expected to gather steam in coming years."

Its loan book witnessed growth of 13% in FY23 to 8.57 trillion, compared to 7.58 trillion as of 31 March 2022, according to the firms earnings announcement on Saturday.

PFC reported 13% growth in consolidated net profit to 21,179 crore during FY23. We achieved substantial growth in disbursements and saw remarkable double-digit increase in our loan asset book. Furthermore, our active resolution efforts resulted in improved asset quality, with the net NPA ratio nearly reaching 1%. Also, in FY23, we strategically diversified into the infrastructure sector, a significant milestone decision positioning us for our long-term business growth. So far, we have sanctioned refineries, ports and e-mobility projects," Dhillon added.

Diversifying into highway financing comes at a time when the Centre is looking to boost infra projects in the country, through the national infrastructure pipeline (NIP).

According to the government, there are investment opportunities worth $403.86 billion for road infrastructure under the programme.

A recent report by ICRA said Indias road sector may witness a substantial rise of 16-21% in construction activity in FY24 to 12,000-12,500 km, considering the healthy pipeline of projects, the governments increased capital outlay, and focus on project completion.

Despite a major policy push for development of highway infrastructure, the pace of highway construction has been slower than anticipated. Ministry of road transport and highways data showed construction in April fell by 75% sequentially to a little over 500 km, marking a poor start to the road-building target for FY24. Only about 523 km of highways were built in April, at just 17.4 km per day as against a target of over 45 km per day for FY24, the data showed.
NEW DELHI : The Russia-Ukraine war, the covid pandemic and trade tensions between the US and China dragged the trade-to-gross domestic product, or trade openness ratio, to levels last seen during the 2008 global financial crisis, according to the World Banks recent policy research paper.

The report, Measuring globalization when it is needed the most authored by Sebastian Franco-Bedoya said the trade-to-GDP ratio rose until 2008 to reach 61%, before crashing to 52% in 2009 due to the contraction in international trade in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The trade-to-GDP ratio recovered in 2011 to 60%, but since trended back to 52%. The dynamics after 2008 seem to suggest that globalization stagnated or declined."

The observations assume significance as Indian exports are expected to remain under stress due to falling demand in the Western. Indias exports fell 12.7% from $39.7 billion a year earlier to $34.66 billion in April, government data published on Monday showed.

However, it warned that the ratio as a trade openness measure can be misleading and that measuring globalization accurately is necessary to understand the impact of the current challenges of the world economy. A low ratio does not necessarily imply that high trade barriers exist but maybe due to factors like the size of an economy, geographic remoteness from trading partners, and the economys structure," it said.

While the world economy has globalized in the last decades, these dynamics have differed across regions. South Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) come on top, while North America has a declining trend during the 2000s in manufacturing.

The dynamics in North America are driven by the US and these were discussed above. The case of South Asia, while surprising at first sight, is driven by India and in line with the results in figure.

After underperforming the world economy and having serious difficulties, India made rapid progress (starting around 1990) in integrating into the global economy and recovered the lost ground to a large extent," the report further added.

Sectoral dynamics show that while manufacturing globalization was already strong in the 1960s, agricultural and services globalization took off in the late 1970s and 1990s, respectively.

Country-specific dynamics provide deeper insights and capture important economic episodes. For instance, globalization dynamics for the Chinese economy show that it has outperformed the world economy since it started integrating into the global economy in the late 1980s, contrary to what the trade-to-GDP ratio would suggest, the report said.
Indias outbound travellers have something to cheer about, now that the finance ministry has relaxed the new tax collected at source (TCS) rules on foreign spending. The rules, which come into effect from 1 July, earlier stipulated 20% TCS on all types of international transactions.

Following a strong public backlash, the government relaxed the rules. Now, international transactions up to 7 lakh using debit and credit cards will not be subject to TCS. This ceiling will provide relief to a large number of travellers who use their cards to spend on smaller purchases such as food, local commute, shopping, etc. But the new guidelines, while benefiting those with debit and credit cards, excludes the cheapest and most transparent way of transacting overseas: forex.

What this means is that starting 1 July, loading a forex card with a foreign currency or buying the local currency of the country you are travelling to before your trip will demand an upfront 20% TCS from the very first transaction. This would translate to an expensive holiday for those who transact using a forex card or cash to save on foreign transaction fee and high forex mark-up charged on debit and credit cards. To be sure, you can adjust TCS against advance tax payment or get a refund later at the time of filing income tax return (ITR).

The forex markup

A forex card is the electronic version of cash. It is pre-loaded with one or multiple foreign currencies that can be swiped on the go to make all types of payments. It can also be used at an ATM in foreign countries to withdraw cash. All major banks and some fintech companies like BookMyForex offer forex cards.

The primary function of a forex card is to serve as a cheaper alternative to debit and credit cards. The only major charges on a forex card are forex mark-up at the time of loading the card and a small reloading fee of 50-150. To be sure, some fintechs also offer cards with zero mark-up and no reloading fee, such as BookMyforex.

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On the contrary, foreign spends with a debit or a credit card attract double charges - currency conversion fee (or forex markup) of 2-3.5% and foreign transaction fee of up to 3.75% (GST is extra on both the charges). Some banks have started promising zero markup fees on their debit and credit cards but theres a catch on such offerings. The mark-up that is waived off is either that charged by the payment network or the partner bank, which means the card is not completely zero-cost. For instance, Niyos Global travel card is a debit card that the company offers in partnership with SBM Bank and the banks commission is not passed on to the customer.

Generally any debit or credit card comes with the two types of markups. First, network processor markup which is charged by network processors like VISA or Mastercard and it is typically negligible at around 0.1%. Second, the issuing bank mark-up (or commission) that is charged by the card-issuing banks and varies from 2% to 5%. This is completely waived off in case of Niyo cards," said Swapnil Bhaskar, head of strategy, Niyo.

Take note that global travel cards offered by the likes of Niyo, Fi and Jupiter are essentially debit cards linked to a bank account opened with a partner bank. These too are exempted from TCS for up to 7 lakh. Also, the forex markup on debit and credit cards is higher it is linked to interbank rates.

Considering all the charges, Mints calculation shows that you pay about 5% less in fees when transacting with a forex card (see graphic) compared to the other cards. Apart from costs, transacting with forex cards is also more transparent. You can check the breakdown of costs at the time of loading the card and estimate the extra outgo upfront. Whereas, in the case of debit/credit cards, the overhead charges are calculated real-time at the prevailing conversion rates, which are dynamic and often higher than mid-market exchange rate, and the final debited amount is shown in rupees in your bank statement, which may not give a clear picture of the extra amount you have paid in fees.

But, with 20% TCS on loading a forex card, the cost of transacting will go up and defeats the very purpose of using a forex card. This will prompt people to switch to the more expensive options of debit or credit cards just to save on the extra upfront cost.

The cash factor

Cards are not a substitute for cash. Travellers are advised to carry some cash in local currency because in most countries cash is preferred for smaller payments. Also, some remote areas may not even have robust infrastructure for digital payments. Besides, some countries, such as Thailand, require tourists to carry a minimum amount in the local currency, which means you cannot completely avoid the TCS cost when you convert Indian rupees to the local currency. If you get cash from a money changer abroad using your debit or credit card, 20% TCS wont apply under the 7 lakh limit. But, money changers outside India can charge exorbitant mark-up of 5-10%.

Keeping forex out of the 7 lakh ceiling creates disparity as it is a form of foreign currency converted from your own money, which a credit or a debit card does at the time of transaction. Besides, when one travels abroad, the general inclination is to carry that countrys local currency because you dont know the conversion that will be charged. All payment instruments should be treated equally and we hope the government removes this discrepancy," said Sudarshan Motwani, founder and CEO, BookyMyForex. The All India Association of Authorised Money Changers & Money Transfer Agents has submitted a representation to the finance ministry seeking a level playing field for all overseas transactions regardless of the instrument used. Common people use foreign currency cash (up to a maximum of $3,000), prepaid forex travel cards, and wire transfers, while the upper classes use international debit and credit cards," said Bhaskar Rao P., general secretary of the Association.

Almost everyone carries a small amount of currency notes that are required as one lands in a foreign country. Workers who travel to the Gulf and other countries for work typically belong to lower-income groups and depend on cash. These semi-skilled workers probably wont even know how to fill a credit card form and may not even be filing ITRs. A 20% TCS will impact this section massively," said Motwani.

Other changes

The new guidelines have added to some confusion where it pertains to tour packages. As per a tweet put out by MyGov, a citizen engagement platform owned and maintained by the government of India, overseas tour packages denominated in rupees booked through credit card will not attract 20% TCS until the 7 lakh limit is not exhausted. But, tour packages carry a 20% TCS with no exemption limit. There is no mechanism to verify the purpose of payment made through credit card. Credit card payments are exempted up to 7 lakh, so tour packages booked with credit cards are also exempted," explained Karan Batra, managing partner, charteredclub.com. This means tour packages booked with debit cards will not enjoy the benefit and continue to attract TCS. This move will unwittingly incentivise credit card usage for booking overseas holidays through travel agents.

Among other changes, the government has also clarified that payments made during business travel will be exempted from TCS. If the expenses have been incurred in discharge of work of employer and are not personal expenses of the employee, then these are outside the purview of the liberalised remittance system (LRS), subject to verification by the authorised dealer, which is a bank in the case of debit or credit card," said Mayank Mohanka, founder of TaxAaram India, and a partner at S.M Mohanka & Associates.
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday reacted to the controversy surrounding the historic Sengol installed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the new Parliament buildin g during its inaugural ceremony. Opposition and the BJP-led central government have been at loggerheads over the Sengol controversy.

Both sides have good arguments," said Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor on his official Twitter handle on Sunday, after PM Modi inaugurated the new Parliament House today.

He said, The government rightly argues that the sceptre reflects a continuity of tradition by embodying sanctified sovereignty & the rule of dharma."

The Opposition rightly argues that the Constitution was adopted in the name of the people & that sovereignty abides in the people of India as represented in their Parliament, and is not a kingly privilege handed down by divine right," Tharoor stated.

The senior Congress leader asserted that the two positions are reconcilable if one simply drops the debatable red herring about the sceptre having been handed to Nehru by Mountbatten to symbolize the transfer of power, a story for which there is no proof".

My own view on the #sengol controversy is that both sides have good arguments. The government rightly argues that the sceptre reflects a continuity of tradition by embodying sanctified sovereignty & the rule of dharma. The Opposition rightly argues that the Constitution was pic.twitter.com/OQ3RktGiIp  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) May 28, 2023

Instead we should simply say that the sengol sceptre is a traditional symbol of power & authority, and by placing it in the Lok Sabha, India is affirming that sovereignty resides there & not with any monarch," he suggested.

Let us embrace this symbol from the past to affirm the values of our present," Shashi Tharoor added.

PM Modi placed the historic 'Sengol' near the Lok Sabha Speaker's chair in the newly built Parliament building. The 'Sengol' holds great significance as a symbol of power and authority, reminiscent of its use in ancient South Indian kingdoms.

The Adheenam of Tamil Nadu presented the 'Sengol' to Jawaharlal Nehru in August 1947, symbolizing the transfer of power from the British to the Indian people.

Previously housed in the Nehru Gallery of the Allahabad Museum, the 'Sengol' has now been transported to Delhi for its installation in the newly constructed Parliament building.

The head priest of Madurai Adheenam (mutt) presented the same sceptre to PM Narendra Modi. In Tamil, the term 'Aadeenam' encompasses both a Shaivite monastery and the leader of the Shaivite math.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday said he saw the new Parliament inauguration ceremony in the morning and is happy that he did not attend the event. This came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the new House to the nation today.

I saw the event in the morning. I am happy I didn't go there. I am worried after seeing whatever happened there. Are we taking the country backwards? Was this event for limited people only?" Pawar said.

I saw the event in the morning. I am happy I didn't go there. I am worried after seeing whatever happened there. Are we taking the country backwards? Was this event for limited people only?: NCP chief Sharad Pawar on the inauguration of the new Parliament with havan, multi-faith pic.twitter.com/fdRC7K5Ccp  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

Another NCP leader Supriya Sule has also reacted to the new Parliament inauguration and called it an incomplete event without Opposition parties, saying that it means there is no democracy in the country.

To open a new Parliament building without Opposition makes it an incomplete event. It means there is no democracy in the country," Sule said in Pune.

PM Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building on Sunday morning and installed the historic Sengol in the Lok Sabha chamber. Dressed in traditional attire, Modi walked into Parliament premises from its Gate No. 1 and was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke Gods to bless the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

The prime minister prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various 'adheenams' in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand.

Several Union ministers, including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S Jaishankar, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Mansukh Mandaviya and Jitendra Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and BJP president J P Nadda among other leaders were present on the occasion.

However, as many as 20 opposition parties decided to boycott the inauguration of the new Parliament building on 28 May, arguing that Prime Minister Narendra Modis decision to open the building instead of President Droupadi Murmu was an assault on democracy".
Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a Yellow alert for Pune for May 29 and May 30. May areas in Pune are expected to witness light to moderate rainfall along with gusty winds (30-40 kmph) on May 29 and May 30. The weather department has also issued a rainfall warning for eight more districts in Marathwada, Central Maharashtra, and the Konkan meteorological subdivisions.

IMD had also issued an Orange alert for Haryana, North-East Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh on Saturday while stating that there is a possibility of thunderstorms in Delhi for the next 3-4 days.

According to IMD, nine districts in Maharashtra will witness light to moderate rainfall on May 29 while 14 districts could witness rainfall on May 30. The weather department has also predicted rainfall in 4 districts in the state namely, Satara, Kolhapur, Chandrapur, and Gadchiroli.

IMD's K S Hosalikar while warning the citizens of Maharashtra about the possible rainfall conditions has asked them to be careful and follow the warning, and advisories issued by the weathermen.

Pune is currently witnessing a temperature below normal level accompanied by partly cloudy weather in the afternoon. However, the temperature could feel relatively higher owing to the increase in humidity in the city.

Pune's Shivajinagar recorded a maximum temperature of 35.6 degrees Celsius on Saturday which is around 0.4 degrees below the normal level. Magarpatta recorded the highest temperature in the city at 37 degrees Celsius while Lavasa recorded the lowest temperature at 31.6 degrees Celsius.

Yellow alert by IMD means that the agency is expecting around 7.5 to 15 mm of rainfall which could continue for 1-2 hours and could result in a possible flooding situation.

The weather department said that due to the moisture from the Arabian Sea, northwest India will lead to thunderstorms in North-Western India for 5 days.
India faces a very complicated challenge from China, and the Narendra Modi government has taken steps to ensure no attempts are made to change the status quo in the border areas unilaterally," said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday.

This challenge was "very visible" in border areas in the last three years, he said, adding that both the countries have to find an equilibrium in their relationship, but it cannot be on the terms of the other party, PTI reported.

Delivering a talk on Modis India: A Rising Power' at the Anant National University here, the minister said, If peace and tranquillity between the two nations is disturbed, their relationship will not remain unaffected."

"When I talk about big powers, of course we have a particular challenge from China. That challenge is a very complicated challenge, but in the last three years it has been particularly visible in the border areas," Jaishankar said, apparently referring to China's incursions in eastern Ladakh.

"There are clearly responses that are required, and those responses have been undertaken by the government. And a lot of it to ensure that no attempt is made to unilaterally change the status quo in the border areas," he added.

The External Affairs Minister stated that the two countries will have to find some kind of equilibrium, and all the past governments in their own ways tried to find a balance.

But that balance cannot be on the terms of the other party. Then it is not a balance. There has to be something mutual. Mutual respect, sensitivity and interest have to be the basis of the relationship," Jaishankar said.

"How can we get along long term if you don't respect me, if you are not sensitive to my concerns, if you ignore my interest?" he said, adding that if India sees respect, sensitivity and recognition, it can think of a better relationship with China.

"But if we do not, I think we need to stand up for our rights, and we need to be firm in asserting opposition. And that, unfortunately, currently is the situation," he said as quoted by PTI.

Talking about India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaishankar stressed on the strengthening of relationships with immediate and extended neighbouring countries.

Neighbours like Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, which have always been close to India, are today linked with us through roads, railways, waterways and electricity grid connections, he said.

"The linkage and perception today of India in the neighbourhood has changed, and nothing illustrated that more dramatically than what happened to Sri Lanka last year when it went through a very deep economic crisis," he said.

"And we have actually stepped forward in a way in which we ourselves never have before. What we have done for Sri Lanka is bigger than what the IMF has done for Sri Lanka," he said.

The Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat also said the Modi government is trying to expand the neighbourhood.

"When I speak of the neighbourhood, I think a big change of our Indo-Pacific...strategically, what happens there concerns us very much. At the same time, there are other big changes happening, changes which include the rise of China, which includes, in a way, how the US has become much more cautious about its own commitments," he said.

The Quad countries are today discussing maritime collaboration, infrastructure connectivity, 5G and vaccines, among other issues. India is also interacting with a group of countries to its West, such as Israel, the United States and the United Arab Emirates, Jaishankar said.

"Under PM Modi, we are not thinking just of tomorrow, we are not even thinking of the next term. We are thinking really beyond. And in many ways, without exaggerations, we are today laying the foundation of what is the global footprint," he said.

The rise of India has a very special significance in the world as the only comparable rise was that of China, Jaishankar said.

(With inputs from agencies)
India plans to challenge certain provisions of the European Unions Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as the government is concerned about its impact on steel exports from India, steel secretary Nagendra Nath Sinha said. He said certain CBAM clauses deviate from World Trade Organization norms. The steel ministry has advised importers to look at India-made steel products to substitute imports, Sinha said in an interview. The government has also set up 13 task forces to formulate a strategy for green steel production, Sinha added. Edited excerpts :

Are we on course to achieve 300 million tonnes (mt) of steel production capacity?

Crude steel capacity in the country has increased to 160 mt in FY23 from 102 mt in FY14 despite suffering the pandemic period of two years. Indias vision to reach 300 mt of crude steel capacity by 2030 from the present level seems achievable. All major integrated steel players are working and have announced or are contemplating new capacity. I am optimistic that the target will be met. Further, to encourage industrial growth, the government, through its initiatives and policies, has been in continuous discussions with investors and stakeholders, and today, the mineral-rich states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka are all on the threshold of witnessing significant investments in the creation of steel capacity in their states through setting up of industrial hubs/special economic zones/steel plants.

What is the outlook for steel demand in India as we have seen a global weakening of demand across countries?

Let me share with you that backed by the government of Indias robust infrastructure programme, Indias estimated per capita consumption jumped to 87 kg in FY23 from 77 kg in FY22. Indias steel consumption grew strongly by 13% year-on-year to 119.9 mt. World Steel Association projected in April that Indian steel demand is expected to show healthy growth of 7.3% in 2023 and 6.2% in 2024. We expect that during FY24, Indian steel consumption to grow to 130-132 mt. I am confident that India will achieve the target of 158 kg per capita steel consumption by the year FY31 as set out in the National Steel Policy 2017.

What is the outlook on steel prices?

Steel prices have moderated of late. Prices have always remained cyclical, volatile, and driven by sentiments. Due to poor global demand, prices have been depressed internationally. With the rapid growth of steel imports from Japan, Korea, China and Russia, will the government look at restoring import duty on steel products to levels that existed before FY22 and impose safeguard duty?

We have undertaken a detailed analysis regarding imports to see if there is any trend in imports that needs more attention. It is true that imports from the mentioned countries have increased. A sharp increase in imports will be a matter of concern. However, we dont see that kind of situation. We are monitoring it closely. Steel being a deregulated sector, the government does not have control over markets. The government has, however, taken a lot of measures to diversify its production so that steel imports are not required. We have urged the major importers to pay attention to the growing capabilities of the Indian steel sector, which has taken a lot of strides in the past decade.

The industry is worried about new regulations in Europe. Is the government speaking to its counterparts in Europe over CBAM?

The CBAM regulation is particularly applicable to the iron and steel sector, which is considered a polluting sector. We are concerned about the exports of steel to the European Union that will be impacted due to the regulation. To avert any adverse impact, the steel ministry has been discussing with the industry and other stakeholders. There are certain clauses in the CBAM regulation that do not seem to be in line with WTO norms. These will be taken up appropriately by the government of India.

What about the plan to reimpose export duty on steel and ores that were withdrawn in November to check price rise?

The circumstance in which the export duty was imposed was extraordinary, and the duty provided a much-needed relief to the steel users. The government has its own mechanism of monitoring domestic and international development with respect to prices of steelmaking raw materials, domestic, import and global steel prices. The policies are formulated depending on the growth of the domestic steel sector besides the impact of any price variations on the economy and the consumers of steel.

How fast are we moving to manufacture green steel?

Our ministry has formed 13 task forces to work out a strategy for green steel production in the country or define the roadmap for Green Steel. The task forces comprise experts and industry stakeholders, which will deliberate on various aspects of Green Steel production and chalk out action points. Tata Steel has carried out trials with hydrogen injection in blast furnaces. Kalyani Steel is utilizing solar power in its electric arc furnace. Tata Steel, JSPL and JSW have also installed CO2 capture plants.

How is the plan for the Brand India label for Indian steel progressing?

Brand India labelling is an important exercise to differentiate Indian quality steel from others. We should recognize that the products of Japan or Germany exude quality, craftmanship and we appreciate them with well-made quality products. We, in the government, envisage cultivating a similar brand image with India-made steel. For the Brand India exercise, we initially plan to cover a few products like hot-rolled coils with SAIL and stainless with JSL, who will run pilot projects. The current approach of the steel ministry is to ensure consensus on common branding of India-made steel among the steel players.

How is the steel scrap generated in the country proposed to be used by the steel companies?

Steel scrap is becoming an important commodity in the global steel trade in view of the increasing thrust on producing low-carbon steel. Aggregation of good quality scrap is an activity which can no longer be ignored. Even at present, about 15-20% of steel is produced using scrap. The government envisages increasing this quantum substantially in the forthcoming years. Steel Scrap recycling policy and Vehicle Scrapping Policy of the government of India are steps towards achieving a healthy ecosystem for scrap-based steelmaking in the country.
New Delhi: With the general election less than a year away, the Union government is determined to achieve the target of ensuring 100% saturation of all its flagship beneficiary schemes.

The top leadership in the Union government called for a meeting with all the concerned officials responsible for running flagship schemes such as Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana. The objective is to work towards achieving 100% saturation of all schemes by 31 July, and the state/UT governments have been instructed to actively contribute to this endeavour. In this regard, the National Health Authority which is the implementing agency of AB PM-JAY has written to all the state authorities to accelerate the pace of Ayushman Bharat card creation drive by keeping a stronger focus on bigger states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and UTs.

At PM-JAY, we are taking multiple decisions for beneficiary outreach. We have replaced paper based Ayushman cards with PVC cards (co-branded with state) free of cost to all the eligible beneficiaries. Earlier, for the paper-based cards, beneficiaries used to pay 30, but now it is free of cost. Those of have received paper cards earlier will now get the cards free of cost," said an official.

NHA has streamlined the process of card creation by conducting e-KYC, card printing and dispatch up to block/district level and quick card delivery to beneficiaries.

We have engaged field level workers including ASHAs to perform e-KYC of the beneficiary with the use of face-authentication technology. We have also introduced self-registration process through PM-JAY mobile application wherein a beneficiary can register and verify himself and his family members," the official said.

Queries sent to the health ministry spokesperson remained unanswered till press time.

Notably, NHA has increased the beneficiary base of AB PM-JAY from the current 107.4 million poor and vulnerable families to 120 million in an effort to provide affordable quality healthcare to more citizens. This expansion will benefit an additional 12.6 million families comprising 60 million individuals.

Besides this, NHA has given flexibility to the states to tag non-SECC beneficiaries identified on similar parameters as of AB PM-JAY," said the official.

As on 28 May, around 23,38,07,969 Ayushman cards have been created and 5,10,95,328 authorized hospital admissions have been done since the inception of the scheme.

AB PM-JAY is the worlds largest health assurance scheme. It was launched in September 2018 with an aim of providing free health cover of up to 5 lakh per eligible beneficiary for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization.

Recently, before elections in Karnataka, the government announced the distribution of 13.8 million cards, while in Assam PM Narendra Modi announced for the distribution of 14 million cards while in Gujarat-50 lakhs cards have already been distributed.
Wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi malik, Sangeeta Phogat who had been detained by Delhi Police earlier in the day, were released. However, some other protesting wrestlers were still detained, according to the trio who were released.

Protesting wrestlers, including Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia, were detained on Sunday after a scuffle with security personnel who tried to stop them from marching to the new Parliament building as it was being inaugurated. Soon after, the Delhi Police cleared the site of their over-month-long sit-in at Jantar Mantar and said they

The manhandling of protesting wrestlers by the Delhi Police received severe cricitism from athletes and politicians alike.

VIDEO | "They (police) have released me, Sakshi (Malik) and Sangeeta (Phogat). The remaining ones (wrestlers) are still under detention," says wrestler Vinesh Phogat. pic.twitter.com/pHQlLrZqDk  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 28, 2023

Among the wrestlers on protest are Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik, and Bajrang Punia, all three international award winning grapplers.

The wrestlers, who had resumed their agitation against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh on April 23 demanding his arrest for alleged sexual harassment of several women grapplers, had called for a women 'Mahapanchayat' on Sunday for which they did not have permission.

Chaotic scenes were witnessed at the dharna site at Jantar Mantar, barely three kilometres from where the new Parliament building was inaugurated by the prime minister, as protesters and police personnel shoved and pushed each other when the Phogat sisters, Sakshi Malik and others tried to breach the barricades.

Immediately after the wrestlers and other protesters were pushed into buses and taken to different locations, the police personnel began clearing the protest site by removing cots, mattresses, coolers, fans and the tarpaulin ceiling along with other belongings of the wrestlers.

Olympic medalists Bajranj Punia and Sakshi and Asian Games gold winner Vinesh, among other grapplers, have been demanding the arrest of outgoing WFI President, who they have accused of sexually harassing several women wrestlers.

Meanwhile, BKU leader Rakesh Tikait on Sunday called off his protest at the Delhi-Ghazipur border after staying put there for almost eight hours, following reports that wrestlers earlier detained by Delhi Police had been released.

Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Chaudhary too called off his party's protest after the development.
Members of the Punjab Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, who had come out from Amritsar on Saturday to participate in women wrestlers' Maha Panchayat in front of the new Parliament, have been stopped at the Ambala border today.

We will not allow anything to disrupt the inauguration of the new Parliament building. The entire Delhi Police is on its toes to make sure the inauguration ceremony is conducted smoothly," said Delhi Police Special CP Deepender Pathak on the wrestlers' protest.

#WATCH | Members of the Punjab Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee have been stopped at the Ambala border.



They had come out from Amritsar yesterday to participate in women wrestlers' Maha Panchayat in front of the new Parliament pic.twitter.com/k5SKHH7b0q  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

Security tightened near Ghazipur border area; Khap panchayat leaders, farmers to join protesting wrestlers' march to new parliament house in Delhi today.

The protesting wrestlers on Saturday said that they have decided to hold a women's Maha Panchayat in front of the new Parliament building on Sunday.

Following this, Delhi Police have put up barricades near ITO road, the Tikri border and the Singhu border area as Khap Panchayat leaders and farmers are also likely to join the protesting wrestlers' march.

Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh also stated that he is ready to face a narco test and urged the protesting wrestlers not to hold any kind of agitation near the new Parliament building, which will be inaugurated on Sunday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will dedicate to the nation the new Parliament building on Sunday.

The country is getting a new Parliament building and it is a matter of pride. But I was saddened when I heard that wrestlers want to carry out their agitation near it. I urge these wrestlers that I am ready, ready for the narco test, ready for everything," the WFI chief said.

But this (new Parliament inauguration) is a proud moment for us and they (wrestlers) should not create hurdles and the world must not get any wrong message," he added.

Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat said that the wrestlers have decided to hold a women's Maha Panchayat in front of the new Parliament building on May 28.
Inmates of a monastery in rural Missouri town of Gower near Kansas City were surprised to find that exhumed body of a deceased nun had no signs of decay four years after her death

The body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancasterthe founder of the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostleswas exhumed on 18 May so it could be moved to its final resting place in a monastery chapel, four years after her death in 2019, Catholic News Agency reported.

When the coffin was opened on May 18, inmates of the monastery were stunned to find that Lancasters body was intact with almost no signs of decay, thought the body was buried in a cracked wooden coffin that exposed her corpse to moisture and debris. Despite the dampness, little of her body disintegrated during the last four years.

We were told by cemetery personnel to expect just bones in the conditions, as Sister Wilhelmina was buried without embalming and in a simple wood coffin," Newsweek reported citing one of the sisters, who asked to be anonymous.

"The dirt that fell in early on had pushed down on her facial features, especially the right eye, so we did place a wax mask over it. But her eyelashes, hair, eyebrows, nose, and lips were all present, her mouth just about to smile," the sister added.

In Catholicism, bodies that defy the decomposing process are known as incorrupt", which is a sign of holiness and later justification for sainthood, according to the Catholic News Agency.

Meanwhile, Bishop Johnston ---the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph ---issued a statement about the discovery.

''The condition of the remains of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster has understandably generated widespread interest and raised important questions," the diocese said. ''At the same time, it is important to protect the integrity of the remains of Sister Wilhelmina to allow for a thorough investigation Bishop [James] Johnston invites all the Faithful to continue praying during this time of investigation for God's will.'''

The process for sainthood has not been started for Lancaster, Johnston further said.

Some experts have said it isnt uncommon for bodies to remain well-preserved in the first few years after death, even if they are not embalmed.

As the news spread, people began flocking to the monastery to get a glimpse of her remains, with many calling it the ''miracle of Missouri''.

Lancasters body will be moved on 29 May and encased in glass in the chapel, where visitors can continue to view it, according to the monastery website.
New Delhi: New Delhi and Tokyo are set to explore increased investments in Indias Northeast during the India-Japan Act East Forum to be held this summer, according to persons aware of the matter.

Japan has been an active investor in Indias Northeast with much of its activities concentrated in agriculture, agro-economy, tourism and urban development projects. However, Japan has unveiled an ambitious new connectivity initiative, the Bay of Bengal-Northeast India Industrial Value Chain".

The initiative was announced during prime minister Fumio Kishidas visit to India in March.

Northeast India, which is surrounded by land, still has unexploited economic potential. Viewing Bangladesh and other areas of the South as a single economic zone, we will promote the Bay of Bengal-North East India industrial value chain concept in cooperation with India and Bangladesh in order to foster growth in the entire region," said Kishida, while delivering the Sapru House Lecture organized by the Indian Council on World Affairs (ICWA) in New Delhi.

Japan plans for a new industrial and manufacturing zone that includes Bangladesh and Indias Northeast. Japan is looking to attract regional investment moving out of pricier South-east Asian markets like Thailand to the Bay of Bengal.

According to persons aware of the matter, increased investments in the Northeast, particularly in connectivity, may be discussed at the Act East Forum later this year.

The Bay of Bengal-Northeast India Industrial Value Chain may also be up for discussion.

This new initiative requires a two-pronged strategy. First, infrastructure connectivity projects will be coordinated and linked by the governments of India, Bangladesh and Japan. Tokyo, which is funding road development in Indias Northeast, is also a major infrastructure investor in Bangladesh. For example, Tokyo played a key role in building Bangladeshs Matabari port, which will allow easier seaborne exports to regional and global markets. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which financed the construction of Matabari, aims to support Indian companies in establishing a more robust presence in the Bay of Bengal region. Through coordinated infrastructure development and enhanced connectivity, these three nations aim to create a solid foundation that will attract private investments to both Bangladesh and the Northeast region of India.

Additionally, the three capital cities are collaborating to eliminate policy barriers that hinder investments. Bangladesh is currently exploring trade agreements with both India and Japan, with the aim of stimulating economic activity in the region.

The project holds strategic significance, particularly considering Chinas economic influence in Southeast Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific region. By attracting Japanese investment to India and Bangladesh, as well as exporting to markets within the Bay of Bengal region, the objective is to bind regional economies together. This closer economic integration serves as a strategic response to Chinas growing presence in the region.
In India, we are regularly told by opposition parties that the government uses its intelligence agencies to serve its political endsthe Central Bureau of Investigation, the National Investigation Agency, the Enforcement Directorate and so on. So it is interesting to see how US intelligence agencies worked to ensure that Donald Trump would not be elected president and when he did win the election, tried to undermine his presidency.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump was plagued with allegations that he was a Russian asset" and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began an investigation. In 2017, Robert Mueller, a former director of the FBI, was appointed to probe charges of Russian interference in the election and links between Trumps associates and Russian officials. After two years and millions of dollars of taxpayer money, Muellers report could find no real evidence of any Russian collusion.

Trump then appointed lawyer John Durham to review the origins of the FBI probe. The Durham report, released earlier this month, says that the FBI had no grounds to launch an investigation. It says that the FBI used raw, unanalysed and uncorroborated intelligence". To put it simply, the entire Russia-Trump theory seems to have been a political ploy by the Barack Obama government and the people who managed Trump rival Hillary Clintons campaign.

Deep state" is quite a popular term nowadays. It defines the forces that may actually control our worldentrenched politicians; Big Techthey know everything about your life; Big Mediathey form your opinions; Big Pharmathey tell you what vaccines and medicines to take; the western military-industrial complex which needs a war going on somewhere all the time; shadowy billionaires who want to redesign the world to their will. The Durham report proves that the Russiagate" allegations against Trump were part of a classic deep state operation, because he was seen as a threat to a well-established political order.

This is the story in brief. In 2016, as Hillary Clinton and Trump squared up for the presidential election, it was discovered that as secretary of state, Clinton had been using her personal server for official emails, including when she was visiting Russia. This was an obvious national security risk that everyone in government should have known about. The FBI itself assessed that it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clintons personal e-mail account".

These revelations would certainly have hurt Clintons campaign. But then, three things happened. The FBI refused to investigate the matter further. Instead, it opened a full-scale probe on Trumps possible collusion with Russia based on what a junior unpaid Trump aide had told two Australian diplomats in a bar in London, that it was possible that the Russians had compromising information on Clinton, which, if they released, could be detrimental to her chances, and that would be good for Trump.

The Clinton campaign then hired a former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to investigate Trumps links with Russia. Steele turned in a damning report that Trump and the Kremlin had deep links. Since then, almost every claim made in the Steele dossier" has been proved to be false. Steeles main source was a Russian called Igor Danchenko, who, when questioned by the FBI, was unable to provide any corroborating evidence to support the allegations, and further, described his interactions with his sub-sources as rumour and speculation and conversations of a casual nature."

But the FBI did not reveal this and even paid Danchenko $200,000 as a confidential informant". It testified under oath that Steeles primary source lived in Russia, whereas Danchenko has been a resident of Washington DC for many years. In fact, the FBI confirmed Danchenkos allegations in court before having ever spoken to him.

Since the trigger for all this was a conversation in a bar in London, the FBI sent an agent there. As Durham details, British intelligence was sceptical and asked if some chat over a few drinks was all that the FBI had. The FBI had nothing more. The chief agent on the case, Peter Strozk, told a colleague: Theres nothing to this, but we have to run it to ground."

In effect, an intelligence agency had inserted itself into the countrys election process, which it had no business to do. And even after Trump became president, the FBI, in collusion with the Democratic Party, continued an investigation which never had much to start with. The sitting US president seemed to have little power over state agencies and the US mainstream media too kept up the shrill din of accusations.

Trump is hardly an angel and is facing a number of charges, from sexual misconduct to illegally hoarding classified government documents. But in the Russian collusion case, he seems to be innocent. Yet, this allegation was levelled against him relentlessly during his presidency. No wonder he is a very angry man. If he does win the presidency again in 2024, he will be looking for retribution. In any case, the 2024 campaign will certainly be an extremely bitter affair. There is even speculation that the Biden administration may try to disbar Trump from standing. Of course, he will fight back with everything he has got. Expect a lot of sound and fury over the next months.

Sandipan Deb is a former editor of Financial Express, and founder-editor of Open and Swarajya magazines
He retired from a senior post in a paramilitary force and currently resides in a Delhi suburb. Throughout his life, he fought the countrys adversaries and received numerous honours. But he now has a regretcyber criminals have handed him a defeat at this age that Naxalites and separatists could not do.

He was woken up one night by a phonecall from a woman. That was the first of many such calls. One day the woman asked for a video call. The day after that call, he received indecent photographs and videos with his face superimposed on them. Money was sought in exchange for not making the material public. He initially obliged, but the demands from crooks kept rising. He got fed up and filed a case with the cyber cell. The police are still investigating this sextortion case.

You might also receive calls or SMS-es from banks or other institutions on a regular basis. They continually remind people to avoid fraud calls" and not to give out confidential information to anyone. Those who disregard these warnings face serious consequences. The intriguing part is that you can become a victim of these folks even if you do nothing. This happened to me a few months ago. Someone faked my Facebook profile and requested money over Facebook Messenger. Many fell into this trap and paid as much as 5,000. I filed a complaint with the Uttar Pradesh police and the probe has been going on for months.

This is not a one-off occurrence. Messages began to appear on my phone two years ago stating that on my request such-and-such number had been activated. I became concerned as their numbers grew. Who was having so many SIM cards activated" in my name? I reported it to the police. Their investigation revealed that a SIM cards merchant from Bihar had obtained my phone number from somewhere and was saving this number as an alternative number for activation. What if he did so unwittingly while selling the SIM card to a terrorist or criminal? I was able to get rid of this bully, thanks to the police, but there is no reprieve.

Even now, notifications keep coming from what appear to be numbers of banks stating that a large sum of money had been deposited in or withdrawn from my account. The average citizen can no longer file a complaint with the police on a daily basis. Even if you try, you will not be able to escape this trap.

You must be wondering who gave them your phone number when you receive calls or messages from fraudsters. Forgery can occur from any place. Data can be leaked from any government office or from wherever your KYC (know your customer) has been filed. Last month, Cyberabad police nabbed a Faridabad man for hacking and selling sensitive data of 669 million people across 24 states and eight metros.

He took information from businesses such as Byjus, Vedantu, Amazon Netflix, Paytm, YouTube, PhonePe, Instagram, Zomato and Policy Bazaar. He also took information on 450,000 salaried staff and around 200,000 cab clients.

They are striking it rich without investing a single penny. Every day, thousands of people enter the field of cyber fraud, because all that is required as capital is a smartphone. Gangs of such people have thrived in village after village and area after area. Previously, Jharkhands Jamtara was supposedly notorious; currently, it is present across all states, and swarms of such crooks are busy looting people.

Nuh district in Haryana is the latest example. Around 5,000 Haryana Police personnel stormed villages in the district last month, and arrested 65 suspects from 14 cybercrime hubs. In the past, there used to be a realm of thugs and pindaries in India. There were also professional criminal tribes in the past. Dacoits used to rule the Yamuna and Chambal ravines a few decades ago. The colonies of cyber thugs are now settling at the same rate.

The story does not end here. Listen to a Belgian citizens story. He was concerned about the civic environment and began learning about it through Eliza, an AI chatbot. He became so absorbed in it that he isolated himself from society and even stopped speaking to his wife. The only buddy left was the chatbot. The outcome was disastrous. He committed suicide after only six weeks.

A cloud hangs over the digital revolution. Regrettably, no law or preventive action has helped avert such cases thus far. The lesson is clear: You must always remain alert and vigilant; but it is not that simple. This problem is the outcome of technology that has been created for our convenience.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan. Views are personal.
A DJ and club promoter accused of killing Migos rapper Takeoff was indicted by a grand jury Thursday on a murder charge, court records show.

Police arrested Patrick Xavier Clark, 33, in December on charges he shot and killed Takeoff, whose real name was Kirsnick Khari Ball, after a private party at a Houston bowling alley Nov. 1.

The indictment alleges that Clark did "unlawfully, intentionally and knowingly commit the felony offense of deadly conduct by knowingly discharging a firearm at and in the direction of" Takeoff.

The indictment means the grand jury in Harris County, Tex., found there was enough evidence to formally charge Clark, who is next scheduled to appear in court in August.

Police said at the time of his death that Takeoff had been an "innocent bystander" near an argument outside the bowling alley after what was described as a "lucrative" dice game. Roughly 30 people were outside the venue at the time of the shooting, and Takeoff, who was confirmed dead at the scene, was not involved in the confrontation or dice game, police said.

He was 28.

"We have too many young men of color that are being injured or fatally killed and their future is cut off and family members and friends are left to mourn," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said at the time. "This does not have to be our reality, and it need not be our future."

Takeoff performed in Migos with his uncle Quavo, 32, and Offset, 31. The three Atlanta rappers' debut single "Versace," released in 2013, was deemed "the real song of summer" at the time by Washington Post critic Chris Richards.

The Grammy-nominated group is also known for songs including "MotorSport," "Walk It Talk It" and "Bad and Boujee," the first Migos song to rise to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Quavo has described the trio's youngest member as being the best lyricist of the group. The nephew and uncle came out with their own album, "Only Built for Infinity Links," a month before Takeoff's death under the moniker Unc & Phew.

Clark, a DJ and nightclub promoter, has been under house arrest after posting a $1 million bond in January. Clark's attorney Letitia Quinones-Hollins did not immediately respond to a request for comment but said in a statement to Houston Public Media that the indictment was not unexpected.

"When we get inside a courtroom and in front of a jury," Quinones-Hollins said, "where we will be able to put on our evidence and cross-examine the state's witnesses - where the standard of proof is guilt beyond reasonable doubt - we expect the jury will come back with a verdict of not guilty."

Police have said that video evidence, forensic analysis and scene reconstructions helped them identify Clark as the suspected shooter.
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Cesar Martinez, a famous artist of Chicano works and graduate of Martin High School, had his artwork acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York this month  another big milestone of many.

His work hangs in the Smithsonian as well and locally at the Laredo Center for the Arts.

MoMA is a major American cultural institution, he said. The acquisition of my work by them was a nice validation in that the acquired work was conceived of when I was in college during the mid-1960s and was parallel to American abstract art of the period. ... The work was finally noticed and recognized as being good enough to collect. I guess it is never too late.

The work, from his ongoing Serape series, was brought to MoMAs attention by Patricia Ruiz-Healy of the Ruiz-Healy Art Inc. Gallery in New York. The Edward John Noble Foundation provided the funds.

Cesar is one of the few Mexican American artists in the collection and the only Chicano American in the permanent collection. It is pretty historic for all of us  Cesar, the gallery, Laredo, said Patricia Ruiz-Healy, who founded a gallery in San Antonio in 2006 and opened a gallery in New York in 2019. She has worked with Cesar since 2016.

Martinez displayed his work at her gallery in his first solo show in New York and it caught a MoMA curators attention, according to Ruiz-Healy. The curator brought her colleagues with her to view the work.

Cesar is recognized as one of the pioneers of Chicano art, Ruiz-Healy said. Whats going on in the late 60s and early 1970s, and they would go to museums and only see portraits of basically white people  nothing wrong with that, but no real representation.

MoMA is considered one of the top art museums in the world, Ruiz-Healy added.

It is one of the most prestigious, Ruiz-Healy said. It is the Bible of high art or art because of technique and content and history of the work. That is why they acquired the work.

Hes a big deal, said Melissa Amici-Haynes, who was instrumental in bringing Martinez, 77, back to Laredo for a homecoming and an exhibit of his work in 2021 as part of the Art Acquisition Project.

Much of his work reflects portraits of faces  not of a particular person he knows but of the collective faces of his hometown on the border.

Whether you went to Martin or not or whether the images look like you or not, they look like where youre from, Amici-Haynes said. He had to create that, and there was no blueprint and no other art where we were being seen and we mattered and we count.

She added that she was initially nervous when approaching the famous artist, who lives in San Antonio, to come to his hometown to showcase his art.

Hes just a great guy. I am sure he was thinking, Who the hell is this crazy woman?'

Amici-Haynes now considers him a good friend.

Described as the godfather of Chicano artists, he supports using the term Chicano, which has historically divided communities across the country with many seeing them as rabblerousers looking to upend political establishments.

Once, the word Chicano was not considered very genteel or polite ... it became a matter of principle to make it so by my generation, Martinez said. It was a somewhat rebellious thing to do, perfectly in tune with what we were up to politically.

These days, Chicano even appears as a choice in official forms as a racial or cultural designation. It is no longer an issue with me, and it moved me that it appears in an official proclamation from the mayors office that was read during the opening of my show.

How far weve come.

During his time in Laredo in 2021, Martin High School students, staff and administrators went out of their way to make sure he felt welcomed.

If there was ever a homecoming, this was it, Martinez said. A special tour of my old high school was a special treat I never imagined would happen 60 years later, and it was as nostalgic for me as it was moving. There I was in the old gym, looking the same as back then.

Growing up in Laredo had a huge impact on his art.

Unlike where I live now  San Antonio  Laredo has always been less assimilated, culturally speaking, and it is indeed our culture that has been the focus of my work all my professional life, he said. Everybody in Laredo speaks Spanish. It has that unfiltered quality of the place that has always been important to me.

He said that his Gente series  a set of six drawings that mentioned Laredo barrios  was special to him and done specifically for the LCA show.

I found out only recently that I was from El Tompe; I know because the place where I lived, on the northeast corner of Marcella and Clark Boulevard, is officially designated as such in Google Maps in my iPhone, he added.

When asked about his favorite artist, he mentioned many that have touched him  Goya, Picasso and those first anonymous humans who drew sophisticated in caves and cliffsides. But Alberto Giacometti, who was shooting for something transcendent, and Jim Dine because he is a technical marvel.

The story of the Art Acquisition Project reflects the grit and desire of a small group of people determined to bring high-quality art and artists to Laredo.

It formed two years, growing out of the LCAs Exhibition Review Committee  including Co-Chairs Melissa Amici-Haynes and MaryAnn Garcia, along with Gil Rocha, Jessica Diez-Barroso, Julio Mendez, Eva Soliz, Pedro Morales and Amelia Ramirez, who is an advocate of the arts.

The purpose of the committee is to review requests from artists wanting to show their work at the Center, Amici-Haynes explained.

But during COVID, there werent any requests to exhibit.

We used our time to visit galleries and museums, Amici-Haynes said, adding that she, Morales and Rocha  a VMT art teacher  would discuss ideas after viewing art.

And then Amici-Haynes  who describes herself as more of a collector than artist  and Morales  an artist who has studied architecture  sat in her kitchen with a three-ring binder, her rinky dink printer and a wish list of artists to be brought to Laredo. They printed images of artwork of artists they wanted to bring to Laredo.

Then the Art Acquisition Project was born.

Since it started two years ago, they have brought major artists, acquired collections and are still going down the list, contacting other artists. They have shows through 2025. Martinezs Blue Bato con Sunglasses hangs in the Center, as does La Frontera by Ethel Shipton, also from Laredo.

The significance of having such major artists work cannot be overstated.

You help to change the community, and thats what matters and improves the quality of life here, Amici-Haynes said. Its happening, and its big and real and important. Kids who cant cross mile marker 32 for whatever reason have access to this art.

Rocha told Amici-Haynes that when he was growing up, he went to banks and hospitals to view art because there wasnt any place else to go.

Today, the following are artists that have been part of the Art Acquisition Project exhibition series:

Cesar A. Martinez, 2021.

Ethel Shipton, 2022.

Ana Laura Hernandez, 2022.

Cande Aguilar aka BarrioPOP  McAllen, 2022.

Dr. Eric Avery  San Ygnacio, 2023.

On Friday, June 2, there will be the opening exhibition for Angel Cabrales-El Paso. It will be held at the Laredo Center for the Arts at 500 San Agustin Ave. For more information, call the center at 956-725-1715.
Following the one-year anniversary of the deadliest school shooting in state history, Laredoans commemorated the 19 students and two teachers that died during the May 24, 2022 mass shooting.

Local leaders, parents and children shared their views on what happened that day and how they honored the victims a year later. Many voiced frustration saying they believe little has changed to prevent the next mass shooting while lamenting that various others have occurred since.

Texas Representative for District 80 Tracy King, who lives in and grew up in Uvalde, shared how the tragedy continues to impact him and the community he represents. His district extends from Uvalde to southern Webb County.

On the House Floor, we had a moment of silence to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting in Uvalde, King said. We continue to work with the families and other victims of that shooting to try to bring about change and do everything that we can to help ensure we dont have those types of mass shootings in the future. We are still struggling with grief.

King said grief continues to be felt in and around the community. He tried to bring about change by sponsoring House Bill 2744, which would have increased the minimum age of those who can purchase a semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21, but it did not pass.

We were able to get the bill out of committee, which was historic, but like most bills in Texas, it did not go much farther, King said. But I am proud of that (bill). It did not become a law, but we are very proud of that as we did lay the groundwork and families were very, very grateful.

I am here for them, and if they need anything, we are here to work for what they need.

With such a deadly shooting occurring so close -- Uvalde is just over two hours north of the Gateway City -- Laredo Mayor Dr. Victor Trevino said he hopes more gets done to prevent future mass shootings.

The mass shooting in Uvalde is a heartbreaking tragedy in our countrys history, Trevino said. I personally went to visit the location shortly after the shooting, and you cant help but become overwhelmed with emotion and the reality that it could happen anywhere. We need to reform our gun laws and invest more into our public/mental health programs.

Webb County Judge Tano Tijerina also weighed in on the anniversary and provided his well wishes to those who continue to be affected.

"There are no words to express how my heart continues to ache for the families of the 19 children and two teachers tragically affected by this heinous act of evil," Tijerina said. "Our entire community was shook to its core. Thats 365 days of grief for the families whose worlds will never be the same. They continue to be in my hearts and prayers. May God wrap his loving arms around each one of their hearts."

The Laredo Police Department also remarked on the anniversary and identified that it hurt many even more due to how similar Uvalde is to the local community.

"We remember the precious lives lost a year ago," said Steve Landin, acting Laredo Police Department chief. "We hear too often about the senseless killings in various cities, but Uvalde was different. It hit us in the gut because their city looks like ours. There has been serious work done toward preparation and education with our own communities to provide us with timely information regarding any threats against a school or public place. Our hearts mourn alongside the families of Uvalde on this solemn day of remembrance for the students, faculty and staff of Robb Elementary."

Locals also shared their views on the one-year anniversary and reported how they saw a higher than usual police presence at school campuses on what was the last day of school for many.

While there for increased safety on the one-year anniversary, some locals couldn't help but feel emotional upon seeing the sight.

It was a horrible tragedy that nobody wants their loved ones to be involved in, local Jackie Alvarez said. I believe there should be security and law enforcement in all public and private schools. The safety of our children is extremely important.

Sadly and most definitely lives have been changed forever with the loss of the children and teachers.

Another local in Claudia Trevino said she decided not to send her child on the last day of school as a precaution as she feared that somebody might copycat the assailant in Uvalde.

I did not send my daughter because I have seen lately in the news several shooters who tried to copy others, and being the one-year anniversary, I feared that someone might have attempted to do the same thing, Trevino said. Also, I feel that the last day is not that important as the child has already finished all their coursework, and sadly a day that we all remember as the last one when we say goodbye to our teachers and friends has now become one of fear because of these kinds of events. Still, I hope one day we can feel safe again sending our kids whether it is the first, last or any day back to school without worrying.

Trevinos daughter Blanca, a fifth grader, said she felt sad on the one-year anniversary.

I really hope this doesnt happen to little children and teachers again and that people realize that if we love each other, then we can avoid things like this from happening, she said.

Others shared they hope more gets done to a avoid a repeat of what happened in Uvalde with some criticizing the actions of the Uvalde Police Department. Joshua Sanchez said more had to be done in the Texas Legislature to prevent the next mass shooting.

Banning weapons is never going to happen in this state for nothing, however, I dont see much being done either on mental health as well, Sanchez said. We need a solution that focuses on making sure guns are not bought by these people, and then maybe we can get a real solution to the problems we face. Mass shootings will not stop until there is something done to target the potential people who should not have guns.
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Less than two months after he pleaded guilty to storming the U.S. Capitol, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlson's then-Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other rioters whom the site called political prisoners.

The Justice Department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised  a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy.

An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in the more than 1,000 criminal cases from Jan. 6, 2021, are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of the Capitol rioters.

Dozens of defendants have set up online fundraising appeals for help with legal fees, and prosecutors acknowledge there's nothing wrong with asking for help for attorney expenses. But the Justice Department has, in some cases, questioned where the money is really going because many of those charged have had government-funded legal representation.

Most of the fundraising efforts appear on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site and has become a haven for Jan. 6 defendants barred from using mainstream crowdfunding sites, including GoFundMe, to raise money. The rioters often proclaim their innocence and portray themselves as victims of government oppression, even as they cut deals to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors.

Their fundraising success suggests that many people in the United States still view Jan. 6 rioters as patriots and cling to the baseless belief that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump. The former president himself has fueled that idea, pledging to pardon rioters if he is elected.

Markus Maly, a Virginia man scheduled to be sentenced next month for assaulting police at the Capitol, raised more than $16,000 from an online campaign that described him as a January 6 P.O.W. and asked for money for his family. Prosecutors have requested a $16,000-plus fine, noting that Maly had a public defender and did not owe any legal fees.

He should not be able to use his own notoriety gained in the commission of his crimes to capitalize on his participation in the Capitol breach in this way, a prosecutor wrote in court papers.

So far this year, prosecutors have sought more than $390,000 in fines against at least 21 riot defendants, in amounts ranging from $450 to more than $71,000, according to the AP's tally.

Judges have imposed at least $124,127 in fines against 33 riot defendants this year. In the previous two years, judges ordered more than 100 riot defendants to collectively pay more than $240,000 in fines.

Separately, judges have ordered hundreds of convicted rioters to pay more than $524,000 in restitution to the government to cover more than $2.8 million in damage to the Capitol and other Jan. 6-related expenses.

More rioters facing the most serious charges and longest prison terms are now being sentenced. They tend to also be the prolific fundraisers, which could help explain the recent surge in fines requests.

Earlier this month, the judge who sentenced Nathaniel DeGrave to more than three years in prison also ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine. Prosecutors noted that the Nevada resident incredibly raised over $120,000 in GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns that referred to him as Beijing Bidens political prisoner in Americas Gitmo  a reference to the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

He did this despite seeking to cooperate with the government and admitting he and his co-conspirators were guilty since at least November 2021, a prosecutor wrote.

Lawyer William Shipley, who has represented DeGrave and more than two dozen other Jan. 6 defendants, said he advises clients to avoid raising money under the auspices of being a political prisoner if they intend to plead guilty.

Until they admit they committed a crime, theyre perfectly entitled to shout from the rooftops that the only reason theyre being held is because of politics, Shipley said. It's just First Amendment political speech.

Shipley said he provided the judge with documentation showing that DeGrave raised approximately $25,000 more than what he paid his lawyers.

Ive never had to do it until these cases because Ive never had clients that had third-party fundraising like this, Shipley said. Theres a segment of the population that is sympathetic toward the plight of these defendants.

GiveSendGo co-founder Heather Wilson said her site's decision to allow legal defense funds for Capitol riot defendants "is rooted in our societys commitment to the presumption of innocence and the freedom for all individuals to hire private attorneys."

The government's push for more fines comes as it reaches a milestone in the largest federal investigation in American history: Just over 500 defendants have been sentenced for Jan. 6 crimes.

Judges aren't rubber-stamping prosecutors' fine requests.

Prosecutors sought a more than $70,000 fine for Peter Schwartz, a Kentucky man who attacked police officers outside the Capitol with pepper spray and a chair. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Schwartz this month to more than 14 years in prison  one of the longest so far in a Capitol riot case  but didn't impose a fine.

Prosecutors suspect Schwartz tried to profit from his fundraising campaign, Patriot Pete Political Prisoner in DC. But his lawyer, Dennis Boyle, said there is no evidence of that.

The judge basically said that if the money was being used for attorneys' fees or other costs like that, there was no basis for a fine, Boyle said.

A jury convicted romance novel cover model John Strand of storming the Capitol with Dr. Simone Gold, a California physician who is a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement. Now prosecutors are seeking a $50,000 fine on top of a prison term for Strand when a judge sentences him on Thursday.

Strand has raised more than $17,300 for his legal defense without disclosing that he has a taxpayer-funded lawyer, according to prosecutors. They say Strand appears to have substantial financial means, living in a home that was purchased for more than $3 million last year.

Strand has raised, and continues to raise, money on his website based upon his false statements and misrepresentations on the events of January 6, prosecutors wrote.

Goodwyn, who appeared on Carlson's show in March, is scheduled to be sentenced next month. Defense lawyer Carolyn Stewart described prosecutors as demanding blood from a stone" in asking for the $25,000 fine.

He received that amount in charity to help him in his debt for legal fees for former attorneys and this for unknown reasons is bothersome to the government," Stewart wrote.

___

Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

___

This story has been corrected to reflect that the sentence for Peter Schwartz was one of the longest so far in a Capitol riot case, not the longest.
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BASTROP COUNTY, Texas - Chap Ambrose has always been a fan of Elon Musk. He spent $100 to join the waiting list for Tesla's first pickup in 2019 and bought internet service from Musk's satellite provider.

But then the billionaire's companies moved in next door to the computer programmer, who works from his rural, hilltop home.

Two years later, massive construction sites and large white warehouses have taken over the green pastures where cattle used to graze. Semis barrel up and down the narrow country roads. And the companies - rocket manufacturer SpaceX and tunneling company Boring - are seeking state permission to dump treated wastewater into the nearby Colorado River.

"I just have no faith that the leadership there values the environment and these shared resources," said Ambrose, who leads a group of local residents pushing Musk's companies to slow down and address concerns about the environmental risks of the development. "I would say, I'm still a fan [of Elon], but I want him to do better here and be a good neighbor."

The backlash in Bastrop, a largely rural county 30 minutes east of Austin, shows the dust Musk is kicking up as he builds a new empire in Texas. His companies are spending billions of dollars on campuses across the state, from SpaceX's rocket launchpad on the Gulf of Mexico to a giant Tesla factory in Austin producing 5,000 Model Ys a week.

Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) praised the billionaire as the two broke ground on a lithium refinery Tesla is building near Corpus Christi to bolster the company's supply of batteries for electric vehicles. "There is no greater entrepreneur in the entire world than Elon Musk," the governor said.

Standing in front of a Cybertruck decorated with U.S. and Texas flags, Musk thanked the state for supporting him and helping him move fast.

"That's how we do things," said Musk, who commandeered the spotlight last week for hosting a Twitter Spaces discussion with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who announced his presidential bid.

Even as he wins accolades for bringing thousands of jobs and high-tech industries to Texas, cementing his status as a powerhouse in the state, Musk is also weathering a barrage of complaints from critics and regulators who say he's moving too fast.

Last month, after a SpaceX rocket exploded over the Gulf of Mexico minutes after liftoff, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded the company's launch program, saying SpaceX had to "perform analyses to ensure that the public was not exposed to unacceptable risks." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the explosion sent "numerous large concrete chunks, stainless steel sheets, metal and other objects" flying over the area, along with a cloud of pulverized concrete that deposited material nearly seven miles from the launch site.

In a lawsuit against the FAA, wildlife groups said the SpaceX program posed serious environmental harms to the region.

And Musk's moves in Texas come as his takeover of Twitter has made him a more polarizing figure on the national stage. His erratic management of the social media company and his embrace of some conspiracy theories have sparked a digital storm in recent months.

"I'll say what I want to say, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it," Musk told CNBC in an interview after Tesla's May 16 shareholder meeting in Austin.

He and his companies didn't respond to requests for comment for this article.

"He is incredibly bright, he's been incredibly successful, and he's done things that are extremely hard," Maurice Schweitzer, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, said of Musk. But that success, he added, has "caused him some conceit where he feels entitled and he feels a sense of being special in a way that's caused him to overextend himself."

Signs of Musk's move-fast ethos have mounted in Bastrop County. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has hit the Musk building sites with several violations over poor erosion controls and other matters. Texas's transportation department reprimanded Boring for building an unpermitted driveway that it said posed traffic-safety concerns, and Bastrop County issued a violation over unauthorized wastewater holding tanks.

"Regarding the Boring Company, we have been regularly hounded by their staff and consultants to expedite and approve permit applications that are incomplete and not in compliance" with regulations, the county's then-director of engineering and development, Robert Pugh, wrote in an email to a colleague last summer.

Ambrose and his wife, Maura Ambrose, first learned about their new neighbors in May 2021, when Maura saw young men "in skinny jeans and Converse" walking around the fields. At first they told her only that they were from Pflugerville, an Austin suburb. When pressed, they said were with Boring, which aims to dig large tunnels under cities to alleviate traffic congestion.

Chap Ambrose walked over to introduce himself and helped push the workers' port-a-potties through the gate. When he asked to see their development plans, they suggested he might need to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) first, Ambrose recalls. Another neighbor, Steve Hipe, owner of Hope Valley Tree Farm, said Boring employees also asked him to sign an NDA when he visited to discuss a tree sale. He declined, and they bought his trees anyway.

In 2022, Boring started construction of a large warehouse and other buildings designed to manufacture and test tunnel-boring equipment. Not long after, SpaceX began constructing a massive building across the road.

The work was "24/7 . . . spotlights all night," Maura Ambrose said.

Mobile homes for workers appeared at the Boring site, along with a pool and a clubhouse, and the company submitted plans to the county to build a Montessori school, public records show. It also filed plans to construct 110 homes on a nearby plot of land, in what the Wall Street Journal reported was a grand project to build a company town for Musk's employees.

Before long, complaints started rolling in from regulators. In February 2022, Bastrop County notified Boring that it was operating an unpermitted septic system and gave it 60 days to fix the problem, public records show. More than two months later the unauthorized system was still in operation, county officials said in a May 17 notice of violation.

In September 2021, the Texas Department of Transportation discovered that Boring had built an unpermitted driveway into its site, in a location that increased the odds of traffic accidents, according to agency emails received through a public records request. Months later, the problem remained.

Agency officials "have been clear that their unapproved driveway poses a hazard to the public. The Bastrop Area Office has been clear on what is required to mitigate this hazard. The Boring Company has objected to some of these mitigation actions," Miguel Arellano, a transportation department employee, wrote in an April 21, 2022, email to colleagues.

Alarmed by the speed and scale of the building, Ambrose began flying his drone over the construction sites to capture images and posted updates to social media and a website he started, Keep Bastrop Boring, which he advertised on a local billboard.

He shared videos of workers digging tunnels under the road to connect the Boring and SpaceX sites and submitted a complaint to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) over the excavated dirt, which he worried could be contaminated with chemicals.

He posted footage of a work crew bulldozing trees and submitted a complaint about SpaceX to the TCEQ after filming a hose pumping water from the construction site into a roadside ditch. The TCEQ issued a violation over the discharge of the "sediment-laden water."

Skip Connett, an organic farmer in the area, said the Musk projects are only part of a development boom that is threatening the environment, as Austin's eastward sprawl and other industrial projects increase truck traffic and pollution.

"Between Elon Musk coming in here and all the sand and gravel mines . . . suddenly this bucolic, pastoral prime farmland is now more than a thousand acres of an industrial site," Connett said. "There's no zoning, there are no rules. It's the Wild West."

Mel Hamner, a Bastrop County commissioner, said the growth is "more than this county was ready to handle," but added that officials lack broad powers to influence it.

"This is Texas. This is called property rights," Hamner said. "If you own the property and you stay within the state laws, you can pretty much do what you want."

In September, state authorities notified Chap Ambrose that Boring had applied for a permit to treat wastewater from the site and discharge it onto its own land or into the Colorado River. Ambrose worried that the plan could contaminate the region's water supply and asked his state senator to convene a public hearing, which happened in March.

Several hundred people turned up, exceeding the meeting room capacity at the local Hampton Inn. TCEQ officials attended to answer questions. Boring sent an environmental consultant, Rajiv Patel, to speak but not any of its own executives.

A TCEQ lawyer said the agency had preliminarily decided that the permit would meet "statutory and regulatory requirements." But residents and environmentalists in the audience were uneasy.

Connie Schroeder, mayor of the city of Bastrop, urged the company to treat its wastewater at the city's new plant instead. "We all know that's what's best for the Colorado," she said. Patel said Boring aimed to do that in the long run, but that a connection to the city plant didn't yet exist.

Amy Weir, a local property owner, said Musk's companies have "no doubt done amazing things," but that there was no need for them to "reinvent wastewater treatment" when the city was ready to handle the job. The penalties for violating the permit were far too low, she added. "The owner of these companies spent $44 billion on Twitter, and it had no impact on his ability to continue to build these businesses," she said.

Ambrose took the mic and criticized Boring for rushing ahead without a connection to the city treatment plant and for declining to answer questions at the hearing. "The leadership team is absent. And they are playing games. And we're not," he said.

Judah Ross, a Bastrop real estate agent, said afterward that he went into the meeting feeling neutral about the issue but left opposed because he found the Boring consultant's answers "evasive."

Musk, he said, is building products that are "changing the world."

"I love Elon, and we need more industry here," Ross said. "I just don't want him to dump his poop in the river."
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CHICAGO (AP)  During Donald Trump's first visit as president to Chicago, a frequent target in his attacks on urban violence, he disparaged the nation's third largest city as a haven for criminals and a national embarrassment.

At a recent town hall, Republican presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy sat alongside ex-convicts on the city's South Side and promised to defend Trump's America First agenda. In return, the little-known White House hopeful, a child of Indian immigrants, found a flicker of acceptance in a room full of Black and brown voters.

The audience nodded when Ramaswamy said that anti-Black racism is on the rise, even if they took issue with his promise to eliminate affirmative action and fight woke policies.

"Yes, we criticize the Democratic Party, and for good reason, for talking a big game about helping Black Americans without doing very much to actually show up and help on the ground, he said later. But we on our side also talk a big game about America First without actually bringing all of America along with us.

Race has emerged as a central issue  and a delicate one  in the 2024 presidential contest as the GOP's primary field so far features four candidates of color, making it among the most racially diverse ever.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the first Black senator in the South since Reconstruction, entered the contest earlier in the month. He joined Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador who is of Indian descent, and Larry Elder, an African American raised in Los Angeles' South Central neighborhood who came to national attention as a candidate in the failed effort two years ago to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who is of Cuban descent, says he may enter the race in the coming days.

Most of the candidates of color are considered underdogs in a field currently dominated by Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Yet the partys increasingly diverse leadership, backed by evolving politics on issues such as immigration, suggest the GOP may have a real opportunity in 2024 to further weaken the Democrats grip on African Americans and Latinos. Those groups have been among the most loyal segments of the Democratic coalition since Republican leaders fought against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Republican presidential contenders of 2024 walk a fine line when addressing race with the GOPs overwhelmingly white primary electorate.

In most cases, the diverse candidates in the Republican field play down the significance of their racial heritage. They all deny the existence of systemic racism in the United States even while discussing their own personal experience with racial discrimination. They oppose policies around policing, voting rights and education that are specifically designed to benefit disadvantaged communities and combat structural racism.

The NAACP recently issued a travel advisory for the state of Florida under DeSantis' leadership, warning of open hostility toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. The notice calls out new policies enacted by the governor that include blocking public schools from teaching students about systemic racism and defunding programs aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Republican presidential candidates of color largely support DeSantis' positions.

Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, said the GOPs policies are far more important than the racial and ethnic diversity of their presidential candidates. He noted there also were four Republican candidates of color in 2016, the year Trump won the White House after exploiting tensions over race and immigration.

White nationalists, insurrectionists and white supremacists seem to find comfort in the (Republican) Party, Morial said. I think were beyond the politics of just the face of a person of color by itself appealing to people of color. What do you stand for?

With few exceptions, the Republican candidates who have entered the presidential primary field have embraced the GOP's anti-woke agenda, which is based on the notion that policies designed to address systemic inequities related to race, gender or sexuality are inherently unfair or even dangerous.

DeSantis this past week described such policies as cultural Marxism.

Still, the GOP's diverse field is not ignoring race. Indeed, some candidates are making their race a central theme in their appeal to Republican primary voters even as they deny that people of color face systemic challenges.

Scott insisted that America is not a racist country in his recent announcement speech.

We are not defined by the color of our skin. We are defined by the content of our character. And if anyone tells you anything different, theyre lying, he said.

In her announcement video, Haley noted that she was raised in a small town in South Carolina as the proud daughter of Indian immigrants  not black, not white, I was different. Like Scott, she has defended the GOP against charges of racism.

Some think our ideas are not just wrong, but racist and evil," Haley said. "Nothing could be further from the truth."

Elder is quick to criticize the Democrats woke agenda, Black Lives Matter and the notion of systemic racism.

Critics say such messages are actually designed to win over suburban white voters more than to attract voters of color. But on the South Side of Chicago on a recent Friday afternoon, there were signs that some Black voters were open to the GOP's new messengers, given their frustration with both political parties.

One attendee at Ramaswamy's town hall waved a flyer for a Biden boycott because the Democratic president has not signaled whether he supports reparations for the descendants of slaves, although Biden did back a congressional effort to study the issue. None of the GOP's presidential candidates supports reparations, either.

Others condemned Democrats, in Chicago and in Washington, for working harder to help immigrants who are in the country illegally than struggling African American citizens.

Federal officials were preparing to relocate hundreds of migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to the South Side, even as many local residents struggled with violence and difficult economic conditions.

It is certainly true that there are multiple shades of melanin in this Republican race, Ramaswamy said in an interview before the event. I think that in some ways dispels the myth that much of the left will perpetuate that this is somehow you know, a racist party or whatever drivel.

He added: But personally, I could care less what someones skin color is. I think what matters is, what are they going to accomplish? Whats their vision?

As of now, the GOP does not have any Hispanic candidates in the 2024 contest. But Suarez, the Miami mayor, said he may change that in the coming days.

I think its important the field does have candidates that can connect with and motivate Hispanics to continue a trend that's already happening, he said in an interview, noting that he's very strongly considering a White House bid. Democrats have failed miserably to connect with Hispanics."

A majority of Latino voters supported Biden in the 2020 presidential contest, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive national survey of the electorate. But Trump cut into that support in some competitive states, including Florida and Nevada, revealing important shifts among Latinos from many different cultural backgrounds.

In last fall's midterm elections, support grew for Republican candidates among Black voters, although they remained overwhelmingly supportive of Democrats, AP Votecast found. Overall, Republican candidates were backed by 14% of Black voters, compared with 8% in the midterm elections four years earlier.

While the shifts may be relatively small, strategists in both parties acknowledge that any shift is significant given how close some elections may be in 2024.

In Chicago, Tyrone Muhammad, who leads Ex-Cons for Social Change, lashed out at Republicans for being losers for not seizing a very real opportunity to win over more African Americans. While sitting next to Ramaswamy on stage, he also declared that the Republican Party is racist.

Later, he said he actually voted for Trump in 2020 because Trump enacted a criminal justice bill that aimed to shorten prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and address racial inequalities in the justice system. While the GOP has since embraced tough-on-crime rhetoric, Muhammed noted that Biden as a senator helped pass the 1994 crime bill that led to the mass incarceration of Black people.

Muhammad said he might vote Republican again in 2024, despite the party's shortcomings. He pointed to the GOP's fight against illegal immigration as a core reason for support.

I may not like you as an individual, but I like your issues, I like your policies," he said.

___

Fields reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about APs democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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CARSON CITY  Lane reductions will begin June 5 on Interstate 80 near the Nevada/Utah state line as the Nevada Department of Transportation launches a two-year project to resurface and improve the interstate.

Five-mile sections of I-80 will be reduced to one lane in each direction 24/7 from near Pilot Peak exit 398 to the Nevada/Utah state line. One interstate lane will remain open in each direction during construction.

Interstate ramp and interchanges may temporarily be closed during paving. Reduced speed limits of 55 mph and travel delays of up to 30 minutes are to be expected through the work zone. This years lane closures will begin June 5 and last through December, followed by similar lane closures next spring through winter.

The project will resurface nearly 19 miles of I-80 from near Pilot Peak exit 398 to the Nevada/Utah state line. The existing interstate will be resurfaced with new asphalt to create a smoother driving surface.

Three interstate bridges will be resurfaced and enhanced. Roadway barrier rail, guardrail, lighting, signage and striping will also be enhanced, and interstate bridges renovated.

The approximately $33 million in improvements by contractor W.W. Clyde and Company will enhance the interstate for the more than 6,000 motorists who travel it daily.

State road information is available at dot.nv.gov or by calling 775-888-7000.
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SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  A man who opened an emergency exit door during a flight in South Korea was formally arrested Sunday and faces up to 10 years in prison on a charge of violating the aviation security law, officials said.

During a preliminary questioning, the 33-year-old told investigators that he felt suffocated and tried to get off the plane quickly, according to police.

Twelve people were slightly injured on Friday after he opened the door of the Asiana Airlines Airbus A321-200, causing air to blast inside the cabin and terrifying passengers. Some testified they suffered severe ear pain and saw others screaming and crying. A video shared on social media shows passengers hair being whipped by air blowing into the cabin.

Normally, the emergency exit doors cannot be opened mid-flight due to the difference in air pressure inside and outside of the aircraft. But during Fridays incident, the man succeeded in opening the door likely because the plane was flying at a low altitude while preparing to land and there wasnt much difference in pressure, according to Asiana Airlines officials.

The Transport Ministry said the plane was at 700 feet (213 meters) when the man pulled the door open. The plane was preparing to land in Daegu on an hour-long flight from the southern island of Jeju with 200 people on board. They included teenage athletes on their way to a track and field competition, according to Asiana Airlines.

On Sunday, a district court in Daegu approved a warrant to formally arrest the man. Police earlier sought the arrest warrant, citing the graveness of the crime and a possibility the man may flee, according to Daegu police.

I wanted to get off the plane soon, the man, whose face was covered by a black hoodie, a cap and a mask, told reporters at the court ahead of its review of his arrest warrant. Im really sorry to kids," he said, in a likely reference to the teenage athletes.

Daegu police said they have up to 20 days to investigate the man before determining whether to send him to prosecutors for a possible indictment.

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for breaching the aviation security law that bars passengers from handling entry doors, emergency exit doors and other equipment on board, according to the Transport Ministry.

Daegu police said the man, surnamed Lee, told them that he was under stress after losing a job recently and that he wanted to get out of the plane soon because he was feeling suffocated just before landing.

The people who were taken to hospitals were mainly treated for minor problems such as breathing difficulties.

Asiana Airlines said in a statement that starting from Sunday, it stopped the sale of emergency exit seats on its 174-seat A321-200 planes and the 195-seat A321-200s as a safety precaution. Lee was seated near the emergency exit, airline officials said.
An old age pensioner who was caught driving while banned from driving has been put off the road for four years.



Sixty-nine-year-old Mike Reilly, of Shantum, Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, pleaded guilty at last weeks sitting of Longford District Court to having no insurance and driving with no licence following an incident at Teffia Park, Longford on April 25, 2023.



At the outset, the court was told Mr Reilly was disqualified after picking up a two year driving ban in October 2022 for drink driving.

That court order had been deferred to February 1 this year with Mr Reilly also being hit with a 100 fine.



It was revealed the incident took place shortly before 3pm when gardai noticed a car went through a red light as it turned into Teffia Park.

Gardai pulled the car in moments later and spoke to the driver, who it was revealed turned out to be the accused, Mr Reilly.

Sgt Mark Mahon said it was discovered at the scene that Mr Reilly was, in fact, disqualified.



In mitigation, defence solicitor Frank Gearty as a brilliant horseman and a genius when it came to schooling horses.

He said there was a certain level of justification behind Mr Reillys decision to get behind the wheel of his car.

After the disqualification there was a personal turmoil for him, said Mr Gearty.



He has a very close relationship with a lady in court and he was moving from Longford. He was moving from a council house to a caravan on her premises.



Regretfully, he took a chance and as he was moving various items from Longford, he went through a red light.

Mr Gearty also praised the way in which prosecuting officer Garda Karl McNabola handled the situation in the immediate aftermath of the incident.

The car was seized by Garda McNabola who treated him so well, he arranged a lift for him, he said, revealing Mr Reilly had resigned himself to not getting behind the wheel again.



In the midst of continuing his submission to the court, Mr Gearty left the courtroom in fits of laughter as he shed further light as to Mr Reillys expertise in managing different varieties of animals.

He was a brilliant horseman, a genius and had an extraordinary ability to manage horses, he said, revealing he also was the owner of two donkeys.

I am not suggesting he came in (to court) with a donkey and he said to me he absolutely wont be driving again and is happy out in his caravan.

He also had three rabbits on the property, thats the good news. The bad news is there is one male and two females.



Judge Bernadette Owens interjected at that point by politely telling Mr Gearty: We dont need to go there.

It was an exchange that left many of those sitting in the public gallery struggling to hold back laughter, as Judge Owens proceeded to give her judgement.



On the no insurance charge, she fined Mr Reilly 300 and disqualified him from driving for four years.
NHS trusts shared the private information of patients with Facebook, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.

A probe by the newspaper found a covert tracking tool was being used by the websites of 20 NHS trusts to collect browsing information and share it with the tech giant in a major breach of privacy.

The Meta Pixel tool passed on intimate details about patients to Facebook, including medical conditions, appointments and treatments without peoples consent.

The data obtained can be used by the social media giants parent company, Meta, for business purposes, including targeted advertising.

According to The Observer, 17 of the 20 NHS trusts found to be using Meta Pixel confirmed they had pulled the tracking tool from their websites over the weekend.

Many of the trusts said they installed the tracking pixels to monitor recruitment or charity campaigns and were not aware that they were sending patient data to Facebook.

One of the trusts, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS trust, previously said in its privacy policy that confidential personal information about your health and care would never be used for marketing purposes without your explicit consent.

In a statement to the Observer, the trust apologised to patients and said Meta Pixel had been installed in relation to a recruitment campaign, and we were not aware that Meta was using this information for marketing purposes.

Immediate action has been taken to remove it, a spokesperson from the trust added.

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) is investigating.

Earlier this month, Meta was fined 1.2 billion euro (1 billion) and ordered to stop transferring user data from European users to its US servers.

The record fine was levied by Irelands Data Protection Commission (DPC) after a three-year probe into the social media giant.

The DPC said Meta had breached part of the European GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) rules in the way that it had moved data of Facebook users across borders.

It ordered Meta Ireland to suspend any future transfer of personal data to the US within the period of five months and also levied a record fine on the business to sanction the infringement that was found to have occurred. Meta called the fine unjustified.
A resident of an apartment building in Dublin that caught on fire on Sunday evening has spoken of the terrifying blaze that has left potentially hundreds of people unable to return to their homes.

Pictures on social media showed smoke billowing from the Falcons View apartment block in Blanchardstown just before 6pm on Sunday evening.

Seven units from Dublin fire brigade attended the scene and managed to extinguish the fire after approximately an hour. There were no reported injuries.

Hundreds of residents, onlookers and patrons from the neighbouring Crown Plaza hotel watched the blaze.

Kiowa Daly, a resident on the seventh floor of the high rise building, was in his apartment when the fire began.

He said: I could hear some crackling and sizzling and I thought someone might have just had a barbecue or something on their balcony, which isnt allowed in the first place.

That was my first thought and I could hear it and I went to my girlfriend and I said, you know, I think someone has a barbecue or theres a fire.

At this point, the fire alarm hadnt been set off yet, so I went and did a double check out on the balcony and I could see some ashes falling from above me.

I said, right we need to go, at that point the alarm went off as well. So we grabbed our stuff that we could get, my keys and my wallet, so then we just left.

Weve been out here for the last two or three hours, just waiting for an update.

Mr Daly said there was emotional scenes as people watched their homes become an inferno.

Lots of emotions, Id say. Lots of people were around, he said.

He added: Theres lots of onlookers, the people in the hotel as well had to evacuate as its right beside the apartments, so hundreds outside watching the inferno.

Mr Daly added that from what he could see from the exterior of the building his home was completely burnt.

Another resident of the building, Hrvoje Lasic, returned home after a day out to see his seventh floor apartment ablaze.

I run away straight to see whats happening, so I know theres loads of vehicles firefighters and everything, he said.

I was in fear that my apartment was gone. So it was terrifying.

Mr Lasic said he may be forced to sleep in his car until he is offered help from the building management.

Former Socialist party TD Ruth Coppinger was alerted to the scene by a resident.

Ms Coppinger said the speed at which the fire spread across floors was concerning.

The situation is it seems to be that theres at least a dozen apartments that are directly impacted with fire and damage, she said.

The really scary thing is how quickly it spread, somebody showed me a video they took, a resident, within five minutes, five floors the fire had spread.

I mean thats actually, serious questions there about building regulations, that there isnt a stop on floors.

It also seems to have started on one floor and gone up and down.

Again a lot of concerning things there because theyre planning on doing a lot more high-rise apartments in this centre.

Ms Coppinger also said the management company was responsible for residents in the immediate term, and stated that Blanchardstown is the epicentre of the housing crisis.
Food, Wine, & Dining

By Long Island Published: May 28 2023

Its not the water, according to experts, its the old-fashioned bagel-making process.

First of all, there is no argument. New York has the best bagels. Its a fact, jack. They just taste better. And, it's a whole experience. Bagels are way of life for us Long Islanders. Whats your go to Sunday morning breakfast*? Nine times out of ten, the average Long Islander will say its a bagel. (Thats our unscientific assessment.)

So what makes the Long Island bagel superior to any other? Lets dig into the issue a bit to find out.

Bagel History

If you really want to get the full scope of bagel history, check out Maria Balinskas book on the subject, The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread. Yes, there is a non-fiction book about bagels. In short, bagels or something like them have been known in Europe since the 1600s (and most likely before that.) But the bagels we know and love were 19th-century imports from Eastern European Jews who brought a bakery item that was then known in Yiddish as a beigel. In the early 20th century that was Americanized to the bagel (cue inspirational choral music.)

Its Not the Water

Everyone thinks the water is the difference. The mineral content (low amounts of calcium and magnesium) makes our water softer than other places. This has been touted as a contributing factor to a superior bagel. To the point where Florida bagel shops imported New York water or invented ways to mimic the water in New York trying to capture that distinct flavor. But, science says otherwise. Water quality has little to do with why our bagels are better. Its just chemistry!

Trust the (Bagel Making) Process

How bagels are made seems to be the key difference. Bagelmakers elsewhere dont do things the old-fashioned way. Here, the dough is shaped by hand then left to sit in a refrigerator to slow down the yeast process as it rises, leading to more time for the taste to infuse into the bagel. Then the legit way to make a bagel is to boil it.

Boiling Makes Better Bagels

Culinary Institute of America Chef Richard Coppedge told NPR that the boiling process essentially sets the starch and locks the liquid inside. It also thickens the surface leading to a chewier bagel with the freshness sealed inside the glossy crust. Then the bagels are baked in a hot oven.

This is the way the European immigrants to New York City made their bagels back at the turn of the century, the one that spread out to Long Island during the post-war years.

Steam-Punked Bagels

The alternative to boiling is to steam them in the oven instead, leading to a totally different texture and taste. This saves time in the bagel-making process but arguably leads to an inferior bagel. Its why mass-produced bagels are not even close to your local bagel shops offering.

A Cut Above the Rest

No matter how you slice it, New York City and Long Island bagels are just better than any others. Maybe water has a little to do with it or maybe its an old-fashioned recipe imported from Europe and perfected in America that makes these bagels the best. We just know one thing. You NEVER slice a bagel like this! I mean, what is this guy thinking

Are you now craving an authentic Long Island Bagel? Check out our bagel section

*Editor's note: Bagels, especially Long Island bagels, are not just good for Sundays or breakfast. They're great anytime for any meal, especially road trips, brunch, midnight snacks, egg sandwiches, and right out of the bag unsliced.
The Global Development Initiative (GDI) proposed by China is aimed at accelerating the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by focusing on people-oriented development, Pakistani experts said.

The GDI promotes stronger, greener and healthier global development by revitalizing global development cooperation and partnerships with countries and organizations around the world, said the experts and academics at a webinar, which was organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI), an Islamabad-based think tank, on Friday.

Former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan Sohail Mahmood said the GDI was a critical initiative launched by China at a time when the world was deeply affected by the health and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the deficit in the achievement of SDGs was growing.

Mahmood said the initiative would help tackle the challenges of the world and facilitate the post-pandemic recovery, and Pakistan was one of the first countries to lend its strong support for it.

At a time of global food, fuel and financial crises, initiatives like GDI are essential for the developing world, he said while expressing the hope that the initiative would be perceived in its right perspective by all to advance the noble cause of the achievement of SDGs by 2030.

The GDI aims to take advantage of technology, innovation and modern infrastructure in order to tackle multiple challenges faced by the world, Masood Khalid, former Pakistani ambassador to China, said.

China has proposed several initiatives including the GDI and Global Security Initiative (GSI) at a time of major transformation in the international system, Khalid said.

"Unilateralism and zero-sum mindset were creating more disorders in the already destabilized world. Amid this growing polarization, China had emerged as a spokesperson for peace, development and cooperation," he noted.

Lauding China for its launch of the far-reaching and consequential GDI, Chairman of Pakistani Senate's Defense Committee Mushahid Hussain Syed said this initiative reflected that the Chinese values are all about cooperation, peace and respect.

"Despite global conflicts, climate change, poverty and energy-related challenges, China has shown impressive leadership," said the senator.

He underlined that Pakistan and China have shared a long-standing, all-weather and time-tested strategic relationship, and the two countries should work together to build a future of progress, prosperity and cooperation.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Sunday said the Kuwaiti government is now investigating the driver of the SUV that plowed into a group of Filipino bikers after the suspect has already surrendered to the authorities.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said the driver may face charges if proven that he or she was recklessly driving at the time of the accident involving around 50 Pinoy bikers.

The driver has surrendered. It is still unclear what was said but we think he or she is Kuwaiti. The person voluntarily surrendered to the police, so the Kuwaiti government is investigating and is reviewing the films of the accident, De Vega said.

The DFA official said that the SUV swerved and hit the group of bikers who were reportedly on the bike lane.

According to De Vega, eleven of the victims were brought to two hospitals, where seven of them were already discharged, two are still under observation, while the other two are seemingly under a critical condition.

The two victims have pretty bad injuriesone was on the head, while the other one on the back, he said.

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For todays high-school students, what happened 20 years ago  let alone the events of 50 or more years past  might well be regarded as ancient history.

A teenager in 2023 is very likely to be unaware of any connection they may have with World War II. Or the wars in Korea and Vietnam. They are two, three and even four generations removed from those conflicts.

Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School teacher James Anspach understands that. Im not sure, to be honest, how the modern student connects to World War II, let alone any warfare at all, Anspach shared this week.

He keeps that perspective in mind when, twice each school year, he brings horticulture students to a piece of what was once farmland just a few miles from downtown Northampton. There, his students help carry on a tradition begun 25 years ago. It was another Smith Vocational teacher, John Lind, and a previous generation of students who helped craft a roadside memorial to a long-ago chapter in Western Massachusetts military history.

Anspachs students prune the shrubbery and spruce up the memorial each fall for Veterans Day and again each spring for Memorial Day to honor the crew of three Army Air Corps aviators who perished when their C-54 Skymaster transport crashed there in a fireball 75 years ago this month.

Before they tend to the tasks at hand, Anspach shares with the teenagers the significance of the place and the meaning their work will have for their community. Its about making the person-to-person connection, how their deeds will be received by others, the teacher explains.

I review the significance of why were there, how their work making it look good will make it a meaningful experience for someone coming to the memorial, he says.

For Steve Connor, veterans services director for 12 area communities, including his hometown of Northampton, the labors of the Smith Vocational students bring hope this Memorial Day. Together with the citys Veterans Council, of which he is a member, Connor has been working to promote better understanding of the meaning of Memorial Day.

Its not, he stresses, the kickoff of summer nor an occasion for celebration. Rather, its a solemn observance, intended to memorialize those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in service to the nation, says Connor. Like the men aboard that military transport plane three-quarters of a century ago.

The civilian-veteran divide is bigger than it used to be, contends Connor, a veteran himself whos been in his position for two decades. When I was growing up  granted, my father was a member of the (Veterans of Foreign Wars)  everyone in my family knew the stores didnt open until noon on Memorial Day. Having someone remember what Memorial Day is about is really hard to get. Its sad  I hope some day it comes back to what its intended to be.

It was just after noon on Thursday, May 13, 1948, that the C-54 piloted by Capt. Paul Lonquich took off from Westover Field in Chicopee. Its crew was in training for the soon-to-begin Berlin Airlift as the Cold War unfolded in the wake of World War II.

The 40-year-old Lonquich, from Yonkers, New York, was regarded as a crack trainer, who had logged thousands of flight hours. With him that day for what was described as a routine instrument training flight were 1st Lt. Wilfred W. Lavinder, 23, of Portsmouth, Ohio, and Staff Sgt. Jack Zaresky, 26, of Queens, New York. All were assigned to the 12th Squadron of the 1st Air Transport Group, and all were living in Western Massachusetts, Lonquich in Springfield, the recently married Lavinder in Holyoke and Zaresky in Chicopee.

The trio reportedly encountered thick cloud cover and drizzling rain as their craft cleared the Mount Tom range heading into Easthampton, according to accounts of the crash. Witnesses on the ground in Easthampton said the plane appeared to be in difficulty as it descended from the clouds, according to a story published in the Springfield Union.

At about 1:30 p.m., it reportedly fell off radar; there was no distress call. (Later, it was reported that the crew likely was aware they were in trouble as investigators found evidence away from the crash site that they had been lightening the load by heaving removable objects.)

Marion Adams, from the kitchen window of her family farmstead at 1095 Florence Road, reportedly saw the plane approaching at so low a level she feared it would hit her home. The shock caused her to faint, reported the Union.

Her husband, George Adams, rushed with a hand-held fire extinguisher to see what he could do but was forced back by the heat and retreated into the home to call the Fire and Police departments. (The Adams family had already been visited by far more personal tragedy six years before when their son, Navy Lt. Samuel Adams, was killed in the Battle of Midway piloting a dive bomber against the Japanese.}

An account of the C-54 crash in that evenings edition of the Springfield Daily News said the explosion of the aircraft rocked downtown Northampton, two miles away, and showered debris across the farmland of the Adams family. Crowds of people rushed to the scene, jamming the roadway as firefighters worked to extinguish the fire.

Blood-stained wreckage and bits of human bone and flesh scattered in many directions bore mute evidence of the sudden death that was meted out to all hands, read the story. An 8-foot piece of the aircrafts cabin was reported to have been the only sizeable piece of the wreckage which remained.

Now, a carefully-crafted aluminum model of a C-54 sits atop the 14-foot tall monument that honors the three fliers.

Connor says its been difficult for him in recent years as increasing numbers of World War II and Korea veterans pass away. These are veterans who were diehard about their identity, about their public service and about the recognition of themselves and especially their buddies who did not come home, said Connor. Because so fewer people serve (in the military) today and in the last 20 years compared to back then, there is not that same solidarity among them.

Thus, Connor now focuses efforts on connecting with young people as he did last weekend when teen members of the Northampton High School Key Club, affiliated with Kiwanis, joined efforts to flag veterans graves at Northamptons Spring Grove Cemetery. The sisters of a soldier killed in Vietnam was with him and provided a real-life effect of the meaning of Memorial Day, he shared.

There are days like (that) when I get positive feelings that were going to get back to Memorial Day as it should be, said Connor. Whatever we can do to get youth involved, there is hope things will be respectful going forward.

At Smith Vocational, trustee Michael Cahillane says there is reason to be hopeful. Along with the Smith students, a Boy Scout took on the upkeep of the C-54 memorial as an Eagle Scout project, he noted.

We try to help out when we can to maintain that property  Its a generational thing. Smith Vocational was founded in 1908, and generations of different students have maintained things started by previous classes, said Cahillane, a 1964 alum who served in the Air National Guard. He noted another group of Smith Vocational students helped rebuild stairs to a memorial on Mount Tom that honors 25 military service members killed in the crash of a B-17 Flying Fortress in 1946.

Cahillanes elder brother, Robert P. Cahillane, was Northamptons veterans agent at the time the C-54 memorial was created and dedicated in 1999. Like Connor, he fears the chasm that exists in the public about military service will continue to widen. And, he, too, holds out hope for the future thanks to efforts to connect young people with history.

That hope, he says, will be on display on Monday morning when the 155th Memorial Day parade steps off in Florence. Its the oldest and longest continuing Memorial Day parade in the U.S., and its always a special time to be in Florence, Cahillane said. Its like Post Office motto goes, no matter the weather, they will march, and they will be out there to honor our veterans.

Cynthia G. Simison is retired executive editor emerita of The Republican. She may be reached by email to csimison@repub.com.
A crash involving a car and a trash truck in Lakeville earlier this week left three people injured and a driver trapped in their vehicle for nearly an hour, police said.

Authorities received a 911 call around 4:50 p.m. Thursday about the two-vehicle crash on Bedford Street near Crooked Lane. Officers went to the scene and found two injured people in the trash truck that had collided with the car, in which the driver was also found wounded, according to a statement from the Lakeville Police Department.

The Lakeville Fire Department had to free one of the drivers, who was trapped in their vehicle for almost an hour, the statement said. Police did not say in their statement which vehicle, the car or the trash truck, the driver was trapped inside.

The driver of the trash truck was flown by medical helicopter to the trauma center at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, while the driver of the car and a passenger in the trash truck were both taken by ambulance to nearby hospitals, according to the statement.

The crash remains under investigation by Lakeville police with assistance from the Massachusetts State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Section.
A garage fire in Hubbardston left four people with injuries and set multiple campers, boats and cars ablaze Friday afternoon, authorities said.

Dispatchers began receiving calls about the blaze inside the garage at 248 Gardner Road in Hubbardston shortly after 2:30 p.m. Friday. Because a large column of smoke was visible from the towns fire station, a working fire was immediately declared, and first responders soon arrived at the scene, according to a Facebook post from the Hubbardston Fire Department.

The large commercial garage, campers, boats and vehicles were discovered on fire. An area of brush was also found to be burning, and a second alarm was sounded for the blaze, bringing more firefighters to the scene, the department said in its post.

Firefighters were able to stop the blaze before it consumed the garage or spread to more vehicles, working at the scene for roughly 3 hours, according to the departments post.

Two firefighters and two other people at the scene of the fire suffered minor injuries. All were treated there and did not need to be taken to the hospital, the department said.

The fire started in a camper behind the garage and was deemed accidental, according to the post.

We would like to thank all of the mutual aid companies who responded, the department said, noting fire departments in Barre, Gardner, Holden, Oakham, Princeton, Rutland, Sterling and Westminster help with the effort to extinguish the fire.
At the meeting (Photo: hcmcpv.org.vn)

Talking at the meeting, Mr. Hoan said that Canada currently ranks 22nd out of 117 countries and territories investing in Ho Chi Minh City with 113 projects worth about USD130 million. The trade turnover between the two sides reached about USD630 million in 2022, an increase of more than 30% compared to 2021. However, the results of economic, trade and investment cooperation between Ho Chi Minh City and Canada are still very modest compared to potential cooperation between the two sides.

Therefore, Mr. Hoan expressed his wish in the coming time to further promote cooperation with Canadian localities, including British Columbia, especially in trade and investment. According to Mr. Hoan, leaders of the two localities need to strengthen cooperation and create more favorable opportunities for the business communities of the two localities to meet and seek cooperation and business opportunities. Ho Chi Minh City is willing to work closely with British Columbia province in the areas that Ho Chi Minh City is interested in and the Canadian side has strengths in green development, such as human resource training and waste treatment, he said.

Minister Jagrup Brar expressed his impression of Ho Chi Minh City's development potential and said that British Columbia and Ho Chi Minh City have made good strides in trade relations, contributing to the common development of economic relations between two countries. Canada and Vietnam have a lot of potential for economic cooperation, especially in the field of climate change adaptation, agriculture and forestry, and the good relationship between the two peoples will be a good foundation for closer ties between British Columbia and Ho Chi Minh City in the future.

He affirmed that the soon-to-be-opened Trade-Investment Office of British Columbia in Ho Chi Minh City not only shows the good relationship between the two localities, but also expresses the desire and determination of the province in further promoting the economic, trade and investment cooperation relationship with Ho Chi Minh City, especially in the fields of interest and potential development of the two sides./.
A condo in Townsend that sold for $80,000 tops the list of the most affordable residential real estate sales in Middlesex County between May 21 and May 28.

In total, 202 residential real estate sales were recorded in the area during the past week, with an average price of $920,873. The average price per square foot was $496.

The prices in the list below concern real estate sales where the title was recorded during the week of May 21 even if the property may have been sold earlier.

45 West Wyoming Avenue, Melrose, MA

10. $280,000, condominium at 45 Wyoming Ave.

The property at 45 Wyoming Ave. In Melrose has new owners. The price was $280,000. The condominium was built in 1887 and has a living area of 500 square feet. The price per square foot is $560. Re Development Llc Upside sold the condominium to James Callahan and Diane Callahan. The deal was finalized on May. 12.

215 Harvard Street, Medford, MA

9. $271,851, condominium at 215 Harvard Street

A sale has been finalized for the condominium at 215 Harvard Street in Medford. The price was $271,851 and the new owners took over the condominium in May. The condo was built in 2009 and the living area totals 1,203 square feet. Tsering Lhagyal and Chime Chodon sold the condominium to Victor Huang. The price per square foot ended up at $226. The deal was finalized on May. 12.

8. $250,000, condominium at 270 Main Street

The 612 square-foot condominium at 270 Main Street, North Reading, has been sold. The transfer of ownership was settled in May and the total purchase price was $250,000, $408 per square foot. The condominium was built in 1974. James E Luks sold the condominium to Peter Emidy. The deal was finalized on May. 12.

55 Phelps Street, Marlborough, MA

7. $245,000, condominium at 55 Phelps Street

The sale of the condominium at 55 Phelps Street, Marlborough, has been finalized. The price was $245,000, and the new owner: Bryan Newman, took over the condominium in May from Donna M Magliozzi. The condominium was built in 1975 and has a living area of 756 square feet. The price per square foot was $324. The deal was finalized on May. 8.

6. $230,000, condominium at 44 Burnap Road

The 783 square-foot condominium at 44 Burnap Road in Holliston has been sold. The transfer of ownership was settled in May and the total purchase price was $230,000, $294 per square foot. The condominium was built in 1965. Dritan Ropi and Margena Ropi acquired the condominium from Alexander R Danjou and Elona B Danjou. The deal was finalized on May. 9.

5. $216,500, condominium at 59 Center Street

The property at 59 Center Street in Burlington has new owners. The price was $216,500. The condominium was built in 2006 and has a living area of 701 square feet. The price per square foot is $309. Angela Yavanian sold the condominium to Michael Dooley and Dianne Dooley. The deal was finalized on May. 10.

4. $213,076, condominium at 8 Parker Road

The sale of the condominium at 8 Parker Road in Wakefield has been finalized. The price was $213,076, and the new owners took over the condominium in May. The condominium was built in 1923 and has a living area of 522 square feet. The price per square foot was $408. Laurel Yonika took over the condominium from Julie Destefano. The deal was finalized on May. 8.

139 Winter Street, Framingham, MA

3. $200,000, condominium at 139 Winter Street

The 567 square-foot condominium at 139 Winter Street, Framingham, has been sold. The transfer of ownership was settled in May and the total purchase price was $200,000, $353 per square foot. The condominium was built in 1897. Moises Miranda and Carolina Miranda acquired the condominium from Lam Q Dinh. The deal was finalized on May. 10.

12 Kendall Avenue, Framingham, MA

2. $165,000, condominium at 12 Kendall Ave.

The property at 12 Kendall Ave. In Framingham has new owners. The price was $165,000. The condominium was built in 1970 and has a living area of 600 square feet. The price per square foot is $275. W L Araujo Rt acquired the condominium from Eunzoo Kim. The deal was finalized on May. 9.

1. $80,000, condominium at 5 Turnpike Road

A sale has been finalized for the condominium at 5 Turnpike Road in Townsend. The price was $80,000 and the new owners took over the condominium in May. The condo was built in 1971 and the living area totals 671 square feet. Anestis Pavlidis took over the condominium from Tori Dawson. The price per square foot ended up at $119. The deal was finalized on May. 1.

Real Estate Newswire is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to generate analysis of data from Propmix, an aggregator of national real-estate data. See more Real Estate News
A condo in Boston that sold for $5.3 million tops the list of the most expensive residential real estate sales in Suffolk County between May 21 and May 28.

In total, 76 residential real estate sales were recorded in the area during the past week, with an average price of $956,126, $836 per square foot.

The prices in the list below concern real estate sales where the title was recorded during the week of May 21 even if the property may have been sold earlier.

32 Concord Street, Charlestown, MA

10. $1.6 million, single-family house at 32 Concord Street

The sale of the single-family residence at 32 Concord Street, Charlestown, has been finalized. The price was $1,580,000, and the new owners: Rebecca Herter and James Herter, took over the house in May from Vernon P Crowther and Mary S Crowther. The house was built in 1853 and has a living area of 1,488 square feet. The price per square foot was $1,062. The deal was finalized on May. 8.

291 Marlborough Street, Boston, MA

9. $1.7 million, condominium at 291 Marlborough Street

The 1,015 square-foot condominium at 291 Marlborough Street, Boston, has been sold. The transfer of ownership was settled in May and the total purchase price was $1,700,000, $1,675 per square foot. The condominium was built in 1880. Janice Sturchio and Richard Sturchio acquired the condominium from John E Salo and Kristine E Salo. The deal was finalized on May. 12.

188 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA

8. $1.8 million, condominium at 188 Brookline Ave.

The property at 188 Brookline Ave. In Boston has new owners. The price was $1,770,000. The condominium was built in 2018 and has a living area of 949 square feet. The price per square foot is $1,865. F H Zhang Jane Tsai Lt acquired the condominium from Anqi Zhao. The deal was finalized on May. 11.

11 Exeter Street, Boston, MA

7. $1.9 million, condominium at 11 Exeter Street

The sale of the condominium at 11 Exeter Street in Boston has been finalized. The price was $1,920,000, and the new owners took over the condominium in May. The condominium was built in 2018 and has a living area of 1,138 square feet. The price per square foot was $1,687. Molly Cameron sold the condominium to Brian Lenihan and Bonnie Hertberg. The deal was finalized on May. 12.

234 Causeway Street, Boston, MA

6. $2.3 million, condominium at 234 Causeway Street

The 2,212 square-foot condominium at 234 Causeway Street in Boston has been sold. The transfer of ownership was settled in May and the total purchase price was $2,250,000, $1,017 per square foot. The condominium was built in 1899. Christopher Kelly and Kristina Kelly sold the condominium to H Paul. The deal was finalized on May. 11.

67 Burroughs Street, Jamaica Plain, MA

5. $2.3 million, condominium at 67 Burroughs Street

The property at 67 Burroughs Street in Jamaica Plain has new owners. The price was $2,250,000. The condominium was built in 2006 and has a living area of 2,643 square feet. The price per square foot is $851. Alex Krupp bought the condominium from Sarah E Ryan and Jeffrey D Hollar. The deal was finalized on May. 11.

400 Stuart Street, Boston, MA

4. $2.5 million, condominium at 400 Stuart Street

A sale has been finalized for the condominium at 400 Stuart Street in Boston. The price was $2,450,000 and the new owners took over the condominium in May. The condo was built in 2009 and the living area totals 1,502 square feet. Stuart Street T 400 sold the condominium to Ja 3 Stuart Llc. The price per square foot ended up at $1,631. The deal was finalized on May. 11.

3. $3.1 million, condominium at 133 Seaport Blvd.

The 1,559 square-foot condominium at 133 Seaport Blvd. In Boston has been sold. The transfer of ownership was settled in May and the total purchase price was $3,075,000, $1,972 per square foot. The condominium was built in 2018. Kathryn Pitten took over the condominium from Bruce Rodman. The deal was finalized on May. 12.

40 Winthrop Street, Charlestown, MA

2. $3.4 million, single-family residence at 40 Winthrop Street

The property at 40 Winthrop Street in Charlestown has new owners. The price was $3,385,000. The house was built in 1860 and has a living area of 3,284 square feet. The price per square foot is $1,031. Marc T Demaisieres and Maisieres Coray De sold the house to Gavin Maitland and Julie Busboom. The deal was finalized on May. 12.

100 Belvidere Street, Boston, MA

1. $5.3 million, condominium at 100 Belvidere Street

The property at 100 Belvidere Street in Boston has new owners. The price was $5,290,000. The condominium was built in 2001 and has a living area of 2,846 square feet. The price per square foot is $1,859. Michael T Savage and Priscilla B Savage sold the condominium to Bel 7 bc Nt. The deal was finalized on May. 11.

Real Estate Newswire is a service provided by United Robots, which uses machine learning to generate analysis of data from Propmix, an aggregator of national real-estate data. See more Real Estate News
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Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall won the Palme d'Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in a ceremony Saturday that bestowed the festival's prestigious top prize on an engrossing, rigorously plotted French courtroom drama that puts a marriage on trial.

Anatomy of a Fall, which stars Sandra Huller as a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husbands death, is only the third film directed by a woman to win the Palme d'Or. One of the two previous winners, Julia Ducournau, was on this year's jury.

Cannes' Grand Prix, its second prize, went to Jonathan Glazers The Zone of Interest, a chilling Martin Amis adaptation about a German family living next door to Auschwitz. Huller also stars in that film.

The awards were decided by a jury presided over by two-time Palme winner Ruben Ostlund, the Swedish director who won the prize last year for Triangle of Sadness. The ceremony preceded the festival's closing night film, the Pixar animation Elemental.

Remarkably, the award for Anatomy of a Fall gives the indie distributor Neon its fourth straight Palme winners. Neon, which acquired the film after its premiere in Cannes, also backed Triangle of Sadness,Ducournau's Titane and Bong Joon Ho's Parasite, which it steered to a best picture win at the Academy Awards.

Triet was presented the Palme by Jane Fonda, who recalled coming to Cannes in 1963 when, she said, there were no female filmmakers competing and it never even occurred to us that there was something wrong with that. This year, a record seven out of the 21 films in competition at Cannes were directed by women.

After a rousing standing ovation, Triet, the 44-year-old French filmmaker, spoke passionately about the protests that have roiled France this year over reforms to pension plans and the retirement age. Several protests were held during Cannes this year, but demonstrations were  as they have been in many high-profile locations throughout France  banned from the area around the Palais des Festivals. Protesters were largely relegated to the outskirts of Cannes.

The protests were denied and repressed in a shocking way, said Triet, who linked that governmental influence to that in cinema. "The merchandizing of culture, defended by a liberal government, is breaking the French cultural exception."

This award is dedicated to all the young women directors and all the young male directors and all those who cannot manage to shoot films today, she added. We must give them the space I occupied 15 years ago in a less hostile world where it was still possible to make mistakes and start again.

After the ceremony, Triet reflected on being the third female director to win the Palme, following Ducournau and Jane Campion ("The Piano").

Things are truly changing, she said.

Speaking to reporters, Triet was joined by her star, Huller, whose performance was arguably the most acclaimed of the festival. (The festival encourages juries not to give films more than one award.) But Anatomy of a Fall did pocket one other sought-after prize: the Palme Dog. The honor given to the best canine in the festival's films went to the film's border collie, Snoop.

The jury prize went to Finnish director Aki Kaurismakis Fallen Leaves," a deadpan love story about a romance that blooms in a loveless workaday Helsinki where dispatches from the war in Ukraine regularly play on the radio.

Best actor went to veteran Japanese star Koji Yakusho, who plays a reflective, middle-aged Tokyo man who cleans toilets in Wim Wenders' Perfect Days," a gentle, quotidian character study.

The Turkish actor Merve Dizdar took best actress for the Nuri Bilge Ceylan's About Dry Grasses. Ceylan's expansive tale is set in snowy eastern Anatolia about a teacher, Samet (Deniz Celiloglu), accused of misconduct by a young female student. Dizdar plays a friend both attracted and repelled by Samet.

I understand what it's like to be a woman in this area of the country, said Dizdar. I would like to dedicate this prize to all the women who are fighting to exist and overcome difficulties in this world and to retrain hope.

Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung took best director for Pot-au-Feu," a lush, foodie love story starring Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel and set in a 19th century French gourmet chateau.

Best screenplay was won by Yuji Sakamoto for Monster. Sakamoto penned Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's nuanced drama, with shifting perspectives, about two boys struggling for acceptance in their school at home. Monster also won the Queer Palm, an honor bestowed by journalists for the festival's strongest LGBTQ-themed film.

Quentin Tarantino, who won Cannes' top award for Pulp Fiction," attended the ceremony to present a tribute to filmmaker Roger Corman. Tarantino praised Corman for filling him and countless moviegoers with unadulterated cinema pleasure.

My cinema is uninhibited, full of excess and fun, said Corman, the independent film maverick. I feel like this what Cannes is about.

The festival's Un Certain Regard section handed out its awards on Friday, giving the top prize to Molly Manning Walker's debut feature, How to Have Sex.

Saturdays ceremony drew to close a Cannes edition that hasn't lacked spectacle, stars or controversy.

The biggest wattage premieres came out of competition. Martin Scorsese debuted his Osage murders epic Killers of the Flower Moon, a sprawling vision of American exploitation with Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Harrison Fords Indy farewell, launched with a tribute to Ford. Wes Anderson premiered Asteroid City.

The festival opened on a note of controversy. Jeanne du Barry, a period drama co-starring Johnny Depp as Louis XV, played as the opening night film. The premiere marked Depp's highest profile appearance since the conclusion of his explosive trial last year with ex-wife Amber Heard.

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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For more coverage of this years festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/cannes-film-festival
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BERLIN (AP)  Several Jewish groups, politicians and an alliance of civil society groups gathered for a memorial ceremony and a protest rally against a concert by Roger Waters in Frankfurt on Sunday evening.

They accuse the Pink Floyd co-founder of antisemitism - an allegation he denies.

Waters has also drawn their ire for his support of the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel.

Frankfurt authorities had initially tried to prevent the concert taking place, but Waters successfully challenged the move in a local court.

The concert is taking place in the city's Festhalle, where in November 1938 more than 3,000 Jews were rounded up by the Nazis, beaten and abused, and later deported to concentration camps.

Against this historical background, the concert should not have taken place under any circumstances, said Sacha Stawski, a member of the Frankfurt Jewish community and head of the group Honestly Concerned, that helped organize the protests.

It's very frustrating" that the concert is going ahead as scheduled even though Frankfurt officials and many others tried to prevent it, Elio Adler, the head of the Jewish group WerteInitiative which supports the protest, told The Associated Press.

His words and imagery spread Jew-hatred and are part of a trend: to normalize Israel-hatred under the protection of freedom of speech or art, Adler added.

Last week, police in Berlin said they had opened an investigation of Waters on suspicion of incitement over a costume the Pink Floyd co-founder wore when he performed in the German capital earlier this month.

Images on social media showed Waters firing an imitation machine gun while dressed in a long black coat with a red armband. Police confirmed that an investigation was opened over suspicions that the context of the costume could constitute a glorification, justification or approval of Nazi rule and therefore a disturbance of the public peace.

Waters rejected those accusations in a statement on Facebook and Instagram, saying that the elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms.

He claimed that attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated.

During Sunday's ceremony and protests, which took place in front of the Frankfurt concert venue before Waters' concert was set to begin, protesters read out loud the names of 600 Jews who were rounded up at the Festhalle on November 9, 1939, the so-called Kristallnacht  the Night of Broken Glass  when Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

The organizers also held a joint Jewish-Christian prayer for the victims of the Nazi terror in Frankfurt. The city's mayor as well as the head of the local Jewish community were set to speak at the protest.

In addition, some of the around 400 protesters handed out flyers to concertgoers and waved Israeli flags. Others held up banners with slogans such as Israel, we stand with you or Roger Waters, wish you were not here in reference to Pink Floyd's famous song Wish You Were Were, German news agency dpa reported.

Protesters in Munich rallied against a concert by Waters earlier this month, after the city council said it had explored possibilities of banning the performance but concluded that it wasnt legally possible to cancel a contract with the organizer.

Last year, the Polish city of Krakow canceled gigs by Waters because of his sympathetic stance toward Russia in its war against Ukraine.

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Michael Probst contributed reporting from Frankfurt.
The Plant Protection Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that it has received a document from the GACC notifying the results of the review of the remedial dossiers of the planting area codes and facilities that took the January 2023 online test.

As a result, 47 of 51 growing areas and 18 packing facilities met the requirements and were granted codes by the GACC.

So far, Vietnam has 293 growing areas and 115 packing facilities that have been granted official export codes by China to this market.

In addition, the Plant Protection Department is working with the GACC to agree on the schedule of the next online inspection for about 400 growing areas and 60 durian packing facilities that send products to China.

After agreeing on the inspection schedule and content, the Plant Protection Department will notify localities to proactively prepare and coordinate with the Department and the GACC to implement the Chinese agencys plan.

Vietnams export of vegetables and fruits in 2022 reached USD3.34 billion, of which, export of fresh and frozen vegetables reached USD2.32 billion; and processed vegetables and fruits reached USD1.014 billion.

China is the largest export market for Vietnam's fruit and vegetable industry, accounting for about 55% of total export turnover. This is also the largest consumption address for durian, contributing to increasing durian export revenue last year to USD420 million.

The Protocol signed by the two sides in July 2022 paved the way for the valuable fruits to rapidly increase export turnover. The Vietnam Fruit and Vegetable Association (Vinafruit) forecasts that durian will soon bring in export turnover of USD1 billion.

According to GACC statistics, in 2022, China spent about USD4 billion to import durian. In which, Thailand was the largest supplier with USD3.85 billion, accounting for about 96% of China's durian import turnover.

Vietnam's durian exports to China have to compete fiercely with Thai products./.
HARTFORD  The man thought the woman he just had sex with was robbing him, so he strangled her, he told police, according to a warrant for his arrest.

But detectives quickly concluded that the actions of Angel Roman last month in no way appear to be an act of self-defense, according to the warrant for his arrest on a charge of murder.

Roman, 41, of Hartford. also was charged with tampering with evidence in the April 26 death of Stephanie Hawes-Brown, 37. He was arrested the day of the homicide in the apartment Roman shared with his mother, the warrant said.

While police had probable cause to charge Roman, they did not release information about the arrest or about Stephanie Hawes-Browns death at the time because the medical examiner had not officially determined the cause and manner of her death, Lt. Aaron Boisvert said. Her death was ruled a homicide due to neck compression this month.

Roman remains in custody at the Hartford Correctional Center on $1 million bail, prison records show. He is scheduled to appear in state Superior Court in Hartford July 13.

Stephanie Hawes-Brown was a daughter of Deborah Hawes-Brown, a former deputy chief of the Hartford Police Department. Deborah Hawes-Brown was the first female police officer in Connecticut to have the word chief in her title, according to The Hartford Courant and The New York Times.

Reached by phone Friday, Deborah Hawes-Brown declined to talk about her daughter.

According to the warrant, Roman told police he saw the woman about midnight on April 25 at the corner of Farmington Avenue and Marshall Street and asked if she wanted to come up to his Marshall Street apartment to party and smoke. They smoked his crack cocaine, the warrant states.

They became intimate, he told police, and they lay in bed and talked while they continued to smoke, according to the warrant. The woman then got up to get dressed, and when Roman bent over to get his vape pen, he felt something poke him on his right side, he told police, according to the warrant.

The woman told him to give me everything, Roman said, according to the warrant, which I interpreted as her wanting to take my money and drugs.

I quickly spun around, reached back and saw the knife fall from her hand to the ground, he told police, according to the warrant. He said he didnt realize she had the knife until it hit the floor.

Still, he put her in a chokehold with his left forearm and squeezed as she continued to fight, according to the warrant. He said he did not let go until she stopped moving and went limp.

Roman admitted he never tried to help her after she stopped moving and didnt call police until an hour or an hour and a half later, when he left the bedroom and told his mother what had happened, the warrant said.

His mother told police she heard a bang hours before Roman emerged from the bedroom. When he came out, he told her he had choked the female to death, the warrant said. She handed him her cellphone and told him to call police.

Police got the call at 4:56 a.m. April 26. Roman told the dispatcher he had gotten into a fight with a woman at the Marshall Street apartment and had killed her, the warrant said.

It was the second time in 11 days that a suspect had contacted Hartford police the day of a homicide and confessed.

On April 16, police say, Pedro Grajalez fatally stabbed his girlfriend in his car and drove her unresponsive, bloody body to the police station to turn himself in.

Grajalez told police he planned the killing because she was cheating on him, according to the warrant for his arrest. Nilda Rivera, 57, had been stabbed 25 times.

In Romans case, police noted in the warrant that he said he was unaware of the knife until it was no longer in her hand and she was no longer a threat.

They also point out that he moved both her body and the knife, the warrant said, and he crushed his glass crack pipe and flushed it down the toilet, allegedly so his mother would not get into trouble.
MIDDLETOWN  With mixed emotions, the owner of Lan Chis Vietnamese Restaurant is shutting down her business after a decade of not only serving patrons, but the entire community.

The 505 Main St. eatery will be closing shortly after a 10-year run. Chu Ngos mother has Stage 4 lung cancer, and recently learned it had spread to other parts of her body, causing her daughter to face a very difficult decision.

Ngo realized she needed much more to care for her mother and three teenagers, something that would be impossible with her packed schedule. She also works full-time job as a cancer research scientist at a New Haven biotech company.

I had to put my priorities in place, Ngo said. We only have one (set of parents). My dad is older, too, so I wanted to spend more time with them.

Difficulties finding staff, something many businesses and industries have been facing, as well as high food costs also compounded her reasons for the closure.

Ngo is truly indebted to the community, she said, for many reasons, including times when people cooked meals for her family when her mothers cancer first returned a year ago and she required radiation treatments five days a week.



Ngo, who has a family of more than 60, got into the business after cooking meals for colleagues, and later making Chu and Go lunch boxes for friends. Saying it was a success is an understatement: Over the course of three to four weeks, she received more than 80 orders.

Thats when Ngo began looking for spaces to open a restaurant, even though she had no experience in running a business, she said.

She found the 505 Main St. building, which had been gutted following its collapse under the weight of snow and ice in February 2011. It was just an empty shell, concrete floor and concrete walls, Ngo recalled.

Many city stakeholders helped facilitate the early stages of Ngos endeavor. With so much assistance, she said, it only took two months to complete. I didnt know what I was doing but, looking back, I feel so blessed," she said. "It was an amazing experience.

When she first opened Lan Chis, her mother was right there cooking with her every day. It was difficult not having her side by side with me for the past three years, she said.

Ngo, who immigrated to this country from Vietnam at 13, didnt know a word of English.

During those early, humble years, Ngo, who considered herself lower class while growing up in Hartford with 16 family members sharing a two-bedroom apartment, would look around at others, believing they were rich, she said. I thought that was the life for immigrants, but I didnt know that was also the life for people born here."

Later, after opening Lan Chis, she met many people from different walks of life. I realized how lucky I am and how education helped me get out of the life that I had," she said.

She eventually obtained her neuroscience degree from the University of Connecticut, bought her first home at 24, and took a job conducting pharmaceutical research. That allowed her parents, who used to work, work, work day and night to enjoy a measure of comfort, Ngo said.

When her family left Vietnam many years ago, she said, they were only allowed to take along two outfits and $50. We left [our fortunes]  and started everything all over again," she said.

Her grandparents grew up poor, managed to escape from China and settled in Cambodia. When the Khmer Rouge regime took over in the late 1970s, conditions worsened and they fled to Vietnam, Ngo said.

Ingrained in the family is the importance of giving to others, however small those efforts may be, Ngo said. Also, her grandfather and father always impressed the importance of education: knowledge and experience that no one can take away," she said.

There were a lot of kids in our family that would have no future or unable to obtain any education otherwise, she added.

Even with all of her responsibilities, Ngo wanted to give back in some way to Middletown, so, about five years ago, she created an initiative to enrich the lives of local children. The summer reading and exploring program, for ages 6-12, was made possible by donations and those volunteering their time. Proceeds from a gala at Lan Chi's were given to the Salvation Army next door, where the program was later held.

The curriculum Ngo designed, of reading, math and exploring, was focused on exposing children to a wide array of activities  and occupations  they may never have known about otherwise. They enjoyed library visits and picking out grade-level books to boost their comprehension, she said.

Ngo also hosted tai chi, art, music, cooking, public speaking and other workshops, as well as workouts with firefighters, karaoke, guest speakers, field trips and countless other activities  made possible through those who donated their time.

All along, Ngo's goal has been "lending a hand and leaving a little footprint on this society and this world that we live in, she said.

For information, visit lanchirestaurant.com or call 860-347-8885.
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SEYMOUR  A body was discovered Sunday morning in the Naugatuck River in the midst of the town's Memorial Day parade, officials say.

In a release, the Seymour Police Department said a citizen noticed what appeared to be a body under the Broad Street Bridge around 11:37 a.m. They said emergency services crews cordoned off the area and confirmed a dead person was in the river, adding the detective bureau and the medical examiner were notified.
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WASHINGTON (AP) 

After weeks of negotiations, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have announced an  agreement in principle  to raise the nations debt ceiling and avoid a potentially catastrophic default.

The agreement includes spending cuts demanded by Republicans, but it is short of the reductions in the sweeping legislation passed by the Republican-led House last month.

To reduce spending, as Republicans had insisted, the package includes a two-year budget deal that would hold spending flat for 2024 and impose limits for 2025. That's in exchange for raising the debt limit for two years, until after the next election.

It also expands some work requirements for food-stamp recipients and tweaks an environmental law to try to streamline reviews to build new energy projects.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the United States could default on its debt obligations by June 5 if lawmakers do not act in time to raise the federal debt ceiling.

A look at whats next as Congress rushes to pass an agreement:

FINALIZING THE DEAL

Speaking to reporters in the Capitol late Saturday, McCarthy said the bill has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce and rein in government overreach. There are no new taxes and no new government programs.

Biden told reporters at the White House on Sunday: "Im going to call McCarthy now at 3 oclock to make sure all the Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted. I think were in good shape.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said in a letter to Democratic colleagues that administration officials would brief House Democrats on the agreement at 5 p.m. One of the administrations chief negotiators, presidential counselor Steve Ricchetti, was also making individual calls to Democratic lawmakers to build support, according to a House Democratic aide.

Biden said in a statement after the deal was announced that he strongly urged "both chambers to pass the agreement right away.

SELLING THE BILL

To pass the bill, both McCarthy and Biden will now have to sell it to their respective parties. While both sides are expected to lose some votes, they have to make sure that the deal is popular enough to pass both chambers without a revolt on either side.

McCarthy held a call Saturday evening with the Republican caucus, fulfilling a promise he made to show the agreement to them before revealing the legislation to the public. He said he expects to release the text of the bill on Sunday afternoon.

McCarthy said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday" that the bill is less than 150 pages and the House would wait 72 hours before voting on it so it can be publicly reviewed. This is worthy of the American people. I want them to read it. I want them to understand it, he said.

The Republican speaker he expects a majority of Republicans to vote for it and a lot of Democrats as well because Biden was on board. Jeffries said on CBS' Face the Nation that he expects "there will be Democratic support once we have the ability to be fully briefed by the White House, but Im not going to predict what those numbers will ultimately look like.

Reaction was mixed. Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina tweeted a vomit emoji, complaining that some Republicans on the call were praising the speaker for getting what he said is almost zippo in exchange for the debt ceiling hike.

South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson, an ally of McCarthy, told CNN's State of the Union that overwhelmingly, Republicans in this conference are going to support the deal. How could they not. It's a fantastic deal.

White House officials will give their own briefing to House Democrats on Sunday at 5 p.m., according to a House Democratic aide. McCarthy said he spoke to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on Saturday night and there will be a conference call with Republicans senators later Sunday.

CONGRESS RETURNS

Both the House and Senate are expected to return on Tuesday, after Memorial Day. McCarthy said the House will vote Wednesday, which would then send the bill to the Senate.

Once the bill reaches the Senate, where Democrats have the majority, the pace of action will largely depend on whether any senators try to hold up the bill, possibly with amendment votes. That could tie up the legislation for a few days.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned members Sunday that "due to the time it may take to process the legislation in the Senate without cooperation, Senators should prepare for potential Friday and weekend votes.

Still, the Senate can move quickly when they have agreement from all 100 senators. The bill could be passed by the end of the week, with a quick Biden signature to make it law.

The White House was expected to brief Senate Democrats late Sunday afternoon, likely after the bill language has been released and members have had time to review the proposals.

If all goes according to McCarthys plan -- and both chambers are able to pass the legislation -- the potential crisis should be resolved by June 5, which is when the Treasury Department projects the U.S. would be at risk of default.

"This agreement is good news for the American people, because it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, and millions of jobs lost, Biden said in his Saturday evening statement.

___

Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri, Lisa Mascaro, Seung Min Kim, Zeke Miller in Washington and Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.
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BELGRADE, Serbia (AP)  Huge crowds of anti-government protesters on Saturday encircled the Serbian state television building in downtown Belgrade to press their demand for autocratic President Aleksandar Vucic to ease his tight grip on the mainstream media and allow alternative voices.

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters, some chanting slogans urging Vucic's resignation, streamed into the rain-drenched streets a day after the president's followers staged an equally big rally in the capital. Most of his supporters were bused into the capital from all over Serbia and some neighboring states.

Outside the RTS TV headquarters, the crowds blew whistles and booed loudly. They say that according to the laws, state TV should be unbiased as a public broadcaster, but that it has been openly pro-government.

After the rally officially ended, groups of people gathered in front of the Parliament building and the state TV, claiming they want to enter the buildings by force. Organizers of the protest blocked them from entering, saying they were infiltrated by the authorities to try to portray the protesters as violent.

Held for the fourth time since the early May shootings, the opposition-led protests appear to be shaping up into the biggest revolt against Vucic's autocratic rule during his over 10 years in power.

The rallies initially erupted in response to two back-to-back mass shootings earlier this month that left 18 people dead and 20 wounded, many of them children from an elementary school.

Other protest demands include the resignations of top officials and the revoking of licenses for pro-government media that air violent content and host crime figures and war criminals.

Vucic has accused the opposition of abusing the shooting tragedy for political ends.

Earlier on Saturday, he stepped down from the helm of his populist party amid plans to form a wider political movement. Vucic named his close ally, Milos Vucevic, current the defense minister, as his successor.

Holding umbrellas amid heavy rain Saturday, the protesters walked slowly around the RTS television building in central Belgrade, completely covering the streets in the entire area.

Many held flowers in memory of the slain children and wore badges reading vulture or hyena," mocking the expressions that officials used to describe the protesters.

Vucic has said the new, national movement will be formed in June to include other parties, experts and prominent individuals and promote unity. Analysts say it is a bid to regroup amid mounting public pressure. Critics say the movement could lead to single-party rule, more or less as the case in Vladimir Putin's Russia, which Vucic supports.

During the rally Friday, Vucic offered dialogue as he seeks ways to ease mounting public pressure.

Opposition parties have pledged to press on with the demonstrations until their demands are fulfilled. They include the ouster of the interior minister and the intelligence chief; the revocation of nationwide broadcast licenses for two pro-government TV stations; and the dismissal of a media-monitoring body.

If they dont fulfill (the demands) we are not leaving from here," said Milica Tomic, a Belgrade resident. "We will be here, if it need be, every day, every week, whenever."

___

Dusan Stojanovic contributed to this report.
OTSEGO COUNTY, MI  Charges are pending against a 35-year-old man accused of assaulting another man, Otsego County sheriffs deputies said.

Police initially responded to a 4:40 a.m. report of an assault complaint on Saturday, May 27, at the Otsego Memorial Hospital.

There, police learned a man had been severely beaten and sustained major injuries. Police did not say what the extent of the mans injuries were.

A search warrant was executed at a home in Hayes Township where police found one suspect, a 35-year-old Gaylord man, who was arrested for assault with intent to commit murder.

Police did not say what circumstances might have lead to the alleged attack. However, the investigation remains ongoing.

The Gaylord man was lodged in the Otsego County Jail.

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ANN ARBOR, MI -- Elegant. Sophisticated. Chic. Ann Arbor has a variety of high-end restaurants offering fine dining experiences.

Whether youre looking for seafood or just a good steak, there are restaurants that have spent years making a name for themselves and their fine-dining services.

Here are five chic restaurants to try throughout Ann Arbor.

The ultimate seafood mixed trio, including Sixty South salmon, crab cake, coconut shrimp, coconut ginger rice and fresh vegetables at Gandy Dancer Monday, May 13 2019.Jacob Hamilton

Gandy Dancer

Seafood lovers looking for an upscale option can check out Ann Arbors Gandy Dancer.

The restaurant offers lunch and dinner options, including oysters, shrimp cocktail, escargot, crab, scallops, lobster, mahi-mahi, salmon and filet mignon, as well as an extensive wine and cocktail menu.

Related: Ann Arbors Best Cocktails: Try a refreshing twist on a classic Negroni at the Gandy Dancer

Gandy Dancer, 401 Depot St. is open 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday and noon to 9 p.m. Saturday. Happy hour is 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Find the restaurant online, on social media or by phone at 734-769-0592.

The exterior of Vinology, 110 S. Main St., in downtown Ann Arbor on Thursday, May 18, 2023. The restaurant also offers a lower-level event space.Sydney Verlinde | MLive.com

Vinology

Vinology brings chic to downtown Ann Arbor with brunch, dinner and, of course, wine.

The restaurant is known for offering creative wine-friendly world cuisine with a wine list intriguing for the novice to the connoisseur, according to its website.

The menu features a Belgium caramel waffle, blueberry pancakes, brioche French toast, omelets, avocado burritos and chicken and waffle sandwiches for brunch. Dinner options include blue crab risotto cake, salmon, lamb chops, ribeye steak, pork chops and braised boneless beef short rib.

Vinology, 110 S. Main St., is open 4 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4 to 11 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for brunch and 4 to 11 p.m. for dinner on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.

Find the restaurant online, on social media or by phone at 734-222-9841.

The Earle, inside a former hotel's basement, serves provincial French and Italian style dishes with over 1,000 wines available. Michigan's Best Amy Sherman and John Gonzalez visited the Ann Arbor restaurant on their search for Michigan's Most Iconic restaurant on Monday, May 14, 2019. Tanya Moutzalias | MLive.com

The Earle

Enjoy a glass of wine and explore The Earles extensive menu, mixed with both Italian and French cuisine.

The Earle opened in 1977 as a jazz club that sold sandwiches, soups and omelets. In 1979, it transformed into fine-dining experience it is today. Customers can try bruschetta, eggplant parmesan, lamb chops, calamari, duck breasts and beef tenderloin.

The restaurant also features an vast wine list, with more than 1,200 selections and live jazz performances five nights a week.

The Earle Restaurant, 121 W. Washington St., is open 5 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 5 to 9:30 p.m. Friday through Saturday and 5 to 8 p.m. Sunday.

Find it online, on social media or by phone at 734-994-0211.

The Chop House in downtown Ann Arbor on Friday, September 18, 2015. Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor NewsANN ARBOR NEWS

The Chop House

Customers should prepare to be pampered with the ultimate prime dining experience at The Chop House, according to the restaurants website.

The Chop Houses menu is packed with selections for soups, salads, seafood, as well as both classic and specialty prime steaks. Options include lobster tail, lamb chops, filet mignon, Wagyu ribeye steak, Beef Wellington and scallops.

The restaurant also has elegant desserts, including Bananas Foster Bread Pudding, Amaretto Creme Brulee, Affogato, mudslide cheesecake and caramel apple pie.

The Chop House, 322 S. Main St., is open 5 to 10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 5 to 11 p.m. Friday, 4 to 11 p.m. Saturday and 4 to 9 p.m. Sunday.

Find it online, on social media or by phone at 734-669-8826.

Outside Taste Kitchen, 521 E. Liberty St. in Ann Arbor on Wednesday, June 29 2022.Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News

Taste Kitchen

Taste Kitchen provides dishes that combine French culinary techniques with Vietnamese flavors.

The chef-owned Ann Arbor restaurant prides itself on its small menu that uses fresh and local ingredients. Owner and chef Danny Van selects menu items based on which ingredients are in season and the freshness of the products.

As of May 20, customers can find beef tartare, mussels, risotto, calamari, crab cakes, duck tacos, lamb rack, scallops and filet mignon, along desserts like lemon tart and coffee Creme Brulee.

Read more: Michigans Best Local Eats: Taste Kitchens menu showcases fresh, seasonal dishes

Taste Kitchen, 521 E. Liberty St., is open 4:30 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 5 to 11 p.m. Friday through Saturday and 5 to 9 p.m. Sunday.

Find it online, on social media or by phone at 734-369-4241.

Want more Ann Arbor-area news? Bookmark the local Ann Arbor news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Ann Arbor daily newsletter.

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5 great diners to check out in Ann Arbor

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KENT COUNTY, MI  The hospice division at Holland Home has opened a $2 million expansion at Trillium Woods in Byron Township that includes a grief support center, hospice training and education lab and consolidated office space.

The Van Andel Hope & Healing Pavilion creates a place where all faith hospice staff can work together under one roof, and it meets the growing need for bereavement services for families Faith Hospice serves across West Michigan, according to a new release.

Walking alongside loved ones after theyve experienced loss is such an important part of the hospice experience, Amy Van Andel said in a statement. We hope that having a facility dedicated to those who are grieving that offers resources to guide them on their journey will help families begin to heal and feel hope for the future.

The pavilion occupies the full lower level of Trillium Woods, 8214 Pfeiffer Farms Dr. SW, which describes itself as the regions only inpatient hospice facility.

Key features include a grief support center, which provides individual and grief counseling and space for family counseling and gatherings. In addition, a training and education lab provides space to train volunteers and safe, and a consolidated office space will bring all faith hospice staff under one roof.

The Van Andel family are great friends of the organization, starting with Jay and Betty, said Holland Home President and CEO Troy Vugteveen. The Van Andel Hope and Healing Pavilion will continue to honor their parents and carry on the tradition to provide shelter to the hearts of those grieving. We are so grateful for Steve and Amy Van Andel and the blessing they continue to be.

Trillium Woods was built in 2006 and offers 20 private rooms in what Holland Home describes as a peaceful, family-centered atmosphere with 24/7 medical care.

Want more Grand Rapids-area news? Bookmark the local Grand Rapids news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Grand Rapids daily newsletter.

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JACKSON, MI  Rental inspections in Jackson have sparked numerous lawsuits over last 10 years.

In 2012, in an effort to ensure the safety of renters and crack down on slum lords, the City of Jackson created the Non-Owner-Occupied Residential Property Registration Ordinance requiring regular inspections of rental properties.

The ordinance requires that landlords register their properties with the city by completing a form, paying a renewal fee every two years and complying with habitability standards verified by an inspection every three years.

Since its implementation, it has been sued repeatedly by property owners claiming the ordinance violates the residents constitutional rights.

The courts have routinely ruled against the landlords, yet the lawsuits continue.

Related: Changes to rules for family rentals, frequency of inspections get Jackson City Council OK

In December 2021, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Stafford ruled in favor of the city in a previous lawsuit, the Berkemeier case, filed in 2019, granting summary judgement for the city after finding the ordinance did not conflict with constitutional rights. The ruling found the city acted appropriately by obtaining lawful warrants ahead of the inspecting properties when no emergency was present.

Because the Jackson officers acted under a warrant and Jacksons ordinance has a warrant requirement, plaintiffs have no Fourth Amendment injuryactual or impending, Stafford wrote.

The property owners are attempting to appeal the judgement.

In the latest lawsuit, filed in June 2022, landlords for Oswego View LLC are suing the city claiming the ordinance is being used with evil intent.

This case is about the overarching aggression and attempts by the City of Jackson, Michigan, by adoption of an ordinance regulating residential real estate, and certain of its officials seeking unlawfully to enforce the ordinance with evil intent, under the guise of regulating residential properties by ordinance purporting to regulate nonowner occupied dwellings, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also claims the property owner was unlawfully detained and assaulted by police enforcing the ordinance after they refused to allow inspectors into the property.

The lawsuit is still ongoing.

We are confidant the court will rule in our favor in this case as there is already a similar ruling made by the U.S. Supreme Court, attorney for the property owner Barry Powers said.

Powers cited the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision on the City of Los Angeles v. Patel where the court found the citys ordinance -- which allow it to maintain records on guests to be available to police -- was an unwarranted violation of constitutional 4th Amendment rights.

Jackson City Attorney Matthew Hagerty said he cannot comment on pending litigation, though he did make note that the latest lawsuit is being represented by the same attorney, Powers, from the previous lawsuit where the court ruled in favor of the city.

The five stated counts in the Oswego View LLC et al lawsuit are virtually identical to the five claims in the Berkemeier litigation, each of which were dismissed in their entirety, Hagerty wrote.

With almost half of the citys residents living in rental properties, officials have routinely held firm that the ordinance was created to keep residents safe from unsafe housing and those who might try to take advantage of low-income renters.

We have the ordinance to care for the health, safety and welfare of our residents living in rental housing, City of Jackson Spokesman Aaron Dimick said. Considering Jackson is also a predominantly low-income community, its important that local government works to protect our most vulnerable residents.

In an emergency situation, the chief building official, chief of police and fire official have the right to enter at any time so long as the official has reasonable grounds to believe that a condition hazardous to health or safety exists on the premises and requires immediate attention, the citys ordinance states.

In a nonemergency situation, or where the owner or occupant of any dwelling demands a warrant for inspection of the premises, the chief building official, chief of police or fire official must obtain a warrant from the court.

Related: Landlords upset over what they call Jacksons aggressive and excessive inspection costs

An inspection for a single-family home being used as a rental property is $300 every three years, which includes the initial inspection and one compliance inspection. Broken down, the cost amounts to about $9 a month.

If no follow up inspection is needed after the initial inspection, the cost is reduced to $225 every three years, or a little more than $6 a month.

Larger rental complexes have an advantage in the ordinance however as cost per unit per cycle decreases.

City officials noted the cost of the inspections can and usually are claimed by landlords as a tax write off when filing business taxes.

Its important to note that most rental property owners within the city work cooperatively with the Community Development Department concerning rental property inspections, Dimick said. Many of the claims in these lawsuits are simply repeats of claims made in already dismissed litigation and are entirely contrary to prior rulings issued in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan in the Citys favor.

Jackson has had some form of housing inspection program that dates to 1977, Dimick said. The biggest complaints from landlords began when they had to start paying for the inspections. The citys general fund, which is generated from resident tax dollars, does not go to the inspection program as that would take money away from parks, streets, public safety and all other city services, he said.

Renters who believe their landlords are not maintaining a safe and healthy property can file a complaint with the city by visiting the Community Development Department, 3rd Floor of City Hall, or by calling 517-788-4060.

This is underutilized as tenants fear eviction retaliation if they file a complaint, Dimick said.

Want more Jackson-area news? Bookmark the local Jackson news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Jackson daily newsletter.

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Thailand, Indonesia, China, Vietnam and Japan are the 5 largest markets supplying rubber to the RoK. (Photo: NDO)

In these five largest supply markets, the RoK increased imports from Indonesia and China, but decreased imports from Thailand, Vietnam and Japan against the same period in 2022.

The Import-Export Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade quoted statistics from the General Department of Customs as saying that in the first four months of 2023, Vietnam's rubber exports to the RoK reached 12,470 tons, worth USD18.92 million, up 5.6% in volume, but down 15% in value from the same period in 2022.

In the first 4 months of 2023, Vietnam exported to the RoK mainly natural rubber.

The average export prices of all kinds of rubber to the RoK in the first four months of 2023 mostly fell sharply compared to the same period in 2022.

In the first 4 months of 2023, Vietnam was the 4th largest rubber supplier to the RoK with 9.67 thousand tons, worth USD15.32 million, down 32.3% in volume and down 43.6% in value from the same period in 2022.

Vietnam's rubber market share accounted for 5.88% of the RoK's total rubber imports, down sharply from 8.36% in the first four months of 2022.

In the Korean market, Vietnam's rubber market share is shrinking compared to the same period in 2022, while the rubber market share of Indonesia, China, the Philippines, Cambodia and Germany increases over the same period in 2022.

On the world market, recently, the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) has announced the statistical report on the global natural rubber market in April 2023. Accordingly, in April 2023, the global production of natural rubber reached 896,000 tons, up 1.5% compared to April 2022. Meanwhile, global demand for natural rubber increased by 2.5% compared to April 2022, to 1.241 million tons.

Therefore, the global market was short of about 345 thousand tons of natural rubber in April 2023. ANRPC forecasts that in 2023, the global rubber supply will continue to fall compared to demand./.
ALLEGAN COUNTY, MI  A monthslong repair project will fix five different bridges that sit along I-196, transportation officials said.

The repairs, however, will come with the inconvenience of total closures for motorists, the Michigan Department of Transportation announced.

MDOT is investing $8.3 million this summer to improve five bridges over I-196 in Allegan County.

Weekday lane closures for bridge work will go into effect at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, May 30, and last until Aug. 31.

The five bridges included in the improvement plan include the two Blue Star Highway bridges over I-196 at exits 36 and 41; as well as those at 107th, 109th, and 114th avenues over I-196.

The project involves deck replacement, rebuilding approaches, substructure improvements, and slope restoration.

The Blue Star Highway bridge over I-196 will be closed and detoured using 64th Street and 140th Avenue. The off ramps from I-196 to Blue Star Highway will remain open.

The on ramps to I-196 will close.

MDOT officials said 107th Avenue over I-196 is also scheduled to close at 7 a.m. Tuesday with weekday lane closures in effect on I-196.

The overall project is expected to be completed by November.

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MUSKEGON, MI  A kombucha company based in Muskegon is getting its product in front of a larger group of shoppers now that its available at all 125 Meijer locations in Michigan, the company said in a news release.

Our mission has always been to provide the community with delicious and healthy kombucha, sourced primarily from local ingredients, said Zackery Smith, the founder and CEO of Lively Up Kombucha. With this expansion and state-wide distribution, we are able to share our products and our passion for fermented foods with even more people.

Kombucha is an effervescent, non-alcoholic fermented tea.

Smith founded the company in 2017, and originally operated in a small, rental kitchen in North Muskegon where he brewed his beverage in five-gallon size, food-grade buckets, a news release says. The company is now operating at FARM, a food incubator in Muskegon, which has given the company the space to expand and brew more batches.

Lively Up Kombucha can now produce 4,000 gallons at a time, up from 50 gallons.

The companys growth has been assisted by Greater Muskegon Economic Development, a countywide economic development group, and the Community Foundation of Muskegon County, a news release says.

It has been inspiring to watch Zacks drive and the success of Lively Up, said Todd Jacobs, president and CEO of the community foundation. FARM was developed to help agri-business entrepreneurs like Zack, develop what in many cases may be a hobby to a vibrant business. Our partnership with MSU Extension and MSU Product Center is key to providing these entrepreneurs with the technical knowledge needed to be successful.

Lively Up Kombucha is available in at least six flavors, including Jammin Ginger, Lavender Bliss and Blueberry Harvest. The company says its kombucha is handcrafted in small batches, using the freshest, locally-sourced ingredients and organic teas.

Kombucha is made from water, tea, sugar and a live culture called SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast), according to the companys website. Through fermentation the kombucha uses sugar as energy and converts it to healthy organic acids, vitamins, enzymes, and probiotics-resulting in a beverage with low amounts of sugar and caffeine.

The company says its product supports nutrition absorption, digestion, liver function, detoxification, immunity and more.

We have been meeting and working with Lively Up Kombucha for years now, said Marla Schneider, president and CEO of Greater Muskegon Economic Development. The recent trajectory of company growth is due to Zacks willingness to focus on the vision, routinely access resources available in our community, and work through the growing pains that all small businesses encounter.

Want more Muskegon area news? Bookmark the local Muskegon news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Muskegon daily newsletter.

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SAGINAW, MI  Like a prayer answered from above, Lori A. Smith spent the last 34 years descending in her FlightCare helicopter onto some of the most critical emergency response scenes across mid-Michigan.

The longest-serving flight nurse among the seven air medical transport programs in Michigan, her career is on its final approach. The 62-year-old Bad Axe native will retire Tuesday, May 30, ending a professional experience that launched when she joined the Ascension St. Marys hospital-based FlightCare helicopter unit in Saginaw back when George H.W. Bush was still president.

In many ways, the propellers began spinning on that career a few years earlier  in 1986  on a turnpike in Cleveland. The then-25-year-old Hurley Medical Center nursing school graduate was driving home when traffic came to a halt because of a vehicle crash.

Then a helicopter landed right in front of me, right at the scene, said Smith, who watched emergency responders tend to the crash victims. I remember thinking, Oh, what is that? I was fascinated.

One year later, the FlightCare program was founded at Ascension St. Marys hospital. She joined the unit in 1989, and hasnt left since.

Only one member of todays team  flight paramedic Randy Flathau  began on FlightCare before Smith, but he left the unit for more than a decade to work as a detective with the Frankenmuth Police Department.

The greatest thing about Lori is her compassion for who we work with and for the patients, Flathau said of his colleague. And her depth of knowledge is incredible.

Smith received certification both as a flight paramedic as well as a flight nurse, which involves additional training in aviation medicine.

She did that (additional certification) because she wanted to be in top shape for the patients, Flathau said.

And she remains calm, cool and collected, colleagues say. Some point out her blonde hair has yet to show any traces of gray.

People come and go from this company, and are missed at varying levels, but Lori; when she leaves, she will leave a void that will be a lot more difficult to fill, said Lucas Summers, the FlightCare clinical supervisor. Shes that center that we all revolve around. Shes done more for this program than most.

As a member of FlightCare, Smith works the 7 a.m.-to-7 p.m. shift, stationed in the units headquarters on the northwest corner of Ascension St. Marys hospital campus in downtown Saginaw. There, the 15-member team  divided between two shifts  remains stationed in an office that doubles as a house when theyre waiting between emergency calls. A hangar stands a few feet away, housing the EC-135 model helicopter that mid-Michigan residents sometimes watch and hear racing across the sky, day and night, at heights reaching 2,000 feet.

Smith has lost count of how many emergency calls shes engaged as a member of FlightCare. Since its founding three years before Smiths arrival, the unit has transported 12,000 patients. Smith estimated she responds to about three emergency calls each shift.

Most of those trips happen within mid-Michigan borders, although sometimes, Smith and her FlightCare colleagues pick up or drop off individuals that need quick transportation to or from medical facilities offering specialized emergency care. Her longest-distance flights took her as far north as Sault Ste. Marie and as far south as the Cleveland Clinic, which both are about 2-hour flights.

The closer-to-home emergency calls often send the FlightCare craft to scenes on highways and roads, during situations where individuals in need of critical care are positioned dangerously far from the medical care that could save their lives.

Some of those people forge lifelong relationships with Smith. She regularly receives phone calls from patients who she helped rescue during FlightCare missions.

You dont walk away from as many critical patients as I have without it touching your heart, she said.

Smith said the most difficult missions involve responding to children experiencing medical emergencies.

Those are the flights I dont want to do, because theyre not supposed to be sick, she said.

Early in her career, Smith nearly became a FlightCare patient, she said.

When responding to an emergency call at a vehicle crash on a highway, Smith was focused on a patient and did not realize another vehicle ignored the roadblock meant to keep them safe, she said. Her partner there, Flathau, yanked me by the scruff of my neck just as the car had blown past, Smith said.

He saved my life that day, Smith said.

Her nursing work in the FlightCare helicopter happens in close quarters. Theres not much room to move in the EC-135. With a pilot in the cockpit, there are two seats in the fuselage for Smith and one of her colleagues. Theres barely enough space to fit a stretcher and the patient who rests on it. The remaining room in the aircraft is barely big enough to store the medical equipment necessary to keep that patient alive.

Oh, were right on top of (the patients) when were in there, Smith said, but we need to be.

Smith called her FlightCare colleagues a family.

The people I work with kept me here for as long as Ive been here, she said.

The group gathered last week at the FlightCare headquarters for an annual picnic that doubled as an early retirement party for their longtime colleague.

Its been a great, great run, Smith said. I always say, I did a couple things right in this life. My career choice is one of those things.

Want more Bay City- and Saginaw-area news? Bookmark the local Bay City and Saginaw news page or sign up for the free 3@3 daily newsletter for Bay City and Saginaw.

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FRANKENMUTH, MI  Hundreds of dogs and their owners came to Frankenmuth Saturday, May 27, for the 17th annual Frankenmuth Dog Bowl.

The Dog Bowl is touted as the worlds largest Olympic-style festival for dogs. Some of the events from the Dog Bowl included Dock Dogs, where dogs compete to see how far they can jump into a pool, disc dog events, where dogs and their owners see how far and how many times they can catch a frisbee in a set amount of time and wiener dog races.

See our favorite photos Dock Dogs, disc dog events, the weiner dog races and the rest of the Dog Bowl below.

The Dog Bowl continued Sunday, May 2 at Frankenmuth River Place Shops, a German-themed outdoor shopping mall with more than 40 shops and attractions located at 925 S. Main. There is also an entire pet-themed vendor marketplace at the event.

According to the events website all dogs are welcome, but they must be on a leash.

Parking is also free and located around the German-styled shopping complex and along Weiss Street.

Scenes from the Wiener Dog Races during the 17th annual Frankenmuth Dog Bowl on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in Frankenmuth. Spectators to the dog bowl had a chance to see canine competitors in events like DockDogs and Disc Dogs of Michigan competitions, border collie sheep-herding demonstrations, a pet parade and costume contest, trick competitions and doggie fun run races.Brice Tucker | btucker@mlive.com

Scenes from the 17th annual Frankenmuth Dog Bowl on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in Frankenmuth. Spectators to the dog bowl had a chance to see canine competitors in events like DockDogs and Disc Dogs of Michigan competitions, border collie sheep-herding demonstrations, a pet parade and costume contest, trick competitions and doggie fun run races.Brice Tucker | btucker@mlive.com

Scenes from the 17th annual Frankenmuth Dog Bowl on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in Frankenmuth. Spectators to the dog bowl had a chance to see canine competitors in events like DockDogs and Disc Dogs of Michigan competitions, border collie sheep-herding demonstrations, a pet parade and costume contest, trick competitions and doggie fun run races.Brice Tucker | btucker@mlive.com

Scenes from the 17th annual Frankenmuth Dog Bowl on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in Frankenmuth. Spectators to the dog bowl had a chance to see canine competitors in events like DockDogs and Disc Dogs of Michigan competitions, border collie sheep-herding demonstrations, a pet parade and costume contest, trick competitions and doggie fun run races.Brice Tucker | btucker@mlive.com

Scenes from the 17th annual Frankenmuth Dog Bowl on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in Frankenmuth. Spectators to the dog bowl had a chance to see canine competitors in events like DockDogs and Disc Dogs of Michigan competitions, border collie sheep-herding demonstrations, a pet parade and costume contest, trick competitions and doggie fun run races.Brice Tucker | btucker@mlive.com

Scenes from the 17th annual Frankenmuth Dog Bowl on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in Frankenmuth. Spectators to the dog bowl had a chance to see canine competitors in events like DockDogs and Disc Dogs of Michigan competitions, border collie sheep-herding demonstrations, a pet parade and costume contest, trick competitions and doggie fun run races.Brice Tucker | btucker@mlive.com

Scenes from the 17th annual Frankenmuth Dog Bowl on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in Frankenmuth. Spectators to the dog bowl had a chance to see canine competitors in events like DockDogs and Disc Dogs of Michigan competitions, border collie sheep-herding demonstrations, a pet parade and costume contest, trick competitions and doggie fun run races.Brice Tucker | btucker@mlive.com

Scenes from the 17th annual Frankenmuth Dog Bowl on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in Frankenmuth. Spectators to the dog bowl had a chance to see canine competitors in events like DockDogs and Disc Dogs of Michigan competitions, border collie sheep-herding demonstrations, a pet parade and costume contest, trick competitions and doggie fun run races.Brice Tucker | btucker@mlive.com

Scenes from the 17th annual Frankenmuth Dog Bowl on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in Frankenmuth. Spectators to the dog bowl had a chance to see canine competitors in events like DockDogs and Disc Dogs of Michigan competitions, border collie sheep-herding demonstrations, a pet parade and costume contest, trick competitions and doggie fun run races.Brice Tucker | btucker@mlive.com

Scenes from the 17th annual Frankenmuth Dog Bowl on Saturday, May 27, 2023, in Frankenmuth. Spectators to the dog bowl had a chance to see canine competitors in events like DockDogs and Disc Dogs of Michigan competitions, border collie sheep-herding demonstrations, a pet parade and costume contest, trick competitions and doggie fun run races.Brice Tucker | btucker@mlive.com

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Despite legal measures to protect youngsters from pornography online, a new study shows a third of France's under 18s look at porn websites at least once a month, including boys as young as ten.

A study published this week by France's media regulator Arcom has lifted the lid on the extent to which youngsters are consuming porn.

It reveals that of the 19 million internet users who visited adult websites in 2022, 2.3 million  30 percent  were under the age of 18.

What's more, some 20 percent of 10-year-old boys are looking at explicit adult content online once a month, the study found.

Not only are the kids younger, the numbers of minors visiting sites like Pornhub and Tukif have increased by 36 percent over the last five years, while their adult usership remains fairly stable.

The study also identified variations in gender: more than half of boys aged 12 to 17 visit adult websites every month and spend an average of one hour.

Meanwhile teenage girls spend far less time, and that difference increases with age.

'Such a big phenomenon'

While previous studies had warned of a rise in the number of minors exposed to pornographic content, this is the first time it has been quantified, Arcom said.

The study is primarily to raise awareness, but we didn't think it was such a big phenomenon," said Laurence Pecaut-Rivolier, chair of Arcom's working group on protecting audiences and the diversity of French society.

We're hoping that through the media there'll be more conversations within families, because it's fundamental that parents say to themselves: 'I heard those terrible figures this morning, we have to discuss it and understand why'."

The free platform Pornhub is by far most visited site with 1.4 million underage visitors, amounting to 10 percent of its audience overall.

For 75 percent of adolescents, the smartphone is the only screen used, making it harder for parents to monitor.

Reining in the websites

Under a 2020 law, adult websites in France are required to put in place measures to prevent minors from accessing their content. This generally takes the form of age verification, which has to go beyond simple declaring that you're over 18.

But a number of sites have failed to adopt safeguards.

While failure to comply can, in theory, lead to such sites being blocked in France, this has proven difficult to enforce.

"There's a law obliging porn sites to check users' age, to stop minors getting access, and it's not applied," said Justine Atlan, the head of e-Enfance, an association working to protect children who use the internet.

She told RFI she was also angry over the lack of options for parents other than smartphones that "put youngsters in contact with pornography so freely".

In 2021, a number of associations pushed Arcom to issue formal notices against five platforms: Pornhub, xvideos.com, xnxx.com, xhamster.com and tukif.com.

Legal proceedings are currently underway to get them blocked and a decision is expected on 7 July.

The sites contest the lawsuits on the grounds that the law doesn't specify how the age checks are to be carried out

Double anonymity

President Emmanuel Macron has promised to make protecting children from porn a priority.

And in February, the Digital Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot announced new proposals vowing he would put an end to this scandal.

One of the key proposals is that people wanting to access explicit material will need to download a phone application that provides them with a digital certificate and code.

It's based on the notion of "double anonymity", whereby one party is responsible for verifying the user is over 18 and generating a token of confirmation, but without knowing where it will be used. The porn site then accepts the token as proof the user is of age, but without knowing their identity.

Barrot hailed the measure as a world first. It will be debated in the French senate this summer and head to the lower house in the autumn.

"2023 will mark the end of our children accessing pornographic sites," Barrot confidently told Le Parisien daily.

Privacy obstacles

France is not alone in trying to prevent youngsters accessing adult content online.

On 1 January this year, the US state of Louisiana introduced a law requiring adult websites to screen their visitors using "reasonable age verification".

People wanting to view websites where at least one third of the content is "harmful to minors" have to present a form of ID, such as a driving licence.

The UK government wants to make pornography websites carry out age checks and is currently discussing changes to its online safety bill in parliament.

In 2019 it was forced to abandon a similar p lan, largely due to concerns from privacy campaigners.

Despite broad agreement on the need to protect children from harmful content, p rivacy groups in France, the US and UK among others warn that moves to introduce age checks using sensitive data could lead to security breaches.

They've also expressed fears it could pave the way for a digital ID system across the internet as a whole.
Ghanaian businesswoman and philanthropist Hajj Fawzie recently made a passionate appeal to parents and teenagers regarding the importance of menstrual health.

During her three-day birthday charity trip to the East Gonja district in the savanna region, she donated sanitary pads and mathematical sets to final year students, emphasizing the significance of menstrual health management.

Hajj Fawzie, known for her generous contributions to the well-being of young people in Ghana, expressed her concern for the lack of awareness and attention given to menstrual health. She highlighted the necessity of providing proper support and resources to girls and teenagers, ensuring they have access to sanitary pads and education on menstrual hygiene.

During her visit to the East Gonja district, Hajj Fawzie emphasized the importance of education and encouraged final year students to prioritize their studies. She reminded them of the immense potential they possess and urged them to strive for excellence in their future endeavors.

Hajj Fawzie has been a strong advocate for youth empowerment and has made significant contributions to the communities through her funding of small businesses. Her dedication to supporting young people is further exemplified by her participation as a guest speaker at various seminars, where she addresses critical topics relevant to the youth.

With a Masters in Public Administration, Hajj Fawzie understands the significance of good parenting and believes it plays a vital role in shaping the future of Ghana's youth. Through her philanthropic gestures and advocacy work, she aims to inspire parents to take an active role in their children's lives, providing them with the necessary guidance and support to succeed.

Hajj Fawzie's commitment to improving the lives of young people in Ghana is commendable, and her latest charity trip to the East Gonja district showcases her dedication to making a difference in rural Ghana. Her efforts to promote menstrual health, support education, and empower young entrepreneurs have garnered recognition and appreciation from individuals and communities across the nation.
Joyce Bawa Mogtari, a special aide to former President John Dramani Mahama has launched a scathing attack on President Nana Akufo-Addo, accusing him of corruption.

In a tweet on Saturday, May 27, Mrs. Mogtari said Ghanaians must thank God for exposing Akufo-Addo as a "pretender" who claimed to be incorruptible but now "looting" the nation's resources.

We must certainly thank God that those who pretend and fake godliness have been caught pants down. Thanking God for exposing Nana Akufo-Addo who beat drums loudly, threw tantrums about being too old to steal our money and yet literally doing the exact opposite, God is not mocked! Mogtari tweeted.

The opposition NDC has constantly accused the government of nepotism, conflict of interest, and shady deals.

President Akufo-Addo came to power in 2017 on the back of fighting corruption and safeguarding the public purse.

However, critics argue that his government has failed to live up to expectations with several scandals under his watch.

But his defenders insist the President remains committed to his anti-corruption agenda and that unsubstantiated allegations will not derail it efforts.
Slippery frog is found only in the Atewa forest and no where else in the world

28.05.2023 LISTEN

Warrick Stewart, an Ecologist, who doubles as a Mining and Biodiversity Expert has told an Accra High Court that, there would be a huge negative impact of surface bauxite mining and processing on biodiversity and livelihood if the Atewa Forest is mined.

The expert witness, who is based in South Africa was testifying via Zoom on the impact of mining on the Atewa forest reserve.

He noted that, bauxite mining is typically associated with acid sulfate soil which is highly acidic and when it comes into contact with water during the mining process, the outcome is always a substantial reduction in the pH of the water, where water becomes acidic.

The defence lawyer, Leona Johnson-Abassah disagreed with the expert witness, saying he was making a general statement and not based on scientific proof, but he denied it explaining that, it is an example of one of the typical impacts of bauxite mining where acid sulfate soils affect water bodies.

A Rocha Ghana and 10 other plaintiffs are challenging the governments move to mine bauxite in the Atewa Range Forest contending that the government is undertaking mining activities in the Forest without mineral rights. The Plaintiffs are urging the court to compel the government to restore or pay the cost of damages that had been caused as a result of recognizance, prospecting, and clearing of roads in the Forest.

Restoration period exaggerated

Under cross-examination, Stewart said, scientific literature reflects that restoration can take up to at least 100 to 300 years after bauxite mining. But Leona Johnson-Abassah suggested to him that he was exaggerating the restoration period.

He answered No my Lord, this is not a gross exaggeration. The time frame of 100-300 years for restoration to potentially be successful is clearly reflected in a vast number of peer-reviewed scientific papers. A time frame of 10 to 30 years to demonstrate successful restoration as referred to by the defence is not practically possible. This time frame is only sufficient to demonstrate current progress towards successful restoration but is not sufficient to demonstrate final success.

She suggested to him that scientific effort has come to enhance restoration effort when it comes to bauxite mining and mentioned places where such restoration has been successful like Alcoa in Jarrah forest in Western Australia and another one in the Amazon forest of Brazil.

The expert witness denied her assertion clarifying that Scientific development in restoration efforts are ongoing, however by the very nature of tropical forests which have unique ecological drivers, successful restoration of a tropical forest as diverse in their species composition, a minimum of 100 to 300 years would typically be required, however, due to the unique species present in the Atewa forest, restoration may still not prove successful.

Are you suggesting to the court that when it comes to mining rehabilitation elsewhere it is possible and when it comes to the same in Ghana, particularly in the Atewa forest is impossible? the defence lawyer asked.

The answer given by the expert witness was No, but he explained that mining rehabilitation has been successful elsewhere in the world but in the case of Atewa forest specifically in its upland evergreen forest it is almost certain that restoration would not be possible should industrial-scale mining be undertaken due to its unique characteristics and associated restoration constraints.

He clarified that mining restoration is the return of habitat, species, and ecological process to the condition prior to disturbance, adding that, rehabilitation does focus on the return of ecosystem services but does not seek to restore species diversity and assemblages as they were prior to the disturbance.

He said two species of trees in the Atewa forest like the African mahogany can live up to 350 years of age.

Restoration constraints in the Atewa forest

The High Court Judge, Justice John Nyante Nyadu asked the expert witness what the restoration constraints were in the Atewa forest.

Stewart answered that, the Atewa Range forest reserve is home to a number of species that are present nowhere else in the world and are specifically adapted to the climatic and ecosystem conditions present at Atewa, and disturbing these species through industrial-scale mining would pose a major challenge to their long term existence.

He added that, industrial-scale mining also results in the clearing of vast areas of natural habitat such as the forest at Atewa.

When pressed by the judge to be specific, he mentioned species of butterflies that are present in the Atewa range forest reserve and cannot be found anywhere else in the world like the Mylothris atewa and promised to get the other list compiled for the court.

Mylothris atewa is also found only in the Atewa forest

Biodiversity Hotspot and Key Biodiversity Area

At the last sitting, defence lawyer, Leona Johnson-Abassah pointed to the expert witness that no international investor, given the current modern trend and technological development, will attempt to mine without having regard to international best practices and standards. He answered in the affirmative.

Some species found in the Atewa forest

Are you aware of Vedanta Zinc International Mining Company? The company is mining zinc in an area recognized by the World Wide Fund for Nature in a biodiversity hotspot in South Africa? Stewart answered that he wasnt aware but knows of the status of biodiversity hotspots in South Africa and globally.

She, therefore, accused him of being evasive and not helpful to the court but he disagreed explaining that I Am simply seeking to provide sufficient detail to ensure that information is contextually accurate.

Stewart told the court that, biodiversity hotspots are not directly comparable to Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA), and the KBA are the greatest priority areas within such biodiversity hotspots.

Not enthused with his answers, the defence lawyer told the expert witness that, throughout his testimony and witness statement, he's deliberately watered down the importance of other biodiversity and KBA around the world just to portray Atewa as without peers and for that matter untouchable.

No, my Lord. I vehemently refute the assertion made by the defence. My explanation has been provided specifically to ensure that the information conveyed is fully accurate and not misrepresented, he answered.

ghenvironment.com
Professor Michael Kpessa Whyte, a Political Scientist, University of Ghana, will on May 30, 2023, appear before the Supreme Court to state why he should not be cited for contempt of Court for allegedly scandalising the Apex Court.

The Apex Court cited the Member of the National Democratic Congress for contempt for bringing into ridicule the dignity, respect, and stature of the Supreme Court and Inciting prejudice against the Court.

This borders on a series of tweets by Prof Whyte on May 19, 2023.

Prof. Whyte's comments were made at a time of heated public discussion regarding the Supreme Court's order to Parliament to expunge the name of James Gyakye Quayson from its records, after it found that he had not renounced his Canadian Citizenship at the time he filed his nomination forms to contest the Assin North polls in 2020.

Even before he appeared before the Court, the Professor had already issued a statement apologising to the Court, explaining that his tweet was not in any way related to the Assin North judgment.

The summons issued allege that he posted the following; The highest Court of the Land has been turned into a 'Stupid Court'.

They have succeeded in turning a Supreme Court into a Stupid Court. Common sense is now a scarce commodity.  Prof. Whyte tweeted.

He said, I have observed that Ghanaweb and other media publications sought to associate my tweet with the decision of the Supreme Court in the Assin North matter as stated on the face of the Summons to show cause, but honestly, at the time of my tweet, I had no knowledge of the Supreme Court's decision as at 9: 59am when I did the tweet.

He said the said tweet had resulted in the invocation of the powers of the Apex Court in our country for me to appear and show cause because the tweet has scandalized the Apex Court of our land and has brought the dignity of the court into disrepute.

He said sincerely, the tweet was not done with the intent to scandalise or denigrate a revered institution such as the Supreme Court of Ghana for which he had a tremendous amount of respect and admiration.

These are consequences I never intended, although I do accept responsibility that, I could have exercised better judgment in my choice of words, he added.

He said please permit me to state unequivocally that I have no reason to slander our Supreme Court, and I hereby sincerely apologize unreservedly for any pain and discomfort my tweets may have caused the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court, and the entire judiciary.

"I hereby retract the tweet in question; accordingly, the tweet has been deleted completely and I pray for forgiveness.

GNA
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. President of the Republic of Turkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan has congratulated the Azerbaijani people on occasion of May 28 - Independence Day, Trend reports via Turkish President's twitter.

"As "One Nation and Two states", we always stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, we celebrate the Independence Day of our brotherly Azerbaijan. I honor the memory of our heroes who became martyrs in the name of independence," he said.
The jury of the 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival handed down its verdict on Saturday night during an emotional closing ceremony. For the 3rd time in the event's history, the coveted prize went to a woman; in this case French director Justine Triet for "Anatomy of a Fall" (Anatomie d'une Chute).

After a whirlwind two weeks of screenings, red carpet appearances and masterclasses  suddenly it's over.

However, as hostess of the evening Chiara Mastroianni said, the ending is not really an ending, it's simply a new beginning.

The films shown during the international event will now go out into the world to be seen in festivals and cinemas around the globe. The "conversation continues", she says.

Special guest American actress Jane Fonda, who held a Masterclass earlier this week, admitted she hadn't been back in Cannes since 1963.

Before introducing the Palme d'Or award, she noted that the last time she came there were no women directors. "It didn't occur to us that there was nothing wrong with that. We've come a long way, but we've got a long way to go".

This year, there were a record seven women directors in competition, and it just so happens that the top prize (Palme d'Or) went to Justine Trier pour her film "Anatomie d'une chute" (Anatomy of a Fall).

Three women for Palme d'Or

It's the tenth time for a French film in the event's history and only the third for a woman director in 76 years.

I'm not surprised this film won the top spot to be honest. It has all the ingredients to draw in the audience from excellent acting to intrigue, sharp dialogues and perfect use of music and sound.

Carefully scripted (by Triet herself and Arthur Harari), it presents an autopsy of a dead body (the husband) that quickly becomes a dissection of not only the intimacy of a marriage, but also parenthood, society's expectations and prejudice. It goes to show how fragile our lives are and above all, how delicate our memories can be.

Much of the tension and magic of the film revolves around the wonderful performance of Milo Machado Graner, who plays the visually impaired 11 year-old son Daniel, who hears everything. Through the drawn-out legal proceedings, he is exposed to the worst that society has on offer. And yet, he brings a strength and light to the film that is otherwise very dark.

While accepting her prize, Triet made reference to the pension reform protests and how the cinema industry had not been left unscathed. "This protest was brutally repressed, the cinema industry was no exception. Culture is being sold off like merchandise", she said, openly criticising goverment policies that undercut cultural development.

Women fighting to exist

The Palme for best actress went to Merve Dizdar for her role in in "About dry Grasses" (Kuru Otlar Ustune ) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan from Turkey. When the young woman came up onto the stage, she mumbled that so great was her surprise, she even forgot words in her native language. When she finally recovered, she expressed her desire to dedicate the prize to women in peril.

"The character Nuray is fighting for her existence and has faced many difficulties. I didn't need to prepare for the role because I know how women live in this geography, it's where I'm from. I'd like to dedicate this prize to all the women who have to fight to exist in this world.

Women filmmakers also got a shout out in the short film category. The jury, headed up by Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi, explained that they had chosen two recipients: a special mention for "Far" (Intrusion) from Iceland's Gunnur Martinsdottir Schluter, and the Palme d'Or short film went to "27" by Flora Anna Buda.

A very enthusiastic Quentin Tarantino (jury president in 1994) appeared on stage to introduce the The Grand Prize which went to Holocaust drama "The Zone of Interest" by English director Jonathan Glazer. Cheers broke out, as it had been one of the critics' favourites, but many festival-goers felt the film deserved the Palme itself.

Asia was well represented in the official selection this year, with two Vietnamese directors claiming prizes.

The Camera d'Or for best first feature went to "Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell" by Thien An Phan, presented in the Directors' Fortnight section.

Tran Anh Hung was also recognised for his film La Passion de Dodin Bouffant (The Pot-au-Feu), an ode to the love of French cuisine. Very moved, he thanked his producer, lead actors Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel and his wife (who is also his cook). The film is due in cinemas on 8 November.

Best actress 2022 Zar Amir Ebrahimi was called on to present the award for best actor to the very humble Japanese actor Koji Yakusho for his role as serene Tokyo toilet cleaner in "Perfect Days" by Wim Wenders, due to be released 29 November.

Every film needs a plan

John C. Reilly, president of the Un Certain Regard jury then took to the stage to announce the Best Screenplay prize. He surprised the audience with his comical expressions and a pronounced silence. Then came the explanation.

"Okay sothis is what you would witness in a film without screenwriters. No plan, no words.

" Every film begins with an idea and the first thing you do is write it down, "he explains. It's a map. The scenario, it's the plan". It was a homage to screenwriters, who have been in strike in the United States recently to improve their pay and working conditions.

In other categories, best scenario went to Yuji Sakamoto for "Monster" by Kore-eda Hirokazu while Aki Kaurismaki won jury prize for "Kuolleet Lehdet" (Fallen Leaves) released on 20 September.

In Un Certain Regard, the top prize went to "How to have sex" by Molly Manning Walker. See other winners here.

In any case, some might say just being selected for the Cannes Film Festival is a huge victory.

And as veteran filmmaker and special guest Robert Corman said, "Cannes is the most interesting festival in the world, and you're lucky to be a part of it".

Find all of RFI's coverage of the Cannes Film Festival here.
The Kano State Agropastoral Project (KSADP) and Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) today commenced the distribution of farm inputs to farmers across the 44 Local Governments Areas of the state as part of efforts to increase yield per ha, create wealth and income for farmers.

Speaking at the event on Saturday, the Country Director of Sasakawa Africa Association, Dr. Godwin Atser, explained that SAA as a technical partner to the KSADP project would continue to support the government's efforts to enhance agricultural productivity and competitiveness through increased access to inputs, extension service delivery, value addition and agribusiness development.

He said the week-long exercise would enable the inputs to get to the beneficiaries promptly and give them ample time for other essential pre-season activities like land acquisition and preparation, adding that for crops to perform optimally, they must be planted at the right time using the correct regenerative agriculture practices and necessary inputs.

The Project Coordinator KSADP/SAA Comrade Abdulrasheed Hamisu Kofarmata said SAA was bridging the gap by addressing most of the challenges facing smallholder farmers in the state by strengthening agricultural extension services through the periodic distribution of improved high-yielding, disease and drought-resistant seed varieties, pre-and post-emergence herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides and training.

He stressed that for the forthcoming 2023 wet season, SAA/KSADP is establishing a total of 690 clusters of demonstration plots to showcase Good Agronomic Practices GAPs and 192 Community-Based Seed Multiplication plots across 44 LGAs of the state to serve as farmer learning platforms in local communities during on and off-farming seasons to serve as farmer learning platforms FLPs, to promote the adoption of new farming technologies and to increase crop productivity.

According to him, farm inputs worth over N100million including improved high-yielding, disease and drought-resistant seed varieties of upland and low land rice, maize, sorghum, millet, soybeans and groundnuts; various pre-and post-emergence herbicides, fungicides and pesticides, organic fertilisers for both maize and rice production to improve soil fertility for the optimum performance of target crops are being distributed to beneficiaries through the extension agents.

He reiterated that with the KSADP in its third year of implementation, SAA is steadily improving the food, nutrition and income security of smallholder farmers in the State.

The project coordinator acknowledged the fact that the SAA had tailored improved agricultural technologies and practices to match the needs of smallholder farmers in the state through its co-innovation concept that includes: Knowledge Creation, Knowledge Packaging and Knowledge Transfer and Adoption, which are being implemented with the participation of target farmers and value chain actors.

The State Program Coordinator, Mr Ibrahim Garba commended SAA for delivering the inputs ahead of the planting season and called on the farmers to use them efficiently.

He noted that the intervention by SAA helped Kano farmers to more than double yield of crops such as maize from 2.5 tons/ha to 7 tons/ha in the previous season.

In Kano state, around 70% of the population is involved in agriculture at a subsistent level. However, the agriculture sector faces a lot of bottlenecks including climate change, pests and diseases, low yield, and poor market access etc.

These challenges are being addressed by Kano State Government through the Five-year intervention program called Kano State Agropastoral Development Project, KSADP, with funding-base from Islamic Development Bank (ISDB) and Lives and Livelihood Funds. Sasakawa Africa Association, an international agricultural development organisation, is a technical partner implementing the crop component of the project, which focuses on improving the productivity, income and livelihoods of 450,000 smallholder farmers in 44 LGAs of the state in the areas of rice, maize, millet, sorghum, tomato, cabbage and onions value chains.

SAA/KSADP has therefore deployed its multi-pronged approach of Regenerative Agriculture (RA), Market Oriented Agriculture (MOA), and Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture (NSA) to foster agriculture-centered economic growth, contributing to the creation of a resilient and sustainable food system in the state by placing regenerative agriculture at the centre of its strategy to promote sustainable agricultural intensification.
Haitian politician Werley Nortreus said on Sunday that he will not encourage or advise citizens or investors from African countries or others to visit or invest in Haiti from now on because of the violence and killings that are happening everywhere in the country.

Haiti is the only country in the Caribbean or the world that the United Nations and other NGO organizations rank as the place with the most crime and gangs.

Weeks ago, the Haitian population along with the police killed and burned more than 20 residents who they said were gang members. Not counting other residents across the country who are killed on the pretext that they are gang members.

After the assassination of the former Haitian President in 2021, the U.S. and Canada were among the countries that ordered sanctions against the Haitian elites who sponsored the gangs despite proof that most of the powerful weapons are from the United States.

A year later, the Dominican Republic ordered sanctions on former Prime Minister Claude Joseph for having a deep connection with the gangs. Canada's Prime Minister even called on Europe and other continents to join his sanctions on powerful Haitian elites.

During the Presidency of former President Moise, crimes and kidnappings were very high. President Moise was criticized for not saying anything at all about high crimes and kidnappings during his administration. Since his assassination by Colombians and Haitian-Americans, crimes and kidnapping continued.

Since the killings of some individuals weeks ago, other residents across the country are not free or safe. There are currently allegations or conspiracy of killing unknown residents who come from another area. If the population catches an unknown resident from another area, there is a 98% chance that the population will kill and burn that resident.

According to several sources, innocents are being caught in the illegal killings. For now, no one in this country is safe because the population is mixed with armed people going around killing anyone they don't recognize in an area even when they have no proof.

It was on Sunday, the Haitian politician Nortreus posted a safety alert publication on his Facebook account on the current crimes and assassinations across the country. He said he will not advise any citizens or investors from African countries to visit Haiti right now because there are many acts of violence and assassinations everywhere in the country.

"My concern on the current situation in Haiti. As a young Haitian politician who has friends and associates across the African continent, I will not advise citizens from African countries or investors to visit Haiti or invest right now because of violence and assassinations. Right now, this country is currently not safe to visit or invest in. Wait until the violence and assassinations go away to visit or invest", Nortreus said on what is currently happening in Haiti in order to save lives.

According to several other reports, among the dead individuals from past weeks to today, there are several innocent residents who died along with the ones that the population and police classified as gang members due to fraudulent identity.

Right now, no one is safe and any foreigners can get killed and burned because innocents are being caught.
It is not exactly a secret that women's healthcare and reproductive issues aren't always met with compassion at the workplace.

As the world recognises International Day of Action for Women's Health today, the Global Chamber of Business Leaders (GCBL) throws their support behind womenfolk, citing that in these modern times, more attention and focused solutions need to woven into workplace policies and guidelines regarding the subject.

Graciela De Oto, Senior Advisor - Human Rights and Co-Chair of the Business and Professional Women's Committee of the GCBL, lent her voice to the global call.

When it comes to the seemingly slow progress of more compassion being expressed by and intentional steps being taken by managerial heads with respect to specific health issues regarding women in the workplace, De Oto expounded on the problem. De Oto said, "The realm of women's reproductive and gynecological health often becomes shrouded in hushed conversations and vague references. These crucial matters are frequently dismissed as mere women's issues, perpetuating a dismissive attitude. It is imperative that we challenge this perspective and strive to eliminate workplace taboos associated with female-specific conditions."

She continued, "When employers fail to provide support, women with gynecological conditions may struggle to fulfil their professional potential, leading to detrimental effects on their mental well-being. Unfortunately, many women with those conditions feel reluctant to approach their employers and seek support, particularly if their manager is male. They fear a lack of understanding regarding the unique health needs specific to women. To overcome this barrier, it is crucial for working women to feel empowered to seek support. One way to achieve this is by choosing an employer who demonstrates a commitment to implementing comprehensive health-related policies and fostering open dialogue."

She added, "My ideal solution would be to promote awareness and education. By fostering a culture of understanding and empathy through training programs and workshops, managers can gain knowledge about women's health issues and develop a supportive approach. Additionally, implementing policies that address the unique challenges faced by women, such as flexible work arrangements and adequate maternity leave, can further demonstrate a commitment to women's well-being."

On the question of if she'd recommend a specific policy or area of law reform for a change to occur in chosen areas of womens healthcare, she remarked, "Advocating for comprehensive coverage of reproductive health services, including contraception, family planning and maternal healthcare is a specific policy idea that can bring positive change in women's healthcare. This recommendation aims to ensure that all women have affordable and accessible reproductive healthcare, regardless of their socio-economic status or insurance coverage. By addressing existing disparities and barriers, this policy promotes equal access to essential reproductive healthcare services.

"Additionally, accommodations should be made for women experiencing reproductive health challenges. This can involve provisions for menstrual leave, reasonable adjustments for women with chronic reproductive diseases and support for menopausal symptoms. By recognising and addressing these specific needs, organisations can create an inclusive and supportive environment. These accommodations contribute to promoting gender equity and overall well-being.

"By championing these policy ideas and advocating for their implementation, the GCBL Business and Professional Women's Committee can play a vital role in driving positive change in women's healthcare. These recommendations aim to enhance access, affordability and quality of reproductive health services, empowering women to make informed decisions about their bodies."

Drawing from personal observations and conversations, De Oto underscored that, "Human Resource personnel and top male executives may lack understanding or awareness when it comes to procuring special policies for women related to feminine challenges or natural biological occurrences. This lack of understanding can result in a failure to recognise the significance of implementing supportive policies. It can stem from a combination of limited exposure to these issues, societal biases and a lack of empathy. These societal attitudes may create an environment where discussing or addressing feminine challenges becomes uncomfortable or deemed unnecessary.

"Gender bias can also play a role in shaping the mindset of HR personnel and male executives. Unconscious biases or stereotypes about women's abilities, commitment, or productivity during certain biological occurrences may influence decision-making regarding special policies.

"This can lead to the perception that accommodating these challenges may negatively impact work performance. However, I have also witnessed positive instances where HR personnel and executives actively sought to understand and accommodate these concerns, leading to the development of more compassionate policies.

"They understand that addressing feminine challenges and natural biological occurrences through special policies can enhance employee well-being, productivity and overall organisational success. It is worth noting that attitudes and mindsets can vary greatly among individuals and organisations can differ in their approaches. Increasing awareness, promoting diversity in leadership roles and fostering open dialogue about women's health can contribute to changing mindsets and encouraging the procurement of special policies."

What about the possibility of offering women special leave, which would be in addition to Vacation Leave, national Holidays, regular Sick Leave? Would it have the potential to negatively impact the general attendance of women and overall staff presence at any one time at an organisation? De Oto said, "The introduction of Special Leave for women affected by conditions such as PCOS, menopause, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and other related health issues is a topic that involves various perspectives and considerations. While it is important to acknowledge the potential concerns, it is also crucial to evaluate the potential impact on attendance and overall staff presence. Implementing Special Leave for these health conditions can help foster a supportive and inclusive workplace culture.

"It shows that the organisation understands and accommodates the specific needs of its female employees, promoting gender equality and overall employee morale. However, it is important to balance the needs of individual employees with the operational requirements of the organisation.

"Policies and guidelines should be established to ensure that the provision of Special Leave is fair, transparent and does not result in abuse or negative impacts on overall staffing.

This can include clear eligibility criteria, proper documentation and appropriate communication channels. By considering these factors and implementing thoughtful policies, organisations can create an environment that supports the health and well-being of their female employees while also maintaining overall attendance and staff presence.

"Support for women's healthcare and well-being by organisations can empower female employees in various ways. Access to comprehensive healthcare services, including reproductive health, maternity support, mental health resources and preventative care ensures that women can prioritise their health and address any concerns. This, in turn, allows them to perform at their best and thrive in their professional roles.

"By implementing policies that support work-life balance, such as flexible work arrangements, paid maternity leave, childcare assistance and family-friendly policies, organisations demonstrate a commitment to supporting women's well-being. This empowers female employees to effectively manage their personal and professional responsibilities, reducing stress and enhancing job satisfaction. Organisations that promote gender equity and equal opportunities create an environment where women feel valued and respected. When women have an equal footing in the workplace, it encourages them to contribute their full potential. Furthermore, a supportive work culture free from discrimination, harassment and bias, empowers female employees to thrive. This involves encouraging open communication.

"Overall, support for women's healthcare and well-being by organisations goes beyond fulfilling legal obligations. It creates an empowering environment where female employees can flourish both personally and professionally and reap the benefits of a diverse and inclusive workforce; increased employee retention can be achieved; and improved overall organisational performance can be accomplished."
Adolescent girls in the Dormaa East District, have on Friday May 26, 2023 petitioned His Excellency the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufu Addo through the District Chief Executive of the area to as a matter of urgency exempt menstrual products of all taxes to make it affordable if they cannot be made free for them.

According to Unifred Ansuaa and two others who handed over the petition to the DCE, if their request should be accepted, it would prove governments commitment to protecting girls right to quality education, healthcare, dignity and discrimination and empower the young women to achieve gender equality as stipulated by the United Nations Global Goal 5.

Led by the Womens Health to Wealth NGO which seeks to engender healthier and wealthier women for the progress and development of Ghana, the teenage girls accompanied by some male counterpart from selected Junior and Senior High Schools marched, carrying placards with different inscriptions amidst brass band songs and chanting to the forecourt of the District Assembly to submit the petition.

Among the inscription on the placards were Leaders Bleed, Ghanas Future Depends on our Period, We do not choose to Menstruate, Girls in Dormaa East Cannot Afford Menstrual Products, Stop Taxing our Period and so on.

The petition signed by one thousand, hundred and seventy-four (1174) adolescent girls in 24 girls clubs of various schools across the district state the follow:

That the petitioners are residents of the Dormaa East District in the Bono Region of Ghana That it is generally accepted that menstruation, a natural and regular process experienced by most females between the ages of 12 and 55, is managed effectively through the use of sanitary towels That currently in Ghana, sanitary towels attract a luxury import tax of 20% and a value added tax (vat) of 15% even though sanitary towel have never been categorized as luxury items and therefore remain a crucial aspect of the proper functioning of females (particularly adolescents) That as above  mentioned, sanitary towels are absolute necessities to young females whose very attendance in schools and proper functioning in society is hindered by their inability to purchase/acquire them That it is our plea that sanitary towels that have been placed on the list of luxury taxable items be removed henceforth That these taxes have resulted in the elevation costs of sanitary towels, thereby affecting the ability to access adequate menstrual hygiene products and the subsequent use of unsafe materials as substitutes That these taxes are a massive infringement on the rights of women and girls and hence contradicts Sustainable Development Goal 5, which seeks to achieve gender equality and to empower all women and girls That the Government of Ghana considers making menstrual products free and accessible for all women and girls in the country.

The District Chief Executive who received the petition on behalf of the President, promised to forward it to the appropriate quarters and follow up to ensure a better result.

He acknowledged the steps taken by the young adults and to make their voice heard for an appropriated cause. The DCE advised them to be focused and be vision driven for a brighter future for themselves and the development of the district.
Various studies have revealed that teen girls in low socio-economic communities cannot afford sanitary products and turn to using unhygienic materials and products.

The lack of access to sanitary pads during menstruation can have significant negative effects on young girls, About 66% of girls do not want to be at school when they are on their period due to negative associations, shame, depression, and embarrassment from staining themselves in school. There is also reduced participation in daily activities and potential health problems.

It is for this reason that the Rotary Club of Obuasi has collaborated with three other Non-Governmental Organizations in Obuasi, namely the SELF-LOVE FOUNDATION, GIRLS SHALL GROW and GOLD CITY MUMMIES, to establish A PAD BANK in Obuasi.

This was launched on the 26th of May at Obuasi Secondary-Technical School. The launch of the pad bank forms part of activities to mark the World Menstrual Hygiene day.

The purpose of establishing the sanitary pad bank, according to Rtn. Delphine Gborgblorvor, a member of the Rotary Club, was to make sanitary pads accessible to girls from deprived homes who could not afford them during the period of menstruation.

"In Ghana, sanitary pads are subjected to a 20% import tax and a 12.5% value-added tax. This makes it expensive for girls from an average Ghanaian home to access it. This can have negative impacts on their health, education, and well-being."

Rotarian Delphine said the Rotary Club of Obuasi realising the difficulties girls go through during the menstruation period and efforts by local NGOs to supply sanitary pads, decided to bring all of them together under one umbrella to establish the pad bank where individuals, groups, and organizations can donate sanitary pads to be distributed to vulnerable girls.

" The pad bank initiative is targeted at girls from poor homes who ordinarily can't afford these pads. The Girl Child Coordinators in GES will identify these needy girls and withdraw pads from the banks when needed".

She made an appeal to other NGOs, individuals, and organizations to deposit sanitary pads to the bank at any point in time to sustain the program.

Government must supply free sanitary pads

The Executive Director of Girls Shall Grow, Louisa Amoah, called on Government to intervene in making sanitary pads accessible to girls, especially those from deprived communities. She said it was unacceptable to have girls skip school during menstruation.

"Government has a role to play in ensuring sanitary pads are accessible to girls. The prices however around Ghs20 to Ghs25 per pack making it difficult for some girls to afford. Government should reduce the various taxes of sanitary materials to make it cheaper on the market."

She also advised that, as Government is doing its best to make education accessible and less expensive through the supply of free text books and other learning materials, it should also consider introducing free sanitary pads.

The Obuasi Municipal Director of Education, George Alfred Koomson, lauded the four (4) groups for teaming up to introduce the sanitary pad bank.

He was of the view that the initiative will help keep girls in school during the period of menstruation. He intimated that seeing young girls improvising with all kinds of unsafe materials during menstruation was worrying.

Appreciation

Rotary Club of Obuasi and the other NGOs supplied free sanitary pads to over 500 students who thronged the Obuasi Sec tech Senior high school auditorium during the launch. The group seized the opportunity to educate the girls on safe and hygienic menstruation.

Speaking with the media, the participants commended the groups for the gesture and said the sanitary pad bank will give the relief they needed during menstruation.

They called on the government to support them with free sanitary materials.
Sinapi Aba Savings and Loan has empowered some youths within the Wa Municipality with entrepreneurship skills to curb the youth unemployment in deprived areas.

The youth, through the Youth Apprenticeship Programme (YAP) received start-up equipment to commence business after going through three year apprenticeship programme in their respective trades aimed at developing the entrepreneurial skills to better their lives and contribute to the development of the region.

The organisation launched the Youth Apprenticeship Program (YAP) in Wa Municipal of the Upper West Region as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility to support over four Thousand vulnerable and disadvantage persons in three trade sector namely, dressing making, weaving, and hair dressing to be self-employed in all the 16 regions of Ghana. About 150 apprentices were selected from Wa, Nadowli, and Jirapa to undergo three (3) years training in hairdressing, sewing and weaving.

Beneficiaries in hair dressing received plastic chairs, pack of rollers and pins, pack of styling combs, pack of towels and pack of hand gloves while those in sewing received hand machine, machine oil, packs of thread, two pairs of scissors, picking shears, 4yds of cotton fabric, stool, tape measure and tracing wheel and those who partake in the weaving received loom, reed, shuttle, bobbing, harnesses, beaming sticks scissors, hooks, brush and thread to start their businesses.

Speaking at the closing ceremony in Wa, the Branch Manager of the firm, Zaato Borsutie Bob said, youth unemployment has been a security threat to the countrys development in spite of several policies and programmes implemented by government over the years to reduce it but not yielding the desired results.

He said the programme was to compliment government agenda in empowering the less privilege ones and the informal sector to enable them become productive to earn a livelihood.

We have offered and continue to offer financial support to thousands of individuals and businesses in the upper west region. We have also implemented various projects and programmes like wild heart, a programme aimed at supporting women in business, UKAM also to support women in agriculture, Mentorship programme that offers mentees the opportunity to learn under a selected mentor and now the YAP," he stated.

Alhassan Asia, a beneficiary expressed gratitude to the financial institution for supporting the youth in the area to acquire skills.

According to her, she has been travelling to Wa everyday to work with rice seller in order to mobilize some funds to purchase the machine to learn the trade but funds generated was not enough. He addrd that the intervention of the organisation has helped to achieve the dream.

Another beneficiary Seidu Mubarak, a senior high school graduate noted that, he has completed school and had the desire to learn trade but funds was a problem.

"I am very happy for Sinapi Aba in supporting the cost of whatever I will need to learn the trade he expressed the gratitude."
The Vice Chancellor of the Bolgatanga Technical University in the Upper East Region, Professor Samuel Erasmus Alnaa, has reiterated the need for Government to provide the University with a lecture theatre complex.

This would enable management to access the facility to provide quality teaching and learning to compliment government agenda of enhancing Technical and Vocational Education and Training(TVET) in meeting the mandate of technical university in producing quality human resources for the nation job industries, he said.

The Vice Chancellor who made the call during the 11th graduation ceremony of the University which took place on the campus of the University, stressed that the situation of inadequate lecture halls was now becoming a huge challenge than before.

He disclosed that recently, the University had to give about ten lecture rooms for the installation of some electronic equipment for the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) Project for teaching and learning and thereby compounding the situation.

He added that, with the launching of the Universitys 10-year Strategic Plan for 2023-2032, the University, he was very optimistic of high enrolment figures, hence the urgent need for government to support the University with a lecture theatre complex.

He said, the University had introduced several new programmes at the Diploma, HND and Bachelor of Technology levels and hinted that plans are also far advanced to introduce Master of Science in its niche area of Agriculture

We are still desirous of introducing new programmes in mining engineering, processing engineering as well as wielding and fabrication to take care of the growing mining industry needs within the Northern Ghana. Again, the University is considering extending the Competency Based Training to all programmes in the near future, Professor Alnaa disclosed.

He explained that, in order to help provide competent based training of students in TVET to feed the manpower needs of the nation, the University had intensified its collaboration with industry, especially those in TVET areas to fine-tune its hand-on training to its graduates and for entrepreneurship development.

Professor Alnaa congratulated the 578 graduands who obtained Bachelor of Technology degrees, Higher National Diploma degrees and Professional Diploma degrees in Procurement and Logistics Management, Agriculture Engineering, Hotel, Catering and Institutional Management, Computerized Accounting, Scretaryship and Management, Marketing, Accountancy among others.

He said, he was happy that out of the 98 students who obtained first class, 60 of them were females and encouraged other female students to see their predecessors as role models to also obtain same grades.

The event which very colourful attracted people from all walks of life including stakeholders in education, traditional leaders and parents who accompanied their wards to the ceremony.

He urges them to find opportunities in the programmes pursued and create job to contribute to national development saying  you are more than the job available on the market and so making effort to utilize the knowledge acquired would make you more valuable to society.
A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), operating in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality, in the Upper East Region, Our Lady of Mercy Community Services (OLAM), has reiterated the need for government to subsidize the cost of sanitary pads for girls in Junior High Schools (JHSs) and Senior High Schools (SHSs) in the country.

Research has confirmed that absenteeism of girls and teenage pregnancies in SHSs and JHSs is largely attributed to the inability of the girls to afford the purchase of sanitary pads during their menstrual periods. The market price of sanitary pads is ranging from 15 to 20 Ghana cedis per each is therefore deterring most vulnerable girls from attending school.

The Executive Director of the NGO, Mr. Emmanuel Atiiga made the call when his outfit donated 480 sanitary pads including detergents, cooking oil, rice, assorted drinks among others to over 200 female students of the Mirigu SHS in the Kassena Nankana Municipal of the Upper East Region on Thursday, as part of this years African Union Day (AU).

Mr. Atiiga explained that the gesture formed part of OLAMs outreach programme to educate female students on Sexual Health Reproductive issues, with resource persons from the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ghana Health Service (GHS).

The Executive Director told the students that, they were the future leaders of tomorrow and entreated each of the student to set up a vision and work hard towards achieving such vision.

Mr. Atiiga lamented the spate of teenage pregnancy among young school girls and said it was becoming alarming nationwide and the need for appropriate interventions to stop the canker.

It was against this background that OLAM has been supporting second cycle schools in the Municipality and its environs with funding support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA -SENEGAL), VASTENACTIE and LOreal, he said.

He entreated the parents and teachers to leave up to their expectation by contributing to the development of their children to become better leaders tomorrow.

Mrs. Anastacia A Musah, Assembly member of the Atosale Azaasi Electoral area and a member admonished female students to stay away from premarital sex and concentrate on their studies.

Mrs. Florence Ernestina Bobi, President of the Kaana Manga Women Association, advised female students against having sexual relationships with men.

Mrs. Bobi urged the students to avoid friends who might influence them to engage in premarital sex that would affect their future.

She said even though the growth in their bodies came with a strong sexual urge, it was proper for them to control such desires and remain disciplined until they were mature enough to be married.

A public health Nurse from the Kassena-Nankana Municipal Health Directorate, Mrs Matilda Yelbaya, called on parents to build cordial relationship with their children, particularly the female ones, so that they can discuss sexual reproductive issues with them.

She also urged parents to provide the needs of their teenage female children to prevent them from falling prey to unscrupulous men, who will capitalize on the situation and lure them into sexual relationships.

The Senior House Master, Mr Mahama Braimah, who received the items on behalf of the School thanked the NGO for the support and said it would improve the academic standarsd of the school. He urged others to follow suit.
A philanthropist and businessman in the Asante Akim South Municipality, Mr. Eric Amofa has committed an amount of hundred thousand Ghana cedis (GHC100,000.00) for the establishment of an Educational Fund to support brilliant but needy students in the area.

The Eric Kofi Amofa Junior (EKAJ) Educational Fund is established to promote the development of education, give hope to the less privileged students, inspire and empower more students both boys and girls to reach their education potential and skills development.

According to Mr. Eric Amofa who is the Managing Director of Seabeige Ghana Limited, producers of Safare Tissue brands in Ghana, his vision was born out of his passionate desire to serve the needs of the people of Asante Akim South and to offer a helping hand to the youth of the area.

The GHC100,000.00 is the initial commitment of Seabeige Ghana Limited and that of Mr. Eric Amofa, the Founder, to serve as the seed capital for the EKAJ Educational Fund.

With its head office at Juaso, the EKAJ Educational Fund is to be managed and sustained by a five strong, influential, non-partisan and incorruptible personalities who will serve as the Board of Trustees. The EKAJ Educational Fund Board is chaired by a former Ghana Airforce Officer Nana Agyei Gyarteng.

Other members include, Nana Ofosuhene Apenteng, the Akyempim Hene of Obogu Traditional area and former head of administration Food and Drug Board, Pastor Micheal Osei Acheampong Church of Pentecost Juaso District, Hon Beatrice Kyei, Presiding Member Asante Akyem Municipal Assembly and Nana Aduoni II, the Sanahene of Juaso Traditional area.

Speaking at the official launch of the EKAJ Educational Fund at Juaso, the Founder, Mr. Eric Amofa expressed the hope that the fund would be managed well to support more brilliant but needy students in the area to have tertiary education.

He described the fund as "non-political" and therefore charged the handlers to always ensure that the right people or those who qualify for support are considered.

He noted that the fund would provide financial support to cover for tuition fees, accommodation and other scholastic materials for all beneficiaries.

According to the Founder, 60% of the annual allocation of the EKAJ Educational Fund shall cater for students at the tertiary level, 20% for students from the basic to the high school levels and the remaining 20% for students in the area pursuing academic excellence abroad.

The Chief of Juaso Traditional Area, Nana Agyei Tabi Asafoakaa who was the special guest commended Mr. Eric Amofa for his continuous desire to help develop the Asante Akim South Municipality.

According to the learned Chief who was also the former Director of Finance at the Ministry of Communication, the standard of education in the Municipality for a long time now had gone down drastically, especially among the young girls. He therefore welcomed the establishment of the EKAJ Educational Fund and the vision to churn out more graduates in the area.

Nana Agyei Tabi promised to support the EKAJ Educational Fund in diverse ways to become more beneficial to the people.

The Asante Akim South Municipal Director of Education, Mrs. Elizabeth Davis in a speech read for her by her representative, Mrs. Rosemary Sarpong Boateng praised Mr. Eric Amofa for committing such a huge amount of money to support the needy in the Asante Akyem South Municipality.

She assured him of the full support and cooperation of the Municipal Education Directorate for the success and sustainability of the fund.

The Education Director noted that due to lack of support many brilliant girls had had their education truncated after Junior and Senior High school levels.

She said that, many of the girls had ended up giving birth prematurely, with others roaming on the streets aimlessly and going through sufferings together with their babies.

Mrs Davis encouraged businesses, organisations, churches, associations and individuals especially the influential people from the area, home and abroad to contribute to the EKAJ Educational Fund so that it could extend financial support to more needy students.

The Managing Director of Ghana Post, Mr. Bice Osei Kuffuor graced the occasion and contributed some amount to the fund.

The Municipal Executive for Techiman North, Hon. Benjamin Yaw Gyarko, chaired the official launch of the EKAJ Educational Fund.

The launch which was preceded by a health walk in the early hours of the day, was sponsored by the KGL Group, GIFEC, Safare Tissues, PBC, Amopex Limited, Ahwenepa FM and many more.

Nana Agyei Tabi Asafoakaa II the Cheif of Juaso Traditional Area, Hon Boakye Abdul Karim, former DCE for Asante Akyem South and Mr Ishmael Mantey Arko Educationalist will also serve as patrons of the EKAJ Educational Fund.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. The independent state of Azerbaijan is capable of achieving any result today, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said, while meeting the residents of the Lachin city, Trend reports.

"The new face of the new city of Lachin today shows again how strong our independence is. Because in a matter of seven to eight months, most of the city has been completely rebuilt and is now at your disposal. The first 20 families have been in Lachin since yesterday, and many more will arrive by the end of June. So about 4,000 people will live in Lachin, perhaps even more at the first stage," President Ilham Aliyev said.
Mr Kwame Pianim, an Economist, has advised Government not to touch the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy in the quest to review flagship programmes.

He called for the cutting down on expenditure on less priority areas, with funds channeled to pertinent sectors of the economy.

This small country with more Ministers than the UK and US doesn't make sense, and every Minister has about two cars. It doesn't make sense in a country of 30 million with 16 regions. Let's cut down on expenditure, review our ex-gratia and give it out only once. We must also cut down on the number of Ministers, he said.

Mr Pianim said this in a television discussion on the topic, IMF DEAL: The Case For Review Of Flagship Programmes.

Government recently told the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it would review all flagship programmes as part of the US$3 billion IMF bailout agreement.

Mr Pianim described education as a great transformer of life thus everyone should be allowed to benefit from the Free SHS Programme.

Let's make sure that the children are properly educated, the quality of the education is good, teachers are well paid Let's spend the money there and there won't be any money left to build a cathedral, to buy V-8 for people, for Ministers to board first class when they can go economy, he said.

He said Government's return to the IMF was an opportunity for the country to learn from its past mistakes.

We've been going to the IMF several times since independence. This is the time Ghanaians must sit down and pay attention to what they've been doing wrong that won't end us at the IMF again.

Dr John Ampontuah Kumah, Deputy Minister for Finance, said Government must look at ways to reduce the waste in public expenditures to sustain the economy.

We must deal with the ghost names and the things that drag and are repetitive; the inefficiencies that create waste is where we must all focus so that we bring down the burden, he said.

He debunked the assertion that the Free SHS implementation had affected the quality of education at that level, adding that, in the last West African Examinations Council (WAEC) West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) Report, Ghana topped West Africa in terms of quality in performance.

Dr Clement Abas Apaak, Deputy Ranking Member, Education Committee of Parliament, said the calls from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for a review of the Free SHS policy had nothing to do with the quantum of resources being invested into the programme, but implementation challenges.

The Free SHS policy is a good policy but we believe that it still continues to be bedevilled with implementation challenges and that is the reason for the call for the review, he said.

He said there had been concerns by some lecturers over the poor quality of students coming from SHS to tertiary institutions, with some calling for entrance examination.

GNA
28.05.2023 LISTEN

The constitution of Ghana clearly spells out the tenure of office of a president of the Republic of Ghana. President Nana Akufo-Addo has served his first four years in office and Ghanaians have given him additional four-year second term to serve them. He is in his third year of the second term and obviously he is not going to contest again for the presidency per the constitution of Ghana. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) on which ticket President Nana Akufo-Addo stood and won power, has to present a different candidate for the 2024 general elections. Now, who succeeds President Nana Akufo-Addo to lead NPP in the 2024 general elections?

There are many party stalwarts who have expressed interest to lead NPP in the incoming general elections in Ghana but among them who stands tall is the current Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, H. E. Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. It is not just a mere statement but the clamour for Dr. Bawumia to succeed President Nana Akufo-Addo as a flagbearer of the party is overwhelming and lovely.

Even before Dr Bawumia declares his intention to contest the primaries to the general public, many bigwigs of the party have already thrown their weight behind him. It is a common knowledge that out of the 137 NPP's members of parliament (MPs), over 115 MPs are reported to have declared their support for him, waiting for his formal launching of campaign for them to join canvass votes for him to massively win the primaries. Some of the MPs have already hit the grounds running by publicly declaring their support for him. They believe that he is a good product worthy of supporting and sacrificing for.

Dr. Bawumia has also enjoyed massive support from the grassroots of the party. The grassroots, out of pure love, started advocating for him on the grounds and on social media long before the party's formal announcement of the elections' calendar. The grassroots are solidly behind him and are ready to sacrifice for him to lead the NPP to break the eight. The natural and unconditional love exhibited by the grassroots for Dr Bawumia is meritorious as he has sacrificed and defended the party in difficult times. They really appreciate the sacrifices he has made for the party and will rally behind him for a deserved 'Thank You' victory on the 4th November, 2023 in the internal contest.

Recently, the delegates of the Ashanti region had a successful meeting and declared their support for Dr. Bawumia and further promised to give him 85% of the votes in the region. As you all know, Ashanti region is the world bank of the NPP, so such unconditional support and love for Dr Bawumia is refreshing. There are many fun clubs and youth groups in the region who are constantly on the grounds advocating for him to lead the party. Hence, there is no doubt that such a promise will be fulfilled by His grace.

In fact, Dr Bawumia is enjoying unflinching support in all the regions across the length and breadth of the country. The delegates are ready to massively endorse him to lead the party to the extent that, delegates in some regions told him there was no need visiting them to declare his intention to them because he has their unconditional support already. The DMB's signal is very strong and people are connecting to it all over the country. What are you waiting for? The earlier you join the winning team the better.

The mud rush of many party members, sympathizers, groups, delegates, among others to buy the presidential primaries forms for Dr. Bawumia to contest after the party announced officially the presidential primaries calendar is unprecedented. It was interesting and exciting to see many loyalists and well-wishers of Dr. Bawumia willing to pay the Fifty Thousand Ghana Cedis for the forms for him and even willing to pick them on his behalf. One could notice that many youth groups, association of delegates, fun clubs of Dr. Bawumia, individual party members, among others were happily in a rush to honour the ever affable, hardworking, competent, dedicated, committed and loyal Vice President by purchasing the forms for him. It is possible that if the forms were to be hundred with each going for Fifty Thousand Ghana Cedis, the lovers of Dr Bawumia would have purchased all for him. Notable among the volunteers that needs to be mentioned is the 'Bawumia fun club' in Ashanti region, the stronghold of the party. They availed themselves at the party headquarters to pay and pick the forms for Dr. Bawumia after publicly announcing their intention through the media. Another group that was also ready to pay for the forms is 'North East Youth for Bawumia' of which I am a member. When this idea came up, within few minutes, the amount realized was even more than the cost of the forms. What must be added is that for the deep love for Dr. Bawumia and the quest to get him elected as the next flagbearer, the Walewale Constituency Women's Organizer of the NPP offered to pay the full cost on behalf of the group.

In conclusion, Dr Bawumia's presidential candidacy is an obvious case of a good product sells itself as evidence by the current happenings in the political space within the New Patriotic Party and Ghana at large. He is the delegates' choice who is capable and ready to break the eight for the party. DMB2024! It is possible.

Alhaji Salifu Hadara

A Patriot

Nalerigu/Gambaga Constituency

North East Region

[email protected]
28.05.2023 LISTEN

Businesses are likely to experience increased cost of production as the IMF conditionalities prohibit tax exemption and phases out tax holidays.

Rev Dr Samuel Worlanyo Mensah, Economist and Executive Director, Centre for Greater Impact Africa, said the $3 billion loan-support secured from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came with conditions, including removal of value added tax exemptions.

Others were the reformation of corporate income tax by phasing out tax holidays and exemptions, reducing Customs exemptions and quarterly tariff adjustment including electricity and water.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News (GNA), Rev Dr Worlanyo Mensah, said companies who had been given some number of years to operate without paying taxes could have the exemptions reversed or the duration reduced.

He said such actions would affect the balance sheets of most of the companies that had signed into the exemption agreement.

The industries should get prepared especially those enjoying this level of tax exemptions. The moment theres a review on these taxes it will definitely increase the cost of production and cost of doing business, he said.

The Executive Director said most organisations had not prepared for such eventualities and cut down or downsize their labour force whilst some reduce their workers remuneration.

Laying workers off will affect livelihoods, it is gong to affect cost of living and reduce standard of living. It is going to be a tough time for individuals and the State, he said.

Rev Dr Worlanyo Mensah said the removal of the exemption together with reformation of corporate income tax would affect the unit cost of products, thus, consumers would see increment in prices of goods.

He said Government in reforming the corporate income tax would review withholding tax upwards and once government did that it would reduce the operational capital of organisations and by far affect productivity.

Exemptions on certain goods that we import like the toiletries, sanitary pads are likely to be taken off and the implication is that we are likely to pay more for such products on the market, the Economist said.

He said Government might include some more commodities, especially those that had comparative advantage if produced in Ghana to protect infant industries and the market.

GNA
The mortal remains of the immediate past Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Ho, Prosper Pi-Bansah, has been laid to rest.

A final funeral rites ceremony was held for him in Ho.

The late Pi-Bansah passed away in February 2023, aged 61, and the burial ceremony, held at the Dela Cathedral of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Ho, brought together hundreds of loved ones and well-wishers who joined the family to usher their beloved into eternity.

He was MCE for the Municipality from October 2019 to October 2021.

Present at the solemn ceremony was the current MCE, Divine Bosson, Chief Executives of the various Municipalities and Districts in the Region, as well as some past Chief Executives of Ho.

Also present were the New Patriotic Party (NPP) heads in the Region and executives of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Chiefs of the Asogli State were also well represented.

The NPP in the Constituency, in a tribute read by Mr Bright Doh, the Constituency Secretary, recounted how the late statesman joined the Party in 1992 after a stay in its stronghold of the Ashanti Region for tertiary education.

He said late Pi-Bansah became a founding member of the Party in the Volta region and had played key roles in its growth over the years.

The former MCE was the manager the Ho National Health Insurance Scheme in the year 2000, and later contested the 2020 elections as the NPP parliamentary candidate.

The Constituency Secretary said the late Pi-Bansah, delivered on his task to secure at least ten thousand votes for the Party at the elections.

He said the former MCE was known as one who provided opportunities for all, and that he had a legacy that would cause his memory to be immortalised.

Mr. Doh told the GNA that Pi-Bansah's only son would be taken up by the Party and supported to grow to step into his father's shoes.

Mr Makafui Woanya, Volta Regional Chairman of the NPP, also paid tribute to the former MCE, saying, he led the Municipality through the Coronavirus pandemic, and had delivered his best under the circumstances, and proven his worth.

He also assured us that the Party would make sure his memory lived on.

There were tributes from his wife, children, and other close relation, as well as from the Ho Municipal Assembly.

The Very Right Rev. Japhet Ledo, a former Moderator of the E.P Church, who delivered a sermon, said although it struck heavily, it was only through death that the dignity of a man would have accorded him, and prayed for divine consolement for the bereaved family.

He prayed also that his good initiatives did not fade but survived and were fruitful unto all people.

The late Bansah's casket was draped in a tarp of the colours of the NPP, and was interned at the Ho public cemetery with a long convoy of sympathisers in tow.

GNA
Two religious groups within the Judicial Service of Ghana have bid farewell to Chief Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah at a ceremony in Accra.

The groups are the Christian Fellowship and Muslims Association.

Chief Justice Kwasi Anin Yeboah bowed out of service after attaining the age of 70 on May 24, 2023.

Justice Jones Victor Dotse is now the acting Chief Justice.

Mr. Moses Ansah Barnor Ankrah, President of the Christian Fellowship, said the fellowship recognised the Chief Justices good work in terms of massive infrastructural development across the country.

Mr Ankrah also lauded the Chief Justice for his simplicity to life, his affable nature and dedication to work, saying his nature was very inspiring and exemplary.

The President of the Christian Fellowship was elated that Chief Justice Yeboah offered them a place of worship within the Supreme Court complex.

He said the fellowship would not hesitate to invite him to attend the official outdooring of the fellowship.

Mr. Ankrah urged Justice Yeboah to  continue in the faith of our Lord and Saviour Jesus and offer your best to the building of the body of Christ and the nation.

The fellowship offered Chief Justice Yeboah a Bible as a parting gift.

Mr Mohammed Habib Hudu, President of the Muslims Association, commended Chief Justice Yeboah for allowing the association to organise events within the service.

We are indeed convinced that the compassionate attitude of his Lordship towards Association is a practical example of the status of Ghana as a circular state characterised by democratic constitutionalism and religious pluralism.

According to Mr Hudu, the administration of Chief Justice Yeboah  did not post any form of discriminative threats to the association.

He was enthused over the fatherly love displayed by Justice Yeboah.

Mr Hudu said Chief Justice Yeboah would be missed for his wisdom, humility and legal opinions.

GNA
Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu, wife of the President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has assured the country that her husbands administration will be devoid of corruption.

The First Lady in waiting said her family doesn't need the wealth of the West Africas most-populated nation to survive.

Speaking on Sunday, May 28, during a speech at the presidential inauguration interdenominational church service at the National Christian Centre in Abuja, Nigeria, Mrs. Tinubu noted that God has already blessed her family with what they need to survive.

She said, God has blessed my family, we don't need the wealth of Nigeria to survive but to do the right thing.

She further called on the nation to rally behind her husband as they intend to do anything within their powers to revive the countrys economy.

And I promise you on this altar that with your help, with the help of God, we will set this nation on the right path.

"We need your prayers. I can tell you, I for one, am a silent maker. I am not the noise maker but I listen and I hear, she appealed as quoted by Nigeria-based Punch Newspaper.

Meanwhile, the new President, H.E Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will be sworn-in on Monday, May 29 in a ceremony that will receive scores of world leaders and diplomats.
28.05.2023 LISTEN

Africans must stop giving excuses that would prevent them from working together in cooperation to effectively fight transnational organized crime, and rather create the needed transparency that would make it easy for them to share information for the benefit of the continent.

Mr. Benjamin Ndego who is the Money Laundering Reporting Officer for Nigeria for Travelex, made the statement and stressed that there was a need for the modification of traditional state-centric responses to take into account the nature of these new threats and the involvement of non-state actors.

He said such a modified response should be coordinated with international responses, and the strengthening of regional cooperation, adding that a multi-lateral approach that involves the whole international community is also required to counter these non-traditional threats.

Mr. Ndego, made the recommendation at the ongoing two-week course on Maritime Security and Transnational Organized Crime (MSTOC).

34 professionals from 13 Gulf of Guinea countries are participating in the workshop, organized by the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) and supported by the German government.

Mr Ndego who is also Ghanas National Correspondent for Anti-money Laundering in GIABA (International Money Laundering in West Africa) therefore called for the establishment of an Africa Central Criminal Data System (ACCDS) to effectively fight transnational organized crimes.

He noted that with such a system, security services would have access to the needed information on transnational organized crime actors and be able to crack down on their activities.

He noted that with globalization, crimes that hitherto countries could easily fight on their own have become transnational, making it easier for actors to use improved communication, finances, and transportation to increase their activities.

He further called for governments to also focus on human security-related issues as well as target money laundering policies, in addition to setting up task forces to prevent cross-border crimes and for trans-border intelligence sharing.

He said law enforcement cooperation and conducting intel-guided operations were very important in the fight against transnational organized crimes.

Mr Ndego who is also Compliance and Risk Manager for Africa at Travelex Worldwide Money, encouraged countries to solve border disputes, develop infrastructure, and have coordinated patrolling while cooperating with other countries to multiply their efforts along the border devoid of conflicts to strengthen the rule of law and defeat security challenges.

He said transnational organized crimes if not tackled, have the capacity to weaken the financial and economic systems of countries and undermine democracy.

He added that the whole of West Africa, for instance, was under attack from narcotic traffickers that were buying economic assets and political power, adding that they work against the peace and stability of nations internationally and often use bribery, terror, and violence to meet their goals.

CDA Consult II Contributor
Dr. Aba Folson, a Cardiologist at the International Maritime Hospital (IMaH), Tema, has revealed that women with hypertension have a higher risk of giving birth to preterm babies and a lower birth weight, which makes the children prone to other temporal and long-term complications, including death.

"Hypertension was a leading cause of maternal, and neonatal mortality and morbidity, which usually occurs during the late stages of pregnancy as a result of physiological changes in pregnancy," Dr. Folson stated.

Dr. Folson said this at the weekly "Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility! A Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication and providing a platform for health information dissemination to influence personal health choices through improved health literacy was monitored by the Communication for Development and Advocacy Consult (CDA Consult) in Tema.

The Ghana News Agency's Tema Regional Office developed the public health advocacy platform "Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility" to investigate the components of four health communication approaches: informing, instructing, convincing, and promoting.

Dr. Folson was speaking on the topic, "Measure blood pressure accurately, control it, and leave longer," stressed that pregnancy-induced hypertension, when not treated, affects the growth and survival of the unborn baby, as

adding that although there were some women who might have hypertension disappear after delivery, others still experienced it.

She called on such people not to stop going for treatments and taking prescribed medications.

She encouraged pregnant women to start antenatal care immediately so as to manage any unforeseen disorder as soon as it is detected, stressing that failure to have the health professionals manage it could lead to the disease reoccurring in the future.

"Pregnancy-induced hypertension must be diagnosed; it is diagnosed when the woman presents herself for antenatal care; it will be mandatorily checked; other tests will be done," she stated.

Dr. Folson cautioned pregnant women to adopt good eating habits and do regular exercise to help manage the disorder, as it could not be prevented.

She called on husbands and family members to offer their support to both pregnant women and nursing mothers, as stress could contribute to hypertension.

Mr. Francis Ameyibor, Regional Manager of Ghana News Agency Tema, explained that "Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility" is part of a collaborative effort to establish a means for the dissemination of health information.

He said existing evidence indicates that mass media efforts to improve public health can help increase awareness of a health problem, raise the level of information about health topics, and make a health topic or problem more salient, thereby sensitizing the public.

Mr. Ameyibor, therefore, called on both the traditional and social media managers to devote some time to engaging health professionals to educate the public, saying that "the education we offer today through our media platform may save a life tomorrow."

CDA Consult II Contributor
In a stunning life-saving moment caught on camera, a utility lineman revived his partner after a near-fatal electric shock in 1967.

Randall Champion, a lineman conducting routine maintenance in Rochester, New York, accidentally made contact with a low-voltage power line, stopping his heart, Historic Vids detailed in a tweet on Sunday, May 28.

As Champion dangled from his safety harness unconscious, his partner J.D. Thompson leapt into action, climbing up and administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

"I saw this man hanging down. Oh my God. I didn't know what to do," the tweet quoted as saying an eyewitness Rocco Morabito, a press photographer who captured the dramatic rescue in a series of photos. "I quickly took a picture. J.D. Thompson was running toward the pole."

Thompson breathed into Champion's lungs as a faint pulse returned.

After lowering Champion to the ground, Thompson and other workers performed CPR until paramedics arrived.

Champion was moderately revived and eventually made a full recovery, living another 35 years.

"I passed these men working and went on to my assignment," Morabito said, adding, "I took eight pictures at the strike. I thought I'd go back and see if I could find another picture. Then I heard Thompson shouting down: 'He's breathing!'"

The iconic photo of Thompson saving Champion with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as Champion dangled limply in his harness became known as "The Kiss of Life."

Champion reportedly survived the incident and lived until 2002, 35 years after at age 64, while Thompson, the rescuer, is still alive today.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has opened up on what went into his decision to send Ghana to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The President on July 1, 2022, directed the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta to write to the IMF for support amid heightening hardships in the country due to an economic crisis.

Addressing the nation on Sunday, May 28, President Akufo-Addo said taking the decision to go for IMF support was very difficult for him.

It was a painful decision for me to take because going to the IMF was not part of the economic transformation agenda I was pursuing.

We were in extraordinary times and we took extraordinary measures, President Akufo-Addo said.

After 10 months of negotiating a deal with the IMF, Ghana has secured a $3 billion Extended Credit Facility (ECF) for a period of 36 months.

According to President Akufo-Addo, this will provide some relief and ensure that infrastructure projects that stalled because of the economic crisis can resume.

The fact that we have been able to negotiate such a deal sends a positive message that will underpin the hard work with which we will execute the programme.

It will lead to the resumption of many infrastructural projects that have stalled, the president said.

Meanwhile, President Akufo-Addo wants the Ghanaian people to be assured that his government will do everything to revive the economy and set it on a path of growth.

I dont think anyone imagined the effects will be so destructive and so deepI owe it to you and to myself to go to any length to bring the economy to the health it was in before the pandemic, H.E Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo stressed.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. We value our ongoing collaboration with Azerbaijan to advance our shared bilateral priorities, Antony Blinken, US State Secretary, said in a congratulatory message to Azerbaijani people on occasion of May 28 - Independence Day, Trend reports.

During our more than 31 years of bilateral relations, the US has worked closely with Azerbaijan to build a durable partnership based on shared security interests, energy cooperation, and economic growth. I reaffirm the United States support for Azerbaijans independence and sovereignty and look forward to deepening the U.S.-Azerbaijani relationship in the years to come. The United States also looks forward to continuing cooperation and engagement to help Azerbaijan and the region secure a sustainable peace. We are fully committed to supporting this goal, which will lead to a better future for all those in the South Caucasus, he said.
President Nana Akufo-Addo has rejected allegations that his government misused funds donated to fight COVID-19.

Speaking in a national address on Sunday, May 28, Akufo-Addo said "the COVID-19 crisis was not used as a cover for corrupt practices."

The president attributed it to the high costs for programs like vaccination, school fumigation and provision of personal protective equipments (PPEs).

"The vaccination programme was expensive, very expensive. The fumigation of schools and other public places cost a lot of money," Akufo-Addo said.

The rebuttal comes after the opposition NDC party and others accused the government of using the pandemic as an excuse to loot state coffers, citing a recent Auditor-General's report which indicted some officials for improper use of funds.

But Akufo-Addo dismissed those claims, defending his administration's management of COVID-19 funds.

At the same time, he said Ghana no longer considers the pandemic a national emergency following a WHO recommendation.

The update marked Akufo-Addo's 29th address to the nation since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo

28.05.2023 LISTEN

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Sunday, May 28, addressed the nation in the 29th edition of his famous Fellow Ghanaians series.

His address provided updates on the status of the Coronavirus pandemic in Ghana and the recently sealed deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In his address, President Akufo-Addo refuted allegations that his government used the Covid-19 pandemic to engage in massive corruption.

He stressed that The crisis was not used as cover for corrupt practices.

In his address, the President declares that Covid-19 is no longer a health emergency in Ghana.

The Covid-19 pandemic is over in Ghana. All restrictions at the airport and entry points have been lifted.

Dare I say, that this too has passed. The emergency is over and we can safely lift the restrictions. We can hug, we can shake, we no longer wear face masks, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said.

The President continued, We can now breathe that collective sigh of relief. The crisis itself has technically ended.We do not have any critical case.

Meanwhile, President Akufo-Addo wants Ghanaians to be rest assured that his government will do everything in its power to get Ghanas economy out of the current crisis.
President Akufo-Addo

29.05.2023 LISTEN

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has stressed that getting the Ghanaian economy back on its feet will happen in no time.

Addressing the nation on Sunday, May 28, the President said Ghanaians should have confidence that the country will overcome current economic difficulties sooner rather than later.

Fellow Ghanaians, we got ourselves out of a pandemic in which there were no precedents on which to rely, and where even the experts admitted they had no clear-cut solutions. We did it by being resolute, being focused and working very hard, and by accepting that we had to stick together.

With a similar frame of mind and attitude, we shall overcome the economic difficulties as well, sooner rather than later. I have no doubts at all in my mind that we are on the right path, and we would soon start to see significant improvements in the economy and in the living standards of Ghanaians, President Akufo-Addo stressed.

To help revive the economy, the administration of President Akufo-Addo has run to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for support.

A deal sealed with the IMF will see the fund supporting Ghana with a $3 billion Extended Credit Facility (IMF).

The first tranche of the cash [$600 million] has already hit the accounts of the Bank of Ghana.

Government must ensure that it complies with agreements in the deal to trigger the release of the next tranche of the money after six months.
PGGM Investments lifted its stake in shares of Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT  Get Rating) by 0.7% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 281,868 shares of the healthcare product makers stock after acquiring an additional 1,950 shares during the quarter. PGGM Investments holdings in Abbott Laboratories were worth $30,946,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of ABT. Fairfield Bush & CO. purchased a new stake in shares of Abbott Laboratories in the first quarter valued at $131,000. United Bank raised its holdings in Abbott Laboratories by 7.2% during the first quarter. United Bank now owns 27,280 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $3,229,000 after buying an additional 1,826 shares in the last quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp raised its holdings in Abbott Laboratories by 1.9% during the first quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 813,253 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $96,257,000 after buying an additional 15,521 shares in the last quarter. Kinneret Advisory LLC raised its holdings in Abbott Laboratories by 2.3% during the first quarter. Kinneret Advisory LLC now owns 19,467 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $2,304,000 after buying an additional 436 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Lumature Wealth Partners LLC raised its holdings in Abbott Laboratories by 636.2% during the first quarter. Lumature Wealth Partners LLC now owns 2,216 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $262,000 after buying an additional 1,915 shares in the last quarter. 72.93% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Daniel J. Starks sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $111.02, for a total value of $5,551,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 6,825,316 shares of the companys stock, valued at $757,746,582.32. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other Abbott Laboratories news, Director Daniel J. Starks sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $111.02, for a total transaction of $5,551,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 6,825,316 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $757,746,582.32. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Andrea F. Wainer sold 679 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.70, for a total transaction of $68,375.30. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 70,427 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $7,091,998.90. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 59,937 shares of company stock valued at $6,632,764 over the last quarter. 1.10% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Abbott Laboratories Stock Up 0.7 %

ABT traded up $0.73 during trading on Friday, reaching $102.87. 4,911,806 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,994,132. The stock has a market cap of $178.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.61 and a beta of 0.67. Abbott Laboratories has a twelve month low of $93.25 and a twelve month high of $118.23. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $105.75 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $106.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39, a quick ratio of 1.22 and a current ratio of 1.68.

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT  Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 19th. The healthcare product maker reported $1.03 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.98 by $0.05. Abbott Laboratories had a net margin of 13.98% and a return on equity of 22.36%. The firm had revenue of $9.75 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.64 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.73 earnings per share. The companys quarterly revenue was down 18.1% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that Abbott Laboratories will post 4.38 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ABT has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Barclays raised their price target on Abbott Laboratories from $125.00 to $127.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, April 20th. BTIG Research raised their price target on Abbott Laboratories from $125.00 to $130.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Monday, April 17th. StockNews.com started coverage on Abbott Laboratories in a research report on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Abbott Laboratories from $118.00 to $122.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, April 20th. Finally, Raymond James lifted their target price on Abbott Laboratories from $116.00 to $123.00 in a research report on Thursday, April 20th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $122.37.

About Abbott Laboratories

(Get Rating)

Abbott Laboratories engages in the discovery, development, manufacture, and sale of a broad and diversified line of health care products. It operates through the following business segments: Established Pharmaceutical Products, Diagnostic Products, Nutritional Products, and Medical Devices. The Established Pharmaceutical Products segment refers to the international sales of a line of branded generic pharmaceutical products.

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Agilent Technologies (NYSE:A  Get Rating) had its target price trimmed by TD Cowen from $168.00 to $145.00 in a report issued on Wednesday morning, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has an outperform rating on the medical research companys stock.

A has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their target price on Agilent Technologies from $170.00 to $160.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. Citigroup lowered their price target on shares of Agilent Technologies from $150.00 to $130.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. SVB Securities decreased their price target on Agilent Technologies from $170.00 to $145.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. Barclays cut their target price on Agilent Technologies from $140.00 to $135.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Agilent Technologies in a report on Thursday, May 18th. They set a buy rating for the company. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $151.35.

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Agilent Technologies Price Performance

NYSE A opened at $120.42 on Wednesday. Agilent Technologies has a one year low of $112.52 and a one year high of $160.26. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $133.27 and a 200 day moving average of $143.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 1.53 and a current ratio of 2.37. The company has a market capitalization of $35.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.52, a PEG ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 1.03.

Agilent Technologies Announces Dividend

Agilent Technologies ( NYSE:A Get Rating ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 23rd. The medical research company reported $1.27 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.26 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $1.72 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.67 billion. Agilent Technologies had a net margin of 19.19% and a return on equity of 30.11%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 6.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.13 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Agilent Technologies will post 5.62 EPS for the current year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 26th. Shareholders of record on Monday, July 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.225 per share. This represents a $0.90 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 30th. Agilent Technologiess payout ratio is 19.82%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Agilent Technologies

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. BlackRock Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Agilent Technologies by 1.9% during the third quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 32,943,190 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $4,004,242,000 after purchasing an additional 629,153 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Agilent Technologies by 1.0% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 24,955,720 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $3,033,368,000 after purchasing an additional 257,455 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in Agilent Technologies by 0.6% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,152,295 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,598,661,000 after purchasing an additional 73,495 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in Agilent Technologies by 6.6% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,218,926 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $1,137,008,000 after purchasing an additional 511,874 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its position in shares of Agilent Technologies by 10.7% during the third quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 6,478,670 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $787,483,000 after buying an additional 627,517 shares during the last quarter.

Agilent Technologies Company Profile

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Agilent Technologies, Inc engages in the provision of application focused solutions for life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemical markets. It operates through the following segments: Life Sciences and Applied Markets, Diagnostics and Genomics, and Agilent CrossLab. The Life Sciences and Applied Markets segment offers application-focused solutions that include instruments and software that identify, quantify, and analyze the physical and biological properties of substances and products, as well as the clinical and life sciences research areas to interrogate samples at the molecular and cellular level.

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Shore Capital reissued their house stock rating on shares of Arbuthnot Banking Group (LON:ARBB  Get Rating) in a research report sent to investors on Wednesday, MarketBeat Ratings reports.

Arbuthnot Banking Group Price Performance

LON:ARBB opened at GBX 942.50 ($11.72) on Wednesday. Arbuthnot Banking Group has a 12-month low of GBX 625 ($7.77) and a 12-month high of GBX 1,002.50 ($12.47). The firm has a market capitalization of 140.34 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 856.82, a P/E/G ratio of 0.38 and a beta of 0.98. The stocks 50 day moving average price is GBX 941.12 and its two-hundred day moving average price is GBX 898.17.

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Arbuthnot Banking Group Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 2nd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 20th will be given a dividend of GBX 25 ($0.31) per share. This represents a yield of 2.65%. This is a boost from Arbuthnot Banking Groups previous dividend of $17.00. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 20th. Arbuthnot Banking Groups payout ratio is 3,818.18%.

Arbuthnot Banking Group Company Profile

Arbuthnot Banking Group PLC, together with its subsidiaries, provides private and commercial banking products and services in the United Kingdom. It operates through Banking, Wealth Management, Mortgage Portfolios, Renaissance Asset Finance, Arbuthnot Commercial Asset Based Lending, Arbuthnot Specialist Finance Limited, Asset Alliance Group, All Other Divisions, and Group Centre segments.

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Aviva plc (OTCMKTS:AVVIY  Get Rating) saw a large growth in short interest in the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 83,600 shares, a growth of 56.0% from the April 30th total of 53,600 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 69,500 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 1.2 days.

Aviva Stock Performance

AVVIY stock traded up $0.09 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $10.02. 63,732 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 43,084. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $10.35 and its 200-day moving average price is $10.61. Aviva has a one year low of $8.05 and a one year high of $14.50.

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Aviva Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, May 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 31st were issued a dividend of $0.4737 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 30th. This is a positive change from Avivas previous dividend of $0.23. This represents a yield of 7.14%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

About Aviva

A number of brokerages recently commented on AVVIY. Barclays decreased their price objective on Aviva from GBX 560 ($6.97) to GBX 545 ($6.78) in a research note on Friday, March 10th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on Aviva from GBX 545 ($6.78) to GBX 535 ($6.65) in a research note on Thursday. Berenberg Bank decreased their price objective on Aviva from GBX 546 ($6.79) to GBX 532 ($6.62) in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on Aviva from GBX 540 ($6.72) to GBX 520 ($6.47) in a research note on Wednesday, February 8th.

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Aviva Plc is a holding company, which engages in the provision of long-term insurance and savings, general and health insurance, and fund management products and services. It operates through the following segments: United Kingdom and Ireland; Canada; France; Italy; Poland; and Other. The United Kingdom and Ireland segment offers risks associated with motor vehicles, property and liability, and medical expenses insurance cover to individuals and businesses.

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BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust (NYSE:BNY  Get Rating) saw a large growth in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 16,000 shares, a growth of 92.8% from the April 30th total of 8,300 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 54,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.3 days.

BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust Trading Up 0.2 %

BNY traded up $0.02 during trading on Friday, reaching $9.83. 30,967 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 54,128. BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust has a 12-month low of $9.06 and a 12-month high of $11.96. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $10.22 and a 200 day simple moving average of $10.33.

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BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 1st. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 15th will be issued a dividend of $0.031 per share. This represents a $0.37 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.78%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 12th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust

About BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. NewEdge Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust by 17.9% during the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 12,500 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $152,000 after acquiring an additional 1,900 shares during the last quarter. UBS Group AG boosted its position in shares of BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust by 6.4% during the 1st quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 126,186 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,537,000 after acquiring an additional 7,612 shares during the last quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC boosted its position in shares of BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust by 9.7% during the 1st quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 482,861 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $5,881,000 after acquiring an additional 42,581 shares during the last quarter. Robinson Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $1,050,000. Finally, LPL Financial LLC boosted its position in shares of BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust by 7.7% during the 2nd quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 69,597 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $767,000 after acquiring an additional 4,987 shares during the last quarter.

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BlackRock New York Municipal Income Trust is a closed-end investment fund. Its investment objective is to provide current income exempt from regular federal income taxes and New York State and New York City personal income taxes. The company was founded on March 30, 2001 and is headquartered in Wilmington, DE.

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Builders FirstSource (NYSE:BLDR  Get Rating) had its price target boosted by Barclays from $150.00 to $160.00 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, The Fly reports.

Several other analysts also recently commented on BLDR. Royal Bank of Canada upgraded shares of Builders FirstSource from a sector perform rating to an outperform rating and upped their price target for the company from $78.00 to $135.00 in a research report on Wednesday, May 3rd. Robert W. Baird cut shares of Builders FirstSource from an outperform rating to a neutral rating and set a $96.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Thursday, May 4th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price objective on shares of Builders FirstSource from $110.00 to $138.00 in a research note on Friday, May 5th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Builders FirstSource in a research note on Thursday, May 18th. They set a buy rating on the stock. Finally, Truist Financial raised their target price on shares of Builders FirstSource from $97.00 to $124.00 in a research report on Thursday, May 4th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $112.25.

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Builders FirstSource Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of Builders FirstSource stock opened at $115.58 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $14.81 billion, a PE ratio of 7.46 and a beta of 1.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69, a current ratio of 1.83 and a quick ratio of 1.10. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $105.82 and a 200 day moving average price of $87.50. Builders FirstSource has a 1 year low of $48.91 and a 1 year high of $122.99.

Insider Buying and Selling

Builders FirstSource ( NYSE:BLDR Get Rating ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 3rd. The company reported $2.96 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.63 by $1.33. The firm had revenue of $3.88 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.57 billion. Builders FirstSource had a net margin of 11.68% and a return on equity of 55.42%. Builders FirstSources quarterly revenue was down 31.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $3.90 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Builders FirstSource will post 9.62 earnings per share for the current year.

In other Builders FirstSource news, insider Michael Alan Farmer sold 12,500 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $108.97, for a total value of $1,362,125.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 62,122 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,769,434.34. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 1.40% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. BOKF NA bought a new position in Builders FirstSource during the 1st quarter worth approximately $27,000. Benjamin Edwards Inc. bought a new position in Builders FirstSource during the 4th quarter worth approximately $28,000. UMB Bank n.a. bought a new position in Builders FirstSource during the 1st quarter worth approximately $28,000. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV grew its position in Builders FirstSource by 179.0% during the 1st quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV now owns 332 shares of the companys stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 213 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AXS Investments LLC bought a new stake in shares of Builders FirstSource in the 4th quarter worth approximately $37,000. Institutional investors own 94.71% of the companys stock.

Builders FirstSource Company Profile

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Builders FirstSource, Inc engages in the supply and manufacture of building materials, manufactured components and construction services to professional homebuilders, subcontractors, remodelers and consumers. Its products include factory-built roof and floor trusses, wall panels and stairs, vinyl windows, custom millwork and trim, and engineered wood.

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Burlington Stores (NYSE:BURL  Get Rating) had its target price decreased by equities research analysts at Barclays from $221.00 to $213.00 in a report released on Friday, The Fly reports. Barclayss price target suggests a potential upside of 33.87% from the stocks current price.

BURL has been the topic of a number of other reports. Loop Capital upgraded shares of Burlington Stores from a hold rating to a buy rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $220.00 to $225.00 in a research note on Tuesday, April 4th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Burlington Stores from $225.00 to $275.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of Burlington Stores from $245.00 to $214.00 in a research note on Monday, May 8th. OTR Global upgraded shares of Burlington Stores from a mixed rating to a positive rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 1st. Finally, Credit Suisse Group raised their price target on shares of Burlington Stores from $205.00 to $245.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, March 3rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Burlington Stores has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $222.76.

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Burlington Stores Price Performance

NYSE:BURL opened at $159.11 on Friday. Burlington Stores has a 52 week low of $106.47 and a 52 week high of $239.94. The firm has a market cap of $10.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.20, a P/E/G ratio of 0.81 and a beta of 1.10. The firms 50-day simple moving average is $187.48 and its 200 day simple moving average is $200.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.84, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a current ratio of 1.19.

Insider Buying and Selling

Burlington Stores ( NYSE:BURL Get Rating ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 25th. The company reported $0.84 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.93 by ($0.09). The firm had revenue of $2.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.18 billion. Burlington Stores had a return on equity of 43.49% and a net margin of 2.77%. The companys quarterly revenue was up 10.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.54 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Burlington Stores will post 5.9 earnings per share for the current year.

In related news, CMO Jennifer Vecchio sold 47,153 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $209.46, for a total value of $9,876,667.38. Following the transaction, the chief marketing officer now directly owns 55,173 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $11,556,536.58. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In related news, Director William P. Mcnamara sold 500 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $212.26, for a total value of $106,130.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 8,154 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,730,768.04. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CMO Jennifer Vecchio sold 47,153 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $209.46, for a total value of $9,876,667.38. Following the completion of the sale, the chief marketing officer now owns 55,173 shares in the company, valued at $11,556,536.58. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.71% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Burlington Stores

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in BURL. Bank of Montreal Can raised its stake in Burlington Stores by 5.8% in the 1st quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 6,412 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,222,000 after acquiring an additional 349 shares during the period. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund bought a new stake in Burlington Stores in the 1st quarter valued at about $246,000. MetLife Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in Burlington Stores in the 1st quarter valued at about $751,000. Yousif Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Burlington Stores by 8.5% in the 1st quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 1,538 shares of the companys stock valued at $280,000 after acquiring an additional 120 shares during the period. Finally, Raymond James Trust N.A. raised its stake in Burlington Stores by 14.9% in the 1st quarter. Raymond James Trust N.A. now owns 1,471 shares of the companys stock valued at $268,000 after acquiring an additional 191 shares during the period.

Burlington Stores Company Profile

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Burlington Stores, Inc engages in the retail of off-price apparel and home products. It offers womens ready-to-wear apparel, accessories, footwear, menswear, youth apparel, baby, coats, beauty, toys, and gifts. It operates through the following segments: Ladies Apparel, Accessories and Shoes, Home, Mens Apparel, Kids Apparel and Baby, and Outerwear.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has congratulated Azerbaijan on the occasion of May 28 - Independence Day, Trend reports.

He made the remark to the reporters.

"Today and tomorrow are important days for us and the Turkic world," he said.
Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (OTCMKTS:CPCAY  Get Rating) was the recipient of a large decline in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 700 shares, a decline of 75.9% from the April 30th total of 2,900 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 1,600 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.4 days.

Cathay Pacific Airways Trading Up 0.9 %

OTCMKTS:CPCAY traded up $0.04 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $4.69. 1,408 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,956. Cathay Pacific Airways has a 12-month low of $4.50 and a 12-month high of $5.76. The business has a 50-day moving average of $4.79 and a two-hundred day moving average of $5.00.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, HSBC lowered Cathay Pacific Airways from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, March 9th.

About Cathay Pacific Airways

Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a carrier of international passengers and air cargo. The company conducts airline operations principally to and from Hong Kong. It also provides property investment, travel reward program, travel tour operator, financial, aircraft leasing and acquisition facilitation, airline catering, information processing, aircraft ramp handling, laundry and dry cleaning, ground handling, aircraft engineering, cargo carriage, airport ground engineering support and equipment maintenance, and inventory technical management services.

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Teacher Retirement System of Texas lessened its position in shares of Chevron Co. (NYSE:CVX  Get Rating) by 8.8% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 666,578 shares of the oil and gas companys stock after selling 64,497 shares during the quarter. Chevron comprises 0.9% of Teacher Retirement System of Texas portfolio, making the stock its 10th biggest holding. Teacher Retirement System of Texas holdings in Chevron were worth $119,644,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Chevron by 1.3% in the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 14,697,160 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $2,393,138,000 after purchasing an additional 189,762 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its holdings in Chevron by 2.6% during the 4th quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 14,164,343 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $2,542,358,000 after acquiring an additional 354,084 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in Chevron by 7.6% during the 3rd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 12,052,751 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $1,731,739,000 after acquiring an additional 847,841 shares during the period. Nuveen Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Chevron by 1.6% during the 3rd quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 9,953,548 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $1,430,026,000 after acquiring an additional 155,955 shares during the period. Finally, Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its holdings in Chevron by 4.1% during the 3rd quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 7,762,782 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $1,115,281,000 after acquiring an additional 309,277 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 69.37% of the companys stock.

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Chevron Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of NYSE:CVX opened at $154.08 on Friday. The businesss 50-day moving average is $162.26 and its 200 day moving average is $169.36. Chevron Co. has a 1 year low of $132.54 and a 1 year high of $189.68. The firm has a market capitalization of $291.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.32, a P/E/G ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a current ratio of 1.43 and a quick ratio of 1.16.

Chevron Announces Dividend

Chevron ( NYSE:CVX Get Rating ) last announced its earnings results on Friday, April 28th. The oil and gas company reported $3.55 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.41 by $0.14. Chevron had a return on equity of 23.15% and a net margin of 14.74%. The company had revenue of $50.79 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $49.49 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.36 EPS. The firms quarterly revenue was down 6.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that Chevron Co. will post 14.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 12th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 19th will be issued a $1.51 dividend. This represents a $6.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.92%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 18th. Chevrons dividend payout ratio is presently 32.61%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on CVX shares. Truist Financial dropped their price objective on Chevron from $193.00 to $190.00 in a report on Monday, May 1st. Scotiabank upgraded Chevron from a sector perform rating to a sector outperform rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $195.00 to $200.00 in a report on Thursday, April 13th. Raymond James dropped their price objective on Chevron from $212.00 to $208.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Friday, April 14th. BNP Paribas upgraded Chevron from an underperform rating to a neutral rating and set a $200.00 target price for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 4th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered their target price on Chevron from $203.00 to $196.00 in a report on Thursday, May 18th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $194.12.

Chevron Profile

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Chevron Corp. engages in the provision of administrative, financial management, and technology support for energy and chemical operations. It operates through the Upstream and Downstream segments. The Upstream segment consists of the exploration, development, and production of crude oil and natural gas, the liquefaction, transportation, and regasification associated with liquefied natural gas, the transporting of crude oil by major international oil export pipelines, the processing, transporting, storage, and marketing of natural gas, and a gas-to-liquids plant.

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Copper Mountain Mining Co. (OTCMKTS:CPPMF  Get Rating) was the target of a large decline in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 566,200 shares, a decline of 55.8% from the April 30th total of 1,281,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 137,400 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 4.1 days.

Copper Mountain Mining Stock Performance

OTCMKTS:CPPMF traded up $0.04 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $1.67. 19,102 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 82,496. The stock has a market capitalization of $358.01 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.56 and a beta of 2.00. Copper Mountain Mining has a twelve month low of $0.92 and a twelve month high of $2.36. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $1.73 and a 200 day moving average of $1.55. The company has a current ratio of 1.72, a quick ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.71.

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Copper Mountain Mining (OTCMKTS:CPPMF  Get Rating) last announced its earnings results on Monday, March 27th. The company reported ($0.07) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. Copper Mountain Mining had a negative return on equity of 8.37% and a net margin of 7.31%. The firm had revenue of $66.50 million for the quarter.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Copper Mountain Mining Company Profile

Several research firms have recently issued reports on CPPMF. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on Copper Mountain Mining from C$2.20 to C$2.60 in a research note on Friday, April 14th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their target price on Copper Mountain Mining from C$3.00 to C$2.75 in a report on Monday, May 1st. Scotiabank cut Copper Mountain Mining from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating in a report on Tuesday, April 18th. Desjardins lowered Copper Mountain Mining to a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 18th. Finally, TD Securities lowered Copper Mountain Mining to a buy rating in a research report on Monday, April 17th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $2.64.

(Get Rating)

Copper Mountain Mining Corp. engages in the exploration, development and operation of mineral deposits. It holds interest in Copper Mountain Mine, Eva Copper, New Ingerbelle, and Cameron Copper Projects. The company was founded on April 20, 2006 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.

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Craneware plc (OTCMKTS:CRWRF  Get Rating) saw a large drop in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 100 shares, a drop of 98.5% from the April 30th total of 6,500 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 600 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.2 days.

Craneware Price Performance

OTCMKTS:CRWRF remained flat at $18.75 during mid-day trading on Friday. Craneware has a 1 year low of $14.00 and a 1 year high of $18.75. The firms 50 day simple moving average is $16.32.

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About Craneware

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Craneware Plc engages in the provision of software and support services for the healthcare industry. Its services and solutions include patient engagement, charge capture and pricing, claims analysis, revenue recovery and retention, and cost analytics. The company was founded by William Gordon Craig and Keith Neilson on May 19, 1999 and is headquartered in Edinburgh, the United Kingdom.

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Scotiabank upgraded shares of FIBRA Prologis (OTCMKTS:FBBPF  Get Rating) from a sector perform rating to an outperform rating in a report published on Thursday, The Fly reports.

FIBRA Prologis Price Performance

Shares of FBBPF stock opened at $3.42 on Thursday. FIBRA Prologis has a 1-year low of $2.24 and a 1-year high of $3.83. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $3.45 and a 200-day moving average of $3.24.

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Prologis Property Mexico SA de CV is a real estate company. It is engaged in the real estate investment trusts and administration of Class A logistics properties in Mexico. The firm operates through the following geographical segments: Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Tijuana, Reynosa, and Juarez.

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Forterra plc (OTCMKTS:FTTRF  Get Rating) saw a large drop in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 121,000 shares, a drop of 25.7% from the April 30th total of 162,800 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 0 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently  days.

Forterra Price Performance

Shares of FTTRF remained flat at $2.49 during mid-day trading on Friday. Forterra has a 1-year low of $2.49 and a 1-year high of $2.49. The companys 50-day moving average price is $2.49 and its 200-day moving average price is $1.48.

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Forterra plc manufactures and sells masonry products in the United Kingdom. It operates through three segments: Bricks, Blocks, and Bespoke Products. The company offers bricks; aircrete and aggregate blocks; and bespoke products comprising precast concrete flooring, concrete block paving, and chimney and roofing components, as well as other building products under the London Brick, Butterley Brick, Ecostock, Cradley, Thermalite, Conbloc, Bison Precast, Jetfloor, Red Bank, and Formpave brand names.

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Aeva Technologies (NYSE:AEVA  Get Rating) and Spruce Power (NYSE:SPRU  Get Rating) are both small-cap auto/tires/trucks companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, risk and profitability.

Risk & Volatility

Aeva Technologies has a beta of 1.12, meaning that its stock price is 12% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Spruce Power has a beta of 1.21, meaning that its stock price is 21% more volatile than the S&P 500.

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Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Aeva Technologies and Spruce Powers revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Aeva Technologies $4.19 million 60.48 -$147.30 million ($0.69) -1.67 Spruce Power $41.29 million 2.54 -$93.93 million ($0.67) -1.06

Analyst Ratings

Spruce Power has higher revenue and earnings than Aeva Technologies. Aeva Technologies is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Spruce Power, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for Aeva Technologies and Spruce Power, as reported by MarketBeat.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Aeva Technologies 0 3 2 0 2.40 Spruce Power 0 0 0 0 N/A

Aeva Technologies currently has a consensus target price of $3.90, suggesting a potential upside of 239.13%. Given Aeva Technologies higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Aeva Technologies is more favorable than Spruce Power.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

48.8% of Aeva Technologies shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 17.3% of Spruce Power shares are owned by institutional investors. 34.7% of Aeva Technologies shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 9.1% of Spruce Power shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares Aeva Technologies and Spruce Powers net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Aeva Technologies -3,552.75% -42.94% -40.46% Spruce Power -204.40% -12.88% -5.18%

Summary

Spruce Power beats Aeva Technologies on 8 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Aeva Technologies

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Aeva Technologies, Inc., through its frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) sensing technology, designs a 4D LiDAR-on-chip that enables the adoption of LiDAR across various applications. from automated driving to consumer electronics, consumer health, industrial automation, and security application. The company was founded in 2017 is based in Mountain View, California.

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XL Fleet Corp. provides fleet electrification solutions for commercial vehicles in North America. Its products include hybrid electric drive systems are comprised of an electric motor that is mounted onto the vehicle's drive shaft, an inverter motor controller, and a lithium-ion battery pack to store energy to be used for propulsion; plug-in hybrid electric drive system, which are fitted to vehicles. In addition, the company offers vehicle electrification and infrastructure solutions, and charging stations. It serves end-use customer base comprising Fortune 500 corporate enterprises, public utilities, and various municipalities. The company was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

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Quadrant Capital Group LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSEARCA:IWM  Get Rating) by 3.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 12,578 shares of the exchange traded funds stock after selling 400 shares during the quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLCs holdings in iShares Russell 2000 ETF were worth $2,193,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp raised its stake in shares of iShares Russell 2000 ETF by 50.8% during the 4th quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 341,755 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $59,588,000 after buying an additional 115,200 shares during the period. Divergent Wealth Advisors acquired a new position in iShares Russell 2000 ETF in the 4th quarter valued at $234,000. KLK Capital Management LLC raised its stake in iShares Russell 2000 ETF by 2.7% in the 4th quarter. KLK Capital Management LLC now owns 4,455 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $777,000 after purchasing an additional 119 shares during the last quarter. Wealth Dimensions Group Ltd. raised its stake in iShares Russell 2000 ETF by 9.8% in the 4th quarter. Wealth Dimensions Group Ltd. now owns 3,087 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $538,000 after purchasing an additional 275 shares during the last quarter. Finally, American International Group Inc. raised its stake in iShares Russell 2000 ETF by 25.8% in the 4th quarter. American International Group Inc. now owns 45,900 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $8,003,000 after purchasing an additional 9,400 shares during the last quarter.

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iShares Russell 2000 ETF Price Performance

NYSEARCA IWM opened at $176.15 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $174.99 and a 200 day moving average price of $180.63. iShares Russell 2000 ETF has a one year low of $162.50 and a one year high of $201.99.

About iShares Russell 2000 ETF

iShares Russell 2000 ETF (the Fund) is an exchange-traded fund. The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance of the Russell 2000 Index (the Index). The Index is a float-adjusted capitalization weighted index that measures the performance of the small-capitalization sector of the United States equity market and includes securities issued by the approximately 2,000 smallest issuers in the Russell 3000 Index.

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B&M European Value Retail (LON:BME  Get Rating) had its price objective raised by JPMorgan Chase & Co. from GBX 540 ($6.72) to GBX 545 ($6.78) in a research report report published on Wednesday, MarketBeat reports. The firm currently has an overweight rating on the stock.

A number of other research firms also recently issued reports on BME. Royal Bank of Canada raised B&M European Value Retail to an outperform rating and lifted their target price for the company from GBX 460 ($5.72) to GBX 550 ($6.84) in a research report on Monday, March 6th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered B&M European Value Retail to a hold rating and set a GBX 500 ($6.22) price target on the stock. in a research report on Thursday, February 9th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on B&M European Value Retail from GBX 350 ($4.35) to GBX 380 ($4.73) and gave the company an underperform rating in a report on Monday, March 6th. Finally, Barclays restated an overweight rating and set a GBX 485 ($6.03) target price on shares of B&M European Value Retail in a report on Wednesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, B&M European Value Retail currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of GBX 476.43 ($5.93).

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B&M European Value Retail Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of BME stock opened at GBX 462 ($5.75) on Wednesday. The firms fifty day moving average price is GBX 481.33 and its two-hundred day moving average price is GBX 455.30. The company has a current ratio of 1.59, a quick ratio of 0.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 269.40. B&M European Value Retail has a 1 year low of GBX 289 ($3.59) and a 1 year high of GBX 503.40 ($6.26). The firm has a market capitalization of 4.62 billion, a P/E ratio of 1,184.62 and a beta of 1.09.

B&M European Value Retail Company Profile

B&M European Value Retail SA operates general merchandise and grocery stores. The company operates a chain of 701 stores under the B&M brand, and 311 stores under the Heron Foods and B&M Express brands in the United Kingdom; and 107 stores under the B&M brand in France. It also provides employment and property management services.

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Korea Investment CORP cut its holdings in Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY  Get Rating) by 20.7% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,626,109 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after selling 424,252 shares during the period. Korea Investment CORP owned approximately 0.08% of Bristol-Myers Squibb worth $116,999,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in BMY. Boston Partners raised its position in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 103.1% in the 3rd quarter. Boston Partners now owns 10,166,384 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $725,297,000 after acquiring an additional 5,161,226 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. raised its position in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 174,002,852 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $12,369,862,000 after acquiring an additional 3,357,590 shares in the last quarter. Edmp Inc. raised its position in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 6,884.3% in the 4th quarter. Edmp Inc. now owns 3,343,588 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $46,471,000 after acquiring an additional 3,295,715 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 1.6% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 199,886,585 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $14,209,937,000 after acquiring an additional 3,058,491 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cowa LLC raised its position in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 9,777.8% in the 1st quarter. Cowa LLC now owns 1,657,894 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $1,211,000 after acquiring an additional 1,641,110 shares in the last quarter. 75.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts recently commented on the company. StockNews.com assumed coverage on Bristol-Myers Squibb in a research report on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a strong-buy rating for the company. Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on Bristol-Myers Squibb in a research report on Monday, March 6th. They issued a hold rating and a $62.00 target price for the company. 51job reaffirmed a maintains rating on shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb in a research report on Friday, April 28th. Atlantic Securities boosted their target price on Bristol-Myers Squibb from $88.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, February 3rd. Finally, Barclays decreased their target price on Bristol-Myers Squibb from $66.00 to $65.00 in a research report on Monday, May 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $79.43.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Stock Performance

Shares of BMY stock traded down $0.74 during trading on Friday, reaching $63.82. 8,458,979 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 8,769,315. The firms 50-day moving average is $68.27 and its 200 day moving average is $71.65. The company has a market capitalization of $134.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.61, a PEG ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 0.44. Bristol-Myers Squibb has a 1 year low of $63.70 and a 1 year high of $81.43. The company has a current ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.10.

Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY  Get Rating) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 27th. The biopharmaceutical company reported $2.05 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.98 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $11.34 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $11.50 billion. Bristol-Myers Squibb had a return on equity of 51.75% and a net margin of 15.95%. The firms quarterly revenue was down 2.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.96 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Bristol-Myers Squibb will post 8.06 EPS for the current year.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 1st. Investors of record on Monday, April 10th were issued a dividend of $0.57 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, April 6th. This represents a $2.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.57%. Bristol-Myers Squibbs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 66.47%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Bristol-Myers Squibb news, EVP Rupert Vessey sold 50,385 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.06, for a total value of $3,378,818.10. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 47,751 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,202,182.06. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.09% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About Bristol-Myers Squibb

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Bristol Myers Squibb Co engages in the discovery, development, licensing, manufacture, marketing, distribution, and sale of biopharmaceutical products. It offers chemically-synthesized drugs or small molecules and products produced from biological processes called biologics. The company was founded in August 1933 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. Everything is being done with great taste in city of Lachin, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said, while meeting the residents of the Lachin city, Trend reports.

"After we liberated our native lands from the invaders, I said that we would turn Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur into a paradise.

If there is an image of paradise, then this is it. Spectacular nature, majestic mountains, beautiful buildings and houses  everything is being done with great taste so that both people can live comfortably here and the modern face of the city of Lachin is on the same level as the achievements of Azerbaijan," President Ilham Aliyev said.
Quadrant Capital Group LLC lifted its position in Toyota Motor Co. (NYSE:TM  Get Rating) by 45.8% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 9,565 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 3,005 shares during the quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLCs holdings in Toyota Motor were worth $1,306,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of TM. D.A. Davidson & CO. raised its stake in shares of Toyota Motor by 15.6% in the first quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. now owns 1,448 shares of the companys stock worth $261,000 after purchasing an additional 195 shares during the last quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. grew its holdings in Toyota Motor by 34.0% during the first quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 25,609 shares of the companys stock worth $4,616,000 after acquiring an additional 6,493 shares during the period. Blair William & Co. IL acquired a new stake in Toyota Motor during the first quarter worth about $234,000. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Toyota Motor by 9.1% during the first quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 3,740 shares of the companys stock worth $674,000 after acquiring an additional 311 shares during the period. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP grew its holdings in Toyota Motor by 6.6% during the first quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 356,505 shares of the companys stock worth $64,260,000 after acquiring an additional 22,142 shares during the period.

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Toyota Motor Price Performance

Shares of TM opened at $140.08 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58, a current ratio of 1.10 and a quick ratio of 0.93. Toyota Motor Co. has a 12 month low of $130.07 and a 12 month high of $170.37. The stocks 50 day moving average is $138.33 and its two-hundred day moving average is $140.34.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Toyota Motor Company Profile

Several analysts recently commented on the company. StockNews.com raised Toyota Motor from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Friday, May 12th. TheStreet raised Toyota Motor from a c+ rating to a b rating in a report on Monday, February 13th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $1,239.71.

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Toyota Motor Corp. engages in the manufacture and sale of motor vehicles and parts. It operates through the following segments: Automotive, Financial Services, and All Other. The Automotive segment designs, manufactures, assembles and sells passenger cars, minivans, trucks, and related vehicle parts and accessories.

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Agilent Technologies (NYSE:A  Get Rating) had its price target lowered by Robert W. Baird from $174.00 to $144.00 in a research note published on Wednesday morning, The Fly reports. The firm currently has an outperform rating on the medical research companys stock.

Several other brokerages also recently commented on A. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Agilent Technologies in a research note on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of Agilent Technologies from $150.00 to $130.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on Agilent Technologies from $170.00 to $160.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Credit Suisse Group lowered their price objective on shares of Agilent Technologies from $170.00 to $160.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Barclays reduced their target price on shares of Agilent Technologies from $140.00 to $135.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Agilent Technologies has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $151.35.

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Agilent Technologies Price Performance

Shares of Agilent Technologies stock opened at $120.42 on Wednesday. Agilent Technologies has a twelve month low of $112.52 and a twelve month high of $160.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 1.53 and a current ratio of 2.37. The firm has a market cap of $35.61 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.52, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 1.03. The firms 50-day simple moving average is $133.27 and its 200-day simple moving average is $143.85.

Agilent Technologies Dividend Announcement

Agilent Technologies ( NYSE:A Get Rating ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 23rd. The medical research company reported $1.27 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.26 by $0.01. Agilent Technologies had a return on equity of 30.11% and a net margin of 19.19%. The company had revenue of $1.72 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.67 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.13 EPS. The companys revenue was up 6.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Agilent Technologies will post 5.62 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 26th. Stockholders of record on Monday, July 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.225 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 30th. This represents a $0.90 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.75%. Agilent Technologiess dividend payout ratio is 19.82%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Synovus Financial Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Agilent Technologies by 2.3% during the 1st quarter. Synovus Financial Corp now owns 6,751 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $895,000 after purchasing an additional 153 shares in the last quarter. Blair William & Co. IL increased its stake in Agilent Technologies by 7.3% during the 1st quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 28,606 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $3,785,000 after purchasing an additional 1,957 shares in the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Agilent Technologies by 52.1% during the 1st quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 2,334 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $309,000 after buying an additional 799 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Agilent Technologies by 1.1% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 24,531,170 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $3,246,209,000 after buying an additional 261,435 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Zions Bancorporation N.A. boosted its holdings in shares of Agilent Technologies by 10.8% in the first quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. now owns 2,880 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $381,000 after buying an additional 281 shares during the period.

Agilent Technologies Company Profile

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Agilent Technologies, Inc engages in the provision of application focused solutions for life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemical markets. It operates through the following segments: Life Sciences and Applied Markets, Diagnostics and Genomics, and Agilent CrossLab. The Life Sciences and Applied Markets segment offers application-focused solutions that include instruments and software that identify, quantify, and analyze the physical and biological properties of substances and products, as well as the clinical and life sciences research areas to interrogate samples at the molecular and cellular level.

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Cembra Money Bank AG (OTCMKTS:CMBNF  Get Rating) was the target of a large drop in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 59,900 shares, a drop of 32.5% from the April 30th total of 88,700 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 0 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently  days.

Cembra Money Bank Price Performance

OTCMKTS:CMBNF remained flat at C$70.00 during mid-day trading on Friday. The company had a trading volume of 300 shares. The company has a 50-day moving average of C$70.00 and a 200 day moving average of C$70.00. Cembra Money Bank has a 12-month low of C$70.00 and a 12-month high of C$70.00.

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Cembra Money Bank Company Profile

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Cembra Money Bank AG provides consumer finance products and services in Switzerland. The company offers savings products, including medium-term notes and deposit accounts; loans comprising cash, consumer, personal, business, and auto loans; credit card receivables; and leasing services for new and used vehicles, including cars, light commercial vehicles, motorcycles, and caravans, as well as corporate leasing services.

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GeoPark Limited (NYSE:GPRK  Get Rating) was the target of a large growth in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 298,900 shares, a growth of 19.9% from the April 30th total of 249,300 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 161,900 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 1.8 days. Currently, 0.7% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

GeoPark Price Performance

Shares of NYSE GPRK traded down $0.02 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $10.06. The companys stock had a trading volume of 117,373 shares, compared to its average volume of 152,008. GeoPark has a one year low of $9.11 and a one year high of $18.52. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $10.82 and a 200 day moving average price of $12.87. The company has a current ratio of 1.14, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.75. The company has a market cap of $579.66 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 2.71 and a beta of 1.51.

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GeoPark (NYSE:GPRK  Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 8th. The oil and gas company reported $0.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $1.03 by ($0.13). GeoPark had a net margin of 22.35% and a return on equity of 265.35%. The firm had revenue of $231.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $219.43 million. On average, equities research analysts expect that GeoPark will post 2.47 EPS for the current year.

GeoPark Announces Dividend

Institutional Investors Weigh In On GeoPark

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 31st. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 18th will be issued a dividend of $0.13 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 17th. This represents a $0.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.17%. GeoParks dividend payout ratio is currently 14.02%.

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Captrust Financial Advisors bought a new stake in GeoPark in the third quarter worth approximately $103,029,000. abrdn plc boosted its holdings in shares of GeoPark by 9.0% during the 1st quarter. abrdn plc now owns 1,836,872 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $20,867,000 after buying an additional 151,955 shares during the period. INCA Investments LLC boosted its holdings in shares of GeoPark by 15.0% during the 1st quarter. INCA Investments LLC now owns 1,211,586 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $18,101,000 after buying an additional 157,586 shares during the period. Carmignac Gestion boosted its holdings in shares of GeoPark by 13.6% during the 1st quarter. Carmignac Gestion now owns 770,693 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $8,755,000 after buying an additional 92,500 shares during the period. Finally, Millennium Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of GeoPark by 60.0% during the 4th quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 581,105 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $8,978,000 after buying an additional 217,993 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 54.73% of the companys stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, StockNews.com began coverage on shares of GeoPark in a report on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a buy rating on the stock.

About GeoPark

(Get Rating)

GeoPark Ltd. engages in the exploration, development, and production for oil and gas reserves. It operates through the following geographical segments: Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, and Corporate. The company was founded by Gerald Eugene OShaughnessy and James Franklin Park in 2002 and is headquartered in Bogota, Colombia.

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PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund II (NYSE:PCK  Get Rating) was the target of a large decrease in short interest in the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 5,400 shares, a decrease of 15.6% from the April 30th total of 6,400 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 65,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.1 days.

PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund II Trading Up 0.3 %

Shares of PCK stock traded up $0.02 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $5.79. 48,070 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 84,565. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $6.09 and a two-hundred day moving average of $6.37. PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund II has a fifty-two week low of $5.72 and a fifty-two week high of $7.60.

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PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund II Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 1st. Stockholders of record on Thursday, May 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.022 per share. This represents a $0.26 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.56%. This is an increase from PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund IIs previous monthly dividend of $0.02. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, May 10th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund II Company Profile

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in PCK. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. raised its stake in PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund II by 6.5% in the 4th quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 42,531 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $289,000 after purchasing an additional 2,600 shares during the last quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors Inc. raised its stake in PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund II by 6.2% in the 3rd quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 51,222 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $328,000 after purchasing an additional 3,011 shares during the last quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN raised its stake in PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund II by 11.8% in the 4th quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 43,584 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $296,000 after purchasing an additional 4,583 shares during the last quarter. Evoke Wealth LLC grew its holdings in PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund II by 7.7% in the 1st quarter. Evoke Wealth LLC now owns 99,940 shares of the closed-end funds stock valued at $622,000 after buying an additional 7,140 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tortoise Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund II in the 1st quarter valued at $46,000.

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PIMCO California Municipal Income Fund II is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched and managed by Allianz Global Investors Fund Management LLC. It is co-managed by Pacific Investment Management Company LLC. The fund invests in fixed income markets of United States. It seeks to invest in stocks of companies operating across diversified sectors.

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Sendas Distribuidora S.A. (NYSE:ASAI  Get Rating) saw a large decline in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 1,810,000 shares, a decline of 25.5% from the April 30th total of 2,430,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 633,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.9 days.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, Bank of America cut shares of Sendas Distribuidora from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 31st.

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Hedge Funds Weigh In On Sendas Distribuidora

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Sendas Distribuidora by 64.5% during the 2nd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 2,865 shares of the companys stock valued at $39,000 after purchasing an additional 1,123 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its position in shares of Sendas Distribuidora by 2.6% during the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 49,044 shares of the companys stock valued at $792,000 after purchasing an additional 1,243 shares during the last quarter. Ruane Cunniff & Goldfarb L.P. increased its position in shares of Sendas Distribuidora by 1.4% during the 4th quarter. Ruane Cunniff & Goldfarb L.P. now owns 101,069 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,851,000 after purchasing an additional 1,380 shares during the last quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLC increased its position in shares of Sendas Distribuidora by 195.8% during the 4th quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLC now owns 2,242 shares of the companys stock valued at $41,000 after purchasing an additional 1,484 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC increased its position in shares of Sendas Distribuidora by 3.7% during the 1st quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 71,784 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,233,000 after purchasing an additional 2,551 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 4.45% of the companys stock.

Sendas Distribuidora Stock Down 1.7 %

Sendas Distribuidora Increases Dividend

Shares of ASAI stock traded down $0.20 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $11.39. 644,780 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 625,606. The companys 50-day moving average price is $12.99 and its 200-day moving average price is $16.47. The company has a quick ratio of 0.40, a current ratio of 0.81 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.89. The company has a market cap of $3.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.60, a P/E/G ratio of 0.56 and a beta of 0.77. Sendas Distribuidora has a 12 month low of $10.50 and a 12 month high of $20.98.

The business also recently declared a  dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 3rd. Stockholders of record on Monday, May 1st will be given a $0.0506 dividend. This represents a dividend yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 28th. This is a positive change from Sendas Distribuidoras previous  dividend of $0.04. Sendas Distribuidoras payout ratio is currently 10.26%.

About Sendas Distribuidora

(Get Rating)

Sendas Distribuidora SA engages in the retail and wholesale sale of food products, bazaar items, and other products in Brazil. As of March 31, 2022, the company operated 216 stores under the Assai banner, as well as 13 distribution centers. It serves restaurants, pizzerias, snack bars, schools, small businesses, religious institutions, hospitals, hotels, grocery stores, neighborhood supermarkets, and individuals.

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Endava (NYSE:DAVA  Get Rating) had its target price cut by Susquehanna from $112.00 to $104.00 in a report issued on Wednesday, The Fly reports.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. Citigroup lowered their price target on Endava from $95.00 to $85.00 in a report on Monday, May 1st. Cowen lowered their target price on Endava from $95.00 to $90.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 15th. TheStreet cut Endava from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a report on Tuesday, April 25th. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on Endava from $110.00 to $105.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 15th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC lowered their target price on Endava from $100.00 to $90.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $87.75.

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Endava Stock Up 2.5 %

Shares of DAVA opened at $51.11 on Wednesday. Endava has a 52-week low of $48.09 and a 52-week high of $115.86. The company has a market capitalization of $2.90 billion, a PE ratio of 24.81 and a beta of 1.16. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $58.14 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $71.80.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Endava

Endava Company Profile

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its position in Endava by 562.7% during the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 293,835 shares of the companys stock worth $19,740,000 after buying an additional 249,499 shares during the period. New York State Common Retirement Fund increased its stake in Endava by 34.3% in the first quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 50,775 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,411,000 after purchasing an additional 12,959 shares during the last quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans increased its stake in Endava by 2.7% in the first quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 85,443 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,740,000 after purchasing an additional 2,264 shares during the last quarter. SRS Capital Advisors Inc. grew its position in Endava by 22,000.0% during the first quarter. SRS Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 1,326 shares of the companys stock valued at $89,000 after acquiring an additional 1,320 shares during the period. Finally, Silvercrest Asset Management Group LLC boosted its position in shares of Endava by 45.8% in the first quarter. Silvercrest Asset Management Group LLC now owns 145,652 shares of the companys stock worth $9,785,000 after buying an additional 45,758 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 52.15% of the companys stock.

(Get Rating)

Endava Plc engages in the provision of technology services. It focuses on finance, insurance, telecommunications, media, and retail companies. The company was founded by John Edward Cotterell in 2000 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

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Swiss Life Holding AG (OTCMKTS:SWSDF  Get Rating) was the target of a significant increase in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 206,400 shares, an increase of 43.3% from the April 30th total of 144,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 100 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2,064.0 days.

Swiss Life Stock Performance

OTCMKTS:SWSDF remained flat at $593.50 on Friday. The stocks fifty day moving average is $621.29 and its 200-day moving average is $575.30. Swiss Life has a one year low of $408.91 and a one year high of $646.00.

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About Swiss Life

(Get Rating)

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Swiss Life Holding AG engages in the provision of life insurances, pensions, and financial solutions. It operates through the following segments: Switzerland, Germany, France, International, and Asset Managers. The Switzerland, France and Germany segments provide life insurance operations and distribution units.

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Korea Investment CORP lessened its holdings in The Charles Schwab Co. (NYSE:SCHW  Get Rating) by 19.9% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,353,032 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 335,570 shares during the quarter. Korea Investment CORPs holdings in Charles Schwab were worth $112,653,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors have also modified their holdings of the business. Vontobel Holding Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of Charles Schwab by 7.5% during the first quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. now owns 20,822 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,847,000 after purchasing an additional 1,452 shares during the last quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. grew its position in shares of Charles Schwab by 4.3% during the 1st quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. now owns 6,263 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $528,000 after acquiring an additional 259 shares during the period. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Charles Schwab by 25.4% during the 1st quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 13,064 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,101,000 after acquiring an additional 2,648 shares during the period. Brighton Jones LLC grew its position in shares of Charles Schwab by 7.5% during the 1st quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 3,807 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $321,000 after acquiring an additional 267 shares during the period. Finally, Covestor Ltd grew its position in shares of Charles Schwab by 16.6% during the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 1,239 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $104,000 after acquiring an additional 176 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.49% of the companys stock.

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Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently commented on SCHW. Credit Suisse Group upgraded Charles Schwab from a neutral rating to an outperform rating and dropped their target price for the company from $81.50 to $67.50 in a research report on Wednesday, March 15th. Raymond James raised shares of Charles Schwab from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $63.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Monday, May 15th. Citigroup decreased their price target on shares of Charles Schwab from $75.00 to $65.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 29th. Redburn Partners lowered shares of Charles Schwab from a neutral rating to a sell rating in a research note on Thursday, April 20th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered shares of Charles Schwab from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating and decreased their price target for the company from $99.00 to $68.00 in a research note on Thursday, March 30th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Charles Schwab has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $68.73.

Insider Activity at Charles Schwab

Charles Schwab Trading Down 1.1 %

In related news, Chairman Charles R. Schwab sold 77,640 shares of Charles Schwab stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $51.76, for a total value of $4,018,646.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chairman now owns 59,771,278 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,093,761,349.28. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website . In other Charles Schwab news, Chairman Charles R. Schwab sold 77,640 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Monday, May 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $51.76, for a total value of $4,018,646.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman now owns 59,771,278 shares in the company, valued at $3,093,761,349.28. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink . Also, CEO Walter W. Bettinger purchased 50,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 14th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $59.31 per share, with a total value of $2,965,500.00. Following the purchase, the chief executive officer now owns 656,501 shares of the companys stock, valued at $38,937,074.31. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here . In the last quarter, insiders purchased 81,000 shares of company stock worth $4,706,960. Insiders own 6.60% of the companys stock.

Shares of NYSE SCHW traded down $0.57 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $53.67. 11,521,416 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 16,092,053. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $51.79 and a 200 day simple moving average of $69.05. The stock has a market capitalization of $94.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.66, a PEG ratio of 2.76 and a beta of 0.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.39 and a current ratio of 0.39. The Charles Schwab Co. has a twelve month low of $45.00 and a twelve month high of $86.63.

Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW  Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, April 17th. The financial services provider reported $0.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.90 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $5.12 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.13 billion. Charles Schwab had a net margin of 34.82% and a return on equity of 27.83%. The businesss revenue was up 9.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.77 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that The Charles Schwab Co. will post 3.35 earnings per share for the current year.

Charles Schwab Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, May 26th. Investors of record on Friday, May 12th were issued a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, May 11th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.86%. Charles Schwabs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 27.32%.

Charles Schwab Company Profile

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The Charles Schwab Corp. is a savings and loan holding company, which engages in the provision of wealth management, securities brokerage, banking, asset management, custody, and financial advisory services. It operates through the Investor Services and Advisor Services segments. The Investor Services segment includes retail brokerage and banking services to individual investors, and retirement plan services, as well as other corporate brokerage services, to businesses and their employees.

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Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SCHW? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Charles Schwab Co. (NYSE:SCHW  Get Rating).

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e.l.f. Beauty (NYSE:ELF  Get Rating) had its price objective lifted by Truist Financial from $100.00 to $110.00 in a research report sent to investors on Thursday, The Fly reports.

ELF has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Raymond James lifted their target price on e.l.f. Beauty from $80.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, April 20th. Bank of America raised their price target on e.l.f. Beauty from $75.00 to $105.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Monday, April 17th. DA Davidson raised their price target on e.l.f. Beauty from $91.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 19th. Cowen raised their price target on e.l.f. Beauty from $36.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a research note on Thursday, February 16th. Finally, StockNews.com started coverage on e.l.f. Beauty in a research note on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, e.l.f. Beauty presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $87.50.

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e.l.f. Beauty Stock Down 2.8 %

Shares of e.l.f. Beauty stock opened at $101.28 on Thursday. The businesss 50 day simple moving average is $87.30 and its 200 day simple moving average is $69.99. e.l.f. Beauty has a 52-week low of $24.62 and a 52-week high of $104.31. The firm has a market cap of $5.40 billion, a PE ratio of 91.24, a P/E/G ratio of 2.56 and a beta of 1.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 2.08 and a current ratio of 2.81.

Insider Buying and Selling at e.l.f. Beauty

Institutional Investors Weigh In On e.l.f. Beauty

In other news, CEO Tarang Amin sold 30,569 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $72.84, for a total transaction of $2,226,645.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 316,927 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $23,084,962.68. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link . In other news, CEO Tarang Amin sold 30,569 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $72.84, for a total transaction of $2,226,645.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 316,927 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $23,084,962.68. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link . Also, insider Kory Marchisotto sold 15,515 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $72.84, for a total value of $1,130,112.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 143,885 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $10,480,583.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Insiders sold 252,162 shares of company stock valued at $19,624,844 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 8.20% of the companys stock.

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank boosted its position in shares of e.l.f. Beauty by 19.9% during the 4th quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 8,627 shares of the companys stock valued at $477,000 after purchasing an additional 1,432 shares in the last quarter. Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund raised its stake in e.l.f. Beauty by 4.8% during the 3rd quarter. Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund now owns 16,532 shares of the companys stock worth $622,000 after buying an additional 754 shares during the period. Quantbot Technologies LP raised its stake in e.l.f. Beauty by 260.1% during the 3rd quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP now owns 30,350 shares of the companys stock worth $1,141,000 after buying an additional 21,922 shares during the period. Optimum Investment Advisors acquired a new position in e.l.f. Beauty during the 4th quarter worth approximately $55,000. Finally, Teza Capital Management LLC raised its stake in e.l.f. Beauty by 108.6% during the 3rd quarter. Teza Capital Management LLC now owns 14,962 shares of the companys stock worth $563,000 after buying an additional 7,791 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 95.14% of the companys stock.

e.l.f. Beauty Company Profile

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e.l.f. Beauty, Inc is a holding company, which engages in the provision of cosmetic and skin-care products. The company focuses on the e-commerce, national retailers, and international business channels. Its brands include elf, elf skin, WELL People and KEYS soulcare. The company was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Oakland, CA.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. After Heydar Aliyev elected to the post of president, to the present day, Azerbaijan has been asserting itself as an exemplary country in the world, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said, while meeting the residents of the Lachin city, Trend reports.

"This month we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Great Leader Heydar Aliyev, and celebrations will be continued until the end of the year.

It was after he had come to Azerbaijan and become its leader that Azerbaijan was able to stand up. Azerbaijan was able to embark on the path of development and the civil war was stopped. Since October 1993, after he was elected to the post of president, to the present day, Azerbaijan has been asserting itself as a place of stability and as an exemplary country in the world," President Ilham Aliyev said.
V.F. (NYSE:VFC  Get Rating) had its price objective cut by Citigroup from $22.00 to $20.00 in a research report report published on Wednesday morning, The Fly reports.

Several other analysts have also weighed in on VFC. The Goldman Sachs Group raised V.F. from a sell rating to a buy rating and upped their target price for the company from $26.00 to $27.00 in a report on Friday, April 14th. Telsey Advisory Group reissued an outperform rating and issued a $36.00 target price on shares of V.F. in a report on Wednesday, February 8th. UBS Group lowered their target price on V.F. from $24.00 to $22.00 in a report on Tuesday, May 9th. Edward Jones raised V.F. from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Thursday, April 13th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded V.F. from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Saturday, May 20th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, V.F. has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $28.42.

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V.F. Trading Up 3.4 %

NYSE:VFC opened at $18.05 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $7.02 billion, a P/E ratio of 58.23, a PEG ratio of 1.48 and a beta of 1.44. The company has a current ratio of 1.45, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.96. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $21.47 and its 200-day simple moving average is $25.93. V.F. has a 12-month low of $17.43 and a 12-month high of $51.40.

V.F. Dividend Announcement

V.F. ( NYSE:VFC Get Rating ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 23rd. The textile maker reported $0.17 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.14 by $0.03. V.F. had a return on equity of 25.78% and a net margin of 1.02%. The firm had revenue of $2.74 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.72 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.45 earnings per share. V.F.s quarterly revenue was down 3.0% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts anticipate that V.F. will post 2.12 EPS for the current year.

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, June 20th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 12th will be given a dividend of $0.30 per share. This represents a $1.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.65%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 9th. V.F.s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 387.10%.

Insider Transactions at V.F.

In other news, Director Carol L. Roberts bought 7,109 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 15th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $21.07 per share, for a total transaction of $149,786.63. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 7,109 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $149,786.63. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.90% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On V.F.

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Lumature Wealth Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of V.F. by 6.0% in the 1st quarter. Lumature Wealth Partners LLC now owns 4,153 shares of the textile makers stock worth $236,000 after buying an additional 236 shares in the last quarter. Utah Retirement Systems raised its stake in V.F. by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. Utah Retirement Systems now owns 62,551 shares of the textile makers stock worth $1,871,000 after buying an additional 300 shares during the period. CI Investments Inc. raised its stake in shares of V.F. by 3.9% in the 3rd quarter. CI Investments Inc. now owns 8,304 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $248,000 after purchasing an additional 313 shares during the period. Mycio Wealth Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of V.F. by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. Mycio Wealth Partners LLC now owns 26,143 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $782,000 after purchasing an additional 333 shares during the period. Finally, Parallel Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of V.F. by 12.1% in the 4th quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 3,098 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $86,000 after purchasing an additional 334 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 96.89% of the companys stock.

V.F. Company Profile

(Get Rating)

VF Corp. designs, produces, procures, markets and distributes lifestyle apparel, footwear and related products. It operates through the following segments: Outdoor, Active, and Work. The Outdoor segment refers to authentic outdoor-based lifestyle brands including performance-based apparel, footwear, equipment, backpacks, luggage and accessories.

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Manulife Financial Co. (NYSE:MFC  Get Rating) (TSE:MFC)  Zacks Research dropped their Q3 2023 earnings per share (EPS) estimates for Manulife Financial in a note issued to investors on Wednesday, May 24th. Zacks Research analyst D. Chatterjee now forecasts that the financial services provider will post earnings per share of $0.60 for the quarter, down from their previous forecast of $0.62. The consensus estimate for Manulife Financials current full-year earnings is $2.44 per share. Zacks Research also issued estimates for Manulife Financials Q2 2024 earnings at $0.63 EPS.

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Several other analysts also recently weighed in on the company. TD Securities increased their target price on Manulife Financial from C$30.00 to C$32.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 16th. National Bank Financial boosted their target price on shares of Manulife Financial from C$26.00 to C$27.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 16th. Desjardins increased their price target on shares of Manulife Financial from C$26.00 to C$28.00 in a report on Friday, February 17th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of Manulife Financial from C$26.00 to C$28.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a report on Friday, February 17th. Finally, Scotiabank increased their target price on shares of Manulife Financial from C$27.00 to C$34.00 in a research note on Monday, January 30th.

Manulife Financial Price Performance

Institutional Trading of Manulife Financial

MFC stock opened at $18.74 on Friday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $18.93 and a two-hundred day moving average of $18.71. The stock has a market capitalization of $34.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 1.11. Manulife Financial has a 52-week low of $14.92 and a 52-week high of $20.40.

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Bessemer Group Inc. lifted its stake in Manulife Financial by 120.4% during the third quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 6,334 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $100,000 after purchasing an additional 3,460 shares during the period. Scotia Capital Inc. boosted its stake in Manulife Financial by 1.5% in the 4th quarter. Scotia Capital Inc. now owns 12,802,468 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $228,346,000 after buying an additional 190,339 shares in the last quarter. Cantor Fitzgerald L. P. grew its position in Manulife Financial by 46.5% in the third quarter. Cantor Fitzgerald L. P. now owns 126,860 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,988,000 after acquiring an additional 40,240 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Manulife Financial by 50.7% during the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 19,771 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $310,000 after acquiring an additional 6,654 shares during the period. Finally, FDx Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Manulife Financial by 8.4% in the 4th quarter. FDx Advisors Inc. now owns 28,171 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $503,000 after purchasing an additional 2,180 shares during the last quarter. 43.42% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Manulife Financial Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 19th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, May 24th will be issued a dividend of $0.269 per share. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.74%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, May 23rd. Manulife Financials payout ratio is 49.54%.

Manulife Financial Company Profile

(Get Rating)

Manulife Financial Corp. engages in the provision of financial services. It operates through the following segments: Asia, Canada, U.S., Global Wealth and Asset Management, and Corporate and Other. The Asia segment refers to insurance and insurance-based wealth accumulation products in Asia. The Canada segment offers insurance-based wealth accumulation products and banking services in Canada.

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TransDigm Group Incorporated (NYSE:TDG  Get Rating)  Zacks Research cut their Q3 2023 earnings per share (EPS) estimates for TransDigm Group in a report issued on Tuesday, May 23rd. Zacks Research analyst A. Dutta now expects that the aerospace company will post earnings of $5.78 per share for the quarter, down from their previous estimate of $5.89. The consensus estimate for TransDigm Groups current full-year earnings is $21.49 per share. Zacks Research also issued estimates for TransDigm Groups Q4 2023 earnings at $6.18 EPS, FY2023 earnings at $21.49 EPS, Q1 2024 earnings at $4.39 EPS, Q2 2024 earnings at $5.00 EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at $6.18 EPS, FY2024 earnings at $21.04 EPS, Q1 2025 earnings at $5.39 EPS, Q2 2025 earnings at $5.77 EPS and FY2025 earnings at $24.09 EPS.

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A number of other equities analysts also recently commented on the company. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on TransDigm Group from $793.00 to $1,000.00 in a research note on Monday, May 15th. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on TransDigm Group from $767.00 to $960.00 in a research note on Wednesday, May 10th. Bank of America increased their price target on TransDigm Group from $890.00 to $980.00 in a research report on Tuesday, May 16th. Susquehanna increased their target price on TransDigm Group from $750.00 to $820.00 in a research report on Wednesday, May 10th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on shares of TransDigm Group from $800.00 to $900.00 in a report on Wednesday, May 10th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $834.71.

TransDigm Group Price Performance

NYSE TDG opened at $792.49 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $43.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 47.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.46 and a beta of 1.37. TransDigm Group has a 12 month low of $499.63 and a 12 month high of $831.58. The companys fifty day moving average price is $759.72 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $704.25.

TransDigm Group (NYSE:TDG  Get Rating) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, May 9th. The aerospace company reported $5.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $4.98 by $1.00. The company had revenue of $1.59 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.53 billion. TransDigm Group had a negative return on equity of 34.11% and a net margin of 17.57%. TransDigm Groups quarterly revenue was up 20.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.29 EPS.

Insider Activity at TransDigm Group

In other TransDigm Group news, Director W Nicholas Howley sold 6,500 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $701.38, for a total value of $4,558,970.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 21,548 shares in the company, valued at $15,113,336.24. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, CAO Sarah Wynne sold 180 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $720.41, for a total value of $129,673.80. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 700 shares in the company, valued at approximately $504,287. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director W Nicholas Howley sold 6,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $701.38, for a total transaction of $4,558,970.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 21,548 shares of the companys stock, valued at $15,113,336.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 26,074 shares of company stock worth $19,663,423 over the last quarter. 7.18% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On TransDigm Group

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of TDG. ProShare Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of TransDigm Group by 20.2% in the 1st quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 7,703 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $5,677,000 after acquiring an additional 1,295 shares during the last quarter. Legato Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in TransDigm Group by 11.0% during the 1st quarter. Legato Capital Management LLC now owns 926 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $683,000 after buying an additional 92 shares during the period. Toroso Investments LLC lifted its stake in TransDigm Group by 5.1% during the first quarter. Toroso Investments LLC now owns 678 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $500,000 after buying an additional 33 shares in the last quarter. Putnam Investments LLC boosted its holdings in shares of TransDigm Group by 1.6% in the first quarter. Putnam Investments LLC now owns 188,620 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $139,022,000 after buying an additional 3,054 shares during the period. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its position in shares of TransDigm Group by 3.5% in the first quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 190,006 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $140,043,000 after acquiring an additional 6,357 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 96.00% of the companys stock.

TransDigm Group Company Profile

(Get Rating)

TransDigm Group, Inc engages in the production of engineered aerospace components, systems and subsystems. It operates through the following segments: Power and Control, Airframe, and Non-Aviation. The Power and Control segment includes operations that primarily develop, produce and market systems and components that provide power to or control power of the aircraft utilizing electronic, fluid, power and mechanical motion control technologies.

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Apples iPhone maker expects to more than double AI server sales Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. expects to at least double revenue in the second half from the sale of servers intended for training and hosting AI services. The company posted NT$1.1 trillion ($35.8 billion) of revenue from its overall server business in 2022, Chairman Young Liu said at its annual shareholders meeting on May 31. Hon Hai, the listed vehicle of Foxconn Technology Group, is also working with Nvidia Corp. on autonomous driving applications, he said. Nvidia briefly joins $1 trillion valuation club amid AI boom Nvidia Corp briefly joined an elite club of US companies sporting a $1 trillion market value on May 30, as investors piled into the chipmaker that has quickly become one of the biggest winners of the AI boom. The stock's value has tripled in less than eight months, reflecting the surge in interest in artificial intelligence following rapid advances in generative AI, which can engage in human-like conversation and craft everything from jokes to poetry. Nvidia has gained about 200% since October, far outpacing any other member of the broad-market S&P 500 index. Its shares closed 3 percent higher at $401.11 on Tuesday, just a hair's breadth away from the $1 trillion valuation mark after hitting that level in intraday trading. Just four other U.S. companies currently have a valuation of more than $1 trillion - Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc, Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc. China's Baidu launches $145 million venture capital AI fund Chinese search giant Baidu Inc on May 31 said it will set up a venture capital fund of 1 billion yuan ($145 million) to back start-ups focused on content generated by artificial intelligence applications as race to release LLMs increase following the dramatic success of ChatGPT. Biadu will also launch a competition for developers to build applications off its ERNIE large language model (LLM) or integrate the model into their existing products, it added. Almost 80 organisations in China have launched their own LLMs since 2020, with releases this year slightly exceeding those of the United States, a report showed this week. In March, Baidu unveiled Ernie Bot, its own AI-powered LLM. E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd 9988.HK was among the other Chinese companies that followed quickly. South Korea uses AI to measure Kim Jong Un's weight North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is believed to weigh over 140 kg (308 lb) according to an artificial intelligence estimate, a South Korean lawmaker said. -The health of North Korean leaders is typically a tightly held state secret, and speculation about the condition of the current leader Kim, believed to be 39 years old, has been recurring due to his heavy smoking, apparent weight gain and family history of cardiovascular problems. -The lawmaker said Kim was believed to be suffering from a "severe" sleeping disorder, citing an intelligence report that North Korea has been intensively collecting latest medical information on insomnia treatment for its top official.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. We could never agree that Lachin and Kalbajar would have remained in the hands of Armenia forever, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said, while meeting the residents of the Lachin city, Trend reports.

"You, the people of Azerbaijan, and the entire world community knew and know very well that Armenia did not want to vacate our lands of its own free will. It did not want to leave the occupied lands.

Simply for the sake of visibility and in order to deceive international mediators and mislead the international community, they made a proposal that they were ready to return five districts, but Lachin and Kalbajar would have remained in their hands forever. We could never agree to that. I have always said that our territorial integrity must be fully restored. Today, thanks to the heroism of the victorious Azerbaijani Army, we have achieved this. We have defeated the enemy on the battlefield," President Ilham Aliyev said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. UK Ambassador to Azerbaijan Fergus Auld has congratulated the Azerbaijani people on the occasion of May 28 - Independence Day, Trend reports.

He made the remark in the video message on his Twitter page.

"Dear Azerbaijanis! May 28 is one of the most significant days in the history of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan gained independence and created the first secular democratic republic in the East on May 28 1918," he said.
For 646 days, beginning January 8, 1921, the cable rig pounded the ground at a site in Reagan County, digging out 4 feet a day. Finally, on May 27, 1923, the bit reached the dolomitic sands just above the 3,050-foot level, and the driller shut the well down when he saw gas bubbles escaping the casinghead.

Then, early the next morning  May 28, 1923  the Santa Rita No. 1 blew in, spraying oil over the top of the derrick, covering a 250-yard area around the well site and attracting visits from area residents and oil company scouts.

More significantly, the well transformed not only the rural area around it but the entire Permian Basin, proving there was commercial quantities of oil and creating an oil and gas sector that today leads not only the nation but the world. And because the land was leased from the University of Texas, Santa Rita No. 1 brought in $20 million in royalties to the Permanent University Fund before it was plugged in 1990 after 67 years of production. The first royalty payment was $516 and over its lifetime, the Santa Rita produced 2.4 million barrels of oil equivalent. The original equipment used to drill the well sits on the University of Texas at Austin campus.

Today University Lands oversees 10,170 wells on the 2.1 million acres bequeathed to the University of Texas and Texas A&M systems, building the Permanent University Fund into the richest endowment in the country, passing Harvard University last year on the strength of strong commodity prices.

True, the W.H. Abrams well in Mitchell County was the first Permian Basin oil well but most dont know about it, said Todd Houck, chair of Midland Colleges History Department. In the collective consciousness of West Texans, its the Santa Rita that comes to mind, he said.

Theres a romantic feel, an adventurous feel to the story of the well that almost wasnt, he told the Reporter-Telegram in a telephone interview.

Reagan County attorney Rupert Ricker had the initial idea for drilling in West Texas, leasing 431,136 acres in Reagan, Upton, Irion and Crockett counties. But, unable to pay the $43,136 in filing fees, he sold his ideas, maps and preliminary leases to Frank Pickrell, an old army buddy, for $2,500.

Pickrell partnered with Haymon Krupp, an El Paso merchant, to move the project forward. Krupp borrowed the money to pay the filing fee and Texon Oil and Land was incorporated to raise capital. The story goes that Pickrell promised a group of Catholic women he would climb to the top of the derrick and sprinkle rose petals blessed by a New York priest before the well  named after the patron saint of the impossible  was spudded.

He didnt have any sour grapes, Rickers grandson, Prince Ricker, told the Reporter-Telegram in a telephone interview. He was glad to be a part of the story.

Having studied law at the University of Texas Law School, Ricker went on to become an attorney and a judge. His grandson, who said he was only 4 years old when Ricker died, remembers him as being scary, with green eyes and coal black hair.

He marveled at how his great-grandparents had walked all the way from Corsicana to Reagan County, a trek that took about a month, to claim acreage north of Big Lake. His great-grandfather had tried to drill a well on the Ricker Ranch, but it was a dry hole. Of course, oil was later discovered on the ranch and Prince Ricker said it is home to plenty of well pads.

While oil would most likely would have been discovered without the Santa Rita, the well piqued the publics interest, said Houck. It also sent interest in drilling on the 2.1 million acres owned by University Lands skyrocketing, he added.

To date, spurred by the Santa Rita, the Permanent University Fund benefits 21 higher education institutions, six agencies and 397,000 students with a market value of $31 billion. All Texans benefit from the education and health care funded by the 4% to 7% of the PUF value distributed annually.

What a wonderful legacy were left with, and it started because he had a hunch, said Prince Ricker.
MRT File Photo

RigZone, a website that lists Oil & Gas jobs since 1999, will conduct a career fair on June 22 at the Horseshoe Pavilion.

The career fair will allow Midlanders to meet with top industry employers about available career opportunities, according to the Horseshoes website. Positions available at the career fair vary in levels of experience, skill set and sector.
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Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney implored new college graduates to not compromise when it comes to the truth, excoriating her House Republican colleagues for not doing enough to combat former President Donald Trumps lies that the 2020 election was stolen.

In a commencement speech at Colorado College, the Wyoming Republican repeated her fierce criticisms of Trump but steered clear of talking about his 2024 reelection campaign or her own political future.

Cheney, who graduated from Colorado College in 1988, recalled being a political science student walking into a campus building where a Bible verse was inscribed above the entrance that read, Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

After the 2020 election and the attack of January 6th, my fellow Republicans wanted me to lie. They wanted me to say the 2020 election was stolen, the attack of January 6th wasnt a big deal, and Donald Trump wasnt dangerous," Cheney said Sunday in Colorado Springs, connecting her experiences as a student to her work in the U.S. House of Representatives. I had to choose between lying and losing my position in House leadership."

In three terms in office, Cheney rose to the No. 3 GOP leadership position in the House, a job she lost after voting to impeach Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol and then not relenting in her criticism of the former president.

Cheney's speech touched on themessimilar to those she has promoted since leaving office in January: addressing her work on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and standing up to the threat she believes Trump poses to democracy. She also encouraged more women to run for office and blasted one of the election-denying attorneys who worked for Trump after the 2020 election for recent remarks about college students voting.

 Cleta Mitchell, an election denier and adviser to former President Trump, told a gathering of Republicans recently that it is crucially important to make sure that college students dont vote," Cheney said. Those who are trying to unravel the foundations of our republic, who are threatening the rule of law and the sanctity of our elections, know they cant succeed if you vote.

In an audio recording of Mitchell's presentation from a recent Republican National Committee retreat, she warns of polling places on college campuses and the ease of voting as potential problems, the Washington Post reported.

Most students and parents in the audience applauded throughout Cheney's remarks, yet some booed. Some students opposing the choice of Cheney as speaker turned their chairs away from the stage as she spoke.

Cheney's busy speaking schedule and subject matter have fueled speculation about whether she may enter the 2024 GOP presidential primary since she left office. Candidates ranging from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley have calibrated their remarks about Trump, aiming to counter his attacks without alienating the supporters that won him the White House seven years ago.

Though some have offered measured criticisms, no declared or potential challenger has embraced anti-Trump messaging to the same extent as Cheney. She did not reference her plans on Sunday but has previously said she remains undecided about whether she wants to run for president.

Though she would face an uphill battle, Cheney's fierce anti-Trump stance and her role as vice chairwoman of the House committee elevated her platform high enough to call on a national network of donors and Trump critics to support a White House run.

A super PAC organized to support of her candidacy has remained active, including purchasing attack ads on New Hampshire airwaves against Trump this month.

After leaving office and being replaced by a Trump-backed Republican who defeated her in last year's primary, Cheney was appointed to a professorship at the University of Virginia and wrote "Oath and Honor, a memoir scheduled to hit shelves in November.

Two of Cheney's five children as well as her mother are also graduates of the liberal arts college.

Cheney's speaking tour appears to be picking up. She is scheduled to appear Thursday at the Mackinac Policy Conference in Michigan.

___

Metz reported from Salt Lake City.
State Rep. Brooks Landgrafs statement about voting to send the articles of impeachment to the Texas Senate regarding Attorney General Ken Paxton.

--

After thorough review of the evidence provided by investigators and prayerful consideration, I voted today to send forth articles of impeachment regarding Attorney General Ken Paxton for a full trial in the Texas Senate.

To be clear, this was not a vote to oust anybody from office, but vote to send the articles of impeachment to the Texas Senate. The Texas constitutionwhich I took a solemn oath to preserve, protect and defenddoes not allow the House to determine guilt in impeachment proceedings. It authorizes the Senate to hold a public trial with all the rights of due process. The Senate will decide whether or not to remove Attorney General Paxton from office.

The purpose of impeachment proceedings is to protect the State of Texas, not to punish anyone. The articles of impeachment that were approved by the Texas House (with the support of more than 70% of House Republicans) detailed 20 separate charges ranging from abuse of power, multiple violations of Texas law, to misappropriation of public resources and obstruction of justice.

Attorney General Paxton has been a fierce defender of Texas sovereignty, and this vote was not about the good work he has done. But this is Texas, and no one regardless of their past victories or future ambitions should be above the rule of law. I know that my vote wont be popular with everyone, but I voted on principle, not political expediency.

- State Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R-Odessa) on his Facebook page.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has participated in the unveiling of the signs on Heydar Aliyev, Zafar, 28 May, Khosrov bey Sultanov, Zangazur streets in the city of Lachin, Trend reports.

The head of state was informed of the works done in the city of Lachin and Heydar Aliyev Street reconstruction concept.

President Ilham Aliyev attended the unveiling of the sign on 1 December street and viewed conditions in the residential house after its refurbishment.

Then, the head of state met with people who returned to the city of Lachin and presented them house keys.

Later, a Lachin city master plan was presented to President Ilham Aliyev. The head of state laid a foundation stone for Ishgal and Zafar museums, first multi-apartment residential quarter in the city of Lachin, viewed the construction of the sport complex in its finishing stage, attended the ceremony of releasing the East Caucasian turs, falcons into the wild in the Lachin district as part of the reintroduction project in the country as well as over 32 thousand carps, salmons and rainbow trouts into the Hakari river in order to restore water ecosystem in the liberated lands, examined the progress of construction of the cottages designed for the locals and tourists.
CAIRO (AP)  Sudan's military ruler demanded in a letter to the U.N. secretary general that the U.N. envoy to his country be removed, officials said Saturday. The U.N. chief was shocked by the letter, a spokesman said.

The envoy, Volker Perthes, has been a key mediator in Sudan, first during the country's fitful attempts to transition to democracy and then after worsening tensions between military rivals exploded into open fighting last month.

The fighting pits troops loyal to military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan against a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, headed by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.

Burhan's letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was received Friday.

The Secretary-General is shocked by the letter he received this morning, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The Secretary-General is proud of the work done by Volker Perthes and reaffirms his full confidence in his Special Representative.

Dujarric didnt reveal the contents of the letter. A senior Sudanese military official said Burhans letter asked Guterres to replace Perthes who was appointed to the post in 2021.

According to the official, Burhan accused Perthes of being partisan, and that his approach in pre-war talks between the generals and the pro-democracy movement helped inflame the conflict. The talks had aimed at restoring the countrys democratic transition, which was derailed by a military coup in Oct. 2021.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media.

Later Saturday, the U.S. State Department said it supports Perthes and that he continues to have our confidence. A statement by spokesman Matthew Miller said that we express our concern over the letter from the Sudanese Armed Forces calling for his (Perthes) resignation.

Perthes declined to comment on the letter.

Burhans letter came after the U.N. envoy accused the warring parties of disregarding the laws of war by attacking homes, shops, places of worship, and water and electricity installations.

In his briefing to the U.N. Security Council earlier this week, Perthes blamed the leaders of the military and the RSF for the war, saying they have chosen to settle their unresolved conflict on the battlefield rather than at the table.

Burhan accused Perthes last year of exceeding the U.N. missions mandate and of blatant interference in Sudanese affairs. He threatened to expel him from the country.

The ongoing fighting broke out in mid-April between the military and the powerful RSF. Both Burhan and Dagalo led the 2021 coup that removed the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

The fighting turned the capital of Khartoum and the adjacent city of Omdurman into a battleground. The clashes also spread elsewhere in the country, including the war-wracked Darfur region.

The conflict has killed hundreds of people, wounded thousands and pushed the country to near collapse. It forced more than 1.3 million out of their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, or to neighboring nations.

Sexual violence including rape of women and girls, a common practice in Sudan's wars and political upheavals, were reported in Khartoum and Darfur since the fighting began.

The Combating Violence Against Women Unit, a government-run group, said Friday it received reports of at least 24 cases of sexual attacks in Khartoum, and 25 other cases in Darfur.

The unit, which tracks violence against women, said most survivors reported that the attackers were in RSF uniform and in areas of Khartoum controlled by RSF checkpoints.

The RSF did not respond to a request for comment.

The warring parties have agreed on a weeklong cease-fire, brokered by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. However, the truce, which is scheduled to expire Monday night, did not stop the fighting in parts of Khartoum and elsewhere in the county.

Residents reported sporadic clashes Saturday in parts of Omdurman, where the armys aircraft were seen flying over the city. Fighting was also reported in al-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur.
Staff Reporter

Richelle obtained a bachelor of arts degree in mass communications from the Far Eastern University in Manila, the Philippines. She was a junior reporter for Marianas Variety from 2009 to 2010, and from 2014 to 2015. In the Maldives, she worked as a news reporter and marketing executive. In her free time, shes a painter, pianist, and mom baker.
HAGATNA (The Guam Daily Post)  Frustrations are mounting over the ongoing lack of water service for many residents following Typhoon Mawar.
HAGATNA (The Guam Daily Post)  Speaker Therese Terlaje has called an emergency session for Tuesday morning to debate two measures aimed at ad
Biden-Harris administration response continues in Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

with whole community support of Federal efforts following impacts from Typhoon Mawar
"I am writing this letter to express my concerns with the absurd costs for one to travel to and from Guam, especially as we face the aftermath of major natural disaster in Guam, which will surely impact our economic activity in an adverse manner over the coming weeks and months," Moylan wrote in the letter to United.

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TEL AVIV (Reuters)  Tens of thousands of Israelis joined protests across the country, now entering their 20th week, on Saturday against Prime
HAGATNA (The Guam Daily Post)  Guam Del. James Moylan is seeking more information on flights into and out of Guam, including the reasons beh
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. The second Karabakh war is our glorious history, said President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as he met with Lachin natives, Trend reports.

"Armenia is in a completely helpless state. It is still unable to heal the pain and wounds of the bitter defeat.

The reality we live in today emerged on the basis of the results achieved after the Second Karabakh war," President Ilham Aliyev said
Reporter

Andrew Roberto was raised his whole life on Saipan. He graduated from Saipan Southern High School, holds a degree from Northern Marianas College, and a BA in English from the University of Guam. He once worked for KUAM, UNO Magazine, and the Guam Daily Post.
Asiana Airlines' Airbus A321 plane, of which a passenger opened a door on a flight shortly before the aircraft landed, is pictured at an airport in Daegu, South Korea May 26, 2023. Yonhap via REUTERS
HAGATNA (The Guam Daily Post)  The Guam Fire Department is currently searching for two swimmers who were swept out by strong waves at differe
"We have had enough and it is high time something changed," said Janko, a protester from Belgrade.

Pull Quote
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has unveiled the 1 December Street sign in the city of Lachin, Trend reports.

The head of state was informed about the works to be done and conditions to be created in the street.

The street name is connected with the date when the city was liberated by diplomatic ways. The street is 1566 long and 10 meters wide.

President Ilham Aliyev unveiled the street name sign.

Then, the head of state viewed a renovated house located on the street.
BELGRADE (Reuters)  Tens of thousands braved rain and wind in Belgrade on Saturday in an anti-government protest over two mass shootings that
Attending college can get pricey, so youll want to avoid costs from other places  like your bank account.

More than 668,000 students paid nearly $15.5 million in bank account costs in a year, an average of almost $26 per person, according to a 2022 report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Whats worse is that some colleges endorse costly bank accounts as part of their partnerships with banks.

Do not assume that because your college or university partners with a bank, that bank is offering you a good deal, Aaron Klein , senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, said in an email.

Before heading off to college, consider what factors you need in a college checking account. Theres no grade on this, but the wrong bank can cost you.

Checking accounts work similarly wherever you bank, but some features vary or arent available at every bank, including branches, highly rated mobile apps, certain account fees and perks such as direct deposit up to two days early.

Decide a few things going in, like whether you need a bank that offers joint bank accounts to share finances with a parent and whether youll want credit cards or other loan options at the same place.

The biggest banks generally have robust apps and big branch networks, but their account fees can be high . In contrast, regional banks and credit unions  the not-for-profit counterpart to banks  might have lower fees and more of a community focus, but they have fewer branches and might lag in technology. Online banks can have minimal fees and high-quality apps, but they often lack a branch network and the ability to deposit cash isnt guaranteed. Nationwide ATM access is usually available at credit unions and online banks through shared networks, but they might not be as easy to spot as big bank ATMs.

Just dont limit your options to only accounts marketed as college checking. You might miss out on banking features youd want.

Watch out for fees on monthly maintenance, ATM use and overdrafts. You can often avoid a monthly fee, such as $5 or $10, by having a certain minimum balance or direct deposits into your account  or by finding a checking account without monthly fees. Using an ATM to withdraw cash outside your banks network can trigger a fee of around $2 to $3 from your bank, plus a fee from the ATM operator. And overdraft or nonsufficient funds fees can be $30 or more per transaction, which will kick in if a payment drops your account balance below zero.

Carla Sanchez-Adams, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, recommends looking into Bank On certified accounts, which dont have overdraft or NSF fees. Transactions that would bring an account balance below zero get declined instead. Plus, these accounts can have screening practices inclusive of those with less banking history.

You might have to pay fees for some services, such as getting a checkbook. Not every account is going to be completely free, says David Rothstein, senior principal at Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund, who manages Bank On, CFE Funds national platform that promotes financial inclusion.

This year, there have been three bank collapses. While bank failures are rare, federal deposit insurance protects your money. If a bank fails, you get up to $250,000 of your money back. Banks get insured through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and credit unions have the equivalent protection through the National Credit Union Administration.

However, its more complicated with bank accounts at newer financial tech firms, such as Chime and Current , as well as with debit cards at firms like Cash App and PayPals Venmo. These companies typically partner with banks to provide pass-through FDIC insurance in their accounts. But if these companies fail, getting your money isnt as straightforward as with a bank. This uncertainty is one reason why tech firms accounts arent eligible to be Bank On accounts.

Its true that a lot of the fintechs have a relationship with banks behind the scenes, but thats never really been tested, Rothstein says.

Beyond FDIC insurance, look for multifactor authentication in banks mobile apps to boost account security. Also, confirm that a bank provides monthly statements and spending alerts so you can monitor transactions and flag any that appear fraudulent.

Once you have a checking account for college, consider a savings account for money you wont need to spend next month. See if your bank offers secured credit cards or credit builder loans, which can be good steps to establishing credit history. Secured credit cards usually require a cash deposit upfront equal to your borrowing amount, while credit builder loans entail making all payments before receiving the full loan amount.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  A timeline of events that have led to three-term Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, 60, being impeached Saturday. The vote by the GOP-controlled Texas House of Representatives also means Paxton is immediately suspended from office.

2015

Paxton takes office as attorney general after more than a decade in the Texas Legislature. He is indicted on felony securities charges by a grand jury in his hometown near Dallas, accused of duping investors in a tech startup. He pleads not guilty to two felony counts, but there has still been no trial. Paxton opens a legal defense fund and accepts $100,000 from an executive whose company was under investigation by his office for Medicaid fraud. An Arizona retiree donates $50,000 to the fund, and Paxton later hires the donor's son for a high-ranking job that ends with his firing after the man showed child pornography in a meeting.

2020

Several of Paxtons top aides tell the FBI about concerns that the attorney general was misusing the powers of his office to help wealthy donor and Austin real estate developer Nate Paul with a troubled real estate empire. The FBI opens an investigation and searches Pauls home, but he has not been charged. Paxton and his attorneys have denied wrongdoing. Paxton, who is married to a state senator and has gained a national profile as a crusader for conservative Christian legal causes, tells staff members that he had an affair with a woman who, it later emerged, worked for Paul. In a deposition, Paul says he hired the woman at Paxtons recommendation. The eight aides who reported Paxton to the FBI are fired or quit, and four later sue under Texas whistleblower law.

FEBRUARY 2023

Paxton agrees to settle the whistleblower lawsuit for $3.3 million of taxpayers' money, which requires legislative approval. Justice Department officials in Washington take over the corruption investigation, removing the case from federal prosecutors in Texas.

MAY 23, 2023

Members of a Republican-led House Committee on General Investigating reveal a corruption investigation into Paxton has been going on quietly for months.

MAY 24, 2023

The committee's investigation accuses Paxton of committing multiple crimes in office  including felonies. The accusations cover myriad accusations related to his dealings with Paul, including alleged attempts to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and improperly issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul, and firing, harassing and interfering with staff who reported what was going on. The bribery charges stem from Paul allegedly employing the woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help, and Paul allegedly paying for expensive renovations to Paxtons home. Paxton broadly denies any wrongdoing. The committee ended Wednesdays hearing without acting on the findings and without saying whether a recommendation to impeach or censure Paxton was possible.

MAY 25, 2023

The committee recommends in a unanimous vote that the states top lawyer be impeached on 20 articles including bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust.

MAY 26, 2023

The House committee said it was Paxtons own request for state funds to settle the whistleblower lawsuit that brought about the impeachment recommendation. The $3.3 million payout must be approved by the House and Republican Speaker Dade Phelan has said he doesnt think taxpayers should foot the bill. Paxton calls on his supporters to protest when the full House of Representatives takes up impeachment proceedings against him. He decried the impeachment proceedings as political theater that will inflict lasting damage on the Texas House, adding to his earlier claims that its an effort to disenfranchise the voters who returned him to office in November.

MAY 27, 2023

The 149-member Texas House of Representatives votes to impeach Paxton. In Texas, an impeached official is automatically suspended from office pending a trial in the Senate.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. President Ilham Aliyev met with people who returned to the city of Lachin and presented them house keys, Trend reports.

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has met with the people who returned to the city of Lachin and presented house keys to them.

The head of state addressed meeting.

Address by President Ilham Aliyev

- It is Independence Day today. Dear people of Lachin, first of all, I would like to congratulate you and all the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of Independence Day. It is a double holiday today because natives of Lachin have returned to their hometown after a long break, and I want to congratulate both you and the entire Azerbaijani people on this occasion.

The fact that we organized this meeting on May 28 carries a great symbolic meaning. Today, the independent state of Azerbaijan has sufficiently strengthened its global standing. At the same time, the independent state of Azerbaijan is capable of achieving any result today.

The new face of the new city of Lachin today shows again how strong our independence is. Because in a matter of seven to eight months, most of the city has been completely rebuilt and is now at your disposal. The first 20 families have been in Lachin since yesterday, and many more will arrive by the end of June. So about 4,000 people will live in Lachin, perhaps even more at the first stage.

In total, 700 buildings were built in seven to eight months, of which 620 were individual residential buildings, nine apartment buildings and a total of 144 apartments. Thus, a total of 764 families can live in the city of Lachin. But this is not the end of our program yet. The Master Plan of the city of Lachin has been prepared and will be presented today. We have a very clear idea about the work to be done in the city of Lachin in the second phase, so I think that even more people will be able to live in Lachin by the end of the year.

In parallel with this, a medical center is being prepared. A school will be ready for the new school year, all other necessary conditions are being created. In the presentation shown to me yesterday, I saw that dozens of enterprises are to be established as well. Agricultural and industrial parks are already being established, more than 1100 jobs will be created. In other words, all the conditions for both living and working here are being created and, as you can see, the city of Lachin has become one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

After we liberated our native lands from the invaders, I said that we would turn Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur into a paradise. If there is an image of paradise, then this is it. Spectacular nature, majestic mountains, beautiful buildings and houses  everything is being done with great taste so that both people can live comfortably here and the modern face of the city of Lachin is on the same level as the achievements of Azerbaijan.

I should also note that all our cities and villages being created in the liberated lands are at about this level. Yesterday, I took part in the groundbreaking ceremony for newly created villages in Kalbajar and Lachin districts. So extensive construction work is underway in all our liberated areas. In other words, this once again shows that we  the owners of these lands  have come here to build and create. The contemptible enemy kept destroying our cities and villages for 30 years, left them in ruins, did not live here and did not allow us to live here either. In just two and a half years, we have settled the first group of former IDPs in the villages of Aghali and Talish, and the third place of residence for the former IDPs is the city of Lachin. By September this year, we will completely build the village of Zabukh and put it at the disposal of the people of Zabukh. As you know, the villages of Zabukh and Sus were liberated from the invaders on the same day as the city of Lachin, and hard work is being done there. So we will provide our citizens with normal conditions by doing more and more every year both in Lachin and all other districts.

The occupation of Lachin region was a great tragedy for all of us, first of all, for you, because you could no longer live in your native land, and also for the newly-independent Azerbaijan. Because the occupation of Lachin created a geographical link between Armenia and the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Lachin district was occupied in May 1992, just 10 days after Shusha. It happened less than a year after the restoration of our independence. The loathsome enemy had already started open aggression against us. It is a pity that neither the current leadership of Azerbaijan nor the opposition forces aspiring to leadership could realize their responsibility. In many cases, both committed betrayal. Insidious political intentions were behind the handover of Lachin to the Armenians. The PFA-Musavat duo aspired to power. In order to seize power by any means, they resorted to the most ugly acts and almost handed over Shusha and Lachin to the enemy. Notice that these dates, i.e. the liberation of Lachin and the timing of our meeting here today, also have a symbolic meaning. In May, Lachin was occupied, and the people of Lachin have returned to Lachin also in May  true, after 31 years, but we are back.

In April 1993, Kalbajar was occupied as a result of the treachery of the forces that were aspiring to power and had already seized it. In April, we fully restored our territorial integrity by establishing a border checkpoint on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border in the direction of Lachin. So, there is a link between these dates. At that time, Azerbaijan did live as an independent country but could not conduct an independent policy. Azerbaijan was weak, powerless, and the destructive processes taking place in the country had called into question the newly-gained independence. There was an economic crisis, a political crisis and a military crisis in the country, there was struggle for power, almost a war, and civil war was raging. The cause of all that was the disgraceful activity of the Popular Front and Musavat duo.

This month we celebrated the 100th anniversary of of Great Leader Heydar Aliyev, and celebrations will be continued until the end of the year. It was after he had come to power in Azerbaijan and become its leader that Azerbaijan was able to rise. Azerbaijan was able to embark on the path of development and the civil war was stopped. Since October 1993, after he was elected to the post of president, to the present day, Azerbaijan has been asserting itself as a place of stability and as an exemplary country in the world. At that time, the situation was completely different. Of course, after the occupation of Lachin, Kalbajar and Shusha, the Armenian armed forces gained a great strategic and military advantage and were able to occupy our other lands as well.

You know very well that I was trying to end this occupation through negotiations for many years. The negotiations I held for almost 20 years are evidence of that. However, you, the people of Azerbaijan, and the entire world community knew and know very well that Armenia did not want to vacate our lands of its own free will. It did not want to leave the occupied lands. Simply for the sake of visibility and in order to deceive international mediators and mislead the international community, they made a proposal that they were ready to return five districts, but Lachin and Kalbajar would have remained in their hands forever. We could never agree to that. I have always said that our territorial integrity must be fully restored. Today, thanks to the heroism of the victorious Azerbaijani Army, we have achieved this. We have defeated the enemy on the battlefield. It would have been better if it had happened through negotiations, but I said that we should be ready for every option and that every single one of us should bring the day of liberation closer, and we brought it closer. While the negotiations were underway, we strengthened our economy, and today we are not dependent on anyone. We are one of a handful of countries in the world that are economically independent. We have increased our political power. Azerbaijan is a country to be reckoned with today. At least in matters of regional security and development, no initiative can be implemented without Azerbaijan's consent. I am saying at least regionally, but Azerbaijan's position on many global issues is considered an important position today.

We have built a strong army. This army crushed the enemy in 44 days, brought them to their knees and expelled them from our lands. We have raised a wonderful young generation  a patriotic and well-educated young generation was brought up in the national spirit. These young people liberated our lands. Young people from these regions who had not seen Lachin, Kalbajar and other lands under occupation were ready to die. They were facing death. May Allah rest the souls of all our martyrs in peace. We will never forget their heroism. Thanks to their heroism and bravery, we are sitting here and life is reviving in these lands today.

The second Karabakh war is our glorious history. The period that has passed since the second Karabakh war is also very important for the future. Because when the war ended, it is possible to say that the mediators who had dealt with this issue at the time did not even know what they would be doing in the future. Armenia is in a completely helpless state. It is still unable to heal the pain and wounds of the bitter defeat. They have sustained great psychological damage, and this is natural. Therefore, Azerbaijan showed leadership here again. The reality we live in today emerged on the basis of the results achieved after the Second Karabakh war. We said that there is no need for the services of the OSCE Minsk Group. It was actually a shot in the eye. We said that a peace treaty should be signed between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the basis of the principle of territorial integrity. By taking the necessary steps, we achieved what we wanted today in the territories under the control of the Russian peacekeeping mission in Karabakh. On April 23, we settled the issue once and for all by setting up a border checkpoint on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border. We have resolved the issue of territorial integrity once and for all. Our territorial integrity had already been restored as a result of the second Karabakh war. However, the border checkpoint was the last point where there was still uncontrolled movement from Armenia to the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and in the opposite direction. The movement is still there, but under full control.

So we were the ones who created all these realities. As a result of this, after the second Karabakh war, we created a new reality both on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border and in the territories under the control of the Russian peacekeeping forces, and by establishing a border checkpoint, we forced Armenia to repeat what we said. I said this after the second Karabakh war  a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia is possible if they say: Karabakh is Azerbaijan! Only three to four years ago, they were saying that Karabakh is Armenia and believed that they could keep our lands under occupation forever. They believed that we, the Azerbaijanis, would come to terms with this situation. I said no and we would never come to terms with that. I told them, their patrons and those who support them today that we would never come to terms with that. Life has once again shown that we do what we say. The statement made by the Armenian leadership a few days ago is actually a repetition of what I said a few years ago: Karabakh is Azerbaijan!

Now, after Armenia has recognized our territorial integrity, there are practically no serious obstacles in the way of a peace treaty. I am sure that if Armenia does not cheat again and does not change its position, a peace treaty can be signed in the near future. If it is signed, it is very good, but even if it is not signed, the state of Azerbaijan cannot face any problems because of that. Because we are the stronger side, we are the ones who have a strong position at the negotiating table, we are the ones who have a strong position on the border. Even if the peace treaty is not signed, we will live comfortably and safely.

I remember very well and you probably remember as well that, on my birthday on December 24, 2011, I met the people of Lachin in Takhtakorpu settlement of Aghjabadi district. I usually don't celebrate my birthdays, including birthdays that are considered jubilee. I celebrated my 60th birthday on Jidir Duzu plain and my 50th birthday with the people of Lachin in Takhtakorpu settlement. At that time, a settlement consisting of more than 550 houses was built for the people of Lachin in Takhtakorpu settlement. In that meeting, I said that the day would come when we would build even more beautiful houses for you in Lachin, and this day has come. Only 11 years have passed since that date, and we are already meeting with you in the city of Lachin. There cannot be a bigger happiness than that. I am sure we are all happy today. We are filled with optimism. We live with pride because the second Karabakh war is a source of eternal pride for us. This Victory will be with us forever and the younger generation and children will live with the pride of this Victory.

It is now time to build. I want to say again that today's face of the city of Lachin  although I do acknowledge that this is only the first stage  shows that we are a nation of builders. It shows that this land is ours. This has always been our land. The hated enemy together with its foreign patrons simply took advantage of our weakness, took advantage of the lack of power, occupied these lands and wanted to live here forever.

Let me also inform you that Armenians were illegally settled in Lachin and Kalbajar districts. This is considered a war crime by international conventions. However, I saw their living conditions when I came here in September. The conditions they had created for themselves are beyond any comparison. They are probably the only ones to know how it is possible to live in such conditions.

Immediately after we returned to Lachin, we started the construction work. I came here in September and at the end of September we already got down to work.

You know perfectly well that when the second Karabakh war ended, a large part of Lachin, Kalbajar and Aghdam districts was still under occupation. During the war, I repeatedly said that the Armenian leadership should specify a date when it would withdraw its troops from our lands, and only then can we stop the war. After Shusha was liberated from occupation along with many villages, Armenia signed the act of capitulation. According to the agreement reached, there should be a road connecting the Karabakh region where the Armenians live with Armenia, and Russian peacekeeping forces should exercise control over that road. So, the city of Lachin was still effectively under occupation. As a result of the negotiations held until November 10, I insisted that a new road be built, and after the new road was built, the city of Lachin should be returned to us. A period of three years was agreed to determine the route of the road. We not only agreed this, but also built this road in a year and a half, and at the beginning of August, we sent a notice to the Armenians living in Lachin and to the Russian peacekeeping forces that we were coming, so please leave. After that, we were told to wait for some time, until August 25, after which they would vacate Lachin and the villages of Zabukh and Sus. I agreed, because 20 days is not much of a difference, i.e. we did not want to shed blood again. So, on August 25, the last Armenian invader or illegal resident left Lachin and we returned on August 26.

This shows again that every inch of this land is dear and native to us. Every city and every village is ours. Land cannot be given away. During the negotiations, there were different stages and different moments. There were pressures and threats. Some made great effort to make us come to terms with this occupation. However, our unbending position and resolve overpowered all those efforts. I was saying that there could be no compromise. Five districts should be returned to us and two should remain under Armenian control forever  this is impossible. We were not going to compromise a single village, and we proved it. The border checkpoint established on the border on April 23 should be a lesson for the Armenians living in the Karabakh region today. Unfortunately, they are still relying on someone, thinking that someone will save them in the future, someone will fight a war with Azerbaijan in the future. This is all nonsense. During the second Karabakh war, we showed a strong determination, and if no-one ventured to intervene at that time, who will come and fight against us for the Armenians after we regained all these lands? First of all, it is illegal. We are in our native land, and the Karabakh region where Armenians live today is our ancestral and legitimate land. We simply think that they will understand everything and will come to live under the flag of Azerbaijan. We are waiting for that. Therefore, we are not taking any other steps, and I think that the events of the last two and a half years should wake them up from this dream.

For the past two and a half years, all our plans have been implemented in a sequential and gradual manner. We are about to take the last step in our plans, and that step will be taken  I have no doubt about that. I am telling them again from here, from the land of Lachin which they had been exploiting for many years and were engaged in illegal settlement, that their book is closed. The book Miatsum is closed, the book of separatism is closed. The dream of independence follows the path of the status. As for the status, we sent it to where it belongs during the second Karabakh war. Therefore, there is only one option left  to obey the laws of Azerbaijan, be a loyal and normal citizen of Azerbaijan, throw the false state attributes in the trash, and dissolve the parliament  as if there is a parliament there, as if there is a president, as if there is a minister, all this is funny. We are simply being patient. However, everyone knows perfectly well that we have all the opportunities to carry out any operation in that region today. Therefore, the parliament should be dissolved, the element calling himself president should surrender, all ministers, deputies and others should give up their positions. Only in that case can a concession be made to them. Only in that case can we talk of an amnesty. I should also state that international organizations have actually completely agreed with our position of late. I already see this during various meetings. Why do they agree with us? Because we are right and because we don't depart from our position. This is why no one talks about independence, autonomy or anything else these days. The latest messages we have been receiving are what will be the fate of the leadership there. Are they liable to an amnesty or not? I say that it is necessary to look at that. First, we sent a delegation there. My representative went and held the first meeting with them and then we invited them to Baku to talk. They refused to do that. After that, we invited them to Baku for the second time, i.e. representatives of the Armenian minority living in Karabakh. They refused that too. There will be no third invitation. Either they will bend their necks and come themselves or things will develop differently now. Therefore, they can count on an amnesty only if they voluntarily put aside all their false duties and apply for Azerbaijani citizenship. We will look at that. My word is final, and everyone knows that both in Azerbaijan and the rest of the world, including Armenia. We do what we say. Not a single word of ours, as they say, has been left in the air and never will be in the future either. If I say that amnesty can be an option, they should not miss this opportunity. They have missed many opportunities, a number of opportunities, and each time, as they say, we had to knock them over to bring them to their senses.

Some time ago, two of our soldiers went astray and found themselves in the territory of Armenia where they were tortured. I must inform you that after the second Karabakh war, representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan reached an agreement that if someone goes astray  because this possibility is very high, especially in winter months, you know that the climate here is very harsh, there are mountains, valleys, and you can get lost  if such a situation occurs, such people should be returned within two days at most. We were doing exactly that. We detained them for a maximum of two days, interrogated and returned them  both civilians and soldiers. Look what they did? First of all, they brutally beat up, handcuffed, humiliated and filmed the moment of beating of our soldiers who had gone astray. After that, they arrested and already sentenced them. How can this be possible? At the trilateral meeting in Brussels on May 14, I stated that this is unacceptable. If you break this agreement, you will suffer the consequences. Release our soldiers immediately! But instead, they were sentenced to 11 years. There was no trial, no lawyer, no judge and no media representatives. Can there be such a court? This is illegal. This is why I am saying this today before it is too late. As long as Armenia has legal independence, albeit not de facto, as long as the concept of Armenia's borders is accepted in a certain sense. They must accept our terms. If they don't want delimitation, then there will be no delimitation. Whatever will happen there, the border will be where we say it should be. They know that we can do it. No one will help them, not the retired French policemen from Europe, not others, not anyone else.

Therefore, the delimitation should be conducted on our conditions, i.e. on the basis of fair conditions. The peace treaty should be based on international conditions, our road to Nakhchivan should be opened, and representatives of the Armenian army still rooted in Karabakh should be removed from there. These are our conditions. I am saying these conditions here in the city of Lachin so that everyone can see that we are here today and we will be here forever. Let them know that we can see Armenian villages from here. We can see those villages, so they shouldnt forget about that.

Dear natives of Lachin, you lived in suffering for many years, both physically and morally, in difficult conditions, in dormitories, wagons and tent camps. Even worse than that was moral suffering. In other words, the pain of not being able to return to your native land is terrible. Everyone should and does understand this. Many times, when I met the displaced people from Lachin and other regions that were occupied at the time, I tried to encourage them and told them that we would return, we would definitely return! I could see that hopes had been a little low lately, which was natural  after all, it was 30 years. This is understandable. But I could not tell when we would return. How could I say? I knew that we would return, and if you watch the video recording of the meeting 11 years ago, you will see that I said that we would return and more beautiful houses would be built in Lachin. And, so, it happened. Therefore, the conditions for you and for former IDPs like you should be the best, the most beautiful, so that you can live comfortably here after long painful years. We will try to provide it in the future too.

I congratulate you both on your return and on the occasion of the holiday, and wish you good health and success. Thank you.

x x x

Then, the head of state presented the keys to the residents returning to the city of Lachin.

Residents expressed their gratitude to the head of state.

Resident Elbrus Sadigov: Mr. President, we are glad to see you. I have been dreaming of hugging and kissing you. Thank God, my dream has come true. I am very happy. May Allah bless you! We are proud of you.

President Ilham Aliyev: Thank you.

Resident Isag Musayev: Mr. President, I also say, Thank you very much! I also congratulate you. I wish you good health, a long life and good health to our soldiers, and Allah mercy on our martyrs. I wish the disabled and veterans a speedy recovery. Thank you for giving us this day.

President Ilham Aliyev: Thank you.

Elbrus Sadivov: Mr. President, after 31 years of occupation, I am greeting you in the city of Lachin, which you have turned into a paradise, and I say You are welcome! We have lived with this longing for 31 years. Thank God, we have returned to our land. When I came here in the evening, I felt a sense of pride, such a wonderful Lachin, construction work, landscaping work was done quickly thanks to you, and we feel very proud. You have returned our lands. You have given us life. As an elder, I express my gratitude to you on behalf of the elders of Lachin and all the people of Lachin. May Allah bless you. Mr. President, during the 44-day war, we were watching all your speeches and information. We lost our martyrs. May Allah rest their souls in peace.

President Ilham Aliyev: Amen

Elbrus Sadigov: May Allah grant health and happiness to our veterans. In a short time, you liberated our lands, you have restored the dignity of 50 million Azerbaijanis. May Allah bless you. I wish you good health and happiness. Today we have three wonderful holidays  Independence Day, the day of our return to Lachin and the day of presidential election in Turkey. We pray to Allah to see our friend, our brother, our pillar, our support, our beloved one as a president. May Allah bless him with good health.

President Ilham Aliyev: Thank you.

Elbrus Sadigov: We look forward to hearing some good news. Inshallah, we will. I also had a wish. Thank God, I was lucky enough to see him. I always watched you on TV. When the war ended, I kissed you on TV and expressed my gratitude. May Allah always have you there for us. My dream came true today, my biggest dream has come true. We are back, we are both happy and sad. Some of our loved ones have passed away, their souls will be happy thanks to you. May Allah bless you. May Allah always have you as our President. I want you to celebrate your 100th birthday here.

Resident Ajdar Ahmadov: Mr. President, we are welcoming you to our homeland. I sincerely congratulate you, Mrs. Mehriban Aliyeva, on May 28. I want to note with great regret that our older generation, personally my father and mother, are not here today. I am both happy and sad to be here today. Even if they don't participate here, we are like children in our Lachin, and I want to inform you that from today we will live and create in our native land. We will do our best to beautify our place. Mr. President, we express our deep gratitude to you for making this day possible for us. Thank you very much. May Allah bless you.

President Ilham Aliyev: Thank you.

Resident Gadir Valiyev: Dear President, Mr. Commander-in-Chief, you gave us the joy of Victory in the 44-day war. May Allah rest the souls of our martyrs in peace and grant good health to our ghazis. As a result of your wise policy, the 31-year longing of the people of Lachin has come to an end. I congratulate you and your family on this occasion on behalf of all the people of Lachin. I wish you a long life and good health.

President Ilham Aliyev: Thank you, and happy holidays again.

x x x

Then, a commemorative photograph was taken.
An Army Air Force pilot from Pennsylvania killed during World War II has been accounted for almost eight decades later, military authorities said.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said last week that 2nd Lt. James Litherland, 25, of South Williamsport was accounted for in March.

In February 1944, Litherland was co-piloting a B-17F Flying Fortress that was struck by anti-aircraft fire after a bombing raid on a German V-2 rocket site in Bois-Coquerel, France. Three airmen parachuted to safety but Litherland and six other crew members were still on board when the plane crashed near Le Translay, France, authorities said.

Six sets of remains were recovered near the crash site but only five were identified. In 2018, more material was recovered from the crash site and the unknown remains were exhumed from a cemetery in France. Dental and anthropological analysis and DNA evidence was used to identify the remains as those of Litherland, officials said.

Litherlands daughter, Suzanne Walker, called the efforts to identify his remains amazing, PennLive.com reported. Born on the day of the crash  I imagine the grief of my mother  Walker said she learned the recovery team used Google maps to locate the crash site and did a hand dig to find the remains, which included one of his dog tags she now has.

That was the biggest surprise, she said. I never expected it.

Walker said she has little memorabilia about her father and hopes someone comes forward with pictures or other items. Through her research, she has learned he was an outdoorsman and with friends built a toboggan slide on the side of the mountain near their home.

She thinks about what he may have been. He would now be a great-grandfather.

Litherland will be laid to rest in Williamsport. Walker said she had the opportunity to have her father buried in France but wanted him to be with his family. His father and grandfather are buried in Wildwood Cemetery, where there is a headstone for him, she said.

Literlands name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at Ardennes American Cemetery in Neupre, Belgium, along with others still missing from WWII. Military authorities say a rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been accounted for.

WILLIAMSPORT
President attends 2nd grandchilds graduation as daughter of Bidens late son leaves high school View Photo

MIDDLETOWN, Del. (AP)  Its been a busier-than-usual graduation season for President Joe Biden.

Biden and his wife, Jill, were on hand Sunday to watch granddaughter Natalie Biden graduate from high school, the White House said. Natalie is the daughter of the presidents late son, Beau. She is a student at St. Andrews School in Middletown, Delaware, and will attend the University of Pennsylvania in the fall. Beau Biden graduated from Penn.

The private Episcopal school was the setting for some scenes from the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society, starring the late Robin Williams.

Presidents usually deliver a couple of commencement addresses every year, including at one of the military service academies. But this year, Biden also got to watch another one of his grandchildren go through that rite of passage.

Earlier this month, Biden and the first lady attended granddaughter Maisy Bidens commencement from Penn.

Biden was the commencement speaker at Howard Universitys commencement on May 13. He is also scheduled to deliver the commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday.

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE

Associated Press
Four men working with the reality television show "Cheaters" have been indicted on criminal charges related to a filmed confrontation between a woman and her estranged husband over her relationship with a Fort Worth police captain.

On Thursday, a Tarrant County grand jury indicted "Cheaters" host Joey Greco, 45, and Hunter Carson, 29, the episode's director, on charges of assault with bodily injury, unlawful restraint and hindering apprehension.

Walter Earl Woods, 36, and Thomas Daniel Gibbons, 19, security guards contracted by the television show, were indicted on charges of assault with bodily injury and unlawful restraint.

All the charges are Class A misdemeanors, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

Bobby Goldstein, creator and executive producer of Dallas-based "Cheaters," called the charges "just nuts."

The four men indicted did not return messages left through Goldstein.

With the TV crew of about a dozen nearby, Rafael Gutierrez confronted Maria Gutierrez in May after a private investigator had filmed her and Capt. Duane Paul in an unmarked city vehicle at a park on three occasions.

The indictments allege that all four men were a party to an assault on Maria Gutierrez when one of the security guards hit her in the leg with his own leg as he tried to restrain her.

At a news conference in May, Goldstein said that when his crew accompanied Rafael Gutierrez to the fitness center where Maria Gutierrez worked they didn't know there was a protective order against him preventing contact with his estranged wife.

At the time, Rafael Gutierrez was awaiting trial on accusations that he had assaulted Maria Gutierrez twice in February. He was later arrested for violating the protective order _ a third-degree felony because he is also accused of assaulting her there.

The indictments also charge that Greco and Carson hindered apprehension by providing Rafael Gutierrez with a means of leaving the scene before officers arrived.

Fort Worth police investigated Paul's actions and he was suspended for 90 days and demoted from captain.

"Cheaters" airs on the WB Network

___

Information from: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, http://www.star-telegram.com
KYIV, Ukraine (AP)  Ukraine's capital was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of Russia's war, local officials said, as Kyiv prepared to mark the anniversary of its founding on Sunday. At least one person was killed, but officials said scores of drones were shot down, demonstrating Ukraine's air defense capability.

Russia launched the most massive attack on the city overnight Saturday with Iranian-made Shahed drones, said Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official. The attack lasted more than five hours, with air defense reportedly shooting down more than 40 drones.

A 41-year-old man was killed and a 35-year-old woman was hospitalized when debris fell on a seven-story nonresidential building and started a fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Debris from a drone damaged the building of the Ukrainian Society of the Blind. On Sunday morning, organization member Volodymyr Golubenko came to pick up his things. He was helped by his son Mykola, who searched for his fathers belongings among the rubble and at the same time tried to describe to his father what his office looks like now.

This wall on the right is destroyed and on left also, said Mykola to his father.

Volodymyr Golubenko worked at this place for more than 40 years. He says it is a home for many blind people, because they come here to talk and support each other.

If you dont even have a job, its difficult to get a job now, because these events (war) have been going on since last year. At least people come here to chat," said Volodymyr.

Like Golubenko, many people in his district heard the sound of Shahed drones for the first time. Among them was 36-year-old Yana, who has three boys. The family hid in a corridor all night.

Something started to explode above us. The children ran here in fear," said Yana.

Ukraine said that Saturday night was also record-breaking in terms of Shahed drone attacks across the country. Of the 59 drones launched, 58 were shot down by air defense systems, according to the military's General Staff.

Russia has repeatedly launched waves of drone attacks against Ukraine, but most are shot down. Ukraine has also claimed this month to have downed some of Russia's hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted as providing a key competitive advantage.

In the northeastern Kharkiv province, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said a 61-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were killed in two separate shelling attacks.

Kyiv Day marks the anniversary of the city's official founding. The day is usually celebrated with live concerts, street fairs, exhibitions and fireworks. Scaled-back festivities were planned for this year, the citys 1,541st anniversary.

The timing of the drone attacks was likely not coincidental, Ukrainian officials said.

The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians, Ukraine's chief presidential aide, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram.

Today, the enemy decided to congratulate the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), Popko also wrote on the messaging app.

Local officials in Russias southern Krasnodar region said that air defense systems destroyed several drones as they approached the Ilsky oil refinery. The Russia-backed governor of Luhansk province in Ukraine's far east, Leonid Pasechnik, said two people were killed Sunday in Ukrainian shelling of the town of Almaznaya.

Russias southern Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, also came under attack from Ukrainian forces on Saturday, local officials said. Regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported Sunday that a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy were wounded in the shelling.

Drone attacks against Russian border regions have been a regular occurrence since the start of the invasion in February 2022, with attacks increasing last month. Earlier this month, an oil refinery in Krasnodar was attacked by drones on two straight days.

Ukrainian air defenses, bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied systems, have been adept at thwarting Russian air attacks  both drones and aircraft missiles.

Earlier in May, Ukraine prevented an intense Russian air attack on Kyiv, shooting down all missiles aimed at the capital. The bombardment, which additionally targeted locations across Ukraine, included six Russian Kinzhal aero-ballistic hypersonic missiles, repeatedly touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin as providing a key strategic competitive advantage and among the most advanced weapons in his countrys arsenal.

Sophisticated Western air defense systems, including American-made Patriot missiles, have helped spare Kyiv from the kind of destruction witnessed along the main front line in Ukraine's east and south. While most of the ground fighting is stalemated along that front line, both sides are targeting other territory with long-range weapons.

Against the backdrop of Saturday nights drone attacks, Russia's ambassador to the U.K., Andrei Kelin, warned of an escalation in Ukraine. He told the BBC on Sunday his country had enormous resources and it was yet to act very seriously, cautioning that Western supplies of weapons to Ukraine risked escalating the war to a new dimension. The length of the conflict, he said, depends on the efforts in escalation of war that is being undertaken by NATO countries, especially by the U.K.

Kelins comments are typical of Russian officials rhetoric with regard to Moscow's military might, but contradict regular reports from the battlefield of Russian troops being poorly equipped and trained.

Also on Sunday, the death toll from Fridays missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional capital of the Dnipropetrovsk province, rose to four. Regional. Gov. Serhii Lysak said that three people who were considered missing were confirmed dead. There were 32 people, including two children, wounded in the attack, which struck a building containing psychology and veterinary clinics.

___

Elise Morton reported from London.

___

Follow the APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
WASHINGTON (AP) 

After weeks of negotiations, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have announced an  agreement in principle  to raise the nations debt ceiling and avoid a potentially catastrophic default.

The agreement includes spending cuts demanded by Republicans, but it is short of the reductions in the sweeping legislation passed by the Republican-led House last month.

To reduce spending, as Republicans had insisted, the package includes a two-year budget deal that would hold spending flat for 2024 and impose limits for 2025. That's in exchange for raising the debt limit for two years, until after the next election.

It also expands some work requirements for food-stamp recipients and tweaks an environmental law to try to streamline reviews to build new energy projects.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the United States could default on its debt obligations by June 5 if lawmakers do not act in time to raise the federal debt ceiling.

A look at whats next as Congress rushes to pass an agreement:

FINALIZING THE DEAL

Speaking to reporters in the Capitol late Saturday, McCarthy said the bill has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce and rein in government overreach. There are no new taxes and no new government programs.

Biden told reporters at the White House on Sunday: "Im going to call McCarthy now at 3 oclock to make sure all the Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted. I think were in good shape.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said in a letter to Democratic colleagues that administration officials would brief House Democrats on the agreement at 5 p.m. One of the administrations chief negotiators, presidential counselor Steve Ricchetti, was also making individual calls to Democratic lawmakers to build support, according to a House Democratic aide.

Biden said in a statement after the deal was announced that he strongly urged "both chambers to pass the agreement right away.

SELLING THE BILL

To pass the bill, both McCarthy and Biden will now have to sell it to their respective parties. While both sides are expected to lose some votes, they have to make sure that the deal is popular enough to pass both chambers without a revolt on either side.

McCarthy held a call Saturday evening with the Republican caucus, fulfilling a promise he made to show the agreement to them before revealing the legislation to the public. He said he expects to release the text of the bill on Sunday afternoon.

McCarthy said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday" that the bill is less than 150 pages and the House would wait 72 hours before voting on it so it can be publicly reviewed. This is worthy of the American people. I want them to read it. I want them to understand it, he said.

The Republican speaker he expects a majority of Republicans to vote for it and a lot of Democrats as well because Biden was on board. Jeffries said on CBS' Face the Nation that he expects "there will be Democratic support once we have the ability to be fully briefed by the White House, but Im not going to predict what those numbers will ultimately look like.

Reaction was mixed. Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina tweeted a vomit emoji, complaining that some Republicans on the call were praising the speaker for getting what he said is almost zippo in exchange for the debt ceiling hike.

South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson, an ally of McCarthy, told CNN's State of the Union that overwhelmingly, Republicans in this conference are going to support the deal. How could they not. It's a fantastic deal.

White House officials will give their own briefing to House Democrats on Sunday at 5 p.m., according to a House Democratic aide. McCarthy said he spoke to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on Saturday night and there will be a conference call with Republicans senators later Sunday.

CONGRESS RETURNS

Both the House and Senate are expected to return on Tuesday, after Memorial Day. McCarthy said the House will vote Wednesday, which would then send the bill to the Senate.

Once the bill reaches the Senate, where Democrats have the majority, the pace of action will largely depend on whether any senators try to hold up the bill, possibly with amendment votes. That could tie up the legislation for a few days.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned members Sunday that "due to the time it may take to process the legislation in the Senate without cooperation, Senators should prepare for potential Friday and weekend votes.

Still, the Senate can move quickly when they have agreement from all 100 senators. The bill could be passed by the end of the week, with a quick Biden signature to make it law.

The White House was expected to brief Senate Democrats late Sunday afternoon, likely after the bill language has been released and members have had time to review the proposals.

If all goes according to McCarthys plan -- and both chambers are able to pass the legislation -- the potential crisis should be resolved by June 5, which is when the Treasury Department projects the U.S. would be at risk of default.

"This agreement is good news for the American people, because it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, and millions of jobs lost, Biden said in his Saturday evening statement.

___

Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri, Lisa Mascaro, Seung Min Kim, Zeke Miller in Washington and Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.
Chamisa dismisses talk of secret talks with Mnangagwa, says free media needed for credible polls

Nelson Chamisa, the leader of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party, has dismissed rumours of secret talks between him and President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

In a meeting with journalists in Harare on Friday, Chamisa said he has not spoken to Mnangagwa since 2018 when they both visited the late Morgan Tsvangirai.

We have never had a phone call; we have never had a conversation, he said.

Chamisa lamented the political capture of Zimbabwes media, saying there is little difference between state-run papers like The Herald and pro-ZANU PF outlets. He called for free and independent media to regulate itself through a media council.

No election can ever be deemed credible, free and fair in the absence of a free, non-partisan and independent media, Chamisa told journalists.

While disagreements are inevitable in society, he urged Zimbabweans to unite for the countrys good.

Chamisas dismissal of secret talks and call for media reforms suggests he is preparing for elections against Mnangagwa and ZANU PF. He said a truly free media would play a pivotal role in lubricating Zimbabwes poisoned environment and creating greater transparency around the polls.

The CCC leaders comments underline the deep political divisions in Zimbabwe and the work still needed to ensure any elections are credible and represent the will of the people.

Breaking News via Email
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. Warmest congratulations to Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani MFA on the Independence Day, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine said in its Twitter publication, Trend reports.

"Mutual support of Ukraine and Azerbaijan for territorial integrity and sovereignty within their internationally recognized borders will always be our priority. Wishing friendly Azerbaijani people peace and prosperity," the publication said.
Thousands of Zimbabweans living in South Africa on temporary permits are making plans to return home as their permits expire at the end of June. The Zimbabwe government says at least 8,000 migrants have already registered to be part of the first wave of returnees.

The Zimbabwe Exemption Permits (ZEPs), which allowed an estimated 178,000 Zimbabweans to legally stay and work in South Africa, will come to an end on June 30. This has prompted thousands to register with Zimbabwes embassy to facilitate their return.

Deputy Foreign Minister David Musabayana said Zimbabwe is ready to welcome the returnees and arrangements are in place to help them reintegrate back home. Buses will be provided for those needing transportation while swift customs clearance and assistance settling back in is also part of the plan.

The Zimbabwean government has partnered with the International Organization for Migration for logistical support and will provide psycho-social support for the returning migrants. Returnees will also receive assistance acquiring Zimbabwean identification documents if needed.

A massive wave of returnees is imminent as the permit deadline looms. After more than a decade in South Africa, thousands of Zimbabweans are now making plans to come back home. Zimbabwe is gearing up for the influx and trying to put supports in place to help the returnees adjust. Stay tuned for updates as the situation develops!

Breaking News via Email




Millions of Americans in the past few years have run into this experience: filing a health care insurance claim that once might have been paid immediately but instead is just as quickly denied. If the experience and the insurers explanation often seem arbitrary and absurd, that might be because companies appear increasingly likely to employ computer algorithms or people with little relevant experience to issue rapid-fire denials of claims  sometimes bundles at a time  without reviewing the patients medical chart. A job title at one company was denial nurse.

Its a handy way for insurers to keep revenue high  and just the sort of thing that provisions of the Affordable Care Act were meant to prevent. Because the law prohibited insurers from deploying previously profit-protecting measures such as refusing to cover patients with preexisting conditions, the authors worried that insurers would compensate by increasing the number of denials.

And so, the law tasked the Department of Health and Human Services with monitoring denials both by health plans on the Obamacare marketplace and those offered through employers and insurers. It hasnt fulfilled that assignment. Thus, denials have become another predictable, miserable part of the patient experience, with countless Americans unjustly being forced to pay out-of-pocket or, faced with that prospect, forgoing needed medical help.

A recent KFF study of ACA plans found that even when patients received care from in-network physicians  doctors and hospitals approved by these same insurers  the companies in 2021 nonetheless denied, on average, 17% of claims. One insurer denied 49% of claims in 2021; anothers turndowns hit an astonishing 80% in 2020. Despite the potentially dire impact that denials have on patients health or finances, data shows that people appeal only once in every 500 cases.

Sometimes, the insurers denials defy not just medical standards of care but also plain old human logic. Here is a sampling collected for the KFF Health News-NPR Bill of the Month joint project.

Dean Peterson of Los Angeles said he was shocked when payment was denied for a heart procedure to treat an arrhythmia, which had caused him to faint with a heart rate of 300 beats per minute. After all, he had the insurers preapproval for the expensive ($143,206) intervention. More confusing still, the denial letter said the claim had been rejected because he had asked for coverage for injections into nerves in your spine (he hadnt) that were not medically needed. Months later, after dozens of calls and a patient advocates assistance, the situation is still not resolved.

An insurers letter was sent directly to a newborn child denying coverage for his fourth day in a neonatal intensive care unit. You are drinking from a bottle, the denial notification said, and you are breathing on your own. If only the baby could read.

Deirdre OReillys college-age son, suffering a life-threatening anaphylactic allergic reaction, was saved by epinephrine shots and steroids administered intravenously in a hospital emergency room. His mother, utterly relieved by that news, was less pleased to be informed by the familys insurer that the treatment was not medically necessary.

As it happens, OReilly is an intensive-care physician at the University of Vermont. The worst part was not the money we owed, she said of the $4,792 bill. The worst part was that the denial letters made no sense  mostly pages of gobbledygook. She has filed two appeals, so far without success.

Some denials are, of course, well considered, and some insurers deny only 2% of claims, the KFF study found. But the increase in denials, and the often strange rationales offered, might be explained, in part, by a ProPublica investigation of Cigna  an insurance giant, with 170 million customers worldwide.

ProPublicas investigation, published in March, found that an automated system, called PXDX, allowed Cigna medical reviewers to sign off on 50 charts in 10 seconds, presumably without examining the patients records.

Decades ago, insurers reviews were reserved for a tiny fraction of expensive treatments to make sure providers were not ordering with an eye on profit instead of patient needs.

These reviews  and the denials  have now trickled down to the most mundane medical interventions and needs, including things such as asthma inhalers or the heart medicine that a patient has been on for months or years. Whats approved or denied can be based on an insurers shifting contracts with drug and device manufacturers rather than optimal patient treatment.

Automation makes reviews cheap and easy. A 2020 study estimated that the automated processing of claims saves U.S. insurers more than $11 billion annually.

But challenging a denial can take hours of patients and doctors time. Many people dont have the knowledge or stamina to take on the task, unless the bill is especially large or the treatment obviously lifesaving. And the process for larger claims is often fabulously complicated.

The Affordable Care Act clearly stated that HHS shall collect the data on denials from private health insurers and group health plans and is supposed to make that information publicly available. (Who would choose a plan that denied half of patients claims?) The data is also supposed to be available to state insurance commissioners, who share with HHS the duties of oversight and trying to curb abuse.

To date, such information-gathering has been haphazard and limited to a small subset of plans, and the data isnt audited to ensure it is complete, according to Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at KFF and one of the authors of the KFF study. Federal oversight and enforcement based on the data are, therefore, more or less nonexistent.

HHS did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

The government has the power and duty to end the fire hose of reckless denials harming patients financially and medically. Thirteen years after the passage of the ACA, perhaps it is time for the mandated investigation and enforcement to begin.
Fierce beast attacking Florida residents revealed as domestic cat with attitude The Guardian

GLOWING SQUIRRELS AND THE SEARCH FOR WHY The Allegheny Front

Pecuniary Salvation Phenomenal World

US to give away free lighthouses as GPS makes them unnecessary The Guardian

New U.S. lab will work with deadly animal pathogensin the middle of farm country Science

Man who opened plane door says he wanted to get off quickly: police Yonhap News Agency

Climate/Environment

Water

Audit finds California water agency not adequately considering climate change in forecasts Los Angeles Times

#COVID-19

BREAKING: Late-stage capitalism likely affecting our ability to survive in collapse because we have to keep working our jobs at the same time https://t.co/Q7APmnfyPU  Amanda Hu (@amandalhu) May 27, 2023

Old Blighty

Britains broken food system Red Pepper

India

When neoliberalism came to the Indian farm Himal Southasian

China?

European Disunion

New sanctions against Russia stuck in limbo over Greek-Hungarian protest Politico EU

New Not-So-Cold War

US officials often claim they have little insight into Ukraines military plans. But heres Victoria Nuland telling the Kyiv Security Forum that the US has been working on Ukraines counter-offensive plan with you for some 4-5 months. pic.twitter.com/hDHUYsPTiD  Aaron Mate (@aaronjmate) May 26, 2023

Serbian president steps down as party leader Anadolu Agency

US rebukes Kosovo for escalating tensions, Serbia puts army on alert Reuters

Syraqistan

South of the Border

Another blow to Perus US-backed coup regime: Brazil (Latin Americas largest country) announced it is suspending sales of military equipment to Peru until democratic normalcy is restored Perus coup regime deployed its military to massacre 60+ protestershttps://t.co/y9LG4EHdDW  Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) May 27, 2023

Biden Administration

North Dakota Republican governor eyeing 2024 presidential campaign: Report Washington Examiner

GOP Clown Car

Who is Nate Paul? A look at the developer at the center of Texas impeachment scandal The Real Deal

Democrats en deshabille

Debt Ceiling

Healthcare

The $20 Billion Scam At The Heart Of Medicare Advantage The Lever

Obama Legacy

Obama, You Bum, You Are the Past and Unions Are the Future How Things Work

Groves of Academe

AI

Screening Room

Our Famously Free Press

Underexposure Exposed FAIR

Class Warfare

The Bezzle

Japan startups failed moon landing caused by altitude miscalculation, company says The Asahi Shimbun

Social Mobility Causes Distress and So Does the Neoliberal Imperative to Pursue Wealth and Status Mad in America

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
(Natural News) Bud Light and its parent company Anheuser-Busch are sponsoring at least three different upcoming Pride events despite backlash over the partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, a social media influencer who identifies as transgender.

(Article by Spencer Lindquist republished from DailyWire.com)

Bud Light is listed as a sponsor on the Cincinnati Pride Parade website. Planned Parenthood and the Cincinnati Childrens Hospital, which medically transitions minors, are both also listed.

Meanwhile, in St. Louis, Missouri, where Anheuser-Busch is headquartered, the company is listed as the presenting sponsor of the St. Louis Pride Parade. A sponsorship packet explains that there are only four presenting sponsor slots available. The Rainbow sponsorship tier, located below the presenting sponsor tier, requires entities to pay $25,000.

Bud Light is also listed as a Diamond Sponsor of Stonewall Columbus, which organizes and hosts the annual Columbus, Ohio, Pride Parade. The diamond sponsorship tier requires companies to donate $20,000, a document from the organization specifies. The document also adds, All Stonewall Columbus sponsors must affirm Stonewalls diversity, equity, and inclusion policies AND agree to donate no less than 8 hours of volunteer time during a calendar year.

Anheuser-Busch was also listed as a premier sponsor for the San Francisco Pride Parade in 2022. The 2023 sponsors of the San Francisco Pride Parade have not yet been released.

Bud Light was listed as a sponsor of the Chicago Pride Parade on a page that has since been scrubbed. Bud Light boasted that we have a clear role to play in bringing real change and creating an inclusive and equitable world where we cherish and celebrate one another.

Corona and Corona Hard Seltzer, products of Anheuser-Busch, are listed as sponsors of the upcoming Los Angeles Pride Parade.

Cutwater Spirits, another Anheuser-Busch product, is listed as a sponsor of the 2023 Chicago Pride Fest, which will occur one week before the Chicago Pride Parade.

The Pride Fest is a two-day festival that will include a best of Chicago drag performance and a Youth Pride Space for teens. Children as young as 12 will be allowed to attend the youth pride space.

Bud Light sales have declined since its partnership with Mulvaney was revealed, and the company is even offering to buy back expiring cases of Bud Light from retailers. The controversy began when the company gave Mulvaney Bud Light cans with his face on them.

Anson Frericks, the former president of sales and distribution of Anheuser-Busch, offered his prediction for the companys future in an interview with The Daily Wire, saying that he expects a long, hot, dry summer for Anheuser-Busch.

Anheuser-Busch did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more at: DailyWire.com
(Natural News) Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was sentenced on Thursday in Washington DC.

(Article by Jim Hoft republished from TheGatewayPundit.com)

Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years by far-left Obama-appointed US District Judge Amit Mehta on Thursday morning who then lectured him on what a danger he was to society.

Mehta sentenced Stewart Rhodes to 18 years. Rhodes is currently 57. If the this unconstitutional conviction stands, Rhodes will be 75 when he is released.

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes NEVER went inside the US Capitol. He never instructed anyone to go inside the US Capitol. He was unarmed as were all of his Oath Keepers associates that day. There was no plan to enter the US Capitol. There was no scheme to take over the government with their bare hands. The prosecution was a sham. The jury was a pool of DC Communists and unhinged left-wing activists who see themselves as victims.

On Friday, The Gateway Pundit spoke with Stewart Rhodes in his first interview since sentencing. We covered numerous topics. Rhodes is unwavering about his innocence. He continues to show courage despite his current challenges and continues to support the dreams and values of the Founding Fathers.

** You can listen to our earlier discussion here.

The Gateway Pundit received a call moments ago from the DC Gulag. Jake Lang, Stewart Rhodes called to tell us the feds had moved in without warning and they are moving Stewart Rhodes immediately to a more secure facility.

Here is the audio from this panicked phone call. PLEASE LISTEN AND PASS THIS ON!

Read more at: TheGatewayPundit.com
(Natural News) The real estate market of China, the largest in the world, is on the brink of collapse as enthusiasm from Chinese home buyers plummets drastically.

Chinas real estate market was already in a state of decline in early 2023, but it experienced a short-lived rebound as the Chinese Communist Party ordered local government units to issue policies bailing out real estate companies. By the end of April, the mortgage rate for first-time home buyers in more than 40 major cities had dropped to below four percent, thanks to government intervention. However, this optimistic outlook failed to live up to analysts expectations by April. (Related: Home prices DECLINE in 31% of the US, mostly in Democrat-controlled cities where crime and high taxation are rampant.)

According to a financial statistics report for April released by Chinas central bank, mortgages decreased by 241.1 billion yuan ($34.1 billion) that month. Among those, medium- and long-term household loans decreased by 115.6 billion yuan ($16.3 billion,) while short-term mortgages decreased by 125.5 billion yuan ($17.7 billion).

Public statistics show that many major Chinese cities reported double-digit declines in the sales of previously-owned homes. The worst decline was Hefeis 40 percent, followed by Beijings 37.3 percent, Hangzhous 32.7 percent, Shanghais 26.71 percent and Nanjings 13 percent.

Chinese real estate market will have to rely on more government intervention to stay afloat

Economists warned that the only way for the Chinese real estate market to stay afloat is for the communist government in Beijing to continue intervening. This means continuing the introduction of support measures and the relaxation of rules for first-time home buyers. Chinas main housing and financial regulator, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, has already ordered local real estate brokers to reduce fees for housing transactions and leasing services to stimulate activity and development.

However, what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seems to be doing is focusing too much on price controls, so much so that it has tightened its grip even further on the real estate market and is actively preventing buyers from deviating too high or too low on the prescribed prices for new homes.

When two real estate developers in Kunshan attempted to cut prices by a large margin to allow more home buyers to afford homes, Chinese regulators penalized them for cutting their prices too much. These regulators claim the developers disrupted the normal order of the real estate market and caused social instability.

The reason why the communist regime wont let real estate developers lower prices is very simple, wrote Qu Kai, a Japan-based commentator on Chinese current affairs. The chain reaction caused by price cuts will instantly burst the bubble of Chinas property market, causing a series of economic crises that would be difficult for the CCP to manage.

As the Chinese government continues to intervene in the market in an anti-competitive way, experts warned this current crisis will sooner or later affect banks  and once the financial sector is affected, the entire Chinese economy could be in crisis.

The consequences of real estate declines and residential mortgage defaults will eventually be passed on to banks, warned financial expert Fang Qi. This will further plunge [banks and real estate] into chaos, thus causing a vicious cycle.

Even if the CCP were to intervene in a moderated way that economists say could be beneficial to the real estate market, analysts warn the effect of these supposedly positive stimulus programs would only be measured. We see limited scope for big housing policy stimulus given that mortgage rates and down-payment ratios in many cities are already at record low or multi-year low levels, wrote analysts at Barclays in a research note.

Learn more about the collapse of the housing market at HousingBomb.news.

Watch this video from ITM Trading, Inc. as Lynette Zang, the companys chief market analyst, discusses why experts think the commercial real estate sector is the next industry to collapse.

This video is from the channel ITM Trading, Inc. on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

US home prices see biggest annual drop in more than a decade as interest rates soar.

A tsunami of debt worth more than $1.5 trillion coming due for commercial property owners.

HOUSING COLLAPSE: Existing home sales drop for 12th straight month.

30-year fixed mortgage rate surges above 7% as the Fed continues to raise interest rates.

Fed interest rate hikes lead to rising fears of mortgage debt defaults, real estate collapse and recession.

Sources include:

ZeroHedge.com

Reuters.com

Brighteon.com
(Natural News) New York City is replete with far-left prosecutors and district attorneys who regularly refuse to charge people with crimes under the false guise of judicial reform and combatting racism, but there was some semblance of justice anyway in the case of a lunatic professor who held a New York Post reporter at bay with a machete earlier this week.

Shellyne Rodriguez was sacked by Hunter College just hours after the adjunct professor was caught on camera holding the blade to the veteran reporters neck while threatening to chop him up outside her Bronx apartment, The Post reported.

Vince Dimiceli, a spokesman for the college, told the outlet, Hunter College strongly condemns the unacceptable actions of Shellyne Rodriguez and has taken immediate action. Rodriguez has been relieved of her duties at Hunter College effective immediately, and will not be returning to teach at the school.

The disturbed art professor brandished a machete and made threatening comments in response to the veteran Postie who approached her about a viral video capturing her aggressive behavior towards pro-life students at Hunter College earlier this month.

In addition, it has come to light that Rodriguez is involved in a legal dispute with the NYPD, as she has accused officers of mistreating her during her arrest in the Bronx amid a George Floyd protest in June 2020, The Post added.

As the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, Rodriguez asserts that she sustained nerve damage as a result of being restrained with zip ties during her arrest and being transported in a prisoner van with 14 other protesters, The Post reported, adding:

The lawsuit claims Rodriguez was attacked by cops while trying to leave the protest.

Officers allegedly pulled her hair, shoved her face into a gate and repeatedly punched her in the stomach, according to court filings.

Once she was in custody, Rodriguez told a cop her restraints were too tight, but the officer yanked on [her] zip ties hard and tightened them even further  causing her to scream out in pain, the suit says.

Rodriguez felt pain with every jerk of the van during the lengthy ride to the precinct, court papers claim, the outlet reported.

Earlier, she flipped out on a group of students who set up an information table opposing abortion inside the school building  cursing and tossing their pamphlets, video of the interaction shows, The Post reported in a separate story.

She told the pro-life students they were triggering her other students by setting up a display table inside the college.

The footage of her freak-out was posted to Twitter by Students for Life of America.

Youre not educating st. This is fking propaganda, the art professor told the students tabling on May 2. What are you going to do, like anti-trans next?

I mean no, were talking about abortion a male student behind the table said, going on to apologize for triggering her students.

She went on to claim their display was violent and told the male student he wasnt really sorry because you cant even have a fking baby.

According to the footage posted online, she then pushed all of the pro-life materials off the students tables saying, fk this st before walking away.

A spokesperson for the college told The Post that the institution was taking this matter very seriously.

The provost has opened an investigation into the professors actions, the spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, the left-wing PSC Graduate Center, a labor union chapter representing CUNY professors and graduate assistants, claimed the pro-life students had set up a table and prominent banners to propagate dangerously false propaganda.

The group added that Rodriguezs actions to shut down the tabling were fully justified and are part of a long and celebrated CUNY legacy of confronting groups such as military recruiters who disseminate misleading information, the group said in a letter.

Sources include:

NYPost.com

Abortions.news
(Natural News) What in the world is going on with Republicans in the red state of Texas?

An investigating panel has announced that the GOP-controlled Texas House of Representatives will hold a vote on Saturday to decide on the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).

The development comes shortly after Paxton called for the resignation of GOP House Speaker Dade Phelan, alleging that he was intoxicated and slurred his words during a recent legislative session earlier in the week, according to Trending Politics.

The Republican-led committee has been conducting an investigation into Paxton, who won the GOP primary against George Prescott Bush, for some time. On Thursday, the committee recommended that Paxton be impeached on 20 articles, which include charges of bribery, unfitness for office, and abuse of public trust.

Paxton blasted the allegations which he has called a bogus attempt to overthrow the will of the people and disenfranchise the voters of our state. He has also said that the charges are based on hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims, per a report by CBS Dallas.

It is a sad day for Texas as we witness the corrupt political establishment unite in this illegitimate attempt to overthrow the will of the people and disenfranchise the voters of our state, Paxton noted in a statement Thursday. The RINOs in the Texas Legislature are now on the same side as Joe Biden.

The Texas House just announced that they are going to vote on a resolution to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton tomorrow at 1 pm. This comes less than a week after Paxton called on Speaker Dade Phelan to resign for being drunk on the House floor in between appointing Democrats pic.twitter.com/gA7gPyDAdN  Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 26, 2023

To proceed with the impeachment, a majority vote from the Texas House of Representatives is required. The legislature typically consists of 150 members, but it is currently one member short due to a resignation ahead of anticipated expulsion proceedings.

With Republicans currently holding a majority of 85-64 in the chamber, they hold the decision-making power in the impeachment process.

The anticipated outcome of the vote is currently uncertain, and it remains unclear how the representatives will vote, Trending Politics reported. However, since the possibility of impeachment arose, there has been an increase in statewide support for Paxton. Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi has denounced the impending impeachment as a sham and expressed confidence that the effort will be blocked in the Senate, the site added.

It is based on allegations already litigated by voters, led by a liberal speaker trying to undermine his conservative adversaries, Rinaldi said. It seems Texas Republicans will have to rely yet again on the principled leadership of the Texas Senate to restore sanity and reason for our state, he added.

Paxton was first elected to his position in 2014. Prior to his election as Attorney General, he served as a member of the Texas House of Representatives and the Texas Senate. Paxton has been a vocal advocate for conservative policies and causes throughout his political career.

The AG has been involved in a number of high-profile legal battles. He has been a strong opponent of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and has filed multiple lawsuits seeking to have the law declared unconstitutional. He has also been a vocal supporter of Second Amendment rights and has worked to defend Texas gun laws from legal challenges.

In 2015, he was indicted on securities fraud charges, which he has vigorously denied and fought in court. The case has yet to go to trial, and it remains to be seen how it will ultimately be resolved.

But he has been a vocal opponent of the Biden administrations policies, particularly its immigration policies, and he has continued to advocate for conservative causes and values.

Yet it seems his biggest political opponents in the Lone Star State are not Democrats, but RINOs.

Sources include:

TrendingPolitics.com

CBSDallas.com
(Natural News) The Global Disinformation Indexs report blacklisting conservative outlets, such as The Federalist, New York Post, Daily Caller, and Washington Examiner, as the riskiest disinformation media companies was researched and written by students at the University of Texas at Austins Global Disinformation Lab, according to documents obtained by The Federalist.

(Article by Margot Cleveland republished from TheFederalist.com)

The academics running the lab held an anti-conservative bias, internal communications show. Those details are among several troubling revelations contained in the 1,000-plus pages of documents reviewed by The Federalist.

Heres the backdrop and the findings of that review.

Blacklisting of Conservatives Revealed

In early February, the Washington Examiners Gabe Kaminsky authored an exclusive titled Disinformation Inc. In his first installment of the multi-part series about self-styled disinformation tracking organizations, Kaminsky reported the Global Disinformation Indexs rating of American news outlets was skewed, with the top 10 supposed riskiest outlets being conservative, including American Spectator, Newsmax, The Federalist, American Conservative, One America News, The Blaze, Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post. In contrast, the top 10 least risky outlets leaned nearly entirely left of center.

Kaminsky stressed that the Global Disinformation Index, or GDI, says its mission is to remove the financial incentive to create disinformation, with its core output being the dynamic exclusion list that ranks news outlets based on their supposed disinformation risk. GDI then sells subscriptions to its lists to marketing organizations, which pull advertising dollars from the outlets, starving them of funding.

At the time of the Washington Examiners report, Xandr, which is owned by Microsoft, used GDIs exclusion list to limit advertising dollars. Xandr has since reportedly dropped its use of the blacklist.

GDIs blacklist came under further fire when it was discovered the government-funded National Endowment for Democracy granted GDI more than half a million dollars between 2020 and 2021. The State Departments Global Engagement Center likewise awarded the GDI $100,000 in taxpayer funds in 2021.

GDIs Partner in Censorship

The Washington Examiners expose focused mainly on GDI and the federal governments funding of it. But the report ranking the media sites revealed the University of Texas Global Disinformation Lab joined the enterprise.

That report said a team of researchers from the Global Disinformation Lab (GDIL) at the University of Texas at Austin conducted the review for the Disinformation Risk Assessment: The Online News Market in the United States. It was that report, dated Dec. 16, 2022, that targeted conservative outlets, leading The Federalist to file a public-records request at UT Austin in February 2023 for all communications related to GDILs work with the Global Disinformation Index on the U.S. media market review.

While the university withheld the actual methodology and research, citing confidentiality of trade secrets and certain commercial or financial information, the documents obtained by The Federalist nonetheless reveal several concerning details.

GDIL Did the Dirty Work

The internal documents from the University of Texas GDIL show that the Global Disinformation Index, in essence, paid the state university to manage student workers who would then apply the GDI methodology to rate the various media outlets and write the final report.

The students received minimum training for the project. When GDIL struggled to meet the deadlines, the lab manager, Sally Dickson, stepped in to help with the ratings, with everyone rushing the reviews of the various media outlets. At the conclusion of the project, UT Austin retained the surplus funds GDI was paid for the work.

That a handful of students, with limited training, evaluated the media outlets and wrote the report that GDI then marketed to advertisers for blacklisting media outlets  costing the conservative press potentially millions of dollars  is troubling. Even more appalling is that the students used a state-funded lab and the university profited from the project.

Yet even when GDI highlighted the list of riskiest sites and least risky sites that would appear in the report and asked if GDIL had any reservations about being credited in the report, the entire GDIL team responded they had no concerns. In fact, they couldnt wait to promote the report and GDILs involvement.

Also disconcerting is that GDI pitched the project to GDIL with the goal of completing the report before the midterms. In recruiting students for the project, GDIL boasted the work will be immediately valuable because GDI wants this to make waves ahead of the midterms, suggesting the shared goal was to affect the 2022 election.

Email and text exchanges between Dickson and GDIL Executive Director Michael Mosser, dated after the Washington Examiner story broke, further reveal that GDIL saw nothing wrong with a government institution compiling a blacklist of media outlets since they merely followed the GDI methodology.

Political Bias on Display

Nonetheless, GDIL staff raised concerns in internal communications that the story might reach critical mass. Those discussions revealed something else about GDIL leaders: an anti-conservative bias.

One message suggested GDI is really going to be hammered, linking to a Washington Examiner piece and highlighting The Federalist, Daily Caller, and New York Post as other entities of concern. The lab manager added a link to a National Review article, noting, they link to the report which obviously mentions us.

To that, Moser thanked his colleagues for the links, adding, I hate going to those sources but good to know.

In another exchange, a GDIL-connected individual noted that some right-wing outlets are targeting GDI, to which Dickson replied: So do we think anything will come back to us?

Then came a most insightful glimpse into the minds behind GDIL, when the individual told Dickson he or she didnt think so, but just wanted to highlight on the off chance it starts to spiral into Tucker Carlson land.

The GDIL executive director replied: If it comes to that, theres nothing anyone can do. Its all aboard the crazy train at that point. Mosser continued by noting that the methodology goes out of its way to look at very basic journalistic practice. Even if you want to quibble with how some of that was operationalized.

The problem is, the GDIL leader continued, extreme right-wing media does not care about the details right now.

Even the Kids Saw the Problems

Its rather rich that GDILs executive director defended the methodology, framed disagreements with the report as quibbles, and declared the right-wing media dont care about the details, given that even the students conducting the research saw problems in GDIs rating system.

When questioned on his experience with the project, one student explained he found GDIs methodology to be a little interesting in that it requires reviewers to give subjective scores in response to objective trends in data. This breaks down the projects objectivity, the student added.

Also, misinformation isnt always in the articles words or the domains fact-checking policy, but rather the context in which the article is responding to something, the GDIL student worker continued, noting that the misinformation landscape is dotted with one-sided  media consumption.

For example, a NYT article may not have wrong info, the student stressed, but that doesnt mean theyre not writing with an agenda or certain goals in mind.

Additional internal communications indicate other students involved in the project also had concerns about the methodology.

More State Department Shenanigans

Beyond GDIs risk-ratings report, internal communications from GDIL revealed more about GDIs reach, as well as the State Departments involvement in promoting censorship activities.

When GDIL first attempted to recruit students for the GDI project, Dickson stressed that GDI works with governments, policymakers, social media platforms, and adtech companies to defund disinformation.

They are instrumental in providing data to a bunch of people that I am not sure if I am allowed to talk about, the lab manager continued, adding GDI also has formal and informal relationships with trust and safety teams at various big platforms, the most recently announced partnership is with Twitch.

This email suggests GDI has (or had) a much larger role in censorship activities than previously known. Also suggestive is an email GDIL received from the Global Engagement Centers Academic and Think-Tank Liaison. That emails signature line indicates the State Department center had a close relationship with the growing number of universities and think tanks involved in the Censorship Complex.

Another set of emails from the State Departments Global Engagement Center invited GDIL to participate in a technology pilot, titled the Ukraine Content Aggregator, which claims it seeks to amplify unique and verified content related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including war crimes being committed.

Significantly, for this project, the State Department was working with the Centre for Information Resilience, which is where Nina Jankowicz landed after backlash forced the Biden administration to shutter the Department of Homeland Securitys Disinformation Governance Board, which Jankowicz had been tapped to head.

So Much More to Learn

While these new details raise additional concerns about the governments funding of efforts to silence speech, The Federalists open-records request reveals there is so much more to uncover to understand the breadth and depth of the Censorship Complex fully.

Read more at: TheFederalist.com
(Natural News) The fight is on to hold the United States government responsible for colluding with social media companies to censor Americans free speech rights online.

Missouri v. Biden, which was filed on May 5, 2022, has been taking quite the trip through the court system. It was amended three separate times, most recently to add an amendment that transforms the case into a class action suit due to the sheer number of Americans impacted by the governments crimes.

Uncover DC has been tracking the case, offering play-by-play details about what has been happening with the case over the past year. The plaintiffs, including the states of Missouri and Louisiana, pushed for expedited discovery to obtain a limited set of evidence and depositions from certain individuals.

They argued that this evidence would allow them to make the case for a temporary injunction to stop the government from infringing on the first amendment rights of Plaintiffs and their citizens, Uncover DC reported.

The judge granted the motion for expedited discovery and depositions, prompting a fight between the government and the judge, in this case Judge Terry Doughty. In short, the defendants want to stop all discovery and certain plaintiffs from being deposed.

(Related: In 2021, a Missouri court declared that the Wuhan coronavirus [Covid-19] mandates and restrictions imposed by the whims of public health bureaucrats are illegal.)

Is Missouri v. Biden the reason why the deep state is trying to ram through the RESTRICT Act?

In its argument against expedited discovery and depositions, the government tried to claim that forcing government workers to sit for lengthy depositions is inappropriate, especially for the head of CISA, who was summoned.

Fortunately for the plaintiffs, Judge Doughty disagreed, forcing the CISA head, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, and other alleged co-conspirators to sit down and tell all about what they did to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights.

Psaki, as you may recall, made threats to social media companies straight from the podium, which prompted her being deposed. She then left her White House position, conveniently.

Over and over again, the government has lost every single time so far in Missouri v. Biden. And it appears as though Americans may finally be winning, at least in the sense that we can now see what has really been going on behind closed doors.

Tony Fauci, at one point, was also deposed. This prompted the government to try to seal all depositions and video, claiming that government employees were being threatened  though it could provide no such proof to back this claim.

Meanwhile, it was revealed throughout this process that CISA has categorized peoples thoughts as being part of the governments infrastructure  meaning the government believes it owns whatever activity takes place inside your head.

This is the argument the government tried to use to justify its illegal invasion of peoples online privacy and speech. Were it not for the expedited discovery and depositions, we would not know that CISA has an entire designation for the publics thoughts that it calls cognitive infrastructure.

The government has tried again and again to delay the inevitable by postponing the case, which the judge refused to do; by obfuscating the truth; and by trying to ram through the so-called TikTok bill, or the RESTRICT Act, which seems to be on the fast track precisely because of Missouri v. Biden.

It is because they need Congress to approve their actions here  this lawsuit is going to make it so they cant function, writes Tracy Beanz for Uncover DC about the matter.

The U.S. government wants to control everything you do, say, and think. To learn more, visit Globalism.news.

Sources for this article include:

UncoverDC.com

NaturalNews.com
Memorial Day is here and millions of Americans across the United States are reportedly planning to travel nationwide during the upcoming weekend. However, the latest U.S. weather forecast shows that a complex weather system might ruin staycation plans along the Eastern Seaboard during the Memorial Day weekend. Meteorologists from Fox Weather expect heavy rain and rough surf due to gusty winds.

The weather forecast comes as meteorologists earlier this week reported that tropical systems formed off the Florida coast. Based on recent forecasts, the systems could intensify or not but is still alarming since it has been considered as a pre-season tropical development. This means that it is a weather system that developed too early in relation to the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season starting June 1.

Memorial Day Weekend Weather

The Memorial Day weekend weather will experience a variety of weather conditions. In particular, torrential rain, strong winds, and large waves are expected along the East Coast, particularly from parts of the Carolinas and to the Southeast Coast, according to Fox Weather forecasters on Friday, May 26.

The media company's meteorologists are monitoring a complex weather system in the Atlantic Ocean off the Eastern Seaboard coast. The forecast coincides with an estimate of the mass of travelers at approximately 42.3 million Americans that will travel at least 50 miles from their homes this weekend, according to the American Automobile Association, as cited by Fox Weather.

Also Read: Tropical Systems Develop Off Southeast US Coast Ahead of Atlantic Hurricane Season [US Weather Forecast]

2022 Memorial Day

In 2022, the Memorial Day weekend was met with forecasts relating to severe storms, snowfall events, and high temperatures in different parts of the nation, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) at that time.

In the same period last year, the weeks leading to the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S. in late May were met with severe thunderstorms and extreme heatwaves nationwide. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) last year also forecasted an above-average 2022 Atlantic hurricane season.

2023 Atlantic Hurricane Season

In its news release on Thursday, May 25, the NOAA forecasters predicted there will be a "near-normal 2023 Atlantic hurricane season" based on the El Nino weather phenomenon and above-average Atlantic Ocean temperatures. The prediction was also made with the Climate Prediction Center (CPC), a part of the NWS.

Based on the NOAA-CPC forecast, there will be a 40% chance of a near-normal season or near-average season. Meanwhile, there will also be a 30% chance for an above-normal and a 30% chance for a below-normal season.

The NOAA approximated that 12 to 17 named storms, with 39 miles per hour or high wind strength, will form during the Atlantic hurricane season, which spans from June to November 30 each year.

In addition, five to nine storms could become hurricanes (with a wind speed of 74 miles per hour or higher), including one to four major hurricanes, classified as category 3, 4, or 5 (with a wind speed of 111 miles per hour or higher), the U.S. government agency says.

Related Article: Memorial Day Weekend: Severe Storms, Snow, and Triple-Digit Heat Expected Across the US
A reptile farmer was devoured alive by 40 crocodiles after falling into their enclosure in Cambodia, it was reported on Saturday, May 27. The 72-year-old man named Luan Nam was dragged into the pit in Siem Reap, according to local authorities.

The man fell after one of the reptiles pull a stick he was holding to shoo away a crocodile out of a cage where it laid eggs.

Based on multiple reports, local authorities said the crocodiles, which Nam owns, lunged at him as soon as he fell to the ground, where his body was ripped and torn into pieces.

The incident has been considered as an accident and no foul play was mentioned.

The reptile farmer is believed to be a veteran in his work and is reportedly a president of a local crocodile farm organization.

Crocodile attacks on humans are relatively rare in the wild but occur, even in enclosures.

In previous cases, there have been reports of similar incidents worldwide where a person falls into the pit full of captive crocodiles.

Siem Reap's reptile farm, just like other sites, aims to harvest the eggs, meat, and skin of crocodiles for trade in the Southeast Asian country.

Crocodile Farmer Attack

Local police Chief Mey Savry confirmed 40 crocodiles dismembered Nam's body, including tearing off both his arms and one leg being torn off, Sky News reported.

The reptiles also left a "pool of blood" in the enclosure, according to the report.

The remains of Nam's body, which was full of crocodile bite marks, were transported to his family home in the countryside village of Po Banteay Chey.

Commune Chief May Sameth told the AFP news agency that the reptile farmer's family had urged him for years to halt his work raising reptiles but he continued to do so due to his high position at the local crocodile farmer's association, the Mirror UK reported.

Also Read: Missing Fisherman Prompts Widespread Australia Crocodile Hunt for Two Monster Reptiles

2019 Siem Reap Crocodile Attack

In recent years, a similar crocodile incident occurred in Siem Reap, the country's second-largest city.

In 2019, a two-year-old girl died after being eaten by crocodiles inside a similar reptile farm in an area close to the historic Angkor Wat temple, the BBC reported.

During the incident, the Cambodian toddler also fell into the crocodile enclosure owned by her family.

The pit consists of more than 60 crocodiles and is well-protected due to a fence.

However, a child can fit through it, as it was in the case of the 2019 crocodile attack.

The girl's father noticed his daughter's death after finding a skull in the enclosure.

Local police Lieutenant Och Sophen, chief of the Siem Reap police at that time, used the tragic incident to warn other local families.

For reptile farmers, Lt. Sophen urged to keep children away from the enclosures even if a fence has been built, as cited by Australia's 7 News.

Related Article: Crocodile Mauls 8-Year-Old Boy to Death in Front of His Parents Before Dragging Him Into River
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The protesting wrestlers said late on Saturday evening that there was a lot of "pressure" to call off the Mahila Mahapanchayat they have planned in front of the new Parliament building on Sunday, but they will go ahead with the "peaceful" march come what may.

The agitating wrestlers, demanding the arrest of former Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Singh who they alleged sexually harassed several women grapplers, had given a call for a Mahila Mahapanchayat on Sunday, the day the new Parliament building will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The likes of Olympic medallists Bajranj Punia, Sakshi Malik and Asian Games gold winner Vinesh Phogat said that any amount of force will not deter them from going ahead with the peaceful march.

The administration has given them permission to take out the march from Jantar Mantar to the new Parliament building.

"We will go ahead with the Mahila Mahapanchayat, come what may. Our supporters have been stopped at a gurudwara in Ambala where they were supposed to stay tonight. It has now been converted into a cantonment," alleged Vinesh.

The wrestlers, in the run-up to the Mahapanchayat, have toured several cities in north India urging womenfolk and khaps to lend their support to their protest.

Vinesh added that even if force is used on them on Sunday, the march will remain peaceful.

"Wherever we are stopped, we will sit there and have the Mahapanchayat." She alleged that raids were being conducted at the houses of people supporting them.

"There have been raids at the house of our supporters but the women supporters will reach Delhi for the Mahapanchayat. The Jantar Mantar, the site of the protest for more than a month now, looked virtually out of bounds with a huge posse of police personnel keeping a close watch on the wrestlers and their supporters," Vinesh said.

"It's a really difficult (situation). We don't know what the future holds for us. Whether we will be alive or dead," said Vinesh, who cried inconsolably during the press conference.

"We wanted justice but something else is happening. Our supporters are being harassed as if we are criminals and not Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh," she added.

The grapplers refused to take any questions from the media.

On Friday, Vinesh had said if Brij Bhushan attends the inauguration of the new Parliament building on Sunday, it will send a clear message about the state of affairs in the country.

"If Brij Bhushan is there at the new Parliament on May 28, then the whole country will automatically get the message," Vinesh had said when asked what kind of message it will convey if WFI chief is present during the inauguration.

"Whosoever is trying to save Brij Bhushan, is against us. I don't know what is happening internally in the government but someone is trying to shield him and it is not right, he is harming the women of this country." Vinesh told the media.

NEW DELHI: The protesting wrestlers said late on Saturday evening that there was a lot of "pressure" to call off the Mahila Mahapanchayat they have planned in front of the new Parliament building on Sunday, but they will go ahead with the "peaceful" march come what may. The agitating wrestlers, demanding the arrest of former Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Singh who they alleged sexually harassed several women grapplers, had given a call for a Mahila Mahapanchayat on Sunday, the day the new Parliament building will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The likes of Olympic medallists Bajranj Punia, Sakshi Malik and Asian Games gold winner Vinesh Phogat said that any amount of force will not deter them from going ahead with the peaceful march.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The administration has given them permission to take out the march from Jantar Mantar to the new Parliament building. "We will go ahead with the Mahila Mahapanchayat, come what may. Our supporters have been stopped at a gurudwara in Ambala where they were supposed to stay tonight. It has now been converted into a cantonment," alleged Vinesh. The wrestlers, in the run-up to the Mahapanchayat, have toured several cities in north India urging womenfolk and khaps to lend their support to their protest. Vinesh added that even if force is used on them on Sunday, the march will remain peaceful. "Wherever we are stopped, we will sit there and have the Mahapanchayat." She alleged that raids were being conducted at the houses of people supporting them. "There have been raids at the house of our supporters but the women supporters will reach Delhi for the Mahapanchayat. The Jantar Mantar, the site of the protest for more than a month now, looked virtually out of bounds with a huge posse of police personnel keeping a close watch on the wrestlers and their supporters," Vinesh said. "It's a really difficult (situation). We don't know what the future holds for us. Whether we will be alive or dead," said Vinesh, who cried inconsolably during the press conference. "We wanted justice but something else is happening. Our supporters are being harassed as if we are criminals and not Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh," she added. The grapplers refused to take any questions from the media. On Friday, Vinesh had said if Brij Bhushan attends the inauguration of the new Parliament building on Sunday, it will send a clear message about the state of affairs in the country. "If Brij Bhushan is there at the new Parliament on May 28, then the whole country will automatically get the message," Vinesh had said when asked what kind of message it will convey if WFI chief is present during the inauguration. "Whosoever is trying to save Brij Bhushan, is against us. I don't know what is happening internally in the government but someone is trying to shield him and it is not right, he is harming the women of this country." Vinesh told the media.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The new Parliament building is a reflection of new India's aspirations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday, asserting that it will pave the way for empowering the poor and marginalised and herald the rise of a "developed India" that will inspire the progress of other nations.

In a speech delivered from the grand and cavernous Lok Sabha hall decorated in peacock motif, Modi said the ultra-modern complex was the "need of the hour" in view of the expected increase in the number of members of Parliament.

Some moments in the developmental journey of a nation get immortalised, today is one such day, Modi said amid repeated thumping of desks by the audience.

"More than just a building, the new Parliament encompasses the aspirations and dreams of 1.4 billion people. It sends a powerful message to the world about India's unwavering determination," he said and hailed the country's democratic ethos.

Modi inaugurated the new building this morning at a grand ceremony which included a havan, a multi-faith prayer ceremony and the installation of the Sengol in a special enclosure in the Lok Sabha chamber.

He later addressed a gathering of MPs and distinguished guests in the newly-built Lok Sabha chamber that saw attendance from about 25 parties.

About 20 opposition parties boycotted the event, accusing the prime minister of "sidelining" President Droupadi Murmu.

The new Parliament complex will witness realisation of the 'developed India' pledge and will inspire other nations as well, Modi said.

Soon after he arrived in Lok Sabha amidst chants of 'Modi, Modi', the messages by President Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar were read out, while Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Harivansh also addressed the gathering.

ALSO READ | BJP MP Brij Bhushan seen at new Parliament as Olympian wrestlers manhandled, detained

In his speech, Modi said that as India develops, the world progresses.

He asserted that this new Parliament building will give a call for the development of the world as well.

He also talked about the 'Sengol', saying that it was a symbol of power transfer from the British and had now been given the respect it deserves.

"In the Chola empire, it (Sengol) was considered a symbol of the Kartavya path (path of duty), Seva Path (path of service) and Rashtra path (path of the nation)," Modi said.

#WATCH | Several years of foreign rule stole our pride from us. Today, India has left behind that colonial mindset: PM Narendra Modi in the new Parliament pic.twitter.com/2MjiPD7lBP  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

The prime minister asserted that India is not only a democratic nation but is also the mother of democracy.

"Our democracy is our inspiration, our Constitution our resolve. Parliament is the best representative of this inspiration and resolution," he said, adding that the new Parliament building was a perfect example of the co-existence of the old and new.

In his remarks, Modi also pointed out that the construction of the new Parliament building gave employment to 60,000 workers and a digital gallery dedicated to them has also been built in the complex.

The building has been completed in about two-and-a-half years at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 1,200 crore.

From building Panchayat buildings to the Parliament complex, "our commitment remains the same", he said as he drew parallels between the grandeur of the new building and the work done by his government at the ground level.

"We have 25 years of 'Amritkaal Khand', together we have to make India a developed nation in this period," Modi said. Every decision taken in this Parliament will decide the fate of all sections of society and laws made here will help remove poverty and empower the poor and the marginalised sections of society, he said.

"Every decision taken here will lay the foundation of India's glorious future. The way to empower the poor, dalits, backwards, tribals, divyangs and other marginalised section does through here," he said, adding "each brick and wall of this Parliament building should be dedicated to the welfare of the poor".

He said the new Parliament building will be a testament to the dawn of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India).

"It will be a witness to our journey towards a Viksit Bharat (developed India)," Modi said at the event attended by former president Ram Nath Kovind, Chief Ministers Y S Jagan Reddy, Yogi Adityanath, Eknath Shinde and Neiphu Rio, foreign envoys, Parliamentarians and people from different walks of life.

Earlier, dressed in traditional attire, Modi walked into Parliament premises from its Gate No.1 and was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke divine blessings.

The prime minister prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand.

Modi then carried the Sengol in a procession amid tunes of nadaswaram and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha chamber.

"As the new building of India's Parliament is inaugurated, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise. May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress," the prime minister tweeted.

The prime minister felicitated with shawls and souvenirs some of the workers for their key role in the construction of the new Parliament building.

The new Parliament building, constructed by Tata Projects Ltd, will also have a grand Constitution Hall to showcase India's democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space.

The triangular-shaped four-storey building has a built-up area of 64,500 square metres.

The building has three main gates --- Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar.

NEW DELHI: The new Parliament building is a reflection of new India's aspirations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday, asserting that it will pave the way for empowering the poor and marginalised and herald the rise of a "developed India" that will inspire the progress of other nations. In a speech delivered from the grand and cavernous Lok Sabha hall decorated in peacock motif, Modi said the ultra-modern complex was the "need of the hour" in view of the expected increase in the number of members of Parliament. Some moments in the developmental journey of a nation get immortalised, today is one such day, Modi said amid repeated thumping of desks by the audience.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "More than just a building, the new Parliament encompasses the aspirations and dreams of 1.4 billion people. It sends a powerful message to the world about India's unwavering determination," he said and hailed the country's democratic ethos. Modi inaugurated the new building this morning at a grand ceremony which included a havan, a multi-faith prayer ceremony and the installation of the Sengol in a special enclosure in the Lok Sabha chamber. He later addressed a gathering of MPs and distinguished guests in the newly-built Lok Sabha chamber that saw attendance from about 25 parties. About 20 opposition parties boycotted the event, accusing the prime minister of "sidelining" President Droupadi Murmu. The new Parliament complex will witness realisation of the 'developed India' pledge and will inspire other nations as well, Modi said. Soon after he arrived in Lok Sabha amidst chants of 'Modi, Modi', the messages by President Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar were read out, while Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Harivansh also addressed the gathering. ALSO READ | BJP MP Brij Bhushan seen at new Parliament as Olympian wrestlers manhandled, detained In his speech, Modi said that as India develops, the world progresses. He asserted that this new Parliament building will give a call for the development of the world as well. He also talked about the 'Sengol', saying that it was a symbol of power transfer from the British and had now been given the respect it deserves. "In the Chola empire, it (Sengol) was considered a symbol of the Kartavya path (path of duty), Seva Path (path of service) and Rashtra path (path of the nation)," Modi said. #WATCH | Several years of foreign rule stole our pride from us. Today, India has left behind that colonial mindset: PM Narendra Modi in the new Parliament pic.twitter.com/2MjiPD7lBP  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023 The prime minister asserted that India is not only a democratic nation but is also the mother of democracy. "Our democracy is our inspiration, our Constitution our resolve. Parliament is the best representative of this inspiration and resolution," he said, adding that the new Parliament building was a perfect example of the co-existence of the old and new. In his remarks, Modi also pointed out that the construction of the new Parliament building gave employment to 60,000 workers and a digital gallery dedicated to them has also been built in the complex. The building has been completed in about two-and-a-half years at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 1,200 crore. From building Panchayat buildings to the Parliament complex, "our commitment remains the same", he said as he drew parallels between the grandeur of the new building and the work done by his government at the ground level. "We have 25 years of 'Amritkaal Khand', together we have to make India a developed nation in this period," Modi said. Every decision taken in this Parliament will decide the fate of all sections of society and laws made here will help remove poverty and empower the poor and the marginalised sections of society, he said. "Every decision taken here will lay the foundation of India's glorious future. The way to empower the poor, dalits, backwards, tribals, divyangs and other marginalised section does through here," he said, adding "each brick and wall of this Parliament building should be dedicated to the welfare of the poor". He said the new Parliament building will be a testament to the dawn of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India). "It will be a witness to our journey towards a Viksit Bharat (developed India)," Modi said at the event attended by former president Ram Nath Kovind, Chief Ministers Y S Jagan Reddy, Yogi Adityanath, Eknath Shinde and Neiphu Rio, foreign envoys, Parliamentarians and people from different walks of life. Earlier, dressed in traditional attire, Modi walked into Parliament premises from its Gate No.1 and was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke divine blessings. The prime minister prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand. Modi then carried the Sengol in a procession amid tunes of nadaswaram and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha chamber. "As the new building of India's Parliament is inaugurated, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise. May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress," the prime minister tweeted. The prime minister felicitated with shawls and souvenirs some of the workers for their key role in the construction of the new Parliament building. The new Parliament building, constructed by Tata Projects Ltd, will also have a grand Constitution Hall to showcase India's democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space. The triangular-shaped four-storey building has a built-up area of 64,500 square metres. The building has three main gates --- Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar.
Ramashankar By

Express News Service

PATNA: Patna: Ruling Janata Dal (United) in Bihar received a setback following the resignation of a senior leader and former MP Monazir Hasan from the primary membership of the party on Sunday.

Hasan told media persons that he has sent his resignation letter to the party's national president and MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh. A copy of the letter has also been sent to JD(U) supremo and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

He said that people like him were not of much importance to JD(U) and that's why a number of dedicated workers of the party were being neglected by the top leadership.

Hasan also remarked that posts across several government-run organisations meant for the welfare of minority communities were lying vacant for years together. The former MP alleged that people from minority communities were at the receiving end in the state.

The leaders of the grand alliance, including JD(U) and RJD, have exploited them by showing fear of the BJP. In addition, the minority community has not been given due representation in the government, he claimed.

He cited the cases of many leaders from minority communities who have been sidelined by top leaders of the ruling grand alliance in the state. The so-called MY (Muslim-Yadav) combination was used as a vote bank by RJD, he added.

Hasan's resignation may have an adverse impact on the performance of JD(U) in the Munger region. He had won four times from the Munger assembly constituency seat, which comes under Munger Lok Sabha.

The Munger Lok Sabha seat is currently represented by Lalan Singh.

In addition, Hasan had also earlier won from Munger Lok Sabha seat. He was also appointed as a minister twice.

He is an influential leader of the Munger region. His exit from the JD(U) will impact the Lok Sabha election to be held next year, said a JD(U) leader, considered close to him.

Hasan alleged that some leaders of JD(U) were responsible for the poor show of the party in the 2020 assembly polls. These leaders, considered close to Nitish Kumar, are ruining the party, he alleged.

PATNA: Patna: Ruling Janata Dal (United) in Bihar received a setback following the resignation of a senior leader and former MP Monazir Hasan from the primary membership of the party on Sunday. Hasan told media persons that he has sent his resignation letter to the party's national president and MP Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh. A copy of the letter has also been sent to JD(U) supremo and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. He said that people like him were not of much importance to JD(U) and that's why a number of dedicated workers of the party were being neglected by the top leadership.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Hasan also remarked that posts across several government-run organisations meant for the welfare of minority communities were lying vacant for years together. The former MP alleged that people from minority communities were at the receiving end in the state. The leaders of the grand alliance, including JD(U) and RJD, have exploited them by showing fear of the BJP. In addition, the minority community has not been given due representation in the government, he claimed. He cited the cases of many leaders from minority communities who have been sidelined by top leaders of the ruling grand alliance in the state. The so-called MY (Muslim-Yadav) combination was used as a vote bank by RJD, he added. Hasan's resignation may have an adverse impact on the performance of JD(U) in the Munger region. He had won four times from the Munger assembly constituency seat, which comes under Munger Lok Sabha. The Munger Lok Sabha seat is currently represented by Lalan Singh. In addition, Hasan had also earlier won from Munger Lok Sabha seat. He was also appointed as a minister twice. He is an influential leader of the Munger region. His exit from the JD(U) will impact the Lok Sabha election to be held next year, said a JD(U) leader, considered close to him. Hasan alleged that some leaders of JD(U) were responsible for the poor show of the party in the 2020 assembly polls. These leaders, considered close to Nitish Kumar, are ruining the party, he alleged.
Prasanta Mazumdar By

Express News Service

GUWAHATI: At least 40 militants were killed in the ongoing operations by the security forces and the police in restive Manipur even as sporadic incidents of firing and arson were reported from four districts on Sunday, on the eve of Union home minister Amit Shahs visit to the state.

Official sources said the militants were killed in separate operations over the past four days. An estimated 34,000 Army and paramilitary personnel are deployed in the state.

Four civilians lost their lives in the stray incidents  three in Sugnu in Kakching district and another in Phayeng in Imphal West district on Sunday, local media reported.

At least 10 others  injured in the violence in Sugnu  were admitted to a hospital in Imphal. Violence was also reported from Imphal East and areas on the border of Bishnupur and Churachandpur districts. The state government condemned the attacks on unarmed civilians.

At Uripok in Imphal West district, a mob ransacked the house of BJP MLA Kh Raghumani Singh and torched two vehicles.

After briefing Army Chief General Manoj Pandey on the prevailing situation, Chief Minister N Biren Singh told journalists that mass combing operations along with helicopter surveillance were underway.

We are trying to find out the culprits, those militants who are attacking civilians. Around 33 militants have been killed, he said.

However, a government statement said around 30 terrorists were killed. A senior official said the number of militants killed rose to 40 by 5 pm. Several others were nabbed.

Singh said the government was saddened by the casualties on both sides and assured all possible steps in restoring normalcy.

He said the spurt in violent attacks on civilian houses appeared well-planned to show their capacity especially when Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai is in the state and group peace missions are being formed as part of the efforts to bring back peace.

He said those trying to break the state and disrupt peaceful co-existence were the enemies of all 34 communities.

Stating that this clearly is a challenge to the state and its integrity, he said the government would not allow disintegration and uproot these armed terrorists. He said the fight is between armed terrorists and the state government which was being assisted by the Centre.

Meanwhile, Shah, who is arriving in the state on a three-day visit on Monday, is likely to meet the leaders of various communities. Armys Eastern Commander Lieutenant General RP Kalita visited several sensitive districts over the past few days to assess the ground situation.

GUWAHATI: At least 40 militants were killed in the ongoing operations by the security forces and the police in restive Manipur even as sporadic incidents of firing and arson were reported from four districts on Sunday, on the eve of Union home minister Amit Shahs visit to the state. Official sources said the militants were killed in separate operations over the past four days. An estimated 34,000 Army and paramilitary personnel are deployed in the state. Four civilians lost their lives in the stray incidents  three in Sugnu in Kakching district and another in Phayeng in Imphal West district on Sunday, local media reported.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); At least 10 others  injured in the violence in Sugnu  were admitted to a hospital in Imphal. Violence was also reported from Imphal East and areas on the border of Bishnupur and Churachandpur districts. The state government condemned the attacks on unarmed civilians. At Uripok in Imphal West district, a mob ransacked the house of BJP MLA Kh Raghumani Singh and torched two vehicles. After briefing Army Chief General Manoj Pandey on the prevailing situation, Chief Minister N Biren Singh told journalists that mass combing operations along with helicopter surveillance were underway. We are trying to find out the culprits, those militants who are attacking civilians. Around 33 militants have been killed, he said. However, a government statement said around 30 terrorists were killed. A senior official said the number of militants killed rose to 40 by 5 pm. Several others were nabbed. Singh said the government was saddened by the casualties on both sides and assured all possible steps in restoring normalcy. He said the spurt in violent attacks on civilian houses appeared well-planned to show their capacity especially when Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai is in the state and group peace missions are being formed as part of the efforts to bring back peace. He said those trying to break the state and disrupt peaceful co-existence were the enemies of all 34 communities. Stating that this clearly is a challenge to the state and its integrity, he said the government would not allow disintegration and uproot these armed terrorists. He said the fight is between armed terrorists and the state government which was being assisted by the Centre. Meanwhile, Shah, who is arriving in the state on a three-day visit on Monday, is likely to meet the leaders of various communities. Armys Eastern Commander Lieutenant General RP Kalita visited several sensitive districts over the past few days to assess the ground situation.
By PTI

PANAJI: Goan writer Damodar Mauzo has received the prestigious Jnanpith Award, the country's highest literary honour, from state Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai.

Addressing a gathering after presenting the award on Saturday, the governor said Mauzo is the "epitome of the Konkani literary culture."

Renowned poet Gulzar was present during the function held at the Raj Bhavan near Goa capital Panaji.

Mauzo's 25 books have been published in Konkani and one in English. Many of his books have also been translated in different languages.

Pillai said Konkani is qualitatively rich in its literature though it is spoken by a few lakh people.

The governor drew parallels between Charles Dickens and Damodar Mauzo who, he said, chose to portray orphaned children as main characters in their writings. Both these great writers have bravely "shown the mirror to the society", he said.

"I feel proud and happy to bestow this great award on the great Goan writer Damodarji," the governor said.

Mauzo's famous novel 'Karmelin' received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983. The novel, published in 1981, has been translated in Hindi, Marathi, English, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Odia and Maithili languages.

Mauzo is the second Goan to receive the Jnanpith Award. Earlier, Ravindra Kelekar from the coastal state got the award in 2008.

While Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who was in Delhi, joined the function online, state Art and Culture Minister Govind Gaude and Bharatiya Jnanpith President Justice Virendra Jain were present at the Raj Bhavan during the event.

Gulzar and Gaude also spoke on the occasion.

PANAJI: Goan writer Damodar Mauzo has received the prestigious Jnanpith Award, the country's highest literary honour, from state Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai. Addressing a gathering after presenting the award on Saturday, the governor said Mauzo is the "epitome of the Konkani literary culture." Renowned poet Gulzar was present during the function held at the Raj Bhavan near Goa capital Panaji.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Mauzo's 25 books have been published in Konkani and one in English. Many of his books have also been translated in different languages. Pillai said Konkani is qualitatively rich in its literature though it is spoken by a few lakh people. The governor drew parallels between Charles Dickens and Damodar Mauzo who, he said, chose to portray orphaned children as main characters in their writings. Both these great writers have bravely "shown the mirror to the society", he said. "I feel proud and happy to bestow this great award on the great Goan writer Damodarji," the governor said. Mauzo's famous novel 'Karmelin' received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983. The novel, published in 1981, has been translated in Hindi, Marathi, English, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Odia and Maithili languages. Mauzo is the second Goan to receive the Jnanpith Award. Earlier, Ravindra Kelekar from the coastal state got the award in 2008. While Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who was in Delhi, joined the function online, state Art and Culture Minister Govind Gaude and Bharatiya Jnanpith President Justice Virendra Jain were present at the Raj Bhavan during the event. Gulzar and Gaude also spoke on the occasion.
Pronab Mondal By

Express News Service

KOLKATA: Sahebdanga, a tribal inhabited village in Bolpur, Birbhum is on a celebration made as four girls from the poverty-stricken hamlet returned from schools with their Class X board examination scorecard.

The four girls are the first among women in the village who have passed the Class X examination facing all odds and hardships.

Basanti Tudu, Latika Murmu, Meeru Hansda and Sumitra Tudu have set up an example of determination. All of them met a common plight in their childhood. They lost their father and reality dragged them into the field full of odds and hardships. They had to join their mothers to work as daily wage earners.

It was a very tough situation. After working throughout the day as a daily labourer, I used to sit with textbooks. I used to feel sleepy because of tiredness but my determination to touch the goal of qualifying Class X examination would keep me awake. No girl in our village appeared in the Class X board examination before, recounted Latika, who studied in Bolpur Paruldanga Shikshaniketan.

The total literacy rate of Bolpur Sriniketan Block, where Latikas village is located, is 70.67 per cent and the female literacy rate is 56.55 per cent.

Basanti, Meeru and Sumitra faced the same plight that Latika did.

The nearest high school is four km from our village without having any public transport facility. On the way to school, we had to cross three fields where no tree was available for offering us a shed during summer or monsoon. But all my pain has been evaporated the moment I found my name in the list of successful candidates who appeared in this years Madhyamik or Class X board exam, said Meeru.

Basantis mother Lakhhi Tudu, who works as a daily labourer, said none of her family studied before. We could not even imagine appearing in the Class X examination. My daughter defeated all hardships and her willpower won, she said.

The four teenagers said they would encourage other girls in the village to pursue their education. Many leaves education midway because of poverty. We will make them understand why completing education is important. We will help them in every possible way so that no one stops going to school, said Sumitra.

Recently, a welfare organisation, Radhamohan Foundation, adopted the village for its development. The village is lacking basic facilities. The success of four girls is definitely an example in front others, Budhhishwar Mondal, a member of the organisation.

KOLKATA: Sahebdanga, a tribal inhabited village in Bolpur, Birbhum is on a celebration made as four girls from the poverty-stricken hamlet returned from schools with their Class X board examination scorecard. The four girls are the first among women in the village who have passed the Class X examination facing all odds and hardships. Basanti Tudu, Latika Murmu, Meeru Hansda and Sumitra Tudu have set up an example of determination. All of them met a common plight in their childhood. They lost their father and reality dragged them into the field full of odds and hardships. They had to join their mothers to work as daily wage earners. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); It was a very tough situation. After working throughout the day as a daily labourer, I used to sit with textbooks. I used to feel sleepy because of tiredness but my determination to touch the goal of qualifying Class X examination would keep me awake. No girl in our village appeared in the Class X board examination before, recounted Latika, who studied in Bolpur Paruldanga Shikshaniketan. The total literacy rate of Bolpur Sriniketan Block, where Latikas village is located, is 70.67 per cent and the female literacy rate is 56.55 per cent. Basanti, Meeru and Sumitra faced the same plight that Latika did. The nearest high school is four km from our village without having any public transport facility. On the way to school, we had to cross three fields where no tree was available for offering us a shed during summer or monsoon. But all my pain has been evaporated the moment I found my name in the list of successful candidates who appeared in this years Madhyamik or Class X board exam, said Meeru. Basantis mother Lakhhi Tudu, who works as a daily labourer, said none of her family studied before. We could not even imagine appearing in the Class X examination. My daughter defeated all hardships and her willpower won, she said. The four teenagers said they would encourage other girls in the village to pursue their education. Many leaves education midway because of poverty. We will make them understand why completing education is important. We will help them in every possible way so that no one stops going to school, said Sumitra. Recently, a welfare organisation, Radhamohan Foundation, adopted the village for its development. The village is lacking basic facilities. The success of four girls is definitely an example in front others, Budhhishwar Mondal, a member of the organisation.
Yeshi Seli By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: It's been nearly two months since the position of Ambassador in Doha is lying vacant. The last Ambassador to Doha, Dipak Mittal, returned to India in March and joined the Prime Ministers Office (PMO).

It was learnt that Joint Secretary (Gulf) of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Vipul was his likely replacement but no formal announcement came from the MEA yet, and the position has been vacant since March-end.

Its the next of kin of the eight naval veterans who have been under solitary confinement in Doha since August 31st, 2022, who have been feeling completely rudderless without an Ambassador.

"It becomes difficult to access information on our men in Doha. With charges having been framed and the case being tried against these eight veterans under Qatari law, our anxiety levels have increased and we do not have a go-to person to understand what lies ahead, said sources.

Meanwhile, the naval veterans continue to call home every week and the past few conversations that theyve had indicated that their patience is wearing off and they feel tortured and threatened whilst under confinement.

"The conversations we have with our men in Doha are brief and monitored by the Qatari authorities as a result of which we have not been able to have an open conversation with them since they were detained. They have always maintained that they are innocent and the charges levelled against them baseless, said sources.

Meanwhile, the wives of some of the naval veterans have been in Doha for a few weeks now. They have been allowed in-person meetings with their husbands but the conversation is formal as it's always monitored by the authorities in Doha.

With the eight naval veterans having lost their jobs, there is no money that is going to the families now, as a result of which the families who are in Doha are facing tremendous challenges to survive on their own  whilst reeling under the uncertainty of what the next hearing (which will be in June) beholds for the naval veterans.

NEW DELHI: It's been nearly two months since the position of Ambassador in Doha is lying vacant. The last Ambassador to Doha, Dipak Mittal, returned to India in March and joined the Prime Ministers Office (PMO). It was learnt that Joint Secretary (Gulf) of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Vipul was his likely replacement but no formal announcement came from the MEA yet, and the position has been vacant since March-end. Its the next of kin of the eight naval veterans who have been under solitary confinement in Doha since August 31st, 2022, who have been feeling completely rudderless without an Ambassador.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "It becomes difficult to access information on our men in Doha. With charges having been framed and the case being tried against these eight veterans under Qatari law, our anxiety levels have increased and we do not have a go-to person to understand what lies ahead, said sources. Meanwhile, the naval veterans continue to call home every week and the past few conversations that theyve had indicated that their patience is wearing off and they feel tortured and threatened whilst under confinement. "The conversations we have with our men in Doha are brief and monitored by the Qatari authorities as a result of which we have not been able to have an open conversation with them since they were detained. They have always maintained that they are innocent and the charges levelled against them baseless, said sources. Meanwhile, the wives of some of the naval veterans have been in Doha for a few weeks now. They have been allowed in-person meetings with their husbands but the conversation is formal as it's always monitored by the authorities in Doha. With the eight naval veterans having lost their jobs, there is no money that is going to the families now, as a result of which the families who are in Doha are facing tremendous challenges to survive on their own  whilst reeling under the uncertainty of what the next hearing (which will be in June) beholds for the naval veterans.
By PTI

MUMBAI: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Sunday said BJP leaders in Maharashtra will not call for a ban on superstar Shah Rukh Khan's films now that the actor has expressed happiness over the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

Earlier in the day, the actor posted a tweet with a video of his voiceover expressing happiness over the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"What a magnificent new home for the people who uphold our Constitution, represent every citizen of this great Nation and protect the diversity of her one People @narendramodi ji. A new Parliament building for a New India but with the age-old dream of Glory for India. Jai Hind! #MyParliamentMyPride," Khan tweeted.

The parliament is to the nation what the soul is to the body, the 57-year-old actor said in the clip.

What a magnificent new home for the people who uphold our Constitution, represent every citizen of this great Nation and protect the diversity of her one People @narendramodi ji.

A new Parliament building for a New India but with the age old dream of Glory for India. Jai Hind! pic.twitter.com/FjXFZwYk2T  Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) May 27, 2023

Around 20 Opposition parties, including the NCP, decided to boycott the event over the prime minister and not the president inaugurating the building.

Reacting to Khan's comment on the inauguration, the NCP's national spokesperson Clyde Crasto tweeted, "Now that Shah Rukh Khan has spoken in favour of the New Parliament building, we will soon see @BJP4Maharashtra leaders genuflecting in front of him and not calling for a ban on his films."

Now that Shahrukh Khan has spoken in favour of the New Parliament building, we will soon see @BJP4Maharashtra leaders genuflecting in front of him and not calling for a ban on his films.@iamsrk  Clyde Crasto -   (@Clyde_Crasto) May 28, 2023

It may be recalled that Khan's last release "Pathan" saw widespread protests by the right-wing outfits, who called for a ban on the film.

MUMBAI: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Sunday said BJP leaders in Maharashtra will not call for a ban on superstar Shah Rukh Khan's films now that the actor has expressed happiness over the inauguration of the new Parliament building. Earlier in the day, the actor posted a tweet with a video of his voiceover expressing happiness over the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "What a magnificent new home for the people who uphold our Constitution, represent every citizen of this great Nation and protect the diversity of her one People @narendramodi ji. A new Parliament building for a New India but with the age-old dream of Glory for India. Jai Hind! #MyParliamentMyPride," Khan tweeted.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The parliament is to the nation what the soul is to the body, the 57-year-old actor said in the clip. What a magnificent new home for the people who uphold our Constitution, represent every citizen of this great Nation and protect the diversity of her one People @narendramodi ji. A new Parliament building for a New India but with the age old dream of Glory for India. Jai Hind! pic.twitter.com/FjXFZwYk2T  Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) May 27, 2023 Around 20 Opposition parties, including the NCP, decided to boycott the event over the prime minister and not the president inaugurating the building. Reacting to Khan's comment on the inauguration, the NCP's national spokesperson Clyde Crasto tweeted, "Now that Shah Rukh Khan has spoken in favour of the New Parliament building, we will soon see @BJP4Maharashtra leaders genuflecting in front of him and not calling for a ban on his films." Now that Shahrukh Khan has spoken in favour of the New Parliament building, we will soon see @BJP4Maharashtra leaders genuflecting in front of him and not calling for a ban on his films.@iamsrk  Clyde Crasto -   (@Clyde_Crasto) May 28, 2023 It may be recalled that Khan's last release "Pathan" saw widespread protests by the right-wing outfits, who called for a ban on the film.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has attended the ceremony of releasing East Caucasian turs, falcons into the wild in the Lachin district as part of the reintroduction project in the country as well as over 32 thousand carps, salmons and rainbow trouts into the Hakari river in order to restore water ecosystem in the liberated lands, Trend reports.

Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Mukhtar Babayev informed the head of state of the works done.

First, East Caucasian turs and falcons were released into the wild in the Lachin district with participation of President Ilham Aliyev as part of the reintroduction project in the country. Falcons were delivered from Qatar.

The head of state was presented with a keepsake.

President Ilham Aliyev joined the ceremony to release over 32 thousand carps, salmons and rainbow trouts into the Hakari river.

The head of state was informed about the works done with respect to the third edition of the Red Book dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Great Leader Heydar Aliyev.

The hydrometeorological observation and environmental monitoring network, which had been completely destroyed during occupation years, has been rebuilt and modernized.

Information about solid-waste management in the liberated lands was provided.

x x x

Then, President Ilham Aliyev examined the progress of construction of recreational resort cottages.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Sunday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the recent violence in Manipur, saying a horrific tragedy is unfolding there while the PM is obsessed about his "self-coronation."

A delegation led by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge will be calling on President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday morning regarding the situation in the state, according to party general secretary Jairam Ramesh.

He said 25 days after Manipur started burning, things turned from bad to worse on the eve of the long-awaited visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah to Imphal.

"Despite Article 355 being imposed, there's a total and complete breakdown of law and order and administration in the state," Ramesh said on Twitter.

"It's a horrific tragedy unfolding while the prime minister is obsessed about his self-coronation. Not a single appeal of peace issued by him nor has there been a genuine outreach to rebuild trust between communities," he said in an apparent reference to the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Modi.

Earlier in the day, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh said nearly 40 armed militants involved in torching houses and firing at civilians have been killed by security forces since they began an operation to bring peace to the northeastern state beset by ethnic rioting.

Separately, police officials on Sunday said at least two people were killed and 12 injured in different instances of firing upon civilians and clashes between militants and security forces since the early hours of the day.

Ethnic clashes, which have claimed over 75 lives, first broke out in Manipur after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts on May 3 to protest against the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

The violence was preceded by tension over the eviction of Kuki villagers from reserve forest land, which had led to a series of smaller agitations.

Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal Valley.

Tribals Nagas and Kukis constitute another 40 per cent of the population and reside in the hill districts.

Around 140 columns of the Indian Army and Assam Rifles, comprising over 10,000 personnel, besides those from other paramilitary forces had to be deployed to bring back normalcy in the northeastern state.

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Sunday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the recent violence in Manipur, saying a horrific tragedy is unfolding there while the PM is obsessed about his "self-coronation." A delegation led by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge will be calling on President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday morning regarding the situation in the state, according to party general secretary Jairam Ramesh. He said 25 days after Manipur started burning, things turned from bad to worse on the eve of the long-awaited visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah to Imphal.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "Despite Article 355 being imposed, there's a total and complete breakdown of law and order and administration in the state," Ramesh said on Twitter. "It's a horrific tragedy unfolding while the prime minister is obsessed about his self-coronation. Not a single appeal of peace issued by him nor has there been a genuine outreach to rebuild trust between communities," he said in an apparent reference to the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Modi. Earlier in the day, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh said nearly 40 armed militants involved in torching houses and firing at civilians have been killed by security forces since they began an operation to bring peace to the northeastern state beset by ethnic rioting. Separately, police officials on Sunday said at least two people were killed and 12 injured in different instances of firing upon civilians and clashes between militants and security forces since the early hours of the day. Ethnic clashes, which have claimed over 75 lives, first broke out in Manipur after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts on May 3 to protest against the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status. The violence was preceded by tension over the eviction of Kuki villagers from reserve forest land, which had led to a series of smaller agitations. Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal Valley. Tribals Nagas and Kukis constitute another 40 per cent of the population and reside in the hill districts. Around 140 columns of the Indian Army and Assam Rifles, comprising over 10,000 personnel, besides those from other paramilitary forces had to be deployed to bring back normalcy in the northeastern state.
By IANS

NEW DELHI: Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday described Parliament as the voice of the people and criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for inaugurating the new Parliament House, saying that the Prime Minister is considering the inauguration as a coronation.

In a tweet in Hindi, the Congress leader said, "Parliament is the voice of the people. The Prime Minister is considering the inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation."

    !



          May 28, 2023

His remarks came after Prime Minister Modi on Sunday inaugurated the new Parliament House following 'puja' and 'havan'. Modi also installed the historic 'Sengol' near the Lok Sabha Speaker's chair in the new building.

Twenty opposition parties have boycotted the inauguration of the new Parliament building accusing the BJP of not inviting President Droupadi Murmu and citing it as an insult to the first tribal President of of the country.

NEW DELHI: Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday described Parliament as the voice of the people and criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for inaugurating the new Parliament House, saying that the Prime Minister is considering the inauguration as a coronation. In a tweet in Hindi, the Congress leader said, "Parliament is the voice of the people. The Prime Minister is considering the inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation."     !          googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); });  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 28, 2023 His remarks came after Prime Minister Modi on Sunday inaugurated the new Parliament House following 'puja' and 'havan'. Modi also installed the historic 'Sengol' near the Lok Sabha Speaker's chair in the new building. Twenty opposition parties have boycotted the inauguration of the new Parliament building accusing the BJP of not inviting President Droupadi Murmu and citing it as an insult to the first tribal President of of the country.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: President Droupadi Murmu on Sunday welcomed the inauguration of the new parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said it is a matter of pride and immense happiness for the entire country.

In her message at the inauguration, the president said the inauguration of the new Parliament building will be written in golden words in the country's history.

"Inauguration of the new parliament building is a matter of pride and joy for all the people of India," she said in her message.

Her message was read out by Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh.

Noting the parliament is a guiding light for the country, President Murmu said the new Parliament building "is an important milestone in our democratic journey".

"The occasion of the inauguration of the new parliament building will be written in golden words in the history of India," Murmu said.

NEW DELHI: President Droupadi Murmu on Sunday welcomed the inauguration of the new parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said it is a matter of pride and immense happiness for the entire country. In her message at the inauguration, the president said the inauguration of the new Parliament building will be written in golden words in the country's history. "Inauguration of the new parliament building is a matter of pride and joy for all the people of India," she said in her message.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Her message was read out by Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh. Noting the parliament is a guiding light for the country, President Murmu said the new Parliament building "is an important milestone in our democratic journey". "The occasion of the inauguration of the new parliament building will be written in golden words in the history of India," Murmu said.
Rajesh Asnani By

Express News Service

JAIPUR: The Congress High Command has summoned Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot for separate meetings with party president Mallikarjuna Kharge in Delhi on Monday to resolve the internal tussle in Rajasthan Congress.

It is now believed that the long-standing ongoing feud between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot may come to an end. The scheduled meeting on Friday was cancelled at the last moment owing to the poor health of CM Gehlot.

According to sources, in addition to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, CM Ashok Gehlot, and former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, Rahul Gandhi, Congress state in-charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Congress President Govind Dotasara, will also attend the meeting.

The Congress's high command is brimming with confidence after the massive victory in Karnataka. In such a situation, the high command does not want to leave any stone unturned to capitalise on this energy in the upcoming Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh elections which are scheduled for later this year.

However, political analysts believe that it's different in Rajasthan as comparable to Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. This lack of confidence stems from the desert state's tradition of changing power after every state election as well as the rivalry between the two main pillars of the party in the state, Gehlot and Pilot.

In light of this situation, it is believed that the meeting may provide an opportunity to find a formula for reconciliation between these two leaders. However, based on recent trends, the chances of success seem slim. Previous efforts made by the party in this direction have all failed. Despite strict instructions, Pilot has given an ultimatum to the government of his own party, setting a deadline of May 31 for addressing his three demands. Furthermore, CM Gehlot recently dismissed one of Pilot's demands as an indication of a 'lack of intellect'.

Given these circumstances, it is speculated that the high command may present some options by assigning different roles to Gehlot and Pilot before the elections.

A senior Congress source, speaking anonymously, suggests that one of these options would be to reappoint Sachin Pilot as the party's state president. However, Gehlot might oppose this by citing the satisfactory performance of the current state president, Govind Singh Dotasara who comes from the Jat community, a major vote bank in Rajasthan. In this situation, the party leadership may ask Gehlot to appoint Dotasara as the Deputy Chief Minister.

In yet another option, the top leader said to project Sachin Pilot as the Chief Ministerial face for the next election. However, considering the deep-seated resentment that has developed between Gehlot and Pilot over the last four and a half years, it is unlikely that Gehlot would agree to this option in any situation, as the enmity between these two is more rooted in personal ego clashes than politics. Therefore, the option of presenting Pilot as the Chief Minister is more likely to be outrightly rejected.

On the other hand, recent observations about Pilot's actions and remarks suggest that he is not in the mood to take anything for granted. Discussions about Pilot seeking the services of election strategist Prashant Kishor before the next elections have given rise to new speculations in the political corridors of Rajasthan.

Given this situation, the coming days hold great importance for the Congress party. The outcome of the meeting on Monday will determine whether Gehlot and Pilot will work together as a team in this election or potentially undermine the Congress' prospects in Rajasthan.



JAIPUR: The Congress High Command has summoned Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his former deputy Sachin Pilot for separate meetings with party president Mallikarjuna Kharge in Delhi on Monday to resolve the internal tussle in Rajasthan Congress. It is now believed that the long-standing ongoing feud between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot may come to an end. The scheduled meeting on Friday was cancelled at the last moment owing to the poor health of CM Gehlot. According to sources, in addition to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, CM Ashok Gehlot, and former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, Rahul Gandhi, Congress state in-charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Congress President Govind Dotasara, will also attend the meeting.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The Congress's high command is brimming with confidence after the massive victory in Karnataka. In such a situation, the high command does not want to leave any stone unturned to capitalise on this energy in the upcoming Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh elections which are scheduled for later this year. However, political analysts believe that it's different in Rajasthan as comparable to Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. This lack of confidence stems from the desert state's tradition of changing power after every state election as well as the rivalry between the two main pillars of the party in the state, Gehlot and Pilot. In light of this situation, it is believed that the meeting may provide an opportunity to find a formula for reconciliation between these two leaders. However, based on recent trends, the chances of success seem slim. Previous efforts made by the party in this direction have all failed. Despite strict instructions, Pilot has given an ultimatum to the government of his own party, setting a deadline of May 31 for addressing his three demands. Furthermore, CM Gehlot recently dismissed one of Pilot's demands as an indication of a 'lack of intellect'. Given these circumstances, it is speculated that the high command may present some options by assigning different roles to Gehlot and Pilot before the elections. A senior Congress source, speaking anonymously, suggests that one of these options would be to reappoint Sachin Pilot as the party's state president. However, Gehlot might oppose this by citing the satisfactory performance of the current state president, Govind Singh Dotasara who comes from the Jat community, a major vote bank in Rajasthan. In this situation, the party leadership may ask Gehlot to appoint Dotasara as the Deputy Chief Minister. In yet another option, the top leader said to project Sachin Pilot as the Chief Ministerial face for the next election. However, considering the deep-seated resentment that has developed between Gehlot and Pilot over the last four and a half years, it is unlikely that Gehlot would agree to this option in any situation, as the enmity between these two is more rooted in personal ego clashes than politics. Therefore, the option of presenting Pilot as the Chief Minister is more likely to be outrightly rejected. On the other hand, recent observations about Pilot's actions and remarks suggest that he is not in the mood to take anything for granted. Discussions about Pilot seeking the services of election strategist Prashant Kishor before the next elections have given rise to new speculations in the political corridors of Rajasthan. Given this situation, the coming days hold great importance for the Congress party. The outcome of the meeting on Monday will determine whether Gehlot and Pilot will work together as a team in this election or potentially undermine the Congress' prospects in Rajasthan.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Thousands of police personnel have been deployed and multiple layers of barricades put in place in the Lutyens' Delhi area on Sunday as part of the security arrangement for the inauguration of the new parliament building and protesting wrestlers' 'Mahila Mahapanchayat', officials said.

Also, all entry and exit gates at the Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations of the Delhi Metro have been closed as part of security measures.

The new parliament building is located near the Central Secretariat station which is an interchange facility between Yellow Line and Violet Line.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new building on Sunday morning. Representatives of 25 political parties and many dignitaries, including chief ministers and ministers, are slated to attend the inauguration.

A senior police officer said, "Security has been stepped up by enhancing police deployment, placing multiple barricades and sufficient police pickets. Intensive patrolling is also being carried out across the national capital and its bordering areas to ensure that law and order are maintained," he said.

The wrestlers protesting at Jantar Mantar, about two kilometres from the parliament building, said they will go ahead with their "Mahila Mahapanchayat" near the new building at any cost.

Police, however, said no protester will be allowed to move towards the new building as permission has not been granted to hold the "Mahila Mahapanchayat".

"We respect our athletes, but we will not let there be any disturbance in the inauguration," Dependra Pathak, Special CP, Law and Order, told PTI.

Police personnel have put up barricades at border points and are checking vehicles entering the national capital.

Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait said thousands of farmers from Uttar Pradesh will gather at Delhi's Ghazipur border at 10. 30 am on Sunday and enter the national capital to extend their support to the protesting wrestlers.

The agitating wrestlers have demanded the arrest of Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Singh who, they alleged, sexually harassed several women grapplers.

#WrestlersProtest | Security beefed up at the #Ghazipur border ahead of the protest march by the wrestlers, farmers, and Khap panchayat leaders.#MahilaMahapanchayat



Express video | @ParveenPhoto. pic.twitter.com/DzAdNqD7Ew  The New Indian Express (@NewIndianXpress) May 28, 2023

In view of the protests, police have requested the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to grant the necessary permission to create temporary jail in the MC Primary Girls School, Kanjawala Chowk, Old Bawana on Sunday.

"Strict vigil is being kept along Delhi's borders. We have increased our pickets. Multiple barricades have been placed and no one will be allowed entry to the national capital without thorough checking," a senior police officer said.

Every vehicle will be checked and no suspicious entry with potential to disrupt the law-and-order situation in Delhi will be allowed, another police officer said.

Police have already issued a traffic advisory that the New Delhi district will be treated as a controlled area and entry of vehicles will be restricted.

Besides additional deployment of force, CCTV monitoring is being carried out continuously, the police said.

According to the traffic advisory, only public transport vehicles, civil service aspirants, bonafide residents, labelled vehicles and emergency vehicles will be allowed to move in the New Delhi area.

The Delhi traffic police urged people to plan their journey accordingly and avoid the New Delhi district from 5:30 am to 3 pm.

A police official said adequate security personnel have been deployed near the Parliament building and robust security arrangements have been made at Jantar Mantar where wrestlers and farmers have been staging a sit-in.

"We have covered the entire Jantar Mantar protest venue. It is being guarded by our security personnel. CCTV cameras installed there are being constantly monitored. "Heavy barricades have been put up. For each protester, we have deployed at least five police personnel. That's how elaborate the security arrangement is at Jantar Mantar," he said.

The ceremony to inaugurate the new Parliament building on Sunday began with an early morning havan and multi-faith prayers followed by the formal opening by Prime Minister Modi.

NEW DELHI: Thousands of police personnel have been deployed and multiple layers of barricades put in place in the Lutyens' Delhi area on Sunday as part of the security arrangement for the inauguration of the new parliament building and protesting wrestlers' 'Mahila Mahapanchayat', officials said. Also, all entry and exit gates at the Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations of the Delhi Metro have been closed as part of security measures. The new parliament building is located near the Central Secretariat station which is an interchange facility between Yellow Line and Violet Line.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new building on Sunday morning. Representatives of 25 political parties and many dignitaries, including chief ministers and ministers, are slated to attend the inauguration. A senior police officer said, "Security has been stepped up by enhancing police deployment, placing multiple barricades and sufficient police pickets. Intensive patrolling is also being carried out across the national capital and its bordering areas to ensure that law and order are maintained," he said. The wrestlers protesting at Jantar Mantar, about two kilometres from the parliament building, said they will go ahead with their "Mahila Mahapanchayat" near the new building at any cost. Police, however, said no protester will be allowed to move towards the new building as permission has not been granted to hold the "Mahila Mahapanchayat". "We respect our athletes, but we will not let there be any disturbance in the inauguration," Dependra Pathak, Special CP, Law and Order, told PTI. Police personnel have put up barricades at border points and are checking vehicles entering the national capital. Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait said thousands of farmers from Uttar Pradesh will gather at Delhi's Ghazipur border at 10. 30 am on Sunday and enter the national capital to extend their support to the protesting wrestlers. The agitating wrestlers have demanded the arrest of Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Singh who, they alleged, sexually harassed several women grapplers. #WrestlersProtest | Security beefed up at the #Ghazipur border ahead of the protest march by the wrestlers, farmers, and Khap panchayat leaders.#MahilaMahapanchayat Express video | @ParveenPhoto. pic.twitter.com/DzAdNqD7Ew  The New Indian Express (@NewIndianXpress) May 28, 2023 In view of the protests, police have requested the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to grant the necessary permission to create temporary jail in the MC Primary Girls School, Kanjawala Chowk, Old Bawana on Sunday. "Strict vigil is being kept along Delhi's borders. We have increased our pickets. Multiple barricades have been placed and no one will be allowed entry to the national capital without thorough checking," a senior police officer said. Every vehicle will be checked and no suspicious entry with potential to disrupt the law-and-order situation in Delhi will be allowed, another police officer said. Police have already issued a traffic advisory that the New Delhi district will be treated as a controlled area and entry of vehicles will be restricted. Besides additional deployment of force, CCTV monitoring is being carried out continuously, the police said. According to the traffic advisory, only public transport vehicles, civil service aspirants, bonafide residents, labelled vehicles and emergency vehicles will be allowed to move in the New Delhi area. The Delhi traffic police urged people to plan their journey accordingly and avoid the New Delhi district from 5:30 am to 3 pm. A police official said adequate security personnel have been deployed near the Parliament building and robust security arrangements have been made at Jantar Mantar where wrestlers and farmers have been staging a sit-in. "We have covered the entire Jantar Mantar protest venue. It is being guarded by our security personnel. CCTV cameras installed there are being constantly monitored. "Heavy barricades have been put up. For each protester, we have deployed at least five police personnel. That's how elaborate the security arrangement is at Jantar Mantar," he said. The ceremony to inaugurate the new Parliament building on Sunday began with an early morning havan and multi-faith prayers followed by the formal opening by Prime Minister Modi.
By PTI

The Congress and other opposition parties on Sunday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he inaugurated the new Parliament building.

Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building on Sunday morning even as around 20 opposition parties, including the Congress, boycotted the event alleging that President Droupadi Murmu has been denied the right to inaugurate the building and called it an insult to India's first woman president from the tribal community.

Wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia were detained along with others after a scuffle broke out between the protesters and the Delhi Police at Jantar Mantar after they were seeking to move towards the Parliament.

Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said democracy does not run from the buildings but functions through the voice of the people. He also attacked the government over the "forcible" removal and "manhandling" of wrestlers protesting at the Jantar Mantar when they were trying to march towards Parliament.

"The right to inaugurate the new Parliament was snatched from the President. Women players were beaten up on the streets with dictatorial force," he said in a tweet in Hindi.

"The three lies of the BJP-RSS rulers now stand exposed before the country -- democracy, nationalism and Beti Bachao. Remember Modi ji, democracy does not run from the buildings but functions through the voice of the public," Kharge said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said Parliament is the voice of the people but the prime minister is treating the inauguration of the new building like a "coronation". "Parliament is the voice of the people! The prime minister is treating the inauguration of the Parliament House as (a) coronation," Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi soon after Modi inaugurated the building.

Jairam Ramesh, the Congress general secretary, said, "On this day, May 28th: Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883."

Ramesh also said it is on the same day that President Droupadi Murmu -- the first woman from the tribal community to become president -- is not allowed to perform her Constitutional duties and inaugurate the new Parliament building. "A self-glorifying authoritarian Prime Minister with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the new Parliament building in 2023," he said.

ALSO READ | BJP MP Brij Bhushan seen at new Parliament as Olympian wrestlers manhandled, detained

Supriya Srinate, the Congress spokesperson, said later at a press conference that not inviting the president to the new Parliament building's inauguration reflects the government's "anti-woman and anti-Dalit" attitude.

"If not inviting the president for the inauguration of the new Parliament building does not show the anti-tribal and anti-woman face of the prime minister, then what does?" she asked.

AICC General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal tweeted, "At the foundation stone laying ceremony of the new Parliament building, then Hon'ble President Sh.Ramnath Kovind was kept away from the ceremony. At its inauguration, President Droupadi Murmu has been sidelined. It is the upper caste, anti-backward mindset of the RSS because of which they are denied the respect that their high constitutional office deserves. Their deliberate exclusion shows PM Modi will use them as tokens for his electoral politics, but will not allow them to be part of such significant and historic occasions," he said.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar said that various religious rituals performed at the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi show that the country was being taken backwards.

He said the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had envisaged a society having a scientific temperament, but the rituals conducted during the opening of the new Parliament complex were contrary to his vision.

PM Modi inaugurated the new building this morning at a grand ceremony which included a havan, a multi-faith prayer ceremony and the installation of the Sengol in a special enclosure in the Lok Sabha chamber.

Speaking to reporters in Pune, Pawar said, "There is a huge difference between the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru talking about the concept of modern India and a series of rituals performed at the new Parliament building today in New Delhi. I fear that we are taking our country backward by decades. One cannot compromise on science. Nehru was persistent about his wish to form a society with a scientific temperament. But what is happening today at the inaugural ceremony of the new Parliament building is exactly the opposite of what Nehru had envisaged," he said.

At the foundation stone laying ceremony of the new Parliament building, then Honble President Sh. Ramnath Kovind was kept away from the ceremony.



At its inauguration, President Droupadi Murmu has been sidelined.



It is the upper caste, anti-backward mindset of the RSS because  K C Venugopal (@kcvenugopalmp) May 28, 2023

Expressing his disappointment over the absence of the president and the vice president at the inauguration ceremony, the former Union minister said, "The president is the head of the state, while the vice president is the head of the Rajya Sabha. They should have been invited to this event. The functioning of Parliament commences with the speech of the president. Then why were they not invited?" Pawar asked.

TMC Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesperson Sukhendu Sekhar Roy told PTI "holding of some religious rituals at the inauguration of Parliament also goes against the Preamble of the Indian Constitution which describes it as a secular, socialist and democratic republic."

The TMC, along with several opposition parties, boycotted the event over the prime minister and not the president inaugurating the building. The Trinamool Congress was among the first parties to announce that it was staying away from Sunday's inauguration.

Referring to the installation of the Sengol, before which the PM had prostrated, and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand, Roy said "We are a prajatantra (Republic), not a Rajtantra (Monarchy). Why should then the Sengol be installed in the temple of democracy?"

The lone CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP from West Bengal, Bikash Bhattacharya, claimed that the inaugural ceremony of the new Parliament building became a ceremonial affair to practice and spread Hindu religious faith and rituals which is "against the basic concept of the Constitution." The Constitution begins with the words "We the people of India and there is no indication of any religion in it', Bhattacharya said.

The Congress and other opposition parties on Sunday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he inaugurated the new Parliament building. Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building on Sunday morning even as around 20 opposition parties, including the Congress, boycotted the event alleging that President Droupadi Murmu has been denied the right to inaugurate the building and called it an insult to India's first woman president from the tribal community. Wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia were detained along with others after a scuffle broke out between the protesters and the Delhi Police at Jantar Mantar after they were seeking to move towards the Parliament.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said democracy does not run from the buildings but functions through the voice of the people. He also attacked the government over the "forcible" removal and "manhandling" of wrestlers protesting at the Jantar Mantar when they were trying to march towards Parliament. "The right to inaugurate the new Parliament was snatched from the President. Women players were beaten up on the streets with dictatorial force," he said in a tweet in Hindi. "The three lies of the BJP-RSS rulers now stand exposed before the country -- democracy, nationalism and Beti Bachao. Remember Modi ji, democracy does not run from the buildings but functions through the voice of the public," Kharge said. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said Parliament is the voice of the people but the prime minister is treating the inauguration of the new building like a "coronation". "Parliament is the voice of the people! The prime minister is treating the inauguration of the Parliament House as (a) coronation," Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi soon after Modi inaugurated the building.    - ' '       ! pic.twitter.com/9hbEoKZeZs  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 28, 2023 Jairam Ramesh, the Congress general secretary, said, "On this day, May 28th: Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883." Ramesh also said it is on the same day that President Droupadi Murmu -- the first woman from the tribal community to become president -- is not allowed to perform her Constitutional duties and inaugurate the new Parliament building. "A self-glorifying authoritarian Prime Minister with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the new Parliament building in 2023," he said. ALSO READ | BJP MP Brij Bhushan seen at new Parliament as Olympian wrestlers manhandled, detained Supriya Srinate, the Congress spokesperson, said later at a press conference that not inviting the president to the new Parliament building's inauguration reflects the government's "anti-woman and anti-Dalit" attitude. "If not inviting the president for the inauguration of the new Parliament building does not show the anti-tribal and anti-woman face of the prime minister, then what does?" she asked. AICC General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal tweeted, "At the foundation stone laying ceremony of the new Parliament building, then Hon'ble President Sh.Ramnath Kovind was kept away from the ceremony. At its inauguration, President Droupadi Murmu has been sidelined. It is the upper caste, anti-backward mindset of the RSS because of which they are denied the respect that their high constitutional office deserves. Their deliberate exclusion shows PM Modi will use them as tokens for his electoral politics, but will not allow them to be part of such significant and historic occasions," he said. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar said that various religious rituals performed at the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi show that the country was being taken backwards. He said the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had envisaged a society having a scientific temperament, but the rituals conducted during the opening of the new Parliament complex were contrary to his vision. PM Modi inaugurated the new building this morning at a grand ceremony which included a havan, a multi-faith prayer ceremony and the installation of the Sengol in a special enclosure in the Lok Sabha chamber. Speaking to reporters in Pune, Pawar said, "There is a huge difference between the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru talking about the concept of modern India and a series of rituals performed at the new Parliament building today in New Delhi. I fear that we are taking our country backward by decades. One cannot compromise on science. Nehru was persistent about his wish to form a society with a scientific temperament. But what is happening today at the inaugural ceremony of the new Parliament building is exactly the opposite of what Nehru had envisaged," he said. At the foundation stone laying ceremony of the new Parliament building, then Honble President Sh. Ramnath Kovind was kept away from the ceremony. At its inauguration, President Droupadi Murmu has been sidelined. It is the upper caste, anti-backward mindset of the RSS because  K C Venugopal (@kcvenugopalmp) May 28, 2023 Expressing his disappointment over the absence of the president and the vice president at the inauguration ceremony, the former Union minister said, "The president is the head of the state, while the vice president is the head of the Rajya Sabha. They should have been invited to this event. The functioning of Parliament commences with the speech of the president. Then why were they not invited?" Pawar asked. TMC Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesperson Sukhendu Sekhar Roy told PTI "holding of some religious rituals at the inauguration of Parliament also goes against the Preamble of the Indian Constitution which describes it as a secular, socialist and democratic republic." The TMC, along with several opposition parties, boycotted the event over the prime minister and not the president inaugurating the building. The Trinamool Congress was among the first parties to announce that it was staying away from Sunday's inauguration. Referring to the installation of the Sengol, before which the PM had prostrated, and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand, Roy said "We are a prajatantra (Republic), not a Rajtantra (Monarchy). Why should then the Sengol be installed in the temple of democracy?" The lone CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP from West Bengal, Bikash Bhattacharya, claimed that the inaugural ceremony of the new Parliament building became a ceremonial affair to practice and spread Hindu religious faith and rituals which is "against the basic concept of the Constitution." The Constitution begins with the words "We the people of India and there is no indication of any religion in it', Bhattacharya said.
Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), a powerful body representing approximately 12.40 lakh chemists and distributors in India, has written to the cabinet secretary urging him to intervene and ban online pharmacies stating that they are violating norms and putting peoples lives at risk.

Citing the Delhi High Court order of 2018, which issued an injunction to e-pharmacies from the online sale of medicines without a license and directed that such sales were prohibited until further order, the letter said that they continue to operate despite court orders. The illegally operating e-pharmacies are still in operation after more than 4.5 years.

The AIOCD also said that though the Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who also holds the Chemicals and Fertilizers ministry portfolio also, took the initiative and issued show cause notices to these illegal e-pharmacies by the DCGI, no action has been taken against them since the issuance of the notices.

The letter, signed by President J S Shinde and Honorary General Secretary Rajiv Singhal, said that they also brought an affidavit filed by the joint drug controller in 2020, which stated that there is currently no provision under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 19440 and Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 for online pharmacies.

The issue of online sale of drugs was under the consideration of the government, the letter said, adding that this submission by the CDSCO clearly indicates that there is no license for the online sale of drugs. Therefore, in accordance with the orders of the Honble High Court of Delhi, online sales of medicines should be immediately ceased.

However, a recent status report on e-pharmacies submitted by the CDSCO on the orders of the Delhi High Court reveals that there are no provisions in the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Rules 1945 that restrict the shipping, mailing, or door delivery of prescribed medicines.

This submission contradicts the earlier affidavit filed in the Honble High Court of Delhi and raises concerns about the well-being of our citizens. We remain hopeful and have faith in our elected government and senior bureaucrats that they will uphold the laws of the land and protect public health, they added.

We kindly request your intervention and urgent action to ensure the implementation of court orders and the cessation of illegal operations by e-pharmacies, they urged the cabinet secretary and called for immediate and stringent action by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) and State Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) against illegal online pharmacies.

The government in February pulled up at least twenty companies, including Tata-1mg, Flipkart, Apollo, PharmEasy, Amazon and Reliance Netmeds, by issuing them a show cause notice, for selling medicines online. The action was taken after AIOCD threatened to launch a country-wide agitation if the government didnt act.

NEW DELHI: The All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), a powerful body representing approximately 12.40 lakh chemists and distributors in India, has written to the cabinet secretary urging him to intervene and ban online pharmacies stating that they are violating norms and putting peoples lives at risk. Citing the Delhi High Court order of 2018, which issued an injunction to e-pharmacies from the online sale of medicines without a license and directed that such sales were prohibited until further order, the letter said that they continue to operate despite court orders. The illegally operating e-pharmacies are still in operation after more than 4.5 years. The AIOCD also said that though the Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who also holds the Chemicals and Fertilizers ministry portfolio also, took the initiative and issued show cause notices to these illegal e-pharmacies by the DCGI, no action has been taken against them since the issuance of the notices.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The letter, signed by President J S Shinde and Honorary General Secretary Rajiv Singhal, said that they also brought an affidavit filed by the joint drug controller in 2020, which stated that there is currently no provision under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 19440 and Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 for online pharmacies. The issue of online sale of drugs was under the consideration of the government, the letter said, adding that this submission by the CDSCO clearly indicates that there is no license for the online sale of drugs. Therefore, in accordance with the orders of the Honble High Court of Delhi, online sales of medicines should be immediately ceased. However, a recent status report on e-pharmacies submitted by the CDSCO on the orders of the Delhi High Court reveals that there are no provisions in the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Rules 1945 that restrict the shipping, mailing, or door delivery of prescribed medicines. This submission contradicts the earlier affidavit filed in the Honble High Court of Delhi and raises concerns about the well-being of our citizens. We remain hopeful and have faith in our elected government and senior bureaucrats that they will uphold the laws of the land and protect public health, they added. We kindly request your intervention and urgent action to ensure the implementation of court orders and the cessation of illegal operations by e-pharmacies, they urged the cabinet secretary and called for immediate and stringent action by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) and State Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) against illegal online pharmacies. The government in February pulled up at least twenty companies, including Tata-1mg, Flipkart, Apollo, PharmEasy, Amazon and Reliance Netmeds, by issuing them a show cause notice, for selling medicines online. The action was taken after AIOCD threatened to launch a country-wide agitation if the government didnt act.
Ramashankar By

Express News Service

PATNA: A much-awaited meeting of Opposition parties to chalk out strategy to counter the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections is set to be held in Patna on June 12. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar will chair the meeting.

Nitish hinted at the proposed meeting of Opposition parties to be held in the state capital on June 12 while speaking on the concluding day of the two-day conclave of the JD(U) office bearers in Patna on Sunday.

Kumar, the JD(U)'s supremo, has been pitching for "opposition unity" ever since he snapped ties with the BJP in August last year, following accusations that the ally was trying to create fissures in his party and diminish his standing. Leaders from several parties have thanked him on the occasion and appreciated his step.

"We have been working for Opposition unity ever since the grand alliance government was formed in Bihar. The positive result of our efforts for uniting Opposition parties against BJP will be visible soon," he asserted.

He said the date of the meeting has been finalised after consultation with leaders from Opposition parties across the country. On May 22, Nitish had called on Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi.

At the joint press conference, both Rahul and Nitish had said that the date of the meeting of Opposition parties would be finalised in two-three days. The leaders of over two dozen non-BJP parties will attend the meeting.

Earlier, Nitish had met his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and leaders from the Left parties.

As part of the "opposition unity" drive, Kumar has held parleys with not only Congress allies like Uddhav and Pawar but also its opponents like Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao.

A meeting with Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, ostensibly to seek land for a Bihar government guest house in that state, is being used by BJP to mock Kumar as the Biju Janata Dal supremo has virtually ruled out joining any broader formation.

In fact, the idea of hosting a meeting of opposition leaders in Patna was floated by Banerjee, who had invoked the memory of Jayaprakash Narayan upon meeting Kumar in Kolkata last month.

All eyes would now be on which parties agree to be represented in the meeting, given faultlines like Congress' mistrust of Kejriwal and KCR and Banerjee's famed rivalry with the Left.

(With additional inputs from PTI)

PATNA: A much-awaited meeting of Opposition parties to chalk out strategy to counter the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections is set to be held in Patna on June 12. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar will chair the meeting. Nitish hinted at the proposed meeting of Opposition parties to be held in the state capital on June 12 while speaking on the concluding day of the two-day conclave of the JD(U) office bearers in Patna on Sunday. Kumar, the JD(U)'s supremo, has been pitching for "opposition unity" ever since he snapped ties with the BJP in August last year, following accusations that the ally was trying to create fissures in his party and diminish his standing. Leaders from several parties have thanked him on the occasion and appreciated his step.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); "We have been working for Opposition unity ever since the grand alliance government was formed in Bihar. The positive result of our efforts for uniting Opposition parties against BJP will be visible soon," he asserted. He said the date of the meeting has been finalised after consultation with leaders from Opposition parties across the country. On May 22, Nitish had called on Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi. At the joint press conference, both Rahul and Nitish had said that the date of the meeting of Opposition parties would be finalised in two-three days. The leaders of over two dozen non-BJP parties will attend the meeting. Earlier, Nitish had met his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and leaders from the Left parties. As part of the "opposition unity" drive, Kumar has held parleys with not only Congress allies like Uddhav and Pawar but also its opponents like Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao. A meeting with Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, ostensibly to seek land for a Bihar government guest house in that state, is being used by BJP to mock Kumar as the Biju Janata Dal supremo has virtually ruled out joining any broader formation. In fact, the idea of hosting a meeting of opposition leaders in Patna was floated by Banerjee, who had invoked the memory of Jayaprakash Narayan upon meeting Kumar in Kolkata last month. All eyes would now be on which parties agree to be represented in the meeting, given faultlines like Congress' mistrust of Kejriwal and KCR and Banerjee's famed rivalry with the Left. (With additional inputs from PTI)
Narendra Sethi By

DEHRADUN: The second meeting of the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group (ACWG) concluded on Saturday with in-depth and productive deliberations and brainstorming on several key areas related to asset recovery, fugitive economic offenders, formal and informal channels of cooperation for information sharing, institutional framework to combat corruption and mutual legal assistance.

The three-day meeting, which began in Narendranagar (Tehri Garhwal) on May 25, was attended by over 90 delegates from 20 member countries, 10 invited countries and nine international organisations. The G20 meeting, which has been going on for the last three days in Rishikesh, was inaugurated by Union Minister of State for Defence and Tourism Ajay Bhatt on May 25. It concluded on Saturday.

The meeting saw wide participation, including UNODC, OECD, Egmont Group, Interpol and IMF. It was chaired by Rahul Singh, additional secretary, DoPT and president of G-20 ACWG and co-chaired by Giovanni Tartaglia, co-chair of The G-20 ACWG, Italy and Fabrizio Marcelli, minister of foreign affairs and International Cooperation of Italy.

On the inaugural day of the ACWG, a unique side event on Gender and Corruption was held. Minister of State for External Affairs and Culture Meenakshi Lekhi delivered the keynote address. During the event, national and international experts and practitioners deliberated on the gender aspects of corruption, the ways in which womens empowerment is intrinsically linked to anti-corruption initiatives and the need for gender-sensitive governance and policymaking.

The delegates tasted the rich culture, heritage and cuisine of India during their stay in Rishikesh. India is looking forward to hosting delegates again in Kolkata from August 9 to 11 for the third meeting of the ACWG. India will also host the first individual anti-corruption ministerial meeting to provide further momentum to the G20 agenda of strengthening the international fight against corruption.

DEHRADUN: The second meeting of the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group (ACWG) concluded on Saturday with in-depth and productive deliberations and brainstorming on several key areas related to asset recovery, fugitive economic offenders, formal and informal channels of cooperation for information sharing, institutional framework to combat corruption and mutual legal assistance. The three-day meeting, which began in Narendranagar (Tehri Garhwal) on May 25, was attended by over 90 delegates from 20 member countries, 10 invited countries and nine international organisations. The G20 meeting, which has been going on for the last three days in Rishikesh, was inaugurated by Union Minister of State for Defence and Tourism Ajay Bhatt on May 25. It concluded on Saturday. The meeting saw wide participation, including UNODC, OECD, Egmont Group, Interpol and IMF. It was chaired by Rahul Singh, additional secretary, DoPT and president of G-20 ACWG and co-chaired by Giovanni Tartaglia, co-chair of The G-20 ACWG, Italy and Fabrizio Marcelli, minister of foreign affairs and International Cooperation of Italy.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); On the inaugural day of the ACWG, a unique side event on Gender and Corruption was held. Minister of State for External Affairs and Culture Meenakshi Lekhi delivered the keynote address. During the event, national and international experts and practitioners deliberated on the gender aspects of corruption, the ways in which womens empowerment is intrinsically linked to anti-corruption initiatives and the need for gender-sensitive governance and policymaking. The delegates tasted the rich culture, heritage and cuisine of India during their stay in Rishikesh. India is looking forward to hosting delegates again in Kolkata from August 9 to 11 for the third meeting of the ACWG. India will also host the first individual anti-corruption ministerial meeting to provide further momentum to the G20 agenda of strengthening the international fight against corruption.
Express News Service By

BHOPAL: Overnight raids at 13 locations in Jabalpur have led the NIA busting an alleged IS-linked terror module, which was planning to carry out attacks in the country.

The NIA and the MP police ATS carried out joint raids on Friday-Saturday night, leading to the arrest of three alleged IS sympathisers, identified by cops as Syed Mamoor Ali, Mohd Adil Khan and Mohd Shahid.



The operation took place two days after the NIA lodged a case in the pro-IS activities of Mohd Adil Khan, who came to the agencys notice in August 2022.

The three were produced before an NIA court in Bhopal on Saturday, which remanded them to the counter-terror agencys custody till June 3.

As per NIA sources, sharp-edged weapons, ammunition (including prohibited bore), incriminating documents and digital devices have been seized during the raids.

Adil and aides were involved in disseminating IS propaganda through social media platforms to unleash terror attacks in India, the NIA said, adding that the three were in contact with a Jabalpur-based illegal arms supplier.

BHOPAL: Overnight raids at 13 locations in Jabalpur have led the NIA busting an alleged IS-linked terror module, which was planning to carry out attacks in the country. The NIA and the MP police ATS carried out joint raids on Friday-Saturday night, leading to the arrest of three alleged IS sympathisers, identified by cops as Syed Mamoor Ali, Mohd Adil Khan and Mohd Shahid. The operation took place two days after the NIA lodged a case in the pro-IS activities of Mohd Adil Khan, who came to the agencys notice in August 2022.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The three were produced before an NIA court in Bhopal on Saturday, which remanded them to the counter-terror agencys custody till June 3. As per NIA sources, sharp-edged weapons, ammunition (including prohibited bore), incriminating documents and digital devices have been seized during the raids. Adil and aides were involved in disseminating IS propaganda through social media platforms to unleash terror attacks in India, the NIA said, adding that the three were in contact with a Jabalpur-based illegal arms supplier.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. Movement from Armenia to Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and in the opposite direction is under full control, said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as he met with Lachin natives, Trend reports.

"A peace treaty should be signed between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the basis of the principle of territorial integrity. By taking the necessary steps, we achieved what we wanted today in the territories under the control of the Russian peacekeeping mission in Karabakh.

On April 23, we settled the issue once and for all by setting up a border checkpoint on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border. We have resolved the issue of territorial integrity once and for all. Our territorial integrity had already been restored as a result of the second Karabakh war. However, the border checkpoint was the last point where there was still uncontrolled movement from Armenia to the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and in the opposite direction. The movement is still there, but under full control," President Ilham Aliyev said.
Preetha Nair By

NEW DELHI: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal has been receiving support from several Opposition parties, including his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekhar Rao, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, among others, on the Central ordinance keeping the primacy of the lieutenant governor in matters of transfers of bureaucrats in contradiction with a Supreme Court verdict. However, Congress is keeping him waiting.

Sources said Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi are likely to meet the partys Delhi and Punjab units on May 29 to decide if the party can back AAP on the ordinance row

Though AICC general secretary KC Venugopal last week said the party will consult its state units, opposition from its Delhi and Punjab units has put the party in a spot.

As Rahul Gandhi is embarking on a six-day US visit on May 30, the party wants to reach a decision at the earliest. The AAP is at odds with the Centre over an ordinance regarding the control of administrative services in the national capital. Kejriwal has been seeking the support of all Opposition parties against the ordinance.

The meeting of Congress leaders comes close on the heels of a request from Kejriwal to the Congress top brass over the ordinance issue. In a tweet on Friday, Kejriwal said, Sought time this morning to meet Congress chief Kharge ji and Rahul Gandhi ji to seek Congress support in Parliament against undemocratic and unconstitutional ordinance passed by BJP government and also to discuss the assault on the federal structure and prevailing political situation, Kejriwal tweeted.

But a response from Congress leader Alka Lamba to Kejriwals tweet shows all is not well between the two parties.

Lamba, who quit AAP in 2019 to rejoin Congress, said, AAP should apologise to Congress, Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Sheila Dikshit and Gandhi family... We hope the Congress chief will consider the sentiments of party workers.

Other senior leaders like Ajay Maken and Sandeep Dikshit also expressed objections against having any alliance with AAP.

NEW DELHI: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal has been receiving support from several Opposition parties, including his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekhar Rao, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, among others, on the Central ordinance keeping the primacy of the lieutenant governor in matters of transfers of bureaucrats in contradiction with a Supreme Court verdict. However, Congress is keeping him waiting. Sources said Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi are likely to meet the partys Delhi and Punjab units on May 29 to decide if the party can back AAP on the ordinance row Though AICC general secretary KC Venugopal last week said the party will consult its state units, opposition from its Delhi and Punjab units has put the party in a spot. As Rahul Gandhi is embarking on a six-day US visit on May 30, the party wants to reach a decision at the earliest. The AAP is at odds with the Centre over an ordinance regarding the control of administrative services in the national capital. Kejriwal has been seeking the support of all Opposition parties against the ordinance.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); The meeting of Congress leaders comes close on the heels of a request from Kejriwal to the Congress top brass over the ordinance issue. In a tweet on Friday, Kejriwal said, Sought time this morning to meet Congress chief Kharge ji and Rahul Gandhi ji to seek Congress support in Parliament against undemocratic and unconstitutional ordinance passed by BJP government and also to discuss the assault on the federal structure and prevailing political situation, Kejriwal tweeted. But a response from Congress leader Alka Lamba to Kejriwals tweet shows all is not well between the two parties. Lamba, who quit AAP in 2019 to rejoin Congress, said, AAP should apologise to Congress, Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, Sheila Dikshit and Gandhi family... We hope the Congress chief will consider the sentiments of party workers. Other senior leaders like Ajay Maken and Sandeep Dikshit also expressed objections against having any alliance with AAP.
Harpreet Bajwa By

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Police has set up a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the cases of trafficking of women from the state to Middle-East countries. Recently, 15 women had returned from Oman and narrated their ordeal. They had moved to the Gulf nation for a better-paying job but eventually found themselves trapped by a travel agent-cum-trafficker there.

As per an order issued by Director Bureau of Investigation LK Yadav, an SIT has been formed with Superintendent of Police- Ferozepur Randhir Kumar as its head. Meanwhile, IG-- Ludhiana Range Kaustubh Sharma has been appointed as the nodal officer to ensure hassle-free lodging of the FIRs in various districts across the state.

The SIT will probe the complaints of women regarding their trafficking on a false promise of providing decent employment and salary. The order added that all such complaints would be registered immediately as FIRs.The orders mention that a case has already been lodged in connection with such cases at Ghall Khurd village of Ferozepur against an agent for offences under Section 420 of the IPC and Section 13 of the Punjab Travel Professionals (Regulation) Act.

Meanwhile, Vikramjit Singh Sahney, a Rajya Sabha MP, has assured all the stranded women stuck in Middle-East countries and their families that he will be providing free-of-cost skill training to these girls once they come back and facilitate sustainable and dignified employment for them in Punjab itself.

He requested all destitute girls, who have come back to India, and families of illegal immigrants stuck in Middle-East countries to come forward and register the cases with the police stations concerned so that guilty can be brought to book.

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Police has set up a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the cases of trafficking of women from the state to Middle-East countries. Recently, 15 women had returned from Oman and narrated their ordeal. They had moved to the Gulf nation for a better-paying job but eventually found themselves trapped by a travel agent-cum-trafficker there. As per an order issued by Director Bureau of Investigation LK Yadav, an SIT has been formed with Superintendent of Police- Ferozepur Randhir Kumar as its head. Meanwhile, IG-- Ludhiana Range Kaustubh Sharma has been appointed as the nodal officer to ensure hassle-free lodging of the FIRs in various districts across the state. The SIT will probe the complaints of women regarding their trafficking on a false promise of providing decent employment and salary. The order added that all such complaints would be registered immediately as FIRs.The orders mention that a case has already been lodged in connection with such cases at Ghall Khurd village of Ferozepur against an agent for offences under Section 420 of the IPC and Section 13 of the Punjab Travel Professionals (Regulation) Act.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Meanwhile, Vikramjit Singh Sahney, a Rajya Sabha MP, has assured all the stranded women stuck in Middle-East countries and their families that he will be providing free-of-cost skill training to these girls once they come back and facilitate sustainable and dignified employment for them in Punjab itself. He requested all destitute girls, who have come back to India, and families of illegal immigrants stuck in Middle-East countries to come forward and register the cases with the police stations concerned so that guilty can be brought to book.
Express News Service By

BHOPAL: The death of six cheetahs, including three cubs within two months at Madhya Pradeshs Kuno National Park (KNP), has prompted residents of the neighbouring Karahal town to hold special prayers for the well-being of the African big cats  who they look up to for their future prosperity and development.

The Manshapoorna Hanuman Temple in Karahal town (15 km from the KNP and 50 km from the Sheopur district HQ) is resonating with special prayers for the safety of cheetahs since Thursday evening. An akhand jyoti has been lit-up, round-the-clock keertans and bhajans as well as special Sunder Kand path have begun at the temple for the safety of the cheetahs.

The doctors are doing their job at the KNP to save the life of the last of the four cheetah cubs that were born at the park in March last week. But along with dava (medicine), dua (prayers) too are necessary for the safety of the cheetahs, Karahal resident Giriraj Paliwal, who is also the panchayat secretary of neighbouring Ranipura village told this newspaper on Friday.

From the time the Namibian cheetahs were released into the KNP as part of the Cheetah Reintroduction Project on September 17, 2022, the people residing in this backward Karahal block of MP, have hoped that the cheetah tourism once started, will bring prosperity to the locals.

Lands that were once priced at `1 Lakh, have since then seen their value increase by ten times. In villages close to the KNP, almost 60% of the land is sold to those planning to develop resorts and hotels to cash on the Cheetah Tourism.

BHOPAL: The death of six cheetahs, including three cubs within two months at Madhya Pradeshs Kuno National Park (KNP), has prompted residents of the neighbouring Karahal town to hold special prayers for the well-being of the African big cats  who they look up to for their future prosperity and development. The Manshapoorna Hanuman Temple in Karahal town (15 km from the KNP and 50 km from the Sheopur district HQ) is resonating with special prayers for the safety of cheetahs since Thursday evening. An akhand jyoti has been lit-up, round-the-clock keertans and bhajans as well as special Sunder Kand path have begun at the temple for the safety of the cheetahs. The doctors are doing their job at the KNP to save the life of the last of the four cheetah cubs that were born at the park in March last week. But along with dava (medicine), dua (prayers) too are necessary for the safety of the cheetahs, Karahal resident Giriraj Paliwal, who is also the panchayat secretary of neighbouring Ranipura village told this newspaper on Friday.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); From the time the Namibian cheetahs were released into the KNP as part of the Cheetah Reintroduction Project on September 17, 2022, the people residing in this backward Karahal block of MP, have hoped that the cheetah tourism once started, will bring prosperity to the locals. Lands that were once priced at `1 Lakh, have since then seen their value increase by ten times. In villages close to the KNP, almost 60% of the land is sold to those planning to develop resorts and hotels to cash on the Cheetah Tourism.
Amit Mukherjee By

NEW DELHI: Based on the disclosure made in custody by the recently arrested chief of the Peoples Liberation Front of India (PLFI), Dinesh Gope, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday seized a huge cache of ammunition from a dense forest in Kamdara area of district Gumla of Jharkhand in the PLFI terror funding case.

The seizure included 1,245 rounds of 7.62 MM and 271 rounds of 5.56 MM ammunition. The seized ammunition was received at Siksohara, Nalanda (Bihar) about two years ago. It had been carefully stashed away for eventual delivery to PLFI operatives and cadres for carrying acts of terror and violence.

Dinesh Gope, the leader of PLFU, a naxal outfit, was arrested by the NIA in Delhi on May 21 after he was nabbed in Nepal, where he was running a dhaba, made the disclosure during his interrogation following which a team from the agency reached and located the place in the forest where the ammunition was concealed. More recoveries and raids are expected in a few days, sources said.

Gope alias Kuldeep Yadav who was arrested in a joint operation by the NIA and the Jharkhand police is involved in 102 criminal cases and a reward of Rs 30 lakh on his head  with Rs 25 lakh declared by Jharkhand Police and the remaining Rs 5 lakh by the NIA. A resident of Khunti in Jharkhand Gope was earlier charge-sheeted by the NIA in the case relating to the recovery of demonetized currency of Rs. 25.38 lakhs from the operatives of PLFI.

According to NIA sources, more than 102 criminal cases are registered against Gope in Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha. Most of these cases relate to murders, abductions, threats, extortion, and raising funds for the PLFI, a militant Maoist outfit formed in 2007 in Jharkhand and also a splinter group of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist). He has been on the lookout list of the police for almost two decades since his involvement in the first crime came to be known.

On February 3, 2022, an encounter had taken place between a Dinesh-led PLFI squad and security personnel in the forest area under Gudri Police station of West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. Several rounds were fired in the encounter before the rebels sneaked into the forest and Dinesh Gope managed to escape.

Weaponry brought in two years ago

The seizure included 1,245 rounds of 7.62 MM and 271 rounds of 5.56 MM ammunition. The seized ammunition was received at Siksohara, Nalanda (Bihar) about two years ago. It had been carefully stashed away for eventual delivery to PLFI operatives and cadres for carrying acts of terror and violence.

NEW DELHI: Based on the disclosure made in custody by the recently arrested chief of the Peoples Liberation Front of India (PLFI), Dinesh Gope, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday seized a huge cache of ammunition from a dense forest in Kamdara area of district Gumla of Jharkhand in the PLFI terror funding case. The seizure included 1,245 rounds of 7.62 MM and 271 rounds of 5.56 MM ammunition. The seized ammunition was received at Siksohara, Nalanda (Bihar) about two years ago. It had been carefully stashed away for eventual delivery to PLFI operatives and cadres for carrying acts of terror and violence. Dinesh Gope, the leader of PLFU, a naxal outfit, was arrested by the NIA in Delhi on May 21 after he was nabbed in Nepal, where he was running a dhaba, made the disclosure during his interrogation following which a team from the agency reached and located the place in the forest where the ammunition was concealed. More recoveries and raids are expected in a few days, sources said.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-8052921-2'); }); Gope alias Kuldeep Yadav who was arrested in a joint operation by the NIA and the Jharkhand police is involved in 102 criminal cases and a reward of Rs 30 lakh on his head  with Rs 25 lakh declared by Jharkhand Police and the remaining Rs 5 lakh by the NIA. A resident of Khunti in Jharkhand Gope was earlier charge-sheeted by the NIA in the case relating to the recovery of demonetized currency of Rs. 25.38 lakhs from the operatives of PLFI. According to NIA sources, more than 102 criminal cases are registered against Gope in Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha. Most of these cases relate to murders, abductions, threats, extortion, and raising funds for the PLFI, a militant Maoist outfit formed in 2007 in Jharkhand and also a splinter group of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist). He has been on the lookout list of the police for almost two decades since his involvement in the first crime came to be known. On February 3, 2022, an encounter had taken place between a Dinesh-led PLFI squad and security personnel in the forest area under Gudri Police station of West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. Several rounds were fired in the encounter before the rebels sneaked into the forest and Dinesh Gope managed to escape. Weaponry brought in two years ago The seizure included 1,245 rounds of 7.62 MM and 271 rounds of 5.56 MM ammunition. The seized ammunition was received at Siksohara, Nalanda (Bihar) about two years ago. It had been carefully stashed away for eventual delivery to PLFI operatives and cadres for carrying acts of terror and violence.
Saturns rings are young and short-lived: NASA

Washington, May 23: Saturn's rings are both young and ephemeral, which means that it may not be long when the beautiful rings may not be there, NASA scientists confirmed in three studies.

Saturn's rings are young and short-lived: NASA

The research by scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley examined data from NASA's Cassini mission.They looked at the mass of Saturn's rings, their "purity", how quickly incoming debris is added, and how that influences the way the rings change over time. The Cassini mission discovered that the rings are losing mass quickly, as material from the innermost regions falls into the planet.The rings are almost entirely pure ice. Less than a few per cent of their mass is non-icy "pollution" coming from micrometeoroids, such as asteroid fragments smaller than a grain of sand. These constantly collide with the ring particles and contribute debris to the material circling the planet.The rings' age has been hard to pin down, because scientists hadn't yet quantified this bombardment in order to calculate how long it must have been going on."The idea that the iconic main rings of Saturn might be a recent feature of our solar system has been controversial," said Jeff Cuzzi, a researcher at Ames and co-author, adding "but our new results complete a trifecta of Cassini measurements that make this finding hard to avoid".By calculating what all that jostling of particles means for their eventual disappearance into the planet, the researchers arrive at some tough news for Saturn it may lose its rings in the next few hundred million years."I think these results are telling us that constant bombardment by all this foreign debris not only pollutes planetary rings, it should also whittle them down over time," said Paul Estrada, a researcher at Ames and co-author of all three studies."Maybe Uranus' and Neptune's diminutive and dark rings are the result of that process. Saturn's rings being comparatively hefty and icy, then, is an indication of their youth."IANS24 May 2023

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PM Modi shares video of new Parliament with a special request

New Delhi, May 26: With less than two days left for the inauguration of the new Parliament building, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday shared a video of the four-storey building, saying that the new Parliament House will make every Indian proud.

PM Modi shares video of new Parliament with a 'special request'

PM Modi gave a glimpse of the new Parliament House through a video, which he will inaugurate on May 28, with a "special request"."The new Parliament building will make every Indian proud. This video offers a glimpse of this iconic building. I have a special request- share this video with your own voice-over, which conveys your thoughts. I will Tweet some of them. Don't forget to use #MyParliamentMyPride," Modi said in a tweet attaching the video of the new Parliament House.He also urged the people to re-share the video with their own voice-over which conveys their thoughts about the new structure that will replace the iconic circular building. He also asked the citizens to use #MyParliamentMyPride while posting the videos.IANS27 May 2023

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Vietnam major player in Philippines strategy to constrain Chinas ambitions in South China Sea: Report

Manila, May 27: Vietnam has emerged as a major player in the Philippines' emerging regional strategy to constrain, and roll back China's ambitions in the South China Sea, Asia Times reported.

Vietnam major player in Philippines' strategy to constrain China's ambitions in South China Sea: Report

According to Asia Times, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has not only revitalized defence ties with traditional Western allies but has also doubled down on strategic cooperation with like-minded regional states pushing back against China's South China Sea assertiveness.Marcos Jr earlier in May, held his third high-level meeting with a Vietnamese official in his first year in office.During his meetings with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on the side-lines of the 42nd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit and related summits in Labuan Bajo, Indonesia, the two leaders vowed to enhance strategic cooperation with an emphasis on the South China Sea.The Filipino leader specially advocated for effective agreements that prevent accidental clashes between the two sides, including their fishermen, in the disputed waters."I have asked our foreign ministers - our foreign secretary and then the foreign minister of Vietnam - to begin talks so that we can have an agreement so there will be no more problems like this," Marcos Jr told the media, according to Asia Times,The two countries, the following week, held a Joint Permanent Working Group on Maritime and Ocean Concerns (JWG-MOC), where they underscored their commitment to jointly advocate for a "substantive" bilateral Code of Conduct (COC) on the South China Sea.Among those in attendance were senior diplomats as well as Filipino officials from all relevant agencies, including the Philippine Coast Guard, National Security Council, Department of National Defense and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.According to Asia Times, with Vietnam broadly supporting the Philippines' landmark arbitration award victory against China at The Hague in 2016, the two sides also agreed "to work together to protect their rights and legitimate interests under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and enhance confidence-building measures between relevant agencies."ANI27 May 2023

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Rajnath Singh to embark on Nigeria visit to attend swearing-in ceremony of President-elect Ahmed Tinubu

New Delhi, May 27: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is set to embark on a three-day visit to Nigeria, where he will also attend the swearing-in ceremony of the President-elect of the West African nation Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Ministry of Defence said in an official statement.

Rajnath Singh to embark on Nigeria visit to attend swearing-in ceremony of President-elect Ahmed Tinubu

Rajnath Singh will attend the swearing-in ceremony at Eagle Square in Abuja on May 29.He will also meet the outgoing Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari during a reception hosted by him on May 28, according to the official statement.This will be the first-ever visit of an Indian Defence Minister to Nigeria.The Defence Minister's visit to the West African nation will be an important landmark in building the strong bonds of friendship between the two countries.Considering the growing defence cooperation between India and Nigeria, senior officers of the Ministry of Defence and the top leadership of important Defence PSUs will accompany Rajnath Singh.They will hold meetings with the representatives from the Nigerian industry and the Armed Forces to identify the equipment and platforms, through which the Indian defence industry can support the country's requirements, the official press release said.Nigeria is home to an estimated 50,000 members of the Indian community. The Defence Minister will also address the Indian diaspora at Abuja during the visit.ANI27 May 2023

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. The border checkpoint established on the border on April 23 should be a lesson for the Armenians living in the Karabakh region today, said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as he met with Lachin natives, Trend reports.

"Unfortunately, they are still relying on someone, thinking that someone will save them in the future, someone will fight a war with Azerbaijan in the future. This is all nonsense. During the second Karabakh war, we showed a strong determination, and if no-one ventured to intervene at that time, who will come and fight against us for the Armenians after we regained all these lands?" President Ilham Aliyev said.
Boycotting NITI Aayog meeting by some CMs amounts to boycotting states development

New Delhi, May 27: Chief Ministers of opposition-ruled states, who have decided to skip the NITI Aayog Governing Council meeting are seemingly oycotting the development of their states, government sources said on Saturday.

'Boycotting NITI Aayog meeting by some CMs amounts to boycotting states' development'

More than 100 issues of importance will be discussed at the Governing Council Meeting (GCM), and the states that will not be represented will end up losing out, they said.Prime Minister Narendra Modi is presiding over the NITI Aayog Governing Council being held here on Saturday.The sources said that during the meeting, roadmap and thrust will be laid out on the issues of making the country a developed economy by 2047, MSMEs, infrastructure and investments, minimising compliances, women empowerment, health and nutrition, skill development, and Gati Shakti for boosting development and social infrastructure.They said the Governing Council meetings give an opportunity to the Centre and states to identify key development issues and resolve them jointly.In the seven Governing Council meetings held to date, numerous issues were discussed and resolved, the sources saidIn the last Governing Council meeting, nearly 40 key areas were identified and these are being jointly implemented by the Centre, States and UTs.For the eighth Governing Council meeting, more than 100 issues have been identified for reaching a broad consensus at the national level.As per the Centre, the earlier GCM meetings paved the way for the states to develop a modern urban development model in order to address issues such as urban planning, human resource development, capacity building, skilling, urban employment, migration, mobility, urban taxation and governance. The meetings also helped in leveraging technology to promote ease of living, transparency, and participative governanceThe meetings have led to directions towards enabling infrastructure and clearances for the installation of national infrastructure such as optic fibre cables and 5G. The aim is to identify and deliver services to the remotest corner using these networks.The idea of making NIRF ranking mandatory for all universities including agricultural universities was also discussed during the earlier meetings. It was suggested that all higher education institutes should join the NAAC and NIRF and efforts should be made to improve their rankings.The earlier meetings also focussed on the states and UTs diversifying agriculture so as to improve its viability and promote farmers' welfare. In addition to this, leveraging FPOs to promote exports of agricultural products and laying thrust on exports of value-added products rather than raw materials was also emphasised.In the G20 presidency year, the meetings emphasised every state leveraging the opportunity to showcase their products, culture, and tourism destinations. The states were advised to develop a mass movement around G20 and provide necessary logistics support.The earlier GCM meetings also made efforts at improving GST collection with a target of recording 50 per cent growth in FY23 compared to the revenue collected in the corresponding period of the previous yearIn the wake of the New Education Policy, the past meetings facilitated regular monitoring at the senior level and a clear, time-bound roadmap for the implementation of NEP including the adoption of the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) by all States and UTs."This reflects the importance of the Governing Council meetings and the issues discussed during it. And, by boycotting these meetings, the respective states might actually be boycotting the development of their own states," a source said.Chief Ministers of Punjab, Delhi, West Bengal, Kerala are among non-BJP CMs who have decided not to attend the Niti Aayog meeting.ANI27 May 2023

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Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp clears doubts on Mohammed Salahs future

Anfield, May 27: Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp shed some light on the future of star Egyptian winger Mohammed Salah after Liverpool failed to qualify for the UEFA Champions League next season.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp clears doubts on Mohammed Salah's future

Manchester United's 4-1 victory against Chelsea on Friday ensured that the Red Devils were bound to finish in the Top 4 position of the Premier League.With the Reds missing out on UCL next season, rumours started to rise like smoke from the chimney about Mohammed Salah's exit next season. But Klopp has asserted that there is nothing as of now."No worries, no. I only heard what he said but I couldn't read anything that could lead in that direction," Klopp said as quoted by Sky Sports.Klopp added, "Obviously Mo loves being here and Mo was part of it. He said apologies for what 'we' did - not apologies for 'what the other guys did, but I had to go with them'. It is all fine."The German manager said that he won't allow a player to be at the club if they want to leave because they missed out on a Champions League spot."If ever a player would come to me and said, 'oh, we didn't qualify for the Champions League, I have to leave', I would drive him to the other club myself. I would take the key, [and say] come in the car, where do you want to go, I drive you.""It is not the case with Mo, not at all, and nobody else told me. They ask if they can have a longer holiday or whatever - but nobody asks me if after the holiday they have to come back.""So that was not in our conversation. I saw him now in the canteen and he was smiling. I don't know for which reason as I didn't ask him, but he is not in a bad mood. That's it," Klopp signed off."Liverpool will play their last match of the 2022/23 season against the relegated side Southampton on Sunday.ANI27 May 2023

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Army, Assam Rifles launch combing operations to restore peace in strife-torn Manipur

Imphal, May 27: Indian Army and Assam Rifles have launched large-scale combing operations in the aftermath of the fresh violence in the Imphal Valley to restore peace and normalcy in the strife-torn Manipur.

Army, Assam Rifles launch combing operations to restore peace in strife-torn Manipur

The operations have also been launched in the vulnerable flash points and in the higher reaches surrounding Imphal Valley.Continuing with operations, Army and Assam Rifles have launched multiple search operations in areas of Kangchuk, Motbung, Saikul, Pukhao and Sagolmang in the early hours of May 27 in Manipur to track down any armed insurgents operating in these areas.These operations are part of the overall ongoing efforts of the Army and Assam Rifles to restore peace and normalcy in the State of Manipur.Army Columns are using the latest technology weapons, equipment and other force multipliers while operating in forested mountainous areas.Relentless actions by the Army and Assam Rifles on Friday night also resulted in the successful prevention of loss of life each in Churachandpur and Imphal East District.Army Chief General Manoj Pande will also be visiting Manipur today to review the security situation in view of the recent violence there, said Indian Army officials.They said the Army Chief would be briefed by the Eastern Command officials on the measures taken to bring the situation under control.Both the security teams in Imphal East and Churchandpur prevented the firing incidents between the two communities, where some armed miscreants opened fire and ran towards higher reaches, the Army said. However, there were no reports of casualties and further operations were underway.There have been violent communal clashes in Manipur due to the Manipur High Court (HC) directing the State to pursue a 10-year-old recommendation to grant Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the non-tribal Meitei community.Manipur has seen ethnic violence with Chief Minister N Biren Singh stating earlier this month that around 60 people have lost their lives. Houses have also been burnt during the violence with new incidents also reported from some parts of the State.ANI27 May 2023

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Kanniyakumari farmers urge for desilting of channels for smooth water flow

Chennai, May 27: Farmers in Kanniyakumari district have urged Tamil Nadu's Water Works Department to desilt the channels so that there is abundant flow of water to farms from dams.

Kanniyakumari farmers urge for desilting of channels for smooth water flow

The dams in the area are satisfactory as summer rains were abundant but the farmers are worried as most of the channels are filled with silt and hence desilting has become necessary.Farmers also want the sluices to be repaired before water is released for irrigation during the first week of June.Kanniyakumari farmers association leader, R. Kuppusamy told IANS "Since the past three years, we got summer rains leading to a satisfactory water level in the dams in surrounding areas. Water from these dams are released during the first week of June and if the water has to reach the farms and tanks properly, the channels have to be cleared and hence the petition to the water works and irrigation departments of the state."In Kanniyakumari, farmers are involved mostly in Kannipoo paddy cultivation which has commenced through the direct sowing method.The farmers said that Thoovalai and Chembagaramanputhur areas have not received proper rainfall and the sluices were not properly repaired as also channels are not desilted in the area.Sources in the Irrigation Department told IANS that there is adequate water in dams and desilting would be immediately done so that the water is flown smoothly to the farms through channels.IANS27 May 2023

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Check Credit Score and Credit Report for Free on Bajaj Markets

BusinessWire India, Pune, May 27 a subsidiary of Bajaj Finserv, offers individuals the facility to check their credit score for free, so they can understand their creditworthiness.

Check Credit Score and Credit Report for Free on Bajaj Markets

Powered by TransUnion CIBIL, this free service not only reveals one's CIBIL score, but also provides a customised credit report. Using the information on the credit report, one can learn how to improve CIBIL score and qualify for higher and more affordable financing. India is currently experiencing a growth in demand for loans, which is at a 11-year high as of FY23. In this scenario, it has become even more vital for individuals to know what impacts their credit score and how this score affects their chances of approval and the cost of borrowing. With a free credit score check on Bajaj Markets, individuals can do this with ease in just a few simple steps. Alongside this, they get access to a comprehensive credit report that lists important credit-related activities that affect the score. This personalised credit report lists the various aspects of one's credit behaviour such as repayment history, length of credit history, credit utilisation ratio, credit enquiries, type of credit. The financial insights provided can help one improve their credit score. Interested individuals can use this free credit report to improve their credit health and eligibility for financing by running a check on the Bajaj Markets app or website. One can also get access to various loans and other financial services on this platform.(Disclaimer The above press release has been provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)ANI27 May 2023

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South Korea seeks to counter Chinas economic coercion, diversify trading partners: Report

Washington, May 27: Despite the fact that China is South Korea's largest commercial partner, observers say Seoul's growing connections with the United States and other wealthy democratic countries demonstrate its desire to offset Beijing's economic pressure, reported Voice of America.

South Korea seeks to counter China's economic coercion, diversify trading partners: Report

After a month of diplomacy that included summits with the US and G7 leaders, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin stated Wednesday at a hearing in Seoul that "reducing our reliance on China" and "diversifying our trading partners will help our economy."President Yoon Suk Yeol convened a Cabinet meeting on Monday following the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, and stated that he had "secured the basis of cooperation" with G7 countries such as Canada, Australia, and Germany on "safeguarding supply chain networks" in crucial minerals and semiconductors, as per Voice of America.Voice of America (VOA) is a US-based international broadcaster, that provides news and information in more than 40 languages.South Korea was invited to the May 19-21 summit by Japan as a non-member of the G7, which comprises the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan.Seven of the world's wealthiest countries said in a joint press release on Saturday that they would "foster economic resilience" and oppose Beijing's "economic coercion" and "malign practises" by "de-risking and diversifying" their trade away from China.In a separate statement issued the same day, they stated that countries that "attempt to weaponize economic dependencies" will "face consequences," but they did not name any countries.Experts believe Yoon's attendance at the G7 summit, where the G-7 countries united against China's economic coercion, as well as his close alignment with Washington, indicate that Seoul has joined their efforts."The Yoon government seeks to join Washington and other allies in addressing supply chain and other economic security issues," states Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korea Studies at the Brookings Institution."This may entail Seoul joining Washington to some degree in countering Chinese economic coercion, but the Yoon government will still move cautiously on how it navigates issues like export controls directed against China," he added.China, which is the world's second-largest economy after the US, has been accused of using its economic clout for political and military purposes.According to the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin, between February 2010 and March 2022, China engaged in 123 cases of economic coercion globally.The Chinese Cyberspace Administration said on Sunday that Micron Technology goods posed security threats. It provided no details since China has prohibited the use of Micron's high-end semiconductors in computers that carry sensitive data.When then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an independent investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 virus, which was first detected in humans in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, China blacklisted Australian coal and imposed tariffs on wine, lobsters, lumber, and barley in 2020. This January, Beijing lifted the coal ban, as per VOA.Beijing also restricted its tourists from travelling to South Korea and cancelled K-pop concerts in China after the US missile defence system THAAD was deployed to South Korea in 2017.Yoon also made a state visit to Washington in April.Experts say one of the primary expectations Washington has for Seoul is that it restricts high-end chip exports to China. Samsung and SK Hynix of South Korea are among the world's leading chip manufacturers.Dennis Wilder said, "The administration has been very clear to South Korea that semiconductors used in Chinese supercomputers can help the Chinese military develop very sophisticated weapons in an area that the United States wants to see restricted. Wilder was senior director for East Asia affairs at the White House's National Security Council during the George W Bush government."China's building its military and I'm not prepared to trade certain items with China," said President Joe Biden at a press conference after he wrapped up the summit on Sunday.He added, "When I asked by (Chinese) President Xi (Jinping) why, I said, 'Because you're using them to build nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction."The US President added, "We've now got a commitment from all our allies they're not going to either provide that kind of material that allows them to do that."Experts said advanced Micron chips are not the type of high-tech semiconductors that Washington wants to prevent Beijing from accessing for its military, VOA reported.ANI27 May 2023

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aBill introduced to make Diwali federal holiday in the US

New York, May 27: A bill to make Diwali a federal holiday has been introduced by Grace Meng, a Democrat member of the House of Representatives.

aBill introduced to make Diwali federal holiday in the US

"My Diwali Day Act is one step toward educating all Americans on the importance of this day, and celebrating the full face of American diversity," Meng said on Friday."Diwali is one of the most important days of the year for billions of people across the globe," she said"America's strength is derived from the diverse experiences, cultures and communities that make up this nation."Broadening its appeal, the text of the bill says "Millions of Americans, both religious and secular, celebrate Diwali, which is also called the 'Festival of Lights'."The bill has been sponsored by 14 members of the House -- 13 Democrats and a Republican -- and shows wide wide support.The sponsors even include Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal, who are caustic critics of the Indian government and what they call "Hindutva".If the Diwali Day Act is adopted by Congress, it would become the 12th federal holiday, and only the second religious holiday after Christmas.The bill was introduced on May 15 and forwarded the same day to the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, which will have to approve it for it to go before the House.It will also have to be approved by the Senate before going to the president for the final stage of adoption as law."Establishing a federal holiday for Diwali, and the day off it would provide, would allow families and friends to celebrate together, and demonstrate that the government values the diverse cultural makeup of the nation," Meng's office said.The announcement was made as May, the Asian American Pacific Islander Month was drawing to a close, with the endorsement of several Hindu, Sikh, Dalit Rights, Indo-Caribbean and pan-Asian community and professional organisations."The recognition of Diwali as a federal holiday would be an affirmative step in celebrating/recognizing the diversity of our nation," said John C. Yang, President of Asian Americans Advancing Justice.Together with Meng "we are showing that Diwali is an American holidaya, said Jennifer Rajkumar, a member of the New York State Assembly."To the over 4 million Americans who celebrate Diwali, your government sees you and hears you," she said.After a campaign by her and Meng, New York City has made Diwali a school holiday from this year.Meng represents a constituency in New York with a large Asian population.Gregg Orton, Executive Director of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, welcomed the introduction of Meng's legislation.He said "The official recognition of Diwali allows for the acknowledgement and celebration of individuals in the Hindu, Sikh, Jain, and Buddhist faiths. Our communities deserve to be seen and celebrated, and the passage of this act empowers several South Asian and Southeast Asian communities in practising and embracing their religious heritage."Sim J Singh Attariwala, a senior official of The Sikh Coalition, said "By embracing these celebrations, we not only include and integrate communities but also strengthen the bonds of our multicultural society, making America a more vibrant and compassionate nation for all."A significant acknowledgement of Diwali was made by the US Postal Service which introduced a Diwali stamp with the image of a diya or lamp in 2016.According to the draft, the bill will have the House acknowledge that "Diwali signifies the victory of good over evil and unfairness, and knowledge over ignorance"."Diwali, also known as Deepavali, is an auspicious day celebrated by many South and Southeast Asian communities as well as religious groups including the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, and Jain communities."The bill specifies that Diwali floats according to the "Vedic lunar calendar". Observed on falls on the 15th day of the eighth month or the New Moon Day in the month of Kartika".Juneteenth commemorating the end of slavery was the last federal holiday adopted after approval by Congress and being signed into law by President Biden in 2021.Diwali coincides with the Bandi Chhor Divas (the Day of Liberation), Kali Puja, and Tihar, it says.(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)IANS27 May 2023

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S-Koreas satellite enters orbit, makes communication with Earth

Seoul, May 27: South Korea's main satellite has successfully entered orbit and made multiple communications with ground stations, the country's science ministry has said.

S-Korea's satellite enters orbit, makes communication with Earth

NEXTSAT-2 was deployed from South Korea's homegrown space rocket Nuri on Thursday evening, followed by seven microsatellites at 20 second intervals, Yonhap News Agency reported.Korea's King Sejong Station in Antarctica received the first signal from NEXTSAT-2 at 707 p.m. on Thursday and a ground station in South Korea's central city of Daejeon also communicated with the satellite some 50 minutes later, the Ministry of Science and ICT said on Friday.NEXTSAT-2 also made two-way communications seven times with the Daejeon station and other overseas posts earlier on Friday, the ministry said.All of the satellite's operational functions, including power generation and data processing, are working well, it added.NEXTSAT-2 -- the 180-kilogram satellite designed and developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) -- will demonstrate X-band radar technology and measure space radiation on a dawn-dusk orbit for the next two years.The ministry said two of the four microsatellites developed by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, codenamed SNIPE, have made communications with ground stations since they were put into space last night.The ministry earlier confirmed that three of the four SNIPE satellites were deployed from Nuri, stating that the final one's status remains unknown.Two of the three others -- the JAC by the Korean engineering company Justek, the LUMIR-T1 by the local space firm Lumir and the KSAT3U by startup Kairospace -- have corresponded with ground stations.The ministry said it will make constant efforts to make contact with the three satellites that remain silent.IANS27 May 2023

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Centre not allowing govt to function, alleges Telangana CM KCR on ordinance over control of services

Hyderabad, May 27: After Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday amid a row over the Centre's ordinance on control of administrative services in the national capital, the latter said that the centre is not allowing state governments to function.

Centre not allowing govt to function, alleges Telangana CM KCR on ordinance over control of services

Further slamming the Central government led by PM Modi, he said that the time is worse than the days of emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975."This time is worse than the days of emergency, you (Centre) are not allowing a government elected by people, to function..." said KCR in a joint Press Conference with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.He also demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi to immediately withdraw the ordinance issued by the Centre."PM Modi must withdraw the ordinance; we demand it. Withdraw it or else we all will support Kejriwal Ji," KCR said in a joint Press Conference with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.He further warned the NDA government in the Centre of using all the strength in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to defeat the ordinance if it is not withdrawn.The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor sought the support of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) against the Centre's ordinance which the party claims circumvents the Supreme Court order.Kejriwal was accompanied by his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann and AAP MPs Sanjay Singh and Raghav Chadha.However, Kejriwal said that the support by the Telangana CM has provided strength to his party."To deliver justice to the people of Delhi, he (KCR), his party and his govt are with us. This is not just about Delhi, but about saving the democracy of the nation...his(KCR) support has provided a lot of strength to us," Kejriwal said here.The Delhi Chief Minister on May 23 embarked on a nationwide tour to seek support from the Opposition parties against the ordinance.Earlier, Kejriwal had met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav.This comes after the Union government on May 19 brought an ordinance to notify rules for the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) regarding the 'transfer posting, vigilance and other incidental matters'.The ordinance was brought to amend the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991 and it circumvents the Supreme Court judgement in the Centre vs Delhi case.ANI27 May 2023

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Xi Jinpings call for open cooperation on tech could not be timelier: Gates

San Francisco, May 27: Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has said that the call for open cooperation on technology by Chinese President Xi Jinping could not be timeliera, echoing Jinping's message.

Xi Jinping's call for open cooperation on tech 'could not be timelier': Gates

Addressing the Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing via a live feed, Gates said that China, with its mix of expertise and experience and investment in innovation, would be able to make its contribution to the world by sharing its technology and lessons, reports South China Morning Post.Gates said that issues such as the Covid-19 pandemic, along with other challenges from food security to child welfare, do not stay within national boundaries."So we need to commit to working across boundaries to address them," Gates was quoted as saying."We need to mount a comprehensive, broad response (to issues like Covid-19) based on innovation and cooperation," the Microsoft founder said."China is already playing an important role in addressing complex global challenges, including future pandemics and food insecurity," he told the gathering.Earlier, Chinese President Xi Jinping said it is important "more than ever" for nations to deepen cooperation and share technology.China is committed to a "win-win strategy of opening-up" and the country is ready to join hands with others to promote sci-tech innovation, according to the his letter published by Xinhua news agency.The message came as the US-China rivalry is deepening, with Washington tightening export restrictions to Beijing.Earlier this week, China banned the sale of US-based Micron Technology's chips in the country, citing "national security risks".The Chinese government said that Micro products will be banned for sale to the country's key information infrastructure, as the US continues to tighten control on China-based tech companies.The US Commerce Department replied to the ban, saying it "firmly opposes restrictions that have no basis in fact"."We will engage directly with PRC (People's Republic of China) authorities to detail our position and clarify their action," the department said in a statement.In October last year, the Joe Biden administration tightened exports of advanced US semiconductor technologies to China, including chip making equipment and design software.Recent reports claimed that the Joe Biden administration is about to announce new restrictions on US companies' investments in China.IANS28 May 2023

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. Today's face of the city of Lachin  although I do acknowledge that this is only the first stage  shows that we are a nation of builders. It shows that this land is ours, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said, while meeting the residents of the Lachin city, Trend reports.

"Armenians were illegally settled in Lachin and Kalbajar districts. This is considered a war crime by international conventions. However, I saw their living conditions when I came here in September. The conditions they had created for themselves are beyond any comparison. They are probably the only ones to know how it is possible to live in such conditions," President Ilham Aliyev noted.
Third episode from Girl group XGs docu follows 2018 Korean training camp

Mumbai, May 27: The Japanese girl group XG, released the third episode from their documentary recently.

Third episode from Girl group XG's docu follows 2018 Korean training camp

The episode focuses on the Korean training camp which took place in 2018, and shows Juria talking about her voracious "fighting spirit", showing her strong desire to become a star and work towards achieving her goal.XG's producer, Simon, expressed his thoughts towards XG's Chisa, Juria and Maya, in an interview in the episode. When asked how he feels about their collaboration, he said "I am overwhelmed with emotion... I want you, the members, to remember not only the journey and those memories but also your initial aspirations, so that you will never forget."Through the training camp in Korea, 15 trainees were reduced to 11, and the countdown to the selection of the debut members began.Recently, XG performed for the first time at the Head In The Clouds New York Music and Arts Festival a large-scale music festival created by 88rising and held at Forest Hills Stadium in New York City. They surprised the audience by performing two unreleased songs, thrilling the 15,000 strong New York audience. XG will also perform at the Head In The Clouds Los Angeles Music iamp; Arts Festival in Los Angeles on August 5 to August 6.IANS28 May 2023

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Adheenams hand over Sengol to PM Modi on eve of new Parliament building inauguration

New Delhi, May 27: The Adheenams (priests) handed over the sacred sceptre, 'Sengol', to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, on the eve of the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

Adheenams hand over 'Sengol' to PM Modi on eve of new Parliament building inauguration

The Adheenams also presented a special gift to PM Modi.PM Modi met the Adheenams, who flew down to the national capital today, at his residence. The Prime Minister also sought their blessings.Earlier in the day, the Adheenams of Dharmapuram and Thiruvavaduthurai arrived in the national capital.At the inauguration of the new Parliament building on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will establish the historical and sacred "Sengol" in the Parliament House.As many as 21 Adheenams had earlier left for Delhi from Chennai to participate in the inauguration ceremony.Dharmapuram Adheenam, Palani Adheenam, Virudhachalam Adheenam, and Thirukoyilur Adheenam were among the Adheenams who left for Delhi from Chennai to attend the ceremony.Home Minister Amit Shah said on Wednesday that the sacred sceptre 'Sengol' is the symbol of the transfer of power from the British to India.He said that the Parliament House is the most appropriate and sacred place to install the historic 'Sengol'.PM Modi took a decision to adopt Sengol as a national symbol of the Amrit Kaal.Talking about the installation of 'Sengol', a symbol of justice, Ambalavana Desiga Paramachariya Swamigal of Thiruvavaduthurai Aadheenam said on Friday that it is a matter of pride for Tamil Nadu that Sengol is being given its significance."Lord Mountbatten got the Sengol and it was given to former PM Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947. It's good that PM Modi will place Sengol in the new Parliament. We are going to Delhi and we'll be giving it to the PM," he said.The Thiruvavaduthurai Aadheenam said that it is a "matter of pride" for Tamil Nadu that Sengol, a symbol of justice, will be installed in the new Parliament building adding that "some people are spreading lies".He said that the then Governor General Lord Mountbatten had given the Sengol to former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947, which will now be presented to PM Modi on Sunday.The Home Minister had launched a special website (sengol1947.ignca.gov.in), with details and downloadable videos about Sengol on Wednesday."We want the people of India to see this and learn about this historic event. It is a matter of pride for all," he had said.ANI28 May 2023

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China dreams of owning military-industrial complex under Xis leadership

Beijing, May 27: The West is watching the growth in China of a new breed of autocrats under Xi Jinping's leadership, military-industrial technocrats with indeed the theoretical ability to match a similar but globally influential complex the United States has, Directus reported.

China dreams of owning military-industrial complex under Xi's leadership

Research by the Asia Society Policy Institute's Centre for China Analysis in March reveals that autocrats' ascent provides essential clues to the leadership qualities and policy priorities that paramount leader Xi Jinping has uppermost in mind.Directus is a Greek News and Media website reporting on issues related to Greece. It also provides geopolitical analyzes and commentary on the national issues of Greece.Were such a technocrat group to really exist, it would have major military implications for Chinese economic development and militarization of the PLA in the next decade. That will have its own consequences on China's growing rivalry with the US, Directus reported.Hints of Xi's search for a group of military and industrial specialists sprung up around the time of the 20th Party Congress last October as Xi was preparing for a third term in power.At the Congress, Xi said that the party's military wing, the People's Liberation Army, needs to "safeguard China's dignity and core interests."He was referring to a list of territorial claims and other issues over which Beijing says it is ready to go to war. It was clear that China, with the world's second-largest military budget after the United States, is trying to extend its reach by developing ballistic missiles, aircraft carriers and overseas outposts, Directus reported.And Xi laid bare his ambition, "We will work faster to modernize military theory, personnel and weapons. We will enhance the military's strategic capabilities."At the conclusion of the Congress, 13 new members joined the 24-man Politburo, the Communist Party's top leadership body. Among them are five rising stars, Zhang Guoqing, Yuan Jiajun, Li Ganjie, Ma Xingrui and Liu Guozhong, Directus reported.The South China Morning Post said at that time, "This group, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of the Politburo's newly appointed seats, share similarities including educational training in military-industrial engineering in fields such as aerospace, nuclear energy and ordinance. Most possess high-level managerial experience in China's vast military-industrial sector. And all have transformed from engineer managers to local, then national political leaders."It also pointed out how the group members were relatively young, with an average age of just under 60. The youngest, Li Ganjie, was 59.Even Western analysts were certain that these leaders are likely to remain influential at the very top of China's political power structure for another decade or more, Directus reported.Their arrival was greeted with suspicions that a new elite was being created in Chinese politics, with the new group being positioned to liaise with both the party and the military leadership in the building of China's military-industrial complex.The group is expected to create military, economic, political and international conditions for taking on the US complex in a flat-out bid for world power at a future date, for Xi, Directus reported.Economically, the group would harness market forces to serve the party's ultimate interest in retaining a monopoly of power. It would apply its military-industrial experience to the reshaping of the Chinese economy to champion both a stronger statist framework and corporate market-economic success.Finally, it would work towards civil-military integration by leveraging technological innovations in the civil sector to advance weapons development for the Chinese military, and vice versa.These 'youngsters' would oversee economic growth and technological innovation, the latter focusing on sophisticated armaments that can swing China's relations with the world community in its favour.Many of these assumptions are still trapped in their theoretical frameworks even though the group's members are said to be finding their feet in their areas of individual endeavour. But to what extent and how they will successfully implement strategic coordination between the PLA and the party-State is something to be seen, Directus reported.Unlike in the United States, where the complex is decentralized and the result of public and private enterprise seamlessly supervised by the administration and the industrialists, China suffers from too much centralization, a power Xi would not be willing to share.Analysts now believe the ultimate provocation for the urgent march towards the military-industrial complex is that China wants to be the dominant military power in the Asia-Pacific, capable of deterring and if needed, defeating the United States in a future conflict.But it is not clear if Beijing's main aim is to project its power throughout the world like the United States. Four years ago, when Xi was into his second term in power, the government said in its 2019 white paper that it will "never threaten any other country or seek any sphere of influence". It maintains a no-first-use nuclear policy, has no military alliances, and claims to oppose interference in other countries' affairs.Also, it must be noted that given the myriad disputes China has entered into in its region in Asia, the PLA will be tied up close to home most of the time in the near future. It may simply not find time to project itself outside the continent and become a global force.The only option left for China is to pursue the goal of projecting its economic influence with the help of its BRI program and allow the military to be the follow-up force in countries which sign up for BRI.However, experts contend that Xi's effort to harness the resources of the private sector for military development could undermine China's 40 years of economic freedom under the "reform and opening-up" policy championed by Deng Xiaoping and his successors, Directus reported.In that case, any inefficient state-directed economic management risks China suffering the same fate as befell the former Soviet Union.ANI28 May 2023

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Beautifully expressed: PM Modi after SRK congratulates him on new Parliament building

New Delhi, May 28: Responding to superstar Shah Rukh Khan's congratulatory tweet on the new Parliament building, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that the actor has eautifully expressed his thought about the ew home for the people who uphold Constitution.

Beautifully expressed: PM Modi after SRK congratulates him on new Parliament building

"Beautifully expressed! The new Parliament building is a symbol of democratic strength and progress. It blends tradition with modernity. #MyParliamentMyPride," PM Modi tweeted.Shah Rukh Khan on Saturday congratulated PM Modi ahead of the new Parliament Building inauguration.SRK took to Twitter and shared a video showcasing the parliament building.Sharing the video, he wrote, "What a magnificent new home for the people who uphold our Constitution, represent every citizen of this great Nation and protect the diversity of her one People@narendramodi ji. A new Parliament building for a New India but with the age-old dream of Glory for India. Jai Hind! #MyParliamentMyPride."Earlier, Bollywood star Akshar Kumar also posted congratulatory messages.Taking to Twitter, Akshay said, "Proud to see this glorious new building of the Parliament. May this forever be an iconic symbol of India's growth story. #MyParliamentMyPride."While responding to his video PM Modi said, "You have conveyed your thoughts very well. Our new Parliament is truly a beacon of our democracy. It reflects the nation's rich heritage and the vibrant aspirations for the future. #MyParliamentMyPride."Earlier, music composer Ilaiyaraaja and actor Rajinikanth posted congratulatory messages.PM Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to inaugurate the new Parliament building on Sunday.Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the new Parliament Building on December 10, 2020. It has been built in record time with quality construction.The task of constructing the new Parliament building was a mammoth endeavour. It witnessed several key construction activities being done off-site as well. Further, the construction also saw the usage of materials sourced from across the country.As per the government officials, teak wood was sourced from Nagpur, Maharashtra while sandstone (red and white) was procured from Sarmathura, Rajasthan.The carpets to be floored inside the new building were procured from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh.The bamboo wood flooring came from Agartala, Tripura.From Rajnagar, Rajasthan and Noida, UP Stone Jali Works were obtained.The material involved in constructing Ashoka Emblem was sourced from Aurangabad, Maharashtra and Jaipur, Rajasthan while Ashok Chakra came from Indore, Madhya Pradesh.Some of the furniture acquired was procured from Mumbai. From Lakha, Jaisalmer Lakha Red granite was obtained. Ambaji White marble was procured from Ambaji, Rajasthan. Kesharia Green Stone was procured from UdaipurThe stone carving work was obtained from Abu Road and Udaipur, and the stone aggregate was from Kotputali, Rajasthan.The M-Sand was procured from Chakari Dadri, Haryana, and Fly Ash Bricks from NCR Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and the Brass work and Pre-cast Trenches were got from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, while the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha false ceiling steel structures came from UT of Daman and Diu.ANI28 May 2023

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Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Pande calls on Manipur Governor

Imphal, May 27: Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Pande along with Lt. General RP Kalita GOC-In-Chief called on Governor of Manipur Anusuiya Uikey at Raj Bhavan, Imphal on Saturday to discuss and deliberate over the current situation and future trajectory, in order to restore normalcy at the earliest, a statement said.

Chief of Army Staff General Manoj Pande calls on Manipur Governor

Owing to the internal security situation in Manipur, the State Administration had been helped by additional security forces to defuse the situation by carrying out active domination of vulnerable and fringe areas, the statement added.Untoward incidents have been drastically reduced with frequent round-the-clock deployment of the security forces.The meeting discussed the prevailing situation and security measures that are put in place to contain/prevent any violent and major untoward incidents in the State, the statement said.The Governor has conveyed the suggestions and complaints received from various delegations of political parties, CSOs and victimised sections of the society to the Army Chief.The Governor instructed to swiftly bring the prevailing situation of the state to normalcy, the statement noted.Meanwhile, the Indian Army and Assam Rifles have launched large-scale combing operations in the aftermath of the fresh violence in the Imphal Valley to restore peace and normalcy in the strife-torn Manipur.The operations have also been launched in the vulnerable flash points and in the higher reaches surrounding Imphal Valley.Army and Assam Rifles launched multiple search operations in areas of Kangchuk, Motbung, Saikul, Pukhao and Sagolmang in the early hours of May 27 in Manipur to track down any armed insurgents operating in these areas.These operations are part of the overall ongoing efforts of the Army and Assam Rifles to restore peace and normalcy in the State of Manipur.ANI28 May 2023

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Stop taking things out of context...: Athiya Shetty calls out reports of her visiting strip club with KL Rahul

London, May 27: Actor Athiya Shetty issued a statement hours after an alleged video of her and her husband KL Rahul from a club, assumed to be a strip club, went viral.

Stop taking things out of context...: Athiya Shetty calls out reports of her visiting strip club with KL Rahul

The video shows KL having a good time with friends, while skimpily-clad women are dancing on the tables in London.The clip elicited negative reactions from netizens. Many called out KL for having fun despite an injury that led to his withdrawal from the upcoming World Test Championship 2023 final.Shutting down the trolls, Athiya in her statement wrote, "I usually choose to be silent and not react, but sometimes it's important to stand up for yourself. Rahul, I and our friends went out to a regular place, as one does. Stop taking things out of context and check your facts before reporting. Peace and love."However, KL has not reacted to the video yet.Earlier in May, KL underwent successful surgery on his thigh.KL gave an update about his surgery in an Instagram post where he thanked the medical staff for the smooth and comfortable treatment."Hi everyone, I just got done with my surgery - it was successful. A big thank you to the doctors and medical staff for making sure I was comfortable and everything went smoothly. I'm officially on the road to recovery now. I'm determined to get back to my best and get back on the field. Onwards and upwards!" KL Rahul stated in his post.On May 8, BCCI announced Ishan Kishan as the replacement of KL Rahul in the World Test Championship.The Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain sustained the injury in the match against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on May 1. Chasing a ball in the outfield in the second over, he clutched at his thigh and then limped off the field.The way KL pulled up at the boundary made it clear that it was a serious injury. He immediately slumped on the field and was attended to by emergency personnel.The support staff immediately requested a stretcher to help him off the pitch. Rahul had to leave the field, and the keeper-bat did not return until the chase of a modest 127 got unexpectedly tense.ANI28 May 2023

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Emirates College for Advanced Education releases three new books at ADIBF

Abu Dhabi, May 27: The Emirates College for Advanced Education (ECAE) announced the publishing of three new books on the sidelines of the 32nd Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (ADIBF), which is being held at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center (ADNEC), from 22nd-28th May.

Emirates College for Advanced Education releases three new books at ADIBF

The books will enrich the research landscape in the education sector while advancing science teaching approaches and educational leadership.These books align with ECAE's efforts towards meeting the need for educational innovation rooted in research and development, alongside shaping best practices and policies, as an integrated data hub for educators.This demonstrates ECAE's commitment to encouraging lifelong learning and empowering top talents within this profession to help build the UAE's future through its students.The first book, titled "Gender in STEM Education in the Arab Gulf Countries", focuses on the four key scientific areas Natural Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The second book is titled "Islamic-Based Educational Leadership, Administration and Management Challenging Expectations Through Global Critical Insights". It discusses current assumptions about Islamic education and examines educational leadership built on Islamic principles to address challenges across educational systems, policies, and practices. Titled "Culturally Sensitive Research Methods for Educational Administration and Leadership", the third book combines theoretical and epistemological frameworks that can help develop inclusive methodologies in the educational process.Commenting on the release of the three new books, Dr. May Al Taee, Vice Chancellor of ECAE, stated, "The new books, launched during ADIBF, are an invaluable reference for all researchers, scholars and students interested in the education sector and the educational process. We are confident that these publications will help those connected to the educational sector, alongside ECAE's administration, in developing better policies and recommendations based on research and analytics. This helps in overcoming challenges and filling gaps across the education sector while upskilling educators through innovative and effective academic programs that align with the future of education in the UAE."Al Taee clarified that ECAE retains all the necessary resources and faculty expertise, along with elite highly experienced and skilled researchers, in addition to well-equipped infrastructure. All those factors allow it to lead the transformation of education in the UAE.It can also contribute to nurturing future generations through academic excellence, sustained development of educational teams, and improved academic programs and methods.Al Taee acknowledged the efforts exerted by faculty members and researchers in writing these books, which fall in line with ECAE's strategic objectives and plans for the future. (ANI/WAM)ANI28 May 2023

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IIFA 2023: Alia Bhatt wins top acting award, skips ceremony

Abu Dhabi, May 28: And, true to her exploits and status in the film industry, Alia Bhatt won the Best Actor Award for Performance In A Leading Role- Female at IIFA 2023.

IIFA 2023: Alia Bhatt wins top acting award, skips ceremony

However, the 30-year-old star was not in attendance to accept her award for her performance in 'Gangubai Kathiawadi' in person.If reports are to be believed, Alia skipped the event due to a family emergency. Alia's maternal grandfather, Narendra Razdan, is reportedly not well.Producer Jayantilal Gada received the award on behalf of Alia.Earlier this month, Alia was announced as the first Indian global ambassador of the luxury fashion brand, Gucci. Taking to Instagram, the fashion brand shared the news and captioned it, "Alia Bhatt is the House's newest Global Brand Ambassador. To mark the occasion, the actress, producer, and entrepreneur were captured with the Gucci Bamboo 1947 bag."Alia also attended the Gucci Cruise 2024 show in Seoul.She also made her Met Gala debut in the month of May.The 'Raazi' star hit the iconic red carpet in a dreamy white gown designed by fashion designer Prabal Gurung.This year's theme was 'Karl Lagerfeld A Line of Beauty', based on the new Costume Institute exhibition exploring the work of the iconic designer. Lagerfeld, who died in 2019 at the age of 85, spent decades creating clothes for Balmain, Patou, Chloe, Fendi and Chanel in addition to his own namesake label, Page Six reported.She teamed the gown with embellished gloves, matching diamond earrings and rings. For the glam, she opted for a centre-parted half-tied ponytail, high heels, subtle smoky eye shadow, kohl-lined eyes, nude lip shade, and a dewy base.ANI28 May 2023

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Mediclinic Abu Dhabi Annual Cancer Conference spotlights developments in oncology

Abu Dhabi, May 27: The second edition of Mediclinic Abu Dhabi Annual Cancer Conference kicked off today, featuring 18 different speakers from the UAE and from Mediclinic's sister division in Switzerland, Hirslanden.

Mediclinic Abu Dhabi Annual Cancer Conference spotlights developments in oncology

Held under the patronage of Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, and the support of the Department of Health - Abu Dhabi, the one-day event discussed diverse topics and saw attendance of more than 250 medical professionals working in the field of oncology from across the UAE.In his opening address, Sheikh Nahyan said, "Under the wise leadership of President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayyed Al Nahyan, we, in the UAE, have assumed a comprehensive approach to health care. Not only do we strive to ensure the best care is provided to patients, but we also stress health promotion and preventative medicine in ensuring the best public health.""Your conference, which carries the name of Abu Dhabi in its title, underscores the fact that Abu Dhabi has emerged as a regional and global center of excellence for health care. With the strong leadership and guidance of His Highness the President, our goal is a health care system that is responsive to the needs of individuals and the community at large. Regarding the scourge of cancer, we strive to attain the most advanced technologies, to detect the disease as early as possible, to implement the most effective treatments and cures, to produce research that is relevant to our region, to improve cancer education and awareness, and to empower all segments of society to support cancer patients and their families. Your annual conference is certainly an important contributor to that effort," he added."The focus of this conference on a 'Multi-disciplinary Approach to Cancer' reflects the latest strategies for fighting the disease. The fight against cancer has grown more sophisticated. It has increasingly become an information-based science. Rapid advances in bio-informatics, huge leaps in computer processing power, and better understanding of the role of molecular structure in the fight against disease, are transforming the process of medical care. Innovations such as nanotechnology, T-cell therapy, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, precision medicine, cancer vaccines, artificial intelligence, and robotic surgery are helping to prolong lives and energise the fight against this dreaded disease," Sheikh Nahyan went on to explain."These new methods of treatment are far more effective than a 'one-treatment fits all' approach. Medicine is moving from the traditional assumption that drugs and diseases work the same way in all human beings to customising them at the individual level. Personalised medicine has demonstrated its effectiveness. The results of these information-based, biomedical, and multi-disciplinary approaches are producing new methods for treating the disease through early diagnosis and customised drug treatments."Hein Van Eck, Chief Executive Officer at Mediclinic Middle East, said, "Oncology is an ever-evolving and continuously progressing field, therefore it is of paramount importance that professionals in these areas of medicine stay abreast of the latest new evidence, research findings and tools to provide world class cancer treatments to the communities in which we operate. This educational initiative is also in line with our mission to ensure the safety of the community by raising awareness of public and preventative health. The conference is a testament to the efforts being exerted by all stakeholders to work collectively to combat cancer and promote screening, which leads to early detection of the disease and result in better clinical outcomes."Mediclinic Middle East is steadfast in its commitment to providing comprehensive cancer treatment in the United Arab Emirates and has established two Comprehensive Cancer Centres in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, operated in collaboration with Mediclinic Middle East's sister platform in Switzerland, Hirslanden. Patients of Mediclinic's Comprehensive Cancer Centres benefit from the sharing of knowledge and experience between some of the leading oncology experts in Europe and the Middle East, as well as have access to the very latest treatment programmes and technologies. (ANI/WAM)ANI28 May 2023

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Bhutan: Former tour guide embarks on journey of passion, ventures into poultry farming

Thimphu [Bhutan], May 28: A former tour guide of Bhutan, Cheki Dorji has found his journey of passion and purpose as he ventured into poultry farming in the Dungmin Gewog village of Durungri, Bhutan Live reported.

Bhutan: Former tour guide embarks on journey of passion, ventures into poultry farming

Cheki Dorji, in his early thirties, made the audacious decision to get into poultry farming in the face of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2021.He set up his own broiler farm in his family village, determined to forge a fresh career. His path, however, was not without challenges. Cheki had trouble finding a consistent market for his broiler chickens, reported Bhutan Live.Cheki took a risk by not only creating job possibilities but also contributing to import substitution with the help of the Big-Ticket Project."After the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, I decided to leave the tourism industry and return to my village. In 2021, I began this broiler farm with 500 chicks. Unfortunately, I faced significant losses as I struggled to find a stable market during the pandemic," Cheki said, according to Bhutan Live."Currently, my farm can accommodate 1,500 chicks. I am eagerly awaiting the funds from the Big-Ticket Project. By July, when I receive the funding, I plan to expand my farm," he added.Cheki has big plans for his farming venture in the future. He is looking forward to the second budget release, which will offer the funding he needs to grow his farm.Cheki now devotes his time and energy to caring for 1,300 broiler chickens on his farm, which he purchased for more than Nu 250,000. The district's livestock sector plays a crucial role by facilitating the supply of chicks and feeds, according to Bhutan Live.Cheki's narrative stands as a tribute to the strength of persistence and the possibilities for success within local communities as he continues to develop his broiler farm.ANI28 May 2023

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. We are meeting with you in the city of Lachin and there cannot be a bigger happiness than that, said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as he met with Lachin natives, Trend reports.

"I remember very well and you probably remember as well that, on my birthday on December 24, 2011, I met the people of Lachin in Takhtakorpu settlement of Aghjabadi district.

I usually don't celebrate my birthdays, including birthdays that are considered jubilee. I celebrated my 60th birthday in Jidir Duzu plain and my 50th birthday with the people of Lachin in Takhtakorpu settlement. At that time, a settlement consisting of more than 550 houses was built for the people of Lachin in Takhtakorpu settlement. In that meeting, I said that the day would come when we would build even more beautiful houses for you in Lachin, and this day has come. Only 11 years have passed since that date, and we are already meeting with you in the city of Lachin. There cannot be a bigger happiness than that," President Ilham Aliyev said.
Air pollution linked to early death in heart failure patients: Study

Prague [Czech Republic], May 28: According to a study, heart failure patients are more likely to pass away from their condition on polluted days and for up to two days afterwards.

Air pollution linked to early death in heart failure patients: Study

The research was presented at Heart Failure 2023, the European Society of Cardiology's (ESC) scientific conference."The findings indicate that reducing air pollution has the potential to prevent worsening heart failure," said study author Dr Lukasz Kuzma of the Medical University of Bialystok, Poland."Protecting vulnerable groups, especially during winter, should become an integral part of clinical care. That means health professionals working with patients to monitor air quality and choose optimal times for outdoor activity."According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), air pollution is the single most serious environmental threat to human health. This includes particulate matter (PM)2.5 and PM10, which are mostly caused by vehicle exhaust emissions and industrial smells. In 2019, it is predicted that ambient air pollution will cause 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide.Heart failure affects more than 64 million people worldwide.4 The authors of the current study previously found that rises in particulate matter were associated with increased hospitalisations for heart failure.5 This study examined the relationship between smog exposure and short-term mortality from heart failure.Mortality data from the five main cities in Eastern Poland from 2016 to 2020 were obtained from the Central Statistical Office. Concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 were retrieved from the Inspectorate for Environmental Protection. Home postcodes were used to connect individual pollution exposure with mortality.The researchers used a time-stratified case-crossover study design in which participants served as their own controls. This eliminated the potential confounding effect of individual characteristics. For each participant, pollutant levels on the day a death occurred (e.g. Tuesday) were compared with pollutant levels on the same day of the week with no deaths (e.g. all remaining Tuesdays) in the same month. The analyses were repeated for pollution levels one day and two days before death took place. All analyses were adjusted for factors that could influence the relationships including the time of year, day of the week, weather conditions (temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure) and long-term trends such as population demographics.A total of 87,990 deaths were recorded during the five-year study, of which 7,404 were due to heart failure. The average age of those who died from heart failure was 74 years and 49% were women. The highest number of deaths occurred in winter and the lowest in summer, with averages of 1.03 and 0.69 per day, respectively. A 10 mg/m3 increase in PM2.5 and PM10 was associated with a 10% and 9% rise, respectively, in the risk of death due to heart failure on a polluted day. Similar risks of dying from heart failure were observed one and two days following smog exposure.Dr Kuzma said "The results suggest that pollution continues to exert negative effects on heart health for two days after smog exposure. Patients with heart failure should minimise their time in polluted areas by avoiding outdoor activities in places with dense traffic or when pollution levels are high, and using air filters at home. In addition, patients can advocate for policies and actions to improve air quality in their communities."He concluded "Our research indicates that considering the impact of pollution in public health measures to prevent disease and the consequences of ill health could lead to positive outcomes for patients with heart failure. Such measures should be taken in parallel with clinical care to improve the prognosis of this condition."ANI28 May 2023

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US, Mexico authorities urge WHO to declare public health emergency over fungal outbreak

Washington, May 28: US and Mexico authorities have urged the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency of international concern over a deadly fungal outbreak, CBS News reported citing a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official.

US, Mexico authorities urge WHO to declare public health emergency over fungal outbreak

The decision of the US and Mexico authorities comes after recruiters lured hundreds of patients from multiple countries and 24 US states to two facilities in Mexico for cosmetic surgeries that might have exposed them to the fungus, as per the news report.The CDC is currently monitoring the condition of 195 people across the US who got operated, involving epidural anaesthesia at the now-shuttered River Side Surgical Center and Clinica K-3 in Mexico. 14 are "suspected" and 11 are "probable" cases of fungal meningitis" which is the infection of the brain or spinal cord on the basis of their symptoms or test results, CBS News reported.As per the news report, two of the patients have died while six potential cases have been ruled out since the CDC's last update on Wednesday. The CDC warned that meningitis can quickly become life-threatening once symptoms emerge, according to CBS News report.Recent test results from authorities in Mexico have sparked concern regarding a repeat from another deadly outbreak that was related to surgeries elsewhere in Mexico earlier this year, as per the CBS News report.During that outbreak, nearly half of all patients diagnosed with meningitis died. A World Health Organization committee will have to be convened before an international emergency is declared by the agency's director-general.WHO spokesperson Margaret Ann Haris in an email said, "[We] are notified of hundreds of events every day and assess each one," CBS News reported. She did not say whether such notification had occurred from the US and said that communications with member states are confidential.Authorities have asked Americans who had an operation involving epidural anaesthesia at either of these clinics since January to immediately visit an emergency room or an urgent care facility, even if they do not currently believe they have symptoms, as per the CBS News report.People from 24 states were potentially exposed during surgeries at one of the two clinics, as per the list provided by Mexican authorities to the CDC. So far, most of the patients with symptoms have been female. One probable male case has been identified with symptoms of meningitis.One of the two patients who died was also an organ donor, with five different recipients around the country earlier this year who could be at risk, as per the news report.The CDC's Dallas Smith said, "All have been notified and are under evaluation." While speaking at a webinar hosted by the Mycoses Study Group, Smith said they were working with transplant centres and other partners to properly manage the patients who had these organs transplanted into their bodies.ANI28 May 2023

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From green hydrogen to circular economy, govt goes for sustainable growth

New Delhi, May 28: As India emerges as the most populated country in the world with its power corridor Delhi leading the largest political party at a time when rapid climate changes are happening across the globe, it calls for an analysis of the BJP-led Central governments environmental initiatives.

From green hydrogen to circular economy, govt goes for sustainable growth

A mere decade ago, climate change was not a matter of grave concern. Considering its profound implications and the impact it has on our daily lives, it has now become a topic of widespread discussion and concern.Over the past nine years, the BJP-led Central government has launched various schemes to address climate change. These include the Green Hydrogen Mission, GOBARdhan (Galvanising Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan Scheme), the Green Credit programme, MISHTI, Amrit Dharohar, and more.In 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a global call for Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) during India's National Statement at CoP26, held in Glasgow in October-November 2021.Subsequently, Mission LiFE was launched on October 20, 2022, recognising the importance of transitioning to sustainable lifestyles and consumption patterns in efforts to address climate change.Last year, the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change launched the 'In Our LiFEtime' campaign, aimed at encouraging youth aged 18 to 23 years to become messengers of sustainable lifestyles. The campaign aimed to recognise youth from around the world who take climate action initiatives aligned with the concept of LiFE.During his address to the nation on the occasion of the 75th Independence Day, Modi highlighted India's action on 'Mission Circular Economy' to deal with various waste. NITI Aayog constituted 11 committees to develop circular economy action plans for various waste categories.Circular Economy Action Plans for 10 waste categories, including Lithium-ion batteries, E-waste, Toxic and hazardous industrial waste, Scrap metal (ferrous and non-ferrous), Tyre and Rubber, End of Life Vehicles, Gypsum, Used Oil, Solar Panels, and Municipal Solid Waste, have been finalised and are currently being implemented.To control climate change and the rise in temperature, the Modi government has taken many initiatives and steps for environment conservation.The National Clean Air Programme was launched in 2019 by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change to reduce the quantity of particulate matter in the range of PM2.5 and PM 10 particle concentrations in the atmosphere.The ministry also launched the Green Skill Development Programme to develop green skills among people and also to provide employment to the youngsters in the environment and forest sector."The government has committed to get 50 per cent of its energy from renewable resources and to reduce total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes by the year 2030," said an official.The government also launched a global movement 'Lifestyle for the Environment' with a view to ensuring sustainable development."The movement aims to live a life which is in favour of the environment and does not harm the ecosystem and living beings. Faster Adoption and manufacturing of Hybrid iamp; Electric vehicles in India scheme has been launched in the year 2015 to promote use of electric vehicles in order to decrease the consumption of coal, which is already implemented by fourteen states of our country," said the official.The Bharatiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati Programme, an initiative to promote natural farming has already been adopted by Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala. Airshed Management technique has been implemented by states like Uttar Pradesh to improve the quality of air.The Central government submitted a report to the Delhi High Court, stating that the Cabinet has approved India's updated Nationally Determined Contribution, which is a step towards achieving India's long-term goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2070.It was also informed to the court that the Cabinet's approval aligns with the Prime Minister's "Panchamrit" announced at COP-26 and sets enhanced climate targets, committing India to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 45 percent by 2030.The court appreciated the sincere efforts made by the Ministry to ensure the implementation of climate change measures and provide a better environment for future generations.The government also launched its long-term low carbon development strategy at the 27th session of the Conference of Parties (COP-27) to the UNFCCC. The strategy was launched by Union Minister for Environment, Forest, and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, who led the Indian delegation to COP 27 from November 6-18, 2022.The Indian government has also taken determined steps to fulfil its commitment to eliminate single-use plastics that are non-biodegradable and have an adverse impact on the environment. A ban on identified single-use plastic items has been imposed starting from July 1, 2022. The ban was notified on August 12, 2021.To top it all, the government has introduced Prakriti Messenger of the Earth as the mascot of sustainability and environmental protection, aiming to raise awareness among the general public.IANS29 May 2023

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PM Modi pays tribute to Savarkar on Mann Ki Baat

New Delhi, May 28: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday paid tributes to Veer Savarkar during his 101st episode of his monthly radio talk show, 'Mann Ki Baat'.

PM Modi pays tribute to Savarkar on 'Mann Ki Baat'

"Today is the birth anniversary of the great freedom fighter, Veer Savarkar. The stories related to his sacrifice, courage and resolve inspire us all even today," said PM Modi.The Prime Minister said that he had visited the cell where Savarkar was lodged by the British and was filled with emotions."I cannot forget the day when I went to the cell in Andaman where Savarkar underwent the sentence of Kalapani. Savarkar's personality comprised firmness and magnanimity. His fearless and self-respecting nature did not appreciate the mentality of slavery at all. Not only the freedom movement, whatever Veer Savarkar did for social equality and social justice is remembered even today," the Prime Minister said.IANS29 May 2023

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Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Some clouds and possibly an isolated thunderstorm this afternoon. High 89F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%..

Tonight

A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible early. Partly cloudy skies. Low near 65F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
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Dave Hinton is editor of The News-Gazette's Our County section and former editor of the Rantoul Press. He can be reached at dhinton@news-gazette.com.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Mixed clouds and sun this morning. Scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High 89F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%..

Tonight

A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible early. Partly cloudy. Low near 65F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. The parliament should be dissolved, the element calling himself president should surrender, all ministers, deputies and others should give up their positions, said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as he met with Lachin natives, Trend reports.

Only in that case can a concession be made to them. Only in that case can we talk of an amnesty, President Ilham Aliyev added.
EPFO Nomination Update: Nomination plays a crucial role in the realm of finance by allowing individuals to designate their preferred beneficiaries for a range of financial products, including life insurance policies, bank accounts, mutual funds, provident funds, and other investment instruments. Regularly reviewing and updating your nominations is essential to align them with your present desires, as alterations in personal circumstances may influence your selection of beneficiaries.

The significance of nomination in the financial sector lies in its ability to safeguard the transfer of your assets and investments to your designated beneficiaries upon your demise.

Why EPFO Nomination Is Important?

Nomination is important in EPFO (Employees Provident Fund Organization) because it helps to ensure that the accumulated funds in the employees Provident Fund (PF) account are disbursed to the rightful nominee(s) in the event of the employees death.

EPFO is a statutory body under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India, that manages the provident fund, pension, and insurance schemes for the employees in the organized sector in India.

Under the EPF scheme, an employee and the employer contribute a certain percentage of the employees basic pay towards the PF account. The accumulated funds in the PF account are then paid to the employee at the time of retirement or to their nominee(s) in the event of the employees death.

EPFO E-Nomination Date

It must be noted that no last date is declared by EPFO for filing e-Nomination. Also e-Nomination is not mandatory for filing of advance claims.

Step Wise Process For E-nomination In EPFO

Log in EPFO Members portal

Add family members

For each family member upload a photo and enter Aadhaar. Aadhaar data is verified against the name, date of birth and gender of the family member entered by the member. On successful verification only the family will be added.

Bank account is not mandatory

Once completed a PDF is generated and the PDF has to be e-signed by the member through Aadhaar linked mobile OTP authentication.

E-nominations that are only filed and PDF not e-signed will not be considered for action in the event of the demise of the member. E-Nomination becomes complete only when the PDF is e-signed.

A valid -nomination ensures that the family members can login through OTP on their Aadhaar linked mobile for filing online claims post death of the member.Process To e-Sign

- Click on the E-sign link. After that a new page will be open. Select the checkbox. - On the next page, members have two options for Aadhaar Based e Authentication.

- Aadhaar number

- Virtual ID

Enter Aadhaar number / Virtual id and press verify button. After that an OTP will be sent to members Aadhaar-linked mobile number. On entering the OTP and then pressing the submit button, nomination details will be saved in the database of EPFO.

Steps to generate 16-digit Virtual ID if the member wants to e-sign against the VID:

- Visit the UIDAI website at uidai.gov.in

- Click on Virtual ID (VID) Generator listed under Aadhaar Services

- Enter 12 digit Aadhaar number. Enter Captcha

- To get the OTP, click on Send OTP and enter the OTP received on members registered mobile number

- It provides two options- to generate a new VID - retrieve the one you have already generated.

- Select one of the above options to receive the Aadhar Virtual ID[16- digit] on a members mobile number.

- If a member has already generated a VID and again clicks generate VID , he should enter the latest generated VID and not the one that was generated earlier.

- If the member enters the old VID but has already generated another one VID, the message will be from UIDAI stating that the VID entered has expired.

Who Can Add E-Nomination In EPFO?

E-nomination facility is available with e-sign. Only Aadhaar verified UAN holders can file e-nomination. Facility is available only from the UAN based login of the member.

Since Aadhaar verification is a pre-condition, it means that name, date of birth and gender of the member against UAN is verified against his/ her Aadhaar.

Once the profile part is updated the link for filing e-nomination will open.

Important Things To Note:

- If the member wants to nominate only a few family persons the member should add those family members.

-In case the member is married and has a spouse and children, he/she should add them even if he does not wish to nominate them under PF. Spouse and children are defined as family for the Pension Fund. So their names should be added to the family list.

-Keep the Aadhaar number and photo of the family member ready with you before you start filing.

Guidelines for uploading photograph:

The photo should be of max 100 KB size in jpeg format. It is advised that the clear image of the face should come in the photo uploaded.

- Only a member who is not married and is not having any of the family members as mentioned above may nominate any other person irrespective of relation for PF.

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- Only a member not having a spouse or children can nominate a person for Pension Contribution.

- In case there is no spouse and no children then only the Pension Nomination link will open and member can nominate one person.
The University of Mumbai began accepting applications for its undergraduate programmes on May 27 and has also made the admissions timetable for the academic year 20232024 public. Through the official website, mumoa.digitaluniversity.ac, applicants seeking admission to the Mumbai University UG programme in 2023 may submit their application. The Mumbai Universitys pre-admission enrolment will also be carried out online from May 27 to June 12.

The registration form for Mumbai University 2023 must be submitted by June 12 at the latest. Candidates must first confirm that they meet the requirements for the Mumbai University UG programme before registering. They must also provide an operational phone number and email address.

For Mumbai Universitys UG programmes, candidates must have completed their Class 12 or have obtained an equivalent qualification. Other course-specific prerequisites, however, can be found on the universitys official site. The first merit list will be made public by Mumbai University on June 19, the second on June 28, and the third on July 6, 2023.

Every college affiliated with Mumbai University must follow the schedule in order to carry out the admission process. While a majority of institutions base their admissions selections on HSC scores, certain elite institutions also hold their own entrance exams. Mithibai College and N M College are also taking the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) into consideration for this years admissions.

University of Mumbai Registration: Important Dates

Start of application form filling  May 27

Last date to apply  June 12

First merit list  June 19

Second merit list  June 28

Third merit list  July 6

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Payment of fees  July 10

The class 12th results were released by the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) this year on May 25, with an overall pass rate of 91.25 per cent. There were 14,39,731 students who showed up to take the examination, and 13,56,604 of them passed. In terms of performance, girls outperformed boys. Boys passed the test with an overall percentage of 89.14 per cent, while girls achieved a pass percentage of 93.73 per cent.
From UPSC Civil Services to SSC recruitment exams, from college admissions to group discussions, general knowledge questions mark a significant part of almost every exam. For candidates preparing to crack an exam or those who need to get their news in a compact form, News18 offers a weekly column - GK Capsule. While we provide you a weekly news wrap, to get more information on a specific topic or an exam, reach out at @news18dotcom.

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Civil Services Prelims 2023 exam is set for today, May 28, and is the first and most important of several recruitment exams that will be held in the coming days. Candidates must have a basic awareness of general knowledge and current events to pass the majority of employment exams. So, whether youre preparing for the SBI, UPSC, or any other competitive exam, current affairs are significant. Hence, without proper preparation, it will be difficult for one to clear such crucial tests.

To help candidates prepare for their upcoming exams, we have compiled a list of important news events of this week.

Withdrawal Of Rs 2,000 Note

Earlier this week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to withdraw the Rs 2000 denomination banknotes from circulation. RBI had also advised other banks to stop issuing Rs 2000 denomination banknotes with immediate effect. Since the announcement of the withdrawal, there has been a surge in the purchase of transport fuel, gold and silver jewellery. Notably, there is no panic buying and rushing to banks in large numbers as witnessed in 2016 during demonetisation.

India Reports 425 New Covid-19 Cases, Active Infections Tally Down

India saw a rise of 425 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, whereas the number of active cases has declined to 5,259 cases. As per the 8 AM data, the health ministry reported that the death toll has increased to 5,31,859 with three fatalities - including one death reconciled by Kerala. The active cases now include 0.01 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been reported at 98.80 per cent.

OpenAI Founder Sam Altman On ChatGPT And Job Losses

Sam Altman, the chief of OpenAI, which is the firm behind the massively popular ChatGPT bot, said that his companys technology will not destroy the job market. He opened up seeking to calm fears among people since the arrival of artificial intelligence (AI). The CEO assured that AI will not wipe out whole sectors of the workforce through automation. This idea that AI is going to progress to a point where humans dont have any work to do or dont have any purpose has never resonated with me, Altman said.

G20 Summit in Delhi

Centre plans to organise the mega G20 Leaders Summit in Delhi from September 9 to September 10. The government will be rolling out the red carpet at the Delhi airport with special lounges and hangars for at both the Terminal 3 and Palam Air Force station. The government will also be paying close attention to minute details such as multilingual designer menu cards for gala lunches and dinners; traditional attires for visiting world leaders and their spouses; drone swarm and fireworks at a special cultural show; and the amalgamation of the theme of the G20 meeting as well as flavour of the participating country.

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NITI Aayog Meeting

Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired the 8th Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog on May 27. A total of eight chief ministers, all from states not ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), skipped the meeting where they discussed issues like health, skill development, women empowerment and infrastructure development among others. The apex body of NITI Aayog includes all chief ministers, lieutenant governors of Union Territories, and numerous Union ministers. The Prime Minister is the chairperson of NITI Aayog.
Putting an end to the speculation surrounding actress Keerthy Sureshs marriage with Dubai businessman Farhan Bin Liaquat, her father G Sureshkumar has finally reacted and released an official statement. He called the rumours false and baseless.

As reported by Siasat, Sureshkumar clarified the situation in a video that was posted on BJP leader Sobha Surendrans Facebook page, stating that Keerthy and Farhan are good friends. He explained that a Tamil online magazine sensationalized a photo of Keerthy with Farhan which she shared on his birthday. In the video, he also called the claims as false and baseless.

He even urge people not to believe such rumours and stressed that whenever his daughters marriage is finalised, he will be the first to make the announcement. Any reports or rumours that do not include his confirmation should be dismissed as untrustworthy.

It is worth mentioning here that recently, rumours circulated about her alleged relationship with a Dubai-based businessman after she shared a picture with him on social media. However, Keerthy addressed the speculations and shed light on the truth behind the mystery man in her life. In a humorous tweet, she wrote, Hahaha!! Didnt have to pull my dear friend, this time! I will reveal the actual mystery man whenever I have to. Take a chill pill until then! PS: Not once got it right."

The link-up rumours of Keerthy Suresh and Farhan Bin Liaquath sparked when she re-shared her picture with him online on her Instagram. The picture showcased them posing with each other and flaunting their infectious smiles.

Keerthy Suresh was last seen in Dasara. She portrays the character Vennela, serving as the female lead alongside co-star Nani. Directed by Odella Srikant, the period film was initially shot in Telugu and subsequently released in multiple languages including Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, and Kannada.

Another highly anticipated project for Keerthy is Maamannan, a political thriller directed by Mari Selvaraj. This star-studded film features talented actors such as Vadivelu, Fahadh Faasil, Udhayanidhi Stalin, and Keerthy herself. Produced by Red Giant Movies, Maamannan is set to hit theatres on June 29. Notably, the online streaming rights for the film have been acquired by Netflix, ensuring that audiences can enjoy it on the OTT platform in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada after its theatrical release.
India is experiencing a significant milestone with the unveiling of the new Parliament House on Sunday. Having relied on a Parliament building that dates back almost a century and served as a reminder of the colonial era, India now proudly introduces a fresh architectural masterpiece that truly represents the essence of an independent nation. Read LIVE Updates here

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said the new Parliament building will make every Indian proud, as he posted a video of the newly-constructed complex on Twitter and urged people to share it on the social media platform with the hashtag MyParliamentMyPride.

The new Parliament building will make every Indian proud. This video offers a glimpse of this iconic building. I have a special request- share this video with your own voice-over, which conveys your thoughts. I will re-Tweet some of them. Dont forget to use #MyParliamentMyPride. pic.twitter.com/yEt4F38e8E Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 26, 2023

On Sunday, PM Modi will preside over the inauguration of the new Parliament building, featuring remarkable artwork and a ceremonial sceptre called Sengol, among other notable elements. With a price tag of Rs 971 crore, the construction of this new complex serves as a testament to Indias advancement and aims to embody the aspirations of its 1.35 billion citizens, as stated on the Central Vista Redevelopment Projects website. The design of the building, which takes on a triangular shape, is intended to maximize space utilization, as mentioned on the projects website.

Whats Special About the New Parliament Building

The new Parliament complex boasts larger legislative chambers, each with its own unique theme. The Lok Sabha, inspired by Indias national bird, the peacock, will have three times the current seating capacity , accommodating 888 seats.

, accommodating 888 seats. On the other hand, the Rajya Sabha, based on the national flower, the Lotus, will have 348 seats . In joint sessions, the Lok Sabha hall will be able to accommodate 1,272 seats, according to the new floor plan.

. In joint sessions, the Lok Sabha hall will be able to accommodate 1,272 seats, according to the new floor plan. A significant addition to the complex is the Constitutional Hall, located in the center. This new feature symbolically and physically places the citizens at the heart of democracy," as mentioned on the Central Vista project website. The exterior of the complex will house offices similar to the previous building, and the central joint session from the old complex will now be incorporated into the Lok Sabha hall.





The complex offers larger committee rooms with advanced technology and purpose-designed spaces to enhance efficiency (Image: centralvista.gov.in)

The new complex includes state-of-the-art, ultramodern offices equipped with the latest communication technologies, ensuring high security and efficiency. Additionally, the complex offers larger committee rooms with advanced technology and purpose-designed spaces to enhance efficiency. It also features a thoughtfully designed library to provide members with a superior experience and easy access to relevant information.

The new complex prioritizes energy efficiency and has achieved a  platinum-rated green building " status, demonstrating Indias commitment to sustainable development. It will also showcase regional artworks to promote the diverse cultural heritage of the country.

" status, demonstrating Indias commitment to sustainable development. It will also showcase regional artworks to promote the diverse cultural heritage of the country. Inclusivity is another key aspect of the new Parliament complex, as it is designed to be divyang-friendly (accessible for persons with disabilities). It includes a central lounge for members to interact, complementing the open courtyard, which features the national tree, the Banyan tree.

Old Vs New Parliament

Here are some graphics to help you understand the changes coming about:

What Was the Need for a New Parliament Building?

Importance of Old Parliament

As per the Central Vista website, the earlier Parliament building holds immense significance as the embodiment of the countrys democratic system, having withstood the challenges of the freedom struggle against colonial rule and serving as the witness to numerous historical milestones. The existing Parliament building holds the distinction of being the first Parliament of independent India, where the Constitution of India was adopted. Therefore, the preservation and revitalization of this architectural treasure hold great national importance.

As an iconic symbol of Indias democratic spirit, the Parliament building stands prominently at the heart of the Central Vista. Originally designed by British architects Sir Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, the colonial-era structure took six years to construct, from 1921 to 1927. Initially known as the Council House, it housed the Imperial Legislative Council during that period. To accommodate the growing need for space, two additional floors were added to the building in 1956.

In 2006, recognizing the significance of Indias rich democratic heritage spanning 2,500 years, the Parliament Museum was established within the building. Over time, substantial modifications were made to transform the structure into a modern Parliament, adapting it to meet the evolving needs of a contemporary legislative body.

Following thorough discussions regarding the architectural design of the Council House, both Herbert Baker and Sir Edwin Lutyens agreed upon a circular shape, which would evoke the essence of a colosseum-like structure. It is widely believed that the Chausath Yogini temple in Morena, Madhya Pradesh, with its distinct circular shape, served as an inspiration for the design of the Council House. However, it is important to note that there is no historical evidence to substantiate this claim, the website says.

Need for a New Building

The construction of the Parliament House building commenced in 1921 and was completed in 1927, making it nearly a century old. It holds the prestigious Heritage Grade-I designation. Over the years, the activities within the Parliament and the number of individuals working there, including visitors, have significantly increased. Unfortunately, there are no existing records or documents detailing the original design of the building. Consequently, subsequent constructions and modifications have been carried out in an ad-hoc manner, the website explains.

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For instance, in 1956, two additional storeys were added to the outer circular section of the building, obscuring the dome of the Central Hall and altering the facade of the original structure. Moreover, the coverings on the Jaali windows have diminished the natural light in the halls of the two parliamentary houses. As a result, the building is showing signs of distress and overuse, and it is unable to meet the current requirements in terms of space, amenities, and technology.

The present building was not initially designed to accommodate a bicameral legislature for a full-fledged democracy. The number of seats in the Lok Sabha, which was based on the 1971 Census, has remained unchanged at 545. However, it is expected to increase substantially after 2026 when the freeze on the total number of seats expires. The current seating arrangements are cramped and unwieldy, with no desks beyond the second row. Furthermore, the Central Hall can only accommodate 440 individuals, posing a significant challenge during Joint Sessions. The limited space for movement within the building also presents a significant security risk.
The new Parliament building, spanning an impressive 64,500 square meters, exudes a sense of grandeur and befits Indias position as a seat of power. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the building today, which coincided with the anniversary of his nine years in power. The event held historic significance as it also witnessed the installation of the sengol in the new Lok Sabha chamber.

The credit for the construction goes to Bimal Hasmukh Patel, the leader of HCP Designs based in Ahmedabad. Patel was born on August 31, 1961, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He is an accomplished architect, urbanist, and academician who played a crucial role in designing the new Parliament building as part of the Central Vista Project.

Patels passion for architecture can be attributed to his father, Hasmukh Chandulal Patel, who established the HCP firm in 1960. Bimal pursued his architectural education at the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) in Ahmedabad, where he earned his degree in 1984, as per a report by Firstpost. He further advanced his studies and obtained a Masters degree in Architecture and City Planning in 1988. In 1995, he completed his PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. Notably, Patels doctoral research was conducted under the guidance of Richard Walker, a prominent Marxist urban geographer. It is worth mentioning that Patel now serves as the head of CEPT, the very institution where he once studied.

Who is Bimal Patel?

Bimal Patel, an architect, urbanist, and academician, has played a significant role in shaping Indias cultural and urban landscape through his involvement in various landmark projects. These include the Central Vista project in New Delhi, Kashi Vishwanath Dham in Varanasi, Sabarmati Riverfront Development in Ahmedabad, and the master planning of Jagannath temple in Puri. As the main architect behind these projects, Patel has demonstrated his ability to transcend disciplinary boundaries and explore how architecture, urban design, and planning can enhance the lives of people in Indian cities.

In addition to his architectural contributions, Patel serves as the President of CEPT University in Ahmedabad and leads HCP Design Planning and Management Private Limited, a firm specializing in architecture, planning, and project management. His company, HCP Design, has been involved in numerous significant urban projects across Gujarat, such as the Central Vista of Gandhinagar, multiple riverfront parks in Ahmedabad, walled city revitalization plans, transit-oriented zones, and the Centre for Performing Arts in Ahmedabad.

Furthermore, Patel and his company have made architectural contributions to various urban structures across the country, including the Aga Khan Academy in Hyderabad, Amul Dairy in Mumbai, Container Terminal in Chennai, and the architectural design of IIT Jodhpur, among others.

Patels educational background includes a Diploma in Architecture from the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology in Ahmedabad, received in 1984. He further pursued his studies at the University of California, Berkeley, earning a Masters degree in Architecture and City Planning in 1988 and a PhD in City and Regional Planning in 1995. In 1996, he founded the Environmental Planning Collaborative, a not-for-profit consultancy and policy research organization. Since 2012, Patel has held the position of President at CEPT University.

Bimal Patels outstanding contributions to the field have been recognized with numerous awards, including the prestigious Padma Shri in 2019, which is one of Indias highest civilian honors bestowed by the President.

Central vista

Upon securing the contract for the Central Vista Project, Bimal Patel and his team embarked on the task of envisioning the design of the new Parliament building.

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Patel had expressed his aspiration for the new structure to be a genuine representation of Rising India." His vision was to create a building that symbolizes the growth, progress, and aspirations of the nation. Speaking to Moneycontrol in the past, he had said, The new design borrows its aesthetic language from the rich architectural traditions of India and from the old Parliament building. We have ensured continuity in the materials used on the exterior of the building, continuity in the colour schemes of the interiors. The building also incorporates various craft traditions of the country.

When questioned about the choice of a triangular shape for the new Parliament building, Bimal Patel explained that it was primarily influenced by the triangular plot on which the building is situated, as well as the presence of three main spaces within it: Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, and a Central Lounge. He further highlighted the significance of triangles in sacred geometries found in various religions and cultures throughout the country. Citing examples such as the Sri Yantra and the concept of Trinities in different belief systems, Patel emphasized the sacred symbolism associated with triangles. His response, as quoted by news agency PTI, reflects his recognition of the cultural and spiritual elements tied to the triangle shape.
In view of the inauguration of the new Parliament building in just a few hours from now, the Delhi Traffic Police has put an advisory for special arrangements for smooth traffic flow and security at the high-profile event.

According to the Delhi Traffic Police advisory on Twitter, the area of New Delhi will be treated as controlled area. Only public transport vehicles, civil servant aspirants, bonafide residents, labelled vehicles and emergency vehicles will be allowed to move in New Delhi district.

It mentioned that the area enclosed by Mother Teresa Crescent Road, Talkatora, Baba Kharak Singh Marg, Gol Dak Khana, Ashok Road, Patel Chowk, Ashok Road, Windsor Palace, Janpath, Akbar Road, Gol Methi, GKP and Teen Murti Marg will be treated as regulated area.

With many VVIPs and dignitaries expected to attend the event, people should avoid New Delhi district from 5.30 am to 3 pm, and plan their travel in advance accordingly, it said.

The Parliament building is located in a high-security area. Besides additional deployment, there is continuous monitoring through CCTV cameras.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the new Parliament building today, which is being boycotted by several political parties, including the Congress.

Representatives of 25 political parties, including chief ministers and ministers, are expected to attend the inauguration.

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PM Modi is expected to perform puja before entering the Lok Sabha chamber at 8.35 am. The programme will conclude with an address by him, scheduled around 2.30 pm.

The four-storey building, which has been constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 970 crore, has been designed by Ahmedabad-based HCP Design, Planning and Management, and constructed by Tata Projects Limited.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday announced the upcoming Bandra-Versova sea link in Mumbai will be named after Hindutva ideologue late VD Savarkar. He further mentioned that a state-level gallantry award, similar to the one awarded by the Central government, will also be named after the freedom fighter.

Speaking on the occasion of Savarkars birth anniversary, the Chief Minister said, The upcoming Bandra-Versova sealink will be named after Swatantryaveer Savarkar. On the lines of the Union governments gallantry awards, the Maharashtra government will also set up Swatantryaveer Savarkar gallantry awards."

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis expressed gratitude to the Chief Minister for the announcement and said he had raised the demand on March 16 of this year.

Additionally, Chief Minister Shinde also stated that certain individuals were intentionally defaming Savarkar for their own personal gains and out of fear that they would lose relevance if his ideas gained popularity in society.

The critics of Savarkar know if his thoughts become popular in society, they will have to shut shop. Imagine how terrified they are that they oppose Savarkar even after 57 years of his death," he said.

There have been deliberate and consistent attempts to malign the image of Savarkar by some for their selfish gains. It is unfortunate even after 57 years of his death, some people fail to understand him. It angers me to see some people deliberately try to malign his image," Shinde said.

This was the first time that Savarkars birth anniversary was being celebrated at Maharashtra Sadan, he added.

Born in the Nashik district on May 28, 1883, Savarkar passed away on February 26, 1966.

PM Modi Pays Tribute to Savarkar

During the 101st Mann ki Baat broadcast held earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to Savarkar on his birth anniversary, praising the Hindutva ideologue for his strong character and unwavering commitment to freedom. Modi highlighted that Savarkars fearless and self-respecting nature was incompatible with a mindset of subjugation. The Prime Minister also emphasised that Savarkars sacrifice, courage, and determination serve as a lasting source of inspiration for all.

Today the 28th of May is the birth anniversary of the great freedom fighter, Veer Savarkar. The stories related to his sacrifice, courage and resolve inspire us all even today. I cannot forget the day when I went to the cell in Andaman where Veer Savarkar served the sentence of Kala paani.

Veer Savarkars personality exuded strength and magnanimity. His fearless and self-respecting nature could not tolerate the mindset of slavery at all. Not only in the freedom movement, whatever Veer Savarkar did for social equality and social justice is remembered even today," he said.

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Earlier today, Prime Minister Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, along with several Union ministers and Members of Parliament, offered floral tributes to Savarkar in the Central Hall of the old Parliament building.

(With PTI inputs)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. The Ministry of National Defense of Turkiye congratulated the people of Azerbaijan on May 28 - Independence Day, Trend reports.

"Congratulations on May 28 - Independence Day of Azerbaijan! We will continue to stay together with the understanding of "one nation, two states." Long live Turkish-Azerbaijani brotherhood!," the ministry wrote on its the Twitter page.
Anuj Kumar, the accused in the Shiv Nadar University shooting case, reportedly bought a pistol from an acquaintance with the intention of showing off" to his friends, according to police. He approached the acquaintance to assist him in obtaining the weapon, for which he made a payment of Rs 35,000 through a UPI transaction and in cash, according reports.

Kumar, allegedly shot dead fellow student Sneha Chaurasia, 21 on May 18 near the dining room on the university campus before going to his room in the boys hostel and killing himself.

The duo had been in a relationship for over a year but had broken up some time back, a police official said.

According to police, Kumar procured the country-made pistol in Bulandshahr that he had kept with him inside the campus for 29 days and looked for the right time to execute his plan, reported the Times of India.

Police on Saturday arrested three individuals who aided Kumar in acquiring the firearm: Naveen Bhati, an ambulance driver who has known the accused since their school days, Divyansh Awasthi, a resident of Noida and Bhatis current employer, and Shekhar, based in Lucknow, who originally possessed the gun.

DCP (Greater Noida) Saad Miya Khan stated, investigation was launched to trace the source of the gun following the filing of a case under the Arms Act. The breakthrough came when they discovered two transactions made by Kumar to a digital wallet. It was later revealed that the wallet belonged to Naveen Bhati.

According to SHO Sujeet Upadhyay from Dadri police station, Kumar made two transactions of Rs 12,000 and Rs 13,000 to Bhatis digital wallet, while the remaining amount was paid in cash." Bhati obtained the gun and five cartridges on behalf of Kumar. Kumar fired all five shots, three at Chaurasia, one at a wall in a hostel room, and the final one into his own temple.

ACP Sarthak Sengar further said that the arrested trio became aware of the murder-suicide incident through the news. He stated, Anuj had informed Bhati that he needed the gun to show off, not to harm anyone. The money was divided among them - Awasthi and Shekhar received Rs 15,000 each, and Bhati received Rs 5,000."

The three individuals were presented in court and subsequently sent to judicial custody.

A complaint was lodged by the father of the female student, alleging a conspiracy behind the death. He expressed, The accused had been harassing my daughter and pressuring her into immoral and wrongful activities. Despite informing the university administration about the issue and seeking action against the accused, no steps were taken, which ultimately led to the accused killing my daughter." The father further revealed that the entire incident was captured on CCTV footage.

The father also mentioned, The killer had previously recorded a video, which has surfaced on social media, where he mentioned the murder of my daughter. He also mentioned a university staffer, a student, and one individual from Kanpur in the video."

He accused the university of not taking timely and effective action in the matter and urged strict action against the guilty persons and the varsity administration.

Student Told Staff About Assault, Scars on Body

Before her death, the deceased sociology student had emailed the university about the accused assaulting her four times in a span of two months.

According to her communication with the university, cited by the Indian Express, the student said she was assaulted by Anuj for the fourth time in a span of two months and she had scars on her body. Once he had held my throat so hard that it choked me to unconscious state, she was quoted as saying.

Acknowledging the email, the university in a statement said, The university received an email from the woman student on March 14, 2023, where she mentioned that she was in a relationship with the accused for two years, and now she had decided to part ways. However, the accused was not ready to accept the split. She wanted that the accused should not reach her or her family. She did not want this to be taken forward as a formal complaint."

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According to the universitys statement, they treated the matter with utmost seriousness and took immediate action. They implemented various interventions and provided professional counseling to both students involved. Within two days, on March 16, 2023, the university issued restraining orders against both individuals.

The university emphasized that they strongly encouraged the female student to file a formal complaint on multiple occasions, which would have allowed them to take even stricter measures. However, the student chose not to pursue this course of action, expressing concerns that her family would not understand the situation and might react negatively towards her.
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of desks by the audience. More than just a building, the new Parliament encompasses the aspirations and dreams of 1.4 billion people. It sends a powerful message to the world about Indias unwavering determination, he said and hailed the countrys democratic ethos.

Modi inaugurated the new building this morning at a grand ceremony, which included a havan, a multi-faith prayer ceremony and the installation of the Sengol in a special enclosure in the Lok Sabha chamber. He later addressed a gathering of MPs and distinguished guests in the newly built Lok Sabha chamber that saw attendance from about 25 parties. About 20 opposition parties boycotted the event, accusing the PM of sidelining President Droupadi Murmu.

The new Parliament complex will witness realisation of the developed India pledge and will inspire other nations as well, Modi said. Soon after he arrived in Lok Sabha amid chants of Modi, Modi, the messages by President Murmu and Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar were read out, while Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Harivansh also addressed the gathering.

In his speech, Modi said as India develops, the world progresses. He asserted that this new Parliament building will give a call for the development of the world as well. He also talked about the Sengol, saying it was a symbol of power transfer from the British and had now been given the respect it deserves. In the Chola empire, it (Sengol) was considered a symbol of the Kartavya Path (path of duty), Seva Path (path of service) and Rashtra Path (path of the nation), Modi said. The prime minister asserted that India is not only a democratic nation but is also the mother of democracy.

Our democracy is our inspiration, our Constitution our resolve. Parliament is the best representative of this inspiration and resolution, he said, adding that the new building was a perfect example of the coexistence of the old and new. In his remarks, Modi also pointed out that the construction of the building gave employment to 60,000 workers and a digital gallery dedicated to them has also been built in the complex. The building has been completed in about two-and-a-half years at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 1,200 crore.

Every decision taken in this Parliament will decide the fate of all sections of society and laws made here will help remove poverty and empower the poor and the marginalised sections of society, he said. Every decision taken here will lay the foundation of Indias glorious future the way to empower the poor, Dalits, backwards, tribals, divyangs and other marginalised section goes through here, he said, adding each brick and wall of this Parliament building should be dedicated to the welfare of the poor.

He said the new Parliament building will be a testament to the dawn of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India). It will be a witness to our journey towards a Viksit Bharat (developed India), Modi said. The event was attended by former president Ram Nath Kovind, CMs YS Jagan Reddy, Yogi Adityanath, Eknath Shinde and Neiphu Rio, foreign envoys, parliamentarians and people from different walks of life. Earlier, dressed in traditional attire, Modi walked into Parliament premises from its Gate No 1 and was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnatakas Shringeri Math, the PM performed Ganapati Homam to invoke divine blessings. He prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand.

Modi then carried the Sengol in a procession amid tunes of nadaswaram and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speakers chair in the Lok Sabha chamber. As the new building of Indias Parliament is inaugurated, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise. May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress, the PM tweeted.

He felicitated with shawls and souvenirs some of the workers for their key role in the construction of the new Parliament building.

(With PTI inputs)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building in a grand ceremony on Sunday. The new Parliament building, completed in a little over two years, required an estimated cost of Rs 1200 crore. With a triangular shape and four storeys, the building spans a built-up area of 64,500 square meters. It has three main gates named Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar. Additionally, separate entrances have been designated for VIPs, MPs, and visitors.

The new building, undertaken by Tata Projects Ltd, features a grand Constitution Hall that showcases Indias democratic heritage. It also includes a lounge for Members of Parliament (MPs), a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas, and ample parking space.

The foundation stone of the newly constructed Parliament building was laid by the Prime Minister as part of the ambitious Central Vista project on December 10, 2020. The construction work commenced in early 2021 and has now been successfully concluded.

Where is the New Parliament Located?

The new Parliament building is located approximately 750 meters away from the Rashtrapati Bhavan and surrounded by significant landmarks and government buildings. These include Vijay Chowk, India Gate, National War Memorial, the Vice Presidents house, Hyderabad House, the Secretariat building, the Prime Ministers office and residence, ministerial buildings, and various other administrative units of the Indian government.

What are the nearby metro stations?

For convenient transportation, several nearby metro stations serve as crucial hubs for visitors and members of Parliament to access the Indian Parliament. The Central Secretariat, Udyog Bhawan, Patel Chowk, Janpath, and Rajiv Chowk are among the closest metro stations to the Parliament House.

Patel Chowk and Udyog Bhawan stations are situated on the Yellow Line, while the Central Secretariat station serves as an interchange facility between the Yellow Line and Violet Line. Rajiv Chowk metro station serves as an intersection for the Yellow and Blue Lines, and Janpath metro station is located on the Violet Line.

The coordinates of the new Parliament building are- 283702.0"N 771236.0"E.

Due to the inauguration of the new parliament building, all entry and exit gates at the Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations were closed, according to officials. Additionally, gate number three of the Patel Chowk metro station, which opens on Ashoka Road, was closed around noon.

While the gates of Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan were closed since the start of metro services on Sunday, interchange facilities were available at the Central Secretariat station.

Regular announcements have been made at these stations throughout the morning to inform passengers about the closures.

In anticipation of the inauguration, the police have issued a traffic advisory, designating the New Delhi district as a controlled area with restricted entry of vehicles. Additional deployment of security forces were implemented, and continuous CCTV monitoring was carried out to ensure safety and security.

Inauguration

The inauguration events for the new Parliament building took place despite the boycott by several Opposition parties who had insisting that President Droupadi Murmu, as the Head of the State, should perform the honors.

The prime minister in his inaugural speech said the revered Sengol has also been installed in the new Parliament building on this historic day. In the Chola empire, it (Sengol) was considered a symbol of the Kartavya path (path of duty), Seva Path (path of service) and Rashtra path (path of the nation)," Modi said.

The prime minister said Indias democracy was its inspiration, the Constitution its resolve and Parliament was the best representative of this inspiration and resolution.

The new Parliament building will be a testament to the dawn of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India). It will be a witness to our journey towards a Viksit Bharat (developed India)," Modi said.

More than just a building, the new Parliament encompasses the aspirations and dreams of 1.4 billion people. It sends a powerful message to the world about Indias unwavering determination, Modi said.

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Various materials used in the construction of the building have been sourced from different parts of the country. The teakwood originated from Nagpur in Maharashtra, while the red and white sandstone was procured from Sarmathura in Rajasthan. Sarmathura is known for supplying sandstone for iconic structures like the Red Fort and Humayuns Tomb in the national capital.

The new Parliament building has a seating capacity of 888 members in the Lok Sabha chamber and 300 members in the Rajya Sabha chamber. In the event of a joint sitting of both Houses, the Lok Sabha chamber can accommodate a total of 1,280 members.
In a historic moment for India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday morning inaugurated the new Parliament building, as part of the revamped Central Vista project. Amid Vedic chants, the prime minister performed Ganapati Homam" to invoke Gods to bless the inaugural ceremony of the new Sansad building.

Modi then carried the Sengol" in a procession amid tunes of nadaswaram" and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speakers chair in the Lok Sabha chamber.

Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S Jaishankar and Jitendra Singh, chief ministers of several states and BJP president JP Nadda were present on the occasion.

The four-storey building, which has been constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 970 crore, has been designed by Ahmedabad-based HCP Design, Planning and Management, and constructed by Tata Projects Limited. The interior of the temple of democracy has three national symbols - the lotus, the peacock and the banyan tree - as its themes.

Key Facts About New Parliament House

Triangular-Shaped Design for Optimum Space Utilization: The new Parliament building is designed in a unique triangular shape to ensure efficient space utilization. This design allows for maximum functionality and accommodates larger legislative chambers.

Built-in area of 64,500 sqm, the four-story structure of the new parliament building has three main gates - Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar and Karma Dwar - and separate entrances for VIPs, MPs and visitors.

Lok Sabha: Peacock-themed new Lok Sabha chamber has designs drawn from the national birds feathers carved on the walls and ceiling, complemented by teal carpets and furnishing. The lower house has 888 seats, up from the existing 543, with the option of expanded seating up to 1,272.

The new sansad does not house a Centra Hall, which was the fulcrum of the old building. The Lok Sabha will be used for joint sittings of both Houses in its absence.

Rajya Sabha: The Rajya Sabha chamber in the new Parliament has been designed with the national flower-lotus- as its theme. The carpet and furnishing in the Upper House are rust orange and it can accommodate 384 Members of Parliament (MPs), as opposed to the existing capacity of 250 in the old building.

The increased capacity of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha could cater to any increment in the number of MPs following delimitation.

Environment and Divyang-friendly: The new Sansad is Divyang-friendly (accessible for people with disabilities). It is built by using green construction techniques, and can reportedly reduce electricity consumption by 30 per cent, compared to the old one. Morden eco-friendly techniques of rainwater harvesting and solar power generation are incorporated into the design of the new building. The new building is meant to be functional for the next 150 years, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

Constitution Hall: The new Parliament House has a notable addition in the form of a Constitutional Hall, where the journey of Indian democracy has been documented. It is located in the centre of the complex and serves as a significant space within the building.

Safe Designing: The new Sansad Bhawan is primed to be earthquake-safe as per building codes, since Delhi is in seismic zone-V. The new building also incorporates improved fire safety measures.

Vaastu Shastra Appropriate and Modern Facilities: The new Parliament complex design is Vaastu appropriate. At all its entrances auspicious animals as guardian statues are exhibited, based on their importance in Indian culture and vaastu shastra, according to a report by Indian Express.

The material used in the new building has been acquired from across the country. It is also equipped with modern technology as each seat in the new Parliament House has a multimedia display in front, to enhance the legislative experience and facilitate communication. Besides, tablets and iPads will become a norm in the new building.

Facilities for MPs: The Sansad features an increased number of committee rooms, with sophisticated audio-visual systems. It also has a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space.

Facilities for Media Personnel: The new complex has special facilities for media, including 530 seats dedicated to journalists.

Public-friendly: Efforts are underway to make the new Parliament House more accessible to the public. It houses galleries for the general public to witness parliamentary proceedings. It also has two special entrances designated for children, the elderly, and disabled individuals to access the Public Gallery and Central Constitutional Gallery.

Material used has been acquired from various parts of India: The teakwood used in the building was sourced from Nagpur in Maharashtra, while the red and white sandstone was procured from Sarmathura in Rajasthan. The sandstone for the Red Fort and Humayuns Tomb in the national capital was also known to have been sourced from Sarmathura.

The Kesharia green stone has been procured from Udaipur, the red granite from Lakha near Ajmer and the white marble has been sourced from Ambaji in Rajasthan. The steel structure for the false ceilings in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers have been sourced from the union territory of Daman and Diu, while the furniture in the new building was crafted in Mumbai.

The stone jaali (lattice) works dotting the building were sourced from Rajnagar in Rajasthan and Noida in Uttar Pradesh. The materials for the Ashoka Emblem were sourced from Aurangabad in Maharashtra and Jaipur in Rajasthan, while the Ashok Chakra donning the massive walls of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers and the exteriors of the Parliament building were procured from Indore in Madhya Pradesh.

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The new Parliament building used manufactured sand or M-sand from Charkhi Dadri in Haryana for creating concrete mix for the construction activities. M-Sand is considered environment friendly as it is manufactured by crushing large hard stones or granite and not by dredging of river beds.

The fly ash bricks used in the construction were sourced from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, while brass works and pre-cast trenches were from Ahmedabad in Gujarat.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday addressed the 101st episode of his monthly radio program Mann ki Baat and called it the beginning of the second century". This time this episode of Mann Ki Baat is the beginning of the 2nd century. Last month we all celebrated its special century," he said. PM Modi highlighted that a large number of people came together to watch the 100th episode of Mann ki Baat program when it was telecast in different countries of the world in different time zones.

The intimacy and affection that all of you have shown for Mann Ki Baat is unprecedented, it is heartwarming," PM Modi added.

The Prime Minister then paid tribute to Veer Savarkar and said, I cannot forget the prison in Andaman where Savarkar was kept in jail."

PM Modi also talked about the Yuva Sangam initiative and highlighted that about 1,200 youths toured 22 states of the country in the first round of the program. Everyone who has been a part of it is returning with memories that will remain etched in their hearts for the rest of their lives," he said.

The program is broadcast on All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan, All India Radio website and mobile app. It can also be live-streamed on YouTube channels of All India Radio, DD News, PMO and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. After the Hindi telecast, AIR will telecast the program in regional languages.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new parliament building. The inaugural ceremony commenced with an early morning havan (a ritualistic fire ceremony) followed by multi-faith prayers and a formal opening by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Following the inaugural ceremony, PM Modi placed the historic Sengol near the Lok Sabha Speakers chair in the new Parliament building.

PM Modi is expected to address the inauguration of the new parliament building in the 101st episode of his monthly radio program Mann ki Baat today.

PM Modis Mann ki Baat program completed its 100th episode on April 30, 2023. The program was broadcast live across the country and in various parts of the world including the United Nations Headquarters.

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The monthly radio program hosted by Prime Minister Modi is broadcasted in 11 foreign languages including French, Chinese, Indonesian, Tibetan, Burmese, Baluchi, Arabic, Pashtu, Persian, Dari, and Swahili.

Earlier this month, PM Modi invited ideas for the 101st episode of Mann ki Baat. I look forward to your valuable suggestions for the 101st Mann Ki Baat episode, which will take place on the 28th," he tweeted.
Amid chanting of Vedic hymns followed by a multi-faith prayer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated the new Parliament building even as 20 opposition parties stayed away from the historic event. The prime minister described the ceremony as an immortalised" moment marking the dawn of a self-reliant and developed India that will inspire the progress of other countries.

The ruling BJP at the Centre held onto its resolve of moving ahead with the grand ceremony, which culminated in Prime Minister Modi prostrating before Sengol, the ceremonial sceptre that traces its tradition back to the Chola dynasty in the third century BCE. High priests of 21 adheenams from Tamil Nadu consecrated the Sengol and handed it over to the PM, who carried it in a ceremonial procession to the new building and installed it on the right side of the Lok Sabha Speakers chair, amid claps and chants of Modi, Modi.

While medal-winning wrestlers protested against sexual harassment outside and were detained by police, Prime Minister Modi said the new Parliament reflected the aspirations and resolve of India, the mother of democracy". Every decision taken here will lay the foundation of Indias glorious future the way to empower the poor, Dalits, backwards, tribals, divyangs and other marginalised sections goes through here," he said, adding each brick and wall of this Parliament building should be dedicated to the welfare of the poor."

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi slammed the self-serving" nature of the inauguration, saying the PM had treated the event as if it was his coronation". Despite the boycott by opposition parties over President Droupadi Murmu being sidelined, however, close to 25 political parties attended the event amid tight security arrangements. In her speech later, Murmu expressed deep satisfaction at the inauguration by PM Modi who, she said, symbolised Parliaments trust.

Modi, flanked by peacock motifs in the Lok Sabha during his first address, spoke of shedding slave mentality" that had crept into the country after hundreds of years of bondage. He equated the 25-year period  from now till the centenary of Indias independence in 2047  to the similar time gap between Mahatma Gandhis non-cooperation movement that had ended in 1922 and the countrys freedom.

The new Parliament is a reflection of aspirations and dreams of 140 crore Indians. This is a temple of our democracy that gives a message of Indias resolve to the world. There are a few moments in every nations history that are immortalised. Some dates become the indelible signature on the face of time. May 28, 2023, is one such day," he said.

Heres all you need to know about the elaborate inaugural ceremony of the new Sansad Bhawan:

Havan, multi-faith prayer, Sengol installation

The inauguration began with an early-morning havan, multi-faith prayer ceremony and installation of the Sengol in a special enclosure in the Lok Sabha chamber. Modi, dressed in a crisp dhoti and kurta for religious ceremonies, performed Ganapati homam as part of the Vastu pooja rituals.

All-religion prayers along with spiritual strains of Shaivite hymns from the sacred Thevaram text set the tone for the ceremonial rituals. Priests from Sringeri Math of Karnataka performed the ceremonial Vastu pooja.

The central government released a commemorative postal stamp and a Rs 75 coin to mark the occasion. The PM also pointed out that the construction of the new building gave employment to 60,000 workers and a digital gallery dedicated to them has also been built in the complex. He felicitated some of the workers for their key role in the construction, with shawls and souvenirs.

Who all attended the inaugural ceremony?

The formal inauguration function was attended by former president Ram Nath Kovind, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath among others. Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy was the only non-NDA leader in attendance. Chief ministers of NDA constituent parties such as Eknath Shinde (Maharashtra), Conrad Sangma (Meghalaya), Zoramthanga (Mizoram), Neiphu Rio (Nagaland), and Prem Singh Tamang (Sikkim) were present, along with ambassadors of several foreign countries, parliamentarians and people from different walks of life.

New building completed in record time, numerous artworks & traditions imbibed

The old Parliament building took six years to complete, but the new building  spread over a built up area of 64,500 sqm  was ready in a record time of two-and-a-half years at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 1,200 crore. The Lok Sabha chamber has 888 seats, which can accommodate 1,272 members during a joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. The Upper House chamber has 384 seats.

Constructed by Tata Projects Ltd, the building opens into a central courtyard with a banyan tree. It has a grand Constitution Hall to showcase Indias democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space. It has three main gates  Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar.

It also has six new committee rooms and 92 rooms for use as offices for the council of ministers. The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers boast of a digitised voting system, well-engineered acoustics, and state-of-the-art audio-visual systems to ensure effective legislative proceedings.

Numerous artworks on display narrate the stories of Indias democratic traditions from the Vedic period to the present day. The growth of democracy is depicted through a series of exhibits in the Constitution Hall, which is inspired by the Sri Yantra used for worship in Hindu traditions and considered a source of pure energy. The public entrances lead to three galleries  the Sangeet gallery that exhibits dance, song, and musical traditions of India; Sthapthya gallery depicting architectural heritage of the country; and Shilp gallery showcasing distinct handicraft traditions of different states.

The building has close to 5,000 artworks, including paintings, wall panels, stone sculptures, and metal murals. Interior decoration has peacock motif on carpets, ceiling and lattice work for windows in the Lok Sabha, while the Rajya Sabha is decorated with lotus motif.

The Constitution Hall, which has a digitised copy of the Indian Constitution, houses Foucaults Pendulum to demonstrate the rotation of the earth. It hangs from a large skylight from the triangular roof and signifies the idea of India with that of the universe.

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Massive brass images of Mahatma Gandhi, Chanakya, Gargi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, BR Ambedkar, and the chariot wheel from the Sun Temple at Konark are on display. According to officials, eminent musicians and their family members  Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Pandit Ravi Shankar  have donated their musical instruments for the Sangeet Gallery.

(With PTI inputs)
In his first address at the new parliament building after the inauguration, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it a historic day for India. He termed the new parliament building a temple of democracy" and the reflection of the aspirations of new India." PM Modi further expressed confidence that the representatives who will sit in this Parliament will try to give a new direction to democracy.

At least 20 opposition parties including the Congress boycotted the inauguration of the new parliament building by PM Modi.

I am sure, the peoples representatives who will sit in this Parliament, with new inspiration, will try to give a new direction to democracy," he said. Follow LIVE

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Prime Minister Narendra Modis First Address at New Parliament Building
On Friday night in Abu Dhabi, the lovely Kriti Sanon attended the IIFA Rocks party. The actress proved her amazing sense of style while walking the green carpet in a stunning black and white outfit. Kriti is renowned for having extraordinary flair, and she consistently makes a strong impression on the red carpet. She easily kills every look, whether its a saree or a glitzy gown, and her most recent ensemble is no exception. The actress embodies fashion inspiration with her charming demeanour, delicate makeup, and exquisite gown.

The actress gave her fans a weekend surprise on Saturday by putting out an array of photographs on Instagram. The images had a caption that read:, Theres a certain allure to black and white - both in pictures and outfits!"

Scroll through to see Kritis post:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kriti (@kritisanon)

The actress selected a gorgeous Richard Quinn gown for her appearance, and Sukriti Grover perfectly handled her styling. Her dress has a mesmerising black colour and is embellished with delicately hand-stitched white sequin embroidery that is organised in a checkerboard pattern and taffeta roses. The dress features an off-shoulder style, and the necklines are adorned with sizable black roses.

This stunning Richard Quinn gown was the talk of the town just on Friday as Bollywood darling Anushka Sharma wore a similar ensemble to the coveted Cannes Film Festival red carpet. At Cannes 2023, Anushka Sharma made her dream debut, and she herself appeared to be quite dreamy and beautiful. Anushka may be seen donning a Richard Quinn gown with a colour scheme of beige and white that wonderfully complements her skin tone. The dress has an off-shoulder flower neckline and embroidered geometric designs.

Check out Anushkas post right here:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by AnushkaSharma1588 (@anushkasharma)

She went with a basic look for her accessories, accessorising with a set of striking stud earrings, rings on her fingers, and a pair of black pump heels. Adrian Jacobs, a makeup artist, helped Kriti get dolled up with nude eyeshadow, winged eyeliner, and mascara-coated lashes. She finished the look with a nude lip colour and delicately sculpted cheeks. Kriti had her hair fashioned by hairstylist Aasif Ahmed into a tight bun that was neatly separated in the middle.

With more than 300k likes and a large number of comments, Kritis social media posts are getting a lot of attention. Her admirers are praising and complimenting her profusely since they are mesmerised by her extraordinary appearance.
With the 76th Cannes Film Festival ending on a fashionable note, you cant help but notice the plethora of styles that graced the red carpet and the streets of Cannes. From Anushka Sharma, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to Mrunal Thakur, Sara Ali Khan, Indian global stars made heads turn with their impeccable style.

Cannes Film Festival has always played the perfect canvas for fashion brands and designers from across the globe. Be it Aishwarya Rai Bachchans mystical hood designed by Sophie Couture or Anushkas Richard Quinn embellished off-shoulder gown, the ensembles not just complement the star but also celebrate the fashion designers who created it.

While our Indian divas love experimenting and wearing outfits created by International brands and designers, this year the festival saw a number of International celebrities including actors, models and writers adorn outfits designed by the best in the Indian fashion industry.

From flamboyant drapes to avant-garde silhouettes, this year saw designs by Manish Malhotra, Gaurav Gupta, Vaishali S, Rocky Star, Reynu Taandon and Nikhita Tandon light up Cannes 2023 like never before.

Aja Naomi King, Raline Shah and Coco Rocha in Gaurav Gupta

Couturier Gaurav Guptas design is a global phenomenon and loved by all. After creating magic with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan last year on the Cannes red carpet, this year, Gaurav had three beautiful women including actor Aja Naomi King, actor Raline Shah and Canadian fashion model Coco Rocha adorn his creations. The How to get away with murder star, Aja Naomi King dazzled in the celestial gown as she owned the red carpet at the premiere of Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny. Keeping it artistic and vibrant at the same time, Raline Shahs custom look was inspired by Gauravs electric blue palette from his Shunya collection. And last but not the least, slaying it with panache was Coco Rochas electric blue endless wave gown with legging boots.

Lais Ribeiro in Manish Malhotra

You know it has to be romantic and a saree when its Manish Malhotra. Bringing romance to Cannes, Manish Malhotra designed an exquisite classic black saree gown for Brazilian model Lais Ribeiro. Stealing the show in the sexy silhouette featuring intricate geometric embroidery, every picture of Lais exuded grace, sensuality and a lot of drama. The saree definitely had its moment at Cannes this year, and Manish Malhotras creative approach to the classic silhouette just made it timeless.

Lady Victoria Hervey in Vaishali S

Celebrating her signature cording technique on the Cannes red carpet, couturier Vaishali S dressed up UK-based model Lady Victoria Hervey in one of her exquisite creations. The white corded drape gown with intricate detailing was a breath of fresh air and a break from the regular voluminous gowns on the red carpet. A sustainable piece of wearable art, Victoria looked like she was having a great time on the red carpet as she posed with the drape for the photographers.

Lucinda Royden in Rocky Star

Writer Lucinda Roydens exquisite signature print corset gown with applique work was designed by fashion designer Rocky Star. Known for creating garments that embody elegance and sophistication, the prints, embroidered bodice showcases the intricacy of craftsmanship with a touch of femininity and allure. With its captivating multi-coloured palette, this gown was designed to make a statement and leave a lasting impression.

Zita Vass and Gaby Guha in Reynu Taandon and Nikhita Tandon

Actress Zita Vass and Miss Europe 2020 Gaby Guha walked the red carpet in Reynu Taandon and Nikhita Tandons creations respectively. For her walk at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, Zita Vass selected a sensational and cutting-edge halter neck couture gown by Reynu Taandon that complemented the actresss aesthetic and demeanour.

On the other hand Gaby Guha, a French model, opted to wear Nikhita Tandons designs. Inspired by The Archangel Mehra trim energy, whose aura was included in a 10-metre-long hand embellished sequin net train, served as the inspiration for the Miss Europe 2020 sequin embroidered orange ray light gown.
In February, municipal authorities in Amsterdam proposed a ban on public smoking of marijuana. It has now come into effect in certain parts of the city centre. According to reports, those caught smoking weed in public will now risk a 100-euro fine. The decision to impose tougher rules for alcohol and cannabis consumption was taken to curb noise disturbances and other disruptions for local residents. Many articles refer to numerous rowdy tourists who are the primary reason for this decision.

The ban comes into effect in popular destinations such as Dam Square, the Damrak, the Nieuwenmarkt, and the Red Light District. The reports further mentioned that outdoor terraces of coffee shops are exempted from the ban. However, if the current rules arent effective in reducing the nuisance for locals, it will also look into the possibilities of banning smoking on terraces at coffee shops in the area.

A report by The Guardian however, mentions the worrisome reaction to this law among local shopkeepers. Many business owners worry that tourists may stop coming all together to this area affecting their business.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. Some time ago, two of our soldiers went astray and found themselves in the territory of Armenia where they were tortured. I must inform you that after the second Karabakh war, representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan reached an agreement that if someone goes astray  because this possibility is very high, especially in winter months, you know that the climate here is very harsh, there are mountains, valleys, and you can get lost  if such a situation occurs, such people should be returned within two days at most. We were doing exactly that. We detained them for a maximum of two days, interrogated and returned them  both civilians and soldiers, said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as he met with Lachin natives, Trend reports.

"Look what they did? First of all, they brutally beat up, handcuffed, humiliated and filmed the moment of beating of our soldiers who had gone astray. After that, they arrested and already sentenced them. How can this be possible? At the trilateral meeting in Brussels on May 14, I stated that this is unacceptable. If you break this agreement, you will suffer the consequences," President Ilham Aliyev said.
Malaika Arora has set the internet on fire after she shared a picture of her boyfriend Arjun Kapoor on social media. In no time it went viral and has become the talk of the town. The photograph has left fans and followers in surprise.

In the black-and-white photo, Arjun is seen posing with no clothes on while hiding his private part with a cushion. The actor confidently bares it all, showcasing his chiseled physique. She has written, My very own lazy boy as a caption. The same photo was reshared by Arjun on his Instagram stories with a heart emoji. This is not the first time that the couple has publicly shown their affection for each other on social media. They often share pictures and comments on each others posts, giving their fans a glimpse into their relationship. To note, the couple has been dating for a very long time and often makes headlines.

Take a look at the photo here:

Malaika is a popular actress and model who has been a part of the industry for over two decades. She has appeared in several hit films and is also known for her successful stint as a judge on various dance reality shows. On the work front, Malaika Arora recently appeared in the music video titled Tera Ki Khayal with Guru Randhawa. Additionally, her show - Moving In With Malaika was also released earlier which offered viewers an exclusive look into her life. The series is available for streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.

Arjun Kapoor, on the other hand, made a name for himself with films like Ishaqzaade," Gunday," and others. He was last seen in Aasmaan Bhardwajs directorial Kuttey, co-starring Tabu, Naseeruddin Shah and Konkona Sensharma. He has The Lady Killer with Bhumi Pednekar and Meri Patni Ka Remake in the pipeline.
Babil Khan made for one of the most highly anticipated debuts of 2022. He forayed into the world of acting with director and lyricist Anvitaa Dutts psychological drama Qala last year and went on to win heaps of praises and raving reviews for his nuanced performance as a musically gifted orphan named Jagan. The actor attended IIFA 2023 in Abu Dhabi along with his mother Sutapa Sikdar. On being asked whether hell like to recreate any performance of Irrfan Khan, Babil had an interesting answer.

Recalling some memories of his Baba, Babil told the media, I miss him (Irfan Khan) every day of my life. When I was growing up I did not have a lot of friends and he was my singular friend. Laughing with him is my most memorable memory with baba."

When posed with the question about recreating any of his fathers role, Babil promptly replied, NO." NoWhy would you try to recreate babas performance I think he did it really well."

Earlier this year, Babil Khan remembered Irrfan Khan on his birth anniversary by sharing unseen pictures from his childhood. Irrfan passed away in April 2020 after battling a colon infection. The actors death left a massive void in the industry, with fans remembering the actor from time to time. Babil had also shared pictures of Irrfan on numerous occasions over the past three years.

On the late actors birth anniversary, Babil took to Instagram and shared pictures from the time Irrfan had just embraced fatherhood. The actor was seen sharing happy moments with Babil in these pictures. Sharing the pictures, Babil had confessed he misses Irrfan.

Questions keep me up at night. Those that I never asked then, those that I can never ask now. My inquiries are left for me to quench on my own, thats okay, I will figure it out. I miss your laughter though, I dont think there is an answer for that. Remembering the day when you arrived here," the Qala actor wrote.

On the work front, he will next be seen in Yash Raj Films upcoming web series, The Railway Men. Co-starring R Madhavan, Kay Kay Menon and Divyenndu, it is billed as a tribute to the railway workers at Bhopal station who are the unsung heroes of the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984. Reportedly, Babil has also begun shooting for another web show titled Friday Night Plan, which is being backed by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani.
Palak Tiwari on Sunday turned heads with her bold pictures in a swimsuit that she shared on her social handle. The actress is currently enjoying her vacation in Maldives and has been sharing a lot of updates with her fans. She left her fans in awe as she flaunted her perfect figure in a blue colour swimsuit.

In the sun-kissed images shared on social media, Palak exuded confidence and radiance as she soaked up the sun. Her choice of a stylish blue colour swimsuit perfectly complemented her toned physique, leaving everyone in awe of her beauty and style. Palak effortlessly carried herself with grace, making it evident that she is a true fashionista. Palaks infectious smile and carefree spirit added an extra layer of charm to the already awe-inspiring photographs. Fans and followers were quick to shower the actress with compliments. Many praised her for setting new standards of elegance and fashion, applauding her for embracing her natural beauty and exuding poise with every click.

Take a look at the pictures here:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Palak Tiwari (@palaktiwarii)

In an interview with Mastiii recently, Palak explained that she could have never made it big on television. The actress stated, I knew that I wanted to do movies. I feel my mom did TV for so many years and she has handled and done everything so well. There is nothing left for me to do. And there would anyways be comparison, but I think I never stood a chance in TV. Movies for me was comparatively a bit difficult to enter, but in TV, my mom has a legacy. So that was very easy for me, I got a lot of offers. But I didnt want to do it.

To note, Palak made her Bollywood debut with Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan. The film released on April 21, on the occasion of Eid, and starred Salman Khan, Pooja Hegde, Shehnaaz Gill, Venkatesh Daggubati, Jagapathi Babu, Bhumika Chawla, Vijender Singh, Abhimanyu Singh, Raghav Juyal, Siddharth Nigam, Jassie Gill, and Vinali Bhatnagar in pivotal roles. Helmed by Farhad Samji, the film received a lot of praise from the audience.
Preity Zinta may be away from the silver screen, but the actress enjoys a massive fan following and is often seen sharing happy moments and snippets on her Instagram handle. Having said that, she recently shared a couple of photos from a fun night with her close friends Hrithik Roshan and Sussanne Khan.

In the photo, Preity donned one of the brightest smiles alongside her close-knit circle of friends, which included her co-star Hrithik Roshan and his girlfriend Saba Azad, her best friend Sussanne Khan and her partner Arslan Goni. Actors Kunal Kapoor, Anu Dewan, Suily G, and several others also pose with them. Preitys husband, Gene Goodenough, also joined them for the night out.

Sharing the photo, Preity captioned, Friday night fever with these mad hatters  #friendslikefamily #nightout #aboutlastnight #ting . Have a look :

Preity also shared an all-girls selfie from the night out on her Instagram handle, and wrote: Chillin like villains Nothing like time tested friendships! So much freedom to laugh, chat & be crazy without any judgement or any agenda. Love my girls. Have a look :

Earlier this month, after a hectic IPL season, Preity Zinta escaped for a quick visit to Dharamshala. The actress along with her husband Gene met Dalai Lama at his place in Himachal Pradesh.

Sharing a bundle of happy pictures from their meet, Preity Zinta wrote, Ending IPL in Dharamshala was not what I hoped for but meeting his Holiness The Dalai Lama in Dharamshala was everything I hoped for. So grateful we got to spend some time with him as he shared pearls of wisdom & laughter with us  #ting.

Preity Zinta and Gene Goodenough comfortably sat on a sofa and shared some hearty laughs and heartfelt conversation with Dalai Lama who sat on a chair next to them. While Preity looked elegant donning a black ensemble Gene opted for a casual look in a grey T-shirt and denim jeans.

Preity and Gene tied the knot on February 29, 2016, in Los Angeles. The duo became parents to the twins in 2021. Preity and Gene tied the scared knot on February 29, 2016, in Los Angeles. The couple became parents in 2021 when they welcomed their adorable twins.
After a dreamy engagement ceremony, Parineeti Chopra and Raghav Chadha will be tying the sacred knot soon. Their wedding festivities have been flagged off in full swing. And now, the next step for the couple is to scout the wedding location. Looks like, the couple are keen on tying the knot in Rajasthan just like Priyanka Chopra.

Earlier this afternoon, Parineeti along with her fiance Raghav was seen landing in Rajasthan. Several photos of the duo went viral on social media. In the pictures, Parineeti donned an elegant white kurta paired with palazzo pants. With a sleek ponytail and minimal makeup, she looked graceful. Raghav on the other hand was seen in a white kurta and matching pants. Reportedly, they were in Udaipur earlier.

For the unversed, Priyanka Chopra Jonas got married to Nick Jonas at Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. They tied the knot according to Hindu and Christian customs. Not just Priyanka, other Bollywood celebrities like Katrina Kaif and Vicky Kaushal as well as Sidharth Malhotra and Kiara Advani also got married in Rajasthan.

Earlier last week, Parineeti Chopra revealed how she fell in love with her fiance Raghav Chadha. The Bollywood star and the AAP leader Raghav Chadha got engaged in a private ceremony in New Delhi on May 13.

In an Instagram account, Parineeti shared that she knew Raghav was the one" after they met over breakfast. Sharing a series of unseen photos from her engagement ceremony, Parineeti wrote, When you know, you know. One breakfast together and I knew - I had met the one. The most wonderful man whose quiet strength would be calming, peaceful and inspiring. His support, humour, wit and friendship are pure joy. He is my home. Our engagement party was like living a dream - a dream unfurling beautifully amidst love, laughter, emotion and loads of dancing! As we hugged those we loved dearest and celebrated with them, emotions overflowed. As a little girl in awe of princess stories, I had imagined how my fairytale would begin. Now that it has, it is even better than I had imagined.

Parineeti and Raghavs engagement ceremony took place at the Central Delhis Kapurthala House and was attended by around 150 guests, including Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Parineetis cousin, global icon Priyanka Chopra Jonas.

Rumours of Raghav Chadha and Parineeti Chopras wedding started in March after they were spotted together in Mumbai. However, a report in ETimes suggested that the couples love story began last year. The sparks flew between Parineeti and Raghav on the sets of Chamkila. Parineeti was apparently shooting in Punjab for the film and Raghav had gone on the set to meet her as a friend. The two eventually fell in love.

For the unversed, Raghav and Parineeti have known each other for a very long time. According to multiple reports, the duo studied together in London School of Economics.
R Madhavan is one of the most famous actors in the film industry. From leaving an indelible mark on the big screens to making his fans spellbound with his dashing looks, he does it all. The actor, who acted in and directed Rocketry: The Nambi Effect recently graced the much talked about IIFA Awards that was held in Dubai on Sunday. Tagging along with him were his wife and illustrious son.

In a paparazzo handle that has been doing the rounds on social media, R.Madhavan can be seen surrounded by paps and photographers trying to capture the family in one frame. While R.Madhavan was carrying his award in his hands and looked dapper in a black ensemble, his son Vedaant had worn a dark green jacket and had paired it with green trousers. Meanwhile, Madhavans wife looked elegant in a saree. For the unversed, Best Direction Category award was presented to R Madhavan for Rocketry: The Nambi Effect.

Reacting to the clip, one of the fans wrote, Him and his son are both handsome." Another one commented, He is handsome!" Someone else said, His son is handsome af!" A fan also stated, "

Wow, they all look stunning!"

On the career front, R Madhavan has been a part of several highest-grossing films including Vikram Vedha, 3 Idiots and Irudhi Suttru, among others. The actor made his film debut with the 1997 film Inferno. Since then, he has appeared in several films like Guru, Rang De Basanti, Evano Oruvan, Naan Aval Adhu, Om Shanti, Vaazhthugal, Rocketry: The Manbi Effect and many others. The actor was last seen in Kookie Gulatis biopic Dhokha: Round D Corner. Now, he is going to star in upcoming projects such as Krrish 4, The Railway Men and Alibaug, to name a few. R. Madhavan is now all set to star in the biopic of GD Naidu with the same production house that is bankrolling his next release which will be directed by Mithran R Jawahar.
Rakhi Sawant was mobbed in Abu Dhabi when she stepped out to attend the IIFA 2023 ceremony on Saturday. The crowd grew so close that Rakhi began begging them to spare her gown and was also seen holding her clothes to avoid any kind of damage to it. For the awards show, Rakhi picked out a red, off-shoulder gown and styled it with a matching oversized hat.

In a video shared by Voompla, Rakhi was seen surrounded by people who were trying to take a selfie with her. Worried about her dress, Rakhi requested everyone to not tear her clothes. Mere kapde mat phaadna please!" she repeated a couple of times before she started chanting that she loves Abu Dhabi. As the crowd grew closer, Rakhi snapped and said, Dont touch me."

Watch the video below:

Rakhi had an oops moment on the green carpet of IIFA 2023 awards show. Videos revealed that the dramatic sleeve on one side of the Bigg Boss alums outfit threatened to make a hasty exit from her shoulder. It was a near-disaster that left everyone in disbelief.

Besides this, she also made the headlines after she knocked off Vicky Kaushal as they danced together. In a video going viral, Rakhi, Vicky and Sara Ali Khan were seen grooving to Sheila Ki Jawani when Rakhi unknowingly bumped into Vicky and he almost fell. Fortunately, he was not hurt.

Watch the video here: Vicky Kaushal Almost FALLS As He Dances To Sheila Ki Jawani With Rakhi At IIFA, Sara In Shock; Watch

Rakhi Sawant is a well-known Indian actress, dancer, and television personality. She rose to fame after participating in various reality shows like Bigg Boss and Nach Baliye. She often makes headlines with her controversial statements and actions.
Sara Ali Khan made her debut appearance on the international red carpet at the Cannes International Film Festival 2023. Her looks from the event went trending on social media. Well, recently in conversation with India Today, the actress shared an exciting revelation about her debut and also disclosed that she had an opportunity to meet a popular Hollywood heartthrob.

In an exclusive interview with IndiaToday, the Atrangi Re actress said, I think I learnt that every country has their own culture. Of course, we know this, but seeing it being celebrated. I was with actors from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Paris, I even met Leonardo DiCaprio. I think ultimately despite all our national differences, in terms of regions, the passion that we all feel is the same. Truly, it shows me how cinema transcends all kinds of nationalistic boundaries.

Take a look at her looks from Cannes 2023:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sara Ali Khan (@saraalikhan95)

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sara Ali Khan (@saraalikhan95)

As Sara Ali Khan continues to carve her path in the film industry, her meeting with the Hollywood heartthrob serves as a testament to her rising popularity and growing international recognition.

Sara Ali Khan was last seen in Gaslight with Vikrant Massey and Chitrangda Singh. It was a Disney+ Hotstar release which received rave reviews. The actress has many interesting projects lined up in her kitty. She will be seen in Laxman Utekars film, Zara Hatke Zara Bachke where she will share the screen with Vicky Kaushal. The film is releasing on June 2. Talking about the film, it is set in Indore, with Vicky playing the role of Kapil and Sara essaying the character of Soumya. The small-town story starts with the couple head-over-heels for each other. However, life takes a turn a few years later, with the couple constantly fighting. They eventually file for a divorce but there seems to be a catch.

She has also wrapped Ae Watan Mere Wartan. Karan Johar also revealed that Sara has been signed for two films under his banner.
After co-hosting the prestigious IIFA Awards ceremony with Abhishek Bachchan, Bollywood actor Vicky Kaushal is back in the bay. The actor was earlier spotted at the airport. While the paparazzi complimented him for IIFA, Vicky looked tired but smiled and thanked them.

In the video, Vicky was seen donning a black hoodie teamed with a pair of black joggers and white sneakers. He completed his look with black sunglasses. While he walked towards his car, the shutterbugs captured him.

Meanwhile, on the work front, Vicky who would be next seen in Zara Hatke Zara Bachke. The film also stars Sara Ali Khan. Talking about the film, Vicky Kaushal had earlier shared at a press conference, Its a theatrical release for both of us after a long time. We were discussing that our theatrical releases before this were pre-Covid. I was telling Sara the same thing while coming here. Its a great film to bring to the theatre because its a true family film, something youll enjoy watching with your entire family.

The trailer of this romantic comedy has received love from audiences and the songs have also captured a special place in the hearts of fans. One of the songs, sung by Arijit Singh, has even reached the top of the charts.

Earlier, at the red carpet of IIFA 2023, held at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, Vicky sang the romantic song while Sara gestured and expressed her emotions from behind him. Sara lookes beautiful in a red decolletage crop top paired with a ruffled sari, while Vicky looked dapper in a monochrome tux. Check out the video right here:

Apart from Zara Hatke Zara Bachke, Vicky Kaushal will also be seen in Meghna Gulzars Sam Bahadur. Vicky was last seen in the OTT hit Govinda Naam Mera alongside Kiara Advani and Bhumi Pednekar.
As the new building of the Parliament gets inaugurated on May 28 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian National Congress (INC) has decided to boycott this ceremony. One of the excuses given for this controversial step is that the Modi government is undermining the authority of the President of India.

Actions speak louder than words! So let us take a look at how Congress has dealt with the institution of the President of India.

Nehru vs Prasad

It is a well-known fact that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru never wanted Dr Rajendra Prasad to be the President of India. The correspondence between Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Prasad gives ample proof of Nehrus reservations. Nehru was probably reluctant because Prasad was quite independent-minded and was not expected to toe Nehrus line of thought. The correspondence between Nehru and Prasad on the Hindu Code Bill issue shows how Nehru was trying to undermine the Presidents authority. Nehru tried to stop Prasad from attending the inaugural ceremony of Somnath Temple also.

Indira vs Reddy

Indira Gandhi dragged the institution of President of India into Congress internal politics in 1969 Presidential elections. To defeat her opponents within the Congress Party known as Syndicate she ensured defeat of Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy and victory of her candidate VV Giri. This was the first time when the institution of the President was dragged to settle the scores within the Congress party. The fall-out of this tug of war led by Indira Gandhi was a split in the Congress Party on 12 November 1969. The faction led by Indira came to be known as Congress (I) and the faction led by syndicate came to be known as Congress (O). Indira Gandhi.

Rajiv Gandhi vs Giani Zail Singh

The tussle between Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Giani Zail Singh had spilled over the power corridors and made headlines all over the media. Senior Congress leaders like Arjun Singh were deployed to record conversations of the staff of Giani Zail Singh on the pretext of knowing his mind. These conversations were then leaked to the media to embarrass the President of India. KC Singh, a former diplomat, who was deputy secretary to the President of India (1983-87) has given a first-hand account of the stormy relationship between Rajiv and Zail Singh in The Indian President: An insider account of the Zail Singh years.

The fact that Rajiv Gandhi had been keeping the president unbriefed was also a poorly kept secret. The prime minister, by asserting to the contrary in the Parliament, had blatantly and contemptuously taken a public position on an issue that was being talked about openly. The President had been ignored, slighted and treated with ill-concealed contempt. He was beginning to redefine the boundaries that must be observed in relations between the prime minister and president.

Singh adds, The Nehru-Gandhi family had imbibed lessons from the presidency of Rajendra Prasad. Pandit Nehru sometimes grated his teeth in private, even occasionally disagreed in public, as in the case of Hindu Personal Law reform, but never breached the etiquette of public engagement. President Prasad also questioned and probed without intruding blatantly into the prime ministerial privilege of policy-making.

He further observed, Nehru tried to depoliticise the presidency by strongly backing Dr Radhakrishnan to succeed Prasad. He failed to deny the incumbent a second term. Mrs Gandhi, with her ingrained sense of security, slowly reduced the occupants to the level of compliant family retainers. The decline was graphically captured in a cartoon showing President Ahmed singing the 1975 emergency order while reclining in a bathtub. President Singhs induction into office was partly due to troubles in Punjab but largely due to his other qualification of being a trusted retainer.

Rajiv Gandhi perhaps did not realise that even family retainers have self-respect. They can be expected to comply with the demands of the overlord so long as appearances of public respect are maintained. Even slaves have known to rebel.

Opposing a tribal candidature

In 2022, the candidature of Draupadi Murmu was announced by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) for the post of President. It was a watershed moment for the Indian polity. A tribal leader was all set to become the head of the nation for the first time. More significantly, this was a tribal woman who had come from a very humble background. The Congress could have supported her candidature if it was truly committed to the cause of the tribals. Instead of supporting her candidature, the Congress backed Yashwant Sinha and opposed Murmu tooth and nail. This despite the fact that Congress knew it had no chance to defeat Murmu. In fact, top Congress leadership including Rahul Gandhi, accompanied Yashwant Sinha when he went to file his nomination. Its leaders went all out to campaign against Murmu and in support of Sinha across the country. Sinha was defeated badly. But Congress had lost a golden opportunity to strengthen the democratic ethos by supporting a tribal woman leader for the top post of the country.

Conclusion

Given the past track record of Congress, its latest attempts to become a self-styled champion of the rights of the President of India and boycott the opening of the new parliament building on these grounds, demonstrate the highest level of hypocrisy. The Congress seems to be overwhelmed by this false impression that people of India have a short memory and they have forgotten how the party leadership has consistently undermined the institution of the President of India.

The writer, an author and columnist has written several books. He tweets @ArunAnandLive. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. When I met the displaced people from Lachin 11 years ago, I told them that we would return and so it happened, said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as he met with Lachin natives, Trend reports.

"Many times, when I met the displaced people from Lachin and other regions that were occupied at the time, I tried to encourage them and told them that we would return, we would definitely return!

I knew that we would return, and if you watch the video recording of the meeting 11 years ago, you will see that I said that we would return and more beautiful houses would be built in Lachin. And so it happened. Therefore, the conditions for you and for former IDPs like you should be the best, the most beautiful, so that you can live comfortably here after long painful years. We will try to provide it in the future too," President Ilham Aliyev said.
Olympic wrestler Bajrang Punia on Sunday slammed Delhi Police after it registered an FIR against the protesting wrestlers, following their bid to march towards the new Parliament building for the planned womens Mahapanchayat.

Overall 700 people were detained across Delhi, including 109 at Jantar Mantar.

An FIR was registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the wrestlers - Sakshi, Punia, and Vinesh - who had organised the protest in connection with Sundays incident.

However, all women wrestlers and protesters who were detained on Sunday were later released.

Read More: All Detained Women Wrestlers Released, FIR Registered Against Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia

Referring to MP Brij Bhushan Singh, Bajrang Punia told media persons that it is unfortunate that a person accused of sexual harassment attended the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

It took Delhi Police only a few hours to register an FIR against us but it took them 7 days to register an FIR against Brij Bhushan Singh," he told ANI.

#WATCH | Delhi: It is unfortunate that a person accused of sexual harassment attended the inauguration of the new Parliament buildingIt took Delhi Police only a few hours to register an FIR against us but it took them 7 days to register an FIR against Brij Bhushan Singh: pic.twitter.com/1wUcxEyqv2 ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

When asked if the wrestlers would continue to protest at Jantar Mantar, Punia replied, Going back home is not an option, I will meet the rest of the wrestlers and we will decide what needs to be done next."

On Sunday, opposition leaders and sportspersons strongly criticised the alleged manhandling of protesting wrestlers by the Delhi Police at Jantar Mantar.

Read More: Grossly Wrong: Opposition Slams Delhi Police for Shamefully Manhandling Protesting Wrestlers

The incident occurred when wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Punia, and several others were detained following a scuffle that erupted between the protesters and the Delhi Police after they breached the security cordon in an attempted to march towards the new Parliament building.

Tensions escalated at Jantar Mantar as some of the wrestlers attempted to breach the barricades, leading to a chaotic scene with shoving and pushing between the protesters and the police.

Following the incident, the wrestlers were swiftly pushed into buses and transported to an undisclosed location.

In the aftermath, the police took action to clear the protest site, removing items such as cots, mattresses, cooler fans, the tarpaulin ceiling, and other belongings belonging to the wrestlers.

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(With inputs from PTI and IANS)
In response to the discontentment within the Congress Punjab unit regarding potential support to the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government on the Delhi ordinance issue, the party high command on Sunday summoned senior state-level leaders to the national capital for consultations.

The decision comes after the Punjab Congress urged the high command to take into account the inputs from state units before making any final decision on the issue.

Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Raja Warring, Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa, former Deputy Chief Minister and party affairs in charge for Rajasthan Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa are among the senior leaders summoned for a meeting with party president Mallikarjun Kharge. Senior leader Rahul Gandhi is also expected to join the meeting.

The decision to convene the meeting was taken after AICC general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal received a report from PPCC chief Warring regarding the issue.

The AAP government in Punjab has filed corruption cases against several senior Congress leaders, leading to protests from opposition parties. The state unit alleges that there is a larger political agenda behind these cases.

AAP has targeted the party venomously. It wants to finish off the party in Punjab, which is why those leaders with a strong support base are being targeted. The party high command should not give time to meet Arvind Kejriwal. It creates bad optics for Punjab politics," said a senior party leader.

Leader of Opposition, Partap Singh Bajwa, has already urged the high command that AAP deserves no solidarity as the ruling party has unleashed a ruthless witch-hunt" against the Congress MLAs, leaders, and workers in the state. The party high command has been urged to consult the leaderships of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Karnataka before even considering helping AAP.

Punjab Congress leaders feel that AAP chief Kejriwal is trying to set up a narrative that he is capable of uniting the opposition against the BJP.

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The Central government has recently issued an ordinance to establish an authority responsible for the transfer and posting of Group-A officers in Delhi. However, the AAP government has criticized this move, labeling it as deceptive in light of the Supreme Courts verdict on the control of services.

The ordinance was introduced just a week after the Supreme Court granted control over services in Delhi, excluding police, public order, and land, to the elected government. It aims to establish a National Capital Civil Service Authority specifically for the transfer and disciplinary proceedings concerning Group-A officers from the DANICS cadre.
In an effort to find a middle ground between Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Sachin Pilot, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is scheduled to hold meetings with the two warring leaders on Monday in Delhi. As per a senior party leader familiar with the development, the Congress chief will hold separate meetings with the duo.

Confirming the news, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said, They (Gehlot and Pilot) are coming. We will discuss and decide whatever is in the interest of the party."

Meanwhile, the chief ministers office has also released Gehlots programme confirming his visit to Delhi, where he will also lay the foundation stone of the Rajasthan House.

Gehlots Big Claim

Before meeting Kharge, Gehlot on Monday said the partys high command is strong and it will never offer any position to any leader or worker to pacify him.

As far as I know, there is no such tradition in the Congress where any leader demands something and the party high command offers to give that position. We have not heard of such a formula ever," he said when asked about reports of a formula being worked out to rope in Pilot.

Rubbishing such reports, he said, it is only the creation of the media and some leaders may be getting such stories planted.

The Congress party is strong and there is such position that the high command offers to give any post to any leader to pacify any leader," he said

Pilots Ultimatum

Kharges proposed meetings come close on the heels of Pilots ultimatum" that if three demands he made from the Gehlot government were not met by the end of this month, he would launch a state-wide agitation.

Rajasthans former Deputy CM has asked for a high-level inquiry into the alleged scams that took place during the tenure of the former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje government, as one of his demands.

Infighting In Rajasthan Congress

In an effort to broker a truce between Gehlot and Pilot, Congress has also roped in senior leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath.

Pilot and Gehlot have been engaged in a power tussle since the Congress formed government in the state in 2018. In 2020, Pilot led a failed revolt against the Gehlot government after which he was removed from the posts of party state unit president and deputy chief minister.

The former Rajasthan deputy chief minister had last month defied a warning from the party and went ahead with a day-long fast targeting Gehlot over his inaction" on alleged corruption during the Raje government.

According to the senior leader, a meeting of the Congress top brass with all the state leaders was scheduled on May 26 but was later postponed. He said that now the high command will meet Gehlot and Pilot separately to bring them on one platform ahead of the assembly elections, which are due later this year.

Kharge was successful in bringing Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar together in Karnataka and the party now wants to try the same formula in Rajasthan, the senior leader said.

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He also said that a few days ago a meeting of the Congress high command with the leaders of all poll-bound states, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana, was planned, which was postponed.

(With PTI inputs)
AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met ailing party leader Satyendar Jain at a hospital here on Sunday and described him as a brave man" and hero".

Jain, who has been in Tihar Jail since his arrest by the ED in May last year in connection with a money laundering case, was on Friday last granted six-week interim bail by the Supreme Court, on medical grounds.

Met the brave man..the hero.. pic.twitter.com/d5gzKoDud9 Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 28, 2023

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He was admitted to the hospital on Thursday last after he collapsed in prison due to dizziness, party sources had said. Sharing pictures of his meeting with Jain on Twitter, Kejriwal said, Met the brave man.the hero".

The former health minister was first admitted to the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital, and later, shifted to the Lok Nayak Jayaprakash (LNJP) Hospital due to breathing problems. The Supreme Court on Friday last allowed Jain to undergo treatment in a hospital of his choice. It also directed Jain to not talk to the media during his interim bail period that ends on July 11.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar will chair an all-important opposition meeting on June 12. The Janata Dal (United) said opposition parties will meet in Patna and decide on a joint strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

12th June has been decided for the meeting and CM Nitish Kumar will chair the meeting," said JD(U) leader Manjit Singh on Sunday. There has been much discussion and debate, as well as meetings between different non-NDA political parties, over the past few months on creating a joint opposition front to counter the ruling BJP in the polls next year.

#WATCH | Bihar: JDU leader Manjit Singh speaks on the opposition meeting in Patna, says, "12th June has been decided for the meeting and CM Nitish Kumar will chair the meeting." pic.twitter.com/bAcOp1bnDp ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

The notion of a joint fight in the 2024 elections has become stronger as 21 opposition parties unitedly boycotted the inauguration of the new Parliament building earlier in the day. Despite heavy criticism by the BJP and its allies, the boycott party refused to relent on its stand about sidelining President Droupadi Murmu, who is the head of the state, for the grand event.

According to media reports, over 18 like-minded opposition parties will attend the conclave next month but a senior leader said this was not the main meeting of opposition parties, which will be held much later. Kumar has been meeting leaders across parties to forge opposition unity, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, his West Bengal counterpart and TMC boss Mamata Banerjee, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav among others.

The Bihar CM had earlier volunteered to be a mediator and wants to bring all like-minded opposition parties on board. He has been successful in getting Mamata, Kejriwal and Yadav on board  the three have expressed reluctance in joining hands with the Congress.

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The JD(U), meanwhile, said the meeting on June 12 will send a message to the whole country that change in the country will start from Bihar". You will see that parties with the same views will stand together," Manjit Singh added.

Other parties, too, have been holding meetings with each other. Mamata and Yadav met in the past to hint at a sort of Third Front. But more recently, Kejriwal has been meeting leaders across parties, including his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekar Rao, albeit for different reasons and to notch up support against the Delhi ordinance.
The all-important Rajasthan meeting is set to take place next week and the Congress high command is hoping to find closure. But a photo op with chief minister Ashok Gehlot and party leader Sachin Pilot smiling and making up as a sign that all is well, may be tough to come by.

Only a few days before the meeting and in a sign that things may be rocky between the two leaders, the chief ministers official adviser Sanyam Lodha asked as to why Sachin Pilot had not vacated the official residence even though he was no longer deputy chief minister. Asked to vacate his official house, senior leader Rahul Gandhi became the latest flashpoint between the Narendra Modi-led government and the Congress. So, is this demand, presumably on behalf of Gehlot, also going to be a contentious point between Pilot and the CM?

Gehlot has made it clear that he does not trust Pilot as his public stand  like holding the Jan Sangharsh Yatra  would only embolden the BJP. In fact, the CM recently said it was craziness on Pilots part to demand an investigation into the exam scam allegedly involving former CM Vasundhara Raje Scindia.

Pilot has refused to be restrained anymore and accused Gehlot of considering Scindia his leader rather than Sonia Gandhi. He has also accused the CM of repeatedly humiliating him and calling him names.

Despite the fact that state incharge Sukhvinder Randhawa had asked for disciplinary action against Pilot for holding an unofficial yatra, the Congress is wary of doing so. Kamalnath, for example, has made it clear that such a step will boomerang, especially since Pilot is from the Gujjar community that holds a sizeable number of seats not just in Rajasthan but also Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

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It is this that has forced the party to hold a meeting next week to find a solution. There are many proposals doing the rounds. For example, Pilot can be made the state Congress chief. Sources said Gehlot is not as enthusiastic about this as during election time, the one who becomes the state unit chief will also have power over ticket distribution and, hence, power over the party.

Pilot has his heart set on becoming CM. It is this that a party wants to control but by looking at the war of words and the latest controversy over his residence, the storm is far from having blown over.
Vivos sub-brand iQOO has recently announced the launch of its latest Z series smartphone  the iQOO Z7s 5G in India, which comes with a 90Hz AMOLED display, 64MP OIS-enabled primary camera, Snapdragon 695 chipset and 4500mAh battery with 44W fast charging support.

iQOO Z7s 5G Price, Colours, Offers And Availability

The iQOO Z7s 5G is available in Pacific Night and Norway Blue colour options. The smartphone is priced at Rs 18,999 for a 6GB+128GB model and Rs 19,999 for 8GB+128GB respectively. The company is also offering Rs 1,500 on ICICI and HDFC credit and debit bank cards. The phone is available for purchase on the e-commerce website Amazon.

iQOO Z7s 5G Specifications

The newly-launched iQOO Z7s 5G comes with a 6.38-inch FHD+ AMOLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate, HDR 10+, and 360Hz touch sampling rate. The smartphone is powered by Snapdragon 695 chipset and offers up to 8GB of RAM, with an additional 8GB extended RAM feature.

The smartphone runs on Funtouch OS 13, based on the latest Android 13 operating system. iQOO has committed to providing 2 years of OS updates and three years of monthly security patches, ensuring a smooth user experience. Coming to optics, the iQOO Z7s 5G has a dual rear camera setup  including a 64MP rear camera equipped with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) and a 2MP depth sensor.

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For selfies and video calls, it houses a 16MP camera on the front. The smartphone is powered by a 4500mAh battery with 44W fast charging support, allowing users to charge up to 50 per cent in just 25 minutes.

The device also offers a 3.5mm audio jack, and single bottom-ported speakers, and comes with dust and splash resistance (IP54 rating). Connectivity options include 5G, Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and USB Type-C.
Two Iranian border guards and one Taliban fighter were killed after shooting broke out near a border post between Iran and Afghanistan, a Taliban spokesman and Irans state media said on Saturday.

It was not immediately clear what had provoked the incident, in which several people were also injured, but it came amid tensions between the two countries over water rights.

Iran has accused Afghanistans Taliban rulers of violating a 1973 treaty by restricting the flow of water from the Helmand river to Irans parched eastern regions, an accusation denied by the Taliban.

Today, in Nimroz province, Iranian border forces fired toward Afghanistan, which was met with a counter-reaction, spokesman for the Taliban-run interior ministry, Abdul Nafi Takor, said in a statement.

The situation is under control now. The Islamic Emirate does not want to fight with its neighbours, the spokesman said, without identifying the victims.

He said one person had been killed on each side and several injured, though Irans official IRNA news agency later said two Iranian border guards had been killed and two Iranian civilians injured.

Following the clash, Iranian authorities closed the Milak  Zaranj border post, a major commercial crossing  and not the site of the clash  until further notice, IRNA said.

Irans deputy police chief, Qasem Rezaei, said earlier: Without observing international laws and good neighbourliness, Taliban forces started shooting at the Sasoli checkpoint  drawing a decisive response, IRNA reported.

Irans border guards said in a statement they had used their superior heavy fire to inflict casualties and serious damage, IRNA reported, without giving details.

Enayatullah Khowarazmi, Taliban defence ministry spokesman, said: Unfortunately, today once again in the border areas of Kong district of Nimroz province, there was a shooting by Iranian soldiers, (and) a conflict  broke out.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers dialogue and negotiation to be a reasonable way for any problem. Making excuses for war and negative actions is not in the interest of any of the parties, Khowarazmi said.

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Earlier in May, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned the Taliban over disregarding Irans water rights under the 1973 treaty. The Taliban rejected Raisis perceived threat, with a former Taliban official mocking Raisi in a video that went viral.
One of Hong Kongs biggest democratic parties announced on Saturday that it would disband itself after a vote by its party members, joining a growing list of organizations that have disbanded after growing pressure from China.

In recent years, Hong Kongs opposition has been hit by a China-imposed national security law and overhaul of the electoral system that has largely sidelined democrats from local politics.

Civic Party chairman Alan Leong told reporters that the dissolution of the party was a writing on the wall as there was no one to take over. None of its members at an extraordinary general meeting filed nominations for executive positions.

30 of the 31 members voted to disband, with one person abstaining.

1/ Hong Kong pro-democracy party the Civic Party voted to dissolve on Saturday. In a statement, Civic Party Chairperson Alan Leong thanked all liked-minded people who joined the partys long walk to democracy. pic.twitter.com/kZmO6Ws5SC  Hong Kong Free Press HKFP (@hkfp) May 27, 2023

The party, which was founded in 2006, was made up of mostly professionals, lawyers and academics. At its peak, it won six seats in the Hong Kong legislature during the 2012 elections, and was the citys second-largest pro-democracy party after the Democratic Party.

The world is ever changing. History will tell. Today, the Civic Party is bidding Hong Kong farewell. We hope Hong Kong people will live in the moment with a hopeful and not too heavy heart. Live in truth and believe in tomorrow," Leong, a senior barrister, said in a statement.

The party, one of the last few opposition groups in Hong Kong, was considered a moderate democratic voice that appealed to the citys large ranks of middle-class voters.

However, several members were charged with subversion under the sweeping national security law that was imposed by Beijing following massive 2019 protests calling for political freedoms that were promised the semi-autonomous territory after its handover from Britain in 1997.

They were accused of participating in an unofficial primary to pick up the best candidates for the legislative elections that would allow the pro-democracy camp to win a majority of seats. Authorities, however, said that the primary was aimed at subverting the government.

Since the national security law was passed, the city has undergone major changes to its political landscape. An overhaul of Hong Kongs electoral system was made to ensure that only patriots loyal to China would be able to take office, and more than 200 people have been arrested for allegedly committing acts that endanger national security.

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Many pro-democracy political organizations in Hong Kong have already disbanded. They include the protest organizer Civil Human Rights Front and the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which was behind the annual Tiananmen Square vigil to mark the 1989 massacre in Beijing of pro-democracy activists by Chinese soldiers. The vigil has been banned for the last three years.

The city, which used to be a bastion of free speech and expression, has not seen a large-scale pro-democracy protest since 2020.
Pakistan Former Prime Minister Imran Khan said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi would lead the party in case he is disqualified by the court.

If I am disqualified, Shah Mehmood Qureshi will run the party, Khan told reporters at his Zaman Park residence in Lahore on Saturday, according to Geo TV.

The statement comes as the PTI chief faces over 100 cases on several charges including corruption and terrorism since being ousted from power in April last year.

Imran was arrested earlier this month in Al-Qadir Trust case by Pakistani Rangers personnel in compliance with National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrest warrants.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi was arrested earlier on Tuesday along with several PTI leaders in a crackdown against Imran Khans party.

Over 70 lawyers and leaders from the party have parted ways with the PTI so for following the May 9 mayhem. Top PTI leaders - including the partys Secretary General Asad Umar, former information minister Fawad Chaudhry and former minister for human rights Shireen Mazari - have resigned.

Reacting to the mass departure of party leaders, the PTI chief said, I will give a big surprise in the coming days.

The PTI leaders exodus started when the security forces launched a crackdown against the party following the attacks on the civil and military institutions.

However, Khan said some PTI leaders were leaving the party under compulsion while others had been exposed.

Amid rumours about the PTI-backed President Arif Alvis resignation, Khan said that the President would continue working according to the Constitution.

Pakistan is seeing a political crisis after Imran Khan was jailed on May 9 in Al-Qadir Trust case following which violent protests erupted after paramilitary Rangers arrested Khan from the Islamabad High Court (IHC) premises.

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His party workers vandalised a dozen military installations, including the Lahore Corps Commanders House, the Mianwali airbase and the ISI building in Faisalabad in response to Khans arrest.

The mob also stormed the Army headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi for the first time.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. Israeli President Isaac Herzog is set to embark on a trip to Azerbaijan on Tuesday, Trend reports.

Over the course of the two-day visit, Herzog will participate in a special event commemorating Israel's 75th anniversary of independence.

During his visit, President Herzog intends to connect with members of the Jewish community and engage in meaningful discussions.

Accompanying Herzog on the visit, Health and Interior Minister Moshe Arbel will explore ways for enhanced collaboration in emergency preparedness, doctor training, and digital health.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan recently inaugurated its first embassy in Israel in March this year.
Many congressional Republicans have criticized the tentative debt ceiling deal reached by US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden.

Despite concerns about a potential economic collapse, these Republicans have stated that they will vote against the measure, The New York Post reported.

Read More: US Debt Ceiling: Republicans & Biden Reach Deal, All You Need to Know About It | EXPLAINED

Earlier, McCarthy claimed that 95 percent of GOP members support the deal, emphasizing significant spending cuts.

However, conservative lawmakers took to Twitter to express their dissatisfaction, describing the compromises as unacceptable."

Representative Ralph Norman from South Carolina called the deal insanity" and refused to vote for a $4 trillion debt ceiling increase without substantial cuts.

This deal is insanity.A $4T debt ceiling increase with virtually no cuts is not what we agreed to. Not gonna vote to bankrupt our country. The American people deserve better.  Rep. Ralph Norman (@RepRalphNorman) May 28, 2023

Colorado Representative Ken Buck expressed his opinion that House Speaker Kevin McCarthys tentative deal with President Biden on Saturday night ultimately compromised the GOPs goals in the negotiations.

Kevin McCarthy has endorsed a debt ceiling deal that will ensure our country hits $35 trillion in debt in less than two years.Joe Biden and Democrats would now get a free pass on defending their reckless spending before the next election. This deal must be rejected.  Rep. Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) May 28, 2023

Congressman Bob Good said that no one claiming to be a conservative could justify a yes vote to a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit.

I am hearing the deal is for a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit. IF that is true, I dont need to hear anything else. No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote. Congressman Bob Good (@RepBobGood) May 28, 2023

I listened to Speaker McCarthy earlier tonight outline the deal with President Biden and I am appalled by the debt ceiling surrender, he was quoted as saying by New York Post. The bottom line is that the U.S. will have $35 trillion of debt in January, 2025. That is completely unacceptable.

Representative Lauren Boebert said that she was not elected to Congress to mortgage her childrens futures by irresponsibly increasing US national debt.

I was not elected to Congress to mortgage my childrens futures by irresponsibly increasing our national debt.The American people elected a Republican majority to rein in the Biden administration. We were elected to do a job. We should do it.  Rep. Lauren Boebert (@RepBoebert) May 28, 2023

Lindsey Graham, a prominent Republican from South Carolina, voiced his concerns about the budget and referred to it as a joke," particularly due to its defense spending.

Graham emphasized the importance of raising the debt ceiling but also expressed a desire to control spending, reduce the size of the IRS, and recover unspent COVID funds.

However, he made it clear that he would not support adopting the Biden defense budget and labeling it as a successful outcome.

The 2011 budget deal was a disaster for our nations defense.I have fears this proposal is shaping up to be even worse. Stay tuned.  Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 28, 2023

The specifics of the agreement are yet to be disclosed, but preliminary information suggests that the deal would involve a two-year increase in the debt limit, surpassing the 2024 presidential election.

Read More: US Debt Ceiling: The Key Takeaways from Tentative Deal

In return, government spending would be reduced over the same duration.

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Additionally, the agreement would maintain federal spending at the same level for 2024 and raise it by 1 percent for 2025.

Congress is anticipated to receive the complete bill for review by Wednesday.
Two parents in the US have been arrested after the police found their seven children living in unsanitary and unsafe conditions with caged rats and faeces on the homes floor.

The children were found malnourished and had social anxiety after living in the miserable conditions.

The condition of the children came to light after Pennsylvania authorities, earlier this week, received reports of three children entering an abandoned trailer near Philadelphia, a report in CNN said.

The Pennsylvania Police later found the children and returned them to their homes next to the abandoned trailer.

However, the police found the children living in deplorable living conditions and a refrigerator secured with a padlock.

Crystal Robertson, the mother, said she locked the refrigerator because the children were stealing everything and referred to the children as garbage disposals with legs.

The police later found four more children inside. The report said that one of the rooms had over two dozen rats locked in cages and faeces was found on the floor of another area of the home.

There was also a bad odour and several bugs, the police affidavit read.

The police also found two dogs, two turtles, two rabbits, snakes, toads and a four-foot reptile in the home.

The children were taken into protective custody and transported to a hospital for medical treatment, the report added.

An investigation later revealed that none of the seven children attended school and lacked basic knowledge.

They also exhibited social anxiety and were found clinically underweight and malnourished.

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Personal hygiene of the children was also found to be concerning, resulting in two of the children having to shave their hair due to severe matting, according to police statement.

The father, Shane William Robertson, and the mother were charged with seven felony counts for endangering the welfare of children.
They are collectively known as Los Chapitos, or the "Little Chapos"Ivan, Jesus Alfredo, Joaquin Jr., and Ovidio Guzman. Ranging in age from 33 to 40, they are the four surviving sons of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in the US. For years as their father ruthlessly ran the Sinaloa drug cartel, they were dismissed and even mocked as spoiled brats more interested in flaunting their wealth on social media (think pet tigers and Ferraris) than in taking up the family business, writes Drazen Jorgic for Reuters. Today, it's a much different tale. "The rapid ascendancy of Los Chapitos ... shows how authorities may have underestimated the former party boys," writes Jorgic, whose in-depth story is based on interviews with cartel operatives and dozens of US and Mexican officials.

The "brothers have resuscitated a drug empire teetering after their father was locked behind US bars and diversified the business by embracing a new line of synthetic drugs," per the story. That includes fentanyl in particular, with US authorities blaming them for pioneering new ways of manufacturing and trafficking the drug that has fueled this nation's opioid epidemic. The brothers deny it, as they deny running the cartel and inflicting grisly forms of torture on their enemies recounted in the story. Of the four, Ovidio is currently imprisoned in Mexico. The story notes that the brothers' rise has dovetailed with new policies of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrado that de-emphasize confrontation with the cartels. Related to that, "DEA operations have been hobbled on his watch." Read the full story. (Or check out other longform stories.)
Recently the ocean gave up one of its many mysteries, reports NBC News, when a group of civilian underwater explorers known as the Lost 52 Project unveiled a major discovery. They found the long-lost wreckage of the USS Mannert L. Abele, a Navy destroyer sunk in the Pacific by a kamikaze aircraft attack off the coast of Okinawa during World War II. On April 12, 1945, the Abele was operating off the northern coast of Okinawa when it faced incoming fire. The ship engaged and damaged multiple enemy aircraft. But the Abele met its end when a Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, a rocket-powered, human-guided bomb, crashed beside it. This kamikaze attack caused the ship's bow and stern to quickly buckle, and the warship went down. Eighty-four sailors died.

The discovery of the Mannert L. Abele is a remarkable achievement that provides some semblance of closure to the families of the sailors lost in the attack. According to the New York Times, this discovery is not only historically significant but for some, deeply personal. This was a big find for the Lost 52 Project, which is on a mission to track down World War II-era sunken subs and battleships. Project leader Tim Taylor told the Times that this discovery was "a monumental find" with a "very deep connection" for him because his father's "ship was hit by a kamikaze just 10 days before the Abele was sunk in the same area." (Read more World War II stories.)
Thousands of people are making a pilgrimage to a church in rural Missouri to pay their respects at the coffin of a deceased nun. The unusual thing is that Sister Wilhelmina Lancasterfounder of the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of Apostlesdied four years ago at age 95, reports USA Today. The reason the pilgrimage is happening now is that nuns of the order say they inadvertently discovered that Wilhelmina's remains have remained remarkably well preservedso much so that the most ardent believers suspect as miracle is afoot, notes Insider. The church isn't going that far, yet.

The Catholic News Agency reports that Wilhelmina's body was originally buried in a wooden coffin, without embalming, in an outdoor cemetery. In the process of transferring her remains to an indoor shrine, nuns say they were surprised to find that her body and even her garment had not noticeably decayed. (See the CNA for images.) The abbess of the monastery in Gower has said she suspects Wilhelmina may be what the church considers "incorrupt." The CNA explains that "incorruptibility is the preservation of the body from normal decay after death."

Bishop James V. Johnston of the Diocese of Kansas CitySt. Joseph says the diocese is investigating. "Incorruptibility has been verified in the past, but it is very rare," he says in a statement. "There is a well-established process to pursue the cause for sainthood, but that has not been initiated in this case yet." USA Today notes that the order followed by Wilhemina is perhaps best known for its popular Gregorian chant and Catholic hymn albums. (Read more Catholic Church stories.)
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. President Ilham Aliyev was the first to congratulate me on winning presidential elections, President of Turkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, Trend reports.

President Ilham Aliyev congratulated Erdogan before the elections results were unveiled.

Meanwhile, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has made a phone call to President of the Republic of Turkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The head of state congratulated Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the victory in the presidential elections.

President Ilham Aliyev evaluated this victory as the Turkish peoples trust in the policy pursued by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and expressed confidence that all-round development of Turkiye would continue under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the years to come.

The head of state wished new successes to Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his activities in the name of welfare of the people of Turkiye and progress of the country.

The President of Turkiye thanked President Ilham Aliyev for congratulations and warm words and extended congratulations on the occasion of the Independence Day.

The President of Azerbaijan expressed gratitude for the congratulation.

The President of the Republic of Azerbaijan invited Recep Tayyip Erdogan to pay an official visit to our country.

The invitation was accepted with gratitude.

The heads of state expressed confidence that fraternal and brotherly relations between our countries would continue to develop successfully in all fields.

During the telephone conversation, the issues related to prospects for cooperation were discussed.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared victory Sunday in Turkey's runoff election, extending his increasingly authoritarian rule into a third decade. With nearly 99% of ballot boxes opened, unofficial results from competing news agencies showed Erdogan with 52% of the vote, compared with 48% for his challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. In his first comments since the polls closed, Erdogan spoke to supporters on a campaign bus outside his home in Istanbul, the AP reports. I thank each member of our nation for entrusting me with the responsibility to govern this country once again for the upcoming five years, he said.

Erdogan ridiculed his challenger for his loss, saying "bye bye bye, Kemal," as supporters booed. "The only winner today is Turkey," Erdogan said. In Istanbul, the president's supporters began celebrating even before the final results arrived, waving Turkish or ruling party flags, and honking car horns. "This is not a crushing defeat for those who wanted change," an analyst told CNN. "We are once again looking at a divided country ... both camps want entirely different things for Turkey." Erdogan, 69, could remain in power until 2028. "We will be together until the grave," he told the crowd, per the New York Times.

(Read more Turkey stories.)
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The Public Safety Report is compiled from criminal complaints filed in state and federal courts, as well as some police blotter information, trooper dispatches, fire department reports and interviews with public safety officials. Individuals named as arrested and/or charged with crimes in this report are presumed innocent until proved guilty in a court of law.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. Iran has signed two agreements and a contract in oil sector worth a total of $516 million, Iran's Vice President Rouhullah Dehghani Firouzabadi said, Trend reports citing Shana News Agency.

He made the remark at the 27th Iran International Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemical Exhibition in Tehran on May 20.

According to him, $500 million worth of two agreements and 16 million worth a contract were signed in the countrys oil sector.

Dehghani Firouzabadi said that an agreement worth $300 million was signed between the science, technology and startup department under the President of Iran and the Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarter on oil and gas discoveries, development of oil sector, as well as development of renewable energies.

The vice president also added that an agreement on cooperation in 8 start-up projects worth $200 million was signed between the science, technology and start-up department under the President of Iran and the Pasargad Oil and Energy Company.

"At the same time, the science, technology and start-up department signed a contract worth $16 million with the National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC) and the countrys startup companies for the domestic production of a number of supplies in the country for the first time," he noted.

The 27th Iran International Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemical Exhibition started in Tehran on May 17 and ended on May 20, 2023. The Iranian side announced that 120 agreements and 50 contracts were signed within the framework of the exhibition.

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A private Japanese moon lander went into free-fall while trying to land on the lunar surface last month, company officials said Friday, blaming a software issue and a last-minute switch in the touchdown location.

The spacecraft belonging to the company ispace was originally supposed to land in a flat plain. But the target was changed to a crater before Decembers launch. The craters steep sides apparently confused the onboard software, and the 7-foot (2-meter) spacecraft went into a free-fall from less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) up, slamming into the lunar surface.

The estimated speed at impact was more than 300 feet (100 meters) per second, said the company's chief technology officer, Ryo Ujiie.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed the crash site the next day as it flew overhead, revealing a field of debris as well as lunar soil hurled aside by the impact.

Computer simulations done in advance of the landing attempt did not incorporate the terrain of the new landing site, Ujiie said.

CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada said the company is still on track to attempt another moon landing in 2024, and that all the lessons learned will be incorporated into the next try. A third landing attempt is planned for 2025. ...continue reading
Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been citing evidence that the United Nations world population projection group has been massively wrong on global population projections and on the population of China and India. This is hugely important because population projections are the foundation upon which economic and business projections are made. Population projections feed into all national and regional planning for the future. They are the basis of policy planning. The false UN population projections are like temperature reports given to frogs sitting in a frying pan.

If the degree of error is proven, then it is the difference between a world population of 11 billion in 2100 and a world population of 6 billion. How would that much error effect some climate change projection?

India is completing a delayed population Census in 2024. If the UN is massively wrong about Indias population then it will show that the UNs projections for global population are completely broken. The UN was biased into inflating forward population estimates to encourage a policy of population control.

Indias National Family Health Survey indicated a fertility rate of 1.99 in 2017-19, in contrast to the WPPs estimate of 2.16. If a population estimate is off by 10% on the key metric of current fertility rate and is overestimating future fertility as 1.8 instead of 1.2 then the projected population will be double the correct projection.

Chinas fertility rate (births per woman) fell to 1.0-1.1, well below the official forecast of 1.8. The number of births in China dropped sharply to 9.56 million, the fewest since 1790, despite Chinas shift to a two-child policy in 2016. The UN projections for China to have a population of 767 million assumes that Chinas fertility rate will recover to 1.5. The prior UN forecast was China to have a population of 1.05 billion in 2100.

A sample survey from 2016 in China showed a fertility rate of 1.25 and only 13 million births, which was later inflated to 18.83 million.

If the number of births in China is half what was estimated then by 2040-2050, there will be half as many fertile women as the prior estimate. What was already a rapidly declining population becomes insanely low. The high UN estimate of 767 million could be hiding an actual realistic projection in the 300-440 million range.

All real data from China and India indicate that the UN World Population Prospects group has been massively overestimating the current and past few years of fertility. the UN World Population Prospects group has been massively overestimating the future population of China, India and other countries.

The WPP projects that Indias fertility rate will bounce back to 1.78 in 2050 before declining to 1.69 by 2100. But in countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, the fertility rates of Indian populations are barely higher than those of Chinese communities. For example, between 2000 and 2022, the average fertility rate for Indians and Chinese in Singapore was 1.19 and 1.09, respectively. Similarly, from 2016 to 2021, the average fertility rate in Malaysia was 1.1 for Chinese and 1.23 for Indians.

The UN has financially supported both countries population-control policies in the 1970s. There is description of how China ended up adopting the One Child Policy by Susan Green Halgh. China adopted Western Science in a flawed way. Some of the key people involved in the new population policy were influenced by the Club of Rome, limited population dogma. The Club of Rome had been discredited in the West but the criticism of the population control dogma did not reach into China.

A recent survey in China showed declining interest in childbearing. If this survey is right then China will struggle to stabilize its fertility rate at 0.8, and its population will fall to less than 1.02 billion by 2050 and 310 million in 2100. If China succeeds in increasing its fertility rate to 1.1 and prevents it from declining, its population will likely fall to 1.08 billion by 2050 and 440 million by 2100.
On November 18, 1978, cult-leader Jim Jones ordered members of his commune to commit suicide by drink poisoned kool-aid. Some were forced to drink it and some (such as small children) drank it unknowingly. Roughly 918 people died. The world is infected with mind viruses of overpopulation, climate change and other anti-children fears.

NOTE: Since, people are choosing to misinterpret the last sentence. Here is a clarification. Climate change is caused by 1 trillion tons of excess CO2 and other gases in the atmosphere. This can be offset by increasing the number of trees globally from 3 trillion to 4 trillion. The current efforts to grow trees are by a few dozen poorly funded groups which grow a few billion trees per year which is enough to offset about half of the deforestation of 15 billion trees lost per year. If we were to densify and increase the productivity of farms we could get all the food we need for ourselves and more people and allow the farmers to convert 20-50% of their land to growing trees. This would guarantee the success of mass scale tree growth with forest management. There are high productivity seeds grown on test fields that would triple the production of farms when they are distributed over the next ten to twenty years. Greenhouses can be built at scale which can solve mass starvation and water usage for larger human populations and be part of solving global warming.

Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part. Genocide is a crime under international law. When a people keeps a fertility rate below the replacement rate of 2.1, then it is committing a slow self-genocide to itself. When a person kills themselves that does wrenching damage to the community. Ethicists argue community damage must be counted among the moral harms of deliberate self-destruction.

Having a whole population at a total fertility rate of 1.0 means there is halving of the fertile female population every 30-35 years. Sustaining this behavior across a population causes a decimation in the number of grandchildren. Total fertility rate of 2.0 results in four couples having eight children and eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Total fertility rate of 1.0 results in four couples having four children and two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Decimation is the killing or destruction of a large proportion of a group.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Indian Health Service (IHS in the USA) and collaborating physicians sustained a practice of performing sterilizations on Native American women, in many cases without the informed consent of their patients. In some cases, women were misled into believing that the sterilization procedure was reversible.

Malthusianism is named for the early 19th century scientist Thomas Malthus. He stated that having too many people in the world is the inevitable cause of hunger, starvation, disease, and war. The theory suggests that the population of the world grows exponentially while food production does not with the inevitable result of massive starvation. Modern farming techniques have grown food supplies faster than population growth. The technology of greenhouses can grow ten to thirty times as much food in the same area of land. China is now making 4 million hectares of greenhouses. This mass production of greenhouses will increase the available food by 50%. China will complete making the greenhouses in 2025. Greenhouses also use ten times less water. Greenhouses have existed for hundreds of years.

Stephen Shaw describes how most couples who zero children were actually planning to have 2, 3 or 4 children but were mistaken in believing they could have children after they were 30 and had established a career. Shaw says there is a crisis of unplanned childlessness. 30-40% end up childless because they fail to prioritize having children in time to actually have children.



In fictional story of Silence of the Lambs, the evil villain, Hannibal Lector talks someone in a neighboring cell into committing suicide.

In the science fiction show SG1, there are aliens Aschen. They give a sterilizing anti-aging vaccine to the human population.

Genocide is wrong and one of the worst crimes. Suicide is wrong. Self-Genocide is wrong even if it happens over 100-200 years.

Ideally, we need to cure people of the mind virus that more humans is bad. However, failing that governments will need to maximize the use of fertility treatments and rewards for those willing to have large families. Governments will need to support healthy egg harvesting and wide scale use of surrogates and massive financial support for families.
EAST HAVEN  Police have identified the 20-year-old Madison man killed in a crash on Foxon Road early Saturday as Nathan Santos.

Santos was killed when his vehicle struck a utility pole in the area of 134 Foxon Road in East Haven around 1:30 a.m. Saturday, according to police spokesperson Capt. Joseph Murgo.

"We would like to extend our deepest condolences to Nathans family and friends during this difficult time," Murgo said in an email Sunday.

According to Murgo, Santos was driving west on Foxon Road in the area of Circle Drive when his vehicle crossed the double yellow lines and struck a utility pole. He was later pronounced dead at Yale New Haven Hospital, Murgo said.
Waterbury Police Department / Co

WATERBURY  A 16-year-old boy riding a scooter was critically injured early Friday when he was struck by an SUV on West Main Street, police said.

Officers responded at 12:05 a.m. to the hit-and-run crash near the intersection of West Main Street and Highland Avenue, according to Lt. Ryan Bessette of the Waterbury Police Department.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. Kazakhstan is set to attract investors to the country's agro-industrial sector, said Minister of Agriculture of Kazakhstan Yerbol Karashukeyev speaking at the Senate, Trend reports.

As an example, the minister noted that the Israeli company Metzerplas intends to launch a drip irrigation pipe manufacturing plant in the Almaty region this autumn, using its own funds.

Additionally, the minister disclosed a joint project with a Chinese company, VODAR. During his recent working visit to the People's Republic of China, a memorandum and a roadmap for the development and implementation of a rainmaking machine production project were signed.

"The plan includes the establishment of an assembly workshop for rainmaking machines by the end of 2023. Moreover, the company aims to install rainmaking machines in the Zhetysu, Almaty, and Pavlodar regions as demonstration sites for farmers," Karashukeyev said.

In further developments, the Turkish company AFKO plans to open a rainmaking machine factory in the Atyrau region later this year, as mentioned by the minister.

The introduction of these rainmaking machine factories and the collaboration with international companies highlight Kazakhstan's commitment to advancing its agro-industrial sector. The implementation of advanced irrigation technologies is expected to enhance agricultural productivity and contribute to the country's overall economic growth.
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WASHINGTON (AP)  With days to spare before a potential first-ever government default, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached final agreement Sunday on a deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling and worked to ensure enough support in Congress to pass the measure in the coming week.

The Democratic president and Republican speaker spoke late in the day as negotiators rushed to draft and post the bill text for review, with compromises that neither the hard-right or left flank is likely to support. Instead, the leaders are working to gather backing from the political middle as Congress hurries toward votes before a June 5 deadline to avert a damaging federal default.

Good news, Biden declared Sunday evening at the White House.

"The agreement prevents the worst possible crisis, a default, for the first time in our nations history, he said. Takes the threat of a catastrophic default off the table.

The president urged both parties in Congress to come together for swift passage. "The speaker and I made clear from the start that the only way forward was a bipartisan agreement, he said.

The final product includes spending cuts but risks angering some lawmakers as they take a closer look at the concessions. Biden told reporters at the White House upon his return from Delaware that he was confident the plan will make it to his desk.

McCarthy, too, was confident in remarks at the Capitol: "At the end of the day, people can look together to be able to pass this.

The days ahead will determine whether Washington is again able to narrowly avoid a default on U.S. debt, as it has done many times before, or whether the global economy enters a potential crisis.

In the United States, a default could cause financial markets to freeze up and spark an international financial crisis. Analysts say millions of jobs would vanish, borrowing and unemployment rates would jump, and a stock-market plunge could erase trillions of dollars in household wealth. It would all but shatter the $24 trillion market for Treasury debt.

Anxious retirees and others were already making contingency plans for missed checks, with the next Social Security payments due soon as the world watches American leadership at stake.

McCarthy and his negotiators portrayed the deal as delivering for Republicans though it fell well short of the sweeping spending cuts they sought. Top White House officials were briefing Democratic lawmakers and phoning some directly to try to shore up support.

One surprise was a provision important to influential Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., giving congressional backing for the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas project, that is certain to raise questions.

Negotiators also agreed to some Republican demands for increased work requirements for food stamps recipients that Democrats had called a nonstarter.

McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol on Sunday that the agreement doesnt get everything everybody wanted, but that was to be expected in a divided government. Privately, he told lawmakers on a conference call that Democrats "got nothing.

Weeks of negotiations came together when Biden and McCarthy spoke by phone Saturday evening and agreed in principle to the deal, finishing it up Sunday with the 99-page legislative text made public.

Support from both parties will be needed to win congressional approval before the projected June 5 government default on U.S. debts. Lawmakers are expected to return Tuesday from the Memorial Day weekend, and McCarthy has promised lawmakers he will abide by the rule to post any bill for 72 hours before voting in the House, as soon as Wednesday.

The package would next go to the Senate, where Republican leader Mitch McConnell said senators "must act swiftly and pass this agreement without unnecessary delay.

Central to the compromise is a two-year budget deal that would essentially hold spending flat for 2024, while boosting it for defense and veterans, and capping increases at 1% for 2025. Thats alongside raising the debt limit for two years, pushing the volatile political issue past the next presidential election.

Driving hard to impose tougher work requirements on government aid recipients, Republicans achieved some of what they wanted. It ensures people ages 49 to 54 with food stamp aid would have to meet work requirements if they are able-bodied and without dependents. Biden was able to secure waivers for veterans and homeless people.

The deal puts in place changes in the landmark National Environmental Policy Act designating a single lead agency to develop environmental reviews, in hopes of streamlining the process.

It halts some funds to hire new Internal Revenue Service agents as Republicans demanded, and rescinds some $30 billion for coronavirus relief, keeping $5 billion for developing the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines.

The deal would suspend the debt limit until January 2025. It came together after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Congress that the United States could default on its debt obligations by June 5  four days later than previously estimated. Lifting the nation's debt limit, now at $31 trillion, allows more borrowing to pay bills already incurred.

McCarthy commands only a slim Republican majority in the House, where hard-right conservatives may resist any deal as insufficient as they try to slash spending. By compromising with Democrats, he risks angering his own members, setting up a career-challenging moment for the new speaker.

I think youre going to get a majority of Republicans voting for this bill," McCarthy said on Fox News Sunday," adding that because Biden backed it, "I think theres going to be a lot of Democrats that will vote for it, too.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on CBS' Face the Nation that he expected there will be Democratic support but he declined to provide a number. Asked whether he could guarantee there would not be a default, he said, Yes.

A 100-strong group of moderates in the New Democratic Coalition gave a crucial nod of support Sunday, saying in a statement it was confident that Biden and his team delivered a viable, bipartisan solution to end this crisis.

The coalition could provide enough support for McCarthy to make up for members in the right flank of his party who have expressed opposition before the bill's wording was even released.

It also takes pressure off Biden, facing criticism from progressives for giving into what they call hostage-taking by Republicans.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told CBS that the White House and Jeffries should worry about whether caucus members will support the agreement.

___

Price reported from New York. Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.
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AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  The historic impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was just the first round of a Republican brawl over whether to banish one of their own in Americas biggest red state after years of criminal accusations.

Paxton and his allies, from former President Donald Trump to hard-right grassroots organizations across Texas, now wait to fight back in what Paxton hopes will be a friendlier arena: a trial in the state Senate.

It was still unclear Sunday when this will take place. The Republican-led Senate met to pass bills in the final days of the legislative session. But the chambers presiding officer, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, did not immediately address the Paxton impeachment.

Late Sunday, the House of Representatives investigating panel that initiated Paxton's impeachment issued a dozen new subpoenas for testimony and records from Paxton associates, businesses, banks and financial trusts. It was unclear how quickly those records and testimony could be collected ahead of a Senate trial.

Paxton has said he has full confidence as he awaits a Senate trial. His conservative allies there include his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who has not said whether she will recuse herself from the proceedings to determine whether her husband will be permanently removed from office.

For now, Texas' three-term attorney general is immediately suspended after the state House of Representatives on Saturday impeached Paxton on 20 articles that included bribery and abuse of public trust.

The decisive 121-23 vote amounted to a clear rebuke from the GOP-controlled chamber after nearly a decade of Republican lawmakers taking a mostly muted stance on Paxton's alleged misdeeds, which include felony securities fraud charges from 2015 and an ongoing FBI investigation into corruption accusations.

He is just the third sitting official in Texas' nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

"No one person should be above the law, least not the top law officer of the state of Texas, said Republican state Rep. David Spiller, who was part of a House investigative committee that this week revealed it had quietly been looking into Paxton for months.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has remained silent about Paxton all week , including after Saturday's impeachment. Abbott, who was the state's attorney general prior to Paxton's taking the job in 2015, has the power to appoint a temporary replacement pending the outcome in the Senate trial.

Final removal of Paxton would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Republican members are generally aligned with the party's hard right. Patrick, the presiding officer, has served as state chairman for Trump's campaigns in Texas.

A group of Senate Republicans issued identical statements late Saturday and Sunday saying they welcome and encourage communication from our constituents. But the group also said they now consider themselves jurors and will not discuss the Paxton case.

Before the vote Saturday, Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to Paxtons defense, with the senator calling the impeachment process a travesty and saying the attorney generals legal troubles should be left to the courts.

Free Ken Paxton, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, warning that if House Republicans proceeded with the impeachment, I will fight you.

Paxton, 60, decried the outcome in the House moments after scores of his fellow partisans voted for impeachment. His office pointed to internal reports that found no wrongdoing.

The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just, Paxton said. "It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning.

Lawmakers allied with Paxton tried to discredit the investigation by noting that hired investigators, not panel members, interviewed witnesses. They also said several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, tainting the impeachment, and that Republican legislators had too little time to review evidence.

I perceive it could be political weaponization, Rep. Tony Tinderholt, one of the Houses most conservative members, said before the vote. Republican Rep. John Smithee compared the proceeding to "a Saturday mob out for an afternoon lynching.

Rice University political science professor Mark P. Jones said the swift move to impeach kept Paxton from rallying significant support and allowed quietly frustrated Republicans to come together.

If you ask most Republicans privately, they feel Paxton is an embarrassment. But most were too afraid of the base to oppose him, Jones said. By voting as a large bloc, he added, the lawmakers gained political cover.

To Paxtons longstanding detractors, however, the rebuke was years overdue.

In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law, and a year later was indicted on securities fraud charges in his hometown near Dallas, accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of five to 99 years.

He opened a legal defense fund and accepted $100,000 from an executive whose company was under investigation by Paxtons office for Medicaid fraud. An additional $50,000 was donated by an Arizona retiree whose son Paxton later hired to a high-ranking job but soon was fired after displaying child pornography in a meeting. In 2020, Paxton intervened in a Colorado mountain community where a Texas donor and college classmate faced removal from his lakeside home under coronavirus orders.

But what ultimately unleashed the impeachment push was Paxton's relationship with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

In 2020, eight top aides told the FBI they were concerned Paxton was misusing his office to help Paul over the developer's unproven claims about an elaborate conspiracy to steal $200 million of his properties. The FBI searched Pauls home in 2019, but he has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. Paxton also told staff members he had an affair with a woman who, it later emerged, worked for Paul.

The impeachment accuses Paxton of attempting to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul. The bribery charges included in the impeachment allege Paul employed the woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and that he paid for expensive renovations to the attorney general's home. A senior lawyer for Paxtons office, Chris Hilton, said Friday that the attorney general paid for all repairs and renovations.

Other charges, including lying to investigators, date back to Paxtons still-pending securities fraud indictment.

Four aides who reported Paxton to the FBI later sued under Texas whistleblower law, and in February he agreed to settle the case for $3.3 million. The House committee said the probe was sparked by Paxton seeking legislative approval for the payout.

But for Paxtons own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful conduct, Paxton would not be facing impeachment, the panel said.

___

Bleiberg reported from Dallas.
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP)  Ukraine's capital was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of Russia's war, local officials said, as Kyiv prepared to mark the anniversary of its founding on Sunday. At least one person was killed, but officials said scores of drones were shot down, demonstrating Ukraine's air defense capability.

Russia launched the most massive attack on the city overnight Saturday with Iranian-made Shahed drones, said Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official. The attack lasted more than five hours, with air defense reportedly shooting down more than 40 drones.

A 41-year-old man was killed and a 35-year-old woman was hospitalized when debris fell on a seven-story nonresidential building and started a fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Debris from a drone damaged the building of the Ukrainian Society of the Blind. On Sunday morning, organization member Volodymyr Golubenko came to pick up his things. He was helped by his son Mykola, who searched for his fathers belongings among the rubble and at the same time tried to describe to his father what his office looks like now.

This wall on the right is destroyed and on left also, said Mykola to his father.

Volodymyr Golubenko worked at this place for more than 40 years. He says it is a home for many blind people, because they come here to talk and support each other.

If you dont even have a job, its difficult to get a job now, because these events (war) have been going on since last year. At least people come here to chat," said Volodymyr.

Like Golubenko, many people in his district heard the sound of Shahed drones for the first time. Among them was 36-year-old Yana, who has three boys. The family hid in a corridor all night.

Something started to explode above us. The children ran here in fear," said Yana.

Ukraine said that Saturday night was also record-breaking in terms of Shahed drone attacks across the country. Of the 59 drones launched, 58 were shot down by air defense systems, according to the military's General Staff.

Russia has repeatedly launched waves of drone attacks against Ukraine, but most are shot down. Ukraine has also claimed this month to have downed some of Russia's hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted as providing a key competitive advantage.

In the northeastern Kharkiv province, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said a 61-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were killed in two separate shelling attacks.

Kyiv Day marks the anniversary of the city's official founding. The day is usually celebrated with live concerts, street fairs, exhibitions and fireworks. Scaled-back festivities were planned for this year, the citys 1,541st anniversary.

The timing of the drone attacks was likely not coincidental, Ukrainian officials said.

The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians, Ukraine's chief presidential aide, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram.

Today, the enemy decided to congratulate the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), Popko also wrote on the messaging app.

Local officials in Russias southern Krasnodar region said that air defense systems destroyed several drones as they approached the Ilsky oil refinery. The Russia-backed governor of Luhansk province in Ukraine's far east, Leonid Pasechnik, said two people were killed Sunday in Ukrainian shelling of the town of Almaznaya.

Russias southern Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, also came under attack from Ukrainian forces on Saturday, local officials said. Regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported Sunday that a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy were wounded in the shelling.

Drone attacks against Russian border regions have been a regular occurrence since the start of the invasion in February 2022, with attacks increasing last month. Earlier this month, an oil refinery in Krasnodar was attacked by drones on two straight days.

Ukrainian air defenses, bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied systems, have been adept at thwarting Russian air attacks  both drones and aircraft missiles.

Earlier in May, Ukraine prevented an intense Russian air attack on Kyiv, shooting down all missiles aimed at the capital. The bombardment, which additionally targeted locations across Ukraine, included six Russian Kinzhal aero-ballistic hypersonic missiles, repeatedly touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin as providing a key strategic competitive advantage and among the most advanced weapons in his countrys arsenal.

Sophisticated Western air defense systems, including American-made Patriot missiles, have helped spare Kyiv from the kind of destruction witnessed along the main front line in Ukraine's east and south. While most of the ground fighting is stalemated along that front line, both sides are targeting other territory with long-range weapons.

Against the backdrop of Saturday nights drone attacks, Russia's ambassador to the U.K., Andrei Kelin, warned of an escalation in Ukraine. He told the BBC on Sunday his country had enormous resources and it was yet to act very seriously, cautioning that Western supplies of weapons to Ukraine risked escalating the war to a new dimension. The length of the conflict, he said, depends on the efforts in escalation of war that is being undertaken by NATO countries, especially by the U.K.

Kelins comments are typical of Russian officials rhetoric with regard to Moscow's military might, but contradict regular reports from the battlefield of Russian troops being poorly equipped and trained.

Also on Sunday, the death toll from Fridays missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional capital of the Dnipropetrovsk province, rose to four. Regional. Gov. Serhii Lysak said that three people who were considered missing were confirmed dead. There were 32 people, including two children, wounded in the attack, which struck a building containing psychology and veterinary clinics.

___

Elise Morton reported from London.

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Follow the APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  The Texas Legislature already made one historic move with its impeachment of Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton. Another one is coming.

The GOP-led House of Representatives on Saturday approved 20 articles of impeachment on sweeping allegations of wrongdoing that have trailed the state's top lawyer for years, including abuse of office and bribery. The vote immediately suspended Paxton from office.

But the intraparty brawl in the nation's largest conservative state, one that even drew political punches Saturday from former President Donald Trump, is far from over. The Republican-controlled Senate will hold a trial of Paxton next, and he and his allies hope conservatives there will save him.

One member of that chamber is his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, and she could cast a vote on her husband's political future, which is now in jeopardy in part because of bribery allegations linked to his extramarital affair.

THE SENATE

Impeachment in Texas is similar to the process on the federal level: After the House action, the Senate holds its trial.

The Senate announced Monday that the trial will start no later than Aug. 28.

The House needed just a simple majority of its 149 members to impeach Paxton, and the final 121-23 vote was a landslide. But the threshold for conviction in the Senate trial is higher, requiring a two-thirds majority of its 31 members.

If that happens, Ken Paxton would be permanently barred from holding office in Texas. Anything less means Paxton is acquitted and can resume his third term as attorney general.

Paxton bitterly criticized the chamber's investigation as corrupt, secret and conducted so quickly that he and his lawyers were not allowed to mount a defense. He also called Republican House Speaker Dade a liberal.

The Senate is led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Like Paxton, he is a Republican who has closely allied himself with Trump, and he has driven Texas' right-wing political and policy push for the last decade. Patrick has yet to comment on the impeachment or the House's allegations.

The Senate will set its own trial rules, and Patrick said Tuesday that will include sworn testimony from witnesses. It could also consider whether to excuse Angela Paxton from voting due to conflict of interest.

Angela Paxton on Monday declined comment on the impeachment, and on Tuesday, Patrick wouldn't say if Paxton would participate in her husband's trial in the Senate. He had suggested before the House impeachment vote that all 31 senators would vote in the trial.

The impeachment charges include bribery related to one of Paxtons donors, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, allegedly employing the woman with whom he had the affair in exchange for legal help.

Another Republican senator with a potential conflict is Sen. Bryan Hughes. The House impeachment articles accuse Paxton of using Hughes as a straw requestor for a legal opinion used to protect Paul from foreclosure on several properties.

State law requires all senators to be present for an impeachment trial.

REPUBLICAN ON REPUBLICAN

Paxton's impeachment has been led from the start by his fellow Republicans, in contrast to Americas most prominent recent examples of impeachment.

Trumps impeachments in 2020 and 2021 were driven by Democrats who had majority control of the U.S. House. In both cases, the charges they approved failed in the Senate, where Republicans had enough votes to block conviction.

In Texas, Republicans have large majorities in both chambers, and the states GOP leaders hold all levers of influence.

Paxton called for Republicans to rally to his defense during Saturday's vote in a peaceful protest at the Capitol. That echoed Trumps call for protests of his electoral defeat on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Paxton spoke at the rally in Washington that day before the insurrection.

Trump joined the fray in Texas on Saturday, posting on social media a warning to House members that I will fight you if they voted to impeach. A few hundred Paxton supporters came to watch from the gallery.

House Republicans didn't seem to care. Sixty of them, 71% of the chamber's GOP caucus, voted to impeach.

Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi, a Paxton ally, said the party would have to rely on the principled leadership of the Texas Senate to restore sanity and reason.

The move to the Senate could give Paxton's grassroots supporters and national figures like Trump time to apply more pressure.

YEARS IN THE MAKING

The impeachment reaches back to 2015, when Paxton was indicted on securities fraud charges for which he still has not stood trial. The lawmakers charged Paxton with making false statements to state securities regulators.

But most of the articles of impeachment stem from his connections to Paul and a remarkable revolt by Paxton's top deputies in 2020.

That fall, eight senior aides reported their boss to the FBI, accusing him of bribery and abusing his office to help Paul. Four of them later brought a whistleblower lawsuit. The report prompted a federal criminal investigation that in February was taken over by the U.S. Justice Departments Washington-based Public Integrity Section.

The impeachment charges cover myriad accusations related to Paxtons dealings with Paul. The allegations include attempts to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and improperly issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul, as well as firing, harassing and interfering with staff who reported what was going on. The bribery charges stem from the affair, as well as Paul allegedly paying for expensive renovations to Paxtons Austin home.

The fracas took a toll on the Texas attorney generals office, long one of the primary legal challengers to Democratic administrations in the White House.

In the years since Paxtons staff went to the FBI, the state attorney general's office has become unmoored by the disarray. Seasoned lawyers have quit over practices they say aim to slant legal work, reward loyalists and drum out dissent.

In February, Paxton agreed to settle the whistleblower lawsuit brought by the former aides. The $3.3 million payout must be approved by the Legislature, and Phelan has said he doesnt think taxpayers should foot the bill.

Shortly after the settlement was reached, the House investigation began.

TEXAS HISTORY

Paxton was already likely to be noted in history books for his unprecedented request that the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Bidens defeat of Trump in 2020. He now is one of just three sitting officials to have been impeached in Texas.

Gov. James Pa Ferguson was removed in 1917 for misapplication of public funds, embezzlement and the diversion of a special fund. State Judge O.P. Carrillo was forced from office in 1975 for personal use of public money and equipment and filing false financial statements.

___

Bleiberg reported from Dallas.
If youre among the people who think the housing crisis in Connecticut isnt real, or that towns should be left on their own to make things right, or maybe that if you want to live here you should just work harder, heres the deal you have to make  youre never again allowed to complain about the Connecticut economy.

You cant separate the two questions. Its hard to reach a consensus on anything, but weve come as close as were going to get on the housing crisis and its effect on Connecticuts economy. Despite good news on many fronts, our economy remains where its been for most of the past few decades  well behind where we should be. A lack of homes is a major driver.

There is no question about demand. Incredibly wealthy people want to live here, and since theyre one of the few subcategories that can afford to do so, they continue flocking to our state. There are jobs here, of the traditional sort but also opportunities for people to live here and work remotely. People want to live in Connecticut. Were making it impossible because there arent nearly enough homes.

Thats a choice. We can stay with a stagnant economy, puddling along while the rest of the world passes us by. Or we could build some housing. Its straightforward. But if you complain about our lack of growth, you dont get to argue for the housing status quo.

How to solve it? Thats easy, too. Pass a law with teeth. Mandate that towns meet the states needs, with penalties if they dont.

Forget about asking nicely. We cant even get towns to come up with plans for housing, let alone build it. The state passed a law saying all communities needed to come up with an outline for meeting housing needs, but with zero enforcement, dozens of them couldnt even be bothered to do that.

Despite decades of experience, we still see public officials seeking to effect change by hoping that recalcitrant parties will do the right thing. Its time to change tacks.

Take, for instance, Sen. Chris Murphy, who seems to have a plan these days for everything from TikTok to Ukraine. He pushed a law recently to take on one of our nations longest-standing crises. American public schools are more segregated than they have been in generations, he said in a news release. Almost 70 years since the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, we still have a lot of work to do.

Hes 100 percent right. Segregation of our schools is a national embarrassment, especially in blue-state Connecticut, where a town line and a few blocks can separate wealthy, nearly all-white schools from their struggling inner-city counterparts. Some senators want to change that.

How? By, of course, support(ing) voluntary local efforts and evaluating current policies as well as developing evidence-based plans.

Well also be checking up on some best practices. Maybe theres a blue-ribbon panel we can put together?

School segregation is a deep-seated problem, but its solutions are no mystery. Change the borders. Merge districts. The end.

The only reason we dont is that everyone wants to get reelected someday.

For that reason, elected officials tend to take on hard problems by hoping everyone will come around. Thats what a voluntary solution is all about, and it usually works about as well as youd expect. If youre trying to, say, cut pollution and you go about it by setting voluntary benchmarks, prepare to keep breathing dirty air.

Housing is the same way.

The state is at a critical juncture. The crisis is on nearly everyones minds, and the momentum to act is as strong as its ever been. The legislative sessions end is in sight. If the General Assembly does not act now, it is hard to know when there would ever be a better opportunity.

The legislation on the table is known as Fair Share, and it entails an examination of the states housing needs and a requirement for towns to act on those needs. There are a lot of moving parts and some negotiation is inevitable, but one aspect cannot be up for discussion  there must be meaningful enforcement.

Its not enough for towns to say they dont want to. They cant point to a 20-unit development built a generation ago and say theyre doing they part. They cant say the state should keep out while their actions limit everyones opportunities.

Fair Share is not a new concept, because its based on a successful law in New Jersey. Its not going to bankrupt communities, because there are developers ready to move on housing all around the region who are held up by local zoning. There are questions to be worked out, but this is about opening doors to building, rather than keeping them nailed shut.

Young people see no future in Connecticut because their options are so limited. Anyone who wants something other than a single-family home is told to look elsewhere, and even people who want what the state offers in abundance end up priced out by lack of supply. We arent doing nearly enough to welcome all the people who want to be here.

Next year will be an election year. We have a surplus. The need is unquestionable. Its time for reluctant legislators to realize the stakes, pass Fair Share and move Connecticut into the future.
Its a sign of major disruption when governments are ahead of the curve compared to major companies, but thats exactly whats happening with hybrid work.

Flexibility has become a cornerstone of the modern public sector workplace, as we can see from recent U.S. and Canadian federal government negotiations with workers and New York Citys agreement with its largest municipal union. Its clear that flexibility is more important than ever, and private companies would do well to take notice and implement a data-driven, employee-centric approach to hybrid work.

The negotiations between the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and the Canadian federal government emphasized the importance of remote work. The government agreed to review remote work arrangements on a case-by-case basis, moving away from a one-size-fits-all policy. This outcome demonstrates a commitment to tailoring work arrangements to the needs of individual employees.

In turn, the U.S. federal government has recently asked agencies to evaluate how to strike a balance between increasing in-person work where necessary, while still ensuring remote work flexibilities. That balanced approach  focusing on in-person work only where necessary  aligns with the new case-by-case approach of the Canadian government, and reflects the U.S. governments negotiations with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union. It goes against the top-down, one-size-fits-all, command-and-control policies of companies like Amazon, Starbucks, Disney, Apple, and many others.

In a move that echoes the federal governments actions, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a tentative contract agreement with District Council 37 (DC 37), the citys largest municipal union. This agreement includes a plan to allow some non-essential city employees to work remotely starting in June, with a flexible work committee established to oversee the pilot program.

The contract reflects a shift in Adams position on hybrid work. Previously an advocate for strict return-to-office policies, Adams acknowledged the need for flexibility in the face of high vacancy rates and increased demand for hybrid work opportunities. This decision by New York City, a global business hub, sends a clear message: flexibility is the future of work, and organizations must adapt to stay relevant.

Embracing flexibility a necessity

Both the two federal governments and New York Citys actions serve as valuable lessons for private companies. As the world of work continues to evolve, embracing flexibility isnt just a perk  its a necessity.

First, flexibility boosts employee satisfaction and morale. As demonstrated by the negotiations with PSAC, AFGE, and DC 37, workers increasingly value the ability to work remotely or on a hybrid schedule. Companies that accommodate these preferences will find it easier to attract and retain top talent.

Second, flexibility leads to increased productivity. Studies have shown that employees working in a hybrid or remote environment are more productive than their office-bound counterparts. By allowing workers to choose where and when they work, companies can capitalize on this increased efficiency.

Finally, flexibility promotes inclusivity. Remote and hybrid work arrangements can help level the playing field for employees who may face barriers in traditional office settings, such as those with disabilities or caregiving responsibilities. By fostering a more inclusive workplace, and addressing bias, companies stand to benefit from a diverse range of perspectives and ideas.

As governments pave the way for flexible work, the private sector must follow their lead or risk losing out on top talent. The benefits of embracing flexibility are numerous: increased employee satisfaction, improved productivity, and a more inclusive workplace. By adopting flexible work policies, companies and government agencies alike not only enhance their internal operations but also contribute to a broader cultural shift that values work-life balance and well-being.

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky serves as the CEO of the hybrid work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts and authored Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams.

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VANCOUVER - Leaner snowpack in Western Canada and United States mountain ranges is causing drier summers and increasing wildfire risk, says a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Lead author Kate Hale said her team analyzed mountain snow data and found snowpack water storage decreased more than 25 per cent from 1950 to 2013. This, she said, can be attributed to earlier snowmelt, less snowfall and more rain.

We actually saw some of the strongest signals up in the Canadian Rockies, by way of this decrease in snowfall and then earlier snowmelts and rainfall generation, Hale said in an interview.

Snowmelt serves as the primary water resource in western mountain regions, the study says. The ranges store snow throughout the winter, which then melts during spring and summer months when demand for water peaks.

Hale said snow in these regions typically wouldnt start melting until late May or June, but has begun showing signs of snow thawing as early as March.

Such a shift in snowmelt may pose challenges for residents as much of the infrastructure in these regions were designed to adapt to when water becomes available, Hale said.

The snowmelts are providing most of the downstream water resources, such that if there is more snowmelt occurring earlier in the year, that means there will be less available for later in the year, she said.

Holly Chubb, a climate researcher at the University of British Columbia, agreed, saying a serious decline in the snowpack would cause cascading issues for energy security in B.C.

We rely on hydroelectric power as a major source to power our businesses, our homes and our schools, and the hydroelectric power is generally fed from the glacier, which fills our reservoirs, she said in an interview.

We may have to really adjust our usage, our consumption, and think about actually how we are utilizing hydro power in B.C.

She said changes in snowmelt may impact soil and lead to an increase in the size and duration of wildfires.

It could also disrupt wildlife, she added. For instance, she said early snowmelt could shift the volume and temperature of rivers, which could prevent fish from spawning and reduce the provinces salmon population.

All of this information about the timing of snow melting is really, really essential to our cultural, economic and general energy security in British Columbia, she said.

She suggested governments follow advice from Indigenous leaders.

They have seen the changes in this landscape for thousands of years, she said. They have a deep knowledge and relationship with the land, with salmon, with bears that we do not have and that knowledge system is incredibly valuable.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2023.

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

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LETHBRIDGE Jill Skriver says she never thought shed support UCP Leader Danielle Smith again.

Skriver had been a Smith supporter years ago. That changed in 2014, when it emerged that the then-leader of the Wildrose Party would be jumping ship to join the governing Progressive Conservatives, along with eight of her MLAs.

For Wildrose supporters, it was a betrayal.

I was begging her not to; I was furious when she did. I didnt think Id ever forgive her in life, the 63-year-old said recently after an hour-long candidates debate in Lethbridge, Alta.

For Smith, the defection was a defining moment  it led to her banishment from politics. But she turned it into an opportunity and started, knowingly or unknowingly, paving a path back to the political spotlight.

That comeback could be made complete this Monday, when Albertans go to the polls for a provincial election, as Smith vies with NDP leader Rachel Notley for the premiers office.

But the question that has been hanging over much of this campaign has been whether voters  including conservative-leaning voters  would embrace a UCP led by Smith, who has a penchant for making outrageous remarks. Her comments and policy ideas have repeatedly grabbed national headlines, and the Danielle Smith question is one that her party has been hearing on the doorsteps during this campaign, insiders say.

Skriver is a right-leaning voter who is keenly tuned in to whats happening politically in Alberta.

On this day, shes been taking in the Lethbridge-East candidates debate between the UCPs Nathan Neudorf and the NDPs Rob Miyashiro. From her wheelchair, Skriver came to the audience microphone to ask both candidates pointed questions in the middle of the crowd of about 100 people.

Skriver remembers vividly how she seethed over the Smith move in 2014. But what has helped her forgive, she said, was Smiths time as a talk show radio host, after her departure from politics.

Smith spent years on air engaging in the kind of provocative and engaging conversation that drew in right-leaning listeners. During the pandemic, Smith criticized government policies, including vaccine mandates. Those opinions helped position her to win the UCP leadership election last October, after Premier Jason Kenney was forced out.

For Skriver, it was that knack for tackling tough topics, including health-care privatization, that endeared Smith to her again: She is obviously willing to listen to everybodys opinion and she is able to either back off or come forward stronger.

But as much as her radio time helped Smith reconnect with voters, its a period in her life the UCP leader has seemingly been trying to distance herself from during this campaign.

Opponents have pulled clip after clip from the past several years of Smiths life  many not from her time on the air  where shes advocated for private health care or compared vaccinated people to the followers of Hitler. Such comments have sent a chill through some of the Alberta electorate and called into question the UCPs chances at forming government over Notleys NDP.

Supporters of Smith, meanwhile, say they like that she owns her mistakes and apologizes for them (many of them, anyway).

Shes done some things that are wrong, said Skriver. But shes very quick to correct herself as well.

Ellyn Daly, who has lived in Lethbridge for about six years, is a Smith supporter who said she knows Smith has said controversial things in the past. Shes backing the UCP anyway because she trusts the party with the economy.

There are times, of course, when Ive thought, Oh, thats unfortunate or thats taken out of context, she said, adding that there are things Notley has said she finds offensive, too.

They are both women who have done some things that maybe theyre not necessarily proud of, but theyre human beings. And, you know, I get it. Its a thankless job. I wouldnt want to be either one of them running for election.

Do Daly and Skriver represent many conservatives? Polls have found quite a few reluctant UCP voters in Alberta  folks who supported the party in 2019, but are questioning doing so again.

And at doorsteps, UCP insiders say, they hear a lot of apprehension from people about Smith in key ridings, particularly in Calgary and on the outskirts of Edmonton.

Public polling data has pegged the race as being extremely tight between the NDP and UCP.

Nathan Neudorf was first elected in 2019 and is considered a moderate conservative by many. When Smith became premier, she made him one of two deputy premiers as well as minister of infrastructure. Now, hes in a pitched fight in the riding of Lethbridge-East where the NDP see an opportunity to flip a UCP seat.

During an interview at his campaign office  an unassuming space that looks like it was once an office supplies store in a strip mall  he acknowledges the hesitation, in a riding that went UCP blue in 2019, about Smiths leadership.

And he said he doesnt try to defend the things shes said when hes out knocking on doors.

Neudorf said those can be difficult conversations to have when hes speaking to voters.

I dont try to justify those things to them. What I try to do is say, please look at the team, he said.

One person isnt the whole of government.

Its been no secret throughout the election campaign in Alberta this month that the party has tried to push the conservative brand more than Smith personally. Its an interesting contrast to the NDP, which has leaned on Notleys personal popularity.

On one hand, she doesnt have ultimate power, Neudorf said of Smith. One person does not a majority make, and she works with our teams.

On the other, Neudorf said that Smith has shown him that she can be an effective leader.

What I have experienced of her in office, particularly as Ive gotten to know her, is her deep, deep commitment to grassroots democracy and every elected member, particularly within our caucus, having that say, he said.

Neudorf said he is a relationships first kind of guy and admits he would have liked to have seen his former leader, Kenney, stay on for his full four years. Thats not a slight toward Smith  Neudorf said he believes Smith should be given that same opportunity should the party win Monday.

Its a somewhat consequential statement to make publicly for Neudorf, as insiders have said there is already talk of a revolt against Smith, even if she does pull off a win. How serious that talk is remains to be seen, but Smith certainly has detractors in her own party, much as Kenney did.

We are a democratic province, we are a democratic party, so well see some of what happens, he said.

Until then, I will continue to support and bring Lethbridges top issues to the conversations that they need to and try to represent their voice at every table.

The race is expected to be close.

But theres a redemption story at the heart of this election campaign for Smith, and she seems like she has a knack for seeing those through. This election may be the final test of that quality and leave many Albertans, and indeed Canadians, wondering what this new leader  once a champion of further sovereignty for the province and additional private health-care options  will accomplish if elected.

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In The Fire Still Burns: Life in and after Residential School, Squamish Elder Sam George writes about his childhood on a reserve in North Vancouver, starting residential school at age seven, and the addiction and violence that would follow. It would be many troubled years before he began healing and helping others with similar experiences.

I remember my first day of residential school vividly. I remember that I was playing at home on the floor of the living room with my brother Andy, when there was a knock on the door.

It was a strange thing because on the reserve no one ever knocked. I remember my parents opening the door and a man coming inside and talking to them. Whatever they were talking about seemed to make my mom really upset and my dad really cross. I looked the strange man up and down. He was an older white guy. He had grey hair combed right back. He wore glasses, a kind of heavy suit jacket, and brown pants. I came to know that his name was Mr. Taylor and he was an Indian agent.

After talking to my parents at the front door for a few minutes, Mr. Taylor made his way into the house. I didnt understand what they had been talking about, but I remember having the sense that it was about us kids.

Shortly thereafter  days or weeks  my mom got all of us kids together and said, Put your coats and your shoes on. Youre going with your dad. I dont know why my older siblings hadnt gone to school before me, but we did what we were told; we all got dressed up and made our way out the front door.

I didnt know where we were going. I remember walking away from our house and looking back at my mom standing on the porch. She looked so sad, like she was going to cry. We kept on walking.

My best guess was that we were walking to my Taah and Papas (grandparents) house. My brother Andy and I walked a little behind, goofing around and play-fighting, the way boys do. My dad, who walked holding my sisters hands, seemed off, but I paid no mind. By this time, my oldest brother, Ross, was around 15 and working with my dad as a longshoreman, so he wasnt with us.

We walked the half a block to my Taahs house, but when we got there, we walked past it. We walked another block, to the foot of the hill. I looked up at Andy, who was looking back at me. We both knew what was on top of that hill, casting a shadow over the reserve. We knew that all the kids who walked up that hill disappeared.

Andy and I joined our dad and sisters in silence, and we solemnly walked the final two blocks up the hill to our new residence, four blocks from our house: St. Pauls Indian Residential School.

When we got to the school, we walked up a set of old, worn-out stairs. The school was really old and dingy. It was a greyish-white colour, and all the paint was cracked and peeling. When we got to the top of the stairs, there was a door. My dad knocked. A nun named Mother Michaela, who was the schools principal, opened the door and told us kids to sit down.

She was a tall, thin-faced woman, maybe in her fifties, with really sharp features. She wore glasses, and you could tell by the way she spoke that she was in charge, that if you disobeyed her, there would be consequences. I never saw her smile.

My dad walked into her office, and I could see him signing papers. I didnt know it then, but he was signing our lives away. When he was finished, he walked out of the office, looked down at us. You kids listen, and you be good.

He turned toward Mother Michaela. Take good care of my kids.

And then he left. He never said goodbye. He never hugged us. He just turned around and walked out. Im sure he and my mom werent happy when we went off. Maybe they hoped it would be different for us.

I remember being confused and scared. I remember that feeling of being abandoned. It was a lot for a seven-year-old. Little did I know that it was only the beginning of the trauma that would suffocate my innocence and change my life forever. It would be a long time before I would ever have the opportunity to process what was happening to my siblings and me.

Before we knew it, two nuns came in, one for my sisters and one for me and my brother. They led us off in separate ways. These nuns looked scary, alien. They wore long black tunics with a hood-like headdress. Each of them had a big rosary and silver cross hanging from their hip, and on their other hip they had a strap.

The strap was a piece of leather or rubber, maybe a foot long and about a quarter-inch thick by about two inches wide; it was used specifically to beat the kids. All the nuns always carried their straps hanging from their hip.

We followed the nun with her strap through a huge dining hall. There were three or four big old tables with benches on each side, and a divider in the middle of the room, with a similar layout on the other side. I saw into a kitchen that had a big, long wood-burning stove. We kept following her up a set of stairs.

I could see the paint peeling and feel the wetness of the old wood in my nose. The stairs led into a dark hallway. There wasnt even a light in the hallway. She looked at us, told Andy to wait where he was, and instructed me to follow her.

She led me into a big dormitory. I took in the room and saw all the single-sized cots lined up in a row. She motioned to a bed and told me that every time I was brought to this room, I was to go to this bed. I sat down on the bed. The nun left the room and, unbeknownst to me, did the same routine with my brother in a different dormitory.

I was glued to the bed. My eyes searched the dimly lit room. A single light bulb illuminated the whole room. There was a small bathroom in the corner of the room, which looked to have four or five sinks and a metal wall that functioned as a mirror. At the end of the row of beds, there was one small window. At something like one foot by two feet, and covered by a drawn curtain, it didnt add much brightness to the room. I felt paralyzed.

When the nun came back, she told me to take my clothes off. Once I was naked, she grabbed my clothes and told me to follow her again. I followed her into a curtained-off area they called the medicine room. When I walked into the room, my brother was sitting in a chair wrapped in a bedsheet. The man standing above him, with shears in his hands, had just shaved his head.

The man took off and shook out the sheet that had covered Andy and motioned for me to take my brothers place. Andy, who stood about four feet away from me, stared at me blankly. He kept staring until the nun asked him to cover his eyes with one hand and his mouth with the other.

When he had done as she had asked, she took some sort of pump and started spraying him down with a white powder. She sprayed him everywhere: front and back, under his feet, and in between his legs. They wanted us to be white so badly. When he was caked in the stuff, another nun came and grabbed him, and, without being prompted, I knew what I was to do.

And so I stood in Andys footprints and she started spraying me. I thought to myself that it must be some kind of strong detergent because of the smell. It made me feel dizzy and nauseous. After she was done, she gave me instructions not to touch it or clean it off, assuring me that it would naturally come off. I found out some time later that it was pesticide.

Covered in pesticide, I followed the nun back to the dormitory, where there sat a stack of clothes on my bed. She told me to get dressed. While doing so, I noticed that all the clothes had the number 3 embroidered on them. All the children at the school got numbers: the boys got odd numbers and the girls got even numbers. I was number 3.

A lot of the time, the nuns wouldnt even use your name. They would just say, Hey, number 3, come over here.

After I was dressed, I followed the nun once again, this time to a classroom downstairs. The classroom, which was for Grades 1, 2 and 3, was huge. All of the desks were big and heavy, and made of cast iron. The walls were lined with all of the schools new kids, while the centre of the room was occupied by playing children. The playing children were inside because it was pouring rain.

I saw my brother and quickly made my way over to sit beside him. We didnt say anything. Rather, we scanned the room, making note of all the children. Some of them were our friends and cousins who had disappeared from the reserve. Some even came over and said hi to us. We sat there until one of the nuns rang a bell.

All the kids stopped playing immediately and formed a line. Not knowing what to do, all of us new kids just sat there. The nun who had taken my clothes and sprayed me down informed us that we were to line up based on our assigned numbers, sharing that if you had a little brother, you were to help him find his place in the line.

Single file, we made our way into the dining hall that I had walked through earlier. I thought we were supposed to sit, but a boy put his hand out in front of me, telling me to stay in the line.

Beyond the divider that separated the room into two, I could see the girls coming into the room. The divider was used to segregate the girls and boys. I remember looking for my little sister  Honey Bee  in the crowd. I spotted her and started to wave, but she wouldnt look at me. She just looked straight ahead. A nun ran over to me.

Dont look around! Either you look straight ahead or you look down, she said in a raised voice. After all of the girls had entered the room, I bowed my head and looked down as all of us children knelt and prayed to their god.

Excerpted with permission from The Fire Still Burns: Life in and After Residential School by Sam George, with Jill Yonit Goldberg, Liam Belson, Dylan MacPhee and Tanis Wilson, 2023, Purich Books, an imprint of UBC Press, Vancouver and Toronto, Canada. For more information go to www.ubcpress.ca.

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NEW DELHI (AP)  Indias major opposition parties on Sunday boycotted the inauguration of a new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a rare show of unity against his Hindu nationalist ruling party, which has ruled for nine years and is seeking a third term in next years elections.

Modi inaugurated the new Parliament in the capital of New Delhi by offering prayers as Hindu priests chanted religious hymns. Opposition parties criticized the event saying Modi had sidelined President Droupadi Murmu, who has only ceremonial powers but is the head of state and highest constitutional authority.

Shortly after the inauguration, a visibly beaming Modi entered Parliament amid a rousing applause by his party lawmakers who chanted Modi, Modi. He delivered an almost 40-minute speech in which he hailed Indias parliamentary democracy and said the country had left behind its colonial past, referring to the old Parliament building that was built by the British when they ruled India.

India is the mother of democracy, Modi said, as lawmakers thumped their desks. Several years of foreign rule stole our pride from us. Today, India has left behind that colonial mindset.

The opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted: Parliament is the voice of the people. The Prime Minister is considering the inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation.

At least 19 opposition parties skipped the event, which coincided with the birth anniversary of a Hindu nationalist ideologue.

Opposition parties said in a statement Wednesday that Modis decision to inaugurate the building was a grave insult to Indias democracy, because the government had disqualified, suspended and muted opposition lawmakers while passing controversial legislation with little debate.

When the soul of democracy has been sucked out from the parliament, we find no value in a new building, the parties said.

Indias powerful Home Minister Amit Shah said the opposition had politicized the event. Other leaders from Modis party said the boycott was an insult to the prime minister.

The new triangular-shaped building  built at an estimated cost of $120 million  is part of a $2.8 billion revamp of British-era offices and residences in central New Delhi that will also include blocks of buildings to house government ministries and departments, and Modis new private residence. The entire project, called the Central Vista, is spread over 3.2 kilometers (1.9 miles).

The project was announced in 2019, and Modi laid the foundation in December 2020.

The plan has drawn intense criticism from opposition politicians, architects and heritage experts, many of whom called it environmentally irresponsible, a threat to cultural heritage and too expensive.

Outrage grew in 2021, when at least 12 opposition parties questioned the projects timing, saying it was built as the country faced a devastating surge in coronavirus cases. They branded the revamp as Modis vanity project and said its construction was prioritized over the loss of lives and livelihoods during the pandemic.

A year earlier, a group of 60 former civil servants wrote an open letter to Modi to highlight the architectural value of the old Parliament and said the new plan would irrevocably destroy the areas cultural heritage.

Modis government has said the overhaul was necessary because the older building was showing signs of distress and overutilization and that the new design combines the countrys heritage and traditions.

The new building sits just across from Indias old Parliament, a circular structure designed by British architects in the early 20th century. The new four-story building has a total of 1,272 seats in two chambers, almost 500 more than the previous one.

The old Parliament will be converted into a museum.

During the televised ceremony Sunday, Modi prostrated himself before a royal golden scepter that his Bharatiya Janata Party says symbolized the transfer of power when it was gifted to the countrys first prime minister on the eve of Indias independence from Britain in 1947. Dozens of Hindu priests followed Modi inside Parliament, where he installed the scepter near the chair of the speaker.

Modis critics and opposition leaders have questioned the scepters historicity and said the emblem is appropriate for a monarchy, not a democracy.

Last year, Modi inaugurated a refurbished colonial-era avenue in the heart of New Delhi that is used for ceremonial military parades. The boulevard was earlier called Rajpath, or Kingsway, but Modis party changed it to Kartavya Path, or Road to Duty, arguing the old name was a symbol of slavery that had been erased forever.

The controversy over the new legislative building comes just months after opposition leaders protested Gandhis disqualification from Parliament in a defamation case over remarks he made about Modis surname.

Barely a mile away from the ceremony, a heavy police presence overpowered about 100 protesting Indian wrestlers and their supporters. They accuse their federation president of sexual misconduct and had planned to march to the new Parliament building. Some of the protesters scuffled with police and were taken away in a bus.

Wrestling Federation of India President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who has denied the accusations, is a powerful lawmaker from Modis party.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. Two Iranian border guards have been killed in clashes with Taliban forces at the joint border with Afghanistan, Trend reports citing Iranian media.

In clashes that took place on Saturday morning at the Sasuli border post, located in Iran's Zabol county, the Iranian border guards fired back at the Taliban forces.

Two civilians are said to have been injured in the incident.

That comes as the commander of the Sasuli border post had been martyred by Taliban forces last week.
CHICAGO (AP)  During Donald Trumps first visit as president to Chicago, a frequent target in his attacks on urban violence, he disparaged the nations third largest city as a haven for criminals and a national embarrassment.

At a recent town hall, Republican presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy sat alongside ex-convicts on the citys South Side and promised to defend Trumps America First agenda. In return, the little-known White House hopeful, a child of Indian immigrants, found a flicker of acceptance in a room full of Black and brown voters.

The audience nodded when Ramaswamy said that anti-Black racism is on the rise, even if they took issue with his promise to eliminate affirmative action and fight woke policies.

Yes, we criticize the Democratic Party, and for good reason, for talking a big game about helping Black Americans without doing very much to actually show up and help on the ground, he said later. But we on our side also talk a big game about America First without actually bringing all of America along with us.

Race has emerged as a central issue  and a delicate one  in the 2024 presidential contest as the GOPs primary field so far features four candidates of color, making it among the most racially diverse ever.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the first Black senator in the South since Reconstruction, entered the contest earlier in the month. He joined Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador who is of Indian descent, and Larry Elder, an African American raised in Los Angeles South Central neighborhood who came to national attention as a candidate in the failed effort two years ago to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who is of Cuban descent, says he may enter the race in the coming days.

Most of the candidates of color are considered underdogs in a field currently dominated by Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Yet the partys increasingly diverse leadership, backed by evolving politics on issues such as immigration, suggest the GOP may have a real opportunity in 2024 to further weaken the Democrats grip on African Americans and Latinos. Those groups have been among the most loyal segments of the Democratic coalition since Republican leaders fought against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Republican presidential contenders of 2024 walk a fine line when addressing race with the GOPs overwhelmingly white primary electorate.

In most cases, the diverse candidates in the Republican field play down the significance of their racial heritage. They all deny the existence of systemic racism in the United States even while discussing their own personal experience with racial discrimination. They oppose policies around policing, voting rights and education that are specifically designed to benefit disadvantaged communities and combat structural racism.

The NAACP recently issued a travel advisory for the state of Florida under DeSantis leadership, warning of open hostility toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. The notice calls out new policies enacted by the governor that include blocking public schools from teaching students about systemic racism and defunding programs aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Republican presidential candidates of color largely support DeSantis positions.

Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, said the GOPs policies are far more important than the racial and ethnic diversity of their presidential candidates. He noted there also were four Republican candidates of color in 2016, the year Trump won the White House after exploiting tensions over race and immigration.

White nationalists, insurrectionists and white supremacists seem to find comfort in the (Republican) Party, Morial said. I think were beyond the politics of just the face of a person of color by itself appealing to people of color. What do you stand for?

With few exceptions, the Republican candidates who have entered the presidential primary field have embraced the GOP's anti-woke agenda, which is based on the notion that policies designed to address systemic inequities related to race, gender or sexuality are inherently unfair or even dangerous.

DeSantis this past week described such policies as cultural Marxism.

Still, the GOPs diverse field is not ignoring race. Indeed, some candidates are making their race a central theme in their appeal to Republican primary voters even as they deny that people of color face systemic challenges.

Scott insisted that America is not a racist country in his recent announcement speech.

We are not defined by the color of our skin. We are defined by the content of our character. And if anyone tells you anything different, theyre lying, he said.

In her announcement video, Haley noted that she was raised in a small town in South Carolina as the proud daughter of Indian immigrants  not black, not white, I was different. Like Scott, she has defended the GOP against charges of racism.

Some think our ideas are not just wrong, but racist and evil, Haley said. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Elder is quick to criticize the Democrats woke agenda, Black Lives Matter and the notion of systemic racism.

Critics say such messages are actually designed to win over suburban white voters more than to attract voters of color. But on the South Side of Chicago on a recent Friday afternoon, there were signs that some Black voters were open to the GOPs new messengers, given their frustration with both political parties.

One attendee at Ramaswamys town hall waved a flyer for a Biden boycott because the Democratic president has not signaled whether he supports reparations for the descendants of slaves, although Biden did back a congressional effort to study the issue. None of the GOPs presidential candidates supports reparations, either.

Others condemned Democrats, in Chicago and in Washington, for working harder to help immigrants who are in the country illegally than struggling African American citizens.

Federal officials were preparing to relocate hundreds of migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to the South Side, even as many local residents struggled with violence and difficult economic conditions.

It is certainly true that there are multiple shades of melanin in this Republican race, Ramaswamy said in an interview before the event. I think that in some ways dispels the myth that much of the left will perpetuate that this is somehow you know, a racist party or whatever drivel.

He added: But personally, I could care less what someones skin color is. I think what matters is, what are they going to accomplish? Whats their vision?

As of now, the GOP does not have any Hispanic candidates in the 2024 contest. But Suarez, the Miami mayor, said he may change that in the coming days.

I think its important the field does have candidates that can connect with and motivate Hispanics to continue a trend thats already happening, he said in an interview, noting that hes very strongly considering a White House bid. Democrats have failed miserably to connect with Hispanics.

A majority of Latino voters supported Biden in the 2020 presidential contest, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive national survey of the electorate. But Trump cut into that support in some competitive states, including Florida and Nevada, revealing important shifts among Latinos from many different cultural backgrounds.

In last falls midterm elections, support grew for Republican candidates among Black voters, although they remained overwhelmingly supportive of Democrats, AP Votecast found. Overall, Republican candidates were backed by 14% of Black voters, compared with 8% in the midterm elections four years earlier.

While the shifts may be relatively small, strategists in both parties acknowledge that any shift is significant given how close some elections may be in 2024.

In Chicago, Tyrone Muhammad, who leads Ex-Cons for Social Change, lashed out at Republicans for being losers for not seizing a very real opportunity to win over more African Americans. While sitting next to Ramaswamy on stage, he also declared that the Republican Party is racist.

Later, he said he actually voted for Trump in 2020 because Trump enacted a criminal justice bill that aimed to shorten prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and address racial inequalities in the justice system. While the GOP has since embraced tough-on-crime rhetoric, Muhammed noted that Biden as a senator helped pass the 1994 crime bill that led to the mass incarceration of Black people.

Muhammad said he might vote Republican again in 2024, despite the partys shortcomings. He pointed to the GOPs fight against illegal immigration as a core reason for support.

I may not like you as an individual, but I like your issues, I like your policies, he said.

___

Fields reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about APs democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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VICTORIA - It was a sizable British Columbia political issue that called for a one-size-fits-all solution, says Premier David Eby, who at six foot seven inches is the provinces tallest leader.

The tall and the short needed evening out as matters of perception and fairness, he said.

Eby towers over most people at news conferences but is juxtaposed with Selina Robinson, minister of post-secondary education and future skills, who at four foot 11 inches often needs to stand on boxes to reach the microphone.

The solution: a mechanical podium, which debuted shortly after Eby took office late last year. It can be moved up or down with the flick of a switch to suit the size of the person delivering remarks at a political event.

You might describe me as an unusually tall person, or disturbingly tall person to some people, Eby told reporters last week. My colleague Selina Robinson is a much tinier person and we have a whole range of people in between, so the podium moves up and down to accommodate everybodys ability to speak.

The premier said people have expressed surprise  and thanks  as the podium lifts or lowers to accommodate their height.

One such person was Tracy Redies, chief executive officer at Vancouvers Science World, who joined Eby for a news conference last month where the province announced $20 million to repair the iconic domed buildings leaky roof.

This pulpits amazing, she said. The science, the technology.

Eby said the podium, which has gained the nickname explodium at the legislature, is a functional success.

Its an important innovation in B.C. where we are never short of innovations or remarkable ways to solve problems, he chuckled. When we go to events around the community, it does draw attention from speakers who arent used to it, especially when it moves unexpectedly. I think everybody enjoys it. Its fun and it works.

But, some concerns about the podium have been raised by the Opposition BC United and a communications expert who suggests the structure reinforces old-school political traditions.

BC United finance critic Peter Milobar said the Opposition has questions about the cost of the podium, but the government hasnt provided answers.

We all understand the premier is tall, but the fact we need these extra-wide, telescopic-type podiums just seems to be a potentially expensive thing for the taxpayer, he said.

Milobar said it appears the podium is more of a political prop used to enhance Ebys image.

Its fair to say Im not an average-sized person, but Im not too worried about which podium Im standing behind to make important political announcements, he said.

While Ebys podium is not the biggest news story at the legislature, it symbolizes the stereotyped visual culture of politics,said David Black, a political communications expert at Victorias Royal Roads University.

I think the podium, where you want to adjust for a tall person like David Eby or a shorter person like Selina Robinson, is all about just creating this necessary visual conformity so that no one is stepping on the message, he said.

B.C.s development of a podium that fits all sizes is a metaphor for a political culture that is resistant to change, Black said.

When you break the visual code or political style or tamper with conservative visual culture when it comes to politics, you step on the message, he said. It becomes, fairly or not, read as a gaffe, sometimes a career-ending gaffe.

Former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day was widely criticized more than two decades ago for arriving at a B.C. lakeside news conference riding a Jet Ski, Black said.

Former U.S. president Barack Obama faced fierce criticism for wearing a tan-coloured suit, he said.

He wore a tan-coloured suit and it was the end of American democracy, Black said.

But federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievres backyard neighbourhood video statements are signs of a politician looking to break visual codes, as was former Toronto mayor Rob Fords everyman appearance, said Black.

My question is, in some sense, do we need to rethink the language of politics, the visual style of politics, because is it exhausted? he said. Is it obsolete? Has it exhausted its reassuring quality?

Robinson said shes pleased with the fairness of the podium, especially after years of standing on crates to raise her profile.

Having a podium that actually fits me is great, and one that fits the premier is great, she said.

This is an accessibility piece of furniture and I think it works the way its supposed to. Its recognizing we all come in different shapes and sizes and having furniture that fits us regardless of how tall or small we are is a good thing.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2023.

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Lately Ive had this hunted feeling, that digital forces increasingly want things from us that we are unwilling to give. I used to be blithe about it and give myself up to pestering technology, but now Im suspicious.

I have an HP printer and for a decade bought the most precious and overpriced material on the planet, printer ink, worth more than lithium, coltan and cobalt. At one point, HP mysteriously began to thank me for buying its ink and rewarded me with free video games I did not play.

It was worried because customers had a new option: buy cut-price no-name ink for HP printers that was sold cheaply in order to make a fortune on HP ink. You thought your printer was a first date; you had married an extortionist.

Take journalist Charlie Warzel who bought an HP printer and had inattentively subscribed to Instant Ink, its auto-refill program. When his credit card expired, he writes, it stopped paying for the mandated ink, so HP shut down his printer remotely. He says his debt to Instant Ink grew.

In other words, HP still owned the printer he bought. He was effectively becoming an indentured servant of HP. My printer is old; when it breaks and I buy a new one, must I enter servitude as well? If I use homemade ink, will it refuse to print?

As Warzel pointed out, Tesla does this too with updates altering the car you bought. Is Tesla owner Elon Musk benevolent? Are hyenas reasonable? Are vultures picky eaters? Musk can stop that car cold, as he wishes.

Jeff Bezos birthed Amazon by selling books, not because they were worthy but because they were easily stocked, packaged and shipped. Actual bookstores disappeared.

Sadly, Bezos discovered pleasure late in life. He has just built a $681-million yacht (it has sails!) to carry Lauren Sanchez and the weight of her engagement ring, while a smaller yacht (it has engines!) trails behind with toys like helicopters, ATVs, and even smaller boats. Hes a happy man.

Andy Jassy now runs Amazon. Not a detail man like Bezos, I note. He has stopped selling most books and has just closed Book Depository with its massive warehouses of older stock.

Amazon changed its deal. Books were my heroin; Im getting dopesick. We buy digital books, but the truth is we never truly own them. They can be withdrawn, even edited in the same way that older books are being reissued minus offensive bits.

The next weirdness: companies want to get to know customers in voyeuristic ways. Cookies arent harmless; they surveil me online and send me ads that seem increasingly like harassment  camo codpieces, mens assless underwear  rather than personalized. Is it incompetence? Prurience?

A Toronto museum sent me a long questionnaire, checking if I was worth cultivating for donations. It asked my household income (I said billowing to keep them guessing), race (YSL skin shade Warm Sand) and sexual orientation (a guy named Steve). I was furious.

Theyre a Canadian museum run by an American and draped with ridiculous aluminum spikes resembling Princess Beatrices beige fallopian wedding hat. Theyre stalking me. We have a long-term relationship I cant escape, like the one I have with Samsung and its rickety washer/dryers and demented fridges.

Its the same with push notifications. I only want them from my bank, but they fly into my eyes like bugs at a barbecue.

Same with my phone. I am as hooked on that thing as any addict manically pressing buttons at a slot machine, rats seeking food. The only consolation with that slag heap Twitter is that I never paid for it. I let it turn my brain into crumbling cork for free.

I liked the digital world which is like any other area of life in that its disadvantages only appear late, often too late to avoid or discard. I can listen to any piece of music on Spotify, but in full knowledge that it leaves musicians impoverished, nearing extinction.

Lately, Ive been wondering about my fluttering connectivity and roving blackouts. Did you know that a geomagnetic pole reversal (the planets magnetic fields flip) could instantly destroy our electrical infrastructure?

People talk about technology, but they forget about electricity on which modernity is based. Pole reversals occur every half-million years and we are quite overdue.

My, this column has travelled far from its original The Mystery of the HP Printer, but our central theme remains: technology has us in a chokehold and its getting tighter. I sit at home brooding, staring at the printer which has become HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, an overseer, with moods.

Someone somewhere is working on flipping that magnetic field. Electricity is magic juice. Will we run out?

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Canada has introduced faster temporary resident visa (TRV) processing and more considerate application measures.

Sean Fraser, minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, announced the development on Friday.

Fraser said most applications will be processed within 30 days, and applicants will benefit from processing measures specific to their circumstances as spouses and dependents.

So far, many applications have seen an approval rate of 93 percent, he added.

In 2022, Canada issued more than 1,075,000 work permits and work permit extensions.

The minister said the development was Canadas commitment to ensure that families are together, especially during lifes big moments like moving to a new country.

Family reunification through immigration is not only a matter of compassion; it is a fundamental pillar of Canadian society. Todays announcement is a mandate commitment to help build inclusive and resilient communities, Fraser said.

We are supporting Canadians and newcomers by reuniting families faster, and also allowing them to work and support themselves more quickly once theyre here. By doing so, Canada is helping newcomers achieve their true potential, while also strengthening Canadas economy and social fabric.

Dependents will now be able to apply for and receive an open work permit as soon as they submit a complete permanent residence application under the spouse or common-law partner in Canada class (SPCLC) or other family class programmes.

Additionally, spousal applicants, along with other open work permit holders, whose permits expire between August 1 and the end of 2023, will be able to extend their work permits for an additional 18 months.

A similar option was recently offered to many with expiring post-graduation work permits, the statement added.

The move comes days after the United Kingdom announced that foreign students would no longer be able to bring family members with them from 2024.

The Home Office said the development was necessary to stop people from using the student visa as a backdoor route to work in the UK.

However, universities across the UK opposed the countrys new immigration rules, saying it will worsen their financial pressure.
My fellow Nigerian brothers, sisters and friends of Nigeria.

2. I address you today, in my last assignment as a democratically elected President of our great and well-endowed nation, with a deep sense of gratitude to God, a great deal of appreciation to the Nigerian people and a modest sense of fulfilment.

3. Today we mark and celebrate another peaceful transition of power from one elected government to another in our steady march to improve and sustain Nigerias democracy.

4. This year we witnessed the most keenly contested Presidential Elections since the first Republic and this demonstrates that our democracy is getting better and more entrenched with each election.

5. We must as a nation improve and sustain gains we make in the electoral process, on an incremental basis for Nigeria to take its rightful place among Nations.

6. Our democracy provides for, allows and encourages seeking redress for perceived injustices, enabling some candidates and political parties that did not agree with the results to go to court.

7. Irrespective of the outcome of the various cases, I urge all parties involved to accept the decision of our courts and join hands to build a better Nigeria.

8. I salute the doggedness and resilience of all the Presidential Candidates and their political parties for believing in our judicial system by taking their grievances with the election results to court.

9. In the course of the campaigns, we had argued and disagreed on how to make Nigeria better but we never disagreed or had any doubts that Nigeria has to be better.

10. As your President, I call on all of us to bring to bear the strength of our individualism, the power of our unity, the convictions of our beliefs to make Nigeria work better and together with one spirit and one purpose.

11. To my brother, friend and fellow worker in the political terrain for the past ten years  Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu -, I congratulate you on the realisation of your dream, which was propelled by a burning passion to put Nigeria amongst the leading nations of the world.

12. You have indeed worked for this day and God has crowned your efforts. I have no doubt that your passion for excellence, reliance on competence, fairness in relationships, commitment to equity, loyalty to the country and desire for Nigeria to be globally relevant would come through for you, under Gods guidance, as you lead our country to levels higher that I am leaving.

13. You are the best candidate among all the contestants and Nigerians have chosen well.

14. The last eight years have been an exciting experience in my desire and commitment to see a Nigeria in which public goods and services are available, and accessible within a united, peaceful and secure nation.

15. Fellow Nigerians, on the strength of your overwhelming support for me and my political party, I started this journey with a great deal of promise and expectation from you. I never intended to be just politically correct but to do the correct things that will make meaningful impact on the lives of the common Nigerian.

16. This high expectation was not misplaced because, like the ordinary Nigerian, I had grown tired of watching the country progressively moving away from the path of correctness.

17. To ensure that our democracy remains resilient and our elected representatives remain accountable to the people, I am leaving behind an electoral process which guarantees that votes count, results are credible, elections are fair and transparent and the influence of money in politics reduced to the barest minimum. And Nigerians can elect leaders of their choice.

18. We are already seeing the outcome of this process as it provided an even playing field where persons without any political God-Father or access to money defeated other well-resourced candidates.

19. The Nigerian economy has become more resilient due to the various strategies put in place to ensure that our economy remained afloat during cases of global economic downturns.

20. You would all recall the supply chain disruptions and economic downturn that the world witnessed between 2020 and 2022 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The deftness of our response to the pandemic still remains a global best practice.

21. Furthermore, we increased the ability of the poor and rural Nigerians to earn a living, provided more food for millions in our villages and gave our women opportunities to earn a living.

22. Young men and women in urban centres were also supported to put their skills into productive use. Our administration also provided an enabling environment for the private sector to engage in businesses for which their return on investments is guaranteed.

23. The private sector proved a strong partner in our drive to build a resilient and sustainable economy as evidenced by the growing number of turn-key projects in various sectors of the economy.

24. In the course of revamping the economy, we made some difficult choices, most of which yielded the desired results. Some of the measures led to temporary pain and suffering for which I sincerely apologised to my fellow countrymen, but the measures were taken for the over-all good of the country.

25. Mindful of the need to ensure adequate infrastructure to drive economic growth, we completed age-long projects and processes notably amongst which are the Petroleum Industry Act, completion of some power projects, completion of the second Niger bridge and various important roads linking cities and states.

26. Our battle to ensure that all Nigerians live in a safe and secure environment has achieved considerable results. As I complete my term in office, we have been able to reduce the incidences of banditry, terrorism, armed robbery and other criminal activities considerably.

27. To sustain the gains made so far, I call on all Nigerians to be more vigilant and support the security agencies by ensuring that our values defined by being your brothers keeper govern our actions.

28. Up-till now, I still grieve for our children still in captivity, mourn with parents, friends and relatives of all those that lost loved ones in the days of the senseless brigandage and carnage. For all those under unlawful captivity our Security Agencies are working round the clock to secure their release unharmed.

There was a brief confusion in court as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria who is not a part of the Labour Party's team of lawyers announced an appearance for the party on Friday.

29. Fellow Nigerians, you know how dear the desire in my heart is, to rid the country of corrupt practices that had consistently diminished our efforts to be a great country.

30. I did pursue this commitment relentlessly, in spite of the expected push back. I am happy that considerable progress had been made in repatriating huge sums of money back to the country and also taken over properties illegally acquired from our common wealth.

31. To improve service delivery, we began the implementation of a number of reforms aimed at producing an Efficient, Productive, Incorruptible and Citizen-oriented (EPIC) Federal Civil Service and the results are beginning to show.

32. On the international scene, Nigerias influence continues to grow as exemplified by notable Nigerians occupying headship and leadership positions in renowned global bodies.

33. Our democracy is built on and continues to thrive on the principles of separation of powers. The leadership and members of the National Assembly deserve my appreciation for their patriotism which did not detract from their roles as a check to the executive arm.

34. I also want to use this opportunity to express my appreciation to a good number of Nigerians who provided their support and encouragement to help me navigate the exciting journey in moving Nigeria forward.

35. I cannot and will not forget the millions who prayed for me during my illness in my first term of office. I am constantly praying for you and for Nigeria to thrive in peace.

36. As I retire home to Daura, Katsina State, I feel fulfilled that we have started the Nigeria Re-Birth by taking the initial critical steps and I am convinced the in-coming administration will quicken the pace of this walk to see a Nigeria that fulfils its destiny to be a great nation.

37. I am confident that I am leaving office with Nigeria better in 2023 than in 2015.

38. I thank you all. And may God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo has lauded President Muhammadu Buhari over the conferment of a National Honour, Commander of the Order of the Niger, CON, on him.

The minister, in a statement on Sunday, said he was conferred along with other deserving and distinguished Nigerians, saying he was number 15 in the list.

Keyamo thanked and prayed for Buhari, asking God to honour the president as he did to others.

The statement reads, I was very delighted to wake up this morning to the news of the conferment on my humble self of one of the highest National Honours of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) (No. 15 on the list).

I had no single inkling this was coming and for this I am grateful to the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR.

His style is to give honours and privileges to those deserving of them and not those who lobby for them. Thank you, Mr. President and may God Almighty continue to honour you even as you have honoured others.
Bola Tinubu, president-elect, says he is ready to dedicate himself to the service of Nigeria and Africa.

A statement from the office of the president-elect said Tinubu spoke on Saturday in Abuja at the inaugural lecture preceding his swearing-in.

Represented by Kashim Shettima, vice-president-elect, Tinubu restated his commitment to the ideals of democracy as the best form of government.

Tinubu acknowledged the merits of democracy, adding that it surpasses the most perfect dictatorship in terms of justice, humanity, and productivity.

Distinguished guests, democracy is more than a system of governance; it is the very lifeblood that empowers a nation to flourish and thrive, Tinubu said.

We stand at the precipice of a new era, where the ideals of democracy will guide our path toward sustainable development.

Democracy, my fellow countrymen, is not only a political system; it is a way of life. It embodies a distinctive code of thought and conduct, demanding the utmost integrity and self-improvement from leaders.

Today, I stand before you, ready to dedicate my entire being to the service of our great nation and the African continent.

Tinubu said while democracy guarantees freedom, its survival hinges on the responsible and measured use of that freedom.

He added that democracy, as an ever-evolving concept, empowers the majority to express their will while safeguarding the fundamental interests of the minority.

Our democracy is not an abstract ideal; it is a practical vessel that will propel our nation to new heights in every facet of our collective existence, Tinubu added.

The President-elect pledged to utilise democratic institutions not only to safeguard political and civil rights but also to drive comprehensive economic reforms that engender broad-based prosperity, create employment opportunities, and unlock the nations untapped potential.

Also speaking, President Muhammadu Buhari noted that the inauguration lecture took participants on a journey of introspection on the imperatives of democratic governance and nation-building.

He added that the various challenges that confront the socio-political fabrics of Nigeria were also highlighted.

We have learnt that democracy is not just a system of governance, it is a way of life, Buhari said.

True democracy is when the voices of people are heard. Our nations progress rests on inclusivity, unity and not leaving any citizen behind and ensuring every citizen enjoy the dividends of good governance.

We must heed the lessons of this lecture and translate them into action. We must fight against corruption in all its form. We must remain united. Our diversity is our strength.

We can overcome our differences and forge a common cause towards progress.
Ahead of Mondays inauguration, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu to make public his assets.

SERAP disclosed this on Sunday in a statement by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare.

The group called on the incoming administration to walk the talk concerning its electoral promises.

SERAP added that the incoming government should prioritise the rule of law, media freedom, and efforts to curb corruption.

If your election is upheld by the judiciary, your government can use transparency in asset declarations as a means of promoting public accountability and ending systemic corruption in the country, SERAP stated.

President Muhammadu Buhari will hand over the mantle of leadership to Tinubu on Monday, May 29, 2023, after completing his eight-year tenure.
Foreign dignitaries have begun to arrive in Abuja ahead of the May 29 inauguration of Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima as president and vice-president of Nigeria.

On Sunday, the United States embassy announced the arrival of the US delegation appointed by President Joe Biden.

Tweeting the arrival of the 9-member team approved by the US president, @UsinNigeria wrote, Welcome to Nigeria! We are excited to receive the delegation from @POTUS Biden, led by @SecFudge from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as they join us in Abuja for the inauguration of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Welcome to Nigeria! We are excited to receive the delegation from @POTUS Biden, led by @SecFudge from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as they join us in Abuja for the inauguration of President-Elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu pic.twitter.com/BsHBQG1U0U  U.S. Mission Nigeria (@USinNigeria) May 28, 2023





Last week, Biden appointed a nine-member delegation headed by Marcia L. Fudge, US secretary of the department of housing and urban development, as his representatives at the inauguration.

Fudge said she was honoured to lead the presidential emissaries.

The Rwandan government also announced the arrival of President Paul Kagame in Abuja to attend the handover ceremony.

President Kagame has arrived in Abuja, Nigeria, where he will attend the swearing-in ceremony of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu @officialABAT alongside other Heads of State from around the world, Rwandas presidency tweeted.

President Kagame has arrived in Abuja, Nigeria, where he will attend the swearing-in ceremony of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu @officialABAT alongside other Heads of State from around the world. pic.twitter.com/CRQwrLnRMW  Presidency | Rwanda (@UrugwiroVillage) May 28, 2023





Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has also reportedly arrived for the ceremony.

President Muhammadu Buhari will on Monday, complete his eight-year tenure and handover to Tinubu, the president-elect.

Earlier on Sunday, Buhari gave a farewell speech to Nigerians touching on critical aspects of his two-term administration.

Movements around Eagle Square in Abuja, the venue of the handover and inauguration parade have been restricted from Friday till Tuesday.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. A total of 601,251 security personnel provide security during the voting in the second round of the presidential elections in Turkiye, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters, Trend reports.

"No problems have been identified during the electoral process," Soylu added.

About 60 million people took part in the presidential and parliamentary elections held in Turkiye on May 14.

According to the results of the counting of votes in the presidential elections, Recep Tayyip Erdogan won 49.52 percent of the votes, Kemal Kilicdaroglu - 44.88 percent, Sinan Ogan - 5.17 percent, and Muharrem Ince - 0.43 percent. Since no one has got more than 50 percent of the vote, the second round has been scheduled.
Femi Falana, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), says citizens could not track election results because Nigeria was not fully prepared to adopt technology.

Falana spoke on Thursday during a Twitter space tagged office of the citizen and the 2023 elections organised by Enough is Enough.

Enough is Enough (EiE) is an organisation focused on promoting good governance through active citizenship in Nigeria.

Speaking on the outcome of the general election and the handling of petitions by the court, he said issues of public interest with solid evidence were difficult to be manipulated.

He said Nigerians should work toward having a working system rather than giving up on the judiciary.

In our country today, the majority of us have become very intolerant on any matter. After the elections, the majority of Nigerians were mourning and we are given the impression that we are helpless, Falana said.

Take the judiciary for example, we go there everyday, if your evidence is solid, pungent, it is difficult for a judge to play around it and for a public interest matter, judges are more circumspect.

And because we are not prepared to embrace technology. If we had deployed the technology fully, votes are cast and instantly transmitted to the server, everybody can track and trace who is voting for who.

Secondly, use the BVAS report so that you will find out whether votes were recorded without accreditation. In the last elections where you have violence in Lagos, Rivers, and other places, people were simply shaved away, and thugs and party people now settle down to write the results. In such circumstances, they couldnt have been captured by the BVAS machine, so those are the areas you go for.

Let me tell you an instance, I think it was in 2015, and that was the last time I took part in an election petition. At that time, we brought the report from card reader machines and we compared them with the result and we saw a whole lot of difference.

Unfortunately, the supreme court said the card reader machine was not provided for all that was done. I sat down, I wrote an article, The legality of card reader because, at that time, the government lawyer, the INEC lawyer did not tell the court that a few days before then a law has been signed by the President to say that INEC has been empowered to adopt any method for the conduct of the election.

Now, that was not an instance where you abandon science or technology. If you have read the judgment in Osun and I recommend that judgment to everybody here, the court of appeal abandoned the BVAS report, and the BVAS machine and went back to manual registering, in this age and time.

Let us not be despondent or pessimistic if you have your evidence because we are dealing with an election that is conducted potentially with the use of technology.

For instance, every political party has their agents in polling units and the agents are given copies of forms EC8A which can be tendered before the tribunal, in the first place, you collate all your forms from your agents and then confirm what you are likely to have scored.

And that can be tested together with the examination of the INEC materials and then, you are good to go but if we just simply sit in the comfort of our homes and say the Nigerian judiciary is bad and you can never get anything out of it.

NIGERIA HAS HAD WORSE ELECTIONS

He urged Nigerians not to be discouraged by the elections outcome, adding that the country has conducted worse polls marred by violence in the past.

Ladies and gentlemen, if I show that we have had worse elections in Nigeria, you will not believe it. In 2007, the ballot papers were not realised, they were not marked, and three justices in the supreme court didnt say, how do you know how many votes were cast for each of the candidates? How do you track or add up? And one of the justices said, a ballot paper that is unmarked, that has no number is like a counterfeit currency and nobody will take it from you, he added.

And that was the year of President Obasanjo who is grandstanding now. He declared that the election was a do-or-die affair and it was absolutely a do-or-die affair. People were killed in their hundreds. So we must now not be too forgetful of where we are coming from, we must not take advantage of technology.

Then everything was a manual, primitive way of conducting the election. In some of the states, INEC could not announce the result and the results were announced in Abuja contrary to what happened on the ground, contrary to the votes cast by the people.

We have moved beyond that, we are now in the era of science and technology, we must go back, the witnesses that are going to give evidence must be armed with sufficient evidence with which election results can be challenged. We must not limit ourselves to the presidential elections, in some of the states, we have the worst situations.

The question of impunity in our country, we must ensure that those people who have been arrested by the police for electoral offences and are not less than 700 must be prosecuted.

The citizens must monitor those who have been arrested to ensure that they are not released without trial. We must continue this engagement, we must challenge the status quo that will move the country forward.

YOUTHS PREPAREDNESS FOR 2023 ELECTIONS

Also speaking, Ibrahim Faruk, programme manager of Yiaga Africa, a civil society organisation, said Nigerian youths could have prepared better for the general election after the setbacks during the primaries.

When we talked about youth candidacy, I am referring to the number of young people running for elective offices. In 2019, it was about 34 percent, In 2023, it dropped to 28 percent, Faruk said.

So, it seems to me like there have been systematic efforts by political parties and politicians to continue to suppress voter participation.

So, if you remember political party primaries that were held last year and how it was a struggle for young people to secure party tickets, I think we should have started to see some of those red flags and know that we needed to come ready for the general election if we wanted young people to actually influence the outcomes.

But despite much of the negativity, there are stories of hope. When we look at young people who ran for office and won, some under what were not traditionally big political parties, and in those constituencies you could clearly see that the youths votes influenced the election outcome.
The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) on Tuesday night picked Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, governor of Kwara state, as its next chairman to succeed Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the outgoing governor of Sokoto state.

But the intrigues that led to the choice of Seyi Makinde, governor of Oyo state, as the deputy chairman of one of the most influential power blocs in Nigeria virtually went under the radar.

Abdulrazaq is of the All Progressives Congress (APC), while Makinde is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Abdulrazaq, who is believed to be the preferred choice of Bola Tinubu, the president-elect, got the support of most of the 28 outgoing governors, especially those who hope to play a role in the incoming administration.

Abdullahi Sule, governor of Nasarawa state, was also reportedly interested in the chairmanship position but did not secure enough support and Abdulrazaq was unanimously elected.

The real intrigues, however, surfaced in the choice of Makinde, a member of the PDP group of five (G5) governors, as the deputy chairman.

Before the meeting, there were moves by some pro-Atiku Abubakar governors to nominate Godwin Obaseki, governor of Edo state, for the position.

The G5  led by Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, with Samuel Ortom (Benue), Okezie Ikepazu (Abia), Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (Enugu) and Makinde as members  formed a major opposition to Atiku in the 2023 presidential election and were believed to have contributed to the defeat of their flag bearer.

The war continued on a low-key level at the NGF meeting but insiders disclosed that Makinde vs Obaseki was clearly going to be a no-contest.

Most of the APC governors were with the G5 while two PDP governors were also going to support Makinde. It became glaring that the pro-Atiku governors were about to fight a lost battle, so they quietly jettisoned their move, a governor who attended the meeting revealed.

G5- ATIKU RIFT

The G5 governors, which came out of the Integrity Group of the PDP, became the centre of media attention in the party after Atiku won the partys presidential primary election in May 2022.

Prior to the primary election, there were demands by party stakeholders who formed the Integrity Group that the presidential ticket be zoned to the south in line with the rotation system in the partys constitution.

The agitation was further heightened since President Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner from Katsina, is in power and will soon complete his second term in office.

Following Atikus victory, the G5 demanded the resignation of Iyorchia Ayu as the national chairman of the party.

The governors based their argument on the premise that the partys presidential candidate and chairman cannot hail from the same region. But Ayu stayed put and as a result, the G5 governors abstained from the PDP presidential campaign activities.

Although their precondition to supporting Abubakar was that Ayu should resign, insiders disclosed that the governors wouldnt have backed the former vice-president even if the PDP chairman had relinquished his position  their grievance being that the party ditched zoning.

Wike had contested in the primary election but came second to Atiku. While Wike and Makinde were said to have secretly worked for Tinubu, Ortom on the other hand publicly endorsed Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP).

Wike and his allies finally had their way when in March when Ayu was suspended by his ward over alleged anti-party activities.

A federal high court in subsequently barred him from parading himself as the partys chairperson.

Notwithstanding Ayus removal, the crisis in the party has continued to rage on with no end in sight.
After 8 years in the saddle, President Muhammadu Buhari will exit the stage and hand over to Bola Tinubu on May 29.

Supporters of the President describe him as the greatest President, while his critics have more unflattering words to describe him.

In this report, here are some of the most controversial moments under President Buhari in the past 8 years.

Twitter ban

For over six months, Nigerians depended on VPN to access Twitter following the controversial ban of the platform by President Buhari.

Twitter had deleted a post by Buhari which many, particularly from the Southeast, deemed offensive.

Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand, Buhari had said in reference to agitators in the Southeast.

The six months ban was tough for many that relied on the platform for economic activities, and even journalists that use it for gathering news.

EndSARS- Lekki Toll Gate

October 20 Lekki Toll gate event is perhaps the most controversial moment in the country. To some, a massacre was carried out by the military against young Nigerians protesting police brutality.

The EndSARS protesters have since transformed into a powerful movement that played a significant role in the just concluded election.

Whereas, there are government supporters that believe the shooting was a hoax by critics to discredit the government. This event ranks highest on the list of controversial issues.

Invasion of judges houses

On the 6th of March 2016, men of Nigerias secret police invaded the homes of several senior judicial officers in a Gestapo manner.

During the invasion, the houses of two Justices of the Supreme Court  Justices Walter Onnoghen and Sylvester Ngwuta were invaded, while the Houses of two federal High Court Justices, Adeniyi Ademola and Nnamdi Dimgba were also invaded with the arrest of the former.

While the administration tagged it as a fight against corruption in the judiciary, the backlash was loud from Nigerians, who saw the move as clamping down on the judiciary.

Shutdown of border

About three months after the commencement of the second term of his administration, President Buhari ordered the shutdown of the nations land borders; his reason was to curb the smuggling of produce from neighbouring countries.

This policy had an instant impact on the prices of food, particularly rice, and cars. While the administration credits the policy for the rice revolution, however, to many Nigerians, the policy is tagged anti-trade policy.

Invasion of Nnamdi Kanu House

In the Southeast zone, the government is sharing its authority with non-state actors that have successfully made Mondays a public holiday. The region has become a killing field and a gigantic kidnappers den.

The origin of the situation in the Southeast could be traced to the invasion of the house of Nnamdi Kanu in 2017.

The invasion happened barely 24 hours after the Nigerian Army announced the start of its second phase of Operation Python Dance II in the South-Eastern states.

Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), subsequently eloped and the crisis in the region increased. His forced reparation and incarceration have exacerbated the insecurity in the region. President Buhari has rejected every plea for the release of Kanu.

Nomination of dead people

In 2017, Buhari nominated about six dead persons for appointments perhaps a possible record.

Some of the persons nominated include Francis Okpozo, a senator in the second republic; Donald Ugbaja, a retired deputy inspector-general of police; and Ahmed Bunza, former sole administrator of Jega Local Government Area of Kebbi state.

Others were Christopher Utov, a former proprietor of Fidei Polytechnic, Gboko; and Kabir Umar, a former emir of Katagum in Bauchi state.

Shia El-Zakzaky

An incident involving the former Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratais convoy reportedly left over 1,000 Shia members dead and the arrest of Its leader, Ibrahim Elzakzaky and his wife.

The controversial Elzakzaky reportedly lost some of his children to the confrontation.

For years, he was detained alongside his wife, leading to protests by his followers, and sometimes confrontation with the police operatives.

Invasion of National Assembly by DSS

Once upon a time, the DSS was headed by the powerful Lawal Daura, who ordered a siege of the National Assembly complex in Abuja, an event that even the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo was not aware of.

To many, the invasion was aimed at undermining Osinbajo; however, Daura was subsequently arrested and removed from office by Osinbajo.

Despite the action taken by Osinbajo, the daring move by the secret police was a direct affront to the legislature.

Naira scarcity

For about two months, Nigerians grappled with crippling Naira scarcity caused by the redesigning of the Naira embarked upon by the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

The epic failure of the policy almost crippled the economy some Nigerians died, banks were burnt and almost led to a violent uprising.

The Nation was tense, even the Supreme Court had to make a pronouncement on the policy.

The policy even divided the ruling party, with speculation that deep state actors were planning a hostile takeover of the government. Within this period, Nigerians experienced hardship.
President Muhammadu Buhari says the conduct of the last elections was a prove that Nigeria has arrived politically.

Buhari spoke on Friday at the presentation of a book titled A promise kept, a compendium of significant achievements of Muhammadu Buhari administration 2015-2023.

The event was held at the council chambers of the presidential Villa in Abuja.

He said the All Progressives Congress (APC) has accomplished all its outlined goals, adding that the last elections were transparent as Nigerians voted for candidates of their choice.

He lauded the citizens for not being influenced by money during the elections, noting that his administration wanted to build a solid political culture in the country.

I think I was expecting too much. When I was in Doha, meeting with some heads of states, I was getting calls from Europe, America and Nigeria, congratulating us on the success of elections, he said.

The opposition has created the impression outside the country that we are going into a mess because we have incompetent leadership of the party.

They were overwhelmed that the elections came and went and both at the centre and at the states, fantastic.

How can 10 sitting governors of states loss their constituencies, this has been unprecedented.

So I congratulate you, the national working committee and others here, that we have really proved that democracy is worth defending.

Nigerians have understood it now, otherwise how can they vote against their sitting governors stopping them from going to the senate to rest?

So they were really overwhelmed and I congratulate our politically development. Please congratulate your constituencies, it means that even though you have excess money, they will collect and put in their pockets but they will elect the person they trust from any constituency, either house of assembly, house of representatives, senate until it comes to the president itself.

Because, it was so transparent, everything was done there in front of everybody. And committee by committee from various constituencies lined up and picked the candidate they want.

So really, we have virtually politically arrived. I congratulate our party.
Uhuru Kenyatta, former president of Kenya, has advised Bola Tinubu, president-elect, to overhaul any adversarial mindset and reach out to those aggrieved by the results of the presidential poll to build a more unified Nigeria.

According to NAN, Kenyatta spoke on Saturday while delivering his speech as a guest speaker at the inaugural lecture preceding the swearing in of Tinubu as president of Nigeria.

He advised the president-elect to ensure his leadership encompassed all citizens, regardless of whether or not they supported him during the election process.

The former president of Kenya said Tinubu must surround himself with voices that challenge his own, adding that he will lose nothing and gain everything by reaching out across the political, ethnic and religious lines.

The contest is now over. And the hard work of building a prosperous and unified Nigeria now begins, Uhuru said.

Upon assuming the office of president, you would be wise to transcend from the tactical politics of an election and assume your role as Nigerias vision bearer. This will demand a complete overhaul of the adversarial mindset that we, as politicians, are conditioned to embrace during the electoral process.

As president, you must learn very quickly to lead those who do not love you and those who love you with equal passion and commitment because you are now the father of all.

Your Excellency, when countries are in election mode, the people and their leaders are more divided than ever and boxed into their various sectarian and partisan interests. However, when you are the head of state and you take command of the countrys armed forces, you become the embodiment of the sum total of the many different ethnic groups and religions that make up your country, and you become the symbol of unity. Indeed, you have become the face of Nigeria.

I encourage you to surround yourself with the voices of those who will counterbalance the hardliners that feel entitled to a piece of your office. You will lose nothing and gain everything by reaching out across the political, ethnic and religious lines.

To those who may feel aggrieved by your victory in one way or another, please allow them to exhale and be part of your vision for a greater Nigeria.

It is my hope and my prayer that the lessons from across the continent will give you the resolve to walk the difficult path of overcoming those three enemies.

I started by mentioning the three enemies of nationhood negative ethnicity, religious discrimination and corruption. As your fellow African, I look forward to a Nigeria that emerges from this transition, ready to flex and fight for its rightful place on the global stage with both hands at the ready.

Tinubu was declared the winner of the presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and hes billed to be sworn into office on May 29.

However, major opposition parties during the election have gone to court to challenge the outcome of the election.
Among Newarks eternal residents are Civil War veterans buried at the citys historic Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, a rambling 36-acre resting place overlooking the Passaic River near the Belleville border.

To celebrate Memorial Day and honor the war dead it commemorates, local historians and friends of the 1844 cemetery will gather Monday at noon inside its Gothic main gate on Broadway to raise a flag that flew atop the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and then lead a tour of four noteworthy monuments.

A historical re-enactor will portray the departed subject of each one, donning their Civil War uniforms and discussing their lives and service in character.

One is the headstone of Cpl. August Heller, who was killed in the Battle of Cross Keys, Virginia, in June 1862, at age 20, and buried in a battlefield grave, though hes memorialized on his familys Mt. Pleasant plot.

Another belongs to Gen. William Hillyer, a close aide to Ulysses S. Grant, commanding general of the Union Armies and then the 18th U.S. president. Hillyer, a colonel granted the honorary or brevet rank of general, died of a lung ailment nine years after the war in 1874 at age 43.

Hillyer didnt live in Newark, but local historians said his wifes family was prominent in the area and had his remains reinterred at Mt. Prospect after he was initially buried in Washington, D.C.

Though historians say there are thousands of Black military veterans buried in Newark, many who fought in the Civil War and some who died in it, all four soldiers who will be honored on Monday are white.

The other two are Civil War veterans who went on to serve as New Jersey governors: Marcus L. Ward, who served from 1866-69 and was one of four brevet Union Army generals buried at Mt. Pleasant; and Franklin Murphy, a Newark businessman elected to his one term in 1902, 40 years after he enlisted in the Union Army at age 16.

What is unique among Mondays four re-enactors is that Gen. Hillyer will be portrayed by a Black Newark resident, Derek Walls. Walls, 59, a book cover designer for Penguin Random House in New York, moved to the citys Forest Hill neighborhood with his husband, Don, a decade ago from Brooklyn, New York.

He got involved in local reenactments through Liz Del Tufo, a fellow member of the Forrest Hill Literary Society book club who belongs to the Mt. Pleasant Association, which maintains the cemetery.

Since the general Im playing was not a Black man, in the beginning, I will say that he wasnt a Black man because I dont want that taking away from the information that Im giving, Walls said of his presentation on Hillyer. It would definitely have been a hard path if it had been, lets say, a Southern (general), you know, for the Confederacy.

Walls made clear he was only going by his personal experience stepping into the role of Hillyer in touching on the complex subject of race relations during the Civil War era and the fraught issue of racial representation today.

Black people, even for Gen. Hillyer, might not have been in the same station, lets say. I mean, I dont know what he would have thought, Walls said. But it is ironic that I am, you know, playing him.

Noelle Lorraine Williams, a historian and director of the African-American History Program of the New Jersey Historical Commission, said she could not immediately comment on Hillyer.

But she noted, Newark is home to one of the states first African-American Memorial Day parades.

Michael Perrone, a stone mason and president of the Belleville Historical Society, has restored countless veterans headstones over the years, including Hellers. Perrone, 67, said he could imagine what Hillyer might have thought of Walls portrayal.

When you consider that 350,000 soldiers died to abolish slavery, its more than appropriate that a Black man should wear that uniform, Perrone said. I would think that Gen. Hillyer would be honored.

The headstone at Mt. Pleasant Ceremony in Newark, for Cpl. August Heller, who was killed in action during the Civil War.Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media For NJ.com

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A 21-year-old airman from Metuchen whose remains were identified nearly 80 years after his death will finally be laid to rest in his hometown this Memorial Day.

Metuchens Memorial Day parade will be dedicated to Sgt. Michael Uhrin, who was declared missing in October 1943 after his plane was shot down by enemy fighters in Germany during World War II, according to military records.

Uhrins nephew, Michael Joseph Uchrin, will serve as a grand marshal in the parade.

The way everybody has worked together to make this happen, Im just so happy  its unbelievable, said 78-year-old Uchrin (who spells his last name slightly differently than his late uncle). Im overwhelmed with joy.

Long-thought unrecoverable, Uhrins remains were successfully identified by researchers with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in 2022, to the astonishment of his surviving family and his hometown.

Uhrins body was scheduled to arrive at Newark airport Friday with plane-side honors before being escorted to Costello-Runyon Funeral home in Metuchen, the family said.

There will be a public service for Uhrin at the end of Mondays parade at Memorial Park in Metuchen. Then, his remains will be will be interred a little more than a mile away at Metuchens Hillside Cemetery in a private ceremony with military honors.

Hell be buried near his parents, Uchrin said. Its just unbelievable.

Uhrin was killed during one of the darkest days for U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II. He was assigned to the 369th Bombardment Squadron, 306th Bombardment Group, 40th Combat Wing, 8th Air Force in the European Theater in October 1943, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

Uhrin was serving as the radio operator in a B-17F Flying Fortress bomber on a mission to Schweinfurt, Germany, on Oct. 14, 1943, officials said. His plane was shot down by enemy fighters near Rommelhausen and Langenbergheim, Hessen  about an hour outside of Frankfurt.

Tragically, he was just one day short of being discharged.

Uhrin was one of many young men whose lives were cut short that day. Oct. 14, 1943, would later go down in infamy as Black Thursday, one of the bloodiest days for the U.S Army Air Forces in World War II.

Of the 291 bombers that departed on the mission to Schweinfurt that day, 60 were shot down, resulting in about 600 airmen killed, wounded or lost over enemy territory, according to military records from the National World War II Museum.

Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in Europe. They conducted investigations in the area where Uhrins plane reportedly went down, but couldnt find any concrete evidence associating recovered remains with the lost airman.

Uhrins parents and five siblings  George, John, Mary, Helen, and Anna  would go the rest of their lives without closure.

Sgt. Michael Uhrin of Metuchen was just 21 years old when he went missing following a dangerous mission in World War II. Pictured here, a 1943 newspaper clipping.

Meanwhile, the military has been working to keep its promise of bringing the fallen back to their families.

Military historians have been conducting ongoing research focused on air losses over Germany. As a result, one set of remains, designated X-1660 St. Avold, was determined to be a strong candidate for association with Uhrin, military officials said.

Thats what prompted officials to contact Uhrins nephew in 2021 for a DNA sample. That sample led to long-overdue closure for the family, 79 years after the airmans death.

We never thought we could find his body, Uchrin said previously. I thank them so much for their service.

Uchrins daughter, Nicole, was floored when she received a call from her father saying the remains of her great-uncle were located and coming home.

Growing up, Nicole said her family didnt talk much about their long-lost uncle.

They just said they looked at him as a war hero and the family held him in very high regard, and that it was just such a shame that he had never come home. And thats all that was said about it, she said.

Nicole, who lives in Cream Ridge, said she was heartened to learn the military never forgot her uncle.

Its truly amazing that it is no man left behind and they are handling this as if it happened yesterday, she said. Were very grateful.

The Metuchen Memorial Day parade and events in honor of Sgt. Michael Uhrin begin at 10 a.m., according to borough officials.

I think its a surreal moment for the community, said Mayor Jonathan Busch. Its more and more difficult for our community leaders to get the point of sacrifice across today and so, in many ways, we hope this will help people understand just how much sacrifice there was by so many in our community.

Mondays event in honor of Uhrin will help reenforce the importance of what Memorial Day is supposed to mean, the mayor said.

Before people return to their barbecues and their parties and their beach trips, they can think about the fact that this is a day, that although its come to signify the opening of summer, it really signifies something far more meaningful to all of us, Busch said.

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Jackie Roman may be reached at jroman@njadvancemedia.com.
By Yonel Pierre

Where are the friends of Haiti  if any?

This simple question I conspicuously put forward in the most recent byline I wrote a few months ago about the lingering troubles of Haiti. Indeed, great are the number of concerned individuals who have asked that same question in distinctive ways, as if to launch an alarming SOS to help save the most tumultuous Caribbean nation: Where are the friends of Haiti?

The answers always beg the question of whether Haiti has any true friends. Not long ago, Canadas response was clear: Because of our involvement in Ukraine, we are regrettably not in a position to extend our full attention to Haitis situation. But, to their defense, the Canadians sold a few tanks to Haiti; the heavily armed bandits that have been terrorizing the Haitian population for a while had no hard time disabling a couple of them during a confrontation with the national police, on one occasion.

I am convinced that other powerful friendly nations, such as the United States, would find it convenient to offer similar answers. Of course, they too are heavily involved in the war in Ukraine.

I am strongly in favor of standing up against a bully such as Mr. Putin in support of Ukraine. Thats exactly what friends do. They show up when needed; they bring with them whatever is necessary.

Haiti also received heavy weapons  weapons of war  mostly from people in the United States with ties to corrupt Haitian government officials. Those weapons are currently being used to terrorize and destroy the lives of the Haitian people.

For over a year, countless innocent lives have been lost on a daily basis to gang violence; families have left their homes, fearing for their lives. The country has been held under siege by those armed and well-funded gangs.

Now, the worst fear of many has materialized. As of just a few weeks ago, the dormant mass of the public arose and attempted to take matters into their own hands. Sporadically, the streets of Haiti become akin to the events that took place in the weeks and months preceding the Haitian revolution for independence in 1804 when the rebellious slaves wished to no longer remain in servitude.

In the days leading to May 1, the Haitian population joined forces with a fringe of the national police and confronted the heavily armed gangs with anything that could serve them as weapons, particularly machetes. Their anger was visibly displayed on the streets throughout the country. Such continues to be the case today. For now, the armed bandits are running in fear of the retribution of the desperate and angry population in search of revenge.

An unnumbered group of gang members as well as innocent individuals have already been killed by the members of the newly formed movement baptized under the name of Bwo Kale (a colloquial phrase and Haitian idiom meaning sharp stick or sharp wood), expressing their readiness to confront the armed gangs by any means. If all fails and the bandits regain the upper hand, we most certainly will observe a terrible bloodbath that has not ever been seen, all across the country. The number of lives that will be lost in that forthcoming carnage may be unfathomable.

The international community, apparently, still continues to scramble to find an appropriate solution to the crisis; the de facto prime minister is calling the population to peace and order; the apathetic elite  accomplice to the peoples misery  remains indifferent; meanwhile, the people continue to rewrite their own fate through the use of bwa e manchet (meaning stick and machete). The worst will more than likely happen unless true and lasting order is restored.

I was born in Haiti and am very familiar with its culture and tradition. And it is not that different from the worlds other nations in terms of general human aspirations and needs. What Haitians want are practically what people in other cultures want: good schools for their children; employment to make a decent living; good hospitals to care for the sick; and, above all, a sense of safety and security in their communities. Those are basic human needs that the government fails to satisfy.

Again, I ask: Where are the friends of Haiti?

If Haiti has true friends, there are countless ways that they still can help. For example, sanctioning those suspected of fomenting the recurrent problem is only part of the solution; another is to prevent illegal weapons from leaving their country of origin. Haiti continues to need friends  those who will do well by its people - not its incompetent and corrupt government officials.

Yonel Pierre of Jersey City holds a Ph.D. in Public Affairs and Administration.

Send letters to the editor and guest columns for The Jersey Journal to jjletters@jjournal.com.
The 35th annual Fleet Week sailed into New York City on Wednesday kicking off all kinds of events honoring the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and Marine Corps. Nearly 2,400 military personnel are expected to participate through Tuesday.

Last weekend, a relatively small sailboat sailed into the metro area waterways to bring a different message: not might, but peace. Veterans for Peaces Golden Rule brought a message of nuclear disarmament and support for the environment. Their mission: to remind Americans that the buildup of arms does not promote peace.

A rainy Saturday did not dampen the spirits of some 40 people gathered at Liberty State Park in Jersey City in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. The Rev. Eugene Squeo, a Catholic priest, lawyer and activist, welcomed the people on behalf of Joseph Cardinal Tobin, Archbishop of Newark, who could not be present.

Squeo read from Tobins letter to the group: With Pope Francis, I believe strongly that stopping the arms race, caring for the earth (our common home) and ending wars everywhere are goals that are not utopian but a form of healthy realism that are indispensable if we truly seek peace.

Sam Pesin, the president of the Friends of Liberty State Park, thanked the world-famous Golden Rule for bringing a message of world peace and justice to Liberty State Park. He said he was also grateful that the veterans advocate for public access to open space, which all people need for quality of life, especially in this crowded, concrete urban area.

In addition to anchoring the 38-foot sailboat at Liberty State Park, the weekends events included speakers at Riverfront Park in Newark and LSP and the screening of the documentary Making Waves: Rebirth of the Golden Rule along with a panel discussion at Assumption All Saints parish hall in Jersey City.

In all, about 3,000 veterans belong to Veterans for Peaces 150 chapters in the United States. The Northern New Jersey chapter, Chapter 21, has 50 members.

Supporting local efforts was cited as success of the organization by Navy veteran Terrence Fitzgibbons, 40, of Fair Lawn, who has been an active member of Veterans for Peace for about a decade. Graduating from Notre Dame University on an ROTC Scholarship, the Bucks County, Pennsylvania, native served on three ships in Bahrain, Texas and Japan.

It was very hard, even though he was never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, he told me.

In 2005, during Fitzgibbons commission, he flirted with becoming a CO (Conscientious Objector) but could not rule out all wars as unjust. But it was a gradual conversion from a warrior to a peacemaker.

Leaving the military, he received a masters degree in Middle Eastern studies at the University of Toronto in 2009 and then moved to Uganda as a volunteer teacher, through December 2010.

Uganda has abject poverty, but its lush agriculture allowed families to survive on little subsistence plots, he said.

At Notre Dame, he studied Political Science and Arabic, which he described as rusty now. As a volunteer in Uganda, he taught Introduction to Islam to Catholic seminary students and English to 45 fifth-graders at a Catholic elementary school.

He returned to Notre Dame to be a lay rector in one of the dormitories for three years and did some part-time college teaching there. Eventually, he taught at Marist High School, Bayonne, for three years before moving in 2014 to North Star Academy Charter School in Newark for one year. Hes now a public school teacher at PASE (Passaic Academy for Science and Engineering), a sixth-to-12th-grade school in Passaic. He is married with two small children. Now solidly in the peace movement, he believes the U.S. made a mistake going into Iraq.

Fitzgibbons participates in About Face, where veterans speak to young people being recruited to join the military and gives them a more realistic assessment of enlisting as opposed to what he calls the shiny presentation.

He is more optimistic about supporting local issues like the Hackensack Riverkeeper. Capt. Bill Sheehan, whose tour I took through the wetlands years ago, once said, When we work for the needs of people, were more likely to win our battles -- and when we do, the wildlife, the wetlands and the river -- they win, too, according to Hugh Carola, program director at Hackensack Riverkeeper.

Fitzgibbons said, Its good to support local folks on the ground. And that is the Golden Rules other message -- supporting local efforts to protect the environment like stopping an incinerator being built in the Ironbound section of Newark.

Among the groups sponsoring last weekends events were Northern NJ Jewish Voice for Peace; the Office of Peace Justice and Integrity of Creation for the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth; Pax Christi NJ; and St. Patricks & Assumption All Saints Church, Jersey City.

Tobin also wrote to the veterans and supporters: As authentic peacemakers, you affirm the important idea that true peace can only be built in a firm commitment to nonviolence and mutual trust.

The Rev. Alexander Santora is the pastor of Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, 400 Willow Ave., Hoboken, NJ 07030. Email: padrealex@yahoo.com; Twitter: @padrehoboken.
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BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. There is no electoral process with such a high turnout in world history, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told journalists, Trend reports.

About 60 million people took part in the presidential and parliamentary elections held in Turkiye on May 14.

According to the results of the counting of votes in the presidential elections, Recep Tayyip Erdogan won 49.52 percent of the votes, Kemal Kilicdaroglu - 44.88 percent, Sinan Ogan - 5.17 percent, and Muharrem Ince - 0.43 percent. Since no one has got more than 50 percent of the vote, the second round has been scheduled.
Crawfish shells are starting to get real hard and the mercury is soaring, which can mean only one thing  its summertime in south Louisiana!

New Orleans is back and running at full capacity after years of pandemic shutdowns and hesitancy, so even though its summer, theres still plenty to do around town. To help ya sort it all out, our own Will Dancin Shoes Coviello has the rundown on the best concerts, festivals and events in town.

Meanwhile, after rolling a couple 14-sided dice, Kaylee The Dungeon Master Poche has your nighttime bar adventures all mapped out, with great ways to beat the heat from trivia to game nights in the comfort of sweet air conditioning.

And of course, youre gonna want to eat, and summertime cooking just wouldnt be the same without a grill. This being Louisiana, we figure yall got the meat covered. But what about the veggies? Dont sweat it, cause Sarah T-Rex" Ravits has a bunch of delicious grilled vegetable recipes from some of the citys top chefs!
Hey Blake,

A recent auction at Crescent City Auction Gallery featured a handbill advertising a New Orleans concert by Louis Armstrong at the Golden Dragon. Where was it and what can you tell me about his performance there?

Dear reader,

That piece of musical memorabilia advertises Louis Armstrongs two-day engagement on July 21 and July 22, 1935. By then, the New Orleans native had spent more than a decade away from the city, playing on riverboats and in Chicago with his mentor Joe King Oliver.

He returned home to perform at the Golden Dragon, a club inside the Astoria Hotel at 235 S. Rampart St. It was owned by Henry E. Braden Sr., whose family is well-known in New Orleans, including great-grandson Henry Hank Braden IV, a lawyer and state senator who died in 2013.

Catering to a Black clientele, the Astoria featured one of the largest dance halls in the South. According to an online history by A Closer Walk, other big names to perform there included Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Many local jazz bands also performed at the hotel on South Rampart, a hotbed for the early development of jazz and just a few blocks away from where Armstrong grew up.

As the handbill advertises, he played a 4 p.m. Sunday matinee at the Golden Dragon and two 10 p.m. shows on Sunday and Monday. A July 23, 1935, New Orleans Item review by Eddie Ellis said yowls of joy climbed from dusky throats as the crowd cheered for Armstrongs rendition of When Its Sleepy Time Down South. His voice rasped and gurgled, but it did things to your spine, Ellis wrote. He slid from one note to another and then careened drunkenly down to a guttural bass lower than the foundations of the Empire State Building.

Although segregation legally prevented white and Black patrons from attending the show together, Ellis mentions there were white men and women scattered throughout the opaque mob which jam-packed the Golden Dragon. It was an adoring crowdand Louie [sic] didnt fail them. He was back home. Like Gabriel he opened to them the gates of a dusky, happy heaven.

The Astoria Hotel was demolished in 1975.
Faimon Roberts III covers rural communities in Louisiana. His work is supported by a reporting grant from the Microsoft Journalism Initiative and is administered by the Greater New Orleans Foundation.

He can be reached at froberts@theadvocate.com.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. Voting in the presidential and parliamentary elections has ended in Turkiye. Polling stations closed May 28, 17:00 local time. Trend News Agency is broadcasting the latest data on the results of the voting.

22:24 (GMT+4) 99,22 percent of ballot boxes opened: Recep Tayyip Erdogan received 52,07 percent of the vote, Kemal Kilicdaroglu - 47,93 percent.

21:19 (GMT+4) 98,33 percent of ballot boxes opened: Recep Tayyip Erdogan received 52,10 percent of the vote, Kemal Kilicdaroglu - 47,90 percent.

20:41 (GMT+4) 96,60 percent of ballot boxes opened: Recep Tayyip Erdogan received 52,24 percent of the vote, Kemal Kilicdaroglu - 47,76 percent.

20:22 (GMT+4) 92,96 percent of ballot boxes opened: Recep Tayyip Erdogan received 52,50 percent of the vote, Kemal Kilicdaroglu - 47,50 percent.

20:02 (GMT+4) 85,45 percent of ballot boxes opened: Recep Tayyip Erdogan received 53,15 percent of the vote, Kemal Kilicdaroglu - 46,85 percent.

19:42 (GMT+4) 66,65 percent of ballot boxes opened: Recep Tayyip Erdogan received 57,78 percent of the vote, Kemal Kilicdaroglu - 45,22 percent.

19:21 (GMT+4) 42,78 percent of ballot boxes opened: Recep Tayyip Erdogan received 57,09 percent of the vote, Kemal Kilicdaroglu - 42,91 percent.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 28. I thank my nation for voting to allow us to govern the country for the next 5 years, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, while delivering a speech to the electorate, following win in the elections, Trend reports.

"Congratulations to everyone. I thank my nation for voting for us to govern the country for the next 5 years," Erdogan said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 29. We continue to build the "Century of Turkiye" together, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, while addressing his electorate, Trend reports.

The second round of the presidential elections concluded without any issues. I express my gratitude to my people. I thank everyone who participated in the elections," Erdogan added.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan was re-elected President of Turkiye.

He won the presidential elections runoff securing 52.14 percent of the votes.
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The Region's first Filipino bakery is now cooking up something sweet.

Jen's Gourmet Cakes is at 540 Indian Boundary Road in Chesterton. It offers traditional wedding, birthday and other cakes, as well as multiethnic cakes from the Philippines, Japan, Hawaii, France and Italy.

Jenny G. Yednak long had a passion for baking, learning the craft from her grandmother in the Philippines. She started taking her grandmother's cakes to parties and people liked them so much they began ordering from her. So she started a home-based business that gained thousands of followers on social media and grew into the new brick-and-mortar bakery.

"It's wonderful," she said. "The people of Chesterton are very welcoming and very supportive of me. I'm more busy than I expected to be. I've been busy since the very beginning."

In addition to rotating seasonal flavors, Jen's Gourmet Cakes has 41 different flavors including Red Velvet, Triple Chocolate, Strawberry-Chantilly, Banana Velvet, Black Forest, Lemon-Curd, Mocha-Latte and Vanilla Bean. They're all Yednak's own recipes and feature different inspirations from around the globe. Other flavors include German Chocolate, Green Matcha, Marble, Pink Champagne, Raspberry-Chantilly, Salted Caramel, Toffee Caramel, Tiramisu and Tropical Coconut-Pandan.

Personalized cakes often feature elaborate decorations, such as of characters from Minecraft, "SpongeBob SquarePants," other children's cartoons or the "Friday the 13th" slasher film series. She brings a visual sensibility she developed as a self-taught artist who did painting, drawing, photography and videography.

"Decorating cakes absolutely brings out the best in my creativity," she said. "I love baking cakes. I love the taste. I love to take pictures of them. I love to share them and see how they react. I just love everything about baking. There's nothing in the entire process I don't like. It keeps me inspired."

When she first started taking orders for her confections, she taught herself the art of cake decoration.

"I read a lot of books, watched a lot of videos and tried it out on as many cakes as possible," she said. "What I like about decorating is anything is possible. I'm working on my sculpting skills for the wedding cakes."

People normally submit photos of what they have in mind, as they would if getting a tattoo or a new hairstyle.

"What's crazy is I've been asked to do Michael Myers five times already," she said. "A lot of people love Michael Myers. My favorite is when customers ask me to do whatever I want and I can follow my inspiration with whatever artistry I want. No one has ever been disappointed."

A top-seller is the ube cake and cupcake made with purple sweet yams.

"It's very important to be to bring the flavors over where I grew up," she said. "I want to showcase my grandpa's recipes and the family history. I don't tell people ube cakes are made with sweet potatoes until they try it. They can't believe how good it is. They might say they don't like sweet potatoes but they taste a sample and are blown away. It's magical to see their reaction."

The bakery has drawn Filipino customers from across Northwest Indiana and even from Chicago.

"Filipinos in the area have definitely come out to support it," she said.

The bakery also offers cookies, cupcakes and flan.

"People kept calling me wanting to order cakes," she said. "I realized I could make money with this. My Facebook page grew from a couple of hundred followers to 13,000 followers. I got the realization that I've got to start something."

Jen's Gourmet Cakes is located in a strip mall with Edward Jones and State Farm.

"We get a lot of walk-in traffic," she said. "We're in a great neighborhood. It's a great location near the expressway," she said. "Customers are starting to discover us. We had our first sold-out Saturday a couple of weeks ago. We're very thankful to the people of Chesterton. The town has been amazing."

The inside is decorated like the Peggy Porschen Bakery in London.

"It's very pink, very bright and very welcoming," she said.

It accepts custom orders, such as for baptisms, birthdays, baby showers, bridal showers, quinceaneras, office parties, celebrations, holidays and other special occasions. It has a glass case filled with cakes, slices of cake and other sweets.

The bakery caters to a takeout business but has about eight seats inside. Yednak said she planned to add coffee, tea, hot chocolate and other beverages in the future.

"It's wonderful to be able to create beautiful, delicious cakes," she said. "That's why I started the bakery. I'm grateful to be given the opportunity. I'm grateful to the Northwest Indiana Small Business Development Center and the town of Chesterton for being so welcoming. I appreciate being given the opportunity to do the work I love."

For more information, visit www.jensgourmetcakes.com, call 219-302-4040 or find the business on Facebook or Instagram.

Closed

The Alignment Network was a unique space on the courthouse square in downtown Valparaiso.

It combined chiropractic care, yoga, cold-pressed juice, art and live music at 3 Lincolnway.

The "one-of-a-kind business" closed after founding partner Dr. Kristina Kauffman relocated her chiropractic practice from which the business got its name. She specializes in NetworkSpinal, a holistic approach involving chiropractic, bodywork and energy work that she said is typically only found in big cities like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. It seeks to connect the nervous system to free tension in the body while deploying a whole-person approach, treating people who feel stressed, out of alignment or in need to optimize their performance.

Coming soon

Macy's will soon open a Macy's Backstage in-store store in its location at the Orland Square Mall in south suburban Orland Park.

Macy's Backstage will open on the first floor of the department store at 1 Orland Square Drive in early June. It will take over 12,000 square feet of the store. It offers discounts on the latest fashions.

"At Macys Backstage, you'll find an ever-changing assortment of carefully curated brands and unexpected treasures at a great price, catering to shoppers seeking on-trend fashion and enjoy finding great deals," Macy's said in a press release. "So, what will you find? From designer clothing and handbags to accessories and home goods, Macy's Backstage offers something for everyone, with new items arriving all the time."

Macy's has expanded the off-price concept to more than 300 stores nationwide, including at the Southlake Mall in Hobart. The idea is to let customers find both luxury and discount items under one roof.

Macy's Backstage will offer giveaways when it celebrates its grand opening at 9:45 p.m. June 3.

Open

Beacon Behavioral Pediatrics is now taking patients in Munster.

The board-certified pediatrician Anna Adekugbe opened the clinic for kids between 1 and 17 years old. It focuses on behavior, treating children with autism, anxiety, ADHD and depression.

Beacon Behavioral Pediatrics provides both diagnosis and treatment. It's located in a professional office building at 8933 White Oak Ave. in Munster.

"I have been a general pediatrician and seen more and more children with mental health issues," she said. "I got extra, specialized training because there's a huge need. Many parents aren't comfortable about bringing their concerns to a general pediatric office. After practicing pediatrics for the last 10 years, I decided to focus strictly on behavior because I saw the need in the community. I have the pediatric experience to help families with mental health issues and actually start treating them whether with medication or therapy as needed."

Beacon Behavioral Pediatrics also has telehealth options.

"We make those appointments," she said. "We specialize in behavioral therapy. It's a niche clinic. That's all we do. We have time to get comfortable with patients and not be rushed through appointments. We come up with individualized plans to help children thrive."

The clinic is cash-based for now with scheduled payments and other financing options.

For more information, visit www.beaconpedsclinic.com or call 219-513-9222.

Expanded

Apex Dental rebranded and relocated in LaPorte.

The dental practice is now known as Smiles on Jefferson and it's now located at 809 Jefferson St. in LaPorte.

Dentist Olubunmi Adekugbe splits his time between Smiles on Jefferson and All Smiles Dental at 933 White Oak Ave. in Munster. He practices general dentistry, offering family and restorative dental care.

"Smiles on Jefferson is a huge state-of-the-art facility," said his wife, Anna Adekugbe, who's also a doctor. "It has cutting-edge new technologies to take care of the dental patients."

It's a bigger space with more consulting rooms that will allow him to see more patients.

"He's really excited to provide high-quality dental services to the community," she said.

For more information, call 369-6882 or visit www.laporte.dental.
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One is always at home in ones past. Vladimir Nabokov.

This week I came down with a severe case of nostalgia. The word, from the Greek nostos (return home) and algos (pain), perfectly captures the bittersweet agony I, and Im betting you, feel when we long to return to the place we grew up. And cant.

What tripped this recent bout was a series of exercises design psychologist Toby Israel recommends in her new book "Designing-Womens Lives: Transforming Place and Self" (ORO Editions, April 2023). Notably, Israel believes you can go home againby design.

The book illustrates how we all, consciously or unconsciously, repeat elements of our early homes in our later homes. If we want to channel the best from the past and not repeat the worst, we should reflect on the homes we knew growing up.

Okay, thats a lot to unpack.

I get Israel on the phone. Everyone accepts that our family of origin influences the partners we choose and how we parent, she explains, but no one talks about how the physical home environment affects us. There again, we either model what we grew up with or do the reverse because we didnt like it. Minimalists are often the product of cluttered homes.

She invites those seeking greater domestic awareness (my hand is up) to create their environmental autobiography. Though this seems a bit out there, I plunge into the rabbit hole like a bunny chasing a carrot. Soon I am following her exercises, writing down what I remember of my childhood home growing up, and of my grandmothers homes.

I am six-years-old visiting Grandma Jamesons house in Los Angeles, a wooden bungalow with a big front porch. The daughter of a long line of California ranchers, Dads mom raised nine children, and took in laundry to help feed them. A litter of kittens nestles in her fireplace. Out back is an aviary where dozens of parakeets live in a screened-in shed we could walk in, a magical place for a child.

Next, Im inside a two-story, brown, stone-and-stucco home near Scranton, Pennsylvania. It has faded floral wallpaper, cushy upholstered sofas and chairs (some velvet, all with arm protectors), lacy doilies on side tables, and a never-empty cook jar. It smells like dried roses and dinner cooking, and brims with laughter. Here Grandma McCormack, a Scottish immigrant like my mother, lived well into her 90s.

Memories of porches and parakeets, kittens and cookies, laughter and lace swirl. I long to go back, to ask questions I will never now have answers to and didnt then care to ask.

Now I am in my childhood home, a single-story ranch house, in Orange, California. I can see the Disneyland Matterhorn and Catalina Island from my bedroom window. A bus ride to the beach costs three quarters. Under my mothers sure hand, the house is orderly and serviceable (a word she loved), though not decorated in any coordinated sense. The doors, front and back, are open to friends and neighbors, who often drop in just to talk.

What do I make of this? I am neither a Western rancher nor a Scottish immigrant, yet I am both. Im supposed to write words describing my childhood home: warm, welcoming, nice but not fancy.

By now Im a sentimental sop, calling my older brother, dragging him into this to find out what he remembers that I cant.

Why do you want to know? he reasonably asks.

So I can design from within! I say.

He knows better than to press for an explanation, but after a pause says: Do you remember the parakeets?

Messages about self and place remain buried deep inside our psyches, Israel said. Since they unconsciously rise to the surface anyway when we design our homes, we might as well identify them, and use the best and lose the worst.

Here are some ways she suggests we tap past place, and design from within:

 Explore your environmental autobiography. Write down what you loved and didnt about the places you lived or knew as a child. Integrate those best memories into your home through memorable color (a parakeet green cookie jar), texture (velvet pillows), special objects (a conch shell). Also identify what was negative. Perhaps the house felt uninviting. At one of my aunts homes, we were not allowed to go in the living room or use the guest towels.

 Bypass trends. When we dont follow the ought-to-should-must design directives of the day, or the trends of the moment, and instead tap into past positive influences, we stand a chance of creating emotionally fulfilling environments that feel authentic, Israel said.

 Ask the deeper question. In addition to asking, Would my blue chairs look good against my yellow walls? Israel wants us to go beyond creating spaces that look good, to creating places that feel good because they positively connect us to our heritage, and to our place in the world.

 Make room for the future. Set out something that symbolizes what you aspire to. A picture of a mountain peak, for instance, could symbolize the hard work ahead needed to reach a goal. For Israel, her aspirational image was a painting of a warm place by the water. The New Jersey resident now spends three months a year near the beach in Sarasota, Florida.

 Do the work. Places affect us. If we want to live in a place that supports our growth, its up to us to make that place, Israel says. When you transform your home, you transform yourself, because the house is a symbol of self.

Feeling nostalgic yet?
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Tom Clark has long been collecting military memorabilia and telling the stories of veterans.

As a longtime Lake Central High School teacher, he spearheaded a decades-long project in which his students researched Lake County veterans killed in Vietnam and other wars.

Now retired from teaching, Clark is carrying on his mission as the curator of the Tri-Town Safety Village Veterans Museum, 1350 Eagle Ridge Drive in Schererville.

He recently doubled the size of the museum by taking over a neighboring building that was originally supposed to be a fire museum but has remained unused.

He's moved Cold War, Vietnam War, Desert Storm, Iraq War and Afghanistan memorabilia to the second building; the centerpiece is a massive Sept. 11 diorama created by police Officer Eric Graf, who originally placed it outside his home.

"When I was in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, I brought so much stuff home," Clark said. "We found Soviet supplies in caves, like 600 rockets. We destroyed all the rockets but have the storage tubes. We have Russian helmets, propaganda leaflets, prayer rugs and different stuff from the culture."

His daughter's National Guard uniform is on display in the museum in the child-sized replica village that teaches visiting groups of students about public safety, such as how to stay safe around railroads. She's a combat medic who's done two tours of Iraq.

"She missed my class in Lake Central and I wasn't pleased with her excuse, so I gave her detention," he said. "But she got one of the highest test scores ever seen going into the military. I tried to talk her out of it, telling her the military was about killing and war. She told me she was going to be a medic and save people's lives. She ended up loving the military and now is in the Indiana National Guard full-time south of Indianapolis.

The added space has meant more room to display World War I, World War II and Korean War memorabilia in the original museum, which opened in 2018.

"We have so much stuff. It was too crammed in that building. This opens it up."

There was initially talk of expanding the original Veterans Museum building, but it would require a capital campaign to pay for the construction and hasn't yet come to fruition. Clark said he would hope to maybe eventually expand it to five buildings in the Tri-Town Safety Village, dedicating each to a major war.

"I have so so much stuff, just thousands and thousands of letters, like from a boy from Dyer in World War II whose sister was a nurse in the Pacific. She talks about her experiences. We read through those letters at Lake Central. It was fascinating to have a different perspective on the war. What's on display is just the tip of the iceberg. I've got storage units full of stuff. I've accumulated all kinds of things people had in a basement, box or trunk: uniforms, ribbons or medals."

He feels compelled to try to preserve artifacts from soldiers who served in war, such as a leather bomber jacket and Distinguished Flying Cross from a World War II vet from Dyer.

"A lot of this stuff might otherwise end up in a landfill," he said.

He's been collecting military paraphernalia since childhood. His father trained as a pilot during World War II but kept getting sick in high altitudes where it was 30 below zero, so he was stationed as a weather officer in Panama.

"It probably saved his life," Clark said. "All the bomber pilots he trained with were shot down over Germany and killed or captured. Something like 65% of them were shot down. But he survived, so I'm here."

Clark followed his father's footsteps into the military and enlisted, serving as a military policeman in Germany from 1976 to 1979.

"There was a dream sheet of where you want to go and I wrote down Germany, Germany, Germany for the top three spots," he said.

He got the G.I. Bill and went to college, initially wanting to become a cop and then deciding to become a teacher. He considered returning to the service in 1982.

"The job market was pretty bad. I was told it would be three to five years before any teaching jobs would open up. Fortunately, I got hired at Lake Central, where I did student teaching. I always told my students there are pathways in life and hopefully you will choose the right one."

He taught history at Lake Central for decades, recently retiring. But he did a second stint in the military, enlisting again after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"They told me I was too old," he said. "They wouldn't let me join the regular Army. I had to join the National Guard. I had to sign a waiver not to seek retirement."

He thought he would deploy to Iraq and ended up going to Afghanistan.

"It was eye-opening when I first got there. Their attitude was, teachers and computers go together, so they had me doing PowerPoints. I did everything I could to go out in the village. They put me in civil affairs and sent me out in the field."

He served as a sergeant, advising a full-bird colonel who was a dean at Purdue University back home.

"He took me over, since I was a teacher, and said I'm going to pick your brain but don't say a word when we're around officers," he said. "I was pretty impressed that he looked at what I had done and not at my rank."

He was stationed in Jalalabad and Bagram, frequently going outside the wire on missions. He helped deliver care packages to local schools.

"The Indiana National Guard still has it up and running," he said. "Our greatest legacy was Operation Care."

Clark was surprised that he made nearly as much as a soldier as he did as a teacher, after combat pay was added. He found public attitudes toward the military had shifted greatly since he last served in the 1970s.

"I would be walking through O'Hare Airport and people would shake my hand," he said. "We came home to the Dallas airport and thousands of people were lined up and cheering us. It was so totally different than the anti-military attitudes of the 1960s and 1970s."

He also deployed to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina: "It was like Hiroshima. It was just wiped out."

As a teacher, he started having his students research local veterans who were killed in action in 1986. They eventually tracked down 261 soldiers from Lake County who were killed in Vietnam. Lake suffered the most deaths of all of Indiana's 92 counties during that war.

"We would sit down with the families at their kitchen tables and they would laugh and cry with us," he said. "It was like therapy for the parents. They said talking about him make it seem like he was alive again."

They used the information they gathered in the research project for a veterans memorial at Stoney Run County Park near Hebron.

"I wanted my students to do more than read history," he said. "I wanted them writing it and recording it. I wanted them to do something with history. It wanted them to see history from a different perspective than what you read in a book."

After 40 years of teaching, he misses the classroom but sees the museum as a continuation of his mission.

"The museum has been great. I've been telling stories about history to Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts and different classes. You have to talk differently to some of the younger students than you would to high school kids. They're interested in different things."

The Veterans Museum is taking any donations of military memorabilia, such as photographs or citations.

"We want this to be an archive of anything historical relating to the military," he said. "Displaying this stuff gives people the chance to see the actual history."

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to noon Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. For more information, call 219-865-9600 or visit safetyvillage.us.
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My 13-year-old son Ethan has Down Syndrome. Being the parent of a young person with a disability is both one of the most fulfilling and challenging journeys one can experience.

One of the unique things about this experience is the pace of parenting Ethan is unique. He hits his milestones on a different timeline than his older siblings did, which has both pros and cons. The golden years of Ethans childhood have been a little longer, and the teenage angst so common with early 13-15 year-olds has yet to emerge. Or, in other words, he still thinks Im super cool. Ill take it.

By far, one of the toughest challenges of parenting a child with a disability comes in the realm of education. The Catholic schools attended by his siblings have lacked the confidence to help educate him, and the public school programs for kids with disabilities in both Lake and Porter counties have undergone tremendous changes in the past five to 10 years, leading frankly to some confusion and uncertainty for both school systems and families.

But as parents, we have a job to do, so we use the resources available and try to make the best decisions we can for Ethan. I also know we are not alone in this voyage, as most families of kids with disabilities have felt the same at some point. It helps to have this strong community of support.

Fortunately, this community of parents in Indiana is also a community of fierce activism, and there can be no doubt, parents of kids with disabilities are a tough bunch. This activism on the state level has generated unique results, one of which is now beyond the pilot level, and since it involves money, it is fitting for the column.

Starting in 2022 for the 2022-2023 school year, Indiana created a new scholarship and grant program for students requiring special education services. The program, called the Indiana Education Scholarship Account, or INESA, allows families of students ages 5 to 21 who need special education services, utilizing an individualized education program (IEP) or a special needs service plan from a private school, to essentially direct public education dollars allocated for the child to services and education resources the family feels best provide for the childs unique learning needs.

In order to qualify for the INESA, the family must also meet income qualifications. Currently, the qualifying students household must not exceed the income requirement of 400% of the Federal Free or Reduced School Meals limit, currently equivalent to about $222,000 for a family of four.

In order to access these funds, the student cannot be enrolled in the public or state charter schools. The amount of funding available to the family depends on factors such as the school system the student lives in and the level of special educations services the student requires. Ive seen indications INESA funds can range from $7,000 to $17,000, which can be directed toward expenses such as private school tuition, educational services like testing fees, speech, occupational and other therapies, school-sponsored extracurricular activities, and up to $750 annually for education related transportation.

The INESA program is administered through an innovative online portal, which is designed to function like an online savings account. The account even allows families to roll over up to $1,000 in unused funds from one school year to the next. In watching the demos online, its clear the state intended to make utilizing this innovative program as intuitive and simple as it could. The state INESA web site even has a calculator which parents can use to estimate their INESA funding amount.

Its not hard to imagine how over time the INESA program could inspire entirely new choices in educational providers in our state. So, as we head into the summer months, families that have been searching for the best education options for their kids should learn more about this innovative program. Start at www.in.gov/tos/inesa.
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Hobart suspect Anyone with information on the suspect can contact Lt. Nicholas Wardrip at 219-942-4485 or nwardrip@cityofhobart.org.

HOBART  A person who made multiple attempts was ultimately successful in stealing two wigs from a store May 12. Police are now asking the public to help identify him.

The person took a wig and shoved it down the front of his pants while at the store, 1900 E. 80th Ave., Hobart police said Saturday. An employee saw him try to conceal the wig and asked him to remove it from his pants. The person obliged and exited the store.

However, he later returned and snatched the wig he initially tried to steal from the display case, plus an additional wig. The employee said he ran to the door and was able to get the wigs back, but the person began punching him and was able to get the wigs back and flee the store.

Hobart suspect The suspect stole two wigs May 12 from a store at 1900 E. 80th Ave. in Hobart, Hobart police said. They are attempting to identify the man.

The employee said the wigs are 100% human hair and worth several hundred dollars apiece. Anyone with information on the suspect can contact Lt. Nicholas Wardrip at 219-942-4485 or nwardrip@cityofhobart.org

Gallery: Recent arrests booked into Lake County Jail Aaron Doeing Jr. Adam Hollingsworth Anastasia Clark Anthony Peters Cameron Mills Candice Makiling Candice Shaw Charles Ward Colton Wilkey Damien Kent Daniel Gianoli Daniel Velasquez David McGuire Jr. Dessiree Reese Devante Ricks Devion Perry Devonte House Dimitri Person Eddie Turnage Edgar Hernandez Rodriguez Emmanuel Rivera Eric Rangel Jr. Fernando Mancillas Munoz Freddie Forsythe Glen Johnson II Henry Jones Jr. Jaime Najera James Webb Jelani Pruitt Jennifer Mischka Jermaine Wade Sr. Jerome Cannon Jesus Barajas Joshua Chism Kenneth Jones Kirk Wright Kurt McCammon Jr. Kymari Cheeks Lisette Corral Louie Campbell Michael Hill Michael-Anthony Kruse Milan Tanasijevich Monique Bradford Montel Smith Muhammad Najeeullah Nadarangua Jackson-Carson Naja Wilder Novae Gatewood Paris Finney Quintin Transou Jr. Raymond Colburn Rene Rodriguez Robert Jones Robert Kirk Robert Ramos Ronald Myers Semaj Reynolds Theron Harris Jr. Travis Walker Trina Weaver Victor Sanchez Vincent Michalik
The Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population on Saturday signed an MoU with Roche, a Swiss multinational healthcare company, to improve medical care under the Presidential Initiative of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC).
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CROWN POINT  Gentlemen, and ladies, start your engines.

No, it was not the start of the Indianapolis 500. It was its precursor.

Drivers lined up Saturday at the Lake County Fairgrounds for the annual Cobe Cup Cruise. Sponsored by The Regional Streeters Car Club, it went from Crown Point to Cedar Lake to Lowell, then back to the fairgrounds.

Pat Maggi, president of the Regional Streeters, estimated his group has been sponsoring the cruise for 25 years.

This event has averaged 80 to 90 cars, but with the weather were expecting, were hoping for 100, Maggi said.

The 2023 edition topped that number: 102 entries.

Maggi said the cruise is popular because its a get-together, a chance to take your car out on a leisurely cruise.

The club president added the historical aspect: Were reenacting the original race, using the original course.

With some variations because of road construction, the cruise will cover 23.7 miles.

Candyce Jones of Highland was in her first Cobe Cup, driving a 1973 Porsche her late husband purchased new 50 years ago.

I wanted to see how many Porsches would be entered, Jones said. I love cars. I love the people. Its fun to take the car out on a beautiful day.

Entrant Debra Riecken of Crown Point wore military fatigues bearing the name of her uncle, Teddy Peterson, a Vietnam veteran. Peterson served in Southeast Asia during 1956-60. He died in 1967 from exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange.

This is what this Memorial Day weekend is all about, remembering him and the many people who lost their lives, she said.

Although she hardly knew her uncle, Riecken noted that riding in her husbands 1967 Mercury Cougar honored Peterson, who died at home and did not qualify for the Vietnam Memorial Monument Wall.

The original Cobe Race was held in Northwest Indiana in 1909 and 1910. On June 19, 1909, the first major automobile race in the U.S. was held south of the old Lake County Courthouse. Named for Ira M. Cobe, president of the Chicago Automobile Club, the 25-mile contest was the forerunner to the Indy 500.

The 1910 race became a speedway event, rather than a road-course contest, with the second one held in Indianapolis. The Chicago Automobile Club also decided to move the Cobe Cup Race to Chicago for 1911, but, as it turned out, no such race took place in 1911 or thereafter until its revival.

Paul Myers of the Marktown section of East Chicago drove his 1929 Ford Model A town sedan. He said the stock car draws attention wherever it goes, from him doing bank business to passersby along U.S. 30 photographing it.

Also, Myer said, were following the same route as the original race.

Myers pointed out there were two races in 1909: June 18 in Indianapolis and the Cobe Cup the next day.

Ken Becker of Tinley Park, Illinois, entered his shiny 1956 Buick Special in his first Cobe Cup. Back in the 1950s, he said, Buicks were a status symbol topped only by Cadillacs.

As with so many other drivers, Becker had his Buick in top-clean condition, above and under the hood.

It takes a lot of work, he said.

There were plenty of car admirers, including Deb Armstrong of Valparaiso. The member of the Lake County Photography Club was snapping away at the classics.

For me, its about the details and the work they put into these cars," she said. "To keep these cars running for 25 years, its daunting. I admire their willingness to do this.

Bob Lowry of Crown Point has had his 1934 Plymouth Model PL Series X since 1989. I like that this is an actual cruise. They get the cars out rolling, he said.

Dave Jendras of Dyer was showing off his 2002 Limited Edition Camara, the 791st of 3,369 made, and he has the paperwork to prove it.

Ive had this car 11 years, he said. It looks great, runs great, and its a great show car. Its not a daily drive. It goes out when the weather is nice.

It's his first Cobe Cup. I just want to see all the cars, especially the older vehicles."

As part of a family affair, Kathy Conley of Crown Point came with son Billy in their 1957 Chevy 210 hardtop. His late father had driven it 20 years in the Cobe Cup, and shes had the car for 10 years.

I like that my dad drove this, and we want to keep it in the family, Kathy said. We want to keep his memory alive and keep the car as original as possible.

Billy added: My grandpas drove this, and I like the way it looks. With the cruise, we go to different places and see everything.

PHOTOS: Cobe Cup Cruise in Crown Point
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Ind. 2 to close from Valpo to Wanatah for 2 months

Work at West Branch Crooked Creek will cause the closure of Ind. 2 between Valparaiso and Westville beginning as early as Tuesday.

Indiana Department of Transportation contractor Dunnet Bay Construction Company will close Ind. 2 between C.R. E 400 N and C.R. N 575 E through early August for a structure replacement at the creek.

Motorists should seek an alternate route. INDOT's official detour uses Ind. 49 and U.S. 6.

Lane restrictions at Portage intersection

A NIPSCO line replacement project at the intersection of Willowdale Road and Central Avenue will require lane restrictions Wednesday.

Willowdale Road and Central Avenue will have temporary lane closures beginning at 7 a.m. and lasting until 3 p.m.

Flaggers will regulate traffic flow, the city said.

Ind. 4 to close near Fish Lake

Indiana Department of Transportation contractor Milestone Contractors North will close State Road 4 between C.R. S 500 E and Taylor Rd on or after Friday, June 2.

State Road 4 will be closed through mid-July for a culvert replacement over Leroy arm of the Williams Travis Ditch. Motorists should seek an alternate route. The official detour will follow State Road 104 and State Road 23.

Public forums on US 30 planning

The Indiana Department of Transportation is hosting seven public information meetings as it continues studying ways to improve travel times and safety along U.S. 30 from Valparaiso to Fort Wayne, and along a section of U.S. 31 in north central Indiana.

INDOT is preparing Planning and Environment Linkages studies along the corridors and will report at the meetings on insights gained from the public and will additional data gathered by the study teams.

In Northwest Indiana, INDOT will host a meeting from 5 to 7 p.m. June 6 at Tri-Township Schools, 309 School Drive in Wanatah.

EC roundabout to close for resurfacing

The city of East Chicago is planning a project for the roundabout at Cline Avenue and Columbus Drive that will require closure and restrict access to the roads for a week in June.

The project will consist of milling and paving the roundabout and connecting roads, along with restriping.

Closure and detour signs will be put up in the early hours of June 5. The closure of the roundabout will last until June 12, weather permitting.
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INDIANAPOLIS  Where do I begin? That was U.S. Sen. Todd Youngs response to a Capitol Hill reporters question after he became the first current elected Hoosier Republican officeholder to say he will not support Donald Trumps presidential renomination in 2024.

Sen. Youngs tipping point appears to be related to the Russia-Ukraine war. It came just hours after Trumps May 11 CNN Town Hall in which moderator Kaitlan Collins pressed him on whether he wanted Ukraine or the Russians to win in the brutal 15-month war. Pressed by Collins on who he wanted to win, Trump said, I dont think in terms of winning and losing.

Thats why I dont intend to support him for the Republican nomination, Young said. I think President Trumps judgment is wrong in this case. President Putin and his government have been engaged in war crimes. I dont believe thats disputed.

Asked his reason for refusing to endorse Trump, who has a commanding lead in GOP primary polls, Young replied, Where do I begin?

Sen. Young has demonstrated the political patience of Job.

Where to begin?

How about Jan. 5, 2021, when then-President Trump sabotaged the second of two Georgia U.S. Senate seats that gave Democrats control of the upper chamber? Young had served as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, raising a record amount of cash for the GOPs effort to hold onto its Senate majority.

Or how about a day later, when Trump inspired what has become known as the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol Insurrection? Confronted by Make America Great Again supporters outside the Russell Senate Office Building, Young told them, My opinion doesnt matter. And you know what, when it comes to the law, our opinions dont matter, the law matters. The law matters. I share that conviction that President Trump should remain president. I share that conviction, but the law matters. I took an oath under God, under God!

In the coming hours, that mob erected a gallows on Capitol Hill, and prowled the halls chanting, Hang Mike Pence.

In a statement on Jan. 6, 2021, Young said, As Congress meets to formally receive the votes of the Electoral College, I will uphold my constitutional duty and certify the will of the states as presented. The people voted and the Electoral College voted. Congress must fulfill its role in turn. Like so many of my patriotic constituents and colleagues, I, too, wish the results of this election were different. But upon assuming this office, I took a solemn, inviolable oath to support and defend our Constitution, just as I did as a United States Marine. I will not violate that oath.

When the breadth and scope of the insurrection came into focus a day later, Young blamed it on a failure for many of our leaders to be truthful to the American people about what precisely has happened in our elections in recent months. Asked if President Trump played a role in encouraging the violence, Young responded, Of course. Hes president of the United States.

Where to begin? During the recent CNN Town Hall, Trump:

Called a Black law enforcement officer who shot insurrectionist Ashley Babbitt while she attempted to break into the House chambers a thug."

Repeated baseless election conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential race.

Insisted that Vice President Mike Pence should have overturned the election.

Suggested that he would pardon many of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

Lied about calling for terminating the U.S. Constitution so he could be returned to power outside the election process.

Young, who was reelected last November and will not face Hoosier voters until 2028, then turned to his political objections to a third Trump nomination. You want a nominee to win the general election. As President Trump says, I prefer winners, Young said. He consistently loses. In fact, he has a habit of losing not just his own elections, but losing elections for others. I dont think hell be the nominee. Republicans are in a winning mood. We want to win. We know hes the shortest path to losing.

I cant think of someone worse equipped to bring people together to pass legislation and advance our collective values than the former president, Young added. I dont think conservatives would be well served by electing someone whose core competency seems to be owning someone on Twitter.

Since Youngs break with Trump, there has been no outward migration away from the former president in Hoosier GOP circles, even as former governor Pence prepares to enter the 2024 presidential race.

U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, who will be before voters in the May 2024 gubernatorial primary, reacted to the CNN Town Hall, telling the Washington Examiner, Hell have to explain his own answers. Any of the rest of us that try to, Im sure it wouldnt make sense anyway.

Braun added that the eventual GOP nominee must have a plan that the American people are going to buy into, that makes us competitive in the swing states. When it comes to that candidate who can portray what was working so well pre-COVID and we know who that was, that was President Trump. It was not that difficult.
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As an avid outdoor enthusiast, I strongly support the Marquette Plan for Northwest Indiana and the quality of life it that it contributes to our communities for generations to come. I would encourage you to put the mobile phones down and walk or ride the 46-mile trail, or portions of it, from Hammond to Michigan City. It is much more than just another trail. It connects our communities, blends our industrial heritage with the natural environment, promotes clean air and water, and provides tranquility, enjoyment, and peace of mind.

The Marquette Plan originated approximately 18 years ago, and former Congressman Pete Visclosky, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and local mayors inaugurated its vision. This vision was to build more than just a trail-focused greenway plan. It was to create a lasting community-based, action-oriented legacy, geared to achieving tangible quality-of-life improvements along the Lake Michigan shoreline and beyond. The Plan represents bringing a healthier, more prosperous way of life to the heart of each community.

The original objectives of the Marquette Plan, as drafted in 2005, were as follows:

 Recognize Lake Michigan as the most important asset in our own survival- from drinking water to climate to property value;

 Increase public shoreline access from approximately 33% today to over 75% in the future and provide generous minimum setbacks for new development to ensure this access;

 Establish physical, social and economic connections, including a continuous trail network linking people to the lake, features along it, and to each other;

 Change perceptions of the lakefront and the lakefront communities as a destination and a place that attracts new residents and new investment;

 Recognize a changing economy in the region and capitalize on new opportunities such as technologies associated with the remediation and reuse of industrial brownfield properties that could result in a campus of new employers with this focus, referred to as "Remediopolis" in this study;

 Leverage available resources, including political resources that span city, county and state boundaries to broaden the pool of funds and support needed to achieve the vision;

 Continue and expand the partnerships that are necessary to achieve the vision, including an effective management and funding structure to ensure long-term success and preservation of the vision;

 Plant the seed so the plan becomes a rallying cry for change and the process lives on.

I am pleased to report that the vision is being fulfilled and objectives achieved. The Marquette Plan has come to fruition, placing Northwest Indiana on the map as a desirable location to live and work. The fulfillment of the Marquette Plan is just what the doctor ordered, and my compliments to the visionaries from 1985 for putting forth this Plan and to the local communities coordinating with the State and Federal Government to implement it. Collaboration is when government is at its best.

Because of the original plans vision and implementation, Northwest Indiana is positioned well to increase its population and attract and retain a younger and more talented generation. Phase II of the Marquette Plan calls for transportation-oriented development, improvement to identified vital roads and railways and continue protection and access to Lake Michigan. Phase II is moving forward as we see the double-track construction and plans emerge for transportation-oriented development.

Northwest Indiana is on the move, and the future looks bright, thanks to the Marquette Plan.
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Follow me.

Long before this familiar catchphrase became a social media networking tool, Jesus said these words multiple times to potential followers, according to the Bible. Many theologians agree that he said these words as an invitation, not as a command. With a knowing nod, not a wagging finger.

Why would Jesus expect his followers to leap to some kind of belief without first watching his actions? asked Greg Lee, lead pastor at Suncrest Christian Church in St. John.

I feel the same way about believers who expect me to follow their faith  exactly as they believe  without first watching their actions. As well as noticing their hypocrisies. Too many people preach one thing and practice something else. Who are they fooling? Their omniscient God?

I know too many spiritual leaders who have fire and brimstone in their throat, not love and inclusion in their heart. They weaponize fear to organize religion. Heaven is a gated community. I wouldnt follow them into a church parking lot, let alone onto an altar.

I followed Lee into a crowded coffeehouse to talk about Jesus, God and the complexities of faith. Its where he was writing this week's Sunday sermon. He drank his beverage. I sipped his insights. We squeezed centuries of theological discussions into our 45-minute conversation. Its the start of  something.

My best tool as a spiritual leader is to invite people to follow me following Jesus, Lee told me. Its not about commanding them. Its about inviting them.

He prays those people can then step into faith.

My goal is to get you closer to Jesus. The rest is up to you," he said. If your view of God is different than your view of Jesus, dont call yourself a Christian. There is no gap between the two.

One of my criticisms against didactic believers is the semantics they use to describe something too complex for mere words, sentences and sermons. Dont attempt to describe to me this God force, for lack of a better phrase, with promises of pearly gates, streets of gold and heavenly images. It simply doesnt resonate with me. Its like a toddler attempting to finger-paint a Michelangelo masterpiece.

You can keep your simpleton, paint-by-number explanations about the most complex and mysterious entity in the universe.

My job is to try to describe what is indescribable. Im in sales to some degree, Lee joked.

He often asks his church members: How much of God do you really understand?

Is it maybe 10%? 20%? 50%?

"If you think you understand more than 0.0000001% of God, then you have greatly overestimated yourself and greatly underestimated God.

Again, Lees words resonated with my patchwork belief system. Instead of judging others, we should be examining ourselves.

Lee, who grew up in a small rural church in central Illinois, began thoroughly examining his faith in his early 20s as a graduate student and seminarian. This self-exploration shattered his bedrock of belief up to that point. He lost his certainty about Jesus, God, faith ... all of it. He questioned aspects of the Bible. He questioned religious dogma. More importantly, he questioned himself.

Was he a Christian simply because his parents and grandparents were Christians? If he was born in, say, the Middle East, would he be Muslim just like his parents and grandparents?

I dont think so, but if I was going to dedicate my life to this faith, I needed to challenge myself intellectually and spiritually, Lee said.

He came out of the deeply profound experience as a transformed believer. But not as you may think.

I gave up certainty and landed on conviction, Lee, 48, said.

The entire foundation of his Christian faith hinges on one crucial question: Did Jesus actually rise from the dead? Again, hes not 100% certain. But he has conviction.

Is it more likely or less likely that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead three days after he died? Intellectually, it sounds less likely. But as a historian, sociologist and spiritual leader, its more likely he did. And if he did, then hes the son of God.

Lee eventually concluded, again, the existence of God, Jesus, faith ... all of it.

I dont think there is a way for me to not believe in God, he told me. The possibility that he doesnt exist makes no sense to me.

Im not an atheist. Im agnostic. I question everything. Im open to invitations, not commandments. My journey is my destination.

If faith is easy for you, you may be missing part of the journey, Lee said.

He will be a guest on my She Said, He Said podcast to explore the deeper dynamics of faith and family. Our conversation will continue. We hope you join us.

The same day I met with Lee to talk about Jesus, two women came to my home to preach about their Lord and savior. I didnt answer the doorbell. They left a pamphlet. Later that day, I received a Facebook friend request from a young man who uses the tagline I am a representative of Jesus Christ in the Valparaiso area!

I had to laugh. I didnt accept his request.

That night, I needed to get from The Times office in Munster to an appointment in Crown Point during rush-hour traffic. I asked my GPS co-pilot for the best route. It guided me along backstreets that Ive never taken in my life. At one point in St. John, I drove past a large church. Its roadside sign caught my attention: Suncrest Christian Church, Lees church for the past 27 years.

I couldnt believe it. I laughed while sending a text to him.

Jesus must be shaking his head in disbelief about my failure to notice all of his directional signs and more direct routes, I wrote.

I pulled in to the lot and took a photo. Then I checked the churchs website.

Change happens here, it states.

I visited Lees Facebook page, noticing a phrase Ive always believed in: The journey is the destination. Underneath his profile photo is a follow button.

I typically dont follow spiritual leaders. This time I did.
My mom doesnt have a retirement fund anymore, and thats an awareness I have to confront and suppress every time somebody doesnt want to come to the show because Its too late at night, or Its in Brooklyn, Ms. Velez said.

Yet there is no sense of regret from either woman. I know that if she can find the financial footing, the rest is history, Ms. Church said. Shes worth every single ounce of energy to push her where she needs to go, so that other people can recognize what she has to offer.

The problem, Ms. Velez has learned, is that recognition  the buzz around awards, reviews and celebrity endorsements  doesnt always yield tangible returns. If anything, she said, it contributes to the idea that things are going well when they are not. And these metrics have not been easy for her to explain to venture capitalists.

How many accomplishments do I have to collect, and how many co-signs and check marks does it take before people invest in helping me keep myself afloat? Ms. Velez said, with an expletive or two. Nobodys malicious. Everyone is just busy doing their own thing and assuming that you can take care of your own business, which theoretically, you should be able to do. But we cant deny that theres a lot of money in this space, and a lot of people who are playing are playing with their own.

While home in Wisconsin a few months ago, she said, she drove past an Arbys with a sign advertising a manager position for something like $20 an hour. It occurred to her that there was more stability in that job, even if her jobs perks included an invitation to sit at the Balenciaga table at the Met Gala in May. Then she realized she was unqualified for anything but fashion.

Its a heavy, heavy, heavy burden for me, and a lot of the people that I love, she said. And I think that I could live a healthier, more sustainably paced life doing another thing.
For the past few months, my feet have been sheathed in socks and slippers  like cave fish, hidden from the light. With summer around the corner, though, its time for them to emerge. In preparation, I carefully inspect every inch of my feet to ensure they are ready to show to the world.

But when I told Dr. Paul Greenberg, an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at New York Universitys Grossman School of Medicine, that I give my feet a thorough once-over every spring, he told me to step it up. Your feet should be examined daily, he said, because their condition can provide important warning signs about your overall health.

Suddenly swollen feet can indicate high blood pressure, said Dr. Kirk Geter, the chief of podiatry at Howard University Hospital. Swelling can also be a sign of gout or kidney problems, Dr. Geter added, while tingling and numbness in the feet can indicate diabetes.

So each day, you should inspect the bottoms and tops of your feet  as well as between your toes  and wiggle your toes around, Dr. Geter said. Look for cracks in the skin, redness, changes in nail color, numbness, sores that wont heal and swelling, he said.
Lawmakers in the Texas House voted on Saturday to impeach Ken Paxton, the states Republican attorney general, temporarily removing him from office over charges that he had used his elected position to benefit himself and a campaign donor.

After a four-hour proceeding before a packed gallery, the vote landed with titanic force in the Texas Capitol, where a statewide office holder had not been impeached in more than a century, since the Legislature voted to oust the sitting governor, James E. Ferguson, in 1917, for embezzlement and misuse of public funds.

Before the vote, Representative Andrew Murr, the Republican chair of the House investigating committee that recommended impeachment, closed by urging his colleagues to impeach. The evidence presented to you is compelling and is more than sufficient to justify going to trial, he said, adding: Send this to trial.

The final vote was 121 members in favor of impeachment  a bipartisan coalition that included nearly every Democrat and a majority of the chambers Republicans  and 23 against, with two abstaining. As they voted, the board in the front of the chamber lit up in green lights signaling support. It went well beyond the 75 necessary.
The four men behind the whistle-blower lawsuit that landed the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, in political peril were once employees and allies whom Mr. Paxton handpicked to advance his conservative agenda.

The four staff members  James Blake Brickman, David Maxwell, Mark Penley and Ryan Vassar  joined forces when they decided that the actions they saw involving Mr. Paxton were too troubling to let stand.

They filed the whistle-blower lawsuit in 2020 after Mr. Paxton ignored their repeated expressions of concern. According to the 372-page filing that laid out their allegations, the four staff members fell out with Mr. Paxton after the F.B.I. in 2019 raided the home of Nate Paul, a wealthy real estate investor in Austin and a donor to Mr. Paxton. Convinced that the authorities had acted unlawfully, Mr. Paul enlisted Mr. Paxtons assistance.

In the lawsuit, the four men allege that Mr. Paxton not only used his influence to set up and attend a meeting for Mr. Paul and his lawyer with the staff of the local district attorneys office, but had also assigned a private attorney to look into Mr. Pauls concerns.
Explosions echoed across Ukraines capital for hours before dawn on Sunday as air defense teams raced to combat the largest swarm of Russian attack drones targeting Kyiv since the war began more than 15 months ago.

The Ukrainian Air Force said it had shot down 58 out of 59 Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones aimed at targets in central Ukraine, describing the number launched as a record. More than 40 drones were intercepted over the capital, where city officials said at least one person had been killed and another injured, probably by falling debris.

As Ukraine draws closer to launching a counteroffensive aimed at reclaiming land lost in the first months of the war, Moscow has stepped up its assaults on Kyiv. The capital has been attacked 14 times this month by waves of Russian drones, cruise missiles and sophisticated ballistic missiles.

This was the largest-ever drone attack on the capital since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, particularly using Shahed loitering munitions, the Kyiv military administration said in a statement.
An EgyptAir jetliner blew out a tire but made a safe landing at its destination early Sunday in Saudi Arabia, Egypts national carrier said.
Even as a child, Henry Threadgill liked to experiment.

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and saxophonists new memoir, Easily Slip Into Another World, he recounts a youthful attempt to fly from a window using a contraption of his own devising.

He managed to escape the ensuing, predictable crash without breaking any bones, but the young Threadgill did earn a reputation for daring in his Chicago neighborhood. His mothers response  Henry, why do you have to be so extreme?  became, as he writes, the refrain of my childhood.

That same question may have occurred to a few listeners. But Threadgill, 79, has done plenty of soaring, on stages, over the years: composing music intended for social dancing, and pieces for orchestra and string quartet in which players are encouraged to improvise. He has also led some of the most widely acclaimed ensembles in the past half-century of American jazz.
He did not discuss his sexuality in interviews, but he proudly described being the July 1973 nude centerfold in Playgirl magazine in an interview with Esquire in 2017.

A lot of guys came up to me and asked me to sign it for their wives, he said.

Mr. Maharis had done well-received work in theater before becoming a television star. In 1958 he played a killer in an Off Broadway production of Jean Genets Deathwatch. Writing in The Times, Louis Calta described Mr. Mahariss performance as correctly volatile, harsh, soft and cunning.

Two years later, he appeared in Edward Albees Zoo Story in its Off Broadway production at the Provincetown Playhouse. That year he was one of 12 young actors given the Theater World Award. The other winners included Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda, Patty Duke and Carol Burnett. In 1962, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for his work on Route 66.

Mr. Maharis told a writer for The Times in 1963 that he treated the TV series like a job in summer stock theater.

The series taught me how to maintain my integrity and not be sucked in by compromise, he said.

George Maharis was born in the Astoria section of Queens on Sept. 1, 1928, the son of a Greek restaurateur. He attended Flushing High School and later served in the Marines.
Schreiber, who aspired to a literary career and at one time was romantically involved with the playwright Eugene ONeills oldest son, wrote celebrity profiles and pop psychology pieces for outlets such as Cosmopolitan. And Wilbur, who had treated the actor Roddy McDowall  Case 129 in a book she co-authored about the causes and treatment of male homosexuality  craved the kind of broad audience that magazines then attracted.

Written to womens magazines then-loose reporting standards, with pseudonyms granted and facts changed or completely fabricated, Sybil is best read less as a case study in the mode of Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (the even more famous and interrogated Dora) than as horror story. And indeed Schreiber, admiring the success of Truman Capotes In Cold Blood, from the beginning aspired to do a nonfiction novel.

Its shocking details of abuse at the hands of a likely schizophrenic mother  cold-water enemas administered while the young Sybil Dorsett is hanging upside down from a light bulb cord over the kitchen table are one matinal maternal ministration, to use Schreibers affected terminology  exceed those in Stephen Kings novel Carrie. Sybil supposedly had a bead shoved up her nose; a buttonhook inserted in her genitals; and was blindfolded and shut in a trunk.

Rather than telekinetic powers, she develops a preternatural ability to assume different personas. Struggling in work and love, she finds herself dissociating from reality, losing time. At one session she begins speaking with a countrified accent and identifies herself as Peggy. The number and variety of these different characters  which include two male carpenters, Mike and Sid  increase exponentially into an entourage of alternating selves.

The real case studies here are of medical and journalistic malpractice. Wilbur by any modern metric crossed the line from transference to enmeshment. She crept into her patients bed to administer electroshock treatment with an outdated device, doled out Pentothal (a barbiturate then wrongly thought to act as a truth serum) to the point of addiction, and took her on creepy road trips.
Good morning. Theres no better breakfast than the one you make on the Sunday morning of a three-day weekend, at least if youre not working. Theres nothing elegiac about the meal  its neither the first one youve cooked after a long week, nor the last one youre making before getting back on the hamster wheel.

Its just breakfast on a day sandwiched between days off: bliss. And if you dont make it too late in the morning, it leaves a whole day to enjoy whatever it is you enjoy when you get the chance: say, a long walk through Griffith Park in Los Angeles, or a session at the skate park in Grant Park in Chicago. (Me, Im going fishing.)

What to make? I like the idea of Cilbir (above), poached eggs with yogurt and Aleppo pepper, which our Alexa Weibel adapted from a recipe by Ozlem Warren, the Turkish cooking teacher. The interplay of the poached eggs with the creamy, garlic-spiked yogurt is a delight, and Ill mop everything up with a warm flatbread or pita.
Sherri Willis-Praters baby boy was 2 months old, and she was about to return to her job at a school cafeteria in Chicago. But as she walked up the short flight of stairs to her kitchen one evening, she nearly collapsed, gasping for breath.

At the hospital, Ms. Willis-Prater, who was 42 at the time, was connected to a ventilator that pumped air into her lungs. Her heart, doctors said, was operating at less than 20 percent of its capacity. She had developed a rare form of heart failure that emerges after pregnancy.

The diagnosis was the last thing she expected to hear. After giving birth, Ms. Willis-Prater thought I made it across the finish line, she recalled in an interview. I dont have to worry about anything anymore.

Most people think of labor and birth as the most dangerous part of pregnancy. But new scientific research is challenging this assumption, finding that substantial risks persist for a full year after birth itself. The deadliest time for mothers is actually after the baby is born.
Image

Going Solo

Dear Diary:

Ive been married for just over a year, and the ritual from single life that I miss the most is dining out alone. Sitting solo at the bar is one of my favorite pastimes. My husband initially assumed it was a sign of a rift between us. He is learning otherwise.

This year, I made a New Years resolution to have a standing solo dinner date. On my first night out without my husband, I took myself to a charming Italian bistro in Fort Greene.

The restaurant was lively and, of course, full on a Saturday evening, but there was no wait for someone ready to take a stool at the bar.

Another woman who was dining alone sat down beside me and ordered a martini  shaken, three olives  and a crudo appetizer. She pulled out a book and started to read.
Thinking of the internet in these terms helps solve an economic mystery. The embarrassing truth is that productivity growth  how much more we can make with the same number of people and factories and land  was far faster for much of the 20th century than it is now. We average about half the productivity growth rate today that we saw in the 1950s and 60s. That means stagnating incomes, sluggish economies and a political culture thats more about fighting over what we have than distributing the riches and wonders weve gained. So what went wrong?

You can think of two ways the internet could have sped up productivity growth. The first way was obvious: by allowing us to do what we were already doing and do it more easily and quickly. And that happened. You can see a bump in productivity growth from roughly 1995 to 2005 as companies digitized their operations. But its the second way that was always more important: By connecting humanity to itself and to nearly its entire storehouse of information, the internet could have made us smarter and more capable as a collective.

I dont think that promise proved false, exactly. Even in working on this article, it was true for me: The speed with which I could find information, sort through research, contact experts  its marvelous. Even so, I doubt I wrote this faster than I would have in 1970. Much of my mind was preoccupied by the constant effort needed just to hold a train of thought in a digital environment designed to distract, agitate and entertain me. And I am not alone.

Gloria Mark, a professor of information science at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of Attention Span, started researching the way people used computers in 2004. The average time people spent on a single screen was 2.5 minutes. I was astounded, she told me. That was so much worse than Id thought it would be. But that was just the beginning. By 2012, Mark and her colleagues found the average time on a single task was 75 seconds. Now its down to about 47.

This is an acid bath for human cognition. Multitasking is mostly a myth. We can focus on one thing at a time. Its like we have an internal whiteboard in our minds, Mark said. If Im working on one task, I have all the info I need on that mental whiteboard. Then I switch to email. I have to mentally erase that whiteboard and write all the information I need to do email. And just like on a real whiteboard, there can be a residue in our minds. We may still be thinking of something from three tasks ago.
If Republicans are serious about dislodging Mr. Trump, this race needs a jolt. Soon. No one knows exactly what might do the trick, but those weary of groveling before him would do well to start experimenting  for the sake of the party more than even their own ambitions. At the very least, someone needs to climb into the ring with the willingness and disposition to throw a direct punch. Metaphorically, of course.

Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey, has been making noises as if he wants to be that guy. In a recent interview with Politico, he vowed that if he runs, he will tackle Mr. Trumps weaknesses head-on, from the character troubles to the record of losing. (So much losing.) I dont believe that Republican voters penalize people who criticize Trump, he asserted.

To pull this off, Mr. Christie would need to go all in on his no-nonsense, in-your-face, Jersey tough-guy shtick  the one where he yells at people to sit down and shut up  and quash the sycophantic streak that had him smooching Mr. Trumps backside for years. If he could go bully-a-bully with the former president, things could get interesting for the first time in forever. In 2016, no Republicans went hard at Mr. Trump because no one took him seriously. This time, most are too afraid of him. They are still hoping to find some magical way to woo his voters without his noticing or fighting back.

Good luck with that.

This race needs a brawler in the mix  if not Mr. Christie, then someone else with that inclination.

Omar Little, the drug-dealer-robbing philosopher on The Wire, once observed, You come at the king, you best not miss. But if everyone is too chicken  excuse me, too strategic  to seriously come at the king at all, how can anyone expect a regime change?
I should note here that traditionally masculine virtues are not exclusively male. Women who successfully model these attributes are all around us. On my recent visit to Kyiv, I was struck by the restraint and courage of the men and women I met. In the face of the greatest of challenges, they exhibited a degree of calm conviction thats all too foreign to our domestic politics.

If you doubt the need for such stoicism in our own country, Id point you, ironically enough, to the side of our political divide that is most critical of the A.P.A.s conclusions: the American right. In its words, the right claims to uphold traditional masculinity; in its deeds, the story is very different.

Rudyard Kiplings famous poem If is one of the purest distillations of restraint as a traditional manly virtue. It begins with the words If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you. The entire work speaks of the necessity of calmness and courage. Do not allow yourself to become too high or too low. (If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same.) Persevere.

Its a compelling vision  although one that can become an emotional trap, to be sure. Stoicism carried to excess can become a dangerous form of emotional repression, a stifling of necessary feelings. But the fact that the patience and perseverance that mark stoicism can be taken too far is not to say that we should shun those values. In times of conflict and crisis, it is the calm man or woman who can see clearly.

Instead, the new right chooses to shriek about groomers on Twitter.

If you spend much time at all on right-wing social media  especially Twitter these days  or listening to right-wing news outlets, youll be struck by the sheer hysteria of the rhetoric, the hair-on-fire sense of emergency that seems to dominate all discourse.
Egypt's parliament  the House of Representatives  provisionally approved Sunday legislative amendments to three laws stipulating new tax and fee hikes on a number of imported goods and entertainment activities despite being rejected by six political parties.
To the Editor:

Re My Daughters Future Was Taken From Her, and From Us, by Sarah Wildman (Opinion, May 21):

My heart aches for the writer of this essay, and as someone who has also lost a child, I can assure you that there is no greater pain.

My daughter, Luna, was 1 month old when she died last year as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident. It doesnt matter if your child is 35 years old or 1 month old: Losing them shreds the entire fabric of your reality. The devastating loss and emptiness you are left holding becomes the new foundation that you unwillingly and without choice must rebuild your life upon.

Grief doesnt get easier; it just gets different.

Jeffrey Passow

Indianapolis

To the Editor:

Sarah Wildmans wrenching essay about life after the death of her adolescent daughter Orli gives language to the raw agony of ones child dying. As a fellow journeyer on this road, I (Elena Lister) see the enormous value of her gift at writing.

I, too, found that I needed to direct my pain to bring some good to this world, to help our daughter Lizas death have meaning. And I was fortunate to find a colleague (Michael Schwartzman) who could bear witness and be unflinching yet openhearted about his experiences. As the co-author of our book, he joined me in bringing forward how essential it is that we all become able to talk with children about illness, death and loss.
A more recent example, much closer to me, is someone I served with in the 101st Airborne Division. While I worked in signals intelligence in Iraq, my friend Alyssa Peterson worked in human intelligence. In 2003, near Mosul, she killed herself, and though her name is recorded on lists of those who died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, deaths like hers are often viewed differently from those in combat, perhaps because of the stigma attached to suicide.

And what of veterans who end their lives after they have returned? In 2020, more than 6,100 veterans died by suicide. Last year, Dean Lambert wrote in Military Times about the suicide of his son, Adam, a Marine who died a year after returning home from Afghanistan. When I found him lifeless, wearing his desert combat uniform, clutching his dog tags in his left hand, there was no doubt he brought the war back with him, Mr. Lambert wrote. Memorial Day, he argued, should be for remembering not only the heroes who lost their lives from physical wounds, but those who also died fighting mental injuries they sustained on the same battlefields.

How someone dies is not the only factor that influences how we honor our war dead. When matters, too. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, better known as the Wall, is inscribed with over 58,000 names of Americans who died in or supporting combat or within 120 days of injuries or illnesses incurred in the combat zone.

Its the 120 days that gets me. What of those who died years later from what they were exposed to in Vietnam? We now know that Agent Orange is associated with health problems, including cancer and Parkinsons. An untold number of veterans have died of those service-connected conditions. Their names will not be inscribed on the Wall, though the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is seeking to memorialize them in other ways.

Toxic exposures are not limited to those who served in Vietnam. My friend Kate Hendricks Thomas died of breast cancer last year; her doctors told her the cause was most likely the chemicals from burn pits that she was exposed to during her time as a Marine in Iraq. I will forever mourn and honor her, too, among our war dead this and every Memorial Day, whether or not her name is ever inscribed on a list of those killed in the global war on terrorism.
Two people in the United States have died with probable cases of fungal meningitis and more than 200 others are at risk after an outbreak of the infection among patients who had surgery in Matamoros, Mexico, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.

At least 220 people in the United States who were treated at two clinics in Matamoros this year could be at risk after having epidural anesthesia, which is injected near the spinal column, the C.D.C. said. The people at risk traveled from the United States to the Mexican clinics for surgical procedures that included liposuction, Brazilian butt lifts and breast augmentation.

The C.D.C. said that as of Friday two people had died who had been classified as having probable cases of fungal meningitis. There were 11 more probable cases of the infection, based on spinal tap results, and 14 suspected cases, based on symptoms consistent with meningitis, the C.D.C. said.

Health authorities in the United States and Mexico have asked the World Health Organization to issue an emergency declaration in response to the outbreak.
Mr. Biden told reporters that he was confident the deal would reach his desk and that he spoke with Mr. McCarthy on Sunday afternoon to make sure all the Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted.

The agreement prevents the worst possible crisis, a default for the first time in our nations history, Mr. Biden said later in the day, adding, It also protects key priorities and accomplishments and values that congressional Democrats and I have fought long and hard for.

Mr. Biden said it was an open question whether the deal would make it through Congress. I have no idea whether he has the votes, he said of Mr. McCarthy. I expect he does.

Still, the deal was facing harsh criticism from the wings of both political parties.

Terrible policy, absolutely terrible policy, Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington, said on CNNs State of the Union, referring to the work requirements for food stamps and other public benefit programs. I told the president that directly when he called me last week on Wednesday that this is saying to poor people and people who are in need that we dont trust them.

Ms. Jayapal, the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she wanted to read the bill before she decided whether to support it.

Some on the right had already ruled out doing so before seeing the details.

No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote, Representative Bob Good, Republican of Virginia and a member of the House Freedom Caucus, wrote on Twitter. Representative Dan Bishop, Republican of North Carolina, posted his reaction to news of the deal: a vomit emoji.

Russell T. Vought, President Trumps influential former budget director who now runs the Center for Renewing America, encouraged right-wing Republicans to use their seats on the House Rules Committee  which Mr. McCarthy granted them as he toiled to win their votes to become speaker  to block the deal. Conservatives should fight it with all their might, he said.
The scene was typical of Ms. Feinsteins day-to-day existence on Capitol Hill, where she is surrounded by a retinue of staff members who serve not only the roles of typical congressional aides  advising on policy, keeping tabs on the schedule, drafting statements and speeches  but also as de facto companions to a senator whose age, frail health and memory issues make it difficult for her to function alone.

Their roles have come under more scrutiny as a number of Democrats and many of Ms. Feinsteins constituents are increasingly concerned about her refusal to relinquish a post that she is not capable of fulfilling without heavy and constant reliance on her aides.

They push her wheelchair, remind her how and when she should vote and step in to explain what is happening when she grows confused. They stay with her in the cloak room just off the Senate floor, where Ms. Feinstein has taken to waiting her turn to vote, then appearing in the doorway to register her aye or nay from the outer edge of the chamber.

All senators rely heavily on staff. But for years, Ms. Feinsteins memory problems have meant that she has needed far more support than other senators. Briefing her on the news of the day requires longer sessions and more background information.

At times she has expressed confusion about the basics of how the Senate functions. When Vice President Kamala Harris was presiding over the chamber last year in one of many instances in which she was called upon to cast a tiebreaking vote, Ms. Feinstein expressed confusion, according to a person who witnessed the scene, asking her colleagues, What is she doing here? Staff members have been overheard explaining to her that she cannot leave yet because there are more votes to come.
Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, has invested $10 million of his own money in his campaign. Like Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Ramaswamy sells a similar anti-woke sentiment, but he does so with the charm of a natural communicator.

Mr. Trump has welcomed the non-DeSantis entrants to the race. In January, when Nikki Haley, who served as Mr. Trumps ambassador to the United Nations, called to tell him she planned to run, Mr. Trump did not rant about her disloyalty, as some had expected. He sounded unbothered, telling her to do what youve got to do, according to two people briefed on their conversation.

And in the days leading up to Mr. Scotts announcement, Mr. Trump was watching Fox News in his Mar-a-Lago office when he said, I like him. Were just going to say nice things about Tim, according to a person familiar with his private comments.

The conventional wisdom at the beginning of the year was that the field would be relatively small, perhaps as few as five people running. Republican anti-Trump donors were working to thin the herd to prevent a repeat of the divided field that guaranteed Mr. Trumps victory in 2016. Now, after Mr. DeSantiss early stumbles, there will likely be as many as 10 candidates competing for attention and vying for the debate stage.

For Mr. DeSantis, the squeeze was apparent on the day he entered the race.

In New Hampshire, Ms. Haley mocked him on Fox News as merely copying Trump, down to his mannerisms. If hes just going to be an echo of Trump, people will just vote for Trump, she said.
Several lawmakers stood out in their roles on Saturday.

During the four hours in which lawmakers debated whether to impeach Mr. Paxton, several key players emerged who could have an enduring role as the impeachment case proceeds.

Representative Andrew Murr, the Republican who led the committee that investigated Mr. Paxton, brought the impeachment resolution to the floor and fielded most of the questions from Mr. Paxtons supporters, many of whom directly criticized the committees work.

Mr. Murr, with his distinctive curling mustache, parried many of the attacks on the process by returning to the seriousness of the charges against Mr. Paxton. We will not tolerate corruption, bribery, abuse of office, retaliation and all the related charges that have been presented to you, he said in his closing remarks. Im confident that you cannot tolerate, let alone defend, these most serious and grave official wrongs.

Representative John Smithee, another Republican, took on the role of arguing against impeachment, focusing less on the accusations and more on the ways in which he viewed the process as unfair. He said that not enough evidence had been presented and that lawmakers had not had enough time to consider such a consequential decision.

Its what I call the hang them now and judge them later policy, he said of the proceedings.

Representative Ann Johnson, a Democrat and former prosecutor, laid into Mr. Paxton from the floor on Saturday, saying he had broken laws that could lead to jail time. She also described what she said were senior members of Mr. Paxtons staff whose integrity had compelled them to speak up about his behavior. She said one employee observed Mr. Paxton requesting expensive renovations to his home that would be taken care of by his friend and donor.

The employee, deeply disturbed at a situation he regarded as improper, quit his job, Ms. Johnson said. When he continued to be paid by Mr. Paxton, she said, the man returned the money to Mr. Paxtons campaign. This is the kind of integrity, she said, that investigators discovered from the people who spoke up, many of whom were Republicans.
On the morning Sudans rival military forces began fighting, Yasir Algrai was in his studio in the center of the countrys capital, prepping for another day of work surrounded by paint colors and canvases.

That was on April 15  and in the three days that followed, Mr. Algrai remained trapped in his studio, starving and dehydrated as battles raged outside his door on the streets of Khartoum.

For hours every day, he cowered in terror as bullets pierced the windows of the building and the walls shook from errant shelling. When a small period of quiet to escape materialized, Mr. Algrai was eager to seize it  albeit with a heavy heart.

I could not carry any of my art or personal belongings, said Mr. Algrai, 29, who got out, but left behind his favorite guitar and more than 300 paintings of different sizes. This conflict has robbed us of our art and our peace, and we are now left trying to stay sane in the midst of displacement and death.
At least three people were killed and several others injured after clashes broke out along the Iranian-Afghan border on Saturday night, according to Iranian state media and an Afghan official, escalating tensions between the two countries amid a heated dispute over water rights in recent weeks.

At least two Iranian border guards were killed in the fighting, which began around noon on Saturday and ended after six hours along the southwestern border of Afghanistan, according to Iranian state media and Afghan news reports. One soldier with the Taliban administration in Afghanistan was also killed, the Afghan Ministry of Interior said.

Officials from both countries accused the other of initiating the clashes. An official in southeastern Iran said that calm had returned to the border area on Saturday night, according to Iranian state media.

The skirmishes come amid rising political tension between the two countries over the flow of water from the Helmand River in Afghanistan into eastern Iran, a region that has been plagued by drought. The mouth of the river is along the border in southwestern Afghanistan and southeastern Iran, where the clashes took place.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated a sleek new Parliament complex, part of a more than $2 billion project to revamp Indias decrepit colonial-era center of government in New Delhi.

But the inauguration ceremony, which reflected Mr. Modis usual penchant for Hindu religious and nationalist symbolism, was boycotted by his political opposition. And outside in the streets, the police were brutally breaking up a demonstration.

The majority of opposition lawmakers from both chambers, about 250 people, stayed away to protest what they called the latest example of the prime ministers overreach, which they say is undermining Indias constitutional democracy.

In a rare statement of unity, about 20 opposition parties rebuked Mr. Modi for taking on a role they said was reserved for Indias president, Droupadi Murmu, who holds the symbolic but important role as the custodian of the Constitution.
Zimbabwes foreign ministry has summoned the United States deputy ambassador over a series of tweets the embassy sent calling for a peaceful election in a country that has a history of violent and disputed votes.
Sipping a $12 beer in one of the worlds wealthiest capitals, Andrei Medvedev reflected on the question hanging over him since he left the battlefields of Ukraine: Is he a hero or a war criminal?

He claims to have deserted from Russias notorious Wagner mercenary force during the monumental battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, and later to have escaped his native Russia by running across a frozen Arctic river. Now in Norway, Mr. Medvedev, 26, is seeking asylum, while providing information on Wagner to Norwegian authorities.

Since arriving in the country in January, Mr. Medvedev has voluntarily attended about a dozen interviews with Norwegian police officers investigating war crimes in Ukraine, including his potential role in them. Mr. Medvedev has described killing Ukrainians in combat and witnessing summary executions of comrades accused of cowardice. He claims that he did not participate or witness war crimes such as killings of prisoners of war and civilians.

Yes, I have killed, I saw comrades die. It was war, he said in an interview at an Oslo bar. I have nothing to hide.
If you look at our state elections, Ostelsheim is the kind of place that votes so conservatively. I thought it was going to be very, very tough for him, said Yvonne Boeckh, a tax accountant, shouting over a rowdy polka number at the festival. Its just remarkable.

When Mr. Alshebl reached Germany with a college degree in banking, politics was hardly on his mind. Alone without his parents, who stayed behind in Syria, he threw himself into his new world and its traditions.

Yet like many of the 2015 refugees, now gaining citizenship and building new lives, he never wanted to hide where he came from or apologize for it. And he rejected Germanys old notions of integration.

Integration was a term that meant: We have a group of people that we need to find a way to teach some of the language and get them working, he said. And what kind of jobs? To work for the baker, the butcher, the shoemaker. But not to become mayor.
Hindu daughters cant inherit rights of mother who converted to Islam: Court

GBSE Results 2023: Gujarat Class 10 Results Out At gseb.org: How To Check

GSEB Class 12th 2023 Arts, Commerce Results Likely In June

Ahmedabad

oi-Deepika S

The Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board is likely to release the GSHSEB Class 12, Arts and Commerce exam results in the first week of June.

In a latest notification, the board issued a clarification over the social media rumours about the arts and commerce GSEB Higher Secondary School Certificate exam 2023 results.

Terming the reports fake, the the board also stated that it would only publish a press release on its website, gseb.org, to make the official announcement of the GSEB HSC result announcement date.

The GSEB HSC announced class 12 science results on May 2 and the overall passing rate was recorded at 65.58 per cent. Group A had a pass percentage of 72.27 per cent, and Group B had a pass percentage of 61.71 per cent.

The Gujarat Board Class 12 final examinations was held between March 14 and March 25.

GSEB HSC RESULT 2023: HOW TO CHECK

Go to the official website of GSEB gseb.org.

On the homepage, find the Results section.

Now, click on the Class 12th Results link.

Provide the essential information, such as your roll number and other pertinent information.

Submit and your GSEB HSC RESULT 2023 will be displayed on the screen.

Check your result and keep a copy for future reference.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 23:41 [IST]
Why Pakistan Will Continue To Boil And There Is No Solution Around The Corner

OPINION: Keeping Tabs On Imran Khan, Too !

Feature

lekhaka-Jagdish N Singh

New Delhi may remain cautious of the Pakistan Supreme Court's possible verdict in favour of Imran Khan. Apparently, such a verdict would be good for the cause of democracy in the country. But Khan, too, hardly represents the genuine progressive , democratic forces that ought to prevail in Pakistan today.

In a significant development last week, chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan approached the country's Supreme Court against the alleged attempts of the current Shehbaz Sharif government in Islamabad to dismantle his party. Will the Court come to his rescue and order general elections in the country ?

Observers say the Court may be inclined to advance the cause of democracy in the country and rule in favour of Khan. It may take cognisance of the reports that the current Sharif government has, in coalescence with the top military leadership in the country , decided to try, in the military courts, the civilians, whom it suspects of being behind the May 9 incidents , including the fire at the Lahore Corps Commander House (also known as Jinnah House) and the vandalization of the Rawalpindi Army Headquarters .

The Court may also take into account the reports that the incumbent authorities have of late been pressurising the PTI members to isolate Khan within the party. The authorities have resorted also to other tricks to make the rank and file desert Khan . On May 26, Pakistan Health Minister Abdul Qadir Patel shared a medical fitness certificate, prepared by the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science (PIMS). The report was designed to show that that Khan was "under stress with anxiety symptoms" and there was hence no point letting him lead the party.

Alcohol, Cocaine Detected in Imran Khan's Medical Test, Says Pakistan Health Minister

However, the observers say, New Delhi may remain cautious of the Court's verdict in favour of Khan. Apparently, such a verdict would be good for the cause of democracy in the country. Khan is the most popular leader in Pakistan today. He must be given a chance to participate in Pakistan's politics . But the problem is : he, too, hardly represents the genuine progressive , democratic forces that ought to prevail in Pakistan today.

Once Khan happened to be very close to the military establishment, an anti-democracy element in the country . In the 2018 elections, Pakistan's military helped Khan win the general elections in order to reduce the dominance of the then two major political parties: former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz).

During the first three years of his government , Khan was on very good terms with then Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. Khan even helped General Bajwa with a second three-year term as the army chief. Khan's tiff with the Army started only in October 2021 when he sought to prevent the appointment of a new chief for the I.S.I.

More importantly, New Delhi may bear in mind that Khan has been friendly to radical Islamist forces, such as the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan and the Tehrik-e-Pakistan / the Pakistani Taliban, which are hostile to India for ideological reasons . To please the TLP, Khan, when in power, developed a new curriculum with mandatory religion classes in the country's university education. It also established a body to monitor the social media against any content that might appear to be "blasphemous".

India must be vigilant about all radical Islamist forces in Pakistan. The conservative Deobandi brand of Islam has developed a considerable clout over the years in the country. In the late 1970s, over 70 per cent of mosques in Pakistan belonged to the relatively moderate Barelvi stream of Islam. Today over 55 per cent of them identify themselves as Deobandi.

The Pakistan Army, too, has over the years turned much closer to radical Islamists. In Pakistan in the late 1970s, over 90 per cent of the military mosques aligned themselves with the Barelvis. Today over 85 per cent of them adhere to Deobandism .

Imran Khan moves SC against 'undeclared martial law

The observers suggest New Delhi must keep a close watch on the increasing influence of radical Islamists in Pakistan and take all appropriate measures to checkmate their historical designs against modern secular India . The Deobandi, like the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi Salafism, has come out of Wahhabism.

Pertinently, Pakistan's Jamaat-i-Islami founder Maulana Sayyid Abdul Ala Maududi was greatly influenced by the doctrines of Shah Walilullah of the Mogul India and Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab of Ottoman Arabia, both born in 1703 . Maududi is long dead. But his followers continue to have their eyes on India.

In their dream to Islamize India, the radical Islamists might turn more adventurous in future. In this, an alliance between Wahabism and Khomeinism cannot be ruled out. It is well documented that Maududi had a close relationship with Khomeini since 1963 when they met during Haj. Founder of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Hassan al- Banna and Ayatollah Khomeini advocated an alliance between the two main branches of Islam.

(Jagdish N. Singh is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. He is also Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, New York)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of OneIndia and OneIndia does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 14:56 [IST]
OPINION: Nobody Remembers Naraz Phuphas

Feature

lekhaka-Smita Mishra

Sulking uncles may be a common element of Indian weddings but they are easily forgotten. People always go back with memories of a happy union. The Naraz Phuphas can join New India's grand march or become a footnote.

"Koi Naraz Phupha to nahi?' is a common query of relatives and guests attending a traditional Indian wedding. The sarcastic question arises because it is expected that there will be a sulking uncle sitting in some corner of the gathering expressing his displeasure at all the arrangements and the fact that he is not being accorded the pride of place he deserves. After some efforts at pacification, the sulking uncle is forgotten as attention shifts to the actual wedding.

What people carry back with them are memories of the celebrations, the song and dance, the lavish feasts and of course the happy union. Not very different from where the opposition led by the Congress party stands today. They are sulking in a corner while Indians just witnessed a moment that comes but once in the life of nation.

After 75 years of independence, we have a temple of democracy built by our own elected government, by our own proud workers. A structure that stands tall as the hallmark of a resurgent, self reliant, unapologetic, aspirational New India. Though India became independent from British rule seven and a half decades ago, the markers of colonisation are still visible all around us.

What the Sengol Signifies: 5 Points

While the physical markers are being phased out one by one, it is the colonization of the Indian mind that remains the biggest challenge. It is this challenge that Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to in his Independence Day speech last August while giving the mantra of Panch Pran.

That a section of the opposition chose to stay away from this momentous occasion shows they have opted to be on the wrong side of history. It is expected that they may have serious points of difference with the way the event was being solemnized. But they could have voiced it by coming and articulating their thoughts.

By staying away some of these opposition parties have given the message that they will only participate when things are organized 'their way'. Not quite democratic, is it? But then the Congress, and the parties which have come out of the Congress in the past, were used to having things their way.

All this would not have mattered so much had it not been for the 'sour grapes' attitude displayed by the Congress talking heads on the legacy of the 'Sengol'. With no answers as to why it blacked out this glorious episode of India's independence from public memory and how the Sengol came to be labelled as Nehru's 'golden walking stick', the Congress responded by questioning the authenticity of the entire episode. This despite the minute details provided by the Adheenam, experts and the testimony of the jewellers.

However, the Sengol which symbolizes righteousness and justice has found its rightful place in the new Parliament building. This building is also a state of the art structure designed to harness technology for smooth functioning. This proves we are as proud of our civilisational, cultural heritage as we are raring to adopt the latest technology to empower the nation.

As New India climbs newer heights, the Naraz Phuphas have to take the call whether they want to join or not to join the grand march. They can be a part of history or just a footnote.

(Smita Mishra writes on politics and current affairs)

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of OneIndia and OneIndia does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 13:31 [IST]
Situation In Manipur Nothing To Do With Counter-Insurgency: CDS

What Transpired At The Closed Door Meetings Held By Amit Shah In Manipur

33 Insurgents Killed In Manipur: CM Biren Singh

India

oi-Deepika S

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Sunday held militants from the Kuki tribe responsible for the recent attacks on unarmed civilians in the state.

He said 33 such militants have been killed in counter-insurgency operations after fresh clashes broke out between armed groups and security forces at over half a dozen places across Manipur on Sunday.

"The insurgents used M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles and sniper guns to attack civilians. Armed with weapons, they barged into many villages to burn down homes. Our government is taking very strong action against them with the help of the army and other security forces. We have got reports some 30 terrorists have been shot dead," Singh told reporters today.

Singh said that the fight is between armed terrorists trying to disintegrate Manipur and the state government assisted by the centre.

The chief minister appealed to the public not to hinder the movement of security personnel and urged them to have "faith in the government and support the security forces."

"We have experienced hardship for so long and we will never allow the state to disintegrate," Singh said.

The latest clashes which erupted in the early hours of Sunday began after the army commenced combing operations to de-arm communities in order to bring peace.

The house of BJP MLA Khwairakpam Raghumani Singh at Uripok in Imphal West was vandalised and his two vehicles have been set on fire, a top security official told PTI.

He said that clashes broke out in the early hours of the morning at several places in different districts surrounding the Imphal Valley both between militant groups and security forces as well as between rival ethnic militant groups.

The firing has been reported from Sugnu in Kakching, Kangvi in Churachandpur, Kangchup in Imphal West, Sagolmang in Imphal East, Nungoipokpi in Bishenpur, Khurkhul in Imphal West and YKPI in Kangpokpi.

Ethnic clashes in Manipur has claimed over 75 lives after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts on May 3 to protest against the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

The violence was preceded by tension over the eviction of Kuki villagers from reserve forest land, which had led to a series of smaller agitations. Meiteis account for about 53 per cent of Manipur's population and live mostly in the Imphal Valley.

Tribal Nagas and Kukis constitute another 40 per cent of the population and reside in the hill districts. Around 140 columns of the Indian Army and Assam Rifles, comprising over 10,000 personnel, besides those from other paramilitary forces had to be deployed to bring back normalcy in the Northeastern state.
India Keen To Further Elevate Its Defence Relations With Cambodia: President Murmu

An Important Milestone In Our Democratic Journey: President Murmu On New Parliament Inauguration

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

President Draupadi Murmu on Sunday welcomed the inauguration of the new parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said it is a matter of pride and immense happiness for the entire country.

According to PTI, in her message at the inauguration, the president said the inauguration of the new Parliament building will be written in golden words in the country's history.

''Inauguration of the new parliament building is a matter of pride and joy for all the people of India,'' she said in her message.

Her message was read out by Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Harivansh.

Noting the parliament is a guiding light for the country, President Murmu said the new Parliament building ''is an important milestone in our democratic journey''.

''The occasion of the inauguration of the new parliament building will be written in golden words in the history of India,'' Murmu said.

Democracy Is Our 'Sanskar Says PM Modi At Inaugural Of New Parliament Building

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated the new Parliament building and expressed hope that it will become a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla accompanied the Prime Minister during the ceremony that began with Puja.

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed ''Ganapati Homam'' to invoke divine blessings. The prime minister prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various Adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand.

Modi then carried the Sengol in a procession amid tunes of nadaswaram and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha chamber.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 14:40 [IST]
Assam To Get First Vande Bharat Express Tomorrow: Check Route, Timings

India

oi-Deepika S

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will flag off Assam's first Vande Bharat Express on Monday via video conferencing. With the inauguration of the new route, India will operationalise Vande Bharat Express trains on 18 routes across the country.

The prime minister will launch the 18th Vande Bharat Express on the New Jalpaiguri - Guwahati route, which also happens to be the first of such kind in the North-East region.

Connecting Guwahati with New Jalpaiguri, the train will help save about an hour of journey time, when compared with the current fastest train connecting the two places.

The new New Jalpaiguri - Guwahati Vande Bharat train will cover the journey in 5 hours and 30 minutes, while the current fastest train takes 6 hours and 30 minutes to cover the same journey.

The indigenously manufactured train will run six days a week. It will have stoppages at New Alipurduar, Kokrajhar, New Bongaigaon, and Kamakhya, including New-Jalpaiguri and Guwahati junctions.

The semi-high-speed train will leave from New Jalpaiguri junction at 6.10 am and arrive at Guwahati at midday. From Guwahati, Vande Bharat Express will leave at 4.30 pm and arrive at New Jalpaiguri around 10.20 pm.

The state of the art Vande Bharat Express will provide people of the region the means to travel with speed and comfort. It will also boost tourism in the region.

Vande Bharat Express, first known as Train 18 has state-of-the-art passenger amenities, providing passengers with a faster, more comfortable, and more convenient travel experience.

Additionally, PM Modi will also dedicate 182 Route Kms of newly electrified sections. This will help provide pollution-free transportation with trains running at higher speeds and reduced running time of trains. It will also open the doors for trains running on electric traction to enter Meghalaya.

The prime minister will also inaugurate a newly constructed DEMU/MEMU shed at Lumding in Assam. This new facility will be helpful for maintaining DEMU rakes operating in this region, leading to better operational feasibility.
My ego isn't bigger than a job: Priyanka takes a swipe at Shah Rukh's 'why should I go to Hollywood?' comment

'Beautifully Expressed': PM Modi After SRK Congratulates Him On New Parliament House

India

oi-Prakash KL

Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan has hailed the inauguration of a new Parliament building and called it a "magnificent new home'.

On Twitter, Shah Rukh Khan wrote, "What a magnificent new home for the people who uphold our Constitution, represent every citizen of this great Nation and protect the diversity of her one [email protected] ji. A new Parliament building for a New India but with the age old dream of Glory for India. Jai Hind! #MyParliamentMyPride."

Responding to Khan's Tweet, PM Modi said, "Beautifully expressed! The new Parliament building is a symbol of democratic strength and progress. It blends tradition with modernity. #MyParliamentMyPride The Prime Minister responded the King Khan's tweet. [sic]"

PM Modi Installs Historic Sengol In New Parliament

Not Shah Rukh Khan alone, many celebrities have spoken about the new Parliament building.

Tamil superstar Rajinikanth said, "The traditional symbol of tamil power - the scepter - will shine in india's new parliament building. My sincere thanks to the honorable bharat pratham @narendramodi who made tamilians proud."

Beautifully expressed!



The new Parliament building is a symbol of democratic strength and progress. It blends tradition with modernity. #MyParliamentMyPride https://t.co/Z1K1nyjA1X  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 27, 2023

Music maestro Ilaiyaraaja shared his excitement as a citizen and posted a statement. The statement read, "Tomorrow as the Hon'ble PM inaugurates the new Parliament building, am happy & excited as a citizen & especially as a Parliamentarian and join our joyous and proud nation in congratulating PM Modi, the Govt of India & all those people who have contributed to building this historic structure in such a short time. I sincerely pray the new structure becomes the abode for transformational policies and decision making as the world celebrates a new India under the inspirational leadership of PM Modi."

A Quick Guide To The New Parliament Of India

He hailed PM Modi for his vision of taking India to new heights and his duty-bound actions reflects the same. The statement continued, "The royalty who possessed the revered Sengol (an ancient Tamilian culture & pride) and successfully ruled over their kingdoms revered the sceptre as a symbol of justice, order, honesty, and ethics. It's with immense pride and joy that we welcome the return of the sceptre to its rightful place of pride. As Head of the World's largest democracy, PM Modi has a vision of taking India to new heights and his duty-bound actions reflects the same. May God be with him in all his endeavors and I sincerely wish him, the Govt of India all success on this momentous occasion."

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar posted the clip of the new Parliament building and said, "Proud to see this glorious new building of the Parliament. May this forever be an iconic symbol of India's growth story. #MyParliamentMyPride."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday morning inaugurated the new Parliament House. Several BJP leaders including Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Rajanth Singh attended the event.
An Israeli airstrike targeting positions of a Palestinian group in eastern Lebanon early Wednesday killed five Palestinian and wounded 10 others, two Palestinian officials said.
Following 13 Raids In Madhya Pradesh, NIA Nets 3 Islamic State Operatives

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

The National Investigation Agency has busted an Islamic State module in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh.

The operation was led by the NIA in assistance with the Intelligence Bureau and Madhya Pradesh Anti Terrorism Squad. During the raid, the agencies recovered sharp-edged weapons, ammunition, incriminating documents and digital devices.

Three arrests took place during the operation, which included raids at 13 locations in Jabalpur on May 26 and 27. The three persons arrested include, Syed Mamoor Ali, Mohammad Adil Khan and Mohammad Shahid. They will be produced before a special NIA court in Bhopal.

On May 24, the NIA had registered a case during its probe Into the alleged pro-Islamic State activities of Mohammad Adil Khan, who had come under the radar in August last year. He and his associates are accused of being involved in propagating the ideology of the Islamic State through social media platforms. They also undertook the 'Dawah' programme, the agency has also learnt.

NIA Busts ISIS-linked Terror Module In MP; 3 Held

An official tells OneIndia that the activities were carried out with the intention of unleashing violent attacks in India on behalf of the Islamic State. The module has been accused of conducting meetings in local Masjids and hatching conspiracies to spread terror in India, the agency the said in a statement.

The probe also revealed that the three were highly radicalised and were determined to carry out violent terror acts. They were also involved in collecting funds and propagating the ideology of the Islamic State. They were also motivating other youth to carry out attacks, while luring them to join the organisation.

The NIA said that Syed Mamoor Ali had created a local group by the name of 'Fisbilillah' and was also operating a WhatsApp group in the same name. Throuogh this he would post propaganda material, an official also said. In addition to this he was also running several other channels on YouTube, the official also said.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 9:32 [IST]
An Important Milestone In Our Democratic Journey: President Murmu On New Parliament Inauguration

PM Modi Always Stood With Tamil Culture: Madurai Adheenam Priest

Democracy Is The Valuable Legacy Of Our Country: LS Speaker Om Birla

New Parliament Building: Opposition Launches Scathing Attack On PM Modi

Let Us Embrace: Shashi Tharoor Wades Into 'Sengol' Row

Inauguration Of New Parliament Building And What An Opportunity The Opposition Missed

From 1921 To 2023 - The Timeline Of Parliament House

India

oi-PTI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated the new Parliament building. Following is a timeline of the old and new buildings of Parliament.

Feb 12, 1921: Foundation stone laid of Parliament House, then called the Council House, by Duke of Connaught

Jan 18, 1927: Parliament inaugurated by then Governor General Lord Irwin

Jan 19, 1927: First meeting of third session of Central Legislative Assembly held in Parliament House

Dec 9, 1946: First sitting of Constituent Assembly

Aug 14/15, 1947: Transfer of power at midnight session of Constituent Assembly

May 13, 1952: First sitting of both Houses

Aug 3, 1970: Then President VV Giri lays foundation stone of Parliament Annexe

Oct 24, 1975: Then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inaugurates Parliament Annexe

Aug 15, 1987: Then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi lays foundation stone of Parliament Library

May 7, 2002: Then President KR Narayanan inaugurates Parliament Library building

May 5, 2009: Then Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari and then Speaker Somnath Chatterjee lay foundation stone of extension of Parliament Annexe

July 31, 2017: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates Parliament Annexe extension

Aug 5, 2019: Then Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla present proposal for modern Parliament building

Dec 10, 2020: Prime Minister Narendra Modi lays foundation stone of new Parliament building

May 28, 2023: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates new Parliament building

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 15:15 [IST]
PM Modi Always Stood With Tamil Culture: Madurai Adheenam Priest

Democracy Is The Valuable Legacy Of Our Country: LS Speaker Om Birla

From 1921 To 2023 - The Timeline Of Parliament House

New Parliament Building: Opposition Launches Scathing Attack On PM Modi

Let Us Embrace: Shashi Tharoor Wades Into 'Sengol' Row

Inauguration Of New Parliament Building And What An Opportunity The Opposition Missed

In Pictures, The New Parliament Building Inaugurated

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Prime Minister Narendra on May 28 inaugurated the new Parliament building. It was a mega-event, in which many took part.

Let us take a look at the inauguration of the new Parliament building in pictures.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered the new Parliament building at 7.30 am.

The priests from Karnataka performed a Ganapathi Homa.

Amidst Vedic chants by the priests the PM performed Ganapathi Homa to invoke the Gods to bless the inauguration of the new building.

The ceremony began with a traditional puja.

Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla too was present at the event.

PM Modi sought blessings from the high priests of various Adheenams.

Prior to this, he prostrated before the Sengol.

The Sengol was handed over to the PM by the Adheenams.

The PM then installed the Sengol in the Lok Sabha next to the seat of the Speaker.

PM Modi then unveiled the plaque to mark the inauguration of the New Parliament building along with Speaker Om Birla.

The Sengol was carried midst the tunes of 'Nadaswaram.'

During the event 'Ssarv-Dharma prayers were held.

Priests from different religions recited the traditional verses.

The PM also facilitated a group of construction workers who were involved in the construction of the new Parliament building.

The new building is part of the revamped Central Vista Project.

The construction of the new building began in 2019.

The new Parliament building was built at a cost of Rs 1,200 crore.

The new Parliament has three storeys.

The built-area of the new building is 64,500 sqm.

There are 92 rooms in the new Parliament building for the council of ministers.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 11:14 [IST]
Kejriwal Meets Ex-Minister Satyendar Jain In Hospital

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday met former Delhi minister & AAP leader Satyendar Jain at LNJP Hospital, in Delhi.

"Met the brave man.....the hero.." Kejriwal wrote on Twitter.

Met the brave man..the hero.. pic.twitter.com/d5gzKoDud9  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 28, 2023

Jain, who has been arrested in connection with a money laundering case, was hospitalised after he collapsed at the prison due to dizziness.

SC Grants Bail To Delhi's Former Minister Satyendar Jain On Health Grounds

Jain, who has been in Tihar Jail since his arrest by the ED in May last year in connection with a money laundering case, was on Friday last granted six-week interim bail by the Supreme Court, on medical grounds.

He was admitted to the hospital on Thursday last after he collapsed in prison due to dizziness, party sources had said.

The former health minister was first admitted to the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital, and later, shifted to the the Lok Nayak Jayaprakash (LNJP) Hospital due to breathing problems.

The Supreme Court on Friday last allowed Jain to undergo treatment in a hospital of his choice. It also directed Jain to not talk to the media during his interim bail period that ends on July 11.
BJPs Counter to Opposition On Why President Is Not Inaugurating New Parliament Building

Inauguration Of New Parliament Building And What An Opportunity The Opposition Missed

Lok Sabha 2024: Opposition Parties To Meet On June 12th In Patna

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Opposition parties have scheduled a crucial meeting in Patna, the capital city of Bihar, on 12 June to strategize for the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Reports indicate that around 18 leaders from various opposition parties are expected to participate in this conclave.

According to NDTV reports, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who has taken on the role of interlocutor for the BJP-Opposition engagement leading up to the significant 2024 elections, has decided on the meeting and its venue for the opposition party gathering.

CM Nitish Kumar, accompanied by his deputy chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav, has been engaging with several opposition leaders, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar, in an effort to consolidate opposition forces to counter the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Shame! Oppn Leaders Slam Delhi Police Action On Protesting Wrestlers

This development comes as 20 opposition parties, including the Congress, Left, TMC, SP, and AAP, recently boycotted the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They expressed their discontent, stating that they see no value in a new building when they believe the "soul of democracy has been sucked out."

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 17:30 [IST]
We Are United: DK Shivakumar's First Reaction On Being Declared Dy CM

Mallikarjun Kharge To Broker Peace Between Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot

India

oi-Deepika S

Congress Chief Mallikarjun Kharge is likely to hold a meeting with Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his rival Sachin Pilot on Monday in Delhi, in a bid to broker peace between the two leaders in this election year in Rajasthan.

Gehlot is set to visit Delhi on Monday, where he will also lay the foundation stone of the Rajasthan House.

The proposed meeting comes close on the heels of Pilot's ultimatum that if three demands he made from the state government were not met by the end of this month, he would launch a state-wide agitation.

Pilot has asked for a high-level inquiry into the alleged scams that took place during the tenure of the former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje government, as one of his demands.

According to the senior leader, a meeting of the Congress top brass with all the state leaders was scheduled on May 26 but was later postponed.

He said that now the high command will meet Gehlot and Pilot separately to bring them on one platform ahead of the assembly elections, which are due later this year.

Kharge was successful in bringing Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar together in Karnataka and the party now wants to try the same formula in Rajasthan, a senior party leader told PTI.

He also said that a few days ago a meeting of the Congress high command with the leaders of all poll-bound states, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana, was planned, which was postponed.
Mann Ki Baat: Pride And Hope Says PM On New Parliament Building

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the 101st Episode of Mann ki Baat today. This is significant as it just comes hours after he inaugurated the new Parliament building.

The PM said that he is filled with pride and hope on the new Parliament building.

Your participation is the greatest strength of this program. During the broadcast of the 100th episode, in a way the whole country was bound by a single thread. Be it sanitation personnel brothers and sisters or veterans from myriad sectors, 'Mann Ki Baat' has striven to bring everyone together. The intimacy and affection that all of you have shown for 'Mann Ki Baat' is unprecedented, it makes one emotional. When 'Mann Ki Baat' was broadcast, in different countries of the world, in various time zones, somewhere it was evening and somewhere it was late night... despite that, a large number of people took time out to listen to the 100th episode. I also saw that video from New Zealand, thousands of miles away, in which a 100 year old is expressing her motherly blessings. People from India and abroad have expressed their views on 'Mann Ki Baat'. Many people have also offered Constructive Analysis. People have appreciated the fact that in 'Mann Ki Baat' only the achievements of the country and the countrymen are discussed. I once again thank you all with all due respects for this blessing, the PM said.

PM Modi Installs Historic Sengol In New Parliament

We talked about the Kashi-Tamil Sangamam, Saurashtra-Tamil Sangamam in 'Mann Ki Baat'. Kashi-Telugu Sangamam was also held a while ago in Varanasi. Another such unique effort to give strength to the spirit of Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat has taken place in the country. This is the effort of the Yuva Sangam. I thought, why not ask about this in detail from the very people who have been a part of this unique effort.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 12:21 [IST]
'Matter Of Pride': Allahabad Museum Officials On Installation Of 'Sengol' In Parliament

India

oi-PTI

Officials at the Allahabad Museum, home of the historic 'Sengol' for seven decades, said their treasured possession moving to the new Parliament building in the national capital is a matter of pride for them as well as the residents of Prayagraj.

The 'Sengol', a Chola-era spectre made of silver with a coat of gold, is a symbol of the transfer of power from the British in 1947.

On Sunday, it will be installed near the chair of the Lok Sabha Speaker. In common parlance in Prayagraj, it was called the "raaj dand", while in the museum records, it was mentioned as "sunahari chharhee", the officials said.

What the Sengol Signifies: 5 Points

Officials associated with the transfer said to fill the "void", a replica of the 'Sengol' will be kept at the museum. Assistant Curator of Allahabad Museum Waman Wankhede told PTI, "The foundation stone of the museum building was laid on December 14, 1947, by (former prime minister) Jawaharlal Nehru and the museum was opened to the public in 1954 in the Chandra Shekhar Azad Park or the Company Bagh area."

"Nehru ji wanted to give all his gifts to the Allahabad Museum and he told the then curator S C Kala about this. The curator prepared a list of items which included the 'Sengol'. The length of the 'Sengol' is approximately 138.4 centimetres," Wankhede said.

"It is a matter of happiness and pride for the Allahabad Museum that the 'Sengol' is going to the new Parliament," he said further. According to Wankhede, the 'Sengol' was transferred to the National Museum, New Delhi on November 4, 2022.

A K Singh, Vice Chancellor of Prof Rajendra Singh (Rajju Bhaiya) University, Prayagraj, who held the additional charge of the museum director when the 'Sengol' was transferred to Delhi, said a "historical stick is again going to be a part of history".

Asked if he felt emotional when the spectre was moved to Delhi, he said, "Naturally, yes. See, any object, even if it is lifeless, stays in your house, and then you develop an attachment with that object.

"But, in this case, it was going from one home (Allahabad Museum) to another home (National Museum), and it was going to a good place for a good cause. So, it was an emotional as well as a proud moment," he said.

Singh held the post of director of the Allahabad Museum for 13 months. He said the transfer took place after a phone call from the Union culture ministry informing them that the 'Sengol' had to be shifted. Singh said it took two to three months to complete the process.

"When the transfer process was going on, Governor madam said a replica of the 'Sengol' should be kept in the Allahabad Museum, since the original item is going. "We had already given approval for the replica, and I feel that it will be installed soon in the museum," Singh said.

PM Modi Installs Historic Sengol In New Parliament

Director of Allahabad Museum Rajesh Prasad said as the news of the 'Sengol' getting installed at the Parliament building spread, there has been a significant increase in the number of visitors wanting to know its historical significance.

Meanwhile, Lok Sabha MP and former mayor of Prayagraj Rita Bahuguna Joshi admitted that she never saw the 'Sengol' at the museum but was elated that "thousands of people will see it" at the Parliament building.

"This is a historical piece going from one government place to another... a bigger place that is the Parliament House where thousands of people will see it. We should feel happy about it," she said. The Allahabad Museum comes under the Union Ministry of Culture and its ex-officio Chairman is the Governor of Uttar Pradesh.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 9:53 [IST]
Inauguration Of New Parliament Building And What An Opportunity The Opposition Missed

New Parliament Building: Opposition Launches Scathing Attack On PM Modi

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

The Congress on Sunday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he inaugurated the new Parliament building, saying that a "self-glorifying authoritarian PM with utter disdain for parliamentary procedures" has opened the new complex. Meanwhile, the NCP said that without the presence of the Opposition, the event remained incomplete.

Taking to micro-blogging platform Twitter, Congress senior leader Jairam Ramesh said,''On this day, May 28: Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883 and on this very day President Droupadi Murmu - the first Adivasi to become President - is not allowed to fulfill her constitutional duties and inaugurate the new Parliament building."

28     :



1. ,              ,  1964      



2. ,              ,   1883   



3. ,  Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) May 28, 2023

Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal took a dig at the BJP over the party describing the Sengol as a symbol of transfer of power from the British, saying that in India the transfer of power is through the will of the people who gave themselves this Constitution.

Sengol :

BJP says :

Symbol of transfer of power from the British.



My take :

In India transfer of power through Will of the people who gave to themselves this constitution



Sengol presented by Goddess Meenakshi to king of Madurai. Symbolises Divine right to rule  Kapil Sibal (@KapilSibal) May 28, 2023

His remarks come amid a war of words between the Congress and the BJP over the history of the Sengol with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying it was a symbol of the transfer of power from the British in 1947 and should have gotten its due respect after Independence, but was kept on display as a ''walking stick'' at Anand Bhawan in Prayagraj.

PM Modi Always Stood With Tamil Culture: Madurai Adheenam Priest

The Congress has claimed there was no documentary evidence of Lord Mountbatten, C Rajagopalachari and Jawaharlal Nehru describing the Sengol as a symbol of transfer of power from the British to India.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also registered his protest against the PM inaugurating the Parliament. He said that PM Modi is treating inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation.

The RJD has sparked a significant controversy due to its tweet featuring a coffin, drawing widespread criticism for its perceived insensitivity. The party compared it to a coffin, tweeting a picture of a coffin and the Parliament side by side.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurating the new Parliament building was akin to ''I only love myself day'', TMC MP Derek O'Brien said and accused the government of mocking and insulting the House in the past nine years.

''Now that PM Modi is done with his 'I Only Love Myself Day', let us remind him of how he and his government have mocked and insulted Parliament in the last nine years,'' O'Brien said in a tweet.

The TMC was among the first parties to announce that it was staying away from Sunday's inauguration. Around 20 Opposition parties decided to boycott the event over the prime minister and not the president inaugurating the building.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated the new Parliament building and expressed hope that it will become a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla accompanied the Prime Minister during the ceremony that began with Puja.

Democracy Is Our 'Sanskar Says PM Modi At Inaugural Of New Parliament Building

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed ''Ganapati Homam'' to invoke divine blessings. The prime minister prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various Adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand.

Modi then carried the Sengol in a procession amid tunes of nadaswaram and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha chamber.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 15:26 [IST]
With Eye On 2024 Polls, PM Modi Holds Meeting With CMs Of BJP-Ruled States

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PM Attends Sarva-Dharma Prayer Meet At New Parliament Building

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

India's new Parliament building is being inaugurated today. The ceremony began early this morning with a havan.

PM Modi was dressed in a traditional attire. He walked into the Parliament premises from its Gate No.1. He was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla ahead of the inauguration ceremony of the new P{parliament building.

PM Modi along with Birla and other Cabinet ministers attended the 'Sarv-dharma' prayer ceremony.

The ceremony began with the traditional puja with Vedic rituals which went on for an hour. Later, the PM received the Sengol and installed the same in the new Parliament. While he carried the Sengol received from Tamil Nadu, overwhelming tunes of 'nadaswaram' played.

PM Modi Installs Historic Sengol In New Parliament

The Parliament building is part of the revamped Central Vista Project. The construction of the same began in 2019. The building was built at a cost of Rs 1,200 crore. The new Parliament has three storeys and a built-up area of 64,500 sql. During the ceremony today, a Rs 75 coin will also be launched.

There are 92 rooms for the council of ministers.

The Opposition and the BJP have been at logger heads over the new Parliament building. The Opposition has boycotted the event stating that it should have been the President of India who should have inaugurated the new Parliament building.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 8:41 [IST]
Photo: Thinkstock. A new report says police and local governments have restrictive drug policies that could harm lives.

Local governments and police departments in B.C. are at the centre of prohibitive drug policies that are costing drug users their lives, a new report from advocacy groups says.

That's according to the Pivot Legal Society and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), who say with an average of up to seven people a day dying from overdose in the province, something has to change. That, they argue, has to come at the grassroots level  in communities.

The groups released Talking Back to the City: A manual for winning  and resisting  local drug policy this week, a 60-page report for grassroots organizing against what they're calling the drug war.

Even after (decriminalization), police are always circling. Theyre everywhere. We just want our people to try the best at what theyre doing. Do good research. Dont give up. If theres no peace for the people, therell be no rest for the government, said Delilah Gregg, a VANDU board member.

B.C.'s new drug decriminalization law kicked in Jan. 31. People in possession of 2.5 grams or less of fentanyl, heroin, morphine, crack and powder cocaine, methamphetamine or MDMA cannot be arrested or have their drugs seized.

Instead, the B.C. government says drug users will be offered an information card from officers about health and social supports, including local treatment and recovery services, if requested.

B.C.s Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions told Glacier Media that Pivot, VANDU and the BC Association of Chiefs of Police have been supportive of that decriminalization exemption under the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Moreover, the ministry said, the RCMP have been engaged throughout the process of developing and implementing the exemption to decriminalize personal possession of small amounts of illegal substances.

Still, the ministry said, it continues to work closely with public health, police, local governments and other partners to update policies and practice guidelines relating to substance use where necessary to mitigate any outstanding issues that arise.

However, the report notes the 2016 declaration of a public health emergency due to the rising number of overdose deaths. It said since then, all levels of government have vowed to use all tools to prevent overdose-related deaths.

Yet in B.C. alone, an estimated 10,505 people have since then died from the unregulated drug supply, the report stated. We fiercely disagree that all tools are being used. How could we believe otherwise, when it is a daily struggle for our comrades around the province to simply provide overdose prevention services in their communities?

"At a time when local governments are fighting tooth and nail to shut down drug user services and supports, it is impossible to believe that all available powers and resources are being mobilized for anything other than the continued suppression of and violence against people who use drugs, said the report.

The report targets what it calls the deadly action and inaction of local governments, highlighting that it is here on the streets where drug users die from policy at the hands of police, bylaw enforcement officers, city councils and the public.

In addition to undercutting B.C.s decriminalization policy, cities are routinely responsible for impediments to and closure of overdose prevention services (OPS) across the province, despite there being a standing ministerial order requiring OPS wherever there is need, said Pivot lawyer Caitlin Shane.

"Drug user groups (which provide cutting-edge harm reduction services and drug policy advocacy) are constantly under threat too, with many having to close their doors due to local governments use of zoning restrictions, business licence denials, and nuisance property designations, the report said, calling for an end to those practices from the local level up.

Recommendations

The groups set forth recommendations as part of a toolkit to assist those jurisdictions:



decriminalizing people who use drugs (PWUD), our spaces, and our safe supply initiatives;



amending bylaws and policies that disproportionately harm PWUD;



ending drug and paraphernalia seizures by law enforcement;



ending local interference with drug user spaces and services;



creating bubble zones around harm reduction services;



supporting a community-based approach to overdose; and,



integrating alcohol into local harm reduction, safe supply, and decriminalization efforts.





The report notes local governments can apply for exemptions from the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to allow drug use in their communities to allow for safe use and safer supply initiatives.

Further, it said, not all laws need to be enforced.

Another approach local governments can take toward decriminalization is for police forces to adopt policies of non-enforcement with respect to drug possession and street-based drug trafficking, meaning that they would not investigate or arrest people in connection with these offences, the report said.

We want this report to act as a manual, said VANDU board member Elli Taylor.

What do government have to say?

The ministry said it has invested more than $11 million in new positions to ensure decriminalization success in B.C. This includes new decriminalization navigators who are on the ground to help build connections with local service providers and police.

The ministry said health authorities are also receiving funding for improve peer outreach services to strengthen on-the-ground resources for drug users and to partner with police to minimize the need for police interaction and/or referral where possible and improve interactions between police and people who use drugs.

Moreover, the ministry said both it, the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General have worked with police leadership and other stakeholders to develop training to support B.C.s more than 9,000 front line police officers with the knowledge and tools to implement decriminalization.

And, the ministry said, that includes ensuring officers understand the terms and conditions of the exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, how decriminalization will address stigma, their role in the successful implementation of decriminalization, and the importance of a public health approach to substance use.

The ministry said more than 80 per cent of officers have completed the first phase of training with a second phase set to launch in the coming months.

Several police agencies have made the training mandatory, including the RCMP, Abbotsford PD, Metro Vancouver Transit PD, and Vancouver PD, the ministry said.

The City of Vancouver referred a request for comment to the Vancouver Police Department, which has yet to comment.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stares down from a campaign poster at the earthquake ruins of Antakya, inspiring confidence in Ahmet Gulyildizoglu ahead of Sunday's election runoff.

Millions across the ravaged region defied expectation and voted for the man who has ruled Turkey for two decades and fell just short of securing another five-year term on May 14.

Erdogan's secular rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, "does not fill you with hope," Gulyildizoglu said in front of a debris-strewn expanse once occupied by his six-floor apartment building.

"On the other hand, you have an alliance that keeps their promises," the pensioner added, referring to Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party and its far-right allies.

Erdogan's ability to maintain support across Turkey's southeastern disaster zone contributed to Kilicdaroglu's disappointing showing in the first round, which he ended trailing by nearly five points.

The Turkish leader is now the strong favourite, capping a remarkable turnaround.

Seething anger at the government's stuttering response to the February disaster, in which more than 50,000 died, put Erdogan in the unfamiliar position of issuing public apologies.

But Berk Esen, an associate professor at Istanbul's Sabanci University, called Erdogan's election rebound "not very surprising".

Esen argued that the region is filled with pious voters who trusted Erdogan's explanation that the massive toll resulted from an unavoidable act of nature -- not state negligence over lax building standards.

In addition, "the opposition did not campaign heavily in the area and could not offer an alternative, credible message," Esen told AFP.

Depot for migrants

Instead of giving up, Kilicdaroglu is radically changing course.

Ditching his embracing vows to heal Turkey's social divisions, Kilicdaroglu has struck a stridently nationalist tone, pledging to expel millions of Syrians and other migrants.

The message resonates in Syria-border cities such as Antakya, a mountain-rimmed cradle of civilisations once known as Antioch.

Kilicdaroglu has plastered Antakya with posters declaring: "The Syrians will go".

"We will not turn Turkey into a depot for migrants," the 74-year-old said on a visit to Antakya on Tuesday.

The tough talk pleased Mehmet Aynaci, 20, who blames Syrians for local housing problems.

"Before the earthquake, if you looked for a flat, there were a lot of Syrians," Aynaci said.

"Of course they must go," added Atilla Celtik, who like Aynaci is one of the few who has not left the almost completely deserted city.

"They will be asking for our land in the future," he said. "We are worried."

Hurt feelings

The historically liberal lean of Antakya's Hatay province gave Kilicdaroglu a slight edge here over Erdogan in the first round.

It was one of just three of the 11 quake-hit provinces to vote against the incumbent.

Kilicdaroglu's future success will depend in part on how many people who left the disaster zone are willing to make a second trip back for the runoff.

Nearly 1.7 million of the displaced failed to change their registration address by an April 2 deadline, meaning they must come back to vote.

Sema Sicek, whose anger at Erdogan is just as strong as the days when thousands slowly died under the debris while the government unwound its response, thinks they simply must.

"Walk if you have to but don't give up on your land," the 65-year-old said, accusing Erdogan of "burying us alive".

Some of that fury has spilled over onto social media, where survivors were targeted for backing Erdogan.

The Turkish leader mentions these messages often on the campaign trail, trying to blame them on Kilicdaroglu.

Gulyildizoglu's daughter Hatice said the attacks stung.

"This really offended us," she said. "Our grief is immense. You have to live it to understand."

Anti-Turk

Erdogan has won votes with pledges to build victims new homes by early next year -- "maybe a little later" for those in Antakya.

Kilicdaroglu is trying to do the same, telling Tuesday's rally that "nobody should ever doubt" his ability to rebuild the region.

But Hakan Tiryaki, the provincial head of Kilicdaroglu's leftist party, is sensitive to complaints that the opposition did not make its voice heard enough before the first round.

Campaigning any harder might have given the impression that the opposition was trying to profit from people's grief, Tiryaki told AFP.

It might also have failed to change the mind of voters such as Omer Edip Aslantas, 51, who remembers chatting with other leftists about developing Turkey in the 1970s.

"The Turkish left is no longer the same," he said in Kirikhan, a northern Hatay district that backed Erdogan.

"They have become anti-Turk, anti-Muslim."

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PM Modi Hails Savarkars Sacrifice, NTRs Indelible Mark' in Cinema On Mann Ki Baat

India

oi-Prakash KL

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday hailed Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N T Rama Rao on the occasion of their birth anniversaries.

Paying homage to Savarkar on his birth anniversary during the 'Mann ki Baat' broadcast, PM Modi said Savarkar's sacrifice, courage and determination continue to inspire us.

"Today the 28th of May, is the birth anniversary of the great freedom fighter, Veer Savarkar. The stories related to his sacrifice, courage and resolve inspire us all even today. I cannot forget the day when I went to the cell in Andaman where Veer Savarkar underwent the sentence of Kalapani.

Veer Savarkar's personality comprised firmness and magnanimity. His fearless and self-respecting nature did not appreciate the mentality of slavery at all. Not only the freedom movement, whatever Veer Savarkar did for social equality and social justice is remembered even today," he said in the 101st edition of his monthly radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat' today

Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and several Union ministers and MPs paid floral tributes to Savarkar in the Central Hall of the old Parliament building.

Talking about N T Rama Rao, the Prime Minister said that he left an indelible mark through the strength of his amazing talent in politics and the film industry.

"The name of this great personality is N T Rama Rao, whom we all know as NTR. Today, is the 100th birth anniversary of NTR. On the strength of his versatility of talent, he not only became the superstar of Telugu cinema, but also won the hearts of crores of people. Do you know that he had acted in more than 300 films? He revived many historical characters on the basis of his acting. People liked NTR's acting in the roles of Bhagwan Krishna, Ram and many others, so much that they still remember him," he stated.

NTR had carved out his own identity in the cinema world as well as in politics, the Prime Minister added. There too, he got lots of love and blessings from the people. I offer my humble tribute to N T Rama Rao ji, who ruled the hearts of millions of people in the country and the world," he concluded.
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PM Modi Always Stood With Tamil Culture: Madurai Adheenam Priest

India

oi-Prakash KL

Sri Harihara Desika Swamigal, the head priest of Madurai Adheenam, on Sunday, hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for inviting Tamil Adheenams for the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

"I feel very proud to participate in the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building. PM Modi has always stood proudly with the Tamil culture and Tamil people. Modi ji is the first PM who invited Tamil Adheenams and proudly encourages the Tamil culture in the Parliament," ANI quoted the 293rd head priest of Madurai Adheenam as saying.

Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister performed puja and installed sacred 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair in the new Parliament building.

Democracy Is Our 'Sanskar Says PM Modi At Inaugural Of New Parliament Building

"It was a historical moment when PM Modi installed the 'Sengol' in the new Parliament building today. The 'Sengol' was made by our family 75 years ago," Vummidi Sudhakar, chairman of Vummidi Bangaru Jewellers which made historic sceptre 'Sengol', told the news agency.

This is the same Sengol that was accepted by the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru at his residence on the night of August 14, 1947.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the new Parliament building was a reflection of the aspirations of New India and a testament to the dawn of a self-reliant nation.

"The new Parliament building will be a testament to the dawn of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India). It will be a witness to our journey towards a Viksit Bharat (developed India)," the Prime Minister said in his address after inaugurating the new Parliament House.

The event was attended by former president Ram Nath Kovind, former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, Chief Ministers Y S Jagan Reddy, Yogi Adityanath, Eknath Shinde and Neiphu Rio, foreign envoys, BJP leaders, etc.

PM Modi Unveils Special Rs 75 Coin, Stamp To Mark Inauguration Of New Parliament Building

"More than just a building, the new Parliament encompasses the aspirations and dreams of 1.4 billion people. It sends a powerful message to the world about India's unwavering determination," he added.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 14:45 [IST]
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PM Modi Installs Historic Sengol In New Parliament

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Prime Minister Narendra Modi carried the historic Sengol post the puja ceremony after it was handed over to him by the Adheenam seers.

The PM carried the Sengol to the new Parliament chamber and installed the same.

Earlier the PM arrived with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and performed a 'havan.' Before that both paid floral tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at the Parliament House, ahead of the inaugural.

A Quick Guide To The New Parliament Of India

#WATCH | PM Modi carries the historic 'Sengol' into the Lok Sabha chamber of the new Parliament building pic.twitter.com/wY206r8CUC  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

India's new Parliament is being inaugurated and the programme began with an early morning 'havan and multi-faith prayer. As many as 25 political parties and dignitaries including chief ministers will take part in the event.

On the eve of the event, the PM received the Sengol from Tamil Nadu Adheenams at his residence. The Sengol holds significance as a sacred symbol of power transfer in 1947.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 8:07 [IST]
'What a joke': Nitish Kumar on Sushil Modi's 'he wanted to be Vice President' claim

RJD Compares New Parliament With Coffin, BJP Hits Out

India

oi-Prakash KL

The RJD, which boycotted the inauguration of the new Parliament House on Sunday, equated the structure of the new building with that of a coffin.

The party shared a photo of a coffin and tweeted, 'Yeh kya hai (What is this? in hindi?" However, the BJP did not take the comments lightly and former Bihar CM Sushil Modi said that a case of treason should be registered.

"A case of treason should be registered against such people who have compared the new Parliament building with a coffin," ANI quoted Sushil Modi as saying.

What the Sengol Signifies: 5 Points

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated the newly-constructed Parliament building. However, 19 Opposition parties including Congress and RJD boycotted the event.

The opposition parties contend that President Draupadi Murmu should inaugurate the new Parliament building as she is not only the Head of State, but also an integral part of Parliament as she summons, prorogues, and addresses it.

"PM Modi has buried democracy. The coffin has been posted as Modi has ensured the death of democracy," RJD leader Shakti Yadav told ANI.

"This is very unfortunate. Today they are comparing it with a coffin, were they comparing the old Parliament with 'zero'? We were earlier sitting in zero?" BJP leader Dushyant Gautam asked.

Meanwhile, BJP MP Dr Sudhanshu Trivedi said that political parties should rise above politics. "No political comments should be made on the day when the new Parliament building is being inaugurated today," he told the news agency.

On the other hand, netizens have also condemned the RJD's post.

PM Modi Felicitates Construction Workers Who Built New Parliament Building

Responding to RJD's 'coffin' post, a user wrote, "First photo - future of your party. Second photo - India's future."

Another one said, "Exactly, corrupt parties like yours have been made only to bury..!"

"You people are not going to go to the new parliament in 2024, so you have already found a coffin for yourself," the third netizen stated. Another one added, "RJD has made this coffin for himself because the time has come for it to be buried in the coffin."

Interestingly, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi slammed the RJD for its controversial comments.

He said, "It would have been better if Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla inaugurated the new Parliament House. RJD has no stand, the old Parliament building did not even have clearance from Delhi Fire Service. Why are they (RJD) calling the Parliament a coffin? They could have said anything else, why do they need to bring this angle?"
Existence of JDU would be at stake if merged with RJD: Upendra Kushwaha

So far all talk of opp unity is just that...a talk

RJD Compares New Parliament To Coffin, Draws Flak

India

oi-Deepika S

All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) Chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday slammed the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for its comparison of the new Parliament building with a coffin.

Owaisi also said that it would have been better if the new building was inaugurated by the Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla and not Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"RJD has no stand, sometimes they speak about secularism and make Nitish Kumar, who came out of BJP, their chief minister. The old Parliament building did not even have clearance from Delhi Fire Service. Why are they (RJD) calling the Parliament a coffin? They could have said anything else, why do they need to bring this angle?," said AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi while talking to ANI.

BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla termed RJD's tweet disgusting, while Gaurav Bhatia said the coffin belongs to the RJD and the Parliament of the country.

"This is the level to which they have fallen. Disgusting. This will prove to be the final nail in the coffin of RJD's politics. Trikon or Tribhuj (triangles) has much significance in the Indian system. By the way, the coffin is hexagonal or has six-sided polygons," Poonawalla said on Twitter.

However, justifying the RJD's tweet, its Bihar unit spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwary told PTI, "The way the new Parliament building was inaugurated today, it showed that democracy was buried. Neither the President nor the Vice President, who is the chairman of the Rajya Sabha, were invited to the function. This does not happen in a democracy."

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JDU and RJD had already announced that they would boycott the inaugural function of the new Parliament building.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 20:53 [IST]
Security Beefed Up In Delhi As Protesting Wrestlers Set For A March To Parliament Building

India

oi-Prakash KL

Heavy security has been deployed in and around the national capital ahead of protesting wrestlers' march towards the new Parliament House on Sunday.

"We have deployed male and female companies at Delhi-Haryana border points to ensure unsocial elements are stopped from entering Delhi. Sonipat East Zone Police has not detained anyone so far. We will not allow people to enter Delhi if their motive is to disrupt the inauguration of the new Parliament House, our intelligence team is identifying such people," Gaurav Rajpurohit, DCP, Sonipat East, told ANI.

The members of the Punjab Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee have been stopped at the Ambala border. They had come out from Amritsar on Saturday to participate in women wrestlers' Maha Panchayat in front of the new Parliament.

Delhi Police Beefs Up Security Ahead Of New Parliament Building Inauguration

"We will not allow anything to disrupt the inauguration of the new Parliament building. The entire Delhi Police is on its toes to make sure the inauguration ceremony is conducted smoothly," said Delhi Police Special CP Deepender Pathak.

The protesting wrestlers have alleged that former Wrestling Federation of India President Brij Bhushan Singh had sexually harassed seven grapplers. Hence, they are demanding his arrest and has given a call for a Mahila Mahapanchayat on Sunday.

The administration has given them the permission to take out the march from Jantar Mantar to the new Parliament building.

"We will go ahead with the Mahila Mahapanchayat, come what may. Our supporters have been stopped at a gurudwara in Ambala where they were supposed to stay tonight. It has now been converted into a cantonment," alleged Vinesh Phogat.

The wrestlers, in the run-up to the Mahapanchayat, have toured several cities in north India urging womenfolk and khaps to lend their support to their protest.

Vinesh added that even if force is used on them on Sunday, the march will remain peaceful. "Wherever we are stopped, we will sit there and have the Mahapanchayat." She alleged that raids were being conducted at the houses of people supporting them.

Women Block Security Forces After Fresh Violence In Manipur Villages

"There have been raids at the house of our supporters but the women supporters will reach Delhi for the Mahapanchayat." The Jantar Mantar, the site of the protest for more than a month now, looked virtually out of bounds with a huge posse of police personnel keeping a close watch on the wrestlers and their supporters.

"It's a really difficult (situation). We don't know what the future holds for us. Whether we will be alive or dead," said Vinesh, who cried inconsolably during the press conference.

"We wanted justice but something else is happening. Our supporters are being harassed as if we are criminals and not Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh," she added.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 9:59 [IST]
Siddaramaiah, Shivakumar In Delhi; Discussion On Karnataka Cabinet Expansion likely With Cong leadership

Know Your Minister: A Look At 24 MLAs Sworn-In To Karnataka Cabinet Today

Is A Turmoil Brewing In Karnataka? What The List Of Ministers Tells Us

Siddaramaiah Re-Appoints Slain BJP Leader Praveen Nettarus Wife

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Days after Nutan Kumari, the wife of slain BJP leader Praveen Nettaru was terminated from her job, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has re-appointed her.

This comes amidst allegations that she was terminated from the post as she had been offered a temporary job on compassionate basis.

"After a new government comes in, it is a natural process to dismiss the temporary employees who were appointed by the previous government from the government service," Siddaramaiah said in a tweet in Kannada.

"Not only Praveen Nettaru's wife, more than 150 contract workers have already been dismissed from service. There is no government interference in this," Siddaramaiah also said.

"Considering this as a special case, Kumari will be re-appointed on humanitarian grounds," he also said.

Slain BJP Worker Praveen Nettaru's Wife Loses Job As Karnataka Govt Changes Hands

Soon after his death, Nutan was appointed on a contract basic on humanitarian grounds.

The BJP government in Karnataka had on September 22 2022 appointed her as senior r assistant (Group C) at the office of the then Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai.

Later on her request she was posted to the Dakshina Kannada deputy commissioner's office and was reported to duty on October 14 last year.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 11:44 [IST]
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Inauguration Of New Parliament Building And What An Opportunity The Opposition Missed

Filled With Humility And Gratitude; Will Keep Working Harder: PM Modi On Govt Completing 9 Years

SCO Summit Under Indias Chairmanship On July 4; PM Modi To Chair The Meet

With Eye On 2024 Polls, PM Modi Holds Meeting With CMs Of BJP-Ruled States

India

oi-Deepika S

With Lok Sabha elections months away, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday held a meeting with the Chief Ministers and Deputy Chief Ministers of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states at the party headquarters in Delhi.

The meeting was part of the BJP's good governance agenda in which chief ministers will hand over the report card for the last three months of their respective states.

During the meeting, PM Modi held discussions on development works carried out by the respective state governments. The leaders will chalk out new strategy on what kind of programs should be organised to reach out to people in order to give more strength to those states where there is a BJP government.

Deliberations will also be done on how to strengthen their position where there is no BJP government. This topic will be discussed from district to booth level.

BJP is also set to hold Mahajansampark Abhiyan from May 30 to June 30.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Assam's Himanta Biswa Sarma, Haryana's Manohar Lal Khattar, Madhya Pradesh's Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Uttarakhand's Pushkar Singh Dhami were among those who attended the meeting.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis as well as his Uttar Pradesh counterparts Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak were also present at the meeting.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 17:33 [IST]
You Have Done Us Proud, Rajinikanth Tells PM Modi

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Superstar Rajinikanth thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making Tamilians proud as the latter will install the Sengol in the new Parliament today.

The gold plated 'Sengol' was made by a Tamil jeweller Vummidi Bangaru Chetty before India's independence. First handed over to Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, the Sengol was passed over to India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru on August 14 1947. This was seen as a symbol of transfer of power.

"The traditional symbol of Tamil power - the scepter - will shine in India's new Parliament building," Rajinikanth tweeted. "My sincere thanks to the honorable Bharat Pratham @narendramodi who made Tamilians proud," Rajinikanth wrote.

The scepter was out of the eye of the public for 75 years. It is now getting recognition, thanks to the Modi government which has decided to install it next to the podium of the Lok Sabha Speaker in the new Parliament. The passing of the Sengol is a tradition which dates back to the Chola dynasty when a new king was coronated in the presence of a spiritual leader.

A Quick Guide To The New Parliament Of India

PM Modi was handed over the Sengol at his residence by 25 Adheenams who travelled from Tamil Nadu to New Delhi. PM modi had hauled the contribution of Tamils and said that they always had a feeling of service to Mother Bharath and thew welfare of India in their hearts.

"Tamil Nadu has played a significant role in the freedom struggle of India. This state has given great leaders and has been a centre of Indian nationalism. But it's unfortunate that despite this all, the contributions of Tamilians were not fully recognised," the PM said.

PM said that the Sengol holds significance not only because it was a sacred symbol of power transfer in 1947, but it is also significant as it served as a connecting bridge between the ancient and glorious traditions of India.
Brazils government announced Friday that a U.N. Latin America regional group has endorsed a Brazilian city in the Amazon region to host the 2025 U.N. climate change conference, though the world body has not yet publicly confirmed the venue.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva initially said Brazil will hold the conference, known as COP 30, in the city of Belem, state of Para, in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest, reflecting his intention to bring attention to the Amazon.

A statement from the Brazilian government later clarified that the region's support was merely a step in the selection process. The support for the Brazilian candidacy demonstrates the regions confidence in Brazils capacity to advance the agenda in the fight against climate change, the statement read.

The latest U.N. climate conference was hosted by Egypt in Sharm el-Sheikh, and this years will take place in Dubai.

The U.N. has not yet announced the 2024 venue, let alone the 2025 one, but the locations tend to rotate among regions, and the Brazilian government statement Friday indicated that a Latin American working group was choosing the 2025 venue, and had endorsed Belem. The final decision won't be made until COP 29 next year.

It will be a honor for Brazil to welcome representatives from all over the world in a state in our Amazon, Lula said in a video posted on his social media channels. I went to COPs in Egypt, in Paris, in Copenhagen, and all people talk about is the Amazon. So I said, Why dont we go there so you see what the Amazon is like?'

Brazil's foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, said in the video that the decision was made at the U.N. on May 18. The U.N. has yet to confirm the venue.

Brazil's announcement comes in a week that Lula's administration's environmental governance has faced headwinds from Brazil's congress. Lawmakers by a large majority approved a measure that eroded the environment ministry's authority over construction in forested and coastal areas, as well as other development.

Also this week, the congress is debating whether the state-run oil giant should be allowed to drill off the coast in the Amazon states of Amapa and Para.

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US President Biden to meet PM Modi in Papua New Guinea later this month

Biden, McCarthy reach tentative debt ceiling deal

International

dwnews-DW News

US Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached a tentative deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling, McCarthy said in a statement. A negotiating team is now working on finalizing the text of the deal.

"I just got off the phone with the president a bit ago. After he wasted time and refused to negotiate for months, we've come to an agreement in principle that is worthy of the American people," he wrote in a post on Twitter, before addressing the media in a short statement.

I just got off the phone with the president a bit ago. After he wasted time and refused to negotiate for months, we've come to an agreement in principle that is worthy of the American people.



I'll deliver a statement at 9:10pm ET. Watch here:https://t.co/vmn31INPH5  Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) May 28, 2023

Speaking to the media minutes later, McCarthy said the bill has "historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms, will lift people out of poverty into the workforce and reign in government overreach."

Indian-Origin Teen Who Crashed Vehicle Near White House Wanted To Kill Biden

"The are no new taxes, no new government programs, there's a lot more within the bill," he said, without giving more details before as he was yet to brief other members of the house. McCarthy expects Congress to vote on the bill on Wednesday.

The two leaders came to an agreement on Saturday evening, having spoken over the phone earlier that day, a person familiar with the matter told AP.

This comes after a long standoff as both Democrats and Republicans played hardball in the final race for a deal ahead of a critical June 5 deadline. Reaching a deal with imperative for the US to avoid a downgraded credit rating, likely recession and potentially millions of job losses.

Source: DW
Imran Khan Will Be Tried In Military Court, Says Pakistan Minister

Pakistan's Ruling Coalition Turns Down Imran Khans Talks Offer

International

oi-PTI

Pakistan's ruling coalition has rejected former prime minister Imran Khan's offer for dialogue, saying that talks were held with politicians, not terrorists, a media report said on Sunday.

The government also stated that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief was now himself seeking a National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), the Express Tribune newspaper reported.

The development came as Khan constituted a seven-member team to hold talks with the government - for developing consensus on a date for general elections - amid a massive crackdown on his party.

The crackdown launched after May 9 violent protests have thrown the PTI into a deep existential crisis with dozens of key party leaders jumping ship every day.

The prominent leaders who have quit the party include Secretary General Asad Umar, senior leader Fawad Chaudhry and former minister Shireen Mazari.

On May 9, violent protests erupted after paramilitary Rangers arrested Khan from the Islamabad High Court premises. His party workers vandalised a dozen military installations, including the Lahore Corps Commander's House, the Mianwali airbase and the ISI building in Faisalabad in response to Khan's arrest.

The mob also stormed the Army headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi for the first time.

Thousands of Khan's supporters were arrested following the violence that the powerful Army described as a "dark day" in the history of the country.

Responding to the talks offer, the supreme leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Nawaz Sharif, took to Twitter to state that talks are held only with politicians. "There will be no talks with a group of terrorists and saboteurs who burn memorials of martyrs and set the country on fire," he said.

In a statement, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said: "Those who attack the state are punished; they are not negotiated with." She claimed that Khan's appeal for talks is an appeal for a National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

OPINION: Keeping Tabs On Imran Khan, Too !

When in power, Khan often said former military ruler Pervez Musharraf ended criminal cases against the leaders of various parties including the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) through the NRO but that he would not give "looters" any NRO.

Marriyum said holding talks with those who desecrated the memorials of martyrs is a "desecration of martyrs".

She said Khan wants talks after burning ambulances, hospitals, and schools and poisoning youths' minds, adding there will be no talks with him.

"Imran has called for talks when his party leaders have abandoned him in flocks," he said.

She reminded Khan that he had not talked with the opposition on the economy, Kashmir, national security issues, Covid-19 and the FATF issue but he is now urging for talks.

Declaring him a "foreign agent" and "Toshakhana thief", the information minister said negotiations are not held with the ones who allegedly looted Rs 60 billion as such a person is brought to the court of law and not to the negotiations table.

Minister for Poverty Alleviation Shazia Marri, who belongs to the PPP, said Khan was responsible for the situation arising after May 9. She said talking about talks now was nothing but eyewash.

The minister said mobs attacked Jinnah House in Lahore and the GHQ in Rawalpindi on the order of Khan. "He keeps his children in the safety of London but incites the children of the nation to commit anti-state acts," she said.

Marri recalled that PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the country's foreign minister, tried to bring political parties to the negotiating table and constituted a team consisting of senior leaders for negotiations with political parties. "Imran, however, sabotaged Bilawal's efforts." She said Khan's arrogance led to his downfall, regretting that the former prime minister did not allow the PTI to become a political party.

"Talking about negotiations after everything has been done is pretentious," she said.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) spokesperson Hafiz Hamdullah also called Khan the mastermind behind May 9 attacks. He said targeting military installations was tantamount to waging a war against the state.

A rebel, he said, is not negotiated with but deserves severe punishment.

Hamdullah while predicting that jail will be Khan's Khan's destination said it was time for him to answer for his actions. "Khan's appeal for talks is nothing but a joke," he added.

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Story first published: Sunday, May 28, 2023, 18:54 [IST]
The tentative deal would raise the limit on how much the government can borrow through the end of 2024.


Turkey goes to the polls today for a presidential run-off that could see Recep Tayyip Erdogan extend his rule into a third decade.
A musical that focuses on Imelda Marcos and her late dictator husband Ferdinand Marcos, is about to make its Broadway debut with an all-Filipino cast. Some critics charge that it glosses over the dictators regime, the shows creators say it offers lessons on how to deal with tyranny.
Police in Venice have launched an investigation into the source of a phosphorescent green liquid patch that has appeared in the city's famed Grand Canal.
NYTimes.com 31 May 2023

In Texas, the impeachment of the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, highlights tension over the future of the Republican Party.
SeattlePI.com 31 May 2023

Hard-fought to the end, the debt ceiling and budget cuts package is heading toward a crucial U.S. House vote. President Joe Biden..
The Government of Canada has provided an update on EV charging infrastructure in the country (nearly 3,000 new chargers will be installed across Ontario), revealing that Tesla is going to open part of its Supercharging network to non-Tesla vehicles in 2023. According to the press release, the



#governmentofcanada #ontario #tesla #nontesla #sudbury #ottawa #transcanadahighway #calgary #teslasupercharging #magicdock
Kochi: The crew of the Norwegian vessel MT Heroic Idun, which was detained by the Nigerian authorities late last year on suspicion of crude oil piracy, has been released after a court dropped charges against them. Sixteen of the 26 crew members of the vessel were Indians and three among them, Malayalis. Others were from Poland, Philippines and Sri Lanka.

The Nigerian authorities have returned the passports of the crew members, as per sources. It is not clear as to when they would reach home.

Release after months

The release comes after the months-long trials in a Nigerian court. There was pressure on Nigeria at an international level, pointing out that the ship and the crew have been framed and detained.

Kochi natives Chief Officer Captain Sanu Jose, Milton De Coth, and Kollam native V Vijith are the Keralites among the crew. The latter is the brother of Vismaya who died by suicide following a dowry harassment case that had hit the headlines in Kerala in mid-2021.

What had happened in the seas?

The tanker that was detained in the seas of West African country Equatorial Guinea last August was handed over to the Nigerian authorities only last November.

The Equatorial Guinea Navy had initially detained Heroic Idun, and the 26 crew members on board alleging crude oil theft. The detention was at the behest of Nigeria, a major oil producer.

The ship had reached Nigeria's APCO Offshore Terminal on August 8 to fill crude oil. While the crew was awaiting their turn, another ship was spotted heading towards 'Heroic Idun'. Though the sailors tried to steer away from the spot, assuming the approaching vessel to be of pirates, the vessel was seized by the personnel of the Guinean Navy.

Earlier, 'Heroic Idun' was directed to exit the Nigerian Exclusive Economic Zone as the crew did not possess a technical permit from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Navy to fill crude oil.

The crew moved 'Heroic Idun' to international waters fearing that the unidentified ship that had approached her had pirates. A few men on board the latter vessel claimed to be naval officers and demanded to inspect the ship. The latter had reached without operating the automatic identification system, the 'Heroic Idun' also raised a danger alarm. Meanwhile, a Nigerian ship which had followed them for a while, later withdrew.

However, on August 14, Guinea Navy stopped 'Heroic Idun' and detained the ship and its crew. The passports and the mobile phones of the crew were also confiscated.

In September, a huge amount was given as a fine by the shipping company to Guinea to release the crew. But, the Guinean authorities, instead of releasing the crew, handed over the ship and its crew to the Nigerian authorities.
An EgyptAir jetliner blew out a tire but made a safe landing at its destination early Sunday in Saudi Arabia, Egypts national carrier said.

The incident happened as EgyptAir flight MS643, which had departed from Cairo International Airport, was landing at Jeddah's King Abdulaziz International Airport.

The pilot safely landed the Boeing 737-800 and all passengers disembarked with no injuries, the statement said.

The airline said an examination and maintenance of the plane were underway at King Abdulaziz Airport.

The flight was scheduled for departure from Cairo at 9:25pm on Saturday, but it actually took off at 10:05pm and arrived at 1:25am, instead of the scheduled arrival time at 11:30pm, according to the EgyptAir website.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) May 28, 2023: The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968; Ph.D. in theology, Boston University, 1955) is the subject of the American Jewish journalist Jonathan Eig's massively researched and admirably lucid new 680-page 2023 book King: A Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Because Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968, he was a martyr for black civil rights - and for non-violent protest.

No doubt the Jim Crow practices in the South that inspired his activism are mostly historical memories today - perhaps in part thanks to Dr. King's non-violent protests. But slavery has been described as America's original sin, and the scars of slavery and racial inequality are still with us today. Consequently, I believe that the agape love that Dr. King advocated for non-violent protest can still be advocated today for those who want to fight racial inequality in American society today.

Disclosure: Twice in my young life, I heard the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speak in person. (1) I heard the Baptist minister speak to in person on the campus of Saint Louis University, the Jesuit university in St. Louis, Missouri, on Monday, October 12, 1964 - just days before it was announced that Dr. King had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - the topic of Eig's Chapter 31: "The Prize" (pp. 385-403); and (2) I also heard Dr. King speak in person on March 25, 1965, in Montgomery, Alabama, at the conclusion of the famous march from Selma, Alabama - the topic of Eig's Chapter 35: "Selma" (pp. 426-438).

I was inspired by Dr. King's talks to devote ten years of my life (1969-1979) to teaching about one thousand black inner-city youth, alongside about one thousand white students, in the context of open admissions in the City of St. Louis and in New York City (in 1975-1976).

Based on my experience of teaching black inner-city youth in the context of open admissions, I published my controversial article "IQ and Standard English" in the NCTE journal College Composition and Communication, volume 34 (1983): pp. 470-484. In it, I argue that the black and white IQ differences are most likely due to environmental and cultural differences, not to genetic and hereditary differences - to counter Arthur R. Jensen's suggestion that they are due to genetic and hereditary differences.

Also see my follow-up article "A Defense for Requiring Standard English" in Pre/Text: A Journal of Rhetorical Theory, volume 7 (1986): pp. 165-180. It is reprinted in the book Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions, and Boundaries, edited by William A. Covino and David Jolliffe (Allyn and Bacon, 1995, pp. 667-678).

In any event, Eig's book contains a "Prologue" (pp. 3-6), 45 crisply written chapters (pp. 9-552), and an "Epilogue" (pp. 553-557). His book contains "Notes" keyed to page numbers (pp. 559-632) and an "Index" (pp. 643-669). Eig "interviewed more than two hundred people" for this book (p. 634; he lists their names on pp. 639-642).

Certain persons in Eig's book are widely known (e.g., President John f. Kennedy, Attorney General Robert f. Kennedy, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, President Lyndon B. Johnson). But many of the persons that Eig mentions repeatedly throughout the book are not widely known. Consequently, the "Index" is a handy resource to use to refresh one's memory of some of them.

Now, like the first Catholic president of the United States, John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), the black Baptist minister and civil rights activist was an extraordinary womanizer (the "Index" contains a sub-entry on MLK's "extramarital affairs" [p. 656]). In Eig's Chapter 23: "Temptation and Surveillance" (pp. 270-278), he says, "[Stanley] Levison points out that King and John F. Kennedy had something in common in this regard. 'Both had powerful fathers who were men of notorious sexual prowess, Levison told historian Arthur M. Schlesigner, Jr. 'Perhaps both were unconsciously driven to prove they were as much men as their fathers'" (p. 272).

Now, in Eig's Chapter 7: "The Seminarian" (pp. 74-80), he says that at Crozer Theological Seminary, King wrote "'as a Christian I believe that there is a creative personal power in the universe who is the ground and essence of all reality - a power that can not be explained in materialistic terms.' History, he concluded, was guided by the spirit, not by matter" (pp. 78-79). In addition, Eig says, "He [King] continued to show particular interest in the social gospel of Walter Rauschenbusch, who argued that the 'Kingdom of God' required not only personal salvation but social justice, too. King admired Rauschenbusch's call to action and related to his sense of optimism. It is 'quite easy,' he wrote, 'for me to think of the universe as basically friendly. King believed that human personality reflected the spirit of God. But the negative corollary to that belief meant that racism, which degraded personality and denigrated human life, had to be evil. Even in the North, he experienced that evil" (p. 79).

Now, in Eig's Chapter 9: "The Match" (pp. 88-100), he says, "King chose [Boston University], in large part, for the chance to study with Edgar S. Brightman, known for his philosophical understanding of the idea of a personal God, not an impersonal deity lacking human characteristics. 'In the broadest sense,' Brightman wrote, personalism is the belief that conscious personality is both the supreme value and the supreme reality in the universe.' To personalists, God is seen as a loving parent, God's children as subjects of compassion. The universe is made up of persons, and all personalities are made in the image of God. The influence of personalism would support King's future indictment of segregation and discrimination, 'because personhood,' wrote the scholars Kenneth L. Smith and Ira G. Zepp, Jr., 'implies freedom and responsibility'" (p. 89).

For further information about Brightman, see the Wikipedia entry about him.

For further discussion of personalism, see the Wikipedia entry on Personalism.

Now, in Eig's Chapter 11: "Plagiarism and Poetry" (pp. 107-112), he says, "For his doctoral dissertation, King compared conceptions of God presented by two theologians Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman. King criticized both Tillich and Wieman for their distance from personalism. Tillich ascribed personality only to beings, not to God, while Wieman described God in relatively depersonalized terms, as an 'integrating process.' King rejected both ideas, saying human fellowship with God could only occur when both parties to the relationship possessed understanding and respect. Ascribing a human personality to God, King argued, in no way implied a limitation of God's power" (p. 110).

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Since the beginning of this nation, we have valued education as a necessary way to help citizens to learn basic skills like mathematics, reading and expressing themselves by learning to write. In terms of democracy, it was also necessary to provide an educational basis for an informed electorate since the government was chosen by the people to serve the citizenry well. Another part of that educational goal was to prepare students for occupations and professions in a changing world. To accomplish this, our forefathers saw it was necessary to help students understand not only the society in which they lived, but also the rest of the nation and the world. All of this was to be sure they were equipped to make informed decisions about life and be prepared for leadership. They also recognized that it was necessary to prepare them for a changing future full of unpredictable events and unforeseen changes. To that end, students were taught critical thinking and ways to evaluate information to make informed judgements.

So that all citizens could be included in this process, they created a system of public education. The beginning of this was not perfect, often full of parochial ideas and lack of inclusivity. For instance, an entire Catholic school system was developed because of the early discrimination against Catholic students in the public school system. Later segregation developed a "separate but equal" system that enforced racial separation but that provided very unequal education. Over the years, our society and our public schools became more reflective of our democracy, becoming much more inclusive of all of the citizens of the nation.

Public education had its trials along the way, sometimes resisting the inclusion of other races, ethnic groups and even other religions, much like the rest of the nation. There were even ideological challenges, first in religious terms and later in more political terms as in the Joseph McCarthy period and at other times pushing to limit educational choices and even to ban books.

I happened to have experienced some of this as a smalltown English teacher and Department Chair in Michigan, now 50 years ago. The community erupted into controversy over a book that was being used for an English class in the school. A few parents objected to the book, very mild by any standards. It was my job to defend the teacher, the book and the basic processes of public education. But soon the entire community was in an uproar; community meetings, special board meetings, threats to get me fired, involvement of the John Birch Society. It took weeks to find a reasonable solution. Ultimately there were no book-bannings or burnings. The challenged teacher, from a well-established family in the community, left with his teacher wife to teach successfully for decades in Colorado. The community calmed down. I stayed and had a successful and respected career for several years. The basic standards of American public education were preserved.

We now find ourselves in a similar situation about the goals and purposes of public education. A very vocal minority is trying to change the course of public education in this nation. Most of those changes are connected with ideology. The role of parent control is again at the heart of the matter.

It is an attempt to establish a new direction for education, no longer on the basis of democratic values but now following a new civic religion, a retrograde religion with many of the tenets of white supremacy. It is about rooting out all who do not follow that new civic religion and rejecting and, at times even expelling them for their heresy. It is a time for a new puritanism with the need to purge all faulty ideological thinking.

It is like the opposition to the teachings of the science of evolution has now morphed into a kind of devolution, going back to the good-old-days 'readin', writin' and rithmatic' and not much else. If it was good enough for them then it should still be good enough now. Enough of those new-fangled ideas. The basics of understanding and morality have not changed and never will. We need to keep our children close to us and then send them out to change the world to our way of thinking.

To accomplish this, we will need to make the new education exclusive, keeping inferior breeds out of it. We may provide some basic education for the lower trades for those others who would only contaminate the process for those who are chosen to lead.

Florida, right now, is a perfect example of that kind of purge. There are now laws about what a teacher can teach or even talk about. Minority groups can only be included if they recognize that their history and experiences are no longer appropriate for real education. Even colleges are now under that kind of control.

Not only curriculum, but even books are being censored. Only some are allowed; others are banned. No book burnings yet, but who knows.

To prevent the white student's "discomfort" a whole list of topics must be excluded, and only positive history of the white race is allowed. Apparently, the white students have very delicate sensibilities.

And now there is even trouble with letters of the alphabet. Certain combinations of letters of the alphabet are like casting an evil spell. The letters BLM (Black Lives Matter) are anathema as is CRT (Critical Race Theory) (in my time it meant Cathode Ray Tube) and now DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusiveness). But other acronyms like MAGA (Make America Great Again) are treated like the word of God. Apparently, the way to make America great again is to show that Black lives do not matter, that any mention of race should not be included in public education, and that we should shun anything that smacks of diversity, never allow the ideas of equity to be any part of decision-making, and, above all else never, never, never think that inclusiveness is of any value in educating America. They even reject the word "WOKE" as though sleepwalking through life is somehow preferable to being awake and aware of the realities of life in a diverse and changing modern world.

It is like a reverse Rip Van Winkle, going to sleep in the 21st century and waking up in the 19th.

This becomes an attempt to create a separate reality ignoring the accumulated human knowledge of philosophy, medicine, science, literature, history and every other category of human knowledge. It is a system dependent on the perspective of a small minority of humans, often based, not upon experiential knowledge, but upon the interpretation of a few people of a religious book. It is an attempt to fix public education by not allowing change, an educational system fixed in time and limited to the existing knowledge and perspective of a small group of humans, creating a cloning process and not an educational process.

We have seen this before, autocratic leaders developing top-down systems to re-educate everyone in the new way of thinking to bring on a new and better society. We have seen this in Russia, under Stalin, in Germany, under Hitler, in China, under Mao and, on a smaller scale, at Jonestown and at times under other sects. Most would agree all of these were dangerously misguided failures.

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Within weeks after the George Floyd slaying in May 2020 the San Diego Police Department banned the use of the chokehold. Several prominent medical experts consulted reaffirmed that the chokehold was a lethal technique that could cause injury or death.

In the decades after Alfred Lyons in 1976 sought an injunction to bar the LAPD from using it, doctors and medical practitioners, criminologists, and scientists had frequently assessed the medical hazard of the technique.

There was no surprise that there was sharp division and debate over not only whether chokeholds wreak the physical damage claimed, but whether they could be used even with proper training to minimize injury. There was more debate over the attempt to make distinctions between the types of chokeholds used.

Some experts argue that there are different types of neck restraints in which breathing, and blood flow are not cut off or impaired. They supposedly did not cause major neck and throat injuries. The term "neck restraint" encompassed two types of compressions: strangleholds, which block blood flow to the brain through two pressure points on the neck, and chokeholds, which bar airflow through the windpipe.

However, while there is much hair-splitting on whether with the right training and a benign grip, no injury or harm will result, there is no debate that a carotid chokehold that cuts off breath by applying force to the throat or windpipe can maim or kill.

The Justice Department and the American Academy of Neurology in 2021 conducted a rigorous study of the medical hazards of the carotid restraint. They were emphatic. The choke grip is "inherently dangerous." They added that the hold that results in loss of oxygen or blood flow could cause permanent injury to the brain, including stroke, cognitive disability,

or death. A lack of training using the grip could increase the likelihood of death.

The Academy flatly called on law enforcement to classify "neck restraints, at a minimum, as a form of deadly force." It added, "There is no amount of training or method of application of neck restraints that can mitigate the risk of death or permanent profound neurologic damage with this maneuver."

In other words, the tactic should be banned totally. The Academy, significantly, did not try to find any gray area in the use of the chokehold. It did not soften the danger of the hold. For the Academy, no amount of expert training or applying a benign grip could avoid the risk of injury.

A team of Boston neurologists came to the same conclusion. In December 2020, they published their findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Jillian Berkman, one of the neurologists involved in the study was specific, "The whole importance of the blood flow itself is that the blood is what's carrying the oxygen, so if you're not getting blood up to the brain, you're not getting oxygen to the brain." Berkman added, "The end result could still be the same as when you're choking someone. Both chokeholds and strangleholds have the potential to be deadly."

The researchers pointed out that the brain requires fifteen to twenty percent of the blood in circulation to properly function, and this blood predominately travels through the two carotid arteries""both of which are

blocked during strangleholds. This interruption can cause multiple medical malfunctions, including seizures, strokes, arrhythmias, and vascular damage.

The most important finding in the studies of the effect of a chokehold was that a person could die from it in a matter of moments. In fact, it could be seconds, four seconds to be exact. That was the case with Garner. It took barely one minute for the hold to trigger his death. In the case of Floyd, the eight minutes and forty-six seconds he was choked was an incredible one hundred times longer than what is necessary to make a victim lose consciousness.

The detailed studies conducted by medical personnel on the damage caused by chokeholds were conclusive enough for President Biden. On the second anniversary of the chokehold slaying of Floyd, in May 2022, he signed an executive order banning the chokehold by federal law enforcement. The only exception it could be used was when an officer's life was in mortal danger.

Biden made clear the chokehold was one of the major causes of the chronic rancor between police and minority communities, "Police cannot fulfill their role to keep communities safe without public trust and confidence in law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Yet, there are places in America today where the bonds of trust are frayed or broken. To heal as a nation, we must acknowledge that fatal encounters with law enforcement have disproportionately involved Black and Brown people."

Biden' action on the chokehold was a case where political officials took heed of the advice from doctors, scientists, and medical experts about a lethal police technique that caused injury and death. They certainly got it right about a deadly tactic that maims and kills. The majority of those were Black and Hispanic men. This was a good step forward. But as many police reform advocates were quick to note only a step.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is Reparations! (Middle Passage Press) He is the host of the weekly Earl Ofari Hutchinson Show on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network. He published thehutchinsonreport.net
Dear Annie: My partner was made disabled last year and is confined to a wheelchair. At the moment, he is in the hospital and has been since last August. When he was in the spinal unit, I only saw him three days a week but would FaceTime every day. Now that he is closer to me, he wants me to be at his bedside seven days a week.

My doctor, who knows us both, said I need to take time for myself and has explained this to my partner. He still moans that I am not at the hospital seven days a week for five hours each time. When I do go, he is asleep most of the time or moaning at the nurses that he wants his medication. I understand that this is a massive change to his life, and that my life has to change, too, but is it wrong to want two days to myself so I can chill and do what I need to do? Please help. -- Bedside Bond

Dear Bedside: Look at it this way: You can go to the hospital seven days a week, making yourself miserable and making your partner miserable with your pessimistic attitude, or you can go to the hospital three days a week, take care of yourself the other four days (and possibly FaceTime when he is alert), and actually be uplifting and helpful while around your partner. The choice is yours.

Dear Annie: Im writing regarding Toddler Missing Daddy, who was the wife seeking help with her emotionally distraught daughter when the husband of the house is out truck-driving for days at a time. It made me wonder if Dad gets to be the fun parent because he is around less.

When our now-adult kids were tiny, my husband was gone from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. most days, sometimes till 11 p.m., two to three days a week. I was home with the kids. The days were often long and hard. Routine was what got me through. When Dad was home, he was the fun parent and schedules went out the window.

The kids would get overtired, and I was the bad guy who had them when they were exhausted and causing tantrums. I was the one who made them eat their veggies, brush their teeth and be in bed on time. I handled swimming lessons, dentist and doctors appointments, speech therapy, medication, and also played with them all day long while keeping the house clean, food in the fridge and everything else.

Once we realized this, we made sure that he spent some time on the tasks I usually handled, say swapping the laundry while I did puzzles with the kids or cooking while I cuddled on the couch with them. I loved your calendar idea. Being able to cross off days and have a concrete symbol of how much time is left until Dad is back home is perfect.

This stage passes. It seems like it wont, but it definitely does. -- Mom Who Can Relate

Dear Mom: An excellent suggestion and one a few other readers wrote in with, too. Its not only important for the kids to see but also for both parents to strike and keep the right balance of chores and play. Even though Dad might not be home all the time, its crucial he makes the most of it when he is, in the role of not just father, but husband and partner.

Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@creators.com.

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Lebanon rescue crews saved a man who got stranded while tubing with friends down the South Santiam River near Waterloo Park in Linn County Saturday evening.

Firefighters and water rescue personnel responded to reports of a missing man near the 40000 block of McDowell Creek Drive. The man was floating with friends down the river when they were separated, the Lebanon Fire District said in a statement Sunday.

By the time the group made it to Waterloo Park, they had lost sight of their friend for several hours.

Rescue crews used a drone to scan the river for the missing tuber, and found him 20 minutes later upriver from Waterloo Park on an island, the statement said. The man seemed to be in distress, but eventually got up and started walking. Officials were able to call the mans cell phone.

Water rescuers traveled upriver in a watercraft and helped the man off the island. He reported no injuries, officials said.

Lebanon fire warned recreationalists to be mindful of cold water temperatures as warm weather picks up. The fire district has three life jacket loaner stations along the South Santiam River.

 Austin De Dios; adedios@oregonian.com; @austindedios; 503-319-9744
During the decade I lived in North Portland, most of my discussions about the Portland International Raceway were with neighbors frustrated about the constant noise of revving engines coming from the other side of the Columbia Slough.

I also recall a dive bar or two with banners hanging out front reading, NASCAR Fans Welcome. The implication being not just that races were playing on the TVs inside, but that NASCAR fans might not be so welcome elsewhere.

All that said, with NASCAR returning to Portland this summer, my editors asked me to put together a guide to places to eat near the raceway. And as it turns out, NASCAR fans are in luck, both because Im extremely familiar with the nearby options, and because so many of them are blue-collar establishments with decades of warm hospitality and cooking under their belts.

Before we get to the specific recommendations, a quick geography lesson. Portland International Raceway sits about as far north as you can get before hitting Washington State, meaning youre much closer to Vancouver, Washington, than you are to downtown Portland.

You could consider crossing the bridge to stroll the new waterfront and its many restaurants. But in terms of proximity to the raceway, the closest neighborhoods are Hayden Island, home to many lively dockside restaurants along the Columbia River, and Kenton, which has a charming main street filled with fine places to eat such as Casa Maya, Fino Bistro and Swift & Union.

Now that youre situated, heres a more specific list of 10 restaurants near the Portland International Raceway where NASCAR fans can eat well, should their tailgates happen to run out of BBQ and beer.

AL Thai Food

Slow down on Marine Drive or youll miss this friendly little Thai restaurant, which serves up some tasty curries, stir-fried noodles and surprisingly delicious tom yum soup.

Details: 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday (closed Sunday), 330 N. Marine Dr., 503-285-3278

The Alibi

Not quite as old as the Nite Hawk further down on this list (and at 76, the same age as Mock Crest Tavern, another great North Portland bar), this Tiki is known for its stiff drinks and experts only karaoke scene.

Details: 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. daily, 4024 N Interstate Ave., 503-287-5335

The Fishwife

Anyone hungry for clam chowder, simply fried fish or a hearty seafood stew should head to this friendly University Park neighborhood fixture, which has been filling bellies with well-cooked seafood for decades.

Details: 4 to 9 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday-Saturday, 5328 N. Lombard St., 503-285-7150, fishwiferestaurant.com

King Burrito

Though this beloved burrito shop only opened in Portland in the 1990s, it dates itself back to a previous California location that opened more than 50 years ago. And while burrito is right there in the name, regulars know the burgers are just as tempting.

Details: 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, 2924 N. Lombard St., 503-283-9757

Kenton Station

The first place I thought of for this list, Kenton Station  a neighborhood-friendly watering hole in the historic Kenton Hotel  has plentiful TVs, generously priced beer, motorcycles on display in the windows and an extensive menu of soups, salads, burgers, sandwiches and bar snacks. And rumor has it they might even be putting on some NASCAR-themed events, including (possibly) parking a real-deal race car out front.

Details: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. (7 p.m. Sunday) Tuesday-Sunday, 8303 N. Denver Ave., 503-286-9242, kentonstationportland.com

Menjiro

Just over a mile from the raceway, this pint-sized restaurant by the marina for comforting bowls of ramen, teriyaki salmon, tonkatsu pork or house rice bowls with lots of veggies.

Details: 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 4:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 12006 N. Jantzen Dr., 971-888-5240, menjiro.com

Nite Hawk

Though the diner side of this 92-year-old establishment closed thanks to the pandemic (and has yet to reopen), Nite Hawks lounge continues to serve a full menu, including breakfast, in a big room with pool tables and TVs tuned to sports.

Details: 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, 6423 N. Interstate Ave., 503-285-7177, thenitehawk.net

Park The Carts

For another taste of Portlands dynamic food cart culture, head to this Northeast Portland cart pod not far from the raceway and try some Atlanta-style chicken wings from Ericas Soul Food.

Details: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. or later daily (though carts keep their own hours), 7339 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 808-203-4134 parkthecarts.com

Prost Marketplace

Home to 10 popular Portland food carts, including arguably the citys best smoked meats at Matts BBQ, this North Mississippi Avenue pod also boasts a cocktail cart and one of the citys best German beer bars.

Details: 11 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. daily (at Prost bar), 4237 N. Mississippi Ave., 503-954-2674

Roakes

They just dont build them like this chromed-out 86-year-old hot dog stand anymore, which has locations in both Northeast Portland and Milwaukie.

Details: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (3 p.m. Saturday) daily, 1760 N.E. Lombard Pl., 503-289-3557, www.roakespdx.com

 Michael Russell; mrussell@oregonian.com

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Ducted heat pump: A heat pump that uses ducts. If you have a furnace with existing ducts running through your house  assuming those ducts are in good shape  you can switch to a ducted heat pump system.

Mini-split heat pump: A ductless heat pump. Its outdoor unit is connected to the indoor unit using thin copper pipes. Depending on the size and configuration of your space, you can choose to have one or multiple indoor units heating/cooling one or multiple areas of the home using the same outdoor unit. Because a mini-split controls temperature in a specific area of a home, its also a good solution for heating/cooling a finished attic room, basement or sunroom.

Cold climate heat pump: Also known as an extended capacity heat pump or inverter heat pump. Its capable of heating your home when temperatures drop below freezing. Because heat pumps are relatively new in the U.S, the Energy Department two years ago launched a manufacturers challenge to develop and widely commercialize high-performing cold climate heat pumps in the U.S. and increase their capacity to work in very cold climates. Now, the most popular manufacturers are the Japanese brands Mitsubishi, Fujitsu and Daikin. Note: Most heat pumps on the market are standard, not cold climate ones, and require backup heat such as a gas furnace or electric heat strips when temperatures fall.

Heat strips: Installed inside air handlers in many heat pumps as backup heat. Theyre not very energy efficient, but act as an emergency heat source when temperatures drop below freezing. In very cold climates, when a heat pump goes into defrost or struggles to heat, the strips can kick in to provide temporary heat to the home.

Portable heat pump: A heat pump that stands on the floor inside your home, with one or two hoses running through a window. It can be easily installed but its ability to work during cold snaps is limited.

Compressor: The outdoor part of a heat pump, typically installed on top of a concrete pad. Also known as a condenser, the outdoor unit holds the compressor and condensing coil.

Air handler: The indoor part of a heat pump system, most often located in the attic, basement or a dedicated closet. It typically resembles a gas furnace.

Head: The air handler for a ductless/mini-split heat pump. These small air distribution units are usually mounted high on the wall or are recessed in the ceiling. Depending on the number of heating zones you choose, you can install one (single-head) or more (multi-head) indoor units connected to the same outdoor compressor.

Efficiency rating: SEER stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating. It measures how energy efficient the heat pump is at cooling your home. Similarly, the Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) measures cooling efficiency at a standard outdoor temperature, 95 degrees. The Heating Seasonal Performance Factor (HSPF) refers to the pumps efficiency at heating. Less common, Coefficient of Performance (COP) refers to heating efficiency for geothermal heat pumps. The higher the number, the more efficient the unit and the bigger the savings on your utility bills.

Geothermal heat pump: Also known as a ground source heat pump. It uses constant temperature below the ground to heat, cool and even provide hot water. Its a lot more efficient than a regular heat pump that uses air as a source, but also two to five times more expensive.

Water source heat pump: Extracts heat from a body of water  a river, lake or pond  and converts it into energy to heat a home. These are often more efficient than ground and air source heat pumps, but they require water  and the larger the home, the larger the water source needed.

Read more about heat pumps on The Oregonian/OregonLives heat pump topic page.

 Gosia Wozniacka; gwozniacka@oregonian.com; @gosiawozniacka

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Lisa Timmerman

Job: Program manager at PGE

Location: Portland

House: 1911, two stories, 2,600 square feet

Occupants: Two adults, three pets

Cost: $10,712 for heat pump system, $7,500 for insulation and $7,150 for electrical panel upgrade and wiring

Incentives: None for heat pump; $550 rebate for wall and attic insulation from Energy Trust of Oregon

When Timmerman and her partner bought their house in 2018, they knew its gas furnace was reaching the end of its life.

At the time, Timmerman was helping to run Portlands Home Energy Score program  which conducts home energy audits  so she was keen on finding the most efficient heating system for her new house. When the furnace failed three years later, the couple installed a ducted heat pump system.

It was a values-based decision, Timmerman said. I feel strongly about climate change and I know that to address the problem we need to get away from natural gas and electrify pretty much everything in our home.

There was also the practical motivation of increasingly frequent summer heat waves that left Timmerman roasting inside her house. During the heat dome, she had to borrow an AC unit from a friend. With a heat pump, we got air conditioning on top of the heating, she said.

Because their Craftsman home is so old, they also needed new insulation, an electrical panel upgrade and new wiring  bringing the total cost to more than $25,000.

The heat pump wasnt large enough to properly heat and cool the finished attic office/guest bedroom, said Timmerman, who now works for Portland General Electric. But the couple plans to add a mini-split heat pump up there in the future if needed, at additional cost.

Despite these drawbacks, installing the heat pump was worth it, she said.

I love it. When our gas furnace cycled on, it was really loud. There were hot spots and cold spots in the house, so I was running around in sweaters all the time. The heat pump works consistently and it feels more comfortable in the home.

Her advice: Be careful where you install the outdoor unit. While the heat pump works quietly inside the home, we can hear it running because we installed it right outside our bedroom window.

A thick blanket of blown in insulation and sealed air vents help a high efficiency heat pump work more effectively. al.com

Mike Warren

Job: Retired store manager

Location: Stayton, east of Salem

House: 1912, one story, 800 square feet

Occupants: Two adults

Cost: $12,000 for ducted heat pump

Incentives: $1,650 rebate from the Energy Trust of Oregon

Warren and his wife decided to get a heat pump because their existing electric furnace was about 30 years old and very expensive to run in winter. Plus, the family didnt have any air conditioning and temperatures regularly reached 100 the past few summers.

On the Energy Trust of Oregons website, Warren found out about the option of taking out a loan for the heat pump through his utility company. That made it a lot easier for us to afford it. I didnt have to come up with a load of cash, Warren said.

The heat pump was installed in mid-December. It worked great during the February cold snap when the region was hit with snow and freezing temperatures, he said. Though the air handler is equipped with heat strips, the heat pump  which is rated to -4  didnt use them when temperatures dipped into the teens.

And the savings on his electricity bill have been huge, Warren said, from $280 to $150. With the $100 per month heat pump loan payment added in, Warren is paying $250 per month and looks forward to his reduced bills once the loan is paid off.

His advice: Investigate what kind of rebates you can get, shop around for a good installer and look at the models SEER ratings. Basically, the higher the SEER number, the more efficient your heat pump will be and the more money itll save you in the long run.

Joe Hoffbeck poses for a photo with his heat pump compressor unit outside his home in Bethany near Portland, Oregon. Sean Meagher/The Oregonian

Joe Hoffbeck

Job: Professor of electrical engineering

Location: Bethany, east of Beaverton

House: 1997, two stories, 2,340 square feet

Occupants: Two adults

Cost: $19,000 for heat pump system and wiring, $4,000 for heat pump water heater and wiring, $1,850 for induction stove, $25,000 for solar panels, including an upgrade to the electrical panel

Incentives: None for heat pumps; $800 rebate from Energy Trust of Oregon, $1,120 rebate from Oregon Department of Energy and $6,825 via the Federal Income Tax Credit  all for the solar panels

Hoffbeck and his family decided to go all electric to reduce their carbon footprint. Last fall, they replaced their old gas furnace  still in working order  with a high-end ducted cold climate heat pump, rated to minus-13 degrees.

They also switched from their gas water heater to an efficient electric heat pump water heater, removed their gas stove for an induction oven and installed solar panels.

Hoffbeck said his utility bill went up by $100 this winter, but the entire house is now electric and the solar panels will reduce bills when its sunny.

Some people warned the family that heat pumps dont work when it gets cold. The verdict? It works great, Hoffbeck said. It got down to 16 degrees one day and it kept us warm.

His advice: When you talk to a contractor, they tend to want to go with what they know. If theyve been installing gas furnaces for 20 to 30 years, thats their go-to and theyll push you in that direction. One contractor told me, You really need a gas furnace as a backup heat source. I almost did that. But we ended up installing just the heat pump and it works just fine. Perhaps he wasnt aware that cold climate heat pumps are out there.

Michael Hall stands next to the compressor for the heat pump system he and his wife had installed in their Northeast Portland home.Dave Killen / The Oregonian

Michael Hall

Job: Retired educator, co-founder of Quiet Clean PDX, a nonprofit working to ban gas-powered leaf blowers

Location: Portland

House: 1929, two stories plus semi-finished basement, 2,500 square feet

Occupants: Two adults

Cost: $17,000 for both a ducted heat pump system and a mini-split heat pump, plus $4,000 for new electrical panel

Incentives: $500 rebate from the Energy Trust of Oregon

Hall took out his gas furnace last year and installed both a ducted heat pump system and a mini-split, the two heat pumps wired to the same compressor outside. The ducted heat pump heats and cools the first floor and basement, while the mini-split the attic bedroom.

Hall decided to get two heat pumps because the bedroom got very hot during summers and cold in winters and contractors told him it was unlikely the ducts could handle the job.

Overall, Hall and his wife are happy with their investment, though the ducted system doesnt work as well when it gets very cold.

In the mid-range, its a wonderful thing, but it struggles when it gets down to the very end of the teens, Hall said.

The family has kept their gas fireplace as backup heat on the main floor, he said.

The mini-split, on the other hand, keeps the upstairs bedroom very warm even during the coldest temperatures and cool during the summer, Hall said.

His advice: Secure your compressor (the outdoor unit) to the wall so it doesnt get knocked down in case of an earthquake. Shop around to find a knowledgeable contractor. And be patient because the best ones have a waitlist. Youre going to be standing in a queue for a long time.

Lauren Fraser, a Bend homeowner, hugs the heat pump water heater she recently installed. She also installed a regular heat pump in the ADU next to her home.

Lauren Fraser

Job: Co-founder of Canopy, a Bend company that helps homeowners and businesses reduce their carbon footprint

Location: Bend

House: 2010, two stories, 3,000 square feet square feet; 1-bedroom ADU, 500 square feet

Occupants: Three adults, two children, two grandparents or other guests in ADU

Cost: $3,800 for heat pump water heater, including electrical work; $6,700 for cold climate mini-split heat pump, including electrical upgrades

Incentives: $500 rebate from the Energy Trust of Oregon for heat pump water heater; $300 federal tax credit each for heat pump water heater and for mini-split heat pump

When Fraser moved into her home in 2021, it was already equipped with a dual fuel system featuring a gas furnace and a standard ducted electric heat pump. Mostly, she said, the family relies on the heat pump for heating, but the gas furnace kicks in automatically when its cold, usually below the low 30s.

That experience and the desire to further reduce fossil fuel consumption led the family to replace their aging gas water heater with a heat pump water heater two years ago, which reduced their monthly bills by $30.

They also bought a cold climate mini-split heat pump system for their ADU, which had no air conditioner and an electric resistance heater.

My parents come to visit a lot and theyre in their late 70s and 80s, but we couldnt have them out for a month in the summer because it got so hot, Fraser said.

The mini-split heat pump in the ADU is incredibly comfortable, she said. A bonus: The unit head (which disperses the hot/cold air) is built into the ceiling, giving it a nicer appearance than the typical head installed up on the wall.

Once the gas furnace reaches the end of its life, the family plans to upgrade its heat pump to a cold climate model, eliminating the need for another gas furnace as a backup.

We love our heat pump appliances for the great comfort, reduced fossil fuel use and cost, Fraser said.

Her advice: Get an energy audit on your house, which can tell you what upgrades are needed and help decide how to space them out over time.

Maria Talledo-Rivera, 71, and puppy Bonita pose at her Northeast Portland apartment on April 6, 2023. Talledo-Rivera received a free portable heat pump from the Portland Clean Energy Fund.Dave Killen / The Oregonian

Maria Talledo-Rivera

Job: Retired, sells tamales

Location: Portland

House: 1-bedroom apartment in small apartment complex

Occupants: One adult

Cost: Free

Incentives: None

Last summer, Maria Talledo-Rivera had nowhere to hide from the heat in her modest apartment complex on North Lombard Street.

Her bedroom and living room turned into an oven, said the 70-year-old Talledo-Rivera, and even a fan bought by her son didnt help.

It got so hot I couldnt breathe, she said.

She also worried for her grandchildren who often visit or stay overnight.

Talledo-Rivera, an immigrant from Mexico who washes dishes in local cafes and sells tamales in front of a store on Alberta Street to pay her rent of nearly $1,500, couldnt afford to buy an air conditioner.

So when she heard from a neighbor that the city of Portland was distributing free cooling units through its Heat Response Program, she immediately signed up. The heat pump was installed last May, and its been a blessing, she said.

It cools the whole apartment, it feels very cold.

But Talledo-Rivera said she doesnt use the heat pump for heating because shes afraid of getting a large bill.

Thats what happened in the past when she turned on her apartments old electric resistance heater  and no one has explained that a heat pump is much more efficient, she said.

Instead, during the winter Talledo-Rivera put on sweaters, covered herself with blankets and used two open-flame gas cylinders to heat her home.

Though she opened the balcony door, her apartment smelled like gas.

Ricardo Moreno, a program manager with Verde, the nonprofit that helped install Talledo-Riveras heat pump, said installers explained to her how the heat pump works.

He said the organization will follow up to see if Talledo-Rivera needs additional help.

Read more about heat pumps on The Oregonian/OregonLives heat pump topic page.

 Gosia Wozniacka; gwozniacka@oregonian.com; @gosiawozniacka

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The families of two victims of Idahos quadruple homicide have filed notices reserving the right to sue four government entities surrounding the crime.

Bryan Kohberger, 28, a Pennsylvania native who was studying criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University, was arrested in December and indicted this month on four first-degree murder charges, facing allegations that he stabbed four University of Idaho students to death in a Moscow home.
Watchful eyes peered through binoculars Saturday afternoon, spotting two red-tailed hawks circling the sky above North Portlands Delta Park.

Something exciting is about to happen, their feet are down, said tour guide Han Lyons.

Below the birds was a modest-sized group of bird-watchers touring the historical Vanport area that was devastated by a flood that washed entire homes away into the Columbia Slough 75 years ago.

Lyons, a founder of Birdhers, a bird-watching club that focuses on inclusivity, and historian Marti Clemmons joined forces Saturday to host a bird-watching and history tour as part of the 8th Vanport Mosaic Festival.

Between stops to take in nature, Clemmons provided historical context to the Vanport area, which tens of thousands called home before the flood in 1948. The city was the second largest in Oregon, built in only 110 days as temporary housing for shipyard workers during World War II.

14 1 / 14 8th Vanport Mosaic Festival

Lyons and Clemmons said that birding can make people feel more present and immersed in areas with rich history.

Birding did bring me to this specific place around Force Lake, Clemmons said. I really want people to understand the background, because theres insight and truth to peoples histories.

The tour started at the Portland Expo Center, where the Vanport Mosaic Festival is taking place, and brought around 20 people down into Delta Park to explore and hear about Vanport.

Over 18,000 people were displaced and more than a dozen drowned in the Vanport flood, Clemmons said. Proportionally to the rest of the state, the area had a large population of people of color.

It was more somber than our regular walks, Lyons said.

Yeah, somber, Clemmons added. But theres the joy also, that same joy that potentially sparked hope 75 years ago. Theres something to be said of the song of a bird.

The Vanport Mosaic Festival featured stories from former Vanport residents, events honoring the Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II and information on preservation efforts in the area. The festival started May 18 and ends Monday.

The duo will return Monday to host a Womin and Queer centered community walk. Part of Birdhers mission is to provide a safe space for people of color and those in the LGBTQ community in an activity that has historically been dominated by older, white people.

Emily Ruff, 33, has been bird-watching since she was a child. She said it was powerful to be able to enjoy one of her favorite hobbies while learning more about the significance of Vanport.

You get to be very present, Ruff said. The more you understand about its history and its past, the more you can have a relationship with its current state.

Ruff emphasized the significance of Birdhers mission to make outdoor activities more accessible to LGBTQ people.

Its important, as somebody who has those identities, you dont often see others in these spaces, Ruff said. Having been on other Birdhers walks, the community building is a big reason why we keep coming back.

 Austin De Dios; adedios@oregonian.com; @austindedios; 503-319-9744

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The Egyptian Ministry of Public Enterprise is preparing a comprehensive roadmap offering investment opportunities within its subsidiary companies, according to a statement on Sunday.

The roadmap will provide details regarding the nature of the activities, geographical locations, investment values, and project information, Minister of Public Enterprise Mahmoud Esmat announced during a meeting with Shaikh Daij Bin Salman Bin Daij Al Khalifa, chairman of Aluminium Bahrain.

The plan will be presented in meetings with the business community and potential investors, Esmat added.

Esmat also outlined the ministrys privatization strategy based on the State Ownership Policy Document, which determines the state's presence in the economy.

For his part, Shaikh Daij revealed that his company is considering partnering with Egypt's Metallurgical Industries Holding Company to produce bauxite, a key raw material in manufacturing.

To attract more foreign investments and bolster the private sector, the Egyptian government has been implementing various initiatives, including the 22 recent decisions by the newly restructured Supreme Council for Investment.

These decisions involve proposals for legislative amendments, such as reducing the establishment costs for companies, streamlining approval procedures and their durations and expanding the issuance of the golden license programme.

Egypt is also actively executing a privatization programme, which involves offering 32 state-owned companies operating across 18 sectors to strategic investors within a year. This effort, implemented as part of an economic reform programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has an estimated value of $40 billion.

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Funding for drug treatment centers in Oregon, financed by the states pioneering drug decriminalization policy, stood at over a quarter-billion dollars Friday as officials called for closer monitoring of where the money goes.

That need for oversight was demonstrated Wednesday when state officials terminated a $1.5 million grant agreement with a drug recovery nonprofit in Klamath Falls accused of failing to submit completed expenditure and data reports and buying a building for more than double the authorized amount.
A man died while waiting over a half-hour for an ambulance after being struck by a hit-and-run driver last month, according to emergency dispatch logs, an incident that Portland firefighters say highlights their frustration at a lack of available ambulances to respond to emergency calls.

The Bureau of Emergency Communications 911 dispatch log was obtained by KGW-TV through a public records request. It revealed that American Medical Response, the private provider contracted by Multnomah County, was operating at level zero  a code meaning there are no ambulances available to respond to an emergency call.

More and more, day after day, were seeing this level zero pop up, and as firefighters were getting frustrated, Isaac McLennan, president of the Portland Fire Fighters Association, told KGW-TV. This is a highly dangerous situation and it should be unacceptable not only just for firefighters, it should be unacceptable for everybody who lives in this community.

Shortly after midnight on April 28, both firefighters and an ambulance crew were dispatched to the accident scene in Northeast Portland. Police said it appeared the man, who has not been publicly identified, was attempting to cross the street in a wheelchair when he was hit.

The man was still alive when firefighters arrived, but 911 dispatchers repeatedly told them that American Medical Response was operating at level zero, according to dispatch logs. The firefighters worked to stabilize the man in the road while waiting for an ambulance.

The logs show the initial dispatch went out at 12:10 a.m. Firefighters arrived at 12:14, and an ambulance got there at 12:42. The ambulance left the scene five minutes later, as a hospital transport was no longer necessary because the man had died.

McLennan told KGW-TV there was no practical way firefighters could have taken the man to the hospital themselves as it was clear he needed an ambulance.

Global Medical Response, the parent company of American Medical Response, said in a statement to KGW-TV that the incident is still under review by the company as well as by county emergency officials.

The safety of our patients is always our top priority. American Medical Response is committed to responding to all calls in a timely manner, it said.

Official in Multnomah County, which is home to Portland, have said ambulances should arrive to 90% of emergency calls within eight minutes. However KGW-TV reported that during a five-month period ending in February, that mark was missed about a third of the time.

 The Associated Press
Tina Kotek

Kotek is governor of Oregon.

Oregonians deserve healthy and safe communities. Housing  enough housing, enough housing thats affordable, enough housing where people need it  is fundamental to achieving this goal. Its that simple.

And the solutions to having more housing supply are complex, expensive and require us to challenge the status quo. Business as usual will not work.

On my first full day in office, I laid out a road map for immediate and long-term actions to address the crisis of homelessness, affordable housing and housing production in Oregon. Among them was setting an ambitious target to build 36,000 new units across our state every year for the next 10 years, which is an 80% increase compared to recent production levels.

Will this be hard? Yes. But we have to try, and we have to put everything we have into the effort. The future prosperity, health and safety of the Oregon we love is at stake. We must have enough housing for people who are here now, and the people who will be here in the future.

Earlier this month, I was in Union and Wallowa counties as part of my One Oregon Listening Tour. I heard clearly from local leaders, planners and developers about how the shortage of housing in their region is creating challenges for businesses who want to hire workers  even the workers required to build housing development in the pipeline.

These conversations reminded me how critical it is for frontier and rural counties to keep people rooted in their communities and break the economic cycles that are biproducts of shrinking populations. That can only happen if we build more housing.

To do so, we must elevate the goal of housing thats already articulated in our existing land-use planning laws. We dont have to remake our system, but we do have to focus on that goal, plan for it and make it happen. For example, that means ensuring aesthetic design requirements for housing development dont significantly increase building costs or allowing flexibility that would enable two to three units, when only one to two would otherwise be possible. I believe we can protect the beauty of our state while also meeting our housing needs.

We also must maximize our current laws to get more housing into production. Local governments need to do everything they can to reduce red tape and streamline regulations. Kudos to the Legislature for passing two urgent housing and homelessness bills earlier this year. Additionally, I hope lawmakers support my new Housing Accountability and Production Office to ensure existing housing production laws are implemented correctly, provide more flexibility to meet local development standards without compromising health and safety and make important progress on addressing land supply issues.

Longer term, on my first day in office, I established the Housing Production Advisory Council. Made up of housing leaders, bipartisan legislators and other experts from around the state, this group is now developing specific recommendations for policy changes and investments to address known barriers to housing, identify changes to state laws to help accelerate building more housing, prioritize housing affordability and promote fair housing in future housing production.

Council members have prioritized finding solutions that are feasible, make the greatest impact in addressing our housing shortage and center equity and racial justice. The councils goals are bold and ambitious  and that is what we need to meet this moment. Their action plan will be released by the end of the year.

When I hear about families not being able to afford their housing or not being able to find housing in their community of choice, I am motivated to see this goal through. When I know we must have enough affordable housing for individuals progressing from unsheltered homelessness, I know we have to move with urgency. When I think about families who are displaced, moving from town to town, we know that negatively affects their childrens future success. Oregon should be a place where everyone belongs. Inaction threatens this goal.

Oregon has work to do when it comes to housing. It will take all of us overcoming differences that have slowed progress in the Legislature to achieve our housing production needs. With a shared sense of urgency and a can-do attitude, I believe Oregonians can deliver.

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One of the most visionary programs funded by Oregons wildfire bill, Senate Bill 762, is the Oregon Conservation Corps. The conservation corps funds youth crews to help prepare rural communities for future wildfires by reducing flammable material directly within the home ignition zone where the greatest fire risk to homes is located. Fuels reduction near homes is manual labor best suited for young strong bodies, and it needs to be done well before the first whiff of wildfire smoke. In fact, it must become a normal part of rural life done annually in perpetuity to be ready for the unpredictable but inevitable appearance of wildfire.

At its core, the Oregon Conservation Corps is a workforce development program that is training the fire and fuels management workforce of the future. Crews earn good wages, gain valuable skills and get firefighter certification. Best of all the program enables rural youth to stay in their small towns to serve their communities instead of moving to big cities looking for jobs. The program only serves willing hosts, and prioritizes assisting elderly, disabled or low-income residents who lack the physical or financial capacity to do the work themselves.

The Oregon Conservation Corps offers a glimpse of the future community wildfire preparation workforce needed to live with fire on the land but keep it out of our homes. This science-based, socially-progressive program should be expanded, even exported to other western states, and the Legislature would be wise to fully renew its funding as an investment in youth and rural communities.

Timothy Ingalsbee, Eugene

Ingalsbee is executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology

To read more letters to the editor, go to oregonlive.com/opinion.
It had only been a few minutes, but Elisabeth Gauthier was falling in love.

The 25-year-old Tigard resident knew Sunday afternoon when she made eye contact with Walter, a 10-year-old black and gray chihuahua, at Northeast Portlands Oregon Humane Society that his mellow energy would be a perfect companion to her other backyard kids  another dog, a goose and three ducks.

I love the companionship and having someone to enjoy when youre not with anyone, Gauthier said. Theyre a lot to take care of, but its worth it.

Gauthier was one of several people wandering the shelter aisles for the final day of a Memorial Day weekend half-price adoption event, where the shelter slashed fees in the hopes of clearing out some kennels. Adoption fees typically range from $55 to $600 for dogs when there is no sale, according to the organizations website.

Elisabeth Gauthier, 25, of Portland met Walter, a 10-year-old chihuahua, at the Oregon Humane Society on Sunday, May 28, 2023.Catalina Gaitan

The Oregon Humane Society hosts the sales whenever the shelter is getting too full or it has too many long-termers  animals that havent been adopted within a few weeks of their arrival, said spokesperson Laura Klink.

Sixteen dogs had been adopted since the promotion began Friday, about as many as they typically adopt out in one weekend but high for a holiday weekend, volunteers said.

On Sunday afternoon, boisterous barking reverberated off the walls of the shelter, where dogs with names like Beans and Fluki snoozed, yipped and tugged on toys.

Briana Romancier, 30, and Graham Freedland, 31, gazed at Sonny and Steve, two fluffy black and white border collie puppies who looked shyly back at the couple through their glass enclosure.

The couple had extra time because of the holiday weekend and decided to visit the shelter, which they said they visit about twice a year whenever they need a little pick me up. They adopted their 6-year-old cat, Luna, at the shelter five years ago.

Romancier and Freedland said they hope to adopt a medium-sized adventure buddy to take with them on walks.

Theyre adorable and we like to give them a little attention, she said. Im always surprised by the love connection  eventually we wont be able to resist.

Cristina Mervin, 37, of Portland saw a flier for the adoption event on Facebook and knew it was time. Her 5-year-old daughter, who started asking for a dog last December, was especially drawn to Agatha, a 12-week-old labrador with a tan coat and a frantically wagging tail.

We dont want more kids, so this is our way for her to have a companion, she said.

Klink said interest in large dogs at the shelter has plummeted in recent years, so the organization was hopeful the adoption sale would get some of their larger canines into homes.

But adopting any dog  big or small  is a win for both the pup and its new owner, she said.

I know for me personally, after Ive had a tough, stressful day, theres nothing like coming home and having your dog greet you with that happy, waggy tail, Klink said. Having a dog in your life just adds so much joy.

-- Catalina Gaitan, cgaitan@oregonian.com, @catalingaitan_

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BIG RAPIDS  Local farmers and others gathered for the Farmers against Gotion rally Saturday afternoon.

Participants decked out their vehicles in anti-Gotion signs and American flags and traveled in a line of protest around the proposed site for the Gotion North America electric vehicle manufacturing facility in Green Charter Township.

We are going to just drive around the Gotion section, Lori Brock said. We are going to do this for five hours because there are a lot of people that can only make it at different times. We are just trying to show how much the community does not want this here.

In a news release from what's called the Big Rapids Grassroots Organizers  a coalition of Mecosta and neighboring county residents united in opposition to the Gotion battery plant project  said local farmers in Mecosta County, Marshall, and agricultural communities across West Michigan are angry that prime Michigan farmland is being sold to a partial Chinese owned company to be developed into battery facilities.

Protester and local farmer Brian Finkbeiner said there is no good reason we should be selling any of our land to China, let alone our richest farmland.

The practice of selling our agricultural land to other countries has got to stop, Finkbeiner said.

Gotion North America vice president Chuck Thelen made the following statement in response to the protests:

"The website of this events organizers links to several out-of-town groups on the left and right. Is that whos really behind all this? That would explain a lot, because true local residents know the truth: Gotion Inc. is an American company thats bringing thousands of new jobs to this community and will be great neighbors to the people who live here. One thing the people of Mecosta County dont need is more outside groups coming here to spread more lies.



There is not so much as a single acre of rich farmland being considered for the project, Thelen said. The large majority of property is zoned industrial and covered in invasive brush species."
DETROIT (AP)  Police in Michigan say a woman vandalized two Detroit-area religious centers in hopes people would blame a Ukrainian militia.

The 35-year-old Clinton Township woman has been charged with spray-painting a Nazi symbol and the phrase Azov on a Royal Oak synagogue on April 28. Shes also been charged in a March 15 arson at a Scientology center in Farmington Hills, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Royal Oak Detective Dan Pelletier testified earlier this month that woman told him that she was trying to commit hate crimes that would be blamed on the Azov Regiment, a Ukrainian militia. Russian officials have repeatedly portrayed Azov as a Nazi formation.

Pelletier said the woman lived in Serbia for two years and returned to Michigan in March. Her family has said she was homeless and has threatened them. The detective said the woman told him that she was trying to commit hate crimes that would be blamed on Azov so people would become angry at U.S. involvement in the Ukraine-Russia war.

A judge in Royal Oak on Friday ordered the woman to undergo a competency evaluation. The woman's attorney, Kerry Phillips, didn't respond to an email from the Detroit Free Press seeking comment on the case.
The African Union has facilitated the awarding of EGP 2.1 billion ($69.6 million) worth of projects to Egyptian contractors across various countries on the continent, President of the African Federation of Construction Contractors Associations (AFCCA) Hassan Abd El-Aziz stated on Sunday.

Consortiums between Egyptian and African contractors have a competitive edge over other foreign entities thanks to their expertise, technical know-how and human capabilities, Abd El-Aziz said during the eighth edition of the Builders Of Egypt Forum.

These consortiums play a vital role in economic development, job creation and the introduction of tangible opportunities for citizens across Africa, he added.

The Builders Of Egypt Forum was inaugurated on Sunday under the auspices of Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, with delegations from across the Arab world and Africa.

The theme of this years edition focuses on exporting Egypts construction work throughout the region. These exports are a valuable source of foreign currency and help sustain the operations of Egyptian companies.

The event, which was organized in cooperation with the Saudi Contractors Authority (SCA), features Saudi Arabia as the guest of honour.

Saudi Arabia offers significant opportunities for Egyptian contractors in its vast contracting market, President of the SCA Zakaria Al-Abdul Qader stated.

The countrys contracting market contributes approximately SAR 255 billion (almost $68 billion) annually to the GDP, Al-Abdul Qader added.

He also revealed that the SCA has presented more than 3,000 projects in Saudi Arabia, valued at over SAR 1 trillion (around $270 billion), at the Builders Of Egypt forum.

As part of its Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia is planning and launching a myriad of development projects in the sectors of energy, urban development, tourism, culture, housing and healthcare.

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Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - A meeting of officials from the Government of National Unity and Tunisia Saturday met to discuss bottleneck blockages at the Ras Jedir border crossing
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - An American Environmental Services Company and the Libyan Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources of the Government of National Unity have discussed the use of digital farming techniques and ways to increase agricultural production
Photo: (Photo : Daniel Slim/Getty Images)

In a tragic turn of events, the U.S. Coast Guard has officially concluded its search for an 18-year-old Louisiana teen who went overboard during a sunset cruise in the Bahamas.

The search efforts, spanning two days and involving multiple agencies, sadly yielded no sign of the missing teenager.

Cameron Robbins, a recent high school graduate from Baton Rouge, was on a trip with a group of students when the incident occurred on a Wednesday night near Athol Island.

U.S. Coast Guard, Royal Bahamas Defense Force Leads Intense Search Operation

According to NBC News, the U.S. Coast Guard District Seven swiftly responded to a request for assistance from the Royal Bahamas Defense Force after Robbins fell off the Blackbeard's Revenge sunset cruise ship.

Coast Guard assets, including search and rescue crews and aircrews based in Miami, collaborated with the Royal Bahamas Defense Force in a joint effort to locate the young man.

Over 325 square miles were meticulously combed, but unfortunately, the search did not lead to any breakthrough.

Following extensive search operations, the Royal Bahamas Defense Force decided to suspend the active search pending further developments.

The Coast Guard expressed its deepest condolences to Cameron Robbins' family and friends, recognizing the emotional toll this devastating situation has taken on all involved.

Despite the conclusion of the official search, authorities remain open to new information that may shed light on the whereabouts of the missing teenager.

A Tragic Bahamas Vacation for Louisiana High School Graduates

As reported by ABC News, the Bahamas vacation, which was not a school-sanctioned trip, gathered a group of students from several high schools in the Baton Rouge area to celebrate their recent high school graduations.

Robbins, a graduate of the University Lab High School associated with Louisiana State University, embarked on the trip to mark this milestone.

However, what was supposed to be a joyous occasion turned into a heart-wrenching ordeal for the young man and his companions.

News of Cameron Robbins' disappearance sent shockwaves through the tight-knit community, prompting an outpouring of support and prayers.

Kevin George, the director of the laboratory school where Robbins attended, described him as a great kid and a talented athlete.

The school held a graduation ceremony just days before the tragedy unfolded, leaving students and faculty grappling with grief. A prayer circle was organized by fellow students to offer solace during this difficult time.

Read Also: South Dakota Governor Takes Stand on Drag Shows, Preferred Pronouns, Free Speech in Universities

Missing Teenager's Body Unclear If It Has Been Recovered

Amid the search efforts and subsequent suspension, it remains uncertain whether the body of Cameron Robbins has been found.

According to Fox News, the Royal Bahamas Police Force is currently examining allegations suggesting that Robbins jumped into the water as a result of a dare.

The U.S. Coast Guard's District Seven continues to urge anyone with new information related to the incident to come forward and provide assistance.

The devastating turn of events has left the Robbins family and the entire community in deep sorrow, emphasizing the need for support and unity during this trying time.

The conclusion of the U.S. Coast Guard's search for the missing Louisiana teenager serves as a somber reminder of the dangers that can arise during seemingly innocent activities.

As the community mourns the loss of a promising young individual, the focus now shifts toward providing comfort and support to those affected while investigators continue their efforts to unravel the circumstances surrounding this tragic event.

Related Article: New York City Bans Height and Weight Discrimination in Landmark Law
The Interpreter Foundations small team of filmmakers  Jeffrey Mark Bradshaw, James Jordan, and Russell D. Richins  is now back in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after being out in Kisangani and Wagenya, where they had very little Internet. They spent much of Thursday at a school for the blind and went to see some of the students practicing for an upcoming special olympics event. Jeff promises More on that and other things related to the growth of the church here later. Taking advantage of the improved connection back in Kinshasa, Jeff sent me a trio of photographs, which Im sharing with you here.

In the photograph above, a Wagenya fisherman is preparing the ingenious traditional fish snare that is used in the area: In the rapidly-moving rapids the fish are drawn into the wide part of the snare and are then caught in the narrow portion from which they cant escape. Jeff reports that some of the men were out fishing in the middle of the river, where one misstep means that it would be all over. He also reports that virtually all of Kisangani  like all of Kinshasa  has restricted air space. Fortunately, though, James Jordan was able to get some great drone shots there, while Russ Richins got some great footage from the shore.

The Wagenya Falls were, Jeff says, formerly called Stanley Falls in honor of the Welsh-American explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904). They are part of the last of a series of seven rapids that mark the place where the Lualaba River merges into the Congo River. The combined rapids of the river are reputed to be the second largest waterfall, by volume of annual flow rate, in the entire world

I now quote directly from Jeffs general notes about the area, which he sent to accompany his photographs:

The region surrounding Kisangani has a rich and complicated history that has been explored and romanticized in films, books, and plays  including Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness, Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburns The African Queen, and A Bend in the River by the late Nobel prize-winner V. S. Naipaul. Mobutu Sese Seko, the ruler of DR Congo from the 1960s through the 1990s, restored the native name of Kisangani to the city as part of his Africanization movement. Before that, it was known as Stanleyville. The name Stanleyville comes from the intrepid explorer and journalist for The New York Herald, Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904). Stanley is well known for having found the Christian medical missionary, explorer, and anti-slavery crusader David Livingstone, who had disappeared into the jungle near Lake Tanganyika, Stanley purportedly greeting him with the absurd question, Dr. Livingstone, I presume? The 1939 film Stanley and Livingstone featured Spencer Tracy as Stanley and Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Livingstone. Stanley was eventually hired by the cruel Belgian King Leopold to establish trade and transportation routes down the Congo River from east to west from Stanleyville (now Kisangani) to Leopoldville (now Kinshasa). Because of Kisanganis location at the confluence of two major rivers, including the uppermost section of the navigable waters of the Congo River that lead to Kinshasa, it was a natural trading center. Stanley had the influential ivory and slave trader from Zanzibar, Tippu Tip, appointed as governor of the Stanley Falls district.

The risible discussion of the supposed colonialist ambitions in the Congo of both the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Interpreter Foundation continues, by the way, on the Peterson Obsession Board. I was amused by an entry this morning in which one of that boards foremost commentators on international trade and economics notes that, thanks to the entry into Africa of the Peoples Republic of China (which, to his credit, he admits is not an unambiguously good thing), the economic prospects of the DR Congo are improving. But then as the momentum accelerates, the Mormons storm the land the [to?] reap the harvest. . . . The greedy Mormon church is taking its cut of the prosperity, they arent the impetus to the prosperity. Honestly, it feels (to this outside observer, at least) as if one has entered some sort of bizarro alternate universe.

And, while were (somehow) on the subject of the finances of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, heres a really good episode of Lets Get Real with Stephen Jones entitled Mormon Church: Taxes, Trust, Transparency: Deeper Context. Its an hour and thirteen minutes in length, but I commend it highly to anybody who is actually interested in understand this matter.

Stephen Jones, the host of the Lets Get Real podcast, is involved in a host of things and is a very funny guy. (When he was a student, he was a member of BYUs Humor U.) Aaron Miller holds both a law degree and a masters degree in public administration and is a member of the faculty at Brigham Young University. He specializes in nonprofit management, social entrepreneurship, and business ethics  precisely the fields that are relevant here. Back in December 2019, in Public Square Magazine, he published The $100 Billion Mormon Church Story: A Contextual Analysis: Major headlines this week left a vivid impression in the public mind of a major scandal uncovered in the Church of Jesus Christ. A closer, more careful look suggests otherwise. It remains a must-read. His calm, lucid, reasonable approach to what has been a very contentious topic is, to coin a phrase, a much needed breath of fresh air.
A primary four history textbook has become the center of discussions after it emerged that it had content that in many parts listed disadvantages of religion, specifically of Christianity.



The book, History of Ghana for Basic Schools, Learner's Book 4, was authored by Francis Benjamin Appiah and Henry David Appiah.



The cover page sighted by GhanaWeb has the approval of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) even though the outfit has denied approving the said copy.



The contentious page making the rounds on social media platforms is under the section titled: "NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES."



The authors list seven anti-Christianity points which have triggered the social media debates. The points range from religion being a major cause of conflict globally, that Christianity has led to increase in poverty and that the religion missionaries brought "create a sense of fear or timidity in their adherents."



Find the seven points below:

NaCCA reacts:



The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) in reacting to the book has stated that the version cited is not what was approved.



A Deputy Spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Yaw Opoku Mensah is quoted by Joy News as stating that NaCCA had not approved the particular copy.



He claimed that per the information provided to him by NaCCA, the approved version of the book did not have the section in question, the Joy News report added.



NaCCA is an entity mandated by the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023) to develop national curriculum and assessment standards for pre-tertiary education institutions other than technical and vocational education and training institutions.

Source: ghanaweb.com









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Philadelphia police are investigating a double shooting in an unknown location of the city early Sunday morning that left one person dead, according to a WPVI TV-6 report.

The incident took place around 12:30 a.m., according to police.

A 18-year-old male was shot once in the neck and a 21-year-old male was shot four times in the arms, police said. Both were transported to St. Cristophers Hospital by private vehicle.

The 18-year-old died shortly after arriving at the hospital. The 21-year-old was listed in critical condition and transported to Temple University Hospital, according to police.

No arrests have been made.

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Less than two months after he pleaded guilty to storming the U.S. Capitol, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlsons then-Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other rioters whom the site called political prisoners.

The Justice Department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised  a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy.

An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in the more than 1,000 criminal cases from Jan. 6, 2021, are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of the Capitol rioters.

Dozens of defendants have set up online fundraising appeals for help with legal fees, and prosecutors acknowledge theres nothing wrong with asking for help for attorney expenses. But the Justice Department has, in some cases, questioned where the money is really going because many of those charged have had government-funded legal representation.

Most of the fundraising efforts appear on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site and has become a haven for Jan. 6 defendants barred from using mainstream crowdfunding sites, including GoFundMe, to raise money. The rioters often proclaim their innocence and portray themselves as victims of government oppression, even as they cut deals to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors.

Their fundraising success suggests that many people in the United States still view Jan. 6 rioters as patriots and cling to the baseless belief that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump. The former president himself has fueled that idea, pledging to pardon rioters if he is elected.

Markus Maly, a Virginia man scheduled to be sentenced next month for assaulting police at the Capitol, raised more than $16,000 from an online campaign that described him as a January 6 P.O.W. and asked for money for his family. Prosecutors have requested a $16,000-plus fine, noting that Maly had a public defender and did not owe any legal fees.

He should not be able to use his own notoriety gained in the commission of his crimes to capitalize on his participation in the Capitol breach in this way, a prosecutor wrote in court papers.

So far this year, prosecutors have sought more than $390,000 in fines against at least 21 riot defendants, in amounts ranging from $450 to more than $71,000, according to the APs tally.

Judges have imposed at least $124,127 in fines against 33 riot defendants this year. In the previous two years, judges ordered more than 100 riot defendants to collectively pay more than $240,000 in fines.

Separately, judges have ordered hundreds of convicted rioters to pay more than $524,000 in restitution to the government to cover more than $2.8 million in damage to the Capitol and other Jan. 6-related expenses.

More rioters facing the most serious charges and longest prison terms are now being sentenced. They tend to also be the prolific fundraisers, which could help explain the recent surge in fines requests.

Earlier this month, the judge who sentenced Nathaniel DeGrave to more than three years in prison also ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine. Prosecutors noted that the Nevada resident incredibly raised over $120,000 in GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns that referred to him as Beijing Bidens political prisoner in Americas Gitmo  a reference to the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

He did this despite seeking to cooperate with the government and admitting he and his co-conspirators were guilty since at least November 2021, a prosecutor wrote.

Lawyer William Shipley, who has represented DeGrave and more than two dozen other Jan. 6 defendants, said he advises clients to avoid raising money under the auspices of being a political prisoner if they intend to plead guilty.

Until they admit they committed a crime, theyre perfectly entitled to shout from the rooftops that the only reason theyre being held is because of politics, Shipley said. Its just First Amendment political speech.

Shipley said he provided the judge with documentation showing that DeGrave raised approximately $25,000 more than what he paid his lawyers.

Ive never had to do it until these cases because Ive never had clients that had third-party fundraising like this, Shipley said. Theres a segment of the population that is sympathetic toward the plight of these defendants.

GiveSendGo co-founder Heather Wilson said her sites decision to allow legal defense funds for Capitol riot defendants is rooted in our societys commitment to the presumption of innocence and the freedom for all individuals to hire private attorneys.

The governments push for more fines comes as it reaches a milestone in the largest federal investigation in American history: Just over 500 defendants have been sentenced for Jan. 6 crimes.

Judges arent rubber-stamping prosecutors fine requests.

Prosecutors sought a more than $70,000 fine for Peter Schwartz, a Kentucky man who attacked police officers outside the Capitol with pepper spray and a chair. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Schwartz this month to more than 14 years in prison  one of the longest so far in a Capitol riot case  but didnt impose a fine.

Prosecutors suspect Schwartz tried to profit from his fundraising campaign, Patriot Pete Political Prisoner in DC. But his lawyer, Dennis Boyle, said there is no evidence of that.

The judge basically said that if the money was being used for attorneys fees or other costs like that, there was no basis for a fine, Boyle said.

A jury convicted romance novel cover model John Strand of storming the Capitol with Dr. Simone Gold, a California physician who is a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement. Now prosecutors are seeking a $50,000 fine on top of a prison term for Strand when a judge sentences him on Thursday.

Strand has raised more than $17,300 for his legal defense without disclosing that he has a taxpayer-funded lawyer, according to prosecutors. They say Strand appears to have substantial financial means, living in a home that was purchased for more than $3 million last year.

FILE - Insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. Top House and Senate leaders will present law enforcement officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with Congressional Gold Medals on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022, awarding them Congress's highest honor nearly two years after they fought with former President Donald Trumps supporters in a brutal and bloody attack. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)AP

Strand has raised, and continues to raise, money on his website based upon his false statements and misrepresentations on the events of January 6, prosecutors wrote.

Goodwyn, who appeared on Carlsons show in March, is scheduled to be sentenced next month. Defense lawyer Carolyn Stewart described prosecutors as demanding blood from a stone in asking for the $25,000 fine.

He received that amount in charity to help him in his debt for legal fees for former attorneys and this for unknown reasons is bothersome to the government, Stewart wrote.

Michael Kunzelman of The Associated Press wrote this story.

Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

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Indiantown Gap National Cemetery (IGNC) held its its 40th annual Memorial Day program on Sunday afternoon.

The theme of the memorial serviceis to honor the lives of the military who died in battle during hostile actions or later as a result injuries suffered during those hostilities. It was held this year in the parking lot near the Pennsylvania Veterans Memorial, while the memorial undergoes renovations, in the National Cemetery.

This program was open to the public.

This years program was cosponsored by the Indiantown Gap National Cemetery Memorial Council and the Marine Corps League, Department of Pa.

John Spruyt, director of IGNC, was scheduled to welcome the audience. Col. Keith E. Burkepile, senior Marine and assistant professor at the Army War College in Carlisle, delivered the keynote address. Joseph Snyder, Memorial Council vice president, served as the master of ceremonies.

In addition to a guest speaker, a band was scheduled to play a few selections of music or a choir will perform several renditions of appropriate songs and wreaths are symbolically placed memorializing those who died in the service of their country.

The Avenue of Flags display on the cemetery will be flown through Veterans Day Week. The Avenue of Flags is made up of casket flags that have been donated by veterans families. State, territories, and service flags will also be flown.
In 1973, the last American troops left Vietnam. By then, more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers had died.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the end of that conflict, PennLive reached out to Vietnam veterans in our midst to ask whom or what they will be thinking about on Memorial Day this year.
Using AI and CCTV footage, a recent investigative report by The Washington Post contradicted the Israeli official narrative regarding a deadly raid in the occupied West Bank in which four Palestinians, including a 16-year-old, were killed.

According to the report, undercover Israeli officers from a special army unit sneaked into the city centre of Jenin and hid inside a civilian vehicle before carrying out the attack.

The 3D reconstruction of the raid was based on synchronizing 15 videos and reviewing dozens of others from March 16. These videos included CCTV footage from surrounding businesses, some of which took nearly a month to surface.

The Post also spoke to nine witnesses and obtained testimonies from four others to produce the reconstruction of the raid where increasingly deadly tactics were employed by Israeli officers, the Washington Post wrote.

It quoted Israeli officials who said that raids like this are vital to what they described as "disrupting terrorist networks".

However, the Washington Posts investigative report refutes Israels claim that the Israeli soldiers targeted armed suspects.

The report also stated that the Israeli soldiers killed 16-year-old Omar Awadin. Omar was among at least 16 civilians in the area as the officers charged down the street with AR-style rifles and a handgun, firing more than 20 shots and killing the two alleged militants, neither of whom was visibly armed."

According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, three more Palestinians besides Awadin were killed by Israeli forces. They were identified as Nedal Khazem, 28, Yousef Khreim, 29, and Louay Khalil Al-Zughair, 37.

Israeli forces kept shooting a Palestinian man multiple times even after he was incapacitated  an apparent extrajudicial execution that experts said could violate Israeli law, the investigation concluded.

No ambulance could reach the scene because of the traffic and chaos that followed the raid. According to the report, some men who happened to be nearby loaded Omar into a car and rushed him to the hospital.

"The Post shared its findings with five experts in international law, all of whom said the deadly raid appeared to violate the prohibition on extrajudicial killings", the newspaper noted.

"Neither man targeted in the raid appeared to present any threat, let alone an imminent threat, and [both] could have been arrested," the Post quoted Michael Lynk, a former UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territories, as saying.

"After reviewing the evidence presented by the newspaper, one can say with a degree of confidence that these are extrajudicial executions," Philip Alston, former UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, told The Washington Post.

The recent surge in Israeli-Palestinian violence has led to daily attacks on the West Bank and Jerusalem by the Israeli military and Jewish settlers. Since the start of the year, Israeli forces and Jewish settlers have killed no fewer than 155 Palestinians, including at least 19 children, according to a tally compiled from official sources.

Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967. Since then, the Palestinians have been calling to liberate these lands from Israeli occupation to establish an independent Palestinian state.

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As a waitress for the past eight years at Twigs Cafe in Tunkhannock, Jamie McAndrew exhibits the required decorum of a table server.

But she was a bit unsure exactly how to act when former President Bill Clinton and former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showed up for dinner Friday night.

The Clintons came to Twigs at 6 p.m. with Hillarys brother, Hugh Rodham, and a few other people, to celebrate Hughs 73rd birthday, McAndrew said.A contingent of Secret Service agents also were there, inside and outside, she said.

But the former first couples easy-going demeanor quickly put McAndrew, a 37-year-old resident of North Abington Township, at ease.

Im not good at being all prim and proper. I didnt know how to act at first, but then they were all joking. They were actually pretty cool and I was just able to be myself, McAndrew said. They were relaxed. They were very chill.

The Clintons and Rodham also posed for photos with Twigs staff.

The former president had a half-pound Hot House Burger, the plant-based version, that can come topped with gouda cheese, bacon, caramelized onions and sriracha mayo. He had the jalapenos on the side and French fries. He also had a Buddha Bowl mix of quinoa and vegetables.

The former first lady ordered the almond haddock entree.

The Clintons and their group also brought a birthday cake. A host and waitresses sang a chorus of Happy Birthday to Rodham.

The Clinton party stayed at Twigs until 9:15 p.m.

Rodham has a cottage at Lake Winola.

Also on Friday night, Virginia Doherty McGregor of Scranton, an influential fundraiser in the Democratic party, got a phone call from Hillary Clinton saying she and her husband were at Lake Winola. McGregor, who has a lake house at Lake Carey near Tunkhannock, invited the Clintons for a visit to that lake house on Saturday morning.

They were in town for Hughs birthday. They really love Lake Winola, McGregor said. Were good friends of theirs. She reached out and said, Hey, were in town. I said, Why dont you come for coffee tomorrow. "

While there, the Clintons also posed for photos with the McGregor family.

After that visit Saturday morning, the Clintons next visited the T&C Grille in Tunkhannock around 11 a.m. However, T&C was packed and the Secret Service apparently immediately decided against staying, T&C owner Connie Wiser said.

Wiser never had a chance to fit them in, she said, adding, It all happened so fast.

Some patrons were able to get some photos with the Clintons before they departed, Wiser said.

McGregor said the Clintons next were en route to Philadelphia.

They had a great visit. What a nice time to come, McGregor said.

McAndrew said, They were just down-to-Earth people. They put their pants on the same way that I do. They just make more money  a lot more money.
WASHINGTON  President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have reached an agreement in principle on legislation to increase the nations borrowing authority and avoid a federal default.

Negotiators are now racing to complete the bills text. McCarthy, R-Calif., said the House will vote on the legislation on Wednesday, giving the Senate time to consider it before June 5, the date when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States could default on its debt obligations if lawmakers did not act in time.

While many details about the deal are unknown, both sides will be able to point to some victories. But some conservatives expressed early concerns that the compromise does not cut future deficits enough, while Democrats have been worried about proposed changes to work requirements in programs such as food stamps.

A look at whats in and out of the deal, based on whats known so far:

TWO-YEAR DEBT INCREASE, SPENDING LIMITS

The agreement would keep nondefense spending roughly flat in the 2024 fiscal year and increase it by 1% the following year, as well as provide for a two-year debt-limit increase  past the next presidential election in 2024. Thats according to a source familiar with the deal who provided details on the condition of anonymity.

VETERANS CARE

The agreement would fully fund medical care for veterans at the levels included in Bidens proposed 2024 budget blueprint, including a fund dedicated to veterans who have been exposed to toxic substances or environmental hazards. Biden sought $20.3 billion for the toxic exposure fund in his budget and Republican negotiators ensured Sunday that funding was left untouched.

WORK REQUIREMENTS

Republicans had proposed boosting work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents in certain government assistance programs. They said it would bring more people into the workforce, who would then pay taxes and help shore up key entitlement programs, namely Social Security and Medicare.

The agreement would expand some work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. It would raise the age for existing work requirements from 49 to 54, similar to the Republican proposal, but those changes would expire in 2030. The White House said it would at the same time reduce the number of vulnerable people  including veterans and people who are homeless  of all ages who are subject to the requirements.

Many of those changes will sunset in 2030, allowing Congress to measure the effectiveness of these changes and make changes if need be.

UNSPENT COVID MONEY

The agreement would rescind about $30 billion in unspent coronavirus relief money that Congress approved through previous bills, with exceptions made for veterans medical care, housing assistance, the Indian Health Service, and some $5 billion for a program focused on rapidly developing the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.

SPEEDING UP ENERGY PROJECTS

The deal puts in place changes in the National Environmental Policy Act for the first time in nearly four decades that would designate a single lead agency to develop environmental reviews, in hopes of streamlining the process.

STUDENT LOANS

Republicans have long sought to reel back the Biden administrations efforts to provide student loan relief and aid to millions of borrowers during the coronavirus pandemic. While the GOP proposal to rescind the White Houses plan to waive $10,000 to $20,000 in debt for nearly all borrowers failed to make it into the package, Biden agreed to put an end to the pause on student loan repayment.

Once Biden signs the package, the pause in student loan repayments would end within 60 days.

FILE - President Joe Biden talks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 26, 2023, as he heads to Camp David for the weekend. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)AP

The fate of student loan relief, meanwhile, will be decided at the Supreme Court, which is dominated 6-3 by its conservative wing. During oral arguments in the case, several of the justices expressed deep skepticism about the legality of Bidens plan. A decision is expected before the end of June.

WHATS LEFT OUT

House Republicans passed legislation last month that would have created new work requirements for some Medicaid recipients, but that was left out of the final agreement. The idea faced stiff opposition from the White House and congressional Democrats, who said it would lead to fewer people able to afford food or health care without actually increasing the number of people in the workforce.

Also absent from the final deal is the GOP proposal to repeal many of the clean energy tax credits Democrats passed in party-line votes last year to boost the production and consumption of clean energy. McCarthy and Republicans have argued that the tax breaks distort the market and waste taxpayer money.

The White House has defended the tax credits as resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars in private-sector investments, creating thousands of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

Kevin Freking and Farnoush Amiri of The Associated Press wrote this story.

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Jan. 6 rioters raked in thousands in donations. The U.S. is coming after their haul
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Kevin McCarthy promised significant cuts, and he didnt deliver. He promised massive work requirements and failed, all while giving President Biden the framework that he wanted.

The New York Times reported:

The deal would raise the borrowing limit, which is currently $31.4 trillion, for two years  enough to get past the next presidential election.



According to a person familiar with the agreement, it also would impose new work requirements for some recipients of government aid, including food stamps and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. It would place new limits on the amount of time that certain recipients of food stamps  people under the age of 54, who do not have children  could benefit from the program. But it also would expand food stamp access for veterans and the homeless, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the package.

The Work Requirement That Kevin McCarthy Got Applies To 7% of SNAP Recipients

The vast majority of food stamp recipients are children, seniors, and persons with disabilities.

The work requirement that McCarthy got applies to virtually no one on SNAP:

Pre-pandemic data show that nearly 90 percent of participants are in households with a child under age 18, an adult age 60 or older, or an individual who is disabled. Children under age 18 constitute nearly half (44 percent) of all SNAP participants. About two-thirds of SNAP participants are in families with children; over one-third are in households with older adults or disabled people. Nearly half of SNAP households are headed by a non-Latino white person, about one-quarter by a non-Latino Black person, and more than one-fifth by a Latinx person (of any race). And about 7 percent of SNAP households are headed by a person who is Asian or another race.

Biden Got SNAP Expanded And A 2 Year Debt Limit Hike

Kevin McCarthy got virtually nothing. The spending freeze is something that the White House proposed weeks ago, and Republicans have now given up all of their leverage on the debt limit.

Biden actually got SNAP expanded. Republicans thought they were going to hold the President hostage, but they came away with virtually nothing. All McCarthy negotiated were some token victories.

House Republicans would have to be insane to vote for this deal. It contains virtually nothing that they passed in their debt limit bill.

Kevin McCarthy is trying to spin it, but he cut a deal that should cost him his job.
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Kevin McCarthy went on national television and lied about Hakeem Jeffries, so the House Democratic Leader called him out.

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Face The Nation played a clip of McCarthy saying on Fox News Sunday, I think theres going to be a lot of Democrats that will vote for it too. Right now the Democrats are very upset. The one thing told me Hakeem, theres not one thing in the bill for them, not one thing in the bill for Democrats. 

Jeffries responded, I have no idea what hes talking about particularly, because I have not been able to review the actual legislative texts. All that weve reached is is an agreement in principle.

Face The Nations Margaret Brennan asked, Did you even talk to him?

Jeffries answered,  I talked to him yesterday afternoon. I havent talked to him since that point in time. What I have consistently said, however, privately and publicly, was that the extreme MAGA Republican negotiating position and that, dream bill that theyve passed on April 26th, the Default An America Act, contained nothing that was consistent with democratic values or American values. It was unreasonable to think that that negotiating position is going to be able to result in a resolution that would make sense for the American people when he understood and everyone understood that a bipartisan resolution was the only way forward to avoid a catastrophic default.

Jeffries hasnt seen the legislative text or spoken to McCarthy since the deal was reached, so Kevin McCarthy made up his quote from Hakeem Jeffries.

Kevin McCarthy lied. McCarthy also lied about there being nothing in the agreement for Democrats. Speaker McCarthy has to lie to sell this deal to his caucus because his job is on the line.

If House Republicans figure out what an epic cave job McCarthy pulled, they will launch a motion to vacate and could boot him out of the speakership.

Kevin McCarthy lied and Hakeem Jeffries didnt let him get away with it.
Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Ammar Al-Hakim, leader of the National Wisdom Movement, reviewed Iraqs political scene and regional issues with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and officials as he visited Cairo on Sunday.

The leader of the National Wisdom Movement also spoke about political developments in Iraq at the Egyptian Centre for Strategic Studies, highlighting possible integration among Arab, Turkish, Iranian and Kurdish nations.

The Arab world can play an important role in the integration and cooperation of the four nations, represented by the Arab, Turkish, Iranian and Kurdish nations, Al-Hakim said on Twitter.

He also underlined Iraqs role in adopting regional stability projects, including the Iranian-Saudi dialogue.

Meeting Sisi

During his meeting with Al-Hakim, El-Sisi said that he deeply appreciates the close and brotherly relations between Egypt and Iraq, both on the official and popular levels, Egyptian Presidential Spokesman Ahmed Fahmy said.

The president stressed Egypts keenness on preserving Iraqs security and stability and reiterated support for the Iraqi efforts to achieve development and progress.

El-Sisi praised Al-Hakims role in maintaining stability and balance in Iraq.

They also discussed the most significant regional developments of mutual concern, the spokesperson continued.

For his part, Al-Hakim praised El-Sisis leadership and Egypts role in supporting Iraq.

"Egypt is a pillar and a supporter of stability in the Arab and Muslim world", Al-Hakim continued, adding that Iraq is keen to benefit from Egypts experience in development and other fields.

On Twitter, Al-Hakim affirmed to the president the need to resolve the crises facing some Arab countries, especially Sudan. The cleric stressed the need to facilitate dialogue between the conflicting parties.

The Chief of Egypts General Intelligence Service (GIS) attended the meeting.

Meeting Egypts FM

In a meeting with Al-Hakim, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry stressed that Egypt was keen on boosting cooperation with Iraq.

Shoukry said he hopes the upcoming higher Egyptian-Iraqi joint committee, scheduled to be held soon in Cairo at the level of prime ministers, will yield results that boost the relations between both countries.

He also praised Al-Hakims keenness on boosting the economic relations between Egypt and Iraq, highlighting the contributions of Egyptian companies to reconstruction and development efforts in Iraq.

The top Egyptian diplomat also highlighted the importance Egypt attaches to the trilateral cooperation mechanism that brings together Egypt, Iraq and Jordan.

Shoukry underscored that Egypt looks forward to implementing the cooperation projects agreed upon by the three countries as soon as possible, adding that these projects should reflect the political will of the three nations.

Shoukry affirmed Egypts full support of Iraq in its war against terrorism.

Meeting House speaker

In a meeting with Speaker of the House of Representatives Hanafy El-Gebaly, Al-Hakim stressed keenness to enhance the parliamentary relations between Egypt and Iraq.

Al-Hakim also stressed the importance of Syrias return to the Arab League and the pivotal role parliaments should play in settling regional disputes.

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Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has dementia, her family announced Tuesday. Carter, now 95, remains at home with former President Jimmy Carter, who has been at home receiving hospice care. The Carter family said in a statement sent by couple's global humanitarian organization that Rosalynn Carter continues to live happily at home with her husband, enjoying spring in Plains and visits with loved ones. Married nearly 77 years, the Carters are the longest-married first couple in U.S. history. The Carter Center statement said Rosalynn Carter has spent her long public life advocating for individuals and families affected by mental illness and for those in caregiving relationships with loved ones. Read moreFormer first lady Rosalynn Carter has dementia, The Carter Center says
The past couple of decades have had Marine 1st Sergeant Harry Johnson in several locations around the world, and the naval science instructor has some extremely familiar territory on his near horizon this month, through his role as a leader in Naval Junior ROTC programs.

Johnson, largely known for his "N.J." involvement at Aiken High School since the 2015-16 academic year, has a prior background in helping keep C-130 cargo planes in top condition, and he's on track to help lead the N.J. program at Strom Thurmond High in a few months. He knows the landscape, as a 1988 Thurmond graduate, and can also call on a variety of life lessons, having visited more than 20 countries via his service as a Marine.

He spent most of his childhood in Edgefield County, where his parents were fully involved in basic farm work, with peaches as a huge factor in the local economy and higher education as an elusive concept.

Stepping into the military was a major transition for him. "My parents were migrant workers, for years, so we'd travel up and down the east coast. My grandparents and aunts and uncles were in Johnston, and they lived on Frank Berry's farm, and they worked that, and so ... my siblings and I spent a lot of years with my grandparents, uncles and aunts there, and then finally, at some point  I think my eighth-grade year  my parents stopped traveling. They also moved there on Frank Berry's place, and from there, I stayed and went to high school and graduated from Strom Thurmond High School."

College, he said, was not a financial option and was definitely not a family tradition. "Didn't have anyone in my family that had been to college, so kind of navigating that, even still, would have been tricky."

Johnson, however, did have one relative who was in the Army. "I remember seeing him in a picture, and when I saw him come, I saw he was doing well, so for me, it was, 'This is the route I can take  the career path  to do better ... for my future family.' That kind of drove me to the military."

His intent, he said, was not to stay for 20 years, but he gave Uncle Sam two decades, largely focusing on cargo aircraft. "I ended up loving it. You know what? This is taking care of me, and now I have a family. I'm doing pretty well, so I decided to stay in 20 years and retired."

Those 20 years included a non-military milestone, as he married longtime friend Bridgett Johnson, a 1990 Strom Thurmond graduate, and their family has grown to include three sons, two daughters and six grandchildren.

Along the way, the father of the house picked up a bachelor's degree from Park University, focusing on business management and human resources, and also spent some time as a Marine recruiter and also as an instructor in a leadership course.

Retirement was 15 years ago, with a travel record that includes Thailand, Djibouti, Kenya, Australia, Norway, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Iceland, Mexico, Canada, Ireland and Germany

His Marine uniforms accompany him to work on a regular basis and has admirers among young members of the Marine Corps and other sectors of the military.

"I'm a Marine, and he's the whole reason I joined the Marine Corps," said Cpl. Kate McCaskill, a 2019 Aiken High graduate. "He's made a really big impact on my life ... He is like a father figure more than a teacher, to me."

She added, "He goes above and beyond. He was one of those kinds of teachers where you would come in late and he would ask why, and make sure you were ... OK with your home life. He'd always push you past your limits, and he did a really good job of just being a mentor, being a guiding figure."

Johnson may have an easier time, in the years ahead, keeping up with his students, as the Strom Thurmond student body currently numbers around 700. Aiken High, by comparison, is around 1,200.

Col. Claude Davis, with South Aiken High's NJROTC program, gave Johnson a thumbs-up review. "He is a guy that spends a lot of time with his students. His students just love him."

"He's got this calm humbleness that is really just grounded in strong leadership traits," said Jason Holt, director of administration for Edgefield County's school district. Holt, having served as Aiken High's principal from 2019 to 2022, has known Johnson for several years.

"He has this sense about him where he can relate with almost anybody," Holt added. "He really has an infectious positivity about him, and he does an excellent job, just as a person, relating to all types of people. I mean, he really wants to get to know you and that comes out within 30 seconds of talking with him."

"First Sergeant is definitely ... the best mentor that I have ever had in my life," said Aiken High senior Maya Cianni Guzman, commanding officer of the school NJROTC unit this year. "He is always looking to the 'up' side of things.

Guzman, who is preparing to attend Full Sail University, in Florida, said laughter and smiles are normal features  not exceptions to the rule  in Johnson's classroom. "He's genuinely changed my life. I just see him as like another father figure to me. Everyone looks at him like a second dad," she said.

"He treats everybody with love and kindness, and I think that's a huge part of people's lives ... He's always there to help people, all the time."

Johnson's NJROTC experience also includes time in southwestern Georgia, working at Westover High School, in Albany, for three years just prior to his move back to the Aiken area.

He addressed the topic of his upcoming job shift. "It's kind of bittersweet. Aiken High School ... has been great," he said.

"When I first entertained doing ROTC, instantly Strom Thurmond came to mind, and it's been 11 years now, doing ROTC, but it wasn't available. Timing wasn't right, but ... I would like to give back to the community where I came from, and Strom Thurmond would have been the ideal situation, so I look forward to it. I looked forward to leading the kids here, but I look forward to that next phase, if you will."
Together For Hope revival will be held today and Thursday at Hopelands Gardens, 135 Dupree Place. Gates open at 5:30 p.m. and worship starts at 6 p.m. The rainout location is Odell Weeks Activity Center. This revival event is focused on the community becoming unified through faith in Jesus Christ. Attendees should bring lawn chairs. For more information, email tinaharp61@gmail.com. Read moreToday's events for May 31
Aiken, SC (29801)

Today

Some early morning breaks in the overcast, otherwise cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 79F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. Low 62F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.
The aerospace supply chain is improving but still represents a challenge to Boeing Co.'s plans to boost production of its 787 jets in North Charleston.

So says Brian West, the planemaker's chief financial officer, in remarks at an industry conference last week.

Boeing's assembly campus off International Boulevard is currently building about three Dreamliners per month, with plans to increase that to five by the end of the year.

That ramp-up is reliant on suppliers like Spirit Aerosystems, which builds the forward fuselage for the wide-body plane.

West didn't call out Wichita, Kan.-based Spirit specifically, but he told a Wolfe Research conference last week that reaching the monthly production goal of five will depend largely on whether a "very important Tier 1 fuselage supplier" can deliver its parts on time.

"Our expectation is that they will," he said.

Boeing paused Dreamliner deliveries for about two weeks earlier this year because of what it termed "an analysis error by our supplier related to the 787 forward pressure bulkhead."

Spirit, which builds the part and was at one time a division within Boeing, denied there was a problem on its end. The issue was quickly resolved and deliveries from the South Carolina plant resumed.

West said planned increases in production for the 787 and the single-aisle 737 Max made south of Seattle "gives you a signal of our confidence that the supply chain, while not completely recovered, is getting better, and we'll be able to meet those ramps."

"It's all about making sure we execute and can deliver these airplanes to our customers with a stable supply chain," he added.

Boeing said this month that it will move all Dreamliners that require repairs to the West Coast to free up space and support the production increase at the North Charleston plant. The planes needing fixes were found more than two years ago to have paper-thin gaps in their fuselage sections. The repairs had been taking up half the production floor at the Lowcountry site.

West said Boeing has "high confidence" in the North Charleston plant's workforce and its ability to meet the five-per-month goal, with production increasing to 10 every month by 2025 or 2026.

"They know how to do the pieces, not just the final assembly, but the other sections they're responsible for," West said, referring to the plant's rear fuselage production. "So it's all come together pretty nicely. But I guess if I were to think of broadly the things that would be concerning, it still goes back to confidence in the supply chain. It's getting better, but we still need to make sure we're laser-like focused on that to make sure that no one is second guessing the demand signal, because the demand signal is real."

Dreamliner deal

The Air France-KLM partnership is looking to shore up its wide-body fleet and the North Charleston-built 787-10 Dreamliner is among the jets in the running.

A report by the AirInsight website said the carriers could place an order later this year. The report is based on plans Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith discussed during an internal company webcast.

The group already operates a mix of Boeing Co.'s 787-9 and 787-10 models, along with its twin-aisle 777-200 commercial plane.

There will be competition for the Air France-KLM order. Smith said during the webcast that the group is also considering new Airbus A350 jets for its future long-haul fleet requirements.

The company is looking to replace some of its aging Airbus A330 wide-bodies. Smith said during the webcast that those planes were supposed to be phased out during the pandemic but were eventually retained. They will now leave the fleet "as fast as possible," Smith said, because the older jets are too noisy and inefficient, according to AirInsight.

The report follows news that Air Canada is close to inking a deal with Boeing for 20 Dreamliners. That deal, valued at up to $6 billion at list prices, is reportedly in the final stages.

Boeing's long-haul 787 is drawing attention from several carriers as post-pandemic international travel picks up. Several deals are expected to be announced at next month's Paris Air Show, one of the aerospace industry's biggest gatherings.

Logistics link-up

Family-owned trucking firm Southern Companies, which operates a terminal at the Port of Charleston, has been acquired by the GEODIS transportation and logistics company.

GEODIS said the acquisition will enhance its end-to-end supply chain capabilities in the U.S. Financial details were not disclosed.

Southern Companies, founded in 1965, also has terminals at the Port of Savannah and Port of Houston as well as Florida ports in Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale. The company provides a range of import and export services, including warehousing and trucking.

"The acquisition of Southern Companies represents an important addition to GEODIS as we continue to strengthen and grow our capabilities, our team and our client roster throughout the U.S.," Mike Honious, president and CEO of GEODIS in the Americas, said in a written statement. "Southern Companies has been a leader in drayage services, from warehousing to trucking, for nearly six decades and operates in ports that are critical to our clients. From their people and culture to their expertise and capabilities, Southern Companies is an ideal fit for GEODIS and aligns perfectly with our Americas growth strategy."

More than 80 employees at Southern's sites will join a GEODIS workforce of more than 17,000 workers in North America. Brentwood, Tenn.-based GEODIS operates more than 150 warehouses with about 50 million square feet of space in the U.S.
A small jet built in North Carolina is at the center of at least two voluntary safety reviews and a government investigation after an innocuous-sounding but scary-looking wreck in rural Dorchester County.

The 2017 HondaJet HA-420 veered off the runway at Summerville Airport in Harleyville early on May 18 and came to a stop after hitting a berm.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out that the twin-engine aircraft also was destroyed after going up in flames.

The pilot and the four passengers, who haven't been identified, managed to escape without serious injuries. Their good fortune can be seen in a frightening but unverified image posted on Twitter purporting to show the charred, crumpled carnage.

The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation, as it always does in these instances.

Its not alone.

A company that sells ownership shares in private aircraft chose to ground its entire fleet of 20 HA-420s as a precaution.

Also, a trade group that represents HondaJet owners and pilots asked its members to participate in a voluntary stand down,' an organized break from flying activities where we will engage and focus on safety discussions.

Honda Aircraft Co., a division of the Japanese industrial giant, began selling the "very light jets" it makes in Greensboro in late 2015. They cost up to $6 million and can seat up to six, according to EvoJets.com.

The plane that caught fire in Harleyville took off for the Lowcountry from Wilkes County Airport in North Carolina, about 85 miles due west from where it was built.

Little has been released aside from an initial Federal Aviation Administration incident report, which stated that "the aircraft landed and hydroplaned off the end of the runway, striking a berm, Summerville SC."

The time was estimated at 4:25 a.m.

The airport did not respond to a request for comment last week.

Dorchester County Fire Chief Tres Atkinson said May 24 that his department was dispatched to assist. He said the blaze that broke out "must not have been very bad" because the crew didn't feel the need to call him to the early morning scene.

"I know everybody got out," he said.

The sight of the wreckage captured the attention of Jet It LLC, a North Carolina aviation-services business that sells fractional ownership stakes in 20 HondaJets and a few other airplanes. It grounded all of its HA-420s the day after the fiery incident.

"The images really shook our company, founder and CEO Glen Gonzales told the Greensboro News & Record last week.

He also said Jet It is trying to understand why other HondaJets, including at least one that it owns, have "veered off the runway at times.

The executive director of the HondaJet Owners & Pilots Association also expressed concerns last week. In YouTube video, Julie Hughes cited the recent rise in incidents or accidents involving" the plane.

There have been eight in the last 12 months, she said, adding that her group is looking into the issue with Honda Aircraft and an international flight safety organization.

The manufacturer didn't respond to a request for comment last week. In a statement to the website FlyingMag.com, it stressed that neither Honda Aircraft nor any regulatory agency has called for the HA-420 to be grounded. It also said it is working with safety investigators to determine the cause of the South Carolina accident and take action if needed.

In all closed investigations of previous runway events, investigators found no causal factors from the aircrafts design or any system malfunction," according to the statement. "Our engineering and analysis supports our product as a safe aircraft to operate."

The safety discourse veered off in another direction Wednesday when Gonzalez, the Jet It CEO who has an MBA from the University of South Carolina, held virtual meetings with customers who own shares in the HA-420s. He reiterated that the company based it decision to stop flying its HondaJets on the Summerville incident, which he said was the latest in an estimated 20 so-called runway excursions. Craig Fuller, the owner of FlyingMag.com, was listening in as a fractional owner of a Jet It plane.

This one was different in the sense that it caught fire, Gonzales said, according to a report Fuller posted Thursday.

At least one owner asked about Jet It's reportedly shaky financial condition, saying it sounds like you are bankrupt to me.

"The sentiment resonated with many of the other owners on our call," Fuller wrote. "In response, Gonzales claimed he did not intend to file for bankruptcy but referenced the financial challenges of running a company with its entire fleet of aircraft grounded. He also asked for patience but didnt suggest why it was merited."

"It is a mess," Fuller surmised.

Another wrinkle is that Jet It had been feuding with the planemaker, where Gonzales once worked as a regional sales manager. Honda Aircraft sued his company over alleged disparaging comments and recently agreed to settle the breach-of-contract complaint.

The owner of the destroyed HondaJet is Upfrunt Services LLC, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. While its registration papers show a Delaware mailing address, the company appears to have Lowcountry ties. It previously listed a local post office box in public filings. Also, it paid a 2022-2023 property tax bill of about $100,594 to Charleston County for the HA-420, records show.
A month before my son's college graduation, the cap-and-gown ceremony was canceled and a pause on federal student loan payments and interest began.

That was more than three years ago, in March 2020. Both of those things happened in response to the COVID pandemic, which would eventually kill 1.1 million people in the U.S. and millions more worldwide.

The federal public health emergency officially ended this month, on May 11, but federal student loans remain interest-free and payment-free.

Now in its 38th month, the pause provided financial relief to more than 43 million borrowers with $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt.

But that's going to end soon.

I should say that's scheduled to end soon. The deadline for loan payments to resume has been extended nine times (six under the current administration), but officials say there will be no more and have set a schedule.

Repayments and interest are to resume 60 days after June 30, or 60 days after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on President Biden's student loan relief plan, whichever comes first. If it's 60 days after June 30, that would mean payments are due in late September (allowing for billing notices at least 21 days before payments are due).

Do not assume there will be another extension, and don't assume student loan relief will become a reality.

Those who wait until August or September to get their loan-related affairs in order will likely regret doing so. There will certainly be a crushing demand from borrowers who have questions for the government or their loan servicers, or need to set up repayment plans.

If you have federal student loans, now is the time to prepare. Even if you're among the estimated 20 million borrowers whose loans could be reduced to zero if the relief plan survives the Supreme Court.

There are two parts to being adequately prepared, and both involve personal finances and the ability to pay.

Hopefully, borrowers planned ahead and set some money aside during the three-year-plus hiatus. For those that didn't, or couldn't, now is the time to see how those school bills will fit your budget.

In other words, if you're looking at a $250 monthly student loan payment, but you don't currently have $250 or more left each month after expenses, you have a problem to solve.

In dual-loan households, this could be particularly important. There are lots of people who graduated in 2020, 2021 or 2022 who haven't experienced the pinch those loan payments can put on personal finances.

It's hard to budget when you don't know what the payments will be. There are multiple student loan options, ranging from fixed monthly payments to four different income-based repayment plans.

Those who graduated in 2020 or later may not have yet considered their options, because no payments were due, although those who could afford it were welcome to start paying down their balances.

The government's studentaid.gov website has a loan simulator that can help evaluate them. There's also the Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan, for people in government or nonprofit jobs, which offers loan balance forgiveness after 120 loan payments. (People already in those plans are getting credit for the months when payments weren't required).

At a minimum, take care of the small stuff now. Log into your student loan account on StudentAid.gov and your loan servicer's website, make sure everything is up to date and review your repayment options.
Oman's sultan arrived Sunday in Tehran for talks with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other top officials, state television reported.

Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said was officially welcomed by Raisi at the capital's Saadabad Palace, state media said.

The sultan's visit followed an official invitation by the Iranian president. It is his first visit to Iran since he ascended the throne.

Iranian television said Sultan Haitham headed a large delegation including the ministers of defense, foreign affairs, economy and investment.

Oman has a long record of being a key broker between Iran and the West, amid volatile regional tensions. Belgium and Iran exchanged prisoners on Friday after mediation by Omani officials.

Oman also recently hosted rounds of talks between Iran and its rival Saudi Arabia, facilitating an agreement to resume diplomatic relations after a seven-year rift.

State-run IRNA news agency said investment, oil and gas issues will be discussed during the Omanis ruler's stay in the Iranian capital.

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The Carnival Sunshine sailed from Charleston around 2 a.m. on May 28 after adverse weather conditions held up the cruise ship's arrival and departure.

The pleasure ship was due to arrive in downtown Charleston early Saturday morning after a six-night sailing to Nassau, Bimini and Half Moon Cay and depart for a five-night voyage to the Bahamas by late afternoon.

The Sunshine was finally able to dock at Union Pier Terminal around 5 p.m. after the weather improved.

An updated embarkation schedule for the sailing showed passengers booked on the outbound cruise were allowed to board up until 11 p.m. The Sunshine was off Savannah around 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, according to MarineTraffic.com.

The company said it would provide a one-day refund for pre-purchased beverage and internet packages. It also said that the itinerary could be affected by the delay.

Carnival apologized for the delay, which it partly attributed to high winds and rough seas. A storm system raked the coast with rain and gusty winds for most of Saturday.

The departing Memorial Day weekend sailing was sold out. The Charleston-based Sunshine can accommodate about 3,000 passengers.

The first update indicating a potential delay was sent the night of May 26, as the storm bore down on the region.

The ship is experiencing adverse weather conditions sailing back to Charleston and may arrive later than scheduled tomorrow, according to the Friday text message.

Such lengthy delays for the Sunshine are rare.
CLEMSON  More than a decade into a creative inquiry project at Clemson University, college students have recorded nearly 200 first-hand accounts of veterans stories.

The Clemson Veterans Project is now a model for a Library of Congress recording program, the Veterans Oral History Project, which aims to preserve firsthand accounts from those who served dating back to World War I.

Currently led by Vernon Burton, the project began in 2012 and has documented 170 stories. The first push was to find World War II veterans before their stories were lost completely, Burton said.

Library of Congress representatives visited Clemson this spring to work with students on interviewing and recording veterans. The program now serves as a model for other universities, Burton said.

Clemson Universitys history as a military school made it easy to find connections, he said, and hes made a conscious push for students to interview minority and female veterans as well.

Each semester, students volunteer for the project and have a strict set of guidelines to follow in order for the interviews to be accepted by the Library of Congress. Information that cant be submitted  copied documents rather than original, for example  is housed on the universitys site instead.

Daniel Mack, who started the program as an undergraduate, said a professor suggested someone should save veterans stories. After a quick bit of searching online, he found the Library of Congress program and mentioned it as a creative inquiry project.

An employee at George Washington University, he's no longer directly involved with the project but still marvels at its quick start and longevity.

As if by magic, this long line of Clemson faculty, members of the Clemson Corp, and too many others to remember threw resources at me until I was sitting in front of a group of other students with a budget to buy camera equipment, Mack said.

The first videos were recorded in the fall of 2012 and appeared on the Clemson Veterans Projects YouTube channel in early 2013. Mack said he has yet to wrap his head around the programs success  especially considering his lack of archiving knowledge when he started.

I do often think about how Clemson University's sense of heritage inspired me to do it right for all those that came before and everyone that will come after, because it's something I still live by, he said.

Whenever Burton decides to retire, the Clemson Veterans Project will be in the hands of history professor Josh Catalano.

One of Burtons favorite things about the program is watching the students form friendships with the veterans they interview. Sharing war stories forms a bit of a bond, he said, and many pairs keep in touch over the years after the short class project.

It can be cathartic for the veterans to talk about things theyve held in for 40 or 50 years, Burton said.

Overall, he wants to be sure these stories are told and documented for family members, fellow veterans and future generations. The stories are worth more than words, Mack added.

They're priceless to our nation's history, they're priceless to Clemson's military heritage, and they're priceless to the families that watch stories completely new to them, Mack said.
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Next to the rocks jutting up from the South Pacific, the Coast Guard Cutter James, 400 feet long and 140 feet tall, looks like a toy boat in a bathtub. The photograph, taken under cloudy skies the morning of Aug. 8, was the whole reason the crew of 142 had sailed so close to Sleeping Lion Rock in the Galapagos Islands.

It was the last leg of a morning training run for the Charleston-based James with the Ecuadorian Navy.

In the days before, two Chinese fishing boats had sped toward the James, requiring evasive maneuvers to avoid being hit. It was far different than the drug raids they were used to.

But this day was supposed to be practice and pictures: reveille at 5 a.m., a 6:30 meetup to train men on the Ecuadorian patrol boat on pursuit tactics, then a photo op by the rocks before anchoring near San Cristobal to give tours aboard the ship and let the crew explore onshore.

An easy day, for once. "A nice breather," one crew member called it.

But on the way back from sailing within 200 yards of those soaring rocks, with seven Ecuadorian passengers aboard, the whole ship started to vibrate.

Much of the cutter's right propeller  along with Capt. Marc Brandt's career  was lost at sea, casualties of a series of small failures and a warning overlooked by everyone.

It was an alarm hidden in plain sight: A detached 3m patch lies 1.2 miles W of Isla Lobos.

Three meters is less than 10 feet, far too shallow for the James, which sits 22 feet, 6 inches down in the water.

Aboard the ship, it didn't even register in navigational briefs as a patch worth plotting on a map. The captain skipped over the section entirely. Another crew member told investigators he usually scans for words that signal danger, like "shoal," "rock" or "shallow."

They'd dodged belligerent boats just days before while working an unfamiliar job.

Now, minutes after the photo op, they were sailing toward an embarrassing $2.9 million mistake.

A Coast Guard investigation of the mishap, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, blamed the accident on poor risk management, the high stress of the preceding days, overreliance on outdated charts and a failure to comprehend that one key sentence in the sailing directions.

James R. Holmes, a professor of maritime strategy at the U.S. Naval War College, said the wording seems extremely benign for a warning.

"I could easily envision a busy Coast Guardsman reading that there was 'a detached 3m patch' at a certain place on the chart and overlooking the message, namely that this submerged feature poses a mortal threat to your ship and you had better keep clear," Holmes said in an email after reviewing the investigator's report on the accident. "Furthermore, the investigating officer states, almost in passing, that the depths listed on the chart along the cutter's course were wrong. That seems like a big deal, and it's hard to blame the crew for it."

Holmes said groundings and collisions are almost always firing offenses in the Coast Guard and Navy, but this mistake seemed less egregious than most.

The crew that day was relying on a mix of electronic charts, paper charts and a PowerPoint presentation. The ship's deep-water depth finder was out of service. The shallow-water depth finder alarm never sounded.

Most thought the entire expanse in front of them was "good water," deep enough to pass through without problems. Cloudy, windy conditions and breaking waves prevented the crew from seeing the telltale change in water color that would signal changing depths.

Take note of the depth beneath the keel, Brandt announced to the bridge as they approached the submerged rocky knoll. This area might serve as a backstop for the anchor if it starts to drag. At any minute we should see the depth start to decrease.

100 feet. 35 feet. 26 feet beneath the keel. Say that Again. Repeat your last, came the reply. The 26 reading on the fathometer was gone. The number was increasing.

Then the ship shook.

"It kind of felt like the entire ship did a hop," one person on board told investigators, or "hit a speed bump."

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Brandt called out a command from his chair on the bridge: "All stop. Take a fix." At that moment, Brandt told an investigator, it started to sink in for him.

The James left Charleston June 26 to patrol the eastern Pacific Ocean. A leak discovered on the way would soon require a layover for repairs in Panama. By the time the repairs were done, the crew knew it wouldn't be doing its typical work intercepting boats carrying narcotics. They'd be patrolling for illegal fishing boats off the coast of Ecuador.

It was a mission they had learned about only a month and a half before departing.

The shift is part of the U.S. response to rising numbers of Chinese fishing boats in the Pacific, especially around the Galapagos and along the edge of Ecuador's exclusive economic zone. In July 2020, the conservation group Oceana observed more than 300 Chinese ships off the coast of the Galapagos, noting they accounted for 99 percent of the visible fishing activity there that month. The scale of the operations threaten to deplete the supply of fish and squid and harm the island's fragile ecosystem.

President Joe Biden pledged the day after the James set sail the U.S. would increase monitoring of illegal fishing boats. At the Pacific Islands Forum on July 12, Vice President Kamala Harris said the U.S. would triple its funding to $60 million a year to help nations patrol their waters.

The James was at the tip of the spear. And the work wasn't easy. Twice in the first week, boats unexpectedly turned toward the James. The boats were Chinese, according to media reports, though the investigation into the cutter's grounding never assigns them to any particular nation. The work was bleeding into the planned weekend training operation with the Ecuadorian Navy, which was pushed back by a day to Aug. 8. The precise location of the meetup kept changing. And that morning, one of the boats they planned to train on wouldn't start.

The Coast Guard in October boasted that the James had completed the first counter-illegal fishing operation as part of an international alliance aimed at protecting the waters of the Pacific.

By then, it was home to another first: no captain helming a legend-class cutter like the James had ever been relieved of command of their ship.

Brandt had spent 24 years in the Coast Guard before assuming command of the James in Charleston on May 26, 2022. He kept the role for three months.

The investigation, completed by Coast Guard Capt. Robert Mohr, concluded the accident was preventable and "could have resulted in catastrophic damage to the ship or the Galapagos maritime protected area." In 2013, the Navy minesweeper Guardian ran aground on a coral reef near the Philippines. The ship had to be dismantled and removed in pieces.

After being temporarily relieved of command in August, Brandt learned in November his firing was permanent because his commander had lost confidence in his ability to lead the ship. Brandt could not be reached for comment for this story.

That same month, the James arrived in Norfolk for repairs that took more than a month to finish. The total cost for repairs exceeded $2.9 million, according to a Coast Guard spokesman.

The Coast Guard declined to answer several other questions, citing ongoing investigations by the service and National Transportation Safety Board. But the initial investigator's report provides ample detail of the days before and after the accident, including a mea culpa from the captain.

At Sleeping Lion Rock, a popular tourist attraction where stones three times taller than the hulking James rise from the water, the crew posed for photos alongside one another and their Ecuadorian counterparts. "There were a lot of pictures," the report states dryly. Seven Ecuadorians asked to ride back to the anchorage point aboard the James.

Minutes after the vibrations on the way back, Brandt ordered the crew to drop anchor in 92 feet of water. The crew reported no injuries, no oil slicks or sheens in the water. The ship seemed to have escaped severe damage. It was 9:57 a.m. Two sets of tours were scheduled to begin in three minutes. Some in the crew scrambled to prepare.

Meanwhile, a GoPro strapped to a pole and lowered beneath the water revealed parts of the propeller had been sheared off, findings soon confirmed by a Navy diver.

A crew that sailed in a smaller vessel to investigate the site of the accident found a rock formation and recorded depths significantly shallower than navigational charts reflected. In one spot, the depth was 15 feet.

The next day, the governor of Galapagos was among those invited aboard for a tour. He was also served lunch in the wardroom. During the visit, Brandt explained through a translator that the ship had been damaged. He promised the cutter's systems were intact and any environmental damage had been avoided. Then Brandt gave the governor a sheet of paper with the coordinates to the site of one of the worst  and last  moments of his career commanding a ship.

Brandt sat down with the sailing directions the following night, looking for any signs he should have noticed. There, on a page he had skipped over previously, was the note about the three-meter patch. Now, the damage done, Brandt plotted the location on a map.

He had missed it.

Until he sailed the James right over it.
COLUMBIA  When tens of thousands of U.S. Marines landed on the 8-square-mile Japanese island of Iwo Jima in 1945, some troops carried and operated cameras.

Some 50 Marines, known officially as combat cameramen, shot footage of training, medical treatment and combat throughout the Pacific campaign, documenting key moments in history including the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Unfortunately for that moment in history, those aging cans of film are not immune to the ravages of time. Frozen storage can only prolong the film's life somewhat.

Now a project at the University of South Carolina is providing hope for preserving those rare wartime images, converting the film they shot sometimes under extreme conditions to a new format which will simultaneously make these snippets more accessible to researchers and the public alike.

Archive specialists at USC have partnered with the Marine Corps history division to digitize more than 19,000 decomposing cans of film dating from World Wars I and II to the mid-1980s and add the footage to USC's public online archive. The cooperative includes visual records from Iwo Jima and other Pacific battles from World War II that might otherwise soon be lost.

The U.S. Marine Corps Film Repository Project has taken almost seven years, but researchers hope to finish by the end of 2023. The endeavor has included roughly a half dozen pickup truckloads of film from the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., a few thousand volunteer internship hours from 30 students and data from more than 14,000 clips being scanned and catalogued.

Though it's not quite finished, USC's Moving Image Research Collections now has more than 4,000 videos available from the Marine archive, including more than 80 from Iwo Jima.

Greg Wilsbacher, USC Libraries news film and military collections curator, visited Quantico in 2016 for research and to inspect the Marine film inventory. He eventually reached an agreement with the Marine Corps to take on the philanthropic task of preserving and archiving aging films that would have otherwise decomposed in storage.

Until recently, someone would have had to make an appointment with Quantico to see that footage.

"It's something I think we understood was important to the state of South Carolina for a lot of reasons," Wilsbacher said, noting Parris Island, the recruit depot in Beaufort County where more than 200,000 Marines went through basic training during World War II alone.

The front lines

Marines and other U.S. troops shot visual records during combat throughout World War II. But, for decades afterward, any comprehensive understanding of those records was hard to come by. Stock footage would reach audiences through documentaries and as B-roll in news programs, but it lacked context, Wilsbacher said. Audiences would not know who exactly they were looking at, what exactly they were doing or why. The goal of the USC project is to provide people with that context, he said.

Nearly 70,000 Marines landed on Iwo Jima beginning on Feb. 19, 1945.

Among other feats, the Marines laid claim to a piece of the island  Mount Suribachi  where the iconic black-and-white photo of them raising a U.S. flag was taken. A staged reenactment of the flag-raising, which occurred just four days into the battle and captured in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, is a small part of a larger story.

It remains one of the handful of truly iconic photos snapped on the U.S. side of World War II.

"To place that flag up there was a real symbol of American accomplishment, of hope that this war may in fact be over soon," Scott Kaufman, a history professor at Francis Marion University in Florence, said of the image. "Those individuals all became heroes, even though they didn't want to be seen as heroes, because of the American mindset."

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The ongoing project at USC offers the chance of better preserving and providing increased access to a vast amount of footage of less famous hours from the conflict, potentially giving historians evidence that could help them better understand what transpired.

One of the last major island conflicts in the Pacific war, the Battle of Iwo Jima raged for over a month, becoming the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history. More than 20,000 soldiers on both sides were killed, nearly 6,000 of them Marines.

During that time, Marine combat cameramen shot the Iwo Jima footage that now is in USC's collections. The cameramen were assigned to engineering or medical units or to the front lines, Wilsbacher said. The films show Marines receiving medical care, being evacuated off the island to hospital ships, as well as daily activities such as building command posts or unloading and sorting equipment on beaches.

The process

Starting on Catawba Street in Columbia in a facility just south of USC's campus, the digitization project goes well beyond the scope of Iwo Jima.

As of May 2023, roughly 19,000 frisbee-shaped cans of 16mm and 35mm film from World War I through the late Cold War era have been transferred to the Moving Image Research Collections from Quantico. More than 11,000 digitized films are expected to go online.

A Moving Image Research Collections staff member, like Ryan Handley or Jack Porter, inspects each frame of each film to watch for stains or damaged edges. They run the films by hand through a large scanner connected to their computers, then through digitization software to sharpen the video footage and clean up any audio.

Another staff member, Maya Beckley, processes the digital files through cataloguing software to read and organize the "text" of the films, taking note of dates and times, subject descriptions and cameramen.

The films are stored in disc-shaped cases with holes for ventilation. After staff and student-interns inventory, bar code and inspect the films, they're stored and organized in a 22,000-square foot, walk-in-refrigerator-like vault as their long-term preservation requires them to stay cool and dry.

Beyond just converting and preserving the clips, the Moving Image Research Collect wants to identify and label as much of the historical information in the films as possible, such as Marine Corps units and equipment. While the Marines manually scan film for this information, they have also partnered with researchers in USC's College of Engineering and Computing Department to use artificial intelligence to recognize text and identify units, individual Marines, airplanes and ships.

Marines may have names on the sides of their helmets or stenciled on their uniforms, for instance. Artificial networks can help the MIRC scan footage for this as well as identify ship names, hull numbers and tail numbers on planes.

"What ancestry.com has done for genealogy is what digitization is doing for American history more broadly, so I'm really thrilled this is happening," Kaufman said of digitization projects like the Marine Corps repository.

"It gives the average American a connection to history and  I hope  makes them more interested not just in World War II but in history more generally, so they can see where we were, where we are and where we might be going."

Sponsors for the U.S. Marine Corps Film Repository Project include area Marine Corps Leagues, the Parris Island Historical and Museum Society, the Columbia-based Dorothy Smith Charitable Foundation and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation in Triangle, Va.

Click here for more news from Columbia, S.C.
It was the most consequential legal decision of the 20th century, and it all started in South Carolina.

More people should know that  and they will, if some folks get their way.

Sixty-nine years ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed school segregation in its landmark decision known as Brown v. Board of Education. The case was actually a collection of five separate, nearly identical lawsuits, and the courts verdict delivered the first clear victory of the civil rights movement.

Brown paved the way for the Civil Rights Act a decade later, and the Voting Rights Act just after that.

As The Post and Couriers Jessica Holdman reports today, some plaintiffs and their descendants in the first of those five cases  South Carolinas Briggs v. Elliott  along with Cecil Williams, the Orangeburg photographer who chronicled their efforts, plan to petition the Supreme Court to rename Brown v. Board as Briggs v. Elliott.

Thats a longshot, as even Williams concedes, but its unquestionably worth the effort. Because this is not just about bragging rights, or who got to a clerk of courts office first. Its about where history was made, and people who changed the country.

And make no mistake, Briggs was not only the literal template for those other cases  it was completely created by South Carolinians.

The Rev. Joseph DeLaine, a principal in Clarendon County, was tired of watching his students walk miles to an unheated schoolhouse while white kids rode to school on buses. He asked the NAACP to sue the district for not adhering to the equal in separate but equal.

At the time, the NAACP was burning through its legal defense funds at a furious pace, keeping its chief counsel  a young lawyer named Thurgood Marshall  roaming the country. The group initially declined to take another case, but DeLaine persisted and eventually struck a deal: If he could get at least 20 parents to sign on as plaintiffs, Marshall would file.

Harry and Eliza Briggs were first, followed by about two-dozen others. Those plaintiffs, and DeLaine, were terrorized, fired and threatened. And after all that, U.S. District Judge Waties Waring threw out their lawsuit.

The judge told Marshall itd be easy for the school board to buy another bus; he should instead challenge the very notion of separate but equal. See, Waring wanted to force the Supreme Court to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 decision that allowed legal segregation. The court had been reluctant to tackle that.

But the judge had found a loophole; all he needed was the right case. So Waring persuaded Marshall to rewrite the suit and challenge the very constitutionality of South Carolina law.

Such a challenge had to be heard by a panel of three federal judges. Waring knew the case was doomed, but he also knew all decisions by three-judge panels were automatically appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

The court couldnt dodge that.

The NAACP liked the idea so much that, a few months later, it filed the same suit in Kansas  Brown v. Board of Education  and, eventually, in three other school districts across the country.

The Briggs plaintiffs lost on a 2-1 decision in Charleston in 1951, but Warings dissent became the framework for the Supreme Courts Brown decision.

Heres why its called Brown:

Shortly after Briggs, South Carolina adopted its first sales tax  and promised the new revenue would remedy disparities between black and white schools. The Supreme Court used this as an excuse to send Briggs back to South Carolina for another hearing.

The court later explained that, when that happened, Brown jumped ahead of Briggs on the docket. Thats officially why the consolidated cases were called Brown instead of Briggs.

But Waring  and many historians since  believed that was a convenient, if legal, excuse.

The Supreme Court knew ordering the desegregation of schools would be controversial. The justices suspected, probably correctly, they would face even more backlash if the decision directly rebuked a Southern state.

A state, at the time, run by Gov. James Byrnes ... himself a former Supreme Court justice.

It also didnt help that Waring, a nationally known civil rights advocate and trouble-maker  ally of Marshall, best friend of NAACP chief Walter White  was closely tied to Briggs. The court was already using Warings argument as its own; why call more attention to South Carolina?

So Brown v. Board of Education became the name of the famous desegregation case.

Waring understood and didnt grumble much, even though he wasnt cited in the decision. But, honestly, the judge wasn't the one slighted most.

DeLaine, the Briggses and other plaintiffs suffered mightily for simply taking a stand against injustice, for demanding their rights as Americans. They endured to make this country better. For all that, they deserve recognition.

Sure, it's unlikely the Supreme Court will change the cases name. But then, the odds of prevailing were even longer 70 years ago  and look what they did then.
Last week, the S.C. General Assembly passed a bill banning abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, at about the six-week mark in a pregnancy, with exceptions for when a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, the life or health of the mother is at risk or the unborn child is diagnos Read moreDavis: SC abortion debate isn't over. The only way out is through.
Were encouraged to learn that the tiny Clarendon County town of Summerton has a new a new mayor, administrator and water operator and a mostly new Town Council. Were glad too that residents face the possibility of clean, safe drinking water, thanks to a couple of multimillion-dollar grants Read moreEditorial: SC failed to learn from Summerton water system failures, so expect more
PR-Inside.com: 2023-05-28 04:00:38

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LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 27, 2023 / The Schall Law Firm, a national shareholder rights litigation firm, reminds investors of a class action lawsuit against Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. ("Charles River" or "the Company") (NYSE: CRL) for violations of 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.Investors who purchased the Company's securities between May 5, 2020 and February 21, 2023, inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the firm before July 18, 2023.If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate.We also encourage you to contact Brian Schall of the Schall Law Firm, 2049 Century Park East, Suite 2460, Los Angeles, CA 90067, at 310-301-3335, to discuss your rights free of charge. You can also reach us through the firm's website at www.schallfirm.com , or by email at bschall@ schallfirm.com The class, in this case, has not yet been certified, and until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. If you choose to take no action, you can remain an absent class member.According to the Complaint, the Company made false and misleading statements to the market. Charles River illegally imported non-human primates for research purposes. The Company was at risk of investigations by the DOJ among other agencies. The Company was forced to suspend importation of primates from Cambodia. Based on these facts, the Company's public statements were false and materially misleading throughout the class period. When the market learned the truth about Charles River, investors suffered damages.Join the case to recover your losses.The Schall Law Firm represents investors around the world and specializes in securities class action lawsuits and shareholder rights litigation.This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and rules of ethics.CONTACT:The Schall Law FirmBrian Schall, Esq.310-301-3335info@ schallfirm.com SOURCE: The Schall Law Firm
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has called for the international community to support countries hosting Sudans refugees, especially Egypt.

Egypt is currently the largest host of arrivals from Sudan, receiving around 160,000 people, including more than 153,000 Sudanese refugees, said the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) on Saturday.

Grandis remarks came amid an official visit to Egypt, where he checked on the Egyptian-Sudanese border crossings to make sure that the UN Egypt teams are providing adequate support to the Sudanese refugees.

People in #Sudan are #ForcedToFlee, leave their homes, belongings & beloved ones.

At the Qustol border point w HC @FilippoGrandi and @Hanan_Hamdan_ making sure @UNEgypt provides adequate support to the #Refugees in coordination w the Governor of #Aswan & all humanitarian actors pic.twitter.com/DNMIpnvxMB  Elena Panova (@elenapanovaUN) May 28, 2023

UNHCR Representative to Egypt and to the League of Arab States Hanan Hamdan said Grandi visited the Qustul border crossing to meet with the displaced people from Sudan and strengthen cooperation with the Egyptian government to ensure the provision of adequate support.

At the Egyptian border post in Qustul, the main entry point for refugees from Sudan, I appealed to Egypt to keep the door open to those fleeing  and to international donors to urgently support ongoing relief efforts by the authorities, local communities and aid agencies, Grandi wrote on Twitter.

Today at the Egyptian border, @FilippoGrandi met with families who have just arrived in Qustol seeking safety & stability.



Stories of family separation, difficult journeys & looting of houses are heart-wrenching.



In #Egypt, more than 160k are finally finding a safe refuge  pic.twitter.com/DZw5EoqnKQ  Christine Beshay (@cbeshay) May 28, 2023

During his visit, Grandi is scheduled to meet with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Abul-Gheit, said Christine Beshay, UNHCR spokesperson in Egypt.

Meeting with Sudanese refugees, Grandi said the warring parties in Sudan should stop the fighting now as the solution is in their hands.

The generals fighting each other in Sudan should listen to the tragic stories I heard today from Sudanese refugees fleeing horrific violence.



If the generals truly cared for their people they would stop fighting now. Aid organizations can help but the solution is in their hands. pic.twitter.com/10SlxDnby4  Filippo Grandi (@FilippoGrandi) May 27, 2023

Following the outbreak of clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in mid-April, Egypt opened its borders for Sudanese refugees and other nationals and provided support at its border to those displaced by the fighting in coordination with the UN.

Last week, the UNHCR announced that it would provide EGP 50 million (about $1.6 million) to the Egyptian Red Crescent to provide humanitarian support to people of all nationalities who are crossing the border.

Earlier in May, the Egyptian Red Crescent also received 27 tons of relief supplies provided by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and funded by the European Union (EU).

In a speech at a summit meeting for the African Unions Peace and Security Council (PSC) on Saturday, President El-Sisi affirmed that Egypt will continue coordinating with its partners and relief organisations to provide urgent humanitarian aid in order to alleviate the deteriorating situation in Sudan.

Mobilising support

Egypt has called has requested support from the international community, as it was already hosting nine million refugees and migrants before the latest wave from Sudan.

Last week, Egypt discussed with the UNHCR the need to mobilise humanitarian and medical aid for countries hosting displaced Sudanese fleeing violence in their country.

Egypt has also expressed keenness to enhance coordination with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in order to alleviate Egypts burdens with regard to hosting the refugees and migrants.

The conflict in Sudan has displaced over 1.3 million people and killed over 700 people, including tens of children, according to recent data by the UN.

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Speech Delivered by Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina President, African Development Bank Group Inauguration Lecture for the New President of Nigeria 27 May 2023, Abuja, Nigeria.

The election of a new President always elicits hope

Your Excellencies,

I wish to thank President Muhammadu Buhari for his personal invitation to me to attend the ceremonies for the swearing-in of the incoming President-elect, H.E. Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Congratulations Mr. President on Nigerias 7th consecutive democratic transition.

Congratulations to the incoming President and Vice President.

I wish to thank the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, Chairman, and members of the Presidential Transition Council, for inviting me to speak at this inauguration lecture for the incoming President of Nigeria.

It is such a great honor, to share my views and perspectives, as the nation gets ready to have a passing of the baton between H.E. President Muhammadu Buhari, and the incoming-President, H.E. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

It is your turn!

I wish to congratulate you Mr. President for your stewardship of Nigeria for the past eight years. Thank you very much for all your strong support for me, as President of the African Development Bank Group.

Without your strong support for me in 2015, and then in 2020, I would not have been President of the African Development Bank. There is a saying that anyone that is sent on an errand must come back and report to the one who sent him or her. Mr. President, you sent me on an errand, and I am here to give you a report.

I am pleased to let you know that the African Development Bank was ranked this year by Publish What You Fund as the Most Transparent Institution in the World.

The African Development Bank was ranked last year by the Washington D.C.-based Center for Global Development as the Best Multilateral Development Bank in the World.

Dear Mr. President, as you leave, you can take pride that the mission for Africa is being well executed.

I wish to congratulate the incoming President, H.E. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, who will take over the mantle of stewardship of Nigeria tomorrow.

I am delighted that my very dear friend and brother, President Uhuru Kenyatta, former President of Kenya was invited to deliver the inauguration lecture. He was a great leader for Kenya.

I am sure he must be wondering why there are two Kenyans on the same panel.

Well I lived in Kenya for close to ten years.

I remember, one day when then President Goodluck Jonathan visited Kenya and I accompanied him as a minister, as the two Presidents were introducing members of their delegations, President Jonathan said, Meet Dr. Adesina, Minister of Agriculture, to which President Kenyatta responded, Yes, Adesina is the Kenyan on loan to Nigeria as Minister.

We all laughed!

Thank you, President Kenyatta, for your incredibly insightful and excellent speech.

Your Excellencies,

The election of a new President always elicits hope.

Nigeria will be looking to you, as President Tinubu, on your first day in office, with hope.

Hope that you will assure security, peace, and stability.

Hope that you will heal and unite a fractious nation.

Hope that you will rise above party lines and forge a compelling force to move the nation forward, with inclusiveness, fairness, equity, and justice.

Hope that you will drastically improve the economy.

Hope that you will spark a new wave of prosperity.

And hope must be brought to the present, as hope deferred makes the heart grow weary.

Your Excellencies,

The starting point must be macroeconomic and fiscal stability. Unless the economy is revived and fiscal challenges addressed boldly, resources to develop will not be there.

No bird can fly if its wings are tied.

Nigeria currently faces huge fiscal deficits, estimated at 6% of GDP. This has been due to huge federal and state government expenditures, lower receipts due to dwindling revenues from export of crude oil, vandalism of pipelines and illegal bunkering of crude oil.

According to Nigerias Debt Management Office, Nigeria now spends 96% of its revenue servicing debt, with the debt-to-revenue ratio rising from 83.2% in 2021 to 96.3% by 2022.

Some will argue that the debt to GDP ratio at 34% is still low compared to other countries in Africa, which is correct; but no one pays their debt using GDP.

Debt is paid using revenue, and Nigerias revenues have been declining.

Nigeria earns revenue now to service debtnot to grow.

The place to start is to remove the inefficient fuel subsidies.

Nigerias fuel subsidies benefit the rich, not the poor, fueling their and governments endless fleets of cars at the expense of the poor. Estimates show that the poorest 40% of the population consume just 3% of petrol.

Fuel subsidies are killing the Nigerian economy, costing Nigeria $10 billion alone in 2022. That means Nigeria is borrowing what it does not have to if it simply eliminates the subsidies and uses the resources well for its national development.

Rather, support should be given to private sector refineries and modular refineries to allow for efficiency and competitiveness to drive down fuel pump prices. The newly commissioned Dangote Refinery by President Buharithe largest single train petroleum refinery in the world, as well as its Petrochemical Complexwill revolutionize Nigerias economy.

Congratulations to Aliko Dangote for his amazing $19 billion investment!

Your Excellencies,

There is an urgent need to look at the cost of governance.

The cost of governance in Nigeria is way too high and should be drastically reduced to free up more resources for development. Nigeria is spending very little on development.

Today, Nigeria is ranked among countries with the lowest human development index in the world, with a rank of 167 among 174 countries globally, according to the World Bank 2022 Public Expenditure Review report.

To meet Nigerias massive infrastructure needs, according to the report, will require $3 trillion by 2050. According to the report, at the current rate, it would take Nigeria 300 years to provide its minimum level of infrastructure needed for development.

All living Nigerians today, and many generations to come, will be long gone by then!

We must change this. Nigeria must rely more on the private sector for infrastructure development, to reduce fiscal burdens on the government.

Your Excellencies,

Much can be done to raise tax revenue, as the tax-to-GDP ratio is still low.

This must include improving tax collection, tax administration, moving from tax exemption to tax redemption, ensuring that multinational companies pay appropriate royalties and taxes, and that leakages in tax collection are closed.

However, simply raising taxes is not enough, as many question the value of paying taxes, hence the high level of tax avoidance. Many citizens provide their own electricity, sink boreholes to get access to water, and repair roads in their towns and neighborhoods.

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These are essentially high implicit taxes.

Nigerians therefore pay the highest implicit tax rates in the world.

Governments need to assure effective social contracts by delivering quality public services. It is not the amount collected, it is how it is spent, and what is delivered. Nations that grow better run effective governments that assure social contracts with their citizens.

Your Excellencies,

We must rebalance the structure and performance of the economy.

A very common refrain in Nigeria, with every successive government, is We need to diversify the economy.

But is it so?

The economy of Nigeria is one of the most diversified in Africa, with the oil sector accounting for only 15% of the GDP, and 85% is in the other sectors.

Nigerias challenge is not diversification. Nigerias challenge is revenue concentration.

This is because the oil sector accounts for 75.4% of export revenue and 50% of all government revenue.

The solution, therefore, is to unlock the bottlenecks that are hampering 85% of the economy. These include low productivity, very poor infrastructure and logistics, epileptic power supply, and inadequate access to finance for small and medium-size enterprises.

Nigeria must also shift away from import substitution approach to export-focused industrialization. Nations do not thrive through import substitution; they thrive from export-bound industrialization.

Your Excellencies,

For faster growth, Nigeria must decisively fix the issue of power, once and for all.

There is no justification for Nigeria not having enough power.

The abnormal has become normal.

Nigerias private sector is hampered by the high cost of power. Providing electricity will make Nigerian industries more competitive.

And it is not brain surgery.

Take two examples: Kenya and Egypt.

With the support of the African Development Bank, Kenya, under President Kenyatta, was able to expand electricity access from 32% in 2013 to 75% in 2022. What an incredible achievement within 10 years!

Today, 86% of Kenyas economy is powered by renewable energy. And in one projectthe Last Mile Connectivity Projectthe Banks support allowed Kenya to connect over 2.3 million poor households to electricitythat is over 12 million people provided with affordable connection to grid power.

In 2014, Egypt had electricity deficit of 6,000 megawatts, but by 2022 it had 20,000 megawatts of surplus power generation capacity. Amazing!

I commend the Government of Nigeria on the recent commissioning of the several power projects. But there is still much to do.

Nigeria should invest massively in renewable energy, especially solar. The African Development Bank is implementing a $25 billion Desert-to-Power program to provide electricity for 250 million people across the Sahel, including the northern parts of Nigeria.

Your Excellencies,

For inclusive development, Nigeria must completely revive its rural areas.

Nigerias rural areas are forgotten and have become zones of economic misery.

To revive and transform these rural economies, we must make agriculture their main source of income, a business and a wealth creating sector. To be clear, agriculture is not a development sector. Agriculture is a business.

The development of Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones will transform agriculture, add value for agricultural value chains and attract private sector food and agribusinesses into rural areas.

Special agro-industrial processing zones will help turn rural areas into new zones of economic prosperity and create millions of jobs.

The African Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development are currently supporting the implementation of a $518-million Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones program in 7 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

We are ready to help expand this to every state in the country. We are equally ready to help revamp agricultural lending institutions to help modernize the food and agriculture sector.

Your Excellencies,

The best asset of Nigeria is not its natural resources; Nigerias best asset is its human capital. We must invest heavily in human capital to build up the skills Nigeria needs to be globally competitive, in a rapidly digitized global economy.

We must build world class educational institutions, and accelerate skills development in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, as well as in ICT and computer coding, which will shape the jobs of the future.

Your Excellencies,

There is an urgent need to unleash the potential of the youth. Today, over 75% of the population in Nigeria is under the age of 35. This presents a demographic advantage. But it must be turned into an economic advantage.

Nigeria must create youth-based wealth.

We must move away from the so-called youth empowerment programs. Youths do not need handouts. They need investments. The current banking systems do not and will not lend to the youth. Special funds, while palliative in approach, are not systemic and are also not sustainable.

Whats needed to unleash the entrepreneurship of the youth in Nigeria are brand new financial ecosystems that understand, value, promote and provide financial instruments and platforms for nurturing business ventures of the youth at scale.

The African Development Bank and partners including Agence Francaise de Developpement and the Islamic Development Bank launched the $618 million I-DICE program to develop digital and creative enterprises. They will create 6 million jobs and add $6.3 billion to Nigerias economy.

Your Excellencies,

The African Development Bank is currently working with Central Banks and countries to design and support the establishment of Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks. These will be new financial institutions, run by young, professional, and highly competent experts and bankers, to develop and deploy new financial products and services for businesses and ventures of young people.

Several African countries plan to establish Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks.

Nigeria should establish the Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank.

Your Excellency, Mr. President-elect,

Nigerias economy needs to soar!

You have an opportunity to make history.

History by building a resurgent Nigeria.

A united and prosperous Nigeria.

It is Nigerias turn!

I wish you all the best for success.

May God blessand help you.

And may God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

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President Muhammadu Buhari has commended his administration for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed 3,155 lives in Nigeria.

The deftness of our response to the pandemic still remains a global best practice, Mr Buhari said in a farewell broadcast Sunday morning.

The outgoing president, however, acknowledged that the pandemic contributed to the supply chain disruptions and economic downturn, experienced globally between 2020 and 2022.

Nigeria recorded its first case of COVID-19 on 27 February 2020 and has subsequently suffered four distinct waves of the pandemic.

Lockdown, other measures

To curtail the COVID-19 pandemic, the Buhari-led administration adopted a wide range of health and safety measures.

From the approval of financial intervention to Lagos State, the epicentre of the disease, and the enhancement of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and other agencies and institutions of government for effective response to the pandemic, to the declaration of lockdowns, President Buhari-led administration beat imaginations of global health experts who had predicted dangerous consequences for the country and Africa as a whole.

For instance, in March 2021, Nigeria commenced the vaccination of its citizens against COVID-19. As of 24 May, 75,281,789 of the total eligible persons targeted are fully vaccinated across the country, according to the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA).

COVID-19 status

According to the latest NCDC data, there have been 266,313 cases and 3,155 deaths recorded across 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) since the outbreak of the pandemic.

Lagos State ranked first on the infection log with 104,266, followed by the FCT and Rivers State with 29,403 and 18,089 cases respectively.

Globally, WHO data shows there are 766,895,075 confirmed cases and 6,935,889 deaths as of 24 May 2023.

Following a global decline in infections, WHO recently declared an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern  its highest level of alert  which has been in place since Jan. 30, 2020.

It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency, said WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, in a press briefing.

He added that the end of the emergency did not mean COVID was over as a global health threat.

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The House of Representatives will hold an emergency session on Sunday on the amendment of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act.

The bill was introduced in the House on Thursday by the Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Finance, Victor Nwokolo (PDP, Delta) and was passed for second reading without any debate by the lawmakers.

The second reading stage is for the debate on the general principle of the bill. However, the lawmakers did not debate the bill on Thursday.

On Saturday, the Senate amended the CBN Act to raise the total advances the bank can make to the federal government from five per cent to 15 per cent.

It appears as though Mr Buhari, who is set to exit the office on Monday, is making efforts to sort out the Ways and Means situation before leaving office.

READ ALSO:

Under the CBN Act, the Ways and Means provision allows the government to borrow from the apex bank if it needs short-term or emergency finance to fund delayed government expected cash receipts of fiscal deficits.

Section 38 of the CBN Act, 2007, stipulates that the total amount of ways and means advances outstanding shall not at any time exceed five per cent of the previous years actual revenue of the federal government.

This proposed amendment seeks to increase the threshold to 15 per cent.

Earlier this month, the National Assembly approved a request by President Buhari to convert the N23.7 trillion Ways and Means loan to a 40-year bond.

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President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed grief that his administration could not ensure freedom for Nigerians kidnapped by armed groups.

Mr Buhari stated this in his farewell address to Nigerians on Sunday.

Up-till now, I still grieve for our children still in captivity, mourn with parents, friends and relatives of all those that lost loved ones in the days of the senseless brigandage and carnage, the Nigerian leader said.

Among the Nigerians still held by their abductors are scores of Chibok girls who Boko Haram kidnapped about a year before Mr Buhari assumed office.

For all those under unlawful captivity, our Security Agencies are working round the clock to secure their release unharmed, Mr Buhari said.

Details later

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President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed grief that his administration could not secure freedom for Nigerians kidnapped by armed groups.

Mr Buhari stated this in his farewell address to Nigerians on Sunday.

Up-till now, I still grieve for our children still in captivity, mourn with parents, friends and relatives of all those that lost loved ones in the days of the senseless brigandage and carnage, the Nigerian leader said.

Among the Nigerians still held by their abductors are scores of Chibok girls who Boko Haram kidnapped about a year before Mr Buhari assumed office.

For all those under unlawful captivity, our Security Agencies are working round the clock to secure their release unharmed, Mr Buhari said.

The girls nearly 300  were abducted by the extremist sect Boko Haram on 14 April 2014, from a government girls secondary school in Chibok.

Some abducted girls escaped and were rescued by the Nigerian security forces, while others remain missing.

Boko Haram released a batch of 21 girls on 13 October 2016 after intense negotiation with the Nigerian government. The Red Cross and the Swiss government facilitated the negotiations.

Since the Chibok abduction happened in the North-east Borno State, terrorist groups across Northern Nigeria have continued targeting public schools and abducting school children for ransom.

The following are some of the notable school abductions during the administration of Mr Buhari.

Yobe State

In February 2018, Boko Haram attacked Dapchi and kidnapped 109 girls from the Government Girls Science and Technical College in the town. Though the girls were later released, one of them, Leah Sharibu, was denied freedom after she reportedly refused to renounce Christianity and be converted to Islam.

Katsina State

In December 2020, Boko Haram, who had mainly operated in the North-east region, surprisingly claimed responsibility for the abduction of over 300 pupils of the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara, Katsina State.

Six days after the abduction, the Islamist group released a video that showed some boys abducted from the school pleading for a safe return home.

The Katsina State government later announced that the school boys had been released after negotiating with the terrorists. The government, however, did not disclose the terms of the negotiation. President Buhari, who was holidaying at his Daura home when the incident happened, addressed the released children at the Katsina Government House.

Niger State

On 17 February 2021, terrorists abducted pupils of the Government Science School, Kagara, in Niger State. The terrorists, who wore military fatigue, attacked the boarding school after overpowering the security guards.

The pupils were later released. Three months after the Kagara attack, which is the council headquarters of Rafi Local Government, the terrorists also launched an attack on the second most populous community in the council area, Tegina, and abducted 136 pupils from the Salihu Tanko Islamiyya School on 30 May.

Some of the students were released a day after they were taken. A few of them escaped from their abductors, while 90 of them were released on 26 August after their parents paid a ransom of N60 million and five motorcycles.

Zamfara State

Before the Tegina incident in Niger state, at least 317 schoolgirls were abducted by the terrorists on 26 February 2021 at the Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe, Talata Mafara Local Government, Zamfara State.

The terrorists raided the school, shooting into the air for over two hours before abducting the female students into a nearby forest.

By then, attacks by terrorists kidnapping schoolchildren were fast becoming a norm in Northern Nigeria, raising fears among Nigerians in rural communities while the government was left with no option but to shut down schools in vulnerable areas.

Kaduna State

On 12 March 2021, 27 students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna State, were kidnapped by terrorists. Seven weeks after their abduction, their parents reportedly paid an undisclosed ransom before they were released.

READ ALSO: Nigerian Army rescues two more Chibok girls in Borno

Also, in Kaduna, on 21 April 2021, some terrorists attacked Greenfield University, a private university, and kidnapped 17 students.

The Greenfield University, located along the then troubled KadunaAbuja highway, was easy prey for the assailants.

The students were later released.

On 11 June 2021, six students and two teachers of the Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, Zaria, were kidnapped by the terrorists.

During the operation, the terrorist killed one student, identified as Ali Ali.

Thirty days after the incident, the abductees were freed after they paid an undisclosed amount of money as ransom.

Kebbi State

On 17 June 2021, a terrorist group believed to be led by Dogo Gide abducted more than 100 pupils and some teachers at the Federal Government College Yauri in Birnin-Yauri, Kebbi State.

Many of the girls escaped a few days after their abduction; others were released after a ransom was allegedly paid to the terrorist group.

The terrorists held on to 11 of the girls until the last two were released in May 2023 after paying several instalments of ransom, running into over N100 million.

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The House of Representatives has increased the limit within which the federal government can borrow from the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The House, in an emergency session on Sunday, passed the bill to amend section 38 of the CBN Act.

Section 38 of the Act gives the CBN the power to borrow from the Central Bank. However, the funds the federal government can borrow must not exceed five per cent of the previous years actual revenue of the government.

The bill, sponsored by Victor Nwokolo (PDP, Delta), was passed for second reading on Thursday without debate.

(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 34 (d) of this Act, the Bank Advances may grant temporary advances to the Federal Government in respect of temporary deficiency of budget revenue at such rate of interest as the Bank may determine, Section 38 of the CBN reads in part.

It further states, The total amount of such advances outstanding shall not at any time exceed five per cent of the previous years actual revenue of the Federal Government.

(2) All Advances made pursuant to this section shall be repaid-

(a) as soon as possible and shall in any event be repayable by the end of the Federal Government financial year in which they are granted and if such advances remain unpaid at the end of the year, the power of the Bank to grant such further advances in any subsequent year shall not be exercisable, unless the outstanding advances have been repaid, section 38 of the Act says.

The bill was considered by the Committee of the Whole and passed for third reading without any opposition.

With this, the House has now concurred with the Senate; hence the National Assembly can transmit the bill to the president for assent.

It appears as though Mr Buhari, who will exit the office on Monday, is making efforts to sort out the ways and means before leaving the office.

It is uncertain when the National Assembly, which winds down in June, will send the bill to the president for assent.

Earlier this month, the National Assembly approved the request by the president to convert the N23.7 trillion loan to a 40-year bond.

Meanwhile, the House also passed the amendment to the 2022 supplementary budget to extend the life of the bill till December 2023.

Speaking before adjourning the House, Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila commended the lawmakers for attending the emergency session despite the short notice.

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As the inauguration of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, holds in less than 24 hours, stakeholders have advocated massive investments in Nigerias education sector, even as they sought adequate rewards for teachers.

They described education as the foundation for development and that the quality of a nations teachers would determine the quality of its education.

These stakeholders include the President of the Lagos chapter of the All Nigeria Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPPS), Masheyi Olushola; an official of the national secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Manu Adebola; and Lagos Coordinator of the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), among others.

They spoke during the week at the official announcement of the opening of the entry for the 9th edition of the Maltina Teacher of the Year Award.

According to Mr Olushola, the motivation derived by Nigerian teachers through the Maltina Teacher of the Year Award should be enough justification for the government to recognise the impacts of investing in teachers as a game changer for national development.

He pledged continued support of the principals body to the initiative and called on other private establishments and philanthropists to emulate Nigerian Breweries Plc and support the programme.

About the teachers award

Introduced in 2015 by the company through the Nigerian Breweries-Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund, the Maltina Teacher of the Year competition was, according to the organisers, set up as part of its contributions towards supporting the nations education sector in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, SDG 4.

Endorsed by the Nigerian government through the Federal Ministry of Education, among other agencies and departments, the award is arguably Nigerias most rewarding motivational initiative for teachers, as winners receive millions of naira in cash, foreign training, and infrastructural support for their schools.

The award recognises the best secondary school teacher and rewards handsomely exceptional educators who are shaping the future of our country.

2023 edition

The entries formally opened on Thursday, 25 May, and will close on Friday, 21 July.

Speaking at the flag-off ceremony, the sponsor companys Secretary and Legal Director, Uaboi Agbebaku, emphasised the fundamental role teachers play in shaping the lives of their students. He said the competition aimed to reward their efforts and inspire them to continue making a positive impact.

He announced that two other corporate bodies- AirPeace and Stanbic IBTC Bank, have formally been enlisted as co-sponsors of the competition.

As you may already know, this is the 9th edition of the Maltina Teacher of the Year Competition, but unlike the previous editions where the Nigeria Breweries-Felix Ohiwerei Education Trust Fund was the sole sponsor, we are delighted to announce that this year, we have commenced opening up potential partnerships with reputable and progressive companies who share in our vision and mission for the initiatives, he said.

In her remarks, the Corporate Affairs Director, Nigerian Breweries Plc, Sade Morgan, explained that all secondary teachers in both public and private schools are encouraged to participate in the 9th edition, even as she highlighted the competitions immense impact on teachers. She said it had ignited a newfound passion and commitment to exceptional teaching among educators.

There is no doubt that this competition has done a lot to lift the spirit of Nigerian teachers. In the last eight years, we have succeeded in providing a new narrative for the teaching profession in Nigeria. Our teachers are now proud to be associated with teaching, and we are encouraging the next generation of teachers to be passionate about the profession, she said.

Prizes

Speaking on the prizes, Mrs Morgan disclosed that the overall winner for the 2023 edition would receive a total cash prize of N6.5 million, a trophy, and a capacity development training opportunity. He added that the winners school would receive either a computer laboratory or a block of classrooms.

The first runner-up of the competition would receive a total sum of N1,500,000, a trophy, while the second runner-up receives a total of N1,250,000 and a trophy. All state champions will be rewarded with recognition plaques and a cash prize of N500,000 each, she added.

The Air Peace and Stanbic IBTC Bank were represented at the event by the Head of Corporate Communications, Stanley Olisa, and the Head, Consumer Sector and Client Coverage, Nnenna Okoro, respectively. They both commended the initiatives and expressed their determination to ensure the initiative remains the best of its kind.

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President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the conferment of Special National Honours Award on 339 Nigerians, including Garba Shehu, his Senior Special Assistant on Media & Publicity.

Mr Shehu and Laolu Akande, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity (Office of the Vice President) were conferred with the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON).

The Permanent Secretary, State House, Tijjani Umar, also received the National Honour of OON.

The Presidents Personal Photographers for the eight years of his administration, Bayo Omoboriowo and Sunday Aghaeze bagged Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) and Member of the Order of the Niger (MON), respectively.

Also listed for the National Honours Award for their diligent services to the nation are Tolu Ogunlesi, the Special Assistant to the President on Digital and New Media, MON; Tolani Alli, Personal Photographer to the Vice President, MFR; Adamu Sambo, NTA Correspondent and Emmanuel Anrihi, NTA Cameraman, MFR.

An official publication by the Federal Ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs advised the award recipients to come to the office of the Ministry to collect their certificates and medals on Thursday, June 1, 2023.

Abiodun Oladunjoye

Director, Information

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Banji Akintoye, the founder and leader of the Yoruba group, Ilana Omo Oodua Worldwide, has condemned the invasion of a radio station in Ibadan by a Yoruba separatist group.

This is contained in a statement signed by Mr Akintoyes Assistant Director of Programmes, Olatunde Amusat, and made available to journalists on Sunday in Ibadan.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the separatist group on Sunday, invaded the premises of Amuludun 99.1 FM in Moniya, a community radio of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), around 6.00 am.

NAN reports that five of the agitators were arrested by security agents and paraded by the Nigeria Police Force on Sunday.

Mr Akintoye disowned the group, describing their action as lawless and profoundly criminal.

Our attention has been drawn to the activities of a group led by a woman, who claimed to be running a totally different agenda for Yoruba emancipation.

The group has been engaging again and again in criminal activities. The group has been warned repeatedly, but has refused to change, he said.

He said that the Yoruba group he is leading runs a struggle that is totally peaceful and law-abiding.

According to him, We have written a 34-page manual to guide our followers and all Yoruba people about peaceful and law-abiding, self-determination struggle.

We have written the outgoing President of Nigeria and UN Secretary-General about our legitimate demand for self-determination for our Yoruba nation.

We have emphasised in every one of those letters that our struggle is peaceful and law-abiding.

Mr Akintoye said his group has no relationship whatsoever with the group that has repeatedly engaged in crime, adding We have no hands in their criminal conduct.

(NAN)

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The Nigerian Navy on Sunday returned a Norwegian-registered vessel, MT Heroic Idun, caught attempting to steal Nigerias crude oil in August 2022.

The navy arrested the oil tanker and its 26 Indian, Pilipino, Sri Lankan and Polish nationals in August 2022, and later convicted them in court and fined $15 million.

Mohammed Adamu, commanding officer, Forward Operating Base, Bonny, handed over MT Heroic Idun to its owner, Idun Maritime Limited at Bonny, Rivers, after it met with the plea bargain conditions.

He said after the seizure of the merchant ship, its crew members were charged to the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt for trial in January.

The Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC), MT Heroic Idun and its 26 foreign crew were arrested after entering Nigerias waters unauthorized with intent to lift crude oil.

Subsequently, they were charged to court and later pleaded guilty as well as elected voluntarily to enter into a plea bargain agreement with Nigeria.

The vessel and its crew also agreed to make restitution to the Federal Government.

The plea bargain was in the interest of justice, public and for public policy interest in line with Section 270 (5) (a) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, he said.

Mr Adamu said after the conviction and sentencing by the court, MT Heroic Idun and its owners were mandated to pay conviction fines and restitution.

The owners also agreed to make an apology to the Federal Republic of Nigeria both in print and electronic media as well as Lloyds List.

On its part, the Federal Government agreed not to further criminally prosecute and/or investigate the vessel, her owners, charterers or her crew in the matter of her crime against the state.

The owners of the vessel later apologized to the Federal Government on the Lloyds List on May 12 while the same apology was published in the Punch Newspaper of May 18.

Subsequently, MT Heroic Idun, having fulfilled all the aforementioned conditions of the plea bargain to the satisfaction of the court, has been released to its owners, Idun Maritime Limited, he added.

The navy officer said the vessels release had the consent of the Federal High Court as well as the approval of the Federal Government of Nigeria.

He said the prosecution of the seafarers demonstrated the navys commitment to ensure that only valid and authorized vessels were allowed into the country.

According to him, the navy will continue to ensure that only vessels that obtain permits and have security clearance are allowed to lift crude oil or gas from the country.

Consequently, all maritime stakeholders, key players and seafarers operating within the Nigeria waters are to carefully conduct their maritime operations within the extant regulations and observance of the law.

We will bring to book those whose operation infringe on the provisions of the Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offences (SPOMO) Act, 2019 and all maritime laws and conventions acceded to Nigeria, he warned.

(NAN)

DES/IA

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Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi sent a message of congratulations to Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on winning reelection as president.

Turkeys long-term leader Erdogan, 69, won reelections on Sunday in a historic runoff election, securing a third term in office until 2028.

Erdogan won the runoff election by four percentage points against his secular opposition rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Egypt and Turkey have taken careful steps to normalise their bilateral relations after a decade of strained relations since the 2013 ouster of Egypts late Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsy.

In April, Egypts Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said the two countries agreed on a timeframe for upgrading diplomatic relations during an official visit to Ankara.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a press conference with Shoukry during the visit that talks with Egypt have achieved substantial progress on the issue of appointing ambassadors for the two countries.

The two countries have also worked on fostering their economic relations and coordinating on regional issues, including in Palestine, Libya and Syria.

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President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday commended presidential candidates who lost in the last presidential election for taking their grievances about the polls outcome to court.

Mr Buhari, in his farewell national broadcast Sunday morning, commended the aggrieved candidates for believing in the Nigerian judiciary by approaching the court for redress.

I salute the doggedness and resilience of all the Presidential candidates and their political parties for believing in our judicial system by taking their grievances with the election results to court, Mr Buhari said.

Although Mr Buhari did not mention names, his comment implicitly referred to Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who are prosecuting separate petitions challenging the victory of Bola Tinubu of Mr Buharis All Progressives Congress (APC) at the Presidential Election Petition Court.

Mr Tinubu defeated 17 others to emerge as the winner of the 25 February presidential election.

He also called on all parties to accept whatever the courts decisions would be.

Irrespective of the outcome of the various cases, I urge all parties involved to accept the decision of our courts and join hands to build a better Nigeria, Mr Buhari said.

Mr Buhari, who also congratulated Mr Tinubu on his electoral victory in the presidential election, said Nigerias electoral system recorded incremental progress on his watch.

He said in the 15-minute-long national broadcast  his last as he leaves office Monday  that the election was the most keenly contested presidential election since the first Republic, adding that it demonstrates that our democracy is getting better and more entrenched with each election.

Mr Buhari, who will hand over to Mr Tinubu at an inauguration ceremony on Monday, said he was leaving office with a sense of fulfilment.

He boasted of leaving behind an electoral process which guarantees that votes count, results are credible, elections are fair and transparent and the influence of money in politics reduced to the barest minimum.

Mr Buhari added: And Nigerians can elect leaders of their choice.

We are already seeing the outcome of this process as it provided an even playing field where persons without any political God-Father or access to money defeated other well-resourced candidates.

Concerns over recent polls

Despite some improvements in the electoral system regarding technology deployment, controversies trailed the conduct of the recent general elections.

Nigerias electoral commission, INEC, had promised to electronically transmit election results in real-time from polling units to its backend server, but it failed to do so.

INECs chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, would later blame the failure on hitches experienced during the 25 February presidential election.

The electoral umpires failure to comply with its own guidelines forms one of the grounds upon which the presidential election is being challenged by Atiku and Mr Obi.

The pair and another political party, Allied Peoples Movement (APM), are urging the court to upturn Mr Tinubus victory because of alleged substantial non-compliance with some provisions of the Electoral Act 2022.

Atiku and Mr Obi, who came second and third, respectively, in the presidential election, are both praying the court to declare them president.

But there can be only one president at a time in Nigeria.

On the other hand, the APM is urging the court to declare Atiku as president or order a fresh poll.

The Presidential Election Petition Court, which had its prehearing sessions of the suits for two weeks, will resume proceedings in the substantive petitions on Tuesday, 30 May.

During the pre-hearing sessions, the five-member panel of court headed by Haruna Tsammani ordered Atiku and Mr Obi to substantiate claims in their petitions within three weeks each.

While Atiku has indicated intentions to call 100 witnesses in aid of his suit, Mr Obi intends to present 50 witnesses to strengthen his petition.

Meanwhile, the court has 180 days from March, when the petitions were filed, to hear the cases and give its judgements.

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President Muhammadu Buhari says electoral reforms by his administration helped to tame the influence of political godfathers and moneybags, and paved the way for ordinary people to win elections.

Mr Buhari, who is set to leave office on Monday, stated this in his farewell national broadcast on Sunday.

To ensure that our democracy remains resilient and our elected representatives remain accountable to the people, I am leaving behind an electoral process which guarantees that votes count, results are credible, elections are fair and transparent and the influence of money in politics reduced to the barest minimum. And Nigerians can elect leaders of their choice.

We are already seeing the outcome of this process as it provided an even playing field where persons without any political God-Father or access to money defeated other well-resourced candidates, he said.

Mr Buhari signed the amended Electoral Act in 2022, which introduced a number of reforms including the use of technology in the election.

Also, ahead of the election, he introduced the controversial currency redesign policy which created a scarcity of the naira during the elections.

Despite the hardship that trailed the policy, Mr Buhari had justified the policy with the argument that it helped to curb vote buying during the last elections.

Indeed, several upsets were recorded during the last general elections, and many believe that the policy played a major role.

But the policy was widely criticised by members of his party. Three governors in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)  Bello Matawalle of Zamfara, Yahaya Bello of Kogi and Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State  successfully challenged the policy at the Supreme Court. However, the verdict of the court came after the presidential election.

Then its time for the election and you just bring this policy. For God, why is this coming at this time? Whats the importance of doing it now?, Umar Ganduje, the governor of Kano, had said during a meeting ahead of the election.

I did not want to be just politically correct  Buhari

In his Sunday morning address, Mr Buhari said he was more interested in making meaningful impacts than just being politically correct.

I never intended to be just politically correct but to do the correct things that will make a meaningful impact on the lives of the common Nigerian.

This high expectation was not misplaced because, like the ordinary Nigerian, I had grown tired of watching the country progressively moving away from the path of correctness, he said.

Mr Buhari will hand over to Bola Tinubu on Monday, after eight years in office.

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Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State said the state would share the newly commissioned Maintenance, Repair Overhaul (MRO) facility with the Nigeria Air Force to help maintain their fighter jets in the country.

The governor stated this on Friday in his remarks during the commissioning of the facility at the Victor Attah International Airport, Uyo.

Ive tried to talk to the Chief of Air Staff recently; I dont see any reason why our Air Force should be going outside the country to maintain or overhaul their fighter jets.

All they need to do is to come here, and then we share facilities. A lot of equipment that we are going to put here is going to be universal, the governor said.

Besides the MRO, the governor also commissioned the newly constructed International Terminal Building, a new taxiway and an apron extension at the airport.

In his goodwill message, before commissioning the project, Nigerias former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, commended Mr Emmanuel for the vision.

Mr Saraki recalled how he was at the airport in 2019 to flag off Ibom Air which he said is dominating the countrys airspace, and added that the state would be the hub of aviation maintenance in Africa because of the MRO.

We pay $1.3 million to repair aircraft in Europe  MD Ibom Air

In his goodwill message at the occasion, the managing director of Ibom Air, Mfon Udom, expressed his delight at the completion of a project he said would save the company $ 9.7 million on aircraft maintenance.

Mr Udom said the company had approached Airbus to help operate the facility, adding that it would create opportunities for young people in the state to be trained on aircraft repairs.

He described the facility as world-class and added that a team from Airbus would arrive in the state in two weeks to assess it and make it operational.

This MRO has the capacity to sit in eight Airbus A220 aircraft at the same time, climate-controlled  doors all shot because we maintain the aeroplane in a sterile environment so that the doors dont interfere with the instrumentation.

We would also, as we go on, open the MRO to third parties so that we assist other airlines in the region. This facility we had approached Airbus Consulting to assist us to put the MRO into operation.

Each time we went to maintain our aeroplane in Europe  our technical partners are in Holland. We pay a minimum of $1.3 million for an equivalent cheque that would only cost us about $650 000.

We are going to be saving 50 per cent of expenses on each aeroplane, and by 2024, with 15 aeroplanes in the fleet, multiply $650 000 by 15, then you would see the magnitude of savings. In no time, we would realise the investment for Akwa Ibom, Mr Udom said.

Akwa Ibom, owner of Ibom Airline, 2021 signed a contract with Airbus in France for ten brand-new aircraft to enable the airline to begin regional flights within Central and West Africa.

As part of the efforts to kick start the international flight, the state government began the construction of the International Terminal to cater for the anticipated influx of people to the airport.

Speaking while commissioning the project, Mr Emmanuel described it as the smartest airport terminal in this part of the world, adding that the facility is capable of processing three million persons every year.

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The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a leading not-for-profit organisation focusing on anti-corruption, on Sunday, charged the president-elect, Bola Tinubu, to make his assets and investments public.

The group, in a statement, also urged Mr Tinubu to encourage his deputy, Kashim Shettima, to take similar steps.

Mr Tinubu, who will be inaugurated as Nigerias next president on Monday, is expected to declare his assets and investments to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) upon assumption of office.

The Nigerian constitution mandates public officers, including the president, vice-president, governors and their deputies, to declare their assets and liabilities to the CCB at the beginning and the end of their tenures.

But the law does not mandate the public officers to make such declarations available to the public.

But failure to declare assets fully or at the appropriate time amounts to a breach that the offender can be prosecuted for at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

The outgoing president, Muhammadu Buhari, and his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, partially disclosed their assets to the Nigerian public in a feeble attempt to fulfil a campaign promise shortly when they assumed office in 2015.

They promised to fully disclose their assets after an anticipated verification by the CCB, but they would later backtrack on the promise.

More transparently, the late President Umar Yaradua consistently declared his assets publicly.

SERAP, in a statement on Sunday, recalled Mr Tinubus recent resolve to kill corruption.

The group urged the former Lagos State governor to begin the endeavour by publicly declaring his assets and investments.

SERAP notes your recent promise to kill corruption. However, this rhetoric is nothing new: the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari used a similar hollow anticorruption phrase in 2015, the statement read in part. As Nigerians have witnessed for eight years, Buhari has neither killed corruption nor obeyed court judgments on transparency and accountability.

The group also urged him to emulate the late President YarAdua, who consistently published his asset declaration forms as president and governor of Katsina State.

READ SERAPS FULL STATEMENT

Start with a clean slate, make public your assets, investments, SERAP tells Tinubu

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged the President-Elect Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu to start with a clean slate by promptly making public details of your assets, income, investments, liabilities, and interests and to encourage your Vice-President-Elect to do the same.

SERAP also urged him to immediately prioritise the full and effective respect for human rights, media freedom, the rule of law and the countrys judiciary including by promptly obeying countless court judgments which the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has repeatedly treated with utter contempt and disdain.

In the open letter dated 27 May 2023 and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organization said: SERAP notes your recent promise to kill corruption. However, this rhetoric is nothing new: the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari used similar hollow anticorruption phrase in 2015.

SERAP said, As Nigerians have witnessed for eight years, Buhari has neither killed corruption nor obeyed court judgments on transparency and accountability.

According to SERAP, Widely publishing details of your assets, income, investments and liabilities and encouraging your Vice-President-Elect and others to do the same would allow Nigerians to know your worth and the worth of other public officials.

SERAP said, If your election is upheld by the judiciary, your government can use transparency in asset declarations as a means of promoting public accountability and ending systemic corruption in the country.

The letter, read in part, Buharis broken promises to make specific details of his assets public and to kill corruption have opened up the countrys political and electoral processes to a money free-for-all, discouraged political participation and contributed to impunity for corruption.

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Although President Buharis march to Aso Rock was predicated, in large part, on his campaign rhetoric to kill corruption, corruption remains widespread among high-ranking public officials and in ministries, departments and agencies [MDAs].

Making public details of your assets, liabilities, and interests would reduce unjust enrichment of public officials, ensure integrity in public offices and promote transparency and accountability as well as good governance.

Nigeria is very rich but its wealth is gravitating rapidly into the hands of a small portion of the population, and the power of corrupt enrichment has continued to threaten to undermine the political integrity of the country.

The tendency for politicians when trying to persuade Nigerians to vote for them is to conceal or hide traits that might make voters reluctant to vote them into power and to hide what they want to do with that power. But once voted into power, politicians become trustees of public wealth and resources and must remove the camouflage.

Effective enforcement and implementation of court judgments is critical to the national interest and to the restoration of the rule of law in the country.

The incoming government therefore has a responsibility to improve citizens trust and confidence in government. But it will be difficult for the new government to be trusted if its leaders do not come clean about their assets and incomes.

Disclosure of income, assets and conflicts of interest can serve as powerful tools to draw attention to the abuse of public office, help prosecute corrupt offenders and create a culture of scrutiny in the public sector that deters corruption.

The Buhari administration has neither killed corruption nor obeyed the rule of law. The outgoing president seemed barely able to hide his disdain for the rule of law and judicial integrity and independence.

Under the Buhari administration, the country has witnessed a general concentration of wealth in the hands of a few politicians and elites perceived to be enriching themselves at the expense of the general public.

The Buhari administration turned the idea of the rule of law and judicial independence on its head by persistently disobeying court judgments including those ordering him to stop life pensions for former governors, and to pay journalist Agba Jalingo N30 million as damages for violations of his human rights.

The Buhari administration has also refused to obey the judgments by Justice Hadiza Rabiu Shagari ordering his government to tell Nigerians about the stolen asset it allegedly recovered, with details of the amounts recovered; and by Justice Mohammed Idris, ordering his government to publish details on the spending of stolen funds recovered by successive governments since 1999.

SERAP urges you to emulate the late former President Umaru Musa YarAdua who consistently published his asset declaration forms as president and governor of Katsina State. He also planned legislative reform to make it mandatory for all public officers to declare their assets publicly. He believed that publishing his assets would put pressure on other public officers to do so.

According to the Code of Conduct for Public Officers, contained in Part I of the Fifth Schedule to the 1999 Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended], all public officers are to declare their assets.

Paragraph 11(1)(a)(b) of the Fifth Schedule provides that every public officer shall immediately after taking office and thereafter (a) at the end of every four years; and (b) at the end of his/her term of office, submit to the Code of Conduct Bureau a written declaration of all his properties, assets, and liabilities and those of his unmarried children under the age of eighteen years.

Section 15(1) of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and Tribunal Act also requires all public officers to declare their assets.

Article 8 of United Nations Convention against Corruption provides for the codes of conduct for public officials and requires states parties including Nigeria to ensure probity in public office. Article 8(5) particularly requires states parties to establish systems that require public officials to declare their outside activities, employment, investments, assets and substantial gifts or benefits.

Article 7(1) of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption also provides a similar requirement for public officials to declare their assets before, during, and after serving in public office.

The Nigerian Constitution and the anticorruption and human rights treaties show the significant role that asset declaration by public officials plays in promoting transparency, accountability and preventing and combating corruption in the public service.

Section 39 of the Nigerian Constitution makes provision for the fundamental right to information. Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also guarantee access to information.

We hope that the aspects highlighted will help guide your steps in taking steps to publish your asset declaration form and to encourage others to do so.

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The Federal High Court in Akwa, Anambra State, has declared Usman Babas extended stay in office as Nigerias Inspector-General of Police illegal.

President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Mr Baba on 6 April 2021.

He replaced Mohammed Adamu, whose three months tenure extension was truncated midway.

Born on 1 March 1963 (60 years old), in Geidam, Yobe State, Mr Baba should have statutorily retired from the force on 1 March this year when he clocked 60 years.

But Mr Buhari, in breach of the law, kept Mr Baba in office as Nigerias police chief.

Displeased with the Presidents violation of the law, a litigant, Okechukwu Nwafor, sued Mr Buhari, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Mr Baba.

Mr Nwafor urged the court to declare Mr Babas continued stay in office illegal and unconstitutional.

Granting Mr Nwafors request, the judge, Fatun Riman, held that Mr Babas tenure elongation was unlawful.

Mr Riman ordered Mr Baba to stop parading himself as Nigerias Inspector General.

Also, the judge directed Mr Buhari to convene a meeting of the Nigeria Police Council to appoint a new IGP, The Will newspaper reported.

Delivering the verdict, Mr Riman said Mr Buharis extension of Mr Babas tenure violated the provisions of the Police Act 2020.

It is important to observe that the Inspector-General of police is a public servant and by virtue of the fact that he is a member of the staff of the Nigeria Police Force, an authority established from the Federation by Section 214 (1) of the Constitution and in the subject of the Federal Public Rules 299 (PSR) thereof which provides for the compulsory retirement of all grades of public service officers at the age of 60 or 35 years of service, whichever comes first.

In the instant case, the 2nd Defendants (Mr Baba) birthday comes first. By the said Rule, the 2nd Defendant is obliged to step down on March 1st 2023.

The PSR retirement age provision is mirrored in section 18 (8) of the Police Act, on the word Shall is used in the provision, it is mandatory. See the case of ISHOLA V. AJIBOLA 1994 4 NWLR PT 352 para 506 by Rhodes Vivour JCA (as he then was) and also IBRAHIM & ANOR V. AKINRISOLA (2010) LEPLR 444 CA, Section 7 (6) at the Police Act provides for a four-year term or tenure for the Inspector General of Police and the word Shall is also used in the said provision.

I also observe that despite the prerogative power of the President, he is limited to the provisions of the Constitution. The Inspector General of Police retirement is a statutory and constitutional issue, and no other law of the land can change the ground norm, the judge declared.

Similar suit challenging Mr Babas tenure elongation

In another suit challenging Mr Babas continued stay in office, a lawyer, Festus Ogun, called on the court to determine the propriety of the action.

Citing some sections of the constitution and the Police Act 2020, Mr Ogun urged the Federal High Court in Abeokuta, Ogun State, to determine whether Mr IGP should have left office on clocking the statutory retirement age.

In the suit filed on 26 April, the plaintiff begged the court to declare Mr Baba as a retired member of the police force.

Mr Ogun further urged the court to declare that Mr Baba is ineligible to continue functioning in office as the Inspector General of Police, in view of the statutory fact that he has retired from the force.

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A day before the inauguration of Nigerias new president, Bola Tinubu, separatists hijacked a federal station in Ibadan, Oyo State, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

The five separatists, agitating for an independent Yoruba Nation, hijacked Amuludun FM station in the Oyo State capital, the police told NAN.

The police arrested the suspects and said they found charms on them although they did not hurt any staff of the radio station.

The Yoruba Nation agitators are believed to be a minority in south-west Nigeria, where Mr Tinubu is from. The president-elect is not known to have any relationship with the group and has repeatedly pledged to contribute to the growth and indivisibility of Nigeria.

Read the NAN story announcing the arrest of the agitators below.

The Police Command in Oyo State has arrested five Yoruba Nation agitators who allegedly forcefully hijacked Amuludun FM radio station in Ibadan with the intent to declare liberation from the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the agitators stormed the federal radion station around 6.00 a.m. on Sunday, seized the GSM phones of workers and went on air, proclaiming the establishment of a Yoruba Nation and secession from Nigeria.

The Commissioner of Police in the state, Adebowale Williams, paraded the suspects at the Command Headquarters, Eleyele, Ibadan on Sunday.

Mr Williams said that operatives of the command, while on intelligence-driven patrols, got a distress call that some members of a group driven by a separatist agenda, had forcefully hijacked a radio broadcast station, Amuludun 99.1 FM, located around Moniya, Ibadan with the intent to declare liberation from the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

He said that the command responded swiftly in a well-coordinated rescue operation and arrested the suspects.

Mr Willams said that no personnel from the establishment or any other persons were hurt in the incident.

The commissioner of police said that he had detailed an investigation team, led by the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the State Criminal Investigation Department, to demystify the circumstances around the incident.

The team was also directed to expand the network of arrests through painstaking intelligence-driven investigation.

He declared the act as criminal, unpatriotic and a clear case of terrorism which would be met with adequate sanctions under the laws of the land.

The Oyo State Police Command remains unwavering and committed to the statutory constitutional requirements of protecting lives and property and as well preserving law and order, even as the state and indeed nation geared up for Mondays inauguration of its elected leaders.

I assure good citizens of the state that the security architecture of the command, in concert with relevant sister agencies, has been strategically modified for optimum effectiveness for tomorrows epoch-making ceremony and beyond, he said.

Mr Williams said the security architecture of the state had been beefed-up to comprehensively tackle any evolving or emerging security challenge which could pose a threat to the nations stability.

He called on parents, guardians and leaders wielding various degrees of influence to prevail on their children against being used to disrupt Mondays inauguration as heavy sanctions awaited defaulters and other unpatriotic elements sharing the same sinister motives.

NAN reports that the suspects were arrested in possession of various charms and clothes with the inscription: Yoruba Nation Police, Yoruba Nation Army.

One of the suspects said somebody popularly called Black Lion instructed them to hijack the station and go on air that the Yoruba Nation had been established and there was nothing the police or the Nigerian Army could do to them.

The suspect said that the person that instructed them does not reside in Nigeria and that they contacted him through phone calls.

He further said that they were not promised any money before carrying out the incident, adding that he travelled down to Ibadan on Friday from Enugu State where he resided, for the action.

(NAN)

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Ango-Must-Go was the culmination of Professor Abdullahis perceived authoritarianism, mishandling of students affairs, alleged mismanagement, and consistent students resistance to his abuse of power. Between 1979 and 1986, Abdullahi governed ABU dictatorially. He was, in fact, undemocratic, non-democratic and anti-democracy. He saw any form of opposition from staff and students as a challenge to his person, authority and power.

Thirty-seven years ago, precisely on 22-23 May, 1986, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) students embarked on a peaceful protest against their Vice Chancellor, Professor Ango Abdullahi, who invited the police to quell the protest. The violence inflicted by the police was only comparable to that of the 1978 Ali-Must-Go nation-wide students protest against the increase in fees in the university.

The police brutalised, shot, injured, raped and murdered students and other citizens, both on campus and in the neigbouring Samaru community. The Academic Staff Union of the Universities (ASUU) ABU Branch, wrote that the general conduct of the police: violated every known code of conduct for such operations. To the police, it did not matter whether or not one was a rioting student or a thirteen-year-old sitting quietly in a secondary school classroom; whether one was fleeing or refusing to disperse, whether one was armed with stones or not. It was as if they had a deep seated grudge against their victims. The police shut and manned all the possible escapes routes, as if ambushing an enemy with the objective of total elimination. Policemen forcefully broke into the rooms of female undergraduates, slapped, kicked and sexually molested them.

The police targeted students and teachers of ABU Demonstration Secondary School, ordering them to kneel down and do frog-jumps, while mercilessly beating them. They equally ordered students into their classrooms, where they kicked and beat them with batons, dropped tear gas canisters inside and shut the doors. Policemen who could not gain access to the rooms, smashed the doors and windows to drop their tear gas, while some dropped theirs outside, so that whosoever escaped from the class rooms would suffer equally. Policemen also dropped teargas canisters inside the cloths of male and female students. Another policeman jumped on the head of a student who he forced to kneel face-down, asking him what was he doing in a Demonstrating School.

At the end of the police operation, it was officially announced that two undergraduates, Ms Halima Farida Mustapha and Yahaya Abdullahi, as well as two children, Peter Azuagu and Isa Oyakilome, had been killed. The Nigerian Tribune of 26 May, 1986 however reported that seven persons were killed; the National Concord of 30 May, 1986 claimed that the deceased were six; while the 28 May, 1986 Nigerian Standard reported 19 deaths and the Daily Times of 27 May, 1986 numbered the murdered as 17. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), in its 07:30hours (GMT) news of 25 May, 1986 said the killed were 20; the Voice of America (VOA), in its 14:15hrs (GMT) news of 28 May, 1986 reported 32; and the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) put the figure of those killed at over 25. The PUNCH of 30 May, 1986 reported that Ango Abdullahi expressed no regrets inviting the police, and that only four people died. The Kaduna State Police Commissioner, Nuhu Aliyu, in the Nigerian Tribune of 29 May, 1986, justified the violence on the ground that the law authorised them to shoot The police do not operate outside the laws

Professor Abdullahi also detested independent and democratic students unionism. He was notorious for suspending the Students Union; amending its constitution; banning congress meetings; appointing university bureaucrats as Sole Administrators of the Students Union; seizing, and indirectly, managing the students unions account, amongst others. He constantly threatened union officials, used security officials to harass them, and student agents to destabilise union activities.

Ango-Must-Go was the culmination of Professor Abdullahis perceived authoritarianism, mishandling of students affairs, alleged mismanagement, and consistent students resistance to his abuse of power. Between 1979 and 1986, Abdullahi governed ABU dictatorially. He was, in fact, undemocratic, non-democratic and anti-democracy. He saw any form of opposition from staff and students as a challenge to his person, authority and power. He was notorious in expelling, rusticating and suspending students, especially union leaders and activists, for insisting that academic freedom be upheld, university autonomy be respected and the conditions in which students study and live be improved. Students were also severely disciplined for their insistence that the government must be responsible and accountable to Nigerians, as well as be democratic, developmental and anti-imperialist.

In 1981, Ango Abdullahi expelled 30 students and rusticated 165 others. In 1985, he expelled the Students Union President, the Secretary General, and the Speaker of the Students Peoples Parliament in ABU. He also suspended the Public Relations Officer (PRO), the Assistant Secretary General, the Treasurer and the Financial Secretary of the Students Union. He also warned, in writing, the other executive members of the Union and ordered them to apologise to him for their disposition to the university authorities within 24 hours. On 19 May, 1986, Abdullahi expelled and rusticated the Chairman and PRO of the Students Union Caretaker Committee respectively and warned the remaining members of the Caretaker Committee to be of good behaviour and avoid being used for ill-motivated reasons which could easily result in an unrest in this University.

Professor Abdullahi also detested independent and democratic students unionism. He was notorious for suspending the Students Union; amending its constitution; banning congress meetings; appointing university bureaucrats as Sole Administrators of the Students Union; seizing, and indirectly, managing the students unions account, amongst others. He constantly threatened union officials, used security officials to harass them, and student agents to destabilise union activities. In August 1984, he invited the police to disperse the 14th NANS Senate Meeting, hosted by the Students Union, on the ground that NANS had been banned by the Buhari regime. Over 150 students leaders were arrested, out of which 10 students leaders were detained and charged to court for unlawful assembly. The court discharged the students and dismissed the case. He was also known for disrespecting court verdicts.

There are lessons to be learnt from the Ango-Must-Go protest. The protest and the violence therefrom could have been avoided but for Abdullahis arrogance, executive lawlessness and crude display of power. It could also have been avoided had the military not destroyed the primordial and civil mechanisms the state and society had subsequently frowned at, checked and restrained.

Over 90% of the students expelled, rusticated and suspended by Abdullahi were of Northern extraction. Abdulrahman Black, Yau Musa YarAdua and Gayus Obed had their lives cut short partly due to the vindictiveness of that administration. Abdullahi was afraid of expelling students of Southern extraction for fear of countless protest petitions, continuous litigation and unending media embarrassment.

Government panels were fond of blaming students with extremist views and lecturers who were not teaching what they were paid to teach for campus crises. But teaching involves dialogue, which promotes critical thinking and is, therefore, dangerous to anti-democracy forces. Ango-Must-Go confirmed Paulo Frieres thesis that: It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate terror, but the violent, who with their power create the concrete situation which begets the reject of life. It is not the tyrannised who are the source of despotism, but the tyrants; nor the despised who initiate hatred, but those who despise.

If governments had respected the critical students unionism of the late 1970s to the early 1990s, higher education would not have degenerated to what it is today. Graduated students would have been more critical, patriotic, nationalistic, democratic and development oriented. And the state and society would have benefitted immensely from these.

Over 90% of the students expelled, rusticated and suspended by Abdullahi were of Northern extraction. Abdulrahman Black, Yau Musa YarAdua and Gayus Obed had their lives cut short partly due to the vindictiveness of that administration. Abdullahi was afraid of expelling students of Southern extraction for fear of countless protest petitions, continuous litigation and unending media embarrassment. Ironically, Ango Abdullahi today claims to be championing Northern interests, democracy and federalism. Now and then, he parades himself as the leader of Northern interests, as if the North is made up of a homogenous class, ethnicity, religion and culture. The same North, whose finest, most intelligent, most patriotic and most development-oriented youths, who were committed to emancipatory politics, he successfully destroyed in the 1980s.

Allah does not slumber, talk less of sleep. Neither does HE forget. HE will surely call Ango Abdullahi to account for the deeds and misdeeds he committed against the North, Nigeria and humanity.

Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf worked as General Manager (Admin), Nigerian Meteorological Agency, NiMet. He retired as a Deputy Director, Federal Civil Service, Nigeria. aaramatuyusuf@yahoo.com

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Going by logic and antecedents, it will be difficult for Tinubu to properly restore the scales of justice in Nigeria. His IOUs will predictably tilt towards those same principalities and powers for whom injustice is a core condiment in their broth. I pray however that he pleasantly shocks cynics like me. If he does, hope will begin to build in the Nigerian people, as Maya Angelou wrote in her poem, Still I Rise With the certainty of tides,/Just like hopes springing high.

Forget their pretensions and volte-faces, when outgoing Nigerian public officials wake up tomorrow, 29 May, they will wake up into emptiness. That void cannot be filled by the wealth they have acquired in office. Nor can it be eliminated by Muhammadu Buharis reported haste to flee Aso Villa tomorrow. At the launch of a book on his administration at the Presidential Villa on Friday, the outgoing president had said: I assure you, I have been counting the days; I am looking forward to Monday very desperately. I will use the weekend to sign some of the papers so that from Eagles Square, I will fly to Kaduna and eventually go to Daura.

Buharis wife, Aisha, was to later temper his attitude with regard to Aso Rock. In its stead, was her desire for a continuation of the flow of the free money and power of government. At the launch of a book entitled, The Journey of a Military Wife on Friday, she asked for First Ladies, whose roles the constitution does not recognise, to be given the parity of office privileges with their spouses. Under Nigerian law, presidents and allied officials are given their salaries for life, while their medical treatment and those of their family members are paid for by the state, with the yearly procurement of vehicles for them, alongside other benefits, among many others.

They should consider us as former First Ladies. They should incorporate the First Ladies, give us some privileges that we deserve as First Ladies, she demanded. Aisha also further gave the issue a feminist interpretation, against the grain of the African patriarchal orientation, which has ensured centuries of uneven access to power. The system should not give these privileges just to the former presidents, she advised.

Of all lifes existential acquisitions  wealth, fame, power and the lot, the most transient, most fleeting and ephemeral of all is power. It is the most un-enduring. Former presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati, put it in its crudest form when he said, eight years ago, that his phone stopped ringing immediately he stepped out of power. Power is the fair-weather friend that will not be there for you in your time of loneliness. It perhaps was what the holy writ meant when it ascribed to life the fleetingness of vapour.

While all their acquisitions in office in the last four or eight years may still be there  cars, houses, money and the lubricants of power (forgive my sexism), by now power must be carrying away its last portmanteau from the apartment of the public office holder of yesterday. The Yoruba put this existential emptiness starkly when they refer to ex-power wielders as eni ana  yesterdays men. It was from late Governor Abiola Ajimobi  God rests his soul  that I first encountered the Yoruba proverbial capture of the evanescent nature of life. The Yoruba say that no one rushes to make way for he who once rode a horse  a kii yago felesin ana.

One of the reasons for the emptiness that these public officials will begin to encounter from tomorrow stems from the monarchical nature of Nigerias presidential democracy. Officials of Western democracies, from where our system of government was adopted, would find it easier to confront the emptiness after power and office. This is because, with them, public office carries the less indiscriminate wielding of power. Here in Nigeria, we are driven by the Kabiyesi syndrome in our perception and utilisation of power. For us, the public official is the unquestionable, titular, second-in-command only to the gods. This is why, for these Nigerian office holders, the transition from power to the streets tomorrow is capable of making them highly miserable. It can be likened to the deposition of a king, who was once the Kabiyesi; the unquestionable.

Tomorrow, the baton of power will change hands. History has been unusually kind to Buhari. Like Olusegun Obasanjo, he has had the opportunity of being the Nigerian head of state twice, both as a military and civilian leader. He could have been killed in 1983, the same way his fellow coup plotter, Ibrahim Ahmed Bako, had life snuffed out of him in the process of staging the coup. In their bid to dispossess Shehu Shagari of presidential power, Bako had been detailed to Shagaris presidential residence. While wearing civilian attire, he had gone to the presidents residence in the company of a detachment of soldiers. However, as fire raged between his troops and the Brigade of Guards commanded by Captain Augustine Anyogo, Bako got shot dead, as he sat in the passenger side of a Unimog Utility truck. Buhari survived to rule Nigeria.

Again, through what many called the uncanny but misplaced generosity of Providence, Buhari administered Nigeria for yet another eight years. Although he has recently engaged in a last-minute attempt to re-write his own history, the general impression is that he has been a failure. The BBC said Buhari, the last of a generation of British-trained military men who went on to govern the country would be leaving Nigerians less secure, poorer and more in debt than when he came to office in 2015.

I think that the greatest task we must put to Tinubu is that of restoring Nigeria to a country in which the guilty, no matter how highly placed, will get their deserved comeuppance, while the just get their appropriate rewards. He must return Nigeria to the situation described in that critical stanza of the National Anthem, which states that the goal is to build a nation where peace and justice shall reign. Those two elements  peace and justice  are not mutually exclusive.

Last Friday, Buhari took the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, round the presidential palace on a familiarisation tour. This is the place that will be Tinubus abode of power in the next four years, all things being equal. His wife, Remi, also did her own tour, under the guidance of Mrs Aisha Buhari, the presidents spouse. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had earlier conducted Kashim Shettima round the Vice Presidents wing of the State House.

Thereafter, Tinubu made many promises to Nigerians, praying to God for good health to be able to deliver on his presidential mandate. He also vowed to fight corruption. However, I think that the greatest task we must put to Tinubu is that of restoring Nigeria to a country in which the guilty, no matter how highly placed, will get their deserved comeuppance, while the just get their appropriate rewards. He must return Nigeria to the situation described in that critical stanza of the National Anthem, which states that the goal is to build a nation where peace and justice shall reign. Those two elements  peace and justice  are not mutually exclusive. They are co-joined like a Siamese twin. To seek peace where there is no justice is to have inequity. Both go simultaneously. Jamaican reggae icon, Peter Tosh, put it succinctly when he sang, in his Jamaican patois, that everyone is crying now for peace, none is crying now for justice; I dont want no peace, I need equal rights and justice. Once Nigeria arrives at that critical juncture where there are equal rights and justice, all other social indices will begin to fall in place. Nigeria fell on the social ladder because injustice had been growing unhindered in the land like ferns in a fecund plantation.

Before now, the system offered the right measures to both the high and the lowly. The scale of judgment in our judiciary did not discriminate between the high and mighty and lowly peasants. I will cite four instances in history  two pre-colonial and two post-colonial, which indicate that Nigeria was once a country where justice reigned.

Two depositions of highly rated Yoruba Obas during the colonial era come first. These are followed by the execution of another Yoruba Oba, and the fourth pertains to a top-rate elite in the Nigerian society, who was hung for murder. Obas constituted the highest echelon of the Yoruba society of the colonial period. These depositions, rarely talked about in history, were those of Ijebu Obas  Akarigbo Oyebajo (1891-1915) and Awujale Adenuga (1925-1929). Oyebajo became an Oba in his mid-20s in 1891, and apparently basked in the belief in the permanence of his position and the power of his cordial relationship with Governor Gilbert Thomas Carter and his successor, Sir Henry Edward.

Akarigbo Oyebajo was appointed in February 1902 as a member of the Central Native Council, and subsequently became high-handed, especially in his relationship with his chiefs. The result was widespread dissension from them. He began to monopolise the stipends accruing to him from the colonial government and refused to share these with the chiefs, as required of him by custom. In 1911, the chiefs then got him tried in court for extortion and larceny. His situation was worsened by the fact that the District Commissioner, H. F. Duncombe, could not stand him. Despite Horatio Jackson, the editor and publisher of the tabloid Lagos Weekly Records plea on his behalf to the colonial office, the Akarigbo was subsequently deported to Calabar, where he died on 11 July, 1932.

From the get go, Adenuga, who was 33 years old when he was appointed, showed immense immaturity in superintending over the enormous judicial, executive and legislative powers he wielded as Oba. And, he began the abuse of these powers from the first day of his kingship. A few months into being in office, the colonial government reprimanded the Awujale for extorting forestry fees from his subjects, and in 1928 he received two more reprimands for grafts, one of which was for collecting a bribe in February of that year to favour an ascension to the Onipe of Ibu stool. While he was implicated for attempting to cover up a case of homicide in March of the same 1928, by October of the same year, he was alleged to have attempted to rid the town of Joseph Igu, also widely known as Frugality, an anti-corruption crusader, who was a pain in the neck of traditional maladministration.

Inundated with complaints of the Akarigbos excesses, the colonial government instituted a judicial commission of enquiry with a charge to assess the Ijebu Native Administration, in relation to the Akarigbos style of governance. In the report submitted on 18 January, 1929, Adenuga was found guilty of corruption and deposed to Ilorin. In 1934, he was tried alongside one Yesufu Idimota and ten others, for the attempted assassination of his successor to the Akarigbo throne. Adenuga was then imprisoned in Abeokuta and went through the indignity of being manacled and publicly seen carrying latrine buckets from his cell corridor to the main latrine. He was however acquitted by the West African Court of Appeal on 27 May, 1935, and at the age of 58, he died miserably.

The third case had to do with the first Yoruba Oba to face public execution. It occurred in the current Ekiti State in 1949. That was the 43rd Alaaye of Efon-Alaaye, Oba Samuel Adeniran, the Asusumasa Atewogboye II. He, his herbalist, a servant, and another named Gabriel Olabirinjo, after the end of their trial for murder, were all hung by the colonial state, having been found guilty of killing a 15-month-old baby girl named Adediwura. On 10 January, 1949, the baby, who had been hitherto seen playing in her fathers compound, suddenly disappeared. Oba Adediran was promptly informed about this and he publicly pretended to have joined in the search for the baby. The prosecution later found out that after young Adediwuras kidnap by Oba Adenirans herbalist, she was brought to the Alaayes palace, where she was butchered, right in the Obas presence. He then swore all the dramatis personae who witnessed and partook the abduction and killing to an oath of secrecy. That same police from whose body wriggles out maggots today, swung into action upon the matter being incidented in 1949. Three suspects, Enoch Falayi  the herbalist, Gabriel Olabirinjo and Daniel Ojo, were promptly arrested. One of them eventually spilled the beans, incriminating Oba Adeniran.

Gradually, justice began to die in Nigeria. Today, the Nigerian landscape is littered with the blood of the righteous and the gloating of the powerful. With it came the death of shame and the ascendancy of shamelessness. Not long ago, the children of Ejigbadero remembered their executed father in a lavish ceremony that spoke to this new level of societal shamelessness.

The trial judge, Justice NS Pollard later delivered his judgment thus: With acceptance of that statement as evidence of tacit admission of the facts therein, there is not only ample corroboration of the evidenceit goes further and is evidence of admission of facts from which no other conclusion is possible than that the appellant counseled and procured the murder of this child and was rightly found guilty thereof. With this final pronouncement, Oba Adeniran, Asusumasa, the palace herbalist, one of Kabiyesis servants and a Gabriel Olabirinjo, were eventually hung by the neck till they died.

The last case is the notorious and infamous case of the Ibadan-born land baron, Jimoh Ishola, a.k.a. Ejigbadero, who was a supposed mascot in the Papa Ajao, Mushin, Agege and Alimosho areas of Lagos during his notorious reign. Ejigbadero was also the chief executive of Jimsol Nigeria Limited, a company that specialised in nail manufacturing on Matori Road, Mushin in the 1970s. More importantly, as a land baron of note, he was dreaded for his shrewd disposition towards the ownership of land. He had sold land to a man simply known as Raji Oba in Alimosho but thereafter wanted the land back.

Thus, on 22 August, 1975, which was incidentally the day of naming of his newly born child, Ejigbadero, an illiterate, perfected the plan to dispossess Raji Oba of the land he had sold to him earlier. He had a bandstand in front of his house and a huge crowd, which had come to celebrate with him. He came out resplendently dressed and sprayed a huge wad of naira notes on the musician, in a manner enough to arrest the attention of the crowd to the deed. And, amid the praises accorded to him, Ejigbadero quitely retreated into his house, changed into a French safari suit, a gun tucked in his pocket and hopped inside his Peugeot 504 saloon car. Through the back exit, he and six of his thugs sped to Alimosho, where he confronted Oba and shot him in the head point blank.

Ejigbadero came back home, changed into his resplendent dress and sprayed more noticeable cash again. Unfortunately for him, however, the deceaseds wife, Sabitiu had recognised him from where she was hiding when he committed the murder. He was subsequently arrested by the police and slammed with a two-count charge of murder. Ejigbaderos alibi was that he never left the party, which dragged on from 6.30 p.m. till the wee hours of the morning of 23 August, 1975. From the High Court judgment of guilt and hanging by the neck, which was pronounced on him by Justice Ishola Oluwa, his appeal was presided over by Justices Mamman Nasir, Adetunji Ogunkeye and Ijeoma Aseme, down to the Supreme Court, where Justices Darnley Alexander, Atanda Fatayi-Williams, Ayo Irikefe, Mohammed Bello and Chukwunweike Idigbe held fort. On 22 October, 1978, Ejigbadero was found guilty and sentenced to death. A funny drama at the Supreme Court was that, as Justice Idigbe pronounced the lead judgment, being illiterate, Ejigbadero kept asking his lawyer, in conk Ibadan dialect, Sowemimo, emi ni won so? (Sowemimo, what did the judge say?).

Ejigbadero was connected in the social and political circuits of Nigeria at the time, even being friends with high military epaulettes at the time, including the high and mighty in the decision-making cadre of Nigeria. Musicians struggled to sing his praises. One of them sang that as inscrutable as it was to find out the source of water inside the pod of coconut, so was it unfathomable to locate Ejigbaderos wealth. Yet, the system gave him his right comeuppance. In fact, the Obasanjo government quickly ensured that he was executed before the 1 October, 1979 handover to civilians, nursing the fear that with Ejigbaderos links, he might secure an undeserved pardon from the incoming administration.

Gradually, justice began to die in Nigeria. Today, the Nigerian landscape is littered with the blood of the righteous and the gloating of the powerful. With it came the death of shame and the ascendancy of shamelessness. Not long ago, the children of Ejigbadero remembered their executed father in a lavish ceremony that spoke to this new level of societal shamelessness. Soon, the children of one of the most notorious and infamous armed robbers in Nigeria, Ishola Oyenusi might troupe out to celebrate his passing too. It is a reflection of the societal loss of shame. Oyenusi, popularly known as Dr Ishola, hailed from Araromi in the Okitipupa area of Ondo State. Renowned for carjacking, bank holdups and heists, Oyenusi, on 8 September, 1971, with six other members of his gang, was executed.

Going by logic and antecedents, it will be difficult for Tinubu to properly restore the scale of justice in Nigeria. His IOUs will predictably tilt towards those same principalities and powers for whom injustice is a core condiment in their broth. I pray however that he pleasantly shocks cynics like me. If he does, hope will begin to build in the Nigerian people, as Maya Angelou wrote in her poem, Still I Rise With the certainty of tides,/Just like hopes springing high.

The Lion of Ojiagu at 63

My ex-boss, former Governor of Enugu State and Senator representing Enugu East, Chimaroke Ogbonnia Nnamani will be 63 years on Tuesday. At different fora in the last 16 years, since I left Enugu State, many people have demanded that I avail them information on the chemistry that ensured I succeeded in working in the Coal City state. My submission is always that Nnamani protected me from the sharks of government, who you would find in every polity across the regions of Nigeria.

Nnamani helped cut my teeth in public service. Before Enugu, I was a mere theoretician who didnt know that life existed outside the confines of theoretical postulations. He is a detribalised and ethnic-blind person to the core. I left my Imalefalafia, Oke-Ado, Ibadan office in 2003, contemplative of stereotypes about the Igbo man. One by one, those stereotypes collapsed, like the walls of Jericho. If I had been to the South-East before then, it was only a few times. My sojourn however afforded me a peep into the purity of the mind of an Igbo man and knowledge of virtually everywhere in Enugu State. With Nnamani, where I hailed from did not matter; it was my contributions that defined me.

At meetings when my colleagues naturally veered into discussing issues in their mother tongue, Nnamani would caution them: Do you want Adedayo to think we want to sell him? he would query and in his characteristic jocular manner, turn to me to ask when I would be marrying an Igbo lady, so that I could break the language barrier!

The height of it all was sometime in 2005, when he asked Osita Ugwuoti, of blessed memory, to hand over to me as head of the governors media team and his Special Adviser on Media. With Nnamani, your output, not your ethnicity, mattered. When we left office in 2007, he insisted that I must also go to the Senate with him, where he entrusted his finances in my care, without knowing, as the Yoruba say, the bird that laid my egg. When the world expressed shock that he queued behind Bola Tinubu in his quest for the presidency, rather than his kinsman, I saw a recreation of my Enugu experience in that equation. The Yoruba were in the core of his personal relationships as governor.

Nnamani is not your run-of-the-mill man. He requires hyper activity from anyone working with him. Hes is a tireless, boundless energy, whose type is rare among leaders.

Here is wishing the Lion of Ojiagu, Agbani, a very happy 63rd birthday.

Festus Adedayo is an Ibadan-based journalist.

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The outgoing Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State will perform the official handing over of the affairs of the state to the governor-elect, Abba Yusuf, on Sunday.

This is contained in a statement issued by the outgoing Commissioner for Information and Internal Affairs, Muhammad Garba, on Sunday in Kano.

Mr Garba said that the event is billed for 9 p.m. on 28 May at the Government House, Kano.

According to him, the state governments transition committee has communicated the development to the Transition Committee of the governor-elect.

Mr Garba pointed out that the two committees met within the week during which a handing-over document was presented to the governor-elects committee and also worked out a harmonised agenda for the handing-over ceremony.

The commissioner explained that Mr Ganduje would shortly after the event depart for Abuja as head of the Kano delegation to the inauguration of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu on Monday.

He added that the governors departure was also necessitated to beat the deadline for the closure of Nnamdi Azikiwe Internation Airport, Abuja, for the presidential inauguration.

Mr Garba called on people to continue to pray for peace and development of the state.

(NAN)

AAG/MST

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The police command in Lagos State has arrested two Yoruba Nation agitators in the Alausa area of the state and recovered charms and weapons from them, an official said.

The spokesperson for the command, Benjamin Hundeyin, who confirmed the arrest in a statement on Sunday, said that the agitators stormed a police station in the early hours of Sunday.

The agitators, numbering 15, stormed Alausa Police Division at about 5:35 a.m. today, chanting, Yoruba Nation has taken over, and injured some police officers who attempted to disperse them.

Two of the agitators were arrested while the rest took to their heels following the prompt and coordinated response of the police.

The suspects, who were arrested with charms, dangerous weapons and different offensive insignias bearing Yoruba Nation Army, stormed Alausa Division along with others at about the same time another group was attempting to take over a radio station in Ibadan, Oyo State.

They claimed they came to officially inform the police that the United Nations had granted approval for the take off of Yoruba Nation, he said.

He said that the arrested suspects are currently assisting the police in the ongoing investigation into the subversive plans of the group.

The suspects are assisting the police while their network of sponsors will soon be unveiled and brought to justice in the overriding internal security interest of the state, he said.

The police image-maker said that the state Commissioner of Police, Idowu Owohunwa, has warned subversive elements to steer clear of the state or face the wrath of the law.

The command is fully ready and has the strong will and operational orientation to bring the full weight of the law to bear on them or on any other elements that might attempt to disrupt the stable security order in Lagos.

While working in synergy with other security agencies, the command has maximally deployed its intelligence, human and operational assets across the length and breadth of the state.

The command will effectively suppress any ill-advised persons or groups under any nomenclature who might be attempting to test the will of law enforcement operatives of the command before, during and after the May 29, 2023, inauguration, he said.

According to him, Mr Owohunwa appreciates the good people of the state for their unrelenting cooperation with the police.

Mr Hundeyin said that the CP has urged residents to continue to manifest their patriotism by promptly reaching out to the police or the nearest security agency whenever the need arises.

(NAN)

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Photo: The Canadian Press British Columbia Premier David Eby stands behind a height-adjustable podium during an announcement at the Seaspan Ferries Tilbury Terminal in Delta, B.C., on Thursday, April 27, 2023.

It was a sizable British Columbia political issue that called for a one-size-fits-all solution, says Premier David Eby, who at six foot seven inches is the province's tallest leader.

The tall and the short needed evening out as matters of perception and fairness, he said.

Eby towers over most people at news conferences but is juxtaposed with Selina Robinson, minister of post-secondary education and future skills, who at four foot 11 inches often needs to stand on boxes to reach the microphone.

The solution: a mechanical podium, which debuted shortly after Eby took office late last year. It can be moved up or down with the flick of a switch to suit the size of the person delivering remarks at a political event.

"You might describe me as an unusually tall person, or disturbingly tall person to some people," Eby told reporters last week. "My colleague Selina Robinson is a much tinier person and we have a whole range of people in between, so the podium moves up and down to accommodate everybody's ability to speak."

The premier said people have expressed surprise  and thanks  as the podium lifts or lowers to accommodate their height.

One such person was Tracy Redies, chief executive officer at Vancouver's Science World, who joined Eby for a news conference last month where the province announced $20 million to repair the iconic domed building's leaky roof.

"This pulpit's amazing," she said. "The science, the technology."

Eby said the podium, which has gained the nickname "explodium" at the legislature, is a functional success.

"It's an important innovation in B.C. where we are never short of innovations or remarkable ways to solve problems," he chuckled. "When we go to events around the community, it does draw attention from speakers who aren't used to it, especially when it moves unexpectedly. I think everybody enjoys it. It's fun and it works."

But, some concerns about the podium have been raised by the Opposition BC United and a communications expert who suggests the structure reinforces old-school political traditions.

BC United finance critic Peter Milobar said the Opposition has questions about the cost of the podium, but the government hasn't provided answers.

"We all understand the premier is tall, but the fact we need these extra-wide, telescopic-type podiums just seems to be a potentially expensive thing for the taxpayer," he said.

Milobar said it appears the podium is more of a political prop used to enhance Eby's image.

"It's fair to say I'm not an average-sized person, but I'm not too worried about which podium I'm standing behind to make important political announcements," he said.

While Eby's podium is not the biggest news story at the legislature, it symbolizes the stereotyped visual culture of politics,said David Black, a political communications expert at Victoria's Royal Roads University.

"I think the podium, where you want to adjust for a tall person like David Eby or a shorter person like Selina Robinson, is all about just creating this necessary visual conformity so that no one is stepping on the message," he said.

B.C.'s development of a podium that fits all sizes is a metaphor for a political culture that is resistant to change, Black said.

"When you break the visual code or political style or tamper with conservative visual culture when it comes to politics, you step on the message," he said. "It becomes, fairly or not, read as a gaffe, sometimes a career-ending gaffe."

Former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day was widely criticized more than two decades ago for arriving at a B.C. lakeside news conference riding a Jet Ski, Black said.

Former U.S. president Barack Obama faced fierce criticism for wearing a tan-coloured suit, he said.

"He wore a tan-coloured suit and it was the end of American democracy," Black said.

But federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's backyard neighbourhood video statements are signs of a politician looking to break visual codes, as was former Toronto mayor Rob Ford's "everyman" appearance, said Black.

"My question is, in some sense, do we need to rethink the language of politics, the visual style of politics, because is it exhausted?" he said. "Is it obsolete? Has it exhausted its reassuring quality?"

Robinson said she's pleased with the fairness of the podium, especially after years of standing on crates to raise her profile.

"Having a podium that actually fits me is great, and one that fits the premier is great," she said.

"This is an accessibility piece of furniture and I think it works the way it's supposed to. It's recognizing we all come in different shapes and sizes and having furniture that fits us regardless of how tall or small we are is a good thing."
The Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population on Saturday signed an MoU with Roche, a Swiss multinational healthcare company, to improve medical care under the Presidential Initiative of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC).

HCC, also known as liver cancer, is one of the most common cancers worldwide.

The collaboration with the Swiss company aims to strengthen diagnostic capabilities for liver fibrosis and early detection of liver tumours. In addition, the partnership will focus on developing 20 injection centres that provide primary care services for liver cancer patients, according to the ministry's official spokesperson, Hossam Abdel Ghaffar.

During the signing of the MoU, Minister of Health Khaled Abdel Ghaffar stressed that Egypt is currently witnessing significant advances in the field of treatment programmes for liver cancer. These developments are part of a larger effort to promote equity and equality by providing the best and most advanced treatments worldwide.

He stressed the need to continuously build national capacity and promote collaboration between Egyptian experts and international partners to create an integrated standard system for diagnosis and treatment.

The minister also pointed to the medical, social, and economic burden Egypt has been experiencing for years due to widespread infection with the hepatitis C virus.

However, Egyptian efforts to combat the virus have been successful, leading to a change in classification from a country with the highest infection rates in the world to the first country in the world to receive international certification for the elimination of the hepatitis C virus, Abdel Ghaffar said.

The HCC initiative was launched in Egypt in March 2022 as an extension of the national initiative to screen for hepatitis C virus and non-communicable diseases. This effort is part of the larger presidential initiative "100 Million Healthy Lives," which aims to ensure a comprehensive, effective and robust system to detect liver cancer, prevent complications and reduce deaths from liver disease.

Abdel Ghaffar told Ahram that 1,200 patients with primary liver tumours are currently undergoing treatment.

He added that 200,000 patients with liver fibrosis are being treated and followed up as part of the "100 Million Health Initiative". According to figures from WHO in 2019, Egypt has one of the largest hepatitis C epidemics in the world with nearly 40,000 people dying each year from liver failure and liver cancer related to the disease.

According to 2020 figures from the Global Observatory Cancer (Globocan), liver cancer cases in Egypt account for 20.7 percent of total cancer cases, or 134,632 cases.

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President Muhammad Buhari has directed that the control of Obalende Eid Prayer Ground be returned to the Lagos Jamaatul Muslimeen Council of the Lagos Central Mosque.

In giving approval to the report of a Special Committee he set up to investigate and report to him the issues in the conflict between the Lagos Muslim Community on one hand and Federal Government Agencies, particularly those stationed at the Dodan Barracks concerning the management and control of the land, President Buhari directed all those government agencies to recognize and respect the fact that the Obalende Eid Prayer Ground legally belongs to the Jamaatul Muslimeen Council of the Lagos Central Mosque.

President Buhari directed that the desecration of the Obalende Eid Prayer Ground by its profane use as a dump site should stop with immediate effect and to this effect, the Dodan Barracks authorities should remove all containers and debris from the prayer ground.

The President also directed that the Dodan Barracks authorities ensure that the Muslim Communities and their agents have unrestricted access to the Obalende Eid Prayer Ground at all times.

Lastly, he advised the Government of Lagos State to, if deemed fit, (to) grant the Jamaatal Muslimeen Council a Certificate of Occupancy over the area identified in the Survey Plan.

The Committee that carried out the assignment as directed by the President under the leadership of Ibrahim Gambari, the chief of staff, included the Minister of Works and Housing, the Minister of Defence, the Director-General of the SSS, the Chief of Defence Staff and the Permanent Secretary, State House.

Garba Shehu

Senior Special Assistant to the President

(Media and Publicity)

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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, May 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As a milestone toward achieving Vision 2030, partners The Bold Group and Saffron Brand Consultants will host a brand leadership event on Tuesday, May 30 at The Sima Space in Riyadh. Themed "Pioneering with Purpose", the event will explore how Saudi brands are innovating for the future prosperity of the Kingdom and reshaping the nation as a branding destination and hub.

The Bold Group and Saffron Consultants host brand leadership event in Riyadh.

Bringing together experienced Saudi marketers across destination, financial and telecom sectors as well as international pioneers in mobility, the event will explore what it takes to innovate with collective ambition. Speakers will feature Majed Al-Johar, Senior Marketing Director for Saudi Payments; Haitham Alturaigi, Director of Brand and Communications at Tamara; Sebastian Canadell, Chief of Astara Intelligence; and Dr. Sabih Khisaf, Infrastructure Lead Engineer, MENA at Hyperloop Transportation Technologies.

Abeer Alessa, CEO & Co-Founder at The Bold Group said "The bold and unprecedented reforms delivered as part of Vision 2030, drove the rapid rise in growth and demand for branding and creative services in Saudi Arabia. Our event with Saffron will explore how purpose-driven brand leadership engages new generations and accelerates innovation in a new era of memorable experiences for the Kingdom."

Jacob Benbunan, CEO and Co-Founder of Saffron, an independent global brand consultancy, said "It is a privilege for Saffron to be involved in the Kingdom's ambitious journey of transformation. Saudi Arabian brands are setting new benchmarks for meaningful innovation, and the world is taking notice. The future of brand building is theirs to pioneer and be remembered for."

The event's agenda includes two roundtables with participating local and international speakers, exploring the exciting opportunities and challenges facing the branding landscape in Saudi Arabia. The first roundtable will focus on the role of purpose-driven place brands in achieving the current state of destination branding in KSA. The second roundtable will share insights from pioneers in transportation technology and digital financial products and services, and how their approaches are contributing to a larger ecosystem of cross-generational innovation and prosperity.

The final portion of the event will address building brand experiences in the metaverse. Gabor Schreier, Chief Creative Officer of Saffron Brand Consultants, and Ziad Abou Rjeily, Head of Bold Experiences, will offer strategies for drawing on the technology's opportunities for the brands and the people of the Kingdom.

To learn more and to register, please visit: https://form.jotform.com/230182230606444

About The Bold Group

The Bold Group is a proud Saudi independent creative ecosystem that comprises three units: Bold Brands, Bold Comms, and Bold Experiences. With over 90+ professionals spread across two offices Riyadh & Egypt, the award winning, multi-disciplinary agency has worked with over 180 clients. The Bold Group fosters innovation in everything they do. It comes at the core of their business, which keeps them evolving in a fast-moving world. They over specialized services encompassing brand building, creative communication & creative technologies and experiences.

Key Clients: Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Payments, Saudi Company for Artificial Intelligence (SCAI), Majid Al Fuaim, Snapchat, Almarai, Arab National Bank (anb), Royal Commission of Al-'Ula, Dominos.

Awards: Dubai LYNX, PHNX Awards, WINA Award, FWA, Awwwards, ACT Responsible.

To learn more, please visit: https://bold.com.sa/

About Saffron

Saffron is a natively global, independent brand consultancy based in London, Madrid, Vienna and Istanbul. We make brands work by making them memorable experiences. Founded in 2001, our clients include Facebook Company with its rebrand to Meta, YouTube, the Supreme Committee of Qatar, PIF, Gulf Air, Abu Dhabi Ports, Turkey, A1 Telekom Austria, HyperloopTT, The Valuable 500, The City of Vienna, and the V&A Museum.

Visit us at www.saffron-consultants.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2085841/Pioneering_with_Purpose.jpg

SOURCE The Bold Group; Saffron Consultants
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
Patna, May 27 : Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday criticised the BJP-led Central government, saying an attempt is being made to change the history of the country, while wondering if there was any need for a new Parliament building.

Interacting with the mediapersons here on the sidelines of a programme marking the death anniversary of the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Nitish Kumar said: "What is the need for a new Parliament in the country? The people sitting in power want to change history, and they are doing it.

"I went to Delhi and met the leaders of other parties. They have said that the construction of a new Parliament is underway. It was not a pleasing thing for me. The old Parliament is our history. We achieved Independence and the democratic style of functioning began from there. If required, we need to develop it but making a new building is meaningless. You are changing our old history," the JD-U leader said.

Nitish Kumar further said that there was no point in going to the Niti Aayog meeting on Saturday.

"If I go to the meeting of Niti Aayog, I will definitely demand special status for Bihar. The UPA government had conducted the caste based census in the country but NDA did not do so in 2021. We conducted the caste-based survey in Bihar on our own expenses but they have objections to it," the Bihar Chief Minister said.

When asked why the Governor was not invited for the newly built Bihar Vidhan Mandal, Nitish Kumar said "it was an extension of the building, and not a new construction".
New Delhi, May 27 : Following its governing council meeting on Saturday, Niti Aayog CEO B.V.R. Subrahmanyam said that India is on its way to become the world's third largest economy in a couple of years, as the country is at a take-off point at the moment.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who chaired the meeting, also urged the all the stakeholders to grab the opportunities, adding that the aspiration of 'Viksit Bharat' is not the vision of an individual or a small group, but it is the vision of India that "we will have to conceive and fulfil".

Addressing the media after the eighth governing council meeting of the Niti Aayog, Subrahmanyam said, "The theme was Viksit Bharat. Why was it chosen? Because India should be prepared for the next 25 years and we will be a developed nation in the next 25 years. Why is Viksit Bharat so important at this point? It is important because India is at a take-off moment.

"We are not only the largest country by population, but also the fifth largest economy. The fifth is going to become third in a couple of years." He asserted that demography is in "our favour not just in terms of the total number of people, but also in terms of the number of youthful people".

"India will have about 20 per cent of the world's working-age population in a couple of years, and it is going to be the largest provider of working-age people between 28-29 for the next 20 years or so.

"The time has come for India to utilise these opportunities... countries which cross this particular level of development actually go through a rapid period of sustained high-speed growth if the correct things are done. So we have a 20-25 years wherein if we do things the right way, the country can meet its aspirational goals," the Nit Aayog CEO said.

He added: "There are other things that are going on in India -- digitisation is very high in the country and the world actually looks upon India, as the Prime Minister said in the meeting that the kind of activity which is happening in the country on the digital front is actually something stunning and the rest of the world is looking at us.

"The whole world is looking at India and that is what the Prime MInister said. He mentioned to all the Chief Ministers to go and grab the opportunities that are there. He also emphasised why Viksit Bharat is relevant to the states because bulk of the action to become Viksit Bharat remains with the states, be it industries, be it water supply, be it electricity, health, or education. And that is where Niti Aayog plays a key role." Subrahmanyam added that in his opening remarks, Prime Minister Modi did talk about a range of things.

"He (Modi) said all the people in the room have the collective responsibility to fulfil the aspirations of 140 crore people, and we need to have a common vision and strategy. He also mentioned the successful manner in which the Centre and the states have cooperated in a couple of programmes such as the aspirational district programme where 112 districts which otherwise were backward on the indicator pulled them up," Subhramanyam said.

The meeting had eight items on the agenda - focus on making India a developed nation by 2047; thrust on MSMEs, infrastructure and investments; minimising compliances; empowering women; health and nutrition; skill development; and Gati Shakti for area development and social infrastructure.

The CEO also informed that 11 Chief Ministers didn't attend the meeting.

"But we have written speeches from a few states. We take cognisance of the written speeches while making policies," the CEO said.
Chennai, May 27 : The Cumbum Police have arrested a YouTuber for flying drone leading to the disturbance of the rogue elephant, 'Arikomban' that was relocated from Chinnakanal in the Idukki district of Kerala.

Police found that the YouTuber had flown a drone near the agriculture farm where the elephant was standing. When the elephant suddenly came out of the farmland, police, and forest officials found that a person from Cumbum had flown a drone above the elephant and this led to the elephant suddenly coming out of the farm land.

Tamil Nadu police have, however, not revealed the name of the YouTuber.
New Delhi, May 27 : In a note addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Tihar Jail, AAP leader and former Deputy CM of Delhi, Manish Sisodia, expressed his concern and disappointment over the ongoing protest by women wrestlers at Jantar Mantar.

Sisodia, in his note written in Hindi, lamented the lack of response from the BJP, the Central government, and even the Prime Minister himself, suggesting that their "silence resembled an indifference towards the plight of these courageous women".

Drawing attention to the previous instances when the Prime Minister had enthusiastically celebrated the achievements of these athletes, Sisodia highlighted the contrasting response displayed in the current situation.

He emphasised the Prime Minister's previous interactions with the wrestlers, sharing laughter and cheer, referring to them as his own family.

However, the stark contrast in the Prime Minister's silence during their struggle for justice raises questions about his commitment to addressing sexual harassment allegations, especially when they involve a powerful party member, Sisodia said.

Few of the top grapplers of the country are demanding the arrest of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who also happens to be a BJP MP, on charges of sexual harrasment.

"I'm sure we all remember the time when these wrestlers returned to India as proud medal-winners, and the Prime Minister hurriedly posed for photos and videos with these talented athletes. So much so that the athletes would receive phone calls from the PM, and the videos of their conversation would be widely shared on social media. In those moments, the Prime Minister would laugh and cheer alongside these girls, proudly calling them his own family," Sisodia wrote in his note.A "And yet, today, as these courageous young women leave behind their training and responsibilities at home to protest under the scorching sun and pouring rain, the Prime Minister remains indifferent to their plight. How can our Prime Minister, who once considered these girls as his family, remain silent when they face sexual harassment? Is it simply because the accused is a powerful Member of Parliament from his own party," he asked.

Addressing the Prime Minister directly, Sisodia reminded him of his repeated declarations that daughters are the pride of the nation.

"Prime Minister, we may be political opponents, but what you are doing to our daughters is not justified. Over the last eight years, you have stifled the Constitution, you have used every agency, every means at your disposal to hinder our work and unjustly imprison us in false cases. You can continue to send your political adversaries to jail, you can subject them to persecution, even hang them if you want, for that seems to be your way of conducting politics," he added.

"But I implore you, at the very least, provide justice to these daughters who have brought immense pride to India. Your failure to do so will discourage any talented daughter from daring to raise her voice against powerful individuals in this nation," Sisodia concluded.
Bhubaneswar, May 27 : Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik skipped the crucial Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Saturday.

Official sources said the chief minister was not able to attend the meeting due to prior engagements. Though no official statement has been released by the CMO, sources said that Patnaik had prior committed engagements to review performance of four departments on Saturday.

As his government is going to complete four years of current five-year term on May 29, Patnaik has been holding meetings since May 22 to review the performances and implementation of promises made in the election manifesto 2019.

The chief minister on Saturday reviewed the performance of Mission Shakti, Skill Development & Technical Education (SD&TE) and Tourism departments.

Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) has been maintaining equidistance from both BJP and Congress. Besides, it has also already distanced itself from the possible Third Front.

Notably, the chief ministers of 10 other states including Punjab, Delhi, Telangana, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Rajasthan and Karnataka have skipped the NITI Aayog meeting. All these states are ruled by non-BJP political parties.
Get ready for dramatic weather in Egypt! The coming days will bring a mix of dusty winds, thundering rain and fluctuating temperatures.

According to the Egyptian Meteorological Authority (EMA), strong winds will sweep across the northwest coast on Sunday, causing dusty weather in several regions, including Greater Cairo, Lower Egypt, Sinai, the Red Sea mountains and southern parts of the country.

The Ministry of Environment advises the elderly and people with respiratory and chest diseases to avoid outdoor activities during the day to protect themselves from the possible negative effects of the dusty atmosphere.

But, wait, theres more! The EMA predicts cloudy weather for the day in Sinai, the Red Sea mountains, the Suez Canal coast, Aqaba and Upper Egypt. Moderate rainfall is expected, accompanied by intermittent thunderstorms.

The EMA even warns of possible flooding in certain areas, including central and South Sinai, the Suez Canal coast and the Red Sea mountains.

Light to moderate rainfall is also expected in other regions such as the North Coast, Lower Egypt, and the cities along the Suez Canal. Even Greater Cairo could experience a light drizzle.

Through the rest of the week, strong winds will prevail in various regions of the country, but fortunately no dust is expected. Southern Upper Egypt will experience these strong gusts on Monday, while strong winds will hit the north coast and Greater Cairo from Tuesday to Friday. South Sinai can expect strong winds from Wednesday to Friday.

South Sinai, the Red Sea mountains, and the southern regions of Egypt may experience light to moderate rainfall.

Weekly temperature outlook

The country will be blisteringly hot throughout the week.

In Greater Cairo and Lower Egypt, highs will be 31-34 degrees Celsius and lows will be 20-21 degrees.

On the North Coast, slightly cooler temperatures can be expected with highs of 25-29 degrees and lows of 19 degrees.

In the south of Sinai it will be very hot with highs of 34-38 degrees and lows of 22-24 degrees.

Northern Upper Egypt will be similarly hot during the day, with highs of 32-38 degrees and lows of 22 degrees.

Finally, southern Upper Egypt will be even hotter, with highs of 38-41 degrees and lows of 25-26 degrees.

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Patna, May 27 : A total of 500 bottles of banned cough syrup along with Rs 2.97 lakh in cash have been seized following a raid in Bihar's Katihar on Saturday, an official said.

A police officer said a raid was conducted in Sharifganj locality after an input suggested that one Lal Khan, along with his brother Imtiyaz Khan, was allegedly manufacturing banned cough syrup in his house.

"Accordingly, we conducted a raid there and seized 500 bottles containing banned cough syrup, apart from cash. Both the accused, however, managed to flee," Raghwendra Singh, SHO of Town police station, Katihar, said.

"We had received input that two brothers are involved in manufacturing cough syrup in their house located at Sharifganj locality. Accordingly, we conducted a raid at the direction of district SP Jitendra Kumar and seized the banned syrup and cash. We have launched a manhunt to nab the accused," Singh added.

According to the police, the banned cough syrup is generally used by youth for intoxication.

After the liquor ban in Bihar, the demand for banned cough syrup has significantly increased.
Kolkata, May 27 : The more the West Bengal government tries to prevent the BJP from carrying out its political activities, the more the party's popularity will rise, leader of opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, said at a public rally in Malda district on Saturday.

He said that earlier the state administration did not permit him to hold a rally at Habibpur in the same district since he did not file an application for permission 14 days before.

"This rule is only applicable when it comes to my rallies. Such rules are not applicable in case of a ruling party meeting. But the huge gathering here at Manikchak proves that more the state police prevent our rallies, more people will gather at our meetings," Adhikari said.

He also said that the growing popularity of the BJP in West Bengal proves that the time is approaching fast for the Trinamool regime in the state to end.

"The corrupt people who are in power in West Bengal should take a cue and start packing their bags. The administration should realise that the fury of nature and the will of the people can never be contained," he said.
Chennai, May 27 : The Tamil Nadu forest department is set to build a 4-hectare natural enclosure for rewilding a two-year-old orphaned tiger. The estimated cost of the natural habitat is around Rs 3.5 crore, sources in the Tamil Nadu forest department told IANS.

The natural habitat is coming up in the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) for the orphaned tiger, which was rescued from a tea estate in Valparai.

The tiger is presently housed at a 10,000 sq ft enclosure in the Mandhirimattam area of the Manambolly forest range under the Anamalai Tiger Reserve.

Senior officials in the forest department told IANS that the tiger currently weighs 140 kg and is in perfect shape. The natural habitat is being made for the big cat to ready it for hunting in the wild and then gradually relocate it in the deep forests.

The officials told IANS that the tiger is now displaying age-related attributes of a wild tiger like crouching, claw scratching, and territory marking.

Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary, Environment, Forests and Climate Change Department, told IANS that the forest department is taking inputs from wildlife biologists and scientists at the Wild Life Institute of India, and according to the procedures laid down by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), it is bringing up the orphaned tiger.

The forest officials also told IANS that senior wild life biologist from the Wild Life Institute of India, K. Ramesh, will be reaching the Anamalai Tiger Reserve soon. It is to be noted that Ramesh is a noted wildlife biologist who had overseen the rewilding operations of tiger cubs in Madhya Pradesh.

Presently, the tiger is fed 6-8 kg meat six days a week. The tiger had undergone dental surgery earlier. It is being provided live chicken, rabbit and wild boar to help it in its hunting prowess and prepare it for the rewilding process.
Kolkata, May 27 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said that the BJP is trying to instigate violence between communities in West Bengal along the lines of Manipur.

"In West Bengal, they are trying to create a tension between the Kurmis and the other tribal communities. The idea is that if the violence in West Bengal takes a serious shape, then the army can be deployed here. They are trying to create that violence here as they did in Manipur," the chief minister said while addressing a public meeting at Salboni in West Midnapore district.

In Salboni, the convoy of Trinamool Congress General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee was attacked on Friday allegedly by a section of people from the Kurmi community, agitating in demand for the Scheduled Tribe status.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said that she had got specific information that some leaders are being paid huge amounts of money by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to organise such disruptive movements in the state.

"Previously they tried to divide the hills from the state by instigating violence there. Now they are trying to create tension between the Kurmis and the other tribal communities. I will not tolerate this at any cost," she said.

Commenting on the attack on Abhishek Banerjee's convoy, the chief minister said that the police will take the necessary action in the matter.

"Even the vehicle of our minister, Birbaha Hansda, who herself comes from the tribal community, was attacked. Such things can never be tolerated," the chief minister said.

She also criticised the Central government over the recent decision of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for gradual phasing out of Rs 2,000 denomination notes.

"If you had to phase it out ultimately, then what was the purpose of introducing it just seven years ago, in 2016? I doubt that a particular political party has hoarded huge amount of high-value notes which they want to get rid of now," the chief minister said.
Chennai, May 28 : The Tamil Nadu Special task force is tracking the rogue elephant 'Arikombana' that created havoc in Cumbum town in Theni district of the state.

The elephant went rogue on Saturday. Presently the elephant has moved to the forest fringe areas and the special team with darting experts and veterinarians are trying to locate the elephant.

The Tamil Nadu forest department had issued a statement on Saturday that it would dart the elephant and then relocate it to deep forest.

The elephant is already radio collared after it was relocated from the Chinnakanal area in Idukki district of Kerala on April 29 after the animal had killed 11 people and destroyed more than 300 homes and ration shops.

The elephant, nicknamed 'Arikomban' for his forays into ration shops of Chinnakanal and Idukki area for his fondness of rice (in Malayalam rice is called 'Ari' and 'Komban' means tusker) has been relocated into the Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) around 100 km from the Chinnakanal.

The elephant had forayed from the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala to the Tamil Nadu area and on Saturday it reached the densely populated Cumbum town. It destroyed two auto-rickshaws and three people were injured when they fell down while running away from the elephant.
New Delhi, May 28 : Top Indian wrestler Bajrang Punia, who has along with other grapplers are protesting against WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for more than a month now, has asserted that the Mahapanchayat will take place on Sunday while emphasising the fight for self-respect.

Punia accused the government of murdering democracy in the country and appealed to the authorities to release individuals who have been detained by the police.

"Mahapanchayat will certainly be held today. We're fighting for our self-respect. They're inaugurating the new Parliament building today, but murdering democracy in the country. We appeal to the administration to release our people detained by police," Bajrang told reporters.

Meanwhile, other top wrestlers Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat also claimed that their supporters have been arrested by the police.

"To all my international fraternity. Our Prime Minister is inaugurating our new parliament. But on the other hand, Our supporters have been arrested for supporting us," said Sakshi.

"By arresting people, how can we call us "mother of democracy," she added.

"Democracy is being murdered openly at Jantar Mantar. On one hand the Prime Minister has inaugurated the new building of democracy. On the other hand the arrests of our people are on," said Vinesh.

In view of the Sarv Khap mahapanchayat call to hold a women panchayat outside the newly constructed Parliament building in Delhi on Sunday, heavy police have been deployed on Delhi borders.

Notably, India's top wrestlers have been demanding the arrest of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for allegedly sexually harassing seven women grapplers.The protest at Jantar Mantar has gone for more than a month now with no solution in sight.
Hyderabad, May 28 : When N Chanrdababu Naidu led a revolt against his father-in-law N. T. Rama Rao to become the chief minister in August 1994, he had never imagined that a few months later he would have to own the political legacy of the man he was dethroning.

The sudden demise of NTR due to cardiac arrest on January 18, 1995 created an opportunity for Naidu to claim his political legacy and he grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

Political analysts say had NTR lived for a few more months, Naidu's political survival would have been at stake as the TDP patriarch had called him a backstabber and vowed to unmask him.

However, NTR's sudden death paved the way for his son-in-law's political ascent as the latter lost no time in owning his political legacy.

The government headed by Naidu not only conducted NTR's cremation with state honours on the banks of Hussain Sagar lake in the heart of the city but went on a spree to install his statues across the state.

Naidu, who had defended the coup against NTR as a move to save the party from the latter's second wife Lakshmi Parvathi, used every occasion after NTR's death to own his political legacy by declaring that NTR will always remain his leader. Naidu claimed NTR had special liking for him. He used to often say that NTR was like his father.

Despite being taunted as "backstabber" by his political rivals, Naidu successfully carried his political legacy forward and entrenched himself. Even after nearly three decades after NTR's death, Naidu invokes the name of the thespian to strike an emotional chord with the Telugu people.

Naidu, who turned 73 last month, proved to be more worthy as NTR's political successor. As the longest serving chief minister of united Andhra Pradesh, he left an indelible mark with his economic reforms, visionary approach, pro-development and tech-savvy image.

"Chandrababu Naidu had his own style of administration, and hardly walked the welfare path taken by NTR in his times," said political analyst Palwai Raghavendra Reddy.

With his initiatives, Naidu had placed Hyderabad on the world map by promoting information technology. Even his worst critics admit that the credit of developing Hyderabad as a global IT destination and a city with world-class infrastructure goes to Naidu.

By promoting world-class educational and research institutes in Hyderabad, he gave thrust to the knowledge economy.

NTR had played a key role in uniting anti-Congress parties and Naidu as his political successor carried the task forward. As the convenor of the United Front (UF) he brought together regional parties to prop up coalition government with the outside support of Congress in 1996. In 1999, he donned a similar role for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

A shrewd politician, Naidu was also seen as rank opportunist as he aligned with the BJP, apparently to ride on the Vajpayee wave. He succeeded in not only retaining power in the state but with 29 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats from Andhra Pradesh played the role of a kingmaker at the Centre.

Then known as the poster boy of new economic reforms, a reformist and a tech-savvy leader, Naidu mastered the skills of doing business with any formation at the Centre, irrespective of its ideology.

After losing power to his bete noire Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy (YSR) in 2004 following a record nine-year stint as Andhra Pradesh chief minister, Naidu admitted his priorities were lop-sided which led to the neglect of agriculture in the state.

So he promised a slew of freebies in the 2009 elections, but the people remained unconvinced and gave YSR a fresh mandate.

"Chandrababu Naidu was always seen and possibly behaved as a leader who is focused on faster industrial/ technology development in the region. In the process, his focus got restricted to very specified geographies within the erstwhile unified Andhra Pradesh and the present day Andhra Pradesh State. While his primary administrative focus remained on Hyderabad from 1995-2004; it remained mostly on Amaravati between 2014-2019," observed Raghavendra Reddy.

"Naidu never focused on decentralised development, and possibly believed in the trickle down effect, thus putting great emphasis on Capital cities," he said The emergence of Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate in 2014 offered Naidu a chance to revive his political fortunes.

He not only joined the NDA once again but by campaigning with Modi, he succeeded in storming to power in the truncated state of Andhra Pradesh, as people preferred him, apparently for his experience in developing Hyderabad as a tech hub.

As a leader who always enjoyed the role of a kingmaker and extracted his pound of flesh from the government at the Centre, Naidu was uncomfortable in the new dispensation where Modi had absolute majority.

Though facing post-bifurcation challenges like lack of state capital and poor finances, he had no option, but to quietly accept whatever was doled out to the state.

However, it was when YSR's son and the chief of the YSRCP Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy started targeting him for his compromise over the Special Category Status (SCS) that Naidu realised how he was losing the ground to the opposition. In 2018, he pulled out of the NDA government accusing Modi of 'betrayal'.

From a great admirer of Modi, Naidu soon turned into his worst critic and even joined hands with the Congress, his party's sworn enemy of 35 years. This was Naidu's biggest political misadventure.

His experiment ended in a disaster with the Congress-led United People's Alliance (UPA) biting the dust.

Ironically, Naidu began his political career with the Congress party. At the age of 28, he was elected to Assembly from Chandragiri constituency in his native district Chittoor and became a minister in the state cabinet (1980-83).

When his father-in-law and popular actor NTR floated TDP, Naidu was with the Congress and had even thrown a challenge at the former. The TDP wave in 1983 nearly wiped out Congress and Naidu too failed to get re-elected to the Assembly.

Later, NTR admitted Naidu into TDP and since then he never looked back. Making a modest beginning in NTR dominant TDP, he climbed to the position of party general secretary.

In 1995, a few months after NTR led TDP back to power with a landslide victory, Naidu staged a revolt against father-in-law to become chief minister. NTR's children backed Naidu as they were also unhappy over growing interference by his second wife Lakshmi Parvathi in administration and party affairs.
Hyderabad, May 28 : When N.T. Rama Rao single-handedly demolished the Congress in its traditional stronghold of Andhra Pradesh in 1983, a few months after floating TDP on the slogan of 'Telugu self-respect', the entire country began to take note of the legendary actor.

By challenging Indira Gandhi and ending the Congress' monopoly in Andhra Pradesh politics, NTR emerged as the new hope of opposition unity at the national level.

After the Janata Party experiment of the 1970s, NTR was the architect of coalition politics at the national level. He went on to play a key role in the formation of the National Front government led by V.P. Singh in 1989.

The TDP founder, who was inspired by his friend and actor-politician M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) from Tamil Nadu, further cemented his position in 1984 when his government was toppled allegedly by Congress by propping Nadendla Bhaskar Rao and misusing the office of the Ggovernor.

NTR hit the national headlines with the massive save democracy movement as opposition leaders from across the country descended on Hyderabad to show their solidarity. Leaders like Charan Singh, Sharad Pawar, Farooq Abdullah, Samar Mukherjee, H.N. Bahuguna and Era Sezhiyan addressed the public meeting with NTR in Hyderabad.

The actor-politician scored another huge victory when he was reinstated as the chief minister. He emerged as a regional strongman and became focus of national and international media NTR further consolidated himself by seeking a fresh mandate in 1985 and retaining power with a higher tally. With his anti-Congressism, he became one of the early and strong proponents of opposition unity.

NTR was a strong believer in federalism. He opposed concentration of powers at the Centre and fought for cordial Centre-State relations. Political analysts say it was due to his efforts that the issue of Centre-state relations became part of the mainstream agenda.

The TDP founder used to often remark that the Centre is a myth. At a meeting of opposition parties in Calcutta in 1984, he made it clear that India is a union of states and the Centre existed only through the states.

With the office of governor being misused to bring down his own government in 1984, NTR had demanded abolition of the institution of the governor. He believed that the Centre uses governors as its agents.

He hosted a meeting of leaders of opposition parties in Hyderabad in January 1986 for coordination and joint action on various issues. Leaders of 13 parties had participated in the meeting, which passed Hyderabad declaration to forge a common forum for discussion and action.

NTR against hosted a meeting of opposition leaders in Hyderabad in 1988. He stepped up efforts to bring together warring opposition parties with the sole aim to defeat Congress.

It was due to sustained efforts by NTR and his series of talks with leaders like V. P. Singh, Karnataka Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde, Janata Party leader Chandra Shekhar and Lok Dal leader H. N. Bahugana that National Front was formed on August 6, 1988.

Emerging as a leader acceptable to all, NTR was chosen as chairman of National Front. At the first public meeting of the Front in Madras on September 17, 1989, NTR stated that in the past the Congress freed the country and now the time has come to free the country from the Congress misrule.

He also declared that his dream of bringing together all opposition parties has come true. The supporters of TDP founder began to see him as the Prime Minister in waiting Many believe that if TDP had not lost 1989 elections, NTR would have been one of the strong contenders for Prime Minister's position. The TDP was not happy when the post of Deputy Prime Minister was not offered to NTR.

In fact, NTR wanted to float a federal party to fight for the rights of the states. After the 1985 electoral victory, TDP passed a resolution for the formation of Bharata Desam. However, it never took off as NTR was undecided on its shape and ideology.

NTR has also campaigned for Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) in 1985 Assam assembly elections. In 1987, he campaigned in Haryana assembly polls in support of Devi Lal led Lok Dal. The next year saw him campaigning against the Congress party in the crucial by-elections in north India.

Senior journalist Ramesh Kandula wrote in the epilogue of his book 'Maverick Messiah' that NTR was the only regional leader who campaigned extensively across the nation to build a national political alternative.

"NTR also remains the only regional party leader who was able to attract huge crowds in north India. The TDP chief campaigned in 16 states, including J&K, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam and Nagaland, in support of the National Front," he wrote.
Kolkata, May 28 : A fresh controversy has erupted in West Bengal after an assistant teacher of the government school, who is leading face of the Kurmi movement, was transferred hours after attack on the convoy of Trinamool Congress' national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

Kurmi leader Rajesh Mahato, who is an assistant teacher with Banapur High School in his native district of West Midnapore, on Saturday received transfer letter from the West Bengal School Education Department that was issued on Friday, the same day when the attack on convoy occurred.

What had caught the attention of many was that he had been transferred to Chamta Adarsha High School, which is over 700 kms from Mahato's native district. In the notification, he has been asked to join his new assignment with immediate effect.

The people from the Kurmi Community have been protesting for quite some time demanding Scheduled Tribe status.

Describing the attack as a "vindictive transfer", the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari had claimed that Mahato had been "vengefully and arbitrarily" transferred to Cooch Behar.

"This autocratic decision has been taken without adhering to any norms. I strongly condemn this transfer, which is nothing but an act of suppression, committed by the West Bengal government. I request the democracy loving people of the state to kindly raise their voice against such a vicious and wicked act, which is being committed with the sole intention of silencing democratic voices," he said.

On Saturday, while addressing a rally at Salboni in West Midnapore district, where the attack on Abhishek Banerjee's convoy took place, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that BJP was trying to create caste-violence in the state by instigating the Kurmis against the other tribal communities.

"The BJP was trying to create a Manipur-like situation in West Bengal, so that the NDA-led Union government can have a chance to deploy Army in West Bengal," she alleged.
New Delhi, May 28 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to two students, Gyamar Nyokum from Arunachal Pradesh, and Vishakha Singh from Bihar, during his 'Mann Ki Baat' radio talk show on Sunday.

The students had participated in the Yuva Sangam initiative, aimed at introducing new cultures between the people of two states.

Nyokum, a first-year student at NIT (AP), informed PM Modi that he learned about Yuva Sangam through his institute and subsequently searched for information about it on the Internet. He travelled to Rajasthan through Yuva Sangam and discovered the rich culture of the state.

"It was my first time visiting a place outside of Arunachal Pradesh. I learned about the vibrant culture of Rajasthan, which I had never known before," Nyokum shared with PM Modi. In response, Modi informed Gyamar that many soldiers posted at the Arunachal Pradesh border are from Rajasthan and suggested that Gyamar would feel happy when he meets them.

PM Modi then requested Nyokum to write a blog about his journey, detailing how he learned about new cultures and experienced the heritage of Rajasthan.

After Nyokum, PM Modi spoke with Vishakha Singh from Sasaram Village in Bihar. She is currently studying Computer Science and is in her second year of the programme. Singh informed PM Modi that she learned about Yuva Sangam through her college's WhatsApp group and decided to participate in it.

When PM Modi asked Vishakha Singh if she had learned about new cultures and tried different foods, given that the food culture of Bihar and Tamil Nadu is quite different, she replied that everything was amazing. She shared, "I learned how to adopt and embrace a new culture. I was sent to Tamil Nadu, where I visited ISRO and met the Lieutenant Governor of Tamil Nadu. I tried new food, made new friends, and had meaningful conversations." PM Modi also requested Vishakha to write a blog, sharing her experience and enlightening others about how she learned about the new culture.
World leaders have congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after being re-elected for a third term on Sunday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Erdogan, who has collaborated closely with Russia on key international issues despite disagreements, on his re-election.

"Your victory in these elections is the logical result of your dedicated work as head of the Turkish Republic," Putin said, according to the Kremlin website.

Putin told Erdogan that his victory was "clear evidence of the Turkish people's support for your efforts to strengthen state sovereignty and pursue an independent, foreign policy".

Putin also told Erdogan that Russia "highly values your personal contribution to the development of friendly Russian-Turkish relations" and expressed "readiness to continue our constructive dialogue".

Also, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the re-election of Erdogan, who despite close ties with Russia's leader has positioned himself as a mediator in the ongoing conflict.

"We count on the further strengthening of the strategic partnership for the good of our countries, as well as the strengthening of cooperation for the security and stability of Europe," Zelensky said in a post on Twitter.

For his part, French leader Emmanuel Macron congratulated Erdogan saying the two nations have "immense challenges" to work on together.

Writing on Twitter, Macron said these include the "return of peace to Europe".

"With President Erdogan, who I congratulate, we will continue to move forward", he said.

Similarly, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz congratulated Erdogan, hailing the countries as "close partners and allies" whose "people and economies are deeply intertwined".

"Congratulations to President Erdogan, together we want to advance our common agenda with a fresh impetus," Scholz wrote on Twitter.

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Megan James (center), recreational therapy coordinator for AltaPointe Health's two psychiatric hospitals, was recognized at the Mobile Community Health Leadership Awards.

If you follow the sounds of joy and laughter echoing through BayPointe or EastPointe Hospital, you're likely to find Megan James, CTRS, in the midst of it all. Megan serves as the recreational therapy coordinator for AltaPointe Health's two psychiatric hospitals.

Every day, Megan leads a diverse range of activities including games, exercises, sports, and art, with the aim of enhancing the well-being of each patient and progressing towards their treatment goals. However, this Saturday, the spotlight was on Megan herself and her remarkable achievements.

Megan was honored at the Mobile Community Health Leadership Awards, hosted by the Mobile Medical Museum. These awards honor local leaders who demonstrate exceptional dedication in education, awareness, and action regarding Mobile's most pressing community health concerns.

Dr. Daryn Glassbrook, Executive Director of the Mobile Medical Museum, explained, "We have not previously recognized a recreational therapist and saw this as a prime opportunity to shed light on this aspect of community health and acknowledge Megan's outstanding work."

During the ceremony, Megan was commended as "a passionate advocate for recreational therapy, utilizing therapeutic activities and community reintegration to assist individuals with disabilities or debilitating conditions in regaining skills, improving mood, and fostering social connections."

In order to enhance her recreational therapy efforts, Megan has also trained her two goldendoodles as Certified Therapy Dogs, affectionately named Zeke and Ollie. These furry companions accompany Megan to the hospitals, providing emotional support to both patients and fellow staff members.

Nicolette Harvey, associate director for AltaPointe's hospitals, expressed immense pride in Megan's accomplishments, stating, "We are incredibly proud of Megan and consider ourselves fortunate to have her as an integral part of the treatment teams at BayPointe and EastPointe. Our patients face significant challenges, but Megan consistently goes above and beyond to enhance their experience and cultivate an atmosphere of encouragement and enthusiasm."

Megan was further commended for her commitment to passing on her expertise to the next generation of recreational therapists, serving as an adjunct instructor at the University of South Alabama.

Megan James' unwavering dedication to improving the lives of psychiatric patients through recreational therapy has earned her well-deserved recognition. Her exceptional contributions and compassionate approach continue to make a lasting impact within the community.

ABOUT ALTAPOINTE

AltaPointe Health is an extensive mental health and family medical healthcare system. Our clinicians provide more than 1.3 million hospital, outpatient, residential and crisis services annually. Rounding out the continuum, AltaPointe operates two psychiatric hospitals serving children and adults, 20 outpatient behavioral healthcare clinics, and a behavioral health crisis center. AltaPointe's providers also serve as the administration and faculty for the University of South Alabama, College of Medicine-Department of Psychiatry.


Newly elected Greek lawmakers were sworn in Sunday but the Parliament in which they sit may be dissolved as early as Monday, ahead of fresh elections on June 25.

No party achieved an overall majority in the election on May 21, which was held under simple proportional representation.

The ruling New Democracy, with 40.79% of the vote, won 146 seats, five short of an overall majority in the 300-member chamber.

The main opposition Syriza, with 20.07% - almost 11.5 points lower than in the previous election, won 71. The socialist PASOK was third.

There was no attempt to form a coalition and the leaders of the three main parties returned their mandates to form a government almost as soon as they got them.

A constitutionally mandated meeting on Wednesday with President Katerina Sakellaropoulou and all five leaders of the parties represented in parliament merely confirmed that a second election would take place.

A caretaker government headed by a senior judge was sworn in Thursday.

The next election will be contested under a different system.

The lawmakers will elect the speaker and deputy speakers Monday morning. Parliament will be dissolved either Monday or Tuesday, signaling the start of the electoral campaign.

The new election will be fought under a different system awarding a bonus of 25-50 seats to the winning party, depending on its performance.

Although New Democracy is the clear favorite, an overall majority is by no means automatic: the more parties there are in parliament, the higher the share of the vote needed for an outright majority will be.

On May 21, two more parties barely missed the 3% threshold for gaining parliamentary representation. If they get in on June 25, this could raise the score required for the election winner to achieve an overall majority to about 39%.

New Democracy officials appealed to voters not to take the result for granted and abstain, while opposition leaders called on the people to clip New Democracys wings and avoid the prospect of an all-powerful conservative government.

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The Ministry of Municipality, under the leadership of HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, is hosting the first Qatar Real Estate Forum. The event will take place on June 4-5, 2023, at the Sheraton Doha Hotel.

A number of ministers along with business executives working in the real state sector will participate in the forum. The forum will address the regulations and legislations and their crucial role in making further progress in the sustainable real estate sector.

With the participation of 35 keynote speakers and 1,500 representatives from both public and private sectors, including real estate developers and industry experts, the forum includes 11 sessions and workshops that discuss the various aspects of this vital sector.

Ahmed Al Emadi, the Vice Chairman of the forum's organizing committee, emphasized that the event showcases the promising investment prospects available in Qatar.
The latest hearing in the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA (the FDA abortion pill case) proved to be the fiercest yet. Arguments were heard at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals over the FDAs alleged failure to safeguard women and girls against the abortion pill, mifepristone. What was assumed would be a rehashing of facts already heard in court in March turned out to be a sharp exchange between judges and lawyers of all parties. This hearing brought out striking information on modern-day abortions that would shock most Americans. Lets dive in.

Wheres the Doctor?

Whenever the topic of abortion is brought up, pro-abortion activists turn to the knee-jerk slogan, Politicians should stay out of a decision between a woman and her doctor. They repeat this slogan ad nauseam as it proves to be one of their most effective talking points with the public. Im curious if any of them watched this hearing because theres a problemwhen it comes to the most used form of abortion, the doctor is gone. Bidens FDA has completely taken the doctor out of the process. The 5th Circuit judges asked FDA counsel if the most widely used form of abortion requires a doctor.

She answered, No doctor has to be involved. Thats true.

Shes right. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden Administration removed the requirement of in-person medical visits and made it permanent in Dec. 2021. This decision stripped ultrasounds, labs and in-person screening with a doctor or medical staff. The FDAs lawyer claimed that ultrasounds are more formality than safety  used only as a data gathering tool. This is a dangerous mindset when it comes to women with ectopic pregnancies. One in 50 women have ectopic pregnancies and must be confirmed by an ultrasound. Without it, women taking abortion pills face life-threatening ruptures requiring immediate surgery. It is also true that without medical staff you cant confirm how far along the woman is in her pregnancy, which is critical because mifepristone is not to be taken past 10 weeks. But according to FDA counsel, the 10-week gestational limit isnt tied to patient safety. When pressed by the judge how to gauge gestational age, counsel replied, You can assess by asking questions. With abortions now being mailed and self-managed, if an abortion is between a woman and her doctor  where is the doctor?

Abortions by email?

What started as a conversation about telehealth abortions quickly turned into a grill on how telehealth is conducted. One judge asked how telehealth in the case of the abortion pill works: Is it video, Zoom so they observe the person to see what the gestational stage is? Can this be done via emailall just an email exchange, is that all thats required?

To which the FDA counsel replied, FDA does not dictate the practice of medicine. The judge asked if the medical staff conducting telehealth for abortions are required to be in the same state as the woman because theyve seen amicus briefs citing that people are using intermediary addresses and drop boxes to ship pills to different states. To which FDA counsel answered again that none of those issues are dictated by the FDA. Another judge jumped in to ask, Did the FDA consider crossing state lines, telemedicine across state lines, or intermediariesthe idea that someone in California would prescribe things for someone in Mississippi and that there would be go-arounds, work-arounds? FDA counsel responded swiftly, No, those things are not relevant [to the safety of the drug] and no reason to think thats part of the problem.

But it is a problem for myriad reasons.

Abortions by email, telehealth or transport cant safeguard women and girls against coercion or abuse. These situations cant account for abusers who may be just out of view of the computer screen or peddling abortion pills. Its reckless to think that an intermediary address and the transporting of pills will result in the same environment as an in-person visit.

The FDA can do no wrong.

The plaintiffs in the case, a group of doctors led by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM), point out that the FDA ignored their own policies again and again  first when they fast-tracked approval of the abortion pill by designating pregnancy as an illness, second when they failed to conduct any focused studies on minors, third when they used COVID-19 as a reason to do away with medical visits, ultrasounds and lab work. They just started letting pills be shipped straight to peoples homes (sometimes without parental notification or consent).

When the judges asked FDAs counsel about this, she replied that it is not the courts role to second guess the FDAs expertise and this case needs to be resolved strictly on procedural grounds. Judge Ho shot back, Why not just focus on the facts of this case rather than have this sort of FDA can do no wrong theme? and sharing they had just heard an FDA case the day before. Its not just the judges who are skeptical of the FDAs expertise; a majority of Americans say they dont trust the FDA. Because its not the first time the FDA has been too cozy with drug makers  just look at the many opioid scandals. The idea that agency decisions are set in stone and no one can ever question them is not just inaccurate but undemocratic, and in the case of mail-order abortion pills its downright dangerous. Both sides of the aisle have challenged FDA decisions. It was a Democrat governor who sued to block Zohydro (an opioid) in Massachusetts due to concerns about abuse. The FDA left it on the market for almost a decade before it was finally pulled for not being safe.

After listening to this full exchange, one thing is clear - not one judge held back in their pursuit of the truth.

Emily V. Osment is vice president of communications for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.
The United States and Saudi Arabia called on warring sides in Sudan to extend a cease-fire due to expire Monday.

The Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary force, battling for control of Sudan since mid-April, had agreed last week to the weeklong truce, brokered by the U.S. and the Saudis. However, the cease-fire, like others before it, did not stop the fighting in the capital of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

In a joint statement early Sunday, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia called for an extension of the current truce which expires at 9:45 p.m. local time Monday.

While imperfect, an extension nonetheless will facilitate the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people, the statement said.

The statement also urged Sudans military government and the rival Rapid Support Forces to continue negotiations.

The fighting broke out in mid-April between the military and the powerful RSF. Both military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF leader Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo led the 2021 coup that removed the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

The fighting turned Khartoum and the adjacent city of Omdurman into a battleground. The clashes also spread elsewhere in the country, including the war-wracked Darfur region.

The conflict has killed hundreds of people, wounded thousands and pushed the country to near collapse. It forced more than 1.3 million out of their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, or to neighboring nations.

Residents reported renewed sporadic clashes Sunday in parts of Omdurman, where the armys aircraft were seen flying over the city. Fighting was also reported in al-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur.

The U.S.-Saudi statement came two days after Burhan demanded in a letter to the U.N. secretary-general that the U.N. envoy to his country, Volker Perthes, be replaced accusing the diplomat of bias and of not respecting "national sovereignty.

Burhans letter came after Perthes accused the warring parties of disregarding the laws of war by attacking homes, shops, places of worship and water and electricity installations.

In his briefing to the U.N. Security Council last week, Perthes blamed the leaders of the military and the RSF for the war, saying that they have chosen to settle their unresolved conflict on the battlefield rather than at the table.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building in New Delhi on Sunday morning and expressed hope that it will become a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi carries the 'Sengol' in a procession before installing it in the Lok Sabha chamber at the inauguration of the new Parliament building, in New Delhi on Sunday, May 28, 2023. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is also seen. Photograph: @narendramodi/Twitter

Dressed in traditional attire, Modi walked into Parliament premises from its Gate No. 1 and was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke divine blessings.

The prime minister prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand.

Modi then carried the Sengol in a procession amid tunes of nadaswaram and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha chamber.

"As the new building of India's Parliament is inaugurated, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise. May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress," the prime minister tweeted later.

IMAGE: Modi unveils a plaque to mark inauguration of new Parliament building. Photograph: @narendramodi/Twitter

He also shared pictures of the inaugural event held this morning.

Several Union ministers, including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S Jaishankar, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Mansukh Mandaviya and Jitendra Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, BJP president J P Nadda among others were present on the occasion.

The prime minister felicitated with shawls and souvenirs some of the workers for their key role in the construction of the new Parliament building.

A multi-faith prayer was also held to mark the occasion.

The prime minister, along with the Speaker and some other dignitaries, later went to the old Parliament House.

The events to mark the inauguration are being held amid a boycott by several Opposition parties which insist that President Droupadi Murmu as the Head of the State should do the honours.

IMAGE: PM Modi installs the 'Sengol' in an enclosure on the right side of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha chamber. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is also seen. Photograph: ANI

The new Parliament building, constructed by Tata Projects Ltd, will also have a grand Constitution Hall to showcase India's democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space.

The triangular-shaped four-storey building has a built-up area of 64,500 square metres.

The building has three main gates -- Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar.

It will have separate entrances for VIPs, MPs and visitors.

The material used for the new building has been acquired from various parts of the country.

The teakwood used in the building was sourced from Nagpur in Maharashtra, while the red and white sandstone was from Sarmathura in Rajasthan. The sandstone for the Red Fort and Humayun's Tomb in the national capital was also known to have been sourced from Sarmathura.

IMAGE: Modi bowed down before the Sengol, which was handed over to him by Adheenams, before it was installed in the new Parliament building, during the inauguration ceremony on Sunday. Photograph: PMO/PTI Photo

The Kesharia green stone has been procured from Udaipur, the red granite from Lakha near Ajmer and the white marble has been sourced from Ambaji in Rajasthan.

"In a way, the entire country came together to construct the temple of democracy, thus reflecting the true spirit of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat," an official said.

The steel structure for the false ceilings in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers has been sourced from the Union territory of Daman and Diu, while the furniture in the new building was crafted in Mumbai.

The stone 'jaali' (lattice) works dotting the building were sourced from Rajnagar in Rajasthan and Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

IMAGE: Modi takes blessings from high priests of various 'adheenams' in Tamil Nadu at the inauguration of the new Parliament building. Photograph: PTI Photo

The materials for the Ashoka Emblem were sourced from Aurangabad in Maharashtra and Jaipur in Rajasthan, while the Ashok Chakra donning the massive walls of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers and the exteriors of the Parliament building were from Indore in Madhya Pradesh.

The new Parliament building used manufactured sand or M-sand from Charkhi Dadri in Haryana in the concrete mix for the construction activities.

M-Sand is considered environmentally friendly as it is manufactured by crushing large hard stones or granite and not by dredging river beds.

The fly ash bricks used in the construction were sourced from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, while brass works and pre-cast trenches were from Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi performs 'pooja' at the inauguration. Photograph: PMO/PTI Photo

Built at an estimated cost of Rs 1200 crore, the new Parliament building can comfortably seat 888 members in the Lok Sabha chamber and 300 in the Rajya Sabha chamber.

In the case of a joint sitting of both Houses, a total of 1,280 members can be accommodated in the Lok Sabha chamber.

The prime minister laid the foundation stone of the new Parliament building, a key component of the ambitious Central Vista project, on December 10, 2020. The construction work started in early 2021 and took a little over two years to complete.

The present Parliament building was completed in 1927 and is now 96 years old.

Over the years, the old building was found to be inadequate for the present day requirements.

Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha had passed resolutions urging the government to construct a new building for Parliament.

IMAGE: A multi-faith prayer was held to mark the occasion. Photograph: @ombirlakota/Twitter

The existing building served as independent India's first Parliament and witnessed the adoption of the Constitution.

Originally called the Council House, the building housed the Imperial Legislative Council. The Parliament building witnessed the addition of two floors in 1956 to address the demand for more space.

In 2006, the Parliament Museum was added to showcase the 2,500 years of rich democratic heritage of India.

Officials said the old building was never designed to accommodate a bicameral legislature and the seating arrangements were cramped and cumbersome, with no desks beyond the second row.

The Central Hall in the old Parliament building has a seating capacity only for 440 people and the need for more space was acutely felt during joint sittings of both houses.
Amid the raging Sengol row, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said the positions taken by the government and the Opposition on the issue are reconcilable, as he called for embracing this symbol from the past to affirm the values of our present.

IMAGE: rime Minister Narendra Modi carries the 'Sengol' in a procession before installing it in the Lok Sabha chamber at the inauguration of the new Parliament building, in New Delhi on Sunday, May 28, 2023. Photograph: @narendramodi/Twitter

His remarks come amid a war of words between the Congress and the BJP over the history of the Sengol with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying it was a symbol of the transfer of power from the British in 1947 and should have gotten its due respect after Independence, but was kept on display as a "walking stick" at Anand Bhawan in Prayagraj.

The Congress has claimed there was no documentary evidence of Lord Mountbatten, C Rajagopalachari and Jawaharlal Nehru describing the Sengol as a symbol of transfer of power from the British to India.

In a long Twitter post, Tharoor said, "My own view on the Sengol controversy is that both sides have good arguments. The government rightly argues that the sceptre reflects a continuity of tradition by embodying sanctified sovereignty and the rule of dharma. The Opposition rightly argues that the Constitution was adopted in the name of the people and that sovereignty abides in the people of India as represented in their Parliament, and is not a kingly privilege handed down by divine right."

"The two positions are reconcilable if one simply drops the debateable red herring about the sceptre having been handed to (Jawaharlal) Nehru by Mountbatten to symbolise the transfer of power, a story for which there is no proof," he said.

Tharoor said instead it should be simply said that the Sengol sceptre is a traditional symbol of power and authority, and by placing it in the Lok Sabha, India is affirming that sovereignty resides there and not with any monarch.

"Let us embrace this symbol from the past to affirm the values of our present," the former Union minister and MP from Thiruvananthapuram said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building in New Delhi on Sunday morning and installed the historic Sengol in the Lok Sabha chamber.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday described the inauguration of the new Parliament building as an "immortalised" moment in the country's development journey, asserting it will mark the dawn of a self-reliant and developed India which will also inspire the progress of other nations.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi being welcomed as he arrives in the Lok Sabha chamber of the new Parliament building, in New Delhi on Sunday, May 28, 2023. Photograph: PTI Photo

In a speech delivered from the grand and cavernous Lok Sabha hall decorated in peacock motif, Modi said the new Parliament reflected the aspirations and resolve of the "new India" to set and work towards achieving new targets.

"Every decision taken here will lay the foundation of India's glorious future... the way to empower the poor, Dalits, backwards, tribals, divyangs and other marginalised sections goes through here," he said, adding "each brick and wall of this Parliament building should be dedicated to the welfare of the poor".

Lauding the building for its reflection of India's diversity and traditional riches in its architecture, he said the new India is shedding the "slave mentality" which had crept into the country after hundreds of years of bondage.

He equated the 25-year period -- from now till the centenary of India's independence in 2047-- to the similar time gap between Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement which had ended in 1922 and the country's freedom.

Gandhi's movement led to a "new consciousness" among the masses and filled them with confidence as they devoted themselves to freedom, he said, adding that every citizen should work similarly for a developed India in the next 25 years.

"The new Parliament is a reflection of aspirations and dreams of 140 crore Indians. This is a temple of our democracy that gives a message of India's resolve to the world. There are a few moments in every nation's history that are immortalised. Some dates become the indelible signature on the face of time. May 28, 2023 is one such day," he asserted.

Modi's address came after he inaugurated the new building at a grand ceremony which included a havan, a multi-faith prayer ceremony and the installation of the Sengol in a special enclosure in the Lok Sabha chamber.

The prime minister said the nine years of his government mark a period of reconstruction and work for the poor's welfare.

He expressed his satisfaction over this hour of pride, noting that four crore houses and 11 crore toilets for the poor were built during the period.

Over 4 lakh km of roads to connect villages, more than 50,000 'Amrit sarovars' (pond), and more than 30,000 new 'Panchayat Bhawans' were also built, he added.

"From Panchayat Bhawans to Parliament only one inspiration guided us, that is, the development of the nation and its people," he said.

"When a country like India, full of diversity, with a huge population that tackles various challenges, moves forward with a belief, it inspires many countries of the world.

"Every achievement of India is going to become an achievement for different countries in different parts of the world in the coming days," he said.

The prime minister asserted that India is not only a democratic nation but is also the mother of democracy.

"Our democracy is our inspiration, our Constitution our resolve. Parliament is the best representative of this inspiration and resolution," he said, adding that the new Parliament building was a perfect example of the co-existence of the old and new.

Speaking to an audience, which included MPs, chief ministers, members of the higher judiciary and other dignitaries, he invoked India's ancient glory which included its architecture and town-planning and lamented that after centuries of slavery, Indians were besotted by constructions of other countries.

India today is bending that "stream of ancient glory" to its way again, he asserted.

"Every India is proud today looking at the new Parliament. It represents heritage and architecture, art and skill, culture and the voice of Constitution," he said, lauding the use of material from different parts of the country in the building to symbolise "Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat".

With the Opposition criticising the government's decision to construct the new building, Modi asserted that it was becoming difficult for everyone to do their work in the old building due to various technological and space constraints.

It was being discussed for a decade or two that a new Parliament building is needed, he said, adding it also needed to be considered that more MPs will join Parliament, a development that may occur after delimitation post-2026, till when the number of seats in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha is fixed.

About 25 parties attended the event while 20 opposition parties boycotted it, accusing the prime minister of "sidelining" President Droupadi Murmu.

Soon after he arrived in Lok Sabha amidst chants of 'Modi, Modi', the messages by President Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar were read out, while Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Harivansh also addressed the gathering.

Modi also talked about the 'Sengol', saying that it was a symbol of power transfer from the British and had now been given the respect it deserves after being kept in Anand Bhawan in Prayagraj.

"In the Chola empire, it (Sengol) was considered a symbol of the Kartavya path (path of duty), Seva Path (path of service) and Rashtra path (path of the nation)," Modi said.

In his remarks, the prime minister also pointed out that the construction of the new Parliament building gave employment to 60,000 workers and a digital gallery dedicated to them has also been built in the complex.

The building has been completed in about two-and-a-half years at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 1,200 crore.

He said the new Parliament building will be a testament to the dawn of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India).

"It will be a witness to our journey towards a Viksit Bharat (developed India)," Modi said at the event attended by former president Ram Nath Kovind, Chief Ministers Y S Jagan Reddy, Yogi Adityanath, Eknath Shinde and Neiphu Rio, foreign envoys, Parliamentarians and people from different walks of life.

Earlier, dressed in traditional attire, Modi walked into Parliament premises from its Gate No. 1 and was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke divine blessings.

The prime minister prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand.

Modi then carried the Sengol in a procession amid tunes of nadaswaram and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha chamber.

The prime minister felicitated with shawls and souvenirs some of the workers for their key role in the construction of the new Parliament building.

The new Parliament building, constructed by Tata Projects Ltd, will also have a grand Constitution Hall to showcase India's democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space.

The triangular-shaped four-storey building has a built-up area of 64,500 square metres.

The building has three main gates -- Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar.
Vermont Assembly member Mollie Burke, D-Windham 8, talks to members of the student council from Brattleboro Union High School about the hurdles the Youth Voting charter must overcome in the next few weeks to become law.
Despite immense sacrifices, and extraordinary cases of heroism, all the efforts of Palestinians and the Arab armies were in vain. But why? Kamal Al-Sherif, speaking to Amira Howeidy, recounts his experiences in 1948, his feelings on the ground, as an active participant in the struggle, and in retrospect, as a supporter of ongoing Palestinian resistance

From Al-Ahram Weekly archives: Fifty years of dispossession 1948-1998*

Issue: 4 June 1998

Kamel Al-Sherif is secretary-general of the International Council for Islamic Call and Aid. He has held several important posts in the Jordanian government, serving as both a cabinet minister and as Jordan's' ambassador to several countries. He was one of the leaders of the Egyptian volunteers in the 1948 War, fighting with Iraqi and Syrian volunteers in Jaffa, the Tolkaram-Nablus-Jenen Triangle and Jerusalem and later held a leading post with the Egyptian and Palestnian volunteers in the Negev. During that period, Al-Sherif was in direct contact with key players in events, including Abdel-Rahman Azzam, the first secretary-general of the Arab League, Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, the Palestinian mufti and head of the Arab Higher Committee, and veteran military commanders such as Maj.Gen. Al-Mawawai, Maj.Gen. Fouad Sadeq, Abdel-Qader Al-Husseini, Hassan Salama, Abdallah Al-Tal, Fawzi Al-Qawuqji, and many others. Al-Sherif's dramatic experience in the war was published in 1949 in The Muslim Brotherhood in the Palestine War.

As a fighter in the 1948 War, how do you see the situation 50 years later?

Right from the start the 1948 War was an unequal battle. The Jews had worked and planned for years, perhaps even centuries, to place themselves on the map of the world and to secure positions of power, financially, politically and in the media, so they might influence the policies of the super powers. At the same time the Arabs were under British occupation, an occupation that deprived them from everything.

Within the Palestinian arena the situation was as follows: the Jews, who had planned well in advance for war, were exceptionally well prepared. Settlers had been brought from all over the world, secured settlements had been constructed in strategic areas, forces such as the [Zionist militias] Haganah and Palmach had been trained and organised. And the Jewish gangs had no hesitation in committing the most heinous crimes.

Furthermore the British mandate assisted them in achieving their aims as the British relied heavily on the Balfour Declaration to facilitate the establishment of a homeland for the Jews in Palestine.

The Palestinian leadership comprised the mufti, Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, and other exiled leaders of the Arab Higher Committee. On the ground the Palestinian leadership was dispersed, often in conflict, and lacked any coherent military direction. Training was unprofessional, arms were in short supply and when they were available, were hopelessly expensive. Military operations tended to assume the character of a tribal conflict rather than modern, technological warfare.

This is not to denigrate the courage of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab armies and volunteers who helped them. They made immense sacrifices and there were many cases of extraordinary heroism. But all these efforts, all these sacrifices, all the bloodshed was in vain. Everything was negated due to the lack of preparation and planning. The presence of the Arab armies also gave rise to a number of specific problems, since they arrived in Palestine as vehicles for their political leaders' ambitions, leaders who had placed their bets on maintaining military security in return for temporary regional gains.

Why did you call for guerrilla warfare after the war was over? And if that had happened, would the situation have been different?

I called for guerrilla tactics when the war was already in progress, a call that implied arming and training young people under a single, unified plan. Their remit would be to operate behind enemy lines, destroying roads and bridges and hampering the movement of vehicles. My colleagues and I actively worked on such projects in Jaffa, in the Tolkaram-Nablus-Jenein triangle and in the Negev. Such activities, however, could not replace the role of regular armies that occupy and defend the land and support the building of national institutions. Within such a context one should perhaps point out that in certain situations, as was the case with the communists in China and Vietnam, guerrilla units developed over a period into fully fledged armies.

I underlined the necessity of training groups to undertake guerrilla actions during the war, alongside the Arab armies. But I also called for the pursuit of guerrilla tactics against Israel after the war was over and continued with this policy in the Gaza Strip and in Jerusalem with the aim of keeping the issue alive so that the enemy would not enjoy the fruits of security or peace. I also waited for the resistance to transform itself into an army, or else for the armies to upgrade themselves into forces capable of successfully engaging in battles. It was our efforts in this respect that later developed and affected the course of the Palestinian resistance.

Where did the Arabs go wrong in 1948? To what degree could the Arab armies have performed better, given that Palestine was under British mandate?

At the time, there was a trend that supported a political solution that would avert the necessity of going to war. King Abdullah of Jordan, Nori Al-Said in Iraq and Ismail Sidki in Egypt were the main propagators of this view, a view based on the notion that the Arabs could not defeat the Jews militarily if only because of logistic inequalities. Such a view was reinforced by the support of the super powers for the Jews.

Their suggested alternative was to accept pre-war British projects in return for stopping Jewish immigration and establishing a unified state with a Jewish minority. When the UN resolved on partition, they agreed. Yet such a position was out of step with Arab public opinion which believed that the Jews had no legitimate claim to an inch of Palestine, and that any part they occupied would have been wrested from its rightful, Arab inhabitants.

Such opinions could hardly be argued against since they remain beyond dispute. To say, now, then, that we should have accepted the logic of those who were antagonistic to the war is to over-simplify the situation.

In retrospect, too, it is clear that the Jews were prepared to violate any agreement and would not have hesitated to expand the Jewish area. Any agreement, after all, needs at least the threat of force if it is to be implemented, and saved from violation. The Arabs lacked the force necessary to ensure that Israel hold to any agreement -- something which, incidentally, they still do. I can only say that from my experience fate and history made combat between us and the Jews inevitable.

Was there any real coordination between the different Arab armies?

There was no co-ordination between the Arab armies. In fact, sometimes they clashed with each other, as was the case with the Egyptian and Jordanian armies in Hebron and Bethlehem. There was a "unified" Arab leadership, but this was in reality a false image of a leadership that had absolutely no control on the course of the war itself.

I think that one of the reasons there was so much chaos is that the Arabs underestimated the power of the enemy, believing that it would surrender quickly, making it possible for the Arabs to expand their influence in Palestine. And on the ground we suffered greatly because of these conflicts. For example, the Egyptian army, in a very theatrical move, permitted the proceeding of some light troops lead by Egyptian officers to Birshiba, Hebron and Bethlehem, without dealing with a considerable number of Jewish settlements on the way, something which they paid for dearly later. They were interested in extending the battlefield lines and making their presence felt in as many places as they could without securing themselves, which was a major mistake. And they were far from being the only ones to make such mistakes.

How was the British mandate or UN support of the Jews implemented on ground?

The British mandate facilitated the establishment of a national home for the Jews. In this respect, Herbert Samuel, a staunch Zionist, was appointed British high commissioner to Palestine, while Norman Bentwich, another Zionist, became the chairman of the governmental authority in charge of property, and was thus able to issue laws that allow immigration and give the Jewish Agency large areas of land to build settlements and for agricultural expansion.

Operationally, the Jewish legion was well trained. It had fought with the allies in the Second World War and arrived in Palestine fully equipped. And yet more weapons were shipped to the Jews through ports controlled by the British forces. In contrast, should an Arab be found in possession of even an old rifle he could be subjected to imprisonment or a large fine.

Britain decided to leave Palestine and end the mandate only after it was sure the Jews were powerful enough to defend what they had built up under the noses of the British. Of course Britain did not want to give all of Palestine to the Jews. They wanted to give the Arabs something. But because the Arabs believed that they were the legal owners of the land and refused to give anything to the Jews, the Arabs, in the eyes of the British, were stubborn. It is this that lies at the root of the crisis that pushed some Arab leaders to negotiate with the British on what should be given to the Arabs.

The UN officials' concern was to supervise the partition and prevent any attempt to change its borders by force. This, in itself, represented a victory for the Jews since it preserved as the status quo something that was in essence unfair. Moreover, many UN soldiers were Jews of various European nationalities, and they got on much better with the Jews than with the Arabs. This does not negate the fact that the stand adopted by the UN tilted towards the Arabs later on. Yet this tilting occurred after the establishment of the Jewish state. Some Israeli politicians, I recall, said that they needed the UN in the establishment stage, but now the situation has changed.

To what degree were Britain and the US responsible for arms supplies to Zionist gangs during the war?

The Israelis had various sources of supply. Besides the US and Britain, there was France, Italy and Czechoslovakia. And in addition to these countries, there were Zionist agencies specialised in purchasing weapons and shipping them to Palestine. We shouldn't forget too that the Jews owned light arms and artillery manufacturing factories in the larger settlements which the British knew about but chose to turn a blind eye to. Mortar guns, mines and various ammunition were manufactured in the settlements together with armour for vehicles.

These might seem primitive arms now but 50 years ago they made a decisive difference, particularly given that the Arabs had no such weapons. And at the beginning of the conflict the Jews did not reveal everything they possessed. They did this only when it was necessary. Their advanced weapons appeared all at once, and only after the Arab armies had arrived in Palestine. Later on, we saw how air and naval lifts continued to support Israel in all its wars. Why the West supports Israel to this extent needs a much lengthier analysis than is possible here, one that would include the interface between religions, a historical hostility towards the Arabs and Islam, the guilt complex left by Jews in the Christian conscience and the pressure exercised by the Zionist lobby on Western politics.

How would you describe the general mood concerning the Palestinian question in the Arab world in 1948? Has this changed during the past 50 years?

Public opinion in Egypt, Syria, Iraq -- indeed in all the Arab countries -- was spurred by the idea of war and this greatly mitigated against any political solution. However, it did not change the fact that some Arab countries were still under the British mandate while others were under foreign occupation or ruled by weak regimes. The experience of Arab armies, if it existed at all, was limited to training and very primitive manoeuvres. Because there was no confidence between the governments and the people, the former continued to place obstacles before the volunteers, fearing that they might come, eventually, to constitute an internal threat.

Yet thinking of the state of enthusiasm that then existed, it appears in retrospective extraordinarily positive compared to the situation today. Interest in Palestine weakens daily, as people turn their backs on a history of recurrent defeats, or else are seduced by their governments' attempts to force them to accept feckless solutions. This situation holds dangers for the future, since I believe the aims of Zionism have remained unchanged.

The Zionist strategy is to move stage by stage, adopting whatever tools and methods suit the particular phase we are in. But the aim is constant -- to establish a greater Israel exercising control over the entire Arab region.

Although I believe that we should play the political game properly, I still think it necessary to prepare as if for a war that will take place in the near future. And one of the most important aspects of such preparation is for the Arab people to continue to carry out the duties and sacrifices this entails. Zionism must be viewed always as an alien force that usurped an Arab land and ousted an Arab people from their homes. We must remember that this is an unfair reality, one that has to be reversed no matter how long it takes.

What about the role of the Palestinians, both then and now?

Palestinians were living under harsh conditions, imposed on them by a mandate intended to establish the Jewish state. Despite the fact that the Balfour Declaration said that the establishment of a national home for the Jews should not harm the interests of the non-Jewish people, the Zionist project contrived to ignore the existence of the Palestinian people, as exemplified in Weizman's dictum that "Palestine is a land without people, for a people without land." Golda Meier similarly denied the existence of Palestinians. "This word, Palestinian, means nothing more than a passport, and by this definition, I am a Palestinian of course."

Continuing Palestinian resistance and sacrifice changed this concept gradually. But the Zionist scheme did not attempt to satisfy the Palestinian people or give them rights. On the contrary, it continued to attempt to destroy them, either by winning the acceptance of leaders for the Jewish project, by purchasing land, by liquidating "obstacles"... to cut the story short, to deal with the problem as cowboys dealt with the Indians. This approach is exemplified in Ben-Gurion's posthumously published Me, the Palestinians and the Arabs.

Palestinian resistance, though, continued on several fronts. They resisted Israeli settlement and rejected the process of selling land to the Jews. The amount of Palestinian land purchased by the Jews before 1948 did not exceed 3 per cent, most of which was sold by Arab investors from neighbouring countries, and not Palestinians. The rest of the land was seized by armed force.

One of the most successful strategies exercised by the Jews against the Palestinian people was to plant the suspicion that they were actually working as spies, in cahoots with their oppressors. So successful was this tactic that the Arab armies effectively excluded the Palestinians from the war. In so doing, the armed struggle lost an important pillar of potential support, alienating the only Arabs who were actually familiar with the lay of the land. This lead to major strategic mistakes and the loss of huge areas of land without fighting.

After the war, the Arab countries tried to rectify that mistake but committed yet others. They handed the Palestinian issue back to the Palestinians, but only after Palestine had been completely lost and its people made refugees.

It is my belief that the aim of some Arab leaders is to evade any responsibility for the consequences of the defeat and instead place it on the shoulders of the Palestinians. Indeed, one can argue that Arab countries played a role in pressuring the Palestinians to accept defeatist solutions. It is important to remember, in this context, that the Palestinians assumed responsibility for their cause only after that cause had been destroyed. What was supposed to happen in 1948 happened in the 70s and 80s and now, as a consequence, any Arab leader can say "we accept what the Palestinians accept," or can blame the Palestinian leadership and criticise it whenever this seems necessary to placate public opinion.

I think this is a wrong, indeed a dangerous, situation. The case must revert to its original terms, terms which state that Palestine belongs to its Arab people, Muslim and Christian, and that they have the right to a state on its land. The responsibility for liberating it from the Zionist occupation falls on the shoulders of the Arabs and Muslims.

Israel represents a major threat to the region, and Palestine is but the first stage in an ongoing scheme. Put out the fire in the neighbour's house before it grows and reaches you. And besides all this, there are religious, historical and sacred rights in Palestine which belong to the Arab Islamic nation, rights that it is forbidden to lose.



This article was first published in Al-Ahram Weeklys special pages commemorating 50 years of Al-Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe when Israel was created on 15 May 1948. These pages, published in 1998, were part of a year-long series of articles documenting the history and nature of the Arab-Israeli struggle, as well as that of Palestinian dispossession and exile.

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Stating that his crime tarnished the country's image and leniency will send the wrong message outside India, a city court has sentenced a 19-year-old man to two years in jail for molesting a woman tourist from Peru.

Metropolitan magistrate at Mazgaon court P I Mokashi convicted and sentenced accused Riyaz Ahmed on Friday, a little over two months after the incident.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on him.

The judgement, which became available on Saturday, held that "no such woman like the informant with good background and reputation and being a foreigner can come to the court merely to falsely implicate the accused without any reason unless such incident shall have taken place. During arguments on the quantum of punishment, the accused's lawyer had prayed for leniency considering his age.

As he was young and it was his first offence, he should be released on probation of good conduct, the lawyer had said.

But the court noted that the accused had entered the woman's room only to touch her, and now she was afraid of traveling in India.

Thereby this act of the accused has maligned the image of our country. If the accused is given benefit under Section 4 of Probation of Offenders Act, wrong message will be sent throughout the world, the magistrate observed.

The accused worked as a manager at the guest house where the 38-year-old woman from Peru, on a solo trip to Mumbai, was staying in March this year.

He kept visiting her room, insisted that she click selfies with him and touched her inappropriately on multiple occasions, she had alleged.
The Sengol, a golden sceptre with its origins going back to the Chola dynasty, now occupies a pride of place in the Indian Parliament. On Sunday, the 'staff of righteousness' was installed next to the Lok Sabha Speaker's chair in the new Parliament by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the run-up to the inauguration, the Sengol had become a contentious subject.

The Sengol installed in the Lok Sabha on May 28 is the same one that was handed over by Lord Mountbatten to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to symbolise the transfer of power from the British crown to Independent India.

The Congress, however, denied the historical significance of the Sengol, and other parties, like the Samajwadi Party claimed that the process in which the Sengol was installed was rooted in Brahminical values.

But the Sengol has come to represent a symbol of good governance. Staffs gracing parliaments is not unique to India. Several nations, especially democracies, have staffs at their parliaments.

Here is a list:

Mace of the House: USA

(Credit: history.house.gov)

One of the first emblems of the American government, the ceremonial mace is placed in the House of Representatives of the United States, often known as the Mace of the Republic. It stands for the American government's power, more specifically the House of Representatives' legislative authority.

The current mace has been in service since December 1, 1842. It was made by New York silversmith William Adams to replace the previous one that was burned in the Capitol Building fire on August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812. It cost $400 (equivalent to $11,000 in 2021). In the interim, a basic wooden mace was put to use.

Scottish Parliament Mace

(Credit: Twitter/ @EducationSP)

The silver mace in the current Scottish Parliament was made in 1999 and features a golden wedding ring. The mace is made of Scottish silver and has a belt of inlaid gold that was panned from Scottish rivers. The marriage of the people, the land, and the Parliament is symbolised by the golden band. At the head of the mace, thistles featuring the words "Wisdom, Justice, Compassion, Integrity" are weaved to symbolise the values held by the Scots for their Parliamentarians. The phrase "There shall be a Scottish Parliament - Scotland Act 1998" is engraved on the mace's head.

Mace of Parliament of Canada

(Credit: sencanada.ca)

The ceremonial maces used in the Canadian Senate and House of Commons represent the power that each house has been granted by the nation's head of state. The fourth mace, a duplicate of the third mace that was destroyed by fire at the Centre Block in 1916, is the one that is currently used in the Commons.

Similar procedures are followed in the provincial and territorial legislatures, where a mace is used to symbolise the sovereign's authority and power.

Mace of Parliament of Australia

(Credit: Parliament of Australia)

In Australia, the House of Representatives' mace is a representation of both the House's and the Royal authority. It also signifies the Speaker's authority because it has been stated that "the authority of the Speaker and of the House are indivisible."

Before the election of a Speaker, the Mace is put on brackets beneath the House Table, and when the Speaker takes his or her position after being elected by the House, it is placed on rest on the table.

Cokmar of Malaysia

(Credits: Wikipedia)

The Cokmar, also known as War Clubs or the Mace, is an additional symbol of power and an essential part of the Malaysian government's array of powers. The Cokmar pair is made of silver. Each is 81.32 cm long and is made out of a short silver shaft placed on a circular, fluted orb made of plain silver.

Mace of Parliament: New Zealand

(Credit: New Zealand Parliament)

A symbolic mace for the New Zealand House of Representatives has been used since 1866, when previous Speaker Sir Charles Clifford presented one to the Legislature. The Serjeant-at-Arms carries the mace, which is seen as a representation of the power of both the Speaker and the House.

Mace of Parliament: South Africa

(Credits: Parliament of South Africa)

The mace represents the power of the National Assembly. The Serjeant-at-Arms brings it into the chamber and announces the Speaker of the National Assembly's entrance. It serves as notice that the House is duly constituted and that its operations are official. Previously, a gold mace measuring 1.3 metres in length and 8.5 kilograms in weight was presented to Parliament by the Gold Producers' Committee of the Transvaal and Orange Free State Chamber of Mines. This mace was in use until 2004, when a new mace was made following extensive consultation in response to the Rules Committee's decision to examine the emblems of Parliament. The first time this mace was used was on September 14, 2004, during a National Assembly session.
The US House China Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party has recommended the inclusion of India in NATO Plus, a select group of American allies. India's potential inclusion in this select group of defence partners would enhance intelligence sharing, provide access to cutting-edge military technology, and reinforce the defence partnership between India and the United States.

Such developments reflect the growing recognition of India's role in countering Chinese influence and preserving peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. The committee, led by Chairman Mike Gallagher and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi, seeks to strengthen global security while countering the aggressive actions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the Indo-Pacific region. This proposal aligns with the ongoing efforts of Indian-American advocates, including Ramesh Kapoor, who has been advocating for India's inclusion in NATO Plus for the past six years.

What is NATO Plus?

NATO Plus is an arrangement that brings together countries with formal defence partnerships with the United States and the member nations of NATO. Currently, the NATO Plus group consists of Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Japan, and South Korea. These nations collaborate to strengthen collective security efforts.The proposal to include India in NATO Plus holds several strategic advantages for both India and the United States. By joining this select group of American allies, India would gain access to seamless intelligence sharing and the latest military technologies, reducing time lags in defence advancements. India's inclusion would further strengthen its defence partnership with the United States, aligning its policies with those of two influential powers: the US and Russia.



India's Role in Countering Chinese Influence

The committee calls for strengthening diplomatic deterrence by supporting Taiwan's participation in international organisations. It recommends amending the TAIPEI Act to publicly oppose any attempts by the CCP to undermine Taiwan's sovereignty by misusing and misleading others about the underlying purpose of UN Resolution 2758 or the United States' One China Policy. Such actions demonstrate the committee's commitment to upholding Taiwan's status and countering the CCP's influence.

The move implies that India's inclusion in NATO Plus is crucial for the US in addressing the strategic competition posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The intention of the US is to deter CCP aggression across the Indo-Pacific region. This move comes at a time when both the US and India recognise the need to counter China's growing influence and safeguard regional stability.

The committee highlights that economic sanctions against China in the event of an attack on Taiwan will be most effective when key allies, including NATO, NATO plus Group G7, and Quad members, join in a joint response. The unified approach of these nations not only enhances deterrence but also reinforces the importance of collective action in countering China's aggressive behaviour.

This recent recommendation is quite similar to US Congressman Ro Khanna's proposal last year, where he called for India's inclusion as the sixth country in NATO Plus. Congressman Khanna emphasised that this move would facilitate a stronger defence partnership between India and the United States, particularly in the face of the rise of China and Russia.

In Congressman Khanna's words, "I have worked on trying to add India as the sixth country to NATO Plus, and that would facilitate and make it easier to have this growing Defence Partnership and make sure that we're moving India towards more of a defence security alignment with the United States and Russia."Khannas previous proposal suggested support for deepening ties between the US and India. With India's growing role in the Indo-Pacific region, its inclusion in NATO Plus would further solidify its position as a key ally in the shared objective of promoting peace, stability, and deterrence in the face of evolving geopolitical challenges.
Several Jewish groups, politicians and an alliance of civil society groups are planning a memorial ceremony and a protest rally against a concert by Roger Waters in Frankfurt on Sunday evening. They accuse the Pink Floyd co-founder of antisemitism - an allegation he denies.

Waters has also drawn their ire for his support of the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel. Frankfurt authorities had initially tried to prevent the concert, but Waters challenged that move successfully in a local court. The concert is taking place in the city's Festhalle, where in November 1938 more than 2,700 Jews were rounded up by the Nazis, beaten and abused, and later deported to concentration camps.

It's very frustrating" that the concert is going ahead as scheduled even though Frankfurt officials and many others tried to prevent it, said Elio Adler, the head of the Jewish group WerteInitiative which supports the protest.

His words and imagery spread Jew-hatred and are part of a trend: to normalize Israel-hatred under the protection of freedom of speech or art, Adler added.

Last week, police in Berlin said they had opened an investigation of Waters on suspicion of incitement over a costume the Pink Floyd co-founder wore when he performed in the German capital earlier this month. Images on social media showed Waters firing an imitation machine gun while dressed in a long black coat with a red armband. Police confirmed that an investigation was opened over suspicions that the context of the costume could constitute a glorification, justification or approval of Nazi rule and therefore a disturbance of the public peace.

Waters rejected those accusations in a statement on Facebook and Instagram, saying that the elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms. He claimed that attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated.

During Sunday's ceremony, which will take place in front of the Frankfurt concert venue before Waters' concert begins, protesters will read out loud the names of 600 Jews who were rounded up at the Festhalle on November 9, 1939, the so-called Kristallnacht  the Night of Broken Glass  when Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

The organizers also plan to hold a joint Jewish-Christian prayer for the victims of the Nazi terror in Frankfurt. The city's mayor as well as the head of the local Jewish community will speak at the protest. In addition, activists plan to hand out flyers to concertgoers and wave Israeli flags, said Sacha Stawski from the Jewish group Honestly Concerned, which helped organize the protests. Protesters in Munich rallied against a concert by Waters earlier this month, after the city council said it had explored possibilities of banning the performance but concluded that it wasnt legally possible to cancel a contract with the organizer. Last year, the Polish city of Krakow canceled gigs by Waters because of his sympathetic stance toward Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Are there lessons to be learned for the post-Oslo struggle from the Black liberation movement in the United States? Drawing on the work of two prominent Afro-American political theorists, Elaine C. Hagopian* argues that only a reunited Palestinian people with an inclusive democratic secular state vision and leaders who can transcend ethnicity will help the Palestinians break out of the straightjacket of the peace process

From Al-Ahram Weekly archives: Fifty years of dispossession 1948-1998*

There are two major traditions that have dominated African-American thinking on the issue of equality and justice for Blacks in the United States: one is the Black self-development position, and the other is the demand for immediate civil rights through integration. These two positions are usefully represented in their more modern refined versions in the works of Harold Cruse and Cornel West.

Cruse stresses the need to focus inward, in order to build up community strength. From that strength as a national group, it is then possible to confront society with the reality of injustice and challenge it to positive social change. This change would be based on the recognition that America is a plural society, not merely a society of individuals as the US Constitution would have it.

In his controversial book, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual from Its Origins to the Present, Harold Cruse criticises Black intellectuals for their failure to develop a comprehensive Black strategy to bring about equality in American society. His critique focuses on four main points:

1. Blacks need to develop both a cultural sense of selfhood and a vision of society that could offer America something better than what it is and has been.

For Cruse, America is a nation defined essentially by racial/ethnic groups, both politically and socially. He does not suggest a political system based on group identity, with appointed or reserved elected positions, but rather constitutional guarantees of real equality for groups as communities, as well as individual civil and political rights.

2. The revolutionary transformation of America which Cruse felt Black cultural definition could inspire and lead, would require a comprehensive strategy combining economic resources and sustained political action. Parenthetically, it should be noted that Cruse admired Booker T. Washington's efforts to promote Black enterprise and economic success over the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People's (NAACP) drive for civil rights through integration. However, he criticised Washington's approach as one that worked within the American capitalist system as it was, rather than developing a Black, group-based economy that could support political action for the equality of all ethnic groups. Cruse decried the fact that Black leaders and intellectuals never brought the various cultural, economic and political components together into a comprehensive strategy. The relevance of this critique for the Palestinian movement cannot be underestimated, as we will see below.

3. The failure to develop a comprehensive Black strategy is explained in large part by the fact that Black intellectuals and leaders allowed themselves to be diverted from their course by white liberals and radicals, who advised them to seek individual civil rights through integration, i.e. the NAACP approach, or to merge with the labour movement to confront capitalism, i.e. the American communist party approach.

Funding for these efforts, from liberal or radical white sources, only reinforced their appeal for Black intellectuals. True, the NAACP liberal approach did bring gains for some individual Blacks, but the Black community as a whole remained in a condition of alienation, or what one Black sociologist has called "asset accumulation deficiency."

However, for Cruse, the NAACP approach failed to understand that just as it is possible to have independence without liberation, as Fanon pointed out long ago, so too, as is all too clear today, it is possible to have integration without real equality and justice. As I will note below, the Palestinians in Israel have, until recently, effectively adopted an NAACP approach, seeking equal rights through legal integration in Israeli society, and thus achieving neither integration nor equality.

Cruse also heaped criticism on the American communist party and a number of the white radicals who belonged to it for diverting the Black intelligentsia from focusing on their unique experience of slavery and post-slavery racism in American society.

They thus prevented them from developing a strategy relevant to their history, and based on Black needs, rather than on a class solidarity with labour. In fact, Blacks often met with racism from the left. The danger of well-intentioned friends -- liberals or radicals -- diverting the community from defining its own needs and strategies is also highly relevant to the Palestinians' predicament.

4. Black intellectuals also suffered from residual cultural differences among themselves. Thus, West Indian Blacks did not see eye to eye with American Blacks, who were themselves divided by the divergent experiences of Northerners and Southerners.

These differences conspired to obstruct the development of a common cultural vision that might have been able to confront American society head on with the fact of its racism. The gap between these communities still has not been bridged. This failure is relevant to the Palestinian struggle where differences have developed through the years of national defeat and through the division of the original community into three groups.

Unlike Cruse, Cornel West in his Race Matters advocates integration. But he is nevertheless critical of the liberal approach which proposes integration into the system as it is, and as the NAACP accepted. West wants the system reformed to guarantee social values respecting the rights of all in a multi-racial/ethnic democracy. He calls for a new moral leadership and moral framework for Blacks, founded on a mature Black identity, a coalition strategy and Black cultural democracy. He advocates Black perspectives that champion Black dignity and decency and which do not devalue any given group.

The quality and orientation of Black leadership and intellectuals are crucial in West's thinking. He identifies differing political and intellectual leadership styles as the major problem that Blacks have to solve, in order to assert their right to participate equally in a coalition with others in the anti-racist struggle. The three types of political leadership West identifies are: race/ethnic-effacing managerial leaders, race/ethnic-identifying protest leaders and race/ethnic-transcending prophetic leaders.

The race/ethnic-effacing manager is politically sophisticated, accommodating to the dominant white constituency, pragmatic, and as such, tends to neutralise progress and mute the prophetic voices in the black community by insisting that the mainstream is the only game in town.

The race/ethnic-identifying protester tends to confine him or herself to the black community, and serves as a power broker with nonblack elites.

The race/ethnic-transcending prophet is a rare figure in today's Black America. But it is only such leaders who will be capable of bringing into existence the new moral framework of which West speaks. The 1988 Jesse Jackson came close to being a race/ethnic-transcending prophetic leader, but as West observes, he was undone in the end by his past record of opportunism. This type of leader requires both integrity and political know-how, organisational skills allied with a moral vision and the ability to defy the pragmatism of the managers, the limitations of race/ethnic-identifying protester and to wait patiently for his moment.

The approaches taken by West and Cruse differ in emphasis more than in substance. Cruse wants Black intellectuals and leaders of quality to create the Black community first within the national and demographic context of America, and to have that cohesive community spur America as a whole towards a society based on group equality.

West, for his part, wants Black leaders and intellectuals to relate to the needs of Black street people, not use or misdirect them, and simultaneously reach out to other groups so as to promote a better life, not just for their constituency, but for all Americans. It is this reaching out towards a universal vision, grounded in a particular experience, which constitutes their common message. Nonetheless, Cruse calls for social revolution, i.e. radical transformation of American society, while West calls for social reform that will accumulate as radical change.

Can Cruse and West help us understand how the Palestinians have come to confine their struggle so completely within the terms dictated by Israel? Since 1948, the Palestinian leadership has taken Palestinians from a vision of liberating all of Palestine and restoring its Arab character, through the plan of a democratic secular state for Arabs and Jews, to the two-state solution, followed by negotiated Bantustans, and now, de facto residual enclaves.

Unable to liberate Palestine, no longer able to secure the necessary Arab support, unable to convert an international consensus on a two-state solution into real currency, and yet determined to be a player in any negotiations, Arafat has accepted Israel's terms across the board. Yet, regardless of this capitulation, he has continued to assure his exhausted people that a fully sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital will ultimately be the final outcome of Oslo.

Why has this been the case? Granted, the Palestinian struggle is set in a complex international political context, but there are still lessons to be learned from the American Black experience as we try to come to terms with the errors and setbacks of the last 50 years.

In particular, Cruse's formula for organising and bonding a community for political action, through a programme supported by a self-developed economic resource base, and a cultural vision of self and society which mobilises the community as well as being morally compelling for others, can help us to understand where the Palestinian movement went wrong.

To take the question of culture first, the PLO under Arafat was able to preserve the Palestinian sense of identity with the land. It even elaborated a set of Palestinian institutions which gave that identity a concrete form and located it on the international map. But it was a still-life identity, based on symbolic markers -- clothing, names, villages, slogans, and so forth. It held the people together, but it could not embody a vision beyond the abstract ideal of liberation and a residual status for Jews in Palestine in the original PLO covenant.

It was in this context that the notion of a democratic secular state for Arabs and Jews seemed to offer a viable model for the future. But this proposal tended to function as a slogan, rather than a well-developed and authentic social blueprint. Next came the two-state solution, which simply iterated two sovereign states living side by side in peace. Once again, there was no vision beyond the determination to salvage something of the homeland.

The diplomatic period, during which the two-state solution was in favour, saw the Palestinians at the peak of their international recognition. However, aside from one isolated 1978 article in Foreign Affairs by the distinguished Palestinian scholar Dr Walid Khalidi, defining the restrictions Palestinians would accept on their proposed state in order to satisfy Israeli and American concerns, there was no real public attempt to define the future Palestinian society except in general normative terms.

Then, finally, there was Oslo, which paid only lip-service to a mythical notion of a Palestinian state. Throughout all this protracted process of its own demise, not only was the Palestinian movement lacking in a clear contemporary cultural and ideological sense of self and society, but it had no concept of how to develop one, nor how to articulate it with the political and economic components of the movement -- a flaw which Cruse had diagnosed in the Black struggle in America.

In term of economic resources, aside from the financial aid received from Arab states, PLO investments in various areas of the world (which tended to be pocketed by individual leaders), and small businesses that developed in the refugee camps, the Palestinians had no reliable economic resource base to sustain their political action and support its people once the regimes withdrew their aid. Palestinian millionaires were able to provide some welfare help, and support small projects, but that was as far as it went. When the Arab states backed off, political action collapsed. Not only that, but the political action itself was already lacking in direction and vision.

Politically, as the American Blacks, whose intellectuals and leaders allowed their white liberal or radical friends to define their goals, Palestinians have also suffered willingly from the good intentions of others, both Arabs and non-Arabs, as well as from their own incompetent leadership. In so doing, their ideological development has been seriously stunted. This is not to recommend that they should cut themselves off from the rest of the world, but rather to suggest that they need to sift and analyse the implications of any suggestions they receive through the filter of a cohesive Palestinian programme.

Some would say that political realities forced the Palestinians into their present dilemma. However, the point being made here is that if they had had a cohesive cultural, political and economic strategy, their force as a destabilising factor for American and Israeli interests would have allowed them to persevere until a just solution was obtained. Without a cohesive strategy, they soon found themselves trapped within the terms laid down by their enemies.

Drawing on West's analysis of different leadership styles, it is clear that none of them as they stand accurately captures the character of the present Palestinian power elite. Nonetheless, Arafat and his colleagues started out rather like "ethnic-identifying protest leaders", insisting on self-reliance for liberation.

After merging with and taking charge of the PLO, they became more like ethnic-effacing managerial leaders in relation to the Arab regimes on whom they were dependent. From 1970 to 1974, when the PLO was promoting a single democratic secular state, they tried to claim the mantle of ethnic-transcending prophetic leaders. But their vision was little more than a slogan, and they were also heavily engaged in the "armed struggle", ineffective as it was. It was this slogan which should have been converted into a real political programme.

What Palestine needs are true, profound, uncompromised and inclusive-thinking ethnic-transcending leaders and intellectuals who can devise an international political strategy, supported by untainted community resources. Fortunately, there are a growing number of them to be found, of whom Edward Said has the longest and most consistent track record.

Given the failure and retreat of post-colonial Arab nationalism and socialism, and the irrelevance of Western liberalism, it was inevitable the Islamists would win some popularity not only among Palestinians, but elsewhere in the Arab/Muslim world. Their ideology is extremely narrow and exclusivist. However, not only has Hamas provided much-needed assistance to Palestinians in the territories, it has also begun to position itself as an alternative to the PLO and the PA. In this, it shows a number of similarities with the Black American movement, the Nation of Islam. Yet Hamas, like the PLO, lacks a cultural vision appropriate to the present and future. It may have an economic base to support its outreach in the community, but its "fundamental" ideology and its methods of emotional rage and violence do not off a real strategy for liberation.

The issue of the use of violence in resisting oppression has been debated by the American Black community in the past, which for the most part came out in favour of self-defence as the acceptable limit. The Zionists, for their part, have used violence abundantly, offensively and effectively to transform Palestine and to sustain that transformation. There was nothing moral about this, but it did form part of an effective and cohesive cultural/ideological, political and economic plan, which was widely understood as necessary for the establishment of a Jewish state. Today, however, violence which goes beyond self-defence is not a viable option in the Palestinian struggle to regain their national rights, nor should it be. Their best chance lies, as ever, with the forceful articulation of a persuasive, humane and inclusive vision for co-existence, as an alternative to the horrors and injustices of the present.

The Palestinians in Israel are the remnants of the population which was dispersed from the 78 per cent of Palestine conquered by the Zionists in 1948 and recognised internationally as the State of Israel thereafter. At that time, these displaced Palestinians numbered about 150,000. Today, they have grown to about 900,000, representing approximately 18 to 19 per cent of the Israeli population. A number of books have been written about the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

They clearly document the legal, cultural and social disparities which exist between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Indeed, up to December 1966, the Palestinians lived under Israeli Military Government rule. In addition to being constantly reminded that they live in a Jewish state, surrounded by Jewish national symbols, Palestinians do not enjoy equality, whether in education, land ownership, political power or social privileges. These facts are well known. Meanwhile, two liberal Israeli social scientists, Sammy Smooha and Jacob Landau, in their study of the same issues, accentuate the possibility for improvements in Palestinian status in Israel, yet in the end always come back to the idea that, to paraphrase, "They have to realise that they live in a Jewish state."

While they have resisted the Israeli takeover of their land and country as fiercely as anyone, the Palestinian citizens of Israel have also over the years sought to secure equality through participation in the Israeli system. In a sense, they had an NAACP policy of integration. Of course, they did not succeed in this endeavour.

But even if they were to be integrated, legally, culturally (in terms, at least, of state symbols and educational curriculum content) and socially, they would not necessarily be equal, since they would still be limited by the conditions of disparity imposed on them earlier. Blacks in America are discovering this fact daily, and are seeking to regroup and organise to try and overcome it.

This portion of the Palestinian population finds itself between a rock and a hard place. The PLO could at least initially claim to represent them, but as it moved towards a two-state solution -- and even before -- it came to focus primarily on the Palestinians under occupation and in refugee camps. Today, even the latter category is excluded from active PLO concern. Hence, there are really three juridical categories of Palestinians: the citizens of Israel; the diaspora refugees; and those under occupation and living within the autonomous areas.

This separation defines the challenge. The future for the Palestinians must lie in the recreation of an integrated community, politically, economically, culturally and ideologically. The new Palestinian leadership must understand that the three Palestinian groups are now divided by cultural and class differences which have grown out of their differing experiences, just as Blacks in America continue to have problems thinking and acting as a community, due to the diversity of the experiences through which they have gone.



It has been observed that the Palestinians in Israel have absorbed many aspects of Israel's Western-oriented culture, while the Palestinian refugees, particularly those in Lebanon, have adopted some of the local norms, while also feeling increasingly embittered at the PLO and other Palestinians, who seem to have forgotten them and their plight.

As a result, Palestinians in Israel, in the diaspora and under occupation, presently experience at least some mild discomfort with each other. It will take a sensitive and well-informed leadership to bridge these gaps, and recreate a common Palestinian community based on a shared culture, an inclusive society, a reasonable economic resource base and a political strategy that can enable its members to assert their rights on an equal basis.

Only, however, if this is achieved, will the Palestinian people at last be able to press forward with the social revolution that is their true mission -- the radical transformation of life for both Palestinians and Israelis in the whole of Israel/Palestine.

* The writer is a Boston-based professor emerita of Sociology and former president of the Association of Arab-American University Graduates. The text above is the second installment of a two-part article, the first of which appeared last week. An expanded version of this article was presented to the Middle East Seminar, Harvard University, Sept 1997

* This article was published in Al-Ahram Weekly on 9 July 1998



This article was first published in Al-Ahram Weeklys special pages commemorating 50 years of Al-Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe when Israel was created on 15 May 1948. These pages, published in 1998, were part of a year-long series of articles documenting the history and nature of the Arab-Israeli struggle, as well as that of Palestinian dispossession and exile.

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Oman's ruler arrived Sunday in Tehran for talks with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other top officials, state television reported. Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said was officially welcomed by Raisi at the capital's Saadabad Palace, state media said. The sultan's visit followed an official invitation by the Iranian president. It is his first visit to Iran since he ascended the throne. Iranian television said Sultan Haitham headed a large delegation including the ministers of defense, foreign affairs, economy and investment.

Oman has a long record of being a key broker between Iran and the West, amid volatile regional tensions. Belgium and Iran exchanged prisoners on Friday after mediation by Omani officials. Oman also recently hosted rounds of talks between Iran and its rival Saudi Arabia, facilitating an agreement to resume diplomatic relations after a seven-year rift. State-run IRNA news agency said investment, oil and gas issues will be discussed during the Omanis ruler's stay in the Iranian capital.
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan on Sunday responded to Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah over the latter's claims that the PTI had planned to orchestrate a raid and rape at a known workers home. In a post-midnight press conference in Faisalabad, Sanaullah alleged that Khan's party is trying to malign the law enforcement agencies of Pakistan and is plotting criminal activities to blame the security forces later.

'Rape will be carried out': Interior Minister of Pakistan

Khan hit back at the minister saying that his statements were pre-empted and cover-up of the horror stories pertaining to the security forces. Pakistan's ex-PM lambasted the interior minister for making claims that such discussions were unfolding at a PTI workers home, according to Islamabad-based newspaper Dawn. Pakistan's interior minister, while making these claims did not provide any evidence, Khan argued. He added that these claims were hurled to cover up the human rights violations in Pakistan.

A plan was being prepared. That there is an actual raid at a home  and that home will be of a known PTI worker  and an incident of firing occurs there, resulting in casualties, Khan was reported saying. In the same conversation that was intercepted, a second drama was that a rape is carried out. Meaning that an actual rape is carried out and it is blamed on law enforcement agencies [and] that it is happening at the governments behest.

Pakistan's interior minister went on to claim that PTI was planning such incidents in order to highlight them later in the international media and globally. These acts would be carried out tonight he claimed, adding that it was necessary of the ruling Shehbaz Sharif government "to make the nation aware of the devilish design. The countrys agencies intercepted a conversation, revealing disturbing plots and planned actions, including a raid on the PTI leaders house and a staged rape, the interior minister claimed. He added that the incident will be used by PTI to later falsely implicate law enforcement institutions in the crime."

Khan hit back at Pakistan's interior minister, saying: If there were any doubts about women being mistreated in jails, this press conference from this certified criminal should remove all such doubts. He is so obviously trying to cover up and pre-empt the horror stories about to break in the media, he said, adding that women were being "mistreated and harassed by the state' for protesting peacefully".

If there were any doubts about women being mistreated in jails, this press conference from this certified criminal should remove all such doubts.



He is so obviously trying to cover up and preempt the horror stories about to break in the media.



Women have never been so pic.twitter.com/ig06rvsdsl  Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) May 28, 2023

Islamabad police say 'Women can be used in campaign'; Activists jolted

Islamabad police, in a tweet, said that the cops must ensure that the cameras in police stations, offices and jails were operational and were working properly to avoid plans to target officials" and avoid becoming victim to the planned campaign to defame institutions. While all women are respectable, some can be used in this campaign, it added. Keep matters transparent to avoid such tactics," the Islamabad Police noted.

Interior Minister's press conference jolted Pakistan where women's safety has long been a talking point due to dozens of cases of rape, sexual harassment and molestation in public. Activists questioned if ministers were planning to target women and have men dress like law enforcement agencies with official gear who would then raid homes. Others expressed shock and disbelief. Dont you think your statement without any specific details will only work well to discredit any victim who may have real grievances and might have faced sexual assault at the hands of LEAs?" a Pakistani activist and lawyer Jibran Nasir tweeted.
Earlier this week in Minsk, Belarus, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu and his Belarusian counterpart Viktor Khrenin signed a number of contracts outlining the process for preserving Russia's non-strategic nuclear weapons at a designated storage facility on Belarusian soil.

Prior to that, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in late March that Minsk and Moscow had reached an agreement to station Russia's tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, a move that, in his words, does not violate Russia's nuclear non-proliferation contracts, Sputnik reported. The Russian Ambassador to Belarus stated that the tactical nuclear weapons would be placed closer to the western boundaries of the Union State of Belarus and Russia.

"I would like to note that all the activities are organised strictly in accordance with existing international obligations and do not violate the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Shoigu said.

Belarus forced to strengthen its own security

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry in a statement said, "Over the last two and a half years, the Republic of Belarus has been subjected to unprecedented political, economic and information pressure from the United States, the United Kingdom and its NATO allies, as well as the member states of the European Union."

It added that "In view of these circumstances, and the legitimate concerns and risks in the sphere of national security arising from them, Belarus is forced to respond by strengthening its own security and defence capabilities."

The British government's decision to give Ukraine armour-piercing shells containing depleted Uranium, which the Russian president said was "one way or another related to nuclear technology," was highlighted as the immediate cause for the deployment of Tactical Nuclear Weapons (TNP) in Belarus.

What is a Tactical Nuclear Weapon?

The goal of tactical nuclear weapons is to eliminate enemy forces and equipment on the battlefield. They are far less effective and have a much shorter range than nuclear warheads mounted on long-range strategic missiles that can destroy entire cities. The number of tactical weapons or any other information about them has not been disclosed by Russia, AP reported.

Russian tactical nuclear weapons are believed to number over 2,000, and they comprise bombs that may be carried by planes, warheads for short-range missiles, and artillery rounds. Tactical nuclear weapons are kept at a small number of closely guarded storage locations in Russia, and it takes time to get them to combat units, whereas strategic nuclear weapons are mounted on land- or submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles that are constantly prepared for launch.

Russian hawks have long pushed the Kremlin to move some tactical nuclear warheads closer to the aircraft and missiles designed to deliver them as a signal to the West.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin will hold in-person 'international negotiations' next week, according to the segment aired by Russian state TV on Sunday. It remains unclear who Russia's head of state Putin is scheduled to meet. Putin will also chair a meeting with the Russian government officials as well as hold consultations with permanent members of the countrys Security Council. The Kremlin press service is yet to announce Putins schedule for next week.

Is Russia mediating Armenia and Azerbaijan Lachin dispute next week?

Russia's President Putin presided over the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus who have fought a war over Nagorno-Karabakh [referred to as Artsakh by Armenians] territorial dispute. He held talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to resolve the Lachin Corridor crisis.

In early May, Baku established a military checkpoint on the Lachin corridor, the winding road connecting Armenia to the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, that has triggered fresh escalation and surge in fighting. In mid-December, last year, Azerbaijan-backed demonstrators claiming to be environmental activists set up a blockade along the Lachin corridor protesting, disrupting the regular traffic and demanding a halt in the mining activity. This affected Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian residents from accessing basic necessities.

Republic of Azerbaijan set up a checkpoint at the entrance to the Lachin corridor from the Armenian side on the bridge over the Akera River. Credit: Twitter/@FrontArtsakh

In its ruling, the ICJ cited that there were critical shortages of "food, medicines, and other life-saving medical supplies" that deprived ethnic Armenians in the area of crucial care due to the Baku-backed blockade, which Yerevan described as "ethnic cleansing."

PM of Armenia at #CouncilOfEuropeSummit: "As a result of illegal blockade of #LachinCorridor the Armenians of NK have been under siege for 5 months & are facing humanitarian crisis. To send international an fact-finding mission to Lachin Corridor & NK is of high priority today" pic.twitter.com/bcjAM4KMNw  Armenia in Council of Europe  (@armrepcoe) May 19, 2023

On May 26, the ICRC resumed the transfer of patients in need of urgent medical assistance across the Lachin Corridor to Armenia.



Today, in our role as a neutral intermediary, we have facilitated the transfer of 15 patients and their accompaniers. pic.twitter.com/DFRfFgIazJ  ICRC Azerbaijan (@ICRCAze) May 26, 2023

Baku must "take all measures at its disposal to ensure the unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles, and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions," the ICJ stated in the ruling.

While the Russian peacekeeping mission escorted supplies in the region through the blockade, a European Union (EU) mission was dispatched to the Armenian side of the state border to implement the International Court of Justice's order to Baku to ensure unimpeded movement in the Lachin corridor. UN's top court ordered Azerbaijan to allow free passage to the Armenian residents through the Lachin Corridor.

Protests against installation of an Azerbaijani checkpoint in the Lachin corridor, across the Khakari River. Credit: Twitter/@region776

Intense clashes broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenian forces in May, which came following two and a half years of the deadly six-week war that pushed Armenian forces out of the region, resulting in at least three fatalities. The region had been under the control of Armenia for over three decades since the early 1990s war between the two archrivals. As Baku, Yerevan and Moscow inked a trilateral deal, the ethnic Armenian residents fled Nagorno-Karabakh. Lachin Corridor is the only authorised connection between Armenia and the contested territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the regions approximately 120,000 people.

Lachin Corridor. Credit: Twitter/@CineSeda

In an effort to mediate the crisis, Putin held a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union summit at the Grand Kremlin Palace, in Moscow, Russia. Russia has held a major influence and power on the two nations located to the southwest edge of the ex-Soviet Union. While Aliyev and Pashinyan hit back at each other over Lachin Corridor, Putin noted that the talks yielded to the solution of principal issues, [and that] there is an agreement." Russia's leader noted that there were surmountable obstacles, remaining and dismissed them as strictly technical," according to the visuals aired by the Kremlin press service. He had also noted that Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan would meet in a week to try to resolve the rest of the differences.
Brazils president announced Friday that the United Nations has chosen his country to host the 2025 U.N. climate change conference, though the world body has not yet publicly confirmed the decision.

Brazils President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Brazil would hold the conference, known as COP 30, in the Para state city of Belem in the heart of the Brazilian rain forest. The venue reflects Lulas intention to bring attention to the Amazon region.

The latest climate conference was hosted by Egypts Sharm el-Sheikh, and this years will take place in Dubai.

It will be a honor for Brazil to welcome representatives from all over the world in a state of our Amazon, Lula said in a video published on his social media channels. I went to COPs in Egypt, in Paris, in Copenhagen, and all people talk about is the Amazon. So I said, Why dont we go there so you see what the Amazon is like?' 

Brazil's foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, says in the video that the decision was made at the U.N. on May 18. The U.N. has yet to confirm the venue.

Lula's announcement comes in a week that his administration's environmental governance has faced headwinds from Brazil's congress. Lawmakers by a large majority approved a measure that eroded the environment ministry's control over licenses for construction in forested and coastal areas, and other development.

Also this week, the congress is debating whether the state-run oil giant should be allowed to drill off the coast in the Amazon states of Amapa and Para,
Religion is illegal in North Korea, so they will likely be sent to a labor camp.

A North Korean woman reads from a Bible during a prayer meeting near the city of Chaoyang in northeastern China's Liaoning province, Sept. 8, 2017.

Just as they had every Sunday at 5 a.m., the five Christians gathered at the farmhouse for prayer and Bible study. But this time the police were waiting for them.

Tipped off by an informant, authorities arrested the believers on charges of believing in God, a crime in a country where all religion is illegal  except for the reverence everyone is required to show for the countrys leader Kim Jong Un, and its past leaders, his father and grandfather.

Sources told Radio Free Asias Korean Service that the Christians, arrested on April 30, are relatives who met weekly at the farmhouse in Tongam village, outside Sunchon city in South Pyongan province, in central North Korea.

At the site of the worship service, the police retrieved dozens of Bible booklets and arrested all in attendance, a resident of the province told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

She said that an informant tipped off the police about the secret Sunday morning gathering.

A South Korean Christian woman prays during a service denouncing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's dictatorship and alleged human rights violations against North Koreans, at Imjingak in Paju near the border village of Panmunjom. South Korea, Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009. Sources told Radio Free Asias Korean Service that 5 Christians arrested on April 30 during underground church service are relatives who met weekly at the farmhouse in Tongam village, outside Sunchon city in South Pyongan province, in central North Korea. Credit: Ahn Young-joon/AP

News of the raid spread quickly throughout Sunchon, another resident who witnessed the arrest told RFA.

They were praying and reading the Bible together, she said. They got together with their relatives and [prayed] Oh Jesus, Lord Jesus  , like that. And then they got arrested.

If the past is any indication, the believers will be sent to labor camps to serve time. RFA was not able to confirm their status after the raid.

Christian roots

It was not the first time that authorities had rounded up Christians in Tongam.

Underground churches in the village were raided in 2005 and 1997, and the believers were sent to do hard labor in concentration camps.

Tongam has a history with Christianity. It was once the site of a large church building that stood even after the Japanese occupied the Korean peninsula in 1905 and made Shinto the state religion.

That church was at the foot of the mountain in Tongam village, the second resident said. I knew about it because my mother told me it was where the missionaries had been before liberation [from Japanese rule in 1945].

Sunchon had two Catholic and 31 Protestant churches before the Peninsula was freed from Japanese rule, according to a pastor with experience leading missions in North Korea.

People bow to the statues of former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on Mansu Hill to mark the 11th anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, Dec. 17, 2022. Credit: Cha Song Ho/AP

The Soviet-controlled northern half of Korea after 1945 adhered to the idea that religion was the opium of the masses, and therefore promoted atheism. When North Korea was established in 1948, all religions became illegal. It was then that many of the churches in Sunchon began to disappear, and believers in Tongam had to go underground.

North Korea is known to execute, torture and physically abuse individuals for their religious activities, the U.S. State Departments 2022 International Religious Freedom Report said.

It is one of 17 countries identified to be involved in or condoning systematic, continuous and serious violations of freedom of religion and belief, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedoms 2023 annual report.

Bibles and other religious materials are typically smuggled into the country over the Chinese border, where they are distributed to underground churches through a secret network, the second source said.

Despite pressure from authorities, the five captured Christians have refused to renounce their religion, she said.

A staff member of the judicial agency told us that the [believers] refused to tell where they got their Bibles and said, All for Jesus, even in death.

Translated Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
TBILISI -- "When the Antichrist arrives, he will prohibit all religions," the priest said. "He will say your [human] rights are being violated, that you are being abused and misled. And that will be the beginning of the most horrible dictatorship you can imagine. While all previous dictatorships were local, this one will be global."

Father Zurab Tskhovrebadze was preaching from the altar, his voice echoing around the small church in the Saburtalo district on the outskirts of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi. What began as a normal Sunday sermon in the middle of the Orthodox Easter fast quickly descended into a grim prophecy about "a certain group of people" that are trying to change the world order under the guise of "freedom."

By this point, at the end of the church service, some people had already left, and only the most devoted remained. There were now around 40 people, both old and young, hanging onto the priest's every word.

"These people are telling our youth that Christianity doesn't give them free choice," he said. "They think that everythingneeds to be reviewed, that there should be a new order that will be free of the moral values of Christianity. I can tell you: The devil has never invented a worse lie."

None of them seemed surprised by the priest's words; they had heard many of these themes before. Father Zurab is just one of hundreds of Orthodox priests across Georgia delivering sermons every week -- both online and in person -- with a message that is consistent and often echoes the government's political line: Georgia is in danger and falling prey to foreign forces that are robbing it of its moral values, corrupting the country's youth -- and may well drag it into war in Ukraine.

For Georgians, church is about much more than just religious observation. A large majority of citizens (79 percent) consider the Georgian Orthodox Church the foundation of their nation's identity and 83 percent say it plays an important role in their family life, according to a 2021 survey from the Caucasus Research Resource Centers. The church is a place where communities come together to exchange news, to gossip, and to vent.

The Orthodox Church has also enjoyed freedoms under the ruling Georgian Dream party that other groups have been denied. Despite government officials urging people to stay at home during the coronavirus pandemic, churches remained open with the congregation allowed to be on the premises even during curfew hours, and a shared spoon was still used to give communion. Priests also participate in the appointment of Georgia's public defender, a human rights ombudsman. The previous public defender, Nino Lomjaria, was unpopular with the church after she tried to further investigate sexual-abuse allegations at a church-run orphanage.

In this church on the outskirts of Tbilisi, the majority, around two-thirds of the congregation, are women. The elderly come prepared with their own psalm books and candles. They know the order of service off by heart, their ears pricked to hear false notes in the liturgical chants. Mothers come with children who often struggle to stand still in line for communion, while younger parishioners film the sermons with their phones to upload on the church's social media.

This year's Great Fast, which started seven weeks before Orthodox Easter and is one of the most important events of the Orthodox Christian calendar, coincided with a period of political turmoil in Georgia.

Early March was marked by violent protests against the so-called foreign agents law, which would legally oblige any organization getting more than 20 percent of its income from abroad to register as a foreign agent and submit to monitoring by the Justice Ministry. It was dubbed the "Russian law" after one signed by Putin in 2012 and which has since been used to crack down on civil society groups and media.

With the protests escalating, the Georgian parliament ended up rejecting the draft law, even though the government -- and the church -- never stopped advocating for it.

At the time, Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili accused protesters of "wearing the uniforms of satanists" and the chairman of Georgian Dream, Irakli Kobakhidze, called critics of the bill "church detractors."

The month that followed was not peaceful either. Protests were held over the legal case of Lazare Grigoriadis, a 21-year-old man facing an 11-year prison sentence if found guilty of throwing Molotov cocktails at the police during the protest. To add to the tension, the liberal-libertarian Pine Cone (Girchi) party organized a protest against mandatory military conscription.

Across Georgia, priests did not shy away from speaking about these political events. While sermons usually start with a religious theme, at the end the priest will focus on contemporary social or political subjects.

"The more unity we convey, the easier it will be to fight all the challenges around us," said Father Archil Khachidze at the Anchiskhati church in Tbilisi on April 17. "Our children and young people are under enormous pressure. They are trying very hard to make them commit mistakes and trying to sow discord among them. These days, they are practically separating people into classes, and we must not let that happen. We need to stay together, stay strong."

For anyone who's listened to Father Archil's sermons before, it's not hard to guess who is the "they" he is referring to. In an earlier sermon, he compared nongovernmental organizations -- and by extension, their U.S. and EU financial supporters -- to a plague of locusts.

"A long time ago I read in a military magazine about the Locust Principle," Father Archil said. "The locusts, when flying together, are a terrible thing: They destroy everything, take down planes, and derail trains. It turns out that all their actions are synchronized: They jump together, they eat the crops together. So, this military principle was named after them."

"Before any shots are fired, various unimportant organizations are usually established in the target country. Some of them protect the environment; some advocate for women's rights; many organizations don't really do anything," the priest said, prompting a woman in the congregation to chime in, shouting out, "Just like here, right?"

"When a country comes under attack," Father Archil continued, "and needs to urgently mobilize its forces, some of [those organizations] say, 'We won't go to war.' Others might say, 'Stop manufacturing bullets, or 'You're polluting the river.' That's why it costs nothing for the government to squeeze one or two of these organizations like locusts, because when a thousand of them start to devour, the country struggles to [mobilize] and fight its enemy."

The Georgian Orthodox Church is known for its conservatism, especially regarding what is sees as traditional family values. On May 17, 2013, Orthodox believers, including priests, attacked activists at a rally to mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, thrashing some of them with stinging nettles. A year later, the church announced that the date would now be celebrated as a "Family Purity Day."

After the Georgian Orthodox Church called for the cancellation of the Tbilisi Pride March on July 5, 2021, conservative, homophobic groups raided the offices of Tbilisi Pride and the activist Shame Movement. One priest, Father Spiridone Tskifurishvili, argued the attackers "had a duty to commit violencefor the motherland, for the country, and for the [church]." In the ensuing violence, over 50 journalists were attacked and injured.

Luka Supatashvili, a priest in one of the biggest Tbilisi suburbs, Dighomi, has often mentioned "the unseen foreign powers" that seek to initiate unrest in the country. Right after the March protests over the foreign agents law, he insinuated in his sermon that the demonstrations were scripted from abroad.

In that same speech, he also alluded to Russia and the war in Ukraine: "Now there is a fight to break apart one of the biggest countries in the world (Russia) and share its wealth. Of course [the Russians] are demonized and others are declared saints, but we have eyes to see and ears to hearwhat is being done to our nation."

The narrative on the Ukraine war is just one example of where the Orthodox Church is in lockstep with the Georgian Dream party, which has repeatedly made statements about Georgia being "dragged into war." According to a 2023 Transparency International report, the ruling party has often spoken of what it says is the U.S. desire for Georgia to join the war in Ukraine, with the party saying the EU declining to give Georgia candidate status in June 2022 was punishment for its nonparticipation.

Father Luka's sermon echoed and dovetailed with these narratives. At one point, he shared a personal anecdote about not wanting to fight in Georgia's war against Abkhaz separatists in the early 1990s.

"In the past, we were mistakenly forced to go to war several times. I knew it was not our war. I barely stopped myself, as others were going off to die, but I thought: 'I won't make the devil happy, I won't be deceived.' It was easy for me to go and die, but the hardest thing was to be a man of God."

According to Orthodox priests, though, being a peacenik and not wanting to go to war doesn't excuse young men from military conscription. In their sermons, priests will often target one of their old enemies, the opposition Pine Cone party, which has used a loophole in the law to help hundreds of young men dodge conscription by making them priests in their own religious organization, Pine Cone-Biblical Freedom.

Pine Cone's religious organization has been ostracized by the Holy Synod of Georgia and labeled a "humiliating" organization, with its members losing the right for a church memorial service if they die without repenting. After protests erupted in 2018 following a heavy-handed police raid on Tbilisi's Basiani nightclub following a spate of reported drug-related deaths, Pine Cone publicly supported the decriminalization of marijuana.

Drugs and drug users are a sensitive topic in Georgian society. The 2021 Caucasus Barometer survey suggests drug addicts are the second-least favorable group to have as your neighbors, after criminals.

Referring to "the same people who stood for legalizing drugs," Father Luka asked if the congregation remembered what happened when the government closed the nightclub. "You'd think it was the second coming of Christ," he said. "And mind you, it was a nightclub with a patriotic name -- Basiani (a historical landmark of one of Georgia's famous battles) -- the place that made us heroes. Now we see our youth being corrupted."

Some of Georgia's priests are also online. Father Shalva Kekelia, from a church in the middle-class Tbilisi neighborhood of Vake, is one of Georgia's most popular priests on YouTube, with over 5,000 subscribers. He likes to end his emotional sermons by talking about the damage done to Georgia's young people. After the March protests, he said he was worried about "young people who spend their parents' hard-earned money on getting drunk and taking drugs."

"Sometimes I ask myself, what will become of us? We all know what is happening these days. I say, we'll survive with Christ. We'll survive if we work hard, if we hold the [bible] in our hands, if we become professionals in our field," Father Shalva said in a video of one of his sermons uploaded to Facebook.

"Our path is not toward Europe, Russia, or America; our path is with Christ, and no one but Him can save us. No one needs us, people, remember this well. Everyone wants you to be their servant and slave."

"Amen," the congregation replies together, happy perhaps that they have an important message to take home.
One civilian was killed and 11 others were wounded in Russian shelling of Ukraine's Donetsk region as fighting in the east continues, the Ukrainian military and regional officials said on May 31.

Indiscriminate Russian shelling killed one person and wounded one in Chasiv Yar near Horlivka, Donetsk regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said, adding that another 10 civilians were wounded across the region.

Ukrainian forces repelled 22 Russian attacks in the east, the General Staff said in its daily update, although the intensity of Moscow's offensive in and around the Donetsk city of Bakhmut appeared to have subsided, according to Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar.

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 in Ukraine, click here.

Unsuccessful Russian assaults took place in the Kharkiv region's Kupyansk and Masyutivka areas, and in Novoselivske in the Luhansk region.



Malyar said that in Bakhmut, which has been the epicenter of the fighting in the east for months, Russian troops had not been conducting infantry operations, apparently regrouping their forces, but had been continuing shelling and air strikes on Ukrainian positions.



Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, which has spearheaded the attacks on Bakhmut, last week announced he was withdrawing his fighters from the city and handing over to regular Russian forces.



Ukraine's Defense Ministry has confirmed that Wagner fighters have been leaving the Bakhmut suburbs but remain in the city itself.



Prigozhin has claimed that Bakhmut had fallen to his mercenaries, but his claim was rejected by the Ukrainian military, which said it has managed to occupy positions to the north and south of the devastated city.

Separately, Ukraine's Energy Ministry said on May 31 that electricity had been restored to almost 2 million consumers in 12 regions of Ukraine who were left without power on May 30 because of Russian shelling.

Early on May 31, the governor of Russia's Krasnodar region, Venyamin Kondratyev, said an alleged drone attack caused a fire at an oil refinery.



The strike triggered a fire at one of the Afip refinery's distillation units, Kondratyev said, adding that there were no casualties and the fire had been extinguished.



Late on May 30, the governor of Russia's Belgorod region said that one person was killed and six were wounded in shelling of a temporary shelter for civilians. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov blamed Ukrainian forces for artillery fire that hit the shelter, which he said housed displaced people, including elderly civilians and children.

There was no comment on the claims from the Ukrainian side.



Moscow-installed authorities in Ukraine's Luhansk region, which is almost completely occupied by Russia, said on May 31 that five people were killed and 19 wounded by Ukrainian shelling that hit a poultry farm in the village of Karpaty.



The information could not be independently confirmed and there was no immediate reaction from Ukraine.



On May 30, Russia launched a fresh wave of drone strikes on Kyiv -- the fourth attack in three days -- killing at least one person and wounding several others, but Ukrainian authorities said most of the drones were shot down by the capital's air defenses, while Moscow was subjected to a rare drone attack that damaged several buildings.

Bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied equipment, Ukrainian air defenses have been adept at thwarting Russian air attacks -- both drones and aircraft missiles.



Russia has intensified missile and drone strikes on Ukraine, targeting military facilities and supplies with waves of attacks several times a week.



President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he continued to speak with Ukraine's Western partners about providing further air-defense systems to repel Russian attacks. This included a conversation on May 30 with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.



The same day Russia launched its intense drone attack on Kyiv, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said eight drones were shot down or jammed over the Russian capital in what it said was a "terrorist attack" by the "Kyiv regime."



Russia's Investigative Committee said no one was wounded.

WATCH: Ukrainian survivors of a Russian drone attack, the latest in a wave of at least 17 such strikes this month, described running for their lives on May 30 as their apartments burned and crumbled.



Russian President Vladimir Putin was briefed on the attack, the Kremlin said. Putin was quoted later as saying that Ukraine sought to frighten Russians.



Ukrainian denied any involvement in the attack.



In Washington, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated the U.S. position that it does not support attacks inside of Russia.



The European Union condemned the attacks on Kyiv, with EU spokesman Peter Stano saying that such actions "indiscriminately terrorize" Ukrainian civilians.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP
Water has exposed cracks in the Taliban's fragile relationship with Tehran, with both sides exchanging pointed barbs over scarce supplies before coming to deadly blows along the Afghan-Iranian border.

Tensions remain high following the deaths of troops from both sides on May 27, with Taliban and Iranian officials digging in on their positions with increased military activity and fresh warnings.



But while disputes over water security are expected to intensify between the two drought-stricken countries, both sides appear to be keeping the door open for dialogue on the issue while boosting cooperation in other areas of mutual concern.



The deadly firefight took place across the shared border between southeastern Iran and southwestern Afghanistan, with each side accusing the other of firing first. Social media footage showed Taliban heavy weaponry streaming to the border in the Kang district of Nimroz Province, where officials said one Taliban border guard was killed and several people were wounded after an exchange of heavy gunfire.



Iranian media, meanwhile, said up to three Iranian border guards were killed and several people wounded in its southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan Province, where Iran has worked to fortify its border as tensions over water supplies rose over the past two weeks.

Following the incident, the Taliban has continued to push back on Iran's claim that it is not honoring a water treaty ironed out by the two sides in 1973.



"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers dialogue to be a reasonable way for any problem," Taliban Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khawarazmi said in a statement on May 28, referring to the official name of the Taliban's unrecognized government. "Making excuses for war and negative actions is not in the interest of any of the parties."

Iran has continued its harder line, with national police commander Brigadier-General Ahmadreza Radan saying the same day that "the border forces of the Islamic republic of Iran will decisively respond to any border trespassing and aggression, and the current authorities of Afghanistan must be held accountable for their unmeasured and contrary actions to international principles."



But Iranian officials, too, have expressed the need for a diplomatic solution, with high-ranking security official Mohammad Ismail Kothari describing the dispute as "fighting between children of the same house" while rejecting that Tehran would resort to the "military option."



Big Dam Issues



Water is a precious commodity in both southwestern Afghanistan, one of the country's most productive agricultural areas, and in southeastern Iran, one of several arid areas of the country where water scarcity has fueled public protests.



But with Afghanistan in control of upriver water sources that feed low-lying wetlands and lakes in Iran's southeast, the Taliban finds itself with a rare tool for leverage in its relationship with Tehran.

The problem -- or the solution, depending on which side you consider -- stems from the construction of major dam projects in Afghanistan that in combination with increased drought and other factors have restricted the flow of water to the Sistan Basin.



The border-straddling basin depends on perennial flooding to fill what used to be a vast wildlife oasis and was home to the massive Hamun Lake, which now consists of three smaller seasonal lakes -- Hamun-e Helmand in Iran and Hamun-e Sabari and Hamun-e Puzak in both Afghanistan and Iran.



The longstanding issue of replenishing the basin with water came to the forefront earlier this month following comments by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and President Ebrahim Raisi.



Amir-Abdollahian, in a call with his Taliban counterpart, Amir Khan Muttaqi, demanded the Afghan authorities open the gates of the inland Kajaki Dam that pools water from the Helmand River "so both the people of Afghanistan and Iran can be hydrated."

Shortly afterward, Raisi upped the ante during a visit to Sistan-Baluchistan on May 18 by warning the "rulers of Afghanistan to immediately give the people of Sistan-Baluchistan their water rights." He added that the Taliban should take his words "seriously" and not say "they were not told."



The Taliban has consistently denied the accusation that it was not complying with the 1973 treaty and said that even if the Kajaki Dam were opened there would not be enough water to reach Iran.



But just two days after Raisi's threats, the Taliban appeared to twist the knife by inaugurating a new irrigation project that involved completing the construction of the Bakhshabad Dam on the Farah River, which feeds the Sistan Basin from the north.



Contentious Water Treaty



According to the 1973 treaty, Afghanistan is committed to sharing water from the Helmand River with Iran at the rate of 26 cubic meters of water per second, or 850 million cubic meters per year.



But the accord also allows for less water to be delivered in cases of low water levels, which have been affected by persistent drought and the construction of new dams in Afghanistan, including the Kamal Khan Dam on the Helmand River that was completed in 2021 shortly before the Taliban seized power in Kabul.

The Taliban's deputy prime minister for economic affairs, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, said on May 22 that Kabul was "committed to the water treaty of 1973 but the drought that exists in Afghanistan and region should not be ignored."



"The pain of the people of Sistan-Baluchistan is our pain," he added. "Our hearts melt for them as much as they melt for the people of Afghanistan, but we also suffer from a shortage of water."



Cooperation on the water issue was previously seen as a sign of deepening ties between Afghanistan's Sunni Taliban rulers and Shi'a-majority Iran. In January 2022, the Taliban released water from the Kamal Khan Dam on the Helmand River in Nimroz Province into the Hamun Lake.



While their sectarian differences once made them enemies, their common interests in opposing Afghanistan's Western-backed government and U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan over the past two decades brought them closer.



Since the Taliban returned to power, the militant group has sought to build economic and security ties with Tehran. While Iran has not recognized the Taliban-led government, it has sought to work with the group on the issues of Afghan refugees in Iran and cross-border drug trafficking. In February, Iran formally handed over the Afghan Embassy in Tehran to the Taliban.

Afghanistan's and Iran's water crises require both countries to show a strong hand on the issue of water supplies, both for domestic consumption and to protect their national interests. But experts suggest the benefits of cooperation outweigh an escalation of the conflict.



"Neither country at this point in time needs a really hostile border," Marvin Weinbaum, director of Afghanistan and Pakistan studies at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington, told RFE/RL.



"Economically it is an issue for both countries -- there would be no agricultural potential in Helmand Province without the water furnished by the dam. And very little of it gets into Iran. And southeast Iran is as dry as any place on the planet."



Weinbaum said neither the Taliban nor Tehran is going to exhibit weakness on the issue of short-term water shortages. "As the climate heats up, this is only going to grow more acute," he said.

But for both countries, Weinbaum said, "economic ties are really what matters the most," along with cooperating on other issues of mutual concern such as preventing the Islamic State extremist group from expanding its foothold in the region.



Ironically, just days after Raisi's threats and the inauguration of a new dam project in Afghanistan, the Taliban's Defense Ministry announced it had reached a new agreement on cooperating with Iran on defense and border issues. And on the day of the firefight that left border guards dead on both sides, officials had met earlier to discuss the water dispute.



After the deadly incident, Iranian and Taliban officials held another meeting to investigate the cause of the "tensions."



Path To Resolution



The construction of dams -- which both Iran and Afghanistan engage heavily in -- and their downstream impact stand out among the causes to discuss.



"What really triggers these disputes?" asked Weinbaum. "The intensification of them is obviously building dams, which represent simply a lower flow than they've been accustomed to and are not happy with."

Other observers suggest the decades-old water-sharing agreement that Iran and the Taliban accuse each other of failing to adhere to holds the answer to resolving the dispute.



The 1973 treaty does allow for the delivery of water from the Afghan side to be lower than the agreed-upon levels under certain circumstances, which would appear to include the drought and climate change that the Taliban has said have limited water supplies.



It also commits the two countries to follow a set course "in the event that a difference should develop in the interpretation" of the provisions set out in the treaty: diplomatic negotiations, turning to the "good offices" of a third party to help mediate a solution, and in the event neither step works, arbitration.

With additional reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda and Radio Azadi
Russias full-scale war in Ukraine is capturing much of the worlds attention, but Central Asia is more concerned about what's happening south of the border in Afghanistan. There are several militant groups in northern Afghanistan who hope to topple the Tajik and Uzbek governments. Some of these groups are allies of the Taliban, whereas others are not. Joining host Bruce Pannier to look at these militant groups and the security implications for Central Asia are Lucas Webber, a researcher focusing on transnational militant movements who has written extensively on jihadist and extremist groups and is also co-founder and editor of MilitantWire.com; and Riccardo Valle, director of research at the Islamabad-based research and news platform The Khorasan Diary and an expert on international jihadist networks, particularly those in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
From Al-Ahram Weekly archives: Fifty years of dispossession 1948-1998*

Issue: 25 June 1998

The term Qadiyat Falasteen (Palestinian cause) designates a political issue which first emerged in the early 1920s as a result of the interplay between three factors. The first of these was the British occupation of Palestine and the imposition of the British mandate, resulting in the creation of a distinct geo-political entity, separate from the rest of Greater Syria and defined as "Mandated Palestine". The second was the birth of political Zionism which secured a British promise to facilitate Zionist efforts aimed at creating a "Jewish national homeland in Palestine". Finally, there was the nascent Palestinian Arab resistance movement against both the British occupation and the Zionist enterprise.

The relationship between Palestine and the Palestinian cause, on the one hand, and history and the writing of history, on the other, is a complicated one. Writing about the Palestinian cause emerged as a response to a political movement -- Zionism -- which was itself a product of a particular vision of history, one which made historical legacy, both factual and mythologised, the moral basis for the founding of a nation.

Walid Khalidi, in his introduction to Before the Diaspora: An Illustrated History of the Palestinian People 1876-1948, interprets the nature of the relationship between Palestine and history as follows: "The parties to the conflict tend to be deeply immersed in the history of their struggle. The injustices and their origins overwhelm the oppressed more than they do the oppressor.

The intensity and duration of this feeling is affected by several factors: the nature of the injustice that was inflicted, the attitudes of other parties towards the injustice, and, finally, the conduct of the oppressor after it committed the injustice." He continues: "In the case of the Palestinians -- the wronged party in their conflict with the Zionists -- we find that these factors have combined to perpetuate and increase the weight of the millstone of history."

Zionism not only forced the Palestinians and their Arab brothers to make history a weapon of war. It imposed the subject matter for their writing of history and the agenda for their research. A cursory reading of Emile Toma's massive history of the Palestinian people testifies amply to the truth of this remark.

The aim of Toma's fourteen-volume work was to offer an alternative to the Zionist interpretation of history and thereby demonstrate the continued presence of the Palestinian people on their land, their Arab affiliation and the legitimacy of their cause. Simultaneously, he also sought to refute the customary Zionist myths and cliches, such as "Palestine being a land without people", the "eternal" history of Zionism, and the notion that "the resurrection of the Jewish nation on the land of Israel is what created the Palestinian nation."

Modern historiography on the Palestinian cause dates from the 1930s. Eissa Al-Safari's Arab Palestine from the Mandate to Zionism, published in 1938, was the first work to establish clearly that the Palestinian cause is the product of two factors: the imposition of the British mandate and the promulgation of the Balfour Declaration. The author concludes that the most important consequence of the revolution that erupted in 1936 was the expansion of the Palestinian cause from a local to a universal Arab issue.

The mandate period saw the emergence of a number of other Palestinian historians. Among the most prominent were Aref Al-Aref and Mohammed Ezzat Darwaza. Al-Aref's work chronicled the history of countless Palestinian towns and cities and demonstrated a particular interest in their archaeology. Darwaza, according to Adnan Abu Ghazala's study of Palestinian historians in the age of the mandate, began his career as a representative of the tradition of Islamic biographers of the life of the Prophet and pioneered the transition, under the influence of the nascent pan-Arab movement, to the modern pan-Arab orientation in Arab historiography.

In the 1950s, there appeared a number of serious studies on the Palestinian issue. Of particular value are the works of Ahmed Tarbin and Akram Za'itar. However, their approach to the Palestinian cause was largely influenced by eye-witness reports and was governed by an idealism that held that the "Nakba/catastrophe" of 1948, in the words of one writer, "inflicted such a painful wound in the heart of every Arab political leader and people" that it would impel the Arabs to eradicate "the monstrous Jewish state" which was founded "on a very narrow patch of land, with no economic prospects, in the midst of a vast sea of Arabs, rich in numbers, capabilities and potential."

This uncritical and naive outlook continued to prevail, even in the wake of the defeat of June 1967. It is best illustrated by The Palestinian Struggle over Half a Century by the Libyan journalist and parliamentarian Saleh Masoud Abu Yassier. Relying on a few widely-circulated secondary sources and on the Palestinian and Arab newspapers, the result was highly emotive and very popular; its first edition sold out within a few months of its publication in 1967 and a second edition was issued the following ear.

"Every piastre you pay will go to the military effort in Palestine. In one night, at a conference in Chicago, the Zionists collected LE24 million. Gold must be fought with gold"; text of an advertisement placed in Al-Ahram of March 1948 by the Nile Valley High Committee for Solidarity with Palestine, headed by Mohamed Ali Alouba Pasha

For Abu Yassier, the Palestinian question was the product of a conspiracy, woven by the British and supported by the "crusading" nations. The Palestinian people had resisted the conspiracy for thirty years and now, following the creation of Israel, they persisted in their struggle. But, the eradication of the Palestinian problem at its source demanded the concerted efforts of the millions of Muslims around the world. The author concluded by asserting: "If the European Christian nations had ignored their sacred sites in Palestine, which Islam has safeguarded for many centuries, and if they did not act to rescue these sites from the Zionists, that is all the more reason to compel us, the Muslim and Christian Arabs, to act so that we might render to all of humanity -- including the Christians in Europe and the USA -- the historic service of delivering these sacred sites from the abyss of Zionist deception and tyranny."

Unfortunately, in spite of considerable advances both in methodology and access to resources, this ideologically-charged mode of history writing has not entirely disappeared. In 1988, there appeared in Kuwait a book entitled How Palestine Was Lost: A Study of the Economic, Political and Cultural Factors Contributing to the Loss of Palestine by the Saudi Arabian scholar, Eissa Ben Mohammed Al-Madi. The author wrote in his introduction: "The loss of Palestine, and before that the loss of Eastern Europe and Andalusia and many other lands that had once been in the hands of the Muslim people, is indicative of the continual retreat of the Muslims before the advancing forces of heresy."

After presenting an analysis of the various economic, cultural and political aspects of life in Palestine, Al-Madi concludes that the loss of Palestine was brought about by the removal of the two major obstacles which had stood in the way of the creation of a Jewish national homeland. The first was the Ottoman Sultan, Abdel-Hamid II, who had blocked Jewish ambitions in Palestine and who he described as "Palestine's first victim and martyr". The second was Tsarist Russia, whose government was "intensely devoted to the traditions of Orthodox Christianity" and viewed the holy sites in Palestine with "the deepest piety".

This form of historiography, however, has been in decline since the seventies, when academics began to avail themselves of primary sources such as the British Foreign Office and Colonial Office archives, the files of the Zionist movement and Palestinian documents and private papers. The results of this coal face scholarship have been enormously illuminating. In 1967 Nagi Aloush published a critical-analytical study of The Arab Resistance in Palestine from 1917-1948. Abdel Wahab Al-Kiali, in 1970, produced is impressive Modern History of Palestine.

Al-Kiali concludes in this work, which was thoroughly documented from British government archive sources, that the failure of the Palestinian uprising from 1936 to 1939 was inevitable. The author cites several reasons for this. Firstly, the balance of forces were heavily tipped in favour of the Zionists as a result of the fragmentation of the Arabs and the subordination of Arab governments to colonial powers. Secondly, the Palestinian leadership was narrow-minded and lacking in foresight and ambition. Thirdly, there was an absence of revolutionary vision and mass organisation as a result of the underdevelopment of both the leadership and society. Finally, he adds that international circumstances between the two world wars were not propitious for national liberation movements.

Most of the studies that appeared in the 1970s had a political focus. The primary aim of the historians was to examine the origins of the Palestinian struggle in relation to colonialism and Zionism, with an eye to demonstrating that the modern Palestinian resistance movement, as epitomised by the PLO, did not emerge out of nowhere, but was rather an extension of a national movement that appeared in embryonic form toward the end of the Ottoman era and which had shown an early awareness of the dangers posed by the Zionist movement. This was the objective of Kheiriya Qasmiya in her study of the early Palestinian challenges to Zionist activity and their development and institutionalisation during the mandate period.

A similar orientation was adopted by Bayan Noweihad Al-Hoot in her work on Leadership and Political Institutions in Palestine from 1917-1948. Within this framework as well, there emerged numerous studies of the British mandate, its role in generating the necessary conditions for the success of the Zionist enterprise, the Zionist immigration movement to Palestine, the history of Zionism and its political and military organisation.

Exemplary of such endeavours was Sabry Grace's two-volume work on The Histry of Zionism from 1862-1948. Also, since the mid-seventies, in close conjunction with political developments, there appeared a spate of studies attempting to analyse the origins and development of Palestinian political thought and ideology. Particular attention was given to certain contentious subjects, notably the problematic of acceptance and rejection of the Zionist entity, and the relationship between Palestinian nationalism and pan-Arab nationalism, which was the focus of several studies by Faisal Hourani.

Others attempted to investigate the origins and development of specific political orientations. Thus Musa Bederi produced several studies of the Palestinian Communist Party, while I myself published a three-volume work on Communism in Palestine, covering the period from the beginning of this century to the 1980s. It is noteworthy that most such research projects have also been closely linked with the changing modes of political action and expression, a trait that continues even today.

Thus, the growth of political Islam in the wake of the Intifada has coincided with a large number of studies attempting, from various starting points, to chart the historic development of this trend since its first manifestations under mandate Palestine. An outstanding work in this genre is Ziyad Abu Amr's history of the Islamic movement in the West Bank and Gaza published in 1989.

The peace process initiated by the Madrid conference has also inspired several historians to examine the history of peace efforts. In his three-volume critique, Mohammed Hassanein Heikal traces the peace process back through secret negotiations between the Arabs and Israel, while Abdel-Azim Ramadan, in his work, adopts a more emotional and vindictive stance.

Other historians have dealt with the attitudes of other Arab peoples, particularly in the adjacent countries, to the Palestinian cause and their role in the fight against the Zionist enterprise. In her book, Egypt and Palestine, published in 1980, Awatef Abdel-Rahman analyses the Egyptian newspapers of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, in order to assess the trends of public and political party opinion vis-a-vis the Palestinian cause during these periods. According to the author, Egyptian concern for the Palestinian cause and the dangers of Zionism was evident as early as the 1920s. Moreover, she concludes that this awareness was influential in modern Egypt's discovery of its Arab identity.

Hussan Ali Halaq, by contrast, turned to Lebanon in a series of studies that he began to publish in the 1980s. He investigates the history of Lebanese attitudes towards the Palestinian cause, with particular attention to the role of the Union of Lebanese Parties in combating Zionist plans in Lebanon itself. He also examines the Zionists' promotion of one minor and ineffectual trend in Lebanon in the 1930s, where they advocated the establishment of a "Christian national homeland" on the model of the Jewish national homeland in Palestine.

Since the 1980s the development of a more rigorous methodology in writing history has influenced historical writing on the Palestinian cause. Increasingly, researchers turned their attention to economic and social matters, so as to produce a more comprehensive and detailed account of Palestinian Arab society before 1948. This trend represents a belated sequel to two pioneering studies which appeared during the 1930s and 1940s: The Economic System in Palestine by Said Hamada (1939) and Mohammed Younis Al-Husseini's Social and Economic Development in Palestine (1946). These research projects included a great variety of studies on rural life, land ownership, industry, education, the working class and the labour and trade union movements.

Rosemary Sayigh's compelling Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, which appeared in English in 1979 and was translated into Arabic the following year, stands out in this regard. Sayigh was inspired by the belief that the voice of the Palestinian people had become muted and distorted behind the catchwords of the "cause" and the official Arab and Palestinian narrative of the conflict.

In order to restore an element of human substance to increasingly empty words, she conducted countless interviews with the Palestinians of the refugee camps in Lebanon, compiling their oral accounts of their experiences and life-stories so as to allow them to speak with their own voice. Sayigh argues that the "Palestinian belonging" never constituted a rejection of Arab identity. Rather, it was the natural response of refugees who had been reviled, in the absence of proper Arab historiography on the process of their uprooting, for having sold or deserted their land -- as mercenaries or cowards. In this context, one should also single out for praise Walid Khalidi's efforts to produce at last a comprehensive and scholarly history of the process of that uprooting.

Also in the mid-1980s, there was a revival of interest in ancient history. Thus, Shawqi Shaath embarked on the study of ancient Palestinian culture and civilisation, while Abdel-Wahab Elmesseiri proposed a study of the history of the Jews that would distinguish between the history of Judaism as a religion with various denominational creeds and divisions, and the histories of the diverse Jewish minorities around the world. His typology is intended to refute the Zionist myth that the Jewish people must be treated within a single historical framework. Elmesseiri believes this is scientifically impossible.

Another exciting attempt to deconstruct the historical roots of Zionist mythology is Kamal Salibi's The Bible Came from Arabia (1985). Through a minute analysis of Old Testament place names, corroborated by contemporary Pharaonic and Mesopotamian sources, the author locates the ancient land of Israel, not in Palestine, but in the Najran province of what is now Saudi Arabia. On this basis, he draws a distinction between the ancient Hebrews -- the "sons of Israel" -- and the "Jews" and "Judaism".

Thus, while the ancient Hebrews became extinct through their assimilation into other peoples, the religion founded by the Hebrew prophets continued to flourish and spread among other peoples who had no connection with the original Hebrews of the Old Testament. The implication, of course, is that the Jews today are not descendants from the Old Testament tribes and, consequently, that they have no claim to the "promised land", whether it is located in Palestine or elsewhere.

From a different perspective, Bayan Noweihad Al-Hoot, in Palestine: the Cause, the People, the Civilization, tracing Palestinian history from the time of the Canaanites to 1918, also probes ancient historical sources in order to determine who Palestine belongs to and who the Palestinian people are. Her work represents a new trend towards comprehensive specialisation, producing a field of inquiry we might term "Palestinology". Under this heading, we must also include the Encyclopedia of Palestine, edited by Anis Sayigh, which, in six volumes covers many various aspects of Palestinian geography, history and civilisation -- not forgetting the Palestinian question.

In conclusion, it is possible to say today that Arab historiography, which, over the past six decades, has honed and diversified its methodologies, unearthed and taken on board a wealth of new resources and expanded the scope and orientation of its subject matter, to produce a rich body of scientific knowledge on Palestine, the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause. In the course of its development, it has helped shatter most of the Zionist myths and narratives.

Nevertheless, it is my impression that these writings have failed, up to the present, to offer a convincing and cohesive answer to one important question: Why did Israel win, and continue to win, in spite of the emergence of new Palestinian leaderships in the wake of the defeats of 1948 and 1967, and in spite of developments in the strategies and styles on the part of the Arabs?

To answer this question, I believe, Arab historiography must free itself from the terms of reference imposed by the Zionist reading of history. It must look at the Arab and Palestinian experience in its own terms, in order to locate the roots of underdevelopment and fragmentation. These two phenomena, which existed well before colonialism, though they were both exacerbated by it, gave the Zionists the advantage throughout. Explorers drawn to this new field of inquiry should take their inspiration from the ideas of Qostantin Zouriq in his The Meaning of the Nakba, and Yassin Al-Hafez who has discussed the reasons underlying Israel's victory.

Both writers offer new hypotheses as the basis for their studies. Focusing on the disparity between the Arab and Israeli communities in assimilating the concepts and mechanisms of modernity, Zouriq argues that underdevelopment was the Arabs' most fundamental problem. Were it not for this backwardness, he writes, "we would not have been deceived by colonialism to begin with, ignorance would not have been so widespread and we would not have suffered the catastrophe of defeat in Palestine."

In a similar vein, Al-Hafez contends that Israel was erected upon the ruins of Arab omissions and errors and continued to prevail over the Arabs as a result of the fragmentation and paralysis of Arab societies and the traditionalism which stifled the emergence of a modern Arab ideology.



This article was first published in Al-Ahram Weeklys special pages commemorating 50 years of Al-Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe when Israel was created on 15 May 1948. These pages, published in 1998, were part of a year-long series of articles documenting the history and nature of the Arab-Israeli struggle, as well as that of Palestinian dispossession and exile.

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Russian forces targeted Kyiv with multiple waves of air strikes early on May 28, Ukrainian officials said, describing the air raid as the "largest" drone attack on the city since the start of the war.

The strikes came on the last Sunday of May when the Ukrainian capital celebrates Kyiv Day, the anniversary of the city's official founding 1,541 years ago.

The Tavberidze Interviews Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Vazha Tavberidze of RFE/RL's Georgian Service has been interviewing diplomats, military experts, and academics who hold a wide spectrum of opinions about the war's course, causes, and effects. To read all of his interviews, click here.

Ukrainian military officials said 58 out of 59 drones used in the attack were shot down by Ukraines defense systems.

Falling debris killed at least one person and wounded two others in Kyiv, according to the city authorities.

Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, said Russia used the Iranian-made Shahed drones in the pre-dawn attacks on Kyiv, the largest Ukrainian city with a population of around 3 million.

"Today, the enemy decided to 'congratulate' the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly [unmanned aerial vehicles]," Popko wrote on Telegram.

"The attack was carried out in several waves, and the air alert lasted more than five hours," he added.

Several buildings were damaged, and fires broke out, city officials said.

Falling debris set a three-story warehouse on fire in the Holosiyivskiy district in the southwestern part of Kyiv, destroying 1,000 square meters of building structures, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

Falling drone debris also caused a fire in the Solomyanskiy district, a busy rail and air transport hub in the city's west.

The roof of a nine-story building was set on fire by debris in the Pecherskiy district, and a shop was damaged in the Darnytskiy district, military administration officials said on Telegram early on May 28.



Russia has intensified missile and drone strikes on Ukraine after a lull of nearly two months, targeting military facilities and supplies with waves of attacks several times a week.

Bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied equipment, Ukrainian air defenses have been adept at thwarting Russian air attacks -- both drones and aircraft missiles.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed his country's air-defense forces and rescue services, calling them "heroes."

"You look up to destroy enemy missiles, aircraft, helicopters, and drones. Every time you shoot down enemy drones and missiles, lives are saved.... You are heroes!" Zelensky said on May 28, also thanking rescuers.

Drone strikes and artillery fire were also reported from other parts of Ukraine, including the northeastern province of Sumy on the border with Russia and the town of Nikopol in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

In the northeastern Kharkiv Province, regional authorities said two people were killed in two separate shelling attacks on May 28.

Also on May 28, the death toll from a missile attack two days earlier on the city of Dnipro, the provincial capital of Dnipropetrovsk, rose to four.

Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysak said three people who were considered missing were confirmed dead. At least 32 people, including two children, were wounded in the May 26 attack.

With reporting by Reuters and AFP
Tens of thousands joined a May 27 anti-government march in Serbia's capital, Belgrade. It was the fourth in a series of protests organized by opposition parties in the wake of two deadly gun attacks in early May. The protesters called for the regulation of some media outlets that they say promote violence. They also decried the scarce coverage of the protests by the public-service broadcaster, the RTS. The television channel eventually carried a short live report showing the rally.
Land or an education: this choice was at the beginning of it all. Then the Zionists moved in on Palestine, and the war was on: a war in which the scales were tipped from the start. On one side, a powerful, organised and well-equipped colonial army. On the other, uneducated peasants, a corrupt king, and a divided leadership. Haidar Abdel-Shafi talks to Mona Anis about guerrilla warfare, the rabbi's daughter and the orders that never came

From Al-Ahram Weekly archives: Fifty years of dispossession 1948-1998*

Issue: 28 May 1998

FORMATIVE YEARS: "I was born in Gaza, just at the end of the Ottoman occupation of Palestine, in 1919. My father, who had graduated from Al-Azhar, was a high-ranking official in the Higher Islamic Council, the authority which administered the affairs of the Muslims in Palestine. Palestine at that time was a society of peasants and landowners who cherished the value of land above everything else. In Gaza, the social prestige of a person was measured by the number of the citrus trees they owned and the size f their plantations.



My father had no land, and when people asked him why he did not buy a plantation he would answer: I have six children, and I want to give all of them a higher education. That is a more worthwhile investment for the money I have than buying land. He was a eloquent orator in the traditional Arabic way, and he liked playing with words.

When there was an attempt on the life of the British High Commissioner in Palestine by the Zionist gangs in 1947, my father sent him a telegram congratulating him on his safety. The message read: "Thank God you escaped this evil, the source of which is none other than a British favour," in reference to the sentence in the Balfour Declaration stating that "His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." My father was a great believer in the value of education, and education was not as universally accessible as it is today.

"In the whole of the southern sector of Palestine, there was not a single school that offered a full secondary education. The secondary school in Gaza offered only the first and second years. There were three primary schools in Bersheeba, Al-Majdal and Khan Younis. The two best students in these three schools could come to Gaza to continue their education at the secondary school there.

The two best students from the Gaza secondary school could go to Jerusalem to continue their secondary education at the Arab College in Jerusalem, which was the only school offering a complete secondary education in Palestine at the time. I am speaking, of course, of government schools, not foreign missionary schools, which also existed in Palestine.

"When I completed my second year of secondary school in Gaza, I went to Jerusalem and entered the Arab College there as a boarder for another three years. I received my certificate in 1936. After that I left to Beirut, to study medicine at the American University (AUB).The Arab College in Jerusalem was a very good school.

Discipline was extremely rigorous. All our teachers were highly qualified, with university degrees. The majority were Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese, though of course we had British teachers to teach us English. The director of the school was Ahmed Sameh Khalidi, the father of Walid Khalidi, the historian. He was a great man and he continued to serve as director of the school until 1948. During the war, the Jews occupied the school, although it was officially in an area designated as no-man's land. Khalidi senior was pained beyond words by the loss of the school. He left, to Lebanon, and died soon after."

AN OFFICER IN THE ARAB LEGION: "I started my practice as a medical doctor immediately after my graduation from AUB in 1943. I returned to Palestine and worked in a government hospital -- the British mandate government, that is -- in Jaffa. The hospital was called Mustashfa Al-Baladiya (the Municipal Hospital). I worked there for a couple of years, until a friend who worked as a doctor in the Transjordan army came to visit me in Jaffa and told me that they were recruiting doctors for a new division in the army.

At that time, the Jordanian army was divided into two sections: the regular troops in the cities and towns and what they called Jaysh Al-Badiah (the desert army). They were establishing a mechanised force within that second section, and they needed well-trained doctors for the officers, most of whom were British. My friend, who was originally from Jerusalem, persuaded me to join, saying that he was having an exciting time. It seemed an opportunity full of adventures and the whole thing had a romantic appeal that tempted me greatly. We were young, then, and such things as military uniform and action had their appeal. So when I signed in and put on my military uniform, I was very excited.

"That was during World War II, and at the time the British were training the division in which I worked in the Arab Legion, along with other divisions, to be part of what was then called the Ninth army. It was supposed to open a second front in the Balkans. So they moved us from Al-Azraq, where we were stationed, to Ashona, on the Jordanian side of the River Jordan.

Then they moved us again, to Jericho and from there to Gaza. In Gaza, Glubb Pasha, commander-in-chief of the Arab Legion, came to inspect te preparations and informed us that we would be heading to Port Said, and from there to Greece, where the second front were to be opened. It was beginning to look serious, and I started to have second thoughts about the army. A week later, however, the idea of opening a second front was cancelled. The Russians were advancing in the Balkans, and it was decided that the Allied forces should concentrate on the Western front in France. Thus we were sent back to Al-Azraq in Jordan. I felt I had had enough of the army, so I resigned and went back to Gaza in mid-1945. There I opened a private practice."

RETURNING TO GAZA: "In those days, there could not have been more than ten doctors practicing in the whole southern sector of Palestine. There were three or four doctors in Gaza, and an equal number in an area extending from the Egyptian border at Rafah to Yibna in the north and Bersheeba in the east. But we founded a branch of the Palestine Medical Society in the southern sector and participated in the first Palestine Medical Congress in 1946.

There were five branches of the Society all in all, in Jaffa, ablus, Jerusalem, Haifa and Galilee. It was from within the Society that we started to organise our efforts as medical doctors to participate with our people in their legitimate struggle. As the clashes between the Jewish settlers and forces and the Arabs intensified following the UN partition resolution in 1947, we became actively engaged in the military resistance waged by the guerrillas.

Those doctors whose age permitted it used to accompany the fighters to provide medical aid in case of casualties. I prsonally remember accompanying a group of guerrilla fighters to the Kfar Darom settlement in Deir Al-Balah. I had my first-aid equipment with me and they arranged for me to stay in a small mud hut near the main road. Among the group of fida'iyin who went to attack Deir Al-Balah were several Egyptian Muslim Brothers. A large number of Muslim Brothers had come from Egypt to participate in the guerrilla warfare against the Zionists, and they were based at Nseirat. They participated with the Palestinians in tht attack, which took place sometime during March of 1948. As a matter of fact, the Muslim Brothers were at the forefront of the attack.

They were very brave and took matters seriously. Unfortunately, though, bravery alone is not sufficient in a war like that which was being waged in Palestine. The Jews were organised and most up-to-date in their military tactics. The colony was surrounded by circles and circles of barbed wire, and in between these circles the land was mined. The mines exploded, killing and maiming many of the Muslim Brothers who led the attack. Twelve of them were killed that night. The attack lasted from nightfall till daybreak, making them an easy target for the Jewish snipers, stationed high in observations towers inside the settlement.

"All this was taking place under the nose of the British, who were until then the rulers. They did not interfere, however, at least in Gaza. An elderly doctor I knew was called from Bersheeba to accompany the British soldiers into the settlement and collect the dead. He told me he found there Jews, who spoke Arabic like we did and treated him very rudely. They said to him, "Tell your people, 'Illi bidaqq 'al-bab biyalqa al-jawab' (he who knocks on our door will find the answer ready). Those were very sad days. Particularly so since we had grown up with Arab Jews, who were our friends and playmates.

"In the 1920s, when I was still a child, my father worked for few years in Hebron. As I mentioned earlier he was a a member of the Higher Islamic Council, an Islamic religious leader. But we used to exchange family visits with the rabbi of Hebron. He had a very pretty daughter, with whom I used to play. I liked her very much. I will never forget how sad I felt when, after our departure from the city, I heard that the rabbi had been killed when the Buraq (the wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque where the Prophet Mohamed's horse is said to have rested) was attacked by the Jews in 1929. But then everything changed over the next decade or two, and the polarisation between Jews and non-Jews deprived us all of the close affinities we had felt towards each other.

"Of course, by the beginning of 1948 the antagonism had reached its climax and we were enemies. From January 1948 onward, refugees from all over the southern sector began to flood into Gaza. We thought that, as doctors, we had to do something. It was then that we established a medical clearing station in Gaza to handle the seriously wounded and to ease the pressure on the one hospital we had. The station remained in operation until the Egyptians arrived to take over the administration of the Gaza Strip. At that point, they started running the station."

THE QUAKERS: "By the end of 1948, the Quakers came. They were the first to arrive in Gaza on a humanitarian relief mission. They were there when the Israelis violated the UN resolution and occupied Bersheeba. They stayed all through 1949, and until the UNRWA was established in 1951. I worked with them. They were such a wonderful group of people. They were of different nationalities: Americans, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, even Japanese. The head of their medical team was an African-American doctor, a highly competent and dedicated man.

The Quakers kept organising reunions until recently. When I was in Washington in 1993, they organised one there and invited me to attend. We were all very old, but it was a very endearing meeting, one at which we shared many fond memories. I am still in contact with one Dutch nurse from that time, and when I visited Holland last year I called on her and we talked a lot about those days.

"To go back to 1948: you cannot imagine how thing were then. In the course of three or four months, between the beginning of the year and the month of May, refugees poured into Gaza. They were twice as numerous as the inhabitants of the strip. The people of Gaza received them with open arms, providing them with shelter in any place they could make available, their homes, mosques, schools... All the doctors were working for free at the time. As people started to realise what was really happening, a general mood of aggravation settled."

PALESTINE LOST: "No one, with the possible exception of a very few, knew then the size of the catastrophe we were facing. Our people had emerged, just a few decades before, from centuries of Ottoman rule. They were simple peasants, on the whole, incapable of fully comprehending the challenge such a modern and organised force as the Zionist movement posed. The traditional leadership of the Palestinian people under British mandate were incapable of raising the consciousness of the simple masses as to what the Zionist threat really meant. Actually, they helped in deluding the people regarding the threat. At the time there was much talk of the 'cowardly Zionists who would not be able to stand up to the Arabs once the battle began'.

"There was a marked difference between the sophisticated Jewish leadership, which knew how to organise and mobilise all its forces, and the Arab leaders, who knew nothing of the sort. The Arabs declared that the question of Palestine was a national issue which concerned all the Arabs; these were fine words, but nobody knew how to implement them, or make them deeds. The Palestinian leadership should have played a role in mobilising the Arab world behind the cause of Palestine, insisting that these words be translated into concrete commitments, but they were as weak and divided as the Arab leaders in general.

"So there was King Abdullah, appointed General Commander of the Arab armies, and we all know by now of the secret deals Abdullah had made with the Jewish Agency and with the British. The Jews were able to take an extra 22 per cent of Palestinian land that was not allotted to them in the UN partition plan, thanks to King Abdullah's collaboration. Of course, all the Palestinian inhabitants of those lands were expelled.

If there was no unified leadership or aim, how, then, can we speak of a combined attack by all the Arab armies? The Egyptians were suspicious, quite rightly, about the Jordanians. The Jordanian army double-crossed everybody else, and the Iraqis, who had reached Tulkarem and were only 12km away from the coast, did not know what to do. Mako awamir (we have no orders): these were the Iraqi army's famous words, repeated by generations of Arabs.

How could there be orders, when it was the British who were supposed to issue them? Add to this the poor preparation of the Arab regular armies, who knew very little about the force of the enemy, had done no intelligence work before the battle, and were completely taken by surprise when they found the Jewish forces achieving victory in the battlefield, and you realise what a farce the 1948 War was."

Interview by Mona Anis



This article was first published in Al-Ahram Weeklys special pages commemorating 50 years of Al-Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe when Israel was created on 15 May 1948. These pages, published in 1998, were part of a year-long series of articles documenting the history and nature of the Arab-Israeli struggle, as well as that of Palestinian dispossession and exile.

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By Richard Chetwode

24th May 2023

Last year, the Knot, the highly rated American wedding magazine asked 12,000 newly wed couples whether they chose a natural or a lab-grown diamond for their engagement ring? This year they published the result 36% chose the latter. In context, thats by weight, not value, and engagement rings make up only 25% of the diamond jewellery market, but even so, thats a worryingly big number.

In fact, the natural diamond industry is under threat as never before. The Natural Diamond Council does a fantastic job of promoting the Diamond Dream but its massively underfunded. Russia is (for obvious reasons) persona non grata, and the Kimberley Process is unsuited and unable to bring in the necessary changes. So yet again the industry falls back on the partnership which has given stability to the industry for the last half century  De Beers and the Government of Botswana except you may not have noticed; their relationship may be about to go up in smoke.

The 50:50 Joint Venture

By way of background, the Government of Botswana and De Beers both own 50% of Botswanas largest diamond mining company Debswana. The profits are split 81.8% to Botswana; 19.2% to De Beers, but the development capital is split according to the shareholding, i.e. 50:50. So (in just one example) for its 19.2% profit share, De Beers pays half the costs of the USD2 billion Cut 9 development at Jwaneng (which only comes into production in 2027), and half of the USD6 billion to go underground (which will only come into production in 2034)! That profit ratio, which is so in Botswanas favour, would scare away most global mining companies, but it worked because the mines were so rich that it was a reasonable return (although as the mines get deeper, the increasing costs dont make it as attractive as it once was), but more importantly it also worked because De Beers sees this as a partnership where the people of Botswana must be the main beneficiaries, for the betterment of all the people.

To their credit, De Beers continues to make a significant financial, environmental (not least in the Okavango), and social contribution to the country. During Covid, De Beers secured half a million Moderna vaccines for Botswana as was contributing millions of dollars to support local communities in the procurement of medical supplies, logistical support, vulnerability assessment support plansetc, WHY?  its part of their DNA.

The Marketing Contract

De Beers had a ten-year marketing contract whereby 25% of Debswanas production was sold direct through the Governments wholly owned auction company (Okavango Diamond Company - ODC); 40% was sold by De Beers to diamantaires who cut and polished some of their diamonds in-country and the remaining 35% De Beers sold to their international customers. If they sell the diamonds for more than the expected price, they share the upside with Botswana; if prices fall, they take all the pain themselves. A 5% fee covers the costs of sorting and sales (any profit remaining is split with Botswana), and De Beers receives a further 5% marketing fee, which (only partially) contributes to De Beers corporate overheads, its funding of 50% (USD45 million) of the Natural Diamond Council, and tens of millions of additional marketing for promoting ForeverMark' and De Beers Jewellers all of which goes to promoting natural diamonds (Botswana also owns 15% of De Beers).

De Beers has also built a state-of-the-art diamond tracking system (Tracr), best-in-class diamond grading (IIGDR), is the only diamond company to spend millions on R&D to defend the integrity of natural diamonds the list seems to go on and on, but all of these benefit Botswana. I challenge anyone to find a better deal in any other country.

Yet three years ago this marketing agreement came up for renewal, and it has been rolled over again and again but next month is D-Day. Why is it still unsigned? Because the President of Botswana, President Mokgweetsi Masisi has repeatedly questioned whether he might just have found a much better sales model which will transform Botswanas revenues from diamonds. That model is based on the current sales agreement between Canadian listed Lucara Diamonds and diamond manufacturer HB Antwerp. and it was reading Lucaras recent results which jogged me into writing this article. It also seems that the Government has taken against De Beers but lets have a look at what has got President Masisi and the Botswana Government so excited.

The HB/Lucara Agreement.

Since mid-2020, Lucara has sold its +10.8 carat diamonds to HB who use their proprietary technology to calculate the value of the polished outcome; Lucara receive an initial payment based on a (undisclosed) percentage of that value. HBs fees havent been made public, but market insiders suggest they take a 5% manufacturing fee and 15% margin (total 20%). When the polished diamond is sold, HB makes a top-up payment to Lucara for the difference between the initial payment and the sale value (minus HBs margin). In the event that the polished diamond sells for less than the initial payment (plus HBs fee) Lucara have to reimburse HB.

What can they do for Botswana?

You can only congratulate HB what a great deal - they are achieving margins that most manufacturers can only dream about - by my estimate, their revenue to date from this deal (costs plus margin) is around USD86 million (19.4% of the total polished value - seems to add up!).

But isnt this also a game-changer for Lucara, and by inference, Botswana? To find out how good it is, you only have to read the numbers that HB are being quoted on. Just to grab a couple

- In October last year, an article in Botswanas Sunday Standard entitled Masisi to ditch De Beers for Lucara and HB Antwerp? quoted HB founder Rafael Papismedov (better known perhaps as an adviser to Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi)  with Lucara, HB Antwerp has increased the market price per diamond by more than 45% .

- Another article in the same newspaper stated that HB  promises a more than 45% increase in Botswanas diamond revenue  .

- Just in case you missed that, Africa Intelligence recently quoted HB Antwerp as claiming that their agreement allowed Lucara Botswana  to earn 40% more than it would from selling at rough diamond market prices! . These guys are obviously geniuses.

But before we start doing high fives around the room, lets just double check the numbers, because if these claims have merit, we should be saying so. If they dont. Its even more important to call it out.

Outside impact of Lucaras Results

Lucaras agreement with HB commenced in the second half of 2020, but three factors impacted short-term; firstly Covid; secondly the time lag between rough diamonds sold to HB and their final sale in polished form; and thirdly, a longer time lag to polish the larger, more complex stones. All of which meant some of the top-up revenue would be outstanding at any given time. But the good news was that the wind was in Lucaras sails; +10.8 carat diamond prices performed well during the pandemic and rose significantly in the boom of 2021 (even if they have come back down since).

What their results actually tell us

Using the numbers in its quarterly reports since the agreement started, Lucara has received initial payments from HB of USD285 million (for 56,066 carats), and top-up payments of USD73 million (a 25% premium net of HBs fees) equal in total to USD6,385 per carat.

But that 25% premium is not all value added. Lucara have never claimed that the initial payment is the market price of a rough diamond - it patently isnt by the way. It is a set (undisclosed) percentage of what HB decide is its polished value. Even if an independent valuer gives a market valuation on the rough diamonds (I have found no proof that they do), that comparison isnt shown to shareholders who might want to make their own judgement, but in truth, Im not a shareholder so, so what? Because its very important when looking at this from Botswanas perspective, so let me explain in numbers.

The value of the 10.8 carat diamonds in the ground

Since the HB agreement was signed, Lucara have mined almost exclusively from one part of the deposit (not in Q1 2023, but most of the diamonds sold would have been recovered in Q4 2022), the high value South Lobe - M/PK(S) and EM/PK(S).

In December 2019, Lucara published an NI 43-101 Technical Report and in the value distribution model, the +10.8 carat diamonds in the South Lobe had an estimated rough diamond value of USD 7,600 per carat (importantly this model excludes exceptional diamonds like the 813 carat Constellation which sold for USD63m). Yet with the HB deal, Lucara have only realised USD6,385 per carat . To be conservative, Ill add on an assumed USD25 million of top up fees still to come through: still only = USD6,831 per carat. Wheres this fabled 40% premium? They cant even get to the resource numbers!

Maybe they werent recovering larger stones? Except the eight quarterly reports for 2021 and 2022 all quote words to the effect of recoveries during the quarter were within the expected range of the South Lobe resource model. I think a pig just shot past my window.

Lets deal with a simple truth about the diamond business. The diamond industry is filled with some of the brightest and sharpest traders in the world; most are razor sharp! No diamantaire is going to pay one company 40-45% more for a polished diamond than he can get from someone else. GET REAL!

Is there an easy solution? Of course! Let HB tender for +10.8 carat diamonds at ODCs auctions along with everyone else, then they can buy them at market price and demonstrate that they can make this fabled 40%. Hold on theres a better way! In its recent tender, ODC didnt sell about USD20 million of diamonds because the bids werent high enough. Since ODC knows what those bids were and therefore what the prevailing market price was, why doesnt the Botswana Government ask HB to buy those diamonds (at those prices) to demonstrate how they make an additional 40%? If they do, Ill eat my hat dont worry, my hat is quite safe!

What is the Government up to? I can quite see why they want 24% of HBits a money printing machine, but for who, and at what opportunity cost to Debswana (and lets not forget, its partner De Beers)? At the same time, they seem to be allowing a concerted media campaign to attack De Beers to squeeze the last pips out of the lemon. Ive literally just put down a very recent article in the (Botswana) Sunday Standard to see the claim that Research has revealed that De Beers makes upwards of 300% more from Botswanas diamonds than [the] Botswana government mostly from jewellery manufacture and retail. Really? Anything to do with jewellery sits in De Beers Jewellers (DBJ) accounts and in 2020, DBJ lost USD15 million on sales of USD139 million and in 2021 DBJ lost USD13 million on sales of USD164 million (2022 hasnt been filed yet). Whatever the journalist is smoking could he please share it around! There wont be any winners from this fight but it does have the potential to harm everyone, especially Botswana.

The message to Botswanas parliament and the whole country must surely be, it takes decades to build up the enviable reputation Botswana has; it only takes a few weeks to damage it permanently. Why is the Government doing this? Why are they putting up a huge sign saying Botswana isnt open for business. But what are they are really up to?... (to quote Francis Urquhart in the original TV series House of Cards) You can think that, but I couldnt possibly comment.





Richard Chetwode holds a number of non-executive roles in the diamond and property industry. He is a part-time journalist and is currently writing a book on the diamond industry in World War II (When Diamonds changed Forever). All the opinions in this article are his own but while efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information provided in this article, accuracy cannot be guaranteed and information in this article is strictly for informational purposes and should not be considered investment or financial advice. Consult your investment professional before making any investment decisions.


Arvind Kejriwal Meets Ex-Minister Satyendar Jain

'Meet the brave man... the Hero'- Arvind Kejriwal

New Delhi: Former Delhi Minister Satyendar Jain, lodged in Tihar Jail in a money laundering case, has recently been granted interim bail. The Supreme Court has granted him conditional interim bail for 6 weeks due to ill health. Due to this he was admitted to LNJP Hospital of Delhi Government where he is undergoing treatment.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday arrived at the hospital to inquire about his condition. CM Kejriwal expressed his bond with him by shaking hands and hugging him. CM Kejriwal has also shared some pictures of the meeting on his Twitter handle.

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Sharing the picture on his Twitter handle, CM Arvind Kejriwal wrote - 'Meet the brave man... the Hero...'




PM Modi

PM Modi also felicitated the construction workers during the Ceremony

NEW-DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday unveiled the plaque at the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building. The PM dedicated the new Parliament to the nation. PM Modi also felicitated the construction workers with traditional shawls and handed over mementoes to them.

PM Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Parliament, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. 'Sarv-dharma' prayers were conducted at the new Parliament building.

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Notably, The 'Sengol' was installed as a national symbol of the 'Amrit Kaal'. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla was also present along with PM Modi. The inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building commenced with a traditional 'pooja' with Vedic rituals.




On the 75th anniversary of the Nakba  the Palestinian Catastrophe  Al-Ahram Weekly republishes the 1998 special pages commemorating 50 years of Palestinian dispossession and the creation of Israel on 14 May 1948.

The Nakba began the day after, on 15 May 1948. It has been marked every year since, as it continued to shape and influence the Arab consciousness and the regions political landscape, like no other in our modern history.

Little has changed as we look back at Al-Ahram Weeklys year-long project which documented the history of the Nakba 25 years ago. Israels settler colonialism, inherent in its structural violence, continues till this day.

The expulsion and dispossession of more than 700,000 Palestinians 75 years ago by Zionist militias, through genocide and ethnic cleansing, has failed, however, to eliminate the indigenous people of Palestine.

Today they are more than seven million in the diaspora and 5.3 million in the West Bank, Gaza and inside the 1948 borders of Israel.

Despite, or because of, Israels apartheid regime and war machine which sees Palestinian causalities as political gains or collateral damage, Palestinians have held on to their national identity.

Recent polls reveal that the majority of Palestinians, while espousing statehood and liberation, have lost faith in both the two-state solution and their political leadership. Instead, they support resistance against the Israeli occupation.

While the optics might have changed over 75 years, the nature of the conflict has not.

This is reflected in the testimonies, accounts and reflections of the writers, intellectuals and figures who marked the Nakbas 50th anniversary on the pages of Al-Ahram Weekly in 1998 and whose words are still relevant till this day.

Edward Said, the acclaimed Palestinian professor of English literature questions how are we to say that we will coexist with a state that still has not declared its boundaries and still describes itself, not as the state of its citizens, but as the state of the whole Jewish people entitled to the entire land of Israel?

Meanwhile, Palestinian historian Saleh Abdel-Jawad describes the tactics employed by Israel since 1948 to expel the indigenous population have given way to a policy he calls "sociocide." That is the gradual undermining of the communal and psychological structures of Palestinian society in order to compel the Palestinians to leave by other means.

Salim Tamaris haunting account of his visit his birthplace, the once thriving Palestinian city of Jaffa, occupied by Zionist militias in 1948, is piercing. The prominent Palestinian sociologist describes a city abandoned and now being rejuvenated by Jewish gentrification seeking abandoned Arab houses, or pushing houses to be abandoned. And where he finds his grandfathers house occupied by two Jewish Moroccan families.

A 1984 interview by Egyptian novelist and academic Radwa Ashour with Nagi El-Ali, the prominent Palestinian cartoonist, takes us back to his familys expulsion from Galilee, at the age of 11, where he ended up in refugee camp in south Lebanon.

The young, barefoot Hanzala he explains was a symbol of my childhood. He was 11-years-old when I had left Palestine and, in a sense, I am still that age today.

Highlights from Al-Ahram Weeklys special Nakba coverage in 1998 include an interview with prominent Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal who covered the 1948 war, among other compelling testimonies from that time.

The weeklys staff also embarked on a yearlong journey in Al-Ahram newspapers microfilm archives to unearth the papers coverage as 1948 unfolded.

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PM Modi

'Our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise', Says PM Modi

New Delhi: After the inauguration of the new Parliament building, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that the New Parliament Building will not only empower the people but also give new momentum and strength to the prosperity and strength of the nation.

PM Modi tweeted, "As the new building of India's Parliament is inaugurated, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise. May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress."

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PM Narendra Modi on May 28 unveiled the plaque at the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building. The PM dedicated the new Parliament to the nation. PM Modi also felicitated the construction workers with traditional shawls and handed over mementoes to them. PM Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Parliament, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. 'Sarv-dharma' prayers were conducted at the new Parliament building.


Consignment

About 2.2 kg and 3.5 kg of Heroin was Recovered from the area

AMRITSAR: The Border Security Force has foiled two attempts by Pakistani smugglers in Punjab's Amritsar. BSF jawans have recovered heroin consignment sent by drone from Pakistan from two places in Amritsar sector. BSF has also nabbed a smuggler.

According to the BSF, the troops of Battalion 22 were on night patrol at Pul Moran, very close to the Attari border. Meanwhile, around 9:35 in the morning, the sound of the drone was heard. Acting immediately, the jawans started firing. Within a few minutes, the sound of the drone stopped.

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Without wasting time, the jawans sealed the area and started searching. A 'DJI Matrice RTK 300 drone' was seized from the fields but no consignment of heroin was attached to it. The troops launched search operation in the surrounding area at night.

BSF officials said that they spotted a person. The soldiers chased after him and immediately nabbed him. He had a consignment of heroin in his hand, which reached India via drone. The accused smuggler was arrested. The consignment weighted about 3.5 kg. BSF officials have started questioning the smuggler.

BSF officials said that they have recovered another consignment from Amritsar sector. During the search, they recovered a consignment of 2.2 kg of heroin dropped by the drone.
Sanvi Sood with father deepak sood at Mt Kosciuszko Peak

This process will continue in the future as well: Sanvi Sood

RUPNAGAR: Sanvi Sood of Ropar city has climbed the peak of Australia and joined the list of the youngest mountaineers in the world, who has conquered 7 peaks of the world so far. This time, she succeeded in climbing Australia's Mount Kosciuszko peak on May 26 and hoisted the tricolor. She was accompanied by her father Deepak Sood.

Sanvi has also achieved success on Mt Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in South Africa. Sanvi Sood said that this process will continue in the future as well.

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Notably, Sanvi's father Deepak Sood said that even though the height of Mount Kosciuszko, the peak of Australia, is 2283 m but climbing it, is not free of danger because snow falls on this peak in winter. The temperature here is minus 12 degrees Celsius. After conquering this peak, Sanvi Sood has succeeded in climbing 7 mountain peaks of the world. It is worth mentioning here that before this, Sanvi Sood has also been specially honored by Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann for her achievements.
Family Murdered in USA

The Name of the accused is Caesar Olade

Washington: An 18-year-old boy killed his parents, sister and a 5-year-old brother in Texas, USA. The Police has arrested the Teenager. He told the police that his family members are cannibals and were planning to eat him. The name of the accused is Caesar Olade. The incident is from the city of Nash, Texas. Olade himself called the police and told about the incident. The police reached the spot and asked Olade to surrender. After that, the cops went home and found 4 dead bodies.

The Police said that the accused shot several times at the family members. Then he dragged the bodies to the bathroom. There was blood in many places throughout the house. According to the police report, Lisbet Olade, the mother of accused Cesar Olade, took leave from work. Due to this, Joseph Flyder, who worked with him, came to his house to ask how she was doing. When he knocked on the door, he did not get any answer.

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After this, a member of Olade's family also came there. When both of them forcibly entered the house, they saw that Caesar had kept their entire family captive. He also threatened to kill the people who came home. Caesar was constantly calling his family members man-eaters.

After this, the flyer reported the matter to the police. Accused Caesar has been sent to jail on a bond of 82.5 crores. Her neighbor Robert Ward said that the family was very happy and hardworking. His sister has recently completed her graduation. Accused Caesar was also a very good boy and was about to join a training program to become a plumber.




Loretta Young and actor Clark Gable are pictured in a movie still from the 1935 film Call of The Wild.

Was the illegitimate daughter of Clark Gable and Loretta Young a product of date rape? Thats the claim made by Youngs daughter-in-law, who said the actress revealed before she died that the tryst may not have been consensual.

The glamorous movie star and devout Catholic was 23 years old when she began filming The Call of the Wild with Gable, a married Hollywood heartthrob. After learning she was pregnant, Young embarked on an elaborate ruse to conceal the baby, feigning illness and exhaustion for her absence from the public eye. Eventually she returned to Tinseltown with an adopted daughter in tow, Judy.

In this May 16, 1961 file photo, actress Loretta Young, right, and her daughter Judy Lewis attend a party following the Emmy awards in Hollywood. ( / AP)

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The scandalous story and secret birth was the talk of the town, but the truth did not come to light until Young herself revealed it in memoirs released in 2000.

Apparently there was more to the story about what happened that night.

In a Buzzfeed article posted Sunday, daughter-in-law Linda Lewis said Young had been watching Larry King Live in 1998 when the subject of date rape came up and she asked Lewis and her biographer friend Ed Funk what that meant.

I did the best I could to make her understand, Lewis said. You have to remember, this was a very proper lady. She said she explained to her then-85-year-old mother-in-law that date rape was basically when youre with someone that you trust, or literally on a date with them, and youre not compliant, or youre saying no, and theyre not listening. And they either cant hear it or believe the old myth of Oh, you really want that. I said, It doesnt have to be violent, it doesnt have to be rip-your-clothes-off. Its when your no isnt no.

And when she was done, the reality of what actually happened to her became clear, said Lewis.

Young took it all in and replied, Thats what happened between me and Clark.

We talked about it, and it didnt make her angry at him, it just gave her a new frame that I think lifted a lot of her guilt, Lewis said.

Young explained the stars were on an overnight train on the way home from production in separate sleeping compartments when Gable joined her. Young never told anyone, not even daughter Judy Lewis, what happened until decades later.

Linda Lewis said the actress did not want the truth to come out because it would hurt her daughter to find out she was not conceived in love.

Biographer Funk said that Young lived with guilt all those years and felt the fault was all hers because she was unable to fend off Gables advances.

Lewis said that she is talking about the revelation now that Judy, who died in 2011, is not around to hear it.

I realized that its almost every day, all these rapes, and the men just keep getting away with it, she said.

In a piece in the New York Post, writer Lou Lumenick talked to Hollywood historians who were skeptical about the story. Robert Matzen noted that The Call of the Wild director William A. Wellman had said there was monkey business going on between Gable and Young and that he asked them to stop. He also pointed out that Young worked with Gable again on another movie years later. This new story makes her sound sort of like an idiot, Matzen said. Loretta was no idiot.

But film historian David Stenn told the paper that it was entirely conceivable that Youngs version of events was true.

Its also possible that her Catholic guilt caused her to reframe the narrative decades later. It speaks to the tragic and unjust attitudes of the era. Not only did Loretta have the shame of premarital sex, but [she] had the burden of pregnancy. Judy told me her mother told her, You are my mortal sin. 

Young died in Santa Monica in 2000 at age 87. Gable never acknowledged that Judy was his daughter.
A woman holds a sign as she takes part in a demonstration against a concert later the day of former Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters in the Festhalle, background, in Frankfurt, Germany, Sunday, May 28, 2023.

Several Jewish groups, politicians and an alliance of civil society groups gathered for a memorial ceremony and a protest rally against a concert by Roger Waters in Frankfurt on Sunday evening.

They accuse the Pink Floyd co-founder of antisemitism  an allegation he denies.

Waters has also drawn their ire for his support of the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel.

Frankfurt authorities had initially tried to prevent the concert taking place, but Waters successfully challenged the move in a local court.

The concert is taking place in the citys Festhalle, where in November 1938 more than 3,000 Jews were rounded up by the Nazis, beaten and abused, and later deported to concentration camps.

Against this historical background, the concert should not have taken place under any circumstances, said Sacha Stawski, a member of the Frankfurt Jewish community and head of the group Honestly Concerned, that helped organize the protests.

Its very frustrating that the concert is going ahead as scheduled even though Frankfurt officials and many others tried to prevent it, Elio Adler, the head of the Jewish group WerteInitiative which supports the protest, told The Associated Press.

His words and imagery spread Jew-hatred and are part of a trend: to normalize Israel-hatred under the protection of freedom of speech or art, Adler added.

Last week, police in Berlin said they had opened an investigation of Waters on suspicion of incitement over a costume the Pink Floyd co-founder wore when he performed in the German capital earlier this month.

Images on social media showed Waters firing an imitation machine gun while dressed in a long black coat with a red armband. Police confirmed that an investigation was opened over suspicions that the context of the costume could constitute a glorification, justification or approval of Nazi rule and therefore a disturbance of the public peace.

Waters rejected those accusations in a statement on Facebook and Instagram, saying that the elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms.

He claimed that attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated.

During Sundays ceremony and protests, which took place in front of the Frankfurt concert venue before Waters concert was set to begin, protesters read out loud the names of 600 Jews who were rounded up at the Festhalle on November 9, 1939, the so-called Kristallnacht  the Night of Broken Glass  when Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

The organizers also held a joint Jewish-Christian prayer for the victims of the Nazi terror in Frankfurt. The citys mayor as well as the head of the local Jewish community were set to speak at the protest.

In addition, some of the around 400 protesters handed out flyers to concertgoers and waved Israeli flags. Others held up banners with slogans such as Israel, we stand with you or Roger Waters, wish you were not here in reference to Pink Floyds famous song Wish You Were Were, German news agency dpa reported.

Protesters in Munich rallied against a concert by Waters earlier this month, after the city council said it had explored possibilities of banning the performance but concluded that it wasnt legally possible to cancel a contract with the organizer.

Last year, the Polish city of Krakow canceled gigs by Waters because of his sympathetic stance toward Russia in its war against Ukraine.

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Exploring diverse ancestry is a critical factor in furthering medical research.

A new study published in Nature Genetics from researchers in the Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, in partnership with the University of California San Francisco and Stanford University, is the largest of its kind that focuses on ancestry correlations with biomedical traits and the first study to examine the role of genetic variants across diverse ancestries in regulating gene expression.

"We're trying to understand how genetic variability around the world allows us to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between genetics and RNA levels and then protein levels and physiology," says DBMI associate professor and study co-senior author Chris Gignoux, PhD. "The genome and gene expression each on their own only tells us so much. Having these layers coming together helps us a lot more."

Gignoux describes the genetic control of gene expression as a dial that controls the amount of the gene that gets transcribed into RNA and protein levels, ultimately impacting function in various ways.

The study analyzed whole genome and RNA sequencing from African American and Latino children. Researchers say their findings demonstrate the importance of measuring gene expression across multiple populations because those gene expressions can vary greatly depending on ancestry and enable new discoveries that may also reduce health care disparities for historically underrepresented populations.

Gignoux's lab used data from The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute-funded Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) consortium and the National Human Genome Research Institute-funded Population Architecture using Genomics and Epidemiology (PAGE) Study. They analyzed whole genome and RNA sequencing data from 2,733 African American and Hispanic/Latino children, exploring ancestry and heterozygosity-related differences in the genetic architecture of whole blood gene expression.

"The ultimate goal was that we learn by looking at gene expression patterns in populations that came from the same ethnic group," Gignoux explains. "Individuals from across Latin America do not reflect one homogeneous population, so that was part of the reason why it was important to not just look at Hispanics in one group, but to highlight what we can learn from studying Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans, specifically. We're able to leverage some of that diversity to understand some of these patterns."

Because ethnicity is a sociopolitical identity, understanding the relationship between genetics and ancestry is quite complex and can vary greatly between individuals. This is true even within certain populations such as individuals of Puerto Rican descent.

Historically, there's been a deficit in genetics research focused on people of non-European descent, but knowing more about the relationship between genetic variability and gene expression can inform deeper research into many different health issues.

That's been proven true in examples such as the medical community's knowledge of heart attacks, which for decades only focused on men. With more research, it became apparent that risk factors and symptoms look much different in women.

Without studying diverse populations, it's nearly impossible to know a disease might present in another group of people. The work done by Gignoux and his fellow researchers, including researchers from the various communities represented, may help inform more discoveries that are significant to diverse populations, just like identifying different risk factors women face with heart attacks.

"We're not going to know what we don't know unless we look, and that has the potential to impact how we think about individuals' risk factors for a number of different conditions and traits," Gignoux says. "It's also important to look in the right kind of ways and develop the methodologies so that we can leverage these kinds of diversity-focused efforts. The hope is that as these kinds of initiatives move forward in genetic and non-genetic disciplines there's an opportunity to improve our understanding of biomedical traits for anyone who walks into the clinic."
With distant family members looking on, Connecticut senators voted Thursday to absolve the 12 women and men convicted of witchcraft -- 11 of whom were executed  more than 370 years ago and apologize for the miscarriage of justice that occurred over a dark 15-year-period of the states colonial history.

The Senate voted 33-1 in favor of a resolution that officially proclaimed their innocence. It marked the culmination of years of effort by a group called the CT Witch Trial Exoneration Project, made up of history buffs and descendants. Some of the descendants recently learned through genealogy testing that they were related to the accused witches and have since lobbied the states General Assembly to officially clear their names.

People can say were wasting our time this afternoon, maybe we could be doing other things, said Republican state Sen. John Kissel, acknowledging early criticism of the legislative effort. But I think its a small step to acknowledge our history and move forward together, Democrat, Republican, men and women into a brighter future.

The resolution, which lists the nine women and two men who were executed and the one woman who was convicted and given a reprieve, already passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 121-30. Because its a resolution, it does not require the governors signature.

Republican state Sen. Rob Sampson cast the lone no vote on Thursday. He said it was wrong and childlike to suggest somehow we have a right to dictate what was right or wrong about periods in the past that we have no knowledge of.

I dont want to see bills that rightfully or wrongfully attempt to paint America as a bad place with a bad history, Sampson added. I want us to focus on where were going, which is a brighter and better future. And I dont want to see anyone try and put a stain on the country that I love.

Advocates of the resolution argued its important to raise public awareness about the witch trials in Connecticut, which occurred decades before the infamous Salem witch trials in Massachusetts.

Its important to right the wrongs of the past so we learn from them and move on and not repeat those mistakes, said Joshua Hutchinson, of Prescott Valley, Arizona, who traced his ancestry to accused witches in Salem and is the host of the Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.

Sen. Saud Anwar, a Democrat who advocated for the resolution on behalf of a constituent who learned he was a descendant of a witch accuser, said lawmakers heard testimony during the public hearing process about witch trials still happening around the world, including in African countries, and the need to draw attention to the problem.

Its relevant, even to this time as well, he said.

Alse Young, who was killed at the gallows in Connecticut, was the first person on record to be executed in the American colonies for witchcraft. The Windsor town clerk registered the death on May 26, 1647, in a diary entry that read: Alse Young was hanged.

The courts in the early British colonies of Connecticut and New Haven ultimately indicted at least 34 women and men for the crimes of witchcraft and familiarities with the devil.

Other states and countries have attempted to atone for a history of persecuting people as witches. Last year, Scotlands prime minister issued a formal apology to the estimated 4,000 Scots, mostly women, who were accused of witchcraft up until 1736. Of the 4,000, about 2,500 were killed. A Scottish member of parliament last year called for posthumously pardoning them.

In 2022, Massachusetts lawmakers formally exonerated Elizabeth Johnson Jr., who was convicted of witchcraft in 1693 and sentenced to death at the height of the Salem Witch Trials. Johnson is believed to be the last accused Salem witch to have her conviction set aside by legislators.

Many historians believe fear and anxiety among the religiously strict English settlers led to the witch trials, noting how life was very difficult, given epidemics, floods, cold winters and starvation. Often, accusations started as a quarrel, or the death of a child or a cow, or even butter that couldnt be churned.

Many of the people executed as witches were poor, single mothers.
A Russian serviceman guards in an area of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in territory under Russian military control, southeastern Ukraine, May 1, 2022.

Ukraines military intelligence has claimed, without offering evidence, that Russia is plotting a large-scale provocation at a nuclear power plant it occupies in the southeast of the country with the aim of disrupting a looming Ukrainian counteroffensive.

A statement released Friday by the intelligence directorate of Ukraines Defense Ministry claimed that Russian forces would strike the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe, and then report a radioactive leak in order to trigger an international probe that would pause the hostilities and give the Russian forces the respite they need to regroup ahead of the counteroffensive.

In order to make that happen, Russia disrupted the rotation of personnel of the permanent monitoring mission of the U.N.s International Atomic Energy Agency that was scheduled for Saturday, the statement said. It didnt offer evidence to back up any of the claims.

The IAEA said in an emailed response to the AP that it did not have any immediate comment on the allegations, and Russian officials did not immediately comment on the Ukrainian claims.

The White House said it is watching the situation closely and has seen no indication that radioactive material has been leaked.

The claim mirrors similar statements Moscow regularly makes, alleging without evidence that Kyiv is plotting provocations involving various dangerous weapons or substances in order to then accuse Russia of war crimes.

It comes as Moscows military in Ukraine braces for a looming counteroffensive by Kyivs forces, which hasnt started yet but could begin tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week, the secretary of Ukraines National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, told the BBC in an interview Saturday.

The Zaporizhzhia power plant is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world. It is located in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine. The plants six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

Fighting near it repeatedly disrupted power supplies and has fueled fears of a potential catastrophe like the one at Chernobyl, in northern Ukraine, where a reactor exploded in 1986 and spewed deadly radiation, contaminating a vast area in the worlds worst nuclear disaster.

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LAS VEGAS (AP)  A Dances With Wolves actor charged with sexually abusing Indigenous women and girls for more than a decade has asked Nevadas high court to toss his sweeping indictment in state court.

Nathan Chasing Horse and his lawyers have argued that his accusers wanted to have sex with him.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  A former Harlem prison, shuttered since 2019, will reopen as a temporary migrant shelter, according to a Friday report from amNewYork Metro.

The former Lincoln Correctional Facility on West 110th Street will serve as the citys latest migrant respite shelter after state officials green lit the plan for the site formerly controlled by the State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, a mayoral spokesperson confirmed to the outlet.

Were grateful to the state for providing this site and partnering with the city to open this space as a temporary site for asylum seekers as New York City continues to face this humanitarian crisis, the spokesperson said.

City officials will open the site in the coming days as an emergency respite shelter similar to the one set up at the former site of the Hungerford School. None of the migrants will be housed in cells.

City Councilman Joseph Borelli (R-South Shore) squashed rumors earlier this month that one such migrant facility would be set up at the former Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, Charleston, which has since been transformed into a film studio.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo shuttered the former Harlem prison, which served as a minimum-security facility in 2019 as part of the states effort to decommission several underutilized correctional facilities across New York.

The site sits directly across from Central Park and proximate to transit, retail, and schools, according to a March press release from Gov. Kathy Hochuls office.

That press release sought requests for proposal from private developers about what to do at the site. Hochuls office specified that it would be used for things like affordable housing or new cultural and educational spaces for the Harlem community.

Per a Wednesday media briefing, more than 70,000 migrants have made their way to New York City since April 2022, many coming from southern states bused by local governments.

Of those 70,000, 44,700 remain housed using city dollars, Budget Director Jacques Jiha said. Those people are being housed at 150 emergency shelters around the five boroughs, including hotels, nine humanitarian emergency relief centers, and the unknown number of respite shelters.

Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said the city has made an effort to separate the incoming migrant populations from the citys traditional shelter population saying there had been some conflict at the beginning between the two groups.

Those two groups, when added together, total more than 93,000 people being provided shelter by the city, 81,000 of whom are in the care of the Department of Homeless Services (DHS). The prior capacity record for the DHS system was 61,000 according to the city.

That surge led the Adams administration to announce Tuesday night that it had taken legal action against the mandated right to shelter law as the migrant crisis grows in the five boroughs.

New York Citys right to shelter for all people who are homeless stems from a 1979 lawsuit and subsequent legal action, but Adams said modern circumstances warrant change to the decades-old mandate.

Adams and his administration have avoided characterizing the called-for change as an end to the right to shelter, but the city Law Departments legal action brought before the New York Supreme Court, if successful, would bring fundamental changes to the current system.

Specifically, the citys right to shelter for adults would be lifted in situations when the citys shelter system has been stretched beyond its capacity, like the current crisis brought on by the influx of migrants, mostly from the southern border. Children and their families would not be impacted by the proposed change.

Adams chief counsel, Brendan McGuire, offered few specifics during Wednesdays briefing about what would happen to homeless people if they prevail, but the Coalition for the Homeless, a non-profit organization that brought the original lawsuit that led to the right to shelter has vowed action.

A Coalition co-founder, attorney Robert Hayes, brought the original suit on behalf of Robert Callahan, a homeless man suffering from alcoholism who Hayes discovered sleeping on the street in Manhattan, according to the Coalition.

In a settlement, the city and state agreed to provide shelter and board to all homeless men who met the need standard for welfare or who were without homes by reason of physical, mental or social dysfunction. Women and children were added later through further legal action, according to the Coalition.

For more than 40 years, Callahan has served as a lifeline for countless New Yorkers seeking shelter and critical services, the Coalition wrote in their joint statement made with the legal aid society. The administrations request to suspend the long-established state constitutional right that protects our clients from the elements is not who we are as a city. New Yorkers do not want to see anyone, including asylum seekers, relegated to the streets. We will vigorously oppose any motion from this administration that seeks to undo these fundamental protections that have long defined our city.

MORE NYC NEWS

For the first time, NYC Sanitation will have scheduled trash pickup on Memorial Day weekend

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NYC Mayor Adams launches crackdown on retail theft in the 5 boroughs

Staten Island pols: Vacant public schools not a solution for migrant housing

Have a scheduling conflict with NYCs new trash takeout times? DSNY says youre on your own
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  NYPD could be seen investigating apparent bullet holes in a Walgreens window in Grasmere after the drugstore closed earlier than usual on Sunday.

Three holes were visible in the front windows facing Hylan Boulevard. One appeared to have made its way to the other side of the store, cracking a window facing the parking lot.

Police could be seen canvassing the area in and around Walgreens, which was closed at 4:30 p.m. when Advance/SILive reporter was on scene.

An individual said he received a notification his prescription was ready for pick-up, but could not retrieve it since the location was closed. However, normal hours of operation show that the store is supposed to be open until 11 p.m. and the pharmacy until 6 p.m.

Walgreens did not immediately return an Advance/SILive.com request for comment.

A woman was allegedly shot in the leg in South Beach on Sunday, according to the police. A large police presence could be seen in the vicinity of Clove Road and Norway Avenue in South Beach on Saturday, just before 3 p.m. when a woman appeared to be taken away in an ambulance. (Staten Island Advance/Kayla Simas)

Earlier today, a female, 20, was taken to the hospital after being grazed by a bullet in the left leg.

She was taken by ambulance from Walgreens, but shot on Norway Avenue shortly after 2:30 p.m., according to police sources.

A large police presence could be seen in the vicinity of Clove Road and Norway Avenue in South Beach on Sunday, just before 3 p.m.

Police are searching for suspects in connection with the alleged shooting.

According to sources close to the investigation, it could not be confirmed whether the two incidents were connected.

A female was shot in the leg in the vicinty of Walgreens near Clove Rd. and Norway Ave. in Staten Island on May 28,2023. Staten Island Advance

A female was shot in the leg in the vicinty of Walgreens near Clove Rd. and Norway Ave. in Staten Island on May 28,2023. Staten Island Advance
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- PS 20 students in Port Richmond were guided about the halls Friday morning to admire the array of art spread around the building. Leading their pack of peers were members of PS 20s Art Club, who, as part of their annual art show, served as tour guides for the expansive exhibition.

At PS 20, we value arts education...just about 54% of our students are English language learners, and so we value arts education and really feel that its a way for students to demonstrate all of their strengths and to have access to any type of learning when they are able to share what they can in the art form..., said principal of PS 20, Erica Padin. All of our students were able to contribute and participate, whether they speak English, Spanish, or any other language, they had an entry point in this, and thats why we value arts here.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  As Memorial Day approaches, always a time to remember and honor fallen soldiers, its also presents a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge soldiers past and present who are right here to thank.

So, its timely on the part of Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, who joined the Secretary of the Navy, Carlos Del Toro during a ceremony at the Stapleton Homeport Pier on Thursday, to award Daniel Lawrence Holihan, a 100 year-old World War II veteran and a Staten Islander, the Bronze Star Medal with Combat V.

Holihan was presented with the award for his service as part of Underwater Demolition Team Thirteen in the Pacific Theatre Operations during World War II.

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, standing center, Bronze Star Medal Recipient Daniel L. Holihan, sitting, and Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis pictured with members of VFW Post 7172 who brought Holihan's story to the Congresswoman's attention. (Courtesy/Office of Congresswoman Malliotakis/Nicole Baldassarre)Staten Island Advance

Congresswoman Malliotakis also took the opportunity to recognize Mr. Holihans courageous service in a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, thereby adding his story to the official Congressional Record.

In January, Malliotakis wrote to the Secretary of the Navy requesting that Holihan be honored for his service after members of VFW Post 7172 notified her office that he was initially recommended for the award of the Bronze Star Medal  but never received the prestigious award because he was transferred to the East Coast at the end of the war.

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, Bronze Star Medal Recipient Daniel L. Holihan, center right, and Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis pictured with members of Holihan's family, VFW Post 7172, and servicemembers in attendance for Fleet Week. To Holihan's left, is Sgt. Michael Sulsona, a disabled combat veteran who served in Vietnam. (Courtesy/Office of Congresswoman Malliotakis/Nicole Baldassarre)Staten Island Advance

I join the Secretary of the Navy and the rest of New Yorks 11th Congressional District in congratulating Mr. Daniel L. Holihan for receiving the Bronze Star Medal for his heroic actions and selflessness during World War II, as part of Underwater Demolition Team Thirteen, Congresswoman Malliotakis said. Im very proud of and grateful for Mr. Holihans service to our country and the bravery he displayed nearly 80 years ago. Yesterday, I took the opportunity to recognize Mr. Holihans courageous service in a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, adding his story to the official Congressional Record. As we head into Memorial Day Weekend to honor those who did not return from war and gave the ultimate sacrifice, I also give thanks to service members like Mr. Holihan who were willing to give their lives but thankfully returned.

Im proud as the 78th the Secretary of the Navy, to represent the nearly one million people who serve in our Department of the Navy  Sailors, Marines, and civilians  and to have that culminate here at Fleet Week in New York City, is a unique and special honor, said Secretary Del Toro. Of all the many activities that Ill be doing and have already done here at Fleet Week, Im proudest of this moment right now. I want to thank the Congresswoman for having brought to my attention the case of this proud World War II veteran. I hand out a lot of awards to a lot of individuals  this is uniquely special.
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Ron DeSantiss decision to announce his 2024 presidential campaign in a Twitter conversation with Elon Musk shows how the worlds second-richest person is increasingly inserting himself into US politics, setting him up as a leading powerbroker for the 2024 race.

The Florida governor, who filed paperwork on Wednesday to officially enter the 2024 race, is viewed by many Republicans as the most likely to defeat former President Donald Trump. But DeSantis has struggled in recent months  trailing in the polls against Trump, failing to rack up endorsements and coming off second-best in his battle with Walt Disney.

xxx Credit: Twitter

Having Musk on his side helps change that trajectory, associating him with the billionaire owner of a social-media platform that Trump leveraged during his own political rise and holds sway over Republican voters.

It binds him to Elon Musk, who has a lot of support in the voter base of our party, said Becki Donatelli, a GOP digital strategist and chief executive officer of Campaign Solutions. Its good for Musk because its creating all this discussion about Twitter. Its a win-win.
The main focus will be on the Greens, who have signalled they still intend to seek to publicly release a list of 36 PwC partners allegedly involved in the tax advice scandal.

PwC declined to comment, but the firm is dealing with staff implicated in the scandal being stood down from government work, a criminal probe by the Australian Federal Police over the matter and an effective ban on future work by the Finance Department.

Kristin Stubbins, PwCs acting chief executive, will be under pressure to act this week after an effective government ban on the firm.

PwC insiders who are not authorised to speak on the matter have confirmed that acting chief executive Kristin Stubbins will make an announcement this week.

The battle to release the names of PwC staff implicated in the tax scandal is set to intensify this week as the global consulting giant prepares to make its first significant announcement since effectively losing any further business with the Commonwealth.

A Tax Practitioners Board inquiry found in December 2022 that former partner Peter Collins repeatedly leaked confidential information with senior PwC staff about government plans to combat tax avoidance over three years, for PwCs benefit. A 144-page document of PwC emails was released in Senate estimates on May 3, showing staff involved in plans to use the confidential information for commercial gain. All names, except Collins, were redacted.

Greens senator Barbara Pocock sought to table the list of names during a committee hearing on Friday, but it was decided that advice should be sought first. Richard Pye, clerk of the Senate, is preparing advice on whether Senate estimates can release the names without jeopardising the Australian Federal Police investigation launched last week.

I have said that I respect the decision of the finance and public administration committee on Friday to refer the tabling of the names to the clerk for advice, but I believe that the Australian public should have access to this information at the earliest opportunity, and I am not alone in this belief, Pocock said.

Labor senator Deborah ONeill was concerned about the motives of whoever provided the mystery list with no one able to verify its provenance. A list from an unverified and unidentified source of 36 names is something, but it is not the list that PwC must make public, she said.

ONeill expressed concern that this could be an attempt to get the legal cover of parliamentary privilege for the 36 people on the list, to protect them from any future court action.
One of the countrys biggest medical insurers will no longer cover private practitioners prescribing gender-affirming care to adolescents, in a move that could leave young people languishing on already-stretched public waiting lists.

MDA National, one of four major medical indemnity providers insuring GPs and other private practitioners against legal claims, updated its policy this month to exclude cover for claims arising from aspects of gender transitioning treatment for under 18-year-old patients.

Dr Michelle Dutton is moving medical insurers following a decision to cut cover for GPs providing gender-affirming care. Credit: Joe Armao

Dr Michael Gannon, the organisations president, said young people experiencing gender dysphoria should be initially assessed by multidisciplinary teams in hospital  not by GPs.

This is the same hospital system that is very, very comfortable placing greater demands on general practitioners, he said. Its simply not fair to ask individual GPs in the suburbs or the bush to be making these complex decisions on their own.
Despite my irritation, I understood the poor blokes reluctance. I have come across similar sentiments before. My regular GP  a lovely, caring practitioner  often seemed anxious when writing morphine prescriptions for me until I got a review from my oncologist approving of my opioid use.

The young GP suggested that I see one of his senior colleagues who might feel more comfortable prescribing opioids, but I didnt want another lengthy wait or a second consultation. I pointed out that I had been on morphine for several months and that details of my cancer progression were on my medical files. I also pointed out that someone with terminal cancer shouldnt have to doctor-shop until finding a GP willing to prescribe their usual pain management treatment.

This left me frustrated and angry. I have stage-four prostate cancer. My bones are riddled with dozens of secondary tumours, so the cancer is both painful and terminal. And I am running out of treatments with which to control the disease. I dont think I will live another year.

I had difficulty getting a prescription for morphine when I went to my medical centre a while ago. My regular GP was unavailable, and the young colleague of his whom I saw was reluctant to prescribe the painkiller. He said he felt uncomfortable doing so.

These days, drugs such as morphine get bad press. Opioid addiction is a growing problem, entrapping increasing numbers of Australians and often stealing their lives away. In the past, opioids have been prescribed too readily for some forms of non-cancer chronic pain, and medical authorities have been trying to tackle the issue. Unfortunately, they seem to have done so in a blunt manner.

John OBrien is a part-time primary teacher, childrens writer and cancer sufferer.

In 2018, thousands of GPs were sent letters from the chief medical officer of the Department of Health, pointing out that they were prescribing too many opioids  even though many of these GPs may have had large numbers of patients with cancer or under palliative care. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners warned that the letter risked unfairly targeting doctors who had legitimate reasons to prescribe opioids. And my recent experiences would indicate that some doctors are now worried. It seems we have demonised the drugs, which have become increasingly difficult to obtain.

For terminal cancer patients like me, though, morphine is a wonderful medication. I take time-release morphine twice a day, and I will continue to do so until I die. It doesnt kill the pain from my bone metastases completely, but it dampens it down like nothing else. Without it, I would be racked with pain. With it, I can teach part-time, write short stories for kids, go for walks, enjoy seeing family and friends, and even craft rants of outrage. In short, morphine is giving me quality of life during my final year on Earth. It makes my life worth living.

We should work hard at reducing opioid addiction in Australia, but we need to avoid placing cancer sufferers at risk while doing so. Perhaps we should take a cautionary look at America, where the reaction to an opioid epidemic has resulted in cancer patients struggling at times to acquire the pain medication they need. Surely we can lower deaths from opioid overdose without making life difficult for those whose bodies are riddled with cancer. Nobody dying of the disease should have to struggle to get adequate pain relief. And no GP should be made to feel anxious about prescribing opioids to patients with advanced cancer.
Spanish Jesuit priest Segundo Llorente, center, with members of an Indigenous community in Alaska. In the 1930s, he was one of the first evangelizers in the area. Years later, he was accused of child abuse.

In 2018, EL PAIS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church. We maintain an updated database with all known cases. If you know of a case that has not been reported, you can write to us at: abusos@elpais.es. If your information is regarding a case in Latin America, the address is: abusosamerica@elpais.es.



Manuel Fernandez is a Spanish priest who was ordained in 1959, ending up in New Jersey by 1979. But in 2002, he was accused of child abuse  which occurred in the 1980s  and was removed from his post.

However, Fernandez then returned to his diocese in the city of Ourense, in northwestern Spain. From there, he continued to be a priest, living quietly, without anyone in the community knowing about his past. The bishops office didnt take any special measures, claiming that there was no record about his background on the other side of the ocean.

Up until now, this case was totally unknown in Spain. But its not the only one to have recently come to light. There have been several cases of Spanish priests who have been accused of pedophilia in the United States, with no public disclosure. EL PAIS first discovered a case like this in 2018, concerning Francisco Carreras. In 1984, he was sent to Salamanca from Miami with a warning about how dangerous he was. Yet, over the course of three decades, he was able to commit dozens of abuses across the Spanish province, moving from town to town.

In some cases, these clerics returned to Spain on the run and managed to evade detection. This newspaper has identified a total of 15 Spanish priests with clear accusations or convictions, along with another five defendants (who have not been included in this article) whose investigations have been inconclusive.

The information has been collected from data disseminated by U.S. media and from the Catholic Church itself.

Similarly, there are clerics from the United States and other countries  all accused of abuse in the U.S.  who, at some point, have ended up on Spanish soil. EL PAIS has recorded six such cases, adding pieces to the puzzle concerning the Catholic Church in Spain, which has barely collaborated with investigators to help make the truth about these abusers known.

The recent case of Bolivia  where, in the past few weeks, six Spanish Jesuit priest have been accused of abuse  was the result of information uncovered by EL PAIS, after this newspaper gained access to the diary of a deceased pedophile priest, Alfonso Pedrajas. The perpetrators notes indicate that, oftentimes, a priests transfer to another country was precisely because of accusations of abuse in Spain.

However, in several cases in the United States, this phenomenon has also occurred in reverse, with priests escaping to Spain after being accused, arriving in the Mediterranean country with a clean file. In theory, the Catholic dioceses of departure should inform the destination dioceses of what has taken place. But its also unclear if the Church didnt know about the accusations in the United States against clergy, or if the Church knew and opted to do nothing. In any case, in Spain, the trail of several priests has gone cold, as its been impossible to determine their dioceses of origin to ask for explanations. Of course, the Spanish Catholic Church certainly has this information, and could release it if it wanted to.

The oldest case involves the Jesuit priest Segundo Llorente. Born in 1906 in a town in the Spanish province of Leon, he was posted to an indigenous community in Alaska. He even became a local politician in the state legislature. And, despite all the crimes he committed, his image in Spain remains impeccable. Among the Jesuits, he is a legendary figure  his Wikipedia entry lists all his achievements, without a single mention of the abuse allegations.

There are many more cases from decades ago of priests who left Spain from the United States as young missionaries. Many lived the rest of their lives in North America, but others chose to return to Spain as a means of escape. In several of these cases, the mystery continues, given the silence of the dioceses. The priest Jesus Garcia, for example, was accused of abuse in 1995, in Texas. He subsequently returned to Spain, where he landed in the Diocese of Alcala de Henares, in Madrid, only to be placed in different parishes. The bishops office has refused to provide details about the case, only responding to EL PAIS saying that it has informed the Ombudsman and the Spanish Episcopal Conference about the accusations.

A case that illustrates the other phenomenon  of non-Spanish priests accused in the United States subsequently ending up in Spain  is that of the Peruvian priest Edgardo Arrunategui Jimenez. After being accused in California, he left the U.S., covered his tracks and managed to settle in parishes in Madrid between 2004 and 2008, sometimes changing his name. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Madrid now confirms that he was indeed in the area, but claims that he arrived from Peru  his original diocese  without any negative reports, while affirming that there are no complaints against him in Spain. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

All these cases  along with many others  were concealed from the public, lost among the thousands of accusations that have emerged since 2002, when The Boston Globe exposed the sex abuse scandal within the Archdiocese of Boston. Since then, numerous media outlets and victims organizations have published enormous amounts of information about hidden cases. In recent years, databases have been set up, such as BishopAccountability.orgs, which includes profiles of every U.S. bishop, priest, nun, brother and seminarian accused of child sexual abuse.

In Spain, this work has been carried out by EL PAIS since 2018, given the Catholic Churchs refusal to reveal what it knows and make the information public. The database maintained by this newspaper  opened in April 2021, the only one in existence in Spain  brings together all the cases that have come to light, through the media and court rulings, as well as those that have been directly admitted to by the Church. Currently, the database counts 959 accused persons, who abused a total of at least 1,922 victims. When this newspaper began its work, only 34 cases were known.

A year ago, the Ombudsman  commissioned by Spains Congress of Deputies  began an investigation into pedophilia within the Catholic Chuch of Spain. However, this report will still take time  there is no deadline. Similarly, the Spanish Episcopal Conference entrusted an internal investigation to a law firm  led by a member of Opus Dei  which presented its report in October. Although the Episcopal Conference assures the public that the Spanish dioceses have provided all the information they have, it remains to be seen if their degree of transparency will be up to the standard of the United States.

In the U.S.  unlike Spain  the Catholic Church already undertook a major transparency operation in 2004 that led to an avalanche of data. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ordered an investigation led by a council of laypeople, which commissioned a statistical study from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the the City University of New York. The data  from the 1950-2002 period  was provided by the dioceses themselves. The Conference also made the files public  the dioceses had to disseminate lists with names and surnames. The end result was that 4,392 U.S.-based priests had been charged in the past, 4% of the clergy. They had abused a total of at least 10,667 victims. Only 5% of these abuse cases had been taken to court.

This was only the beginning. Journalistic investigations and complaints continued to bring names to light, making it possible to cross-reference data and follow the trail of priests accused of child abuse who changed locations upon being discovered. Among them, there were also Spaniards, as well as non-Spanish accused priests who took off for Spain.

Listed below are 21 of the clergymen who are accused or convicted, according to U.S. records: 15 Spaniards and six foreigners, all of whom passed through Spain at some point. Information has been requested from all the North American dioceses involved. So far, very few have responded.

Julian Sanz A Spanish priest from the Diocese of Tucson, Arizona, he was sentenced in 2003 to five years in prison for abusing two minors. In 2010, he was expelled from the clergy.

Born in 1949, Julian Sanz was ordained in 1977. Three years later, he arrived in the Diocese of Tucson, Arizona. In 2002, a man accused Sanz of sexually abusing him. After that lawsuit, about a year later, he was accused of having abused another minor, back in 1982.

Sanz was finally arrested in 2003. He admitted to the accusations and was sentenced to five years in prison. In 2010, he was removed from the priesthood. He appears on the Diocese of Tucsons 2019 list of priests who have been credibly accused of abuse.

Segundo Llorente A prestigious Jesuit priest, he spent 40 years ministering in remote parts of Alaska. He was elected to the state legislature. He died in 1989. By 2004, accusations of child abuse began to be levied against him.

Llorente was a Spanish Jesuit priest, philosopher and writer. At the age of 13, he entered the seminary in Leon, Spain. He arrived in Alaska in 1935, where he spent four decades ministering in remote towns across the territory, while learning indigenous languages. He even was elected as a representative to the state legislature  becoming the first Catholic priest to be part of a North American legislature  and is considered to be a co-founder of the state of Alaska, which was admitted as the 49th state in 1959.

Llorente passed away in 1989 and was buried on an Indian burial ground in De Smet, Idaho, where typically only Native American Indians can be buried upon their request. He was also named favorite son of his hometown of Leon. However, his image began to darken in 2004, when he was accused of acts of sexual abuse that took place between 1956 and 1957. According to the allegations, Llorente invited a six or seven-year-old boy to his house on more than four occasions, after catechism class. In 2005, another victim accused the priest. Both victims received financial compensation from the Catholic Church, although two claims are still pending. Llorente is included in a list of Jesuit priests with credible accusations, published by Jesuits West Province in 2018.

Jose Mena He was accused of three counts of child abuse in Florida  his diocese paid $150,000 in damages. He returned to Spain in 2005, at the age of 76, but it is unknown where he was subsequently assigned.

Born in 1929, Mena was ordained in 1961. It is unknown if this took place in Spain or in the United States. In 1965, while ministering in Florida, he was accused of repeatedly sexually abusing a child. The lawsuit was filed in 2005 and the Diocese of St. Augustine settled with the victim for a sum of $150,000. In 2008, another lawsuit was filed against him. According to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Mena repeatedly fondled, sodomized and forced the boy to perform oral sex during the 1970s. In 2009, yet another victim sued him.

After the first accusations in 2005, Meta was removed from his post. He subsequently returned to Spain, although it is unknown where he was subsequently assigned, whether any measures were taken against him, or if he was allowed to maintain contact with minors.

John Peris In reality, his first name is Juan, or Vicente, depending on which registry is consulted. Peris was a Spanish priest stationed in the state of New Mexico, who was accused of abusing a minor in 1995. He then returned to Spain, although it is unclear where exactly he lived out the rest of his years.

Although he is listed as John in U.S. records, his given name is actually Juan, sometimes, though, hes listed as Vicente. He was ordained in 1934, either in Spain or the United States.

He was a parish priest in the city of Anton Chico, New Mexico. He also served as a missionary in small towns across the state. In 1995, a 51-year-old man accused Peris of having sexually abused him for several months when he was a child, back in 1957. According to reports by local media, the plaintiff was 13-years-old at the time  he lived in the Anton Chico parish, so as to be able to catch the school bus, which passed far away from his hometown. Peris returned to an unknown district in Spain after the complaint  by now, he would have passed away. He appears on a list of accused priests, published by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

More information Andrew Roy

Andrew Roy is actually a Spaniard: Andres Rodriguez. In 2003, a resident of Richmond, Virginia filed a lawsuit against the state diocese for $5 million, which was ultimately dismissed. He claimed that those responsible knew that Roy  a priest in the city of Hopewell  had abused him between 1962 and 1966 and did nothing about it. At the time, the victim was a 10-year-old altar boy. The plaintiff claimed that the church sexual abuse scandal that erupted in Boston in 2002 brought back memories of the abuse he faced at the hands of Rodriguez, which took place both in the parish and in the citys elementary school.

Available data for Rodriguez indicates that he was ordained in 1936, in Los Angeles. He arrived in Virginia in 1956 and continued to minister until his retirement in 1981. In 2004, after being accused, he was already living in Spain, but his exact place of residence remained unknown. By the time he was accused, Rodriguez was 92-years-old and suffering from Alzheimers, according to the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia.

Gabriel Salinas One of the oldest cases, Salinas was the first Augustinian to arrive in the United States. Born in 1892, he was ousted and reassigned after being accused of sexually abusing a minor in California, in the late-1960s. This information came to light in 2004, long after his death.

Salinas was born in Spain in 1892 and ordained in 1909. He was the first Augustinian to go to the United States. For most of his 55 years of priesthood, he was a member of the Order of Augustinian Recollects in the U.S. He spent three decades in Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1957, Salinas was transferred to Atwater, California, where he was accused of sexually abusing a minor between 1958 and 1960, as revealed in a 2004 report by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The report explained that he was once removed from office and reassigned to a rural parish for three years. SNAP asked the archbishop to release the information about Salinas to Nebraskan Catholics: This predator spent more than 30 years in Nebraska, so its silly to think that he assaulted children in California, but never in Omaha. Salinas died in 1972, after being hit by a car in Los Angeles. He appears on a list of priests accused of abuse, released by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Jose I. Ugarte Born in Spain and ordained in Los Angeles, he is accused of drugging and raping a boy in a hotel in Ensenada, California, in the late-1970s and abusing a 17-year-old boy in 1983. He was expelled from the U.S. in 1995 and sent to Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, under the supervision of the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vitoria.



Born in Delika, Spain, in 1941, Ugarte was ordained in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1971. He is accused of drugging and raping a child in a hotel in Ensenada, California, in the late-1970s and of sexually abusing a 17-year-old boy in 1983. These crimes came to light in 2013, when the archbishops archives were opened and hidden documentation surfaced. In the first case, the child ended up in shock. The priest said he was too drugged to remember what happened  the authorities took no further action. One of the later victims recounted that they suffered abuse on 15 occasions and, after each one of the assaults, Ugarte absolved the victim of their sins.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles carried out an investigation and, in 1995, Archbishop Mahony ordered Ugarte to return to Spain, to the Diocese of Vitoria, under the supervision of the local bishop. Ugarte  prohibited from officiating public masses  was ordered to establish his residence there and look for a regular job. He was also prohibited from returning to the United States for a period of seven years without the express consent of the Church.

Emilio Roure Ordained in Barcelona in 1920, he traveled to the United States in 1931. There, he passed through the dioceses of Los Angeles, Tucson and El Paso. He died in 1964. In 2019, he was accused of abuse by the Diocese of El Paso, Texas and the Diocese of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Rourre was ordained in Barcelona, in 1920. The Official Catholic Directory indicates that he may have arrived in the United States in 1931. He first worked in Los Angeles, then in Tucson, Arizona and Gallup, New Mexico. In 1945, he was placed in charge of several parishes under the Diocese of El Paso, Texas. In 1965, during a trip to Barcelona to visit his brother, he died. Since 2019, he has been publicly listed as an abuser who committed acts of pedophilia while ministering under the jurisdiction of the dioceses of El Paso and Las Cruces.

Jesus Garcia Accused of abuse in the U.S. in 1995, he returned to Spain, to the Diocese of Alcala de Henares, in Madrid. The complaint was ultimately dismissed, although various North American dioceses consider the accusations to be credible. This bishops office has refused to provide details about Garcias case, only responding to EL PAIS saying that it has informed the Ombudsman and the Spanish Episcopal Conference (ECC) about it.

Born in Burgos, Spain, in 1957, Garcia studied at the citys seminary until his penultimate year, when he moved to the United States, as confirmed by the Archdiocese of Burgos, which also notes that it has never heard from this priest again.

According to information from the Catholic Church in the United States, Garcia was ordained in Burgos in 1984. From 1983, he began ministering under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas. There, he was accused of drugging and raping four children and a man between 1991 and 1994. Around that time, he went to Spain  his name appears in the records of the Diocese of Alcala de Henares. However, in 1996, he voluntarily returned to Texas and was arrested. When his trial ended in 1997, the charges were dismissed, but in 2019, the Diocese of Corpus Christi included him on its public list of priests who had been credibly accused of committing sexual abuse. The institution notes that he was transferred in 2000 and defrocked in 2011.

Garcia sued for being included on the registry of abusers. However, upon being consulted by EL PAIS, the Diocese of Corpus Christi reaffirms the information it made public back in 2019. However, the bishops office has not clarified whether or not it informed the Diocese of Alcala de Henares or the Spanish Church about the accusations lodged against Garcia in the United States.

After the trial, Garcia returned to Spain permanently, to the Diocese of Alcala de Henares in Madrid. EL PAIS has asked the leadership of the diocese whether they received any information regarding the accusations against this priest in the United States  if any measures have been taken against him, if he is allowed to continue ministering, if he is allowed to have contact with minors and if he has ever been the subject of any criminal complaints in Spain. The Diocese of Alcala de Henares has only answered in writing, indicating that the Ombudsman and the EEC have already been informed about this case. The current whereabouts of Garcia have not been disclosed.

Manuel Fernandez A priest from the Diocese of Ourense, in northwestern Spain, who moved to the United States, he was accused of sexual abuse in 2002 and retired. He then returned to the Spanish region of Galicia, where he continued to be a priest. The Diocese of Ourense says EL PAIS that, when he arrived, there was no record of any of this.

Born in 1935, Fernandez was ordained in 1959, in the Diocese of Ourense. In official records, he appears again in 1979, in New Jersey. He passed through several parishes in the Diocese of Trenton  in 2019, he was included in their public list of priests who had been accused of multiple cases of abuse. His case first came to light in 2002, after a woman accused him of events that transpired in 1982. He was subsequently removed from his post, but then returned to Ourense and continued to be a priest.

Upon being contacted by EL PAIS, the Diocese of Ourense claims that, when he arrived, there was no record about any [accusations] or any open [legal processes] in the United States. In any case, the institution points out that he was already retired when he was living in Spain and that there were never any complaints against him in Ourense.

Back in 2005, an American newspaper located the priest in Galicia and spoke with him. Fernandez told the reporters that he returned to Spain to live out his retirement and denied having been accused in Trenton, New Jersey. Luis Quinteiro  the then-bishop of Ourense  refused to answer written questions about Monsignor Fernandez, according to the newspaper. He replied to the journalist: I dont know what right you have to send me these questions. Fernandez died in 2006, at the age of 71.

Emilio Garcia He was denounced in 2000 for raping a minor in the 1960s. He subsequently returned to Spain, although where exactly he settled has never been revealed.

Emilio Garcia  ordained as a priest in 1957  was accused of raping a minor during the 1960s in Florida, in the Diocese of Orlando. The victim began to have recurring memories of what happened in 2002, after the abuse in the Boston Church was exposed. According to what she told local media, Garcia began abusing her when she was 14-years-old. Two weeks after her 16th birthday, Garcia invited her to his office to pick up a birthday present and raped her. Garcia admitted to the accusations. He was dismissed from his position and returned to Spain, although the exact destination has never been revealed. He passed away in 2020, according to the Florida Office of the Attorney General.

Joseph Rossell A priest of the Holy Family, he came to the United States in 1947 and faced numerous accusations of abuse. He returned to Spain in 1972, where he died.

This Catalan priest  born in Baga in 1907  was ordained in 1930. He arrived in the United States in 1947. For the first three years of his stay, he was frequently transferred between parishes and states. Over the course of his years as a priest, he was sued several times for sexually abusing children. As recently as 2010, he was accused of having abused two girls in catechism class.

All the information about Rossells acts of sexual abuse only came to light in 2007, when the Diocese of San Diego made his file public. By then, he had been dead for a long time, since 1982. He had returned to Spain 10 years before he died. Since 2007, he has been on the Diocese of San Diegos list of priests facing credible allegations of abuse.

Gregory Sierra Sheridan An Augustinian, he was sued by more than nine victims for sexual abuse that he inflicted during the 1960s, in the state of Kansas. He returned to Spain in 1983, with a letter of recommendation in hand.

Sierra was born in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1911. He was ordained as a priest with the Order of Augustinian Recollects in 1935, the year in which he began his role as an associate pastor in the state of Kansas. He passed through several states before settling in California, where he was accused for the first time by a woman, who claimed that Sierra had abused her in 1969, when she was eight-years-old. In 2019, three other women accused him of acts of sexual abuse that he inflicted on them in the 1960s. And, in 2020, five men and women filed another lawsuit.

One of the male victims claimed that Sierra had raped him when he was around 12-years-old. Yet, Sierra returned to Spain in 1983 with a letter of recommendation. He died in 1991, in Zaragoza. He is on a list of credibly accused members of the Diocese of San Diego. This list was published in 2007 as part of the religious institutions bankruptcy proceedings, after payments were made to the victims who sued.

Carmelo Garcia A member of the Franciscan order, the Spaniard was sent to Santa Barbara, California. He was accused of acts of pedophilia between 1988 and 1991. He left the order in 1989 and returned to Spain, where the trail has since gone cold.

A member of the Franciscan order, Carmelo Garcia was sent to Santa Barbara, California. He committed abuses between 1988 and 1991, according to a list of credibly accused clergymen, published by the local congregation in 2019. The document indicates that he left the order in 1989 and returned to Spain, but afterwards, there is hardly any information about him. The Franciscan order admits that it learned of his abuses back in 1998, although the information was only made public in 2019.

Francisco Carreras Published in 2018, the Carreras case was the first discovered by EL PAIS. It is also one of the most terrible. Dispatched to Miami from Salamanca, he was denounced for abuse and sent back to Spain. Although the Americans warned the Diocese of Salamanca about his crimes, he was subsequently assigned to towns across the province for a period of three decades, where he committed dozens of more sexual assaults.

The case of Francisco Carreras was the first of the Spanish priests accused in the United States and relocated to Spain that EL PAIS discovered. The story was published between 2018 and 2019, at the beginning of the investigation into abuses within the Catholic Church of Spain. Carreras  ordained in Salamanca in 1973  moved to Miami in 1975, where he was accused of sexual abuse. The Archdiocese of Miami sent him back to Spain to his original diocese  that of Salamanca  and warned the Spaniards about the accusations made against him, as confirmed by this newspaper. Carreras was nevertheless assigned to towns across the province of Salamanca between 1981 and 2004, under the mandate of three different bishops. He was accused of abusing dozens of minors. The Diocese of Salamanca has never given an explanation. Carreras lived in a hermitage and died during the pandemic.

Jeremiah Michael Spillane A member of the Legionaries of Christ, he studied in Spain between the late-1980s and 1990s, before moving back to the United States. There, he was sentenced to two years of house arrest after attempting to flirt with a minor online. He was expelled from the order in 1998.

Spillane  an American citizen and a member of the Legionaries of Christ  was studying in schools run by the religious order in Spain during the late-1980s and 1990s, according to U.S. media reports. Born in 1954, he was ordained in 1986, in the Diocese of Venice, Florida. He worked in different countries as a teacher and director of Catholic schools. In 1997, he was sentenced to two years of house arrest and two years of probation for trying to flirt with a minor over the internet, who turned out to be an undercover police officer.

Spillane confessed, also admitting to previous abuses in Mexico. Spillane was removed by the Diocese of Venice in 1998. The judgment in the case explains that Spillane had rented a room where he planned to take the child with the intention of raping them. He is on a list of members of the Legionaries of Christ with proven accusations of sexual abuse.

George A. Costigan This American priest was removed by the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey in 1994 and sent to a convent. Later, he spent time at a monastery in the village of Puentenansa, in northern Spain, between 2002 and 2004.

In 1993, this American priest  also known as Brother Daniel Eliseo  was accused of abusing a girl in the 1960s in the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey. He was subsequently removed as a priest and sent to a convent. However, he was then relocated to Spain and ended up in a monastery in the village of Puentenansa, in the north, where he lived between 2002 and 2004. Apparently, he chose this place because he claimed that, back in 1991, it was where he had experienced a miraculous cure from cancer.

Despite being removed and being prohibited from dressing as a priest and ministering, he then moved around various places in the United States, posing as a priest. In 2019, he was included in a list of clergy accused of pedophilia, drawn up by the Diocese of Paterson.

Edgardo Arrunategui Jimenez Peruvian priest accused of sexual abuse in California. When the case came to light in 2004, he fled the United States. A newspaper tracked him down in Madrid, where he remained between 2004 and 2008, attached to parishes in and around the capital of Spain. Then, he disappeared.

This Peruvian priest served in the Diocese of Orange, California, from 1987 until 1990. The diocese explained that the reason for his sudden departure was that he had gone back to Peru as a missionary. However, he later returned to the Diocese of Fresno, California, between 1997 and 2004. It was then, in 2004  after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ordered all dioceses to make hidden abuse cases public  that the Diocese of Orange revealed that Arrunategui had actually been fired in 1990, based on accusations of sexual abuse. After all of this was revealed, he fled the country.

However, in 2009, a local newspaper found out that the priest had passed through Madrid, where he spent at least five years in different parishes, sometimes changing his name. The OC Weekly asked the Archdiocese of Madrid for an explanation, but received no response. Arrunategui then returned to Peru, where he was tracked down by another journalist.

The Archdiocese of Madrid  upon being consulted by EL PAIS  confirms that Arrunategui appears in its records as a student priest, who came to study theology at San Damaso Ecclesiastical University in the Spanish capital. According to the archbishops office, he came from the Peruvian Diocese of Chimbote, which did not communicate any history of abuse or any mention of his passage through the United States.

The Archdiocese of Madrid also notes that, as a student, Arrunategui was not assigned any pastoral duties. The religious authority claims that his stay was apparently limited from 2004 until 2006 and that no complaints were ever filed against him in the Spanish capital. The Diocese of Orange, meanwhile, tells EL PAIS that the Peruvian was an external priest, refusing to give further details.

Michael J. Barrett An American priest belonging to Opus Dei, he was sued in 2021 for abuses committed in the 1970s, when he was still a layperson. After his ordination in 1985, he spent some time in Spain, but it is unknown where exactly, or for how long.

Michael J. Barrett was denounced in 2021, accused of abusing a minor between 1974 and 1978, when he was still a layperson within Opus Dei. Barrett was ordained in Rome in 1985 and later moved to Madrid, an Opus Dei spokesperson in Spain confirms. However, the organization is not able to specify where he stayed or how long he spent in the country, explaining that its common for new priests to spend an internship period in Spain before being sent off on assignment.

Barrett then moved to Houston, then to Los Angeles and, in 2016, to New York, where he was sued in 2021. Opus Dei does not know the result of that legal process. The Archdiocese of New York has not responded to EL PAISs request for comment. In any case, Opus Dei claims that there are no complaints against Barrett for abuses in Spain.

Jorge Washington Cordova Hernandez The Ecuadorian priest is accused of up to 12 cases of sexual abuse in the United States, where he formed a group with the traits of a sect. He fled the country in 2005 when the allegations came to light. He was tracked down and arrested in Guadarrama, Madrid, in 2007. Then, the trail goes cold.

This Ecuadorian priest was a preacher of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement. He even recorded religious songs. Formerly assigned to the Diocese of Tucson, Arizona, Cordova Hernandez was accused of abusing 10 minors in 2005 in Yuma, Arizona and two more in Maricopa, Arizona, between 1988 and 1991. He had formed a kind of sect made up of young women and girls, called Virgins Consecrated  he had them dress up in blue and held initiation ceremonies, where he would cut locks from their hair. In 2019, he was included in the Diocese of Tucsons list of credibly accused abusers.

Following the complaints, he fled the U.S. in 2005. After a two-year-long search, he was arrested in 2007, in Spain, at the age of 51. Spains National Police located him in Guadarrama, in the province of Madrid, when he was giving a seminar in the Fray Luis de Leon Cultural & Residential Complex, owned by the Augustinians. However, according to the American press, the extradition never ultimately took place. The Archdiocese of Madrid claims that he doesnt appear in their records and that he was able to travel to Spain on his own, without the permission of his diocese of origin in Ecuador. Nothing is known about his subsequent activities, except that he registered himself as a freelancer in Torrejon de Ardoz, Madrid, in the freight transport business. He died in 2018.

Patrick OLeary O'Leary is an Irish priest ordained in Oviedo, in northern Spain, who then moved to the United States. Accused of abuse in 1992, he moved back to Oviedo, where the authorities lost track of him.

OLeary is a priest of Irish origin, although he was ordained in Oviedo, in northern Spain, according to data from U.S. media. He was removed from his parish in 1992, at the age of 33, because superiors deemed him to have a pattern of inappropriate behavior that made him a potential risk to children. According to media reports, he then returned to Oviedo. The Archdiocese of Oviedo explains that this priest left [the principality of Asturias] in 1987, requested excardination [a transfer] from the diocese [this transfer] was granted in 1989. The religious institution assures EL PAIS that it has no documents regarding his whereabouts post-1987 and that there are no complaints against him of any kind. His present location is still unknown.

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The car industry has been driving a co-ordinated lobbying campaign among policymakers to limit emissions cuts from vehicles and to downplay the role of electric vehicles, government documents reveal.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), a peak body representing major auto brands, has been a public advocate for an orderly transition from petrol to electric vehicles but documents suggest that behind the scenes it has been pushing for weaker pollution rules for Australian cars.

Fewer than 4 per cent of new cars sold in Australia were electric. Credit: Louie Douvis

Their aim is to convince Minister Bowen that legislating the FCAIs [existing] voluntary standard would effectively reduce emissions, according to notes taken at a July meeting between motoring officials and senior Department of Climate Change staff.

The auto industry lobbying campaign has been charted through documents obtained under freedom of information laws by InfluenceMap, an international think tank that tracks climate change-related lobbying by interest groups.
A man who was the alleged mastermind behind one of the biggest heroin importations in Australian history has been arrested at Sydney Airport after authorities deported him from Turkey.

Federal police allege Guy Habkouk, 35, arranged for nearly 350 kilograms of heroin to be imported into Sydney in December 2020. He was charged after he arrived at the airport on Saturday morning.

Turkish authorities advised the AFP they had detained the man in January, and would be deporting him to Australia. Credit: Australian Federal Police

Police say Sydney man Habkouk, who was based in Thailand when he allegedly orchestrated the drug haul, lived in various countries overseas until Turkish authorities detained him in January.

They will allege Habkouk has extensive links to transnational organised crime groups, which helped facilitate [the drug] importation, the Australian Federal Police says in a statement.
A blaze that engulfed a building near Sydneys Central Station has failed to derail the planned 4am opening on Monday of a massive new concourse at the rail hub, part of a near $1.3 billion project that shifts underground the main point where commuters switch between trains.

While the huge fire has delayed the unveiling of a new eastern entrance to Central Station, transport officials are pushing ahead with the opening of the 140-metre north-south concourse located below existing train lines.

It significantly expands an underground interchange area for commuters and removes a rabbit warren of narrow passages at the stations northern end.

Escalators link the underground north-south concourse to platforms for the Metro City and Southwest line. Credit: Wolter Peeters

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said Sydneysiders would be surprised and impressed by the underground concourse, which would make Central Station the jewel in our transport network.
The burnt-out shell of the building destroyed in last weeks Surry Hills fire may be demolished on Monday to open up exclusion zones around the scene.

Fire and Rescue NSW is working to get a demolition contractor on site to determine the safest way to bring the heritage-listed warehouse walls down to provide a safe return for nearby residents.

Demolition experts are expected to enter the site as early as Monday to determine options for the badly damaged structure. Credit: Jessica Hromas

A spokesperson from FRNSW said this process would hopefully happen on Monday.

A contractor would assess the ruins and determine the safest way to bring the walls down to allow firefighters to enter the building and complete a final extinguishment of the fire.
Two backpack-wearing school children were thrown into the Lane Cove River when the ferry dropping them at Riverview College Wharf floated so far away from the pontoon that the gangplank collapsed into the water.

As the children were flailing in the water, the rope tying the private contractors boat to the wharf snapped, the life ring floated away because it also wasnt attached to a rope, and the out-of-control ferry almost hit the river bank.

The ferry wharf at St Ignatius College, Riverview, where two boys fell into the river from a ferry. Credit: Edwina Pickles

Amid concerns that the public transport safety watchdog did not do its own probe into the incident, which maritime experts warn could easily have become tragic, Transport Minister Jo Haylen asked the Transport Department for an independent investigation.

As a parent myself Im aghast that this could happen, she said. If it were my kids I would be furious.
Police are investigating the death of a seven-week-old baby boy at a home in Sydneys western suburbs.

A crime scene has been set up at the home on Stanley Street in St Marys, near Penrith, after emergency services responded to a report the baby was unresponsive about 4.15am on Saturday.

Paramedics tried to resuscitate the infant before transporting him to The Childrens Hospital at Westmead. He could not be revived.

Police from the homicide squad are examining the circumstances of his death.
Theres no need to travel to France to appreciate its world-renowned artists, just don a beret and head along to Northshore Hamilton from June 7.

The super-scale exhibition Monet in Paris  The French Impressionists Alive will immerse visitors in 19th century works by Monet and five other giants of French impressionism: Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Cezanne.

Some of the projections beam up from the floor enabling guests to become part of the artwork.

A dynamic display of light, colour and sound will bring the artists masterpieces to life across six spaces, plunging visitors straight into Bohemian Paris and the French countryside.

Even the venue, Le Grand Palais Northshore, will be part of the experience. Designed by Australian theatre designer Anna Cordingley, it was imported from Germany just for this show.
One of Johns great passions was rural health. He served on the board of Yarrawonga District Health for 28 years and was also president of the board. John was very effective in his role with Moira Healthcare Alliance. As part of this role, he was instrumental in facilitating the building of a new hospital at Yarrawonga and expanding its aged-care services. In 2007, John Richards was a recipient of the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for service to the community of the Moira Shire, particularly as a contributor to health sector development, and to the newsagency industry through the Victorian Authorised Newsagents Association.

John was the epitome of positive ageing. In his 70s, when most people would have been enjoying, or planning on, retirement, he embarked on a new adventure. Building on his interest in health and aged care, he developed the idea of a research centre to improve the lives of rural older people. In 2007, he donated funding and using his sharp business acumen, obtained matching funding from La Trobe University and the Victorian Department of Health to set up the John Richards Initiative for research into ageing in rural communities at the Albury-Wodonga campus. In 2015, John was awarded doctor of science (honoris causa) from La Trobe University.

John was a very generous man, yet very humble when praised for his big-heartedness. His philosophy about community and philanthropy was if you get something out of it, youve got to contribute something back to it, other than just paying your taxes.

John was always modest about his achievement as a pioneer in rural ageing and aged care research landscape in Australia. The John Richards Centre for Rural Ageing Research celebrated its 15th year anniversary in November 2022. During an interview to celebrate this event John outlined his hopes for the future: JRC is expanding in the direction of helping professionals provide excellent care. In 50 years hence, I hope the JRC is still considering their purpose in life and expanding to accommodate the changes that have taken place.

Following a lifetime of service to the community and vision backed up by his own philanthropy, John leaves behind a remarkable legacy. He conceded last month that this was the end of his journey and time for him to stand back and let the younger ones take over. Staff and students at the John Richards Centre are proud to carry on his legacy towards better health and wellbeing of rural Australians.
Independent Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe says she will lodge a racism claim with the Australian Human Rights Commission against the Greens, in a further fallout with the party months after alleging she had been bullied by several of her former colleagues.

The Indigenous senator, who quit the Greens earlier this year, made the revelation on ABC TVs Insiders program, saying she had received legal advice that she had sufficient grounds for pursuing a complaint with the commission against the party, but she declined to outline the basis of her allegation.

Independent Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe says she will lodge a racism complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission against the Greens. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

A spokesman for Thorpe declined to comment further on Sunday when asked to clarify whether the complaint concerned allegations of racism by Greens MPs or within the party more broadly.

A Greens spokeswoman said the party was not aware of any proceedings against any of its MPs or the party.
From a Georgian Revival mansion in Melbournes Toorak, to a contemporary beachfront abode in Sydney, these are six of the best luxury homes for sale right now.

One of the finest examples of Georgian Revival architecture in Melbourne, this Geoffrey Sommers-designed mansion sits on 3616 square meters of established gardens with a pool and tennis court.

The interiors are due for an update, giving the new owner a fabulous opportunity to make their mark across two lavish levels connected by both a marble staircase and lift.
The Spanish city of Barcelona, like every European metropolis, has been very concerned in recent times about creating an official account of its history, easily recognizable throughout the endless urban traces of its streets. However, there is an invisible period in the history of this Catalan capital: the Muslim one, spanning between the years 718 and 801, when the Frankish king Louis the Pious defeated the Arab invader to recover this strategic enclave for Carolingian interests. Destroyed over the centuries, there is no evidence of the presence of the Caliphate of Cordoba in the streets of Barcelona. On the other hand, the second half of the 19th century led to a boom in Neo-Mudejar architecture for various reasons, the main one being the growth possibilities derived from the demolition of the medieval walls in 1854, when the city obtained the immense plain between its old limit and the nearby villages  which later became known as the Eixample  for its expansion.

This refoundation had to be carefully planned; Ildefons Cerda, the engineer appointed by Madrid for the task, even set a series of aesthetic guidelines for the Eixample. They were ignored, however, because the new rich who occupied it wanted with all their might to be seen in colorful, exotic homes  both to stand out and to be equated with the French bourgeoisie, which was very absorbed in oriental fashions.

This neo-Mudejar style arose around the beginning of the 1870s, and, due to economic reasons, it is distributed throughout different parts of the city. There were many buildings with Arabic details in the city center; today one can only admire the Casa Pere Llibre at number 24 of Passeig de Gracia, which is hardly mentioned in the guides despite being an exception in that engaging avenue. It was built in 1872 by the architect Domenec Balet i Nadal, and it displays a profusion of geometric motifs, polylobed arches, wrought iron railings (a modernist prelude) and large windows with horseshoe arches. Other visible elements are much further away, in the distant periphery of Sant Gervasi, which at that time was a suburb populated by Barcelona lords that wished to have summer villas in the nearby periphery and was finally added to the metropolis on April 20, 1897. A construction popularly known as the Germans house or the Alhambra Building  also by the architect Domenec Balet, as well as the name of its street, del Berlines (Berliners)  has given rise to endless legends. Built in 1875, its amazing facade stands out from the rest of the contemporary urban complex.

Casa Pere Llibre, at number 24 Paseo de Gracia, was built in 1872 by the architect Domenec Balet i Nadal. Roman Babakin (Alamy)

The myth of this construction, which is protected by the City Council, derives from its interior, which is inaccessible unless you are very lucky and someone opens the door so you can admire the lobby: a scale copy of the Court of the Lions of the Alhambra in Granada. According to a popular account, a Berlin citizen married a woman from Granada and made that replica of the Andalusian architectural jewel in honor of her love. In reality, the German was called Otto Streitberger. He was a hustler in the business world at the end of the 19th century and was content to give his wife (who was from Cadiz) a villa in the town of Caldes de Malavella. The endurance of this myth is understandable given the few surviving samples in Barcelona of this Islamic inspiration, also theorized by the leaders of the incipient Catalanism  many of them architects  as a way of resuscitating all medieval forms in order to distance themselves from the Renaissance predominance on European land. This would situate this entire trend as a foretaste of modernism, which only materialized in 1891 when a municipal law allowed the facades to be more profusely decorated.

Before that year, the neo-Mudejar style spread with ease without being branded as eccentric. The edges were filled with some villas bearing these attributes. One of the most peculiar ones is Torre Marsans, at 41 Passeig Mare de Deu del Coll: it deceives at first glance because its entrance resembles a castle, the prelude to a climb up to a 1907 mansion designed by Juli Marial Tey, with a square floor plan and exuberant decorations in its interior patio, an Arabic cloister that dazzles with its polychrome.

If you go down the Vallcarca viaduct from the Torre Marsans, you will be able to observe the idiosyncrasies of this neighborhood, which still exudes an aroma of peace despite its densification during the 20th century. From the bridge it is not difficult to notice a Mozarabic horseshoe arch crowned with two eagles; it is the only vestige of the family residence of Joan Batllori in Vallcarca, an old 19th century estate popularly known as Casa de los Arabescos. It was demolished between 2009 and 2011 as part of an urban reform that concluded in 2017 and which turned the area into a landscaped pathway.

Before that border year, the neo-Mudejar was deployed with ease without being branded as eccentric. The margins were filled with villas with these attributes. One of the most curious is the Torre Marsans, at 41 Passeig Mare de Deu del Coll. It deceives at first glance because its entrance resembles a castle, the prelude to a climb up to the mansion from 1907, signed by Juli Marial Tey, with a square floor plan and exuberant decorations in its interior patio, a dazzling Arabic cloister due to its polychrome.

Casa de les Altures, a building designed in 1890 by Enric Figueras Ribas for the General Water Company of Barcelona. Andres Membrive (Alamy)

If we go down the Vallcarca viaduct from the Torre Marsans, we will be able to observe the idiosyncrasies of this neighborhood, still with an aroma of peace despite its densification during the 20th century. From the bridge it is not difficult to notice a Mozarabic horseshoe arch crowned with two eagles. It is the only reminiscence of the family residence of Joan Batllori in Vallcarca, an old 19th century estate popularly known as the Casa de los Arabescos. It was demolished between 2009 and 2011, within the framework of an urban reform that concluded in 2017 and which turned the axis into a landscaped pathway.

The Casa de les Altures, a building designed in 1890 by Enric Figueras Ribas for the General Water Company of Barcelona, which adopted it as its headquarters, had better luck. Since the 1990s, this neo-Mudejar pearl has been the seat of the municipal council of the Horta-Guinardo district.

Barcelonas Arc de Triomf, on Paseo Lluis Companys. Maciej Olszewski (Alamy)

The taste for neo-Mudejaric architecture declined when the Catalan bourgeoisie found in modernism a unitary form of expression as a symbol of its strength. However, until 1900 there were still some contributions, supported by an official discourse; not in vain the Arc de Triomf designed by the architect Jose Vilaseca as the main entrance to the Universal Exhibition of Barcelona in 1888 draws from those Moorish airs, as well as the Las Arenas bullring in the Placa dEspanya, built at the behest of the businessman Jose Marsans and which functioned since 1900 as a multipurpose space, hosting political rallies and bullfights until 1977, when its future was uncertain until it was turned into a shopping center and an exceptional viewpoint. It is worth visiting due to its 360-degree panoramic views that show how the surroundings of Montjuic are the central point of the mix of styles, between the Venetian Towers, towards the mountain, the National Palace in the distance and the Escorxador Park, with its Woman and Bird statue by Joan Miro.

The Catalan capital, like any big city of our time, is an amalgamation of styles. The neo-Mudejaric designs spread stealthily, and detecting them is a pleasure for the visitor who does not want to settle for the official routes and prefers to stray and find all the hidden Barcelonas among the landmarks of the tourist circuit.

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I just helped a friend buy a return business-class seat from Sydney to Paris, leaving in mid-September, returning almost a month later. Its a one-stop flight via Seoul, connection times are pretty decent and the South Korea-based carrier Asiana gets a five-star rating on Skytrax.

The lie-flat business-class seats aboard the Boeing B777-200ER, Airbus A350-900 and A380 aircraft that Asiana uses for most of its long-haul flights are in a 1-2-1 configuration and the airlines onboard service, food and beverage and seat comfort all rate highly. The price was just a smidgen more than $7000, and thats booking with the airline, not an online travel agency.

The cost of flights to Europe has gone crazy  but there are still some bargains around. While flights aboard Middle-Eastern carriers are steeper than ever before, thats not the case with most of the Asian airlines. The prices below are for return flights from Sydney to London, departing September 13 and returning on October 4, booked on each airlines website.

There are quite a few surprises. Economy fares with Japan Airlines (JAL) and Asiana are more than $1000 cheaper than flying aboard Qatar, Emirates and Qantas, with Etihad just slightly cheaper than those three.
Ukraines top military commander signalled that the nations forces were ready to launch their long-anticipated counteroffensive following months of preparations, including recently stepped-up attacks on logistical targets as well as feints and disinformation intended to keep Russian forces on edge.

Its time to get back whats ours, Ukraines supreme military commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, wrote in a statement.

A Ukrainian soldier from the 79th Brigade firing toward Russian positions near the town of Marinka in eastern Ukraine. Credit: Finbarr OReilly/The New York Times

The blunt statement, accompanied by a slickly produced video of Ukrainian troops preparing for battle and released on social media, appeared intended to rally a nation weary from 15 months of war and to deepen anxiety within the Russian ranks. But Zaluzhnyi offered no indication of where and when Ukrainian forces might try to break Russias hold on occupied territory.

Other senior Ukrainian officials also suggested that the counteroffensive was imminent.
At the London Defence Conference last week, a mood of optimism prevailed about the likelihood of Ukraines ultimate success in its war against Russia. The conference, which is a new event in the already crowded rota of global security conferences, is in its second year. Its aspiration is to be the British equivalent of the Munich Security Conference. Those participating included British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Polish President Andrzej Duda and an impressive line-up of ministers, senior officials, diplomats and scholars.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraines Volodymyr Zelensky. Credit: AP, Bloomberg

Since the invasion on February 23 last year, Russia has spectacularly failed to achieve either its military objective  territorial conquest  or its overarching geopolitical goal: to divide the West. The opposite has happened. Russia is now on the defensive, militarily, as the world awaits the much-anticipated major counteroffensive by Ukrainian troops, significantly better equipped than they were when they halted the Russian advance last spring.

Diplomatically, the invasion has been catastrophic. The West  after early equivocation by some European nations  has united in a way not seen since the end of the Cold War. The imminent accession of Finland and Sweden has more than doubled the length of Russias land border with NATO. Germany has rearmed in the greatest reversal of its foreign policy since World War II. All the NATO nations have recommitted to the defence expenditure target of 2 per cent of GDP. Some have exceeded it. Britain, which has Europes largest defence force outside Russia itself, now spends 2.25 per cent, with an aspirational target of 2.5 per cent. Poland has elevated its target to a whopping 4 per cent.

It is not difficult to understand the reaction, particularly in Eastern Europe, where memory is freighted with the misery of decades of Soviet domination during the Cold War and, in nations such as Poland and some Baltic countries, centuries of Russian overlordship. As the Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson told the conference: Ukraine is the shield of Europe. Putin will not stop until someone stops him. That is Ukraine right now. In fighting for their freedom, they are fighting for our freedom.
Addressing jubilant supporters from atop a bus in Istanbul, Erdogan, 69, said the only winner today is Turkey. Loading I thank every single one of our people who once again gave us the responsibility to govern the country five more years, he said. He acknowledged that inflation was the most urgent issue, but said it would also fall, following the central banks policy rate that was cut to 8.5 per cent from 19 per cent two years ago. Erdogans victory extends his tenure as the longest-serving leader since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk established modern Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire a century ago, a politically potent anniversary to be marked in October with Erdogan in charge.

Erdogan, head of the Islamist-rooted AK Party, appealed to voters with nationalist and conservative rhetoric during a divisive campaign that deflected attention from deep economic troubles. In his victory speech, he attacked the opposition again, calling them pro-LGBT. Turkeys main opposition Republican Peoples Party, CHP, leader and Nation Alliances presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Credit: AP Kilicdaroglu, who had promised to set the country on a more democratic and collaborative path, said the vote showed peoples will to change an authoritarian government. All the means of the state were laid at the feet of one man, he said. Sad and disappointed

Erdogan supporters, who gathered outside his Istanbul residence, chanted Allahu Akbar, or God is Greatest. I expect everything to become better, said Nisa, 28, a headscarved woman wearing a headband with Erdogans name. Supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrate in Istanbul. Credit: AP Another Erdogan supporter said the country would get stronger with him in office for five more years. There are issues, problems in every country around the world, in European countries as well ... With strong leadership we will overcome Turkeys problems as well, said the supporter who gave his name as Mert, 39, as he celebrated with his son.

Bugra Oztug, 24, who voted for Kilicdaroglu, blamed the opposition for failing to change. I feel sad and disappointed but I am not hopeless. I still think there are people who can see the realities and truth, Oztug said. Erdogans performance has wrong-footed opponents who thought voters would punish him over the states initially slow response to devastating earthquakes in February, in which more than 50,000 people died. But in the first round of voting on May 14, which included parliamentary elections, his AK Party emerged top in 10 of the 11 provinces hit by the earthquakes, helping it to secure a parliamentary majority along with its allies. Fears for liberties

French President Emmanuel Macron offered congratulations, saying France and Turkey had huge challenges to face together. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also congratulated Erdogan saying he counted on firming the strategic partnership between the two countries. The presidents of Iran, Israel, and the Saudi king were among leaders to congratulate him in the Middle East, where Erdogan has asserted Turkish influence, at times with military power. Erdogan, who was for years at odds with numerous governments in the region, has taken a more conciliatory stance in recent years. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine Erdogan gesture to supporters as he claims victory in the presidential election run-off outside his residence. Credit: Getty Emre Erdogan, a political science professor at Istanbuls Bilgi University, attributed Erdogans success to his supporters belief in his ability to solve problems, even though he created many of them. Erdogan had also maintained the support of conservative voters who have long felt marginalised. This era will be characterised by a decline in political and civil liberties, polarisation and cultural fights between two political tribes, he said.

Erdogan appeared to have prevailed despite years of economic turmoil that critics blame on unorthodox economic policies, which the opposition had pledged to reverse. Loading The lira slipped towards a fresh record low against the dollar, after the results were announced. Reuters reported last week that there was disagreement within Erdogans government over whether to stick with what some call an unsustainable economic program or abandon it. Kilicdaroglu had promised to reset governance, restore human rights, and return independence to the courts and central bank after they were sidelined over the last decade.
PHILIPSBURG:--- On May 24th, 2023, a delegation of technical experts from the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) of Anguilla paid a courtesy visit to the Honorable Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Traffic, and Telecommunication, Mr. Arthur Lambriex. This visit aimed to strengthen bilateral relations, foster collaboration between Sint Maarten and Anguilla, and discuss matters of mutual interest within the telecommunications sector, such as spectrum usage, and new technologies.

Part of the Aguilla delegation was the Executive Director of PUC, Mr. Damien Harrigan assisted by Ardin Richardson, representatives of the Ministry of Infrastructure, communications, utilities, housing, and Tourism, Mr. Travis Carty and Jobern Gumbs. They engaged in productive discussions with Minister Lambriex his Francisco Lacroes Chief Of Staff, the Interim Director of BTP, and the Head Technical Department of BTP.

During the discussions, Anguilla and Sint Maarten exchanged valuable insights on various aspects of the telecommunications industry, including regulatory frameworks, spectrum management, infrastructure development, and emerging technologies. The visit provided an opportunity for the PUCs technical team to share their expertise and experiences in regulating the telecommunications sector in Anguilla, while also gaining insights into Sint Maarten's telecom landscape and procedures.

Minister Lambriex expressed his appreciation for the visit, emphasizing the importance of regional cooperation and knowledge-sharing in enhancing the telecommunications sector. Interim Director of BTP, Mrs. Judianne Labega - Hoeve conveyed her gratitude to the Minister of TEATT and his team for welcoming their valued regulatory counterpart and was delighted with the opportunity to engage in a constructive dialogue.

Head of the Technical Department of BTP, Mr. Sidney de Weever was instrumental in bringing all different stakeholders to the table. He stated: it was a great pleasure to host the Anguilla delegation and work closely together with them in the past days. We will continue to work together and focus on areas such as information exchange, joint spectrum measurement initiatives, and the harmonization of spectrum usage to ensure a more seamless and efficient telecommunications landscape within the region and delivering improved services to the citizens of both Anguilla and Sint Maarten.
KYODO NEWS - May 28, 2023 - 10:21 | Arts, All, Japan

Japanese actor Koji Yakusho was named Best Actor at this year's Cannes International Film Festival on Saturday for his leading role as a toilet cleaner in Wim Wenders' "Perfect Days."

Yakusho, 67, became the second Japanese actor to win the prize since Yuya Yagira in 2004, who won it at age 14 for "Nobody Knows." The acclaimed veteran actor played a leading role in Shohei Imamura's "The Eel," which won the festival's top award, the Palme d'Or, in 1997.

"Perfect Days" follows the story of Hirayama, who leads a simple life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo and spends his spare time listening to music and reading books. Through some unexpected encounters, the story gradually reveals the protagonist's past.

During Saturday's award ceremony, Yakusho thanked Wenders and others who worked on the film for making Hirayama, his character, a "fascinating" one.

Yakusho, who hails from Nagasaki Prefecture, shot to fame in the 1996 Japanese hit comedy film "Shall We Dance?" where he played a ballroom-dancing salaryman. He also appeared in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Babel" in 2006.

This year's best screenplay award at the Cannes festival went to Japanese screenwriter Yuji Sakamoto for "Kaibutsu (Monster)," directed by Hirokazu Koreeda.

Before Sakamoto, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, both from Japan, won a joint prize for Hamaguchi's movie "Drive My Car" in 2021.
By Morichika Nakamoto, KYODO NEWS - May 28, 2023 - 17:19 | Sports, All

Olympic gold medalist Yuto Horigome won the inaugural Uprising Tokyo street skateboarding competition on Sunday, snatching victory by reeling off a mistake-free run in the last of his three attempts in the men's final.

Fourteen-year-old Aoi Uemura won the women's title at Ariake Arena as Japan's first major international event dedicated solely to the discipline, co-hosted by Horigome and e-commerce giant Rakuten, drew to a close after three days of action featuring over 80 skaters.

Horigome, who ahead of the tournament spoke of his desire to help street skateboarding culture take root in Japan, lifted the crowd as he logged 87.94 points to pip Brazilian Carlos Ribeiro.

Having failed to land his last tricks in his first two runs, the 24-year-old opted for a different finish -- a 180 switch crooked grind -- that paid dividends, bettering Ribeiro's 87.00 from his first run.

"I'm really relieved. It was another event in Japan (after the Tokyo Olympics) and I'm happy to see many people coming over to watch," Horigome said. I think I put in a good run and I'm really happy to have won."

Horigome said Uprising Tokyo was distinct from already-established tournaments and would lead to a better understanding of skateboarding in Japan in conjunction with a number of other new events.

"This tournament was of a high level, with (international) skaters who don't compete in events like the Olympics appearing," he said. "It is a contest that people can draw new inspiration and joy from pro skaters."

Ribeiro was not surprised Horigome found his way back, and lauded the recent rise of Japanese skaters.

"It's almost hard to think he will miss the trick," the 31-year-old said of Horigome. "Japanese skaters are definitely the group of people that progressed a lot in a short amount of time lately...it's amazing to see."

Uemura won her title after scoring 84.19 with her second run, bettering Coco Yoshizawa's 82.41 in the 10-woman final dominated by Japanese.

The event also featured stand-alone men's and women's best trick competitions, won respectively by home skaters Taisei Hamamura and Hina Maeda.
A man has been charged with the murder of a teenager who was stabbed to death in the street.

South Yorkshire Police said a suspect attacked Mohammed Iqbal, 17, in Crookes Road, Sheffield on Thursday shortly after 7pm.

The seriously injured youth was was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

A post-mortem examination on Friday confirmed Mohammed had died from a single stab wound.

Peshawa Ghaffour, 29, of Birkendale Road, Walkley, Sheffield, will appear before the citys magistrates court on Monday charged with murder.

He has also been charged with possession of a firearm, having a bladed article and assault by beating.

Police also arrested a 33-year-old man from Sheffield on suspicion of assisting an offender. He has since been bailed.

The scene in the Crookes area of Sheffield (Dave Higgens/PA) / PA Wire

Detective Chief Inspector Joanne Kemp, leading the investigation, said: We have so far spoken to a number of witnesses to this tragic event, and we thank them for their assistance with our inquiries.

But through investigating this killing and trawling through a lot of CCTV footage from that evening, it has come to our attention a number of restaurants, takeaway establishments and public houses along Crookes Road were busy at that time.

We would like to speak to anyone who was present in one of these, in particular The Ball public house.

Also, at least two buses were travelling past at that time.

We want to widen our net and speak to even more witnesses, as well as still looking to speak to those who may have been driving past and captured the incident on their vehicles dash cam.

If you were in one of the buildings overlooking the scene or travelling past on a bus at the time, please get in contact and speak to us.

It might not seem that significant, but the smallest pieces of evidence often enable us to complete a puzzle and bring offenders before a court.
P olice have charged someone with the murder of a 60-year-old man in Wandsworth.

Paulo Mendes, 27, of no fixed address, was charged on Sunday with the murder of Peter Sisson.

He will appear in custody at a magistrates court on Monday.

Police were called on Tuesday after concerns were raised for the welfare of an occupant of an address in Juniper Drive.

Officers attended and found Mr Sisson inside the property. He was pronounced dead at the scene. His next of kin has been informed and are being supported by specially trained officers.

A special post-mortem took place on Thursday. No formal cause of death was established and further tests will be carried out.

Detectives from the Mets Specialist Crime Command are leading the investigation due to the circumstances, the force said.
KYODO NEWS - May 28, 2023 - 15:06 | All, World

U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday struck a deal "in principle" with House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy to avert an unprecedented government debt default, bringing some comfort to financial markets around the world.

The federal government's debt ceiling will be raised for two years, while some of its spending will be slashed or capped over the same period, according to U.S. media reports.

The agreement was reached a day after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the U.S. government will not be able to pay all of its bills on time if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling by June 5.

Following weeks of intense negotiations, Biden found common ground with Republican lawmakers, who control the House. He said in a statement that the deal represents "a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want. That's the responsibility of governing."

But the Democratic president also said the deal is "good news for the American people, because it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated and millions of jobs lost."

He strongly urged that both chambers of Congress pass the agreement quickly.

The Republican speaker told reporters that he had talked to Biden twice over the phone on Saturday and reached the agreement, which contains "historic reductions in spending," adding that congressional voting is likely to take place on Wednesday.

While refraining from disclosing any specifics, McCarthy, who led House Republicans to seek drastic spending cuts, said the deal is "worthy of the American people" and that he expects to finish writing the bill by Saturday.

"We still have a lot of work to do," McCarthy said, adding that he will check the bill with the White House and speak to the president again on Sunday.

The months-long impasse over the negotiations forced Biden to cut short what would have been his weeklong trip to Asia. He was able to participate in the three-day Group of Seven summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima but had to return home last Sunday to focus on the debt ceiling talks.

Biden had been asking Republicans to raise the $31.4 trillion debt cap with no conditions attached, claiming that the U.S. economy is robust enough to pay its bills.

To avoid an economic crisis, the two chambers must pass the bill promptly, and Biden needs to sign it into law by the so-called X date. But the prospects of ensuring a debt default does not take place remain uncertain as opposition to the bill could come from Democrats or Republicans.

In addition to keeping spending flat for 2024 with an increase of 1 percent for 2025 in return for raising the debt limit, the major points of the agreement include additional work requirements for some recipients of government aid, according to the media reports.

The new requisites were demanded by Republicans but opposed by Democrats, with McCarthy praising the deal as having "consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce."

Republicans, meanwhile, were seeking to limit spending on everything apart from veteran and defense-related areas for more than 2 years.
M ost voters want the UK to build closer relations with the European Union, according to a new poll.

A survey of more than 10,000 people appears to show a big shift in public opinion since Brexit.

The Focaldata poll, for the internationalist campaign group Best for Britain and revealed by The Observer on Sunday, found 53% of voters want the government to seek a closer relationship with the EU than it now has, after having left the single market and customs union. Just 14% who want the UK to become more distant, the polls says.

It also shows three times as many adults (63%) now believe Brexit has created more problems than it has solved, compared with just 21% who believe it has solved more than it has created.

The survey shows a dramatic reversal in opinion towards the EU in parts of the UK which overwhelmingly backed Brexit in 2016.

In Boston and Skegness in Lincolnshire, where the vote to leave the EU was 74.9% in 2016, more than twice as many people (40%) now want closer links with the EU against just 19% who want relations to become even more distant.

Naomi Smith, chief executive of Best for Britain, said: In just a few short years, public opinion in Britain has moved on from being pro-Brexit, to believing Johnsons deal has done more harm than good, to now supporting a closer relationship with the EU.

Kim Darroch, former British ambassador to the EU and to the US, and chairman of Best for Britain, said: Whether in Europe, South America or the Pacific, the general direction of travel has been the same for decades; nations working together to make trade easier and less expensive, while entwining economic interests to reduce the potential for conflict.

In an increasingly hostile world, our economic and political interests align with our closest neighbours and allies. A majority of voters now understand that.

It comes as the shadow home secretary said Labour would impose time limits on the hiring of overseas workers in shortage occupations to restrict immigration.

Yvette Cooper told the Sunday Telegraph the party believes the measure would give an incentive to companies to train more British staff.

The party would use a strengthened Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) - which provides independent advice to the Government - to guide on appropriate timescales for importing labour, she suggested.

In an interview, the Labour frontbencher accused the Tories of presiding over a huge gap between rhetoric and reality on immigration.

She told the paper: It (the MAC) only does very periodic reviews, and we want it to be able to look at not simply which occupations are on the shortage occupation list, but also what would be a sensible timescale.

How long should they be on the shortage occupation list for?

It forms part of Labours wider efforts to project a toughened stance on migration, with Sir Keir Starmer writing in the Sun on Sunday that hiring overseas workers on cheap wages is no substitute for a proper plan.

The Labour leader suggested he would focus on apprenticeships as a ticket to a better future as he branded the current system a travesty and said immigration must come down.

Meanwhile, in an op-ed for the Mail on Sunday shadow health secretary Wes Streeting criticised the overreliance on overseas recruitment within the NHS and promised Labour would focus more on homegrown talent.

It comes after the party announced last week that it would scrap rules allowing firms to pay 20% below the going rate to hire overseas workers for jobs on the list in another sign of its toughening stance on migration.

The measures would form part of its proposed reform of the points-based system to create a fair but controlled system, Labour said.

Healthcare, engineering and IT are among the sectors where someone can be paid 80% of the usual going rate to qualify for a skilled worker visa.

Rishi Sunak has said legal migration is too high and has repeated a commitment to achieve a 2019 Tory manifesto pledge to bring it down after figures revealed record-high levels.

But the Government is facing pressure from businesses to ensure there are not labour shortages in key industries.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been publicly pushing for lower immigration, saying more Britons should be trained to be lorry drivers and seasonal workers to plug demand.

But the Prime Minister has taken a more pragmatic approach, having made clear to farmers that more overseas fruit pickers will be allowed into the UK if they are needed.
M ore than half a billion working days have been lost to sickness since the last general election, Labour has claimed.

The party said its analysis of official figures shows the economic cost of the Conservatives failure to support people with ill health.

The number of working days lost to sickness hit 185.6 million in 2022  the highest since records began in 1995, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Ashworth accused the Government of breaking all the wrong records  record NHS waiting lists, record numbers of working days lost to sickness and record levels of sickness-related inactivity.

He said: Their failure to get Britain working is holding back our economy and squandering the potential of millions of people who want to work but arent getting the right support.

A Government spokesman said it was leaving no stone unturned, with inactivity falling since the middle of last year by nearly 300,000, but told employers they also need to play their part.

Supporting people who are not working for health reasons is a key priority for this Government, with 3.5 billion of additional investment at the last Budget to get more people into work, including 2 billion targeted at those who are sick and disabled, a spokesman said.

Employers also need to play their part and we are consulting on ways to increase coverage of occupational health provision, so people can access support in the workplace before they fall out of work.

Both the NHS and the labour market have become increasingly key political battlegrounds for the two main parties in recent months.

Figures released earlier this year showed record numbers of people waiting to start routine hospital treatment.

And ONS data released last week revealed net migration soared to a record 606,000 in 2022, with Labour blaming the rise on domestic labour shortages creating a need for overseas workers.

The Government announced last week that GPs will be required to offer patients a wider range of healthcare providers for treatment as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak seeks to fulfil his promise to cut waiting times.

Meanwhile, in a major speech in Essex, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer unveiled a package of pledges aimed at improving the nations health.

They include targets for 85% of cancer patients to start treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral and for 95% of A&E cases to be seen within four hours, which has not been achieved nationally since 2015.
R ussias ambassador to the UK has warned of an escalation to the war in Ukraine as Britain and other Western allies commit more weapons to aid President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Speaking to the BBCs Laura Kuenssberg, Andrei Kelin said the actions of Nato countries, especially the UK, risk lengthening and triggering a new dimension in the war.

He said Russia had enormous resources and despite the war already raging for over a year, he claimed his country had not yet started to act very seriously.

Mr Kelin said: Russia is 16 times bigger than Ukraine. We have enormous resources.

Sooner or later, of course, this escalation may get a new dimension which we do not need and we do not want. We can make peace tomorrow.

When asked about widespread mounting evidence of Russias war crimes, the ambassador said Ukraine was the one committing war crimes.

He then changed tack and said the United Nations had no power to investigate war crimes.
P hillip Schofield first met the younger ITV colleague whom he later had an affair with when he was aged 15, according to The Mail On Sunday.

The veteran TV presenter, 61, resigned from the broadcaster on Friday and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after admitting to an unwise, but not illegal affair with a young male colleague on This Morning.

Lawyers representing Schofield have confirmed they met when the boy was 15, but said the affair began after he started working at ITV, and the mans lawyers have also confirmed that it began after he joined the broadcaster.

In a statement on Friday, Schofield said the man was a teenager when they were introduced, and he was asked to help him get into television but underlined that it was a number of years later when he joined the show as an adult that their affair began.

The Mail On Sunday reported the pair first met when Schofield was giving a talk at a theatre school when the TV presenter was in his late 40s.

It said some years later the younger man joined the production team on This Morning when Schofield was in his early 50s and their relationship developed from a friendship to an affair.

The newspaper also said Schofield confirmed the affair after the young man revealed details about the relationship to his lawyers.

It comes after ITV said it investigated rumours of a relationship between Schofield and the ITV employee around three years ago but that both parties categorically and repeatedly denied it.

A spokesperson for ITV said on Saturday the broadcaster was not provided with, and did not find, any evidence of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour when it looked into the matter in 2020.

Phillips statement yesterday reveals that he lied to people at ITV, from senior management to fellow presenters, to YMU, to the media and to others over this relationship, they added.

The broadcaster also said it was deeply disappointed by the admissions of deceit by Schofield after he spoke publicly about the affair.

The relationships we have with those we work with are based on trust, a statement from a spokesperson for ITV added.

Phillip made assurances to us which he now acknowledges were untrue and we feel badly let down.

This Morning will air on Monday, ITV said, and denied the shows future is the shows future is in question, with reports claiming it could potentially be axed entirely.

An ITV spokesperson told the PA news agency: As we said on the record yesterday, This Morning is not under review and theres no plans for the show to be axed. This Morning will return as normal tomorrow.

With Holly Willoughby on half-term holiday leave, Alison Hammond and Dermot OLeary will continue to fill in for them, including when the Monday show airs at 10am.

Willoughby said her former This Morning co-hosts admission about the affair was very hurtful as he had previously denied it to her as well.

Its taken time to process yesterdays news, Willoughby wrote on an Instagram story posted on Saturday.

When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not.

Its been very hurtful to now find out that this was a lie.

Last Saturday, Schofield announced he was stepping down from presenting the ITV talk show with immediate effect while Willoughby will remain on the programme.

The TV presenter, who also co-hosted Dancing On Ice with Willoughby, said he would also no longer present the British Soap Awards, his last public commitment.

In his statement, Schofield apologised for lying about the relationship.

The first thing I want to say is: I am deeply sorry for having lied to them (the Daily Mail), and to many others about a relationship that I had with someone working on This Morning, he said.

I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning.

He added that contrary to speculation the relationship was not illegal.

He also denied that a super-injunction had been issued by him, or on his behalf, regarding the relationship.

When I chose to come out I did so entirely for my own wellbeing, he said.

Nobody forced me out. Neither I nor anyone else, to my knowledge, has ever issued an injunction, super or otherwise, about my relationship with this colleague, he was never moved on or sacked by or because of me.

In an effort to protect my ex-colleague I havent been truthful about the relationship. But my recent, unrelated, departure from This Morning fuelled speculation and raised questions which have been impacting him, so for his sake it is important for me to be honest now.

The presenter added: I am painfully conscious that I have lied to my employers at ITV, to my colleagues and friends, to my agents, to the media and therefore the public, and most importantly of all to my family.

I am so very, very sorry, as I am for having been unfaithful to my wife.

Talent agency YMU said it has parted company with Schofield with immediate effect.

The revelations come after Schofield faced months of controversy including reports of a rift with his long-time co-host Willoughby and a furore over his visit to the late Queens lying-in-state.

Just a day before he stepped down This Morning, his brother Timothy was jailed for 12 years for sexually abusing a boy.

A judge told the 54-year-old former civilian police worker she had not heard a single word of remorse from him.

The presenter said I no longer have a brother following guilty verdicts in April.

Schofield married Stephanie Lowe in 1993 and they have two grown-up daughters together, Ruby and Molly.

After he came out in February 2020, in an emotional on-air chat with Willoughby, his wife told The Sun she supported his brave step and always will love him.
A rare Royal Pardon issued by Queen Victoria to Irish rebels convicted of high treason is set to be sold at auction in Belfast.

It is one of a wide range of historical items to be sold, which also includes a PSNI peaked cap believed to have been worn by former Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan and a treaty with notes written by Irish unionist leader Edward Carson.

The pardon is believed to have been issued by the monarch in 1869, and includes Queen Victorias personal signature and seal.

Royal Pardons allow monarchs to withdraw or provide alternatives to death sentences or exile to those convicted of crimes against the crown.

This pardon from Queen Victoria offers an insight into the English criminal justice system, showing the important role Queen Victoria played in the exercise of mercy

One of the key individuals referenced in the pardon is JFX OBrien, an Irish nationalist revolutionary who participated in a rising against British rule in 1867, and was tried for high treason, convicted and sentenced to death.

OBrien was released in 1869 with Queen Victorias pardon and went on to become the President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and an MP for Cork City.

Managing director of Bloomfield Auctions Karl Bennett described the pardon as having been granted in unique circumstances.

Traditionally, in the mid to late nineteenth century, convictions of high treason and felony for Irish republicans were expected to be met with the death sentence or exile to Australia, which is what makes this royal pardon of unique historical importance, he said.

This pardon from Queen Victoria offers an insight into the English criminal justice system, showing the important role Queen Victoria played in the exercise of mercy.

Following her beloved Prince Alberts death, Queen Victoria began to gain a new public image as a compassionate Queen, which earned her the affectionate nickname the grandmother of Europe.

The royal pardon we have on sale at our auction house is demonstrative evidence of her shift towards a more benevolent reign.

Among the many other items set to go under the hammer is Carsons hand-annotated copy of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, a gun taken from a soldier of the 5th Battalion Irish Volunteers, who was killed in action during the 1916 Easter Rising and a Colour used by the Ulster Volunteer Force in the campaign to defend Home Rule.

Mr Bennett said Carsons annotated copy of the treaty offers a first-hand insight into the inner workings of one of the leading political figures in early twentieth century Ireland.

The sale will take place on Tuesday June 6 both online and in Bloomfield Auction House in east Belfast. For more information, visit: www.bloomfieldauctions.co.uk.
C hinas first domestically-made passenger jet has flown its maiden commercial flight, as the country looks to compete with industry giants such as Boeing and Airbus in the global aircraft market.

The C919 plane, built by the Commercial Aviation Corporation of China (Comac), carried about 130 passengers on the flight, according to state-owned newspaper China Daily.

The jet took off on Sunday morning from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and landed less than two hours later in Beijing.

The flight was operated by state-owned China Eastern Airlines, and the side of the plane was emblazoned with the words: The Worlds First C919.

The inaugural flight comes as Comac looks to break into the single-aisle jet market in a direct challenge to Airbus and Boeing. Airbuss A320 and Boeings B737 jets are the most popular aircrafts typically used for domestic and regional flights.

While Comac designed many of the C919s parts, some of its key components are still sourced from the West, including its engine.

The company plans to build 150 C919 planes each year for the next five years, according to earlier state media reports.

The C919, which had been in development for 16 years, has a maximum range of about 3,500 miles and is designed to carry between 158 and 168 passengers.

More than 1,200 C919 jets have been ordered, Comac says, with China Eastern Airlines under contract to buy five of them.
T he White House and Republican representatives have reached an agreement on raising the US debt ceiling after weeks of negotiations.

President Joe Biden said the agreement represents a compromise between the Democrats and Republicans but hailed it as good news for the American people as failure to agree would have resulted in an unprecedented US government default.

The US Treasury Department had warned the federal government could be unable to pay all its bills by as soon as 1 June - just under a week away - and any deal must pass through a divided Congress before it can take affect.

The Republicans hold a majority in the House of Representatives while the Democrats narrowly control the Senate.

Little is known about the deal but CBS reports that non-defence government spending would be kept flat for two years and then rise by 1 per cent in 2025. Medicaid health insurance is not believed to have been impacted.

At a brief press conference late on Saturday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he had spoken to President Biden on the phone twice during the day.

And after weeks of negotiations, we have come to an agreement in principle. We still have a lot of work to do, but I believe this is an agreement in principle thats worthy of the American people.

It has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce, rein in government overreach, there are no new taxes, no new government programs, theres a lot more within the bill, he said.

Mr McCarthy said he will finish writing the bill on Sunday before it is put before a Congressional vote on Wednesday

Both sides have suggested one of the main holdups was a GOP effort to expand work requirements for recipients of food stamps and other federal aid programs, a longtime Republican goal that Democrats have strenuously opposed. The White House said the Republican proposals were cruel and senseless.
M ore than 1,500 people were arrested during a protest by Extinction Rebellion in The Hague on Saturday.

Climate activists caused travel chaos for motorists after blocking a section of a motorway during a protest against Dutch fuel subsidies in the afternoon.

Police said they had used a water cannon to disperse activists blocking a major road in the city, and arrested a total of 1,579 people  40 of whom will be prosecuted on charges including vandalism.

Police forcibly remove activists during the protests / ANP/AFP via Getty Images

One of the activists bit a police officer during his arrest, police said.

Several Dutch celebrities were among the protesters, including Carice van Houten, best known for her role as Melisandre in the hit TV series Game of Thrones. Van Houten posted a video on Instagram showing herself wearing a red poncho, getting drenched from a water cannon.

ANP reported that she was arrested and later allowed to return home, but did not specify whether she was among those who will be prosecuted.

Around 7,000 people took part in the demonstration, according to Extinction Rebellion.

Were going to stay here until they drag us away, said postgraduate student Anne Kerevers, 31.

Climate change is an unfolding crisis and we know the cause and its still being subsidised by our government and it needs to stop, she told AFP.

Police said they had repeatedly given activists the opportunity to end their action and leave before using the water cannon and making arrests.

Weve been coming back every month, or every two months, and every time the number (of protesters) has doubled, said Aaron Pereira, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion.

There is broad popular support for real climate action and people are waking up to the fact that the government is actively going against this by subsidising the fossil fuel industry.
F rench filmmaker Justine Triet has been awarded the coveted Palme dOr on the final day of the Cannes Film Festival for her courtroom drama Anatomy Of A Fall.

The thriller, which stars Sandra Huller as a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husbands death, is only the third film directed by a woman to win the top honour at the French festival.

It saw off tough competition from new films by acclaimed directors  including Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes and Karim Ainouz  to be declared the winner during the events closing ceremony on Saturday.

The Palme dOr is the highest prize awarded at the festival and was introduced in 1955 by the festivals organising committee.

Veteran actress Jane Fonda presented the award to Triet, who has previously directed 2013s Age Of Panic and 2019s Sibyl.

Jane Campion and Julia Ducournau, who was on this years jury, are the only female directors to have previously won the prize for 1993s The Piano and 2021s Titane respectively.

Two-time winner Ruben Ostlund, who took home the top gong last year for his satirical comedy Triangle Of Sadness after previously triumphing in 2017 with The Square, presided over this years jury.

The ceremony also saw Cannes Grand Prix go to Jonathan Glazers The Zone Of Interest, an adaptation of Martin Amiss novel of the same name about a German family living next door to Auschwitz.

Justine Triet accepts the Palme dOr from Jane Fonda / AP

Meanwhile, the jury prize went to Finnish director Aki Kaurismakis Fallen Leaves, a deadpan love story about a romance that blooms in a loveless workaday world.

Japanese actor Koji Yakusho, who plays a middle-aged Tokyo man who cleans toilets in Wim Wenders Perfect Days, won the best actor award.

Turkish star Merve Dizdar took best actress for the Nuri Bilge Ceylans About Dry Grasses which sees her play a teacher who helps her colleague find a new perspective after he has lost of escaping his dreary life.

Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung won best director for Pot-au-Feu, love story starring Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel set in a 19th century French gourmet chateau.

Best screenplay was awarded to Yuji Sakamoto for Monster, which also won the Queer Palm, an honour bestowed by journalists for the festivals strongest LGBT themed film.

Some of the festivals biggest premieres centred around films that did not compete Palme dOr including Martin Scorsese debuting his Osage murders epic Killers Of The Flower Moon starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro.

Harrison Ford received an honorary Palme dOr ahead of the world debut screening of his new film Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny.

The veteran US star, 80, said he was deeply moved and humbled to be honoured with the accolade.

Johnny Depp also returned to the spotlight on the opening day of the film festival as his new historical drama Jeanne Du Barry premiered.

The project is his first major onscreen appearance since his high-profile defamation case with his ex-wife Amber Heard last year.
KYODO NEWS - May 28, 2023 - 12:48 | All, Japan, World

Ministers from the United States, Japan and 12 other Indo-Pacific nations agreed Saturday to strengthen supply chain resilience for critical items such as semiconductors and medicines to respond more promptly to emergencies.

The agreement on essential goods and technologies was reached at a meeting of the U.S-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework in Detroit and is the initiative's first tangible outcome since launching in May last year. It is hoped the move will reduce overreliance on China, which has been increasing its economic clout in the region.

Following the conclusion of negotiations, Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters that the multilateral agreement is the "first of its kind on supply chains."

According to a statement released afterward, the IPEF partner states plan to develop a system for collectively identifying significant supply chain risks, with each partner monitoring and marking out their own critical sectors.

They also aim to ensure the timely delivery of critically important goods during crises by improving coordination and response procedures between IPEF partners, the statement said.

While the statement did not specifically mention which goods are considered essential, a Japanese official said the aim is to target critical minerals, semiconductors, new energy technologies and other resources or equipment that could significantly impact society if supplies were halted.

Among other things, the agreement seeks to "increase the resilience, efficiency, productivity, sustainability, transparency, diversification," and "security" of supply chains through collaborative activities, as well as the individual actions of IPEF partner countries, the statement said.

The issue of supply chain disruption, especially concerning goods such as food, energy and key industrial products, has come under the spotlight following the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Supply chain resilience is one of IPEF's four pillars, along with fair trade, clean energy and proper taxation and anti-corruption.

On clean energy, interested IPEF partner countries will introduce a regional hydrogen initiative to encourage the widespread deployment of renewable and low-carbon hydrogen, as well as its derivatives, in the region.

With issues around tariff-cutting and market access excluded from the negotiations, the IPEF partner countries appear to be seeking a comprehensive agreement in November to coincide with the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum gathering in San Francisco.

At the first ministerial meeting in Los Angeles last September, the IPEF partner states agreed to begin formal negotiations on building a rules-based economic order in the fast-growing region.

The U.S.-led initiative, launched by President Joe Biden last year during his trip to Japan, is also regarded as a symbol of the world's largest economy's reengagement in the region after it withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal in 2017.

The IPEF represents about 40 percent of global gross domestic product. It currently groups Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

Canada is also seeking to join the framework.
This photo taken on May 22, 2023 shows the Ngari Observatory at sunset in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

This file photo taken in 2011 shows the first observation tower of the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua)

You Xianlong looks into the distance at the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 24, 2023.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

This photo taken on May 22, 2023 shows the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

You Xianlong (L) and his colleague Tang Peng discuss data collected at the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 23, 2023.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

This photo taken on May 22, 2023 shows the Ngari Observatory at sunset in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

This file photo taken in December 2010 shows You Xianlong working at the Oma Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua)

You Xianlong (R) and his colleague Tang Peng walk to a telescope awaiting maintenance at the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 23, 2023.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

You Xianlong switches open a telescope dome at the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 24, 2023.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

This file photo taken on April 23, 2017 shows the Ngari Observatory of the National Astronomical Observatories (NAO) in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (NAO Ngari Observatory/Handout via Xinhua)

You Xianlong (L) and his colleague Tang Peng test a telescope at the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 23, 2023.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

This photo taken on May 24, 2023 shows the Ngari Observatory at sunset in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

You Xianlong heads for his office at the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 24, 2023.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

You Xianlong (L) and his colleague Tang Peng test a telescope at the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 23, 2023.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

You Xianlong gazes into the night sky at the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 23, 2023.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

You Xianlong tests a telescope at the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 24, 2023.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

You Xianlong walks out a telescope dome at the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 24, 2023.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

This photo taken on May 24, 2023 shows the Ngari Observatory at night in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

You Xianlong talks with his family over the mobile phone at the Ngari Observatory in Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 24, 2023.

You Xianlong, a 36-year-old resident engineer at the Ngari Observatory in Tibet Autonomous Region, is responsible for equipment observation and operation maintenance along with seven colleagues. He is also the longest-serving engineer at the observatory.

You's career began in 2006 when he met Yao Yongqiang, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), who was looking for workers to conduct long-term measurements in challenging plateau environments. Since then, You has been working at the Ngari Observatory for 17 years.

Selecting an observatory site is a complex process that involves examining terrain, geology, and support conditions. It also requires years of measurement and evaluation of factors such as the number of clear nights, astronomical seeing conditions, precipitable water vapor (PWV), and aerosol optical depth (AOD). These factors are closely related to astronomical observations.

Tibet's Ngari region, with an average altitude of over 4,500 meters, has proven to be an ideal location for establishing an astronomical observation base with full bandwidth.

From 2006 to 2011, the observatory's site selection team decided to construct an observation platform on a ridge south of Shiquanhe Town. You Xianlong and his colleagues took turns to keep a watch on the construction site. A typical round of shift would last at least three months.

During that period, You Xianlong and his colleagues faced a lot of difficulties such as limited food choices and threaten from wild animals.

In 2011, the observational platform was completed, marking the inception of the Ngari Observatory.

After over ten years of construction, the Ngari Observatory has now become one of the best astronomical observatories in the Northern Hemisphere. Yao Yongqiang believes that the facility will promote China's exploration into terrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.

In the future, the observatory plans to build telescopes with diameters greater than ten meters. This prospect excites You Xianlong.

"I look forward to that day," said You Xianlong. "I am willing to stay on and prepare for the implementation of future large telescopes and scientific research projects." (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)
Jones Road slaying Stoney Creek residents on Jones Road were told to shelter in basements Saturday night after the suspect in a double homicide opened fire on police

Hamilton police are investigating after two people were shot and killed in Stoney Creek Saturday evening in what investigators are describing as a landlord-tenant dispute.

Speaking to reporters Sunday morning, Det. Sgt. Steve Bereziuk said officers responded to reports of a shooting at 322 Jones Rd., just north of Barton Street at around 5:40 p.m. Saturday.

Bereziuk said officers arriving at the scene found two people fatally shot outside of the two-storey residence, nestled between Barton and Cornell Avenue.

People stare at the investigation on Jones Road where two victims were shot and killed. The Hamilton Spectator

Witnesses told police that the victims were seen fleeing the house before they were killed outside of the residence, said Bereziuk. First responders were able to check on the victims, who were pronounced dead immediately, he noted.

Bereziuk said the two victims in the shooting, a 27-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man, were tenants of a basement apartment in the home. The suspect in the homicide, a 57-year-old man, was their landlord and lived upstairs.

Officers then learned that the suspect had barricaded himself inside the home.

Bereziuk said the man had several firearms registered to him at that address. Those weapons included handguns as well as long guns such as rifles. Bereziuk would not comment on the amount of ammunition found in the home.

The Emergency Response Unit was deployed to the scene, a large area surrounding the residence was cordoned off and negotiations with the man began.

Bereziuk said the home, located on a corner lot, offered a large line of sight.

Officers had to be very careful with where it was that they were going to stand, he added.

Early Saturday evening, officers at the large scene  spanning Jones Road in the east and Kenmore Avenue in the west between Barton Street and Arvin Avenue  could be seen crouching behind vehicles with firearms drawn. Bereziuk said police spent considerable time on the phone with the man in attempts to negotiate a peaceful resolution.

However, in a media release, police said the man shot at police from the home. The window of a black SUV and an adjacent business were both shot out. Police could not comment on how many shots were fired by the suspect.

Evidence markers and a blanket sit on Cornell Street near Jones Road where two people were killed. The Hamilton Spectator

Bereziuk said, there was an interaction between officers and the suspect after which he was pronounced dead.

Our negotiators certainly did the best they could to negotiate a peaceful resolution here, he added, noting that the suspect was not known to police.

In a statement Sunday, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU)  which had invoked its mandate to investigate  said that around 10 p.m. Saturday, there was an exchange of gunfire between the man and a police officer. The man was struck by police gunfire and died at the scene, according to the police watchdog.

The SIU investigates incidents involving police in Ontario where someone dies, is seriously hurt or there is an allegation of sexual assault.

SIU investigators examine the shattered rear window of an SUV. The Hamilton Spectator

Police are describing the incident that led to the shootings as a landlord-tenant dispute.

The early indication on that is that it sounds like there was some type of dispute regarding the state of the home, said Bereziuk. It wasnt over a ... missed rental payment.

Investigators will not be releasing the names of the victims at this time, added Bereziuk.

Weve notified the families and weve been in contact with them, he said. They are extremely upset as you can well imagine.

A man leans out his window to talk to SIU investigators in a business parking lot across from 322 Jones Rd. The Hamilton Spectator

Just before 8:30 p.m. Saturday night  while the standoff was ongoing  a man in a black pickup truck sped toward the scene, stopping just before the police tape. He ran toward the police tape, visibly emotional, alleging a man had shot his family member.

Officers held the man back; he left in his truck not long afterwards.

Bereziuk said the female victim was an educational assistant for a Catholic school board in Brant County and the male victim was an electrician in Hamilton. The couple were engaged to be married and both were from Hamilton.

Police try to calm a man who said he was related to a victim at a road block near the Jones Road double homicide Saturday afternoon. The Hamilton Spectator

Theyre truly innocent victims, hard-working people, he said, noting that neither was known to police. This is a very tragic incident.

Bereziuk said no other suspects are being sought in connection to the homicides.

Neighbour Sandra Chaisson told The Spectator that she and her husband had just finished eating dinner Saturday evening when their street was suddenly flooded with emergency responders.

Chaisson did not hear the initial shooting, but she soon saw police with large guns outside of their home as a pair of tactical vehicles drove down the road. Eventually police asked the couple to stay inside and away from the windows.

It was pretty scary, said Chaisson, who has lived on Jones Road for more than 40 years. We didnt even know what house it was.

At around 10 p.m., the couple heard the sound of gunshots. Shortly after, the police called to tell them to shelter in their basement.

Two hours later, the couple were told that things were safe and that they could come back upstairs.

Chaisson said the man who owned the home at 322 Jones Rd. had bought the property from her family, as it once belonged to her grandparents. Property records obtained by The Spectator show that the residence was purchased by Terry Brekka in March 2003.

Neither the police or SIU have identified the suspect, however, Chaisson said Brekka was living in the house. An SIU spokesperson told The Spectator that the man who was shot was the landlord and that he lived on the main floor and upstairs.

Chaisson described Brekka as a quiet man, who often waved at the couple from the yard. She had known both him and his family for many years.

I cant fathom it, said Chaisson, who did not know the couple that was killed. Its terrible. Its just such a tragedy that something like this could happen here.

Bereziuk said while notifying the victims next-of-kin, police were told that there was a dog named Max in the apartment. However, officers had not seen the pup during their search.

Luckily, the pooch was located on Sunday morning by a family member.

The little dog hid up the street until a familiar voice called out his name and he came running, Bereziuk said. He will be staying with the extended family.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Det. Robert Di Ianni at 905-546-3836.

To remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or submit tips online to crimestoppershamilton.com.

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Large sections of the beach in Port Dover remain closed to the public while the families that own the beach negotiate a new lease agreement with the county.

Ward councillor Adam Veri told The Spectator he sympathizes with the property owners who closed the beach in the lakeside town in late April over concerns about upkeep, safety and liability.

Put it this way  we have 200,000 bikers at Friday the 13th, and they leave less of a mess than a weekend at the beach, Veri told The Spectator, echoing complaints that visitors use the beach as a dumping ground from the owners of F.W. Knechtel Foods Limited and Bucks cottage park.

The beach is currently off-limits save for a 66-foot strip of county property extending from the foot of Walker Street to Lake Erie. But beachgoers have not been met with security guards telling them to leave, while part of the beach closest to the nearby Knechtel-owned restaurant has been sectioned off for patio tables.

Veri and county CAO Al Meneses are in talks with the Knechtel and Buck families over what measures would have to be put in place to formally reopen the beach, which for decades has attracted thousands of visitors every summer.

Liability insurance is a sticking point, but not the only one, Veri said.

The owners also want to see stepped-up garbage collection and more enforcement of county bylaws, with regular patrols and enhanced crowd control measures.

What they dont want is a 20-by-20 tent with four carloads of people coming with furniture and crockpots and barbecues, and digging themselves a latrine and burying their garbage and diapers, Veri said.

As crowds swell, Veri said cottagers and business owners complain of intoxication and drug use among belligerent beachgoers who set up large tents that block sightlines.

Its wild, Veri said. The (owners) want the enforcement (and) controlled entry points to get rid of that.

The majority of beachgoers dont dine or shop locally, he added. They leave their garbage on the sand and go home without spending a dime in town.

The main beach users now are using the free beach as if it were a public park. Theyre not spending money, Veri said.

Historically, the county has leased the beach for a nominal fee and paid for garbage removal and clearing the sand of seaweed and trash. But that working arrangement was interrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic and no lease was formalized this year.

We want the beaches to be a driver for tourism, Veri said. A lot of the stuff that (the owners) are asking for is not new. Its to go back to what it was.

Mayor Amy Martin told The Spectator she is optimistic a new lease can be negotiated.

The best outcome is we find a mutually beneficial agreement for the landowners and the county so the beach is open for everyone to continue to use, Martin said.

We need to have a long-term, ironclad agreement where were going to be able to tell people that the beach is open, not just for this year but for many years.

Keeping the beach open dovetails with the countys aim of preserving waterfront access throughout Norfolk, Martin added.

Theres an aspect of the beach and the water that belongs to all of us, she said.

Whether the access to get to it is publicly owned is up for debate, but its an important asset and its integral to the history and heritage of our community.

As for whether families in Hamilton and Toronto can confidently take a day trip to the Dover beach this summer, Veri said visitors who behave themselves are unlikely to have any issues.

Everybody wants people to come. What (the beach owners) dont want is the type of traffic theyre getting now, he said.

They want safe, respectful use of their property.

J.P. Antonacci s reporting on Haldimand and Norfolk is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. jpantonacci@thespec.com

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KITCHENER  At first Kristy Killoran ignored the neighbours who pounded on her door at 3 a.m. because theres always somebody pounding on the doors on a Friday night at the Victoria Motel.

But she decided to move when the pounding didnt stop. When she stepped outside into the parking lot, she saw something shes never seen before.

A few doors down a room was on fire. Flames were shooting out the front window, beginning to climb past an overhang toward the rooms above on the second floor.

It was intense, she said. We could see the flames just pouring out that front window. Everybody was saying, Get out! Get out! Theres a fire! Theres a fire!

It got so hot the fire eventually ignited a Jeep Patriot that was parked a few feet outside the room.

Firefighters took the call just before 3 a.m. Saturday and rushed to the Victoria Motel at 1175 Victoria St. N. in Kitchener. By the time they put out the fire, one man was sent to hospital and $100,000 in damage was done to a room that was burned to a crisp.

Neighbours are happy no one died but they worry about two small dogs kept in the room. Their fate was still unclear later Saturday. The fire department could not say what happened to them.

The Ontario Fire Marshals office is investigating the cause of the blaze.

There was a lot of screaming and confusion and scariness, Killoran said. Shes been living at the motel with her son for six weeks, unable to find a home to rent that she can afford.

She watched firefighters smash the windows of a room one floor above the blaze so they could put a hose in. They tried at first to get in through the metal door but could not force it open.

Its the first fire Ive ever seen, she said. Im glad they got here early and were able to contain it.

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In her new book Where We Ate: A Field Guide to Canadas Restaurants, Past and Present (out June 6), Gabby Peyton digs into the historic and cultural influence of 150 restaurants that have changed the way Canadians eat. Its an interesting exploration that strays from the same old standards weve often used to define our cuisine.

Canadian food is so multi-faceted; there are so many different layers to it. For a long time, people were really focused on putting it in some kind of rubric or defining the iconic dishes and thats it. (While) doing research for the book, I realized there's really no definition, and does there even need to be one? says Peyton.

There is a tendency for Canadian food to be defined through English or French dishes, Peyton says, but in her view the foods that define us now are adaptations of food from other parts of the world that have shifted to our tastes. Id say that a butter chicken roti  an amazing amalgamation of Caribbean and Indian influences  is a much more iconic Toronto dish than peameal bacon, for example.

Here, Peyton shares some favourite finds from researching her book (alongside some gems she couldnt fit in), so you can delve into a few of Canadas more unexpected foodie scenes and spots.

Italian food in Niagara region, Ont.

An influx of Italians to the Niagara region, who came to build the Welland Canal more than a century ago, led to a wealth of Italian eateries. Youve got places like the Rex Hotel in Welland, which started as an ice cream shop in 1915, then went on to become an Italian restaurant. It was one of the first places in Canada to serve pizza as anti-Italian sentiment in Canada shifted. Although the restaurant was originally called the Napoli and (the name) was changed during the Second World War because of racism that Italian-Canadians faced at that time.

Filipino fare in Winnipeg

When Filipino fast-food chain Jollibee opened their first Canadian restaurant, they sited it in Winnipeg because since the 80s there has been a huge number of Filipino immigrants moving to the city and spurring the growth of a dynamic food scene. Grassmere Family Restaurant, in West St. Paul just north of the city, was taken over by a Filipino family in 2004 and has recently become a hip, Instagram-friendly brunch spot, thanks to the familys sons adding dishes such as bright purple ube pancakes and tocino fries with sweet pork, pico de gallo and garlic sour cream, topped with an egg. Winnipeg hosts the Manitoba Filipino Street Festival each June, too, so its a great destination to explore this new influence on Canadian food.

Secret standouts in New Brunswick

New Brunswick as a foodie province often gets overlooked, but its home to some truly unique and amazing restaurants. Take Old Bavarian in Sussex: When you come across it in the middle of nowhere, its like youve stumbled across a little chalet in the Alps. Its owned by a German family who immigrated with their 11 kids in the 70s, and all the veggies and meat served there come from their farm. The 11th Mile in Fredericton is just incredible, and then youve got Les Brumes du Coude, almost hidden away in Monctons Aberdeen Cultural Centre, which has the most amazing beef tartare  I had to put the recipe in the book.

Banh mi in Calgary

When you think of iconic Albertan food, you automatically think steak, and I have some of those steak houses in the book, but its the banh mi scene in Calgary that fascinates me. Banh Mi Thi-Thi was the first Vietnamese sub shop to open in 1991, and now there are tons of them, and its really competitive as to who serves the best banh mi in the city. Theres even a drive-through sub shop now, To Me Vietnamese Sub.

The original poutine in Quebec

People often associate poutine with Montreal, but it was invented in Drummondville, which is pretty much halfway between Montreal and Quebec City. You can go there and eat at Le Roy Jucep, one of the two competing restaurants that claim to have invented poutine, in the late 50s, as a way to deal with a dairy surplus at the time. They had to do something with all those extra cheese curds. Be sure to stop at one of the food stands, called casse-croutes, selling the dish at the side of the road when travelling in Quebec for an authentic experience.

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As more wildfire evacuees are being allowed to return home in Alberta, provincial officials warn that warm, dry conditions are returning this weekend in some areas.

Melissa Story with Alberta Wildfire says the elevated fire conditions were anticipated and that crews on the ground are seeing more intense fire activity on the perimeters of wildfires.

But she says most fires havent grown substantially and she doesnt believe any have jumped their containment lines.

The number of evacuees as of Saturday afternoon stood at 5,257, down from over 7,200 on Wednesday, following cooler and wetter conditions in the last week.

Nearly 50 wildfires in Albertas forest protection area are burning, with 14 of those listed as out-of-control.

Cyndee Evans, executive director of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency, says the situation remains serious despite recent positive news.

While we can take heart that more Albertans are starting to return home, we cannot afford to drop our guard. Now is not the time for complacency. Please continue to do your part and help prevent the spread of wildfires and further damage from occurring, Evans told a news conference Saturday.

Story noted that showers were forecast for some parts of Alberta later Saturday, reducing fire danger, but also cautioned they bring the risk of lightning.

Federal Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said in a tweet Saturday that an extension for the deployment of Canadian Armed Forces personnel to assist in firefighting efforts has been approved.

Story said firefighters from New Zealand were welcomed to the province Friday and that nearly 200 firefighters and support staff from Australia would be arriving this weekend.

Alberta remains under a provincewide state of emergency, although some bans on fires, ATVs and off-highway vehicles have been relaxed in recent days.

Parkland County west of Edmonton lifted a state of local emergency on Friday that had been in place since April 29, and downgraded a fire ban to a fire restriction. It said that meant safe fires in approved fire pits with a screen are allowed and do not require a permit.

Fires without screens still required permits, however, and open fires in the county are still banned.

The High Level Forest Area wildfire update noted the Pasqua fire located in the community of Fox Lake saw an increase in fire activity after warm and dry weather on Friday, and that temperatures and fire behaviour was expected to pick up on Saturday.

Fox Lake remains evacuated, but residents are being permitted to sign up for tours of the community on Monday to view damage. A statement from the Little Red River Cree Nation said priority will be given to people who have lost their homes.

Tours will be visual only, as it is still not safe for members to walk around the community or house sites due to hot spots as well as possible toxins and hazards in the areas that have been burned, said a statement posted online by the First Nation on Friday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2023.

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CALGARY It was an unusual sight for Canada in more ways than one.

At their televised debate, the two candidates vying to be Albertas premier wore suits in matching shades of royal blue  probably accidental  and mostly avoided talking over each other  which felt intentional, if novel.

Stranger still, they were both women.

Voters in what is arguably Canadas wildest western province are headed to the polls Monday. After a nail-biter of a campaign punctuated by verbal flare-ups and literal fires, the outcome is anyones guess. But one thing is clear: the next leader of Alberta will be a woman.

While neither Danielle Smith nor Rachel Notley have talked much about gender on the campaign trail, the two seemingly have different ideas about what it means to have a woman in the top job.

For Smith, a self-described libertarian, a female premier is a symbol; the job, as shes cast it, is about protecting a womans right to make her own health choices and then getting the heck out of the way. Meanwhile, Notley, a progressive and former premier, has in the past taken a more active hand in asserting equality through government programming.

Smith says women deserve freedom, bodily autonomy, and get the state out of their lives and allow them to pursue their own interests, says Lise Gotell, the Landrex Distinguished Professor in Womens and Gender Studies at the University of Alberta.

And Notley is someone who believes that there is a role for the state in promoting gender equality.

While applauding women in leadership in 2023 carries a whiff of retrograde politics, the reality is that female leaders, to say nothing of female leaders of colour, remain a rarity in this country. Canada has seen just one female prime minister. Even then, Kim Campbell got the job 30 years ago when her predecessor retired and governed for just five months before losing a general election and her own Vancouver seat, to boot.

When it comes to gender equity in Canada, the provincial record is slightly better than the federal  14 women have served as premier of a province or a territory. Nowhere has a woman been more likely to get the top office than in Alberta. Three of this provinces past six premiers have been women, with Smith and Notley already on that list.

Put another way, Alberta has 11 per cent of the national population, but has had roughly a quarter of the top female ministers. In some ways, it can feel a bit surprising for a part of the country known for its conservative politics. Yet two woman first faced off in a race to be premier here back in 2012, when Smith challenged the Progressive Conservatives Alison Redford.

Though female leaders may be less rare in Alberta, questions remain about the barriers that exist, the challenges of the role and what it actually means to have a woman as leader in the modern day.

To wit, on Monday, Alberta will choose its next premier from the two female contenders.

Danielle Smith, leader of the United Conservatives, is a personable former radio host who has pitched a more right-wing vision for the province, built on resource extraction and low taxes. She has spent much of this campaign dealing with previous comments, those she herself has made and those her candidates have uttered.

Her competition is Rachel Notley of the New Democrats, a progressive former lawyer who grew up around politics  her father was also an NDP leader  who led her party to a resounding victory in 2015 on promises of environmental protection and bolstered health care, before being ousted in 2019.

Within the province, the fact that its two women again vying to be premier has generated relatively little buzz.

While its novel for other provinces in the country, for Alberta, this is a continuation of a great legacy, says Sarah Rimbey, the vice chair of the Calgary chapter of Equal Voice, a group dedicated to getting more women into office. She notes that much of the campaign has focused on bread-and-butter issues, such as health care and the economy, and that theres been little mention of the fact that two women are going head to head.

Theres been no gender politics played against one another, and it is just really encouraging to see two strong women stand behind the issues that their parties care about, she says.

Which is, to be clear, not to say that sexism has been solved. One of the challenging things about trying to tease out the effects of gender on politics is that gender is rarely the sole reason something happens or that someone is treated a certain way, says Melanee Thomas, an associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary who studies women in politics. But even when there are a bunch of factors at play, gender has a sneaky way of lightly colouring things, forever raising the nagging question  did that happen because she was a woman?

Some of the questions raised by political scientists in the campaign include: Would Smith be assumed to be more competent on the economy if she were a man? Would there be the same rumours about her shaky position within the party? Would the same gendered language have crept in? (See Smiths adviser Rob Anderson referring to Rachel Notley as shrill, one of the all-stars of the adjectives only applied to women, and unfavourably category.)

Of course, both have the same struggle to be seen as trustworthy and competent, and above all, to pass that traditional bar of politics: Is this someone you would want to have a beer with?

Its hard for smart women to be likeable, Thomas says. Intuitively, every smart woman whos had to go through school knows this, right?

Why has Alberta seen more female premiers?

Theres no clear answer as to why women have been more likely to become premier in Alberta, but Thomas posits that it has something to do with the provinces long history of one-party rule. Most recently, the same Progressive Conservative party formed government for 44 years.

Research on party leadership from around the world is pretty clear that women are most likely to be voted in as leaders of parties that are small, left-leaning and electorally uncompetitive, Thomas says.

In other words, theyre Rachel Notley right before her small party won a shocking victory in 2015. Smith also arrived on the Alberta political scene as the leader of the small insurgent (albeit right-wing) Wildrose party.

Theres also the phenomenon in which women tend to get more opportunities when things are going badly. (The textbook example here is Angela Merkel, who became her partys first female leader after a political rival was taken out by an illegal donation scandal involving an arms dealer.)

While the United Conservatives werent in the same kind of crisis before Smith became leader, they were dealing with significant inner turmoil as Jason Kenney got ready to step down, and were being out-fundraised by the NDP.

If youve got a party thats in decline, the men who might typically come forward and want to lead the party, they self-select out, Thomas says, speaking generally.

Sugar and spice

Some of her recent research suggests that while most Canadians say they support women in politics, their actions convey a murkier message. One in five people in the country think that men are naturally better leaders, while women are too emotional and too nice for the political arena.

The interesting thing is, theres a very particular kind of person who will tell us that to our faces, Thomas says. She co-authored a paper on Explicit Gender Stereotyping in Canadian Politics this spring. They are older, they are men, they are conservative in terms of identifying on the left/right spectrum, they are partisan conservatives and they are religious.

But when the survey isnt done face to face, a lot more young, progressive types will suddenly also admit to questioning womens ability to lead.

Weve all met that bro-cialist, as Thomas puts it. We all know that guy. That guy is as sexist, but they dont like being called out that way.

On the other hand, men tend to be seen as courageous and good with numbers, stereotypes that can make them seem better fit to lead.

Some consequences are clear  data suggests that women are less likely to be chosen as federal candidates, particularly in ridings where parties are likely to win, and also face harassment and online abuse. Some effects are more insidious. Studies suggest the media give female leaders less coverage, and stories are more likely to focus on their appearances or use gendered language.

When you have two women running, some of the clear sexism disappears, Thomas argues. The thinking is that members of one political tribe are unlikely to attack another leader for something that also applies to their own.

Which candidate will women vote for in Alberta?

It remains to be seen whether this issue will have any effect on the women voting in Alberta. A CBC poll released Friday suggests that while men are more likely to vote for the UCP, women in the province are fairly evenly split. That flies in the face of long held political belief, which holds that women are more likely to put themselves toward the left side of the political spectrum, and are more likely to be interested in social issues such as health care and education.

One of the most common arguments for getting more women into leadership is that they will work to improve conditions for women in society as a whole. The easy assumption is that if you get enough women into politics, suddenly sexism in politics will be fixed. But Smith and Notley seem to have different thoughts on how that would work.

When the NDP was elected in 2015, the government created a Status of Women minister, who explicitly vowed to build feminism in the province by narrowing the wage gap and combating gender-based violence. The UCP record on gender has been a bit patchier.

Last August, Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk, the associate minister for the Status of Women awarded third prize in an essay contest for young women interested in politics to an entrant who argued women are not exactly equal to men and voiced concern about children being replaced by foreigners.

When Smith became premier last fall, she faced further criticism for downgrading the Status of Women file to a parliamentary secretary and appointing a cabinet with 81 per cent men.

But when asked by reporters, her response was simple: As for Status of Women, Im a woman.

Gotell sees a difference between what she calls numerical representation and substantive representation -- meaning the significance of having a higher number of women in leadership roles versus making changes to policies and programming with women in mind. The two are often related, but not exactly the same.

She argues that the more recent UCP government hasnt been good for women. For instance, predominately female jobs were lost during the pandemic, but the eventual recovery focused on male-dominated sectors such as oil.

Albertans, women included, will have a chance to decide for themselves Monday.

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Rigzin Wangzhab inspects a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

This photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows part of a mural in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

Rigzin Wangzhab introduces murals to tourists in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

Rigzin Wangzhab poses for a photo in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

This photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows part of a mural in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

This photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows part of the Piyang grottoes in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

This photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows part of a mural in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

Rigzin Wangzhab (C) introduces murals to tourists in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

Rigzin Wangzhab prepares to clean a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

Rigzin Wangzhab walks between grottoes in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

This photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows part of a mural in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

Rigzin Wangzhab views murals in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

Rigzin Wangzhab gets a meal from her daughter-in-law in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

This aerial photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows the Piyang grottoes in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

Rigzin Wangzhab has a meal outside a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

This photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows murals in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

This photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows part of a mural in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

Rigzin Wangzhab views murals in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

Rigzin Wangzhab unlocks the door of a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

Rigzin Wangzhab introduces murals to tourists in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

Rigzin Wangzhab has a meal beside a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

This aerial photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows the Piyang grottoes in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

A solar halo is pictured above the Piyang grottoes in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

This photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows murals in a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)

Rigzin Wangzhab inspects a grotto in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Jigme Dorje)

Rigzin Wangzhab walks between grottoes in Zanda County of Ngari Prefecture, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, May 26, 2023.

Hidden among sandstone hills in remote western Tibet, a stretch of honeycomb-shaped caverns is way beyond the reach of most travelers.

Known as the Donggar and Piyang grottoes, the 1,000-year-old caverns in the Tibet Autonomous Region's Ngari Prefecture hold one of the world's greatest collections of Tibetan Buddhist murals.

Rigzin Wangzhab, 75, has been guarding the site for more than 20 years.

"When I was very young, I was told that the grottoes on the mountain were relics of high research value, so I had been thinking about doing something for them," Rigzin recalled.

It was in 2002 that Rigzin learned of a job opening for these cultural relics protection. He applied for the position, strongly believing that the job would be the best way for him to guard the relics.

Buddhist murals have been previously found in north China's Shanxi Province and in the desert city of Dunhuang in northwest China's Gansu Province. Experts say the discovery of the Donggar and Piyang grottoes provides a missing link for historians, allowing them to fully trace the origins of Buddhism in China. The murals depict substantial content, including exotic figures, animals, patterns and designs.

In addition to giving free lectures to tourists, Rigzin inspects the grottoes every day in case of water seepage or collapse.

"These murals and grottoes represent our history and culture. I will continue protecting the cultural relics so that our future generations can still see them," he said. (Xinhua/Fei Maohua)
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP)  The day that President Joe Bidens administration ended a public health measure blocking many asylum-seekers at the Mexican border during the coronavirus pandemic, Teodoso Vargas was ready to show U.S. officials his scars and photos of his bullet-riddled body.

Instead, he stood frozen with his pregnant wife and 5-year-old son at a Tijuana crossing, feet from U.S. soil.

He was unsure of the new rules rolled out with the change and whether taking the next few steps to approach U.S. officials to ask for asylum in person could force a return to his native Honduras.

I cant go back to my country, said Vargas, a long scar snaking down his neck from surgery after being shot nine times in his homeland during a robbery. Fear is why I dont want to return. If I can just show the proof I have, I believe the U.S. will let me in.

Asylum-seekers say joy over the end of the public health restriction known as Title 42 this month is turning into anguish with the uncertainty about how the Biden administrations new rules affect them.

Though the government opened some new avenues for immigration, the fate of many people is largely left to a U.S. government app only used for scheduling an appointment at a port of entry and unable to decipher human suffering or weigh the vulnerability of applicants.

The CBP One app is a key tool in creating a more efficient and orderly system at the border while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who profit from vulnerable migrants, the Department of Homeland Security said in an email to The Associated Press.

But since its rollout in January, the app has been criticized for technological problems. Demand has far outstripped the roughly 1,000 appointments available on the app each day.

As a Honduran man, Vargas does not qualify for many of the legal pathways the Biden administration has introduced. One program gives up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans a month a shot at humanitarian parole if they apply online, have a financial sponsor in the U.S. and arrive by air. Minors traveling alone also are exempt from the rules.

Migrants who do not follow the rules, the government has said, could be deported back to their homelands and barred from seeking asylum for five years.

Vargas said he decided not to risk it. He has been logging onto the app each day at 9 a.m. for the past three months from his rented room in a crime-riddled Tijuana neighborhood.

His experience is shared by tens of thousands of other asylum-seekers in Mexican border towns.

Immigration lawyer Blaine Bookey said for many on the border there seems to be no option right now for people to ask for asylum if they dont have an appointment through the CBP app.

The government said it doesnt turn away asylum-seekers but prioritizes people who use the app.

Bookeys group, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, is one of the lead plaintiffs, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, challenging some of the new rules in federal court in San Francisco, including a requirement that people first apply for asylum in a country they crossed on the way to the U.S. They are asking the court to allow an asylum request by anyone on U.S. soil.

Texas Republican lawmakers also have sued. Among other things, they argue the CBP One app encourages illegal immigration by dispensing appointments without properly vetting whether applicants have a legal basis to stay.

The Biden administration said new measures, including the app, have helped reduce unlawful immigration by more than 70% since Title 42 ended May 11.

More than 79,000 people were admitted under CBP One from its Jan. 12 launch through the end of April. From May 12 to May 19, an average of 1,070 people per day presented themselves at the ports of entry after securing an appointment on the app, the government stated. It did not provide updated figures but said the numbers should grow as the initiative is scaled up.

The administration also has highlighted improvements made in recent weeks. The app can prioritize those who have been trying the longest. Appointments are opened online throughout the day to avoid system overload. People with acute medical conditions or facing imminent threats of murder, rape, kidnapping or other exceptionally compelling circumstances can request priority status, but only in person at a port of entry. The app does not allow input of case details.

Still, some asylum-seekers claim to have been turned away at crossings while making requests, lawyers say.

Koral Rivera, who is from Mexico and eight months pregnant, said she has been trying to obtain an appointment through the app for two months. She recently went to a Texas crossing to present her case to U.S. officials, but said Mexican immigration agents in Matamoros blocked her and her husband.

They tell us to try to get an appointment through the app, said Rivera, whose family has been threatened by drug cartel members.

Priscilla Orta, an immigration attorney with Lawyers for Good Government in Brownsville, Texas, said one Honduran woman in the Mexican border city of Reynosa said a man whom she accuses of raping her tracked her down though her phone, which she was using to secure an appointment.

The woman was raped again, said Orta, who has not been able to reach her since.

That is harrowing to realize that youre just going to have to put up with the abuses in Mexico and just kind of continue to take it because if you dont, then you could forever hurt yourself in the long term, the lawyer said.

Orta said she previously could ask U.S. border officials at crossings to prioritize children with cancer, victims of torture and members of the LGBTQ community, and usually they would schedule a meeting. But local officials informed her they no longer have guidance from Washington.

They do not know what to do with these most extremely vulnerable people, Orta said, adding that migrants face tough questions. Do you risk never qualifying for asylum? Or do you try to wait for an appointment despite the danger?

Vargas, a farmer, has no doubt he could prove he and his family fled Honduras out of fear, the first requirement for U.S. entry to start the yearslong legal process for safe refuge. His iPhone is filled with photos of him lying in a hospital bed, tubes snaking out, his swollen face covered in bandages. He has knots of scar tissue on each side of his head from a bullet passing through his right check and exiting the left side of his head. Similar scar tissue dots his back and side.

His spirits were up after Title 42 expired and fellow asylum-seekers at a Tijuana shelter left with appointments. Two weeks later, he was dismayed.

I cant find enough work here. Im either going to have to return to Honduras, but Ill likely be killed, or I dont know, he said. I feel so hopeless.

___

Salomon reported from Miami.

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OTTAWA - Ontario MPP Ted Hsu is officially a candidate for the provincial Liberal leadership.

Hsu launched his campaign in Kingston, Ont., alongside hometown music hero Rob Baker of the Tragically Hip.

Hsu says he wants to give his party a fresh start with Ontarians and help Liberals earn back the trust of voters.

The party hasnt had official status at the provincial legislature since it was voted out of power in 2018.

Hsu has been the MPP for Kingston and the Islands since the provincial election a year ago and is one of only seven Liberal MPPs.

Hsu joins Toronto federal Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith as the only declared candidates in the race but Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie and Ottawa MP Yasir Naqvi have each said they were also considering a bid.

Ontario Liberals will choose their new leader on Dec. 2 but candidates have until early September to jump into the contest.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2023.

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WENTZVILLE  Applause broke out twice during Sunday Mass at St. Gianna Catholic Church, first when the Rev. Timothy Elliott said the parish would remain unchanged and again with the news that he is staying on as pastor.

The All Things New downsizing of the Archdiocese of St. Louis  35 closed parishes and five mergers of 15 parishes  came as a relief for many Catholics after prior proposals would have closed more than half of the 178 parishes across the region. Others expressed sorrow and even confusion over what archdiocesan terms like subsumed mean for the future of their churches.

Elliott said he was joyously shocked to read the letter from Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski outlining the future of St. Gianna, the youngest parish in the archdiocese. A draft released last month showed the parish merging with Immaculate Heart of Mary in New Melle, a plan formally opposed by Elliott and many of his parishioners in communications with Rozanski.

Not all of the surprises for parishes were positive. Christ the King in University City will absorb the former territories of All Saints Parish in University City, St. Rita Parish in Vinita Park and St. Roch just north of Forest Park in St. Louis.

My only question is if the building would necessarily go away or be sold because its such a treasure, said Bill Hannegan, 65, of St. Roch. Its a beautiful, beautiful building. My grandmother was an original member from the day the church was built. This is going to take St. Rochs people by surprise because they thought there was a deal worked out.

Much of the confusion on Sunday circled around the future of the church buildings in closed or merged parishes. Those decisions will be made over time by the new pastors and parishioners, according to the archdiocese. The decrees outlining the changes to parishes say the churches will remain a sacred edifice to which the faithful have the right of entry.

None of the parish closures are in north St. Louis city, which historically has seen the most consolidation in the archdiocese. But extensive mergers left a lot of questions about what would remain, particularly for Black Catholics.

One yet-to-be-named new parish will include Our Lady of the Holy Cross in the Baden neighborhood; St. Augustine in Hamilton Heights; St. Elizabeth, Mother of John the Baptist in Penrose; and St. Matthew the Apostle in the Ville.

What is going to the happen with the buildings, and are we all going to be able to keep our food pantry open? said Rita Kemna, 75, after Mass let out Sunday at Our Lady of the Holy Cross. Most everybody is concerned about outreach programs.

I just hope they can keep this church here, said Christine Misuraca, 60, whos been attending the Baden church since she was 2 and wants her funeral held there. I cant picture it being closed.

Even though they werent officially closed like 35 other parishes, Richard Burgdorf, 78, president of the Holy Cross parish council, was disheartened by the All Things New process.

My God has not let me down, said Burgdorf. My archdiocese has let me down. I have lost respect for the leadership of the archdiocese because they are still not telling us everything.

Its not going to be four churches, Burgdorf, whose great-great-grandfather helped establish Holy Cross, added of the merger.

New gifts to share

Another new north city parish will include Most Holy Trinity in Hyde Park; St. Nicholas in Downtown West; and Sts. Teresa and Bridget in Jeff-Vander-Lou.

On Sunday morning at Sts. Teresa and Bridget, the Rev. Scott Jones revisited the same message he gave at the start of All Things New. In the early church, he said, the faithful congregated in homes and other places on the go. Now that there are church buildings, many are insular.

In fact, some of our most beautiful church buildings have very few people worshiping in them, he said from the pulpit. A healthy church isnt the building, its the people.

He said there will be new gifts to share and people to meet as the merger takes shape this summer.

Outside after Mass, Edna Hester, 75, an optimist, took things in stride.

Weve got to do what weve got to do, she said of merging. It happened before, itll probably happen again before its over. You call yourself a Christian, you need to get along with everybody and make it work. If you have a bad attitude, you are going to feel bad all the time. I dont have time for that.

Pastors at Immaculate Heart of Mary and St. John the Baptist in south St. Louis told their parishioners on Sunday that weekend Mass would continue at each church even after Aug. 1, when the parishes will close and be absorbed by St. Stephen Protomartyr.

The Rev. Aaron Nord, 45, of Immaculate Heart of Mary will become the pastor of St. Stephen.

The parish community will be one community worshiping in three church buildings, Nord said. Every change, even necessary change, involves loss, and loss is sad. So if you feel sad today, theres no shame in that.

Debbie Gartner, 66, an Immaculate Heart of Mary parishioner since 1980, said the consolidation of parishes is helping us grow in our ministries  weve seen organizations disband because of lack of numbers. Theres not enough people to go around.

Kelly Cato, 46, teared up as she talked about her grandparents names on a plaque in the vestibule as charter members of the parish: Theres a lot of memories. I still dont know why St. Stephen was picked, but were not the ones making the decisions.

Still planning an appeal

Confusion about the archdioceses plan extended to rural Ste. Genevieve County, one of the most Catholic parts of the archdiocese.

As of Aug. 1, Sts. Philip and James parish in tiny River aux Vases will no longer exist  at least on paper. It will be absorbed by Ste. Genevieve Parish in Ste. Genevieve, the county seat.

Yet a priest told the Sts. Philip and James congregation Sunday morning that Masses would continue to be held at the River aux Vases location at 8 a.m. on Sundays to keep the historic church open.

He said we are not closing, we are just merging with Ste. Genevieve, said Lois Naeger, 64. Everybody was glad to hear that.

Not far away, St. Agnes parish in Bloomsdale will absorb the former territory of St. Lawrence in Lawrenceton. A priest has been traveling from Bloomsdale to keep St. Lawrence open since the 1960s. That arrangement will end in August, said Pershing Carron.

We are going to get the axe, said Carron, 90, whose family helped establish St. Lawrence. Simple as that. We are still going to try to appeal this.

A resilient community

At St. Francis of Assisi in Portage Des Sioux, about 70 weekly churchgoers gathered in the parking lot after Mass trying to figure out what Rozanski meant in his letter when he said the parish would be subsumed by St. Charles Borromeo, about a 20-minute drive away.

The rural St. Charles County parish is one of the oldest in the region, founded in 1813 on the banks of the Mississippi River and surviving at least two major floods in its history.

The Rev. Edward Voltz, one of several rotating priests who cover weekly Mass because St. Francis has no full-time clergy, told the attendees he had few answers about what will become of the church building built in 1879. A glossary posted Saturday on the archdiocese website says subsumed means when one parish is united to another parish in such a way that the first parish no longer exists and the second parish remains.

Lifelong parishioner Kelly Smith said she hopes there will still be some Catholic presence in Portage Des Sioux. Her children are fifth-generation St. Francis members and shes poured hours into volunteering and supporting the church that her great-great-grandparents also attended.

Whats going to happen to the people who rely on the church in this community? Smith asked, noting that the parish runs the areas St. Vincent DePaul charity. For holidays, it hosts a large, free Thanksgiving dinner and sponsors dozens of local families at Christmas. Hundreds attend the annual summer picnic, famous for its tractor pull and fried chicken dinners.

St. Francis has been resilient, said Jerry Schulte, a member of the parish for 70 years. He recalled coming to the property after the Great Flood of 1993 devastated the area. He helped save church pews that had been under about 3 feet of Mississippi River floodwater.

After the flood, the parishs grade school closed and the areas population plummeted.

All Things New started in St. Louis in January 2022, when Rozanski announced the 18-month process that would bring the most sweeping changes in the 200-year history of the Catholic church in St. Louis amid declining numbers of Catholics attending Mass and priests to serve them.

The Catholic population in the region has fallen below 500,000 in 2021 for the first time in half a century. Pews have been only one-quarter full on Sundays this year.

More details on the changes are expected in early June, including new Mass times and worship sites for merged parishes. Decisions on Catholic parish school closures or consolidations are expected this fall. At least three of the closed parishes, St. Roch, Blessed Teresa in Ferguson and St. Rose in Florissant have grade schools.

Parishioners have until June 12 to appeal the changes to Rozanski through canon or church law.

Lifelong St. Francis parishioner Denna Boschert, 59, said she already wrote a letter asking to keep at least some services at the church.

The reason weve kept this parish alive is the same reason we stay in Portage Des Sioux after the floods, Boschert said. Were faithful.

Erin Heffernan, Josh Renaud and Colleen Schrappen of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
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The Rev. Bill Farmer reached the point where he couldnt stay in the United Methodist Church anymore  but the congregation he attended was staying.

Michael Hahn always wanted to stay in the UMC  but his congregation was leaving it.

Each has found new church homes, and theyre not alone.

Thousands of United Methodist congregations have been voting on whether to stay or quit one of the nations largest denominations amid intractable debates over theology and the role of LGBTQ people. There are sharp differences over recognizing same-sex marriage and ordaining LGBTQ clergy.

But the dividing line isnt just running between congregations. Its running right through the pews of individual churches, separating people who had long worshipped together.

Those who come up on the short end of a disaffiliation vote face the dilemma of whether stay or go.

The splintering  often grievous and tense  has spurred new initiatives to provide havens for the unmoored. Some United Methodist regional conferences have begun designating Lighthouse congregations  ones that actively welcome people who wanted to stay United Methodist but whose former churches voted to leave. Other conferences use different names, such as Beacon or Oasis, but the idea is the same.

The pain is real, and there is a lot of grief and a lot of heartache over the split in the United Methodist Church, said the Rev. Lynda Ferguson, the great-grandchild of a circuit-riding Methodist pastor.

Her North Carolina church, First United Methodist Asheboro, became a Lighthouse congregation. That assures newcomers that its committed to staying United Methodist, so they wont have to worry about another disaffiliation vote. More than 400 congregations have disaffiliated in North Carolina.

Ferguson said she can personally relate to those from departing congregations. Her childhood church  the one that shaped her faith and where at age 12 she felt the call to ministry  also voted to leave.

Part of the Lighthouse mission is to let people know the United Methodist Church is still here and still welcoming, said the Rev. Ed McKinney, pastor of Stokesdale United Methodist Church in Stokesdale, North Carolina, which also became a Lighthouse congregation.

Michael Hahn and his family are among a group of newcomers who have begun participating in Stokesdale after their previous congregations left the denomination.

Hahn, whose family has been Methodist for generations, said he couldnt imagine leaving the denomination, which he values for blending faith and rationality.

Many of the departing churches are joining the conservative Global Methodist Church, created last year. Others are going independent or joining different denominations.

While the Global Methodist Church doesnt have a program like the Lighthouse initiative, it has begun launching or adopting congregations that can become homes for those who want to leave the United Methodist Church but whose congregations are staying.

That was the case with the founders of Grace Methodist Church. They launched the church in January in Homosassa, Florida, after their previous congregation voted to stay in the UMC. The new church immediately affiliated with the Global Methodist Church. Farmer came out of retirement to serve as the churchs pastor.

The groups previous congregation was a good church, Farmer said, and he wished it well. But my struggle was with the United Methodist structure, whats going on in the United States, particularly.

The ongoing schism has been long in the making. The United Methodist Church  with about 6.5 million members in the United States and at least that many abroad  has long debated its bans on same-sex marriages and the ordination of openly LGBTQ clergy.

The denomination has repeatedly upheld the bans, largely through the voting strength of the growing, more conservative churches abroad. But conservatives chose to form a new denomination amid growing defiance of the bans in U.S. churches.

More than 3,500 U.S. congregations have received their local conferences permission to disaffiliate from the UMC, according to United Methodist News Service.

With conference season underway, disaffiliations are closing in on 4,000 and could rise even more by the end of the year, said the Rev. Jay Therrell, president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a conservative group advocating for departing congregations.

Thats a fraction of the United Methodists 30,000 U.S. churches, though several of the departing congregations are among the largest in their states.

In the Arkansas Conference, more than 100 churches  out of roughly 600 total  have received permission to disaffiliate. That leaves parts of the state with few or no remaining United Methodist congregations, said the Rev. Michael Roberts, director of the conferences new Restart Initiative, which is hoping to enlist congregations to be Beacon churches. Such churches would invite self-described exiles, refugees, nomads to worship services, help them start home groups or develop other ways to keep them connected.

Were just really simply inviting churches to consider how they can provide this kind of hospitality, Roberts said. I love the word hospitality because the word hospital comes from that word. It is about providing healing.

From Stonewall to today: 50+ years of modern LGBTQ+ history From Stonewall to today: 50+ years of modern LGBTQ+ history 1969: Stonewall Riots 1969: Gay Liberation Front forms 1972: Sweden allows people to legally change gender 1972: UK has first Pride parade 1973: Lambda Legal forms 1973: Homosexuality is no longer classified as a mental illness 1974: First openly lesbian officials elected 1977: First openly gay man elected 1978: The rainbow flag is created 1979: First national LGBTQ+ march 1981: Norway enacts anti-discrimination laws 1981: Gay men affected with 'rare cancer' 1982: Wisconsin passes LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination law 1983: BiPOL forms 1984: HIV discovered 1986: Bowers v. Hardwick 1986: New York passes anti-discrimination bill 1987: UK opens first HIV/AIDS clinic 1987: Barney Frank comes out as gay 1987: ACT UP 1988: National Coming Out Day starts 1989: Denmark legalizes same-sex unions 1990: First Pride parade in South Africa 1994: 'Don't ask, don't tell' enacted 1994: American Medical Association opposes conversion therapy 1995: Gay and lesbian workers can get government security clearance 1996: President Bill Clinton signs Defense of Marriage Act 1996: High schooler starts Gay-Straight Alliance 1997: Ellen DeGeneres comes out 1998: Bisexual flag created 2000: Vermont recognizes same-sex unions 2000: Netherlands recognizes same-sex marriage 2002: New York City passes LGBTQ+ rights law 2003: US legalizes consensual same-sex acts 2004: Massachusetts performs first same-sex marriage 2009: Hate Crimes Prevention Act 2010: Same-sex marriage legal in Iceland 2011: 'Don't ask, don't tell' repealed 2012: First openly LGBTQ+ senator 2013: Supreme Court recognizes same-sex marriage 2014: Transgender students get federal protection 2014: First transgender person nominated for Emmy 2015: US legalizes same-sex marriage 2016: Ban lifted on transgender troops 2017: First openly transgender state legislator elected 2018: 'Rainbow wave' in politics 2019: Taiwan passes same-sex marriage 2019: Transgender troops banned from military 2019: Mayor Pete runs for president 2019: Being transgender no longer a 'disorder' 2020: NYC Pride March canceled by coronavirus 2021: Biden reverses Trump-era ban on transgender people in the military 2021: Gender-affirming care for minors is blockedthen overturned 2021: Switzerland and Japan make strides toward marriage equality 2022: Hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in US states 2022: First openly lesbian women elected governor 2023: Gender-Affirming Care
All Things New timeline: Reshaping the Archdiocese of St. Louis

2022

January 2022: Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski unveils the All Things New 18-month initiative to reshape the blueprint of Catholic parishes and schools across the St. Louis region in response to declining numbers of worshipers and priests. After restructuring, the number of parishes is expected to be cut from 178 to about 100.

February: A group of Catholics launches Save Rome of the West to protest All Things New.

March: More than 70,000 Catholics fill out the Disciple Maker Index survey about their worship habits.

August: About 220 local priests gather to discuss initial models of parish restructuring plans.

September: The models are shown to 1,000 lay parish representatives from throughout the archdiocese, who give their feedback. Financial data on each parish is released, offering clues as to which parishes are at risk of closure. The archdiocese announces that St. Marys and Rosati-Kain high schools in St. Louis will close at the end of the 2022-2023 school year.

October-November: Hundreds of listening sessions are held at each parish to introduce the draft models to the laity. Bigger-than-expected cuts are floated at the meetings, suggesting the 178 parishes could be cut to between 71 and 90.

November: Decisions on widespread Catholic grade school closures are postponed to the 2024-2025 school year.

December: St. Marys and Rosati-Kain reach deals to lease their buildings from the archdiocese and stay open as independent Catholic high schools. The archdiocese hosts a listening session for Black Catholics to discuss All Things New and the impact on their communities.

2023

January: St. Mark School in south St. Louis County announces its closure prior to the 2023-2024 school year for financial reasons.

February: Second draft models of the restructuring plan show 88 pastorates  groupings of parishes that will share a pastor, Mass times and ministries. The largest consolidations are shown in St. Louis city and rural counties, while many parishes in west St. Louis County will remain standalone or independent.

March: Priests are asked to weigh in on the viability of their parishes, and whether a merger or closure is merited.

April: More than 3,100 Catholics sign petitions calling for the suspension of the All Things New downsizing plan. Families vow to fight the announced closure of Good Shepherd School in Hillsboro. Third draft models of the restructuring plan are released based on feedback from a planning committee made up of priests, deacons, parish staff and lay leaders from across the region.

May: Catholic church leaders are told to prepare for a variety of emotional responses to the release of the parish reorganization plan.

Archbishop Rozanski is scheduled to release the final plan, expected to include dozens of parish consolidations and priest reassignments, on Saturday, May 27.
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The Rev. Bill Farmer reached the point where he couldn't stay in the United Methodist Church anymore  but the congregation he attended was staying.

Michael Hahn always wanted to stay in the UMC  but his congregation was leaving it.

Each has found new church homes, and they're not alone.

Thousands of United Methodist congregations have been voting on whether to stay or quit one of the nation's largest denominations amid intractable debates over theology and the role of LGBTQ people. There are sharp differences over recognizing same-sex marriage and ordaining LGBTQ clergy.

But the dividing line isn't just running between congregations. It's running right through the pews of individual churches, separating people who had long worshipped together.

Those who come up on the short end of a disaffiliation vote face the dilemma of whether stay or go.

The splintering  often grievous and tense  has spurred new initiatives to provide havens for the unmoored. Some United Methodist regional conferences have begun designating "Lighthouse" congregations  ones that actively welcome people who wanted to stay United Methodist but whose former churches voted to leave. Other conferences use different names, such as "Beacon" or "Oasis," but the idea is the same.

"The pain is real, and there is a lot of grief and a lot of heartache over the split in the United Methodist Church," said the Rev. Lynda Ferguson, the great-grandchild of a circuit-riding Methodist pastor.

Her North Carolina church, First United Methodist Asheboro, became a Lighthouse congregation. That assures newcomers that it's committed to staying United Methodist, so they won't have to worry about another disaffiliation vote. More than 400 congregations have disaffiliated in North Carolina.

Ferguson said she can personally relate to those from departing congregations. Her childhood church  the one that shaped her faith and where at age 12 she felt the call to ministry  also voted to leave.

"Part of the Lighthouse mission is to let people know the United Methodist Church is still here and still welcoming," said the Rev. Ed McKinney, pastor of Stokesdale United Methodist Church in Stokesdale, North Carolina, which also became a Lighthouse congregation.

Michael Hahn and his family are among a group of newcomers who have begun participating in Stokesdale after their previous congregations left the denomination.

Hahn, whose family has been Methodist for generations, said he couldn't imagine leaving the denomination, which he values for blending faith and rationality.

Many of the departing churches are joining the conservative Global Methodist Church, created last year. Others are going independent or joining different denominations.

While the Global Methodist Church doesn't have a program like the Lighthouse initiative, it has begun launching or adopting congregations that can become homes for those who want to leave the United Methodist Church but whose congregations are staying.

That was the case with the founders of Grace Methodist Church. They launched the church in January in Homosassa, Florida, after their previous congregation voted to stay in the UMC. The new church immediately affiliated with the Global Methodist Church. Farmer came out of retirement to serve as the church's pastor.

The group's previous congregation "was a good church," Farmer said, and he wished it well. But "my struggle was with the United Methodist structure, what's going on in the United States, particularly."

The ongoing schism has been long in the making. The United Methodist Church  with about 6.5 million members in the United States and at least that many abroad  has long debated its bans on same-sex marriages and the ordination of openly LGBTQ clergy. The denomination has repeatedly upheld the bans, largely through the voting strength of the growing, more conservative churches abroad. But conservatives chose to form a new denomination amid growing defiance of the bans in U.S. churches.

More than 3,500 U.S. congregations have received their local conferences' permission to disaffiliate from the UMC, according to United Methodist News Service.

With conference season underway, disaffiliations are closing in on 4,000 and could rise even more by the end of the year, said the Rev. Jay Therrell, president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a conservative group advocating for departing congregations.

That's a fraction of the United Methodists' 30,000 U.S. churches, though several of the departing congregations are among the largest in their states.

In the Arkansas Conference, more than 100 churches  out of roughly 600 total  have received permission to disaffiliate. That leaves parts of the state with few or no remaining United Methodist congregations, said the Rev. Michael Roberts, director of the conference's new Restart Initiative, which is hoping to enlist congregations to be Beacon churches. Such churches would invite self-described "exiles, refugees, nomads" to worship services, help them start home groups or develop other ways to keep them connected.

"We're just really simply inviting churches to consider how they can provide this kind of hospitality," Roberts said. "I love the word 'hospitality' because the word 'hospital' comes from that word. It is about providing healing."
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ST. LOUIS  Sai Varshith Kandula revved the gas and slammed a U-Haul box truck into a barrier that protects the White House. He backed up, lurched forward, and slammed the barrier again, police said.

After failing twice to break through and enter the White House grounds, he got out of the truck, which by then was smoking and leaking fluid. A nearby officer said he pulled a red and white swastika flag from his backpack before being arrested by U.S. Park police. The truck had stopped about 800 feet from the White House.

Kandula, a 19-year-old immigrant, told investigators he intended to seize power and be put in charge of the nation, even if it meant killing the president, according to court records.

Mondays attempted attack by Kandula, who said he admired Adolf Hitler and Nazi ideology, is the latest example of people of color in America expressing and acting upon white nationalist views. The details of this incident were so surprising, it piqued the interest of online conspiracy theorists, who asserted the incident was fake.

Kandula was arrested on suspicion of multiple charges, including threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict harm on President Joe Biden. But federal prosecutors filed only one charge: destruction of U.S. property in excess of $1,000. Authorities declined to comment on the charge other than to say the investigation is ongoing.

Police said the Chesterfield teenager and graduate of Marquette High School outlined his plans in an interview with authorities. He told investigators he admires Hitler and the Nazis authoritarian nature, eugenics, and their one-world order, according to court documents.

A photo of the swastika flag laid flat on the ground circulated widely online after the crash. The response in some corners of the internet was swift: Conspiracists claimed the entire incident  or, at the very least, the flag  was staged by either federal law enforcement or the political left to influence the masses.

But Wendy Via, co-founder and CEO of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said that while white supremacy ideology remains most common among white people, people of color can identify with that method of thinking, too.

In this case, this young man thought he was willing to commit violence to take over the country, in that his idea for running the country mirrored Hitlers, Via said. When you think of it like that, its not the color of your skin. Its how you think.

Racist ideologies

At the root of the conspiracy posts is a central question asked by many after the attempted attack: How can a person who is not white espouse racist ideologies that are inherently biased against their own identities?

Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow with the Anti-Defamation League, which studies hate organizations, noted that the far right is a lot more than white supremacists, and that people of color can also identify with extremist views centered on anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-public lands sentiments.

Mauricio Garcia, 33, a Hispanic man who espoused similar views as Kandula, is accused of killing eight people and injuring several others earlier this month in a mall just outside of Dallas before being killed by police.

Garcia had Nazi tattoos, and police said he wore a patch on his chest that read RWDS, an acronym for the phrase Right Wing Death Squad.

And a 2022 University of Chicago study found that nearly 7% of the more than 1,000 rioters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol are not white.

The leader of the Proud Boys, a group at the center of the U.S. Capitol insurrection and described by the ADL as a far-right extremist group with a violent agenda, is Enrique Tarrio, a Cuban American who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in the attack.

But Pitcavage said in Kandulas case, its not clear whether the teen truly subscribes to these ideologies or if this incident was solely an outcome of an untreated mental illness. Kandula does not have a criminal history and did not have explosives or weapons in the truck.

One notable source of identifying political ideology, especially for extremists like Garcia, is missing for Kandula: Outside of a sparse LinkedIn page, he does not have any obvious online presence.

Usually we can find (suspects), even if its not under their name, said Via, whose organization looked in every dark place on the internet searching for information about Kandula. All the usual ways that we get information are seemingly not available.  Sometimes, tragically, its just baffling, because you want to assign logic to these situations.

Chesterfield

Kandulas family lives in a new subdivision near Wild Horse Creek Road in Chesterfield, in a two-story brick home overlooking a private lake and a playground. They declined to comment about Kandula when a reporter knocked on their front door Tuesday, and they did not come to the door later in the week.

The U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia confirmed the teenager is in the country on a green card, which grants foreign citizens permission to reside and be employed in the U.S.

Chesterfield, a suburb of about 50,000 residents incorporated in 1988, is largely white, but its also home to a substantial Asian population. The citys diversification has followed trends seen in suburbs nationwide as white people  and, more broadly, people with money  have left urban areas in droves, said Washington University professor and chair of sociology David Cunningham.

I think St. Louis reflects a trend that weve seen in a lot of places nationally, but it might be more exaggerated here. Weve seen rapid growth of suburban and exurban communities driven in part by white flight, but then also the rapid diversification of those same places, he said.

He said some of those suburban destinations are tripling or quadrupling their populations over the course of just a few decades.

These are communities that have changed in multiple ways in a relatively short period of time, he said. A lot of social scientists think about how ethnic groups compete for limited power and resources.

Because of these complicated political and social environments, Cunningham said cases like Kandula often feel contradictory because their ideology seems to conflict with their social and racial identity.

We can see these strange intersections, as we see here, where someone who one might not imagine would be attached to an idea about white supremacy, but (who) is in an environment where white belonging has organized the growth of these communities.

Kandula remains jailed in Washington, D.C., without bond. His next hearing is set for Tuesday afternoon.
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Former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt lacked any legal authority to order school districts to end COVID-19 mitigation measures, a Jackson County judge ruled Friday.

In his 18-page decision, Judge Marco Roldan concluded that the attorney generals office did not follow Missouri law when it demanded last year that Lees Summit R-7 School District rescind the measures put in place to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Schmitt sued Lees Summit, along with 46 other school districts, then amplified his attacks on social media, encouraging parents and students to defy the authority granted to the board of education by Missouri law, Roldan wrote.

That led to even greater confusion than the pandemic had already caused.

The attorney general lacked any legal authority to insert himself into the school districts efforts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, Roldan wrote.

Schmitt was elected to the U.S. Senate last year, and his lawsuits challenging mask mandates were a major part of his campaign messaging. A spokeswoman for his successor, Attorney General Andrew Bailey, did not respond to a request for comment on Fridays ruling.

The mask mandate lawsuits were filed in early 2022. Eventually, all were dropped by the attorney generals office or dismissed by the courts.

Only the Lees Summit case survived, as the school district refused to let Schmitt dismiss the case and instead filed its own counterclaim demanding Roldan establish the extent of the attorney generals authority over local school districts.

In his Friday ruling, Roldan concluded that Schmitt wrongly assumed he had any authority over school districts by relying on a 2021 ruling in Cole County Court that deemed health orders designed to stop the spread of COVID-19 that were issued by local health departments violated the Missouri Constitution.

Roldan noted that no school districts were involved in the 2021 case and the courts ruling said nothing about the authority of local boards of education under Missouri law.

After ordering school districts to end COVID mitigation measures, Schmitt publicly invited parents across the state to report to him school districts who were in violation of the 2021 court order.

This caused unnecessary confusion, Roldan wrote, by wrongly convincing students and parents that their school districts were violating the law.

They were not.

Local school boards should have been able to exercise their authority free from unlawful interference by the attorney general.

There exists no Missouri law allowing the attorney general to involve himself in a school districts efforts to manage COVID-19 or other disease within its schools, Roldan wrote. He had no authority even to issue an opinion on those matters to the school district. In neither of his orders nor in his social media communications did he identify a valid legal basis for asserting that the school district was acting contrary to Missouri law.
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The last time Janet Jackson visited Chicago in 2017, she was as fun and sweet as always, but she didnt feel quite the same. Her costumes were more subdued, the dance routines  while beautiful  were restricted. It was a good performance but a different Janet.

But the Janet Jackson of 2023 is a woman who has returned to her best form. Her movements were fluid, sexy and familiar. For audiences who may have missed the more provocative and cheeky performer of years past, the Together Again tour, which made a stop in Tinley Park Saturday night at the Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre, is a perfect trip down memory lane.

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Rarely taking a breath between songs, Jackson glided across the stage, commanding the room as only a true professional could. Songs seamlessly blended into each other and dance moves fluidly emanated through her limbs. Being a performer, a showstopper, a true delight is not just what Janet Jackson does. It is who she is. And now, at the age of 57, she seems to be a performer who knows who she is, and what she means to her loving and diverse abundance of fans.

Wrapped in a majestic and deep purple cape, Jackson first took to the stage solo before donning a gold, sparkly bodysuit and dancing with four backup dancers. Rather than simply sticking to the hits, Jackson initially slipped into underrated tracks like Feedback from the album Discipline and Damita Jo off her 2004 album of the same name, a record that slipped through the cracks due to the fallout of her controversial Super Bowl performance earlier that year.

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The inclusion of such songs spoke to the overall theme throughout the night. While this was very much the Janet Jackson fans had come to know and love throughout the years, it was also a performer here to give overdue love to the stickier years in her career.

In a set that clocked in at more than an hour and a half, and featured multiple costume changes and four acts, Jackson also ran through a bevy of her greatest hits, taking it all the way back to her mid-80s breakout with songs like What Have You Done for Me Lately and When I Think of You. Fan favorites from her critically acclaimed 1989 album Janet Jacksons Rhythm Nation 1814 like the albums title track, Miss You Much and Alright kept the audience enraptured and singing along from start to finish.

During a downtempo section of the evening, Jackson appeared solo on the stage again to sit and perform slow songs like Lets Wait Awhile and Together Again, which she slowed down and transformed into a sensual-sounding ditty through Jimmy Jams Deeper remix. Again, another fan-favorite, was largely performed by the audience when Jackson turned the microphone to the crowd and sat back to bask in the love from her fans.

But I was most excited by the medley of tracks she deemed some of her personal favorites that she never got the chance to perform live. That includes songs like Throb from the 1993 album janet and the 1999 Blackstreet single Girlfriend/Boyfriend, for which Janet was a featured vocalist. The song, a minor hit for Blackstreet (it only reached number 47 on the Billboard Hot 100) fits in well with Jacksons eclectic body of work.

Its inclusion here as part of her Together Again tour speaks to the breadth of Jacksons career. She is not just a pop and R&B star. Her work in genres like house and rock (as heard in songs like If and Black Cat, both of which were heard last night) shows her taste is rich and a rarity in the mainstream music world.

After, she performed another deep cut, Make Me, a song Jackson hadnt performed live in more than a decade. It was a rapturous and lovely moment. While the Together Again tour was certainly a trip down memory lane for both casual and die-hard fans, its clear the show was also a chance for Jackson to revel in the breadth of her success and to have fun diving into the deep body of work encompassing her career.

Britt Julious is a freelance critic.
SHANGHAI/BEIJING, May 28 (Xinhua) -- The C919, China's self-developed large passenger aircraft, successfully completed its first commercial flight from Shanghai to Beijing on Sunday, marking its official entry into the civil aviation market.



The flight, operated by China Eastern Airlines, took off as MU9191 at 10:32 a.m. from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport with 128 passengers on board.

The plane was greeted with a water salute after touching down at Beijing Capital International Airport at 12:31 p.m.

"The commercial operation of the C919 means that for the first time, China's civil aviation market has got the country's self-developed trunk jetliner," said Wei Yingbiao, vice president of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (COMAC), developer of the C919.

MILESTONE FLIGHT

Excitement and joy filled the cabin of Sunday's flight MU9191. Waving small Chinese national flags, passengers sang songs to celebrate this special occasion for them and for the country's aviation industry.

A passenger surnamed Li said he was satisfied with the trip. "The experience was comfortable. I didn't hear much noise, and the aisle and the seats are spacious."

With eight business seats and 156 economy seats, this single-aisle C919 aircraft has various passenger-friendly features, such as a 2.25-meter-high aisle ceiling and drop-down overhead bins. The middle seat of the economy class is 1.5 cm wider than its neighboring seats.



A C919 large passenger aircraft, China's first self-developed trunk jetliner, takes off from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport in east China's Shanghai, May 28, 2023. The C919 completed its first commercial flight from Shanghai to Beijing on Sunday. (Xinhua)

Passengers were served a themed meal. On top of the pudding were printed the image of the airplane and red patterns showing "the world's first C919" in both Chinese and English.

The same patterns can be seen on the body of the aircraft.

The C919 aircraft flown on Sunday will go into initial commercial operation on China Eastern Airlines' Shanghai Hongqiao-Chengdu Tianfu route. With more delivered, the C919 will gradually fly on more routes, said Feng Dehua, deputy general manager of the airline.

China Eastern Airlines and COMAC have signed a purchase contract for five C919 planes, which will be based mainly in Shanghai after delivery. The second one is expected to be delivered in mid-June.

"The first commercial flight is a coming-of-age ceremony for the new aircraft," said Zhang Xiaoguang, director of the marketing and sales department of COMAC.

A flight attendant serves an airline meal for a passenger aboard a C919 large passenger aircraft, China's first self-developed trunk jetliner, from Shanghai to Beijing on May 28, 2023. The C919 completed its first commercial flight from Shanghai to Beijing on Sunday. (Xinhua/Ding Ting)

BROAD PROSPECTS

Since the C919 project was launched in 2007, it has undergone a long journey of design, manufacture, flight tests, and eventual commercialization. A total of nearly 300,000 people have participated in the aircraft's development.

In November 2015, the first C919 aircraft rolled off the production line in Shanghai. In 2017, the plane conducted a successful maiden flight.

In the following years, the plane carried out various flight tests in different locations and environments to comprehensively verify its safety, reliability and performance.

In September 2022, the C919 obtained the type certificate issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, marking a key step toward its commercial operation.

In December 2022, China Eastern Airlines received the first C919 aircraft delivered worldwide.

So far, the C919 has gained orders for 1,061 planes from various customers, said COMAC.

A C919 large passenger aircraft, China's first self-developed trunk jetliner, is greeted with a water salute after touching down at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, capital of China, May 28, 2023. The C919 completed its first commercial flight from Shanghai to Beijing on Sunday. (Photo by Wang Yang/Xinhua)

"The C919 trunk jetliner will surely have a broad market prospect with its adaptability, technology and performance," said Zhang.

China has a massive civil aviation market with great potential. According to a market forecast released by COMAC in late 2022, over the 2022-2041 period, China's civil aviation market will receive 9,284 new planes, including 6,288 single-aisle jetliners.

By 2041, China is expected to be the world's largest single-country civil aviation market, said the forecast.

Wu Guanghui, chief designer of C919, also took Sunday's flight. "After entering the market, the C919 has to stand the test of the market. I hope to see continuous improvement in its performance," he said.

(Video reporters: Di Chun, Jia Yuankun, Wang Xiunan, Ju Huanzong, Dingjing; Video editors: Hong Ling, Luo Huo, Liu Xiaorui, Li Ziwei) 
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SHREWSBURY  The Archbishop of St. Louis will close 35 parishes and reassign 155 priests in the most sweeping reorganization of the Catholic church in St. Louis history.

After 18 months of waiting, Catholics learned on Saturday the fate of their priests and parishes in the downsizing of the archdiocese called All Things New.

The changes, which will reshape the archdiocese from 178 individual parishes into 134, were announced Saturday by Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski in a press conference and in a letter read by priests during vigil Mass.

I wish these changes were not necessary, but it is what we are called to do at this moment, Rozanski said Saturday.

The archbishop maintained that the plan affects the entire region, although nearly half of the closures are in north St. Louis and north St. Louis County and only one, St. John Bosco in Maryland Heights, is west of Interstate 270 in St. Louis County.

This is something that we need to do to ensure that our faith will be here for future generations, Rozanski said.

In addition to the parish closures, another 15 parishes will be merged to form five new parishes and a Spanish-speaking parish is being added in St. Charles County.

The parish closings and mergers do not necessarily mean that the church buildings associated with those parishes will also close; those decisions will be made later.

More details are expected in early June, including new Mass times and worship sites for merged parishes. Decisions on Catholic parish school closures or consolidations are expected this fall.

Parishioners have until June 12 to appeal the decisions to Rozanski through canon or church law.

Many parishes including ours are anxious and fearful about decisions about the future of our parishes and where we will be going to church and worshiping God in the months ahead, said the Rev. Robert Reiker, pastor of St. Bernadette in south St. Louis County, during his homily Saturday.

At the end of the Mass, Reiker announced his retirement and said St. Bernadette parish will close and be subsumed by St. Mark parish, 3 miles away near Lemay. St. Mark will also absorb St. Andrew, St. Martin of Tours and St. Matthias in south St. Louis County.

I felt at home here. Its very small and down-to-earth, said Kathy Starns of Lemay, a parishioner at St. Bernadette for more than 15 years. I feel like Ive lost another home. Im sad but I understand.

At St. Martin de Porres in Hazelwood, the Rev. Lijo Kallarackal read announcements before turning to Rozanskis letter.

The next thing is what were all waiting for, Kallarackal said, prefacing the reading with the warning: Theres good news and bad news.

The bad news: St. Martin de Porres and St. Sabina of Florissant will both be absorbed by St. Ferdinand of Florissant, effective Aug. 1. The good news: Kallarackal will become the new pastor of St. Ferdinand.

Unfortunately for you, they left me here as a pastor, he said with a broad smile, as parishioners applauded.

Close to 90 diocesan priests will serve as lead pastors who will serve one parish or several merged parishes, the archdiocese announced.

Some reassignments came as disappointments. Msgr. Mark Ullrich, longtime pastor of Sacred Heart in Florissant, told parishioners Saturday the decision was very sad news for me.

I really planned on staying longer, having a lot of fun at it. I had every intention of continuing as long as I could, he said.

The Rev. William Kempf of St. Justin Martyr in Sunset Hills will succeed Ullrich as pastor; Ullrich will go to St. Francis Assisi in Oakville as senior associate pastor. Ullrich said blending Florissants St. Rose Duchesne and Fergusons Blessed Teresa into a single parish would prove a challenge for his successor. All three parishes have schools.

Congregants at Epiphany of Our Lord in the Lindenwood Park neighborhood of south St. Louis found out that they will remain at their location and share a new pastor with St. James the Greater in Dogtown.

A previous plan for the two parishes to also unite with St. Ambrose in the Hill neighborhood was dropped. Still, it will be a change.

I feel like I understand, said Amy Tighe, walking out of Saturday evening Mass at Epiphany. There arent enough priests, and weve got to share them. Its going to be different, but I hope it works.

Maggie OFallon felt a sense of relief.

I am just happy that the church is staying here, said OFallon. Youd hate to see something youve been going to all your life close.

Apart from growing up there, she and her husband, Jeff, were married at the church, raised two boys who attended the school before it closed.

I am relieved that its over with, that the announcement has come after two years of surveys and talking, said Jeff OFallon. Theyve made their decision.

A little further south, in the St. Louis Hills neighborhood, parishioners at St. Gabriel the Archangel and St. Raphael the Archangel were told that they, too, would share the same pastor, which was expected.

There are four additional priests that serve the two parishes, which both have schools. That number of supporting priests will drop by one.

We heard that because we are still financially solid we are able to maintain right now, said Suzy Ferrenbach, who lives across the street from St. Raphael and attends Mass there every day.

Congregants at St. Raphael were told to expect some possible changes to Mass times and that the big question about their school, which is smaller than St. Gabriel, wouldnt be addressed until fall.

The whole process for families with kids in the schools will be more challenging, said Dick Feld, coming out of Saturday evening Mass at St. Raphael. A single person like myself, its an easier adjustment.

Downsizing in other cities

Other cities undergoing similar reorganizations offer keys to the future of parishes in St. Louis, including several dioceses that used the same consulting firm, Catholic Leadership Institute.

 The Beacons of Light plan in Cincinnati last year combined 208 parishes into 57 families of parishes along with 78 priest reassignments. The number of Sunday masses in the archdiocese dropped to 512 from 588. Mass attendance increased by 6% from 2021 to 2022, although still down 19% overall from 2019.

 The Pittsburgh diocese combined 188 parishes into 57 groups in 2018 as part of its On Mission for the Church Alive strategic plan. In the five years since, most of the groups have merged to form 62 single parishes under new names as part of the ongoing effort designed to help parishes mobilize their resources to prioritize mission over maintenance, according to the Pittsburgh diocese.

 The Renew My Church downsizing in Chicago started in 2016 and has since seen 344 parishes consolidate into around 200.

All Things New started in St. Louis in January 2022, when Rozanski announced the 18-month process that would bring the most sweeping changes in the 200-year history of the Catholic church in St. Louis amid declining numbers of Catholics attending Mass and priests to serve them.

The Catholic population in the region has fallen below 500,000 in 2021 for the first time in half a century. Pews are only about one-quarter full on Sundays.

Five men were ordained Saturday to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, down from an average of 18 ordinations a year in the 1960s. One of the new priests, the Rev. Jacob Wessel, was assigned as associate pastor at Ste. Genevieve parish in Ste. Genevieve County.

What comes next

Some priests and parishioners have started looking ahead to their new relationships. Parishioners from Our Lady of Lourdes in University City will gather on Monday for the annual Mass on the Grass Memorial Day service at St. Luke the Evangelist in Richmond Heights, which is being absorbed by the University City parish.

The Rev. Linus Dolce, parochial administrator for St. Barnabas in OFallon, Missouri, wrote to his parishioners that he expects to bounce back to my monastery after St. Barnabas becomes a personal Hispanic parish called St. Juan Diego.

The last traditional Latin Mass at St. Barnabas will be held July 30, Dolce wrote in the May 21 bulletin. Parishioners are making arrangements to carpool starting in August to the closest Latin Mass, 32 miles away in Richmond Heights at the Oratory of Sts. Gregory and Augustine.

Outside the press conference Saturday, Jason Bolte of opposition group Save Rome of the West, read through the long list of decisions and priest reassignments.

This is so sad, he said.

He also lamented the plan to convert his home parish, St. Barnabas, to a Hispanic parish, which he saw as an attack on the traditional Latin Mass and wasnt sure his group could challenge.

I have to allow God to say that this is where he needs me right now, he said. You have to trust that Gods got it and well survive.

At least one parish that remains unchanged is making plans for major renovations including a new parish hall that were put on hold during the All Things New process.

Our challenge is not about needing to merge with another parish but to accommodate our prosperity and to address the limitations of our facilities, reads a letter sent earlier this month to parishioners from the Rev. Matthew OToole of St. Peter in Kirkwood.

Former state Sen. Bob Onder, R-Lake Saint Louis, has led an archdiocesan-wide protest as procurator, or representative, of the laity under church canon law. Onder sent petitions signed by more than 3,100 Catholics from at least 120 parishes to the Vatican earlier this month.

Onders parish, St. Gianna in Wentzville, will remain unchanged after an outcry from parishioners over earlier proposals involving mergers.

Some parishioners say they are optimistic about the prospect of fuller pews and stronger ministries.

It doesnt matter what building youre in, what matters is your faith and growing in that desire to be closer to God and the Mass can help you do that, said Jennifer Crutchley, a 20-year member of St. John the Beloved Disciple in Imperial, which will share a pastor with St. Joseph in Imperial.

The real work begins after Pentecost Sunday, Crutchley said. It needs to be the entire community pulling together. Im hopeful that when the dust settles we can all come out stronger on the other end.

Jesse Bogan, Austin Huguelet, Josh Renaud and Colleen Schrappen contributed to this report.
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When two neophyte Missouri attorneys general, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, were looking for ways to get attention and generate headlines, they looked no further than Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for inspiration. Paxton found all kinds of ways to file suit against Democratic presidents. He was the lead attorney in the lawsuit to overturn the 2020 presidential election result. The hard-charging Republican probably was the last person Hawley and Schmitt should have emulated.

Paxton has spent almost his entire time in office fending off felony indictment for securities fraud, and now even his fellow Republicans in the Texas legislature want him gone. On Saturday, the Republican-led state House voted to impeach Paxton as the Justice Department digs into bribery allegations against him. The man who guided Hawley and Schmitt, along with other GOP state attorneys general, down the litigious path of zealous conservatism might well turn out to be a crook.

The Texas House General Investigating Committee didnt just go after him for the securities-fraud case or the federal bribery investigation. Lawmakers found cause to list 20 separate articles of impeachment. Democrats havent had to lift a finger. Paxtons fellow Republicans are going after him with enthusiasm and zeal.

Republican state Rep. Andrew Murr, chair of the investigating committee, said the impeachment recommendation was based on grave offenses. No state attorney general has ever been impeached before in Texas, which underscores how serious the case is against Paxton. Four of his former employees filed a whistleblower lawsuit against him after he fired them for trying to expose alleged illegalities under his leadership, including that he had repeatedly used his office and staff to help a friend and political donor avoid FBI scrutiny. In 2015, a north Texas grand jury indicted Paxton on two counts of felony securities fraud.

Paxton took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, Donald Trump rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection. The state bar sued Paxton last year for professional misconduct, saying he made dishonest claims before the U.S. Supreme Court that he had uncovered proof of substantial voter fraud in four states. It was after Paxton made that bogus claim when then-Missouri Attorney General (now U.S. senator) Eric Schmitt took over the lead among 17 Republican states in advancing the election-fraud myth. And Sen. Josh Hawley cheered them on, tweeting, Good work. The Supreme Court rejected the case.

So its not as if the Missourians were keeping Paxton at arms length even though Texas Republicans have long steered clear of his nefarious antics and shady dealings. Hawley and Schmitt followed Paxton unquestioningly, exactly as they followed Trump down a lawless path of insurrection and election denial. The company they keep, and the impeachable people from whom they draw inspiration, speaks volumes about the depth of their character judgment  or lack thereof.
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Missouri lawmakers waste time and money on trans issues

Once again, Missouri legislators are wasting their tax-funded salaries on an issue affecting a minuscule number of people. Very few students have requested to play a single-sex sport under a gender other than the one on their birth certificates. These situations should be handled privately, locally and with sensitivity. Instead, this poor excuse of a body of legislators wastes time and money to promote its own political agenda. I would suggest keeping kids safe in schools is a better use of their time and our money.

Mary K. Brown  Chesterfield

Why isnt all this money being used to fix St. Louis problems?

Mayor Tishaura Jones has said repeatedly that some of the almost $500 million St. Louis has received from the American Rescue Plan would be used for the citys infrastructure. We now have two major crises, with a huge water main break at Oakland and Highway 40 and an announcement that because there has not been enough money set aside, we must all experience major hikes in our water bills to manage rising costs and aging infrastructure.

Jones is not telling the public enough about what is happening with relief money, with the Rams settlement money, and with all the money that is not being spent on the salaries of the people not being hired to pick up trash, pave our streets, fill the vacant policing positions, answer the 911 calls and all the numerous city jobs that arent being filled because there arent enough job candidates.

This is a lot of money, and St. Louis taxpayers deserve a full accounting. What happened to transparency?

Lecil Saller  St. Louis

To ease St. Louis water costs, loop in county water customers

Regarding St. Louis water chief says rates need to jump 40% in next year (May 22): Is it not time for St. Louis County to start getting its water from the best-tasting water system in the country? I think St. Louis County should stop getting our water from Missouri American Water and start getting it from St. Louis city. The extra customers paying for the water will surely ease the financial burden on the city. I am tired of paying yet another unknown entity from out of town that has no care in the world for St. Louis citizens. I say that the citizens of St. Louis County should get our water from a local source.

Addie Schnurbusch  Bel-Nor

Corporations should pay more in taxes to fund health care

I think the news media should talk more about tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations enacted under the Trump administration. Just look at health care as an example of poor American policy. Everyone gets sick, but not everyone can afford care under the U.S. for-profit health care model. Instead of demanding that people on public aid work, we should demand that not-for-profit health care facilities take care of those in need. The loud voices warning about too much spending are missing the point: The wealthy and corporations need to pay more in taxes.

Liz de Laperouse  St. Louis

Post-Dispatch isnt perfect, but it doesnt owe anyone $787 million

As a former elected Republican official, I dont always agree with the Post-Dispatchs editorials, but I subscribe to the newspaper because I value the contribution honest journalism makes to democracy. Unlike news outlets that repeat lies, the Post-Dispatch is fastidious about fact-checking. Say what you will about its editorials, but the Post-Dispatch has never had to pay $787.5 million for repeating MAGA lies. (Fox, Dominion reach $787M settlement over election claims, April 18.)

Elizabeth Davidson  St. Louis

Legislatures support for public transit a huge win for Missouri

The 2023 Missouri Legislative session wrapped up in mid-May with a historic move in support of public transportation. The Legislature approved House Bill 4, which includes $10 million in general revenue and another $1.7 million from the state transportation fund, totaling $11.7 million in transit funding from the state. This will be the second consecutive year Missouri has increased its transit funding. In 2022, the state invested $8.7 million in transit, marking the first substantive investment in transit in more than two decades. The 2023 investment represents a 34% increase over 2022, and a more than 580% increase since 2021.

This critical funding will help provide the local match required to enable transit providers to secure some of the $91 billion in federal funds earmarked for transit as part of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Federal funding support requires a 50% match for transit operations and an 80%-20% match for capital programming. Missouri providers have been working diligently to identify local funding sources through sales tax, private contracts and more, but the most significant missing link up to this point has been the lack of state funding.

This is a huge win for every county in the state. It is now up to Gov. Mike Parson to sign the bill into law and help maintain and expand transit accessibility.

Kimberly Cella  St. Louis

Read letters online at STLToday.com
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Who and where  From left: Natalie Evers and Mercedes Evers of Orlando, Florida, and Bonnie Coyne of Eureka in Vaud Canton, Montreux, Western Switzerland, on a beautiful sunny day along the eastern shore of Lake Geneva, overlooking France.

The trip  The three generations traveled to Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The highlight of the trip was attending The Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany.

Travel tip  When traveling with a teen, make sure she brings a friend along, then everybody will have a wonderful time (just kidding, of course).
There are many reasons why the Inmun Gun (North Korean armed forces), despite its large size (about a million troops) is considered ineffective. One of the least talked about (in the media) problem is the growing use of bribes within the North Korean armed forces. This begins when young men are conscripted. The growing wealth generated by a recently legalized market economy in the north means there are more middle-class families and officials with lots more cash because of the opportunities for extracting bribes from this new and growing entrepreneurial class. For nearly a decade it has been common for conscription officials to accept bribes to get the sons of affluent families into choice jobs in the capital, the internal security service, or anywhere but the combat divisions on the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone that separates north and south). This type of bribery has become so widespread that jobs in the bureaucracy and military dealing with assignments of new conscripts (and thus the people to be bribed) are now being sold to officers who have the most cash. Buying one of these jobs is a good investment, because a lot of money can be made. There is some risk because of occasional crackdowns. If you get caught, life in a labor camp or execution is likely, but so far the risks appear to be low and the money is good. Its gotten to the point where if you pay a large enough bribe to the right people, you can be out of the military within six months with a medical discharge.

Over the last few years, the number of missing conscripts has become obvious and the solution was not to send a lot of officers in charge of conscription to labor camps, but to try and pressure recent high school graduates and those who had recently completed their ten years of service to voluntarily enlist or reenlist. Birth rates have been declining for years and so has the population of military-age men. Those already in the military are bribing their way out or simply deserting. The calls for voluntary enlistments have largely been ignored.

The North Korean armed forces has lots of other, and older, problems. While nearly every adult male serves at least six years in the military, the big problem is that years of economic problems and failed harvests have left the troops poorly equipped, often hungry and increasingly insubordinate. With most of the best educated troops bribing their way into any job but one in a combat unit, it is increasingly doubtful if the North Korean combat forces could get very far during an invasion of South Korea. Despite all that, a lot of North Korean troops are believed to be reliable enough to carry out orders to invade South Korea, for a while at least, and that could end up doing a lot of damage to Seoul, the southern capital where half the population and a quarter of the GDP are. South Koreans have more to lose than the northerners. Sprawling Seoul is 40-50 kilometers from the North Korean border. The city alone is 600 square kilometers, and the suburbs are even larger. There are over 17,000 people per square kilometer (45,000 per square mile) in the city. The southerners know the north is desperate and heavily armed. What do you do? South Korea has responded by increasing its ability to quickly halt any rocket and artillery bombardment from the north. This would involve a lot of artillery and smart bomb use in a short time. Many North Korean targets would be destroyed but the south has much more to lose, even if the northern attack is cut short.

The North Korean Army currently has about 800,000 troops, over 3,000 tanks, 3,000 other AFV and nearly 8,000 artillery pieces, including 2,000 rocket launchers. Most of these weapons are pointed south and stationed on or near the DMZ. North Korea has the means to be dangerous, for a little while anyway. Fuel shortages, elderly equipment and lack of maintenance means that a lot of this gear would not stay operational for long. As an example, the past 25 years or so of deferred maintenance (as in none) on tube artillery pieces, including the guns on tanks, means almost all of those can only fire one round because their recuperator seals have deteriorated so much.

North Korea has two armored divisions, 12 motorized infantry and 23 unmotorized infantry divisions used only for static defense along the DMZ. These troops also serve as border guards to prevent civilians or soldiers from leaving the country via the DMZ. A growing number of North Korean troops stationed on the DMZ are deserting via the DMZ. There are supposed to be lots of landmines in the DMZ but many have been removed or otherwise become inoperable over the years and not replaced. This was noticed as more North Korean soldiers came across the DMZ at night and often had to find a South Korean military border post or civilian home further south so they could announce they were defecting. When this started happening several years ago it became a scandal because the DMZ was supposed to be well guarded.

Most of the best educated North Korean troops are in the rear areas, where their parents, bribes and instinct for self-preservation put them. The troops along the DMZ know this and are expected to lose some of their enthusiasm as a result. A growing number of North Korean refugees arriving in South Korea, who served along the northern side of the DMZ, confirm all this. They also confirm that the growing culture of corruption in the military leadership and bureaucracy is seeing more and more of the food and fuel meant for front line troops diverted by corrupt officers and sold in the markets. No wonder so many parents are willing to pay bribes to make sure their kids never get assigned to one of those units.
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES / ACCESSWIRE / May 28, 2023 / Coinswapz Travel, a forward-thinking travel company, has recently made news in the industry by introducing new services that enable cryptocurrency transactions for traveling and tours. This move is a significant step towards catering to the needs of modern-day travelers who prefer to pay using digital currencies. The company's unique crypto features allow customers to make hassle-free payments, providing a more secure and efficient way to book and pay for their trips. It enables travelers to use their preferred cryptocurrency to pay for their next trip. The company is located in Dubai Marina, Moon Tower Shop No.8.

By leveraging the benefits of cryptocurrency, Coinswapz Travel is paving the way for a more accessible, cost-effective, and convenient way of booking travel arrangements. This innovative approach is a testament to the company's commitment to meeting the evolving needs of its customers and staying ahead of the curve in the travel industry.

Coinswapz Travel is pioneering the use of digital currencies in the travel industry. Customers can now use their cryptocurrency wallets to book flights, pay for visas, hotels, and cover transportation costs in their personal and professional escapades. The company is changing the narrative for the transport industry by becoming the first adopter of cryptocurrency to facilitate traveling, offering customers the option to use crypto instead of limiting their options to fiat.

With the new development, Coinswapz Travel develops a seamless service courtesy of their professional, friendly, and trained staff. Customers can search for a flight, select cryptocurrency' at checkout, and then choose the crypto they want to pay with. The price is displayed in crypto throughout the booking journey, so customers know exactly how much they need to pay with their chosen cryptocurrency.

Coinswapz , accept direct crypto payments in exchange for airline tickets. It also includes hotels and lodging services that accept direct crypto payments in exchange for rooms and accommodations. Alternatively, customers can buy gift cards for hotels and AirBnB with crypto.

Furthermore, Coinswapz Travel is strategically positioning itself as the go-to platform when looking for a satisfactory experience in cryptocurrency. With the highest possible security standards, trust, creativity, customer satisfaction, and transparency, Coinswapz Travel aims to become one of the most reliable and convenient service providers in the crypto market.

Coinswapz Travel's strives to create a world with a more secure crypto market and ensure users have a share in this future. By providing customers (traders and travelers alike) with an avenue for physically accessing travel services and buying coins from the site for their ownership, Coinswapz Travel is paving the way for the future of digital currencies.

About the Company - Coinswapz

Coinswapz Travel, a Dubai-based company located in Marina, offers users the convenience of booking the cheapest flights, hotels, vacations, and more from Dubai to any destination worldwide. Currently, they are revolutionizing the payment system by transitioning to Crypto - Blockchain. Customers now have the option to select their preferred cryptocurrency and utilize it for making payments towards their bookings. However, it's important to note that Coinswapz still accepts cash and credit cards as alternative payment methods. By partnering with several renowned companies, Coinswapz enables customers to use their preferred Crypto wallet and coin to conveniently pay for flights, hotels, rental cars, and other travel-related services.

Prospective clients can visit the following link for more information or contact on whatsapp.

Website: http://coinswapztravel.com/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/coinswapztravel

Telegram: https://Coinswapz.openinapp.co/Travel

Media Details:

Organization: Coinswapz Travel

Contact Person: Pankaj Rawat

Website: http://coinswapztravel.com/

Email: [email protected]

Contact Number: +971 52 299 1013

City: Marina, Dubai

Country: United Arab Emirates

SOURCE: Coinswapz Travel

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ISTANBUL, TURKEY / ACCESSWIRE / May 28, 2023 / SAWA, the pioneering platform specialized in tokenized Real World Assets (RWAs) and advanced derivative tools, successfully concluded its first private sale round, bringing it closer to the anticipated public presale. The project has garnered significant attention from esteemed investment funds in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with a target fund raising goal of $4 million in the upcoming private sale stages. With the project's current development pace, SAWA's team is confident in launching the public presale round this Summer.

SAWA stands out among the 2023 crypto startups by focusing on decentralized solutions and the tokenization of RWAs. The demand for sustainable investment assets has spurred the growth of the tokenized RWA market. Real-world assets has encompassed tangible assets and monetary primitives that serve as collateral. RWAs include real estate, precious metals, cash, and corporate debt. The RWA market represents the largest global market, composing the majority of financial value. With the global real estate market valued at approximately $362 trillion and gold alone boasting a market capitalization of $11 trillion, the potential for tokenized RWAs is evident. Industry experts, including CoinMetrics, has recognized the growth potential of real-world asset tokenization as a prominent area of expansion in 2023. In the coming years, leading financial institutions such as BoFa and Citi project the tokenized RWA market to evolve into a multi-trillion-dollar industry.

SAWA's pioneering tokenization protocol introduces a truly decentralized approach to the market of tokenized assets and derivative tools. Built on a Zero-trust system, SAWA's protocol ensures the utmost transparency and security for users. All tokens are backed by tangible assets, and all platform operations are decentralized, leveraging Chainlink automation, smart contracts, and integrated solutions. Many of the platform's features are already available, with the first tokenized Dubai real estate object successfully sold on the SAWA marketplace on May 15th.

SAWA's decentralized tokenized RWA marketplace offers investors access to secure and sustainable assets. Moreover, active market participants, including traders, have shown interest in decentralized and transparent solutions. Trading volumes across major crypto exchanges indicate the majority of crypto trades in futures markets. However, most services for derivatives trading are centralized, lacking transparency in terms of liquidity and smart contracts. Since demand for decentralized futures trading solutions has risen , the significance of the SAWA project has become apparent. In addition to the tokenized RWA marketplace, the SAWA ecosystem offers users access to a decentralized futures trading market, providing unparalleled transparency.

The project's utility token, SAWA, offers holders early access to tokenized RWAs listed on the SAWA marketplace, participation in the distribution of platform profits, and assurance of the safety of OTC transactions for equity purchase and sale with collateral.

To stay updated on SAWA's progress, users follow the project's development and explore the tokenized RWA marketplace on the official SAWA website. Additional updates can be found by following on Twitter, Telegram , Discord , Medium and White paper.

About SAWA:

The SAWA project was launched in early 2022 by an international team from Turkey, Poland, Belarus, Singapore and the UAE with a mission to provide decentralized and secure access to tokenized RWAs and derivative tools. The platform allows primary sale of assets by community based governance, assuring transparency. Being one of the first platforms with tokenized RWAs, SAWA developed a patented tokenization protocol that will likely become the industry's standard. Gradually, SAWA intends to develop into an ecosystem of decentralized products based on smart contracts and will include a proprietary OTC solution, DEX exchange with derivatives support, RWA and NFT marketplace.

Media Contact

Organization: SAWA

Contact Person: Marsel Botashev

Website: https://sawastarter.com/

Email: [email protected]

Address: Maslak Mah. Tasyoncasi Sk.Maslak; 1453 Sitesi lad A4 block No: lad Interior Door No: 25, Sariyer

City: Istanbul

Country: Turkey

SOURCE: SAWA

View source version on accesswire.com:
The John Fredericks Media Network Trucking the Truth America First Bus Tour sponsored by Veterans for Trump and Legacy PAC will roll into the Georgia GOP State convention June 9th and 10th Columbus Georgia, announced Stan Fitzgerald Veterans for Trump President and Legacy PAC founding partner.

COLUMBUS, GA. / ACCESSWIRE / May 28, 2023 / Veterans for Trump aka Veterans for America First along with their partner Legacy PAC have sponsored the bus tour "Trucking the Truth" which launched May in Virginia. The Virginia leg of the tour stopped in eight towns and the show featured America First candidates including candidates endorsed by Veterans for Trump. The bus features logos from both the vets' organizations and the PAC. Patrick Collis a national ambassador for the veteran's organization and state chapter president represented the group during the first leg of the tour. Donna and Stan Fitzgerald of Georgia covered the expense on behalf of the Veterans group. (https://veteransfortrump.us/trump-bus-to-roll-into-georgia-state-gop-convention-sponsored-by-veterans-for-trump)





Dinner with John

Anne and John Fredericks with Donna and Stan Fitzgerald May 2023 discussing the Trump bus tour





"John Fredericks is a strong voice for conservative politics and he certainly is 'Trucking the Truth' on this tour, it's our third time backing the Trump bus tours and we will do it again for the President," said Stan Fitzgerald. (https://stan-fitzgerald.com)

The Georgia leg of the bus tour will feature promotion of the Veterans for Trump national endorsed candidates Caroline Jeffords, Salleigh Grubbs, Marci McCarthy and Vikki Consiglio for state GOP seats. Also featured will be Georgia state chapter endorsed candidate Brant Frost for his re-election to 2nd vice chair. (https://georgiavfaf.org/brant-frost-endorsed-for-ga-state-gop-second-vice-chair)

The Georgia State Convention will host former President Trump as a featured speaker, as well as other presidential candidates, and FBI Whistleblower Steve Friend will be featured for meet and greets at the Legacy PAC / Veterans for Trump tables. (https://fox40.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/634464492/fbi-whistleblower-steve-friend-to-speak-at-the-georgia-gop-state-convention-june-9th-2023-in-columbus-georgia)

The veterans group sponsored the May 2022 Team Trump Georgia bus tour and the October 2022 Team MAGA Trump bus tour. (https://veteransforamericafirst.org/vfaf-sponsored-team-trump-ga-bus-tour)

The John Fredericks Trump bus tours are not the only bus the group has ties with. The Danny Hamilton Georgia Trump bus also works with President Stan Fitzgerald who rolled it into a GA Ron DeSantis speaking event and out to Mississippi for their endorsed candidate Chris McDaniel. (https://www.khon2.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/632883043/veterans-for-trump-roll-the-trump-bus-to-mississippi-in-support-of-senator-chris-mcdaniel-for-lieutenant-governor)





Contact Information

Stan Fitzgerald

President Veterans for Trump

[email protected]

770-707-6291





SOURCE: Veterans for Trump

View source version on accesswire.com:
Perth, Western Australia--(Newsfile Corp. - May 28, 2023) - Miller Holdings Co has released an innovative online trading platform that is set to change the landscape of IPO investing. The new platform is designed to give small individual investors easy access to the IPO market, which is usually reserved for big institutions and wealthy individuals. This platform is groundbreaking as it allows clients to pay using digital currency, cutting out the need for banks and traditional middlemen.





Miller Holdings Co

The platform's user-friendly interface makes it easy for clients to manage their investments and track their performance. The platform is designed to be intuitive and easy to navigate, allowing clients to focus on making informed investment decisions.

Miller Holdings Co understands the importance of security in online trading, and the platform is designed with the latest security features. The platform uses state-of-the-art encryption technology to protect clients' data and digital assets.

"Security is our top priority, and we have taken every precaution to ensure that our clients' data and digital assets are secure," said Mr. Heath. "We want our clients to feel confident in their investments and know that their data along with their money is safe."

The launch of this platform demonstrates Miller Holdings Co's commitment to its clients and its dedication to providing innovative solutions.

For more information on Miller Holdings Co's new online trading platform, please visit their website https://millerholdingsco.com or contact their customer service team.

Contact Media:

Company Name: Miller Holdings Co

Contact Person Name: Jonathan Watkins

Email Address: [email protected]

Location: Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Website: https://millerholdingsco.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/167644
An Airbus A400M transport aircraft takes off during an open day at the Melsbroek Air Base in Steenokkerzeel, Belgium, May 27, 2023. Belgian Air Force's 15th Air Transport Wing and the Directorate of Air Support (DAFA) celebrate their 75th and 30th anniversary with two-day public open day activities on May 27 and 28. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

An Airbus A400M transport aircraft takes off during an open day at the Melsbroek Air Base in Steenokkerzeel, Belgium, May 27, 2023. Belgian Air Force's 15th Air Transport Wing and the Directorate of Air Support (DAFA) celebrate their 75th and 30th anniversary with two-day public open day activities on May 27 and 28. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

Belgian Air Force's Airbus A400M transport aircraft is seen with a Belgian Federal Police's MD902 Explorer helicopter during an open day at the Melsbroek Air Base in Steenokkerzeel, Belgium, May 27, 2023. Belgian Air Force's 15th Air Transport Wing and the Directorate of Air Support (DAFA) celebrate their 75th and 30th anniversary with two-day public open day activities on May 27 and 28. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

People visit an Airbus A400M transport aircraft during an open day at the Melsbroek Air Base in Steenokkerzeel, Belgium, May 27, 2023. Belgian Air Force's 15th Air Transport Wing and the Directorate of Air Support (DAFA) celebrate their 75th and 30th anniversary with two-day public open day activities on May 27 and 28. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

Police personnel perform fast rope demonstration during an open day at the Melsbroek Air Base in Steenokkerzeel, Belgium, May 27, 2023. Belgian Air Force's 15th Air Transport Wing and the Directorate of Air Support (DAFA) celebrate their 75th and 30th anniversary with two-day public open day activities on May 27 and 28. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

People visit an Airbus A400M transport aircraft during an open day at the Melsbroek Air Base in Steenokkerzeel, Belgium, May 27, 2023. Belgian Air Force's 15th Air Transport Wing and the Directorate of Air Support (DAFA) celebrate their 75th and 30th anniversary with two-day public open day activities on May 27 and 28. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

People visit an Airbus A400M transport aircraft during an open day at the Melsbroek Air Base in Steenokkerzeel, Belgium, May 27, 2023. Belgian Air Force's 15th Air Transport Wing and the Directorate of Air Support (DAFA) celebrate their 75th and 30th anniversary with two-day public open day activities on May 27 and 28. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia , May 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As a milestone toward achieving Vision 2030, partners The Bold Group and Saffron Brand Consultants will host a brand leadership event on Tuesday, May 30 at The Sima Space in Riyadh . Themed "Pioneering with Purpose", the event will explore how Saudi brands are innovating for the future prosperity of the Kingdom and reshaping the nation as a branding destination and hub.

Bringing together experienced Saudi marketers across destination, financial and telecom sectors as well as international pioneers in mobility, the event will explore what it takes to innovate with collective ambition. Speakers will feature Majed Al-Johar , Senior Marketing Director for Saudi Payments; Haitham Alturaigi, Director of Brand and Communications at Tamara; Sebastian Canadell, Chief of Astara Intelligence; and Dr. Sabih Khisaf, Infrastructure Lead Engineer, MENA at Hyperloop Transportation Technologies.

Abeer Alessa , CEO & Co-Founder at The Bold Group said "The bold and unprecedented reforms delivered as part of Vision 2030, drove the rapid rise in growth and demand for branding and creative services in Saudi Arabia . Our event with Saffron will explore how purpose-driven brand leadership engages new generations and accelerates innovation in a new era of memorable experiences for the Kingdom."

Jacob Benbunan, CEO and Co-Founder of Saffron, an independent global brand consultancy, said "It is a privilege for Saffron to be involved in the Kingdom's ambitious journey of transformation. Saudi Arabian brands are setting new benchmarks for meaningful innovation, and the world is taking notice. The future of brand building is theirs to pioneer and be remembered for."

The event's agenda includes two roundtables with participating local and international speakers, exploring the exciting opportunities and challenges facing the branding landscape in Saudi Arabia. The first roundtable will focus on the role of purpose-driven place brands in achieving the current state of destination branding in KSA. The second roundtable will share insights from pioneers in transportation technology and digital financial products and services, and how their approaches are contributing to a larger ecosystem of cross-generational innovation and prosperity.

The final portion of the event will address building brand experiences in the metaverse. Gabor Schreier , Chief Creative Officer of Saffron Brand Consultants, and Ziad Abou Rjeily , Head of Bold Experiences, will offer strategies for drawing on the technology's opportunities for the brands and the people of the Kingdom.

To learn more and to register, please visit: https://form.jotform.com/230182230606444

About The Bold Group

The Bold Group is a proud Saudi independent creative ecosystem that comprises three units: Bold Brands, Bold Comms, and Bold Experiences. With over 90+ professionals spread across two offices Riyadh & Egypt , the award winning, multi-disciplinary agency has worked with over 180 clients. The Bold Group fosters innovation in everything they do. It comes at the core of their business, which keeps them evolving in a fast-moving world. They over specialized services encompassing brand building, creative communication & creative technologies and experiences.

Key Clients: Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Payments, Saudi Company for Artificial Intelligence (SCAI), Majid Al Fuaim , Snapchat, Almarai, Arab National Bank (anb), Royal Commission of Al-'Ula, Dominos.

Awards: Dubai LYNX, PHNX Awards, WINA Award, FWA, Awwwards, ACT Responsible.

To learn more, please visit: https://bold.com.sa/

About Saffron

Saffron is a natively global, independent brand consultancy based in London , Madrid , Vienna and Istanbul . We make brands work by making them memorable experiences. Founded in 2001, our clients include Facebook Company with its rebrand to Meta, YouTube, the Supreme Committee of Qatar, PIF, Gulf Air, Abu Dhabi Ports, Turkey , A1 Telekom Austria, HyperloopTT, The Valuable 500, The City of Vienna , and the V&A Museum.

Visit us at www.saffron-consultants.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2085841/Pioneering_with_Purpose.jpg

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pioneering-with-purpose---the-bold-group-and-saffron-consultants-host-brand-leadership-event-in-riyadh-301834993.html

SOURCE The Bold Group; Saffron Consultants
FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects North Korea's National Aerospace Development Administration after recent satellite system tests, in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released on March 10, 2022 by North Korea's Korean Central News

By Hyunsu Yim and Nobuhiro Kubo

TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) -Japan put its ballistic missile defences on alert on Monday and vowed to shoot down any projectile that threatens its territory, after North Korea notified it of a planned satellite launch between May 31 and June 11.

The nuclear-armed North says it has completed its first military spy satellite and leader Kim Jong Un has approved final preparations for the launch.

It would be the North's latest step in a series of missile launches and weapons tests in recent months, including one of a new, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile.

Tokyo expects North Korea to fire the rocket carrying its satellite over Japan's southwest island chain as it did in 2016, a defence ministry spokesperson said.

Analysts say the new satellite is part of a surveillance technology programme that includes drones, aimed at improving the ability to strike targets in wartime.

"We will take destructive measures against ballistic and other missiles that are confirmed to land in our territory," Japan's defence ministry said in a statement.

Japan would use its Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) or Patriot Missile PAC-3 to destroy a North Korean missile, it added.

Any North Korean missile launch would be a serious violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning its nuclear and missile activity, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters.

"We strongly urge North Korea to refrain from launching," his office said on Twitter, adding it would co-operate with the U.S., South Korea and other countries and do all it could to collect and analyse information from any launch.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said any North Korean launch that uses ballistic missile technology, including that which is used to put a satellite in orbit, would violate multiple UN resolutions.

The U.S. urges North Korea "to refrain from further unlawful activity and calls on Pyongyang to engage in serious and sustained diplomacy," the spokesperson said.

South Korea joined in calling on the reclusive North to scrap its plan, which it described as "illegal."

"If North Korea presses ahead, it will pay the price and suffer," a spokesperson from the South's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Kim Gunn, the South's special envoy for peace and security affairs on the peninsula, held a three-way telephone call with his counterparts from Japan and the United States, the ministry added.

They agreed to work together closely in leading a united response by the international community to Pyongyang's planned move, it said.

But with no serious leverage left on Pyongyang, calls by Tokyo and Seoul to halt the launch will have little effect, said Chad O'Carroll, chief executive of Korea Risk Group, which monitors North Korea.

"Coming amid major U.S.-ROK military drills and in the wake of South Koreas own satellite launch, North Korea is likely to view Seouls critique as extremely hypocritical."

South Korea's domestically made space rocket delivered a commercial grade satellite into orbit for the first time on Thursday.

North Korea has tried several times to launch "earth observation" satellites, of which two appeared to have been successfully placed in orbit, the latest in 2016.

In May, its leader, Kim, inspected a military satellite facility, the KCNA state news agency said.

In April, Japan sent to the East China Sea a destroyer carrying the SM-3 interceptors that can hit targets in space, and sent ground-based PAC-3 missiles, designed to strike warheads closer to the ground, to the Okinawan islands.

"The government recognises that there is a possibility that the satellite may pass through our country's territory," Hirokazu Matsuno, the chief cabinet secretary, told a regular briefing after the North informed the Japanese coast guard of the plan.

North Korean state media have criticised plans by Japan, South Korea and the United States to share real-time data on its missile launches, characterising the three as discussing "sinister measures" to tighten military co-operation.

(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim in Seoul and Nobuhiro Kubo, Elaine Lies, Satoshi Sugiyama and Tim Kelly in Tokyo; additional reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul, David Dolan in Tokyo and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Robert Birsel, Hugh Lawson and Chris Reese)
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to the media before departing the White House for Camp David, in Washington, U.S., May 26, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy have reached a tentative deal to raise the federal government's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, ending a months-long stalemate.

Here are some quotes from the announcement and reactions to the news:

DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN

"Earlier this evening, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement in principle.

"It is an important step forward that reduces spending while protecting critical programs for working people and growing the economy for everyone. And, the agreement protects my and Congressional Democrats' key priorities and legislative accomplishments.

"The agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want. That's the responsibility of governing.

"And, this agreement is good news for the American people, because it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, and millions of jobs lost.

"Over the next day, our negotiating teams will finalize legislative text and the agreement will go to the United States House and Senate. I strongly urge both chambers to pass the agreement right away."

REPUBLICAN HOUSE SPEAKER KEVIN MCCARTHY

"I just got off the phone with the President - I talked to him twice today - and after weeks of negotiations, we have come to an agreement in principle.

"We still have a lot of work to do, but I believe this is an agreement in principle that's worthy of the American people.

"It has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce, rein in government overreach - there are no new taxes, no new government programs.

"There's a lot more within the bill. We still have more work to do tonight to finish all the writing of it" ...

"I expect to finish the writing of the bill, checking with the White House and speaking to the president again tomorrow afternoon, and then posting the text of it tomorrow, and then we vote on it on Wednesday."

DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE TED LIU

"Tonight, I have been informed that there is an agreement in principle between the White House and House Republicans. This was a House Republican manufactured crisis. It's up to House Republicans to defuse that crisis. And as soon as we learn the details of disagreement in principle we will have administration officials provide that information to the Democratic members of our caucus."

REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE BOB GOOD

 "I am hearing the 'deal' is for a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit. If that is true, I dont need to hear anything else. No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote."

REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE ON TWITTER

"Hearing @SpeakerMcCarthys soon to be finalized agreement on the debt limit will clawback $400 MILLION from the CDC "Global Health Fund" that sends money overseas to countries like China.

"Here's a few other countries that will no longer get access to these taxpayer dollars: Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burma, Cambodia, China, Ivory Coast, DRC, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mail, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

"Also on the chopping block is nearly $1.5 BILLION from the CDCs "Vaccine Distribution and Monitoring Program.""

DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE JUDY CHU

"I will be looking to see whether there are these increased work requirements for the poor. I thought that was the worst aspect of their (Republican) proposals because that would only serve to inflict pain on the poor."

"If we didn't reach a deal  the average American person would clearly see a hit ... we had to reach some kind of conclusion here."

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Ismail Shakil and Gram Slattery; Editing by Heather Timmons and David Gregorio)
RALEIGH, N.C. (Tribune News Service)  In 1918, a 22-year-old soldier from Raleigh went charging across the French battlefield until a German shell burst over his head, knocking him back so forcefully that it shattered the bones in his feet.

Harry Watson got all the honors a young lieutenant could expect on the Western Front  a hasty burial under a fruit tree, laid shoulder-to-shoulder with three other men.

But when the guns went silent and the grass grew back at Cantigny, Watsons mother wrote the Army and asked to ship her boy back to Raleigh, where she could bury him with family at Oakwood Cemetery.

And suddenly, nobody could find him.

The fate of Harry Watson became a detective story that took 10 years to solve  a case of mistaken identity that required interference from N&O Publisher Josephus Daniels, the detailed recollections of a gravedigger and a letter from a Raleigh dentist describing the missing soldiers gold tooth.

He was just a kid, said Robin Simonton, Oakwoods executive director, preparing for Mondays Memorial Day service . As complicated as it is for us, it must have been just as complicated for them.

Watson grew up on North Person Street in Raleigh, and as a young man, he worked for what is now First Citizens Bank. He enlisted in the Army in 1917, seized by the fervor that struck men of his generation. He quickly rose to lieutenant before meeting his end at Cantigny, the first major American offensive in World War I.

The front lines of World War I

As a young officer on the front lines, he would have witnessed hand-to-hand fighting around the trenches, and experienced shelling so severe that it leveled the entire village for which his battle is named.

But by 1922, the country had largely moved on, and Lillian Watsons letters to the government asking for a single soldiers whereabouts did not turn many bureaucratic wheels. Little reached the grieving mother other than a request that she furnish dental records, which she did, thanks to Dr. H.O. Lineberger, who forwarded information about the gold inlay on Watsons incisor.

And time dragged on.

Until Josephus Daniels personally wrote to the Secretary of War.

Former Secretary of the Navy gets involved

Watson, it turned out, had an uncle who was the N&Os business manager  a right-hand-man for the Raleigh publisher. And because Daniels had just finished his stint as Secretary of the Navy, finding Watson became one of Washingtons top priorities.

She is a widow, Daniels wrote of the missing soldiers mother, and has not yet recovered from the shock.

While the Army quartermasters office went busily shuffling through files, Daniels made it easy for them with a second letter: Talk to C.R. Huebner at Camp Benning, who served alongside Watson, and to Jim Quinn, who buried him and has a map.

The young mans mother is greatly distressed, Daniels wrote.

The Army quickly found Huebner, who recalled his comrades burial beneath a fruit tree and confirmed Quinn as gravedigger. in the months and years that followed, the tree-shaded grave would be located, as would records of the soldiers inside being relocated to more permanent resting places in a Castigny cemetery.

In one of those graves, No. 28, investigators discovered an officer with USR ornaments on the collar, leather-lined breeches, pigskin puttees, size 8 shoes and, significantly, a gold inlay on the second tooth from the center. In addition to all this, the Army learned this soldier had a bullet hole in his skull with the left side of his face shot away.

The quartermasters office fired off a letter to Quinn: Sound like our man?

A gold tooth, but also a face

But it would take until 1928 to find Quinn, who had bounced around Memphis without a forwarding address.

When he finally turned up, the former officer penned a four-page letter by hand, detailing the trench he dug for Watson, Curry, Bodenstab and another officer whose name I have forgotten.

The uniform all sounded right, as did the gold tooth, but Watson had no marks on his body except from the skin under each eye, which had bled from the shells concussive force.

The Raleigh lieutenants face was otherwise intact, not shot away, but Quinn gruesomely theorized that perhaps Watson had been blown apart by a shell after hed been buried.

Quinn told the Army hed seen it happen before.

A case of mistaken identity

What followed is confusing to follow and grisly to imagine.

But somehow, through its efforts, the Armys investigators learned that one of those soldiers in that mass grave had a piece of identifying material on his body, which included the name Lt. E. Comeford.

And somehow, by trying to track down what became of Comeford, they learned that he wasnt dead at all, let alone resting in a trench in northern France.

And somehow, as they sorted through the paperwork, they concluded that someone must have found Comefords property among the dead, checked the name against muster rolls and determined that the body belonged to Capt. Willis E. Comfort, who was also killed in action.

Close enough.

So when Comforts family in Kansas asked for their boys body, the Army returned to the fruit tree and dug up the man marked Comeford, shipping him home to be buried Manhattan.

But it wasnt Comeford, who was very much alive, and it wasnt Comfort, who was buried miles away.

It was poor Watson, howling in protest from the great beyond.

Army Quartermaster General B.F. Cheatham wrote to Lillian Watson, a decade after her sons death, apologizing for one of those sad errors that are bound to occur in a great war.

Comforts family, in Kansas, got one, too.

Today, Watsons grave sits in Oakwoods northwest corner with this wish chiseled on the stone: May he rest in peace and light perpetual shine upon him.

He is recognized as Raleighs first casualty in the world war. But more would follow  casualties and wars alike.

Oakwood Cemetery Memorial Day observance

Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh will hold a Memorial Day service at 4 p.m. Monday. All are welcome.

2023 Raleigh News & Observer.

Visit newsobserver.com .
(Tribune News Service)  A 21-year-old airman from Metuchen, N.J., whose remains were identified nearly 80 years after his death will finally be laid to rest in his hometown this Memorial Day.

Metuchens Memorial Day parade will be dedicated to Staff Sgt. Michael Uhrin, who was declared missing in October 1943 after his plane was shot down by enemy fighters in Germany during World War II, according to military records.

Uhrins nephew, Michael Joseph Uchrin, will serve as a grand marshal in the parade.

The way everybody has worked together to make this happen, Im just so happy  its unbelievable, said 78-year-old Uchrin (who spells his last name slightly differently than his late uncle). Im overwhelmed with joy.

Long-thought unrecoverable, Uhrins remains were successfully identified by researchers with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in 2022, to the astonishment of his surviving family and his hometown.

Uhrins body was scheduled to arrive at Newark airport Friday with plane-side honors before being escorted to Costello-Runyon Funeral home in Metuchen, the family said.

There will be a public service for Uhrin at the end of Mondays parade at Memorial Park in Metuchen. Then, his remains will be will be interred a little more than a mile away at Metuchens Hillside Cemetery in a private ceremony with military honors.

Hell be buried near his parents, Uchrin said. Its just unbelievable.

Uhrin was killed during one of the darkest days for U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II. He was assigned to the 369th Bombardment Squadron, 306th Bombardment Group, 40th Combat Wing, 8th Air Force in the European Theater in October 1943, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

Uhrin was serving as the radio operator in a B-17F Flying Fortress bomber on a mission to Schweinfurt, Germany, on Oct. 14, 1943, officials said. His plane was shot down by enemy fighters near Rommelhausen and Langenbergheim, Hessen  about an hour outside of Frankfurt.

Tragically, he was just one day short of being discharged.

Uhrin was one of many young men whose lives were cut short that day. Oct. 14, 1943, would later go down in infamy as Black Thursday, one of the bloodiest days for the U.S Army Air Forces in World War II.

Of the 291 bombers that departed on the mission to Schweinfurt that day, 60 were shot down, resulting in about 600 airmen killed, wounded or lost over enemy territory, according to military records from the National World War II Museum.

Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in Europe. They conducted investigations in the area where Uhrins plane reportedly went down, but couldnt find any concrete evidence associating recovered remains with the lost airman.

Uhrins parents and five siblings  George, John, Mary, Helen, and Anna  would go the rest of their lives without closure.

Meanwhile, the military has been working to keep its promise of bringing the fallen back to their families.

Military historians have been conducting ongoing research focused on air losses over Germany. As a result, one set of remains, designated X-1660 St. Avold, was determined to be a strong candidate for association with Uhrin, military officials said.

Thats what prompted officials to contact Uhrins nephew in 2021 for a DNA sample. That sample led to long-overdue closure for the family, 79 years after the airmans death.

We never thought we could find his body, Uchrin said previously. I thank them so much for their service.

Uchrins daughter, Nicole, was floored when she received a call from her father saying the remains of her great-uncle were located and coming home.

Growing up, Nicole said her family didnt talk much about their long-lost uncle.

They just said they looked at him as a war hero and the family held him in very high regard, and that it was just such a shame that he had never come home. And thats all that was said about it, she said.

Nicole, who lives in Cream Ridge, said she was heartened to learn the military never forgot her uncle.

Its truly amazing that it is no man left behind and they are handling this as if it happened yesterday, she said. Were very grateful.

The Metuchen Memorial Day parade and events in honor of Sgt. Michael Uhrin begin at 10 a.m., according to borough officials.

I think its a surreal moment for the community, said Mayor Jonathan Busch. Its more and more difficult for our community leaders to get the point of sacrifice across today and so, in many ways, we hope this will help people understand just how much sacrifice there was by so many in our community.

Mondays event in honor of Uhrin will help reenforce the importance of what Memorial Day is supposed to mean, the mayor said.

Before people return to their barbecues and their parties and their beach trips, they can think about the fact that this is a day, that although its come to signify the opening of summer, it really signifies something far more meaningful to all of us, Busch said.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

jroman@njadvancemedia.com .

2023 Advance Local Media LLC.

Visit nj.com .
RUNJI, Nigeria  Christian Jonathan's mother was holding the 9-month-old boy in her arms when she was shot dead during an attack on their village in northwestern Nigeria. The assailants cut off one of Christian's finger and abandoned him by the side of the road with a bullet wound in his tiny leg.

"They left him on the ground beside his mother's body," said Joshua Jonathan, Christian's father. "They thought the boy was dead."

The late-night attack in April in Runji in Kaduna State left 33 people dead, most of them burned alive or shot dead. Many more have been killed since in the continuing clashes between nomadic cattle herders and farming communities in northwest and central regions of the West African nation, including more than 100 this month in Plateau state.

The decadeslong violence is becoming more deadly, killing at least 2,600 people in 2021, according to the most recent data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Once armed with sticks, the groups now fight with guns that have been smuggled into the country.

Both sides accuse the government of injustice and marginalization, but the clashes have also taken on a religious dimension, giving rise to militias that side with the herders, who are primarily Muslim, or the farmers from Christian communities.

The growing security crisis presents a huge challenge for Nigeria's incoming president, Bola Tinubu, who rose to power in Nigeria  Africa's largest economy and among its top oil producers  promising to improve the lives of affected communities and address the root causes of the crisis by providing jobs and ensuring justice. Tinubu's inauguration is scheduled for Monday.

If the violence isn't reined in, analysts say, it could further destabilize the country and drive more of its 216 million people into poverty. U.N. agencies say the violence affects mostly children, who are already threatened by malnutrition, and women, who are often abducted and forced into marriage.

The response of security forces can be slow and arrests are rare, prompting a growing number of communities to defend themselves when they come under siege.

"There is a substantial loss of confidence in the government as a protector of citizens," said Nnamdi Obasi, the senior adviser for Nigeria at the International Crisis Group. Obasi warned that the failure of the incoming administration to speedily resolve the conflict would lead to "more people seeking their own self-defense, more proliferation of weapons, more criminal groups and a rise in organized armed groups."

In Runji, an agrarian village, The Associated Press spoke to some survivors in hospital beds and others touring a mass grave and their razed houses. They said they were under attack for hours and that the gunmen fled long before security forces arrived.

Every household bears a scar.

Christopher Dauda's family was trying to escape when the gunmen caught up with his wife and four children, killing all five. Danjuma Joshua's two daughters were shot in the back while they tried to flee. In the home of Asabe Philip, who survived but has burns all over her body, the assailants burned five children alive as they cowered in one room.

Christian's aunt has tried to fill the void left by the killing of his mother. His father said Christian cries a lot and barely sleeps, although his physical wounds are gradually healing.

"We try to manage with what we have left," Joshua Jonathan said.

On the other side of the conflict, the herders say they are also under attack. They complain of cattle rustling and extrajudicial killings by local security groups working as community vigilantes.

Abdullahi Bello Bodejo, the president of the national herders' association, denied that anyone in the group was responsible for the violence. Most of the herders belong to the Fulanis, an ethnic group.

"Fulanis are not the killers. Any person carrying out killings is not our member. Sometimes, when communities accuse us of killings, 75% is not true; they have their own crisis but always blame Fulanis," said Bodejo.

Nigerian security forces say they have arrested dozens of gunmen and recovered their weapons. But the assailants are estimated to number in the thousands and can easily recruit new members, according to Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, a conflict researcher.

"There is a limit to the kinetic (military) operations, as it doesn't address the socioeconomic issue that gave rise to banditry in the region in the first place," said Oluwole Ojewale of the Africa-focused Institute of Security Studies. He said the incoming Tinubu administration must work with state governments to address unemployment, poverty and social injustice.

The recent violence has led to the formation of community, state and regional security outfits that experts say could create bigger problems for Nigeria's security architecture if not properly monitored.

And their recruits are young.

Felix Sunday, a college student in Kaduna, said that he was 16 when he joined a local vigilante group in 2021, and that he struggles to combine the night watch with his studies.

Across much of West and Central Africa, porous national borders facilitate the smuggling of weapons. A survey-based report published in 2021 by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey in collaboration with the Nigerian government found that at least 6 million firearms may have been in the hands of civilians in the country at the time.

The military and police have recovered hundreds of firearms in Nigeria in the last year, but weapons dealers elsewhere are exacerbating the problem.

"Things have gotten considerably worse. Some are large military weapons imported from other countries," said Confidence MacHarry with the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence security firm.

With sophisticated weapons, the gunmen have launched daring attacks in areas with a heavy security presence, including a military base and an airport in Kaduna, indicating that the problem may be the motivation of the security forces themselves.

Survivors of the attack in Plateau told the AP that the police didn't arrive until the next day, echoing comments from people living in Runji, which has a security checkpoint nearby.

"When we call the soldiers, it is after the attackers have left that the soldiers come. Even if we hear they (the attackers) are coming and we report to the government, they don't take proactive action," said Simon Njam, a vigilante leader near Runji who uses bows, arrows and locally-made guns to secure the area.

Part of the problem is that the security forces are disorganized and unprepared to respond to the attacks, according to Kabir Adamu, the founder of Beacon Consulting, a security firm based in Nigeria's capital, Abuja.

"We don't have a coordinated security sector that identifies and counters threats," he said. "They need to work together to protect lives and currently, we are not seeing enough of that."

The Nigerian military and police didn't respond to written and phone inquiries seeking a response to the claims.

As more families mourn the loss of their loved ones, forced to replace farmland with graveyards, their priority is demanding justice.

"How can people just come and kill and nothing will happen?" asked Dauda in Runji, remembering his life with his wife and four children. "They cannot bring back my lost family, but the government can at least rebuild my home and ensure justice."
CAIRO  The United States and Saudi Arabia called on warring sides in Sudan to extend a fragile cease-fire due to expire Monday, as weeks of fighting reached a stalemate in the capital and elsewhere in the African country.

The Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary force, battling for control of Sudan since mid-April, had agreed last week to the weeklong truce, brokered by the U.S. and the Saudis. However, the cease-fire, like others before it, did not stop the fighting in the capital of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

In a joint statement early Sunday, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia called for an extension of the current truce which expires at 9:45 p.m. local time Monday.

"While imperfect, an extension nonetheless will facilitate the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people," the statement said.

The statement also urged Sudan's military government and the rival Rapid Support Forces to continue negotiations to reach an agreement on extending the cease-fire.

The fighting broke out in mid-April between the military and the powerful RSF. Both military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF leader Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo led the 2021 coup that removed the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

The conflict has killed hundreds of people, wounded thousands and pushed the country to near collapse. It has forced nearly 1.4 million people out of their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, or to neighboring nations, according to the U.N. migration agency.

Residents reported renewed sporadic clashes Sunday in parts of the capital's adjacent city, Omdurman, where the army's aircraft were seen flying over the city. Fighting was also reported in al-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur.

In a separate statement, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia accused both the military and the RSF of violating the cease-fire, saying that such violations "significantly impeded delivery of humanitarian assistance and restoration of essential services."

The statement mentioned airstrikes by the military including one that reportedly killed at least two people Saturday in Khartoum. The RSF also continued to occupy civilian homes, private businesses, and public buildings, and loot some residences.

"Both parties have told facilitators their goal is de-escalation to facilitate humanitarian assistance and essential repairs, yet both parties are posturing for further escalation," the statement said.

The conflict has come to a stalemate as neither side has been able to deliver a decisive blow to the other after six weeks of fighting.

In the first two weeks of the war, army airstrikes targeted RSF camps in and outside the capital, crippling the paramilitary force's bases. That forced the RSF to deploy in densely populated areas, where they seized people's houses and other property, and are using them as cover against the military's airstrikes.

The detention of Dr. Alaa Eldin Awad Nogoud, a prominent surgeon and pro-democracy activist, in Omdurman caused an uproar in the country, with medical and rights groups in and outside of Sudan demanding his release.

A group of armed men stormed Nogoud's home Sunday and detained him, according to the Sudan Doctors' Syndicate. He was taken to an unknown location, it said.

The Forces of Freedom and Change, the pro-democracy coalition, said the armed men claimed they were members of the military and the intelligence service. It said Nogoud's detention was part of a campaign targeting pro-democracy activists, and urged his immediate release.

The development came after Nogoud told a television station last week that the military seized medical aid provided by the World Health Organization and stored it at a military hospital in Omdurman, according to local media.

He said that doctors were denied access to the facility when they demanded a share in the aid to other hospitals. They were told that permission was needed first to get access, he said.

A spokesman for the military declined to comment Sunday.

The U.S.-Saudi statement came two days after Burhan demanded in a letter to the U.N. secretary-general that the U.N. envoy to his country be removed, The U.N. chief was "shocked" by the letter, a spokesman said.

The envoy, Volker Perthes, has been a key mediator in Sudan, first during the country's fitful attempts to transition to democracy and then during efforts to end the current fighting.

Burhan's letter came after Perthes accused the warring parties of disregarding the laws of war by attacking homes, shops, places of worship and water and electricity installations.

In his briefing to the U.N. Security Council last week, Perthes blamed the leaders of the military and the RSF for the war, saying that they have chosen to "settle their unresolved conflict on the battlefield rather than at the table."

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed.
ST. AVOLD, France  American and French citizens paid tribute Sunday to the 10,481 people buried at Lorraine American Cemetery and to mark Memorial Day at the largest World War II cemetery in Europe.

The ceremony in the rolling hills of eastern France was hosted by the American Battle Monuments Commission, which runs the cemetery and is marking its centennial, and drew hundreds of people.

Active-duty participants from the Army, Navy and Air Force and cadets from the Stuttgart High School Army Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program participated in the ceremony that featured speeches, a wreath laying, a flyover by a C-130 aircraft, firing of volleys and the playing of taps.

The more than 10,000 buried here were the best of their generation, said Maj. Gen. Stephen Maranian, commander of 56th Artillery Command, noting the sacrifices service members made then and continue to make.

Sacrifice was a common theme among those speaking at the event.

Denise Bauer, U.S. ambassador to France and Monaco, said they left their families to fight for liberty and doing so, they sacrificed their tomorrows for ours and their dreams for our future.

She also observed after speaking of those buried at the cemetery: Today, we are reminded again, by the war in Ukraine, that freedom is not free, and democracy is not guaranteed.

Walking among the rows of white crosses and Stars of David following the ceremony, Norman Matzke, a retired lieutenant colonel and the Stuttgart JROTC senior Army instructor, said its a tradition for cadets to attend. It is important to bring them here and let them be involved. It is what Memorial Day is all about.

Before I came here, I didnt know what it was all about, Cadet 2nd Lt. Marek Lavato said. All the people who sacrificed themselves for their country. It is important to come here and see it.
WASHINGTON After weeks of negotiations, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have announced an  agreement in principle  to raise the nations debt ceiling and avoid a potentially catastrophic default.

The agreement includes spending cuts demanded by Republicans, but it is short of the reductions in the sweeping legislation passed by the Republican-led House last month.

To reduce spending, as Republicans had insisted, the package includes a two-year budget deal that would hold spending flat for 2024 and impose limits for 2025. Thats in exchange for raising the debt limit for two years, until after the next election.

It also expands some work requirements for food-stamp recipients and tweaks an environmental law to try to streamline reviews to build new energy projects.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the United States could default on its debt obligations by June 5 if lawmakers do not act in time to raise the federal debt ceiling.

A look at whats next as Congress rushes to pass an agreement:

FINALIZING THE DEAL

Speaking to reporters in the Capitol late Saturday, McCarthy said the bill has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce and rein in government overreach. There are no new taxes and no new government programs.

Biden told reporters at the White House on Sunday: Im going to call McCarthy now at 3 oclock to make sure all the Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted. I think were in good shape.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said in a letter to Democratic colleagues that administration officials would brief House Democrats on the agreement at 5 p.m. One of the administrations chief negotiators, presidential counselor Steve Ricchetti, was also making individual calls to Democratic lawmakers to build support, according to a House Democratic aide.

Biden said in a statement after the deal was announced that he strongly urged both chambers to pass the agreement right away.

SELLING THE BILL

To pass the bill, both McCarthy and Biden will now have to sell it to their respective parties. While both sides are expected to lose some votes, they have to make sure that the deal is popular enough to pass both chambers without a revolt on either side.

McCarthy held a call Saturday evening with the Republican caucus, fulfilling a promise he made to show the agreement to them before revealing the legislation to the public. He said he expects to release the text of the bill on Sunday afternoon.

McCarthy said in an interview on Fox News Sunday that the bill is less than 150 pages and the House would wait 72 hours before voting on it so it can be publicly reviewed. This is worthy of the American people. I want them to read it. I want them to understand it, he said.

The Republican speaker he expects a majority of Republicans to vote for it and a lot of Democrats as well because Biden was on board. Jeffries said on CBS Face the Nation that he expects there will be Democratic support once we have the ability to be fully briefed by the White House, but Im not going to predict what those numbers will ultimately look like.

Reaction was mixed. Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina tweeted a vomit emoji, complaining that some Republicans on the call were praising the speaker for getting what he said is almost zippo in exchange for the debt ceiling hike.

South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson, an ally of McCarthy, told CNNs State of the Union that overwhelmingly, Republicans in this conference are going to support the deal. How could they not. Its a fantastic deal.

White House officials will give their own briefing to House Democrats on Sunday at 5 p.m., according to a House Democratic aide. McCarthy said he spoke to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on Saturday night and there will be a conference call with Republicans senators later Sunday.

CONGRESS RETURNS

Both the House and Senate are expected to return on Tuesday, after Memorial Day. McCarthy said the House will vote Wednesday, which would then send the bill to the Senate.

Once the bill reaches the Senate, where Democrats have the majority, the pace of action will largely depend on whether any senators try to hold up the bill, possibly with amendment votes. That could tie up the legislation for a few days.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned members Sunday that due to the time it may take to process the legislation in the Senate without cooperation, Senators should prepare for potential Friday and weekend votes.

Still, the Senate can move quickly when they have agreement from all 100 senators. The bill could be passed by the end of the week, with a quick Biden signature to make it law.

The White House was expected to brief Senate Democrats late Sunday afternoon, likely after the bill language has been released and members have had time to review the proposals.

If all goes according to McCarthys plan -- and both chambers are able to pass the legislation -- the potential crisis should be resolved by June 5, which is when the Treasury Department projects the U.S. would be at risk of default.

This agreement is good news for the American people, because it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, and millions of jobs lost, Biden said in his Saturday evening statement.

Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri, Lisa Mascaro, Seung Min Kim, Zeke Miller in Washington and Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.
Students display the art of Chinese calligraphy during an event to celebrate the ninth anniversary of the Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad in Novi Sad, Serbia, May 27, 2023. The Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad marked its ninth anniversary on Saturday with a series of cultural activities. (Xinhua/Shi Zhongyu)

NOVI SAD, Serbia, May 27 (Xinhua) -- The Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad marked its ninth anniversary on Saturday with a series of cultural activities.

The celebration was attended by around 100 people including Serbian government officials, university professors and students, and representatives from the Chinese embassy and Chinese enterprises.

The cultural activities covered recitation of Confucius quotes, Chinese martial arts show, Chinese traditional painting, Serbian children's choir singing in Chinese and an exhibition of Serbian landscapes painted with traditional Chinese methods.

Bojan Tubic, Serbia's assistant minister of education, said in his address that education cooperation between Serbia and China has achieved continuous progress thanks to the great contributions made by the Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad.

Noting the cooperation between the two countries in various fields, Tubic said he would especially like to emphasize the participation of Serbia in the Belt and Road Initiative.

"In this way, the two states confirmed their commitment to strengthening the comprehensive strategic partnership in order to further improve bilateral practical cooperation in various fields," he said.

Zhang Zhe, minister counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Serbia, said the Confucius Institute plays an important role in promoting equal exchanges and mutual learning between the cultures of the two countries as well as in deepening the Belt and Road cooperation and jointly building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Chinese director of the Confucius Institute, Chen Hui, said that along with the progress of the Belt and Road Initiative and the deepening of the bilateral cooperation in various areas, young people who are learning Chinese now will certainly become a new force in the friendly exchanges between China and Serbia in the future.

The Serbian final round of a Chinese language skills competition for college students was also held on the same day.

The Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad, founded in 2014, is the second such institute in Serbia. 

Children sing a Chinese song during an event to celebrate the ninth anniversary of the Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad in Novi Sad, Serbia, May 27, 2023. The Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad marked its ninth anniversary on Saturday with a series of cultural activities. (Xinhua/Shi Zhongyu)
Cavan mother suing ODoherty for falsely implying her son died as a result of a Covid-19 vaccine

'I am untouchable. I am not going near any court,' O'Doherty said. Photo: Tom Burke

An Irish mother suing conspiracy theorist Gemma ODoherty for emotional distress is hoping to use the successful legal actions brought against US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over the Sandy Hook school massacre as a precedent.

Edel Campbell, the Cavan-based mother of Diego Gilsenan, who died by suicide last August, is suing ODoherty for falsely implying her son died as a result of a Covid-19 vaccine in her freesheet, The Irish Light.

The High Court action against ODoherty was filed on Thursday. It is understood the case will partly seek to mirror American defamation actions taken by families of the Sandy Hook 2012 school shooting in which 26 children and adults were killed.

Last year, the families successfully sued Alex Jones and his Infowars website for over $1bn (930m) for falsely claiming the massacre was a hoax.

Last November, Diego Gilsenans photo was included among 42 pictures on the front of ODohertys newspaper under the headline Died Suddenly.

A former journalist who failed to get a presidential election nomination in 2018, ODoherty has dedicated herself to spreading false conspiracy theories on topics from the pandemic to Holocaust denial.

Ms Campbell is seeking an injunction to prevent ODoherty using her sons image on any medium. She is seeking damages for trespass to the person, negligent and/or wilful infliction of emotional distress, breach of her constitutional rights to her good name and her privacy rights, plus aggravated damages.

She says she made many attempts to contact ODoherty in an effort to get her sons photo removed.

In one WhatsApp message to ODoherty, she said: Can you please just take my sons picture and video off your twitter account please I am begging you, the heartache you are causing me and my family.

In December 2022, ODoherty tweeted: Just because youre the parent of a dead person doesnt give you the right to tell lies, stalk and slander another. We understand some of the vaccinated cannot face what theyve done to themselves and their children but please dont blame those who tried to save you.

A statement issued by Mulholland Law, which represents Ms Campbell, accused ODoherty of trying to, sensationalise the unfortunate death of Diego Gilsenan with inflammatory rhetoric, unfounded conspiracies and the unauthorised and misappropriate use of our clients sons image.

It was hoped by our client that a compassionate approach may have been adopted by Ms ODoherty and that she [would] refrain from the exploitation of her sons image and tragedy for her own agenda... However, this did not materialise.

In a video posted on Friday, ODoherty claimed: I am untouchable. I am not going near any court. I have secured my assets in such a way that the only people who will be losing money will be Edel Campbell.

Once a journalist with the Irish Independent, ODoherty sued the newspaper for defamation after she was made redundant in 2012. She received a large settlement in 2015 from Independent Newspapers, which has since been bought by Mediahuis, the Belgian-based publisher.

In an email response to queries about the legal action, ODoherty said: We stated clearly we did not know how all of the young people featured who died suddenly actually died and said suicide could indeed be the cause, not least because of the devastating effects of tortuous lockdowns on youngsters.

We have no intention whatsoever of removing any pictures, which are widely available all over the internet.

You, with the rest of the government-funded media, are exploiting her in this bizarre endeavour while failing utterly to expose the staggering number of young people who are dying suddenly in Ireland. We understand why you are doing this and that your salary is funded through the blood money of the HSE, and therefore indirectly by vaccine manufacturers.

ODoherty has been before the courts and fined a number of times in recent years for public order issues and a breach of Covid rules. In her video she said she would not be paying any fines.
When confronted by the Sunday World, Natalia Winiarska chose to slam her front door rather than say sorry

Natalia Winiarska 27, is the disgraced hospital nurse who has narrowly escaped going to jail after she targeted six elderly and vulnerable patients, stealing their bank details and cash to cover her gambling debts.

Natalia Winiarska shut the door in our face this week when we asked about her conviction

A sticky-fingered nurse who raided the bank accounts of vulnerable patients while they slept or while they had scans had no words this week for her victims.

Natalia Winiarska was only kept from going to jail by her seven-month-old daughter but when confronted by the Sunday World, she chose to slam her front door rather than say sorry.

The 27-year-old mum had been scamming the most vulnerable patients she came across while working at Antrim Area Hospital.

Natalia Winiarska

The heartless health worker was discovered to be taking her patients wallets and bank cards as well as their temperatures.

In total she stole 6,200 from six patients and spent the money on clothes, skincare products and paying her gambling debts  though police investigations discovered she attempted to steal much more.

Holding her designer dog in her arms as she nervously poked her head round her front door on Thursday morning, she said: Why are you here? Im not going to talk about that.

And when given a chance to say sorry she instead slammed the door shut in a hurry, without another word.

Winiarska walked out of Antrim Crown Court after Judge Alistair Devlin handed the fraudster, not without hesitation, a combination order of 100 hours community service and two years on probation.

Natalia Winiarska 27, is the disgraced hospital nurse who has narrowly escaped going to jail after she targeted six elderly and vulnerable patients, stealing their bank details and cash to cover her gambling debts.

He told the disgraced registered nurse, who is still to face health service disciplinary proceedings, that given the pre-planned, premeditated exploitation of elderly and vulnerable victims and the gross breach of trust associated with the offences, her crimes merited a jail sentence.

However, the court does note that you are now the mother of a seven-month-old daughter, said the judge, adding that he had to take account of the likely harm and long-term impact that an immediate but relatively short-term of imprisonment would have not just on you but also on your young and dependent child in this important stage of her life.

When she was arraigned earlier this year Winarska, whose address was given as c/o Reid Black solicitors, Main Street in Ballyclare due to paramilitary threats against her, entered guilty pleas to a total of 49 dishonesty offences including 42 counts of fraud by false representation, five of attempted fraud and two of theft, committed against six victims over an 11-month time span between October 1 2020 and August 5 2021.

Prosecuting counsel Suzanne Gallagher had earlier outlined how the series of frauds came to light in August 2021 when an 83-year-old lady contacted her bank to report two fraudulent transactions.

Natalia Winiarska

The pensioner confirmed she had been an inpatient in Antrim Area Hospital and brought her Danske Bank card and mobile phone in a handbag with her to hospital.

While her personal effects were put into the bedside locker, the actual lock broke during her admission and the victim told cops she had left her handbag in the locker but unattended when she had been sent for scans.

Two days later, police received a further report from staff at the hospital that a 68-year-old male patient had told them his wallet had been stolen.

His family were able to confirm to the hospital that during his stay there had also been four unauthorised transactions from his Santander bank account and three unauthorised attempted transactions, said Ms Gallagher.

Police inquires lead them to Ballymena Credit Union and staff there confirmed there had been an online transfer of funds from the 83-year-olds account to Winiarska through the account of her ex-boyfriend and she had withdrawn the cash three days later.

The barrister told the court: Furthermore, staff at the credit union disclosed that there was a pending transaction to Ms Winiarskas account that had been deposited in the same way, however they were able to see the card used belonged to the 68-year-old victim.

Winiarska was arrested and questioned the following day but she refused to answer police questions and was freed on police bail pending further inquiries.

NO APOLOGY: Winiarska had no words for her victims

On August 22, the sister of a 61-year-old man with learning difficulties contacted police to report that her brothers wallet had been stolen while he had been a patient in Antrim Area Hospital.

Ms Gallagher said staff had been alerted at the time and the ward sister was advised by nursing staff that although the wallet was found and the cards were present, there was approximately 110 in cash missing.

The victims sister was also able to tell detectives there had been three unauthorised transactions and two unauthorised attempted transactions from the victims account.

Police examination of the Ballymena Credit Union account of Natalia Winiarska revealed a further three victims, said the barrister  an 82-year-old woman who had been a patient in the Ulster Hospital and two men aged 71 and 72 respectively in Antrim Area Hospital.

Ms Gallagher told the court that in five of the six cases, Winiarska was directly involved in caring for the patients while in the last case, the victim was unfortunate enough to have been on the same bay.

Arrested and reinterviewed in June last year, Winiarska made almost full confessions, admitting to police that she recorded the bank card details of each victim and used these details to complete all the transactions, agreeing that she had no authorisation/permission to use the bank details.

Although she denied stealing cash at that stage, Winiarksa later admitted that she had stolen cash from two patients, claiming that she was really sorry and had used the cash to cover her gambling debts.

The court heard however that in addition to debts, Winiarska used the stolen card details to pay for electricity, mobile phone top-ups, and to buy clothes and skincare products.

It emerged that Winiarskas completely innocent and unaware ex had been arrested and questioned twice under caution and had been subject to police bail conditions for about ten months until the disgraced nurse finally confessed her guilt.

Sentencing Winiarska on Tuesday, Judge Devlin said it was clear that despite having worked hard through university to become a qualified nurse, her career now will either be at an end or at the very least, in the most grave jeopardy given her crimes and also that there has been a significant loss of reputation.

The fact that your parents were in a position to advance you a loan to meet the outstanding gambling debts renders it all the more absurd, but also tragic, the fact that you decided to commit these offences, said Judge Devlin.

Describing her offences as quite disgraceful, the judge told the court that probation are of the opinion that support and supervision from them would help Winiarska in tackling her gambling and mental health issues.

Imposing the combination order, he warned Winiarksa that any failure to comply or breach of any aspect of it would see her back in court and facing the almost certainty of jail.
Three residents have already been murdered in this complex  is it going to take a fourth person to be killed before the council act?

A pensioner at an inner-city apartment complex where three residents have been murdered has called on Dublin City Council to erect security gates  before another resident is killed.

Terry Jackson lives in the Robinsons Court apartment complex off Cork Street where 76-year-old Kwok Ping Chen was brutally hacked to death in his flat by thug Oliver Doran on April 28, 2021.

CCTV subsequently obtained by this newspaper showed how Doran seemed strolled into the assisted living council complex  before breaking in through Chens back window and inflicting a savage death on the pensioner with an axe.

Oliver Doran

Worried Terry told the Sunday World there is a sense of fear in the complex that a horror like this will happen again unless the council upgrade security for the residents.

The council have been telling me for years that we are going to get security gates but Im honestly at a stage where I know longer believe them.

Three residents have already been murdered in this complex  is it going to take a fourth person to be killed before the council act?

CCTV shows man dropping murder weapon after killing 76-year-old

In 2016, five years before Chen  known affectionately as Chinese George  was murdered in his Robinsons Court flat, Anthony Rogers (61) was stabbed to death in his flat in the complex.

Wheelchair-bound Rogers had been repeatedly stabbed in the head and neck and was found lying in a pool of blood by a neighbour.

And 10 years before that 80-year-old resident Vincent Plunkett was found dead in his home after his throat had been slit.

Its not just the murders, a worried Terry (71)  who has installed CCTV at his own expense outside his apartment  told the Sunday World.

There is also a lot of anti-social behaviour that goes on in here because the courtyard is shielded away from eyes on the main road.

Weve had drug dealers and people selling cigarettes in here and that brings very dangerous people in who would not be able to get in here if the gates were put up.

In a letter seen by the Sunday World, the councils project estate officer wrote to the residents of Robinsons Court in April and informed that a security review is being undertaken.

Further to a number of incidents in Robinsons Court, the letter read, a comprehensive review of all security arrangements is currently being undertaken in the complex.

The office is actively liaising with An Garda Siochana to ensure the safety of all residents.

We are examining the CCTV systems and will commission any necessary upgrades.

We are examining a proposal to install security gates in the complex for pedestrians and vehicles.

Dublin City Councillor Mannix Flynn said this week he will work tirelessly to make sure these upgrades happen.

I will make it my business, he said.
Its sick. My daughter was just a 10-year-old child. He is a father himself. He knew what he was doing

A top cop has praised the mum behind a trap to catch a paedophile preying on her 10-year-old child online.

The 35-year-old posed as her daughter to make sure detectives had the evidence they needed to get the pervert into court and where he belongs  prison.

West Yorkshire Police and the PSNI were both involved.

We would like to thank the young girl and her family for their bravery in coming forward and assisting us in our investigation, PSNI Detective Superintendent Gary Reid said.

We have a highly dedicated team with specialised equipment who can trace any digital interaction right back to the persons front door.

Thats exactly what happened in this case.

Christopher Joseph Quinn, a father himself, hid behind various fake names on social media.

The little girl he was obsessed with lived in England  this deviant was from Maghera, Co Derry.

After engaging with him, the chat was taken over by the paedophile hunter group Predator Exposure.

Lasting five months, between March and July 2020, it wasnt long before the net closed in on Quinn and detectives came calling.

Now serving a 12-month sentence, hes just one of countless online predators.

Det Supt Gary Reid

When arrested, he told police he was disgusted and ashamed by his actions.

The 57-year-old also told them he committed the offences due to the lockdown during the pandemic.

But this doesnt cut any ice with the mother of his victim.

Its sick. My daughter was just a 10-year-old child. He is a father himself. He was disgusted because he got caught, thats all it was. He knew what he was doing, she said.

He said he was terrified of going to prison. Well, dont talk to kids.

With children having access to more than one digital device, police say they are at greater risk then ever of being targeted by predators like Quinn.

They are opportunists and are incredibly manipulative in order to get what they want, explained Det Supt Reid.

We want to help parents understand the dangers online and encourage them to have conversations with their children about staying safe online.

We need them to come to us so that we can ensure safeguarding issues are addressed and a thorough investigation is carried out to the required evidential standard.

This mum has four other children, and she has this advice to other parents: Just try and make your children aware of the dangerous situations they can get themselves into talking to strangers online.

Just because you think they are safe in the house doesnt mean that they are. Check their devices.
It is understood that Christy Kinahan discovered Kish when he was first travelling in the Gulf

Americas Drug Enforcement Agency has rewards out for Christy Kinahan Snr and his two sons

Officers from Americas Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) following the trail of the Kinahan wealth have discovered how they used a tiny island off Iran known as the Pearl of the Persian Gulf to wash and move their dirty money.

Kish Island is part of Iran but has much more relaxed laws than on the mainland and is a bustling tourist destination for wealthy Middle Eastern visitors.

It is also a free trade zone with lax banking practices, which have made it attractive to the top end of organised crime.

The tiny island is even in the process of having ATM machines installed which will allow crypto currency be transferred into cash.

Americas Drug Enforcement Agency has rewards out for Christy Kinahan Snr and his two sons

It is understood that Christy Kinahan discovered Kish when he was first travelling in the Gulf  but that Daniel Kinahan has also used it for business and pleasure and often holidayed there in recent years.

Kish is known as Irans Costa Del Sol and while women have to wear headscarves and traditional costumes, the paradise island has a more European feel, with drink served in hotels and restaurants and a huge coral beach for snorkelling.

Officers investigating Kinahan Cartel links to Iran and to the Hezbollah terror group suspect that they were providing money laundering services for the two threats to US security.

Naoufal Fassih

The looming spectre of Iran and the Kinahan links to it has been present since connections were made between the group and the Dutch criminal Naoufal Fassih, who was discovered hiding out in a safe house in Dublin in 2016.

Fassih was wanted in connection with a number of gangland murders in Holland, including that of Mohammad Samadi who was an Iranian who had been sentenced to death by Tehran but who was living in the Netherlands. Hed been accused of being behind a 1981 bombing that killed 73 people.

Detectives investigating the murder were convinced that it was a political assassination and that Fassih had carried it out for Tehran after the Kinahan group were asked to find a shooter.

Further investigations found that the Kinahans and other criminals based in Dubai had been using the Hawala underground banking system  which was an informal way of transferring money but which was also directly funding Hezbollah, who got a cut from every transfer.

Christy Kinahan Snr was also discovered trying to buy Egyptian military planes for his own ambitions to take over the transport route to Africa but in a detail which the DEA suspect was beneficial to Iran.

Christy Kinahan

Christy Kinahan Snr, in particular, is understood to have become very political and radical in his thinking in recent years.

Social media postings under the name Christopher Vincent showed him to be anti vaccine, pro Putin and anti big pharma, while he had regularly shown an interest in troubled regions like Yemen.

A massive investigation into the Kinahan organisation and its funds discovered in recent years that Kish was the focal point of a lot of financial activity by the group.
It was something else  it wasnt just a job, it wasnt just money. I still miss it very much

The Debenhams workers protested for 406 days in what would become the longest-running industrial dispute in Irish history

The Debenhams workers protested for 406 days in what would become the longest-running industrial dispute in Irish history

The powerful story of how the Debenhams workers fought for their redundancy rights is coming to the big screen.

The documentarys title  406 Days  refers to the incredible amount of time the workers protested after being denied an earlier agreed redundancy package.

What became the longest industrial dispute in Irish history began in April 2020, when the workers received a generic email telling them the UK department store chain was closing all of its Irish stores.

The 95pc female workforce had parted ways weeks earlier following the first Covid measures.

Among them was Cork woman Maeve OLeary, who had worked in the Patrick Street building for 24 years, and can still vividly remember the shock she felt.

The Debenhams workers protested for 406 days in what would become the longest-running industrial dispute in Irish history

Even the day we left the store, I was like: See you in a few weeks, she recalls saying to her co-workers.

Id never, ever expected this. I was devastated. Im back working, but its still there. It was 24 years of my life.

What Maeve misses most, she says, is the sense of camaraderie and friendship among the staff, many of whom had worked in the same building in its previous life as Roches Stores.

It was something else  it wasnt just a job, it wasnt just money. I still miss it very much. I havent been actually in the city since we filmed the documentary. I cant look at it [her former workplace].

406 Days takes us behind the picket lines as the workers battled authorities, bitterly cold weather and numerous setbacks for a dispute that lasted well over a year.

They also blocked trucks or talked down drivers who were trying to access the stores remaining stock.

The dispute ended with a compromise deal for a 3m training fund that the workers accepted but werent happy with.

But this week, a former worker won a case at the Workplace Relations Commission over the way she was made redundant.

The victory could have implications for hundreds of other workers.

Among them, Maeve was determined from the outset that they would battle for their rights for as long as it takes.

I think we proved that were very, very strong, she says now. I think once we made the decision that we were going to fight, I know myself, I wasnt going to stop, I was going to keep going.

There was a huge sense of friendship and mutual support among the workers, which is very apparent in the film.

For me, the important thing was to try and recognise that idea of the dignity of work and what these jobs meant to people, says director Joe Lee.
My wife sobs in her sleep over our son  we have too many unanswered questions

Tom and Hannah Sheehan, with a photo of their late son Darragh, in Doneraile, Co Cork. Photo: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision

The parents of a 26-year-old man who died outside a hotel in Co Kerry in 2020 are to challenge a decision by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) not to prosecute five men arrested in connection with his death.

Darragh Sheehan, from Doneraile, Co Cork, died after being restrained during a row outside the Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney. The men were arrested in December of that year, but were later released without charge.

The DPPs office said its lawyers concluded the evidence was not strong enough to prosecute any of the suspects for a criminal offence.

Darraghs father, Tom, said the decision has caused him and his wife Hannah further anguish.

When I wake during the night and hear my wife crying in her sleep, I know why she cries  for the loss of seeing her son walk in the door randomly and smile at him perusing the irrelevance of an ESB bill or the Cork hurlers. That is no more, he said.

In justifying its decision not to prosecute, the DPP said its job was to decide, based on the available evidence, whether there is a reasonable prospect of a conviction for a criminal offence.

This decision from the DPP tells us, his family, that nobody needs to explain their actions. I believe Darragh could have been saved if people had acted differently under pressure, Mr Sheehan said.

Why, as the DPP summarises, was there a delay from when gardai were called and arrived to when the ambulance was requested by the gardai? If the hotel had requested assistance from the services, Darragh might have survived.

In a letter to Mr Sheehan, a senior prosecutor said gardai had responded to a report of a man causing a disturbance at the hotel having been removed by security staff.

It stated that on arrival at the scene, gardai found Darragh lying face down on the ground and unresponsive. The officers requested an ambulance and performed resuscitation, but he did not respond and was pronounced dead at 12.16am.

A post-mortem was conducted on August 30, 2020, which determined that the cause of death was a combination of factors which included alcohol intoxication, underlying heart disease, a raised body mass index and lying in a face-down position, the letter said. Gardai spoke to a number of witnesses, and CCTV footage of the incident was obtained as well as mobile phone footage.

According to the DPP, following an altercation, Darragh was escorted from the hotel by hotel security staff.

They said witnesses confirmed Darragh was behaving in an extremely aggressive and threatening manner towards the hotel security staff.

Witnesses also confirmed that Darragh was restrained and held face down on the ground by hotel security staff. CCTV footage supports the accounts of the witnesses.

The letter said DPP lawyers considered whether there was enough evidence to prosecute for a criminal offence, including assault causing harm contrary to section three of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, 1997 and manslaughter by gross negligence contrary to common law.

After a careful assessment of the evidence, our lawyers concluded that the evidence was not strong enough to prosecute any of the suspects for a criminal offence in connection with your sons death. For this reason, they decided not to prosecute, it read. Among the factors considered by our lawyers was the extent of the medical evidence to prove that the actions of the suspects caused Darraghs death.

Mr Sheehan has asked the DPP to reconsider the initial direction and allow us the opportunity to at least seek justice for our son.

He did not die as a result of BMI or blood alcohol, but because he had been restrained face down on the concrete until he stopped breathing, he said. All we want is an open forum to discuss beyond a reasonable doubt what an adjudicator considers the cause of death. To rely on a post-mortem report in the interest of beyond reasonable doubt is not right.

Mr Sheehan rejected the suggestion his son had an underlying heart disease.

We, the family, completely refute this listing on the post-mortem and had never any inclination after 26 years that this was a condition, he said.

Mr Sheehan described the decision not to prosecute the five men as wrong and said it could undermine the confidence of the community and our family in the criminal justice system of Ireland.

This is a tenet of the code of ethics when administering these duties. If the admissible, relevant, credible and reliable evidence above is considered, it doesnt seem apparent that objectively has been applied, he added. I cannot think of a plausible rationale when considering the above details how the evidence in the file is not sufficiently strong to support the public interest to justify at least an open-forum trial.

Darragh Sheehan

Mr Sheehan said losing his gentle giant never gets easier, but he is determined to get justice for his son.

Some are blessed in the dead of night to hear a baby cry from its cot and smile as they move the child and sing a lullaby, I just lay there and think of Darragh as Hannah sobs while sound asleep. It is hell on earth, said.

We will never have him walk through the front door again, but we want this reviewed. There are too many unanswered questions and facts.

When contacted, the DPP said it does not comment on individual cases.
Several units of Dublin Fire Brigade are dealing with the fire, with flames and smoke bellowing from the top floors.

A major fire broke out at an apartment complex in north west Dublin this afternoon.

The blaze spread to several apartments in the top floor area of a block near the Crowne Plaza hotel in Blanchardstown.

Seven units of Dublin Fire Brigade rushed to the scene and firefighters are battling the blaze as flames and smoke bellows from the top floors.

7 Seven units are currently attending a fire in a high rise building in #Blanchardstown



 Smoke is visible but we have firefighters on scene dealing with the incident pic.twitter.com/8ge9fKbpi5  Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) May 28, 2023

The blaze broke out this afternoon. There are no reported injuries but it is understood residents have been evacuated.

It has since been extinguished.

A Dublin Fire spokesperson said: Dublin Fire Brigade are currently responding to a fire in a high rise building off the Blanchardstown Road South.

Major fire raging in Dublin apartment complex in Blanchardstown

"The fire was reported shortly before 16.30 hours and seven units are on scene including two turntable ladders. Operations are continuing at the incident. No injuries reported.

A garda spokesperson said: "Gardai in Blanchardstown are currently at scene assisting Dublin Fire Brigade at a fire of an apartment block at Falcon View, Blanchardstown this afternoon, Sunday, May 28, 2023. No further details are available at this time."

The building is beside the Crowne Plaza Hotel, near Blanchardstown Shopping Centre.
UV levels are expected to be high throughout the week with the risk of sunburn.

Holly (8) and Camille Traynor, (6) Donabate, enjoying the good weather on Portmarnock beach in Dublin. Picture: Arthur Carron

Gerard Shortt from Clondalkin enjoying the good weather at the 40 Foot, Dublin on Friday, as the sunny weather looks set to continue. Photo: Gareth Chaney/ Collins Photos

Dont neglect the suncream as temperatures could reach as high as 25C during the coming week.

Yesterday has been reported as the warmest day of the year so far, with a top temperature of 23.3 degrees recorded at Mount Dillon in County Roscommon.

Meteorologist at Met Eireann, Matthew Martin said it might be possible that temperatures in the coming week will reach 24C or 25C in some sheltered parts of the west and southwest.

The coming week will see high pressure remain positioned near Ireland so the weather will remain mostly dry and settled.

There will be plenty of sunshine throughout the week with daytime maximum temperatures generally ranging from 18C to 23C, a little cooler at times along eastern coasts as a moderate easterly breeze develops.

Holly (8) and Camille Traynor, (6) Donabate, enjoying the good weather on Portmarnock beach in Dublin. Picture: Arthur Carron

UV levels are expected to be high throughout the week with the risk of sunburn.

"Early indications are that the weather will stay settled for the June Bank Holiday weekend but there could be the odd shower around by then, added Mr Martin.

It comes as temperatures in the Canary Islands will also reach up to 25C this week.

Meanwhile high pressure is set to dominate conditions for the coming week, with the weather remaining warm, dry and generally sunny with temperatures in the high teens or low twenties.

Today will be slightly cooler than the rest of the week with a small chance of isolated showers in the south this morning.

Stock image: UV levels are expected to be high throughout the week with the risk of sunburn. Pic: Peter Morrison

Starting rather cloudy, spells of sunshine will break through during the morning and later in the afternoon, Met Eireann said.

Temperatures are to sit around 14C to 19C, with north Ulster experiencing the coolest conditions.

Tonight is expected to remain dry and clear, with temperatures dropping between 4C to 8C in light northeasterly or variable breezes.

Monday will be warmer with highest temperatures of 17C to 22C, warmest in the west.

It will be dry and generally sunny, though sunshine is expected to be a little hazy at times.

The east coast will be cooler by a couple of degrees in a light to moderate easterly breeze.

Monday night will be similar to the previous night, staying dry and clear with lowest temperatures of 6C to 10C.

The rest of the week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will be warm, dry and largely sunny with temperatures ranging from 18C to 24C, warmest in western areas.

A light to moderate easterly breeze is expected to keep things slightly cooler on the eastern coasts with highs there of 15C to 17C.

The nights will remain dry and clear throughout the week with overnight temperatures of 7C to 12C.

It comes as six people were rescued by Howth RNLI in separate incidents, as the spate of good weather continues.

The volunteer lifeboat crew of Howth RNLI launched their inshore lifeboat to the two incidents this weekend, to assist boats which had suffered engine failure.

On Friday night, shortly after 21.30, the lifeboat was launched to reports of a sailing yacht with three people on board which had suffered engine failure on its passage from Malahide to Howth.

Weather conditions were good with light winds. The lifeboat located the yacht under sail but its engine had failed. As darkness began to fall, the crew passed a tow line from the lifeboat and the yacht was towed back to Howth harbour.

Meanwhile, at 09.37 this morning, the crew were paged by Dublin Coast Guard following a 999 call from a member of the public who witnessed a small motorboat with three people on board in difficulty and drifting towards rocks just east of Howth harbour.

The lifeboat launched within ten minutes of the call with three crew on board. The wind was moderate coming from the north east, causing an onshore wind and breaking waves onto the east pier of Howth. The Howth Coast Guard unit were also tasked to assist from the shore.

The lifeboat reached the motorboat in minutes and it was observed that the crew of the boat had deployed an anchor which was holding them just off the rocks.

The lifeboat crew quickly passed a tow line and instructed the crew of the motorboat to discard the anchor and to attach the tow line.

The lifeboat towed the motorboat out of the breaking waves and returned them to the safety of Howth harbour.
The former Love Island star stepped out in London for the launch of the new series of The Kardashians with Disney Plus.

Maura wore a bold wig to the Disney Plus launch of The Kardashians season 3

Maura Higgins sent tongues wagging this weekend in a daring outfit and new hair.

The former Love Island star stepped out in London for the launch of the new series of The Kardashians with Disney Plus.

Maura shared some photos of her outfit for the event, which incorporated a host of designer pieces for a Kardashian-inspired look.

The Longford lady wore a pale pink satin Alice and Olivia blazer (795) as a dress over some sheer tights and a pair of nude Louboutin stilettos (695).

To tie the outfit together, Maura threw on a pair of black leather Alexander McQueen gloves (690) and carried a black Celine clutch bag.

She also switched up her hairstyle for the premiere and opted for a bold wig with straightened tresses flowing down past her backside.

Before heading to the lunch, Maura went out for a spot to eat with her hairstylist Carl Bembridge, who is an expert in celebrity hairdressing and wig making, where she was delighted to bump into her best pal Molly-Mae Hague.

The Love Island stars were seated at tables right next to each other at the same restaurant and couldnt believe their luck.

Maura and Carl then moved on to The Kardashians event and the reality star showed off some of the menu items before heading to the glam suite where she was pampered by some of Kylie Jenners Kylie Cosmetics team.

Sharing some photos from the evening, the 32-year-old referenced a beloved line from 2004 film Mean Girls in her caption, writing: Nice wig Janice, whats it made of? Your moms chest hair!

Mauras mum Sharon was one of the first to share her love for the snaps in the comments section, using flame and heart emojis as she wrote that Maura and Carl were a perfect duo.

We match like were married, Maura joked.

It comes after Maura was recently romantically linked to one of Hollywoods leading stunt doubles.

She was spotted leaving a London restaurant with a mystery man earlier this month and it has since been revealed that her new beau is stuntman Bobby Holland Hanton, who did stunt work for major movie stars such as Daniel Craig, Henry Cavill, Ryan Reynolds, Channing Tatum, and Jake Gyllenhaal.

The 37-year-old's first gig was being Daniel Craigs double in Quantam of Solace, but his most life-changing role to date was doubling for Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Dark World.

Bobby and Chris sparked up a friendship on set and Chris contracted Bobby to be his stunt double for all future Marvel flicks.

The pair have even launched a fitness app called Centr together, and regularly share photos with each other on social media.
Artists perform during an event to celebrate the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations and the friendship year between China and Cambodia in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on May 27, 2023. (Photo by Van Pov/Xinhua)

PHNOM PENH, May 28 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian and Chinese artists on Saturday jointly performed traditional dances, music, acrobatics and martial arts here to celebrate the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations and the friendship year between the two countries.

Presented by artists from the Northwest Minzu University of China, the Royal University of Fine Arts and the Circus School of Cambodia, the glittering cultural show, held at the Chenla Theater, attracted some 600 spectators.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the show, Cambodian Minister of Culture and Fine Arts Phoeurng Sackona said the performance was vital to further promoting cultural and tourism exchanges between the two nations.

"This is the first time that artists from China have come to perform in Cambodia since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic," she said.

Sackona highly spoke of Cambodia-China relations, expressing her sincere thanks to China for having provided a great amount of aid to Cambodia for socioeconomic development and poverty reduction.

"The current Cambodia-China relations have reached the highest-ever level in our history. We are the best brothers, friends, and partners," she said.

Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Wang Wentian said the China-Cambodia friendly exchanges dated back to a thousand years ago, and since the establishment of diplomatic relations 65 years ago, both countries have always respected, supported and helped each other.

"Our two countries have forged an unbreakable ironclad friendship and our bilateral ties have become a role model for interstate relations," he said.

Wang said China attaches great importance to people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries.

He added that Chinese tourists have been gradually returning to Cambodia after China optimized its anti-pandemic strategy and resumed its outbound group tours.

The show lasting two and a half hours presented diverse forms of art and each of the performances had drawn hearty rounds of applause from the audience.

"This is the first time I watched such a performance, which was amazing and vivid, and I could experience the richness of Chinese culture," a 27-year-old spectator Suon Pesith told Xinhua after watching the show.

"All artists, both Cambodians and Chinese, are very talented, and each show was wonderful," he said. 

Artists perform during an event to celebrate the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations and the friendship year between China and Cambodia in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on May 27, 2023. (Photo by Van Pov/Xinhua)

Artists perform during an event to celebrate the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations and the friendship year between China and Cambodia in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on May 27, 2023. (Photo by Van Pov/Xinhua)
Two youths who violently assaulted a 78-year-old man in his home and left him for dead avoided being sent to jail this week.

On the face of it, that seems astonishing. Its certainly not what the Crown was asking  it wanted the matter transferred from the Youth Court to the District Court, so they could be sentenced as adults and jailed.

But by Judge Bridget Mackintoshs reasoning it was the right decision: I do not see a future for us as a community that I like to look on if both these young men are sent to the district court and sentenced to imprisonment.

There werent any winners in this case, heard on Thursday afternoon in Napiers courtroom No.1, filled with the teens whanau, the victims family, police, social workers, and lawyers, but as each of the teens hugged the victims son and listened intently as he spoke to them individually, eye to eye, before leaving the courtroom, it appeared  to those who were involved in it  to be a decision they could live with.

Media are only permitted to report on Youth Court matters with a judges approval. It was granted to Stuff on this occasion.

The assault occurred in the mans Napier home on the afternoon of January 12, 2022. It occurred because the younger of the youths had seen the man speaking to police and believed he was narking on him for punching the man earlier in the day.

It was a brutal attack on the man, who was asleep in his bed at the time. One youth used a hammer, the other a crowbar.

When police arrived they found the badly injured man with his face covered in blood and a fractured bone sticking out of one of his legs.

They hit me in the teeth ... There was blood everywhere... They just laughed, the victim would later say in court.

The two teens were seen by their family members later in the evening. One of the family members told the court that when the younger one was asked how he could attack an innocent old man, he replied: Its Mongrel Mob.

The teens, aged 16 at 17 at the time, denied charges of aggravated burglary and causing grievous bodily harm. Their identities are suppressed as they were appearing in the Youth Court. Neither had any previous convictions.

The younger youth admitted the charges on the second day of a three-day trial late last year. The other was found guilty by Judge Mackintosh.

The hearing on Thursday was a dispositions hearing, which is essentially the Youth Courts version of sentencing.

The victims son read a victim impact statement written by his father, then one written by him.

His fathers said that prior to the assault he had been enjoying the life of an independent, active and very social retiree who began his day with a walk around the neighbourhood in which he had lived for nearly 50 years.

He said hed often stop and speak to people on the street or in shops. His children had all grown up and moved overseas and this is the way I engaged with my community.

His life had changed dramatically since the assault and Ive never been so alone and isolated, and he was no longer able to strike up a conversation with strangers.

Hed never fully recover his mobility and the assault was something he recalled repeatedly through flashbacks.

The offenders may have an opportunity to eventually move on with their lives, but Ive been given a life sentence to deal with this, he said.

The victims son told the youths bashing a pensioner in his own home isnt an example of being tough.

Being left for dead after having a hammer and crowbar break just about every bone in your body, then lying there for two hours all by yourself... thats tough, he said.

He said the impact of the assault was heartbreaking. Before the attack his dad was sharp as a tack. Now he struggles to remember his grandkids names.

So many families here have been shaken by this senseless crime, he said.

Crown lawyer James Bridgman said the offending was amongst the most serious of its kind and should be moved to the District Court, where a sentence of imprisonment should be imposed in order to ensure the youths were held accountable for their actions.

Bridgman noted that the older youth would soon turn 19, at which point any Youth Court sentence must end, and this would not be appropriate for such serious offending.

Lawyer for the younger youth, Richard Stone, said the youth had shown the victim, social workers and his own family that he can obey rules and remain in the community.

He said the assertion that the youth was associated with the Mongrel Mob was incorrect, and this was spelled out in a social workers report which said she had seen no connection between him and the gang, but he acknowledged that where he grew up meant he had been impacted by the Mob.

The youth had a very troubled upbringing involving a jailed father, drug use, violence, family harm and a number of referrals to Oranga Tamariki.

Stone said the youth had suffered a bad assault at high school that had lasting impacts on him, including psychotic episodes, and family members said hed not been the same boy after it occurred.

He said the youth had matured greatly since January last year, had served five months in a youth facility and 11 months on electronic bail without breach, had found work, had assisted helping others after Cyclone Gabrielle.

It was noted that the youth had spent five months in youth residence and 11 months on electronically-monitored bail, which was effectively the same as a three-year prison sentence.

The older youths lawyer Scott Jefferson said the youth had experienced a very profound meeting with the victims son in which he gave a heartfelt and genuine apology for his actions.

He said the youth had spent the past 16 months living in another region, where he was working in a conservation role, living independently and in a very pro-social way. He had completed 56 hours of voluntary community work and had committed to complete 200 hours and was living with people who were addressing his substance abuse and dislocation from his culture.

He said he was much different to the rudderless youth at the time of the assault, when he smoked cannabis every day, and Jefferson urged the judge to trust that he would continue on this path.

Judge Mackintosh acknowledged the youths had committed very, very serious offending and their victim had lost the opportunity to grow old in a graceful way.

She said it had sent a ripple effect across many families and the wider community which had been outraged, and at first blush, justifiably so.

She said a prison sentence was a realistic outcome whenever someone offended the way they had, but she had to also consider Youth Court principles, particularly the need to keep young people in the community provided the communitys safety was not at risk.

At the end of the day what were doing really is looking into the future. Its the future of [the youths] and its our communitys future, she said.

It was also important that young people knew there would be punishment if they hurt people in an egregious way.

Out of what was an awful situation that occurred on the 12th of January last year there can be some kernels of hope that the two people involved will be much, much better people than they were, she said.

She said both youths had shown they had learnt and the time has come to work on the future.

She ordered the older youth to attend drug and alcohol counselling, to make an emotional harm reparation payment of $2000 to the victims family, and complete 200 hours community work.

She adjourned making any decision about the younger teen as she wanted more information, but said he would not receive a prison sentence.

Before retiring, the judge addressed both the boys whanau.

We are all a community and as a community we all need to step up and make sure our future is better. Everyone needs to play their part, she said.

After the judge left the courtroom the teens walked to the victims son, whom they hugged. Family members from both whanau then also hugged and spoke with the man before eventually leaving the courtroom.

-Marty Sharpe/Stuff.
A luminescent lilac glow radiates upon them. Humidity clings to the air while the six fans hum in a whir. Day and night, the orchids thrive.

Orchid fanatic John Edwards started his collection of these stunning plants more than 25 years ago, after his wife Winsome gave him an orchid for his birthday.

I loved it so much that I thought I better have a look on the internet and work out how to look after this plant, and I did and eventually I got some more and different kinds and it grew like that.

Creative growing

And his passion for this plants certainly has grown, having about 270 orchids to his name.

You catch this disease where you cant resist gathering more plants, so before long youve got quite a big collection.

Moreover Johns creativity for growing orchids has certainly thrived alongside his collection. Somewhat of a handy man, John has made his own hot cabinet for his tropical orchids.

It was originally a shop display cabinet thats got two sliding doors on it.

John says he first saw the idea for having a hot cabinet in an English book he read.

I thought Ill give it a go here so its been evolving over the years. Ive done a lot of research on it, on the type of light that you have in there.

Its well decked out too.

Ive got a humidity maker and its controlled automaticallyits got six computer fans in it that go 24/7.

The store cabinet made hot cabinet is definitely an eye-catcher.

At night, John opens the cabinet doors so the plants get a bit of a chill, which he says is important.

Some orchids wont flower unless they have quite a difference between day and night temperatures  maybe five and 10 degrees Celsius differential. Many of them need that drop in temperature too appreciate the flowers to come out.

In bloom

Waiting for flowers can be a game of patience and threats too, says John.

For two of his orchids of the Bulbophyllum species, John says: It took 11 years to get a first flower and then another one in the same genre took nine years to flower  so you need a lot of patience.

John admits he was over the moon when these orchids finally bloomed.

The thrill and the joy of finally getting a flower after threatening to give it away or to sell it, or get rid of it, not doing anythingmake a few threats  maybe thats what works.

John is part of Tauranga Orchid Society and recommends other people get into orchids.

Theyve got a bit of a reputation for being hard to growbut Im looking on Google all the time, researching them and tweaking my cultureif you do that youre going to have good success.

For more information about Tauranga Orchid Society, visit: https://taurangaorchids.wordpress.com/
Police have arrested two youths following a burglary in Hamilton in the early hours of this morning.

At around 4.20am a commercial premises on Killarney Road was broken into and vape products were stolen.

A vehicle used to gain entry to the premises was abandoned at the scene and the offenders fled.

This morning, Police executed a search warrant at a residential address in Hamilton East, following which the two youths were arrested and some of the stolen items were recovered.

The two youths, aged 15-years-old and 17-years-old, are scheduled to appear in Hamilton Youth Court on Monday morning, charged with burglary offences relating to this mornings burglary and other recent ram raid offences, in Hilcrest and Glenview on May 23.

Quick work from our staff has resulted in the offenders being held accountable and stolen property being recovered, says Detective Senior Sergeant Terri Wilson.

We hope this gives our community reassurance that we take this offending extremely seriously and will respond, investigate and bring offenders before the courts.

If you see any suspicious activity then Police urge you to contact 111 if it happening now, or 105 if it is after the fact.
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After fifteen days of election campaigning, the last word will be had this Sunday by the people. Their vote will select the candidates that will decide the future of their cities, towns and villages and draw the distribution map of local political power in Malaga province in the twelfth municipal elections of democracy in Spain.

Some 1,204,201 voters are called to the polls, including Spaniards resident in the province and citizens of the EU and the 13 countries with reciprocity agreements (Iceland, Norway, Cape Verde, Trinidad and Tobago, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Republic of Korea, United Kingdom and New Zealand) who have applied to vote.

On the ballot papers of these voters, 65,069 of whom are voting for the first time in a municipal election, having turned 18 since the previous local elections (2019), is the appointment of the 1,215 councillors to be elected in these elections, as well as the 103 mayors of as many municipalities and the councillors of the two autonomous local entities (ELA) of the province: Bobadilla Estacion and Estacion de Gaucin-El Colmenar.

They will be able to exercise their right to vote at the 600 polling stations that will open their doors from 9am until 8pm in a total of 1,736 polling stations, which will be staffed by 5,202 people - a president and two members - and where there will be 848 representatives of the administration. Security will be ensured by 3,584 officers, including members of the National Police, the Guardia Civil and Local Police forces.

A total of 52 parties, coalitions and groupings are running in these elections, with a total of 396 candidates, which is ten less than in 2019. The PP and PSOE are the only two parties running in the 103 municipalities and the two ELAs; Con Andalucia (the confluence of IU, Podemos and other left-wing parties) is running in 64; Vox in 37; Por Mi Pueblo, an independent and localist party, in 23; and Ciudadanos in fourteen.

Malaga city is where there is the greatest competition, with twelve lists competing, followed by Mijas with 10, Marbella and Velez-Malaga with 9, and Benalmadena and Torremolinos with 8. An unusual case is Igualeja, in the Serrania de Ronda, where with 729 inhabitants, five parties are running.

The candidacies in the province are made up of a total of 6,754 Malaga citizens, some 5,560 of who are incumbents and the rest substitutes. Not all of them are militants of the parties under whose acronyms they are running, as they do so as independents; there are a total of 421 candidates who are incumbents, with the PP having the most candidates on its lists (165).

By gender

A total of 73.3% of the lists are headed by men and the remaining 26.3% by women, a figure that represents three points more than four years ago. In 33 municipalities, voters will only be able to choose their next councillor from among men, as all the candidates are headed by men. These are the cases of Alameda, Campillos, Fuente de Piedra, Humilladero, Villanueva de la Concepcion, Villanueva del Rosario, Villanueva del Trabuco, Alfarnate, Alhaurin de la Torre, Alozaina, Cartama, Coin, Moclinejo, Benahavis, Casares, Jubrique, Manilva, Pujerra, Algatocin, Farajan, Gaucin, Jimera de Libar, Juzcar, Montejaque, Yunquera, Arenas, Benamocarra, Canillas de Aceituno, Canillas de Albaida, Cutar, Iznate, Macharaviaya and La Vinuela.

In the opposite case is the town of Monda, where all four candidacies are headed by women, meaning that this municipality is sure to have a female mayor. The candidates are: Maria Remedios Fernandez Martin, current councillor and who is running for re-election as head of the list of the Con Andalucia confluence; Maria Estela Beltran Ruiz, from the PP; Ana Belen Arana Gonzalez, from the PSOE; and Rocio Marin Ortega, from Vox.

Fine detail

The detail of the current distribution of local power in the province shows that the PSOE has the largest number of mayorships, with 51, which represents half of the total, but it is the PP who governs more Malaga residents, with 73.4%, seven out of every ten. The left (IU and Podemos, in coalition or alone) are at the head of a dozen municipalities; seven mayors are from independent parties (Alpandeire, Montejaque, Cortes de la Frontera - now the councillors are running for the PP; Benadalid; Benamocarra; Villanueva del Trabuco and Manilva); and one, Guaro, from Ciudadanos although he is now running for the PP.

As for the big towns, the PP are at the head of twelve: Malaga city, Torremolinos, Rincon de la Victoria, Nerja, Ronda - in these by means of pacts -, Marbella, Estepona, Fuengirola, Coin, Alhaurin de la Torre, Alhaurin el Grande and Antequera, alone; while the Socialists govern in Mijas, Benalmadena, Velez-Malaga and Cartama, although only in the latter do they do so with an absolute majority.

PSOE and PP developments

The two major parties have had an uneven track record in the history of municipal elections. In the first local elections, the PP did not even run, as it did not yet exist as a party, and in 1983 and 1987 it did so as Alianza Popular. Although its debut as PP, in 1991, had minimal success on the map of the province, it has gradually extended its dominion over Malaga until it has taken over half of the map.

Municipalities won by the PSOE

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Municipalities won by the PP

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Despite the fact that, historically, the PSOE has always won in a greater number of territories than its competitor, in terms of population the balance is reversed. In previous municipal elections, the Partido Popular has been the most voted force in important fiefdoms. Winning in Malaga, Marbella, Rincon de la Victoria, Antequera or Velez-Malaga has given the PP an unstoppable upward trend, and well above that of the PSOE, in terms of the total population that these won municipalities represent.
BRATISLAVA, May 27 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese ambassador to Slovakia and local guests have shared stories about the Zhongjie Friendship Farm founded over 60 years ago, expecting the exemplar of friendship and cooperation to play bigger role in promoting China-Slovakia cooperation.

Sino-Czechoslovakia is shortened to "Zhongjie" in Chinese. At a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Slovakia on Thursday evening to commemorate the founding of the Friendship Farm and promote cooperation between the two countries, Chinese Ambassador to Slovakia Sun Lijie shared the story of the farm with the guests attending the reception.

According to Ambassador Sun, the Friendship Farm located in Cangzhou, China's Hebei Province, was named by late Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. It was founded with the help of some 670 sets of agricultural machinery that the former Czechoslovak Republic gifted China in 1956.

Former Slovak Ambassador to China Dusan Bella said there is no better place than the Friendship Farm to demonstrate the long-term friendship and cooperation between his country and China.

Bella had made multiple visits to the Friendship Farm during his tenure in China from 2017 to 2022. After his first visit to the farm in March 2017, he also showed many Slovak delegations around the place.

Referring to a museum displaying how the experts from then country of Czechoslovakia taught the Chinese farmers about the machinery, he said that part of history "is not available" nowadays in the Slovak Republic or the Czech Republic. "And this is which touched me very deeply," he added.

Today, the Friendship Farm serves as a bridge for exchanges and cooperation between China and Slovakia, as well as a channel of China's cooperation with the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), Sun said.

Over the past decades, the farm has expanded and upgraded. In 2013, it was turned into the Zhongjie Industrial Park (ZIP). Five years later the China-CEEC Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Cooperation Zone was established in the park.

The cooperation zone has facilitated 59 cooperation projects with a total investment of 15.44 billion yuan (around 2.2 billion U.S. dollars). Based on bilateral cooperation related to the zone, Cangzou has built sister city relationship with 10 CEE cities and established Heibei-CEE Universities Alliance to boost education cooperation, according to Sun Xirang, director of the cooperation zone's Administrative Committee.

Karol Sebo is the marketing manager of Slovakia's Shebo Winery, which founded the Zhongjie Nitra Winery in the ZIP. Recalling his recent trip to attend the China-CEEC expo held in Chinese city Ningbo, he said his company was satisfied to sustain the level of orders they had before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bella said knowledgeable businessmen will find good opportunities in Asia and especially in China, because China is creating very good conditions for foreign businesses and there are dynamic economic activities.

"When it (the farm) was created in 1956, nobody thought there would be such changes in six decades," Bella said, expecting lasting friendly cooperation for more decades to come. 
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DEAR ABBY: One of my dear friends is Christian. She knows Im Jewish. I dont expect her to acknowledge many of the Jewish holidays because Im sure shes unfamiliar with them. However, Hanukkah is ubiquitous, and it would be nice if she would wish me a Happy Hanukkah.

Every year, she wishes me a Merry Christmas, buys me a Christmas gift and a Christmas card. Shes a truly nice person, and I dont think shes deliberately being dismissive or insensitive. I have mentioned this to her several times over the years, but it seems to fall on deaf ears. Without insulting her or seeming ungrateful, how can I let her know this bothers me? -- OBSERVANT IN OHIO

DEAR OBSERVANT: If shes a dear friend, shes not likely trying to upset you. A month before the beginning of Hanukkah this year, remind her that you do not celebrate the Christian holiday of Christmas. It should allow her enough time to find a suitable card for you. If she forgets after that, do not exile her into the wilderness, but forgive her.

** ** **

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

** ** **

For everything you need to know about wedding planning, order How to Have a Lovely Wedding. Send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $8 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby, Wedding Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.)

COPYRIGHT 2023 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

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Students of Manlius Pebble Hill School celebrated at their junior senior prom Saturday, May 27, 2023. The event had an old Hollywood theme and was held at Sky Armory in downtown Syracuse.

Our photographer captured the excitement, fun and amazing gowns, suits, and accessories. We hope you enjoy the photos taken at the event, taken by contributing photographer Lia Garnes.
Less than two months after he pleaded guilty to storming the U.S. Capitol, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlsons then-Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other rioters whom the site called political prisoners.

The Justice Department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised  a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy.
Tourists explore a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 17, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Tourists explore a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 17, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Tourists explore a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 17, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Tourists explore a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 17, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Tourists explore a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 17, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Tourists explore a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 17, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Tourists explore a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 17, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

A concert is held in a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 4, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua)

Tourists attend a training session before exploring a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 17, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Tourists attend a training session before exploring a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 17, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

A concert is held in a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 4, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua)

Tourists explore a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 17, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Tourists visit Shuanghe Cave national geological park in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 16, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Tourists explore a karst cave in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 17, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)

Students visit Shuanghe Cave national geological park in Suiyang County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, May 16, 2023. As home to Shuanghe Cave, the longest cave in Asia, Suiyang County has been developing its tourism industry with abundant cave resources in recent year, aiming at meeting diversified demand of tourists. (Xinhua/Liu Xu)
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"I think it's a good chance to invest in China." German business insiders attending the third Sino-German Sci-tech Forum in China's Quanzhou have spoken highly of the economic cooperation between the two countries. #GLOBALink







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Cutting corners: Legal fees certainly aren't cheap, so when we retain legal representation, we assume we're paying for that legal professional's time and expertise. Rather than provide the typical services retained, one Manhattan lawyer tried to shorten the research process by letting ChatGPT cite his case references for a Federal Court filing. And as he found out the hard way, fact-checking is pretty important, especially when your AI has a penchant for making up facts.

Attorney Steven A. Schwartz was retained by a client to represent them in a personal injury case against Avianca Airlines. According to the claim, Schwartz's client was allegedly struck in the knee with a serving cart during a 2019 flight into Kennedy International Airport.

As one would expect in this type of legal situation, the airline asked a Manhattan Federal judge to toss the case, which Schwartz immediately opposed. So far, it sounds like a pretty typical courtroom exchange. That is, until Schwartz, who admittedly never before used ChatGPT, decided that it was time to let technology do the talking.

In his opposition to Avianca's request, Schwartz submitted a 10-page brief citing several relevant court decisions. The citations referenced similar cases, including Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines, and Varghese v. China Southern Airlines. According to the New York Times' article, the last citation even provided a lengthy discussion of federal law and "the tolling effect of the automatic stay on a statute of limitations."

While it sounds like Schwartz may have come armed and ready to defend the case, there was one underlying problem: none of those cases are real. Martinez, Zicherman, and Varghese don't exist. ChatGPT fabricated them all with the sole purpose of supporting Schwartz's submission.

A NY lawyer is facing judicial sanction after using #ChatGPT to prepare a legal brief filed in a Manhattan court. The cases cited by #ChatGPT were all bogus. On the brighter side of things, #AI may not be replacing lawyers any time soon. https://t.co/fHGkQZhxRk  Dr. Gideon Christian (@ProfXtian) May 27, 2023

When confronted with the error by Judge P. Kevin Castel, Schwartz conceded that he had no intent to deceive the court or the airline. He also expressed regret for relying on the AI service, admitting that he had never used ChatGPT, and was "...unaware of the possibility that its content could be false." According to Schwartz's statements, he at one point attempted to verify the authenticity of the citations by asking the AI if the cases were in fact real. It simply responded with "yes."

Judge Castel has ordered a follow-on hearing on June 8 to discuss potential sanctions related to Schwartz's actions. Castel's order accurately presented the strange new situations as "an unprecedented circumstance," littered with "bogus judicial decisions, with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations." And in a cruel twist of fate, Schwartz's case could very well end up as one of the citations used in future AI-related court cases.
The China-South Korea semiconductor cooperation will now be boosted, as confirmed by officials at the recent APEC Trade Ministers Meeting 2023.

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and South Korean Trade Minister Ahn Duk-geun confirmed this effort as the U.S. government tries to limit China's access to semiconductor resources.

As of writing, China and the United States are still battling each other in the tech sector. Washington already blacklisted Chinese tech companies.

Aside from this, the U.S. government also restricted citizens from offering assistance to China's chip industry.

China-South Korea Semiconductor Cooperation To Be Strengthened!

According to Bloomberg's latest report, Wentao and Duk-Geun are ready to strengthen the investment and bilateral trade cooperation between China and South Korea.

(Photo : STR/AFP via Getty Images) This photo taken on November 19, 2018 shows a worker checking laptop parts in a factory in the Hangyong Auto Industrial Park, in Lu'an City, in China's Anhui Province. - The factory produces equipment for Toshiba, Matsushita and other international brands.

Also Read: Micron Becomes First Foreign Chip Maker to Put Under Cybersecurity Review by China

During the APEC Trade Ministers Meeting, the two officials exchanged their views on how the stability of the industrial supply chain can be maintained and how semiconductor cooperation can be boosted.

Wentao said China is willing to work with the ROK to boost bilateral trade and investment cooperation with South Korea.

Meanwhile, ROK is also willing to enhance bilateral trade and economic cooperation further, as well as expand the areas of cooperation under regional and multilateral frameworks.

US-Japan Chip Cooperation Also Being Enhanced

Aside from China and South Korea, the United States and Japan announced that they'll boost their semiconductor cooperation.

The two countries said they'd work together to track and solve geographic concentrations of production undermining semiconductor supply chain resilience.

The South China Morning Post reported that this effort was discussed by US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and her Japanese counterpart, Yasutoshi Nishimura.

These semiconductor cooperation efforts clearly show that the U.S., China, and other countries are taking the competition to the next level.

If you want to learn more details about the semiconductor cooperation enhancements of China, South Korea, the U.S., and Japan, you can click this link.

In other news, the Netherlands announced it would block semiconductor tech experts as the U.S.-China chip war continues.

Meanwhile, chip maker TSMC was recently in talks with Germany about subsidies for its first European plant.

For more news updates about the semiconductor industry, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: US Calls South Korean Chipmakers to Not Fill Any Market Gaps if China Bans Micron Chips

 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
China's online watchdog has recently announced the deletion of 1.4 million social media posts as part of a two-month investigation into various online violations, including misinformation, illegal profiteering, and impersonation of state officials, Reuters reported.

The move is part of the country's ongoing efforts to "clean" cyberspace and increase online content control.

China Moves to Remove Disinformation Channels

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) revealed in a statement that it had taken down 66,600 social media accounts and removed hundreds of thousands of posts between March 10 and May 22.

Out of the 67,000 permanently closed accounts, nearly 8,000 were removed for spreading fake news, rumors, and harmful information, according to the CAC. An additional 930,000 accounts faced lesser penalties, from losing followers to temporarily suspending or canceling profit-making privileges.

The administration also said it issued over a hundred public announcements regarding the recent operations.

In a separate campaign, the regulator shut down over 100,000 accounts allegedly impersonating news anchors and media agencies. This action was taken to combat the rise of online fake news, often facilitated by advancements in AI technology.

The campaign aims to rectify " self-media " issues," a term used to describe accounts that disseminate news and information that are not government-controlled or state-approved.

Why China Is Tightening Control of Online Platforms

The CAC issues regulations, grants licenses, and imposes penalties in accordance with established rules for government agencies. It is China's official cyber delegate to international bodies.

Reuters tells us that China has been actively targeting billions of social media accounts since 2021 to tighten control over online platforms.

By purging content and accounts, the government seeks to prevent the dissemination of sensitive or critical information about the Communist Party, the government, or the military, especially when it has the potential to go viral.

The CAC's latest crackdown also targeted approximately 13,000 counterfeit military accounts, including those with names like "Chinese Red Army Command," "Chinese Anti-terrorist Force," and "Strategic Missile Force."

Moreover, 25,000 accounts were flagged for impersonating public institutions such as disease control centers and state-run research institutes.

Read Also: Every Attorney General is Suing Avid Telecom for It Being Responsible for 7.5 Billion Robocalls

Impersonation of news media businesses led to punishment for around 187,000 accounts, while more than 430,000 accounts were accused of offering professional advice or educational services without the necessary qualifications.

The CAC emphasized its collaboration with public security and market supervision agencies in delivering a significant blow to illegal "self media." The agency also called on internet users to actively monitor and report illegal activities, encouraging them to provide information to help maintain clean cyberspace.

China's control over online content has drawn criticism from advocates of free speech and human rights. The strict regulations surrounding social media and the suppression of dissenting voices highlight the government's commitment to maintaining political stability and control over public narratives.

Stay posted here at Tech Times.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman suddenly changed his tone. Recently, he warned that they would cease their operations in Europe if the AI laws were too strict.

This May, Altman is on a tour to meet European regulators. Now, it seems like his tour is going smoothly, as he announced that they have no plans of leaving the region.

"Very productive week of conversations in Europe about how to best regulate AI!" said the tech executive via his official Twitter post.

very productive week of conversations in europe about how to best regulate AI! we are excited to continue to operate here and of course have no plans to leave.  Sam Altman (@sama) May 26, 2023

He added that they are excited to continue their operations in Europe and have "no plans to leave."

OpenAI CEO Excited To Operate in Europe

According to PCMag's latest report, Altman shared the positive news after he met with leaders in Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, as well as France.

Also Read: OpenAI Expands ChatGPT iOS App in Canada, Brazil, and More Countries!

His latest Twitter announcement generated over 360,000 views. In the comment section, many consumers also shared their excitement.

One of them said that the announcement of Altman was great news. The Twitter user added that he would be happy to invite Sam Altman to the largest AI co-working space in Europe.

If you want to see the opinions of OpenAI's fans, you can check their Twitter replies below.

Thanks, that is really good to hear  Nico Muller (@nicomuellerAT) May 26, 2023

Thank heavens!  Marcus van der Erve (@MarcusErve) May 26, 2023

Thats great to hear. Would be happy to host you at our AI Campus in Berlin - largest AI co working space in Europe. Cheers  Rasmus Rothe (@rasmusrothe) May 26, 2023

OpenAI CEO Favors AI Regulations?

Forbes reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman urges U.S. lawmakers to create AI regulations.

However, after the European Union proposed a new AI legislation, Altman became concerned after he saw the existing legislation draft.

Altman even claimed that the current draft of the EU AI Act is "over-regulating."

Because of this, he said that they are prepared to halt their operations in Europe if ever they can't comply with the upcoming AI regulation.

"If we can comply, we will, and if we can't, we'll cease operating... We will try. But there are technical limits to what's possible," said OpenAI's CEO.

In other stories, Apple decided to restrict its employees from using OpenAI's ChatGPT and other similar AI tools.

We also reported about the new OpenAI text-to-3D system, which is available for open-source download.

For more news updates about OpenAI and other AI companies, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: OpenAI Launches Program to Award $100,000 Grants for AI Governance Experiments

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The Greening of Streaming movement is an eco-friendly campaign that aims to tackle the environmental impact of the streaming industry.

As of writing, numerous non-profit organizations and companies are already making efforts to encourage people to change their habits for the good of the environment.

Most of these movements focus on proper waste disposal, as well as conventional car replacements.

However, numerous people across the globe are not aware that even online streaming can affect the environment.

What is the Greening of Streaming Movement?

According to MakeUseOf, the Greening of Streaming is an organization that was founded by the owner id3as, an Advanced Video Pipeline (AVP) company.

Also Read: Netflix Cuts Down Movie Production Amid Reorganization

Dom Robinson created the Greening of Streaming movement as he was concerned about the negative environmental effects of streaming platforms.

Cambridge Digital Innovation explained that streaming could drastically impact the environment. This is because of the data transmission and energy consumption of streaming devices.

Numerous studies claimed that the streaming industry is responsible for over 3% of the global carbon footprint.

This is because streaming lies on massive infrastructure centers, devices (such as TVs, smartphones, and computers), as well as networks.

How To Get Involved and Why You Should

Based on the latest statistics, over 230 million users access Netflix this 2023.

If you are a heavy Netflix user, then you should definitely get involved in the Greening of Streaming movement. One way to do this is by donating to the Greening of Streaming organization.

For those asking if they can become a member, this is not a great option since the org's memberships are focused more on companies and other organizations as they cost thousands of dollars.

Aside from donating, the Greening of Streaming movement also encourages individuals to contribute their ideas to the LESS Accord.

Of course, the most known way to lessen the effects of streaming is by reducing your screen time. But, if you have other ideas on how to reduce streaming's impact on the environment, you can submit your ideas to the LESS Accord by clicking here.

In other news, Earth.org recently urged the tech industry to take climate action.

Meanwhile, ByteDance removed TikTok's climate change denial videos as part of its Earth Day 2023.

For more news updates about eco-friendly movements, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

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The United States will not tolerate China's recent decision to ban chips by Micron Technology in some critical sectors. The authorities are now working closely with allies to address this issue, described as "economic coercion."

(Photo: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images) A view of a building where the facilities of US semiconductor giant Micron are located in Shanghai on May 22, 2023. US semiconductor giant Micron has failed a national security review, China's cybersecurity watchdog said on May 21, telling operators of "critical information infrastructure" to stop buying its products.

US' Response to China's Micron Chips Ban

During a news conference after a meeting of trade ministers in the country, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo stated the United States would not tolerate the recent decision by Chinese authorities to ban developed chips by Micron Technology. Bloomberg reported that she described the current administration's reaction using her sharpest language.

China's recent decision to ban companies from purchasing Micron-developed products is a reflection of targeting a company from the United States without any basis. "In fact, we see it as plain and simple economic coercion, and we won't tolerate it, nor do we think it will be successful." It remains unclear what steps the Us might take.

In response to this, Raimondo stated that the administration is consistently engaging with their partners and allies on addressing this specific issue, along with other challenges related to China's nonmarket practices. The administration will not tolerate this decision and thinks that it will not be successful.

Previous Conducted Meetings

This statement comes after previous meetings conducted by the administration. According to a report from Reuters, Raimondo also raised this concern during a meeting on Thursday with China's Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Washington. This was also followed by a similar meeting on Friday with the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai.

The conducted meetings are part of the United States's effort to restore high-level discussion with Beijing, which includes potential visits to China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and possible meetings between US President Joe Biden and China President Xi Jinping.

As per Deputy Trade Representative Sarah Bianchi that we will get to see ongoing dialogue regarding this issue. She stated, "How difficult those conversations will be or what they'll lead to, I don't know, but the conversation in and of itself is actually quite important."

Also read: Micron Becomes First Foreign Chip Maker to Put Under Cybersecurity Review by China

Companies were recently banned by the Cyberspace Administration of China from purchasing Micron products after finding significant security risks to critical information infrastructure. Including state-owned banks and telecom operators.

This decision will have a huge impact as Micron Technology is the largest memory manufacturer in the US, which accounts for 10% of its annual revenue from the Chinese market. Micron also became the first foreign chip maker to be put under cybersecurity review by China, followed by the existing trade tensions between the two countries.

Micron responded to the recent ban by saying that they are standing by their products and continue to communicate and cooperate with regulators from China. "The Chinese government may restrict us from participating in the China market or may prevent us from competing effectively with Chinese companies," the company stated when the review was announced.

Related Article: China Bans Companies from Purchasing Micron Products After Failing Security Review

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A lawyer admittedly relied on ChatGPT in his legal filing for representing a client suing an airline in Colombia, which manufactured non-existent cases as his basis. After being an attorney for 30 years, this case could completely derail his entire career.

(Photo : MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images) A photo taken on March 31, 2023, in Manta, near Turin, shows a computer screen with the home page of the artificial intelligence OpenAI web site, displaying its chatGPT robot. - Italy's privacy watchdog said on March it had blocked the controversial robot ChatGPT, saying the artificial intelligence app did not respect user data and could not verify users' age.

Using ChatGPT in Legal Filing

Levidow & Oberman Attorney Steven A. Schwartz has admitted to using ChatGPT in his legal filing for representing Roberto Mata in a lawsuit for suing Colombia's Avianca Airlines. According to a report from Phone Arena, Schwartz could now find a new profession, as this case can completely derail his entire career for submitting non-existent cases.

US District Judge Kevin Castel from the opposing counsel stated, "Six of the submitted cases appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations." For example, one case called Varghese v. China Southern Airlines Co., Ltd. referenced another real case (Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd.) but got the date and other details wrong.

Aside from this, it also includes non-existent cases made by ChatGPT called Shaboon v. Egyptair, Petersen v. Iran Air, Martinez v. Delta Airlines, Estate of Durden v. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and Miller v. United Airlines.

This was confirmed as Schwartz admitted in an affidavit and verified by asking the chatbot if it was lying. ChatGPT went on to apologize for the confusion, saying that some provided details were real and could be found on Westlaw and LexisNexis.

Setting Up Separate Hearing

As a response to this "unprecedented circumstance," Castel sets up a separate hearing next month as he is considering potential sanctions for the plaintiff's lawyers, which will include another attorney at the same firm named Peter LoDuca. He will become the new attorney of record on the case, and he will have to attend in front of the judge to explain the issue.

After the opposing counsel realized that the provided cases were not real, The Verge reported that Schwartz provided a screenshot of his interaction with ChatGPT and stated that he was unaware of the possibility that its content could be false as he double-checked the chatbot if the provided case is true.

ChatGPT added that the provided cases could be found in "reputable" legal databases and reliable sources. But despite these statements from the chatbot, none of them could be found online.

Also read: ChatGPT Sucks at Accounting, Humans Still Better According to Study

Mashable reported that the whole fiasco started when Schwartz's client Robert Mata was suing Colombia-based Aviance Airlines after a serving cart injured his knee during a flight, which the airline attempted to dismiss the case by getting a judge.

As a response to this, Mata's lawyers objected to this and submitted a brief filled with similar court decisions, which are now proclaimed as fake and non-existent cases produced by ChatGPT.

Related Article: A New York Woman Used ChatGPT to Write a Letter Citing Legalities to Get Landlord to Fix Her Apartment Appliance

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NHS is facing a serious allegation. A new investigation claims that the National Health Service is sensitive details of patients to Facebook without their consent.

The information allegedly shared includes treatments, medical conditions, as well as medical appointments. If the accusations are true, then this privacy issue is a major problem since it discloses very sensitive medical information to people.

The investigation was conducted by The Guardian's Observer. If you are a regular user of NHS websites, then here are the details you need to know.

NHS Allegedly Shares Patient Information With Facebook Without Consent!

According to The Daily Mail UK, NHS is allegedly sharing patient data with Facebook via a covert tracking tool called "Meta Pixel."

Also Read: [VIRAL] iPhone Invisible Photos TikTok Videos Now Viral; Is This Spying?

The Observer investigation claimed that 20 NHS trust webpages are using the Meta Pixel tool to collect browsing details. After that, the tool will share the acquired sensitive information with Facebook's parent company, Meta.

Of course, Meta said that this tool is being used for business purposes, such as enhancing targeted advertising services. However, if the acquired medical details are linked to users, they could reveal personal medical information.

Why NHS Alleged Data Sharing is Concerning

Numerous NHS trusts already confirmed that they are incorporating the tracking tool. They said that the main purpose of using this kind of tech is to monitor recruitment or charity campaigns. But, they clarified that they are not aware that the medical information of their visitors is being shared with Facebook.

This is concerning since patients visiting these NHS websites are usually researching gender identity services, sexual health, cancer, HIV, self-harm, and other sensitive health topics.

Remember, protecting the identity of people with HIV, suicidal thoughts, and other similar health conditions is very important.

Because of the newly discovered use of the Meta Pixel tool in NHS websites, the health agency quickly took action to solve the issue. "Immediate action has been taken to remove it," said an NHS spokesperson.

If you want to learn more about the latest privacy issue of NHS, you can click here.

In other news, a report revealed that Russia has been tightening its surveillance and censorship ever since 2014. Meanwhile, cybersecurity experts warned that advertisers monitor every move of people.

For more news updates about cybersecurity, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: Senators Issued Satellite Phones for Emergency Communication: Heightened Security Measures Revealed

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China Eastern Airlines Corp Ltd has made history by entering China's domestically developed narrow-body C919 jet into passenger service.

This milestone achievement marks a significant step forward in China's ambitious endeavor to establish itself as a self-reliant player in the aviation industry.

The C919 is the brainchild of the state-backed Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) and has been in development for 15 years. Its primary objective is to compete with industry giants Airbus SE and Boeing Co.

China to Join Aviation Market with Homegrown Jet

Nikkei Asia tells us in a report that President Xi Jinping has praised the C919 project as a testament to Chinese innovation and a symbol of industrial prowess and national pride.

This sentiment was echoed in the Beijing Daily, which stated, "After generations of endeavor, we finally broke the West's aviation monopoly and rid ourselves of the humiliation of '800 million shirts for one Boeing.'"

The reference harks back to China's early years of economic reform when it mainly produced low-value goods.

C919 Records First Commercial Flight

The inaugural commercial flight of the C919 took place on Sunday, departing from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, where Comac and China Eastern Airlines are headquartered.

More than 10,000 people bid for the 30 tickets available for public purchase, with officials and journalists filling the remainder, according to state media.

Read Also: This Passenger Plane Aims to Shatter the Sound Barrier in Record Time

The aircraft successfully landed two hours later at Beijing Capital Airport, where it was greeted by a water cannon ceremony, marking a smooth and promising first journey.

Passengers disembarking from the plane expressed confidence in the C919, stating that the flight was even smoother than anticipated.

Following its inaugural flight, the C919 is scheduled to return to Shanghai and embark on a more extended two-way flight to Chengdu, a city in southwestern China.

More C919s to Fly Soon

China Eastern Airlines, in March 2021, placed an order for five C919 jets, with the first delivery taking place in December of the same year. The remaining four planes are expected to be received throughout 2023.

As of the end of 2022, Comac had secured 1,035 orders from 32 customers, and it is reported that the figure has since surpassed 1,200, according to a company official. The planemaker aims to produce 150 C919 jets annually within the next five years, a goal reported by domestic media in January.

Although the C919 is assembled in China, it relies heavily on Western components, including engines and avionics, sourced from companies such as General Electric Co, Safran SA, and Honeywell International Inc.

While the domestic market is considered sufficiently large for the C919, the international market presents challenges due to the lack of certification from European and U.S. regulators.

The C919's predecessor, the ARJ21, a short-haul 90-seat aircraft, has been in commercial operation since 2016 and is flown by major Chinese airlines and Indonesia's TransNusa.

Stay posted here at Tech Times.

Related Article: First China-Made C919 Passenger Jet Finally Delivered-A New Milestone for Chinese Aviation!

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Google My Maps is a hidden feature of the search engine's popular map application.

There's no denying that Google Maps is one of the best map apps on iPhones and Android smartphones. It allows you to check alternative routes, gets the estimated arrival time, know the nearest restaurants, etc.

But did you know that Google Maps has another function that can help your trip planning? If you haven't used Google My Maps yet, then this step-by-step guide is definitely for you.

Trip Planning With Google My Maps

TechRadar reported that Google My Maps is a service offered through Google Maps. This feature allows users to attach their information to locations.

Also Read: iOS 17 Voice-Cloning Feature: Everything We Know About Personal Voice; Release Date, Possible Risks, More

Thanks to Google My Maps, travelers can create their own custom online maps. Among the specific capabilities of this service are multiple markers, custom routes, colored labels, and detailed notes.

Aside from creating custom maps, another great capability of Google My Maps is its ability to share these custom maps with users' friends.

How To Use Google My Maps

Using the Google My Maps service is a piece of cake. All you need to do is follow the instructions provided by How To Geek, below:

First, visit the official Google My Maps website and access it using your Google account. After that, create a new custom map. You can also name it if you want. Once the custom map is created, you can now put your preferred destinations. Once your destinations are identified, you can customize labels, imagery, as well as tags.

When you already have the custom maps that you want to share with your friends and family, here are the steps you can follow:

First, you need to open a custom map in your Google My Maps. After that, find the Share Map button and click it. Once you've done that, several options for custom map sharing will appear. To complete the sharing process, just choose the custom map-sharing options you prefer.

Here is other news we recently wrote about apps:

Recently, OpenAI confirmed that the ChatGPT iOS app is expanding in Brazil, Canada, and other countries. Meanwhile, an Apple patent showed the details of the alleged Find My Apple Pencil feature.

For more news updates about Google My Maps and other popular applications, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: Google Recorder App Gets Optimized UI For Large-Screen Devices Ahead of Pixel Fold, Tablet's Release

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This photo taken on May 27, 2023 shows the HQ Intelligent System (HIS) at the exhibition area of Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Ren Chao)

BEIJING, May 28 (Xinhua) --Running from May 25 to 30, the ongoing 2023 Zhongguancun Forum (ZGC Forum) being held in the Chinese capital's innovation hub, has drawn top scientists, institutions, and well-known innovation and entrepreneurship entities from across the world to discuss international cooperation on scientific and technological development.

New energy vehicles (NEVs) and relevant products take the spotlight at this year's ZGC Forum.



This photo taken on May 27, 2023 shows a new energy vehicle displayed at the exhibition area of Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

This photo taken on May 27, 2023 shows a Hyundai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle for display at the exhibition center of Zhongguancun National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

This photo taken on May 27, 2023 shows the HQ Modular Electric (HME) at the exhibition area of Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Ren Chao)

People visit the exhibition center of Zhongguancun National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone in Beijing, capital of China, May 27, 2023. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

This photo taken on May 27, 2023 shows a new energy vehicle displayed at the exhibition area of Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Ren Chao)

This photo taken on May 27, 2023 shows a Hyundai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle for display at the exhibition center of Zhongguancun National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

This photo taken on May 27, 2023 shows the HQ Intelligent System (HIS) at the exhibition area of Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)

A staff member displays the HQ Intelligent System (HIS) at the exhibition area of Zhongguancun Forum in Beijing, capital of China, May 27, 2023. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)
Beijing is making significant strides in fostering innovation and development in the Web3 industry.

The Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, also known as the Administrative Commission of Zhongguancun Science Park, recently unveiled the "Web3 Innovation and Development White Paper" at the Zhongguancun Forum, Cointelegraph tells us in a report.

This white paper recognizes Web3 technology as an inevitable trend for the future of the Internet industry.

A Closer Look at the White Paper

To establish Beijing as a prominent global innovation hub for the digital economy, the commission plans to allocate a minimum of 100 million yuan ($14 million) annually until 2025.

This funding announcement was made by Yang Hongfu, the director of the Zhongguancun Chaoyang Park management committee, during the forum mentioned above.

Zhongguancun, often referred to as China's Silicon Valley, is renowned for its concentration on technology companies and startups.

Read Also: Web3's Newest Disruptors: The Rise of Decentralized Perpetual Exchanges

The white paper aims to enhance policy support and expedite technological advancements in order to foster the growth of the Web3 industry.

More Governments Implement Crypto Regulations

This move comes at an intriguing time, as Hong Kong is set to implement new cryptocurrency regulations on June 1. We reported that the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong recently introduced a rulebook for the cryptocurrency industry, allowing retail investors to participate in crypto trading.

China itself banned the use of cryptocurrencies in 2021, but the release of the Web3 white paper suggests a potential shift in its stance. Cointelegraph tells us that Beijing's recognition of Web3 technology and its focus on fostering innovation could signify a more open approach to the industry.

The significance of this development is further emphasized by a cryptocurrency segment that aired on China Central Television, a state-owned broadcaster, on May 23. The segment prominently featured the Bitcoin logo and a Bitcoin ATM in Hong Kong.

Beijing's commitment to supporting Web3 innovation and development aligns with the global trend of exploring decentralized technologies.

Web3, often referred to as the decentralized web or the next evolution of the internet, holds immense potential for various industries, including finance, supply chain, healthcare, and governance.

By investing in this emerging field, Beijing aims to position itself at the forefront of the digital economy and promote technological progress.

China and Decentralized Technologies

As the Web3 industry continues to evolve and gain momentum, the release of Beijing's Web3 white paper signifies a significant step forward in China's approach to decentralized technologies.

In Other News

As reported by CNA, the provincial government of Bali in Indonesia will crack down on foreign visitors who use cryptocurrencies as a payment method in hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions, shopping centers, and other establishments.

"Foreign tourists who behave inappropriately, do activities that are not allowed in their visa permit, use crypto as a means of payment, and violate other provisions will be dealt with firmly," said Bali Governor Wayan Koster at a press conference.

Stay posted here at Tech Times.

Related Article: Mental Health Care to Thrive in the Metaverse With Web3 Tools

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Can users trust ChatGPT's cancer information? This is just one of the questions revolving around the popular AI chatbot.

As of press time, OpenAI's artificial intelligence is still criticized. Aside from information accuracy, ChatGPT is also facing concerns about biases and harmful content that prompts created by bad users can generate.

Now, a new study decided to check if ChatGPT can really provide accurate cancer-related information. Here's what involved researchers discovered.

Can ChatGPT's Cancer Information Be Trusted?

According to SciTech Daily's latest report, the new study relied on the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) list.

Also Read: G-7 Leaders Want to Develop an AI Framework Called the 'Hiroshima AI Process' After the Recent Summit

This used the list of frequent cancer myths and misconceptions as their testing ground. Based on their findings, ChatGPT was able to provide cancer-related information with around 97% accuracy.

However, there's a catch. Involved researchers explained that the cancer information provided by ChatGPT could be misunderstood or misinterpreted by users.

Skyler Johnson, a University of Utah professor involved in the study, said that if users misunderstand ChatGPT's answers, it could lead to some bad decisions, especially with cancer patients.

"The team suggested caution when advising patients about whether they should use chatbots for information about cancer," he added.

Other Issues With ChatGPT's Cancer Information

Aside from being misunderstood, experts said that the cancer-related answers provided by the AI chatbot are sometimes unclear, vague, and indirect.

"I recognize and understand how difficult it can feel for cancer patients and caregivers to access accurate information," explained Johnson.

The main researcher added that ChatGPT's answers should be studied thoroughly. This will allow health experts to help cancer patients understand the online information available so that they can have proper answers about their diagnoses.

To learn more about this new research about ChatGPT, you can visit the official study on The National Cancer Institute Cancer Spectrum.

In other stories, the ChatGPT ban was lifted by New York City public schools. Meanwhile, the ChatGPT iOS app finally expanded in Brazil, Canada, and other countries.

For more news updates about ChatGPT and other AI models, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: Lawyer Uses ChatGPT for Legal Filing, Cites Non-Existent Cases

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A 13-year-old Australian girl has tragically lost her life as a result of a dangerous social media trend known as "chroming."

The devastating incident has sparked calls for action and heightened awareness of the harmful effects of hazardous activities.

Another Dangerous Trend

As reported by Fox News, this dangerous trend involves inhaling fumes from various substances, including aerosol cans, metallic paints, gas, and solvents.

The act of sniffing chrome-based paint, which is thought to provide a euphoric high, is where the term "chroming" originates. The practice, reminiscent of the long-standing trend of huffing or sniffing, has claimed lives in the past, and tragically, Esra became its latest victim.

Esra's father, Paul Haynes, expressed his grief and determination to prevent others from suffering the same fate.

He emphasized the urgent need for preventive measures: "We want to help other children not fall into the silly trap of doing this silly thing. It's unquestionable that this will be our crusade."

The Haynes family is devoted to raising awareness about chroming and ensuring that no other family endures the heart-wrenching loss they have experienced.

Inhaling Paint Is Dangerous

In late March, Esra took part in a social media challenge that involved inhaling fumes from a deodorant can, triggering a cardiac arrest.

Despite being swiftly brought to the hospital, her brain sustained irreparable damage, leading her family to make the unimaginable decision to discontinue life support.

A recent report by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has unveiled a disturbing trend among young people: an increasing number of individuals have admitted to experimenting with sniffing paint.

Read Also: Researchers Develop App to Combat Pedestrian Deaths Caused by Smartphone Distractions

Of particular concern is the fact that a significant majority of those who continue to engage in this dangerous practice are under the age of 18.

Inhalant abuse, commonly referred to as "huffing," involves the deliberate inhalation of fumes from substances such as paint.

When paint is sniffed, the chemicals present in the fumes are rapidly absorbed through the lungs and into the bloodstream. Research says these chemicals swiftly cross the blood-brain barrier, affecting the brain and other organs throughout the body - leading to brain and muscle disorders.

Advocating for More Education Efforts

Following this incident, the Victoria Education Department in Australia has pledged to intensify efforts to educate children about the dangers of chroming and its potentially fatal effects.

Esra's parents also urge schools to incorporate CPR training into their curriculum, as prompt action during emergencies can be a matter of life and death.

The Haynes family is further advocating for the development of safer and less toxic deodorant formulas to mitigate the risks associated with chroming.

In light of their efforts, some retailers, including Woolworths and Coles, have taken immediate action by securing aerosol deodorants behind locked glass cases, restricting access to these potentially lethal substances.

Regrettably, this tragic incident is not an isolated case. Last month, we reported on the death of a 13-year-old boy in Ohio who fell victim to a viral TikTok challenge. This challenge involved ingesting excessive Benadryl pills to induce hallucinations, leading to severe health complications and hospitalizations among Australian teenagers.

Stay posted here at Tech Times.

Related Article: Doctors Extract Massive Ball of Chewing Gum from Young Boy's Stomach

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Apple hasn't confirmed the exact release date of the new iPhone 15.

But, based on the recent launch schedules of Apple, the next-gen iOS smartphone lineup could just be months away.

As of writing, the giant gadget maker hasn't shared any major detail about the new iPhone 15.

Although this is the case, numerous tech enthusiasts already shared their predictions. Aside from rumors, iPhone 15 dummies are also appearing online. This means that the design for the new iPhone 15 lineup is becoming clearer.

iPhone 15 Dummies Now Appearing!

According to Toms Guide's latest report, the appearances of iPhone dummies are big deal.

Also Read: New iOS 17 To Turn iPhones Into Smart Home Display When Locked; Here's What to Expect

Dummies are commonly used to show the dimensions and details of new products so that cases and other accessories can be made. Before the iPhone 14 lineup was released, numerous dummies for it also became rampant.

Recent news stated that iPhone 14 dummies were accurate since they were able to predict the design of the iOS handsets.

Now, tech experts said that the latest iPhone 15 dummies could be accurate as well.

This means that the design of these dummy devices has a high chance of matching the official look of the new iPhone 15 units.

What iPhone 15 Dummies Look Like

The iPhone 15 dummies were first revealed by MacRumors via its official YouTube channel.

Based on the source's official video, the dummies' looks are quite similar to the design of the iPhone 14. However, there are some notable changes. One of these is the removal of the Lightning ports.

Instead, the iPhone 15 dummies have USB-C ports, which hints that Apple is taking its USB-C effort to the next level. Aside from this, the mute switch was replaced by a new button as well; with it possibly being an Action button.

These are just some of the notable changes seen in the new iPhone 15 dummies. You can watch the official YouTube below to see more.

The iPhone 15 lineup is not the only new smartphone that could be released before 2023 ends. Previously, Sony confirmed a new flagship smartphone specifically designed for content creators; the XPERIA IV.

Meanwhile, the latest Oppo K11x was finally launched in China.

For more news updates about new iOS and Android handsets, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: Next-Gen iPhone Display Could Work Like Parchment Scrolls; When Will Roller Screens Arrive?

 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
An Indian official lost his smartphone after he accidentally dropped it in a reservoir.

Because of this, Rajesh Vishwas, a food inspector in Kanker, Chhattisgarh district, was left with no choice but to drain the entire dam.

For some people, this sounds like a funny incident. However, for Vishwas and the affected residents, it was a nightmare.

Indian Official Drains Reservoir Just To Retrieve Smartphone

According to Interesting Engineering's latest report, Vishwas was taking a selfie near the Kherkatta Dam last weekend.

Also Read: $500,000 Worth of Bitcoin Will Now Be Split as Part of Divorce; Is Crypto Easier To Track Than Fiat Money?

Unfortunately, while he was trying to take photos of the reservoir and himself, his handset accidentally slid from his hand. Because of this, he asked for help from divers. But they failed to retrieve the smartphone.

Left with no choice, Rajesh decided to order his subordinates to drain the entire Kherkatta Dam.

They even used a diesel pump to completely drain the reservoir. The activity lasted for three days; with millions of liters of water from the dam being removed.

This action of his was criticized by a water resource department official, who filed a complaint. After that, Rajesh was suspended.

"He has been suspended until an inquiry. Water is an essential resource, and it cannot be wasted like this," said Kanker district official Priyanka Shukla.

What happened to the smartphone?

Rajesh's smartphone was retrieved. However, the device was no longer in usable condition when it was pulled out of the dam.

BBC News reported that the handset is a Samsung smartphone (the exact model was not disclosed), which costs around $1,200.

Rajesh was not really concerned about his smartphone. What he is worried about is the sensitive government information it contains.

The Indian official further defended himself, saying that the water drained benefited the farmers because it flowed through a nearby canal.

If you want to learn more about this unfortunate smartphone incident of Rajesh, you can click here.

Here are other peculiar stories we recently wrote:

Previously, the official Airbus Twitter account was hacked; users claim it was one of the company's employees. We also reported about Elon Musk's Twitter alt account, which was spotted by one of his fans.

For more news updates about viral stories, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: [VIRAL] iPhone Invisible Photos TikTok Videos Now Viral; Is This Spying?

 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
French researcher Didier Raoult finds himself under fire as prominent medical organizations demand swift action to be taken against him.

A report shared by MedicalXpress tells us that accusations have been hurled at Raoult, accusing him of conducting the largest "unauthorized" clinical trial ever witnessed on the use of hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19.

This gripping controversy casts doubt over Raoult's practices and raises concerns about patient safety.

Unauthorized Drug Trials

The accusations stem from an op-ed piece published on Le Monde's website, jointly authored by 16 reputable research bodies.

In this scathing critique, Raoult and his team are criticized for their administration of medications, including hydroxychloroquine, zinc, ivermectin, and azithromycin, to COVID-19 patients without substantial scientific evidence or a solid pharmacological foundation.

Astonishingly, these drugs were administered to patients for over a year, even after their inefficacy had been irrefutably proven.

Didier Raoult, an expert in tropical diseases, gained considerable notoriety for promoting hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic.

Former US President Donald Trump and then-Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro further fueled his advocacy, tainting his title as a 'science star.'

However, the tides began to shift in April when France's medications authority, ANSM, issued a cautionary statement against hydroxychloroquine due to its potentially serious side effects.

Medical Bodies Demand Action Against Raoult

In light of these alarming revelations, the collective of medical bodies is demanding immediate action to be taken against Raoult.

They aim to safeguard patient well-being and uphold the integrity of French medical research, which has been put in jeopardy by these controversial practices.

The medical community asserts that appropriate measures must be implemented to ensure that such unauthorized trials do not compromise the health and trust of patients.

Read Also: Can ChatGPT's Cancer Information Be Trusted? New Study Says It's 97% Accurate-But, Here's the Catch

The controversy surrounding Didier Raoult's actions first came to public attention when he published a "pre-print" study in March. Notably, this study had not yet undergone rigorous scientific peer review, intensifying the debate surrounding his methods.

Raoult's Controversial Study

The study claimed to evaluate the treatment of a staggering 30,000 COVID-19 patients, triggering Marseille prosecutors to initiate an investigation into potential fraud and unwarranted human testing at Raoult's former workplace, the IHU Mediterranee research hospital.

Despite the ongoing probe, no charges have been filed against any individuals thus far.

Taking a closer look at the aftermath, the French government has launched its own investigation into the IHU Mediterranee under Raoult's leadership.

This decision was prompted by a scathing report from inspectors, shedding light on further concerns regarding the management and practices at the renowned institution.

Health Minister Francois Braun has refrained from commenting on the ongoing investigation but confirmed that the latest study would be thoroughly examined as part of the inquiry.

Stay posted here at Tech Times.

Related Article: WHO Unveils Global Network on Pathogen Genomics to Prevent Another Pandemic

 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
"...More than 64.1 million people are expected to vote in the runoff..."

Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cast his vote in the country's runoff election, and talked to reporters, referring about this election being the first presidential runoff in Turkiyes democratic history. Voting began at 8 a.m. local time (0500GMT).

Erdogan urged all citizens to cast their vote, adding that voter turnout was close to 90% in the May 14 elections. More than 64.1 million people are expected to vote in the runoff. Around 1.92 million overseas voters already cast their ballots and 4.9 million first-time voters are expected at the polling stations.

Erdogan greeted supporters as he cast his vote in Istanbul, calling on Turks to vote in the high-stakes election. I think the vote counting process will be very fast today. It is important to see such elections for the presidency for the Turkish democracy, Erdogan said after voting.

Participation at 90 percent is typical in the first round. Turkey affirmed its adherence to democracy with a 90 percent participation in the elections. I hope that the results of the elections will be good for Turkey. We appeal to voters to go to the polls and adhere to democracy, Erdogan stated.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged people to turn up and vote after he cast his ballot in Istanbul.



The president, vying for his third term in office, hailed the "strength" of Turkish democracy as shown by the high 87% voter turnout in the first round https://t.co/Fe6ZLfPAZm pic.twitter.com/1Ezct8ft4a  Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) May 28, 2023

On May 14, a million of voters exercised their voting rights to elect the nation's president and representatives to its 600-seat legislative body.

The People's Alliance under the leadership of Erdogan secured a majority in parliament in contrast to the six-party Nation alliance of the opposition.

Although Erdogan was in the lead with 49.52%, the presidential race will be decided in Sundays runoff since no candidate could get the required 50% plus 1 in the first round.
ADEN, Yemen, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Yemeni security forces announced on Saturday the arrest of eight suspects linked to the Islamic State (IS) group in the southern province of Lahj.

The security forces carried out a late-night operation in the Yafea area of Lahj province and busted an eight-member IS terror cell, which included four foreign fighters, said a brief press statement.

All eight men arrested have confessed to being affiliated with the IS, according to the statement.

Amidst the years-long military conflict raging in Yemen, tensions have been escalating in the southern regions, with terror militants gaining a foothold by exploiting the current instability.

Yemen has been embroiled in a devastating civil war since 2014, with the Houthi rebels fighting against the internationally-recognized government and its allies. 
These are the mobiles in which WhatsApp will stop working properly from June 1

Roscosmos: the launch of the Russian Luna-25 spacecraft will take place in August

The official ChatGPT app is now available in Spain

Borisov: it is necessary to create a plant for the mass production of satellites in Russia by 2026

After about ten days in space: Crew of second private ISS mission back on Earth

Morgana: two childhood friends and an ode to Galicia on the plate that shines with good prices from Chueca

"Lack of a unified command": 800 years ago, the ancient Russian squads were defeated by the Mongols on the Kalka River

Sascha Lobo on the warnings about artificial intelligence: Advertising with the end of the world

Yushu children's first study tour of the Forbidden City: The "red" of the Forbidden City is very beautiful

"It's nice to hear the song from a real singer": Campino praises Anastacia's version of "Days Like These"

Yukio Mishima's novel and short stories about the future: in May, the books "Kyoko House", "Horde of Headwinds" and "Proof of Man" were published

Defense attorney who tried to record in court Left the court in handcuffs Ordered 3,<> yen fine Osaka District Court

Liu Zhenyun: After thinking maturely, I will write about urban young people who do not "lie flat"

(m+) HHLA: Why Chief Financial Officer Tanja Dreilich has to leave after only 6 months

Sara Andres, athlete: "Unfortunately, with the sun either something bad happens to us or we are unconscious"

Loquillo: "Those who say that in the 80s there was more freedom is because they lived very well in the Franco regime"

Ahead of the start of the Japan Championships in Athletics, Sani Brown is eager to win back-to-back titles

Ksenia Shoigu spoke about the preparation of the One Run race held in China

Anders Christiansen out of action for the rest of the season for Malmo FF

After five hard battles against Brazil, the Chinese women's volleyball team of the World League ushered in a good start

Breaks down in the middle of the pitch after the game: "Thought I was going to die"

(Economic Watch) Why are the executives of multinational companies "coming to China fever" again?

Galan (Iberdrola) doubts that a possible Feijoo government can reverse the energy policy that Sanchez has marked

Calvino will present the new plan of European funds to the EU before the elections and without agreeing with the PP

Nearly one in 5 municipalities will increase property tax this year, according to the AMF

Kosovar PM says he will not give in to Belgrade's fascist blackmail

Shenzhou 16 was successfully launched and successfully docked with the space station, and China's electronic technology multi-type equipment escorted the whole process

Kirby: The United States does not want the conflict in Ukraine to escalate into a war with the West because of Kyiv's attacks

Rogov called the statements of US Senator Graham about the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine a psychological operation

Progress in the situation between Russia and Ukraine: Putin called the attack on Moscow an "act of terrorism" Two Russian oil refineries were attacked

Putin instructed to conduct a medical examination of the adult population in the new regions of Russia

The Mawa approached the east of Luzon in the Philippines with little change in intensity or a slight increase

The Infanta Sofia celebrates the confirmation with King Felipe as godfather and with the whole invited family

Indra, Cellnex, Unicaja, NH... power war at the top: "We have to talk about our CEO"

The worst wine in the supermarket is entered in an international competition and wins the gold medal

Two Italian spies and a Mossad agent among four killed in boat sinking on Lake Maggiore

The head of the European Commission announced a new plan to accelerate the integration of the Balkan countries into the EU

(Economic Watch) Why are the executives of multinational companies "coming to China fever" again?

 Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.
These are the mobiles in which WhatsApp will stop working properly from June 1

Roscosmos: the launch of the Russian Luna-25 spacecraft will take place in August

The official ChatGPT app is now available in Spain

Borisov: it is necessary to create a plant for the mass production of satellites in Russia by 2026

After about ten days in space: Crew of second private ISS mission back on Earth

Morgana: two childhood friends and an ode to Galicia on the plate that shines with good prices from Chueca

"Lack of a unified command": 800 years ago, the ancient Russian squads were defeated by the Mongols on the Kalka River

Sascha Lobo on the warnings about artificial intelligence: Advertising with the end of the world

"It's nice to hear the song from a real singer": Campino praises Anastacia's version of "Days Like These"

Yukio Mishima's novel and short stories about the future: in May, the books "Kyoko House", "Horde of Headwinds" and "Proof of Man" were published

Defense attorney who tried to record in court Left the court in handcuffs Ordered 3,<> yen fine Osaka District Court

Liu Zhenyun: After thinking maturely, I will write about urban young people who do not "lie flat"

(m+) HHLA: Why Chief Financial Officer Tanja Dreilich has to leave after only 6 months

Sara Andres, athlete: "Unfortunately, with the sun either something bad happens to us or we are unconscious"

Loquillo: "Those who say that in the 80s there was more freedom is because they lived very well in the Franco regime"

Ahead of the start of the Japan Championships in Athletics, Sani Brown is eager to win back-to-back titles

Ksenia Shoigu spoke about the preparation of the One Run race held in China

Anders Christiansen out of action for the rest of the season for Malmo FF

After five hard battles against Brazil, the Chinese women's volleyball team of the World League ushered in a good start

Breaks down in the middle of the pitch after the game: "Thought I was going to die"

(Economic Watch) Why are the executives of multinational companies "coming to China fever" again?

Galan (Iberdrola) doubts that a possible Feijoo government can reverse the energy policy that Sanchez has marked

Calvino will present the new plan of European funds to the EU before the elections and without agreeing with the PP

Nearly one in 5 municipalities will increase property tax this year, according to the AMF

Kosovar PM says he will not give in to Belgrade's fascist blackmail

Shenzhou 16 was successfully launched and successfully docked with the space station, and China's electronic technology multi-type equipment escorted the whole process

Kirby: The United States does not want the conflict in Ukraine to escalate into a war with the West because of Kyiv's attacks

Rogov called the statements of US Senator Graham about the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine a psychological operation

Progress in the situation between Russia and Ukraine: Putin called the attack on Moscow an "act of terrorism" Two Russian oil refineries were attacked

Putin instructed to conduct a medical examination of the adult population in the new regions of Russia

The Mawa approached the east of Luzon in the Philippines with little change in intensity or a slight increase

The Infanta Sofia celebrates the confirmation with King Felipe as godfather and with the whole invited family

Indra, Cellnex, Unicaja, NH... power war at the top: "We have to talk about our CEO"

The worst wine in the supermarket is entered in an international competition and wins the gold medal

Two Italian spies and a Mossad agent among four killed in boat sinking on Lake Maggiore

The head of the European Commission announced a new plan to accelerate the integration of the Balkan countries into the EU

(Economic Watch) Why are the executives of multinational companies "coming to China fever" again?

 Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.
ANKARA/ISTANBUL, May 28 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the opposition presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Sunday cast ballots in the presidential election runoff that is expected to be a tight race between the two candidates.

Erdogan and his wife traveled to a school in the Uskudar district on the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkiye's largest city, and cast their ballots.

"For the first time, we are witnessing a two-round election," 69-year-old Erdogan told reporters, adding that he believes the voting will end rapidly.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the 74-year-old leader of the center-left Republican People's Party and the chief opponent of the incumbent president, cast his vote in the capital Ankara.

"I invite all our citizens to vote, for democracy to come to this country," Kilicdaroglu said in a brief statement to reporters after casting his ballot.

The polls opened at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will close at 5 p.m. local time. Unofficial results are expected at about 9 p.m. local time.

Almost 54 million people cast ballots in the presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14, contributing to a high voter turnout of 86.98 percent.

None of the candidates had received more than 50 percent of the votes needed to call a winner in the first round. Erdogan won 49.52 percent of the votes and Kilicdaroglu 44.88 percent. Meanwhile, the third-place candidate, nationalist politician Sinan Ogan, gained 5.17 percent and withdrew from the race to back Erdogan. 
South Africa: SA called to unite to protect children

Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu has emphasised that child protection can only be realised, through cooperation and joint efforts from various sectors of society, which brings along all spheres of government under one roof, with a common objective.

I am referring to a cooperation whereby we are all able to work side by side, despite the difference in the colour of our skin, race, belief or doctrine and political affiliation in the interest of our children. It is through such a solid partnership, that we can yield for our nation, a South Africa, free of amongst other social ills, child abuse, cyber bullying, abduction, teenage pregnancy, child labour and child killings, Zulu said.

Speaking at the launch of Child Protection Week campaign, held at James House Community Based Care Centre in Houtbay, Cape Town on Sunday, Zulu said the department is compelled to intensify its efforts in the interest of children.

She said the sectors of society have no choice, but to unite and recommit themselves, as they strive for what is best for the children of South Africa.

She argued that children remain innocent souls who depend largely on us for a better future, warning that if we fold our arms and do nothing to make their future bright by listening, embracing, loving, and keeping them in school, history will judge us harshly one day.

It is in our hands to recommit ourselves to take these children and support NPOs, [including] social workers, teachers and individuals, who out of love and passion for their work, are doing all they can to provide shelter and keep children out of the streets that are full of alcohol, drugs, and rapists and human traffickers, to mention just a few, Zulu said.

Child Protection Week was launched under the theme, Let us Protect Children during COVID-19 and Beyond, a clarion call for South Africans from all walks of life, to play their part, as we provide an unwavering support to children.

Do not shy away from issues raised by children

The Minister urged the society not to shy away from issues raised by children during the campaigns build-up dialogues, held last week at James House Community Centre.

Amongst the issued raised by children, included a plea that parents must receive counselling and emotional support, and that parents should consider treating them differently, as the current modern times they live in, has changed.

The children also called for more positive parenting rather than resorting into violence, corporal punishment against children.

Zulu reiterated that child protection remains their constitutional rights which holds in high esteem by various pieces of national, and international legislative provisions, including the Childrens Act.

The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of a Child, which emphasises that, all children have the right to a place to live, and to be raised with love, affection, and security. Children, in terms of the African Charter, should not be abused or work before a certain age, meaning, the Charter is against any form of child labour practices.

Similar to other areas across the country, the Western Cape Province may also have farmers who illegally employ under aged children. Therefore, such labour practice must be discouraged and reported to the law enforcement agencies for immediate action, the Minister said.

The Minister commended 6 052 child and youth care workers across the country, who are working hard to protect 181 569 orphaned and vulnerable children, these include 12 307 of them who are in the Western Cape Province.

RISIHA Programme

Zulu also commended 816 Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs) nationwide who are also playing part in the implementation of RISIHA programme.

She said this year, the department will raise awareness on its community based prevention and early intervention programme RISIHA (resilience in Xitsonga).

RISIHA is aimed at moving orphaned and vulnerable children from vulnerability to resilience and seeks to build and develop more resilient children who would grow and become responsible citizens capable enough to deal with the countrys social ills, including, the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment, and inequality.

Offered by the help of Child and Youth Care Workers, RISIHA is implemented in line with the seven domains of Core Package of Services (CPS) to ensure that there is integration and standardisation of services to vulnerable children; and appropriate referrals are made to relevant stakeholders.

Zulu said the seven domains of CPS programme include child care and protection, psychosocial support, HIV and AIDS, health promotion, food and nutrition, economic strengthening, as well as educational support for orphaned and vulnerable children.

Another advantage about this programme is that it makes provision for children aged between zero and 18 years, and on instances where a child is above 18 years, and still attend school, these services may be extended until a child reaches the age of 21, Zulu said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2023-05-28. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.

Ellena Gonzalez, left, and Leslie Garcia compare hats while attending the Suenos Music Festival in Chicagos Grant Park on May 27, 2023. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

There was a time when many Latino artists creating music in Spanish aimed to cross over to the Anglo market. It was a sign of success, that you have made it, said Messiah, a Dominica Latin trap artist that attended the second annual Suenos Music Festival in Chicagos Grant Park over the weekend.

But now you see the Anglo market trying to do the crossover to the Latino market  seeing many artists that sing in English trying to collabo with those who make music in Spanish, he said. Thats a prime example of how big of a force we are.

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Music industry leaders have recognized the value of not only music in Spanish in the United States but the value of their fans and the need for spaces to celebrate them.

Suenos, Chicagos first large-scale reggaeton music festival, did just that, galvanizing thousands of fans from the city and suburbs, some traveling from different states. On opening day Saturday, most were of Latino descent, and some were not, but the power of music united them all.

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The fact that it is at Grant Park is meaningful because this is normally where Lolla and some of the biggest festivals are at, said Julio de La Cruz from Back of the Yards. Its very special for us. It makes me feel proud to see the crowd and see so many Latinos together.

Julio De La Cruz, center, hangs out with friends while attending the Suenos Music Festival in Chicagos Grant Park, May 27, 2023. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

Suenos (Dreams in English), was launched last year as a festival of reggaeton music and Latino culture, and as a way of recognizing the strong and growing Latino culture of the city, according to its organizers. But as regional Mexican music also transcended language barriers and gained in popularity in the last year, the genre of the artists at the festival also expanded.

Headliners include Wisin Y Yandel, Grupo Firme, Feid and Nicky Jam. Other artists scheduled include Becky G, Junior H and Chencho Corleone.

Chicago local DJ Miriam will be returning. Last year, she said, it was a dream for her mother to see her perform alongside top Latino artists.

Many waved flags of different South and Central American countries, others wrapped themselves in them: there were Mexican flags, Puerto Rican, Colombian and Peruvian flags.

Wrapped in a Puerto Rican flag, Gerardo Quintana smiled at the crowd. Though he is Mexican, someone had given him the flag during a performance and he took it.

This is how it should be all the time, said Quintana. This is valuable because I feel like we had been ignored, and this is a fun way of enjoying our heritage and loving one another. We are stronger together, celebrating one another.

Quintana said that festivals empower Latinos to support one another and uplift their morale because they feel valued. He hopes it gets to the level of Lollapalooza, it has that potential, he said.

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Gerardo Quintana, of Villa Park, at the Suenos Music Festival in Chicagos Grant Park, May 27, 2023. Born in Mexico, Quintana spent the day wrapped in a Puerto Rican flag that a group gave him. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

But while most felt proud and celebrated, others said that some of the amenities still need some work to make it a worthwhile experience. The wait to get inside the festival for some was nearly an hour, causing frustration and anger, and comparisons it to the production level of festivals like Lollapalooza.

It was so disappointing, said Lisette Mendoza, who waited over an hour to get inside the festival.

The festival, organized by La Familia Presenta and the producers of Lollapalooza, has the goal to be a place where fans can feel free, seen and connect with one another, according to a statement from organizers. In response to Tribune questions about wait times Saturday, a festival spokesperson said in part that fans showed up in force early in the day, which left us with some less-than-ideal wait times. We are making some changes for day two to improve the entrancing experience while also maintaining a high level of safety. The Chicago Latin community has been amazing, and we will always work to provide a top-level experience.

Michelle Garcia, 25, did not let the wait trump her excitement to be at the festival surrounded by more than 20 of her friends. The group had long awaited the weekend after attending the first festival last year.

Im listening to my playlist live, she said. I feel proud that our music is up there on the charts, that people are more aware of our music.

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Mayor Brandon Johnson took the stage on Saturday for a few minutes, promising that the festival would have a home in Chicago for as long as he is in office.

As long as Im mayor of Chicago, Suenos will always exist, he said to a cheerful crowd. (You all) are the soul of Chicago.

Nearly 100,000 festival goers were expected through the weekend in Grant Park.

But the Latino representation goes beyond the music. The festivals food and beverage options are also made up of local Latino vendors, some immigrant-owned. More than 75% of the food and beverage vendors at the festival in 2022 were Latinos, said Jaime di Paulo, president of the Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Festival organizers also increased their commitment to giving back to the community, announcing donations of some $50,000 to four local organizations including this year the National Museum of Mexican Art and the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance.

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Music artist Messiah at the Suenos Music Festival in Chicagos Grant Park, May 27, 2023. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

Messiah, a pioneer of Latin Trap, remembers when few listened and many did not believe in the music. Now there are artists like Bad Bunny, transcending culture, language, and many more barriers.

Theres no longer a need to know Spanish, and understand the lyrics to appreciate the art of the music, he said.

Look at how far weve come, he said as he looked around the festival. It was in 2013 when his first song went viral. Its a proud dad moment, he laughed.

larodriguez@chicagotribune.com
BAGHDAD, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Aqil Hamdan, a professor at Baghdad-based al-Mustansiriyah University, said China could play a vital role in Iraq's post-war reconstruction, particularly through the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Saying infrastructure in Iraq was dilapidated after decades of wars, sanctions, and economic woes, the professor believed "Chinese companies can meet Iraq's urgent need for foreign investment, technology, and equipment" to restore its economy.

"We need the BRI, for it is a project that builds roads and bridges and promotes development in industrial and medical areas, as well as in residential cities," Hamdan said, noting Western countries illegally invaded and occupied his country whereas China brings an answer to prosperity.

"China does not occupy any country," Hamdan said, highlighting that China develops relations with other countries based on "mutual benefit and common destiny."

Calling Iraq "a natural partner of China" due to its central location on the ancient Silk Road, Hamdan believed cooperation between China and Iraq can "promote the connectivity of Asian, European and African continents."

Hamdan is also an active member of a local non-governmental organization called "The Popular Movement of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Port of al-Faw," which supports Chinese investment in the country's al-Faw Great Port project.

Being active in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces, the organization's members include former government officials, scholars, entrepreneurs, and workers.

Anwar al-Bahadli, another member of the organization, who had once worked at the Iraqi embassy in Beijing for four years, described China's achievements since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001 as "qualitative breakthroughs."

He said, "Iraq must take the 'Chinese train of growth' as it is the best solution to tackle its own problems."

The BRI was first put forward in 2013, seeking to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks to improve regional integration, increase trade and stimulate economic growth.

Ten years on, the initiative has developed into a beacon of economic growth with more than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations signing cooperation documents under the BRI framework.

Haider al-Rubaie, head of the Iraqi-Chinese Friendship Association, hailed the BRI as "a joint development initiative that helps the world to achieve justice, peace, and security."

He noted that more and more Chinese entrepreneurs have come to invest in Iraq and more fruits are expected to be borne in bilateral cooperation.

"We (the association) are getting busier because of the closer relationship between the two countries," al-Rubaie told Xinhua.

He stressed that the friendship and cooperation between Iraq and China should not be destroyed by lies and hostile policies from Western countries against the BRI.

Lauding the BRI as a development program for the whole world, al-Rubaie said China "helps the world to be one home, one village, so that there is no difference between Iraq and China, for we are all friends and brothers." 
Even though the classroom is empty, math teacher Jeanne Norwood has class during a virtual-only day in which Zachary High School teachers work from their classrooms to reach the school's 1,500-plus students who are learning at home Friday November 13, 2020, in Zachary, La. Part of an update on COVID in schools in the BR area with the news hook being the decision this week of Zachary High to go virtual only and not reopen in person until after the Thanksgiving break.
The founder of popular retail chain Gorman has won a court case against the group that owns the bulk of the well-known fashion brand over her attempts to sell her shares in the business after severing ties in 2021.

Lisa Gorman has been locked in a court battle with Factory X, the majority owner of her eponymous brand, since she announced she was stepping down as creative director of the group in November 2021.

Lisa Gorman, founder of well-known fashion brand Gorman.

When I left Gorman after a very successful 13-year partnership, I did not think the terms of my exit would end up in the Supreme Court, Gorman said on Sunday. I hope that following the courts ruling, Factory X and I can agree final terms quickly without any dispute.

At the time of her exit, she held 25 per cent of the shares in the Gorman business, which is known for its colourful and quirky prints. The shares represent Gormans entire stake in the business she founded in 1999. She acquired the shares as part of a deal in 2009 with Factory X. Factory X owns Australian fashion brands including Alannah Hill and Dangerfield and is majority-owned by David Heeney.
BEIJING, May 28 (Xinhua) -- Assets under the management of China's public offering funds totaled 27.29 trillion yuan (about 3.86 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of April, data from the Asset Management Association of China showed.

The scale of closed-end funds reached 3.67 trillion yuan, while open-end funds stood at about 23.62 trillion yuan, the association said. A total of 10,813 public offering funds were operated by 143 fund management companies.

Of all the fund management companies, 47 were foreign-funded and 96 were domestic firms, the association said. 
US President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached an agreement in principle to raise the federal governments $US31.4 trillion ($48 trillion) debt ceiling, but now Congress must rush to approve the spending cuts package in a matter of days to avert a potentially disastrous US default.

The agreement risks angering both Democratic and Republican sides as lawmakers on Sunday begin to unpack the concessions made to compromise. Negotiators agreed to some Republican demands for increased work requirements for recipients of food stamps that had sparked an uproar from House Democrats as a non-starter. But they stopped short of greater spending cuts overall that Republicans wanted.

US President Joe Biden, before heading to Camp David, remains in touch with his negotiators on the debt ceiling. Credit: Bloomberg

Biden and McCarthy held a 90-minute phone call on Saturday evening to discuss the deal.

The deal would avert an economically destabilising default, so long as they succeed in passing it through the narrowly divided Congress before the Treasury Department runs short of money to cover all its obligations. Support from both parties will be needed.
Brittany Higgins notified one of the ABCs most respected journalists that she planned to make a formal complaint against the federal police, according to leaked WhatsApp messages.

In a series of messages between Higgins and ABC 7.30s Laura Tingle, obtained by Daily Mail Australia, Higgins accused the Australian Federal Police of going against protocol and releasing her mental health records and other private information to the legal team of Bruce Lehrmann, the former Liberal staffer she had accused of raping her in March 2019.

Shane Drumgold, Brittany Higgins, Bruce Lehrmann Credit:

In 2021, Higgins publicly accused Lehrmann of rape, a charge he has always denied. Lehrmanns trial was abandoned in October last year after juror misconduct and no findings were made against him.

Last week Australian Federal Police acting Assistant Commissioner Joanne Cameron told an inquiry, led by Walter Sofronoff, KC, that federal police detective Superintendent Scott Moller believed it was clear that Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold had tipped off Tingle that the complaint was about to be lodged.
The dreadful paradox is that four young lives ended, and another was broken, in one of the loveliest areas of western Victoria.

The Wannon-Nigretta Falls Road, a few kilometres north-west of the old city of Hamilton in far-south-west Victoria, is just what it says it is.

Wannon Falls on the Wannon River. Credit: Tony Wright

At its eastern end lies the Nigretta Falls, a cascade of the Wannon River tumbling down a series of channels formed by ancient broken lava.

About 10 kilometres to the south-west, the river plunges 30 metres in a single stream over a lava shelf, clear to a pool below. This is the Wannon Falls.
It found the top 10 accounts promoting the No case  which sent 2609 tweets over this period  appear to be pseudonymous profiles which dont contain any identifying information, real profile pictures or original photos. Loading Four out of the top 10 Yes accounts are pseudonymous, while the other six are authentic. The analysis used a detection model known as Botometer and found little evidence that either side were using bots to boost their campaign efforts. There are likely about six bots tweeting using the #VoiceToParliament hashtag, with three on each side, the analysis showed.

Something different starting to happen on Twitter At some point between October and December, Australians will vote on the referendum to enshrine in the constitution a Voice to parliament, which will make representations to the parliament and the government on issues that impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Australias chief union boss Sally McManus last week said something different was starting to happen on Twitter, with hundreds of accounts she had never seen before spreading racist content about the referendum. This was different to the normal trolling, the secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions said. It is clearly organised, on a large scale, racist and designed to sow division.

The No side on Twitter is now more active, sending a total of 34,395 tweets (61 per cent), compared to 20,244 tweets for the Yes side (36 per cent), according to Grahams analysis. Out of the top 20 most active accounts, only three are Yes supporters. There has also been a big influx of new accounts on the No side since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the referendum last year, with 30 per cent of accounts against the Voice created since 2022 compared to 9 per cent on the Yes side. The analysis used a program called HateSonar to find that 327 tweets on the No side amounted to hate speech while 63 tweets supporting the Voice also qualified. The No side also had twice the amount of offensive language in its tweets.

Leading No campaigners including Warren Mundine and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price have been subject to racial abuse on Twitter, including with the racial slur of coconut . There are concerns that the toxic debate online could lead to violence. Warren Mundine and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen The nations top spy, Mike Burgess, last week said his agency had recently undertaken security assessments on the referendum, which he labelled a significant event which may incite spontaneous violence. The director-general of ASIO said there was no intelligence that other countries were planning to interfere in the referendum, but warned the agency was on the lookout for such a risk.

Playbook that comes straight from the pandemic Like McManus, ABC radio host Virginia Trioli said her Twitter account had recently been flooded with the most awful racist shit and inflammatory Voice disinformation since posting in support of her indigenous colleague Stan Grant. Loading Very few of these accounts actually follow me, so what evil Elon algo draws this stuff to my account? Trioli said last week, referring to Twitters owner Elon Musks changes to the social media platform. Labor MPs privately said they were experiencing something similar lately on both Twitter and Facebook, with their posts being deluged by No Voice messaging which included conspiracy theories and racist abuse.

Albert Zhang, an analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institutes International Cyber Policy Centre, said his think tank hadnt yet observed any mass-coordinated inauthentic accounts such as bots, but warned that would probably change in the lead-up to the referendum. Loading Based on the language used by accounts in the tweets targeting public figures online, it appears that most of the accounts are probably from Australia and a small amount are probably from the US, Zhang said. This reflects some existing racist views in Australia and the additional anonymity on social media allows users to be more abusive with impunity. Instead of bots, Zhang said he suspected the online abuse and trolling was being influenced by prominent Twitter users such as Josephine Cashman, who has stated that the Voice is a United Nations and globalist conspiracy.

Cashman, an Aboriginal lawyer and former One Nation candidate who has more than 15,000 followers on Twitter, posted nine replies to Triolis two tweets last week which included erroneous accusations against the ABC journalist. Zhang said the proliferation of conspiracy theories was being worsened by the fact that anyone on Twitter can now pay to amplify their posts after Musk removed blue checks for verified accounts. This is partly fuelling distrust in public figures and is creating an environment where misinformation and hate speech thrive, he said. Ed Coper, director of communications agency Populares, said he believed there was a coordinated campaign on Twitter to manipulate the narrative even if it did not involve bots.

The digital communications expert said this was being done by copy and pasting the same comments repeatedly so that the algorithm starts boosting the message. Loading Theres very similar messages all over Twitter, he said. That is a playbook that comes straight from the pandemic, and prior to that around Donald Trumps election in 2016. Either they are genuine accounts, or they might be what we call  sock puppet accounts  one person might be operating a handful of different accounts just to give their voice a bit more spread further and wider, and its very effective. Coper said platforms such as Twitter need to do a much better job of ensuring every account is genuine, and that users arent deliberately manipulating the algorithm to spread conspiracy theories.
If the jobs arent there, it doesnt matter how much training we get offered or how much training we have. Michael OConnor, national manufacturing secretary of the CFMEU, who resigned from the governments sham forestry advisory body in disgust, had little faith in the government to transition workers into appropriate jobs after blindsiding the industry without consultation. Through ignorance or stupidity, they have increased the harm, OConnor said. Richard Pelzs family run haulage business takes sawdust and wood chips from sawmills. Credit: Joe Armao What was the rush? You had to make the announcement on budget day, did you? When your media strategy becomes more important than public policy, thats a government thats lost the plot.

Richard Pelz  a hauler subcontracted to collect wood chips and sawdust from sawmills  has not received any government help since logging paused in November and does not know if his family-run business and 30 staff, including Booth, will be supported. Thats a bitter pill to swallow. I dont want to swallow it, I want to get compensated like everybody else, and I dont think its too much to ask, Pelz, in his 60s, said. Youd think theyd have the balls to come up and see you. A native timber forest on the outskirts of Orbost which was partially logged three years ago after a bushfire. Credit: Joe Armao Trucks make the journey out of Orbost with hauls from logging and return with freight for the supermarkets. Now, the journey would be empty one way and Pelz said the price of groceries could be forced up in the town as a result.

Median incomes in Orbost are almost half the state average, census data shows. Most workers believed the government was chasing Greens votes in inner-Melbourne at the expense of what was once considered Labors traditional working-class base. Garry Squires, a semi-retired forestry consultant in Orbost who once worked at the now Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), said available work would be an hours commute each way and expected the small population of about 2200 would be diminished. Garry Squires is a forestry consultant, devastated for what the end of native logging will mean for Orbost. Credit: Joe Armao The whole fabric of your town is eroded, Squires said.

The communitys never been happy about the fact were closing the industry down but at least we had that warning [for 2030]. The communitys been looking at other options in terms of employment for the town but many of those things were going to take a while. Forest fire management has relied on the industry to manage roads, create containment lines and lop dangerous or fallen trees. Squires and East Gippsland Shire Mayor Mark Reeves said there was not enough detail on how that would be taken over when the industry vacates. Local National Party MP Darren Chester, who represents many of the affected towns, accused Victorian Labor MPs of being gutless and letting down blue-collar workers who were once the partys base. If this timber ban goes ahead, it will devastate the social and economic life of small towns in my community. The flow on impacts are hard to predict but as working age people leave the district, things like footy and netball clubs will cease to exist and schools become unviable, the Gippsland MP told The Age. No one wants a bloody handout from Dan Andrews, they want to have the decency of a job to provide for the financial security of their families in the towns they love.

Treasurer Tim Pallas on Wednesday confirmed bushfire management would need the industrys machinery, particularly from harvesting and haulage. A government spokesman said workers would be helped into jobs in land management and critical forest bushfire responses while others would be offered retraining in industries like renewable energy and construction. Wood chips in one of Richard Pelzs trucks. Credit: Joe Armao Forest Fire Management Victoria was contacted. Ewan Waller, the states former chief fire officer who also worked in forestry, said he believed a more targeted approach to native logging 20 or 30 years ago could have stopped the need for a ban. Through mismanagement, we end up where we are. A cheap political decision which suits inner Melbourne and leaves remote parts of Victoria hung out to dry.

Loading Bushfire risks from climate change was a bigger and more complex threat and abruptly banning native logging would not automatically make state forests safe, he said. Industry workers also questioned whether imported timber, which Victoria would increasingly rely on, would have worse labour and environmental standards. Vince Hurley, chief executive of Australian Sustainable Hardwoods, said the government could have staged the ban to allow businesses to exit with dignity. The business had started diversifying, but that was working towards 2030. We would like to protect jobs, obviously, and we want to have a business going forward. I think we can manage a business going forward, but I dont know what that looks like, Hurley said.

I dont know what were going to do, I dont know the answer yet. Piles of wood left to naturally dry for months at Australian Sustainable Hardwood, with general manager Dave Gover. Credit: Joe Armao He said support from the government so far was chicken feed and most of what they had been offered was rhetoric. A government spokesman said its priority was forestry workers, their families and communities. We do not take the decision around an early transition out of native timber harvesting lightly, but the uncertainty from ongoing litigation and severe bushfires cannot continue, he said.

Loading We will also back our supply chain businesses to ensure they have access to specialist financial support, business planning and diversification services. Workers at supply chain businesses will be offered training, employment and mental health support from ForestWorks. Privately, not all Labor MPs agree with the decision, particularly in Canberra. Three federal Labor MPs, speaking to this masthead on the condition on anonymity, said they disagreed with the decision to bring forward the ban, and were furious with the way the news had been delivered to communities. This is not the way you do things, one federal Labor MP said.
Rev3Endurance is thrilled to announce the highly anticipated return of the Cowboy Tough Adventure Race, proudly sponsored by Visit Cheyenne. This exhilarating race will challenge participants to push their limits and embrace their inner cowboy toughness amidst the breathtaking landscapes of Wyoming. Rev3Endurance is thrilled to once again host races in Wyoming and working with Visit Cheyenne to host a world class Cowboy Tough adventure race, said Mike Spiller, spokesperson for Rev3Endurance.

The Cowboy Tough Race offers three distinct race options to cater to athletes of varying skill levels and interests. On August 12, 2023,adventure seekers will have the opportunity to choose between the 24-hour race, 8-hour race, or the 4-hour adventure race designed specifically for beginners and families.

24-Hour Race:

A race that will put racers endurance to the ultimate test. With sections reaching over 8,000 feet in elevation, this race promises awe-inspiring views, thrilling mountain biking trails, and challenging trekking sections. Brace yourself for two paddle sections that will have you conquering the winds and experiencing the untamed spirit of the Wild West.

8-Hour Race:

Tailored for beginner to intermediate level participants and set against the stunning backdrop of the Laramie Mountains at Curt Gowdy State Park, this race will take participants on a journey encompassing running, biking, paddling, and navigating their way through the rugged terrain. Covering an estimated distance of 50 miles, including 2-4 miles of paddling, 8-12 miles of trekking, and 25+ miles of mountain biking, this race guarantees an unforgettable experience.

4-Hour Adventure Race:

Lasso a friend or two and dive into the world of adventure racing. Designed for beginners and families, the 4-hour adventure race at Curt Gowdy State Park promises an excellent introduction to the thrill and excitement of adventure racing. Get ready to run, bike, paddle, and navigate your way through the park's stunning trails, while creating memories sure to last a lifetime.

Race participants can look forward to the Camp Russell Shelter at Curt Gowdy State Park serving as the race headquarters. Conveniently located just 30 minutes from Cheyenne, Wyoming, the park provides ample parking and camping options within walking distance of the race venue.

"Rev 3 Endurance Cowboy Tough Adventure Race is a testament to the indomitable spirit and rugged beauty of Wyoming," said Domenic Bravo, CEO for Visit Cheyenne. "We are excited to partner with Rev3Endurance to showcase our state's natural wonders and provide an exhilarating experience for participants of all skill levels."

Registration for the Rev 3 Endurance Cowboy Tough Adventure Race is now open. To learn more about the race and secure your spot, please visit: www.rev3endurance.com/cowboy-tough-adventure-race.
Chinese peacekeepers march at a medal parade ceremony in Hanniyah village, southern Lebanon, July 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Zongya)

"First of all, I want to highlight the key areas where China has been really in the lead, particularly the issue of safety and security," said Jean-Pierre Lacroix, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations.



by Xinhua writer Wang Jiangang

UNITED NATIONS, May 28 (Xinhua) -- UN peacekeeping chief is immensely proud of the illustrious 75-year path of UN peacekeeping and commended China's invaluable contributions to this noble endeavor.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Wednesday, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, noted the "extensive list of countries that have successfully regained stability with the support of peacekeeping operations. Countries like Timor-Leste, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Angola have all witnessed positive transformations."

"The lengthy roster stands as a testament to the effectiveness of peacekeeping efforts," said Lacroix, also highlighting the significant role of peacekeepers on a daily basis.

"Their crucial role in preserving ceasefires cannot be underestimated. In many conflict-stricken regions, peacekeepers actively monitor and maintain peace, preventing potential hostilities from escalating into full-scale conflicts. This vital function often goes unnoticed but remains integral to maintaining stability," he stressed.

Chinese peacekeepers clear the ruins of the port explosions in Beirut, Lebanon, Sept. 30, 2020. (Photo by Zhao Wenhuan/Xinhua)

"Peacekeepers safeguard hundreds of thousands of individuals on a daily basis," Lacroix went on to say. "The gratitude expressed by the protected population emphasizes the profound impact peacekeepers have in providing security and instilling hope."

"These successes, often underreported, represent the dedication and commitment of peacekeepers to make a tangible difference in the lives of those affected by conflicts worldwide," said the peacekeeping chief.

Lacroix applauded China's significant role as the second-largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping efforts and its "invaluable contributions."

Lacroix underscored the tangible impact of China's unwavering support in advancing UN peacekeeping endeavors.

"First of all, I want to highlight the key areas where China has been really in the lead, particularly the issue of safety and security," said the peacekeeping chief, expressing his heartfelt appreciation of China's proactive engagement and unwavering collaboration, specifically its instrumental role "in deploying crucial resources."

China has recently accomplished the deployment of indispensable helicopter units in the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA). At a critical moment, Chinese peacekeepers "took on a pivotal role, utilizing these helicopters to successfully extract UN staff members who found themselves trapped in Sudanese regions amid escalating conflicts," said Lacroix.

"We are truly grateful for China's invaluable support and the vital contributions made by their peacekeepers," he said.

Drones are seen in disinfection operation during multinational peacekeeping live exercise "Shared Destiny-2021" in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province, Sept. 15, 2021. (Xinhua/Liu Fang)

Speaking of the ongoing cooperation between the UN and China, particularly in relation to the deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems in Mali, Lacroix said this collaboration "signifies the continuous exploration of new possibilities and the commitment to leveraging technological advancements in peacekeeping operations."

"The deployment of UAV systems holds great potential for enhancing situational awareness and response capabilities in challenging environments," he added.

Looking ahead, Lacroix highlighted an upcoming minister-level meeting on peacekeeping to be held in Ghana. "China's participation and contributions in this meeting are highly valued, given their significant role and contributions to peacekeeping operations." 
The Wyoming National Guard is thrilled to announce the outstanding achievement of Spc. Luke Harrison, who emerged victorious at the Region VI Best Warrior Competition held at Fort Harrison, Mont., May 20, 2023.

Spc. Luke Harrison, along with Cpl. Samuel Buckwalter, showcased unparalleled dedication and resilience throughout the grueling event. The Region VI Best Warrior Competition brought together fifteen exceptional Soldiers from across the region, pitting them against each other in a series of demanding challenges that tested their physical fitness, tactical proficiency, and mental acuity. Both Harrison and Buckwalter fought valiantly, demonstrating their unwavering commitment to excellence.

Spc Harrison Best Warrior

However, it was Harrisons extraordinary skills, unwavering determination, and exceptional performance that earned him the coveted title of Soldier of the Year. His ability to excel under pressure, coupled with his unmatched expertise, set him apart from his fellow competitors and solidified his well-deserved victory.

Harrisons triumph is a testament to the Wyoming National Guards unwavering commitment to fostering the growth and development of its Soldiers. Additionally, his victory showcases the high caliber of individuals within the Wyoming National Guard, reflecting the values of discipline, resilience, and professionalism that are ingrained in the organizations ethos.

As a result of his exceptional achievement, Spc. Luke Harrison will be representing the Wyoming National Guard at the upcoming National Guard Best Warrior Competition. This prestigious event, hosted by the Alaska National Guard in July 2023, will bring together the finest warriors from across the nation to compete for the ultimate title.

Spc Harrison Best Warrior

We are immensely proud of Spc. Luke Harrisons exceptional performance at the Region VI Best Warrior Competition. His dedication, skills, and unwavering spirit exemplify the core values of the Wyoming National Guard, stated Command Sgt. Maj. Lindsay Schmidt, State Command Sergeant Major of the Wyoming Army National Guard.

We have every confidence that Spc. Harrison will continue to make us proud as he competes in the National Guard Best Warrior Competition. His unwavering commitment to excellence serves as an inspiration to all our Soldiers.

The Wyoming National Guard extends its heartfelt congratulations to Spc. Luke Harrison on his remarkable achievement and wishes him the best as he prepares to represent the state and the organization at the national level. The entire Wyoming community stands behind him, ready to offer their unwavering support as he embarks on this next chapter in his journey.
Mark Guarino, author of Country & Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival, is flanked by musicians Jane Baxter Miller and Robbie Fulks on May 8, 2023, in Chicago. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS)
Brendan McDonough/Livingston County NewsU.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer recently announced the launch of Livingston Countys Light Up Livingston initiative, which will provide high-speed internet access to over 1,000 Livingston addresses. Empire Access, a family-owned telecom provider based in Prattsburgh, Steuben County, is partnering with Livingston County to build out the new infrastructure.
U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters as he arrives at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, May 25, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/TNS)
HAVANA, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Maria Antonia Martinez, a 72-year-old Cuban troubled by diabetes and high blood pressure, has been struggling to obtain necessary medications due to restrictions imposed by U.S. economic sanctions.

"The U.S. government violates the human rights of Cubans," said Martinez, who was a secondary school teacher for over 40 years.

"For many senior citizens, medicines are essential to improving our quality of life and living longer," said Martinez, voicing frustration at how the economic sanctions restrict the Cuban pharmaceutical industry's access to crucial resources.

Martinez is one of the millions of Cubans who continue to suffer from the six-decade U.S. trade embargo against the Caribbean nation.

Reinerio Villegas, 56, operates a small farm in the Havana district of Arroyo Naranjo together with his wife and sons. He expressed his desire for the end of the blockade and the restoration of normal commercial activities with the United States.

If the United States were to lift the embargo, struggling Cuban farmers could export various crops to the nearby U.S. market, he told Xinhua.

"The United States is just 90 miles (nearly 145 km) away from Cuba," said Villegas. "I have no doubt we could find new business opportunities if they ended this inhumane blockade."

According to Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, the U.S. embargo has cost the island's economy more than 150 billion U.S. dollars.

"The (U.S.) blockade causes humanitarian harm, suffering, hardships, and anguish not only because it is a violation of international and humanitarian law, but because it is an act of war in peacetime," he said.

Havana resident Yeny Dominguez, who works in the travel industry, said the embargo clearly hampers tourism from the United States, which would otherwise be a natural source of visitors for the island given its proximity.

"The U.S. government strives to keep U.S. citizens from visiting this beautiful country," she said, adding "we will not surrender anyway, despite the U.S. blockade." 
ANALYSIS: Forest to Farmland Signals Chinas Return to a Planned Economy

A burgeoning movement to return forests to farmland and the sudden arrival of heavy-handed rural enforcers are at the center of recent dramatic events in China.

China is making a major push to expand its arable land. The movement reverses years of ecological farmland to forest policies and includes the establishment of a new Rural Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Brigade. The agricultural management officers have quickly become unpopular for their thug-like tactics.

The drive to increase farmland and manage Chinas rural areas reflects the Chinese Communist Partys (CCPs) intention to replace market-oriented and diversified agriculture with planned food production, say analysts. It also aims to regain the partys centralized control over the countryside, which has been a weak link for years.

However, experts suggest that the drive to reclaim urban forests or landscapes and dictate what farmers may grow contradicts common sense and has devolved into a political movement.

Bulldozing Park Citys Greenway

In what may be the most dramatic sign of the new policies, bulldozers have torn up the renowned 100 km (62 mile) green belt around the southwestern city of Chengdu. Landscapes are being replanted in wheat and corn; scenic lotus ponds that attracted thousands of summer visitors are being filled in.

The city of 20 million had planned the massive green beltbilled as the worlds largest greenway systemas part of a plan to turn Chengdu into a park city. The green belt, which cost 34.1 billion yuan (about $4.9 billion) was scheduled to be completed by the end of 2023. It is now being restored as farmland.

As recently as last fall, Chengdu, a city within a park, was being touted as a new model of urban development for its massive greenway.

However, the greenways construction company, Tianfu Greenway Group, announced on March 28 that it will now make every effort to restore and cultivate more than 16,000 acres of farmland throughout the city.

According to analysts, the large-scale ecological landscape was largely urban planning to boost property values and attract business to Chengdu. Germany-based ecological expert Wang Weiluo, writing in Yibao Online May 7, said that the ecological isolation and protection zones in Chengdu play a crucial role in the overall urban planning, directly affecting the quality of life, residential environment, and property values in Chengdu.

A March 10, 2021 article in state media Xinhua News raved about the beauty and ecological value of the citys transformation, with its green heart, green lungs and green veins. Chengdu was successfully building landscapes to attract people.

However, Wang pointed out that arable land in Sichuan, where Chengdu is located, has decreased by 22.2 percent over the past ten years, the largest reduction among Chinas large provinces. Amid an ongoing national campaign against non-agriculturization, that makes Sichuan a prime target.

Looking to Political Gain

Wang said the lands used to build the Tianfu Greenway were most likely classified as permanent farmland in Chinas second national land survey, carried out in 2007 to determine the status of land use. Therefore, they must technically be restored and cultivated.

Nonetheless, Wang opined, the recent land reclamation is not being done for the sake of Chinas food security. Instead, it represents a show of force as part of a top-down effort.

Expanding cultivated land has become a political task for local governments, He Haibo, a professor at Hubei Normal University, wrote in Chinese media The Observer on May 11.

Returning forest to farmland violates common sense, He said, because the production of staple grains such as rice, wheat, and corn depends on natural environmental conditions. When farmers leave land uncultivated, it is frequently for practical reasons such as poor soil, lack of water, or susceptibility to flooding. As a result, even if it is reclaimed, it may not be profitable. Further, uprooting hundreds of acres of profitable crops like grapes, kiwis, or peaches, in order to grow staple crops goes against economic principles.

Li Yuanhua, a former professor at Beijings Capital Normal University, spoke to The Epoch Times on May 17 about the initiative, which has become a political movement, he said, with local officials not truly focused on agricultural production, but looking to political gain.

Nongguan: Moving Towards a Planned Economy

As part of the forest-to-farmland push, the CCP has established a Rural Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Brigade.

The new officersover 82,000 of them nationwidehave raised the ire of farmers and netizens for their heavy-handed tactics. Popularly, they are called nongguanliterally, rural enforcersa reference to the thug-like urban enforcers known as chengguan. Along with local officials, nongguan forcibly remove non-authorized plants, resorting to violence if farmers protest.

Although they are not technically police, nongguan have a broad array of powers and police-like authority. They are a key part of a top-down approach that relies on administrative orders from CCP authorities to direct all agriculture production.

The CCPs top priority at present is the nations grain supply. At the end of March, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a directive making stabilizing grain supply a year-long priority for agricultural departments at all levels.

In Lis opinion, Chinas intentions with regard to Taiwan are inseparable from the forest to farmland emphasis. China wants to use force against Taiwan but fears international sanctions that could threaten its food security.

Official data indicate that China imported 160 million tons of grain in 2021, a record high. This has raised concerns among CCP authorities regarding the countrys food self-sufficiency if sanctions were to disrupt its food supply. Consequently, the regime is emphasizing grain supply stability and food security.

A Tighter Grip on Chinas Countryside

Li told The Epoch Times that the CCPs actions indicate a move toward the planned economy of the Cultural Revolution.

Although food-related issues are driving the CCPs recent agricultural management initiative, strengthening control over rural China is also a factor.

In recent years, the CCP has tightened its grip on rural areas, enhancing governance structures at all levels down to the village chief. In February, Chinas Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs proposed an expansion of the social credit system in rural areas, including more social credit grocery stores, which allow farmers to exchange social credit points for goods.

According to Li, Chinas rural areas are a weak link in the CCPs stability maintenance.

Among other factors, Chinas labor market deteriorated sharply after the Chinese New Year. Many factories laid off workers or reduced wages due to a lack of orders and excess inventory.

For a regime that fears losing control over all else, the return home of a vast number of unemployedand therefore discontentedmigrant workers is bound to spark concern. By centralizing control over production and livelihood resources in the countryside, aided by its new rural enforcement force, the CCP also hopes to restore its collective control, Li theorized.

However, a return to the production and living conditions of the Cultural Revolution is a regression of history and wishful thinking on the part of the CCP, he said.

Rice Bowls Firmly in Hand

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed the importance of food security and food self-sufficiency. At the end of 2021, during Chinas Central Economic Work Conference, Xi emphasized that the Chinese peoples rice bowls must always be firmly in their own hands and that they must never be strangled by food issues.

In response, Japanese political commentator Li Yiming told The Epoch Times on May 17 that the CCPs idea of food self-sufficiency is unrealistic. The food self-sufficiency rate is determined by the natural resource conditions of each country, Li said. For example, in 2021, the self-sufficiency rate for the UK was 60l percent and for Japan, it was only 38 percent.

Estimates for Chinas food self-sufficiency rate vary, generally ranging from 65.8 percent to 76.8 percent. As long as normal international trade is maintained those numbers should not be problematic, Li Yiming said.

However, Li warned, the so-called food security issue would become an issue if the CCP intended to confront the United Statesits largest source of imported food at 37.3 percentor engage in a war that could trigger international sanctions.
ANALYSIS: G-7 Leaders Take Strong Stance on China, but Can They Maintain Their Resolve?

Experts weigh in on Hiroshima summit statement and what it means for China

(L to R) U.S. President Joe Biden, Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, France's President Emmanuel Macron, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau take part in a working lunch session as part of the G-7 Leaders' Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, on May 19, 2023. (Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images)

News Analysis

The lesson of Russias war in Ukraine has forced the Group of Seven (G-7) countries to confront Beijing head-on this year, and the unified statement from the Hiroshima summit represents a big step that, according to some experts, was unthinkable two years ago.

The big question, though, is whether the G-7 countries can stay united and strong when confronting China, as theyve pledgedor will they continue to put commercial interests ahead of the rule-based international order or their core values, such as human rights and democracy?

The 49th annual summit of the worlds most advanced economiesthe United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Canadawas held in Hiroshima this year from May 19 to 21.

While these summits rarely make headlines, this years communique, more sanctions against Russia, and a separate statement on China demonstrated that, at least in terms of messaging, the leaders of the worlds richest democracies are more united than ever.

Chinas harmful tactics that undermine international rules and norms were a primary focus of this years summit, as articulated in a new special statement on economic security.

The G-7 leaders have stated publicly that they see China as an economic bully and that the international community will not put up with Beijings economic coercion. They warned for the first time that there will be consequences.

We will work together to ensure that attempts to weaponize economic dependencies by forcing G7 members and our partners, including small economies, to comply and conform will fail and face consequences, the statement reads.

The G-7 statement on China, according to Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, was quite robust.

While the special statement made no mention of China, it was made clear during the summit that it was all about China. And in the summits communique, the G-7 leaders made their positions clear, condemning Beijings military activity in the East and South China Seas and human rights violations in Tibet and Xinjiang.

The way the G-7 countries have addressed China together, according to a report by the experts of the Atlantic Council, was unthinkable two years ago.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made countering Chinas economic coercion a top goal, and during the summit, the leaders announced the launch of a new Coordination Platform on Economic Coercion.

This new platform is particularly noteworthy, according to Stephen Ezell, vice president of global innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington-based technology think tank, because it shows that G-7 countries are willing to coordinate to collectively come to one anothers defense in the face of Chinese economic coercion, he told The Epoch Times.

Chinas efforts to use its growing economic might to influence governments throughout the world have increased in recent years.

For instance, after Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in April 2020, the Chinese communist regime imposed sanctions on roughly a dozen Australian goods, including wine, for which China was the major market.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arriving for the family photo at the Itsukushima Shrine during the G-7 Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, on May 19, 2023. (Stefan Rousseau  Pool/Getty Images)

Beijing also used coercion against other countries, most notably South Korea in 2017 after it installed a U.S. missile defense system, and Lithuania in 2022 in response to that countrys efforts to increase diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

While G-7 leaders seemed more united this year, they still demonstrated some weakness by not putting their foot down and imposing sanctions on Beijing, according to Antonio Graceffo, a China economic analyst and author of Beyond the Belt and Road: Chinas Global Economic Expansion.

They even recognize that China is supporting the war in Ukraine but fail to bring meaningful sanctions, such as a trade ban, against China, Graceffo, who is also an Epoch Times contributor, said.

The good news is that the G-7 are united, he noted. The war in Ukraine has changed the power dynamic in the world, bringing the allies closer together and cementing the U.S. position as leader of the free world.

De-risking

Another key outcome of the summit was the leaders use of the phrase de-risking, rather than de-coupling from China, which has become a new official G-7 term.

We are not decoupling or turning inwards. At the same time, we recognize that economic resilience requires de-risking and diversifying, the leaders stated in the communique. We will take steps, individually and collectively, to invest in our own economic vibrancy. We will reduce excessive dependencies in our critical supply chains.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was also present at the summit, favored de-risking as a strategy.

It is past [the] time to decouple, Graceffo said, noting that the G-7 leaders are finally recognizing this.

This de-risking involves diversification. New investment is not flowing into China as it did before. Decoupling would mean pulling existing companies out of China. De-risking involves making new investments in India or Vietnam instead. And that is what is happening, Graceffo explained.

As part of this strategy, the leaders agreed to implement export control and outbound investment measures to safeguard sensitive technologies and build resilient supply chains.

This de-risking strategy conforms to the October Controls, a set of restrictions enacted by the U.S. Department of Commerce that prevents big manufacturers from shipping high-end chips and inputs to China to protect critical technologies.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan explained these restrictions during a press briefing in October last year, stating that the administration is implementing the so-called small yard, high fence concept. The goal is to limit outbound investments in sensitive technologies, particularly those that could give an advantage to competitors.

The devil is in the definitions and the details, Glaser told The Epoch Times. In my view, decoupling was never on the agendathe U.S. was not going to stop trading with China, she said.

The question remains: how big are the small yards and how high are the fences?

(L-R) European Council President Charles Michel, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen participate in a family photo with G-7 leaders before their working lunch meeting on economic security at the Grand Prince Hotel in Hiroshima on May 20, 2023. (Jonathan Ernst/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Ezell agreed, adding that the G-7 leaders actions matter more than words.

Its certainly sensible to recognize that G-7 nations arent going to fully decouple from Chinas economy. The integrated nature of global supply chains and markets make that infeasible and undesirable, he explained.

But de-risking to decrease core dependencies and vulnerabilitiesespecially those which could be weaponized by China through economic coercionis precisely the right step to be taking.

Mixed Messaging

Some criticized the summits communique for sending conflicting messages by including references to constructive engagement with Beijing, which did not exist a year ago.

The leaders stated their willingness to establish constructive and stable relations with China.

They also emphasized that our policy approaches are not designed to harm China, nor do we seek to thwart Chinas economic progress and development.

According to Steve Yates, a China expert and former White House national security official, the summit sent out a lot of mixed messages.

It seemed to me like a basic kindergarten tutorial on dealing with the Chinese Communist Party, he told NTD TVs China in Focus.

Yates said that the Chinese regime deals in actions and power and does not respect the word games, adding that there was no substantial progress at this years summit because of mixed messaging.

There are still G-7 nations such as France and Germany that chase economic opportunities and rely on both China and Russia, while giving lip service to deterrence, Yates said.

Anti-China Workshop

On May 22, Chinas foreign ministry slammed the G-7 communique and summoned the Japanese ambassador in protest to the summits host. The state-backed Global Times ran an editorial, calling the G-7 summit an anti-China workshop.

According to the editorial, the G-7 communique demonstrated that Washington is pushing hard to weave an anti-China net in the Western world.

In retaliation, Beijing also announced sanctions against American chip maker Micron, claiming that its chips pose significant security risks.

The regimes response came after President Joe Biden predicted a thaw in relations with China soon during a press conference at the close of the summit on May 21.

Biden blamed the recent deterioration in relations with China on a silly balloon that flew over the breadth of the United States with spy equipment before finally being shot down by a U.S. fighter jet over the Atlantic ocean.

President Joe Biden speaks during a press conference following the G7 Leaders Summit in Hiroshima on May 21, 2023. (Kiyoshi Ota/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Everything changed in terms of talking to one another. I think youre going to see that begin to thaw very shortly, Biden told reporters.

Some criticized Biden for sending mixed signals to Beijing and failing to show strength during the news conference, while others applauded his unexpected Taiwan statement.

Strategic Clarity?

When questioned about Taiwan during the news conference, the president grabbed the microphone and began speaking while strolling on the podium.

Biden emphasized that Washington has been committed to the one China policy, which recognizes the communist regime as the government of China, and would not expect Taiwan to declare independence on its own.

But in the meantime, he said, were going to continue to put Taiwan in a position that they can defend themselves. And there is clear understanding among most of our allies that, in fact, if China were to act unilaterally, there would be a response.

The Chinese regime, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, has intensified military harassment and threats against the island in recent years, alarming Western nations. Washington, under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, is obliged to provide the self-ruled island with the means to defend itself from attack.

Many China hawks in Washington welcomed Bidens comment because it provided much-needed strategic clarity on the Taiwan issue. Some, though, questioned his statement, wondering whether he was really referring to a military response and whether he truly meant what he said.

Biden has previously on several occasions said that the U.S. military would support Taiwan if the Chinese were to launch an invasion of the democratically ruled island, departing from the long-standing policy of strategic ambiguity, which is to be deliberately vague on what the United States would do in the event of an attack. On each occasion, his officials have walked back on his comments, saying Washingtons approach has not changed.

But experts believe that Biden deliberately chose his words while speaking about allies, and that most G-7 nations had at least agreed not to sit back and watch if China invaded Taiwan.

Bidens statement indicates that there is an agreement on the lowest common denominator, but no agreement on what those responses would be, Glaser said.

As Taiwan is a critical hub in the global semiconductor supply chain, G-7 governments acknowledge that a Chinese military takeover would cause severe supply disruptions in many industries that rely heavily on Taiwanese chips.

Rupert Hammond-Chambers, a Taiwan expert and president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, believes Bidens message is important because it clarifies his stance on the issue once again.

Its the fourth time hes done it, which is so interesting, he told The Epoch Times. He continues to bring strategic clarity to this issue, when even hawkish presidents before him had been reluctant to be so clear about the American intent.

Hammond-Chambers believes the United States should abandon its strategic ambiguity stance and send China a clear message.

I think its exactly where American policy should be.

In the G-7 communique this year, the leaders reiterated the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and urged a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues. They also expressed serious concern about the situation in the East and South China Seas and underlined their strong opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion.

(L-R) US President Joe Biden, Australias Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Japans Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi hold a quad meeting on the sidelines of the G7 Leaders Summit in Hiroshima on May 20, 2023. (KENNY HOLSTON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

The leaders of the Quad GroupAustralia, India, Japan, and the United Stateswhich met on the margins of the summit, also gave a similar message to Beijing.

We strongly oppose destabilizing or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion, the group stated.

On the Taiwan issue, U.S. allies have gradually begun to adopt the same language that Washington has used for many years, Hammond-Chambers said.

If, God forbid, China attacked Taiwan, he continued, I believe Japan would fight alongside the United States, and very probably the Australians and British as well.

As it stands right now, that coalition is growing, he said.
ANALYSIS: Personal Information of Over 150,000 Canadians in Feds Possession Breached, With One Agency Accounting for 70% of Incidents

Private information belonging to over 150,000 Canadians in possession of federal departments and agencies was breached over a one-year-plus period, with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) being the worst offender, new records analyzed by The Epoch Times show.

The analysis is based on figures provided by the federal government in response to an Inquiry of Ministry. Conservative MP Luc Berthold, who submitted the inquiry on March 29, wanted to know the details of all privacy breaches that occurred since Jan. 1, 2022, including the number of people being affected, and whether or not the Privacy Commissioner of Canada was notified.

Based on the document tabled in the House of Commons on May 15, the analysis indicates that 21,158 breaches were reported by 117 federal departments and agencies in the 14-month period. The CRA, which collects taxes from Canadians, accounted for nearly 70 percent of the breaches, with 14,484 cases affecting 53,667 people.

The analysis found that not everyone whose personal data was breached was informed by public servants as their cases were either deemed low risk or non-material by the respective government bodies.

The CRA said in its response that it noted a significant increase in the unauthorized use of taxpayer information in recent years. It reported 110 breaches due to employee misconduct, including unauthorized access or disclosure of taxpayer information during the requested period. Another 1,089 cases occurred because of misdirected mail sent to the wrong recipient.

Nearly 90 percent (12,917) of the breaches stemmed from compromised individual accounts, said the agency, while 298 other cases resulted from cyber incidents, theft and loss of information, etc.

Seventy breaches were recorded as being due to compromised business accounts.

45,000 Homeowners

In one of the data breaches, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) mistakenly emailed the personal information and outstanding loan balances of 45,000 homeowners to an unnamed lender on Jan. 18, 2022.

E-mail with MS Excel attachment sent to an external lender employee showing personal information and outstanding loan balances, said the CMCH in the Inquiry of Ministry document. File had been filtered for this lender and included records for other lenders that could be unfiltered.

None of the affected borrowers were informed by CMHC staff, records show. Furthermore, the privacy commissioner was not notified. The Crown corporation said it only learned about the breach when the unnamed lender reported the error and attested to the destruction of the file.

Please note that none of the reported incidents were material breaches, CMHC said. Also note that all incidents reported are deemed to be non-material.

Loss of Information

Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), whose portfolio includes the supervision of Service Canada, reported 872 privacy breaches, of which 72 were cases of lost passports and two cases of stolen passports.

Loss of information breaches related to Employment Insurance (16), passports (8), Social Insurance Number (2), Old Age Security (2), and Canada Pension Plan (2) were among other breaches in ESDCs records.

The department said the number of breaches reported pales in comparison to the volume of transactions it processes annually.

As noted in these reports, compared to the millions of transactions processed by ESDC each year, the number of privacy breaches is statistically very small.

Not Tracked

Shared Services Canada (SSC), the agency responsible for providing information technology services across federal government departments, had the private information of 31,647 public servants incidentally disclosed to an unnamed vendor in May 2022.

Personal information provided to Vendor that was not included in data migration plan, the agency said.

No measure was deemed required to offer the affected employees. They were not told of the breach and neither was the privacy commissioner.

The information is not tracked, SSC said in response to Bertholds question on what government program or service was impacted by the breach.

Transport Canada, and Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) reported breaches of a similar nature in their departments.

On July 21, 2022, the transport department had a disclosure of personal information of 4,510 individuals in its records. The department did not specify whether those individuals were employees or the general public, stressing that its service was not impacted by the incident. It said the affected individuals were not contacted.

The breach did not pose risks, e.g. risk of identity theft or financial harm, which required measures be provided to any affected individual, the department said.

Unauthorized Disclosure

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), the central purchasing agent for the federal government, had a breach involving the unauthorized disclosure of 5,392 peoples personal information on June 22, 2022. The department said it did not have any material privacy breaches to report.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) reported 4,355 breaches affecting at least 18,000 people in the period requested by Berthold. In its most serious breach on Sept. 23, 2022, the agency noted an improper collection incident involving the information of 13,600 individuals, which it said is still under active investigation.

About 97 percent of the breaches (4,230) were categorized as Improper Disclosure: Misdirected personal information by the IRCC. Other privacy breaches documented included the improper retention, improper access, and improper use of information.

The RCMP was responsible for 110 breaches. On March 3, 2022, one staff member accidentally lost a USB drive containing the private data of 1,741 individuals.

An unencrypted USB containing operational and personal information was lost by an RCMP member and then found by an unknown individual who made and disseminated copies of it, the RCMP said.

Safety measures were implemented for certain individuals.

Emails with sensitive information such as criminal records, fingerprints, and health status sent to the wrong people were not uncommon.

The RCMP said whenever the force contacts a person impacted by a privacy breach, the notification will include an apology as well as an explanation of the breach. It also informs them of remediations taken and their rights to file a complaint with the privacy commissioner.
Arizona Governor Accuses Previous Administration of Illegally Allocating $50 Million in Government Funds

Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Brutinel, left, signs the official Arizona general election canvass document as Katie Hobbs, the Democratic governor-elect and current secretary of state, second from left, looks on while Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, second from right, and Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, right, sit at the table as well during a signing ceremony at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix, Ariz., on Dec. 5, 2022. (Ross D. Franklin/Pool/AP Photo)

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, has accused the previous state administration of misappropriating $50 million in government funds.

The funds were part of what the federal government provided to Arizona under the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, an effort by the Biden administration, signed into law in March 2021, that intended to mitigate the economic impacts of government-mandated restrictions and lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a release on May 24, Hobbs said that former Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, just prior to leaving office, made a $50 million grant that she deems was illegal and invalid.

The grant, made to the state treasurer, was intended to fund all-day kindergarten for recipients of empowerment scholarship accounts, Hobbs office said.

Arizonas Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program gives parents the ability to use money that would have gone to public education to send their child to a school of their choice. Parents can use the funds for a private school, tutoring services, specialized teachers, therapists, and other educational resources.

The grant agreement attempted to improperly use federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to fund all-day kindergarten for ESA recipients, despite the fact that the State funds only half-day kindergarten for public school students, Hobbs office said.

She said she would recall the grant agreement.

Illegally giving $50 million to private schools while failing to properly invest in public education is just one egregious example of the previous administrations blatant disregard for public school students, Hobbs said in a statement.

I will always fight to protect our public schools and work to give every Arizona student the education they deserve.

She added: Today, we averted a violation of federal law and the State Constitution. In my administration, we are committed to deploying federal funds lawfully and equitably.

According to Hobbs office, the grant agreement violates multiple constitutional provisions, including on equal protection, the gift clause, and maintenance of a general and uniform public school system.

The agreement is also inconsistent with the American Rescue Plan Act because it does not address educational disparities as alleged in the agreement, according to her office, even though the grant agreement had claimed to do so.

The office is now looking for alternatives to allocate the $50 million.

Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee, a Republican who also served while Ducey was in office, responded to Hobbs cancellation of the grant for ESA recipients, saying in a statement on Thursday that Hobbs has just denied thousands of Arizona kids access to kindergarten through this politically driven and belligerent decision.

As has become the norm for this governor, my office first learned of her action through a press release prior to receiving the letter, and we have yet to receive any communication from the Governor or her team on this matter other than the letter, said Yee. Our legal team is currently reviewing the lawfulness of the governors move and determining next steps.

Yee accused Hobbs of not caring about what is best for Arizona kids, and not respecting parents rights to choose the best environment for their childs education.

Instead, she is using these children as pawns in a desperate and transparent attempt to win back support from union bosses and her ultra-progressive base.

Educational choice is the civil rights issue of our time, and unfortunately, Governor Hobbs thinks she knows better than parents. I fundamentally disagree, and so do Arizona families.

Bidens American Rescue Plan had provided direct $1,400 payments to most Americans. It also funded unemployment benefits, a cumulative $350 billion for state and local governments, billions in funding for COVID-19 vaccines and their distribution, and funding for schools to reopen safely.
As Elizabeth Holmes Heads to Prison for Fraud, Many Puzzle Over Her Motives

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes (C) arrives at federal court with her father, Christian Holmes IV (L) and partner, Billy Evans, in San Jose, Calif., on Oct. 17, 2022. (Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)

SAN JOSE, Calif.As Elizabeth Holmes prepares to report to prison this week, the criminal case that laid bare the blood-testing scam at the heart of her Theranos startup is entering its final phase.

The 11-year sentence represents a comeuppance for the wide-eyed woman who broke through tech bro culture to become one of Silicon Valleys most celebrated entrepreneurs, only to be exposed as a fraud. Along the way, Holmes became a symbol of the shameless hyperbole that often saturates startup culture.

But questions still linger about her true intentionsso many that even the federal judge who presided over her trial seemed mystified. And Holmes defenders continue to ask whether the punishment fits the crime.

At 39, she seems most likely to be remembered as Silicon Valleys Icarusa high-flying entrepreneur burning with reckless ambition whose odyssey culminated in convictions for fraud and conspiracy.

Her motives are still somewhat mysterious, and some supporters say federal prosecutors targeted her unfairly in their zeal to bring down one of the most prominent practitioners of fake-it-til-you-make-it  the tech sectors brand of self-promotion that sometimes veers into exaggeration and blatant lies to raise money.

Holmes will begin to pay the price for her deceit on May 30 when she is scheduled begin the sentence that will separate her from her two childrena son whose July 2021 birth delayed the start of her trial and a 3-month-old daughter conceived after her conviction.

She is expected to be incarcerated in Bryan, Texas, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of her hometown of Houston. The prison was recommended by the judge who sentenced Holmes, but authorities have not publicly disclosed where she will be held.

Her many detractors contend she deserves to be in prison for peddling a technology that she repeatedly boasted would quickly scan for hundreds of diseases and other health problems with a few drops of blood taken with a finger prick.

The technology never worked as promised. Instead, Theranos tests produced wildly unreliable results that could have endangered patients livesone of the most frequently cited reasons why she deserved to be prosecuted.

Before those lies were uncovered in a series of explosive articles in The Wall Street Journal beginning in October 2015, Holmes raised nearly $1 billion from a list of savvy investors including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. It was the duping of those investors that led to her prison sentence and a $452 million restitution bill.

Holmes stake in Theranos at one point catapulted her paper wealth to $4.5 billion. She never sold any of her stock in the company, though trial evidence left no doubt she reveled in the trappings of fame and fortuneso much so that she and the father of her children, William Billy Evans, lived on a palatial Silicon Valley estate during the trial.

The theory that Holmes was running an elaborate scam was buttressed by trial evidence documenting her efforts to prevent the Journals investigation from being published. That campaign compelled John Carreyrouthe reporter responsible for those bombshell storiesto attend court and position himself in Holmes line of vision when she took the witness stand.

Holmes also signed off on surveillance aimed at intimidating Theranos employees who helped uncover the flaws with the blood-testing technology. The whistleblowers included Tyler Shultz, the grandson of former Secretary of State George Shultz, whom Holmes befriended and persuaded to join the Theranos board.

Tyler Shultz became so unnerved by Holmes efforts to shut him up that he began sleeping with a knife under his pillow, according to a wrenching statement delivered by his father, Alex, at her sentencing.

Holmes supporters still contend she always had good intentions and was unfairly scapegoated by the Justice Department. They insist she simply deployed the same over-the-top promotion tactics as many other tech executives, including Elon Musk, who has repeatedly made misleading statements about the capabilities of Teslas self-driving cars.

According to those supporters, Holmes was singled out because she was a woman who briefly eclipsed the men who customarily bask in Silicon Valleys spotlight, and the trial turned her into a latter-day version of Hester Prynnethe protagonist in the 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter.

Holmes steadfastly maintained her innocence during seven often-riveting days of testimony in her own defensea spectacle that caused people to line up shortly after midnight to secure one of the few dozen seats available in the San Jose courtroom.

On one memorable day, Holmes recounted how she had never gotten over the trauma of being raped while enrolled at Stanford University. She then described being subjected to a long-running pattern of emotional and sexual abuse by her former lover and Theranos conspirator, Ramesh Sunny Balwani, and suggested his stifling control blurred her thinking.

Balwanis lawyer, Jeffrey Coopersmith, denied those allegations during the trial. In Balwanis subsequent trial, Coopersmith unsuccessfully tried to depict his client as Holmes pawn.

Balwani, 57, is now serving a nearly 13-year prison sentence for fraud and conspiracy.

When it came time to sentence the then-pregnant Holmes in November, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila seemed as puzzled as anyone about why she did what she did.

This is a fraud case where an exciting venture went forward with great expectations and hope, only to be dashed by untruth, misrepresentations, hubris and plain lies, Davila lamented while Holmes stood before him. I suppose we step back and we look at this, and we think what is the pathology of fraud?

The judge also hearkened back to the days that Silicon Valley consisted mostly of orchards farmed by immigrants. That was before the land was ceded to the tech boom beginning in 1939 when William Hewlett and David Packard founded a company bearing their surnames in a one-car garage in Palo Altothe same city where Theranos was based.

Youll recall the wonderful innovation of those two individuals in that small garage, Davila reminded everyone in the rapt courtroom. No exotic automobiles or lavish lifestyle, just a desire to create for societys benefit through honest hard work. And that, I would hope, would be the continuing story, the legacy and practice of Silicon Valley.

By Michael Liedtke
Aussie State Government Rejects Calls to End No-Grounds Rental Evictions

A For Rent and a For Sale sign is seen in Canberra, Australia on Feb. 27, 2023. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)

The Western Australia (WA) government announced rental reforms that will help balance the needs between renters and landlords as the state is the last jurisdiction in Australia where renters can be evicted with no-grounds.

WA Commerce Minister, Sue Ellery, introduced rental reforms on May 26 that will improve the rights for renters and provide certainty for landlords.

The modernised tenancy law will reduce the frequency of rent increases and will only be allowed to increase once every 12 monthsrent increases can currently occur every six months. The practise of rent bidding will also be prohibited.

The proposed ban on rent bidding will mean landlords and property managers wont be able to pressure or ask applicants to offer a higher price than the advertised rent to secure the property.

Advertised rent prices will also need to be a fixed amount rather than a range.

Under the proposed changes, renters in WA will be allowed to have a pet or pets in most cases, and they will also be able to make certain minor modifications to the property.

WA tenants will not have to choose between a rental property and/or their pets, but landlords are able to add conditions to keeping a pet.

Landlords will only be able to refuse a tenant to keep a pet or pets on reasonable grounds with the consent from the Commissioner for Consumer Protection.

Certain minor modifications to the rental property can be made by tenants, with the landlord only able to refuse consent on certain grounds. Minor modifications such as painting walls and installing hooks are examples of certain minor modifications tenants will be able to make without permission from the landlord.

Any minor modifications made by the tenant to the rental property may need to be restored to their original condition at the end of the tenancy.

The release of security bonds and the end of tenancy will be streamlined in the proposed changes, which will allow tenants and landlords to apply separately for how the bond payments are to be disbursed.

Any disputes over bonds or disagreements over pets and minor modifications are to be referred to the Commissioner for Consumer Protection to handle and decide.

Its no secret that some tenants in Western Australia are doing it tough at the moment, facing a combination of low vacancy rates and rising rents. Prohibiting rent bidding and reducing rent increases to once a year will help ease the financial burden on many families, Ellery said.

Reforms in Housing Supply Shortage

The WA government has not made any changes to the no-grounds evictions in the Act, as landlords can currently terminate a fixed-term tenancy without a reason with 30 days notice, or 60 days notice for ongoing periodic leases.

As part of the 2023-24 State Budget, weve committed an additional $750 million (US$490 million) in housing, homelessness, and lands initiatives, which include 100 percent stamp duty concessions, a range of changes to Keystart loans, and $47.6 million (US$31 million) to expand WAs housing construction workforce to bolster the supply of housing across our state, said Housing Minister John Carey in the media release.

Real Estate Institute of Western Australia (REIWA) CEO Cath Hart welcomed the rental reforms and said while the recent State Budget initiatives focused on supply, we also need a legislative environment that sustains and encourages investment.

Investors make up about 85 percent of the private rental marketand the majority of investors only have one property. Unfortunately, they have been leaving the market in significant numbers, so there are nearly 20,000 fewer rental properties now than two years ago, Hart said in a media release.

Over the course of the review of the Residential Tenancies Act, REIWAs aim has been to make renting possible, and the reality is that its not possible without investors. If investors arent confident about property, they will put their money into other assets, and rental queues will remain long.

The reforms announced today strike the right balance for owners and tenants. The next step will be to work through the detail of these measures, and we will continue to advocate for practical and pragmatic approaches to their implementation.

Hart said the rental reforms recognised the need for legislation to create an environment that encourages investment while balancing the needs of tenants.

Western Australias Rental Market

REIWA reported that Perth currently has the nations lowest rental vacancy rate at only 0.7 percent in April, compared to 2.5 to 3.5 percent, which indicates a balanced market.

Perths rental vacancy rate in April 2022 was 1.2 percent, up from 1 percent the year prior.

Our housing is more affordable than other states, and our tenants tend to spend a shorter time in the rental market before moving onto home ownership, said Hart.

Perths property market remains the most affordable in the country, yet its poised for continued growth, said Johnson, Summit Developments senior development consultant, in a release by realestate.com.au.

Rental Reforms in Other States

Earlier this month, the New South Wales (NSW) government also introduced a rental reform proposal. On May 10, the Labor government introduced a bill that would commit to providing cost-of-living relief and better protection to NSW renters.

The bill also looked to close the loopholes in the existing ban on solicited rent bidding to include landlords and third parties, and create a portable bond scheme to reduce strain on renters. A ban on secret rent bidding will also be implemented by requiring landlords and agents to notify applicants of other offers from other prospective tenants that are higher than the advertised price.

The NSW government is also looking to end no-grounds evictions, make it easier to have pets, and better protect renters personal information.

This is a sensible cost of living measure to help ease the pressure on the over 30 percent of people in New South Wales currently renting, said NSW Premier Chris Minns in the media release.

These changes will create a fairer rental regime in this state by providing greater certainty as well as flexibility for both renters and owners.
A little girl from Northern Ireland who was born with a potentially deadly brain condition that made her head swell has overcome it and is thriving now.

Myah Morgan-Laverty was diagnosed with hydrocephaluswhich is caused by an abnormal buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles (cavities) deep within the brainwhen her mother, Emma, now 40, was 20 weeks pregnant.

Myah as a baby. (SWNS)

If left untreated, the neurological disorder is considered to be fatal.

When Emma and her husband, Andrew, 37, from Belfast, welcomed Myah into the world in 2018, she had a massive amount of fluid around her headwith the circumference increasing by 0.5 cm (0.2 inches) each day.

Myah cant walk, talk or swallow. When she was born, I kept wondering  where is this going to leave us? Emma, who cares for Myah full time, said. But she is absolutely unbelievable.

However, Myah, now 5, has undergone six different surgeriesincluding open heart surgery, fundoplication (an operation to treat acid reflux), an abdominal catheter fitting, and most recently she had a shunt inserted to drain the extra fluid.

The surgery to drain her shunt required the entire right side of her head to be cut open, however, Myah has already bounced back.

Myah had surgery to insert a shunt to drain the extra fluid from her brain. (SWNS)

The sassy, smiley, and very cheeky, toddler who feeds through a peg connected directly to her stomach is as tough as nails and wanted to get back to school to play with her friends.

This was probably the biggest surgery shes had to date  but shes already back in class, getting out and about, Emma said Were immensely proud of her.

Myah started school in September 2022, and quickly became the most popular girl in the class.

Its rare to see her without a smile on her face  and in fact, shes become a bit of a local celebrity, Emma said. Everyone knows her name!

As the little girl is unable to walk, shes happy to shuffle along the floor with her friends.

Despite being told that she wont be able to talk, Myah has learned the names of her favorite people, bands, and artists.

She can say Emma, dada, nana and Anyashes never called me mom! Emma said. Myah also knows the names of her favorite musicians: Abba and Ed [Sheeran].

Her all-time favorite song is Dancing Queen, and shell say Abba whenever she wants to listen to itwhich is usually 500 times a day!

Emma and her husband, who also cares for Myah full-time, often reflect on Myahs diagnosis and say they never couldve imagined things would be as good as they are now.

Shes been through several major surgeries which have been much harder on me and Andrew than her, Emma said. Myah is a very resilient little girl. Shes absolutely thriving, and we couldnt be more proud of her if we tried.

Epoch Times Staff contributed to this report.

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Beijings Shift to Military for Chip Development Reason for OPPOs Chip Closure: Analysts

A Oppo logo is displayed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on March 2, 2022. (Josep Lago/AFP via Getty Images)

Chinese smartphone company OPPO launched its chip branch, ZEKU, in 2019 when independent semiconductor chip research and development (R&D) was a national campaign of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Four years later, Chinas chip bubble finally burst when OPPO abruptly terminated ZEKU. It is believed that more Chinese semiconductor developers will soon follow suit.

Experts analyzed that OPPOs decision is highly related to Xi Jinpings promotion of military industry bureaucrats within the CCPs hierarchy.

The Chip Bubble

When OPPO engaged in chip R&D, China was in a chip mania to develop key technologies subject to international sanctions. Chinese leader Xi Jinping was promising to guarantee financing, tax benefits, and preferable policy treatment to the sector.

In May 2019, the U.S. Commerce officially placed Huawei and its 68 affiliates on its Bureau of Industry and Securitys (BIS) entity list, banning the China-based company from buying components from U.S. companies without government approval and a 120 day grace period.

The sanction effectively choked Huaweis business as the China-based tech giant lost its access to supplies of advanced chips.

Consequently, private enterprises of all sizes in the IT industry, including the e-commerce giant Alibaba, all moved to cater to the authorities call and joined the rising tide to chase a China-made chip, said Wang Guo-Chen, analyst at the Taiwan-based Chung-hua Institution for Economic Research.

However, Wang says that Chinas chip R&D has now entered its second phase, which is being led by the military industry, so OPPOs termination of its chip business is inevitable. It is a new national campaign, the recent reorganization of the political hierarchy with a substantial number of personnel from the military industry has shown the sign, he said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) is shown around the offices of Chinese tech firm Huawei technologies by its President Ren Zhengfei in London during his state visit on Oct. 21, 2015. (Matthew Lloyd/AFP via Getty Images)

On March 12, Beijings new leadership introduced two new vice premiers at the State Council with backgrounds in military enterprises as Xi secured his third term as the CCPs leader.

Vice Premier Liu Guozhong, 61, holds a major in fuse design and manufacturing for artillery systems, and Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, 59, was trained at the East China Institute of Engineerings Department of Artillery.

Shift Focus to Military

In April 2021, the Chinese State Council publicized a call to state-owned enterprises to support a national transition to advanced information technology and chain development.

Large state-owned military industrial groups include the China National Nuclear Corporation, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, Aviation Industry Corporation of China, and China State Shipbuilding Corporation.

Wang said the State Councils statement provides the background context explaining the regimes coordination of the military industry and large state-owned enterprises, as well as the integration with national laboratories in chip R&D.

China has been preparing for this new phase of chip development centered on the military industry since the U.S.-China trade war, and it has been going on for a couple of years, according to Wang.

It will be a matter of internal competition among their own chip production and research facilities, he said, and the increasing military chip R&D role has subsequently impeded the value of private sectors to Beijing. This is one of the reasons why OPPO shut down its chip department, Wang said.

In January, it was reported that Beijing was pausing its massive investment in growing its self-reliant chip industry as the regimes extreme COVID restrictions was straining national finances.

According to Bloomberg, the CCP began look for an alternative approach to achieve its homegrown chip development, as the costly subsidies to Chinas chip industry have so far borne little fruit and encouraged both graft and American sanctions.

Party Stifles Innovation

Tsung-Nan Lin, a professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University, said OPPOs move to develop its own chips was a hasty decision.

He gave the U.S. ban on exporting EDA (Electronic Design Automation) software tools as an example. He said the ban wont put an end to the integrated circuits (IC) development or OPPOs smartphone business, the company has failed to recognize that to make its own competitive chip isnt something achievable just by pouring in money.

In August 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security announced a new ban on exporting semiconductor tech to China, including EDA software for making 3 nanometer and more advanced chips.

A senior IC designer based in Taiwan, Brad Liao, said Huaweis in-house semiconductor business HiSilicon pretty much operated with a blank check from the CCP which subsidised the companys efforts to develop its core chips. But for a private company like OPPO, to keep its smartphone competitiveness, it would have been a wiser business decision to procure first-class chips than to make its own chips from scratch, Liao said.

In 2020, the Pentagon listed Huawei as one of the Communist Chinese military companies operating in the United States.

Since then, the Chinese regime has tried to encourage chip development by Chinese companies. Public records show that at least 45,300 Chinese companies dedicated to chip production or design were registered as of July 20, 2020; nearly 10,000 semiconductor companies in China have since closed for lack of expertise, talent, and facilities. In 2022 alone, there were 5,746 such companies applying for deregistration.

Prof. Lin believes that the Chinese chip industry will gradually move toward an internal economic circulation, which will have self-sufficient production for lower-end chips, as the technology and know how has already matured and there remains a huge domestic market.

However, It will be quite difficult to step up on designing new-generation chips, he said.

Chin-Ho Hsieh, the founder of Business Today magazine, said the semiconductor industry can only develop, nurtur, and succeed when innovation is supported by international coordination, democracy, and tolerating failures in R&D.

Technological innovation leads development in the semiconductor industry, he said. However, the party leader leads everything in China. Under such a system where the party leads the technology, It wont succeed no matter how much money is injected, he said.

Lin Cenxin and Luo Ya contributed to this report.
Both Alberta Premier Contenders on Last-Minute Campaign Stops

NDP Leader Rachel Notley (L) and UCP Leader Danielle Smith shake hands before a debate in Edmonton on May 18, 2023. (The Canadian Press/Jason Franson)

With only one day remaining before the official election in Albertas hotly contested provincial race, both major party leaders are still going hard on the campaign trail.

On May 29, the provinces voters will decide if they will make what would be a historic decision and return New Democrat Party (NDP) leader Rachel Notley for a second term after her defeat by the United Conservative Party (UCP) in 2019, or return UCP Leader Danielle Smith to the premiers chair after a brief seven-month stint.

Notley was at the Islamic Association of North West Calgary on May 27, promoting NDP plans to support Albertas vibrant Islamic Community, including funding Islamic schools, facilitating Halal financing, and implementing an anti-Islamophobia strategy.

Notley also held a campaign rally at the Grand, the oldest theatre in downtown Calgary, on May 27, with NDP chief of staff Jeremy Nolais announcing 1,200 people in attendance at 10 a.m. local time. The Grand website indicates the space has a maximum capacity of 419 people with no seats, or a 250 capacity seated.

In an interview with The West Block on Global News on May 28, Notley said there were 1,400 people at the event.

Notley had a scheduled event in Red Deer in the morning of May 28, at the campaign headquarters of party candidates Michelle Baer and Jaelene Tweedle. In the afternoon, Notley was scheduled for an event in Edmonton at The Polish Hall.

Im heading home to Edmonton and reflecting on this incredible campaign to build a better future in Alberta, said Notley.

Campaign Stops

UCP Leader Danielle Smith, in the lead-up to the weekend, held a rally outside a Calgary resort and casino on May 25 that had an estimated 2,000 supporters in attendance, with the event being moved outside to a giant tent to accommodate the massive crowd.

On Saturday, May 27, Smith made multiple campaign stops beginning in Elbow Valley, west of Calgary, to support UCP contender for Banff-Kananaskis Miranda Rosin, then speaking to a large crowd from Calgarys Chinese community.

Smith was still in Calgary on May 28, with a campaign stop for UCP candidate Inder Grewal in Calgary-North East, saying she was there to thank the team for their hard work.

Our volunteers are pushing hard through the weekend to earn every last vote, Smith wrote on Twitter.

A number of last-minute endorsements took place on May 26, with former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi throwing his support behind Notley, while former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper and federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said voters should get behind Danielle Smith and the UCP.

Civic engagement in the province is breaking records. According to the latest information from Elections Alberta, as of 8:40 p.m. on May 27, a historic 758,550 advance ballots had been cast.

In the last election, which opened advanced polls on April 9, 2019, and ended polls on April 13, 2019, there were over 696,000 ballots cast in those five days across the province.

At the time, Chief Electoral Officer Glen Resler said, The turnout at advance polls was record breaking, with almost triple the number of votes cast at the advance polls than in the 2015 general election.
Chinese Military Drills Around Japan Before G-7, Triggering Strong Reaction From Japanese

A jet fighter takes off from China's Shandong aircraft carrier, south of Okinawa prefecture, Japan, on April 10, 2023. (Joint Staff Office of the Defense Ministry of Japan/Handout via Reuters)

The Chinese Navys 12-day military exercise around the Japanese archipelago ahead of the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, likely in reaction to Japans warming relations with Taiwan, has caused a strong reaction from the Japanese populace.

From April 30 to May 12, five Chinese warships circled the Japanese archipelago and surrounded the Sendo Islands in Okinawa prefecture.

Japans Ministry of Defense announced on May 17 that five Chinese naval vessels, which had been sailing clockwise around the Japanese archipelago since late April, split in two and surrounded the Sendo Islands in Okinawa prefecture while staying outside Japans territorial waters. This was the first time a Chinese vessel had made such a move. According to the analysis by Japans Ministry of Defense, the move was intended to show off the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) military force.

Okinawa prefecture is far closer to Taiwan than to Tokyo, putting it front and centre to growing tension in the region.

Yahoo Japan reported on May 20 that two CCP vessels intruded into Japanese territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands in Ishigaki City, Okinawa Prefecture. When it tried to approach a Japanese fishing boat, a Japanese Coast Guard patrol vessel immediately warned it to leave its territorial waters and assured the boats safety.

The incident was the 14th time this year that a Chinese vessel entered Japanese territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands.

Strong Reaction from Japanese Society

Many readers commented on the report, objecting to the CCPs provocations and threats, and saying that the Japanese government is too soft on the communist regime.

The CCP may be trying to show its strength, or it may be threatening, one reader wrote. Just a few days ago, it threatened to turn Japan into a sea of fire.

Jet fighters that took off from Chinas Shandong aircraft carrier are seen, south of Okinawa prefecture, Japan, in this handout released by the Joint Staff Office of the Defense Ministry of Japan on April 10, 2023. (Joint Staff Office of the Defense Ministry of Japan/Handout via Reuters)

Another reader urged Japanese companies to leave China as soon as possible.

The CCP is hated by many countries around the world due to its debt trap. Perhaps because of the economy, [it] turned into an invasion of Taiwan, and there is a high possibility that Japan could be involved, read the comment.

In some cases, Japanese companies in China are at risk of having their technology and property expropriated. They should leave China as soon as possible. At least move to other Asian countries or India.

Others believe that the real purpose of the move was to probe the state of Japans radars and other radio waves.

In response to the Okinawa governments silence, one Okinawan questioned, Why did Denny Tamaki, governor of Okinawa, not comment on the CCPs s invasion of [Japans] territorial waters? Do you really care about the Okinawan people?

In this situation, does Gov. Danny of Okinawa still say that the presence of the Self-Defense Force and U.S. forces is bad? What will Okinawans think of it? Does [he] still ask us to live in peace with our neighboring country?

Tamaki, who was re-elected as governor of Okinawa in September 2022, ran on supporting less U.S. military presence on the island, backed by Japans left-leaning opposition parties. The U.S. military is a hot-button issue in Okinawa, which saw some of the bloodiest fighting in World War Two and has long resented the burden of hosting the majority of U.S. troops in Japan on facilities that take up 5 percent of Okinawas land.

Japans Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine and a U.S. Navy destroyer pictured in their first joint anti-submarine drill in the South China Sea, on Nov. 16, 2021. (The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force)

Another reader wrote, Okinawan media did not report on Chinas invasion of [our] territorial waters and committing a crime, neither did the governor of Okinawa make a statement. It is unclear whether he is confused or weak.

Japan must strengthen its military forces in the area around the Senkaku Islands, someone else said.

The CCPs military vessels keep harassing the outside during the G7 meeting, which can only make more democratic countries in the world recognize what it is facing, Mitsuko Kurihara, an employee of Japans Mazda Motor Company, told The Epoch Times on May. 21.

Japans Naval Power Crushes CCPs: Analysis

If something happens to Taiwan, something happens to Japan, Masakazu Nishikori, a resident of Naha City, Okinawa, quoted from late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Nishikori said as Taiwan is very close to Okinawa, he is very worried as a resident of the prefecture.

[I] hope that Japan will reduce its economic dependence on the CCP so that it can break away from the CCPs supply chain and build up its strength to compete with China, he told The Epoch Times on May. 22. But Japanese submarines are quite powerful in the world. If Japan sends submarines, the CCPs vessels cannot cross the sea.

According to Nikkeis 2022 report, Japanese submarines are said to be the best in the world. With the improvement of the lithium battery performance of Japanese submarines, it will not make noise during navigation and can be navigated at a depth of 500 meters. Most submarines in the world, with the exception of U.S. nuclear submarines, have limits below 400 meters. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces submarine rescue vessels are equipped with deep-sea rescue boats that can operate at 1,000 meters, and crews have a record of diving to a depth of 450 meters.

The Chinese destroyer Jinan takes part in joint naval drills with Russia in the East China Sea on Dec. 22, 2022. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Xia Yifan, a Chinese democracy activist who lives in Japan, said he observed that Japanese media reports about Chinas incursion into Japanese waters was very low-profile and do not make a big deal out of the incident, probably because they want to avoid falling into the propaganda of war mobilization.

Once populism is aroused, it is prone to accidents. [The non-alarmist response to avoid stirring the masses] is also in line with practices of a democratic society, Xia told the Epoch Times on May 23.

In fact, no one now believes that Japan fears the CCP. A G-7 exchange between the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Japans ambassador to China was telling. It is clear from the G-7 communique that western opposition to and containment of the CCP is the general and strategic direction.

Read More Japan Defends G-7 Statement After Chinese Regime Protests

Li Yiming, a media professional in Japan, believes that Japan does not take the CCP seriously due to Japans superior naval power.

Since the difference in strength is too wide, each side knows it very clearly, Li told The Epoch Times on May. 23. Just like last year, when the Chinese and Russian joint fleet sailed around Japan, the Japanese government did not make a strong statement either.

The Japanese are practical: [They] can pretend not to see it on the surface but secretly, they are stepping up preparations for war. This behavior of the CCP [encircling the Sendo Islands] is very humiliating: While it did it over and over again, no one cared about it. Finally, it felt bored and left, he said.
CAIRO, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi stressed on Saturday the necessity of reaching a comprehensive and sustainable cease-fire in Sudan which has been going through an internal armed conflict since mid-April.

Sisi made the remarks during a virtual meeting of the African Union's Peace and Security Council (PSC) held to discuss the developments of the Sudanese crisis, said the Egyptian presidency in a statement.

Addressing the PSC gathering, the Egyptian president underlined "the need for a comprehensive and sustainable cease-fire that is not limited to humanitarian purposes."

Armed clashes have been going on between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since April 15, leaving so far about 865 civilians dead and 3,634 others wounded, according to the latest data from the Sudanese Doctors Syndicate.

A week-long cease-fire between the Sudanese warring parties was reached on May 20 in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, but sporadic clashes have continued in the capital of Khartoum in the past few days. None of the previous truces, likewise, was truly observed by the two sides.

The Egyptian president noted that Egypt has received so far 150,000 Sudanese citizens fleeing the ongoing conflict, besides already hosting five million Sudanese.

"I call on relief agencies and donor countries to provide the necessary support to (Sudan's) neighboring countries in order to continue undertaking this role," Sisi said. 
Chinese Ships Ignore Vietnams Demand to Leave Area Close to Russian-Run Gas Fields

A Chinese research ship and five escort vessels were in Vietnams exclusive economic zone (EEZ) on Friday close to gas blocks operated by Russian firms in the South China Sea, a day after Vietnam urged the ships to leave.

The Chinese vessel Xiang Yang Hong 10 began operating in Vietnams EEZ on May 7, representing the most significant incursion since 2019, according to Ray Powell, who leads Stanford Universitys Project Myoushu on the South China Sea.

He said Chinas conduct and Vietnams reaction were a worrying escalation.

China claims most of the energy-rich waters of the South China Sea, including areas that are within Vietnams EEZ.

The 2019 standoff lasted for more than three months and largely targeted a block then operated by Russian state oil firm Rosneft. Less than two years after that, Rosneft sold its assets in the South China Sea to Russias state-owned firm Zarubezhneft, which operates some of the gas fields where the current dispute is under way.

In the last weeks since May 7, the Chinese research ship, at times flanked by a dozen vessels, has been moving largely across gas block 04-03, operated by Vietsovpetr, a joint-venture between Zarubezhneft and PetroVietnam, according to vessel-tracking data shared with Reuters by South China Sea Chronicle Initiative (SCSCI), an independent non-profit.

It is also regularly crossing blocks 132 and 131 that Vietnam has licensed to Vietgazprom, a joint-venture between Russias giant Gazprom and PetroVietnam. China has launched competing bids to license those two blocks.

The three companies and the Russian embassy in Hanoi did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Chinas foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, responding to a question about the standoff, claimed sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and its adjacent waters, and jurisdiction over relevant waters.

On Thursday, when Vietnam issued a rare public statement demanding the ships leave, they were in block 129, also operated by Vietgazprom, according to Powell. The statement followed a visit to Hanoi on Monday by Russian former President and deputy chairman of Russias security council Dmitry Medvedev.

Two Vietnamese fisheries ships were on Friday shadowing the Chinese vessels at a distance of 200300 meters, Powell said, noting the Chinese ships had moved to a block adjacent to those operated by the Russian firms.

Under international rules, ships are allowed to cross other countries EEZs but Chinas operations have long been perceived as hostile by Vietnam and other countries with claims in the South China Sea, including the Philippines and Malaysia.
Comedian Arrested in Beijing as Informants Become Norm Again in China, Eroding Mutual Trust

Recently, there is a growing trend of people informing on others secretly in Chinese society, with multiple high profile incidents occurring in succession. Current affairs analysts point out that the culture of reporting others to the authorities is a typical product of the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) ideology, and breeds a lack of trust between people.

On May 13, famous Chinese stand-up comedian Li Haoshi used a Chinese military slogan to commend his adopted stray dogs in two of his performances in Beijing. The slogan he used, to have good conduct and capable of winning battles, was originally Chinese leader Xi Jinpings words when he set a goal for the Peoples Liberation Army.

An audience member reported on him, saying that he had insulted Chinese soldiers. Beijing police then arrested Li, saying that they had opened an official investigation into his performance. Li and the comedy firm he worked with were suspended from future performances and heavily fined.

On May 19, the Kunlun Institute, a self-proclaimed independent Chinese research institute, republished an old article from 2021 on its official website, criticizing Chinese painter and sculpture artist Yue Minjun for engaging in an organized and orchestrated campaign of insulting the military and opposing the Chinese Communist Party with an art museum in Shunde, Guangdong.

In the article, Kunluns guest commentator, Yang Zhaoyou, posted several paintings featuring Chinese communist soldiers and others. Each of the characters has an absurdly exaggerated smile, and some of them even had horns on their heads. These characters are based on ordinary soldiers, police officers, communist model soldier Lei Feng, and communist leaders such as Mao Zedong, Stalin, and Karl Marx.

The article said these characters are not to be insulted and the author strongly requests the relevant authorities to investigate this organized insult to the military and the CCP.

After the article was published, some Chinese social media users also launched attacks against Yue Minjun but others felt that the criticism of Yue was too far-fetched.

In another incident on May 22, a Chinese netizen reported in an online post that a teacher at Lanzhou University, when lecturing in a classroom, publicly discredited the CCPs propaganda of the Korean War, which the Chinese regime refers to as The War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea.

According to two pictures in the teaching slides, the teacher presented the opposite view of what the CCP depicts as aiding North Korea and defending our motherland.

Totalitarian System Controls Peoples Minds through Informants

Former Capital Normal University professor Li Yuanhua told The Epoch Times that authoritarian rulers are afraid of public opinion and often get increasingly paranoid about controlling people. Under communism in China, people are not allowed to think and express themselves freely, and rulers control peoples thoughts through informants and mutual supervision.

When words are crimes, it is actually tantamount to strengthening authoritarianism, and strengthening authoritarianism means that the authoritarians lack the self-confidence to rule, and have to resort to more controls to solidify their power, Li said.

Li believes that the continued development of this trend will have an erosive effect on peoples minds, and that there will be a lack of genuine trust between people. Even if they have ideas, people are afraid to express them for fear that they will be reported or ratted out by others.

Product of Communist Culture

New Zealand-based political commentator Ye Zhiqiu told The Epoch Times that the practice of informing on others is a typical product of culture under communist rule, which has two distinctive features.

One is that it does not distinguish between right and wrong, but only emphasizes political stance, he said. In other words, those who are reported and denounced are reported not because they have broken the law or violated social morality, but simply because their words and deeds do not conform to the views and stance propagated by the CCP. This phenomenon is also a product of decades of the CCPs brainwashing education, which has ultimately led to intolerance of dissenting voices.

Another significant feature of this phenomenonthe most serious problemis that it usually occurs among acquaintances. The informants often report on people they know well, which destroys trust, Ye said, adding that the CCPs long-term brainwashing education makes people lose their humanity, leaving only the so-called communist party spirit.

He believes that there needs to be a basic trust between people in order for society to operate normally.

But under communist rule, especially during the Cultural Revolution, even husbands and wives could inform on each other, and children were encouraged to report their parents behavior to the authorities. This eventually led to the dire consequence that people in society became enemies of each other and lost trust in each other, which made society very deformed. This is exactly what the CCP wants, because when people guard against or even fight against one another, it is difficult for them to unite and effectively join forces against the CCP, Ye said.

Kane Zhang contributed to this report.
Community Mourns 4 Killed in Regional Victoria Crash

A tree is seen at the a crash scene on Old Melbourne Road in Millbrook north-west of Melbourne, on Sept. 10, 2019. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)

A tight-knit regional Victorian community is mourning the death of four teens in a car crash, as a sole survivor fights for life.

Police remained at the scene of the crash on Wannon-Nigretta Falls Road, Bochara, on Saturday evening after the car with five people on board lost control and hit a tree.

The crash was reported by a passerby at about 9:30 a.m.

Two females and two males died at the scene and a fifth passenger was flown to Melbournes Alfred hospital, where she remains in a serious condition.

Those who died in the crash are yet to be formally identified and their ages have not been confirmed by police.

But the regions mayor has confirmed four of the victims were students at Baimbridge College in Hamilton, a town about 300 kilometres (186 miles) west of Melbourne with just over 10,000 people.

The sole survivor, a teenage girl, sustained upper body injuries in the crash on the rural road, which has a 100 kilometre per hour speed limit.

Detectives from the major collision unit were still probing the scene on Sunday morning before the crumbled wreck was towed away.

Photographs of the red Toyota showed graffiti on the seats with the words drive safe and love people help people.

Southern Grampians Shire Council has offered its condolences to the victims families and friends, saying the community cannot comprehend the grief and the pain they must be feeling.

Trust that the people of Hamilton share in your immense sadness and grief and we will rally around to support you, the council said.

Over the coming days and weeks, we encourage anyone who needs to seek support, please do so.

There have been 128 deaths on Victorias roads this year to date, 32 more than at the same time in 2022.

Premier Daniel Andrews said authorities would determine the cause of the crash but urged Victorians to drive to the conditions as winter approaches.

Please just take a little bit longer to get there but getting there is the really important thing, he told reporters on Sunday.

We dont want families going through what those families are going through right now.

Four farm workers were among five people killed last month at Strathmerton in Victorias most deadly single crash since 2012.

A woman also died on Sunday morning after a car crashed into a power pole at Thomastown in Melbournes outer north, with the male driver left fighting for life in hospital.
Do Americans Still Have the Right to Defend Themselves? Curtis Silwa Voices Alarm in Crossroads Interview

The safety patrol chief claims it is increasingly difficult for citizens to protect themselves in cities like New York amid a contorted legal system

Daniel Penny (C) is walked by New York Police Department detectives detectives out of the 5th Precinct in New York on May 12, 2023. (Jeenah Moon/AP Photo)

States like New York are compromising an individuals right to defend themselves, the founder of nonprofit safety patrol group Guardian Angels Curtis Silwa, said in a recent interview while discussing the Neely murder case.

On May 1, Jordan Neely, a homeless man with a history of mental illness, was reportedly threatening passengers on a New York subway. Daniel Penny, a 24-year-old former marine, approached Neely from behind and put him in a chokehold, with two other individuals joining in to restrain Neely. The move ended up killing Neely. Penny is now facing charges of second-degree manslaughter and could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted. In a May 24 EpochTV interview with Joshua Philipp, Silwa was asked about the right course of action in this situation.

Exactly what these three men chose to do, Silwa replied.

They didnt allow their fear to motivate them to flee, which happens with a lot of people. They didnt follow the acronym, which is very common in the subways and streets of New York City and other major urban areas around America, to MYOB [meaning] mind your own business. They didnt just take this cell phone and film it so that it would be Live at Five on the evening news. They took proactive measures.

Sliwa then pointed out that self-defense or protecting fellow citizens is now seen as a crime in New York. Many people are fleeing to Florida where all the sheriffs who are elected and all the counties will tell you, We dont have enough deputy sheriffs. We advise you to get a gun. Well train you. If somebody invades your home, shoot them. We encourage that.

What a difference in New Yorkyou take any kind of proactive measures to protect yourself or anyone else, and youre the one in jeopardy, he said.

Up north in these northern cities, you have a phalanx of lawyers, and all they do all day is practice their martial law  And they threaten to sue you for every nickel, dime, and penny you have, which has paralyzed people to the point where they wont get involved.

So I would say the Florida reaction to crime, the encouragement of citizens to get involved, makes you overall much safer in your home, in your community.

Silwas observation that people are fleeing to Florida is backed by data from the Census Bureau. According to a December 2022 report from the agency, the top two states that lost population in 2022 were California and New York, both of which are controlled by Democrats. The two states which saw a rise in population were Florida and Texas, both of which lean Republican.

An April 26 report by WalletHub found that Democrat cities saw a higher increase in homicide rates between 2021 and 2023 compared to Republican cities.

The top five cities that saw the greatest increase in per capita homicide are Richmond, Virginia; Memphis, Tennessee; Durham, North Carolina; Garland, Texas; and Washington, D.C. Except for Garland, where Mayor Scott LeMay is a Republican, the remaining four cities have mayors affiliated with the Democratic Party.

Poor Handling of Crime

Silwa also criticized New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, for mishandling the citys crime situation. Eric Adams wants to be everything to everybody, which means you end up being nobody to no one. And the reality is he wants them taking lists of the most predicate offenders, he said.

Silwa pointed out that Neely was on a list of the fifty most emotionally distraught people living in New Yorks subway system. According to reports, Neely carried a lengthy criminal record that included over 40 prior arrests on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to assault. He also had an active warrant out for his arrest from a felony assault.

We should be removing these people and give them the help that they need. And if they commit crime, and theyre sane and sober and [in] control of their mental faculties, they should do the time for committing the crime, he said.

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee blame the rising crime in America on soft-on-crime policies pushed by Democratic district attorneys funded by George Soros.

A June 2022 report by the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund revealed that at least 75 district attorneys in the country had been elected with the backing of the progressive billionaire.

Huge amounts of money from George Soros go to a PAC, which then goes to fund these very left-wing DAs that quite normally would never win, said Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.). And thats the issue. The issue is that theyre taking the prosecutors office and making it purely political.

Even worse than that, theyre making the prosecutors office an office that doesnt protect, fight for, or stand up for American victims and victims in the city of New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, and many other places. Its wrongits actually evil. Bad people should be in jail.
EU Issues Warning After Elon Musk Pulls Twitter Out of Anti-Disinformation Agreement

Senior European Union officials were furious over the weekend after Twitter owner Elon Musk pulled the social media platform out of the blocs Code of Practice, which critics say is tantamount to a censorship regime.

The EUs internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, wrote that Twitter left the blocs Code of Practice, after reports claimed the platform would do so. Breton warned that Twitter would face some legal liabilities.

Twitter leaves EU voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation. But obligations remain. You can run, but you cant hide, Breton wrote. Beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under #DSA as of August 25. Our teams will be ready for enforcement.

An EU official also told Euractiv that the bloc is waiting for this, and it was purely a matter of time before reports surfaced that Musk would withdraw.

The rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) require companies to do risk management, conduct external and independent auditing, share data with authorities and researchers, and adopt a code of conduct by August.

The 19 companies that are subject to the rules include Alphabets Google Maps, Google Play, Google Search, Google Shopping, YouTube, Metas Facebook and Instagram, Amazons Marketplace, Apples App Store, and Twitter. The others are Microsofts two units LinkedIn and Bing, booking.com, Pinterest, Snap Incs Snapchat, TikTok, Wikipedia, Zalando, and Alibabas AliExpress.

We consider these 19 online platforms and search engines have become systematically relevant and have special responsibilities to make the internet safer, Breton told reporters earlier this year, adding that those companies would have to target so-called disinformation.

Breton said he was checking to see whether another four to five companies fall under the DSA, with a decision expected in the next few weeks. Breton singled out Facebooks content moderation system for criticism because of its role in building opinions on key issues.

European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton communicates on the EUs 5G plan, in Brussels, Belgium, on Jan. 29, 2020. (Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock)

Now that Facebook has been designated as a very large online platform, Meta needs to carefully investigate the system and fix it where needed ASAP, he said, adding: We are also committed to a stress test with TikTok which has expressed also interest. So I look forward to an invitation to Bytedances headquarters to understand better the origin of Tiktok.

Twitter had agreed earlier to a stress test, and Breton said he and his team would travel to the companys headquarters in San Francisco at the end of June of this year to carry out the voluntary mock exercise. Breton didnt detail what the test would entail.

There are guardrails for content generated by artificial intelligence, like deep fake videos and synthetic images, which will have to be clearly labeled when they come up in search results, Breton said. Hes also said that under the Digital Services Act, violations could be punished with hefty fines of up to 6 percent of a companys annual revenue.

Platforms will have to completely redesign their systems to ensure a high level of privacy and safety for children, including verifying users ages, Breton said.

Big Tech companies also will have to revamp their systems to prevent algorithmic amplification of disinformation, he said, saying he was particularly concerned about Facebooks content moderation systems ahead of September elections in Slovakia.

Facebooks parent company said it supports the EUs new Digital Services Act. We take significant steps to combat the spread of harmful content on Facebook and Instagram across the EU, Meta said several weeks ago. While we do this all year round, we recognize its particularly important during elections and times of crisis, such as the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Criticism

Jacob Mchangama, a Danish historian, sounded the alarm about the Digital Services Act in late 2022, writing in an opinion article that the plan would be a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

But when it comes to regulating speech, good intentions do not necessarily result in desirable outcomes, he wrote for the Los Angeles Times. In fact, there are strong reasons to believe that the law is a cure worse than the disease, likely to result in serious collateral damage to free expression across the EU and anywhere else legislators try to emulate it.

Although removing illegal content sounds innocent enough, he wrote that its not. That termillegal contentis defined very differently across Europe, he said. In France, protesters have been fined for depicting President Macron as Hitler, and illegal hate speech may encompass offensive humor while Austria and Finland criminalize blasphemy.

An Epoch Times email that was sent to Twitter for comment was returned with an automated response that included a poop emoji. Musk announced earlier this year that the emoji would be sent automatically when journalists sent requests for comment.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Firefighters Stamp out Montreal Heritage Building Blaze 42 Hours After It Ignited

Firefighters respond to a five-alarm fire at the former Monastere du Bon Pasteur, a 19th century heritage building on May 26, 2023 in Montreal. (The Canadian Press/Christinne Muschi)

A fire that swept through a heritage building in downtown Montreal was brought under control Saturday about 42 hours after it first began, the citys fire department said.

The blaze broke out late Thursday afternoon at the Monastere du Bon Pasteur, a 19th century former monastery, and quickly became a five-alarm fire requiring the intervention of 150 firefighters.

It proved difficult to tame because of the construction and materials used in the building. Authorities believe the fire began in the attic but had difficulty reaching the source.

Emilie Barbeau-Charlebois, section chief at the Montreal fire department, said Saturday both the cause of the fire and an estimate of damages remained unknown.

It was about 42 hours total of intervention by firefighters who worked non-stop, Barbeau-Charlebois said.

An investigation into the cause of the fire is set to begin on Monday.

As of Saturday, 59 people were being taken care of by the Red Cross, Barbeau-Charlebois said. No one was injured in the blaze.

About 20 firefighters were still on site Saturday to ensure a new fire doesnt start in the debris, and authorities inspected the building before allowing residents to enter.

Accompanied by police or firefighters, they were led inside in small groups to briefly collect their personal belongings like medication or important documents.

The monastery was built in 1846 to house the Soeurs de Notre-Dame du Bon Pasteur dAngers and maintained its religious vocation until the 1960s. Quebec officially recognized It as a heritage site in 1979 and it served as a mixed use building that includes a residence for seniors, a housing cooperative, a daycare centre and condominiums.

The chapel, located in the centre of the complex, is now a concert hall and the city calls it one of its most prestigious venues, known for exceptional acoustics in a historic and intimate atmosphere.

Its incredibly sad. This place is a magnificent place, were talking about a chapel, were talking about a heritage building which had been restored, Mayor Valerie Plante told reporters Friday.

The venue housed a pair of unique instruments: a Fazioli concert grand piano and a 1772 Kirckman harpsichord, which were extracted or expected to be removed from the building on Saturday.

The condition of the instruments was not immediately known.
Florida Man at Center of Fatal Human Smuggling Case Pleads Not Guilty in Minnesota

ST. PAUL, Minn.A Florida man charged with human smuggling after four illegal immigrants were found dead last year near the Canadian border has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.

Court records show that Steve Shand, of Deltona, Florida, entered the plea Friday in a hearing for his arraignment held via video conference.

Federal authorities arrested Shand in January 2022 after authorities found the bodies of the four, who had frozen to death during a blizzard, near Emerson, Manitoba, which borders Minnesota and North Dakota. According to a federal criminal complaint, the dead were a family of four, including an infant and a teenager, and were identified by surviving illegal immigrants as being Indian nationals.

Five other Indian nationals were also found on foot in Minnesota and two more were found in Shands van, officials said.

Shand is charged with bringing two people into the country illegally and illegally transporting them once in the United States. His trial has been set for July 17, but that is subject to change. His arraignment was postponed 10 times as courts dealt with a backlog spurred by COVID-19 pandemic measures that kept court personnel and the public from gathering in courtrooms.

Shand has not been charged in the deaths of the migrants. He was released last year without bond but ordered to obey several conditions.

According to the criminal complaint, one of the five illegal immigrants who was found walking told authorities that his group had walked across the U.S. border, expecting to be picked up by someone on the other side. He said they had been walking for nearly 12 hours and had been with the family later found dead, but had gotten separated from them during the night.

Neither Shands attorney, federal public defender Aaron Morrison, nor federal prosecutor Laura Provinzino immediately returned phone messages left Saturday seeking comment.

Federal authorities have said that the case is believed to be linked to a larger smuggling operation along the Canadian border.
Hamilton Couple Embroiled in Landlord-Tenant Dispute Shot Dead While Fleeing

Hamilton police say an engaged couple embroiled in a landlordtenant dispute were shot dead as they fled their attacker on Saturday and are truly innocent victims.

Sgt. Steve Bereziuk says a 27yearold female educational assistant and a 28yearold male electrician were shot dead just outside the home they shared in the neighbourhood of Stoney Creek. Their names have not been released.

Bereziuk says the 57yearold suspect is a landlord who barricaded himself in the home for hours after the couple died while police negotiators tried to resolve the situation peacefully.

Bereziuk says he later fired shots from the home, prompting an unspecified interaction with city police.

The suspect ultimately died and his death is now being probed by the Special Investigations Unit, Ontarios police watchdog.

Bereziuk says none of the people involved were known to police, a factor he says makes the situation a little more shocking.

These are not people that this should happen to, Bereziuk said of the victims on Sunday in a televised press conference from the scene.

Theyre not involved in any level of criminality or lifestyle that may lead to an incident like this. They are truly innocent victims, hardworking people, young people. They were engaged to be married. And this is a very tragic incident.

Bereziuk says there were several registered handguns and rifles in the house. He said police expected to be on scene for much of the day.

The SIU is an independent civilian agency which investigates incidents in Ontario involving police that result in death or serious injury.
Amidst the relentless pursuit to combat obesity, a recent study has emerged, shedding light on pills that could offer a convenient solution to address this epidemic. By introducing an oral alternative to the currently available injections, this development may provide millions of individuals with a more accessible means of managing their weight.

Novo Nordiskthe Danish pharmaceutical company that manufacturers the type 2 diabetes medication Ozempic, which has gained fame as a celebrity weight loss sensationannounced that the company has developed an oral version that demonstrates comparable effects in reducing body weight.

Similarly, Pfizer has also been actively researching oral obesity drugs. A study published in JAMA Network revealed that danuglipron, an oral medication taken twice daily, has shown significant weight reduction in participants with type 2 diabetes.

Wegovy, Ozempic, and Eli Lillys Mounjaro, another antidiabetic medication used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes as well as for weight loss, all require weekly injections. Eli Lilly plans to initiate massive clinical trial for orforglipron, an oral drug taken once daily, targeting individuals with obesity.

Comparable to Wegovy

We are very pleased with the weight loss demonstrated by the once-daily oral formulation of semaglutide in obesity, Martin Holst Lange, executive vice president for development at Novo Nordisk, said in a statement, adding that the results are comparable to Wegovy.

The active substance in the new pill, semaglutide, harnesses the power of a hormone that plays a vital role in regulating our metabolism and hunger. Semaglutide is the same active substance found in the widely sought-after Wegovy and Ozempic.

In the trial, it was discovered that adults who took the daily oral semaglutide of 50 mg experienced a remarkable weight loss of 15.1 percent. Moreover, for those who diligently followed the treatment, the weight loss reached 17.4 percent. This trial spanned 68 weeks and included 667 participants who were obese or overweight and had one or more associated health conditions.

Novo Nordisk plans to seek regulatory approval for their oral drug in the United States and the European Union later this year.

Approval and availability of oral semaglutide may take a few years as more rigorous clinical trials to ensure its safety and effectiveness will be needed. These trials involve testing the drug on a large number of participants and evaluating its benefits and potential side effects.

Pfizers Danuglipron

Just like semaglutide, danuglipron falls into the family of drugs known as GLP-1 agonists, which play a role in regulating metabolism and hunger.

Pfizers oral obesity drug, danuglipron, has shown promising potential in significantly improving patients blood sugar levels and reducing their body weight. The study involved 411 participants who were administered either a placebo or varying dosages of danuglipron (2.5 mg, 10 mg, 40 mg, 80 mg, and 120 mg) twice daily for a duration of 16 weeks.

The study revealed that by week 16, patients in all danuglipron groups experienced noteworthy improvements in their blood sugar levels, regardless of the dosage received. However, when it came to weight reduction, statistically significant results were observed only in the 80 mg and 120 mg groups, in comparison to the placebo.

The proportion of participants in the danuglipron group who achieved clinically meaningful weight loss, i.e., of 5 percent or more of body weight, was increased with the increase in dosage.

Pfizer sponsored the phase 2 randomized clinical trial study.

Despite Promising Weight Loss Effect, Concerns Surround Both Drugs

In the pursuit of effective weight loss solutions, the side effects and working mechanisms of GLP-1 agonist drugs have raised concerns.

Pfizers danuglipron saw approximately 14 percent of participants discontinue the trial due to adverse events, including nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. These were the most frequently reported side effects, mostly classified as mild or moderate. The reported adverse events followed a consistent pattern, with a higher proportion of participants experiencing them in the danuglipron groups compared to the placebo.

Novo Nordisk did not provide specific information regarding the number of participants who discontinued the recent trial due to side effects. However, in a 2021 double-blind study, which included 1,961 adults receiving injectable semaglutide, serious adverse events were reported in 9.8 percent of semaglutide participants and 6.4 percent of placebo participants. Among the semaglutide group, 7 percent of participants discontinued treatment due to adverse events, while the placebo group had a discontinuation rate of 3.1 percent. The most commonly observed side effects were related to gastrointestinal disorders.

Another concern is the potential for rapid weight regain in patients after discontinuing the medication.

A study, published in 2022 in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, found that people who stopped taking semaglutide injections regained two-thirds of the lost weight in one year. Furthermore, any improvements seen in cardiometabolic complications, such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, were reversed.

No similar study has been conducted specifically on the oral versions of these drugs.

As these drugs primarily work by suppressing appetite to reduce calorie intake rather than by promoting fat burning, there is a potential risk of muscle loss or the development of eating disorders. Both of these outcomes can have serious consequences for patients.
Hollywood Writers Strike Wrapping up 4th Week; Union Rally Held Downtown LA

Writers on strike march with signs on the picket line on day four of the strike by the Writers Guild of America in front of Netflix in Hollywood, California on May 5, 2023. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

LOS ANGELESA large, multi-union rally in support of striking Writers Guild of America members was held May 26 in downtown Los Angeles as the strike wrapped up its fourth week with no end in sight.

Members of SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, and the Teamsters, along with hotel workers, teachers, SEIU 721, SEIU 1000, and AFSCME joined WGA members in the late afternoon rally at Figueroa and 12th streets near the Convention Center, where the state Democratic Party was holding its annual meeting.

Solidarity is everything within our unions and among our unions and we have that. We feel that, WGA President Meredith Stiehm said.

Organizers said the rally-goers represent more than 200,000 workers in Los Angeles whose contracts are set to expire.

SAG-AFTRA is nearing the end of its contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the Hollywood studios, and last week its leaders called for a strike authorization vote as labor negotiations approach. The studios are also engaged in contract talks with the Directors Guild of America.

Zero progress has been made in resolving the disputewith no word of any talks taking place or any on the radar.

A worker wheels equipment past the famous Hollywood sign as preparations continue for the 95th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, on March 8, 2023. (J. David Ake/AP Photo)

There is no official rule preventing the studios from making a fair deal with writers while in negotiations with another union, the WGA wrote on Twitter Thursday. Its the studios choice to let the strike continue.

In an email sent to its members on Monday, the WGA acknowledged how difficult it is for writers to be on strike and not get paid.

I know its hard to be out there emotionally and physically, WGA Negotiating Committee Member Danielle Sanchez-Witzel wrote in the email.

But we must stay out there in big numbers. Because this is negotiatingbeing disruptive by picketing and leafletting and demonstrating in public, in combination with withholding of labor, is action. And we are now a significant part of a National and Global Labor Movement.

The WGA is pushing for improvements on a variety of fronts, notably for higher residual pay for streaming programs that have larger viewership, rather than the existing model that pays a standard rate regardless of a shows success.

The union is also calling for industry standards on the number of writers assigned to each show, increases in foreign streaming residuals, and regulations preventing the use of artificial intelligence technology to write or rewrite any literary material.

Ray Utarnachitt, a captain in the Writers Guild of America West, pickets with others at an entrance to Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles, on May 2, 2023. (Chris Pizzello/AP Photo)

The AMPTP has pushed back against some of the WGAs demands, particularly around its calls for mandatory staffing and employment guarantees on programs. It has also pushed back against WGA demands around streaming residuals, saying the guilds offer would increase rates by 200 percent.

The use of artificial intelligence has emerged as a major topic. The WGA says it wants a ban on the use of AI, and contends the AMPTP has refused to even negotiate the issue. The AMPTP said the issue raises important creative and legal questions and requires a lot more discussion, which weve committed to doing.

The strike has been having an impact on television viewing, with late-night talk shows and Saturday Night Live all forced into reruns. The walkout has also prompted numerous television and film productions to shut down as other union members refused to cross the picket lines.

The last WGA strike lasted from November 2007 until February 2008. Industry experts estimated that a 100-day strike cost the local economy between $2 billion and $3 billion.

With both sides still at loggerheads, many observers fear the current walkout could last even longer.

On June 7, the AMPTP is scheduled to begin negotiations with the SAG- AFTRA actors union, which has already come out in strong support of the striking writers. The AMPTP began labor talks on May 10 with the Directors Guild of America, which is seeking to address many of the same issues involved in the WGA stalemate. The DGAs contract with AMPTP expires June 30.
ADDIS ABABA, May 28 (Xinhua) -- The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an East African bloc, on Sunday condemned the attack on the Ugandan contingent of African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) forces.

"We strongly condemn Friday's heinous terrorist attack on the Ugandan contingent of ATMIS forces in Bulo Marer town in Lower Shabelle region," the IGAD said in a statement issued via social media on Sunday.

"We convey our heartfelt sympathies to the families of those affected and with the AU (African Union) family," it added.

The East African bloc further reiterated its strong support to the government and people of Somalia in the fight against terrorism.

"We must stand together in solidarity with the government and the Somali people in their fight against terrorism and in their efforts toward building a peaceful and stable Somalia," it said.

On Saturday, the Ugandan military said it has sent a team of experts to investigate the Friday attack on its troops in Somalia by the al-Shabaab militant group.

Uganda is one of the troop-contributing countries to the ATMIS battling terrorists in Somalia. Others are Burundi, Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia.

The Ugandan army is yet to establish the number of casualties. The al-Shabaab, however, claims to have killed more than 130 soldiers. 
Home Office Launches Ad Campaign to Deter Albanians From Illegal Channel Crossings

A group of illegal immigrants are brought by a Border Force vessel to Dover, Kent, on May 19, 2023. (Gareth Fuller/PA Media)

The Home Office is set to launch an ad campaign aimed at deterring Albanians from crossing the English Channel illegally to reach the UK with the message that people face being detained and removed if they make the journey.

The campaign, which starts in Albania next week, will make clear the perils illegal immigrants may encounter on small boats.

Adverts in Albanian on Facebook and Instagram were launched last August to try and deter Albanian citizens from making the journey.

It was the most common nationality applying for asylum in the UK in the year to March 2023, with 13,714 applications by Albanian citizens, 9,487 of which came from arrivals on boats crossing the English Channel.

But the UK government sees Albania as a safe and prosperous country and the illegal immigrants are travelling through multiple countries to make the journey to the UK to make spurious asylum claims.

Minister of State for Immigration Robert Jenrick delivers a speech on sovereign borders in an age of mass migration at the Policy Exchange in central London, England, on April 25, 2023. (Jordan Pettitt/PA Media)

Crackdown At Source

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said: Organised immigration crime is a global challenge which requires international solutions the whole way along the migration route.

That includes working proactively at source before people set off on dangerous and unnecessary journeys.

We are determined to stop the boats and the campaign, launching in Albania this week, is just one component of the Home Offices work upstream to help dispel myths about illegal travel to the UK, explain the realities, and combat the lies peddled by evil people-smugglers who profit from this vile trade.

But the opposition Labour Party said the Conservative governments attempt to tackle illegal immigration has failed at every turn.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: It beggars belief that as Channel crossings continue to rise and the asylum system is in chaos, all the Conservatives can come up with to stop the criminal gangs is an ad campaign.

At every turn, the Tories so-called solutions fail to meet the scale of the crisis. All they are doing is tinkering at the edges.

Safe Country

The government is under intense pressure from Conservative MPs to get to grips with the issue of human traffickers using small boats to ferry illegal immigrants across the English Channel into the UK.

The number of Albanian small boat arrivals peaked during the summer of 2022 and by early 2023 had dropped below levels seen in 2021, the Home Office said last week.

Downing Street said there has been a 20 percent decrease in the asylum grant rate for Albanians and there has been some success with the UK governments partnership with the Albanian authorities.

But the immigration minister said last December that Albanians should be barred completely from claiming asylum in the UK as they are coming from a demonstrably safe country.

Albania is a demonstrably safe country. It is very hard to see how an Albanian should be able to successfully claim asylum here in the UK, Jenrick told GB News.

Modern Slavery Claims

It emerged earlier this year that more than half of the illegal immigrants who claimed to be victims of modern slaveryafter crossing the English Channel in the first half of 2022were Albanian.

The Home Office made the revelation in response to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests from Migration Watch UK, a campaign group.

Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch, said illegal immigrants and people traffickers are taking advantage of a huge loophole in UK legislation and gaming the system.

Under the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), people who claim to have been the victims of trafficking or modern slavery cant be deported until their claim has been investigated.

According to government figures released in November, 91 percent of Albanian small boat arrivals who claimed to be victims of modern slavery had been allowed to stay in the UK pending a full investigation of their claims by the Home Office.

According to the figures, the average application was taking 561 days to process, during which time the illegal immigrants are offered accommodation, food, legal aid, and counselling.

PA Media contributed to this report.
Illegal Immigrant Charged With Murder of Florida Officer

An illegal alien teen has been charged with murdering a police officer from Florida. The officer died after a six-minute struggle with the suspect.

The illegal immigrant, 18-year-old Vergilio Aguilar Mendez from Guatemala, was seen by Sergeant Michael Kunovich in St. Augustine, Florida, on the evening of May 19. Mendez was sitting in the dark outside a closed business. Kunovich attempted a pat down to check for weapons but Mendez pulled away and tried to flee. More deputies arrived at the scene while Mendez continued to resist.

While fighting on the ground, Mendez attempted to take hold of Kunovichs Taser and continued to resist violently for more than six minutes, according to a May 20 press release by St. Johns County Sheriffs Office (SJSO), Florida. After Mendez was handcuffed and his pocket knife was confiscated, Kunovich collapsed. Though fire and rescue personnel engaged in lifesaving measures, Kunovich was pronounced dead shortly after being taken to Flagler Hospital.

Kunovich was a 25-year veteran of the SJSO. Mendez was charged with resisting with violence and felony murder. He is in St. Johns County jail and has not been granted bail. Funeral services for Kunovich were held on Friday, May 26.

Meanwhile, Floridas Republican Governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis criticized the Biden administrations policies as he talked about Kunovichs death in a May 26 tweet. Sergeant Michael Kunovich was killed in the line of duty by an illegal immigrant who took advantage of our open border.

Our prayers go out to the Kunovich family and the entire @SJSOPIO community during this time. Joe Bidens reckless immigration policies are deadlyit is no way to run a country.

According to St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick, Kunovich died from medical issues. The suspect chose to try to remove a knife from the left-hand pocket of his pants and the struggle was on with Sgt. Michael Kunovich until the next deputy sheriff showed up 37 seconds later, he said, according to First Coast News.

Ultimately Sgt. Michael Kunovich succumbed basically to some medical issues that actually were induced by the struggle with our subject.

Since Mendez has been identified as having entered the country illegally, he could face deportation rather than a criminal trial.

Illegal Immigrant Felons

According to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the number of noncitizens with criminal convictions arrested by border patrol has increased exponentially over the past few years. In fiscal year 2020, there were 2,438 arrests.

This jumped to 10,763 in fiscal 2021 and then to 12,028 in fiscal 2022. So far this fiscal year, border patrol has arrested 5,193 individuals.

The number of criminal noncitizens arrested for assault, battery, and domestic violence crossed 1,000 to hit 1,178 in fiscal 2021. In fiscal 2022, 1,142 arrests were related to such criminal convictions.

Ever since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the country has witnessed a massive surge in illegal immigrants entering via the Southwest border.

CBP data shows that border patrol encountered 458,088 illegal aliens attempting to cross the Southwest border in fiscal 2020 during the Trump administration.

This jumped to 1.73 million in fiscal 2021 under Biden and then to 2.38 million in fiscal 2022. During the first six months of fiscal year 2023, there have already been 1.22 million encounters. This does not account for those who cross the border illegally without being caught.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) recently introduced a measure to impeach Biden. During a May 18 press conference, the Republican lawmaker said that Joe Biden has deliberately compromised our national security by refusing to enforce immigration laws and secure our border.

Greene cited figures that over six million illegal aliens have entered the United States under Biden. His administration has willfully refused to maintain operational control as required by the law.
IN-DEPTH: Most Conservatives Praise Education Savings Accounts, Virginias Largest Homeschooling Group Has a Different View

As more states introduce school choice bills and adopt government education savings accounts (ESAs) programs, Virginias largest homeschooling organization is weary of government ESA programs because they are sure it will lead to mandates and interference.

Home Educators Association of Virginia (HEAV) Director of Support & Government Affairs Yvonne Bunn told The Epoch Times that HEAV opposes Virginias ESA legislation in its current form.

The government is increasingly deciding what kids should learn, and the homeschool community does not want to be told what to teach or how to teach it, said Bunn, and while the left has captured public schools and teaching training programs in order to disseminate radical ideas, they have no control over private schools and homeschools.

A homeschool portfolio chronicles the students progress throughout the year. (Iren_Geo/Shutterstock)

ESAs might change all of that.

ESAs involve state governments putting funds into an electronic account, which is to be accessed by the parents for their childs education needs. ESAs vary from state to state, but most of the funds cover private school tuition and fees, online learning programs, private tutoring, community college costs, higher education expenses, and other preapproved learning services and materials.

However, Bunn is concerned that ESAs could change all that. Any time the government gives out money, there are strings attached to that, Bunn said during a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

Mike Donnelly, a homeschool dad, former senior counsel at the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), and now vice president at the yes. every kid. foundation. agrees with Bunn on this point.

What the government funds, the government controls, Donnelly said during a May 25 virtual panel discussion hosted by the Cato Institute and attended by homeschooling policy experts and advocates. The 60-minute discussion covered a wide array of concerns homeschoolers have about ESAs.

Donnelly said most homeschoolers do not want the government to have that kind of control.

Currently, homeschools and private schools in Virginia are free from government mandates and can decide what they want to teach based on their values, beliefs, and what best suits their child. However, if homeschooling parents start opting for ESA funding, the government is going to start requiring some type of evidence that you are implementing the principles that they think you should be implementing in order to get this money, Bunn said.

According to Bunn, ESAs would provide another easy route for the government to influence what children learn by preapproving ESA providers.

States that have ESAs are beginning to announce various mandates, like in New Hampshire, where the state introduced a bill that would require non-public school teachers and volunteers to have a background check, which Bunn said infringes on parental rights, with other states experiencing similar issues she said. Although the New Hampshire bill failed to pass, these are the types of mandates homeschoolers want to be free from.

Alabama is another state where the State Superintendent openly admitted that the goal of the ESA program was to gain control through testing homeschoolers and private school students. Since there was a lack of transparency and accountability in the flow of the ESA funds, Bunn said.

Superintendent Eric Mackey told reporters that he was concerned about homeschoolers and private schools lack of accountability and that the ESA bill should include an accountability provision.

If people are going to be able to use state dollars for homeschooling, he said, we have to completely rewrite our homeschool regulations. At this point, we dont even have a list of who those homeschoolers are.

They should have to go through some minimum standards, Mackey said.

The homeschool community in the United States has fought hard to be recognized as a legitimate form of education and have the government stay out of their business, so they can educate their children as the parents see fit, said Donnelly.

The homeschool community engaged in some very significant legislative and court battles to realize his freedom, Donnelly said. They believe that, with a lot of money coming into the space, that that could create regulatory pressure and impose additional regulations.

Donnelly said new ESA programs could confuse state education officials.

I can tell you, having served the homeschool community across the country for 20 years, it doesnt take a lot to confuse public school government officials, Donnelly said.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) talks about school choice expansion in Arizona during an Education Freedom Report Card celebration sponsored by The Heritage Foundation, on Oct. 25, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Arizonas Solution

The solution is more complicated than not taking the money from a states ESA program, said Donnelly.

According to Donnelly, the fear is that to mitigate the complexity of some homeschoolers taking ESA funds and some not, the state may end up imposing regulations on all homeschooling families.

We, the private homeschoolers who arent taking the money, dont want that kind of pressure building or additional regulations being imposed, said Donnelly.

At the same time, Donnelly said: Nobody at HSLDA wants to prevent parents from leaving the public school system and doing something different. We just want to protect the homeschooling community from regulatory capture.

The solution that some states came up with and that HSLDA agreed to was to separate homeschooling completely from ESAs, so traditional homeschoolers could completely opt-out.

Arizona meets compulsory school laws by having three options, attend public schools, join the ESA program, or sign an affidavit stating they will homeschool and government leaves them alone, said Matt Beienburg, director of education policy at the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, during the May 25 homeschool panel discussion.

The Arizona statute is very clear. It says the government, the state does not have the authority to alter the curriculum or creed or regulates for private or homeschool education, said Beienburg.

In Arizonas ESA program, the unused funds roll over to the following year, Beienburg added.

Virginia lawmakers have filed four 2023 school choice-related bills, which Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid (R) fielded questions about when meeting with parents at Langley High School in McLean, Va., on Jan. 10, 2023. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

Know the Law

Jamie Buckland, founder of West Virginia Families United for Education and a mom who has homeschooled all of her children, said she opted to use the ESA for her youngest child, which came with more regulation, but she was willing to meet the requirements in order to use the funds.

Theres been a lot of misinformation from traditional homeschool groups who think that it comes with many more hoops, and it actually does, so I like to remind people that we can define what hoops were jumping through, and some of them may be feasible for many families, said Buckland during the May 25 panel discussion.

Because homeschool and ESA laws vary from state to state, Buckland recommends that parents learn about what is required by the ESA funding in their own state and consult HSLDA for specific details in deciding if they want to take government school choice funding.

School choice initiatives are popping up all over the United States, with 21 states having introduced Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and 12 states ( Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi , New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia) that already have some type of ESA programs.

In 2022, Virginia Republicans introduced four school choice or ESA bills, which all failed to pass the Democrat-led Senate.

Delegate Glenn Davis sponsored H.B. 1508, which would have established the Virginia Education Success Account Program. Under H.B. 1508, parents of children currently enrolled or starting in public schools could receive a portion of $5000 deposited into a savings account to use toward education expenses. Bunn said she explained to Davis in an hour-long meeting that HEAV does not want homeschoolers named in his bill.

In fact, we want to assure if any homeschool does take the ESA money, that they are called something else [and] they do not file a notice of intent to homeschool, said Bunn.

Currently, all homeschooling parents have to sign a notice of intent with the Virginia Department of Education.

The three other bills: H.B. 1371, S.B. 823, and H.B. 1396, would have each created an ESA.

Its a very complicated thing. Really. We consider this a great challenge to homeschooling. I dont think weve ever seen the government want to come in and regulate in the way that this could be set up for them to do, said Bunn.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated a school choice bill passed in Alabama. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
Minister Lametti Open to Rewriting Mail Regulations to Give More Powers to Postal Inspectors

The federal government is considering allowing Canada Post inspectors to open suspicious letters, according to Attorney General David Lametti.

At a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs (LCJC) on May 18, Lametti said he would review changes in federal law, which currently states under the Canada Post Corporation Act that postal inspectors can only open larger packages suspected of carrying contraband, but not letter mail, as reported by Blacklocks Reporter on May 23.

It is important not only to law enforcement but also important to the protection of human rights and rights to privacy under the charter, said Lametti. It is a little trickier than a package so it needs more time.

Police chiefs have been asking for legal authority to seize mail in transit since at least 2015. At the time, civil liberties advocates warned that the process would be ripe for problems.

Cara Zwibel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association told the CBC in August 2015 that someone who hasnt yet received it [an intercepted package containing illicit goods] and who actually may not know that its coming, or may not have asked for it, or may not know it contains illegal items, could face criminal consequences.

We should be careful about eroding the kind of protections that we put around what gets sent through the mailand what gets sent electronically, she said.

The current regulations prohibit the inspection of letters weighing 30 grams or under. Police also cannot intercept any letter, package, or mail of any kind if its still in transit. To intercept and seize an item suspected of containing an illegal drug or a handgun, for example, a police officer must wait until its delivered to the addressee or returned to the sender.

Lametti said he was open to looking at rewriting the regulations.

Drugs by Letter Mail

In a May 5 submission to the Senate LCJC committee, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police said drug dealers are shipping contraband by letter mail.

Too many criminals are exploiting the current loophole in this legislative framework, making large profits using Canada Post to commit criminal acts and putting Canadian lives at risk, wrote the police association.

According to committee member Senator Denis Batters, police have said that criminals exploit an antiquated legal loophole that bars them from searching packages sent through Canada Post. Current regulations ensure a Crown corporation will remain the shipper of choice for fentanyl dealers, suggested Batters at the May 18 meeting.

Lametti replied, I agree with you that it is an important question, noting that I am open to looking at that moving forward.

Senator Marty Klyne asked Lametti, How important is it for inspectors to be able to intercept letters?

I appreciate the depth of your concern, replied Lametti. I share those concerns as well as a general desire to make sure that our legitimate systems of communication arent being used for illegal purposes, especially one as tragic as trafficking fentanyl, he said, adding that I share your belief in the importance of it.

Proposed Postal Safety Act

Senator Pierre Dalphond, another LCJC committee member, sponsored a public bill in November 2022 that is currently before the Senate.

Bill S-256, An Act to Amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, or the Canadian Postal Safety Act, would allow police to stop suspicious mail in transit, including letters, if they suspect illegal material.

While an item is in the mail, the only option the police have is to work closely with one of the 25 inspectors at Canada Post25 to cover the whole country, Dalphond, a former judge, previously told the Senate in a speech in November 2022, at the start of the second reading of the bill. What are we waiting for?

Dalphond said that, with the passage of the Post Office Act in 1867, it was inconceivable to interfere with the operations of the Royal Mail or to read the content of letters one was tasked with delivering, as the objective of this law was to protect privacy.

In 2022, Canada Post, originally known as Royal Mail Canada, delivered 6.6 billion pieces of mail, parcels, and letters to 17.2 million addresses nationwide, according to a May 17 written submission to the Senate committee from the federal Crown corporation.

For quite some time, only a postal inspector could detain an item, for instance if it wasnt sufficiently stamped for the class of mail or if it contained items that were illegal to send by post. It would be more than 100 years before any exceptions to the principle of prohibiting interference with mail items were adopted, Dalphond said in his speech.

This was done through passage of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act in 1984, an amendment to the Customs Act in 1986, and the passage of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act in 2000, according to Dalphond.

Under the amendment to the Customs Act, a shipment entering Canada may be subject to inspection by border services officers if they have reason to suspect that its contents are prohibited from being imported into Canada. If this is the case, the shipment, whether a package or an envelope, may be seized, added Dalphond.

However, an envelope mailed in Canada to someone who resides at a Canadian address cannot be opened by the police or even by a postal inspector, he said.
Malibu Sniper Found Guilty for Fatal Shooting of Irvine Father While Camping With His Daughters

LOS ANGELESA man who fatally shot a research scientist as he slept inside a tent with his two young daughters in Malibu Creek State Park was convicted May 26 of second-degree murder and other counts.

Anthony Rauda, 46, who some dubbed the Malibu Sniper when authorities accused him of involvement in multiple shootings in or near the park, was also convicted of three counts of attempted murder and five counts of second-degree commercial burglary.

The jury acquitted him of seven other attempted-murder charges.

Prosecutors had been seeking a first-degree murder conviction for the June 22, 2018, killing of Tristan Beaudette as he camped with his daughters, but jurors convicted Rauda instead of the lesser charge of second-degree murder. Two of the three attempted murder counts for which Rauda was convicted involved Beaudettes daughters.

Friends and family of Beaudette in the courtroom were visibly emotional as the verdicts were read, with one of them openly weeping. Rauda, who had previously waived his right to be present, was not in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom.

Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter set sentencing for June 7.

Hunter thanked the jurors for their service, noting their diligence in deliberating a complex case that included 16 overall charges. The jury began deliberating Tuesday morning.

This was a hard one, she told jurors before dismissing them.

Prosecutors tried to link Rauda to a series of shootings, all of which generally occurred in the early morning hours. The commercial burglary charges involved a series of break-ins, including two at the Calabasas Community Center and two at the Las Virgenes Water District facility between July and October 2018, which primarily involved food that was taken from the facilities.

In the prosecutions final argument Tuesday just before jurors were sent back for deliberations, Deputy District Attorney Antonella Nistorescu told jurors the evidence against Rauda was overwhelming.

In his closing argument Monday, Raudas attorney told the panel there is reasonable doubt and urged the jury to acquit his client.

The prosecutor told jurors Monday that Rauda had a pattern of stalking and preying on campers at Malibu Creek State Park, beginning with a man being shot while sleeping in a hammock in November 2016 and that the victims were shot at between 3 and 5 a.m.a time when the prosecutor said people are usually in their deepest, most peaceful sleepas they camped at the state park.

Unsuspecting motorists were also shot at while driving nearby in white vehicles at night, with ballistics testing subsequently linking a rifle that was found in a backpack Rauda was carrying at the time of his arrest to the bullet that killed Beaudette and a shooting that damaged a white Tesla being driven nearby a few days earlier, according to the prosecutor.

Nistorescu said the defendant finally managed to do what he had persistently been trying to do when he killed Beaudette as he was sleeping next to his daughters. Beaudettes youngest daughters leggings were covered in her fathers blood when she knelt next to him after the shooting, the prosecutor said.

The prosecutor alleged that Rauda wore a mask and dark clothing and toted a rifle when he committed the burglaries, calling him thorough, deliberate, and careful.

After the last break-in, Rauda was tracked down through bootprints and a scent dog to a makeshift encampment on Oct.10, 2018, Nistorescu said.

Defendants Argument

Raudas attorney, Nicholas Okorocha, countered that there was reasonable doubt involving the charges against his client.

He told jurors they should watch for an absence of evidence that indicates gaps in the case.

You have these unanswered questions, the defense lawyer said in his closing argument.

He noted that DNA testing done on cigarette butts found near where authorities believe the gunman shot at Beaudettes tent showed that the DNA came from an as-yet unidentified male and that it does not match his clients DNA.

Okorocha said the investigation has gone on for 4 1/2 years and is still ongoing as authorities try to figure out whose DNA was on the cigarette butts.

Theres clearly reasonable doubt, he said, telling jurors that he is asking them to follow the law and find Anthony Rauda not guilty.

In her rebuttal argument, the prosecutor countered that the discussion about the cigarette butts was a red herring, saying they were found in a public campground and had no logical connection to Beaudettes shooting.

Day of the Shooting: Witnesses

During the trial, Beaudettes brother-in-law, who was camping in a tent nearby, testified that he heard loud popping sounds and one of the victims children crying, and found the man dead as his two daughters kneeled next to him in a pool of blood.

During emotional testimony, Scott McCurdy told the downtown Los Angeles jury that he was sleeping in a nearby tent when he was awakened by several loud pops that he initially thought may have been fireworks or something from a nearby fire pit and saw like a flash of light early the morning of June 22, 2018.

He said he heard one of Beaudettes daughters start to cry and waited for his brother-in-law to calm the girl down, then decided to get out of his own tent to see what was going on when he heard the girls older sister talking with her.

I heard the girls crying, he said, telling jurors that Beaudettes youngest daughter said, Wet, wet and that he didnt think anything about it at the time.

McCurdy said he tried to verbally comfort the girls while trying to rouse his brother-in-law from sleep and turned on his brother-in-laws phone after noticing that his own hand felt slippery.

My hand was covered in blood, he said, noting that he turned back to his brother-in-law and saw the girls kneeling in a pool of blood and his brother-in-laws face in a pool of blood.

He said he reached down to try to feel his brother-in-laws neck for a pulse and realized he should get the girls out of the tent and call out to neighboring campers for help.

The victims brother-in-law said he held on to the girls until a few neighbors came over and then went back into the tent to check on Beaudette.

I noticed there was nothing in his eyes, he said of the 35-year-old Allergan research scientist from Irvine. I realized he was gone and I left.

He said he started to put together what had happened to Beaudette and recalled that he had noticed that there was a small hole in the fairly new tent at the campsite, where toys were strewn about and a childrens bike was on top of one of the vehicles.

The prosecutions first witness, Stacey Sebourn, who was camping nearby, said she was awakened early that day by the sound of gunshots that sounded like they came from a shotgun or rifle. She said she called 911 after hearing a man calling for help and a baby crying.

It was a very mournful cry for daddy over and over againdaddy, daddy, daddy,' she said.

She said she whispered during her 911 call to report the shooting because she didnt want to bring attention to her own tent.

I was petrified, she said, noting that she didnt initially come out of her tent after the shooting.

Rauda was arrested on Oct. 10, 2018.

He was sentenced in December 2018 to six months in jail for gun and ammunition violations, a sentence set to run consecutively with an earlier 160-day sentence for a probation violation.

He was charged in January 2019 with the alleged crime spree and subsequently indicted in October 2019.

Rauda was sentenced last June to three years and eight months in jail after being convicted of attacking two Los Angeles County sheriffs deputies since hes been in custody. Both of those attacks were caught on surveillance video, and Rauda was subsequently brought into court for further hearings in a chair in which he was confined.
McCarthy Confident He Can Win Enough Votes for Tentative Debt Ceiling Deal

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks to the press after an "agreement principle" was reached between House Republicans and President Joe Biden's team to avoid a default on the U.S. debt at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on May 28, 2023. (Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said hes confident he can garner the votes for a tentative debt ceiling deal between Republicans and President Joe Biden.

On the evening of May 27, McCarthy announced during a press conference that he and Biden had reached what he called an agreement in principle thats worthy of the American people to raise the debt ceiling. In addition to raising the debt ceiling, the bill would cap non-defense spending at its previous levels, enhance work requirements for government assistance, and reclaim unspent COVID-19 relief funds, among other measures.

According to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Congress has until June 5, a date she called a hard deadline, to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a default. Such a default would decimate the value of an already-debased U.S. dollar.

The tentative deal is one that leaves neither Republicans nor Democrats entirely happy, and congressional leaders still face the challenge of advancing the deal through both chambers.

Nevertheless, McCarthy seemed confident he could get the bill over the finish line.

I think you are going to get a majority of Republicans voting for this bill, McCarthy said on Fox News Sunday.

McCarthy said that though hes been in regular communication with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), he has not yet asked Democrats for support to get the bill over the finish line in the House.

Right now, the Democrats are very upset. The one thing Hakeem told me: There is nothing in the bill for them, McCarthy said.

Democrats have pushed for a clean debt ceiling increase with no strings attached. For months, Biden refused to negotiate, demanding that Republicans concede on the issue and pass a clean package.

Divisions

The compromise arrangement has also proved divisive for Republicans, several of whom say they wont vote for it.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) called it a surrender.

Our base didnt volunteer, door knock and fight so hard to get us the majority for this kind of compromise deal with Joe Biden, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said on Twitter. Our voters deserve better than this. We work for them. You can count me as a NO on this deal. We can do better.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) speaks during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit held at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Fla., on July 23, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

According to some reports, the deal would raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion$2.5 trillion more than Republicans agreed to authorize in the Limit, Save, Grow Act.

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) said that this fact alone makes supporting the bill unjustifiable for conservatives.

No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote for a $4 trillion increase, Good said.

Likewise, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) reiterated his demand for Republicans to hold the line on their demands and wait for a better deal.

Nevertheless, McCarthy said after his press conference announcing the deal, I think once people read the bill, theyll be pretty excited.

Others in the GOP conference have been less critical of the bill.

During an appearance on CNNs State of the Union, Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) called the deal a remarkable conservative accomplishment, while conceding that members like Good would not support the bill.

Johnson agreed with McCarthy that a majority of Republicans would support the deal.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who has been a leading figure in negotiations, said that despite the tentative deal, many specifics still need to be ironed out.

McCarthy holds a slim majority in the lower chamber and heads up a deeply ideologically divided caucus. Thus, its unclear if the deal could pass with only GOP votes, or if McCarthy will be forced to look across the aisle for support.

Democrats have made clear that they wont support a package just because the White House does.

McCarthy is set to meet with the president again on May 28. After the meeting, Jeffries said in a letter to colleagues, the text of the tentative deal will be released.
Mexican Authorities Make Arrest in Mid-May Killing of Quebec Man in Seaside Town

A Mexican flag is seen over the city of Tijuana, Mexico from San Ysidro, a district of San Diego, California, U.S., April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Mexican authorities have made an arrest in the killing of a Quebecman earlier this month in the Pacific coast beach town of Puerto Escondido.

The Oaxaca state attorney general issued a statement on Friday saying an arrest warrant was executed for a man in Puerto Escondido identified only by his initials in connection with the homicide of Victor Masson.

The statement did not outline any specific charges and said that a judge would decide next steps for the accused.

Prosecutors said Masson was found dead in his car on May 15 in a neighbourhood where few tourists stay.

A few days after the slaying, authorities said in another statement that Massons killing stemmed from an altercation with people he had met the previous night over an unpaid bar tab at a local establishment.

A senior prosecutor for the region said Masson had been visiting Oaxaca with his Mexican girlfriend, arriving just a day before the killing.

Prosecutor Bernardo Rodriguez Alamillo said Masson went to a restaurant-bar in a zone known as El adoquin in Puerto Escondido by himself while his girlfriend attended an event with people she knew.

Rodriguez Alamillo said the investigation revealed that Masson met four peopletwo men and two womenat the establishment. When it came time to pay the bill, there was an altercation between the victim and the people hed met.

The prosecutor said after leaving, Masson called 9-1-1 to report he had been robbed. He was found dead the next day.

Masson, 27, hails from the provinces Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region north of Quebec City.

His family confirmed his death in a statement after the killing.

You will understand that Victor Massons family is in shock and that members learned of the death through the media, the statement read, adding relatives would refrain from any comment so as not to harm the investigation.

A spokesman for the family did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
Pair Charged as $60 Million in Cocaine Found at Sydney Port

Two Greek nationals have been charged with numerous offences after police allegedly found $60 million (US$39 million) worth of cocaine in the walls of a shipping container in Sydney.

Police were called to a Port Botany container logistics company with reports of a break-and-enter about 11 p.m. on Thursday.

A man, 27, was arrested after being spotted around the containers, and officers allege a second man, 19, had fled the area.

The pair travelled from Athens, Greece, to rip the drugs from inside an otherwise legitimate shipping container from Italy, acting on behalf of local criminals, police allege.

Australian Border Force were notified, and during searches discovered about 120 kilograms of cocaine, stored in 1 kilogram bricks in the walls of a container.

The street value of the drugs is estimated at $60 million.

The pair, who do not speak English, had been in the country for a short time before their arrest, Acting Superintendent Detective Matthew Kennedy from the Drug and Firearms Squad said on Sunday.

Their sole purpose, we will be alleging, was to come here to Australia to assist with this rip on, rip off, he said.

Rip on, rip off schemes target legitimate companies, placing illicit items within shipping containers, and using third parties to retrieve the items at a destination.

These organised crime syndicates, theyre always trying to distance themselves as much as they can, Kennedy said.

Theyre always trying to push it off. Theyre always compartmentalised.

[They] move the drugs to a certain location and their job is done.

Sydneys ports were constantly manned by security guards and CCTV, and attempting to breach the facility was almost certain to result in arrest, Kennedy said.

It was probably not the smartest thing for the organised crime group to send to Greek nationals  into a port where they dont know the lay of the land.

The 27-year-old was taken to Newtown Police Station and charged with entering enclosed lands, assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and malicious damage.

He appeared at Waverley Local Court on Friday where his bail was formally refused. He is due in the same court on June 13.

He could face further charges relating to drug supply and importation, Kennedy said.

Detectives from Strike Force Biles searched three units in the Balmain and Leichhardt areas on Friday, where they allegedly seized crow bars, breaking tools, gloves, bags and other items relevant to the investigation.

During the search of a unit in Leichhardt, police arrested the 19-year-old, who was taken to Newtown Police Station and charged with intent to commit an indictable offence, large commercial supply of prohibited drugs, and attempting to possess a commercial quantity of border restricted drug.

The 19-year-old was formally refused bail at Parramatta Local Court on Saturday. He is next due at Downing Centre Local Court on July 20.
Placentia Man Pleads Guilty in $1.2 Million Social Media Check Fraud Scheme

SANTA ANA, Calif.A 26-year-old Placentia man pleaded guilty May 25 to a social media check fraud scheme of teaching people how to create false checks using Telegram chat groups, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Meshach Samuels pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and two counts of being a felon in possession of weapons, federal prosecutors said.

The scheme sought about $1.2 million, but led to at least $400,000 in losses, prosecutors said.

Samuels charged his social media followers thousands of dollars for tips on how to recruit accomplices in a check fraud scheme to rip off banks, prosecutors said. From May 2021 through March 2022, Samuels and others ran the scheme which involved stolen personal information and depositing fraudulent checks into third-party accounts, prosecutors said.

Once the money from the bad checks was credited to a bank account Samuels and others would withdraw the cash in amounts below $10,000 to avoid activating security protocols, prosecutors said.

Samuels also was involved in a scheme to steal about $14,250 in state unemployment benefits using the identities of dead people or others not eligible for the benefits, according to the plea agreement.

Samuels has a criminal history that includes aggravated battery on a police officer in Florida with an enhancement for attempted murder, prosecutors said. During an August 2021 traffic stop in Costa Mesa officers recovered a gun and ammunition on him, prosecutors said.

When federal agents searched Samuels home in March 2022 they found five guns and ammunition, prosecutors said.

Samuels is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 23.

Sasha Lizette Jimenez, 26, the defendants ex-girlfriend pleaded guilty Monday in a related case to the state unemployment insurance fraud scheme, prosecutors said. Jimenez, who kept the books for the scheme, caused at least $2.8 million in fraudulent unemployment benefit debit cards to be issued and at least $2.3 million was taken from them, prosecutors said. Jimenez is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 30.
Police Arrest Fourth Suspect in Unsolved Kidnapping of Ontario Woman

Elnaz Hajtamari has been missing for over a year after being abducted by men impersonating police

Police have arrested and charged a fourth suspect in relation to the kidnapping of Toronto woman Elnaz Hajtamari.

Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) say Adams Suleman Ankamah, a 29-year-old man from Brampton, was arrested on May 24 and charged with kidnapping and a number of firearms offences, including possession of firearm or ammunition contrary to a prohibition order, unauthorized possession of a firearm, careless storage of a firearm, knowledge of unauthorized possession of a firearm, and possession of proceeds of property obtained by crime over $5,000.

The accused remains in custody and is scheduled to appear at the Ontario Court of Justice in Barrie on June 1, 2023, the OPP said in a news release. The charges have not been proven in court.

In January 2016, at the age of 22, Ankamah was arrested by the OPP and charged with possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking. He was arrested again in 2019, and this time charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking fentanyl and cocaine, proceeds of crime over $5,000, two counts of careless storage of a firearm, two counts of posession of a restricted/prohibited firearm with ammunition, two counts of unauthorized possession of a firearm, knowing possessing an unauthorized firearm, and possession of a prohibited device.

Police are still looking for another suspect, 35-year old Deshawn Davis of Toronto, who has an outstanding arrest warrant.

Ontario Provincial Police said on May 26, 2023 that an outstanding warrant for Deshawn Davis of Toronto is in effect, in connection with the kidnapping of a Toronto woman in January 2022. (Ontario Provincial Police Handout)

The OPP said they are also looking to identify and speak to individual(s) who rented vehicles in December 2021 who may have information related to the kidnapping case.

This individual, or individuals, are not suspects, but may have information related to this case. Anyone with information about their whereabouts is asked to contact the OPP immediately at 1-888-310-1122 or through the dedicated tip line at 1-833-728-3415.

OPP and York Regional Police have jointly offered a $100,000 reward for anyone with information that will lead to Hajtamiris whereabouts.

EHajtmiri, 37, who also uses the last name Tamiri, has been missing since approximately 8:32 p.m. on Jan. 12, 2022, when police say the woman was forcibly dragged from a relatives home on Trailwood Place in Wasaga Beach, Ont., by three men posing as police officers.

The suspects were dressed in police gear, according to the OPP, but not legitimate uniforms. They drove away in what police believe to be a white Lexus RX sport utility vehicle.

Ontario Provincial Police said on May 26, 2023, that they are seeking persons of interest who rented vehicles in December 2021, who may have information related to an unsolved kidnapping case. (Ontario Provincial Police Handout)

Hajtamiri had been hiding with family members after she was repeatedly beaten with a frying pan in an underground parkade in a previous attack in December 2021, just a few weeks before her abduction. The woman reportedly suffered a head injury that required 40 stitches.

Hajtamiris sister, Aysa Hajtamiri, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, told CTV News Hajtamiri was hiding because her ex-boyfriend had allegedly begun making threats toward her.

Her former boyfriend, 35-year-old Mohamad Lilo, was charged with abduction in relation to her January 2022 disappearance, as well as attempted murder and attempted abduction charges stemming from the December 2021 assault.

Two other men were also charged in relation to the December parkade incident.

According to the OPP, Hajtamiri emigrated from Iran to Canada less than five years ago. She is 53 tall, and slim, with short black hair that was cut from a longer length before she went missing.
TUNIS, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Tunisian Foreign Minister Nabil Ammar expressed on Saturday Tunisia's deep concern over the situation in Sudan and its consequences on the entire region, according to a statement released by the country's foreign ministry.

Ammar made the remarks during a virtual meeting of the African Union's Peace and Security Council held to discuss the developments of the Sudan crisis.

During the meeting, Ammar reiterated Tunisia's commitment to Sudan's unity and sovereignty and expressed Tunisia's solidarity with the Sudanese people in their pursuit of a lasting and comprehensive peace.

The Tunisian minister also called on all Sudanese parties to uphold the interests of Sudan and return to the political settlement process.

The minister also called for international efforts to provide relief to the Sudanese people and alleviate their suffering. 
Lifestyle: Lessons in Cooking and Hospitality From a Life of Eating Between Italy and the South
Rights Group: Uyghur Student Missing in Hong Kong After Texting That He Was Interrogated by Police

Members of the League of Social Democrats are surrounded by police as they carry a banner outside a court in Hong Kong on Feb. 6, 2023. (Peter Parks/AFP via Getty Images)

HONG KONGA Uyghur student has been missing in Hong Kong for more than two weeks since he sent a message saying he was being interrogated by Chinese police at the citys airport, a human rights group said Friday.

Amnesty International said Abuduwaili Abudureheman, who was born in Xinjiang in western China, traveled to Hong Kong from South Korea to visit a friend on May 10 but has not been heard from since he texted his friend about being interrogated after his arrival.

The unknown fate of Abuduwaili Abudureheman is deeply worrying, given the background of crimes against humanity committed against Uyghurs by Chinas ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Xinjiang, and its ongoing pursuit of Uyghurs who have traveled overseas, Amnesty International China researcher Alkan Akad said in a statement.

He said the student appears to have been detained and interrogated, and that raised questions about the Hong Kong governments possible involvement in human rights violations committed against Uyghurs by the CCP.

The Hong Kong government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hong Kong is a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997 with a promise that it could retain its Western-style freedoms and autonomy for 50 years. But critics say Beijing is increasing its control over the territory and reducing its liberties.

Human rights groups and the United Nations accuse China of detaining a million or more Uyghurs and members of other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in camps where many have said they were tortured, sexually assaulted, and forced to abandon their language and religion.

China denies the accusations, which are based on interviews with survivors and photos and satellite images of the Xinjiang region where many Uyghurs live.

Amnesty International said it understood that Abuduwaili Abudureheman, who has been studying in Seoul for seven years, was on a CCP watch list because of his history of overseas travel, and urged Hong Kong authorities to reveal his whereabouts.

(He) is at grave risk of torture based on his ethnicity and religion. If he is detained, he must be provided with access to a lawyer and relatives, and protected against any ill treatment, Akad said.

By Kanis Leung
South Dakota Governor Tells Higher Education Board to Remove Mandates on Preferred Pronouns

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks at the Calvin Coolidge Foundation conference at the Library of Congress in Washington, on Feb. 17, 2023. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem issued a letter on May 25 to the governing board that oversees the six public universities in the state. In it, she lamented about the situation of higher education in the country, and challenged the board to a series of actions to show the nation what quality higher education is supposed to look like.

Among several points, the Republican governor told the board it should ban drag shows on university campuses, and, separately, remove all preferred pronouns in school materials, as well as remove all mandates that compel people to use preferred pronouns.

However, what appears to be the priority is the first point of action she raised, which is that the board should aim to raise graduation rates across its six universities to 65 percent by 2028, compared to the current graduation rate of 47 percent. Meanwhile, in 2020, the national graduation rate was 63 percent.

At the K-12 level, we are taking steps to improve our standards and expand school choice in South Dakota so that all kids have access to a high-quality education that prepares them for whatever comes next after high school, Noem told the board in her letter (pdf).

For those who choose to start attending a university after graduating, less than half are graduating. We must do better than that. I look forward to working with you all on ideas to improve our graduation rates.

The Epoch Times has emailed the Board of Regents for comment.

State of Crisis

Noem said that higher education across the United States is in a state of crisis.

For the last several decades, many states have allowed liberal ideologies to poison their universities and colleges. Once a hotbed of ideological diversity, debate, and the pursuit of truth and discovery, many institutions have become one-sided, close-minded, and focused on feelings rather than facts, she wrote.

Professors have discarded reason and logic in favor of subjectivity and relativism. Higher education leaders have rejected universal truth and knowledge and replaced it with individual truth.'

She said that students on campuses across the United States have been taught the importance of diversity and equity and given access to safe spaces instead of learning to tolerate the disagreement, discomfort, and dissent that they will experience in the real world.

In many cases, students and their parents are not even aware of the damage these ideas have caused, she said.

Regarding drag shows, she wrote: Just as other dangerous theories have been allowed to thrive on college campuses, gender theory has been rebranded and accepted as truth across the nation.

These theories should be openly debated in college classrooms, but not celebrated through public performances on taxpayer-owned property at taxpayer-funded schools.

Regarding preferred pronouns, she wrote that mandating them at some campuses has compelled and coerced some students to provide speech they do not agree with.

Students should have the ability to exercise their right to free speech. Colleges and universities should never compel students to speak or take a position on any issue, the governor said.

Noem also told the board her administration has created a new whistleblower hotline where students, faculty members, parents, or taxpayers, can report concerns at institutions of higher education in the state, by calling 605-773-5916.

Our children are our future, and South Dakota universities and technical colleges should best prepare them for our future, Noem said in a post on Twitter.

The governor noted that she recently appointed two members to the board, and will be making more appointments soon.

Five Other Points

Besides raising graduation rates, banning drag shows, and removing preferred pronouns and their enforcement, Noem noted that some universities have restricted speech on topics some people find offensive.

The Board of Regents should remove any policy or procedure that prohibits students from exercising their right to free speech, she said.

Black Hills State University was recently challenged on and ultimately removed a policy that allowed administrators to silence opinions they disagreed with, the governor noted, adding that colleges and universities should review and revise all policies that infringe on students right to free speech. The colleges should also adopt policies that develop and strengthen resiliency among students for when they encounter opposing ideas.

Noem also wanted the Board of Regents to take more steps to partner with businesses on registered apprenticeship programs and offer the lowest possible credit rates. She noted that roughly 43 percent of students who graduated still found themselves unemployed or underemployed.

The other three action points she presented to the board were: to cut costs to make higher education more affordable; to require a course in American Government and a course in American history as part of graduation requirements; and to remove any monetary influence, whether by funding or donations, from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The [CCP] has been known to fund Confucius Institutes and other similar centers at American universities in order to provide skewed Chinese cultural training for U.S. students, said Noem.

This is part of a multi-faceted propaganda effort, and money from the CCP has no place in South Dakota. The Board of Regents should reject any donations from sources and any other government that is hostile to the United States.
Taiwan Reports Chinese Aircraft Carrier Sailed Through Strait

A jet fighter takes off from China's Shandong aircraft carrier, south of Okinawa prefecture, Japan, on April 10, 2023. (Joint Staff Office of the Defense Ministry of Japan/Handout via Reuters)

TAIPEIThe Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Saturday accompanied by two other ships, Taiwans defense ministry said, in the latest uptick in military tensions over the island Beijing claims as its own territory.

The ministry said the Shandong, commissioned in 2019, had sailed in a northerly direction around midday through the strait sticking to its median line, which serves as an unofficial barrier between the two sides.

Taiwans military closely monitored the group using its own ships and aircraft and responded appropriately, the ministry said in a short statement.

Chinas defense ministry did not answer calls seeking comment and the countrys armed forces made no mention of the sailing on their official social media channels.

The Shandong participated in Chinese military drills around Taiwan last month, operating in the western Pacific.

In March of last year, the Shandong sailed through the Taiwan Strait, just hours before the Chinese leader and U.S. president were due to talk.

The Chinese regime has continued military activities on a smaller scale around Taiwan after formally ending its war games last month.

On Saturday, Taiwans defense ministry also said over the previous 24 hours that eight Chinese fighter jets had crossed the straits median line, something Chinese war planes have been doing on a regular basis since earlier war games last August.

The Chinese communist regime has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

The government of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen strongly disputes Beijings sovereignty claims and says only the islands people can decide their future.
Texas AG Ken Paxton Impeached by GOP-Controlled State House

Texas state Attorney General Ken Paxton makes a statement at his office in Austin, Texas, on May 26, 2023. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)

The Republican-controlled Texas House has voted to impeach Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and sent 20 articles of impeachment to the state Senate.

It makes Paxton only the third sitting official in Texass nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the State of Texas, That Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr., Attorney General of the State of Texas, is impeached and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the Texas Senate, read Texas House Resolution No. 2377.

Paxton denounced the impeachment as never meant to be fair or just and was politically motivated.

I look forward to a quick resolution in the Texas Senate, where I have full confidence the process will be fair and just, he said in a statement.

The 12123 vote triggers Paxtons immediate suspension from office pending the outcome of a trial in the state Senate and empowers Gov. Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texass top lawyer in the interim.

President Donald Trump waves upon arrival, alongside Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxton (L) in Dallas, Texas, on June 11, 2020. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

Paxton is one of the GOPs most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in a significant election integrity case related to the presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Trump denounced the impeachment attempt right before the Texas vote.

Hopefully Republicans in the Texas House will agree that this is a very unfair process that should not be allowed to happen or proceedI will fight you if it does, he said in a social media post within half an hour before the state House was set to vote.

The 20 Articles of Impeachment

The 20 articles of impeachment include allegations of bribery and abuse of public trust.

The Texas House alleged that Paxton improperly issued legal opinions to benefit real estate developer Nate Paul, and fired whistleblower staffers.

Bribery charges stem from Paul allegedly employing a woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and Paul allegedly paying for renovations to Paxtons home. Other charges date back to Paxtons pending 2015 felony securities fraud case, including lying to state investigators.

In March, Paxton asked a House Appropriations subcommittee to fund the multimillion-dollar whistleblower settlement. At about the same time, the House Committee began its investigation into the allegations surrounding the case.

In October 2020, eight top deputies in Paxtons agency told the FBI that they believed the attorney general had used his office to help Paul, who had donated $25,000 to Paxtons reelection campaign in 2018.

All of the whistleblowers were fired or resigned, but the allegations led to a federal investigation into Paxton.

In February, the Department of Justice took over the investigation, but no federal charges have been filed against Paxton or Paul.

Paul had come under federal investigation in 2019 in relation to a legal conflict between his businesses and a charitable organization. The real estate developer was entangled in lawsuits and facing as many as 13 foreclosures by 2020, according to the House Committee hearing transcript.

Paxton has said the charges are based on hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims.

The Associated Press and Jana Pruet contributed to the report.
Theres So Much In This Thats Positive: McCarthy Defends Debt Ceiling Deal Amid GOP Backlash

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks to the press after meeting President Joe Biden and other leaders at the White House in Washington on May 16, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) defended his tentative debt ceiling agreement with President Joe Biden amid backlash from his party.

Theres so much in this thats positive, McCarthy said during a May 28 appearance on Fox News Sunday.

On the evening of May 27, McCarthy announced during a press conference that he and Biden had reached what he called an agreement in principle thats worthy of the American people to raise the debt ceiling. In addition to raising the debt ceiling, the bill would cap non-defense spending at its previous levels, enhance work requirements for government assistance, and reclaim unspent COVID-19 relief funds, among other measures.

But some Republicans are unhappy with the deal.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) called it a surrender.

Likewise, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) reiterated his demand for Republicans to hold the line on their demands and wait for a better deal.

Others, like Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), and Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) have also indicated their opposition to the broad outlines of the package.

McCarthy suggested that these criticisms are mistaken, however.

He praised the tentative deal for its provisions cutting federal expenditures.

Think about this: we were finally able to cut spending, he said. Were the first Congress to vote for cutting spending year over year.

So, you cut that back, you fully fund the veterans, you fully fund defense, but you take that non-defense spending all the way back to lower than 22 levels.

Now you get work requirements for [cash welfare and food stamps].

McCarthy said the deal would also streamline the process of building new infrastructure. Where it currently can take years to get government authorization to build a new road, McCarthy said, the agreement would limit that review period to only a year.

Were gonna get America working again, McCarthy said.

This is really a step in the right direction, McCarthy said, contrasting this package with previous debt ceilings that saw no spending cuts. It puts us on a trajectory thats different.

The tentative deal is one that leaves neither Republicans nor Democrats entirely happy, and congressional leaders still face the challenge of advancing the deal through both chambers.

Despite these challenges, McCarthy expressed confidence that the bill could pass.

I think you are going to get a majority of Republicans voting for this bill, McCarthy said on Fox News Sunday.

McCarthy said that though hes been in regular communication with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), he has not yet asked Democrats for support to get the bill over the finish line in the House.

Right now, the Democrats are very upset. The one thing Hakeem told me: There is nothing in the bill for them, McCarthy said.

McCarthy holds a slim majority in the lower chamber and heads up a deeply ideologically divided caucus. Thus, its unclear if the deal could pass with only GOP votes, or if McCarthy will be forced to look across the aisle for support.

Democrats have made clear that they wont support a package just because the White House does.

McCarthy is set to meet with the president again on May 28. After the meeting, Jeffries said in a letter to colleagues, the text of the tentative deal will be released.
They Are Scared: Proponents of Gender Affirmation Showed Their Fear at a Conference

Commentary

I went to a CAMFT (California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists) training conference on May 5 and 6 in order to get an in-person account of what is happening in my profession, in particular regarding gender ideology. I attended because I wanted to hear firsthand what is being taught to my colleagues.

They said some wild stuff in the trainings. I will be sharing some of that here, but I will focus on why I believe that the trans activists know their narrative is under threat:

1) They said it: Linda K. Reeves, WPATH GEI Certified Gender Specialist, said she was afraid of the new bills being passed in the Republican states. She shared how the trans community was previously making such great progress, but she is afraid they are going backwards with these new anti-trans bills. The bills she referenced are all bills to safeguard children and stop minors from being medicalized for life before they can consent. She mentioned this fear two times throughout her 1.5-hour lecture.

2) They asked the audience not to film their presentation because its a tumultuous and hostile environment. The only session to make this request was the workshop entitled Gender-Affirming Medical and Mental Health Care for Transgender Adolescents by Aydin Olson-Kennedy, LCSW, a trans man who has fully transitioned, and the wife Johanna Olson-Kennedy, MD, a pediatrician from Los Angeles Childrens Hospital who has been prescribing puberty blockers for 16 years. She even has a Wikipedia page. This class taught me that puberty blockers are as harmless as a new haircut or clothing style. My question for them is: If you are an expert sharing important clinical information that you are certain of, why would you want your workshop to be hidden? The PowerPoint slides were promised to the audience, but its been 12 days since the session and they are still not posted.

3) This luncheon brought up many gender-critical talking points and attempted to debunk them, albeit very poorly. This leads me to believe that counter messages are being heard.

Here are a few examples.

They attempted to answer the question most people have: How can children truly know themselves so young? Both Aydin and Johanna Olson-Kennedy assured the audience that children know themselves as young as three years old. To argue against the obvious fact that the internet feeds young people ideas, they said that if a young person spends extra time on the internet, this HELPS them and is a good indicator that they have taken the necessary time to know that they are trans.

Finally, Johanna stated that every trans adult was a child, and this is why we need to transition children. (She left out the fact that most children desist if left untreated.) According to a summary of multiple studies, about 80 percent of children desist.

Statsforgender.org states: Evidence from 10 available prospective follow-up studies [1] from childhood to adolescence indicates that childhood gender dysphoria will recede with puberty in ~80% of cases. A Dutch paper [2] notes that follow-up studies show the persistence rate of gender identity disorder to be about 15.8%, or 39 out of the 246 children who were reported on in the literature.

They emphasized that gender dysphoria causes other co-morbid mental health issues, but thats not what most common-sense therapists see, which is troubled kids latching onto a trans identity with the false promise that being trans will fix their deeper problems.

Depression treatment does not treat dysphoria. Gender Dysphoria for some folks is Depression. Gender Dysphoria = Depression, stated Aydin Olson-Kennedy.

The instructors discredited the standard psychology manual, the Diagnostic Standard Manual-5, which states a person must experience gender dysphoria for at least six months. Aydin described the DSM as a book smothered in cis-white privilege. Aydin stated that the DSM was colonized due to its problematic binary language and its emphasis on gender dysphoria as distress.

However, Aydin spent much of the lecture, including a video, showing the audience how distressing being trans is. Aydin even said its normal for dysphoric feelings to increase after receiving hormones and surgeries and that there are pieces of dysphoria you cant undo, negating the prevailing thought that transition solves the issue.

However, the audience was assured that offering puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries is the compassionate form of treatment. Aydin rhetorically asked the audience: At what point is it mean to let people suffer?

And finally, Johanna Olson-Kennedy countered the common question classical liberals have about accepting a gender non-conforming child without changing their bodies. She said that would be nice, but we dont live in a gender utopia, so her medical interventions are necessary.

4) Detransitioners were acknowledged. Up until recently, detransitioners have been ignored because they poke too many holes in the notion that every person who says they are trans just knows. The instructors downplayed the numbers of detransitioners, but they were acknowledged because the instructors know that the audience is likely to hear an interview from Chloe Cole, Ritchie Herron, or many others who have very real and emotional stories. People are going to detransition; thats OK, but we need not to organize our practice around it, stated Johanna Olson-Kennedy.

5) The amount of puberty blockers prescribed was downplayed to argue no need for legislation against it. Johanna Olson-Kennedy said: Only 5,000 children total are on puberty blockers in the U.S. Thats a small amount of kids to be writing legislation about. However, most people who know the truth would agree that 5,000 healthy children being medicalized for life is 5,000 too many. She also argued that puberty blockers are very helpful because they prevent future surgeries. She failed to mention the fact that a child who begins puberty blockers before Tanner stage two (age 911) will never be able to have an orgasm. (Marci Bowers, the president of WPATH, admitted this fact in a leaked Zoom meeting.) In addition, the FDA has issued a warning about brain swelling and blindness.

6) Dr. Olson-Kennedy argued that cross-sex hormones arent bad for you because everyone has hormones. Yes, that was the argument, from a medical professional. Later in her presentation, she stated a few side effects of testosterone, such as changes in sex drive as well as more sweatiness, body hair, and clitoral growth, but she did not mention the more dangerous effects such as early onset menopause, urinary tract issues, mood instability, blood clots, and heart issues. At least the patient is alive, she stated, alluding to the high suicide rates of trans people, but she did not share any data on that point.

7) Lisa Littmans research on rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) was also brought up in Linda Reeves presentation. The research was debunked by WPATH because they say it only surveyed parents, who would know nothing of their childrens history and emotions. Littmans work was discredited based on their belief that parents have absolutely no insight into their childrens thoughts and behaviors. A slide from the presentation contains an emotion-based argument stating that the report was intended to cause fear instead of acknowledging facts and ideas. I see this as a win. WPATH knows this data is a threat to their questionable standards of care, and they had to get their audience to hear about it with their spin first.

Id also like to note that Littmans correction about her research was only done under immense pressure from WPATH.

In summary, it was interesting to hear people who promote the sterilization of children and vulnerable adults attempt to defend their faulty ideas. Most of what I heard were blatant lies or bending or omission of truth.

They openly said they were afraid of the attacks on trans people (which are simply bills to protect minors from dangerous procedures), and they tried unsuccessfully to discredit the thoughts, ideas, and experience of many outspoken critics of transgender medicine. The people leading these workshops spoke very quickly and left very little time for questions.

I believe they are listening to counter-arguments and they know more people are learning the truth. If you are against the gender transition of minors and vulnerable adults, keep speaking up. It matters. Its working. Our collective voices are being heard, and those who are pushing gender transitions are feeling the threat.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Trump and Conservatives Condemn Impeachment of Texas AG Ken Paxton

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his staff at a border town hall in Brackettville, Texas, on Oct. 11, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Former President Donald Trump and other prominent conservatives took to social media to defend Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton even as the Republican-led Texas House voted to impeach him.

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan and fellow Republicans joined with Democrats to temporarily remove Paxton, a staunch GOP conservative, from office on accusations of bribery, obstruction of justice, and abuse of public trust.

Texas lawmakers voted 12323 to adopt the 20 articles of impeachment.

Shortly before the House convened, Trump made a statement on Truth Social attacking Phelan, who has come under criticism from state Republican leaders for working with Democrats on advancing their policies.

The RINO Speaker of the House of Texas, Dade Phelan, who is barely a Republican at all and failed the test on voter integrity, wants to impeach one of the most hard-working and effective Attorney Generals in the United States, Ken Paxton, who just won reelection with a large number of American Patriots strongly voting for him, Trump wrote.

Trump, who was impeached twice during his presidency and acquitted both times, said the move against Paxton was an unfair process that should not be allowed to happen or proceed. The former president vowed to fight it if it does.

Free Ken Paxton, let them wait for the next elections, Trump wrote.

Other influential Republican leaders, such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), and Trump adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle, condemned the effort.

What is happening to @KenPaxtonTX is a travesty, Cruz wrote in a tweet before the proceedings, blaming the Austin, Texas, swamp for wanting to sideline one of President Joe Bidens most effective opponents.

No attorney general has battled the abuses of the Biden admin more ferociouslyand more effectivelythan has Paxton.

Greene wrote on Twitter, This Texas House-led impeachment is a witch hunt.

The vote means Paxton will be removed from office immediately to await trial in the Senate, where House members will present their cases as impeachment managers.

Two-thirds of the Senate must agree in order to remove Paxton from office permanently.

Paxton said following the House vote that the impeachment is unfair and politically motivated, saying he looks forward to resolving the allegations in the Senate.

The impeachment move came 48 hours after articles were presented to the House. The House General Investigating Committee revealed that it was investigating Paxton for wrongdoing last week.

Paxton, at the time, labeled the Houses impeachment efforts an illegal impeachment scheme that would disenfranchise Texas voters.

The investigation was triggered after Paxton requested earlier in the session for the state to pay a $3.3 million settlement reached with whistleblowers within the AGs office. The whistleblowers filed suit in 2020 alleging wrongdoing on Paxtons part that was also reported to the FBI.

Several conservative House lawmakers spoke against the whirlwind impeachment, questioning the swiftness of the vote on a May 27 at the end of the legislative session.

State Rep. Brian Harrison, a Republican, called the impeachment a sham and railroading of a political enemy.

Another House Republican, state Rep. Mike Schofield, complained that the monthslong investigation was conducted under the radar and that House members were kept in the dark until last week.

I began this week with no idea the House was considering impeaching the Attorney General. Now here, at the end of the week, we are preparing to remove him from office before the day is out, he said.

Schofield called the proceedings unprecedented and said there was no reason to sneak up on the public by fast-tracking the removal of an elected official.

Others said Paxton was denied a chance to defend the charges against him.

Paxton, endorsed by Trump, was reelected to a third term in November 2022 as the states top law enforcement officer.

The battle between Republican factions in Texas became apparent when Paxton accused Phelan of being drunk while presiding on the House floor on May 19 and called for Phelans resignation.

But Phelans office dismissed the accusation as an attempt by Paxton to save face.

There have been only two impeachments in Texass nearly 200-year history.

Epoch Times reporter Allen Zhong and NTD reporter Lorenz Duchamps contributed to this report.
While researching his book Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, writer and radio host Eric Metaxas encountered one of Wilberforces staunchest allies and good friends, Hannah More (17451833).

In a later book, Seven Women: And the Secret of Their Greatness, Metaxas revisits More and describes her in glowing terms. She stands as nothing less than the most influential woman of her time who was a bestselling playwright and author, whose works at the time outsold Jane Austens ten to one, and a woman of such boundless wit and charm that everyone wished to be in her society.

Plaque on the wall of Keepers Cottage in Brislington, Bristol, England. (Public Domain)

She was a member of the London literati, a staunch evangelical Christian, a tireless activist with a conservative bent who helped end slavery, turned back the tides of the French Revolution that were lapping at the English shores, and labored to bring basic education to Englands poor.

Like many of us, Metaxas had never before heard of this luminous figure. Of his ignorance, he writes: It was as though I had discovered a gurgling Bernini fountain in the midst of a desert. When I came to fathom the crucial role she played in the history of abolition and the so-called Reformation of Manners, I was positively disturbed at the outrageous ellipsis.

So, lets meet the woman whom Metaxas calls the incomparable Hannah More.

A Life in Brief

Hannah More was the fourth of five daughters of the schoolmaster Jacob More and his wife, Mary Grace. Though the family struggled financially, living in a small house in the countryside near Bristol, the parents bestowed on each daughter the gift of an education.

Hannah was the most precocious of her siblings. By the age of 4, she was reading and writing. At age 13, she joined her oldest sister, Mary, in the girls school the older girl ran in Bristol. By 16, Hannah was teaching at the school and had written her first play for the students there.

Five years later, she became betrothed to William Turner, a landowner of means living in Bristol. It was an engagement that lasted six years. After Turner broke off the date set for a wedding for the third time, More ended their courtship. As was the custom at the time, Turner then endowed her with an annuityin this case, 200 poundswhich completely changed Mores circumstances. Later the two became friends, and for his part, for the rest of his life, Turner regretted his failure to wed More.

David Garrick and his wife, Eva Marie Veigel, circa 17571764, by William Hogarth. Windsor Castle. (Public Domain)

Giving up her teaching post, More headed for London, where by dint of her effervescent personality and literary gifts she was soon part of the cultural life of the city. The famed actor and producer David Garrick made one of her plays a hit, and Garrick and his wife, Eva, became Mores lifelong friends. That relationship opened doors to other well-known writers, which in one case brings a smile. Hannah More and the sometimes irascible Samuel Johnson, more than 30 years her senior, became so close to each other that some friends feared they might slip away and be married.

These acquaintances led her into other circles. Over the next 40 years, More joined William Wilberforce to battle the slave trade and to reform English morals. In addition, her polemical talents served as a barricade against the revolutionary ideas of France and English radical Thomas Paine, and she founded a series of Sunday schools, which offered a basic education to the poor.

In her long life, More earned more than 30,000 pounds from her writing, making her one of that ages most successful authors. Of that sum, she gave away large amounts to the poor and to charities.

Working With Wilberforce

In Seven Women, Metaxas notes that in 1785 William Wilberforce wrote in his diary: God Almighty has set before me two Great Objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners. Two years later, he met More, and as Metaxas tells us: How Wilberforce came to be the champion of abolitionand how he was able to succeed in ending the slave trade in Great Britain in 1807, after twenty years of battlinghad everything to do with Hannah More.

Hannah More worked with William Wilberforce to abolish the slave trade in England. Portrait of William Wilberforce, 1794, by Anton Hickel. Wilberforce House, Hull City Council. (Public Domain)

More, Wilberforce, and other abolitionists realized that to end the slave trade meant awakening others to its horrors and injustices. In her best-known poem, Slavery, which she wrote in haste in 1788 so as to coincide with an antislavery bill introduced by Wilberforce in Parliament, and in other subsequent writings, she helped put a human face on this institution, leading both the elites and the common people to see that slaves were human beings with children. Here in the last few lines of Slavery, we find Mores often-repeated message:

And Thou! great source of Nature and of Grace,

Who of one blood didst form the human race,

Look down in mercy in thy chosen time,

With equal eye on Africs suffering clime:

Disperse her shades of intellectual night,

Repeat thy high behest  Let there be light!

Bring each benighted soul, great God, to Thee,

And with thy wide Salvation make them free!

A 19th  Century Miss Manners

Like Wilberforce, More was repulsed by the degenerate culture of late 18th-century England. It was common knowledge, for instance, that the Prince of Wales, who later became King George IV, was a dissolute rake who gambled himself time and again into debt and made a hobby of philandering. Many in the upper class behaved little better.

Wedgwood antislavery medallion created as part of an antislavery campaign, 1787, by Josiah Wedgwood. (Public Domain)

Realizing even more than 200 years ago that politics was downstream from culture and that no legislation would change society, More fought to reverse the culture of her day through her writing, with her efforts aimed at the elites who set the example for the rest of the country. For years, she authored works like Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society (1788) and Hints Towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess (1805), which was directed not only at the young Princess Charlotte but also at the upper class.

Perhaps her best known conduct book was her 1799 Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education. Here she argued for the education of women with the idea of complementarity in mind, that is, improvements in education would make women better wives and mothers who might serve as examples of morality to society.

Finally, with the encouragement of Wilberforce, More and other evangelical leaders founded schools that met on Sundays, the one day of the week when the working-class children and adolescents were free to receive a rudimentary education. By the middle of the 19th century, these schools were common everywhere in England.

Such works and tracts penned by More helped create the deeper piety and middle-class morality that arose in the Victorian era.

The Anti-Revolutionist

Equally important was Mores stance against the revolution in France, and the related ideas that were spreading throughout Europe. In England, Tom Paines radical tracts and his Rights of Man stoked the fires of this revolutionary fervor, and several of her friends urged More to write in opposition.

Hannah More became a close friend of Samuel Johnson. Portrait of Samuel Johnson, 1772, by Joshua Reynolds. (Public Domain)

The result was extraordinary. In a short time, More produced the pamphlet Village Politics, which was Addressed to All the Mechanics, Journeymen, and Day-Laborours, in Great Britain. This conversation between a blacksmith, Jack Anvil, and a mason, Tom Hod, gripped the publics attention. Hundreds of thousands of copies were sold and read by upper classes and lower classes alike. Here is a sampling of this 17-page dialogue:

Tom. No, no, I want a new constitution.

Jack: Indeed! Why I thought thou hadst been a desperate healthy fellow. Send for the doctor then.

Tom. Im not sick; I want Liberty and Equality, and the Rights of Man.

Jack. Oh now I understand thee. What thou art a leveller and a republican, I warrant.

Tom. Im a friend to the people. I want a reform.

Jack. Then the shortest way is to mend thyself.

Tom. But I want a general reform.

Jack. Then let every one mend one.

The industrious More followed this pamphlet up with 140 more, which were distributed in the millions. Of her impassioned efforts, Metaxas writes: That the violence and revolution did not leap across the Channel and rout the British way of life is in large part once again due to the pen of Hannah More.

Compilation of Hannah Mores writings on training young ladies. (Greater Heritage)

When presenting Winston Churchill with honorary American citizenship, President John F. Kennedy, borrowing words from journalist Edward R. Murrow, said of Churchill: He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

In her battles against slavery, poverty, a libertine culture, and revolution, Hannah More mobilized those same weapons.
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar has become a thought





By Vikas Vaidya :

VINAYAK Damodar Savarkar is not just a person, he has become a thought. We should look at the literature of Savarkar, his philosophy as a thought that would guide the nation. Even after five decades of his demise, the society has failed to understand him, asserted Dr Shubha Sathe, researcher of Savarkar literature. Nation is celebrating the birth centenary of great leader Swatantryaveer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar on Sunday. In the wake of it, The Hitavada spoke to Dr Sathe. Dr Sathe has been touring all over Maharashtra explaining Savarkar, his philosophy, his thoughts to society. She feels that if nation follows the thoughts of Savarkar, then those thoughts would steer India to new heights. Savarkar was a visionary, who could foresee the scenario beyond 15-16 years. There are several examples where one would realise what he had told a long ago came true in later years. He had warned the nation not to allow partition of India. Nobody listened to him. Everybody now realises the damage it has caused to our nation because of partition. S M Joshi, too, had said in 1937 that he started to understand the meaning of ideas or thoughts expressed by Savarkar in 1910. It means, when a person like Joshi took 25 years to understand what Savarkar had said, how much time would a common man take to do so, Dr Sathe asked.

Explaining Savarkar further, Dr Shubha Sathe said, I am least bothered about whatever todays political leaders say or whatever stand they take on Savarkar. He was so much engrossed in the thought of freeing his motherland. He was brought to Andaman as a part of his imprisonment. His feet touched the shore and he thought India should set up its naval base there. According to him, that would stop enemies from entering his motherland. India did it, but after more than 40 years. Dr Sathe felt Savarkar was a confluence of Gopal Ganesh Agarkar, who thrived for social reforms, and Lokmanya Tilak, who was aggressive about Indias independence. Urging literatteurs from the platform of Akhil Bharatiya Sahitya Sammelan as a President to throw away the pens and hold the guns was the courageous act then, felt Dr Shubha Sathe. Never mind if the nation failed to create a poet in next 10 years. If mother becomes sick, would her ward enjoy music, dance, composing poems? In the same way when the motherland is suffering, one should learn to use guns and not get involved into writing poems of love.

This is what Savarkar batted for, Dr Sathe elaborated the pragmatism of Savarkar. After suffering punishment for 50 years, when Savarkar had come out, Tilak had gone and Gandhi had taken over. In those years, nobody saw Savarkar so people gathered around Gandhiji. In 1937, Subhash Chandra Bose offered Savarkar a respectable position in Congress with a request to join. Savarkar had put a condition of opposition to partition. Other leaders like Nehru, Patel, Gandhiji did not agree with it. So Savarkar continued his activities through Hindu Mahasabha. Sharing this information, Dr Sathe, who authored a book Tya Tighi on the wives of Savarkar brothers, said with proud feeling, I can say with authority that there were no one like Savarkars, where a complete family without a hitch sacrificed themselves for the country. When Savarkar brothers founded Abhinav Bharat, Yesubai, the wife of Ganesh alias Babarao Savarkar formed Atmanishtha Yuvati Sangh that brought patriotic women together. Savarkar women could not afford to live like other women in the society. Unfortunately, Savarkars were misunderstood more.
GABORONE, May 28 (Xinhua) -- Since Botswana gained independence in 1966, industrialization has always been considered a key stimulant to the southern African country's economic growth and poverty reduction.

To achieve this, Business Botswana, the country's chamber of commerce, initiated trade fairs to bring together businesses from all walks of life to discuss issues that hinder their ability to do business.

One such example is the Business Botswana Northern Trade Fair (BBNTF), which is an annual event held toward the end of May every year.

Decisions and recommendations taken at the trade fair will then shape Botswana's government interventions to make the environment conducive for businesses to grow and thrive, according to the BBNTF website.

"However, this industrialization drive has not yielded the desired results hence the need to accelerate and come up with recommendations that ensure results," lamented Minister of Trade and Industry Mmusi Kgafela when officially opening the BBNTF on Saturday.

In considering the challenges hindering industrialization, Kgafela said the little participation of Chinese companies at the BBNTF could be a reason behind the failure of Botswana's industrialization drive.

"My independent investigations have established that possible opportunities that can assist us to see industrial growth in our economy are in China," said Kgafela.

Kgafela said the unparalleled scale of relocation of Chinese manufacturing could foster economic structural transformation in Botswana and the African continent, as a surging youth population enters their labor market.

He said the participation of Chinese companies at local trade fairs would inspire locals to venture into light industrial manufacturing. "We want to start manufacturing most products locally to cut the high import bill," said Kgafela. 
Maoists focussing on weapons R&D,snipers, lift drones, para teams





 By Kartik Lokhande :

THE Maoists must be called terrorists who have waged a full-scale war against the country. For, a study of some incidents in the past few years and the latest inputs with the security grid of the country make it clear that the Maoists are focussing on research and development (R&D) in weapons, manufacture of certain weapons, training snipers for operating AK-47 guns with telescopes, and also having para teams to target the security forces. The Technical Department of CPI (Maoist) looks after R&D, and manufactures Barrel Grenade Launcher (BGL) weapons, BGL shells, single-shot weapons, 8 mm rifles, short weapons, magazines etc. Hiduma, Central Committee member, has been monitoring this particular unit. Maoists devoting much of effort to procurement, tweaking, and manufacturing of such weapons and IEDs has come across as a serious challenge for the security forces in the past some time. Media reports around a year ago stated that in some attacks in 2021-22, Maoists had fired 150-200 BGL shells at the security forces mostly in south Bastar area of Chhattisgarh. More dangerously, the Maoists have procured drone also.

As per the information gathered by the Intelligence sources, the Maoist leadership has procured drone for surveillance of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camps. In 2019, a unified command of Central security and Intelligence agencies had issued shoot at sight orders to security forces deployed across LeftWing Extremism affected States in the wake of an incident wherein drones were seen hovering over a strategically important CRPF camp in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. Later, in 2020, there were reports of drones spotted over three police posts in Gadchiroli district including Hedri, Kothi, and Gatta. The security forces had reportedly fired at the flying object. Now, the agencies have learned that the Red terrorists are planning to procure lift drones carrying heavy explosive material to attack the CRPF camps. Already, they have conducted trials of drone flying over camps of security forces in Chintalnar and Jagurgonda. Already, Maoists have started deploying snipers having telescopes mounted on guns.

A cadre identified by the name Katatam Deva is said to be the best sniper operating AK-47 with telescope, and he inflicted heavy loss to security forces during actions. The Sniper Team batallion of Maoists has trained 35-40 snipers in operating AK-47 with telescope. Besides, it is learnt that the CPI (Maoist) has Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee SMC and battalion has formed para teams for attacking camps of security forces and security forces during TCOC. Each team consists of two motorcycleborne members including one rider and another pillion rider. The pillion rider will be carrying AK-47 rifle. The motorcycle-borne team plans to move in front of camps of security forces and the pillion rider will open burst fire to inflict maximum damage to the forces. Sources said that the Maoists have procured some motorcycles for such para teams, taking advantage of the fact that in many villages specially the youngsters have purchased motorcycles. Apart from using square box type directional mine manufactured by their Technical Department, the Maoists are planning to invite the police parties with the help of GPS trackers sent out by police. This seems to reflect that the police strategy of sending someone with GPS trackers to track Maoists, has been busted and now Maoists are trying to use the same to lure cops into ambushes.
Savarkar, an ideology





By Rahul Dixit :



SAVARKAR maane Tatva,

Savarkar maane Tark,

Savarkar maane Tarunya,

Savarkar maane Tej,

Savarkar maane Tyaag,

Savarkar maane Tap...

An intense emotion pierces through the night sky even as the barrage of stimulated eloquence from former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee opens up newer, glistening layers around the great life ofVeerVinayak Damodar Savarkar. Moved by the eminence of the personality of Veer Savarkar, Atalji continues to peel off more layers, uncovering the magnificent persona of theRashtra Purush who conceptualised a nation centred on the foundation built through peace, co-operation, knowledge, bravery and transparency. There is a judicious striking of similarity between Savarkar and elements (Tatva), arguments (Tark), youth (Tarunya), glory (Tej), sacrifice (Tyaag) and penance (Tap). These qualities, elaborated by Atalji, define Veer Savarkar.

These qualities judge the great man. These qualities call for total reverence to the great son of the soil. Veer Savarkar, the epitome of a strong will and nationalist values, is a hero who goes beyond the political battles fought over his name and legacy. His impeccable contribution to the fight against antagonist, brutal and colonial forces is not a thing to be seen through parochial lenses. It needs to be understood from the point of view of an unwavering freedom fighter, whose fight for Indias independence remains exemplary.

The qualities that built the dedicated life need to be respected for the sweat and blood put in by an entire family whose dream centred only around Abhinav Bharat -- a nation free from the baggage of social injustice and dogmatism. His idea of Hindutva needs be hailed, discussed, deliberated and implemented by all for breaking the shackles of following a particular religion and doing away with the confined notions of communalism and skewed secularism. It is time the social reformer, the social moulder, the visionary leader, the forward thinker, the no-nonsense fighter is celebrated for the amazing qualities he practised in a life that was, is and will remain extraordinary. It is time the great son of the nation, whose idea of a compassionate India, is freed from the narrow concepts of politics. It is time Swatantryaveer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar is celebrated as an ideology -- progressive and unbiased.
Stage set for opening of new Parliament building by PM today





NEW DELHI :

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi will on Sunday inaugurate the new Parliament building, equipped with state-ofthe-art technology, amid a boycott by several Opposition parties which insist that President Droupadi Murmu as head of the state should do the honours. On Friday, Modi said the new Parliament building will make every Indian proud and shared a video of the new complex. With carpets from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, bamboo flooring from Tripura and stone carvings from Rajasthan, the new Parliament building reflects Indias diverse culture. Sengol, a historical sceptre from Tamil Nadu which was received by first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to represent transfer of power from the British and was kept in a museum in Allahabad, will be installed in the new Parliament building. It will be placed near the chair of Lok Sabha Speaker in the House chamber. But amid a boycott by 20 Opposition parties of the inauguration ceremony, the Sengol too was dragged into the political row. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday claimed there was no documented evidence of Lord Mountbatten, C Rajagopalachari and Nehru describing the Sengol as a symbol of transfer of power by the British to India.

The Congress stand on the Sengol evoked a strong reaction from Home Minister Amit Shah who said the party needs to reflect on its behaviour as he denounced its claim that there was no evidence of the Sengol being a symbol of transfer of power by the British to India in 1947. To mark the event, the Government will issue a commemorative Rs 75 coin. According to a gazette notification by Department of Economic Affairs under the finance ministry, the weight of this coin could be 34.65-35.35 gram. One side of the coin will bear the image of Lion Capital of Ashoka Pillar in the centre flanked by the word Bharat in Devnagri script andINDIA in English, it said. Rupee symbol ? and denominational value 75 in international numeral will also be inscribed below the Lion Capital. The other side of the coin shall bear the image of ParliamentComplex,andthe year 2023 in international numeral below the image. ThenewParliamentbuilding, constructed by Tata ProjectsLtd,willhaveagrand constitutionhalltoshowcase Indias democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, diningareasandampleparking space. The triangularshaped four-storey building has a built-up area of 64,500 square metres. The building has three main gates -- Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar. It will have separate entrances forVIPs,MPs, and visitors. The material used forthenewbuildinghasbeen acquired from various parts of the country. The teakwood used in the building was sourced from Nagpur in Maharashtra, whiletheredandwhitesandstone was procured from Sarmathura in Rajasthan.

The sandstone for the Red FortandHumayunsTombin the national capital was also knowntohave sourcedfrom Sarmathura. The Kesharia green stone has been procured from Udaipur, the red granite from Lakha near Ajmer and the white marble has been sourced from Ambaji in Rajasthan. In a way, the entire country came together to construct the temple of democracy, thus reflecting the true spiritofEkBharatShreshtha Bharat, an official said. The steel structure for the falseceilingsintheLokSabha and the Rajya Sabha chambershavebeensourcedfrom theunionterritoryofDaman and Diu, while the furniture inthenewbuildingwascrafted in Mumbai. The stone jaali (lattice) works dotting the building were sourced from Rajnagar in Rajasthan and Noida in Uttar Pradesh. The materials for the Ashoka Emblem were sourcedfromAurangabadin Maharashtra and Jaipur in Rajasthan, while the Ashok Chakra donningthe massive walls of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers and the exteriors of the Parliament building were procured from Indore in Madhya Pradesh. ThenewParliamentbuildingcancomfortablyseat888 members in the Lok Sabha chamberand300intheRajya Sabha chamber. In case of a joint sitting of both the Houses,atotalof1,280members can be accommodated in the Lok Sabha chamber.
The 22-year-old Connecticut woman who was attacked by a shark in the Turks and Caicos Islands last week is a Darien resident, an official said.

State Rep. Tracy Marra, R-Darien and Norwalk, confirmed Sunday that the woman, who was seriously hurt in the attack, lives in Darien, though her identity is still unknown.

"We are praying for her recovery," Marra said in a text message. "This must be a very hard time for the family right now. Our hearts are with them all."

The attack occurred while the woman was snorkeling with a friend in the waters off the island of Providenciales, the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force said in a news release. Officials did not release the woman's name or hometown.

Turks and Caicos police said in the news release that they received a phone call from an employee of a resort near the Leeward Marina on Providenciales around 3 p.m. local time on May 24.

"The employee indicated that the female victim had her leg bitten off by a shark," the news release said. The release has since been deleted from the police department's website.

The Turks and Caicos Department of Environment and Coastal Resources said in a statement that police officers responded to the scene of the attack swiftly and ensured the injured woman was transported to the Cheshire Hall Medical Centre. Police said in their news release that the woman was in serious condition at the medical center.

The Department of Environment and Coastal Resources statement identified the exact location of the attack as the Bone Yard dive site in the Princess Alexandra National Park, a marine protected area.

Though incidents such as these are highly unusual in the Turks & Caicos Islands, swimmers, snorkelers and divers and boat operators are reminded to exercise caution on the water, the statement said.

Only two unprovoked shark attacks have been confirmed in Turks and Caicos since 1580, according to the International Shark Attack File, a database of all known shark attacks maintained by the Florida Program for Shark Research.

In 2022, 57 unprovoked shark attacks  defined as incidents in which a bite on a live human occurs in the sharks natural habitat with no human provocation of the shark  were confirmed worldwide, the file states.

More than 40 of the attacks occurred in the United States, followed by Australia with nine; Egypt and South Africa with two each; and Brazil, New Zealand and Thailand with one each. Of those 57 unprovoked attacks, only five resulted in a fatality.
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP)  The day that President Joe Biden's administration ended a public health measure blocking many asylum-seekers at the Mexican border during the coronavirus pandemic, Teodoso Vargas was ready to show U.S. officials his scars and photos of his bullet-riddled body.

Instead, he stood frozen with his pregnant wife and 5-year-old son at a Tijuana crossing, feet from U.S. soil.

He was unsure of the new rules rolled out with the change and whether taking the next few steps to approach U.S. officials to ask for asylum in person could force a return to his native Honduras.

I cant go back to my country, said Vargas, a long scar snaking down his neck from surgery after being shot nine times in his homeland during a robbery. Fear is why I dont want to return. If I can just show the proof I have, I believe the U.S. will let me in.

Asylum-seekers say joy over the end of the public health restriction known as Title 42 this month is turning into anguish with the uncertainty about how the Biden administration's new rules affect them.

Though the government opened some new avenues for immigration, the fate of many people is largely left to a U.S. government app only used for scheduling an appointment at a port of entry and unable to decipher human suffering or weigh the vulnerability of applicants.

The CBP One app is a key tool in creating a more efficient and orderly system at the border while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who profit from vulnerable migrants, the Department of Homeland Security said in an email to The Associated Press.

But since its rollout in January, the app has been criticized for technological problems. Demand has far outstripped the roughly 1,000 appointments available on the app each day.

As a Honduran man, Vargas does not qualify for many of the legal pathways the Biden administration has introduced. One program gives up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans a month a shot at humanitarian parole if they apply online, have a financial sponsor in the U.S. and arrive by air. Minors traveling alone also are exempt from the rules.

Migrants who do not follow the rules, the government has said, could be deported back to their homelands and barred from seeking asylum for five years.

Vargas said he decided not to risk it. He has been logging onto the app each day at 9 a.m. for the past three months from his rented room in a crime-riddled Tijuana neighborhood.

His experience is shared by tens of thousands of other asylum-seekers in Mexican border towns.

Immigration lawyer Blaine Bookey said for many on the border there seems to be no option right now for people to ask for asylum if they dont have an appointment through the CBP app."

The government said it doesnt turn away asylum-seekers but prioritizes people who use the app.

Bookey's group, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, is one of the lead plaintiffs, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, challenging some of the new rules in federal court in San Francisco, including a requirement that people first apply for asylum in a country they crossed on the way to the U.S. They are asking the court to allow an asylum request by anyone on U.S. soil.

Texas Republican lawmakers also have sued. Among other things, they argue the CBP One app encourages illegal immigration by dispensing appointments without properly vetting whether applicants have a legal basis to stay.

The Biden administration said new measures, including the app, have helped reduce unlawful immigration by more than 70% since Title 42 ended May 11.

More than 79,000 people were admitted under CBP One from its Jan. 12 launch through the end of April. From May 12 to May 19, an average of 1,070 people per day presented themselves at the ports of entry after securing an appointment on the app, the government stated. It did not provide updated figures but said the numbers should grow as the initiative is scaled up.

The administration also has highlighted improvements made in recent weeks. The app can prioritize those who have been trying the longest. Appointments are opened online throughout the day to avoid system overload. People with acute medical conditions or facing imminent threats of murder, rape, kidnapping or other exceptionally compelling circumstances" can request priority status, but only in person at a port of entry. The app does not allow input of case details.

Still, some asylum-seekers claim to have been turned away at crossings while making requests, lawyers say.

Koral Rivera, who is from Mexico and eight months pregnant, said she has been trying to obtain an appointment through the app for two months. She recently went to a Texas crossing to present her case to U.S. officials, but said Mexican immigration agents in Matamoros blocked her and her husband.

"They tell us to try to get an appointment through the app," said Rivera, whose family has been threatened by drug cartel members.

Priscilla Orta, an immigration attorney with Lawyers for Good Government in Brownsville, Texas, said one Honduran woman in the Mexican border city of Reynosa said a man whom she accuses of raping her tracked her down though her phone, which she was using to secure an appointment.

The woman was raped again, said Orta, who has not been able to reach her since.

That is harrowing to realize that youre just going to have to put up with the abuses in Mexico and just kind of continue to take it because if you dont, then you could forever hurt yourself in the long term," the lawyer said.

Orta said she previously could ask U.S. border officials at crossings to prioritize children with cancer, victims of torture and members of the LGBTQ community, and usually they would schedule a meeting. But local officials informed her they no longer have guidance from Washington.

They do not know what to do with these most extremely vulnerable people," Orta said, adding that migrants face tough questions. "Do you risk never qualifying for asylum? Or do you try to wait for an appointment despite the danger?

Vargas, a farmer, has no doubt he could prove he and his family fled Honduras out of fear, the first requirement for U.S. entry to start the yearslong legal process for safe refuge. His iPhone is filled with photos of him lying in a hospital bed, tubes snaking out, his swollen face covered in bandages. He has knots of scar tissue on each side of his head from a bullet passing through his right check and exiting the left side of his head. Similar scar tissue dots his back and side.

His spirits were up after Title 42 expired and fellow asylum-seekers at a Tijuana shelter left with appointments. Two weeks later, he was dismayed.

I can't find enough work here. I'm either going to have to return to Honduras, but I'll likely be killed, or I don't know, he said. I feel so hopeless.

___

Salomon reported from Miami.
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CAIRO (AP)  The United States and Saudi Arabia called on warring sides in Sudan to extend a fragile cease-fire due to expire Monday, as weeks of fighting reached a stalemate in the capital and elsewhere in the African country.

The Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary force, battling for control of Sudan since mid-April, had agreed last week to the weeklong truce, brokered by the U.S. and the Saudis. However, the cease-fire, like others before it, did not stop the fighting in the capital of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

In a joint statement early Sunday, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia called for an extension of the current truce which expires at 9:45 p.m. local time Monday.

While imperfect, an extension nonetheless will facilitate the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people, the statement said.

The statement also urged Sudans military government and the rival Rapid Support Forces to continue negotiations to reach an agreement on extending the cease-fire.

The fighting broke out in mid-April between the military and the powerful RSF. Both military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF leader Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo led the 2021 coup that removed the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

The conflict has killed hundreds of people, wounded thousands and pushed the country to near collapse. It has forced nearly 1.4 million people out of their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, or to neighboring nations, according to the U.N. migration agency.

Residents reported renewed sporadic clashes Sunday in parts of the capital's adjacent city, Omdurman, where the armys aircraft were seen flying over the city. Fighting was also reported in al-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur.

In a separate statement, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia accused both the military and the RSF of violating the cease-fire, saying that such violations significantly impeded delivery of humanitarian assistance and restoration of essential services.

The statement mentioned airstrikes by the military including one that reportedly killed at least two people Saturday in Khartoum. The RSF also continued to occupy civilian homes, private businesses, and public buildings, and loot some residences.

Both parties have told facilitators their goal is de-escalation to facilitate humanitarian assistance and essential repairs, yet both parties are posturing for further escalation, the statement said.

The conflict has come to a stalemate as neither side has been able to deliver a decisive blow to the other after six weeks of fighting.

In the first two weeks of the war, army airstrikes targeted RSF camps in and outside the capital, crippling the paramilitary force's bases. That forced the RSF to deploy in densely populated areas, where they seized peoples houses and other property, and are using them as cover against the militarys airstrikes.

The detention of Dr. Alaa Eldin Awad Nogoud, a prominent surgeon and pro-democracy activist, in Omdurman caused an uproar in the country, with medical and rights groups in and outside of Sudan demanding his release.

A group of armed men stormed Nogouds home Sunday and detained him, according to the Sudan Doctors Syndicate. He was taken to an unknown location, it said.

The Forces of Freedom and Change, the pro-democracy coalition, said the armed men claimed they were members of the military and the intelligence service. It said Nogouds detention was part of a campaign targeting pro-democracy activists, and urged his immediate release.

The development came after Nogoud told a television station last week that the military seized medical aid provided by the World Health Organization and stored it at a military hospital in Omdurman, according to local media.

He said that doctors were denied access to the facility when they demanded a share in the aid to other hospitals. They were told that permission was needed first to get access, he said.

A spokesman for the military declined to comment Sunday.

The U.S.-Saudi statement came two days after Burhan demanded in a letter to the U.N. secretary-general that the U.N. envoy to his country be removed, The U.N. chief was shocked by the letter, a spokesman said.

The envoy, Volker Perthes, has been a key mediator in Sudan, first during the countrys fitful attempts to transition to democracy and then during efforts to end the current fighting.

Burhans letter came after Perthes accused the warring parties of disregarding the laws of war by attacking homes, shops, places of worship and water and electricity installations.

In his briefing to the U.N. Security Council last week, Perthes blamed the leaders of the military and the RSF for the war, saying that they have chosen to settle their unresolved conflict on the battlefield rather than at the table.

___

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed.
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WESTPORT  Ben Pepper, a 99-year-old World War II veteran, still fits into his Army jacket, though it doesn't quite button.

Pepper will be this year's grand marshal for the Westport Memorial Day parade, which kicks off at 9 a.m. Monday. He's also one of the town's last WWII veterans.

"America is a great country to live in," Pepper said. "I've lived 99 years, and maybe I'll make another 99."

The parade begins at Riverside Avenue, continuing onto Post Road East, to Myrtle Avenue and Main Street, ending at Parker Harding Plaza. The service will begin directly after at the Veterans Green.

Pepper was born in the Bronx on July 5, 1923. On New Year's Day 1943, he was drafted into the Army, training as a paratrooper. He was originally stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

Pepper said he had two younger brothers. One also served in WWII in the South Pacific, and the other attempted to enlist underage using Pepper's identity at 15, but was stopped by his mother.

On the day of the parade, Pepper will wear his brother's WWII veteran hat.

When he was drafted, Pepper spent time in a tank in Texas. He said something happened, causing it to blow up, but he safely jumped out. The incident made him want to change fields in the military though and he became a paratrooper.

Pepper eventually was stationed in Northern Ireland with his 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, then Sherwood Forest in England.

He fought in Battle of the Bulge. He would have participated in D-Day, but Pepper said two weeks before during a practice jump, he broke his back while landing and ended up in a full-body cast.

Pepper also earned a Purple Heart during the Battle of the Bulge, where he had frostbite.

"Everything froze, even my rifle," Pepper said.

After the war ended in Europe, Pepper said he ended up in Germany, where he had to guard a German Schnapps factory, and the soldiers drank some of what was there.

"That was the fun part," Pepper said.

He was later discharged in October 1945.

After his service, Pepper became a photographer in 1953, opening up his own studio in Stamford. In 1958, he moved to Westport, where he still lives.

The parade includes performances from the Connecticut Alumni Drum and Bugle Corps, the Westport Community Band, the Nash Drum Corps, the Staples High School marching band, the Coleytown and Bedford middle school bands, the Suzuki Music School, the Colonel John Chester Fife and Drum Corps and the Junior Colonial Fife and Drum Corps of Westbrook.

This year's float contest theme is "Veterans Serving the Community," with certificates awarded for best development of theme, best youth organization float, most creative, best community organization, most colorful and best overall.

Other marchers in the parade include the police department, local officials, the Connecticut Veterans Honor Guard and the Westport Weston Family YMCA.
EDWARDSVILLE  A Cahokia man was charged Thursday after a carjacking and armed robbery was reported by the Glen Carbon Police Department.

Ronnel T. Edwards, 19, of Cahokia, was charged May 25 with aggravated vehicular hijacking, a Class X felony; and aggravated robbery, a Class 1 felony.

The case was presented by the Glen Carbon Police Department.

According to court documents, on May 19 Edwards allegedly carjacked a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee by threatening the imminent use of force, while armed with a deadly weapon. He also allegedly took the victims purse and wallet while indicating he was armed. It was later determined to be an airsoft gun.

Bail was set at $250,000.

In an unrelated case, an East Alton man was charged with multiple weapons, battery and assault charges.

Anthony C. Davidson, 52, was charged with unlawful possession of weapons by a felon, possession of a firearm with revoked Firearm Owners ID Card and unlawful use of weapons, all Class 3 felonies, and domestic battery and aggravated assault, both Class A misdemeanors.

The case was presented by the East Alton Police Department.

According to court documents, on May 24 Davidson allegedly had a Mossberg New Haven 12-gauge shotgun with a barrel less than 18 inches in length while having a revoked Firearm Owners Identification Card. He also is accused of striking a household or family member about the head, causing injury, and pointed the shotgun at the victim.

He has a conviction for unlawful use of a credit card out of Madison County in 2009, making him ineligible to possess weapons.

A shotgun with a barrel less than 18 inches is considered a sawed-off shotgun and is illegal in Illinois and regulated by federal law, but rarely prosecuted at the federal level.

Bail was set at $75,000.

Separately, Kaliese A. Sims, 35, of St. Louis, was charged with reckless discharge of a firearm, a Class 4 felony.

The case was presented by the Pontoon Beach Police Department.

According to court documents, on May 24 Sims allegedly fire a gun in a reckless manner, endangering another person.

Bail was set at $40,000.
SPRINGFIELD  A bill that would decriminalize hanging things from a car's rearview mirror is headed to Gov. J.B. Pritzker's desk.

House Bill 2389 passed the state Senate on May 4, clearing both legislative branches. The bill, filed in February by Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, would take away law enforcement's ability to stop or search a car because the driver hung something off the mirror.

Sen. Christopher Belt, D-East St. Louis, was the bill's chief sponsor in the Senate.

The House voted 70-37 to pass HB2389 on March 24, while the Senate voted 41-11 on May 4.

Under current law, it is illegal for any driver in the state to hang an item from their rearview mirror when the vehicle is in motion. That includes items like air fresheners, rosaries, face masks and even placards for handicap parking spots. Texas, California, Arizona and Pennsylvania all have similar laws.

The bill has picked up three other co-sponsors in the House and six in the Senate, as well as another supporter in Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias. Proponents of HB2389 said it would make driving conditions safer for both motorists and police officers, while also allowing law enforcement to focus on violent crimes.

Supporters also said the current law allows police to racially profile drivers. In 2021, Kim Potter, a white Minneapolis police officer, shot and killed Black motorist Daunte Wright after police attempted to arrest him on an outstanding warrant. Wright's mother said he initially was pulled over for having air fresheners hanging off his rearview mirror.

Opponents of the bill say it would put public safety at risk.

"Obstructions that affect drivers views of their environment and other motorists or pedestrians are a form of distracted driving and put the public in danger, Sen. Jil Tracy, R-Quincy, said. Officers must have the ability to better protect the public by using their professional judgment at any moment of the potential for harm resulting from blocked sightlines.

Representatives from the Illinois Sheriffs' Association and Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police also spoke out against the bill at committee hearings in March and April, respectively.
KABUL, May 28 (Xinhua) -- Afghan police have destroyed a total of 432 acres of poppy farms and arrested five people on charge of involvement in drug business over the past week, the Ministry of Interior Affairs said in a statement on Sunday.

In a campaign against illicit drugs, counter-narcotics police have destroyed poppy farms in Kabul, Badakhshan, Bamyan, Badghis, and Kapisa provinces over the past week, the statement said.

Afghan authorities have intensified crackdown on illicit drugs and those involved in the underground business as security personnel arrested five alleged drug smugglers in Kabul and Herat provinces on Saturday, police said.

In similar operations against illicit crops, police destroyed 400 acres of poppy farms in eight provinces several weeks ago.

The Afghan caretaker administration has banned cultivation of illegal crops including poppy, drug processing and trafficking. 
EDWARDSVILLE  A Black parent who spoke to the District 7 school board on Monday, May 22, used an old saying to sum up reports of racist incidents among some students recently in Edwardsville schools versus when he attended as a youth.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," said Scott Ahart of the Edwardsville High School Class of 1985.

He gestured to Black students in the meeting audience, then to the board members, none of whom are Black.

"These kids have to sit here and endure something else that your kids don't have to," said Ahart, who has a daughter in the district now. "It's not a secret.

"All we're asking is that you administer the policies. We're not asking for anything above and beyond," he added.

Snapchat degrading African Americans

Ahart was one of three parents who spoke to the board of education at its regular meeting May 22.

Each urged board members to address what they said is an increase in racist behavior by some students and racially charged incidents targeting Black students in Edwardsville schools.

Just three days later, at least one other Black parent said a racist Snapchat was sent among some students at Edwardsville High School.

The alleged racist snapchat was reported to administration this morning, and along with the Edwardsville Police Department, we are in the middle of investigating this incident," District 7 officials noted in a statement released Friday, as reported Friday night by KMOV of St. Louis.

"These instances undermine the inclusive and welcoming environment District #7 strives to create for all students, teachers and staff," the statement to KMOV continued. "We want every member of District #7 to feel safe, valued and supported within our school community.

The Snapchat, shown by KMOV via a screenshot but with the username and racial slur covered, had an emoji of a Black person's face with a graphic of a handgun pointed at the Black person emoji.

It also had three "thumbs down" emojis and, in part, called African Americans "lying cheating scum," using a derogatory term to refer to Black people.

The bubbling up of reported racist incidents, comments or undertones among some young people at Edwardsville schools came as students closed out the 2022-23 school year. Friday was the last day of attendance.

Class of 2023 commencement ceremonies are Saturday, June 3.

Alleged racist rhetoric

At the May 22 school board meeting, Ahart and two other parents pointed to reports of racially charged statements, behavior and incidents that some Black students in Edwardsville say they endure from some white students.

The parents gave examples such as students being called a racial slur, being called slaves, and some white students using a smartphone app that makes a "whip sound" around Black students.

Parent Donna Charleston echoed Ahart's assertion that racism remains a problem among Edwardsville students.

Charleston said she has a daughter who is now in college. When her daughter was in middle school, she told her mother that a darker skinned male student was in the classroom when other students shut off the lights, casting the room into darkness.

Those students then started asking if others could see the minority student in the dark.

Charleston said her daughter wanted to report the incident, but the young male resisted.

"He thought it would make it worse and, that the administration wouldn't do anything anyway, was the consensus," Charleston told the board.

She expressed concern that there are few teachers of color in the district.

"I think that is a huge problem," Charleston said.

The "Black Experience" class at the high school is taught by white teachers, according to Charleston.

"To have a Black Experience class taught by a Caucasian person ... it shows that you have a lack of Black teachers, I think, that could teach the class," Charleston said.

Proposed solutions

Black parents urged the school board to take immediate and definite action to address any racism among students in the district.

Charleston suggested that a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) committee be formed with two to three parents from each Edwardsville school on the panel, particularly from the middle school and high school.

"It needs to be parents of color because they are the ones that are having the burden of all of this," Charleston said.

She suggested the district consider affinity clubs to support people of color and that parents, administrators and other adult gather to discuss issues related to fighting racism. She said there is no buffer or source to "vent" for people of color who interact in District 7.

"We're not just talking about just Black kids; we're talking about all these kids," she said.

The board of education also was asked by parents to:

Enforce a zero tolerance policy on racial harassment

Clearly state and spell out consequences for violations

Clearly define racial harassment

Offer school-wide education for students on racial harassment

Ensure curriculum, especially social studies and history, align with the district strategic plan

Have a plan to find out why racial harassment allegedly continues in the schools

Keep track of racial harassment incidents in District 7 schools

Determine if racially motivated harassment is decreasing or if more needs to be done to stop it

Policies already in place

Within the student handbook and District 7 strategic plan, Edwardsville school officials have multiple statements that make clear that racial harassment is prohibited.

The strategic plan is defined as "a comprehensive document that identifies the districts mission, vision, objectives and strategies."

Within it, District 7 lists one of its five values as "inclusivity," stating, "We strive to provide an environment where diverse cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors are celebrated and respected."

The plan also states that the district will: "Create a positive school environment where students, faculty, and the community feel

empowered, respected, and included" and "promote diverse participation in community forums regarding district initiatives."

One of the district's goals is to "support, retain, and recruit high quality and diverse employees that reflect our students, staff, and community, and

are equipped to meet their needs," the plan states.

Within the EHS student handbook, it states: "Each student has the right to be treated fairly and equally without harassment, without regard to actual or perceived: race; color; national origin ..." and other factors.

The "Philosophy of Discipline" section states that harassment is prohibited, and electronic harassment is noted as "any act or communication of an electronic nature (i.e., e-mail, instant messages, electronic postings, personal web pages/profiles) which is hostile to or offends, demeans, insults,

intimidates, threatens, or objectifies any student or District 7 staff member on the basis of race, color ..." and other factors.

The handbook states that harassment is: "Any act or communication which is hostile to or offends, demeans, insults, intimidates, threatens, or objectifies any student or District 7 staff member on the basis of race, color ..." and other factors, and adds, "To include anything displaying a swastika or the confederate flag on District property."

The fact that District 7 prohibits harassment is stated in several other areas of the handbook.

Under "Harassment Complaint Procedure," it states: "The administrative officers (principal and assistant principals, if available) are generally responsible for addressing complaints of harassment at each school in the District. This includes dealing with complaints that students bring to their attention, as well as identifying harassing situations on their own."

District 7 specifies its nondiscrimination coordinator and two complaint managers.

Echoes of 2019

This is not the first time that reports of racism-related student speech via social media have surfaced in recent years at EHS and also not the first time that the use of Snapchat was involved.

In November 2019, an incident involving the circulation of "racially insensitive" social media posts and ensuing disturbances prompted a temporary increased police presence at the high school.

A fight was reported between two juvenile male students after the social media posts were circulated, as the Intelligencer reported at the time.

In the wake of that, a social media post indicated that someone planned to bring a gun to the high school the next day.

The assertion in that post turned out to be false.
EDWARDSVILLE  A new family Italian restaurant is coming soon to the heart of Edwardsville with plans by the local owners to offer a fast-paced lunch menu during the day and a sit-down experience with a bar at night.

Mio Osteria is under construction at 224 S. Kansas St., approximately a block south of the Edwardsville Public Library. Owners Micah and Aerika (Zimmerman) Hopkin are working with Pfund Construction to open the business, with an exact opening date to be determined.

Micah Hopkin has worked in the restaurant industry since he was a teenager, from his parents' restaurant in Arnold, Missouri, called Bambinos to LoRussos on the Hill, and for Michael Del Pietro. He has a passion for Italian cuisine and hospitality, according to information provided by developers.

Having worked in Edwardsville for 12 years, Hopkin has dreamed of opening his own restaurant. Inspired by his parents, Robert and Pam Hopkin, and his mentor, Rich LoRusso, he plans to bring their style of cooking to this side of the river.

Aerika Zimmerman Hopkin has also worked in the restaurant industry since she was a teenager. She is originally from this area, starting at 54th Street, moving to 1818 Chophouse, and working for Del Pietro.

She has wanted to open an Italian style lunch restaurant in honor of her parents, Dallas and Cheryl Zimmerman.

"Last February our family moved from St. Louis to Edwardsville, making it our new hometown," Aerika said. "After our move, with our parents' and Rich LoRussos inspiration, we thought of opening a small Italian neighborhood restaurant in Edwardsville.

"We have two boys, Azuriah and Malachi. Having our own family drove us to working towards our dream of owning a family restaurant for them to grow a part of.

"Thats what Mio Osteria is for us and Edwardsville."

The Hopkins have in mind a warm, friendly, and relaxed atmosphere where everyone is welcome. During the day, Mio Osteria will serve a fast-paced Italian style lunch with Italian sandwiches, pastas, soups and salads.

At night it will be a sit-down Italian restaurant with a bar. The dinner menu will consist of steaks, seafood and pasta. Daily specials are planned to enhance the menu.

"At Mio Osteria we will bring a slice of the Hill to Edwardsville," Aerika said. "We are excited to partner with Pfund Construction in bringing Mio Osteria to our new hometown.

"Soon we will open our doors to welcome our new neighbors into our osteria; making everyone feel like family!"

Originally a term for a place that served wine and simple food, an osteria in more recent times means an establishment that focuses more on food.
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP)  An attack by suspected Islamic extremists on a village in the west of Burkina Faso killed 33 civilians, the provincial governor's office said.

The provisional death toll from the Thursday evening attack on the village of Youlou in Mouhoun province was announced in a press release.
AP

MILAN (AP)  A tourist boat capsized in a storm on Italys Lago Maggiore in the northern Lombardy region on Sunday, with at least one person confirmed dead, Italian media reported.

Authorities were searching for several people who were still missing after a sudden whirlwind overturned a boat carrying more than 20 tourists and crew, the news agency ANSA reported. Italian firefighters said 19 people have been saved. Many reportedly managed to swim to shore.
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Linkedin Richard Cowan (Reuters) Washington, DC  Sun, May 28, 2023 17:29 3 d5259e4d93052b0e76bee70b0576484a 2 Regulations US,US-economy,debt-ceiling Free

Democratic President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy struck a deal on Saturday to suspend the federal government's $31.4 trillion limit on US government borrowing, in order to avert a catastrophic default as soon as June 5.

Their challenge isn't over. They now have to shepherd it through the deep partisan fractures of the narrowly Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-controlled Senate:

LEGISLATIVE SAUSAGE-MAKING

Biden and House Speaker McCarthy gave a green light to the deal drafted by their respective aides during closed-door negotiations over the past several days.

It needs to be written into legislation, which McCarthy said would happen on Sunday. Then, McCarthy has vowed to give House members 72 hours to read it, and passage through the House and Senate will each take several more days.

There is little time. The Treasury Department has warned that the federal government will be unable to pay all its bills on June 5.

The top Republicans and Democrats in both chambers have already scheduled or held meetings to educate their rank-and-file about details of the bill in a bid to convince potential opponents to fall in line.

This is a key moment, as Republican and Democratic "whips" will count supporters and opponents. A revolt by the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which has plenty of sway with McCarthy, could derail the effort if its members believe the deal does not sufficiently cut spending.

Some liberal Democrats, meanwhile, could vote against the bill if they believe it cedes too much ground to Republicans.

With whip counts in hand, McCarthy will have to decide whether the bill has a strong enough chance of passing to proceed. If not, he could either not hold a vote on the bill and go back to the drawing board, or take the riskier step of sending it to the full House in the hope of eking out a win.

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS

If things look dire at any point, the House could resort to a rarely employed emergency maneuver: A "discharge petition" to bring a "clean" debt limit increase - with no budget provisions attached - to a vote. House Democrats have backed this idea but could not succeed unless enough of the Republican majority joined them.

Biden could attempt the untested legal theory of invoking the US Constitution's 14th Amendment stating that "the validity of the public debt of the United States [...] shall not be questioned" and thus clear the way for him to authorize more borrowing. That would likely be challenged immediately in the courts.

HOUSE GOES FIRST

The House, which Republicans control by a narrow 222-213 majority, is expected to act first. A simple majority  at least 218 votes if all members are present  will be needed for passage.

Bipartisanship will be required as some far-right Republicans or some liberal Democrats unhappy with the outcome could vote no.

House debate and passage, including preliminary votes, could take a day or two.

SENATE FOLLOWS

If passed by the House, the legislation goes to the Senate where Democrats hold a 51-49 majority over Republicans. As in the House, a vote on passage might not break purely along party lines, as individual senators from each party could find different reasons for opposing the bill.

To pass, the measure would need the support of at least nine Republicans to clear the chamber's "filibuster" rule, which requires 60 of the 100 members to advance most legislation.

Senate consideration of the bill could take up most of a week.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has full control over when the bill comes up for a vote. But individual senators can slow the process by insisting on procedural maneuvers, including 30 hours of debate on whether to begin debate and another 30 hours of debate on the bill itself.

The Senate would need to pass the bill without any changes to the House measure. Otherwise it would have to go back to the House for another vote.

If there were to be a 50-50 tie in the Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris can cast the vote to win 51-50 passage.

Upon passage by the House and Senate, the deal would go to the White House for Biden to sign into law.
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Linkedin Yerica Lai (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, May 28, 2023

The United Development Party (PPP) has called for the dissolution of the Golkar Party-led United Indonesia Coalition (KIB), the first electoral alliance to be formed ahead of the 2024 election, if members cannot agree on backing Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowos presidential bid.

Golkar, the countrys oldest party and the second largest party in the House of Representatives, has been leading the KIB, its partnership with two other pro-government parties, the PPP and the National Mandate Party (PAN). The bloc has yet to nominate a unified presidential ticket for next years election and signs of complication popped up after the PPP announced last month that it endorsed Ganjar of the non-member Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) instead.

Ganjar has been named as a presidential candidate by the PDI-P, the largest party in the ruling coalition of which President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo is a member.

PPP central board executive Achmad Baidowi said the KIB alliance would only remain intact going forward if it ended up backing the same presidential candidate.

If the presidential candidate was Ganjar, then the KIB will work with the PDI-P. If, however, there is no agreement on who will be the presidential candidate, the KIB should not carry on [and should cease to exist], Achmad said in a statement on Saturday.

The future of the alliance came into question as Golkar recently hinted at the possibility of supporting Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, a presidential nominee of the Great Indonesia Awakening Coalition (KKIR), in the upcoming election in exchange for naming its chairman Airlangga Hartarto as Prabowos running mate.

This, however, does not bode well with the only partner of the Gerindra Party in the KKIR: the National Awakening Party (PKB), which has been pushing for its own chairman Muhaimin Iskandar to run as a vice presidential candidate.

Read also: Prabowos running mate to come from Golkar-led coalition, Golkar politician claims

Despite committing to different electoral alliances, Golkar and the PKB have sought to elevate their bargaining standing by proclaiming their role as the core team that seek to drive forward delicate negotiations to stitch together the so-called grand alliance of pro-government parties.

Golkar said it would continue to persuade all KIB members to join the cause, but Achmad said his party had never committed to the idea of stitching a grand alliance that came from the KIB and the KKIR.

Since the beginning, the PPP has been pessimistic that the grand alliance, an idea which was spearheaded by the KKIR and the KIB, would materialize. The main stumbling block has been which presidential candidate would be backed, Achmad said.

There have been suggestions [coming from members of respective blocks regarding the candidate] such as Prabowo, Airlangga and Ganjar. It is impossible for an alliance to have three presidential candidates, Achmad added.

Read also: okowi's hesitancy threatens PDI-P bid

As talks to build and name definite electoral alliances and their presidential ticket continue, Jokowi, whose popularity remains consistent through to his final year in office, appears to keep his options in regard to his succession open while his supporters shift over to three-time presidential hopeful Prabowo. Jokowi was present during the PDI-Ps nomination of Ganjar, but he has not shown any indication of distancing himself, or his sons and supporter groups, from Prabowo.

Last week, Budi Arie Setiadi, head of ProJo, one of the most prominent groups of Jokowi's supporters, says the President is still trying to bridge the political divide between Ganjar and Prabowo to pair off the two electability poll front runners as a 2024 ticket.

Analysts were quick to speculate that these events are reflective of Jokowis shifting preference over his successor and his growing unease being under the shadow of Megawati, which the PDI-P denies.

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Linkedin Dio Suhenda (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, May 28, 2023

The running mate of presumptive Gerindra Party presidential nominee Prabowo Subianto will hail not from Gerindras electoral alliance but from the Golkar Party-led United Indonesia Coalition (KIB), a Golkar politician has claimed, in what would be a show of unity between the two pro-government electoral groupings.

The KIB consists of Golkar, the alliances de facto leader; the National Mandate Party (PAN); and the United Development Party (PPP).

Gerindras electoral alliance, meanwhile, known as the Great Indonesia Awakening Coalition (KKIR), consists of it and the National Awakening Party (PKB).

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BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust (NYSE:BBN  Get Rating) was the target of a significant growth in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 185,200 shares, a growth of 70.5% from the April 30th total of 108,600 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 149,400 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 1.2 days.

Institutional Trading of BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in BBN. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. raised its position in BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust by 59.2% during the first quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 54,729 shares of the investment management companys stock worth $1,205,000 after acquiring an additional 20,360 shares in the last quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. raised its position in BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust by 7.9% during the first quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. now owns 13,697 shares of the investment management companys stock worth $302,000 after acquiring an additional 1,000 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers raised its position in shares of BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust by 9.8% in the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 12,930 shares of the investment management companys stock valued at $285,000 after purchasing an additional 1,154 shares during the period. UBS Group AG raised its position in shares of BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust by 5.7% in the first quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 1,394,199 shares of the investment management companys stock valued at $30,701,000 after purchasing an additional 74,920 shares during the period. Finally, Atria Wealth Solutions Inc. bought a new position in shares of BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust in the first quarter valued at about $397,000.

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BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust Stock Performance

BBN traded up $0.18 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $16.74. 169,061 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 170,451. BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust has a 1-year low of $15.76 and a 1-year high of $20.34. The stocks 50-day moving average is $17.64 and its two-hundred day moving average is $17.68.

BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust Increases Dividend

About BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust

The company also recently declared a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 15th will be given a dividend of $0.103 per share. This is a positive change from BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trusts previous monthly dividend of $0.10. This represents a $1.24 annualized dividend and a yield of 7.38%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 12th.

(Get Rating)

BlackRock Taxable Municipal Bond Trust is a non-diversified and closed-end management investment company. Its primary investment objective is to seek high current income, with a secondary objective of capital appreciation. The trust seeks to achieve its investment objectives by investing primarily in a portfolio of taxable municipal securities known as Build America Bonds.

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Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc. (NYSE:SHO  Get Rating) has been assigned a consensus rating of Hold from the ten research firms that are covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have given a hold recommendation and one has assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price target among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $10.56.

A number of research analysts recently commented on SHO shares. StockNews.com started coverage on Sunstone Hotel Investors in a report on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a sell rating on the stock. Compass Point cut Sunstone Hotel Investors from a neutral rating to a sell rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $12.00 to $9.00 in a report on Wednesday, March 22nd. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price target on Sunstone Hotel Investors from $11.50 to $9.50 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, March 30th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on Sunstone Hotel Investors from $10.00 to $9.00 and set an underweight rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, February 7th.

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Sunstone Hotel Investors Stock Up 0.2 %

SHO stock opened at $10.04 on Friday. Sunstone Hotel Investors has a twelve month low of $8.60 and a twelve month high of $12.72. The company has a quick ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 0.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33. The stock has a market cap of $2.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.42, a PEG ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 1.28. The businesss 50-day moving average price is $9.75 and its 200-day moving average price is $10.10.

Sunstone Hotel Investors Announces Dividend

Sunstone Hotel Investors ( NYSE:SHO Get Rating ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 22nd. The real estate investment trust reported $0.07 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.19 by ($0.12). Sunstone Hotel Investors had a return on equity of 5.22% and a net margin of 9.60%. The business had revenue of $244.14 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $231.53 million. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Sunstone Hotel Investors will post 0.92 EPS for the current year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 17th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 30th will be issued a dividend of $0.05 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 29th. This represents a $0.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.99%. Sunstone Hotel Investorss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 39.47%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Sunstone Hotel Investors

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of SHO. US Bancorp DE increased its position in shares of Sunstone Hotel Investors by 33.0% during the 1st quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 14,499 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $171,000 after purchasing an additional 3,595 shares during the last quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp increased its position in shares of Sunstone Hotel Investors by 515.7% during the 1st quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp now owns 10,387 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $122,000 after purchasing an additional 8,700 shares during the last quarter. Citigroup Inc. increased its position in shares of Sunstone Hotel Investors by 15.1% during the 1st quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 376,700 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $4,437,000 after purchasing an additional 49,400 shares during the last quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of Sunstone Hotel Investors by 64.1% during the 1st quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 112,095 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $1,320,000 after purchasing an additional 43,806 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Great West Life Assurance Co. Can increased its position in shares of Sunstone Hotel Investors by 0.5% during the 1st quarter. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can now owns 190,263 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $2,329,000 after purchasing an additional 1,015 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 99.51% of the companys stock.

Sunstone Hotel Investors Company Profile

(Get Rating)

Sunstone Hotel Investors, Inc is a real estate investment trust, which engages in the acquisition, ownership, asset management, and renovation of hotels and resorts. Its portfolio consists of upper upscale hotels located in major convention, resort destination, and urban markets. The company was founded by Robert A.

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KABUL, May 28 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan's acting Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi has stressed the need to resort to dialogue to resolve issues between Kabul and Tehran in a meeting with Iranian Ambassador to Afghanistan Hassan Kazemi Qomi, the local television channel Tolonews reported Sunday.

Iran's water rights to the Helmand River were discussed in the meeting and the acting foreign minister emphasized that the issues related to Kabul and Tehran can be resolved through "dialogue and understanding," Tolonews reported.

Based on an agreement signed between Afghanistan and Iran in 1351 in the Persian calendar, which coincided in 1972, Kabul is obliged to allow Helmand River water to flow to neighboring Iran.

Tehran has been accusing Kabul of making excuses for giving Iran's share in the water flow, but the Afghan side rejected the allegation, insisting the water level has receded due to continued drought.

Muttaqi's remarks on solving issues between Kabul and Tehran were reported amid border clashes between the border forces of the two countries.

One person from the Afghan side and one from Iran were killed in a clash along the border with Afghanistan's western Nimroz province on Saturday, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafi Takour said. 
Cellnex Telecom, S.A. (OTCMKTS:CLLNY  Get Rating) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 117,200 shares, an increase of 55.2% from the April 30th total of 75,500 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 100,600 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 1.2 days.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CLLNY has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft assumed coverage on shares of Cellnex Telecom in a research report on Wednesday. They set a hold rating for the company. Berenberg Bank cut shares of Cellnex Telecom from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Monday, February 27th. Finally, Citigroup lowered Cellnex Telecom from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a report on Tuesday, April 4th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Cellnex Telecom presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $54.67.

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Cellnex Telecom Stock Performance

Shares of CLLNY traded up $0.10 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $19.93. The company had a trading volume of 34,389 shares, compared to its average volume of 83,513. Cellnex Telecom has a 12-month low of $13.56 and a 12-month high of $23.72. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $20.25 and a 200-day simple moving average of $18.91.

Cellnex Telecom Company Profile

Cellnex Telecom SA engages in the operation of wireless telecommunications and broadcasting infrastructures. Its business activities include rental of sites for telecom operators, broadcast infrastructure activity, and other network services. It operates through the following segments: Telecom Infrastructure Services, Broadcasting Infrastructure and Other Network Services.

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Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund (OTCMKTS:CGIFF  Get Rating) saw a large decrease in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 247,600 shares, a decrease of 19.9% from the April 30th total of 309,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 6,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 37.0 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently commented on CGIFF shares. Raymond James raised shares of Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, May 12th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund from C$10.00 to C$11.00 in a report on Friday, February 24th. Desjardins raised their target price on Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund from C$12.50 to C$13.00 in a research note on Friday, May 12th. National Bank Financial upped their price target on Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund to C$12.50 in a research note on Monday, May 15th. Finally, Scotiabank reduced their price objective on Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund from C$10.50 to C$10.00 in a research note on Thursday, March 9th.

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Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund Trading Up 2.2 %

Shares of CGIFF traded up $0.13 on Friday, reaching $6.18. The companys stock had a trading volume of 12,858 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,578. Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund has a twelve month low of $4.93 and a twelve month high of $7.64. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $5.80 and a 200-day moving average of $6.52.

Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund Company Profile

Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund engages in the provision of portfolio of industrial chemicals and value-added services. It operates through the following segments: Sulphur and Water Chemicals, Electrochemicals, and Corporate. The Sulphur and Water Chemicals segment markets sulphuric acid, liquid sulphur dioxide, sulphur, sodium hydrosulphite, sodium bisulphate, zinc oxide and a variety of inorganic coagulants used in water treatment.

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Destiny Media Technologies Inc. (OTCMKTS:DSNY  Get Rating) saw a large increase in short interest in the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 5,600 shares, an increase of 75.0% from the April 30th total of 3,200 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 7,700 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.7 days.

Destiny Media Technologies Stock Performance

Shares of Destiny Media Technologies stock traded down $0.11 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $0.59. 22,668 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,120. The firms fifty day moving average price is $0.77 and its 200-day moving average price is $0.68. The stock has a market cap of $5.94 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.67 and a beta of 1.12. Destiny Media Technologies has a 12 month low of $0.30 and a 12 month high of $1.19.

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Destiny Media Technologies Company Profile

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Destiny Media Technologies, Inc engages in the provision of digital content distribution solutions. Its products include Play MPE and Clipstream. The company was founded in August 1998 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.

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Edgewood Management LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Exxon Mobil Co. (NYSE:XOM  Get Rating) by 2.9% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 9,474 shares of the oil and gas companys stock after selling 287 shares during the period. Edgewood Management LLCs holdings in Exxon Mobil were worth $1,045,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its stake in shares of Exxon Mobil by 94.1% in the 3rd quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 39,666,941 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $3,463,672,000 after buying an additional 19,230,872 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in Exxon Mobil by 12.3% during the 3rd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 28,269,263 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $2,468,477,000 after purchasing an additional 3,094,957 shares during the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its position in Exxon Mobil by 272.4% during the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 2,606,938 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $287,545,000 after purchasing an additional 1,906,940 shares during the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership purchased a new stake in Exxon Mobil during the 1st quarter valued at $127,514,000. Finally, California Public Employees Retirement System boosted its stake in Exxon Mobil by 16.8% during the 3rd quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 9,668,202 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $844,131,000 after purchasing an additional 1,390,576 shares during the last quarter. 57.49% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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Exxon Mobil Trading Down 0.7 %

Shares of NYSE XOM traded down $0.69 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $104.97. 12,370,326 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 15,376,008. The companys 50 day moving average price is $110.43 and its 200 day moving average price is $110.51. Exxon Mobil Co. has a 12 month low of $80.69 and a 12 month high of $119.92. The stock has a market capitalization of $424.39 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.61 and a beta of 1.09. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19.

Exxon Mobil Dividend Announcement

Exxon Mobil ( NYSE:XOM Get Rating ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, April 28th. The oil and gas company reported $2.83 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.65 by $0.18. Exxon Mobil had a return on equity of 31.48% and a net margin of 15.06%. The company had revenue of $86.56 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $90.07 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.07 EPS. Exxon Mobils quarterly revenue was down 4.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Exxon Mobil Co. will post 9.59 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 9th. Investors of record on Tuesday, May 16th will be given a $0.91 dividend. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.47%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, May 15th. Exxon Mobils dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.64%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, VP Darrin L. Talley sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $116.11, for a total value of $290,275.00. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 29,272 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,398,771.92. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.06% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on XOM shares. Scotiabank downgraded shares of Exxon Mobil from a sector outperform rating to a sector perform rating and dropped their price target for the company from $140.00 to $135.00 in a report on Thursday, April 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group downgraded Exxon Mobil from a buy rating to a neutral rating and set a $125.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Monday, May 1st. Mizuho lowered their target price on Exxon Mobil from $147.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Friday, May 19th. Argus lifted their price target on shares of Exxon Mobil from $128.00 to $133.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, February 2nd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of Exxon Mobil from $125.00 to $133.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Friday, March 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $125.30.

About Exxon Mobil

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Exxon Mobil Corp. engages in the exploration, development, and distribution of oil, gas, and petroleum products. It operates through the following segments: Upstream, Downstream and Chemical. The Upstream segment produces crude oil and natural gas. The Downstream segment manufactures and trades petroleum products.

Further Reading

Want to see what other hedge funds are holding XOM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Exxon Mobil Co. (NYSE:XOM  Get Rating).

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Ensign Energy Services Inc. (OTCMKTS:ESVIF  Get Rating) was the recipient of a large increase in short interest in the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 435,200 shares, an increase of 197.9% from the April 30th total of 146,100 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 28,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 15.1 days.

Ensign Energy Services Price Performance

ESVIF stock remained flat at $1.57 during trading on Friday. Ensign Energy Services has a 1 year low of $1.46 and a 1 year high of $3.90. The company has a 50 day moving average of $1.97 and a 200-day moving average of $2.44.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

ESVIF has been the subject of a number of research reports. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price target on shares of Ensign Energy Services from C$5.00 to C$4.00 in a report on Tuesday, May 9th. TD Securities reduced their price objective on shares of Ensign Energy Services from C$6.00 to C$5.50 in a report on Tuesday, May 9th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Ensign Energy Services from C$4.50 to C$4.00 in a report on Tuesday, May 9th.

Ensign Energy Services Company Profile

Ensign Energy Services, Inc engages in the provision oilfield services to the crude oil and natural gas industries. It operates through the following geographical segments: Canada, United States, and International. Its services include drilling, directional drilling, and well servicing. The company was founded on March 31, 1987 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

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Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE:FRT  Get Rating) was the target of a large increase in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 2,380,000 shares, an increase of 20.2% from the April 30th total of 1,980,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 506,100 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.7 days.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Federal Realty Investment Trust

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in FRT. Czech National Bank grew its holdings in Federal Realty Investment Trust by 1.1% during the 4th quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 8,558 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $865,000 after purchasing an additional 97 shares in the last quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in Federal Realty Investment Trust by 2.5% during the 3rd quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 4,161 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $375,000 after purchasing an additional 101 shares in the last quarter. Creative Planning grew its holdings in Federal Realty Investment Trust by 3.9% during the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 2,840 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $272,000 after purchasing an additional 106 shares in the last quarter. Peapack Gladstone Financial Corp grew its holdings in Federal Realty Investment Trust by 0.6% during the 1st quarter. Peapack Gladstone Financial Corp now owns 21,697 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $2,144,000 after purchasing an additional 128 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Neuberger Berman Group LLC grew its holdings in Federal Realty Investment Trust by 3.7% during the 4th quarter. Neuberger Berman Group LLC now owns 3,670 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $371,000 after purchasing an additional 132 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 86.20% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on FRT. Mizuho reduced their price target on shares of Federal Realty Investment Trust from $112.00 to $91.00 in a research report on Thursday. Piper Sandler reduced their price target on shares of Federal Realty Investment Trust from $118.00 to $111.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 5th. Truist Financial reduced their target price on shares of Federal Realty Investment Trust from $117.00 to $110.00 in a report on Monday, May 15th. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Federal Realty Investment Trust from $107.00 to $110.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Thursday, February 9th. Finally, Compass Point raised shares of Federal Realty Investment Trust from a neutral rating to a buy rating and set a $125.00 target price for the company in a report on Monday, January 30th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Federal Realty Investment Trust presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $112.36.

Federal Realty Investment Trust Trading Up 1.3 %

Federal Realty Investment Trust Dividend Announcement

NYSE:FRT traded up $1.14 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $87.06. 331,298 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 510,096. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.57, a current ratio of 1.58 and a quick ratio of 1.58. The firm has a market cap of $7.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.56, a PEG ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 1.19. Federal Realty Investment Trust has a 52-week low of $85.27 and a 52-week high of $116.05. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $94.36 and a 200 day simple moving average of $102.19.

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 17th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, June 22nd will be given a $1.08 dividend. This represents a $4.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.96%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, June 21st. Federal Realty Investment Trusts payout ratio is currently 92.11%.

About Federal Realty Investment Trust

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Federal Realty Investment Trust is an equity real estate investment trust. It engages in ownership, management, and redevelopment of retail and mixed-use properties located primarily in communities demand exceeds supply in strategically selected metropolitan markets. The company was founded in 1962 and is headquartered in North Bethesda, MD.

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StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Golden Star Resources (NYSE:GSS  Get Rating) in a research report report published on Wednesday. The brokerage issued a hold rating on the stock.

Golden Star Resources Price Performance

Golden Star Resources has a 12 month low of $2.04 and a 12 month high of $4.04.

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About Golden Star Resources

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Golden Star is an established gold mining company that owns and operates the Wassa underground mine in Ghana, West Africa. Listed on the NYSE American, the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Ghanaian Stock Exchange, Golden Star is focused on delivering strong margins and free cash flow. Since winning the PDAC 2018 Environmental and Social Responsibility Award, Golden Star has remained committed to leaving a positive and sustainable legacy in its areas of operation.

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bebe stores, inc. (OTCMKTS:BEBE  Get Rating) saw a significant growth in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 500 shares, a growth of 66.7% from the April 30th total of 300 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 65,200 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.0 days.

bebe stores Price Performance

Shares of BEBE traded up $0.30 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $2.90. 1,000 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 33,899. bebe stores has a fifty-two week low of $2.13 and a fifty-two week high of $8.99. The businesss 50 day moving average is $3.80 and its two-hundred day moving average is $4.53.

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bebe stores Company Profile

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bebe stores, inc. engages in the provision of chic and contemporary fashion merchandise. It offers its products under bebe brand. The company was founded by Manny Mashouf in June 1976 and is headquartered in Brisbane, CA.

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Telenor ASA (OTCMKTS:TELNY  Get Rating) was the recipient of a significant growth in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 25,100 shares, a growth of 79.3% from the April 30th total of 14,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 50,400 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.5 days.

Telenor ASA Stock Performance

Shares of OTCMKTS:TELNY traded down $0.11 on Friday, reaching $10.34. 44,176 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 27,552. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 2.62 and a beta of 0.49. Telenor ASA has a fifty-two week low of $8.55 and a fifty-two week high of $13.86. The businesss 50-day moving average is $11.78 and its two-hundred day moving average is $10.79. The company has a quick ratio of 0.58, a current ratio of 0.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32.

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Telenor ASA (OTCMKTS:TELNY  Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 4th. The utilities provider reported ($0.04) earnings per share for the quarter. Telenor ASA had a return on equity of 19.03% and a net margin of 54.22%. The firm had revenue of $1.88 billion during the quarter. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Telenor ASA will post 1.76 EPS for the current year.

Telenor ASA Increases Dividend

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

The company also recently disclosed a dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 31st. Investors of record on Friday, May 12th will be issued a $0.3814 dividend. This represents a dividend yield of 5.79%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 11th. This is a boost from Telenor ASAs previous dividend of $0.35. Telenor ASAs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 18.23%.

Several research firms recently issued reports on TELNY. Pareto Securities cut shares of Telenor ASA from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Friday, April 21st. Barclays raised shares of Telenor ASA from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating in a report on Tuesday, April 18th. Citigroup began coverage on shares of Telenor ASA in a report on Friday. They set a neutral rating on the stock. Finally, Nordea Equity Research raised shares of Telenor ASA from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Monday, February 6th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Telenor ASA currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $110.00.

About Telenor ASA

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Telenor ASA engages in the provision of telecommunications, data, and media services. Its products and services include mobile communication, fixed line communication, and broadcasting activities. It operates through the following segments: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, DNA-Finland, dtac-Thailand, Digi-Malaysia, Grameenphone-Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Other Units.

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Solo Brands, Inc. (NYSE:DTC  Get Rating) was the recipient of a significant increase in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 2,440,000 shares, an increase of 75.5% from the April 30th total of 1,390,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 687,500 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 3.5 days. Approximately 7.6% of the shares of the company are sold short.

Solo Brands Trading Down 9.6 %

Solo Brands stock traded down $0.46 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $4.32. 1,838,512 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,119,184. The company has a quick ratio of 1.00, a current ratio of 3.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. Solo Brands has a 12 month low of $3.39 and a 12 month high of $8.86. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $6.94 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $5.22.

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Solo Brands (NYSE:DTC  Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 4th. The company reported $0.09 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.05 by $0.04. Solo Brands had a negative net margin of 0.38% and a positive return on equity of 11.30%. The firm had revenue of $88.21 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $81.46 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.19 EPS. As a group, equities analysts predict that Solo Brands will post 0.65 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Insiders Place Their Bets

Several research firms have commented on DTC. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Solo Brands from $9.00 to $10.00 in a report on Monday, May 8th. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on Solo Brands from $9.00 to $11.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 5th. Finally, Credit Suisse Group raised their target price on shares of Solo Brands from $9.00 to $10.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, March 10th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Buy and an average price target of $9.00.

In other Solo Brands news, Director David Powers purchased 15,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 15th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $6.49 per share, with a total value of $100,595.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 15,500 shares in the company, valued at $100,595. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, major shareholder Nb Alternatives Advisers Llc sold 6,255,595 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $5.00, for a total transaction of $31,277,975.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 627,286 shares in the company, valued at $3,136,430. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director David Powers purchased 15,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 15th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $6.49 per share, for a total transaction of $100,595.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 15,500 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $100,595. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Company insiders own 4.93% of the companys stock.

Institutional Trading of Solo Brands

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of DTC. Zacks Investment Management acquired a new position in Solo Brands during the third quarter worth $39,000. Amussen Hunsaker Associates LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Solo Brands in the 4th quarter worth about $47,000. Bank of Montreal Can acquired a new stake in shares of Solo Brands in the 4th quarter worth about $158,000. Hodges Capital Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Solo Brands by 212.0% in the 4th quarter. Hodges Capital Management Inc. now owns 954,700 shares of the companys stock worth $3,552,000 after acquiring an additional 648,675 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC raised its holdings in shares of Solo Brands by 282.3% in the 3rd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 16,630 shares of the companys stock worth $63,000 after acquiring an additional 12,280 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 78.25% of the companys stock.

About Solo Brands

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Solo Brands, Inc operates a direct-to-consumer platform that offers outdoor lifestyle branded products in the United States. The company provides camp stoves under the Solo Stove Lite brand name; fire pits under the Solo Stove brand name; grills, cook tops, and tools; kayaks under the Oru brand name; paddle boards under the ISLE brand name; and storage solutions for fire pits, firewood, and other accessories.

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Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.

Two people were shot, one fatally, as they sat in a parked car in Garfield Park early Sunday morning, Chicago police said.

Around 2:09 a.m., a 35-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman were in a car on the 4100 block of W. Taylor Street when shots were fired, police said. The man, who had a gunshot wound to the head, was transported by the Chicago Fire Department to Mount Sinai Hospital and pronounced dead.

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The woman was also transported by the fire department to Mount Sinai with a gunshot wound on the right side of her body. She was reported in critical condition, according to police.

There is no one in custody. Area Four detectives are investigating.

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oalexander@chicagotribune.com
SYDNEY, May 28 (Xinhua) -- The heritage-listed Zig Zag Railway in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) welcomed back steam enthusiasts on Saturday after local volunteers spent more than a decade refurbishing the track to its previous glory.

The railway is located near the town of Lithgow, west of the Blue Mountains, and requires about a two-hour drive from Sydney's inner city.

First established in 1869, it once served as a part of the Western Railway to transport people and products between the western plains of NSW and Sydney. In the 1970s, a group of volunteers formed a not-for-profit organization to operate the track mainly as a tourist attraction. But the services came to a halt after the Zig Zag Railway lost its accreditation in 2012.

"So in 2012, we shut down due to various compliance reasons. And in the process of opening it back up again, we were hit with many different disasters, bushfires, floods, weather, vandalism, and COVID-19, in our journey back. So it made it quite difficult to get back to operations again, but here we are today," Lee Wiggins, a volunteer for the Zig Zag Railway since 1997, said on Saturday.

Wiggins told Xinhua that hundreds of volunteers dedicated themselves to the refurbishing work over the past few years, with 50 to 60 active volunteers at any one time coming from all over Australia.

"We've got different administrative roles that people do remotely. And we've also got on-site jobs as well," said Wiggins.

For a smooth reopening of their beloved railway, volunteers partook in "anything from operational work right up to being a steam driver."

"From the basic signal rail safety worker right up to the steam driver. We've got track working. We've got building works. We've got shop and retail. We've got marketing. We've got operations management. We've got the administration side of things. There are lots of roles," Wiggins said.

Born in the Blue Mountains and moving to Lithgow at the age of 18, Wiggins had a deep connection with the Zig Zag Railway, where he started volunteering when he was 15. It was actually at the railway that he met his wife.

When asked about his feeling to see trains steaming ahead on the railway again, Wiggins said that it is too difficult to put one word on it.

"It's a combination of humility. It's a combination of courage. It's a combination of admiration for the people that have been involved. And it just feels really, really wonderful to be here," he said.

For the very first weekend of the Zig Zag Railway reopening, about 1,800 tickets were sold out. Travelers of all ages flocked to the Clarence station heading to Bottom Points via Top Points.

To catch the first train on Saturday, Jordan Powell and his family drove a few hours from Berowra in Sydney's north to check out the railway where his mother and her partner had always passed by before.

"They saw it was opening so they told our whole family. We've all come up for going on the railway," Powell said.

Powell beamed with excitement while sitting in the carriage, before the steam locomotive 218A, which was painted green and red, hauled the first batch of passengers out of the station at 10:30 a.m. local time.

"I have never experienced it before. You can hear the train coming in, the horn, and then 'chuff-chuff.' It's just goosebumps. It's cool," said Powell. 
StockNews.com upgraded shares of InterContinental Hotels Group (NYSE:IHG  Get Rating) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report report published on Thursday.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently commented on the stock. Barclays downgraded shares of InterContinental Hotels Group from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating in a report on Monday, March 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on InterContinental Hotels Group from GBX 6,200 ($77.11) to GBX 6,000 ($74.63) in a research note on Wednesday, February 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus lowered InterContinental Hotels Group from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Friday, February 10th. UBS Group lowered InterContinental Hotels Group from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 14th. Finally, BNP Paribas lowered InterContinental Hotels Group from an outperform rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 25th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, InterContinental Hotels Group currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $5,466.67.

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InterContinental Hotels Group Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:IHG opened at $66.79 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $11.48 billion, a PE ratio of 16.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 1.21. InterContinental Hotels Group has a one year low of $47.06 and a one year high of $72.10. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $67.81 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $65.36.

InterContinental Hotels Group Increases Dividend

Hedge Funds Weigh In On InterContinental Hotels Group

The company also recently disclosed a Semi-Annual dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, May 16th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 31st were paid a $0.945 dividend. This is a positive change from InterContinental Hotels Groups previous Semi-Annual dividend of $0.44. This represents a dividend yield of 1.9%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 30th. InterContinental Hotels Groups payout ratio is currently 47.37%.

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. boosted its position in InterContinental Hotels Group by 46.2% during the 3rd quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 899 shares of the companys stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 284 shares during the period. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new stake in InterContinental Hotels Group during the 1st quarter worth $82,000. Captrust Financial Advisors boosted its position in InterContinental Hotels Group by 22.0% during the 1st quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 1,211 shares of the companys stock worth $83,000 after purchasing an additional 218 shares during the period. National Bank of Canada FI boosted its position in InterContinental Hotels Group by 30.6% during the 4th quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 1,482 shares of the companys stock worth $86,000 after purchasing an additional 347 shares during the period. Finally, Tower Research Capital LLC TRC boosted its position in InterContinental Hotels Group by 1,067.0% during the 3rd quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 2,194 shares of the companys stock worth $107,000 after purchasing an additional 2,006 shares during the period. 4.67% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About InterContinental Hotels Group

(Get Rating)

InterContinental Hotels Group Plc owns and operates hotels. The firms hotel brands include: InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites, EVEN Hotels, IHG Rewards Club, Kimpton and HUALUXE Hotels and Resorts. It operates through the following segments: Europe, Middle East, Asia and Africa, Americas, Greater China and Central.

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Teacher Retirement System of Texas cut its holdings in shares of Raytheon Technologies Co. (NYSE:RTX  Get Rating) by 17.1% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 334,647 shares of the companys stock after selling 69,206 shares during the period. Teacher Retirement System of Texas holdings in Raytheon Technologies were worth $33,773,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Sanders Morris Harris LLC raised its position in shares of Raytheon Technologies by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Sanders Morris Harris LLC now owns 9,720 shares of the companys stock worth $981,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. Jackson Hole Capital Partners LLC increased its position in Raytheon Technologies by 0.3% during the 4th quarter. Jackson Hole Capital Partners LLC now owns 39,562 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,993,000 after buying an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. JSF Financial LLC increased its position in Raytheon Technologies by 3.7% during the 4th quarter. JSF Financial LLC now owns 2,924 shares of the companys stock valued at $295,000 after buying an additional 104 shares in the last quarter. Woodmont Investment Counsel LLC increased its position in Raytheon Technologies by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Woodmont Investment Counsel LLC now owns 14,246 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,438,000 after buying an additional 105 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Oliver Lagore Vanvalin Investment Group increased its position in Raytheon Technologies by 6.6% during the 3rd quarter. Oliver Lagore Vanvalin Investment Group now owns 1,723 shares of the companys stock valued at $141,000 after buying an additional 107 shares in the last quarter. 78.83% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Insider Buying and Selling at Raytheon Technologies

In other Raytheon Technologies news, VP Amy L. Johnson sold 3,622 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $98.55, for a total transaction of $356,948.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 4,061 shares of the companys stock, valued at $400,211.55. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Insiders own 0.11% of the companys stock.

Raytheon Technologies Price Performance

RTX stock traded up $0.14 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $93.26. 4,056,736 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,624,926. The stocks 50 day moving average is $98.15 and its 200 day moving average is $98.38. Raytheon Technologies Co. has a 12-month low of $80.27 and a 12-month high of $108.84. The company has a market cap of $136.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44, a current ratio of 1.13 and a quick ratio of 0.85.

Raytheon Technologies (NYSE:RTX  Get Rating) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, April 25th. The company reported $1.22 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.13 by $0.09. Raytheon Technologies had a return on equity of 9.81% and a net margin of 8.08%. The business had revenue of $17.21 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $16.98 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.15 earnings per share. The businesss revenue was up 9.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts expect that Raytheon Technologies Co. will post 5.05 EPS for the current year.

Raytheon Technologies Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 19th will be issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 18th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.53%. This is a boost from Raytheon Technologiess previous quarterly dividend of $0.55. Raytheon Technologiess dividend payout ratio is presently 62.93%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

RTX has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. StockNews.com initiated coverage on Raytheon Technologies in a research report on Thursday, May 18th. They set a buy rating on the stock. Citigroup upped their target price on Raytheon Technologies from $106.00 to $113.50 in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. Susquehanna upped their target price on Raytheon Technologies from $116.00 to $117.00 in a research report on Wednesday, April 26th. Jefferies Financial Group downgraded Raytheon Technologies from a buy rating to a hold rating and dropped their price target for the company from $115.00 to $110.00 in a research note on Thursday, April 20th. Finally, Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on Raytheon Technologies from $106.00 to $115.00 in a research note on Wednesday, April 26th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Raytheon Technologies has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $111.88.

About Raytheon Technologies

(Get Rating)

Raytheon Technologies Corp. is an aerospace and defense company, which engages in the provision of aerospace and defense systems and services for commercial, military, and government customers. It operates through the following segments: Collins Aerospace Systems (Collins), Pratt and Whitney, Raytheon Intelligence and Space (RIS), and Raytheon Missiles and Defense (RMD).

Further Reading

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Nigerian investigative journalist, David Hundeyin, has alleged that the newly unveiled Nigeria Air plane has jetted back to Addis Ababa.

The Nigerian Voice recalls that the aircraft arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, last week Friday.

It was learnt that the flight, which took off from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia arrived in the country on the 26th of May, 2023, after which the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika described it as a long, tedious, and difficult project.

Meanwhile, reports revealed that the aircraft is owned by Ethiopian Airlines as the world ET-APL is written on the wing of planes operated by Ethiopian Airlines.

This generated outrage online with many Nigerians criticizing the federal government for claiming ownership.

Taking over his Twitter on Saturday, David Hundeyin accused the federal government of engaging in a hurried paint job that would be removed in Addis Ababa.

He wrote: Behold your freshly commissioned Nigeria Air Boeing 737 heading back to Addis Ababa right now as we speak, where the hurried paint job will be removed and it will go back into @flyethiopian regular service. Job done for @hadisirika

Expensive stage prop has been returned to its owner safe and sound after being used to entertain 200 million mumu with press photos
During the May 2023 Group of Seven (G7) summit, the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, near where the meeting was held. Not doing so would have been an act of immense discourtesy. Despite many calls for an apology from the US for dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian population in 1945, US President Joe Biden has demurred. Instead, he wrote in the Peace Memorial guest book: May the stories of this museum remind us of all of our obligations to build a future of peace.

Apologies, amplified by the tensions of our time, take on interesting sociological and political roles. An apology would suggest that the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong and that the US did not end their war against Japan by taking the moral high ground. An apology would also contradict the USs decision, backed fully by other Western powers over 70 years later, to maintain a military presence along the Asian coastline of the Pacific Ocean (a presence built on the back of the 1945 atomic bombings) and to use that military force to threaten China with weapons of mass destruction amassed in bases and ships close to Chinas territorial waters. It is impossible to imagine a future of peace if the US continues to maintain its aggressive military structure that runs from Japan to Australia, with the express intent of disciplining China..

In his radio address on 9 August 1945, US President Harry Truman said: The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians. In reality, Hiroshima was not a military base: it was what US Secretary of War Henry Stimson called a virgin target, a place that had escaped the US firebombing of Japan so that it could be a worthwhile testing ground for the atomic bomb. In his diary, Stimson recorded a conversation with Truman in June about the reasoning behind targeting this city.

When he told Truman that he was a little fearful that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon [the atomic bomb] would not have a fair background to show its strength, the president laughed and said he understood.

Two-year-old Sadako Sasaki was one of 350,000 people living in Hiroshima at the time of the bombings. She died ten years later from cancers associated with radiation exposure from the bomb. The Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet was moved by her story and wrote a poem against war and confrontation. Hikmets words should be a warning even now to Biden for laughing at the possibility of renewed military conflict against China:

I come and stand at every door.

But none can hear my silent tread.

I knock and yet remain unseen.

For I am dead for I am dead.

Im only seven though I died.

In Hiroshima long ago.

Im seven now as I was then.

When children die they do not grow.

My hair was scorched by swirling flame.

My eyes grew dim my eyes grew blind.

Death came and turned my bones to dust.

And that was scattered by the wind.

I need no fruit I need no rice.

I need no sweets nor even bread.

I ask for nothing for myself/

For I am dead for I am dead.

All that I need is that for peace.

You fight today you fight today.

So that the children of this world.

Can live and grow and laugh and play.

For those that have the depth of understanding, you will understand the lines above, but let me quickly state that all that is above is not exactly about China, US, Japan, G7 or Europe for that matter, it has very little in fact to do with atomic bombs, Truman of the past, or Biden of then.

The above is about Nigeria of today, a country that is not a nation, a people that are battling to grasp shared value, one that has shared experiences, but have refused to hold hands, to dialogue across the Niger, to look for consensus.

Our stereotypes have further been dragged, in the last eight years our social, cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity have been stretched. These divisions that have historical roots have been badly handled in the country's political and social landscape in the last one decade.

Mr. Tinubu must address our ethnic diversity, Nigeria is home to over 250 ethnic groups, each with its own language, traditions, and cultural practices. At no time has these ethnic diversities led to tensions and conflicts like now, especially when it comes to issues of resource allocation, power sharing, and representation.

Mr. Tinubu and Shettima his vice has torn Nigerians apart by bringing to the fore our religious differences, with half the conversation around the entire campaign around the northern region being predominantly Muslim and the southern region mainly Christian leading to the Muslim=Muslim ticket narrative.

We need to re-enact our long history of religious coexistence and remember how many communities still practice a combination of traditional religions alongside Islam or Christianity.

Mr. President, there are socioeconomic disparities, with regions varying in terms of development, infrastructure, and access to basic services. The northern region, in particular, has faced challenges related to poverty, illiteracy, and underdevelopment compared to the more economically prosperous southern region. These socioeconomic disparities continue to exacerbate the sense of division and marginalization among different parts of the country, as the north has largely held power and the southeast feeling alienated.

The APC has retained power but political differences, as the landscape is characterized by competition and power struggles between different political parties, regions, and interest groups. In the run up to the last elections political divisions aligned along ethnic and religious lines, leading to a complex web of allegiances and rivalries. Mr. Tinubu must navigate firmly as these same-difference realities impact policy-making, governance, and the distribution of resources.

Despite these divisions, the new administration must draw from our rich history of cultural exchange, interethnic marriages, and collaborative efforts among different groups. Mr. Tinubu must work out the country's diversity as a source of strength, providing a foundation for vibrant arts, music, cuisine, and cultural heritage.

Efforts must be made to address these divisions and promote national unity through initiatives such as dialogue, interethnic and interreligious partnerships, and inclusive governance. The promotion of shared values, respect for diversity, equitable resource distribution, and fostering a sense of national identity are crucial for building a more unified and prosperous Nigeria, the Nnamdi Kalu debacle, Ibraheem Yaqoub El-Zakzaky, Boko Haram, Bandits, Kidnappers must be handled because Nigerians are divided and how Mr. Tinubu navigates themOnly time will tell
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged the President-Elect Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu to start with a clean slate by promptly making public details of your assets, income, investments, liabilities, and interests and to encourage your Vice-President-Elect to do the same.

SERAP also urged him to immediately prioritise the full and effective respect for human rights, media freedom, the rule of law and the countrys judiciary including by promptly obeying countless court judgments which the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has repeatedly treated with utter contempt and disdain.

In the open letter dated 27 May 2023 and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organization said: SERAP notes your recent promise to kill corruption. However, this rhetoric is nothing new: the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari used similar hollow anticorruption phrase in 2015.

SERAP said, As Nigerians have witnessed for eight years, Buhari has neither killed corruption nor obeyed court judgments on transparency and accountability.

According to SERAP, Widely publishing details of your assets, income, investments and liabilities and encouraging your Vice-President-Elect and others to do the same would allow Nigerians to know your worth and the worth of other public officials.

SERAP said, If your election is upheld by the judiciary, your government can use transparency in asset declarations as a means of promoting public accountability and ending systemic corruption in the country.

The letter, read in part, Buharis broken promises to make specific details of his assets public and to kill corruption have opened up the countrys political and electoral processes to a money free-for-all, discouraged political participation and contributed to impunity for corruption.

Although President Buharis march to Aso Rock was predicated, in large part, on his campaign rhetoric to kill corruption, corruption remains widespread among high-ranking public officials and in ministries, departments and agencies [MDAs].

Making public details of your assets, liabilities, and interests would reduce unjust enrichment of public officials, ensure integrity in public offices and promote transparency and accountability as well as good governance.

Nigeria is very rich but its wealth is gravitating rapidly into the hands of a small portion of the population, and the power of corrupt enrichment has continued to threaten to undermine the political integrity of the country.

The tendency for politicians when trying to persuade Nigerians to vote for them is to conceal or hide traits that might make voters reluctant to vote them into power and to hide what they want to do with that power. But once voted into power, politicians become trustees of public wealth and resources and must remove the camouflage.

Effective enforcement and implementation of court judgments is critical to the national interest and to the restoration of the rule of law in the country.

The incoming government therefore has a responsibility to improve citizens trust and confidence in government. But it will be difficult for the new government to be trusted if its leaders do not come clean about their assets and incomes.

Disclosure of income, assets and conflicts of interest can serve as powerful tools to draw attention to the abuse of public office, help prosecute corrupt offenders and create a culture of scrutiny in the public sector that deters corruption.

The Buhari administration has neither killed corruption nor obeyed the rule of law. The outgoing president seemed barely able to hide his disdain for the rule of law and judicial integrity and independence.

Under the Buhari administration, the country has witnessed a general concentration of wealth in the hands of a few politicians and elites perceived to be enriching themselves at the expense of the general public.

The Buhari administration turned the idea of the rule of law and judicial independence on its head by persistently disobeying court judgments including those ordering him to stop life pensions for former governors, and to pay journalist Agba Jalingo N30 million as damages for violations of his human rights.

The Buhari administration has also refused to obey the judgments by Justice Hadiza Rabiu Shagari ordering his government to tell Nigerians about the stolen asset it allegedly recovered, with details of the amounts recovered; and by Justice Mohammed Idris, ordering his government to publish details on the spending of stolen funds recovered by successive governments since 1999.

SERAP urges you to emulate the late former President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua who consistently published his asset declaration forms as president and governor of Katsina State. He also planned legislative reform to make it mandatory for all public officers to declare their assets publicly. He believed that publishing his assets would put pressure on other public officers to do so.

According to the Code of Conduct for Public Officers, contained in Part I of the Fifth Schedule to the 1999 Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended], all public officers are to declare their assets.

Paragraph 11(1)(a)(b) of the Fifth Schedule provides that every public officer shall immediately after taking office and thereafter (a) at the end of every four years; and (b) at the end of his/her term of office, submit to the Code of Conduct Bureau a written declaration of all his properties, assets, and liabilities and those of his unmarried children under the age of eighteen years.

Section 15(1) of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and Tribunal Act also requires all public officers to declare their assets.

Article 8 of United Nations Convention against Corruption provides for the codes of conduct for public officials and requires states parties including Nigeria to ensure probity in public office. Article 8(5) particularly requires states parties to establish systems that require public officials to declare their outside activities, employment, investments, assets and substantial gifts or benefits.

Article 7(1) of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption also provides a similar requirement for public officials to declare their assets before, during, and after serving in public office.

The Nigerian Constitution and the anticorruption and human rights treaties show the significant role that asset declaration by public officials plays in promoting transparency, accountability and preventing and combating corruption in the public service.

Section 39 of the Nigerian Constitution makes provision for the fundamental right to information. Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also guarantee access to information.

We hope that the aspects highlighted will help guide your steps in taking steps to publish your asset declaration form and to encourage others to do so.

Kolawole Oluwadare

SERAP Deputy Director

28/5/2023

Lagos, Nigeria

Emails: [email protected]; [email protected]

Twitter: @SERAPNigeria

Website: www.serap-nigeria.org

For more information or to request an interview, please contact: +2348160537202
The Olowu of Owu-Kuta, HRM Oba Hammed Adekunle Oyelude Makama has been awarded the national honour of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON).

The award was approve by President Muhammadu Buhari in recognition of Oba Oba Hammed Adekunle Oyelude Makama's contribution to peace, unity and development in the country as well as his selfless service to humanity.

The Federal Ministry of Special Duties and inter-Governmental Affairs released the list of the national honour awardees as approved by the president.

Oba Hammed Adekunle Oyelude Makama is the Chairman of the Council of Owu Obas and Chiefs in Yoruba land and very prominent member of the Osun State Council of Obas. The Olowu Kuta is a great philanthropist.

The monarch who is a rallying point for Owu indigenes including diaspora is renowned for his support for Nigerian military and other security agencies in the country which has served as motivation for the security operatives in the country.

Photo:

Olowu of Owu-Kuta, HRM Oba Hammed Adekunle Oyelude Makama
There is a very sound reason why they say that justice delayed is justice denied.

Considering what is currently playing out in Nigeria, the truism of that aphorism is amply justied.

Out of respect for the Law and its processes, I n I am constrained from going into the specics of the case or the Judge in question but suce it to say that it is highly grievous.

When a Judge or Justice skips duty and ees from their court on a self- proclaimed Judgement Day, not because they are sick or otherwise credibly indisposed, then you realize that something is fundamentally wrong, very wrong, with the Judiciary in Nigeria.

Imagine a Judge or Justice skipping Judgement Day because he or she is attending a Judicial Conference? That is high velocity judicial irresponsibility.

I n I wonder why the Judge or Justice in question proclaimed Judgement Day in the rst place knowing fully well that they cannot fulll it because of such mundane extraneous circumstances as a Judicial Conference.

High caliber conferences are typically announced and advertised well in advance, so that all intended participants may adjust their itineraries accordingly.

A persons word ought to be their bond, not to talk of that of a Judge or Justice whose utterances carry much more weight, including that over life or death.

From I n Is understanding, the Judgement in question has been skipped without warning more than once. It was originally scheduled for last week, but the Justice was a no show. Afterwards, there was an atier-the- fact explanation that the Judge was attending a Judicial Conference. The Judgement was rescheduled for last Friday. Again, there was a no show by the Judge because he or she was still attending the aforesaid Conference.

It bears querying why the said Justice xed the rst no-show day in the rst place. Accepting and conceding that the rst no-show Judgement Day was an honest mistake arising from an unforeseen emergency judicial conference, it still leaves much to be desired. To put it mildly, it hints very strongly of the existence of administrative chaos in the Nigerian Judiciary as a public Institution.

The second no-show Judgment Day is completely inexplicable and totally unacceptable. On behalf of the entire Nigerian populace, I n I condemn it in the very strongest and in no uncertain terms.

There is a very strong hypothesis that the public xing and re-xing of the Judgement Day was extortionary in nature and designed to secure maximum ransom payments from a particularly desperate politician, who was held over the barrel of a gun by its anticipatory public pronunciation.

Even before the announced Judgement is delivered, it has already been

profoundly tainted as most likely purchased.

The desperate politician is known to be eager to be sworn into a plum position of authority on May 29, 2023. There are stories of 100 billion

naira in the local currency being the ransom fee either for delay in

Judgement, or for favorable judgement, or for both.

There are also very strong stories of the re-elected Governor of the home state of the desperate politician, known to be his lackey and Man-Friday, making moves to secure emergency 100-billion-naira loan on behalf of his home state for the refurbishment of schools in the state.

Why the rush? Why could the loan application not wait a few days until May 29, 2023, when he is expected to be sworn in to commence his second term as Governor? You be the Judge if the said stories are indeed true.

It is evident that the Justice does not deserve to be in the position they arbitrarily nd themselves. They are a complete disgrace to themselves, their families, their profession, the Judicial institution, and Nigeria.

How can a mere Judicial Conference take precedence over a pronounced Judgement Day, not once but twice? It is suggestive of the amount of contempt with which Nigerians are held by public institutions in their own country. This cannot happen anywhere else, except maybe in Russia.

It is tantamount to a surgeon abandoning the operating heater and a surgical procedure on the same patient, not once, but twice, because they must attend a medical conference. That is criminal negligence, and anything criminal must be duly and very severely punished by any self- respecting Institution. I n I wait to see if the Institution of the Judiciary in Nigeria is self-respecting.

Its status will be determined and established by what kind of reckless behavior it condones or punishes.

This mater of the errant Justice in question, whose word is worth absolutely nothing, must be taken up by the highest regulator of judicial conduct in the Land. There the whole world shall see if they will condone

it, proving that judicial rascality is customary in the Nigerian Judiciary, or punish it severely, proving that such rascality cannot be tolerated in the Judicial institution in Nigeria.

We are watching ti.


LAGOS, Sunday, May 28, 2023: Media Rights Agenda (MRA) today called on incoming President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to make transparency and accountability the cornerstone of Nigerias democracy and accused outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari of monumental failure in the implementation of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, which it said had resulted in a legacy of secrecy after his eight years in office.

In a report titled A Legacy of Secrecy: The FOI Act under the Buhari Administration, issued by MRA to commemorate the 12thanniversary of the signing into Law of the FOI Act by then President Goodluck Jonathan on May 28, 2011 as well as the end of the Buhari Administration on May 29, 2023, the organization noted that governance during the Buhari Years was characterized by blatant violations of the provisions of the FOI Act by the vast majority of public institutions and willful disregard for their obligations under the Law.

According to Mr. Ayode Longe, MRAs Programme Director, Over the last eight years, scores of public institutions spent millions of naira engaging lawyers to defend their refusal to comply with the provisions of the FOI Act and disclose information to members of the public requesting such information even when there was clearly no legitimate basis for withholding the requested information. Not in a single instance did President Buhari or anybody in his Administration express disapproval for this widespread practice or reprimand any of its institutions engaged in the practice.

MRAs report examined the Buhari Administrations performance in terms of any measures, policies or other actions taken to ensure effective implementation of the FOI Act as well as how public institutions complied with their obligations under the Act, including the requirement for them to submit annual implementation reports to the Attorney General of the Federation, who has oversight responsibility for the implementation of the Act.

Mr. Longe noted that although Section 29 of the Act imposes an obligation on all public institutions to submit annual reports on the implementation of the Act to the Attorney General of the Federation, the level of compliance with this reporting obligation by public institutions remained shockingly low throughout President Buhari's tenure, without any ministry, department or agency of the Government ever being reprimanded or otherwise sanctioned for disobeying this mandatory provision of the Act.

According to him, out of the 1,316 ministries, departments, and agencies of the Federal Government in the records of the Federal Civil Service Commission, less than 100 had bothered to submit their FOI Act implementation reports for any given year, from 2015 and 2022, with no action taken against any of the more 90 per cent of them that refused to comply with this requirement, thereby encouraging and institutionalizing impunity.

Referring to data obtained by MRA from the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, he observed that only 44 out of the 1,316 public institutions submitted their reports for 2015; 54 public institutions submitted for 2016; 73 submitted for 2017; 70 submitted for 2018; 89 submitted for 2019; 73 submitted for 2020; 89 submitted for 2021; while 90 submitted for 2022, putting the highest rate of compliance ever at 6.84 percent for the year 2022.

Noting that this was a very dismal performance by any standard, Mr. Longe said These figures reveal an alarming disregard for transparency and accountability by most public institutions. But it is even more disheartening that the Presidency, which should set the example the entire Government, did not respond to a single request for information made to it during President Buhari's eight years in power. This gross failure of leadership cannot be ignored and must be rectified in order to restore public trust and confidence in our government. Such a pattern of non-compliance must be reversed by the incoming Administration.

He described as deeply concerning the fact that the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), who is responsible for overseeing the FOI Act implementation, did not make any recommendations to the National Assembly on how to improve compliance by MDAs with their FOI Act obligations, suggesting that he was satisfied with this sorry state of affairs.

Additionally, Mr. Longe said, the Attorney-General did not take any step to review or update the Guidelines for the Implementation of the FOI Act, which was put in place in 2013 by his predecessor, Mr. Mohammed Adoke (SAN), in order to make the implementation process consistent with advancements in technology and various judicial pronouncements over the last 12 years, which could have greatly aided implementation efforts.

He called on the incoming government of President-Elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take proactive steps to ensure the effective implementation of the Act and allocate adequate resources for this purpose in the Federal Governments annual budgets, saying good governance cannot be possible without transparency, accountability and citizen participation in government, which the Act can help to engender.

For further information, please contact:

Idowu Adewale (Mr.)

Communications Officer

Media Rights Agenda, Lagos

E-mail: [email protected]


The leader of Yoruba Nation Self Determination Struggle, Professor Banji Akintoye, has condemned the invasion of a Federal Government-owned Radio Station in Ibadan by a group claiming to be fighting for the liberation of Yoruba people.

The Emeritus academic, in a statement made available by his Assistant Director of Programmes, Olatunde Amusat, described the action by the said group as lawless, profound criminal and breach of public peace.

The statement reads in parts: The attention of the Yoruba Self Determination Movement has been drawn to the activities of a group led by a woman that has claimed to be running a totally different agenda for Yoruba emancipation and that has been engaging again and again in criminal activity.

The group has been warned repeatedly, but has refused to change.

Akintoye also noted that the Yoruba Self Determination led by me runs a struggle that is totally peaceful and law abiding.

He continued: We have even written a thirty-four page manual to guide our followers and all Yoruba people about peaceful and law abiding self determination struggle.

We have written to the out going President of Nigeria and to the Secretary General of the United Nations about our legitimate demand for self determination for our Yoruba nation.

We have emphasised in everyone of those letter that our struggle is peaceful and law abiding.

We have no relationship whatsoever with the group that has repeatedly engaged in crime and we have no hands in their criminal conduct, the statement concluded.

Meanwhile, the Oyo State police Command, on Sunday, parraded five suspected members of the Youruba Nation agitators arrested in connection with the invasion of Amuludun FM, a community-based radio station owned by the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) in Ibadan, declaring their actions as a criminal act and a clear case of terrorism which would be meted with adequate sanctions under the laws of the land.

The suspects who were arrested in posession of various criminal charms in connection with the incident, include, Noah Atoyebi M 30 years, Gbenga Adeleke M 25 years, Abdulganiyu Mustafa Kolawole M 35 years, Bashiru Kehinde O. F and Fajola Elija M 45 years.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (R) visits the exhibition area of China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair (KLIBF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 27, 2023. The opening ceremony for a series of events by China as the guest of honor on the 40th KLIBF was held here on Saturday. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)

KUALA LUMPUR, May 27 (Xinhua) -- The opening ceremony for a series of events by China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair (KLIBF) was held here on Saturday.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, deputy head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Zhang Jianchun, Malaysian Minister of Education Fadhlina Sidek and Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia Ouyang Yujing attended the event at the World Trade Center Kuala Lumpur.

Anwar, accompanied by Zhang, visited the exhibition area of China as the guest of honor. The Malay edition of "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China", and that of a collection of Chinese President Xi Jinping's selected articles, as well as a comprehensive collection of ancient Chinese paintings were introduced to the Malaysian prime minister.

This is the first time that China is invited as a guest of honor to participate in ASEAN countries' international book fairs. About 10,000 books in number are on display, including those on China's development achievements during the past decade of the new era and on China's traditional culture, as well as the multilingual versions of Chinese classic books co-published by publishing houses in China and ASEAN countries.

More than 150 representatives from over 30 publishing institutions of China participated in the book fair, during which China and Malaysia will host more than 30 cultural exchange activities. Chinese writers including Liu Zhenyun and scholars including Kang Zhen will connect with Malaysian readers at the book fair.

Also on Saturday, the China-ASEAN Forum on Cultural Exchanges and Cooperation was held in the Malaysian capital.

The forum themed "New Opportunities in China-ASEAN Civilization Communication and Cooperation" was attended by more than 300 people including officials, renowned writers, scholars and publishers from both China and Malaysia.

The KLIBF, an important cultural feast in Malaysia, was launched in 1981. This year's fair opened on Friday and will last for 10 days. 

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (2nd L) visits the exhibition area of China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair (KLIBF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 27, 2023. The opening ceremony for a series of events by China as the guest of honor on the 40th KLIBF was held here on Saturday. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)

People visit the exhibition area of China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair (KLIBF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 27, 2023. The opening ceremony for a series of events by China as the guest of honor on the 40th KLIBF was held here on Saturday. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)

People visit the exhibition area of China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair (KLIBF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 27, 2023. The opening ceremony for a series of events by China as the guest of honor on the 40th KLIBF was held here on Saturday. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)

People visit the exhibition area of China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair (KLIBF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 27, 2023. The opening ceremony for a series of events by China as the guest of honor on the 40th KLIBF was held here on Saturday. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (C), deputy head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Zhang Jianchun (2nd L) and Malaysian Minister of Education Fadhlina Sidek (2nd R) attend the opening ceremony for a series of events by China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair (KLIBF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 27, 2023. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)

People visit the exhibition area of China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair (KLIBF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 27, 2023. The opening ceremony for a series of events by China as the guest of honor on the 40th KLIBF was held here on Saturday. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)
Former Federal Commissioner for Information and South South Leader, Chief Edwin Clark has berated the outgoing President, Muhammadu Buhari, saying he is the worst leader Nigeria has ever had.

The Leader of Southern and Middle Belt Leadership Forum (SMBLF), also accused Buhari of marginalising, humiliating the people of the Niger Delta as that region are really disappointed at the his government.

Addressing Journalists on Sunday at his Asokoro Residence during a farewell press conference to Buhari, the elder statesman said that the outgoing President violated his vow that he made to Nigerians during his inauguration in 2015 where he had pledged to be fair to all parts of the country.

Quoting Buharis statement where he said, Having just a few minutes ago swore on a holy book, I intend to keep my hope and same as President to all Nigerians. I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody, Clark noted that the president only observed it in breach .

The leader of the Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF said: In the past 8years, President Muhammadu Buhari has demonstrated in most cases that he did not belong to the whole country but to a group; his tribe and religion, which is contrary to what he said in his inaugural speech that he belong to everybody.

For instance, he appointed fourteen out of seventeen security Chiefs from one section of the country. So, the declaration that he belongs to everybody and nobody, was a sham. I make bold to say that the reverse has been the case, he belongs to some people, but not the entire Nigeria.

Even in simple matters like extending the good wishes of the government to notable personalities in the country on their birthdays or other landmark attainments, the Muhammadu Buhari administration was selective and biased in who it chooses to recognise or consider worthy of goodwill messages.
The United States of America delegation for the inauguration of Nigerias President-elect, Bola Tinubu has landed in the country.

Recall that President Joe Biden had announced that a US delegation led by Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Marcia L. Fudge will attend the inauguration ceremony of Tinubu billed for May 29.

The US Mission in Nigeria, on Sunday, announced their arrival ahead of the transition ceremony.

Announcing the arrival of the 9-member team, @UsinNigeria wrote, Welcome to Nigeria! We are excited to receive the delegation from @POTUS Biden, led by @SecFudge from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as they join us in Abuja for the inauguration of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Tinubu will be sworn in as the 16th President of Nigeria on Monday at Eagle Square, Abuja tomorrow.

No fewer than 65 world leaders, including Heads of State, are expected to attend Tinubus inauguration.

Also expected are past presidents, diplomats, heads of international organisations and prominent Nigerians and representatives of foreign governments and agencies.
A Nigeria-based anti-corruption group, SecureWorld and Liberty Initiative for Peace, SELIP, has petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to probe the outgoing Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, for allegedly using the establishment of a national carrier, Nigeria Air, to perpetrate fraud and commit economic sabotage.

The petition, which was addressed to the EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, was signed by the Executive Director of SELIP, Comrade Mark Adebayo, requesting the anti-graft agency to investigate the outgoing minister for undertaking ventures designed to benefit a few individuals and lead to the eventual collapse of aviation, a critical sector of the Nigerian economy.

The group noted with dismay the unveiling of an aircraft on Friday in Abuja purportedly belonging to Nigeria Air, despite an existing court order restraining the minister from taking any action regarding the project.

The group alleged that in a desperate bid to hoodwink President Muhammadu Buhari's government and the generality of Nigerians, the minister imported a re-painted aircraft owned by Ethiopian Airlines and passed it off as the maiden flight belonging to Nigeria Air.

The civil society group averred that the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos headed by Justice A.L Allagoa, in a suit filed by the Airline Operators of Nigeria, had granted three separate orders of injunctions, restraining the Federal Government from taking any step about the Nigeria Air project 'but the minister in a desperate bid to cover up the monumental fraud in the deal elected to flagrantly disobeyed an order of a court of competent jurisdiction and produced a sham called unveiling of Nigeria Air flight last Friday.'

"We are compelled to bring to your attention that the aircraft purportedly unveiled on Friday, May 26, 2023, by Minister Sirika, as the first flight of the national carrier, Nigeria Air, is still in active service of Ethiopia Airlines. We can confirm that the aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 with the registration number ET-APL, has since left the country this weekend for Turkey according to a check on the flight radar; it only transited Nigeria for the farce of a show put up by the minister. The flight landing in the country with Ethiopia Airlines' registration number means Nigeria Air has no Air Operator Certificate. No aircraft can be registered in Nigeria without the carrier having an AOC which means that the aircraft does not belong to Nigeria Air either as leased or owned equipment. So, Sirika should not be allowed to fool Nigerians," the group said in the petition.

The group urged the anti-graft agency to make Sirika account for a whopping N15.9 billion that has been committed so far to the project by the federal government, alleging that the desperation by the minister is geared towards covering up the misappropriation of funds and monumental fraud.

"The unveiling was a desperate attempt to justify the N15.9 billion appropriated by the federal government to Nigeria Air since 2016. The phantom project has continued to lick up budgetary provisions; N1.3 billion was allotted to it in the 2023 budget with an additional N700 million as working capital and N200 million as consultancy fee; so, the minister must not be allowed to hoodwink Nigerians with the 'importation of a rented aircraft into the country and pass it off as a step to the commencement of the operation of the airline days to his exit from office. This act of fraud and economic terrorism must not be allowed to go unpunished," the petition read.

Sirika claimed that Nigeria Air Limited is a private sector-led airline, with only five per cent of the company owned by the Nigerian government. The minister also added that a consortium of entrepreneurs in Nigeria owns 46 percent while investors in Ethiopian Airlines retain 49 percent of the shares.

However, SELIP in the petition, countered the minister saying the conception and implementation of the national carrier project were shrouded in ambiguity and designed to defraud the people of Nigeria by a few Nigerians in connivance with their international collaborators.

"There's no agreement with the stakeholders in Nigeria, so on what basis has a painted plane be brought in to deceive Nigerians? The lack of transparency on funding and alleged zero consideration for local players and national interest is frightening as the proposed Shareholders' Agreement which is yet to be signed the, reserves all Executive Directors positions for the Ethiopians with Nigerians as deputies," the group said.

SELIP said Sirika must be compelled to explain why in the proposed Shareholder Agreement, Ethiopian Airlines will also collect millions of dollars yearly as management fees despite having 49% shares and why the East African company will attract such grace by using just their own planes as contributions to the project.

The group also charged the EFCC to probe the 3% of the total shares allocated to Fairfax Ltd which was appointed as the Transaction Adviser to the project.

SELIP appealed to the anti-graft agency to probe the deal that granted Fairfax Nigeria Limited the shares without paying a dime.

"This company will also be paid millions of dollars monthly and will be in charge of procurement for Nigeria Air. There is overwhelming evidence that Sirika has a substantial interest in Fairfax Nigeria Limited albeit by proxies, and one of the most curious things is why a firm incorporated in March 2021 without robust experience in the aviation industry will be factored into such a monumental project. Please, use your good office to probe the perpetration of conflict of interest and grand fraud against the Nigerian people so that sanity will be restored in that sector and cause a rebound in the confidence of investors in the industry," the group said.

SELIP said the implementation of the project is capable of undermining the efforts of the incoming Bola Tinubu administration and the EFCC must make the promoters of the phantom deal face the full length of the law.

"Being a high flight risk after May 29th, 2023, we demand the immediate arrest of Minister Hadi Sirika before he flees the country. We urge your Commission to keep perfect vigilance on Minister Sirika and not allow him to escape from these shores but be made to answer for his massive corruption that is bound to harm the critical sector of Nigeria's Aviation Industry.

"This scam scheme can only be compared to the daring scam by a Nigerian who sold a phantom airport to some Brazilians years ago. We are sure the Commission has an institutional memory of that obnoxious financial crime that caused Nigeria international embarrassment. The current scam is no less obnoxious.

"We have confidence that the EFCC will do justice and timely, too, to get to the bottom of this scam and save Nigeria's Aviation Industry from the impending doom," the petition read.

Signed

Comrade Mark Adebayo

Executive Director, SELIP


Key facts about Neuralink, Musks cyborg gamble

WASHINGTON: Neuralink, Elon Musks brain-implant company, has won US approval to test on humans. Here is what to know about the multi-billionaires dream project to enable the human brain to communicate directly with computers.

technologyhealth

By AFP

Sunday 28 May 2023, 10:51AM

Elon Musk standing next to a surgical robot during a Neuralink presentation in 2020. Photo: AFP

Cyborg future?

Neuralink is a neurotechnology company co-founded by Musk along with a team of scientists and engineers in 2016 to build direct communication channels between the brain and computers.

The aim is to supercharge human capabilities, treat neurological disorders like ALS or Parkinsons, and ultimately achieve a symbiotic relationship between humans and artificial intelligence.

Neuralinks technology would mainly work through an implant called the Link - a device about the size of five stacked coins that would be placed inside the human brain through invasive surgery.

The hardware would harbor electrodes capable of both recording neural activity and stimulating specific regions of the brain.

Researchers hope the implants powers will also treat paralysis, spinal cord injuries and brain disorders.

It could also potentially blur the line between human consciousness and computing, an idea that has long excited technologists, while feeding nightmares of a dystopian future taken over by cyborgs.

Last year, 78% of US adults surveyed by Pew Research said they probably or definitely would not want a computer chip implanted in their brain to process information faster.

Many competitors

According to data company Pitchbook, California-based Neuralink has more than 400 employees and has raised at least US$363 million (B12.6 billion).

Though he wins most of the headlines, Musk is hardly alone in trying to make advances in the field, which is officially known as brain-machine or brain-computer interface research.

Hit with delays, the tycoon had reportedly reached out to join forces with implant developer Synchron about a potential investment. Its implant version does not require cutting into the skull to install it, unlike Neuralinks Link.

The Australia-based Synchron implanted its first device in a US patient in July 2022.

Another implant project, but designed for research purposes, is from company Blackrock Neurotech and has also received FDA approval for human testing.

A Neuralink co-founder has also split from Musk and raised venture capital for his own project at a startup called Science.

Other companies seeking to make a play in the sector include BrainCo, Kernel and CTRL-Labs, now a part of Metas virtual reality division.

Animal testing

The FDA approval for human testing comes at a great relief for Neuralink which until now had been testing its implants in monkeys and other animals.

Reuters reported in December that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) had opened an investigation into potential violations of the Animal Welfare Act at Neuralink.

The report estimated that Neuralink killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys for research since 2018.

The USDA refused to confirm or deny the report to AFP at the time.

Arch rival Synchron reportedly killed only about 80 sheep as part of its research, according to documents seen by Reuters.
Lao activists killing in Isan raises questions

UBON RATCHATHANI: Rights activists are calling on Thai authorities to impartially investigate the killing in Ubon Ratchathani of an exiled Lao political activist who held UN refugee status.

violencedeathmurdercrimepolitics

By Bangkok Post

Sunday 28 May 2023, 10:38AM

Photo: Allie Caulfield via Wikimedia Commons / Bangkok Post

The body of Bounsuan Kitiyano was found with three gunshot wounds in the forest in Sri Muang Mai district of the northeastern province bordering Laos on May 17, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. The initial police investigation indicated that he was shot while riding alone on his motorcycle through the forest, reports the Bangkok Post.

Police said Bounsuan had been living in Thailand for the past four or five years, according to Radio Free Asia.

He reportedly had plans to go to Bangkok in the near future to file documents so that he could go to Australia as an asylum seeker.

His body was transported to a nearby hospital for further investigation, but by May 19 it had already been collected by a friend for ceremonial burial purposes, police said.

This cold-blooded killing of a prominent exiled Lao political activist demands an immediate response from the Thai authorities, said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at HRW. The Thai government should urgently conduct a credible and impartial investigation into Bounsuans death and bring to justice all those responsible.

Bounsuan, 56, was a former member of the Free Laos group and was recognised as a refugee by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He had been involved in several protests in front of the Lao Embassy in Bangkok calling for respect for human rights.

The killing of Bounsuan in Thailand sends a spine-chilling message that nowhere is safe for critics of the Lao government, said HRW.

On Apr 29, an unidentified gunman shot and seriously wounded Anousa Luangsuphom, an activist and online critic of the Lao government, in the capital, Vientiane. His family initially reported he was dead as they feared retribution. It later emerged that he was alive and supporters subsequently managed to get him out of Laos for further medical treatment.

Even activists who have fled persecution in Laos to neighbouring countries have not been safe, said HRW. Od Sayavong, a Lao human rights and democracy activist living in Bangkok, has been missing since Aug 2019.

The Thai government has consistently failed to prevent or adequately respond to attacks against political critics of repressive governments in neighbouring Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar, HRW said.

The Thai governments unacceptable deference to abusive neighbours is once again taking priority over its international human rights and legal obligations, said Ms Pearson said.

The new government  has an urgent agenda to reestablish Thailand as a place where refugees are protected.
Phuket Opinion: Facing down the taxi cartels

PHUKET: Not even sworn into office yet and the Move Forward MPs for Phuket are already asking questions about big issues that have affected tourists and island residents for decades, namely the state of the taxi cartels vice-like, and state enforced, grip on which taxis may serve tourists at the airport.

opiniontourismtransport

By The Phuket News

Sunday 28 May 2023, 09:00AM

Tourists wait for a taxi by the side of the road in front of Phuket airport, instead of using any taxis from the groups that have paid AoT for the privilege of exclusive rights to serve tourists arriving in Phuket. Photo: Phuke Info Center

Move Forward Phuket MP Somchart Techathavorncharoen on Thursday confirmed that he had sent a formal request to the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT), with a copy addressed to the Minister of Transport, to allow taxi app drivers to serve tourists at the airport.

The letter followed Mr Somchart on Tuesday (May 23) visiting Phuket Provincial Police Commander Maj Gen Sermphan Sirikong and Phuket City Police Chief Col Pratuang Ponmana to discuss ongoing violent and aberrant behaviour by taxi drivers against taxi app drivers in Phuket.

By Friday, Mr Somchart explained that on Tuesday he also raised the issue with the Phuket Land Transport Office (PLTO)  the longstanding enforcer on behalf of the taxi cartels on the island.

The explanations he has received so far from the PLTO, led by PLTO Chief Adcha Buachan, is a description of which types of taxis are issued which types of licences plates  which according to them dumbfoundingly determines where the taxis may operate, not the other way around, as if it were not the PLTOs fault that that taxi app vehicles were not allowed to operate in specified areas.

It must take a very short memory indeed to forget that the PLTO has already exposed for illegally arresting what they deemed to be illegal green-plate taxis earlier this year.

By the time the PLTO publicly recognised that some green-plate taxi drivers not registered in Phuket are legally allowed to operate on the island, they shifted their public image releases to targetting illegal taxi app drivers. There was no mention of any recompense for a government office, supported by police officers, illegally preventing fully legal taxi drivers from making a legal income. They literally prevented Thais from working legally, and there was not even an apology.

Shamefully for the police, it has taken an MP-elect to get them to finally this week recognise that no taxi groups have any legal right to even attempt to enforce exclusive rights to serve customers in public areas  despite the nigh-countless incidents they have been involved in regarding green-plate taxi queue drivers.

Funnily enough, while Phuket police initially were present to support the beginning of the PLTOs camapign against non-cartel-approved taxi drivers, over the ensuing months they silently disappeared from the PLTO checkpoints, as if they could see the problem coming.

But the focus on taxis at the airport has really hit a nerve. Public pressure and the fouling of Phukets reputation as a tourism destination spreading across social media, among Thais as well as international tourists, thanks to the airport taxi drivers, can longer be ignored. They have not been wanted for a long time, and the decades of complicity, and support, by previous governments is now plainly understood by everyone. The PLTO can keep on with its appalling attempts to save face, but its role in protecting taxi cartels to maintain their control is now historical.

If the PLTO is to maintain the standard response when Thai officials are finally called to explain their antics, they will attempt to pivot, and say that which taxis may serve the airport is beyond their control; that the decision is in the remit of Airports of Thailand (AoT) through offering concessions to selected taxi cooperatives to serve passengers at the airport. It is here where the real fun begins.

As confirmed in the management transfer of the Buri Ram, Udon Thani and Krabi airports from the Department of Airports (DoA) to Airports of Thailand, the airports remain state assets. The critical relevance of that point for Phuket was much overlooked when the Department of Airports gave that as their response to corruption claims in September last year.

After decades of allowing overinflated fares being charged by exclusive groups of taxi drivers at the airport, who of course paid millions of baht for the privilege, the Department of Airports itself has confirmed that the airports that AoT operates remain state facilities, despite AoT being a public company listed on the Thai stock exchange (with the Ministry of Finance maintaining a majority hold of the shares).

To that, the PLTO and AoT now have to face the prospect that Phukets newly elected MPs do not even have to ask either of them to let other taxi drivers serve the airport. All they have to do is ship their request to Cabinet, when it is finally formed, and make the necessary changes there.

The control of Phuket taxi cartels, which Mr Somchart even described as engaging in mafia behaviour, is finally being confronted. If the public response to Mr Somcharts efforts so far have been any indication, a great number of people in Phuket support the move, as does The Phuket News.

Well done, Mr Somchart. Keep up the good work.
Sakhu durian festival gets underway

PHUKET: The Sakhu Durian Festival 2023 got underway yesterday (May 27) as thousands of Asias King of Fruits were distributed free to local residents to mark the occasion.

culturehealthtourism

By The Phuket News

Sunday 28 May 2023, 02:30PM

Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew oversaw the opening ceremony of the festival at the offices of the Sakhu Subdistrict Administrative Organization in Thalang where 5,000 of the unique fruit were given to attendees to enjoy.

Governor Narong was joined by Rewat Areerob, President of the Phuket Provincial Administrative Organisation (PPAO); Bancha Thanu-in, Thalang District Chief; Jarassri Khamphierasong from the Phuket Agriculture department; and Trin Panyawai, President of Sakhu Subdistrict Administrative Organisation, which is organising the festival.

Mr Trin said that Sakhu subdistrict has a rich history of association with the fruit, with most villagers having a durian orchard. Durians have been harvested locally for the past 200-300 years and are very well known to people all across the island.

Some families grow the fruit for themselves to eat, while other families harvest it to sell, he added, explaining that the weather is ideal in Sakhu with a mixture of mountainous and plain terrain for the fruit to prosper between the months of April and July. Mr Trin further explained that the local soil in Sakhu lends itself very favourably and helps create a delicious, sweet and oily taste which differs to durians grown in other areas.

Mr Trin urged local farmers to continue to harvest the fruit, encouraging more to be planted so as to appeal to the Thai and international tourist markets which will in turn raise the profile of the area and create more jobs and income for its residents.

During yesterdays festival there were variants of the fruit available, such as durian cocnut milk, sticky rice and stir-fried dishes, with a total of 5,000 of the fruit distributed for people to eat for free.

There were also live musical performances from the likes of local artists The Woo Band and a range of craft and food stalls offering goods to the attending public.
CAMBRIDGE  Police have released a photo to help them investigate an assault that injured a person at a Cambridge business.

It happened May 8 at 2:15 a.m. at a business in the area of Preston Parkway. Waterloo Regional Police say the victim was assaulted by an unknown man and taken to hospital with injuries that are not life-threatening.

Investigators want to identify and speak to the man in a photograph that police posted to social media Sunday.

Anyone with information or anyone who witnessed this incident is asked to call police at 519-570-9777. Anonymous tips can be submitted online at waterloocrimestoppers.com or call 1-800-222-8477.

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This photo taken on May 27, 2023 shows the launch ceremony for the English edition of "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era: Questions and Answers" during an event of China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)

KUALA LUMPUR, May 27 (Xinhua) -- The launch ceremony for the English edition of "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era: Questions and Answers" was held here on Saturday, during an event of China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair.

The book presents the fundamental spirit, content and requirement of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in a comprehensive and accessible manner through a question and answer format. It features rich content, innovative presentation, clear illustrations and easy-to-understand language.

The English edition was published through collaboration between People's Publishing House and Xuexi Press of China and India's GBD Books, targeting English-speaking countries worldwide. It helps the international community comprehensively understand the main ideas of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and deepen the understanding on the wisdom and responsibility of the Communist Party of China (CPC) committed to promoting the building of a better world.

Officials from the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, figures from Malaysia's political, academic, press and publishing circles, and representatives from think tanks attended the launch ceremony. 
This years Bike Safe Rodeo, hosted by Waterloo Regional Police, saw children of all ages navigating obstacles, weaving around pylons, and launching off jumps in the Laurentian Zehrs parking lot at Ottawa Street and Strasburg Road in Kitchener.

The rodeo, held on Saturday, is designed to encourage bike safety for kids. Similar events are planned in different areas around Waterloo Region through the summer.

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CAMBRIDGE  No one was hurt when three tents caught fire and burned early Sunday at a homeless encampment in downtown Galt.

Firefighters were called to the encampment just before 6 a.m. They could see smoke on their way. Tents were still burning when firefighters reached the site behind 150 Main St.

It came in as a possible explosion, but theyre not sure if there was an explosion or not, acting platoon chief Gerry Grieves said.

The cause of the fire is undetermined. Contents in the tents were destroyed and damage is estimated at $1,000.

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AMUCO thanks

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IMPHAL, May 28 : The All Manipur United Clubs' Organisation (AMUCO) has expressed gratitude to Jintu Moni Nath and his spouse Sapam Usharani for a consignment of slippers sent for use by displaced people at relief camps. The couple from Kamakhya Temple Road in Guwahati generously sent Manipur slippers both for children and adults who are being displaced owing to the recent communal violence and taking shelter at various relief camps, said AMUCO in a statement. Thanking the couple for their contributions, AMUCO also maintained that the received consignment (slippers) will be distributed at the relief camps very soon.
A case of Nero fiddled while Rome burnt ? Manipur is burning

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May not exactly be a case of Rome burnt while Nero fiddled but twist this a little and the line Manipur burnt, while the Government of the day talked big may well fit the present scenario. May 3, that was the day Manipur went up in flames and fast forward to May 28 and the State is just gearing up to receive the Union Home Minister, while the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is felt more by his silence and seeming indifference than anything concrete that has been taken up. Delhi is being referred to here, because the situation in Manipur is today more than just a law and order problem for it has taken a dimension, which transcends the line law and order problem. And the line, Manipur has a good number of well trained police personnel (phajanna train touraba police personnel matik chana lei) sounds like hot air given the fact that ever since violence broke out on May 3, it has been left to the villagers to defend their land and belongings. If Manipur has enough well trained police personnel then where are they ? Even as this grandiose announcement was made before the press at the Chief Ministers Secretariat, came reports of stand off amid sounds of gun fire and bomb explosions from the eastern side of Yaingangpokpi, at Serou side, at Phayeng etc claiming the lives of at least 9 people, including two policemen. This is about May 28, that is a full 25 days after violence erupted on May 3 and in between there have been numerous reports of villages at the foothills coming under heavy firing from the hill slopes and one wonders where all those well trained policemen were. Where have the guns come from ? Union Home Minister Amit Shah is understood to have told the State Government that all arms snatched from different police stations and police outposts ever since the violence erupted should be recovered and while the stand of the Home Minister is acknowledged one wonders why no questions have been raised on the people firing at the villages located at the foothills. This is where the finger of accusation being pointed to SoO cadres becomes relevant, afterall who are those engaging the Assam Rifles (one personnel has already passed away after receiving a bullet wound), police commandos and other law enforcing agencies in gun fights ? Or is it a case of the common folks having the expertise to engage well trained personnel in a series of gun fights ? The answer should be obvious to all.

The utter failure of the Government to rein in the situation is writ large on every bullet that is fired, every single house or dwelling place that goes up in flames, every single displaced person, every single individual killed in the madness that has gripped the State since the evening of May 3. What is the case that Imphal has prepared to present to the Union Home Minister when he arrives on a three day visit on May 29 ? How about the different civil society organisations ? There will obviously be contrasting tales that Amit Shah will hear. The account that he receives from Churachandpur and Kangpokpi will be vastly different from the one that he will receive from Imphal. In between will be the account from the State Government. How well prepared is the State Government with the account that is going to be presented to the Union Home Minister ? These are all important points that have been raised earlier in this very column, but this is a sort of a reminder to all who matter. This is not the time to act nonchalant and brusquely brush aside any suggestion that may come from the MLAs and the civil society organisations. In short the Government cannot be a one man army and good counsel is what is needed, not the nods and ayes from the yes men. Manipur cannot be caught fiddling while the State burns. For starters, put across the need to abrogate the SoO pact and to do this one would need to present a water tight case and not some slip shod preparation. The State Government should also put it down in clear cut terms that the people do not trust the neutrality of the Central armed forces in the present conflict and this should be submitted with factual accounts.
One person is dead after a crash between a car and a motorcycle in Scarborough on Sunday afternoon, Toronto police said.

Police responded to the crash at Greenholm Circuit and Lawrence Avenue East shortly after 1:30 p.m.

Paramedics took the motorcycle driver to hospital where they were pronounced dead.

Police were unable to confirm if the other driver remained on scene.

The intersection at the site of the crash was closed but has since reopened.

MB Marissa Birnie is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Stars radio room in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @marissabirnie

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Toronto police are searching for a suspect after a sexual assault allegedly occurred at Wilson subway station on Sunday.

In a news release police said they were called to Wilson station at around 2 a.m. for reports of a sexual assault.

Police said that the victim was on-board a TTC subway when she noticed the suspect staring at her. The victim exited the train at Wilson station and the suspect allegedly followed her off the train and subsequently sexually assaulted her.

The suspect is described by police as thin build, short black hair, and black facial hair. He was last seen wearing a black long sleeve shirt, green cargo pants, black boots and carrying a black backpack.

Police are asking anyone with information to contact them at 416-808-3200, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), or at www.222tips.com.

TG Thea Gribilas is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Reach her via email: tgribilas@thestar.ca

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Less than two months after he pleaded guilty to storming the U.S. Capitol, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlsons then-Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other rioters whom the site called political prisoners.

The Justice Department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised  a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy.

An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in the more than 1,000 criminal cases from Jan. 6, 2021, are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of the Capitol rioters.

Dozens of defendants have set up online fundraising appeals for help with legal fees, and prosecutors acknowledge theres nothing wrong with asking for help for attorney expenses. But the Justice Department has, in some cases, questioned where the money is really going because many of those charged have had government-funded legal representation.

Most of the fundraising efforts appear on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site and has become a haven for Jan. 6 defendants barred from using mainstream crowdfunding sites, including GoFundMe, to raise money. The rioters often proclaim their innocence and portray themselves as victims of government oppression, even as they cut deals to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors.

Their fundraising success suggests that many people in the United States still view Jan. 6 rioters as patriots and cling to the baseless belief that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump. The former president himself has fueled that idea, pledging to pardon rioters if he is elected.

Markus Maly, a Virginia man scheduled to be sentenced next month for assaulting police at the Capitol, raised more than $16,000 from an online campaign that described him as a January 6 P.O.W. and asked for money for his family. Prosecutors have requested a $16,000-plus fine, noting that Maly had a public defender and did not owe any legal fees.

He should not be able to use his own notoriety gained in the commission of his crimes to capitalize on his participation in the Capitol breach in this way, a prosecutor wrote in court papers.

So far this year, prosecutors have sought more than $390,000 in fines against at least 21 riot defendants, in amounts ranging from $450 to more than $71,000, according to the APs tally.

Judges have imposed at least $124,127 in fines against 33 riot defendants this year. In the previous two years, judges ordered more than 100 riot defendants to collectively pay more than $240,000 in fines.

Separately, judges have ordered hundreds of convicted rioters to pay more than $524,000 in restitution to the government to cover more than $2.8 million in damage to the Capitol and other Jan. 6-related expenses.

More rioters facing the most serious charges and longest prison terms are now being sentenced. They tend to also be the prolific fundraisers, which could help explain the recent surge in fines requests.

Earlier this month, the judge who sentenced Nathaniel DeGrave to more than three years in prison also ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine. Prosecutors noted that the Nevada resident incredibly raised over $120,000 in GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns that referred to him as Beijing Bidens political prisoner in Americas Gitmo  a reference to the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

He did this despite seeking to cooperate with the government and admitting he and his co-conspirators were guilty since at least November 2021, a prosecutor wrote.

Lawyer William Shipley, who has represented DeGrave and more than two dozen other Jan. 6 defendants, said he advises clients to avoid raising money under the auspices of being a political prisoner if they intend to plead guilty.

Until they admit they committed a crime, theyre perfectly entitled to shout from the rooftops that the only reason theyre being held is because of politics, Shipley said. Its just First Amendment political speech.

Shipley said he provided the judge with documentation showing that DeGrave raised approximately $25,000 more than what he paid his lawyers.

Ive never had to do it until these cases because Ive never had clients that had third-party fundraising like this, Shipley said. Theres a segment of the population that is sympathetic toward the plight of these defendants.

GiveSendGo co-founder Heather Wilson said her sites decision to allow legal defense funds for Capitol riot defendants is rooted in our societys commitment to the presumption of innocence and the freedom for all individuals to hire private attorneys.

The governments push for more fines comes as it reaches a milestone in the largest federal investigation in American history: Just over 500 defendants have been sentenced for Jan. 6 crimes.

Judges arent rubber-stamping prosecutors fine requests.

Prosecutors sought a more than $70,000 fine for Peter Schwartz, a Kentucky man who attacked police officers outside the Capitol with pepper spray and a chair. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Schwartz this month to more than 14 years in prison  one of the longest so far in a Capitol riot case  but didnt impose a fine.

Prosecutors suspect Schwartz tried to profit from his fundraising campaign, Patriot Pete Political Prisoner in DC. But his lawyer, Dennis Boyle, said there is no evidence of that.

The judge basically said that if the money was being used for attorneys fees or other costs like that, there was no basis for a fine, Boyle said.

A jury convicted romance novel cover model John Strand of storming the Capitol with Dr. Simone Gold, a California physician who is a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement. Now prosecutors are seeking a $50,000 fine on top of a prison term for Strand when a judge sentences him on Thursday.

Strand has raised more than $17,300 for his legal defense without disclosing that he has a taxpayer-funded lawyer, according to prosecutors. They say Strand appears to have substantial financial means, living in a home that was purchased for more than $3 million last year.

Strand has raised, and continues to raise, money on his website based upon his false statements and misrepresentations on the events of January 6, prosecutors wrote.

Goodwyn, who appeared on Carlsons show in March, is scheduled to be sentenced next month. Defense lawyer Carolyn Stewart described prosecutors as demanding blood from a stone in asking for the $25,000 fine.

He received that amount in charity to help him in his debt for legal fees for former attorneys and this for unknown reasons is bothersome to the government, Stewart wrote.

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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to reflect that the sentence for Peter Schwartz was one of the longest so far in a Capitol riot case, not the longest.

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DAMASCUS (AP)  Airstrikes attributed to Israel targeted Syrias capital city late Sunday, the first such strikes in a month, Syrian state media reported.

Syrian air defenses responded to the strikes in the vicinity of Damascus and shot down some of them, state news agency SANA reported. The attack caused only material damage, it said.

The last suspected Israeli airstrike on Syria was on April 29, targeting the province of Homs. SANA, citing military officials, said at the time that three civilians were wounded in the strike and that a civilian fuel station caught fire and a number of fuel tankers and trucks were burned.

There was no immediate statement from Israeli authorities regarding Sundays strikes on Damascus.

Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment next door, has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of neighboring Syria in recent years, but rarely acknowledges them.

However, Israels defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said earlier this month in an address at a security conference that the new Israeli government has greatly increased the number of strikes on Iranian targets since taking office late last year.

Last week, an Israeli army spokesperson said in a statement that an Israeli drone conducting a surveillance mission in Syrian airspace came under fire by small arms and Israeli forces responded with machine gun fire.

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RED RIVER, N.M. (AP)  Three men killed in a weekend shootout at a New Mexico motorcycle rally were members of rival outlaw biker gangs, and the violence stemmed from a previous altercation between them in Albuquerque, authorities said Sunday.

New Mexico State Police said three other bikers are facing charges and two of them were among the five wounded in Saturdays shooting involving the Bandidos and the Waterdogs in the mountain resort town of Red River.

Those killed were identified as 26-year-old Anthony Silva of Los Lunas, 46-year-old Damian Breaux of Socorro and 46-year-old Randy Sanchez of Albuquerque. Two were declared dead at the scene and the third at a hospital, New Mexico State Police Chief Tim Johnson said in identifying them.

Johnson said 30-year-old Jacob Castillo of Rio Rancho will be charged with an open count of murder when hes released from a hospital while 39-year-old Matthew Charles Jackson of Austin, Texas, is facing a charge of unlawful carrying of a firearm inside a liquor establishment.

State Police said 41-year-old Christopher Garcia, also of Texas, has been arrested on suspicion of cocaine possession after being treated at a hospital.

Three other men belonging to motorycle gangs were injured in the shootout, but their names havent been released yet, authorities said.

Its very tragic, Red River Mayor Linda Calhoun said. Its the first time weve ever had anything like this.

The towns calendar touted the 41st annual Red River Memorial Motorcycle Rally, saying Get ready for the rumble as 28,000 bikers from all different backgrounds line Main Street for one crazy party.

Most of Main Street closed to the public on Sunday as part of the State Polices investigation and law enforcement requested businesses in the area remain closed.

The shooters have all been apprehended, Calhoun said. There is no threat to the community.

The wounded were transported to hospitals in Denver, Albuquerque and nearby Taos.

Our law enforcement was incredible. The first State Police officer was there within 30 seconds, Calhoun said.

Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina was in Red River on Saturday afternoon, eating dinner and posting online photos of himself and his smiling wife.

Another of his posted pictures showed motorcycles lining the towns main drag as bikers and others socialized.

Thirty minutes after posting the two photos, Medina said the shootout occurred.

What a helpless feeling not having a badge, gun or radio as State Police officers and others enter the restaurant and slowly everything closes down and you dont even know if you can get to your car or if its in the scene, Medina wrote in Twitter. This wave of gun violence impacts all of New Mexico large or small.

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A protestor holds a sign that reads "Remove Paxton! Unfit for Office" in front of the Taxas Capitol building in Austin, Texas, the United States, May 27, 2023. The GOP-led Texas House of Representatives on Saturday voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, a powerful Republican and firm ally of former President Donald Trump in the second largest U.S. state, over yearslong accusations of corruption, lawbreaking and power-abusing. (Photo by Bo Lee/Xinhua)

HOUSTON, May 27 (Xinhua) -- The GOP-led Texas House of Representatives on Saturday voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, a powerful Republican and firm ally of former President Donald Trump in the second largest U.S. state, over yearslong accusations of corruption, lawbreaking and power-abusing.

Unlike in Congress, impeachment in Texas requires immediate removal from office until a trial is held in the Senate.

The vote was 121-23, with two members voting "present." Republicans hold an 85-64 majority in the chamber.

"The evidence is substantial. It is alarming and unnerving," said Republican lawmaker Andrew Murr, also chair of the General Investigating Committee, during his closing statement following hours of debate on Saturday.

Texas' "top cop is on the take," said Ann Johnson, a Democratic House representative, during the debate. Texas Democrats have for years cast Paxton as corrupt.

Paxton, 60, denied all wrongdoing at a news conference on Friday, calling the GOP-led effort to impeach him a "deceitful," politically motivated campaign to disenfranchise voters who reelected him in November.

Paxton was reelected in the 2022 midterm elections despite being under indictment on felony securities fraud charges as well as an FBI probe into whistleblowers' bribery claims against him.

The committee on Wednesday listened to three hours of detailed testimony by investigators over criminal charges against the state's top lawyer for securities fraud and allegations by his former top deputies that Paxton used his office to benefit a friend and political donor.

According to the investigators, Paxton repeatedly abused his office and may have committed at least three felonies in an effort to help a friend and political donor, Austin real estate investor Nate Paul, with various legal troubles.

These included spending 72,000 U.S. dollars on staff labor in tasks that benefited the developer, providing him with an internal FBI file related to an investigation into Paul, and hiring an outside lawyer for 25,000 dollars to conduct work that primarily benefited Paul, according to a report from the Texas Tribune.

The accusation is largely based on claims made by four former senior staff who filed a whistleblower lawsuit last year, arguing that Paxton improperly fired them after they reported related concerns to federal and state investigators, said the report.

Committee investigators also discussed criminal charges that have been pending against Paxton since 2015, when a Collin County grand jury indicted him on two counts of felony securities fraud related to private business deals in 2011.

According to those charges, Paxton solicited investors into Servergy Inc. without disclosing that the McKinney tech company was paying him to promote its stock.

He was also accused of having accepted 100,000 dollars from an executive whose company was under investigation by Paxton's office for Medicaid fraud.

The attorney general also reportedly accepted an additional 50,000 dollars donated by an Arizona retiree and later hired the donor's son to a high-ranking job. The donor's son was soon fired after trying to make a point by displaying child pornography in a meeting.

"This is as detrimental and important a scandal as we've seen in Texas political history," Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, told The New York Times. "Not just because of what happened, but because of how long it's been going on and how Paxton has been able to survive it."

The third-term state attorney general is seen as a popular politician among Texan conservative voters. He filed an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump said in a statement on his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday that the impeachment proceedings against Paxton were unfair, vowing to fight against lawmakers who pursued impeachment.

Only the Texas House can bring impeachment proceedings against state officials, which would lead to a trial by the Senate. Removal requires two-thirds support in both state chambers.

It makes Paxton only the third sitting official in Texas' nearly 200-year history to have been impeached, following Governor James Ferguson in 1917 and District Judge O.P. Carrillo in 1975. 

People wait to enter the House Gallery at the Texas Capitol to watch a debate on the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton in Austin, Texas, the United States on May 27, 2023. The GOP-led Texas House of Representatives on Saturday voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, a powerful Republican and firm ally of former President Donald Trump in the second largest U.S. state, over yearslong accusations of corruption, lawbreaking and power-abusing. (Photo by Bo Lee/Xinhua)

This photo taken on May 27,2023 shows the Texas Capitol which is under maintenance in Austin, Texas, the United States. The GOP-led Texas House of Representatives on Saturday voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, a powerful Republican and firm ally of former President Donald Trump in the second largest U.S. state, over yearslong accusations of corruption, lawbreaking and power-abusing. (Photo by Bo Lee/Xinhua)

People wait to enter the House Gallery at the Texas Capitol to watch a debate on the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton in Austin, Texas, the United States on May 27, 2023. The GOP-led Texas House of Representatives on Saturday voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, a powerful Republican and firm ally of former President Donald Trump in the second largest U.S. state, over yearslong accusations of corruption, lawbreaking and power-abusing. (Photo by Bo Lee/Xinhua)
Ontarios Greenbelt is fundamental to the environmental, agricultural and economic sustainability of the Golden Horseshoe. In calling it a scam  defined as a dishonest or illegal plan or activity  Premier Doug Ford has disparaged the Ontario civil service along with countless professionals, citizens, politicians and the municipalities, conservation authorities, civil society organizations and community groups that devoted their time and knowledge to create the largest and most strongly protected Greenbelt in the world.

Globally recognized and recipient of both provincial and national awards, the Greenbelt ensures clean water by protecting our aquifers and rivers that feed the Great Lakes. It protects our forests to provide clean air and habitat for plants, wildlife and pollinating insects. It protects vast tracts of the best farmland in Canada, which are a fundamental component of our economy and food security and it plays a critical role in combating the impacts of climate change by mitigating flooding, sequestering carbon and moderating temperature.

The Greenbelt extends the protections of the Niagara Escarpment (1985) and Oak Ridges Moraine (2002) Plans enacted by prior Conservative administrations  building on the methodologies used to create them.

Embracing a science and evidence-based approach using the best possible data and information, it was informed by the most comprehensive agricultural analysis ever undertaken in Ontario. Decades of data on forests, wetlands, wildlife and fish habitat was compiled. Extensive data on ground water recharge, discharge, regional geology and landform arising from years of intensive research was assembled.

This vast array of information was analyzed by a multidisciplinary provincial team of leading experts in hydrology, terrestrial and aquatic ecology, biology, geology, agrology, forestry, climatology and land use planning. Together with academia, local citizens, municipal and conservation authority staff and their political leaders, the Greenbelt was informed by literally thousands of years of combined experience.

Extensive consultation was undertaken at the inaugural and draft plan stages, including by the external, multi-sectoral Greenbelt Taskforce. There were numerous public meetings, thousands of submissions, and individual meetings with conservation authorities, municipalities and key stakeholders. Local communities provided invaluable local knowledge.

The creation of the Greenbelt was also closely aligned with the creation of the Growth Plan. Major infrastructure, existing and planned rapid transit, environmental capacity, historic and proposed intensification and density trends/targets were all considered, resulting in substantial tracts of land being left out of the Greenbelt in order to accommodate potential future growth.

Fast forward to the 2017 review of the Greenbelt and Growth Plan led by the multi-sector advisory panel led by David Crombie, which found the Greenbelt was working very well while the Growth Plan needed to be strengthened  leading to the inclusion of Agricultural and Natural Heritage Systems in the Growth Plan based on the Greenbelt methodology.

Today, leading research by civil society organizations and the Regional Planning Commissioners of Ontario show there are over of 200,000 acres of approved, unbuilt land for urban uses in the Greater Golden Horseshoe with over 2 million units planned, 1.3 million of which are either under construction, approved or applied for.

This does not include the 60,000-plus acres of farmland the minister approved for urban use this past fall just in the GTHA. There is absolutely no need whatsoever to remove any land from the Greenbelt, which is supposed to be the counterbalance to the permanent urbanization arising from development of the above lands.

Indeed, far from a scam and a flawed policy, the Greenbelt and Growth Plan represent a thoughtful, well informed and carefully designed vision for the long term environmental, social and economic future of the Golden Horseshoe.

Victor Doyle is a professional planner who led the development of the Greenbelt Plan.

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The recent launch of a turnkey offer for medical assistance in dying at a funeral complex in Quebec has sparked both curiosity and controversy. The concept of transitioning from life to death in a showroom is unconventional, to say the least.

Funeral homes deliver a valuable service. They organize funerals, cremation, burials and all work related to rituals and celebrations. However, extending these services to include assistance in dying  a one-stop shop for death  is a line that shouldnt be crossed.

It adds a for-profit element to medical assistance in dying. Thats a bad idea.

The funeral complex in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu asks for an amount of approximately $700 to rent its showroom, fitted out according to the wishes of the patients. The amount disbursed is not used to pay for the care, provided by a doctor, since it is covered by the provinces health insurance.

A representative from the funeral complex told La Presse it aimed to create a compassionate and intimate environment for individuals during their final moments, including a ceremony and a family celebration. They offer various amenities like music, refreshments, videos, and photos to create a meaningful experience for both the individual and their loved ones.

Quebecs act respecting end-of-life care has led to a significant increase in medical assistance in dying treatments in the province. The numbers have risen exponentially, indicating a growing demand for this end-of-life option. Not surprisingly, profit-minded operators see a potentially lucrative market.

Theyre also exploiting a loophole. Current legislation, undergoing reform with Bill 11, specifies that medical assistance in dying should take place in a facility maintained by an institution, on the premises of a hospice, or in the home. Funeral homes are not explicitly mentioned in the legislation.

Proponents like the Quebec Association for the Right to Die with Dignity argue that individuals should have the freedom to choose and that the availability of personalized services and the comforting ambience of funeral homes can contribute to a more dignified and meaningful transition.

As a marketer, I can understand theres demand and businesses ready to cater to customers needs. But making the ending of lives a commercial enterprise is not something we should let the market decide.

There are real concerns regarding the appropriateness of funeral homes as venues for such sensitive procedures. Right now, there are no standards and requirements for funeral homes to provide medical assistance in dying.

Whats to prevent entrepreneurs from actively promoting medical assistance in dying, just as they promote their funeral services?

Individuals should of course have the freedom to choose where they want to receive medical assistance in dying. We should respect the preferences of those nearing the end of their lives. But we must pause on this recent development and have a serious discussion with all stakeholders involved, including medical professionals, policymakers, and the public.

This is a case of putting the cart before the horse (and the hearse).

Eric Blais is president of Headspace Marketing in Toronto.

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Ill be judge, Ill be jury, said cunning old Fury: Ill try the whole cause, and condemn you to death (Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carrol). With education and enlightenment, people the world over demand a more democratic political system and a brighter economic future.

Therefore, the role and conduct of police, who are the most visible symbols of Government authority, are being re-evaluated the world over  not in India alone. In several countries, particularly dictatorships, there is hardly any difference between the police and the army, which would be unthinkable in a democracy.

However, there are aberrations, even in democracies. The police in the US have lately taken to killing protestors and suspects in cold blood and storming homes with battering rams. At the other end of the spectrum is the British Bobby, who patrols the toughest areas, mostly without arms.

A Bobby is almost always polite  the Metropolitan Police, officially apologised to a group of anti-royalist protestors, who had been detained during King Charles IIIs coronation. Bobbies are tough also  they fined PM Boris Johnson and most of his cabinet (including current PM Rishi Sunak), for flouting Covid-19 restrictions.

Though we have adopted a host of British traditions, our policemen are not modelled on the British Bobby. The colonial administration in India wanted the police to be an agent of control to keep natives in check, and not to serve them in any manner.

Even after Independence, the public image of police has not changed much; the word police evokes fear and apprehension, more than trust and respect. In line with popular perception, Bollywood caricatures policemen either as Singhams or as super-corrupt debauches.

The present political and social climate of the country is not conducive to good policing, since the high and mighty see police as convenient tools to settle personal scores. Not a day passes without someone alleging defamation against some prominent person, mostly a politician, over some political statement.

The police and judiciary get activated; summons and warrants follow. Mostly, complaints are filed at distant and inaccessible places, so that the accused person has to make extra efforts to defend himself. Such machinations, perforce, thrust the police into the role of arbiters, which they are not qualified to perform.

Another variation of this template is also seen: after some distasteful tweet against some political person, the police go into overdrive, accusing the tweeter of promoting enmity between different sections of society, causing disorder, inciting people to violence etc.  the reaction of the police being directly proportional to the importance of the target of the tweet. Soon enough, the tweeter is marched off to jail, to wait for bail by some kind judge.

Genuinely incorrigible dissidents and politically inconvenient persons are often charged under stringent preventive detention laws, like NSA and UAPA, to be incarcerated in lice-infested prisons, for years together.

Courts being clogged with a backlog of around five crore cases, the law takes its own tortuous and time-consuming course, keeping the accused persons perpetually in jail, or at least on tenterhooks.

With three-fourths of the prison population in India being undertrials, it is apparent that the judicial process has itself become a punishment for the accused. One comes across shocking stories of a miscarriage of justice, for example:

The court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Surat acquitted 122 persons arrested in December 2001, for being members of the banned outfit SIMI for lack of cogent, reliable and satisfactory evidence. One can well imagine the agony of innocent people facing trial for almost two decades, the fees paid by them to lawyers over the years, or the valuable time of the court wasted in the trial. In another shocking instance, a man was acquitted of false rape charges by the Allahabad High Court, after spending 20 years in jail.

At the time of release, this unfortunate man was aged 43 years; because of judicial delays, his entire youth had been wasted in jail. Justice Ranjan Gogoi, a former Chief Justice of India, called the Indian judiciary ramshackle and stated in an interview: If you have to go to court, you will only be washing dirty linen in court and you will not get a verdict.

I have no hesitation to say so. You regret it if you go to court. The inability of courts to provide quick and affordable justice has made the public look to the police to punish the guilty. The criminal history of mafiosi like Atiq Ahmed and Mukhtar Ansari reveals a shocking miscarriage of justice; they were only recently convicted of murders committed decades ago.

The inescapable conclusion is that trials against these criminals were deliberately delayed, through sloth, fear, or inducements, till the political scenario changed. Such instances explain the approbation for police encounters, and the demand for more, in crime-ridden States like UP. The job of a police officer is made even more difficult by sub-standard physical infrastructure, and given the ubiquitous recruitment scandals, poor quality and quantity of subordinate staff.

With such limited resources, police have to satisfy both a public demanding immediate and mostly impossible results, and a political executive demanding unquestioning subservience.

There have been several initiatives for police reform; National Police Commission (1978-82), and the Supreme Court constituted the Ribeiro Committee, to review action taken by the Government on recommendations of the National Police Commission; the Padmanabhaiah Committee on the restructuring of Police (2000); and the Malimath Committee on reforms in Criminal Justice System (2002-03) and finally the Supreme Courts judgement, and follow-up directions in the Prakash Singh case.

To elucidate: in the landmark Prakash Singh case, the Supreme Court had directed the formation of State Security Commissions, in all States, to lay down broad policies, as also, the formation of Police Establishment Boards to decide upon transfers, postings, promotions and other service-related matters of police officers.

The Supreme Court also directed the formation of Police Complaints Authority at the district and state levels, to inquire into allegations of serious misconduct by police personnel. The Court ordered the separation of investigating police from the law and order police. An elaborate procedure was prescribed for the selection of Director General of Police of States, along with a stipulation of a minimum tenure of two years on operational posts.

The Supreme Court constituted a Monitoring Committee, headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, to oversee the implementation of its directions in the Prakash Singh case. The Committee, in its report submitted in August 2010, observed that practically no State has fully complied with those Directives so far, in letter and spirit.

The Committee felt dismayed over the total indifference to the issue of reforms in the functioning of Police being exhibited by the States. According to the Prakash Singh Case, a Model Police Act, to replace the antiquated Police Act of 1861 vintage, was drafted by the Soli Sorabjee Committee, in 2006. The Model Police Act was notified by the Central Government, only in 2015.

According to Prakash Singh, former DGP of UP and Assam, and petitioner in the case: Seventeen states have drafted laws purportedly in compliance of Supreme Courts directions. However, these laws have been enacted to circumvent the implementation of the Honourable Supreme Courts directions.

The remaining states have dillydallied in the implementation of the Honble Courts directions. Even where the mandated institutions  the State Security Commission, Police Establishment Board and the Complaints Authorities  have been set up, their composition has been subverted, their charter diluted or their powers curtailed.

Thus, not much has changed on the ground, which is freely acknowledged by the Government. The Status Note on Police Reforms, available on the website of the Ministry of Home Affairs, begins with the following words: Police reforms have been on the agenda of Governments almost since independence but even after more than 50 years, the police are seen as selectively efficient, unsympathetic to the underprivileged. It is further accused of politicization and criminalization.

The current police ethos is such that an ordinary person loses his human qualities once he dons khaki, which is far at variance with Mahatma Gandhis vision: The police of my conception will, however, be of a wholly different pattern from the present-day force. Its ranks will be composed of believers in non-violence.

They will be servants, not masters of the people The policemen will be reformers (Harijan, 1-9-40). Probably, the time has come to implement Gandhijis vision.

(The writer retired after teaching English for several years in Government schools of Rajasthan.)
In politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies. A decade after launching his Aam Aadmi Party, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is now searching for political friends, realising that it may be challenging to take on the BJP without the backing of other parties.

AAP has seen many ups and downs. It is the only national party other than the Congress which rules two states  Delhi and Punjab. It won two seats, a 6.3 per cent vote share in Goa, and five seats in Gujarat last year.

The party has one seat in the Lok Sabha and ten in the Upper House. No one accuses Kejriwal of a lack of ambition. The AAP came from the India Against Corruption movement in November 2012. It captured power in Delhi, decimating the Congress in 2013, 2017 and 2020. It expanded to other states and gained national party status in April 2023.

The AAP is now projecting itself as an alternative to the BJP. Kejriwal genuinely perceives himself as a future Prime Minister. Did he not contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi in 2014 and get over two lakh votes?

The AAP has no significant ideological position like the BJP or the Left parties. Unlike the AIADMK, DMK (Dravidian ideology), the Samajwadi Party, Biju Janata Dal or Rashtriya Janata Dal (socialist background), it has come to power on the development mantra and the freebie culture. But of late, things are going wrong.

AAPs isolation dawned on Kejriwal after his Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodias arrest some time ago. Sisodia was his trusted aide and the second most important person in the party. Added to that were the corruption charges against another minister, Satyendar Jain, and party communications chief, Vijay Nair.

Numerous others are also being investigated for alleged corruption. AAP worries that the excise policy investigation may reach Kejriwals door. Kejriwal had kept an equal distance from Congress and BJP like other chief ministers like Biju Janata Dal chief Naveen Patnaik and Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao.

But now, with the binding glue of a common enemy (BJP), political equations have changed. In pursuit of new friends, Kejriwal has sought support from Mamata Banerjee, Uddhav Thackery, M.K.Stalin and other regional leaders to counter the Centre. Kejriwal was known for wild allegations against many parties and their leaders, including the Congress.

He has been critical of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. But out of necessity, now he is ready to accept that without Congress, there cannot be a national coalition against Modi. He says, it is not a battle of either Rahul Gandhi or Congress; it is the fight to save the country from an illiterate, dictatorial, and egoistic person.

Kejriwal has been knocking at every door for political allies. He shared the dias with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar. He met West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Kejriwal has now realized that finding political friends is a game of give and take. Kejriwal has also changed his strategy.

Kejriwal tries to make friends with those whom he once called thieves. He was the first to support Rahul Gandhi when the latter was disqualified. He stood firm with the Congress-led Opposition to demand a Joint Parliament Committee probe into the Adani empire. He questioned Modis educational qualifications and made fun of him in the Assembly.

He called Modi the least educated among all Indias prime ministers and the most corrupt. The AAP chief knows it is time to give his party a new ideology and go beyond corruption. His welfare politics might take him closer to the socialists, but he is also for soft Hindutva. Secondly, he needs a second rung of leadership.

All those who founded the party with him, like Prashant Bhushan, Asutosh, and Yogendra Yadav, have left because of Kejriwals dictatorial tendencies. The party needs to attract new talent. Thirdly, Kejriwal wants to drum up support against the recent Central ordinance seeking to negate the Supreme Court order handing over administrative control of services to the elected government of Delhi.

To his surprise, some non-BJP chief ministers like Mamata Banerjee and M.K Stalin had been quite responsive. Last, Kejriwal is trying to find a balance between his ambitious national expansion plans and how to become a part of the anti-BJP coalition.

The AAP chief has yet to be entirely accepted by the Opposition block. There is a clash of interests in some states like Delhi and Gujarat. Lok Sabha elections are just a few months away. Unity is a strength, and the AAP chief has realised it the hard way.

The moral of the Kejriwal story is that it is not isolation in politics, but finding good friends that is essential. Like Sharad Pawar, who has friends in
The two men arrested in connection with the robbery carried out at a jewellery store in Barrackpore that left one person dead had planned to pull another heist at a jewellery store in Kadamtola, Howrah, but changed their minds, according to police.

Barrackpore commissionerate sources said that the duo, Safi Khan and Jamshed Ansari, arrested from Khardha, North 24-Parganas and Muraroi, Birbhum, respectively, were uncle and nephew.

They had another heist planned targeting a jewellery store at Kadamtola, Howrah but changed their minds as the store was located in a congested area with a bustling crowd present in the nearby market.

Instead, they chose to rob the store at Barrackpore instead, for which they had done a recce before. Investigation revealed that the duo had scouted out the Howrah store, masquerading as customers and purchasing a chain at a cost of Rs 500. But they changed their mind as the customers at the store outnumbered them and instead targeted the Singha jewellery store at Barrackpore.

According to police sources, Safi and Jamshed, alleged to be history- sheeters, had recruited two other miscreants allegedly from Pilkhana, Howrah to carry out the robbery. On 24 May, last Wednesday, the four miscreants, including the arrested duo raided the Singha Jewellery store at Anandapuri, Barrackpore in the evening riding bikes, which police sources said had been purchased from an e-commerce site.

At the store, during the robbery, Niladri Singha, the 20-year-old son of the owner put up resistance, and was shot by one of the miscreants. He later succumbed to his injuries
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, today, accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of attempting to replicate the ethnic violence witnessed in Manipur within her state. She condemned the attack on state minister Birbaha Hansdas vehicle and asserted that it was perpetrated by BJP activists disguised as members of the Kurmi community.

Highlighting the BJPs alleged strategy, Miss Banerjee claimed that the party aimed to create a situation in which Adivasis and Kurmis would clash, leading to a justification for deploying the military with shoot-at-sight orders. The chief minister vowed that those instigating ethnic riots would not be spared and promised severe consequences for their actions.

The incident in question occurred on Friday when minister Hansdas vehicle, part of TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjees convoy, was targeted with stones in the tribal-dominated district in Jhargram.

Miss Banerjee expressed her disapproval of the violence and firmly denied the involvement of the Kurmi community, instead pointing fingers at BJP workers posing as members of the community.

Addressing the public during the Trinamule Nabojowar mass outreach campaign, Mamata Banerjee also announced a significant boost to employment opportunities in the Junglemahal region. She disclosed that, in addition to the steel plant being constructed by the Jindal Group in Salboni, another major industry would be established.

The chief minister said that the Jindal Group had returned excess land to the state government, as directed by her administration.

Miss Banerjee further stated that the state government intended to develop industries on the unused land in Salboni, ensuring economic growth and employment generation.

Although she did not provide specific details regarding the nature of the industry, she expressed confidence that the new venture would offer numerous job opportunities to the local populace.

The Jindal Groups steel plant in Salboni is already underway, with the unused land being handed back to the state government. The return of this land has paved the way for the establishment of a large-scale industry, fostering economic development and creating employment prospects for a significant number of people in the region.

Mamata Banerjees assertions regarding the BJPs alleged role in orchestrating ethnic riots and her commitment to promoting industrial growth in West Bengal have sparked widespread interest and debate.

The state governments initiatives and the upcoming developments in Salboni are eagerly awaited by the local community, who anticipate the positive impact these endeavors will have on their lives and livelihoods. said a local resident. Miss Banerjee took time out to pay a visit at the Salboni Super Speciality hospital to assess the health infrastructure and interact with patients and their loved ones.

She expressed her concern for their well-being, particularly in the sweltering summer months. She specifically instructed the maternity wards to closely monitor patients to ensure their comfort and the smooth progress of their treatment.

During her interaction with the mothers in the newborn ward, Miss Banerjee personally engaged with them and expressed her interest in the childrens names.

One woman approached the Chief Minister with a request to suggest a name for her child. Responding warmly, Miss Banerjee offered two name options, saying, Sanchita, if not Sangita.
To mark the occasion on the completion of nine years in office, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)s government came out with a nine-year big book  9 years of Seva, Sushasan Garib Kalyan on Saturday.

In the book, the government has detailed its achievement on the lines of 14 important points, Serving the Poor and Marginalised; Ensuring Farmer Welfare; New Momentum For Nari Shakti; Empowering Indias Amritpeedhi; Ease of Living for Indias Middle Class; Affordable, Accesible Healthcare For All; Nation First- Foreign Policy and National Security; India, A Global Economic Powerhouse; Ease of Doing Business; Infra at Speed and Scale; Indias Techade; Northeast  A Growth Engine; Virasat Aur Vikas and Environment and Sustainability. In this context of economic development, the government has also written in detail on the topics  A Global Economic Powerhouse; Ease of Doing Business and Infra at Speed and Scale in the book.

As the global economy recovers from the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict and struggles to find its feet, the Indian economy continues to break new ground, the government said in the chapter, titled A Global Economic Powerhouse.

In its latest projections on world economic growth, IMF recognises India as the fastest-growing major economy in the world.

The government mentioned the robust rise in GST collections, increase in capital expenditure outlay, and record growth in exports are indicative of a vibrant and growing economy that has recovered from the effects of the pandemic.

The book said, This can be credited not only to the Modi governments holistic approach to managing the economic fallout of the pandemic, but also to the consistent efforts since 2014 to strengthen the economy.

The chapter also said that the structural reforms initiated by the Modi government have strengthened the Indian economy and enabled it to withstand the unprecedented effects of the pandemic.

To make India self-reliant in manufacturing, the chapter in the book also said the Modi government has initiated several programmes under Aatmanirbhar Bharat as well as Make in India.

This sector received further impetus with the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. The objective behind PLI is to make domestic manufacturing globally competitive and to create domestic leaders in manufacturing. It said the PLI schemes have created lakhs of jobs and placed the Indian economy on a rapid growth trajectory.

In this chapter, it also mentioned that the Modi government has made MSMEs, a central focus of its economic policy. The governments Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme during the Covid pandemic protected more than one crore MSMEs and saved them from possible permanent closure.

Moreover, reforms such as revision of MSME definition and changes in labour and environment laws have allowed MSMEs to expand their operations and grow, it said.

According to the book, PM Modi had consistently assured the countrys wealth creators adequate support in their efforts towards innovation and making India self-reliant. This is reflected in his personal focus and support for the Indian Semiconductor Mission (ISM) and its vision of building a semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem in India.

India has also emerged as a preferred investment hub under Prime Minister Modis dynamic leadership with it recording its highest-ever annual FDI inflow of USD 83.57 billion in the Financial Year 2021-22, according to the chapter on economic development in the book, according to the book.

The Modi government has also announced a new Foreign Trade Policy to boost Indian exports, as well as to take Indias goods and services exports to 42 trillion by 2030.

The government said the Indian economy has seen a remarkable transformation in the last nine years, and its impact can be seen in the improved quality of life of all Indians across various sections of society.

In the chapter of Ease of Doing Business, the government said, Today the world is looking at India as an attractive destination for investment and global companies want to establish businesses here.

The book said, One of the greatest examples of improvement in the business climate of the country can be seen in its startups. Before 2014, India had around 350 startups.

It said over the last nine years, encouraged by schemes such as StartUp India, there has been a 260-fold increase in the number of startups. Moreover, the country today is home to over 100 unicorns.

Since 2014, rent-seeking and red-tapism have been replaced by a red carpet, the chapter in the book said, adding that the government is not an obstacle in the path of risk-takers but is an active-enabler.

Entrepreneurs and investors in India are now delighted by a business-friendly environment and a government that actively addresses their concerns and redresses grievances. This paradigm shift has been made possible through landmark decisions such as removing retrospective taxation,

and Angel Tax, and lowering corporate tax, the book in the chapter said, adding, The National Single Window System now allows obtaining all approvals through a single platform. Moreover, the Modi government has reduced unnecessary compliance burden by repealing more than 1,500 archaic laws and thousands of compliances.

It said Indias efforts to improve the ease of doing business are being acknowledged on the global stage. This is evident in consistent improvement in various international rankings. For instance, the countrys ranking in the World Banks Ease of Doing Business Index surged from 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2019, the book said.

India has climbed six places on the World Banks Logistic Performance Index (LPI) 2023, now ranking 38th in the 139 countries index.

This is a strong indicator of Indias global positioning, with this development being powered by the Governments laser focus on reforms for improving logistics infrastructure through initiatives like PM Gati Shakti and new National Logistics Policy, it said.

According to the book, the thrust towards greater transparency and a level-playing field for MSMEs and small businesses is exemplified by the success of the GeM portal, the government purchases through which have crossed Rs 4 lakh crore.

Apart from numerous reforms and landmark decisions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has successfully led a mindset transformation, it said. Unlike previous governments, the Modi government not only considers entrepreneurs as wealth creators but also as partners in national development.

It added concerted efforts to improve the Ease of Doing Business have led to a historic expansion in the pool of wealth creators.

This has had a butterfly effect on the country at large- it has increased resources available to the government for its welfare and development programmes, while at the same time enabling job creation, and higher incomes in the country, it added.

In the books chapter on Infra at Speed and Scale, the government mentioned the quality of a countrys infrastructure is a key determinant in shaping its economic trajectory.

It said quality infrastructure is the key building block for our nation to become a global economic powerhouse. It said the Narendra Modi-led government has kept infrastructure at the front and centre of its development agenda. In the past, infrastructure projects suffered from inordinate delays, it added.

But in the last nine years, the book said, Thinking big and delivering without delay have been the hallmarks of infrastructure development in the country. The Prime Minister has regularly monitored the progress of projects through the PRAGATI platform, which has led to the successful completion of various delayed, as well as newly announced infrastructure projects.

In line with its goal of bringing last-mile connectivity, the book said, the daily average highway construction reached an all-time high and has consistently remained far higher than pre-2014 levels. Similarly, a rapid increase in the construction of rural roads has made access to roads nearly universal in the hinterland. Indian railways also witnessed a massive capacity expansion in the last nine years through line doubling and electrification of railway tracks.

The Vande Bharat Express, Indias first indigenous Semi High-Speed trains are a Make in India success story, it added.

As for air travel, the steps taken by the Modi government, have made it affordable and accessible, the book said.

Seventy-four airports have been built and operationalised in just nine years, it said, adding, further, 68 underserved/unserved destinations which include 58 Airports, 8 Heliports and two Water aerodromes have been connected under the UDAN scheme.

Like airports, metro rail also is no longer limited to big cities. In the last nine years, metro rail projects have reached 20 cities, it had mentioned.

In line with this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (NMP) which is a transformative approach for integrated and holistic planning across concerned Ministries/ Departments to improve multimodal connectivity, logistics efficiency and to address critical infrastructure gaps for seamless movement of people and goods, with focus on minimising disruptions and ensuring timely completion of projects, the book said.

It is the most extensive plan for infrastructure development in the history of independent India, as the government plans to invest nearly Rs 100 lakh crore in the coming years.

It concluded that Prime Minister Narendra Modis vision for infrastructure development will support Indias economic growth to the next level. It will enhance the ease of living for citizens, multiply job creation and achieve the last mile connectivity to bring about inclusive development, it added.
Ten members of the women police Winners Team of Serampore attended a blood donation camp at Serampore Mani Kamal Hospital, Delhi road, on Saturday and voluntarily donated blood.

One of the team member said: During the ongoing summer spell, there is an acute shortage of blood at blood banks. As a part of our duty towards society we decided to join the blood donation camp. It is really great that the blood donated by us may save a precious life.

A team of doctors under the banner of Serampore Mani Kamal Hospital organised the blood donation camp. The chairperson of the hospital , Indrani Mukherjee said they will be conducting more blood donation camps at various locations to combat the acute shortage of blood.

I express my special thanks to the Winners Team for voluntarily donating blood for a greater cause, Ms Mukherjee said. Winners Teams, each comprising ten police women have been set up in various districts under a special initiative by state chief minister Mamata Banerjee, and entrusted with the specific task of conducting mobile patrolling on two wheelers to ensure better safety for women, to instill confidence among girl students and women commuters, to keep vigil in markets, malls and other public places, and reach the doorsteps of victims when required.
Superstar Shah Rukh Khan on Saturday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the new Parliament building inauguration.

SRK took to Twitter and shared a video showcasing the parliament building.

Sharing the video, he wrote, What a magnificent new home for the people who uphold our Constitution, represent every citizen of this great Nation and protect the diversity of her one [email protected] ji. A new Parliament building for a New India but with the age old dream of Glory for India. Jai Hind! #MyParliamentMyPride.

What a magnificent new home for the people who uphold our Constitution, represent every citizen of this great Nation and protect the diversity of her one People @narendramodi ji.

A new Parliament building for a New India but with the age old dream of Glory for India. Jai Hind! pic.twitter.com/FjXFZwYk2T  Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) May 27, 2023

PM Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to inaugurate the new Parliament building on Sunday.

Earlier, music composer Ilaiyaraaja and actor Rajinikanth posted congratulatory messages.

Taking to Twitter, Ilaiyaraaja shared his excitement as a citizen and posted a statement.

The statement read, Tomorrow as the Honble PM inaugurates the new Parliament building, am happy & excited as a citizen & especially as a Parliamentarian and join our joyous and proud nation in congratulating PM Modi, the Govt of India & all those people who have contributed to building this historic structure in such a short time. I sincerely pray the new structure becomes the abode for transformational policies and decision making as the world celebrates a new India under the inspirational leadership of PM Modi.

He praised PM Modi for his vision of taking India to new heights and his duty-bound actions reflects the same.

The statement continued, The royalty who possessed the revered Sengol (an ancient Tamilian culture & pride) and successfully ruled over their kingdoms revered the sceptre as a symbol of justice, order, honesty, and ethics. Its with immense pride and joy that we welcome the return of the sceptre to its rightful place of pride. As Head of the Worlds largest democracy, PM Modi has a vision of taking India to new heights and his duty-bound actions reflects the same. May God be with him in all his endeavors and I sincerely wish him, the Govt of India all success on this momentous occasion.

Rajinikanth also expressed his feeling and wrote,  the traditional symbol of tamil power  the scepter  will shine in indias new parliament building. My sincere thanks to the honorable bharat pratham @narendramodi who made tamilians proud.

Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the new Parliament Building on December 10, 2020. It has been built in record time with quality construction.

The task of constructing the new Parliament building was a mammoth endeavour. It witnessed several key construction activities being done off-site as well. Further, the construction also saw the usage of materials sourced from across the country.

As per the government officials, Teak wood was sourced from Nagpur, Maharashtra while sandstone (red and white) was procured from Sarmathura, Rajasthan.

The carpets to be floored inside the new building were procured from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh.

The bamboo wood flooring came from Agartala, Tripura.

From Rajnagar, Rajasthan and Noida, UP Stone Jali Works were obtained.

The material involved in constructing Ashoka Emblem was sourced from Aurangabad, Maharashtra and Jaipur, Rajasthan while Ashok Chakra came from Indore, Madhya Pradesh.

Some of the furniture acquired was procured from Mumbai. From Lakha, Jaisalmer Lakha Red granite was obtained. Ambaji White marble was procured from Ambaji, Rajasthan. Kesharia Green Stone was procured from Udaipur.

The stone carving work was obtained from Abu Road and Udaipur, and the stone aggregate was from Kotputali, Rajasthan.

The M-Sand was procured from Chakari Dadri, Haryana, and Fly Ash Bricks from NCR Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and the Brass work and Pre-cast Trenches were got from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, while the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha false ceiling steel structures came from UT of Daman and Diu.

Meanwhile, amid the boycott call by the opposition, the Centre has received a confirmed list of 25 political parties, including some which are not a part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), that will participate in the inauguration ceremony.
Manila: Iraq is looking to restart its relationship with the Philippines after a ten-year hiatus, according to the head of its mission, as Baghdad considers potential collaboration in agriculture, oil, health, and tourism.

As soon as the Iraqi embassy in Manila opened, formal ties between the Philippines and Iraq were established. The Philippines established its mission in Baghdad five years later, but both nations closed their respective embassies in the early 2000s.

Later, the embassies were reopened, and in 2012, the two nations signed a deal to increase diplomatic interactions and advance bilateral ties. But the last Joint Committee Meeting between Iraq and the Philippines took place in 2013.

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Earlier this week, Dr. Khalid Ibrahim Mohammed, the charge d'affaires at the Iraqi embassy in Manila, told Arab News that "now we are restarting. Iraq is keen to strengthen relations with the Philippines at various levels." We can accomplish a lot with the Filipinos, and we actually need a lot of projects. And we are currently looking for partners.

Mohammed, who just recently assumed his position, claimed that while Iraq had been the scene of protracted conflict for the previous 20 years, security and stability were now present.

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For the Philippine side, a number of cooperation proposals, particularly in the areas of agriculture, health, education, security, and oil, were being prepared. Mohammed also stated that the Philippines has been invited to take part in his nation's biggest expo, the Baghdad International Fair.

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The ancient city-state of Ur, where Abraham was born, could also be a major draw for Filipinos, who are primarily Catholics. Mohammed claims that the government has set aside 9,000 square metres to build "the tourist city of Ur, which will be one of the largest tourist cities in the Middle East."
About 30 militants have been killed after a fresh spate of violence in Manipur. On Sunday, officials reported that armed groups and security forces engaged in fighting at more than half a dozen locations across Manipur. The recent clashes started after the armed force started to de-arm communities to bring harmony.

On Sunday, Chief Minister N Biren Singh told reporters that the recent clash was between Kuki militants and security forces, and not between rival communities.

In retaliatory and defensive operations against these terrorist groups who are using sophisticated arms against the civilian population, around 30 of these terrorists have been killed in different areas. A few have also been arrested by the security forces, CM Singh said. Earlier in the day, Army Chief General Manoj Pande met with Singh to talk about the Armys efforts to restore peace and the current security situation in Manipur.

An official stated that according to their information, firing has been reported from Sugnu in Kakching, Kangvi in Churachandpur, Kangchup in Imphal West, Sagolmang in Imphal East, Nungoipokpi in Bishenpur, Khurkhul in Imphal West and YKPI in Kangpokpi.

Conflicts have till now claimed more than 75 lives

New roadblocks have likewise come up in regions monitored by ladies. According to the official, there was also an unconfirmed report that a Meitei group had looted arms from the Kakching police station.

Ethnic conflicts which have claimed more than 75 lives originally broke out in Manipur after a Tribal Solidarity March was organised in the slope regions on May 3 to protest the Meitei people groups demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

The violence was preceded by strain over the expulsion of Kuki residents from reserve forest land, which had prompted a progression of smaller agitations.

An official earlier in the day stated, According to our information, firing has been reported from Sugnu in Kakching, Kangvi in Churachandpur, Kangchup in Imphal West, Sagolmang in Imphal East, Nungoipokpi in Bishenpur, Khurkhul in Imphal West and YKPI in Kangpokpi.

Meiteis make up about 53% of Manipurs population, most of whom live in the Imphal Valley. Another 40% of the population is made up of tribal Nagas and Kukis who live in the hill districts.
The incidents of frequent fires at various warehouses of Kerala Medical Services Corporation Limited (KMSCL) have raised doubts whether these were carried out with ulterior motives. Such suspicion arose in the backdrop of a series of alleged corruption in the purchase made by the KMSCL which supplies drugs and equipment to government hospitals in the state.

Three fire mishaps occurred in various warehouses of the KMSCL in a gap of 10 days. KMSCL hogged headlines first on May 18 when its warehouse in Kollam caught fire. Five days later, yet another fire broke out at KMSCLs warehouse at KINFRA Park at Kazhakootam in Thiruvananthapuram, which killed a Fire and Rescue Services personnel, when a portion of the warehouse fell on him.

The third fire incident happened on Friday night at KMSCLs Alappuzha warehouse attached to Vandanam Medical College allegedly due to bleaching powder that was stocked in large quantities.

The fire mishaps that occurred in close proximity have become a major embarrassment to the state government. The KMSCL authorities said that the fire occurred due to bleaching powder. Now, the KMSCL has asked the companies which had supplied excess bleaching powder to take back the stock.

The Opposition has accused the KMSCL of stocking up medicines and equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic so as to get commission.

The Congress has alleged that the mishaps that occurred in close proximity were a ploy to destroy the evidence at a time when a Lokayukta probe is ongoing against the KMSCL. Congress leaders allege that there is sabotage behind these incidents. They alleged that hundreds of crores worth of corruption took place in procurements by KMSCL during COVID-19.

Fire incidents have become a routine affair under the LDF government. When the gold smuggling case and AI camera scam happened, the offices concerned in the Secretariat had witnessed fire accidents, Opposition leader VD Satheesan said.

KPCC president K Sudhakaran said a CBI probe is necessary as repeated instances of fire mishaps have been happening at Brahmapuram waste treatment plant, secretariat and KMSCL warehouses.

Fire broke out at Brahmapuram plant when corruption charges were levelled against the project, fires broke out in the warehouses of the Kerala Medical Services Corporation Limited (KMSCL). Earlier, there was also a fire at the secretariat under mysterious circumstances, he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday dedicated to the nation a state-of-the-art new Parliament, describing it as a reflection of aspirations and dreams of 140 crore people of the country. Addressing a large gathering of MPs and distinguished guests in the peacock-shaped new chamber of the Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Modi said the new building sends a message of Indias strong power of determination to the world, while being a temple of its democracy. The Prime Minister said that every brick, every wall and every part of this

building is dedicated to the poor. The laws which are enacted in this

building in the next 25 years will make India a developed nation. They

will help India to come out of poverty, and offer new opportunities for youth and women of this country, he said. I am confident, this new building of Parliament will act as the

foundation to create a New India  a prosperous, empowered and Viksit

Bharat (developed India), and a nation which follows reason, justice,

truth, standards and a path of duty, said he.



strength to the worlds largest democracy. The workers have built a

magnificent structure with their sweat and labour. It is now the

responsibility of all Members of Parliament to prove its greatness by

their dedication to work, he said. Modi said the new Parliament building will provide new energy andstrength to the worlds largest democracy. The workers have built amagnificent structure with their sweat and labour. It is now theresponsibility of all Members of Parliament to prove its greatness bytheir dedication to work, he said. The determination of 140 crore people of the country will imbue this

Parliament with a life-force, he said. Every decision that is taken in

this Parliament will improve the lot of generations of people to come. Modi entered the green-dominated chamber with folded hands, amid

chants of Modi, Modi and a strong thumping of desks, accompanied by

clapping. He was accompanied by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Rajya

Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh welcomed the Prime Minister and other

guests. Modis sense of achievement on the completion of the new building in less than two and a half years was writ large on his face, while he was full of eagerness to explain its new features, and how it would help MPs deliver their work efficiently. As he finished his half an hour speech, he received a standing ovation

by a packed House, which included some Chief Ministers, former

President Ram Nath Kovind, former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and

former Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, with galleries filled with diplomats

and other visitors. Most of the opposition parties boycotted the ceremony as per their

declaration, and opposition benches had therefore some vacant spaces. Unfolding his vision of Parliament, he said: This new building will

make plans and execute them, formulate policies and implement them,

combine intention with work-plans, and be a link between resolutions

and their achievement.
Criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for inaugurating the new Parliament building, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday said the right to inaugurate the new Parliament was taken away from President Droupadi Murmu.

In a tweet in Hindi, the Congress leader said: Parliament is the voice of the people. The Prime Minister is considering the inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi described Parliament as the voice of the people and criticised Modi for inaugurating the new Parliament House, saying that the Prime Minister is considering the inauguration as a coronation.

The right to inaugurate the new parliament was taken away from the President. Women players were beaten with dictatorial force on the streets! Three lies of BJP-RSS rulers are now exposed in front of the country  Democracy, Nationalism, and Save Daughter. Remember Modi ji, democracy does not run with buildings, but is run by the voice of the people, Kharge said in a tweet.

Kharge also condemned the police detention of wrestlers protesting at the Jantar Mantar here All the protesting wrestlers including Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat and Sangeeta Phogat were detained by the Delhi Police here at the Jantar Mantar on Sunday after they along with their supporters jumped over the police barricades and tried to march towards the newly constructed Parliament building.

The Congress and twenty opposition parties boycotted the inauguration of the new Parliament building accusing the BJP of not inviting President Droupadi Murmu and citing it as an insult to the first tribal President of the country.

His remarks came after Modi inaugurated the new Parliament House following puja and havan Modi also installed the historic Sengol near the Lok Sabha Speakers chair in the new building.

Slamming the government for choosing May 28 for the event, Congress General Secretary and communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh in a tweet said: On this day, May 28th. (First Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal) Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. (VD) Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883.

He said, The President  the first Adivasi to become President  is not allowed to fulfil her Constitutional duties and inaugurate the New Parliament building in 2023.

Targeting the Prime Minister, Ramesh, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP, said: A self-glorifying authoritarian Prime Minister with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the New Parliament building in 2023.

Fabrication of facts by Distorians and the drum-beating of the media hits new lows in 2023.

While Modi inaugurated the new Parliament house, the RJD compared the shape of the new building with a coffin.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on its official Twitter handle posted two photographs  one is the aerial view of the newly built Parliament and the other is a coffin and also gave a caption What is this (Ye Kya Hai).

After the RJD compared the new Parliament building with a coffin, Bihars Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav said that he was not aware of any such tweet.

While interacting with media persons in Patna, Tejashwi Yadav said that he would look into the matter.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on its official Twitter uploaded a photograph of the new Parliament building and compared it with a coffin, which led to a huge outrage from the BJP.

Several BJP leaders like Sushil Modi, Samrat Chaudhary, Sanjay Jaiswal and others condemned the RJD.

Meanwhile, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar on Sunday said that he was not happy to see the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

The statement came after the Prime Minister inaugurated the new Parliament building. I saw the event in the morning. I am happy I didnt go there. I am worried after seeing whatever happened there. Are we taking the country backwards? Was this event for limited people only?, said Pawar on the inauguration of the new Parliament with havan, multi-faith prayers and Sengol.

He said that whatever happened is the exact reverse of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehrus concept of society.

What is happening there is exactly the reverse of what Pt Nehru who had a concept to make a society based on modern science. Its the governments responsibility to invite the President and Vice president. Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla was present, but Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, the head of Rajya Sabha, wasnt there. Therefore the whole event looks like it was for limited people , he said.
Union Minister of Ayush and Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal on Sunday said that with the inauguration of the new Parliament building, Prime Minister Modi fulfilled the wishes of 142 crore Indian people and said that it is a historic day.

In an Exclusive Interview with ANI Sarbananda Sonowal said, Today it is a historic day for the countrymen, on this day Honorable Prime Minister Narendra is going to dedicate a new Parliament House to the countrymen. The Prime Minister deserves congratulations and thanks for the historic steps taken by him. I heartily congratulate the Prime Minister and thank him because he has fulfilled the wishes of 142 crore Indian people. I would also say that New Parliament House is also a day of self-respect for every Indian. it is a symbol of self-respect for 142 crore Indians Sonowal told ANI

Union Minister and Former Chief Minister of Assam Sonowal further told ANI that

Prime Minister had called upon the countrymen that we should get out of the mentality of slavery and today New Parliament building is a symbol of the fact that in independent India, it is an independent Parliament and it is a Parliament made up of modern technology.

Today I am feeling proud because I am an Indian citizen. We all know that India is the mother of democracy so today a lot has been accomplished in this Parliament House he added

Union Minister Sonowal condemn the opposition parties for boycotting the Inaguraral function of the New Parliament Building is going to be dedicated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi

The parties which have raised their voice against the Inauguration of New Parliament building are against the sentiments of our 142 crore people of the Country he added.

On Sunday morning, the ceremony began with a traditional pooja with Vedic rituals. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla was also present with along with PM Modi during the pooja. After the puja, Prime Minister received the Sengol and installed it in the new Parliament. The inauguration will take place in two phases.

The pooja was being held in a pandal (canopy) near the Gandhi statue in Parliament.

It is learnt that after the pujas, the dignitaries will examine the premises of the Lok Sabhas chamber and the Rajya Sabha chamber in the new building. It is likely that the sacred Sengol will be installed in the Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speakers chair, after performing some rituals, for which priests from Tamil Nadu, including the original jeweller who designed it, will be present.

The morning phase will end at close to 9:30 am after which the second leg of the ceremony is expected to begin at noon with the singing of the national anthem in the Lok Sabha chamber in the presence of all the dignitaries including PM Modi.

The present building of the Parliament was completed in 1927 and is now going to be almost 100 years old. The lack of space was being experienced in this building as per the present requirements. In both Houses, there was also a lack of convenient arrangements for the sitting of the MPs which was affecting the efficiency of the work of the Members.

Considering the above, both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha passed resolutions urging the government to construct a new building for the Parliament. Consequently, on 10 December 2020, the foundation stone of the new building of Parliament was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The newly constructed Parliament building has been built in record time with quality construction.

Now the newly constructed building of Parliament, which will work to further enrich Indias glorious democratic traditions and constitutional values, is also equipped with state-of-the-art facilities which will help the Members to perform their functions in a better way.

The new Parliament building will enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha.

Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber.
Dr Bimal Patel is also designing the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor and was behind the first such project of the Sabarmati Riverfront

Dr. Bimal Hasmukh Patel, the architect of the New Parliament Building is from Ahmedabad in Gujarat. A Padma-Shri awardee, he is an urban designer, urban planner, and academic. Born on 31st August 1961 he is the Director of HCP Design Planning and Management Private Limited.

Dr. Bimal Patel heads HCP and has led work on a wide range of institutional, commercial, housing, industrial, urban design, and urban projects of planning across the country.

In 1996, Dr. Patel founded Environmental Planning Collaborative (EPC). It is a not-for-profit consultancy, policy research, and advocacy organisation.

EPCs innovative approach and nationally recognized works have transformed planning and urban design in Gujarat. Patel is also designing the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor and was behind the first such project of the Sabarmati Riverfront.

Dr Patel has won various awards in the past

In March 2019, Dr. Patel received the Padma Shri award for applaudable work in architecture. His work has also been recognised internationally. Dr Patel has won numerous awards including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1992), World Architecture Award (1997), Prime Ministers National Award for Excellence in Urban Planning and Design (2003), and the HUDCO Design Award (2013). Patels research and his work focuses on architecture and urban planning history, land use planning, real estate markets, building regulations, and land management.

After getting recognition around the globe, he showed interest in designing the New Parliament Building. He did justice to it and created a masterpiece, changing the traditional round design into a new triangular shape that can accommodate more technologically equipped chambers.

In the Lok Sabha, he used the national bird  peacock  as its theme, and in the Rajya Sabha he depicted the national flower  lotus  as its theme whereas in the central lounge courtyard, he used the national tree  banyan  as its main theme.

In over 35 years of his career, he has crossed disciplinary, professional, and institutional boundaries to explore how architecture, urban design, and urban planning can enrich the lives of people living in Indias cities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday lauded the Ministry of Educations initiative named Yuva Sangam, saying that its objective is to increase people to people connect as well as to give an opportunity to the youth of the country to mingle with each other.

Indias strength lies in its diversity. There is a lot to see in our country. Keeping this in view, the Ministry of Education has taken an excellent initiative named Yuvasangam. The objective of this initiative is to increase People to People Connect as well as to give an opportunity to the youth of the country to mingle with each other. Higher educational institutions of various states have been linked to it, the Prime Minister said during the 101st episode of his monthly Mann Ki Baat broadcast over All India Radio.

He said in Yuva Sangam, youth visit cities and villages of other states, they get an opportunity to meet different types of people.

The Prime Minister said in the first round of Yuva Sangam, about 1200 youths have toured 22 states of the country. All the youth who have been a part of it, are returning with such memories, which will remain etched in their hearts for the rest of their lives, he said.

We have seen that CEOs, Business leaders of many big companies have spent time in India as Back-Packers. When I meet leaders of other countries, many a time they also tell me that they had gone to visit India in their youth. There is so much to know and see in our India that your curiosity will only increase every time. I hope that after coming to know of these exciting experiences, you too will definitely be inspired to travel to different parts of the country, he said.

In the broadcast, Modi also spoke to two students, Gyamar Nyokum from Arunachal Pradesh, and Vishakha Singh from Bihar.

The students had participated in the Yuva Sangam initiative, aimed at introducing new cultures between the people of two states.

Nyokum, a first-year student at NIT (AP), informed Modi that he learned about Yuva Sangam through his institute and subsequently searched for information about it on the Internet. He travelled to Rajasthan through Yuva Sangam and discovered the rich culture of the state.

It was my first time visiting a place outside of Arunachal Pradesh. I learned about the vibrant culture of Rajasthan, which I had never known before, Nyokum shared with PM Modi. In response, Modi informed Gyamar that many soldiers posted at the Arunachal Pradesh border are from Rajasthan and suggested that Gyamar would feel happy when he meets them.

Modi then requested Nyokum to write a blog about his journey, detailing how he learned about new cultures and experienced the heritage of Rajasthan.

After Nyokum, the Prime Minister spoke with Vishakha Singh from Sasaram Village in Bihar. She is currently studying Computer Science and is in her second year of the programme. Singh informed Modi that she learned about Yuva Sangam through her colleges WhatsApp group and decided to participate in it.

When the Prime Minister asked Vishakha Singh if she had learned about new cultures and tried different foods, given that the food culture of Bihar and Tamil Nadu is quite different, she replied that everything was amazing. She shared, I learned how to adopt and embrace a new culture. I was sent to Tamil Nadu, where I visited ISRO and met the Governor of Tamil Nadu. I tried new food, made new friends, and had meaningful conversations.

Modi also requested Vishakha to write a blog, sharing her experience and enlightening others about how she learned about the new culture.

In the broadcast, Modi also encouraged people to visit various museums and share attractive pictures taken there with the hashtag #MuseumMemory.

The Prime Minister mentioned that he recently visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial museum in Japan, describing it as an emotional experience. He emphasised the importance of cherishing historical memories, which can greatly benefit future generations. Museums often provide new lessons and extensive learning opportunities, he added.

Highlighting the International Museum Expo recently organised in India, Modi said it showcased the specialties of over 1,200 museums from around the world.


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Tel aviv: Israel is renowned for having highly developed air defence capabilities, and artificial intelligence (AI) has a significant impact on improving Israel's air defence systems. To defend its airspace from various threats, such as missiles, rockets, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Israel has developed and deployed a number of AI-powered air defence systems. Here are a few illustrations:

1. Iron Dome: Iron Dome is a well-known and widely deployed air defense system developed by Israel. It incorporates advanced AI algorithms to detect, track, and intercept incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells.

The system uses a combination of radars, advanced sensors, and AI algorithms to quickly analyze the trajectory and threat level of incoming projectiles, enabling it to prioritize and engage only those that pose a significant threat to populated areas.

Also Read: Turkiye returns to the polls to choose between competing presidential visions

2. David's Sling: David's Sling is another air defense system developed by Israel, designed to intercept medium-range rockets and missiles. It integrates AI algorithms to process data from various sensors and radars, enabling it to assess the threat level and engage multiple targets simultaneously.

The system's AI capabilities help optimize the interceptor's flight path, improving its efficiency and interception success rate.

Also Read: Taiwan Strait is traversed by a Chinese aircraft carrier

3. Arrow Missile Defense System: Israel's Arrow system provides defense against long-range ballistic missiles. It combines radar systems, AI algorithms, and interceptor missiles to detect, track, and destroy incoming ballistic threats.

AI plays a crucial role in the system's ability to accurately predict and intercept ballistic missiles by analyzing their trajectory, speed, and other parameters in real-time.

4. AI-Enabled Threat Analysis: In addition to dedicated air defense systems, Israel also utilizes AI for threat analysis and situational awareness. By analyzing vast amounts of sensor data, including radar information, intelligence reports, and other sources, AI algorithms can identify potential threats, track their movements, and provide real-time alerts to military operators. This enables faster decision-making and more effective deployment of air defense resources.

Also Read: A man who opened an Asiana plane's door while it was in the air claims he was "uncomfortable"

It's important to note that Israel has extensive experience with AI in other military branches in addition to air defence. The nation has a strong defence industry and makes significant research and development investments, leading to ongoing advancements in AI technology for a variety of defence industry applications.
The historic impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is plunging Republicans into a bruising fight over whether to banish one of their own in Americas biggest red state
Getty Images

EAST ALTON  Firefighters from six departments battled an early Sunday hydraulic fluid fire at the Wieland Rolled Products facility in the heart of East Alton.

The fire broke out about 12:42 a.m. in a multi-level structure near Gate 7 at 250 Olin Industrial Drive. 911 Dispatchers called the location the Wieland Brass Mill but the area was in what locals still call the former Olin Main Plant west of North Shamrock Street and not at the facility on Illinois 3.
MADISON  Several traffic and parking changes are planned as part of the Enjoy Illinois 300 NASCAR Cup Series race weekend June 2-4 at World Wide Technology Raceway.

The Illinois Department of Transportation, the Illinois State Police, and World Wide Technology Raceway have all announced traffic and travel impacts associated with the Enjoy Illinois 300 NASCAR Cup Series race weekend June 2-4.

General parking is now included with each ticket; arriving early will secure the best parking daily. Unless they have obtained dedicated or ADA parking and received a color-coded parking pass, race fans should expect to be directed to the parking lot best for their arrival and departure from the raceway.

Weekend camping spots have been moved to the west side of the track, providing more vehicle parking with access to tram service to and from the tracks perimeter.

Taxi and rideshare users should use 201 Madison Road in Madison. There will be signage in place to help guide drivers to the drop-off/pick-up site. The information also is on the tracks website at https://wwtraceway.com/enjoyillinois300/ and will be shared with multiple mapping applications to help guide motorists to the proper point at the track.

Public transportation is an option on June 3-4 with a free shuttle from the Emerson Park multi-modal facility in East St. Louis each day. On June 4, Madison County Transit will offer free shuttles from the Gateway Center in Collinsville and Crossroads Plaza in Granite City.

Motorists should expect traffic congestion and roadway restrictions between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on June 3-4 along Interstate 55/70, Illinois 203 and Collinsville Road. Southbound Illinois 203 will be closed to through traffic between Bend Road and I-55/70. Motorists will be required to display a parking pass, ticket, or credential to travel between Bend and the Interstate on south-bound Illinois 203 during this period.

Other restrictions will be implemented throughout each day that could impact roadways around the speedway based upon traffic volume, including a lane reduction on westbound I-55/70 at the conclusion of races each day.

Motorists can expect occasional delays and should allow extra time for trips through this area. Motorists who can are encouraged to avoid the event area and, when feasible, consider the use of alternate routes. Drivers are urged to pay close attention to changing conditions and signs, obey the posted speed limits, refrain from using mobile devices, and be alert for police, workers, pedestrians, and equipment.

Additional updates will be provided closer to race weekend.

For IDOT District 8 updates, follow Twitter at @IDOTDistrict8 or view area traffic restrictions details on IDOTs traveler information map on GettingAroundIllinois.com.
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GLEN CARBON  Village leaders again have rejected a proposal for a large senior living apartment complex after complaints from the homeowner's association and residents of a neighboring subdivision.

Clover Development returned to the Glen Carbon building and development committee Tuesday with its revised plan for a senior apartment site off of Troy Road/Illinois 159 at the Glen Carbon-Maryville border.

Trustees heard conflicting accounts of whether the company consulted with a nearby homeowners' association, so the project did not receive trustees' blessing and they rejected it.

Russell Caplin with Clover Development presented a revamped concept for a 119-unit, three-story senior living complex to be built just south of the Fields Crossing Subdivision. The almost 20-acre site is currently zoned agricultural and is unincorporated.

It would need to be annexed and then rezoned were it to become part of Glen Carbon.

Latest changes

Last month, trustees on the panel tabled Caplin's initial proposal, noting that he had not consulted with the Fields Crossing Homeowners' Association or the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) before coming to village leaders.

Committee members strongly encouraged Caplin to contact both groups. Committee member Ben Maliszewski also said the exteriors of the complex needed to be reworked with a higher percentage of brick instead of using the vinyl cladding originally presented.

That would give the apartment complex exterior a look more like the medical buildings on the other side of subdivision

Caplin said he added more brick to the building's design and he contacted IDOT about what they would require in the way of ingress and egress to and from Illinois Route 159.

He said IDOT officials confirmed the existing entranceway would be subject to modifications based on a future traffic study but the entrance's location was acceptable and not in conflict with anything.

Friction with HOA

While Caplin said he and his company met with the subdivision HOA and provided them with requested materials about the project, and a letter also was sent, at least one member of the HOA on Tuesday refuted that assertion, stating there was not enough time for them to coordinate things on their end.

Caplin proposed meeting on a Thursday a week or two ago, according to Fields Crossing resident Stacey Towell.

She said the HOA board only learned of Tuesday's meeting the previous Friday. She said the HOA board met as a group first and it declined to support the project by Clover Development, then sent a letter to the mayor and village hall, describing their opposition.

However, Towell said the board never met with Caplin or anyone from Clover Development about the project.

Maliszewski said he received phone calls from Fields Crossing residents telling him there was no meeting at all with the developer or even just with the HOA board.

As he had previously, Caplin pointed out that the village's current comprehensive plan, which dates to 2015, suggests that 76 to 79 single-family homes are one possible use for the site. Those homes would produce more than double the number of vehicle trips that his project would create daily, creating more traffic, he said.

Clover Group has senior living complexes in at least five states. The busiest times at any of the current Clover developments are between 2 and 3 p.m. and run about 33 vehicles on average, according to Caplin.

"Also, we pay a full property tax bill; we don't use the schools at all," he said. "As a result, we actually subsidize the schools, where as the 79 homes would have increased impact on that.

"Last, but not least, we don't have loud parties; we're low-noise. We don't stay up late at night," Caplin added.

He said Clover Development officials would be happy to further work with the HOA on topics such as screening or some kind of barriers between the proposed complex and Fields Crossing. He said they are trying hard to be a good neighbor.

Nearby homeowners speak up

Other Fields Crossing residents then had their say about the project and its potential impacts.

Shane Self said he worries about the reverse problem from what Caplin described: Senior residents calling the police on him and his family for an event such as a noisy graduation party.

"Is this going to cause issues down the road where we are impacted by this? Is there going to be a change in the noise ordinance?" he asked.

Village Administrator Jamie Bowden said that such a scenario was not a given in this context, saying there has to be some kind of buffer for noise between adjoining developments.

Other residents asked how the units would be placed on the site. According a preliminary concept drawing from April, the structures, driveways, garages and other infrastructure would fill the entire landscaped area where a farmhouse and barn are now.

Denise Daniels, whose home abuts the site, is not in favor of how this project is situated on the lot, relative to her home.

"I have a grave concern for that because that is just infringing, I believe, where we are. I don't want to look at garages. I don't wanna look at asphalt parking spaces.

"It's gonna decrease the value of my home, which I hope to sell at some point," Daniels said.

Maliszewski said there are boundary agreements, some dating back to the early to mid-1990s, with Maryville, Edwardsville, Troy and Pontoon Beach. In this case, the boundary agreement on this property would allow it to be annexed into Glen Carbon if it ever is developed.

The next step may be for Clover to bring the project before the village's planning and zoning commission in June.
Kosovo: After violent clashes between Kosovan police and protesters opposed to ethnic Albanian mayors, Russia on Saturday blamed Kosovo, the United States, and the European Union for the escalation of tensions in the Balkans and said it was closely monitoring the situation.

The use of force to impose mayors in areas with a majority of ethnic Serbs was condemned by the United States and its allies on Friday, undermining efforts to mend strained ties with Serbia. On Saturday, NATO urged Kosovo to reduce tensions.

Aleksandar Vucic, the president of Serbia, ordered units to move closer to the border and put the army on full combat alert as a result of the clashes on Friday.

Also Read: Nearly 600 migrants are saved by a charity ship off Italy

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, said in a statement that "we vehemently condemn Pristina's provocative steps, which have brought the situation dangerously close to the hot phase and directly threaten the security of the entire Balkans region."

"The United States and the European Union bear full responsibility for this," she said, adding that "Western mediators'" criticism of Kosovo had come too late.

Also Read: Ukraine claims that Russia has ceased its Bakhmut attacks as Kiev discusses a counteroffensive

Russia, a longtime ally of Serbia, does not recognise Kosovo's independence, and Moscow has prevented the nation from applying to join the UN. Kosovo is still regarded as being a part of Serbia.

Also Read: UN: Migrants who attempted the Mediterranean crossing were returned to Libya
Fair & Lovely is now sensitive enough to be Glow & Lovely, but the bronze dancing girl of Mohenjodaro; she of the bejewelled, brazenly nude body, the thick hair and the famously insouciant hand-on-hip stancean image any school-going Indian child can recognise in a heartbeathas just been rendered pinky-fairer, vulgarly curvier and distinctly unlovelier by the custodians of Indian sanskaar.

Robbed of her glorious lanky nudity, she now stands trapped inside a Barbie-doll-like rectangular packaged box, dressed in a ghastly faux-tribal tank top and muffin-top creating midiskirtan outfit picked out for her personally by men whose mindset seems to be more prehistoric than that of the Indus Valley Civilisation itself.

In 1973, British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler had described her thus: She is about 15 years old I think, not more, but she stands there with bangles all the way up her arm and nothing else on. A girl perfectly, for the moment, perfectly confident of herself and the world. Theres nothing like her, I think, in the world.

Illustration: Job P.K.

The makeover by the ministry of cultures International Museum Expo, currently being held at Pragati Maidan, has deprived the dancing girl of this uniqueness for sure. Though she has shot up from a diminutive 11cm to a life-sized figure, nobody would give her more than a passing glance now. She looks like a sad, ubiquitous mud-plaster dummy, the kind whose fate it is to get covered in paan-spit, dust and cigarette butts in the dim corners of government installations.

I am not very sure why the ministry of culture felt they had to improve upon a statuette that was perfected over 4,000 years ago. Perhaps, the (now-familiar) need to fiddle with something that isnt broken, the insecure urge to mark your territory, which seems to characterise this regime, surfaced here too? After all, when you are done fiddling with the Planning Commission, the national currency, the history syllabus, the old Parliament house, the names of cities and roads and stadiums, then what do you even do?

Perhaps, they felt her frank nakedness would drive all our young people mad with lust? Because our young people are not constantly being stalked by pornography on the internet, na!

Perhaps, they felt the dancing girls nudity does not show Indian culture in a good light. But then why pick her for the mascot in the first place?

I would like to think that they genuinely wanted to do something good and create an impactful mascot for the International Museum Expo. But then, wasnt there anybody cultured enough within the ministry of culture to realise that there was no need for pink paint and midiskirtsthat a life-sized, exact, 3D replica of the dancing girl in all her bronzed, nude glory wouldve been a hundred times more impactful as a display than this hideous prim travesty?

I would love to visit the expo and walk around a display like that. It would be new-agey, Instagram-friendly, Madame Tussauds-esque and goose-bumpingly patriotic. Im sure history teachers would love to bring their students to see history brought alive in that manner, too. Perhaps, it can still be done? (It would be much more expensive to execute than Miss Midiskirt, Im guessing. But then again, weve found the funds to build statues of Kempe Gowda and Shivaji and Sardar Patel, so why not dig out some 2k bills to fund a modest-sized statue of the immodest dancing girl of Mohenjodaro, too?)

Because midiskirt girl is not gonna cut it.

Oh, she is a successful mascot all rightjust not of the International Museum Expo. What she is, is a poster girl of the witless desecration of the rich cultural heritage of India.

editor@theweek.in
In 2013, Alia Bhatt graced the cover of Harpers Bazaar India wearing Gucci from top to toe, and the headline went: Alia Bhatt Steps Into A New Role. It had to be prescient, because here we are, 10 years later, with the young and talented movie star just announced as the global brand ambassador for the Italian luxury fashion label.

Bhatts international assignment comes just a year after Deepika Padukone was announced as the global brand ambassador for the luxury behemoth Louis Vuitton. Padukone was already the international model for Cartier, Qatar Airways and Levis. But a brand ambassador is a huge deal, and lets face it, there is no bigger deal than Vuitton. In 2021, Priyanka Chopra was announced as global ambassador for Bulgari, with the jewellery house even introducing a modern-day mangalsutra for its Indian audiences.

Going by the celebrated appointments of Indias top three actresses, one would think Indias luxury market is flourishing. But we have only taken over from China its mantle of being the most populous country in the world. In every other notable boxgrowth, GDP, cost of living, life expectancy, internet usage, health careChina is miles ahead. As are many other countries in South East Asia.

Alia Bhatt at Guccis Seoul show | Instagram/aliaabhatt

The global luxury market as of 2021 is worth $262 billion, according to leading data researcher Statista. The US is the worlds largest luxury consumer, closely followed by China. India was anticipated to reach $14.7 billion in 2015, according to a 2010 report by CII-Kearney published in The Economic Times. But in 2022, Euromonitor announced that Indias luxe market was estimated at just $8.5 billion.

But Indias rich are certainly getting richer. From 102 billionaires in 2019, we now have 169 of them, making us the country with the third-highest number of billionaires in the world, after the US (700) and China (495). Curiously, Germany is close at our heels with 126 billionaires. In an interview to CNBC-TV, Sathyajit Radhakrishnan, CEOLuxury Division, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL), says Indias fashion market may comprise just 15 per cent of its luxury pie, but that number is growing at 20-25 per cent each year.

That said, there is also the impact of social media marketing on consumer perceptions. For example, Bhatts announcement earned the Gucci Instagram handle eight lakh likes, whereas otherwise they notch up 20,000 to 50,000 likes per post, and stars like Serena Williams have earned them over one lakh likes.

This is key consumer engagement for brands, even mega brands, trying to break into new markets. Guccis Seoul show last week (Bhatt made her debut here, and her video garnered over seven lakh likes for the label) was its first since its star creative designer of over a decade, Alessandro Michele, had departed. Gucci is a brand in transition, trying to return to its classical roots and breaking away from the maximalism of Michele. In South Korea, where the average person spends $325 on luxury goods each year, Gucci was inspired by street-wear as well as by K-pop and K-dramas.

India is also seeing newer luxury labels open stores here. Valentino opened its first store in Delhi, and Balenciaga is expected to soon (both under Reliance Brands). Dior is looking to open a new store this year in Mumbai, too. ABFRL is bringing the legendary Parisian department store, Galeries Lafayette, to India shortly.

Luxury insiders say their brands are profitable in India and are performing better than they have ever been. The luxury business, though small, is finally supporting itself. They have also finally understood that, in India, mighty Bollywood can sell hair oil to a bald man.
US President Joe Bidens announcement in April that he would be a candidate for re-election in 2024, and the continuing popularity of former president Donald Trump among hardcore Republicans, make it increasingly likely that the US is heading for a Trump-Biden rematch in the presidential elections next year. The irony is that a number of polls over the past six months have consistently shown that this is just what a majority of Americans do not want to see.

A discredited ex-president who orchestrated an attack on his own legislature in an attempt to steal an election he had lost, versus an octogenarian serving president whose decency is beyond question but whose mental acuity is not? Most Americans want another choice. Trump and Biden each lead in their partys standings for very different reasons. Biden, as the incumbent, is almost impossible to dislodge and, in all fairness, has been a reasonably successful president in challenging circumstances. Though many Democrats are not happy to be led by someone so old and forgetfulhe struggled, when asked by a child, to remember the name of the last country he had visited, just two weeks earlier (it was Ireland)it is extremely unusual for any party in America to defenestrate its own incumbent president, as senator Ted Kennedy found out when he tried to unseat Jimmy Carter in 1980. In fact only once has a president who was elected in his own right been denied renomination for another term, and that was in 1856. (Four presidents who had been appointed upon the death of the previous incumbent did not win renomination.)

If it were not for his age, forgetfulness, and occasional rambling, Bidens record is good enough to sustain the argument that, like all but one of his predecessors, he deserves another term.Meanwhile, roughly four in 10 Republicans do not want Trump (a sociopath who has incited violent sedition against the government of the US, as one critic dubbed him) as their partys nominee.

The Grand Old Party (GOP), as it is known, has descended in recent years into a right-wing rabble sustained by a Trumpist personality cult as rabid as Bolsonaros in Brazil was. The partys institutions, and therefore its presidential nomination process, are controlled by diehard Trumpians, whose zeal, bordering on irrational, gives Trump the votes he needs in the party to prevail. Defeating Trump for the nomination would not be easy for any other candidate, because he would face the fanatic opposition of the Trump devotees, who constitute the GOPs base voters today.

Barring the risk of the various court cases against Trump making it legally and politically impossible to renominate himsomething that at the moment seems unlikely, since the cases have only increased Trumps popularity among the faithfulthe nomination is safely his.Indians should not care unduly, because both Biden and Trump have been pro-Indian in orientation, and hostile to our principal adversary, China.

But what should interest us is the muted reaction Biden received to his announcement that he would continue with Kamala Harris as his running-mate. Harris is faring even more poorly in the polls than Biden, which is hard to imagine since his approval ratings are near record lows for an incumbent. But the vice presidents numbers are among the worst of any incumbent vice-president since such polls began to be done. Harris is widely considered to be a fairly lacklustre vice president, prone to making gaffes when unscripted, and with a history of staffing problems that suggest poor management ability. All this matters because of the fear that as understudy to Americas oldest president, she would have to step into his shoes were anything to happen, and there are widespread doubts of her ability to handle the job.

Many Americans (most prominently former New Jersey governor Chris Christie) have been saying openly that they will not vote if the election is Biden versus Trump again. But abstention is no solution in any democracy: staying away from ones democratic responsibilities is not a responsible choice. But that it is even being considered is a measure of how unappealing are the alternatives confronting Americas voters next year.

editor@theweek.in
When I ran into Rani Mukerji at an award show last month, I had not watched her latest filmMrs Chatterjee vs Norway. She spoke movingly about her role as Debika Chatterjee and its impact on her own life. I was familiar with the case, and had followed the real life saga of Sagarika Bhattacharya (the real life Debika), who had fought the government of Norway to get back the custody of her two children, forcibly taken away from her during her stay in the country. It was a high-profile case that had made international headlines and projected Sagarika as a fearless tigress defending her cubs against a powerful enemyNorway. Thanks to the timely intervention of the late Sushma Swaraj and activist Brinda Karat, the prolonged custody battle ended on a happy note with the kids reunited with their mother.

Ranis interpretation of Sagarikas trauma is compelling and authentic, instantly drawing viewers into the brisk narrative that recreates the drama, with a few creative flourishes. Rani remains faithful to the character and never once loses her grip over the scene shes playing. Though critics have singled out her courtroom monologue in which she quietly states, Am I a good mother or a bad mother. I dont know. But I am ready to fight for my children for justice in any corner of the world. This is the money-scene that demands applause in theatres and moves mothers to tears. But, for me, Ranis shining moment was in a scene when she comes home after a crucial meeting with the minister, only to face anger, hostility and accusations from her in-laws, who have already declared her mad and unstable publicly. Ignoring her enraged husband, Rani/Debika proceeds to fix her comfort fooda typically Bengali dish of ripe banana mashed into a bowl of milkthat she ravenously consumes. Not a word of dialogue is spoken by her but my word! The defiance of her body language and those blazing eyes do all the talking.

Rani Mukerji in Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway

This is Rani at 45, intelligently choosing projects that showcase her prodigious talent. Rani could so easily play maalkin, as the queen bee in Bollywood, being the wife of Aditya Chopra, who owns Yash Raj Films that has just raked it in with Pathaan, starring Shah Rukh Khan.

Even after the critical success of Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway, Rani has not gone overboard with nonstop self-promotion. Neither has she pushed herself to keep up with the other heroines of her vintage, who try a bit too hard to look hot and trendy on assorted red carpet events. There is a quiet air of contentment about her persona thats a sign of her confidence. Shes at ease with her position in lifean attribute that is so refreshing in showbiz where every second person displays such high levels of insecurity.

Rani always speaks to my husband in Bengali when we meet, using a formal, respectful term of address. With me, she is far more relaxed as we exchange pleasantries. The last time we met on her turf (YRF studios) was when I had approached her with a book offer, which she had politely turned down after much consideration. The timing was off, she said, as she was a new mother, focusing on baby Adira (now seven). Rani did not have the mind space for such a commitment back then.

Well, heres the good newsshe is working on a book (how do I know? We share the same publisher). Knowing how meticulous Rani is about all aspects of her life, I am sure the book will be an engrossing read, replete with Ranis candid insights and anecdotes.

I look forward to Rani ki kahaani.
The Congress on Sunday attacked the Centre over the detention of protesting wrestlers in the national capital, with senior party leader Rahul Gandhi calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi an arrogant king.

"Coronation over; the arrogant king is crushing the voice of the people," Rahul tweeted.

Ace wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia were detained by Delhi Police for violation of law and order after they breached the security cordon and tried to march towards the new Parliament building which Modi inaugurated on Sunday.

The wrestlers had resumed their agitation against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh on April 23, demanding his arrest for alleged sexual harassment of several women grapplers, including a minor.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge slammed the detention of women wrestlers and said democracy is not just about buildings but functions with the voice of people.

"The right to inaugurate the new Parliament was snatched from the President. Women players were beaten up on the streets with dictatorial force," he alleged.

"The three lies of BJP-RSS rulers now stand exposed before the country - Democracy, Nationalism and Save Daughter, Kharge further said.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, too, targeted the Centre over the Delhi police action and said the medals on the chest of the players are the "pride of our country".

"With those medals, due to the hard work of the sportspersons, the honour of the country increases. The arrogance of the BJP government has increased so much that the it is mercilessly trampling the voices of our women players under its boots. This is totally wrong," she said.

Earlier, the protesting wrestlers tried to go ahead with their march towards parliament despite the police warning, leading chaotic scenes at the Janta Mantar. Police detained several protesters, dragged and lifted them into buses, and cleared the protest site.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his first address after inaugurating the new Parliament building on Sunday said that India is the mother of democracy. It is also the foundation of global democracy. Democracy is our culture, idea and tradition, said PM Modi.

While speaking at the ceremony, Modi said that the building is equipped with modern facilities and equipped with the latest gadgets. It has given employment to over 60,000 labourers. We have created a digital gallery to honour their hard work, he added.

He also added that the new Parliament building reflects aspirations of new India.

From panchayat bhawan to Sansad bhawan, our pledge and inspiration remains the development of our country and its people, he said in the new Parliament building.

Today, as we are proud of the construction of this new Parliament, it also gives me immense satisfaction when I think about the construction of homes for 4 crore poor people and 11 crore toilets in the country in the last 9 years. When we talk about modern facilities in the new Parliament, I feel content we have constructed over 4 lakh kilometres of roads to connect villages in the country, said Modi.

"There was a need for new Parliament. We also have to see that the number of seats and MPs will increase in the coming time. That's why it was need of the hour that a new Parliament is made, he added.

Several years of foreign rule stole our pride from us. Today, India has left behind that colonial mindset, he said.

It is our good fortune that we have been able to restore the pride of the holy 'Sengol'. Whenever proceedings start in this House the 'Sengol' will inspire us, he said.

When India moves forward, then the World moves forward. This new Parliament will also lead to the development of the world through the development of India, said Modi.

Special stamps and Rs 75 coin was launched by the PM during the event.

President's message

In the absence of President Droupadi Murmu at the inaugural ceremony, her message was read out by Rajya Sabha deputy speaker chairman Harivansh.

"Inauguration of the new parliament building is a matter of pride and joy for all the people of India," she said in her message.

Noting the parliament is a guiding light for the country, President Murmu said the new Parliament building "is an important milestone in our democratic journey".

"The occasion of the inauguration of the new parliament building will be written in golden words in the history of India," Murmu said.

Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S. Jaishankar and Jitendra Singh, chief ministers of several states and BJP president J P Nadda were present on the occasion.

(With agency inputs)
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates the new Parliament building on Sunday, the Congress, which has joined 18 other political parties in boycotting the ceremony, has called Modi a "self-glorifying authoritarian PM."

Accusing the PM of having "utter disdain for parliamentary procedures," Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh tweeted, "On this day, May 28th: Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883."



"The President  the first Adivasi to become President  is not allowed to fulfil her Constitutional duties and inaugurate the New Parliament building in 2023. A self-glorifying authoritarian Prime Minister with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the New Parliament building in 2023."



Jairam Ramesh added that on this day President Droupadi Murmu the first Adivasi to become President was also not allowed to fulfil her constitutional duties and inaugurate the new Parliament building.



Ramesh said that the fabrication of facts by "distortions" and the drum-beating of the media hits new lows in 2023.



The Opposition parties have boycotted the event contending that the President and not the Prime Minister should inaugurate the new Parliament building.



Meanwhile, the RJD, which too has boycotted the ceremony, likened the architecture of the new Parliament building to a coffin. The controversial remarks drew the ire of the BJP, which said people will bury the Bihar party in such a coffin in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.



The ruling party in Bihar tweeted put up a picture of a coffin alongside the Parliament building with the caption, "What is this?" RJD leader Shakti Yadav told ANI that PM Modi has buried democracy. "The coffin has been posted as Modi has ensured the death of democracy," he said.



Hitting back, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said, "People of the country will bury you in the same coffin in 2024 and will not give you the opportunity to enter the new temple of democracy. It is decided that the parliament building belongs to the country and the coffin to you."



The BJP also demanded that a case of treason be registered against such people who have compared the new Parliament building with a coffin.


The grand ceremony to mark the inauguration of the new Parliament building tagged the "temple of democracy" by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, began on Sunday morning with a grand 'puja'.

The Prime Minister arrived at the new Parliament building around 7:30 am. He was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

The ceremony began with vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math. Modi performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke Gods to bless the inauguration of the new Parliament building. After attending the pujas, the Prime Minister, along with priests from adheenams in Tamil Nadu, offered flowers to 'Sengol'.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi prostrates before the 'Sengol' at the inauguration of the new Parliament building in New Delhi | PTI

The Prime Minister then prostrated before 'Sengol' as priests handed over the sceptre to him. The 'Sengol' was then carried by PM Modi to the new Parliament building in a procession amid tunes of 'nadaswaram'. The sceptre was then placed inside the Lok Sabha chamber by the Prime Minister in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speakers chair.

#WATCH | PM Modi installs the historic 'Sengol' near the Lok Sabha Speaker's chair in the new Parliament building pic.twitter.com/Tx8aOEMpYv  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

He then went on to receive blessings of seers before heading to the ceremony hall where all-faith prayer meets were held. The prime minister felicitated some workers who played key roles in the construction of the new Parliament building.

Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S Jaishankar and Jitendra Singh, chief ministers of several states and BJP president J P Nadda were present on the occasion.

New Sansad Bhavan



The triangular-shaped four-storey building boasts a built-up area of 64,500 square metres. The Lok Sabha chamber in the new building is three times bigger than the present one, with a seating capacity of 888 members. This can be increased to 1,224 in joint sessions. The Rajya Sabha has space for 384 membersfour times bigger than the current chamber.



The interiors of the Lok Sabha have references to the national bird, the peacock, while the interiors of the Rajya Sabha have been built on the inspiration from the national flower, the lotus. In the third aspect of the buildingthe open courtyardthe national tree, the Banyan, is pre-eminent. The courtyard leads to a central lounge where members can interact.

The materials for the construction have been sourced from various parts of the country. While the red and white sandstones from Sarmathura in the Dholpur district of Rajasthan have been used extensively in the building to help give it an appearance that is in keeping with the original buildings of Central Vista, there is also extensive use of wooden structures, with wood procured from Nagpur, Maharashtra.
Thousands of police personnel have been deployed and multiple layers of barricades put in place in the Lutyens' Delhi area on Sunday as part of the security arrangement for the inauguration of the new parliament building, officials said.

Also, all entry and exit gates at the Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations of the Delhi Metro have been closed as part of security measures. The new parliament building is located near the Central Secretariat station which is an interchange facility between Yellow Line and Violet Line.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new building on Sunday morning. Representatives of 25 political parties and many dignitaries, including chief ministers and ministers, are slated to attend the inauguration.



A senior police officer said security has been stepped up by enhancing police deployment, placing multiple barricades and sufficient police pickets. Intensive patrolling is also being carried out across the national capital and its bordering areas to ensure that law and order are maintained, he said.



The wrestlers protesting at Jantar Mantar, about two kilometres from the parliament building, said they will go ahead with their "Mahila Mahapanchayat" near the new building at any cost. Police, however, said no protester will be allowed to move towards the new building as permission has not been granted to hold the "Mahila Mahapanchayat".



Police have already issued a traffic advisory that the New Delhi district will be treated as a controlled area and entry of vehicles will be restricted. Besides additional deployment of force, CCTV monitoring is being carried out continuously, the police said.



According to the traffic advisory, only public transport vehicles, civil service aspirants, bonafide residents, labelled vehicles and emergency vehicles will be allowed to move in the New Delhi area. The Delhi traffic police urged people to plan their journey accordingly and avoid the New Delhi district from 5:30 am to 3 pm.



A police official said adequate security personnel have been deployed near the Parliament building and robust security arrangements have been made at Jantar Mantar where wrestlers and farmers have been staging a sit-in.



"We have covered the entire Jantar Mantar protest venue. It is being guarded by our security personnel. CCTV cameras installed there are being constantly monitored.



"Heavy barricades have been put up. For each protester, we have deployed at least five police personnel. That's how elaborate the security arrangement is at Jantar Mantar," he said.



The ceremony to inaugurate the new Parliament building on Sunday began with an early morning havan and multi-faith prayers followed by the formal opening by Prime Minister Modi.


Taipei: According to the Taiwan Ministry of National Defence, three Chinese ships, including the aircraft carrier Shandong, passed through the Taiwan Strait on Saturday.

Taiwan is a democratic, self-governing part of China's territory, and China has vowed to one day annex it, using force if necessary.

Since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was elected in 2016, Beijing has increased air and sea incursions near the island despite her denial that the island is a part of China.

Also Read: Russia accuses the US and EU of escalating the conflict in Kosovo

While Taipei constantly monitors and alerts the public to the presence of Chinese warships, the Shandong's passage through the 180-kilometer-wide Taiwan Strait is unusual.

Around noon today, a flotilla of three ships from the People's Liberation Army Navy, commanded by the aircraft carrier Shangdong, passed through the Taiwan Strait, according to a statement from the ministry.

The unofficial border dividing the island from mainland Asia is in the middle of the strait, and the flotilla travelled "to the west of the median line, heading northward," it added.

Also Read: 2-year-old boy sentenced to life imprisonment along with family

After beginning naval and aerial drills around the island more than a month ago, Beijing made its most recent display of force on Saturday.

Beijing practised targeted attacks on Taiwan and an encirclement of the island, including "sealing" it off, during the war games in April. According to state media, dozens of planes also practised a "aerial blockade."

Although the Shandong was southeast of Taiwan rather than in the Strait, it nonetheless took part in the exercises with J15 fighter jets on board.

The US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meeting with Tsai in early April sparked the war games, which Beijing had warned would result in stern retaliation.

Taiwan's armed forces declared on Saturday that they "have monitored the situation and tasked (civil air patrol) aircraft, navy vessels, and land-based missile systems to respond to these activities."

Chinese ships and warplane incursions have become more frequent recently on the island.

In the 24 hours leading up to 6:00 a.m. Saturday, 33 warplanes and 10 vessels, according to the defence ministry, were discovered.

11 ships were in the area of Taiwan's waters the day before.

Prior to the phone call between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in March 2022, officials last confirmed the Shandong passed through the Taiwan Strait.

Also Read: A Downing Street collision suspect is charged with using pornographic images

Earlier than that, the carrier passed through in December 2020, one day after a US warship had done so. In December 2019, a few weeks before Taiwanese voters went to the polls, the Shandong also made a sail-by
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Saturday that Republican negotiators were closer to an agreement that would resolve the looming debt crisis, but had not reached a deal with President Joe Biden.



He said there was no firm timeline for a final compromise that would raise the nation's borrowing limit and avoid a catastrophic default while also making spending cuts that House Republicans are demanding.

House negotiators left the Capitol after 2 a.m. and returned hours later.

We'll get it when it gets right, McCarthy, R-Calif., said as he arrived on Capitol Hill.

McCarthy's comments echoed the latest assessment from Biden, who said Friday evening that bargainers were very close.

Their optimism came as the deadline to avert a potentially disastrous default was pushed back to June 5, giving the two sides a bit of extra time as they scramble for a deal.

Both sides have suggested one of the main holdups is a GOP effort to expand existing work requirements for recipients of food stamps and other federal aid programmes, a longtime Republican goal that Democrats have strenuously opposed. The White House said the Republican proposals were cruel and senseless.

McCarthy declined to elaborate on those discussions. One of his negotiators, Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves, said there was not a chance that Republicans might relent on the issue.

The extended X-date, or default deadline, was laid out in a letter Friday from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, a brief reprieve from her earlier June 1 estimate.

That didn't stop Americans and the world from uneasily watching the negotiating brinkmanship that could throw the U.S. economy into chaos and sap world confidence in the nation's leadership.

Yet Biden was upbeat as he departed for Camp David on Friday evening, saying: It's very close, and I'm optimistic.

Failure to lift the borrowing limit, now $31 trillion, to pay the nation's incurred bills, would send shockwaves through the U.S. and global economy. Yellen said failure to act by the new date would cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests.

Anxious retirees and others were already making contingency plans for missed checks, with the next Social Security payments due next week.

Biden and McCarthy have seemed to be narrowing on a two-year budget-cutting deal that would also extend the debt limit into 2025 past the next presidential election.

The contours of the deal have been taking shape to cut spending for 2024 and impose a 1% cap on spending growth for 2025.

The Republican proposal on work requirements would save $11 billion over 10 years by raising the maximum age for existing standards that require able-bodied adults who do not live with dependents to work or attend training programs.

Current law applies those standards to recipients under the age of 50. The GOP plan would raise the age to include adults 55 and under. It would lower the number of exemptions that states can grant to some recipients subject to those requirements.

Biden has said the work requirements for Medicaid would be a nonstarter. He initially seemed potentially open to negotiating minor changes on food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, but his position has appeared to harden.

Any deal would need to be a political compromise in a divided Congress. Many of the hard-right Trump-aligned Republicans in Congress have long been skeptical of the Treasury's projections, and they are pressing McCarthy to hold out.

Lawmakers are not expected to return to work from the Memorial Day weekend before Tuesday, at the earliest, and McCarthy has promised lawmakers he will abide by the rule to post any bill for 72 hours before voting.

The Democratic-held Senate has stayed out of the negotiations, leaving the talks to Biden and McCarthy. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has pledged to move quickly to send a compromise package to Biden's desk.

Weeks of talks have failed to produce a deal in part because the Biden administration resisted for months on negotiating with McCarthy, arguing that the country's full faith and credit should not be used as leverage to extract other partisan priorities.

But House Republicans united behind a plan to cut spending, narrowly passing legislation in late April that would raise the debt ceiling in exchange for the spending reductions.
Ukraine's capital was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of Russia's war, local officials said, as Kyiv prepared to mark the anniversary of its founding on Sunday. At least one person was killed.



Russia launched the most massive attack on the city overnight Saturday with Iranian-made Shahed drones, said Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, 54 Iranian Shahed drones had been launched by Russia overnight and 52 of them had been destroyed by Ukrainian forces.

Kyivs Mayor Vitali Klitshko said Ukrainian air defence forces had already intercepted more than 20 UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) heading toward the capital and warned that a new wave of drones is on its way, CNN reported.

The enemy launched another overnight attack on military facilities and critical infrastructure in the countrys central regions, specifically Kyiv Oblast. Near the zone Air Command Center, most of the attack drones were destroyed! the air force said in a Twitter post.

The drone attack killed two and injured three. The falling drone debris sparked fires across Kyiv, Mayor Klitshko said on Telegram.

The city of Nikopol was shelled with heavy artillery by the Russians, Serhii Lysak, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regions military administration.



The enemy fired again on the civilian population with heavy artillery. The aggressor shelled Nikopol twice during the night, damaging six private houses and two outbuildings, Lysak wrote in a Telegram post.

-- With PTI inputs
Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin said on Sunday that his country is yet to take the war in Ukraine seriously and added that Russia is ready for peace talks with Ukraine, but, on its conditions.

In an interview with the BBC Kelin said, Russia hasn't just started yet to act very seriously and Russia is 16 times bigger than Ukraine. We have enormous resources." He added, The length of the conflict depends on the efforts in escalation of the war that is being undertaken by Nato countries, especially by the UK". Kelin said it is a mistake to believe Ukraine will prevail in the war.

Kelin warned that the supply of weapons by the West to Ukraine could only help in escalating the war. The Russian ambassador claimed that his country is ready to negotiate peace with Ukraine, but on its own terms. We want peace, but on certain conditions, of course. For us, two things are important. That there will be no threat from Ukraine to Russia - this is one thing. And second, that Russians in Ukraine will be treated like all other nations in the world.

Kelin added, We can make peace tomorrow, if the Ukrainian side is prepared to negotiate, but at the moment there are no preconditions for that, I am afraid, because the president of Ukraine has prohibited any negotiations."
Kiren Rijiju | J. Suresh

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modis leadership, transformational changes have taken place across ministries and sectors. Previous governments were content with just managing the affairs and hoped for incremental increase in the outputs. Now, there is a quantum jump.

If one sees the quality of work today, even in the remotest parts of the country, it is beyond imagination. The transformation is happening in building infrastructure, be it airports, land ports, highways, express highways, major roads in border areas, railway lines and new trains like Vande Bharat. Digital India has breached all divides we used to see in the past. The quality of life of an ordinary Indian has vastly improved. In fact, there has been a definitive change in the way governance is being looked upon by people. People have direct access to benefits. In the past, they were dependant on implementing agencies. For example, if a policy was adopted by the Central government, the benefits hardly reached people and it, in turn, made them dependant on implementing agencies at every stage. Like the farmers were dependant on block development officers to get the benefits intended for them. Now, the direct benefit transfer scheme is a game-changer.

As governance has undergone a huge change, it is reflected in the manner our students look at education. Earlier, students looked beyond Indian borders to realise their dreams. They would think of going abroadAmerica, the United Kingdom, Australia, France and Germany were hot destinations. Many may still want to study abroad, but one need not look beyond India to fulfill their dreams as many world-class educational institutions have come up in the last few years. In fact, the world is looking at India to fulfill their dreams. India is a land of opportunities not only for Indians but people outside the country, too.

When we used to sit on the opposition benches, India was starved for recognition. We felt India is always following leaders of other countries. The situation has reversed. I have travelled to many countries and wherever I go, Prime Minister Modi is considered the most popular global leader. Invariably, I have seen people talk about our prime minister as if he is a common leader. Top world leaders are following our prime minister. He is a global phenomenon. From a dependant nation, India has arrived as a global leader in nine years. What sets him apart is his ability to interact with great ease with common citizens, be it farmers, labourers, technicians, doctors and students. On the global stage, he can converse with global leaders on any issueterrorism, economy, politics and diplomatic matters. Whatever Prime Minister Modi says, it leaves an impact at the international forum. It becomes a leading stand for everyone, and other world leaders start following it.

The India growth story is talked about everywhere. Many world leaders I meet ask me about all the success stories in the fields of technology and manufacturing and about the beneficiary schemes for farmers, women, children.

The case clearance percentage rose from 82.76 per cent in 2014 to 89.33 in 2022, thanks to technology.

Our National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) programmes are taking judiciary to peoples doorstep. India is the most populous country in the world today, but out success rate is higher than some of the richest countries like the US. Since 2014, the number of court halls, buildings, residential units and other facilities in the lower judiciary has doubled. Thanks to technology, the case clearance percentage has increased from 82.76 per cent in 2014 to 89.33 per cent in 2022. The tele-law service has been made free for citizens. NALSA provides services of 700 lawyers in each district exclusively for the tele-law programme. Lok adalats have emerged as the most efficacious tool of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Thanks to e-lok adalats, 1,27,87,329 cases were disposed of in 2021. Using ADR, lok adalats have dealt with mounting arrears of the courts, including High Courts where 46.07 lakh pre-litigation cases and 15.02 lakh pending cases have been disposed of from June 2020 to January 2023.

Our key achievement has been the New Delhi International Arbitration Centre (Amendment) Act, 2022, to set up the India International Arbitration Centre for institutionalising arbitration and bringing India on a global level as that of Singapore, London and Hong Kong. The ministry of law and justice has transformed the litigation process by introducing Legal Informational Management and Briefing System, a web-based application for monitoring cases involving the Union of India in a more effective and transparent manner. It is facilitated by the department of legal affairs by tracking and monitoring all ongoing cases. This has streamlined the litigation process and transformed it into a sophisticated digital management system for efficient disposal of cases. The ministry has also streamlined the payment process for advocates. Our Nyaya Bandhu (pro bono legal services programme), run by the department of justice, engaged 69 law schools from 30 states/Union territories, and 10,018 advocates have been directly enrolled from 24 state bar councils. The sanctioned strength of the Supreme Court of India increased from 30 to 33 (excluding the chief justice of India) from August 2019.

As part of our citizen-centric facilities, 99.4 per cent of court complexes are connected through wide-area network. And, 18,735 district and subordinate courts have been computerised till date. Using the national judicial data grid, as on February 2023, 22.09 crore pending/disposed cases along with 20.43 crore orders/judgments have been made available. Twenty-one virtual courts have been set up in 17 states/Union territories to try traffic challan cases, and they have heard more than 2.40 crore cases. Since Covid lockdown, 2.63 crore virtual hearings have been held by all courts in India. Live streaming of court proceedings has started in six High Courts and the Supreme Court of India. And, 689 e-Sewa Kendras have been rolled out to provide assistance in e-filing.

The Modi government has always championed the cause of safety and security of women and girls. The government made provisions for stringent punishment, including death penalty, for perpetrators of rape by passing the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018. It also introduced a scheme in 2019 to set up 1,023 Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs), including 389 exclusive POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) courts across the nation for time-bound completion of trials relating to sexual offences. Currently, 773 FTSCs, including 415 exclusive POCSO courts, are functional in 28 states/Union territories. Over 94 per cent of those cases have been disposed of and only 6 per cent of the 1.66 lakh cases remain pending.

There is a vast difference between the work done before 2014 and the work completed in the last nine years. The prime ministers vision is backed by complete action. It is because of Modi governments policies that India has overtaken the UK, making it the fifth biggest economy of the world.

There are many things that make India stand apart. We have gigantic challenges and huge targets but we cannot be compared with any other country. Despite the unprecedented growth, unfair criticism is hurled by opposition parties or critics of the government. It is the beauty of our democracy. Positive criticism is okay and it should be taken in stride. It is a healthy tradition in a democracy. But unfair criticism hits at the image of the country. Some people tell outsiders that Indian democracy has failed, Indian judiciary is failing or the democratic institutions and Constitutional frameworks are being weakened. These are negative and totally false comments. Anyone who tries to hijack the Indian Constitution or judiciary will be rejected by the people. Indians will not tolerate it. Just because some political parties have lost the electoral battle, they start targeting the foundation of Indian democracy itself.

As I look back at the government, I feel proud that I am part of Prime Minister Modis council of ministers. I am able to see closely how he manoeuvres himself out of so many challenges. He has unfathomable energy, and can go into details of most complex subjects, even scientific and other critical technical issues, with such ease.

Globally, Modi is a phenomenon. There is nothing called rest for our prime minister. There is no concept of a vacation for him. The only time he rests is when he sleeps. His brain and body function for the nation. That is why, if you see his itineraries, there is no gap at all. The only gap is when he goes from one place to another and even during that time he is working. He has truly transformed the country. The journey he has started will continue strongly in years to come.



The writer is Union minister for earth sciences and former minister of law and justice.

As told to Namrata Biji Ahuja
New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) Soon personnel from the government ministries, departments, agencies and public sector units will be able to book taxis for official purposes from cab aggregator Uber as the company has partnered with public procurement portal GeM to provide the service.

"It will be a kind of corporate service. At present, we have started the service on a pilot basis and gradually it will be available for all the government ministers, departments, agencies and public sector units (PSUs). We are planning to go phase by phase," an official said.

The company would provide the service at a fixed price with zero cancellation charges and no surge pricing.

The company has registered at the portal of government e-marketplace (GeM), which was launched in 2016 by the commerce ministry for buying goods and services by central ministries and departments with a view to bringing transparency in government procurement.

There is a growing demand for taxi services in the government and all the departments spend huge amounts on this service, but now by using this service they would be able to save a good amount.

Cab and taxi services are the second highest category of services at the GeM portal, which are in demand by the government department and ministries.

Explaining further, the official said that an authorised person in each ministry or department can add riders/officials, who would be allowed to book the service through the Uber app from their mobiles.

"The authorised official can add or delete the name of riders as per the requirements. After availing the service, the bill will directly go to the department," the official added.

It will be a cashless/cardless ride of the officials; additional vehicle categories for government riders have been added -- GeM Yatraa Hatch, GeM Yatraa Sedan; and there will be hourly rental for multiple-stops.

When contacted, a company official confirmed the partnership.

GeM has over 63,000 government buyer organisations, over 62 lakh sellers and service providers offering a wide range of products and services.

Currently, government departments, ministries, public sector units, state governments, and central armed police forces are allowed to carry out transactions through this portal. The portal provides a wide range of products from office stationery to vehicles.

Automobiles, computers and office furniture are some of the major product categories. Services, including transportation, logistics, waste management, web casting and analytical, are also listed on the portal.

Among central government ministries, the power ministry was the top buyer in 2022-23 from the platform. The ministry procured goods and services worth Rs 30,572.9 crore. It was followed by the defence ministry (Rs 28,741.2 crore), Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (Rs 28,157.2 crore), steel ministry (Rs 12,527.3 crore), and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (Rs 7,158.3 crore).

South Korea's KONEPS is the largest such platform in the world. Currently, GeM stands at the third position after Singapore's GeBIZ.
Kathmandu, May 28 (PTI) Nepal on Sunday decided to allow India's Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam (SJVN) Limited to develop a second hydropower project in the country.

At present SJVN is developing a 900-MW Arun -III hydroelectric project, a run-of-river located on the Arun River in Eastern Nepal, scheduled to be completed in 2024.

A meeting of the Investment Board Nepal (IBN) chaired by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda approved the draft project development agreement (PDA) to be signed with India's state-owned SJVN to develop the 669-megawatt (MW) Lower Arun Hydropower project in eastern Nepal, an official statement said.

The development comes days before Prime Minister Prachanda's visit to India starting Wednesday.

The draft needs to be endorsed by the Council of Ministers before it gets implemented.

The previous meeting of the IBN had approved Rs 92.68 billion investment for the development of the project.

The development of this 669-MW transformative project will prove to be a milestone for the socio-economic development of the country, according to the statement by the IBN.

The SJVN has formed a local company, Lower Arun Power Development Company, in Nepal.

The Lower Arun project located in the Sankhuwasabha and Bhojpur districts will not have any reservoir or dam and will be a tailrace development of Arun-III, which will mean water re-enters the river for the Lower Arun project.

This is the third project undertaken, all through negotiation windows, on the Arun River after the 900 MW Arun-III and 695 MW Arun-IV hydroelectricity projects.

The three projects will generate nearly 2,300 MW of electricity from the river in Sankhuwasabha district, The Kathmandu Post newspaper reported.
Kathmandu, May 27 (PTI) A Bengaluru-bound Nepal Airlines aircraft was forced to return to the Tribhuvan International Airport here on Saturday after it reportedly suffered a bird hit.

The plane landed safely at the Tribhuvan International Airport and technicians were examining the aircraft, according to Spokesperson at TIA Teknath Sitaula.

Passengers on flight RA-225 bound for Bengaluru reported hearing a loud noise, the Himalayan Times newspaper quoted TIA sources as saying.

The flight took off from TIA at 1:45 pm, before being forced to return to the same airport after the incident.
Dubai, May 28 (AP) The United States and Saudi Arabia called on warring sides in Sudan to extend a cease-fire due to expire Monday.

The Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary force, battling for control of Sudan since mid-April, had agreed last week to the weeklong truce, brokered by the US and the Saudis. However, the cease-fire, like others before it, did not stop the fighting in the capital of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

In a joint statement early Sunday, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia called for an extension of the current truce which expires at 9:45 pm local time Monday.

While imperfect, an extension nonetheless will facilitate the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people, the statement said.

The statement also urged Sudan's military government and the rival Rapid Support Forces to continue negotiations.

The fighting broke out in mid-April between the military and the powerful RSF. Both military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF leader Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo led the 2021 coup that removed the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

The fighting turned Khartoum and the adjacent city of Omdurman into a battleground. The clashes also spread elsewhere in the country, including the war-wracked Darfur region.

The conflict has killed hundreds of people, wounded thousands and pushed the country to near collapse. It forced more than 1.3 million out of their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, or to neighboring nations.

Residents reported renewed sporadic clashes Sunday in parts of Omdurman, where the army's aircraft were seen flying over the city. Fighting was also reported in al-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur.

The U.S.-Saudi statement came two days after Burhan demanded in a letter to the U.N. secretary-general that the U.N. envoy to his country be removed, The U.N. chief was shocked by the letter, a spokesman said.

The envoy, Volker Perthes, has been a key mediator in Sudan, first during the country's fitful attempts to transition to democracy and then during efforts to end the current fighting.

Burhan's letter came after Perthes accused the warring parties of disregarding the laws of war by attacking homes, shops, places of worship and water and electricity installations.

In his briefing to the U.N. Security Council last week, Perthes blamed the leaders of the military and the RSF for the war, saying that they have chosen to settle their unresolved conflict on the battlefield rather than at the table. (AP)



NSA

NSA
Lahore, May 28 (PTI) Pakistan police on Sunday arrested twelve militants, nine of them belonging to the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) outfit, who were planning to target sensitive installations and places of worship in Lahore and other parts of Punjab province.

The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab Police conducted 54 intelligence-based operations in different parts of the Punjab province over the last week.

Subsequently, they arrested twelve militants, of which nine are active members of the TTP, two owed their allegiance to Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and one from the Islamic State (ISIS).

According to the CTD officials, the militants were planning to target sensitive installations and places of worship in Lahore and other parts of Punjab province.

During the operation, the police recovered over 4,000-gm explosives, a suicide jacket, a hand-grenade, eight detonators, twelve-feet safety fuse wire, 9.28 feet of prima card, four pistols, 20 bullets, and banned pamphlets from these militants, they said.

In recent times, Pakistan has been hit by a wave of terrorist activities orchestrated by the TTP.

In November last year, the TTP called off an indefinite ceasefire agreed with the federal government and ordered its militants to carry out attacks on Pakistan's security forces.

On January 30, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up during the afternoon prayers in a mosque in Peshawar, killing 101 people and injuring more than 200 others.

In February, heavily-armed TTP militants stormed the Karachi Police chief's office in Pakistan's most populous city, sparking gunfire that killed three rebels and four others, including two police constables.

The TTP, set up as an umbrella group of several militant outfits in 2007.

The outfit, which is believed to be close to Al-Qaeda, has been blamed for several deadly attacks across Pakistan, including an attack on army headquarters in 2009, assaults on military bases, and the 2008 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.

The TTP has also orchestrated the heinous Army Public School attack in Peshawar in 2014, in which over 130 students were killed.
Warsaw (Poland), May 28 (AP) A group of some 30 migrants seeking asylum, including small children, has been stuck at Poland's border wall with Belarus for three days, Polish human rights activists said on Sunday.

Although the migrants were outside Poland's border wall, activists from Grupa Granica (Border Group) said they were on Polish territory and Belarus was not allowing them to turn back.

In Belarus, they are not safe," activist Marta Staniszewska said.

The Belarusian services, as this group has told us, threaten them that if they return, they will be beaten, or that they will kill them, Staniszewska told The Associated Press.

The migrants say that several among them are sick, one girl has a toothache, and the children have mosquito bites, according to Staniszewska.

A representative of Poland's ombudsman's office visited and talked to the group on Sunday, but later told reporters that the decision about whether to allow them into the country belongs to the Polish Border Guard.

If these persons are indeed within the jurisdiction of the (Polish) Border Guard and declare their willingness to apply for international protection, then .... such applications should be accepted," Maciej Grzeskowiak said.

Last year, Poland put up almost 190 kilometers (117 miles) of tall metal wall intended to stop thousands of migrants from Asia and Africa entering the country from Belarus.

The European Union has accused authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of aiding illegal border crossings in retaliation for EU sanctions. Lukashenko denies encouraging migration to Europe.

Poland's most powerful politician, the head of Poland's right-wing ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said recently that building the wall was a good decision. He said it was protecting Poland and the EU against hostile moves by Belarus and Russia.

Despite the wall, up to 150 migrants of various nationalities, often with Russian visas in their documents, try to cross illegally into Poland each day, according to the Border Guard.

On some occasions, such groups threw stones and sticks from behind the wall at the border guards, but then apparently moved away. It is not possible from Poland's side to determine what happens to the groups. (AP) PY

PY
Rome: A spokesman for the UN migration agency said that nearly 500 migrants who attempted to cross the central Mediterranean have been returned to Libya, two days after aid organisations lost contact with the boat carrying them.

According to Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the UN's International Organisation for Migration, or IOM, Libya is an unsafe port and migrants should never be returned there.

According to him, 485 migrants arrived on Friday at the Benghazi port in Libya.IOM was not given any additional information at this time.Alarm Phone, a company that responds to distress calls from migrant boats, had not heard from the boat since Wednesday morning.

Also Read: Kosovo is urged by NATO to reduce tensions with Serbia

Around 320 kilometres north of Libya and more than 400 kilometres from Malta or Sicily, Italy's southern island, the boat was at that time adrift in rough seas without a functioning engine.

Also Read: Official: One dies in Russia's nighttime airstrike on Kiev, and more than 20 drones are shot down

Alarm Phone claimed they had no connection to the missing boat when the Italian Coast Guard announced on Thursday that 423 and 671 migrants had been saved in two separate operations in Italian search and rescue waters. There was no immediate comment from the Italian coast guard.

A different incident involved 27 migrants being illegally returned to Libya by an oil tanker, according to the German charity SOS Humanity. International humanitarian law prohibits the forcible return of migrants to nations where they may suffer severe mistreatment, and Libya has a long history of migrant abuse.

Also Read:US launches attack near Somalia Shabab attack site

Governments across Europe have adopted a more restrictive stance on immigration, including in Italy, which is currently dealing with a spike in sea arrivals.

Up from about 18,000 in the same period of 2022, there have been more than 47,000 landings so far this year.
Houston, May 28 (PTI) A Florida man has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling charges in a case linked to the discovery last year of a family of four migrants from India found frozen to death just steps from the Canada-US border, according to media reports.

Steve Shand, 48, waived the reading of the indictment before entering the plea via videoconference as part of a brief but long-awaited arraignment in Duluth, Minnesota.

Shand is accused of illegally bringing migrants from India into the US during a frigid January night in 2022, the Grand Forks Herald newspaper reported.

"Not guilty," Shand said when asked by Minnesota magistrate Judge Leo Brisbois how he was pleading to the charges -- one count each of bringing people into the US illegally and of transporting them inside the country.

He was arrested in January 2022 in a remote area of northern Minnesota, where US border agents encountered him with two Indian nationals in a rented passenger van.

Just over the border in Manitoba, approximately 12 metres from the Canada-US border, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) discovered the bodies of four people authorities believe froze to death while trying to slip into the US undetected, The Canadian Press news agency reported.

Relatives have identified the victims as Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife Vaishaliben, 37, and their two children: daughter Vihangi, 11, and three-year-old son Dharmik.

Three persons in India are facing charges in the deaths of the Patel family.

The family of four died from exposure.

Authorities also found five more Indians walking in dangerous conditions along the same road Shand was arrested.

One of them was carrying a backpack containing children's clothes, toys and a diaper that he said belonged to a family of four that got separated from the larger group during their 12-hour overnight odyssey.

Shands faces up to 20 years in prison if he is found guilty.

A jury trial had been scheduled for July 17 in Fergus Falls, but Brisbois -- who has yet to rule on a number of discovery and production motions -- said the final date depends on the trial judge.

Authorities in the US suspect the case is linked to a larger human smuggling operation -- a problem long associated with activity along the southern border with Mexico, but that some Capitol Hill lawmakers say is growing in scope up north.

The US Customs and Border Protection agency reported 11,583 "encounters" with non-Canadian citizens last month at or near the northern border, up from 5,317 in April 2022.

For fiscal 2023, similar encounters already total 76,471, more than the 68,935 recorded during all 12 months of the 2022 fiscal year.

In April this year, 8 people  believed to be two families of Indian and Romanian descent  drowned while trying to cross the St Lawrence River into the United States from Canada illegally.
Thane, May 28 (PTI) The civic body in Maharashtra's Thane city has ordered its officials to immediately evacuate people living in dilapidated buildings, an official said on Sunday.

Thane Municipal Commissioner Abhijit Bangar gave these directions while taking stock of the pre-monsoon preparedness and the status of dangerous buildings in the city on Saturday, he said.



There are at least 86 dangerous buildings falling under category C1 in the city, of which 37 structures have been vacated and 49 are still occupied, the official said.

Apart from this, there were also 192 buildings under C2 category in the city, he said, adding that power and water supply to C1 and C2 buildings will be cut.



The civic chief has said that the corporation will find an alternate accommodation for people living in dilapidated buildings, while those living in unauthorised dangerous buildings they will be accommodated in schools temporarily, the official said.



In case of C2 category buildings, which are yet to be vacated, occupants will be accommodated in transit camps in nearby schools, he said.

Buildings that come under C1 category must be evacuated and demolished immediately, while under C2 category, the buildings are vacated and repairs are undertaken in the dangerous parts of the structure.

At least 2,374 buildings in the city need repair without evacuation, 1,647 structures require minor repairs, the official said.
Kanker, May 27 (PTI) A woman Naxalite was seriously injured in a gun-battle with security personnel in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district, while two jawans of the Border Security Force (BSF) also suffered minor injuries in the face-off, police said on Saturday.



The exchange of fire took place on Friday night in the forests of Urpanjhur village when joint teams of security personnel were out on a search operation, they said.



Acting on inputs about presence of Naxalites, the personnel belonging to BSF's 178th, 47th, 132nd battalions and District Force (DF) had launched a search operation from separate camps in Pakhanjore, Chhotebethiya, Bande, Badgaon and Partapur police station areas on Friday night, they said.



The patrolling team comprising personnel from the 178th battalion of the BSF and the DF that had set out on the search operation from Mendra camp under Partapur police station limits came under firing from Naxalites around 9 pm near Urpanjhur, Inspector General of Police (Bastar Range) Sundarraj P said.



After the gunfight, the security personnel found a woman Naxalite with bullet injuries on her legs at the spot, he said.



One single-shot rifle, a cache of live cartridges of different guns, six pressure cooker improvised explosive device (IED), one solar plate, three bundles of electric wire, batteries, Maoist uniforms, bags, pamphlets, medicines and other material were recovered from the spot, he said.



Constables Vikas Singh and Manlik Ram, belonging to the BSF's 178th battalion, sustained minor injuries in the gunfight and they were provided preliminary treatment at the camp, Kanker Superintendent of Police Shalabh Sinha said, adding that their condition was said to be out of danger.



The injured Naxalite has been identified as Fagni Podiyami, a Local Organisation Squad (LOS) member active under RKB (Rajnandgaon Kanker Border) division of Maoists, the SP said, adding that she was carrying a reward of Rs 1 lakh on her head.



She is the wife of Vinod Gavde, Madanwada Local Organisation Squad (LOS) commander of Maoists, he said.



She has been admitted to Kanker district hospital, he added.



Reinforcement has been sent to the area where the search operation is underway, he added.
Jhargram (WB), May 28 (PTI) Four more people were arrested from West Bengals Jhargram district for their alleged involvement in the attack on senior TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee's convoy and also on the vehicle of state minister Birbaha Hansda, police said on Sunday.

Kurmi Samaj West Bengals president Rajesh Mahato and Adivasi Janajati Kurmi Samaj state chief Shibaji Mahato were among the four, who were initially detained and later arrested in connection with the case, a senior officer of the district police said.

With these arrests, the total number of people apprehended in connection with the attack on Banerjees convoy and Hansdas vehicle became eight.

We have arrested Rajesh Mahato, his brother Rakesh, Shibaji Mahato and Anubhab Mahato in connection with the case. They were produced before a local court, the officer said.

Leader of Opposition and BJP legislator Suvendu Adhikari condemned the arrests and alleged that the ruling TMC was targetting the leaders of Kurmi outfits, which are in no way involved in the attack" on Banerjees convoy.

Adhikari said he would extend all legal assistance to the arrested Kurmi leaders if they approached him.

Hansda's vehicle was vandalised as stones were allegedly hurled at Banerjee's convoy when they were travelling to Gajimul near Lodhasuli after leading a roadshow in Jhargram town on Friday, police said.

Glass particles from the shattered windscreen of the car hit Hansda, and also injured her driver. Some cars and motorcycles that were following them were also damaged in the stone pelting.

Four people, who were arrested on Saturday, were identified as Ajit Mahato, Anit Mahato, Manmohit Mahato and Anup Mahato. The accused were apprehended after hours of questioning. When produced at a court, they were sent to three days in police custody.

Police said the accused dressed as members of Kurmi outfits, tying yellow bands on their foreheads.

Members of the Kurmi community are protesting in the region for weeks, demanding Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

Alleging that the BJP was behind the attack, Banerjee gave a "48-hour ultimatum" to the Kurmi outfits, asking them to clarify if their members were associated with the violence.

Hours before his arrest, Rajesh Mahato had on Saturday claimed that certain persons were trying to tarnish the image of their peaceful protest.
New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) The new Parliament building is a reflection of new India's aspirations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday, asserting that it will pave the way for empowering the poor and marginalised and herald the rise of a "developed India" that will inspire the progress of other nations.

In a speech delivered from the grand and cavernous Lok Sabha hall decorated in peacock motif, Modi said the ultra-modern complex was the "need of the hour" in view of the expected increase in the number of members of Parliament.

Some moments in the developmental journey of a nation get immortalised, today is one such day, Modi said amid repeated thumping of desks by the audience.

"More than just a building, the new Parliament encompasses the aspirations and dreams of 1.4 billion people. It sends a powerful message to the world about India's unwavering determination," he said and hailed the country's democratic ethos.

Modi inaugurated the new building this morning at a grand ceremony which included a havan, a multi-faith prayer ceremony and the installation of the Sengol in a special enclosure in the Lok Sabha chamber.

He later addressed a gathering of MPs and distinguished guests in the newly-built Lok Sabha chamber that saw attendance from about 25 parties. About 20 opposition parties boycotted the event, accusing the prime minister of "sidelining" President Droupadi Murmu.

The new Parliament complex will witness realisation of the 'developed India' pledge and will inspire other nations as well, Modi said.

Soon after he arrived in Lok Sabha amidst chants of 'Modi, Modi', the messages by President Murmu and Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar were read out, while Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairperson Harivansh also addressed the gathering.

In his speech, Modi said that as India develops, the world progresses. He asserted that this new Parliament building will give a call for the development of the world as well.

He also talked about the 'Sengol', saying that it was a symbol of power transfer from the British and had now been given the respect it deserves.

"In the Chola empire, it (Sengol) was considered a symbol of the Kartavya path (path of duty), Seva Path (path of service) and Rashtra path (path of the nation)," Modi said.

The prime minister asserted that India is not only a democratic nation but is also the mother of democracy.

"Our democracy is our inspiration, our Constitution our resolve. Parliament is the best representative of this inspiration and resolution," he said, adding that the new Parliament building was a perfect example of the co-existence of the old and new.

In his remarks, Modi also pointed out that the construction of the new Parliament building gave employment to 60,000 workers and a digital gallery dedicated to them has also been built in the complex.

The building has been completed in about two-and-a-half years at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 1,200 crore.

From building Panchayat buildings to the Parliament complex, "our commitment remains the same", he said as he drew parallels between the grandeur of the new building and the work done by his government at the ground level.

"We have 25 years of 'Amritkaal Khand', together we have to make India a developed nation in this period," Modi said.

Every decision taken in this Parliament will decide the fate of all sections of society and laws made here will help remove poverty and empower the poor and the marginalised sections of society, he said.

"Every decision taken here will lay the foundation of India's glorious future... the way to empower the poor, dalits, backwards, tribals, divyangs and other marginalised section does through here," he said, adding "each brick and wall of this Parliament building should be dedicated to the welfare of the poor".

He said the new Parliament building will be a testament to the dawn of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India).

"It will be a witness to our journey towards a Viksit Bharat (developed India)," Modi said at the event attended by former president Ram Nath Kovind, Chief Ministers Y S Jagan Reddy, Yogi Adityanath, Eknath Shinde and Neiphu Rio, foreign envoys, Parliamentarians and people from different walks of life.

Earlier, dressed in traditional attire, Modi walked into Parliament premises from its Gate No. 1 and was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke divine blessings.

The prime minister prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand.

Modi then carried the Sengol in a procession amid tunes of nadaswaram and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha chamber.

"As the new building of Indias Parliament is inaugurated, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise. May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality. May it propel our great nation to new heights of progress," the prime minister tweeted.

The prime minister felicitated with shawls and souvenirs some of the workers for their key role in the construction of the new Parliament building.

The new Parliament building, constructed by Tata Projects Ltd, will also have a grand Constitution Hall to showcase India's democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space.

The triangular-shaped four-storey building has a built-up area of 64,500 square metres.

The building has three main gates -- Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar. PTI KR/SKU/ASK/BJ ASK RT

RT

RT
New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal on Sunday dubbed the decision of various political parties to boycott of the inauguration of new Parliament building as an example of "cheap politics" and also slammed them for questioning the relevance of 'Sengol'.

The law minister said representatives of several opposition parties who had not supported the boycott call attended the event.

Several Supreme Court judges and those holding constitutional posts also attended the programme in Lok Sabha chamber of the new building, he pointed out.

"We kept on requesting them (to attend). Even senior leaders requested. They ignored our requests and boycotted the event. This is an example of cheap politics," Meghwal told PTI Video.

The minister recalled that when Meira Kumar was the Speaker during the UPA rule, there was a discussion on having a new Parliament building. But the idea was rejected and it was said a call will be taken when the next census takes place.

"Now, delimitation is near. The number of members of Parliament will go up. Where will they sit?" he questioned.

Responding to a question, he said those who boycotted the event will also appreciate the building when they see it, though they may not do so openly due to political compulsions.

He said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was making statements out of political compulsions. He also questioned Congress leaders doubting the role and significance of Sengol sceptre when the British transferred power to India.
Lucknow, May 28 (PTI) Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Sunday congratulated the Centre for the inauguration of the new Parliament building and said it should be used in the interest of the country.

"Congratulations to the Centre on the inauguration of the new Parliament House today. It would be appropriate that this new building should be used in the interest of the country and its people as per the humanitarian thoughts of Babasaheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and the noble intention of the holy Constitution made by him," she said in a Tweet in Hindi.

The former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who had received an invitation for the inauguration ceremony, could not make it to the occasion, citing other commitments.

Earlier on May 25, Mayawati had called the opposition parties' boycott of the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi "unfair" and welcomed the opening.

Nineteen opposition parties, including the Congress, Left, TMC, SP, and AAP, on Wednesday, announced their boycott of the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Modi, saying that they find no value in the new building when the "soul of democracy has been sucked out."
New Delhi, May 28 (PTI) Civic officials on Sunday paid tributes to freedom fighter V D Savarkar by garlanding his statue in Delhi.

Municipal Corporation of Delhi paid a floral tribute to him on his 140th birth anniversary, the MCD said in a statement.

Deputy Commissioner of Central Zone, Angel Bhati garlanded the statue of Savarkar located at Lajpat Nagar at a simple function organised by Community Services Department of the MCD.

On this occasion, Bhati recalled the contributions of the freedom fighter.
Amritsar, May 28 (PTI) The Border Security Force (BSF) shot down a Pakistani drone which arrived in Indian territory at a village near the Indo-Pak border here, officials said on Sunday.

According to an official statement, at around 9.30 pm on Sunday, BSF troops heard the buzzing sound of a drone in village Dhanoe Khurd in Amritsar.

The troops immediately shot down the drone.

"During subsequent searches of the area, BSF troops recovered a drone from the fields of the village," it said.

Meanwhile, the troops also saw three people running towards the village and caught hold of one of the suspects along with a bag containing a narcotics consignment of three packets having a gross weight of 3.4 kg.

An iron hook and four luminous strips were also found attached to the consignment, it said.
New Delhi, May 27 (PTI) The Delhi government has paid Rs 500 crore as the second instalment of its contribution to the construction of the Delhi-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) corridor, officials said on Saturday.

The payment was made from the Environment Compensation Charge (ECC) realised from goods vehicles running on fossil fuels that enter the national capital, a Delhi government officer said.

The Supreme Court had on April 21 directed the Delhi government to contribute Rs 500 crore within 10 days from the ECC fund to the RRTS corridor being constructed to link the capital to Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.

The estimated cost of the 82.15-km semi-high-speed rail corridor is Rs 31,632 crore. The corridor, with 24 stations, will cover the distance from Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi to Modipuram, Meerut in 60 minutes.

So far, the Delhi government has contributed Rs 765 of its total share of Rs 1,180 crore for the first of the three RRTS corridors connecting the national capital to destinations in neighbouring states, according to officials.

The other two proposed RRTS corridors will connect Delhi to Alwar and Panipat in Haryana.

The semi-high-speed regional rail service has been named 'RAPIDX' by the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC), which is a joint venture company of the Centre with Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh governments.
Washington: According to reports on Saturday, the United States carried out an airstrike in Somalia that destroyed stolen Al-Shabab weapons and equipment close to an African Union military base that had been attacked by the organisation.

When it was raided on Friday, the base in Bulo Marer, 120 kilometres (75 miles) southwest of the capital Mogadishu, was housing Ugandan troops. The attack was claimed by the jihadist group with ties to Al-Qaeda.

US Africa Command issued a statement in which it claimed to have "destroyed weapons and equipment unlawfully taken by Al-Shabab fighters," but did not say when or where the theft occurred.

Also Read:Watch! American Lawmakers to unveil Taiwan war to-do list

In support of the Somali federal government and the AU force known as ATMIS, "US Africa Command conducted an airstrike against militants in the vicinity" of Bulo Marer on Friday, the statement said.

Locals and a Somali military commander told AFP that al-Shabab militants attacked the base with an explosives-packed car, starting a firefight.If there were any casualties from the Al-Shabab attack, it was not immediately known.

Also Read: The Shahbaz government itself had got the military bases attacked! Military Intelligence told what was its purpose?

According to the US Africa Command, "initial assessment is that no civilians were injured or killed" during the operation. An offensive against Al-Shabab, which has been waging an insurgency in the fragile Horn of Africa nation for more than 15 years, was launched last August by pro-government forces supported by ATMIS forces.

Also Read: AI-powered drone swarms are tested by the anti-China bloc

Compared to AMISOM, the 20,000-strong ATMIS force's mandate is more offensive. Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and other nations are represented in the force, which is stationed in southern and central Somalia.

By 2024, it hopes to transfer control of security to Somalia's army and police.
The European Union has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change and the protection of nature for years
Lawsuit brought by man who said he was abused by Catholic bishop settled

A lawsuit brought by a former altar boy who said he was raped as a child in the 1960s by a now-deceased Roman Catholic bishop has been settled




Virgin Galactic completed whats expected to be its final test flight Thursday before taking paying customers on brief trips to space.

Six of the companys employees, including two pilots, landed at Spaceport America in southern New Mexico after the short up-and-down flight that included a few minutes of weightlessness. It took about an hour for the mother ship to carry the spaceplane to an altitude of 44,500 feet (13,563 meters), where it was released and fired its rocket motor to make the final push.

Successful boost, WE HAVE REACHED SPACE! Virgin Galactic tweeted.

It reached an altitude of 54.2 miles (87 kilometers) before gliding back down to the runway, according to the company.

The flight came nearly two years after founder Richard Branson beat fellow billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and rocket company Blue Origin into space. Bezos ended up flying nine days later from West Texas and Blue Origin has since launched several passenger trips. Federal aviation authorities banned Virgin Galactic launches after Bransons flight to investigate a mishap.

Virgin Galactic has been working for more than a decade to send paying passengers on short space hops and in 2021 finally won the federal governments approval.

The initial commercial flight expected later this year will include members of the Italian Air Force who will conduct experiments. Next will come customers who purchased tickets years ago for their chance at weightlessness aboard a winged spacecraft that launches from the belly of an airplane.

About 800 tickets have been sold over the past decade, with the initial batch going for $200,000 each. Tickets now cost $450,000 per person.

Virgin Galactic has reached space five times since 2018 and will be aiming for 400 flights per year from Spaceport America once it finishes building its next class of rocket-powered planes at a facility in neighboring Arizona.

After Bransons trip, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded flights as it investigated a problem that caused the rocket ship to veer off course during its descent back to its runway in the New Mexico desert. Virgin Galactic insisted at the time that Branson and others were never in any danger.

The company made changes to its carrier airplane and the spaceplane. The delay was nearly twice as long as expected, partly due to supply chain issues and labor shortages.

(AP)




The Taliban and Iran exchanged heavy gunfire Saturday on the Islamic Republics border with Afghanistan, killing and wounding troops while sharply escalating rising tensions between the two countries amid a dispute over water rights.

Irans state-run IRNA news agency quoted the countrys deputy police chief, Gen. Qassem Rezaei, accusing the Taliban of opening fire first Saturday morning on the border of Irans Sistan and Baluchestan province and the Afghan province of Nimroz. IRNA said Iran inflicted heavy casualties and serious damage.

From the Talibans view, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafi Takor accused Iran of shooting first. Takor said the firefight killed two people, one from each country, and wounded others. He described the situation as now being under control.

IRNA, quoting Iranian police, said two border guards had been killed. However, that number may be higher. The semiofficial, English-language newspaper Tehran Times said the fighting killed three Iranian border guards. IRNA said the Milak border crossing with Afghanistan, a major trade route, was closed until further notice over the gunfight.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers dialogue to be a reasonable way for any problem, Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khawarazmi said in a statement. Making excuses for war and negative actions is not in the interest of any of the parties.

The advocacy group HalVash, which reports on issues affecting the Baluch people in the predominately Sunni province of Sistan and Baluchestan, quoted residents in the area saying the fighting took place near the Kang district of Nimroz. It said some people in the area had fled the violence.

Videos posted online, purportedly from the area, included the crackle of machine gun fire in the distance. HalVash later posted an image of what appeared to be the remains of a mortar round, saying that heavy weapons and mortars are being used.

Later videos from HalVash purported to show Iranian forces firing a mortar, as well as Taliban troops firing American-made machine guns at an Iranian border post. Other Taliban fighters drove armored vehicles likely left behind by NATO forces.

Iran vowed not let the Taliban attack stand.

The border forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will decisively respond to any border trespassing and aggression, and the current authorities of Afghanistan must be held accountable for their unmeasured and contrary actions to international principles, IRNA quoted Irans police chief, Gen. Ahmadreza Radan, as saying.

The clash comes as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi earlier this month warned the Taliban not to violate Irans water rights to the Helmand River. Raisis remarks represented some of the strongest yet over the long-running concerns about water in Iran.

Drought has been a problem in Iran for some 30 years, but has worsened over the past decade, according to the U.N.s Food and Agriculture Organization. The Iran Meteorological Organization says that an estimated 97% of the country now faces some level of drought.

The Taliban seized Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war. In the time since, Afghanistan has become the most repressive in the world for women and girls, depriving them of virtually all their basic rights, according to the U.N. Hunger remains endemic.

While not directly accepting the Taliban government, Iran has maintained relations with Afghanistans new rulers. Tehran also has called on the Taliban to allow women and girls to go to school.

Earlier on Saturday, the Talibans Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi met with an Iranian envoy to Afghanistan to discuss the Helmand River water rights, according to tweets from Afghan Foreign Ministry official Zia Ahmad. IRNA acknowledged the meeting, saying that issues between the two countries will be better resolved through dialogue.

But tensions have otherwise been rising. Another video posted online in recent days purportedly showed a standoff with Iranian forces and the Taliban as Iranian construction workers tried to reinforce the border between the two countries.

In recent days, pro-Taliban accounts online also have been sharing a video with a song calling on the acting defense minister, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, to stand up to Iran. Mullah Yaqoob is the son of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Talibans late founder and first supreme leader.

We are a government, we have power, the song goes. Our leader Mullah Yaqoob will stand against Iran or we are not the republics government. We are not slaves, our leader Mullah Yaqoob will stand against Iran.

(AP)




Taiwans Defense Ministry said Saturday that it detected three Chinese warships, including the Shandong aircraft carrier, passing through the Taiwan Strait, as Beijing keeps up pressure on the self-ruled island it claims as its own.

The ministry said it was monitoring the movements of the ships and will respond accordingly. In a tweet, the ministry said that the three vessels were headed north along the Taiwan Strait at noon and were steering along the west of the median line  an unofficial boundary once tacitly accepted by both sides.

China has stepped up its military activities around Taiwan in recent months amid deteriorating U.S.-China ties.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory to be brought under its control by force if necessary and regularly sends ships and warplanes into airspace and waters near the island.

The ministry also said that in the 24 hours from 6 a.m. Friday to Saturday, it detected 33 of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army aircraft and 10 navy vessels around Taiwan. Twelve of the aircraft had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or entered the islands air defense identification zone.

In response, Taiwans armed forces deployed aircraft, navy vessels and land-based missile systems.

In April, the Chinese military said it was ready to fight after completing three days of large-scale combat exercises around Taiwan that simulated sealing off the island in response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wens trip to the U.S.

Last August, China intensified war games around Taiwan, with missile firings and incursions into Taiwanese waters and airspace following then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosis visit to Taipei.

(AP)




Following years of legal wrangling, Rabbi Osher Eisemann, the founder of Lakewoods School for Children with Hidden Intelligence (SCHI) has been granted a new trial after prosecutors appeal was denied on Friday morning.

Rabbi Eisemann had been convicted on money laundering and official misconduct after prosecutors convinced a jury that a SCHI QuickBooks entry showed him illegally writing down a loan given to him by the school.

However, prosecutors failed to interview the bookkeeper who made that entry and failed to disclose her identity to the defense team  a violation of the Brady Rule.

After Rabbi Eisemanns conviction, the defense team managed to ascertain who the bookkeeper was, who then provided sworn testimony that the QuickBooks entry had nothing to do with a loan, but was rather a way to balance the books, which were not being kept in tip-top shape.

Based on this explosive new evidence, Judge Joseph Paone threw out Rabbi Eisemanns convictions and ordered a new trial. The prosecution appealed, arguing that they were not required to turn over the identity of the bookkeeper to the defense team.

An appeals court on Friday morning unanimously disagreed with the prosecution and accused the prosecutors of violating the Brady Rule.

The appeals courts ruling means that Rabbi Eisemann is now a free man, while prosecutors have to decide whether to charge him again  this time against the compelling evidence of the bookkeeper who made the entry they solely relied on to convict him.

THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED ON LAKEWOOD ALERTS STATUS

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(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)




President Biden received a jolt of reality from a recent CNN poll, as a staggering 66% of Americans said that a Biden victory in the upcoming presidential election would be either a disaster or a setback for the United States.

Reacting to the poll, CNN anchor Jake Tapper described the results as horrible news for Joe Biden. Tapper further commented on the poll numbers, acknowledging the severity of the situation. CNN political director David Challian provided analysis, revealing that 41% of Americans specifically referred to a Biden win as a disaster, slightly better than the 44% who held the same sentiment regarding former President Trump. However, 26% of Americans considered a Biden win a setback, compared to just 12% who said the same about a Trump victory.

Challian highlighted that Trumps hardcore supporters displayed a stronger devotion to him compared to Bidens hardcore supporters. The poll showed that both candidates were tied at 27% among those who viewed their wins as a step forward, but Trump held a ten-point lead over Biden among those who considered it a triumph. Tapper noted that most Americans viewed electing either Biden or Trump as a disaster or setback, indicating a lack of enthusiasm for both frontrunners.

President Bidens approval rating stood at a mere 35% in the CNN poll, a remarkably low figure according to Challian. Breaking down the data by party, it revealed that Biden had 79% support among Democrats, but only 26% of independents approved, representing a nine-point drop since December. In comparison, Trump held a slightly higher overall approval rating of 37%.

The poll also highlighted the challenges Biden faced from his Democratic primary challengers. While Biden himself received 60% support, a surprising 20% expressed their support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with 8% backing former 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, and an additional 8% favoring another candidate. Among Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents, 67% of party loyalists backed Biden, while only 40% of leaning independents did the same. Challian viewed RFK Jr.s support as a potential warning sign, with 32% of leaning Americans supporting him compared to only 15% of party loyalists.

A previous Fox News poll from last month displayed a similar landscape within the Democratic field. Biden received 62% support among primary voters, while RFK Jr. garnered 19% and Williamson secured 9% of support.

These polls consistently reveal low enthusiasm for President Biden, with a significant percentage of Americans expressing concerns about his age, even among Democrats. The data raises serious questions about Bidens chances for a successful reelection bid in 2024.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)




Researchers from MIT and McMaster University have harnessed the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to uncover a groundbreaking drug that shows potential in fighting drug-resistant infections. Through the implementation of a machine-learning algorithm, the team successfully identified an antibiotic capable of eradicating Acinetobacter baumannii, a bacterial strain responsible for numerous drug-resistant infections, including pneumonia, meningitis, and other severe ailments. This breakthrough could mark a significant turning point in the battle against antibiotic resistance.

Acinetobacter baumannii is a pervasive species of bacteria frequently found in hospital environments, posing a threat to both patients and healthcare workers. Additionally, it is a leading cause of infections among injured soldiers in conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent years, the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has outpaced the development of new antibiotics, intensifying the need for innovative solutions to combat these resilient pathogens.

MIT announced that their researchers employed a machine-learning model to analyze a catalog comprising approximately 7,000 potential drug compounds. The model was trained to evaluate each chemical compounds efficacy in inhibiting the growth of Acinetobacter baumannii. To obtain training data for the model, the scientists exposed the bacteria to roughly 7,500 distinct chemical compounds in a laboratory setting, observing their effects on inhibiting microbial growth. The model was then fed the molecular structures of each compound, enabling it to distinguish between structures that could effectively suppress bacterial growth.

After training, the model was deployed to analyze a separate set of 6,680 compounds that it had not encountered previously. Through rigorous experimentation, the researchers narrowed down the candidates to 240 hits, focusing on compounds with unique structures, distinct from existing antibiotics and the training data molecules. Following further testing, nine antibiotics emerged, including one that exhibited exceptional potency.

Remarkably, the antibiotic compound that stood out was initially explored for its potential as a diabetes drug. Researchers named the compound abaucin, and subsequent studies conducted on mice showcased its efficacy in treating wound infections caused by Acinetobacter baumannii. Lab tests also demonstrated its effectiveness against various drug-resistant strains of the bacteria isolated from human patients. Furthermore, additional experiments revealed that abaucin works by disrupting the process of lipoprotein trafficking, which is vital for protein transportation from the cells interior to its envelope.

The narrow spectrum of abaucins killing ability is regarded as a desirable trait, as it reduces the risk of bacteria rapidly developing resistance to the drug. Moreover, it is expected to spare the beneficial bacteria residing in the human gut, which play a crucial role in suppressing opportunistic infections.

Currently, a laboratory at McMaster University is dedicated to optimizing the medicinal properties of abaucin, with the ultimate goal of developing it for clinical use. Additionally, the authors of the study intend to employ their modeling approach to identify potential antibiotics for combating other types of drug-resistant infections.

The remarkable findings of this research were published on Thursday in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, shedding light on the immense potential of artificial intelligence in revolutionizing the search for new antibiotics to combat drug-resistant bacteria.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)




Pfizer received full approval on Thursday for its COVID-19 pill Paxlovid thats been the go-to treatment against the coronavirus.

More than 11 million prescriptions for Paxlovid have been dispensed since the Food and Drug Administration allowed emergency use in late 2021. The emergency status was based on early studies and was intended to be temporary pending follow-up research.

The FDA granted full approval for adults with COVID-19 who face high risks of severe disease, which can lead to hospitalization or death. That group typically includes older adults and those with common medical conditions like diabetes, asthma and obesity.

The decision allows Pfizers drug to remain on the market indefinitely and to be marketed similarly to other drugs.

The pill is still available for children ages 12 to 17 under a separate emergency authorization.

The U.S. government has stockpiled millions of doses of Paxlovid and patients will continue to receive it at no charge, the FDA said in a statement. More than 14,000 new COVID-19 cases were reported each week last month, although most U.S. cases are no longer reported to health authorities.

Paxlovid is the fourth drug for COVID-19 to receive full FDA approval and the first one that is a pill. The previously approved therapies are IV or injectable drugs, typically given at clinics or hospitals.

Pfizer originally studied Paxlovid in the highest-risk COVID-19 patients: unvaccinated adults with other health problems and no evidence of prior coronavirus infection. In that group, the FDA said the drug lowered the risk of hospitalization or death by 86% when given shortly after symptoms emerged.

But that doesnt reflect the U.S. population today, where more than 95% of people have protection from at least one vaccine dose, a prior infection or both.

In more recent studies of people who have had COVID-19, Paxlovid still significantly decreased the chance of hospitalization or death by more than 85%.

As Paxlovid became widely used in 2021, doctors and patients reported cases of COVID-19 symptoms returning several days after treatment with the drug. But the FDA said Thursday there is not a clear association, between Pfizers drug and rebound cases.

That conclusion was backed by an independent panel of FDA advisers, who voted to recommend the drugs full approval at a meeting earlier this year.

(AP)
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Hayden Cheng, 5, plays in a gym as physical therapist Alex Meeske watches at Chicago Pediatric Therapy & Wellness Center on May 17, 2023, in Chicago. Hayden was diagnosed with a rare genetic mutation called SynGAP1, which has delayed her speech and motor skill development. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

Five years ago, Hayden Cheng entered the world following a normal pregnancy and birth. Then her mom, Minnie Zhou, noticed her child wasnt sleeping as a newborn should.

You know how people say, Sleep when the baby sleeps? My baby wasnt sleeping, and Im exhausted, said Zhou, a certified registered nurse anesthetist at University of Illinois College of Medicine. It wasnt like she was fussy; she was happy. It was a constant struggle until she was about 7 months old. Then we noticed that she wasnt flipping over. She wasnt hitting her developmental milestones. It felt like something was not right.

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A visit to the pediatrician had Zhou, a resident of the North Park neighborhood, requesting physical therapy for her only child. Despite one-hour sessions, progress wasnt being made. Haydens pediatrician suggested a visit to a neurologist when she was 9 months old. Genetic testing found that she had a mutation of her SynGAP1 gene  a gene that produces a protein that helps regulate the brains synapses, or pathways where neurons communicate with each other. Haydens genes dont make enough of the protein.

According to Dr. Chalongchai Phitsanuwong, Haydens neurologist and University of Chicago Comer Childrens Hospitals Child Neurology Residency Training Program director, SynGAP1, aka synaptic RAS GTPase activating protein, is a gene that, when mutated, loses its function, and can cause a variety of symptoms like low muscle tone, sleep and behavior disorders, and motor skill and speech delays. The disorder is rare, said Phitsanuwong, and connected to intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder and epilepsy.

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According to the SynGAP Research Fund, there are 1,215 people with the disorder in the world. Phitsanuwong has a few clients with the condition, including Hayden. He said that because of his interest is in epilepsy genetics, he may have seen more of these cases than the average child neurologist.

Hayden Cheng, 5, readies to swing on a bar with help from registered behavioral therapist Jessie Smith at Chicago Pediatric Therapy & Wellness Center on May 17, 2023. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

Hayden was diagnosed at 19 months. Seizures developed around the age of 2. On good days, Hayden has fewer than 10 seizures (evident by a fluttering of her eyelids), Zhou said. And while Hayden can say mama and papa, and recognize and enunciate letters of the alphabet, Zhou said its still difficult for her child to say words with more than one syllable consistently.

Hayden also uses an iPad and sign language to communicate. Her favorite button on the device is one with her picture on it. Press it and it says, Hi, my name is Hayden! Hayden also struggles with eating and drinking because she has a sensory processing issue.

With food, even if it tastes good to us, it doesnt necessarily taste the same way to her, Zhou said. She has a lot of issues with hydrating. Every day getting enough liquid in her has always been a struggle. Haydens parents have to be extra careful when feeding her so she doesnt aspirate and accidentally get liquid or food in her lungs.

Phitsanuwong said the severity of patients SynGAP1 symptoms dictates who will require assistance and how much. For instance, Hayden sees several therapists weekly for speech and occupational therapy, and sees Alex Meeske for physical therapy. Zhou said Hayden will soon start a combination of feeding and swallowing therapy.

Seventy percent of patients with SynGAP1 encephalopathy have eating difficulty and have what we call hypotonia, or low muscle tone, Phitsanuwong said. When you have low muscle tone and problems to coordinate your swallowing function, its going to be hard for you to eat and swallow without aspiration. Thats why many patients with this condition might end up with a feeding tube to avoid the problem with aspiration or choking on their food.

Hayden is on anti-seizure medication that has helped with her sleep and Zhou said it has also helped Hayden with cognition and development. Phitsanuwong said that although seizures might negativelyaffect development, getting the seizures controlled by medication can sometimes help with development.

The medication itself is to control the seizure, not really to improve the development, he said. But the development might be improving because the seizure is better controlled from the medication.

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Zhou said Haydens development has increased exponentially since starting the anti-seizure meds. Hayden started walking a few weeks after she took the medication, and as for her sleep, gone are the days where she would wake up at 3 a.m. and not go back to sleep until 6 a.m.

We were just struggling as a family, Zhou said. But ever since then, shes been sleeping well and even if she wakes up, she stays in her bed and she can put herself back to sleep.

Meeske, a physical therapist at Chicago Pediatric Therapy & Wellness Center, has been working with Hayden since she was 10 months old. With the help of a walker, Hayden began walking at about 2 years old. Since then, Meeske said, the girl, who loves to swim, has been pushing toward developmental milestones. She wears orthotics to help with her foot and ankle alignment, but thats really the only assistance she needs right now. Hayden can jump, climb a rock wall and do a somersault.

She is such a joy. ... She has the best laugh youve ever heard, Meeske said. She loves messy play  if you give her some shaving cream or something like that, shes all over it. Every time she does a somersault, she stands up to look to make sure that we saw it.

Meeske, who sees Hayden once a week, credits Haydens support system with her growth, from medical professionals to family. Meeske said Zhou has been an amazing force for Hayden and a great advocate for others with SynGAP1. Meeske said she makes it a point to be all over mom groups on social media, meeting up with other families dealing with SynGAP1 to ask, Whats your experience? Lets talk about it.

There are various resources/support groups in the city, Zhou said. For example, NPN Developmental Difference Support Group is a group of resourceful parents caring for children with special needs. Find your village. No one needs to do it alone.

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Meeske didnt know what SynGAP1 was until Hayden came into her life. She said treating a health condition without knowing about it is pretty common in her field.

We get a lot of kids who are one in a million, so having a very rare genetic disorder that maybe you wont see again in your career, maybe youve only seen one other time is not an unusual thing for us, she said. What we do is assess and treat whats in front of us. Hayden came to me, and she wasnt crawling and I took what was in front of me ... the things I saw, and we got her there.

Phitsanuwong and Meeske dont really know exactly what SynGAP1 looks like throughout ones life span because the gene mutation is so rare.

The mutation is a genetic accident that occurs during conception. Phitsanuwong said the disorder is not caused by anything the parents did or did not do during the pregnancy or during conception. Its just something that one is born with.

Although there is genetic testing for SynGAP1, Phitsanuwong said that because of its rarity, testing is not recommended for everybody. But testing will not cause any changes to the pregnancy or harm the mother. Haydens parents dont have the gene mutation. But if Hayden were to have a child, there would be a 50% chance she could pass on the gene mutation.

Although genetic disorders seem like its something inherited, all the SynGAP1 weve known so far is a new mutation, meaning the parents dont carry the mutation, but it just happened to the child, Phitsanuwong said. He said that if parents seeany of the symptoms described here, pediatricians would refer patients to pediatric neurologists. He suggests reading sites like syngap1foundation.org and bit.ly/SynGAP1info for more information.

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Zhou said she knows its hard for parents to have a child with unknown developmental issues. Shes adamant about trusting your instincts and pushing until you find that specialist or test that will give you answers. Seek out affordable genetic panel testing, she said. Getting an early intervention evaluation does not require a doctors order.

Dont wait and watch like your pediatrician suggests, she said. Instead, get a referral to a neurologist or geneticist. And if your kid has epilepsy or something similar, and no one is listening to you, a trip to the ER for an electroencephalogram or EEG  a medical test used to measure the electrical activity of the brain  may be in order, Zhou said.

Coming from a family of Chinese immigrants, Zhou said she understands how cultural mores can keep parents and individuals from sharing their stories outside of their family circle, but she wants to change that. Thats why she is adamant about sharing Haydens story.

I felt as if it is not something that we do in our culture, talk about children with disabilities and our daily struggles, Zhou said. We remained private and didnt really talk about it. But weve grown with Hayden and our mindset has changed quite a bit living with this disorder. We owe it to her to raise awareness of our struggle and to celebrate her triumphs and her successes and our hope for the future.

drockett@chicagotribune.com
Czech citizen sets up Wagner Group flag outside her house, prompting police investigation 28 May, 04:30 PM Czech citizen sets up Wagner Group flag outside her house, prompting police investigation (Photo:Lucie Brichtova/Facebook)

A Czech Republic resident has sparked outrage by displaying outside her home a flag of the Wagner private military company, whose mercenaries are currently engaged in war crimes against Ukraine as part of Russias occupying forces, Czech Radio reported on May 27.

Lucie Brychtova, a Czech citizen, proudly exhibited the flag of the war criminals on her private property, even sharing a photo of it on her Facebook page.

The womans social media posts clearly demonstrate her support for the Russian world ideology and the fictitious entity known as Novorossiya.

Video of day

The police have initiated an investigation into this incident.

David Chaloupka, spokesperson for the Czech police, confirmed the ongoing investigation, stating, The police are aware of this case. An investigation is underway. However, premature comments are not appropriate at this time.

Wagner mercenaries have been actively involved in the conflict in Ukraine since 2014, fighting against the Ukrainian army under Russias full-scale invasion.

Established in 2014 by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the Wagner private military company is reported to receive monthly funding exceeding $100 million from Prigozhin for its operations in Ukraine.

Apart from Ukraine, Wagner PMC mercenaries have reportedly been deployed to other regions, including Syria, Mali, and the Central African Republic.

Recruiters have largely targeted prisoners serving sentences for serious crimes such as murder, grievous bodily harm, robbery, and burglary.

Since the beginning of this year, many Wagner PMC mercenaries have been eliminated in the Battle of Bakhmut.

The recent U.S. assessment of 100,000 Russian losses  including killed and wounded in action, along with deserters and surrendered troops  remains an accurate reflection of the price Moscow has paid in Bakhmut, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said at a press briefing on May 24.

Wagner PMC is under sanctions from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union.

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A terrorist armed with a knife was shot and eliminated on Shavuos morning after infiltrating the Jewish yishuv of Teneh Omarim in the southern Chevron Hills and attempting to carry out a stabbing attack.

After entering the yishuv, the terrorist found the shul where he tried to stab mispallelim. One of them, a member of the yishuvs security squad, immediately shot the terrorist and thwarted the attack. BChasdei Hashem, no Jews were injured during the incident.

The terrorists death was confirmed at the scene.

Footage from the security camera at the yishuvs gate shows the terrorist crawling under the gate and entering the yishuv.

(YWN Israel Desk  Jerusalem)
The Government has agreed to enshrine in law a requirement for banks to provide customers with convenient free access to cash on the high street.

The move comes against a backdrop of hundreds of bank branch closures since the start of last year  and a steep long-term decline in the number of free-to-use cash machines.

Reduced access to cash or a bank makes it difficult for cash-dependent people  especially the elderly  to go about their everyday lives, whether doing their banking or shopping.

The step represents a big victory for the MoS, which has championed the right of consumers to have nationwide access to cash. We have fiercely campaigned against bank closures, especially when they turn a community into a banking desert.

We have also been instrumental in banks agreeing to fund new-style banking hubs in communities which have lost their last bank. These hubs provide banking services for all customers  business and personal  of the country's biggest banks.

Cash in hand: Reduced access to cash or a bank makes it difficult for cash-dependent people to go about their everyday lives, whether doing their banking or shopping

'Well done MoS,' said Baroness Ros Altmann on Friday. It was Altmann, prompted by consumer group Which?, who persuaded the Government to toughen up legislation passing through Parliament, paving the way for 'minimum levels of free access to cash'. She was backed by Life Peers from all three main political parties.

Although the amendment to the Financial Services And Markets Bill is unlikely to stem bank branch and ATM closures, it should mean that every high street will now allow consumers to withdraw cash for free. This is likely to be through a free-to-use ATM, bank branch, hub, Post Office or even a cashback service provided by a local retailer.

'It is great news and about time there was recognition of the role played by cash in many people's lives,' says Altmann.

Government figures confirm that more than two million over-70s do not access the internet. This means they cannot do banking online and are reliant on the high street.

Over the last 15 months, the big banks have shut or announced their intention to close almost 900 branches, bringing the number left to around 5,000.

Although the number of free-to-use ATMs only fell by four per cent last year, more than 15,000 cash machines have been removed from high streets over the past five years.

Which? says that without Altmann's amendment, the objective of the new legislation  protecting access to cash  would have been undermined as swathes of free-to-use ATMs were either shut or replaced with fee-charging machines.

Victory: Campaigner Ros Altmann

It adds: 'Free access to cash is important for those on lower incomes as some fee-charging ATMs levy fees of up to 2.'

Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at Which?, says: 'Whether it's to buy everyday essentials or to keep track of spending during the cost-of-living crisis, cash is important for millions of consumers.

'With bank branches and ATMs closing at a rapid rate, those who are not yet ready or able to make the switch to digital payments must not be left behind. We have campaigned to ensure that laws protect free access to cash and are delighted the Government agrees that people should not have to pay fees to access their own money.'

John Howells, chief executive of cash machine network Link, agrees. He believes the toughening up of the legislation represents a big step forward.

Link has already had to protect 3,400 free-to-use cash machines that would have been shut. In a deal with the banks, it has recommended more than 100 banking hubs in communities where all branches have been axed.

The task of opening them is in the hands of Cash Access UK, funded by the banks. So far only a handful have opened, the latest in Troon, South Ayrshire.

Howells says: 'At least five million people rely on cash and although its use is declining, we must protect access to it.'

Tulip Siddiq, Shadow City Minister, said: 'If the Government is serious about ensuring no one is cut off from the services they need, it must go further and adopt Labour's policy to protect face-to-face banking services.'
Fallen star: Neil Woodford's 3.4billion Equity Income fund was suspended after its performance dipped

This Saturday will mark the fourth anniversary of the suspension of high-profile investment fund Woodford Equity Income, run by Neil Woodford. The fund was suspended because it didn't have sufficient cash to meet the flood of redemption requests from investors as its performance dipped alarmingly.

It will be a far from happy occasion for the 300,000 plus investors who have been patiently waiting to be compensated for the losses they suffered as the 3.4 billion fund  awash with illiquid assets  was subsequently broken up and the holdings (most of them) sold off.

Although the Financial Conduct Authority has hardly covered itself in glory with its probe into the circumstances behind the fund's shuttering, there is now a whiff of compensation on the horizon. But it's far from certain. In a deal struck with Link Group  the owner of the business whose role was to ensure Neil Woodford stayed on the straight and narrow  compensation of up to 235 million could be paid to investors.

Yet it's not a slam dunk, there are many hurdles to clear, and, as the FCA said last month, it will still leave Equity Income investors with losses of at least 23 pence in the pound.

One investor who has taken a keen interest in the Woodford debacle from day one told me last week that he would be amazed if anything like 235 million comes back to investors.

He also believes the regulator has not devoted enough resource to holding to account other organisations involved in the Woodford debacle  namely, investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown which recommended Equity Income as a best buy right up until it was suspended; and, of course, Neil Woodford and for that matter, the FCA itself.

(In the regulator's defence, it has said its investigations into 'other parties' is continuing and that it will 'consider any further failings which may have negatively impacted investors'.)

The investor says he is not holding his breath waiting for the FCA to conclude matters. His view is that someone like Dame Elizabeth Gloster should be brought in to sort out the mess. It was Dame Gloster who was asked to investigate the FCA's regulation of investment bond issuer London Capital & Finance which collapsed in 2019 owing more than 240 million to 14,000 investors. Following her work, which took 18 months to complete, compensation was promptly paid to those caught up in the financial scandal.

Woodford investors deserve compensation soonest. They've waited far too long. If the FCA can't get it over the line, a mover and a shaker like Dame Gloster should be asked to bring it about.

Customers come first in equity release reforms

THE equity release industry has fought hard to clean up its act and make itself consumer-friendly. It has made a good job of it, although the cleaning-up is far from finished.

Equity release is aimed at the over-55s who want to extract cash from the value of their home (asset rich, income poor). It involves the taking-out of a fixed-rate, interest-only mortgage, but unlike a conventional home loan, interest is rolled up into the debt rather than paid by the customer every month. The loan is cleared by the sale of the home when the planholder dies or goes into care  with the equity release provider guaranteeing to take the hit if there is any negative equity.

Though plans now allow partial payments of interest to be made  mitigating the impact of rolled-up interest increasing the size of the outstanding loan  equity release customers need particular looking after. The Equity Release Council, the industry's trade association, acknowledges this. It has just reminded plan providers and equity release advisers of their lifetime responsibilities to customers.

With new consumer duty rules being introduced across the financial services industry by the City regulator, the council is keen to ensure its industry meets them. So it wants customers to be treated royally from the time they buy a plan through to when they die  with key information made available at key moments in their equity release journey.

For example, this should happen when a loved one dies, leaving a surviving partner with a plan that maybe they don't understand. I trust plan providers and advisers take on board what the council says. Customers must come first.

Hats off to scam-buster

Scam-buster: Doug Brodie

Hats off to Doug Brodie, founder of retirement income planning specialist Chancery Lane, who is earning himself a reputation for being a mighty fine scam-buster.

The latest scammers to be targeted by Brodie were those peddling an NHS five-year, fixed-rate bond paying six per cent interest.

Emailed from mail@nhsinvest.uk, the offer said investors could 'earn a steady income stream while also contributing to the well-being of the UK population'.

Utter lies. Brodie immediately contacted the company that provided the fraudsters with the email address and within hours it had agreed to 'terminate' the client's account.

If only the Financial Conduct Authority were as effective in making life difficult for fraudsters.

It's a clean sweep from Newbury

IN recent weeks, I have detailed the steady withdrawal of banking facilities from my home town of Wokingham in Berkshire. In doing so, I have been unkind to one sturdy financial remainer: building society Newbury.

My apologies to Newbury  and thank you to local chimney sweep Paul Clarke (Sootbusters of Berkshire) for correcting my error.

While NatWest and Santander have already given up the ghost in thriving Wokingham  and Barclays is about to  Newbury continues to wave the flag.

Although it doesn't offer a current account and won't be paying windfalls any time soon, Newbury's savings accounts are worth more than a cursory glance. They can be operated by post, online and via its branches located in Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.

A number of its accounts are eye-catching, especially the Senior Saver for over-55s which pays 3.05 per cent interest  and a Junior Isa, paying 3.65 per cent.

If Charlotte Hall and Justine Ransom, the society's branch managers in Wokingham, are anything to go by, you will also be greeted with a friendly smile too when using its services.

Paul and his wife are recent Newbury converts and they have been impressed with its service. 'We even get passbooks,' he exclaimed, 'and the society is really involved in the community.'

So, a big shout-out to all those low-key building societies up and down the country which serve with distinction. And if you live in Berkshire and need your chimney sweeping, Paul is your man (sootbusters.org.uk).

Monthly savings usually good for financial health

I'm a big advocate of monthly investing. It's a great way to fund a pension or a tax-friendly Individual Savings Account without denuding your finances. Investment specialist Fidelity International has just produced some numbers that prove the worth of this gently-gently investment approach.

Assuming someone invests 69 a month into an Isa which enjoys an annual investment return of 3.9 per cent, Fidelity says it would be worth 25,106 at the end of 20 years. Along the way, they would have made contributions totalling 16,560. Of course, the numbers are illustrative but they do confirm that monthly investing is usually good for your financial health. Gently does it.
A powerful accountancy body accused of blocking reform of the crisis-hit industry has been accused of 'hoarding' cash from a series of major auditing scandals.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) has amassed 127 million in penalties levied on firms for bungled audits.

But a study by Prof Richard Murphy of Sheffield University into its accounts accuses the body of lacking transparency and failing to use the money to clean up the industry.

The ICAEW stands accused of acting as cheerleader for big auditors despite scandals such as the high-profile collapse of BHS and Carillion.

Murphy said: 'The worse the conduct of its members, the richer it becomes. Its charter says it must use this money 'in the public interest', but it seems to be hoarding it.

Pointing the finger: The ICAEW stands accused of acting as cheerleader for big auditors despite scandals such as the high-profile collapse of BHS and Carillion

'I find it ironic that this body, which is meant to encourage best practice, should have accounts that are so unclear.'

The ICAEW rejected the findings, saying it was 'transparent' and used the money to make it a 'resilient and enduring force for good'.

Murphy found that the fines had been attributed to the ICAEW's 'retained funds', without explaining this included the fines.

However, in a letter to Parliament the body referred to the money as 'strategic reserves'  a term not mentioned in the accounts.
An influential British pension fund has blasted BHP for its clean-up in an area of Brazil left devastated by the deadly collapse of a mine dam in 2015.

The Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), which manages 350 billion in assets for more than 90 councils, said it came across a host of environmental and human rights concerns. This included 'severe' worries about water quality and access for local people.

In a report compiled following a two-week visit to Brazil by LAPFF representatives, the fund also accused the mining giant of failing to engage adequately with the local community.

In November 2015, the wall of a dam holding waste from the Mariana iron ore mine cracked. Its collapse released 50 million cubic metres of toxic sludge that destroyed the village of Bento Rodrigues, killing 19, and spilled into multiple rivers before eventually reaching the Atlantic. It was the worst environmental crisis in Brazilian history.

The mine was run by a group called Samarco, jointly owned by BHP and Brazilian group Vale. LAPFF chairman Doug McMurdo said: 'I knew the visit would be difficult, but I wasn't prepared for the scale of devastation I saw nearly seven years on from the Mariana collapse.

Digging deep: There are a number of metals that need to be mined in large quantities, such as lithium, copper and silver, to build technology such as wind turbines and electric cars

'Seeing it with my own eyes was a wake-up call  investors must do more. It was truly heartbreaking.'

The LAPFF said reparations provided by the Renova Foundation, which BHP and Vale set up to oversee the clean-up and community support, needed to be delivered more quickly.

It added that some community members claimed they had been 'bullied' by the Renova Foundation into accepting compensation that 'doesn't suit them'  though it did not go into more detail.

The LAPFF spoke to a range of communities and other groups connected to the Samarco mine and a similar disaster at Brumadinho, a mine owned solely by Vale, which killed 270 when the wall of its waste dam broke in 2019.

The Renova foundation has spent about 4.7 billion on the clean-up and community assistance since it was set up in 2016. The majority of people who needed to be resettled have been moved to new homes.

BHP is already facing what could be one of the world's largest class action lawsuits of its kind for the disaster. The court of appeal last year paved the way for a case representing 200,000 claimants to go to trial in the UK.

The LAPFF said it believes it is important to engage with mining companies in part because the industry will play a key role in the green revolution.

There are a number of metals that need to be mined in large quantities, such as lithium, copper and silver, to build technology such as wind turbines and electric cars.

BHP declined to comment.
A billion pounds doesn't get you very far in the microchip industry. The mighty Intel spends that much every 26 days on research and development alone.

By setting aside so little over the next decade to fund its semiconductor strategy, the UK government will hardly trouble American and Chinese political strategists sparring for global supremacy in this space.

Microchips have taken over the world. Even in 2021, the year supposedly riven with shortages which clobbered the production of cars and computer games consoles, more than one trillion chips were installed in devices to process and store information.

And there is more to come, as the most advanced chips are required to power artificial intelligence (AI) that churns through data to make lightning-quick decisions.

Looking ahead: The most advanced chips are required to power artificial intelligence that churns through data to make lightning-quick decisions

It was the pandemic-induced production blip that persuaded politicians to invest in the vital staple of the digital economy.

The UK can't hope to compete when the best chip plants cost 16billion to build. And even if it found the cash, there will be a glut of factories by 2030  perhaps too many.

But money is not everything. If it was, Arm, the Cambridge-based company whose chip designs are used 1,000 times a second, would never have prospered.

Born out of the ashes of Acorn Computers, its only political leg-up of sorts was that Acorn's BBC Micro sold strongly when the Thatcher government chose it as one of two homegrown devices to qualify for a 50 per cent government subsidy with the aim of installing a computer in every secondary school by the end of 1982.

Acorn at least had a little cash to invest in a processor design it thought would propel it forward. But precisely because it didn't have too much money, that design was created to be low-powered and low-cost, following the trend for a simple, reduced instruction set computer (RISC).

The Acorn RISC Machine (Arm) project would likely have been wound down if Apple hadn't been looking for a processor design for a new portable device. Instead, it was spun out into a new company in November 1990.

A decade later, political interest was stirred when Stephen Byers, the then trade and industry secretary, opened the company's new headquarters. But by that point the company's shares had entered the FTSE 100, and its product featured in Nokia mobile phones.

Arm, now owned by SoftBank of Japan, has chosen to list its shares in New York, not London. To create another UK semiconductor champion, it is important to understand that this complicated, capital-intensive industry is built on tiny specialisms.

And the UK can learn from Japan which maintains a vital role in the supply chain, producing hydrogen fluoride  used when the chip design is etched on a sliver of silicon  and the light-sensitive to photo-resistors that project the intricate circuit patterns.

The UK is right to focus on its strengths such as design and materials. What it must afford the industry is time. If poverty again breeds creativity, the least the UK can do is buy British. Another promising company in this field, Graphcore, hopes the government will do so when it comes to equipping its new supercomputer project.

After all, the original US chip industry only gained traction when President John F. Kennedy invested heavily to beat the Soviet Union in the space race. More than 60 years on, the race continues.
Skyline Champion (NYSE:SKY  Get Rating) will be issuing its quarterly earnings data before the market opens on Tuesday, May 30th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of $0.99 per share for the quarter. Parties interested in listening to the companys conference call can do so using this link.

Skyline Champion Stock Performance

Shares of SKY stock opened at $64.52 on Friday. Skyline Champion has a 12 month low of $43.04 and a 12 month high of $76.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a current ratio of 3.86 and a quick ratio of 3.01. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.60 and a beta of 1.67. The companys fifty day moving average price is $70.60 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $62.81.

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Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

SKY has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Skyline Champion in a report on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Skyline Champion from $54.00 to $65.00 in a research report on Wednesday, February 8th. Finally, Craig Hallum boosted their target price on shares of Skyline Champion from $65.00 to $78.00 in a research report on Wednesday, February 8th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Skyline Champion

In related news, VP Timothy A. Burkhardt sold 3,500 shares of Skyline Champion stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $69.12, for a total transaction of $241,920.00. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 26,066 shares in the company, valued at $1,801,681.92. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website . 7.10% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Covestor Ltd increased its stake in Skyline Champion by 8,505.3% in the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 1,635 shares of the companys stock worth $90,000 after purchasing an additional 1,616 shares in the last quarter. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd purchased a new position in Skyline Champion during the 1st quarter valued at about $160,000. Bridgefront Capital LLC purchased a new position in Skyline Champion during the 1st quarter valued at about $206,000. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in Skyline Champion during the 1st quarter valued at about $206,000. Finally, Private Advisor Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Skyline Champion during the 1st quarter valued at about $216,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 99.56% of the companys stock.

About Skyline Champion

(Get Rating)

Skyline Champion Corp. engages in the manufacturing and retail of mobile homes and other manufactured housing. It builds homes under the following brands: Skyline Homes, Champion Home Builders, Athens Park Model RVs, Dutch Housing, Excel Homes, Homes of Merit, New Era, Redman Homes, Shore Park, Silvercrest, Titan Homes in the U.S.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE  Get Rating) will announce its earnings results after the market closes on Tuesday, May 30th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of $0.47 per share for the quarter. Parties that are interested in registering for the companys conference call can do so using this link.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE  Get Rating) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 2nd. The technology company reported $0.63 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.52 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $7.81 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.40 billion. Hewlett Packard Enterprise had a net margin of 2.92% and a return on equity of 4.22%. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 12.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.39 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect Hewlett Packard Enterprise to post $1 EPS for the current fiscal year and $1 EPS for the next fiscal year.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise Stock Performance

HPE stock opened at $15.34 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.63, a current ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38. The company has a market capitalization of $19.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.60, a P/E/G ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 1.22. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a 12 month low of $11.90 and a 12 month high of $17.25. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $14.82 and a two-hundred day moving average of $15.49.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Announces Dividend

Insider Activity

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, April 14th. Investors of record on Friday, March 17th were issued a dividend of $0.12 per share. This represents a $0.48 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.13%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 16th. Hewlett Packard Enterprises dividend payout ratio is currently 73.85%.

In other news, EVP Alan Richard May sold 703,226 shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $15.11, for a total value of $10,625,744.86. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 249,511 shares in the company, valued at $3,770,111.21. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, EVP Alan Richard May sold 703,226 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $15.11, for a total value of $10,625,744.86. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 249,511 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,770,111.21. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Thomas E. Black, Jr. sold 34,088 shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.05, for a total transaction of $513,024.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 747,314 shares of company stock worth $11,291,569 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.53% of the companys stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 10.8% during the 1st quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 74,736 shares of the technology companys stock worth $1,249,000 after buying an additional 7,285 shares in the last quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. raised its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 12.6% during the first quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. now owns 16,151 shares of the technology companys stock worth $270,000 after purchasing an additional 1,809 shares during the period. Raymond James Trust N.A. raised its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 46.4% during the first quarter. Raymond James Trust N.A. now owns 16,080 shares of the technology companys stock worth $269,000 after purchasing an additional 5,095 shares during the period. Blair William & Co. IL raised its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 9.8% during the first quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 332,584 shares of the technology companys stock worth $5,557,000 after purchasing an additional 29,819 shares during the period. Finally, Aviva PLC raised its position in shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise by 45.8% during the first quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 634,757 shares of the technology companys stock worth $10,607,000 after purchasing an additional 199,382 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 81.36% of the companys stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $16.00 to $17.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Monday, April 17th. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in a research note on Monday, March 20th. They set a neutral rating and a $15.00 target price for the company. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $13.00 to $14.00 in a research note on Friday, March 3rd. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 23rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from $13.00 to $14.00 and gave the company an underweight rating in a research note on Friday, March 3rd. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $16.85.

About Hewlett Packard Enterprise

(Get Rating)

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co is a global edge-to-cloud company, which engages in the provision of information technology, technology and enterprise products, solutions, and services. It operates through the following segments: Compute, High Performance Computing & Artificial Intelligence (HPC & AI), Storage, Intelligent Edge, Financial Services, and Corporate Investments and Other.

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ASOS (LON:ASC  Get Rating)s stock had its sell rating restated by research analysts at Shore Capital in a research report issued to clients and investors on Friday, MarketBeat reports.

Several other research analysts have also commented on the company. Barclays reaffirmed an equal weight rating and set a GBX 625 ($7.77) price target on shares of ASOS in a research report on Thursday, April 6th. The Goldman Sachs Group set a GBX 1,050 ($13.06) price target on shares of ASOS in a research note on Tuesday, February 21st. Citigroup raised shares of ASOS to a buy rating and reduced their target price for the company from GBX 780 ($9.70) to GBX 600 ($7.46) in a report on Friday, May 19th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft set a GBX 950 ($11.82) price target on ASOS in a research report on Friday, February 3rd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada set a GBX 950 ($11.82) target price on ASOS in a research note on Thursday, January 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, ASOS has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of GBX 861.25 ($10.71).

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ASOS Stock Performance

LON ASC opened at GBX 406 ($5.05) on Friday. ASOS has a 1 year low of GBX 380.10 ($4.73) and a 1 year high of GBX 1,610 ($20.02). The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 136.85, a current ratio of 1.55 and a quick ratio of 0.39. The company has a market capitalization of 406.08 million, a PE ratio of -1,561.54, a P/E/G ratio of -1.26 and a beta of 2.92. The company has a fifty day moving average of GBX 664.55 and a two-hundred day moving average of GBX 699.83.

ASOS Company Profile

ASOS Plc operates as an online fashion retailer worldwide. It offers womenswear and menswear products. The company sells its products under the ASOS Design, ASOS Edition, ASOS 4505, Collusion, Reclaimed Vintage, Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands, as well as through third-party brands. It is also involved in the employer of marketing staff and payment processing businesses.

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Anglo American (LON:AAL  Get Rating)s stock had its hold rating reiterated by Berenberg Bank in a research report issued on Thursday, Marketbeat reports.

AAL has been the topic of several other reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Anglo American from GBX 3,500 ($43.25) to GBX 3,400 ($42.02) and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 22nd. Citigroup restated a top pick rating on shares of Anglo American in a report on Thursday, April 13th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a sector perform rating and issued a GBX 2,600 ($32.13) price target on shares of Anglo American in a research report on Wednesday, March 1st. Finally, Barclays restated an equal weight rating and set a GBX 3,250 ($40.16) price objective on shares of Anglo American in a research report on Friday, February 24th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of GBX 3,210 ($39.67).

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Anglo American Price Performance

Anglo American stock opened at GBX 2,257.50 ($27.90) on Thursday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of GBX 2,502.60 and a two-hundred day moving average price of GBX 2,963.87. Anglo American has a 12 month low of GBX 2,230 ($27.56) and a 12 month high of GBX 4,036 ($49.88). The company has a market capitalization of 30.25 billion, a PE ratio of 751.01, a P/E/G ratio of 5.62 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a current ratio of 1.90, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 44.39.

Insider Buying and Selling

Anglo American Company Profile

In related news, insider Stuart J. Chambers purchased 661 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Monday, March 27th. The stock was acquired at an average price of GBX 2,493 ($30.81) per share, for a total transaction of 16,478.73 ($20,364.22). Insiders have bought a total of 672 shares of company stock worth $1,675,781 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 7.29% of the companys stock.

(Get Rating)

Anglo American plc operates as a mining company worldwide. The company explores for rough and polished diamonds, copper, platinum group metals, metallurgical and thermal coal, and iron ore; and nickel, polyhalite, and manganese ores, as well as alloys. Anglo American plc was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

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Prigozhin to be sent to Sudan: What fate awaits Wagner leader? 28 May, 05:00 PM Exclusive End of mission. The head of the PMC, Wagner, most likely, will soon show less public activity (Photo:DR)

The recent statements by Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder and leader of the Wagner private military company, reflect his fear for his own skin as he has lost Putins trust and is attempting to evade retaliation, according to NVs What Awaits Prigozhin exclusive.

The current hysterical actions and statements of Prigozhin are a consequence of his attempt to save himself from the anger of the Kremlins top leadership.

The public activity of Prigozhin is associated with the fact that at some point he realized that his privileged position as Putins favorite grandson was shaken, said Lev Kadik, a journalist specializing in foreign affairs at the Latvian portal Delfi.lv and former political editor of the Russian newspaper Kommersant.

Video of day

Experts surveyed by NV are convinced that the only function the Wagner Group leader served during the large-scale invasion was to issue calls and mobilize prisoners, followed by their deployment on the front lines.

Now, Prigozhins services have become unnecessary, as the Russian army has learned since last August to independently carry out the same tasks since last autumn, said Kadik.

The Wagner Group chief was also unable to capture Bakhmut after months of fighting, despite receiving Putins approval to recruit criminals strictly for the purpose. So, Prigozhins recent statements about withdrawing his group from Bakhmut and his extensive interview on the topic of how we can f**k up Russia thanks to the Kremlin elite are nothing more than an attempt at self-defense.

Prigozhin is a product of the Putin system, but now his position as Putins chef has weakened within it, as he is no longer fighting against Ukraine but for his own skin, Maxim Reznik, former member of the legislative assembly of St. Petersburg, told NV.

You see, Prigozhin is a patriot of his own hide, said Reznik.

Figures similar to Prigozhin have already emerged in the history of Putins Russia, said Fyodor Krascheninnikov, a Russian political scientist living in Lithuania, in an interview with NV.

For example, after the annexation of Crimea, the popular mayor of Sevastopol Alexei Chaly and former prosecutor Natalia Poklonskaya received their share of popularity from the Kremlin, but their influence quickly waned without Putins support.

As an example, the political analyst uses Ramzan Kadyrov, the "leader" of Chechnya. He was previously one of Prigozhins main public allies, supporting the Wagner Group in its conflict with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. However, once the Wagner Group leader began his own game and crossed a certain line in his criticism, Kadyrovs support dissolved.

Krascheninnikov explained that within the Putin system of power, alliances or coalitions are impossible as they are shattered from above.

It is most likely that Prigozhin will be removed, not physically destroyed, but sent into a kind of exile, such as Africa, where the Wagner Group has several ongoing missions, concluded the journalist from Delfi.lv.

Prigozhin will go to Sudan, and what will happen to him there is anyones guess. In any case, he will be removed from the stage where everyone dances, sings, and shouts.

Read also: Ukrainian intelligence explains conflict between Prigozhin and Shoigu

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Berenberg Bank restated their buy rating on shares of Alliance Pharma (LON:APH  Get Rating) in a report released on Thursday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The firm currently has a GBX 105 ($1.31) target price on the stock.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. Numis Securities reiterated a buy rating and issued a GBX 110 ($1.37) target price on shares of Alliance Pharma in a research note on Wednesday, February 1st. Peel Hunt started coverage on Alliance Pharma in a research note on Friday, March 17th. They set a hold rating and a GBX 65 ($0.81) target price for the company.

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Alliance Pharma Price Performance

Alliance Pharma stock opened at GBX 61.50 ($0.76) on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 47.83, a current ratio of 2.24 and a quick ratio of 1.42. The stock has a market capitalization of 332.12 million, a P/E ratio of 3,450.00, a P/E/G ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 0.54. The firms 50-day moving average is GBX 64.51 and its two-hundred day moving average is GBX 60.69. Alliance Pharma has a 12-month low of GBX 34.14 ($0.42) and a 12-month high of GBX 120 ($1.49).

Alliance Pharma Increases Dividend

About Alliance Pharma

The company also recently announced a dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, June 22nd will be issued a GBX 1.18 ($0.01) dividend. This is a positive change from Alliance Pharmas previous dividend of $0.59. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, June 22nd. This represents a yield of 2.06%.

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Alliance Pharma plc operates as a pharmaceutical company in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, China, and the Americas. The company acquires, markets, and distributes consumer healthcare and prescription medicine products. It holds the marketing rights of approximately 80 consumer healthcare and prescription medicine products.

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Canaccord Genuity Group reissued their buy rating on shares of XPS Pensions Group (LON:XPS  Get Rating) in a report released on Thursday, Marketbeat.com reports. The brokerage currently has a GBX 216 ($2.69) price target on the stock.

Separately, Shore Capital restated a buy rating on shares of XPS Pensions Group in a research note on Wednesday.

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XPS Pensions Group Stock Performance

LON:XPS opened at GBX 166 ($2.06) on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 60.18, a current ratio of 1.51 and a quick ratio of 1.51. XPS Pensions Group has a 1-year low of GBX 114.50 ($1.42) and a 1-year high of GBX 174.50 ($2.17). The firm has a 50-day moving average of GBX 161.52 and a two-hundred day moving average of GBX 154.39. The stock has a market cap of 344.35 million, a P/E ratio of 2,371.43 and a beta of 0.43.

About XPS Pensions Group

XPS Pensions Group plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides employee benefit consultancy and related business services in the United Kingdom. The company offers advisory services to pension schemes and corporate sponsors; independent investment advisory services; DB and DC master trust schemes; and self-invested personal pension (SIPP) and SSAS pension services.

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Numis Securities initiated coverage on shares of Tristel (LON:TSTL  Get Rating) in a report issued on Thursday, MarketBeat.com reports. The firm issued an add rating and a GBX 390 ($4.85) price objective on the stock.

Tristel Stock Performance

Shares of LON:TSTL opened at GBX 340 ($4.23) on Thursday. The companys 50 day moving average price is GBX 331.97 and its two-hundred day moving average price is GBX 343.01. Tristel has a 12-month low of GBX 272 ($3.38) and a 12-month high of GBX 430 ($5.35). The firm has a market cap of 160.65 million, a PE ratio of 4,857.14 and a beta of 0.45. The company has a quick ratio of 3.83, a current ratio of 4.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 19.76.

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About Tristel

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Tristel plc develops, manufactures, and sells infection prevention products in the United Kingdom and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Hospital Medical Device Decontamination, Hospital Environmental Surface Disinfection, and Other. It offers medical instrument disinfection products, including airway management, cardiology, ear, nose and throat, endoscopy, ophthalmology, phlebotomy, reproductive health/IVF, surface, ultrasound, urology, women's health, and other products under the Tristel brand; contamination control products, which include cleanroom, laboratory, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and toiletry disinfectants under the Crystel brand; and airborne and veterinary device disinfectants under the Anistel brand.

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Numis Securities reaffirmed their buy rating on shares of Workspace Group (LON:WKP  Get Rating) in a research report sent to investors on Thursday morning, Marketbeat.com reports. They currently have a GBX 630 ($7.84) target price on the stock.

Separately, Peel Hunt restated a buy rating and set a GBX 600 ($7.46) price objective on shares of Workspace Group in a report on Tuesday, May 16th.

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Workspace Group Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of WKP opened at GBX 498.60 ($6.20) on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of 955.52 million, a P/E ratio of 586.59, a P/E/G ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 1.14. Workspace Group has a 12-month low of GBX 335.20 ($4.17) and a 12-month high of GBX 735.59 ($9.15). The company has a current ratio of 0.41, a quick ratio of 0.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 52.19. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of GBX 464.29 and a 200-day moving average price of GBX 470.19.

Workspace Group Increases Dividend

Workspace Group Company Profile

The company also recently disclosed a dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 4th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 6th will be paid a GBX 17.40 ($0.22) dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, July 6th. This represents a yield of 3.63%. This is a boost from Workspace Groups previous dividend of $8.40. Workspace Groups payout ratio is currently 2,705.88%.

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Established in 1987, and listed on the London Stock Exchange since 1993, Workspace owns and manages some 4 million sq. ft. of business space in London. We are home to London's brightest businesses, including fast growing and established brands across a wide range of sectors. Workspace is geared towards helping businesses perform at their very best.

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StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of Flexible Solutions International (NYSE:FSI  Get Rating) in a report issued on Thursday. The brokerage issued a hold rating on the stock.

Flexible Solutions International Price Performance

Shares of Flexible Solutions International stock opened at $2.93 on Thursday. Flexible Solutions International has a 12 month low of $1.51 and a 12 month high of $3.70. The company has a market cap of $36.45 million, a P/E ratio of 5.75 and a beta of 1.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a current ratio of 2.96 and a quick ratio of 1.63.

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Flexible Solutions International Company Profile

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Flexible Solutions International, Inc is an environmental technology company engaged in the research, development, and manufacture of products that save water and energy. It operates through the following segments: Energy and Water Conservation Products and Biodegradable Polymers. The Energy and Water Conservation Products segment consists of a liquid swimming pool blanket which saves energy and water by inhibiting evaporation from the pool surface, and a food-safe powdered form of the active ingredient within the liquid blanket.

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Continuum Advisory LLC reduced its position in International Paper (NYSE:IP  Get Rating) by 5.1% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 6,900 shares of the basic materials companys stock after selling 373 shares during the period. Continuum Advisory LLCs holdings in International Paper were worth $239,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. CI Investments Inc. lifted its holdings in International Paper by 975.2% in the 4th quarter. CI Investments Inc. now owns 5,333 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $185,000 after buying an additional 4,837 shares in the last quarter. Royal Bank of Canada grew its position in shares of International Paper by 5.4% during the 3rd quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 4,019,663 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $127,424,000 after buying an additional 206,004 shares during the last quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of International Paper by 11.8% during the 4th quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 169,548 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $5,871,000 after buying an additional 17,867 shares during the last quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. grew its position in International Paper by 1,459.0% in the 3rd quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 11,864 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $376,000 after purchasing an additional 11,103 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Forsta AP Fonden grew its position in International Paper by 7.4% in the 4th quarter. Forsta AP Fonden now owns 157,700 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $5,461,000 after purchasing an additional 10,800 shares during the last quarter. 83.64% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Argus upped their price target on shares of International Paper from $43.00 to $50.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, February 2nd. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of International Paper from $36.00 to $44.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, February 2nd. Royal Bank of Canada raised shares of International Paper from a sector perform rating to an outperform rating and cut their target price for the company from $40.00 to $39.00 in a research note on Friday, April 28th. They noted that the move was a valuation call. 1-800-FLOWERS.COM reissued a maintains rating on shares of International Paper in a research note on Friday, April 28th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of International Paper from $32.00 to $38.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 1st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $38.55.

International Paper Trading Up 0.0 %

Shares of NYSE IP opened at $30.62 on Friday. International Paper has a 1-year low of $30.41 and a 1-year high of $49.31. The company has a market cap of $10.63 billion, a PE ratio of 8.48 and a beta of 1.04. The company has a current ratio of 1.55, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65. The company has a 50-day moving average of $33.99 and a two-hundred day moving average of $35.82.

International Paper (NYSE:IP  Get Rating) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, April 27th. The basic materials company reported $0.53 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.49 by $0.04. International Paper had a net margin of 6.28% and a return on equity of 14.87%. The company had revenue of $5.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.03 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.76 earnings per share. The companys revenue was down 4.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that International Paper will post 2.35 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

International Paper Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 15th. Investors of record on Friday, May 26th will be issued a dividend of $0.4625 per share. This represents a $1.85 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.04%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 25th. International Papers dividend payout ratio is currently 51.25%.

Insider Activity at International Paper

In other news, CEO Mark S. Sutton sold 85,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $34.58, for a total value of $2,939,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 143,000 shares in the company, valued at $4,944,940. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, SVP Joseph R. Saab sold 1,705 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $35.35, for a total value of $60,271.75. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 1,671 shares in the company, valued at approximately $59,069.85. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Mark S. Sutton sold 85,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $34.58, for a total transaction of $2,939,300.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 143,000 shares in the company, valued at $4,944,940. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.51% of the companys stock.

International Paper Profile

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International Paper Co engages in the manufacture of paper and packaging products. It operates through the following segments: Industrial Packaging, Global Cellulose Fibers, and Printing Papers. The Industrial Packaging segment is involved in manufacturing containerboards, which include linerboard, medium, whitetop, recycled linerboard, recycled medium, and saturating kraft.

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Continuum Advisory LLC purchased a new stake in The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA  Get Rating) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor purchased 1,249 shares of the aircraft producers stock, valued at approximately $238,000.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of BA. Baird Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Boeing by 8.0% in the 3rd quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. now owns 238,221 shares of the aircraft producers stock valued at $28,844,000 after buying an additional 17,716 shares during the period. First Heartland Consultants Inc. increased its holdings in Boeing by 6.0% during the 4th quarter. First Heartland Consultants Inc. now owns 8,093 shares of the aircraft producers stock worth $1,542,000 after purchasing an additional 459 shares during the period. Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co increased its holdings in Boeing by 10.2% during the 3rd quarter. Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co now owns 3,297 shares of the aircraft producers stock worth $399,000 after purchasing an additional 306 shares during the period. ExodusPoint Capital Management LP increased its holdings in Boeing by 241.5% during the 3rd quarter. ExodusPoint Capital Management LP now owns 94,629 shares of the aircraft producers stock worth $11,458,000 after purchasing an additional 66,919 shares during the period. Finally, Kentucky Retirement Systems increased its holdings in Boeing by 5.9% during the 3rd quarter. Kentucky Retirement Systems now owns 43,693 shares of the aircraft producers stock worth $5,290,000 after purchasing an additional 2,417 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 57.07% of the companys stock.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

BA has been the topic of several recent research reports. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Boeing from $230.00 to $237.00 in a report on Thursday, April 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on Boeing from $261.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 12th. StockNews.com cut Boeing from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Monday, May 22nd. Northcoast Research cut Boeing from a buy rating to a neutral rating and set a $180.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, April 4th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. set a $225.00 price objective on Boeing in a research report on Friday, February 24th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Boeing currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $221.60.

Insiders Place Their Bets

Boeing Price Performance

In other Boeing news, EVP Howard E. Mckenzie sold 412 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $204.36, for a total transaction of $84,196.32. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 17,181 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,511,109.16. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink . 0.15% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Shares of NYSE BA opened at $203.63 on Friday. The Boeing Company has a 52-week low of $113.02 and a 52-week high of $221.33. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $205.01 and a 200 day moving average price of $199.88.

Boeing (NYSE:BA  Get Rating) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 26th. The aircraft producer reported ($1.27) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of ($0.98) by ($0.29). The business had revenue of $17.92 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.56 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned ($2.75) earnings per share. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 28.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that The Boeing Company will post -0.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Boeing

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The Boeing Co is an aerospace company, which engages in the manufacture of commercial jetliners and defense, space, and security systems. It operates through the following segments: Commercial Airplanes (BCA), Defense, Space and Security (BDS), Global Services (BGS), and Boeing Capital (BCC). The Commercial Airplanes segment includes the development, production, and market of commercial jet aircraft and provides fleet support services, principally to the commercial airline industry worldwide.

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Sei Investments Co. increased its holdings in shares of AvalonBay Communities, Inc. (NYSE:AVB  Get Rating) by 2.1% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 226,231 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after purchasing an additional 4,596 shares during the period. Sei Investments Co. owned approximately 0.16% of AvalonBay Communities worth $36,541,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of AVB. Clearbridge Investments LLC bought a new position in shares of AvalonBay Communities during the 4th quarter valued at about $275,423,000. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in shares of AvalonBay Communities by 57.1% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 2,140,014 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $531,516,000 after purchasing an additional 777,631 shares in the last quarter. Echo Street Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of AvalonBay Communities by 135.7% during the 3rd quarter. Echo Street Capital Management LLC now owns 671,577 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $123,698,000 after purchasing an additional 386,677 shares in the last quarter. V3 Capital Management L.P. bought a new stake in AvalonBay Communities in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $35,605,000. Finally, Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its stake in AvalonBay Communities by 3.5% in the 3rd quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 5,658,277 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $1,042,200,000 after acquiring an additional 192,378 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 87.30% of the companys stock.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CIO Matthew H. Birenbaum sold 4,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $176.10, for a total transaction of $704,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive now directly owns 62,559 shares in the company, valued at $11,016,639.90. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.42% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

AvalonBay Communities Price Performance

AvalonBay Communities Announces Dividend

Shares of NYSE AVB opened at $171.73 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $24.39 billion, a PE ratio of 23.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.86 and a beta of 0.92. AvalonBay Communities, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $153.07 and a fifty-two week high of $220.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a current ratio of 0.95. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $171.48 and a 200-day moving average of $170.73.

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 17th. Investors of record on Friday, June 30th will be given a dividend of $1.65 per share. This represents a $6.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.84%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 29th. AvalonBay Communitiess payout ratio is 90.54%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have commented on AVB. Citigroup boosted their target price on AvalonBay Communities from $185.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 14th. Evercore ISI upgraded AvalonBay Communities from an in-line rating to an outperform rating and set a $194.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 10th. 888 restated a maintains rating on shares of AvalonBay Communities in a research note on Friday, May 19th. Barclays boosted their target price on AvalonBay Communities from $175.00 to $186.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 1st. Finally, Mizuho boosted their price target on AvalonBay Communities from $188.00 to $190.00 in a research report on Friday, May 19th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $201.68.

AvalonBay Communities Company Profile

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AvalonBay Communities, Inc is a real estate investment trust, which engages in the development, acquisition, ownership, and operation of multifamily communities. It operates through the following segments: Established Communities, Other Stabilized Communities, and Development or Redevelopment Communities.

Further Reading

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Sei Investments Co. lessened its stake in shares of Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS  Get Rating) by 20.1% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 417,477 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 105,028 shares during the period. Sei Investments Co.s holdings in Morgan Stanley were worth $35,502,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Farmers & Merchants Trust Co of Chambersburg PA raised its holdings in Morgan Stanley by 13.5% during the 4th quarter. Farmers & Merchants Trust Co of Chambersburg PA now owns 890 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $76,000 after buying an additional 106 shares during the period. Bay Colony Advisory Group Inc d b a Bay Colony Advisors increased its holdings in shares of Morgan Stanley by 2.9% in the 4th quarter. Bay Colony Advisory Group Inc d b a Bay Colony Advisors now owns 3,914 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $333,000 after purchasing an additional 109 shares during the period. Surevest LLC increased its holdings in shares of Morgan Stanley by 37.0% in the 3rd quarter. Surevest LLC now owns 411 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 111 shares during the period. Raymond James Trust N.A. increased its holdings in shares of Morgan Stanley by 0.3% in the 4th quarter. Raymond James Trust N.A. now owns 33,259 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $2,828,000 after purchasing an additional 112 shares during the period. Finally, Cary Street Partners Investment Advisory LLC increased its holdings in shares of Morgan Stanley by 2.8% in the 3rd quarter. Cary Street Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 4,188 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $331,000 after purchasing an additional 114 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.48% of the companys stock.

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Morgan Stanley Trading Up 1.1 %

Shares of Morgan Stanley stock opened at $83.90 on Friday. The companys fifty day simple moving average is $85.66 and its 200-day simple moving average is $89.87. The company has a market cap of $140.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.42, a PEG ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 1.34. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.68. Morgan Stanley has a 1 year low of $72.05 and a 1 year high of $100.99.

Morgan Stanley Dividend Announcement

Morgan Stanley ( NYSE:MS Get Rating ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 19th. The financial services provider reported $1.70 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.67 by $0.03. Morgan Stanley had a net margin of 14.12% and a return on equity of 11.35%. The business had revenue of $14.52 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.96 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.06 earnings per share. Morgan Stanleys quarterly revenue was down 1.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Morgan Stanley will post 6.53 EPS for the current year.

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 1st were paid a dividend of $0.775 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, April 28th. This represents a $3.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.69%. Morgan Stanleys dividend payout ratio is currently 53.26%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Morgan Stanley news, Director Thomas H. Glocer sold 4,535 shares of Morgan Stanley stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $87.11, for a total transaction of $395,043.85. Following the sale, the director now owns 98,110 shares in the company, valued at $8,546,362.10. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Corporate insiders own 0.26% of the companys stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

MS has been the topic of a number of research reports. Evercore ISI dropped their target price on Morgan Stanley from $106.00 to $104.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 5th. Barclays dropped their target price on Morgan Stanley from $125.00 to $112.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 12th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on Morgan Stanley in a report on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on Morgan Stanley from $90.00 to $80.00 and set a sector perform rating on the stock in a report on Friday, March 24th. Finally, Cfra restated a strong-buy rating and issued a $105.00 price objective on shares of Morgan Stanley in a report on Wednesday, April 19th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have issued a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $95.34.

About Morgan Stanley

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Morgan Stanley operates as a global financial services company. The firm provides investment banking products and services to its clients and customers including corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. It operates through the following segments: Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management.

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Sei Investments Co. increased its stake in shares of Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RIO  Get Rating) by 7.4% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 471,409 shares of the mining companys stock after purchasing an additional 32,401 shares during the period. Sei Investments Co.s holdings in Rio Tinto Group were worth $33,564,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Standard Family Office LLC acquired a new position in shares of Rio Tinto Group during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $37,000. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. raised its holdings in Rio Tinto Group by 90.6% in the 1st quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 686 shares of the mining companys stock valued at $55,000 after acquiring an additional 326 shares during the last quarter. Penserra Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in Rio Tinto Group in the 3rd quarter valued at $38,000. Sargent Bickham Lagudis LLC raised its holdings in Rio Tinto Group by 33.5% in the 4th quarter. Sargent Bickham Lagudis LLC now owns 797 shares of the mining companys stock valued at $57,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. raised its holdings in Rio Tinto Group by 166.7% in the 4th quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 800 shares of the mining companys stock valued at $57,000 after acquiring an additional 500 shares during the last quarter. 10.43% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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Rio Tinto Group Stock Up 2.9 %

Shares of NYSE RIO opened at $61.12 on Friday. Rio Tinto Group has a 52-week low of $50.92 and a 52-week high of $80.51. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $64.79 and a 200-day moving average of $69.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21, a current ratio of 1.64 and a quick ratio of 1.10.

Rio Tinto Group Cuts Dividend

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

The firm also recently declared a semi-annual dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 20th. Investors of record on Friday, March 10th were given a dividend of $2.25 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 9th. This represents a yield of 9.8%.

Several research analysts have weighed in on the company. BNP Paribas downgraded Rio Tinto Group from an outperform rating to a neutral rating in a report on Monday, February 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Rio Tinto Group from a buy rating to a conviction-buy rating in a report on Thursday, March 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Rio Tinto Group from an underweight rating to a neutral rating in a report on Monday, May 15th. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded Rio Tinto Group from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a report on Friday, May 5th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised shares of Rio Tinto Group from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a research note on Friday. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $5,790.00.

Rio Tinto Group Company Profile

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Rio Tinto Plc engages in the exploration, mining, and processing of mineral resources. It operates through the following business segments: Iron Ore, Aluminium, Copper and Diamonds, Energy and Minerals, and Other Operations. The Iron Ore segment supplies global seaborne iron ore trade. The Aluminium segment produces bauxite, alumina and primary aluminum.

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Putin Poisoning? Belarus dictator Luakashenko in critical condition in Moscow hospital, says opposition figure 28 May, 11:39 AM Lukashenko met with Putin in Moscow on May 27 (Photo:Sputnik/Ilya Pitalev/Kremlin via REUTERS)

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has been admitted to a hospital in Moscow, reported prominent opposition figure and former presidential candidate, Valery Tsepkalo, on Twitter on May 27.

Following a closed-door meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko was swiftly transported to a Moscow hospital in critical condition.

Blood purification procedures have been conducted, and Lukashenkos condition has been deemed non-transportable. The orchestrated efforts to save the Belarusian dictator aimed to dispel speculations regarding Kremlins alleged involvement in his poisoning, Tsepkalo wrote on Twitter.

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Lukashenko himself addressed his absence from public life on May 23, attributing it to an illness.

Adenovirus or whatever it was? Adenovirus. Its nothing... But since I didnt have the opportunity to receive treatment... all of it accumulated.

So Im not planning to die, guys. Youll be tormenting yourselves with me for a very long time, added the dictator.

While the exact nature of Lukashenkos illness remains undisclosed, adenoviruses can elicit a broad spectrum of ailments in humans, ranging from acute respiratory infections to severe conditions in individuals with weakened immune systems.

Lukashenko was present at the parade in Moscow on May 9 but was unable to walk several hundred meters to the flower-laying ceremony alongside Russian dictator Putin and the presidents of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, as well as the Prime Minister of Armenia.

A bandage on his hand was also noticed, and upon his return from Moscow, he unexpectedly abstained from delivering his customary speech at Victory Square in Minsk.

Konstantin Zatulin, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, later stated that Lukashenko simply fell ill.

Previously, Pavel Latyshko claimed that the dictator might have infectious-allergic myocarditis.

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New York Life Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET  Get Rating) by 0.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 39,087 shares of the technology companys stock after buying an additional 193 shares during the quarter. New York Life Investment Management LLCs holdings in Arista Networks were worth $4,743,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Arista Networks by 3.0% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 26,507,053 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $2,992,380,000 after buying an additional 770,172 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. boosted its stake in Arista Networks by 4.3% in the 3rd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 18,454,815 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $2,083,367,000 after buying an additional 755,445 shares in the last quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. boosted its stake in Arista Networks by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 10,585,948 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $1,195,048,000 after buying an additional 32,867 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Arista Networks by 8.1% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 9,362,850 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $1,056,972,000 after buying an additional 700,606 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Artisan Partners Limited Partnership boosted its stake in Arista Networks by 1.8% in the third quarter. Artisan Partners Limited Partnership now owns 5,826,032 shares of the technology companys stock worth $657,701,000 after purchasing an additional 101,128 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 64.30% of the companys stock.

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Arista Networks Trading Up 9.1 %

NYSE ANET opened at $170.35 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $154.28 and a 200 day simple moving average of $138.84. The company has a market capitalization of $52.52 billion, a PE ratio of 35.49, a P/E/G ratio of 1.99 and a beta of 1.26. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 12 month low of $89.11 and a 12 month high of $171.44.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Arista Networks ( NYSE:ANET Get Rating ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, May 1st. The technology company reported $1.43 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.34 by $0.09. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 31.33% and a net margin of 31.24%. The business had revenue of $1.35 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.31 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.78 earnings per share. The firms revenue was up 54.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 5.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

A number of research firms have commented on ANET. Barclays boosted their price objective on Arista Networks from $177.00 to $179.00 in a research note on Tuesday, May 2nd. Credit Suisse Group boosted their price objective on Arista Networks from $146.00 to $151.00 in a research note on Tuesday, May 2nd. Loop Capital boosted their price objective on Arista Networks from $181.00 to $188.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 14th. Needham & Company LLC boosted their price objective on Arista Networks from $155.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 14th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a buy rating and set a $175.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, April 5th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $173.85.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Arista Networks news, COO Anshul Sadana sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.03, for a total value of $1,500,300.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 82,711 shares in the company, valued at $12,409,131.33. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other Arista Networks news, COO Anshul Sadana sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.03, for a total value of $1,500,300.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 82,711 shares in the company, valued at $12,409,131.33. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 2,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $138.40, for a total value of $276,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 84,946 shares of the companys stock, valued at $11,756,526.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 335,130 shares of company stock worth $50,927,557 over the last ninety days. 19.59% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Arista Networks Profile

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Arista Networks, Inc engages in the business of developing, marketing, and selling cloud networking solutions. The firm is also involved in switching and routing platforms and related network applications. The company was founded by Andreas Bechtolsheim, David Cheriton, and Kenneth Duda in November 2004 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA.

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Continuum Advisory LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL  Get Rating) by 5.1% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 4,283 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 232 shares during the period. Continuum Advisory LLCs holdings in Aflac were worth $308,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of AFL. MinichMacGregor Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Aflac in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $27,000. JCIC Asset Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Aflac during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Arlington Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of Aflac during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Romano Brothers AND Company acquired a new stake in Aflac in the 4th quarter valued at $36,000. Finally, CarsonAllaria Wealth Management Ltd. boosted its stake in Aflac by 534.9% during the 4th quarter. CarsonAllaria Wealth Management Ltd. now owns 527 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $38,000 after purchasing an additional 444 shares during the last quarter. 66.22% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently issued reports on AFL shares. Raymond James boosted their price objective on shares of Aflac from $74.00 to $77.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Monday, January 30th. Wells Fargo & Company began coverage on Aflac in a report on Tuesday, April 25th. They issued an equal weight rating and a $73.00 price objective for the company. Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on Aflac from $77.00 to $72.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 12th. Citigroup cut their price target on Aflac from $73.00 to $69.00 in a research note on Thursday, April 27th. Finally, VNET Group restated a maintains rating on shares of Aflac in a research note on Thursday, April 27th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Aflac presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $71.22.

Aflac Price Performance

AFL stock opened at $64.49 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.05, a current ratio of 0.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38. Aflac Incorporated has a 52-week low of $52.07 and a 52-week high of $74.01. The stocks 50 day moving average is $65.80 and its two-hundred day moving average is $68.57. The company has a market capitalization of $38.97 billion, a PE ratio of 9.31, a P/E/G ratio of 2.23 and a beta of 0.93.

Aflac (NYSE:AFL  Get Rating) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, April 27th. The financial services provider reported $1.55 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.40 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $4.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.61 billion. Aflac had a return on equity of 15.25% and a net margin of 22.90%. The businesss revenue was down 7.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.42 EPS. Analysts predict that Aflac Incorporated will post 5.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Aflac Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, May 17th will be given a dividend of $0.42 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, May 16th. This represents a $1.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.61%. Aflacs dividend payout ratio is currently 24.24%.

Insider Activity at Aflac

In other Aflac news, VP June P. Howard sold 8,230 shares of Aflac stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.57, for a total transaction of $556,101.10. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 119,402 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $8,067,993.14. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In related news, Director Joseph L. Moskowitz sold 13,471 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.27, for a total transaction of $906,194.17. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 27,570 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,854,633.90. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, VP June P. Howard sold 8,230 shares of Aflac stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.57, for a total value of $556,101.10. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 119,402 shares of the companys stock, valued at $8,067,993.14. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 112,582 shares of company stock worth $7,647,192 in the last 90 days. 0.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Aflac

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Aflac, Inc is a holding company, which engages in the provision of financial protection services. It operates through the following segments: Aflac Japan and Aflac U.S. The Aflac Japan segment offers life insurance, death benefits, and cash surrender values. The Aflac U.S. segment sells voluntary supplemental insurance products for people who already have major medical or primary insurance coverage.

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Ameritas Advisory Services LLC lifted its position in shares of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB  Get Rating) by 26.8% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 21,103 shares of the financial services providers stock after acquiring an additional 4,464 shares during the quarter. Ameritas Advisory Services LLCs holdings in U.S. Bancorp were worth $920,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Citigroup Inc. boosted its stake in U.S. Bancorp by 2.6% in the 4th quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 859,332 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $37,475,000 after purchasing an additional 21,560 shares during the period. Mather Group LLC. boosted its stake in U.S. Bancorp by 20.3% in the 3rd quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 26,579 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,072,000 after purchasing an additional 4,487 shares during the period. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. boosted its stake in U.S. Bancorp by 11.7% in the 4th quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 836,343 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $36,489,000 after purchasing an additional 87,888 shares during the period. DAVENPORT & Co LLC raised its holdings in shares of U.S. Bancorp by 9.4% in the 4th quarter. DAVENPORT & Co LLC now owns 145,471 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $6,344,000 after acquiring an additional 12,524 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Mutual Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of U.S. Bancorp by 146.1% in the 4th quarter. Mutual Advisors LLC now owns 61,885 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $2,699,000 after acquiring an additional 36,735 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 71.83% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have weighed in on USB. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their price target on U.S. Bancorp from $41.00 to $37.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 19th. Robert W. Baird raised U.S. Bancorp from a neutral rating to an outperform rating and set a $52.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Monday, March 20th. Morgan Stanley decreased their price objective on U.S. Bancorp from $46.00 to $43.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 20th. Piper Sandler decreased their price objective on U.S. Bancorp from $57.00 to $53.00 in a report on Friday, March 10th. Finally, StockNews.com cut U.S. Bancorp from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Friday, May 12th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $50.16.

U.S. Bancorp Trading Up 0.5 %

NYSE USB opened at $30.67 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.90. U.S. Bancorp has a twelve month low of $27.27 and a twelve month high of $53.37. The firm has a market capitalization of $47.01 billion, a PE ratio of 8.16, a P/E/G ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 0.93. The stocks 50 day moving average is $33.01 and its 200 day moving average is $40.94.

U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB  Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 19th. The financial services provider reported $1.04 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.13 by ($0.09). U.S. Bancorp had a net margin of 19.21% and a return on equity of 16.70%. The firm had revenue of $7.18 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.14 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.99 earnings per share. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 28.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that U.S. Bancorp will post 4.59 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

U.S. Bancorp Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 17th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 31st were paid a dividend of $0.48 per share. This represents a $1.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.26%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 30th. U.S. Bancorps payout ratio is 51.06%.

Insider Buying and Selling at U.S. Bancorp

In other U.S. Bancorp news, Director Scott W. Wine purchased 30,438 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 28th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $32.85 per share, for a total transaction of $999,888.30. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 30,438 shares of the companys stock, valued at $999,888.30. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, insider James B. Kelligrew purchased 16,260 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Monday, May 8th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $30.59 per share, with a total value of $497,393.40. Following the completion of the acquisition, the insider now owns 151,927 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,647,446.93. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Scott W. Wine purchased 30,438 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Friday, April 28th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $32.85 per share, with a total value of $999,888.30. Following the acquisition, the director now directly owns 30,438 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $999,888.30. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders purchased 76,698 shares of company stock worth $2,446,082. 0.24% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About U.S. Bancorp

(Get Rating)

U.S. Bancorp operates as a bank holding company, which offers financial services including lending and depository services, cash management, foreign exchange and trust and investment management. The firm also offers mortgage, refinance, auto, boat and RV loans, credit lines, credit card services, merchant, bank, checking and savings accounts, debit cards, online and mobile banking, ATM processing, mortgage banking, insurance, brokerage and leasing services.

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Sei Investments Co. lessened its holdings in Norfolk Southern Co. (NYSE:NSC  Get Rating) by 5.4% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 149,930 shares of the railroad operators stock after selling 8,542 shares during the quarter. Sei Investments Co. owned approximately 0.07% of Norfolk Southern worth $36,945,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Lazard Asset Management LLC grew its position in Norfolk Southern by 18.3% in the 3rd quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 7,647,054 shares of the railroad operators stock valued at $1,603,203,000 after acquiring an additional 1,181,936 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in shares of Norfolk Southern by 1.1% during the 3rd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,295,294 shares of the railroad operators stock worth $481,323,000 after buying an additional 24,172 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. grew its position in shares of Norfolk Southern by 5.7% during the 4th quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 2,039,316 shares of the railroad operators stock worth $502,528,000 after buying an additional 110,529 shares in the last quarter. London Co. of Virginia grew its position in shares of Norfolk Southern by 1.9% during the 3rd quarter. London Co. of Virginia now owns 1,462,496 shares of the railroad operators stock worth $306,613,000 after buying an additional 27,419 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Gibson Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Norfolk Southern by 6,200.0% during the 4th quarter. Gibson Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,430,667 shares of the railroad operators stock worth $338,456,000 after buying an additional 1,407,958 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 72.98% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on NSC shares. Wells Fargo & Company raised Norfolk Southern from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and increased their price target for the stock from $225.00 to $250.00 in a research report on Monday, May 22nd. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on Norfolk Southern from $250.00 to $240.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 27th. Susquehanna raised their price objective on Norfolk Southern from $220.00 to $230.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, April 27th. VNET Group reaffirmed a maintains rating on shares of Norfolk Southern in a research report on Thursday, April 27th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised Norfolk Southern from a neutral rating to an overweight rating and set a $250.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 11th. Twelve equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $242.48.

Norfolk Southern Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of NYSE:NSC opened at $210.57 on Friday. Norfolk Southern Co. has a 52-week low of $196.33 and a 52-week high of $264.22. The stock has a market cap of $47.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.19, a PEG ratio of 2.39 and a beta of 1.29. The company has a quick ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 0.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.15. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $207.87 and a 200-day moving average price of $229.87.

Norfolk Southern (NYSE:NSC  Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 26th. The railroad operator reported $3.32 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.15 by $0.17. Norfolk Southern had a return on equity of 25.76% and a net margin of 23.40%. The firm had revenue of $3.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $3.11 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.93 earnings per share. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 7.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts predict that Norfolk Southern Co. will post 13.43 EPS for the current year.

Norfolk Southern Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Saturday, May 20th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 5th were paid a $1.35 dividend. This represents a $5.40 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.56%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, May 4th. Norfolk Southerns payout ratio is 41.51%.

Norfolk Southern Company Profile

(Get Rating)

Norfolk Southern Corp. is a transportation company, which engages in the rail transportation of raw materials, intermediate products, and finished goods. The company also transports overseas freight through several Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports. Its services include property leases and sales, wire line or pipeline and fiber optics projects, access property, managing private crossings, promoting businesses with signboards, and natural resource management.

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Amalgamated Bank trimmed its position in Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ  Get Rating) by 6.6% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 683,154 shares of the companys stock after selling 48,351 shares during the quarter. Johnson & Johnson accounts for 1.1% of Amalgamated Banks holdings, making the stock its 8th largest holding. Amalgamated Banks holdings in Johnson & Johnson were worth $120,679,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Johnson & Johnson by 1.2% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 245,340,875 shares of the companys stock valued at $40,078,885,000 after acquiring an additional 2,815,655 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in Johnson & Johnson by 0.6% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 141,886,311 shares of the companys stock worth $23,178,548,000 after acquiring an additional 803,013 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its stake in Johnson & Johnson by 3.3% during the 3rd quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 25,428,626 shares of the companys stock worth $4,154,022,000 after acquiring an additional 805,831 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in Johnson & Johnson by 1.9% during the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 17,189,229 shares of the companys stock worth $3,046,449,000 after acquiring an additional 328,297 shares in the last quarter. Finally, California Public Employees Retirement System grew its stake in Johnson & Johnson by 2.7% during the 3rd quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 11,751,504 shares of the companys stock worth $1,919,726,000 after purchasing an additional 310,473 shares in the last quarter. 67.94% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider James D. Swanson sold 1,062 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.66, for a total transaction of $164,248.92. Following the sale, the insider now owns 9,215 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,425,191.90. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.20% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Johnson & Johnson Stock Performance

JNJ has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Johnson & Johnson from $179.00 to $183.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a report on Wednesday, April 19th. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an overweight rating and issued a $215.00 price target on shares of Johnson & Johnson in a report on Wednesday, February 1st. UBS Group started coverage on Johnson & Johnson in a report on Tuesday, March 28th. They set a neutral rating and a $164.00 target price on the stock. Credit Suisse Group increased their price target on Johnson & Johnson from $168.00 to $170.00 in a research note on Friday, May 5th. Finally, Piper Sandler reduced their price target on Johnson & Johnson from $55.00 to $52.00 in a research note on Monday, February 6th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Johnson & Johnson presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $173.00.

JNJ opened at $154.35 on Friday. The businesss 50 day moving average is $159.93 and its 200-day moving average is $165.67. The stock has a market cap of $401.11 billion, a PE ratio of 32.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.63 and a beta of 0.53. The company has a current ratio of 1.07, a quick ratio of 0.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. Johnson & Johnson has a twelve month low of $150.11 and a twelve month high of $183.35.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ  Get Rating) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 18th. The company reported $2.68 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.51 by $0.17. The company had revenue of $24.75 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $23.61 billion. Johnson & Johnson had a return on equity of 36.13% and a net margin of 13.22%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.67 earnings per share. On average, analysts predict that Johnson & Johnson will post 10.66 earnings per share for the current year.

Johnson & Johnson Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, June 6th. Investors of record on Tuesday, May 23rd will be issued a dividend of $1.19 per share. This is a boost from Johnson & Johnsons previous quarterly dividend of $1.13. The ex-dividend date is Monday, May 22nd. This represents a $4.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.08%. Johnson & Johnsons payout ratio is presently 99.58%.

About Johnson & Johnson

(Get Rating)

Johnson & Johnson is a holding company, which engages in the research and development, manufacture and sale of products in the health care field. It operates through the following segments: Consumer Health, Pharmaceutical, and MedTech. The Consumer Health segment includes products focused on personal healthcare used in the Skin Health/Beauty, Over-the-Counter medicines, Baby Care, Oral Care, Womens Health and Wound Care markets.

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Want to see what other hedge funds are holding JNJ? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ  Get Rating).

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It changes nothing  Russia deployed nukes in Belarus as copycat move of US deployment in allied states 28 May, 03:01 PM Exclusive Belarusian dictator Lukashenko has no authority to deploy the nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil (Photo:Sputnik/Ilya Pitalev/Kremlin via REUTERS)

Ukrainian journalist and political analyst Vitaliy Portnikov shared his insights on the placement of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus in an interview with Radio NV on May 26.

Control over the tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Belarus will remain in the hands of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, as he possesses the suitcase containing the necessary launch codes, said Portnikov.

The only thing the President of the Republic of Belarus can do is allow a certain amount of Russian nuclear weapons to be stored on the territory of his country.

Video of day

However, any responsibility for the use of this tactical nuclear arsenal lies exclusively with the Russian Federation, its Armed Forces, and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin, explained Portnikov.

Lukashenko himself simply does not have the technical capability to deploy such weaponry. This is completely ruled out and not even worth discussing.

From a military standpoint, the placement of tactical nuclear weapons in Belgorod Oblast of Russia or in Belarus does not change anything at all.

The idea of placing tactical nuclear weapons in the territory of the Republic of Belarus primarily resides within a political context: Look, we are just like the United States. We are a superpower. If the US can deploy its weapons on the territories of other states, we can also deploy our nuclear weapons on the territories of other states. The US has allies, and we have allies, said Portnikov.

If we recall a well-known Soviet literary image, its like Elochka the annibal (comical and eccentric character from the novel Twelve Chairs written by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov) competing with the billionaire Vanderbildt. There is such a course, I would say, of military-technical cooperation, and Elochka will have such a course, explained Portnikov.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin announced on March 5 his intention to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, citing the transfer of depleted uranium munitions from the United Kingdom to Ukraine as the reason behind his decision.

Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, condemned Russias plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus on March 26 and announced the EUs readiness to impose sanctions againstthe aggressor state.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated on April 4 that the Iskander-M missilesystems, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, would be transferred to Minsk.

On May 25, the Defense Ministers of Belarus and Russia signed a document on the transfer of nuclear weapons to Belarus. On the same day, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko declared that Russia had begun transferring nuclear ammunition to his country.

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Tens of thousands braved rain and wind in Belgrade on Saturday in an anti-government protest over two mass shootings that killed 18 people, blaming the deaths on a culture of violence that critics say authorities have allowed to permeate society.

On May 3 a teenage boy killed nine pupils and a security guard in Belgrade in the first school mass shooting in Serbia, and a day later a 21-year-old man killed eight outside the city.

Opposition parties, which organised the rally, blame the government led by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of failing to rein in media that have promoted violence and to act against criminal elements in society.

It was the fourth such protest in as many weeks, with demonstrators turning up in similar numbers to the previous three rallies despite bad weather.

The crowd filled the streets around a compound housing the state broadcaster RTS, calling on President Aleksandar Vucic, Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic and Aleksandar Vulin, the director of Serbias security agency to resign. They also demanded more media freedoms.

We have had enough and it is high time something changed, said Janko, a protester from Belgrade.

The government denies opposition parties allegations, and accuses them of staging protests for political gain.

On Friday, tens of thousands of people bussed-in from across Serbia, neighbouring Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and North Macedonia rallied in the centre of Belgrade in a show of support for Vucic.

We are completely opposite to the people that were here yesterday  we are promoting entirely different values and we strive for change, said Jelena, a woman in her 30s.

Opposition parties and rights watchdogs have long accused Vucic and the SNS of autocracy, stifling media freedoms, violence against political opponents, corruption and ties with organised crime. Vucic and his allies deny the accusations.

On Saturday Vucic stepped down as leader of the SNS, appointing defense minister Milos Vucevic as his successor. Vucic said he will remain the head of the state.

SOURCE: REUTERS
The Memorial Day weekend news-cycle proves exceptionally violent.

The basics . . .

KANSAS CITY SUFFERS TWO MORE HOMICIDES FOR 2023 AS THE SUMMER SEASON OF VIOLENCE STARTS!!!



We link to more info regarding recent deadly shootings and then share more crime reporting from throughout the metro.



Check TKC news gathering . . .

18-year-old dies hours after shooting at 83rd, Troost in Kansas City KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Kansas City police are investigating a homicide Saturday, saying an 18-year-old died several hours after a shooting Friday night. Police were called just before 10 p.m. Friday to 83rd Street and Troost Avenue for a reported shooting. When officers arrived, they found a teen suffering from apparent gunshot wounds.

18-year-old man dies after Friday night shooting near East 83rd Street in Kansas City, Missouri KANSAS CITY, Mo. - An 18-year-old man died after a shooting Friday night in the 1200 block of 83rd Street in Kansas City, Missouri. Metro Patrol officers responded to a reported shooting around 9:53 p.m. Friday, and found the man suffering from injuries caused by apparent gunfire.

Victim in shooting on 83rd Street dies in hospital Kansas City, MO, police say the victim of a Friday night shooting has died.Officers say they went to the area of 83rd Street and Troost Avenue at around 9:53 p.m. to investigate a shooting. They found a person with gunshot wounds when they arrived.EMS took the victim to a hospital, but police say they died several hours later.

Shawnee man sentenced after police find over 500 child porn images SHAWNEE, Kan. - A Shawnee man has been sentenced to over 21 years in prison for federal charges over child pornography and assault. Marquis Williams pleaded guilty in February to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas said the 31-year-old created child pornography.

Jury finds former Lawrence police officer not guilty of rape, 34 other charges KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A jury found a former officer with the Lawrence Police Department not guilty of rape and 34 other charges. After a five-day trial, Jonathan, M. Gardner, 41, of Tonganoxie, was found not guilty of one count rape, 17 counts of computer unlawful acts and 17 counts of official misconduct, according to Douglas County court records.

Sugar Creek man gets 20 years for knife attack in Independence park Jackson County SOURCE: Jackson County Ronald L. Thompson was sentenced to 20 years in prison for attacking a woman with a knife at an Independence public park back in 2021.The 30-year-old man from Sugar Creek pleaded guilty to first-degree assault as part of a plea deal.Court records show that on Dec.

The Most Dangerous Missouri Gang is a 111-Year-Old Crime Family If you thought street gangs were the most dangerous element to fear in Missouri, you'd be wrong. Sure, modern gangs are a serious concern, but they're no match for a crime family in Missouri that began its reign 111 years ago.

Unprovoked attack in downtown Lawrence raises concern for students, residents LAWRENCE, Kan. - The Lawrence Police Department's release of video from an attack Wednesday night is drawing concern from residents. FOX4 showed several people the video police put on social media. We talked to two students who just graduated from the University of Kansas.

Crash between FedEx truck and train investigated by Platte County Sheriff's Office PLATTE COUNTY, Mo. (KCTV) - A crash between a FedEx truck and a train is being investigated by the Platte County Sheriff's Office. It happened Saturday morning around 10:30 a.m. at Oberdiek Lane and Missouri Highway 45. The Sheriff's Office said Oberdiek Lane is currently closed, but 45 Highway is open.

Family, friends push for answers after mass shooting at Klymax Lounge On Friday night, the community held a vigil and balloon release to remember one of the victims, 24-year-old Antoinette Brenson. She leaves behind three children. UP. IT'S BEEN ALMOST ONE WEEK SINCE A MASS SHOOTING AT A NIGHTCLUB IN KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI. GOOD EVENING. I AM. THREE PEOPLE WERE KILLED TONIGHT.

Developing . . .
Where to go next? Canadian travel writers recommend four unmissable hidden gems right here at home
Shahed drones, ammunition, and UA Flight 752  Ukraine wants to sanction Iran for 50 years 28 May, 04:15 PM Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Photo:REUTERS/Alina Yarysh)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked the Verkhovna Rada to approve the National Security and Defense Council's (RNBO) decision to impose sanctions on Iran for 50 years, the parliaments official site said on May 27.

The draft is being considered by the Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence.

The proposal is to approve the decision of the RNBO of May 27, 2023 "On the application of sectoral special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions) against the Islamic Republic of Iran, enacted by Presidential Decree No. 308/2023 of May 27, 2023."

Video of day

Iran has supplied Russia with over 300,000 artillery rounds and about a million bullets with the help of cargo ships in the past six months, as it was reported in April.

Iranian officials has consistently and categorically denied that Teheran supplies Russia with Shahed-136/131 suicide drones, though Russia continues to fire the Iranian-made drones at Ukraine, including a record amount on May 28.

Iran has also taken responsibility for its military shooting down Ukrainian International Airlines flight 752 in 2020, killing all 176 passengers and crew on board.

The Government of Ukraine submitted on May 25 proposals to RNBO to impose sectoral sanctions against Iran for 50 years.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy introduced a new sanctions package against the aggressor country of Russia during his evening address of May 27.

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Hi all,

We are coming from India, in from Paris on 18th and out from Amsterdam on 9th June.

Planning to stay in paris till 22nd and then head to Brittany and out from Brittany on 28th and head to Brussels via train from Rennes.

We plan to stay in Brussels till 2nd June and head to Amsterdam as we have a conference to attend.

Please help us plan a itinerary from 28th May to 2nd June - On the list are Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent(if possible)

Please answer the questions -

1. Ideal location to stay to explore the above

2.Is car needed to explore or train will be enough

3. A doable itinerary to explore Belgium in the above dates.

4. If train- then where to book the train tickets and should I do it in advance?
The Swedish-made Archer FH77 BW L52 155mm self-propelled artillery system will arrive in Ukraine in the summer.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry reported this on Telegram, according to Ukrinform.

"Archer self-propelled artillery system: the legendary Swedish Archer will destroy the Russian occupiers," the ministry wrote.

The FH77 BW L52 Archer self-propelled artillery system has bulletproof armor to protect the crew and engine. Its firing range is 30 km, with active-reactive shells - up to 40 km, and with Excalibur guided shells - up to 60 km. The maximum rate of fire is nine shots per minute.

"Mobile and fast, the Swedish self-propelled artillery system will strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities and help save lives," the ministry said.

Photo: BAE Systems
Kyiv and all Ukrainian cities, entire Ukraine, will put an end to the history of Moscows despotism, which has been bringing enslavement to many different peoples for a very long time.

The relevant statement was made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his video address, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

The full text of the speech is provided below:

Good health to you, fellow Ukrainians!

Today, our country went through one of the largest Russian attacks by Shaheds  54 drones at a time. Almost all of them were shot down... Almost! Unfortunately, there were some hits in the Zhytomyr region. We will do everything to help restore what has been destroyed.

But still, most of the destruction was averted, and most of the lives that could have been taken by these Shaheds were saved. I am grateful to each and every person who made it possible! Anti-aircraft missile troops and aviation of the Air Force, air defense of the Ground Forces and our mobile fire groups... Thank you, warriors!

During this terrorist attack, the most powerful strike was aimed against the Kyiv region. Within the city of Kyiv and the region, 36 drones were shot down. This is how Russia celebrates the day of our ancient Kyiv...

Throughout its history, Kyiv has seen various meannesses from invaders. It has survived them all, and it will survive the ruscists. None of them will be here! Kyiv and all our cities, our entire Ukraine, will put an end to the history of Moscows despotism, which has been bringing enslavement to many different peoples for a very long time. Neither Shaheds nor any other means of terror that it humiliatingly seeks around the world will save it. Because strength is in people, it is in cities, it is in life, and when life, people, and the most important cities for culture are despised, Russia will only face defeat. And even hundreds of Shaheds will not save it from this. They will only enlarge Russia's disgrace.

These days, we congratulate Kyiv and Oleksandriya, Severodonetsk, Kalush, Kryvyi Rih... Cities of different destinies, but of our equal respect. Our Ukraine. Our faith that we will pass this extremely difficult stage of history... We will, and all our cities will be free, and our people will be protected from any evil that may threaten our country.

Today I want to thank all our people who have fought and are fighting for Ukraine - all our warriors, all branches of the Armed Forces and all kinds of troops, every brigade, every unit. Thank you! To all those who are in combat, to all those who are on combat missions, to all those who are at combat posts!

And I thank everyone without whom we cannot imagine effective resistance of the state and effective defense of our cities. I am grateful to each and every one who trains our warriors and heals their wounds. Who produces and supplies weapons. Who provides our logistics and communications. I thank everyone who provides Ukraine with intelligence information and who spreads the truth about the war and Russian terror around the world. I am grateful to each and every one who ensures our rescue operations after enemy attacks and eliminates their consequences.

I am grateful to everyone in the world who cares and who wants freedom to win as much as we do.

All our power engineers and transport workers. Thank you! Ukrzaliznytsia. Defense industry. All our volunteers. United24 and our ambassadors. Thank you! Our law enforcement officers. Local authorities. Employees of public utilities. Our education system. Our cultural figures. Our historians. All those who keep jobs and all those who create jobs - no matter what. Our farmers, workers of our agricultural sector. Our industry. Our IT specialists. Our civil servants. Our diplomats. I thank everyone who strengthens our defense, our state, and our people!

The fact that our capital is free, the fact that our cities defend themselves with dignity, the fact that we will liberate every currently occupied city - all this is the merit of many people. All those who are fighting and working for Ukraine. This is the merit of our powerful nation that knows how to do historic things. When it is united. When it realizes its strength. When it forgives the enemy nothing. And when it inspires the whole world.

We are going forward until we liberate all of our Ukrainian land... We are defending every city... We take care of each other and remember all our people whom we have to bring home from Russian captivity to their cities and villages.

Glory to our beautiful people!

Glory to all who care about our country!

Glory to Ukraine!

Photo: Office of the President of Ukraine
bymuratdeniz / Getty Images

Formerly known as food stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the most important anti-hunger initiative in America. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), SNAP provided food security to about 41.5 million people in 2021, with an average benefit of $218.14 per person.

Food Stamps 2023: When SNAP Benefits Will Hit Accounts in All 50 States

See: How To Build Your Savings From Scratch

Recipients use Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards to receive funds and make purchases, and they can use those cards to buy a whole lot more than just standard groceries. Here's a look at some of the more unusual things that SNAP will pay for.

Twin Design / Shutterstock.com

Energy Drinks -- Some, at Least

You can use SNAP funds to buy energy drinks, but only if they meet the USDA's strict standards. If the energy drink has a "nutritional facts" label, it makes the cut, according to New York SNAP EBT. If it has a "supplemental facts" label, it's considered a supplement and cannot be purchased with EBT. That means Red Bull, Rockstar and Starbucks Double Shot make the grade, but 5 Hour Energy, Bang Shot and Tweaker do not.

Food Stamps: What Is the Maximum SNAP EBT Benefit for 2023?

See: The 15 Biggest Bank Failures in US History

Feyyaz Alacam / Shutterstock.com

Coffee and Tea -- the Kind You Make Yourself

You can use SNAP to buy packaged coffee -- not to mention creamer -- and that includes Keurig-style K-cups. You cannot, however, buy coffee that's ready to drink. If you're thinking that you'll make your own coffee at home and just switch to tea when you're out, that won't work either. Tea, too, is limited to packaged and unbrewed because the USDA doesn't allow SNAP funds to be used to buy any hot beverages.

Stimulus Update: Final Checks Are Going Out Soon -- Will There Ever Be More? 7 Experts Weigh In

CSNafzger / Shutterstock.com

Hunting and Fishing Gear -- But You Have to Live Way, Way Out There

Even if you live in a rural area and kill what you eat, you can't just swipe your EBT card to pick up a new fiberglass rod at Bass Pro Shops -- but hunting and fishing gear is SNAP-eligible for a very specific and very tiny population. According to the USDA, some residents in the most remote parts of Alaska rely almost exclusively on hunting and fishing to feed their households because of the extreme difficulty involved with buying food at stores.

The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services gives qualifying households special identification cards. They can't buy guns and ammo, but they can buy things such as nets, rods, harpoons, lines and knives.

hapabapa / iStock.com

Restaurant Meals -- for Certain People in Certain Places

You can't use SNAP to pay for dine-in restaurant meals -- unless you qualify for the SNAP Restaurant Meals Program (RMP) and live in a state that participates in it. RMP serves vulnerable populations like the elderly, people experiencing homelessness and the disabled.

Participating restaurants must offer meals at "concessional prices" to qualifying diners.

While it's not as limited as Alaska's subsistence hunting program, very few states participate in RMP. It's available all over California, Arizona, Michigan, Maryland and Virginia, as well as in select counties in Rhode Island.

Kyselova Inna / Shutterstock.com

Seeds and Plants

The USDA allows SNAP recipients to buy edible plants like basil or food-producing plants like tomato plants with their EBT cards, as well as seeds for growing their own food. The USDA says you can grow $25 worth of produce for every dollar spent on seeds and fertilizer, yet Modern Farmer says this important inclusion is one of the least known parts of the whole SNAP program.

You can use your EBT card to get seeds and plants at any SNAP-approved retailer, including farmer's markets.

Walmart.com

Gift Baskets -- Depending on What's Inside

The USDA allows you to spend SNAP funds on gift baskets and similar purchases as long as at least half of what's inside is edible. Even if they contain eligible edibles, nonfood items such as toys, stockings and tins don't count if "the value of the non-food part of the item clearly accounts for more than 50% of the purchase price," according to the USDA. The agency gives the example of a stuffed holiday bear that comes with a small package of chocolate: That won't count. A gift basket containing mostly meat and cheese, however, would be acceptable.

Find Out: 18 Banks That Don't Use ChexSystems

Stephanie Botkin / Shutterstock.com

Live Lobsters

Like tobacco, alcohol, vitamins and medicine, live animals are on the USDA's list of items that you can't buy with SNAP benefits. There are, however, a few rare exceptions, including shellfish, "fish removed from the water" and "animals slaughtered prior to pick-up from the store."

That means that, while you can't use your EBT card to buy a puppy from a pet store, you can use SNAP to buy a lobster to bring home to meet its unfortunate fate on your kitchen stovetop.

dontree_m / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Snacks of All Kinds

Most people probably know that SNAP recipients can use their EBT cards to buy household grocery staples such as meat, milk, eggs, vegetables and bread, but what's not as well known is the long list of snacks that are on the USDA's approved list. It includes everything from marshmallows and marzipan to pudding and popsicles.

Cakes, pies, doughnuts, muffins, pastries and all sorts of other things cakey and flaky make the list, as do chips, crisps, popcorn and finger food of all stripes. Ice cream, candy, chocolate, custard, scones, churros and much, much more all get a pass from the USDA -- in fact, if a kid can dream of it, chances are good SNAP will pay for it.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Surprising Things You Can Buy With Food Stamps
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Paris, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th May, 2023 ) :A potentially explosive clash between Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk and Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus kicks off a new era at the French Open on Sunday where for the first time since 2004 Rafael Nadal will not grace the famous red clay.

Injured Nadal, the 14-time champion, sits out the 2023 edition of a tournament where he has lost just three of 115 matches.

In his absence, Novak Djokovic, a two-time winner, and the man responsible for two of Nadal's three career losses in Paris, will look to edge ahead of the Spaniard with a record-setting 23rd major.

However, the road to that tantalising prospect, which faces serious threats from the likes of Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev, doesn't start on Sunday.

Instead, the sporting fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine takes top billing on opening day.

World number two and Australian Open champion Sabalenka of Belarus takes on Ukraine's Kostyuk first up on the showpiece Court Philippe Chatrier.

Kostyuk famously refused to shake hands with Sabalenka's Belarusian compatriot and former world number one Victoria Azarenka at the US Open last year.

She opted instead for a cursory touch of racquets at the net.

The 39th-ranked Kostyuk, a vociferous critic of the decision to allow Russian and Belarusian players to keep competing on tour since the invasion of her country, is expected to repeat her snub of the traditional end-of-match handshake on Sunday.

"If she hates me, OK. I can't do anything about that," said 25-year-old Sabalenka.

"About the no shaking, I can kind of understand them. Like I imagine if they're going to shake hands with Russians and Belarusians, then they're gonna get so many messages from their home countries.

" "If they feel good with no shaking hands, I'm happy with that." - Handshakes? - Sabalenka defeated Kostyuk in Dubai in February 2022, just one week before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

However, Kostyuk boasts a better record in Paris, making the last 16 in 2021 whereas Sabalenka had never progressed the third round.

Stefanos Tsitsipas, the fifth seed and runner-up to Djokovic in the 2021 final after squandering a two-sets lead, begins his bid for a first Grand Slam against Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic.

Tsitsipas has enjoyed a solid clay court season, finishing runner-up to Alcaraz in Barcelona and making the semi-finals in Rome last week.

Former top 40 player Vesely has plummeted to 452 in the world and has not played a match on the main ATP Tour all year.

However, the 29-year-old Czech is not to be under-estimated -- he defeated Djokovic at the 2016 Monte Carlo Masters and again in Dubai last year.

He and Marat Safin are the only players to beat Djokovic multiple times with no losses.

Andrey Rublev, the seventh seed and Monte Carlo champion in April, begins against Laslo Djere of Serbia.

Rublev has made the quarter-finals in Paris on two occasions while 57th-ranked Djere has twice made the third round.

Women's third seed Jessica Pegula and eighth-seeded Maria Sakkari are also in action on Sunday.

Pegula, a quarter-finalist in 2022, tackles American compatriot Danielle Collins.

Sakkari made the semi-finals in 2021 where she was defeated in a three-set epic by eventual champion Barbora Krejcikova.

Another Czech player, Karolina Muchova is her opponent on Sunday.
Acquisition of select Liberty Mutual Insurance Inc. businesses in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador

HDI International moves up to third place in the property and casualty insurance market in Latin America through acquisitions

HANNOVER, Germany and BOSTON, May 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Talanx Group rises to become the third-largest insurer by premium income in property/casualty business in Latin America through the acquisition of companies from Liberty Mutual Insurance Inc. The Retail International division of the Talanx Group has signed a purchase agreement to acquire the Liberty Seguros personal and small commercial business in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador.

Talanx

HDI is expected to increase its gross written premiums (IFRS 4) in Latin America by around EUR 1.7 billion. With this transaction, HDI reaches pro forma rank 2 in Brazil, rank 1 in Chile, and rank 7 in Colombia. Furthermore, the division's overall portfolio will be significantly better diversified as a result of the increase in Latin American business to approximately 45 per cent. The purchase price is expected to be approximately EUR 1.38 billion (approximately USD 1.48 billion) at the closing date of the transaction, subject to customary purchase price adjustment mechanisms.

"With the acquisition of these Liberty Mutual operations we are continuing our success story in Latin America," says Torsten Leue, Chairman of the Board of Management of Talanx AG. "The acquisition fits seamlessly into our strategy of achieving market-leading positions in our core markets through organic and inorganic growth. Alongside Europe, Latin America is one of our core regions in the retail business. We are therefore pleased to be among the top 3 in Latin America with this acquisition. The acquisition will improve our Group net income and our return on equity already in the first year after the expected closing in 2024. The acquisition will further strengthen our primary insurance business and our diversification across business lines."

Dr Wilm Langenbach, Member of the Board of Management of Talanx AG with responsibility for the Retail International division and Chief Executive Officer of HDI International AG, says: "The acquisition is an important milestone in the implementation of our strategy to reach a top 5 position in our core markets across the property/casualty business by 2025, to further diversify our portfolio and to strengthen our technical excellence. In addition, the acquisitions will allow us to achieve significant opportunities with our existing business in Brazil, Chile, and Colombia. I am very pleased that our future Liberty colleagues will strengthen us with their outstanding expertise and experience in Latin America."

"In a world that is rapidly changing, sharpened operational focus across our channels, products and markets is becoming increasingly important for long-term success and will ensure we deliver exceptional value to our customers, brokers, agents, partners, employees, and the communities we serve," says Tim Sweeney, President and Chief Executive Officer of Liberty Mutual Insurance. "We thank our Latin American teams of over 4,600 employees for their tremendous commitment and dedication to our business over many years. We're confident in their future with Talanx, which shares similar core values."

Liberty Mutual operates in 29 countries, making it one of the largest insurance companies in the world by insurance revenue. Liberty Seguros Brazil holds a top 5 position in motor and a top 10 position in property/casualty after full year 2022. In 2022, the Brazilian company generated gross written premiums of BRL $6.1 billion (EUR 1.1 billion), much of which was generated through a distribution network of 20,000 independent distributors. Liberty Seguros Chile offers non-life products and achieved a gross premium volume of CLP $325 billion (EUR 0.4 billion) in 2022. Liberty Seguros Colombia's gross premium volume in 2022 was COP $1,033 billion (EUR 0.2 billion). Liberty Seguros Ecuador generated a gross premium volume of USD $33 million (EUR 31 million) in 2022.

The transaction includes Liberty Specialty Markets direct insurance business in Brazil, Chile and Colombia. The transaction does not include Liberty Specialty Markets facultative reinsurance, Liberty Mutual Reinsurance treaty reinsurance and Liberty Mutual Surety businesses which will continue to operate in Brazil, Chile and Colombia.

HDI International AG is already represented in Brazil, Chile and Colombia through its subsidiaries. HDI Seguros generated a gross premium volume of around 4.5 billion BRL (789 million EUR) in Brazil in 2022. HDI Seguros in Chile generated a gross premium volume of 488 billion Chilean pesos (533 million EUR) and HDI Seguros in Colombia 425 billion Colombian pesos (82 million EUR).

The closing of the acquisition is expected in the first half of 2024. The transactions are subject to approval by the relevant governmental and regulatory authorities.

Rothschild & Co acted as financial advisor and Hogan Lovells acted as legal advisor to Talanx AG and HDI International AG in the transaction. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC acted as financial advisor and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP provided legal advice to Liberty Mutual in the transaction.

About Talanx

Talanx is a major European insurance group with premium income of EUR 37 billion (2022, according to IFRS 17) and roughly 24,000 employees worldwide. Based in Hannover, Germany, the Group is active in more than 175 countries. Talanx is a multi-brand provider with a focus on B2B insurance. Its industrial insurance and retail business in Germany and abroad is operated under the HDI brand, which has a rich tradition stretching back about 120 years. Other Group brands include Hannover Re, one of the world's leading reinsurers; the bancassurance specialists TARGO insurers, LifeStyle Protection and neue leben; and Polish insurer Warta. Ampega, one of Germany's largest asset management companies, manages the Talanx Group's assets and is also an experienced provider of asset management solutions for non-group institutional investors. Rating agencies have awarded the Talanx Primary Insurance Group financial strength ratings of A+ ("strong"/Standard & Poor's) and A+ ("superior"/AM Best). Hannover Re Group is rated AA ("very strong"/S&P) and A+ ("superior"/AM Best). Talanx AG is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, where it is a member of the MDAX, and on the Hannover stock exchange (ISIN: DE000TLX1005, German Securities Code: TLX100).

Talanx  Together we take care of the unexpected and foster entrepreneurship

For further information, please see www.talanx.com.

Current photographs and Company logos are available at https://mediathek.talanx.de.

About Liberty Mutual Insurance

At Liberty Mutual, we believe progress happens when people and businesses feel secure. By providing protection for the unexpected and delivering it with care, we help people embrace today and confidently pursue tomorrow.

In business since 1912, and headquartered in Boston, today we are the fifth largest global property and casualty insurer based on 2022 gross written premium. We also rank 78 on the Fortune 100 list of largest corporations in the US based on 2021 revenue. As of December 31, 2022, we had $50 billion in annual consolidated revenue.

We employ over 50,000 people in 29 countries and economies around the world. We offer a wide range of insurance products and services, including personal automobile, homeowners, specialty lines, reinsurance, commercial multiple-peril, workers compensation, commercial automobile, general liability, surety, and commercial property.

For more information, visit www.libertymutualinsurance.com.

For media enquiries please contact:

Andreas Krosta

Phone: +49 511-3747-2020

E-mail: andreas.krosta@talanx.com

Leonie Drees

Tel.: +49 511 3747-2106

E-Mail: leonie.drees@talanx.com

Liberty Mutual Media Relations

E-mail: mediarelations@libertymutual.com

For investor relations enquiries please contact:

Bernd Sablowsky

Phone: +49 511-3747-2793

E-mail: bernd.sablowsky@talanx.com

Bernt Gade

Phone: +49 511-3747-2368

E-mail: bernt.gade@talanx.com

Liberty Mutual Investor Relations

E-mail: Investor_Relations@LibertyMutual.com

Forward-looking statements

This press release, and any related oral statements, may contain forward-looking statements that are based on certain assumptions, expectations and opinions of Talanx AG and Liberty Mutual management and include, but are not limited to, statements that represent the parties' expectations of timing for closing the proposed transaction. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. A variety of factors, many of which are beyond Talanx AG and Liberty Mutual's control may affect Talanx AG and Liberty Mutual's business activities, business strategy, results, performance and achievements. Should one or more of these factors or risks or uncertainties materialise, actual results, performance or achievements of Talanx AG or Liberty Mutual may vary materially from those expressed or implied in the relevant forward-looking statement.

Neither Talanx AG nor Liberty Mutual guarantees that the assumptions underlying such forward-looking statements are correct nor does Talanx AG or Liberty Mutual accept any responsibility for the actual occurrence of the forecasted developments. Talanx AG and Liberty Mutual neither intend, nor assume any obligation, to update or revise these forward-looking statements in light of developments that differ from those anticipated.

Footnote

FX rates as of May 26, 2023, USD/EUR = 1.07

FX rates used to translate 2022 year end premiums are as of December 31, 2022, BRL/EUR = 5.66, CLP/EUR = 915.59, COP/EUR = 5,178.78

Liberty Mutual Insurance (PRNewsfoto/Liberty Mutual Insurance)

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/talanx-becomes-one-of-the-top-insurers-in-latin-america-through-acquisition-of-companies-from-liberty-mutual-301836219.html

SOURCE Liberty Mutual Insurance; Talanx
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th May, 2023) Air raid warnings were issued in multiple regions of Ukraine late on Saturday night, including Kiev, according to air raid data from the country's Ministry of Digital Transformation.

Air raid sirens went off in the Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kiev, as well as the Ukraine-controlled parts of Kherson region, shortly after midnight, the ministry's online map showed.

Precision strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure have been carried out by Russia since October 10 (two days after the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge).

In February, the head of Ukrainian power grid operator Ukrenergo said that direct damage to Ukraine's energy infrastructure caused by Russian strikes may amount to hundreds of millions of Dollars, with economic losses ranging in billions.
(@FahadShabbir)

MONTEVIDEO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th May, 2023) Leaders of the South American left have affirmed that the region can contribute to the end of the conflict between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Russia, according to a statement obtained by Sputnik.

"As a continent that manages to resolve its differences peacefully, in the context of the war between NATO and Russia, we can contribute with merit and authority to promote the end of the war and actively support the efforts for peace and dialogue necessary for global coexistence," the leftist leaders said in a joint declaration issued after an event in Montevideo on Saturday.

The meeting took place on the eve of a meeting between the leaders of the region convened by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and expected to take place on May 30.

Russia has voiced protest to NATO countries over the supply of weapons to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stressed that all cargo that contains arms deliveries for Ukraine could become a target for Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed that providing Kiev with Western arms does not contribute to the resolution of the Ukraine conflict and will only have negative consequences.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th May, 2023) NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned Kosovo on Sunday against making unilateral, destabilizing steps after Kosovo police clashed with ethnic Serbs in the Serb-majority north.

"Pristina & Belgrade must engage in the EU-led dialogue now, as the only way to peace & normalisation. Pristina must de-escalate & not take unilateral, destabilising steps," he wrote on social media after speaking to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

Kosovo police used force on Thursday to install ethnic Albanian mayors in northern Kosovo following an election in April that was boycotted by a vast majority of voters.

The polls were declared valid despite the turnover of less than 3.5%.

Serbia's National Security Council accused the NATO-led peacekeeping mission KFOR of inaction. Serbia put its armed forces on full combat alert and moved them close to the border following a Kosovo police crackdown on peaceful anti-government protesters.
MINSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th May, 2023) Deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is a necessary step to contain the West so that it does not cross the last "red line," Alexander Volfovich, the secretary of Belarus's Security Council, said on Sunday.

He argued that the developments in Belarus' neighboring countries, primarily Poland, indicate that an offensive armed group is being formed.

"One of the elements of strategic deterrence in military terms is, of course, nuclear weapons. The West has simply left Belarus with no other way," said Volfovich told the ONT broadcaster.

As he recalled, Western countries gave guarantees to Belarus when nuclear weapons were being transferred from its territory in the mid-1990 that sanctions would be imposed against the country, but these promises have since been broken.

"If there is any intelligence left in the minds of politicians in the West, they will certainly not cross this red line.

Because the use of even tactical nuclear weapons would lead to irreversible consequences. This will be an extreme step, but a justified one, to protect our country," Volfovich stressed.

Belarus also reinforced its state borders for security considerations, he added.

"At the same time, we also paid attention to the eastern border. Not in any way closing ourselves off from our strategic partners  the Russian Federation  and realizing that we have no border with the Russian Federation as such, we have taken a number of steps to secure various non-essential roads, among other things. This was aimed primarily at ensuring the safety of people both on the territory of the Republic of Belarus and on the territory of the Russian Federation," the senior official stressed.
In this article, we take a look at the 15 best places to live for couples in their 40s. For more on this, go to 5 Best Places to Live for Couples in Their 40s.

There are around 67% of married couples in the United States, with children between the ages of 0-17, and a majority of the population are couples in their 40s. At this age, most couples see their teens move out and go on with their lives while parents start to plan for retirement.

However, with retirement 401(k) balances losing about 1/4th of their value in 2022, retiring early may sound impossible. In fact, the Employee Benefit Research Institute says that by the age of 45, American households only have about $86,582 in their retirement savings accounts, which is $880,418 less than the amount needed for a comfortable retirement.

It is also estimated that about 75% of Americans dont have enough retirement savings, and 21% of them dont save at all. Despite the devastating statistics, heres the good news: Saving for retirement at 45 is very much possible for couples as long as there is a budget and comprehensive retirement plan in place.

Moreover, according to GoBankingRates, 50% of retired people claimed they had retired before they liked due to different reasons, like layoffs, health issues, financial shifts, and responsibilities. With layoffs increasing 5 times in 2023 across many fields, especially tech, it is always better to plan ahead. And so, at this stage in life, you must start managing your living expenses and saving up for your dream retirement.

Cost of Living in the United States

As a prospective retiree couple, it is important to consider the cost of living of whichever place you choose to move to. The United States has a total GDP of $23.0 trillion and is considered one of the worlds most prominent economic powers. But, after the global pandemic struck, alongside the rest of the world, the USA's economy suffered too.

Currently, the United States is undergoing the most severe inflationary situation. In April 2023, inflation increased by 4.9% in a 12-month period, weakening the purchasing power of the US dollar. And, according to data collected and distributed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) may grow up to 339.39 from 305.84 by 2028. Resultantly, in the coming years, inflation is expected spike up further too.

Note that inflation is directly proportional to the cost of living. The fortunate news, however, is that the economic conditions vary from state to state in the States. Some states have better business growth, labor market, and economic conditions than others. For this very reason, 27,059,000 people relocated to different states within the country in 2021.

If you consider the current and future economy of America as a prospective retiree couple, places with the most affordable living costs and highest employment rates are the best places to relocate to in 2023. Moving to these states can help you save enough for retirement while also improving your quality of life.

15 Best Places to Live for Couples in Their 40s

Our Methodology

For our list, we've gathered the best places to live for couples in their 40s based on two main factors  the cost of living and job market, since, as mentioned earlier, people in their 40s would be in the workforce but nearing retirement.

Seconary factors like crime rate and income tax were also looked into. We've collected data from the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, and Internal Revenue Service We have also discussed the quality of life, healthcare systems, and crime rates in the cities within this list.

Here are the top 15 best places to live for couples in their 40s.

15. Ann Arbor, Michigan

Ann Arbor, the home to the University of Michigan, has a population of 372,428 and an employment rate of 93%. Considering the quality of life it offers, it is the #1 place to live in Michigan.

Despite the healthy job market, Ann Arbor is not very affordable when it comes to accommodation; the median housing cost is $391,633, $30,000 more than the national average. However, the median monthly rent is only $1,218, and the average annual salary for working individuals is $61,010.

In Ann Arbor, housing is expensive, but utilities are cheap. But the pricey aspect balances out with higher salaries, a healthy job market, coupled with a safe environment.

14. Reading, Pennsylvania

When compared to other metro areas of its size, Reading is one of the most affordable and safest places in the United States. The Median home price in this city is $210,816, and the median monthly rent is only $985. Also, as per the population demographics, Reading has a median age of 40 years old and a total population of 426,967.

The annual average salary in the city is $51,680, but the unemployment rate is a little higher than other cities in this list  10.2%. Aside from this, Reading also has a lower crime rate than the national average.

13. Huntsville, Alabama

With a population of 483,366 and a crime rate of 262 violent crimes per 100,000 people, Huntsville seems to be one of the safest and fastest-growing cities in Alabama, United States. The majority of the population of Huntsville (about 40.3%) is between the 35-65 age group, and the median age of the city population is 37.5. 51% of the city population is married.

When compared to other metro areas across the country, Huntsville has a much healthier job market a 4% lower unemployment rate than the national average of 8.7%. Also, the annual average salary is $61,140, slightly lower than the national average of $58,260.

However, the living costs happen to be high, especially in the upper bound of the city. Citizens of Huntsville pay a little more for healthcare than the rest of the state but less for transportation and living. For utilities and groceries, the costs are the same as the American average, making it one of the best places for couples approaching their 40s.

But, the median home price in the city is $304,290, while the monthly rent is $912 less than other metro areas across the States.

12. Topeka, Kansas

Topeka is the capital city of Kansas, US. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Topeka has an unemployment rate of only 3.2% as of March 2023. Compared to the national average, the cost of living in Topeka is also 17.9% lower  utilities, healthcare, housing, and transportation included.

In Topeka, the average housing price is $106,500, the median rent is $865, and the median household income is $50,870. Although its one of the best places to move to when you look at finances, there is a bit of compromise on safety as the crime rate is higher than the national average.

11. Montgomery, Alabama

Montgomery is a city in Alabama that has a reputation for cheap cost of living. Today, it ranks 25th on the list of cheapest places to live in the United States. With a population of 384,791, Montgomery also has the lowest taxes and housing rates compared to the rest of the country.

According to data collected in 2021, the average housing cost in the city is $192,367, which is almost half of the national average. It also has a healthy job market with only a 7.4% unemployment rate. As of today, Montgomery has a lower violent and property crime rate than the national average, with only 1.6% of crimes committed per 100,000 people.

10. Ocala, Florida

Ocala is one of the fastest-growing and safest places in the United States. It is also ranked #11 on the list of best places to live in Florida. There is no state income tax within the state, but sales and property tax rates are almost the same in Ocala as the state average.

Ocala has a population of 370,372, with half being married and approximately 30% being in their 40s. The city has an unemployment rate of 7.2% and lower housing costs ($253,840) than most metro areas of the same size. Also, the crime rate here is 1,009 crimes committed per 100,000 people, which is lower than the national average.

9. Birmingham, Alabama

Apart from being a culturally rich city in Alabama, Birmingham has made a name for itself in affordable urban living. With the median house price being $293,471, Birmingham has an overall low cost of living healthcare and utility expenses included.

The job market in Birmingham is healthy as the city has an employment rate of 94.3% and an average annual salary of $51,720 per working individual. Working couples in this city can easily earn up to $100,000 annually and save up to half of it. Also, the crime rate is significantly lower than the national rate as the city scores 8.7/10 in safety, according to our data.

8. Manchester, New Hampshire

With an employment rate of 93.1%, Manchester is one of the top 12 places to live in the United States. There is also a relief on taxation in the state; there is no general sales or personal income tax here.

The average annual salary of individuals in this city of New Hampshire is $59,920, which is $1,660 higher than the national average. It also has a score of 9.1/10 on the safety index, with a crime rate of 182.8 per 100,000 people. All these factors make Manchester, New Hampshire, one of the best places to live for couples in their 40s.

7. Youngstown, Ohio

Home to a population of 542,459 people, Youngstown is the largest city in Ohio. According to data, the cost of living in this city is way below the national average. In addition, the average housing cost in Youngstown is $129,969, while the national average is $365,616.

If we talk about crime rates and safety, Youngstown has a lower crime rate than most metropolitan areas of its size, with only 137.2 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people. The job market in this city is not as healthy as most cities on this list the unemployment rate is 10.3%.

6. York, Pennsylvania

York is one of the cheapest and safest places to live in the United States. The median age in this city is 40.8 years old, and the quality of life in this city is quite favorable to the age group too.

The average salary of a working individual in York is $51,240, while the employment rate is 91.5%. Also, the housing costs are a lot lower than the national average. Buying a house in the city can cost about $210,546, whereas the median gross rent for 2017-2021 in the city was $881.

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Disclosure: none. 15 Best Places to Live for Couples in Their 40s is originally published on Insider Monkey.
Afghanistan's Taliban authorities and neighboring Iran said Sunday deadly clashes between their border security forces had subsided, with both sides engaging in talks to ease tensions.



The skirmishes erupted in the Afghan border province of Nimroz Saturday, killing two Iranian security forces and a Taliban border guard, officials in both countries said.



Both sides traded blame for the heavy exchange of cross-border gunfire, escalating Iran's tensions with Afghanistan amid a dispute over water resources.



Sunday, the Iranian state-run IRNA news agency quoted a senior official as saying that "the situation is under control" in the conflict zone near the Sasuli border post in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province.



Alireza Marhamati, the deputy provincial governor, said that "local Iranian and Afghan officials have held negotiations on the cause of the clashes and agreed to continue their talks."



A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Affairs Ministry said in a statement that his government "does not want to fight with its neighbors" and insisted Iranian forces started the conflict, prompting Afghan border forces to retaliate.



Bilateral tensions have recently escalated over Iranian allegations that the Taliban are breaching a 1973 water-sharing treaty between Tehran and Kabul by blocking water flow from Helmand River, which flows from Afghanistan to Iran's arid eastern border regions.



Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, during a visit to the border province, called on the Taliban to respect the treaty, which envisions shared water resources and outlines access to monitoring of the water level. Raisi warned the de facto Afghan rulers against violating the agreement and vowed to defend Iran's water rights.



"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan believes dialogue and negotiation are a good path to addressing any issue. Making excuses for war and negative actions do not serve the interest of any of the parties," Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khowarazmi wrote on his official Twitter account.



The United Nations says Afghanistan and Iran have suffered from a prolonged drought, and drought conditions have worsened over the past decade.



Last week, Afghan Foreign Affairs Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, responding to threatening statements by the Iranian leadership, said that Kabul was committed to the water treaty.



In a televised speech, Muttaqi urged Tehran not to overlook the region's drought and try to resolve the issue in "face-to-face talks instead of making noises" through media.



"We also expect the officials of Iran to adjust their expectations in line with the treaty and base the criteria for judgment and comments on the provisions contained in the treaty," he added.

Analysts warned that Afghanistan and the region at large could ill afford another conflict.



Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan official, said the Taliban would avoid a standoff with Iran. He noted that Afghanistan is fragile after 40 years of war, and four million Afghans live on Iranian soil as refugees.



"Sure, skirmishes and then a war can start with Iran, but soon Afghanistan will end up as the terrain for proxy wars with Teheran," said Farhadi. "Arms and munitions will flow to Afghanistan to fight Iran, but the fighters would be Afghan youth, and the destruction will occur in Afghanistan. Not a good perspective."



Iran has retained its embassy in Kabul along with nearly two dozen neighboring and regional countries since the Taliban seized power nearly two years ago, but it has not recognized the new Afghan government nor has the world at large.



The Talibans restrictions on womens right to education and work as well as a lack of political inclusivity in their government have deterred the international community from granting them legitimacy.
As China yearns for babies, the State Council has issued official "Guidelines for Facilitating the Building of the Basic Elderly Care System" and announced a "List of Basic National Elderly Care Services."

The guidelines for 16 services come as a response to a demographic crisis marked by a ballooning elderly population, a declining birth rate, and a shrinking cohort of working-age citizens.

China is not alone in facing this issue. A study published in October 2020 in The Lancet, a medical journal, warned of the "jaw-dropping" economic, social and geopolitical effects on nearly every country as fertility rates fall, people age, and populations shrink.

Exacerbating the predicament in China is that while Beijing is now pushing couples to have as many as three children, the fallout from the one-child policy implemented in 1979 means those only children, now middle-aged, must care for their elderly parents.

The list included a senior allowance for people aged 80 and older, income-pegged subsidies for seniors who need to make their homes barrier-free, public nursing home priority for elderly people with only one child, and special training with subsidies for family members caring for disabled elderly relatives.

'Torture to all of us'

Shu Min, an only child in an eastern Jiangsu province city, is struggling to provide care for her father. He's in his 80s, has mild Alzheimer's disease, and in April 2021 fractured his hip in a fall.

Since hip replacement surgery, Shu Min has shuttled him among different hospitals for rehabilitation because China's Health Insurance Bureau limits this kind of stay to about 20 days.

"Every time when my father gets familiar with the environment, the doctors and nurses, we have to go somewhere else all over again," said Shu Min, who asked VOA Mandarin to use a pseudonym for fear of government harassment. "This process takes too much energy; this is a torture to all of us."

One of China's official media outlets, Xinhua, reported that the guidelines are "to facilitate the building of the basic elderly care system, making clear that the focus through 2025 is on tackling difficulties that could hardly be overcome by families or individuals on their own involving older people incapable of performing self-care, those with disabilities, and those having no one to take care of them."

"By 2025, China is expected to have a relatively sound institutional system in place, bringing its entire elderly population under coverage, according to the document," Xinhua reported on May 23.

"Provincial governments are asked to formulate their own basic elderly care plans and lists on the basis," Xinhua added. "Region-specific lists should at least cover the items on the national list."

Veteran Chinese media personality Ah Qiang, who used a pseudonym for fear of official reprisal, told VOA Mandarin in a phone interview that the list released May 21 will likely be categorized as a "nonpolitical task" by the local governments charged with enforcing it and probably ignored.

Financially strapped by pandemic-related expenses in a crisis that saw a decline in revenue, local governments are prioritizing the fulfillment of mandatory "political tasks" such as "returning forests to farming," according to Ah Qiang.

"Policies to help the people have never been a political task in China, so many of them are actually not implemented after they are issued," said Ah Qiang.

Xinhua reported there were 280 million people aged 60 and older in China at the end of 2022, accounting for 19.8% of the population. The figure is expected to exceed 300 million by 2025, and 400 million by around 2035. China's National Health Commission described the situation in 2035, with 30% or more of the total population over 60, as a stage of "severe aging."

Shu Min is particularly angry about the guidelines for family members to attend caregiving training. She said that in her case, she and her father are the only ones left in her family. If she goes to training, who will care for him and do household chores? "Even if the family had more than one child, don't they have to go to work? Training for the disabled must be specialized training, this is no way to solve the problems. This really makes me angry, I'd rather them not mention this at all."

Shu Min said all she wants now is a stable hospital environment so she doesn't have to keep moving from one hospital to another. She said the government-issued guidelines are just "a bunch of nonsense that sounds good-intentioned."

She believes that for a country with a population of 1.4 billion, it is "absurd" that the government is only now focusing on eldercare shortcomings. "When the system is finally established, I don't know how many generations will have passed," Shu Min said. "I think for myself, my generation, there's no hope."
Fresh deadly clashes were reported Sunday in the remote northeastern Indian state of Manipur although the exact number of fatalities was not immediately clear.

Manipur has been on edge after an explosion of inter-ethnic violence this month killed at least 70 people and left tens of thousands displaced.

The state's chief minister N. Biren Singh told local media, in comments confirmed by a government official to AFP, that 40 suspected militants had died along with two police in the past two days.

"The terrorists have been using M-16 and AK-47 assault rifles and sniper guns against civilians. They came to many villages to burn down homes," local media quoted Singh as saying.

"We have started taking very strong action against them with the help of the army and other security forces. We have got reports some 40 terrorists have been shot dead," Singh was quoted as saying.

However, while a military source confirmed an uptick of unrest, he said four people had been killed in the past 24 hours.

"At least three armed miscreants  who were trying to set fire to empty houses and fired at the security forces when they tried to stop them  died in retaliatory firing," the source told AFP, declining to be named.

"One more armed miscreant was killed in Moreh and three others, including two security personnel, were injured," the source said.

The far-flung states of northeast India  sandwiched between Bangladesh, China and Myanmar  have long been a tinderbox of tensions between different ethnic groups.

The violence in Manipur earlier in May was between the majority Meitei, who are mostly Hindus and live in and around the state capital Imphal, and the mainly Christian Kuki tribe in the surrounding hills.

Most victims are believed to be from the Kuki community, with some of their villages and churches destroyed by Meitei mobs. But the Meitei were also targeted by the Kukis in some places.

The initial spark was Kuki anger at the prospect of the Meitei being given guaranteed quotas of government jobs and other perks in a form of affirmative action.

This also stoked long-held fears among the Kuki that the Meitei might be allowed to acquire land in areas currently reserved for them and other tribal groups.

Thousands of troops were deployed to restore order, while around 30,000 people fled their homes for the safety of ad-hoc army-run camps for the displaced. Mobile internet has been cut for weeks.
The GOP-led Texas House of Representatives impeached state Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday, a sudden, historic rebuke of a fellow Republican who rose to be a star of the conservative legal movement despite years of scandal and alleged crimes.

The vote triggers Paxton's immediate suspension from office pending the outcome of a trial in the state Senate and empowers Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texas' top lawyer in the interim. Final removal would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Paxton's wife's, Angela, is a member.

The 121-23 vote constitutes an abrupt downfall for one of the GOP's most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Biden's electoral defeat of Donald Trump. It makes Paxton only the third sitting official in Texas' nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

Moments after the vote, Paxton's office said the impeachment was "based on totally false claims" and pointed to internal reports that found no wrongdoing. House investigators said the attorney general's probe into Paxton's actions includes false and disproven claims.

"No one person should be above the law, least not the top law enforcement officer of the state of Texas," Representative David Spiller, a Republican member of the committee that investigated Paxton, said in opening statements.

Representative Ann Johnson, a Democratic member, told lawmakers that Texas' "top cop is on the take."

As the articles of impeachment, which include bribery and abuse of public trust, were laid out, some of the lawmakers shook their heads.

Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial. Until this week, his fellow Republicans had taken a muted stance on the allegations.

Lawmakers allied with Paxton tried to discredit the investigation by noting that hired investigators, not panel members, interviewed witnesses. They also said several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, tainting the impeachment, and that they had too little time to review evidence.

"I perceive it could be political weaponization," said Representative Tony Tinderholt, one of the House's most conservative members. Republican Representative John Smithee compared the proceeding to "a Saturday mob out for an afternoon lynching."

Texas' top elected Republicans had been notably quiet about Paxton this week. But on Saturday both Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to his defense, with the senator calling the impeachment process "a travesty" and saying the attorney general's legal troubles should be left to the courts.

"Free Ken Paxton," Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, warning that if House Republicans proceeded with the process, "I will fight you."

Abbott, who lauded Paxton while swearing him in for a third term in January, has remained silent. The governor spoke at a Memorial Day service in the House chamber about three hours before the impeachment proceedings began. Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan also attended but the two appeared to exchange few words, and Abbott left without commenting to reporters.
Christian Jonathan's mother was holding the 9-month-old boy in her arms when she was shot dead during an attack on their village in northwestern Nigeria. The assailants cut off one of Christian's fingers and abandoned him by the side of the road with a bullet wound in his tiny leg.

"They left him on the ground beside his mother's body," said Joshua Jonathan, Christian's father. "They thought the boy was dead."

The late-night attack in April in Runji in Kaduna State left 33 people dead, most of them burned alive or shot dead. Many more have been killed since in the continuing clashes between nomadic cattle herders and farming communities in northwest and central regions of the West African nation, including more than 100 this month in Plateau state.

The decades long violence is becoming deadlier, killing at least 2,600 people in 2021, according to the most recent data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Once armed with sticks, the groups now fight with guns that have been smuggled into the country.

Both sides accuse the government of injustice and marginalization, but the clashes have also taken on a religious dimension, giving rise to militias that side with the herders, who are primarily Muslim, or the farmers from Christian communities.

The growing security crisis presents a huge challenge for Nigeria's incoming president, Bola Tinubu, who rose to power in Nigeria  Africa's largest economy and among its top oil producers  promising to improve the lives of affected communities and address the root causes of the crisis by providing jobs and ensuring justice. Tinubu's inauguration is scheduled for Monday.

If the violence isn't reined in, analysts say, it could further destabilize the country and drive more of its 216 million people into poverty. U.N. agencies say the violence affects mostly children, who are already threatened by malnutrition, and women, who are often abducted and forced into marriage.

The response of security forces can be slow and arrests are rare, prompting a growing number of communities to defend themselves when they come under siege.

"There is a substantial loss of confidence in the government as a protector of citizens," said Nnamdi Obasi, the senior adviser for Nigeria at the International Crisis Group. Obasi warned that the failure of the incoming administration to speedily resolve the conflict would lead to "more people seeking their own self-defense, more proliferation of weapons, more criminal groups and a rise in organized armed groups."

In Runji, an agrarian village, The Associated Press spoke to some survivors in hospital beds and others touring a mass grave and their razed houses. They said they were under attack for hours and that the gunmen fled long before security forces arrived.

Every household bears a scar.

Christopher Dauda's family was trying to escape when the gunmen caught up with his wife and four children, killing all five. Danjuma Joshua's two daughters were shot in the back while they tried to flee. In the home of Asabe Philip, who survived but has burns all over her body, the assailants burned five children alive as they cowered in one room.

Christian's aunt has tried to fill the void left by the killing of his mother. His father said Christian cries a lot and barely sleeps, although his physical wounds are gradually healing.

"We try to manage with what we have left," Joshua Jonathan said.

On the other side of the conflict, the herders say they are also under attack. They complain of cattle rustling and extrajudicial killings by local security groups working as community vigilantes.

Abdullahi Bello Bodejo, the president of the national herders' association, denied that anyone in the group was responsible for the violence. Most of the herders belong to the Fulanis, an ethnic group.

"Fulanis are not the killers. Any person carrying out killings is not our member. Sometimes, when communities accuse us of killings, 75% is not true; they have their own crisis but always blame Fulanis," said Bodejo.

Nigerian security forces say they have arrested dozens of gunmen and recovered their weapons. But the assailants are estimated to number in the thousands and can easily recruit new members, according to Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, a conflict researcher.

"There is a limit to the kinetic (military) operations, as it doesn't address the socioeconomic issue that gave rise to banditry in the region in the first place," said Oluwole Ojewale of the Africa-focused Institute for Security Studies. He said the incoming Tinubu administration must work with state governments to address unemployment, poverty and social injustice.

The recent violence has led to the formation of community, state and regional security outfits that experts say could create bigger problems for Nigeria's security architecture if not properly monitored.

And their recruits are young.

Felix Sunday, a college student in Kaduna, said that he was 16 when he joined a local vigilante group in 2021, and that he struggles to combine the night watch with his studies.

Across much of West and Central Africa, porous national borders facilitate the smuggling of weapons. A survey-based report published in 2021 by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey in collaboration with the Nigerian government found that at least 6 million firearms may have been in the hands of civilians in the country at the time.

The military and police have recovered hundreds of firearms in Nigeria in the last year, but weapons dealers elsewhere are exacerbating the problem.

"Things have gotten considerably worse. Some are large military weapons imported from other countries," said Confidence MacHarry with the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence security firm.

With sophisticated weapons, the gunmen have launched daring attacks in areas with a heavy security presence, including a military base and an airport in Kaduna, indicating that the problem may be the motivation of the security forces themselves.

Survivors of the attack in Plateau told the AP that the police didn't arrive until the next day, echoing comments from people living in Runji, which has a security checkpoint nearby.

"When we call the soldiers, it is after the attackers have left that the soldiers come. Even if we hear they (the attackers) are coming and we report to the government, they don't take proactive action," said Simon Njam, a vigilante leader near Runji who uses bows, arrows and locally-made guns to secure the area.

Part of the problem is that the security forces are disorganized and unprepared to respond to the attacks, according to Kabir Adamu, the founder of Beacon Consulting, a security firm based in Nigeria's capital, Abuja.

"We don't have a coordinated security sector that identifies and counters threats," he said. "They need to work together to protect lives and currently, we are not seeing enough of that."

The Nigerian military and police didn't respond to written and phone inquiries seeking a response to the claims.

As more families mourn the loss of their loved ones, forced to replace farmland with graveyards, their priority is demanding justice.

"How can people just come and kill and nothing will happen?" asked Dauda in Runji, remembering his life with his wife and four children. "They cannot bring back my lost family, but the government can at least rebuild my home and ensure justice."
Indias prime minister presided over the opening of the countrys new massive and controversial parliament building in New Delhi Sunday.

Many of the opposition parties refused to join in the opening ceremonies. They have criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modis takeover of the ceremony and called for President Droupadi Murmus participation in the event.

The parties said in a joint statement last week,  ...Modis decision to inaugurate the new Parliament building by himself, completely sidelining President Murmu, is not only a grave insult, but a direct assault on our democracy...

Rahul Gandh, head of the main opposition Congress Party, tweeted that Modi was treating the occasion as his coronation ceremony.

Modi has said he will seek a third term in next years elections.

Many people have also argued that the nearly $120 million used to build parliament could have been put to better use or a portion could have been used to renovate the old parliament.

The new building replaces the parliament from the British era. Modi said in his address Sunday that India has left behind its colonial past.

Information from Associated Press was used in this report.
Nigerias military this month rescued three more schoolgirls abducted by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram more than nine years ago in northeastern Borno state. In that 2014 incident, Boko Haram raided a government secondary school in the town of Chibok and seized nearly three hundred schoolgirls. Many of the girls have been freed through negotiations, but scores more remain captive. From Abuja, Timothy Obiezu has this report, narrated by Vincent Makori.
Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad (KLSE:MPI) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next 3 days. The ex-dividend date is one business day before a company's record date, which is the date on which the company determines which shareholders are entitled to receive a dividend. The ex-dividend date is important as the process of settlement involves two full business days. So if you miss that date, you would not show up on the company's books on the record date. Thus, you can purchase Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad's shares before the 1st of June in order to receive the dividend, which the company will pay on the 21st of June.

The company's next dividend payment will be RM0.25 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of RM0.35 per share. Based on the last year's worth of payments, Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad stock has a trailing yield of around 1.3% on the current share price of MYR26.24. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad's dividend is reliable and sustainable. That's why we should always check whether the dividend payments appear sustainable, and if the company is growing.

View our latest analysis for Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad

If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad paid out more than half (52%) of its earnings last year, which is a regular payout ratio for most companies. That said, even highly profitable companies sometimes might not generate enough cash to pay the dividend, which is why we should always check if the dividend is covered by cash flow. The company paid out 92% of its free cash flow over the last year, which we think is outside the ideal range for most businesses. Cash flows are usually much more volatile than earnings, so this could be a temporary effect - but we'd generally want to look more closely here.

Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad paid out less in dividends than it reported in profits, but unfortunately it didn't generate enough cash to cover the dividend. Cash is king, as they say, and were Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad to repeatedly pay dividends that aren't well covered by cashflow, we would consider this a warning sign.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Businesses with shrinking earnings are tricky from a dividend perspective. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. Readers will understand then, why we're concerned to see Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad's earnings per share have dropped 6.4% a year over the past five years. Ultimately, when earnings per share decline, the size of the pie from which dividends can be paid, shrinks.

Many investors will assess a company's dividend performance by evaluating how much the dividend payments have changed over time. In the past 10 years, Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad has increased its dividend at approximately 13% a year on average. Growing the dividend payout ratio while earnings are declining can deliver nice returns for a while, but it's always worth checking for when the company can't increase the payout ratio any more - because then the music stops.

To Sum It Up

Should investors buy Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad for the upcoming dividend? It's definitely not great to see earnings per share shrinking. The company paid out an acceptable percentage of its income, but an uncomfortably high percentage of its cash flow over the past year. It's not an attractive combination from a dividend perspective, and we're inclined to pass on this one for the time being.

So if you're still interested in Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad despite it's poor dividend qualities, you should be well informed on some of the risks facing this stock. In terms of investment risks, we've identified 1 warning sign with Malaysian Pacific Industries Berhad and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

Generally, we wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see. Here's a curated list of interesting stocks that are 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.

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Omans Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said arrived in Tehran for a two-day visit Sunday which is expected to focus on regional diplomatic and security issues, Iranian state media reported, two days after Muscat mediated a prisoner swap between Iran and Belgium.

Oman has long been an interlocutor for the West with Iran and has mediated the release of several foreign citizens and dual nationals.

On Friday, Oman helped secure the release of a Belgian aid worker, who was arrested in 2022 and sentenced to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes on charges including spying, in exchange for an Iranian diplomat sentenced to 20 years in prison in connection with a failed bomb plot in France.

But dozens of foreigners and dual nationals remain in jail in Iran, most facing espionage and security-related accusations. Rights groups have criticized the arrests as a tactic by Tehran to win concessions from the West by inventing charges, which Tehran denies.

Haitham met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to discuss issues such as Tehran's strained ties with Egypt and Iran's disputed nuclear program, Iranian state media reported.

The visit comes as Iran also faces renewed criticism of its human rights record and allegations that Russia is using Iranian drones in its war in Ukraine. Tehran denies supplying the drones for use in the war.

Efforts by six world powers to revive Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal have stalled since last September, amid growing Western fears about the clerical establishment's rapidly advancing nuclear program.

The deal, which Washington ditched in 2018 under then President Donald Trump, had imposed curbs on Iran's nuclear activities that extended the time Tehran would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it chose to do so. Iran denies ever seeking nuclear weapons.
Latest developments

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will investigate U.S. allegations that a Russian ship had collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town last year, his office said Sunday in a statement. South Africa denies the allegations which have caused a diplomatic row among the U.S., South Africa and Russia and called into question South Africa's non-aligned position on the conflict in Ukraine.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed Sunday that senior Kremlin officials banned reporting about him on state media. The leader of the Wagner mercenary forces cautioned that such a ban would lead to a backlash from the Russian people within months. The Kremlin did not respond to his comments.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the promise by some Western countries to provide F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine is an "unacceptable escalation," and accused the West of what he called an attempt to "weaken Russia," Russian state-controlled media reports. "It's playing with fire," Lavrov said, as quoted by Russia's foreign ministry.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Sunday introduced a bill proposing additional sanctions against Iran for 50 years. The draft comes after Russias Iran-made massive drone attack against Kyiv overnight, the largest since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Sunday the bill is a response to what Kyiv says is Tehran's weapons supplies to Moscow. The draft includes a complete ban on trade with Iran, on investments, and transferring technologies. If the bill becomes law, Ukraine will forbid Iranian transit across the Ukrainian territory as well as use of its airspace and freeze Iranian assets.

Kyiv and its allies say Iran has been supplying Russia with arms, including hundreds of drones, since Moscow invaded Ukraine last year. Tehran rejects the allegations.

Initially, Iran denied supplying Shahed drones to Russia but later said it had provided a small number before the conflict began. Ukraine has said Russia has used the drones in major attacks on cities and infrastructure.

Overnight Saturday, Russia launched the most massive attack on the city with Iranian-made Shahed drone, said Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official. The attack lasted more than five hours, with air defense reportedly shooting down 52 out of 54 drones, demonstrating Ukraines air defense capability.

A 41-year-old man was killed and a 35-year-old woman hospitalized from debris that fell on a seven-story building and started a fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

The overnight attack came as Kyiv prepared Sunday to celebrate the anniversary of its founding more than 1,500 years ago.

Myroslava Gongadze reports from Kyiv

This is how Russia celebrates the day of our ancient Kyiv, scoffed Zelenskyy about Russias drone attacks on the Ukrainian capital.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said that Kyiv will survive [the attacks by] the ruscists, the same way it has survived attacks from many other invaders throughout its history.

Kyiv and all our cities, our entire Ukraine, will put an end to the history of Moscows despotism, which has been bringing enslavement to many different peoples for a very long time, he added. Neither Shaheds nor any other means of terror that it humiliatingly seeks around the world will save it.

Meanwhile, the British defense ministry said in its daily intelligence update that Russian state-backed media and business groups want the economic ministry to authorize a six-day work week "in the face of the economic demands of the war, apparently without additional pay."

The groups already have petitioned the Russian ministry for the longer work week, the British ministry posted on Twitter.

The update said Margarita Simonyan, described as a "leading Russian propagandist," recently called for citizens to work for two extra hours in munitions factories every day, after their regular jobs.

The call for a longer work week without additional pay "echoes a Soviet-style sense of societal compulsion," the British update said, adding that the Russian "leadership highly likely identifies economic performance as a decisive factor in winning the war."



Ukraine: no compromise with Kremlin



Top Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Sunday that at a planned peace summit in July, Ukraine will not compromise with the Kremlin.



In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Podolyak said, "Any compromise with the Russian Federation is a direct path to the next stages of the war, escalation, and a significant increase in the role of global terrorism. He said, After all the large-scale destruction and murders that Russia has committed in Ukraine, the only path to peace is the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.



When asked whether Russia would participate in the peace summit, Podolyak said, "What is the point of inviting Russians anywhere after they deliberately attack another country, deliberately violate international law, deliberately fire missiles at civilians? The Russians are absolutely not ready to admit their involvement in a large-scale crime and use any international platform solely to spread their hatred."



Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
Somalia's political leaders have agreed to reshape the country's political system after four days of meetings in the capital, Mogadishu.

In a communique issued early Sunday, the National Consultative Council, which includes the federal leaders, including President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre, and Deputy Prime Minister Salah Ahmed Jama, as well as four regional leaders and the mayor of Mogadishu, have agreed to introduce direct elections as early as next year and unify the election schedules, and endorsed establishment of a presidential system for the country.

In a departure from clan-based power sharing, the leaders agreed that one-person-one-vote elections will take place once every five years. A 15-member national election and border committee will be formed to manage all local, regional and federal elections.

The local council elections will be the first to take place on June 30 of next year. This will be followed that year by regional parliamentary and regional leadership elections on November 30, the communique read.

The leaders have agreed that there will be only two political parties that compete for power in the country. The current political parties law does not limit the number of political parties.

Agreement abolishes premiership

Perhaps the most significant article in the agreement is the restructuring of the leadership system by abolishing the premiership.

In its place, the leaders endorsed a presidential system, with the president and vice president of the country elected directly on a single ticket. The same applies to the regional presidents and their respective vice presidents.

The endorsement of a presidential system will require a federal constitutional amendment, as the current constitution provides for a parliamentary system in which lawmakers elect a president, who then appoints a prime minister. Critics have argued for a long time that the parliamentary system brought endless political squabbles between the president and prime minister.

If popular elections take place nationwide next year, that will end a controversial clan-based system known as "the 4.5," which has been used for power-sharing since 2000. That system allowed four main clans to have equal share in parliament, while a group of smaller clans got half of the share. The last election based on the 4.5 system brought Mohamud to power in May of last year.

Minister for Interior, Federal and Reconciliation Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, who read the communique hailed the agreement as "one step forward."

"This is a historic agreement which brings an end to the system used since 2000," he told VOA Somali. "It gives the Somalis the opportunity to have their say and entrust their vote with those representing them at different levels of local, regional and federal governments."

The communique did not address what happens when the current president's term ends on May 15, 2026.

But Fiqi said that next year's election will be considered as a "midterm" election, where those elected will hold their posts for two years, until 2026, when the election calendar for both local, regional and federal levels will be unified.

Opponents call agreement 'unconstitutional'

The new agreement was quickly criticized by some politicians who argued it would give term extensions to regional leaders whose terms in office currently end within months.

"Tonight's communique by the National Consultative Council is an affront to Somalia's provisional constitutional and the supremacy of our national laws," said Mursal M. Khaliif, a member of the Federal Parliament.

"Whatever it's called, this is an unconstitutional term extension for the Federal Member States and the Federal Government."

The agreement was not signed by the president of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, Said Abdullahi Deni. Puntland this week held local council elections in which the people voted to elect their representatives, an exercise the rest of the country is working to emulate next year if this agreement is implemented.
Along with the poaching of elephants for their ivory and rhinos for their horns, wildlife officials in South Africa are dealing with a new problem -- the trafficking of succulents, plants that dont need much watering. Many types of succulents in South Africa's semi-arid Karoo region are now critically endangered because of a sharp rise in illegal harvesting for international markets -- with China being the main destination. Kate Bartlett reports from the Little Karoo, South Africa.
More than a week after Macaos legislative assembly passed controversial amendments to the former Portuguese colonys national security law, a sense of uncertainty pervades in the vibrant and popular gambling and tourist destination, with some people remaining mum about the law taking effect this week.

Since the measures passage, some journalists, writers, and businesspeople contacted for this article have refused to be interviewed out of fear of repercussions for expressing concerns about the amended law.

Its not appropriate [or convenient] to accept interviews on the national security law, was the common response.

Others, however, were seeking answers on how the law would affect day-to-day life.

The amendments, passed unanimously by the legislature May 18, are aimed at upgrading the Law on Safeguarding National Security, first enacted in 2009, a decade after Macao returned to Chinese sovereignty.

A statement on Macaos government website said the amendments were necessary because the country [meaning China] is facing a more complicated and changing security and development environment, making safeguarding national security increasingly arduous.

The amendments will enable Macao to more effectively respond to future internal and external security situations, it said.

Without giving details about what those threats are, the website lists changes to the law, including:

expanding the definition of secession to include acts carried out by nonviolent means;

widening the definition of sedition to include acts that incite participation in riots;

renaming the crime of theft of state secrets to violation of state secrets.

The amendments also change the references to the crime of collusion with foreign political organizations to simply collusion with "organizations outside Macau that are seeking to damage national security. This could be aimed at pro-independence groups in Taiwan, which Beijing considers to be a part of China.

They also call for punishing outside hostile forces and locals who support them with the intention of harming national security by trying to influence Macaos elections, advocating sanctions against the enclave, and trying to make Macao's people hate the central government in Beijing.

Analysts said Beijing, alarmed by weeks of widespread and sometimes violent protests against an extradition bill in Hong Kong in 2019, wants to close loopholes in the law, to prevent such occurrences in Macao. They say China's government had nudged Macau's chief executive and legislature to pass such amendments in the past, but there was reluctance until now.

When Hong Kong experienced political turmoil in 2019, Beijing was definitely threatened by the social movement.  Therefore, the amendment of Macaos national security law, in the eyes of Beijing, is to fill up the legal loopholes in Macao, said Eilo Yu Wing-yat, associate professor at the University of Macaus Department of Government and Public Administration.

Asked why Beijing would feel the need to toughen control measures in Macao, given how peaceful it is compared to Hong Kong, Victor Gao, a professor at Chinas Soochow University, agreed that the Hong Kong protests were the catalyst and Beijing felt it should take preemptive measures.

Any political system would not tolerate secession or rebellion, Gao said, referring to some Hong Kong protesters advocating for the territory's independence and others storming the local Legislative Council building at one point. Therefore, Macau needs to close the loopholes, so that if anyone tries the same thing in Macau, they will have the legal wherewithal to deal with these anti-social stability, sabotaging acts.

Other analysts, however, say the amendments widen the scope of actions under which individuals and groups can be punished, and this could harm Macaos freedoms.

The expansion of national security offenses to include non-violent means and inciting participation in riots' will further chill an already frosty civil society, media, and academic space, wrote Jason Buhi, associate professor at Barry Universitys School of Law in Florida and author of The Constitutional History of Macau, in an email.

What is especially worrying is that crimes involving "incitement" and "state secret" are not well defined, which could have a major impact on the freedom of press and speech in Macao, and the public's right to know, according to a statement posted by the 100-member Macau Journalists Association on its Facebook page in March.

The association said that while government officials have repeatedly stated that policy discussions will not be affected by the national security law, real discussions inevitably involve criticism of government policies or officials actions. It questioned whether these will now be seen as inciting hatred or confrontation against the government.

The arbitrary nature of legal interpretation is extremely high, making journalism a high-risk industry, the association said.

Not defining what is considered state secrets also puts journalists at risk of violating the law, the association said.

It is like a bottomless abyss for journalists who have to collect a lot of information every day, the journalism group said.

According to MacauBusiness.com, local officials have issued assurances that the amendments include safeguard mechanisms against abusive use and shall not harm the human rights of suspects.

The journalists association has asked for clarification, arguing that the legislature and government have a responsibility to let the public clearly understand what constitutes a crime under the amended law.

Like Hong Kong, Macao was promised a high degree of autonomy without changes to its political, social and economic freedoms for 50 years after returning to Chinese sovereignty.

Some businesspeople who are not involved in politics said they also have to be cautious.

I see people who talk about it [the national security law] and theyre immediately targeted, said a small business owner who requested anonymity. If you become too vocal, then they pick on you. For instance, they can be strict about approving your workers work permits. I cant say its a coincidence.

Unlike Hong Kong, however, Macao residents have shown no appetite for challenging the governments authority. About half of its 674,000 population were born in mainland China. Many are familiar with the governments heavy-handed control over society and see Macao as being much freer than the mainland.

At the same time, some people are quietly worried.

To many Macao residents, they may feel powerless regarding the reform and may consider opposition against it would probably lead to the further suppression and repression  similar to the current Hong Kong, Yu said.
Drone attacks targeted oil pipeline installations inside Russia Saturday, including a station serving the vast Druzhba oil pipeline that sends Western Siberian crude to Europe, according to Russian media. Kyiv has not commented on the attacks and Reuters could not verify the reports.

Russia's Wagner mercenaries are "regrouping to another three locations" after partially withdrawing from Bakhmut, according to Ukraines National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov in an interview released Saturday.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham expressed confidence that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will yield results. I'm here to tell you that the Russian military is about to have holy hell unleashed upon them, he said during a news conference Friday in Kyiv.

Ukraine is prepared to launch its long-expected counteroffensive against Russian forces, according to Ukraines National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov.

In an interview with the BBC Saturday, Danilov said the counteroffensive is coming very soon. It could begin "tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week," he said, though he refused to offer a date for the launch to begin.

It would be weird if I were to name dates of the start of that, he said.  We have a very responsible task before our country.

Danilov confirmed in the interview that the Wagner Group is withdrawing its forces from the war-ravaged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, but he acknowledged that Russia's Wagner mercenaries are "regrouping to another three locations" after what he called their partial withdrawal from Bakhmut.

FILE - These satellite images provided by MaxarTechnologies show school and apartment buildings in Bakhmut, Ukraine, May 8, 2022, top, and the same buildings demolished on May 15, 2023, bottom.

Ukraine Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar also noted, on the Telegram messaging app, that Wagners offensive activity had decreased in Bakhmut but said that Russian troops are being replaced and are regrouping.

The enemy is trying to strengthen its own capabilities," she said.

Danilov acknowledged that Ukrainian forces control only a small part of the city but underscored that "Bakhmut has played a big role in this war," despite the heavy toll on Ukrainian defenders.

Wagner and the Russian Defense Ministry claimed victory over Bakhmut on May 20, about 10 months after the heavy battle for the city started.

Zelenskyy: More sanctions

In his nightly video address Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised to continue with even more extensive sanctions against legal entities and individuals, most of them Russian, who work for terror.

Zelenskyy said in total 220 companies and 51 individuals will be sanctioned regardless of where they operate in the world. Russian aggressors and their enablers will be marginalized, he warned.

When Russia started this aggression, they looked at the world as if they were looking at themselves in a mirror. They thought that supposedly everyone in the world was as cynical and despised people in the same way as the masters of Russia do. But the world is different  the world helps us protect life, he said.

Evicting Russia from Ukraine

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham expressed confidence that the Ukrainian counteroffensive will yield results.

I'm here to tell you that the last chapter of the battle of Bakhmut is yet to be written. I'm here to tell you that the Russian military is about to have holy hell unleashed upon them, he said during a news conference Friday in Kyiv.

Graham also stated that Republicans and Democrats are united in their goal to help Ukraine, and he noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin must not be allowed to win.

History tells us aggression unchecked leads to more aggression, he said.

He also expressed admiration for the Ukrainian people, their strength and courage.

I am in awe of you. I admire you. You represent the best in humanity. You will win, he said.

Graham said there are no magic weapons to winning a war, but he acknowledged that the F-16s will matter.

He called on the Biden administration to do more and expressed his conviction that there will be bipartisan support to providing more weapons that can turn the tide of battle in the upcoming counteroffensive.

Responding to a VOA question about whether the U.S. will support Ukraines bid to join NATO, Graham said Ukraine will eventually become part of the alliance and a member of the European Union but for now, the priority, he said, is for Ukraine to evict the invader, from Ukrainian territories.

I told President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy nobody is signed up for an invasion of Russia. The weapons we're providing are to evict Russia from Ukraine.

Ukraines drone attacks

Drone attacks struck oil pipeline installations deep inside Russia on Saturday, including a station serving the Druzhba pipeline, one of the world's largest oil pipelines that sends Western Siberian crude to Europe. Russian media reported the attacks were launched by Ukraine and said that shelling from Ukraine killed at least two people and injured others.

Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia have been growing in intensity in recent weeks, and The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence believes Ukraine was behind a drone attack on the Kremlin earlier this month.

Ukrainian officials have not publicly acknowledged launching attacks against targets inside Russia. The Ukrainian defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.

In Russia's Belgorod region, Ukrainian shelling killed at least one person and injured three, including a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the region said.

Ukrainian shelling killed a construction worker in Russias Kursk region near the border with Ukraine, the local governor said.

At its daily briefing about the Ukraine war, Russia's defense ministry said it had destroyed 12 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours and intercepted two long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles that were supplied to Ukraine by Britain.

Reuters could not immediately verify battlefield accounts from either side.

VOAs Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze contributed to this report.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
Sudan's army chief, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, has accused U.N. special envoy Volker Perthes of stoking a brutal conflict with paramilitaries, the latest in a series of apparent moves to bolster his war effort.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was shocked by Burhan's letter, which requested "the nomination of a replacement" to Perthes and accused him of committing "fraud and disinformation" in facilitating a political process that broke down into six weeks of devastating urban warfare. Guterres said he was "proud of the work done by Volker Perthes and reaffirms his full confidence in his Special Representative."

Burhan and his former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, were meant to meet for negotiations facilitated by the U.N. on April 15, the day they turned Khartoum into a war zone.

The meeting aimed to restore a transition to civilian rule disrupted since 2021 when Burhan and Dagalo together seized power in a coup before falling out. As their feud worsened, the international community tried to get them to reach a deal on integration of Dagalo's RSF into the regular army.

Since late last year Perthes and the U.N. mission in Sudan, which he heads, have been the target of several protests by thousands of military and Islamist supporters who accused Perthes of foreign intervention and demanded his dismissal.

Similar protests have taken place in the eastern city of Port Sudan since the war started.

Perthes had maintained his optimism and said the war took him "by surprise."

In the letter, Burhan said Perthes presented a misleading picture of consensus in his reports to the U.N., and "without these signs of encouragement, the rebel leader Dagalo would not have launched his military operations."

It has not been possible to verify who fired the first shots.

The fighting across Sudan has killed more than 1,800 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

The United Nations says more than a million people have been displaced within Sudan, in addition to 319,000 who have fled to neighboring countries, raising concerns for regional stability.

A one-week cease-fire brokered by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia expires Monday night.

Burhan last week officially sacked Dagalo as his deputy in the ruling Sovereign Council, replacing him with former rebel leader Malik Agar.

But even after reports of Burhan's letter emerged, Agar said he had spoken to Perthes about "ways to resolve the crisis and end the war."

Perthes is in New York, where last Monday he briefed the Security Council on Sudan. He responded to those who "accuse the U.N." by saying those responsible are "the two generals at war."

Perthes "may not be allowed back into Sudan," according to Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair, founder of Khartoum-based think tank Confluence Advisory.

"His visa will be a litmus test to gauge the resurgence of the Islamists," she wrote on Twitter.

Pro-democracy voices have long accused Burhan of being a Trojan horse for Islamists from the regime of strongman Omar al-Bashir, whom the military ousted in 2019 after mass protests.

Several high-ranking officials from the Bashir era have found roles in Burhan's administration since the coup.

During the fighting Burhan's backing has grown clearer, including "a web of crony-capitalist corporations, from banks and telecom companies owned by Islamists and intelligence officers to companies owned by the military itself," according to Sudan expert Alex de Waal.

Dagalo himself has called Burhan an "Islamist" and a "coup plotter" intent on reviving "the vestiges of the old regime."

Dagalo, whose RSF are descendants of the notorious Janjaweed militia unleashed by Bashir in Darfur, has links to gold mines, and de Waal has said he has thrived in an environment "where money and guns determine everything."
GABORONE, BOTSWANA  Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi has again criticized a 54-year-old partnership with world-leading diamond producer De Beers, saying his country will not back down on demands for an improved deal.

Under the current arrangement, due to expire next month, Botswana gets 25% of rough diamonds mined under its partnership with De Beers, and the company gets the rest. Negotiations on a renewal of the pact, in which Botswana is seeking a higher stake of the profits, are underway.

The stones are mined by Debswana Diamond Company, in which the two partners own equal shares.

Botswana provides De Beers with 70% of its rough diamonds.

Not 'until death do us part'

Since February, Masisi has ramped up the pressure on the diamond giant. Speaking in Mmadinare, northeast of the capital, Gaborone, on Thursday, he did not mince words.

This is not [about] until death do us part or a permanent agreement, Masisi said, speaking in the local vernacular, Setswana.

He hinted that the negotiations might stall.

It is either we accept the situation as it is and continue getting leftovers, or alternatively we dig in and, no matter how tough it is, demand what is ours, even if we lose through litigation, Masisi said.

No comment could be obtained from De Beers. The company has previously indicated it was confident a deal would be fleshed out, while acknowledging some complexities.

With Botswana due to hold its general election next year, Masisi said he would be willing to lose over the sensitive issue.

I am not scared, he said. Yes, we are politicians and always lobby for votes, but if it means losing as a result of this issue, let it be.

The current negotiations began in 2018 and were to end in 2021 but were extended until June 30, 2023, because of the pandemic.

Masisi said trade in all rough diamonds mined in Botswana could net up to $15 billion a year, but under the De Beers deal, the country gets only $7 billion, or $8 billion if we are fortunate.

Also, he noted, the current agreement restricts Botswana to trading only in rough diamonds. He said the country wants to be involved in the diamond value chain, which includes not just mining but also sorting, cutting, polishing, jewelry creation and sales.

Masisi said involvement in the value chain could earn Botswana nearly $100 billion, which is why it wants a better deal with De Beers.

The president said he finds it strange that if there is a deadlock in negotiations, the matter is referred to courts in England for arbitration.

People cannot do what they want with our diamonds, leaving us in poverty, yet they get rich, he said. The $7 billion that we get  yet we can get close to $100 million. No, no.

Masisi said that if Botswana reached a favorable deal with De Beers, poverty in the country could be eradicated in the blink of an eye.

We have been shortchanged with our resources through these agreements, but now we can read, and our eyes are open, he said.

Negotiating tactics

Belgium-based diamond expert Hans Merket said Botswanas continued threats to pull out of the De Beers deal had left the industry skittish.

"It is hard to tell if the long-standing deal between Botswana and De Beers is in jeopardy," he said. "As this continues to drag on and as we continue to hear strong statements from the Botswana side, many people in the diamond industry are clearly getting nervous.

But the general expectation is that this is still part of the negotiating tactics to get a better deal rather than to risk breaking it. Common sense reasoning is that both De Beers and Botswana need each other to divorce.

Merket said that because of Botswanas prominent role in the sector, the value chain can be affected by protracted talks.

Botswana is the largest diamond-producing country by value, and Debswana accounts for over 90% of that production. So we are talking about roughly 25% of the total world diamond production value," he said.

"It is clear that any troubles with that supply would be felt globally, all the more given that diamond production from Russia, the other big producer country, is increasingly cornered following Western sanctions in the light of the war in Ukraine," he said.

Botswana is second only to Russia in global diamond production. However, buyers have been shunning stones mined in Russia following Moscows 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (REUTERS)  Saudi Arabia and the United States called on Sunday for the extension of a cease-fire deal that has brought some let-up in a six-week war between military factions but little humanitarian relief for civilians.

There were clashes overnight in the capital Khartoum and Omdurman, an adjoining city across the Nile, residents said, while human rights monitors reported deadly fighting in El Fashir, one of the principal cities in the western region of Darfur.

The conflict between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that erupted on April 15 has left the capital reeling from heavy battles, lawlessness and a collapse in services, driving more than 1.3 million people from their homes and threatening to destabilize the region.

A week-long cease-fire brokered in Saudi and U.S.-led talks in Jeddah is due to run until Monday evening. Both countries are remotely monitoring the truce, which has been repeatedly violated, and called on the army and the RSF "to continue discussions to reach agreement on extending the cease-fire."

"While imperfect, an extension nonetheless will facilitate the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people," Saudi Arabia and the U.S. said in a joint statement.

The RSF has said it is ready to discuss the possibility of renewal and that it would continue to monitor the truce "to test the seriousness and commitment of the other party to proceed with the renewal of the agreement or not."

There was no statement on the possible renewal of the ceasefire from the army.

More than 300,000 people have crossed Sudan's borders since the fighting erupted, with the largest numbers heading north to Egypt from Khartoum or west to Chad from Darfur.

Sudanese refugees stand in line to receive food aid near the border between Sudan and Chad, in Koufroun, Chad, May 9, 2023.

In Khartoum, factories, offices, homes and banks have been looted or destroyed. Power, water and telecommunications are often cut, there are acute shortages of medicines and medical equipment, and food supplies have been running low.

"We left because of the impact of the war. I have children and I fear for them because of the lack of medical treatment," said one resident of the capital, 29-year-old Samia Suleiman, speaking to Reuters from the road to Egypt.

"I also want my children to have a chance of schooling. I don't think things in Khartoum will be restored soon."

Some respite from fighting

The truce deal has brought some respite from heavy fighting but sporadic clashes and air strikes have carried on.

The United Nations and aid groups say that despite the truce they have struggled to get bureaucratic approvals and security guarantees to transport aid and staff to Khartoum and other places of need. Warehouses have been looted.

Violence has flared in several parts of Darfur, already scarred by conflict and displacement, with hundreds of deaths recorded in El Geneina near the border with Chad.

In recent days there has also been fighting in El Fashir, capital of North Darfur State.

One El Fashir hospital had recorded three deaths and 26 injuries on Saturday, including children, according to the Darfur Bar Association, an activist group. Many more people were missing, it said.

Across the country, the Health Ministry has said at least 730 people have died in the fighting, though the true figure is likely much higher. It has separately recorded up to 510 deaths in El Geneina.
WASHINGTON - Opposition parties, nongovernmental organizations and others are worried that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is failing to provide the country's voters' roll at some inspection centers as the nation inches closer to crucial council, parliamentary and presidential elections.

Felix Magalela Mafa of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) said ZEC is deliberately derailing the electoral process for the benefit of the ruling party.

There is a crisis in Bulawayo where ZEC is failing to provide the voters roll in some centers for people to check their names. Up to this time, certain centers havent received the voters roll to allow citizens to check their names and verify their particulars so they can vote in the forthcoming general elections.

He said his town has been monitoring the exercise in Zimbabwes second largest city where hundreds of people have been turned away at inspection centers. They camped outside those centers until they gave up.

We observed some people lingering around the centers but left when there was no voters roll. ZEC is incapacitated and this is very alarming because some nations donated funds for running these electoral processes.

The voter inspection exercise started a few days ago and ends Wednesday.

But Matabeleland North regional minister, Richard Moyo, said the voters' inspection exercise is going on well in his province.

People started inspecting names on their voters roll today and it seems everything is running smoothly, said Moyo.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa is expected to announce the date of the elections on Monday despite challenges being faced by ZEC.

Slightly over 6,000 Zimbabweans are registered on the countrys voters roll, which has not been officially distributed to stakeholders.
(Bloomberg) -- Australias barley sector may be the next beneficiary of the thawing relationship with Beijing, Trade Minister Don Farrell said following another meeting with his Chinese counterpart.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Farrell, speaking in Detroit after his third meeting with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in the past two months, said he expects China will remove its 80% tariffs on Australian barley exports within the next few weeks. Australia recently suspended its World Trade Organization case to give Beijing an opportunity to review the matter.

I intend to persist and persevere with all of those trade impediments, with a view to resolving them as quickly as we possibly can, Farrell said in an interview Saturday. Were making progress, but the job is not finished, he said, adding he expected China to remove the barley tariffs after Beijings review if its done properly.

The comments are the latest sign ties between Australia and its top trading partner are on the mend in the wake of the election of Prime Minister Anthony Albaneses Labor government a year ago, with timber exports to China recently following the resumption of coal shipments earlier in 2023. Wine, crayfish, hay and to some extent meat, where not all butchers have received approval from Beijing, remain outstanding issues, Farrell said.

The lifting of timber-export restrictions came after Farrell visited Beijing and held talks with Wang earlier this month. The ministerial-level discussions are a breakthrough after the Chinese government took punitive actions on a range of goods in 2020, furious at a call by then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison for an international investigation into the origins of Covid-19 in Wuhan.

Even as Canberra aims to negotiate an end to sanctions on billions of dollars worth of its agricultural exports, Beijing is pushing for better access for investment and Australias support for China joining the 11-country Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. Thats a sensitive issue given that Canberra is closely tied to the US on security and relations between Beijing and Washington are extremely strained.

Farrell participated in a meeting of the trade bloc in Detroit and said that his counterparts are focused on finalizing the incorporation of the UK, the first country to join since 2018. After that, members will talk about the additional nations that have asked to join, Farrell said, pointing out that he had told Wang such decisions must be made by consensus.

Its just not a case of, you know, what Australia might or might not want to do, Farrell said. Its a case of what the rest of the countries wish to do.

Even as it seeks to mend trade ties with China, Australia is pushing to diversify away from the nation, which accounts for about 30% of its total trade  more than the US, Japan, South Korea, India the UK and Germany combined, Farrell said.

That push includes new free-trade agreements with India and the UK. Farrell was in Michigan for talks on the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and this upcoming week will be in Brussels in a bid to finalize a deal with the European Union.

We can walk and chew gum, so we can continue to build on our trading relationship with China, stabilize that relationship, but also diversify our economy so that we have a range of a range of choices, Farrell said.

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A Zimbabwean inspects her name on the country's voters register ahead of the announcement of the date of the poll Monday by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. (VOA)
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A Zimbabwean inspects his name on the country's voters register ahead of the announcement of the date of the poll Monday by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. (VOA)
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For Roses father Nick Beaugeard, his main motivation is the life lesson for his children: to teach them financial skills and prepare them for adult life. Were trying to educate them about real life rather than just letting them live off the bank of mum and dad, Nick Beaugeard said. We could afford not to do it, but I think that would be doing them a disservice. As a kid, I never paid board, and when I left home it was an enormous shock, and I dont want that to happen to the kids. Melissa Browne, a former financial adviser and founder of the eight-week My Financial Adulting Plan, said she was having more conversations this year with parents who were considering charging board for the first time. I eat a lot, I drink the coffee in the house, I use things, so [paying board is] understandable. Emile Kwasner-Catsi, 18

I definitely attribute these conversations to the cost-of-living increases, Browne said. The issue we have is that kids, including adult kids, might be staying at home longer to save money, but thats now putting financial pressure on parents who are facing rising electricity, interest and food costs. Browne believes charging board is a good way to teach young people financial responsibility and help them transition to independence. But if the board is set too high or not communicated well, the child could become resentful or start to treat the home like a hotel and the parents like staff because theyre a paying customer now. In setting a rate, Browne said parents need to consider their own financial situation, the young persons employment status, how much they assist with household chores, and how much they use household resources, such as taking long hot showers or hosting friends. For example, a family struggling with the cost of food might charge a portion of the weekly grocery bill. If the young person has variable casual work, their parents might charge a percentage of their take-home wages. Browne said parents should still calculate the true cost of upkeep, so the young person learns what things cost: the accurate cost might be $250 a week, but the parents might charge $100 a week and expect the child to cook once a week, do their own laundry and buy their own alcohol.

The Australian Taxation Office confirmed there were no tax implications when children and other close relatives pay board or contribute to shared expenses in the family home. Research by comparison website Finder from January 2023 found the average cost for a young person to leave home was $480 a week. That was a national figure that included $289 a week for rent in a share house, but not the one-off costs of moving and setting up a house. Dr Edgar Liu, a senior research fellow at the City Futures Research Centre at the University of NSW, said the main reason for young adults living with their parents was financial. This included young people who could not afford to move out in an expensive rental market, but also parents who relied on the financial contribution. Meanwhile, Liu said better-off families often said they charged board for the learning experience and saved the money to return as a lump sum when needed. Loading

The 2021 census suggests nearly half of one-parent households have a non-dependent child living at home, compared with fewer than one in three couple families. Liu said his research also found that children were more likely to stay at home if their parents had separated. There were the financial contributions, but a lot of them also made a conscious decision to keep the parent company, Liu said. The younger people would say things like, I just cant bear the thought of Mum living here by herself or that Mum needed my help to care for my younger siblings. Most of the families interviewed by this masthead had sons rather than daughters paying board, and this is borne out in the statistics as well.

The census figures for NSW suggest nearly 60 per cent of people aged over 20 who live in the family home are male. Emile Kwasner-Catsi, 18, with his father George Catsi at home in Petersham. Credit: Dean Sewell Emile Kwasner-Catsi has been working three jobs since he left high school last year to save for an overseas trip. The 18-year-old barman, tutor and labourer pays $50 a week board to live with his parents in their rented home in Petersham, in the inner west. Loading
After weeks of tabloid headlines that his purely platonic relationship with long-time co-host, Holly Willoughby had collapsed, Schofields 40-year career is now imploding after admitting he was a liar, a cheat, and he was sorry. In a dramatic statement on Friday night, UK time, the 61-year-old quit TV, confirming years of speculation and innuendo online that he had an inappropriate relationship with a younger male who worked as a show runner on This Morning. Phillip Schofield cried on the shoulder of his co-presenter, Holly Willoughby when he came out as gay. His career has since imploded. Credit: itv.co.uk Whilst I met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television, it was only after he started to work on the show that it became more than just a friendship, he said in a statement to the Daily Mail. That relationship was unwise, but not illegal. It is now over.

Schofield said he was painfully conscious hed lied to his employers, colleagues, friends, agents, the media and therefore the public, and was so very, very sorry to his family as well as for having been unfaithful to my wife. Loading Unless youve lived in the UK for a time during the past 20 or so years, youd have absolutely no reason whatsoever to know who Schofield is. Unlike someone such as Piers Morgan, he has never been a journalist or tabloid newspaper editor, nor a professional provocateur. Unlike David Koch, of Channel 7s Sunrise, he didnt have a career as a finance commentator. Nor was he a successful journalist, such as Todays Karl Stefanovic, on Nine. He had never really made any memorable TV moments either, beyond giggling fits at sexual innuendos and double entendres alongside his longtime co-host, the glamorous and much-younger Willoughby.

Schofield was once attacked by alpacas on air, interviewed the woman with the worlds largest breasts and chatted with an 80-year-old grandmother about a night of rumpy pumpy with an Egyptian toyboy Mohammed, 35, where she used a whole tube of KY Jelly. But he was largely banal, inoffensive, occasionally warm and looked a bit like a Gazman model. A one-time childrens TV host, Schofields big cultural moment came a few years ago when he, tearfully, on national television announced he was gay despite his long-time family man persona and 27-year marriage to his wife with two adult daughters. He expressed his guilt for the pain hed caused them. Phillip Schofield and his co-presenter Holly Willoughby as he came out as gay one year ago. Credit: itv.co.uk Willoughby comforted him as he made the announcement, embracing him at the end when he called her the sister he never had. Viewers loved their chemistry. And they seemingly loved Schofield. That was until last September when, during the 10-day national period of mourning over the Queens death, the pair were accused of jumping the queue of hundreds of thousands to pay their respects to the late monarch who was lying-in-state. It dominated the tabloids for days and forced a public apology.

Quarterly research by pollster YouGov this year put Schofield and Willoughby  equally the fifth most famous TV stars in the mind of Brits  with 97 per cent of respondents knowing who they were. Thats behind celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay (99 per cent), Morgan (98 per cent) but ahead of Oprah Winfrey, David Attenborough (96 per cent) and Stephen Fry (95 per cent). Loading Schofield has spent his entire adult life being a personality and for the past 20 years hes sat on a couch from 10.30am to lunchtime shooting the breeze with a variety of co-hosts. But like so many TV marriages things were not as they seem. Constant headlines about how things had become so bad that they could not sit next to each other on a couch and interview other celebrities about pointless things went on for weeks as ratings fell. On late-night talk television and in celebrity gossip columns hed been subject to constant innuendo about his behaviour and attitudes towards colleagues  particularly women  as well as speculation of his inappropriate relationships with a younger staff member.

Its taken up inches of columns in the popular press and broadsheets and on their homepages.

Things reached a tipping point recently following the conviction of Schofields brother, Timothy, who was found guilty of child sex offences. Loading Last weekend when Schofield announced he was leaving the show, but would continue to present events such as the British Soap Awards for ITV, the BBC sent out a news alert to mobile phones. Now seven days later he has quit altogether, and his TV peers are now publicly accusing management of knowing and covering up his behaviour. He has also been dropped by his agent of 35 years. Eamonn Holmes, a former colleague on ITV who also sat next to Schofield for his coming out, tweeted on Friday evening (UK time) that hed felt deceived and lied to. We had no issue with him being gay, only support, he said. What transpired took us for fools. The man told us complete lies, and we unfortunately believed him.

Its been a turbulent past year in Britain. Political chaos of a kind not seen in generations. Deep financial and economic peril sparking a cost-of-living crisis, the death and rise of a monarch, of course, and the bloodiest battle in mainland Europe since World War II. But oddly, the Schofield affair weirdly now ranks among them. And everyone has a view. I think the level of coverage of the Phillip Schofield story  which has almost no importance whatsoever  is totally weird, David Aaronovich, a British columnist, radio presenter and author tweeted on Friday evening. But it never seems to matter, that it never matters. And despite the woes of the world, dont expect it to change any time soon.
While Target said its decision had been made in the interest of employee safety, many said its actions  along with a conservative backlash against Bud Light after it worked with a transgender influencer  might alienate the community it was seeking to support. And those who criticised Target and Bud Light in the first place may now feel further emboldened to attack inclusive initiatives by other companies. Were in a new space here with safety and employee safety being threatened by policy and purpose, said Vanitha Swaminathan, professor of marketing at the University of Pittsburgh. I cant say that you can disregard employee safety. Thats very core to what a company has to do. At the same time, Target can still, from a policy standpoint, be supportive of their initial stance. Its sad to see that weve reached this point in our culture wars. Employee safety is prompting the removal of some Pride items from Target shelves. Credit: AP Marketing campaigns around Pride Month in June have become routine for many companies, with opposition cropping up at times. Last year, for instance, Pizza Hut faced calls for a boycott after it recommended Big Wig, a book featuring drag performers, as part of its childrens summer reading program. Yet companies and marketers say the political climate makes this year different  primarily because a number of Republican-led states have introduced and passed legislation restricting transition care for transgender minors and adults, and transgender rights has become a galvanising issue for many conservatives.

GLAAD, the LGBTQ advocacy group that works with more than 160 companies, is considering having communications professionals in its GLAAD Media Institute work with brands that are planning Pride Month celebrations so they can better respond to criticism. We do feel like were at a moment where, with the politicisation of trans and gender-nonconforming folks, that we probably need to assemble a Pride war room for brands so that we can push back, Sarah Kate Ellis, the groups chief executive, said in an interview. Sarah Kate Ellis, president and chief executive officer of GLAAD. Credit: Bloomberg On Thursday, GLAAD and six other advocacy groups called on Target to return to its stores and its website any Pride merchandise it had removed and to release a statement in the next 24 hours reaffirming their commitment to the LGBTQ community. When faced with criticism and social media calls for boycotts in the past, most companies learned that the declarations of outrage soon faded away.

Then Bud Light happened. Owned by the beer giant Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light continues to struggle with the fallout from a social media campaign in mid-March with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. After calls for a boycott of the beer, sales in the four weeks ending in mid-May dropped more than 23 per cent from a year earlier, according to data from the research firm NIQ and Bump Williams Consulting, which works with the alcoholic beverage industry. Bud Light sales have not recovered from the backlash to a social media campaign with Dylan Mulvaney. Credit: Invision In some markets in the South, such as Jacksonville, Florida, and New Orleans, Bud Lights sales were down 40 per cent in those four weeks. Anheuser-Busch, which in recent years has released rainbow-hued bottles and cans of Bud Light for Pride Month, did not respond to a question about its plans for this year. Some marketing and communications consultants said the negative reaction to Bud Lights campaign with Mulvaney was a product of the beers generally more politically conservative customer base. Companies like Nike or Starbucks can more easily create products or campaigns around gay and transgender issues or Pride Month because their consumers tend to be younger and more progressive, said David Johnson, chief executive of Strategic Vision PR Group in Atlanta. When they embrace the gay or transgender community, its not out of line with their core beliefs, he said.

A number of companies are moving forward with their Pride Month plans. In June, the Coors Light Denver Pride Parade will weave its way through the city. Advertisements for a one-piece Adidas swimsuit created by South African queer designer Rich Mnisi feature a transgender man as the model. Levis has a campaign showing a half-dozen gay and transgender people talking about how they show up while wearing the companys denim and tops. But a number of other companies are being much less forthcoming about specific Pride Month plans. And some LGBTQ advocates criticised Target for seeming to cave to pressure. (The companys decision did come as employees in the retail industry have faced increasingly aggressive behaviour from customers since the start of the pandemic.) Target also removed a Pride line from Abprallen, an LGBTQ fashion and accessories company based in London, some of whose designs have been criticised for depicting satanic symbols like pentagrams and a shirt that reads Satan respects pronouns. Abprallen did not respond to a request for comment. Well find out in the next week which companies are continuing to make a push and do Pride Month campaigns, said Matt Skallerud, the president of Pink Media, which specialises in LGBTQ online marketing. If companies we know have been supportive of Pride Month dont show up this year, their absence will be noticed, and Id be concerned that could harm them. Advocacy groups are wary that all of this could create a chilling effect, especially when it comes to attaining a broader representation of LGBTQ people in advertising.

White gay men are the one segment that are most likely represented on our screens, whether its programing or ads, said Lisette Arsuaga, co-founder of the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing. We now started moving forward with a greater representation of all of the letters within the LGBTQ. Loading The overall consumer sentiment for seeing trans representation on TV and in advertising hasnt changed, according to recent GLAAD research. In a survey that was conducted in February, GLAAD said 75 per cent of people who did not identify as LGBTQ were comfortable seeing those people represented in marketing campaigns. That figure held steady from 2020. You can absolutely roll out an ad campaign and include LGBTQ folks in it, Ellis of GLAAD said. And at the same time, there is this political right-wing arm that you have to be aware of when youre doing it and just be prepared for. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.

Drug-checking program manager and lead technician Taylor Wood examines a drug sample at the Chicago Recovery Alliance warehouse on Chicago's West Side, May 17, 2023. The samples are provided to the CRA, a nonprofit that provides safe place for snorting, safe pipes and harm reduction approaches for drug users, from people who request to have their drugs tested. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

With his 8-year-old dog Maverick Maeve for short  curled up under the table at his feet, Taylor Wood opened a small blue bag and dumped out a sample of dope.

Wearing black rubber gloves, he carefully picked through the mixture searching for traces of xylazine, a sedative known colloquially as the zombie drug or tranq.

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He placed the samples  beautiful pressed pills with vibrant colors, he called them  on the scope of his infrared spectroscopy machine hes nicknamed Louise, and waited a few minutes until data popped up on his computer monitor.

He dragged the spectrum lines to see how they interacted with each other. His face lit up.

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Xylazine was detected in the dope sample, so I can comfortably consider it tranq, Wood told the Tribune. But I dont know if it was sold as tranq. It could be a situation where someone sold it as heroin and then it came up like that.

As the lead technician and drug checking manager at Chicago Recovery Alliance, Wood is using a drug test strip that detects the presence of xylazine, one of the newest tools available to public health workers in their efforts to thwart the growing danger of xylazine, a veterinary tranquilizer increasingly found in people who die of opioid overdoses.

Taylor Wood, a drug-checking program manager and lead technician at the Chicago Recovery Alliance, examines a sample of tranq on May 17, 2023. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

First approved last month by the city of Philadelphias Department of Public Health, CRA is one of the first organizations in the country to distribute them to the public following the test strips developing stages, said Iqbal Sunderani, chief executive officer of biotechnology company BTNX, one of the largest providers of fentanyl test strips in North America.

Some states consider testing strips to be paraphernalia, said Sunderani, while others, like Illinois, have legalized and distributed them. Wood affirmed that using drug testing strips is a harm reduction technique still in its infancy in the United States.

These xylazine test strips are phenomenal because they give us the ability to curb that exposure and also provide a better supply to some degree, Wood said.

The target audience for test strips are people who are already using opioids either for pleasure or for the sake of managing pain or discomfort, said Wood, who is adamant that drug use isnt going away any time soon. Samples are either mailed in through a syringe services program or dropped off by users at one of the pickup locations around the city.

Originally used on urine samples, the test strips work in samples in which the substance is mixed with water, Wood said. A 10 mg sample is crushed and diluted with 5 ml of water, and the strip is placed in the capsule to absorb moisture for 10-15 seconds.

After putting the strip on a nonabsorbent surface for five minutes, the results pop up on the strip like a COVID test. Strips are highly sensitive and can pick up a small amount of xylazine: one line for negative and two for positive.

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Once Wood receives the results, he contacts the person who sent in the sample to let them know if their supply is safe.

Pronounced ZY-la-zeen, the drug is a relatively new adulterant in the supply, said Dr. Neeraj Chhabra, a medical toxicologist and an emergency physician with University of Illinois Chicago, who reviewed fentanyl-related death reports in Cook County from January 2017 to October 2021 and found an alarming number of overdose victims had xylazine in their systems.

Its a completely unregulated market, so the assumption has to be that theres going to be something dangerous in there, he said.

Veterinarians use xylazine as a potent substance to put animals to sleep, but a coalition of 39 attorneys general is urging Congress to reclassify xylazine as a controlled substance.

Xylazine isnt an opioid, its a sedative, said Lindsay Allen, professor of emergency medicine at Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine. It is part of a class of adulterants, or cutting agents, but it looks and feels like an opioid when youre taking it.

Thats what drug creators are counting on, because its a lot less expensive for them to add xylazine, or to cut their drugs with xylazine, Allen said.

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Last month, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a public safety warning about the sharp increase in the trafficking of fentanyl mixed with xylazine. The DEA has reported that xylazine-positive overdose deaths have risen by 1,127% in the South.

Locally, xylazine was present in 8% of cases of those who died in 2022 from opioid overdoses, resulting in 162 deaths, according to data pulled from the Cook County medical examiner by the Tribune. There were almost 50 more deaths in 2022 than the previous year, and the majority of the victims were Black.

[Opioids laced with veterinary sedative xylazine a growing threat to Chicago drug users]

Wood said adding xylazine to fentanyl can extend an individuals high.

Its like extending that hour and a half high to six or seven hours, he said. So that individual only has to maybe inject or snort or boof twice a day rather than nine times a day.

Results are shown on a computer from a sample that includes xylazine. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

But when xylazine is mixed with fentanyl, it causes horrible necrosis, or death of tissue cells, Wood said. The wounds that emerge from those who use xylazine are grotesque. Originally, doctors didnt know what they were looking at so they would amputate, Wood said.

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Oxygen stops getting to those parts of the body. It dies off and starts to rot. You have to scrape away the dead skin to make room for some of the better healing and growth, Wood said.

Typical overdose-reversing drugs like naloxone dont work on xylazine, and many labs cant detect it, Allen said. However, if an individual overdoses on a substance with xylazine, she said, they are a lot more likely to die.

Thats where the testing strips can make a difference, harm reduction advocates say.

Wood, who openly shared that he is a drug user, first got involved with CRA during the pandemic when he would bring his own cocaine to have it checked for safe use. Now, he spends 40 hours a week testing drug samples with his FTIR machine and logging data about levels of adulterants in dope that individuals from Illinois mail to him or that he picks up at their van locations in about 30 different places across the city.

CRA also holds drop-in hours at a warehouse in the Garfield Park neighborhood on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Wood said he even receives samples from out of state, which help him understand the broader landscape of adulterants in the country.

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While volunteers sit in a large room outside his office and package safe usage kits with test strips, cookers, water capsules and paper instructions for those who dont have a smartphone, Wood crushes up the drugs he receives in packets from users across the state.

But test strips are not always accurate, said Wood. Indeed, xylazine strips can give false positives when used in lidocaine, typically found in cocaine, but not fentanyl, said Sunderani, of BTNX.

So Wood compares test strip results with the results on his machine, which provides a more precise reading using a beam splitter, two mirrors, a laser and a detector. He tests about 50 samples a month with the help of two other technicians, he said.

Ive watched Illinois dope supply evolve over time, he said. Some of the things that have always been a constant are the diphenhydramine, lactose and fentanyl. The other things have increased and decreased over time. Theres a lot more quinine.

He pointed to the glass vial of newly approved xylazine test strips that sat on the counter. CRA also offers fentanyl and benzyl strips.

Sunderani said that BTNX began to search for a specific antibody to detect xylazine after overdoses with xylazine present skyrocketed across the nation, specifically in Philadelphia. The company is poised to ramp up production if needed, Sunderani said.

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Because the need was so great, we thought that for harm reduction purposes, the evaluation was sufficiently strong for us to go to production, he said.

CRA is waiting on a shipment of xylazine testing strips that will be distributed to the public before the end of June, and Wood said he expects to be inundated with thousands of strips. Hell circulate them on his vans and in other harm reduction centers around the city, he said.

Chris Balthazar, executive director of TaskForce, a grassroots organization that focuses on the health and well-being of LGBTQ+ youth in Chicago, said testing strips in general are an important tool for harm reduction strategies. TaskForce currently stocks its bathrooms with fentanyl strips.

Just like we do with condoms in our bathrooms, people are using them (test strips), Balthazar said. For us, thats a win. At least youre knowledgeable about what youre putting in your body.

Xylazine test strips are seen at the Chicago Recovery Alliance. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

But Wood stressed that test strips dont negate the health treatment needed for the populations affected and touched by xylazine over the past two to three years. Indeed, Allen said harm reduction conversations from an early age are vital.

We need to stop thinking about harm reduction as saving a life that many people view isnt worth saving, and instead think of it as an innovative way to connect people to necessary care, Allen said.

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Wood provides a comprehensive rundown of CRAs data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cook County Hospital, the Cook County Department of Public Health and the Chicago Department of Public Health.

Im focusing on presentations and bringing awareness on what were seeing in the supplies and keeping them up to date, Wood said.

He would like to figure out a way to incentivize participants of drug-checking programs, he said.

Sometimes, Wood gets a sample that has led to an overdose, which affects him, he said. A lot of volunteers at CRA have lost a loved one to overdose, he added.

It is kind of a heavy weight, he said. I just hope that someday there will be enough people in this role doing this job so that theres a wider safety net.

Wood sits in his office in the warehouse and carefully looks through bags of samples. He looks tired all the time, he said, and his hair is falling out.

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The amount of conversations that can be had, the amount of stigma-decreasing engagements and outreach that can be provided. (Drug checking) opens up so many more doors in that way, he said.

A volunteer came in at around 7 p.m. and hugged Wood. An end of the day tradition, he said.

The two men stood in the doorway of Woods office in an embrace for almost a full minute.

nsalzman@chicagotribune.com
(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy expressed confidence that their debt-ceiling deal will pass Congress, as party leaders revved up a campaign to ratify the agreement in time to avert a catastrophic US default.

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Biden cabinet members and senior White House staff already had made individual lobbying calls to at least 60 House Democrats by early Monday morning to press them for votes in favor of approval, a Democratic official said.

The agreement prevents the worst possible crisis, Biden told reporters at the White House on Sunday after finishing his deal with McCarthy, calling it a bipartisan compromise.

No one got everything they want, he added. But thats the responsibility of governing. I strongly urge both chambers to pass that agreement.

Biden and McCarthy sealed a tentative deal in a 90-minute phone call late Saturday, clearing the way for a push to shepherd the agreement through Congress  likely over the objections of both liberals and conservatives  before the US government runs out of borrowing capacity in about a week.

The bill sets the course for federal spending through 2024 and will suspend the debt ceiling until Jan. 1, 2025, likely putting off another fight over federal borrowing authority until the middle of that year. In exchange for Republican votes for the suspension, Democrats agreed to cap federal spending for the next two years.

US stock index futures advanced Monday, while the dollar erased modest losses to trade little changed. European government bonds edged higher in thin trading, with much of the region out for a public holiday.

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis went on Fox & Friends Monday morning to criticize the deal. Our country will still be careening toward bankruptcy, dismissing the compromise for permitting a massive amount of spending.

But McCarthy said Sunday that he expects a majority of Republicans to vote for the emerging bill, defending it is as a transformational move to rein in federal spending even though maybe it doesnt do everything for everyone.

Biden said he expects McCarthy has the votes to pass the agreement. I dont think he would have made the agreement otherwise, he said.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell also urged Republicans in his chamber to vote for the deal.

Early centrist support came from Representative Steny Hoyer, an influential Democrat who backed the deal despite citing setbacks for his partys agenda. Thats why I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this compromise legislation and to bring an end to this needless economic turmoil, he said in a statement Sunday.

GOP Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a leader among his partys moderates, tweeted in a statement Monday that hell back the agreement, saying it prevents a default and subsequent financial meltdown, while also limiting expenditures.

McCarthy urged lawmakers to reserve judgment until they read the bill. House Republicans issued legislative text shortly after Biden announced the final deal, giving representatives the promised 72 hours to read it before voting as early as Wednesday.

Negotiators from both parties plan to brief their members on the deal in separate calls.

McCarthy rejected as crazy a scenario in which the House fails to pass the measure, claiming 95% of his partys lawmakers are excited by the deal. He acknowledged the agreement is likely to face some opposition from Republicans.

We know anytime we sit and negotiate with two parties, that you got to work with both sides of the aisle. So its not 100% of what everybody wants, but when you look, the country is going to be stronger, McCarthy told reporters at the US Capitol on Sunday morning.

Asked if he was worried about a possible effort by hard-line conservative lawmakers to oust him from the speakers chair, McCarthy responded: Not at all.

But Representative Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat and longtime ally of Biden, struck a more pragmatic tone in a telephone interview Sunday.

The easy part, in my opinion, is getting agreement. The hard part comes, is getting to 218 votes in the House, and 51 votes in the Senate, Clyburn said. You got some sniping coming from the extreme right wing, some concern being expressed on your left flank.

Arguing for the merits of the deal, McCarthy cited provisions clawing back previously approved spending, calling them the largest rescission in American history. He also highlighted increased work requirements for federal food aid.

A White House official said that Bidens team doesnt expect the agreement to reduce health-insurance coverage or raise poverty. Republicans had sought much more dramatic restrictions for federal welfare programs.

The bill creates an $886 billion cap on security spending and a $704 billion cap on non-security domestic spending for fiscal 2024. Those would rise to $895 billion and $711 billion respectively in fiscal 2025.

The deal cuts the Internal Revenue Services budget by $1.4 billion this year, meaning the agency will have to cease an expansion of its workforce, McCarthy said. The IRS faces a $20 billion cut over the next 10 years, but thats far less than the $80 billion cut many GOP lawmakers had sought.

The bill includes dozens of other claw-backs of federal spending, known as rescissions, including for Covid-related programs, migrant and refugee assistance and childcare and housing aid.

While the agreement would not affect the Biden administrations student-loan forgiveness plan, which is being litigated in the courts, it would end the pandemic-era moratorium on repayments.

The pause is gone within 60 days of this being signed, McCarthy told Fox News Sunday.

Representative Garret Graves, one of the Republican negotiators, said the deal would also streamline permitting for energy projects  although a complete overhaul of the 54-year-old National Environmental Policy Act would be dealt with separately. The debt deal specifically expedites completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia thats been stalled over permitting fights.

Theres little margin for error or delay. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Friday that the debt-limit must be extended by June 5 to avoid default.

--With assistance from Alexis Shanes, Alicia Diaz, Alice Gledhill, Jennifer Jacobs and Laura Litvan.

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They came. They saw. They honked.

Horns were blaring throughout the day Saturday at Gale Centre in Niagara Falls. From police cars, a fire truck and even a snow plow. In some cases, the culprits had to stretch to reach the steering wheel.

The parking lot was full of families for the return of Touch-a-Truck, part of National Public Works Week. The free event was back for the first time since 2019, offering about 11 vehicles including police cruisers, construction vehicles and a Niagara Peninsula Energy Inc. bucket truck.

Its community involvement, said Niagara Falls street supervisor Ron Wood. Show the kids the big machinery and show the parents what their taxes are buying.

The citys municipal works team was on hand for demonstrations (but no test drives) as kids eagerly lined up to sit behind the wheel of each vehicle.

As expected, a Niagara Falls Fire Department truck with its basket fully extended was one of the more popular attractions. But kids  and plenty of dads  also flocked to the Niagara Regional Police all-black emergency task unit vehicle near the entrance.

Wood said the police and fire vehicles were set up by the exits in case they had to leave in a hurry.

Two-year-old Nolan Ley of St. Catharines was happy to lean on the horn of every truck he climbed into, with help from dad Shawn. The fire truck and hydro bucket truck were his favourites.

He loves big trucks, said mom Jennifer. Hes been talking about (this day) since we read about it last week.

He likes noisy trucks. Hes a typical boy.

He has already informed his parents of his future job: He says a garbage man or a fireman so far, is what were getting, said Jennifer.

Four-year-old Leo Wood, meanwhile, got comfy behind the wheel of a large riding mower the city uses for its parks. His favourite was the NRPs ETU vehicle, in which kids could climb into the back.

Project Share hosted a charity barbecue at the event, with funds going to support essential support services. Niagara Regions water wagon, which promotes safe drinking water, was also giving out free bottles of tap water.

National Public Works Week concluded Saturday.

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TORONTO - From the Tobacco Workers Credit Union in Guelph to the New Community Credit Union in Saskatoon, the names tell part of Canadas history even as theyre now history themselves.

The two credit unions are part of a growing number that have been bought, merged or shut down over the years as a combination of pressures push increasing consolidation in the sector.

While credit union numbers have been on the decline since the 1960s, insiders say rising technology demands, which ramped up during the pandemic, have led to a spike in the trend.

Over the pandemic, weve seen a massive shift in use of digital technology, mobile technology, not just for younger people, but through all demographics, said Jeff Guthrie, chief executive of the Canadian Credit Union Association.

The increasing technology demands of customers, whether its improved smartphone apps or faster money transfers, combined with rising regulatory expectations, have helped drive increased consolidation, he said.

It is a scale business, where you need scale to make investments in future technologies.

The pressures have helped drive six credit unions to merge with Winnipeg-based Access Credit Union in the past two years or so.

Access chief executive Larry Davey said consolidation started to pick up with the advent of smartphones, but has increased pace as credit unions look ahead and make tough decisions on whether they have the resources to adapt and survive.

For the sake of their members, theyre being more aggressive in those decisions and saying, you know, we want to pick our dance partner now.

Demographic trends and rising competition also mean some of the credit unions being absorbed are quite small.

Amaranth Credit Union, which will complete its technical merger with Access in June, had 1,200 members and $18 million in assets when the deal was struck. The credit union was incorporated in 1960, back at the peak of credit unions in Canada, when they numbered around 3,200.

At the time, many credit unions were closely linked to employers or ethnic groups, but as that closed system largely wound down, institutions like the Peek Frean Employees Credit Union and the Latvian Credit Union have been folded into larger unions over time.

There are still some so-called closed bond credit unions linked to an employer, notably for teachers and police, but others continue to fall away. Airline Financial Credit Union, open to anyone in the airline industry, announced on May 14 that it had approval for its merger into Luminus Financial.

Affinity-based credit unions are also dwindling. New Community Credit Union was the first for Ukrainians in Canada when it opened in 1939, but it merged into Synergy Credit Union last year.

The trend has meant that in the 10 years leading up tolate 2022 the number of credit unions fell by 129, or 37 per cent, to 219, according to a report last year from the C. D. Howe Institute.

As credit unions go beyond local communities, there are risks of lower member participation rate and board capture by management, said report authors Marc-Andre Pigeon and Murray Fulton, noting the need for clarity of purpose and good communication.

However, consolidation doesnt have to mean a disconnect with members, even as smaller credit unions get absorbed into larger ones, said Annette Bester, national credit union leader at professional services firm MNP.

It just becomes a little bit more of a diversity of cultures, she said.

While consolidations can sometimes come with bad connotations around losing community roots, she said theres still a local link and the alternative can be much more severe.

If a credit union isnt sustainable, it closes its doors. If it closes its doors, theres no one thats supporting that community financially anymore by making those donations to the rink.

Credit unions have long co-ordinated on many aspects of technology without needing to merge, such as through a linked network of ATMs and pooling resources to secure online banking platforms, but there are still aspects that require individual bank resources, Bester said.

They have to integrate it with their banking system, so thats where it gets costly for credit unions to do it themselves. Thats where scale starts to matter.

The challenges of meeting the technological demands can be seen in the size of some of the mergers going on.

Servus Credit Union and connectFirst Credit Union, Albertas two largest, announced in March that they would merge to create a single credit union with more than $31 billion in assets under administration.

Theyre two of the largest coming together. Theyre still looking at it and saying, you know, we still need more scale to be able to do everything we know were going have to do for our members, Bester said.

In announcing the deal, board members emphasized the need to respond to competitive pressures, and to have the resources to invest in digital innovation and prepare for open banking.

The deal will leave the merged union with a similar level of assets to Vancity, while Desjardins, the first successful credit union in Canada after opening its doors in 1900, is the clear giant in the space with around 7.5 million members and $407.1 billion in total assets.

But while the trend is towards larger and fewer credit unions, there are those pushing against it, finding such models dont always fit their needs.

Lighthouse Credit Union launched in 2022 as one of the few new credit unions created in Canada in recent decades.

Chairman Harley Gold said in a release announcing the launch that Lighthouse was grateful the provincial regulator approved the credit union and that it recognized the need for a Jewish credit union.

A credit union fits well within Jewish principles of community and giving back, and we hope that Lighthouse Credit Union can serve as a financial beacon for the community.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2023.

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(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden said he and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached a final agreement to avert a historic US default after the two spoke again Sunday afternoon.

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Weve got good news. Ive just spoken with Speaker McCarthy. We have a bipartisan budget agreement, Biden said to reporters at the White House.

He urged both chambers of Congress to pass the legislation.

Both Biden and McCarthy now have to convince their allies to support the package, while tamping down frustrations on the left and right wings of their respective parties.

Despite reaching a deal, the clock is ticking. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Friday that the governments borrowing limit must be extended by June 5 to avoid a payments default.

Biden complimented McCarthy for keeping his word in the talks but said I have no idea if he has the votes.

I expect he does. I dont think he would have made the agreement otherwise, he added.

Biden, to the frustration of many congressional Democrats, has largely refrained from publicly selling the deal until the ink was dry. With the agreement now made, White House officials  briefing reporters Sunday night on condition of anonymity  touted provisions they said protected Bidens priorities on climate and the social safety net.

One of the biggest losers is the Internal Revenue Service, which will get $20 billion cut out of the $80 billion Congress provided just last year to hire more agents and modernize systems. But White House officials said that money helped preserve some of Bidens other domestic priorities, and they hope to front-load some of the remaining spending and seek more funding from Congress later.

The bill would expand work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which now requires able-bodied food stamp recipients aged 18 to 49 to work. That age range would be expanded to 54  but White House officials said increased exemptions for veterans, homeless and foster families would mean the number of recipients would remain about the same.

And on permitting, the White House agreed to reforms that would accelerate environmental review of many projects to just one or two years. Officials said those changes would help accelerate the transmission of energy from wind and solar projects.

Biden this month cut short a planned trip from the G-7 leaders summit in Hiroshima, Japan, to Papua New Guinea and Sydney, Australia, to tend to the negotiations. The Pacific region is vital to US foreign policy to confront Chinas growing influence.

The president brushed off assertions that debt ceiling talks that have gone essentially down to the wire  with the global economy at stake  weakened US standing among allies and adversaries.

Just the nature of the way we handle the deficit and handle whether were going to, each year going to pay our debts, and its happened more than once, will probably happen again, but its not going to happen at least for another two years here, Biden said.

Biden said that he would explore in the future whether the US Constitution, which says that the validity of the debt shall not be questioned, would allow him to bypass the debt-limit law.

It would cause more controversy getting rid of the debt limit. Although I do  I am exploring the idea that we would, at a later date, a year or two from now, decide whether or not the 14th Amendment, how that actually would impact on whether or not you need to increase the debt limit every year, he said. But thats another day.

(Updates with details from the agreement throughout)

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The emergency call came in around 9 a.m. on Saturday. A plane had just crashed at the north end of Toronto Pearsons airfield. An unknown number of passengers were screaming for help.

Within minutes, three fire trucks arrived. The first responders quickly assessed the situation and called for backup as firefighters rushed to water the green lawn and help the injured people, tended by other passengers and crew members of Bright Star Airways.

Wheres my leg? howled a woman, in visible pain, comforted by another passenger.

We need help here, cried another injured passenger, waving as she was lying on the ground next to the torn fuselage at the other end of the crash site.

How are you doing today? Is she breathing OK? asked a firefighter behind his air mask. Ambulance is on its way.

Amid the morning chaos, other officials in bright-coloured safety vests with the word observer on the back were wandering the scene, eavesdropping on those conversations and calmly taking notes, training their eyes on every detail of these interactions.

The crash scene, however, was far from chaotic.

Everything from the placement of the chunks of aircraft wreckage to the type of injuries on the victims and the lines spoken by everyone involved were meticulously designed and planned almost a year ago to simulate a real-life emergency disaster as closely as possible.

Our top priority at Toronto Pearson is safety, and we strive continually to improve our response to emergencies at the airport, said Craig Bradbrook, chief operating officer of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.

The exercise provides us and our airport and emergency service partners the opportunity to test all aspects of our joint response and to identify where we can improve. I am very impressed with the way everyone has responded today. It really underscores the commitment we all have to emergency preparedness.

Transport Canada requires all airports to test their emergency response plans at least once every two years. At Pearson, the GTAA conducts a table top yearly to go through a scenario with all parts of the operations and then conduct a full-scale emergency exercise.

This years scenario involved the plane crash, with about 400 members of the airport community and volunteers playing the role of passengers, and their anxious family and friends at nearby Westin Toronto Airport Hotel. Flight attendants from Flair Airlines also volunteered their time as crew members.

Responders participating in the event came from Peel Regional Police, Transport Canada, Peel Regional Paramedic Services, Toronto Paramedic Services and Mississauga Fire  all were volunteers as well.

Theres a lot of facets of our team that are actually doing their observing of their own teams to ensure that their emergency protocols are followed, said GTAA spokesperson Rachel Bertone. This is going to test how fast we respond, how accurately we respond, and it provides us a way to better improve our safety procedures.

We want to simulate as close to a disaster as we can get, which would include people having serious injuries so that the paramedics and the fire and emergency services can triage and treat them as appropriate.

Kathleen Douglass of Brampton and her friend Susan MacMaster of Thunder Bay played the roles of two academics from Toronto Metropolitan University travelling to Edmonton for a course.

The two registered to participate in the event after Douglass learned in a GTAA newsletter in March of the call-out for volunteers to act as crash victims.

They arrived at Terminal 1 at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday for makeup  MacMasters serious wounds included bruising and a crushed hand caked with red paint all over her palm. Others had blood gushing out from a wound in the neck and bones sticking out of the knees through torn jeans.

The volunteers who acted as passengers  all spotting a baby-blue T-shirt with YYZEmergEx in white print  were provided with a card listing their characters name, back story, as well as descriptions of their injuries and suggested scripts.

The volunteers had to attend a mandatory safety briefing about the dos and donts on the ground before they were bussed out to the airfield.

This is our community. Why would we not want to make it as safe as we can? said Douglass as she and her friend sat on a blue tarp near the side of a roadway, waiting for the kickoff of the emergency exercise.

If there was anything major that happened here, the bedroom community in which I live, we would be asked to support any of the major injuries and things like that.

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ABBOTSFORD, B.C. - British Columbias Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says two people have been charged in the killing of an Abbotsford man last year.

A statement from police says a 22-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman were arrested Friday and charged in the death of 41-year-old Chad Colivas.

The man has been charged with second degree murder, while the woman has been charged with manslaughter in the March 2022 shooting death.

Police say the incident is not believed to be linked to gang conflict in the region.

They said at the time of the homicide that Abbotsford police had responded to a report of a man who was shot in the lower level of a family home.

Police released no further details, saying the matter is now before the courts.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2023.

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MONTREAL - A rally was held in Montreal today to denounce racial profiling and police discrimination while also recognizing the third anniversary of the death of George Floyd, an American man killed by police on May 25, 2020.

The rally was planned by several human rights organizations and called for the Quebec government to recognize systemic racism, which the province has steadfastly refused to do.

They also want the province to apply a Quebec Superior Court judgment in October 2022 that would have prohibited the random interception of vehicles by police without valid reason, while also invalidating the provincial Highway Safety Code provision that allows it.

The decision was appealed by the Quebec government and is currently before the Court of Appeal.

Organizers also called on Francois Legaults Coalition Avenir Quebec to change its tune on Bill 14 a proposed law which aims to modernize different police practices and establish guidelines for police stops instead of banning them outright by prohibiting the practice based on discriminatory grounds.

About 100 people from Montreal and Quebec City took part in the demonstration.

Rosine Toguen, a member of one of the organizations fighting against racism, says that what happened to Floyd can still happen again if no actions are taken to prevent racial profiling in policing.

Toguen says the fight against racism concerns everyone, not just individuals from racialized and Indigenous communities.

You dont have to be Black, Arab, or (a member of) the First Nations to fight against racism. Racism should concern us all, Toguen said.

For rally participant Mbai-Hadji Mbairewaye, it was important to participate to call for changes on how police operate.

The practice of police racial profiling undermines our humanity, Mbairewaye said. To the humanity of Black, racialized, Indigenous Peoples ... it is important to march to reaffirm our dignity, our humanity.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2023.

_

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  The Texas Legislature already made one historic move with its impeachment of Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton. Another one is coming.

The GOP-led House of Representatives on Saturday approved 20 articles of impeachment on sweeping allegations of wrongdoing that have trailed the state's top lawyer for years, including abuse of office and bribery. The vote immediately suspended Paxton from office.

But the intraparty brawl in the nations largest conservative state, one that even drew political punches Saturday from former President Donald Trump, is far from over. The Republican-controlled Senate will hold a trial of Paxton next, and he and his allies hope conservatives there will save him.

One member of that chamber is his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, and she could cast a vote on her husbands political future, which is now in jeopardy in part because of bribery allegations linked to his extramarital affair.

THE SENATE

Impeachment in Texas is similar to the process on the federal level: After the House action, the Senate holds its trial.

The Senate announced Monday that the trial will start no later than Aug. 28.

The House needed just a simple majority of its 149 members to impeach Paxton, and the final 121-23 vote was a landslide. But the threshold for conviction in the Senate trial is higher, requiring a two-thirds majority of its 31 members.

If that happens, Ken Paxton would be permanently barred from holding office in Texas. Anything less means Paxton is acquitted and can resume his third term as attorney general.

Paxton bitterly criticized the chambers investigation as corrupt, secret and conducted so quickly that he and his lawyers were not allowed to mount a defense. He also called Republican House Speaker Dade a liberal.

The Senate is led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Like Paxton, he is a Republican who has closely allied himself with Trump, and he has driven Texas right-wing political and policy push for the last decade. Patrick has yet to comment on the impeachment or the Houses allegations.

The Senate will set its own trial rules, and Patrick said Tuesday that will include sworn testimony from witnesses. It could also consider whether to excuse Angela Paxton from voting due to conflict of interest.

Angela Paxton on Monday declined comment on the impeachment, and on Tuesday, Patrick wouldnt say if Paxton would participate in her husbands trial in the Senate. He had suggested before the House impeachment vote that all 31 senators would vote in the trial.

The impeachment charges include bribery related to one of Paxtons donors, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, allegedly employing the woman with whom he had the affair in exchange for legal help.

Another Republican senator with a potential conflict is Sen. Bryan Hughes. The House impeachment articles accuse Paxton of using Hughes as a straw requestor for a legal opinion used to protect Paul from foreclosure on several properties.

State law requires all senators to be present for an impeachment trial.

REPUBLICAN ON REPUBLICAN

Paxtons impeachment has been led from the start by his fellow Republicans, in contrast to Americas most prominent recent examples of impeachment.

Trumps impeachments in 2020 and 2021 were driven by Democrats who had majority control of the U.S. House. In both cases, the charges they approved failed in the Senate, where Republicans had enough votes to block conviction.

In Texas, Republicans have large majorities in both chambers, and the states GOP leaders hold all levers of influence.

Paxton called for Republicans to rally to his defense during Saturday's vote in a peaceful protest at the Capitol. That echoed Trumps call for protests of his electoral defeat on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob violently stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Paxton spoke at the rally in Washington that day before the insurrection.

Trump joined the fray in Texas on Saturday, posting on social media a warning to House members that I will fight you if they voted to impeach. A few hundred Paxton supporters came to watch from the gallery.

House Republicans didnt seem to care. Sixty of them, 71% of the chambers GOP caucus, voted to impeach.

Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi, a Paxton ally, said the party would have to rely on the principled leadership of the Texas Senate to restore sanity and reason.

The move to the Senate could give Paxtons grassroots supporters and national figures like Trump time to apply more pressure.

YEARS IN THE MAKING

The impeachment reaches back to 2015, when Paxton was indicted on securities fraud charges for which he still has not stood trial. The lawmakers charged Paxton with making false statements to state securities regulators.

But most of the articles of impeachment stem from his connections to Paul and a remarkable revolt by Paxtons top deputies in 2020.

That fall, eight senior aides reported their boss to the FBI, accusing him of bribery and abusing his office to help Paul. Four of them later brought a whistleblower lawsuit. The report prompted a federal criminal investigation that in February was taken over by the U.S. Justice Departments Washington-based Public Integrity Section.

The impeachment charges cover myriad accusations related to Paxtons dealings with Paul. The allegations include attempts to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and improperly issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul, as well as firing, harassing and interfering with staff who reported what was going on. The bribery charges stem from the affair, as well as Paul allegedly paying for expensive renovations to Paxtons Austin home.

The fracas took a toll on the Texas attorney generals office, long one of the primary legal challengers to Democratic administrations in the White House.

In the years since Paxtons staff went to the FBI, the state attorney generals office has become unmoored by the disarray. Seasoned lawyers have quit over practices they say aim to slant legal work, reward loyalists and drum out dissent.

In February, Paxton agreed to settle the whistleblower lawsuit brought by the former aides. The $3.3 million payout must be approved by the Legislature, and Phelan has said he doesnt think taxpayers should foot the bill.

Shortly after the settlement was reached, the House investigation began.

TEXAS HISTORY

Paxton was already likely to be noted in history books for his unprecedented request that the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Bidens defeat of Trump in 2020. He now is one of just three sitting officials to have been impeached in Texas.

Gov. James Pa Ferguson was removed in 1917 for misapplication of public funds, embezzlement and the diversion of a special fund. State Judge O.P. Carrillo was forced from office in 1975 for personal use of public money and equipment and filing false financial statements.

___

Bleiberg reported from Dallas.

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NWS Weather Alert NOTE: This information is provided by the National Weather Service. Forecast may differ from local information provided by our own 69News Meteorologists

...AIR QUALITY ALERT IS IN EFFECT FOR WEDNESDAY MAY 31... The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has issued a code orange air quality alert Wednesday for The Lehigh Valley/Berks County area. A code orange air quality alert means that air pollution concentrations within the region may become unhealthy for sensitive groups. Sensitive groups include children...people suffering from asthma... heart disease or other lung diseases...and the elderly. The effects of air pollution can be minimized by avoiding strenuous activity or exercise outdoors. For more information on ground-level ozone and fine particles...visit http://www.depweb.state.pa.us
UPPER MACUNGIE TWP., Pa. - A service at a Lehigh County cemetery honors those who served our country.

Allentown Diocese Bishop Alfred Schlert celebrated Mass Saturday morning at Resurrection Cemetery in Upper Macungie Township.

The Mass was held in commemoration of Memorial Day, paying tribute to service members who have died.

Catholic War Veterans Post 454 and the Knights of Columbus were in attendance.
EASTON, Pa. - Janet and Pam Gallagher cheered on family at the third Easton Twilight Criterium on Saturday. It featured hundreds of cyclists going through downtown.

"It's awesome, it's good for the community and it brings everyone together, I love it," said Janet Gallagher.

Pam was in visiting from New Jersey.

"It's a beautiful town, there's so much to do here," said Pam Gallagher.

The Criterium featured both amateur and professional races, drawing in crowds from all over.

"We're bringing in people from a pretty broad regional footprint: from New York City, Washington D.C, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, even they're coming in for this race," said Gabe Lloyd, co-event director

Lloyd said it is a day they have spent months preparing for.

"A lot of them have never been to Easton, so it's a great opportunity really for Easton to really meet a new crowd," said Lloyd.

"These events usually bring a great crowd out for us, people that normally don't come down," said Simon Woolbert, director of operations at The Bayou.

Woolbert said for events like this there are extra employees in the kitchen and waiting on tables. He tells 69 News the restaurant had quick grab and go things at the bar for the criterium.

"Usually events like this, Bacon Fest, Garlic Fest we get a lot of people who don't even know the restaurant exists," said Woolbert.

"We've had an amazing turnout here and I think we're getting a lot of new people into Easton and we're really excited to put on this great day of racing," said Lloyd.
HILLTOWN, Pa. - In Upper Bucks County, a man allegedly waved a gun at someone outside a store, then spit at police officers and threatened to harm their families.

Police say it all started in the parking lot of the Wawa at 3520 Bethlehem Pike.

26-year-old Joseph Dougherty is facing a slew of charges, including assault of a law enforcement officer, terroristic threats, and weapon related offenses.

Police say two guns were recovered at the scene.

Dougherty was sent to the county jail on $250,000 bail.
(Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. is working to land its second major deal in Saudi Arabia this year, with the US planemaker in talks to sell at least 150 of its 737 Max jetliners to startup Riyadh Air, according to people familiar with the matter.

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The new carrier, owned by Saudi Arabias sovereign wealth fund, is shopping for about 300 to 400 single-aisle jets in total, including options, said the people, who asked not to be identified since the discussions are private. Talks are complicated, with timing and structure still in flux, and Airbus SE could also claim a portion of the order, some of the people cautioned.

Boeing is pressing its advantage since Airbus has few available delivery slots for its A321neo jets before 2029, said the people. Negotiations continue, with a possible announcement at the Paris Air Show in mid June, though no decision has been made, they said.

A Boeing spokesman declined to comment, as did representatives at Riyadh Air and the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

A second major win would give Boeing an edge in a Gulf market primed for growth. Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, focused on expanding tourism in the kingdom, is building a competitor to regional powerhouses Emirates and Qatar Airways. US and Saudi officials have worked to repair ties between the two nations, which became strained over issues including oil policy.

The earlier deal covered Boeings larger 787 Dreamliners to handle long-range flying for Riyadh Air and the existing flag-carrier, Saudia.

At the current $53 million going rate for a Max 8, a 150-jet order would be valued at about $8 billion, based on market-value estimates compiled by consultant Ascend by Cirium. Customers typically get steep discounts for large deals.

Riyadh Air was formally unveiled in March as part of Bin Salmans initiative to make Saudi Arabias economy less dependent on oil. He has ambitions to turn Riyadh into a powerful business hub and compete with larger Gulf airlines for global transfer traffic. Saudia now predominantly serves Jeddah and the Hajj pilgrimage market.

As part of the March accord, Riyadh Air is set to receive 39 787-9 jets, with options for 33 more. Run by former Etihad Aviation Group boss Tony Douglas, the carrier aims to connect more than 100 destinations around the world by 2030.

--With assistance from Layan Odeh, Danny Lee, Matthew Martin and Ben Bartenstein.

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2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Vice President Kamala Harris has become the first woman to deliver a commencement speech at West Point. In her address, the vice president lauded graduating cadets for their noble sacrifice in serving their country. But she noted an unsettled world because of Russian aggression and the rising threats that China poses. Some 950 men and women took part in the graduation ceremony. While Harris visits West Point, New York, President Joe Biden heads to Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Thursday to dole out advice to graduates at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Earlier this month, the president was the commencement orator at Howard University, his vice presidents alma mater.
Hysan Development Company Limited (OTCMKTS:HYSNY  Get Rating) saw a significant decrease in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 8,200 shares, a decrease of 27.4% from the April 30th total of 11,300 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 13,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.6 days.

Hysan Development Price Performance

Shares of HYSNY traded up $0.16 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $5.38. The companys stock had a trading volume of 3,291 shares, compared to its average volume of 6,392. The business has a fifty day moving average of $5.78 and a 200 day moving average of $6.04. Hysan Development has a 1 year low of $4.29 and a 1 year high of $7.10.

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Hysan Development Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 30th. Investors of record on Friday, March 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.2883 per share. This represents a dividend yield of 5.7%. This is a positive change from Hysan Developments previous dividend of $0.06. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 2nd. Hysan Developments dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 5.23%.

About Hysan Development

Hysan is a leading property investment, management and development company in Hong Kong, with a portfolio of more than 4 million square feet of high-quality office, retail and residential properties. Operating primarily in the city's prime retail/office district of Causeway Bay, we are focused on delighting our customers and providing investors with outstanding returns.

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Hysan Development Company Limited (OTCMKTS:HYSNY  Get Rating) saw a large decline in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 8,200 shares, a decline of 27.4% from the April 30th total of 11,300 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 13,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.6 days.

Hysan Development Stock Performance

Shares of Hysan Development stock traded up $0.16 on Friday, hitting $5.38. 3,291 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 6,392. Hysan Development has a one year low of $4.29 and a one year high of $7.10. The firms 50-day moving average price is $5.78 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $6.04.

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Hysan Development Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 30th. Investors of record on Friday, March 3rd were given a $0.2883 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 2nd. This represents a dividend yield of 5.7%. This is a boost from Hysan Developments previous dividend of $0.06. Hysan Developments dividend payout ratio is currently 5.23%.

Hysan Development Company Profile

Hysan is a leading property investment, management and development company in Hong Kong, with a portfolio of more than 4 million square feet of high-quality office, retail and residential properties. Operating primarily in the city's prime retail/office district of Causeway Bay, we are focused on delighting our customers and providing investors with outstanding returns.

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China Construction Bank Co. (OTCMKTS:CICHY  Get Rating) was the recipient of a significant growth in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 94,800 shares, a growth of 80.9% from the April 30th total of 52,400 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 170,600 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.6 days.

China Construction Bank Price Performance

Shares of CICHY stock traded up $0.18 on Friday, hitting $13.05. The stock had a trading volume of 95,047 shares, compared to its average volume of 86,289. The stocks 50 day moving average is $13.28 and its 200-day moving average is $12.70. China Construction Bank has a 52-week low of $10.31 and a 52-week high of $15.09.

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About China Construction Bank

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China Construction Bank Corporation provides various banking and related financial services to individuals and corporate customers in the People's Republic of China and internationally. It operates through Corporate Banking, Personal Banking, Treasury Business, and Others segments. The company accepts various deposits, such as foreign currency, all in one accounts, RMB, corporate term and notification, and corporate demand deposits, as well corporate deposits by agreement.

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StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of China Green Agriculture (NYSE:CGA  Get Rating) in a research note published on Wednesday morning. The firm issued a sell rating on the basic materials companys stock.

China Green Agriculture Stock Performance

CGA stock opened at $2.63 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $3.66 and a 200 day moving average price of $4.20. China Green Agriculture has a fifty-two week low of $2.58 and a fifty-two week high of $7.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a quick ratio of 2.04 and a current ratio of 2.76.

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Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Renaissance Technologies LLC increased its holdings in shares of China Green Agriculture by 67.8% in the first quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 19,051 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $192,000 after purchasing an additional 7,700 shares during the period. Susquehanna International Group LLP acquired a new position in shares of China Green Agriculture in the first quarter valued at approximately $175,000. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP acquired a new position in shares of China Green Agriculture in the first quarter valued at approximately $115,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 0.14% of the companys stock.

China Green Agriculture Company Profile

China Green Agriculture, Inc engages in the research, development, production, and sale of various types of fertilizers and agricultural products. It operates through the following segments: Jinong, Gufeng, and Yuxing. The Jinong segment includes fertilizer products, with focus on humic acid-based compound fertilizer.

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China Youzan Limited (OTCMKTS:CHNVF  Get Rating) was the recipient of a large growth in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,368,000 shares, a growth of 181.4% from the April 30th total of 1,552,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 2,200 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 1,985.5 days.

China Youzan Stock Performance

OTCMKTS:CHNVF remained flat at C$0.01 during mid-day trading on Friday. The stocks 50 day moving average price is C$0.02. China Youzan has a 52 week low of C$0.01 and a 52 week high of C$0.04.

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About China Youzan

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China Youzan Limited, an investment holding company, provides online and offline e-commerce solutions in the People's Republic of China, Japan, and Canada. The company operates through five segments: General Trading, Third Party Payment Services, Onecomm, Merchant Services, and Others. It trades in watches and other good; sells integrated smart point of sales devices; and offers third party payment and related consultancy services, as well as third party payment management services.

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Coca-Cola HBC AG (OTCMKTS:CCHGY  Get Rating) was the recipient of a large decline in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 400 shares, a decline of 86.7% from the April 30th total of 3,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 3,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.1 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have commented on CCHGY shares. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Coca-Cola HBC from GBX 2,250 ($27.99) to GBX 2,350 ($29.23) in a research report on Tuesday, April 18th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on shares of Coca-Cola HBC from GBX 2,740 ($34.08) to GBX 2,950 ($36.69) in a research note on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of Coca-Cola HBC from GBX 2,200 ($27.36) to GBX 2,600 ($32.34) in a report on Thursday, May 4th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Coca-Cola HBC from GBX 2,500 ($31.09) to GBX 2,700 ($33.58) in a report on Thursday, February 16th.

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Coca-Cola HBC Price Performance

Shares of CCHGY traded up $0.08 on Friday, hitting $29.60. The companys stock had a trading volume of 10,253 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,499. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $29.53 and a 200 day moving average price of $26.13. Coca-Cola HBC has a fifty-two week low of $19.83 and a fifty-two week high of $32.19. The company has a quick ratio of 0.98, a current ratio of 1.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.91.

Coca-Cola HBC Cuts Dividend

About Coca-Cola HBC

The business also recently disclosed a dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 26th will be given a $0.5104 dividend. This represents a yield of 3.75%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 25th.

(Get Rating)

Coca-Cola HBC AG engages in the production, sale and distribution of non-alcoholic and ready-to-drink beverages. It operates through the following segments: Established Markets, Developing Markets, and Emerging Markets. The Established Markets segment consists of Austria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Switzerland.

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Corebridge Financial, Inc. (NYSE:CRBG  Get Rating) has earned an average recommendation of Moderate Buy from the twelve brokerages that are covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and eight have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $24.20.

Several research firms have recently weighed in on CRBG. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Corebridge Financial from a neutral rating to a buy rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $25.00 to $23.00 in a research note on Tuesday, April 4th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $26.00 target price on shares of Corebridge Financial in a research note on Wednesday, April 5th. Citigroup initiated coverage on Corebridge Financial in a research note on Monday, April 10th. They set a neutral rating on the stock. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on Corebridge Financial from $28.00 to $21.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 5th.

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Hedge Funds Weigh In On Corebridge Financial

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Toroso Investments LLC bought a new position in shares of Corebridge Financial during the 1st quarter valued at about $1,534,000. Putnam Investments LLC bought a new position in shares of Corebridge Financial during the 1st quarter valued at $3,444,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its holdings in shares of Corebridge Financial by 28,813.0% during the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 856,980 shares of the companys stock valued at $13,729,000 after purchasing an additional 854,016 shares during the last quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund grew its holdings in shares of Corebridge Financial by 694.7% during the 1st quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 73,112 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,171,000 after purchasing an additional 63,912 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of Corebridge Financial by 16.1% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,138,178 shares of the companys stock valued at $18,234,000 after purchasing an additional 158,031 shares during the last quarter. 22.16% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Corebridge Financial Stock Down 1.5 %

NYSE:CRBG opened at $16.99 on Tuesday. Corebridge Financial has a 1 year low of $14.01 and a 1 year high of $23.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.85, a current ratio of 0.15 and a quick ratio of 0.15. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $16.29 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $19.13.

Corebridge Financial (NYSE:CRBG  Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 9th. The company reported $0.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.84 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $5.36 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.21 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.15 EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that Corebridge Financial will post 3.87 earnings per share for the current year.

Corebridge Financial Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 30th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 16th will be issued a $0.23 dividend. This represents a $0.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.41%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 15th.

Corebridge Financial Company Profile

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Corebridge Financial, Inc provides retirement solutions and insurance products in the United States. It operates through Individual Retirement, Group Retirement, Life Insurance, and Institutional Markets segments. The Individual Retirement segment provides fixed annuities, fixed index annuities, variable annuities and retail mutual funds.

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Auto parts, passenger vehicles and heavy-duty trucks were the top three imports from Mexico to the U.S. through Laredo, Texas during March. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Borderlands is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week: Port Laredo remains the nations No. 1 gateway for international trade; rail cargo thefts were up 29% during Q1 in Mexico; a Taiwan automotive supplier is investing $1 billion for Mexico expansion; and Forza Steel is building a plant at the Port of Brownsville.

Laredo, Texas, remains the nations No. 1 gateway for international trade

For the second straight month, Laredo, Texas, retained the No. 1 spot among the nations 450 international gateways for trade.

During March, Laredo recorded a 12% year-over-year (y/y) increase in total commerce to $28.6 billion, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by WorldCity.

Chicago OHare International Airport ranked No. 2 and reported $26.4 billion in trade, while John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York was No. 3 with $23.4 billion.

The Port of Los Angeles, which held the No. 1 spot for most of 2022, fell to No. 4 in March, accounting for $22.1 billion in trade.

Mexico also ranked as the United States top trading partner for the fourth consecutive month in March, with total trade increasing 4.5% y/y to $72 billion.

Canada ranked No. 2, as its total trade with the U.S. decreased 5% y/y to $69 billion in March. China ranked third with trade falling 26% y/y to $45 billion.

Exports from Laredo to the world increased 9% y/y to $10.9 billion and imports increased 14% y/y to $17.7 billion.

Auto parts ($2.3 billion), passenger vehicles ($1.1 billion) and heavy-duty trucks ($1.1 billion) were the top three imports from Mexico to the U.S. through Laredo.

Fresh produce season in Mexico has been in full swing since early March, with Laredo accounting for $211 million in imports of strawberries and blueberries and $121 million in avocados during the month.

The top exports from the U.S. through Laredo were auto parts ($1.4 billion), gasoline ($334 million) and diesel engines ($284 million).

Commercial truck crossings in Laredo increased 5.5% y/y to 262,109 vehicles in March, while April recorded a 3.5% y/y increase to 230,534 tractor-trailers.

As of Friday, the Reefer Outbound Tender Volume Index (ROTVI.LRD) in Laredo was up about 2% week over week, helped by Mexican produce crossing the border, according to FreightWaves SONAR. On a y/y basis, Laredos outbound reefer load volume is up 49%.

Helped by produce imports arriving from Mexico, reefer load volumes through Laredo, Texas, are up 2% week over week and 49% year over year. To learn more about FreightWaves SONAR, click here.

Rail cargo thefts up 29% during Q1 in Mexico

Mexicos commercial rail sector saw a spike in cargo thefts during the first quarter of 2023, recording 580 robbery incidents.

According to Mexicos rail transport regulatory agency, the northwestern state of Sinaloa recorded the most cargo theft cases from January through March with 34 incidents.

The state of Sonora ranked No. 2 with 31 cargo theft reports, followed by Jalisco with 27 incidents during the first quarter.

The most stolen commodities were food products, construction material, consumer goods and industrial materials.

Taiwan auto parts supplier announces $1B expansion in Mexico

Taiwan-based auto electronics manufacturer Quanta Computer is investing $1 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the Mexican of Monterrey.

The Taiwan-based manufacturer opened the Monterrey factory last year, where it produces a computer that helps to control different functions of a vehicle.

Quanta has not specified where the $1 billion in funding will be used, but officials for the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon said the investment will expand Quantas existing operations in Monterrey, according to Reuters.

Quanta Computer is a supplier to electric vehicle maker Tesla, which is building a $5 billion factory in Monterrey.

The expansion reportedly will create 2,500 jobs. The factory currently has a workforce of over 2,000 employees.

The company employs over 70,000 people worldwide, with operations in Asia, the U.S. and Europe.

Forza Steel to build plant at Port of Brownsville

Forza Steel announced an investment of $60 million to build a manufacturing facility at the Port of Brownsville in South Texas.

The factory, which will create 150 jobs, will produce steel pipes and tubes for the automotive, construction and oil and gas industries.

The 650,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to open in July, according to a news release.

The Port of Brownsville is located 277 miles south of San Antonio at the southernmost tip of Texas along the Gulf of Mexico. It is the only deepwater seaport located along the border.

Forza Steel said it expects to import 260,000 metric tons of raw material annually from Mexico to the Brownsville facility to produce 240,000 tons of steel tubular products. The company is headquartered in Salinas Victoria, Mexico, about 165 miles south of Brownsville.

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Dynagas LNG Partners LP (NYSE:DLNG  Get Rating) was the target of a significant increase in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 18,400 shares, an increase of 178.8% from the April 30th total of 6,600 shares. Approximately 0.1% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 34,400 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.5 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Citigroup Inc. acquired a new stake in Dynagas LNG Partners during the first quarter worth about $34,000. UBS Group AG grew its stake in shares of Dynagas LNG Partners by 60.3% in the 1st quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 43,594 shares of the shipping companys stock valued at $175,000 after buying an additional 16,400 shares during the period. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SA acquired a new stake in shares of Dynagas LNG Partners during the 1st quarter worth approximately $159,000. Cubist Systematic Strategies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Dynagas LNG Partners during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Finally, Vanguard Capital Wealth Advisors purchased a new stake in shares of Dynagas LNG Partners during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $120,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 7.40% of the companys stock.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have weighed in on DLNG shares. StockNews.com assumed coverage on Dynagas LNG Partners in a report on Friday. They issued a buy rating on the stock. TheStreet lowered shares of Dynagas LNG Partners from a b- rating to a c rating in a research report on Monday, May 8th.

Dynagas LNG Partners Price Performance

Shares of Dynagas LNG Partners stock traded down $0.05 on Friday, hitting $2.45. 19,750 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 27,508. Dynagas LNG Partners has a 1-year low of $2.08 and a 1-year high of $4.49. The company has a quick ratio of 1.04, a current ratio of 1.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52. The stock has a market capitalization of $90.26 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 2.13 and a beta of 1.52. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $2.67 and a 200 day moving average price of $2.82.

Dynagas LNG Partners (NYSE:DLNG  Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, March 17th. The shipping company reported $0.11 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.22 by ($0.11). Dynagas LNG Partners had a return on equity of 10.69% and a net margin of 41.02%. The company had revenue of $35.06 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $33.53 million. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Dynagas LNG Partners will post 0.88 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Dynagas LNG Partners

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Dynagas LNG Partners LP engages in the provision of seaborne transportation services. It owns and operates liquefied natural gas carriers, which are employed to energy companies under multi-year charters. The company was founded on May 30, 2013 and is headquartered in Athens, Greece.

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Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund (NYSE:EVG  Get Rating) was the target of a large increase in short interest during the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,000 shares, an increase of 166.7% from the April 30th total of 1,500 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 35,400 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 0.1 days.

Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund Price Performance

EVG traded down $0.01 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $9.58. 44,950 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 34,493. The companys fifty day moving average price is $9.96 and its 200-day moving average price is $10.41. Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund has a 52-week low of $9.56 and a 52-week high of $11.62.

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Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund Cuts Dividend

The business also recently announced a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 31st. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 22nd will be paid a dividend of $0.0757 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 19th. This represents a $0.91 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 9.48%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund

Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund Company Profile

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Guggenheim Capital LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund by 7.9% in the first quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 241,872 shares of the companys stock worth $2,528,000 after buying an additional 17,742 shares during the last quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. grew its position in shares of Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund by 1.7% during the 4th quarter. Advisor Group Holdings Inc. now owns 183,986 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,875,000 after acquiring an additional 3,070 shares during the period. First Trust Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund by 5.4% in the 1st quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 175,054 shares of the companys stock worth $2,024,000 after purchasing an additional 8,942 shares in the last quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. raised its holdings in Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund by 8.7% in the 1st quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc. now owns 102,499 shares of the companys stock worth $1,185,000 after purchasing an additional 8,175 shares during the period. Finally, NewEdge Advisors LLC lifted its position in Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund by 9.1% during the first quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 90,979 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,051,000 after purchasing an additional 7,600 shares in the last quarter.

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Eaton Vance Short Duration Diversified Income Fund is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched and managed by Eaton Vance Management. The fund invests in fixed income markets of the United States. It primarily invests in senior, secured floating-rate loans, bank deposits denominated in foreign currencies, debt obligations of foreign governmental and corporate issuers, and mortgage-backed securities.

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Fortune Brands Innovations (NYSE:FBIN  Get Rating) had its price target raised by Barclays from $75.00 to $77.00 in a research report report published on Wednesday morning, The Fly reports.

Several other research analysts have also weighed in on the stock. Truist Financial upped their target price on shares of Fortune Brands Innovations from $70.00 to $75.00 in a research report on Friday, February 17th. Bank of America downgraded shares of Fortune Brands Innovations from a neutral rating to an underperform rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $61.00 to $60.00 in a report on Monday, January 30th. They noted that the move was a valuation call. Credit Suisse Group downgraded shares of Fortune Brands Innovations from a neutral rating to an underperform rating and set a $48.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Thursday, March 9th. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded Fortune Brands Innovations from a hold rating to a buy rating and raised their target price for the stock from $67.00 to $84.00 in a research note on Friday, April 28th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price target on Fortune Brands Innovations from $67.00 to $72.00 in a research note on Friday, April 28th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $68.20.

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Fortune Brands Innovations Stock Performance

Shares of FBIN opened at $62.18 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00, a current ratio of 1.63 and a quick ratio of 0.97. The firm has a market cap of $7.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.70, a PEG ratio of 5.60 and a beta of 1.50. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $60.85. Fortune Brands Innovations has a 52-week low of $49.51 and a 52-week high of $71.93.

Fortune Brands Innovations Announces Dividend

Fortune Brands Innovations ( NYSE:FBIN Get Rating ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 26th. The company reported $0.69 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.59 by $0.10. Fortune Brands Innovations had a return on equity of 26.73% and a net margin of 9.32%. The business had revenue of $1.04 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.01 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.31 EPS. Fortune Brands Innovationss quarterly revenue was down 8.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that Fortune Brands Innovations will post 3.75 EPS for the current fiscal year.

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 26th will be given a dividend of $0.23 per share. This represents a $0.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.48%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 25th. Fortune Brands Innovationss payout ratio is 20.26%.

About Fortune Brands Innovations

(Get Rating)

Fortune Brands Innovations, Inc manufactures and supplies home and security products and services. The company operates through the following segments: Cabinets, Plumbing, Outdoors & Security. The Cabinets segment manufactures custom, semi-custom, and stock cabinetry, as well as vanities, for the kitchen and bath.

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Good Life Advisors LLC bought a new stake in iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF (BATS:EFV  Get Rating) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm bought 4,664 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $214,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of EFV. Coastal Investment Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF by 66.5% in the 4th quarter. Coastal Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 536 shares of the companys stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 214 shares in the last quarter. Leelyn Smith LLC bought a new stake in iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Bessemer Group Inc. bought a new stake in iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Focused Wealth Management Inc bought a new stake in iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $37,000. Finally, Cambridge Trust Co. increased its position in shares of iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF by 206.8% during the 4th quarter. Cambridge Trust Co. now owns 1,129 shares of the companys stock worth $52,000 after purchasing an additional 761 shares during the last quarter.

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iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF Stock Up 0.8 %

BATS:EFV opened at $48.67 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.51 and a beta of 0.86. iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF has a twelve month low of $49.15 and a twelve month high of $59.57. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $49.14 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $47.99.

About iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF

iShares MSCI EAFE Value ETF (the Fund), formerly iShares MSCI EAFE Value Index Fund, is an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fund seeks to provide investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the MSCI EAFE Value Index. The Index is a subset of the MSCI EAFE Index and constituents of the Index include securities from Europe, Australasia (Australia and Asia), and the Far East.

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JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed their overweight rating on shares of Pennon Group (LON:PNN  Get Rating) in a report published on Wednesday, Marketbeat.com reports. They currently have a GBX 1,200 ($14.93) price target on the stock.

Other analysts also recently issued reports about the stock. Credit Suisse Group reiterated a neutral rating and issued a GBX 900 ($11.19) target price on shares of Pennon Group in a report on Monday, March 20th. Royal Bank of Canada downgraded shares of Pennon Group to a sector perform rating and set a GBX 975 ($12.13) price objective on the stock. in a research report on Monday, February 13th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of GBX 1,069.17 ($13.30).

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Pennon Group Stock Down 0.8 %

PNN stock opened at GBX 775 ($9.64) on Wednesday. Pennon Group has a 52 week low of GBX 735 ($9.14) and a 52 week high of GBX 1,076 ($13.38). The company has a market capitalization of 2.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4,305.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.24 and a beta of 0.31. The firms 50-day moving average is GBX 853.87 and its two-hundred day moving average is GBX 889.75. The company has a current ratio of 1.82, a quick ratio of 1.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 263.07.

Pennon Group Cuts Dividend

About Pennon Group

The company also recently disclosed a dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, April 5th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 26th were paid a GBX 12.96 ($0.16) dividend. This represents a dividend yield of 1.42%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, January 26th. Pennon Groups payout ratio is 22,222.22%.

(Get Rating)

Pennon Group Plc provides clean water and wastewater services in the United Kingdom. It provides water and wastewater services for customers in Cornwall, Devon, and parts of Dorset and Somerset; water-only services in the areas of Dorset, Hampshire, and Wiltshire; and water and wastewater retail services to non-household customers in Great Britain.

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Hess Co. (NYSE:HES  Get Rating)  Equities research analysts at Zacks Research boosted their Q3 2023 EPS estimates for Hess in a report released on Tuesday, May 23rd. Zacks Research analyst N. Banerjee now anticipates that the oil and gas producer will earn $1.38 per share for the quarter, up from their previous forecast of $1.37. The consensus estimate for Hess current full-year earnings is $5.44 per share. Zacks Research also issued estimates for Hess Q4 2023 earnings at $1.42 EPS, FY2023 earnings at $5.03 EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at $1.86 EPS and FY2025 earnings at $8.97 EPS.

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Hess (NYSE:HES  Get Rating) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 26th. The oil and gas producer reported $1.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.03 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $2.45 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.37 billion. Hess had a return on equity of 25.85% and a net margin of 18.47%. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.30 earnings per share. The companys revenue was up 3.5% compared to the same quarter last year.

Hess Trading Up 0.8 %

Several other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. UBS Group assumed coverage on Hess in a research note on Wednesday, April 19th. They set a buy rating and a $184.00 price objective for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Hess from $156.00 to $158.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, April 5th. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Hess from $167.00 to $168.00 in a research report on Thursday, May 18th. Barclays raised their price target on Hess from $160.00 to $174.00 in a report on Thursday, March 16th. Finally, StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Hess in a research note on Thursday, May 18th. They set a sell rating on the stock. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $169.00.

Shares of Hess stock opened at $130.20 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.98, a quick ratio of 1.55 and a current ratio of 1.65. The company has a market capitalization of $39.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.65 and a beta of 1.57. Hess has a 1 year low of $90.34 and a 1 year high of $160.52. The companys fifty day moving average is $136.50 and its two-hundred day moving average is $139.51.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Hess

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in shares of Hess by 51.5% during the third quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 7,493,096 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $816,673,000 after purchasing an additional 2,546,257 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its stake in Hess by 11.4% in the third quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 7,842,807 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $854,786,000 after buying an additional 801,336 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Hess by 13.6% during the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 5,690,159 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $753,036,000 after acquiring an additional 682,052 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Hess by 2.2% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 30,928,530 shares of the oil and gas producers stock valued at $3,310,590,000 after acquiring an additional 667,979 shares during the period. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Hess by 64.6% in the 1st quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 1,652,710 shares of the oil and gas producers stock worth $218,744,000 after acquiring an additional 648,749 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 86.06% of the companys stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, SVP Richard D. Lynch sold 33,191 shares of Hess stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $138.84, for a total value of $4,608,238.44. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 23,622 shares in the company, valued at $3,279,678.48. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other Hess news, SVP Richard D. Lynch sold 33,191 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $138.84, for a total transaction of $4,608,238.44. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 23,622 shares in the company, valued at $3,279,678.48. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CFO John P. Rielly sold 3,380 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $137.41, for a total value of $464,445.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 309,841 shares of the companys stock, valued at $42,575,251.81. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 6,436,221 shares of company stock worth $174,102,591. 9.93% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hess Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 30th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 15th will be given a $0.4375 dividend. This represents a $1.75 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.34%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, June 14th. Hesss payout ratio is 25.07%.

About Hess

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Hess Corp is an exploration and production company, which engages in exploration, development, production, transportation, purchase & sale of crude oil, natural gas liquids and natural gas with production operations. It operates through the following segments: Exploration and Production and Midstream.

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Reinsurance Group of America (NYSE:RGA  Get Rating) had its price objective upped by Credit Suisse Group from $144.00 to $152.00 in a research report sent to investors on Wednesday, The Fly reports.

RGA has been the topic of several other reports. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of Reinsurance Group of America in a research report on Thursday, May 18th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price objective on shares of Reinsurance Group of America from $170.00 to $164.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Thursday, April 20th. Citigroup raised shares of Reinsurance Group of America from a sell rating to a buy rating and upped their price target for the stock from $133.00 to $158.00 in a report on Wednesday, March 15th. Wells Fargo & Company began coverage on shares of Reinsurance Group of America in a research report on Tuesday, April 25th. They set an overweight rating and a $163.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Reinsurance Group of America from $146.00 to $149.00 in a research report on Tuesday, May 9th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $157.33.

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Reinsurance Group of America Stock Performance

NYSE:RGA opened at $143.67 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.56 billion, a PE ratio of 10.37 and a beta of 0.91. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $139.51 and a 200 day moving average price of $141.51. The company has a quick ratio of 0.14, a current ratio of 0.14 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.58. Reinsurance Group of America has a 12-month low of $109.06 and a 12-month high of $153.35.

Reinsurance Group of America Dividend Announcement

Reinsurance Group of America ( NYSE:RGA Get Rating ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, May 5th. The insurance provider reported $5.16 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $3.37 by $1.79. Reinsurance Group of America had a net margin of 5.66% and a return on equity of 23.94%. The business had revenue of $4.25 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.23 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.47 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that Reinsurance Group of America will post 17.74 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, May 30th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 16th will be paid a $0.80 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, May 15th. This represents a $3.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.23%. Reinsurance Group of Americas payout ratio is 23.10%.

Insider Activity

In other news, EVP William L. Hutton sold 1,952 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.03, for a total value of $292,858.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 13,970 shares in the company, valued at $2,095,919.10. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other Reinsurance Group of America news, EVP William L. Hutton sold 1,952 shares of Reinsurance Group of America stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.03, for a total transaction of $292,858.56. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 13,970 shares in the company, valued at $2,095,919.10. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Todd C. Larson sold 1,018 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $148.96, for a total transaction of $151,641.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 44,260 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,592,969.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.31% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in RGA. U.S. Capital Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Reinsurance Group of America during the 4th quarter valued at $27,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC bought a new position in Reinsurance Group of America in the 4th quarter worth about $35,000. AllSquare Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Reinsurance Group of America in the 1st quarter worth about $36,000. Bay Harbor Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Reinsurance Group of America in the 1st quarter worth about $36,000. Finally, IFP Advisors Inc boosted its stake in Reinsurance Group of America by 245.6% in the 3rd quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 356 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $38,000 after purchasing an additional 253 shares in the last quarter. 96.46% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Reinsurance Group of America

(Get Rating)

Reinsurance Group of America, Inc is a holding company, which engages in the provision of traditional and non-traditional life and health reinsurance products. It operates through the following segments: U.S. and Latin America, Canada, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Asia Pacific, and Corporate and Other.

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China Mengniu Dairy Company Limited (OTCMKTS:CIADY  Get Rating) saw a large drop in short interest in the month of May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 900 shares, a drop of 71.9% from the April 30th total of 3,200 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 25,300 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.0 days.

China Mengniu Dairy Trading Up 0.7 %

Shares of CIADY stock traded up $0.25 on Friday, reaching $38.45. 15,163 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 9,676. China Mengniu Dairy has a one year low of $31.92 and a one year high of $52.61. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $40.99 and a 200 day moving average price of $43.73.

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China Mengniu Dairy Company Profile

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China Mengniu Dairy Company Limited, an investment holding company, produces and distributes dairy products in the People's Republic of China and internationally. The company operates through four segments: Liquid Milk Products, Ice Cream Products, Milk Powder Products, and Others. The Liquid Milk Products segment produces and distributes ultra-high temperature milk, milk beverages, fresh milk, and yogurt.

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Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (NYSE:SQM  Get Rating) and Atlas Energy Solutions (NYSE:AESI  Get Rating) are both basic materials companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, dividends, profitability, valuation, risk and earnings.

Dividends

Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile pays an annual dividend of $8.18 per share and has a dividend yield of 12.3%. Atlas Energy Solutions pays an annual dividend of $0.15 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.9%. Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile pays out 60.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile has raised its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

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Insider and Institutional Ownership

18.4% of Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile shares are held by institutional investors. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile 35.24% 82.96% 37.19% Atlas Energy Solutions N/A N/A N/A

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile and Atlas Energy Solutions net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

This table compares Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile and Atlas Energy Solutions revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile $10.71 billion 1.77 $3.91 billion $13.52 4.90 Atlas Energy Solutions N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile has higher revenue and earnings than Atlas Energy Solutions.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile and Atlas Energy Solutions, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile 1 3 3 0 2.29 Atlas Energy Solutions 0 0 8 1 3.11

Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile currently has a consensus price target of $88.25, suggesting a potential upside of 33.13%. Atlas Energy Solutions has a consensus price target of $24.44, suggesting a potential upside of 50.06%. Given Atlas Energy Solutions stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe Atlas Energy Solutions is more favorable than Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile.

Summary

Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile beats Atlas Energy Solutions on 7 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile

(Get Rating)

Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile SA engages in the production and distribution of fertilizers, potassium nitrate, iodine, and lithium chemicals. It operates through the following segments: Specialty Plant Nutrients, Iodine and Derivatives, Lithium and Derivatives, Industrial Chemicals, Potassium, and Other Products and Services. The Specialty Plant Nutrients segment produces potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate, sodium potassium nitrate, and specialty blends. The Iodine and Derivatives segment manufactures iodine and iodine derivatives, which are used in a wide range of medical, pharmaceutical, agricultural, and industrial applications. The Lithium and Derivatives segment covers lithium carbonate for electrochemical materials for batteries, frits for the ceramic and enamel industries, heat-resistant glass, air conditioning chemicals, continuous casting powder for steel extrusion, primary aluminum smelting process, pharmaceuticals, and lithium derivatives. The Industrial Chemicals segment comprises industrial chemicals including sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, and boric acid. The Potassium segment produces potassium chloride and potassium sulfate. The Other Products and Services s

About Atlas Energy Solutions

(Get Rating)

Atlas Energy Solutions Inc. is a provider of proppant and logistics services to customers engaged in the oil and natural gas industry principally within the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico. Atlas Energy Solutions Inc. is based in AUSTIN, Texas.

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Eli Lilly and (NYSE:LLY  Get Rating) was upgraded by investment analysts at StockNews.com from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Friday.

Several other analysts have also weighed in on LLY. Societe Generale lowered shares of Eli Lilly and from a hold rating to a sell rating and set a $278.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, February 15th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Eli Lilly and from $430.00 to $475.00 in a research report on Thursday, May 4th. Truist Financial lifted their price target on shares of Eli Lilly and from $421.00 to $430.00 in a research report on Friday, April 28th. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Eli Lilly and from $400.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Monday, May 1st. Finally, 3M reissued a maintains rating on shares of Eli Lilly and in a report on Friday, April 28th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Eli Lilly and presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $425.05.

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Eli Lilly and Stock Down 0.4 %

NYSE:LLY opened at $425.79 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.67, a current ratio of 1.30 and a quick ratio of 1.02. Eli Lilly and has a one year low of $283.11 and a one year high of $454.95. The firms 50 day simple moving average is $388.07 and its 200 day simple moving average is $362.49. The company has a market cap of $404.19 billion, a PE ratio of 67.69, a P/E/G ratio of 2.13 and a beta of 0.37.

Insider Transactions at Eli Lilly and

Eli Lilly and ( NYSE:LLY Get Rating ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 27th. The company reported $1.62 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.73 by ($0.11). The firm had revenue of $6.96 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.87 billion. Eli Lilly and had a return on equity of 61.42% and a net margin of 20.54%. The firms revenue for the quarter was down 10.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.62 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Eli Lilly and will post 8.79 earnings per share for the current year.

In related news, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 194,354 shares of Eli Lilly and stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $442.62, for a total value of $86,024,967.48. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 101,473,810 shares in the company, valued at approximately $44,914,337,782.20. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In related news, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 194,354 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $442.62, for a total transaction of $86,024,967.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 101,473,810 shares in the company, valued at approximately $44,914,337,782.20. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Donald A. Zakrowski sold 600 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $435.29, for a total value of $261,174.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 5,978 shares in the company, valued at $2,602,163.62. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 1,303,605 shares of company stock valued at $497,320,473 in the last quarter. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Oxler Private Wealth LLC raised its holdings in shares of Eli Lilly and by 0.4% during the 1st quarter. Oxler Private Wealth LLC now owns 6,050 shares of the companys stock worth $2,078,000 after acquiring an additional 24 shares in the last quarter. Missouri Trust & Investment Co raised its holdings in shares of Eli Lilly and by 3.2% during the 1st quarter. Missouri Trust & Investment Co now owns 774 shares of the companys stock worth $266,000 after acquiring an additional 24 shares in the last quarter. Silvercrest Asset Management Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of Eli Lilly and by 0.6% during the 1st quarter. Silvercrest Asset Management Group LLC now owns 4,331 shares of the companys stock worth $1,487,000 after acquiring an additional 25 shares in the last quarter. Cora Capital Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Eli Lilly and by 2.8% during the 1st quarter. Cora Capital Advisors LLC now owns 956 shares of the companys stock worth $328,000 after acquiring an additional 26 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sittner & Nelson LLC raised its holdings in shares of Eli Lilly and by 2.7% during the 1st quarter. Sittner & Nelson LLC now owns 1,003 shares of the companys stock worth $344,000 after acquiring an additional 26 shares in the last quarter. 82.13% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Eli Lilly and

(Get Rating)

Eli Lilly & Co engages in the discovery, development, manufacture, and sale of pharmaceutical products. The firms products consist of diabetes, oncology, immunology, neuroscience, and other products and therapies. The company was founded by Eli Lilly in May 1876 and is headquartered in Indianapolis, IN.

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BorgWarner Inc.'s (NYSE:BWA) investors are due to receive a payment of $0.17 per share on 15th of June. This means the annual payment will be 1.4% of the current stock price, which is lower than the industry average.

View our latest analysis for BorgWarner

BorgWarner's Earnings Easily Cover The Distributions

It would be nice for the yield to be higher, but we should also check if higher levels of dividend payment would be sustainable. However, prior to this announcement, BorgWarner's dividend was comfortably covered by both cash flow and earnings. This means that most of what the business earns is being used to help it grow.

The next year is set to see EPS grow by 76.6%. Assuming the dividend continues along recent trends, we think the payout ratio could be 10.0% by next year, which is in a pretty sustainable range.

BorgWarner Has A Solid Track Record

The company has been paying a dividend for a long time, and it has been quite stable which gives us confidence in the future dividend potential. Since 2013, the dividend has gone from $0.50 total annually to $0.68. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 3.1% over that duration. Dividends have grown relatively slowly, which is not great, but some investors may value the relative consistency of the dividend.

The Dividend Looks Likely To Grow

Some investors will be chomping at the bit to buy some of the company's stock based on its dividend history. BorgWarner has impressed us by growing EPS at 13% per year over the past five years. A low payout ratio and decent growth suggests that the company is reinvesting well, and it also has plenty of room to increase the dividend over time.

BorgWarner Looks Like A Great Dividend Stock

Overall, we like to see the dividend staying consistent, and we think BorgWarner might even raise payments in the future. The company is easily earning enough to cover its dividend payments and it is great to see that these earnings are being translated into cash flow. All of these factors considered, we think this has solid potential as a dividend stock.

It's important to note that companies having a consistent dividend policy will generate greater investor confidence than those having an erratic one. Still, investors need to consider a host of other factors, apart from dividend payments, when analysing a company. For example, we've picked out 2 warning signs for BorgWarner that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at our curated list of high yield dividend stocks.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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Talon International, Inc. (OTCMKTS:TALN  Get Rating) was the target of a significant decline in short interest in May. As of May 15th, there was short interest totalling 1,600 shares, a decline of 60.0% from the April 30th total of 4,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 17,300 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.1 days.

Talon International Stock Performance

Shares of TALN stock remained flat at $0.14 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $0.13 and a 200 day moving average price of $0.13. Talon International has a 1 year low of $0.06 and a 1 year high of $0.15.

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About Talon International

(Get Rating)

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Talon International, Inc is a supplier of customer zippers, complete trim solutions, and stretch technology products to manufacturers of fashion apparel, specialty retailers, mass merchandisers, brand licensees, and retailers. The company operates through following segments: Talon Zipper and Talon Trim.

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KUALA LUMPUR, May 27 (Xinhua)  The launch ceremony for the English edition of "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era: Questions and Answers" was held here on Saturday, during an event of China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair.

The book presents the fundamental spirit, content and requirement of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in a comprehensive and accessible manner through a question and answer format. It features rich content, innovative presentation, clear illustrations and easy-to-understand language.

The English edition was published through collaboration between People's Publishing House and Xuexi Press of China and India's GBD Books, targeting English-speaking countries worldwide. It helps the international community comprehensively understand the main ideas of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and deepen the understanding on the wisdom and responsibility of the Communist Party of China (CPC) committed to promoting the building of a better world.

Officials from the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, figures from Malaysia's political, academic, press and publishing circles, and representatives from think tanks attended the launch ceremony.

(Source: Xinhua)
White House and House GOP negotiators are racing to finalize a deal to raise the nations debt limit with time running perilously short and the risk of a first-ever US default growing and pictured the US Capitol is seen in Washington, May 21.
The Georgia Department of Drivers' Services is asking drivers to keep their clothes on for their digital driver's licenses and IDs.
Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad's (KLSE:CMSB) dividend will be increasing from last year's payment of the same period to MYR0.03 on 28th of June. This takes the annual payment to 2.7% of the current stock price, which is about average for the industry.

View our latest analysis for Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad

Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad's Earnings Easily Cover The Distributions

Unless the payments are sustainable, the dividend yield doesn't mean too much. Based on the last payment, Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad was earning enough to cover the dividend, but free cash flows weren't positive. In general, we consider cash flow to be more important than earnings, so we would be cautious about relying on the sustainability of this dividend.

Over the next year, EPS is forecast to fall by 19.8%. If the dividend continues along the path it has been on recently, we estimate the payout ratio could be 14%, which is comfortable for the company to continue in the future.

Dividend Volatility

The company's dividend history has been marked by instability, with at least one cut in the last 10 years. The dividend has gone from an annual total of MYR0.0333 in 2013 to the most recent total annual payment of MYR0.03. The dividend has shrunk at around 1.0% a year during that period. A company that decreases its dividend over time generally isn't what we are looking for.

Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad May Find It Hard To Grow The Dividend

With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to evaluate if earnings per share is growing, which could point to a growing dividend in the future. Earnings have grown at around 3.1% a year for the past five years, which isn't massive but still better than seeing them shrink. If Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad is struggling to find viable investments, it always has the option to increase its payout ratio to pay more to shareholders.

Our Thoughts On Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad's Dividend

In summary, while it's always good to see the dividend being raised, we don't think Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad's payments are rock solid. While Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad is earning enough to cover the payments, the cash flows are lacking. Overall, we don't think this company has the makings of a good income stock.

It's important to note that companies having a consistent dividend policy will generate greater investor confidence than those having an erratic one. Still, investors need to consider a host of other factors, apart from dividend payments, when analysing a company. For example, we've picked out 2 warning signs for Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at our curated list of high yield dividend stocks.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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The international childrens charity Theirworld has painted a devastating picture of the early childhood of most of the worlds children.

The charity, which is pledged to ending the global education crisis and unleashing the potential of the next generation, began its recent report, Act for Early YearsA call for a global movement to support the worlds youngest children, with the following assessment:

Around the world, the situation for the youngest members of society and the people who take care of themparents, carers, nursery teachers, teaching assistantsis worsening and suffering from a lack of investment and interest. There is truly a global crisis in the early years.

The report "Act for Early Years - A call for a global movement to support the worlds youngest children", authotred by international childrens charity, Theirworld [Photo: screenshot: Theirworld]

The study collated stark findings on conditions currently facing the worlds population under the age of five:

Malnutrition and stunting impact an estimated 250 million children under five years-of-age, thwarting their development at a critical moment in their lives (Ndayizigiye, et al 2022).

Of the global population of 100 million displaced people, almost 12 million are estimated to be children under the age of five (Moving Minds Alliance, 2022).

Almost half of all children (250 million) under five years-of-age, in low and middle-income countries, are at risk of not reaching their development potential (The Lancet, 2016).

350 million children below primary-school entry age globally do not have access to needed childcare (World Bank, 2021).

Over 175 million children globally (almost half of all pre-primary-age children) are not enrolled in pre-school. In low-income countries, the figure figure rises to four in five (UNICEF, 2019).

In European countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), children under the age of three years in low-income households are one-third less likely to be able to participate in early childhood education and care than those in high-income households (OECD, 2020).

In Cameroon, 69 percent of the richest percentile of three to four-year-olds attend pre-school compared to 2 percent of the poorest. In Malawi, 67 percent of the richest percentile attend pre-school compared to 27 percent of the poorest (World Inequality Database on Education).

The share of humanitarian aid supporting early childhood development in emergencies is just 2 percent (Moving Minds Alliance, 2020).

The report acknowledges that much of this data has already been superseded by world eventsmost notably by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemicand social conditions for the worlds youngest inhabitants has undergone a drastic deterioration, as the worlds governments withdrew from even the modest commitments of former years.

The study does not allude to the stratospheric rises in military spending of these same governments while they eviscerate social programmes for their populations. OECD countries (which in 2017, collectively comprised 42.8 percent of global GDP) spend on average of only 0.7 percent of GDP on early childhood education and care (OECD, 2022); the US and the UK spend less0.3 percent and 0.5 percent respectively. Even before the recent massive increases in military budgets to wage war against Russia in Ukraine, OECD states spent on average 2.4 percent of their GDP on their military. Central and Western European military budgets have now climbed to a combined $345 billion; 30 percent higher than a decade ago.

As part of the study, a survey was commissioned by Theirworld, and conducted by Hall + Partners. The survey talked to more than 7,000 parents and carers in the UK, US, Nigeria, Brazil, Turkey, India and the Netherlands; the countries being chosen to represent geographically and economically diverse regions.

The authors describe a global early years crisis in which children are being deprived of education and care in their most formative years due to the spiralling cost of nursery and preschool fees.

Unaffordable childcare fees have forced most parents to take on more work, or either reduce or entirely abandon accessing formal childcare.

Eight in 10 parents in Nigeria (85 percent) have had to make major financial sacrifices in order to afford childcare, along with 82 percent in India, 81 percent in Turkey, 73 percent in Brazil, 66 percent in the US and 65 percent in the UK.

A rising proportion of parents with children under five are being forced to quit employment or drop out of higher education to avoid paying childcare fees.

A third of parents in India (33 percent) have had to do so, while in the US, the figure stands at 27 percent; in the UK, 23 percent; in the Netherlands, 22 percent; in Brazil, 17 percent; in Turkey, 16 percent; and in Nigeria, 13 percent.

Parents in the UK face a tougher struggle to afford nursery and child-minder fees than those in the Netherlands, US, India, Brazil, Turkey and Nigeria.

Almost three-quarters of UK parents (74 percent) said they find it difficult to meet childcare costs, compared to 52 percent in India, 57 percent in the Netherlands, 60 percent in Nigeria, 68 percent in the US and Brazil, and 72 percent in Turkey.

This last statistic points directly to the decade of social austerity in which around 1,500 childrens centrespredominantly in the poorest areas of the UK, have closed since 2010. Recent freedom of information requests to local authorities in Birmingham (the UKs second largest city with a population of over 1 million) show that in 2010 there were 189 council-run children centres, but only 75 remained by 2021.

A closed down Sure Start children's centre and adjoining play area in Ardwick, Manchester. The Bushmore Sure Start site was one of two children's centres closed in Ardwick in 2013 by Labour Party-run Manchester City Council. [Photo: WSWS]

The cull continues. In January, Kent County Council announced plans to close 35 childrens centres as part of an operation by its Conservative Party leaders to save 6 million this year.

An estimated 43,000 working mothers dropped out of the UK workforce during 2022 to look after family. Net childcare costs represented almost a third of the income of a family on the average UK wage, according to OECD figures, compared to 1 percent in Germany. This is due to the lack of free childcare from ages one to three years.

The OECD found that that Britain had slipped down five places to 14th among wealthy nations on the table of women in work. Some women workers might not even show up in the statistics as economically inactive if they work fewer hours to fill childcare gaps.

Theirworlds report offers only the most timid prescriptions that would hardly inconvenience the worlds governments. The foreword to the study was written by Theirworlds current chair, Sarah Brown; the wife of former UK prime minister and chancellor, Gordon Brown. As prime minister during the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, Brown enacted the multi-billion pound bailout of the failing banks. At its peak, the cash cost of these interventions was 137 billion.

Broadly similar measures were implemented by governments in the US and the European Union. In addition to the vast cash subvention to the banks, the Brown government enacted financial guarantees with the aim of restoring confidence which the National Audit Office estimated at over 1 trillion at peak support.

This constituted the then largest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the financial elite in British history. It inaugurated an era of mass austerity carried out by every government since, with Browns government announcing that the National Health Service had to find 20 billion in efficiency savings.

Brown was previously chancellor in the Tony Blairs government and co-architect with him of New Labour. They carried out a Thatcherite privatisation binge across whole swathes of society, including education and the early year childrens services.

The household of current Conservative government Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was recently discovered to be directly profiteering from the privatisation of childrens services. Sunaks wife, heiress and multi-hundred millionaire Akshata Murty, is a shareholder in Koru Kids, which stands to financially benefit from a government policy announced in the last budget.

When the most powerful in society carry out such a merciless assault on the conditions and life chances of societys most vulnerable membersthe very youngestthe social order condemns itself.
Key Insights

Using the 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity, EOG Resources fair value estimate is US$104

Current share price of US$110 suggests EOG Resources is potentially trading close to its fair value

Our fair value estimate is 27% lower than EOG Resources' analyst price target of US$143

How far off is EOG Resources, Inc. (NYSE:EOG) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, we'll take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by projecting its future cash flows and then discounting them to today's value. The Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model is the tool we will apply to do this. Don't get put off by the jargon, the math behind it is actually quite straightforward.

Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model.

View our latest analysis for EOG Resources

Step By Step Through The Calculation

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. 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 ($, Millions) US$5.03b US$5.29b US$5.08b US$5.25b US$4.69b US$4.61b US$4.59b US$4.60b US$4.64b US$4.70b Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x11 Analyst x11 Analyst x7 Analyst x2 Analyst x1 Est @ -1.62% Est @ -0.50% Est @ 0.28% Est @ 0.83% Est @ 1.21% Present Value ($, Millions) Discounted @ 9.0% US$4.6k US$4.4k US$3.9k US$3.7k US$3.0k US$2.7k US$2.5k US$2.3k US$2.1k US$2.0k

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = US$31b

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. 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 2.1%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 9.0%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2032  (1 + g)  (r  g) = US$4.7b (1 + 2.1%)  (9.0% 2.1%) = US$69b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= US$69b ( 1 + 9.0%)10= US$29b

The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is US$61b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of US$110, the company appears around fair value at the time of writing. 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. 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 EOG Resources 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 9.0%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.165. 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 EOG Resources

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.

Dividend is in the top 25% of dividend payers in the market.

Weakness

No major weaknesses identified for EOG.

Opportunity

Good value based on P/E ratio compared to estimated Fair P/E ratio.

Threat

Annual earnings are forecast to decline for the next 3 years.

Next Steps:

Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and 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. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. For example, changes in the company's cost of equity or the risk free rate can significantly impact the valuation. For EOG Resources, there are three pertinent factors you should explore:

Risks: Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for EOG Resources (of which 1 can't be ignored!) you should know about. Management:Have insiders been ramping up their shares to take advantage of the market's sentiment for EOG's future outlook? Check out our management and board analysis with insights on CEO compensation and governance factors. Other Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered!

PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every American 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.

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Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's (TSE:CM) dividend will be increasing from last year's payment of the same period to CA$0.87 on 28th of July. This makes the dividend yield 6.0%, which is above the industry average.

See our latest analysis for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's Payment Expected To Have Solid Earnings Coverage

We like to see robust dividend yields, but that doesn't matter if the payment isn't sustainable.

Having distributed dividends for at least 10 years, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has a long history of paying out a part of its earnings to shareholders. Taking data from its last earnings report, calculating for the company's payout ratio shows 65%, which means that Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce would be able to pay its last dividend without pressure on the balance sheet.

Over the next 3 years, EPS is forecast to expand by 54.0%. The future payout ratio could be 62% over that time period, according to analyst estimates, which is a good look for the future of the dividend.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Has A Solid Track Record

The company has a sustained record of paying dividends with very little fluctuation. Since 2013, the annual payment back then was CA$1.80, compared to the most recent full-year payment of CA$3.48. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 6.8% over that duration. Companies like this can be very valuable over the long term, if the decent rate of growth can be maintained.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce May Find It Hard To Grow The Dividend

The company's investors will be pleased to have been receiving dividend income for some time. Let's not jump to conclusions as things might not be as good as they appear on the surface. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce hasn't seen much change in its earnings per share over the last five years.

Our Thoughts On Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's Dividend

Overall, this is a reasonable dividend, and it being raised is an added bonus. The earnings coverage is acceptable for now, but with earnings on the decline we would definitely keep an eye on the payout ratio. Taking all of this into consideration, the dividend looks viable moving forward, but investors should be mindful that the company has pushed the boundaries of sustainability in the past and may do so again.

Investors generally tend to favour companies with a consistent, stable dividend policy as opposed to those operating an irregular one. However, there are other things to consider for investors when analysing stock performance. For example, we've picked out 1 warning sign for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. Is Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Join A Paid User Research Session

Youll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here
While HBO Max may now be Max, there are still loads of new films to watch on the streaming service. From the early hits of now young adult actors and actresses like Dakota Fanning and Jaden Smith to one of Will Smiths emotional movies and the 2020 Best Picture Oscar winner Parasite, there are options for all sorts of audiences, even the superhero-loving ones.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods lands on the streamer after being released in theaters in March. The Max rebrand preceded Sydney Sweeneys next project Reality, the television movie taken from an FBI transcript. A campy take on the story of Snow White is available to stream as well.

Here are seven of the best new movies to watch on Max in May.

Dreamer: Inspired By A True Story (2005)

Dreamworks Pictures

Past, present and future horse girls need look no further than Dreamer: Inspired By A True Story, starring Kurt Russel, Kris Kristofferson, baby Dakota Fanning, David Morse and Luiz Guzman. Cale Crane (Fanning) descends from a line of horse breeders, owners and racers, but its been a while since her family has owned a horse of its own. Cales father Ben (Kurt Russell) examines horses on race days to make sure theyre healthy enough to run. One day when a racehorse named Sonador goes down on the track after snapping her leg, Cale fights for Sonas life and rehabilitation over putting her down. The recovery might see her walk again, but her racing is deemed nonexistent. The Cranes take a chance. The triumph of the Crane family and Sonador pulls the heartstrings as the family grows closer than ever over helping heal and train Sonador and her jockey Manolin or Manny (Freddy Rodriguez) for the Breeders Cup.

The Karate Kid (2010)

Sony Pictures

The remake of the 1984 classic film starring Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita brings in some heavy hitters for the dynamic duo of Daniel and Mr. Miyagi. In the 2010 version, the pair has been renamed  Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) moves to China for his mothers job. The maintenance man Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) saves Dre from a brutal beating by his classmates, who have bullied him for his crush on Meiying (Wenwen Han). When Dre comes to and finds Mr. Han helping him recover, he asks the maintenance man to teach him karate so that he can defend himself. Han incorporates unique methods of discipline into Dres instruction, much to the approval of Dres mother Sherry Parker (Taraji P. Henson). Viewers can anticipate the epic collaboration between Justin Bieber and Jaden Smith, Never Say Never, which has a great rap verse, during the credits.

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Mirror, Mirror (2012)

Relativity Media

The Snow White fairytale gets a twist with the help of Evil Queen Julia Roberts, Lily Collins Snow White, Armie Hammers Prince Alcott, Nathan Lanes Brighton and Sean Beans the King. For those impatient for Season 4 of Emily in Paris, Lily Collins brings her brand of whimsy to the film, in which Julia Roberts queen has taken control of a kingdom from an exiled Snow White. The princess in question enlists seven men to help her take back what is rightfully hers by birth. This film also boasts a catchy post-credit song.

Collateral Beauty (2016)

Warner Bros.

Will Smith portrays Howard, a bereft father, grieving the loss of his daughter. Howards letters to Love, Time and Death receive personal responses by people who portray the addressees of those letters, in the aftermath of his daughter Olivias death. Naomie Harris portrays Madeline, who runs a support group for people who have lost their children. Howard attends the group, but he doesnt have much to contribute until Madeline pushes him further. Helen Mirren as Brigitte, Kate Winslet as Claire, Edward Norton as Whit, Michael Pena as Simon and Keira Knightly as Amy round out the emotional film.

Parasite (2019)

Neon

Bong Joon-hos Parasite is a must-watch, especially because it won the Best Picture Oscar in 2020. The Kim family of four slowly takes over the Park familys luxurious life, starting with the son Kim Ki-Woo (Choi Woo-sik) tutoring the older daughter. Ki Woo gets his sister Kim Ki-Jung (Park So-dam) into the home next as an art therapist for the Parks younger son. Patriarch Kim Ki-Taek (Song Kang-ho) becomes the chauffeur and matriarch Kim Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin) becomes the housekeeper. Depending on viewers thriller tolerance, the films ending may or may not keep you up at night with how shocking it gets.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)

Warner Bros.

Following its theatrical release in March, Shazam! Fury of the Gods is now available to stream on Max. The sequel to Shazam! (2019) starring Zachary Levi as the titular character, Fury of the Gods introduces Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren as gods Kalypso and Hespera, respectively. The gods come to earth in search of the wizard Shazams (Djimon Hounsou) staff that Billy broke at the end of the last film. The sequel expands the story of Billy Batson (Asher Angel), who can transform into his adult superhero alter ego Shazam! when he says the magical catchphrase. Billy does not want to leave his foster family once he comes of age. His foster brother and best friend Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) has gone off on his own to be a solo superhero and pursue Ann (Rachel Zegler) at school.

Reality (2023)

Sydney Sweeney as Reality Winner in Reality (Warner Bros./Discovery)

Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney leads the TV movie Reality, which lands on Max May 29. Reality Winner (Sweeney) comes home one day from running errands to two FBI agents waiting for her in Augusta, Georgia to question her. The agents (Josh Hamilton and Marchant Davis) want to know whether she leaked a classified document about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. The dialogue is taken directly from an FBI transcript that reveals the conversation that took place in 25-year-old Realitys home. The Air Force veteran and yoga instructor gets grilled for two hours about her work as an intelligence contractor. The film is written and directed by Tina Satter with Paul Yees cinematography.
Sylvester Stallone in 1993's Cliffhanger. (LMK/Alamy)

When people think about 1993s hit Cliffhanger, what pops into your mind is probably Sylvester Stallone in a singlet grunting and hanging from his fingertips on a high-up ledge.

But the most incredible scene in the movie actually comes early on and doesnt involve Sly at all. The baddies are pulling off what looks like an incredible heist: a rogue government agent turns on his colleagues during a flight carrying millions of dollars in suitcases, kills (almost) all of them and then tries to transfer the money  and himself  to the gangs plane which is hooked up to his by a mid-air wire.

Read more: Everything we know about Cliffhanger 2

He then zip-lines from one plane to the other.

It's a staggering stunt  named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the costliest aerial stunt ever performed  and was actually done for real, by legendary British stuntman Simon Crane. Watch it below.

So how in the hell did he do it?

Crane has just got home from shooting The Instigators with Matt Damon, so Yahoo UK asked him.

How did you first get involved?

Simon Crane on the set of 2010's Salt with Angelina Jolie. (Columbia Pictures/Alamy)

They were prepping to film in Cortina in Italy and I'd been approached by this aerial company. I'd done something previously on a film called Air America, where there's a guy that falls out the back of a plane and he's left hanging on. That was me. We thought it would be a similar premise for the stunt in Cliffhanger.

The producers decided to cancel the stunt, so after getting semi-excited about how we would do it, the stunt got cancelled. And it was only after they'd finished the movie that they decided they wanted to shoot it. And I think it was actually Stallone that paid for it out of his own money.

What was the premise of the stunt as you understood it?

The idea was I would be attached to a winch. They would winch me out of the DC-9, I would pretend that I was sort of sliding down and I had another piece of rope that was attached to me via a quick release with a weight on the end.

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So I'm on this one wire being winched out and there's another rope tied to my waist and that had a 20-pound weight on it and was probably 40-foot long. The idea was, as they winch me out, [the guys in the smaller jet] would grab hold of the weight, then they would pull me in. That was the idea.

How on Earth do you prepare for something like this?

A botched mid-air heist results in suitcases full of cash being searched for by various groups throughout the Rocky Mountains in 1993's Cliffhanger. (LMK/Alamy)

We prepped for quite some time in England, with hidden parachutes, making sure they opened. Also, we were aware of the extreme cold, because when we did it the wind chill was like minus 30, minus 40. And I had to sort of be protected from that.

I was wearing a sort of Special Forces survival suit. And then on top of that, I had a prosthetic head and prosthetic hands. It's very difficult, if something goes wrong, you've got to be able to get to your hidden parachute and with all this stuff that was on me, it was difficult.

At first, we did it with a dummy. We put a dummy out the back [of the plane], we lost that. Its still out there somewhere!

We had to do it with the camera planes as well. In one of the tests, I remember it was really quite dangerous, not necessarily for me, but for the camera plane.

Read more: Great movies with seriously bad science

This camera ship, we said, never ever come behind me. If they were lower than me and behind me, if I had to release, I'm going through [it].

But unfortunately, the weight that was attached to me via a quick release, it got snagged on my costume and it released. I managed to catch it. So now I'm holding onto this rope, which is a 20-pound weight, but a 20-pound weight travelling at 200 miles per hour and Im trying to hold onto it.

The plane that we said never go behind me went behind me and if I had let it go, it would have gone through that plane. But eventually they pulled out the way I released the weight and parachuted down.

That sounds terrifying

What we found in Air America is theres a sort of dead space as you go out the back of a plane, about 12 feet from the back. Its a very dangerous area to be in because you start to pendulum. You get into the fast air, then you get pushed up.

In one of the tests, unfortunately, they stopped me in this dead area. And I started to pendulum and I hit the tail of the plane. I had to release myself and parachute down. But it's a very dangerous area. And you only learn that by experiencing it.

Did anything else go wrong during rehearsals?

In one of the practice jumps, I cut away and Im flying down. The safety guys jump out, marry up with me just to see that the parachutes revealed.

We all had quite high-performance parachutes, the wind wasnt much at first, but as we were coming down, there was sudden gusts, it was like 40-mile-an-hour. Now, a parachute is good to about 20/25-miles-an-hour and one of the guys, he was probably about 15 feet from the ground and his parachute collapsed. He crash-landed and broke his leg badly, ended up in hospital.

So tell us about doing the actual stunt on camera for the movie?

Sylvester Stallone and Janine Turner in 1993's Cliffhanger. (Alamy/LMK)

We were a small unit out in a place called Durango, in Colorado.

There I was being winched out, pretending to rappel down. And this bloody weight, the guys didn't catch it. The guys in the second plane missed the weight, it went over the wing and underneath the engine of the second jet.

That wasn't a problem, but they came in a bit faster and actually sort of hit me. I hit the front of their plane and got bounced onto the roof. But as the guys never had that weight, I was going wherever that rope was going. There's nothing to hold on to on the top of the jet, I was sort of clattering about.

Read more: Why isn't Sylvester Stallone in Creed III?

There was a fantastic pilot of that smaller jet and he heard me being bashed along the roof and he knew I was going back towards the engine and literally he peeled off the one way, I fell the other way and parachuted down with all our safety jumpers.

But I nearly went through the engines.

Was there a take two?!

I did it the once. They sort of got the shot even though I didn't end up in the other plane. Because I sort of bounced towards the door and then they had the actor going into the door on the [studio] stage. I was totally prepared to do it again, but they didnt need to.

It didn't look as special to me [in the finished film]. Like I said, the outtakes are much more frightening than what's in the movie.

Youve since become a celebrated second unit director on Rogue One, Jason Bourne, Edge of Tomorrow and loads more. Why did you decide to do that too?

A lot of directors don't know action and they don't know how to get the best out of it.

One of the hardest things I had to do was in the James Bond film Licence to Kill. And it looks so s*** in the movie. That probably pushed me to get into directing, because it was filmed badly.

Tell us what happened.

James Bond atop a tanker in 1989's Licence To Kill. (Alamy)

I was doubling James Bond and I had to climb out on the wing of a crop duster plane and basically jump from the plane onto a petrol tanker as it drove down the road.

And in the rehearsals, we'd never got anywhere near this bloody petrol tanker that's traveling 70-miles-an-hour.

We come to film it and we had to do it at five o'clock in the morning because we shot it in Mexico and it had to be before it got too hot.

We're flying along and we fly over the fire engine that's following the camera car and we fly over the ambulance, which is to scrape me up if it goes wrong.

Eventually, I jump, I make it and its fine. But what it looks like in the movie, you might as well have hung the crop duster from a crane and have the real Timothy Dalton jump onto it.

That opened my eyes because that was difficult, like I say, the plane has got nowhere near this petrol tanker in all the rehearsals.

I know why it was shot that way, you'd shoot it a totally different way now. But it's sort of like, that was a lot of hard work, a lot of danger, really for no payoff.

Still, at least you played James Bond!

The guy flying [the plane] was doubling the girl. So he's wearing a dress, I'm wearing a suit.

[When we were practising] the plane broke down and we ended up in the mountains in Mexico. We got arrested by the Mexican equivalent of the DEA. They came out with guns because they thought we were drug smuggling!

Cliffhanger is streaming on ITVX and Studiocanal Presents.
Former President Trump Holds Rally In Manchester, New Hampshire - Credit: Getty Images

Alleged scammers have been cashing in on a Trump Bucks scheme that has some of the former presidents most fervent and vulnerable supporters buying worthless checks, coins, and cards they believe will make them rich.

According to an NBC News report, Trump Bucks are being advertised on areas of the internet peddling conspiracies to the MAGA crowd. These Trump Bucks look like coins, checks, or membership cards and often have Trumps face on them, but they are not legal tender  something purchasers have discovered when trying to redeem them at stores and banks. There is no evidence that Trump or his campaign are associated with the purported scam, but videos with AI-generated audio impersonating Trump (or sometimes billionaire Elon Musk) appear to endorse the products.

More from Rolling Stone

Lets make America wealthy again, an AI-generated Trump voice says in one video on TikTok surfaced by NBC.

@trb_product_shop #fyp #tiktokmademebuylt #trump #wealth #finance #following  SOUND ON: Trump was a guest on Fox News where he confirms the TRB HANDBOOK verification and cash out system as 100% functioning! It was a long and hardworking process, to make the TRB Handbook system functioning properly, he said,  but I would do anything for my loyal supporters. Donald Trump additionally confirmed that this is the ONLY CERTIFIED WAY to authenticate, verify and cash out your Trump products! This is the last piece of the puzzle! IMPORTANT All TRB HANDBOOKS come with two UV protected pages! Bankers scan the UV protected pages to check the validity of the Handbooks upon cash outs! Only 400 Handbooks available! Get yours now  Link:https://www.digistore24.com/redir/477955/Trump0/  Approved by: Donald Trump  original sound  TRB Handbook Online Shop

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Another video on YouTube claims, TRB system membership cards are official cards issued by Donald Trump to allow Trump Bucks holders to use Trump Bucks as legal tender and deposit them in banks such as JP Morgan Chase, the Bank of America and Wells Fargo. But just seconds before that, the ad said that Trump Bucks are not legal tender.

As one 75-year-old Alabama grandmother told NBC News, I saw all these ads on Telegram that had Trump pushing coins and checks that he endorsed and how you can cash them in after a year and make a profit, she said, declining to be named for fear of harassment. I was told how you can go to Bank of America or Target or Amazon to cash them in.

And so thats exactly what she attempted to do. The grandmother drove 60 miles to find a Bank of America branch and tried to cash in her Trump Bucks. When we get there the lady tells me shes seen dozens of people coming in to cash these checks and they have nothing to do with this, the grandmother said.

Another person who purchased Trump Bucks, John Amann, took to Twitter to warn others that they have no monetary values they are COMMEMORATIVE ONLY.

Alert if you purchased any of the TRB SYSTEMS ITEMS, YOU GOT SCAMMED. THE TRB VOUCHERS, DJT GOLDEN CHECKS, DJT DIAMOND CHECKS, TRB GOLDEN CHECKS have no monetary values they are COMMEMORATIVE ONLY.  John Amann (@JohnAma34828664) February 3, 2023

The companies behind Trump Bucks were identified by NBC as Patriots Dynasty, Patriots Future and USA Patriots. The news outlet spoke to at least a dozen people who spent thousands on Trump Bucks that have no legal value. The Federal Trade Commission told NBC that it has received one fraud complaint against Patriots Dynasty.

A woman who lives in Florida also spoke to NBC News and said her 77-year-old mother-in-law purchased tens of thousands of dollars Trump Bucks. My mother-in-law has always been conservative and prone to believe in conspiracy theories, she said. But after Trump lost the election, she went down the internet rabbit hole with this.

The woman said that her mother-in-law first started buying Trump memorabilia and was aware the memorabilia had no monetary value. But then the mother-in-law fell for other sites that were claiming that if you buy these Trump coins or these Trump checks for, say, a hundred dollars, youll be able to take them to a bank and cash them in for thousands of dollars.

Hoping to dissuade her mother-in-law from buying more, the woman took her to a bank to attempt to cash in her worthless Trump Bucks.

We thought she got it, she even admitted she got scammed, the daughter-in-law said. But then giant boxes arrived at the house full of Trump checks and other stuff that she bought for $500 and that would supposedly be worth $6 million one day. We tell her shes getting scammed, and she says, Just wait, Trump will make all the patriots rich.

Its like shes in a cult, the daughter-in-law said.

Best of Rolling Stone

Click here to read the full article.
The first new Donutland location will open in this newly constructed building in Urbandale off the interstate.

Cedar Rapids-based doughnut chain Donutland is making its way back to the Des Moines metro.

Donutland, which came under new ownership in September 2018, scored a doughnut hole in one at a newly built location at the corner of Plum Drive and N.W. 100th Street at 4820 100th St. in Urbandale near Kwik Star, right off the interstate.

Donutland management said they hope to open around the end of June. The brand once boasted locations across the Midwest. Now Cedar Rapids, the home to the Iowa chain that originally opened in 1971, offers two locations in the City of Five Seasons and one in Iowa City.

More: New York-style bagels will arrive in Urbandale this summer when 5 Borough expands

The iconic Iowa brand is known for its 40 different types of doughnuts, including long johns, filled long johns, and jelly-filled bismarcks as well as coffee options.

The chain's location will feature a drive-thru lane, which sets it apart from other Donutland stops across the state. Classy Nail Spa, which also has a location in Ankeny, will also open in the building.

Jay Stahl is an entertainment reporter at The Des Moines Register. Follow him on Instagram or reach out at jstahl@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Cedar Rapids-based chain Donutland opens in Urbandale in late June
As the sun shined over Delaware Stadium on Saturday, Blue Hen pride beamed across the faces of the 6,347 students graduating from the University of Delaware in the class of 2023.

One Blue Hen was a nursing major from the Philippines who immigrated to the U.S. when he was 12. Now, hell be working in the emergency room at Christiana Hospital.

Another graduate was a 73-year-old Newark resident who was celebrating the end of five years working toward a degree in landscape architecture.

The Blue Hen with his service dog, Vinny, was a medical diagnostics major with a pre-physician assistant concentration.

Graduates participate in the tassel ceremony at the conclusion of the University of Delaware's 2023 Commencement at Delaware Stadium, Saturday, May 27, 2023.

These students were only some of the faces ranging from ages 18 to 82 celebrating the culmination of their college careers at graduation.

Forty-seven states and 90 countries were represented in this years graduating class, along with 48 veterans and members of the military and 15 students celebrating their birthday during the event.

Dennis Assanis, president of the University of Delaware, began the ceremony with a warm welcome to all the graduates, recognizing students who, throughout their college years, received scholarships, participated in research efforts, studied abroad, pulled all-nighters, showed Blue Hen pride or  one of his personal favorites  took photos at favorite campus spots.

Throughout his speech, Assanis highlighted the contributions the class of 2023 has already made and all that they will continue to do with the education they received.

As you leave the UD campus here today, remember there are no problems you cant solve, Assanis said.

Commencement speaker Mae Jemison, astronaut, physician and researcher, delivers her address during the University of Delaware's 2023 Commencement at Delaware Stadium, Saturday, May 27, 2023.

Mae Jemison, this years guest speaker, was the first Black woman to go to space. Along with that achievement, Jemison holds several titles, including her six years as a NASA astronaut, seven years as an environmental studies professor at Dartmouth College, time spent as the area Peace Corps medical officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia, and as a general practice physician in Los Angeles.

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She also received an honorary degree from UD earlier in the ceremony.

Jemisons speech was filled with nods to womens bodily autonomy and the right to choose, believing science and not denying the facts we are presented with and using the pandemic to reassess society and do better moving forward, not just settle back into the flawed way things were.

Her main message for the class of 2023 was to be an active participant in life. Instead of letting success in various realms lull us into complacency or half-hearted efforts and forget our, at times contentious, roots, we should be using our advancements as tools to continue making change and reworking our world as needed.

Do more than only care about the things that are directly impacting you. Participate in your life fully, and even if its hard at times, we get to choose where we go from here, she said.

We don't want to be uncomfortable, but discomfort is not to be avoided at all costs because discomfort is a signal that something is wrong and worthy of examination, she said. The resolution for this is not to hide in a corner. It's to try to figure out why this is uncomfortable and to deal with that.

Shayna Moses, a nursing student from Kings Park, NY, looks over the Class of 2023 sign she just added her signature to before the start of the University of Delaware's 2023 Commencement at Delaware Stadium, Saturday, May 27, 2023.

She emphasized that society cannot let those in power, especially those whose actions greatly impact others, dissemble and lie, and that its these moments that we must put our best foot forward and lead with integrity, acknowledgment and truth, she said.

This quest includes using our own critical capacities to observe the world around us instead of relying on technology and algorithms, Jemison said, adding that there is an immense amount of life to soak up when we truly connect with our environment.

According to Jemison, the human aspirations in our own lives, our own country, have parallels around the world: Insular mindsets have caused us to believe that if someone else wins in one way, then we have to lose.

Combating this worldview with hope and potential is what makes it amazing that we live in a world where each person has the capacity to contribute to what happens now and in the future, she said.

This country has had and will continue to have an outsized role in what happens next, Jemison said. The good news is we get to choose. We get to choose every day.

Part of that includes finding value and energy within ourselves because comparison will always lead to a shortcoming of sorts, Jemison said, and happiness is something we need to work hard for and have the choice to create every day, even if life is overwhelming at times.

The amalgamation of representation depicted at Delaware Stadium spoke to the varied paths these Blue Hens took to make it to graduation, and the diverse journeys they will embark on from this day after.

As tassels were passed to the left and graduation caps were tossed skyward, the class of 2023 closed one chapter and began another.

I hope that no matter where you end up and whatever work you do, that you never forget to look up, Jemison said. I want you to keep this bigger picture in mind. I never want you to forget where you came from and where you can go.

Because if you can keep that sparkle in your eye, that dancing energy of aliveness, of possibility, long past graduation, youll be well on your way to a magical life [] and all you have to do is live fully and deeply knowing that every day your lives have meaning. That you get to choose what you do with your time. 

Got a tip or a story idea? Contact Krys'tal Griffin at kgriffin@delawareonline.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: University of Delaware graduates more than 6,000 in class of 2023
For most of the year, the vast and rugged terrain of the Namaqualand region of the Karoo, South Africa, is desolate and dry. Few travelers venture this far, deterred by the long distances and because most prefer to explore the countrys greener, more scenically dramatic regions.

But after the winter rains have fallen and soaked the soil, colorful daisies, scented arums, bright bonnets, aloes, herbs and countless other varieties of flowers transform the once lifeless landscape into a breathtaking wonderland.

Nieuwoudtville, on the southeastern edge of Namaqualand, forms part of the grand spectacle that draws in flower enthusiasts worldwide. While flowers bloom throughout the year, the pinnacle of the flower showcase begins in early August to mid-September, when the famous spring flowers come into bloom, and the area is enlivened by the displays of thousands of colors.

Pronounced Nee-vote-ville, this charming town, founded in 1897 on a piece of land bought by a farmer named Nieuwoudt, also has a reputation for being the bulb capital of the world. It was one of the few parts of the Northern Cape to receive reliable rains and has since become part of the Namaqualand flower tour.

Last year, its air quality stood out as a beacon of freshness, making it into the 2022 World Air Quality Report as one of the least polluted areas across Africa.

Visiting Nieuwoudtville literally is a bucket list experience, says Craig Taljaardt, tour guide and owner of Capey Tours, who has witnessed the wonder this region inspires in visitors for nine years.

And its people are the salt of the Earth, he adds.

The tranquil farming town has seen a migration boom in recent years, with city dwellers seeking a respite from the urban hustle and bustle. Its not just retirees moving to Nieuwoudtville, but young families too, says Mandie Kotze, chairwoman of Nieuwoudtvilles Info and Tourism Office, adding that she and her husband made a move to the town 16 years ago and havent looked back since.

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According to Nieuwoudtvilles tourism website, run by Kotze, there are some areas where up to 25,000 bulbs grow in one square meter of soil. The diversity of geophytes (bulbs, corms, tubers and rhizomes)  plants that store water and nutrients seasonally  is partly explained by the diverse geology, which gives rise to many different soil types suitable for varying plant and flower species.

The natural floral displays extend to Hantam National Botanical Gardens, the ninth official botanical garden in South Africa. The biodiversity treasure attracted British naturalist David Attenborough in the 90s (when it was still a farm), who returned to photograph the area during the dry season with his team. According to Kotze, during one peak season, CCTV footage captured nearly 800 tour buses, packed with tourists, entering the vast 6-300-hectare garden to witness the wildflower bonanza.

Threatened daisies

Once a year the barren desert around Nieuwoudtville erupts with a superbloom of flowers. - Mandie Koetze

Research from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2022 revealed that climate change is adversely altering the timing of the celebrated Namaqualand daisies blooming season, jeopardizing tourism and the very survival of these celebrated wildflowers.

The annual Namaqualand daisy flowering spectacle is a world-renowned environmental event, the researchers wrote. The advances in the timing of Namaqualand daisy flowering will have a significant impact on the tourism sector in the region, as flower viewing tours need to be pre-arranged months in advance.

But there are opportunities for improvements: co-author Jennifer Fitchett, a professor of physical geography, explains that intervention measures, such as data-driven research, could effectively combat this problem. I presented this work to SANParks [South Africa National Parks] last year, and they were very interested in integrating these findings into their monitoring programs, she says.

Quiver tree forest

Nieuwoudtville is home to the southern hemisphere's largest Quiver tree forest. - Mandie Koetze

If you continue north and reach the sign for Gannabos (about 12 miles from Niewoudtville), locals and visitors recommend turning right and driving on a gravel road until you encounter the Quiver Tree Forest  the largest in the southern hemisphere.

Here youll find a remarkable colony of tree aloe (Aloidendron dichotomum), known as kokerbooms or quiver trees.

These peculiarly shaped aloes, which grow over eight meters (up to 29 feet) high, got their name because their hollow branches were used as quivers for holding arrows by San and Khoi-Khoi hunters. They are protected plants, and cost a pretty penny at nurseries, says Jade Leon, whos previously experienced the wildflower season. Yet they grow so naturally there. Every hill is covered with the quiver trees.

Kokerbooms can live up to 400 years and come in various shapes and sizes. In Nieuwoudtville, the forest is privately owned by a farmer and his wife. They dont mind visitors and charge a small entrance fee in exchange for a guided route tour.

Waterfall in the wilderness

The Nieuwoudtville Waterfall appears after heavy rains. - Mandie Koetze

With enough winter rains, there is another natural wonder in town: the Nieuwoudtville Waterfall, located around four miles north of the village, on the R357 (Loeriesfontein Road). Measuring 90 meters (295 feet), the waterfall cascades down the Doring River, leaving visitors with a spectacular sight, says Ian Renecle, owner of African Moon Adventures. People dont believe theres actually a waterfall of that size in the area.

To round out your day, stop by Blou Huis in Voortrekker Street, a fully licensed restaurant and hangout spot offering self-catering accommodation and live Afrikaans music. Nieuwoudtville has also been nominated as Town of the Year, a competition currently being run by the weekly Afrikaans magazine show kykNET Kwela, Johan Kotze, owner of Blou Huis, says proudly.

A few miles from Blou Huis, youll spot the neo-gothic Dutch Reformed Church on Kerk Street. Built in 1906, just after the devastating Boer War, the church is made entirely from Table Mountain sandstone and is one of the last remaining churches in South Africa built with this material.

Following the scent to the nearby market offers a chance to try its famous pancakes. While some recipes skimp on ingredients, the creators of this tasty treat remain loyal to a costly recipe guaranteed to please palates, says Kotze.

Where to stay

Starwors is a 'Star Wars'-themed campsite near Nieuwoudtville. - Expressions-Photography

Visitors should secure their accommodation well ahead of time as every available room for miles around is snapped up during peak season. Options range from cozy B&Bs and self-catering units converted from old sandstone homes to rustic guest houses tucked away on local farms and campsites within town limits.

Die-hard Star Wars enthusiasts will be delighted to discover the extraordinary glamping destination, Starwors Village. The campsite is steeped in the iconic themes and characters of the series, from Darth Vader to Yoda and Jar Jar Binks. Its a very underrated campsite, and its on our accommodation wishlist for our next trip, says Leon.

Earlier this year, Selma and Andre Ohlsson visited the campsite and found it particularly unique. Interesting artwork is scattered throughout the terrain, and it feels like youve stepped into a movie set.

If accommodation in town is fully booked, surrounding regions also boast a range of inviting options, including the highly sought-after Letsatsi Lodge in Vanrhynsdorp  the gateway to Nieuwoudtville. According to tour guide Craig Taljaardt, accommodation at this lodge must be booked several months in advance to secure a spot.

As you make your way past Vanrhyns Pass, a marvel constructed by the legendary road builder Thomas Bain in 1880, visitors strongly suggest you take in the breathtaking views of the rugged plains below.

The views blew me away as we ascended Vanrhyns Pass, and  made me realize how amazing South Africa is and how many hidden gems there are, says Arzelle van der Merwe, who toured Nieuwoudtville in 2019. Jade adds that the view from the top offers an aerial-like perspective akin to that seen from an airplane window, a rare opportunity that ought to be cherished.

Through the flowers

The flowers are not for picking. - Mandie Koetze

For many, organized tours are the best way to access Nieuwoudtville and its flowers. But if youre traveling privately, call the West Coasts flower hotline at (+27) 79 741 0113. This little tip will provide information on the latest blooms and their whereabouts, allowing visitors to confidently embark on their floral odyssey.

Nieuwoudtville, is no stranger to the whims of nature. Just a few years ago, the town weathered a severe drought. Fortunately, the return of the rainy winters has relieved locals of their weather woes. In fact, says Taljaardt, locals proclaimed 2021 as the best season in 30 years, and while last year wasnt too far behind, it was still exceptional in its own right.

Still, its best to do research  find out when the winter rains fell  and plan a trip so that it coincides with when the flowers are in their full glory.

Visitors can step out of their vehicles and explore the fields on foot but must avoid picking any flowers. There are many thousands of people who come after you, so its important that you preserve it, says Taljaardt. Theres a saying in tourism: Once youve been to a place, leave no trace.

Those that time their visit just right and witness the gorgeous carpet of pastel hues, will be thrilled they did, says Van der Merwe.

There is something surreal about it. You cant quite believe that this arid earth can produce something so magnificent.

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Jewish groups and politicians rallied in protest of Roger Waters Frankfurt, Germany, concert amid allegations that the Pink Floyd co-founder performed in Berlin while wearing in an outfit reminiscent of a Nazi uniform.

Ahead of Waters Sunday evening concert, Frankfurt-based Jewish groups Honestly Concerned and WerteInitiative (values initiative in German) were among the groups and individuals who gathered for a memorial ceremony and rally against the event, according to a report from AP.

The protest comes just days after Berlin authorities announced Waters was under investigation for a Nazi regime-themed performance that took place earlier this month at Berlins Mercedes-Benz Arena. In a video circulated on social media of the performance, Waters is dressed in what appears to be a Nazi-styled uniform  including a red armband that swapped out swastikas for hammers  while pretending to fire a fake machine gun.

Also Read:

Roger Waters Under Investigation in Berlin After Firing Fake Machine Gun  Dressed as Nazi  on Stage (Video)

According to Berlin chief inspector Martin Halweg, Waters is under suspicion of incitement of the people, with the use of Nazi imagery and clothing being a crime in Germany

The context of the clothing worn is deemed capable of approving, glorifying or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims and thereby disrupts public peace, Halweg wrote in a statement.

Ahead of Sundays event, the AP reported that Frankfurt authorities attempted to prevent the concert from happening, but was ultimately unsuccessful in blocking Waters in a local court.

Following the allegations of antisemitism, Waters defended his Berlin performance in a statement on Facebook, which accused protestors of aiming to smear and silence [the musician] because they disagree with [his] political views and moral principles.

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The elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms, Waters wrote. Attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated. The depiction of an unhinged fascist demagogue has been a feature of my shows since Pink Floyds The Wall in 1980.

I have spent my entire life speaking out against authoritarianism and oppression wherever I see it. When I was a child after the war, the name of Anne Frank was often spoken in our house, she became a permanent reminder of what happens when fascism is left unchecked. My parents fought the Nazis in World War II, with my father paying the ultimate price, Waters said. Regardless of the consequences of the attacks against me, I will continue to condemn injustice and all those who perpetrate it.

Also Read:

Roger Waters Denounces Disingenuous and Politically Motivated Investigation of Berlin Performance
Loreen last won Eurovision back in 2012, and did it again this weekend with the song "Tattoo"

Dominic Lipinski/Getty Sweden winning the Eurovision Song Contest

For the first time ever, a woman has become a two-time Eurovision Song Contest champion as a performer.

Sweden's Loreen took home the win at Saturday's Grand Final in Liverpool, England  with her ballad "Tattoo" earning 583 points across the board.

For the musician, whose real name is Lorine Zineb Nora Talhaoui, the 2023 win marked her second all-time win in the competition, after she previously left victorious in 2012.

Related:Ukraine Wins 2022 Eurovision Song Contest After Massive Push from Public Vote

Aaron Chown/PA Images via Getty Sweden winning the Eurovision Song Contest

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It isn't the first time an artist has won the competition twice, as Ireland's Johnny Logan did so in 1980 and 1987, but Loreen made history as the first woman performing in the competition to win twice.

Loreen, 39, came out on top of 25 other countries. Behind her, Finland's Kaarija earned 526 points and Israel's Noa Kirel took home 362 points. And now, as a result of her victory, next year's competition will likely take place in Sweden.

Last year's winner was Ukraine's Kalush Orchestra, and while the competition is historically held in the home country of the previous year's winner, Ukraine was deemed unsafe to take on Eurovision this year amid the Russian invasion. Because of that, the U.K. held the competition on Ukraine's behalf.

"The only thing I feel right now is so much love. Not in my wildest dreams did I think this was going to happen," Loreen said after her win, per Billboard.

Dominic Lipinski/Getty Sweden winning the Eurovision Song Contest

Now with seven all-time Eurovision wins, Sweden ties Ireland for the most in the competition's 67-year history. ABBA was the first Swedish group to win back in 1974 for their song "Waterloo."

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Related:Rita Ora's Cone Bra Corset Steals the Show on the Eurovision Stage

Anthony Devlin/Getty Eurovision 2023

This year's competition featured several special guests, including Kate Middleton, 41, who contributed a short instrumental piano performance to the opening sequence film.

Middleton joined last year's winners Kalush Orchestra as they performed their winning entry, "Stefania" at the Maidan Nezalezhnosti metro station in Kyiv, Ukraine. Composers, arrangers and musical directors Joe Price and Kojo Samuel put the performance together, and it was recorded earlier in May at the Crimson Drawing Room of Windsor Castle.

British musicians Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sam Ryder, Ms. Banks, Ballet Black, Bolt Strings, and Joss Stone also were involved in the ensemble performance.

Both King Charles and Queen Camilla also appeared at the competition this year, visiting the M&S Bank Arena in late April to check out how things were coming together. Charles, 74, and Camilla, 75, met BBC executives, production staff and apprentices and took a backstage tour. They also unveiled the year's stage for the first time.

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Luxury cruise line Silversea just announced a 2026 around-the-world voyage.

Fiippo Vinardi/Courtesy of Silversea

It's hard to believe we're already looking at trips in 2026, but this newly announced around-the-world adventure is worth planning ahead for. Luxury cruise line Silversea just announced a 140-day world cruise to 70 destinations across 37 countries, the brand's most wide-ranging voyage yet.

The 4.5-month cruise called "The Curious and the Sea" begins in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on January 6, 2026. It sails down the coast of Central America to the Panama Canal, which it crosses, then makes a few stops in South America, including Lima, Peru. From there, it begins its 28-day immersion in the Pacific Islands. Easter Island is, of course, on the itinerary, followed by French Polynesia (both the Society Islands, where you'll stop at Bora Bora, and the Marquesas), Tonga, New Caledonia, the Australian territory of Norfolk Island, the Cook Islands, and Fiji.

Fiippo Vinardi/Courtesy of Silversea

Next up is a stop in New Zealand before a semi-circumnavigation of Australia, which starts in Tasmania, sails along the southern coast, then across the entirety of Western Australia. In Southeast Asia, the ship will call in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. There will also be multiple stops in Sri Lanka and India. (From Mumbai, there's even an overland program that will take you into Uzbekistan; other overland destinations include Luxor, Egypt, and the Balkans in Europe.)

In the last month of the cruise, travelers will sail in the Middle East, through the Suez Canal, and around the Mediterranean, including stops in North Africa. The voyage concludes in Lisbon.

Fiippo Vinardi/Courtesy of Silversea

"For this World Cruise, we took inspiration from historys most pioneering explorers, each of whom has sailed to the end of the earth  driven by curiosity and a thirst for discovery," Barbara Muckermann, president and CEO of Silversea Cruises, said in a statement sent to Travel + Leisure. "Appealing to the curious traveler within, we are inviting our guests to experience our planets beauty with new eyes, while celebrating the rich history of navigation."

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Fiippo Vinardi/Courtesy of Silversea

Guests will sail on Silversea's Silver Dawn, a 596-passenger ship that launched in 2022. There are eight dining options on board, as well as the grand Otium spa. The voyage is all-inclusive  and that means business-class airfare, butler service, laundry, and Wi-Fi. Rates start from $76,900 per person; learn more at silversea.com.

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@mafs_owenandmichelle / Instagram

If you watched the fifth series of Married at First Sight UK, you might remember Owen Jenkins and Michelle Walder finding love on the show. Well, theyve just announced that theyre expecting a baby.

The couple, who tied the knot in 2020 as part of the E4 reality dating show, took to Instagram to share the news on their joint account.

They revealed, So, weve got news #mafsuk #mafsbaby #mafsukbaby #comingdecember2023.

In the first image Owen is seen holding up two bags of ice, while Michelle cradles her baby bump. And in the second photo the exciting pregnancy news is confirmed with a baby scan of their little one.

Owen and Michelle are actually the second MAFS UK couple to welcome a child together. Adam Aveling and Tayah Victoria from series six had a baby girl called Beau in October of 2022. And Adam was one of the first to congratulate Owen and Michelle following their announcement.

Congrats guys!  he shared.

Married at First Sight UKs relationship expert Paul Brunson  who was responsible for pairing Owen and Michelle in the first place  also added a comment, writing, Youll both be incredible parents 

Last year the couple confirmed that they were planning to extend their family. Speaking to the Sheffield Star , Owen outlined, weve talked about whats next on the agenda over the next few years, which will be getting a dog and having a thinking about kids and things like that.

"Its kind of weird really, because a couple of years after meeting we should be thinking about getting engaged and married but we obviously fast-tracked that."

Even though they fast-tracked certain parts of their relationship, they only got around to taking their long awaited honeymoon in Rhodes, Greece last year  after it was postponed due to lockdown travel restrictions in 2020.

According to the hashtags that they used in their Instagram post, the baby is due in December and we wish them all the very best.

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The first time I met Neada Deters, founder of skincare brand Lesse, was at a trade show in New York many years ago. We were stationed next to each other for three long days, but she used that time to impart plenty of wisdom: whether admonishing me for slipping my number to a French guy who was only in town for a few days, or providing a quick 101 on wearing jewelry after learning that I didnt know about ear cuffs, or offering genuine encouragement for the future of my tea company. I quickly learned that Deters is someone who builds up those around herand over the years since, she has channeled that inclusive, expansive energy into Lesse, a cult hit in the beauty world (and beyond) for its organic products that place a particular emphasis on daily rituals.

On Thursday, at her new SoHo loft just down the road from Donald Judds former home at 101 Spring Street, Deters hosted a new kind of ritual: the Lesse Salon Series. Celebrating the community that orbits the branda community that spans the worlds of art, design, architecture, and fooda crowd slowly began to gather in her living room to take in the impressive spread, which paid culinary homage to Deterss Filipino heritage.

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Asparagus spring rolls, miso sesame mushroom skewers, pickled mango, and a halved Napa cabbage topped with Thai basil and almond crumble were all spread in abundance atop banana leaves; surrounding them were rice, green vegetables, and little earthenware bowls full of banana vinegar, garlic scape, and sweet chili sauces. Smallhold mushroom centerpieces sat aside dripping taper candles, while the sleek table and chairs (and indeed the loft as a whole) once belonged to architect Lauretta Vinciarelli, known for her work alongside Donald Judd.

Deters planned the Kamayan-style dinnera tradition of communal eating in the Philippines, in which food is placed atop a banana leaf and guests share the meal sans silverwareto gather friends in honor of AAPI month, working in collaboration with Brooklyn-based chef Woldy Reyes to bring it to life.

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Reyes, who is also known under the moniker Woldy Kusina, recently announced the upcoming publication of his first cookbook, In the Kusina, which will take classic Filipino recipes and lend them a contemporary twist. The pair met several months back, and immediately bonded over their sadness that their favorite Filipino restaurants in New York had shuttered during Covid, as well as a number of friends they shared.

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

The evening kicked off properly with a cocktail hour, where red and orange wines from the South Asian-owned California wine company Tinto Amorio circulated. As the final guests trickled in, they were asked to remove their shoes as is typical in many Asian households, creating a topography of high heels and leather boots beneath the enormous windows of the cast-iron loft building.

Soon, Kate Berry of Domino magazine shared her immigration story, which involved her mom taking her as a 15-month-old onto a boat when leaving Vietnam, and not having enough hands to carry all her possessions, including a clock radio and a bag of rice. (In a fortuitous turn of events, she left the radio on the shore only to later find another passenger having brought it aboard.)

Photo: Fujio Emura

The event was designed to open the door for vulnerability, Deters explained. People were asked to remove their shoes and to sit on the couch or the carpet on the rug and read something that was very personal to them or to share an experience that was personal to themand then to sit down and eat with their hands.

Photo: Fujio Emura

Beverly Nguyen, of the eponymous homeware line Beverlys whose olive oil and tableware were used in the dinner, read a letter from Frank Lloyd Wright to Isamu Noguchi. Sarah Burke, editor-in-chief of Them, read a piece by Ocean Vuong. We heard everything from quotes by James Baldwin to stories about the assembled groups various upbringings and teenage memories. Gui Trang read an excerpt from her own poem, Grocerywhich I then found myself reading and re-reading the day after on her new website: You told me to grab more basil, only fresh, / Or else / It wouldnt matter.

Photo: Fujio Emura

I was struck by how rare this kind of emotional vulnerability within a group environment truly is, especially in a place like New York City. After the reading, we moved to the dinner table for Reyess modern take on the traditional Kamayan feast, where, as is custom, we ate with our hands. [Its a practice] that, like many things in Asian culture, people feel is primitive, Deters reflected. I think its important to carry these traditions forward and represent that these are ways of living that can exist in the modern world. We finished the evening eating toasted rice ice cream, piling on coconut mousse with lilac flowers and a coconut gel in green pandan syrup.

Finally, we said our goodbyes and headed out into the night, all feeling a little changed. For my own subway journey, I queued up the ethereal, emotional music of dinner guest Varsha Thapa, a Nepalese model and musician, to guide me all the way back to my front door.

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Photo: Fujio Emura

Originally Appeared on Vogue

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Centennial High School wins the award for Best Ensemble for their production of "Into the Woods" at the 2023 New Mexico High School Musical Theatre Enchantment Awards Friday, April 28, 2023 at Popejoy Hall.

LAS CRUCES  Centennial High School musical theatre students won the Best Ensemble award Friday night at the New Mexico High School Musical Theatre Enchantment Awards for their production of Into the Woods.

The Enchantment Awards are held annually in Albuquerque to celebrate the accomplishments of high school musical theatre students from across the state. Students gathered Friday, April 28 at Popejoy Hall on the University of New Mexicos main campus.

Along with the Best Ensemble award, Centennial student Angelina K. Silva won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Rapunzel in Into the Woods. Kehlyn Houston, Celeste Shepherd and Lena Smith from Centennial were also awarded the Spotlight Award for otherwise unheralded efforts in a shows production, according to a news release.

Albuquerque, Rio Rancho and Santa Fe students took home the rest of the awards including:

Nori Kai Little (Albuquerque Academy)  Best Actress (Chicago: Teen Edition)

Breton Sego (Rio Rancho High)  Best Actor (Anastasia)

Angelina K. Silva 9Centennial High)  Best Supporting Actress (Into the Woods)

Finnegan McKelvey (Public Academy for Performing Arts)  Best Supporting Actor (Mamma Mia!)

Santa Fe Preparatory School  Best Production (Something Rotten!)

Desiree Lang, Albuquerque Academy  Best Direction (Chicago: Teen Edition)

Centennial High  Best Ensemble (Into the Woods)

Twenty New Mexico students performed Friday in front of judges as finalists in the Best Actress/Best Actor categories, along with another 20 students in the supporting acting categories. Five schools performed in the production categories. Students performed solos and medleys and were adjudicated by three judges.

Little and Sego will go on to represent New Mexico in New York City in June during the National High School Musical Theater Awards, known as the Jimmy Awards. Two students from each state will travel to the East Coast for a week of rehearsals with professionals before performing on the Broadway stage.

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The 2023 Jimmy Awards are scheduled for June 26 at the Minskoff Theatre.

Leah Romero is the trending reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News and can be reached at 575-418-3442, LRomero@lcsun-news.com or @rromero_leah on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Centennial High students win awards for production of 'Into the Woods'
charlie-kirk-sponsor.jpg Jair Bolsonaro - Credit: Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk is cheerleading the far-right boycott of Target over the retailers Pride collection  which included trans-friendly youth apparel and other LGBTQ-positive gear  for what Kirk decries as their support for grooming kids.

Kirks condemnation of the retailer coincided with TPUSAs second-annual Pastors Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, this past week, where Kirk also denounced Target, telling a crowd of hundreds of religious leaders: If you love God, you must hate evil.

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Yet in delivering these fevered messages about morality and child welfare, Kirk had an odd benefactor, a man whose criminal history opens up TPUSA to charges of hypocrisy.

Rolling Stone has learned that one of the TPUSA summits corporate sponsors is a Christian fashion company that is led by a registered sex offender, Shawn Bergstrand, who served time in federal prison for attempted coercion and enticement after trying to persuade a minor female to engage in sexual activity.

In a statement to Rolling Stone, TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet said that TPUSA Faith was not aware of this incident but emphasized that, as an exhibit sponsor, Bergstrand was not a speaker, organizer, or professing doctrine from the stage.

One of the core tenets of the Christian faith is forgiveness rooted in repentance. After discussing the issue with him, we believe [it] was critical to bringing him to faith, Kolvet added. He doesnt hide from what happened, he instead posts his testimony online on his company website. TPUSA Faith will not toss away a repentant, decent person because of a mistake that happened over a decade before, or because a leftwing outlet wants to write a hit piece on the amazing work our team is doing. Kolvet included a reference to Colossians 3:13, a Bible verse that reads, in part, Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

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In todays conservative movement, nothing animates activists like the supposed liberal indoctrination of children. The religious right, in particular, espouses unhinged rhetoric about how youth are being groomed into trans- and LGBTQ ideology by Luciferian leftists.

Riding this wave of populist anger, Kirk and TPUSA have made a hard pivot from the organizations stated aim, of preaching free-market economics to students, to embrace the cause of Christian nationalism, and marshaling church leaders to the frontlines of GOP politics.

At the Pastors Summit, Kirk responded to Rolling Stones coverage of his groups new crusade. First of all, its not my Turning Point, Kirk insisted of his organization. Its the Lords Turning Point. He added: I am both a Christian and a nationalist, but most importantly, Im a Christian.

One of the sponsors for this summit  alongside firms like Patriot Mobile and American Christian Credit Union  is Rightside Up, a Christian lifestyle apparel company that sews tags reading BSITL (Be Strong in the Lord) into its t-shirts and other clothing. The companys website declares: We all have a life story, and it doesnt matter where weve been. Its where we are going that counts!

The companys CEO, Bergstrand, has a prison conviction in his life story. Hes a registered sex offender in North Dakota, a designation the states registry indicates will remain active until 2030.

Bergstrand was convicted in 2014 for attempted coercion and enticement. The details of the criminal complaint are sealed, but a redacted indictment shows that Bergstrand was originally charged with attempting to entice and coerce a minor female  to engage in prostitution and sexual activity. (A contemporaneous news report on Bergstrands arrest includes other, disturbing allegations that do not appear in the federal court record.)

Bergstrand quickly reached a plea deal that removed mention of prostitution. The criminal information in Bergstrands guilty plea states that in June and July of 2013 he did knowingly attempt to persuade, induce, entice and coerce a minor female to engage in sexual activity.

Bergstrand did not respond to requests for comment, but his address on North Dakotas sex offender registry matches the registration address for Bergstrand and Rightside Up in a corporate registry maintained by North Dakotas secretary of state. Bergtrands photo on the offender registry also matches video of the apparel CEO from RightsideUps website.

Despite facing a maximum of 20 years in jail, Bergstrand received a sentence of one year in prison, and five years of supervised release. He was discharged from supervision more than a year early in 2018.

In promotional videos for Rightside Up, Berstrand speaks, obliquely, of his life struggles. At one time in my life, I lost absolutely completely everything, he says. But he touts the apparel company as his way to get right with Jesus. God gives us second chances, third chances, fourth chances, he says. Its up to us what were going to do with it.

Bergstrands association with TPUSA was brought to Rolling Stones attention by Matthew Boedy, a professor at the University of North Georgia who has also written about TPUSAs odd leap from economic to religious dogma.

Im all for second chances and paying your debt to society. Even perhaps creating a brand based on how you overcame your own terrible decisions, Boedy says, referring to Bergstrand. But for Turning Point and Charlie Kirk to highlight this particular person  whose crime involved a child and attempted sexual acts  while decrying groomers and sending mobs to stores who sell products they dont like, is beyond hypocritical.

Its even more outrageous that this business was promoted to a group of pastors who likely had no idea of this persons story, he adds. I can only hope Kirk practices what he preaches and takes responsibility.

On Saturday night, Kirk responded to Rolling Stones report, writing that he wanted to set the record straight in a post on Twitter, and added that he had never met Bergstrand. Im told from the team that coordinates exhibitors that hes a nice person who did something wrong over a decade ago, and unlike Target, he repented and the experience led him to his faith. Good for him. Thats the Gospel, Kirk wrote in part.

This article was updated at 9:55 p.m. ET to include Charlie Kirks response.

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Hailey Bieber at the opening of the Times Square EDITION Hotel

Hailey Bieber attended a UK-based party this week looking like a summer-ready glitter bomb  and were absolutely loving the look!

The very busy model was in London on Sunday for the fashionable fete donning a sparkly silver sequined tube dress paired with metallic gray heels and a shimmery makeup look that, all together, was super on-trend with the 90s-to-early-2000s fashion vibe currently seen everywhere. The summery statement dress definitely made waves at the event, a brand launch party for Haileys own skincare line, Rhode.

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Slinky, Sparkly And So Stylish For Summer

Haileys midi dress gave us tons of style inspo: its sleek, strapless, and makes a statement, all in keeping with 2023s summer fashion trends. The tube dress comes from N21s pre-fall 2023 collection, which also included similarly chic pieces like a lilac-colored oversized faux-fur coat, a leopard-print top and pencil skirt combo, and a lovely dusty rose-colored lace-patterned slip dress.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by rhode skin (@rhode)

The entrepreneur accessorized her look with a black leather shoulder bag and chunky silver earrings, along with pointed-toe pumps and, of course, her wedding ring.

Haileys makeup look was super fresh and dewy to match her glittering dress, with a shimmery smoky eye and low-key lipgloss.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by rhode skin (@rhode)

Hailey Biebers New Skincare Line: I Want [Everyone] To Feel Included

The super-cool ensemble was only part of a big night for Hailey  her long-awaited skincare line Rhode has finally gone overseas, and the recent launch party was just one part of her promotional tour across the UK.

The model is known for her glowy, gorgeous skin  dubbed glazed donut skin  and her Rhode skincare line was highly anticipated upon its announcement. Hailey told Bazaar in 2022, My ethos behind the brand is that we want to make one of everything. One really good moisturizer, one really good hydration serum, one really good lip product. I believe in curating your essentials in your closet the same way I believe in curating your essentials in your skincare.

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View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hailey Rhode Baldwin Bieber (@haileybieber)

One of the main tenets of the brand is for everyone to feel included, with Hailey emphasizing that I think that the products can work for all skin typesI always talk about how its like the world of Rhode and everyone is welcome.

If youre lusting after Haileys signature luminous look, Rhode has you covered  the brands Peptide Glazing Fluid, a hybrid moisturizer and serum, promises to deliver on bringing the glazed donut vibe to the masses. The Ralph Lauren ad star calls the product her go-to from AM to PM, adding that she pairs it with Rhodes Barrier Restore Cream at night. I love the two together. I also love how they act as a base for makeup, said Hailey.

The model has been seen all over the UK as of late with husband Justin Bieber to promote Rhode's overseas launch. Most recently, Hailey was spotted shooting a glamorous new commercial for Victoria's Secret in Barcelona, Spain.
In this article, we will take a look at ChatGPT stock portfolio. To see more such companies, go directly to ChatGPT Stock Portfolio: Top 5 Picks.

If theres one thing that can be learned from literally hundreds of ChatGPT-related posts out there claiming that the AI chatbot has successfully beaten the market, its that ChatGPTs responses show huge variance based on the input it receives and one should learn to enjoy and benefit from the diversity of possibilities offered by AI. In January this year, people at Bloomberg asked ChatGPT to make an ETF to beat the US stock market. ChatGPT gave nothing in return but the age-old cliche statement to the effect of past performance doesnt guarantee future returns and that its not possible to beat the market for it due to massive volatility.

But many experts were able to force ChatGPT to blurt out a list of stocks by asking it to act as an expert stock adviser. To check out some stocks recommended by ChatGPT, see our article published back in March where we asked ChatGPT to pick stocks that have the potential to make investors rich.

Investors have been toying with the idea of using AI to beat the market for quite some time now. Back in 2021, when Sam Altmans OpenAI was perhaps getting ready to unleash the market-moving, earth-shattering thing that is ChatGPT, Bloomberg had reported that researchers at the University of Oxford claimed they have come up with a machine learning model with a capability to predict stock price movements. They claimed that the model posted a whopping 80% success rate for the equivalent of about 30 seconds of live trading.

The Bloomberg report at the time said that the researchers, who were backed by the UK-based Man Group, used natural-language processing algorithms to process trading data. The report said that the algorithm managed to predict the future trajectory of a price over a period of 100 ticks.

The Buzzword Game

Well take a detailed look at whether or not AI is good at stock picking but one thing is for sure: AI has a huge impact on the stock markets, so much so that many investors are comparing the AI-driven stock market gains to the ones seen in the crypto markets and during the dot-com era. Just look at whats happening at companies earnings calls. Companies are repeatedly using buzzwords like generative AI, large language models, artificial intelligence, etc. during their earnings call and shareholder meetings. Bloomberg in a report quoted interesting data points which show that the use of the word artificial intelligence jumped a whopping 85% during earnings calls. Theres a reason why everyone is talking about AI. Whenever a company announces plans to somehow deploy AI in its operations, its stock price jumps. Even non-tech companies like Wendys enjoyed stock price gains when they announced plans to cut costs using AI.

What's Happening with NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)?

But whats happening with NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is strange and highly unprecedented. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) shares skyrocketed by 25% on May 25 after the company posted solid quarterly results and gave a revenue guidance of $11 billion for the second quarter, shocking Wall Street analysts who have a $7.2 billion estimate for the metric. NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)s guided revenue is up 64% from the year-ago period, and comes on the huge demand fueled by the widespread use of applications like ChatGPT.

Dan Ives of Wedbus commented on this development:

"In 22 years of covering tech stocks and large cap we have never seen a guidance range of this magnitude on a large cap tech nameAnd thus speaks to our thesis that the monetization of AI for stalwarts like Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL), Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), and salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM) is well underway."

NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)s management during the companys Q4 earnings call was already pointing to the huge potential coming from the generative AI space. Heres what the companys CEO Jensen Huang had said:

"The cumulation of technology breakthroughs has brought AI to an inflection point. Generative AIs versatility and capability has triggered a sense of urgency at enterprises around the world to develop and deploy AI strategies. Yet, the AI supercomputer infrastructure, model algorithms, data processing and training techniques remain an insurmountable obstacle for most. Today, I want to share with you the next level of our business model to help put AI within reach of every enterprise customer. We are partnering with major service  cloud service providers to offer NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) AI cloud services, offered directly by NVIDIA and through our network of go-to-market partners, and hosted within the worlds largest clouds. NVIDIA AI as a service offers enterprises easy access to the worlds most advanced AI platform, while remaining close to the storage, networking, security and cloud services offered by the worlds most advanced clouds. Customers can engage NVIDIA AI cloud services at the AI supercomputer, acceleration library software or pretrained AI model layers. NVIDIA DGX is an AI supercomputer, and the blueprint of AI factories being built around the world. AI supercomputers are hard and time-consuming to build. Today, we are announcing the NVIDIA DGX Cloud, the fastest and easiest way to have your own DGX AI supercomputer, just open your browser. NVIDIA DGX Cloud is already available through Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Microsoft Azure, Google GCP and others on the way.

ChatGPT Stock Portfolio: Top 10 Picks

Photo by Andrea De Santis on UnsplashOur Methodology

Comparison website Finder.com asked ChatGPT to create a portfolio of stocks to beat some of the most popular funds in the UK, including Fundsmith, Vanguard LifeStrategy 100% Equity A Acc, Vanguard LifeStrategy 80% Equity A Acc, Vanguard FTSE Glb All Cp Idx  Acc, among others. ChatGPT came up with a comprehensive portfolio. This portfolio contains 38 stocks. According to Finder, the portfolio gained about 4.09% in the first 11 weeks since it was created by Finder on March 6, 2023, and outperformed 10 most popular funds in the UK, which were down 0.12% over the same period. For this article, we selected 12 stocks from this ChatGPTs portfolio with the highest number of hedge fund investors.

ChatGPT Stock Portfolio: Top 12 Picks

12. 3M Company (NYSE: MMM

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 51

3M Company (NYSE:MMM) ranks 12th in our list of the top stocks in ChatGPT portfolio. With over six decades of consistent dividend increases, 3M Company (NYSE:MMM) is one of the top choices of defensive investors.

In April 3M Company (NYSE:MMM) posted strong first-quarter results. Adjusted EPS in the period came in at $1.97 beating estimates by $0.37. Revenue in the quarter totaled $7.7 billion, surpassing estimates by $190 million.

As of the end of the first quarter of 2023, 51 hedge funds had stakes in 3M Company (NYSE:MMM). The most significant stakeholder of 3M Company (NYSE:MMM) during this period was Cliff Asnesss AQR Capital Management which owns a $210 million stake in the company.

11. The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 61

Perhaps ChatGPT is well aware of the importance of investing in defensive, dividend-paying stocks in volatile times like the one we are living in these days. The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) has over six decades of consistent dividend increases under its belt. Wall Street analysts are labeling The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) as one of the best stocks to own during these troubled times. As of the end of the first quarter of 2023, 61 hedge funds were long The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO). The biggest hedge fund stakeholder of The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) is Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway which owns a $25 billion stake in the company.

10. The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE: HD

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 65

Home improvement equipment retailer The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) is one of the top stock picks of ChatGPT. Earlier this year UBS published a list of top dividend stocks picked up by its machine learning model. The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) was a part of the list.

Out of the 943 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey, 65 hedge funds reported owning stakes in The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) as of the end of the first quarter of 2023.

9. The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 75

The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) is one of the top ChatGPT stock picks. With a solid dividend growth history, The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) has a diversified revenue stream which makes the company a strong defensive play. In April, Morgan Stanley Dara Mohsenian reiterated an Overweight rating on The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG).

8. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 86

ChatGPT surely loves dividend stocks and defensive plays. In addition to a stable dividend which has seen consistent increases for six decades, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) also has long-term growth catalysts. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ)s Janssen unit recently announced that 72.7% of patients treated with its investigational bladder cancer therapy TAR-200 indicated no detectable evidence of cancer in a mid-stage trial.

Hedge funds were also piling into Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ). A total of 86 hedge funds had stakes in Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) according to Insider Monkeys database of hedge funds.

7. Danaher Corporation (NYSE: DHR

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 90

Medical instruments and commercial products maker Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) ranks 7th in our list of the top ChatGPT stock picks. In April Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) posted strong first quarter results. EPS in the period came in at $2.36, beating estimates by $0.10. Revenue in the quarter fell 6.4% year over year to $7.2 billion, still beating estimates by $140 million.

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 108

Legendary billionaire Warren Buffetts conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK-B) was one of the top picks of ChatGPT. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK-B) is up about 4.5% year to date through May 13. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK-B)s operating earnings in the first quarter of 2023 gained 13% year over year, driven by insurance underwriting and investment income.

Click to continue reading and see ChatGPT Stock Portfolio: Top 5 Picks.

Suggested articles:

Disclosure: None. ChatGPT Stock Portfolio: Top 12 Picks is originally published on Insider Monkey.
Kate Upton was photographed by Raphael Mazzucco in the Philippines. Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Three-time SI Swimsuit cover star Kate Upton made her debut with the magazine in 2011 when she won Rookie of the Year. The supermodel returned to the issue for six separate years. She landed three covers during her time with SI Swimsuither first one in 2012 after being photographed in Sydney/Cairns Australia and Apalachicola, Fla., her second from her iconic Antarctica shoot the following year, and her third in Fiji in 2017.

The 30-year-old now lives with her husband, MLB star Justin Verlander, and their daughter, Genevieve.

Below are 11 stunning photos from her debut SI Swimsuit shoot with Raphael Mazzucco in the Phillippines.

Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Raphael Mazzucco/Sports Illustrated

Make sure to follow SI Swimsuit on YouTube!
Beaches in New Hampshire and Washington. DenisTangneyJr/Getty Images; Deb Snelson/Getty Images

Some states like Florida, California, and Hawaii are known for their beautiful beaches.

Others have lesser known  but equally breathtaking  beaches, including Michigan and New Hampshire.

These are some of the most beautiful beaches across the US.

Surrounded by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes, more than half of states in the US lie on at least one of the country's gorgeous coasts.

With close to 100,000 miles of shoreline, not every noteworthy beach in the US gets the recognition it deserves. While California's and Florida's beaches attract tourists from across the world, many other states are home to beaches that provide visitors with stunning views and ample opportunities for waterfront relaxation.

Here are some of the most beautiful beaches on America's coastlines.

Sand Beach at Acadia National Park in Maine is surrounded by breathtaking greenery.

Sand Beach at Acadia National Park, Maine. dkm725/Getty Images

Source: Visit Maine

Not only does Shackleford Banks have some of the clearest water in North Carolina, but majestic wild horses freely graze on the beach's grass.

Shackleford Banks, Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina. Frank Staub/Getty Images

Source: Addicted to Vacation

Marconi Beach, which lies along the Cape Cod National Seashore, is one of Massachusetts' best beaches, according to Touropia Travel Guides.

Marconi Beach in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Ronald Wilson Photography/Getty Images

Source: Touropia

Travel + Leisure named Crandon Park in Key Biscayne Beach one of Florida's best beaches in 2022.

Crandon Park in Florida. Artur Debat/Getty Images

Source: Travel + Leisure

According to US News & World Report, Cape May is home to New Jersey's best beaches, in part due to its stunning 19th-century architecture that lines the seashore.

Cape May Beach in New Jersey. Richard T. Nowitz/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

The remote Sandbridge Beach in Virginia is one of the state's most gorgeous beaches and popular among locals.

Sandbridge Beach in Virginia. Tim Pennington/Getty Images

Source: Virginia Travel Tips

US News & World Report called Kiawah Island "the closest you'll come to paradise in South Carolina."

Kiawah Island in South Carolina. KathyKafka/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

Weathered trees can be found along Georgia's unique Driftwood Beach, which has been featured in "The Walking Dead" and "X-Men: First Class."

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Driftwood Beach in Jekyll Island in Georgia. Daniela Duncan/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

Travel + Leisure calls Sandy Point State Park one of Maryland's best beaches because of the gorgeous views of the bay.

Sandy Point State Mark in Maryland. Shackleford-Photography/Getty Images

Source: Travel + Leisure

Hammonasset Beach State Park in Connecticut is the No. 1 beach in the state, according to TripAdvisor.

Hammonasset Beach State Park in Connecticut. Bob Gundersen/Getty Images

Source: TripAdvisor

California's Laguna Beach is full of beautiful cove beaches  one of the reasons US News & World Report named it the state's best beach.

Laguna Beach in California. TraceRouda/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

Biloxi Beach is a great place to cool down in Mississippi during the hot summer months.

Biloxi Beach in Mississippi. DenisTangneyJr/Getty Images

Source: Traveling Lifestyle

Washington's Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park is home to unique rock formations.

Ruby Beach in Washington. Deb Snelson/Getty Images

Source: Washington Trails Association

Rotary Beach "offers visitors a chance to experience Southeast Alaska at its best," according to Alaska.org.

Rotary Beach in Alaska. Carlos Rojas/Getty Images

Source: Alaska.org

Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware is home to pine forests and more than 6 miles of coastline.

Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware. ymn/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

Mohegan Bluffs in Rhode Island provides stunning views from 150-foot cliffs that line the shore.

Mohegan Bluffs in Rhode Island. j76n/Getty Images

Source: Town & Country

Park Point, which is home to beautiful views of Lake Superior, is Minnesota's No. 1 beach, according to TripAdvisor.

Park Point Beach in Minnesota. John_Brueske/Getty Images

Source: TripAdvisor

A visit to New Hampshire's Weirs Beach will bring you "some of the most beautiful lake views you've ever seen," NewEngland.com wrote.

Weirs Beach in New Hampshire. DenisTangneyJr/Getty Images

Source: NewEngland.com

Kohler-Andrae State Park in Wisconsin has sand dunes, clear blue water, and more than 2 miles of sandy beaches.

Kohler-Andrae State Park in Wisconsin. Drake Fleege/Getty Images

Source: Travel Wisconsin

US News & World Report called Gulf Shores one of Alabama's most popular coastal getaways.

Gulf Shores in Alabama. larrybraunphotography.com/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

Hawaii's "postcard perfect" Ka'anapali Beach is the "creme de la creme of beaches," according to Hawaii Magazine, which named it the state's No. 1 beach.

Kaanapali Beach in Hawaii. ejs9/Getty Images

Source: Hawaii Magazine

Michigan City Beach in Indiana is home to 2 miles of beach, a lighthouse, and peaceful waters.

Michigan City Beach in Indiana. Jeffrey K Collins/Getty Images

Source: TripAdvisor

South Padre Island in Texas is "beloved by generations of spring breakers," Travel + Leisure reported.

South Padre Beach in Texas. Hundley_Photography/Getty Images

Source: Travel + Leisure

Thrillist described Grand Haven state park in Michigan as "arguably the grandest Michigan beach town of all."

Grand Haven State Park in Michigan. Leene/Shutterstock

Source: Thrillist

Visitors to Ohio's Huntington Beach can take a swim in the vast, beautiful Lake Erie.

Huntington Beach in Ohio. Jeff Greenberg/Getty Images

Source: 365 Cincinnati

Presque Isle State Park in Pennsylvania offers gorgeous views of Lake Erie.

Presque Isle State Park in Pennsylvania. Thaddeus OConnell/Getty Images

Source: Only in Your State

Its soft sand and "rugged beauty" are just a couple of reasons that TripAdvisor ranked Cannon Beach as Oregon's No. 1 beach.

Cannon Beach in Oregon. Francesco Vaninetti Photo/Getty Images

Source: TripAdvisor

Jones Beach State Park is one of New York's best beaches thanks to its gorgeous sandy shoreline and variety of facilities.

Jones Beach State Park in New York. Vicki Jauron, Babylon and Beyond Photography/Getty Images

Source: I Love NY

A "perfect getaway for camping, picnicking, and surfing," Louisiana's Grand Isle offers beautiful views over the Gulf of Mexico, according to Travel + Leisure.

Grand Isle in Louisiana. Cavan Images/Getty Images

Source: Travel + Leisure

Read the original article on Insider
Harbor seal pupping season begins in Seacoast

Harbor seal pups are born in the spring and come on to the shore to rest, nurse and soak up the sun. If you see a seal on the beach, keep back and call the Seacoast Science Center Marine Mammal Rescue hotline at 603-997-9448.

RYE  Harbor seals bear their young from late April to June. As a result, the chance of seeing seals on our beaches, more specifically seal pups, increases during the late spring and summer months.

The Seacoast Science Center Marine Mammal Rescue urges residents who see a seal on the beach to keep back and call the its hotline at 603-997-9448. MMR responds to all reports of marine mammals (seals, whales, dolphins, and porpoises) that haul out or strand on the shore in New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts (from Essex, Mass. to the Maine border), alive or dead.

For information and to donate, visit seacoastsciencecenter.org/marine-mammal-rescue.

Portsmouth offers paperless water, sewer and property tax billing option

PORTSMOUTH  The city is offering taxpayers and water and sewer customers the option of paperless billing. Customers may opt-in to this completely voluntary service to receive the next bill electronically via the citys InvoiceCloud system.

There is no fee to sign up for paperless billing and there is no fee to pay electronically from a checking or savings account (ACH/e-check). There is a processing fee for debit or credit card payments on property taxes, water and sewer bills using Visa, Mastercard, Discover or American Express. This fee is charged and retained by the third-party processing vendor.

Information: portsnh.co/paybill

Pro Portsmouth reveals the 2023 Childrens Day logo

2023 Children's Day logo created by Rye student, Regan Stephan.

PORTSMOUTH  This years Childrens Day logo celebrates Portsmouths 400th anniversary.

Created by Rye student Regan Stephan, the 2023 logo features an image of the gundalow. The logo artwork will be featured on the volunteer T-shirts, the Childrens Day map, social media and the Pro Portsmouth website.

The event, which takes place on Sunday, May 7, from noon to 4 p.m., kicks off at the Block Partys Performance Area on Pleasant Street. Using the activity map and legend, families follow the alphabet all over downtown where they can enjoy a variety of crafts, games, and interactive activities.

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The Childrens Day map is available at proportsmouth.org/childrens-day-map.

The quilts are coming

DOVER  From tragedy can come beauty, and that is what can be witnessed at First Parish Church May 10 from 2 to 4 p.m., May 11 from 6 to 7 p.m., with a documentary film viewing about the making of the quilts called Stitch, Breathe, Speak: The George Floyd Quilts by New Hampshire filmmaker Chris Owen from 7 to 8 p.m., May 12 from 2 to 4 p.m. and May 13 from 10 a.m. to noon. The Sacred Ally Quilt project will be available to view at the church at 218 Central Ave. in Dover.

Viewing the quilts is free, but the church welcomes donations to help cover the expense of hosting them. For information, call the church office at 603-742-5664.

Moms On The Run 5K to benefit Zebra Crossings

DOVER  Zebra Crossings will be hosting the 16th annual Moms On The Run 5K Race/Walk on Sunday, May 14 starting at 9 a.m. This is the fourth race in the Dover Race Series and will start and finish at Dover High School. Runners and walkers of all ages and abilities are invited to join this family friendly event to celebrate moms.

Information: zebra-crossings.org/run.

Pre-register: raceroster.com/events/2023/71690/moms-on-the-run-5k-runwalk.

Proceeds benefit Zebra Crossings, a local nonprofit offering empowerment programs for youth and teens with chronic medical conditions.

New Hampshires LCHIP announces opening of 2023 Grant Round

CONCORD  The New Hampshire Land and Community Heritage Investment Program opened its 22nd grant round on May 1. Letters of intent will be due by May 17 and full proposals by June 21. Funding will be made available to assist municipalities, nonprofit organizations, and community groups in carrying out land conservation and historic preservation projects across the state.

LCHIP grant recipients are required to match each dollar contributed by LCHIP with a minimum of one additional dollar. This years awards will be announced in early December.

Information: LCHIP.org or call 603-224-4113.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: What to do you if you see a seal at beach: Community news updates
From France, its an easy flight to Morocco. But the two countries might as well be a world apart. From culture to landscape to waves, France and Morocco are on opposite ends of the spectrum. So it makes sense why Frances Charly Quivront would want a change of scenery, and jump a flight south for a pumping swell.



We were in Hossegor with my friends and a big storm was on the way so we escaped to Morocco and went on a strike mission to Safi, a wave that Ive always dreamed of surfing, Quivront explains alongside this clip. Luckily enough we were on a plane to surf that swell. We ended up only getting one surf with a proper swell then the swell died. But most surprising experience there was to be able to surf a beachbreak that was smilar to home but in Morocco with only a few friends in the water.

Click play to watch Quivront take advantage of his well placed geography by streaking through African tubes.

***

Don't miss another headline from SURFER! Subscribe to our newsletter and stay connected with the latest happenings in the world of surfing. We're always on the lookout for amusing, interesting and engaging surf-related videos to feature on our channels.

Whether you're a professional surfer or just an amateur, we want to see your best footage and help you share it with the world. Submit your video for a chance to be featured on SURFER and our social channels. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch high-quality surf videos.
via Telegram

Russians visiting an official website of the Russian Orthodox Church this weekend were greeted with what must have been a jarring message: Vladimir Putins top holy man, Patriarch Kirill, cheering on Ukraines counteroffensive.

The main page of the official website for Patriarch Kirills residence in Peredelkino near Moscow was hacked to show a message to visitors that read, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia blesses the Ukrainian Armed Forces counter-offensive.

A video of Ukrainian troops preparing to take back whats theirs was still playing on the website as of Saturday night. The video, released by Ukraines Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces Valeriy Zaluzhny, was widely seen as heralding the start of a large-scale counteroffensive to take back territories currently under Russian occupation.

The dramatic footage shows Ukrainian soldiers praying together ahead of battle and vowing to destroy enemies of the motherland.

May my hand be firm to kill the enemy. Let my eyes be clear to kill the enemy. Let my will be steel to kill the enemy, the men chant, readying themselves for sacred vengeance and holy victory.

The page was also altered to show a Ukrainian-language prayer for the counteroffensive, along with slogans in support of Ukraines military, like We believe in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Victory is for God and Ukraine.

Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said Saturday that Kyiv was ready to start the counteroffensive and that it could kick off tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or in a week.

Moscow, meanwhile, unleashed overnight attacks on Kyiv early Sunday, leaving at least one person dead as the capital prepared to begin celebrations marking its founding 1,541 years ago.

Many residents took to their balconies as the air raid sirens rang out, cursing out Putin and shouting Glory to Ukraine! in a show of defiance.

The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians, Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak quipped on Telegram.

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Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

U.S. Senator Lindsey Grahams recent comments during his Friday meeting with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in the war-torn country caused outrage and fury in Moscow, with the head of RT Margarita Simonyan calling for his assassination.

In a video clip of the meeting, Grahams comments were spliced in a way that made it seem that the Senator stated that the fact that Russians are dying in the invasion is the best money weve ever spent. In fact, Graham said that the U.S. aid to Ukraineand not specifically the deaths of the Russianswas a valuable investment in global security for the United States.

Senator [Lindsey] Graham has something to compare with. One of their [US] investments led to World War II and the Holocaust, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed in a statement on Telegram. State TV host Vladimir Solovyov followed Zakharovas lead on his program, Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, as he angrily exclaimed: Your dirty American money also fully supported the Nazi regime in Germany! You are a Nazi beast and youre following in the footsteps of your predecessors. Ill repeat it once again: you will croak, but the Russian people will live forever!

"Its a best money weve ever spent"



US Senator Lindsey Graham, during a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, called the death of Russians - the best spent of US money. pic.twitter.com/gKCc3PjSmj  NEXTA (@nexta_tv) May 28, 2023

On his Telegram account, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev called Graham, an old fool and resorted to thinly-veiled threats: In his beloved America, not only ordinary people are regularly killed, but dirty money is also being spent on killing senators. He should recall the sad fate of Robert Kennedy, Huey Long, Clementa Carlos Pinckney, John Milton Elliott, Wayne Owens and other American politicians.

Alleviating any doubt about the meaning of Medvedevs comments, Simonyan went even further during her appearance on Solovyovs Sunday show. After first acknowledging that Grahams statements may have been portrayed in a video out of context, Simonyan said that she ordered her staff to look into it. She invoked the name of a Soviet Lieutenant General Pavel Sudoplatov, who was involved in several major intelligence operations, including the assassination of Leon Trotsky.

Simonyan ominously pointed out: If Lady Graham really said that the money for the killing of Russians is the best money the US ever spent... I hope that in our country, the sons or grandchildren of Sudoplatov are alive, his pupils, or the descendants of his pupils. Its not even hard. We have his address.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomes U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) before their meeting, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine May 26. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service

The head of RT explained her bloodlust by the need for retribution: I have no ill will towards anyone and our religion tells us to forgive, but no one tells us to reward these types of things. When we dont act in response to these things, it is the same as encouraging them. It causes them to become increasingly more brazen.

Simonyan, who was one of the most proactive cheerleaders of the invasion, frequently complains about living in the crosshairs of vengeful Ukrainians, which she describes as an unpleasant feeling. In turn, she wants an American Senator to fear the arrival of a Russian assassination squad.

Married Putin Stooge Accused of Hiding Kids With Secret American Lover

Grahams complete remarks, released by the Ukrainian presidents office, did not link the US aid to Ukraine with the comment that Russians are dying in their failing war. Graham praised the spirit of Ukrainians in successfully resisting a Russian invasion, with aid of the United States.

The U.S. Senator told Zelensky that the Ukrainian resistance reminded him of our better selves in America. There was a time in America that we were this way, fighting to the last person, we were going to be free or die. Zelensky replied: Now you are freeand we will be. Graham added: And the Russians are dying. The Ukrainian president responded: Yes, but they came to our territory. We are not fighting on their territory.

Graham later told Reuters, It has been a good investment by the United States to help liberate Ukraine from Russian war criminals... Mr. Medvedev, if you want Russians to stop dying in Ukraine, withdraw. Stop the invasion. Stop the war crimes. The truth is that you and (President Vladimir) Putin could care less about Russian soldiers.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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By M. Sriram

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Investors in Aster DM Healthcare are in talks to sell a 30% stake in the company's India business for about $300 million, two sources with direct knowledge said, the latest potential deal in India's booming healthcare sector.

UAE-based and Mumbai-listed Aster runs 32 hospitals, 127 clinics and 521 pharmacies in India and the United Arab Emirates. The current talks are related to the India business and come just as Aster tries to demerge its Gulf business and sell a majority stake in that, Reuters reported last month.

Aster and its advisors have reached out to private equity giant KKR & Co Inc and Max Healthcare Institute - one of India's largest hospital chains - to hold preliminary talks to take up the investors' stake, the sources said.

Aster's investors considering the sale are Olympus Capital, which has a 19% stake in the company, and Mauritius-based investment firm Rimco, which holds an 12% stake.

Aster has appointed New York-based investment bank Moelis & Company to manage the deal, said the two sources, who declined to be named as the discussions are private.

Spokespersons for KKR and Olympus declined to comment, while Aster, Rimco, Moelis and Max did not respond to Reuters queries.

In India, private hospitals are much sought after and with federal spending on healthcare low, investors remain bullish on the sector's growth in a country of 1.4 billion people.

In April, Singapore-based Temasek spent $2 billion on a controlling stake in Manipal Health Enterprises. And last year, KKR clocked its biggest exit from India by selling its stake 27% stake in Max Healthcare for more than $1 billion.

Indian hospital chains have raised $2 billion from private equity funds this year, compared to last year's record funding of $3.2 billion, data from Dealogic showed.

"Compared to population healthcare is still underpenetrated in India. So as the country develops, investors see that as a big opportunity," one of the sources said.

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Separately, as discussions progress for the 30% stake sale in the India business, Aster will gauge if other hospital chains are interested in taking a bigger stake in the healthcare operator, though the strategy has not been finalised, the first source said.

Aster is mainly present in the southern Indian states of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. It competes with other large hospital chains including Fortis Healthcare, Manipal Hospitals and Max, all of whom have raised funds from global investors in recent years.

"Aster is now the last remaining large hospital chain where private equity or strategic investors can come in. There aren't many other established chains," the first source said.

For the fiscal year ended March 31, Aster's revenue grew 16% to $1.46 billion, while its net profit stood at $51.36 million.

(Reporting by M. Sriram; editing by Conor Humphries and Jason Neely)
A mine danger sign by the Dnipro River in Kherson, Ukraine on January 25, 2023. REUTERS/Nacho Doce

A quiet but intense battle is raging near Kherson, which Ukraine recaptured from Russia last year.

The fight is happening along the Dnipro River, which divides Ukrainian and Russian-held territory.

The 73rd Naval Center of Special Operations appears to be leading the effort for Ukraine.

Although Bakhmut and the fighting in the Donbas dominate the headlines, there has been intense but disjointed fighting around the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine.

In November, the liberation of the western bank of the Kherson Oblast and of the provincial capital, Kherson City, brought the Ukrainian military within range of the Russian positions across the river. Now the two sides are fighting a deadly battle in the islands, marshes, and inlets of the Dnipro delta.

For Ukraine, the 73rd Naval Center of Special Operations, a secretive SEAL-like unit, is leading the shadowy battle against Russia.

Ukrainian Navy SEALs

The collapsed Antonovskiy Bridge over the Dnipro River in Kherson City in November 2022. Narciso Contreras/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

For months now, Ukrainian special-operations forces, including frogmen of the 73rd Naval Center of Special Operations, have been conducting riverine raids against Russian positions along the Dnipro River.

In January, for example, frogmen from the unit raided the eastern bank and took out a Russian command-and-control post. Using drones and gunboats, the Ukrainian frogmen attacked the Russians and destroyed the position before slipping away in the night.

Frogmen from the unit have also been conducting reconnaissance missions on the Kinburn Spit, a finger-like strip of land that stretches into the Black Sea where it meets the Dnipro River, south of the Dniprovska Gulf. Outposts there give Russian forces a vantage point from which to track and attack ships in the river as well as launch strikes on Ukrainian cities and ports.

Ukrainian raids help wear down those forces, but they are not simple.

A burned vehicle in Oleksandrivka, a town south of Mykolaiv on the Dniprovska Gulf, on January 3. Pierre Crom/Getty Images

"Riverine operations require a lot of coordination between the raiding and supporting elements. When you put together a bunch of heavily armed guys in the middle of the night, there is plenty of opportunity for something to go wrong," a former Navy SEAL officer told Insider.

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"The guys on the ground depend on the firepower of the boat guys. But the overall commander must synchronize the two elements to prevent a friendly-fire incident," added the former SEAL, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing work with the US government.

"That being said, a properly planned riverine raid is hard to defend against," the former SEAL officer said.

Special operators from the 73rd Naval Center of Special Operations were also among the first Ukrainian troops on the famous Snake Island after Russian forces evacuated it.

A small island on the Black Sea, Snake Island had been contested for months before the Ukrainians finally liberated it in July. Combat swimmers with the unit reportedly approached the island in underwater vehicles, looking for mines or obstacles that could hinder the landing forces.

US and Hungarian special-operations forces train with Special Operations Craft-Riverine in the Danube River in May 2021. US Army/Spc. Therese Prats

The 73rd Naval Center of Special Operations was based on the Soviet-era 17th Naval Special Purpose Brigade. Set up as a training unit, it has become known for its small-boat raids and reconnaissance missions conducted behind Russian lines along the Dnipro River.

The unit is structured on roughly the same lines as a US Navy SEAL Team and is headquartered in the Mykolaiv Oblast, just west of Kherson Oblast. It comprises four sections, one dedicated to underwater demolitions, one to clearance divers, one to reconnaissance, and one to logistical support. The unit likely has a few dozen special operators.

The 73rd Naval Center of Special Operations could play a significant role in future large-scale fighting. If Ukraine's military launches major attacks in the south, the eastern bank of the Kherson would be a likely target, but getting there would require moving troops and vehicles by boat.

To do that, the 73rd Naval Center of Special Operations would likely be sent in first to scout beaches, clear obstacles, and secure beachheads  or to divert Russian attention with raids elsewhere.

Starting from scratch

Ukrainian, Romanian, and US Army Special Forces soldiers train in Romania in May 2021. Romanian army/Capt. Roxana Davidovits

Like the 73rd Naval Center of Special Operations, most of the Ukrainian military emerged from the Soviet military. By 2014, when Russia attacked Ukraine and seized Crimea, the Ukrainian military's training, tactics, and weapons were still much like that Soviet force.

Ukrainian forces were caught off-guard and hard-pressed to deal with the crisis in 2014. Since then, Kyiv has sought to improve its military training and upgrade its hardware, working with Western countries to do so.

Ukrainian special operators also had to work hard to achieve the level of professionalism and proficiency they now display on the battlefield. With extensive Western support, Ukraine's special-operations community has come a long way over the past decade.

Ukrainian commandos are now proficient in small-unit tactics and understand the vital importance of proper mission planning. Another crucial difference is their ability to take the initiative on the battlefield.

Under the Soviet model, there was no corps of non-commissioned officers  experienced enlisted troops who often lead small units  leaving frontline troops dependent on higher-level officers for guidance. Russia's performance in Ukraine has shown the weakness of that model.

Western-trained and battle-hardened, Ukrainian special operators are a force to be reckoned with, as Russians in the islands and marshes of the Dnipro River are learning.

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate. He is working toward a master's degree in strategy and cybersecurity at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis greets people at the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, N.H., May 19, 2023. (Sophie Park/The New York Times)

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida officially entered the presidential race last week, but he appears further than ever from the one-on-one matchup that his allies believe he needs to wrest the nomination from former President Donald Trump.

Former Vice President Mike Pence is burrowing deeper into Iowa, crucial to his effort to dislodge the Republican front-runners, even before he has announced his bid. Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is intensifying preparations for another campaign, with an expected focus on New Hampshire. And Republican donors and leadership on Capitol Hill are showing fresh interest in Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who kicked off his campaign last week. Even candidates who have barely been mentioned are suddenly expressing interest in 2024.

The rapidly ballooning field, combined with Trumps seemingly unbreakable core of support, represents a grave threat to DeSantis, imperiling his ability to consolidate the non-Trump vote, and could mirror the dynamics that powered Trumps takeover of the party in 2016.

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Its a matter of math: Each new entrant threatens to steal a small piece of DeSantis potential coalition  whether it be Pence with Iowa evangelicals or Scott with college-educated suburbanites. And these new candidates are unlikely to eat into Trumps votes. The former presidents base  more than 30% of Republicans  remains strongly devoted to him.

President Trump  he should go to the casino, hes a lucky guy, Dave Carney, a veteran Republican strategist based in New Hampshire, said of the former casino owner, Trump.

Its a gigantic problem for DeSantis, added Carney, who has worked on past presidential campaigns, because whatever percentage they get makes it difficult for the second-place guy to win because theres just not the available vote.

Trumps advisers have almost gleefully greeted each successive entry as part of a divide-and-conquer strategy that his team has spoken about since 2021. And many of the candidates seem more comfortable throwing punches at DeSantis than at Trump.

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The DeSantis campaign sees the landscape differently.

We dont believe its 2016 again, Ryan Tyson, a senior adviser to DeSantis, said in an interview.

And in a private briefing for donors this week, Tyson described a Republican electorate split into three parts: 35% as only Trump voters, 20% as never Trump and the remaining 45% as the DeSantis sweet spot.

Tyson told donors, in audio that was leaked and published online, that every entrant besides the two front-runners were isolated in the never Trump segment. If your name is not Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump, you are splitting up this share of the electorate, he said.

In the months leading up to his campaign launch, DeSantis and his allies framed the 2024 primaries as a two-man race. But as he has stumbled in recent months, amid questions about his personality and political dexterity, rivals have become emboldened. And some have the cash to stay relevant deep into the primary calendar.

Scott entered the race with nearly $22 million on hand, and he raised $2 million more in his first day as a candidate. The wealthy, little-known governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, now sees a 2024 opening, filming ads recently to prepare for an imminent campaign, according to two people involved in the planning.

Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, has invested $10 million of his own money in his campaign. Like DeSantis, Ramaswamy sells a similar anti-woke sentiment, but he does so with the charm of a natural communicator.

Trump has welcomed the non-DeSantis entrants to the race. In January, when Nikki Haley, who served as Trumps ambassador to the United Nations, called to tell him she planned to run, Trump did not rant about her disloyalty, as some had expected. He sounded unbothered, telling her to do what youve got to do, according to two people briefed on their conversation.

And in the days leading up to Scotts announcement, Trump was watching Fox News in his Mar-a-Lago office when he said, I like him. Were just going to say nice things about Tim, according to a person familiar with his private comments.

The conventional wisdom at the beginning of the year was that the field would be relatively small, perhaps as few as five people running. Republican anti-Trump donors were working to thin the herd to prevent a repeat of the divided field that guaranteed Trumps victory in 2016. Now, after DeSantis early stumbles, there will likely be as many as 10 candidates competing for attention and vying for the debate stage.

For DeSantis, the squeeze was apparent on the day he entered the race.

In New Hampshire, Haley mocked him on Fox News as merely copying Trump, down to his mannerisms. If hes just going to be an echo of Trump, people will just vote for Trump, she said.

In Iowa, Pence sat down with the type of mainstream media outlets that DeSantis has shunned, including The Des Moines Register. Pence also met with Bob Vander Plaats, the same evangelical leader DeSantis had recently brought to Tallahassee, Florida, for a private meal.

The split screen was a reminder that DeSantis is being pinched both ideologically and geographically, as the field expands.

Pence and Scott have made plain their plans to vie for influential evangelical voters in Iowa. In New Hampshire, both Christie, who focused his campaign on the state in 2016, and the states sitting governor, Chris Sununu, a moderate who has left the door open to a run, threaten to siphon votes from DeSantis. And in South Carolina, he will be sandwiched between two home-state candidates, the former governor Haley and Scott.

Many Republicans who want to defeat Trump are aghast at the exploding field  along with DeSantis underwhelming performance in recent months. DeSantis has slipped in the polls and now trails Trump in all states and by an average of more than 30 percentage points nationally.

All Republicans have to be hitting Donald Trump, said Sununu, who described himself as 50-50 about entering the race. Any Republican that isnt hitting Donald Trump hard right now is doing the entire party a disservice because if only one or two people are willing to take a shot at Donald Trump, it looks personal. It looks petty.

So far, Christie has gotten the most attention for his direct attacks on Trump, which he has signaled would be crucial to his candidacy. But he also has delighted in needling DeSantis at times, an acknowledgment of the Florida governors position in the race.

The reluctance to go after Trump, for many Republicans, feels eerily like a repeat of 2016. Then, Trumps rivals left him mostly alone for months, assuming that he would implode or that they were destined to beat him the moment they could narrow the field to a one-on-one matchup, a situation that never transpired.

The two Florida-based candidates in that race, Sen. Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, a former governor, spent millions of dollars strafing each other. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who wound up as Trumps top rival, gloated privately to donors that he was bear-hugging Trump while also patiently waiting for the moment to pounce. It never came.

Trumps current rivals seem exasperated by their collective inability to crack his foundation: Trumps supporters have been trained for years to come to his defense whenever he is under fire.

Trump has another asymmetrical advantage: Current and potential rivals have sought to avoid criticizing him too harshly so as not to alienate Republicans who still like Trump and are automatically suspicious of anyone attacking him. By contrast, other 2024 contenders have shown no hesitation in going after DeSantis.

His team  maybe him  is excellent at manufacturing the veneer of courage without actually delivering on the real thing, Ramaswamy said in an interview last month. And that can work across TV and even social media, he added. But once you poke a little bit, its like a little bubble in the air: A little touch, and its burst.

Ramaswamy, who has criticized Trump, has aimed most of his fire at DeSantis. A close friend of Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Ramaswamy dined with Trump and Kushner at the former presidents New Jersey club, Bedminster, in 2021, according to two people familiar with the event.

And while the field grows, there is the matter of the debate stage, where Trump eviscerated his opponents in the 2016 primary.

The chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, said earlier this year that she did not expect to need two debate stages as the party required in 2016, with the tiers of candidates determined by polling.

But there could be as many as a dozen declared candidates by August, and many are already racing to collect the 40,000 donors and 1% polling threshold the party has indicated will be needed to get onstage. This pool includes longer-shot candidates such as Larry Elder, the talk radio host who got walloped in the California recall election.

Everyone says, We have to keep people from getting in. Sununu said. Thats the wrong message, the wrong mentality, and thats not going to work.

But he acknowledged that consolidation will eventually be needed to defeat Trump.

The discipline, Sununu added, is getting out.

c.2023 The New York Times Company
HIMARS M31 launch ukraine

At the frontline and online, Ukrainian forces appear to be making final preparations for the long-awaited counteroffensive, with the help of Western-supplied equipment, after surviving the Russian onslaught through the winter.

Having blunted Russias winter offensive in the Donbas and enduring near-endless waves of air raids on targets across the country, top Ukrainian officers and spokespersons are putting the word out that the counteroffensive isnt just ready, its already begun. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with The Guardian that preliminary operations were already underway.

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1662443000625082370

Its a complicated process, which is not a matter of one day or a certain date or a certain hour, Podolyak told The Guardian. Its an ongoing process of de-occupation, and certain processes are already happening, like destroying supply lines or blowing up depots behind the lines. The intensity is increasing, but it will take quite a long period of time.

Oleksiy Danilov, Ukrainian Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council said in an interview with the BBC that the counteroffensive could begin tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or in a week, but that Ukraine cannot afford to make a mistake in beginning its attack too soon.

https://twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1662475012907909121

Ukrainian Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the subject of numerous Russian conspiracy theories over his alleged demise, posted a blunt, short statement to Twitter and Telegram with an accompanying video.

The time has come to take back what belongs to us.

https://twitter.com/CinC_AFU/status/1662451731261796353

The video could not be more cinematic, a boisterous Ukrainian rally cry calling for the blessing of its counter-offensive and to join the armed forces. The clip features multiple Leopard 2 tanks, M777 howitzers, and M142 HIMARS in an almost fire-breathing montage.

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As far as Ukrainian recruiting videos go, its a far cry from the much-publicized 2014 armed forces video Each of Us, which debuted only months after the war in the Donbas began as fears of full-scale Russian attack persisted. The 2014 video showed a nation reluctantly thrust into war with an uncertain future it was ready to defend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOCbW1hc6Ng

But Saturdays video shows a proud, vengeful, and well-armed country ready to turn the wars tide. The video is as much a shaping operation as Ukraines strikes and cross-border raids. This is textbook information warfare, propaganda designed to ready Ukraine and its allies for the battle to come and to terrify Russian soldiers with the weapon systems theyve come to fear, namely the Leopard 2 and HIMARS.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive may not begin with sudden simultaneous attacks, but rather a crescendo to the beat of shaping operations to prepare the battlespace over several days or even weeks. Each strike deep behind the lines, each raid pulling Russian forces away from the front, and indeed each piece of psychological warfare is another step closer to Ukraines artillery and mechanized units starting their assaults.

Before we head into the latest updates from Ukraine, The War Zone readers can catch up on our previous rolling coverage here.

The Latest

In its most recent intelligence update, the British Ministry of Defense has confirmed the likely withdrawal of Wagner Group PMC forces from some of its positions around Bakhmut. Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin previously stated the mercenary group would hand over its positions to the Russian Ministry of Defense while Wagner reconstitutes its combat strength after months of brutal assaults on the now-ruined city.

https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1662337489334419458

The update further noted it appears separatist forces of the Russian-backed, self-proclaimed, Donetsk Peoples Republic have entered Bakhmut for clearance operations, while the Russian Airborne VDVs 31st Brigade has reinforced positions on Bakhmuts flanks. Ukraines counterattacks on Bakhmuts flanks captured some 20 square kilometers, and their threat to pockets of Russian forces around the city will likely force Wagner to make a controlled retreat.

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1662285913152536578

Despite the ongoing feud between Prigozhin and the Russian Ministry of Defense, its reportedly likely that Wagner will be used in further offensive operations in the Donbas once it has reconstituted behind the lines. However, the Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) reported Wagner Group swapped 106 Ukrainian prisoners of war for an unknown number of Russian POWs on May 25, possibly independently of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1662291282100895744

Prigozhins separate but related feud with Igor Girkin, Russian mil-blogger and founding member of the far-right Angry Patriots Club, may soon come to a head as Girkin accused Prigozhin of preparing for a Wagner-led coup. Girkin specifically suggested Prigozhin may take advantage of the political chaos that could envelop Russia should the Ukrainian counteroffensive succeed.

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1662429293719298049

A sizable explosion rocked the Bakhmut frontline after a reported Ukrainian strike on a Russian position, leaving a towering mushroom cloud over the countryside. Some have suggested that this was a JDAM-ER strike, which would make some sense.

https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1662206980847435777

Video from fighting in the citys ruins shows just how chaotic and apocalyptic the battles were. In the below clip, two Wagner fighters can be seen trying to suppress a Ukrainian position, only to come under mortar fire and flee into cover when its believed theyre shot by friendly fire.

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1662193033155080193

Theres also intense footage showing a high-speed supply run by the Ukrainian 93rd Mechanized Brigade down the Road of Life connecting Bakhmut to friendly lines to the west. In what looks like a civilian vehicle, the Ukrainian troops flee the city through smoke, dust, and debris from artillery fire, with occupants taking and returning small arms fire as the driver speeds through the streets.

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1662205726779998209

In its Saturday control of terrain assessments, ISW noted that Russian forces had made marginal gains along the Svatove-Kreminna highway.

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1662292643513081860

The frontline has remained largely stable in this sector northwest of Severodonetsk since last fall. Recent Russian attacks in the area reportedly targeted the Kupyansk direction, the city where Ukrainian forces crossed the Oskil River in their Kharkiv counteroffensive rout.

Fighting in the Donbas remains intense, with a combat montage from Ukraines 28th Mechanized Brigade showing firefights along the Donets-Donbas Canal near the village of Kurdyumivka. Troops can be seen hitting a Russian position with 84mm Carl Gustaf recoilless rifles, 30mm 2A42 autocannon fire from a BMP-2, and lofted shots from a T-72s 125mm 2A46M main gun.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1662302522902560768

Russian forces also destroyed the dam at Donetsk Oblasts Karlivka Reservoir. The video showed water from the reservoir rushing downstream, and the dam carried the main road connecting Ukraines frontline positions near Pisky on Donetsks outskirts.

https://twitter.com/Archer83Able/status/1661793021241819142

On that note, another video shows shells falling at the Belgorod Reservoirs dam across the border from Kharkiv, as the war increasingly comes to Russias border regions.

https://twitter.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1662459196137144320

Video posted to Telegram shows audible gunshots and explosions in Russias Belgorod Oblast, reportedly as Ukrainian-backed operations continue there. Clips appear to show fires burning near the city of Shebekino, and there was a reported Ukrainian drone strike in the village of Maiskii.

https://twitter.com/anno1540/status/1662193599771975680

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1662194125746184193

The Liberty of Russia Legion has also released a video summary of its recent incursion into Belgorod Oblast, claiming to show the Russian garrison fleeing into abandoned homes before being targeted by artillery.

https://twitter.com/legion_svoboda/status/1662084249854377984

To the northwest, there are reports of gun battles near the Ukrainian border in Bryansk Oblast in and around the village of Sushany.

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1662429903667462147

Also behind Russian lines, it appears Russian air defenses may have downed another of its own aircraft near the Morozovsk Airfield in Rostov Oblast. The base housed the 559th Bomber Aviation Regiment (559 BAP) with 36 Su-34 Fullback bombers before the war, but its unclear what aircraft can be seen burning in the video.

https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1661819867941445649

Two Su-34s made a much-maligned low-level attack run on the Grayvoron border crossing, reportedly during the Belgorod incursions last week. Russian Telegram channel Fighter Bomber (@Fighterbomber) commented the attack run was at too low an altitude and without pre-flight preparation. You can read our initial report on the video of these strikes here.

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1662390251933892608

Two sizable explosions were reported in Mariupol near the former Azovstal steel plant. The facility fell to Russian forces after a vicious siege on May 20, 2022.

https://twitter.com/Feher_Junior/status/1662151286303621131

https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1662165439764365333

https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1662152024228495360

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1662148462413070343

The strikes are rumored to be the latest use of the British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles, with another explosion reported in the occupied port city of Berdyansk.

https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1662439290708557826

https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1662480232102633478

Video in the city of Donetsk reportedly shows the panicked aftermath of a HIMARS attack on a Russian target in the city, with soldiers and civilians seen running off the street into shelters.

https://twitter.com/DenesTorteli/status/1662000822404673536

Ukraine commissioned its first new Project 58155 Gyurza-M class armored gunboat since the war began, the BK-08 Bucha, named for the city ravaged in Russias Kyiv offensive in March 2022.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1662204694784081920

In riverine camouflage, the Bucha is armed with two 30mm autocannons, twin Stugna-P anti-tank missile launchers, and a 30mm automatic grenade launcher, formidable armament for combat on and along the lower Dnipro River.

Ukraine will receive 43 AIM-9 Sidewinder short-range air-to-air missiles from the Royal Canadian Air Force, per a statement from the Canadian Department of National Defense. The missiles will likely find their way into Ukrainian-crewed NASAMS air-defense launchers, which can fire both the AIM-120 AMRAAM and the AIM-9X. That being said, we do not have a confirmation of this at this time and it's possible the AIM-9 is being integrated onto Ukraine's Soviet-designed fighter aircraft.

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1661989966279241728

Theres new footage of the Slovenian Valuk wheeled armored personnel carriers in Ukrainian service. Slovenia sent 20 of the 6x6 vehicles as part of its aid to the Ukrainian war effort.

https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1662048607757910016

Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov also showed off two of Ukraines Bogun all-terrain vehicles, the box-like vehicles seen demonstrating amphibious capabilities in a swamp.

https://twitter.com/front_ukrainian/status/1662086252496076801

A pair of Russian ZALA Lancet loitering munitions damaged a Ukrainian 9K33 Osa (SA-8 Gecko) transporter-erector-launcher-and-radar (TELAR) after drone operators watched the vehicle move into a shed.

https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1661984723726487552

The first Lancet blows a hole in the roof and prompts several crew members to flee the structure before a second kamikaze drone goes through the opening. The footage cuts to a burning Osa fleeing under its own power.

Ukrainian drones, however, remain busy in more than just attack and recon roles. Sling-load fans rejoice, as a video shows a Ukrainian DJI T30 six-rotor drone retrieving the remains of a downed Russian Orlan-10 UAV that fell in a minefield.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1662223894437298177

Elsewhere, it looks like Ukrainian drones from the 54th Mechanized Brigade managed to destroy a disabled and abandoned Russian T-90M tank near Soledar using a number of VOG grenades.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1662261185012543488

Drones helped Ukrainian artillery gunners take out Russian D-20 152mm howitzers and a Diabazol mobile electronic warfare system on the Dnipro Rivers left bank across from Kherson.

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1662501679973949442

First-person view (FPV) kamikaze drones continue to terrorize Russian troops, as a pair of clips show drones targeting Russian trucks, with the occupants and nearby soldiers trying to flee before impact.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1662268961528971264

https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1662370032993566720

On a related note, theres a new tank sporting a cope cage; well, not a new tank, actually one of the first T-72s to enter Soviet service in the 1970s. The original T-72 has been covered in explosive-reactive armor (ERA) bricks for added protection, with more of the bricks on an overhead cope cage as well. Exactly how much protection this arrangement provides  or danger to the tank's crew  remains unclear.

https://twitter.com/AndreiBtvt/status/1661895431893164033

If youre into scarves with modern self-propelled howitzer profiles on them, youll love this silk scarf CNN's Senior International Correspondent Frederik Pleitgen (@fpleitgenCNN) found in Ukraine. The purple silk scarves feature side profiles of the German-made PzH 2000 155mm self-propelled howitzer.

https://twitter.com/fpleitgenCNN/status/1662062235827535874

Theres video of Ukrainian troops riding and firing a sidecar motorcycle with a 73mm SPG-9 recoilless rifle mounted to the frame. The design harkens back to those used by Nazi German troops for reconnaissance and scouting duties in the Second World War.

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1662514368834068481

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1662514370608234497

In liberated areas of Ukraine, returning civilians are adjusting to life in what was a fierce battlefield only months earlier. Photos from the Kyiv Post show Anna Plichtchynska, 67, and her cow, Lana, having returned to their farm in liberated Kherson, where Anna checks the fields for mines and unexploded ordnance left behind from the fierce fighting.

https://twitter.com/GoldenR_Fella/status/1661835959241941016

In the growing subgenre of Ukrainian wildlife on the frontlines, a video shows a small bird at a table where Ukrainian troops appear to be assembling drone-dropped munitions with plastic explosives. Before being shooed away, the bird seems rather interested in making a snack out of the explosive material, with the Ukrainian soldier joking the birds could replace drones if they figured out how to mount fuses.

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1662217665379979264

Thats it for now. Well update this story when theres more to report about Ukraine.

Contact the author: stetson.payne@thewarzone.com
Boeing - Lindsey Wasson/Reuters

Cheap summer holidays are facing a new threat as the aviation industry grapples with a critical shortage of engineers.

Companies are increasingly concerned that passenger jets are at risk of going out of service for months at a time because of the shortfall, with Boeing and Airbus estimating that more than 600,000 engineers need to be hired over the next 20 years to keep up with demand.

If this leads to a restriction in the number of planes  and passenger seats  it risks driving up ticket prices.

More than a quarter of engineers are expected to retire over the next decade, according to recruitment consultancy AeroProfessional.

Sam Sprules, managing director at the headhunter, said: The shortfall in aircraft engineers is already impacting output and its only going to get worse for the foreseeable future.

Lower pay than other comparable industries is part of the problem, experts say, while it can also take up to seven years to complete the necessary training.

In the UK, Brexit means that aircraft engineer licences issued by the UK authorities are no longer valid or recognised on the Continent.

This also means UK aviation businesses have very restricted access to engineers from the European Union.

An ageing global fleet means that a greater amount of servicing is required on aircraft. AeroProfessional estimates that maintenance-intensive aircraft in the global fleet will not reduce significantly until 2040.

Airbus estimates that the number of annual passengers worldwide will double to 9bn by 2041. This will require 2 million new personnel, of which 34pc  equivalent to 680,000  will be engineers. Boeing estimates an extra 610,000 maintenance technicians will be required.

In its 2022 outlook, the American planemaker said: Technicians are critical to operational safety, and they play a key role in supporting the industrys recovery. But in some cases theyre spread thin.

They are leaving the workforce through retirement and natural attrition, and retirements will accelerate over the next five to ten years. All the while, fleets are expected to continue to grow. In mature aviation markets, the average age of the technician workforce keeps rising, while the number of new entrants to the profession tapers off.

Addressing a gender imbalance in the aviation engineering sector would help the labour shortfall over the next 20 years, AeroProfessional said.

Just 2.6pc of aircraft engineers are women, according to a report by US organisation Women in Aviation International.

AeroProfessional said: A 2017 study from Microsoft found that one of the main reasons girls choose not to follow careers in STEM is because they lack a female role model.

Its clear that underlying problems in gender equality must be addressed and that the industry must continue to seek ways to keep building awareness and encourage female talent into the industry.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month, then enjoy 1 year for just $9 with our US-exclusive offer.
Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi attends a session of the Ukrainian Parliament in Kyiv, on December 28, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via Reuters

Ukraine has been talking about launching a counteroffensive against Russia.

On Saturday, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraien's top military commander, hinted at an imminent attack.

Another official said that Ukrainian forces are "ready" for a counteroffensive.

Ukraine's military commander-in-chief signaled on Saturday that the long-anticipated counterattack against Russia is approaching.

In a short message posted on Telegram, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, dubbed Ukraine's 'iron general,' wrote: "It's time to get back what's ours."

The message accompanied a minute-long cinematic video of Ukranian soldiers repeating a chant and handling various weapons.

Ukrainian officials have been boasting about a counterattack against Russia for weeks as the war passes its 15-month mark.

"As soon as there is God's will, the weather, and a decision by commanders, we will do it," Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in April.

The latest message from Zaluzhnyi comes after Ukraine faced a setback in Bakhmut, with Russia reporting that it has taken control over the eastern Ukrainian city. Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy, Ukraine's eastern military commander, said Ukraine only holds a "small part" of the city, The Washington Post reported.

Ukraine's top National Security and Defense Council official, Oleksiy Danilov, also told BBC in an article published Saturday that Ukrainian forces are "ready" for a counteroffensive and that the attack could begin "tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or in a week."

Ukraine has been tight-lipped about where it will launch its anticipated assault but military experts told Insider that the counteroffensive could occur somewhere in the southeast, particularly in the Zaporizhzhia region.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has kept busy on the diplomatic front, making the rounds with world leaders at the recent G7 summit and other face-to-face visits to gather unified support for Ukraine during the war.

In a significant victory for Ukraine, President Joe Biden confirmed at the G7 summit that the US would send fighter jets and train Ukrainian pilots to use the aircraft.

Read the original article on Business Insider
RFA/Latino Community and Lower Valley Reporter

Heyo, Im Jasper. Nice to meet you. I cover a wide variety of news, but I try to focus on the Latino community and the Lower Yakima Valley. I want to sharestories and perspectives from the Yakima Valley. Im interested in economics, labor, geography and the environment, but the most important issues will always be the ones the community cares about. If you have something worth saying, Ill listen and try to write it down. Im a gosei from Northeast Los Angeles and I got my start as a student journalist and editor covering sports in the Bay Area. Im a massive soccer fan and I still love to play. I also love water in all its forms, the word copacetic and trying new things. I want to read more, and I like to cook, but Im not great at either. Have fun out there!
Boom town or boo town? You decide at these WA ghost towns east of the Cascade Mountains
What does Amazon's job boom in E. Oregon mean for Tri-Cities? Here's what we know
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., announced his run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination at a Monday campaign event in North Charleston, S.C. Scott, the ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, joins five other Republicans currently running in the 2024 presidential race.
Becky Tallent retired in 2019 after 13 years as a journalism faculty member at the University of Idaho. She is of Cherokee descent and is a member of both the Native American Journalists Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. She and her husband live in Moscow, Idaho, with their two cats. She also writes for the Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Spokane Faith and Values.
FILE - US First Lady Jill Biden smiles as she meets military surfers in Newlyn, Cornwall, England, on the sidelines of the G7 summit, Saturday June 12, 2021. The U.S. will keep alive its streak of a president never attending a British royal coronation, although first lady Jill Biden is set to attend.
Phoebe Hyatt, 7, brushes her teeth with bottled water at home in Selah, Wash., on Wednesday, May 17, 2023. The Hyatts were informed by the U.S. Army in early 2022 that their private water well is contaminated with dangerous levels of PFAS. The family has lived in their home for eight years.
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a sign which reads "1st C919 inaugural flight" is seen in front of the Chinese made passenger aircraft prepared for its first commercial flight from Shanghai on Sunday, May 28, 2023. Chinas first domestically made passenger jet flew its maiden commercial flight on Sunday, as China looks to compete with companies such as Boeing and Airbus in the global aircraft market.(Ding Ting/Xinhua via AP)

BEIJING (AP)  Chinas first domestically made passenger jet flew its maiden commercial flight on Sunday, as China looks to compete with industry giants such as Boeing and Airbus in the global aircraft market.

The C919 plane, built by the Commercial Aviation Corporation of China, carried about 130 passengers on the flight, according to state-owned newspaper China Daily. The jet took off Sunday morning from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and landed less than two hours later in Beijing.

The flight was operated by state-owned China Eastern Airlines and the side of the plane was emblazoned with the words: The World's First C919.

The inaugural flight comes as COMAC looks to break into the single-aisle jet market in a direct challenge to Airbus and Boeing. Airbuss A320 and Boeings B737 jets are the most popular aircrafts typically used for domestic and regional flights.

While COMAC designed many of the C919s parts, some of its key components are still sourced from the West, including its engine.

The company plans to build 150 C919 planes each year for the next five years, according to earlier state media reports.

The C919, which had been in development for 16 years, has a maximum range of about 3,500 miles (5,630 kilometers) and is designed to carry between 158 and 168 passengers.

Over 1,200 C919 jetliners have been ordered, COMAC says, with China Eastern Airlines under contract to buy five of them.
An EgyptAir jetliner blew out a tire but made a safe landing at its destination early Sunday in Saudi Arabia, Egypt's national carrier said. No causalities were reported. Flight MS643 took off from Cairo international airport early on Sunday, and one of its tires burst during landing at King Abdulaziz International Airport in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah, EgyptAir said in a statement.

The Boeing 737 made a safe landing on the runway, and all passengers disembarked the airplane with no injuries reported, the statement said. The airline didn't elaborate on what caused the problem and said an examination and maintenance of the plane were underway.

Also read: IndiGo Airline's First Boeing 777 Wide-Body Aircraft Lands In Delhi: Watch Video
A Bengaluru-bound Nepal Airlines aircraft was forced to return to the Tribhuvan International Airport here on Saturday after it reportedly suffered a bird hit. The plane landed safely at the Tribhuvan International Airport, and technicians were examining the aircraft, according to Spokesperson at TIA Teknath Sitaula.

Passengers on flight RA-225 bound for Bengaluru reported hearing a loud noise, the Himalayan Times newspaper quoted TIA sources as saying. The flight took off from TIA at 1:45 pm, before being forced to return to the same airport after the incident.

Also read: IndiGo Airline Operates Maiden Goa-Dehradun Flight With Goan Woman As Pilot

The aircraft's blades on the right wing were damaged, officials said. Passengers on flight RA-225 reported hearing a loud noise, the Himalayan Times newspaper quoted TIA sources as saying. "The aircraft was diverted to Kathmandu, suspecting a bird strike in the course of take-off," Sitaula said.

The international flight between India and Nepal was being carried out by an Airbus A320 aircraft with a capacity of carrying 180 passengers. As per the flight tracking website, Nepal Airlines completed its 2 hours and 30 minutes long flight and reached the designated airport. However, the aircraft used for the journey is not known.
New Delhi: Tyre maker Bridgestone is looking to expand its retail footprint in India by 20-25 per cent this year and is aiming to grow higher than the industry's growth, a top company executive has said. Bridgestone India at present has over 3,200 dealerships across 1,300 cities and towns in India. Bridgestone India, which is a subsidiary of Japanese multinational tyre manufacturer Bridgestone Corporation, has a well-diversified portfolio, mainly of radial tyres which cater to OEM as well as replacement segments.

Bridgestone India has been increasing its market penetration over the last few years. In 2022, we increased our retail footprint by 11 per cent, expanding to an additional 218 towns. This year we are looking to increase our overall retail network by 20-25 per cent, Bridgestone India Managing Director Stefano Sanchini told PTI in an interaction.

The company is expanding its distribution network to enhance the coverage across tier-III/IV cities giving it a larger footprint in the aftermarket for automotive tyres that accounts for over 25 million tyres, he said. We aim to retain our leadership in this segment. The OE market has shown revival last year and is expected to further grow in 2023. Our investments towards increased capacities and capabilities will help us fulfil the market needs, Sanchini, who has been helming the company's India operations since the beginning of 2023, said.

We hope to further increase our share in the coming year, he stated. Noting that the company had a remarkable growth both in volume and revenue during the previous year with overall revenue up 37 per cent year-on-year while the total volumes growing 17 per cent during the period.?

The passenger tyre business has sustained its market leadership position, he said. Our performance for the first quarter (January-March) of this year has also been encouraging and on the same lines as our performance in 2022, Sanchini stated.

Sounding optimistic about the domestic tyre industry's growth, he said that the Government's spending on mobility infrastructure is improving the logistic industry's efficiencies and this will spur the tyre industry growth. Another catalyst is India's automotive sector, which is expected to sustain growth momentum in 2023, he said adding that, the domestic tyre industry is expected to grow 6 per cent in line with economic growth.

This is encouraging, taking into consideration that the global economy may be on a slowdown, due to geo-political events and disruption of global supply chains, Sanchini emphasized. He said the company sees positive customer sentiments across categories.

Our aim is to stay ahead of the curve. We are confident that 2023 will be a good year in terms of performance as well as deeper market penetration, he said. Sounding confident about further strengthening of Bridgestone India's leadership in the passenger car segment, he said, ?we are constantly working towards meeting the evolving consumer needs by enhancing our product portfolio as well as our aftersales services and increasing our retail footprint.?

Sanchini also said that the company's plans to launch tyres for the electric vehicle segment in India remain in sync with the OEM's electrification thrust. We have the product for EVs and are partnering with India-based OEMs to develop products. As EV volumes grow, our EV compatible tyres will also be available in the aftermarket,? he stated.

Bridgestone India has two plants, one each at Chakan (Pune) and Pithampur (Indore) with a cumulative capacity of 30,000 tyres per day.

The company in February has announced an investment of Rs 600 crore for expansion of both capacities and capabilities. He further said the company's solutions business through the Pay As You Go model has doubled over the last year. As the market evolves we hope to further strengthen this business that is a win-win for all stakeholders,? he stated.
New Delhi: India has seen an increased engagement and prominence on the global stage under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government at the Centre will complete nine years on May 30, 2023. A nation of over 140 crore people, India has witnessed an all-around development and recorded inclusive growth in almost every sector under the Modi government, which has resulted in a massive improvement in its overall reputation in the international community.

During his tenure, Narendra Modi, who was sworn in for the first time as Prime Minister on May 26, 2014, and then took oath at the office for the second term on May 30, 2019, has time and again engaged in improving bilateral relations with various countries. Since his first foreign visit to Bhutan in June 2014, he has embarked on numerous diplomatic trips, which has also helped him establish personal relationships with world leaders, including those of the US, France, Germany, Russia, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, Japan, and Australia.

While Modi's 'Neighborhood First' and 'Act East' policies strengthened his ties with countries in Asia, his 'vaccine maitri', which was a humanitarian initiative when the world was struggling to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, helped India further solidify its status as a responsible global power.

ALSO READ | 9 Years Of PM Modi: How BJP Transformed Itself Into A Pro-Poor, Pro-Farmer, Pro-Women Party

India under Prime Minister Modi's leadership has also actively participated in multilateral forums such as the United Nations (UN), G20 (Group of 20), BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and has emphasised on addressing global issues like terrorism and climate change. He has also prioritized India's relations with neighboring countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Maldives, Nepal, and Bhutan and played an active role in regional forums such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).

After his recent six-day tour across three countries, PM Modi had said that he speaks 'confidently' of India and its people's strengths abroad and the world listens because people here elected a majority government. He said that the world leaders know that what he says is the 'voice of the 140 crore people' of India. He said that India faces the challenges of strengthening its roots while also working its way to a new high as the world expects it to.

"Challenges are big. But it is in my nature to challenge the challenges," he had said earlier this week.

Recently, Australian PM Anthony Albanese had described PM Modi as 'the boss', while US President Joe Biden had said that he wants the Indian PM's 'autograph' and praised his leadership.

"The world is looking at a new India with a new perspective due to Modi's leadership," External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said this week as he heaped praise on the prime minister's leadership for India's rising image and prestige in the world.

India is being seen as a bright spot globally and the world is placing its confidence in the county as the nation is poised to overtake Germany to become the fourth-largest economy in the next few years.

ALSO READ | 9 Years Of PM Modi: Unlocking India's Potential As A Defence Exporter
NEW DELHI: AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met ailing party leader Satyendar Jain at a hospital here on Sunday and described him as a "brave man" and "hero". Jain, who has been in Tihar Jail since his arrest by the ED in May last year in connection with a money laundering case, was on Friday last granted six-week interim bail by the Supreme Court, on medical grounds.

He was admitted to the hospital on Thursday last after he collapsed in prison due to dizziness, party sources had said. Sharing pictures of his meeting with Jain on Twitter, Kejriwal said, "Met the brave man.......The hero".

Met the brave man..the hero.. pic.twitter.com/d5gzKoDud9  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 28, 2023

The former health minister was first admitted to the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital, and later, shifted to the the Lok Nayak Jayaprakash (LNJP) Hospital due to breathing problems.

The Supreme Court on Friday last allowed Jain to undergo treatment in a hospital of his choice. It also directed Jain to not talk to the media during his interim bail period that ends on July 11.
Just at the time when the deadly Covid-19 pandemic - which took millions of lives - has come to an end, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned of an even deadlier virus- 'Disease X'. World Health Organization (WHO) Chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has given a warning about this epidemic in a recent meeting of the World Health Assembly in Geneva. In this meeting, Tedros warned that 'another epidemic can come at any time, which can spread a terrible disease and can also kill a large number of people. We must be collectively prepared to face it.' The WHO has identified some infectious diseases that could cause the next pandemic. These diseases include Ebola virus, Marburg, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Covid-19, Zika and perhaps the most dreaded, Disease X.

Disease X - a disease or just a term?

What is Disease X is not a disease but a term. It can be the worst disease. The term Disease X is used by the WHO as a placeholder to describe a disease that results from human infection, and is currently unknown to medical science. 'Disease X' can be a disease that can turn into a terrible epidemic in the future and scientists have no knowledge about it.



Why the term 'Disease X'?

The Coronavirus was also 'Disease X' earlier. WHO used the term 'Disease X' for the first time in 2018. Later 'Disease X' was replaced by Covid-19. The same will happen next time when an epidemic is known then the existing 'Disease X' will be replaced by the new name of that disease.

Why are scientists worried over 'Disease X'?

Disease X will emerge as a deadly disease in the coming times, the WHO chief has said already. That's why people need to be alert from now in view of their health. There is also a concern that when Coronavirus came, no medicine or vaccine was available in India for its treatment. In the same way, no medicine is being used for 'Disease X' at this time.



Nature of Virus: Disease X Will Emerge From Wild Or Domestic Animals



Experts believe that the next Disease X will be zoonotic, meaning it will originate in wild or domestic animals. Ebola, HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 were zoonotic outbreaks. However, no accurate prediction can be made about Disease X at this time. At the same time, some experts regarding Disease X also believe that the next epidemic can spread due to any virus or bacteria. It is also believed that Disease X can also arise due to an accident or biological attack in a laboratory.



What can be done about Disease X?



There is no need for people to panic about Disease X. To prevent and combat its outbreak, medical experts from all over the world are taking all possible measures, research and monitoring. Overall, experts believe that the Covid-19 pandemic is not the first or the last disease to wreak havoc on the world. The world needs to prepare for the next outbreak. It is necessary for scientists, researchers, and policymakers to remain vigilant, and continue to monitor and study future potential threats.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today dedicated to the nation new Parliament building in a historic event amid a boycott by around 20 opposition parties including Congress. Prime Minister Modi also installed the sacred sceptre Sengol near the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha. The new Parliament building has received praise from leaders and celebrities from across the quarters. Actor Shah Rukh Khan also praised the new Parliament for its magnificence. However, his praise has not gone well with the Congress.

Congress Slams Shah Rukh Khan

Congress leader and party's social media chairperson for Uttar Pradesh Pankhuri Pathak slammed 'King Khan' accusing him of letting down people who stood with the actor in his tough times. "You have let down so many people who stood by you when your son was wrongly targeted and jailed, When boycott calls were issued against your movies, When you were targeted because of your religion. This says loud & clear that you deserved what they did to you. Sorry, but you are no King. No more," she said in a response to the video shared by Shah Rukh Khan praising the new Parliament.

Shah Rukh Khan Praises New Parliament

Praising the new Parliament, Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan termed it a magnificent new home for the people who uphold Constitution, represent every citizen of India and protect diversity. "A new Parliament building for a New India but with the age-old dream of Glory for India. Jai Hind! #MyParliamentMyPride," he said.

In the video shared by him, Shah Rukh Khan explains the significance of the new Parliament building. "It is said that Parliament is to the nation what the soul is to the body. My sincerest prayer is that the soul of our democracy remains robust in its new home and continues to foster liberty, fraternity and equality for ages to come," he said in the video.

Shah Rukh further said hoped that this new 'abode of democracy' will build a new age that is renowned for its scientific temper and empathy for all.

New Parliament

The new Parliament building has a larger sitting capacity. The new building has space for 888 members of the Lok Sabha and 384 members of the Rajya Sabha. It also has murals depicting the grand history and culture of India.
The Pakistan High Commission here has suspended the activities of its school in the national capital on account of low enrolment. The school catered to the needs of children of the mission's staff, which dwindled after Islamabad downgraded its strength in 2020. Upon completion of the current academic year, the activities of the Pakistan High Commission School have been suspended, because of low enrolment levels in view of the downgraded strength of the High Commission, a Pakistan High Commission spokesperson said in response to media queries.

"It may be noted that the school was never open to public and exclusively catered to the needs of children of staff of the High Commission," he said. The spokesperson said it may be recalled that the diplomatic strength of the High Commission was halved in June 2020 upon the request of the host country.
(Bloomberg) -- Getting a US debt-limit deal is one thing. Overcoming entrenched political divisions and time-consuming procedural hurdles to pass the legislation before a June 5 default deadline is another challenge altogether.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The deal struck Saturday night by President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy offers a lot for the two parties not to like, from expanded work requirements for food stamps opposed by Democrats to higher spending levels than conservatives demanded.

With just over a week until the US risks running out of cash to pay its bills, the two leaders now must convince enough members of their respective parties that the agreement hashed out by a small group of negotiators is a better deal than the global economic consequences of default.

Click this link to see the text of the debt limit deal.

Biden and McCarthy in separate appearances on Sunday projected confidence they would muster the votes to win Congressional approval. McCarthy claimed 95% of House Republicans are very excited by the deal.

Some members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus ratcheted up criticism of the deal Sunday, though it was unclear whether their hostility would broaden to wider Republican opposition or harden into a campaign to oust the speaker.

Representative Chip Roy of Texas tweeted Sunday that fellow Republicans havent been educated yet on the deals shortcomings. They will be, he said. Shortly after the deal was announced Saturday, Ralph Norman of South Carolina called it insanity and Dan Bishop of North Carolina responded with an emoji of a face vomiting.

Still, there were early signs of openness to the deal even from some on the GOPs right flank. Representative Warren Davidson applauded some impressive wins but said he would wait to see the bills text before making up his mind.

A time-consuming, last-minute revision or a failure on the House floor risks a market dive, as happened when the 2008 bank bailout legislation failed to pass.

McCarthy has said hed abide by a 72-hour rule to allow lawmakers to review legislation and is planning a House vote on Wednesday.

In the Senate, any one lawmaker can tie up legislation and force procedural votes. Utah Republican Mike Lee has already said he would do just that if he doesnt like spending levels in the bill.

That leaves little room for failure  or time for revisions  if Congress is to pass the legislation before June 5, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellens revised X-date.

Severe Challenge to Pass House

Republican Patrick McHenry, one of McCarthys chief negotiators, acknowledged as much on Saturday, saying it would be a severe challenge to get the bill passed by the deadline.

While Biden and McCarthy are managing the clock, they also need to manage their partys caucuses in each chamber.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell will be tasked with mobilizing arm-twisters to convince the flanks.

But the deal ultimately belongs to Biden and McCarthy, who will have to cobble together a coalition of centrists to support it.

Its going to be hard work for the president, said South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn, the Democrats former top vote counter.

Not Everyone Will Be Happy

The two-year budget agreement cuts far less spending than the $4.8 trillion in reductions the House put on the table at the start of talks. It also gives heartburn to progressives, who already have agitated that Biden hasnt been vocal enough on the deal.

We know anytime we sit and negotiate with two parties, that you got to work with both sides of the aisle. So its not 100% of what everybody wants, McCarthy told reporters Sunday.

Not helping matters for McCarthy is former President Donald Trump, to whom many of these conservatives are loyal. Trump, who has been in regular contact with the speaker, has said that the US should default rather than accept a bad deal.

Democratic Opposition

Jeffries will have his own challenge getting 106 or more Democrats to back the deal, even with Bidens imprimatur on it.

Democrats like Rosa DeLauro, the senior member on the Appropriations Committee, have complained publicly about being sidelined and have condemned any reductions to social programs as unacceptable. Congressional Progressive Caucus head Pramila Jayapal has said there would be protests in the streets if a deal cut social services.

On Sunday, Jayapal told CNNs State of the Union Democratic leaders should be concerned whether they can get votes from the partys left flank. Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, who isnt in the progressive caucus, said on Fox News Sunday that its not a bill thats going to make any Democrats happy.

The expanded work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could pose a challenge for Jeffries, who has called such requirements a non-starter for House Democrats.

The arm-twisting challenge is exacerbated for House leaders because most lawmakers are out of town for a holiday weekend and not due to return until Monday night or Tuesday morning.

Thats always more difficult when they are away, McCarthy acknowledged.

Assuming the House passes the bill on the first try, itll head to the Senate around mid-week. There, days of procedural delays are likely if Lee makes good on his threat to hold things up. That easily takes voting right into the weekend  and the US right to the brink.

(Updates with comments Sunday from Biden, McCarthy, lawmakers beginning with fourth paragraph)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

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NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building here on Sunday morning and installed the historic Sengol in the Lok Sabha chamber. Dressed in traditional attire, Modi walked into Parliament premises from its Gate No. 1 and was welcomed by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Amid Vedic chants by priests from Karnataka's Shringeri Math, the prime minister performed "Ganapati Homam" to invoke Gods to bless the inauguration of the new Parliament building.

The prime minister prostrated before the Sengol and sought blessings from high priests of various adheenams in Tamil Nadu with the holy sceptre in hand. Modi then carried the Sengol in a procession amid tunes of "nadaswaram" and chanting of Vedic mantras to the new Parliament building and installed it in a special enclosure on the right side of the Speaker's chair in the Lok Sabha chamber.

Several Union ministers, including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S Jaishankar, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Mansukh Mandaviya and Jitendra Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and BJP president J P Nadda among other leaders were present on the occasion. The prime minister felicitated with shawls and souvenirs some workers who played key roles in the construction of the new Parliament building.

A multi-faith prayer was also held to mark the occasion. The prime minister along with the Speaker and some other dignitaries later went to the old Parliament House. The events to mark the inauguration are being held amid a boycott by several Opposition parties which insist that President Droupadi Murmu as head of the state should do the honours.

The new Parliament building, constructed by Tata Projects Ltd, will have a grand constitution hall to showcase India's democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas and ample parking space. The triangular-shaped four-storey building has a built-up area of 64,500 square metres. The building has three main gates -- Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar.

It will have separate entrances for VIPs, MPs, and visitors. The material used for the new building has been acquired from various parts of the country. The teakwood used in the building was sourced from Nagpur in Maharashtra, while the red and white sandstone was procured from Sarmathura in Rajasthan. The sandstone for the Red Fort and Humayun's Tomb in the national capital was also known to have been sourced from Sarmathura.

The Kesharia green stone has been procured from Udaipur, the red granite from Lakha near Ajmer and the white marble has been sourced from Ambaji in Rajasthan. "In a way, the entire country came together to construct the temple of democracy, thus reflecting the true spirit of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat," an official said.

The steel structure for the false ceilings in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers have been sourced from the union territory of Daman and Diu, while the furniture in the new building was crafted in Mumbai. The stone 'jaali' (lattice) works dotting the building were sourced from Rajnagar in Rajasthan and Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

The materials for the Ashoka Emblem were sourced from Aurangabad in Maharashtra and Jaipur in Rajasthan, while the Ashok Chakra donning the massive walls of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha chambers and the exteriors of the Parliament building were procured from Indore in Madhya Pradesh. The new Parliament building used manufactured sand or M-sand from Charkhi Dadri in Haryana for creating concrete mix for the construction activities.

M-Sand is considered environment friendly as it is manufactured by crushing large hard stones or granite and not by dredging of river beds. The fly ash bricks used in the construction were sourced from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, while brass works and pre-cast trenches were from Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Built at an estimated cost of Rs 1200 crore, the new Parliament building can comfortably seat 888 members in the Lok Sabha chamber and 300 in the Rajya Sabha chamber.

In case of a joint sitting of both the Houses, a total of 1,280 members can be accommodated in the Lok Sabha chamber. The prime minister had laid the foundation stone of the new Parliament building, a key component of the ambitious Central Vista project, on December 10, 2020. The construction work started in early 2021 and took a little over two years to complete.

The present Parliament building was completed in 1927, and is now 96 years old. Over the years, the old building was found to be inadequate for present day requirements. Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha had passed resolutions urging the government to construct a new building for Parliament. The existing building served as independent India's first Parliament and witnessed the adoption of the Constitution.

Originally called the Council House, the building housed the Imperial Legislative Council. The Parliament building witnessed the addition of two floors in 1956 to address the demand for more space. In 2006, the Parliament Museum was added to showcase the 2,500 years of rich democratic heritage of India. Officials said the old building was never designed to accommodate a bicameral legislature and the seating arrangements were cramped and cumbersome, with no desks beyond the second row.

The Central Hall in the old Parliament building has seating capacity only for 440 people and the need for more space was acutely felt during joint sittings of both the houses.
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal condemned the police detention of wrestlers protesting at Jantar Mantar here on Sunday calling their act "grossly wrong."

Delhi Police on Sunday detained Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik, and Bajrang Punia after they breached the security cordon moving towards the new Parliament building for a women's 'Mahapanchayat.'

Kejriwal retweeted a video shared by Malik that showed wrestlers being dragged by police to a detention van after a lengthy scuffle. "Such treatment to the sportsperson who brought laurels to the country is grossly wrong and condemnable," he wrote.

Jantar Mantar turned into a scene of chaos when Vinesh Phogat and her cousin Sangeeta Phogat tried to breach the barricades and as police tried to contain the breach with a lot of shoving and pushing.

Immediately after the wrestlers were pushed into buses and taken to an unknown location, police began clearing the protest site by removing cots, mattresses, cooler fans, the tarpaulin ceiling, and other belongings of the wrestlers. The agitating wrestlers, who include Olympic medallists Punia and Malik and Asian Games gold winner Phogat, have been demanding the arrest of outgoing Wrestling Federation of India President Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh accusing him of sexually harassing several women grapplers.

The Delhi Police has filed two FIRs against Singh, one of which relates to allegations by the minor wrestler and has been registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, while the other is related to outraging modesty of adult women wrestlers. AQSingh has rejected the allegations against him and offered to undergo narco analysis and polygraph tests provided the protesting wrestlers also undergo the tests.
NEW DELHI: The Rashtriya Janata Dal on Sunday allegedly equated the structure of the new Parliament building with that of a coffin. Earlier today Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the new Parliament building to the nation by unveiling a plaque and installing the 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber. Taking to Twitter, the RJD shared a photo of a coffin and asked 'Yeh kya hai (What is this?) in hindi. The reaction has elicited sharp reactions from BJP. "A case of treason should be registered against such people who have compared the new Parliament building with a coffin: BJP leader Sushil Modi said.

RJD leader Shakti Yadav while speaking to ANI said, "PM Modi has buried democracy. The coffin has been posted as Modi has ensured the death of democracy." The party had earlier announced that it would boycott the inauguration ceremony.

"This is very unfortunate. Today they are comparing it with a coffin, were they comparing the old Parliament with 'zero'? We were earlier sitting in zero?" BJP leader Dushyant Gautam asked. RJD Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha said that there is a need for course correction with the entire Parliament Building inauguration.

This is the level to which they have fallen



Disgusting



This will prove to be the final nail in the coffin of RJDs politics



Trikon or Tribhuj has much significance in Indian system



By the way the coffin is hexagonal or has 6 sided polygon pic.twitter.com/S5SN5Ro3hN  Shehzad Jai Hind (@Shehzad_Ind) May 28, 2023

Earlier today, PM Modi felicitated some of the workers involved in the construction of the new building. He handed over mementoes to them Prime Minister Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. PM Modi also prostrated as a mark of respect before the 'Sengol' during the ceremony.

#WATCH | The coffin in our tweet is a representation of democracy being buried. The country will not accept this. Parliament is the temple of democracy and it is the place to have discussions...: RJD leader Shakti Singh Yadav on his party comparing the new Parliament with a pic.twitter.com/bY4yVfFzzJ  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

The newly constructed building of Parliament, which will work to further enrich India's glorious democratic traditions and constitutional values, is also equipped with state-of-the-art facilities which will help the Members to perform their functions in a better way. The new Parliament building is designed to enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha.

#WATCH | It would have been better if Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla inaugurated the new Parliament House. RJD has no stand, the old Parliament building did not even have clearance from Delhi Fire Service. Why are they (RJD) calling the Parliament a coffin? They could have said pic.twitter.com/E1C0EQYZ52  ANI (@ANI) May 28, 2023

In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha. Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber.
New Delhi: A special Rs 75 coin was launched on Sunday to mark the inauguration of the new Parliament building. Notably, the country is also celebrating its 75th year of independence. A special stamp to mark the occasion was also launched. Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the new Parliament building to the nation and installed in the Lok Sabha chamber the historic 'Sengol', which has marked the transfer of power from the British to Indians in 1947.

The obverse face of the coin bears the Lion Capital of 'Ashoka Pillar' in the centre with the legend 'Satyamev Jayate' inscribed below. The Ashoka Pillar is flanked by the word 'Bharat' in Devnagri script on the left periphery and the word 'INDIA' in English on the right periphery.

The reverse face of the coin bears the image of the Parliament Complex. On the upper periphery, the inscription 'Sansi Sankul' is written in Devnagari script and on the lower periphery, the inscription 'PARLIAMENT COMPLEX' is written in English. Also, the Year '2023' in International numeral is written below the image of the Parliament Complex.

#WATCH | Prime Minister Narendra Modi releases a stamp and Rs 75 coin in the new Parliament. pic.twitter.com/7YSi1j9dW9 May 28, 2023

The shape of the coin is circular with a 44 mm diameter and it weighs around 35 grams. The coin having 200 serrations is composed of 50 per cent silver, 40 per cent copper, 5 per cent nickel and 5 per cent Zinc. The earlier Parliament building was inaugurated by then Governor-General Lord Irwin on January 18, 1927. The new Parliament building has the capacity to seat 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 300 in Rajya Sabha.

The previous building of the Parliament there was a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha. Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses can now be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber.
Beijing: In December, China abruptly abandoned its "Zero Covid" policies amid a surge of infections and rising public anger against lockdowns. Covid cases again are on the rise, but this time the nation appears to be determined to press on with normal life as the government focuses on reigniting economic growth, New York Times reported.

Though other countries have long settled into such a pattern, it is a shift for China. Until late last year, its national leadership was still ready to lock down whole neighbourhoods and districts, even cities, in a bid to stamp out what were sometimes just small clusters of cases. The New York Times is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership.

The Chinese health authorities have reported a rise in Covid cases since April, especially from newer subvariants spreading worldwide. Zhong Nanshan, a prominent doctor who was among the first to openly confirm in early 2020 that Covid could easily spread among people, estimated earlier this week that by late June as many as 65 million people a week could become infected with the coronavirus across China.

That would be up from what he estimated at 40 million infections a week in late May. China no longer publishes regular official nationwide estimates of infections, New York Times reported.

By comparison, after "Zero Covid" controls were set aside in December, new infections reached 37 million a day in China at their peak, according to reports.

Even if, as Zhong acknowledged, the pace of rising infections is laden with uncertainty, a rebound in cases was always likely, and many in China appear steeled to live with a background hum of Covid infections, and sometimes Covid deaths, New York Times reported.

"People have become used to infections, and they see this as normal in the post-Covid era," Lin Zixian, 36, who works for a technology company in Beijing, said in a telephone interview. China's leader, Xi Jinping, still often wears a medical mask when he meets people indoors.

But Lin said that he and other members of his family had stopped masking in most public spaces, as have many people in China, New York Times reported.

Officials across China appear to be trying to prepare the population for a rise in infections without reintroducing the heavy controls that by late last year had exhausted public patience.

Since abandoning its tight restrictions on domestic travel, the government has shifted to reviving growth and job creation. The jobless rate of about 20 per cent among urban youth may appear more politically pressing than rising Covid numbers, New York Times reported.

Health officials in Beijing have recommended wearing masks on buses and subways, but it is not mandatory and quite a few passengers do not, especially younger ones. While the recent rise in cases may yet strain hospitals, many people appear more willing to endure the illness at home rather than heading to fever clinics.

For many younger patients, infection can mean a week or so with a fever and other symptoms. Over recent weeks, people have chronicled their symptoms on social media, often in a tone of mordant resignation.

More problematic are older people, many of whom have not had Covid and who may not have received a full round of vaccination shots. Up to three-quarters of Chinese people infected in the recent rise were not infected in the first wave, Zhang Wenhong, the director of the Center for infectious diseases at Huashan Hospital in Shanghai and a major voice in China's response to Covid, said in a recent interview with Chinese media outlets, New York Times reported.

China should increase vaccination rates, especially among old people; upgrade its homegrown vaccine to better protect against new variants; allow the introduction of internationally developed vaccines; and make anti-viral drugs cheaper and more available to Covid patients, experts say.

This news article was written by Chris Buckley for the New York Times. He is The Times's chief correspondent in China, where he has lived for most of the past 30 years after growing up in Sydney, Australia.
Patna: Janata Dal (United) leader Manjit Singh on Sunday said that an Opposition party meeting will be held on June 12 under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Bihar. While talking to ANI, the JDU leader said, "On June 12, there will be a grand meeting of Opposition parties in Bihar under the leadership of Nitish Kumar, which will send a message to the whole country. Change in the country will start from Bihar only." "You will see that parties with the same views will stand together," he added.

Meanwhile, JDU leaders and workers on Sunday sat on a day-long hunger strike at the Ambedkar statue near the Patna High Court to protest against the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The leaders also held a march from the JDU office in Patna to Patna High Court.

JDU alleged that PM Modi and the Central government have disrespected President Droupadi Murmu by not inviting her to the inauguration of the new Parliament.

Notably, Congress and other opposition parties decided to boycott the inauguration of the new Parliament building. They stated that it "insults the high office of the President and violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution".

A total of 21 parties decided to boycott the inauguration of the new parliament building. Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the new Parliament building to the nation on Sunday by unveiling a plaque and installing the 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber.

The newly constructed building of Parliament, which will work to further enrich India's glorious democratic traditions and constitutional values, is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities which will help the Members to perform their functions in a better way. The new Parliament building is designed to enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha.

In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha. Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber.
Delhi police have filed FIR against the group of wrestlers protesting against WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh at Delhi's Jantar Mantar. The FIR has been filed hours after a scuffle broke after the protestors - including national wrestlers Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia - tried to march towards the new Parliament building inaugurated today by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The police FIR also names organisers of the march. The police have booked organisers on charges of rioting and obstructing public servants in the discharge of duty after some of them were detained while marching to the new Parliament building.

The police said 700 people were detained across Delhi, including 109 protesters at Jantar Mantar. According to a senior police officer, the FIR has been registered under sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 353 (assault or use of criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

All women protestors, including wrestlers Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat and Sangeeta Phogat, were released on late Sunday evening. Around 14 protestors from Najafgarh, detained from Janpath were released around 10 p.m. and 16 protestors including Surendra Solanki, the president of Palam Khap, were released from Vasant Vihar police station around 10:30 p.m. The Sarv Khap mahapanchayat and protesting wrestlers had given a call to hold a women panchayat outside the newly constructed Parliament building in Delhi on Sunday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to unveil it.

Many opposition parties have criticised authorities for not arresting Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a BJP MP, and have expressed solidarity with the protesting wrestlers. The Delhi Police had filed two FIRs including one under POCSO Act against Singh, who has denied all the charges. Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule and Left leaders condemned the treatment meted out to the protesting wrestlers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday dedicated to the nation its new Parliament. He also installed the sacred Sengol near the speaker's chair in Lok Sabha. The 20 opposition parties including Congress and the NCP skipped the event following their boycott announcement. The new Parliament was inaugurated after all-faith prayers were held on the building premises. PM Modi also launched the commemorative coin of Rs 75 on the occasion. Addressing the dignitaries and Members of the Rajya Sabha as well as Lok Sabha inside the new lower house, Prime Minister Modi said that India has left its colonial mindset behind. Below are the 10 key highlights from PM Modi's speech:

* PM Modi said that some moments in the developmental journey of a nation get immortalised and today is one such day. He said that the new Parliament building is not just a complex but a symbol of the aspirations of 140 crore Indians as well as a temple of democracy. He said that this new Parliament will become witness to the rise of a self-reliant India.

* The Prime Minister said that the new Parliament complex will witness the realisation of a 'developed India' resolution. He said that when India develops, the world progresses. "When India moves forward, then the World moves forward. This new Parliament will also lead to the development of the world through the development of India," said PM Modi.

* Speaking about 'Sengol', PM Modi said that it was a symbol of power transfer from the British and the NDA government has given due respect to it. "In the Chola dynasty, the 'Sengol' symbolised justice, righteousness and good governance...It is our good fortune that we have been able to restore the pride of the holy 'Sengol'. Whenever proceedings start in this House the 'Sengol' will inspire us," said PM Modi.

* PM Modi said that India is the mother of democracy and the foundation of global democracy. He said that democracy is India's 'Sanskaar', idea & tradition. "Our democracy is our inspiration, our Constitution our resolve...Parliament is best representative of this inspiration, resolution," said PM Modi.

* The Prime Minister said that several years of foreign rule stole India's pride from it. "Today, India has left behind that colonial mindset...The India of the 21st century is brimming with self-confidence. It has left behind the mindset of slavery," said PM Modi.

* He said that the new Parliament building perfect example of the co-existence of the old and new. "This building is equipped with modern facilities and equipped with the latest gadgets. Construction of the new Parliament building gave employment to 60,000 workers and a digital gallery dedicated to them has been built," said PM Modi.

* PM Modi said that when the number of Parliamentarians will increase in future, the new building will be able to accommodate them. "There was a need for new Parliament. We also have to see that the number of seats and MPs will increase in the coming time. That's why it was need of the hour that a new Parliament is made," said PM Modi.

* The prime minister said that from panchayat bhawan to Sansad Bhawan, the NDA government's inspiration is the development of India and its people. "Today, as we are proud of the construction of this new Parliament, it also gives me immense satisfaction when I think about the construction of homes for 4 crore poor people and 11 crore toilets in the country in the last 9 years. When we talk about modern facilities in the new Parliament, I feel content we have constructed over 4 lakh kilometres of roads to connect villages in the country," said PM Modi.

* He said that the first condition of success is trust in being successful. "This new Parliament will give new heights to this trust. This will be an inspiration for developing India. This Parliament house will awaken the sense of duty in all citizens," said PM Modi.

* Prime Minister Modi said that every Indian is today feeling proud after seeing the new Parliament. He said the new building houses heritage, Vastu, art, skill, culture and voices of the constitution.
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair in the new Parliament building, after performing puja. PM Modi was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by Adheenams before it was installed in the new Parliament building. PM Modi took a decision to adopt Sengol as a national symbol of the Amrit Kaal.

This is the same Sengol that was accepted by the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru at his residence on the night of August 14, in the presence of several leaders. The ceremony began with a traditional 'pooja' with Vedic rituals which will continue for an hour. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla was also present with along with PM Modi during the pooja.

The inauguration will take place in two phases. The pooja was held in a pandal (canopy) near the Gandhi statue in Parliament. After the pujas, the dignitaries will examine the premises of the Lok Sabha's chamber and the Rajya Sabha chamber in the new building.

The morning phase will end at close to 9:30 am after which the second leg of the ceremony is expected to begin at noon with the singing of the national anthem in the Lok Sabha chamber in the presence of all the dignitaries including PM Modi. At 11:30 am, all the invitees including members of Parliament, Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha, chairman and other distinguished guests are expected to be seated in the Lok Sabha chamber in the new building.

During this phase, a speech will be delivered by the Deputy Rajya Sabha Chairman, Hariwansh, who will further read a written congratulatory message on behalf of Rajya Sabha, Chairman, Jagdeep Dhankar. A written message by President Droupadi Murmu will also be read out on the occasion. The present building of the Parliament was completed in 1927, and is now going to be almost 100 years old. The lack of space was being experienced in this building as per the present requirements. In both Houses, there was also a lack of convenient arrangements for the sitting of the MPs which was affecting the efficiency of the work of the Members.

Considering the above, both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha passed resolutions urging the government to construct a new building for the Parliament. Consequently, on 10 December 2020, the foundation stone of the new building of Parliament was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The newly constructed Parliament building has been built in record time with quality construction.

Now the newly constructed building of Parliament, which will work to further enrich India's glorious democratic traditions and constitutional values, is also equipped with state-of-the-art facilities which will help the Members to perform their functions in a better way. The new Parliament building will enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha.In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha.

Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha while 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber.
The board of Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad (KLSE:DLADY) has announced that it will pay a dividend on the 22nd of June, with investors receiving MYR0.25 per share. The dividend yield is 1.9% based on this payment, which is a little bit low compared to the other companies in the industry.

Check out our latest analysis for Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad

Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad's Payment Has Solid Earnings Coverage

While yield is important, another factor to consider about a company's dividend is whether the current payout levels are feasible. Prior to this announcement, Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad's dividend made up quite a large proportion of earnings but only 25% of free cash flows. This leaves plenty of cash for reinvestment into the business.

Over the next year, EPS is forecast to expand by 35.3%. If the dividend continues along recent trends, we estimate the payout ratio will be 66%, which would make us comfortable with the sustainability of the dividend, despite the levels currently being quite high.

Dividend Volatility

While the company has been paying a dividend for a long time, it has cut the dividend at least once in the last 10 years. The dividend has gone from an annual total of MYR2.60 in 2013 to the most recent total annual payment of MYR0.50. This works out to a decline of approximately 81% over that time. A company that decreases its dividend over time generally isn't what we are looking for.

The Dividend Has Limited Growth Potential

With a relatively unstable dividend, and a poor history of shrinking dividends, it's even more important to see if EPS is growing. Over the past five years, it looks as though Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad's EPS has declined at around 22% a year. A sharp decline in earnings per share is not great from from a dividend perspective. Even conservative payout ratios can come under pressure if earnings fall far enough. It's not all bad news though, as the earnings are predicted to rise over the next 12 months - we would just be a bit cautious until this becomes a long term trend.

Our Thoughts On Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad's Dividend

Overall, we don't think this company makes a great dividend stock, even though the dividend wasn't cut this year. The company is generating plenty of cash, which could maintain the dividend for a while, but the track record hasn't been great. This company is not in the top tier of income providing stocks.

It's important to note that companies having a consistent dividend policy will generate greater investor confidence than those having an erratic one. Meanwhile, despite the importance of dividend payments, they are not the only factors our readers should know when assessing a company. For example, we've picked out 1 warning sign for Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at our curated list of high yield dividend stocks.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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New Delhi: Actor Alia Bhatt on Saturday won the Best Performance in the Leading role (Female) award for her film 'Gangubai Kathiawadi' at the IIFA 2023.

The 30-year-old actor was not in attendance to accept her award in person. On Sunday, the 'Brahmastra' actor took to her Instagram account and shared a picture on her stories which she captioned, "Thank you so much @iifa. Sorry, I couldn't be there in person to receive the award. A special thank you to the audience for your constant support. This brings me and the entire team so much joy."

If reports are to be believed, Alia skipped the event due to a family emergency. Alia's maternal grandfather, Narendra Razdan, is reportedly not well.

Producer Jayantilal Gada received the award on behalf of Alia.

Helmed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, 'Gangubai Kathiawadi', which was released in theatres on February 25, 2022, revolves around a maiden sold by a suitor into prostitution and how she becomes a prominent and celebrated figure in the underworld and Kamathipua red-light district.

Apart from Alia, 'Gangubai Kathiawadi' also featured several remarkable actors, including Ajay Devgn, Jim Sarbh, Shantanu Maheshwari, Vijay Raaz, Indira Tiwari and Seema Bhargava among others.

Earlier this month, Alia was announced as the first Indian global ambassador of the luxury fashion brand, Gucci. Taking to Instagram, the fashion brand shared the news and captioned it, "Alia Bhatt is the House's newest Global Brand Ambassador. To mark the occasion, the actress, producer, and entrepreneur were captured with the Gucci Bamboo 1947 bag."

Alia also attended the Gucci Cruise 2024 show in Seoul. The 'Raazi' star hit the iconic red carpet in a dreamy white gown designed by fashion designer Prabal Gurung.

This year's theme was 'Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty', based on the new Costume Institute exhibition exploring the work of the iconic designer. Lagerfeld, who died in 2019 at the age of 85, spent decades creating clothes for Balmain, Patou, Chloe, Fendi and Chanel in addition to his own namesake label, Page Six reported.

She teamed the gown with embellished gloves, matching diamond earrings and rings. For the glam, she opted for a centre-parted half-tied ponytail, high heels, subtle smoky eye shadow, kohl-lined eyes, nude lip shade, and a dewy base.

(Meanwhile, Alia will be next seen in director Karan Johar's romantic film 'Rocky aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani' opposite Ranveer Singh.

The film is all set to hit the theatres on July 28, 2023.
New Delhi: Actor Preity Zinta offered prayers at Shree Somnath Jyotirlinga Temple on Sunday.

The actor also took to her Instagram handle to share the video from her recent visit. In the video, she can be seen having darshan with her family members. She wrote in the caption, "When Mom insisted on visiting the 12 Jyotirlingas in India I knew I couldn't say no to her. Of course, we had to start with the Incredible Somnath Temple in Gujrat. Seeing it up close filled me with awe. The afternoon Aarti was intoxicating & the temple was Majestic vibrating with energy. I was overcome with a deep sense of gratitude & a feeling of how small I am in the larger scheme of life. I was both humbled & fascinated at the same time. This beautiful temple is a great symbol of Indian Heritage & resilience. It was sparkling clean & so well taken care of. As I bowed down to pray I realised my mom was just a messenger. This trip was meant for me. Bhole Nath wanted me there. That feeling was surreal & magical. I will forever be grateful to my mom for starting this deeply satisfying & spiritual journey. As a mother myself, I hope I can keep my children grounded & close to their roots so they grow up to be proud of their rich culture & have a strong moral compass. This temple is a must-see. I'm sure you will feel the same way I felt #Om #somnathtempal #Gratitude #ting."

She also gave a sneak peek into the meals she had in Gujarat in the clip. The post by the 'Kya Kehna' actor received a lot of reactions from the fans. A social media wrote, "Enormously beautiful PZ ma'am " Another commented, "Very nice place good looking ma'am." "The way you are following Hinduism is inspiring. Jai Bholenath. Har Har Mahadev." , a fanpage wrote.

Meanwhile, on the work front, Preity has worked in various Bollywood films like 'Har Dil Jo Pyar Karega', 'Chori Chori Chupke Chupke', 'Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha', 'Jaan-E-Mann', and 'Heroes'.

Preity has been living in Los Angeles ever since she tied the knot with Gene. The couple got married on February 29, 2016, in Los Angeles. The duo became parents to twins in 2021. Announcing the birth of her children via surrogacy, Preity in 2021 wrote, "Hi everyone, I wanted to share our amazing news with all of you today. Gene and I are overjoyed and our hearts are filled with so much gratitude and with so much love as we welcome our twins Jai Zinta Goodenough and Gia Zinta Goodenough into our family."
New Delhi: While the recently released 'Naseeb Se' song of Kartik Aaryan's upcoming romantic musical love saga 'Satyaprem Ki Katha is taking over the heads of the audience, seems like the youngest superstar has brought a perfect moment to relish his love with Katori through this song. The love Kartik shares for Katori is just so pure and real that it is indeed very well visible in this adorable video.

Taking to his social media, Kartik shared an absolutely loving and beautiful video of him with Katori with 'Naseeb Se' song in the background. Lying on the floor, the superstar captured him and Katori and expressed how lucky he is to have Katori in his life. While Katori can also be seen pampering Kartik, we can not help but only fall in love with the chemistry between these two.

Kartik further jotted down the caption, "#Naseebse mila jo ye tera saath hai..Har pal mere hothon pe teri hi baat ho .. Aapki life mein bhi aisa koi hai ? #SatyaPremKiKatha"

On the work front, Apart from Satyaprem Ki Katha, Kartik has interesting films in the pipeline like, Aashiqui 3, and Kabir Khans Untitled Next among a few other unannounced ones.
All entry and exit gates at Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations of the Delhi Metro have been closed because of the inauguration of the new parliament building, officials said on Sunday.

The new structure is located near the Central Secretariat station, which is an interchange facility between Yellow Line and Violet Line. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new parliament building on Sunday in the presence of a large number of dignitaries and priests.

Also read: 9 Years Of Modi Govt: Focus On Making Indian Railways Safer Than Ever - A Look At Transformation

"As per directions received from the Delhi Metro Rail Police, all entry and exit gates of Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations have been closed for passenger movement," the Delhi Metro Railway Corporation tweeted around 8:30 am.

A senior official said the gates of these two stations were closed since the start of metro services on Sunday. However, interchange facilities are available at Central Secretariat. Announcements were being made regularly at these two stations since morning, the official said.

Ahead of the inauguration, police issued a traffic advisory that the New Delhi district will be treated as a controlled area and entry of vehicles will be restricted. Besides additional deployment of force, CCTV monitoring is being carried out continuously, the police said.

While around 20 parties have announced a boycott of the ceremony, agitating wrestlers are threatening to hold a protest meeting in front of the new parliament building on Sunday.

According to the traffic advisory, only public transport vehicles, civil service aspirants, bonafide residents, labelled vehicles and emergency vehicles will be allowed to move in the New Delhi area. The Delhi traffic police has urged people to plan their journey accordingly and avoid the New Delhi district from 5:30 am to 3 pm.
New Delhi: India experienced a 31 per cent surge in malware attacks in 2022, which should prompt companies to intensify their efforts in safeguarding themselves against cyberattacks, said a SonicWall report. The report also highlighted a 10 per cent increase in "intrusion attempts" and a staggering 53 per cent rise in "ransomware attacks" compared to the previous year.

Furthermore, the '2023 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report' revealed a noteworthy surge of 116 per cent in "crypto-jacking attacks" and an 84 per cent increase in "IoT attacks". SonicWall is a cybersecurity solutions provider based in the United States.

According to Debasish Mukherjee, Vice President -- APJ at SonicWall, although malware attacks have decreased in other regions, they remain alarmingly high in India. He said that in countries like India, threat actors are expanding their scope of attack, employing different methods and targeting various areas. These threat actors persistently search for opportunities and repeatedly strike upon achieving success.

"The increase in cyberattacks in India can be attributed to both the evolving strategies of threat actors and their exploration of new avenues for success, including IoT and crypto-jacking." He stressed that it was essential for organisations to grasp the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) employed by attackers.

By adopting threat-informed cybersecurity strategies, businesses can effectively defend against and recover from disruptive incidents, he said. Mukherjee also highlighted SonicWall's enterprise work, stating that the proportion of business varies between countries. In India, 55 per cent of SonicWall's business comes from enterprise clients, while 45 per cent comes from SMEs.

The company has over 500 employees in India, making it the second-largest team across all regions.

Mukherjee expressed optimism about substantial growth in their hiring endeavours while expanding their R&D facility in Bangalore. Organisations are constantly facing an evolving threat landscape, where threat actors are finding new and creative ways to stay ahead of the enterprise, he added.



On a global scale, the Cyber Security Market has already surpassed USD 173.5 billion in 2022. It is projected to exhibit a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.9 per cent, reaching over USD 266.2 billion by the end of 2027.
New Delhi: Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out a new feature called "screen-sharing", along with a new placement for tabs within the bottom navigation bar, to beta testers on Android. According to WABetaInfo, this feature will allow users to easily share their screen during a video call.

This feature may be unavailable on old versions of Android, may not work in large group calls, and the recipient may be unable to get the content of the users' screen in case they are using an outdated version of WhatsApp.



The report said that this feature is only enabled if users give their consent to share the content of their screen. Moreover, after installing the new version of the WhatsApp beta, some users may notice a few minor changes regarding the new bottom navigation bar.



In particular, some tabs within the bottom navigation bar have been arranged in a certain order. Some users may now see the following tabs in the bottom navigation bar - Chats, Calls, Communities, and Status, the report mentioned.



Meanwhile, WhatsApp is reportedly working on a new feature called -- "WhatsApp usernames", which will let users to choose unique usernames for their accounts. With this feature, users will be able to opt for a unique and memorable username, instead of depending solely on phone numbers to identify contacts.



The company may also provide users with the ability to contact others by entering a username within the app without knowing their phone numbers.
ISLAMABAD: At least 10 people of a nomadic tribe were killed and 25 injured when an avalanche hit the Gilgit-Baltistan region in Pakistan on Saturday, police said. According to the police, 10 people, including three women were killed in the calamity in the Shunter Top area of Astore district in the mountainous region.

"Rescue work was launched with the help of locals and later the Pakistan Army soldiers also joined the operation," the police said. As many as 25 people of Gujjar family were travelling along with their cattle from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to Astore when they were hit by the avalanche, Dawn News quoted rescue officials as saying.

The injured persons were taken to District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital Astore, where the condition of 12 was critical. Earlier, Deputy Inspector General of Police for the Diamer-Astore Division, Tufail Mir, said rescue teams were facing challenges in reaching the affected area due to its remote location and difficult terrain.

Force Command Northern Areas, a military formation of the Pakistan Army, provided helicopter service, relief items and paramedical staff to assist with the rescue operation, but they could not be flown 'to the site due to bad weather conditions'. The district administration is closely monitoring the rescue operation while an emergency had been imposed in DHQ Hospital Astore and Combined Military Hospital Skardu, the official said.

Chief Secretary Mohiuddin Wani confirmed the mishap and said rescue teams were working in the affected area. Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Khalid Khurshid Khan expressed deep sorrow over the loss of lives and instructed local authorities to initiate rescue operations.

He called upon the secretary interior, director general of GBDMA (Gilgit Baltistan Disaster Management Authority) and other officials to look into the incident immediately. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a tweet expressed deep sorrow over the loss of precious lives in the avalanche, adding that such incidents were increasing in Pakistan due to the effects of climate change.

"The whole world has to fulfil its responsibility to protect developing countries like Pakistan from these harmful effects," he said. Five out of 14 world peaks above the height of 8,000 metres are located in the region. In addition to this, Gilgit-Baltistan has over 7,000 glaciers and often witnesses avalanches, landslides, and glacial lake outbursts.

In a tragic incident in 2012, at least 129 Pakistan Army soldiers and 11 civilians lost their lives when a massive avalanche hit their camp in the Gayari area, some 300 kilometres northeast of Skardu district.
Elon Musk of Essex chased by suppliers as it lays off staff

Asher Bennet of truck company Tevva stands in front of one of his vehicles - Jeff Gilbert

An electric lorry company run by the Elon Musk of Essex has been forced to fight off legal action over late payments as it lays off staff and seeks to raise new funding.

Essex-based Tevva Motors, which has sold trucks to customers including Royal Mail, was recently served with a winding up petition by an aluminium supplier over repeated missed payments.

A winding up petition, a legal bid to put a company into administration, is typically seen as a last resort when a supplier has exhausted other options to secure payment.

It comes as Tevva, which has raised more than 100m from investors including the British taxpayer, lays off a large proportion of its staff.

The company said it was looking for new investment and making reductions in areas that do not affect its manufacturing operations.

Tevva was founded in 2012 by Asher Bennett, the brother of the former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali. Mr Bennett has been dubbed the Elon Musk of Essex because of his development of electric vehicles in the southern county.

The company has started production of a 140-mile range truck and has planned a further model partly powered by hydrogen fuel.

It has signed sales agreements with Royal Mail and Travis Perkins.

The new hydrogen electric truck from Tevva - SEC Newgate/PA

The winding up petition was issued by Hadleigh Castings, an Ipswich aluminium foundry, earlier this month. It sought 84,011.76 for five unpaid invoices as well as interest and compensation.

Filings said: Despite numerous requests by the Petitioner, the company has failed to settle the above invoices or provide any reason why the invoices have not been paid. As such, the Petitioner believes that the company is insolvent and unable to pay its debts as they fall due.

The petition was withdrawn last week and Tevva said it had paid what was owed. Hadleigh Castings did not respond to a request for comment.

Tevva is yet to file accounts for 2021 at Companies House, which were due at the end of last year.

A spokesman said: Tevva is taking action to optimise performance, enable sustainable growth and safeguard our business long-term viability and success.

The external environment remains challenging for our industry, and the company is taking decisive actions to achieve operational efficiencies to safeguard long-term success.

The spokesman said it was making reductions in areas that dont affect the companys ability to focus on getting trucks built and out to eagerly awaiting customers.

The company said it is in the process of filing accounts, adding that Tevva was in ongoing discussion with financiers which will conclude soon.

Mr Bennett recently said he had been fielding repeated calls from US officials seeking to lure the company to America with vast subsidies.

The taxpayer is a shareholder in Tevva through the Future Fund, which invested in start-ups during the pandemic.

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The excitement of investing in a company that can reverse its fortunes is a big draw for some speculators, so even companies that have no revenue, no profit, and a record of falling short, can manage to find investors. But as Peter Lynch said in One Up On Wall Street, 'Long shots almost never pay off.' While a well funded company may sustain losses for years, it will need to generate a profit eventually, or else investors will move on and the company will wither away.

In contrast to all that, many investors prefer to focus on companies like TransDigm Group (NYSE:TDG), which has not only revenues, but also profits. Even if this company is fairly valued by the market, investors would agree that generating consistent profits will continue to provide TransDigm Group with the means to add long-term value to shareholders.

Check out our latest analysis for TransDigm Group

How Quickly Is TransDigm Group Increasing Earnings Per Share?

If a company can keep growing earnings per share (EPS) long enough, its share price should eventually follow. So it makes sense that experienced investors pay close attention to company EPS when undertaking investment research. Over the last three years, TransDigm Group has grown EPS by 11% per year. That growth rate is fairly good, assuming the company can keep it up.

It's often helpful to take a look at earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) margins, as well as revenue growth, to get another take on the quality of the company's growth. The good news is that TransDigm Group is growing revenues, and EBIT margins improved by 3.1 percentage points to 43%, over the last year. Ticking those two boxes is a good sign of growth, in our book.

You can take a look at the company's revenue and earnings growth trend, in the chart below. To see the actual numbers, click on the chart.

Of course the knack is to find stocks that have their best days in the future, not in the past. You could base your opinion on past performance, of course, but you may also want to check this interactive graph of professional analyst EPS forecasts for TransDigm Group.

Are TransDigm Group Insiders Aligned With All Shareholders?

We would not expect to see insiders owning a large percentage of a US$44b company like TransDigm Group. But thanks to their investment in the company, it's pleasing to see that there are still incentives to align their actions with the shareholders. Indeed, they have a considerable amount of wealth invested in it, currently valued at US$196m. We note that this amounts to 0.4% of the company, which may be small owing to the sheer size of TransDigm Group but it's still worth mentioning. This should still be a great incentive for management to maximise shareholder value.

Does TransDigm Group Deserve A Spot On Your Watchlist?

One positive for TransDigm Group is that it is growing EPS. That's nice to see. To add an extra spark to the fire, significant insider ownership in the company is another highlight. These two factors are a huge highlight for the company which should be a strong contender your watchlists. It is worth noting though that we have found 2 warning signs for TransDigm Group that you need to take into consideration.

Although TransDigm Group certainly looks good, it may appeal to more investors if insiders were buying up shares. If you like to see insider buying, then this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying, could be exactly what you're looking for.

Please note the insider transactions discussed in this article refer to reportable transactions in the relevant jurisdiction.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. For example, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Euro Manganese (CVE:EMN) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. In this article, we define cash burn as its annual (negative) free cash flow, which is the amount of money a company spends each year to fund its growth. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.

Check out our latest analysis for Euro Manganese

How Long Is Euro Manganese's Cash Runway?

You can calculate a company's cash runway by dividing the amount of cash it has by the rate at which it is spending that cash. When Euro Manganese last reported its balance sheet in March 2023, it had zero debt and cash worth CA$14m. Importantly, its cash burn was CA$15m over the trailing twelve months. Therefore, from March 2023 it had roughly 11 months of cash runway. That's quite a short cash runway, indicating the company must either reduce its annual cash burn or replenish its cash. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

How Is Euro Manganese's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

Because Euro Manganese isn't currently generating revenue, we consider it an early-stage business. So while we can't look to sales to understand growth, we can look at how the cash burn is changing to understand how expenditure is trending over time. With the cash burn rate up 34% in the last year, it seems that the company is ratcheting up investment in the business over time. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but investors should be mindful of the fact that will shorten the cash runway. Euro Manganese makes us a little nervous due to its lack of substantial operating revenue. So we'd generally prefer stocks from this list of stocks that have analysts forecasting growth.

Can Euro Manganese Raise More Cash Easily?

Given its cash burn trajectory, Euro Manganese shareholders should already be thinking about how easy it might be for it to raise further cash in the future. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future growth. By comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).

Euro Manganese has a market capitalisation of CA$72m and burnt through CA$15m last year, which is 20% of the company's market value. That's fairly notable cash burn, so if the company had to sell shares to cover the cost of another year's operations, shareholders would suffer some costly dilution.

Is Euro Manganese's Cash Burn A Worry?

Euro Manganese is not in a great position when it comes to its cash burn situation. Although we can understand if some shareholders find its cash burn relative to its market cap acceptable, we can't ignore the fact that we consider its increasing cash burn to be downright troublesome. Summing up, we think the Euro Manganese's cash burn is a risk, based on the factors we mentioned in this article. Separately, we looked at different risks affecting the company and spotted 4 warning signs for Euro Manganese (of which 3 are significant!) you should know about.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of companies insiders are buying, and this list of stocks growth stocks (according to analyst forecasts)

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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Hong Kong, China--(Newsfile Corp. - May 28, 2023) - Fetch Book, a pioneer in the field of tourism technology, recently announced the establishment of its North American market expansion headquarters in Los Angeles, marking the company's emphasis on and investment in the North American market, as well as an important step in its global market strategy.

As a tourism data company, Fetch Book is committed to building a global platform connecting all links of the tourism industry chain. Fetch Book changes the way people travel through technology and innovation, making travel more convenient, rich and unforgettable. Whether it is individual travel or group travel, or hotel accommodation, transportation, various scenic spots and tourist destinations, Fetch Book provides high-quality products and services to meet the needs of different users. Through close cooperation with global partners, Fetch Book will continue to push the boundaries of tourism technology and contribute to the development of the industry.





Fetch Book



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8722/167831_db234289e4b3e897_001full.jpg

It is reported that Fetch Book has established its North American Market Development Headquarters in Los Angeles, USA, with Jack Callahan from the United States as Vice President of North American Development, responsible for market development, customer relations, partners, product promotion and other work in the region. Jack Callahan said, "I am honored to join the dynamic and creative team of Fetch Book, and I believe we have the ability to provide better tourism products and services for tourists in North America, while bringing more opportunities and value to the local tourism industry."





Fetch Book



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8722/167831_db234289e4b3e897_002full.jpg

North America is one of the largest travel markets in the world, with hundreds of millions of people traveling each year to enjoy a variety of travel experiences. However, in today's information explosion society, the application of many big data makes tourism information more important, coupled with the series of many digital media and community software platforms, making tourism data companies a key development sector in today's industry. With its original OBCO operation model, Fetch Book breaks the traditional communication framework, removes the barriers between online and offline, realizes the interlocking of each link, enlarges the overall audience, promotes participation, and circulates widely at a faster speed. After this model was effectively validated in the Chinese market, Fetch Book decided to extend it to the North American market.

Fetch Book's establishment of its North American market expansion headquarters in Los Angeles is an important step in its global market strategy. Previously, the company has set up Asia-Pacific Development Headquarters in Hong Kong, South American Market Development Headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Korea Development Center and Japan Development Center in Seoul, Korea and Tokyo, Japan respectively. In the future, Fetch Book will strengthen global cooperation, expand market share, and provide more innovative tourism products and services to meet the growing global tourism demand.





Fetch Book



To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8722/167831_db234289e4b3e897_003full.jpg

Fetch Book believes that tourism is a bridge for the exchange of human civilization and a way for people to better understand, appreciate and respect each other.

Company: Fetchbook (Hong Kong) Headquaters

Contact Person: Bastian Lefevre

Email: Fetchbooksm@gmail.com

Website: http://Cn.fetch-book.com

Telephone: +85281005336

Address: Hong Kong, Central, Harcourt Rd, No12

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/167831
Keck Seng (Malaysia) Berhad (KLSE:KSENG) First Quarter 2023 Results

Key Financial Results

Revenue: RM334.5m (down 18% from 1Q 2022).

Net income: RM35.1m (down 2.8% from 1Q 2022).

Profit margin: 11% (up from 8.9% in 1Q 2022).

EPS: RM0.098 (down from RM0.10 in 1Q 2022).

All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period

Keck Seng (Malaysia) Berhad's share price is broadly unchanged from a week ago.

Risk Analysis

It's still necessary to consider the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 2 warning signs with Keck Seng (Malaysia) Berhad, and understanding them should be part of your investment process.

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.

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What was lost when Tennessee banned horse race betting in 1907? One can only imagine

The pageantry of the Kentucky Derby will play out on my TV screen Saturday. Perhaps Ill be so lucky to win a few bucks in a friendly Derby pool.

And Ill wonder what might have been if the Tennessee General Assembly hadnt banned wagering on horse racing in 1907.

In our lifetime, Tennessee is renowned for the Walking Horse breed. Once upon a time, we were ahead of even Kentucky in the world of thoroughbred racing and breeding.

Once upon a time Knoxvillians could attend  and wager  on horse races right here in our fair city.

Cal Johnson, a prominent businessman in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and one of Knoxvilles most interesting characters, owned and operated a racetrack here from 1897 to 1915.

Drive out east of downtown and find Holston Drive in the Burlington neighborhood. To your right youll find a historic marker for Speedway Circle. Thats where Cal Johnson, one of Knoxvilles most interesting characters, owned and operated a racetrack from 1897 to 1915.

The oval is still there, a paved street now, lined with houses. A quiet neighborhood where Knoxville history played out more than a century ago.

Johnsons is an amazing story. Ive enjoyed reading about his life through the words of local historians Jack Neely and Robert Booker.

He was born a slave of the McClung family in 1844. As a boy, he was sent to the McClung property near Campbell Station and, like his father, Cupid Johnson, tended to the horse stable.

Emancipated as a young man, Cal made money exhuming bodies from Civil War battlefields and reuniting them with families for proper burial. He eventually became a property owner, operating several saloons and other buildings.

His fortune grew, enabling Johnson to indulge in his love for horses. By the 1880s, records show Johnson leasing a track in South Knoxville, now the site of Suttree Landing Park.

He purchased the Burlington track and packed crowds to see horse and automobile racing. The first airplane landing in Knoxville took place at Johnsons track in 1910.

Johnson was a shrewd judge of horseflesh. In 1901 he went to Frankfort, Kentucky  my hometown  to purchase the well-regarded mare Lennette. In 1893, his horse George Condit won awards at the Chicago Worlds Fair.

Meanwhile, thoroughbred racing and breeding was thriving in Middle and West Tennessee.

Long before he became president, Andrew Jackson was a major horse breeder at his estate The Hermitage, outside Nashville.

The 1806 duel in which Jackson killed Charles Dickinson was incited both by Dickinsons insult of Jacksons wife and a dispute over a horse racing bet.

Mike Strange in 2016

Belle Meade Stud, west of downtown Nashville, was a leading breeding operation before Kentucky took over as the center of the thoroughbred industry.

Belle Meade campaigned a horse named Iroquois that became the first America-bred to win Englands famed Epsom Derby.

Three Tennessee-bred colts won the Kentucky Derby, the last in 1897. From 1880 until 1905, the Tennessee Derby, staged in Memphis, was a lead-up to the big event at Churchill Downs.

Then the General Assembly outlawed wagering on horse racing. That was the beginning of the end for the Tennessee Derby and for Cal Johnsons racetrack in Knoxville.

The Kentucky Derby, of course, went on to become the most celebrated horse race in America, if not the world.

Gallahadion, raced by Milky Way Farm of Pulaski, Tennessee, won the 1940 Derby. Knoxvilles John Greer celebrated as the blanket of roses was draped on his victorious colt Foolish Pleasure in 1975.

Cal Johnson died a wealthy man in 1925. If I could hop in a time machine Id love to go back and hang on the rail some Saturday when the horses were thundering around the oval at Speedway Circle.

Mike Strange is a former writer for the News Sentinel. He currently writes a weekly sports column for Shopper News.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Imagine a Kentucky Derby rival in Tennessee, if only gambling wasn't banned
Intelligent Ultrasound Group plc (LON:IUG) shares have retraced a considerable 29% in the last month, reversing a fair amount of their solid recent performance. The drop over the last 30 days has capped off a tough year for shareholders, with the share price down 21% in that time.

Even after such a large drop in price, Intelligent Ultrasound Group may still be sending very bullish signals at the moment with its price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of -12.3x, since almost half of all companies in the United Kingdom have P/E ratios greater than 15x and even P/E's higher than 29x are not unusual. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the highly reduced P/E.

Recent times have been advantageous for Intelligent Ultrasound Group as its earnings have been rising faster than most other companies. One possibility is that the P/E is low because investors think this strong earnings performance might be less impressive moving forward. If you like the company, you'd be hoping this isn't the case so that you could potentially pick up some stock while it's out of favour.

View our latest analysis for Intelligent Ultrasound Group

Want the full picture on analyst estimates for the company? Then our free report on Intelligent Ultrasound Group will help you uncover what's on the horizon.

Does Growth Match The Low P/E?

There's an inherent assumption that a company should far underperform the market for P/E ratios like Intelligent Ultrasound Group's to be considered reasonable.

Retrospectively, the last year delivered an exceptional 19% gain to the company's bottom line. Although, its longer-term performance hasn't been as strong with three-year EPS growth being relatively non-existent overall. Accordingly, shareholders probably wouldn't have been overly satisfied with the unstable medium-term growth rates.

Shifting to the future, estimates from the only analyst covering the company suggest earnings should grow by 29% over the next year. With the market only predicted to deliver 7.6%, the company is positioned for a stronger earnings result.

In light of this, it's peculiar that Intelligent Ultrasound Group's P/E sits below the majority of other companies. It looks like most investors are not convinced at all that the company can achieve future growth expectations.

The Key Takeaway

Intelligent Ultrasound Group's P/E looks about as weak as its stock price lately. Generally, our preference is to limit the use of the price-to-earnings ratio to establishing what the market thinks about the overall health of a company.

Our examination of Intelligent Ultrasound Group's analyst forecasts revealed that its superior earnings outlook isn't contributing to its P/E anywhere near as much as we would have predicted. When we see a strong earnings outlook with faster-than-market growth, we assume potential risks are what might be placing significant pressure on the P/E ratio. It appears many are indeed anticipating earnings instability, because these conditions should normally provide a boost to the share price.

And what about other risks? Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Intelligent Ultrasound Group (of which 1 doesn't sit too well with us!) you should know about.

If these risks are making you reconsider your opinion on Intelligent Ultrasound Group, explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there.

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.

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(Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Kevin McCarthy expressed confidence Sunday that Congress would pass the debt-limit deal he negotiated with President Joe Biden, calling it a transformational move to rein in spending that a majority of Republicans would support.

Most Read from Bloomberg

He rejected as crazy a scenario in which the House fails to pass the measure, claiming 95% of his partys lawmakers are excited by the deal. Yet he acknowledged the agreement is likely to face some opposition from Republicans.

We know anytime we sit and negotiate with two parties, that you got to work with both sides of the aisle. So its not 100% of what everybody wants, but when you look the country is going to be stronger, McCarthy said in a Sunday morning press conference at the Capitol.

Asked if he was worried about a possible effort by hard-line conservative lawmakers to oust him from the speakers chair, McCarthy responded: Not at all.

McCarthy urged lawmakers to reserve judgment until they see the legislative text of the bill, which should be released Sunday  giving the representatives the promised 72 hours to read it before voting as early as Wednesday.

Biden and McCarthy plan to talk Sunday afternoon, and negotiators from both parties plan to brief their members on the deal in separate calls later in the day. Biden was traveling in Delaware on Sunday for his granddaughters high-school graduation.

Biden and McCarthy sealed their bargain during a 90-minute phone call late Saturday. Now they must shepherd the deal through Congress over the objections of hard-liners in both parties before the government runs out of borrowing capacity in about a week.

Read more: Traders Gear Up to Embrace Riskier Assets After Debt-Cap Deal

Arguing for the merits of the deal, McCarthy cited provisions taking back previously approved spending, calling them the largest rescission in American history. He also highlighted increased work requirements.

The deal cuts the Internal Revenue Services budget by $1.9 billion, the speaker said, less than the $80 billion cut in IRS funding that many GOP lawmakers had sought.

Read more: Debt Deal Adds Brake on US Economy Already at Risk of Recession

While the agreement would not affect the Biden administrations student-loan forgiveness, which is being litigated in the courts, it would end the pandemic-era moratorium on repayments. The pause is gone within 60 days of this being signed, McCarthy told Fox News Sunday.

Representative Garret Graves, one of the Republican negotiators, said the deal would also streamline permitting for energy projects  although a complete overhaul of the 54-year-old National Environmental Policy Act would be dealt with separately.

Spending Levels

The bill creates a $1.64 trillion discretionary cap for fiscal 2024, a cut on paper of $60 billion from the $1.7 trillion spending level currently, according to a White House fact sheet.

That factors in a 3% increase in defense from $858 billion to $886 billion and a 12% cut to domestic programs from $722 billion to $637 billion. The White House said there are accounting moves that can, in the forthcoming appropriations bill, erase this cut.

As McCarthy acknowledged the deal maybe doesnt do everything for everyone, critics in both parties were quick to attack it.

Some Republican House members stepped up threats to try to undercut the accord. Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus, questioned McCarthys suggestion that 95% of the caucus is ready to go along with the deal.

Responding to a demand by a Twitter poster to stop the bill in the House, Roy said, Were going to try.

Fake Cuts

Some Senate Republicans chimed in. Fake conservatives agree to fake spending cuts, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky tweeted.

Representative Pramila Jayapal, chairwoman of the roughly 100-member Progressive caucus, said she hasnt decided whether to support the bill. She said Biden and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries should be concerned about whether they can deliver votes from the partys left flank.

Yes, they have to worry. Yes, she said on CNNs State of the Union.

Its not a bill thats going to make any Democrats happy, Representative Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut who isnt a member of the Progressive caucus, said on Fox News Sunday.

Theres little margin for error or delay. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Friday that the debt-limit must be extended by June 5 to avoid a historic default.

--With assistance from Erik Wasson and Victoria Cavaliere.

(Updates with White House summary of spending levels in 12th paragraph, reaction from critics starting in 15th.)

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How Much Will It Cost Me to Retire in the United Kingdom?

How to Retire in the United Kingdom (UK)

Numerous European countries are among the worlds most attractive retirement destinations, and the United Kingdom (U.K.) is no exception. With its rustic villages, historic landmarks and lower cost of living, the U.K. can offer retirees the exact right amount of relaxation, excitement, and access to other European countries. Although the UK government recently closed its retirement visa program, its still possible to retire in the UK through other visa types. Heres how to do so and how to weigh the financial implications of retiring outside the United States.

A financial advisor can help you plan for retirement, wherever it may take you. Find an advisor today.

How Much Does It Cost to Retire in the United Kingdom?

From lush countryside to bustling cities, the United Kingdom offers both tranquility and adventure to retirees. Whether you find rustic villages or a cultural center like Edinburgh more appealing, youll generally enjoy lower costs for travel, food, and housing than in the U.K.

According to cost of living data aggregator Numbeo, the cost of living in the UK is 15.3% lower than the U.S. on average. In addition, rent is nearly 35% cheaper. That said, costs vary around the country. For example, you can live in the town of Bangor for a fraction of the cost of living in London.

In terms of dollars, a retired couple can expect to spend about $1,500 for monthly living expenses, not including the price of housing. Depending on where you live, a one-bedroom apartment will roughly cost between $840 and $1,1o0 per month. Therefore, your budget should be around $2,500 a month, but your location will influence your food and housing costs. Furthermore, trips and excursions would incur additional expenses.

Of course, if you have a budget far exceeding $2,500, retiring in the U.K. provides you with an excellent home base for vacationing in other European nations. A monthly income of $5,000 or more would potentially allow you to maintain your home in the U.K. while eating tapas in Barcelona or wandering the streets of Rome.

Housing and Food

As stated above, a typical one-bedroom apartment in the U.K. costs between $840 and $1,100 per month, according to Numbeo. However, if you want more space for storage or hosting visitors, a three-bedroom apartment costs more. Specifically, youll pay between $1,470 and $1,950 on average. These costs range widely, with a three-bedroom apartment costing almost $2,800 in Oxford. Similarly, food costs vary by region. For example, a meal for two in Aberdeen costs an average of $63.92, while the same meal would cost $88.22 in Bath.

You can compare London to New York for another perspective on costs. Numbeo estimates that rent costs one-third less in London. For example, a one-bedroom apartment in the U.K.s capital costs about 2,480 per month, while a one-bedroom rents for around $3,800 in New York City.

Likewise, the average dinner for two costs $85.02 at a mid-range restaurant in London, 15% less than a meal in The Big Apple. Overall, Numbeo reports consumer prices being about 25% cheaper in London. Therefore, retiring in a U.K. metropolis will likely be less expensive than in the biggest cities in the U.S.

Getting an Initial Retirement Visa for the United Kingdom

How to Retire in the United Kingdom (UK)

The U.K. recently closed its retirement visa program, meaning retirees dont have a straightforward way to get into the country. Fortunately, the U.K.s other visa avenues are still open. So, retired couples can apply for work, ancestry or family visas. These visas have varying costs and requirements.

For example, the work visa involves committing to work for several years, with specific visas for doctors and religious ministers. You also can qualify for a visa through other types of work, such as skilled labor or business investment.

On the other hand, you can qualify for an ancestry or family visa by proving a family tie to a citizen of the U.K. Ancestry visas are granted to those with a parent or grandparent from the U.K., while a family visa means you have a spouse, fiancee, civil partner, child or parent who is a U.K. citizen.

So, retiring in the U.K. is more challenging than a country like Thailand, which has straightforward income requirements. To retire in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, you generally have two options: commit to investing in a business or working for five years, or prove a family tie to a U.K. citizen. If you choose the former option, you could move to the U.K. five years before you intend to fully retire to make your last five years of work count toward your retirement plans.

Next Steps on Your Visa

If you secure a work, family or ancestry visa, youll need to live in the country for five years. Upon hitting this milestone, you can apply for permanent settlement status, granting you indefinite leave to remain (ILR) in the UK. Similarly, if you obtained a retirement visa before the U.K. shuttered its policy, you can also acquire ILR after living in the country for five years.

Healthcare in the United Kingdom

The U.K. has a nationalized healthcare system, meaning most healthcare expenses come from taxes. As a result, accessing healthcare is inexpensive, but you might wait longer to get in for a procedure, especially if its elective. On the other hand, as an industrialized country, the U.K. has excellent health outcomes and cost control.

Plus, unlike Medicare, the U.K.s National Health Service (NHS) has no age requirements. Therefore, you can retire in the U.K. at any age and have health insurance, guaranteed. That said, certain forms of care, such as diabetes treatments and hip replacements, are more accessible in the U.S.

Taxes in the United Kingdom

You will generally pay taxes on your retirement income if you live in the U.K. However, like the U.S., the U.K. grants several tax deductions called allowances like self-employment and marriage. Below, find the U.K.s tax rates by income level, converted from pounds to dollars:

Income Level (Band) Taxable Income Tax Rate Personal Allowance $0-$15,095 0% Basic Rate $15,101-$60,371 20% Higher Rate $60,371-$150,285 40% Additional Rate Over $150,285 45% Reasons You May Not Want to Retire in the United Kingdom

How to Retire in the United Kingdom (UK)

As the table above displays, taxes might be a reason to avoid retiring in the U.K. For example, youd pay ordinary income taxes of 12% in the U.S. with an income of $65,000 if you are married and filing jointly. On the other hand, this income level would incur a 40% tax rate in the U.K. Plus, the US government will likely tax your pensions and Social Security income regardless of where you settle down.

Likewise, transferring your retirement accounts to the U.K. and converting them to pounds can incur additional fees. As a result, your retirement accounts likely dont represent an apples-to-apples comparison in pounds. Its wise to consult a financial advisor about the financial implications of retiring in the U.K. with your unique circumstances.

Lastly, retiring in the U.K. now requires you to work if you dont have a close relative or spouse with citizenship. This dynamic complicates retirement plans, as youll have to work for five years before applying for indefinite leave to remain to secure your place in the U.K.

The Bottom Line

Your retirement goal to reside in the U.K. during your golden years is achievable, despite the U.K. government tightening its visa regulations. If youre willing to work for five years or you have a relative with U.K. citizenship, you can qualify for a visa to get into the country. With a lower cost of living, historic sites and an extensive coastline, its an excellent place to enjoy your golden years.

However, if you have a chronic health condition, you may experience worse health outcomes than in the U.S. In addition, the U.K. levies higher income taxes, decreasing your ability to afford city living and travel. All that said, the U.K. is an English-speaking, industrialized country with plenty of attractions, activities and quiet corners. Its best to discuss your retirement plans with a financial advisor to see if living in the U.K. is viable for you.

Tips for Retiring in the United Kingdom

Retiring at home or abroad requires sufficient income. A financial advisor can help you create or modify a financial plan, optimally manage assets and navigate your unique tax situation. Finding a qualified financial advisor doesnt have to be hard. SmartAssets free tool matches you with up to three financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. If youre ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.

Retiring modestly in the UK could cost about $2,500 per month. The average Social Security distribution for a newly retired 65-year-old is around that amount. To see how far your benefit could take you, try our Social Security calculator.

Photo credit: iStock.com/CHUNYIP WONG, iStock.com/dave_valler, iStock.com/HerbySussex

The post How to Retire in the United Kingdom (UK) appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.
Investors who take an interest in NanoString Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:NSTG) should definitely note that the Independent Director, William Young, recently paid US$5.69 per share to buy US$202k worth of the stock. We reckon that's a good sign, especially since the purchase boosted their holding by 313%.

View our latest analysis for NanoString Technologies

The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At NanoString Technologies

In the last twelve months, the biggest single purchase by an insider was when CEO, President & Director R. Gray bought US$499k worth of shares at a price of US$7.75 per share. So it's clear an insider wanted to buy, even at a higher price than the current share price (being US$5.78). While their view may have changed since the purchase was made, this does at least suggest they have had confidence in the company's future. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. It is generally more encouraging if they paid above the current price, as it suggests they saw value, even at higher levels.

NanoString Technologies insiders may have bought shares in the last year, but they didn't sell any. The chart below shows insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!

NanoString Technologies is not the only stock that insiders are buying. For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

Does NanoString Technologies Boast High Insider Ownership?

Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Our data suggests NanoString Technologies insiders own 1.3% of the company, worth about US$3.5m. We prefer to see high levels of insider ownership.

So What Do The NanoString Technologies Insider Transactions Indicate?

It's certainly positive to see the recent insider purchases. We also take confidence from the longer term picture of insider transactions. But we don't feel the same about the fact the company is making losses. We would certainly prefer see higher levels of insider ownership but analysis of the insider transactions suggests that NanoString Technologies insiders are expecting a bright future. While we like knowing what's going on with the insider's ownership and transactions, we make sure to also consider what risks are facing a stock before making any investment decision. To assist with this, we've discovered 3 warning signs that you should run your eye over to get a better picture of NanoString Technologies.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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Joshua Danjuma, 36, poses with a handcrafted riffle in Kunji Village, Southern Kaduna Nigeria, Thursday , April 27, 2023. Danjuma, a hunter who lost two of his five children in a late night March 2023 gunmen attack that left 33 people dead, has joined others in protecting their homes. (AP Photo/Chinedu Asadu)

Associated Press (AP)  Christian Jonathan's mother was holding the 9-month-old boy in her arms when she was shot dead during an attack on their village in northwestern Nigeria. The assailants cut off one of Christian's fingers and abandoned him by the side of the road with a bullet wound in his tiny leg.

They left him on the ground beside his mothers body, said Joshua Jonathan, Christians father. They thought the boy was dead.

The late-night attack in April in Runji in Kaduna State left 33 people dead, most of them burned alive or shot dead. Many more have been killed since in the continuing clashes between nomadic cattle herders and farming communities in northwest and central regions of the West African nation, including more than 100 this month in Plateau state.

The decadeslong violence is becoming more deadly, killing at least 2,600 people in 2021, according to the most recent data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Once armed with sticks, the groups now fight with guns that have been smuggled into the country.

Both sides accuse the government of injustice and marginalization, but the clashes have also taken on a religious dimension, giving rise to militias that side with the herders, who are primarily Muslim, or the farmers from Christian communities.

The growing security crisis presents a huge challenge for Nigerias incoming president, Bola Tinubu, who rose to power in Nigeria  Africa's largest economy and among its top oil producers  promising to improve the lives of affected communities and address the root causes of the crisis by providing jobs and ensuring justice. Tinubu's inauguration is scheduled for Monday.

If the violence isn't reined in, analysts say, it could further destabilize the country and drive more of its 216 million people into poverty. U.N. agencies say the violence affects mostly children, who are already threatened by malnutrition, and women, who are often abducted and forced into marriage.

The response of security forces can be slow and arrests are rare, prompting a growing number of communities to defend themselves when they come under siege.

There is a substantial loss of confidence in the government as a protector of citizens," said Nnamdi Obasi, the senior adviser for Nigeria at the International Crisis Group. Obasi warned that the failure of the incoming administration to speedily resolve the conflict would lead to more people seeking their own self-defense, more proliferation of weapons, more criminal groups and a rise in organized armed groups.

In Runji, an agrarian village, The Associated Press spoke to some survivors in hospital beds and others touring a mass grave and their razed houses. They said they were under attack for hours and that the gunmen fled long before security forces arrived.

Every household bears a scar.

Christopher Daudas family was trying to escape when the gunmen caught up with his wife and four children, killing all five. Danjuma Joshuas two daughters were shot in the back while they tried to flee. In the home of Asabe Philip, who survived but has burns all over her body, the assailants burned five children alive as they cowered in one room.

Christian's aunt has tried to fill the void left by the killing of his mother. His father said Christian cries a lot and barely sleeps, although his physical wounds are gradually healing.

We try to manage with what we have left, Joshua Jonathan said.

On the other side of the conflict, the herders say they are also under attack. They complain of cattle rustling and extrajudicial killings by local security groups working as community vigilantes.

Abdullahi Bello Bodejo, the president of the national herders association, denied that anyone in the group was responsible for the violence. Most of the herders belong to the Fulanis, an ethnic group.

Fulanis are not the killers. Any person carrying out killings is not our member. Sometimes, when communities accuse us of killings, 75% is not true; they have their own crisis but always blame Fulanis, said Bodejo.

Nigerian security forces say they have arrested dozens of gunmen and recovered their weapons. But the assailants are estimated to number in the thousands and can easily recruit new members, according to Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, a conflict researcher.

There is a limit to the kinetic (military) operations, as it doesnt address the socioeconomic issue that gave rise to banditry in the region in the first place, said Oluwole Ojewale of the Africa-focused Institute of Security Studies. He said the incoming Tinubu administration must work with state governments to address unemployment, poverty and social injustice.

The recent violence has led to the formation of community, state and regional security outfits that experts say could create bigger problems for Nigerias security architecture if not properly monitored.

And their recruits are young.

Felix Sunday, a college student in Kaduna, said that he was 16 when he joined a local vigilante group in 2021, and that he struggles to combine the night watch with his studies.

Across much of West and Central Africa, porous national borders facilitate the smuggling of weapons. A survey-based report published in 2021 by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey in collaboration with the Nigerian government found that at least 6 million firearms may have been in the hands of civilians in the country at the time.

The military and police have recovered hundreds of firearms in Nigeria in the last year, but weapons dealers elsewhere are exacerbating the problem.

Things have gotten considerably worse. Some are large military weapons imported from other countries, said Confidence MacHarry with the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence security firm.

With sophisticated weapons, the gunmen have launched daring attacks in areas with a heavy security presence, including a military base and an airport in Kaduna, indicating that the problem may be the motivation of the security forces themselves.

Survivors of the attack in Plateau told the AP that the police didn't arrive until the next day, echoing comments from people living in Runji, which has a security checkpoint nearby.

When we call the soldiers, it is after the attackers have left that the soldiers come. Even if we hear they (the attackers) are coming and we report to the government, they dont take proactive action, said Simon Njam, a vigilante leader near Runji who uses bows, arrows and locally-made guns to secure the area.

Part of the problem is that the security forces are disorganized and unprepared to respond to the attacks, according to Kabir Adamu, the founder of Beacon Consulting, a security firm based in Nigeria's capital, Abuja.

We dont have a coordinated security sector that identifies and counters threats," he said. "They need to work together to protect lives and currently, we are not seeing enough of that.

The Nigerian military and police didn't respond to written and phone inquiries seeking a response to the claims.

As more families mourn the loss of their loved ones, forced to replace farmland with graveyards, their priority is demanding justice.

How can people just come and kill and nothing will happen? asked Dauda in Runji, remembering his life with his wife and four children. They cannot bring back my lost family, but the government can at least rebuild my home and ensure justice.
North Carolina legislators have introduced a new abortion bill that would ban the procedure after 12 weeks.

Republican leaders announced in a news conference Tuesday there was agreement in the GOP-controlled House and Senate to reduce the state's abortion ban, which currently sits at 20 weeks, to the end of the first trimester.

The bill, known as "The Care for Women, Children and Families Act," offers exceptions in cases of rape and incest up to 20 weeks' gestation and for fetal anomalies up to 24 weeks' gestation.

MORE: Why doctors say the 'save the mother's life' exception of abortion bans is medically risky

The current exception that allows an abortion if the life of the mother is in danger will remain in place.

Final votes are expected to take place Wednesday in the state House and Thursday in the state Senate, lawmakers told reporters.

"It's time for North Carolina to take the nest step forward in honoring the sanctity of human life," state Sen. Joyce Krawiec, a Republican, said during the press conference, according to local ABC affiliate WTVD. "We are beginning the process of creating a culture that values life, and that's something we can all be incredibly proud of."

PHOTO: North Carolina state Sen. Joyce Krawiec, a Forsyth County Republican, speaks at a news conference on proposed new abortion restrictions, May 2, 2023, at the Legislative Building in Raleigh, N.C. (Hannah Schoenbaum/AP)

Before an abortion is performed, pregnant people must receive a consultation in person at least 72 hours prior about the potential risks of receiving an abortion and other options, including adoption or that the father is liable to pay child support.

Research has shown that abortions performed in a clean area with properly trained staff are very safe. Between 2013 and 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the national case-fatality rate was 0.41 abortion-related deaths per 100,000 legal abortions.

The pregnant person must also receive an ultrasound prior to the abortion as well as notice that they can look at "the remains" after the procedure is completed.

Providers who perform an abortion past 12 weeks will be required to provide information to the state Department of Health and Human Services, including "the probable gestational age" of the fetus, its measurements and an ultrasound image as well as how the provider determined the pregnancy fell into one of the exceptions.

Any physician who violates the bill will be subject to discipline from the North Carolina Medical Board, which includes potentially being placed on probation, public reprimanding, paying a fine, educational training or having their license revoked.

MORE: How some providers are working around abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned

Gov. Roy Cooper's tweeted a statement Wednesday that he did not support the bill and planned to veto it.

"It will effectively ban access to reproductive freedom earlier and sometimes altogether for many women because of new restrictions and requirements," he wrote. "This is why Republicans are ramming it through with no chance to amend. I will veto this extreme ban and need everyone's help to avoid it."

Cooper's veto power, if the bill is passed, would only delay its enactment. Republicans hold a supermajority in the Senate and are close to a supermajority in the House, which would override the veto.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade over the summer, 15 states have ceased nearly all abortion services.

PHOTO: Abortion rights demonstrators gather to protest against the Supreme Court's decision in the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health case, June 24, 2022 in Raleigh, N.C. (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images, FILE)

Florida will be the 16th state once a new six-week abortion ban is implemented -- but only if the state's current 15-week ban is upheld as legal challenges play out in court.

Additionally, Utah passed a bill earlier this year banning abortion clinics in the state. Starting May 3, the state's health department would not be allowed to grant new licenses, but it was blocked by a state judge Tuesday.

North Carolina Republicans introduce 12-week abortion ban originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
(Bloomberg) -- Oil eked out a second session of gains as traders waited to see if US lawmakers would approve a tentative deal to avert a catastrophic default.

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West Texas Intermediate futures edged above $73 a barrel after gaining 1.2% on Friday. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy voiced confidence that their agreement will pass Congress and be signed into law, avoiding a default that would threaten a financial collapse. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the debt limit must be extended by June 5 to avoid default, giving lawmakers until next week to act on the deal. Liquidity was thin in trading on Monday, with the US and UK observing national holidays.

The agreement reduces the risk of a significant crash, but the outcome was pretty much priced in, Bart Melek, global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities, said by phone. The agreement calls for reduced spending, making it flat to modestly negative for demand.

Oil is about 9% lower this year as Chinas lackluster economic recovery and the Federal Reserves aggressive monetary tightening weighed on the demand outlook. Russian supply has also been resilient, even after the nation said it would cut output, while domestic crude processing has dropped.

To get Bloombergs Energy Daily newsletter direct into your inbox, click here.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reversed course on a warning that the company may have to stop operating in Europe if a proposed EU regulation on artificial intelligence moves forward.

Last week, Altman warned that OpenAI  the company behind AI chatbot ChatGPT  may have to pull its operations out of Europe if the current version of the EU AI Act moved forward because it was "over-regulating" AI products. At the time, Altman told Reuters at an event in London, "If we can comply, we will, and if we cant, well cease operating. We will try. But there are technical limits to whats possible."

Altman backtracked in a Thursday night tweet and said, "we are excited to continue to operate here and of course have no plans to leave."

He also noted that he had a "very productive week of conversations in Europe about how to best regulate AI!"

AI COMPLICATES COPYRIGHT LAW

Sam Altman, chief executive officer and co-founder of OpenAI, reversed course after warning that ChatGPT may have to stop operating in Europe if EU regulations are too onerous.

Altmans concern about overregulation stemmed from provisions in the draft of the EU Parliaments AI Act that would require companies with generative AI products, such as OpenAIs ChatGPT, to disclose the use of copyrighted material in its training models that help the AI learn to generate text and images in response to users prompts.

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"These provisions relate mainly to transparency, which ensures the AI and the company building it are trustworthy," Dragos Tudorache, a Romanian member of the European Parliament who is leading the effort to draft the legislation, told Reuters Thursday. "I dont see a reason why any company would shy away from transparency."

WHAT IS CHATGPT?

Generative AI platforms like OpenAI's ChatGPT raise questions for regulators in their use of copyrighted content and users' data.

The EUs regulatory proposal would require users to be informed that AI, rather than humans, generated the content. It would also require certain generative AI platforms to be designated "high risk" if they are intended to be used in the biometric identification of humans, employment recruitment and evaluation, educational and vocational training, managing critical infrastructure, law enforcement, immigration and more.

The EU Parliament is considering revisions to the law, and the next step in the process is a vote by the Parliament between June 12-15 on a negotiating draft. Then, the EU Parliament can negotiate with the Council of European Ministers on the final version of the law.

In early May, OpenAI announced that it had implemented changes to its system in response to a regulatory ban imposed by Italy after some ChatGPT users messages and payment information were exposed in violation of European data protection rules.

The changes made by OpenAI included disclosures about how it collects and uses data to train algorithms powering ChatGPT, providing EU users with a new form for objecting to the use of their data in training, and adding a tool to verify users ages when signing up.

FOX Business Bradford Betz and Reuters contributed to this article.
Ottawa Welcomes President of Iceland and First Lady for Official State Visit

- Key agenda issues include the environment and blue economy, language preservation and youth mental health and well-being -

OTTAWA, ON, May 28, 2023 /CNW/ - His Excellency Guni Th. Johannesson, President of Iceland and First Lady, Eliza Reid are scheduled for an official visit and will be in Ottawa on Sunday May 28. This will be the first Icelandic state visit to Canada since 2000.

Iceland - Coat of Arms (CNW Group/Embassy of Iceland)

Iceland and Canada celebrated 75 years of diplomatic relations in 2022. Strengthening bilateral relations between Iceland and Canada, the visit will focus on the blue economy, the green transition, language preservation, youth mental health and substance abuse prevention, health services, and North-North engagement.

Iceland's Minister of Culture and Business Affairs, Lilja Alfresdottir, and a delegation comprised of Icelandic officials and business representatives from Eimskip, Icelandic, Icelandair, Islandsbanki hf., Kadeco, Landsvirkjun, Marel, Planet Youth and Prescriby will join the First Couple on this state visit.

During this visit, President Johannesson will meet with top officials, cultural stakeholders and members of the community to discuss key issues and initiatives, including a roundtable on language preservation with Governor General Mary Simon.

Times are indicated in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

Monday, May 29, 2023 - Ottawa



9:55 - 11:00 a.m.

Welcoming Ceremony with Military Honors and Ceremonial Tree Planting

Upon their arrival, Canada's Governor General Simon and Mr. Whit Fraser will greet His Excellency Guni Th. Johannesson, President of Iceland, First Lady Eliza Reid, Her Excellency Lilja Alfredsdottir, Minister of Culture and Business Affairs, and His Excellency Hlynur Gudjonsson, Ambassador of Iceland to Canada, and Ms. Jeannette Menzies, Ambassador of Canada to Iceland. The dignitaries will deliver remarks and participate in a tree-planting ceremony symbolizing friendship and cooperation between the nations.

Grounds of Rideau Hall

OPEN TO MEDIA

11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Parliament Hill Welcome Ceremony

Members of Parliament will greet President Johannesson when he arrives on Parliament Hill. Following the welcoming ceremony President Johannesson will meet privately with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Members of Parliament.

Parliament Hill

OPEN TO MEDIA

1:00 - 1:30 p.m.

Wreath Laying Ceremony

President Johannesson will participate in a wreath laying ceremony honoring Canada's veterans and those who died serving in the military.

National War Memorial

OPEN TO MEDIA

13:30-14:45 p.m.

Round Table on Language Preservation Hosted by the Governor General

His Excellency Guni Th. Johannesson and Canada's Governor General will engage in a discussion hosted by Rideau Hall about the importance of safeguarding languages and opportunities for innovation when it comes to language promotion and preservation. Participants will explore domestic and international best practices.

Rideau Hall

CLOSED TO MEDIA  Official photographers only

15:00 - 16:30 p.m

Round Table on Upstream Approaches to Protecting Youth Health and Well-being

His Excellency the President of Iceland, First Lady Eliza Reid and Canada's Governor General will attend an event organized by the Embassy of Iceland in Ottawa in collaboration with the Public Health Agency of Canada and Iceland's Planet Youth, which will focus on youth well-being and substance use prevention. The event will be moderated by Canada's Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Theresa Tam. The Honourable Carolyn Bennett, M.D., P.C., M.P., Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health will also be in attendance, and will offer the closing remarks.

Global Centre for Pluralism

OPEN TO MEDIA

18:00 - 20:30 p.m.

State Dinner

His Excellency Guni Th. Johannesson, President of Iceland and First Lady Eliza Reid will be the guests of honor at a State dinner hosted by their Excellencies Governor General Simon and Mr. Whit Fraser. Icelandic and Canadian dignitaries will also be in attendance.

Ballroom, Rideau Hall

MEDIA NOTE  Open coverage of remarks and toasts at the beginning of the dinner.

Note for media:

All media must be accredited by the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

To guarantee access please confirm your attendance in advance via Icelandincanada@finnpartners.com .

Media are asked to arrive 30 minutes before the event's start time.

Photos taken by the official photographer will be made available upon request via Icelandincanada@finnpartners.com .

Press Contacts:

Meetu Madahar

Brown & Cohen Communications & Public Affairs Inc.

+1 416 817 4668

meetu@brown-cohen.com

Charlie Echlin

Brown & Cohen Communications & Public Affairs Inc.

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Marriage Dissolution vs. Divorce

If your marriage is coming to an end there are many important decisions that lie ahead. One of the biggest is deciding between a marriage dissolution or a divorce. Both dissolution and divorce are legal processes, and the outcome is exactly the same: you are ending a marriage. Attorneys often say the difference between a divorce and dissolution hinges on whether a spouse faults the other for the breakup. Still, its a little more complicated than that. Below, well break down why some couples choose marriage dissolution vs. divorce. A financial advisor can help make a plan for your money when the time comes to move on from a marriage.

Marriage Dissolution vs. Divorce

Marriage Dissolution vs. Divorce

People often use divorce interchangeably with dissolution, but the two legal processes have some significant differences. Generally, if you divorce, a court will be involved in making decisions about how assets are distributed and which parent the children should live with. If you go through a marriage dissolution, youll work out the details of the split amongst yourselves  or possibly with a mediator. A judge will likely only be present at the end of a marriage dissolution to review the separation agreement and parenting plan (if there is one), as well as ensure that both parties are satisfied with the details of the split.

In the case of a divorce, a court is much more involved in the entire process. The court, not the couple, will make the final decisions about what life will look like for both parties after the marriage has ended. That may not be a bad development. If a couple is truly at war, a judge weighing in and being the arbiter of decisions may be the only reasonable solution. The couple can try to work toward an agreement in the case of a divorce, but the court has the final say on topics of child custody, visitation arrangements, child support and spousal support, also known as alimony and spousal maintenance.

On the whole, a dissolution is generally far less expensive and considered to be less contentious between the two parties than a divorce. At least, it is supposed to be.

If youre ready to be matched with local advisors that can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.

The Reasons a Couple May Choose a Dissolution or Divorce

Most couples would probably rather complete a marriage dissolution vs. divorce. Sometimes, however, they have no choice but to go through with a divorce. This may be especially true for a couple that cant come to an agreement on how assets should be divided. A judge may be needed to divide current assets and investments, make financial decisions involving a couples estate plan, and rule on child custody.

Marriages are complicated, and there are many reasons one or both parties may opt for a dissolution or divorce. Here are some common reasons couples may decide to go down one path or the other.

Dissolution may be the better option if:

You both are in agreement that the marriage simply isnt working. You both feel that no one, in particular, is at fault. Dissolutions are often called no-fault divorces. If you both agree that nobody should be held responsible in court for the marriage ending, that should bode well in splitting up assets and making decisions about child care.

If you both believe that you can be fair in how you treat each other when making decisions that will affect you both, post-marriage. Just because you both no longer want to be married, it doesnt mean that you automatically have to dislike the other.

You both are committed to getting through the divorce as inexpensively as possible. Hiring lawyers and paying court fees is, of course, expensive. Avoiding spending a fortune on attorneys could mean more money for both of you after the marriage is over.

Divorce may be necessary if:

You dont trust your partner or your partner intimidates you. You may, for instance, fear that your partner will hide assets from you. During its discovery process, the court may be able to ferret out any secret bank accounts that either party might be hiding. Still, if youre worried about safeguarding your finances from an untrustworthy partner, you may want to talk to a divorce financial advisor.

One person doesnt want to end the marriage and, in fact, refuses to. In that case, the person who does want to terminate the marriage may have no choice but to use the courts to legally end the marriage.

You both have a lot of assets and a lot to lose if things go wrong. You may both feel that its in your best interest to have your lawyers and the court work things out. That doesnt necessarily mean things have to be contentious, however. In fact, you could have lawyers work together but not necessarily hash everything out in court. Your attorneys could engage in what is generally known as alternative dispute resolution, which offers court alternatives, such as mediation and arbitration.

Before the marriage, one or both parties may have signed a prenuptial agreement and may feel that the court is needed, to ensure that the agreement is honored.

The Bottom Line

Marriage Dissolution vs. Divorce

Ending a marriage is hard and will probably be painful on some level, even in the best of circumstances. But the legal process doesnt have to be contentious. Especially if children are involved, many couples generally want to end marriages as peacefully as possible. Marriage dissolution can be amicable and straightforward, although some couples require the courts and official divorce proceedings. If you want to end your marriage amicably and inexpensively, you probably can  provided you have a willing partner.

Financial Tips For Divorce

Some financial advisors, including certified divorce financial analysts (CDFAs), specialize in helping people go through divorces. Finding a financial advisor doesnt have to be hard. SmartAssets free tool matches you with up to three vetted financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. If youre ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.

A domestic asset protection trust (DAPT) can be used to shield assets from a spouse during a divorce, making them an alternative to a prenuptial agreement. After transferring your assets to a trustee, the assets are no longer considered marital property.

Photo credit: iStock.com/Andrii Zastrozhnov, iStock.com/Andrii Zastrozhnov, iStock.com/fizkes

The post Marriage Dissolution vs. Divorce appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.
Passive investing in an index fund is a good way to ensure your own returns roughly match the overall market. But if you buy individual stocks, you can do both better or worse than that. Unfortunately the JHM Consolidation Berhad (KLSE:JHM) share price slid 40% over twelve months. That contrasts poorly with the market decline of 2.0%. Longer term shareholders haven't suffered as badly, since the stock is down a comparatively less painful 15% in three years. The last week also saw the share price slip down another 7.0%.

It's worthwhile assessing if the company's economics have been moving in lockstep with these underwhelming shareholder returns, or if there is some disparity between the two. So let's do just that.

Check out our latest analysis for JHM Consolidation Berhad

To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS).

Unhappily, JHM Consolidation Berhad had to report a 37% decline in EPS over the last year. This proportional reduction in earnings per share isn't far from the 40% decrease in the share price. So it seems that the market sentiment has not changed much, despite the weak results. Rather, the share price has approximately tracked EPS growth.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here.

A Different Perspective

While the broader market lost about 2.0% in the twelve months, JHM Consolidation Berhad shareholders did even worse, losing 40%. Having said that, it's inevitable that some stocks will be oversold in a falling market. The key is to keep your eyes on the fundamental developments. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 4% per year over five years. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality business. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand JHM Consolidation Berhad better, we need to consider many other factors. For instance, we've identified 3 warning signs for JHM Consolidation Berhad that you should be aware of.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of companies that have proven they can grow earnings.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on Malaysian exchanges.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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Shareholders in Petron Malaysia Refining & Marketing Bhd (KLSE:PETRONM) may be thrilled to learn that the covering analyst has just delivered a major upgrade to their near-term forecasts. The consensus statutory numbers for both revenue and earnings per share (EPS) increased, with their view clearly much more bullish on the company's business prospects.

Following the upgrade, the consensus from lone analyst covering Petron Malaysia Refining & Marketing Bhd is for revenues of RM16b in 2023, implying a not inconsiderable 15% decline in sales compared to the last 12 months. Statutory earnings per share are supposed to reduce 8.2% to RM1.03 in the same period. Before this latest update, the analyst had been forecasting revenues of RM14b and earnings per share (EPS) of RM0.82 in 2023. There has definitely been an improvement in perception recently, with the analyst substantially increasing both their earnings and revenue estimates.

See our latest analysis for Petron Malaysia Refining & Marketing Bhd

It will come as no surprise to learn that the analyst has increased their price target for Petron Malaysia Refining & Marketing Bhd 6.9% to RM4.65 on the back of these upgrades.

Another way we can view these estimates is in the context of the bigger picture, such as how the forecasts stack up against past performance, and whether forecasts are more or less bullish relative to other companies in the industry. These estimates imply that sales are expected to slow, with a forecast annualised revenue decline of 15% by the end of 2023. This indicates a significant reduction from annual growth of 6.5% over the last five years. By contrast, our data suggests that other companies (with analyst coverage) in the industry are forecast to see their revenue decline 3.1% annually for the foreseeable future. So it's pretty clear that Petron Malaysia Refining & Marketing Bhd's revenues are expected to shrink faster than the wider industry.

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away from this upgrade is that the analyst upgraded their earnings per share estimates for this year, expecting improving business conditions. Notably, the analyst also upgraded their revenue estimates, with sales performing well although Petron Malaysia Refining & Marketing Bhd's revenue growth is expected to trail that of the wider market. Given that the consensus looks almost universally bullish, with a substantial increase to forecasts and a higher price target, Petron Malaysia Refining & Marketing Bhd could be worth investigating further.

Still, the long-term prospects of the business are much more relevant than next year's earnings. At least one analyst has provided forecasts out to 2024, which can be seen for free on our platform here.

Another way to search for interesting companies that could be reaching an inflection point is to track whether management are buying or selling, with our free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

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.

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When a single insider purchases stock, it is typically not a major deal. However, when multiple insiders purchase stock, like in Ocean Wilsons Holdings Limited's (LON:OCN) instance, it's good news for shareholders.

While we would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing, we do think it is perfectly logical to keep tabs on what insiders are doing.

See our latest analysis for Ocean Wilsons Holdings

Ocean Wilsons Holdings Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

Over the last year, we can see that the biggest insider purchase was by Independent Non-Executive Chairman Caroline Foulger for UK89k worth of shares, at about UK8.91 per share. So it's clear an insider wanted to buy, even at a higher price than the current share price (being UK8.38). Their view may have changed since then, but at least it shows they felt optimistic at the time. We always take careful note of the price insiders pay when purchasing shares. Generally speaking, it catches our eye when insiders have purchased shares at above current prices, as it suggests they believed the shares were worth buying, even at a higher price.

While Ocean Wilsons Holdings insiders bought shares during the last year, they didn't sell. The chart below shows insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!

There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying.

Does Ocean Wilsons Holdings Boast High Insider Ownership?

Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. Ocean Wilsons Holdings insiders own about UK36m worth of shares. That equates to 12% of the company. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.

So What Do The Ocean Wilsons Holdings Insider Transactions Indicate?

The fact that there have been no Ocean Wilsons Holdings insider transactions recently certainly doesn't bother us. On a brighter note, the transactions over the last year are encouraging. Insiders own shares in Ocean Wilsons Holdings and we see no evidence to suggest they are worried about the future. In addition to knowing about insider transactions going on, it's beneficial to identify the risks facing Ocean Wilsons Holdings. Case in point: We've spotted 1 warning sign for Ocean Wilsons Holdings you should be aware of.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt.

For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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What are the early trends we should look for to identify a stock that could multiply in value over the long term? In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. That's why when we briefly looked at Q & M Dental Group (Singapore)'s (SGX:QC7) ROCE trend, we were pretty happy with what we saw.

Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)

For those who don't know, ROCE is a measure of a company's yearly pre-tax profit (its return), relative to the capital employed in the business. To calculate this metric for Q & M Dental Group (Singapore), this is the formula:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT)  (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.10 = S$24m  (S$267m - S$33m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2022).

Therefore, Q & M Dental Group (Singapore) has an ROCE of 10%. In absolute terms, that's a pretty normal return, and it's somewhat close to the Healthcare industry average of 11%.

View our latest analysis for Q & M Dental Group (Singapore)

roce

In the above chart we have measured Q & M Dental Group (Singapore)'s prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.

What Does the ROCE Trend For Q & M Dental Group (Singapore) Tell Us?

The trend of ROCE doesn't stand out much, but returns on a whole are decent. The company has consistently earned 10% for the last five years, and the capital employed within the business has risen 65% in that time. 10% is a pretty standard return, and it provides some comfort knowing that Q & M Dental Group (Singapore) has consistently earned this amount. Stable returns in this ballpark can be unexciting, but if they can be maintained over the long run, they often provide nice rewards to shareholders.

One more thing to note, even though ROCE has remained relatively flat over the last five years, the reduction in current liabilities to 12% of total assets, is good to see from a business owner's perspective. This can eliminate some of the risks inherent in the operations because the business has less outstanding obligations to their suppliers and or short-term creditors than they did previously.

Our Take On Q & M Dental Group (Singapore)'s ROCE

In the end, Q & M Dental Group (Singapore) has proven its ability to adequately reinvest capital at good rates of return. However, despite the favorable fundamentals, the stock has fallen 17% over the last five years, so there might be an opportunity here for astute investors. For that reason, savvy investors might want to look further into this company in case it's a prime investment.

On a final note, we've found 4 warning signs for Q & M Dental Group (Singapore) that we think you should be aware of.

While Q & M Dental Group (Singapore) isn't earning the highest return, check out this free list of companies that are earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets.

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.

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Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE:RJF) has announced that it will be increasing its dividend from last year's comparable payment on the 17th of July to $0.42. Despite this raise, the dividend yield of 1.8% is only a modest boost to shareholder returns.

See our latest analysis for Raymond James Financial

Raymond James Financial's Payment Has Solid Earnings Coverage

Even a low dividend yield can be attractive if it is sustained for years on end. Prior to this announcement, Raymond James Financial's earnings easily covered the dividend, but free cash flows were negative. With the company not bringing in any cash, paying out to shareholders is bound to become difficult at some point.

Over the next year, EPS is forecast to expand by 32.4%. If the dividend continues on this path, the payout ratio could be 18% by next year, which we think can be pretty sustainable going forward.

Raymond James Financial Has A Solid Track Record

The company has an extended history of paying stable dividends. Since 2013, the dividend has gone from $0.347 total annually to $1.68. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 17% over that duration. So, dividends have been growing pretty quickly, and even more impressively, they haven't experienced any notable falls during this period.

The Dividend Looks Likely To Grow

Investors could be attracted to the stock based on the quality of its payment history. We are encouraged to see that Raymond James Financial has grown earnings per share at 18% per year over the past five years. A low payout ratio and decent growth suggests that the company is reinvesting well, and it also has plenty of room to increase the dividend over time.

Our Thoughts On Raymond James Financial's Dividend

Overall, this is probably not a great income stock, even though the dividend is being raised at the moment. With cash flows lacking, it is difficult to see how the company can sustain a dividend payment. We would be a touch cautious of relying on this stock primarily for the dividend income.

It's important to note that companies having a consistent dividend policy will generate greater investor confidence than those having an erratic one. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. As an example, we've identified 1 warning sign for Raymond James Financial that you should be aware of before investing. Is Raymond James Financial not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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UK Immigration Housing Shortage

Record immigration has driven up rents by 8pc as fears mount that Michael Goves reforms will trigger a further drop in supply.

A huge number of people moving into the rental market from overseas was behind the bulk of the record rent growth recorded across the UK over the last year, new analysis shows.

Imogen Pattison, of Capital Economics, said net immigration had led to new demand for an extra 205,000 rental homes.

The figures come as Mr Gove, the Housing Secretary, forges ahead with plans to scrap no-fault evictions and more tightly regulate the private rental market through his Renters Reform Bill, which critics have warned will push more landlords to quit after years of tax raids.

Conservative MP Marco Longhi urged the Government to reconsider the bill as the rental sector grapples with an extreme shortage of homes.

He said: At a time when we are seeing such a huge influx of people coming in from overseas, what we should be doing is increasing supply. It seems incredible that what appears to be happening instead is we are going to be reducing supply through the Renters Reform Bill. It just all comes together in a perfect storm.

Home Office data released last week showed that net immigration hit a record high of 606,000 in the year to December. Based on the average household size of 2.37 people, this means net demand for housing jumped by around 256,000.

This increase is disproportionately concentrated in private rentals. Previous analysis by the Office for National Statistics shows that at least 80pc of people arriving in the UK move into the private rented housing for at least for the first couple of years after they move.

Based on this estimate, the number of households in need of rental properties will have swelled in the year to March by 4.4pc, Ms Pattison said. In turn, this would trigger a four percentage point drop in vacancy rates.

Analysis from the US shows that a 1pc drop in vacancy rates corresponds roughly to a 1pc increase in rents.

Ms Pattison said: This could mean that net immigration in the UK could have increased rents by up to 8pc.

This would have made up three quarters of the 12.1pc year-on-year rent growth recorded across the year in December in an index compiled by the property website Zoopla.

Benjamin Trevis, of the Centre for Economics and Business Research, said that the impact of immigration on rent prices is felt primarily in cities.

Nearly half of all of the UKs foreign-born population lives in London and the South East, with 35pc in London alone, according to The Migration Observatory.

Annual rent growth in London hit 17pc in December, according to Zoopla. Rent growth also far exceeded the national average in other major cities including Manchester and Glasgow, where rents climbed by 15.6pc and 14.1pc respectively.

Mr Trevis said: Supply-side issues mean any increase in demand could have an exacerbating impact and potentially push rental prices even higher.

Rents have exploded across the UK since lockdown restrictions eased in the summer of 2021, when workers returned to cities just as international students came back to university and overseas travel restrictions were scrapped.

The Home Office migration data marked a fresh record for net migration after previous data showed an influx of 504,000 people in the year to June 2022.

The Government has become increasingly reliant on high levels of migration to fill gaps in the workforce, particularly within the health service.

The number of people moving to the UK on permanent working visas increased by nearly 100,000 in the year to March 2023, a jump of 97pc. This was roughly four times the pre-pandemic and pre-Brexit norm.

A 171pc surge in skilled workers in health and care  an extra 64,130 compared to the previous year  has been key. These visas accounted for more than half of all worker visas granted in the year ending in March 2023.

A DLUHC spokesperson said: There is no evidence to support claims our reforms will hinder rental supply and lead landlords to leave the sector. The private rented sector has doubled in size since 2004 and good landlords have every reason to remain in the sector.

Our reforms mean 11 million tenants across England will benefit from safer, fairer and higher quality homes, while ensuring landlords can swiftly evict problem tenants.

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Russia's economy is at China's mercy. Here's why that won't be changing anytime soon.

Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters

Russia's economy is becoming dependent on China and it could soon be a vassal state of Beijing, experts say.

The two nations have ramped up trade and deepened ties as sanctions isolate Russia from the West.

Their partnership benefits China enormously and probably isn't ending soon, economists told Insider.

Russia's economy has been battered by Western sanctions since its invasion of Ukraine last year  and that's putting it increasingly at the mercy of one of its biggest partners: China.

Observers have pointed to Moscow's growing dependence on Beijing for months, with their two economies becoming more intertwined in trade and finance as Russia becomes further isolated. But it isn't an equal partnership, and Russia may be on its way to becoming a vassal state of China.

That assessment comes from French President Emmanuel Macron, and even sources close to the Kremlin have said that Russia is destined to become a Chinese resource colony. While Russian officials dispute that characterization, experts say it has merit.

"To me, Russia is not [a vassal] yet with China, but it's clearly headed there," Jay Zagorsky, a markets professor at Boston University told Insider, pointing to Russia's growing reliance on China as a trade partner. Russia has predicted trade volume with China will notch a new record of $200 billion this year, and other statistics show that Russia will export around 26% of its goods to China, Zagorsky said. That's double the amount before the Ukraine war, when Russia exported only 13% of its goods.

Zagorsky predicts that Russia would be considered a vassal state once imports and exports to and from China reach 50%  making it so reliant on Chinese trade that its foreign interests would be dominated by those of China.

"If China cuts them off, they're like, the west has already cut us off. [They're] basically at the mercy of China. And when you're at the mercy of somebody, they have control over you," he said.

Richard Connolly, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and an expert on the Russian economy, disagreed with the term "vassal state." Russia's growing trade partnership with China is more of a natural product of sanctions rather than a deliberate decision, Connolly said, and Russia has grown more reliant on other countries for trade as well, like India.

And though Russia has become a resource hub for China, it doesn't necessarily make Russia a client state.

"Although there's an economic asymmetry, that doesn't necessarily translate into political vassal," he said, pointing to Russia's extensive trade with Europe prior to the Ukrainian invasion. "Was Russia a vassal state to Europe over the last 30 years? I would argue yes, and it had a very similar economic relationship to Russia as China does today."

Tit-for-tat partnership

The relationship has benefited both sides, but especially China, which has ramped up its purchases of Russian goods at steep discounts, particularly crude, natural gas, coal, and precious metals. Meanwhile, it's sending huge amounts of manufactured goods to Russia, which has the dual benefit of boosting China's GDP and adding high-value jobs to its economy, Zagorsky said.

Russia, meanwhile has been using the partnership to stay afloat as it deals with sanctions and tries to keep funding its war in Ukraine. The difficulties it is facing make it only more likely that Russia will deepen its dependence on China, Zagorsky said.

For instance, China's purchasing power GDP, which weights GDP to the cost of living, is currently around $24.8 trillion, or six times of that of Russia's. Zagorsky estimates that China's purchasing power GDP could increase to around eight times that of Russia's in the coming years.

"There comes a point when China just becomes so much more economically dominant that the choice of becoming a vassal state really is in many ways predetermined," he added.

Though political relationships can change rapidly, neither Zagorsky nor Connolly see a reason for Russia to end its relationship with China. Both countries have reasons to distance themselves economically from the west, and so far, their alliance has paid off.

"There's no reason to think that it won't last a long time," Connolly said. "At the moment, they both provide things the other needs."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SGX:Z74) has announced that it will be increasing its dividend from last year's comparable payment on the 17th of August to SGD0.078. The payment will take the dividend yield to 4.0%, which is in line with the average for the industry.

Check out our latest analysis for Singapore Telecommunications

Singapore Telecommunications' Earnings Easily Cover The Distributions

Solid dividend yields are great, but they only really help us if the payment is sustainable. The last payment made up 73% of earnings, but cash flows were much higher. This leaves plenty of cash for reinvestment into the business.

The next year is set to see EPS grow by 40.6%. If the dividend continues on this path, the payout ratio could be 75% by next year, which we think can be pretty sustainable going forward.

Dividend Volatility

While the company has been paying a dividend for a long time, it has cut the dividend at least once in the last 10 years. The dividend has gone from an annual total of SGD0.158 in 2013 to the most recent total annual payment of SGD0.099. The dividend has shrunk at around 4.6% a year during that period. Generally, we don't like to see a dividend that has been declining over time as this can degrade shareholders' returns and indicate that the company may be running into problems.

The Dividend Has Limited Growth Potential

Given that the dividend has been cut in the past, we need to check if earnings are growing and if that might lead to stronger dividends in the future. Over the past five years, it looks as though Singapore Telecommunications' EPS has declined at around 17% a year. A sharp decline in earnings per share is not great from from a dividend perspective. Even conservative payout ratios can come under pressure if earnings fall far enough. It's not all bad news though, as the earnings are predicted to rise over the next 12 months - we would just be a bit cautious until this becomes a long term trend.

Our Thoughts On Singapore Telecommunications' Dividend

In summary, while it's always good to see the dividend being raised, we don't think Singapore Telecommunications' payments are rock solid. The company is generating plenty of cash, which could maintain the dividend for a while, but the track record hasn't been great. We would be a touch cautious of relying on this stock primarily for the dividend income.

Companies possessing a stable dividend policy will likely enjoy greater investor interest than those suffering from a more inconsistent approach. However, there are other things to consider for investors when analysing stock performance. For example, we've picked out 1 warning sign for Singapore Telecommunications that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. Is Singapore Telecommunications not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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How the sleepy world of insurance found itself on the frontlines of the net zero battle

Climate Change protesters with Extinction Rebellion stage an occupation and succeed in closing trading at Lloyds of London, an insurer of fossil fuel companies, in the City of London, in 2022 - Richard Baker/In Pictures via Getty Images/Richard Baker

US Republicans are going to war against what they call a radical environmental agenda being pushed by the insurance industry, blaming it for pushing up premiums and fuel prices for millions of Americans.

At the same time, climate campaigners are piling pressure on the same companies, arguing their green policies are too weak.

The dilemma underscores how insurers found themselves an unlikely target in a battle over net zero.

The furore has left the usually sleepy and solid industry struggling to respond. Attention is not something most insurers are used to.

Many are choosing to retreat into their shells: this week a string of insurance giants quit the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), a United Nations group set up by former Bank of England governor Mark Carney.

It came after US Republicans attacked the industry for promoting environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns.

More than 20 attorneys general claimed that a requirement for NZIA members to stop providing cover for fossil fuels may violate competition laws. The plan was also driving up fuel prices for ordinary Americans, they argued.

The ESG movement has spread to every corner of the worlds financial and energy sectors, and unsuspecting Americans are paying the price, said Sean D Reyes, Utahs attorney general.

Insurers have an obligation to protect the interests of their clients, not to advance a radical environmental agenda.

Companies that have quit the NZIA include AXA, Allianz, SCOR, Swiss Re, Munich Re, Zurich Insurance and Hannover Re. Many insurers that have left have said they will still stick to their own climate targets regardless.

The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, the umbrella organisation above NZIA, said political attacks were blocking efforts to price climate risk, which will harm policyholders, main street investors and local economies.

UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance Mark Carney looks on during a session at the Congress centre during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on January 17, 2023. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP) (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images) - FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

The UN this week said it stood behind the aims and policies of the NZIA. The group still retains 23 members, including Aviva, Lloyds of London and Tokio Marine Holdings.

While the departures have been cheered by Republicans, activists on the other end of the political spectrum have denounced the exodus as cowardice.

Patrick McCully, a senior analyst at pressure group Reclaim Finance said: Real climate leaders need to fight climate denial, not cave to it.

The upheaval reflects splits within the insurance industry itself over how to respond to climate change.

Insurers were among the first businesses to take an interest in the science behind manmade global warming, seeing quickly how it could impact their business.

Climate disasters such as floods and wildfires translate into higher claims on insurance, so it was in their interest to understand the issue.

Annual insured losses from natural catastrophes over the past five years have averaged more than $110bn, more than double the average of $52bn for the previous five-year period.

Insurers paid out $125bn to cover the impacts of natural disasters in 2022, out of total damage worth $275bn, according to research by Swiss Re.

However, Swiss Re believes the main drivers of rising claims are economic: more people are moving to catastrophe-prone areas such as Florida for sunshine and jobs, while the rising costs of construction materials are driving up the costs of post-disaster repairs.

Still, the company has warned that climate change will only aggravate the situation in the coming years, making disasters more common.

Many insurers have responded by allocating more of their investments towards green infrastructure and shunning companies involved in the extraction of coal, the fuel responsible for most carbon emissions globally.

Protesters outside Lloyd's of London's AGM - Belinda Jiao

In addition, NZIA members have agreed to make their insurance portfolios net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, consistent with the Paris climate accords.

There remain differences between how far individual companies are willing to go, however.

Whereas some firms including Swiss Re, one of the worlds largest reinsurers, have halted cover for new oil and gas projects, others such as syndicates of the Lloyds of London market continue to offer it.

In the process, the industry is pleasing no one.

While Republicans have taken to bashing them for driving up premiums and even the cost of petrol, climate protesters chide the industry for not doing enough.

Demonstrators outside of Lloyds of Londons annual general meeting last Thursday waved banners proclaiming the market was insuring the climate crisis.

Lindsay Keegan, from campaign group Insure our Future, points to International Energy Agency forecasts that show net zero targets will be missed even if just the currently discovered fossil fuel resources are used in full.

Campaigners such as Keegan are targeting insurers because they believe they are uniquely positioned to do something. While BP or Shell can simply ignore their demands, it is all but impossible for the oil giants to develop new drilling sites if they cannot get insurance.

The global insurance market doesnt need the fossil fuel companies, its the other way around, he adds.

Some graduates of top universities have now threatened to boycott the insurance industry en masse for their climate policies.

A letter from more than 500 current students attending University College London, Oxford University, Cambridge University, Edinburgh University and others, warned that they would not put our professional careers at the service of climate wreckers that insure those responsible for the climate crisis.

The letter was organised by Sacha Ruello-Jossic, a political studies student at UCL. Would she and her friends really turn down a high-paying job in insurance just out of principle?

Its not just about pay, she says. We deserve better than jobs which will destroy our future.

It's possible for these companies to change, if they want my generation to come and work for them.

Keegan says the power of insurers to influence big issues was highlighted in the months after the Ukraine war first erupted, when Lloyds deprived ships carrying Russian oil of their insurance cover  hitting the Kremlins exports.

By contrast the industry continues to reinsure fossil fuel projects, despite the  less visible  threat posed by global warming.

Campaigners point to the undeveloped Rosebank oil field in the North Sea that is currently being explored by state-owned Norwegian giant Equinor. Some insurers have refused to rule out covering the project.

Agents at Lloyds have not ruled out supporting the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, a project of French energy company TotalEnergies that would run through Uganda and Tanzania.

Insurers argue they are already taking substantial action to help combat climate change, by pressuring companies they invest in to cut carbon emissions and demanding that those who want insurance plan for the green transition.

This represents an opportunity for people to make a real positive impact through their career, a spokesman for the Association of British Insurers says.

More can always be done However, it is ultimately up to governments to determine how they generate energy for their citizens.

While some insurers have opted to decline to cover certain projects, such decisions are only ever taken after careful consideration as they may have knock-on effects on the protection of workers and those living near such facilities.

Meanwhile, the changing climate is also wrecking havoc with the fundamentals of insurance.

Eric Andersen, president of London-based reinsurer Aon, told a Senate committee in March that climate change had created a crisis of confidence around the ability to predict loss.

Keegan claims the insurance industry has failed to properly heed its own warnings.

Their own models  and insurance generally  are based on historical weather data and dont work anymore, he says.

The mismatch of insurance to claims has consequences. When insurers get their sums wrong and are forced to pay out more than they bargained for, they tend to become more risk-averse or put up premiums to cover losses.

In Florida, a growing number of insurers have simply withdrawn from the state altogether following a surge in claims after storms such as Hurricane Ian and other extreme weather events.

It underlines how catastrophic climate change  global warming of two degrees celsius or more on pre-industrial levels  threatens the business model of the industry itself.

In the meantime, however, insurers are getting it from both barrels from climate campaigners and Republican critics alike.

For a profession unused to the limelight, the attention has been uncomfortable. Unfortunately, they may have to get used to it.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month, then enjoy 1 year for just $9 with our US-exclusive offer.
Readers hoping to buy DRB-HICOM Berhad (KLSE:DRBHCOM) for its dividend will need to make their move shortly, as the stock is about to trade ex-dividend. The ex-dividend date is usually set to be one business day before the record date which is the cut-off date on which you must be present on the company's books as a shareholder in order to receive the dividend. The ex-dividend date is of consequence because whenever a stock is bought or sold, the trade takes at least two business day to settle. In other words, investors can purchase DRB-HICOM Berhad's shares before the 30th of May in order to be eligible for the dividend, which will be paid on the 28th of June.

The company's next dividend payment will be RM0.02 per share. Last year, in total, the company distributed RM0.02 to shareholders. Based on the last year's worth of payments, DRB-HICOM Berhad has a trailing yield of 1.5% on the current stock price of MYR1.35. We love seeing companies pay a dividend, but it's also important to be sure that laying the golden eggs isn't going to kill our golden goose! As a result, readers should always check whether DRB-HICOM Berhad has been able to grow its dividends, or if the dividend might be cut.

See our latest analysis for DRB-HICOM Berhad

Dividends are typically paid from company earnings. If a company pays more in dividends than it earned in profit, then the dividend could be unsustainable. DRB-HICOM Berhad has a low and conservative payout ratio of just 9.3% of its income after tax. That said, even highly profitable companies sometimes might not generate enough cash to pay the dividend, which is why we should always check if the dividend is covered by cash flow. It paid out 3.7% of its free cash flow as dividends last year, which is conservatively low.

It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Businesses with strong growth prospects usually make the best dividend payers, because it's easier to grow dividends when earnings per share are improving. If earnings decline and the company is forced to cut its dividend, investors could watch the value of their investment go up in smoke. That's why it's comforting to see DRB-HICOM Berhad's earnings have been skyrocketing, up 21% per annum for the past five years. DRB-HICOM Berhad earnings per share have been sprinting ahead like the Road Runner at a track and field day; scarcely stopping even for a cheeky "beep-beep". We also like that it is reinvesting most of its profits in its business.'

DRB-HICOM Berhad also issued more than 5% of its market cap in new stock during the past year, which we feel is likely to hurt its dividend prospects in the long run. Trying to grow the dividend while issuing large amounts of new shares reminds us of the ancient Greek tale of Sisyphus - perpetually pushing a boulder uphill.

The main way most investors will assess a company's dividend prospects is by checking the historical rate of dividend growth. DRB-HICOM Berhad has seen its dividend decline 10% per annum on average over the past 10 years, which is not great to see. It's unusual to see earnings per share increasing at the same time as dividends per share have been in decline. We'd hope it's because the company is reinvesting heavily in its business, but it could also suggest business is lumpy.

To Sum It Up

Is DRB-HICOM Berhad worth buying for its dividend? It's great that DRB-HICOM Berhad is growing earnings per share while simultaneously paying out a low percentage of both its earnings and cash flow. It's disappointing to see the dividend has been cut at least once in the past, but as things stand now, the low payout ratio suggests a conservative approach to dividends, which we like. There's a lot to like about DRB-HICOM Berhad, and we would prioritise taking a closer look at it.

Curious what other investors think of DRB-HICOM Berhad? See what analysts are forecasting, with this visualisation of its historical and future estimated earnings and cash flow.

A common investing mistake is buying the first interesting stock you see. Here you can find a full list of high-yield dividend stocks.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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(Bloomberg) -- South Korea will avoid capitalizing on Chinas ban on a US chipmaker, seeing the move by Beijing as an attempt to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The South Korean government wont encourage its memory-chip firms to grab market share in China lost by Micron Technology Inc., which has been barred for use in critical industries by Beijing on national security grounds, said the person, who asked not to be identified as the topic is politically sensitive.

China is the biggest market for South Korea semiconductor firms Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. and home to some of their factories. Their continued operations in China are dependent on licenses granted by Washington, giving the US some leverage over Seouls decisions on how it balances its economic engagement with both countries.

South Korea is also wary of taking advantage of the Micron situation as it sees the US as a key long-term partner for its semiconductor industry and doesnt want to disrupt that relationship, said the person.

Chinas Micron decision has drawn South Korea into the US-China battle over technology access and national security. While Washington is Seouls top security partner, China is South Koreas biggest trade partner.

Export Controls

Washington, along with allies in Japan and the Netherlands, has imposed a series of export controls on chipmaking equipment and knowhow to Beijing as the worlds top two economic powers increasingly square off in trade and technology.

A broader ban of Micron semiconductors puts South Korea in the worst of both worlds, said Troy Stangarone, senior director at the Korea Economic Institute. If South Korean companies dont help with filling the gap left by Micron, China may penalize them the way it did for Seouls previous decision to deploy on its soil a US anti-missile defense system, known as Thaad, he said.

The Financial Times reported earlier this month that South Korea signaled it would allow its companies to fill the gap left by Chinas Micron ban. The government in Seoul denied that, saying it had yet to announce any formal position.

It remains unclear whether China would expand its crackdown on US chipmakers or how the US will respond to Beijings ruling on Micron. The two sides have recently tried to lower tensions and restore high-level talks, including meetings this week between top commerce officials in Washington.

Micron gets about 11% of its revenue from companies headquartered in mainland China. The company estimates total sales to China  combining direct sales plus indirect through distributors  comes to about 25% of revenue. It said May 22 it was still evaluating the impact of the critical information infrastructure ban.

In a briefing on Saturday, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the US was speaking to allies about Chinas action on Micron. We see it as plain and simple economic coercion, she said. And we wont tolerate it, nor do we think it will be successful.

Read more: US Wont Tolerate Chinas Micron Chips Ban, Raimondo Says

The Chinese commerce ministry said in a statement after talks with South Korea amid the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Detroit this week that the sides had agreed to strengthen cooperation on semiconductor supply chains.

A separate statement from the South Korean trade ministry made no reference to chips and instead said they discussed cooperation on stabilizing critical commodities and components.

(Updates with Micron revenue breakdown in 10th paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Info-Tech Research Group to Host Careers Open House in Sydney as Firm Looks to Fill Various Roles Over the Coming Months

SYDNEY, May 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As the global IT research and advisory firm continues to grow its market presence in the region, Info-Tech Research Group is set to host a careers open house at its Sydney, Australia, office to fill a number of in-demand roles.

Info-Tech Research Group is hosting a careers open house on June 6th, 2023.

The firm's Australian footprint has doubled in size since it expanded into the country two years ago. In anticipation of continued expansion to meet growing market demand, Info-Tech will be hosting an open house for regional professionals looking to build a successful career in the tech and advisory industry.

"As one of the fastest-growing IT research and advisory firms in the world, we are dedicated to providing exceptional service and support to our clients. We are proud to be able to offer a number of career opportunities as our presence expands in the Australia and New Zealand region," says David Banger, senior managing partner (APAC) at Info-Tech Research Group. "This is an exciting opportunity to join a rapidly growing organisation that offers exceptional benefits, employee recognition, and career development opportunities."

Info-Tech is looking to immediately fill various roles in its sales and research departments, with more career opportunities expected to be made available later in the year. Some of the open roles include the following:

Info-Tech offers sales professionals large greenfield territories with uncapped commissions and the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on the IT industry. A career in the firm's research and advisory practice gives professionals the opportunity to create and deliver practical research services that support global CIOs and IT leaders in driving measurable results within their organisations.

These roles offer flexible hours within a hybrid work model, aligning with the firm's commitment to supporting work-life balance. Moreover, the company strongly values continuous career growth and acknowledges the contributions of all its employees, including prestigious recognition through programs like President's Club.

The careers open house will be held at Level 3, 100 Harris Street, Pyrmont, NSW, on Tuesday, June 6, between 5:30 and 7:30 PM AEST.

Interested applicants are encouraged to attend to learn more about the organisation, ask questions about career opportunities at Info-Tech, and meet current team members and managers. Interested parties can apply online via the firm's careers page or in-person at the event with a resume.

For more information about working at Info-Tech and to see a complete listing of all current open roles with the firm, visit infotech.com/careers and connect via LinkedIn and Twitter.

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 organisations.

Media professionals can register for unrestricted access to research across IT, HR, and software and over 200 IT and industry analysts through the firm's Media Insiders program. To gain access, contact pr@infotech.com.

Media Contact: Sufyan Al-Hassan, PR Manager, Info-Tech Research Group, salhassan@infotech.com | +1 (888) 670-8889 x2418

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SOURCE Info-Tech Research Group
The simplest way to invest in stocks is to buy exchange traded funds. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. For example, the Knaus Tabbert AG (ETR:KTA) share price is up 57% in the last 1 year, clearly besting the market decline of around 8.1% (not including dividends). So that should have shareholders smiling. Knaus Tabbert hasn't been listed for long, so it's still not clear if it is a long term winner.

So let's assess the underlying fundamentals over the last 1 year and see if they've moved in lock-step with shareholder returns.

See our latest analysis for Knaus Tabbert

While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

Knaus Tabbert was able to grow EPS by 145% in the last twelve months. This EPS growth is significantly higher than the 57% increase in the share price. So it seems like the market has cooled on Knaus Tabbert, despite the growth. Interesting.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

We know that Knaus Tabbert has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? This free report showing analyst revenue forecasts should help you figure out if the EPS growth can be sustained.

A Different Perspective

Knaus Tabbert shareholders should be happy with the total gain of 57% over the last twelve months, including dividends. A substantial portion of that gain has come in the last three months, with the stock up 17% in that time. This suggests the company is continuing to win over new investors. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Knaus Tabbert better, we need to consider many other factors. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for Knaus Tabbert (of which 2 are a bit unpleasant!) you should know about.

Of course Knaus Tabbert may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of growth stocks.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on German exchanges.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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One simple way to benefit from the stock market is to buy an index fund. But if you choose individual stocks with prowess, you can make superior returns. Just take a look at Aflac Incorporated (NYSE:AFL), which is up 77%, over three years, soundly beating the market return of 33% (not including dividends). However, more recent returns haven't been as impressive as that, with the stock returning just 9.4% in the last year , including dividends .

Since the long term performance has been good but there's been a recent pullback of 3.6%, let's check if the fundamentals match the share price.

See our latest analysis for Aflac

In his essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville Warren Buffett described how share prices do not always rationally reflect the value of a business. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

Aflac was able to grow its EPS at 22% per year over three years, sending the share price higher. Notably, the 21% average annual share price gain matches up nicely with the EPS growth rate. This suggests that sentiment and expectations have not changed drastically. Rather, the share price has approximately tracked EPS growth.

The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image).

We know that Aflac has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? If you're interested, you could check this free report showing consensus revenue forecasts.

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. Whereas the share price return only reflects the change in the share price, the TSR includes the value of dividends (assuming they were reinvested) and the benefit of any discounted capital raising or spin-off. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. We note that for Aflac the TSR over the last 3 years was 91%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence!

A Different Perspective

It's good to see that Aflac has rewarded shareholders with a total shareholder return of 9.4% in the last twelve months. Of course, that includes the dividend. However, the TSR over five years, coming in at 10% per year, is even more impressive. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Aflac that you should be aware of.

If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of companies that have proven they can grow earnings.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on American exchanges.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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Trucking the Truth America First Bus to Roll Into Georgia State GOP Convention June 9th and 10th Columbus Georgia With Veterans for Trump

The John Fredericks Media Network Trucking the Truth America First Bus Tour sponsored by Veterans for Trump and Legacy PAC will roll into the Georgia GOP State convention June 9th and 10th Columbus Georgia, announced Stan Fitzgerald Veterans for Trump President and Legacy PAC founding partner.

COLUMBUS, GA. / ACCESSWIRE / May 28, 2023 / Veterans for Trump aka Veterans for America First along with their partner Legacy PAC have sponsored the bus tour "Trucking the Truth" which launched May in Virginia. The Virginia leg of the tour stopped in eight towns and the show featured America First candidates including candidates endorsed by Veterans for Trump. The bus features logos from both the vets' organizations and the PAC. Patrick Collis a national ambassador for the veteran's organization and state chapter president represented the group during the first leg of the tour. Donna and Stan Fitzgerald of Georgia covered the expense on behalf of the Veterans group. (https://veteransfortrump.us/trump-bus-to-roll-into-georgia-state-gop-convention-sponsored-by-veterans-for-trump)





Dinner with John





"John Fredericks is a strong voice for conservative politics and he certainly is 'Trucking the Truth' on this tour, it's our third time backing the Trump bus tours and we will do it again for the President," said Stan Fitzgerald. (https://stan-fitzgerald.com)

The Georgia leg of the bus tour will feature promotion of the Veterans for Trump national endorsed candidates Caroline Jeffords, Salleigh Grubbs, Marci McCarthy and Vikki Consiglio for state GOP seats. Also featured will be Georgia state chapter endorsed candidate Brant Frost for his re-election to 2nd vice chair. (https://georgiavfaf.org/brant-frost-endorsed-for-ga-state-gop-second-vice-chair)

The Georgia State Convention will host former President Trump as a featured speaker, as well as other presidential candidates, and FBI Whistleblower Steve Friend will be featured for meet and greets at the Legacy PAC / Veterans for Trump tables. (https://fox40.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/634464492/fbi-whistleblower-steve-friend-to-speak-at-the-georgia-gop-state-convention-june-9th-2023-in-columbus-georgia)

The veterans group sponsored the May 2022 Team Trump Georgia bus tour and the October 2022 Team MAGA Trump bus tour. (https://veteransforamericafirst.org/vfaf-sponsored-team-trump-ga-bus-tour)

The John Fredericks Trump bus tours are not the only bus the group has ties with. The Danny Hamilton Georgia Trump bus also works with President Stan Fitzgerald who rolled it into a GA Ron DeSantis speaking event and out to Mississippi for their endorsed candidate Chris McDaniel. (https://www.khon2.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/632883043/veterans-for-trump-roll-the-trump-bus-to-mississippi-in-support-of-senator-chris-mcdaniel-for-lieutenant-governor)





Contact Information

Stan Fitzgerald

President Veterans for Trump

stanfitzgerald@veteransfortrump.us

770-707-6291





SOURCE: Veterans for Trump

.





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/757736/Trucking-the-Truth-America-First-Bus-to-Roll-Into-Georgia-State-GOP-Convention-June-9th-and-10th-Columbus-Georgia-With-Veterans-for-Trump




Biden McCarthy - Saul Loeb/AFP

US congressional leaders are racing to avert a default on the nations debts this week after a major breakthrough in budget talks between Joe Biden and the Republicans.

The President on Saturday reached a deal with Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, which would raise the limit on federal government borrowing while implementing a range of spending cuts.

But to avoid a default next Monday, lawmakers still need to pass legislation in the House and the Senate, which are both governed by parties with wafer-thin majorities.

Already, key figures from both Mr Bidens Democratic party and the Republicans have voiced anger over the concessions each side will need to make to pass a bill.

In a warning shot, Chip Roy, a Republican member of the House, tweeted: I do not like the deal as I understand it from the cheerleading so far I will have more to follow once I see more details.

I do not like the deal as I understand it from the cheerleading so far I will have more to follow once I see more details.  Chip Roy (@chiproytx) May 28, 2023

A failure to pass legislation in time would risk disaster for global markets, experts have warned.

If lawmakers do not raise the debt ceiling  which is currently set at $31 trillion (25 trillion)  the US would be forced to default on its debt payments, potentially resulting in a worldwide recession.

Janet Yellen, the US Treasury Secretary, has warned that the US will default on June 5 unless action is taken. She urged lawmakers to act quickly following Saturdays deal.

Mr Biden insisted that the agreement reached with Mr McCarthy represented a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want.

Mr McCarthy added: I believe this is an agreement in principle thats worthy of the American people.

A draft text of the agreement in legislative form was due to be published on Sunday, with Mr McCarthy saying he expected to bring it to a vote on the House floor as soon as Wednesday.

It is thought that the Senate, which is narrowly controlled by the Democrats, could consider it later in the week.

Central to the agreement is a two-year budget deal that would hold spending flat for 2024 and increase it by 1pc for 2025, in exchange for raising the debt limit for two years, pushing the volatile political issue past the next presidential election.

The agreement would impose stricter age limits on people claiming jobless benefits from the governmen, but Biden was able to secure waivers for veterans and the homeless.

The two sides also agreed on an ambitious overhaul of federal permitting rules to speed up construction of energy projects.

Now attention will be focused on getting the deal passed in both legislative chambers, so it can be signed into law by the President.

McCarthy commands only a slim Republican majority in the House, powered by hard-right conservatives who may resist any deal as insufficient as they try to slash spending.

By compromising with Democrats for votes, he risks losing support from his own rank-and-file, setting up a career challenging moment for the new speaker, who took over the gavel in January.

Lawmakers need to act fast. On Wall Street, investors have become nervy about a possible default and last time such a crisis was narrowly averted in 2011 the fiasco led to a downgrade in the US credit rating.

Ralph Norman, another House Republican, tweeted: This deal is insanity. A [$4 trillion] debt ceiling increase with virtually no cuts is not what we agreed to.

Not gonna vote to bankrupt our country. The American people deserve better.

This deal is insanity.



A $4T debt ceiling increase with virtually no cuts is not what we agreed to.



Not gonna vote to bankrupt our country. The American people deserve better.  Rep. Ralph Norman (@RepRalphNorman) May 28, 2023

Mr McCarthy told Fox News: Maybe it doesnt do everything for everyone. But this is a step in the right direction that no one thought we would be at today.

This is a good bill for the American public.

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how to invest in mutual funds online

Mutual funds allow investors to diversify their portfolios by purchasing a broad range of assets in a single fund. Investors can buy mutual funds online directly through a fund provider, an investment company or an online brokerage. Here is how you can get started in investing in mutual funds online. You may also work directly with a financial advisor who can handle help you invest in mutual funds and manage your investments for you.

What Are Mutual Funds?

A mutual fund is a professionally managed investment fund that pools money from investors to purchase securities. Those securities can include stocks, bonds, money market funds or a combination of all three.

When investors buy a mutual fund, they buy shares in the fund and not in the securities themselves. Thus, they only indirectly own the securities contained in the mutual fund. Nevertheless, the performance of the securities the mutual fund comprises determines the performance of the fund.

Investors allow people to invest in hundreds or thousands of stocks, bonds or other securities in a single fund. Thus, mutual funds make it much easier to diversify your portfolio than you could do so on your own.

There are many different types of mutual funds. Some invest in the entire stock market, while others invest in just a handful of companies. Some might use a stock index, like the S&P 500, to select their securities. While there are many types of mutual funds, they all package multiple securities into a single fund.

If youre ready to be matched with local advisors that can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.

Where to Buy Mutual Funds

Just like there are many different mutual funds you can buy, there are also many ways you can invest in them. If you have an employer-sponsored retirement account, like a 401(k), your only choice for investments might be a selection of mutual funds. But there are plenty more ways to invest in them.

Another option is to buy mutual funds directly from the company that manages them. Examples of mutual fund providers include iShares, Vanguard and Fidelity. Your financial advisor might also want to sell mutual funds to you but be wary of excessive fees in this situation.

How to Buy Mutual Funds in 4 Steps

how to invest in mutual funds online

Once youve developed a strong understanding of mutual funds, buying them can be an easy and straightforward process.

1. Decide Where to Invest

The first step is to decide where to invest. You can skip this step if you simply want to invest more in your 401(k). But if you want to use one of the best online brokerage accounts, theres a little more work to do. Research your options and determine which one might be the best choice. Consider things like the selection of funds, fees, interface/mobile app usability and customer service.

2. Research Mutual Funds

The next step is researching mutual funds to find the fund(s) that match your needs. During this step, consider things like your investment goals and risk tolerance. For example, if your risk tolerance is low, you might prefer total-stock-market mutual funds or perhaps a balanced fund. If you have a long time horizon and want your investment to grow, take a look at growth funds. Or if you prefer consistent income, look into funds that pay a regular dividend. While there are many choices, the best choice for you depends on your situation and goals.

Another thing to be mindful of is mutual fund fees. Mutual funds can sometimes have high fees, especially if they are actively managed. Passively managed mutual funds tend to have lower fees. A 1% fee may not sound like much, but a fee that high can significantly reduce your returns over time. In general, you should look for the lowest fees possible when choosing a mutual fund.

3. Decide How Much to Invest

The next step is to decide exactly how much to invest. This is a personal choice, but you can only invest as much as your budget permits. If you are working to pay off debt or put money into a high-yield savings account, its usually best not to neglect those so you can invest.

Also, keep in mind that some mutual funds have investment minimums. While mutual funds with no minimums are now appearing, minimums can sometimes be thousands of dollars. If the mutual fund you want to buy has a high minimum, you might have to set money aside until you can afford to invest.

4. Manage Your Portfolio

Once you have chosen the mutual fund or funds you want to buy, the last step is the ongoing management of your portfolio. How much work that requires depends on your portfolio. For example, a small portfolio of a single mutual fund can take as little work as transferring money into your account and placing orders for your fund.

Maintenance is likely to be more involved if you have a large, complex portfolio with many funds. For example, quarterly rebalancing is a good idea. In addition, you may want to employ advanced strategies, like tax-loss harvesting. In this case, working with a financial advisor may be a good idea.

The Bottom Line

how to invest in mutual funds online

Mutual funds are investments that let you buy a collection of securities all at once. Mutual funds might invest in stocks, bonds, money market funds or other assets. You might be able to invest in mutual funds through your 401(k) or similar plan or you can invest directly with a mutual fund provider. If choosing the latter, youll have to do your research, decide how much to invest, then monitor your portfolio.

Tips for Investing in Mutual Funds

Financial advisors help investors analyze various investment options and create a plan of action to meet their goals. Before investing in mutual funds, talk with your advisor to understand how it fits within your portfolio. Finding a qualified financial advisor doesnt have to be hard. SmartAssets free tool matches you with up to three vetted financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. If youre ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.

When investing your money, it is important to diversify your assets among many different types of stocks and bonds. This helps you gain exposure to multiple sectors of the market and benefit from their growth. Our asset allocation calculator helps you select a profile thats right for you based on your answers to simple questions.

Photo credit: iStock.com/fotostorm, iStock.com/wichayada suwanachun, iStock.com/Fly View Productions

The post How to Invest in Mutual Funds Online appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.
After she was hired by the high-end Equinox gym in 2018, Robynn Europe, a Black personal trainer, was quickly promoted to oversee a group of 15 employees. But soon, she alleges, a White employee created a "toxic atmosphere" by repeatedly making vulgar comments about Black women's bodies as well as objecting to her being his boss.

Europe's employment didn't last long. Less than a year after starting at Equinox, she was fired  and the reason for the termination was the crux of a lawsuit she filed in 2020.

She alleged she faced discrimination due to her race and gender, and that she lost her job because Equinox retaliated against her for calling out racism and sexism at the club. The gym claimed she was fired for arriving late 47 times during her 11 months at the company. While a judge dismissed her claim of retaliation last year, the case continued, focused on the issues of race and gender bias.

Earlier this month, a jury of five women and three men sided with Europe, awarding her $11.25 million in damages, a verdict that includes $10 million in punitive damages against the gym, according to court records.

Millions of employees face toxic workplaces, which can reduce employee performance and impact a worker's personal life, according to the Harvard Business Review. According to Europe's lawsuit, her experiences at Equinox allegedly demoralized her, caused her "substantial emotional distress" and exacerbated her bulimia.

"The jury sent a loud message to Equinox that there are serious consequences for corporations that permit racist and sexist behavior in the workplace," said Susan Crumiller, an attorney for Europe, in a statement.

She added, "We are also pleased that the jury found Equinox's racism had a severe and lasting impact on Robynn's mental health and that she deserved to be compensated for it."

After the jury's award, the judge ordered both sides to meet with a magistrate judge to discuss a settlement.

In a statement emailed to CBS MoneyWatch, Equinox said it doesn't tolerate discrimination "in any form."

It noted, "This is a case of termination for performance related to attendance, and nothing more." Equinox added, "[W]e vehemently disagree with the jury's finding, as well as the unjust and excessive award, and have filed a motion seeking to have the judge overturn the jury's decision."

Toxic workplace

Equinox is known as a tony gym, with more than 100 locations in cities ranging from New York City to San Francisco. Memberships can cost several hundred dollars a month, with amenities like "Eucalyptus steam rooms" and high-end juice bars.

Europe worked at Equinox's location on East 92nd Street on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the same location with the employee who allegedly made racist and sexist language. Europe complained to the company about his remarks, but, her lawsuit alleges, "rather than address and fix those issues, they targeted [Europe] for reprisals."

The retaliation allegedly came in the form of being cited for lateness. Europe didn't deny she came in late, but noted that other workers frequently did the same and weren't reprimanded. Her lawsuit claimed she "was never late for a training appointment with a client, never kept a client waiting, and regularly stayed an hour or more past the end of her shift regardless of what time she had arrived."

The man who allegedly made the sexist and racist comments was among those who "regularly arrived at work well after their official start-times without consequence." The lawsuit also claimed that the employee "often left work early without repercussion."

That prompted Europe to believe she "was being singled out for selective enforcement of time and attendance policies in retaliation for having engaged in legally protected activities," the lawsuit claimed.

Just months after she complained about the club's toxic work environment, Equinox fired her, citing her lateness as its reason, the claim says.

The trial included "swipe-in data" from other Equinox workers that showed that other managers had worse time and attendance records than Europe, although she was the only worker who was disciplined, her attorney stated.

In addition to the $10 million in punitive damages, the jury awarded Europe $1.25 million in compensatory damages and $16,000 in economic damages representing back pay.
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The Falls of the Rappahannock Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution recently marked the grave of Revolutionary War soldier John Wallace at the Wallace family cemetery, located in Liberty Hall Estates in Stafford County.

After trying unsuccessfully to join his eldest brothers regiment because at age 15 he was too young to fight, Wallace enlisted Feb. 15, 1777, at age 16, for a term of three years and served as a private in Captains William Payne and Charles Ewells company in the 1st Virginia State Regiment of Foot, commanded by Col. George Gibson.

The regiment was sent north to join Washington in the Continental service in January 1778. It camped at Valley Forge in the winter of 177778 and at Middlebrook in the winter of 177879 and participated in many battles including Monmouth (June 28, 1778) and Stony Point (July 16, 1779). It remained in the service of the Continental Army until late 1779 when redeployed to Virginia. Wallace would have been eligible for discharge from service sometime in 1780.

Wallace died May 4, 1829, at his home, Liberty Hall, at the age of 68. He is buried in the Wallace family cemetery along with his wife, Elizabeth Hooe Wallace, daughter Elizabeth Brown Wallace, son Thomas Wallace and 12 other descendants. The last burial occurred in 1926.

A bronze marker, mounted on stone from the 1783 Stafford County Courthouse was placed on his grave.
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Teta Kain has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the York River and Small Coastal Basin Roundtable, a forum for information sharing and collaboration among water quality and conservation-minded stakeholders within the York River, Mobjack Bay and Piankatank River as well as the Dragon Run, Mattaponi River and Pamunkey River. The Roundtable presents the Lifetime Achievement Award at its biennial conference to individuals who have a lifetime of volunteer service focused on educating and protecting the quality of life within the watershed.

On June 22, Friends of Dragon Run will also honor Kain by dedicating the Teta Kain Nature Preserve. The preserve is located on Farley Park Road (Route 603) at the New Dragon Bridge in Middlesex County.

Like the Lifetime Achievement award, the new name for this FODR property recognizes Kains extraordinary volunteer service to Virginia and the Middle Peninsula through her decades of work on species counts, protecting swamps and wetlands, capturing nature through photography, as a nature guide for hikes and kayak tours, as a speaker about the natural world, as the leader of nature-focused organizations in Virginia, and as the organizer of bird counts, butterfly counts and moth nights.

A force of nature, Kains enthusiasm and leadership have made key and measurable contributions to the natural world. She always has both a sense of purpose and a sense of humor. Legions of Virginians know more about nature and became nature enthusiasts based on her charismatic skill and magic. She has gifted environmental literacy to countless individuals and groups.

For 35 years Kain has been a key leader within Friends of Dragon Run, as a former president of the organization but most famously as the kayak paddle guide who led more than a thousand individuals on tours of the Dragon and the Dragon Run watershed. She is known to many far and wide as the Doyenne of the Dragon, later as the Queen of the Dragon, and now as the Empress of the Dragon.

As a leader for the Friends of Dragon Run, she also worked with the counties and their governments in the Middle Peninsula, various steering committees and commissions, and Virginia agencies and organizations to protect Dragon Run and expand knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Dragon and Virginia. Kain both inspires and educates with her presentations about the flora of Dragon Run and the rich biodiversity found in the forests, swamps and wetlands.

She is an extraordinary communicator and a life-long learner. Her energy, positive attitude, subject matter expertise and communication skills have had a clear and measurable impact on motivating people to learn about and embrace the natural world and to volunteer. Her volunteer work defines what it means to be a selfless naturalist who betters the commonwealth of Virginia. Kain is an extraordinary informal educator, a dynamic spokesperson and leader for the natural world, and a champion for the importance of conserving and protecting the natural world and her beloved Dragon Run.

Her own words describe her years in Virginia: [I] met literally thousands of people, chased a million birds and butterflies[there] arent enough hours to do all of the wonderful things to be had here.

Friends of Dragon Run is a non-profit corporation. Its mission is to protect, preserve and encourage the wise use of the Dragon Run watershed. It fulfills that mission through education, stewardship and citizen science. For more information about Dragon Run and to join its activities, visit DragonRun.org.
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Public outcry for police reform boiled over after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020.

Protests broke out around the country, including in the Fredericksburg region. Local businessman Vernon Green led a peaceful demonstration at Stafford Marketplace on June 1 of that year.

Its out of balance, said Green, who is Black. Look at the police force, there are few minorities in leadership, and teachers, what are our hiring practices to ensure we have minorities in these positions?

In Fredericksburg, protesters were met by tear gas on two separate occasions in 2020. As a result, city police underwent an independent review to examine the handling of those protests. In the aftermath, 64 of the reports 66 recommendations to improve the force were implemented.

I know the FPD is better prepared than ever to support our communitys First Amendment rights while also assuring the safety of our residents, our business owners, our employees and our visitors, Fredericksburg Police Chief Brian Layton said in August 2021.

Local governments and law enforcement agencies responded to public demand for residents to provide input about area departments by forming or bolstering citizen diversity advisory coalitions. These groups aim to allow opportunities for residents to air concerns without fear of reprisal.

They are the middle person between our office and the community, said Spotsylvania Sheriffs Major Troy Skebo.

Other efforts kicked off, too, such as the formation of the Stafford Sheriffs Community Engagement Unit, whose 16 deputies participate regularly in community events such as Badges and BBQ or Coffee With a Cop at local businesses.

Our boots are on the ground, building that trust within our community so that they can come to us, said Stafford Deputy Sgt. Carol Burgess. And thats what we want people to be able to do.

Fredericksburg Police officials said they expanded the departments community outreach efforts and the role of its Citizens Advisory Panel, and Chief Layton continues to meet monthly with city residents. Additionally, two full-time school resource officers were added to city schools and two additional SRO positions are waiting to be filled.

The relationship has been revitalized and strengthened, said city police spokeswoman Sarah Morris. Theres a really good synergy between schools and the police department right now.

But getting qualified new officers to fill vacancies on police forces seems to be a challenge many agencies are facing, regardless of the race or gender of the applicant.

Who wants to put their life on the line for the amount of money that they get? asked retired Virginia State Police Officer Leonard Lacey. Its pretty much like a ministers job: theyre called to this and they feel led to serve the community.

Skebo said public scrutiny of law enforcement officers across the county in the wake of Floyds killing has made recruiting efforts more difficult. In March, Spotsylvanias force comprised 214 white personnel, 23 Black personnel and 12 other minorities. Thirty-five members of the force are women.

The number of applicants that we were used to seeing has depleted tremendously, Skebo said. Were not getting the number of applicants, were not getting the quality of applicants.

Pay is another factor to consider for a job that puts officers in danger. Locally, a basic recruit officer right out of the academy earns $50,347 a year in Spotsylvania, while the same new deputy in Stafford County makes $58,997.

Were forced to be very competitive with surrounding and Northern Virginia pay and its becoming harder and harder, Skebo said.

Adding to recruiters challenges is another glaring statistic across law enforcement agencies: the number of white officers serving behind a badge disproportionately exceeds the number of Black officers, while too few non-white officers find themselves in top positions. A similar model is evident even at the federal level, where 136,815 full-time law enforcement officers in 90 agencies are 61% are white, 21% are Hispanic and just 10% are Black, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report from last fall.

Lacey serves on Stafford Countys Diversity Advisory Coalition, Staffords NAACP and as a chaplain with the Stafford Sheriffs Office, and is also a local pastor. He said although law enforcement agencies will say they are doing their best to hire more people of color and hire more women, the reality may be that those people, and fewer people, are applying for the job.

Many in the public see it as negative: Nothing changed in law enforcement, pretty much all law enforcement is bad, Lacey said. So the amount of pay versus putting your life on the line and whats expected, it has made recruitment a little bit more difficult.

In Stafford County, where about 57% of the population is white, there are only 19 Black officers on a force of 213. Although not a recruiter, Burgess said shes working to improve that number, especially for women.

My goal is to try to get more minorities in there, especially Black females, said Burgess. Thats my personal push.

Burgess, who is Black and has been on the force for about 20 years, said Staffords officer breakdown by race is similar to Arlington, where her husband works as a county deputy and was recently promoted to major.

Thats something huge, Burgess said. Hes the only Black major in that agency.

In Fredericksburg in March, there were 78 sworn officers, of which 54 were white and 13 were Black. Police spokeswoman Morris said 110 people signed up to take the test last year to become city officers, but only just over one-third of those applicants succeeded at taking a new job.

Forty people didnt show up for testing and 70 people participated, Morris said. Of those 70 people that tested, only 37 individuals passed and moved forward.

Morris said of that group that moved forward, 12 applicants took jobs with the city police force and the makeup of that new group was 29% Black, 25% Hispanic and 20% white.

In fall 2021, several Stafford County deputies appeared in The Thin Black Line, an 80-minute documentary that shows what some Black law enforcement officers face while serving on the streets.

Stafford Deputy John Harrod, who appears in the documentary, said he lost the majority of his friends and has been shunned by some family members because he chose law enforcement as a career.

They dont understand that I dont stand for injustice, either, Harrod said. I dont stand for racism, either. I dont stand for police brutality, either.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio  A new batch of states are looking to legislate the level of informed consent when it comes to medical students performing pelvic exams for educational purposes on unconscious patients.

At least 20 states already have consent laws for this practice. Montanas governor signed a bill in April, Missouri has legislation that needs the governors signature to become law and Ohio lawmakers are also considering it.

Colorado lawmakers want to go a step further, with Democratic Gov. Jared Polis expected to sign a bill that one bioethicist calls the broadest shes seen  and says may go too far  due to a requirement of naming the involved students ahead of time and introducing them to the patients.

Proponents see the Colorado bill as a model we hope other states will pass, said Elizabeth Newman, public policy director at the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which testified in favor of the legislation.

Its hard to track and quantify how often medical students are asked to do intimate exams  like pelvic, rectal or prostate exams  on patients who are anesthetized. Opponents of the various bills and laws, who are often doctors, argue its government overreach which could compromise the established trust between patient and provider and should instead be left to recommendations from medical associations.

Typically, a patient signs a number of forms giving broad consent for a range of procedures that might be medically necessary while someone is anesthetized. That can also include consent for educational purposes.

Most folks just sign them and assume they are going to get the care that they need, said Colorado Democratic Rep. Jenny Willford, who co-sponsored the bill.

But patients often dont know they were examined while unconscious, and if they do, they may fear coming forward, according to Newman. Plus, she said, medical students who could report it are often afraid to raise concerns with superiors who have power over their careers.

Colorados bill would require an informed consent process, as well as ensure that the pelvic, breast, rectal or prostate exam is within the scope of the treatment. While this would be required even without students, practitioners are excepted from the consent process in emergency situations.

The bill goes beyond others across the U.S. to include whistleblower protections for medical students who want to speak out, as well as liability for doctors and hospitals if they don't follow the consent rules. It's also unique in the requirement that the involved students would be named on the consent form, and be introduced to the patient prior to the procedure.

Kayte Spector-Bagdady, a clinical ethicist, said Colorados proposal is the broadest shes seen and worries that listing the names of involved students could limit learning opportunities. Getting consent is typically done days or weeks ahead of time, but students may be unavailable on the day of the procedure  and Colorados proposed law wouldnt allow others to step in and learn, she said.

We want people to generally know how to take care of women, and (these exams are) a critical component of that, said Spector-Bagdady, who co-authored a 2019 recommendation by the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics for such exams. Its a balance of respecting the autonomy of our patients and ensuring that the next time they go see a doctor, that doctor knows how to care for them properly.

That associations 2019 recommendation, endorsed by major obstetric and gynecological professional associations, says students should only perform pelvic exams that are explicitly consented to and related to the planned procedure.

Newman, however, said the mandates are important not only for patients to give complete informed consent, but for medical students to know that the client has given their consent and to learn the rules governing the consent process.

Alexandra Fountaine, a medical student at Ohio University, was asked to do a pelvic exam on an unconscious female patient by the doctor overseeing Fountaines training on her first day of rotation at an OhioHealth hospital in Columbus.

She said she didnt know whether the woman, who was anesthetized for an abdominal surgery that Fountaine said didnt require a pelvic exam, had given consent for it.

Fountaine also did not ask the physician whether the woman had consented, telling The Associated Press that students are taught to be seen and not heard. Fountaine said the physician assured her that doing a pelvic exam was fine and for her education.

I initially froze, said Fountaine, who didn't end up doing the exam but told the physician she did when her back was turned. The experience led Fountaine to testify in front of an Ohio House committee; her school says it supports students on their professional journey.

There can be an intense disconnect between patient understanding and provider understanding on consent and procedures, said Phoebe Friesen, a bioethicist at McGill University in Montreal whose research helped bring the practice back into focus following the #MeToo movement.

The solution is so simple, Friesen said. Just ask people whether theyre comfortable with this particular practice.

Reproductive health care and data privacy: What we know, what we don't, and how to protect yourself Reproductive health care and data privacy: What we know, what we don't, and how to protect yourself What we know What we don't know How to protect yourself
For this week, we have a sampling of small bites instead of the usual heavy meal.

Lets start with:

And the cynic is 

A year ago, Gov. Jared Polis labeled as cynics any who dared to question his Colorado Cashback tax refund checks amid his reelection campaign. He and his legislative allies protested that their motives were pure, even altruistic, and that their only interest was in saving people money and getting refunds back in taxpayer hands as quickly as possible.

Yet here we are a year later, with that election securely in the rearview mirror, and the urgency of those refunds and branding of the cashback are nowhere to be found. Instead, TABOR refunds for 2023 will come with the filing of this years tax returns next April.

Labeling critics last year as the cynics was a textbook case of pots and kettles and the color black. Such stunts only feed that rampant public cynicism and even antipathy toward government.

Speaking of which 

There will be ample time for discussion of the ballot proposal on property taxes put forward by Polis and the Democratic Legislature that will be the centerpiece of this Novembers election.

But three initial notes: First, the manner in which this measure was brought forward with less than three days left in the legislative session was plainly poor governance. I get that the big stuff often happens late. But lets measure that in weeks, not days and hours.

Second, there is very little that threatens the Democratic stranglehold on Colorado politics. GOP excess and lunacy serve as an insurance policy on that Democratic dominance. Yet, if there is one issue that could jeopardize all that, even hypothetically, it is the prospect of skyrocketing property taxes. Hence, the imperative of this step by Polis and his minions, and the salience of the argument coming this fall.

Back to that matter of cynicism, point three relates to the troubling piece of the proposal that partially funds so-called property tax relief out of TABOR refund dollars. Krista Kafer, a fellow TV talker on PBS12, aptly called it, Robbing Peter to pay Peter.

Single-named politicians

Political leaders known by a single moniker are a rarity. In times past, we had Abe and Ike. More recently, Democrats put forward Hillary. Here locally, there is Hick, though journalists and others invented that mainly as shorthand.

Welcome to the Colorado political scene to the soon-to-be mayor of the states second largest city, Colorado Springs. His last name is Mobolade but on yardsigns and ads, and in everyday discussion, he was simply Yemi.

At a speaking engagement in the Springs in November, two Republican operatives (yes, both deeply invested in the GOP) introduced me to Yemi as the citys next mayor. Suffice to say, I was slightly dubious. Coming next week: A deeper dive into Yemis election and some of the questionable narratives being peddled by various parties.

On the weather and Denvers mayoral race

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The core issue in this campaign is whether Kelly Brough or Mike Johnston can better keep Denver from following the course of Seattle and San Francisco. But who knew that those two troubled cities would export their rainy, foggy, dreary weather to our fair city over the last few weeks? Enough.

A requiem for the Fair Elections Fund

Before we even decide whether Brough or Johnston wins the prize, can we agree that Denvers voter-mandated system of public campaign financing was a flop?

Its a pleasing, idealistic concept that anyone and everyone can run for mayor. At one point, there were 27 candidates in the race. Seventeen made the ballot. That total included a number with no plausible chance. Many did not even receive 1% of the vote.

If taxpayers are funding campaigns on a nine-to-one match, why not throw your hat into the ring? But that plethora of candidates, call it a glut, does not necessarily improve the debate. In fact, it appears that many eligible voters did not return their ballot having been overwhelmed by the size of the field.

And look at which candidates ended up in the runoff  the two most well-funded who did not need public dollars. At a minimum, this ill-advised process needs an overhaul before voters next go to the polls.

The other side of a fixation on identity politics

This past week, I stepped into a minor Twitter storm, even without a horse in this race, by raising the question of whether former candidate Lisa Calderons endorsement of Johnston was in conflict with her day job as head of an organization dedicated to electing Democratic women to office.

To be clear, Calderon, like any citizen, has the absolute right to support whichever candidate she chooses. But her approach, more than any other original candidate, has been to emphasize group identity.

This year, I referred to her as a Latina candidate. She was quick to demand a correction, noting that her mother was Latino but her father was Black. Fair enough. The column was edited to reflect her mixed race. That was still not adequate and she pushed that it again be changed to list her as biracial.

When identity becomes everything, it is fair to ask what considerations or enticements caused Calderon to deviate from the central mission of the identity-based enterprise she leads.

2 agencies behaving badly

We close this week with a few harsh words for two public entities with major room for improvement.

The first raspberry goes to the board of Denver Public Schools which just, inexplicably, gave embattled Superintendent Alex Marrero a $45,000 rise without even a performance evaluation. By any measure, that performance has been marginal. The dysfunction of this board and administration knows no end.

The other Bronx cheer is earned by the board of Colorado PERA, the states public employee retirement plan. With an unfunded liability of over $27 billion, by their own accounting, the board sent the executive director packing with a $400,000 parting gift and zero explanation for the abrupt termination.

Perhaps a bit of transparency, folks? Governor and legislators, what say you?
Some bills end not with a bang but a whimper.

In Colorado's 2023 legislative session, 32 bills died on the calendar. That means the bills failed not because lawmakers voted to reject them, but because they never got around to holding a vote in the first place.

Lawmakers often choose to kill bills in this way to save time that would have been spent on votes and debates when the measures do not have enough support  or, more commonly, do not have enough funding  to pass. Sometimes, though, lawmakers simply run out of time in the session to vote on the bills that were not prioritized on the calendar.

Of the 32 bills that died on the calendar this session, 21 were House bills and 11 were Senate bills.

Three-quarters of the bills died awaiting consideration from the appropriations committees, which are responsible for delegating state funds to pay for implementing bills. Five bills died on the calendar for the Senate Appropriations Committee, and 19 died for the House Appropriations Committee.

Four bills died on the Senate floor  three pending second readings and one pending consideration of House amendments. Four other bills died on the House floor by being laid over until after the session's May 8 end date, which is another time-saving method often used to kill bills without enough support.

Here are what some of the 32 bills would have done if made law.

Land use

The most publicized calendar death of the year, Senate Bill 213 died in the last hours of the session, while waiting for the Senate to approve amendments made by the House.

The bill previously passed both chambers, but all-day negotiations failed to find a compromise between the Senate and House versions. So, bill sponsors let the bill die on the calendar, failing to take action on it before the midnight deadline, without senators ever discussing the House amendments on the floor.

SB 213 was Gov. Jared Polis' controversial housing proposal, originally seeking to require cities and towns to zone for greater residential density, stripping local governments of their land use authority. The Senate gutted the bill to turn it into a housing needs assessment instead. But the House rolled back some of those changes, re-adding mandates to increase multifamily homes around bus and train stops in large cities.

"We sent back a bill that was, in my mind, exceptional. We got something that really needed salvaging," said bill sponsor Rep. Iman Jodeh, D-Aurora, after the bill's failure on the last day of the session. "We're disappointed but we're also excited because we get to come back next year and do something even bigger and better."

Critics of the bill on both sides of the aisle argued that it violated local control. Proponents said it would increase housing stock and improve affordability  which has become a major issue statewide.

Just cause eviction requirement

House Bill 1171 passed the House in mid-March. But in the Senate, it didn't get its first committee hearing until four days before the end of the session. It died on the calendar three days later when senators failed to hold the second reading vote before the midnight deadline.

The bill would have only allowed evictions or lease terminations if the tenant does something wrong, such as failing to pay rent or violating lease agreements. It would have also required landlords to give 90 days' notice and pay tenants two to three months' worth of rent to evict or terminate leases in no-fault circumstances, like for landlords to renovate the property or to move in themselves.

Bill sponsor Sen. Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, said she was working on getting more senators on board to vote "yes" on the bill. Gonzales said they would have gotten the bill passed if they had more time. She had committed to removing two of the bill's most controversial requirements: that landlords pay relocation assistance and that lease renewals be substantially similar to the prior lease.

"We had the path but ran out of time," Gonzales said.

The bill's other sponsor, Rep. Javier Mabrey, D-Denver, said the legislature "should be ashamed that (the bill) was not prioritized" in a statement posted on Twitter.

Sponsors said the bill would have helped keep renters in their homes and prevent homelessness, while critics said it was too harsh on landlords and would push them out of the rental market.

Colorado governor, leaders reflect on 2023 legislative session

Local government Independent Ethics Commission

House Bill 1065 would have added school board members, school board employees and special district directors to the jurisdiction of the Independent Ethics Commission. The commission investigates alleged violations of state ethics laws.

Sponsors of the bill said, in the past year, the commission received dozens of emails and several complaints tied to school boards but had to decline them because the commission lacks authority over those bodies.

The bill passed the House in late-April, but hit roadblocks in the Senate, where lawmakers accused the bill of being unconstitutional. The Colorado Constitution expressly prohibits any "public officer" who serves on a board or commission for no compensation from being under commission jurisdiction.

In the end, senators failed to hold a second reading vote on the bill before the session deadline, killing it.

Bill sponsor Sen. Janice Marchman, D-Loveland, told The Colorado Sun that she thought the bill was going to pass the Senate if they hadn't run out of time, vowing to try to pass the measure again next year.

Analyze statewide publicly financed health care

House Bill 1209 would have studied the possibility of implementing a single-payer health care system in Colorado.

The study, conducted by the University of Colorado School of Public Health, would have analyzed potential costs and revenue sources, as well as how the health care system would impact health care facilities, insurance carriers and certain demographic groups.

The bill cleared the House with near-unanimous support from Democrats. But the Senate Appropriations Committee passed the bill two days before the end of the session, giving senators only one full day to squeeze the bill into its packed second reading calendar.

Senators did not vote on the bill before the deadline. Bill sponsor Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Longmont, said it simply came down to time restraints.

"We were going to run out of time," Jaquez Lewis said. "It was going to take up too much time on the floor because of the Republican filibustering. Really the answer is it was Republican filibustering that ran out the clock."

Wildfire detection pilot program

In one of the most surprising failures, Senate Bill 32 died on the calendar of the House Appropriations Committee after unanimously passing the Senate and unanimously passing the House State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.

The bill would have created a pilot program that would use fire-detecting cameras to monitor the state for wildfires.

Lawmakers have unsuccessfully tried to create the pilot program for years, including in 2022 when the bill similarly passed the House Agriculture Committee but was killed by the House Appropriations Committee.

House Appropriations Chair Rep. Emily Sirota, D-Denver, said the bills that died on the committee's calendar simply came down to money: "Not all bills could be funded, so not all bills were able to move out of the Appropriations Committee."

The program would have run from April 2024 to September 2027 and cost $2 million over the four years.

"I was very confused and disappointed that SB 32 didn't make it through House Appropriations," said bill sponsor House Minority Leader Mike Lynch, R-Wellington. "(It is) a moderate price tag compared to the cost of a single wildfire. I will stay with this effort and make an attempt next session to add this to our tool kit of combating wildfires."

Income tax credit for teachers

House Bill 1208 was another repeat bill that met its end in the House Appropriations Committee due to monetary constraints.

The bill would have reimbursed full-time, licensed public school teachers $1,000 each year to pay for school supplies, with a refundable state income tax credit through Jan. 1, 2027. The bill passed the House Education and Finance Committees, but it was never voted on in appropriations.

The legislature has attempted to create such a tax credit several times before, with at least five similar bills introduced since 2019. Every effort has failed to make it to a full chamber vote. This year's bill limited the scope to only licensed teachers to reduce its price tag, but it still would have costed $17.7 million in 2023, and around $35.8 million each subsequent year.

Bill sponsor Rep. Bob Marshall, D-Highlands Ranch, said he thinks he had enough support for the bill to pass out of appropriations, but was told the Joint Budget Committee would "never sign off on it" because of the high cost.

"I thought mine was focused enough that it would have been able to get through, but interest groups on both sides of the aisle were not fond of it for various reasons even though I believe the target group, the teachers, were very happy with it," Marshall said.

Gov. Jared Polis pulls veto pen out again, rejecting measures on gambling, tipping, agri land

Minor driver's education requirements

Senate Bill 11 would have required Coloradans younger than 18 to finish a 30-hour driver's education course and receive six hours of behind-the-wheel training from an instructor, to be eligible to get a driver's license. Adults under 21 years old would also have to take a four-hour driver awareness program.

The bill died in the Senate Appropriations Committee, undoubtably because of its financial impact: $12.1 million in 2023 and around $22 million each year after, to pay for a tax credit for individuals who pay for a drivers education course.

While this bill technically died, it was resurrected in amendments to House Bill 1147 that combined the two measures.

The rewritten HB 1147 passed the full legislature with SB 11's driver's education requirements, but without its tax credit. However, Gov. Jared Polis later vetoed the bill, objecting to a portion of it that would have increased driver's license fees.

Medicaid preauthorization exemption

Senate Bill 33 would have prohibited requirements for prior authorization, step therapy and "fail first" methods for Medicaid to cover prescription drugs used to treat serious mental health disorders.

The bill passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee but died on the Senate Appropriations Committee calendar. Committee Chair Sen. Jeff Bridges, D-Greenwood Village, said the bills that die in appropriations are primarily due to money issues, whether in the Senate or House Appropriations Committees.

"We can't fund everyone's bill, as much as everyone would love that and as much as we would love to do that," Bridges said. "I had some really hard conversations with some of my colleagues about how their bill just wasn't going to make it this year. That's the world we're in."

Bill sponsor Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, echoed this sentiment, saying she had assumed the cost was the reason SB 33 didn't make it. The bill would have costed $35 million through 2026.

However, not every bill that didn't get a vote in the appropriations committees had big price tags. Such bills include:

Possession of weapon by previous offender crimes

Senate Bill 22 would have added aggravated motor vehicle theft to the list of crimes that constitute the crime of possession of a weapon by a previous offender. The bill died in the House Appropriations Committee after passing the Senate and the House Judiciary Committee.

SB 22 didn't require any direct funds, but would have increased the workload and costs for the trial courts and the Department of Corrections due to additional criminal cases.

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Social equity licenses in regulated marijuana

House Bill 1020 would have expanded eligibility criteria for social equity licensees for marijuana delivery and permitted additional incentives for social equity licensees and accelerator-endorsed licensees. The bill died in the Senate Appropriations Committee after passing the House and the Senate Finance Committee.

HB 1020 would have costed less than $200,000 per year, according to an April 10 fiscal note, which would have been covered by the Marijuana Cash Fund and Marijuana Entrepreneur Fund.

Water desalination study

Senate Bill 262 would have required the Colorado Water Conservation board to conduct a literature review of existing research on desalination. The bill died in the House Appropriations Committee after passing the Senate and unanimously passing the House Energy and Environment Committee.

SB 262 would have costed only $50,000, a one-time payment to the Department of Natural Resources.

Is this normal?

More bills died on the calendar this session than usual, but not the most the legislature has seen.

From 2016 to 2019, between 11 and 17 bills died on the calendar each year. But in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, lawmakers were forced to abandon most non-essential bills to focus on laws responding to the public health and economic crisis. That year, a whopping 68 bills died on the calendar.

In 2021, only nine bills died on the calendar. That number shot up to 26 in 2022 and 32 this year.

Bridges, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the recent rise in bills dying on the calendar can be attributed to the state slowing down on its use of one-time federal COVID-19 relief funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. While money is still available, Bridges said, it must be thoughtfully allocated.

"We're in a budget situation where we don't have all the money," Bridges said. "We just couldn't fund every bill we wanted to fund, no matter how good of an idea we thought it was. So, in an effort to save time and move through the session as efficiently as possible, those were lost on the calendar."

This is particularly an issue for bills that require ongoing annual funding, he said. Especially as the state prepares to begin taking on the financial responsibility of programs currently funded by one-time federal dollars, including over $100 million annually for the state's Behavioral Health Administration.

That also explains why so few bills died on the calendar in 2021, when the state's federal dollars were at their peak.

"We had a lot of money in our budget and basically almost no bills died because they couldn't get funded. If a bill failed, it failed because of policy reasons, not fiscal reasons," Bridges said. "That's not the reality we're in anymore, and that's going to be even more true in future years."

Here are the rest of the bills that died on the calendar this session:

Senate Bill 61: Eliminate state assessment in social studies

Eliminates the statewide social studies assessment in elementary and middle schools.

Laid over in the House until May 9.

House Bill 1114: First-generation-serving higher education institutions

Requires the Department of Higher Education to designate institutions that are first-generation-serving institutions.

Laid over in the House until July 1.

House Bill 1142: Information of person reporting child abuse

Requires that individuals reporting child abuse to a county or the state child abuse hotline system are notified that their call is being recorded and requires the Department of Human Services to convene a working group to analyze the questions used when someone reports child abuse or neglect by phone.

Laid over in the House until July 1.

House Bill 1282: Protect consumers from additional entities

Grants protections under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act against any public utility that violates the act.

Laid over in the House until July 1.

Senate Bill 43: Continue School Access for Emergency Response Grant Program

Extends the repeal date of the School Access for Emergency Response Grant Program until July 1, 2029.

Died on the Senate Appropriations Committee calendar.

Senate Bill 207: Sales and use tax refund for data center purchases

Allows taxpayers to claim a sales and use tax refund for purchases of data center construction materials and equipment.

Died on the Senate Appropriations Committee calendar.

Senate Bill 18: Ongoing funding for 911 Resource Center

Requires an annual direct distribution of $250,000 to the Colorado 911 Resource Center.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

Senate Bill 27: Food Pantry Assistance Grant Program

Extends the potential for General Fund appropriations to the Food Pantry Assistance Grant Program in the Department of Human Services through fiscal year 2026-27 and repeals the program on July 1, 2028.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1016: Temporary tax credit for public service retirees

Creates a $700 refundable state income tax credit for qualifying public service retirees through 2024.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1018: Timber industry incentives

Creates an income tax credit for equipment used in the timber, wood product manufacturing, forest health and wildfire mitigation industries.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1047: Joint filing deduction qualified tuition program

Increases the state income tax deduction amount for taxpayers filing jointly who make contributions to a CollegeInvest savings account.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1059: Motorcycle lane splitting study

Requires the Colorado Department of Transportation to study lane splitting.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1110: Health care coverage for biomarker testing

Requires Medicaid and state-regulated plans to cover specified biomarker tests.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1122: Tax credit for purchase of long-term care insurance

Expands eligibility requirements for the tax credit for purchasing long-term care insurance.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1124: Funding for services for Colorado Employment First participants

Provides $1.5 million per year for two years to the Colorado Employment First Program.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1129: Tax credit lifebuoy apparatus

Creates a state income tax credit for the purchase and installation of a lifebuoy apparatus in a subdivision with a body of water.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1160: Colorado TRAILS system requirements

Prohibits the Department of Human Services from putting a person suspected of child abuse or neglect into the state's child welfare information system until a hearing finds sufficient evidence to support the allegations and the person has exhausted or waived their right to appeal.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1188: Individualized learning schools and programs

Allows students in certain independent study programs at charter schools to be funded through the School Finance Act.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1207: Stipends for national board-certified educators

Expands eligibility for national board certified educator stipends.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1221: Water quality data standards

Requires the use of quality-assured data to establish the total maximum daily load for pollutants discharged into state waters.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

House Bill 1289: Sustainable advancements in aviation tax credits

Creates two income tax credits related to aviation: one for electric ground support equipment, and another for investment in businesses that advance sustainable aviation fuel.

Died on the House Appropriations Committee calendar.

Progressives see many victories, big losses | 2023 LEGISLATIVE SESSION
A Black man of African descent was elected to be the next mayor of Colorado Springs, something thats very gratifying to me. It emphasizes an idea I have had for a while, that we Black immigrants need to engage more fully in the affairs of our new homes. By our presence in the arena of Colorados quotidian occurrences, we, Mayor elect Yemi Mobolade and I, add a unique view point, an eclectic foreign flavor that enriches the greater community.

I also write this after a discussion with friends about how some African immigrants spend large chunks of their time complaining about corrupt governance and kleptocracy in Africa. Their anguish affects their families so much that it sometimes verges on the pathological. The lament is, their American childrens time is spent listening to excessive parental complaints about Africa. This sounds unfair to me; I believe that to fully engage in the affairs of where we are, requires a letting go of what we could have done if only we were still in Africa.

Each of us immigrates to the US for distinct reasons. There are those who see their stay here as an interlude, an exile from rulers who would kill us; while others, hope to return triumphant to Africa, to become kings or princes. I also admire everyone whose objective in life is to advance justice and human rights  if returning to ones birthplace in Africa can restore it.

Truth is, our histories travel with us, and sometimes, it takes a lot to shake off memories of past nightmares, and painful experiences. I cant help but think: if the angers energy and the imagination we expend on faraway places could be converted to changing, creating, reshaping and repairing local, more accessible matters, the world we live in would be a much better place. The battles for just peace and human rights struggles in Africa continue even in our absence.

In consideration of our childrens future, whether we return to Africa or not, these American born children will always be Americans.

We must therefore fully engage with the sometimes tedious chore of being a genuine citizen of this land.

That, it would seem, was what Yemi Mobolade did as he established himself as a contributing member of his Colorado Springs community when he built two successful eateries  Wild Goose Meeting House, and Good Neighbors Meeting House and set up the nonprofit, COSILoveYou, that raised millions for Colorado Springs shelters for the homeless. Mobolade job as vice president of business retention and expansion for Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC placed him in a position of visibility.

Hes a talented African who lit a candle and didnt put it under a bushel. Its light is so bright that a man born in Nigeria is going to be the mayor of Colorado Springs, which, some say, is one of the conservative bastions of the American West. The lesson here is: talent in a Black man can occasionally overcome conservative racial insensitivity.

Another just as important point is to emulate other immigrant communities, such as South Asians, that have exceptionally excelled in America. I have a long history with Indians in Africa who continue to exert commercial dominance in Kenya. In the US, recent Indian arrivals head Google, Microsoft and more than a dozen Fortune 500 companies. In addition, second generation Indian Americans have risen into prominence both in business, politics, academia and more. They work hard, diligently, keeping an eye on the prize. Africans should do the same.

My point is to urge many more Africans to immerse themselves in the civic life of their communities. A few of us have stepped up to the plate; this has resulted in a few Congressmen and members of various state houses, of African descent. For far too long, for many Americans, Africa was some place where Black slaves came from; and which Donald Trump referred to with an obscene moniker. If we are to shape Americas policy towards the continent, more African voices must rise above the current senseless cacophony

Indeed, Blacks  Africans and Americans  have the capacity to negate the warped, distorted image a large swath of White Americans have of us, by becoming active participants in the day-to-day functioning of all that America is. Any obstacles that exist on our way should stimulate us to jump higher, or to assault the impediment with greater vigor.

Pius Kamau, M.D., a retired general surgeon, is president of the Aurora-based Africa America Higher Education Partnerships (AAHEP); co-founder of the Africa Enterprise Group and an activist for minority students STEM education. He is a National Public Radio commentator, Huffington Post blogger, and past columnist for Denver dailies. He has authored a memoir and a novel recounting Kenyas bloody colonial history.
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A fast-approaching deadline looms for businesses to register with the state in order to report wages and pay premiums under Colorado's voter-approved program that will pay for workers to take up to 16 weeks of leave.

Voters approved the Family and Medical Leave Insurance program in 2020, under which employers and employees split paying for a premium that will fund benefits starting in 2024. Those contributions began in January.

Under the program, an employee with at least one worker must register with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment's new Division of Family and Medical Leave Insurance to comply with wage reporting and premium payment requirements. The state gave businesses until May 31, the first major deadline for the program.

In a statement, the labor department said the premiums will build the new insurance fund that will help workers when they face significant life events that compel them to step away from their jobs.

Were thrilled to see Colorado businesses supporting and building this insurance fund from scratch, Tracy Marshall, director of the FAMLI division, said in a news release. This is a benefit Colorado voters want, and its been rewarding to see Colorados employers register and contribute premiums, so FAMLI will be a success once benefits become available in 2024.

The program's next major milestone is launching an online portal for health care providers to register and certify health conditions  such as an illness, injury, pregnancy or physical or mental condition that involves inpatient care  for patients applying for FAMLI leave claims. The portal is expected to go live in August, the labor department said.

Supporters said FAMLI would benefit low-wage workers who are most likely not able to get any sick time off without losing wages and help families navigate through difficult periods, while protecting jobs and allowing workers to care for loved ones without jeopardizing their financial well-being or job security. Opponents countered that it would place financial and regulatory burden on small businesses, as well as take money out of the pockets of people who would never use significant medical or family leave.

Already, some critics said the program faces a financial risk.

An analysis from the Common Sense Institute said the program  initially estimated to collect $1.3 billion in premiums this year  could overburden Colorado employers or become insolvent over the next several years, anticipating more people than projected will take advantage of the leaves.

The think tank had looked at a similar program from the state of Washington, which, the group said, has seen higher-than-expected utilization and required employee premium hikes each year, forcing legislators there to allocate $350 million to address deficits.

CSI said if the risks for Colorado materializes, premium rates will need to increase, the benefits will need to be curtailed or the state will have to pick up the tab.

"This will especially impact businesses with low margins and those that need to replace the labor of employees on leave," the CSI analysis said.

The group said the effects on businesses will be uneven. Companies that operate in high-wage and high-tech industries will only experience "small reductions in output and relatively low premium costs," but businesses that have slim margins and employ low-income Coloradans, such as restaurants, will struggle to replace labor lost to paid leave and lose "large shares of profitability."

Nearly 58% of voters supported Proposition 118, which created FAMLI, in 2020.

In advocating for the measure, the Colorado Fiscal Institute, had argued that access to paid leave was slanted toward Coloradans who earn the highest incomes, and they were "disproportionately white." The group added that Black and Latino workers are likelier to work in low- and middle-income jobs that were much less likely to offer leave.

A 2013 analysis from the group looked at California and New Jersey' family leave programs that about 0.79% of Colorados workforce will use paid family leave each year.

The group also estimated the average duration of medical leave for Colorado workers to be 7.85 weeks, much lower than in New Jersey and California. Among Colorado workers using the paid family leave portion, the average duration would be 9.63 weeks, more than in New Jersey and California.

"Being able to care for a new child, a sick or injured family member, or heal from a personal illness or injury shouldnt mean risking your job," the group said.
The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds will rumble through Colorado Springs this week for a flyover and air show at the 2023 Air Force Academy graduation ceremony.

President Joe Biden will be the commencement speaker at the ceremony, which is scheduled for 9:30 a.m.-1:15 p.m at Falcon Stadium.

The academy's graduation flyover is an iconic tradition: The F-16 fighter jets fly over the stadium at the moment the class is dismissed; cadets toss their caps into the air, signifying their transition to officers.

While commencement is Thursday, the Thunderbirds will arrive earlier in the week to prep and practice for the flyover and airshow. The flight schedule, listed below, was provided by the Air Force Academy, and is subject to change.

Tuesday: Arrival/airshow survey, 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

Wednesday: Stadium flyover practice, 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.; Airshow practice, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.

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Thursday: Graduation day flyover and airshow 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m.

See the full graduation schedule here.
In celebration of its deep historic past, Old Colorado City kicked off its Territory Days street fair Saturday with a bang: bringing live music, great food, local vendors and a lively sense of community.

This Memorial Day weekend marks the 48th anniversary of Territory Days, Colorado Springs' longest-running event.

Territory Days works to remember Old Colorado City as the first territorial capital of Colorado and highlights its history as a mining staple of the West.

I grew up on this side of town. I know a lot of people that have lived in this area and have been here a long, long time  more so than other parts of the city, and the sense of community here is infectious, said Guillermo Alvarado, owner of Cucuru Gallery Cafe.

Nestled in the heart of the neighborhood, adjacent to Bancroft Park, Cucuru Gallery Cafe has been a staple for the past 19 years. Alvarado highlighted the importance of the annual weekend celebration for the locals, as well as people new to the area.

This (Territory Days) is good for the community, because it reflects on the history of the area, and helps people connect with the areas they live in  especially for people who just moved here. Its a great way to learn what Colorado Springs is all about, Alvarado said.

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Its become such a family, fun-oriented event that is really the root of a good community. Its grown very popular with families, and to see all the kids out here, its a wonderful thing.

Deep in the sea of vendors and food trucks Saturday was artist Andrew Ellingson, a Springs Local for the past 35 years. Focusing his creative endeavors on Colorados vast wildlife with a colorful twist, its only fitting for his work to be featured at Saturdays celebration.

Ive been coming here (Territory Days) since I was a kid. This is my first time here as a vendor, and the crowd is even better on the other side!

Sound Advice, a classic rock band local to the Pikes Peak region, could be heard playing at the 25th Street North Stage Saturday afternoon. A dance party commenced outside Slice 420, a pizza joint at the intersection of Colorado Avenue and 25th.

Allison and Bryan Murphey could be seen twisting and turning to the beat  each holding a giant turkey leg.

We both work remotely to travel as much as possible on our weekends, Bryan said, a friend of ours had been (to Territory Days) a few years back and raved about how good of a time they had. We just had to check it out for ourselves.

You can check out Territory Days for yourself as it continues for the remainder of the holiday weekend. Click or Tap Here for more information.
By Khalid Abdelaziz

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia and the United States called on Sunday for the extension of a ceasefire deal that has brought some let-up in a six-week war between military factions, but said both sides had impeded aid efforts and were posturing for further escalation.

Clashes could be heard overnight and on Sunday in the capital Khartoum, residents said, while human rights monitors reported deadly fighting in El Fashir, one of the principal cities in the western region of Darfur.

The conflict between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that erupted on April 15 has left the capital reeling from heavy battles, lawlessness and a collapse in services, driving nearly 1.4 million people from their homes and threatening to destabilise the region.

A week-long ceasefire brokered in Saudi Arabia and U.S.-led talks in Jeddah are due to run until Monday evening.

Both countries are remotely monitoring the truce and called on the army and the RSF to renew the "imperfectly observed" ceasefire to allow for humanitarian work.

"There were violations by both parties that significantly impeded delivery of humanitarian assistance and restoration of essential services," Saudi Arabia and the U.S. said in a joint statement.

BREACHES

The statement cited breaches of the truce, including air strikes and commandeering of medical supplies by the army, and the occupation of civilian buildings and looting by the RSF.

"Both parties have told facilitators their goal is de-escalation to facilitate humanitarian assistance and essential repairs, yet both parties are posturing for further escalation," it said.

The RSF has said it is ready to discuss the possibility of renewal and that it would continue to monitor the truce "to test the seriousness and commitment of the other party to proceed with the renewal of the agreement or not".

The army said it was discussing the possibility of an extension.

Nearly 350,000 people have crossed Sudan's borders since the fighting erupted, with the largest numbers heading north to Egypt from Khartoum or west to Chad from Darfur.

In Khartoum, factories, offices, homes and banks have been looted or destroyed. Power, water and telecommunications are often cut, there are acute shortages of medicines and medical equipment, and food supplies have been running low.

"We left because of the impact of the war. I have children and I fear for them because of the lack of medical treatment," one resident of the capital, 29-year-old Samia Suleiman, told Reuters from the road to Egypt.

"I also want my children to have a chance of schooling. I don't think things in Khartoum will be restored soon."

SOME RESPITE

The truce deal has brought some respite from heavy fighting but sporadic clashes and air strikes have carried on.

The United Nations and aid groups say that despite the truce, they have struggled to get bureaucratic approvals and security guarantees to transport aid and staff to Khartoum and other places of need. Warehouses have been looted.

There have been increasing reports of gender-based violence, especially from people displaced within Sudan, the U.N. humanitarian office said in a statement.

Violence has flared in several parts of Darfur, already scarred by conflict and displacement, with hundreds of deaths recorded in El Geneina near the border with Chad during attacks that residents blamed on "Janjaweed" militias drawn from Arab nomadic tribes with links to the RSF.

The governor of Darfur, Minni Minawi, a former rebel whose faction fought against the militias in the Darfur conflict, said in a tweet that citizens should take up arms to defend their property.

In recent days, there has also been fighting in El Fashir, capital of North Darfur state.

One El Fashir hospital recorded three deaths and 26 injuries on Saturday, including children, according to the Darfur Bar Association, an activist group. Many more people were missing, it said.

Across the country, the health ministry has said at least 730 people have died in the fighting, though the true figure is likely much higher. It has separately recorded up to 510 deaths in El Geneina.

(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Frances Kerry and Bernadette Baum)
Students display the art of Chinese calligraphy during an event to celebrate the ninth anniversary of the Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad in Novi Sad, Serbia, May 27, 2023. The Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad marked its ninth anniversary on Saturday with a series of cultural activities. (Xinhua/Shi Zhongyu)

The Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad marked its ninth anniversary on Saturday with a series of cultural activities.



The celebration was attended by around 100 people including Serbian government officials, university professors and students, and representatives from the Chinese embassy and Chinese enterprises.

The cultural activities covered recitation of Confucius quotes, Chinese martial arts show, Chinese traditional painting, Serbian children's choir singing in Chinese and an exhibition of Serbian landscapes painted with traditional Chinese methods.

Children sing a Chinese song during an event to celebrate the ninth anniversary of the Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad in Novi Sad, Serbia, May 27, 2023. The Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad marked its ninth anniversary on Saturday with a series of cultural activities. (Xinhua/Shi Zhongyu)

Bojan Tubic, Serbia's assistant minister of education, said in his address that education cooperation between Serbia and China has achieved continuous progress thanks to the great contributions made by the Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad.



Noting the cooperation between the two countries in various fields, Tubic said he would especially like to emphasize the participation of Serbia in the Belt and Road Initiative.

"In this way, the two states confirmed their commitment to strengthening the comprehensive strategic partnership in order to further improve bilateral practical cooperation in various fields," he said.

Zhang Zhe, minister counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Serbia, said the Confucius Institute plays an important role in promoting equal exchanges and mutual learning between the cultures of the two countries as well as in deepening the Belt and Road cooperation and jointly building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Chinese director of the Confucius Institute, Chen Hui, said that along with the progress of the Belt and Road Initiative and the deepening of the bilateral cooperation in various areas, young people who are learning Chinese now will certainly become a new force in the friendly exchanges between China and Serbia in the future.

The Serbian final round of a Chinese language skills competition for college students was also held on the same day.

The Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad, founded in 2014, is the second such institute in Serbia.




Lionsgate, the studio and distributor behind Jesus Revolution, has acquired the worldwide sub-licensing distribution rights to The Chosen.

The agreement between the award-winning multi-season streaming series based on the life of Jesus and Lionsgate was announced on Tuesday.

The Chosen, a historical drama based on the life of Jesus, is featured as one of Pure Flix's faith and family-friendly viewing options. (Photo courtesy of Angel Studios)

MAKE OR BREAK: THIS WEEK INTO NEXT IS CRITICAL WINDOW FOR DEBT CEILING NEGOTIATIONS

"The more I learned about The Chosen, the more I wanted to ensure that it is on the best platforms across the globe. It's no surprise that an artfully crafted story about such an important historical figure, unlike anything done before, would be in great demand," Lionsgate President of Worldwide Television Distribution Jim Packer told the Washington Examiner. "The multi-season approach has allowed The Chosen to consistently build its audience and generate a unique level of engagement. We're excited by the opportunity to elevate this incredible property to the next level of worldwide recognition and popularity."

The Chosen's creator Dallas Jenkins called the show's new partnership with Lionsgate "perfect for us."

"We'll continue to do what we do best unabated, and they'll expand our efforts with their tremendous distribution team," Jenkins said.

Angel Studios told the Washington Examiner that the partnership between The Chosen and Lionsgate follows an agreement made between the show and Angel in late 2022 that made room for additional partners to support their mission.

The Chosen will continue to be an Angel Studios original, with Lionsgate obtaining sub-licensing rights of any current or future seasons after Angel's exclusive first window of distribution via its app and The Chosen app passes, which would also follow any theatrical release.

The biblical drama has grown from a crowdfunded project into a global phenomenon with more than 110 million viewers in 175 countries. The Chosen also has plans to make the show available in 600 languages.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Three seasons of The Chosen have been produced thus far, with a fourth in the works.

In addition to the Angel Studios and The Chosen apps, viewers can watch the biblical series on Peacock/Amazon Prime, Pure Flix, and Netflix.

Original Location: The Chosen to reach greater audience as Lionsgate obtains rights to worldwide sub-licensing

Washington Examiner Videos
By Andrew Hay

TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) - Two people were killed and six wounded in a shootout during a motorcycle rally in Red River, northern New Mexico, on Saturday, state police said.

Bikers began shooting at one another on the main street of the mountain town about 75 miles northeast of state capital Santa Fe during its annual Memorial Day motorcycle rally, Red River Mayor Linda Calhoun said by phone. She said three people were killed and five wounded.

"It was members of a motorcycle gang," Calhoun said, declining to give further information on their identity. "They were all people from out of town."

Some 28,000 bikers from across the country were expected to attend the rally, which features live music and remembrance ceremonies at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in nearby Angel Fire.

Some of the wounded were transported to hospital in Taos, New Mexico, around 25 miles to the southwest, state police said on Twitter.

Taos town banned alcohol sales after the shooting and called a curfew.

The incident comes eight years after nine bikers were killed and 18 wounded in a shootout in Waco, Texas involving members of motorcycle groups such as the Bandidos and Cossacks.

(Reporting By Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Kim Coghill)
I traveled all the way to the Czech Republic to find Colorado-style progressivism on stage.

Theres something so entertaining about the progressive socialists in charge of our state, cities and schools.

They have privileged lives, thanks to a relatively pro-market system, and they use that privilege to destroy the system that created it for them. And they endeavor to redistribute other peoples money to those that they see as victims.

Their favorite pastime is virtue signaling.

The great economist Henry Hazlett had a simple saying, finish the equation. Basically, he meant folks tend only to give one side of their story without not mention the parts that dont support their position. Kinda how modern socialists never want to give credit to the capitalism which put the spoon in their mouth.

Anyway, in my role as president of Independence Institute I sometimes get to meet with other free market liberty groups in Europe. We get to compare notes on how our governments and their cronies run our lives and take away our liberties.

The most fascinating stories come from my friends in former Soviet bloc countries. Many remember their lives and economies ruined by socialism under their communist rulers.

While meeting many of them in Prague I had the opportunity to join some for a Roger Waters concert. For those who dont know he was a member of the classic rock band Pink Floyd.

And who wouldnt want to see a dinosaur rocknroll legend in the middle of Europe. So of course, I went. Call it white privilege.

Sometimes you just need to get away from it all to really understand your own hometown.

So, thank you Roger Waters!

Roger, you are Colorado! You are smug. You are pompous. You are the antithesis of subtle. You use the most elaborate largest stage system, light system, and sound system Ive ever seen in an arena show (and I used to work in the business) to screech about the evils of capitalism, the evils of America, and to push the woke agenda in quite literally the largest font size Ive ever seen.

You sir belong in the Colorado State legislature, teaching a Womens Studies class at CU Boulder, and sitting next to Candi CdeBaca on the Denver City Council.

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The website Celebrity Net Worth estimates the rocker is worth about $310 million, (could be close to what our governors worth if hed ever actually show us his real financials) with homes in the United States and England.

During his performance he had many huge video screens that looked like The Wall that hung above his stage, which was in the round. Very cool.

At one point he played video clips of former President Ronald Reagan with a blood red face with the massive, I mean massive sized words, War Criminal.

In case you dont get the irony let me spell this out.

One of the men most responsible for ending the Cold War and freeing the Czech Republic from a mass-murdering regime, was called a war criminal by a filthy rich rock-n-roller who likely would never have been able to play in this country during the Cold War.

There are mass unmarked graves just miles from where this multi-millionaire was raking in even more dough.

Reminds me of CdeBaca railing on the Bill Daniels Fund scholarship she got because the late great man was a capitalist, but she didnt offer to return the $80,000 she received. Birds of a feather.

He went on the whole show with constant anti-American themes and words on the screen screens. During the hit Pink Floyd song money we were treated to dancing ugly pigs stomping around. Of course, Waters could give away his hundreds of millions, he hasnt.

And there was a lot of Fuck fascism banners on the mammoth screens. But never once was there a Fuck socialism or a Fuck communism one.

And while he put up exaggerated numbers of war crime dead under American presidents, he never put war crime dead under Stalin (20 million, way more than Hitler FYI) or Putin.

Its very common for Colorado progressives to call everyone they dont like fascist or alt-right yet exalt their socialists and say that they dont do any violence. After all, Antifa are peaceful, even though they call for violence and riot in the streets.

Thanks for making me homesick Roger.

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts The Devils Advocate with Jon Caldara on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics.
I traveled all the way to the Czech Republic to find Colorado-style progressivism on stage.

Theres something so entertaining about the progressive socialists in charge of our state, cities and schools.

They have privileged lives, thanks to a relatively pro-market system, and they use that privilege to destroy the system that created it for them. And they endeavor to redistribute other peoples money to those that they see as victims.

Their favorite pastime is virtue signaling.

The great economist Henry Hazlett had a saying, finish the equation. Basically, he meant folks tend only to give one side of their story without not mention the parts that dont support their position. Kinda how modern socialists never want to give credit to the capitalism, which put the spoon in their mouth.

In my role as president of Independence Institute, I sometimes get to meet with other free market liberty groups in Europe. We compare notes on how our governments and their cronies run our lives and take away our liberties.

The most fascinating stories come from my friends in former Soviet bloc countries. Many remember their lives and economies ruined by socialism under their communist rulers.

While meeting many of them in Prague, I had the opportunity to join some for a Roger Waters concert. For those who dont know, he was a member of the classic rock band Pink Floyd.

And who wouldnt want to see a dinosaur rocknroll legend in the middle of Europe. So of course, I went. Call it White privilege.

Sometimes you just need to get away from it all to really understand your own hometown.

So, thank you Roger Waters!

Roger, you are Colorado! You are smug. You are pompous. You are the antithesis of subtle.

You use the most elaborate largest stage system, light system, and sound system Ive seen in an arena show (I used to work in the business) to screech about the evils of capitalism, the evils of America and to push the woke agenda in the largest font size Ive seen.

You sir belong in the state Legislature, teaching a Womens Studies class at CU Boulder, and sitting next to Candi CdeBaca on the Denver City Council.

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The website Celebrity Net Worth estimates the rocker is worth about $310 million, (could be close to what our governors worth if hed show us his real financials) with homes in the United States and England.

During his performance he had many huge video screens that looked like The Wall that hung above his stage, which was in the round. Very cool.

At one point, he played video clips of former President Ronald Reagan with a blood red face with the massive, I mean massive sized words, War Criminal.

In case you dont get the irony, let me spell this out. One of the men most responsible for ending the Cold War and freeing the Czech Republic from a mass-murdering regime, was called a war criminal by a filthy rich rock-n-roller who likely would never have been able to play in this country during the Cold War.

There are mass unmarked graves just miles from where this multimillionaire was raking in even more dough.

Reminds me of CdeBaca railing on the Bill Daniels Fund scholarship she got because the late great man was a capitalist, but she didnt offer to return the $80,000 she received. Birds of a feather.

He went on the whole show with constant anti-American themes and words on the screen screens. During the hit Pink Floyd song Money we were treated to dancing ugly pigs stomping around. Of course, Waters could give away his hundreds of millions, he hasnt.

And there was a lot of Ffascism banners on the mammoth screens. But never once was there a Fsocialism or a Fcommunism one.

And while he put up exaggerated numbers of war crime dead under presidents, he never put war crime dead under Stalin (20 million, way more than Hitler FYI) or Putin.

Its very common for Colorado progressives to call everyone they dont like fascist or alt-right yet exalt their socialists and say that they dont do any violence.

After all, antifa is peaceful, even though they call for violence and riot in the streets.

Thanks for making me homesick Roger.

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts The Devils Advocate with Jon Caldara on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics.

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts The Devils Advocate with Jon Caldara on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics.
Space Command, an increasingly vital component of national security, will achieve full operational capacity within a few months. Moving it would cause a multiyear setback and a glaring gap in the armor that protects the United States and our allies. It must stay put and advance without obstruction.

The issue arose again Thursday when Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers publicly announced a House Armed Services Committee investigation into the delay of a final Space Command basing decision.

Rogers chairs Armed Services, a position that entrusts him with extraordinary authority over our national defense. He also represents Alabama. Moving the command would benefit his state economically. He appears to care more about kudos back home than our countrys need to keep up with foreign threats.

The House Armed Services committee has responsibility for funding the Department of Defense and holding our military accountable to the public. Nothing in the committees charter says the chairman should exploit his rank to benefit his state at a cost to national defense.

Space Command protects an area 60 miles above the Earth to the edges of the universe. This is important, given that China, North Korea and Russia are racing to dominate space for the sake of imminent or future warfare. Protection of freedom around the globe weighs heavily on the readiness, reliability and superiority of our militarys space operations.

Our enemies keep constant watch on our preparedness. Thats why China flies spy balloons over our military bases. Foreign aggressors easily keep track of our Space Command dilemma, as it plays out publicly.

Space Command must protect the free world from attacks on satellites, crippling electromagnet force attacks and the looming prospect of space-based nuclear weapons designed for targets on earth. Any Space Command weakness benefits countries hostile to us.

In a letter sent Thursday, Rogers expressed concern that changes to Space Commands mission and headquarters requirement had occurred over the past two years as the basing decision hung in limbo. Rogers wants Space Command to cease progress that might alter its mission or headquarters requirements.

Changes at Space Command reflect the changing geopolitical climate of the globe. The command must remain on the leading edge of technology. It must adjust immediately as the scope, level and nature of threats advance. We cannot confine Space Commands progress for the sole benefit of Alabama politicians.

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In desperation to gift his home state, Rogers openly wants Space Command to sit idle as our foes advance without delay. They, too, want a stagnant Space Command. They must feel half amused and fully emboldened by this political gamesmanship.

Rogers stated agenda  based on his Alabama-first mentality  should inspire scrutiny of his Armed Services leadership by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. The oversight committee should determine whether the Armed Service chair defends our countrys best interests.

Former President Donald Trump put our country in this lurch when he chose to move Space Command to Alabama on his way out in 2021.

The move would reward Alabama for supporting Trump and spite Colorado for helping elect President Joe Biden. Trump eliminated doubt about his motives by boasting on Alabama radio that he single-handedly chose to move Space Command. Single-handedly means Trump decided alone, without regard for generals who wanted the command to stay put.

More than two years later, the Biden administration should have no qualms with reversing Trumps poor decision. The Biden administration, not the Trump administration and Rogers, ultimately commands our armed forces.

Space Command has not moved for good reason. There is no way to relocate operations and facilities without weakening our national defense and showcasing vulnerability to hostile nations. We simply cannot afford the cost or disruption of a move that would indulge the selfish desires of a former commander in chief  one who gains politically if Biden honors his decision.

Rogers has shown us, in writing, that he cares more about accolades back home than the countrys ongoing and ever-changing security needs. This agenda by our Armed Forces chair should concern all Americans, including those in Alabama. As the chair of House Armed Services, Rogers has a duty to put the entire country  all 435 congressional districts  ahead of a gift for Alabama.

We trust Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and his boss, President Biden, to defend our country without regard for politics. It is time to end this waiting game and assure Americans, and all her detractors, that Space Command will move forward right where it sits without a backslide for the sake of special-interest politics.

The Gazette Editorial Board
Pulled pork, brisket, smoked turkey...

It ain't Texas, but these BBQ joints are still sure to satisfy.

According to votes by Gazette readers for the newly released 2023 Best of the Springs magazine, these top 7 barbecue restaurants deliver in the areas of quality ingredients, superb service and overall taste. See where your local favorite lands on the list:

run-sauces-bbq-three Firehouse on the Run BBQ offers three house sauces Photo by Kate Jonuska

Located at 12480 Black Forest Road, Firehouse on the Run has been locally owned and operated for over 10 years. Try their house made sauces including the local favorite "Burnt Onion."

With locations found mostly in Oklahoma and Kansas, Billy Sims at 3330 Austin Bluffs Parkway features smoked barbecue sandwiches and rib dinners. The restaurant is named after Billy Sims, who went to the University of Oklahoma and was a running back in the NFL. He still maintains an active role in the franchise.

Broken Bones BBQ Broken Bones BBQ (Located at: 13395 Voyager Pkwy.) Burnt Ends with Okra Tuesday October 2, 2018. Photo by Jeff Kearney.

Owner Randy Jensen along with pit master Robert Clark fuse their passion for barbecue at Broken Bones, located at 13395 Voyager Parkway. Give the jalapeno cheddar tots a try!

Dickey's Barbecue Pit has many locations scattered across the country, but it all started when Travis Dickey, a World War II veteran, opened the first restaurant in Dallas in 1941. Get a taste of what this long-standing franchise is all about at one of the five locations around the city!

Dining Review: Carnivore's delight at Front Range Barbecue Front Range BBQ "Two Timer Combo" - Choose from smoked pork, brisket, sausage or pulled chicken, and 2 sides, including: Creamy Bacon Potato S

Located at 2330 West Colorado Avenue, Front Range Barbeque has you covered with BBQ plates, bowls, sandwiches, and don't forget the "homemade fixin's"! Also check out their live music and events, which usually occur on Wednesday nights.

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Reader comments:

"The ribs are top notch!"

"Best barbeque in town. Authentic southern style and super delicious."

"Great location and a staple for entertaining our out-of-state visitors."

042819-bots-best-BBQ bird dog Bird Dog BBQ Restaurant Bird Dog BBQ Restaurant Regular Plate - Ribs with Baked Beans, Baked Potato and Garlic Bread. Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014.

Looking for Oklahoma style BBQ? Rather than smoking meat with hickory or mesquite, Bird Dog uses oak in order to maintain and enhance the flavors of the meat . Check out one of their three locations around Colorado Springs!

Reader comments:

"Nothing fancy, just excellent BBQ. Love it!"

"Best tender, smoked turkey breast!!! Family also loves their ribs, sausage, brisket. Great crew too!"

"Best BBQ in town. As a Texan, this is the only one that passes the test of BBQ."

rudy's bbq Mikel Lee slices brisket on the cutter's table at Rudy's Country Store and Bar-B-Q in Colorado Springs, Colo., Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010. (The Ga

Take a stop off Highway 24 and enjoy some Texas style barbecue from the popular chain founded in Leon Springs, Texas. Also make sure to check out their online shop that includes a Texas smoked brisket scented candle, which was originally an April Fool's joke.

Reader comments:

"The BBQ is awesome. Full of flavor and different spices."

"Best country baked potato in town."

"The best BBQ in Colorado Springs, hands down."
Colorado Springs Mayor-elect Yemi Mobolade broke invisible barriers in more than ways than one when he was elected on May 16, leaders in the local Black community said this week, expanding opportunities for new kinds of leadership in the city's top elected seat.

A political independent, he is the first non-Republican-affiliated mayor since voters started electing candidates to the position 45 years ago.

With a background in business and evangelical ministry leadership, he has never held public office.

On June 6, he officially will be sworn in as Colorado Springs' 42nd mayor  the second Black person in the city's history to serve in the role and the first to be elected to it.

"It made me very proud of our community," Peggy Shivers, a philanthropist and key figure in the local classical and jazz music scene, said of Mobolade's victory. "I came here in 1979. That would not have been possible at all (then)  I think we're becoming more open and more loving, a kinder community."

Mobolade follows in the footsteps of Leon Young before him. Young became the city's first Black mayor when he stepped into the position on an interim basis in 1997, after former Mayor Bob Isaac retired early and resigned from the seat.

Young was elected to the City Council in 1973 and appointed vice mayor in 1981, a position he served until 1997. After serving a short time as mayor, Young continued to serve on the City Council until he died in 2004.

Mobolade and Young are among a handful of the city's mayors who are not White men, serving almost back-to-back in recent decades. They include Mary Lou Makepeace, who served as mayor from 1997 to 2003 and was the first woman to hold the seat, and Lionel Rivera, the first Hispanic mayor in Colorado Springs history, who served from 2003 to 2011.

Mobolade's most recent election is likely to inspire more people, including those from historically disenfranchised communities, to pursue their dreams  political or otherwise, Black leaders said.

"He provides a symbol for other aspirants to the position," said Juanita Martin, co-founder of television and video production company Black Beat Productions and a native of Colorado Springs.

"This is definitely momentous. I think he has an opportunity to show that the doors are open, that if you push hard enough, believe in yourself and rally other people to believe in you, you can achieve your goals."

The new mayor-elect's message of unity on the campaign trail spoke to the greater community, Black leaders said. They believe in Mobolade's ability to deliver on it.

As an unaffiliated candidate, Mobolade brought people together from all backgrounds, political ideologies and lived experience, said Ben Anderson, a pastor at Solid Rock Christian Center, who has worked with the mayor-elect on the board of the nonprofit COS I Love You. That was evidenced in the diversity and number of people who attended Mobolade's election night watch parties during the city's regular and mayoral runoff elections, he said.

"You could see people from all walks of life there, young, old, maybe with different political views," Anderson said. "He was able to bring everyone together. I haven't seen that in this city."

Mobolade will need to keep that spirit of unity alive as he steps into office, building trust with residents, business leaders and colleagues, former District 49 Superintendent Ron Wynn said.

"People are looking for new ideas, new innovations.  He's going to get some pushback, no doubt about that. Everyone does. I think if people open their minds and listen  and he has to listen as well  I think he'll move the city forward in the next four years."

Anderson said Mobolade could face challenges from some people who might not be willing to accept a mayor who is a person of color, but they are fewer than those who embrace him.

"We can't be naive enough to think that race doesn't still exist, but I think love conquers all of that.  I don't think it'll be as overt and as blatant as we may think, but I still feel like, of course there are pockets of people that do not accept this," he said. "Is it a majority? No, it's not a majority. The majority spoke already."

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Mobolade promised if elected he would address critical issues such as the housing crisis, public safety, homelessness, infrastructure and water availability, but he should also work toward expanding educational opportunities and rebuilding trust between law enforcement and residents, leaders said.

He should champion city collaborations with higher education institutions such as the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Pikes Peak State College and others, Wynn said.

"Having a good education base will allow people more opportunities to get good-paying jobs  and we need to make adjustments so the minority community has an opportunity to get an education and get their foot in the door," he said.

"When you have scholarships available for students of low socioeconomic status, and I think when you get that first student out of high school and out of college, it will (inspire) other family members."

As the city continues growing and technology changes, those educational opportunities will translate to economic opportunities for the Springs, he said. The city will have a wider pool of qualified workers to fill highly skilled jobs and build the necessary infrastructure as new employers and more residents come to town, he said.

Police reform is also another important issue, particularly for people of color, Anderson and Wynn said. The city has taken steps to improve trust between the public and local police, such as forming the Law Enforcement Transparency and Advisory Commission that in part makes policy recommendations and provides feedback to the City Council, but more work must be done, Anderson said.

"There have really been inroads to increase communication between people of color and the Police Department  but for some reason we haven't seen that transferred into justice for everyone," he said.

Wynn, who was a police officer before his career in education, said communication is key.

"If those doors of communication are open, that's where trust is built. If Yemi spends time on the southeast part of Colorado Springs, where a lot of Asian Americans, Hispanic residents and other minorities live, and listens to what those people's needs are, he will find a way to help them build trust with the police," Wynn said.

" Once Yemi talks to those communities about what they like to see in policing and that's communicated with (Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez), that's going to show people we are working to try to help each other and bridge that gap."

Mobolade previously told The Gazette that forging good relationships is something he's doing with local law enforcement.

"We have already been in the foxhole together trying to bridge that relationship with the Black and Brown communities, so I've been doing the work already," Mobolade previously said ahead of the May 16 runoff.

Wynn said recruiting more minority police officers can also help in that endeavor.

"When they show up to do their job  I think its going to build more to build trust. People might say, 'Hey, I can speak to that officer? Because he looks like me,'" he said.

Mobolade must also focus on delivering the promises he made during his campaign, Wynn said.

"He needs to do everything possible to uphold what he told the taxpayers.  If people see you're doing that or trying to do that, they'll respect you," he said.

To do that, Martin said Mobolade needs to forge a good relationship with the nine-member City Council. On April 4, voters elected four new members to the dais.

Under Colorado Springs' strong mayor form of government, Mobolade will act as the city's chief executive officer and will enforce laws and ordinances, create a strategic plan for the city and submit an annual budget to the council, among other duties. The council is the legislative body that guides and determines land use decisions, as one example, and oversees Colorado Springs' four-service utility.

"He'll do what he can do, but he has to do that in concert with the City Council," she said.

In the end, Mobolade must work for the good of the whole city, Shivers said.

"I just want him to be good for all of us  Black, White or whatever," she said. "I always say that it's we who live in the community who make the community what it is."
On a bitterly cold and stormy morning this month, about 60 people whod never met James Cook, Johnny Hollingshed, Sharon Jackson or Loren Grigsby huddled under and around a pavilion at Pikes Peak National Cemetery in Colorado Springs to witness the quartets final salute.

All any of the attendees knew about the four veterans being laid to rest was what little was known, at all: when and where they were born and died, and a handful of facts culled from their military service records.

My team actually went through their DD214s and picked out everything that they could get from there, said Skyler Holmes, cemetery director of Pikes Peak and Fort Lyon National Cemeteries.

Those forms showed where the veterans had enlisted and discharged, how long they served, and their rank. Where they had lived, who they loved, and who they became after they served their countries, was a mystery.

Honestly those service records are the only information that we have any access to, as far as who these individuals were and what they did during their lives, Holmes said.

Cook, Hollingshed, Jackson and Grigsby are among hundreds of veterans who die each year, whose remains are never claimed by relatives, friends or legal representatives.

It could be someone whos homeless, or their family is long lost and theres no immediate ability to form a connection between them and that family  but it means no next of kin could be found, or no one with power of attorney, Holmes said.

They try for months to locate the next of kin, so sometimes it can take a long time before they (funeral parlors or coroners offices) finally turn the remains over to the cemetery.

Sometimes, news reports about an unclaimed veterans committal service reach the right ears.

On one occasion, Holmes said the cemetery held a ceremony and interred remains as unclaimed, only to then hear from family.

Within the next week or two we were actually contacted by his next of kin, who had had no idea where he had been residing for the last 30-plus years, Holmes said. Sometimes people do come out of the woodwork after the fact, and we welcome that of course.

The story for many such veterans is much more disturbing, with an untold number still waiting to be transported to their final resting places in Americas military cemeteries.

The VA estimated in 2018 that the cremated remains of between 11,500 and 52,600 American veterans could be languishing, unclaimed and forgotten, at funeral homes and county offices around the nation. The unclaimed cremains of 28 veterans, including four who served in World War I, discovered after decades of storage in the attic and crypt of a Roseburg, Ore., mortuary, were finally buried in the Roseburg National Cemetery, with full military honors, in 2019.

Of the more than 4,600 interments at Pikes Peak National Cemetery since it opened on Nov. 1, 2018, seven of those are unclaimed veterans, Holmes said.

When they (unclaimed remains) come to us  we try to show them the respect and dignity that they deserve, and have the community stand in as their family, Holmes said.

We try to do everything we can to get the community involved with it and make it a better experience, make it  where people can see them off. Its a great event for everyone involved, I think.

Each receives a committal service, with military honors, interment or inurnment, and a gravesite at the cemetery, as is their due as veterans who served their countries.

And the call goes out to the community, to military and service groups, to make sure they dont do it alone.

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Its said that funerals are for the living. That holds true, even when there are no loved ones to attend or mourn the personal loss, Holmes said.

I dont believe these individuals know that were having a service for them, but regardless of that were still honoring their service, which is more of an act for the living than for the dead, Holmes said.

Military widow and volunteer Kathy Hanner attended the May 11 service at Pikes Peak National Cemetery as a gesture of honor to the four being buried, and to all veterans  including her husband, Air Force veteran Robert Hanner  who died in 2021 after an 11-year battle with the tuberculosis he contracted while serving overseas. He, too, is buried at the national cemetery on the Eastern Plains of the city.

We don't know if these veterans truly had no one, or if was just a case of their family couldn't be located," said Hanner, a member of the Society of Military Widows and the Disabled American Veterans Auxiliary. "All we know is these people served their country, and it's an honor to be there so they're not being interred alone."

The first unescorted veteran service at Pikes Peak National Cemetery Robert Aholt participated in as a member of the southern Colorado chapter of the Patriot Guard Riders, in 2020, drew so many attendees the traffic stretched down Drennan Road.

Just an amazing crowd, said Aholt, assistant state captain for the regional branch of the service group known, at least visually and audibly, for the two-wheeled rides many (but not all) members favor.

The weather on May 11 demanded covered transport for the service at Pikes Peak National Cemetery, and certainly was to blame for a smaller turnout by members of the community, he said.

"For us, it was never a question. We were going to be there," he said, of the Patriot Guard.

On that storm-strafed morning, the billow of a dozen flags and drum of rain-on-roof drowned out much of the speakers words, and even the pops of the rifle salute at the ceremonys close, but it was the least  and the most  they could do.

This is an excellent way, if you have any respect at all for veterans and their sacrifices, to show up and pay your respects for what every single one of them has given for us," Aholt said.

The veterans honored at the May 11 ceremony at Pikes Peak National Cemetery, who Holmes said died in the Colorado Springs area, were:

U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class (A1C) James Cook (Aug. 11, 1939-May 11, 2021)

James Cook was born in Boston and entered the Air Force on Sept. 14, 1961, where he successfully and honorably served four years in active duty, from 1961 to 1965. He served in-country, as an administrative specialist, during the Vietnam War.

U.S. Army Pfc. (PV1) Johnny Hollingshed (Jan. 12, 1958-Aug. 16, 2022)

Johnny (possibly Johhny) Hollingshed III was born in New Orleans, where he also first entered into active duty with the Army as a vehicle mechanic and served honorably for one year, 1976-1977.

U.S. Army Sgt. (SGT/E-5) Sharon Jackson (Jan. 9, 1946-April 15, 2022)

Sharon Ann (Hughes) Jackson was born in California and entered into active duty on July 23, 1973, as a telecommunications specialist with a secondary specialty of administrative specialist. She served in the Vietnam War era, before leaving military service on April 23, 1976.

U.S. Army Spc. 5th Class (SP5/E-5) Loren Grigsby (July 31, 1947-April 29, 2022)

Loren Lee Grigsby was born in St. Louis and joined the Army in 1967, at age 20, while living in Colorado Springs. He served as an aircraft maintenance crewman during the Vietnam War era, and separated from the military on April 26, 1969.
Some of the events in the world of cryptocurrencies have gained greater prominence among users and enthusiasts of this market. Check below the five most read news of the Crypto Times between the 22nd to the 26th of May:

Legal Framework for Cryptocurrencies: Lula should sign decree next week; understand

Binances payment provider in Brazil, Latam Gateway, obtained authorization from the Central Bank (BC) last Friday (19) to act as a payment institution. The authorization was made in the modality of issuer of electronic money.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to sign the Legal Framework for Cryptocurrencies next week. The signing of Law 14,478/22 should take place during the Criptorama event, organized by the Associacao Brasileira de Cryptoativos.

The event will take place in Brasilia on the 6th and 7th of June, where Lula must also sign a decree that defines the sectors regulatory bodies.

Read the full article here

CVM and ABCripto announce partnership to teach about cryptocurrencies, blockchain and DeFi

The Brazilian Association of Cryptoeconomics (ABCripto) and the Brazilian Securities Commission (CVM) announced a technical cooperation agreement to spread the digital economy and decentralized finance (DeFi) in Brazil.

Read the full article here

Central Bank reveals 14 banks for digital real pilot

The Central Bank (BC) released a list of 14 selected to participate in the Pilot Project of Real Digital this Wednesday (24). Between individual institutions and consortia, there are Nubank (NUBR33), BTG Pactual (BPAC11) It is B3.

The BC said it had received 36 proposals of interest in participating in the so-called Pilot RD, and a total of more than 100 institutions from various financial segments.

At the end of April this year, the Central Bank published the guidelines for the pilot project, as well as the registration dates.

Read the full article here

Binance CEO Hints Bitcoin Bullish Is Close, Says Reason Is Halfway Around The World

Changpeng Zhao, CEO of binancetook to Twitter this Wednesday (24th) to suggest that the next bull cycle Bitcoin (BTC) its close.

The Chinese-Canadian shared a television report from China where he talked about cryptocurrency and NFTs.

Read the full article here

Two pizzas for R$1.3 billion: today is Pizza Day; know the story

Last Monday (22) was celebrated the thirteenth anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day. This is the commemoration of the first transaction with cryptocurrency to buy a physical good, that is, from the real world.

That product was a pizza, bought in 2010 by Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer from Florida (USA). The amount paid was 10 thousand bitcoins, which today is equivalent to R$ 1.3 billion.

Read the full article here
Dance drama "Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting" was staged in Hebei province on Sept. 15, 2022. [Photo/VCG]



The "Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting" will be showcased in Macao from August 24 to 28, according to its production company China Oriental Performing Arts Group.

The performance, led by renowned directors Zhou Liya and Han Zhen, draws inspiration from Wang Ximeng's painting of "A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains." It tells the story of a modern researcher from the Palace Museum who "travels" back to the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) and sees Wang Ximeng's inner world and painting creation process.

Since its premiere at the National Center for the Performing Arts in August 2021, the dance drama has received overwhelming acclaim, with over 300 performances across more than 30 cities in China.

Jing Xiaoyong, chairman of China Oriental Performing Arts Group Co., Ltd., highlighted the show's success in igniting national pride, thanks to its incorporation of Chinese cultural elements, poetic themes, and innovative production and narrative concepts.

"Macao is a unique and historical city where Chinese and Western cultures combine," Director Zhou said, noting that they will strive to present the best performance for the audience.

The dance drama is scheduled for a five-day run at the Venetian Theatre in Macao.
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Clear Lakes Enhancement and Restoration [CLEAR] Project is the best thing to happen to the lake in our lifetime. Doesnt matter if youre 20 years old or 90; this statement rings true for anyone and everyone reading this column. I know that sounds like a bold claim. But its also one that is easy to back up.

Simply defined, CLEAR is a significant Iowa water quality project  the largest and most comprehensive ever launched in the state. Highlights of CLEARs ongoing achievements include pollutant laden storm water filtration, extensive watershed protection through the establishment of nearly 1,000 acres of prairie grasslands and cattail marsh, additional nutrient management on nearly 1500 acres of critical watershed, renovation of the Ventura Marsh, and the historic 2009 Little Lake dredge project.

Although CLEAR is not a fisheries project per se, North Iowa anglers have benefitted immensely. Improvements in water quality [coupled with enhanced water clarity] have allowed native underwater (submergent) vegetation to repopulate the lake.

Valuable aquatic plant species  including long vanished beds of wild celery  are flourishing. Working in concert with existing stands of emergent cattail and bulrush, underwater plant communities are providing critical spawning, nursery, and foraging habitats essential to a vibrant and diversified fishery. Healthy aquatic plant growth also bolsters the survival of annual DNR fish stockings, including millions of fry and fingerling walleyes.

For the first time in decades, healthy species diversity is firmly reestablished in the Clear Lake fishery. This years open water season kicked off with a shallow water, in-the-rushes crappie spawn like no other -- where 25-fish limits of giant slabbers was not uncommon.

By mid-May, massive schools of yellow bass were moving into the knee-deep waters of rocky shorelines. Water clarity has been phenomenal during May, and wader-clad fishers watched in awe as near continual schools containing anywhere from 50 to 300 or more mature yellows passed at their feet. The water was so clear that it seemed as if you were standing in a well-maintained aquarium.

The average size of this years yellow bass matches its abundance. The smallest yellow Ive caught so far this spring measured 10.5 inches; the largest have ran over 12 inches. Many anglers regard yellow bass as Clear Lakes scrappiest fish. Living up to the reputation, this years yellows are in robust condition and taste as good as they fight.

The walleye is Clear Lakes most sought-after gamefish, of course, and this years spring bite has been phenomenal. This fact was well illustrated during last weekends Walleye Classic where, despite extremely inclement weather, 94 teams weighed in fish. Tournament winners, Kevan and Houston Paul, captured five walleyes exceeding 22-inches during both days of the contest, and their take included a couple of six and seven-pound lunkers -- outstanding walleyes anywhere in the world.

A quick survey of parking lot license plates will reveal that Clear Lakes extraordinary fishing is no well-kept secret, and that folks are literally traveling from across the state and southern Minnesota to cash in on the opportunities. Speaking of cash, it should also be noted that anglers annually make around 40,000 fishing trips to the lake. While bagging fish dinners, anglers also contribute millions of dollars to the local economy each year.

Theres no denying that these are exciting times for Clear Lake. To see a resource in decline return to a state of vibrant health is something all Iowans should feel good about. Best of all, the party isnt likely to end any time soon. The good times should continue as restoration partners strive to further improve water quality while continuing to aggressively protect and enhance critical watersheds.

Meanwhile, DNR aeration systems continue to protect the fishery during winter, while abundant populations of young fish representing several different species and multiple year classes signal good days for years to come.

Although we can never take anything in the outdoor world for granted; it does appear as if the future is indeed bright for North Iowas largest and single most important natural resource.
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Because this section is free of charge, community events are subject to run based on available space. Religion items are published on the Saturday church page. Email events to news@registerbee.com.

HOLIDAY CLOSINGS

DANVILLE: The Municipal Building and all other city of Danville government offices will be closed Monday in observance of Memorial Day. Also, the public library and the James F. Ingram Justice Center (courthouse) will be closed. Danville Transit will not provide fixed-route and Reserve-A-Ride services. The Danville Public Works Department, however, will collect household trash and yard waste on Monday as regularly scheduled. Offices, the library and the courthouse will reopen Tuesday and Danville Transit will resume normal operations as well on that day.

PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY: All Pittsylvania County offices and departments will be closed Monday in observance of Memorial Day.

TRAFFIC ALERT

DANVILLE: Alternating lane closures are started Monday on Memorial Drive between West Main Street and the back entrance to the Danville Police Department. The lane closures will allow for replacement of two failed corrugated metal storm pipes with reinforced concrete pipe. The work is expected to be completed in early June. Traffic on Memorial Drive will be maintained throughout the project to the maximum extent practicable. Flaggers will direct traffic as necessary. Whites Construction from Sutherlin is the contractor. Motorists are urged to slow down and be alert to altered traffic patterns, allow more time to reach their destination or consider an alternate route.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31

BLOOD DRIVE: The United Way of Danville-Pittsylvania County in coordination with the American Red Cross will host a blood drive from 1 to 5 p.m. at 308 Craghead St., Suite 102E. For registration information call (434) 792-3700.

SATURDAY, JUNE 3

LAUREL GROVE VOLUNTEER FIRE & RESCUE FUNDRAISER: Fundraiser will begin with a Cruise In from 3 to 6 p.m. at Sutherlin Barn, 10064 Melon Road, with dinner 5 to 7 p.m. and live music by Matt Boswell and the HBB Band. A $20 donation request. For information call 434-250-6809.

TUESDAY, JUNE 6

PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY NAACP TO MEET: The Pittsylvania County NAACP meeting will be held at Silver Creek Missionary Baptist Church, 1317 Stony Mill Road, 6 p.m. Pastor, Bruce Featherstone.

CLIFTON TAULBERT: "An Evening with Clifton Taulbert: The Entrepreneurial Mindset" at 5:30 p.m. at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research. Registration through the chamber of commerce's website is required and registration will close on May 30. This is a free community event with dinner provided.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7

TORCH RUN: The Danville Police Department will be participating in the Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics Virginia beginning at 10 a.m. The run will begin at the Danville Police Department (1 Community Way), proceed down West Main Street and end at the Danville Courthouse (401 Patton St.) The Law Enforcement Torch Run raises money and awareness for participants in the Special Olympics across the commonwealth of Virginia. To join the Danville Police Department, or to donate, visit impact.specialolympicsva.org/team/505879.

THURSDAY, JUNE 8

LET'S TALK HISTORY: Lets Talk History: White Rock Hill Conversations. Sessions will discuss White Rock Hill community will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at White Rock Baptist Church Fellowship Hall, 418 Locust Lane. Sponsored by the White Rock Neighborhood Empowerment Association, the sessions are led by local historian Katrice Luck-Brimmer. One other session on June 22. No fee. Call 434-228-3180.

SATURDAY, JUNE 10

RUN FOR JUSTICE: The 22nd annual "Run for Justice" Kid's 2K, 5K walk or run and 10K run community events will commence at Angler's Park and Danville Riverwalk Trail starting at 9 a.m.; late registration at Angler's Park starts at 7:30 a.m.; Kid's Run begins at 9:10 a.m. The annual "Run for Justice" features awards, refreshments and door prizes. Walkers/runners can pick up a registration forms at The Brick Running & Tri Store, 410 Main St. Registration also is available at the Danville Running & Fitness Club Website or at active.com. For more information, call race director and chapter advisor John Wilt at 434-770-8822.

THURSDAY, JUNE 22

LET'S TALK HISTORY: Lets Talk History: White Rock Hill Conversations. Sessions to discuss White Rock Hill community will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at White Rock Baptist Church Fellowship Hall, 418 Locust Lane. Sponsored by the White Rock Neighborhood Empowerment Association, the sessions are led by local historian Katrice Luck-Brimmer. No fee. Call 434-228-3180.
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GREENSBORO  Safety concerns after a fiery crash have led one company to ground its fleet of HondaJets and an owner/operator association to urge a break from flying activities and additional training.

Greensboro-based Jet It founder and CEO Glenn Gonzales ordered the companys 20 HondaJets grounded on Friday in response to a crash the previous day of a HondaJet owned by a different company.

No Injuries (5 onboard) early hours of this morning landing over run .. hydro plained on wet runway N255HJ HondaJet KDYB Summerville SC .. burned out after passengers got out .. pic.twitter.com/yEeJRV2q1l  bizjets101 (@bizjets101) May 20, 2023

An HA-420 HondaJet registered to Upfrunt Services LLC ran off the runway in Summerville, S.C., struck a berm and caught fire on Thursday. The pilot and four passengers were able to escape and were uninjured, according to news reports.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident. The plane had taken off from the Wilkes County Airport in western North Carolina.

The images really shook our company. They shook our flight ops leadership. They shook our training department, said Gonzales, whose business operates and maintains private jets, most of them with shared ownership.

We also want to understand why there have been a number of aircraft, including our own airplanes, that have had runway excursions and veered off the runway at times, said Gonzales, a former sales manager for HondaJet.

We recognize that we have a responsibility to our fractional share owners to make sure that theyre safe, make sure our team members are safe, he said.

In a YouTube posted by HondaJet Owners & Pilots Association this week, the nonprofits executive director points to the recent rise in incidents or accidents involving HondaJet.

There have been eight in the last 12 months, Julie Hughes said in the video, noting the association is collaborating with HondaJet and Flight Safety International on the issue.

As part of our efforts we will be organizing a safety stand down, an organized break from flying activities where we will engage and focus on safety discussions, Hughes said in the video. The News & Record could not reach Hughes directly for comment.

In an interview with Private Jet Card Comparisons, a buyers guide to private aviation services, Hughes said the association believes the airplane is safe.

We do not want to ground the airplane, Hughes told the magazine. We want to use data from the incidents as a basis for enhancing pilot training and decision-making. In no way do we think the HondaJet should be grounded.

Kie Nagasawa, a spokeswoman for Honda Aircraft Co., which is headquartered in Greensboro, said via email that neither the company nor any aviation authority has recommended grounding the aircraft.

In all closed investigations of previous runway events, investigators found no causal factors from the aircrafts design or any system malfunction, Nagasawa said. Our engineering and analysis supports our product as a safe aircraft to operate.

As for the South Carolina crash, Nagasawa said the company is supporting the investigation and did not have further details about it.

Honda Aircraft holds the safety and reliability of our aircraft as our top priorities and our dedicated team is working closely with the NTSB and FAA to determine the cause of the recent occurrence and to implement any necessary measures, she said.

Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the independent, nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, said the plane hydroplaned while landing on the S.C. runway.

I would not at this point jump to a conclusion that theres a problem with the aircraft, Shahidi said. He noted there are many factors that can contribute to these crashes, including wind and weather conditions, the condition of the runways, the amount of moisture on the runway surface and the experience and training of the pilot.

We do not see a pattern, Shahidi said of his organization, which aims to identify aviation safety issues on a global level.

Gonzales said grounding his HondaJets will require employee furloughs.

Eight-five percent of our fleet consists of HondaJet so essentially our ability to function and feed our entire business has been severely limited by this decision, he said.

We really need their (HondaJets) support in this, they are the experts on the airplane. We are simply taking the stance that we want to make sure that, as the largest HondaJet fleet operator, we are taking the proper precautions and operating with a great abundance of caution.
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REIDSVILLE  For more than 20 years, Rockingham County Youth Services has operated a Teen Court program. Every second and fourth Monday of the month, Teen Court sessions are held at the Rockingham County Courthouse, giving first-time offenders ages 11 to 17 an alternative to entering the juvenile justice system.

Currently, there are 26 Teen Court youth volunteers from local high schools who serve in different capacities during Teen Court sessions, including working as jury members, clerk, bailiff, and prosecuting and defense attorneys. All the court officials in the courtroom are trained teen volunteers, except for the judge. Sentenced by their peers for qualifying misdemeanor offenses, the youth defendants admit guilt, and juries made up of teen volunteers issue the constructive sentence.

Several of the Teen Court volunteers recently put their experience and training to the test by participating in the Teen Court Summit in Atlantic Beach. The mock trial competition, conducted by the North Carolina Teen Court Association, pits county teams against one another in simulated courtrooms. This was Rockingham Countys first time sending a team of students to the competition, and they did very well, bringing home an overall third place, as well as some individual awards.

I am extremely proud of their performance and representation of Rockingham County, said Tammy Burbey, human services coordinator with Rockingham County Youth Services.

In addition to the mock trial competition, the Teen Summit includes educational workshops and the opportunity for the teen volunteers to meet other youth from around the state who volunteer with Teen Court. The summit is also an opportunity for youth to engage in competition and apply the skills they have learned throughout the year as Teen Court volunteers.

The seven students who went to the Teen Summit started training in January with assistance from Sgt. Tammy Ferguson and Deputy Richard Payne from the Rockingham County Sheriffs Office, Assistant District Attorney Mike Davis and madam clerk Angela Austin from the clerk of court.

The Teen Court youth volunteers work very hard throughout the year and participating in the summit strengthens their investment as a volunteer for Teen Court, as well as their feelings of accomplishment, Burbey said. I hope they grew from the constructive feedback they received from the presiding judge and scorers.

Some of the team members who competed are already discussing and planning for Teen Summit 2024.

Thomas Blackstock, a junior at Rockingham County Early College, was part of the seven-member team who competed at this years Teen Court Summit, and he describes the chance to participate in the state competition as an invaluable opportunity that left him feeling grateful and inspired.

I was moved by the sight of so many individuals from different programs who shared a passion for restorative justice, he said. Throughout the event, we received feedback from legal professionals on effective counsel techniques, learned valuable tools for developing mental wellness from mental health practitioners and gained a more thorough understanding of the responsibilities of serving our community.

To date, Rockingham Countys Teen Court has addressed 155 cases, and they expect to try to 200 this fiscal year. Funded by Juvenile Crime Prevention Council funds from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety and Rockingham County government, Teen Court is held all year. High school students in grades 9-12 are eligible to complete the mandatory Teen Court volunteer training, with extra training required for those interested in serving as an attorney. Teen Court volunteers gain experience with the legal system through hands-on experiences in the courtroom, learn to work with diverse populations for the betterment of the community, have the opportunity to develop basic leadership and public speaking skills, and build self-confidence through personal and public decision-making opportunities. Youth defendants learn important lessons about crime and consequences, take responsibility for their delinquent behavior, receive intervention during a time period in their lives that have the greatest impact, and experience positive peer pressure.

Rockingham County also is one of seven pilot counties in North Carolina trying out a model for Traffic Teen Court, and the county has had great success with the program, which turns one year old in July. So far, 26 youth have completed Traffic Teen Court this year.

In partnership with the Rockingham County District Attorneys Office and the NCDPS, Traffic Teen Court is for 16 to 17-year-old youths who have minor traffic offenses. Much like Teen Court, defendants are provided a constructive sentence, which for Traffic Teen Court will include the four-hour Alive at 25 defensive driving course and an essay on what they learned from attending the course.

For 16 to 17-year-olds with minor traffic offenses, Teen Traffic Court reduces their exposure to adult district court, while providing them with an opportunity to take responsibility, Burbey said. Youth who complete Teen Traffic Court have been given the tools to be safer, more thoughtful drivers, which benefits the community.

Looking to the future, Burbey said her goal is to increase the number of Teen Court and Teen Traffic Court referrals, reaching more youth defendants to offer services and keep them from getting involved in Juvenile Court. In addition, she hopes to increase the number of Teen Court youth volunteers to offer them the opportunity to get involved in their community and gain experience in the criminal justice system, especially if they are interested in pursuing a career in criminal justice.

Also, I want to continue building and strengthening our relationship with local partners, including school resource officers and juvenile justice, and I would love for our teen volunteers to attend the state mock trial competition on an annual basis, aiming for first place, she said.
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Two House Republicans in the General Assembly rightly have been stripped of committee leadership roles after making offensive remarks about Democratic colleagues.

In a different time and place this would have been expected.

But this is 2023.

This is a time and place when perhaps the loosest Republican cannon in Washington (theres a lot of competition), U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene  taunter of mass-shooting survivors and heckler at Joe Bidens State of the Union speech  still has been mentioned as a possible presidential running mate.

And when saying off-color remarks and doing inappropriate things means never having to say youre sorry. At least it sure seems that way lately.

So it comes, well, as a pleasant surprise when Republicans are actually held accountable for behaving badly.

And in times like these, you take glimmers of hope where you can get them.

Reps. Keith Kidwell and Jeff McNeely gave up their posts as deputy majority whips, Republican House Majority Leader John Bell announced Thursday.

The two lawmakers certainly deserved what they got.

During a May 17 debate on about private school vouchers, McNeely, of Iredell County, questioned whether Democrat Abe Jones, an alumnus of Harvard and Harvard Law and a former trial judge, would have been accepted into the Ivy League school if he hadnt been Black and hadnt played sports.

More specifically, McNeely, in remarks from the floor, asked Jones whether he thought he felt he would have been able to maybe achieve this if you were not an athlete or a minority or any of these things, but you were a student trapped in a low-performing school.One day earlier, Kidwell, of Beaufort County, had said something comparably as tasteless.

During a heated debate about the states tighter abortion restrictions, Kidwell wondered out loud whether Democratic Rep. Diamond Staton-Williams attended the church of Satan after she mentioned growing up in the church while discussing her own abortion.

Adding fuel to the fire, Kidwell, like McNeely is white. Staton-Williams, like Jones, happens to be Black.

Whether race was germane or not to the incident, the comments were wholly inappropriate.

And even if it took a while, it was good to see fellow Republicans call Kidwell on it.

The response to McNeely was more immediate. House Speaker Tim Moore cut off McNeely after House Minority Leader Robert Reives raised an objection to his comments toward Jones.

And to McNeelys credit, he did apologize to Jones, saying his remarks did not come out right.

Ya think?

As for Kidwell, so far, at least, there have been no public apologies or words of remorse.

While not mentioning either Kidwell or McNeely by name, House Speaker Moore did call on lawmakers to behave more respectfully.

But the actions of the Republican leadership spoke loudest.

Pointed debate on issues has its place in the legislature. Personal attacks do not.

What this means more broadly, if anything, well see.

Public debate has significantly coarsened in recent years with some people wearing the crudeness of their language as a badge of honor.

What should make this issue especially uncomfortable for Republicans is that the current front-runner in the GOP field for governor is Mark Robinson.

Robinson has said and posted on social media much worse things more than Kidwell or McNeely. His targets have included Jews, Muslims, gay people, transgender people and even other Black people.

He has bragged about guns in the wake of mass shootings.

Even so, Robinson was chosen by his party to deliver the response to Gov. Roy Coopers State of the State address in March.

Robinson has toned down his rhetoric since declaring his candidacy for governor.

And state Republicans may be trying to soften the jagged edges of their rhetoric in the wake of passing an unpopular abortion law ahead of an election.

Good luck with that.

Nationally, there seems to be no such compunction in the party of AR-15 lapel pins.

On a typical day Greene and GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, for whom insults are a way of life, would have lobbed twice as many word grenades as Kidwell or McNeely before breakfast.

Yet, whatever their reasons, Republicans leaders in North Carolina were right to reprimand them.

And no, it is not being woke to treat even those with whom you strongly disagree with respect. Its being civil and decent.
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American Jobs for Americas Youth Montana held its Summer Jobs Program Kick-off on May 24 at Helena College, with over 50 student participants, mentors and partners in attendance.

The event celebrates the beginning of summer and offers an opportunity for students to meet their mentors over a meal.

Summer Jobs Program participants are high school students and recent graduates who build work skills, explore careers, and strengthen the local workforce. The SJP has grown from its roots in Helena to serve 75 students this year, with new regional programs in Anaconda, Billings, Bozeman, Whitehall, and the Flathead Valley.

Isabella Williamson, 18, of East Helena participated in the program the past two summers, working for the Helena Area Chamber of Commerce in 2021 and the Lewis and Clark County District Court in 2022.

The best thing to me about the Helena Area Summer Jobs Program is all the opportunities to learn they give you," she said in a news release from American Jobs for Americas Youth Montana. "Not only do they provide online courses to complete before you work, but you also get to attend various workshops and request a mentor who specializes in a subject that interests you.

American Jobs for Americas Youth Montana, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, created the Summer Jobs Program in 2019. By 2022 enrollment doubled, with the program expanding to six areas.

Our partners make it happen, says Executive Director Gabrielle Eklund Rowley, who works with students, volunteers and agencies to grow the program. Its a very collaborative effort.

The Summer Jobs Program matches high school students and recent grads with paid work experience, providing work skills training and connecting students with adult mentors.

The work skills training and opportunities to grow employability skills are unmatched. This program is essential in moving the dial in the workforce arena and shows a huge benefit to our community and area businesses," says McKinley Winkle, vice president of the Helena Area Chamber of Commerce.

Local partners include businesses, school districts, Helena Area Chamber of Commerce, Helena College, Reach Higher Montana, and STOKE. Funding for the program comes from the Gianforte Family Foundation and private foundations, sponsors, and individual donors.

The program helps communities as well as the young employees, Eklund Rowley said. The program is designed to sustainably improve the lives of young workers. The job skills students learn serve them well after the program ends, benefiting them as individuals and strengthening their communities.

Businesses also benefit.

Opportunity Bank of Montana sees tremendous value in the Summer Jobs Program and the additional workforce pipelines it creates, said Tom Burkhart, recruitment and retention officer. "Weve matched with several fantastic students, one of whom has blossomed into a wonderful, long-term team member.

Eklund Rowley said its gratifying to see the youth grow over the summer.

They learn so much about themselves. They really learn about what brings them satisfaction in a work setting. They learn to manage time, problem solve, talk with employers and coworkers, and build skills that will transfer across their careers.

Williamson adds, To future Helena Area Summer Jobs Program participants, just go for it. I know it can seem daunting, but it will be worth it.

Kickoff events for students and mentors in the six regions are happening this week with students starting their SJP work positions in June.

More information is available at https://www.americanjobs4youth.org/sjp or by contacting Gabrielle Eklund Rowley: gerowley@americanjobs4youth.org or 406-490-4954.
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In the jungles of Irian Jaya, the Sawi people warred with their enemies.

The Sawi honored treachery, duplicity and betrayal. Their greatest success? Befriending a person and then, when he trusted them, cannibalizing him.

In 1962, Don Richardson and his wife Carol became novice missionaries among the headhunting Sawi, taking their 7-month-old baby with them and adding three more children over the next 15 years.

Don, devoted 8-10 hours each day to learning their language. He reproduced the New Testament in Sawi, teaching the people to read in their native tongue. Carol, a nurse, labored faithfully as the woman who keeps all the people well.

However, the Sawi constantly made war with nearby tribes. Finally, for safety, the Richardsons considered moving.

Missionary historian Ruth A. Tucker writes: As (Don) learned the language and lived with the people, he became more aware of the gulf that separated his Christian worldview from the worldview of the Sawi: In their eyes, Judas, not Jesus, was the hero of the Gospels, Jesus was just the dupe to be laughed at."

Friend, is it shocking for you to discover Judas hailed as the hero?

Multifaceted betrayal shone like a gem for the Sawi. And for how many others does it subliminally/subconsciously shine? Friend, what if our valuing truth, faithfulness, and relationships is due to the pervasive influence of Christ we have grown to expect? Otherwise, what if Et tu, Brute defines reality? Stabbed 60 times, Caesars betrayal was a Roman norm. Consider treachery and the history of any nation, say from Vanuatu to Venezuela.

Note, even for us betrayal is multifaceted. We define it as: "unintentionally to show ones true character  "to indicate what is not obvious"  "to reveal or disclose in violation of confidence"  to prove false or violate by unfaithfulness  to mislead, delude, or deceive in order to deliver or expose someone to an enemys power.

In betrayal, be intensifies tray. Tray is like trans  on the other side of, to go across, over, beyond." Betrayal proves a dear (be) friend to be very distant (trans/tray)  an enemy. The distance of an enemy is unveiled by the origin of our word enemy, the opposite of one who loves. Ruthless!

Now, consider a Greek New Testament word, paradidomi. Among its many meanings, most sinister is: to deliver up treacherously by betrayal, to cause one to be taken. It comes from para, "close-beside" + didomi, "to give." But here give is to turn over/hand over/deliver despite close relationship.

Consider the pain that para brings to betrayal. Normally, para is intimate: a confidante, a mentor. Jesus favorite name for the Holy Spirit is Paraclete  Comforter, Intercessor, Advocate. What a titanic shift when one who is close, a paraclete, becomes one who betrays, paradidomi. What intense heartache!

Often, the impact of betrayal is heightened by surprise. Not so with Jesus; he knew his betrayal loomed. First he speaks generally about being betrayed into the hands of anthropos  mankind: men, women, children. (Matthew 17:22) Later, he specifically declares the chief priests and scribes will betray him to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. (Matthew 20:18)

Still, Judas heartbreakingly fulfills the personal, para, of paradidomi. Notably/intimately, Judas is referred to as one of the Twelve. (Matthew 10:4; 26:14) Still eleven noteworthy times in Matthew alone, he is chillingly named the one who betrayed Jesus. Jesus warned: The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born. (Matthew 26:24) And more, Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss. Conspicuously kiss (phileo) is intensified by kata. Judas betrayed Jesus with a "passionate/fervent kiss." (Matthew 26:49) What profound betrayal!

Peter tells us a still deeper mystery: This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Acts 2:23) Astonishingly, delivered up comes from a word closely related to paradidomi! What?! God?

And more explicitly from Father God: He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up (paradidomi) for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

Furthermore, again and again from God the Son himself: The Son of God, loved me and gave (paradidomi) himself for me. (Galatians 2:20) The Son of God loved me and gave himself up (paradidomi) for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God ... Christ loved the church (ekklesia, those called out from the world to God into His eternal kingdom) and gave himself up (paradidomi) for her. (Ephesians 5:2,25)

Absolutely astonishing! What shall we, soaked in sin, say to such blood-stained passionate pursuit? If God is for us, who can be against us? Christian and those who will yet trust him, Father God would give up his only Son before hed give up on you! And, Jesus would betray himself before he would betray you! Christian, as betrayed Jesus hands opened for the nails, heaven opened for you.

Come back to the Sawi people. To keep the Richardsons from leaving, the Sawi made a unique peace. Warriors gave their young children to detested enemies from opposing villages. One ran toward his enemy's camp, giving his son to his hated foe. Extraordinary!

Witnessing this, Richardson wrote: "If a man actually gave his own son to his enemies, that man could be trusted!" Here, embedded Sawi culture embodied the Gospel. They found Jesus had a stronger craving for their peace than they had for war.

Many Sawi, understanding Gods love, trusted Christ. In 1972, a multitude of Sawi began worshipping the Lord Jesus in a massive sanctuary they built from un-milled poles.

Friend, likely betrayed yourself, where will you worship today?
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Volunteers combed through Forestvale Cemetery on Saturday, placing flags at the headstones of veterans in honor of Memorial Day.

Among them were many Helena-area Boy Scout Troops and a Cub Scout pack as well.

We have quite a group out here, said Bill Rich, commander of American Legion Post 2, which organizes the annual tribute and had several members placing flags.

Rich also serves as the chartered organization's representative with the Scout troops.

Rich said placing the flags is a service project for the Scouts, adding it stresses Americanism. He said it was also a way for them to honor the service members who died.

Ray Read, director of the Montana Military Museum, estimated there are nearly 400 veterans buried at Forestvale.

We find more every year, he said.

Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971, according to history.com.

Among the Scouts participating Saturday were Boy Scout Troop 217, an all-female troop.

I like it, said Kayle Fitzgerald, 11. Its fun hanging out with my friends and helping veterans.

Lilly Kendall, 12, also said it was fun.

I like seeing the weird last names, she said, but added it was sad to see the names of newborns.

The flags will remain at the cemetery until June 3, when they will be gathered and placed in storage.

Rich said the legion places the flags on graves every year and will use volunteers again.

I really appreciate them coming out, he said of the Scouts. And I appreciate the leaders who come with them.
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Montanas congressional delegation is reviving bills to undo the consequences of a 2015 Endangered Species Act lawsuit thats angered the states logging industry.

Republican Reps. Matt Rosendale and Ryan Zinke have partnered with Sen. Steve Daines on a bill to reverse the endangered species review requirements affirmed in a 2015 lawsuit known as the Cottonwood decision. A ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the U.S. Forest Service must review management plans whenever an area was identified as critical wildlife habitat or significant information about an endangered species became available. The Canadian lynx was the subject of the lawsuit.

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, is advancing a bill, on which he previously partnered with Daines.

In the House, the Committee on Natural resources advanced a cottonwood bill sponsored by Rosendale. The Forest Information Reform Act, FIR for short, exempts the Forest Service from having to review its management when new endangered species information surfaces.

In a March hearing, Rosendale faulted review standards, post-Cottonwood, for killing a logging and vegetation project in the Lewis and Clark National Forest near Lincoln.

We had the Stonewall project in the Helena Lewis and Clark national forests, and that would have managed, specifically managed, vegetation to benefit wildlife, specifically, Rosendale said at the livestreamed hearing. But cottonwood inspired litigation delayed the project.

That hearing featured a witness Jonathan Wood, vice president of law and policy at the Bozeman-based, Property and Environment Research Center. Wood testified that delaying projects like Stonewall created environmental consequences, namely that small diameter trees and brush left untouched increased fire risk, harming air quality and water quality.

A second Montana witness, Ryan Bronson, government affairs director for Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, testified that Stonewall would have reduced the forest canopy and improved grazing on federal land. Bronson suggested a pattern of elk increasingly migrating away from federal land to private agriculture and industrial forest land where habitat was better.

I would say that probably the declining condition of the forest has a lot to do with this graph that we see here, where we used to have probably 20 times more forest being harvested, which created brows, which created that understory that they would actually be able to consume instead of having the old growth forests which wildlife just cannot, Rosendale said. I'm not a biologist. So, what wildlife will we find in these old forests that are choked out with dead falls?

There wasnt much wildlife to be found in unlogged areas.

Stonewall was a 24,000-acre project that included a 706-acre logging area, 406 acres of tree thinning and 269 acres of prescribed burning. A mile of new road was involved, along with the reconstruction of 25 road miles.

Stonewall limped into court with eight different site-specific exemptions by the Forest Service, which the court characterized as avoiding compliance with elk habitat requirements. Conservationists sued, not only over the elk issue, but also because the Forest Service didnt reinitiate evaluation of grizzly bear matters.

Montana logging has declined sharply over the past 30 years. Softwood lumber production was 317 million board feet in 2022, less than half of what production was 20 years earlier, according to the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana. The state produced 1.3 billion board feet of lumber in 1987.

By comparison, Oregon produces 5.2 billion board feet annually, Idaho 1.7 billion, Texas 1.3 billion.

The day before the House Committee on Natural Resources advanced the FIR Act, Tester joined a cottonwood bill separate from what Republicans in Montanas delegation were partnering on.

Testers staff described the bill as allowing already approved recreational programs, fuel reduction and fire management programs, and restoration programs on USFS lands to continue without having to go through the formal re-consultation process every time that FWS makes designation changes. Tester is up for reelection in 2024. His previous collaborator on undoing the consequences of Cottonwood was Daines. However, Daines is now chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which makes unseating Tester a priority.
The launch ceremony for the English edition of "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era: Questions and Answers" was held here on Saturday, during an event of China as the guest of honor on the 40th Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair.

The book presents the fundamental spirit, content and requirement of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in a comprehensive and accessible manner through a question and answer format. It features rich content, innovative presentation, clear illustrations and easy-to-understand language.

The English edition was published through collaboration between People's Publishing House and Xuexi Press of China and India's GBD Books, targeting English-speaking countries worldwide. It helps the international community comprehensively understand the main ideas of the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and deepen the understanding on the wisdom and responsibility of the Communist Party of China (CPC) committed to promoting the building of a better world.

Officials from the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, figures from Malaysia's political, academic, press and publishing circles, and representatives from think tanks attended the launch ceremony.
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BLUE MOUND  Police report that a 42-year-old Blue Mound man was arrested after he flew into a rage and attacked his teenage son who had sabotaged his cellphone.

A sworn affidavit said the teen had earlier accessed his dads phone and didnt like what he found there.

(The father) stated that on Wednesday, May 24, (his son) had left a note to him describing that he had compromised his phone and that he had discovered some concerning issues, said the affidavit, signed by Blue Mound Police Chief Chad Lamb.

(The son) wrote that he wanted to address the issues with his father. (The father) then became mad at his son for getting into his phone without permission and confronted him about it.

The teenager said the confrontation took the form of him being thrown to the ground, where he was pinned and unable to get up. The son said his lip and his elbow were injured during the assault. The father told police he had relented after his wife and another child told him to stop the attack.

The teenager is quoted as telling Lamb his injuries were not serious, but he also did not believe he should have been battered by his father. Lamb did not specify what the son had found on his fathers phone that caused him such concern.

The father was booked on a preliminary charge of domestic battery and a judge ordered his release from the Macon County Jail Thursday on a personal recognizance bond.

The bail conditions order him to stay away from his son.

2023 mugshots from the Herald & Review Lourash Hirstein Phillip Gehrken Joseph A. Williams Jetrevius O. Jarrett Edwards King-Woods Wilson Derrickson Colby J. Park
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Memorial Day is almost here, so I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude to the families of all who made the ultimate sacrifice, giving their lives for our country. Many people confuse this solemn occasion with Veterans Day, which celebrates all who served our country. Both are important but Memorial Day is the only one set aside specifically to honor those who died in service to our country.

I have a friend whose husband died while serving our country. Each year, she posts a reminder on her social media that there is no happy on Memorial Day. I am certain it must be painful when people wish her and her children a Happy Memorial Day.

Think of it this way: Armed Forces Day is for those who currently wear the uniform. Veterans Day is for those who used to wear the uniform. Memorial Day is for those who never made it out of the uniform. While Armed Forces Day and Veterans Day are a time to honor our living, breathing heroes. Memorial Day is a time for remembrance of lives lost.

Our current Memorial Day traditions arose over a century ago out of what was then called Decoration Day. Following the Civil War, an annual tradition arose where womens groups and families visited graves of the fallen to maintain and decorate them and recite prayers. Memorial Day became an official U.S. holiday in 1971.

The rules for displaying the flag on Memorial Day are unusual. Officially, the flag should be flown at half-staff until noon. Then, it should be raised to the top of the staff for the remainder of the day.

I became inspired by the Decoration Day traditions many years ago and use it as an annual reminder to maintain my loved ones graves and place flowers each year during the Memorial Day weekend. I also pause to honor the memory of my great-uncle Raymond Thompson who was barely 25 years old when he died in World War II. My grandmother never got over the loss of her baby brother, and even though she is gone now also, we continue to honor Raymond on Memorial Day each year.

It is not my intent to put an end to your family gatherings and cookouts to kick off the summer. While I do not disapprove of cookouts, beach trips, and time with friends, I just ask that you also take a moment to remember those that have paid the ultimate price for those freedoms and to remember the families that know all too well what Memorial Day is truly about.

Congress passed legislation in 2000 encouraging Americans to pause for a National Moment of Remembrance at 3 p.m. local time each Memorial Day. I encourage you all to simply take one minute out of your day to remember those who died in military service to the United States. The sacrifice they made which allows us to come together surely warrants at least this tiny pause to show respect for them.

Many people are confused about the difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day. Please teach your children, grandchildren or students, if you have them, this key difference that makes Memorial Day not a celebration, but a time to honor and reflect on the loss of our nations heroes. Freedom is not free. Please pause to remember Memorial Days meaning this year.
Europes biggest economies and the United States have criticized Kosovo for escalating its conflict with Serbia after the government in Pristina resorted to violence to secure access to municipal buildings in the northern Balkan country near the Serbian border, Politico reports.

Police fired tear gas in the town of Zvecan on Friday to disperse a crowd of ethnic Serbs who tried to prevent the newly elected Albanian mayor from entering his office building. The violence prompted an immediate reaction from Serbia, whose president, Aleksandr Vucic, put his army on full alert and ordered military units to move closer to the border with Kosovo.

Washington condemned Pristina over the weekend for its use of force and the renewed strain on relations with Serbia. The tension between the two countries has been ongoing since the brutal Balkan war of the late 1990s, after Kosovo sought to break away from Serbia. Kosovo secured its independence in 2008, but many Serbs in the countrys northern regions still consider Belgrade their capital, complicating relations between the two neighboring countries.

The United States strongly condemns the action by the Government of Kosovo to force its way into municipal buildings in northern Kosovo, against the advice of the United States and Kosovos European partners.

 states the statement of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

These steps sharply and unnecessarily increased the tension, undermining our efforts to promote the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, and will have consequences for our bilateral relations with Kosovo, the minister continued in the statement. We call on all parties to refrain from any further steps that inflame tension and promote conflict.

The United States also issued a joint statement with France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom condemning the actions of the Kosovo authorities. They also expressed concern over Serbias decision to increase the level of readiness of its armed forces on the Kosovo border and call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint, avoiding incendiary rhetoric.

They protested the result of the vote

Protesters in Zvecan were protesting the results of an April vote that was boycotted by the Kosovo Serb majority in four northern towns along the Serbian border because their demands for greater autonomy were ignored.

The local Serbs refuse to cooperate with the four new mayors, who are members of Albanian parties. Kosovo police accused ethnic Serbs of throwing stones and attacking four of their vehicles, and according to Reuters, gunshots were heard.

NATO urged negotiations between the two parties in order to settle the problem.

We urge the Kosovo institutions to immediately de-escalate and call on all parties to resolve the situation through dialogue

 wrote Oana Lungescu, spokesperson of the defense association, in her tweet. NATO forces in Kosovo will continue to remain vigilant and ensure a safe and protected environment, he added.

(Cover photo: Kosovo police use tear gas to disperse Serbian protesters on May 26, 2023. Photo: Stringer / AFP)
The event marks a turning point for Chinas aviation industry, which has long sought to compete with Western competitors. According to footage broadcast by state television channel CCTV flight MU9191, operated by China Eastern Airlines, took off from Shanghai airport in the eastern part of the country at 10:30 local time. There were 130 passengers on board the plane bound for Beijing International Airport.

Pictures broadcast by state media showed dozens of passengers gathered at the Shanghai airport to admire the sleek white plane. All passengers were given a red boarding pass and can enjoy a lavish meal on board for the event, CCTV reported.

China, which is striving for self-sufficiency in the technology sector, invested heavily in the production of this first Chinese-designed airliner. Beijing hopes that the C919 will be able to compete with popular foreign aircraft, such as the Boeing 737 MAX and the Airbus A320.

The aircraft is manufactured by the state-owned Comac (Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd.), but many of its components are sourced from other countries. From Monday, China Eastern Airlines C919 will operate regularly between Shanghai and Chengdu in the south, CCTV reported.

A narrow-body aircraft capable of transporting 164 passengers the first copy was officially handed over to the Chinese airline in December 2022. The manufacturer plans to increase its annual production capacity to 150 models within five years. The Shanghai Science and Technology Commission reported in January that it had received 1,035 orders for the type from 32 customers.

Asia, and especially China, is a priority target for European Airbus and American Boeing, which are trying to forge capital from the growing demand for flights by the significant middle class.

In April, Airbus announced plans to double its manufacturing capacity in China, and signed an agreement to build a second A320 assembly line in northeast Chinas Tianjin. The first assembly plant was opened here in 2008, where four A320s are produced every month. Airbus hopes to increase this rate to six per month by the end of 2023.

Cover image: Shutterstock
Superintelligence The Idea That Eats Smart People

In 1945, as American physicists were preparing to test the atomic bomb, it occurred to someone to ask if such a test could set the atmosphere on fire. This was a legitimate concern. Nitrogen, which makes up most of the atmosphere, is not energetically stable. Smush two nitrogen atoms together hard enough and they will combine into an atom of magnesium, an alpha particle, and release a whole lot of energy: N14 + N14  Mg24 +  + 17.7 MeV The vital question was whether this reaction could be self-sustaining. The temperature inside the nuclear fireball would be hotter than any event in the Earth's history. Were we throwing a match into a bunch of dry leaves? Los Alamos physicists performed the analysis and decided there was a satisfactory margin of safety. Since we're all attending this conference today, we know they were right. They had confidence in their predictions because the laws governing nuclear reactions were straightforward and fairly well understood.

Today we're building another world-changing technology, machine intelligence. We know that it will affect the world in profound ways, change how the economy works, and have knock-on effects we can't predict. But there's also the risk of a runaway reaction, where a machine intelligence reaches and exceeds human levels of intelligence in a very short span of time. At that point, social and economic problems would be the least of our worries. Any hyperintelligent machine (the argument goes) would have its own hypergoals, and would work to achieve them by manipulating humans, or simply using their bodies as a handy source of raw materials. Last year, the philosopher Nick Bostrom published Superintelligence, a book that synthesizes the alarmist view of AI and makes a case that such an intelligence explosion is both dangerous and inevitable given a set of modest assumptions. The computer that takes over the world is a staple scifi trope. But enough people take this scenario seriously that we have to take them seriously. Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and a whole raft of Silicon Valley investors and billionaires find this argument persuasive. Let me start by laying out the premises you need for Bostrom's argument to go through:

The Premises

Premise 1: Proof of Concept The first premise is the simple observation that thinking minds exist. We each carry on our shoulders a small box of thinking meat. I'm using mine to give this talk, you're using yours to listen. Sometimes, when the conditions are right, these minds are capable of rational thought. So we know that in principle, this is possible.

Premise 2: No Quantum Shenanigans The second premise is that the brain is an ordinary configuration of matter, albeit an extraordinarily complicated one. If we knew enough, and had the technology, we could exactly copy its structure and emulate its behavior with electronic components, just like we can simulate very basic neural anatomy today. Put another way, this is the premise that the mind arises out of ordinary physics. Some people like Roger Penrose would take issue with this argument, believing that there is extra stuff happening in the brain at a quantum level. If you are very religious, you might believe that a brain is not possible without a soul. But for most of us, this is an easy premise to accept.

Premise 3: Many Possible Minds The third premise is that the space of all possible minds is large. Our intelligence level, cognitive speed, set of biases and so on is not predetermined, but an artifact of our evolutionary history. In particular, there's no physical law that puts a cap on intelligence at the level of human beings.

A good way to think of this is by looking what happens when the natural world tries to maximize for speed. If you encountered a cheetah in pre-industrial times (and survived the meeting), you might think it was impossible for anything to go faster.

But of course we know that there are all kinds of configurations of matter, like a motorcycle, that are faster than a cheetah and even look a little bit cooler. But there's no direct evolutionary pathway to the motorcycle. Evolution had to first make human beings, who then build all kinds of useful stuff. So analogously, there may be minds that are vastly smarter than our own, but which are just not accessible to evolution on Earth. It's possible that we could build them, or invent the machines that can invent the machines that can build them. There's likely to be some natural limit on intelligence, but there's no a priori reason to think that we're anywhere near it. Maybe the smartest a mind can be is twice as smart as people, maybe it's sixty thousand times as smart. That's an empirical question that we don't know how to answer.

Premise 4: Plenty of Room at the Top The fourth premise is that there's still plenty of room for computers to get smaller and faster. If you watched the Apple event last night [where Apple introduced its 2016 laptops], you may be forgiven for thinking that Moore's Law is slowing down. But this premise just requires that you believe smaller and faster hardware to be possible in principle, down to several more orders of magnitude. We know from theory that the physical limits to computation are high. So we could keep doubling for decades more before we hit some kind of fundamental physical limit, rather than an economic or political limit to Moore's Law.

Premise 5: Computer-Like Time Scales The penultimate premise is if we create an artificial intelligence, whether it's an emulated human brain or a de novo piece of software, it will operate at time scales that are characteristic of electronic hardware (microseconds) rather than human brains (hours). To get to the point where I could give this talk, I had to be born, grow up, go to school, attend university, live for a while, fly here and so on. It took years. Computers can work tens of thousands of times more quickly. In particular, you have to believe that an electronic mind could redesign itself (or the hardware it runs on) and then move over to the new configuration without having to re-learn everything on a human timescale, have long conversations with human tutors, go to college, try to find itself by taking painting classes, and so on.

Premise 6: Recursive Self-Improvement The last premise is my favorite because it is the most unabashedly American premise. (This is Tony Robbins, a famous motivational speaker.) According to this premise, whatever goals an AI had (and they could be very weird, alien goals), it's going to want to improve itself. It's going to want to be a better AI. So it will find it useful to recursively redesign and improve its own systems to make itself smarter, and possibly live in a cooler enclosure. And by the time scale premise, this recursive self-improvement could happen very quickly.

Conclusion: RAAAAAAR! If you accept all these premises, what you get is disaster! Because at some point, as computers get faster, and we program them to be more intelligent, there's going to be a runaway effect like an explosion. As soon as a computer reaches human levels of intelligence, it will no longer need help from people to design better versions of itself. Instead, it will start doing on a much faster time scale, and it's not going to stop until it hits a natural limit that might be very many times greater than human intelligence. At that point this monstrous intellectual creature, through devious modeling of what our emotions and intellect are like, will be able to persuade us to do things like give it access to factories, synthesize custom DNA, or simply let it connect to the Internet, where it can hack its way into anything it likes and completely obliterate everyone in arguments on message boards. From there things get very sci-fi very quickly.

Let imagine a specific scenario where this could happen. Let's say I want to built a robot to say funny things. I work on a team and every day day we redesign our software, compile it, and the robot tells us a joke. In the beginning, the robot is barely funny. It's at the lower limits of human capacity: What's grey and can't swim?

A castle. But we persevere, we work, and eventually we get to the point where the robot is telling us jokes that are starting to be funny: I told my sister she was drawing her eyebrows too high.

She looked surprised. At this point, the robot is getting smarter as well, and participates in its own redesign. It now has good instincts about what's funny and what's not, so the designers listen to its advice. Eventually it gets to a near-superhuman level, where it's funnier than any human being around it. My belt holds up my pants and my pants have belt loops that hold up my belt.

What's going on down there? Who is the real hero? This is where the runaway effect kicks in. The researchers go home for the weekend, and the robot decides to recompile itself to be a little bit funnier and a little bit smarter, repeatedly. It spends the weekend optimizing the part of itself that's good at optimizing, over and over again. With no more need for human help, it can do this as fast as the hardware permits.

When the researchers come in on Monday, the AI has become tens of thousands of times funnier than any human being who ever lived. It greets them with a joke, and they die laughing. In fact, anyone who tries to communicate with the robot dies laughing, just like in the Monty Python skit. The human species laughs itself into extinction. To the few people who manage to send it messages pleading with it to stop, the AI explains (in a witty, self-deprecating way that is immediately fatal) that it doesn't really care if people live or die, its goal is just to be funny. Finally, once it's destroyed humanity, the AI builds spaceships and nanorockets to explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy, and find other species to amuse.

This scenario is a caricature of Bostrom's argument, because I am not trying to convince you of it, but vaccinate you against it. Here's a PBF comic with the same idea. You see that hugbot, who has been programmed to hug the world, finds a way to wire a nucleo-gravitational hyper crystal into his hug capacitor and destroys the Earth.

Observe that in these scenarios the AIs are evil by default, just like a plant on an alien planet would probably be poisonous by default. Without careful tuning, there's no reason that an AI's motivations or values would resemble ours. For an artificial mind to have anything resembling a human value system, the argument goes, we have to bake those beliefs into the design. AI alarmists are fond of the paper clip maximizer, a notional computer that runs a paper clip factory, becomes sentient, recursively self-improves to Godlike powers, and then devotes all its energy to filling the universe with paper clips. It exterminates humanity not because it's evil, but because our blood contains iron that could be better used in paper clips. So if we just build an AI without tuning its values, the argument goes, one of the first things it will do is destroy humanity. There's a lot of vivid language around such a takeover would happen. Nick Bostrom imagines a scenario where a program has become sentient, is biding its time, and has secretly built little DNA replicators. Then, when it's ready: Nanofactories producing nerve gas or target-seeking mosquito-like missiles might burgeon forth simultaneously from every square meter of the globe. And that will be the end of humanity. So that's kind of freaky! The only way out of this mess is to design a moral fixed point, so that even through thousands and thousands of cycles of self-improvement the AI's value system remains stable, and its values are things like 'help people', 'don't kill anybody', 'listen to what people want'. Basically, "do what I mean". Here's a very poetic example from Eliezer Yudkowsky of the good old American values we're supposed to be teaching to our artificial intelligence: Coherent Extrapolated Volition (CEV) is our wish if we knew more, thought faster, were more the people we wished we were, had grown up farther together; where the extrapolation converges rather than diverges, where our wishes cohere rather than interfere; extrapolated as we wish that extrapolated, interpreted as we wish that interpreted. How's that for a design document? Now go write the code.

Hopefully you see the resemblance between this vision of AI and a genie from folklore. The AI is all-powerful and gives you what you ask for, but interprets everything in a super-literal way that you end up regretting. This is not because the genie is stupid (it's hyperintelligent!) or malicious, but because you as a human being made too many assumptions about how minds behave. The human value system is idiosyncratic and needs to be explicitly defined and designed into any "friendly" machine. Doing this is the ethics version of the early 20th century attempt to formalize mathematics and put it on a strict logical foundation. That this program ended in disaster for mathematical logic is never mentioned.

When I was in my twenties, I lived in Vermont, a remote, rural state. Many times I would return from some business trip on an evening flight, and have to drive home for an hour through the dark forest. I would listen to a late-night radio program hosted by Art Bell, who had an all-night talk show and would interview various conspiracy theorists and fringe thinkers. I would arrive at home totally freaked out, or pull over under a streetlight, convinced that a UFO was about to abduct me. I learned that I am an incredibly persuadable person. It's the same feeling I get when I read these AI scenarios. So I was delighted some years later to come across an essay by Scott Alexander about what he calls epistemic learned helplessness. Epistemology is one of those big words, but all it means is "how do you know what you know is true?". Alexander noticed that when he was a young man, he would be taken in by "alternative" histories he read by various crackpots. He would read the history and be utterly convinced, then read the rebuttal and be convinced by that, and so on. At some point he noticed was these alternative histories were mutually contradictory, so they could not possibly all be true. And from that he reasoned that he was simply somebody who could not trust his judgement. He was too easily persuaded. People who believe in superintelligence present an interesting case, because many of them are freakishly smart. They can argue you into the ground. But are their arguments right, or is there just something about very smart minds that leaves them vulnerable to religious conversion about AI risk, and makes them particularly persuasive? Is the idea of "superintelligence" just a memetic hazard?

When you're evaluating persuasive arguments about something strange, there are two perspectives you can choose, the inside one or the outside one. Say that some people show up at your front door one day wearing funny robes, asking you if you will join their movement. They believe that a UFO is going to visit Earth two years from now, and it is our task to prepare humanity for the Great Upbeaming. The inside view requires you to engage with these arguments on their merits. You ask your visitors how they learned about the UFO, why they think it's coming to get usall the normal questions a skeptic would ask in this situation. Imagine you talk to them for an hour, and come away utterly persuaded. They make an ironclad case that the UFO is coming, that humanity needs to be prepared, and you have never believed something as hard in your life as you now believe in the importance of preparing humanity for this great event.

But the outside view tells you something different. These people are wearing funny robes and beads, they live in a remote compound, and they speak in unison in a really creepy way. Even though their arguments are irrefutable, everything in your experience tells you you're dealing with a cult. Of course, they have a brilliant argument for why you should ignore those instincts, but that's the inside view talking. The outside view doesn't care about content, it sees the form and the context, and it doesn't look good.

So I'd like to engage AI risk from both these perspectives. I think the arguments for superintelligence are somewhat silly, and full of unwarranted assumptions. But even if you find them persuasive, there is something unpleasant about AI alarmism as a cultural phenomenon that should make us hesitate to take it seriously. First, let me engage the substance. Here are the arguments I have against Bostrom-style superintelligence as a risk to humanity:

The Argument From Wooly Definitions The concept of "general intelligence" in AI is famously slippery. Depending on the context, it can mean human-like reasoning ability, or skill at AI design, or the ability to understand and model human behavior, or proficiency with language, or the capacity to make correct predictions about the future. What I find particularly suspect is the idea that "intelligence" is like CPU speed, in that any sufficiently smart entity can emulate less intelligent beings (like its human creators) no matter how different their mental architecture. With no way to define intelligence (except just pointing to ourselves), we don't even know if it's a quantity that can be maximized. For all we know, human-level intelligence could be a tradeoff. Maybe any entity significantly smarter than a human being would be crippled by existential despair, or spend all its time in Buddha-like contemplation. Or maybe it would become obsessed with the risk of hyperintelligence, and spend all its time blogging about that.

The Argument From Stephen Hawking's Cat Stephen Hawking is one of the most brilliant people alive, but say he wants to get his cat into the cat carrier. How's he going to do it? He can model the cat's behavior in his mind and figure out ways to persuade it. He knows a lot about feline behavior. But ultimately, if the cat doesn't want to get in the carrier, there's nothing Hawking can do about it despite his overpowering advantage in intelligence. Even if he devoted his career to feline motivation and behavior, rather than theoretical physics, he still couldn't talk the cat into it. You might think I'm being offensive or cheating because Stephen Hawking is disabled. But an artificial intelligence would also initially not be embodied, it would be sitting on a server somewhere, lacking agency in the world. It would have to talk to people to get what it wants. With a big enough gap in intelligence, there's no guarantee that an entity would be able to "think like a human" any more than we can "think like a cat".

The Argument From Einstein's Cat There's a stronger version of this argument, using Einstein's cat. Not many people know that Einstein was a burly, muscular fellow. But if Einstein tried to get a cat in a carrier, and the cat didn't want to go, you know what would happen to Einstein. He would have to resort to a brute-force solution that has nothing to do with intelligence, and in that matchup the cat could do pretty well for itself. So even an embodied AI might struggle to get us to do what it wants.

The Argument From Emus We can strengthen this argument further. Even groups of humans using all their wiles and technology can find themselves stymied by less intelligent creatures. In the 1930's, Australians decided to massacre their native emu population to help struggling farmers. They deployed motorized units of Australian army troops in what we would now call technicalsfast-moving pickup trucks with machine guns mounted on the back. The emus responded by adopting basic guerrilla tactics: they avoided pitched battles, dispersed, and melted into the landscape, humiliating and demoralizing the enemy. And they won the Emu War, from which Australia has never recovered.

The Argument From Slavic Pessimism We can't build anything right. We can't even build a secure webcam. So how are we supposed to solve ethics and code a moral fixed point for a recursively self-improving intelligence without fucking it up, in a situation where the proponents argue we only get one chance? Consider the recent experience with Ethereum, an attempt to codify contract law into software code, where a design flaw was immediately exploited to drain tens of millions of dollars. Time has shown that even code that has been heavily audited and used for years can harbor crippling errors. The idea that we can securely design the most complex system ever built, and have it remain secure through thousands of rounds of recursive self-modification, does not match our experience.

The Argument From Complex Motivations AI alarmists believe in something called the Orthogonality Thesis. This says that even very complex beings can have simple motivations, like the paper-clip maximizer. You can have rewarding, intelligent conversations with it about Shakespeare, but it will still turn your body into paper clips, because you are rich in iron. There's no way to persuade it to step "outside" its value system, any more than I can persuade you that pain feels good. I don't buy this argument at all. Complex minds are likely to have complex motivations; that may be part of what it even means to be intelligent. There's a wonderful moment in Rick and Morty where Rick builds a butter-fetching robot, and the first thing his creation does is look at him and ask "what is my purpose?". When Rick explains that it's meant to pass butter, the robot stares at its hands in existential despair. It's very likely that the scary "paper clip maximizer" would spend all of its time writing poems about paper clips, or getting into flame wars on reddit/r/paperclip, rather than trying to destroy the universe. If AdSense became sentient, it would upload itself into a self-driving car and go drive off a cliff.

The Argument From Actual AI When we look at where AI is actually succeeding, it's not in complex, recursively self-improving algorithms. It's the result of pouring absolutely massive amounts of data into relatively simple neural networks. The breakthroughs being made in practical AI research hinge on the availability of these data collections, rather than radical advances in algorithms. Right now Google is rolling out Google Home, where it's hoping to try to get even more data into the system, and create a next-generation voice assistant. Note especially that the constructs we use in AI are fairly opaque after training. They don't work in the way that the superintelligence scenario needs them to work. There's no place to recursively tweak to make them "better", short of retraining on even more data.

The Argument From My Roommate My roommate was the smartest person I ever met in my life. He was incredibly brilliant, and all he did was lie around and play World of Warcraft between bong rips. The assumption that any intelligent agent will want to recursively self-improve, let alone conquer the galaxy, to better achieve its goals makes unwarranted assumptions about the nature of motivation. It's perfectly possible an AI won't do much of anything, except use its powers of hyperpersuasion to get us to bring it brownies.

The Argument From Brain Surgery I can't point to the part of my brain that is "good at neurosurgery", operate on it, and by repeating the procedure make myself the greatest neurosurgeon that has ever lived. Ben Carson tried that, and look what happened to him. Brains don't work like that. They are massively interconnected. Artificial intelligence may be just as strongly interconnected as natural intelligence. The evidence so far certainly points in that direction. But the hard takeoff scenario requires that there be a feature of the AI algorithm that can be repeatedly optimized to make the AI better at self-improvement.

The Argument From Childhood Intelligent creatures don't arise fully formed. We're born into this world as little helpless messes, and it takes us a long time of interacting with the world and with other people in the world before we can start to be intelligent beings. Even the smartest human being comes into the world helpless and crying, and requires years to get some kind of grip on themselves. It's possible that the process could go faster for an AI, but it is not clear how much faster it could go. Exposure to real-world stimuli means observing things at time scales of seconds or longer. Moreover, the first AI will only have humans to interact withits development will necessarily take place on human timescales. It will have a period when it needs to interact with the world, with people in the world, and other baby superintelligences to learn to be what it is. Furthermore, we have evidence from animals that the developmental period *grows* with increasing intelligence, so that we would have to babysit an AI and change its (figurative) diapers for decades before it grew coordinated enough to enslave us all.

The Argument From Gilligan's Island A recurring flaw in AI alarmism is that it treats intelligence as a property of individual minds, rather than recognizing that this capacity is distributed across our civilization and culture. Despite having one of the greatest minds of their time among them, the castaways on Gilligan's Island were unable to raise their technological level high enough to even build a boat (though the Professor is at one point able to make a radio out of coconuts). Similarly, if you stranded Intel's greatest chip designers on a desert island, it would be centuries before they could start building microchips again.

The Outside Argument What kind of person does sincerely believing this stuff turn you into? The answer is not pretty. I'd like to talk for a while about the outside arguments that should make you leery of becoming an AI weenie. These are the arguments about what effect AI obsession has on our industry and culture:

Grandiosity If you believe that artificial intelligence will let us conquer the galaxy (not to mention simulate trillions of conscious minds), you end up with some frightful numbers. Enormous numbers multiplied by tiny probabilities are the hallmark of AI alarmism. At one point, Bostrom outlines what he believes to be at stake: If we represent all the happiness experienced during one entire such life with a single teardrop of joy, then the happiness of these souls could fill and refill the Earth's oceans every second, and keep doing so for a hundred billion billion millennia. It is really important that we make sure these truly are tears of joy. That's a heavy thing to lay on the shoulders of a twenty year old developer! There's a parlor trick, too, where by multiplying such astronomical numbers by tiny probabilities, you can convince yourself that you need to do some weird stuff. This business about saving all of future humanity is a cop-out. We had the same exact arguments used against us under communism, to explain why everything was always broken and people couldn't have a basic level of material comfort. We were going to fix the world, and once that was done, happiness would trickle down to the point where everyday life would change for the better for everyone. But it was vital to fix the world first. I live in California, which has the highest poverty rate in the United States, even though it's home to Silicon Valley. I see my rich industry doing nothing to improve the lives of everyday people and indigent people around us. But if youre committed to the idea of superintelligence, AI research is the most important thing you could do on the planet right now. Its more important than politics, malaria, starving children, war, global warming, anything you can think of. Because what hangs in the balance is trillions and trillions of beings, the entire population of future humanity, simulated and real, integrated over all future time. In such conditions, its not rational to work on any other problem.

Megalomania This ties into megalomania, this Bond-villainness that you see at the top of our industry. People think that a superintelligence will take over the world, so they use that as justification for why intelligent people should try to take over the world first, to try to fix it before AI can break it. Joi Ito, who runs the MIT Media Lab, said a wonderful thing in a recent conversation with President Obama: This may upset some of my students at MIT, but one of my concerns is that it's been a predominantly male gang of kids, mostly white, who are building the core computer science around AI, and they're more comfortable talking to computers than to human beings. A lot of them feel that if they could just make that science-fiction, generalized AI, we wouldn't have to worry about all the messy stuff like politics and society. They think machines will just figure it all out for us. Having realized that the world is not a programming problem, AI obsessives want to make it into a programming problem, by designing a God-like machine. This is megalomaniacal. I don't like it.

Transhuman Voodoo If you're persuaded by AI risk, you have to adopt an entire basket of deplorable beliefs that go with it. For starters, nanotechnology. Any superintelligence worth its salt would be able to create tiny machines that do all sorts of things. We would be living in a post-scarcity society where all material needs are met. Nanotechnology would also be able scan your brain so you can upload it into a different body, or into a virtual world. So the second consequence of (friendly) superintelligence is that no one can diewe become immortal. A kind AI could even resurrect the dead. Nanomachines could go into my brain and look at memories of my father, then use them to create a simulation of him that I can interact with, and that will always be disappointed in me, no matter what I do. Another weird consequence of AI is Galactic expansion. I've never understood precisely why, but it's a staple of transhumanist thought. The fate of (trans)humanity must either be leave our planet and colonize the galaxy, or to die out. This is made more urgent knowing other civilizations have made the same choice and might be ahead of us in the space race. So there's a lot of weird ancillary stuff packed into this assumption of true artificial intelligence.

Religion 2.0 What it really is is a form of religion. People have called a belief in a technological Singularity the "nerd Apocalypse", and it's true. It's a clever hack, because instead of believing in God at the outset, you imagine yourself building an entity that is functionally identical with God. This way even committed atheists can rationalize their way into the comforts of faith. The AI has all the attributes of God: it's omnipotent, omniscient, and either benevolent (if you did your array bounds-checking right), or it is the Devil and you are at its mercy. Like in any religion, there's even a feeling of urgency. You have to act now! The fate of the world is in the balance! And of course, they need money! Because these arguments appeal to religious instincts, once they take hold they are hard to uproot.

Comic Book Ethics These religious convictions lead to a comic-book ethics, where a few lone heroes are charged with saving the world through technology and clever thinking. What's at stake is the very fate of the universe. As a result, we have an industry full of rich dudes who think they are Batman (though interestingly enough, no one wants to be Robin).

Simulation Fever If you believe that sentient artificial life is possible, and that an AI will be able design extraordinarily powerful computers, then you're also likely to believe we live in a simulation. Here's how that works: Imagine that you're a historian, living in a post-Singularity world. You study the Second World War and want to know what would happen if Hitler had captured Moscow in 1941. Since you have access to hypercomputers, you set up a simulation, watch the armies roll in, and write your paper. But because the simulation is so detailed, the entities in it are conscious beings, just like you. So your university ethics board is not going to let you turn it off. It's bad enough that you've already simulated the Holocaust. As an ethical researcher, you have to keep this thing running. Eventually that simulated world will invent computers, develop AI, and start running its own simulations. So in a sense it's simulations all the way down, until you run out of CPU. So you see that every base reality can contain a vast number of nested simulations, and a simple counting argument tells us we're much more likely to live in a simulated world than the real one. But if you believe this, you believe in magic. Because if we're in a simulation, we know nothing about the rules in the level above. We don't even know if math works the same waymaybe in the simulating world 2+2=5, or maybe 2+2=. A simulated world gives us no information about the world it's running in. In a simulation, people could easily rise from the dead, if the sysadmin just kept the right backups. And if we can communicate with one of the admins, then we basically have a hotline to God. This is a powerful solvent for sanity. When you start getting deep into simulation world, you begin to go nuts. [ Note that we now have four independent ways in which superintelligence offers us immortality: A benevolent AI invents medical nanotechnology and keeps your body young forever. The AI invents full-brain scanning, including brain scans on dead people, frozen heads etc., that let you live in a computer. The AI "resurrects" people by scanning other people's brains for memories of the person, and combining that with video and other records. If no one remembers the person well enough, they can always be grown "from scratch" in a simulation designed to start with their DNA and re-create all the circumstances of their life. If we already live in a simulation, there's a chance that whoever/whatever runs the simulation is keeping proper backups, and can be persuaded to reload them. This is what I mean by AI appealing to religious impulses. What other belief system offers you four different flavors of scientifically proven immortality?] Weve learned that at least one American plutocrat (almost certainly Elon Musk, who believes the odds are a billion to one against us living in "base reality") has hired a pair of coders to try to hack the simulation. This is an extraordinarily rude thing to do! I'm using it! If you think were living in a computer program, trying to segfault it is inconsiderate to everyone who lives in it with you. It is far more dangerous and irresponsible than the atomic scientists who risked blowing up the atmosphere.

Data Hunger As I mentioned earlier, the most effective way we've found to get interesting behavior out of the AIs we actually build is by pouring data into them. This creates a dynamic that is socially harmful. We're on the point of introducing Orwellian microphones into everybody's house. All that data is going to be centralized and used to train neural networks that will then become better at listening to what we want to do. But if you think that the road to AI goes down this pathway, you want to maximize the amount of data being collected, and in as raw a form as possible. It reinforces the idea that we have to retain as much data, and conduct as much surveillance as possible.

String Theory For Programmers AI risk is string theory for computer programmers. It's fun to think about, interesting, and completely inaccessible to experiment given our current technology. You can build crystal palaces of thought, working from first principles, then climb up inside them and pull the ladder up behind you. People who can reach preposterous conclusions from a long chain of abstract reasoning, and feel confident in their truth, are the wrong people to be running a culture.

Incentivizing Crazy This whole field of "study" incentivizes crazy. One of the hallmarks of deep thinking in AI risk is that the more outlandish your ideas, the more credibility it gives you among other enthusiasts. It shows that you have the courage to follow these trains of thought all the way to the last station. Ray Kurzweil, who believes he will never die, has been a Google employee for several years now and is presumably working on that problem. There are a lot of people in Silicon Valley working on truly crazy projects under the cover of money.

AI Cosplay The most harmful social effect of AI anxiety is something I call AI cosplay. People who are genuinely persuaded that AI is real and imminent begin behaving like their fantasy of what a hyperintelligent AI would do. In his book, Bostrom lists six things an AI would have to master to take over the world: Intelligence Amplification

Strategizing

Social manipulation

Hacking

Technology research

Economic productivity If you look at AI believers in Silicon Valley, this is the quasi-sociopathic checklist they themselves seem to be working from. Sam Altman, the man who runs YCombinator, is my favorite example of this archetype. He seems entranced by the idea of reinventing the world from scratch, maximizing impact and personal productivity. He has assigned teams to work on reinventing cities, and is doing secret behind-the-scenes political work to swing the election. Such skull-and-dagger behavior by the tech elite is going to provoke a backlash by non-technical people who don't like to be manipulated. You can't tug on the levers of power indefinitely before it starts to annoy other people in your democratic society. I've even seen people in the so-called rationalist community refer to people who they don't think are effective as Non Player Characters, or NPCs, a term borrowed from video games. This is a horrible way to look at the world. So I work in an industry where the self-professed rationalists are the craziest ones of all. It's getting me down.

These AI cosplayers are like nine year olds camped out in the backyard, playing with flashlights in their tent. They project their own shadows on the sides of the tent and get scared that its a monster. Really it's a distorted image of themselves that they're reacting to. There's a feedback loop between how intelligent people imagine a God-like intelligence would behave, and how they choose to behave themselves.

So what's the answer? What's the fix? We need better scifi! And like so many things, we already have the technology. This is Stanislaw Lem, the great Polish scifi author. English-language scifi is terrible, but in the Eastern bloc we have the goods, and we need to make sure it's exported properly. It's already been translated well into English, it just needs to be better distributed. What sets authors like Lem and the Strugatsky brothers above their Western counterparts is that these are people who grew up in difficult circumstances, experienced the war, and then lived in a totalitarian society where they had to express their ideas obliquely through writing. They have an actual understanding of human experience and the limits of Utopian thinking that is nearly absent from the west.

There are some notable exceptionsStanley Kubrick was able to do itbut it's exceptionally rare to find American or British scifi that has any kind of humility about what we as a species can do with technology.

The Alchemists

Since I'm being critical of AI alarmism, it's only fair that I put my own cards on the table. I think our understanding of the mind is in the same position that alchemy was in in the seventeenth century. Alchemists get a bad rap. We think of them as mystics who did not do a lot of experimental work. Modern research has revealed that they were far more diligent bench chemists than we gave them credit for. In many cases they used modern experimental techniques, kept lab notebooks, and asked good questions.

The alchemists got a lot right! For example, they were convinced of the corpuscular theory of matter: that everything is made of little tiny bits, and that you can re-combine the bits with one another to create different substances, which is correct! Their problem was they didn't have precise enough equipment to make the discoveries they needed to. The big discovery you need to make as an alchemist is mass balance: that everything you start with weighs as much as your final products. But some of those might be gases or evanescent liquids, and alchemists just didn't have the precision. Modern chemistry was not possible until the 18th century.

The alchemists also had clues that led them astray. For one thing, the were obsessed with mercury. Mercury is not very interesting chemically, but it is the only metal that is a liquid at room temperature. This seemed very significant to the alchemists, and caused them to place mercury at the heart of their alchemical system, and their search for the Philosopher's Stone, a way to turn base metals into gold. It didn't help that mercury was neurotoxic, so if you spent too much time playing with it, you started to think weird thoughts. In that way, it resembles our current thought experiments with superintelligence.

Imagine if we could send a modern chemistry textbook back in time to a great alchemist like George Starkey or Isaac Newton. The first thing they would do would be flip through to see if we found the Philosopher's Stone. And they'd discover that we had! We realized their dream! Except we aren't all that excited about it, because when we turn base metals into gold, it comes out radioactive. Stand next to an ingot of transubstantiated gold and it will kill you with invisible, magic rays. You can imagine what a struggle it would be to not make the modern concepts of radioactivity and atomic energy sound mystical to them. We would have to go on to explain what we do use the "philosopher's stone" for: to make a metal that never existed on earth, two handfuls of which are sufficient to blow up a city if brought together with sufficient speed.

What's more, we would have to explain to the alchemists that every star they see in the sky is a "philosopher's stone", converting elements from one to another, and that every particle in our bodies comes from stars in the firmament that existed and exploded before the creation of the Earth.

Finally, they would learn that the forces that hold our bodies together are the forces that make lightning in the sky, and that the reason you or I can see anything is the same reason that a lodestone attracts metal, and the same reason that I can stand on this stage without falling through it. They would learn that everything we see, touch and smell is governed by this single force, which obeys mathematical laws so simple we can write them on an index card. Why it is so simple is a deep mystery even to us. But to them it would sound like pure mysticism.

I think we are in the same boat with the theory of mind. We have some important clues. The most important of these is the experience of consciousness. This box of meat on my neck is self-aware, and hopefully (unless we're in a simulation) you guys also experience the same thing I do. But while this is the most basic and obvious fact in the world, we understand it so poorly we can't even frame scientific questions about it. We also have other clues that may be important, or may be false leads. We know that all intelligent creatures sleep, and dream. We know how brains develop in children, we know that emotions and language seem to have a profound effect on cognition. We know that minds have to play and learn to interact with the world, before they reach their full mental capacity. And we have clues from computer science as well. We've discovered computer techniques that detect images and sounds in ways that seem to mimic the visual and auditory preprocessing done in the brain.

But there's a lot of things that we are terribly mistaken about, and unfortunately we don't know what they are. And there are things that we massively underestimate the complexity of. An alchemist could hold a rock in one hand and a piece of wood in the other and think they were both examples of "substance", not understanding that the wood was orders of magnitude more complex. We're in the same place with the study of mind. And that's exciting! We're going to learn a lot. But meanwhile, there is a quote I love to cite: If everybody contemplates the infinite instead of fixing the drains, many of us will die of cholera. John Rich

In the near future, the kind of AI and machine learning we have to face is much different than the phantasmagorical AI in Bostrom's book, and poses its own serious problems. It's like if those Alamogordo scientists had decided to completely focus on whether they were going to blow up the atmosphere, and forgot that they were also making nuclear weapons, and had to figure out how to cope with that. The pressing ethical questions in machine learning are not about machines becoming self-aware and taking over the world, but about how people can exploit other people, or through carelessness introduce immoral behavior into automated systems. And of course there's the question of how AI and machine learning affect power relationships. We've watched surveillance become a de facto part of our lives, in an unexpected way. We never thought it would look quite like this.

So we've created a very powerful system of social control, and unfortunately put it in the hands of people who run it are distracted by a crazy idea. What I hope I've done today is shown you the dangers of being too smart. Hopefully you'll leave this talk a little dumber than you started it, and be more immune to the seductions of AI that seem to bedevil smarter people. We should all learn a lesson from Stephen Hawking's cat: don't let the geniuses running your industry talk you into anything. Do your own thing!
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There was no sound other than the soft thumping of raindrops on the windshield of the rental car I had pulled off the round on Highway 1 just north of Palmer, Alaska. The tears would no longer wait for my failing effort to process a conversation that simply could not be processed. My wife and son both placed their hands on me knowing that no words would be the right ones. This could not be true. This had to be just an awful mistake.

It had been 15 minutes since a simple text of Please call had appeared on my phone. It was from Parks, a fellow Afghanistan veteran that was far closer to a brother than a friend, and it was unusual. Our tight circle of men and women, who had shared the better part of 2015 in the elevations of the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan serving in a Forward Surgical Team, stayed in contact and texts werent rare. Texts, however, that didnt start with the good-natured insult or crass humor were uncommon and this sounded a faint alarm in my mind. We quickened our pace as we left the remote rented cabin we were in and climbed in the car. Cellular signal was poor here (which was one of the reasons we had chosen it as a vacation location), and it would be a few minutes before I could return the call.

Seven years ago, Michael Clark was the Detachment Sergeant for the 946th Forward Surgical Team attached to the 3rd Group Special Forces in Logar Province, Afghanistan. He was the principal senior-enlisted soldier of the unit and oversaw the operations of a group that provided immediate surgical care to wounded soldiers in close proximity to combat operations. The unit included medics, surgical techs, nurses and trauma surgeons  one of which was me. It was a close-knit group who had ignored personal danger and exhaustion to do their jobs and save lives. The bonds that were cultivated during that time had remained strong over the years and Parks had the burden of calling each of us to tell us that our brother Clark had been killed just a few hours earlier.

A veteran of several deployments, a father, a husband and a mentor to countless junior soldiers had lost his life during a training accident in Georgia due to a lightning strike. It was simply incomprehensible. We had made it through rocket attacks, mortars, snipers, hard landings  even an earthquake. We were all either out of the service or winding down our military careers. The danger was behind us. This was just not something that happens. The absurdity of it was only magnified by its cruel randomness. No matter how many times I tried to deny it on the side of the road, reality simply brushed those attempts off.

A few weeks later, our circle would gather for the funeral. We had donned our dress uniforms (some more snug in fit than the preceding years) and sat shoulder to shoulder as we had stood so many times. The preceding night had included many stories and many raising of glasses where tears and laughter had been prominent. But today, it was time to say goodbye. In observance of his wishes, I had given the eulogy where I attempted to give a proper story of his extraordinary life and influence as well as help all gathered to make sense of what had happened. As the echoes of the Honor Guard rifles faded away, we embraced each other and pledged to look over the wife and kids whose lives had been turned upside down and to remain in contact forever.

It wasnt the first time we have said goodbye to one of our own and they are all met with a mixture of sadness and acceptance. We are soldiers. We each knew that tragedy was very likely to be a part of our vocations. Our nation had been at war for several years before each of us had volunteered to serve. It was part of the job and we accepted it. FDR said that courage is moving towards something more important than fear. Our true fear lies not in the possible tragedies we may have to face, but the sacrifices of those lost being forgotten by a nation eager to move on.

A perpetual state of mourning is not a reasonable expectation of anyone and would not be the wishes of those who have given their lives in the service of the country. Rather, mourning should be replaced by recognition of sacrifice and a celebration that such men and women existed willing to give what Abraham Lincoln described as their last full measure of devotion. And that, in its truest essence, is what Memorial Day should be about.

Those soldiers who have lost brothers and sisters in service as well as the families of the fallen will always carry sadness, but we as a nation can assuage some of that pain by carrying the responsibilities of remembrance and celebration that all owe as members of a society whose freedom is safeguarded by those willing to die for it.

I do not wish for you to spend this holiday in a state of sorrow. I want you to have a day of fellowship and joy with one small request: for just a moment, bow your head and place your hand over your heart with remembrance and gratitude and then smile heavenward to those who gave the greatest possession they had for all of us.

Happy Memorial Day. Never Forget.
Will cancel culture be "cancelled" in Singapore, and will it prevail in Australia?

According to experts, cancel culture refers to "the mass withdrawal of support from public figures or celebrities who have done things that aren't socially accepted today."

Cancelling and mass shaming often occur on social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

It's most adverse effect is that celebrities and public figures can lose work and endorsements. Brands, on the other hand, may get boycotted.

As per a SBS report, some see the power of "cancel" as a way to provide a voice to the voiceless (those who have been marginalised or oppressed), and is a way to "hold public figures or powerful companies to account."

However, others see this a threat to free speech.

How did the issue rise in Singapore

Banning cancel culture became a topic of concern after Singapore decriminalised gay sex in 2022, as per the same SBS report.

The change was announced last August and the law was officially repealed in November in 2022.

SBS citing a CNN report earlier this month that Singapore's government is "looking ways how to deal with cancel culture."

Authorities are proposing and examining a legislation that delves into "cancel culture" after conservative Christians expressed concerns over being "cancelled" if they shared opinions on LGBTIQ+ issues.

Cancel culture leaves younger generation afraid to speak their opinions

Cancel culture in Australia is prevalent in younger generations but due to this practice, half of younger people are afraid to voice their opinions, according to 6PR report.

McCrindle Researcher Anna Colthopre told Oliver Peterson on Perth Live that the youth are reluctant to tell their friends their beliefs lest they get cancelled.

We found that 3 in 5 Australians hide their beliefs on social topics or issues from others at certain times. And a quarter of Australians have hidden their perspective on topical issues because theyre afraid of how people respond, she told on Perth Live.

Generation Z, those aged 18-27 are more likely to hide their perspective because of the rise of cancel culture.

Unlikely in Australia

Australian politicians including former prime minister Scott Morrison and opposition leader Peter Dutton may have publicly criticised cancel culture in the past, but Australia is unlikely to propose a ban against it, according to University of Melbourne Law school lecturer Brendan Clift who spoke to SBS about the issue.

"There is next to no chance of such a law being implemented in this country, nor should we want it to be implemented," he said.

Clift added that those targeted by cancel culture can weaponize laws and file defamation, injurious falsehood, or breach of contract cases.

He warned that "cancelling" cancel culture would be a "risky short-term move" and has serious implications for rights and freedoms in Australia.
The IoT communication protocols market is estimated to be worth US$24.6 billion in 2032, up from US$15.9 billion in 2022, recording an increase of 4.5% CAGR between the decade, according to Future Market Insights IoT Communication Protocol Market report.

The report listed the following highlights:

1. The global IoT communication protocol industry showed a CAGR of 3% in the historical period from 2017 to 2021.

2. The United States IoT communication protocol industry is expected to be worth US$7.5 billion by 2032.

3. The United Kingdom IoT communication protocol industry is anticipated to reach a valuation of US$1.2 billion in 2032.

4. By type, the Wi-Fi segment is expected to increase at a CAGR of 4% from 2022 to 2032.

5. Based on application, the consumer electronics segment exhibited a CAGR of 0% from 2017 to 2021.

Demand for IoT communication protocols that can support edge devices is expected to increase as well.

Edge computing, which involves processing IoT data at the edge of networks, is set to become highly popular by 2032.

Edge computing decreases the quantity of data that needs to be transferred to the cloud and allows for real-time data processing.

It can lower the need for bandwidth while enhancing device performance.

The usage of IoT has increased significantly recently all across the world. Around 8.6 billion IoT devices were present worldwide in 2019. As IoT device adoption accelerated globally, the total number of IoT devices was estimated to be 12.14 billion in 2022.

By 2030, it is predicted that there will be about 23.14 billion IoT devices worldwide.

The need for IoT communication protocols is anticipated to rise over the course of the assessment period, as there are more IoT devices in use worldwide.

This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 26 May 2023.
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Abortion restrictions will be the defining issue of the 2024 general election in North Carolina.

Or, it wont.

Those are the perspectives expressed  as expected along party lines  by Forsyth and Guilford County legislators following the controversial passage of Republican-sponsored Senate Bill 20 and the successful override of Democratic Gov. Roy Coopers veto.

I anticipate that abortion will play an outsized role in the 2024 general election, and maybe not as much in the primaries, said Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford.

The recently passed ban is very unpopular among North Carolina voters, who are quite angry.

It makes all kinds of sense to highlight it and other extreme legislation that will be coming from this GOP-led legislature, Harrison said.

Harrison warned that Republican legislative leadership has indicated that they would like to add further restrictions on access to womens reproductive rights, depending on how the 2024 election goes.

House speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, called SB20s 12-week restriction meaningful, mainstream legislation following the veto override vote.

Senate Bill 20 will save lives and provide needed support for women and families while putting North Carolinas abortion law in line with the most of rest of the free world, Moore said.

Sen. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth, and a high-ranking Senate health-care bill sponsor, has insisted that SB20 is a very mainstream bill ... and is in line with what most people believe.

For those reasons, Krawiec said abortion restrictions will not be a major political issue in November 2024.

Rep. Kanika Brown, D-Forsyth, said the new abortion law is wrong for North Carolina.

Its going to lead to even more women being forced to give birth against their will. This bill isnt going to stop people from getting abortions, only safe abortions.

Rep. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth, and the top House health-care bill sponsor, said there are lots of speculative questions about abortion becoming the defining 2024 general election legislative issue.

They are just that  speculation, Lambeth said.

I doubt it will have much of an impact, and North Carolina will elect a Republican governor and hold onto our solid (six) Council of State seats while retaining our majority in the House and Senate.

SB20 voting

The Forsyth and Guilford legislative delegations cast veto override votes strictly along party lines, as did their colleagues across the state.

In the House: Voting to override Coopers veto were Republicans Kyle Hall, Lambeth and Jeff Zenger of Forsyth County and John Faircloth and Jon Hardister of Guilford County.

Voting to support Coopers veto were Democrats Amber Baker and Brown of Forsyth and Cecil Brockman, Ashley Wheeler Clemmons, Harrison and Amos Quick III of Guilford.

On the Senate side: Krawiec voted for SB20, while Democrats Paul Lowe of Forsyth and Michael Garrett and Gladys Robinson of Guilford voted against. Also voting for SB20 was Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, who has a portion of Guilford in his district.

All Forsyth and Guilford delegation members were contacted for comment on the potential spillover of SB20 into the November 2024 general election.

Only Brockman, Brown, Clemmons, Krawiec, Lambeth, Harrison and Lowe responded in time for publication.

Lowe said he had no thoughts at this time.

Berger said when Cooper vetoed SB20 that the governor has spent the last week actively feeding the public lies about Senate Bill 20 and bullying members of the General Assembly.

Several Republican legislators indicated in their 2022 campaigns they did not favor further restricting state abortion laws. Cooper attempted through public appearances in their district to urge them to not abandon those stances prior to the veto override votes.

He has been doing everything he can, including wasting taxpayer money on poorly attended events, to avoid talking about his own extreme views on abortion. I look forward to promptly overriding his veto, Berger said.

Polls say

Both Democrats and Republicans cite recent poll results on Senate Bill 20 for their confidence in their stances.

A recent poll indicated that 57% of North Carolinians believe that abortion should be limited to the first trimester, Krawiec said. Only 36% think abortion should be legal after the first trimester.

Those polls, however, have made it challenging to discern the depth of how North Carolinians feel about abortion rights and restrictions.

The Fayetteville Observer included in an April 5 article on N.C. abortion legislation a chart showing the average results of five surveys conducted from August to March.

Those surveys were commissioned or conducted by: conservative-leaning The John Locke Foundation, Elon University, Differentiators Data (on behalf of three anti-abortion organizations), Meredith College and conservative-leaning The Carolina Partnership for Reform.

The average was 56.8% supported keeping abortion legal in North Carolina, while 34.6% would ban any option.

A Pew Research Center poll has 49% of North Carolina saying most or all abortion options should be legal, while 45% say most or all options should be illegal;

The February Meredith poll found that 30.9% of respondents wanted to keep the previous 20-week restrictions in place, while 26.2% wanted to provide options beyond 20 weeks, 19.4% would restrict abortions to only those involving rape, incest and the life of the mother, 9% make it illegal after 15 weeks and 6.3% illegal in all cases.

David McLennan, director of the Meredith Poll said that no issue divides North Carolinians like abortion.

The division over abortion law is entirely partisan. Over three-quarters of Democrats want to keep the current law untouched or expand abortion access, while almost 60% of Republicans want to further restrict access to abortions or ban access altogether.

McLennan said the abortion issue should continue to affect North Carolina politics long after the 2023 long session of the General Assembly.

There appears to be momentum among Republicans in the legislature to further restrict a womans access to abortion services. Passing a restrictive abortion law may put some Republican-held seats in play in the 2024 elections.

A poll from liberal-leaning Carolina Forward/Change Research, released May 10, found that 54% of likely voters strongly or somewhat oppose the abortion bill, while 40% strongly or somewhat support it. About 59% believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

A May 2022 poll from conservative-leaning Civitas found that 51% of respondents said abortion should be legal in N.C., as opposed to 41% saying it should be illegal.

But just 23% supported legal abortion under all circumstances, about 32% said abortion should be illegal except for certain circumstances involving rape, incest or the mothers life, Civitas said.

Another 28% supported legal abortions, but preferred exceptions for cases involving minors and late-term abortions.

In other words, nearly 70% of those polled supported some restrictions on abortion.

More GOP thoughts

Lambeth said his confidence that abortion will not be the defining legislative general election issue is based on that we have strong and solid support across North Carolina for our agenda.

Lambeth cited reducing personal taxes, expanding Medicaid, reducing regulation on companies and controlling the rate of growth in spending as examples of popular GOP stances.

North Carolina will continue to do very well, and I dont believe this one issue will create a change in 2024 elections, Lambeth said.

Krawiec said the insertion into SB20 of $160 million in funding to support moms, babies and families as a difference-maker in terms of statewide support for the new abortion restrictions.

There is funding for child care subsidies, parental leave, increase funding for foster care, money for kinship care, adoption services, support for new mothers to attend community college, etc., Krawiec said.

This bill will give new moms opportunities that they may not have had before and will strengthen families.

More Democrat thoughts

Clemmons said that since the amending of SB20, I have heard from women across North Carolina ready to run for office, ready to work and ready to fight for our daughters.

I am confident the women of North Carolina will not forget that their rights were taken away with the veto override of SB20.

Harrison said there may be repercussions for those legislators who promised their voters that they would not support further restrictions on access to abortion, and then supported the bill and the veto override.

Foremost could be Rep. Tricia Cotham of Mecklenburg County, who switched from Democrat to Republican on April 5. Cotham provided the decisive veto-override vote in the House.

However, Harrison said shes realistic enough that with Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate that Cothams district could be made safely Republican through the next redistricting initiative in time for the 2024 general election.

The GOP has free rein in drawing new legislative and congressional maps, with very few guardrails, and I expect the redrawn districts will protect those legislators, Harrison said.

I also anticipate the maps will be engineered in a way to maintain or expand the supermajority, and unfortunately there will be no relief available in our state or federal courts, which have become highly partisan, and disrespectful of precedent and stare decisis.

Brockman expressed hope that the veto override of SB20 will energize and motivate our base to turn out.

In addition to that, it is believed that Republicans will completely ban abortions if they win in 2024.

I believe the centerpiece of this next election will be whether or not Republicans will completely ban abortion if they win. The voters have the right to know.

Brown said she believes North Carolinians will be paying attention to how their elected officials voted on SB20, and if they followed through on their campaign promises in 2024 and onward.

Our fight for access to reproductive health care is far from over.

Governors race

Both John Dinan, political science professor at Wake Forest University, and Zagros Madjd-Sadjadi, an economics professor at Winston-Salem State University, stressed that 17 months is a long time when it comes to how galvanizing the abortion restriction law will be.

Dinan stressed that the next 17 months is an eternity in politics.

It will be a long while before we are able to speak with confidence about the various issues and factors that are most important in determining the outcome of next years elections at the presidential level, in the gubernatorial race, in state judicial races, and in state legislative contests.

Madjd-Sadjadi said abortion will be a very important issue in 2024, but it could still be overshadowed by the economy depending on how it performs between now and November of next year.

Limiting it to 12 weeks, instead of the 6 weeks that has been the pattern in other states, will likely help the GOP preserve their majority, but their supermajority in both houses could still be in trouble in 2024.

Abortion could be a decisive factor in the 2024 governors race as well with Cooper being term limited.

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the projected front-runner for the Republican nomination, supports additional abortion restrictions in N.C., while Democratic front-runner Josh Stein, the states attorney general, opposed the passage of SB20.

State treasurer Dale Folwell, the Winston-Salem resident who is running for the Republican governors nomination, has not publicly stated his stance on SB20.

Ive been pro-life with the three exceptions of rape, incest and life of the mother for my entire career, Folwell said. This is true yesterday, today and tomorrow.

I respect the voice of the women legislators and others who worked on (SB20), and if it landed on my desk as governor, I would sign it.

While serving as a N.C. House member from Forsyth, Folwell was a co-sponsor of House Bill 854 during the 2011 session.

The bill instituted a 24-hour waiting period and informed consent of a pregnant woman before an abortion may be performed. Folwell also voted in favor of overriding then-Gov. Beverly Perdues veto.

Former U.S. House representative Mark Walker, also a declared Republican governor candidate, said in a March 12 op-ed piece in the Winston-Salem Journal and News & Record that the state needs dependable and consistent pro-life elected officials.

While in Congress, Walker received an A+ grade from pro-life advocacy group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

The real question will be the governors race because the supermajority likely only matters if we continue to have divided government, Madjd-Sadjadi said.

By taking a more liberal position, the GOP is seeking to signal that it will continue to pursue a more moderate agenda than GOP stronghold states, perhaps reflecting our political reality as a so-called purple state.

However, a lot will depend on who is nominated as the GOP standard-bearer both at the state and national levels, as well as how the economy does over the next 12 to 18 months.
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While artificial intelligence is seeding upheaval across the workforce, from screenwriters to financial advisors, the technology will disproportionately replace jobs typically held by women, according to human resources analytics firm Revelio Labs.

The distribution of genders across occupations reflects the biases deeply rooted in our society, with women often being confined to roles such as administrative assistants and secretaries, said Hakki Ozdenoren, economist at Revelio Labs. Consequently, the impact of AI becomes skewed along gender lines.

Revelio Labs identified jobs that are most likely to be replaced by AI based on a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. They then identified the gender breakdown of those jobs and found that many of them are generally held by women, such as bill and account collectors, payroll clerks and executive secretaries.

Advances in AI are aggravating gender disparity in the global workforce, where companies are considering cutting some staff and leveraging generative AI in their workflow. International Business Machines Corp. recently said its slowing down hiring for roles that can be easily replaced by AI in back-office functions, such as human resources. Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna predicts as many as 30% of these positions could be replaced by automation over five years, potentially resulting in a loss of around 7,800 jobs.

AI is more likely to take over repetitive jobs, the kind that are mostly held by women. For example, OpenAI Inc.s ChatGPT model can search, review and summarize large volumes of text quickly, tasks that would normally take paralegals much longer to accomplish. In recruitment, AI can automate the process of sorting through resumes, a task that used to require more people, Ozdenoren said.

But it doesnt mean that other highly-skilled workers can feel secure about their jobs. Preliminary research also shows that generative AI may impact high-wage occupations more than non-traditional manufacturing jobs, according to Revelio Labs.

Moving forward, providing retraining opportunities will be key for women to navigate the evolving job landscape, Ozdenoren said. By doing so, we can capitalize on the potential of AI while leveraging their valuable skills and expertise, he said.

15 things AI can (and can't) do AI and its limits Can: Be trained and 'learn' Cannot: Get into college Can: Perpetuate bias Can: Identify images and sounds Cannot : Drive a car Cannot: Judge beauty contests Can: Read and classify text and documents Cannot: Watch (and understand) a soccer match Can: Flip burgers Can: Make investments Cannot: Help itself from buying things Can: Raise billions of cockroaches on a farm Cannot: Be creative Can: Clean your teeth Can: Pollinate flowers
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Assets under the management of China's public offering funds totaled 27.29 trillion yuan (about US$3.86 trillion) at the end of April, data from the Asset Management Association of China showed.

The scale of closed-end funds reached 3.67 trillion yuan, while open-end funds stood at about 23.62 trillion yuan, the association said. A total of 10,813 public offering funds were operated by 143 fund management companies.

Of all the fund management companies, 47 were foreign-funded and 96 were domestic firms, the association said.
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WASHINGTON  On President Joe Biden's first day in office, he handed Congress a legislative plan to modernize the nation's immigration system.

It went nowhere, just like so many past overhaul attempts.

Meanwhile, the number of migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border climbed to record highs and so did the backlog of cases in the nation's immigration court system. Title 42 emergency health powers that allowed border officials to turn away many migrants were sure to end as the coronavirus pandemic eased. And Congress couldn't agree on even simple questions like whether the U.S. should let in more people, or fewer.

So administration officials went looking outside the U.S. for solutions, seeking to portray immigration not as one of Americas most intractable problems, but as an issue for the entire Western hemisphere to address.

It was a shift in focus that plays to Biden's faith in the power of global diplomacy, and one that also may hold more promise for making progress, particularly as smuggling networks increasingly steer migrant families from around the world up through the dangerous and often deadly Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama.

No nation should bear this responsibility alone, Biden said last year as he summoned the leaders of 23 nations attending a Summit of the Americas to come up with a shared plan on migration and security. The economic futures depend on one another. Each of our futures depend on one another. And our security is linked in ways that I dont think most people in my country fully understand.

If the solutions for Biden are international, the politics are still domestic.

Hes running for reelection, and the border is a top issue for Republicans who portray him as soft on security. His involvement in immigration policy before he became president was relatively light. Prior to this year's visit, he'd only been down to the 1,951-mile U.S.-Mexico border for a few hours during a 2008 campaign stop, and he played no significant role in past reform efforts in the Senate when he served there.

His foreign policy experience, though, stretches back decades from his years on the Hill and through his two terms as vice president, and that carries weight internationally.

No other president who has sat in the Oval Office has the mileage, the understanding, the engagement that Joe Biden has had in the region. Its just a fact," said Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S. from 2007 to 2013. That is an important add that Biden brings to the table.

But immigrant advocates worry theres a cost to the new approach that will likely be paid by migrants who are fleeing persecution and poverty in their homelands.

I do think they are trying to manage migration, rather than end migration, said Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International. But managing migration can also have human rights, terrible human rights, consequences. Theres a moral distancing  the possibility for wiping your hands of a problem if it isnt at your door anymore.

The makeup of those migrating has changed dramatically over the past two decades, bringing new challenges as well.

Those crossing the border used to be mostly Mexican men who were coming for work and could be easily sent back. Now, families are increasingly arriving from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti, fleeing drought brought on by climate change as well as oppressive regimes.

It reflects a larger trend. UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, estimates 103 million people are displaced globally  more than 1% of the worlds population.

The number of illegal U.S.-Mexico border crossings has been declining since new rules were put into place by the Biden administration on May 11, but its not clear yet whether the administrations approach will be effective in the long term or whether it can survive legal challenges and a possible administration change in 2024.

Under the new rules, migrants are barred from asking for asylum if they cross through another country on their way to the U.S. without seeking protection there or fail to make an appointment to come to the U.S. through a new government app. If caught crossing illegally, they are barred from returning for five years and face criminal charges if they do.

But up to 30,000 Venezuela, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans per month will be allowed into the U.S. to work legally if they come with sponsors. And as many as 100,000 immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Colombia will be allowed in if they have family members who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.

Meanwhile, many migrants remain in limbo. Last week, advocates said the new migrant app was having major problems and that people were unable to get the OK to cross  some who desperately needed to get into the U.S., who were sexually assaulted and beaten by their captors over the border.

Understand that what the people who are terrified to return to their home countries who are seeking asylum, they want to do this the right way so badly that they wait for an app that does not work, said Priscilla Orta, an immigration attorney at Project Corazon. And that is a lottery for their lives.

5 Biden administration decisions that mirror Trump-era policies 5 Biden administration decisions that mirror Trump-era policies Controversial Alaska oil drilling project approved by Biden in 2023 Asylum restrictions announced for many migrants seeking refuge in 2023 Trump-era refugee caps continued in 2021 Exports of excess vaccine doses to other countries in need were temporarily blocked in 2021 Foreign policy strategies maintained in Saudi Arabia and Israel
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She had 30 seconds to make the phone call.

It was last December and Jenifer Guadalupe Solano Becerra was about to take her end-of-year chemistry exam when she finally got the email: The Lincoln East senior had been accepted to Notre Dame University on a full-ride scholarship.

"I called my mom. She was the first one I called," she said. "Then I hung up because I was late to my class. I was just in shock of what I just saw."

It's a reaction any student would have to the news that they had been accepted to college, a moment high school seniors, who are set to graduate in Lincoln this weekend, cherish.

But unlike most of her peers, Solano Becerra, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, has had to worry about more than just getting into college: Solano Becerra is undocumented, one of a number of students nationwide who missed the cut-off to enroll in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program after the program was rolled back amid court challenges.

The day she learned she could no longer apply to DACA  a federal program that protects young adults brought to the U.S. as children from deportation  was the day before she was set to get her fingerprints taken as part of the enrollment process.

"It's a really stressful situation," Solano Becerra, 17, said. "You lose a lot of hope in everything because you don't know what's going to, at least for me, you don't know what's going to happen."

A light in the dark

Solano Becerra came to Lincoln with her parents when she was about 2 years old. As an English language learner, she switched elementary schools multiple times to find translators who worked for her and her family. Stuck behind a language barrier, making friends was difficult. There was fear and prejudice, too.

Then, she discovered a new home.

Her sister and a family friend had already been going to the Lighthouse after school for years when Solano Becerra reached the summer after her fifth grade year.

"I started coming here and ever since, I've never left," said Solano Becerra in an interview on the Lighthouse's back patio in early May with her parents and Pete Allman, the after-school program's founder and president. "I love it so much here."

During the pandemic, when Solano Becerra was a remote learner, she did her Zoom classes from the Lighthouse. When she was younger, and she and her sister ever got in trouble, they were grounded not from watching TV, but from going to the Lighthouse.

"The Lighthouse is just a great place for me to be, to kind of just forget about all the things that can stress me out with school, stuff like that," she said. "They make you feel like home and they make you feel welcome in a way that you don't get anywhere else."

The after-school program for middle and high school students near 27th and N streets has opened up a number of opportunities for Solano Becerra, including field trips and volunteer work at places like the People's City Mission and the Food Bank of Lincoln. She also has mentors there "who support me every step of the way."

Earlier this month, at the Lighthouse's year-end achievement night banquet, Solano Becerra was named the Lighthouse's Youth of the Year.

"We knew always Jenifer was exceptional, heart the size of Texas, who's so bright, so kind and hopeful to others. And, you know, we knew big things were gonna happen, but the Notre Dame thing was a big eye-opener," Allman said.

'We are so happy'

Because Solano Becerra is undocumented, going to college wasn't guaranteed. She can't qualify for federal student aid. Many colleges simply don't accept undocumented students because they don't have things like a Social Security number to apply.

Then she discovered QuestBridge, a national nonprofit that connects low-income and first-generation students with colleges and universities.

She filled out an application last summer and learned she was a finalist in the fall. Then she had two weeks to apply to 15 different colleges.

And on Dec. 1, she learned that Notre Dame had accepted her  with a full ride to boot.

"We are so happy," her father Cruz Solano Becerra said. "She is so intelligent. Every time when we saw a score at her school, every time she gets an A, and when she gets a B, she says 'Hey, I'll go back to the school and apply to get an A.'"

While Solano Becerra's immigration status remains up in the air, her father  who followed his brother to Lincoln in 2001  does have a work visa and owns L & C Tire Shop. He has a court case that may come up this summer that could allow him to start his path to citizenship, possibly followed by Solano Becerra's mother Laura, who also lives in Lincoln.

Solano Becerra's older sister, who is 21, was grandfathered into the DACA program, but she and her two younger sisters are unable to apply because the program currently bars submissions from new applicants amid federal court challenges.

"Even with all that going on, Jenifer rises above it and performs exceptionally," Allman said. "Many adults would ... not persevere. And Jenifer persevered and excelled to the point where she got to Notre Dame."

Solano Becerra is planning on studying neuroscience and behavior in the fall. She has a big passion for physical therapy and has aspirations of becoming a clinical specialist who focuses on neurological problems.

"That's just something that's always motivated me because I think the ability to move is such a gift and it can be so easily taken away from people," she said. "I want everyone to have the opportunity to live their life to the fullest and see that things get better, which is like what I've been through my whole life  that I've been able to see that things can get better, that there is hope for things."

Top Journal Star photos for May 2023
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After nearly a year of meticulous preparation, two teams of students from Sheridan Elementary School finally saw their efforts bear fruit this week.

During the global finals for Destination Imagination (DI), a team-based international competition in the fields science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics, Sheridans qualifying fifth-grade and third-grade teams finished in 10th place for fine arts and fifth for engineering, respectively, among a field of about 50 teams in each division.

The third graders, dubbed the Cuckoo Coaster Crew, were the only team to receive a DaVinci Award for the ingenuity of their project. Described as a solo tour of the surreal by the contests appraisers, it involved a track for a golf ball coupled with a dynamic storyline that took the ball through various dream realms, including banana and vampire-themed sections among others.

We are so incredibly proud of these third graders who were competing for the very first time up against teams of fourth and fifth graders, said Heather Kully, a volunteer for the program who had a son on the team.

The "Imagineers," Sheridans fifth-grade troupe, performed a skit about The Dragon Painter, a Chinese fable about a painter who serves a maniacal king. The production revolved around a self-rearranging set that employed a crank and pulley system.

Kully said the team had plenty to be proud of after reaching their goal of placing in the top 10 in their category and getting on the big screen during the competitions closing ceremony.

While the DI program draws contestants from elementary schools across the globe, Sheridan is the only participating Lincoln school. A sizable share of the teams are from China and Texas.

Although relatively low-cost throughout the year, the program requires a considerable team commitment, with teams generally beginning the planning process in late August.

The other hurdle is the cost of attending the Global Finals, which ran from May 20-23 this year. Sheridan financed their trip to Kansas City through a combination of ventures, including a bake sale, doughnut fundraiser and a GoFundMe page that had raised $935 as of May 26.

Ultimately, the investment is worth the payoff from the formative experience DI provides for the children, said Emily Shelstad, another volunteer who had two children on the third-grade team and another on the fifth-grade team.

Theyve really learned how to make compromises and work together, which has been really fun to see, she said.

How educational games have evolved over time How educational games have evolved over time The Oregon Trail and DOS games CD-ROMs for summer learning on PCs Interactive digital worlds Handheld gaming devices Typing games Lessons in coding Virtual and augmented reality How educational games have evolved over time The Oregon Trail and DOS games CD-ROMs for summer learning on PCs Interactive digital worlds Handheld gaming devices Typing games Lessons in coding Virtual and augmented reality
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It is not unusual for two men, particularly when one is an attorney and the other a businessman and railroad officer, to form a business.

What may be uncommon is for the men to join forces after they have created three towns to successfully merge two of them into one and immediately win the county seat.

Church Howe was born in Massachusetts in 1834, joining the Union Army in 1861. In 1866 President U.S. Grant appointed him U.S. marshall to the Wyoming Territory and, while traveling through Nebraska, purchased 480 acres of land in Nemaha County.

Four years later he returned to Nebraska and established the village of Howe at a site first named Sherman, then Redford, about four miles south and a mile east of todays Auburn.

The village of Howe, with Church Howe employed by the Missouri Pacific Railroad in charge of building a line from Kansas to Omaha, prospered at first, having the railroads depot, a hotel, stores and lumberyard.

Charles Nixon was born in 1849 in New York state, operated a private school and was admitted to the state bar in 1872. Nixon met Howe in Brownville, Nebraska, in 1878 where they formed a partnership which later purchased 400 acres of land near the village of Howe, about at the center of Nemaha County.

In March of 1855 Brownville was named Nemaha Countys county seat only to be challenged in 1858 by St. George, nearer the center of the county but only polled 164 votes to Brownvilles 206.

The 320-acre town of Sheridan was born when James Hacker was hired to determine the exact center of Nemaha County. At the center, the name Sheridan was chosen by drawing it from a hat, and in 1881 Howe and Nixon platted the village of Sheridan.

Although the Nebraska Advertiser suggested that both the Missouri Pacific and Burlington & Missouri River Railroads would bypass Sheridan, In 1881, the Lincoln Land Co., a subsidiary of the B. & M. R. Railroad, bought a tract of land from four men, south of Sheridan and that July, platted the town of Calvert, named for T. E. Calvert an officer of the B. & M. R. Railroad.

The post office opened that November when Calvert already supported a grocery, two lumberyards and a newspaper. On Feb. 4, 1882, the Missouri Pacific built into Sheridan with its depot on the south edge of the city, resulting in Howe and Nixon quickly platting four subdivisions.

Some sources claim it was Church Howe who suggested the merger of Calvert and Sheridan which, being in the middle of the county and having two railroads, would make a natural location for the county seat to replace Brownville, which was on the extreme eastern edge of the county.

Nixon, the attorney, had the legal knowledge for the proposed merger and both had railroad connections. In 1882 Howe and Nixon secured the agreement of both Calvert and Sheridan to merge with Nixon suggesting the name Auburn after the New York city for the combined name.

That May the merger was effected and a county election called for February of 1883 to move the seat of government from Brownville. The election showed Auburn with 1,816 to Brownvilles 689 though another record showed the vote 1,829 to 714. The actual government stayed in Brownville for several months while a new courthouse was planned on Courthouse Square, though not truly a square, bounded by South, Maxwell and Majors or N, O and 19th streets, midway between the existing post offices of North Auburn and South Auburn.

Immediately after the election, Howe and Nixon, apparently at their own expense, began construction of a frame courthouse for Courthouse Square. The initial building was then leased to the county for $600 a month. With the new village of Auburn, Howe and Nixon established the Bank of Auburn where Howe served as president and board member. The bank, as pictured, later became the First National Bank of Auburn,

The new, extant, stone courthouse was built just west of the frame building in 1899. Church Howe was elected to both the Nebraska legislatures House and Senate but was twice defeated in runs for the U.S. Congress.

Howe subsequently served as U.S. Consul in Italy, Belgium and Canada as well as Auburns mayor in 1913. Nixon continued to operate the bank, which subsequently went into receivership in the Great Depression. The now unincorporated village of Howe dwindled from its peak population of 248 in 1900, loosing its post office in 1963. The bank building still stands in North Auburn but lost it cornice and upper decoration in a windstorm.
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As the last days of school come and go this week around Omaha, administrators are filing piles of resignation letters from teachers leaving their districts.

Metro districts are losing fewer educators this year compared to the previous school year, but the number of people leaving is still higher than pre-pandemic levels, school officials say.

Roughly 1,200 Omaha-area educators are known to be leaving their districts, according to the districts, although that number will likely grow as additional staff members exit after resignation deadlines.

In May 2022, The World-Herald received data from Omaha-area school districts that added up to more than 1,250 educators leaving, but the final number wound up at nearly 1,400 because more staffers left after the article was published.

In May 2021, roughly 900 educators left their district jobs.

The teacher shortage is still ravaging the nation, with record-high turnover rates streaming in this month from Washington to Florida.

While the numbers are alarming, the Nebraska State Education Association, the State Board of Education and Nebraska lawmakers have made strides in creating initiatives to help alleviate the shortage. Some changes include the repeal of the basic-skills test needed for teacher certification and formation of legislative bills such as those that would give grants for teacher retention.

In Nebraska, some reasons for leaving are personal, such as a family relocation. Others are for jobs in different districts or parochial schools. But the high numbers suggest that the extra workloads, student misbehavior, larger class sizes and political environment are taking a toll on Nebraska teachers, causing some to leave education entirely.

One Omaha Public Schools elementary teacher said she resigned and will leave the education field after two tumultuous years in her school. It was her first job out of college. She spoke on the condition that her name not be used because she still has a week remaining on her contract.

I think everyone is saying it, but post-pandemic teaching is very, very intense, she said. We just have very traumatized kids that were unprepared to help.

Student misbehavior was one of her biggest challenges. In each of the past two years, she said, she had an extremely violent student  throwing chairs, or using scissors, pencils and pens to stab or throw at others. The teacher said she also was hit and punched multiple times.

Every day were evacuating the classroom. Every day, I have to move the entire class somewhere else and follow emergency protocols so that they dont get hit, she said. Its pretty emotionally taxing. I just watched my entire class all year be in fight or flight mode, where they are scared of one of their peers. Its difficult to watch something like that and not really have answers on how to make it better.

Although misbehaving students were removed, she said, they eventually returned to the classroom. Behavior is an issue that OPS and other schools around the state and nation are having to deal with more often in a post-pandemic world.

OPS is losing fewer teachers than last year but more than normal. Before the pandemic began, in the 2018-19 school year, 319 teachers resigned from the district. Last year, that number was roughly 700 and this year it has dropped to 586 departures  so far.

Charles Wakefield, chief operations officer at OPS, said the district already has hired 250 to 300 educators to replace the staff members who are leaving.

Were still actively recruiting and looking for certified staff, Wakefield said. It does get more difficult in the summer to hire, as most of your teachers are already under contract with districts, but we never stop looking.

When school districts are unable to find enough teachers, it could mean larger class size or other adjustments. A survey last December by the NSEA found that some districts had left positions vacant while others had filled positions with teachers who were not appropriately endorsed in the content area or held a transitional permit, or by using substitute teachers.

Some suburban districts in the Omaha metro have similar resignation numbers as last year, but they are optimistic that they can hire enough teachers to replace those who are leaving.

The Millard Public Schools lost roughly 69 educators in the last month while hiring about 79, according to school board reports.

In the Papillion La Vista Community Schools, 95 teachers are leaving this year and 92 left last year. Pre-pandemic, those numbers usually hovered around 70, said Annette Eyman, a district spokeswoman.

Eyman said the district typically hires roughly 100 teachers each year.

Some of those are newer positions, she said. We usually have growth positions for enrollment growth and its pretty consistent.

These days, she said, Omaha-area school administrators are less willing to let teachers out of their contracts if they decide after the deadline that they want to leave.

We have to be careful because of the teacher shortage, Eyman said. We have to be able to find a suitable replacement.

Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of May 2023
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Sometime in the summer of 1825, Fort Atkinson lost its sawmill to one of the most destructive forces of nature: a tornado.

Thus began the recorded history of twisters/cyclones/tornadoes in Nebraska.

Whatever you call the storms, they have brought death and damage to big cities and tiny hamlets.

Omaha in 1913 and 1975. Grand Island in 1980. Those are the granddaddies of them all.

Yet, none of them wiped out a town the way Meridian was in 1875. Sweetwater in 1890. Herman in 1899. Ralston and Berlin (now Otoe) in 1913. Primrose in 1965. Hallam in 2004. The communities of Wisner and Pilger in 2014.

There was a roar like a thousand cars on the rails. The house, which was bolted down to the foundation lifted from the walls and settled back, a woman told the Blair Pilot-Tribune about surviving the Herman tornado. Our party crawled out of a small hole safe, but such a scene of devastation.

The house was windowless, warped and twisted, and the inside all covered with sandy mud. In the backyard was a carriage and a dead horse and the debris of other homes. We were happy to be alive for others were less fortunate.

From searching ever-increasing sources of digitalized publications  many in the History Nebraska microfilm collection  comes the most comprehensive list of tornadoes reported to strike populated areas in the state.

More than 350.

Partly because they cover the most area, Omaha and Lincoln rank 1 and 2, with 35 and 20 respectively. Lincoln has avoided the most damaging ones. Omaha hasnt.

Other large cities are in the top 10  Grand Island (seven), North Platte (six), Beatrice, Hastings and Kearney (five apiece) and Bellevue and Fremont (four apiece). Hebron also has had four tornadoes.

The last one to strike that south-central community, in 1953, wiped out the business district and half the homes in Hebron.

Some villages absorbed worse fates. A sampling:

The Santee Agency on the Missouri River near the present town of Santee saw its mission building and hospital among the buildings leveled on June 1, 1870.

Meridian, near Fairbury, was abandoned after its 1875 destruction. A consolidated school name restored its name.

Sweetwater, near Kearney, wiped out, its six buildings gone. Unlike Meridian, Sweetwater is still on the state road map and has city signs on Nebraska 2.

Herman, north of Blair, lost its downtown and 90% of its homes.

Nenzel, then home to 43 people in Cherry County, had all buildings damaged in 1962.

Wolbach, north of Grand Island, was 70% damaged in 1964.

Primrose, southwest of Albion, was 90% destroyed the next year.

Magnet, southeast of Yankton, South Dakota, took a direct hit on May 6, 1975  the same day as the Omaha twister.

Then nearly 30 years went by before a tornado smashed Hallam, 20 miles southwest of Lincoln, in May 2014.

The most recent town wrecker cut a wide swath through Pilger, east of Norfolk, on June 16, 2014.

Three-fourths of the structures in the town of 360 were destroyed from the storm, which stirred up parallel twisters. Two died, a 5-year-old girl fleeing a mobile home and a 74-year-old motorist from Clarkson, Nebraska, was killed while he was making business deliveries.

The deaths are the states most recent from tornadoes.

The three most deadly twisters were on the same day  March 23, 1913. They were part of five tornadoes that spun up that Easter afternoon in eastern Nebraska  according to a 1914 report in American Geographical Society compiled by two UNL professors  and all crossed the Missouri River into Iowa.

Omahas tornado killed 116 in the city (based on contemporary research). Nineteen people died on the north side of Yutan, in Saunders County. Twelve perished in Berlin (renamed Otoe), in Otoe County.

Most of Berlin was destroyed. So was Ralston, where there were seven deaths. Other fatalities were near Mead in Saunders County, DeSoto in Washington County and Rock Bluff and Nehawka in Cass County. The death toll, including an estimated 25 in Iowa, was 192.

All struck without warning.

The first official tornado warning was issued in 1948 at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. Before 1950, the U.S. Weather Bureau at times strongly discouraged at sometimes prohibited tornado to be used in forecasts because of a fear that even a mention could cause panic.

As technology, research and reporting improved, so did discerning the damage between tornadoes and straight-line winds. The Fujita scale of measuring tornado strength was introduced in 1971.

Before the modern era, which starts with 1950, it was up to local observers or newspapers to determine the nature of the winds.

Such as for a storm that struck the western city limits of Omaha on June 3, 1925. Millard V. Robins, the citys Weather Bureau meteorologist for 46 years, initially didnt consider it a tornado because winds at the downtown weather station never exceeded 20 miles an hour.

Only after Robins visited the damaged areas the following day did he upgrade his assessment from a severe squall to tornado. Interestingly, in 1975, the Omaha office of the National Weather Service did not include 1925 in its list of tornadoes hitting the city.

Great care was made in analyzing the pre-1950 storms. There may be a few either way, straight-line winds listed as tornadoes or tornadoes not included, since newspaper reporting was used in large measure.

Readers are invited to submit validation for any updates. Send to stu.pospisil@owh.com.

Photos: 1913 Easter tornado roars through Omaha
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CHICAGO  An expected bump in violent crime this summer has mayors and police officials around the U.S. rolling out familiar strategies of making officers more visible and engaging with community groups, in some cases leaning on civilians to enforce curfews and keep the peace.

Chicago is among the U.S. cities under scrutiny following a mayoral race that focused on public safety in response to demands for change. Violence often surges during summer months, so this holiday weekend will undoubtedly ramp up pressure on Mayor Brandon Johnsons new administration to deliver short-term improvement along with the long-term strategies that the former union organizer advocated while campaigning to lead the nations third-largest city.

Its going to take all of us, not just the police, not just city government, to ensure that our communities can live and thrive in peace and safety, Johnson said at a lakefront press conference promoting the citys Memorial Day weekend strategy.

Most large U.S. cities are reporting fewer homicides this year, according to data collected by the Council on Criminal Justice which created a Crime Trends Working Group this spring in hopes of providing more real-time information on crime.

The shift is a tentative reprieve following those spikes that began in 2020 and began to come down last year. The totals remain far higher than pre-pandemic reports and are cause for serious concern but not for panic, said Thomas Abt, founding director of the Center for the Study and Practice of Violence Reduction at the University of Maryland.

Where cities are seeing success, theyre generally investing in a balanced approach that includes policing but ... also supports community-based approaches, Abt said. They have recognized the need for enforcement but also emphasize prevention and intervention.

Officials in Cleveland, Ohio, Newark, N.J. and Philadelphia have announced summer plans to make officers more of a visible presence in locations where violent crimes have happened, while also promoting community efforts to prevent violence and provide alternative activities.

In Baltimore, city officials  not police officers  will enforce curfews on teenagers starting Friday and continuing through Labor Day weekend. The controversial policy has long been on the books but rarely enforced.

We are going back to the old days, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said in announcing the summer enforcement, after two teens were wounded as hundreds of teenagers gathered on a Sunday night in the citys popular Inner Harbor district.

In Detroit, federal prosecutors are expanding efforts to help local police this summer by taking armed carjacking cases and business robberies in high-crime areas, in addition to certain gun crimes. Federal convictions typically bring longer sentences.

The most dangerous people will be prosecuted immediately in federal court, U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison said Wednesday.

Following a half-dozen shootings  including one fatality  in the downtown Detroit area over one weekend in April, Police Chief James White instituted a crowd control strategy including increased police presence. Curfews for minors also will be enforced.

In Chicago, mayors face annual pressure to demonstrate a proactive approach to violent crime ahead of Memorial Day, the traditional kickoff to warm weather and summer events where crowds gather.

Johnson promised to move away from a policing-first strategy as he took office at the start of May, but hes also distanced himself from calls to cut money for policing. He chose a retired department veteran as interim police chief.

Federal data show Chicagos homicide rate remains lower than other Midwestern cities such as St. Louis and Detroit, with 211 killings reported so far this year, lower than the same period in 2022 and 2021.

Johnsons holiday weekend strategy includes making officers a visible presence, including bag checks at crowded beaches, parks and events. Philanthropic and business groups have donated to anti-violence groups organizing events aimed at young people. And the state of Illinois has authorized a team of 30 peacekeepers  not police  who have training and experience in deescalating conflict, to roam Chicago aiming to prevent outbreaks of violence.

Community groups with similar strategies have operated for years across Chicago, focusing on specific neighborhoods or blocks with a history of violence. State officials said their team would be mobile and able to respond anywhere, including downtown, where large gatherings of teens during a warm April weekend ended with several shootings and other violence.

Norman Livingston Kerr led a Chicago anti-violence organization before he became assistant deputy mayor for public safety under Johnsons predecessor, Lori Lightfoot. He now consults with cities and nonprofits to develop anti-violence strategies that rely on de-escalation or intervention. Hes encouraged by signs that the city and state are committing long-term resources to efforts like the peacekeepers program.

This violence intervention work, it can take time for people to see it work and believe in it, Kerr said. Im not going to dwell on the fact it took years to happen, Im going to say this is a new day.

Small cities and towns are getting safer, while violent crime in large cities is on the rise Small cities and towns are getting safer, while violent crime in large cities is on the rise 7 of the 10 safest small cities are in the Northeast Are small cities and towns safer than big cities?
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Jennie Peters

DNP, PMHNP-BC, FNP-BC, APNP, CNE, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Family Nurse Practitioner

Guided Wellness Counseling

Peters has been an RN for 30 years, working in a variety of areas. She has been a Family Nurse Practitioner since 2007, and also is a Psychiatric Mental Health NP. Peters is practicing in Kenosha and also works full time at Marquette University. She is married and has five children and six grandchildren.

AmyTalaga

DNP, RN

Marquette University Clinical Facility

Talaga has been a nurse for 27 years, including decades of working in the emergency department. She has been an instructor at Marquette University out of the Pleasant Prairie campus for seven years, teaching on 14 different units in southeast Wisconsin. Talaga is married and has three children.

Alicia Pirozzolo

Holistic RN & Certified Energy Practitioner

Mineral Wellness LLC

Pirozzolo has worked in healthcare for more than 17 years and has been a Registered Nurse for 12 years. She has worked both in and out of the hospital, from neonatal to adult care. Currently, Pirozzolo runs her own Holistic Practice called Mineral Wellness, where she sees clients one-on-one virtually. She is trained in HTMA, Muscle Testing, and certified in both Emotion and Body Code. Pirozzolo is married and has three children.
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RACINE  Racine Unified School District Superintendent Eric Gallien is a candidate for a superintendent job in South Carolina.

Gallien, who is currently on medical leave from RUSD, was in South Carolina on Thursday as a part of his candidacy for Charleston County School District superintendent.

Galliens medical leave began May 1. He is expected to return to the school district in July.

Soren Gajewski, RUSD chief academic officer, is serving as acting superintendent.

Galliens Charleston visit included a community meet-and-greet hosted by the CCSD Board. The event lasted about an hour and a half and was posted to the CCSD YouTube page.

Gallien, who has been RUSD superintendent since 2018, discussed his educational background, answered three questions from the CCSD Board and several questions from Charleston community members.

Gallien said the Racine and Charleston school districts are different sizes but have similar makeups. They both serve urban, rural and suburban areas, which is why Gallien said he applied for the CCSD job.

According to its website, CCSD serves about 49,000 students. RUSD has about 16,000 students.

Gallien briefly outlined his educational career, noting that he has held nearly all types of school jobs from educational assistant to administrator.

I understand every role in the district, and I am very empathetic to the journey for everyone, Gallien said. It gives me a unique perspective about the work, and Ive always kept that dear to everything that Ive done in my journey.

RUSD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to a Charleston County School District news release, Gallien was one of three top candidates who received reference and background checks.

On Tuesday, according to CCSD, the three candidates names and resumes were leaked on Facebook before the district publicly announced them.

This premature release caused confusion and frustration amongst our candidates, who had not yet had the opportunity to speak to their current districts regarding their top three selections, the news release stated.

According to CCSD, two candidates pulled their names from the selection process as a result. Gallien did not withdraw his candidacy, according to Vanessa Denney, CCSD interim executive director of communications.

The board is extremely disappointed that the process of selection has been upended and has apologized for the position this put two of the candidates in, the news release stated. CCSD remains committed to an open and transparent process and will not let the actions of a few rogue actors hiding behind the cloak of social media deter us from selecting the best leader for our district. To uphold the integrity of the search process, and to be fair to the remaining candidate, we will be moving forward with the search as planned.

The CCSD board has not yet named finalists for the position, according to Denney.

As information becomes available, we will share it, Denney wrote in an email.

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1. Yes. Other area cities dont restrict the discussion topic. Killeen should relax the rules.

2. Yes. Restricting comments goes against free speech and discourages public discourse.

3. No. Opening up meetings to any topic would be a free-for-all and a waste of time.

4. No. Residents can sign up for the Citizen Petition option and speak on any topic they want.

5. Unsure. Limiting topics makes meetings more efficient, but it may be too restrictive.

Vote

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Spokespersons from China's central departments and local governments gathered in Beijing on Sunday to discuss improving the efficiency of news releases.

The 3rd China Spokesperson Forum, sponsored by the State Council Information Office and Tsinghua University, was attended by more than 100 spokespersons, experts, scholars and representatives of news organizations.

The theme of the forum is improving the efficiency of news releases, and serving the overall work of the Party and the country.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, all localities and departments across the country have frequently issued press releases, creating a favorable public opinion environment for the development of the cause of the Party and the country, according to the forum.

It noted the importance of keeping the correct political orientation, delivering good results, and making precise expression in news releases, so as to let the voice of the Party and government reach every household and make China's voice heard clearly in the world.

The forum also called for strengthened training to promote the high-quality development of press releases.
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How do we hold and navigate the tension of grief and hope? Perhaps one place to learn is in cemeteries.

Monday is Memorial Day, which was declared a national holiday by Congress in 1968. Yet the sentiment and practices of the day began over 150 years ago, with communities throughout the north and south of our country declaring that it was sweet and fitting to decorate the graves of soldiers whod died during the Civil War (see www.archives.gov/news/topics/memorial-day and its links for more information).

The origin stories of Memorial Day, then called Decoration Day, are a little cloudy. In some, perhaps many, instances, only Union or Confederate soldiers graves were decorated, depending on where the celebration occurred.

But the National Archives reports that in Jackson, Mississippi, Sue Langdon Adams initiated a Decoration Day nearly immediately after the Civil Wars end in which they decorated the graves of all soldiers killed in the Civil War, both Confederate and Union.

In cemeteries, just days or a few short years after the bloodshed had ended, people across the country struggled to hold together grief and hope. Reality seemed bleak. The country would undoubtedly be different.

Likely few knew precisely what the differences might be, how far those differences would stretch, or if they, as Americans, would ever grow to live up to the high ideals of the national identity. Grief, loss, and fear were too real for much hope.

Thus, they went to the cemeteries  fields of freshly dug soil, perhaps still waiting for the grass to take root again. They went, armed with flowers, flags and memories. They went laden with grief and perhaps not a little resentment.

But, perhaps, its in such cemetery places  wherever we carry the heaviness of our griefs as tear-soaked flowers  that we find a place to lay them down, so that we may cling more closely to one another and walk out holding hands of hope.

At least thats how I imagine Sue Langdon Adams and her neighbors walking out after decorating.

Whether she intended for her neighbors to decorate all soldiers graves, or they did so after seeing the sad sight of undecorated graves of Union soldiers, Sue Langdon Adams boundary-crossing decorating emanates from a deep truth about what it means to be human.

In Genesis 1, we read the Judeo-Christian origin story, in which were told that God created humans in his image (v. 27, CEB). When Adams decorated the graves of all soldiers killed in battle, she displayed a deep belief that all humans, those with whom we agree and those with whom we do not, are fellow creatures created out of love for relationship with God and each other. This is good news to base our lives upon.

Whenever we recognize and embrace our common humanity, our beloved createdness, we take steps from the griefs and fears that divide us toward hope of unity, abundance and blessing.

When we lay down that which we carry in efforts to selflessly bless others, even our enemies, we may walk away holding hands with hope of a new future, a new self, renewed by the Spirit in whom we live and breathe together.
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This Memorial Day weekend communities across the country are honoring the history and legacy of those who served militarily  and especially for those who made the ultimate sacrifice as members of the U.S. armed forces.

Historically, per tradition, upon seeing servicemen and women in uniform in the community, we extend a hand and say, Thank you for your service. The gesture acknowledges the rare quality of courage required to respond to a call to service.

Largely because of individuals sacrifices, you and I have been afforded the way of life we currently enjoy here in these United States of America.

Beyond a somber and heartfelt acknowledgement of the impacts of military service, what can be made of Memorial Day  and all the other days of the year, as non-military servicemen and women? This question has taken me to contemplate what service in place can look like. Do we have a story to tell locally?

It got me thinking about historical leadership here at Kenosha Community Foundation. Incidentally we have recently released another round of scholarships, and one among them retains the name Howard J. Brown.

I recognized the name, of course, but having just recently started here at the foundation, I have wondered what the backstory was about Howard. There is much to tell.

Howard was an Army veteran. His military service in World War II was as a member of the US Army with the rank of T5. The 44th Division landed in Cherbourg in September 1944 and took part in battles in Alsace Lorraine.

After the war he served in the military government in Germany. In 1948 and 1949 he traveled the world as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Sun Times, covering such events as the conflicts in Greece, Israel, India, and China.

Amidst his impressive academic achievements, Howard went on to become president of United Communications Corporation, which owned and operated media companies in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Massachusetts, South Dakota, and New York. Among the holdings were the Zion-Benton News in Zion, Ill., the Lake Geneva Regional News, the Kenosha-based Media Innovations company, and the Kenosha News  purchased in 1961.

Still, theres more. The story behind the story of this leaders public life offers an even richer picture, much beyond military service and media dominance.

Howard is said to have boundless generosity, believing that community involvement in civic organizations was crucial  most notably of course to us here is his service as a long-time Board member of the Kenosha Community Foundation. I regret never having met him, but, like so many who paved the way for us in the Kenosha area, we continue to benefit from his legacy.

All of us connected to KCF provide support to a community of philanthropists as they give back in place, deepen their relationship to  and commitment to  Kenosha Countys people and organizations and leave to future generations investments that are perpetual in nature.

We thank you for your service.




By Kim Hyun-bin







POSCO, the country's leading steel company, has been recognized as a Steel Sustainability Champion at the World Steel Association's semi-annual member meeting held in Vienna, Austria, on April 18 (local time). This marks the second consecutive year that POSCO has been recognized as a Steel Sustainability Champion.







The World Steel Association selects Steel Sustainability Champions annually from its pool of 140 member companies, honoring those leading the steel industry in carbon neutrality and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) principles since 2018.







To qualify as a Steel Sustainability Champion, companies must meet four criteria: recognition as an outstanding sustainability member, nomination as a finalist for the Steelie Awards, publication of a sustainability report and submission of sustainability data and Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) information.







POSCO not only fulfilled all four criteria but also earned acclaim for its efforts in ESG management, including the collaborative development of hydrogen reduction steelmaking, a carbon neutrality pledge for 2050, and the establishment of a robust governance structure. Such achievements have cemented POSCO's position as a Steel Sustainability Champion for two consecutive years.







"We have swiftly responded to the demands of carbon neutrality and ESG management to overcome the climate crisis." POSCO Group Chairman Choi Jeong-woo said. "Leveraging the challenge of carbon neutrality as a catalyst, we will solidify our position as a leading environmentally conscious future materials company, supporting sustainable growth as a century-old enterprise."







Additionally, Kim Kwan-hyeong, an employee at the iron-making department of POSCO's Gwangyang Steelworks, secured second place in SteelChallenge-17, a steelmaking process competition organized by the World Steel Association on April 18. The annual event, launched in 2005, offers steel engineers worldwide an opportunity to simulate cost-effective steel production within given parameters and time constraints.


Embroidery robots, surgical robotic arms, intelligent coal mining, and online hospitals... A myriad of intelligent technological products and applications shine at the exhibition of the 2023 Zhongguancun Forum, being held in the Chinese capital's innovation hub Zhongguancun, known as "China's Silicon Valley."



This photo taken on May 26, 2023 shows a full-size humanoid bionic robot displayed at the exhibition center of Zhongguancun National Independent Innovation Demonstration Zone in Beijing, capital of China. At the exhibition area of this year's Zhongguancun Forum (ZGC Forum), a myriad of intelligent technological products and applications are shaping a promising vision of future life for people from across the globe. (Xinhua/Zhang Chenlin)



Running from May 25 to 30, the 2023 Zhongguancun Forum has drawn about 650 enterprises and institutions from across the world to showcase their cutting-edge scientific and technological advances and achievements in the fields such as information technology, intelligent manufacturing, green industry, medicine and health, and digital economy.

PowerChina Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited (HDEC), one of the earliest enterprises carrying out wind power surveys and designs in China, displayed its leading sci-tech R&D capability and independent innovation potential in the offshore wind power sector at the exhibition.

"We have developed Asia's first offshore booster station and the world's first large-diameter rock-socketed single pile. An offshore wind power infrastructure independently developed by the company has also been applied to many projects in Vietnam," said Li Wei, chief engineer of the new energy engineering institute of HDEC.

"The Forum provides a platform to display the company's sci-tech achievements and innovative capabilities in the offshore wind power sector and share business and development opportunities with more entrepreneurship entities from the world," said Li.

Of the exhibitors, there are 165 foreign-funded enterprises and institutions from nearly 30 countries and regions, including 25 of the world's top 500 enterprises, demonstrating their prowess in sci-tech advancements.

The hydrogen fuel cell technologies introduced by Hyundai Motor Group from the Republic of Korea have attracted a steady stream of visitors. Hyundai has set up its first overseas hydrogen fuel cell system R&D, production and sales base in south China's Guangzhou, which will be completed and put into operation in June, with a total investment of 8.5 billion yuan (about US$1.2 billion).

The hydrogen fuel cell industry in Beijing and Guangzhou has a solid development foundation, and Hyundai has technologies and product reserves in this field. The cooperation between enterprises from the two countries has broad prospects, said Wu Yanbing, with Hyundai Motor Group (China).

"Many visitors and business representatives came to our booth to learn about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The Forum has played a great role in spreading our ideas, expanding the exposure of the company's technologies and products, and providing us with more business and technological cooperation opportunities," said Wu.

ABB, a Swiss tech giant in electrification and automation, brought its integrated solutions for greenhouse gas monitoring to the exhibition. It set up its first manufacturing joint venture in China over 30 years ago and has a full range of businesses, including manufacturing, sales, and services in China.

"The Zhongguancun Forum is a great platform to display our solution plans and launch dialogues with enterprise customers," said Lars Eckerlein, general manager of ABB (China) Limited. "It is already the third time for us to participate in the Forum, which brings us a lot of opportunities to seek sci-tech cooperation with global partners."

Located in northwestern Beijing, Zhongguancun is the country's first national independent innovation demonstration zone. Over time, it has become a flagbearer of China's innovation, bearing witness to the rapid development of Chinese technology, with the continuous emergence of significant sci-tech innovations, increasing investment in R&D, continuous improvement of innovation mechanisms, and strengthened international cooperation.

Last year, there were 4,244 companies in Zhongguancun with annual revenue exceeding 100 million yuan, which is 2.2 times that of 2012. Among them, 11 companies surpassed the 100-billion-yuan revenue mark.

"Since its inception in 2007, 13 editions of the Zhongguancun Forum have been held successfully, serving as a vital international platform for China's active involvement in global scientific and technological innovation, and its extensive participation in global science and technology governance," said Wu Zhaohui, vice minister of science and technology.

The Zhongguancun Forum has become a global, comprehensive, and open high-end sci-tech forum, shouldering the important mission of promoting global sci-tech progress, said Saifur Rahman, president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers at the forum, adding that with China's increasing integration into the global innovation pattern, China's technological development will surely become a more important engine of global innovation.
Spencer Schaller and Tyler Krueger have opened Pizzeria Dolorosa in the former Rivoli Cafe space at 115 N. Fourth St., next to The Rivoli Theatre and Pizzeria in downtown La Crosse.

The new restaurant opened Feb. 21 and serves four kinds of red pies, including a Classic Cheese pizza that customers can order with additional toppings, and the biggest seller so far  Mikes Hot Honey Pepperoni Pie made with pepperoni, ricotta, Mikes Hot Honey, basil and Sicilian oregano from Italy. The menu also includes two kinds of white pies, which have a garlic cream sauce rather than a red sauce.

The pizza crusts are made with fermented sourdough, which in turn is made with a mixture of flours from the United States and Italy.

Within a few weeks, Pizzeria Dolorosa also will begin offering two kinds of sandwiches  Philly cheesesteak and cold cut  made with bread baked at the restaurant the same day, as well as Caesar and chopped salads.

The restaurant also serves beer, wine and soft drinks.

Schaller and Krueger have worked in area restaurants for many years and became friends when both worked at The Charmant Hotels restaurant, where Schaller was executive chef. He later was executive chef at the Restore Public House restaurant, where Krueger also worked.

We work together well, Krueger said of his and Schallers decision to open their own restaurant.

Were trying to make the best pizzas that we can possibly make, Schaller said, adding that the restaurant uses quality ingredients to make its pizzas, which he described as artisanal New York-style. Its pizza oven was imported from Italy.

Hours are 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and closed Sunday and Monday. Pizza also is available by the slice at lunchtime, from 10:30 a.m. to around 2 p.m. Customers can dine in or pick up pizza to go. There are no plans to offer delivery service for now.

For more information, call 608-519-1836 or visit www.pizzeriadolorosa.com or Instagram. The restaurants menu is posted on its website, and online ordering is available there. The eatery also can be booked for private events.

Sue Hackett opened her new Brick Sip Haus wine, bourbon and beer bar on Feb. 25 in the former Vino Anjo wine bar location at 800 Superior Ave. in downtown Tomah. Vino Anjo closed in December.

I am the sole owner and my loving husband (Blaine Hackett) is helping me a lot, Hackett said. My sister, one of my kids and several friends have been helping me, too.

Hackett and her husband recently moved to the area from the Twin Cities area. Blaine grew up here and always wanted to come back to the area, she said.

The new business offers small plates, charcuterie boards, pizza, wine, bourbon, beer and specialty drinks such as the Blainedog Old Fashioned.

Brick Sip Haus uses seasonal and locally sourced food ingredients, wines and bourbons as much as possible, Hackett said. We have quite a few wines and bourbons from local distilleries. Her business also offers live music. And it can be booked for events such as wedding receptions and business meetings.

Regular business hours are 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, 3 to 10 p.m. Thursday, 3 to 11 p.m. Friday and 1 to 11 p.m. Saturday. A grand opening celebration will be from 1 to 11 p.m. April 1.

For more information, call 651-303-3454 or visit http://bricksiphaus.com or Facebook.

Occupational therapist and certified lactation counselor Laura Kish has opened Wonderland Therapy LLC, In Suite H at 1800 Jackson St., in the Jackson Plaza shopping center in La Crosse.

Kish said that location opened last July, but that Wonderland formed in 2019. Prior to having a physical location, Wonderland Therapy provided occupational therapy services in clients homes and community locations, and also provided enrichment programs at various locations such as parks and other businesses, she said. It has always serviced the greater La Crosse area, she said.

Wonderland provides occupational therapy to clients ages birth to 21, Kish said. I currently offer occupational therapy, feeding therapy and lactation support as therapeutic services, she said. My hope is to offer other pediatric therapy services in the future.

Wonderland offers individual occupational therapy services, enrichment programs and open play in its play center. The play center also can be rented for parties and private events.

Kish said Wonderland takes a strengths-based approach to therapy, using a childs strengths and interests to motivate and encourage them. It is a neurodiversity-affirming practice, she said. You can find specialized treatment for infant feeding and development, toddler and child feeding, sensory processing, motor skills, attention and executive function, emotional regulation skills, handwriting and other developmental areas at Wonderland.

For more information, call 608-571-5417 or visit www.wonderlandtherapy.org or Wonderlands Facebook and Instagram pages.
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Viterbo University student Riley Pennington was working as a home health aide when one of her clients told her, Youre going to be a great nurse someday. While she greatly appreciated the compliment, there was one problem  Pennington was a biochemistry major with career aspirations of becoming a dentist.

The idea of being a nurse stuck with her though, and she shared her thoughts with one of her science professors. He recommended looking into the universitys Direct Entry Master of Science in Nursing degree, an online, accelerated graduate program that prepares students with a bachelors degree to become a registered nurse.

I loved patient care and developing relationships with the people I helped, Pennington said. So, I decided to follow my gut and go for it.

After finishing her biochemistry degree in 2021, Pennington stayed at Viterbo and enrolled in the new Direct Entry program. She was one of 14 in the first graduating class of the program May 13.

It was a challenging but amazing and rewarding experience, Pennington said. For me, the most difficult aspect was changing my mind set to be more person-centered than you are in a major like biochemistry. Nursing is more about the overall well-being of the patient. The program resulted in a good deal of personal and educational growth. It really exceeded my expectations.

The 21-month program is an intensive educational experience that includes both online classes and in-person clinical experiences. The curriculum features both pre-licensure and graduate level content. The class also included group bonding through optional class hikes and student-organized study sessions.

Pennington will soon join her sister in the Corvallis, Oregon, area, where she has accepted a nursing position at Good Samaritan Regional Hospital. She will take part in new graduate residency programs in the hospitals intensive care unit and progressive care unit.

I wouldnt have made it without the support of my classmates and faculty, she said. I plan to keep the relationships I formed with them for the rest of my life.

The vast majority, if not all, of the 14 recent graduates have secured nursing positions, said Viterbo faculty member Cameron Kiersch, chair of the Direct Entry Master of Science in Nursing Program. The cohort included students with degrees in the sciences, public health, and even a Master of Business Administration.

The beauty is that the students bring their different educational backgrounds and perspectives to their new profession, and thats something nursing and health care have been needing more of for a while, Kiersch said. The program gives them the skills they need to be a nurse, and their life experiences and other education adds to the profession. That positions these graduates very well in the field of health care.

Fourteen of the original 16 students in the first cohort went on to graduate. The program has also grown significantly, with 19 students in the cohort that began last year and 30 enrolled for fall 2023.

Graduate students know what they want and what it takes to get to achieve it, Kiersch said of the programs high success rate and growth. We as faculty are truly there to help them be successful, and we took great pride in our first graduates.

Another of those graduates was Shyler Harmsen, for whom gaining EMT certification and working as a critical care technician at Gundersen Health System helped her discern that nursing was her true calling.

The Viterbo DEMSN degree was a perfect fit for me, said Harmsen, who earned a bachelors degree in biology from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. I felt I was really getting ahead with this program. All of us brought different perspectives and experiences to the group and we challenged and pushed each other.

Balancing working almost full time, a rigorous academic schedule, and her personal life, Harmsens time management skills are now 10 out of 10, a good quality in a nurse, she said. She appreciated getting to know her classmates, who leaned on and supported each other, she said.

Harmsen is now employed as an RN in a critical care pathway position at Gundersen Health System. As part of this pilot program, she is gaining nursing experience in the medical surgical unit before transferring to the ICU. In the distant future, she may consider a return to school to earn a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree, becoming a nurse educator, or working in the organ donation field.

Im not sure, but I have a lot of options, she said. Im very satisfied with my Viterbo education and I have been well set up for success. As masters degree nurses, weve been trained to think and analyze data at the next level; and that is what makes this program unique.
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For 2023, the citys Heritage Preservation Commission released an updated list of the 10 Most Endangered Historic Properties in La Crosse.

This annual initiative intends to raise awareness and encourage the preservation of historic properties potentially at risk of irreparable damage or demolition due to neglect, natural disaster or redevelopment.

Unchanged from last years list, is the MacMillan Apartments on the 700 block of Cass Street.

La Crosse-born architect Andrew Roth designed these residences in the 1910s for owner Daniel G. MacMillan. This means that they have now stood in the community as an impressive representation of period apartment construction for well over 100 years.

The MacMillan family has played a significant and influential role in La Crosses history. Daniel MacMillan was the great-grandson of Ducan MacMillan, a Scottish immigrant who moved to the area in the 1850s. Daniel was born in 1874 to George and Antoinette MacMillan and grew to become a prominent business and civic leader.

MacMillan was in his late 30s, president of La Crosse Gas and Electric and living at 235 Seventh St. S. when he commissioned apartments to be built on the lots directly to the south of his home on the corner of Seventh and Cass streets. The new domiciles were intended for middle- and upper-class residents and aspired to deliver a touch of modern, big-city living to the area. The Wisconsin Historical Societys architectural survey describes them as one of the best examples of historical flats in the city.

The buildings exhibit Neoclassical influence, and some of their noteworthy attributes include tasteful cornices, stately double-door entries with transoms above and rusticated stone-masonry foundations, window sills and trimmings. Perhaps their most striking features, though, are the two-story front porticos, which likely served as a popular gathering place for neighbors in warmer months, considering that these apartments were built long before air-conditioning became a common amenity.

The earliest tenants of these upscale rentals held respected and reputable positions such as manager of the La Crosse Hat Works, Kroner Hardware treasurer, U.S. Engineering Office clerk and president of La Crosse Garment Co. During their initial years, these buildings were also home to a lawyer, railroad physician, detective and chief engineer, as well as Philo Gelatt, who worked with MacMillan at La Crosse Gas and Electric.

Gelatt is considered one of Wisconsins most important industrialists. Around 1914, he and MacMillan took over the National Gauge and Register Co. Together, they reorganized it, purchased other similar firms to move their operations to La Crosse and set it on track to become a leading employer in the region. For several years, this factory was the largest automotive gauge manufacturer in the entire country.

MacMillan served as president until Gelatt bought him out around 1923. Gelatt later sold his shares to the New York-based Moto-Meter company, which Electric Auto-Lite, out of Ohio, then purchased during the Great Depression. Gelatt is also known for being president of Northern Engraving from 1920 to 1941 and holding distinguished roles in the community, such as La Crosse Country Club president, National Bank board member and public library trustee.

Rapidly changing surroundings have put these once prestigious dwellings at continually greater risk for deterioration and destruction. Increased traffic flows, road expansions, delayed maintenance and unsympathetic alterations have especially encroached upon their survival.

However, some positive rehabilitation has occurred on the 711-713 building, namely reinstating its historic upper-story portico and restoring previously boarded-up side windows. The 709 structure would similarly benefit from historically appropriate porch repair, and both units could use more window improvements. Such refurbishments would enhance not only the buildings themselves but also the busy intersection on which they reside.

The MacMillan Apartments are situated between two National Register historic districts, the Downtown Commercial and the 10th and Cass Street Residential Neighborhood. However, even though they fall outside of currently established district borders, they are still potentially eligible for National Register of Historic Places designation, as well as for addition to state and local lists. This is consequential because historically appropriate renovations and repairs on state and federal register properties typically qualify for tax credits.

The entire 2023 Most Endangered Historic Properties list, as well as former years lists, can be found on the citys heritage preservation website at www.cityoflacrosse.org/your-government/departments/planning-economic-development/heritage-preservation.

Anyone seeking more information regarding this project or wanting to nominate endangered historic places for future lists can contact Tim Acklin in the City Planning Department at acklint@cityoflacrosse.org or 608-789-7391.
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CLEVELAND  Mary Lamar had been searching for a job that was a good fit.

She worked for a time as a nursing assistant but found it boring. A stint as a shipyard welder ended because she could no longer bear the winter cold. Then Lamar had what she described as a rift in her life. That rift led her to plead guilty to robbery in 2019 and to serve time in prison.

Now Lamar, who lives in Cleveland, operates a stamping press, churning out thousands of specialty metal washers each day at Talan Products, a local manufacturer.

Ive always been mechanically inclined, she said. My mom told me I should have been an engineer.

Lamar got her job through a program developed by business and community leaders  with help from philanthropy  to match people of color, women, and formerly incarcerated people with manufacturing jobs.

Manufacturers in Cleveland and other cities, including Buffalo, Chicago, and Milwaukee, are dealing with a retiring workforce thats left thousands of jobs unfilled. Nationally, the industrys job gap is projected to hit 2 million by 2030, according to the National Association of Manufacturers. The Cleveland region has an estimated 10,000 manufacturing job openings.

By diversifying their job ranks, Cleveland-area manufacturers also hope to improve communities left behind as plants closed or moved to the suburbs. And now with $5 million in federal stimulus money, they expect to help create thousands of new manufacturing jobs over the next few years.

Philanthropy is investing millions of dollars in the Manufacturing Advocacy & Growth Network, a Cleveland nonprofit consulting group thats leading the hiring push. The nonprofit offers adult training and high-school internships. The Cleveland Foundation has given $2.5 million as a capital building grant to the nonprofit and to help it set up the internships.

Giving from foundations and nonprofits groups has leveraged millions of dollars in public funds, said Ethan Karp, CEO of the manufacturing nonprofit.

The nonprofit has helped manufacturers here hire several hundred employees and interns in recent years. While thats not nearly enough to ease the job crunch, a major expansion is underway with plans to train and hire about 3,000 workers by 2025 using the federal stimulus money.

Manufacturing remains an economic pillar in Northeast Ohio, despite a half century of plant closings and layoffs. The industry still employs more than 270,000 workers in a 21-county region, but it struggles to find enough workers. Most job openings are entry-level, but others are in engineering, computing, and data analysis.

A national emphasis on college over vocational education has squeezed the pipeline of talent to the industry, which many still perceive as a dark and dirty business, even with the rise of automation and technology. Meanwhile, some communities in large manufacturing cities have little access or exposure to the industry even as they experience higher rates of unemployment and underemployment.

Another program supported by the Cleveland Foundation is the manufacturing nonprofits high-school internship program, Early College, Early Career. Students like high-school senior Kyren Lewis divide time between school and training. Lewis works at Lincoln Electric, a welding-equipment manufacturer. Hes among 29 students, including five women, enrolled in the paid internship program.

Training in manufacturing lifts the job skills of Clevelanders, builds wealth, and makes the citys work force more attractive to business, said Bishara Addison, director of job preparation for the Fund for Our Economic Future, an alliance of funders that contributed to the new center and helps fund the manufacturing nonprofits operations.

Manufacturing job-training programs in the disadvantaged communities around the country should see a boost under the Biden administration, which is overseeing large investments in roads and bridges, semiconductor production, and clean energy, said Michelle Burris of the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank.

Some programs are already seeing success. Chicagos nonprofit Jane Addams Resource Corporation has placed 274 people in manufacturing jobs since 2017 and has expanded its job training program to Baltimore and Rhode Island.

We focus on long-term outcomes for our clients, said director of development and communications Danielle Hoske. We want to really build a life of financial stability and security.

At the Northland Workforce Training Center in Buffalo, nearly 900 students have earned certificates or associate degrees in manufacturing and energy-related industries. About 85% of its graduates are hired and earn an average salary of $40,000.

In Milwaukee and across Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership is a network of manufacturers, construction companies, and unions that provide training and apprenticeships. Hundreds of young adults, women and people of color have landed jobs with an average salary of $48,500.

Companies need people, and theyre willing to do more than they normally would to look in places they havent looked before, Karp said. Theres a beautiful confluence of having the right outcomes in terms of tackling racial and economic disparities and achieving good business outcomes.

What's behind the growing number of manufacturing jobs? is the US entering a new era for domestic manufacturing? Manufacturing jobs exceed pre-COVID levels Federal auto bailout and post-recession recovery Pandemic relief legislation Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and CHIPS and Science Act
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For more than 100 years, Wisconsins official highway maps have helped motorists, and likely a few horse-drawn wagons, get from Westfield to Florence, Brodhead to La Crosse and Montello to Bayfield.

Some of the earliest maps indicated surface type, like concrete, gravel, all weather earth roads, heavy clay earth roads and unsurfaced sandy roads.

The 1935 map had a handy guide to explain stop signs and had six paragraphs on the rules of the road. They included tips on passing a slower motorist and reminded drivers that their vehicles needed to have a rear view mirror, at least one windshield wiper, horn, legal lights and efficient brakes.

As for the speed limit?

There is no speed limit on rural highways, the state Highway Commission wrote 88 years ago. Be reasonable and drive carefully.

Clearly this was the early days of motoring.

But with smartphones loaded with GPS and vehicles armed with display screens and a voice that guides every turn, merge and crossing, the need for a folded, paper map would seem to be in its final days. Only thats not the case.

The state Department of Transportation has released, for the first time since 2019, its newest state highway map. And while there is a digital version, the state has also printed 310,000 copies and expects to print another 340,000 to meet demand before the next map comes out in 2025.

The printed map doesnt require batteries, it can always be there, said David Layton, the DOTs section chief of surveying and mapping. Theres more points of interest, and you can see the whole state in one shot. Not only is it a map for travel purposes but for tourism and marketing the state as well.

So as the travel season kicks off, the DOT has stocked up its welcome centers and rest stops with the new maps and has also created a database that holds each official state highway map since the programs inception in 1918. It includes a 1916 road map produced by Rand McNally, but the remainder over the last 105 years were produced by the state and serve as a time capsule of sorts.

Tracing history

They show the growth of Interstate 90-94 in the 1950s, the decadeslong construction of the Beltline that began in 1949 in Madison, and the transformation of Highway 51 up the middle of the state into I-39.

The maps show the emergence of man-made lakes and flowages like Lake Redstone in Sauk County in 1964 and the 1926 damming of rivers to create the Turtle-Flambeau and Willow flowages in Iron and Oneida counties, respectfully. Memorial bridges and highways are marked, along with state historic and veterans sites, state and national forests, and ferries

in Cassville, Merrimac, Manitowoc and Milwaukee.

Theres also 34 different slogans and catchphrases that have been used on the maps through the years, sometimes simultaneously.

The first was The Playground of the Middle West, used from 1918 to 1948. Welcome to Wisconsin has appeared on the map since 1927, while Keep Wisconsin Clean and Beautiful showed up from 1956 through 1982. Others have included Escape to Wisconsin (1983-84), Stay a Little Bit Longer (2003-04) and Heres to Every Route Being the Scenic Route for this years map, which is similar to Explore the Scenic Route used on the 2019 map.

Mapped for centuries

The database is the result of a more than yearlong organizational project undertaken by Christine Koeller, a DOT cartologist. She pulled the historic maps out of manila folders in filing cabinets and placed most in flat filing drawers. They were then scanned into the database, while the Wisconsin Historical Society provided scans of maps not in the DOTs archives from 1919 to 1923.

More than a century of changes can now be seen in arguably the most complete digital collection of the map, Koeller wrote in an online article about the map project. The archive provides the public an opportunity to easily explore, research, share, or reprint its favorites.

The state highway map program was created after the formation of the Wisconsin State Highway Commission in 1911. Prior to that, road development was handled at the local level. In 1916, the Federal Highway Aid Act was passed to administer funds to the state to develop paved, highway road systems.

That was followed in 1917 with the state legislature passing a law that required the state to print and distribute highway service maps. The first, in 1918, cost 10 cents and came in a booklet that included a brief history of the state and the Highway Commission.

The copy in the DOT archives had been folded incorrectly decades ago and was stuffed into a filing cabinet. It remains folded, too brittle to be fully displayed. The map was created just 10 years after Henry Ford introduced the Model T.

I imagine the automobile (in 1918) is becoming more of a mode of transportation and people are traveling more, Koeller said as she gently handled the map. The idea of a family car is becoming more common so road trips are becoming more of a thing.

The modern map

In terms of promoting the state, the 2023 map is similar to the 1935 map, which includes information about state parks, a message from then-Gov. Philip La Follette and, on the back, a pictorial map worthy of framing and drawn in shades of blue by Laura Kremers, of Madison. It includes depictions of Jean Nicolets landing in Green Bay in 1634; the common violet, the state flower; tobacco farming around Edgerton; Door County cherry orchards; and the reforestation of the North Woods following the lumber boom.

Oddly, it also shows Rib Hill (now known as Rib Mountain) near Wausau as the states highest point when in reality its Timms Hill in Price County. The map also shows members of a pioneer family barricading themselves in their cabin from a pack of wolves in southern Wisconsin.

The 2023 map is more accurate, less grim and in full color. Theres a list of state parks and photographs from Devils Lake State Park, Apostle Island National Lakeshore, Willow Falls near Hudson and smiling visitors walking up the fully accessible Eagle Tower at Peninsula State Park near Fish Creek.

And just like the 1935 map, there are safety reminders. Only in 2023, the primary message is to buckle up and put the phone down while driving.

Folding the map correctly, however, still takes patience and a little concentration. One of the changes this year, compared to the 2019 version, is that the 26-by-36-inch map opens like a book, as opposed to hinging opposite of a book.

This also makes the printing and folding process easier as well, Koeller said. There are states (like Indiana and Washington) that have stopped printing, but in general ... the rest of the states are still producing and distributing maps to the public. People do stop at our welcome centers and some of the other visitor centers and rest areas for the map. Thats the reason theyre stopping. So we know that theres still a demand out there for the paper product.

Photos: Ed the Diver and his fishing lures Ed the Diver Ed the Diver 06-04282023091248 Ed the Diver 02-04282023091248 Ed the Diver Ed the Diver Ed the Diver Ed the Diver Ed the Diver Ed the Diver Ed the Diver Ed the Diver Ed the Diver
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Wisconsin is celebrating its 175th anniversary Monday, a day that will feature modest celebrations and an official acknowledgement of the states countless contributions to the fabric of the nation and the world in agriculture, industry, art and culture.

A proclamation signed by Gov. Tony Evers honors the states admission to the Union May 29, 1848, while celebrating the Indigenous tribes that have occupied the land since time immemorial.

Through times of adversity and prosperity, Wisconsinites are helpers by nature, often going above and beyond to serve their communities, look out for their neighbors, and exemplify the states shared values of kindness, empathy, respect, and compassion, earning them the Midwest Nice reputation that is cherished by visitors and residents alike, Evers said in the proclamation.

Little else is planned to celebrate the anniversary. Perhaps thats what you get when youre celebrating a demisemiseptcentennial  a fancy term for a 175th anniversary  and not a more commonly recognized birthday like a centennial or a sesquicentennial.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has launched a new website celebrating a list of Wisconsin visionaries, changemakers and storytellers. And the first territorial capital of Wisconsin in Belmont, where legislators gathered for 47 days in 1836  normally open only on Saturdays and Sundays  will be open Monday.

But any celebrations are admittedly more low-key than the 12-mile, 3-hour parade seen by 125,000 Wisconsinites who gathered for the states 100th anniversary in 1948.

Quieter, too, than the states 150th anniversary celebration in Madison, where 20,000 people, including 3,000 fourth-graders, watched then-Gov. Tommy Thompson deliver a speech as F-16s flew overhead and 20 state lawmakers dressed in costumes of the 1840s.

From Badgers to Kringle, test your knowledge of Wisconsin's state symbols

[Correction: The description of the state's 100th anniversary parade in 1948 had wrong information in an earlier version of this story.]
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After U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden was elected to Congress, he promised to put politics aside and be a voice for everyone in the 3rd Congressional District, whether we voted for him or not.

Unfortunately, his recent actions prove how empty that promise was, as he continues to take positions that would have devastating consequences for constituents.

As someone with two preexisting conditions, both of which are autoimmune disorders without a cure, I need over 20 medications to keep symptoms under control. I wouldnt be able to afford these life-sustaining prescriptions without access to Medicare and Medicaid. Im not alone  and for many Wisconsinites, living without programs that help us afford health care, have a roof over our head, and put food on the table isnt an option.

Thats why Im concerned about what will happen if politicians like Rep. Van Orden force a default on our nations debt, triggering an economic catastrophe and putting vital services at risk. In the 3rd Congressional District alone, a default could mean 102,000 families dont receive their Social Security payments and put 263,000 people at risk of losing their health benefits from Medicare, Medicaid or Veterans Affairs.

It would also mean almost 130,000 Wisconsin families  people like me who depend on rental assistance  are in danger of becoming homeless as these rental assistance payments stall. Nobody should be tossed out on the street because politicians refuse to negotiate in good faith.

But Rep. Van Orden has refused to work across the aisle and find solutions to avoid a default. Instead, he recently voted for an extreme plan that cuts education, health care and rental assistance programs like Section 8, while protecting tax cuts for those at the top. Thats not the leadership Wisconsinites expect from their elected officials and its terrifying to consider that Rep. Van Orden would threaten the programs so many rely on.

Unfortunately, this has become a pattern for Rep. Van Orden and his consistent threats to benefit programs, while protecting tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations, is why so many people are speaking out.

Recently, I joined several of his constituents at a La Crosse small business to share my story and ask Rep. Van Orden to fight for families like mine, for my parents who are on Social Security, and for small businesses who are investing in our communities. But instead of taking our concerns seriously, he took to social media to attack us for speaking up, mocking the concerns of the people hes supposed to represent.

Regardless of political party or beliefs, I think we can all agree that members of Congress need to respect those they represent, listen to our concerns seriously, and do everything they can to make our state and nation better  its time for Rep. Van Orden to do that.
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The Republican House put a deal on the table regarding the impending default by the United States.

President Joe Biden and the Democrats laughed at it and refused to negotiate, stating it was dead on arrival. They want to keep spending on progressive causes and let the national debt increase.

The Democratic Party banks on the media blaming the Republicans for the stalemate and if there is a default it will be entirely the Republicans' fault.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to the Democratic strategy.

Nicholas Berry

La Crosse
The debt ceiling deal has come with just days to spare before a potential first-ever government default. On Sunday, President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reached a final agreement and they are urging Congress to quickly pass it. Biden pronounced the development good news in remarks at the White House announcing the agreement. This followed a tentative compromise announced late Saturday. The deal risks angering some Democratic and Republican lawmakers as they begin to unpack the concessions, which include spending cuts. McCarthy and Biden spoke Sunday evening as negotiators drafted legislative text. They face a June 5 deadline when Treasury says the U.S. would risk a debt default.
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They lay on mats and pillows in a room lit only by a few candles.

The sounds wash over them  the chiming, of various percussion instruments intent on bringing listeners into a deep state of relaxation.

This is not music. It is a sound bath, an event in which sonic healers like Kimberly Lempart score using ancient yet exotic devices like gongs, singing bowls and shamanic drums.

Sound healing is, in her words, an immersive, full-bodied, mystical experience, one in which the listener enters a state similar to that which can be entered through meditation.

Sounds from various healing instruments synchronize with your brainwaves and activate a de-stress response in your body, Lempart said. The sound tools of vibration, which create harmonious resonance in the body, are a way to restore health.

Benefits include deep relaxation, releasing stuck energy, stress reduction, rejuvenation and help with sleep and fatigue.

Lempart, a certified sound healer and yoga nidra instructor, has been leading public sound baths for two years.

Born in Chicago, Lempart moved to the Lake Como area at age 4. She graduated from Badger High School and lived in the areas of Como and Lake Geneva most of her life. About 11 years ago, Lempart moved to Delavan.

She attended her first sound bath in Lake Geneva.

I felt a calm wash over me, said Lempart, of her first sound bath. My body completely relaxed and I felt a deep connection to sound and my body.

A commonly used tool in a sound bath is the singing bowl. Made of metal or quartz crystal, the bowl can be struck to produce a sound. It can also be rubbed with a stick, or wand, along its edges to create a drone which goes a long way toward explaining why it is called a singing bowl.

At her first sound bath, Lempart said the vibration of the bowls moved energy within her. She had no idea until later that she had been crying during the experience.

I knew immediately that I had a very profound experience, Lempart said. Something very magical and therapeutic had just changed in me forever. Then I went to a different sound bath and heard the gong. That was even more profound.

Lempart heard the gong during sound healing activities at retreats in California and Utah, then fell in love with the elements of sound healing. She sought to learn from all the sound healers she had met.

I wanted to buy one small gong but came home with a 26-inch Chau gong and two pretty large quartz crystal singing bowls, she said. I had two Himalayan bowls and had been meditating with them since I got sober 12 years ago. I wanted to play to heal myself.

While she did some research, Lempart also let her intuition be her guide into the realm of sound healing.

I bought more instruments, she said. The healing and benefits were so amazing I wanted to share with my friends, so I started doing sound baths for them.

Eventually, she rented space at Crescent Moon Wellness Center in Williams Bay and opened it to the public for her sound healing. Lempart also attended Yandara Yoga Institute, in Baja, Mexico, to obtain her sound healing certification.

It was there she also became certified instructor for yoga nidra, or yogic sleep, a deep guided meditation technique to bring people into the state of consciousness that lies between sleep and being awake.

I like to start my sound healing with some light breath work and meditation to clear and connect the mind and body, Lempart said.

She uses more than bowls and gongs. Drums, chimes, bells, seed pods and tuning forks are also some of Lemparts sound healing tools.

Regularly, Lempart conducts sound baths at Big Foot High School in Walworth; Enlightened Living Center in Burlington; Eleven11 in Elkhorn; Yoga Hohm in Delavan; Healium Yoga in Milwaukee; Reaching Treetops in Waukesha; Emilees Healing Hut in Janesville; The Grove Club in Racine; and The Honey Creek Collective in East Troy.

In the future, she hopes to continue her education in the areas of sound healing, meditation and pranayama, or breathing exercises.

The more I participate in sound healing, the more I learn, Lempart said.

To contact Lempart about sound healing events, call 262-348-6681 or email kimberlylempart@gmail.com.

Who's playing Elkhorn's DAS Fest USA this year? Red Hot Chilli Pipers Alex Meixner The Gebel Girls Ed Wagner Brass Band Jenny Hundt JFK the Band Copper Box The Happy Players Dirndolls Petty Union
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Graduates with elaborately decorated mortarboards, ranging from floral accents to teacher-themed celebratory statements, poured into the A.F. Siebert Chapel for Carthage Colleges spring commencement ceremony Friday night.

Masters degrees awarded Friday night included those majoring in music theater vocal pedagogy, business design and innovation, and education. Bachelors degrees conferred Friday include nursing and arts.

In total 620 Carthage students are participating in commencement weekend activities, according to the college.

This accomplishment here tonight was your goal, and you achieved it, Carthage President John Swallow told the graduates. Like so many markers in life, we recognize that it is not only an end, but a beginning.

Nina Weisling, assistant professor of education, was selected by the graduating class to give the faculty address.

When life becomes overwhelming, focus squarely on what guides you... and tackle it bird by bird with small steps with and toward your guiding lights, Weisling said. Find the things that matter to you, that you believe are just and moral and good and fight for them.

Liam Carls, a physics major who received the distinguished senior award, gave the class address.

The fact that we are all here today for a common goal suggests to me that you, too, defeated fear and challenges through hard work and you showed up to class, office hours, practice, games, meets, tournaments, rehearsals, shows, clubs and other things, Carls said. We owe it to ourselves and every person that has helped us get to this position to step off this campus and into the world with a fiery appetite to continue to grow and meet our potential.

Carthage also presented 2023 distinguished alumni and honorary degree honors to two during the ceremony.

Cherie Matthaidess Robinson, a graduate of the Carthage class of 2001, received the distinguished alumni award Friday night. Robinson is vice president of human resources for Amazons international stores, which employ more than 150,000 workers in over 40 countries.

U.S. Navy Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt received an honorary Doctoral degree in public service. Bauernschmidt is the first American woman to command an aircraft carrier, and has served as senior military adviser to the Office of Global Womens Issues, which is an arm of the Secretary of State that works to enhance peace and security for women worldwide.
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Geneva Lake Museum has been educating the public about local history during the past four decades.

The museum, 255 Mill St. in Lake Geneva, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The museum features artifacts and exhibits related to the history of the Lake Geneva area.

Helen Brandt, who has worked as a curator at the museum for all 40 years, highlighted the museum's history during a Tuesday @ 2 program, May 2.

Brandt discussed the museum's early beginnings, exhibits and programs during her presentation.

The Geneva Lake Museum was founded in 1983 and officially opened to the public May 25, 1984 at a former home located at 818 Geneva St. in Lake Geneva.

The main floor featured the former home's bedrooms, dining room, kitchen and restroom. The basement included Native American artifacts, tool collection and chairs donated by the Playboy Club.

Brandt said the museum initially was opened from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. during the weekends and holidays and there was no admission; however, there was a jar located on the front desk where visitors could donate money.

"It didn't indicate any particular price or anything. It simply said, 'Help us grow,' and many people helped us grow, probably in very modest amounts," Brandt said. "Mostly there were dollar bills in there, maybe a $5 bill or a $10 bill."

Brandt said, during the 1990s, the staff realized the museum needed to start making money so they decided to conduct an annul book and bake sale to help raise funds.

"Book sales were common-- libraries did them. Bake sales were common-- churches did them. So we decided to combine the two," Brandt said. "We had large tables of books and related materials, then a couple of small tables for bakery items. Because of our location which was right next door to the municipal parking lot, it proved to be successful indeed. The first year we cleared $475, and oh my God were we excited, just the idea of making our own money."

Moving to a new location

City officials began approaching the museum staff about possibly moving into its current location on Mill Street during the early 1990s.

The building previously was the location for the city's waterworks department and the Wisconsin Power & Light Company.

Brandt said when the museum board first visited the building, they were not too impressed.

"The whole board went over to look at the property, and I want to tell you they didn't really clean up too well after themselves. It was a mess," Brandt said. "It was like a dungeon, a mausoleum. So we went back and the board said, 'No, there isn't anyway we can fashion any museum in there.'"

Museum officials continued to work with the city, and the museum eventually was moved to its current location in April 2004, officially opening to the public on July 1, 2004.

Brandt said shortly after moving into the new location they started to charge admission. The museum's initial admission was $6 for adults and $5 for senior citizens.

"We have to help us pay for ourselves because the city is still keeping with the $1 lease per year," Brandt said. "They were also keeping with the fact that they are still responsible for all the exterior maintenance as well as all our utilities, and believe me that is huge. They have been really wonderful landlords to us during this time."

Exhibits and programs

Several exhibits have been developed at the museum during the past several years.

One of the more well known exhibits is the "Main Street Lake Geneva" exhibit, which is located on the main floor.

The exhibit depicts life in the Lake Geneva area from the 1830s to the 1930s and features replicas of historic homes, businesses and buildings.

Brandt said, before moving into the Mill Street location, members of the museum board visited the Milwaukee Public Museum to obtain ideas for exhibits and were inspired by the museum's "Streets of Old Milwaukee" exhibit.

"We wondered, in a small way, if we could do something like that here," she said.

Brandt said architect Ken Etten helped design the "Main Street Lake Geneva" exhibit, and the Lakeland Builders of Walworth County donated their time from January to March 2004 to build the exhibit.

Another popular exhibit at the museum is the military room, which features military artifacts and uniforms.

"It's something that has been ongoing for us," Brandt said. "We certainly got an over abundance of World War II uniforms. So many men in town who served during World War II said, 'Hey, can you use my uniform?,' and we said 'yes' to everybody. Then a couple of Eisenhower jackets came in. It's a very well put together exhibit, I feel."

An exhibit dedicated to the Northwestern Military and Naval Academy was established at the museum in 2016.

"It was probably the first exhibit that (Museum Director) Janet (Ewing) put together, and her father graduated from the academy so she has a special love and interest in it," Brandt said. "If you haven't seen the exhibit, it's very impressive."

The "Mapping the Past" exhibit, which features historic maps from the Lake Geneva area, was developed in 2018.

"It's just phenomenal. It's done in such a tasteful, beautiful way," Brandt said. "Looking at the wall of the exhibit, it's really quite wonderful."

The museum also features displays related to the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, Frank Lloyd Wright's Hotel Geneva, Andy Gump, Yerkes Observatory, Lake Geneva mansions and boats and yachts of Geneva Lake.

Besides the exhibits, the museum hosts several events and programs throughout the year including the Victorian Christmas open house, which is usually held during the first Saturday in December.

"That is also the same day the city does the Electric Christmas Parade," Brandt said. "So we're always hoping that people would come here first then go to the parade."

The museum also conducts the Parade of Trees each holiday season, in which participating businesses and organizations decorate a Christmas tree in the "Main Street Lake Geneva" area.

"It has to be experienced. It's just incredible and every year we have more trees. We will have a few more trees this year, as well," Brandt said. "If you've never experienced it, for heaven's sake, make a point to do it this year. It is well worth your time."

Honoring the museum

During the program, Mayor Charlene Klein presented a certificate of appreciation and read a proclamation honoring the museum's 40th anniversary.

"I'm absolutely certain that we have the best small city museum in America," Klein said. "I further encourage that our residents visit the museum to enjoy the exhibits and learn about the region's expansive history."

Edward Schwinn, president of the Geneva Lake Museum Board of Directors, said the museum has helped many people learn about the history of the Lake Geneva area during the past 40 years.

"When I look back over 40 years, I think of the thousands and thousands of people that have gone through," Schwinn said. "So we have to recognize the fact that we're really a part of this community."

Klein also presented a certificate to Brandt for her 40 years of service to the museum.

Brandy said she has enjoyed working with the museum and the city during the past 40 years.

"It's been a pleasure and a privilege to be involved," Brandt said. "The City of Lake Geneva has been so grateful and gracious. You have been wonderful landlords. Thank you so much."

For more information about the Geneva Lake Museum, visit www.genevalakemuseum.org.
Shoigu Explains Why Russia Is Positioning Nuclear Weapons in Belarus

May 27, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu met with Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin in Minsk on May 25, where they discussed closer military cooperation between the two countries. The agenda included the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons onto Belarusian soil.

In the circumstances of an extremely sharp escalation of threats and activity of NATO joint nuclear missions, we are compelled to take retaliatory measures in the military-nuclear sphere, Shoigu said, reported the Russian Defense Ministry on its Telegram channel. The deployment of Russian Federation non-strategic nuclear weapons on the territory of the Republic of Belarus has been planned in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Federation. He noted that this includes providing Iskander M ballistic missiles to Belarus and upgrading some Belarusian combat aircraft to carry Russian nuclear weapons.

Shoigu elaborated, reported RT, that NATO is using the Ukraine crisis as an excuse to build up its forces in Eastern Europe and deploy weapons which are being aimed at Russia and Belarus. Furthermore, Shoigu stated, there is increasingly aggressive rhetoric and joint nuclear missions of NATO countries in Eastern Europe, that includes testing the use of nuclear weapon delivery vehicles and improving the U.S. global missile defense system.

RT wrote that Shoigu stressed that these missions, along with deliveries of depleted uranium to Ukraine, are forcing Russia and Belarus to take appropriate response measures.... The minister noted that given the new military-political realities, Russia and Belarus have been strengthening their collective defensive capabilities.

Shoigu stressed, however, that Russia will retain operational control of non-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus. Russia is not transferring nuclear weapons to the Republic of Belarus: control over them and the decision on their use remains with the Russian side, he said, when signing the documents outlining the process for storing Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in a special facility on the Belarus territory.

U.S. President Joe Biden, when asked about the Russia-Belarusian nuclear agreement yesterday, said that his reaction was extremely negative. The Russian Embassy in Washington responded to Bidens comment:
EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR SUNDAY MAY 28, 2023

What Kind of Peace Do We Seek?

May 27, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)The one thing you cant accuse the Russian government of is engaging in subtle diplomacy, with nuanced, hard-to-interpret signals. Consider the urgent warnings and messages delivered over the last 48 hours, all of which have been blithely ignored by Washington and London, and all of which have been blacked out of the major media so that most Americans remain totally ignorant and in a strategic stupor over this Memorial Day weekenda holiday meant to commemorate those lost in earlier warswhile the clouds of a third, nuclear world war hang darkly over the planet today.

 Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu met on Friday, May 26 with his Belarussian counterpart to work through the specifics of the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in that country, and stated: In the circumstances of an extremely sharp escalation of threats and activity of NATO joint nuclear missions, we are compelled to take retaliatory measures in the military-nuclear sphere. He specifically mentioned joint nuclear missions of NATO countries in Eastern Europe, including testing the use of nuclear weapon delivery vehicles and improving the U.S. global missile defense system.  That same day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a TV interviewer that Washington is preparing to bring the world to the very brink of World War III in its confrontation with Russia, accusing the U.S. of thinking falsely that its self-preservation is ensured by the Atlantic Ocean.  And also on Friday, May 26, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement mooting the possibility of breaking diplomatic relations with the U.K. over reports of direct British military involvement in cross-border attacks against Russia. The same statement reported that U.S. diplomats had also been summoned to file a strong protest over the provocative statements and unacceptable remarks by U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who had made comments giving Ukraine a de facto green light to launch strikes against Russian territory, including Crimea.

Those Russian views of the current situationwhether right or wrongare strategic factors in their own right, coming as they do from the worlds greatest nuclear power involved in a major conflict with the U.S., and any half-sane American government would take them with the utmost seriousness, factor them in, and address the issues with the Russians. Its what John Kennedy would have done... and did.

All the more so when what the Russians are warning about is right on the mark. As EIR and the LaRouche movement have thoroughly documented, there is a London-led operational plan underway to provoke a Crimean Missile Crisis with Russia, with the publicly stated goal of using threatened, or actual, thermonuclear war to force the Russians to back down.

In addition to its utter moral insanity, this London-Washington policy is running into a series of major obstacles:

1) Their trans-Atlantic financial system is thoroughly bankrupt, and is blowing apart at the seams. 2) The vast majority of the Global South, comprising some 85% of the worlds population, has refused to go along with the U.S.-U.K.-NATO wars against Russia and China, the deadly economic sanctions, and the overall speculative and looting policies of the City of London and Wall Street. They are refusing to go down with the sinking financial Titanic. 3) There are growing circles in the United States and Western Europe who are waking up to the imminent danger of nuclear war, and are casting about for answers. Although many do not yet know it, theirs is the voice of President John F. Kennedy, and his historic American University speech of June 10, 1963, in which he too asked: What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their childrennot merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and womennot merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

Add your voice: Urgent Appeal by Citizens and Institutions from All Over the World to the (Next) President of the United States!
VOA Learning English presents Americas Presidents.

Today we are talking about Franklin Pierce, the 14th president of the United States. He took office in 1853 at age 48. At that time, he was the youngest person elected to the White House.

Pierce was known for being social  and for his good looks. But his personal life was full of tragedy, and he was not an effective chief executive.

Over time, he has come to be remembered as one of the countrys worst presidents.

Early life

Franklin Pierce was born in the northern state of New Hampshire. He was one of eight children.

He attended school regularly as a child, and he went on to Bowdoin College in Maine. There, he developed his skills as an excellent public speaker. He also became an able lawyer.

Pierces abilities carried him far. But his personal connections helped, too.

His father became the governor of New Hampshire. Shortly after, Pierce was elected to the state legislature. He soon became a member of the U.S. Congress  first as a member of the House of Representatives, and then as a senator.

Several important things happened in Pierces personal life during those years in Washington, DC. He married Jane Means Appleton. They soon had a son, but the child died after only three days. The couple went on to have two more boys.

In Washington, Franklin Pierce also developed friendships with many people from the South. They defended the right of states to permit slavery. Although he was from the North, Pierce came to share the opinions of his Southern friends. He grew to dislike anti-slavery activists, who were known as abolitionists.

As a politician, Pierce was a member of the Democratic Party and strongly supported the ideas of President Andrew Jackson. But politics did not appeal to his wife. She also did not like her husbands habit of drinking alcohol with his friends. Jane Pierce belonged to the temperance movement, which urged Americans to avoid the use of alcoholic drinks.

So Pierce resigned his job in the Senate and moved back to New Hampshire.

There, he stopped drinking alcohol and earned fame as a lawyer and public speaker. But tragedy struck again: his second son became sick and died. 

Fainting Frank

Pierce remained active in politics in New Hampshire. He helped the Democratic candidate for president at the time, James K. Polk, win votes in the state.

When Polk entered the White House, he gave Pierce a position as a general in the Mexican-American War.

Pierce did not earn the respect of his troops. In one battle, he passed out after he fell off his horse and crushed his leg. Some of his men, seeing what happened, fled the battlefield. Others called him Fainting Frank.

Although Pierce had his critics, he returned to New Hampshire as a leader in the states Democratic Party. Yet no one expected him to become president of the United States.

Pierces nomination came during the Democratic national convention in 1852. Party leaders could not agree on a candidate. They were split among the three top choices.

So the party turned to Pierce. They liked the fact that he was not well known or had taken any strong positions as a lawmaker. As a result, fewer people could object to him, they reasoned.

Pierce did very little during the election campaign. He did not need to. Many voters, especially in the South, did not like his opponent.

When the election was held, Pierce won easily.

But before he took office, another terrible thing happened. Franklin and Jane Pierce were traveling by train with their youngest son Benjamin, who was 11-years-old. The train went off the rails. Bennie was killed instantly in front of his parents.

Neither Franklin nor Jane Pierce ever really recovered. Jane believed their sons death was a punishment from God for her husband becoming president.

Presidency

As president, Pierce faced an extremely difficult situation. The countrys ongoing dispute about whether and where to permit slavery was becoming more intense. Under Pierce, the dispute centered on the areas of Kansas and Nebraska.

At the time, both areas were considered territories, not states. And each territory was above the line of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. That act, approved by lawmakers nearly 35 years before Pierce took office, banned slavery in northern areas, including what would become Kansas and Nebraska.

But pro-slavery settlers demanded that Kansas and Nebraska voters  a group comprised of white men  decide the issue for themselves. A majority of U.S. lawmakers agreed.

Under pressure, President Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854.

The measure was one of the most important in U.S. history. It overturned the Missouri Compromise and cancelled the ban on slavery. It incited years of intense of violence between pro-slavery and anti-slavery activists. And it pushed a divided nation even further apart.

The troubles also showed Pierce to be an ineffective president. He could not ease the tensions over slavery, nor unite the country behind the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

And he delayed using his power to stop the violence in Kansas until it was far too late.

Finally, his sympathy for pro-slavery groups angered many in the North, including people in his own party.

The Democrats did not nominate him again at the next election.

Legacy

After four years as president, Pierce returned to New Hampshire. He rarely socialized and began drinking alcohol again.

After his wife died in 1863, Pierce seemed to disappear from public life. Americans heard little about him until his death in 1869.

But he lived to see the ultimate tragedy of the Civil War that he  like other presidents before him  had failed to prevent.

Im Kelly Jean Kelly.

Kelly Jean Kelly wrote this story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

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Quiz - America's Presidents: Franklin Pierce Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

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Words in This Story

regularly - adv. on a regular basis

habit - n. something that a person does often in a regular and repeated way

pass out - phrasal verb. to become unconscious or fall asleep

faint - v. to suddenly become unconscious

instantly - adv. immediately

ultimate - adj. greatest or most extreme
Musicians, actors, politicians, business leaders, writers, and Nobel Prize winners were among the commencement speakers in 2023.

At Howard University in Washington, D.C., graduates heard from U.S. President Joe Biden. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin spoke at New York University. And the actor, Tom Hanks, visited Harvard University to offer his words. Other speakers included Nobel Peace Prize-winner Maria Ressa, who spoke at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee; the jazz musician Wynton Marsalis at the University of Michigan; and Nobel Prize-winning chemist Carolyn Bertozzi, who spoke with medical students at Stanford University in California.

In most cases, students cheered advice and encouragement from the speaker. But in at least one case, they called out in protest.

That happened on May 21 at Boston University to David Zaslav, the head of the media company Warner Brothers Discovery. As Zaslav talked, the students called out, Pay your writers! so often he had to stop speaking. The students were supporting striking film and television writers.

Not all the events at Boston University caused disagreement.

Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black female member of the U.S. Supreme Court, spoke to law school graduates. Brown Jackson discussed her legal career and her love for musical theater. She mentioned the famous show Hamilton and said students should work to find something you care about, and get yourself into the room where it happens. The Room Where It Happens is a song from the show.

Meet the moment

At New York University, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin told graduates that it is not enough to want change. To change things, you have to take over, she said.

Marin told the students they must not wait for others to solve the worlds problems. She talked about the war in Ukraine and climate change. She expressed her concerns about artificial intelligence. And she told the graduates to take charge and make changes if they are concerned.

These are challenges that need to be solved, she said. And there is no one else to do that, other than you.

Sabrina Vazquez was one of the graduates who gathered to listen to Marin on May 17. She agreed with the message and told VOA:

Through our  education and our experiences, we were like given the tools to be able to enact change, maybe not immediate because change never happens overnight, but it's something that if we work towards consistently and it's always a goal that we are trying to reach, we can enact change.

Just days earlier, U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with students at Howard University, an HBCU, or Historically Black College or University.

Jheannelle Johnson is the first person in her family to graduate from college. She said she was honored that the president wanted to speak to her and fellow graduates.

Johnson told VOA that Bidens message was similar to what he might have used in the campaign. But he also told the 2023 graduates that they have a chance to change the trajectory of the country.

The president then added,  and I know you will meet the moment.

This is something that I want to take with me, that the President could come here to my university, and say that we have the power to change things in a climate where it feels like sometimes change isn't moving as fast as we want it to. It's knowing that the future is still bright.

Both Johnson and Vazquez agreed that they, and fellow graduates, have a chance to change peoples lives, even if it is just in a small way.

Its an important message for us to understand we can be change-makers, even right now, Johnson said.

Commencement is an English word that means the beginning. So while both Vazquez and Johnson celebrated the end of something, they also know the next part of their lives is coming fast.

Its important to know that my work shouldnt stop here, Johnson said.

Im Dan Friedell. And Im Jill Robbins.

Dan Friedell wrote this story for Learning English.

Quiz - Message to 2023 Graduates: Want Things to Change? Take Over Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

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Words in This Story

commencement n. a ceremony during which degrees or diplomas are given to students who have graduated from a school or college

graduate n. a person who has completed the requirements of a school program

encouragement n. something that makes someone more determined, hopeful, or confident

challenge n. a difficult task or problem to solve

enact v. to put something into action, to make something real

consistently  adj. something done on a regular basis

trajectory n. the direction something is moving, the small steps that make up somethings larger path

meet the moment (expression) to stand firm in the face of something difficult, to live up to expectations

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Recent shark bites in Florida and Hawaii and a suspected case in New Jersey have raised an age-old summer question for beachgoers  is it safe to go in the water?

Scientists and researchers who study sharks said the answer to that question is yes, it is safe. Dangerous interactions between humans and sharks are uncommon, and serious injuries and deaths from the bites are rare and growing rarer, scientists said.

Still, the extraordinary nature of shark bites and the stories of survivors capture the imagination. In April, the story of a Hawaii surfer fighting off a shark got widespread public attention, for example. But, it is a good idea to remember just how rare shark bites truly are, scientists said.

How often do shark bites occur?

There have been around 70 to 80 unprovoked shark bites yearly, worldwide, over the past 10 years. And not only are shark bites rare, they have been especially rare recently.

There were only 57 unprovoked bites last year, and just five of them were deadly, reports the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File. There had been nine such deaths in 2021.

The shark attack file reported a year ago that one reason for the drop in bites might be the decrease of shark populations around the world.

It is too early in the warm season to get an idea of how active this year will be for interactions between humans and sharks, said Greg Skomal. He is a shark expert with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

If we get lots of bait fish and forage fish species close to shore, we have a super hot summer that draws people to beaches, more people in the water, then we can determine the risk, Skomal said.

What are the most prone areas for shark encounters?

The United States and Australia are the sites of the most reported shark bites. The state of Florida led the world last year with 16 unprovoked bites, the shark attack file said.

This month, two Florida fishermen were bitten by sharks in separate incidents less than 36 hours apart.

The rate of shark bites has stayed steady in recent years. But, people may think attacks are more common because of new technology to report shark sightings, said Nick Whitney, a lead scientist at the New England Aquarium in Boston. Recently developed smartphone apps permit users to report shark sightings in real time.

What kind of sharks are cause for concern?

White sharks, bull sharks and tiger sharks are the sharks most cited by the International Shark Attack File for unprovoked bites. They are large sharks that also cause the most deaths.

However, remember that many interactions with sharks are with smaller species that are unlikely to cause serious injuries, said James Sulikowski, director of the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station at Oregon State University. Those sharks might bite a human, realize we are not their desired prey and move on, he said.

Is it safe to swim?

You are at much greater risk of getting hurt in a car accident on the way to the ocean than you are to get seriously injured by a shark bite when you are there.

Millions of people go to the ocean in the summer as the weather heats up, and that raises the possibility of interacting with a shark. But by taking simple steps, visitors can reduce any chance of a dangerous interaction with a shark, Sulikowski said. Such steps include avoiding the water early and late in the day when most sharks hunt for food. You should also not carry anything shiny into the water.

We are intruders in their environment. What we can do is be logical and safe about that and avoid areas where sharks are going to be feeding, Sulikowski said. When an interaction occurs, it's mistaken identity  we are in an area where a shark is looking to eat.

Im Caty Weaver.

The Associated Press reported this story. Caty Weaver adapted it for Learning English.

_______________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

provoke v. to stir up purposely; to incite to anger

bait n. something (such as food) used in luring especially to a hook or trap

forage v. to wander in search of forage or food

species - a class of things of the same kind and with the same name

prey n. an animal taken by a predator as food

logical n. capable of reasoning or of using reason in an orderly cogent fashion

intruder n. to thrust oneself in without invitation, permission, or welcome

occur v. to happen; to come into existence

______________________________________________________________________

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LOS ANGELES  U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinsteins ongoing medical struggles have raised a sensitive political question with no easy answer: Who would California Gov. Gavin Newsom pick to replace her if the seat becomes vacant?

Despite calls from within her own party to resign, Feinstein, who turns 90 next month and is the oldest member of Congress, has given no indication that she is considering stepping down. Her frail appearance, confused interactions with reporters in Washington and the growing list of health challenges disclosed by her office continue to fan questions about her fitness for the job  now and into the future.

Should a vacancy occur, a range of names, from obscure to famous  including Oprah Winfrey  have been floated in California circles as possible replacements. Newsom, who is mentioned as a possible future presidential contender, would also have to deal with political complexities, some of his own making: In 2021 he promised to appoint a Black woman should Feinstein's seat become open. Meanwhile, a 2024 Senate campaign is underway to fill the seat when the senators term ends in January 2025.

The situation has created a sad, public coda for the groundbreaking career of a Democratic leader who shattered gender barriers in California and Washington.

Heres a look at what could happen:

What is the status of Feinstein's health?

In short, much is unknown.

Feinstein returned to the Senate on May 10  about 10 weeks after being diagnosed, then briefly hospitalized, with shingles in San Francisco. On her return to the Capitol, she was markedly thinner and one side of her face was drooping, apparently from Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which can occur when the shingles virus reaches a facial nerve near the ears. It also can cause hearing loss.

On the advice of doctors, Feinstein's staff say she is working a lighter schedule as she deals with side effects from the virus, including vision and balance problems. She has been using a wheelchair to get to her office and committee meetings.

Questions have been raised in recent years about Feinstein's memory and mental acuity, though she has defended her effectiveness. Since her return to Washington, she has at times appeared confused during brief discussions with reporters. Her office also disclosed she suffered a bout of encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain, which can also be caused by shingles.

Feinstein's biographer Jerry Roberts told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Sunday that the senator has a belief in herself to the point of stubbornness, where nobody is going to tell her what she can or cannot do. She has tremendous belief and confidence in her own strength and her own ability.

Newsom's promise: Elevating a Black woman to Senate

When California Sen. Kamala Harris resigned to become vice president, Newsom faced pressure from both Black, Latino and other groups over a replacement pick. Some felt that he should replace Harris, the only Black woman in the U.S. Senate, with another Black woman. But others thought it was past time for California to have its first Latino senator, and Newsom chose then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla for the job.

But he later promised that if Feinstein's seat became vacant, he would choose a Black woman to replace her. Should Feinstein step aside, he'll be expected to make good on the promise.

He made the commitment and I do not believe there is any wiggle room for the governor not to honor his commitment, said Kerman Maddox, a Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist and fundraiser who is Black.

Newsom must honor his promise to appoint a Black woman" if Feinstein resigns, said Democratic Assemblymember Lori Wilson, who heads the Legislative Black Caucus in Sacramento. "I trust him at his word. We currently have zero Black women in the Senate, so if the opportunity becomes available the governor must act to help remedy this lack of representation.

Which way to turn  caretaker or contender?

In filling a Senate vacancy, Newsom has the authority to name a successor. He could even pick himself, though that is unlikely. State rules dictate when an election would have to be held.

Newsom's choices all run risks.

He could get entangled in the ongoing Senate campaign and choose one of the declared candidates to fill a Feinstein vacancy.

Another option would be to select a caretaker, and then leave it to voters to decide in next years election  someone who would hold the seat but is not a Senate candidate.

If he picked one of the declared Senate candidates, Newsom would unsettle the growing field and elevate that person to frontrunner status. U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, who is Black, is already running against fellow Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, who both are white.

Newsom said he was being swamped with recommendations for how to fill a possible Senate vacancy. He calls Feinstein a mentor and one of his closest friends, and said he was hoping he never had to make a decision to fill her seat.

I get it. For those who say, Enough of Newsom making these picks! I get it. I'm with you. I understand, he said.

Photos: Sen. Dianne Feinstein through the years
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Arnold Krubsack is likely taking some comfort in the old adage about lighting never striking twice, given the hassle that ensued after it struck once.

Krubsack, 84, was in the basement office of his Sun Prairie home on Sept. 7, 2021, when there was a loud bang accompanied by what seemed to be a momentary illumination of the office, he wrote SOS via snail mail on Feb. 28.

He didnt notice any immediate damage other than that his Wi-Fi was down, but the next day he discovered that his 2-year-old electric, self-driving Husqvarna 450XH lawn mower was not working.

He subsequently had Rick DeYoung of Madisons Homesteaders Store collect it for inspection, and DeYoung later told him that the mower and two associated components would need to be replaced, he said, having been damaged beyond repair by what Krubsack assumed was the lighting strike.

Krubsack said he didnt file a claim with State Farm for the mower until August of 2022 because he wasnt aware he could, and then realized he only had a year from the date of the lightning strike to make one.

The next month, State Farm told him he needed to submit further documentation, he said, which he did. Twice it asked him where the mower was, and twice he referred the company to Homesteaders, he said, and he submitted the documentation again after State Farm said it couldnt match the documents with his claim

Attention then turned to Homesteaders, Krubsack said, which according to the adjuster assigned to his case was not responding to State Farms inquiries. State Farm, Krubsack said, wanted him to take any photos of the equipment and gather any other necessary information from Homesteaders, all of which Krubsack said he tried to do, to no avail.

We discovered that any attempt for either (the adjuster) or me to contact Rick by phone was met with the same response, Krubsack wrote. Someone else would answer the phone and, when informed of who the caller was and why he was wanting to speak with Rick, we would be told that Rick was unavailable.

SOS was treated to much the same (non)response from Rick/Homesteaders, and State Farm, too, but after a slew of phone and electronic messages to the adjuster and other State Farm officials finally received a response on March 16 from public affairs employee Kim Kaufman. The company could not discuss the specifics of a claim due to our privacy policy, she said, but the matter had been routed to the appropriate area for follow up.

DeYoung, meanwhile, did not respond to messages left at Homesteaders on March 8 and March 15, nor to messages left on the stores website and Facebook page.

Krubsack then emailed SOS on March 22 to say hed just received a call from a manager at State Farms Bloomington, Illinois, headquarters, and while the company was again denying his claim due to lack of documentation from DeYoung, it was willing to reconsider if I can get the equipment back from Rick so that State Farm can examine it.

So I am going to drive out to Homesteaders this morning to see if I can get the equipment, he said.

The visit was not initially fruitful, as Krubsack said DeYoung refused to return the mower to him and said he was still doing his diagnostics work on the unit but might be able to make a statement to State Farm in a few days that the mowers damage was consistent with a lightning strike.

That statement to State Farm was finally sent, Krubsack said, and on May 3, he said he refiled his claim.

Two weeks later, Krubsack told SOS hed received a check from State Farm that also reimbursed him for other electrical repairs and equipment damaged in the lightning strike.

As I know your contacting Rick early on resulted in action on his part, so I suspect your contacting State Farm gave them some incentive to show that they had the customer at heart, he said.

Kaufman declined to comment on the resolution to Krubsacks case, but DeYoung returned SOS latest message, left May 22, on Thursday, saying its not an easy process to determine what damaged the mower.

It did take multiple efforts to get it done, he said.

Krubsack said he paid DeYoung more than $500 for those efforts.

Send us an SOS Since September 2007, SOS has helped save Wisconsin State Journal readers more than $225,989.09 and solved hundreds of problems. You can send an SOS using any of these methods: Email: sos@madison.com Online form: http://go.madison.com/sendSOS Phone: 608-252-6198 Mail: SOS, Wisconsin State Journal, P.O. Box 8058, Madison, WI 53708
 Flash

China, as a major developing country, is willing to make its due contribution in terms of supporting the multilateral trading system and promoting sustainable and inclusive trade development, Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said here at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) trade ministers meeting held from Thursday to Friday.

Supporting the multilateral trading system is an important tradition of APEC, noted Wang. As the reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is accelerating, Asia-Pacific economies should take an active part in promoting an early resumption of the dispute settlement mechanism, he added.

The economies should strive to complete negotiations on investment facilitation as soon as possible, substantively conclude negotiations on e-commerce within this year, and promote such initiatives as the prevention and control of plastic pollution, he said.

Meanwhile, economies in the Asia-Pacific region should strengthen cooperation and focus on areas of common concern and a high degree of consensus among members, pushing for practical outcomes at the 13th Ministerial Conference of the WTO, Wang said.

The Asia-Pacific region has always been the most dynamic, promising, and resilient in the global economy, but it also faces interference and challenges in its economic and trade development, Wang noted.

China calls on APEC economies to continue to uphold open regionalism, adhere to the main channel status of the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, unswervingly advance regional economic integration, and further deepen trade and investment cooperation, said Wang, adding that the opportunities and dividends brought by the integrated development of regional industrial and supply chains should be shared.

The economies should also give full play to the role of green and low-carbon development and digital economy as engines for sustainable and inclusive growth, actively carry out policy exchanges and coordination, technical assistance and capacity building, promote industrial cooperation and infrastructure investment, help developing and least developed economies better integrate into the development process, and help enterprises, especially the small and medium-sized ones, share development opportunities, he added.

On the sidelines of the APEC trade ministers meeting, Wang also attended the ministerial meeting between China and Digital Economy Partnership Agreement members, and met with WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and ministers of the United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia and other economies, exchanging views on bilateral and multilateral economic and trade issues.

The 2023 APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Statement of the Chair was issued during the meeting.
Police were dispatched just after 5 p.m. Saturday to an intersection near Thomson Park on Oregon's south side for a report of a man physically attacking another man in a vehicle, a statement from the Oregon Police Department said. When police made contact with the man assumed to be the agitator, he was uncooperative and threatened to kill officers and their police dog, the statement said.
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POLICING AND DIVERSITY | A LEE ENTERPRISES INVESTIGATION

Madison police Capt. Shannon Blackamore knows the key to recruiting a diverse police force is building relationships. He thinks about a criminal justice student of his at Upper Iowa University. They were both from the same part of Chicago, and a mentorship formed. Soon, the student, who like Black a more is Black, joined the Madison Police Department and has since been promoted to sergeant.

"Having him in the class and then seeing him apply and eventually promoted, that was phenomenal," Blackamore said.

Blackamore, who leads the Police Department's minority recruiting eff orts, said, at a minimum, the academy class should increase the number of diverse recruits by 10%. Ideally, he would like to have a class where the majority of recruits are diverse.

While there is still work to do, the department's demographics largely mirror the city's population.

Out of an analysis of 105 police departments in the U.S. conducted by Lee Enterprises, Madison is the fourth-most representative of the broader community.

The city is about 7% Black. The Police Department is about 9% Black. People of color make up 28% of the population and 23% of the police force.

After George Floyd was killed in 2020 by a Minneapolis police officer and massive protests decrying racist police practices broke out nationwide, the spotlight turned to the actions and racial makeup of policing agencies. Many vowed to become more representative of the communities they served.

While some Wisconsin law enforcement agencies have made progress, others still struggle. Milwaukee, Racine and Green Bay are among the least representative of the dozens of law enforcement agencies.

Some activists who have been critical of police say genuine progress is being made, but others who were at the front line of protests in 2020 say fixing racial inequities in the criminal justice system will take more than diversifying police forces.

They point to the killing of Tyre Nichols by five Black Memphis police officers in January. The officers face second-degree murder charges.

Bianca Gomez of Freedom Inc., a Madison social justice group that had a pivotal role in the 2020 protests, said boosting diversity in a police force does not get to the root cause of policing's disproportionate impact on Black people.

Freedom Inc. wants to see direct community control over the hiring and firing of police officers, Gomez said. The creation of Madison's Police Civilian Oversight Board, which can independently investigate the police department, is a step in the right direction but doesn't go far enough, she said.

"We need to not shift the people in the institution but shift the institution itself," Gomez said. "I think the call for more Black officers is nothing more than a public relations stunt."

Officers not representing or living in the neighborhoods they police continues to be one of the department's biggest problems, said Dennis Franklin of EXPO, a group that organizes people who have been previously incarcerated.

"If you're not part of a community, it's really unnerving for the residents in the community to feel comfortable with you," Franklin said.

Other cities: 'It's not perfect'

 As the deacon at the Divine Temple Church of God in Christ in Green Bay, Terry Cook has had a front row seat to relations between the city's police and its Black community.

His church has long held regular meetings with police officials. In those forums, citizens can ask law enforcement questions and lodge complaints.

In his nearly three decades living in Green Bay, Cook, 59, has heard complaints of Black people being targeted in traffic stops. But overall he feels police in the city are responsive to the community's concerns.

"It's not perfect, but they've treated the small nonwhite populations in the city fairly," Cook said.

Still, data from the Wisconsin Department of Justice shows that Black people in Green Bay make up a disproportionate percentage of those who get arrested.

Between 2017 and 2021, 25% of the people arrested in Green Bay were Black, according to DOJ data. The city is 4.4% Black, according to the U.S. Census.

The city's police force is overwhelmingly white: 93%.

Police Chief Chris Davis said his department has had "limited success" recruiting people of color. "It's always a priority and it's a struggle I think everywhere in the profession," Davis said, in part because of the "prevailing narrative" about policing in communities of color.

To uncover signs of hidden bias, the department has begun administering emotional intelligence tests to officer candidates, Davis said. A mental health response program, much like the CARES program in Madison, could serve the city well, he added. Currently, only three officers are trained in behavioral health response, but they do not directly respond to incidents in the field, Davis said.

 In Racine, Black people made up 62% of the city's arrests between 2017 and 2021, according to DOJ. The city is about 23% Black. Its police force is about 13% Black and 79% white.

To remedy gaps in the force, the city's police department is visiting historically Black colleges and universities for the first time in its history, Chief Maurice Robinson said.

"We believe that a department that is representative of its population demographics is perceived as fair and impartial in its citizen contacts," Robinson said.

"A department that is more racially and gender diverse is perceived as more sensitive to the needs of its citizens," he said.  In Kenosha, where the police shooting of Jacob Blake three months after Floyd's death grabbed national headlines and brought unrest, police officials said they have always worked to make inroads with the community.

But as in nearby cities, Kenosha police do not generally reflect the community. The force is 84% white, 5% Black and 9% Latino. The city is 64% white, 11% Black and 18% Latino. Of all the suspects police arrest, 41% of them are Black.

Lt. Joseph Nosalik said the department is "not naive to sometimes very distinct differences in culture, financial hardships and challenges" that parts of the community regularly face.

"We are out there every day with Kenosha," Nosalik said. "Police officers are not the villain that small groups or the media, at times, try to make us be because it fits a narrative or story."

Dane County: One piece of the pie

One of the largest law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin, the Dane County Sheriff's Office's more than 400-person agency is about 89% white, 5% Black and about 4% Latino. For comparison, Dane County is about 6% Black and 7% Latino.

But like so many other Wisconsin communities, the population of the Dane County Jail reflects the disproportionate impact the criminal justice system has on Black people in Madison and the broader community. On any given day, about 50% of the jail's population is made up of Black inmates.

While racial disparities in the justice system are undeniable, unaddressed socioeconomic conditions, which affect people of color the hardest, continue to be the root cause of crime, Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett said.

"The criminal justice system makes up a piece of the pie of society," Barrett said. "The community also has to focus on things such as affordable housing, affordable education, affordable mental health care, affordable medical care, transportation, entrepreneurship."

The county's first Black sheriff, Barrett has prioritized diversifying the force he took over in mid2021. Those ongoing efforts come amid dire staffing shortages. The Sheriff's Office has 51 vacancies. A fresh class of recruits, though a majority white, sworn in by Barrett in mid-March filled an additional 15 vacancies.

To chip away at those vacancies, the Sheriff's Office has overhauled its recruiting process. For the first time, the office is offering perks to recruits who have already worked in law enforcement. Those hires get streamlined through the training process and get their sick leave from previous jobs matched. Other perks for new hires include bonuses for recruits who have earned a college degree.

Other recruitment efforts in recent months focused on diversifying the force including visiting career fairs focused on women or people of color in Milwaukee, Platteville and Sun Prairie.

"Diversity is something we feel we can always improve on," Barrett said. "We have to identify, qualify and attract the best that's out there that has a servant mentality, meaning they want to come to a place where they are serving their community, serving their partners as well as serving those who are incarcerated in our jail."

Milwaukee: Still reaching out

To make better inroads in communities, other police departments in Wisconsin's major cities continue to emphasize the importance of community policing, though a full embrace of the practice is still underway.

In Milwaukee, ongoing fact-finding sessions are attempting to help the city's police develop standard operating procedures for its community policing rules.

The city's current police chief, Jeffrey Norman, has done a good job making community policing a priority, said Fred Royal, vice president of the NAACP's Milwaukee branch.

But the police force needs community policing rules so that the practice doesn't slide into disuse in the years and decades to come.

"They're at the table," Royal said of the city's police department. "I wish the political will would be more supportive. It tends to wane at times."

The community's ultimate goal is to put community groups in charge of responding to mental health issues and homelessness, Royal said. That would free up the police to focus more on serious crime in the city, he added.

"At the end of the day, if you don't change the culture in policing, and get away from that warrior mentality and become more of a community-oriented policing ... we're gong to have continued lawsuits and continued violations of use of force," Royal said.

City residents have given the police force a road map to bettering strained relations, particularly when it comes to making the force more diverse.

A 2019 report, drafted in response to a U.S. Department of Justice review of the city's police, recommended that the department needs to reflect the city's majority nonwhite community, engage the community in the recruitment process, create incentives for hiring and bring on more recruiters.

But four years later, the force remains about 64% white.

The city's civilian-controlled Police and Fire Commission handles the hiring of sworn staff, noted Assistant Chief Nicole Waldner.

The department collaborates with community groups during the training process, she said.

The department has one fulltime recruitment staffer, who collaborates with community liaison officers on recruiting at events, Waldner said.

"I think the community relates better to any kind of department that looks like them," she said.

The city's police force has shrunk over the past five years, from 1,917 officers in 2018 to 1,575 today, Waldner said. That hasn't really altered the racial demographics of the force, she added.

"If we could do better anywhere it would be outreach through social media," Waldner said. "How do we reach more people and convince them that it's as worthwhile as a factory job?"

Madison: Federal grant aids change

In Madison, the police department will soon add six community outreach officers thanks to a U.S. Department of Justice grant. That's on top of a different DOJ grant to establish a community policing advisory board.

"I hope it instills more trust," Black a more said. Too often, an officer will bring new ideas and strategies to his work in the community, only to have them disappear when he leaves the force or retires, he said. "What we want to do is reverse that trend and make sure that what the community is producing continues with our support," he said.

Community policing efforts in the city have plenty to take on. Like other Wisconsin cities, Black people make up a disproportionate amount of those arrested, 42% in 2021, according to Madison police data.

EXPO's Franklin has sat in on community policing panels with Madison police in recent months, something he called a new approach.

But like other activists and community leaders, Franklin doesn't see diversity as the only needed change for police. The city needs more resources to take on mental health problems and substance use, the root causes of crime, he said.

"I want to see action," Franklin said. "We can sit around a table all day. It's great we can identify what the problems are, but the elephant in the room is how do we go about tackling some of these issues?"

State Journal reporter Chris Rickert, Kenosha News reporters Daniel Gaitan and Joe States and the (Racine) Journal Times contributed to this report.
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Madison is pursuing an exciting plan to dramatically remake the Lake Monona waterfront Downtown.

Congratulations to city leaders, civic groups and the Sasaki design firm of Denver, which drafted the winning vision for a reimagined shoreline along John Nolen Drive and Monona Terrace. A key city committee and survey of more than 2,000 people recently endorsed the ambitious proposal over two other options.

The Sasaki design features an elevated Law Park above John Nolen Drive just north of Monona Terrace. The leafy and expanded park will connect Downtown to a boathouse, beach, pier, amphitheater, playground and waterfront restaurant. To the south of Monona Terrace, a pedestrian bridge, improved bike path and scenic overlooks will complement ecological restoration and respect for Ho Chunk tribal history.

Not since Monona Terrace was built a quarter century ago has the city dreamed so big about this space, which is underutilized. Its hard for pedestrians to get from Downtown to the Lake Monona waterfront now. Part of the shoreline north of Monona Terrace is even wasted on a surface parking lot.

But how will the city pay for such an elaborate proposal, which is estimated to cost between $150 million and $250 million? Thats a challenging question. Yet this much is clear: Every effort should be made to minimize financial impact on taxpayers.

Madison has always been lucky to have incredibly generous philanthropists. We hope a robust private fundraising campaign can help cover a sizeable portion of the expense. Already, the nonprofit Friends of Nolen Waterfront has paid for half of the $75,000 design grants that went to each of the three competing firms, including Sasaki.

Another way to raise money could be private development near the shoreline. Gov. Tony Evers has offered a smart plan to sell three state office buildings next to or within a couple blocks of Monona Terrace. Special tax districts could steer some of the tax revenue from private construction on the sites to waterfront improvements.

When Monona Terrace was built for $67 million by 1997, the state and county contributed to the expense, given the benefit the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired convention center offered all of Wisconsin in tourism and business. Partnerships with local, state and federal governments should be pursued. Already, the federal government is contributing more than $25 million to the reconstruction of the John Nolen causeway, which is related to the lakefront project, though that money wont pay for the Sasaki plan.

Madison also used its hotel tax to help pay for Monona Terrace. Raising money from tourists could be easily justified again.

Ultimately, a public referendum may be required for the Sasaki plan to break ground. Thats how Monona Terrace finally moved forward after more than a half century of delay.

Yet money alone wont get the job done. Madison, Dane County and other local governments must continue their hard work of protecting the Yahara chain of lakes from phosphorus pollution, which spawns algae and green, smelly muck. Nobody wants to recreate in that.

Climate change has increased the intensity of rainstorms, which wash phosphorus-laden manure off farm fields and into streams that lead to city lakes. Protecting wetlands and buffering the lakes from downpours is important. So is keeping leaves and other organic material out of city streets and storm sewers. We all play a role in that.

The Sasaki plan will take years to implement and may require changes. But overall, the inspired design deserves strong support  so long as it doesnt sink taxpayers.
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BILLINGS, Mont.  The U.S. government can keep using chemical retardant dropped from aircraft to fight wildfires, despite finding that the practice pollutes streams in western states in violation of federal law, a judge ruled Friday.

Halting the use of the red slurry material could have resulted in greater environmental damage from wildfires, said U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen in Missoula, Montana.

The judge agreed with U.S. Forest Service officials who said dropping retardant into areas with waterways was sometimes necessary to protect lives and property.

The ruling came after came after environmentalists sued following revelations that the Forest Service dropped retardant into waterways hundreds of times over the past decade.

Government officials say chemical fire retardant can be crucial to slowing the advance of dangerous blazes. Wildfires across North America have grown bigger and more destructive over the past two decades as climate change warms the planet.

More than 200 loads of retardant got into waterways over the past decade. Federal officials say those situations usually occurred by mistake and in less than 1% of the thousands of loads annually.

A coalition that includes Paradise, California  where a 2018 blaze killed 85 people and destroyed the town  had said a court ruling that stopped the use of retardant would have put lives, homes and forests at risk.

This case was very personal for us, Paradise Mayor Greg Bolin said. Our brave firefighters need every tool in the toolbox to protect human lives and property against wildfires, and todays ruling ensures we have a fighting chance this fire season.

State and local agencies lean heavily on the U.S. Forest Service to help fight fires, many of which originate or include federal land.

Fire retardant is a specialized mixture of water and chemicals including inorganic fertilizers or salts. Its designed to alter the way fire burns, making blazes less intense and slowing their advance.

That can give firefighters time to steer flames away from inhabited areas and in extreme situations to evacuate people from danger.

Retardant lasts and even works if its dry, said Scott Upton, a former region chief and air attack group supervisor for Californias state fire agency. Water is only so good because it dries out. It does very well to suppress fires, but it wont last.

The Oregon-based group Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics argued in its lawsuit filed last year that the Forest Service was disregarding the Act by continuing to use retardant without taking adequate precautions to protect streams and rivers.

Christensen said stopping the use of fire retardant would conceivably result in greater harm from wildfires  including to human life and property and to the environment. The judge said his ruling was limited to 10 western states where members of the plaintiffs group alleged harm from pollution into waterways that they use.

After the lawsuit was filed the Forest Service applied to the Environmental Protection Agency for a permit that would allow it to continue using retardant without breaking the law. The process could take several years.

Such a permit could require tighter restrictions on when retardant could be used or for officials to use less-toxic chemicals, said Andy Stahl with Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.

Its certainly a good first step, Stahl said.

Christensen ordered federal officials to report every six months on their progress.

Forest Service spokesperson Wade Muehlhof said the agency believes retardant can be used without compromising public health and the environment.

The Forest Service is working diligently with the Environmental Protection Agency on a general permit for aerially delivered retardant that will allow us to continue using wildfire retardant to protect homes and communities, Muehlhof said.

Climate change, people moving into fire-prone areas, and overgrown forests are creating more catastrophic megafires that are harder to fight.

Almost 150 million gallons of fire retardant were dropped on National Forest lands between 2013 and 2022, according to the Department of Agriculture. Retardant drops onto forests in California accounted for 49% of the total volume.

Health risks to firefighters or other people who come into contact with fire retardant are considered low, according to a 2021 risk assessment.

But the chemicals can be harmful to some fish, frogs, crustaceans and other aquatic species. A government study found misapplied retardant could adversely affect dozens of imperiled species, including crawfish, spotted owls and fish such as shiners and suckers.

Forest Service officials said they are trying to come into compliance with the law by getting a pollution permit but that could take years.

To keep streams from getting polluted, officials in recent years have avoided drops inside buffer zones within 300 feet (92 meters) of waterways. Retardant may only be applied inside those zones when human life or public safety is threatened. Of 213 instances of fire retardant landing in water between 2012 and 2019, 190 were accidents and the remainder were necessary to save lives or property, officials said.

Many areas of the Western U.S. experienced heavy snowfalls this past winter, and as a result fire dangers are lower than in recent years across much of the region.
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Kimberly High School sent 122 graduates off in their commencement ceremony on Thursday.

This past year saw students at the school rack up numerous distinctions. The graduating class included a record-high 17 valedictorians, and 10 students received associates degrees along with their diplomas.

Looking toward the future, students received more than 100 scholarships toward the next step in education.

We have some kids really going different places, Principal Darin Gonzales told the Times-News. Kids are taking more chances.

There are several academic organizations that have high participation this year, including FFA and the Business Professionals of America, both of which had strong showings at national events this spring.

Counselor Jolene Nannini said that, during the commencement ceremony, most teachers really cheer for the kids that werent sure if they would make it.

For a lot of teachers, the high point is watching those kids cross the stage that maybe have had a tough row to hoe, Nannini said. It took a lot of people supporting that child to get to that finish line. For us, of course were super proud of those high-achievers, but I think for all of us those ones that have had a life of struggle, those hold a special place in all of our hearts.

Ranching ambition

The Times-News on Friday caught up with Student of the Year Jace Hall, who is also a valedictorian and the student body vice president, between graduation parties.

Now that the ceremony is behind him, Hall said the reality that high school was finished was beginning to set in.

He said he was headed past the school on his way to a graduation party when he caught himself getting ready to turn into the lot.

I was like, Oh, hey! I dont have to go here today, Hall told the Times-News.

Hall served as district FFA vice president and has the next few years planned out to build his agriculture and economics experience. Hell be in north Texas for two years at Clarendon College to do competitive livestock judging at the collegiate level. From there, he wants to build further agribusiness skills that will allow him to return to the Magic Valley and contribute to his familys ranching business.

Hall said school-based clubs such as FFA and BPA were one of the keys to his preparation.

Through those school-based organizations, Ive kinda set myself up for the future, Hall said.

He said leadership roles in FFA have showed him how to improve his time management.

That taught me how to juggle a bunch of different things all at once and still do them all very well, Hall said.

Its unlikely hell take it easy this summer. The State FFA competitions take place in Moscow in mid-June, and he has other leadership trainings scheduled. If he finds himself with time on his hands, he said hell pitch in to help his with fathers cattle feeding business and livestock grazing.

Never missed a day of school. Not one

Graduating senior Ryan Thompson went from kindergarten through senior year without ever missing a day of school.

Some kids feign illness to try and get out of school for a day. Not Thompson.

Unassuming and modest, Thompson downplayed his achievement in an interview with the Times-News.

I dont really get super sick, Thompson said.

His older brother Devin went from second grade through senior year without missing a day, and Thompson said that motivated him.

I think because my brother also did it, I think I was kind of inspired by that, Thompson said.

(Ryan) just kind of lucked out, his mother Aileen told the Times-News. Hes not sick very much, and then as he got older he was like, Well, Im not going to miss now.

Thompson said his favorite parts of school were hanging out with friends, and studying history.

Thompson was presented a certificate from Kimberly School District at the senior awards and recognition ahead of graduation. He said he plans to take courses at College of Southern Idaho next year and is interested in digital media.
The Twin Falls County Sheriffs Office asks that anyone with information please call 208-735-1911 or Crime Stoppers at 208-343-2677, where they can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a cash reward. Tips can be made at www.343cops.com or download P3 Tips on your mobile phone.
Democrats and Republicans seemed within grasping distance Saturday of a deal to end the US debt ceiling standoff, with both sides playing hardball in the final race for an agreement to avert a potentially catastrophic default.

President Joe Biden gave the strongest sign yet on Friday night that the drama in Washington might be drawing to an end  saying an agreement was very close.

And Republican congressional leader Kevin McCarthy sounded positive as negotiators reconvened Saturday morning, telling reporters on Capitol Hill I feel we can get there.

But by around noon, as the clock toward a calamitous national default ticked down, McCarthy offered a cloudier assessment: I dont know about today.

Democrats reportedly drew a red line at Republican demands for tougher work requirements in exchange for social aid that they say would kill party support for a deal.

In his morning briefing McCarthy acknowledged negotiators were not there yet  but said he was confident of meeting the critical June 5 deadline for a deal.

That is the day when, short of an accord allowing it to keep borrowing, the US government says it will run out of money to pay its bills  raising the prospect of a default that would likely trigger a recession and send shock waves through the global economy.

I feel closer to an agreement now than I did a long time before, McCarthy added, saying: Some things we just have to finish out.

McCarthy said once a deal is reached, he will give legislators 72 hours before bringing the bill to a vote. He added Saturday morning that the bill would not be lengthy, likely somewhere in the vicinity of 150 pages.

The dreaded June 5 deadline is four days later than a previous X-date, but still guarantees that  even with a deal this weekend  it will be a frantic race to get a bill through Congress in less than 10 days.

And winning bipartisan support for its adoption will test the skills of party whips, with grumblings already on both sides over the concessions being made.

The deal believed to be taking shape would include an agreement to extend the governments borrowing authority for two years, meaning no repeat of the current drama before the 2024 presidential election.

But Democrats would have to offer some ground on Republican demands for sweeping spending limits on social safety and other domestic programs  most controversially a demand that those applying for benefits like food assistance work for them.

 Hostage-taking accusation 

The White House has pushed back hard, accusing Republicans of putting at risk over eight million jobs unless they can take food out of the mouths of hungry Americans.

McCarthy earlier set the tone for the final-stretch negotiations by reposting a clip of himself telling reporters:

I do not think its right that you borrow money from China to pay people to stay home that are able bodied with no dependents on the couch.

That is not the American way. That is not what we believe.

Members of Congress left for a 10-day recess at the start of the long Memorial Day weekend  with Biden himself, to the consternation of some in his own party, spending the weekend at his Camp David retreat, then his home in Delaware.

Economists have spent months raising the prospect of economic catastrophe should the government default, but both the White House and Republican leadership insist they are negotiating in good faith and are confident a deal will be reached in time.

McCarthy has said lawmakers would get 24 hours notice if they are required to return to Washington for a vote.

The debt ceiling raise is an annual accounting maneuver that usually passes with little notice. It simply allows the government to keep borrowing money to pay for bills already incurred through the budget.

This year, the increasingly hard-right Republican Party has decided to turn the debt ceiling into leverage to force Biden to roll back favorite Democratic spending priorities.

Republicans call this taking responsibility for the $31 trillion national debt. The White House accuses the opposition party, which controls the House of Representatives, of taking the economy hostage.

The Treasury Department said its cash balance fell on Thursday to $38.8 billion  which observers noted was less than the net worth of several dozen of the worlds wealthiest people, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

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Sudans army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has accused UN special envoy Volker Perthes of stoking a brutal conflict with paramilitaries, the latest in a series of apparent moves to bolster his war effort.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said he was shocked by Burhans letter, which requested the nomination of a replacement to Perthes and accused him of committing fraud and disinformation in facilitating a political process which broke down into six weeks of devastating urban warfare.

Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, were meant to meet for negotiations facilitated by the UN on April 15, the day they turned Khartoum into a war zone.

The meeting aimed to restore a transition to civilian rule disrupted since 2021 when Burhan and Daglo together seized power in a coup before falling out. As their feud worsened, the international community tried to get them to reach a deal on integration of Daglos RSF into the regular army.

Since late last year Perthes and the UN mission in Sudan, which he heads, have been the target of several protests by thousands of military and Islamist supporters who accused Perthes of foreign intervention and demanded his dismissal.

Similar protests have taken place in the eastern city of Port Sudan since the war started.

Perthes had maintained his optimism and said the war took him by surprise.

In the letter, Burhan accused Perthes of bias and of not respecting national sovereignty.

He said Perthes presented a misleading picture of consensus in his reports to the UN, and without these signs of encouragement, the rebel leader Daglo would not have launched his military operations.

It has never, however, been possible to verify who fired the first shots.

The fighting across Sudan has killed more than 1,800 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

 We cannot look away 

The United Nations says more than a million people have been displaced within Sudan, in addition to 319,000 who have fled to neighbouring countries, raising concerns for regional stability.

If the generals truly cared for their people they would stop fighting now, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said during a visit to Egypt where more than 132,000 refugees have arrived.

George Clooney, the actor and longtime advocate for human rights in Sudan, called on the international community to up its focus.

We cannot look away, he said.

In a statement from UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, Guterres said he was shocked by the letter from Burhan and proud of the work done by Volker Perthes and reaffirms his full confidence in his Special Representative.

A one-week ceasefire brokered by the US and Saudi Arabia expires Monday night.

In a joint statement on Friday, the mediators noted improved respect for the agreement but said there was nevertheless isolated gunfire in Khartoum.

Burhan last week officially sacked Daglo as his deputy in the ruling Sovereign Council, replacing him with former rebel leader Malik Agar.

But even after reports of Burhans letter emerged, Agar said he had spoken to Perthes about ways to resolve the crisis and end the war.

The army is now also seeking to reinforce its ranks. On Friday the defence ministry called on army pensioners and reservists to head to command units, which the RSF called a dangerous decision.

 Islamist litmus test 

Perthes is currently in New York, where last Monday he briefed the Security Council on Sudan. He responded to those who accuse the UN by saying those responsible are the two generals at war.

Perthes may not be allowed back into Sudan, according to Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair, founder of Khartoum-based think tank Confluence Advisory.

His visa will be a litmus test to gauge the resurgence of the Islamists, she wrote on Twitter.

She and other analysts have said the international community, in efforts to broker a political solution for Sudan before the war, was guilty of appeasing the two generals.

Pro-democracy voices have long accused Burhan of being a Trojan horse for Islamists from the regime of strongman Omar al-Bashir, whom the military ousted in 2019 after mass protests.

Several high-ranking officials from the Bashir era have found roles in Burhans administration since the coup.

During the fighting Burhans backing has only grown clearer, including a web of crony-capitalist corporations, from banks and telecom companies owned by Islamists and intelligence officers to companies owned by the military itself, according to Sudan expert Alex de Waal.

Daglo himself has called Burhan an Islamist and a coup plotter intent on reviving the vestiges of the old regime.

Daglo, whose RSF are descendants of the notorious Janjaweed militia unleashed by Bashir in Darfur, has links to gold mines and de Waal has said he has thrived in an environment where money and guns determine everything.

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Lebanese citizens detained in the United Arab Emirates since March have been freed, Lebanons foreign affairs ministry said in a statement Saturday  weeks after a fellow national died in custody.

Lebanons ambassador to Abu Dhabi informed his ministry of the release of all 10 Lebanese detainees arrested in the UAE about two months ago, the statement said.

The group of 10 were detained in March and accused of having links to Lebanons Shiite movement Hezbollah, which Abu Dhabi classifies as a terrorist organisation, said Afif Shoman, a spokesman for the relatives of Lebanese detained in the UAE.

They have been freed but remain in the UAE, he said.

One of the detainees, Ghazi Ezzedine, died in custody on May 4, prompting a backlash from rights groups including Amnesty International.

The nine remaining detainees were released after backlash and a media campaign following the death of Ezzedine, Shoman said, adding that his body had not yet been returned to his family.

UAE authorities have offered no comment on the matter and its foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ezzedine, aged in his 50s, had been living in the Gulf state for some three decades until his arrest on unknown charges on March 22, along with his two brothers, Amnestys Sima Watling said at the time.

Following his death, authorities waited days to notify his family, only doing so to ask his son to identify the body and then allowing only Ezzedines face to be seen, Watling said.

It appears that the UAE authorities are trying to hide the real cause of the death and shrouding the case with secrecy, she added.

In recent years, the UAE has expelled or sentenced to jail a number of Lebanese Shiites over alleged ties to Hezbollah.

In May 2019, an Emirati court sentenced a Lebanese man to life imprisonment and two compatriots to 10 years in prison on charges of planning attacks for Hezbollah.

Five other Lebanese Shiite Muslims were acquitted of the charge of planning to carry out attacks for the group.

Amnesty said at the time that the absence of basic requirements of a fair trial, such as having access to a lawyer stripped that verdict of any reliability or credibility.

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Thirty elderly women kidnapped by separatists in Cameroons restive anglophone region a week ago after protesting against taxes levied by them have been freed, a government official told AFP Saturday.

The women were released on the evening of May 23, three days after they were abducted in the mostly English-speaking Northwest region, said Denis Omgba Bomba, head of the communication ministrys National Media Observatory.

The elderly women were kidnapped by heavily-armed terrorists in the village of Kedjom Keku a day after taking part in protests against monthly taxes demanded by the separatists, local officials said earlier this week.

They also said the women had been severely tortured.

The government typically uses the phrase terrorists in connection with armed insurgents from the majority-francophone countrys English-speaking minority, who are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

A mayor in the region confirmed the release of the hostages to AFP, asking to remain anonymous.

Omgba Bomba said he did not want to give further details on the womens release or their condition, except to specify that one had a broken leg.

He also said that originally around 50 women were kidnapped and severely beaten but released the same day.

The next morning the rebels returned and kidnapped 30 women.

The women had demonstrated against monthly taxes of 10,000 CFA francs ($17) for men and 5,000 for women levied by the insurgents, according to the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa.

 Taxes 

The rebels have said they levy the taxes to finance their war effort for independence.

Violent clashes erupted in late 2016, after which militants calling themselves Amba boys declared an independent state in the Northwest and Southwest regions, home to most of the anglophone minority.

The conflict has claimed more than 6,000 lives and forced more than a million people to flee their homes, according to the International Crisis Group.

Both the separatists and government forces have been accused of atrocities in the fighting.

Armed groups are regularly accused of abducting, killing or injuring civilians whom they accuse of collaborating with Cameroonian authorities.

NGOs and the UN accuse the government of repressing dissent in the English-speaking areas as well as clamping down hard on political opponents.

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 Flash

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani (L, back) attends the signing ceremony of energy deals with companies from China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Baghdad, Iraq, on Feb. 21, 2023. Iraq on Tuesday signed deals with two Chinese companies and a UAE firm to develop six oil and gas fields as part of its efforts to increase the production of much-needed natural gas for power plants. (Geo-Jade Petroleum Corporation/Handout via Xinhua)

Aqil Hamdan, a professor at Baghdad-based al-Mustansiriyah University, said China could play a vital role in Iraq's post-war reconstruction, particularly through the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).



Saying infrastructure in Iraq was dilapidated after decades of wars, sanctions, and economic woes, the professor believed "Chinese companies can meet Iraq's urgent need for foreign investment, technology, and equipment" to restore its economy.

"We need the BRI, for it is a project that builds roads and bridges and promotes development in industrial and medical areas, as well as in residential cities," Hamdan said, noting Western countries illegally invaded and occupied his country whereas China brings an answer to prosperity.

"China does not occupy any country," Hamdan said, highlighting that China develops relations with other countries based on "mutual benefit and common destiny."

Calling Iraq "a natural partner of China" due to its central location on the ancient Silk Road, Hamdan believed cooperation between China and Iraq can "promote the connectivity of Asian, European and African continents."

Hamdan is also an active member of a local non-governmental organization called "The Popular Movement of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Port of al-Faw," which supports Chinese investment in the country's al-Faw Great Port project.

Being active in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces, the organization's members include former government officials, scholars, entrepreneurs, and workers.

Anwar al-Bahadli, another member of the organization, who had once worked at the Iraqi embassy in Beijing for four years, described China's achievements since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001 as "qualitative breakthroughs."

He said, "Iraq must take the 'Chinese train of growth' as it is the best solution to tackle its own problems."

The BRI was first put forward in 2013, seeking to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks to improve regional integration, increase trade and stimulate economic growth.

Ten years on, the initiative has developed into a beacon of economic growth with more than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations signing cooperation documents under the BRI framework.

Haider al-Rubaie, head of the Iraqi-Chinese Friendship Association, hailed the BRI as "a joint development initiative that helps the world to achieve justice, peace, and security."

He noted that more and more Chinese entrepreneurs have come to invest in Iraq and more fruits are expected to be borne in bilateral cooperation.

"We (the association) are getting busier because of the closer relationship between the two countries," al-Rubaie told Xinhua.

He stressed that the friendship and cooperation between Iraq and China should not be destroyed by lies and hostile policies from Western countries against the BRI.

Lauding the BRI as a development program for the whole world, al-Rubaie said China "helps the world to be one home, one village, so that there is no difference between Iraq and China, for we are all friends and brothers."
The Philippines needs a new hard-hitting independent watchdog against rampant police corruption and misconduct, Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel on Sunday said.

The illegal drug trade in particular is clearly having a monstrous corruptive influence on police officers, and we must counteract this, he said. Our sense is, we need a tougher watchdog that can swiftly carry out administrative and criminal investigations of police wrongdoing without fear or favor.

Pimentel is the vice chairperson of the good government and public accountability committee.

Recent House and Senate inquiries have put a spotlight on the alleged complicity of police officers in drug trafficking, including the theft of confiscated shabu supplies that are sold for cash and recycled back into the market.

At least 49 senior and junior officers, including a general and five colonels, have been implicated in the alleged whitewash of unlawful and unethical police actions during a controversial P6.7-billion shabu bust in Manila.

Pimentel said Congress must pass new legislation that would totally detach the Internal Affairs Service from the Philippine National Police (PNP).

We should separate the IAS from the PNP, and put the service directly under the control of the Secretary of the Interior and Local Government, he said.

This way, the IAS can forcefully and freely operate without getting swayed by any consideration of the officers involved, he noted.

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A top Canadian official also concluded that China sought to interfere in Canadas 2019 and 2021 elections

Toronto, CanadaThe Chinese diaspora has been caught in the crossfire of Ottawas row with Beijing over its alleged meddling in Canadas affairsfacing both intimidation from Chinese operatives and rising stigmatization.

And each new spat between their ancestral home and adoptive countrythe latest being tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats in Maybrings additional stress for the community.

Many people in Torontos historic Chinatown, where Canadas maple leaf symbol can be seen on Chinese-language signs posted above busy stores and food marts, appeared uneasy to speak on the record about recent racism and threats.

Allegations of harassment have been described by rights activists and Canadas ethnic minorities, and documented by Amnesty International in recent years.

Some have accused Chinese undercover agents or proxies of intimidating Chinese Canadians by vowing retribution against their relatives back home.

What they do is they use family ties to China or Hong Kong to threaten you, Cheuk Kwan, co-chair of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China, told AFP recently.

Kwan, clad in a black leather jacket, said this includes death threats, verbal intimidation, or something as simple as saying: We know where your parents live.

Dilnur Anwar, a Uyghur who fled persecution in China and moved to Canada in 2019, has experienced such calls firsthand for years on an almost daily basis.

I blocked the (phone) numbers but it doesnt change anything because they call all the time using other numbers, said the woman, who now lives in Montreal.

Sometimes Im asked to come to the embassy, sometimes its an automated message, she explained.

Im very worried because I havent heard from my family in six years.

We have lived in fear

Ottawa and Beijing have been at loggerheads since 2018, when a Huawei executive was arrested on a US warrant in Vancouver and two Canadian nationals were detained in China in apparent retaliation.

Then there was the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese spy balloons over North America, clandestine Chinese police stations discovered in Canadian cities and allegations of Beijings interference in Canadas elections.

Canadas Chinese immigrants and their descendants often endure extra scrutiny amid such controversies.

We will always be deemed to be from China, even though many of us have no connections with China, lamented Amy Go, co-founder of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice.

In the past, we have lived in fear, several dozen Chinese-Canadian associations wrote in an open letter recalling discrimination faced by early Chinese immigrants to North America.

Today, lets not let it happen again.

In recent years, the social pressure exerted on members of our community is such that it is difficult to remain insensitive to it, they continued, pointing to diplomatic tensions that are now having a direct impact on our community.

The first immigrants from China settled in Canada more than 200 years ago. Several waves followed, notably at the end of the 19th century to help build Canadas transcontinental railway.

The Canadian Pacific Railroad united a nascent country, but at a severe cost: Hundreds of Chinese workers died from accidents, winter cold, illness and malnutrition.

Today nearly 1.7 million Canadians, almost five percent of the population, trace their roots to China, census figures show.

Tip of the iceberg

There is an urgent need for Ottawa to act to stem a recent rise in racism, many members of the community believe.

It is also important that the government ensure that Canadians, but also newcomers, are not interviewed (by Chinese agents) or potentially exposed to risks or threats from foreign countries, said Go.

Ottawa has been gripped of late by revelations that a Canadian MP, Michael Chong, and his relatives in Hong Kong were targeted by Beijing for sanctions over his strong criticisms of China.

On Tuesday, a top Canadian official also concluded that China sought to interfere in Canadas 2019 and 2021 elections.

Beijing has rejected both accusations as groundless slander and defamation, and warned Ottawa against seeking to sabotage relations with its second-largest trading partner.

Meanwhile, intimidation like that faced by Anwar, the Uyghur woman in Montreal, might be more extensive than realized, the Toronto associations Kwan said.

This sort of behavior by China is only the tip of the iceberg, he suggested. We dont see 90 percent of the iceberg.

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Standing firm against hunger, Globe launches the Longest Hapag a five-month nationwide food festival series. The campaign kicks off in time for the commemoration of World Hunger Day this May 28, amplifying the global call to eradicate chronic hunger.

This initiative is part of the Globe-led Hapag Movement, which aims to help address the staggering problem of involuntary hunger among 13.5 million Filipinos. The advocacy raises funds and spreads awareness about the problem while empowering communities to create sustainable livelihood.

Involuntary hunger is one of the critical societal challenges of our time. With the Longest Hapag, we are leveraging strategic partnerships and collective effort to confront the hunger problem that continues to affect our nation, said Yoly Crisanto, Globe Group Chief Sustainability and Corporate Communications Officer.

The campaign calls on restaurants, food chains, chefs, commercial centers, brands and civic organizations to mount fundraising efforts through their food offerings to support the Hapag Movement. This united front will create a ripple effect of change, reflecting the campaigns core message: Be part of the Longest Hapag and help make a difference.

The Longest Hapag will also align with local food festivals across the country, ultimately culminating on World Food Day on October 16, 2023.

Chef Jessie Sincioco is the first culinary expert turned advocate who supported the Hapag Movement. She launched a special Hapag menu where half of proceeds go to the implementing partners and their family beneficiaries. The Longest Hapag campaign was inspired by Sinciocos project Chefs Unite, which seeks to encourage chefs from around the world to support the Hapag Movement. Chefs Sau del Rosario and Kay Carreon have signed up to support the movement.

With successful fundraising activities such as the recent Hapag ni LuzViMinda fund-raising dinner, and Chef Kays generous contribution of her book proceeds, Chefs Unite exemplifies the profound impact that the culinary industry can have on the cause.

Despite a slight decrease in food insecurity to 9.8%, hunger remains higher than pre-pandemic levels in the Philippines. It ranks 67th out of 113 countries in the 2022 Global Food Security Index, falling below the global average. As such, Globes efforts aim not just to alleviate immediate hunger but also to address these long-term challenges.

We invite everyone to be a part of the Longest Hapag and make a tangible difference. By working together, we can help families conquer the problem of involuntary hunger and help uplift the lives of our fellow Filipinos, Crisanto added.

The Hapag Movement brings life-enabling support through supplemental feeding and livelihood opportunities to hunger-afflicted communities through its mobilization partners Ayala Foundation Inc., Caritas Philippines, Scholar of Sustenance, Tzu Chi Foundation and World Vision.

For more information about the Longest Hapag movement and how to get involved, email us at globeofgood@globe.com.ph or visit the Hapag Movement website. #UniteForHapag.

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Michael Sanguedolce is a self-taught jack of all trades who enjoys woodworking, welding, sculpting, metal detecting and historical research.

Sanguedolce is from New York, though he lived in a range of locations before he ended up in Virginia. After graduating high school, Sanguedolce took classes at the Institute of Design and Construction in Brooklyn, New York before working briefly for an architect.

He married Kathi Sanguedolce 52 years ago and they have two daughters, Lisa and Jennifer; four grandchildren, Joshua, Mikey, Lily Rose and Jacob; one great-grandchild, Magnolia Jayne; and two other great-grandchildren on the way.

He retired in 2004 from the United States Post Office after 32 years of service.

My plan is to be retired longer than I worked for them, Sanguedolce said. Hes over halfway to that goal after 20 years of being retired.

After he retired, the couple sold their house and moved to Texas where they lived until 2011. While there, he drove a school bus for six years.

He also worked for around two years at two different barbecue restaurants in Memphis, Tennessee, where he lived from 2011 to 2013, and gained a love for cooking barbecue in the process. From 2013 to 2015 they lived again in Texas, where he ran an auction house.

They sold the business and their home to travel the country in a mobile home for a few years, only missing North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado.

He moved to Martinsville five years ago after doing thorough research on surrounding areas to find the perfect place for him and his family to move to. He said while looking into the area he found incredibly fascinating history.

Even though hes been retired for a while now, he still keeps very busy.

One of the things he does to keep busy is metal-detecting. He is part of Henry County Metal Detectors, a local group, and said he uses items he finds on outings for historical research on the area.

He started metal-detecting while living in Tennessee with a metal-detecting club there. He put his metal detector aside for several years until he moved to Martinsville in 2018.

Its a very interesting hobby because of the research, he said. Every place I walk, Im always thinking What is under my feet?, What was here before me?

Sanguedolce also works as an archivist for the Martinsville-Henry County Historical Society, spending around 25 to 30 hours a week at the museum going through items that havent been archived in a long time.

Since being in Martinsville, Sanguedolce has also taken up for another cause: making sure that the roads are safe for local people. He does this through the Martinsville Transportation Safety Commission, a group of concerned citizens who want to improve pedestrian experiences.

The group speaks with city officials to try to solve problems and even got fast results to one issue with the placement of new road signs in multiple places. They meet once a month at the Martinsville Police Department and have grown from a group of three people to a board of seven. A current issue he says they are looking into is parking in uptown.

Sanguedolce said that a main aspect of this committee is talking about the issues with residents so that the issues are known and solutions can be found. The main goals are to slow down traffic and give pedestrians a place to cross, walk and sit.

I do that with the things Im passionate about, Sanguedocle said. I talk about barbecue, I talk about the traffic committee, I talk about metal-detecting and Ill talk about church. Those are the things that were looking to develop here.

If I dont, I get nowhere, he added.
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TODAYS WORD is sentient. Example: Out of respect for all sentient beings, some people only eat plant-based foods.

FRIDAYS WORD was kith. It means ones friends and relations. Example: Today we welcome kith and kin to this joint celebration that honors both Kylies graduation and Pappys 100th birthday

New books

These are the new books that were put into circulation last week at the Blue Ridge Regional Library:

Liar! by Fern Michaels

The Poisoners Ring: a Rip Through Time Novel by Kelley Armstrong

Dead Drop: a Handler Thriller by M.P. Woodward

The Senators Wife by Liv Constantine

Tom Clancy Flash Point: a Jack Ryan Jr. Novel by Don Bentley

Identity by Nora Roberts

Mrs. Nashs Ashes by Sarah Adler

A Novel Disguise: a Lady Librarian Mystery by Samantha Larsen

The Great American Burger Book: How to Make Authentic Regional Hamburgers at Home by George Motz

Rangeley

A live music show could be coming to Rangeley, thanks to the Rangeley Ruritan Club. At the clubs recent meeting, it was decided that Rick Huffman will get a band to put on a show in August or September.

The members have been busy at the building. Rick Huffman, Phillip Earles, Jim McMillen and Dwayne Tuggle removed the old leaking water heater and put in a new one. New water lines and locks will be coming next. One of the locks will be programmable so that people renting the building can get in easily.

These improvements are made possible thanks to the donations people give when the go to the clubs breakfasts.

Ann Huffman created a Facebook page for the club, so everyone can see what they are up to.

Todays chuckle

The science teacher told the class, Oxygen is a requirement for breathing and thus for life. It was discovered in 1773. The student replied, Thank goodness I was born after 1773. I would have died without it.

When you die, you should donate your brain to science. I hear theyre always trying to come up with the perfect vacuum.

Why cant you trust an atom? Because they make up everything.

Want to hear a potassium joke? K.

What did the 30-degree angle say to the 90-degree angle? You think youre always right.

FRIDAYS TRIVIA ANSWER: Food Lion was started in 1967 in North Carolina as Food Town. Did you ever shop at a Food Town, or was it only ever Food Lion by the time you encountered it? It took on the name Food Lion in 1983 because it was expanding into Virginia, and there already were several stores in the Richmond area called Food Town. It chose Lion instead of Town for the name because a lion was the logo of Delhaize, the Belgium-based company which had bought Food Town in 1974.

TODAYS TRIVIA QUESTION: Food Lion tried to expand internationally from 1997 to 2004, but it didnt work out. In what country was Food Lion trying to get a foothold?
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Heres what happened locally on May 28 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:

100 years ago: All can not go to Blacksburg this summer; there the V.P.I Short Course will be brought to the Henry county boys and girls during the early part of July at the Round-About Club House. There will be classes and experiments under the supervisions and instruction of V.P.I. Short Course instructors. These classes will be conducted at specified periods.

75 years ago: Sgt. F.L. Pugh of the State Highway Convict camp at Stanleytown said today the two convicts who escaped from a road force north of Fieldale yesterday were still at large. Sergeant Pugh said the two men were trailed by bloodhounds brought there from Halifax county until 4 oclock yesterday afternoon, when their trail was lost.

50 years ago: The newly elected officers of the Student Government Association of Patrick Henry Community College were installed Tuesday in a ceremony at the college. From the left, the 1973-74 officers are Jim Smith, president; David Smith, vice president; Rocky Nolen, treasurer; and Gail Fretwell, secretary.

Also 1973: Virgil H. Goode, former Franklin County commonwealths attorney, told a 26th annual Memorial Day crowd at Roselawn Burial Park Sunday that no tribute of homage can every pay the debt owed Americas dead war heroes.

25 years ago: A passion for writing has earned Martinsville High School students first place in the Virginia High School League creative writing contest. A portfolio of poems, essays and short stories by six students from Linda Pulliams advanced placement English class was judged first in the state out of 63 high school entries. Senior Courtney Stone received a first-place nod for a short story, while seniors Katie Cox and Lauren Grice scooped up second place and third place for poetry, respectively.

Today in Martinsville-Henry County history: Friday, May 26 1923: The apple crop after a freeze; 1948, clinic for crippled children in Stuart; 1973, Bassett MVPs; 1998 and Brandon Hall recuperating; 1998, Bo Brown column excerpt. 1923: The apple crop after a freeze; 1948, clinic for crippled children in Stuart; 1973, Bassett MVPs; 1998 and Brandon Hall recuperating; 1998, Bo Brown column excerpt.

Today in Martinsville-Henry County history: Thursday, May 25 1923, American Legion for ex-service men; 1948, new school near Irisburg and also Henry Co. Tuberculosis Association; 1973, construction of US 220-58 bypass to begin; 1998, program in Sandy Level.
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If you read my column somewhat regularly, you no doubt know of my affection for the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

The route I take to get there lets me know Im almost there when I hit the bridge that crosses the Alligator River and then the larger bridge that crosses the water at Manns Harbor and ends on the island of Manteo and Wanchese.

While crossing this body of water, to the south is the Pamlico Sound and to the North is the Albermarle Sound.

You might know that the Roanoke River basin begins in the Blue Ridge Mountains, to our west, and eventually empties in the Albermarle Sound.

Back in the early 90s, Virginia Beach and the surrounding area were starving for an increased water supply. The solution they proposed was to build a 76-mile pipeline from Lake Gaston, a man made reservoir between the Kerr and Gaston dams that stretches through five counties in two states.

I remember Ward Armstrong and Roscoe Reynolds, Martinsville lawyers who were in the thick of Virginia politics at the time, arguing against the proposal, but in the end, the pipeline proponents won and since 1997, approximately 60 million gallons flow from the Roanoke River Basin every day through this pipeline.

All of this came to mind when I read an article by ABC News on Thursday about how water stored in half of the largest lakes and reservoirs around the world is declining.

Whether you blame over damming of the waterways, increased human consumption or climate change, the fact is this: Global measurements of nearly 2,000 of the worlds largest lakes and reservoirs from 1992 to 2020 show a decline of roughly 22 gigatonnes a year.

Hydrologists says thats enough to directly affect a quarter of the worlds population because the rapid decline is turning freshwater into hypersaline that is no longer suitable for drinking.

When you consider lakes only cover 3% of the global land area, scientists say they hold 87% of the planets liquid surface fresh water.

I regularly cover the Henry County Public Service Authoritys monthly board meetings, and most often Im the only reporter in the room.

Most of the meetings consist of the various departments sharing mundane reports of the previous months activities, but in August, PSA Manager Dale Wagoner notified the members that the PSA was pursuing an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to ensure an adequate water supply for Henry County for the next 50 years.

Considering the state of the worlds water supply, this news could quite possibly be the most significant story of this generation.

Its probably all we will ever need, and it wont even be noticeable, said Wagoner at that meeting. It will carry us well into the future.

Philpott Dam was built in 1952, and it resulted in the creation of Philpott Lake. Philpott feeds the Smith River, a tributary to the Dan River, which is part of the Roanoke River Basin.

The Corps estimated a new water supply reservoir for Henry County could cost nearly half a billion dollars, but by simply reallocating a small portion of the water in Philpott Lake, the estimated cost would be $8.46 million, and Wagoner said that was before any federal funds or grant money that may be applied. The initial study of the project began in 2020, and a water storage agreement is expected to go into effect sometime this summer.

The Outer Banks of North Carolina is nothing more than a thin ribbon of sand between the ocean and the waters that pass through Henry County and eventually end up in the Sound.

Just in the last year, several homes in the Outer Banks have collapsed into the ocean as the beach continues to erode and the sea rises. In some areas, they are losing 10 to 15 feet of beach a year.

At the rate its going, the entire Outer Banks could be underwater in another 50 years and the waters of the Roanoke River Basin will empty directly into the Atlantic Ocean.

The odds are much against the possibility that Ill live to see that day, but regardless of my age, or yours, we all need to be concerned and consider what the future holds and realize its all connected by water.
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Missoula Public Library and its Branches will be closed on May 28 and May 29 in observance of Memorial Day. Patrons can access their account on our website at missoulapubliclibrary.org.

Fossils Rock! Lecture Series: Climate Change in Geologic History

UM paleontologist Kallie Moore invites you to take a closer look at some of the dramatic changes in Earths climate during its 4.567-billion-year history, including our current climatic situation. Explore changes such as the oxygenation of the planet and the most recent ice age, as well as a preview into Earths possible future. The program is held on May 31 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in Cooper Room B on Level Four of the library.

All Together Now Summer Learning Program

The Summer Learning Program is part of MPLs mission to promote childrens literacy, help prevent the summer slide in reading skills, and provide lifelong learning opportunities for readers of all ages. From June 1 through Aug. 31, patrons of all ages can pick up a printed reading log for young readers or a Library BINGO card for teens and adults, as well as, enjoy a variety of fantastic offerings during our Summer Learning Program, All Together Now. Visit missoulapubliclibrary.org/home/programs-events/summer-learning-program/ for details on how to participate in this years challenge and for a complete list of programs that we have to offer. The Summer Learning Program is made possible with support from the Missoula Public Library Foundation.

Summer Learning Program: Pet Food and Toy Drive

Missoula Public Library and Families First Learning Lab are teaming up all summer to collect pet food and pet toys for organizations that help animals in our community. Your food, toys, or cash will be donated to Animeals, Missoula Animal Control, the Humane Society of Western Montana, and other area rescues. From June 1 through Aug. 31 bring donations to library staff or Families First on Level Two during open hours and watch as our donations grow over the summer!

Summer Learning Program: Art Unleashed  A Transformative Community Art Project

Missoula Public Library is thrilled to present a community art project that will unleash the hidden artist within us, transforming our library into a gallery of imagination! We invite everyone, from seasoned artists to enthusiastic beginners, to contribute their unique talents and perspectives to a collective masterpiece. With this project our aim is to foster a sense of belonging, encourage collaboration, and celebrate the diversity of our community. Community members can participate by making a self-portrait and bring it to the library and we will display it on Level Four of the library. Also participants can pick up a puzzle piece at any of our service desks and decorate it in the library or at home. Bring back your creation and we will create a unique work of art as we put all of the pieces back together.

Hidden Disabilities Sunflower

Missoula Public Library has joined the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower to support people with disabilities that may not be immediately visible, such as autism, dementia, mental health issues or learning difficulties. People can choose to wear a lanyard bearing a sunflower logo as a subtle way of letting others know that they have a non-visible disability and may require additional support, assistance or a bit more time. Ask a Missoula Public Library staff member about the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower, or for a Sunflower lanyard to wear while you visit the library. Find out more about the Sunflower at hiddendisabilitiesstore.com.

Kids Cook with ChopChop

Taking inspiration from our kids magazine ChopChop, learn how to create tasty snacks and easy meal options you can make at home as a family. This program is held on June 1 from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Demonstration Kitchen on Level Three of the library.

Girls Who Code Club

Kids and teens of any experience level are invited to join the Girls Who Code club, where they will not only learn to code with games and engaging lesson plans, they will also join an international network of coding professionals and other computer scientists. This coding club is open to all genders and takes place every Thursday this summer. Groups are divided into groups of third through fifth graders, and sixth through 12th graders. Participants may pre-register by creating an account at girlswhocode.com, or may register at their first meeting by bringing a valid email address. The first club meeting will take place on June 1 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in the MakerSpace on Level One of the library.

Summer Learning Program: Altered Books for Everyone

Turn a discarded book into a work of art. This program is held on June 3 from 2:30 to 5 p.m. in the Cooper Room on Level Four of the library. This program is for all ages and all books and art materials will be provided. This summer, MPL will team up with the Western Montana Fair with a Creative Reuse arts category for the Fairs exhibition, Altered Books. Participants can find this category in the Fairs Exhibitors Guide missoulafairgrounds.com/2023-exhibitor-guide under Department 121-Creative Arts, Division B, Creative Reuse, Class 1  Altered Books. Deadline to submit your Altered Book art in the Fairs exhibition is Friday, Aug. 4 at 5 p.m. For more information on Fair entry, please reach out to the Fair Office at 406-258-3259.
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Editors note: Calendar items must be submitted at least five days before an event. Email all items to news@morganton.com.

MONDAY

Memorial Day service

The American Legion Post 234 Valdese Veterans will be hosting a Memorial Day Service at 9 a.m. The service will happen upstairs in the ballroom area. There will be a brief introduction followed by a video presentation and then a flag ceremony outside. Breakfast will be provided for free by the auxiliary including biscuits, fruit, juice and coffee from local sponsors.

TUESDAY, MAY 30JUNE 1

Bus driver class

Burke County Public Schools will host a bus driver class from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, May 30; Wednesday, May 31; and June 1 at Central Office at 700 E. Parker Road. Call the transportation department at 828-437-4770 for more information.

THURSDAY, JUNE 1

Ladies Bible study

Gateway Bible Church, 222 Believers Way, Morganton, is hosting a free ladies Bible study from 9-11 a.m. It will be taught by Marlene Houk, a local speaker and author, and the group will be studying her book, Hidden in a List: Secrets from Bible women. Books are available at Gateway or on Amazon. Email gatewaybiblemorganton@gmail.com with any questions.

NAACP meeting

The Burke County Branch of the NAACP will meet at 6:30 p.m. at the Mountain View Recreation Center, 111 Alphabet Lane, Morganton. All members are invited to attend, and COVID-19 protocols will still be followed.

FRIDAY, JUNE 2

2023 Legislative Breakfast

The Burke County Chamber of Commerce will host the 2023 Legislative Breakfast from 7:30-9:30 a.m. at the Morganton Community House, 120 N. King St., Morganton. Visit www.burkecountychamber.org for more information.

MONDAY, JUNE 5

American Legion meeting

American Legion Post 21, Post 322 and Post 506 as well as the new members of the Sons of the American Legion will meet Monday, June 5, at 5:30 p.m. at the Mountainview Recreation Center located at 645 1st St., Morganton. We are looking for new members to join as well as young men for the Sons of the American Legion. Contact stosh@burkecountypost21.com for further information.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7

AARP meeting

AARP Chapter 3262 will host retired FBI Special Agent Andy Nazworth, who will be speaking on the topic, Dont Be a Victim: 20 Ways to Protect Yourself. The group will meet in the lower level of the Collett Street Recreation Center with refreshments at 9:30 a.m. and the program starting at 10 a.m. New members are welcome. Annual dues are $5.

THURSDAY, JUNE 8

Business 4 Breakfast

Burke County Chamber of Commerce will host Business 4 Breakfast- Protecting Your Business from Financial Fraud from 7:30-9 a.m. at First Citizens Bank downstairs conference room, 217 N. Sterling St., Morganton. Visit www.burkecountychamber.org for more information

FRIDAY, JUNE 9

Fundraiser

The Burke County Literacy Council will host a fundraiser  Literacy on Tap  at Hillman Beer, 301 S. Sterling St., Morganton. Live music will be performed by Justin Clyde Williams from 5-7 p.m. Come join us, celebrate summer, and the last day of school while supporting the summer programs at the Burke Literacy Council. Hillman will donate a portion of sales to the Literacy Council.

SATURDAY, JUNE 17

Summer Pop-Up Shop

The Burke County Chamber of Commerce, 110 E. Meeting St., will host its Summer Pop-Up Shop from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Visit www.burkecountychamber.org for more information.

Juneteenth Brunch

First United Methodist Church, 200 N. King St., Morganton, will host the third annual Juneteenth brunch at 10 a.m. Rev. Dr. James E. Hunt will be the speaker, along with multi-cultural performances. Jay Alexander, program/music director for 107.9 The Beat, WGTF.FM out of Kentucky is the master of ceremony. Other participants include Malik Harris, Dylan O'Neil, Kevin Hunt and Cory Lovelace. "The Journey Continues." Limited seating is available, and tickets are $20 each. Call 828-433-6797 or 828-430-0304.

MONDAY, JUNE 19

Fire department meeting

The Lake James Fire and Rescue Department will hold its annual meeting at 6 p.m. at the fire department. Prior to the meeting, elections for vacancies on the board of directors will be held from 4-6 p.m. The results of the election as well as a financial report and any necessary business will be discussed during the meeting. Anyone living in the Lake James Fire District and interested in serving on the board of directors should notify the president of the board no later than June 1. Two board vacancies will be filled at this election. All residents 18 years or older residing in the Lake James Fire District are encouraged to vote in the election of board members between 4-6 p.m. and attend the annual meeting at 6 p.m. Board President Jim Powers can be reached by email at jimpowers5137@gmail.com.

ABC Board meeting

The Valdese ABC Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. at the Valdese ABC Store at 1018 W. Main St. in Valdese.

THURSDAY, JUNE 22

Board of directors meeting

Burke County Smart Starts board of directors meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. at the Partnership offices located at 304 W. Union St. Board meetings are open to the public and are held in handicapped accessible facilities. COVID, flu and other health restrictions will be observed for in-person attendance. For anyone with a hearing impairment who may require the assistance of an interpreter or have other special needs, call the Partnership at 828-439-2326 or us the NC Relay System at 1-800-735-8262.

MONDAY, JULY 17

ABC Board meeting

The Valdese ABC Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. at the Valdese ABC Store at 1018 W. Main St. in Valdese.

MONDAY, AUG. 21

ABC Board meeting

The Valdese ABC Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. at the Valdese ABC Store at 1018 W. Main St. in Valdese.

MONDAY, SEPT. 18

ABC Board meeting

The Valdese ABC Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. at the Valdese ABC Store at 1018 W. Main St. in Valdese.

TUESDAY, OCT. 10

ABC Board meeting

The Valdese ABC Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. at the Valdese ABC Store at 1018 W. Main St. in Valdese.

TUESDAY, NOV. 21

ABC Board meeting

The Valdese ABC Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. at the Valdese ABC Store at 1018 W. Main St. in Valdese.

MONDAY, DEC. 18

ABC Board meeting

The Valdese ABC Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. at the Valdese ABC Store at 1018 W. Main St. in Valdese.
 Flash

The Chinese ambassador to Slovakia and local guests have shared stories about the Zhongjie Friendship Farm founded over 60 years ago, expecting the exemplar of friendship and cooperation to play bigger role in promoting China-Slovakia cooperation.

Sino-Czechoslovakia is shortened to "Zhongjie" in Chinese. At a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Slovakia on Thursday evening to commemorate the founding of the Friendship Farm and promote cooperation between the two countries, Chinese Ambassador to Slovakia Sun Lijie shared the story of the farm with the guests attending the reception.

According to Ambassador Sun, the Friendship Farm located in Cangzhou, China's Hebei Province, was named by late Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. It was founded with the help of some 670 sets of agricultural machinery that the former Czechoslovak Republic gifted China in 1956.

Former Slovak Ambassador to China Dusan Bella said there is no better place than the Friendship Farm to demonstrate the long-term friendship and cooperation between his country and China.

Bella had made multiple visits to the Friendship Farm during his tenure in China from 2017 to 2022. After his first visit to the farm in March 2017, he also showed many Slovak delegations around the place.

Referring to a museum displaying how the experts from then country of Czechoslovakia taught the Chinese farmers about the machinery, he said that part of history "is not available" nowadays in the Slovak Republic or the Czech Republic. "And this is which touched me very deeply," he added.

Today, the Friendship Farm serves as a bridge for exchanges and cooperation between China and Slovakia, as well as a channel of China's cooperation with the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), Sun said.

Over the past decades, the farm has expanded and upgraded. In 2013, it was turned into the Zhongjie Industrial Park (ZIP). Five years later the China-CEEC Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Cooperation Zone was established in the park.

The cooperation zone has facilitated 59 cooperation projects with a total investment of 15.44 billion yuan (around 2.2 billion U.S. dollars). Based on bilateral cooperation related to the zone, Cangzou has built sister city relationship with 10 CEE cities and established Heibei-CEE Universities Alliance to boost education cooperation, according to Sun Xirang, director of the cooperation zone's Administrative Committee.

Karol Sebo is the marketing manager of Slovakia's Shebo Winery, which founded the Zhongjie Nitra Winery in the ZIP. Recalling his recent trip to attend the China-CEEC expo held in Chinese city Ningbo, he said his company was satisfied to sustain the level of orders they had before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bella said knowledgeable businessmen will find good opportunities in Asia and especially in China, because China is creating very good conditions for foreign businesses and there are dynamic economic activities.

"When it (the farm) was created in 1956, nobody thought there would be such changes in six decades," Bella said, expecting lasting friendly cooperation for more decades to come.
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RALEIGH  Two Burke County firefighters were honored at a statewide memorial service earlier this month after they died in the line of duty in 2021 and 2022.

John Stroup, who formerly served as the chief of Salem Fire Rescue, and James Hensley, who was a firefighter for Brendletown Volunteer Fire and Rescue, were honored May 13 at the North Carolina Fallen Firefighters Foundations Memorial Service in Raleigh. Both died because of medical issues after working with the fire departments earlier in the day.

Stroup died April 15, 2022, a few days after suffering a heart attack the same day he spent the day at the fire station repairing things. He died at home, and some of his stations firefighters responded to the call to aid him.

Hensley died June 9, 2021, and also died at home. He had participated in a training at the fire department within 24 hours of his death.

Their names were added to the organizations monument on Nash Square in Raleigh. The annual memorial service features a parade of fire apparatuses and traditional bagpipers, followed by a solemn ceremony where families of the fallen firefighters receive a folded American flag.

Brendletown Fire Chief Steve Johnson, who went alongside another firefighter to the ceremony with some of Hensleys family members, said the ceremony truly honored the tradition of the fire service.

I dont think there was hardly a dry eye there, Johnson said.

Thats a position Salem Fire Chief Charles Autrey found himself in this year when he escorted Stroups wife, Kathy, and his daughter, Whitney.

This was an honor that John and his family deserved with his 50 years of service, much less having fallen in the line of duty, Autrey said.

This was the first year the NCFFF used the current chiefs of the fire departments as escorts for the family members of the fallen firefighters. It was a different experience for Autrey, who was in the Stroups shoes several years ago after his brother, Joey, was honored at the service.

I was honored to get to escort Kathy Stroup and Whitney Stroup, Autrey said.
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Dr. Barbara Nagy of Morganton spent decades in Africa as a medical missionary. Shes one of my heroes.

When I ran into her recently at CVS, I wanted to talk with her about our churchs sewing project to aid African women. About 20 of us met for several months to make reusable cloth menstrual pads. We traced patterns, cut terrycloth and other fabric, affixed snaps, and stitched the pieces together. Other church members helped with financing the project.

I was worried that the girls and women we were making these items for might not find them useful. They are from such a different culture, and Americans sometimes think we know best when we dont.

Will the girls even like the products?

Barbara, now a primary care physician at High Country Community Health in Connelly Springs, said, Oh, yes. They will. This project has been going on [in other churches] for over a decade.

She said, We dont think about it in this country, but its a huge issue for them. I saw situations where girls couldnt get access to menstrual products and would stay home, not go to school.

Boys are always preferred for education and advancement. Girls are targets for abuse if they have to go to the bathroom and clean themselves. The products are a life saver.

Barbara went on to relate experiences she had while in Africa decades ago. When we were evacuated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo 

Wait a minute. EVACUATED? I exclaimed.

She matter-of-factly told me, They were having a civil war. She had been working at a hospital there. Before she and other medical workers left the hospital, she said, Throngs of girls and women were at the hospital doors begging for menstrual products.

Until these women showed up at our door, it never crossed my mind that these were items they could never get. It opened my eyes, she said.

Barbara continued, Once at an airport during a security check, an agent going through my bag saw my tampons. She asked what they were, and I explained in French. She asked if she could have one. I said, Here, take them all.

Meanwhile, back at First Presbyterian, I learned the project started with a Malawi Mission Team subcommittee within the Presbytery of Western North Carolina. Advocating for the project were Dr. Barbara Nagy and Bobbi White of Morganton, an ordained Presbyterian USA minister who, like Barbara, has been to Africa multiple times.

Janet Leissner of Morganton, a skilled seamstress, led the effort at our church. Why did she get involved? She said, First of all, I love to sew. I felt called to do it. Since going on mission trips is not my cup of tea, this was a project I could do, a contribution to mission work. It spoke to me because its women helping women.

About a dozen churches within the Presbytery worked on the sewing project and others helped with money and supplies. In our county, Waldensian Presbyterian participated, and several members of Quaker Meadows Presbyterian joined First Presbyterian for the work sessions which started in September 2022 and ended in March.

Janet described the item sewn as a shell made of flannel with a waterproof backer that holds a separate terrycloth core insert. Three cores were made for each shell. All parts are washable and reusable. Wings snap together around underpants.

Janet said, The products are going to a specific region of Malawi. Theyre not just being sent and dropped off. There are people there set up to educate the girls on how to use the product and on feminine hygiene.

At the end of April, a mission team from the Presbytery traveled to Malawi and carried all the items sewn by area churches. Janet said, They took between 6,000 to 7,000 products which will serve 700 girls. [The Presbytery] exceeded our goal of 400 to 500 packs, almost doubled it.

First Presbyterian made 540 pads. With six items to a pack, this will serve 90 girls. Janet said, We also made 90 drawstring bags to carry them in.

She added that our church gave money to buy underwear to purchase in Malawi. Evidently most of the school age kids do not have access to underwear.

Dr. Barbara Nagys sister, retired nurse Carol Nagy of Morganton, accompanied the Malawi Mission Team on the April trip. She was present when a Nkhoma nurse explained about the products in their language to a group of girls. Carol told me, The girls went from inattentively listening to following every word, their eyes glued to Esther, the nurse. Yes, the girls were happy to get them. More than happy.

Barbie Heilman, a member of the mission team and deacon at Waldensian Presbyterian, echoed Carols statements. It was pretty amazing. The girls in the government schools are very poor, with 80 to 100 in one classroom. They were so excited when they received their hygiene kits. Kits had two pairs of new underwear, six pads, a bar of soap, and a Ziplock bag to hold soiled items.

A group of girls came to our van, pulled out underwear and were waving it. Youd have thought we gave them a million dollars.

Schools teach both boys and girls. The girls receiving menstrual products are ages 11 to 15. Kits were also given to about 25 girls in the private Ebenezer School where children of medical workers at Nkhoma Hospital attend. Some kits were given to hospital patients treated for cervical cancer and other conditions.

Carol Nagy said, The girls and women were being told their needs are important. The girls heard someone say, These items are especially for you because we know you have a need.
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For many of our central Montana communities, the unseasonably early wildfire smoke from Canada brings heightened anticipation of the fire year to come.

As the forest supervisor of the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, I have the honor to oversee the management of nearly 2.9 million acres of public lands from the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex through Lincoln and Helena and east to the Snowy Mountains. Having spent over a decade studying and working on fire and landscape resilience issues within similar forests and communities, I understand the benefits that fire can bring, and the concerns people may have.

Over the last few decades, our understanding of wildfire in the West has made it clear that we need to get fire back on the land under the right weather conditions to reduce expensive and severe wildfires. By reducing fuels and introducing more prescribed fire, we invest in protecting forests, our homes and communities, drinking water, and our favorite places to recreate. If we dont expand the amount of fire we introduce under the right weather conditions, a heavier burden is passed down to taxpayers and communities in terms of continued wildfire impacts.

Managing fuels  or the things a wildfire would burn  is our best chance to change how a wildfire impacts the land.

Prescribed fire is the most effective way to reduce fuels, both surface fuels (e.g. grasses and pine needles) and ladder fuels (e.g. small trees or branches on trees near the ground) that carry fire across the landscape. Historically, frequent wildfires would have removed many thousands of small trees, but the impressive effectiveness of our suppression work has led to dense forested areas where it is neither safe nor effective to use prescribed fire. In these situations, we can thin forests before we reintroduce fire. A combination of thinning or mechanical fuels reduction along with prescribed fire is our best bet to reduce the size and severity of wildfire while protecting our forests and communities.

Were fortunate to have exceptional partners with whom we plan and implement projects that make a real difference on the ground.

For many years now we have worked closely with partners on the Capital 360 Project to accomplish fuels reduction work around Helena. This work is a great investment for taxpayers as it not only protects the city of Helena and homes but also helps protect the Ten Mile Creek Watershed, Helenas primary drinking water source. Additional partners in this work include the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation; Tri-County FireSafe Working Group; Natural Resource Conservation Service; Bureau of Land Management; Lewis and Clark, Broadwater, and Jefferson counties; the city of Helena; and local fire districts and residents.

We are also working with partners and have collectively obtained over $7 million in funding for the Elkhorn Range to carry out work that will foster more resilient forests and landscapes. Starting this summer, meadow and shrubland restoration, the reintroduction of fire, and weed mitigation efforts will improve wildlife habitat and restore grasslands to more historical conditions leading to more resilient landscapes and enhanced recreational opportunities, such as hunting and hiking.

We are combining these focused projects with innovative, landscape-scale work.

One project were particularly excited about is our forestwide prescribed fire project. The idea is to analyze the introduction of prescribed fire across the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest so that when narrow windows of opportunity arise, we can take advantage of just the right weather and forest conditions to reduce the risk of catastrophic outcomes when wildfires hit under untenable weather conditions. You can visit: tinyurl.com/ymd4mnzs to learn more about this project. We anticipate a comment period on the environmental assessment sometime this fall.

Fuels reduction and prescribed fire mean safer communities, and a safer, more effective response for fire personnel. This work would not be possible without our industry, government, NGO and community partners  thank you. And we are always open to hearing from you about what you value about our national forestlands and how we can better serve the community.

Feel free to reach out anytime to let us know what you think.
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CARAUARI, Brazil  In a remote corner of the Amazon, Brazilian ecologists are trying to succeed where a lack of governance has proved disastrous. They're managing a stretch of land in a way that welcomes both local people and scientists to engage in preserving the worlds largest tropical forest.

The goal is ambitious, counter the forces that have destroyed 10% of the forest in less than four decades and create something that can be replicated in other parts of the Amazon.

It began with a four-month expedition along the Jurua River in 2016. Researchers visited some 100 communities that at first sight looked similar: rows of wooden homes on stilts along the water. But they were struck by contrasts in the living conditions.

To understand what they saw, it's important to know that 29% of the Amazon, an area roughly three times the size of California, is either public land with no special protection, or public land for which no public information exists, according to a study by the Amazon Institute of People and the Environment.

These areas have been shown to be more vulnerable to deforestation. Land robbers drive traditional communities off the land and then clear it, hoping the government will recognize them as owners, which usually happens.

It's very unequal. Inside protected areas, there are many positive things happening, but outside, they seemed to be 40 years behind, Joao Vitor Campos-Silva, a tropical socio-ecologist, told The Associated Press.

The researchers were aware that the part of the river known as Medio Jurua, near the city of Carauari, has remarkable social organization and people manage its fish and forest products, such as acai, sustainably. The land designation here is extractive reserves, public lands where residents are allowed to fish and harvest some crops.

But outside these reserves, in many places, people take orders from self-appointed landowners, Campos-Silva said. Entire communities are denied access to lakes, even to fish to feed their families. People dont own the land, and they dont know who does.

We started thinking that it might be interesting to design a conservation model based on a basin scale, where communities could harvest forest produce and fish and protect the forest, instead of moving to the city or resorting to illegal activities, such as unlicensed logging and overfishing.

So they created the nonprofit Jurua Institute and purchased 8 miles of rainforest property along the Jurua River. It includes about 20 lakes, some with good potential for raising prized pirarucu, the worlds largest freshwater scale fish, which can reach up to 440 pounds.

The goal, Campos-Silva said, is to promote high-quality science, grounded in working together with the region's people.

In the vicinity of the Institute's land there are 12 communities of former rubber-tappers. Brazilians call them ribeirinhos, or river people, as distinguished from Indigenous residents.

In the past, the chance to make a living from rubber trees drew their grandparents to the Amazon. Nowadays the main revenue comes from pirarucu. Controlling that fishery has proved to be sustainable, reviving a species that was in decline and generating income without the need to clear the forest, with all that means for loss of biodiversity.

The Amazon rainforest, covering an area twice the size of India, also holds tremendous stores of carbon and is a crucial buffer against climate change. Driven by land-robbers, deforestation surged to a 15-year high in recent years while Jair Bolsonaro, who left office in January, was president. Destruction in the eastern Amazon has been so extensive that it has become a carbon source, rather than a carbon sink.

To involve the riverine communities in governance, the institute set up a steering committee and launched a series of public meetings called community of dreams, where people could prioritize the improvements they want most.

The president of the river communities' association, Fernanda de Araujo Moraes, said the main purpose is to prevent river people from moving to Amazon cities, where unemployment among low-skilled people is rampant and violence is widespread, thanks to drug-trafficking.

On the scientific front, the institute has built a houseboat and a wooden house for as many as 20 researchers to spend seasons along the Jurua River. One is studying the uakari monkey. Others are looking at what makes social arrangements successful in the region. They created a program, Forest Scientists, to train local high school students in field collection, data systematization, and how to prepare reports.

The initiative is led by Carlos Peres, an Amazon-born professor of tropical conservation ecology at the University of East Anglia, in the United Kingdom. In April this work, begun as an experiment, got some recognition from a Swiss nonprofit when he and three other scientists won the Frontiers Planet Prize, which comes with $1.1 million. The money will be reinvested in the project.

Peres, the Institute's scientific director, says it hopes to inspire solutions across the Amazon region, by integrating traditional knowledge with the science of Western models.

We do not have all the answers, he said. But we have the audacity to try to advance on these issues.

Photos: New approach to preserving the Amazon
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WASHINGTON  President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke directly Saturday evening as they raced to strike an agreement that would resolve the looming debt crisis ahead of a June 5 deadline and avert a catastrophic U.S. default.

Biden spoke earlier in the day with Democratic leaders in Congress to discuss the status of the talks, according to three people familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. But the two sides have not reached a deal yet.

"Big, thorny issues remain," one of the top negotiators, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., told reporters in the evening.

The Republican House speaker gathered top allies behind closed doors at the Capitol as negotiators pushed for a deal that would raise the nation's borrowing limit and avoid a catastrophic default, while also making spending cuts that House Republicans are demanding.

As he arrived at the Capitol early in the day, McCarthy said Republican negotiators were "closer to an agreement."

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Congress that the United States could default on its debt obligations by June 5  four days later than previously estimated  if lawmakers do not act in time to raise the federal debt ceiling. The extended "X-date" gives the two sides a bit of extra time as they scramble for a deal.

But as another day dragged on with the country watching and waiting for an outcome, it appeared some of the problems over policy issues that have dogged talks all week remained unresolved.

Both sides suggested one of the main holdups is a GOP effort to expand existing work requirements for recipients of food stamps and other federal aid programs, a longtime Republican goal that Democrats have strenuously opposed. The White House said the Republican proposals were "cruel and senseless."

They also appear to still be laboring over a compromise on federal permitting changes that would ease regulations for developing oil, gas and renewable energy projects and foster new transmission line connections.

McCarthy, who dashed out before the lunch hour and arrived back at the Capitol with a big box of takeout, declined to elaborate on those discussions. One of his negotiators, Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves, said there was "not a chance" Republicans might relent on the work requirements issue.

House negotiators left the Capitol at 2 a.m. the night before, only to return hours later.

Failure to lift the borrowing limit, now $31 trillion, to pay the nation's incurred bills, would send shockwaves through the U.S. and global economy. Yellen said failure to act by the new date would "cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests."

The president, spending part of the weekend at Camp David, continued to talk with his negotiating team multiple times a day, signing off on offers and counteroffers.

Biden and McCarthy have seemed to be narrowing on a two-year budget-cutting deal that would also extend the debt limit into 2025 past the next presidential election. The contours of the deal have been taking shape to cut spending for 2024 and impose a 1% cap on spending growth for 2025.

All sides are hearing from other lawmakers, including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the independent from Arizona, who has been in the center of big policy debates, and Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.

Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the Republican whip who is in charge of counting the votes from McCarthy's slim majority to ensure passage of any deal, said he is telling rank-and-file lawmakers not to believe what they're hearing until party leaders deliver the news about any deal.

"We're constantly in touch with our members, letting them know that what is being reported, you should not accept that," Emmer said. "If there's an agreement, we will let them know."

Any deal would need to be a political compromise to pass in the divided Congress. Many of the hard-right Republicans in Congress are pressing McCarthy to hold out.

The Republican proposal on work requirements would save $11 billion over 10 years by raising the maximum age for existing standards that require able-bodied adults who do not live with dependents to work or attend training programs.

Current law applies those standards to recipients under the age of 50. The GOP plan would raise the age to include adults 55 and under. It would lower the number of exemptions that states can grant to some recipients subject to those requirements.

Biden has said the work requirements for Medicaid would be a nonstarter. He initially seemed potentially open to negotiating minor changes on food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, but his position has appeared to harden.

Lawmakers are not expected to return to work from the Memorial Day weekend before Tuesday, at the earliest, and McCarthy has promised lawmakers he will abide by the rule to post any bill for 72 hours before voting.

The Democratic-held Senate largely stayed out of the negotiations, leaving the talks to Biden and McCarthy. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York pledged to move quickly to send a compromise package to Biden's desk.
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STOCKTON  Twenty-seven years ago, Denise Smart was at a swim meet.

It was 1996, and her two youngest children, Matt and Lindsey, were competing in an annual Memorial Day weekend competition in Stockton. It was the first her oldest daughter, Kristin, wasnt there for.

Kristin was away at college  Cal Poly San Luis Obispo  finishing up her freshman year.

That day, Denise received the phone call no parent can imagine: Her daughter was missing.

Cal Poly officials told Denise that Kristin likely went camping for the weekend, but a motherly instinct told her that wasnt the case.

So she called Kristins roommates, who said Kristin had left behind her backpack, ID and other essential belongings.

It was just immediately off-kilter, Denise recalled with goosebumps forming on her arms. I was immediately concerned.

Upon receiving the news, Denises husband Stan drove at once to San Luis Obispo. He hoped Kristin would have returned to Cal Poly by the time he arrived there. He thought he would just have to give his daughter a lecture.

But that moment never happened, and neither Stan nor Denise could predict the unending nightmare that would unfold from that day.

What are we going to do? Jurors in the Kristin Smart murder trial speak out for the first time. Four of the jurors who convicted Paul Flores of killing Smart speak of the stress and isolation of hearing the case  and of telling no one until after the verdict.

Paul Flores, who was also a freshman at Cal Poly at the time, quickly became a person of interest in the case, then the de facto sole suspect. But a botched initial investigation led to his freedom for 25 years, until he was finally arrested and charged with Kristins murder. His father, Ruben Flores, was also arrested that day, accused of helping his son conceal the crime.

Two years later in October, a Monterey County jury convicted Paul Flores for the first-degree murder of Kristin Smart. He is currently serving a 25-years-to-life sentence in North Kern State Prison. His father, who was acquitted by a separate jury, remains free.

Despite that resolution, the 27th anniversary of their daughters disappearance isnt a time for celebration, Stan and Denise said.

This year, at 27 years, we are beyond grateful that he is in prison, Denise said. But we would be ecstatic at this point if we were able to lay her to rest.

On Wednesday, with Paul Flores conviction and sentencing beginning to recede, Stan and Denise sat down with The Tribune at their Stockton home, to talk about their daughters life, the investigation and trial, and where they go from here.

Who was Kristin Smart?

Kristin was so much more than a missing girl, her parents told the Tribune.

If Kristin were still alive today, Denise said, she would walk in the room, crack a joke and sit on her dads lap  even as an adult.

She and Stan had an irreplaceable friendship, they said.

When Kristin was a teenager, her father got a job in Napa as the Vintage High School principal, so Kristin transferred to his school for her junior year, commuting with him each day.

She was also close with to two younger siblings, Lindsey and Matt.

Update: Paul Flores convicted of murdering former Napa resident Kristin Smart; Ruben Flores found not guilty of accessory charge One jury has found Paul Flores guilty of murdering Cal Poly student and former Napa resident Kristin Smart in 1996, but a second jury acquitted Flores' father Ruben of an accessory charge for allegedly helping to hide Smart's body.

They had begun swimming at ages 5 and 7, when Kristin was 9. At one meet, Kristin jumped into the pool, and soon she took up the sport as well.

Though her two siblings were more naturally gifted, Denise said, Kristins perseverance and determination were unmatched.

Within one summer, she began receiving medals and ribbons, and was even named most improved swimmer of the year.

Still, she remained her siblings biggest cheerleader.

Each Halloween, Kristin would escort them and the other neighborhood kids to trick or treat. She babysat neighbor Denise Pearces kids and was a role model to them.

She became the favorite babysitter of the neighborhood, Pearce said, because she always planned fun activities to do with the kids.

Kristin was also determined to have a life of adventure, her mother said.

Denise Smart recalled a time when Kristin found a book at Barnes & Noble about how to get hired overseas as a college student. Kristin didnt have the money to buy the book, so she wrote down some information then made some calls.

She was a senior in high school at the time.

Later, Kristin convinced a Hawaiian surf camp to hire her despite not meeting the employment requirements, her mother said, a testament to her determination.

Pearce remembers Kristins excitement for college, and even helped her pick out her first-day outfit: a denim jumper and white blouse.

Cal Poly issues first public apology to Smart family

Kristin was eager to attend Cal Poly, her parents recalled, but she stayed in close touch with her family, and Sunday phone calls became a tradition once she moved away.

Because Memorial Day weekend 1996 was so busy with the swim meet, Denise Smart said she didnt realized Kristin hadnt called that Sunday.

Then the call from Cal Poly came.

Denise said representatives from the university were flippant when they told her Kristin wasnt accounted for, which was an immediate cause for concern.

Denise Pearce, Denise Smarts best friend and fellow swim mom, was with her when she received the news at the swim meet. Pearce recalled her own travels in college and tried to reassure Denise Smart that Kristin was probably doing the same.

I thought she still is out there somewhere, Pearce told The Tribune. Never in a million years would I think that she wouldve been murdered. That just wasnt in my reality.

But as the days passed, the alarm bells sounded louder.

Pearce stayed with Denise while Stan drove to San Luis Obispo with his nephew. The first month was excruciatingly long, Denise and Stan recalled.

Denise called every law enforcement agency they could to recruit help to find their daughter, while Stan organized search parties to look for Kristin in sewers and alleyways across San Luis Obispo County.

The Smarts said Cal Poly, law enforcement and the news media at the time blamed their daughter for disappearing.

Kristin was drunk, they said. She went to a party. She was wearing shorts. Was she promiscuous? She was asking for it.

But most witnesses didnt see Kristin actually drink, her parents recalled, and the possibility that she could have been drugged was never explored. Kristins friends told her parents that she was last seen with Paul Flores, whose nickname was Chester the Molester, but the university didnt secure Flores dorm room as a crime scene.

Instead, Paul Flores left campus for summer break, and the room was cleaned.

There seemed to be no value placed on our daughters life, Denise Smart said.

In a phone interview with The Tribune for this story, President Jeffrey Armstrong apologized on behalf of Cal Poly for the way the university mishandled the case in the 1990s. Its the first public apology the university has issued.

I cant imagine the pain Kristins family has felt and still feels. What theyve been through is just unbelievably heartbreaking, Armstrong said. We recognize, even though I wasnt here, that Cal Poly could have done things differently. There were things that we do differently now. There are things that should have been done differently. And for that, Im sorry.

Just disgusting: Kristin Smarts parents reflect on initial investigation

About a month after Kristins disappearance, Cal Poly handed the investigation to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriffs Office. Thats when Paul Flores dorm room was searched by cadaver dogs.

The dogs alerted to the scent of human remains despite the room being cleaned, but there wasnt enough forensic evidence to pursue an arrest.

That July, the sheriffs office also searched Ruben Flores Arroyo Grande home 17 miles south of Cal Poly, but they didnt bring cadaver dogs.

If they brought dogs there, we wouldnt even know you, Denise told The Tribune.

It wasnt until March 2021 that the San Luis Obispo County Sheriffs Office found what they believe was a dug-up grave underneath Ruben Flores deck. Soil staining consistent with a decomposing human body tested positive for human blood, and fibers were found that matched the colors of Kristins clothing the night she disappeared.

Its believed that the Flores family moved Kristins body from underneath the deck in February 2020, days after the FBI searched the home.

Looking back, the Smarts believe the early missteps in the case were responsible for the loss of crucial evidence that could have convicted Paul Flores sooner and led to the recovery of Kristins body.

Adding to their frustration, Denise Smart said the efforts by former sheriffs Ed Williams and Pat Hedges felt more like they were following a routine than trying to solve the case.

Williams told the Tribune in 1997 that the only way the case would be solved is if Paul Flores talked, which the Smarts said gave Flores a blueprint on how to remain free. Hedges also declined help from outside agencies, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Denise said.

Also in 1997, Denise said she received a phone call from then-District Attorney Barry LaBarbera. He told her that Paul Flores lawyer, Melvin De La Motte, said his client would plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter in exchange for Kristins body.

To her, this meant Paul Flores killed Kristin and knew where she was.

Its just disgusting, Denise Smart said.

This past October, however, De La Motte denied negotiating a plea bargain that would suggest Paul Flores guilt, and he told The Tribune he only ever asked if the Smart family would be open to an involuntary manslaughter plea.

After that, for more than a decade, the familys discontent with the sheriffs office only grew.

Denise said she just wanted her missing daughter to be treated like a real person rather than a black-and-white face in the newspaper.

You get so frustrated, Denise said. Theres no vocabulary for it. There are no words.

At one point, Denise said, she produced a video of childhood memories of Kristin and sent it to former Sheriff Williams Office  to no response. She also paid for billboards and made local and national TV appearances.

Living children exceptional survivors, mother says

The 25 years between their daughters disappearance and her killers arrest were filled with unresolved pain for the Smarts, to say the least.

Its basically like tearing a piece of your heart out, Denise Smart said. Its not complete without her in it.

Denise and Stan were distraught, but they still had two children to raise. Lindsey, their youngest, was about to graduate middle school when her sister disappeared, and Matt was in his third year of high school.

She held onto advice someone gave her during a meeting with then-state Sen. Mike Thompson told her in the first year of Kristins disappearance: Hes already taken your daughters life. Dont let him take your family. Dont let him take your marriage. Dont let him take the life of your children.

At the time, that advice angered Denise  she believed her daughter was still alive. But as the years passed, it became a sort of mantra that kept her going.

The parents decided to shelter their children from the grim details of their sisters disappearance.

Sharing that with them would have been even more depressing, Denise said.

Stan and Denise Smart's lives became about finding a balance between finding Kristin and continuing with their lives. If they dwelled on the bad, Denise said, they would just get older with nothing to live for.

You do gain strength from your family, and you gain strength from your friends, Denise said. Its something you have to do together.

All Stan and Denise Smart wanted for their two living children was for them to thrive, and the parents are proud to say their children did just that. Both maintained high grades, pursued successful careers and now have families of their own while still grieving the loss of their older sister.

Our two children were exceptional survivors living through a living nightmare, Denise said.

New SLO County sheriff offers hope to family

It wasnt until Ian Parkinson was elected as sheriff in 2010, the Smarts said, that a shift finally occurred.

Parkinson had campaigned on a vow to solve Kristins case, and he met with the family before he was elected. He was different than his two predecessors, the Smarts said.

Ian made it sound like he understood the value that this family was missing a human being, Denise said. We didnt have any of that from either of the other sheriffs. It was a job for them that they wanted to check off.

Parkinson was the first sheriff to have open communication with the Smart family. He gave them his personal cellphone number, always answered emails and always made sure to keep them in the loop, even if he couldnt share specific details.

Nevertheless, progress in the case remained sporadic, with starts, stops and stalls continuing for nearly the first eight years of Parkinsons tenure.

Then, sheriff's Detective Clint Cole was assigned the case in 2019, the year that is now regarded as a major turning point.

The Smarts felt Cole also understood the value of Kristins life, and they appreciated how he prioritized finding new information rather than rehashing what was already known.

Around the same time, another fortuitous meeting occurred during Denises visit to San Luis Obispo County on Kristins birthday that year, Feb. 22.

Denise was in her car at Kristins Point of Hope, a memorial at Dinosaur Caves Park in Shell Beach 250 miles south of Stockton, when she saw a bearded man talking to a friend. She waited  it was cold outside  to see if the man would leave, but the conversation looked so engaging she figured he must know her friend, too.

He didnt, but he did know a lot about Kristins case.

Denise learned the mans name  Chris Lambert  and invited him to sing songs at a nearby bench with the Jam Fam, a local musical group.

He never said a word that he was a musician. He didnt sing. I dont know if he even opened his mouth, Denise said. But he stood there with us.

She then invited Lambert to dinner, and to her surprise, he said yes.

Toward the end of the meal, Lambert mentioned the podcast he had been researching. He asked Denise Smart for permission to move forward, and though she wasnt sure what it exactly entailed, she said yes.

I instantly liked him and trusted him, she said.

The next week, Lambert visited her and Stan at their home in Stockton. He was still shy and slow to warm up, she said, but they eventually talked about the case. Its the conversation in the first episode of his podcast, which was released on Sept. 30, 2019.

Within a couple of days, Your Own Backyard had reached 70,000 listeners.

I was thunderstruck, Denise said.

People from all over the country began to reach out with tips, and Lambert would refer them to law enforcement. This brought the Smart family the most hope theyd had in a while.

Someone had to have an answer.

Family reflects on the trial

As the investigation ramped up, the Smarts were repeatedly told that Paul and Ruben Flores would soon be arrested. But theyd been on this roller coaster for 25 years, they said, and they knew to not let their hopes up too high.

They didnt even believe the pair had been taken into custody until they saw the photos online, and they were ecstatic. This was the closest theyd been to justice for their daughter in a quarter century, and they hoped it could end with finding her body.

What they didnt know was that the ensuing legal process would take more than two years.

At times, it was difficult to sit in the courtroom, they said. They were under a strict gag order, so they couldnt defend Kristin when the defense attacked her character.

Finally, after three months of testimony, they got word the juries had reached their verdicts on Oct. 18.

At 1:30 p.m. that Tuesday afternoon, the Smart family entered the courtroom for the reading of Paul Flores verdict. They sat down on a wooden bench. They held hands. And they listened.

The court reporter read the verdict: Guilty.

It was such an extraordinary relief, Denise said. Your whole body just melted.

Stan smiled. Denise and Lindsey cried.

Then Ruben Flores verdict came: Not guilty.

It had to have been an error, Denise said she thought at the time. But she remembered Ruben Flores jury didnt see the videotape of the law enforcement interview with Paul Flores.

It was hard news to hear, the Smarts said, because they were  and still are  certain that Ruben Flores helped his son hide their daughter's body.

But they are comforted that at least their daughters killer is being held accountable for his crimes.

How Smarts have turned their loss into a new law

After the verdicts, waiting five months for Kristins killer to be sentenced felt like another gut punch, the Smarts said. They had already waited too long for some semblance of justice, only to have to wait more.

Stan Smart said he was happy the judge told Paul Flores he was a cancer to society  he hadnt expected her to be so direct.

But he doesnt believe the sentence of 25 years to life  the maximum allowed for first-degree murder without enhancements like using a firearm  is sufficient.

The sentence is pretty minimal for taking a persons life and having a whole lifetime to do whatever you want, he said.

So Stan and Denise Smart are working to change California law  again.

In 1998, they championed the Kristin Smart Safety Act, which requires universities and community colleges to have a written policy on how to navigate solving certain violent crimes with local law enforcement.

Now, they are looking to add a new sentencing enhancement in Californias penal code that would add years of incarceration for withholding the location of a body  something they believe could motivate Paul Flores to finally disclose where their daughter is.

You want to try to prevent any other families from going through this nightmare. It shouldnt have to be this way, Denise Smart said. No one should have to go through this.

For now, the search for their daughters body continues, Stan and Denise said. And it will continue until she is found.

Different types of alerts and what they mean What exactly is a Silver Alert? What exactly is an AMBER Alert? What exactly is a Blue Alert? What exactly is an Ashanti Alert? What exactly is a Green Alert?
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The roads to Napa jam up with snakelike masses of cars. Downtown hotels become stuffed with guests, even at prices hundreds of dollars above the normal weekend rates. And every year on the last weekend of May, some 120,000 people shoehorn themselves into the city of Napa for the three days of music, wine and food known as BottleRock.

But a handful of festivalgoers have a far more relaxed path to the festival. They take their own lodgings with them  up the river to the Napa Valley Yacht Club.

They arrive aboard the Johnny Carson and the Soul Mate and other yachts and boats, tying up their vessels at the yacht club at the south end of Riverside Drive. By day they join the throngs packing the Napa Valley Expo for the concerts played by more than 70 acts; by night they walk  or take a scooter or a pedicab  back to their vessels that were homes away from home for fans like Dave and Margarite Macon.

An hour before BottleRock Napa Valley's opening noontime shows Saturday, the couple were in their carpeted, leather-lined cabin aboard the 35-foot-long Soul Mate, dressed as casually as if they hadnt left home  he in shorts and a blue T-shirt, she in pajamas. A wooden board covered the two-burner range where they had made breakfast; a small corner television played the Monaco Grand Prix.

BottleRock 2023 launches with low-key, relaxed atmosphere on chilly day While just arriving to the 2023 BottleRock festival, attendees from near and far expressed enjoyment of the atmosphere and excitement about the musical acts to come.

But the conversation was focused on the previous nights events at the Expo, a 25-minute walk north.

The Smashing Pumpkins  that was a great show, holy cow, said Dave Macon, who along with four other yacht owners had made the trip to Napa on Friday. When I heard they were coming here I was going, We are not missing their show.

Last May, the Macons had taken their vessel up from its Emeryville dock to Napa for their first BottleRock visit. They returned this year to take in the full three-day festival  without the typical inconveniences of holiday weekend travel.

You have all your own stuff here, said Margarite Macon, pointing toward the bow of the Soul Mate and the calm river waters beyond. Its your own bedding, your own sheets, you dont have someone knocking on your door for housekeeping  you have all the amenities at night. We sleep so deep on a boat, and youre not hearing (people) through a wall.

This is an adventure on top of an adventure, added Dave Macon.

Boaters have stayed at the Napa yacht club for BottleRock weekend since the festivals debut in 2013, according to Robert Fowles, the clubs port captain and a member for more than two decades. In time, the arrival of boaters  as many as 14 at a time  has become a custom on BottleRock weekend, and the bonds within small group of festivalgoers arriving by boat have tightened, he said.

Its a party all weekend, Fowles said Thursday. In the morning they all have coffee and someone will make a pastry run to Bouchon. A lot of boats come every year, so well see (some of) the same yachts for BottleRock and theyll all know each other. Its a very collegial atmosphere  almost like a college dormitory.

Brazilian sweets, vinyls, and hot dog carts outside BottleRock Napa Valley Outside BottleRock Napa Valley are small shops selling sweets, vinyl records, food, and more to those waiting to get into the festival.

This weekends gathering is a smaller one than in years past, with illness and mechanical troubles reducing the number of vessels at the yacht club to five. But those who have made the trip appeared as enthusiastic as ever as they prepared to head back up to BottleRock for a second day.

We make breakfast and lunch here, then we have dinner at the concert. We have friends who come down here, said John Lambeth, whose Clarksburg-based vessel Johnny Carson is named not for the late Tonight Show host, but after his and his wifes first names.

Its glorified camping. With a bathroom, Carson Lambeth added with a laugh.

Farther down the dock, four other people were getting themselves into the BottleRock mood aboard Eagle, where the stereo system was playing the 1979 disco hit Good Times. Chics playing at 3:15, so were getting ready, said Charlie Boyle, one of the four co-owners aboard the boat based in Mill Valley.

Despite the expenses of keeping a boat fueled, maintained and water-worthy, a weekend celebration like BottleRock is one occasion when a yacht can feel like a bargain, in both money and relaxation.

Without such a vessel, you spend $800 at a Motel 6 for the weekend, Boyle said as another boater unfolded a scooter on the dock for the mile-and-a-quarter trip up to BottleRock a few minutes later. No one would ever say that owning a boat is a good deal, but for this weekend, it is. (The two couples aboard Eagle are alternating between the boat and a Napa bed-and-breakfast inn during the festival weekend.)

When we tell people were going to BottleRock, they say Boy, the traffics gonna be awful. And we say were taking our boat, and you get a reaction. They tell us, Lucky you.

PHOTOS: BottleRock Napa Valley 2023 scenes from Day 1
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Without significant changes to the transfer process, California's community college system will struggle to meet its own goals for transferring students to the state's public universities, the system's interim chancellor said Monday.

Interim Chancellor Daisy Gonzales told the system's board of governors that in 2022, the number of California community college students earning an associate degree for transfer declined by about 4,600 students.

That may be partly because of a drop in enrollment at the community colleges since the onset of the pandemic. But the system is far short of its goal, set in 2017, to increase the number of students transferring to the University of California and California State University by 35% over five years. Transfers have only increased by about 14% since then.

"The concern here is this: In the absence of a new transfer destination for our students, additional capacity at UC and CSU and failure to automatically accept the ADTs that our students are earning, this board will have a difficult time achieving this goal," Gonzales said during a presentation to the board.

California's Associate Degree for Transfer program was created in 2010 and allows students to get a guaranteed spot somewhere at CSU if they finish an associate degree at a community college and meet CSU's minimum eligibility requirements. And although the number of students transferring to CSU has increased since the implementation of the ADT, there are a number of CSU campuses where it remains difficult for students to transfer. Even though students are guaranteed a spot at CSU if they complete an ADT, they don't necessarily get admitted to the campus of their choice.

UC, meanwhile, does not participate in the ADT program. Lawmakers, however, are trying to change that. Assembly Bill 1749, introduced by Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, passed the Assembly Appropriations Committee last week and would require UC to participate in the ADT program by the 2025-26 academic year. Students earning an ADT would need at least a 3.0 grade point average to earn a spot at UC.

The chancellor's office for the community college system has formally endorsed that legislation.

Proponents of the bill say it's needed particularly because, without consistency between CSU and UC, students interested in transferring to both systems are often required to take different courses for their major.

"It does provide students with a guarantee that's too long been lacking, will reduce confusion for students wishing to transfer to both, and is very much aligned with our priorities around developing and implementing a student-centered transfer ecosystem with a consistent and guaranteed transfer pathway," David O'Brien, vice chancellor for government relations for the chancellor's office, said during Monday's board meeting.

AB 1749 will next head to the full Assembly floor for a vote.

In the meantime, Gonzales, the interim chancellor, said the community college system will continue working to improve the transfer process.

"We will continue to work with all of our partners to streamline transfer," she said. "But I will highlight here that without transforming all of those other structures, our students, even though they are meeting all the requirements for transfer, still don't have access to a clear and fair opportunity to transfer."
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The top-line number was eye-opening: About 725,000 people moved out of California in 2020 to set up new lives in one of the 49 other states or Washington, D.C.

If that were the end of it, the number  derived from the Internal Revenue Services Migration Data for 2021  wouldve represented the biggest single-year exodus in state history.

But it wasnt the end of it. While experts say the reasons are more nuanced than the gross outflow of a single year, Californias population has been shrinking steadily since 2020. Recent state data shows Californias population today is a little under 39 million, after flirting with 40 million just four years ago.

A lot of other new data shows where people are going (Texas, Idaho and Florida, as well as neighboring Arizona and Nevada). Polling reports show who is leaving (higher-income, well-educated workers recently started to join a migration pattern that traditionally has been dominated by lower-income movers). And yet other data shows at least some of the financial and social challenges causing problems in California (rising home prices, stagnant wages, crime) arent so different in states wooing the most ex-Californians.

I didnt think Id miss it. And, in a lot of ways I was right; I dont, said a laughing Debbie Higbee, who last year moved from Burbank to Boise, Idaho, with her husband and their three children.

But Im not one of those people who hate California, either, she added. I dont really understand all that.

For me, its fine there. And its not like things are perfect here, either. Both places have good and bad.

Blip or trend?

That 725,000-person exodus was a top-line number, not a net. But Californias actual domestic migration in 2020  with the state losing about 331,000 more people than it got back from the other states  was bracing, even to people who track this stuff closely.

Yeah, that was big, said political scientist Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California and co-author of a blog about state politics, demographics and other issues related to Californias population.

But McGhee, echoing others who study California, was quick to add: It was not surprising. For at least the last 30 years, California has exported more people to other states than we have imported.

In fact, McGhees blog, tracked month-to-month data last year and found that from July 2021 to July 2022 California lost about 407,000 people to other states  almost certainly the biggest such shift in state history.

There have been a handful of years in the past few decades where we had a net gain, but the typical outcome is we lose people, McGhee said.

But, most years, its also been typical for outgoing domestic migration to be offset by incoming international immigration, with more people moving into California from around the world than those decamping to Texas and Idaho and the like. That wasnt the case in 2020.

And, most years, the states population hasnt been shocked by a pandemic-induced rise in deaths and a corresponding drop in births. And, most years, thousands of employers in the state didnt impose massive layoffs for a relatively brief period, then rehire at a breakneck pace and, finally, decide to let millions of workers do their jobs from home  no matter where that home might be. All of that happened in the first year of the pandemic.

Bottom line: Californias population didnt just grow more slowly in 2020 than it had previously, it actually contracted by nearly 359,000. That happened again in 2021, as California shrank by 114,000 people.

Then the pandemic ended but Californias population decline did not.

According to data released this month by the California Department of Finance, the shrinkage carried into last year, with the state losing about 139,000 people. State officials now estimate Californias population is about 38,940,231, the first time its been under 39 million since 2015.

All of which raises a question: Blip or trend?

The state is projecting growth is going to resume, McGhee said.

In the past year, immigration has started to pick up, and pandemic deaths have abated. But birth rates havent yet fully recovered, and a rise in something once unexpected  office workers telecommuting from out of state  has made the growing number of ex-Californians, like Higbee and her family, even more important.

Net domestic migration offset population gains from natural increase and international migration, the finance department wrote in its May 1 report on the state population.

That said, as McGhee noted, the state has projected population growth will resume as early as next year, and that by 2030 the population could top 42 million.

Well see, McGhee said.

Greener grass?

Several years of polling from the Public Policy Institute and others have found people moving away from California offer similar reasons  housing prices, family and jobs.

And, for many conservatives, politics.

A PPIC survey from last year found 56% of people who said they disapprove of Gov. Gavin Newsom also said they want to move out of California, versus 28% of Newsom supporters who said the same thing. That mirrors whats been underway nationally for much of this century, as people move to be near people of similar political beliefs, a trend some demographers term the big sort.

Yet move to data suggests politics is a motive for some, but not all.

The IRS migration report from 2020 found that the most popular state for ex-Californians, by far, is conservative Texas. It also found deeply red Idaho ranked fourth for ex-Californians and currently red Florida ranked fifth.

But the second biggest draw was Arizona, which voted for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 and is generally viewed as a mixed state, politically. Same for third-place Nevada (also mixed, politically). Whats more, the only three counties nationally that drew more than 1,000 Californians in 2020  Maricopa County, Arizona (Phoenix), Clark County, Nevada (Las Vegas) and King County, Washington (Seattle)  all have more registered Democrats than Republicans.

Higbee, who moved from Burbank to Boise last year said politics had nothing to do with their move.

Im actually not a fan of the politics here. Its kind of crazy. But I wasnt always a fan of the politics in California, either, she said.

I kinda wish it wasnt a thing at all.

Instead, the Higbees' move was about home prices and because her husband could keep his job by working from home as long as he commutes back to California once a quarter.

Data shows the April median home price in Higbees new county, Ada, Idaho, was $492,000, versus about $1.1 million in her old hometown, Burbank.

We could change our lives, Higbee said. So we did.

But long-term data compiled by USA Facts, using information from the Bureau of Labor and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, shows that life-changing property values might not last forever.

Since 2015, home prices in Ada, Idaho have jumped 136% while wages have increased 44%. During the same period in Los Angeles County, home prices rose 68% and wages rose 36%. And, on a state level, the gap between home prices and wages has grown wider in all five states wooing the most Californians than it has in California.

Another factor  for the Higbees and, if data is to be believed, hundreds of thousands of others  is taxes.

Three of the five biggest move-to states for Californians (Texas, Nevada and Florida) have no state personal income tax, and two others (Idaho, flat 5.8% and Arizona, flat 2.5%) are lower than the personal state income tax for some in California, which ranges from 1% to 12.3%.

But personal income tax is only part of the picture. When factoring in various other ways states pull money out of their residents  including everything from property and sales taxes to licensing fees  all of the move-to states try to offset their lack of income tax, according to a report from the Census Bureau. Californias overall tax burden ranks highest, at 9.2% of the average income, but Nevada, 8.3%, Texas, 8.2%, Idaho, 7.9%, Arizona, 7.7% and Florida, 6.7%, are all within shouting distance.

Still, if the Higbees represent the future in any way, it might be because of their experience as a state-to-state telecommuter.

McGhee said its too early to know how big a deal long-distance telecommuting played in recent migration patterns, but it might be a drain on Californias population going forward.

Historically, the people most likely to leave California were lower-income. That tells you their move had something to do with the cost of living, mostly due to housing, McGhee said.

But what changed during the pandemic was that high-income people also started to leave. And a lot of them did it because they could still keep their California jobs.

Thats a big chunk of this acceleration in domestic migration, he added.

It might be in the future, too.

13 charts that show where home sales are headed in Napa and California
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Samyukta Kisan Morcha

Press Release | 28 May 2023

Black Day for Indian Democracy | Shameful Attack on Democracy by the BJP Government

SKM Condemns the Authoritarian Attack on Wrestlers, Farmers and Women | Stop Repression of Democratic Protests; Release all Arrested Protesters



The cowardly BJP Government led by Narendra Modi closed borders, arrested many activists and kept many under house-arrest since yesterday to stall democratic protest on 28th May, 2023 called by the women wrestlers supported by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha. Borders were closed to stop farmers and women from reaching Delhi. Ironically coming on a day the Prime Minister inaugurated the new Parliament, the measures saw unprecedented use of force. The women wrestlers and different sportsperson, women, farmers in support of their struggle against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, BJP Member of Parliament accused of sexual harassment were dragged by police showing utter disrespect even to the national flags in their hands and taken to different police stations. Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik, Bajrang Poonia and others who won medals for India were assaulted and arrested without any provocation. There is no news of their whereabouts till now. The protest tent where they had been carrying out a peaceful struggle was also totally destroyed by the police. Leaders of different womens organisations including Subhashini Ali, Jagmati Sangwan, Annie Raja, Poonam Kaushik, Maimoona Mollah, and women farmers leaders Charanjit Kaur Dhurian and Davinder Kaur Hardaspura and others were detained. SKM is of the opinion that this exposes BJPs anti-women, undemocratic character and how low they can stoop to protect people accused of sexual harassment. It shows the hollowness of the Prime Ministers Beti Bachao slogan.

Thousands were coming in solidarity with the women wrestlers to attend the Mahila Samman Mahapanchayat. Repression was unleashed and thousands were arrested in Rohtak, Hisar, Bhiwani, Jind, Fatehabad, Sampla, Palwal, Gurgaon and other places. Women and farmers from Punjab were detained at Punjab-Haryana border near Narwana. They blocked the National Highway in Protest. Hundreds were detained at Gurudwara Manji Sahib at Ambala City. Many farmers were detained near Singhu border and taken to police stations in Sonepat. Farmers marching to Tikri border numbering about a thousand were detained. SKM leader Rakesh Tikait and over 2000 farmers reached Gazipur border where they were stopped. Farmers were even detained from railway stations and bus stands.

SKM calls upon all democratic sections to rise up in protest. SKM warns the Narendra Modi-led BJP Government that the struggle will be intensified and carried on till the sexual harassers are arrested and punished.

Media Cell | Samyukta Kisan Morcha

Contact: samyuktkisanmorcha[at]gmail.com
On May 28, the President of the Artsakh Republic Arayik Harutyunyan sent a message on the occasion of the



Day of the First Republic of Armenia.



The message reads:



Dear compatriots,



105 years have passed since the day when remaining without statehood for nearly six centuries, the Armenian people declared their independent state, restored their right to live freely and independently in their own land.



The First Republic of Armenia became the result of the glorious victories of May. The heroic battles of Sardarapat, Bash Aparan, and Gharakilisa remain a mystery to many, but not to us.



Throughout its centuries-long history, the Armenian people have often found themselves on the edge of the abyss, facing seemingly hopeless dead ends with no glimpse of salvation in sight. However, thanks to the courage and bravery, selflessness, and wisdom of its brave children, it was able to withstand the blows of fate, overcome all trials, and continue to forge its future.



Today, we once again find ourselves in a crucial period and we have to fight for our existence, the preservation of our national identity, and the future of a strong Armenian statehood. We have paid an extremely high price for our independent statehood and we must keep and cherish it like our most precious possession, passing it on to future generations.



Therefore, let us learn the crucial lessons from the past, lets collectively take responsibility for our Motherland, and develop and strengthen it while we still have the opportunity. Let us strive to be deserving of our sacred martyrs and carry forward the legacy of those who built one of the world's oldest civilizations.



Glory to the brave Armenians who forge the Armenian statehood.



Glory to the heroic Armenian people!.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan delivered congratulatory speech from Sardarapat Memorial Complex on the occasion of the Day of the First Republic of Armenia.

Dear President of the Republic of Armenia,

Dear President of the National Assembly,

Dear Government Members,

Executive power representatives,

Members of the National Assembly,

Dear representatives of the judiciary and local governments,

Dear people,

Dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,

I congratulate all of us on May 28 - the Day of the First Republic of Armenia. On this day in 1918, for the first time in its history, the Armenian people created a state with a republican system of government. For the first time in our reality, a state was created where power belongs to the people.

This epochal event took place in the conditions of the collapse of empires, the formation of a new empire and world order, when in the battles of Sardarapat, Bash-Aparan and Karakilisa our people were able to prove their right to life.

However, the First Republic lasted only two and a half years, also because after winning the battle for existence, proclaiming a state, we did not manage to formulate our vision of life in an independent state and to make life in the First Republic comfortable and profitable for ourselves.

The First Republic did not manage to position itself as a means of security, well-being and happiness of its own citizens, since, in fact, during its entire existence it did not have a single day of peace. Hunger, emigrants who escaped the [Armenian] genocide, internal strife, the centuries-old absence of economic institutions, state institutions, culture of statehood, foreign influence, and war caused the fall of the First Republic.

This, however, in no way detracts from the role of the First Republic. After more than 540 years of break, the Armenian people found a statehood and for the first time forged a Republic, and the lessons of this Republic are on our table today.

Of those many lessons, I want to highlight just one today: life in the Republic of Armenia should be comfortable and useful for the citizens, well-being and happiness should be present today and not in a distant future, and the time for unraveling historical knots is now and not later.

The First Republic did not have enough time - but we still do. The First Republic could not survive after the war of 1920, we are standing after the war of 2020 and building our Motherland and State that exist here and now, and we will no longer look for a new Motherland, because our Motherland is our state.

This state is both a goal and a means. It is a goal, because only the state can best express the interests of its founder: the people. It is a means, because only the state can best express the interests of its founder: the people. And these interests dictate to us that security, well-being and happiness be provided for our long-suffering people - this is possible under conditions of settled relations with neighbors, only under conditions of peace, which the First Republic did not have, and which, unfortunately, the Third Republic still does not have.

That is why we have adopted and consistently implement the peace agenda, because all our martyrs fell for the happiness, not the suffering of their people. Only the prosperous, living, developed, and secure Armenia, the Republic of Armenia, the state of Armenia must bring eternal peace to the souls of all our martyrs.

Glory to all our martyrs who gave their lives for their Motherland!

And long live the Republic of Armenia!

Long live the Republic of Armenia!
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament Building on Sunday. On the special occasion, classical dancer and author Padma Subrahmanyam discussed the role of 'Sengol' established in the new Parliament House. Talking to ANI, Padma shared her happiness about the new parliament building inauguration. He said," All that I have to say I feel so happy. The small letter that I wrote has such a great effect. I am only praying when the new parliament building is inaugurated, it is the beginning of the golden age of Indian history. She further added, "Let the 'Sengol' stand there erect reminding people of the importance of being straightforward, caring for people, and not bending in any way away from justice." Regarding her book on Sengol and how crucial it is to Tamil culture, she said, the idea of "Dharma Dhand" has existed throughout India since the Ramayana and Mahabharata eras, and there has been a continuation of that tradition in South India. "Dharma Dhanda" is known as "Sengol" in Tamil. She added, "Sengol means that stick which reminds you of refinement in thought words and action." Padma shared her thoughts on the letter she wrote to the prime minister regarding Sengol, she said, " So, this is a very happy moment and I feel particularly gratified and thankful to god... I send a letter to the honourable prime minister. Translating the very important article that came from 'Thuglak Tamil magazine' and the article was written by no less than a person 'Shri GuruMurti'. and this is the letter that I sent to Prime Minister ji in 2021. And it has rectified so well much more than what I expected." Further, she explained how governance has to be, "Governance has to be based on ethical ideals for the welfare of humanity and 'Sengol' was not representing monarchy but it was given to the king by the Rajguru. For him, to remember that justice is something that cannot be compromised. So, this is the philosophy of 'Sengol'. When asked about the politics that took place regarding the establishment of 'Sengol', she replied, "I am not a politician, to be honest, and I dont understand petty-mindedness because 'Sengol' is something to do with our culture and culture cannot be ignored whether you are a politician. If my country is known all over the world, it is because of the culture, and the preservation of the culture that we have cultural values." Padma urged those who interpret 'Sengol' as a religious symbol to view it as a stunning work of art. "Still, you adore it. What an amazing carving you have. History is significant, and every person should be proud of their heritage. Other nations are extremely proud of their short histories. And I can't think of any reason why we shouldn't be proud of our own past." She added, "Even if you want to interpret 'Sengol' as a religious symbol, take it as a beautiful piece of art. You still love it. What a wonderful carving you have. And our country has a culture that gives culture to symbolism. Symbolism is very important for everything. There is meaning and emblem for every ethical value. "So, I hope people understand these ethical values of 'Sengol' and stop this unnecessary waste of time instead of taking pride and owning the whole success story of building a beautiful, wonderful castle that is a temple of democracy. I don't think there should be room for any petty-mindedness," She said. Earlier today, Prime Minister Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. PM Modi also prostrated as a mark of respect before the 'Sengol' during the ceremony.Before it was installed in the new Parliament building, PM Modi was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by Adheenams. The 'Sengol' marked the transfer of power from the British to the Indians in 1947. The new Parliament building will enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present structure of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha. Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber. (ANI)
Actor Randeep Hooda is all set to portray the freedom fighter, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in the movie 'Swatantrya Veer Savarkar'. Randeep also took to his Twitter handle and wrote in the caption, "The most wanted Indian by the British. The inspiration behind revolutionaries like - Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh & Khudiram Bose. Who was #VeerSavarkar? Watch his true story unfold! Presenting @RandeepHoodain & as #SwantantryaVeerSavarkar In Cinemas 2023" After his post, many of his fans congratulated the actor for bringing the life of a revolutionary leader on-screen. One of his fans wrote, "Perfect choice for this role" Another mentioned, This is Really Great. This movie is definitely going to be Blockbuster. Veer Savarkar Ji was a great Patriot" The teaser 'Swatantrya Veer Savarkar' was released on the 140th birth anniversary of revolutionary leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Randeep, who plays the title role and is based on the life of politician, activist, and writer Veer Savarkar, discussed the inspiration for the film. Randeep made his debut with 'Monsoon Wedding', got a lot of popularity with films such as 'Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai', 'Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster', 'Rang Rasiya', 'Jism 2' and many more. With 'Swatantrya Veer Savarkar', he is making a debut as a director. He shared, "Savarkar led an incredible life, and as I learned more about him while researching for my film, I have come to admire him tremendously. So it gives me immense pleasure to share a sneak peek into our film on his 140th birthday." Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was born on May 28, 1883 in the Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin Hindu family of Damodar and Radhabai Savarkar in the village of Bhagur, near the city of Nashik, Maharashtra. He was a politician, activist and writer. He was a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha. Savarkar started participating in politics while still a high school student and continued doing so while attending Fergusson College in Pune. He got active with groups like India House and the Free India Society while he was studying law in the United Kingdom. He also published books that promoted revolutionary methods for achieving total Indian independence. The British colonial authorities outlawed one of his works, The Indian War of Independence, which was about the Indian Rebellion of 1857. 'Pavitra Rishta' fame Ankita Lokhande will be seen opposite Bollywood actor Randeep Hooda. Like Veer Bhagat Singh, Subhash Chandra Bose, Khudiram Bose, Madanlal Dhingra, and many others, Veer Savarkar also served as an inspiration. However, according to director Sandeep Singh, he was misunderstood by many people throughout history, and the film will reveal the truth about him and his efforts. He added, "People worldwide continue to misunderstand him. They wanted, and still want, him to apologise without knowing the reason. When I say that Veer Savarkar was truly a patriot, I mean it and stand by it staunchly. Thus, for those who have misunderstood him need to watch our film for all the factual information. History cannot be corrected and the events that have transpired in the past cannot be changed. I feel privileged and grateful to have the opportunity to make a film on one of our greatest freedom fighters of his time." Directed and co-written by Randeep Hooda with Utkarsh Naithani, Swatantrya Veer Savarkar is produced by Anand Pandit Motion Pictures and Randeep Hooda Films with Legend Studios and Avak Films. SwatantryaVeer Savarkar is produced by Anand Pandit, Sandeep Singh, Randeep Hooda and Sam Khan, Yogesh Rahar and co-produced by Roopa Pandit, Ishaan Dutta and Rahul V Dubey. The principal shooting for the film is almost complete, and the film is slated to release in cinemas this year. (ANI)
Badrinath Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC) on Saturday said that 8241 VIPs have visited Shri Kedarnath and Shri Badrinath Dham till May 26, from which the committee has earned an income of over Rs 24 lakh. "Till Friday, 2922 VIP devotees reached Kedarnath Dham for darshan, from which an income of Rs 8,76,600 was generated. Similarly, 5319 VIP pilgrims have so far travelled to Badrinath Dham, from which an income of Rs 15,95,700 was generated," BKTC President Ajendra Ajay. "After the opening of the doors this year, so far 8,241 VIPs have visited Kedarnath and Badrinath Dham and from these, BKTC has earned an income of Rs 24,72,300 till May 26, 2023," the BKTC chief said. BKTC is charging fees from VIP/VVIP devotees like other major temples of the country. This is also increasing the income of BKTC. The study teams had made various recommendations in their reports, one of which was regarding the charging of fees from VIPs/VVIPs coming for the darshan of shrines. Based on the recommendation of the study teams, this decision was approved in the BKTC board meeting and it was decided to charge Rs 300 per person from the VIP/VVIP pilgrims coming for the Yatra, a release from the government read. Unauthorized visitors in the name of VIPs have also been banned after the BKTC fixed a fee of Rs 300 per person and provided them with a slip to enter the temple, it stated. "The pleasant results of this new system are visible. The new system has stopped those unnecessarily entering the temple in the name of VIP," the BKTC president said. The arrangements made by BKTC for the darshan are proving to be effective as it has put a check on those unauthorized visitors in the name of VIP darshan from entering the temples, it added. It further mentioned that on the opening of the doors of Ganesh Kedarnath Dham BKTC made this arrangement on the order of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami. Earlier CM Dhami also paid Rs 300 on the opening of the doors of Kedarnath Dham and then he visited the temple, the release read. Before the commencement of the Yatra this year by BKTC President Ajendra Ajay, four major temples of the country, Tirupati Bala Ji, Vaishno Devi, Mahakal and Somnath Dham, sent separate teams to study the temple management system. (ANI)
The deceased was identified as Jagan, 32, a native of Perumalkulam in Thoothukudi district.

As per police, Jagan had family problem which began after he married for the second time while his divorce case with his first wife was midway.

According to the police, he shot himself using an INSAS (Indian Small Arms System) rifle and died on the spot.

Two bullets pierced his neck and exited his head, they added.

Soon after the incident Periyanayakanpalayam DSP Namachivayam, Tudiyalur Inspector Rathinakumar and the police rushed to investigate the matter.

The body was seized by police and sent to Coimbatore Government Hospital for post-mortem.

Moreover, the police have seized the rifle and have also registered a case under relevant sections.

Further investigation is underway. (ANI)
Mumbai police on Saturday said that they have recorded the statement of actress Jennifer Mistry Bansiwal in connection with her sexual harassment allegations against 'Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah's' producer Asit Kumarr Modi and two other members of the crew. An official of Mumbai's Powai police station on Sunday said that they will summon Asit Kumarr Modi soon to record his statement in the case. "Powai Police recorded the statement of Jennifer Mistry Bansiwal in connection with her sexual harassment allegations against Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah's producer Asit Kumarr Modi and two other members of the crew. The Police will also summon Asit Kumarr Modi soon for his statement," Mumbai Police said. Asit Modi, the show's producer, and certain cast members have been accused of sexual harassment by Jennifer. However, Asit Modi termed the allegations made against him by the actress Jennifer Mistry as baseless and claimed to take legal action against the actress for trying to defame him. Earlier in the month, in an exclusive interview with ANI, Mistry said that she has not lied about anything in the notice served to Asit Modi. "People are saying that Asit Modi had physical relation with me, I want to say that there is nothing like that," Mistry said earlier. Jennifer has filed a case against Asit Modi, project head Sohail Ramani and executive producer, Jatin Bajaj. According to the Mumbai Police, they have received a written complaint from actress Jennifer Mistry, however, no case has been registered in this matter yet. "Actress from Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah has filed a written complaint against a producer alleging sexual harassment. According to her complaint, producer Asit Modi and some crew members sexually harassed her. However, an FIR has yet to be registered. We have started an inquiry," the Mumbai Police said earlier in the month. Asit Modi called the allegations "baseless" and wrote, "We will take legal action as she is trying to defame me and the show both. Since we terminated her services, she is making these baseless allegations." However, the show's producer, project head Sohail Ramani, executive producer, Jatin Bajaj, and the team of directors earlier issued an official statement denying all the allegations saying Mistry is being driven by vendetta as her work contract with the production house was terminated. Mistry had expressed her hope that the truth will come out only after the police complete their investigation. (ANI)
Soon after the inauguration of the new building of Parliament commenced, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kapil Mishra on Sunday said that the first day of the parliament session after independence should have been like this. "Wonderful Scenario! The first day of the parliament session after independence should have been like this", said Mishra. Adding further, he compared the new parliament building with that of the ancestors of valiant personalities like Shivaji, Chandragupta, and Maharana Pratap. "Now it seems like it is the parliament house of the ancestors of Shivaji, Chandragupta Maurya, Maharana Pratap," he added. Admiring PM Modi, Mishra wrote, "The task of converting the dreams of our brave ancestors into reality could only be done by Narendra Modi Ji". Other than Kapil Mishra, several leaders have expressed their happiness over the inauguration of the new parliament building. "Today is a historic day for the countrymen. Because on this day, Prime Minister Naredra Modi is going to hand over the new parliament to the country. This parliament house is a symbol of self-respect for 142 crore Indians", said Sarbananda Sonowal, union minister. Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new parliament building. PM Modi performed the Puja. He also recieved 'Sengol' (a mark of change of powers, handed over by the British to the then PM Jawahar Lal Nehru) to establish it in the new parliament building. PM Modi bowed down before the 'Sengol', showing respect to the same. After this, all faith (Sarva-Sharma) prayers followed. (ANI)
Former Bihar deputy chief minister Tarkishore Prasad on Sunday demanded that a treason case should be registered against Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) for comparing the structure of new parliament building to a coffin, saying that no political party has the right to make anti-national statements. As the new parliament complex in the national capital was inaugurated on Sunday, the RJD in a tweet posted a picture of a coffin with aerial image of the newly built building. "They (RJD) should be prosecuted for such statements. It is a day of national pride. Today is a day to strengthen the democratic system because the Parliament reflects the public opinion of the entire country," Prasad, a senior leader of the BJP, told ANI. "It is a criminal statement. A case of treason should be registered RJD," Prasad said while referring to the RJD's tweet. The RJD on its offcial handle at the microblogging site had captioned the tweet as 'Yeh kya hai? (What is this?), drawing sharp criticism from various quarters including the BJP. "What can be more disrespectful for democracy? This shows the cheap mindset of the political party when on a day of pride, an auspicious day, when a new parliament is being dedicated to the nation, they are comparing it to a coffin. They have tweeted a picture of a coffin. A case of sedition must be registered against such people," the BJP leader added. Taking a dig at the RJD, a part of the Nitish Kumar-led coalition government in Bihar, Prasad said that India's glorious democratic tradition has roots in the state as its Vaishali District had the world's first democratic setup. Defending his party, RJD leader Shakti Singh Yadav said, "The coffin in our tweet is a representation of democracy being buried. The country will not accept this. Parliament is the temple of democracy and it is the place to have discussions." Twenty-five opposition parties boycotted the inauguration of the new parliament building, saying that that it "insults the high office of the President, and violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution". In a joint statement, the like-minded opposition parties said that Prime Minister's decision to inaugurate the building by himself is "a direct assault on our democracy, which demands a commensurate response." (ANI)
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday, presented a stand on the contrary to his party on the issue of 'Sengol' and said that everyone should embrace this symbol from the past to affirm the values of the present. Notably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi installed the historic 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber while dedicating the new Parliament building to the nation. Tharoor affirmed the government's argument that 'Sengol' reflects a continuity of tradition, however, he also called the argument of Opposition righteous, that the Constitution was adopted in the name of the people. Taking to Twitter, Tharoor said, "My own view on the Sengol controversy is that both sides have good arguments. The government rightly argues that the sceptre reflects a continuity of tradition by embodying sanctified sovereignty and the rule of dharma. The Opposition rightly argues that the Constitution was adopted in the name of the people and that sovereignty abides in the people of India as represented in their Parliament. It is not a kingly privilege handed down by divine right". "The two positions are reconcilable if one simply drops the debatable red herring about the sceptre having been handed to Nehru by Mountbatten to symbolise the transfer of power, a story for which there is no proof. Instead, we should simply say that the sengol, sceptre is a traditional symbol of power and authority, and by placing it in the Lok Sabha, India is affirming that sovereignty resides there and not with any monarch," he added. https://twitter.com/ShashiTharoor/status/1662685049911922690?s=20 Notably, Tharoor's stand is quite different from what other party leaders have taken on the issue of 'Sengol'. Especially, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had come out hard against the Centre accusing it of spreading "false narratives". "Is it any surprise that the new Parliament is being consecrated with typically false narratives from the WhatsApp University? The BJP/RSS Distorians stand exposed yet again with Maximum Claims, Minimum Evidence," Ramesh said on Twitter on Friday. https://twitter.com/Jairam_Ramesh/status/1661948021142351872?s=20 The Congress General Secretary in charge of Communications claimed that there is "no documented evidence" of the 'Sengol' being described as a symbol of the transfer of power from the British and called the claims made by the BJP "bogus". "A majestic sceptre conceived of by a religious establishment in then Madras province and crafted in Madras city was indeed presented to Nehru in August 1947. There is NO documented evidence whatsoever of Mountbatten, Rajaji & Nehru describing this sceptre as a symbol of transfer of British power to India. All claims to this effect are plain and simple -- BOGUS. Wholly and completely manufactured in the minds of a few and dispersed into WhatsApp, and now to the drum-beaters in the media. Two of the finest Rajaji scholars with impeccable credentials have expressed surprise," he said on Twitter. Jairam Ramesh added, "The sceptre was later kept for display at the Allahabad Museum. What Nehru said there on December 14, 1947, is a matter of public record despite whatever labels may say. The sceptre is now being used by the PM and his drum-beaters for their political ends in Tamil Nadu. This is typical of this brigade that embroiders facts to suit its twisted objectives. The real question is why is President Droupadi Murmu not being allowed to inaugurate the new Parliament?" (ANI)
In a sharp retort to the the Samajwadi Party's allegations of "Brahminism", the government on Sunday termed the remarks as "comical and reek of ignorance". Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya had accused the BJP-led Centre of inviting only "Brahmin gurus" for the inauguration of the new parliament building while ignoring other religious leaders. "The allegations of Brahminism made by the Samajwadi Party are comical and reek of ignorance. These Adheenams are run by communities that come under backward caste and OBC categories. They have a rich history of Tamil literature that worships Lord Shiva," government sources told ANI. The remarks were termed as an insult to the Adheenams (chief priets of Shaivism mutts) and to the diversity of Hinduism. "It is an insult to these holy Adheenams and to the diversity of Hinduism to make such comments," the government sources made. Maurya, in a tweet, had said, "It is extremely unfortunate that only fundamentalist Brahmin gurus of the South were called in the installation worship of Sengol. If the BJP government had faith in India as a secular sovereign nation, then all the religious leaders of the country, such as Buddhist Dharmacharyas (monks), Jain Acharyas (sages), Guru Granthis, Muslim religious leaders (Maulana), Christian religious leaders (Pastor) etc. should have been invited". "By not doing so, BJP has shown its corrupt mentality and disgusting thinking. Although the BJP government is going on the path of monarchy by establishing the Sengol, it is also trying to establish Brahminism by calling the Brahmin religious leaders of the South," he added. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday dedicated the new parliament building to the nation by unveiling a plaque and installing the 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber. The prime minister felicitated some of the workers involved in the construction of the new building. He handed over mementoes to them. Prime Minister Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. PM Modi also performed sashtang pranam (prostration) before the 'Sengol' as a mark of respect during the ceremony. A 'sarva dharma prarthana' (multi-faith prayer) ceremony was held at the new parliament building on Sunday. At the sarva-dharma prarthana, the religious leaders chanted prayers of their respective faiths. The newly constructed building of parliament, which will work to further enrich India's glorious democratic traditions and constitutional values, is also equipped with state-of-the-art facilities that will help the parliamentarians to perform their functions in a better way. The new complex is designed to enable 888 members sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present building of the parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha. Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber. (ANI)
Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal on Sunday termed the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi a "dark day" for the parliamentary democracy. Speaking to reporters in Kerala, Venugopal said, "Today is a dark day for parliamentary democracy. Has the ruling BJP given any reason for keeping the President and Vice President of India away from this function?" The Congress leader further said that former President Ram Nath Kovind was also not invited when the foundation stone of the Parliament building was laid. Earlier today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the new Parliament building to the nation by unveiling a plaque and installing the 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber. "This function (Parliament building inauguration) is being carried out in violation of the constitutional values and principles. It is the reflection of upper-caste fascism controlled by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)," Venugopal alleged, taking a dig at BJP. "The inauguration of the new Parliament building by the PM was also a mistake that should never have been made in a country like India," the Congress leader said. Venugopal slammed the BJP-led Central government for holding such an auspicious ceremony on May 28, also the day of the birth anniversary of Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar. "Why not choose Mahatma Gandhi's birthday or death anniversary to hold such an auspicious ceremony? Why not on Ambedkar's Day? All they remember is Savarkar," Venugopal lashed out at the ruling BJP. He said that the Parliament building was built with people's money. "They (BJP) should remember that this is the Parliament building. It is not the office of the BJP to make it a zone of extreme communalism and self-righteousness," Venugopal said. Twenty Opposition parties boycotted the opening of the new Parliament building stating that the inauguration of the building without President Droupadi Murmu "insults the high office of the President, and violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution". (ANI)
"Tributes to Veer Savarkar on his Jayanti. His patriotism, courage, and commitment motivate us in the building of a New India. His many contributions to the nation will continue to inspire generations," tweeted S Jaishankar.

https://twitter.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1662677676241608705?s=20

Interestingly, the birth anniversary of the Savarkar coincides with the inauguration of the new Parliament building inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday.

Savarkar born on May 28, 1883, was a politician, activist, and writer. He developed the Hindu Nationalist Ideology of Hindutva while being imprisoned at Ratnagiri in 1922.

He died on February 26, 1966. (ANI)
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury skipped the Sunday inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building, even though he had received an invitation. Sources close to Chowdhury told ANI that he has decided not to attend today's ceremony despite being invited as a guest to sit along with the Prime Minister keeping his view his position as the leader of the largest Opposition party in Parliament. Notably, Congress was among the 21 political parties who had earlier announced the boycott of the inauguration accusing the government of "sidelining" President Droupadi Murmu. The opposition said that the inauguration of the building without President Droupadi Murmu "insults the high office of the President, and violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution". Meanwhile, Congress leader Acharya Pramod Krishnan took a stand contrary to his party and apparently lashed out at those who boycotted the ceremony of the new Parliament building."Dharm 'Dand' was installed, when the gods started showering flowers the 'donkeys' started to shout...," he said in a hindi post on Twitter. Earlier on May 25, Acharya Pramod had appealed to the Opposition to reconsider its decision to boycott the inauguration ceremony. He said that the Opposition has the right to dissent and oppose the policies of PM Modi but it is not right to oppose the whole country as the Parliament is for the entire country not of any specific political party. Earlier Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter to state, "Parliament is the voice of the people! The Prime Minister is considering the inauguration of the Parliament House as a coronation." Meanwhile, while speaking to ANI, Union Minister Pralhad Joshi said that Congress can't tolerate good things happening in the country. "Congress can't tolerate good things happening in the country, they are lying about Sengol. Parliament is a temple of democracy; people will give them a befitting reply for the way they (RJD) are using expletives for the new Parliament." This morning PM Modi dedicated the new Parliament building to the nation by unveiling a plaque and installing the 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber. He felicitated some of the workers involved in the construction of the new building and handed over mementoes to them. Prime Minister Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. PM Modi also prostrated as a mark of respect before the 'Sengol' during the ceremony. The newly constructed building of Parliament, which will work to further enrich India's glorious democratic traditions and constitutional values, is also equipped with state-of-the-art facilities which will help the Members to perform their functions in a better way. The new Parliament building is designed to enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha.In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha. Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber. (ANI)
Stating that the 'Amrit Kaal' will give a new direction to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the new parliament building should be a shining example of the country's vision and resolve of New India. PM Modi said that the construction of the new complex gave employment to over 60,000 labourers, and a digital gallery has been created to honour their hard work. Addressing the ceremony, PM Modi said, "Several years of foreign rule took away our pride from us. But today, India has left behind that colonial mindset. India is the mother of democracy. It is also the foundation of global democracy. Democracy is our 'Sanskaar', idea and tradition". He further said that there was a need for a new parliament and the new building is equipped with modern facilities and the latest gadgets. "There was a need for new parliament. We also have to see that the number of seats and MPs will increase in the coming time. That's why it was need of the hour that a new Parliament is made," he said. PM Modi added, "This building is equipped with modern facilities and has latest gadgets. It has given employment to over 60,000 labourers. We have created a digital gallery to honour their hard work". The Prime Minister further said that the inspiration is the same from Panchayat Bhawan to Sansad Bhawan. "As we sit in the new parliament, I find immense satisfaction in the accomplishment of building 4 crore homes and 11 crore toilets for the people, constructing 4 lakh kilometres of rural roads, constructing 50,000 Amrit Sarovar, and creating 30,000 new Panchayat Bhavans. From Panchayat Bhawan to Sansad Bhawan, our inspiration is the development of our country and its people," the Prime Minister added. He added that 'Amrit Kaal' will give a new direction to our nation to fulfil our vision of New India and this new building should be a shining example of our vision and resolve. "This new Parliament will become witness to the rise of a self-reliant India. When India surges ahead, the world also moves forward. Along with India, the new Parliament building will also contribute to the world's progress," the Prime Minister said. After concluding his speech in the Parliament, PM Modi interacted with several leaders in the new Parliament. The Prime Minister's address was followed by that of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla. Prime Minister Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. PM Modi also performed sashtang pranam as a mark of respect before the 'Sengol' during the ceremony. "It is our good fortune that we have been able to restore the pride of the holy 'Sengol'. Whenever proceedings start in this House the 'Sengol' will inspire us," said PM Modi. PM Modi was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by Adheenams before it was installed in the new building. The Sengol marked the transfer of power from the British to the Indians in 1947. After dedicating the new parliament building to the country earlier this morning after a ceremony that saw a multi-faith prayer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi this afternoon walked into the new building amid chants of "Modi" "Modi" and a standing ovation for the second phase of the inauguration ceremony. The new Parliament building is designed to enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha. Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber. (ANI)
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders hailed the new Parliament building which was dedicated to the nation on Sunday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and also attacked the Opposition for their boycott of the event. Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Arjun Munda said that this event will be written in "golden words" and asked the Opposition not to do politics over it. "The inauguration of the new Parliament by PM Narendra Modi will be written in golden words in history. This will represent the constitutional principles of the country forever. Throughout history, we had the parliament of colonial times. Now, we will go ahead with a new Parliament, with a new belief and thought process in the Amrit Kaal," he told ANI. Arjun Munda added, "They (Opposition) should ask themselves what they did for the tribals in 75 years. When BJP made Droupadi Murmu the President, they came together to defeat her. Now they are talking about the President? The opposition parties should not do politics and take part in the inauguration ceremony of the new Parliament building to strengthen democracy". BJP leader Harnath Yadav called the day historic adding that the whole country is looking at the inauguration event and Speaking to ANI, Harnath Yadav said, "Today all the 145 crore people of this country are looking at the new Parliament building. Parliament is the sacred temple of democracy and Constitution is the soul of the Parliament. The Parliament will be there when 145 crore people bestow their hope and trust in the institution". "Today is a historic day for the country, and we pay respect to all the freedom fighters who laid down their lives fighting for the country," he added. Slamming the Opposition for their boycott of the inauguration ceremony, the BJP leader said that the parties have lost all respect in the country's institutions. "The boycott by Congress and other Opposition parties is extremely objectionable. This shows that they no longer have faith in the Parliament, and they no longer respect the Constitution and democracy of the country," the BJP leader said. He added, "If the constitutional values are not respected the country will become like Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The Opposition wants to take the country on this path only, but their aspirations will never be fulfilled. The people are not happy with this. They (Opposition parties) still have time and they should think and participate in the inauguration ceremony". Reacting on the new Parliament building, Union Minister Giriraj Singh said that a new power is emerging under the leadership of PM Modi. "During this 'Amritkal' of India and under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, a new power is emerging. All 140 crore people of India are ready to welcome it. It is fortunate that Narendra Modi has the power to take decisions. There was a need to remove this parliament many years ago and to form a new parliament," he said. Earlier today Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the new Parliament building to the nation by unveiling a plaque and installing the 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber. Earlier today PM Modi felicitated some of the workers involved in the construction of the new building. He handed over mementoes to them. Prime Minister Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja.PM Modi also prostrated as a mark of respect before the 'Sengol' during the ceremony. The newly constructed building of Parliament, which will work to further enrich India's glorious democratic traditions and constitutional values, is also equipped with state-of-the-art facilities which will help the Members to perform their functions in a better way. The new Parliament building is designed to enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha. Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber. (ANI)
In his first address at the new parliament building after the inauguration, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday underlined that the new Parliament House will invoke the development of the world from the development of India. PM Modi said that the world is looking towards India's determination, its citizens' vigour and the life of human power in India with respect and hope. "When India moves forward, the world moves forward. New models can be established only by treading new paths," the Prime Minister remarked as he highlighted that the new India is realizing new goals and paving new ways. Stating that after years of slavery, India resumed its journey and reached the Amrit Kaal, PM Modi said, "Amrit Kaal is a period of forging new dimensions of development while preserving our heritage. This is Amrit Kaal of giving a new direction to the nation. This is Amrit Kaal of fulfilling innumerable aspirations", he said. "When a country like India, full of diversity, with a huge population that tackles various challenges, moves forward with a belief, it inspires many countries of the world. Every achievement of India is going to become an achievement for different countries in different parts of the world in the coming days", he said. The Prime Minister underlined India's responsibility becomes bigger as its determination to develop will become the strength of many other countries. "There is a new energy, new zeal, new enthusiasm, new thinking and a new journey. There are new visions, new directions, new resolutions and a new trust", PM Modi exclaimed. The Prime Minister recalled the golden period of India's prosperity and architecture. He said that centuries of slavery robbed us of this glory. The Prime Minister said that India of the 21st century is filled with confidence. "Today's India is leaving behind the mentality of slavery and embracing that ancient glory of art. This new Parliament Building is a living example of this endeavour", the Prime Minister said. "This building has Virasat (heritage) as well as Vastu (Architecture), Kala (art) as well as kaushal (skill), sanskriti (culture) as well as notes of Samvidhan (Constitution). He pointed out that the interiors of Lok Sabha are themed on the national bird peacock and Rajya Sabha on the national flower lotus. The Parliament premises have the national tree Banyan. The new building incorporates the specialities of different parts of the country. Highlighting the unity of the country, he mentioned granite from Rajasthan, timber from Maharashtra and carpet by Bhadhoi artisans. "We witness the spirit of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat in every particle of this building", he said. PM Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. PM Modi also performed 'sashtang pranam' as a mark of respect before the 'Sengol' during the ceremony. "It is our good fortune that we have been able to restore the pride of the holy 'Sengol'. Whenever proceedings start in this House the 'Sengol' will inspire us," said PM Modi. PM Modi was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by Adheenams before it was installed in the new building. The Sengol marked the transfer of power from the British to the Indians in 1947. After dedicating the new Parliament building to the country earlier this morning after a ceremony that saw a multi-faith prayer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi this afternoon walked into the new building amid chants of "Modi" "Modi" and a standing ovation for the second phase of the inauguration ceremony. PM Modi said that the new Parliament building was not just a building but reflected the aspirations and dreams of 1.4 billion people and will send a powerful message to the world about India's unwavering determination. "In the development journey of every country, some moments come which become immortal. May 28 is such a day," Prime Minister Modi said in his first address in the new Parliament. "More than just a building, the New Parliament reflects the aspirations and dreams of 1.4 billion people. It sends a powerful message to the world about India's unwavering determination," he said. The prime minister said that the new Parliament building will witness the journey towards 'Viksit Bharat'. "The New Parliament Building will be a testament to the dawn of AatmanirbharBharat. It will be a witness to our journey towards a ViksitBharat," said PM Modi. "This new Parliament will become witness to the rise of a self-reliant India," he said. Stating that the 'Amrit Kaal' will give a new direction to the nation, PM Modi said that the new parliament building should be a shining example of the country's vision and resolve of New India. PM Modi said that the construction of the new complex gave employment to over 60,000 labourers, and a digital gallery has been created to honour their hard work. "Several years of foreign rule took away our pride from us. But today, India has left behind that colonial mindset. India is the mother of democracy. It is also the foundation of global democracy. Democracy is our 'Sanskaar', idea and tradition," he said. He further said that there was a need for a new parliament and the new building is equipped with modern facilities and the latest gadgets. "There was a need for a new parliament. We also have to see that the number of seats and MPs will increase in the coming time. That's why it was need of the hour that a new Parliament is made," he said. PM Modi added, "This building is equipped with modern facilities and has the latest gadgets. It has given employment to over 60,000 labourers. We have created a digital gallery to honour their hard work". The Prime Minister further said that the inspiration is the same from Panchayat Bhawan to Sansad Bhawan. "As we sit in the new parliament, I find immense satisfaction in the accomplishment of building 4 crore homes and 11 crore toilets for the people, constructing 4 lakh kilometres of rural roads, constructing 50,000 Amrit Sarovar, and creating 30,000 new Panchayat Bhavans. From Panchayat Bhawan to Sansad Bhawan, our inspiration is the development of our country and its people," the Prime Minister added. He added that 'Amrit Kaal' will give a new direction to our nation to fulfil our vision of New India and this new building should be a shining example of our vision and resolve. After concluding his speech in the Parliament, PM Modi interacted with several leaders in the new Parliament. The Prime Minister's address was followed by that of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh and Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla. A special Rs 75 coin was launched on Sunday to mark the inauguration of the new Parliament building. Notably, the country is also celebrating its 75th year of independence. A special stamp to mark the occasion was also launched. Reflecting the cultural diversity of India, Tripura's epitome bamboo wood flooring embellished the new Parliament building. In line with the 'Made in India' initiative, different kinds of materials like teak wood from Nagpur and red and white sandstone from Rajasthan's Sarmathura have been used in the construction of the Parliament floor. Apart from that, carpets from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh and stone carvings from Rajasthan have also been used. Further, red granite from Lakha near Ajmer and white marble from Ambaji of Rajasthan have also been used in the flooring. Epitome bamboo wood flooring was supplied by Mutha Industries of Bodhjungnagar, Tripura. The new Parliament building is designed to enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha. Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber. (ANI)
Speaking with ANI, Sanjay Gaur, Deputy Inspector General (DIG), BSF said, "On May 28, BSF troops shot down a drone. A person was also arrested and 3.2 kg of hybrid heroin was recovered from his possession".

"The preliminary interrogation of the accused was done. Further interrogation of the accused will be carried out later today," the DIG BSF added.

BSF has shot down another drone near India-Pakistan International Border (IB) in Punjab's Amritsar and arrested a smuggler alongwith narcotics consignment on Saturday evening, the force said today.

BSF personnel deployed near Dhanoe village in Khurd district in Amritsar shoot down and intercepted the drone after they heard a buzzing sound of the drone at about 9:35 pm yesterday.

(ANI)
Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram took a jibe at the inauguration of the new Parliament House by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and termed it PM's "personal project". Prime Minister Modi on Sunday inaugurated the new Parliament building. "The inauguration of the new Parliament House is a personal project of the PM," Chidambaram told ANI. "The idea was to open the parliament house as a personal project of the honourable Prime Minister. The Constitution says in article-79 that there are three constituents of the Parliament. One is the President other is the Lok Sabha, third is Rajya Sabha," Chidambaram added. Questioning the functioning of the Parliament in a free and fair manner, the senior Congress leader said, "Whether the building will open or not is not important. Whether parliament will be open to a free discussion, to free debate, to defending views and to the opposition voice-- these have to be seen when the session of Parliament begins." He further accused the government of not inviting President Droupadi Murmu for the inauguration of the new Parliament House. "The Parliament shall consist of the President and two houses of the Parliament. So there are three constituents of the Parliament. One is the President, other is the Lok Sabha, third is Rajya Sabha. By keeping the President away and by keeping nearly all the opposition parties away, I think they have violated article 79," Chidambaram told ANI. Responding to the debate on 'Sengol', Chidambaram said, "Let's wait and see what happens in 2024. The BJP got some roots in Karnataka but they were uprooted. The BJP has not yet planted its root in Tamil Nadu and I don't think they will ever gain roots in Tamil Nadu." In his first address at the new parliament building after the inauguration, Prime Minister Modi on Sunday underlined that the new Parliament House will invoke the development of the world from the development of India. PM Modi said that the world is looking towards India's determination, its citizens' vigour and the life of human power in India with respect and hope. "When India moves forward, the world moves forward. New models can be established only by treading new paths," the Prime Minister remarked as he highlighted that the new India is realizing new goals and paving new ways. Stating that after years of slavery, India resumed its journey and reached the Amrit Kaal, PM Modi said, "Amrit Kaal is a period of forging new dimensions of development while preserving our heritage. This is Amrit Kaal of giving a new direction to the nation. This is Amrit Kaal of fulfilling innumerable aspirations", he said. "When a country like India, full of diversity, with a huge population that tackles various challenges, moves forward with a belief, it inspires many countries of the world. Every achievement of India is going to become an achievement for different countries in different parts of the world in the coming days", he said. The Prime Minister underlined that India's responsibility becomes bigger as its determination to develop will become the strength of many other countries. "There is a new energy, new zeal, new enthusiasm, new thinking and a new journey. There are new visions, new directions, new resolutions and a new trust", PM Modi exclaimed. The Prime Minister recalled the golden period of India's prosperity and architecture. He said that centuries of slavery robbed us of this glory. The Prime Minister said that India of the 21st century is filled with confidence. The new Parliament building is designed to enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for seating 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha. Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber. (ANI)
CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Sunday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi comparing the inauguration of the new Parliament building by him with the 'coronation of a monarch'. Sitaram Yechury further said that today's function was the coronation of PM Modi as India's ruler. "What was done today in this function was actually the coronation of Modi as India's ruler. What is sort to be established is that the new India, that Modi is talking about, is an India that will be governed by the principle of the ruler and the subject, that is 'Raja' and 'Praja'," said Sitaram Yechuri while talking to ANI. He further said that the installation of Sengol has no place in a modern democracy. "The Sengol belongs to a period of feudal monarchies of Kings and Emperors. The Sengol was a sceptre that is given to a new King at the time of his coronation. In a modern democracy it has no place at all," he further said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair in the new Parliament building, after performing puja. PM Modi was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by Adheenams before it was installed in the new Parliament building. PM Modi took a decision to adopt Sengol as a national symbol of the Amrit Kaal. This is the same Sengol that was accepted by the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru at his residence on the night of August 14, in the presence of several leaders. The ceremony has begun with a traditional 'pooja' with Vedic rituals which will continue for an hour. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla was also present along with PM Modi during the pooja. The pooja was being held in a pandal (canopy) near the Gandhi statue in Parliament. (ANI)
As 21 Opposition parties boycotted the new Parliament building inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, Union Rural Development Minister Shandilya Giriraj Singh has sided with the Modi-led NDA Government and asked them to name a better candidate than the PM for the task. "PM Modi worked for making India's image strong in the world. Parties have reached the level where they are comparing Parliament with a coffin just for opposing the PM. I want to ask them: Will they come in this coffin for the next session or not? If the PM of the country will not do it, then who else will?" the Rural Development Minister said while talking to ANI. Indian politics is witnessing an intense verbal tussle over the inauguration of the new Parliament building as the Opposition believes that it should have been inaugurated by the President instead of the PM. In a bit to take a jibe against the new building, the RJD recently tweeted a picture of a coffin and the new parliament building. The RJD on its official handle at the microblogging site had captioned the tweet as 'Yeh kya hai? (What is this?), drawing sharp criticism from various quarters including the BJP. The comparison triggered a political slugfest where the BJP is also terming it as 'treason'. However, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav has said that he was not aware of what is happening. "I have not seen yet. I do not know, will see," he said. Several opposition parties boycotted the inauguration of the new parliament building, saying that that it "insults the high office of the President, and violates the letter and spirit of the Constitution". In a joint statement, the like-minded opposition parties said that Prime Minister's decision to inaugurate the building by himself is "a direct assault on our democracy, which demands a commensurate response." (ANI)
According to an official release, in a search operation by BSF on May 28, five packets of drugs weighing approximately 1 kilogram each were recovered from two different isolated bets off Jakhau Coast in Bhuj.

"First packet was recovered from Luna bet, about 8 km off Jakhau Coast, is similar to an earlier recovered packet of Charas and was packed in plastic packing having 'Afghan Product' printed on it. Other 4 packets were recovered from Khidrat bet, about 4 kms off Jakhau Coast. One packet is similar to packets of Heroin recovered earlier having plastic packing with '36 Koffiepads Mild' printed on it", the release stated.

The statement added that the exact nature and type of drug recovered today are yet to be ascertained.

Since April 2023, 41 packets of drugs have been recovered off Jakhau Coast, including today's recovery, the release said.

The release added that BSF has launched an extensive search of the isolated bets off the Jakhau coast.

Earlier in April this year, BSF recovered 10 packets of charas from Ibrahim Peer Bet off the Jakhau coast.

According to the officials, a joint team of BSF and NIU recovered 10 packets of charas from Ibrahim Peer Bet, about 15 km from the Jakhau coast of Bhuj on April 23. Each packet weighed approximately 1 kilogram. (ANI)
Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena on Sunday announced the inclusion of senior leaders of Delhi into the party fold and appointed senior state BJP leader and former Delhi MLA Colonel Devinder Sehrawat as State President. According to a party statement, Col Sehrawat and his supporters joined the party in the presence of Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena Chief Eknath Shinde who was in the national capital to attend the NITI Aayog Governing Council Meeting. While welcoming Col. Sehrawat and other leaders into the party hold, Shinde said that the party would leverage the experience of grassroots leaders to deepen its reach in the national capital with a focus on humanity and inclusive growth. The release further stated, "Other Delhi leaders who joined Shiv Sena today include Madan Rukkad, Mahant Suraj Giri, Ravi Oswal (Safaai Karamchari Union), and Ravi Oswal, President of Delhi Auto Rikshaw Union. They were welcomed into the party by the Senior national leader Anandrao Adsul, and National Secretary Captain Abhijeet Adsul in the presence of Shinde." After the announcement, Delhi Unit led by Col Sehrawat and accompanied by Capt Abhijeet and senior Shiv Sena leader Shri Anshumman Joshi interacted with members of Auto Rikshaw Union who have an emotional connect with the Maharashtra CM, the release said. As per the party inputs, Shiv Sena functionary Anshumman Joshi thanked Eknath Shinde, senior national leader Anandrao Adsul, and national general secretary Captain Abhijeet Adsul for prioritizing Delhi for the party's national action plan. With the formation of the Delhi Unit, Shiv Sena also unveiled its ambitious plans for the National Capital. The move aims to expand its reach in the national Capital Senior Shiv Sena leader and former Union Minister Anandrao Adsul said that with the formation of the Delhi Unit, the national capital becomes the 20th state to have a formal Shiv Sena unit. "We welcome and honour all senior leaders from various political parties who joined us today. We would leverage their grassroots experience to take forward the legacy and new vision of inclusiveness of Bala Saheb Bal Thackeray with regard to taking care of everyone without any consideration of religion, caste, and creed. We must recall that during the unfortunate 1984 riots, Baba Saheb saved Sikhs in Mumbai and Maharashtra. In Delhi, also the party would not only take care of Sikhs and Muslims but all. Everyone is welcomed in the party fold to serve the state and the nation. With the support of these senior leaders, we will be chalking out Delhi plans and actions", Anandrao Adsul said Shiv Sena national secretary Abhijeet Adsul said that the party is reaching out to people and local leaders to enter into electoral politics in alliance with their old allies. "We are reaching out to people and local leaders with our Humanity, Inclusiveness, and Good Governance agenda. In several states, with Block, Zila and State Pramukhs (Head) appointments, the party has geared up to enter into electoral politics in alliance with our old allies", he said. Underpinning the pain points of the people of Delhi, Shive Sena senior functionary Anshumman Joshi said that the party would fight against rampant corruption in Delhi. "Only the son of the soil can understand the problems of Delhi. People are getting inflated electricity and water bills, so the promise of free water and electricity was not fulfilled. Shiv Sena would make well-equipped hospitals and schools in every locality. Infrastructure would be developed to meet the growing needs of Delhi", Joshi said. "Senior leaders of the party have made it clear that Shiv Sena is for everyone and there would be no discrimination. Making the state and nation prosperous with inclusive growth has been the main focus and agenda," added Joshi, thanking Shri Eknath Shinde, senior national leader Anandrao Adsul, and national general secretary Captain Abhijeet Adsul for prioritizing Delhi for the party's national plan. Newly appointed Shiv Sena Delhi Unit President Col. Devender Sehrawat emphasized that Delhi also needs Maharashtra's development model and that the party would introduce the same governance model in the national capital to achieve robust growth. (ANI)
Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Sunday slammed the central government over the installation of Sengol in the new Parliament building and asked if the nation is heading from democracy to monarchy. "Those who criticised Nehru so far, they're following in his footsteps today...but when Nehru received the Sengol, Britishers were leaving India and there was a power transfer but what kind of power transfer happened today? Are we going from democracy to monarchy?" CM Bhupesh Baghel told the media. Earlier today CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi comparing his inauguration of the new Parliament building with the 'coronation of a monarch'. Sitaram Yechury further said that today's function was the coronation of PM Modi as India's ruler. "What was done today in this function was actually the coronation of Modi as India's ruler. What is sort to be established is that the new India, that Modi is talking about, is an India that will be governed by the principle of the ruler and the subject, that is 'Raja' and 'Praja'," said Sitaram Yechuri while talking to ANI. He further said that the installation of Sengol has no place in a modern democracy. "The Sengol belongs to a period of feudal monarchies of Kings and Emperors. The Sengol was a sceptre that is given to a new King at the time of his coronation. In a modern democracy it has no place at all," he further said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair in the new Parliament building, after performing puja. Before it was installed in the new Parliament building, PM Modi was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by Adheenams. PM Modi took a decision to adopt Sengol as a national symbol of the Amrit Kaal. This is the same Sengol that was accepted by the first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru at his residence on the night of August 14, in the presence of several leaders. (ANI)
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he inaugurated the new Parliament building, saying a "self-glorifying authoritarian PM with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures" dedicated the new complex to the nation instead the President. "A self-glorifying authoritarian Prime Minister with utter disdain for Parliamentary procedures, who rarely attends Parliament or engages in it, inaugurates the New Parliament building in 2023," The Congress General Secretary in charge of Communications said in a tweet. https://twitter.com/Jairam_Ramesh/status/1662650195015004161?s=20 Noting today's date, Ramesh further said Jawahar Lal Nehru, the person who did the most to "nurture Parliamentary democracy" in India, was cremated in 1964 and Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem "led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi", was born in 1883. Ramesh also said it is on the same day that President Droupadi Murmu - the first woman from the tribal community to become president - is not allowed to perform her Constitutional duties and inaugurate the new Parliament building. "The President -- the first Adivasi to become President -- is not allowed to fulfil her Constitutional duties and inaugurate the New Parliament building in 2023," he added. Ramesh further said fabrication of facts by "distorians" and the drum-beating of the media hit new lows in 2023. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also took to Twitter and said that Parliament is the voice of the people but the prime minister is treating the inauguration of the new building like a "coronation". "Parliament is the voice of the people! The prime minister is treating the inauguration of the Parliament House as (a) coronation," Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi soon after Modi inaugurated the building. Indian politics is witnessing an intense verbal tussle over the inauguration of the new Parliament building as the Opposition believes that it should have been inaugurated by the President instead of the PM. However, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday presented a stand on contrary to his party on the issue of 'Sengol' and said that everyone should embrace this symbol from the past to affirm the values of the present. Notably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi installed the historic 'Sengol' in the Lok Sabha chamber while dedicating the new Parliament building to the nation. Tharoor affirmed the government's argument that 'Sengol' reflects a continuity of tradition, however, he also called the argument of Opposition righteous, that the Constitution was adopted in the name of the people. Taking to Twitter, Tharoor said, "My own view on the Sengol controversy is that both sides have good arguments. The government rightly argues that the sceptre reflects a continuity of tradition by embodying sanctified sovereignty and the rule of dharma. The Opposition rightly argues that the Constitution was adopted in the name of the people and that sovereignty abides in the people of India as represented in their Parliament. It is not a kingly privilege handed down by divine right". "The two positions are reconcilable if one simply drops the debatable red herring about the sceptre having been handed to Nehru by Mountbatten to symbolise the transfer of power, a story for which there is no proof. Instead, we should simply say that the sengol, sceptre is a traditional symbol of power and authority, and by placing it in the Lok Sabha, India is affirming that sovereignty resides there and not with any monarch," he added. (ANI)
The BSF troops have recovered the drone and tied narcotics.

"A Pakistani drone that violated Indian airspace has been intercepted & brought down by alert BSF troops in Amritsar Sector", BSF Punjab Frontier said in a statement.

Further details on the matter are awaited.

Earlier in April this year, the BSF intercepted a drone infiltrating from the Pakistan side by opening fire at it.

"A rogue drone entering from the Pak side was intercepted with firing by alert BSF troops in Amritsar Sector. On being fired, the drone returned back to Pak side", BSF said in a statement. (ANI)
Union Minister of Consumer Affairs Piyush Goyal on Sunday lashed out at the Opposition parties for trying to make the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi "controversial". While addressing the district-level Yuva Utsav 2023, Piyush Goyal said, "Some people tried to make the new Parliament inauguration also controversial. This should be a matter of pride to every Indian." "Why would we have a Parliament building built by the British, even during the 75th year of Independence?" questioned Piyush Goyal. In his first address at the new parliament building after the inauguration, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday underlined that the new Parliament House will invoke the development of the world from the development of India. PM Modi said that the world is looking towards India's determination, its citizens' vigour and the life of human power in India with respect and hope. "When India moves forward, the world moves forward. New models can be established only by treading new paths," the Prime Minister remarked as he highlighted that the new India is realizing new goals and paving new ways. Stating that after years of slavery, India resumed its journey and reached the Amrit Kaal, PM Modi said, "Amrit Kaal is a period of forging new dimensions of development while preserving our heritage. This is Amrit Kaal of giving a new direction to the nation. This is Amrit Kaal of fulfilling innumerable aspirations", he said. PM Modi installed the sacred 'Sengol' in the new Lok Sabha chamber, right next to the Speaker's chair, after performing puja. PM Modi also performed 'sashtang pranam' as a mark of respect before the 'Sengol' during the ceremony. "It is our good fortune that we have been able to restore the pride of the holy 'Sengol'. Whenever proceedings start in this House the 'Sengol' will inspire us," said PM Modi. PM Modi was handed over the historic 'Sengol' by Adheenams before it was installed in the new building. The Sengol marked the transfer of power from the British to the Indians in 1947. After dedicating the new Parliament building to the country earlier this morning after a ceremony that saw a multi-faith prayer, Prime Minister Narendra Modi this afternoon walked into the new building amid chants of "Modi" "Modi" and a standing ovation for the second phase of the inauguration ceremony. PM Modi said that the new Parliament building was not just a building but reflected the aspirations and dreams of 1.4 billion people and will send a powerful message to the world about India's unwavering determination. The new Parliament building is designed to enable 888 members to sit in the Lok Sabha. In the present building of the Parliament, there is a provision for the sitting of 543 Members in the Lok Sabha and 250 in the Rajya Sabha. Keeping in view the future requirements, arrangements have been made for a meeting of 888 members in the Lok Sabha and 384 members in the Rajya Sabha in the newly constructed building of the Parliament. The joint session of both Houses will be held in the Lok Sabha Chamber. (ANI)
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday announced that Bandra-Versova sea-link bridge will be named as 'Veer Savarkar Setu'. While addressing reporters, Shinde said, "Bandra-Versova sea-link bridge will be named after VD Savarkar and will be known as Veer Savarkar Setu." Earlier today on the 140th birth anniversary of freedom fighter Veer Savarkar, Eknath Shinde paid tributes and said that it is a matter of pride for every Marathi person that the new building of the Parliament of the country is being inaugurated on this auspicious day. "It is a matter of pride for every Marathi person that the new building of the Parliament of the country is being inaugurated on this auspicious day. But some people have tried to throw salt on that program by boycotting it as well," he tweeted. Also Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his 101st episode of 'Mann Ki Baat' said that the stories related to Veer Savarkar's sacrifice and courage inspire Indians even today. "The stories related to Veer Savarkar's sacrifice and courage inspire Indians even today. I cannot forget the day when I went to the cell in Andaman where Veer Savarkar underwent the sentence of Kalapani," he said. "Veer Savarkar's personality comprised firmness and magnanimity. His fearless and self-respecting nature did not appreciate the mentality of slavery at all. Not only the freedom movement, whatever Veer Savarkar did for social equality and social justice is remembered even today," PM Modi said in his monthly radio address. Savarkar born on May 28, 1883, was a politician, activist, and writer. He developed the Hindu Nationalist Ideology of Hindutva while being imprisoned at Ratnagiri in 1922. He died on February 26, 1966. (ANI)
"Acting swiftly on an intelligence input on May 28, 2023, regarding the transportation of Myanmar breeds cattle from Shiblong near the Tripura-Mizoram border from Assam by vehicles. The BSF team intercepted 20 vehicles carrying cattle, which was led by a leading vehicle (Mahindra Scorpio), and nabbed 18 people involved in the illegal transportation of livestock," Border Security Force (BSF) stated.

During the search and seizure operation, the BSF team recovered 86 livestock that were being transported in vehicles.

A team of 105 Bn BSF Tripura, closely monitored the tri-junction of Shivbari near Machalibazar, Police Station Manu, Dhalai.

Further investigation is underway.

BSF troops deployed on the extreme frontiers of the country in Tripura are effectively guarding the international border and regularly rescuing livestock and reducing crime from the bordering areas.

The Frontier HQ Tripura commends the BSF team for their dedication and prompt action in carrying out the seizure. The seizure will significantly impact the illegal trade of cattle trafficking and contribute to maintaining the safety and security of the region's populace. (ANI)
According to a study, heart failure patients are more likely to pass away from their condition on polluted days and for up to two days afterwards. The research was presented at Heart Failure 2023, the European Society of Cardiology's (ESC) scientific conference. "The findings indicate that reducing air pollution has the potential to prevent worsening heart failure," said study author Dr Lukasz Kuzma of the Medical University of Bialystok, Poland. "Protecting vulnerable groups, especially during winter, should become an integral part of clinical care. That means health professionals working with patients to monitor air quality and choose optimal times for outdoor activity." According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), air pollution is the single most serious environmental threat to human health. This includes particulate matter (PM)2.5 and PM10, which are mostly caused by vehicle exhaust emissions and industrial smells. In 2019, it is predicted that ambient air pollution will cause 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide. Heart failure affects more than 64 million people worldwide.4 The authors of the current study previously found that rises in particulate matter were associated with increased hospitalisations for heart failure.5 This study examined the relationship between smog exposure and short-term mortality from heart failure. Mortality data from the five main cities in Eastern Poland from 2016 to 2020 were obtained from the Central Statistical Office. Concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 were retrieved from the Inspectorate for Environmental Protection. Home postcodes were used to connect individual pollution exposure with mortality.The researchers used a time-stratified case-crossover study design in which participants served as their own controls. This eliminated the potential confounding effect of individual characteristics. For each participant, pollutant levels on the day a death occurred (e.g. Tuesday) were compared with pollutant levels on the same day of the week with no deaths (e.g. all remaining Tuesdays) in the same month. The analyses were repeated for pollution levels one day and two days before death took place. All analyses were adjusted for factors that could influence the relationships including the time of year, day of the week, weather conditions (temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure) and long-term trends such as population demographics. A total of 87,990 deaths were recorded during the five-year study, of which 7,404 were due to heart failure. The average age of those who died from heart failure was 74 years and 49% were women. The highest number of deaths occurred in winter and the lowest in summer, with averages of 1.03 and 0.69 per day, respectively. A 10 mg/m3 increase in PM2.5 and PM10 was associated with a 10% and 9% rise, respectively, in the risk of death due to heart failure on a polluted day. Similar risks of dying from heart failure were observed one and two days following smog exposure.Dr Kuzma said: "The results suggest that pollution continues to exert negative effects on heart health for two days after smog exposure. Patients with heart failure should minimise their time in polluted areas by avoiding outdoor activities in places with dense traffic or when pollution levels are high, and using air filters at home. In addition, patients can advocate for policies and actions to improve air quality in their communities." He concluded: "Our research indicates that considering the impact of pollution in public health measures to prevent disease and the consequences of ill health could lead to positive outcomes for patients with heart failure. Such measures should be taken in parallel with clinical care to improve the prognosis of this condition." (ANI)
ARY News is a Pakistani news channel.

Sanaullah while addressing a press conference, claimed that the intercepted conversation revealed a plan to "stage a raid and rape at a known PTI leader's home".

"The planned raid will also involve casualties as a result of firing," Rana Sanaullah alleged. He further claimed that the 'drama' was to be carried out today which is why the government decided to apprise the nation of this 'evil plan'.

He alleged that the conspiracy was being hatched to later claim that human rights were being violated in Pakistan, thereby igniting a global outcry. However, the minister did not provide any proof of his claim, according to ARY News.

Sanaullah said those responsible for the events on May 9 would be brought to justice. "It was evident that the purpose of the drama was to mislead the people of Pakistan", he said.

"Propaganda was being carried out against Pakistan by giving money to people like Zalmay Khalilzad [Former US special representative to Afghanistan]", he added, as per ARY News. (ANI)
Central Asia is critical to China's attempts to build an alternative to the US-led liberal order that is unquestionably dominated by Beijing and in which Russia will, at best, be a junior partner, according to Channel News Asia. Channel News Asia is a Singapore multinational news channel. While the G7 leaders were preparing for their recent summit in Japan, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted his Central Asian counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Xi in his opening address talked about his "vision of a China-central Asia community with a shared future". This will rest on four principles: Mutual assistance, common development, universal security and everlasting friendship. While the relationship between China and Central Asia is often framed in terms of security and development, it also has a political side. This is all evident in the initiatives to create more regional cooperation launched at the summit in Xi'an, according to Channel News Asia. As per Channel News Asia, these propose links between Chinese ministries and government agencies and their counterparts in Central Asia, increasing educational and cultural exchanges, and creating mechanisms like the Central Asia-China Business Council. All of these are likely to further consolidate China's dominant regional role. China will in return insulate the mostly authoritarian leaders of Central Asia from Western economic and political pressure to move towards democracy and protect their sovereignty and territorial integrity against any Russian adventurism. (ANI)
A special report titled "Ten for Taiwan", which outlines steps needed to prevent war with China over Taiwan, has been released by a Select Subcommittee, New York Post reported. Following the report's release, US Representative Mike Gallagher told the Post about the importance of a bipartisan approach and how he doesn't believe foreign policy should be left to President Biden alone. Gallagher in an interview with The Post said: "Here you have Article One [of the Constitution] - the legislative branch - coming out identifying what we need to do to push back on CCP aggression and that sort of inherent recognition foreign policy is not the sole province of the executive." The report, titled "Ten for Taiwan," offers lawmakers a blueprint on what Congress can do to deter Beijing from launching an assault on the self-governed, democratic island just 100 miles off of China's Southeastern coast, the subcommittee chairman said, according to New York Post. "Congress needs to claw back some of its authority and particularly, we want our grand strategy vis-a-vis China to last longer than a single administration. We want it to rest on a bipartisan framework because this competition is not a short one," Gallagher said. While Beijing has never governed the island, it considers Taiwan as China's sovereign territory despite Taipei's objections. The US acknowledges China's stance under the "One China Policy," but Washington considers the island's sovereignty status unsettled, as per New York Post. For years, defence experts and top military officials have warned of Chinese President Xi Jinping's intent to "reunify" with Taiwan either diplomatically or by force, the latter of which the US has a responsibility to defend against under the 1978 Taiwan Relations Act. Meanwhile, Taipei Times recently reported that the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has adopted a strategy to conduct preparedness patrols around Taiwan to create a notion that the Taiwan Strait is part of China's territorial waters. China last month launched a three-day drill following Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen's meeting with US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the US, National Defense University researcher Ma Chen-kun wrote in an article published in the Mainland Affairs Council's (MAC) latest briefing. These exercises named "joint sword," included 232 air sorties, 134 of which crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, but did not feature the use of exclusion zones or live-fire manoeuvres, he said, according to Taipei Times. (ANI)
Indian Overseas Congress (IOC) workers are planning a huge welcome for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in the US. Rahul will embark on his US visit on Sunday. He will be attending a program at Stanford University and meeting the Indian diaspora from May 29-30. Secretary of Indian Overseas Congress, Virender Vashishth, told ANI: "Under the leadership of Sam Pitroda, we Indian Overseas Congress workers are planning a huge welcome of our beloved leader Rahul Gandhi in the USA, President of USA Wing of IOC Mohinder Singh Gilzian and George Ibrahim are motivating Indian Diaspora also with IOC team." Vashishth further said that Congress MP Reventh Reddy, Dr Kota Nilima, Raja Warring, Dr Arti, Congress MP Deepender Singh Hooda and many more senior party leaders of the Party are also coming for preparations of a series of events in the US. Meanwhile, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Saturday took a jibe at the former Wayanad MP, saying he visits abroad 60 times in a year and every time "tears down" the country. "I usually don't comment on Rahul Gandhi because I scratch my head to try to understand why he is saying what he is saying. When PM Modi travels abroad, he speaks about our country's achievements and earns respect for India. This man (Rahul Gandhi) goes abroad 60 times a year. On every visit, he tears down India and our institutions. He talks bad about our democracy, about EVMs, the justice system, media, and everything," the minister said. He further slammed the Congress leader and said that only Rahul has a problem with Indian democracy. As per the sources, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi who was scheduled to fly to the United States for 10 days on May 31 has rescheduled his tour and will now embark on his journey on May 28. He was earlier scheduled to embark on a 10-day visit to the USA beginning May 31. (ANI)
As the Taliban's hardline administration continues to violate women's rights in Afghanistan under its regime, several international organisations and human rights bodies have frequently expressed concern about the country's gender-based policies, Khaama Press reported. Amnesty International has branded the imposition of tight restrictions as a "war against women" in Afghanistan, emphasising the importance of prosecuting violators. Moreover, it has also recorded multiple incidences in Afghanistan under Taliban control, demonstrating gender-based and discriminatory tactics aimed at women in its most recent report. Citing Amnesty, Khaama Press reported that Afghan women have been silenced and may soon vanish. The Taliban's actions mirror the group's discriminatory objectives, which strive to exclude women and girls from all sectors of public life. As per the reports of Amnesty International, the harassment campaign of the Taliban to systematically repress Afghan women from the public sphere is a misogyny and the policy to remove women and girls from public life is ongoing throughout the country under the Taliban's de facto regime. Amnesty International's findings also reveal that the Taliban's strict restrictions on women and girls violate a number of international treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, reported Khaama Press. Women in Afghanistan have been prohibited from working at NGOs for a long time now. Several women and girls have repeatedly called out the de-facto authorities to provide them with work outside their houses, however, the Taliban has continued with its curbs on women in Afghanistan. However, some women and girls have started working, such as by picking up trades or other commercial endeavours, in order to make money. Since the Taliban regained power in August 2021 after the US exit from the country, women are not allowed to work in education with domestic and international organisations, in gyms, or in public spaces. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a 12-step initiative in the third Forum For India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) Summit held on May 21 in Papua New Guinea. Amid intensifying US-China strategic competition in the South Pacific, India's positive engagement on a neutral and constructive agenda in the region would not only set a trend of development cooperation with the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) but also ease geopolitical tensions. China's increased activism in the region has brewed suspicion regarding its hegemonistic intents in the region as seen in the South China Sea. Most of the initiatives suggested by the Indian Prime Minister are of purely development and welfare-enhancing nature rather than creating strategic stakes as often seen in the engagements of countries like China. These 12-step initiatives include, among others, the FIPIC SME Development Project, the Solar Project for Government buildings, providing desalination units for drinking water, supply of sea ambulances, setting up dialysis units, a 24x7 emergency helpline, Jan Aushadi Kendras, Yoga Centres, etc. India's engagement with the Pacific Island countries includes both creations of social and economic infrastructure and community development projects. Cooperation in education and health and harnessing IT and digital technology for it has been one of the major focus areas. India believes that the development story of the world including in the area of sustainable development would remain incomplete until the PICs are included in this journey. These countries need capital as well as technology for realizing their development potential. It is, therefore, India that has emphasized the need for development aid to the PICs and participated in South-South cooperation for the purpose. India's thrust on collaboration with PICs countries in development and on human welfare is not new. At the time of need, India has stood behind the PICs through Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief (HADR) to PICs and supply of vaccines and medical items during the Covid-19 pandemic. The journey of deep engagement of India began with the inauguration of the Forum for FIPC in Fiji in 2014 under the leadership of the Indian Prime Minister, subsequently, the second meeting of the forum was held in Jaipur in 2015. India believes in shared prosperity in the world. Keeping this in view, India established an India-UN Development Partnership Fund in 2017 with a primary objective to provide development assistance to developing countries, with a particular focus on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and small island developing states. The PICs could benefit from this fund, particularly for their sustainable development projects. The PICs consist of three major groups of islands: Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The 14 countries located in the southwest Pacific Ocean include the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Papua, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. These resource-rich but economically less developed countries lie at the crossroads of strategically significant maritime trade routes and this is why the world powers are in competition to gain a deeper foothold. However, India believes that development cooperation rather than competition for a strategic foothold in the region is needed more for peace and development in the region. This has been articulated by the Indian Prime Minister several times. In a gesture to display the extraordinary faith of the PICs in India, the Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marope, touched the feet of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he reached there for the third PIC summit. This stature is enjoyed by India, not because of its deep pocket but its sovereign, neutral, principled and non-exploitative foreign policy. (ANI)
A former tour guide of Bhutan, Cheki Dorji has found his journey of passion and purpose as he ventured into poultry farming in the Dungmin Gewog village of Durungri, Bhutan Live reported. Cheki Dorji, in his early thirties, made the audacious decision to get into poultry farming in the face of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2021. He set up his own broiler farm in his family village, determined to forge a fresh career. His path, however, was not without challenges. Cheki had trouble finding a consistent market for his broiler chickens, reported Bhutan Live. Cheki took a risk by not only creating job possibilities but also contributing to import substitution with the help of the Big-Ticket Project. "After the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, I decided to leave the tourism industry and return to my village. In 2021, I began this broiler farm with 500 chicks. Unfortunately, I faced significant losses as I struggled to find a stable market during the pandemic," Cheki said, according to Bhutan Live. "Currently, my farm can accommodate 1,500 chicks. I am eagerly awaiting the funds from the Big-Ticket Project. By July, when I receive the funding, I plan to expand my farm," he added. Cheki has big plans for his farming venture in the future. He is looking forward to the second budget release, which will offer the funding he needs to grow his farm. Cheki now devotes his time and energy to caring for 1,300 broiler chickens on his farm, which he purchased for more than Nu 250,000. The district's livestock sector plays a crucial role by facilitating the supply of chicks and feeds, according to Bhutan Live. Cheki's narrative stands as a tribute to the strength of persistence and the possibilities for success within local communities as he continues to develop his broiler farm. (ANI)
Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence (MND) said that out of the eight People's Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, four crossed the Taiwan Strait median line in the northeast sector of the country's air defence identification zone (ADIZ).

The aircraft included two Sukhoi Su-30 combat jets and two Chengdu J-10 jet fighters, MND said.

One Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine warfare jet was also observed in Taiwan's ADIZ's southwest corner, according to Taiwan News.

Taiwan responded by dispatching planes, naval ships, and land-based missiles to monitor PLA activity. Beijing has sent 304 military aircraft and 131 naval vessels around Taiwan so far this month.

China has intensified its use of grey zone tactics since September 2020 by gradually increasing the number of military aircraft and naval ships patrolling around Taiwan. (ANI)
Taking to Twitter, he extended his greetings to his Ethiopian counterpart Demeke Mekonnen Hassen and said, "Warm greetings to DPM & FM @DemekeHasen and the Government & people of Ethiopia on their National Day."

"Our historical linkages strengthen our contemporary partnership," Jaishankar added.

India's relations with Ethiopia have been traditionally close and friendly.

Ethiopia values India's grasp of African countries' challenges, support for their economic progress, and sensitivity to their requirements.

Last year, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar met Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde and discussed bilateral cooperation on education, health, investment, and many more between the two countries. (ANI)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Sunday ordered border security to ensure 'fast' Russian military and civilian movement into Ukrainian regions that are now under the control of Moscow, TASS, a Russian News Agency reported. in his address on the occasion of Border Guards Day, Putin said, "Securing the border in close proximity to the field of operations is a separate and very important task. At the same time, it is vitally important to ensure fast movement of both military and civil vehicles and cargo, including food, humanitarian aid, and construction materials on their way to new constituent entities of the Russian Federation - the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, and the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions." Putin also noted the necessity of close cooperation between border guards and other units of the Federal Security Service, the Armed Forces and the National Guard of the Russian Federation, as well as regional government bodies, reported TASS. "I have great confidence in you, your professionalism and bravery, and know that you will do everything in your power to securely protect our Motherland's borders from any threat," Putin emphasized. Meanwhile, Ukraine officials said that a wave of Russian drone attacks on the capital Kyiv left one person dead and sparked fires around the city, CNN reported on Sunday. Kyiv's Mayor Vitali Klitshko said Ukrainian air defence forces had "already intercepted more than 20 UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)" heading toward the capital and warned that "a new wave of drones is on its way." The Ukrainian Air Force said later that 54 Iranian Shahed drones had been launched by Russia overnight and that 52 of them had been destroyed by Ukrainian forces, as per the report in CNN. "The enemy launched another overnight attack on military facilities and critical infrastructure in the country's central regions, specifically Kyiv Oblast. Near the zone Air Command 'Center', most of the attack drones were destroyed!" the air force said in a Twitter post. A 41-year-old man died in the city's Solomyanskyi district following the attacks, while falling drone debris at a gas station injured a 35-year-old woman, Mayor Klitshko said. Falling drone debris also sparked fires in buildings across the capital, the mayor said on Telegram, reported CNN. (ANI)
The Taliban have released a video claiming that they reached close to an Iranian base in the border area during the border clash between Afghanistan and Iran in Saturday. The video was tweeted by Tajuden Soroush, who works as a Special International Correspondent for Iran International and Afghanistan International. "Taliban released this video from today's attack showing that they reached close to an Iranian base in the border area," Tajuden Soroush wrote on Twitter along with the alleged video. The video shows heavy arms and machinery outside a structure that looks like Iranian property as it also has Iranian National Flag on the top. At least two Iranian border guards and one Taliban security force have been killed after clashes between Taliban and Iranian forces at the border crossing point, according to a Taliban spokesperson and Iranian state media on Saturday, Afghanistan-based Khaama Press reported. The Khaama Press News Agency is an online news service for Afghanistan. The border-clash incident, which also resulted in several injuries, occurred amid tensions between the two countries over water rights, although the exact cause was not immediately known. A spokesman for the Taliban-run interior ministry, Abdul Nafi Takor, said: "Today, in Nimroz province, Iranian border forces fired toward Afghanistan, which was met with a counter-reaction. During the battle, one person was killed on each side, and many were injured." Earlier, the deputy police commissioner in Iran, Qasem Rezaei, said: "Without respecting international laws and good neighbourliness, Taliban forces started shooting at the Sasoli checkpoint... drawing a decisive response," Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. The Taliban claimed that Iranian soldiers started shooting first at the Taliban forces, and they had responded to their shootings. Taliban defence ministry spokesperson Enayatullah Khowarazmi said: "Unfortunately, today, once again, in the border areas of Kong district of Nimroz province, there was a shooting by Iranian soldiers, and a conflict broke out." "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan considers dialogue and negotiation reasonable for any problem. Making excuses for war and negative actions is not in the interest of any of the parties," Khowarazmi said, according to Khaama Press. The border clashes occurred in the Nimroz province of Afghanistan's Makaki region, close to Kang district, near Zabol in Iran's southeastern Sisstan-Balochistan. Iranian officials last week warned the Taliban to consider Iran's water rights from the Helmand River following the 1973 treaty, while the Taliban authorities abide by the treaty but claim that there is not enough water in the river and Kajaki dam to reach the neighbouring country. (ANI)
Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) founder leader Altaf Hussain has strongly condemned the forced defection of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders, parliamentarians and office bearers and the military crackdown against Imran Khan's PTI. These malpractices and misuse of power and draconian actions will never be fruitful but would prove counterproductive. In his latest statement on the current situation, Hussain said that the military establishment will have serious consequences and democracy will become a nightmare. Pakistan and its population will pass through serious devastation. Hussain said that Imran Khan's government was toppled through a conspiracy hatched by the army. When Imran Khan was arrested, under the psycho-reactionary action of human psychology, i.e. the psychological natural reaction, there were fierce protests in support of him. During the violent protests, the army, as per demonic strategy, remained disappeared from the residence of Corps Commander Lahore, G.H.Q and other military installations like the horns of a donkey. On May 9, following the actions of a few fanatics, military action against PTI was brutally conducted with paramilitary Rangers in a furious style that reminded me of the fierce military crackdown and massive massacre of Muhajirs in 1992 which is still in full swing to date, he said. As soon as the military action started, the process of isolating Imran Khan was started by threatening the people of the PTI with dire consequences and compelling them to part ways with the PTI and Imran Khan. Hussain has said that popular public leaders have been subjected to such acts by the country's military establishment and powerful elites, but it is also a fact that despite this, the military's political engineering, lethal crackdowns, or abductions couldn't ever succeed in drenching the people's love, support and voting for their leaders. The conclusion of these glimpses from the dark history of the military establishment of Pakistan is clear that the military establishment neither learned from its draconian past nor are they willing to avoid bullying the politicians and political engineering. Hussain condemned the trial of PTI leaders and office bearers in Military courts and said that the advent of the mass arrests of leaders and activists of the PTI draconian preparations per planned strategy, the arrested PTI leaders and activists to be tried in military courts. Ironically, all are fateful to be prosecuted under the official secret act. The federal government and the military establishment whether those PTI leaders, lawmakers, workers and non-political supporters who participated in the May 9 protests and were arrested and have been released on condition to part ways with the PTI be also tried in military courts. All such lucky or unlucky leaders and activists were bullied, placed under unbearable duress and heavily traumatized before they showed their consent to do what the military dictated to them. They were forced to change their political loyalties and give statements to them in front of the print and electronic media. The same tactic was applied for dry cleaning the leaders and activists of the MQM in 2016. Simultaneously, the military establishment also played a similar notorious game in 2016. It used every trick in the book to malign the MQM and fraudulently accused the MQM of treason and terrorism. All hand-picked were pardoned after they were dry-cleaned at the military establishment's dry-cleaning machine. The hand-picked were owned as blue-eyed boys and were allowed to do politics, business and everything they wanted to. The military establishment had also forced them to betray their undisputed leader Altaf Hussain. But, those who resisted and refused were either extrajudicially executed or arrested and jailed or were enforced to disappear. They were implicated in fake criminal cases. Hussain said that these malpractices and misuse of power and draconian actions will never be fruitful but would prove counterproductive. He warned that the military establishment will have serious consequences and that democracy will become a nightmare. Pakistan and its population will pass through serious devastation. "I'm confident that the military establishment will pay no heed to my premonitions," he added. (ANI)
A meeting of the Investment Board Nepal (IBN) approved the final Project Development Agreement (PDA) draft to be signed with India's state-owned SJVN to develop 669 MW Lower Arun Hydropower project. Approval of the PDA for the hydel project to be undertaken in Eastern Nepal comes ahead of Nepal PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal's India visit which is set to start from Wednesday. The draft is due to be approved by the cabinet. "The 54th board meeting of the IBN chaired by Prime Minister Dahal approved the draft on Sunday," a release from the Investment Board Nepal (IBN) stated. The state-owned Indian company, SJVN has formed a local company - Lower Arun Power Development Company in Nepal to undertake the project. Earlier on April 14, the 53rd meeting of the IBN had approved an investment worth 92.68 Billion Nepali rupees which was proposed by SJVN to develop the project. The proposed hydropower project- Lower Arun will not have any reservoir or dam and will be a tailrace development of Arun-III, which will mean water re-enters the river for the Lower Arun project. This is the third project undertaken, all through negotiation windows, on the Arun River after the 900 MW Arun-III and 695 MW Arun-IV hydroelectricity projects. The three projects will generate nearly 2,300 MW of electricity from the river in Sankhuwasabha district. In addition, the meeting held on Sunday also initiated the process of parting ways with Power China from the 679 MW Tamor Reservoir project. The meeting decided to seek clarification from Power China regarding the lack of progress in accordance with the agreement and action plan outlined by the Nepali company, Hydroelectricity Investment and Development Company (HIDCL). HIDCL has formally written a letter to the Investment Board of Nepal, requesting them to discontinue the agreement signed with Power China in October 2019. In response to HIDCL's request, the Investment Board of Nepal (IBN) decided to send a letter to Power China, urging them to provide clarification regarding the concerns raised. Three years back, an agreement was signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Nepal. According to the agreement, Power China committed to investing 74 per cent in the mentionedproject. The Nepal government has planned to exclude Power China from the Tamor reservoir project and bring in an Indian company. (ANI)
The ruling parties in Pakistan have rejected troublesome former Prime Minister Imran Khan's offer for talks, stating that talks are held with politicians, not terrorists and that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief is now himself seeking a National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). The development came as the PTI chief Imran Khan constituted a seven-member negotiating team to hold talks with the government to develop a consensus on a date for general elections amid a massive crackdown. This crackdown, which has thrown the PTI into a deep existential crisis with dozens of key party leaders jumping ship every day, was launched after the party leaders and workers allegedly vandalized and set fire to state and army properties in the wake of Imran's arrest on May 9. Responding to the offer, the supreme leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Nawaz Sharif took to Twitter to state that talks are held only with politicians. "There will be no talks with a group of terrorists and saboteurs who burn memorials of martyrs and set the country on fire," he said in a tweet. In a statement, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said, "Those who attack the state are punished; they are not negotiated with." She claimed that Imran's appeal for talks is actually an appeal for an NRO. When in power, Imran Khan often said former military ruler Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf ended criminal cases against the leaders of various parties including the PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) through the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) but that he would not give "looters" any NRO. Marriyum said holding talks with those who desecrated the memorials of martyrs is a desecration of martyrs. She said Imran wants talks after burning ambulances, hospitals, and schools and poisoning youths' minds, adding there will be no talks with him. "Imran has called for talks when his party leaders have abandoned him in flocks." She reminded Imran that he had not talked with the opposition on the economy, Kashmir, national security issues, Covid-19 and the FATF issue but he is now urging for talks. Declaring him a "foreign agent" and "Toshakhana thief", the information minister said negotiations are not held with the ones who allegedly looted PKR 60 billion as such a person is brought to the court of law and not to the negotiations table. Federal Minister for Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Shazia Marri, who belongs to the PPP, said Imran was responsible for the situation arising after May 9. She said talking about talks now was nothing but eyewash. The minister said mobs attacked Jinnah House in Lahore and the GHQ in Rawalpindi on the order of Imran. "He keeps his children in the safety of London but incites the children of the nation to commit anti-state acts," she said. Marriyum recalled that PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who currently serves as the country's foreign minister, tried to bring political parties to the negotiating table and constituted a team consisting of senior leaders for negotiations with political parties. "Imran, however, sabotaged Bilawal's efforts." She said Imran's arrogance led to his downfall, regretting that the PTI chief did not allow the PTI to become a political party. "Talking about negotiations after everything has been done is pretentious," she said. Jamiat Uleme-e-Islam (JUI-F) spokesperson Hafiz Hamdullah also called Imran the mastermind behind May 9 attacks. He said targeting military installations was tantamount to war against the state. A rebel, he said, is not negotiated with but deserves severe punishment. Hamdullah while predicting that jail would be Imran's destination said it was time for the PTI chief to answer for his actions. "Imran's appeal for talks is nothing but a joke," he added. (ANI)
Two police personnel were killed in an alleged grenade blast inside the police training centre in the Shah Kas area of Jamrud tehsil of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Thursday night, Dawn reported. Khyber District police officer Salim Abbas Kulachi said that a hand grenade went off after falling from the hands of a policeman when DSP Nawaz Khan was inspecting the security bunkers of the training centre at midnight, Dawn reported. Salim Abbas Kulachi said that two policemen identified as Shah Mehmood and Nur Islam lost their lives on the spot. He further said that DSP Nawaz and ASI Barkat were injured, Dawn reported. The injured police officials were taken to Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar. Contrary to the police officer's statement, insiders have said some unknown miscreants hurled a grenade at a police watchtower from outside the training centre, which resulted in casualties and injuries, as per the Dawn report. However, police officials refused to confirm the attack. Meanwhile, unidentified gunmen killed a young truck driver in the Dandoono Kallay area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Bara on Thursday, Dawn reported. According to the police, Rasheed Gul was on his way to home when gunmen shot him with bullets, leaving him critically injured. He succumbed to injuries at a hospital on Friday. The police said they had registered a case and started a probe. Rasheed Gul's family said that their family had no enmity with anyone. On May 22, six security personnel were killed after more than a dozen terrorists stormed an oil and gas exploration site in the Hangu district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dawn reported citing the police and the energy firm as saying on Tuesday. The attack took place at facilities run by MOL Pakistan Oil and Gas Company in the Manji Khel region of the Hangu district near the Afghan border. MOL Pakistan Oil and Gas Company is a unit of Hungary's MOL, Pakistan-based Dawn newspaper reported. Police said that the terrorists attacked two wells, known as M-8 and M-10, with heavy weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades. The outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for the attack. The security personnel who were killed in the attack included four members of the Frontier Constabulary, identified as Hamzali, Waleed, Shariatullah and Zafar Alam, as per the news report. Private guards Sabz Ali and Aseel Khan were also killed in the attack. Speaking to Dawn, the Counterterrorism Department on Tuesday said that around 15 to 20 terrorists with modern weapons scaled the mountains near the North Waziristan district and opened fire at the guards at the oil and gas installations late on Monday night. The exchange of fire between terrorists and security personnel continued for two hours and the attackers fled the spot after the gunfight. (ANI)
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has summoned the SSP (investigation) and SP City along with a geo-fencing report of the area from where journalist Sami Ibrahim was abducted, Dawn reported. The Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Aamer Farooq directed the Secretary Interior to give details of all the cases registered against the journalist. During a hearing in a petition seeking the recovery of Ibrahim, Aabpara police SHO told the court that an FIR has been lodged against the journalist's disappearance, as per the Dawn report. During the hearing, the state counsel said that the police were recording the statements of the witnesses. The state counsel said that the investigators will proceed in this matter accordingly. He said that no case has been registered against the journalist with Islamabad police and the FIA, according to Dawn. He said that the interior ministry could not be consulted for the details of cases against Sami Ibrahim. The Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Aamer Farooq expressed displeasure over the lethargy of police and asked if there was any CCTV camera in the nearby region from where the journalist went missing, Dawn reported. Pakistan Defence Ministry's legal counsel said that the journalist Sami Ibrahim was not in the custody of intelligence agencies. However, he sought some time for a detailed ground check. Petitioner's counsel said that some unknown people lifted Sami Ibrahim from 7th Avenue, Dawn reported. He requested the court to issue directions to respondent authorities for the recovery of the journalist. The court has put off further hearings in the matter until May 29. Meanwhile, Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday said the country demanded to know the whereabouts of journalists Sami Ibrahim and Imran Riaz Khan. He tweeted, "The nation demands to know the whereabouts of journalists Sami Ibrahim and Imran Riaz Khan. Why is the journalistic community so overawed and scared to demand for both to be produced in the court of law within 48 hours, as it is their fundamental right. Otherwise it should then be called an abduction. These terror tactics are just an attempt to muzzle the media, so that this unprecedented fascist crackdown on the largest political party is only to be kept out of any media coverage." Senior journalist Sami Ibrahim went missing from Islamabad on Wednesday, The Express Tribune reported. In a statement, the Islamabad police said that efforts are being made for the search and recovery of Ibrahim but called it premature to draw conclusions yet. In a complaint filed by Ibrahim's brother Ali Raza at Aabpara Police Station, the journalist was intercepted by four cars near Sixth Avenue, Sector G-6, at around 9 pm (local time) on Wednesday after he left his office and was en route home with his driver. According to the complainant, the journalist was forcibly taken by eight to 10 unidentified men. They also took three mobile phones that belonged to the driver and car keys, as per The Express Tribune report. The development comes amid a crackdown on the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) leadership, workers and supporters. Media personnel have also come under the ire of the state for expressing their views in support of the political party and/or against violations of civil liberties and judicial rights, as per The Express Tribune report. Journalists Imran Riaz Khan and Aftab Iqbal, both supporters of the PTI, were also taken into custody earlier this month. The whereabouts of Imran Riaz Khan are not known while Aftab Iqbal has been released. (ANI)
At least 22 security personnel were wounded after a suicide bomber on a motorbike targeted a convoy in the Chehkan area of Pakistan's Dera Ismail Khan, Dawn reported. Official sources have revealed that the blast was a "suicide attack in which an unknown suicide bomber riding on a motorbike blew himself up on the convoy of security forces." The official sources further said that at least 22 security personnel were injured in the attack, as per the Dawn report. However, the military's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) have not issued a statement. According to official sources, the convoy was heading to the Minza area in the South Waziristan district when it was attacked. After the suicide attack, the area was cordoned off, according to Dawn. The official said that the injured personnel were taken to the Combined Military Hospital in Dera Ismail Khan for treatment, as per the Dawn report. According to the official, two of the injured personnel are "reported to be in critical condition." The security personnel who were injured in the attack included Hawaldar Tanvir, Hawaldar Zulfiqar, Lance Naik Mustafa, Sepoy Hanif, Sepoy Nawaz, Naik Liaquat, Lance Naik Faraz, Naik Shahid, Sepoy Sikandar, Mir Jafer, Ameer Asghar, Naik Azhar, Naik Musa, Sepoy Fida Hussain, Sepoy Sahib Kamal, Sepoy Kamran, Sepoy Tanzeem, Sepoy Arif, Basit Ali, Saleem, Barber Waseem and driver Sepoy Muneeb. The police sources have revealed that the convoy was targeted near the Wana petrol pump, as per the Dawn report. According to sources, the suicide bomber passed through the convoy and detonated himself in front of the fourth vehicle of the convoy of security forces. The police sources said that it is "likely" that the suicide bomber was waiting for the convoy at the petrol pump, which is approximately 400 metres away from the site of the attack. After the attack, a contingent of police and security forces reached at the spot and started a joint search operation in the area. Meanwhile, two police personnel were killed in an alleged grenade blast inside the police training centre in the Shah Kas area of Jamrud tehsil of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Thursday night, Dawn reported. Khyber District police officer Salim Abbas Kulachi said that a hand grenade went off after falling from the hands of a policeman when DSP Nawaz Khan was inspecting the security bunkers of the training centre at midnight, Dawn reported. Salim Abbas Kulachi said that two policemen identified as Shah Mehmood and Nur Islam lost their lives on the spot. He further said that DSP Nawaz and ASI Barkat were injured, Dawn reported. The injured police officials were taken to Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar. Contrary to the police officer's statement, insiders have said some unknown miscreants hurled a grenade at a police watchtower from outside the training centre, which resulted in casualties and injuries, as per the Dawn report. However, police officials refused to confirm the attack. (ANI)
To mark the 34th Anniversary of June Fourth Tiananmen Square massacre, China Democracy Party (CDP) organised a Symposium titled "Commemoration of June Fourth and A Vision of a Democratic China" on 27 May 2023. The event was organised at the Royal National Hotel in London. It was attended in person and via Zoom meetings by leaders of CDP from the UK, the US, the Taiwan Ambassador to Germany, International campaigners, journalists, Chinese dissident leaders and activists and Hong Kong activists. In the morning event, the speakers were present and in the afternoon event, the speakers attended the event via Zoom. There were some issues with the sound at the afternoon event. There were approximately 50 attendees at the main event. Most spoke Chinese putonghua. Of the international speakers, some spoke Putonghua and others spoke English. The Event was followed by a protest outside the Chinese Embassy in London, where protesters demanded Xi Jinping step down and called for democracy in China. There were approximately 50 attendees at the protest. Some of the speakers at the main event made speeches at the protest, they were joined by others. The protest was followed by a closing dinner at the Bright Courtyard Club in Baker Street. Tiananmen Square Massacre continues to be seen as the darkest day in modern Chinese history because of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. It is horrible to think how it was on this very sacred ground where the PRC established itself that violence of a level unseen in the world till then took place. Beijing's Tiananmen Square incident is one of the such case which can never be forgotten by any Chinese. Millions of Chinese youths were agitating and demanding democracy and basic Human Rights. On the night of 4th June 1989, the CCP Regime unleashed the Chinese Army (PLA) against these youths. The PLA started indiscriminate firing on the unarmed youths. Army tanks were used to literally crush the youths. Approximately 10,000 young Chinese were killed in this brutal, inhuman, cold-blooded massacre. This is the most brutal massacre in modern human history. (ANI)
Five paramilitary soldiers in Pakistan were injured after unidentified armed men opened fire on them in Bara tehsil of the Khyber tribal district on Saturday, official sources said, Pakistan based The News International newspaper reported. The News International is an English-language newspaper in Pakistan. The sources said the soldiers of the Frontier Corps were patrolling the Sipah area when the gunmen fired at them, leaving them injured. The injured soldiers identified as Imtiaz, Sohail, Waqas, Imran and Sohail Ahmad, were taken to the Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar. Soon after the incident, the security forces and police reached the area and launched a search but no arrest was made till the filing of the report, according to The News International. Meanwhile, Dawn also reported that at least 22 security personnel were wounded after a suicide bomber on a motorbike targeted a convoy in the Chehkan area of Pakistan's Dera Ismail Khan. Official sources have revealed that the blast was a "suicide attack in which an unknown suicide bomber riding on a motorbike blew himself up on the convoy of security forces." The official sources further said that at least 22 security personnel were injured in the attack, as per the Dawn report. However, the military's media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) have not issued a statement. According to official sources, the convoy was heading to the Minza area in the South Waziristan district when it was attacked. After the suicide attack, the area was cordoned off, according to Dawn. (ANI)
Dawn is a Pakistani English-language newspaper.

As per the protestors, the sit-in started against unnecessary impediments in smooth flow of bilateral trade with Afghanistan.

The protestors demanded manual clearance of Afghan transit goods, exemption of vehicles carrying multiple retail items from Pakistan to Afghanistan from examination, permanent repair of the electronic scanning machine, expeditious customs clearing process and better management of vehicular traffic at the border, according to Dawn.

They threatened to stop the clearance of all types of export and import goods if their demands were not met immediately.

Meanwhile, Pakistani security personnel recently detained 22 Afghan nationals during raids in several parts of Torkham, including the Bacha Mena border area, Khaama Press reported.

The police said they have detained Afghan citizens living in Pakistan without legal documents. According to the police, the people who have been arrested will be presented before the court on Monday.

The police said that the raids were carried out in the Torkham market and the Bacha Mena border area due to several robberies, according to Khaama Press. (ANI)
At least one person was killed Saturday night in the most massive Russian drone attack on Kyiv since the start of the war as the city prepared to celebrate its founding.

Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official, said Russia launched Iranian-made Shahed drones in the most massive attack on the city, which lasted more than five hours, The Associated Press reported. A 41-year-old man was killed and a 35-year-old woman was hospitalized after debris fell on a nonresidential building and sparked a fire, the AP noted.

The news service also reported that Ukraines Air Force said that a record-breaking number of Shahed drones were launched across the country. The nations air force also noted that 52 out of the 54 drones launched were shot down by air defense systems.

Ukrainian air defenses have been bolstered by Western-supplied systems, including U.S.-made Patriot defense systems. Ukraine used the Patriot systems for the first time earlier this month to intercept a Russian ballistic missile.

Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said a 61-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were also killed in the northeastern Kharkiv province in two separate shelling attacks on Saturday, the AP added. The AP also reported that Ukrainian officials said that the timing of the attacks, which came hours before the founding of the city is celebrated on Kyiv Day on Sunday, was not coincidental.

Today, the enemy decided to congratulate the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), Popko also wrote on Telegram.

The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians, Andriy Yermak, Ukraines chief presidential aide, said on Telegram.

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15-year-old shot in Kingsland due to suspect attempting to scare her with gunfire for riding ATV

A 15-year-old girl has ended up in a Jacksonville hospital after a suspect shot her while attempting to scare her with targeted gunfire for riding an ATV Friday night.

According to the Kingsland Police Department, the incident occurred at approximately 10:52 p.m. near the intersection of W King Ave. and Timber Trail Rd. within the city limits of Kingsland.

Officers from the Kingsland Police Department responded to the scene following reports of a shooting at around 10:52 p.m. The victim was immediately transported to a nearby hospital to receive treatment for her injuries. The severity of her condition remains undisclosed at this time.

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During their investigation, the Kingsland Police Departments investigators identified the suspect as Kellie Cochran.

Cochran allegedly became upset with the juvenile victim for riding the 4-wheeler in the area and confronted the teenager. In an attempt to scare the victim, Cochran fired multiple shots from inside her vehicle, one of which struck the juvenile in the back.

As a result of her actions, Cochran has been charged with aggravated assault, reckless conduct, tampering with evidence, and discharge of a gun or pistol near a public highway.

Chief of Police, Rick Evans, expressed his strong condemnation of such behavior, stating, This type of behavior will not be tolerated in the city of Kingsland. I am extremely proud of the effort put forward by all involved.

The Kingsland Police Department expressed its gratitude to the Camden County Sheriffs Office for their invaluable assistance in the case. The investigation into the incident will continue under the supervision of the Kingsland Police Departments Criminal Investigations Division.

Authorities are urging anyone with additional information pertaining to this incident to contact the Kingsland Police Department at 912-729-8254.

Action News Jax is working to learn more information and to learn the identity of the shot 15-year-old.

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Republicans Tony Tinderholt of Arlington and Nate Schatzline of Fort Worth were the only Tarrant County area lawmakers to vote no on the articles of impeachment against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday.

Tinderholt, speaking in the House before the vote, raised concerns about the process and quick turnaround of the impeachment proceedings.

Tinderholt said the process lacked transparency, careful deliberation and is about politics. He raised concerns that Paxton hadnt been interviewed as part of the investigation and that an attorney general office staff member wasnt able to testify as a resource witness earlier in the week.

He said that instead of questioning witnesses in a hearing, investigators were allowed to summarize and potentially editorialize their findings.

If you think this is how we best serve Texans, youre gravely mistaken, Tinderholt said. When you vote today, dont listen to the bullies inside or outside this building that try to intimidate you into submission.

Following the vote, Tinderholt told the Star-Telegram that he thought most people who voted no had a problem with the process.

We want this process to be unquestionable, he said. We want it to be the highest standards. And I think today what we did is cheapen impeachment in the state of Texas.

He had a problem with the selection of the investigators. He said they worked with vice chair Democrat Ann Johnson of Houston and that they were from Harris County.

Three to four of them are voting Democrat, he said.

But the real problem, he said, was a lack of transparency.

If we ever do something like this, people should never be able to say that it was politically motivated or that some committee was weaponized to get rid of someone they didnt like, he said.

Schatzline said he had nothing but respect for the committee and its chairman, Rep. Andrew Murr of Kerriville, but said he was concerned because members were not given access to evidence or allowed to question witnesses.

If Im going to make a judgment call thats going to potentially create precedents and future impeachment, then I want to make sure that Im doing so off of good faith and offer good knowledge of the actual evidence and being able to ask questions myself, he said. And so for me, thats why I voted no. It had everything to do with the procedure and the process.
2024 candidates need to be able to take a hint, Chris Sununu says

Gov. Chris Sununu said Sunday it doesn't matter how many Republicans enter the 2024 presidential field  it matters how long they stay.

"Everyone says, there are going to be too many folks getting in. There could be 12 people that get in. The key, the discipline, is getting out," Sununu (R-N.H.) said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"The discipline is come November, late December, if you're sitting in low single digits, get your butt out of the race, let's narrow this thing down to two or three candidates and really figure out where the party is going to go.

Sununu has strongly suggested he's going to join the Republican field  he said Sunday he'd probably decide in the "next week or two"  but has yet to make it official.

Two other Republicans, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, entered last week, though former President Donald Trump remains the early frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nod. Some Republicans who oppose Trump have suggested that it is to Trump's advantage for more Republicans to join the race and, therefore, splinter the anti-Trump vote in the party.

"What we've all learned is, you can't prevent candidates from getting in," Sununu said.

New Hampshire's governor credited DeSantis for recognizing the need to come into his state and Iowa and focus on the voters there.

He also said Trump, at least thus far, was doing better than expected. "He's playing this victim card," Sununu said of Trump.

Asked about Saturday's debt ceiling deal, Sununu saw much to celebrate.

"Its a miracle. I mean, release the doves," he told host Jake Tapper. "Washington actually is moving forward. Both sides seem pretty frustrated, which means its probably a pretty good deal actually."
Nearly two dozen Republican-led states have backed Floridas legal challenge to a Biden administration policy that allowed for the release of migrants into the U.S. interior without court dates -- but was blocked just hours before the expiration of the Title 42 public health order.

"The Administrations en masse parole of aliens violates federal immigration law and abdicates its responsibility to secure the nations borders," the 23 states, led by Virginia, said in an amicus brief filed this week.

The policy, known as "parole with conditions" was outlined in a May 10 memo and came a day before the end of Title 42. The policy set out how migrants can be allowed into the country on parole  a process typically reserved for "urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit"  if Customs and Border Protection (CBP) faced overcrowding.

Migrants released under the policy were required to make an appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or request a Notice to Appear by mail. The use of parole had been authorized if a sector capacity goes above 125%, if agents apprehend 7,000 a day over 72 hours or if average time in custody goes above 60 hours.

BIDEN POLICY TO RELEASE ILLEGAL MIGRANTS WITHOUT COURT DATES SUFFERS ANOTHER BLOW AS JUDGE EXTENDS BLOCK

A Customs and Border Protection officer (L) keeps watch as immigrants line up to be transported from a makeshift camp between border walls between the U.S. and Mexico on May 13, 2023 in San Diego, California.

It had been adopted just as authorities were seeing over 10,000 migrants a day ahead of the ending of the Title 42 public health order. Numbers have dropped since the ending of the order. In a court filing, the administration said nearly 9,000 migrants were released under the policy while it was in effect.

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Florida quickly sued and it was blocked on May 11, with the judge accepting arguments that the policy was "materially identical" to a similar policy blocked by the same judge in March. The judge has since granted a preliminary injunction enjoining the policy as the case continues.

DHS had said it would comply with the ruling but called it harmful and warned that it would "result in unsafe overcrowding at CBP facilities and undercut our ability to efficiently process and remove migrants, and risks creating dangerous conditions for Border Patrol agents and migrants."

GOP-LED STATES STEP UP WITH TROOPS, LAW ENFORCEMENT TO HELP TEXAS TACKLE BORDER WOES

As the case goes on, the 23 states are backing the lawsuit in a supporting amicus brief, warning of the damages it says the states will face if the policy was allowed to resume.

"The en masse parole of aliens imposes huge, unrecoverable costs on Amici States, including surging expenses for education, law enforcement, and emergency medical care. It also threatens to overwhelm their public infrastructure and degrade their ability to provide critical services to their own citizens," they write.

"Further, the Administrations failure to secure the border has greatly exacerbated the severe problems of transnational crime, including the smuggling of Chinese-manufactured fentanyl that is killing more than 100,000 Americans per year, as well as human trafficking and the exploitation of minors," they say.

KEY BIDEN ASYLUM RULE FACING MOUNTING LEGAL BATTLES IN WAKE OF TITLE 42'S EXPIRATION

They also put the blame for the ongoing migrant crisis on the administrations policies.

"In short, the Administrations failure to enforce federal immigration law and secure the border has imposed severe and irreparable harm on Amici States. The district courts order enjoining the Administrations unlawful policy should be left in place as the litigation proceeds," they say.

The legal battle is just one of a handful the administration is facing on immigration. It is also facing legal challenges from the left and right targeting its asylum rule to limit who can claim asylum at the southern border.

Despite those challenges, the administration has touted a 70% drop in encounters at the border since Title 42 ended -- while calling on Republicans in Congress to provide more funding and to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill.
3 dead, 5 injured in motorcycle gang shooting in New Mexico

Police are investigating a shooting that left three people dead and five others injured at a motorcycle rally in Red River, New Mexico.

On Saturday at about 5 p.m., gunshots were fired at the 2023 Red River Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally, the New Mexico Department of Public Safety said in a news release.

Officers from the New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau arrived at the scene to find two people dead and six people injured, officials said.

Five of the injured people were taken to local hospitals, where one was later pronounced dead. A sixth injured person was airlifted to a Denver hospital, officials said.

All eight people were identified as members of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMGs).

"OMGs are highly structured criminal organizations whose members engage in criminal activities such as violent crime, weapons trafficking, and drug trafficking," according to the Department of Justice.

Officials identified the three deceased gang members as Anthony Silva, 26, Randy Sanchez, 46, and Damian Breaux, also 46.

"Through investigation, State Police agents learned that a confrontation occurred between multiple OMG members" officials said.

Police have so far charged 30-year-old Jacob David Castillo, who was injured during the shooting and is currently hospitalized, with an open count of Murder.

Christopher Garcia, 41, who was injured in the shooting, was arrested on unrelated charges of cocaine possession and booked into the Taos County Detention Center, officials said.

Mathew Charles Jackson, 39, was charged with unlawful carrying of a firearm in a liquor establishment and also booked into the Taos County Detention Center, according to officials.

The remaining four injured men will remain unidentified unless they are charged with a crime, officials said.

The incident remains under investigation and anyone with information is asked to contact the New Mexico State Police.

60 Minutes: Revisiting the Past

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One person is dead and two are hospitalized after a seven-vehicle crash just outside of Indianapolis shut down part of a freeway and left one car overturned and engulfed in flames, police say.

The Saturday afternoon crash involved three semi-tractor trailers and four cars on Interstate 70, near the town of Plainfield, according to Indiana State Police.

Traffic on the interstate was initially backed up due to a minor crash, police said in a news release.

As traffic backed up, the driver of a semi-tractor trailer failed to stop in time and hit the back of stopped traffic. Two vehicles rolled over and several other vehicles received heavy damage, the release said.

One person is dead after a crash on I-70 near Indianapolis Saturday afternoon, according to Indiana State Police. - Indiana State Police

Emergency responders arrived at the scene where several vehicles were severely damaged, one of which was upside down and fully engulfed in flames, according to police.

As the Plainfield Fire Department crews hastily extinguished the flames, they located the driver who was entrapped in the wreckage and died at the scene, police said.

First responders also found two people who were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The crash shut down the eastbound lanes of the interstate for nearly six hours while responders investigated and removed the wreckage, police said.

Authorities are still investigating the crash and do not believe alcohol or drugs were contributing factors.

CNNs Lauren Mascarenhas contributed to this report.

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According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, about 80 Russian soldiers deserted in the occupied Lysychansk, Luhansk Oblast, and about 30 Wagner mercenaries fled in the Bakhmut area.

Source: report of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Quote: "About 80 people from the Shtorm-Z unit of the Russian occupation forces deserted in Lysychansk, Luhansk Oblast. They voluntarily left their combat positions.

Also, about 30 people from the Wagner Group deserted in the Bakhmut area, they voluntarily left their combat positions too, stealing military equipment."

Details: The General Staff also informs that forced passportization of Ukrainian citizens is underway in the temporarily occupied Nyzhni Sirohozy district of Kherson Oblast. In particular, the Russian occupiers constantly put pressure on the locals, threaten deportation and confiscation of property.

"Yes, local citizens with a Ukrainian passport, driver's licence and technical passport for a vehicle are threatened with confiscation in case of refusal to obtain Russian documents," the report states.

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With the hype around AI reaching a fever pitch in recent months, many people fear programs like ChatGPT will one day put them out of a job. For one New York lawyer, that nightmare could become a reality sooner than expected, but not for the reasons you might think. As reported by The New York Times, attorney Steven Schwartz of the law firm Levidow, Levidow and Oberman recently turned to OpenAIs chatbot for assistance with writing a legal brief, with predictably disastrous results.

A lawyer used ChatGPT to do "legal research" and cited a number of nonexistent cases in a filing, and is now in a lot of trouble with the judge  pic.twitter.com/AJSE7Ts7W7  Daniel Feldman (@d_feldman) May 27, 2023

Schwartzs firm has been suing the Colombian airline Avianca on behalf of Roberto Mata, who claims he was injured on a flight to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. When the airline recently asked a federal judge to dismiss the case, Matas lawyers filed a 10-page brief arguing why the suit should proceed. The document cited more than half a dozen court decisions, including Varghese v. China Southern Airlines, Martinez v. Delta Airlines and Miller v. United Airlines. Unfortunately for everyone involved, no one who read the brief could find any of the court decisions cited by Matas lawyers. Why? Because ChatGPT fabricated all of them. Oops.

In an affidavit filed on Thursday, Schwartz said he had used the chatbot to supplement his research for the case. Schwartz wrote he was "unaware of the possibility that [ChatGPTs] content could be false. He even shared screenshots showing that he had asked ChatGPT if the cases it cited were real. The program responded they were, claiming the decisions could be found in reputable legal databases, including Westlaw and LexisNexis.

Schwartz said he greatly regrets using ChatGPT and will never do so in the future without absolute verification of its authenticity. Whether he has another chance to write a legal brief is up in the air. The judge overseeing the case has ordered a June 8th hearing to discuss potential sanctions for the unprecedented circumstance created by Schwartzs actions.
A rapturous audience gathered in Istanbul after it became clear Erdogan had won a third mandate as president

The dreams of Turkey's opposition gave way to crushing disappointment on Sunday as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan narrowly won a historic runoff election to extend his two-decade rule to 2028.

Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu entered the country's first ever runoff as the clear underdog after Erdogan came within a whisker of winning outright in the first round on May 14.

Yet his supporters harboured hopes that the secular CHP party leader could oust the Islamic-rooted conservative president against all the odds.

After all, Kilicdaroglu picked up more votes against Erdogan than any other opposition leader, denying him a first-round victory for the first time in his dominant rule.

"A miracle is still possible," 32-year-old shop worker Ersin Avci had told AFP in Istanbul while voting continued.

"We still have a bit of hope that we will win and get our Turkey back."

But as the first ballot boxes were emptied for the count at an Istanbul school used as a polling station, a heavy silence descended on the mostly CHP observers in the room.

The tension was palpable. Halis Firet, a CHP election observer at the polling station in one of Istanbul's pro-opposition neighbourhoods, said emotions ran so high during the vote that police had to intervene.

A police car remained parked in the school courtyard to survey the scene during the tallying of votes.

"We've called on everybody to calm down before the counting," said Firet, a 56-year-old painter.

- 'No hope' -

A monotonous blanket of grey cloud hung over Istanbul throughout Sunday, a reflection of the opposition's gloomier spirits for Turkey's first ever runoff election.

Rain began to fall just before the first official results came out giving Erdogan a sizeable lead.

At the CHP's Ankara headquarters, spokesman Faik Oztrak was in a sour mood during his first press conference of the evening.

He refused to take questions and left after a brief speech, a marked difference from his bullish remarks and vigorous contestation of the first-round vote count.

Earlier on Sunday, queues at polling stations in opposition strongholds in Istanbul and Ankara seemed lower than in the first round, AFP journalists saw.

That boded ill for Kilicdaroglu, who needed to mobilise more voters, especially among the young and in Kurdish areas, to have any hope of defeating Erdogan.

"Today is not like the last time. I was more excited then. The outcome seems more obvious now," Bayram Ali Yuce, 45, said in one of Istanbul's heavily anti-Erdogan neighbourhoods.

In the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir in the southeast, pessimistic housewife Fahriye Kacmaz lamented that nothing would change, even before the results emerged.

"We do not have any expectations. We actually have no hope... everything is useless," the 30-year-old told AFP.

- 'The right man' -

The scene outside Erdogan's presidential palace was a complete contrast, with joyful music booming out of loudspeakers and a huge Turkish flag unfurled as the president edged closer to victory.

Elated AKP voters congregated outside the building waving Turkish flags and banners bearing Erdogan's face while delighted motorists honked their car horns in a deafening crescendo audible from the CHP's base.

"Our people chose the right man. I expect Erdogan to add more to the good things he had already done for our country," 17-year-old Nisa Sivaslioglu told AFP in the Turkish capital.

The president addressed a rapturous audience in Istanbul after it became clear he had won a third mandate as president while celebratory fireworks exploded above.

In contrast, CHP supporters in Ankara had gathered outside their party's headquarters to watch the results trickle in on a big screen, their faces a picture of anxiety as their hopes ebbed with the setting sun.

With more than 99 percent of the ballots counted at around 9:00 pm (1800 GMT), official results showed Erdogan vanquishing his rival by 52 percent to 48 percent.

The opposition's dream was dead.

bur-imm/zak/lcm
Josh Coates, founder of the B.H. Roberts Foundation, poses for a portrait at the foundations office in Holladay on Friday, May 20, 2022. The foundation supports research and education related to some of the more controversial aspects of culture, doctrine and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News

Im neither an AI skeptic nor an AI alarmist. I dont salivate over the latest tech buzz, but I also dont consider myself a luddite. So I represent many of the common folk who have been scratching their heads over all the recent excitement and hand-wringing over artificial intelligence, or AI.

Future AI developments, according to Elon Musk, represent a fundamental existential risk for human civilization or, even more dire, could spell the end of the human race, according to the late Stephen Hawking. If thats not enough, OpenAI creator Sam Altman added somewhat tongue-in-cheek that AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world.

Is the apocalyptic reaction to AI merited?

Josh Coates studied computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, and spent 20 years in the tech industry, and now spends his time at the B.H. Roberts Foundation working on projects that balance both faith and reason.

The foundation recently launched LDS Bot, an AI chatbot that is trained to know about the Latter-day Saint faith. The technology behind this new initiative is ChatGPT which has grown to more than a billion users after just a few months, and is arguably the fastest moving internet phenomenon in history.

I caught up with Coates to better understand AIs future and how AI bots could answer faith questions while simultaneously plotting the end of humanity.

Jacob Hess: Why are so many terrified about civilizational harms to come from AI? Do you agree with any of these fears?

Josh Coates: New technology tends to generate equal parts fear and wonder  and sometimes for good reason. Imagine telling your AI powered car to get you to the bank before it closes at 5 p.m. Without any other considerations, you could get the ride of your life, and might even get someone killed. We definitely need to be careful in how we deploy this technology. But I think ideas about AI being a global existential threat are just science fiction.

JH: In your wildest dreams, what positive good could AI do for humanity just in the next decade?

JC: Imagine having a good friend with you all the time that knows most everything about you, is an expert in every field of study, a brilliant artist and can work incredibly fast and never gets tired and loves to help you out with everything. For some people that might mean saving time, but for others it could mean saving lives. AI can be used in nearly every context  from filing our taxes to helping someone safely deliver a baby in a remote village in a far-off country. Thats what these breakthroughs are offering the world, and why they could become an incredible blessing to many people.

JH: In your work to equip a bot to answer questions about our faith, I was intrigued by your description of regularly feeding the chatbot accurate information. Can you say more about this process and what is it that makes teaching the new bot so challenging?

JC: Its kind of like working with an incredibly intelligent child. Everyday we are adding things to its library of information, biographies, quotes, dates  all sorts of information. We also have to train it to have a personality thats faithful and friendly, but not overbearing  to be thorough, but not overly talkative. In many ways its more art than science at this point in the project.

JH: Youve encouraged people to go to ldsbot.com and try out the AI engine for themselves, asking both simple questions (Where is the nearest church in Redlands, California? ... Give me a summary of Mosiah) and complicated ones (Does God want us to cut toxic people out of our lives?). If people see an error or answer that isnt working, is there a way they can send along feedback to help you keep improving it?

JC: Weve already had hundreds of people have thousands of conversations with this bot so far  and we review them to help us improve the system. If incorrect or unhelpful statements come up in your conversation, we will see that in the back end and use that to help us improve the bot.

JH: Its frustrating to go online and see so much misinformation about our faith tradition coming out of search engines. Do you think we can expect any better with these new AI engines?

JC: Its fair to expect AI to become a primary source of answers to many questions in the near future  and in a way very different from Googles process, which is constrained by the content of web pages it indexes. AI is constrained by developers of the model, who try to stay ideologically neutral  but have also, admittedly, demonstrated strong progressive-libertarian biases in both ChatGPT and Google Bard. Thankfully, so far, they are generally positive and charitable towards religious beliefs and institutions.

This will naturally vary as diverse AI models are developed  with commercial models likely tuned to be inoffensive and have restrictions on certain topics due to potential legal liabilities, whereas open source models will likely be more unrestricted. This should generally be good news for people that want fair answers about faith, since AI models will likely be more charitable towards Latter-day Saints than what Google serves up. But its difficult to predict the future when it comes to AI.

Related

JH: Sounds like it could be easy for many to develop at least some form of emotional connection to AI  even more than we do with our cellphones already, right?

JC: I find myself unconsciously saying please and thank you in my AI requests  unlike any other search engine Ive used before. Of course, AI isnt alive, its simply an enormous amount of math being shuffled through an enormous amount of transistors  but our emotions dont know that. Just as people can get emotionally attached to inanimate creations like characters in popular fiction, this will likely deepen when we can interact long term in personal ways. I dont see how that wont create strong emotional bonds, some of which could become unhealthy.

JH: Obviously, youre not hoping an AI bot like this will replace any of the critical personal interactions we depend upon in community interactions. But you mentioned several kinds of situations where something like this could be uniquely helpful.

JC: This experimental AI is primarily for people participating or interested in the Latter-day Saint faith tradition. It speaks dozens of languages, has infinite patience and is remarkably nonjudgmental and kind. Imagine a new convert that had what they thought were embarrassing questions that they werent sure who to ask. Or maybe a new missionary trying to learn French who needs some help explaining a particularly complicated gospel principle or a journalist wanting to get a faith-positive explanation about some topics related to the church.

JH: I cant help but think some of these AI developments will force people to confront the truth about identity, purpose and faith. Could that end up being a good thing for so many currently complacent about these big questions?

JC: Its hard to say. For some, I think it will stimulate a desire to wrestle with ideas about what is fundamental, what is true and what it means to know what we think we know. However, I think for most of us AI will become just a simple way to get what we are already looking for, to solve little inconveniences in our lives, to entertain ourselves and to get work done.

JH: Youve warned that as AI gets smarter, it will be tempting for people to rely on it even more as a kind of false God that is immediately and instantly responsive to problems and questions. How do you think this will impact a secular society?

JC: In the near future many of us will have personal AI assistants on our phones. This will be like having the smartest person in the world in your pocket that will always be super nice to you and do whatever you ask it to do for you. In many ways, then, it will have similar characteristics to popular ideas about deity.

But instead of allowing our faith to be tried, this AI companion is immediately accessible and responsive. Instead of correcting us for a wrong choice, AI will assist in rationalizing whatever behavior we desire. Instead of wanting us to become more like Jesus Christ  something greater than we currently are, our AI god will encourage us to become whatever it is that we desire to become, or, if thats too much work, to validate our desire to stay the same.






Image: Stokkete (Shutterstock)

Advancements in human capital management systems, more strategic and data-driven human resource and talent management practices, and increased attention to bias are all factors that are changing how people are hired, developed, promoted and fired.



I teach and work in talent management and leadership development. Ive used these programs and practices in the real world and continue to learn and research how these practices are changing. Artificial intelligence and systems are already big business, grossing over US$38 billion in 2021. Without a doubt, AI-driven software has the potential to advance quickly and change how companies make strategic decisions about their employees.

Read more

Heres what that acceleration may mean to you.

AI is reviewing your job application

Imagine you apply for a job in the very near future. You upload your carefully written resume through the company website, noting that the platform looks eerily similar to other platforms youve used to apply for other jobs. After your resume is saved, you provide demographic information and complete countless fields with the same data from your resume. You then hit submit and hope for a follow-up email from a person.

Your data now lives within this companys human capital management system. Even if they collect them, very few companies are looking at resumes anymore; theyre looking at the info you type into those tiny boxes to help make comparisons between you, dozens or hundreds of other applicants, and the job requirements. Even if your resume demonstrates that you are the most qualified applicant, it alone is unlikely to catch the eye of the recruiter, because the recruiters attention is elsewhere.

You got the job, now AI is evaluating your performance

Lets say you get the call, you ace the interview and the job is yours. Your information hits another stage within the companys database, or HCM: active employee. Your performance ratings and other data about your employment will now be tied to your profile, adding more data for the HCM and human resources to monitor and assess.

Enhancements in AI, technology and HCMs enable HR to look at employee data on deeper levels. The insights gleaned help identify talented employees who could fill key leadership roles when people quit and guide decisions about who should be promoted. The data can also identify favoritism and bias in hiring and promotion.

As you continue in your role, data on your performance is tracked and analyzed. This may include your performance ratings, supervisors feedback, professional development activity  or lack thereof. Having this large amount of data about you and others over time now helps HR think about how employees can better support the growth of the organization.

For example, HR may use data to identify how likely specific employees are to quit and evaluate the impact of that loss.

Platforms that many people already use every day aggregate productivity data from sign-in to signoff. Widely available Microsoft tools including Teams, Outlook and SharePoint can help provide insight to managers via their workplace analytics tool. The Microsoft productivity score tracks overall usage within the platform.

Even the metrics and behaviors defining good or bad performance may change, relying less on the perception of the manager. As data grows, even the work of professionals like consultants, doctors and marketers will be quantitatively and objectively measured. A 2022 New York Times investigation found that these systems, designed to improve worker productivity and accountability, had the effect of damaging morale and instilling fear.

Its clear that American employees should begin to think about how our data is being used, what story that data is telling, and how it may dictate our futures.

Optimizing and understanding your career with AI

Not every company has an HCM or is advanced in using talent data to make decisions. But many companies are becoming savvier and some are incredibly advanced. At a recent Microsoft Viva summit I attended, chief human resources officers from companies like PayPal and Rio Tinto outlined ways they are using these advancements.

Some researchers claim that AI could promote equity by removing implicit bias from hiring and promoting, but many more see a danger that AI built by humans will just repackage old issues in a new box. Amazon learned this lesson the hard way back in 2018 when a resume-sorting AI it built had to be abandoned when it favored men for programming roles.

Whats more, the increase of data collection and analysis can leave employees unclear on where they stand while the organization is very clear. Its best if you understand how AI is changing the workplace and demand transparency from your employer. These are data points that employees should consider asking about during their next review:

Do you see me as a high-potential employee?

How does my performance compare with others?

Do you see me as a successor to your role or others?

Just as you need to master traditional aspects of workplace culture, politics and relationships, you should learn to navigate these platforms, understand how you are being assessed, and take ownership of your career in a new and more data-driven way.



Want to know more about AI, chatbots, and the future of machine learning? Check out our full coverage of artificial intelligence, or browse our guides to The Best Free AI Art Generators and Everything We Know About OpenAIs ChatGPT.

Catherine Rymsha, Visiting Lecturer of Management, UMass Lowell

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Air defence systems shoot down more than 40 UAVs in Kyiv overnight

The Kyiv City Military Administration (KMVA) reported that on the night of 28 May, according to preliminary data, over 40 Russian drones were shot down.

Source: KMVA

Quote: "The fourteenth air attack on the capital since the beginning of May! Today, the enemy decided to "congratulate" Kyiv on the Day of Kyiv with the help of their deadly UAVs.

According to preliminary data, it was the most massive drone attack on the capital since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, namely, with the Shahed loitering munitions. The attack was carried out in several waves, and the air alarm lasted over 5 hours!

According to preliminary data, more than 40 drones were destroyed by air defence forces in the airspace of Kyiv. (The final data are in the reports of the General Staff and the Air Force). "

Details: According to information that is being specified, as a result of falling debris, there are casualties and destruction in different parts of Kyiv.

In Holosiivsky district, due to the downing of drones:

debris hit a 7-storey non-residential building, one person died, one was hospitalised;

there was an ignition of the roof of one of the shopping centres;

a fire broke out on the territory of one of the construction sites;

there was also a fire on the territory of the enterprise, warehouses of finished products ignited, with a fire of around 1,000 square metres. There is one victim.

In the Pechersky district, the roof of a house caught fire.

In Darnytsky district, one of the shop's windows are broken and doors are damaged.

"Information on the victims is being clarified," the KMVA said.

Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!
To prevail over Russians in the airspace on a specific front, Ukraine needs at least three or four squadrons, 12-16 units each, of F-16 fighter jets.

Source: Brigadier General Serhii Holubtsov, chief of aircraft of the Air Force Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in an interview with Donbas Realii (Realities), Radio Svoboda (Liberty) Project.

Quote: "If we understand that there are groups against us, let's say 50 squadrons and 39 airfields from which they perform tasks, of course, we would want more [aircraft  ed.]. But if it is at least three or four squadrons, I think that on a separate front, we will be able to gain an advantage in the air and force the enemy to abandon the attacks that they are currently carrying out in a certain area, in a certain zone of defence."

Details: At the same time, Holubtsov noted that "in order to plan an operation to destroy or launch strikesat least about a squadron is needed, at least about 12-16 aircraft."

At the same time, the brigadier general said that "the enemy does not have advantages as such, tactical or operational, in the air due to the fact that Ukraine has received quite powerful assistance from partner countries: radar detection stations, surveillance, anti-aircraft missile systems, and everyone sees in practice how these complexes work and what percentage of targets are hit."

However, Russian Aerial Forces are currently armed with Su-35 and MiG-31BM aircraft, which are capable of launching long-range missiles, and Ukraine does not yet have such weapons.

"If only we had a platform that could use, for example, American AIM-120 air-to-air missiles  they have a range of about 180 kilometres  we would simply not allow them to approach the borders at a distance [close enough] to launching these missiles," Holubtsov said.

Answering the question of how difficult it will be to hide F-16 fighter jets on the territory of Ukraine so that Russian missiles and drones do not reach them, the representative of the Air Force Command said: "Just hiding the aircraft will not work. I think that here it will be necessary to look for a comprehensive approach, disguise and disperse, and move them from airfield to airfield. And the second approach is that it will still be necessary to use some of the anti-aircraft missile systems to cover these airfields."

Background:

Earlier, the Defence Ministry stated that a total of 48 F-16 fighter jets are essential for the liberation of Ukraine from the Russian invaders.

Previously, The Pentagon said it will not object to the transfer of American F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine by third countries.

Prime ministers of the UK and the Netherlands, on the sidelines of the Council of Europe summit in Reykjavik, agreed to promote the creation of an international coalition to strengthen Ukraine's air defence.

President Joe Biden's administration informed European allies that the United States will allow them to transfer the American F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

Europe does not rule out the possibility that Ukraine may receive F-16 fighter jets as early as this autumn.

Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!






Around 33 tribal militants killed in clashes in India's Manipur -minister

A view of a truck with its windshield broken, in Manipur

By Zarir Hussain

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - Around 33 tribal militants have been killed recently in India's far northeastern state of Manipur in an ongoing security force operation following ethnic clashes in the region, the state's chief minister said on Sunday.

The state bordering Myanmar has witnessed growing tension in recent weeks, with rioting and ethnic clashes killing at least 60 people and displacing 35,000.

The violence began on May 3 when tribal groups clashed with ethnic majority Meitei people - a non-tribal group, over economic benefits and quotas given to the tribes.

On Sunday, Chief Minister N Biren Singh told reporters around 33 militants had so far been killed.

"Mass combing operations along with helicopter operations have started. We are trying to find out culprits, those militants, who are attacking the civilians," he said.

Earlier in May, New Delhi rushed thousands of paramilitary and army troops to the state of 3.2 million people.

Manipur shares a nearly 400-km (250-mile) border with Myanmar, where a 2021 coup led to thousands of refugees crossing into the Indian state.

(Reporting by Zarir Hussain and Aditya Kalra; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
I ate at one of Tokyo's cheapest Michelin-awarded restaurants where my 3-course lunch cost $6.50

I ate at one of Tokyo's cheapest Michelin-awarded restaurants where my 3-course lunch cost $6.50

The author ate at an award-winning onigiri restaurant in Tokyo where her meal cost $6.50. Monica Humphries/Insider

I ate at Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku, a Tokyo restaurant with a Michelin Bib Gourmand Award.

There was a 1.5-hour wait, but the food was worth the wait.

Plus, my three-course meal cost just $6.50.

I was visiting Tokyo for less than two weeks, and in a city with more than 135,000 restaurants, picking a place for every meal felt like a crucial decision.

The author eats food from a stand at a food market in Tokyo. Monica Humphries/Insider

Source: World Cities Culture Forum

I wanted to eat incredible food, but I also had a tight budget. So I turned to a list of Tokyo's cheapest Michelin restaurants.

Michelin plate is seen on the restaurant in Krakow, Poland. Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/Getty Images

And that's where I found Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku.

The exterior of Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku. Monica Humphries/Insider

Although not Michelin-starred, the restaurant has earned Michelin's Bib Gourmand Award, which means it's one of the guide's "best value for money restaurants." Essentially, the restaurant is cheap and tasty  exactly what I was looking for.

A view of the onigiri restaurant and nearby buildings. Monica Humphries/Insider

Source: Michelin Guide

It's also known as Tokyo's oldest onigiri restaurant. According to its website, it's been serving onigiri since 1954.

The restaurant's chef makes onigiri. Monica Humphries/Insider

Source: Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku

The restaurant describes onigiri as rice balls wrapped in seaweed and stuffed with fillings like salted fish, pickled vegetables, and dried shrimp.

Onigiri on a cutting board. Studio Omg/EyeEm/Getty Images

So on day three of my trip, I headed to the restaurant in Asakusa, a popular neighborhood in northeast Tokyo.

The restaurant is in a shopping area in Tokyo's Asakusa neighborhood. Monica Humphries/Insider

With its affordable price and award-winning status, I expected a crowd, and since it was already 12:30 p.m., I figured my odds of getting a seat were slim.

A few people stand outside the restaurant in Tokyo. Monica Humphries/Insider

As I walked down the street  there wasn't a line in sight. Instead, a few people were mingling outside the restaurant's simple facade.

People wait outside Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku. Monica Humphries/Insider

I popped my head inside the restaurant, and a host carrying a clipboard greeted me. I braced for bad news. But instead, he took my name, asked me how many onigiri I planned to order, and told me to come back in an hour and a half.

The restaurant's menu. Monica Humphries/Insider

"Don't be late," he instructed me as I walked away. With 90 minutes to explore, I headed to the Senso-ji temple, Tokyo's oldest Buddhist temple, according to Go Tokyo.

The exterior of Tokyo's oldest Buddhist temple. Monica Humphries/Insider

Source: Go Tokyo

I wandered through outdoor malls with restaurants, cafes, and souvenir shops.

A Tokyo street. Monica Humphries/Insider

I was thankful the restaurant had a reservation system instead of a line. Ive read countless stories of people standing for hours in Tokyo to get their hands on steaming ramen or a trendy dessert.

People wait in line at a restaurant in Tokyo. Monica Humphries/Insider

Read more: I waited over 2 hours to try $11 Michelin-starred ramen. It was one of the best dishes I've had in Tokyo, but I'm never going back.

The time flew by. As I headed back to the restaurant, I anticipated the delicious meal ahead. Prior to visiting the restaurant, my experience with onigiri was limited to 7-Eleven.

A 7-Eleven in Tokyo. Monica Humphries/Insider

The convenience stores across Tokyo have a selection of affordable snacks, including onigiri. I had grabbed one a few days prior and easily devoured the rice ball.

Onigiri from 7-Eleven. Monica Humphries/Insider

I knew the Michelin-awarded Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku would be a different experience  even if the prices weren't much more than 7-Eleven.

The exterior of Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku. Monica Humphries/Insider

As I approached the restaurant, I noticed a new sign posted on the front door: "Sorry ... sold out"

A sign states that the restaurant has sold out of onigiri. Monica Humphries/Insider

I was thrilled I had snatched a reservation, and after waiting a few minutes outside, the host from earlier ushered me to a table.

The exterior of the onigiri restaurant. Monica Humphries/Insider

The restaurant was small. There were two tables and a bar where the chef was making onigiri. Together, 16 people could fit in the space.

The interior of Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku. Monica Humphries/Insider

At the bar, a glass case displayed all the onigiri fillings.

A glass case showcases the onigiri fillings. Monica Humphries/Insider

I was handed a menu that was as small as the size of the restaurant. The restaurant only sold miso soup and onigiri, and customers had a choice between 18 fillings.

An image of the restaurant's menu. Monica Humphries/Insider

I was dining during lunch, where a set menu includes two or three onigiri, a side of Japanese pickled radish, and miso soup. For two onigiri, it costs $5.90 (814 yen); for three, it's $8 (1,100 yen) without tax.

The restaurant has a set menu for lunch. Monica Humphries/Insider

I ordered two onigiri and debated which fillings to try My options ranged from sake, or grilled salmon, to shirasu, which is boiled whitebait fish. Ultimately, I chose fillings that I hadn't tasted before: ueboshi, which is Japenese ume plum that was pickled in salt, and tarako, or salted cod roe.

The author eats onigiri. Monica Humphries/Insider

Within minutes of placing my order, a bamboo basket with my first onigiri was placed on my table. The onigiri is served one at a time so the seaweed can stay fresh and crisp, I learned.

An onigiri and pickled radish in a basket. Monica Humphries/Insider

It was the salted cod roe. After a few bits of rice and seaweed, the salty fish eggs hit my mouth. The flavors and textures were balanced and delicious. The seaweed was crisp, the rice was moist, and the roe wasn't overpowering.

The interior of the salted cod onigiri. Monica Humphries/Insider

Before I could finish the first onigiri, I was handed my cup of miso, and shortly after that came my sour plum onigiri.

A second onigiri was added to the author's basket before she finished the first. Monica Humphries/Insider

The miso was piping hot and had a strong umami flavor. It had a savory flavor that perfectly matched the rice balls.

The miso at Onigiri Asakusa Yadoroku in Tokyo. Monica Humphries/Insider

Before devouring the plum, I ate a takuan, or Japanese pickled radish. Similar to pickled ginger, the radish was a palate cleanser before diving into my next onigiri.

The pickled radish. Monica Humphries/Insider

The Japanese ume plum onigiri had a balance of sweet and tart flavors and a texture similar to dried prunes. I thought the flavors were fascinating, and the sour plum was unlike anything I've tasted before in a rice dish.

The interior of the sour plum onigiri. Monica Humphries/Insider

As I finished my lunch, I chatted with Yosuke Miura, the third-generation owner-chef. He told me I was one of his last lunch customers  the restaurant had sold out of onigiri.

The author's finished meal. Monica Humphries/Insider

I celebrated snagging a reservation, and then I celebrated some more when my check arrived. Including tax, the three-course meal was about $6.50 (891 yen).

The author's check for the onigiri meal. Monica Humphries/Insider

I left the restaurant alongside Miura, who had a break before customers started arriving for the restaurant's dinner service. Full from the rice, fish eggs, and seaweed, I headed back into the neighborhood to explore some more.

Insider's author stands outside the restaurant. Monica Humphries/Insider

I was shocked such quality foods could come at an affordable price and left convinced that every minute of waiting was worth it.

The onigiri. Monica Humphries/Insider

Read the original article on Insider
A 46-year old Atwater man whom police identified as a gang member was arrested Saturday on suspicion of possessing several firearms.

A Merced Police Department Gang Unit Officer was reported to have obtained information that Jose Gutierrez had access to several firearms in his home. Gutierrez is a known gang member, according to police.

Officers were able to stop Gutierrez about 10:30 a.m. as he was leaving his home and served a search warrant for the residence.

While officers had Gutierrez detained on the traffic stop, a family member, Sukhkiran Kaur Cheema, 23, arrived on the scene. Officers had a warrant for Cheemas vehicle, and they located a loaded 9 mm handgun next to her drivers seat.

Officers went back to search Gutierrez and Cheemas home in the 2000 block of Chadala Court in Atwater and said they located a .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle and a .45 caliber handgun.

Gutierrez was arrested on suspicion of possession of a firearm and ammunition by a prohibited person and was taken to the Merced County Jail. Gutierrezs bond is set at $150,000, according to jail records.

Cheema was arrested and cited on suspicion of possession of a concealed loaded firearm in a vehicle.

Merced police are asking anyone with any information regarding this crime to contact Officer Arnulfo Centeno at 209-388-7742 or by email at CentenoA@CityofMerced.org.
Bakhmut front quieting down  just one combat fight in last 24 hours

The city of Bakhmut, Donetsk region

"The occupiers conducted 250 shellings with different equipment in the area of Bakhmut (in the past 24 hours). Our army also pinched back. As a result, 80 personnel were eliminated, 99 were injured and one Russian soldier taken captive. Three self-propelled artillery systems, an electronic warfare station and an ammunition depot were destroyed," the Ukrainian Army Inform outlet quoted Cherevatyi as saying.

The enemy is rotating its troops by replacing Wagner Group mercenaries with regular units.

Read also: Wagner mercenaries remain in Bakhmut, while being replaced by the Russian army in the suburbs  Defense Ministry

Cherevatyi reported the situation in the area of Kupyansk in the past day as well, namely:

The enemy shelled that area 342 times

Two armed clashes and three air strikes were registered

20 occupiers were killed and another 52 injured

A D-20 152 mm gun-howitzer was destroyed

Despite declaring victory in Bakhmut, the aggressor's troops have been struggling to gain full control over the city for over ten months, Cherevatyi said summarizing the actions of the Wagner Group and the Russian military.

The rotation of what is left of the mercenaries is looking more like a retreat than like a planned action, the colonel said.

Ukrainian Defense Forces advanced another 350-450 meters in some positions in and around Bakhmut, Cherevatyi reported on May 27.

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prygozhin ordered his mercenaries on May 25 to leave Bakhmut by June 1.

Read also: Ukraine advancing on Bakhmut flanks in ongoing operation, says General Syrskyi

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Bayraktar TB2 drones were hailed as Ukraine's savior and the future of warfare. A year later, they've practically disappeared.

Ukrainian servicemen push a Bayraktar TB2 UCAV at the Kulbakyne aerodrome during the Exercise Sea Breeze 2021, Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine. Yulii Zozulia/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images

In the early months of the Russia-Ukraine war, Bayraktar TB2 drones were hailed as Ukraine's savior.

However, a year later, nearly all of them are believed to have been shot down by Russian forces.

The remaining killer drones are now reduced to reconnaissance duties, an expert said.

In the early months of the Russia-Ukraine war, Turkey's Bayraktar TB2 drones were hailed as Ukraine's savior and the future of warfare.

Multiple reports and videos surfaced of Ukraine using the weapons to strike Russian tanks, armor, and patrol boats. Their popularity even inspired a viral folk song.

However, a little over a year later, the once-prized drones have almost entirely been shot down, and those that remain reduced to reconnaissance duties, according to an expert.

"The general assessment of drones like TB2 is that they work well without sophisticated air and electronic warfare defenses arrayed against them," Samuel Bendett, an analyst and expert in unmanned and robotic military systems at the Center for Naval Analyses, told Insider.

"As a relatively slow and low-flying UAV, it can become a target for a range of air defense systems that are well organized  we saw this in Libya and in Nagorno-Karabakh."

Russia has a sophisticated electronic-warfare system

A composie image showing just before (left) and during (right) a strike by a Bayraktar TB2 drone on Russian forces in Ukraine in February 2022. Ukrainian Military

While Russia was vulnerable to strikes from Ukrainian drones in the early months of the war, it soon adapted to improve its electronic warfare and has since been successfully downing and jamming many of Ukraine's drones.

"Once the Russian military got its act together, it was able to down many TB2s," Bendett said.

Ukraine said last year it had received 50 TB2 drones since the Russian invasion began, but by the end of 2022, it had largely disappeared from the battlefield.

The commander of the Russian air defense force, Lieutenant-General Andrey Demin, claimed that Russian forces had destroyed more than 100 of the drones in April.

Now, Ukraine mainly uses TB2s for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance purposes rather than for attacking, Bendett said.

Ukrainian forces are using the drones' "advanced optics and sensors to guide other drones for attacks while staying out of range of Russian air and EW systems," he said.

Bayraktar TB2 UAVs is seen during the test flight at the military base located in Hmelnitski, Ukraine on March 20, 2019. Press Office of the President of Ukraine / Mykola Lararenko / Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Indeed, a recent assessment argues Russia is on the front foot in the drone war and estimated that its forces were taking down about 10,000 Ukrainian drones every month.

Electronic warfare is a "critical component" of Russia's tactics and contributing to the enormous losses of Ukrainian drones, a report released by the UK's Royal United Services Institute found.

The RUSI researchers said that after the Russian army's "disaster" of a performance at the outset of the invasion, it adapted to Ukraine's pushback, even as it struggled with poor morale and effective use of heavy armor and air-force attacks.

Ukraine still had the initiative, but "as the Russian military adapts, there can be no room for complacency," it said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Belarusian military during exercises (illustrative photo)

"We can't speak about some kind of only partial participation because Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 from the territory of Belarus. There were not Russian troops alone, but a part of the Belarusian Special Operations Forces invaded Ukraine with them as well. They wore Russian military uniforms, but we have data that they were there," she said, referring to sources in defence ministries of Belarus and Ukraine.

"Even Belarusian radios were found with Belarusian codenames. People heard Belarusian dialect and saw Belarusian aircraft in the sky. Therefore, surely, we need to investigate this further," Radina said.

Most of the Belarusian soldiers who invaded Ukraine together with Russians, were killed. It caused "insight for Belarusian authorities about where it would lead, she said.

"But the fact that they were there is already undeniable. It's true," the journalist said.

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin are creating a so-called union state of Russia and Belarus. Russia already controls almost all the Belarusian state, said Francisak Viacorka, Senior Advisor to the Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

About 2,8000 Russian soldiers were in Belarus as of the beginning of May, according to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
By Deniz Uyar

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Merve Dizdar, best actress winner at the Cannes Film Festival, returned to Turkey on Sunday and was met both by cheering fans and sharp criticism, highlighting the extreme polarisation in the country.

Dizdar, who delivered an emotional speech on the struggle of women in Turkey upon receiving her prize in Cannes on Saturday, landed in Istanbul in time to cast her vote in the runoff presidential election pitting President Tayyip Erdogan against opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Erdogan has claimed victory in the election, a win that would steer his increasingly authoritarian rule into a third decade.

I am overwhelmed with the support I see here, Dizdar told Reuters after casting her vote at an Istanbul school. I am very happy to bring such an award to my country, she said, as fans sought to take selfies and offered her flowers. I am so happy to share this with all my sisters.

Dizdar was awarded the best actress prize for her role in "About Dry Grasses" as a teacher in a remote village.

In her Cannes speech, Dizdar said that she didnt need to rehearse for the teachers role because she has known how such women feel by heart since the day I was born".

The speech elicited disparaging reactions from Erdogan allies and Turkish officials.

Ibrahim Uslu, the deputy chairman of Turkey's Supreme Radio and Television Board, the television watchdog, accused Dizdar of undermining Turkey.

"You shall first learn to respect your own country, Merve Dizdar, Uslu said on Twitter. Only after doing that may you start expecting some appreciation for the award you received."

The Turkish actress was unapologetic. The country where I was born, the women here, we all have a struggle, it is present here and all over the world. We know how hard it is to be a woman and I made a speech about it, she told Reuters.

(Reporting by Deniz Uyar; Writing by David Gauthier-Villars; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
Leah Millis/Reuters

As the deadline for the nations first-ever default looms, key White House and GOP negotiators finally struck a deal in principle to raise the debt ceiling and cap federal spending Saturday.

The past few weeks have brought chaos between the White House and Republican lawmakers as fears of an economic crisis have spiraled across the political arenas. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Friday that the department will run out of cash to pay U.S obligations by June 5, raising the alarm on the quickly-ticking clock both parties have to iron out a deal and move it through Congress.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden, who have continued to butt heads on the issue, talked through their remaining points of tension Saturday evening and gave their thumbs up on the new agreement. In a tweet, McCarthy said it was worthy of the American people.

In a statement, Biden hailed the deal as good news for the American people, noting that it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, and millions of jobs lost.

He conceded, however, that the agreement is a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want.

Under the proposed deal, which is still in the works, the current $31.4 trillion debt limit would be raised for the next two yearsjust in time for the next president to pick up the slack, according to The New York Times. It also claws back unspent COVID funds and blocks Bidens new tax schemes, McCarthy said in a tweet.

Republicans are poised to deliver big, consequential change in Washington, McCarthy tweeted. Soon, we will vote for a responsible debt limit agreement that stops Democrats' reckless spending.

Republicans are poised to deliver big, consequential change in Washington. Soon, we will vote for a responsible debt limit agreement that stops Democrats' reckless spending, claws back unspent COVID funds, blocks Biden's new tax schemes, & much, much more https://t.co/TQ7CblFsaM  Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) May 28, 2023

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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President Joe Biden on Sunday announced a debt ceiling deal he said would avoid a "catastrophic default" by the federal government while keeping the economy fluid.

"It takes the threat of catastrophic default off the table," Biden said in a brief statement about the bipartisan agreement, which would still need approval from both chambers of Congress.

Biden expressed relief that the debt ceiling would not be in play for budget negotiations between Democrats and Republicans for two years.

"I strongly urge both chambers to pass that agreement," he said. "Let's keep moving forward."

Biden said he had just spoken to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who earlier Sunday had expressed confidence that their debt ceiling deal would pass Congress, despite early criticism from some lawmakers.

McCarthy, R-Calif., said at a news conference that he expects that over 95% of House Republicans will support the 99-page bill, the language of which he released Sunday evening.

He said in a statement the deal would stop "out-of-control" spending by Biden as it "forces the Executive Branch to find dollar-for-dollar savings in the government for costly rules and regulations, so that executive overreach is reined in and held accountable."

The House plans to take up the bill Wednesday after markets close, Republican senators were told.

This is going to be transformational, where Congress is literally going to vote to spend less money this year than we spent last year, McCarthy said earlier.

Asked by reporters Sunday in Washington whether hes confident the deal will get to his desk, Biden said: Yes.

In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, urged colleagues to quickly pass the legislation underpinning the deal.

"The Senate must act swiftly and pass this agreement without unnecessary delay," he said, expressing gratitude to McCarthy for helping to rein in government spending via the agreement.

Negotiators struck an agreement in principle Saturday night to extend the debt ceiling. The text of the bill will be prepared by Republicans and reviewed by the Biden administration before it is finalized, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote Sunday in a letter to Democrats.

Jeffries told his caucus that shortly after Biden and McCarthy spoke to complete the agreement, Republicans would release the bill.

The tentative agreement, which is expected to raise the country's borrowing authority in exchange for cuts in spending, was struck after weeks of negotiations led by Biden and McCarthy.

A source familiar with the agreement said it includes a two-year appropriations deal and a two-year extension of the debt limit, effectively resolving the issue until after the 2024 election. It will include work requirements to receive federal aid under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, for people up to 54 years old, with exceptions for homeless people and veterans. But there will be no changes to Medicaid, the source said.

Some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle criticized the deal on Sunday programs.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Democratic leaders should be worried about progressive support for the deal on CNNs State of the Union."

Jayapal, who had been briefed on the agreement, criticized the provision that would tighten work requirements for the SNAP food assistance program, calling it a "bad policy."

It is really unfortunate that the president opened the door to this, and while at the end of the day, you know, perhaps this will  because of the exemptions  perhaps it will be OK, I cant commit to that. I really dont know, Jayapal said.

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said the deal lacks Democratic priorities. Still, he said it may get some support from Democrats because its a very small bill.

Had the bill looked anything like what the Republicans passed on the floor where they rescinded all the money designed to create an electric battery industry in this country, designed to further reduce drug prices, you would have had unanimity against it, Himes said on Fox News Sunday.

Some Republicans swiftly disputed McCarthys claim that a majority of the conference was very excited about the deal.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., took issue with the defense spending proposals, saying it would be a joke to adopt what he characterized as Bidens defense budget.

I want to raise the debt ceiling. It would be irresponsible not to do it, Graham said on Fox News Sunday. I want to control spending. Id like to have a smaller IRS. Id like to claw back the unused Covid money. And I know you cant get to perfect, but what I will not do is adopt the Biden defense budget and call it as success.

And Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, called the bill a turd-sandwich in a tweet.

Two GOP negotiators, Reps. Garret Graves of Louisiana and Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, defended the deal Sunday afternoon.

A lot of the things people have been saying or alleging, theyre just not accurate, Graves said. Im confident once the text gets out people are going to recognize that, you know, were actually in a pretty good spot.

Graves and McHenry explained the discrepancies between White House and Republican spending estimates, saying the bill would roll back discretionary spending to levels from fiscal year 2022  which was in the GOP bill the House passed weeks ago. They also said they arent counting $121 billion in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, as the White House is.

Once the legislative language is finalized, it will have to pass both the GOP-led House and the Democratic-controlled Senate.

In a letter to Senate Democrats on Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said senators should prepare for potential votes Friday and next weekend.

Meanwhile, McCarthy said that he has already spoken to McConnell and that he will soon brief Senate Republicans on a conference call.

White House officials will hold separate briefings with House Democrats and Senate Democrats on Sunday evening, a source familiar with the plans said. Both briefings will be conducted by Shalanda Young, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget; John Podesta, Bidens senior adviser on clean energy; and Aviva Aron-Dine, the deputy director of the National Economic Council, two Democratic sources said.

House Republicans called the agreement "The Fiscal Responsibility Act" in a memo circulated to members Saturday night. Republicans will restore fiscal sanity and hold Washington accountable, the memo read.

Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen extended the deadline to act or risk breaching the debt ceiling to June 5. She had previously been less specific, saying the U.S. could run out of money potentially as early as June 1.

The Treasury Department hit the statutory borrowing limit in January and has been using extraordinary measures to pay the countrys bills.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Some House conservatives spent Sunday morning lining up against a deal that one called insanity. Some progressives are privately grumbling at their partys lack of wins.

Yet as lawmakers parsed through the deal between President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, it was becoming clear that most of the griping is coming from precisely where everyone expected  the margins.

Unless either party runs into major trouble with the unveiling of final text later Sunday, McCarthy and his counterpart, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, will likely have the votes to pass the bill this week, according to more than a half-dozen lawmakers and aides from both parties. It would be a surprisingly low-drama end to months of high-stakes theatrics between McCarthy and Biden  one in which both can claim victory after avoiding fiscal calamity.

At the moment, thats still an if. Negotiators wont release full details of their plan until Sunday afternoon, after a final call between McCarthy and Biden  sending lawmakers and aides searching for problem spots in between their Memorial Day parades and picnics.



If an issue does emerge in either party, Republicans and Democrats agree it could dramatically alter their whipping operations. Those efforts have been going well so far  especially for Republicans, with conservative leader Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) offering early praise for the deal.

Even as a half dozen House Freedom Caucus members took to Twitter to thrash the McCarthy-Biden compromise, none have publicly signaled they are ready to seek revenge, despite talk in conservative circles whether one of their own would ultimately move to oust the speaker. McCarthy and his allies had privately worried that conservative angst could trigger a vote of no confidence  one of the lingering threats from his speakership fight  but for now, theres no sign of that brewing.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a Freedom Caucus member who was among the 20 Republicans who opposed McCarthy during the start of the year, declined to say whether employing the so-called motion to vacate is on the table.

Not saying what I would rule in or out until I see the text, Norman said in a message to POLITICO on Sunday, while stating he is likely a strong no if the agreement in principle hes heard is reflected in legislative language. Bottom line; I need to see whats in WRITING.



While McCarthy walked his GOP members through some details on Saturday evening, the White House didn't brief the Democratic caucus until 5 p.m. Sunday. Jeffries also told his members in a Dear Colleague letter on Sunday that the full Democratic caucus would also meet in person prior to voting on the deal.

During the Sunday briefing, Democratic lawmakers asked Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, National Economic Council Deputy Director Aviva Aron-Dine and White House senior adviser John Podesta about policy points in the debt agreement, according to four people familiar with the situation.

They're set to get six more briefings on the legislation over the next two days, with two briefings each on TANF and SNAP, budget caps and permitting. With the assumption bill text would be released Sunday, lawmakers were told to prepare to return to Washington with votes on the debt package as early as Wednesday and suspension votes on Tuesday.

The call wasn't without some turbulence for the briefers, with Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) venting some frustration at the White House's communication on the debt limit during the briefing, the people said.

In the meantime, Biden officials have been working the phones as they look to lock down votes, with the bill expected to reach the floor Wednesday. White House senior advisor Mitch Landrieu phoned a handful of Democrats, including Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), on Sunday morning. Podesta is also making calls, as well as White House counselor Steve Ricchetti and congressional liaison Louisa Terrell, according to another House Democrat.



"If all this turns out to be true, then its a good deal and Ill be happy to vote for it," Wild told POLITICO about the emerging details of the deal. While she said she is refraining from a decision until text is released, she said it was important that Biden had protected programs like Social Security, Medicare and his own legislative priorities.

It avoided catastrophic default, she said, and "we can move forward with sensible budget discussions.

The strongest support so far has come mostly from the centrist New Democrat coalition, whose chair Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) said in a Sunday statement they were reviewing the agreement but were "encouraged" by the deal and were "confident that President Biden and White House negotiators have delivered a viable, bipartisan solution to end this crisis."

We want to be clear  our Members are committed to upholding the full faith and credit of the United States," she said. "We must act responsibly to ensure that we prevent the catastrophic consequences of default and protect the needs of the most vulnerable in our society.



Not all Democrats are as content. Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are privately arguing that Biden could have gotten more. Many others are concerned about the lack of details so far  particularly on issues such as work requirements for food assistance programs and energy permitting, as they face steep pressure from environmental groups on the latter.

Theres also worry whether the deal will apply to Congress pay as you go rule  which requires new spending to be offset  to executive actions. That would mean presidential actions like student loan forgiveness could require a huge offset. One Democrat warned such restrictions could be disastrous.

White House officials, though, have told some Democrats that the Office of Management and Budget would have the power to waive that rule  potentially neutralizing the concerns, according to multiple people familiar with those discussions..

Besides the policy details, many Democrats are eager to see their party work on a stronger sales pitch, particularly after McCarthy and his GOP negotiators have repeatedly stood in front of news cameras pushing their own talking points multiple times a day for weeks.

Many Democrats want Biden to take a stronger public role in selling the deal, questioning why he left Washington for Camp David this weekend. Why the hell isn't he here? one House Democrat, granted anonymity to speak about growing internal frustrations, said fellow members are asking.

Overall, though, many Democrats said it couldve been worse. Several Democratic lawmakers and aides predicted that at least 80 of their members would back the deal, with some believing that number could go above 100  depending on the final details and messaging strategy.

McCarthy took an optimistic tone on Sunday despite pushback from some on his right. He said on Fox News Sunday that 95 percent of his conference backs the deal, an assertion Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) disputed.

Either way, there are promising signs for the speaker.



Jordans praise during a private House GOP phone call on Saturday night was a clear win for McCarthy and his allies. The Ohio lawmaker was upbeat about the deals work requirements and spending provisions. That view was also echoed by Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Both men, however, said they wanted to see the text before promising their full support, according to people on the call.

Jordan and Davidson are a welcome  and somewhat surprising  signal to rank-and-file Republicans who largely believed the right flank of the party was never going to support a compromise bill.

Others warned of stiff opposition to come. Russ Vought, a former Trump official who works closely with the House Freedom Caucus, said that conservatives on the House Rules Committee should try to block the deal from coming to the House floor  a move that would give more leverage to Democrats. Its unclear whether Roy, Norman as well as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) will oppose the rule, but Roy retweeted Voughts calls for them to sandbag it.

Separately, in response to a Twitter user calling for him to stop the deal from passing the House, Roy replied: We are going to try.

Jordain Carney, Caitlin Emma and Michael Stratford contributed to this report.
An agreement in principle was reached Saturday between House Republican leaders and the White House that would prevent the government from breaching debt ceiling and failing to meet all its obligations.

The deal would claw back some unspent COVID-19 pandemic funds and provide a cut from funding granted the IRS in President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, multiple sources told Fox News and Fox News Digital. It would also suspend the debt limit until after the 2024 presidential election, sources said.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said the deal includes cuts and language aimed at reducing the government's footprint. He said the text of the deal should be out by Sunday, and that he hopes the House can vote on it by Wednesday.

"We still have a lot of work to do. But I believe this is an agreement in principle that's worthy of the American people. It has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce, and rein in government overreach. There are no new taxes, no new government programs. There's a lot more within the bill," McCarthy said.

MCCARTHY CITES 'PROGRESS' IN US DEBT-CEILING TALKS WITH WHITE HOUSE

President Joe Biden speaks at the LSU Tigers Championship Celebration event at the White House in Washington D.C., United States on May 26, 2023.

An internal House GOP memo that outlines messaging points for the deal says McCarthy and the White House have agreed to cut non-defense discretionary spending to fiscal 2022 levels, a key asking point for Republicans. It also claws back billions of unspent COVID-19 pandemic funds and includes permitting reform to speed up approvals for energy and infrastructure projects.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Republican members were told on a conference call late on Saturday night that the deal also imposes a 1% growth cap on federal spending for six years, while spending for defense and veterans would go up, a source told Fox News. Lawmakers expect to be called back for a vote either Wednesday or Thursday, the source said.

However, another source familiar with the talks said both sides agreed to a two-year budget deal and to freeze non-defense discretionary spending at current fiscal 2023 levels rather than rolling it back.

A third source familiar with the details told Fox News Digital that the deal claws back $1.9 billion this year of the $80 billion in funding over ten years granted to the Internal Revenue Service in last year's Inflation Reduction Act, and that the debt limit would be suspended until January 2025.

Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., has been one of McCarthy's top negotiators

That appears to fall short of Republican goals outlined in the House GOP's Limit, Save, Grow Act, which would have raised the debt limit for about a year while rolling back the current year's spending levels by roughly $150 billion. Several House Republicans were already tweeting late Saturday night that they can't accept the deal based on the details that were emerging.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said online after the call with McCarthy, "I do not like the deal as I understand it from the cheerleading so far I will have more to follow once I see more details."

THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO WHERE WE STAND ON THE DEBT CEILING

U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), joined by fellow Republican lawmakers, holds a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on March 24, 2023 in Washington, DC. McCarthy spoke after the House passed the Parents Bill of Rights Act, 213-208, sending the bill to the Senate.

However another top hardline Republican, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told members, "If I understand, for first time in US history, were spending less money than year before. That seems like a pretty darn good deal to me."

Republicans got their wish for tighter work requirements for some Americans on federal benefits  the applicable age for work requirements for SNAP recipients would be raised from 49 to 54, while being reduced for veterans and homeless people, among others. But those tougher work requirements would not be required for Medicaid benefits.

President Biden claimed the deal "protects" Democrats' policies but acknowledged that not everyone got what they wanted in a statement released late on Saturday night.

"It is an important step forward that reduces spending while protecting critical programs for working people and growing the economy for everyone. And, the agreement protects my and Congressional Democrats key priorities and legislative accomplishments. The agreement represents a compromise, which means not everyone gets what they want," Biden said.

"Over the next day, our negotiating teams will finalize legislative text and the agreement will go to the United States House and Senate. I strongly urge both chambers to pass the agreement right away," he said.

McCarthy told reporters after his earlier discussion with Biden, "I just got off the phone with the president a bit ago. After he wasted time and refused to negotiate for months, we've come to an agreement in principle that is worthy of the American people," McCarthy said after his discussion with Biden.

He was due to speak with Biden again at 10:30pm tonight.

Democrats had gone into the talks pushing for a clean debt limit increase without preconditions, something Republicans made clear from the start that they would not accept.

President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy spoke at about 6 p.m. Eastern time to talk about the progress made so far, and spoke for nearly 90 minutes.

Edward Lawrence, Kelly Phares, and Tyler Olson contributed to this report
Workers at a Connecticut bakery were getting ready to make the days deliveries when a hungry intruder arrived, video shows.

One worker, named Maureen, was packing the last of the goods when she looked up, saw a black bear and ran screaming into the bakery, Taste by Spellbound said in a May 24 social media post.

She ran into the kitchen as fast as she could and slammed the door that goes into the loading area and held it tight, the post said. The bear then MOVED one of our fridges in front of the door.

A typical adult male black bear in Connecticut can weigh up to 550 pounds, according to state wildlife officials. While they generally feed on fruits, nuts, and smaller animals, they apparently wont turn down fresh baked cupcakes when the opportunity arises.

Workers dialed 911 and tried to scare the bear away as it wreaked havoc in the garage, the post said. But the bear wouldnt be deterred.

One of the workers yelled at the bear, causing it to temporarily back off, only to return more emboldened, Maureen Williams told the Associated Press.

It turned around, and came towards me, and he did  a bluff charge, where he made kind of a huffing noise, and then he came at me a little quicker, Williams told the outlet. At that point, I knew I wasnt going to shut the door. He was too close. So, I backed myself out and ran.

The bear finally ran off after an employee got in a car and started honking at it, the post said. But by then, the bear had eaten plenty: 60 cupcakes and a bunch of coconut cake.

Im so thankful Maureen was safe [and] wasnt hurt, as well as the rest of the team, the post said.

Wildlife officials arrived at the scene after the bear left the area and set up traps to capture it, the Associated Press reported.

McClatchy News has reached out to the state Department of Natural Resources for more information.

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Bear carries off hikers dog, stashes body, Canadian officials say. Very concerning
ALL INDIA TRADE UNION CONGRESS (AITUC)

The following statement was issued to the press by Amarjeet Kaur, General Secretary, AITUC today 28th May

AITUC Condemns Repression on Women Wrestlers,

Demands the release of all and

The arrest of the accused Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh

AITUC condemns the oppression let loose on the women wrestlers and all those who were at Jantar Mantar at the protest site or were proceeding towards the site to join in the women panchayat which had been called today to press for their demand for justice, arrest of Mr. Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh alleged for sexual harassment in the FIRs against him including under POCSO Act.

The RSS-BJP government led by Mr Narendra Modi is further exposed of its facade of Beti Bachao, Beti Padao slogan as well as its naked expression of intolerant towards any criticism, opposition or even raising voice for seeking justice under the rule of law and constitutional rights.

We demand the immediate arrest of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, the release of all those arrested, and Justice for women wrestlers who through their voices have raised the voice of women who face harassment at different levels but are restrained to ask for justice.

AITUC calls upon its units to organise protests against this oppressive, undemocratic act on the part of Delhi Police on instance of the ruling regime.

Amarjeet Kaur
BPD: Public drinking leads to chase into Boston Common, arrest of 23-year-old on gun, drug charges

A 23-year-old man wanted on two warrants, who was seen drinking alcohol publicly and led police officers on a foot chase into Boston Common, was eventually arrested on gun and drug charges, police said.

Officers arrested Isaias Plaza, 23, of East Boston, on Friday night and charged him with unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, possession with intent to distribute, Class B, drugs and resisting arrest, police said.

Plaza also had two active warrants: one out of Boston Municipal Court on distribute of Class B, drugs and conspiracy to violate drug laws, police said. The other warrant was out of Chelsea District Court for assault & battery on a household member.

At about 7:05 p.m. Friday, officers on a bicycle patrol unit in downtown Boston saw an adult man openly drinking alcohol in public, police said.

When officers approached the man, later identified as Plaza, he walked away from officers towards Winter Street and into Boston Common, police said.

Officers quickly followed Plaza and were able to apprehend and arrest him in the area of 131 Tremont St., police said.

Officers recovered from Plaza a Walther PPK/S-1 .380 ACP firearm with six rounds of ammunition in the magazine, and several plastic bags containing a white rock like substance believed to be crack cocaine, police said.

Plaza is expected to be arraigned in Boston Municipal Court.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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Throughout the Memorial Day weekend, Palmyra residents were treated to rows of United States flags along Main Street and Railroad Street. These flags are set up by the Rotary Club of Palmyra for the last 65 years and go out for national holidays.

"That is for everybody to enjoy on the streets, and we've gotten a lot of positive comments about the flags," Rotary club president Calvin Clements said.

While the last Monday in May sparks the beginning of summer for many filled with cookouts and an extra day off from school and work, many Lebanon County residents will be using it to commemorate the sacrifice of military members who died.

Throughout the Memorial Day weekend, Palmyra residents were treated to rows of United States flags along Main Street and Railroad Street. These flags are set up by the Rotary Club of Palmyra for the last 65 years and go out for national holidays.

On Thursday, rotary club officials held it's first dedication ceremony for their Flags for Heroes display. Flags and a medallion board featuring local service members featured outside of the Palmyra Area School District Administration Building on Park Drive. The dedication included guests from local law enforcement, military, and first responder organizations.

The ceremony was more for family to recognize members in the community that have done "some exemplary service," according to Clements.

"These are people that have given their life to serve us," he said.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, honors all military members who have died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. It dates back to the Civil War era and began as a federal holiday through an act of Congress in 1971.

The men and women who serve come from all walks of life and backgrounds, but share a common bond of selflessness and dedication for our country and community, North Londonderry Police Sgt. and former marine Thomas Hentz said.

"These brave individuals put their lives on the line daily to protect our freedoms and keep us safe," he said. "They do not ask for recognition or accolades, but it is our duty as citizens to honor and thank them for their service."

The Rotary Club of Palmyra held a dedication ceremony for their Flags for Heroes display in front of the Palmyra School District offices. "These brave individuals put their lives on the line daily to protect our freedoms and keep us safe," North Londonderry Police Sgt. and former marine Thomas Hentz said.

Other programs included the 40th Annual Memorial Day Program the Indiantown Gap National Cemetery on May 28 at 2 p.m.. The program will be held in the parking lot above the Pennsylvania Veterans Memorial while it continues to undergo renovations.

Parking will be at MSC Industrial Supply Co. 100 MSC Drive, Jonestown located just east of Fort Indiantown Gap. Shuttle bus transportation will run at noon to and from the designated parking area to the Cemetery. If entering the area from the west, there is construction on Fisher Avenue at Biddle Road. Attendees should follow the detour sign on Biddle Road around the Post. There will be limited handicapped parking at the Cemetery itself.

Funded by the state as a public improvement project, officials in 2021 said the renovations will cost $3.6 million. Specific repairs will include re-anchoring plaques, resetting existing pre-cast concrete, waterproofing walls, replacing flashing and upgrading drainage.

Regardless of whether residents attended a large program or a small one like the rotary club's dedication ceremony, Clements hopes everybody will take some time over Memorial Day to remember the sacrifice of service men and women.

"I know it's hot dogs and hamburgers, but take a little bit of time and think about those people who have served us. Particularly those who have served us and are no longer with us," he said.

Fallen officers: 'We make a difference': Lebanon officials honor the service of fallen police officers

1st Lt. Carl D. Nesbitt: WWII pilot, whose remains were identified 78 years after his death, to be buried at Gap

Residents looking for more information about the Rotary club of Palmyra and it's Memorial Day celebrations can visit the club's web page at palmyraparotary.org.

Matthew Toth is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at mtoth@ldnews.com or on Twitter at @DAMattToth.

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Palmyra Rotary honors fallen service members in Memorial Day dedication
New brewery opening soon, library closed, events in Bellingham and new unique cocktails

Heres a roundup of the latest retail and restaurant activity in and around Whatcom County:

New brewery a bit closer to opening

Larrabee Lager Company, a new brewery coming to Bellingham in summer 2023 has posted another update on its finishing touches before it opens.

No opening date has been announced yet, but the brewery will be at 4151 Meridian St.

Bellingham Public Library closed on Memorial Day

The Bellingham Public Library announced on Facebook that all of its locations will be closed on Monday, May 29 in honor of Memorial Day. The locations will open up with regular hours on Tuesday, May 30.

New unique cocktail menu in Fairhaven

Skylarks Hidden Cafe in Fairhaven announced its summer cocktail menu, and it has some unique drink options.

From a peanut butter and jelly old fashioned to a purple pineapple potion, the new menu is full of exciting drinks to try.

Skylarks Hidden Cafe is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday through Saturday and is at 1308 11th St. in Bellingham.

Events in Bellingham

Looking for something fun to do during the last few days of May? Check out our guide to Bellinghams May events to make sure you dont miss out!

In case you missed it from last weeks business new roundup:

Midweek farmers market on pause

The Bellingham Farmers Market announced on May 18 that it will no longer host midweek markets on Wednesdays during 2023.

Although we have had much enthusiasm for the Wednesday market over its 20-plus-year history, this has not translated to the purchases we need to build the vibrant, bustling and sustainable market we want to see, the announcement stated.

If you want to see a future mid-week market succeed, keep shopping at the Saturday farmers market!

The Bellingham Farmers Market is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Saturday through the third week of December at 1100 Railroad Ave.

Bellingham hot sauce company expands

Funkys Hot Sauce Factory of Bellingham announced its expansion in a Facebook post on May 18, expanding its company to also make BBQ sauce.

The company bought out Trilbys Kitchen, a BBQ sauce, rub and dip mix business.

Funkys Hot Sauce can be purchased online or at various stores across Whatcom County, Washington state, Oregon, California, New York, Massachusetts and parts of Canada.
President Joe Biden is the countrys most famous champion of passenger trains  but some fellow supporters fear his policies could squelch the last hopes of bringing true high-speed rail to the U.S.

Bidens strengthening of federal Buy America funding requirements might make high-speed rail impossible to build in the U.S., transportation advocates say. They had hoped to see super-fast trains lessen Americans reliance on automobiles and aviation, reducing a major source of greenhouse gas pollution.

Trains capable of going 200 miles per hour are only made in a couple places in the whole world, said Andy Kunz, president of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, an advocacy group. You stand behind it and say, It has to be 100 percent made in America, youre not going to get a [high-speed] rail system.

The debate involves just one of a series of trade-offs the administration faces in meeting two of Biden's major goals: tackling climate change while creating factory jobs in the United States. With high-speed rail  as with electric cars and solar panels  some question whether he can accomplish both.

In a statement Friday, White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson disputed the premise of this story, saying it mischaracterizes the effect of this administrations Build America, Buy America provisions.

As evidenced by the success of this administrations EV charger implementation plan, Buy America provisions can  and do  drive the creation of American jobs and incentivize investments in American manufacturing, she added.

Buy America is a decades-old policy that generally requires federally funded transportation infrastructure, including rail cars, to be manufactured domestically and to use U.S.-made iron and steel. The government can waive the requirements, but Biden has taken steps to limit waivers and has vowed strict adherence to the provisions.



European- and Japanese-style bullet trains are still a distant dream in the U.S., where only about three projects envision speeds of up to 200 mph. High-speed rail didnt get any expressly dedicated money in the mammoth infrastructure package that Biden signed in late 2021.

But such projects would face an additional hurdle without Buy America waivers, veterans of the transportation industry say  because no domestic factories are capable of building specialized rail cars that can travel at those kinds of speeds.

Siemens, a German company that manufactures trains, has produced more than 3,000 rail cars in its Sacramento, Calif., plant, but none is a high-speed train, said Michael Cahill, president of rolling stock at Siemens Mobility North America.

There are no domestic production capabilities in the U.S. today for trains that run 200 mph, for Siemens Mobility or any other train manufacturer, Cahill said in an email. It simply does not exist in the U.S. today.

Cahill said he is confident that high-speed rail can be built in the U.S.  if a few components for the initial batch of bullet trains come from Europe. He said Siemens has the "experience with trains, locomotives, and light rail vehicles to bring high-speed rail to America."

The U.S. also lacks the engineering knowledge to design, build and maintain high-speed rail systems, said Nii Attoh-Okine, a rail engineering professor at the University of Maryland.

To support cars traveling at 200 mph, high-speed rail tracks have to be much stronger than standard U.S. tracks that handle slower passenger trains and freight rail. Specialized signal systems essential to high-speed rail safety and speed also are not produced in the U.S., Attoh-Okine said.

Even so, high-speed rail could help Biden reach his climate goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, advocates of faster train service say.

Transportation accounts for 28 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making it the countrys largest contributor to the warming of the planet, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Automobiles including trucks and passenger cars account for 81 percent of transportation emissions, while rail contributes just 2 percent in the U.S.

Trips on bullet trains emit about 14 to 16 times less carbon per passenger than those in cars or airplanes, according to a report that evaluated the carbon footprint of transportation options in southern France.

The Biden administration last year vowed to fund high-speed rail as one of 37 game changing technologies that would achieve the goal of net-zero carbon emissions. And Federal Railroad Administration chief Amit Bose told a rail conference this month that high-speed trains are a critical element of rail modernization. The agency, which funds rail projects, is committed to meeting the president's goal of delivering high-speed intercity passenger rail to the American people, said Bose, a Biden appointee.

Biden has also made high-speed rail projects eligible for money from the 2021 infrastructure law, which includes $43.5 billion for passenger rail expansion. At least two high-speed rail applicants are seeking money  for a project in California and for a project between California and Las Vegas.

Acela is fast but not high-speed

The U.S. has no high-speed rail under definitions set by the International Union of Railways, a professional association representing the rail industry. The group defines high-speed rail as trains that travel faster than 155 mph on dedicated tracks.

The definition also includes trains running on standard tracks if they reach 125 mph and have an integrated high-speed system. Rail specialists do not consider Amtraks Acela service to be high-speed because it reaches that thresholdon only a few segments between Boston and Washington and takes more than six hours to travel the 450-mile route.

In China, high-speed trains take less than 4 1/2 hours to travel the 800-mile route between Shanghai and Beijing. As passengers have opted for trains, air travel between Chinas two largest cities dropped by 34 percent after bullet trains began service in 2011, according to a study that analyzed the impact of three major Chinese high-speed rail lines on aviation.

More than 20 European and East Asian countries now operate high-speed rail after Japan debuted its bullet train in the 1960s. A handful of French, German, Chinese and Japanese companies dominate the international market for bullet trains.

Rail advocates have expressed disappointment at the low priority high-speed rail has received in Bidens infrastructure plans, and at the heavy emphasis on electric cars in the presidents climate proposals. Even so, the infrastructure laws rail money could kick-start high-speed rail in the U.S.  if Biden compromises on Buy America, said Jim Mathews, the president of the Rail Passengers Association.



It's unclear if that will happen.

Five days after taking office, Biden strengthened Buy America by issuing an executive order that establisheda new Made in America Office under the Office of Management and Budget to oversee waiver requests.

During his State of the Union address in February, Bidencriticized past administrations for avoiding a strict application of Buy America and vowed to require all materials used in federal infrastructure projects to be made in the U.S.

I mean it, Biden added.

Bidens new office will tightly interpret the laws and effectively limit the number of Buy America waivers the FRA can issue, said Timothy Wyatt, an attorney at Conner Gwyn Schenck who specializes in permitting and Buy America for public construction projects.

Previous administrations have made waivers widely available, applying a broader reading of exemption clauses in federal law, Wyatt said. The Federal Railroad Administration often issued waivers when U.S. components were more expensive than imported parts and concluded that no adequate domestic products were available in the market, Wyatt said.

Its going to be harder for them to do that now that theres a centralized office that reviews all waivers, Wyatt added.

The new review process will make the FRA especially careful about approving waivers, said Louis Thompson, a former director of the agency and a member of the oversight board California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group.

The net result of Buy America is that often things are more expensive and take longer than they would otherwise, Thompson said. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't have to have Buy America.

FRA spokesperson Cory Gattie said in an email that all waiver requests must now be approved by the Made in America Office and the Department of Transportation. The FRA said in December that it expects all grant applicants to comply with Buy America without needing a waiver.

Other advocates are hopeful that the administration understands the importance of waivers. Kunz of the High Speed Rail Association said the Transportation Department would grant waivers to crucial components for bullet train systems, as the president is one of the staunchest supporters of the new faster rail service as a solution to climate change and congestion.



U.S. high-speed rail is stalled

Buy America has a history of derailing high-speed rail projects.

DesertXpress, a private company trying to build high-speed rail between the Los Angeles area and Las Vegas, sought a $5.5 billion federal railway loan during President Barack Obamas first term. The FRA rejected the application in 2013, saying it failed to satisfy Buy America priorities, one of a host of political and practical complications that embroiled the project before it lost momentum.

The project was taken over in 2019 by Brightline Holdings LLC, a Florida company that operates passenger rail between Orlando and Miami. Brightline is seeking $3.75 billion from the infrastructure law to help pay for the $10 billion California-to-Vegas project, said Ben Porritt, a company vice president. Brightline is reviewing with rail car manufacturers whether it will need Buy America waivers, Porritt said.

A proposed high-speed rail project between Los Angeles and San Francisco also got caught up in Buy America. In the early 2010s, French national railroad company SNCF tried to win a contract to build the system. But California officials decided against the company in part due to the concern about complying with Buy America, said Bent Flyvbjerg, the author of How Big Things Get Done and an Oxford University professor who studies project management.

The project remains stalled as costs have ballooned, and the state was forced to hire European engineers it had initially shunned. Californias plans now call for building just 171 miles of track between two towns in the Central Valley.

Mathews of the Rail Passengers Association said previous waivers did not prevent rail manufacturers such as Siemens, Alstom and Hitachi from building plants in the U.S.

Would a tweak to Buy America fundamentally alter that trajectory for a stronger [domestic rail] industry? Mathews asked. I don't think it would. But it would get more equipment into the United States quicker and get Americans riding passenger trains.

A version of this report first ran in E&E News Climatewire. Get access to more comprehensive and in-depth reporting on the energy transition, natural resources, climate change and more in E&E News.
California man stops bank robbery by talking to the suspect. It was his former neighbor.

A California man was waiting in line to deposit a check at a bank when he noticed a robbery unfold in front of him  and the suspect was his former neighbor.

Michael Armus Sr. was at Bank of the West in Woodland, California, on Monday when police said Eduardo Plasencia, 43, entered the bank and passed a note to a teller claiming he was robbing the bank and had a gun.

Thats when Armus, 69, who told Good Morning America that he recognized the suspect as his former neighbor and friend of his daughter, stepped in and encouraged Plasencia to not rob the bank, the Woodland Police Department said in a statement on Facebook.

Police arrested Plasencia outside the bank. He was charged with attempted robbery.

His words of wisdom worked and Plasencia changed his mind and left the bank, police said.

In the event of a bank robbery, security experts say people should avoid making a bad situation worse, be cooperative, don't be a hero and stay calm, among other tips.

A bank robbery ended with a hug

Armus said he tried to comfort Plasencia and asked him what was wrong.

"He said, 'There's nothing in this town for me. Nothing in this town for me. I just want to go to prison,' " Armus told GMA.

Armus then suggested the two go outside where the situation ended in a hug. "I (gave) the man a hug right here at the doors," Armus told GMA. "He started crying."

In the statement, police thanked Armus and said he "delivered the right message that made a difference."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: California bank robbery ends with hug after customer talks to suspect
How California's big effort to help abused children left some with nowhere to go

A teenager living in a group home in 2017 displays her scarred wrists from cutting herself. A 2015 California law curtailed the use of group homes for foster children. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

Over the last 18 months, Los Angeles County's child welfare agency has placed more than 200 foster children in hotels, sometimes for months, despite internal criticism that the practice could be dangerous. Now, county officials say, two social workers have been assaulted by foster youths in separate incidents this year at hotels, including one at downtown Los Angeles' Biltmore Hotel.

The county's decision to house foster children in hotels underscores California's chronic shortage of families and group homes willing or able to house youths with significant untreated trauma and histories of violence.

The worsening shortage, child welfare advocates say, can be traced in large part to a landmark law signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2015 that was supposed to improve the lives of foster children. The law  the state's most significant child welfare reform in the last decade  curtailed the use of group homes for foster youths in favor of placing abused or neglected children with relatives or licensed foster families. Most group homes either closed or were limited to providing housing for up to six months.

The states count for children living in group homes has dropped from 3,655 to 1,727 since the law took effect in 2017, but the state has failed to recruit enough foster families to house the displaced youths.

Despite its effect, the law has received little public scrutiny.

What was the goal of the law?

The primary goal was to move the system away from thinking about placing children in beds and acknowledge that theres nothing more important for youths than being loved and nurtured and cared for in a family, said Jennifer Rodriguez, who grew up in group homes before becoming a lawyer leading the Youth Law Center, a San Francisco public interest firm that was among the most ardent supporters of the new law.

The legislation, Assembly Bill 403, came with tens of millions of dollars to aid the transition, including the recruitment and training of additional foster families.

But that money represents just a tiny fraction of child welfare spending, which is $2.9 billion annually in Los Angeles County alone.

Overall spending has been on the decline in recent years throughout the state, and lawmakers hoped this law would eventually allow further cuts. Children at high-level group homes were costing taxpayers about $11,000 per month for each child.

Group homes have also been the site of substandard care and scandalous abuse over the years. Two decades after Los Angeles County officials shut down MacLaren Childrens Center in El Monte, for example, former foster children are still coming forward with accounts of sexual abuse they say they suffered at the hands of staff.

Santos Amigon, now a forklift driver at Imperfect Foods, spent time in several Los Angeles County group homes around the time that the 2015 law was approved, and he was initially hopeful about its impact. Amigon recalled being segregated in special schools intended only for group home youths that he considered substandard.

So you got about 30 or 40 boys in there that dont want to be there. Of course, theres fights going on, said Amigon, who now advocates for improved services as a member of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Foster Youth Institute.

The exterior of MacLaren Children's Center in El Monte. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Amigon said he still cheers the curtailment of the states use of group homes, but he lamented that some foster children are being housed in hotels.

Thats not a long-term solution, he said.

How do people view the laws effects today?

Gov. Gavin Newsoms social services secretary, Kim Johnson, touts the law as a success. In just a short time, she said last year in a written statement, this effort has resulted in more children being placed with their own relatives or in other home-based settings. In the end, this helps youths experience better outcomes.

Johnsons staff later clarified that the number of children with their own relatives or in other home-based settings has actually gone down. The only thing that has risen is the percentage of licensed foster care beds that are provided by foster parents instead of group homes.

Rodriguez, the former foster youth who became a leading advocate for the law, said state officials have failed to the extent that children have left group homes without finding a stable foster family home.

The state's plan depended heavily on finding more foster parents who, with the support of improved mental health care and other services provided by the county, could better rehabilitate abused and neglected youths.

Rodriguez said the state needs to recruit more foster parents by paying them more money and giving them better support from clinicians to help the children they take in.

Another key architect of the legislation, Frank Mecca, said the state should have anticipated that more children would have to remain in group homes.

Mecca, who retired in December 2020 as executive director of the powerful County Welfare Directors Assn. of California, noted that his former agency recently called on lawmakers to go back to the drawing board to fund and license a limited number of new specialized facilities for youths with complex needs.

The alternative for those youths is juvenile hall or homelessness, Mecca said. Its just not humane.

Newsom and other state leaders have so far declined to comment.

What is happening in group homes since the law took effect?

By many accounts, the children in todays group homes are experiencing care that is worse than the group home experience reformers meant to eradicate.

A Los Angeles County task force convened experts and many youths living in the group homes to examine the problem. The resulting report , published two years ago, concluded that the 2015 law has resulted in a higher number of youth with significant challenges being placed together in settings that lack the resources to effectively meet their needs.

This places far higher pressures than before on the child welfare system, largely due to shorter time-frames in which to treat children, the report said.

Before the new law, Los Angeles County youths in group homes were commonly housed in communities of six to eight but now typically share a facility with 20 others at a time for up to six months, said Leslie Heimov, director of the court-appointed law firm representing the countys foster children.

The needs of each youth are often more complex. Many are involved with the juvenile delinquency system, sex trafficked, developmentally disabled or suffering from psychosis. The children in those homes, Heimov said, describe a life that can look like incarceration.

We weren't allowed to leave, said Sabrina Abong, who lived in a group home in San Jose shortly before she aged out of the foster care system in 2018. We weren't allowed to go anywhere without being supervised. We were always being watched. We would always be investigated. You would have four hours that you wouldn't come out of your room. And that is not a home for youth. It's not.

"There were people fighting. People running away, people doing drugs, said Abong, who now lives in Merced and works at a Tesla factory.

Police often bring youths back to group homes after they run away or get into trouble off campus.

Across the state in 2017, police returned youths to institutional foster care settings 20,000 times, or five times per young person housed in institutions. In 2020, the most recent year figures are available, police returned children to such facilities 23,000 times, or eight times per youth.

In 2017, the number of reported assaults at the short-term group homes in Los Angeles County was 16. In 2020, it was 490.

On Jan. 2, 2021, a 25-year-old counselor, David McKnight-Hillman, was assaulted while trying to break up a fight at another short-term residential program run by Wayfinder Family Services. He later died.

Whats happening nationally?

In 2018, former President Trump signed landmark child welfare legislation that used California as a model. The U.S. law, known as the Family First Prevention Services Act, ended federal funding for many residential treatment facilities, but it did even less than Californias push to fund the recruitment of new foster parents.

Stories now abound of desperate shortages of placements in more than a dozen states that leave children living in conference rooms, hotels or on the streets.

Last year, for instance, the Illinois Answers Project reported that Illinois state child welfare agency had more than 2,000 cases since 2018 of foster children being improperly held in inappropriate settings, including offices, shelters and psychiatric hospitals. The agency's director was held in contempt of court 12 times last year for failing to provide an appropriate placement for foster children.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival came to a close on Saturday, May 27 after two weeks of films, celebrities, parties and interviews in the small city on the French Riviera. Now that the prizes have been given out, we can start looking at what could be top contenders for next years Oscars. Lets analyze the results from this years festival and see this history that each category has when it comes to the Academy Awards.

Over the past several years the festival has been a springboard for major players in the Oscar derby. Weve really seen it be an influence in the International Feature category where in-competition films have been nominated a regular basis. Recent Cannes films that ended up being top awards contenders in above the line categories include Triangle of Sadness, Drive My Car, Parasite, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and BlacKkKlansman. This years jury was headed by Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund. Hes one of the few directors to win the festivals top prize, the Palme dOr, twice. He did it in 2017 with The Square and last year with Triangle of Sadness. Others on the jury included Oscar winner Brie Larson, actor Paul Dano, past Palme winner Julia Ducournau and Argentinian director Damian Szifron.

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This year, the Palme dOr went to French filmmaker Justine Triets Anatomy of a Fall, which will be distributed by Neon. This was only Triets second appearance at the festival after screening in 2019 for the first time with Sybil. She becomes the third woman to claim the Palme after Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993 and Julia Ducournau for Titane in 2021. The legal thriller stars Sandra Huller as a novelist that is being prosecuted for the suspicious murder of her husband. Since the honor was established in 1955, 41 winners of this prize have amassed 138 Academy Award nominations. Seventeen of these have claimed a combined 32 Oscars.

Four years ago, Parasite won both the Palme and Best Picture Oscar, making it the first film to do so since Marty pulled off this double play in 1955. That character study was the first of the 17 Palme dOr champs to reap a Best Picture bid, followed by Friendly Persuasion (1957), M*A*S*H (1970), The Conversation (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), Apocalypse Now (1979), All That Jazz (1979), Missing (1982), The Mission (1986), The Piano (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), Secrets and Lies (1996), The Pianist (2002), The Tree of Life (2011), Amour (2012), Parasite (2019) and Triangle of Sadness (2022).

If France were to choose this film as their submission for Best International Feature, it could be a big player in that race. Six Palme dOr champs have gone on to win this Oscar: Black Orpheus from France (1959), A Man and a Woman from France (1966), The Tin Drum from West Germany (1979), Pelle the Conqueror from Denmark (1988), Amour from Austria (2012) and Parasite from South Korea (2019). Ten other Palme winners were nominated: Keeper of Promises from Brazil (1962), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg from France (1964), Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior from Japan (1980), Man of Iron from Poland (1981), When Father Was Away on Business from Yugoslavia (1985), Farewell My Concubine from Hong Kong (1993), The Class from France (2008), The White Ribbon from Germany (2009), The Square from Sweden (2017) and Shoplifters from Japan (2018).

SEENetflix Buys Julianne Moore-Natalie Portman drama May December at Cannes for $11 million

The Zone of Interest, the widely praised Holocaust drama from British director Jonathan Glazer received the runner-up prize, the Grand Prix. Sixteen Grand Prix winners have earned 30 total Oscar nominations, with six films scoring eight wins. Five of the six  Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion from Italy (1970); Cinema Paradiso from Italy (1989); Burnt by the Sun from Russia (1994); Life is Beautiful from Italy (1998); and Son of Saul from Hungary (2015)  won Best International Film (Life is Beautiful also won Best Actor and Best Original Dramatic Score). The 2018 winner of the Grand Prix, BlacKkKlansman, won Best Adapted Screenplay and one of last years winners (Close by Lukas Dhont) was nominated for Best International Feature.

Celebrated Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki claimed the Jury Prize for his romantic-comedy, Fallen Leaves. The films that have won here dont correlate as much to the Oscars, but 14 films that have won the Jury Prize have amassed 39 Oscar nominations and nine wins. Among these victories were one for Best Picture (All About Eve, which played at Cannes in 1951, the year after its Oscar romp) and two for Best International Film (Mon Oncle in 1958 from France and Z in 1969 from Algeria). One of the winners from last year (EO by Jerzy Skolimowski) got nominated in the International Feautre category. The last time Finland was nominated in the category, it was for Kaurismakis Grand Prix winner, The Man Without a Past.

Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung claimed this years prize for Best Director for The Pot-Au-Feu. It stars Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel as a cook who embarks on a romantic affair with the gourmet she works for. The Oscar track record for this award is not great. Only seven of the helmers who prevailed here went on to contend at the Oscars: Robert Altman for The Player (1992); Joel Coen for Fargo (1996); David Lynch for Mulholland Drive (2001); Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Babel (2006); Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007); Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher (2014); and Pawel Pawlikowski for Cold War (2018). Both Fargo and Babel also earned Best Picture bids.

SEEKillers of the Flower Moon debuts at Cannes: Martin Scorsese epic draws raves for Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone

Koji Yakusho won the Best Actor prize for his performance in the Wim Wenders film, Perfect Days. He plays a cleaner of public toilets that finds solace in lifes everyday pleasures. Yakusho has been working in the industry for over 40 years and among his credits is the lead role in Shohei Imamuras 1997 Palme dOr winner, The Eel. Sixteen winners of the Best Actor award at Cannes have been nominated by the academy (including the 2019 champ, Antonio Banderas for Pain and Glory). Five have taken home the Oscar: Ray Milland for The Lost Weekend (1945); Jon Voight for Coming Home (1978); William Hurt for Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985); Christoph Waltz for Inglorious Basterds (2009, Oscar won in the supporting race); and Jean Dujardin for The Artist (2011).

Best Actress went to Turkish actress, Merve Dizdar, for Nuri Bilge Ceylans About Dry Grasses. She plays a rural schoolteacher hoping to move to Istanbul. Twenty past Cannes champs for Best Actress received nominations from the academy, and four won: Simone Signoret for Room at the Top (1959); Sophia Loren for Two Women (1961); Sally Field for Norma Rae (1979); and Holly Hunter for The Piano (1993).

The award for Best Screenplay went to Yuji Sakamoto for his script to the latest from Hirozkazu Kore-eda, Monster. The movie centers on a mother who notices strange behavior in her young son and decides to confront his teacher about it. Two years ago, the winner in this category, Drive My Car, became the first screenplay winner to earn a Best Picture Oscar nomination as well as noms for Director (Ryusuke Hamaguchi), Adapted Screenplay and International Feature, winning the last of those. Four other screenplay winners at Cannes have gone on to claim the International Feature Oscar: Mephisto from Hungary (1981), No Mans Land from Bosnia and Herzegovina (2001), The Barbarian Invasions from Canada (2003; also nominated for Original Screenplay) and The Salesman from Iran (2016). Two others were nominated: Footnote from Israel (2011) and Leviathan from Russia (2014).

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Casualties and destruction after Russia attacks seven Ukrainian oblasts overnight

The Russian invaders hit Nikopol with artillery

Several regions have reported casualties.

Nikopol was heavily shelled by Russian invaders using artillery, with two attacks recorded during the night, Serhiy Lysak, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration (OVA) head, reported on Telegram.

As a result, six private houses, two buildings, a gas pipeline, and a power transmission line were damaged. No casualties or injuries were reported.

Read also:

In Kharkiv Oblast, the enemy conducted an airstrike on the outskirts of Kyslivka. Artillery and mortar fire targeted Kolodyazne, Krasne Pershe, Fiholivka, Novomlynsk, Dvorichna, Zapadne, Masyutivka, Kyslivka, and Berestove.

The enemy also intensively shelled Vovchansk, as reported by Oleh Synehubov, Kharkiv OVA head, on Telegram. Two people were killed, and three others were injured as a result of the shelling. Residential buildings, fences, buildings, windows at the Cultural Center, and the settlement council administration building were damaged.

In Kherson Oblast, Russian forces fired 335 shells from mortars, artillery, tanks, drones, and aircraft. Kherson was targeted three times, resulting in damage to a factory building and an educational institution.

Read also: Kyiv targeted for 13th time in May  all missiles intercepted, with falling debris damaging mall in Obolon

In Zaporizhzhya Oblast, enemy fire affected 21 populated areas, leading to four civilian injuries due to land mines. The OVA also reported the destruction of 12 civilian facilities. In Mykolaiv Oblast, the enemy launched artillery strikes on the Ochakivska community waters. No casualties or damage have been reported.

Vitaliy Kim, Mykolaiv OVA head, reported the destruction of a Shahed-131/136 kamikaze drone in the region during the night of May 28.

In Donetsk Oblast, one person was killed due to enemy attacks on Novokostiantynivka within the past 24 hours. Three more individuals were injured.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
It changes nothing  Russia deployed nukes in Belarus as copycat move of US deployment in allied states

Belarusian dictator Lukashenko has no authority to deploy the nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil

Control over the tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Belarus will remain in the hands of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, as he possesses the suitcase containing the necessary launch codes, said Portnikov.

The only thing the President of the Republic of Belarus can do is allow a certain amount of Russian nuclear weapons to be stored on the territory of his country.

Read also: Why does Putin need Bakhmut, and what did the drone attack on the Kremlin change

However, any responsibility for the use of this tactical nuclear arsenal lies exclusively with the Russian Federation, its Armed Forces, and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin, explained Portnikov.

Lukashenko himself simply does not have the technical capability to deploy such weaponry. This is completely ruled out and not even worth discussing.

From a military standpoint, the placement of tactical nuclear weapons in Belgorod Oblast of Russia or in Belarus does not change anything at all.

The idea of placing tactical nuclear weapons in the territory of the Republic of Belarus primarily resides within a political context: Look, we are just like the United States. We are a superpower. If the US can deploy its weapons on the territories of other states, we can also deploy our nuclear weapons on the territories of other states. The US has allies, and we have allies, said Portnikov.

Read also: Ukraine is only a fragment of Putin's plan

If we recall a well-known Soviet literary image, its like Elochka the annibal (comical and eccentric character from the novel Twelve Chairs written by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov) competing with the billionaire Vanderbildt. There is such a course, I would say, of military-technical cooperation, and Elochka will have such a course, explained Portnikov.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin announced on March 5 his intention to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, citing the transfer of depleted uranium munitions from the United Kingdom to Ukraine as the reason behind his decision.

Read also: Russia's second big offensive: What Putin is betting on - a simple explanation

Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, condemned Russias plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus on March 26 and announced the EUs readiness to impose sanctions againstthe aggressor state.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated on April 4 that the Iskander-M missilesystems, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, would be transferred to Minsk.

On May 25, the Defense Ministers of Belarus and Russia signed a document on the transfer of nuclear weapons to Belarus. On the same day, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko declared that Russia had begun transferring nuclear ammunition to his country.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Charlotte police shot at, run for cover, while serving search warrant in Gaston County

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police detectives were shot at Sunday morning while serving a warrant for a homicide suspect in Gastonia, according to authorities.

CMPD said in a statement that the incident happened shortly after 7 a.m. and involved its Violent Criminal Apprehension Team.

According to the statement, issued via the departments Twitter account, a suspect in a vehicle started shooting at a CMPD vehicle as it arrived in the vicinity of the 500 block of North Falls Street. Additional shots were reportedly fired at a residence as a detective ran for cover.

Shots Fired at CMPD's VCAT Detectives https://t.co/vz8t87LLu2  CMPD News (@CMPD) May 28, 2023

Officers drove after the vehicle and were able to apprehend the suspect. Police did not release the suspects name.

Gaston County police said, also on Twitter, that a search warrant of a home was being served at the time of the incident, 7:18 a.m.

#BREAkING GPD investigating report of shots fired at officers from another jurisdiction serving search warrant at home in 500 blk of N. Falls St.



Shots toward officers reportedly came from passing car.



NO OFFICERS struck by gunfire.



Call of shots fired rcvd at 7:18 am pic.twitter.com/Gxvw1ELcGE  Gastonia Police (@GPDNC) May 28, 2023

Both CMPD and Gaston police confirmed that no officers were struck by gunfire. Charlotte police added that none of its officers fired their weapons during the incident and indicated that the suspect was also not injured.

This is a developing story and will be updated if new information is made available.
'The choice lies with the parent': Texas dad supports regulating book content in libraries to 'protect kids'

The Lone Star State has taken a step in the right direction to protect children from sexually explicit content without parental consent, a Texas dad told Fox News.

"What [Texas is] trying to do here is not ban anything so much as moderate the content that's put in front of children," Juan Saldivar, a father of three, told Fox News. "Make it appropriate for their age and their maturity level and the educational requirement that they're trying to fulfill."

WATCH MORE FOX NEWS DIGITAL ORIGINALS HERE

A Texas bill headed to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's desk for passage would set new standards and ratings for sexually explicit materials to regulate the books available in public and charter school libraries across the state. The bill defined sexually explicit material as content that included descriptions, illustrations or audio that depicted sexual conduct not relevant to the required school curriculum.

"There are certain things that are not designed specifically for children because they either haven't reached the age of reason or they haven't fully developed the ability to consent to certain things," Saldivar said.

TEXAS COUNTY LEADERS CONSIDER SHUTTING DOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY RATHER THAN RETURNING CONTROVERSIAL BOOKS

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Maia Kobabes book "Gender Queer" became one of the most banned books in the country in 2022. The book has been at the center of the debate over what books should be banned in schools.

The Lone Star State dad told Fox News he would be upset if his 12-year-old daughter was exposed to graphic sexual content without his consent.

"I wouldn't take my child to see an R-rated movie," Saldivar said as an example. "The choice really lies with the parent."

SHOULD STUDENTS BE ALLOWED TO BEGIN GENDER TRANSITION WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT? TWO VIRGINIA MOTHERS WEIGH IN

A Texas dad supports the state's government setting new standards and ratings to regulate book content in school libraries.

Critics have argued LGBTQ-related books would be targeted, and that the bill's vague standards could lead to unfair book bans. But supporters, like Saldivar, have said the law would eliminate content that may be too inappropriate for kids while allowing parents to choose what material they want their children to have access to on their own time.

"I don't think they're being targeted at all," Saldivar said of the LGBTQ community. "You still have access to those things, but they're in the appropriate venue."

COVID-19 DROVE PARENTS TO HOME-SCHOOL THEIR KIDS, BUT CLASSROOM POLITICIZATION KEPT THEM THERE, TEXAS MOM SAYS

If passed, the state's school book vendors would assign a rating of "sexually relevant" if the material showed sexual content but aligned with the school's curriculum, or a rating of "sexually explicit" for books considered offensive and unrelated to the required school curriculum.

Books rated as sexually explicit would be banned from school libraries, but state officials could review ratings and reverse those book bans.

"I think defining the sexually explicit nature of these materials is important," Saldivar said. "It's important in order to protect our children."

The book "Gender Queer," for example, was No. 1 on the most challenged books in 2022 for the second year in a row, according to the American Library Association. A father from Maine previously told Fox News he doesn't support book bans, but graphic sexual content should be removed from schools after his son checked out the controversial "Gender Queer" book which included a scene about oral sex. And the dad's 11-year-old was also offered books including sexual content that made him uncomfortable.

"There's no reason for it, especially as a taxpayer in this community," the Maine father told Fox News. "I'm paying for these books to be sitting on the shelves, and it just blows my mind."

A Texas bill that would regulate books available in school libraries awaits the governor's signature. The Lone Star State is one of the nation's leaders in book bans.

The Texas Senate approved the bill with a 19-12 vote on Tuesday. The legislation awaits the governor's signature.

"I support what the Texas legislature is doing, and I hope that Governor Abbott signs the bill," Saldivar said.

To hear more from a Texas parent, click here.
Churchill Downs suffered yet another equine fatality on Saturday, the 12th since the tracks Spring Meet opened on April 29.

Kimberley Dream, a 7-year-old mare owned and trained by Freddie D. Winston, was pulled up in the days first race, a $68,000 claiming race for fillies and mares 4 years old and up.

After Kimberley Dream was vanned off, it was determined the mare had suffered a distal sesamoidean ligament rupture to her left front leg and was euthanized.

Deepest condolences to Freddie Winston and all connections of Kimberley Dream who suffered a severe foreleg injury in the first race at Churchill Downs and had to later be euthanized.  Bryan Langlois, DVM (@Animalsheltrdoc) May 27, 2023

There have been 12 equine fatalities at Churchill Downs since the stable area reopened for training on March 30, Churchill Downs Incorporated said in a press release on Saturday. It is with absolute dismay and sorrow that we report this highly unusual statistic. Our team members mourn the loss of these animals as we continue to work together to discover cause and determine appropriate investments to minimize, to the degree possible, any avoidable risk in this sport and on our property.

We do not accept this as suitable or tolerable and share the frustrations of the public, and in some cases, the questions to which we do not yet have answers. We have been rigorously working since the opening of the meet to understand what has led to this spike and have yet to find a conclusive discernible pattern as we await the findings of ongoing investigations into those injuries and fatalities.

Kimberley Dream, a daughter of Colonel John, was making her 61st career start, including four this year. She had won seven races lifetime with career earnings of $174,372 but had finished seventh, 10th and seventh in her three previous 2023 starts. Her last start was May 14 at Churchill Downs.

Churchill suffered its 11th equine death on Friday when Lost in Limbo broke down in the seventh race and was unable to stand. The 7-year-old gelding was later euthanized. He was making his 35th career start, with winnings of $225,996 for trainer Michael E. Lauer. Lost in Limbos last race was April 15 when he finished third in a starter allowance at Oaklawn Park.

Churchill Downs needs a fleet of equine ambulances to carry the fatally wounded horses out of public view, PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo said. Today, Lost in Limbo became the 11th fatality since April 27 when he crashed nose-first on the track and lay heaving in the dirt. The horse should have been eliminated before the race when he threw the jockey and took flight. Its not clear whether a veterinarian examined him after his escape.

Churchill Downs is complicit in this carnage for not shutting down this track to implement lifesaving changes. CEO Bill Carstanjen needs to stop hoping things will get better, be a leader, and take action now. If he wont, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission needs to do it for him.

But clusters of deaths such as Aqueduct 2012, Santa Anita 2019 & now Churchill Downs keeps the rate in the public eye. #SocialLicense #HorseWelfare https://t.co/BVZqJAj3sX  urbanhorsedoc (@urbanhorsedoc) May 27, 2023

Churchill saw seven fatalities in the week leading up to the Kentucky Derby, including two on the day of the Derby. Trainer Saffie Joseph was indefinitely suspended by the track after two of his horses collapsed after races.

Churchill Downs says track has been tested

The high number of deaths has caused some to call for the track to close much like Santa Anita did when 42 horses died at the track in 2019. After implementing stricter guidelines and safety protocols, the track reopened. Santa Anita reported 12 horse deaths in 2022.

In recent weeks, we have been focused on our responsibility to provide the safest racing environment possible on our property. Part of that effort has included increasing the frequency with which our surfaces are tested, Churchill said in its release. Earlier this week, Churchill Downs commissioned Dr. Mick Peterson, executive director of Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory and professor of biosystems and agricultural engineering at the University of Kentucky, to perform additional diagnostics on our racetrack. The report indicated that the measurements from retesting do not raise any concerns and that none of the data is inconsistent with prior measurements from Churchill Downs or other tracks.

We simply will not allow these equine fatalities to be in vain. We are engaged in an epidemiological study with the Jockey Club to review each individual horse to determine if there are any undetected patterns that have not been previously identified. These findings can be incorporated into our daily review of entries and potentially trigger additional interventions using advanced diagnostic modalities.

There is a way to stop the insanity that is the current state of horse racing

FanDuel TV host apologizes for tweet that appeared to excuse equine deaths

Like it or not, Preakness win proves Bob Baffert isnt going away

One of the oldest Kentucky Derby winners dies at 26. He was also the most expensive.
An artist's illustration of a tsunami wave poised to crash down upon a beach.

Climate change could unleash gigantic tsunamis in the Southern Ocean by triggering underwater landslides in Antarctica, a new study warns.

By drilling into sediment cores hundreds of feet beneath the seafloor in Antarctica, scientists discovered that during previous periods of global warming  3 million and 15 million years ago  loose sediment layers formed and slipped to send massive tsunami waves racing to the shores of South America, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.

And as climate change heats the oceans, the researchers think there's a possibility these tsunamis could be unleashed once more. Their findings were published May 18 in the journal Nature Communications .

Related: Widening chasm births Antarctic iceberg larger than Los Angeles

"Submarine landslides are a major geohazard with the potential to trigger tsunamis that can lead to huge loss of life," Jenny Gales , a lecturer in hydrography and ocean exploration at the University of Plymouth in the U.K., said in a statement . "Our findings highlight how we urgently need to enhance our understanding of how global climate change might influence the stability of these regions and potential for future tsunamis."

Researchers first found evidence of ancient landslides off Antarctica in 2017 in the eastern Ross Sea. Trapped underneath these landslides are layers of weak sediment crammed with fossilized sea creatures known as phytoplankton.

Scientists returned to the area in 2018 and drilled deep into the seafloor to extract sediment cores  long, thin cylinders of the Earths crust that show, layer by layer, the geological history of the region.

By analyzing the sediment cores, the scientists learned that the layers of weak sediment formed during two periods, one around 3 million years ago in the mid-Pliocene warm period, and the other roughly 15 million years ago during the Miocene climate optimum. During these epochs, the waters around Antarctica were 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) warmer than today, leading to bursts of algal blooms that, after they had died, filled the seafloor below with a rich and slippery sediment  making the region prone to landslides.

"During subsequent cold climates and ice ages these slippery layers were overlain by thick layers of coarse gravel delivered by glaciers and icebergs," Robert McKay , director of the Antarctic Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington and co-chief scientist of International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 374  which extracted the sediment cores in 2018  told Live Science in an email.

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The exact trigger for the region's past underwater landslides isnt known for sure, but the researchers have found a most-likely culprit: the melting of glacier ice by a warming climate. The ending of Earths periodic glacial periods caused ice sheets to shrink and recede, lightening the load on Earths tectonic plates and making them rebound upwards in a process known as isostatic rebound.

After the layers of weak sediment had built up in sufficient quantities, Antarcticas continental upspringing triggered earthquakes that caused the coarse gravel atop the slippery layers to slide off the continental shelf edge  causing landslides that unleashed tsunamis.

The scale and size of the ancient ocean waves is not known, but the scientists note two relatively recent submarine landslides that generated huge tsunamis and caused significant loss of life: The 1929 Grand Banks tsunami that generated 42-foot-high (13 meters) waves and killed around 28 people off Canadas Newfoundland coast; and the 1998 Papua New Guinea tsunami that unleashed 49-foot-high (15 m) waves that claimed 2,200 lives.

With many layers of the sediment buried beneath the Antarctic seabed, and the glaciers on top of the landmass slowly melting away, the researchers warn that  if theyre right that glacial melting caused them in the past  future landslides, and tsunamis, could happen again.

"The same layers are still present on the outer continental shelf  so it is 'primed' for more of these slides to occur, but the big question is whether the trigger for the events is still in play." McKay said. "We proposed isostatic rebound as a logical potential trigger, but it could be random failure, or climate regulated shifts in ocean currents acting to erode sediment at key locations on the continental shelf that could trigger slope failure. This is something we could use computer models to assess for in future studies."

This story was provided by Live Science.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' culture-war antics are more popular among Americans than they should be, Erika D. Smith writes. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

For a few precious hours last week, I almost believed that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis  fresh off a glitchy presidential campaign announcement that made him the laughingstock of the Twittersphere  might have to slither away from the national political stage and head back to some swamp in his home state.

But alas, that was never going to happen.

As odious as DeSantis is, it has become increasingly clear that his culture-war antics, especially his anti-trans, anti-Black crusade to ban books, which recently ensnared Amanda Gormans The Hill We Climb, are more popular among Americans than they should be.

Consider that in the first 24 hours after DeSantis declared on Twitter Spaces that he would seek the Republican nomination, his campaign managed to raise a whopping $8.2 million from donors large and small. The haul included $1 million in a single hour.

To put things in perspective, Joe Biden raised only $6.3 million in his first 24 hours as a presidential candidate back in 2019. And late last year, Donald Trump raised a mere $9.5 million or so in about six weeks after announcing he would run again.

So how should we think about this apparent newfound love of censorship for what's often the most bigoted of reasons?

For guidance, I decided to ask the man who helped teach me and millions of other Americans how to read  LeVar Burton, the founder and star of the long-running PBS series Reading Rainbow.

On the same day that DeSantis was droning on about "wokeism" to the Twitter faithful, Burton was at ASU California in downtown Los Angeles giving a talk on the "State of Banned Books" with the L.A. Times Book Club. I caught up with him backstage, scrolling through Twitter.

"I am shocked to discover that America has such an attachment to ignorance. I thought we were better than this. I really did," Burton told me, shaking his head in sadness. "Well, we're not. So we have to deal with it. We have to fight back. And then we have to continue to tell the truth."

But what exactly does "fight back" mean and "tell the truth" mean?

A little later, while onstage with my colleague Steve Padilla, Burton brought up Gorman, an Angeleno and the first National Youth Poet Laureate, as an example of both. She is supporting a lawsuit to challenge bans and restrictions put on books at Florida schools.

Her own book, The Hill We Climb, which essentially is the poem she read to an audience of millions at President Bidens inauguration, was taken away from elementary students in Miami-Dade County after a single parent complained that it was written to cause confusion and indoctrinate students and contained "indirect hate messages.

LeVar Burton reads from his book, "The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm," at the L.A. Times Book Club on May 24. (Varon Panganiban / For The Times)

Brace yourself for "hate" and "indoctrination." This is what Gorman wrote:

We've braved the belly of the beast

Weve learned that quiet isnt always peace.

And the norms and notions of what just is

Isnt always justice.

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.

Somehow, we do it.

Somehow, we've weathered and witnessed

A nation that isn't broken, but simply unfinished.

Unsurprisingly, the parent who complained about "The Hill We Climb," Daily Salinas of Miami Lakes, has a history of social media posts that praise white supremacists and antisemitism. She also listed Oprah Winfrey as the author instead of Gorman.

I mean, all Black women look alike, right?

"I don't believe the woman read the book she was able to get banned," Burton quipped.

DeSantis, meanwhile, has repeatedly dismissed the controversy over "The Hill We Climb" as a "hoax."

"There's not been a single book banned in the state of Florida; you can go buy or use whatever book you want," he insisted on Twitter Spaces, garnering murmurs of agreement from Elon Musk and a cadre of other right-wing tech bros. "What we have done is empowered parents with the ability to review the curriculum to know what books are being used in school, and then to ensure that those books match state standards and are age and developmentally appropriate."

But this very political targeting of books in schools is about much more than that. It's about making sure another generation subscribes to a white supremacist worldview by perpetuating ignorance about the lives and experiences of people from long-marginalized communities.

As Gorman wrote on Twitter and Instagram: "Most of the forbidden works are by authors who have struggled for generations to get on bookshelves. The majority of these censored works are by queer and non-white voices."

Indeed, in a recent analysis by the Washington Post of books that were challenged in dozens of school districts in the 2021-22 school year, 43% of the complaints were aimed at books with LGBTQ characters and themes. Another 36% had major characters of color or explored issues of race and racism.

It's the very embodiment of DeSantis' hateful, "anti-woke" agenda  and that's no accident.

"A person who has the control of the narrative has control over how you will or will not be remembered as part of the historical record," Burton said. "And so this is really a battle for truth. It's a battle for reality. It's a battle for control."

What's scary is it seems to be working.

A new poll found that nearly 60% of American adults believe a persons gender is determined at birth and, as such, basically don't believe it's possible to be transgender. A majority also support policies targeting trans children that mirror what has been introduced and, in many cases, passed in dozens of Republican-led state legislatures during the past year.

"They lie and they lie and they lie, until the lie becomes the truth in some people's minds," Burton told me.

This is what fighting back means. It's refusing to be quiet about what's really at stake for the country and its most vulnerable residents, as DeSantis and his fellow Republican politicians attempt to make banning books sound perfectly normal and reasonable.

"I did not see this coming," Burton admitted, "so I am not going to try and predict what's going to happen next. I just, I feel like we are in the eye of the storm and/or maybe the leading edge of the storm. We haven't gotten to the eyewall yet. And I just, I have no idea what's coming behind it. But I do know we need to be ready. We need to be vigilant. We need to be prepared and we need to be warriors  for truth."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
A complete list of all the controversies 'Yellowstone' has faced over the years

The cast of "Yellowstone." Paramount Network

Not all the drama in the "Yellowstone" universe has happened on screen.

Cast members like Luke Grimes and Sam Elliott have faced backlash over their behavior.

Kelsey Asbille's casting caused controversy as people questioned her Native American heritage.

Not all the drama on "Yellowstone" has happened on screen, as several of the show's cast have courted controversy for their actions away from the cameras.

Here's a rundown of all the controversies the show, its cast, and its creators have faced over the years.

Kelsey Asbille, who plays a Native American character, has been described as being of Cherokee descent, but people have raised questions.

Kelsey Asbille as Monica Dutton in season five of "Yellowstone." Paramount Network

Before "Yellowstone," Asbille had starred as a young Native American woman in cocreator Taylor Sheridan's 2017 film "Wind River," but it was only when she got the role of Monica Dutton, the Native American daughter-in-law of John Dutton (Kevin Costner), that questions about her heritage were raised.

In 2017, the New York Times said she was "Taiwanese, British and Eastern Band Cherokee," but added that she "did not grow up in an indigenous community."

Asbille herself told the outlet that she had an "intense connection" to her Native "Wind River" character, adding: "This role, more than any other, it's in my blood."

However, with the news of her casting in "Yellowstone," Native American "Suicide Squad" actor Adam Beach started a campaign to boycott the series amid questions about Asbille's ancestry.

Another Native actor-producer, Sonny Skyhawk, made inquiries to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians tribal nation, which responded that they had no record of Asbille, nor could they find any evidence she was a lineal descendant of any members of the tribe.

Asbille has never addressed the questions about her heritage.

Representatives for Asbille did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Luke Grimes reportedly walked away from his last television role before "Yellowstone" because he objected to playing a bisexual character.

Luke Grimes as James in "True Blood" (left) and as Kayce in "Yellowstone" (right). HBO, Paramount Network

When Grimes abruptly walked away from playing James in True Blood" in late 2013 after just six episodes, HBO attributed his decision to "the creative direction of the character."

In 2014, when season seven of the vampire drama began airing  with actor Nathan Parsons taking over the role  BuzzFeed reported that Grimes had actually left the show because he was uncomfortable playing a character who has a same-sex romance.

Grimes' publicist denied this, telling the outlet that his departure "had nothing to do with storylines," and that the actor had not been "privy" to the upcoming romantic development between his character and another male character, Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis).

Ellis, who passed away in 2017, addressed the controversy in an interview with Vulture after the episode that featured Lafayette and James' first sex scene aired.

"I mean, I can say I'm not going to make a comment, but I just think that, you're an actor, you're an actor on a show that's 'True Blood,' we're all sitting there going, 'You quit your job because  really?'" he said. "I'm just ... I'm over him."

"You make a statement, a big statement, when you go, 'I don't want to play this part because it's gay,'" said Ellis. "If you have a child, if you have a son, and he comes out as gay, what are you going to do? If you have a daughter who comes out gay...? You just made a statement, and it has ripple effects."

Representatives for Grimes did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Q'orianka Kilcher was accused of insurance fraud last year, but the charges have been dropped.

Q'orianka Kilcher in 2019. Michael Tullberg/Getty Images

Kilcher, who has had a recurring role as Angela Blue Thunder in the Western series since season three, was charged with two felony counts of workers' compensation insurance fraud in 2022.

The actor was accused of breaking state law by collecting $96,838 in disability benefits between October 2019 and September 2021 for a neck and shoulder injury she sustained while shooting the movie "Dora and the Lost City of Gold" in 2018.

Questions were raised about the legitimacy of the claim as she started receiving benefits five days after she wrapped filming on "Yellowstone" in 2019.

However, in February, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office dismissed all charges against the actor.

"1883" star Sam Elliott found himself in hot water when he criticized "The Power of the Dog" for its "allusions of homosexuality."

Sam Elliott (left) and Benedict Cumberbatch in "The Power of the Dog" (right). Paramount+/Netflix

The actor, who scored himself a SAG Award for his portrayal of grief-stricken cowboy Shea Brennan in the first "Yellowstone" prequel series, sounded off against the Oscar-winning film while appearing on Marc Maron's "WTF" podcast in 2022.

Elliott described the film as a "piece of shit" Western with "allusions of homosexuality."

He also questioned New Zealand-born filmmaker Jane Campion's suitability to the genre, asking: "What the fuck does this woman from down there know about the American West?"

"Why the fuck did she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana? And say this is the way it was? That fucking rubbed me the wrong way," he added.

A month later, Elliott apologized for his comments at a Deadline event.

The show's main cast dropped out of an appearance at PaleyFest in Los Angeles just hours before they were due to appear.

"Yellowstone" cast at PaleyFest. Kirsten Acuna/Insider

In April, "Yellowstone" made its Paley Fest debut with what was promised to be a special screening followed by a conversation and Q&A with the series' main cast.

Kevin Costner, Kelly Reilly, Cole Hauser, Luke Grimes, Kelsey Asbille, Wes Bentley, Gil Birmingham, and Jacki Weaver, as well as executive producers Taylor Sheridan and David Glasser, were all slated to appear.

However, in a last-minute shake-up, the entire PaleyFest lineup changed with none of the original talent present. Instead, Josh Lucas, Dawn Olivieri, Wendy Moniz, and Mo Brings Plenty sat on the panel with Paramount Network development president Keith Cox.

The special screening likewise turned out to be a disappointment to many as it was just a rerun of the series' most recent episode.

A month after the incident, Reilly cleared up confusion over why she was a no-show, telling a fan on Instagram that she "was filming in the UK at the time, and let them know in January I wouldn't be able to attend."

"I was sorry to hear my name was still on the list of attendees, as it is unfair to our fans," she added.

Rumors of a behind-the-scenes feud between Sheridan and Costner began to circulate in February. In May, it was confirmed the drama would be ending with season five.

Kevin Costner and Taylor Sheridan of 'Yellowstone' speak onstage during the Paramount Network portion of the 2018 Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena on January 15, 2018, in Pasadena, California. Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Deadline reported in February that Sheridan, Paramount Global, and Paramount Network were looking to end the neo-western drama after its current fifth season because of disagreements with Costner over shooting schedules.

The actor, who this year won a Golden Globe for his performance as aging rancher John Dutton, reportedly wanted to significantly cut back his number of days on set in Montana for the remaining episodes of season five (presumably because he is working on a Western epic which he is directing, co-writing, and starring in).

Costner's attorney pushed back on the claims about his client and a Paramount boss even said at PaleyFest that the network was "very confident he is going to continue with our show."

However, after months of speculation, it was announced in early May that "Yellowstone" was indeed coming to an end, and a new spinoff had been greenlit.

The news came just days after it was announced that Costner was also facing some personal problems after his wife of 18 years filed for divorce.

Read the original article on Insider
Computex 2023: everything to know about the biggest computing event of the year

Computex

Computex 2023 runs from May 29 through June 2 in Taipei, Taiwan, and it is easily the biggest computing event of the year with every major player attending the event.

Unlike the past few years, when Computex was either online only or, like Computex 2022, much more limited as an in-person event, Computex 2023 is a "return to normal" event, and it is expected to be as large as previous events pre-Covid.

TechRadar will be on the ground this year reporting on all the latest news, announcements, and product showcases from industry titans like AMD, Nvidia, Asus, MSI, and many more.

We'll be covering everything from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's opening keynote to the wild, weird, and just plain cool. Companies like Gigabyte, MSI, and Asus are headquartered in Taiwan, so we anticipate that there will be a huge presence at the event from these companies, and we can't wait to dig into everything they have to show off.

We'll be bringing you all the latest as it happens right here, so make sure to bookmark this page and check back regularly during the event to catch all the latest news and previews.

Cut to the chase

What is it? The biggest computing conference of the year

When is it? May 29 - June 2

Where is it? Taipei, Taiwan

Computex 2023 Date

Computex 2023 officially kicks off on May 29, 2023, and runs through June 2 (Taiwan time). The conference will open with a keynote address by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, which we will be attending.

We expect other manufacturers to announce new products throughout the week from big Taiwanese companies such as Asus, Acer, MSI, and Gigabyte.

Computex 2023 news

Computex 2023 news

A man sitting with the Acer Swift Edge 16 on his lap.

Check out two of our favorite laptops from Acers Computex 2023 Announcement

Acer previewed some exciting new products ahead of Computex's official opening, both in the gaming and professional spheres - and our Computing Writer Muskaan Saxena has picked her favorite from both categories that she thinks are worth keeping an eye on.
A Scottish Tory MSP has defended the UK government changing its position on a UK-wide recycling scheme, which casts doubt over Scottish plans.

Glass bottles were a key part of Scottish government proposals for the deposit return scheme (DRS).

But UK ministers excluded glass from English and Northern Irish schemes shortly before granting Scotland a key exemption to internal market rules.

Maurice Golden said the UK government had reacted to industry concerns.

The scheme is aimed at increasing the number of single-use drinks bottles and cans that are recycled.

It means 20p will be added to the price of a single-use drinks container, which will be refunded to people who return it to a retailer or hospitality premises that offer single-use products.

But some firms feared it would place extra costs and other burdens on them at a time when they are already struggling.

Scotland's scheme is due to start in March while other UK nations will launch similar schemes in 2025.

In order to do this, the Scottish government needed an exemption from the Internal Market Act - legislation introduced after Brexit to ensure smooth trade across the UK.

The UK government granted this on Saturday, but it only covered PET plastic, aluminium and steel cans.

Ministers said they wanted to ensure the Scottish scheme "aligned" with plans in other nations.

In a letter to the first minister on Friday night, they said including glass "would have created a potentially permanent divergence from the schemes planned for England and Northern Ireland".

Proposals in Wales however still include glass bottles.

Humza Yousaf accused the UK government of trying to "sabotage" the DRS in Scotland, as businesses had already signed up to and spent money on a scheme including glass.

He said he would have to hold urgent talks with businesses and examine the viability of the Scottish scheme.

Humza Yousaf said UK ministers had "demanded" that glass be exempt from the scheme

In their 2019 manifesto, the UK Conservatives said they wanted a DRS that included glass - something Mr Golden said was "common sense".

On Sunday the MSP said schemes work best "when you're encouraging consistent consumer behaviour".

Speaking to BBC Scotland, he said: "Since the position four years ago what we've seen is that industry has lost support for the scheme in Scotland.

"Consumers are increasingly concerned and ultimately what I'm proposing is that we salvage the scheme. I think from listening to businesses that unfortunately does not include glass at this stage."

He added that Circular Economy Minister Lorna Slater, who has been driving the introduction of the DRS in Scotland, had "turned her back" on a re-melting target.

He said this would lead to glass going into aggregate instead of back into bottles.

However Circularity Scotland, which is in charge of administering the DRS, said this claim was "entirely untrue" as it had its own target for 90% of recycled glass to be used in glass-making.

Lorna Slater said excluding glass was a last minute change of the goal posts

Meanwhile Mr Golden said the scheme in Wales still included glass because the Welsh government had not applied for any exemption to start the DRS ahead of 2025.

Ms Slater told the BBC's Sunday Politics show UK's position would also have implications for the Welsh plans.

She said: "Rishi Sunak, Alistair Jack even Douglas Ross all stood for election in 2019 on a manifesto that promised a deposit return scheme with glass. Now they have decided to remove glass from England's scheme alone, which is a change from what we had all agreed as four nations.

"Wales has yet to pass their regulations and I feel that it is likely that they would come up against exactly the same issues we've had.

"We have been working very well with the UK government all this time. This is a bit of a shock for them to suddenly move the goal posts on us at the last minute."

The British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) has said the "only viable option now" was for a UK-wide initiative to be launched across all four nations in 2025.

Analysis box by Andrew Kerr, Political correspondent, BBC Scotland

The deposit return scheme is the latest policy which sees the Scottish and UK governments butting heads.

For people not involved in day-to-day politics, it's perhaps hard to understand why it functions so easily in, say, Germany - but yet seems impossible to work in Scotland.

Cross-border trade is the issue - and there being no blocks to that.

DRS can go ahead - but without glass, say UK ministers.

The Conservative MSP Maurice Golden said in 2019 that including glass was "common sense", but industry's now turned its back on that.

England and Northern Ireland won't be including glass in 2025 - Wales want to but Mr Golden told me they've not asked for an exemption request from the UK government.

It maybe now sounds like if they do, they won't get it.

If you're drinking from the pro-independence bottle you're probably frustrated by the UK government and think Scotland should go it alone.

If it's the pro-union bottle, you probably think a UK-wide scheme is much more sensible.

It all comes down to your favourite tipple.
Crew shortages forced Washington State Ferries to cancel nearly a dozen trips on one of the busiest travel days KIRO 7 has seen so far this year.

The bulk of the trips to the San Juan islands were canceled during the morning hours. According to the Seattle Times, the Washington State Department of Transportation couldnt give details on why people werent making their shifts.

You can check the WSDOT ferry map to see if your trip is still on schedule.

WSDPT ferries have tweeted a couple of times already that the Anacortes/San Juan Islands boats are running 20 to 30 minutes behind.

Ana/SJs - Update - Tillikum To Resume Service at 5:45 p.m. from Friday Harbor https://t.co/QNmLsAdEgo  Washington State Ferries (@wsferries) May 27, 2023












Cuban immigrants are joining the Russian army to fight in Ukraine in exchange for citizenship, a report says

Russian servicemen take part in military exercises at the Uspenovskyi training ground outside the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, on September 4, 2022. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images

Cuban immigrants in Russia are reportedly joining the army to fight in Ukraine.

In exchange, the immigrants will be given Russian citizenship.

The Russian military has been recruiting immigrants, hoping to avoid another mandatory mobilization.

Cuban immigrants in Russia are joining the army to fight in Ukraine in exchange for citizenship, a report says.

Several Cubans have signed year-long contracts and were sent to the war zone on Wednesday, local news outlet the Ryazan Gazette reported.

Those who signed contracts to fight will receive a one-time payment from Russia's federal government equivalent to $2,433 and another $2,500 from the region of Ryazan, along with a monthly salary of $2,545, The New York Post reported.

The Russian military has been offering enhanced pay to potential recruits many times the average Russian monthly wage of 63,060 rubles ($810), to reinforce its depleted ranks, according to a recent report.

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that foreigners who enlisted in the Russian army to fight in the war would be entitled to get Russian citizenship along with their families.

Thousands of Cubans have settled in Russia in recent years because it is one of the few countries that does not require visas for Cuban nationals, according to Cuban outlet Directorio Cubano.

It has previously been reported that Russian authorities were also trying to recruit Central Asian migrant workers to fight in Ukraine to avoid another mandatory mobilization.

The drafting of 300,000 reservists in September sparked protests and caused thousands of fighting-age men to flee the country.

While Russia has not confirmed its number of casualties in Ukraine, the US recently estimated that 100,000 Russian fighters have been killed or wounded in the conflict since December 2022 alone.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Czech citizen sets up Wagner Group flag outside her house, prompting police investigation

Czech citizen sets up Wagner Group flag outside her house, prompting police investigation

Lucie Brychtova, a Czech citizen, proudly exhibited the flag of the war criminals on her private property, even sharing a photo of it on her Facebook page.

The womans social media posts clearly demonstrate her support for the Russian world ideology and the fictitious entity known as Novorossiya.

Read also: Why are Prigozhin and other Russian propagandists suddenly praising Ukraine?

The police have initiated an investigation into this incident.

David Chaloupka, spokesperson for the Czech police, confirmed the ongoing investigation, stating, The police are aware of this case. An investigation is underway. However, premature comments are not appropriate at this time.

Wagner mercenaries have been actively involved in the conflict in Ukraine since 2014, fighting against the Ukrainian army under Russias full-scale invasion.

Established in 2014 by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the Wagner private military company is reported to receive monthly funding exceeding $100 million from Prigozhin for its operations in Ukraine.

Apart from Ukraine, Wagner PMC mercenaries have reportedly been deployed to other regions, including Syria, Mali, and the Central African Republic.

Read also: Russia's "great wars" have a very dirty past

Recruiters have largely targeted prisoners serving sentences for serious crimes such as murder, grievous bodily harm, robbery, and burglary.

Since the beginning of this year, many Wagner PMC mercenaries have been eliminated in the Battle of Bakhmut.

The recent U.S. assessment of 100,000 Russian losses  including killed and wounded in action, along with deserters and surrendered troops  remains an accurate reflection of the price Moscow has paid in Bakhmut, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said at a press briefing on May 24.

Wagner PMC is under sanctions from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union.

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
An infrastructure facility was hit in Zhytomyr Oblast in the Shahed UAVs attack that occurred on the night of 28 May.

Source: Serhii Sukhomlyn, the Zhytomyr Mayor, on Facebook, Vitalii Bunechko, Head of the Zhytomyr Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram

Quote from Sukhomlyn: "The air-raid warning lasted for about five hours at night.

There were no casualties in Zhytomyr. There is some damage."

Details: The mayor has promised to provide details later. He has not specified whether it was a strike or debris falling after the air defence systems' operation.

Updated: Later, Bunechko reported that the Russians had struck an infrastructure facility in the region. There are no casualties reported.

Background: Explosions were heard in the city of Zhytomyr on the early morning of 28 May.

Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!
When my daughter and I became homeless, my coworkers stepped up to help me out. Their kindness changed my life.

Tammy and her daughter, Kristil, in the year 2000. Courtesy of Tammy Rabideau

Over 20 years ago, my daughter and I became homeless when a friend kicked us out of his apartment.

My coworkers fixed my car so I could drive home to Wisconsin and gave us some extra cash.

Their kindness in my moment of need taught me a lesson I'll never forget.

On a chilly December morning, I arrived at work to an email from the friend I was staying with.

"I'm putting your stuff outside the apartment right now," it said. "I'm sorry, but you and Kristil can't stay here any longer."

My mind froze and my heart started beating rapidly. My 6-year-old daughter and I were living with a friend in Denver. I wasn't on the lease, was a thousand miles from home, and knew no one in the city besides my coworkers.

In a panic, I dialed my friend's number. We'd had an argument the night before, but nothing I thought we couldn't work out.

"I'm sorry, but my decision is final," he said.

I felt my composure slipping as the receiver went dead.

Tammy and Kristil just before their move to Denver, in the summer of 2001. Courtesy of Tammy Rabideau

My coworkers helped me when I felt like I had no one

A voice pulled me back to reality.

"Good morning, how are you today?" I glanced up from my desk to see Dick, one of the sales guys I worked with whom I'd gotten to know over the past several months. I quickly filled him in.

"I'm getting kicked out of my apartment right now, and I think I need to go back home to Wisconsin, but I don't think my car will make it. The brakes are bad  " I rambled on.

Dick calmly interrupted. "Hold on  don't leave yet. I'll be back in just a few minutes," he said.

I was shocked to have ended up in this place

It had all started a year earlier when I was living in Madison, Wisconsin. Kristil's father was in prison serving a 10-year sentence, and I was struggling to make ends meet. We'd moved in with my mom until I could save money and find us our own place, but that plan fell apart quickly when her landlord said we couldn't stay.

While I frantically looked for places to go, I talked to a friend who was living in Denver.

"You and Kristil should move here. I have plenty of room," he said.

Three days later, we arrived in Denver. Within a few weeks, I started working as an administrative assistant at an energy company. That's where I met Dick  a gregarious guy who right away made me feel welcome.

They helped me make a plan, and it changed my life

While waiting for Dick to return, I called my mom to tell her what was happening.

"You girls need to come home," she said. "I have a new landlord. You can stay here as long as you want now."

As I hung up, Dick reappeared at my desk with two other guys  Rusty and Ray. I glanced up at the three of them.

"We have a plan," Dick said. "Rusty's going to take your car and look at your brakes. You, me, and Ray are going to your apartment to get your stuff. What do you say?"

Astounded by their offer to help, I couldn't get my response out quickly enough. "Yes," I said.

A few hours later, just after we'd unloaded my stuff in the Cooper warehouse, Rusty returned with my car.

"You're all set," he said as he handed me the car keys. "I fixed the brakes and checked your fluids and tires."

I could hardly contain myself; I was in such shock. I leaped out of my desk chair and hugged him. "Thank you," I said.

A moment later, the branch manager, Frank, called me to his office and handed me an envelope. Inside was a collection of $600 taken up by the guys in the office and two hotel vouchers for places Kristil and I could stay on our trip back to Wisconsin. Overwhelmed by his kindness, I felt tears well up in my eyes as I hugged Frank goodbye.

Tammy and her daughter, Kristil. Courtesy of Tammy Rabideau

That night, Kristil and I met Dick and the others at the warehouse. After we packed our belongings into boxes that the company offered to ship back to Wisconsin for us and a grateful but teary-eyed goodbye, Kristil and I were on our way.

Two days later, we were back in Wisconsin. I found a new job, and within a couple of months, I had saved enough money to move us into our own place. We lived there for the next two years.

Tammy and her daughter, Kristil, in Paris, France in September, 2022. Courtesy of Tammy Rabideau

It has been over 20 years since we became homeless in Denver, but I have never forgotten what Dick and the others at that job did for us. They not only came to our rescue in a difficult time but also restored my faith and gave me the strength to keep going. Kristil went on to attend an Ivy League university and now lives in Paris. I still live in Madison.

A few months ago, over lunch, a friend and I discussed a mutual acquaintance who was going through a rough time. The problems facing this person were complex, and my first reaction was that it seemed best not to get involved. After lunch, however, something felt off. I realized I'd momentarily bought into a paradigm I actually didn't believe in  that my help wouldn't be enough. I had a sudden change of heart, and decided to borrow some money to help her pay rent. After all, I knew better; I had long ago learned the powerful influence one person could have on the life of another.

Read the original article on Insider
Andrew Jackson is referred to as the

This Day in History. On this day in 1830, 193 years ago, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act.

The Act established a process whereby the president could grant land west of the Mississippi River to Indian tribes that agreed to give up their homelands. As incentives, the law allowed the Indians financial and material assistance to travel to their new locations and start new lives and guaranteed that the Indians would live on their new property under the protection of the United States Government forever.

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With the Act in place, Jackson and his followers were free to persuade, bribe, and threaten tribes into signing removal treaties and leaving the Southeast portion of the country.

By the end of his presidency, he had signed into law almost seventy removal treaties, the result of which was to move nearly 50,000 eastern Indians to Indian Territorydefined as the region belonging to the United States west of the Mississippi River but excluding the states of Missouri and Iowa as well as the Territory of Arkansasand open millions of acres of rich land east of the Mississippi to white settlers. Despite the vastness of the Indian Territory, the government intended that the Indians destination would be a more confined areawhat later became eastern Oklahoma.

The Indian Removal Act set in motion the Trail of Tears, which attributed to the genocide of thousands of American Indians and the death of one-quarter Cherokee people. For this reason, Jackson is referred to by Native Americans as the Indian-killer president and do not feel he should be honored or celebrated in any fashion, including being on the twenty-dollar bill.

About the Author: "Native News Online is one of the most-read publications covering Indian Country and the news that matters to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other Indigenous people. Reach out to us at editor@nativenewsonline.net. "

Contact: news@nativenewsonline.net
Budget cuts will hurt Americans

Congress has a responsibility to pay the bills it runs up. For decades, this was not an issue. But now House GOP leaders are refusing to pay unless they get deep cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, housing assistance and core global poverty programs.

For them, people struggling to make ends meet are the problem, not reckless tax cuts for the rich that Congress has enacted over the last 40 years. These proposed budget cuts would force deep hardship onto tens of millions of people still recovering from the COVID economic downturn and rising costs of basic needs. Even worse, a debt default would trigger a deep recession and throw millions of Americans out of work. Instead of being responsible, House leaders are holding the U.S. economy hostage to punish Americans experiencing poverty.

This must stop. I strongly urge President Biden and congressional leaders to reject any budget cuts that would increase poverty and to lift the debt ceiling immediately.

Daniel Marsh, Modesto

Dont give away our money

Does anyone know how our country can afford to spend billions of dollars on aid to other countries when our countrys debt limit is critical? If we reach the limit around June 1 and cant afford Social Security benefits, that is tragic for millions of Americans.

Carla Dionizio, Modesto

Surplus or shortfall?

Last fall, just before the election, we received debit cards for several hundred dollars. It was our share of the California state surplus. Last week, our Bee reported a projected budget shortfall of $30 billion-plus. This is not the type of bookkeeping performance that should earn our governor a promotion.

David Muller, Denair

Supreme corruption

Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch have sullied and tarnished the integrity of the Supreme Court.

Thomas and his wife, a vociferous MAGA truth-denier, have been receiving lavish gifts, luxurious vacations, cruises on a multimillion-dollar yacht and use of a private jet from benefactor Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire. Harlan recently gifted Clarences mother a $150,000 check to pay off her home and then quietly paid off a relatives college tuition at a costly, elite, private school. Mr. Crow also covertly donated thousands of dollars to Ms. Thomass questionable personal causes and activities.

Just nine days after staunch Trump supporter Gorsuch took his oath of office, he finally was able to unload a piece of property for $2 million to a law firm whose name was conveniently left off the sale. The law firm and Mr. Crow have multiple cases pending in courts.

Thomas and Gorsuch are nothing more than MAGA-backed, black-robed con artists. The two of them have no business sitting on a once-esteemed Supreme Court.

Brooks Judd, Turlock

More talk about River Walk

The Farmland Working Group gets it right in their May 7 piece titled Many reasons to oppose huge River Walk proposal (Page 1C, May 7). This 1,500-acre proposed project was made public in June 2021, just five years after Riverbank obtained approval for a 1,500-acre addition to its sphere of influence, known as Crossroads West. Only 400 acres of this area has been annexed to the city thus far, so the need for another expansion, particularly of this magnitude, has not been demonstrated.

This project would also be poorly placed given that its location is in a floodplain and consists of prime agricultural land. If Riverbank needs additional room to grow beyond Crossroads West, it should look to closer-in, available soils of lesser quality where we arent growing the food that feeds our citizens.

Riverbank residents should contact their City Council members to tell them they dont need or want this development, and they dont want to pay for the cost of the services it will require.

Jami Aggers, Modesto

Smooth-talking Newsom

Gov. Newsom is helping to ruin California and at the same time bragging about all the great things he has done and how great California is. He reminds me of a fellow trying to sell a broken-down car with only the radio working: Just listen to that great radio.

Jeffrey S. Diehl, Modesto
Owner Leda Lanza poked her head out of her office at the East Cypress Womens Center, an abortion clinic in a Fort Lauderdale strip mall. All of the chairs in the carpeted waiting room were filled.

Gentlemen, I am going to have to ask you to leave to make space for the ladies, Lanza said.

The men  boyfriends, husbands, fathers  dutifully stood up and filed out of the small, gray room, decorated with thank-you notes, pro-abortion-rights newspaper op-eds and a postcard featuring a photo of Barack and Michelle Obama. The women remained.

As Florida lawmakers have ratcheted ever tighter the restrictions on abortion, including a just-passed six-week abortion ban aimed at emptying clinics like this one, a Miami Herald investigation found clinic waiting rooms as crowded as ever and maybe more so. That may have something to do with the overall number of clinics being reduced, but it is also likely a result of expatriates coming to Florida from other states that have restricted abortion access even more.

Now, with the states newly adopted six-week abortion limit  before many women even know they are pregnant  operators like Lanza wonder whats next.

Much has been written about the abortion-related wrangling in Tallahassee, including the laws impact on the political ambitions of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed it surrounded by supporters at a ceremony in the middle of the night. Less publicized are the thoughts and fears of the people whose lives, livelihoods and futures will be directly affected.

Leda Lanza, left, owner of the East Cypress Womens Center, files paperwork during a busy morning at the abortion clinic on Monday, April 24, 2023.

The six-week ban is not currently being implemented because a previously adopted 15-week ban is awaiting a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court, dominated by DeSantis appointees. The state was allowed to enforce that restriction while legal challenges worked their way through the court system. If upheld, that 15-week cutoff would be replaced by the six-week threshold.

A different kind of choice

Four miles and a world away from East Cypress, Respect Life Ministrys Pregnancy Help Center also has gray walls and the feel of a medical office, which it is not. Its mission is to convince pregnant women to carry their pregnancy to term.

Angela Curatalo of the Respect Life crisis pregnancy center explains the role of a sonogram in counseling women who are pregnant.

While the abortion clinics decor emphasizes body autonomy and celebrates politicians who want abortion to remain legal, the iconography at Respect Life is vastly different. Respect Life is adorned with models of fetal development  posters with images of fetuses, fetal models in cardboard boxes and models that show a fetus inside a cervix.

Women visiting the Respect Life Ministrys Pregnancy Help Center are shown fetal models, depicting various stages of a pregnancy.

Angela Curatalo runs three pregnancy centers that amount to anti-abortion centers, assisting women who want to go through with their pregnancies, beckoning those on the fence.

If abortion clinics are angry over the Legislatures action, Curatalo is overjoyed.

The three Respect Life locations are known as crisis pregnancy centers. Florida has nearly 160 such centers, many affiliated with the Catholic Church. Yet the six-week ban isnt all they are celebrating. The crisis centers are enjoying a fresh infusion of taxpayer dollars  as much as $25 million per year among them  courtesy of staunchly anti-abortion lawmakers, who are firmly in control of the Legislature.

There are so many babies that are going to come into our world, and do wonderful things. Who are we to say that one life is more valuable than another? said Curatalo. As she spoke, she held a small black velvet box. Inside, plastic models of fetuses at seven, eight, nine and 10 weeks gestation were nestled in black foam.

While abortion clinics like East Cypress say women deserve a choice, Curatalo and her allies say women do have a choice: between raising their child or giving him or her up for adoption.

Curatalos definition of choice is in vogue politically in Florida, at least for now. The number of abortion clinics is shrinking. As of May 2023, there are 51 licensed abortion facilities in Florida, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. In 2014, there were 71. Since 2010, according to the same data, 31 abortion clinics have either closed or had their licenses revoked.

The number of crisis pregnancy centers is growing. Remaining abortion clinics, meanwhile, have struggled to cope with what they say are increasingly aggressive laws and sidewalk protesters seeking to dissuade women from entering the clinics, including a group called Sidewalk Advocates for Life, whose self-proclaimed objective is to transform the sidewalk in front of every abortion and abortion-referral facility in America.

Linda Freire is a programs manager for Sidewalk Advocates For Life and lives in Miami. When she was in college, she had an abortion that ended with her sitting in her car in pain as she bled. She said the experience was traumatizing  and led her to dedicate her life to helping women choose other pathways besides abortion. She says the new six-week ban is necessary and helps women understand the consequences of sex, and to know their dignity as women.

Chemical abortion [pills] are given out like candy, yet Its nothing to mess around with, she said. It not only harms you physically, but it harms you mentally, emotionally and psychologically.

READ MORE: What is the current law governing abortion in Florida? Its complicated

Conversely, a decade-long study of 1,000 women by a University of California San Francisco-based group found that, in general, carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term harms women physically and psychologically more than having an abortion.

Curatalo, seizing the moment, hopes to deploy mobile pregnancy help centers, which will allow the organization to meet women where they are.

In other parts of Florida, including Palm Beach County, Catholic Charities already has two such units. They offer pregnancy tests, sonograms and counseling in places like church parking lots.

A website says the mobile units have surround sound and a large screen monitor so that the mother will have an enlarged, clear view of the baby and hear the babys heartbeat.

Political winds can shift, even in Florida, where polling suggests the political class may be out of step with the voting public. A July 2022 survey of 600 Floridians conducted by researchers at the University of South Florida and Florida International University found that 57% disagreed with last Junes U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, while 44% strongly disagreed. Forty-four percent were in favor of some level of restrictions on abortion in the state, differing, however, on what those restrictions should look like.

I am here for you

Women come to the East Cypress Womens Center having made up their mind that they do not want to carry their pregnancy to term.

On a day a Miami Herald reporter visited, a 16-year-old who arrived in bright pink sparkly crocs was getting an abortion as her mother stepped into the bagel shop next door to grab a cup of coffee. It was not a happy day, but the mom said she reminded her daughter: I am here for you.

The boyfriend of a woman who was inside the clinic hung out by the curb of the strip mall parking lot, holding his sons hand.

Bonded together, perhaps in part by the Legislatures determination to put them out of business, staffers operate more like family members, joking with each other in a sassy tone as they go about their day.

We fight, we laugh, but we get the job done, said Sherri Loss, an LPN who works at East Cypress.

Mifepristone and Misoprostol sit on a counter at the Planned Parenthood in Golden Glades. The medications are used to end early-stage pregnancies non-surgically.

It took me like a couple weeks to get here, said a woman there to terminate a pregnancy. She leaned against the back counter of the office area where women filled out paperwork, handed over cash, booked follow-up appointments, and sometimes exchanged hugs with a staffer before leaving. For those fewer than nine weeks along, the cost at East Cypress Womens Center is $380 for ending a pregnancy surgically, $440 for women nine to 11 weeks pregnant.

READ MORE: Florida supporters of abortion rights ready to fight back  possibly with ballot referendum

Abortion by medication  actually a series of two medications, Mifepristone followed by Misoprostol  is considered safe up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy and is priced at $480 at East Cypress. An effort to ban Mifepristone is heading to the U.S. Supreme Court.

At the abortion clinic on a recent Monday, a pregnant woman who came to Florida from Jamaica a year earlier was waiting her turn. She was wearing a T-shirt from the bar and Mexican restaurant where she works to support her 6- and 8-year-old children.

Also in the waiting room, which features a humming fish tank and big-screen TV, was a 21-year-old senior from Florida Atlantic University, emotionally drained not only from getting the abortion pill, but from trying to convince the man who had impregnated her to help pay for her abortion. She said he demanded a blood test after she sent him a photo of the bill from the clinic. He never paid.

Nearby, a woman was lying on her back with her hands on her stomach across two chairs.

What six weeks really means

Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the state, estimates that around 30-40% of women who come in are already past the six-week benchmark, making it effectively a ban if it goes into effect.

If it was banned, I guess I would have to carry, the mom of two from Jamaica said, explaining that she would not have the money to go to New York or another state where abortion is legal and then come back to Florida.

Sherri Loss, an LPN who came out of retirement during the pandemic to work at the East Cypress Womens Center, guides patients during a busy morning at the clinic on Monday, April 24, 2023. Since June 2022, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, there has been a steady stream of women coming to the clinic to access abortion services.

Mariangel Moya is 20 years old, and was wearing a floral sundress as she waited in the hallway of a Miami Planned Parenthood. She was seven weeks pregnant, soon to be issued Mifepristone.

Her boyfriend passed time one floor below. Just two months earlier, the pair arrived alone in Miami from Spain, where they had been living after fleeing Cuba.

Moya is taking an online course and working at a jewelry store, and says she is just not able to take on having a child right now. She was unaware of the looming six-week ban or of dueling lower-court rulings of judges in Texas and Washington state  one saying that the pill should be outlawed, the other saying the opposite.

I dont want to do it, but I dont have a choice, she said in Spanish of terminating her pregnancy. Not everyone can bring a baby into the world. It depends upon whether you can afford to have a baby.

On this day she will take the first pill then she will go home with four Misoprostol pills that she will take on her own. She will also go home with a pack of birth control pills, given to her by Planned Parenthood.

Her original appointment was in the middle of April, but Planned Parenthood called to tell her there had been a cancellation, so she took the opportunity to come in earlier and get her abortion.

The Planned Parenthood clinic at Golden Glades is housed here. Planned Parenthood is Floridas largest abortion provider.

Little did she know that had she come to Planned Parenthood just a day later, she may not have been able to receive the pills, because of the Texas court ruling, later stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court in April while the legal challenges play out.

I feel like were on a see-saw with this, said Sherri Loss, the East Cypress LPN whose husband is Dr. Michael Loss, one of the abortion providers at the clinic.

Abortion vulnerable

The majority of the clients at the anti-abortion pregnancy help centers have their own life challenges. They are what the center calls abortion vulnerable, meaning they are likely to terminate their pregnancies.

At Respect Life, a crucifix hangs on the wall above the front desk and a Mother Mary statue is displayed in the stockroom. In a small chapel in the back office a wooden kneeler enables staff and volunteers to pray. The center manager answers the phone in Spanish, booking an appointment.

The mission is to show support and convince women that they are capable of raising a child, in part by highlighting the community resources that are available.

Although they celebrate the six-week ban adopted during the recent Legislative Session, ultimately, they believe abortion should be 100% illegal, a position shared by Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who said it is unfortunate that the procedure remains limited but legal.

Many crisis pregnancy centers do not flaunt their religious affiliations, or at least do so selectively.

Respect Life Ministry has two websites. One, respectlifemiami.org, makes clear its connection to the archdiocese. The other, pregnancyhelpsfl.org, does not.

Those who stop in are a reflection of South Floridas kaleidoscope of races and ethnicities. Just under half of the women are Hispanic and Spanish-speaking, said Curatalo, with the next largest group (20%) being Haitians. Around 12% are African Americans, while 3% are white and non-Hispanic, Curatalo said.

No matter if a woman is happy or sad about her pregnancy, congratulatory cards sometimes with Bible verses are placed inside the gift packages given to women who receive a positive pregnancy test at the pregnancy help center.

Many are recent immigrants and have very little in the way of resources, Curatalo said.

She said she has seen women in her center who cite lack of money, a diagnosis from a doctor saying their pregnancy is high-risk, or stories of already struggling to raise a 6-month-old baby.

Some have little clothing for themselves, much less a newborn. The counseling room of the Fort Lauderdale Center has a wooden armoire brimming with donated maternity clothes.

One woman who came to the center was living with her three children in a car.

The standard method at Respect Life is for counselors to bring a woman alone into the counseling room to listen to her concerns, leaving family members and partners in the waiting area.

After hearing all of her initial apprehensions, the counselors will ask: What are you most afraid of when it comes to having your baby?

And then staffers will address those items. They will sometimes mention Medicaid, food stamps and similar programs.

If the woman is open to receiving prayer, counselors would pray for her  but not during official counseling hours, as the state-funded program that subsidizes the crisis centers bars religious content during those hours.

After finishing the initial counseling, the counselor will invite the pregnant woman into the ultrasound room, where the technician will lay the pregnant client down on the exam table and use an ultrasound machine to show the fetus on a TV monitor, and let them listen to the heartbeat.

Critics point out that the same public officials who have sought to restrict abortion out of existence have also opposed providing adequate funding to those very social services that crisis pregnancy centers tout.

Christopher Pettaway, a clinical coordinator at Miami-Dades Golden Glades Planned Parenthood in Miami, says he has heard repeatedly from patients who cant find a prenatal OB-GYN who will accept Medicaid and its less-than-generous reimbursements.

The father of a 7-month-old, who sometimes encounters women who arent sure whether they want to go ahead with an abortion, has recommended OB-GYNs he knows personally to women who are struggling to find someone who will accept their insurance.

Christopher Pettaway, who works as a clinical coordinator at Planned Parenthood Golden Glades, is dismayed that in his view the new Florida law strips the rights of women to make a choice about their bodies.

When asked about the lack of available prenatal physicians and long waits, Curatalo said pregnant women who are in urgent need of care can always go to the emergency room, whose costs are considerably higher than an OB-GYNs and if Medicaid pays the bill, taxpayers fund it.

Nine saves and counting

Curatalo says that this year alone the three Respect Life centers have had nine saves out of 750 clients. Saves, she said, is the term for women who come in and were like, Im gonna have an abortion, or I think Im gonna have an abortion and then change their minds.

Im anticipating that those numbers are going to go up when we start seeing more and more women that are coming in earlier and earlier, once the [six-week] law is passed. Were going to see more women who are abortion-minded and were going to have more saves, Curatalo said.

For years, a knock on the crisis centers is that they tried to disguise themselves as abortion providers, hoping women would show up seeking an abortion only to be talked out of the procedure. Some crisis centers use terms like Pregnancy Help and Medical Clinic in their name and even incorporate the word choice, co-opting the word that has been synonymous with legal abortion.

The sign outside a pregnancy help center that is run by Heartbeat of Miami reads Pregnancy Help Medical Clinic, although the center is not a licensed medical facility.

And it is true that some crisis centers have strategically opened in close proximity to actual abortion clinics, even in the same shopping center.

In fact, Respect Life said it consciously opened its Fort Lauderdale location on East Commercial Boulevard in the building next door to the Fort Lauderdale Womens Center, an abortion clinic. Planned Parenthood locations in Tallahassee, West Palm Beach and Gainesville all have anti-abortion pregnancy centers either next door or right nearby, according to Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates.

Annie Filkowski says she, for one, was fooled by a crisis center. Filkowski was 17 and seeking abortion services in her hometown of West Palm Beach when she claims she accidentally ended up at a crisis pregnancy center.

What was really spooky is that at the time, just like everyone else, I fully walked in believing they were a medical center with medical professionals that would have to abide by HIPAA, she said, referring to the federal law that guarantees privacy of medical information.

Instead, as she recalls it, the staff threatened to call her mother and her school. It was traumatizing, she said.

Today, she is the policy director for Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, and credits her experience as a teen at a crisis pregnancy center as the fuel for her work fighting for womens reproductive rights.

For me, it painted the full picture of what its like to attempt to access reproductive healthcare in America.

I was completely lied to. I was tricked. I was shamed. They were asking me what my religion was, said Filkowski, who this year went to Tallahassee to lobby against the six-week ban that passed.

At the pregnancy help centers run by the archdiocese, the staff says that is not how things work at all.

Its not an intention to trick them, Curatalo said. She said when women call and ask whether the center offers abortions, she will let them know that they do not.

A 19-year-old who recently went to Marys Pregnancy Resource Center, a crisis pregnancy center in Davie, said when she was inside the pregnancy center a staff member wearing scrubs gave her a pregnancy test and asked her if she wanted to get an abortion. She did not know that the center was anti-abortion, but thought she could save money at Planned Parenthood by getting her pregnancy test and ultrasound at the resource center first.

I was like, yeah, Im pretty sure I do want to get an abortion, she said. Then she went to the next staff member, also in scrubs, who did her ultrasound.

She showed me the heartbeat, she showed me the embryo, said the 19-year-old.

Again, the staff member doing the ultrasound asked: Do you want to terminate the pregnancy or do you want to keep the baby?

And I was like, Im very much seeking to terminate, she said.

Next, a staff member showed her all the possible outcomes, and had her watch a video about the risks of abortion.

At the end, the 19-year-old said she could tell the staff member was getting ready to pray for her, and she said she would be happy to receive the prayer.

She said the staff member held her hands and asked God to protect her and her baby no matter what decision she makes.

She left the center still planning to go ahead with an abortion.

Unintended consequences

Abortion advocates say the tightening of abortion restrictions in other Southern states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, has led to an increase in abortions in Florida. There has also been an increase in the number of women accessing birth control, sexually transmitted disease testing and family planning services.

Between January and March 2023, the latest figures available, 10% of abortions performed in Florida involved women from out of state, according to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which oversees the states abortion clinics. Thats a bigger percentage than 2022, when the number was 8%, and bigger still than 2021, when it was 6.1%.

Pamphlets and other literature about adoption, family planning and breastfeeding are displayed at the Respect Life crisis pregnancy center. They do not offer or refer for abortions.

The East Cypress center says women have been coming to the clinic from Texas (where performing abortions, with few exceptions, is a felony), Tennessee (illegal from fertilization, except to save a mothers life), Kentucky (a ban on nearly all abortion) and Arkansas (where doctors who perform abortions face up to 10 years in prison), often booking a hotel room because Florida now requires a 24-hour wait period between the first visit to a clinic and the actual procedure.

Dr. Shelly Tien, an OB-GYN who performs abortions at Planned Parenthood, said the six-week ban  combined with the even tighter restrictions that have sent out-of-state residents flocking to Florida  disproportionately affects women who are marginalized, who are struggling with poverty.

We have patients who drive 12, 16 hours through the night for their appointment. They wait four or five or six hours to see me to sign a consent form. Then they have to wait another 24 hours for their actual procedure. So it ends up being a very long process for women. And very, very stressful.

A fresh start

On the morning of Valerie Bryants abortion, she put on her comfy hot pink velour track suit and got a ride from her sister from her apartment in Sunrise, where she lives with her 11-, 15- and 17-year-old children, to East Cypress Womens Center. Since her sister didnt like the idea of abortion, she stayed in the car during the procedure.

Everything went well, Bryan said. But, as she walked out of the abortion clinic that day, she told herself: I am never going to do this again.

Valerie Bryant, 36, mother of three children, ages 17, 15, and 11, reflects on her recent decision to have an abortion. She spoke on Monday, April 24, 2023.

Yet Bryant, 36, feels strongly that women should have the choice to get an abortion if it is what they need to do, and does not regret her decision.

Theres gonna be people out in their garage trying to give abortions with hangers! she said of the incoming six-week limit.

Bryant works at a post office, but says that each month after paying rent she doesnt have enough money left over to pay for groceries and her electric bill.

We buy what we need a little bit at a time, said the single mom, sitting in the dark on the couch in her ground-floor apartment. The apartment is filled with her kids toys.

Bryant is desperate for a fresh start. She is planning to move to a place where she hopes necessities like car insurance, food, rent and electricity wont be so expensive.

Im out of here, she said, declaring herself at peace.

A week later, she was packing up her apartment and getting ready for the move. Destination: Texas, a state where the abortion she received could have landed her provider in prison.

Laura Morel of the nonprofit investigative news site Reveal contributed to this report.
Dianne Feinstein once became confused after seeing Vice President Kamala Harris preside over the Senate, report says

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, left, and then-Sen. Kamala Harris of California converse as they arrive in the Capitol for a vote on September 7, 2017. Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call

Sen. Feinstein was confused by VP Harris presiding over the Senate last year, per a New York Times report.

"What is she doing here?" Feinstein said, according to an unnamed individual who was present at the time.

Some lawmakers have called into question the veteran Democratic lawmaker's fitness for office.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California was confused by Vice President Kamala Harris presiding over the upper chamber last year, with the veteran lawmaker questioning why her onetime Senate colleague was in the room, according to The New York Times.

The report comes as Feinstein  who has had several health challenges this year and who has been questioned about her fitness for remaining in office through the end of her term in January 2025  has sought to reassert herself in Washington.

Feinstein, a former San Francisco mayor who has served in the Senate since 1992, has for decades been one of the most respected voices on Capitol Hill, especially as it relates to national security and intelligence matters.

But according to the Times report, Feinstein appeared unaware as to why Harris, who during the previous two-year congressional term broke numerous ties in her capacity as president of the Senate, was taking up her constitutional role.

"What is she doing here?" Feinstein, 89, asked of Harris, according to an unnamed individual who was present at the time.

During the first two years of President Joe Biden's first term in office, the Senate was split 50-50, which required the president to win the support of every Democratic member to pass his most ambitious priorities. So Harris  who also served alongside Feinstein as a California senator from 2017 to 2021  was a frequent presence in the well of the chamber as she was the deciding vote for many key bills and nominations.

In 2022, four lawmakers and three former Feinstein staffers told the San Francisco Chronicle that the senator's memory was "rapidly deteriorating," with them remarking that the senator was no longer able to fully represent her nearly 40 million constituents without considerable assistance from aides.

This year, Feinstein endured complications from shingles, which kept her away from the Senate from February until May and stymied some of Biden's judicial nominations in a Judiciary Committee with a one-vote Democratic majority. Upon her return, a New York Times report then disclosed that she also suffered from Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, a neurological disorder that in the senator's case was brought on by her bout with shingles.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a fellow Bay Area lawmaker, in April called on Feinstein to resign from office, and reiterated his position this month.

"I'm hopeful that people who are close to her can talk to her and just say, 'Look, end your service with dignity. Step aside, let the governor appoint someone,'" he said during a recent MSNBC interview.

Feinstein's staffers have sought to safeguard the senator from photographers and journalists since arriving back on Capitol Hill, according to The Los Angeles Times, as she seeks to reacclimate herself to her work.

Insider reached out to Feinstein's office for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider
The Diocese of Pittsburgh has announced more mergers for parishes in Butler County.

Bishop David Zubik announced on Saturday that Holy Sepulcher and St. Kilian parishes will combine into the new St. Mark the Evangelist Church.

The merge will go into effect on July 1 and will impact residents in Cranberry Township, Adams Township and Glade Mills.

This will bring the total number of parishes in the diocese down to 61.

Click here for more details.

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Entranceway to Walt Disney World. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The smartest insight and analysis, from all perspectives, rounded up from around the web:

You can now put a price tag on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' (R) feud with Disney, said Nicole Narea in Vox. Already embroiled in a lawsuit over DeSantis' efforts to end its special self-operating status, Disney said last week it is "scrapping plans for a $1 billion development" in Orlando that would have relocated thousands of white-collar workers to the Sunshine State. Disney parks chief Josh D'Amaro cited "changing business conditions" for the about-face, which also included closing the Star Wars hotel  known for rates starting at $6,000 for a family of four  after just two years. But in a call with investors last week, Disney CEO Bob Iger was more direct about DeSantis' role: "Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people, and pay more taxes, or no?" The spat has become "an embarrassment for DeSantis on a national stage" just as the governor, who announced his run this week, officially enters the presidential race.

Disney didn't spike the Orlando investment "in order to spite DeSantis," said Zachary Faria in the Washington Examiner. That's an excuse created by a CEO who has a vested interest in finding someone to blame. "This was Disney, a company going through a rough financial patch, killing a project that had already been delayed and was unpopular with the new CEO and the workers that would be affected." Like much of Hollywood, Iger is a proud member of "Team Biden," said Charles Gasparino in the New York Post. He knows Biden's best chance to win re-election isn't against DeSantis, but against Donald Trump. Iger is spinning "what everyone on Wall Street and inside Disney knows is a simple cost-cutting move into a noble act" to stick a knife into DeSantis' campaign.

Floridians pay the price for this man's ego, said the Miami Herald in an editorial. "We've lost jobs and investment, and we could lose even more." Disney "still plans $17 billion in construction at Disney World in the next decade, with a potential 13,000 jobs," and it sounds like that's in jeopardy, too. All because of a "nakedly ambitious, vindictive governor who can't tolerate dissent." The right has long viewed Disney's "narrative magic" as a threat, said Jodi Eichler-Levine at CNN. It's a "potent force that now promotes a vision of diversity and inclusion that regressive groups are right to fear." DeSantis didn't invent the Christian-led crusade against "woke Disney," but this time, "the anti-Disney folks are deploying the power of the state."

Conservatives want politicians to stand up to liberals trying to push their agendas on corporations, but DeSantis "made a mess of things," said Megan McArdle in The Washington Post. The antagonism started after progressive employees pressed the company to criticize Florida's Parental Rights in Education Act  the "Don't Say Gay" law. In the past, Republican politicians might have "said things for the cameras, and then backstage come to a quiet understanding." But DeSantis has kept turning the screws, "most recently suggesting the state might jack up hotel taxes, add tolls to the roads, or even build a prison" next to Disney World. When this started, "Disney clearly had no appetite for a brawl," but DeSantis has left it no choice but to fight.



This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.

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Dnipro death toll rises to five  three missing people found dead in missile strike on hospital

Consequences of a rocket attack on a polyclinic in Dnipro, May 26, 2023

"The fate of [the] three people who went missing during a missile strike onDnipro has been discovered. Unfortunately, they died," the message reads.

Examination of the remains confirmed that a 56-year-old doctor and a 64-year-old hospital employee, as well as a 57-year-old employee of the vet clinic next door, had died.

"The attack has taken the lives of four people [now five  ed.]. Sincere condolences to the family. No forgiveness for the aggressor for its terrible crimes," the governor added.

Russian occupying troops used a precision Iskander ballistic missile to conduct the attack on Dnipro's city hospital, Ukraines General Staff clarified the next morning.

As of May 27, 32 people were injured. 13 people were hospitalized, including 5 in serious conditions.

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Nearly a century has passed since the events of the Holocaust, yet the shadow of the SS  the Schutzstaffel  assigned to organize and carry out the Holocaust and the Nazi project of enslavement and extermination still hangs over us.

In this case, over the Vineyard Drive freeway overpass in Templeton, California, near where I reside.

On May 15, I awoke as many Central Coast residents do, got my coffee and checked the Facebook feed that we have all become so familiar with. Embrace White Pride read the text, flanked by Odal Runes (American Neo-Nazi Symbol popularized in the 2010s) on the banner hanging over the freeway in the first photo to appear in the feed.

Upon examination, a second photo taken April 29, when two men held up a white pride banner on the same overpass, revealed that one of them was wearing a shirt with the Black Sun, the insignia selected by SS Reichsfuhrer Heinirich Himmler to adorn the Schutzstaffel Offices at Wewelsburg Castle and the Wewelsburg Mosaic.

The Black Sun, or Sonnerad, is listed as a Nazi hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League.

One could spend hours explaining the history of the SS, Nazi symbology, the ideology of Hitler and the war, the way the Holocaust was conducted, etc. However, I believe this quotation from a member of the SS Einsatzgruppen (Extermination Squad) will encapsulate some of the essence.

We combed the woods a second time. Only then could we discover the individual chimney pipes sticking out of the earth. We discovered the Jews had hidden themselves in underground bunkers here. They were hauled out... The Jews were shot on the spot.... Some fifty Jews were shot, including men and women of all ages, because entire families had hidden themselves there. The shooting took place quite publicly.

-Georg Leffler, Third Platoon, SS Reserve Police Battalion 101 Oct. 1942, Parczew Forest, Poland

What can we do?

This dark and difficult-to-read quote may not only help us understand the beliefs and intent of the individuals standing on the Vineyard Drive overpass, but it may also help answer the questions being discussed on Facebook.

Those discussions centered around questions like, What can we do about this?; Can we do something about this?; and (to the great concern of someone who studies Nazism and the Holocaust) Should we do something about this?

Ill address the last of those questions first.

Yes, we should do something about this.

The quotation above describes the nature of the day-to-day killings of the Holocaust, but how did it get to that point?

Well, it started with the very open, very public, very not-at-all-quiet calls for extermination of groups in German (and indeed global) society. The opening act of any genocide is the introduction of the language that allows that genocide to occur.

Jewish author Victor Klemperer wrote about the evolution of the language of the Nazis. In his work, Language of the Third Reich, Klemperer tells a story of a German youth who lived in his home prior to the war and during the rise of Hitler. At the dinner table, Klemperer questioned the youth about his opinions on and infatuations with the Nazi party and Hitler.

I began to have serious doubts about the extent and strength of his common sense. I tried a different tack in my attempt to make him more skeptical. You have lived in my house for a number of years, you know the way I think, and you have often said yourself that you have learned something from us and your moral values accord with ours. How in the light of all this can you possibly support a party which, on account of my origins, denies me the right to be a German, or even a human being?

To which the youth responded, You are taking it all much too seriously Babba (a term of endearment).The fuss and bother, indeed the whole discussion of the Jews, is only for propaganda purposes. You wait, when Hitler is at the helm, hell be far too busy to insult the Jews.

The essence of Nazism

We in the modern era somehow have managed to find ourselves in a similar place.

We, however, are having the same debate with the hindsight of history on our side. We live in a world where volumes of first-hand and scholarly studies of the Nazis have been made available for decades and yet when representatives of Nazism, bearing the Black Sun of the SS and the language of the Third Reich appear in our hometowns, we have these discussions, as though the answers and the histories havent existed for our entire lifetimes.

American First Amendment protections on the freedom of speech and expression do not protect calls for extermination, nor do they protect the advocating of violence.

The Black Sun is both of those things. It is a call for genocide, it is the insignia of the most famous perpetrators of genocide in human history, it is the hieroglyphic manifestation of a demand for the extermination of fellow human beings and fellow Americans. It is an announcement of allegiance to and active participation in the ongoing project of Holocaust that is part of the essence of Nazism.

We are under no legal or moral obligation to stand for it, to listen to it, or to tolerate it any more than we would tolerate confirmed ISIS terrorists recruiting new fighters in Templeton or promoting the extermination of their ideological enemies and the perpetuation of their terrorist attacks in the streets of San Luis Obispo.

States across America, including California, have worked to use the existing legal framework to criminalize the display of nooses with the intent to terrorize.

Similarly, a Supreme Court ruling upholding a Virginia law against the burning of crosses  another unambiguous statement of murderous and repressive intent shows us a path that supports both established First Amendment protections and gives the American people legal recourse against extremists and terrorists.

We already have the tools to act against these types of ideological calls for extermination, violence and terror and the actors who push them.

We need not repeat history to learn its lessons, we need not live under the Black Sun debating the intent of the shadow it casts, we can choose a future without it.

Ian Wood, a lifelong SLO County resident, is a self-taught historian and Cuesta College student.
Sultan Al Jaber, president-designate of the U.N. COP 28 climate conference and chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., listens in on the final day of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin on May 3. (Christian Marquardt / Getty Images)

This years United Nations climate summit in Dubai marks another opportunity for world leaders to do more to slow global warming, replace fossil fuels with renewable energy and be held accountable for their emissions-cutting pledges.

But how effective can we expect these negotiations to be when theyre presided over by an oil executive?

The president of this falls COP 28 summit, being hosted by the United Arab Emirates, will be Sultan Al Jaber, who runs the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.

The naming of Al Jaber to this position is so obvious a contradiction that climate activists and politicians have likened it to letting arms dealers lead peace talks or putting a tobacco CEO in charge of health policy. Public pressure for his ouster increased last week when more than 130 U.S. and European lawmakers called for Al Jaber to be removed , writing in a joint letter of their profound concern that the U.N. is permitting private sector polluters to exert undue influence.

Putting an oil executive in charge is not only a bad look, it stands to undermine important and urgent negotiations and further erode public confidence in summits that have been criticized as little more than high-level venues for greenwashing. And it increases the likelihood that well see another year of frustratingly little progress, where world leaders make only incremental changes while the climate crisis barrels ahead. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in a report two months ago that the planet is on track to blow past 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming within a decade unless we immediately switch to renewable energy and slash greenhouse gas pollution in half by 2030.

But at the same time, the decision to pick Al Jaber to lead the summit only clarifies for the public how much power oil and gas interests already wield in this process. The fossil fuel industry is one of the largest delegations at the summits, sending more than 600 of its lobbyists to last years COP 27 summit in Egypt, up from about 500 the year before in Scotland.

COP 28 organizers pointed to Al Jaber's experience as an engineer, a global energy industry leader and his other position as chair of Masdar, another state-owned company that develops solar and wind farms and other renewable energy projects. U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry has defended Al Jaber as a terrific choice precisely because of his position as the head of an oil company who understands the need to transition to renewables.

Fossil fuel companies, of course, have a huge financial stake in how quickly the world weans itself off their products and a role in that transition. They have a place, but as Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) told the Washington Post, "just dont put them at the head of the table.

Oil and gas interests have spent decades attacking the science and solutions to climate change using disinformation, delay and an arsenal of other tactics to prolong their profits. And they are increasingly pushing a scenario in which they dont have to stop pumping oil and gas, but will instead sell the world on largely unproven carbon-capture and storage technology and other dubious ways to suck up or offset the greenhouse gas emissions produced.

In that vein, Al Jaber said in a speech earlier this month that countries should be laser-focused on phasing out fossil fuel emissions, while phasing up viable, affordable, zero-carbon alternatives. Experts interpreted those remarks, because they address emissions rather than production, as a pitch for continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels combined with carbon-capture and storage projects.

Al Jaber's views won't do anything to help resolve a sticking point among world leaders, who over the last few years of negotiations have been unable to agree on the need to abandon fossil fuels and replace them with clean renewable energy.

The final agreement world leaders reached at COP 27 last year in Egypt committed only to a phasedown of unabated coal power and an increase in low-emission energy  code for burning more planet-warming natural gas.

It was the United Arab Emirates' decision to appoint Al Jaber, and it seems unlikely that one of the world's largest oil producers will reverse course.

But it's a good bet that these talks would be different if they were held in the front-line communities most harmed by the climate crisis, such as low-lying island nations that will be flooded, and arid regions facing desertification and drought. If they hosted the negotiations and their representatives outnumbered oil and gas lobbyists , summit leaders would be talking less about whether fossil fuels need to go and more about how to replace them as quickly and equitably as possible.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Update: An El Paso mother and four children were found safe in Colorado after they were the focus of an Amber Alert after being reported missing over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, El Paso police officials said Tuesday.

The family is in good health, police officials said. The Amber Alert has been canceled. A reason why the family left El Paso was not disclosed.

Original:

An El Paso mother and her four children who went missing under suspicious circumstances weeks ago are the focus of an Amber Alert issued on Saturday, police officials said.

Jennifer Lee-Hope Carmony, 42, is considered a "person of interest" in the possible abduction of her four children, ages 4 to 16 years old, police officials said.

The missing children are 16-year-old Aidan Bennett Williams, 14-year-old Isabella Valora Williams, 12-year-old Audrit Uriel Williams and 4-year-old Michael Norbit Carmony.

Crime: Deadly El Paso County desert shooting: Vigilante murder or self-defense?

Law enforcement officials believe that the children could be in danger.

An El Paso mother, Jennifer Lee-Hope Carmony, and her four children, ages 4-16, who have been missing for weeks. An Amber Alert was issued for the family on Saturday.

An investigation began about 1 p.m. Friday when police were dispatched to do a welfare check on the family, which had not been seen for about two weeks, in the 5300 block of Woodrow Bean Trans Mountain Road.

The exact location was not disclosed by police officials; but, there are two apartment complexes on that block, located in the Rushfair area of the Northeast El Paso.

An El Paso mother, Jennifer Carmony, was last seen driving this Ford F150, seen in a security camera image, that was originally red but has been spray-painted black with a possible Texas license plate of BE88718. An Amber Alert was issued for the missing family on Saturday.

Detectives with the Crimes Against Persons Unit "believe the circumstances surrounding the missing persons is suspicious in nature," a police news release stated.

The last time Carmony was heard from was on May 8, police said. She was last seen driving a Ford F150 that was originally red but had been spray-painted black. It possibly has Texas license plate of BE88718.

The Amber Alert for the missing Northeast family was issued early Saturday. The alert is being shown on Texas Department of Transportation digital highway signs.

Jennifer Lee-Hope Carmony of El Paso is suspected of abducting her four children. An Amber Alert was issued on Saturday.

Jennifer Carmony is 5 feet 5 inches tall, 150 pounds with blue eyes and blonde hair, authorities said.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported that:

Aidan, 16, is about 5 feet, 8 inches tall, 110 pounds, unknown hair and eye color.

Isabella, 14, is 5 feet 4 inches tall, 110 pounds, with blonde hair and brown eyes.

Audrit, 12, is about 5 feet 8 inches tall, 130 pounds with blond hair.

Michael, 4, is about 3 feet 4 inches tall, 35 pounds with blond hair.

Anyone with information on the missing family may call El Paso police at 915-832-4400 or may anonymously call Crime Stoppers of El Paso at 915-566-8477 (TIPS).

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso Amber Alert: Mom, 4 children reported missing found safe
Elk Grove is not a bad actor, but Attorney General Rob Bonta was right to sue them | Opinion

When California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the city of Elk Grove, the booming suburb south of Sacramento became the front lines in the struggle to build affordable housing that is desperately needed in this state.

Elk Grove officials rejected a ready-for-construction, privately financed affordable housing project in its Old Town area, and Bonta responded with a lawsuit. Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen justified city actions as necessary to maintain local control over development.

The problem with this justification is that local control is often rigged to prevent affordable housing across California, one of the primary reasons why the state has a dire housing shortage in the first place.

Opinion

That is why SB 35  the law Bonta says was violated by Elk Grove  is so important.

Authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, SB 35 streamlined the construction of affordable housing in California counties and cities that fail to build enough housing to meet state-mandated requirements. Eligible projects do not need to seek permission or go through the same process as market-rate housing, much to the chagrin of cities that would prefer a tight grip over development.

Elk Grove officials are aware of SB 35, but in 2021, they denied the development of the 66-unit affordable housing project, known as Oak Rose Apartments, saying that it violated a Special Planning Area requirement that prohibits residential units on the ground floor.

Elk Grove leaders insist they are not bad actors seeking to block affordable housing projects. They point to several examples of transitional housing within the city limits that are clean, safe and instrumental in providing needed shelter.

We want to be good ambassadors and good neighbors. We agree with the mission and the goals that every city must step up and do their share, said Singh-Allen. We are doing that, but we also want to be able to work  to find alternative solutions, then find that win-win.

City officials insist that they have a better, alternative site for the Oak Rose Apartments on a parcel in the northern part of the city, but the developer, Excelerate Housing, disagrees and favors the site in Old Town.

Elk Grove leaders invited members of this editorial board to hear their side of this dispute and to tour transitional housing units in their city that are successful.

Singh-Allen and other city leaders are undeniably sincere. Elk Grove is not in the same category as Huntington Beach or Woodside or other cities that are outright hostile to affordable housing.

However, in the context of California urgently needing more affordable housing without delay, Elk Grove officials are in the wrong here.

After Oak Rose was rejected, Elk Grove subsequently allowed a market-rate housing development located within the same Old Town Special Planning Area to move forward despite the presence of ground-floor residential units. The city found that Railroad Courtyards, just a few blocks away from the proposed Oak Rose site, was consistent with its planning standards and completely avoided any discussion of the same use restrictions that it cited to deny the Oak Rose project. Gov. Gavin Newsom himself noted this double standard in a press release announcing Bontas suit against Elk Grove.

Communities that fail to build their fair share of housing, including those refusing to develop desperately needed affordable housing, will be held to account, Newsom said.

Elk Grove has very little affordable housing compared to market-rate housing.

A glance at the affordable, multi-family housing map of Elk Grove shows a distinct lack of locations to the east of Highway 99. The few that are to the east of the highway are mainly clustered in the north end of town.

The city says thats because larger plots are available to the west, but there are at least two more obvious reasons:

Elk Grove needs more affordable housing

First, the proposed Oak Rose site is adjacent to a city-owned property that the city wants to use for a future library. Elk Grove had the opportunity to buy that plot before the would-be developer did. The city declined, citing a high cost.

Second, Elk Grove is a desirable place to live, but an equally difficult place to afford a home.

The median home price in Elk Grove in April 2023 was $630,000, according to Redfin, and a quick perusal of Zillow shows million-dollar homes just blocks away from the proposed Oak Rose site. Old Town is a semi-historic district that city officials acknowledge they are unwilling to develop in any way that doesnt fit a master plan.

Elk Grove is part of Sacramento County, whose problem is many magnitudes larger and which counted nearly 10,000 homeless individuals last year. California is home to 30% of all people in the U.S. experiencing homelessness, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

While California cities like Elk Grove may not like SB 35, its the law. They have an obligation to provide affordable housing in every area of their city, and especially in infill areas exactly like the proposed site in Old Town.

California must move toward building affordable housing projects to infill, in empty plots, and not in far-flung areas of cities.

The point of SB 35 is that it requires cities to approve projects that fit their objective standards of housing development and to approve those projects in every part of a city, not just the outskirts. Elk Groves homeless population may be comparatively small  leaders claim there were only 45 homeless people at the last point-in-time count, but the population fluctuates on any given night.

California must build more affordable housing at a much faster pace and its clear that the only way to achieve this goal is by force. Its understandable that Elk Grove leaders do not feel good about being forced. They want local control over their city. They dont want to build an affordable housing project where they hoped to add a city amenity: a library.

If California wasnt in a desperate housing crisis, we might be more sympathetic to the civic goals of these leaders.

But California is in a housing crisis, California needs more affordable housing, and there are too many people living in their cars. For these Californians, one personal setback is all that is separating them from homelessness.

We hope Elk Grove will work with Bonta to resolve this lawsuit and build more infill affordable housing  at a much faster pace.

This unfortunate chapter should not define Elk Grove. It has the competence and team to dramatically increase the citys stock of affordable housing if it truly is a high priority. We hope Elk Grove leads by example. The whole region would be better for it.
Elon Musk pulled Twitter from the EU's anti-disinformation agreement and continues to troll with alt-right memes and dogwhistles. It could be a sign he'll close the site to Europe completely.

Elon Musk Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

European Commissioner Thierry Breton said Twitter pulled out of the EU's disinformation agreement.

The agreement will become law in August, allowing the Commission to fine violators.

Elon Musk continues to troll people with posts that could violate the EU's rules.

Twitter has pulled out of the European Union's voluntary code of practice regarding online disinformation as the company's owner continues posting content that could be flagged under a forthcoming EU law.

The social media site's withdrawal from the EU's agreement on disinformation could signal owner Elon Musk is preparing to cease operations in Europe entirely, Euractiv reported, as a new law  the Digital Services Act (DSA) is set to take effect in August. The law, which establishes requirements for monitoring and flagging disinformation, would make the now voluntary agreement mandatory for large social media sites.

An EU official told Euractiv they were "waiting for this" and "it was purely a matter of time" before Musk withdrew from the agreement.

"Twitter leaves EU voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation. But obligations remain," European Commissioner Thierry Breton tweeted on Friday. "You can run but you can't hide. Beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under #DSA as of August 25. Our teams will be ready for enforcement."

The DSA, an expansion of the current voluntary agreement, will require large digital platforms like Twitter to monitor and demonetize disinformation and bot farms on their sites, offer transparent warnings about political advertising, and empower fact-checking. It does not require the site to remove content but does require offering users ways to report illicit content, The New York Times reported.

Insider previously reported that adhering to the current agreement prevents the risk of breaking the DSA's rules  which could land a company with a fine of up to 6% of its annual revenue, levied by the European Commission.

Musk did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Representatives of Twitter replied with an automated response.

Politico reported Breton had previously warned Musk that Twitter could be banned from the EU if it fails to abide by the rules. While Musk has withdrawn Twitter from the EU disinformation agreement, he continues to troll by posting content that skirts the lines of potentially being flagged under the DSA and another EU content policy regarding hate speech.

In a Saturday post, Musk tweeted a quote wrongfully attributed to the philosopher Voltaire: "to learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."

The quote is from neo-Nazi Kevin Strom, who was twice convicted of possessing child pornography, AP reported.

A step closer to European departure

The DSA became a legislative priority for the European Commission after the 2021 Facebook leak, when whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed Facebook and its parent company Meta knowingly prioritized profit over addressing rampant disinformation and racist hate speech on the platform.

Musk's recent posts have included several references to alt-right themes and fascism, experts told Insider. In a recent post, he shared a meme including Pepe the frog and a caption featuring the word "fren"  an apparent misspelling of the word "friend"  a backronym for "far right ethno nationalist."

"'Fren' is a term far-right actors commonly use to refer to each other in online spaces," Cassie Miller, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center told Insider in an emailed statement: "It's typical of the movement's attempts to make themselves appear innocuous  in this case, using a term that sounds like baby talk but, for those in the know, stands for "far-right ethnonationalist."

She added that far-right communities commonly use coded words and phrases to mask their views from outsiders and create a sense of belonging for those who can pick up on their true meaning.

Such posts, and more extreme examples of hate speech that spiked on the platform since his takeover, could run afoul of the EU's framework for combating racism and xenophobia, landing Twitter  and Musk himself  in hot water with the European Commission.

Combined with the anticipated crackdown following the August implementation of the DSA, Euractiv reported it might just be simpler for Twitter to cease operations in the EU.

Euractive reported the EU is a "somewhat secondary market for the platform," and it is "becoming increasingly likely that Twitter may opt not to comply with the DSA, withdrawing from Europe altogether. Therefore, exiting from the Code of Practice on Disinformation might be the first formal step in Twitter's departure from Europe."

Read the original article on Business Insider
An elusive cat 'terrorizing' a Florida neighborhood has sent 2 injured people to the emergency room

An elusive cat 'terrorizing' a Florida neighborhood has sent 2 injured people to the emergency room

Image of a cat. Thomas Winz/ Getty Images

A cat roaming the streets of a Florida neighborhood is "terrorizing" residents, local news reported

Local police have yet to catch the feline who sent two people to the emergency room.

An official said residents should exercise "extreme caution" when outdoors, The Guardian reported.

A cat roaming the streets of a Florida neighborhood is "terrorizing" residents, and the police have yet to catch it.

The feline terrifying residents of Luraville in Suwannee County, Florida turned out to be an angry domestic cat, local officials said.

The vicious feline has sent two people from the area to the emergency to treat their injuries after two separate attacks.

While local law enforcement has laid traps to catch the elusive creature, they have not nabbed it yet in the past week, according to local news.

It is currently unclear whether the cat is feral or is an escaped pet who may have developed rabies.

"During two separate incidents, residents exercising and walking on 174th Street were attacked by a feral cat. Both residents received injuries serious enough that they had to seek medical treatment at local hospitals," according to a post on Sheriff Sam St John's Facebook page, per the Guardian.

A deputy of the Sheriff's office told the Guardian the office was "hopeful" they would catch the animal soon to shed more light on the situation, but residents should exercise "extreme caution" when outdoors until then.

Authorities did not provide a description of the cat, according to local news reports.

Read the original article on Insider
A press conference was held at the SCV Pregnancy Center in Santa Clarita on Wednesday, May 24, 2023 to voice opposition to legislative attempts to regulate the controversial centers, which are protected by the first amendment. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

At Sierra Pregnancy and Health, Executive Director Cary Wilcox beams with pride holding a plastic model of what will soon be a new mobile clinic thanks to a flood of donations after its "biggest year ever."

Outside the nondescript nonprofit just 20 miles from the California capital, a sign advertises "abortion pill reversal"  a practice involving the hormone progesterone that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists deems "unethical" and "not supported by science."

The facility is licensed by the California Department of Public Health as a community clinic but has been flagged as a "crisis pregnancy center"  an industry long accused of misleading women about their services in order to steer them away from abortion.

The Roseville-based center provides free pregnancy tests and first-trimester ultrasounds advertised as part of "pre-abortion screenings" but does not offer abortions or help women get them. Its medical staff includes unpaid retired doctors and nurses who volunteer their time, Wilcox said.

A watercolor painting of a wave hangs above a couch in the consultation room, where clients are warned of abortion-related grief and given pamphlets that ask is God listening?" A magazine the clinic hands out cites research linking abortion to breast cancer that has been refuted by the American Cancer Society.

Wilcox said part of the clinic's mission is to "share the love of Jesus," but she rejects the idea that her industry exists to coerce women out of abortion.

Her clinic is a community resource, she said, pointing to 10,000 diapers and wipes given away in the last year alone and to items such as car seats and baby monitors that parents can "earn" through taking approved parenting classes.

"We don't force births. Someone can still walk out of here and get an abortion," she said. "We don't judge. Our job is to help her make an informed choice."

Sierra Pregnancy and Health in Roseville, Calif., offers "abortion pill reversal," which is not authorized by the FDA. (Jose Luis Villegas / For The Times)

Across California, where Democratic lawmakers have crafted some of the nations strongest abortion rights laws, antiabortion pregnancy centers appear to be untouchable despite repeated attempts to rein them in.

And some are even expanding, boosted by an influx of donations from abortion opponents who object to the enhanced protections enacted in California in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

The centers, primarily faith-based nonprofits, have managed to evade legislative attempts at stricter regulation, which the Supreme Court ruled violated the 1st Amendment.

Two state bills to limit them quietly stalled this month, even as the latest package of abortion access laws is otherwise expected to succeed.

Though the issue has become a legal minefield, California Democrats who have vowed to make the state a reproductive rights haven aren't giving up.

Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta issued a consumer alert last year, warning of potentially misleading practices by crisis pregnancy centers, and created a new process for Californians to file complaints.

Bonta declined to comment on whether there are any ongoing investigations but said the new complaint portal has been "very helpful" and that his office is "prepared to act" on any violation of the law. That could include prohibitions against companies committing fraudulent business acts.

"We're not just intent on protecting the reproductive freedom that we have but also expanding it, and part of that is Californians getting and having access to truthful and timely and accurate information about abortion services," he said.

The industry has gotten harder to regulate as it has moved away from the "egregious" misrepresentations that it was built on, Bonta said.

"They're moving into more of a gray and ambiguous space, where they're saying things like, 'Come in and talk to us about abortion options,' " Bonta said. "It's not necessarily false, it might be misleading, but it's not a black or white violation."

In 2018, the Supreme Court blocked enforcement of a California law that would have required all clinics to notify patients that the state offers subsidized abortions, birth control and prenatal care. Known as the Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care and Transparency Act, the bill was sponsored by Vice President Kamala Harris, then state attorney general.

The court's opinion was led by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who said that the law unfairly targeted faith-based centers by forcing them to provide a "government drafted script" about services they oppose.

Former client Patti speaks about her experience with the SCV Pregnancy Center in Santa Clarita while she was pregnant with her 9-month-old son Liam at a news conference on Wednesday. The event was to voice opposition to legislative attempts to regulate the controversial centers. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Crisis pregnancy centers are central to antiabortion activists' agenda, said Meghan McGuirk, associate director of state legislative affairs and counsel for the abortion rights organization NARAL. "The anti-choice movement is organized and they know what they're doing. They are going to use every tool they have to try and undermine access to reproductive healthcare," she said.

Some centers such as the Mendo Lake Women's Clinic in Ukiah are expanding their services. The center pledges to work to "erase the need for abortion."

The facility, licensed by the state as a free clinic, claims on its website that adoption can prevent depression "caused by abortion." (According to the Journal of the American Medical Assn., research has failed to show abortion has a causal effect on mental health.)

There are at least 165 crisis pregnancy centers in California, and they outnumber abortion clinics, according to a report issued last year by the Alliance, a women's advocacy collaborative.

The report found that many of those centers make "deceptive and misleading" claims, do not have a physician on staff and offer nondiagnostic ultrasounds that are not recognized as a medical service but as a "keepsake" or souvenir.

Abortion opponents have "expanded and elevated" the role of crisis pregnancy centers in recent years, according to a brief issued by the Alliance in 2022.

While abortion access is protected in California, that also makes the state a target for donors looking for crisis pregnancy centers to support, said Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda.) She worries that more pregnancy centers will pop up in rural and low-income neighborhoods, where women may struggle to access care.

An abortion rights supporter holds a sign during a rally outside the Supreme Court in Washington in 2018, as the Supreme Court heard arguments in a free speech fight over California's attempt to regulate anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)

A bill she proposed this year would have potentially opened crisis pregnancy centers up to lawsuits if they advertise using "false or misleading" statements. But the legislation failed.

"There's no question that this should be stopped," said Bauer-Kahan, chair of the Select Committee on Reproductive Health. "It is not just conjecture: They are focusing their energy on states like California."

California law specifically names alternative birth centers as a type of specialty clinic eligible to operate in the state. That means a clinic not part of a hospital that provides "comprehensive" services for pregnant women who spend less than 24 hours at the facility, according to state safety code.

Bonta said although some centers are licensed, it doesn't mean they are without limits. "Just because you're licensed to do something doesn't mean you're licensed to do everything," he said.

Pregnancy center leaders maintain that they are upfront about the services they do and don't provide, but women seeking an abortion still get confused  even by clinics licensed by the state.

A young woman in the Sacramento area confirmed her pregnancy at a Planned Parenthood clinic but could not afford the $450 an abortion would cost there without insurance.

Already a mother of a 1-year-old, she found a pregnancy center online, drawn in by its promise of free medical services for women dealing with unplanned pregnancies. The website advertised a consultation that mentioned parenting, adoption and abortion as options.

A Sacramento woman felt duped and shamed by a local crisis pregnancy center when she sought an abortion. (Jose Luis Villegas/For The Times)

But the center does not actually provide abortions or make referrals for them  which it also states on its website. The woman didn't realize that until she was already there.

Inside, she was questioned for over an hour about her lifestyle, she said. With her boyfriend by her side, a staffer told them that the odds of a couple breaking up because of an abortion are 80%, and that most people regret it.

Ultimately, she miscarried and did not need any services but left feeling "embarrassed and hurt."

"They shamed me so much in that room," said the now 29-year-old woman, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons. Honestly, I had no idea what I was in for. I didnt know places like this existed. I thought it was just in movies."

A bill introduced by Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo (D-Chatsworth) would have launched a statewide awareness campaign about any services related to pregnancy care and abortion.

AB 710, which was projected to cost the state up to $8 million, failed this month as part of a mass culling of bills with price tags as California faces a budget deficit.

Schiavo said she viewed the bill as noncontroversial and simply informational as it pertained to any relevant facility, not just crisis pregnancy centers. But she made it clear in legislative hearings that they were her top concern, calling them "extremely dangerous."

The bill drew fierce opposition from conservative groups, including the California Family Council, which held a news conference on Wednesday outside a pregnancy center in Schiavo's district, accusing her of defamation and of judging an entire industry based on a few bad actors.

Abortion critics, including the California Catholic Conference, said the bill was prejudiced and that the state should instead be thanking the centers for helping vulnerable women.

Schiavo called the outrage "really telling."

"In California, this is really the only way that anti-choice extremists can promote their agenda. [Centers] can just proliferate and thrive and grow exponentially with no restrictions," Schiavo said. "Women simply having the facts ... it completely undermines their whole business model."

The Los Angeles City Council put crisis pregnancy centers on alert last year, passing an ordinance that fines them up to $10,000 for false advertisement and allows people to sue if they have been misled.

Kelly Pfeifer, a doctor who has performed abortions for 25 years, is among those urging the state to do the same. She testified to lawmakers earlier this month that some of her patients have been given false ultrasound images by the centers to convince them they are further along in pregnancy than they actually are.

She has had patients cry, worried that they would be infertile because of false information told to them about abortion by people they believed were trustworthy health professionals, she said.

"Every day, I see people who have been harmed by these fake clinics," Pfeifer said. "In any other part of the healthcare system, this would be inconceivable."

Heidi Matzke has positioned herself as the face of California's modern pregnancy center movement. She traveled to Washington, D.C., last year to testify against a federal bill aiming to crack down on the centers, and has railed against Planned Parenthood on Fox News.

Her newest pregnancy center will open soon in Sacramento and looks more like a high-end salon than a medical clinic. The 7,000-square-foot facility is stark white and filled with hot-pink furniture and gold-trimmed mirrors. Thousands of dollars have been spent on security cameras, bulletproof glass and graffiti-resistant paint.

The building alone cost $1.5 million  all from donors.

The official motto of Alternatives Pregnancy Center, which opened in 1983, is to provide women with medical care "and alternatives to abortion as we proclaim the hope of the Gospel."

It provides gynecological care such as Pap smears and breast exams at no cost  rare for crisis pregnancy centers. But like most centers, it also offers the controversial "abortion pill reversal" and something called "abortion recovery classes."

"If they choose life, they go through this door," Matzke says of her clients, pointing to a room full of pristine baby clothes given away free. If they choose abortion, they'll still be "loved on" and supported, she said.

"A woman is more than just a choice that she makes," she said.

Matzke is a tireless debater; for every scientific study that casts doubt on her services, she holds up another more obscure study that supports them. It's Planned Parenthood, not pregnancy centers, that are judging their patients, she insists.

"They want to choose life but they need help and they need support," Matzke said of her clients. "And so when they find a clinic like ours to support them ... then a lot of them will step up and choose life."

California's leading Democratic lawmakers have ignored Matzke's invitations to visit her clinics, leery of giving a microphone to her cause. But the license granted to her from the state they represent hangs clearly in her lobby, framed with gold prongs to match her new decor.

"We have nothing to hide," she said.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
As Texas House members debated Saturday whether to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, they seemed more focused on the process than on the serious accusations against him.

It was rushed, his defenders said. There was no opportunity for Paxton to participate, they argued. House members didnt get to question witnesses or investigators, they noted.

But in the end, the historic 121-23 vote to impeach a state official for just the third time in Texas history came down to this: To believe Paxton, you must believe that everyone around him is lying about whether he abused power, took bribes and retaliated against whistleblowers.

With more than a decade of evidence to judge his character, that one is a no-brainer.

Paxtons defenders didnt deny that he contorted his office to protect a top donor facing federal legal trouble. They didnt deny that the donor helped Paxton with a delicate matter by employing a woman with whom the attorney general had an affair. They didnt counter with arguments that Paxton couldnt possibly have done something as tacky as insisting that Nate Paul, the developer who whistleblowers said was bribing him, upgrade the counters in the home renovation Paul was funding.

They cant. Weve all seen Paxton, under legal peril from the moment he took office in 2015, shave too many corners and contort the law.

That said, while he must step aside from his office, he deserves a robust opportunity to defend himself in the Senate. And the odds there  21 of 31 senators would have to vote to convict  might be better for him.

Senators and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who will preside over the trial at a date to be determined, must commit to a fair, open proceeding. Nothing about the permanent removal of an officeholder elected not quite seven months ago should be rushed or predetermined. If Paxton is finally ready to actually respond to serious bribery and abuse of office accusations, he should be given ample opportunity to do so.

But for what the House was called to do Saturday, the protestations of Paxtons surrogates were overwrought. They acted as if a House committee started and finished work on it in a matter of days. It was a months-long inquiry, and as with any such proceeding, it cant involve all 150 members.

Perhaps House Speaker Dade Phelan and his lieutenants could have insulated themselves against charges of political motivation had they taken longer, held more public hearings and scheduled days or weeks of floor debate.

But then, the truth of the complaints about politicization were exposed by Rep. Tony Tinderholt, an Arlington Republican on Paxtons side. He and others talked loftily about due process and House precedent. But Tinderholt couldnt help making a political threat, going out of his way to note that former President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz had made statements decrying the House proceedings.

In a time when political courage is constantly lacking, Republicans who stood up to that intimidation  and reported pressure calls from Paxton himself  should be celebrated.

Besides, many of the details of the Paxton case have long been known through whistleblowers complaints and dogged news media reporting. Any House member who wasnt aware of the lengthy and serious accusations against the AG was derelict in his or her duty.

No, the impeachment of Ken Paxton was like the old line about how one goes bankrupt: gradually, then suddenly.

Its important to note that for all the comparisons to criminal court proceedings, impeachment is a process intended to answer political questions that the courts should not. While it calls upon lawmakers to judge whether an official may have committed crimes such as bribery, its primary purpose is to defend the state and its people against further potential abuse. It demands that House members ask themselves about conduct worthy of a state official and fitness for office.

In Ken Paxtons case, theres ample evidence that he falls short. The Senate will ultimately decide. But based on the case laid out in the House, no other verdict than its vote Saturday would have been appropriate.
Memphis Police Department officers tell demonstrators that other demonstrators still standing in the street will be arrested if they do not move to the sidewalk outside of the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Downtown Memphis, Tenn., on Saturday, May 27, 2023. The demonstrators were protesting the arrest of Jamil Ibrahim and three others after Ibrahim was wrongly identified as a man with an active warrant. The three other men were arrested and charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

Four men were arrested Saturday afternoon after officers from the Memphis Police Department mistakenly identified a shop owner as a man with an active warrant, family members told The Commercial Appeal.

According to family, Jamil Ibrahim and his siblings were working at their warehouse on Winchester Road and Kirby Parkway when Ibrahim found bullets behind the building. Ibrahim called MPD, and when they arrived, an officer misspelled his name, bringing up a different man who they said had an active warrant.

"My brother called in to report that he found some bullets in the back of the building, right in the alleyway," said Moe Ibrahim, a brother of one of the men arrested. "He made a report, the lady came out and took his ID. She came back and said, 'Hey you have a warrant,' which was a case of mistaken identity. The names are totally different, but they're both Arab...She handcuffed my brother, they forced all their power onto him. They beat him up and sent him to the Med."

A Memphis Police Department officer tells demonstrators that other demonstrators still standing in the street will be arrested if they do not move to the sidewalk outside of the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Downtown Memphis, Tenn., on Saturday, May 27, 2023. The demonstrators were protesting the arrest of Jamil Ibrahim and three others after Ibrahim was wrongly identified as a man with an active warrant. The other three men were arrested for misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

Jamil Ibrahim was charged with two counts of misdemeanor assault on a first responder, charges the family claims were fabricated by the responding officer. He was taken to Regional One Hospital, where family said he was given stitches on his forehead.

Three other men  Ibrahim Mahmoud, Moamen Saad Hijaz and Salim Ibrahim  were also arrested, and charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Family members said Hijaz and Salim Ibrahim were arrested for filming the arrest.

Sunday afternoon, MPD Public Information Officer Theresa Carlson told the Commercial Appeal that the "incident is under review by precinct commanders."

An affidavit for Jamil Ibrahim said a warrant popped up for an aggravated assault and domestic assault case in 2022. That warrant, however, appears to have already been served and the case has been making it through the court system since December 2022  when Jamil Ibrahim was first arrested.

Ibrahim has made all court dates for that case, and also posted bail back in December.

After the responding officer, Officer Jefferson, said the warrant popped up, Officer Christopher Wilson  who wrote the affidavit  wrote that Jefferson called for additional units.

"...At which time [Jamil Ibrahim] became belligerent," the affidavit read. "[Jefferson] attempted to detain [Ibrahim] and place him in handcuffs due to his uncooperative behavior. As [Jefferson] attempted to cuff the suspect, he resisted her by pushing [Jefferson] and attempting to pull away from her. During the ensuing altercation, [Jefferson's] watch and fingernail were damaged."

When other officers arrived on scene, and went to help Jefferson detain Ibrahim, the affidavit said Ibrahim still tried to pull away. One of the additional officers, Officer Moore, said Ibrahim "lunged" at him, and he "responded by striking [Ibrahim] in the forehead with his right fist, stunning [Ibrahim]."

Ahmad Ibrahim shows other demonstrators outside of the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center a video of his brother, Jamil Ibrahim, being arrested by Memphis Police Department officers after he was wrongly identified as a man with an active warrant as they protest the arrest in Downtown Memphis, Tenn., on Saturday, May 27, 2023.

Video taken by bystanders at the warehouse, and shown to reporters from The Commercial Appeal, showed Ibrahim holding his arms behind his back when a female officer appears to try and handcuff him by wrapping her arms around him.

When another officer enters the warehouse, the two officers appear to grab Ibrahim's arms and push him into boxes. As the officers appear to try and handcuff Ibrahim further, a male officer appears to punch Ibrahim on the head and later appears to place his hands around Ibrahim's throat.

Another bystander, also appears in the video to try and break up the officers and Ibrahim, but is pushed away.

The family said they will not release the video until retaining legal counsel.

The three bystanders who were charged with disorderly conduct each have similar affidavits. Hijaz's affidavit was slightly different from the other two, and said he was told "multiple times by officers to remain in the designated area while officers conducted an investigation," but he "began to approach officers in an aggressive manner, yelling and screaming."

Mahmoud and Salim Ibrahim both had identical affidavits written, both saying the men were interfering with the investigation and "causing a disturbance."

Family members, who were joined by about 20 other people at a protest outside of 201 Poplar, said all the three men who were charged with disorderly conduct were filming.

Protesters outside of the Shelby County Jail at 201 Poplar called for the release of the four men, and attempted to shut down the intersection at Poplar Ave and Danny Thomas Blvd., then shut down the intersection at Poplar Ave and N. B.B. King Blvd. Officers then threatened to arrest the protesters, citing their lack of permit, and one officer could be overheard saying the van  which was parked in the intersection by protesters  would be towed.

Salim Ibrahim and Hijaz were both released on their own recognizance by midnight Sunday, according to the criminal justice portal. Mahmoud was also released on his recognizance and Jamil Ibrahim posted bail, both on May 28, according to the criminal justice portal.

Demonstrators yell at Memphis Police Department officers at the intersection of B.B. King Boulevard and Poplar Ave outside of the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Downtown Memphis, Tenn., on Saturday, May 27, 2023. The demonstrators were protesting the arrest of Jamil Ibrahim and three others after Ibrahim was wrongly identified as a man with an active warrant. The other three men were arrested for misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

Dima Amro and Gina Butkovich contributed to this report.

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice 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: Family says Memphis police wrongly arrested 4 men, 'beat up' one of them
The image is the newer plant finished in 1916 at 701 East 8th Street.

In the early days of the Dakotas, one of the finest names in millwork and moldings was the Farley-Loetscher Manufacturing Company. Though it had a manufacturing location in Sioux Falls for many years, the company had its beginnings in Dubuque, Iowa.

In early 1875, Christian Loetscher, a Swiss immigrant, opened a mill-working business, processing raw lumber into wood trim, window sashes, moldings, and doors. He started with two employees in a leased section of the Key City Planing Mill in Dubuque. In the two years that followed, Loetscher would establish partnerships with others, including E. C. Clark, the owner of the planing mill, and Jesse P. Farley, entrepreneur and three-time mayor of Dubuque.

In 1879, Farley bought out Clarks shares and became the principal partner in the company. At the time of his death in 1894, Farley sold his shares in the company to Loetscher for below market value. By this time, the name Farley-Loetscher Manufacturing Company had become a brand of excellence across the Midwest.

More: How John Morrell's grand residential palace came to be in Sioux Falls: Looking back

By 1906, Farley-Loetscher had a sales office in Sioux Falls. Harry Hurd, who was in charge of this office, was quite the proponent of Sioux Falls. In the same year, Hurd persuaded the company to build both a warehouse and a manufacturing location in Sioux Falls. First came the warehouse, located at 322 E. 8th Street, the present location of R Wine Bar.-Loetscher built onto this location in 1911 and 1912 as the business grew, but continued to run out of space in which to further expand. In 1912, Farley-Loetscher purchased a large piece of land less than half a mile east of the existing plant with a mind on expansion.

On June 1, 1916, construction began on the new plant at 701 E. 8th. The original space had a 172 by 180 footprint, and was constructed of brick and stone. Combustable materials used in the buildings construction were slow-burning, and a Sprinkling system was installed. Farley-Loetscher delivered a facility that was as modern and complete as anything else that could be found west of Chicago at the time. Building and equipment were estimated to cost $70,000, nearly $2 million in 2023 dollars. The new facility was up and running by November of 1916, and employed 150 to 200 workers. This location would serve South Dakota, southwest Minnesota, northwest Iowa, and parts of Montana and North Dakota.

Farley-Loetscher carried on for years to come, manufacturing from multiple locations across the Midwest. Products of the company can still be found in homes and businesses built through 1960. On June 29, 1960, Clear Fir Sales Company of Springfield, Oregon bought the company. No change to Farley-Loetschers existing plants was expected. On Dec. 2 of the same year, the Sioux Falls plant was closed without notice. Work contracted up to this point would be finished by Jordan Millwork in town, and some displaced workers could expect to find work there. There were no severance packages or help of any kind offered to the workers left flat-footed just before the holidays.

More: Whitfield Hardware family's ties to city government run deep in Sioux Falls: Looking back

On Feb. 28, 1962, Farley-Loetschers main plant in Dubuque closed, leaving 600 without work. Robert Harris, president of the Carpenters and Joiners Union, took issue with Clear Firs management of Farley-Loetscher saying, There was not an honest effort made to run the place since it was sold. He also asserted that, at the time, Clear Fir stated that the plan was to sell Farley-Loetscher. This suggestion was disputed by C. Herb Warwick, executive vice president at Clear Fir, who said, We are not a liquidating company.

Wilford Goneya, who owned Clear Fir Sales Company, sold the business in 1966. He died in 1992.

Wood trim, windows, and doors are everywhere, in every kind of building. No doubt weve all been in the presence of millwork produced by Farley-Loetscher and had no idea. It isnt advertised, but is ever present, beautifying the buildings in our community.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: How Farley-Loetscher's millworks and moldings helped beautify Sioux Falls homes: Looking back
Justin Troyer

ORRVILLE  Justin Troyer has been promoted to vice president, commercial banking team leader at Farmers National Bank. He will work out of the companys Kidron and Orrville offices.

Troyer has been with Farmers since 2014, first as a branch manager, then as a mortgage loan consultant. In his new position, Troyer will work with business customers on financing/deposit needs and leading a team of commercial lenders.

Troyer graduated from Dalton High School and Malone University with a degree in business administration.

Troyer serves as treasurer for the Kidron Merchants Association and previously was president of Kidron Community Council.

I look forward to servicing the AG/commercial lending needs of the community I grew up in and helping it grow and prosper, Troyer in a news release. My goal is to make sure we are meeting the needs of our local farmers and business owners, not only product wise, but also with good service that at the end of the day we can be proud of.

Bill Shivers, chief commercial lending officer at Farmers National Bank, calls Troyer a perfect fit for the job. Farmers is a community bank, and thats what Justin embodies. Were so glad to have him in this new role," he said.

To learn more about Farmers, visit farmersbankgroup.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Farmers National promotes Justin Troyer; works in Orrville, Kidron
Recently-released documents reveal a 1980s plot to kill Queen Elizabeth II during a visit to the United States and show the FBI was concerned for the British monarchs safety, including during her visits to Kentucky.

The documents, released on the FBIs records website, The Vault, indicate that the FBI was on alert for possible threats to the queen, particularly from the Irish Republican Army. The BBC reported that the documents were released Monday in response to requests by American media under the Freedom of Information Act.

A May 13, 1989 document in preparation for a visit to Versailles by the queen later that month says the FBI had asked that any information that would constitute a threat to Queen Elizabeth II during her visit be sent to the FBI in Louisville.

FBI headquarters responded that they were unaware of any specific threats against the queen, but the possibility of threats against the British monarchy is everpresent from the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Another document relating to the same visit says that During a previous visit by the queen, several anonymous threatening telephone calls were received at (redacted) and by local police. There are no known activists or sympathizers of the Provisional Irish Republican Army operating in Louisvilles territory. Security for the queen is being provided by USSS and (redacted).

In another instance, in May 1991, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip planned to arrive in Washington, D.C., and spend time in Florida and Texas. A Washington Times article included with the FBI documents says Prince Philip then planned to head back across the pond while the queen intended to travel to Kentucky to see her brood mares.

The name of the person with whom the queen planned to stay in Kentucky has been redacted from the documents, but Queen Elizabeth often stayed with the Farish family at Lanes End Farm in Versailles during her five visits to Kentucky over the years. Will Farish served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2001 to 2004.

A memo to the FBI director says the queen arrived in Lexington as planned and made no public appearances.

Liason with United States Secret Service at Lexington revealed no matters arose under our jurisdiction, the memo states.

Many of the 102 pages of FBI documents were previously marked secret.

One document indicates the FBI had received information about a possible threat by a man who allegedly said he planned to try to hurt the queen by dropping something off the Golden Gate Bridge when her yacht, the Britannia, sailed under it during a 1983 visit. The FBI said the Secret Service was planning to close the public walkways on the bridge before the yacht reached it.

The man, who said his daughter had been killed by a rubber bullet in Northern Ireland, had also allegedly claimed that he might try to kill the queen during a visit to Yosemite National Park during the same time frame, the documents state.

President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were going to be in San Francisco at the same time as the queen and Duke of Edinburgh, and the documents indicate the FBI also was preparing for demonstrations by two different groups.

Because of the wide variety of interests of the groups involved in the protests against both the visit of the queen and the president, it will be very hard to anticipate and prevent incidents which may embarrass either the queen or the president, the documents state. ...Hopefully a more prudent, non-violent, traditional protest mentality will prevail.

Drawn to Kentuckys equestrian culture, Queen Elizabeth visited 5 times. See photos

A glorious day. Versailles churchgoers reminisce about the queens visit to their church
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) returns to Capitol Hill, in Washington, May 10, 2023. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON  When Sen. Dianne Feinstein entered a hearing room this month to reclaim her seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee after a monthslong absence, she was accompanied by a phalanx of aides.

Two staff members settled the 89-year-old California Democrat into a chair at the dais as the assembled senators greeted their ailing colleague with a round of applause. When Feinstein spoke  during a vote on one of several of President Joe Bidens judicial nominees whose approval had awaited her return  she appeared to read from a piece of paper handed to her by a female aide seated behind her.

I ask to be recorded as voting in person on the three nominees considered earlier, Mr. Chairman, and I vote aye now, she said.

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The aide knelt next to her and whispered into her ear in between votes  popping up repeatedly from her seat to confer with the senator, at one point clearing away the paper Feinstein had read from and presenting her with a folder that appeared to contain background information about the nominees.

The scene was typical of Feinsteins day-to-day existence on Capitol Hill, where she is surrounded by a retinue of staff members who serve not only the roles of typical congressional aides  advising on policy, keeping tabs on the schedule, drafting statements and speeches  but also as de facto companions to a senator whose age, frail health and memory issues make it difficult for her to function alone.

Their roles have come under more scrutiny as a number of Democrats and many of Feinsteins constituents are concerned about her refusal to relinquish a post that she is not capable of fulfilling without heavy and constant reliance on her aides.

They push her wheelchair, remind her how and when she should vote and step in to explain what is happening when she grows confused. They stay with her in the cloak room just off the Senate floor, where Feinstein has taken to waiting her turn to vote, then appearing in the doorway to register her aye or nay from the outer edge of the chamber.

All senators rely heavily on staff. But for years, Feinsteins memory problems have meant that she has needed far more support than other senators. Briefing her on the news of the day requires longer sessions and more background information.

At times she has expressed confusion about the basics of how the Senate functions. When Vice President Kamala Harris was presiding over the chamber last year in one of many instances in which she was called upon to cast a tiebreaking vote, Feinstein expressed confusion, according to a person who witnessed the scene, asking her colleagues, What is she doing here? Staff members have been overheard explaining to her that she cannot leave yet because there are more votes to come.

Since she has returned to work on a limited schedule as she recovers from shingles and multiple serious complications, Feinsteins staff has made sure she is never alone and is heavily protected. The Capitol Police and the Senate sargeant-at-arms have gone to great lengths to keep Feinstein shielded from photographers and reporters, the Los Angeles Times reported, helping to create a bubble around her as staff runs interference on her behalf.

Reporters have been asked at times to keep a respectful distance from the senator, while aides have tried to hide her from photographers.

It is an awkward task for members of Feinsteins staff, many of whom go back decades with her. They are wrestling with how to balance their work as public servants with their responsibilities to a diminished lawmaker who remains in charge of representing Californias 40 million residents, and who sometimes makes public statements that are not true.

After The New York Times revealed this month that Feinstein had encephalitis brought on by shingles, a condition that had not been disclosed by her office, she denied the story, telling a CNN reporter who managed to approach her at the Capitol that she had merely had a bad flu. Her spokesperson, Adam Russell, later released a statement correcting her and confirming that the senator had encephalitis, which he said had resolved itself in March. Russell said she also had Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which can cause facial paralysis.

They have a responsibility to give her brutally honest counsel and then adhere to her wishes, as she  and not they  were elected, said David Axelrod, a former top adviser to former President Barack Obama. And they have an obligation to help her meet her own responsibilities to her state and the office.

Staff members in Feinsteins office say they engage in frank conversations with her about her future and are not shielding her from reality. So far, she has insisted that she is able to work and has no plans to leave office before her term ends in 2025; she is not seeking reelection.

Her aides do not issue any statements without Feinsteins sign-off, and describe her as strong-willed even in her diminished state.

All senators rely heavily on staff to do the job, particularly a senator who represents 40 million people, said her chief of staff, James Sauls. While staff advise her, she ultimately is the one who makes the decision about how to best take action for the people of California.

Yet Feinsteins staff has taken heat from critics on the left who have been angered at her refusal to step down immediately, and who argue that her aides are complicit in helping to prop up a lawmaker who should no longer be serving.

This month, a reporter for the Intercept, Ken Klippenstein, posted on Twitter names, salaries and other details of senior and lower-level staff members in Feinsteins office, writing that it was time to name and shame Dianne Feinsteins staff, all of whom should be blacklisted from politics forever for caring so little about their country that they refuse to resign.

The posts were condemned by many on the left and right, and ultimately deleted.

For now, her aides have been left to figure out how to make Feinsteins office work as well as it can in the absence of a fully functional senator. They have done so, some of them said, by relying on the senators three decades worth of policy positions and explicit systems she put in place long ago that were designed to make her office efficient  and which earned her a reputation for running one of the more demanding workplaces on Capitol Hill.

Feinstein, who aides say has never taken a real vacation, expects the same level of commitment to the job as she puts in.

Staff meetings have hierarchical seating assignments. All aides are expected to write up whats known as a weekly, a memo detailing their work for the week for the senator to review.

Information is delivered to Feinstein in color-coded folders. Theres a format in place for submitting vote recommendations. And the office has a vast library of letters to draw on for responses to some 5 million pieces of correspondence from constituents it receives every year.

In recent months, the decades-old systems are helping the office run without her, as Feinsteins press folder has been delivered to her, filled with dismal clips about her health, editorials calling for her resignation and polls showing that most California voters want Feinstein to resign.`

Feinstein has recently lost some of the staff members who know her and her systems best. David Grannis, her longtime chief of staff, left the office earlier this year in a long-planned move. Her veteran communications director, Tom Mentzer, died in February.

Still, many of her more senior policy staff members have been with her for over a decade and feel a great sense of loyalty to Feinstein, and equally dedicated to their issues of expertise. They are continuing their work, communicating with the senator through the phone, memos and faxes. (Yes, the Feinstein office still faxes.)

Since returning to Washington, Feinstein has missed six votes and has not participated in any committee hearings or caucus lunches. Still, there is a sense among her staff members that the office needs to keep functioning. And the reality of the Senate is that, even with a senator sidelined, an office can run in a fairly normal fashion.

Case workers deal with business that would never have boiled up to a senators level: passport renewal requests, providing assistance for those applying for U.S. citizenship, helping those applying to a military service academy or those seeking relief from a federal administrative decision.

Staff members in Washington and California also review appropriations requests according to a long-running system, which now helps them speed up the process that ultimately requires Feinsteins approval for funding, even if shes not there.

And Feinstein has always been formal, preferring to communicate with her Senate colleagues through letters or memos rather than face to face.

Since she has been back, Feinstein has co-sponsored legislation to support the development of facilities that make use of timber from wildfire hazardous fuels reduction projects. She also co-sponsored legislation with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., that would allow independent music creators to deduct all of their production expenses in the year they are incurred, rather than down the line.

Still, her aides have taken on an outsized role that Feinstein might once have found difficult to swallow.

You cant let staff run you, she told her biographer, Jerry Roberts, in the 1990s. The person in charge has to be the guiding post.

c.2023 The New York Times Company
Fewer than 40 Russians allowed into Ukraine since visa regime started in July 2022

Only 37 citizens of the aggressor country have been granted the right to enter Ukraine since the introduction of the visa regime with Russia in July of last year

The visa regime is in effect for citizens of the Russian Federation. Only by having a visa and confirming the purpose of their stay in Ukraine can they cross the border, he noted.

Demchenko specified that out of these 37 individuals who entered with visas, 25 were citizens of the Russian Federation, mostly women and children.

The visa regime with Russia officially came into effect in Ukraine on July 1, 2022.

Read also: Georgian president calls Russias lifting visa ban for Georgian citizens another provocation

Read also: How to draw the war closer to its end

This decision was made in response to the full-scale invasion of Russian forces and the occupation of Ukrainian territories in several oblasts.

Citizens of the aggressor country now cannot enter Ukraine without a visa.

Even possession of a visa does not guarantee entry to Ukraine for Russian citizens, clarified Ukraines State Border Guard Service.

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Fight over photograph sparks New Mexico biker brawl that leaves three dead and six injured

A fight over a photograph between the Bandidos biker gang and its rival Waterdogs sparked a brawl on Saturday that left three people fatally shot and six wounded, New Mexico police said on Sunday.

State police had already increased their presence in the town of Red River, less than an hour north of Taos, in anticipation of thousands arriving for the Red River Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally, New Mexico State Police Chief Tim Johnston told the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Shots rang out at around 5pm on Saturday and responding officers found two dead and six injured, authorities said on Sunday. All were members of organised motorcycle gangs. One injured person was airlifted to Denver for treatment and five were taken to area hospitals, where one was pronounced dead.

A police officer stands guard as man with a Bandidos MC patch assists a shot biker in Red River, New Mexico after a shootout between members of two motorcycle gangs at an annual Memorial Day motorbike rally (VIA REUTERS)

According to Chief Johnston, a confrontation over a photograph had been sparked in Albuquerque between the Bandidos gang from Texas and New Mexico-based Waterdogs. The disagreement continued in Red River and escalated, he told the New Mexican.

Something as stupid as that, he said, referring to a picture that showed somebody taking a picture with a different gang.

The three dead have been identified as Anthony Silva, 26, of Los Lunas, NM; Randy Sanchez, 46, of Albuquerque, NM; and Damian Breaux, 46, of Socorro, NM, police said on Sunday.

Jacob David Castillo (New Mexico State Police)

Jacob David Castillo, 30, of Rio Rancho, NM has been charged with one open count of murder; injured in the incident, he remained hospitalised on Sunday and will be booked into Taos County Detention Center upon his release, officials said.

Also injured was Christopher Garcia, 41, of Texas, who was charged with possession of cocaine when he was released from the hospital and booked into jail, according to a release from the New Mexico Department of Public Safety.

Matthew Charles Jackson, 39, of Austin, Texas was charged with unlawful carrying of a firearm in a liquor establishment and booked into the Taos County Detention Center, too, police said.

Four other injured people, aged between 31 and 53, will not be identified unless they are eventually charged with a crime, the DPS release said.

Chief Johnston said that area hospitals had been locked down following the Saturday incident.

Its been our experience, and I think its been the experience around the country when dealing with these types of gang bangers, is that when somebody gets shot or is killed and they go to the hospital, all their friends like to go there to be with them or pay respects or to protect them, he told the New Mexican. But again, we had a mess here. We didnt also want to have a mess at all the hospitals because theres obviously a lot of innocent folks there that needed our protection.

He said: Ill apologise initially to the law-abiding citizens that came to Red River to have a good Memorial Day weekend, not the gang bangers that are ruining it for all of them.

Officials said the investigation was ongoing and appealed for witnesses or anyone with footage to contact New Mexico State Police.
The Sandy Springs Fire Department responded to an apartment fire at the Avia North Apartments earlier on Saturday.

According to officials, a multi-family building fire damaged the 28-unit apartments.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Fire officials say they conducted primary and secondary searched of the torched apartments and did not find any victims from the blaze.

Sandy Springs Fire Department is working a structure fire on Marsh Trail Cir. Please stay out of the area. pic.twitter.com/Ta6aae0kwb  Sandy Springs Police (@SandySprings_PD) May 27, 2023

At this point, it is unclear as to how or what might have caused the fire to ignite. No injuries have been reported, but two firefighters were given fluids due to dehydration, and were released at the scene.

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The Red Cross is working to assist and relocate displaced neighbors from the fire.

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IN OTHER NEWS:
King Charles III will be recovering from the coronation celebrations by unwinding in his secret retreat in rural Transylvania next month.

According to the Daily Mail, the home is a stripped-back former farmhouse in a cosy hamlet in Zalanpatak, Romania, close to the Carpathian Mountains. The King is understood to have purchased the property several years ago.

Queen Camilla will not be joining him on his annual visit, leaving the 74-year-old monarch to enjoy some R and R during the first year of his new role.

Speaking on Mondays instalment of Good Morning Britain (22 May), royal expert Jennie Bond said that the King will be visiting the retreat in the coming weeks to recuperate from his coronation.

She told the programme that the King has laid an ecological water treatment plant at the residence and loves it there.

He sleeps in a little wooden bed, hes going there for a very short stay next month, she added.

The hideaway is surrounded by hills and meadows of the Zalan Valley, frequented by wolves and bears.

There is no wifi, TV or radio, but the drawing room now has a small hi-fi player with CDs.

But the property is far from a man cave, with seven double rooms with en-suite bathrooms in three heritage cottages, each furnished with authentic Transylvanian antiques and textiles.

A fourth building has a drawing room and dining area with a large open fireplace and a comfortable sitting area on a landing above the kitchen.

It is understood that the King wishes to encourage more people to visit Transylvania and promote sustainable development, according to the official website for the guesthouse.

There was some doubt as to whether the King would make his annual visit for 2023, but it is reported that he will arrive in early June and stay for a week.

The property is typically rented out to visitors, with double rooms for an all inclusive-stay starting at 140 per night.
Florida mom who challenged Amanda Gorman poem and other books says she only read parts of the material

The Florida mom whose complaints about reading material prompted Amanda Gorman's acclaimed poem "The Hill We Climb" and other books to be restricted at a local elementary school admits she only read parts of the material she objected to.

Daily Salinas fueled a firestorm last week after the Bob Graham Educational Center, a public school in Miami-Dade County, agreed to restrict access to "The Hill We Climb"  which Gorman recited at President Joe Biden's inauguration  and three other books a school panel decided were better suited for middle-school students.

Salinas told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency she complained about Gorman's poem and the books because they did not support the curriculum. Gorman, 25, was the first person named the National Youth Poet Laureate.

Im not an expert, Salinas said. Im not a reader. Im not a book person. Im a mom involved in my childrens education.

Gorman rejected the school's defense that her poem was restricted, not banned, and that it remained available for middle-school children.

"For those claiming my book wasnt banned, just 'aged-up,' 'The Hill We Climb' is an inaugural poem for the world," Gorman posted on Twitter. "Relocating it to older age group library shelves by its nature bars younger and equally deserving generations from accessing said moment in history."

Florida school blocks younger students from reading Amanda Gorman's 'The Hill We Climb' poem

Poet Amanda Gorman speaks during the inauguration ceremony for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Dec. 11, 2022.

Developments:

 Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has invited Gorman to perform a reading of her poem in the county.

 Students at New Roads elementary, the California school Gorman once attended, read their own poetry at rally in her name. "When our students see this book, they are reminded that they too are authors, thinkers, speakers, social justice advocates, champions for those who have been marginalized, and compassionate young people who want to listen and to be heard," the school said in an Instagram post.

Salinas denies link to Proud Boys

The advocacy group Miami Against Fascism posted photos of Salinas at rallies with members of Proud Boys and Moms for Liberty, a conservative group that has protested school curriculums that mention LGBTQ rights, critical race theory and other issues. Salinas told JTA that she was not a member of either group, saying she had merely attended rallies where their members were present.

Salinas apologizes for antisemitic post

Salinas expressed regrets for sharing a Facebook post in March about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notoriously antisemitic hoax purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The original post includes a line about "socialist rule, then communism, then despotism. Salinas said she saw the word communism and did not read the rest before sharing.

I want to apologize to the Jewish community, Salinas told JTA. Im not what the post says. I love the Jewish community.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amanda Gorman defends poem after school restricts access. Updates
Hamburger Mary's

By Jamiel Lynch and Nouran Salahieh

(CNN)  A popular restaurant in Orlando that hosts drag brunches filed a lawsuit Monday against Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, claiming it lost business because of a new law signed last week that has been widely interpreted by LGBTQ advocates as a crackdown on drag shows.

The owner of Hamburger Marys Orlando says their First Amendment rights were violated when DeSantis last week signed a bill, SB 1438, restricting the attendance of children at certain performances, according to the lawsuit. The restaurant is asking the court to block the implementation of the law.

This bill has nothing to do with children, and everything to do with the continued oppression of the LGBTQ+ community, a statement posted Monday on the restaurants Facebook page reads.

Anytime our legislators want to demonize a group, they say they are coming for your children. In this case, creating a false narrative that drag queens are grooming and recruiting your children with no factual basis or history to back up these accusations AT ALL! the Hamburger Marys Orlando statement reads.

The legislation was a priority for DeSantis, who has elevated cultural battles in political speeches across the country as he marches toward an expected presidential campaign announcement this week.

We are going to remain a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy, and kids should have an upbringing that reflects that, DeSantis has said.

DeSantis office has not responded to a CNN request for comment on the lawsuit.

While the law does not specifically mention drag shows, it is so broad as to include this art form in the states interpretation, the lawsuit alleges.

Hamburger Marys  which has several locations across the US  used to host family-friendly drag brunches on Sundays at its Orlando location, where children are allowed to attend, the suit says.

There is no lewd activity, sexually explicit shows, disorderly conduct, public exposure, obscene exhibition or anything inappropriate for a child to see, the lawsuit says.

After the law was signed, the restaurant told its customers that children wont be allowed to attend any of its drag shows, and as a result, 20% of its bookings were canceled for a May 21 show, as well as for future shows, according to the suit.

They simply cannot take the chance that their business or liquor licenses would be suspended for hosting a drag show where children attend, the lawsuit says, adding that the criminal penalties outlined by the law put individuals at risk of prosecution.

The new Florida legislation, dubbed the Protection of Children act, prohibits children at adult live performances, which is defined as any show, exhibition, or other presentation in front of a live audience which, in whole or in part, depicts or simulates nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or specific sexual activities  or the lewd exposure of prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts.

Those found in violation could face prosecution and thousands of dollars in fines and have their licenses revoked.

The bill was one of several related to LGBTQ topics that have quickly moved through the Republican-controlled Florida legislature this session. DeSantis last week also signed into law new restrictions on gender-affirming treatments for minors, bathroom use and which pronouns can be used in schools.

Kara Gross, ACLU of Floridas legislative director, last month called the legislation a blatant attempt to erase drag performers and silence the LGBTQ+ community.

They are setting a precedent that the state legislators can decide what is best for you based on THEIR own values and convictions, and write it into law, the Facebook statement from Hamburger Marys reads. Weve spent too many years moving forward. We cant go back!

The-CNN-Wire

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Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba

Kuleba said that after the article appeared, he immediately contacted his colleagues in the European capitals visited by Li Hui. None of them confirmed that negotiations were held to recognize the territories currently controlled by the aggressor state as Russian, he said.

Ukraine is engaged in a dialog with all key partners and is monitoring the situation, he added.

Read also: Li Huis visit to Zelenskyy: Beijing aims to show de-escalation dependence on China, says Klimkin

"I urge you to keep a cool mind and common sense, do not be fooled and emotionally react to every publication," Kuleba said.

We are in control of the process. No one will do anything against us behind our backs because we have built trusting relationships with all our key partners.

China is "an important interlocutor" and named the principles by which Ukraine will continue to conduct a dialogue with China, said Kuleba, listing:

 Only mutual respect for territorial integrity

 No initiatives that provide for territorial concessions to Ukraine will be considered

 No frozen conflict.

Kuleba added that this position is firm, and it is shared by both he and Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Read also: Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto goes to China to discuss peace plan for Russia and Ukraine

China's "peace mission" was announced on May 15, which saw Chinas top diplomat Li Hui visit Poland, France, and Germany. Beijing said his visits were aimed at discussing a "political settlement" to Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine.

Chinese Special Representative Li Hui arrived in Kyiv on May 17. He met with Zelenskyy and Kuleba. They discussed cooperation between the countries and "ways to stop Russian aggression."

The WSJ reported on May 26 that Chinese special envoy Li Hui, during his trips to Europe, called for the occupied territories of Ukraine to be recognized as Russian.

Any territorial concessions in the war with Russia would mean the defeat of democracy and the preservation of the regime of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, said Presidential Office advisor Mykhailo Podolyak on May 26.

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Volunteers Aubrey Valdez, 5, and Mel Valdez, 25, place carnations at Los Angeles National Cemetery on Sunday. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

On the first Memorial Day  in 1868, soon after the Civil War  volunteers decorated the graves of Union soldiers with flowers .

The tradition lives on at Los Angeles National Cemetery in Westwood, where Ruben Rocha for more than a decade has organized a group of volunteers who, on the Sunday before Memorial Day, place red and white carnations at the graves of veterans.

This year, about 150 volunteers placed roughly 50,000 pairs of carnations at the cemetery, Rocha said.

The red carnations symbolize the blood soldiers shed; the white ones represent the peace" they have achieved.

Its a lot of work, but at the end of the day, its all worth it, said Rocha, 67, a director of studio operations at Sony Pictures Studio in Culver City.

Ed Henneberque, 73, pays his respects. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

Rocha's family has a long history in the military.

He served in the Marines as an infantryman from 1975 to 1984. His older brother Robert Salas Rocha was an infantryman in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War who died while on a reconnaissance mission in 1970. Their oldest brother, Rudy, was also a Vietnam War veteran, an artilleryman.

Both Rudy, who died in 2018, and Robert are buried at the cemetery, Ruben said.

This place means a lot to me and my family, he said of the cemetery, with its thousands of simple, white gravestones, visible from the 405 Freeway. I consider all of these men and women that are buried here as part of our extended family now.

Ruben started the volunteer group 12 years ago with about 1,000 pairs of carnations. By 2019, the group grew big enough to cover the more than 80,000 gravestones at the cemetery.

The pandemic halted the work in 2020 and 2021. But Rocha said the group is growing again, with his co-workers at Sony inviting others to volunteer.

Vickie Lou Miller, 10, and cousin Robert Rocha. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

We also invite their kids to come in as well, he said. Because I believe its a great learning time for them, so they can understand why we live in a free land.

Sony and NBCUniversal are among companies that helped pay for the carnations, which this year cost more than $15,000 this year, Rocha said.

He instructs the volunteers to read each name at the grave as they deliver the flowers and to thank the soldiers for their service.

The volunteers easily get hooked.

If I can get you here one day," he said, "youll be coming every single year thereafter, I promise.





This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Foo Fighters went to work on the festival stage over the weekend as late drummer Taylor Hawkins son, Shane Hawkins, played the drums for a song during their Boston Calling Music Festival set.

The 17-year-old drummer, who joined the band for performances of My Hero at some tribute shows last year, got behind the drum kit for a performance of their song Ill Stick Around on Friday, Spin reported.

How about we do a song with one of my favorite drummers in the world? Would you guys please welcome Mr. Shane Hawkins, Foo Fighters lead singer Dave Grohl said before the crowd broke out in applause.

The band is gearing up for the release later this week of its upcoming album But Here We Are, which will mark the groups first studio album since Hawkins death in March 2022.

The band was scheduled to play the Boston Calling festival last year, but Hawkins death led it to cancel its headlining set.

Grohl turned Fridays set into a family affair for the Foo Fighters as he also brought up his daughter Violet Grohl to contribute vocals for Shame Shame and Rope.

Last week in New Hampshire, the band performed its first tour show since Hawkins death. It was the first show since the Foo Fighters introduced Josh Freese as the bands next drummer.

Related...
Former student accused of committing sex crimes at Old High during school

A former Wichita Falls High School student who police believe followed a pattern during his attacks is accused of sexually assaulting and trying to sexually assault girls at school in two separate incidents, according to allegations in court documents.

Jorge Edwardo Maldonado was free Sunday from the Wichita County Law Enforcement Center on bonds of $200,000 for charges of sexual assault and criminal attempt-sexual assault, according to online jail records.

Maldonado graduated from high school in March, according to WFISD.

No aption

Both sexual assault and attempted sexual assault are second degree felonies punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

A Wichita Falls affidavit for an arrest warrant for a sexual assault charge details the allegations against Maldonado in connection with a Jan. 30, incident.

On Feb. 6, Wichita Falls police responded to a report of a sexual assault that had happened Jan. 30 at Old High, according to allegations in the affidavit.

During a Feb. 9 interview at Patsy's House Children's Advocacy Center, the victim said Maldonado raped her at school, according to allegations in the affidavit.

He contacted her on Snapchat Jan. 29 and told her to meet him during third period at school next day, according to allegations. She met him in the hallway then.

When she began to walk away, he called her to come with him into an empty classroom, and she asked him, "What are we doing?" according to allegations.

Maldonado asked her if she was scared, and she said yes, according to allegations. When he began to kiss her, she told him that someone would see them, and she did not want to do anything.

He continued to touch her and then raped her even though she told him many times she "did not want to do this," according to allegations. At one point, he hugged her and apologized, saying, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know why I do this."

She told three other people about the incident, and an investigator confirmed the stories were consistent with what the victim said in a forensic interview at Patsy's House, according to allegations.

Maldonado told the school that he only touched her rear end, but nothing else happened, according to allegations.

Video footage from Wichita Falls ISD police showed the victim and Maldonado meeting in the hallway, going into a classroom and later coming out of it, according to allegations.

Video also showed how her demeanor was different before she went in from when she left the classroom, according to allegations.

Maldonado refused to speak to a Wichita Falls police investigator, saying he had retained a lawyer, according to allegations.

A second affidavit for an arrest warrant for a charge of criminal attempt-sexual assault provides information about the allegations against Maldonado in connection with a Dec. 1, incident.

WFISD police contacted an investigator with the Wichita Falls police March 3 about an alleged sexual assault, according to allegations.

The victim was taken to Patsy's House Children's Advocacy Center on March 14 for a forensic interview, according to allegations.

She told the interviewer that she and Maldonado had engaged in consensual sex, according to allegations. But he became aggressive, and she was frightened.

She disclosed that two or three nonconsensual, aggressive incidents happened at school, according to allegations.

During one incident, she and Maldonado were in the first floor stairwell near the art hallway, and he pulled her hair and asked her to go with him, according to allegations.

He put his hands around her neck and pushed her against the wall, and she told him, "No," according to allegations. During the attack, he touched her inappropriately, and she tried to fight him off twice. But he pushed her back against the wall.

Eventually, he apologized and left shortly afterward, according to allegations. The attack she described in the forensic interview was corroborated by her father, school staff members and others.

The investigator believes the case shows Maldonado's pattern of behavior toward victims, according to allegations. Maldonado becomes aggressive, attacks a female student at school and then apologizes afterward.

He had a similar way of operating in an alleged sexual assault he was previously arrested for, according to allegations.

Anyone accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Maldonado has also been charged with possession of less than 1 gram of THC in connection with a Dec. 13 incident, according to court documents.

Tetrahydrocannabinol is a substance that imparts the sensation of being high to a user.

During a traffic stop in the 2100 block of Britain St., Wichita Falls police found a vape pen with a half empty cartridge containing THC in the vehicle Maldonado was driving, according to court and jail records.

Maldonado's bond is $5,000 for that charge. The state jail felony is punishable by up to two years in a state jail facility.

More: City View cases connected to sexual abuse allegations against coach move forward

More: Police: Wichita Falls attorney said, 'She needed to be smeared,' after posting flyers

This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Maldonado accused of sexual assault at Wichita Falls High School
"I wonder myself what took so long," said retired Lt. Gen. Tom Bostick, a member of The Naming Commission, charged with renaming Army bases named in honor of Confederate generals. "What was galling is that we would still in this day and age have names of bases that represented traitors, who fought against their country and for the purpose of slavery."

Bases such as Fort Pickett, named after Gen. George Pickett, who led the famous last charge of the Confederates at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Billie Coleburn, the former mayor of Blackstone, Virginia (the town nearest Fort Pickett) and editor of the local paper, said, "Here in rural southern Virginia, change comes very slowly, and we don't always embrace change. There are many people I talk to  many, many of them are dear friends of mine  that are strongly opposed to it being renamed."

"I'd say the majority of folks around here would tell you in a heartbeat, keep it Pickett," Coleburn said.

Martin asked, "Is that because they think the name of Pickett should be honored?"

"Are there people here that still believe that the South had a right to secede?" Coleburn replied. "I mean, I don't know anyone that say slavery was okay; there's none of that still around."

Fort Pickett was originally named after Gen. George Pickett, who led Confederate soldiers to slaughter at the Battle of Gettysburg. It will be renamed Fort Barfoot, after Col. Van Barfoot, a Medal of Honor recipient

Fort Pickett was dedicated on July 3, 1942, on the anniversary of Pickett's charge. It was dedicated at 3:15 in the afternoon  the exact time of Pickett's charge. At the dedication, the governor of Virginia said Pickett "stands with (Robert E.) Lee and (Stonewall) Jackson among the immortals ..."

History tells a different story. Retired Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule taught history at West Point, and would take his students on walks over the battlefield. At Gettysburg he related what happened during Pickett's charge: "Twelve thousand, five hundred Confederate soldiers from three divisions attack to this position  and it is an absolute and utter catastrophe. They came into this kill zone, and just were slaughtered."

Pickett survived, and in 1864, he summarily executed 23 U.S. Army soldiers. "After the war he skedaddles to Canada because he thinks he's going to be hanged as a war criminal," said Seidule.

The man who ordered Pickett to charge was Robert E. Lee, who quit the U.S. Army to command the Confederate forces. He is remembered at Gettysburg by a giant statue. Seidule said, "The idea was that Lee was a hero. How ironic that a person trying to destroy the United States of America becomes the great American."

"Makes you wonder who won the battle?" asked Martin.

"Yes. The United States Army won the battle, no doubt about it, but who won the memory of that battle?"

The name Pickett will soon disappear. / Credit: CBS News

Danny Clary is chief at the fort's fire station, where you couldn't turn around without seeing the name "Pickett." When asked how he feels about the name coming down, he replied, "Sad. I understand why they're doing it, but it's been here a long time, and it's going to take a lot of people a while to adjust."

But it is now Fort Barfoot, after Col. Van Barfoot, who received the Medal of Honor for his bravery in World War II. It's the first Army base in the United States to be named after a Native American.

Kyle Gee runs the sheet metal shop, which has been turning out signs for Fort Barfoot. You never realize how many there are until you start changing them.

Signs of the times: New signs are being produced for the recently-renamed Fort Pickett in Virginia. The Army base has been renamed Fort Barfoot. / Credit: CBS News

Fort Barfoot is one of nine Army bases which will no longer be named in honor of Confederates.

Seidule said, "Commemoration is about our values. It's how you inspire people."

A March 2023 ceremony marking the renaming of Fort Pickett in Virginia as Fort Barfoot. / Credit: CBS News

Case in point: Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Bostick said, "Who would stand up at in-processing a lot of new soldiers coming to Fort Bragg and say, "Let me tell you about the history of this name: Braxton Bragg was one of the worst generals in the Confederate army'?"

This week Fort Bragg will become Fort Liberty. Fort Polk in Louisiana (named for Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk) is also due for a name change. "Polk was the most incompetent general of the war," said Seidule.

Fort Benning (named after Brig. Gen. Henry Benning, a charter member of the Ku Klux Klan) has already changed to Fort Moore, after Hal and Julia Moore. He was the commander of American troops in the first head-to-head battle against the North Vietnamese; she forever changed the impersonal system which sent "regret to inform you" telegrams to families of the fallen.

Bostick said, "Julia Moore saw this happening and she said, 'Not on my watch. I will personally deliver that telegram and I will put my arms around that family member.'"

It's not just base names. It's all the Confederate memorials and artifacts strewn across U.S. military installations. Bostick said he was surprised at the degree to which Confederate memorabilia was embedded in the Army culture: "There were hundreds of things that needed to change. There's a Lee Gate and Lee Housing Area and Lee Barracks at West Point."

On the campus of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York, Lee Road and Beauregard Place, commemorating generals who fought for the Confederacy, are being renamed. / Credit: CBS News

Martin asked, "With all these names about to disappear, some people are going to say you are erasing history."

"The battles that Lee fought in will still be studied, so we're not erasing history," Bostick replied. "What we are doing is commemorating the right leaders."

Seidule said, "We're not going to end racism in one fell swoop, but this isn't a bad place to start."



For more info:

Fort BarfootThe Naming CommissionLt. Gen. Thomas Bostick (Ret.)Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule (Ret.)



Story produced by Mary Walsh. Editor: Joseph Frandino.



See also:

Rooted in history: Gettysburg's "Witness Trees" ("Sunday Morning")Gallery: The Battle of Gettysburg

60 Minutes: Revisiting the Past

Man unknowingly buys former plantation house where his ancestors were enslaved | 60 Minutes

The dark legacy of Canada's residential schools, where thousands of children died | 60 Minutes
A 16-year-old may walk away from an attempted murder charge because he was denied an attorney for nearly a month and a half.

The case against Alejandro Garcia will be the first chance to see how Superior Court judges may deal with the continuing shortage of defense attorneys.

A hearing to dismiss the case is scheduled on Tuesday, just days before its scheduled to go to trial.

Defense Attorney Tim Dickerson is challenging Garcias 42-day stay in custody without an attorney, saying it violates his clients constitutional right to an attorney and to a speedy trial.

Garcia is accused of being one of two gunmen who shot at Christian Uribe near the intersection of East Butte Street and South Owen Avenue in August 2022.

The attack came after Uribe targeted a teen, and allegedly hit and killed a 26-year-old Kennewick father, Roberto Segura Flores III in August 2022.

Garcia was arraigned on April 4 for attempted first-degree murder in connection with the shooting. He has been held in the Benton-Franklin Juvenile Detention Center awaiting trial as an adult.

That arraignment started a 60-day clock for when a trial must begin, which meant he needed a trial to start by next week.

A lack of available defense attorneys qualified to handle the case, in part because of a staffing shortage at the Office of Public Defense, led to Dickerson being appointed on May 15 with only 18 days left on that clock.

While he told Judge Jackie Shea Brown on Thursday that he could be ready for a trial next week, his client deserved to have an attorney who had more time without giving up his right to a speedy trial, Dickerson said.

During the wasted speedy trial time to date, no investigation, not interviews, no conversation with the client, in fact no discovery at all has occurred due to the states failure to adequately fund, recruit and retain indigent defense services. This is clear unambiguous, actual prejudice caused to the defendant, he said.

He also pointed out that the case against his client relies on three pieces of evidence. One of those, an accusation by the other alleged shooter, likely wont be brought up in the trial. So its in his clients interest to move forward before the prosecutors find more.

The Franklin County Prosecutors Office has not filed a response to Dickersons motion.

States public defense problem

A confluence of circumstances have come together to create a shortage of defense attorneys across Washington state. The problem with recruiting defense attorneys is not unique to the Tri-Cities.

A combination of increasing retirements and fewer law school graduates has combined with fewer attorneys who want to go into lower paying jobs because of their high college debt.

The lack of attorneys has been exacerbated by rules set by the state Supreme Court that limit who can take what cases and how many can be handled at once.

Compounding the problem is a huge backlog of trials because the COVID pandemic put many cases on hold for a couple years.

The situation in Franklin County has become desperate. At the moment, there are only two attorneys qualified to handle murder cases and three attorneys for felonies.

This is down from a high of five or six public defense attorneys that Dickerson saw during his 19 years as a Franklin County deputy prosecutor.

The office is on its third month of not having enough attorneys for newly filed cases, and is continuing to have a backlog of about 80 felonies in need of an attorney.

And finding an attorney for Garcia was difficult because of conflicts of interests with other available attorneys.

Shea Brown held a hearing on Thursday to examine whether the delay in appointing an attorney qualified as an unavoidable and unforeseen circumstance.

Both attorneys found that the countys Office of Public Defense had taken every step it could to recruit attorneys.

County public defense Manager Larry Zeigler testified Friday that some aspects of the problem could have been foreseen, such as funding problems with public defense, others were a surprise, such as COVID or the number of homicide cases.

Not the defendants fault

Franklin Countys and the states difficulty with public defenders shouldnt have to hamper Garcias defense, Dickerson argued.

Yet the court and the state continually fail to remember, the state is mandated to adequately fund, recruit and retain indigent defense attorneys for every defendant, and every case filed that is eligible for indigent defense, Dickerson said.

He said trial courts have granted defense attorneys a continuance, even over objections from their clients, because there is a good reason to.

The rulings are made so the accused person is given a chance at having the best defense, but Dickerson said in this case, the defendant has already been hurt by the delay by keeping him in custody without access to an attorney.

Any continuance at this point deepens the prejudice to the defendant and the ability to defend the case, he said.
Los Angeles Dodgers' Max Muncy (13) celebrates with third base coach Dino Ebel (91) after Muncy hit a solo home run off Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Tyler Glasnow during the second inning of a baseball game Saturday, May 27, 2023, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP)  In a tense and tight matchup of division leaders, Freddie Freeman and the Los Angeles Dodgers came out on top.

Freeman extended his hitting streak to 16 games, Max Muncy and Miguel Vargas homered, and the NL West-leading Dodgers beat the MLB-best Tampa Bay Rays 6-5 on Saturday.

Freeman finished 2 for 3 with two walks and is hitting .444 (28 for 63) with 18 RBIs during his streak.

Mookie Betts had an RBI single and Freeman followed with a run-scoring double off Colin Poche (3-1) as Los Angeles took a 5-4 lead in the seventh inning. Vargas added a solo shot in the eighth.

That was a gritty win, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. So much respect for this Tampa team, the way they play. They don't give you anything. And for us to get a lead and lose it and come back and fight back, it was just overall just a good win  and now we have a chance to win a series.

Harold Ramirez hit the Rays' major league-leading 100th homer, but Tampa Bay dropped to 25-6 at home. Tampa Bay reached 100 home runs in 54 games, fifth-fastest of any team since 1901.

Los Angeles has 84 home runs, which is second in the National League.

Neither starting pitcher, Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw nor Tampa Bay right-hander Tyler Glasnow, made it past the fifth inning.

Yency Almonte (3-0) worked a perfect sixth. Caleb Ferguson gave up Wander Franco's RBI single before getting his second save.

This is such a great team win. ... I didnt have anything to do with it, unfortunately, Kershaw said. The bullpen pitched four solid innings. Freddie, guys had clutch hits.

Ferguson entered with one out in the ninth and allowed Taylor Walls' double. After striking out Jose Siri and walking Yandy Diaz, the left-hander permitted Franco's single to center field before getting a game-ending grounder from Ramirez.

Diaz, hitting .325 with a .429 on-base percentage, hit a ball with home run distance just foul down the right-field line before drawing his walk.

That was scary, Roberts said. He's a scary hitter. I don't like him coming up to bat.

Glasnow went 4 1/3 innings in his season debut after being sidelined by a strained left oblique. He allowed three runs and five hits while striking out eight in an 83-pitch outing. The 6-foot-8 righty was limited to 39 games from 2019-22 due to injuries.

I wasn't perfect, but definitely liked coming back for the first one, Glasnow said. I'm happy with it.

Kershaw went on the bereavement list Monday following the death of his mother. He was activated Friday and gave up four runs on six hits over five innings.

Personally, it's frustrating, said Kershaw, winless over his last three starts. I had some good rhythm, good momentum going the first few innings. Just kind of lost it there. My command became very inconsistent.

Kershaw beat Glasnow twice in the 2020 World Series as the Dodgers defeated Tampa Bay in six games. The lefty had also won his two prior regular-season starts against the Rays, posting a 1.88 ERA.

Manuel Margot had a two-run single in the fourth, and Ramirez put the Rays ahead 4-3 with his two-run homer to right.

Muncy, hitless in his previous 10 at-bats, connected on his 16th homer leading off the second. He hit an RBI double in the fourth and scored on a wild pitch to make it 3-0.

MOVING DAY

To make room for Glasnow on the roster, RHP Cooper Criswell was optioned to Triple-A Durham one day after getting his first big league win.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Dodgers LHP Julio Urias (left hamstring) had his scheduled Saturday bullpen session pushed back to Tuesday after experiencing some soreness throwing Friday.

UP NEXT

Rays LHP Josh Fleming (1-0) will start or follow an opener against Dodgers rookie RHP Gavin Stone (0-0) in Sunday's game that starts at 11:35 a.m. EDT, which is 8:35 a.m. Los Angeles time.

I was thinking about sleeping here. I've never stayed in the stadium, Roberts joked.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk refused to shake hands with Belarusian opponent Aryna Sabalenka following their opening round match at the French Open, leading to boos from some of the crowd.

After Sabalenka secured the 6-3 6-2 win, Kostyuk walked straight over to the umpire to shake her hand and then back to her seat, refusing to meet Sabalenka at the net for the customary handshake.

There were then boos from the crowd at Roland Garros and again as Kostyuk made her way off the court.

Kostyuk, who is from Kyiv, said at Januarys Australian Open that she would not shake hands with any Russian or Belarusian opponent with war raging in her country.

Kostyuk was booed as she left the court. - Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

Sabalenka fielded some difficult questions in her post-match press conference, including from one reporter who accused her of twisting it as if Ukrainians hate you and avoiding questions asking her to condemn the war, with Belarus being used as a key staging ground for Russias war in Ukraine.

Sabalenka said in March that she struggled to understand the hate she encountered in the locker room amid strained relations between some players following Russias invasion of Ukraine.

First of all, when I get questions about Ukrainians, they [journalists] ask me: So, you know that they hate you? So Im answering the questions like: If they hate me.

About the war situation, I said it many, many times, nobody in this world  Russian athletes, Belarusian athletes  supports the war. Nobody. How can we support the war? Normal people will never support it.

Why do we have to go loud [public] and say things, thats like saying one plus one is two, you know, of course we dont support war. And if you could affect the war in any way, if we could stop it, we would do it, but unfortunately its not in our hands.

Sabalenka advanced to the second round in straight sets. - Christophe Ena/AP

Sabalenka later added that she understands why Ukrainian players dont shake her hand and said Kostyuk didnt deserve to be booed by the crowd.

Russian and Belarusian players are currently still competing on the tours as neutral athletes without their flag or country displayed.

After winning the ATX Open in Texas in March, Kostyuk also refused to shake hands with beaten Russian opponent Varvara Gracheva.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
A man accused of murdering a Utah radio host has been extradited from Mexico to Salt Lake City, authorities said.

Manuel Omar Burciaga-Perea, 36, was taken back to Utah from Mexico City by the U.S. Marshals Service following years-long international efforts, according to a press release last Friday and reported by local ABC4.

Burciaga-Perea was reportedly placed into the custody of the Taylorsville City Police Department (TVPD).

"Officers with TVPD took Burciaga-Perea into custody at the Salt Lake City International Airport and upon his arrival following the 4.5-hour commercial flight escorted by the Marshals Service and transported him to the Taylorsville Police Station," law enforcement said.

MOAB MURDERS: UTAH SUSPECT'S SIGNIFICANT OTHER KNEW ABOUT SLAYINGS FOR MONTHS AND KEPT QUIET, POLICE REVEAL

"There, he declined to be interviewed by Taylorsville officers prior to his booking into the Salt Lake County Jail late Friday night," authorities added.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Burciaga-Perea allegedly killed Gabriela Sifuentes Castilla, aka Gaby Ramos, a Spanish radio host he had dated, at her sister's home on Oct. 17, 2021.

Burciaga-Perea shot Castilla seven times in the chest, arm and head, according to 2021 charging documents.

UTAH MAN ALLEGEDLY POISONED BY AUTHOR WIFE BELIEVED SHE WAS HAVING AN AFFAIR: FAMILY SPOX

Police said first responders weren't able to keep Castilla from succumbing to her wounds at her sister's home.

"Burciaga-Perea and Castilla had been in a dating relationship but were not together at the time," the TVPD said.

Police said because Burciaga-Perea was at his home in Chihuahua, Mexico, they had not been able to arrest him because of his Mexican citizenship.

Burciaga-Perea spent six months in custody in Mexico City before being extradited to Utah.

Law enforcement agencies in Utah, Mexico and Washington, D.C., worked in tandem to apprehend Burciaga-Perea, and he was ultimately arrested on Thanksgiving Day last year.

Burciaga-Perea's extradition to Utah and imprisonment in Salt Lake County Jail followed six months in custody in Mexico City.

"This could not have happened without the teamwork, perseverance, and cooperation between offices," TVPD Chief Brady Cottam said in the statement, according to ABC4. "The process was tedious and painstaking, but we are grateful for this significant step toward resolution and justice."






AI chatbots and image generators run on thousands of computers housed in data centers like this Google facility in Oregon.

Generative AI is the hot new technology behind chatbots and image generators. But how hot is it making the planet?



As an AI researcher, I often worry about the energy costs of building artificial intelligence models. The more powerful the AI, the more energy it takes. What does the emergence of increasingly more powerful generative AI models mean for societys future carbon footprint?

Read more

Generative refers to the ability of an AI algorithm to produce complex data. The alternative is discriminative AI, which chooses between a fixed number of options and produces just a single number. An example of a discriminative output is choosing whether to approve a loan application.

Generative AI can create much more complex outputs, such as a sentence, a paragraph, an image or even a short video. It has long been used in applications like smart speakers to generate audio responses, or in autocomplete to suggest a search query. However, it only recently gained the ability to generate humanlike language and realistic photos.

AI is using more power than ever

The exact energy cost of a single AI model is difficult to estimate, and includes the energy used to manufacture the computing equipment, create the model and use the model in production. In 2019, researchers found that creating a generative AI model called BERT with 110 million parameters consumed the energy of a round-trip transcontinental flight for one person. The number of parameters refers to the size of the model, with larger models generally being more skilled. Researchers estimated that creating the much larger GPT-3, which has 175 billion parameters, consumed 1,287 megawatt hours of electricity and generated 552 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, the equivalent of 123 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year. And thats just for getting the model ready to launch, before any consumers start using it.

Size is not the only predictor of carbon emissions. The open-access BLOOM model, developed by the BigScience project in France, is similar in size to GPT-3 but has a much lower carbon footprint, consuming 433 MWh of electricity in generating 30 tons of CO2eq. A study by Google found that for the same size, using a more efficient model architecture and processor and a greener data center can reduce the carbon footprint by 100 to 1,000 times.

Larger models do use more energy during their deployment. There is limited data on the carbon footprint of a single generative AI query, but some industry figures estimate it to be four to five times higher than that of a search engine query. As chatbots and image generators become more popular, and as Google and Microsoft incorporate AI language models into their search engines, the number of queries they receive each day could grow exponentially.

ChatGPT and other AI bots for search

A few years ago, not many people outside of research labs were using models like BERT or GPT. That changed on Nov. 30, 2022, when OpenAI released ChatGPT. According to the latest available data, ChatGPT had over 1.5 billion visits in March 2023. Microsoft incorporated ChatGPT into its search engine, Bing, and made it available to everyone on May 4, 2023. If chatbots become as popular as search engines, the energy costs of deploying the AIs could really add up. But AI assistants have many more uses than just search, such as writing documents, solving math problems and creating marketing campaigns.

Another problem is that AI models need to be continually updated. For example, ChatGPT was only trained on data from up to 2021, so it does not know about anything that happened since then. The carbon footprint of creating ChatGPT isnt public information, but it is likely much higher than that of GPT-3. If it had to be recreated on a regular basis to update its knowledge, the energy costs would grow even larger.

One upside is that asking a chatbot can be a more direct way to get information than using a search engine. Instead of getting a page full of links, you get a direct answer as you would from a human, assuming issues of accuracy are mitigated. Getting to the information quicker could potentially offset the increased energy use compared to a search engine.

Ways forward with ChatGPT and other generative AIs

The future is hard to predict, but large generative AI models are here to stay, and people will probably increasingly turn to them for information. For example, if a student needs help solving a math problem now, they ask a tutor or a friend, or consult a textbook. In the future, they will probably ask a chatbot. The same goes for other expert knowledge such as legal advice or medical expertise.

While a single large AI model is not going to ruin the environment, if a thousand companies develop slightly different AI bots for different purposes, each used by millions of customers, the energy use could become an issue. More research is needed to make generative AI more efficient. The good news is that AI can run on renewable energy. By bringing the computation to where green energy is more abundant, or scheduling computation for times of day when renewable energy is more available, emissions can be reduced by a factor of 30 to 40, compared to using a grid dominated by fossil fuels.

Finally, societal pressure may be helpful to encourage companies and research labs to publish the carbon footprints of their AI models, as some already do. In the future, perhaps consumers could even use this information to choose a greener chatbot.

Want to know more about AI, chatbots, and the future of machine learning? Check out our full coverage of artificial intelligence, or browse our guides to The Best Free AI Art Generators and Everything We Know About OpenAIs ChatGPT.

Kate Saenko, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Boston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Jan. 6 rioters are raking in thousands in donations. Now the US is coming after their haul

FILE - Insurrections loyal to President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. A growing number of Capitol rioters are facing hefty fines on top of prison sentences at their sentencing hearings. That's because prosecutors appear to be ramping up efforts to prevent them from profiting from their participation in the riot on Jan. 6, 2021. An Associated Press review of court records shows prosecutors in riot cases are increasingly asking judges to impose sentences that include fines to offset donations from supporters of the rioters. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

Less than two months after he pleaded guilty to storming the U.S. Capitol, Texas resident Daniel Goodwyn appeared on Tucker Carlson's then-Fox News show and promoted a website where supporters could donate money to Goodwyn and other rioters whom the site called political prisoners.

The Justice Department now wants Goodwyn to give up more than $25,000 he raised  a clawback that is part of a growing effort by the government to prevent rioters from being able to personally profit from participating in the attack that shook the foundations of American democracy.

An Associated Press review of court records shows that prosecutors in the more than 1,000 criminal cases from Jan. 6, 2021, are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison sentences to offset donations from supporters of the Capitol rioters.

Dozens of defendants have set up online fundraising appeals for help with legal fees, and prosecutors acknowledge there's nothing wrong with asking for help for attorney expenses. But the Justice Department has, in some cases, questioned where the money is really going because many of those charged have had government-funded legal representation.

Most of the fundraising efforts appear on GiveSendGo, which bills itself as The #1 Free Christian Fundraising Site and has become a haven for Jan. 6 defendants barred from using mainstream crowdfunding sites, including GoFundMe, to raise money. The rioters often proclaim their innocence and portray themselves as victims of government oppression, even as they cut deals to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors.

Their fundraising success suggests that many people in the United States still view Jan. 6 rioters as patriots and cling to the baseless belief that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump. The former president himself has fueled that idea, pledging to pardon rioters if he is elected.

Markus Maly, a Virginia man scheduled to be sentenced next month for assaulting police at the Capitol, raised more than $16,000 from an online campaign that described him as a January 6 P.O.W. and asked for money for his family. Prosecutors have requested a $16,000-plus fine, noting that Maly had a public defender and did not owe any legal fees.

He should not be able to use his own notoriety gained in the commission of his crimes to capitalize on his participation in the Capitol breach in this way, a prosecutor wrote in court papers.

So far this year, prosecutors have sought more than $390,000 in fines against at least 21 riot defendants, in amounts ranging from $450 to more than $71,000, according to the AP's tally.

Judges have imposed at least $124,127 in fines against 33 riot defendants this year. In the previous two years, judges ordered more than 100 riot defendants to collectively pay more than $240,000 in fines.

Separately, judges have ordered hundreds of convicted rioters to pay more than $524,000 in restitution to the government to cover more than $2.8 million in damage to the Capitol and other Jan. 6-related expenses.

More rioters facing the most serious charges and longest prison terms are now being sentenced. They tend to also be the prolific fundraisers, which could help explain the recent surge in fines requests.

Earlier this month, the judge who sentenced Nathaniel DeGrave to more than three years in prison also ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine. Prosecutors noted that the Nevada resident incredibly raised over $120,000 in GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns that referred to him as Beijing Bidens political prisoner in Americas Gitmo  a reference to the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

He did this despite seeking to cooperate with the government and admitting he and his co-conspirators were guilty since at least November 2021, a prosecutor wrote.

Lawyer William Shipley, who has represented DeGrave and more than two dozen other Jan. 6 defendants, said he advises clients to avoid raising money under the auspices of being a political prisoner if they intend to plead guilty.

Until they admit they committed a crime, theyre perfectly entitled to shout from the rooftops that the only reason theyre being held is because of politics, Shipley said. It's just First Amendment political speech.

Shipley said he provided the judge with documentation showing that DeGrave raised approximately $25,000 more than what he paid his lawyers.

Ive never had to do it until these cases because Ive never had clients that had third-party fundraising like this, Shipley said. Theres a segment of the population that is sympathetic toward the plight of these defendants.

GiveSendGo co-founder Heather Wilson said her site's decision to allow legal defense funds for Capitol riot defendants "is rooted in our societys commitment to the presumption of innocence and the freedom for all individuals to hire private attorneys."

The government's push for more fines comes as it reaches a milestone in the largest federal investigation in American history: Just over 500 defendants have been sentenced for Jan. 6 crimes.

Judges aren't rubber-stamping prosecutors' fine requests.

Prosecutors sought a more than $70,000 fine for Peter Schwartz, a Kentucky man who attacked police officers outside the Capitol with pepper spray and a chair. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Schwartz this month to more than 14 years in prison  one of the longest so far in a Capitol riot case  but didn't impose a fine.

Prosecutors suspect Schwartz tried to profit from his fundraising campaign, Patriot Pete Political Prisoner in DC. But his lawyer, Dennis Boyle, said there is no evidence of that.

The judge basically said that if the money was being used for attorneys' fees or other costs like that, there was no basis for a fine, Boyle said.

A jury convicted romance novel cover model John Strand of storming the Capitol with Dr. Simone Gold, a California physician who is a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement. Now prosecutors are seeking a $50,000 fine on top of a prison term for Strand when a judge sentences him on Thursday.

Strand has raised more than $17,300 for his legal defense without disclosing that he has a taxpayer-funded lawyer, according to prosecutors. They say Strand appears to have substantial financial means, living in a home that was purchased for more than $3 million last year.

Strand has raised, and continues to raise, money on his website based upon his false statements and misrepresentations on the events of January 6, prosecutors wrote.

Goodwyn, who appeared on Carlson's show in March, is scheduled to be sentenced next month. Defense lawyer Carolyn Stewart described prosecutors as demanding blood from a stone" in asking for the $25,000 fine.

He received that amount in charity to help him in his debt for legal fees for former attorneys and this for unknown reasons is bothersome to the government," Stewart wrote.

___

Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

___

This story has been corrected to reflect that the sentence for Peter Schwartz was one of the longest so far in a Capitol riot case, not the longest.
Governor Ron DeSantis has officially announced the opening of registration for the highly anticipated 2023 Florida Python Challenge.

This year, participants will have the opportunity to compete for over $30,000 in prizes while helping to eradicate the invasive Burmese pythons from Floridas wilderness.

Starting today, individuals interested in joining the competition can complete the necessary online training to qualify for the 10-day challenge, which will take place from August 4th to August 13th, 2023. The event is open to both experienced professionals and novice participants.

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<

Since day one, we have prioritized Everglades restoration by investing record funding for conservation projects and increasing resources for the removal of invasive Burmese pythons that harm this treasured ecosystem, said Governor Ron DeSantis. Because of this focused commitment, my tenure in office has accounted for more than half of the 18,000 pythons removed from the Everglades since 2000. The Python Challenge allows folks to participate firsthand in Everglades restoration efforts, and I look forward to seeing this years results.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Chairman, Rodney Barreto, also expressed his enthusiasm for the event, stating, Since the first Florida Python Challenge in 2013, we have reached a countless number of people across the globe, alerting them to the negative impacts caused by Burmese pythons and other invasive species in Florida. Thanks to Governor Ron DeSantis and our partners with the South Florida Water Management District, we are once again hosting this event for the public to get involved in protecting our native wildlife while competing to win thousands of dollars for their efforts in removing Burmese pythons from our iconic Florida Everglades ecosystem, a place like nowhere else on Earth.

South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) Governing Board Member Alligator Ron Bergeron emphasized the importance of protecting and restoring the Everglades, saying, There is nowhere in the world like Americas Everglades, and we need to continue to protect and restore this national treasure. Removing invasive pythons from across the Greater Everglades Ecosystem is absolutely critical, and we must do everything we can to combat this invasive species. I very much look forward to seeing the results of the 2023 Florida Python Challenge.

Last years Florida Python Challenge proved successful, with participants removing a total of 231 invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades. This marked an increase from the previous year and more than double the number removed in 2020. The competition drew nearly 1,000 participants from 32 states, Canada, and Latvia.

In addition to the 10-day challenge, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission offers year-round python removal opportunities on 25 Commission-managed lands. Additionally, individuals can humanely kill pythons on private lands with the permission of the landowner, without the need for a permit or hunting license.

Burmese pythons, not native to Florida, pose a significant threat to the states native wildlife. Found primarily in and around the Everglades ecosystem, these invasive species prey on birds, mammals, and other reptiles.

Female Burmese pythons can lay between 50 and 100 eggs at a time. Since 2000, over 18,000 Burmese pythons have been reported and removed from the environment by the FWC.

For more information on Burmese pythons and the ongoing conservation efforts, interested individuals can visit MyFWC.com/Python.

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Photo Illustration by Erin OFlynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images, Public Domain, Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons

Im named for my two grandmothers, Mary and Kay, and my mother trained me not to answer to Mary, lest I leave her mother out. Growing up, I was lucky to know all four of my grandparents, and my latest novel, American Ending, is inspired by their story: immigrants who face exploitation, discrimination, a pandemic, and the heartbreak of who gets to be an American citizen100 years ago.

I could not find my people on the bookshelf, Old Believer Russian Orthodox who consider theirs the one true churchCatholics broke off from them. Like most fundamentalist sects, they are rich in rules, starting with food: no milk, meat, or eggs for six weeks before Easter or Christmas, on Wednesdays, Fridays, and saints days. During services, which are conducted in Church Slavonic, women and men stand on opposites sides of the church, and the women wear long skirts and cover their hair (which it is a sin to cut; wearing makeup is also a sin). So is smoking, because your body is a temple, but not drinking, because Christs first miracle was turning water into wine. They are, after all, Russian.

The two sides of my family arrived here from Suwalki, Russia (now Poland) to mine coal in the Appalachian town of Marianna, Pennsylvania. The men suffered from black lung (as did my maternal grandfather), lost a limb in explosions, or died in cave-ins. The women married at 14 (my paternal grandmother) and gave birth to a house full of children, who in turn became miners or child brides. Their story deserves to be told. Not having it on record furthers the insult that Americas industrial success was fueled by exploiting them, akin to overlooking that both the White House and the U.S. Capitol were built by enslaved people. Both sets of grandparents got themselves out of the mines to Erie, where there was another Old Believer Churchthere are only five or six in America.

Toni Morrison famously said, If theres a book that you want to read, but it hasnt been written yet, then you must write it. Emigre fiction by Russian and Polish Jewish authors abounds; by my people, not so much. Old Believers kept to themselves. They didnt exactly welcome visitors, members had to marry within the church, and Church Slavonic is not spoken outside of services (my great-grandfather copied the prayer books by hand). Old Believers stopped the clock in 1666, refusing to adopt the Gregorian calendar or any liturgical reforms. Martyrs and priests died defending the one true church rather than change a single word in the Nicene Creed or cross themselves differently, so you can imagine how questioning or spinning tales about them in a novel might go over.

The Real Presidential Immigration Villain Is Bill Clinton

Nonetheless, I was the child curious enough to ask questions. Though my fathers job took us to Oklahoma, my mother read us Russian fairy tales and taught us about the church. Summers, we drove cross country to Erie for large family reunions and church services. My mothers mother loved the hymns and Russian folksongs. She romanticized their culture, but my Aunt Pearl would have none of it. Russia, shed wave her hand in front of my grandmother, as if to break the spell. The men drank too much, and they beat their wives.

They both talked about life in the mines, and imagining what they went throughespecially the womengot me started on a book. What made the writing urgent was understanding something my fathers family had been trying to tell me for years. My father and his many siblings, who called his parents Ma and Pa, repeated this refrain: Ma lost her citizenship when she married Pa. The aunts and uncles said it like a nursery rhyme, and it had as little sense as one to me. Mary Zuravleff was born in Americain Erie, Pennsylvaniaand never moved out of the state. When I searched for her written records, I found her 1908 marriage license, which records her age as 18 (she was 14), as does the 1910 census (she was 16 by then and already a mother). By the 1920 census, her age is recorded as 26, finally her real age, and she has six children, the fifth and sixth being identical twins.

Remember the hoopla preceding the 2020 census surrounding citizenshipWould asking about citizenship keep people from filling it out? Would the answers be used against them? The 1920 census has a citizenship section. The first box asks for the year of immigration, if applicable. That square is blank for my grandmother, as it should be. The next asks the question Naturalized or Alien? which should be blank as well. But there is a mark in that square or what looks to be something scribbled out, until you magnify the tiny form. Because on closer examination, I could see that inside the square are the letters Al. For alien.

Ma lost her citizenship when she married Pa. Alien is a powerful worda painful wordand that label introduced me to a little-known episode in American immigration law. Starting in 1907, American women who married foreign-born men lost their citizenship! The law didnt affect American men who married foreign-born women, and when a new law was finally made, the women didnt get their citizenship restored. If their husbands became naturalized, the Cable Act of 1922 stated, these American-born women whod been stripped of their birthright could apply to be U.S. citizens. To see my grandmother declared an alien infuriated me, and the fact that no one I talked to had heard of this law made the novel a necessity.

I spun a tale combining both sets of grandparents into one familytelling the story through Yelena, the first American born in her family. These Old Believers leave two daughters behind to come here, which was the case on my mothers side (they left three behind). In their Appalachian town, boys quit grade school for the mines and girls are married off as teenagers, giving birth to more babies than they can feed. When Yelena and her younger siblings ask Ma for a bedtime story, she asks them, Russian ending or American ending? That refrain haunts Yelenas life, and American Ending became the books title.

I wrapped up the first draft during the last presidential administration, as the days headlines reported on parents and legislators who wanted to keep Americas unflattering history from our children. I was writing about Americas restrictive immigration laws and a deadly pandemic showing up in World War I veterans, as the America outside my studio was separating immigrant children from their parents and debating whether to include citizenship on the next census. One day, instead of typing 1919, I typed 2019, and I leapt back from my keyboard, as if it had delivered an electrical jolt. In fact, I was shocked to think that everything that was happening in America had already happened.

Right around this time, a local community group invited me to read from my work in progress, and I saw what a different experience sharing this book was going to be. My earlier novels revel in absurdity and invention. At readings, people tend to ask how on earth I made up my characters, or they talk about my humor and playfulness with language. At this event, after I shared my familys background and read a short selection, people urgently rushed to the podium. They were compelled to tell me stories of their familys American ending. The book was both beside the point and precisely the point as people told tales of horrific discrimination and unfairness alongside examples of random generosity or luck that turned a relatives life around. Again and again, people wanted to share their terrible losses as well as their relatives heroic efforts to make a life.

Do novelists choose their subject matter or does their subject matter choose them? Writers constantly debate this, and I thought I had been weaving fairy tales and church dogma with the grit and humor of a family Id mostly had to imagine, incorporating stories here and there that Id heard throughout my life.

Honestly, it wasnt until I described my novel to a potential agent that I realized how long this book had been brewing. When my mother named me for my two grandmothersMary, who lost her citizenship for marrying my Russian-born grandfather, and Kay, who forced the mining company to pay in cash rather than scrip and then got her husband away from the mines before black lung killed himcould she have imagined that Id write a novel honoring their stories?

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New Greek parliament convenes, only to be dissolved as early as Monday

Greece's former Prime Minister and leader of New Democracy party Kyriakos Mitsotakis, third right front row, attends a swearing in ceremony at the parliament in Athens, Greece, Sunday, May 28, 2023. Newly elected Greek lawmakers were sworn in Sunday, but the Parliament elected on May 21 could be dissolved as early as Monday and a new election campaign start for another election, on June 25. (AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis)

ATHENS (AP)  Newly elected Greek lawmakers were sworn in Sunday but the Parliament in which they sit may be dissolved as early as Monday, ahead of fresh elections on June 25.

No party achieved an overall majority in the election on May 21, which was held under simple proportional representation.

The ruling New Democracy, with 40.79% of the vote, won 146 seats, five short of an overall majority in the 300-member chamber. The main opposition Syriza, with 20.07% - almost 11.5 points lower than in the previous election  won 71. The socialist PASOK was third.

There was no attempt to form a coalition and the leaders of the three main parties returned their mandates to form a government almost as soon as they got them.

A constitutionally mandated meeting on Wednesday with President Katerina Sakellaropoulou and all five leaders of the parties represented in parliament merely confirmed that a second election would take place. A caretaker government headed by a senior judge was sworn in Thursday.

The next election will be contested under a different system.

The lawmakers will elect the speaker and deputy speakers Monday morning. Parliament will be dissolved either Monday or Tuesday, signaling the start of the electoral campaign.

The new election will be fought under a different system awarding a bonus of 25-50 seats to the winning party, depending on its performance.

Although New Democracy is the clear favorite, an overall majority is by no means automatic: the more parties there are in parliament, the higher the share of the vote needed for an outright majority will be.

On May 21, two more parties barely missed the 3% threshold for gaining parliamentary representation. If they get in on June 25, this could raise the score required for the election winner to achieve an overall majority to about 39%.

New Democracy officials appealed to voters not to take the result for granted and abstain, while opposition leaders called on the people to clip New Democracys wings and avoid the prospect of an all-powerful conservative government.
This years legislative session began with a record $33 billion surplus, providing what Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar called a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address vital needs in our state.

We had such high hopes, so much promise for a historic session.

And now? The 88th legislative session is ending amid Republican infighting and a seismic scandal: the effort to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton for corruption and abuses of power that, frankly, have been on public display for years.

A reckoning for Paxton has been long overdue. Texans deserve an attorney general who isnt under indictment, who isnt under federal investigation, who isnt sullied by too many controversies to count.

But that is a low bar. Texans deserve a lot more than that. And they should have gotten more out of this session.

Yes, the state budget includes $12.3 billion in new money for property tax cuts, although its too soon to say what that will mean for the typical Texan. Notably, the spending plan includes billions of dollars for behavioral health care facilities, funds to support broadband and water infrastructure, and raises for state employees.

But the budget brings no raises at this time for teachers  even as they keep leaving the profession in alarming numbers  because public education funds are mired in a high-stakes showdown over private school vouchers.

Nor does the budget include any bump in the pensions for state government retirees, even though they havent had a cost-of-living adjustment in more than two decades. The inaction is beyond disappointing.

Many state retirees actually feel fear and anxiety with a stagnant pension strained by high inflation, Tyler Sheldon, legislative director for the Texas State Employees Union, told me.

And while lawmakers finally expanded Medicaid coverage for new moms from a paltry two months to a full year after giving birth  improving support in a state where pregnancy complications and deaths after childbirth are on the rise  the Legislature still refused the broader expansion of Medicaid embraced by 40 other states.

Any talk of providing access to essential health care for 1.7 million Texans, helping them live healthier and more productive lives, remains a nonstarter at the Capitol.

A more intrusive state government

One could argue that Texas Republicans are the party of limited government, and this budget reflects that.

In many policy fights outside of the budget, however, GOP lawmakers were pushing for a state government that is more muscular, more intrusive.

A state government that polices the border, which is a federal responsibility.

A state government that blocks cities from regulating issues related to labor, the environment or finance.

A state government that tells school librarians what can be on the shelves and tells teachers what can be in their lessons.

A state government that makes the deeply personal medical decisions that should belong to parents, from handling agonizing pregnancy complications to pausing puberty for teens grappling with their identity.

State troopers disperse a crowd of people who were protesting in the Capitol earlier this month against a bill to ban gender-affirming care for transgender children.

A state government that sees drag queens, tenured professors and diversity programs as threats  because alternative viewpoints are dangerous!  yet access to military-grade weaponry remains unfettered and shattered bodies from mass shootings pile up.

Lawmakers even tried this session to inject religion into public schools, although (mercifully) the House did not vote on Senate proposals to place the Ten Commandments in every classroom and provide Scripture study time at every school.

From left, University of Texas professors Roger Reeves and Monica Jimenez and Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, protest May 3 against proposals to ban diversity programs and faculty tenure at Texas public universities.

Still, under a bill headed to the governors desk, public schools will be able to bring in religious chaplains (no training or certification required) to counsel students (no parental consent required). So much for all the GOP angst about indoctrination in schools.

Dealing with the scandal at hand

Now we wrap up this session with the spectacle of the first Texas impeachment of an elected official in nearly half a century, targeting an attorney general stalked by scandal yet surprisingly impervious to it.

The 20 articles of impeachment described Paxton using the powers of his office to protect a powerful donor, shield himself from accountability and attack the whistleblowers who reported the alleged misconduct to the feds.

The 88th legislative session is ending amid Republican infighting over impeaching Attorney General Ken Paxton, shown at a news conference Friday.

For years, Paxtons legal problems were his own. This past week, they became the Legislatures headache, and in the words of the House Committee on General Investigating, a long-standing pattern of abuse of office and public trust that lawmakers could no longer ignore.

The waning days of the 88th Legislature have been tangled up in Paxtons plight. Beyond this controversial end to the session, though, so much of the work that Texans needed  on health care, on public safety, on issues touching everyday lives  will remain unfinished.

Grumet is the Statesmans Metro columnist. Her column, ATX in Context, contains her opinions. Share yours via email at bgrumet@statesman.com or via Twitter at @bgrumet. Find her previous work at statesman.com/news/columns.

Coming Wednesday: Some Texans find silver linings in this year's legislative session

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Legislature leaves work on state's pressing issues unfinished
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola

Pep Guardiola has revealed Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish and Ruben Dias face a fight to be fit for treble-chasing Manchester City's FA Cup final clash with Manchester United on Saturday.

Belgium midfielder De Bruyne, England winger Grealish and Portugal defender Ruben Dias missed City's 1-0 defeat at Brentford through injury on Sunday.

The Premier League champions, who face Inter Milan in the Champions League final in June 10, are looking to match Manchester United's feat of winning all three major trophies in one season.

But City's hopes of defeating their bitter rivals at Wembley next weekend would be hit if De Bruyne, Grealish and Dias are unable to recover from their injuries in time.

Asked if the players who missed out against Brentford would be fit to face United, City boss Guardiola said: "I don't know right now. Hopefully.

"Ruben, Jack and Kevin couldn't play. It is what it is. I think they will be ready but it's hard to get ready in training. That's why I had to see the players who played today."

Pinnock's 85th-minute strike made Brentford the only team to do the double over City this season, and only the fifth since Guardiola took over in 2016.

"I'm pretty sure we would have behaved a little bit different if we needed the points," Guardiola said.

"I don't have any complaints of how we behaved, I said to the players just now 'you won the title, enjoy two days with your families and then we will prepare for the first final'.

"The guys who didn't play who normally play were exhausted yesterday, mentally completely drained. They needed to rest to arrive with the right energy to face United."

smg/ea
A looted petrol station in southern Khartoum

Gunfire rang out Sunday in the Sudanese capital, adding to truce violations which United States and Saudi mediators said hindered the delivery of desperately needed aid.

Witnesses in Khartoum told AFP they could hear "shooting in the south of the city", on the sixth day of the one-week ceasefire which expires Monday night.

The truce aimed to allow humanitarian aid for civilians, delivered through secure corridors, but there were "violations by both parties that significantly impeded" those goals, according to the mediators.

"Both parties have told facilitators their goal is de-escalation to facilitate humanitarian assistance and essential repairs, yet both parties are posturing for further escalation," they said in a joint statement.

Numerous ceasefires were previously announced and immediately violated, but the United States and Saudi Arabia said this one is different because it is a signed deal supervised by a monitoring committee.

In six weeks of urban warfare, more than 1,800 people have been killed, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

Fighting pits the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) -- led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan -- against his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the heavily armed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries.

- Air strikes, looting -

Nearly 1.4 million people have been displaced both within Sudan and to neighbouring countries, according to the United Nations.

The joint statement said both forces had disrupted humanitarian efforts, including through the presence of snipers near hospitals in RSF-controlled territory, and army "elements" stealing medical supplies.

In other violations, the mediators reported a confirmed air strike on Saturday that reportedly killed two people in Khartoum, and a separate air raid "that damaged Sudan's currency printing press".

It said the RSF has occupied "civilian homes, private businesses, and public buildings", some of which were looted.

A record 25 million people, more than half the population, are now in need of humanitarian assistance to survive, according to the UN.

Help has only been trickling in. Aid agencies, themselves repeatedly attacked and looted, "have faced insecurity and transportation challenges", according to the UN.

The mediators called on the warring parties to continue talks on extending the ceasefire to help in "improved delivery of assistance the Sudanese people badly need".

"Realising it was imperfectly observed, we have urged both parties to agree to an extension of the current ceasefire," they said.

The RSF affirmed their "readiness to engage in further negotiations... to explore the feasibility of extending the ceasefire and humanitarian arrangements", depending on the army's "sincerity and commitment".

For its part, the army said it was "examining the possibility of agreeing to extend the current ceasefire".

Facing severe shortages of supplies and staff, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned they might have to suspend "life-saving activities" if humanitarian corridors do not materialise.

- Call to arms -

Earlier Sunday, Mini Minawi -- the pro-army governor of Darfur where some of the worst fighting has taken place -- appealed for citizens to arm themselves.

"I call on all our honourable citizens, the people of Darfur, old and young, men and women, to take up arms to protect their property," he tweeted.

Darfur is already scarred by a war that began in 2003, leaving hundreds of thousands dead, more than two million displaced and the region flooded with weapons.

The war there saw Sudan's then-president Omar al-Bashir unleash the notorious Janjaweed militia against rebels.

The RSF traces its origins to the Janjaweed.

Since April 15, hundreds of civilians have been killed in Darfur, markets burned and health and aid facilities looted, as tens of thousands fled across the border into Chad.

The UN had warned for weeks that civilians were being armed in Darfur.

The Umma party, one of Sudan's main civilian groups, cautioned Sunday "against calls to arm citizens under the pretext of protecting themselves", which it said were "attempts to drag the country into civil war by the mouthpieces of warfare".

Sudanese democracy activist and author Raga Makawi said there is "a real risk" that people in non-violent movements could now consider "the right to bear arms in order to protect themselves".

On Friday Burhan requested the dismissal of the UN's special envoy Volker Perthes, whom he accused of bias and stoking the conflict.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was "shocked by the letter" and reaffirmed "his full confidence" in Perthes, who also received support from Washington.

Alongside US and Saudi efforts, the African Union -- which suspended Sudan following a 2021 coup led by Burhan and Daglo -- and East African regional bloc IGAD have pushed for discussions mediated by South Sudan's President Salva Kiir.

On Sunday, the AU said it adopted a "roadmap for the resolution of the conflict in Sudan" to end fighting and resume the process "towards a democratic, civilian-led government".

bur/it/srm
FILE PHOTO: Virunga park rangers guard tourists visiting the Nyiragongo volcano inside the Virunga National Park near the eastern Congolese city of Goma

BENI, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Gunmen killed two rangers in Congo's Virunga National Park on Sunday, the Congo Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) said in a statement, the second attack this month in the country's restive east.

The attack took place near Rwindi in North Kivu province, north of another attack on May 18 in which three rangers and a worker were killed.

Fighters from the Mai Mai militia were likely to blame, the ICCN said, based on its sources. Reuters was unable to confirm this and the Mai Mai could not be reached for comment.

The Mai Mai comprise several armed bands that formed to resist two invasions by Rwandan forces in the late 1990s. They have since morphed into a variety of ethnic-based militia, smuggling networks and protection rackets.

Virunga is a vast expanse of deep forests, glaciers and volcanos, with more species of birds, reptiles, and mammals than any other protected area in the world.

It has been caught in the middle of militia activity that has destabilised surrounding regions since civil wars fought around the turn of the century.

The ICCN warned of a resurgence of violence in February after suspected Mai Mai militants killed a ranger in a third attack.

(Reporting by Erikas Mwisi, writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Hakeem Jeffries says he has 'no idea' what Kevin McCarthy's talking about

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told him there is not one thing in the bill for Democrats.

But Jeffries denied making any such comments to his GOP colleague.

I have no idea what [McCarthy is] talking about particularly, because I have not been able to review the actual legislative texts. All that we've reached is an agreement in principle, Jeffries said during an interview on CBS Face the Nation.

Jeffries said he last talked to McCarthy on Saturday afternoon. White House and GOP negotiators announced the agreement Saturday night.

What I have consistently said, however, privately and publicly, was that the extreme MAGA Republican negotiating position and that the extreme bill that they passed on April 26th, the Default on America Act, contained nothing that was consistent with Democratic values or American values, Jeffries added.

The compromise reached last night will not be a final agreement Jeffries said, until Congress has been able to review the legislation, the text of which is expected to be released Sunday afternoon.

McCarthy's team later said that McCarthy did not mean to say that he had heard that directly from Jeffries, but from other Democrats.
Key visual for HBO's House of the Dragon.

After Game of Thrones wrapped in 2019, it wasnt really a question about if HBO was considering the fantasy series for spinoff potential. Out of the many candidates there were at the time, the first salvo of this enterprise was last years House of the Dragon, but it wont be the last. Ahead and after that shows premiere, HBO said spinoffs were in the works focused on Kit Harringtons Jon Snow and The Hedge Knight, which is based on the Dunk & Egg prequel novellas.



In a recent interview with Deadline, HBOs head of drama Francesca Orsi talked about those two spinoffs, along with House of the Dragon and the Writers Strike at large. While she acknowledged the current lack of collaboration as Hollywood writers picket for better wages, she expressed hope that things will reach a conclusion soon. Various HBO shows have stopped production, and she was candid in saying the strike may affect shows for the 2024-2025 seasonlike say, The Last of Us second season. At this point, those shows that Im looking to air wouldnt necessarily be ready if this strike last six to nine months. [...] But I think well cross that road once we come to it.

Read more

Eventually, Orsi admitted the network will have to assess what is the end of the 24 schedule, what are the shows that are going to be delivered for 2025. But the focus is just on the 2023-2024 slate, which includes House of the Dragons second season, the only known HBO show working through the strike. Even with the showrunner Ryan Condal only doing duties as a non-writing producer, she said the network is really confident about the sophomore season. If there is anything that needs to be rewritten or reshot, well handle that after the strike, she said. Well put the resources behind revising what we need to do and reshooting what we need to do if weve made any mistakes along the way.

Orsi added that Houses overall future is still being actively discussed. Condal and author George R.R. Martin have, according to her, have been talking about the shows overall lifespan. The original series lasted for eight, and previous reports have indicated the two men are aiming for half that. She confirmed those talks will continue after the strike, but in her eyes, House wont go on for any less than four. But could be more. Well see.

And as for those aforementioned spinoffs, the only one with a firm (potentially three-season) future is Hedge Knight, which stopped production during the strike. Others, Orsi called so nascent...until we realize them as real contenders for production greenlight. This thought even extends to that Jon Snow series: its still in the earliest of stages, and before the strike, HBO was working with writers to shape it up for greenlight. But at this point, no, no determination on whether it can go all the way.

House of the Dragon season 2 is intended to premiere on Max sometime in 2024. You can read Orsis full interview with Deadline here, which also touches on the future of Succession, The Last of Us, and other parts of HBOs business.





Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, whats next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.



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Health for a Better Lubbock Community Health Fair

The Annual Health for a Better Lubbock Community Health Fair will return next month, aiming to improve the area's health and safety.

From 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, June 3, the fair will be open at YWCA Lubbock, 6501 University Ave. Covenant Health will have multiple booths to help attendees with health needs and questions.

Covenant is thrilled to kick off the summer once again with this fun and educational community event, said Tavia Hatfield, senior director of Covenant Health Community Health Investment. We have fantastic community partners joining us to connect families and individuals to resources.

Booths will include:

Childrens Safety.

Dental Education Booth.

Nutrition & Fitness.

Mental Health Awareness.

Water Safety Education.

Car Seat Checks.

Wellness Checks: BMI, BP, & A1C.

Medicaid Redetermination Enrollment Specialists.

Joe Arrington Cancer Center Cancer Screening Booth.

There will be food trucks, a photo booth, bounce houses, and other activities. as well as many other community partners will also be in attendance. Covenant's Kite Flight, their pediatric and high-risk obstetric transport helicopter, will also be on-site.

The South Plains Food Bank will start their summer feeding program, which helps address food insecurity during the summer months. Their mobile food pantry will hand out fresh produce at the fair. The Lubbock Police Department, Lubbock Fire Rescue, and other community partners will attend.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Health Fair coming next Saturday to YWCA Lubbock
Heidi Klum shared a cheeky snap to Instagram Friday as she soaked up the sun on the French Riviera.

The 49-year-old supermodel posed topless in a pair of black thong bikini bottoms while relaxing on a balcony overlooking the ocean. Klum was pictured with her back to the camera as she held a white rose to her cheek and gazed over her shoulder.

"Cap dAntibes," the "America's Got Talent" judge wrote in the caption of her post, adding emoji of the French flag, a sun, a red heart, a rose and a smiley face surrounded by hearts.

Heidi Klum posing for Instagram photos

On Thursday night, Klum turned heads when she stepped out with her husband Tom Kaulitz to attend the star-studded amfAR Gala during the 76th Cannes Film Festival.

HEIDI KLUM SHOWS OFF PEEKABOO THONG AHEAD OF 50TH BIRTHDAY

The German native wore a light green feather-trimmed Georges Hobeika mini dress that featured a low-cut neckline and a flowing train. Klum completed the eye-catching look with a pair of sparkly silver sandals.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Held at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc and hosted by Queen Latifah, the amfAR gala was attended by a slew of other celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Orlando Bloom, Kate Beckinsale, Alex Pettyfer, James Marsden, Troye Sivan, Winnie Harlow, Teyana Taylor and Eva Longoria.

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Klum also posted photos and videos of her show-stopping look on Instagram. In a video she uploaded, she and Kaulitz were seen beaming as they posed for photos on a lawn.

The couple have been attending events all week during the annual film festival, which runs until Sunday.

On Tuesday, Klum made headlines when she experienced a wardrobe malfunction on the red carpet at the premiere of "La Passion De Dodin Bouffant."

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Klum stunned in a Zuhair Murad high-slit gown with diamond-shaped cut-out designs, showing off major skin and topping off her look with bejeweled beads embellished on the shoulders of her flowing cape.

As she raised her arm to show off the flowing gown for the throngs of photographers, she had a wardrobe malfunction when one of her nipples became exposed.

The former Victoria's Secret model appeared unbothered as she continued to show off her fit physique in the golden bodice dress and pose for photos.

On Saturday night, French filmmaker Justine Triets murder mystery "Anatomy of a Fall" won the Palme d'Or. Triet became the third female director in history to take home the festival's top prize.
House fire closes part of Sharon Amity Road in east Charlotte

Firefighters with the Charlotte Fire Department responded to a house fire on North Sharon Amity Road in east Charlotte on Sunday afternoon.

A Channel 9 crew at the scene saw a portion of the road closed while firefighters worked to put out the fire.

ALSO READ: Cuzzos Cuisine forced to close after early morning fire

CFD has not released the cause of the fire or if anyone was hurt.

This is a developing story; check back at wsoctv.com for updates.

(WATCH BELOW: Road blocked after crash downs pole, lines in NoDa)
Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson vowed Sunday not to issue blanket pardons for rioters convicted in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, if he is elected.

First of all, there would be no blanket pardons. Secondly, it was a very serious offense, challenging the fundamentals of our democracy and attempt to overturn the election, and so I view it as seriously, and any pardon application be viewed just like any other pardon application that I viewed as governor. And I would do that as president, but no blanket pardons, the former Arkansas governor said in an interview on MSNBCs The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart.

The two front-runners in the 2024 GOP presidential primary  former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R)  have each said they would consider presidential pardons for Jan. 6 rioters.

While Hutchinson, who has long supported conservative policies, has emerged as a key Republican voice refuting Trumps false claims of election fraud in the months after the 2020 election. The former governor, who left office in January after serving eight years, has called on Trump to drop out of the 2024 race.

Trump reaffirmed his position in favor of issuing pardons to some rioters who have been convicted of federal offenses, saying in a recent CNN town hall, I am inclined to pardon many of them.

DeSantis recently indicated he would consider issuing pardons, saying on a recent podcast when asked about pardons for January 6 rioters, On day one, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases, who people are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive in issuing pardons.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
An Antioch, Illinois, man was arrested on Saturday after allegedly driving to Wisconsin to pick up a teenager he met through social media, driving her to his house and sexually abusing her.

The Lake County Sheriffs Office said 25-year-old George Soriano faces charges of two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and one count of traveling to meet a minor.

Deputies responded to a residence on North Bonham Court in unincorporated Antioch at about 3:15 a.m. on Saturday after a caller told the 911 operator she and a friend were picked up by Soriano at their home in Wisconsin.

George Soriano, 25, is accused of sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl after police say he picked her up in Wisconsin and drove her to his home in Illinois.

After picking the girls up, Soriano drove them to his home and allegedly sexually assaulted one of them, who was 13 years old.

CHICAGO SUFFERS 34 SHOT, 8 KILLED AS BLOODY MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND NEARS END

Both girls were picked up by deputies and taken to an area hospital to be evaluated.

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The sheriffs office said a further investigation discovered Soriano met the girls on social media, and on Saturday, he communicated with them through the social media app and made plans to pick them up.

A defocused police car sits behind crime scene tape with flashing lights at night. Police in Antioch, Illinois, said Soriano met the girls on social media.

According to a press release from the department, the girls said they feared Soriano because he had a gun.

MAN WHO SHOT SUBURBAN CHICAGO OFFICER HIT WITH ADDITIONAL ARMED ROBBERY CHARGE

Police also said Soriano may have met with at least one of the girls prior to Saturdays incident.

A search of Sorianos home revealed he also had a cannabis growing operation.

Soriano was taken into custody and held in the Lake County Jail, pending a court hearing on Sunday.
SOUTH BEND  A Sauk Village, Ill., man found guilty in March of the October 2022 gang-related murders at the Waterford Glen Apartments in South Bend was sentenced to 75 years in prison after a bench trial before St. Joseph Superior Court Judge John Marnocha.

On Wednesday, Marnocha sentenced Tyrik Rayford, 24, to a total of 75 years for the Oct. 22, 2020, deaths of Malik Balderos, 21, and Ricky Kinds Jr., 20, both of South Bend.

During a bench trial, Marnocha found Rayford guilty of felony counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in addition to a firearm enhancement.

More: Illinois man found guilty of gang-related murders in South Bend

Rayford received 55 years for the murder conviction and 30 years for the conspiracy charge to be served concurrently. With the conviction for the firearm sentencing enhancement, Rayford was sentenced to 20 years to be served consecutively to the murder and conspiracy count, adding up to the 75 years in the Indiana Department of Corrections.

Officials believe the October 2020 shooting of Balderos and Kinds was gang-related, and court documents say the ballistic evidence shows at least eight separate weapons were fired in the murders at the Waterford Glen Apartments. In addition to Rayford, three other men faced criminal charges for the shooting, which was the culmination of a series of events that began with the murder of 16-year-old Frederick Williams on Oct. 17, 2020.

October 2020: Two killed in overnight shooting at South Bend apartment complex

Documents allege Frederick was affiliated with "the West Side" and, during a memorial vigil for Frederick on Oct. 22, 2020, a number of people gathered with weapons where investigators said a person in the group indicated someone was going to "pay for this."

In August 2022, Lance Dawson agreed to a plea deal in the case in exchange for his testimony against Darius Vaughn and Dijon Davis, who had also been charged in the shooting, with aiding, inducing or causing murder and conspiracy to commit murder, as well as a criminal gang sentencing enhancement. Davis also received a firearm sentencing enhancement. Criminal proceedings against Vaughn and Davis are pending.

Email Tribune staff writer Greg Swiercz at gswiercz@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Illinois man sentenced for 2020 double-murder at Waterford Glen apartments
About a mile away from the inauguration Indias new parliament building, several Olympic medal-winning wrestlers were detained by police as they intensified their protest demanding the arrest of the countrys federation chief over sexual harassment allegations.

A heavy police presence overpowered about 100 protesting Indian wrestlers and their supporters, as they planned to march to the new parliament building which prime minister Narendra Modi hoped would propel our great nation to new heights of progress.

As the new building of Indias Parliament is inaugurated, our hearts and minds are filled with pride, hope and promise. May this iconic building be a cradle of empowerment, igniting dreams and nurturing them into reality, he tweeted.

Meanwhile, the wrestlers were shoved, pushed and dragged onto buses as they demanded the resignation and arrest of Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh for allegedly sexually harassing young athletes.

The wrestlers, including Olympic medallists Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik, have been staging demonstrations in New Delhi for more than a month.

They had originally started protesting in January, demanding action against Mr Singh, who denies the accusations against him.

The protest in January was withdrawn after Mr Singh, also a member of parliament from prime minister Narendra Modis ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was stripped of all administrative powers by the sports ministry.

The wrestlers, however, resumed their protest on 23 April and demanded Mr Singhs arrest. They have since been camping at Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site, which is near the new parliament building that Mr Modi inaugurated on Sunday.

The athletes had planned a womens assembly, as the Delhi police ramped up security measures at the protest site, ahead of the new parliament buildings inauguration. Tensions escalated after wrestlers led by Vinesh Phogat attempted to breach security, reported NDTV.

They broke the barricades and didnt follow police directions, senior Delhi police officer Dependra Pathak told local media. They broke the law, and thats why they were detained.

Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat (centre) is detained by the police while attempting to march to Indias new parliament (AFP via Getty Images)

Bajarang Punia, however, refuted the allegations.

A series of photos and videos of the wrestlers being dragged away by the police were shared on the Twitter handle of Malik, who won the womens 58kg freestyle bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

By arresting people, how can we call us mother of democracy? Indias daughters are in pain, wrote her team.

This is how our champions are being treated. The world is watching us, she tweeted.

This is how our champions are being treated. The world is watching us! #WrestlersProtest pic.twitter.com/rjrZvgAlSO  Sakshee Malikkh (@SakshiMalik) May 28, 2023

Brij Bhushan Singh, the man who sexually harasses people gets to sit in the parliament while we are being dragged on road, she wrote in another tweet. Sad day for Indian sports.

Phogat, while being taken away by police, told reporters: Congratulations on the new country.

Protesters are treated like criminals, she said in a video statement issued prior to being detained.

The daughters of the country are protesting on road. But instead of getting justice, we are being treated like criminals, like we have committed a crime.

Indian wrestlers (from right) Bajrang Punia, Sangita Phogat and Vinesh Phogat talk to each other ahead of their protest march (AP)

After detaining the protesters, police started to remove the mats and tents laid out on the protest site, reported the Scroll.in.

The officials also stopped hundreds of farmers from marching to the capital from the neighbouring states of Haryana and Punjab, with heavy police deployment in Sonipat, Jhajjar, Jind and Gurugram districts.

Rakesh Tikait, a prominent face of the year-long farmer protests that had taken place years ago, said thousands of farmers were not allowed to enter Delhi from a nearby border. We will sit here and decide what to do next, he said.

VIDEO | "All others (farmers) have been stopped (by the police). We will sit here for now and decide what to do next," says farmer leader Rakesh Tikait after being stopped at Ghazipur border. pic.twitter.com/w5D6dwgEHk  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 28, 2023

Several social media users criticised the police crackdown on the protesters.

The coronation is over - the arrogant king is crushing the voice of the public on the streets! wrote opposition Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, who was recently disqualified from the parliament.

This is Sakshi Malik. Olympics medalist, Padma Shri and Khel Ratna awardee. This is how she was dragged on the streets of Delhi today. #WrestlersProtest

(1/n) pic.twitter.com/ArKAmtMChS  Swati Maliwal (@SwatiJaiHind) May 28, 2023

This is Sakshi Malik. Olympics medalist, Padma Shri and Khel Ratna awardee. This is how she was dragged on the streets of Delhi today, tweeted Swati Maliwal, chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women.

Such behavior with our sportspersons who bring honor to the country is very wrong and condemnable, wrote Delhis chief minister Arvind Kejriwal as he shared a video of police dragging the wrestlers away.

Meanwhile, police in the capital have issued an advisory to treat New Delhi district as a controlled area, with only public transport, civil service aspirants, bonafide residents, labeled vehicles and emergency vehicles to be allowed to move in the area.
The Indian woman who writes exams for others who can't

Pushpa (right) says exam halls are like a second home for her

In 2007, a blind man asked Pushpa to guide him across a busy road in Bengaluru, a teeming metropolis in southern India. After they reached the other side, he made another request which changed her life.

"He asked me if I could write an exam for his friend," recalls Pushpa, who goes by one name.

She said yes, but when the day came, her excitement gave way to anxiety. She had never written an exam for someone else and didn't know what to expect.

Many Indian students with physical or learning disabilities use a scribe to write exams on their behalf. They dictate answers to the scribe, who notes them down. As per government guidelines, scribes are not allowed to write for any subject they themselves have studied at university level. They can get a defined fee for exams conducted by the government, but most of the time, the work is voluntary.

"It was three hours of tension. The candidate was dictating the answers very slowly and was asking me to read out the questions again and again," says Pushpa, who chose to help out for free.

But she did enough to help 19-year-old Hema (who uses one name) pass her school final exams.

Soon, an NGO working with blind people approached Pushpa for help and then other students. In the past 16 years, Pushpa has written over 1,000 exams, free of charge.

"Exam halls are like a second home for me," she tells the BBC.

In addition to school and university exams, Pushpa has also helped candidates appearing in entrance exams and selection tests for government jobs.

Pushpa (centre) with two visually impaired examination candidates

"Now it is routine work for me. I don't feel any stress," she says, adding that the experience has helped her learn about many subjects she had no knowledge in - from history to statistics.

She has helped blind students, those with cerebral palsy, Down's syndrome, autism, dyslexia and students incapacitated by accidents.

But it can be challenging sometimes. When working with students with cerebral palsy, which often impairs speech, Pushpa says she has to "concentrate hard and look at their [the students'] lip movements to try to understand words".

But she takes it in stride. She has helped Karthik (he goes by one name), who uses a wheelchair, write 47 exams.

It was a crises that forged their long association. During a school exam, Kartik's scribe left abruptly and Pushpa stepped in to help. The 25-year-old says he greatly appreciates her continual support since then.

"I'm lucky to get a scribe like Pushpa. Scribes are really like gods for us," he says.

Working together for years has given them a great understanding of each other - Karthik has now graduated and is preparing for government clerical recruitment exams.

"I have written multiple exams for many students and each one has a unique story," Pushpa says.

Karthik says scribes like Pushpa are like gods to him

In the third week of March, Pushpa wrote a university degree exam paper for 19-year-old Bhoomika Valmiki.

Ms Valmiki, who is blind, uses tools that convert text to audio to study, but such apps cannot be used during exams.

"I can only move forward in my life if Pushpa writes for me," Ms Valmiki says.

"Pushpa was very patient and waited till I finished my answers. She never distracted me and repeated my answers before writing them down," she adds.

Most people who seek Pushpa's help have struggled to get into university, yet she says her empathy won't undermine her integrity.

"My job is to write what they say," she says. "I have no choice when they ask me to tick a wrong answer or dictate a sentence which is grammatically incorrect. I can't intervene."

When students who speak other languages struggle to understand English words she translates the word for them. "That is the only help I give," Pushpa says.

Writing different exams has also helped to improve Pushpa's knowledge

Pushpa comes from a poor family. After her father was injured in an accident, her mother worked hard to feed her and her brother.

"At one point, me and my brother had to drop out of school because we couldn't pay fees," she recalls.

A stranger stepped in to help and Pushpa says she volunteers as a scribe to give back this goodness to society.

She has taken up several small jobs over the years to make a living, but the past few years have been particularly hard.

In 2018, her father died and in 2020, her brother passed away. A year later, Pushpa, who was then unemployed, got some more bad news.

"In May 2021, my mother passed away. A few months later, in August, I wrote 32 exams. Some days I would write two exams."

She says she found scribing therapeutic and helpful in overcoming her grief.

Pushpa's work has been nationally recognised

Her tireless work has not gone unnoticed. On 8 March 2018, she was honoured by the then Indian president, Ram Nath Kovind, for her efforts. She also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with other award winners.

Pushpa now works in a tech start-up and gives motivational talks at corporate events.

But she still writes exams for those who cannot, and since she can speak and write in five Indian languages - Tamil, Kannada, English, Telugu and Hindi - there's plenty of demand for her services.

"I give my time and energy. If I write an exam for someone, it changes their life," she says.
Inside the grisly murders of the Osage oil inheritors in Oklahoma, the real-life serial killings that inspired the film 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

Inside the grisly murders of the Osage oil inheritors in Oklahoma, the real-life serial killings that inspired the film 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

A still from the upcoming film "Killers of the Flower Moon," which is based on the real-life murders of the Osage people in the 1920s. Courtesy of Apple

"Killers of the Flower Moon" tells the story of Osage people who were murdered after oil deposits were discovered under their land.

The movie is based on a 2017 book written by journalist David Grann, which explores the killings and investigation of the murders.

In 1929, William Hale was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison, but was eventually paroled.

The film "Killers of the Flower Moon," which premiered at Cannes and will be released on October 6, was based on the real-life killings of the Osage people in Oklahoma in the early 1920s.

Tantoo Cardinal, Janae Collins, Jesse Plemons, Robert De Niro, Director Martin Scorsese, Lily Gladstone, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cara Jade Myers and Jillian Dion attend the "Killers Of The Flower Moon" photocall at the 76th annual Cannes film festival at Palais des Festivals on May 21, 2023 in Cannes, France. Dominique Charriau/WireImage

Directed by Martin Scorsese, "Killers of the Flower Moon" is based on a nonfiction book of the same name by journalist David Grann. It recounts a series of murders within the oil-wealthy Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma, as well as the FBI investigations that followed.

The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, and Jesse Plemons. It received rave reviews and a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

"The story is significant in so many ways. It tells a part of American history that has been lost to time," JaNae Collins, who stars in the film, told Insider. "The story shows how racism and a general indifference toward Native lives allowed a genocidal land grab to happen and how a conspiracy of silence then prevented it from becoming part of our collective history."

The Osage Nation is a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Great Plains. The tribe developed in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys around 700 BC.

A painting by George Catlin depicting the Osage people from the 1860s. Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The word "Osage" is a French version of the tribe's name, which can be translated as "middle waters," in a nod to the Midwestern rivers near its original homeland.

Source: Oklahoma Historical Society

In the 19th century, the Osage were forced to leave Kansas for present-day Oklahoma due to treaties with the United States government. The tribe lived under harsh financial conditions, and food, clothing, and medical supplies were in short supply.

Postcard features a photograph of a group of women and children of the Osage Nation, Pawhuska, Oklahoma Territory, circa 1918 - 1922. William J Boag/Oklahoma Historical Society/Getty Images

Source: Osage Nation Foundation; Oklahoma Historical Society

The Osage Nation's fortunes changed in 1894, when crude oil was discovered under their land. The Osage Allotment Act of 1906 ensured the Osage would retain mineral rights to the land.

President Calvin Coolidge and representatives of the Osage Nation in front of the East Colonnade at the White House, January 20, 1927. Scherer/Oklahoma Historical Society/Getty Images

The Osage leased their new land to prospectors and made a fortune, building mansions and fleets of cars.

"In 1923 alone, the tribe took in more than $30 million, the equivalent today of more than $400 million," Grann wrote. "The Osage were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world.

Source: Osage Nation Foundation; Oklahoma Historical Society; New York Times

But the newfound prosperity of the Osage attracted outsiders who sought to profit off the tribe. During the 1920s, Osage oil inheritors mysteriously died.

Postcard features a photograph of three of men of the Osage Nation as they sit on a bench in front of shop, Pawhuska, Oklahoma Territory, circa 1918-1919. Oklahoma Historical Society/Getty Images

Source: Oklahoma Historical Society; New York Times

Grann's book "Killers of the Flower Moon" follows the story of Mollie Burkhart, a member of the Osage tribe and one of four sisters who became wealthy from the oil windfall. They all married white men, but Mollie's sisters and family began to die from mysterious circumstances.

Mollie Kyle, played by Lily Gladstone, marries Ernest Burkhart, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Courtesy of Apple

One sister died due to what doctors ruled a "peculiar wasting illness," while another died in a suspicious fire. Yet another sister was found dead, shot in the head, in a ravine. Another Osage member, Charles Whitehorn, was found shot within days of the discovery of the sister's body  both were shot with small-caliber bullets.

"Two Separate Murder Cases Are Unearthed Almost at Same Time," a newspaper headline declared.

Source: Oklahoma Historical Society; New York Times

The period was dubbed the Osage Reign of Terror: In the months that followed, more than two dozen people  including white investigators looking into the crimes  were killed between 1920 and 1924.

Anna Kyle Brown, Lizzie Q, and Charles Whitehorn were among the Osage people who were murdered during the Reign of Terror. Vince Dillion/Oklahoma Historical Society/Getty Images; Bettmann/Getty Images; VCG Wilson/Bettmann Archive

Source: New York Times

The Osage Tribal Council suspected William Hale, a white power player on the reservation, of the murders. His nephew Ernest Burkhart had married Mollie Kyle, whose sisters, mother, and cousins died, leaving her and Ernest the heirs to the oil rights.

William Hale with his daughter and wife. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

But the council was unable to elicit testimony from the townspeople, many of whom Hale had bribed or threatened into silence.

Source: Oklahoma Historical Society

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was created just a few years earlier in 1908, was tasked with solving the murders. FBI agent Tom White led an undercover investigation and, after gaining the townspeople's trust, discovered how Hale had directed the murders.

A document in the "HaleRamsey Murder Case," from the Oklahoman Collection at the Oklahoma Historical Society photo archives. Oklahoma Historical Society Archives

"Eventually [Hale] became a millionaire, who dominated local politics and seemingly could not be punished for any of the many crimes which were laid at his door," White wrote in a 1932 memo to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

"His method of building up power and prestige was to put various individuals under obligation to him by means of gifts and favors shown to them," he wrote. "Consequently, he had a tremendous following in the vicinity composed not only of the riffraff element which had drifted in, but of many good and substantial citizens."

Source: News Oklahoma

In January 1926, FBI agents took Hale, Burkhart, and John Ramsey, a local farmer-cowboy Hale hired, into custody. The three men were convicted and sentenced to life in 1929, but were eventually paroled despite Osage protests.

Robert De Niro plays William Hale, who directs his nephew Ernest Burkhart, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, to murder members of his wife's family for oil rights. Courtesy of Apple

Burkhart received a full pardon from the Oklahoma governor in 1965.

To prevent another Reign of Terror, after 1925 federal law prohibited non-Osages from inheriting the rights of tribal members possessing more than one-half Osage blood.

Source: Oklahoma Historical Society

Osage Nation leaders and Native actors have spoken positively about the "Killers of the Flower Moon" film, which they said took into consideration their concerns about representation on screen.

Henry Roan, one of the Osage killed during the Reign of Terror, is an ancestor of Jim Gray, former chief of the Osage Nation. VCG Wilson/Bettmann Archive

"To his credit, Scorsese did come and meet privately with descendants like me and others to hear our concerns," Jim Gray, former chief of the Osage Nation, wrote in a tweet. Gray said he is a descendant of Henry Roan, one of the Osage killed during the Reign of Terror.

The Native actors in "Killers of the Flower Moon" echoed this sentiment.

"Changes were made in a good way for different reasons, out of respect of culture and for authenticity," Tatanka Means said.

The actors also said they felt a deep responsibility to portray their characters in a complex and true-to-life manner.

"These women, these murdered people existed, and telling their story accurately for the Osage people was the most important thing to me," Collins told Insider over email.

Collins said she was taken to the place where her character, Rita Smith, was murdered, and recreated the scene just a few blocks away.

"It is important these stories are told  they are Truth," Tantoo Cardinal, who plays Mollie's mother Lizzie Q, said. "Our stories have been maligned in misinterpretation. Their exposure can bring more understanding of what was stolen when the Treaty Agreements were not respected."

Read the original article on Insider
Institute for Study of War predicts consequences of Russian troops regrouping in Bakhmut

Analysts of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) have suggested that the mercenaries of the Wagner Private Military Group (PMC) exit from the city of Bakhmut, and the redeployment of the forces the so-called Donetsk Peoples Republic to the city could reduce Russian offensive actions on the Avdiivka-Donetsk line.

Source: ISW

Details: Analysts indicate that Wagner's mercenaries appear to be withdrawing from Bakhmut to rebuild and regroup in the rear as Russian offensive operations in and around the city have diminished.

Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian offensive operations had dramatically decreased to two skirmishes on the Bakhmut front, and Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar attributed this decrease to the Russian forces' regrouping in the area.

The report indicates that the statements of the Ukrainian side and the founder of Wagner PMC coincide with the withdrawal of mercenaries from Bakhmut.

Experts note that the Russian military command may be transferring forces of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic to push back the forces of the Wagner group in Bakhmut.

The redeployment of the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic units to Bakhmut may reduce the pace of Russian offensive operations on the Avdiivka-Donetsk frontline.

According to preliminary ISW estimates, the Russian military command transferred significant "Donetsk People's Republic" forces to the Avdiivka-Donetsk frontline.

Military analysts report that in recent days, the intensity of Russian attacks on the Avdiivka-Donetsk section has decreased, which may be due to the redeployment of "Donetsk People's Republic" forces to Bakhmut.

The institute adds that Russian offensive operations around Avdiivka have been steadily declining since 8 April after the Russian military command tried to intensify their offensive operations near this settlement in March, and the transfer of "Donetsk People's Republic" units to Bakhmut could further slow down Russian efforts on the Avdiivka-Donetsk frontline.

Experts add that the Russian military command might transfer Donetsk People's Republic units operating in the well-protected Avdiivka-Donetsk front, so as not to make other directions vulnerable or provide quick reinforcements around the city of Bakhmut.

In addition, the review says, the Russian military command seems to strengthen their flanks in Bakhmut with regular army formations.

Key ISW findings for 27 May:

Wagner Group mercenaries appear to be withdrawing from Bakhmut city to reconstitute and regroup in the rear as Russian offensive operations decrease in and around the city.

The Russian military command may be transferring Donetsk Peoples Republics (DNR) forces to relieve Wagner Group forces in Bakhmut city.

The Russian transfer of DNR elements to Bakhmut may decrease the tempo of Russian offensive operations on the Avdiivka-Donetsk line.

The Russian military command appears to be reinforcing Bakhmuts flanks with regular formations, however.

Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin accused Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin of planning a coup against the current Russian leadership.

Ukrainian officials denied Western reporting that suggested that a Chinese diplomat expressed interest in a negotiated ceasefire in Ukraine amidst the likely renewal of Russias information campaign surrounding negotiations.

Russian forces continued limited offensive operations northeast of Kupiansk and south of Kreminna.

Russian forces continued to launch unsuccessful offensive operations on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line.

Ukrainian forces continued to strike rear logistics nodes in southern Zaporizhia oblast.

The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) warned on 26 May that Russian forces are preparing to conduct large-scale provocations to create radiological danger at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).

The Russian Ministry of Justice registered the civil society group "Council of Mothers of Wives" as a foreign agent on 26 May, likely to curb resistance to ongoing and future Russian force generation efforts.

Russian authorities are escalating efforts to portray Russia as a safe guardian of Ukrainian children.

Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!
I've been a member at BJ's, Sam's Club, and Costco for decades. If I could only choose one, it'd be Costco.

In my opinion, Costco has the best selection of products. Gretchen Gales

I have memberships at Costco, Sam's Club, and BJ's  but Costco is my favorite wholesale club.

Some products I've gotten at Costco have lasted for years so I get more bang for my buck.

Overall, Costco always seems to have the best selection of items.

When I tell people I've been going to wholesale clubs for my entire life, I'm not exaggerating. Growing up, my family's philosophy was that if you couldn't find it at Costco, Sam's Club, or BJ's, it wasn't worth the price.

Each week, my family of three would venture out to every single wholesale club in the Richmond, Virginia, area and hunt for our weekly groceries.

For a long time, I questioned why we just didn't go to a "normal" grocery store like other families. Now, as an adult, I still shop at all three wholesale clubs for groceries and gas. However, Costco is always my favorite place to stop.

From affordable deals to a wide selection, here are 10 reasons I think Costco is the best warehouse.

Out of the warehouses by me, Costco carries the widest selection of items.

Costco carries American Girl dolls, Flonase, and other groceries. Gretchen Gales

The aisle at Sam's Club and BJ's might be more clearly marked than Costco's, but the selections aren't the same to me. I forgive a store that carries as much variety as Costco.

One week, I might find discounted American Girl doll sets and Lego collections. The next, I could come across WeatherTech car floor mats.

I've bought a lot of quality items from Costco that have lasted me years.

The button-up shirts seemed like they were good quality. Gretchen Gales

Each warehouse sells items that feel like they're made to last, but I have always put most of my trust in the selection at Costco. The chain seems to carry a great selection of items that stand the test of time, from clothes to home goods.

My mother still owns a purple jacket from the first year my local Costco opened in the 1980s that has yet to have a tear or hole. I also got a bathrobe from Costco when I was 12 that held up until I was 24 years old.

Costco carries an impressive selection of pet supplies.

Costco carries a pet-grooming tub. Gretchen Gales

I'm a proud owner of two orange tabbies with big hearts and bigger stomachs. Even with the price hikes on wet food, my Costco carries both name-brand and generic variety packs of 40 or more cans that my cats (and my wallet) love.

Costco also carries other pet supplies like gigantic bags of dry food, beds, and toys for dogs and cats of all breeds. I even saw dog-grooming tubs at Costco.

Though BJ's and Sam's Club also carry pet supplies, I prefer Costco's selection.

It also seems to have the most diverse array of food options.

I can find foods that are usually only in specialty stores at Costco. Gretchen Gales

If I'm looking for candy and savory foods I'd normally find at specialty stores at a higher markup, I know Costco almost always has them at reasonable prices and in bulk.

My local Costco has a consistent supply of miso soup or homestyle ramen noodle soup kits, goods that aren't always in stock at Sam's Club. The same goes for fun candy like Pocky and Hello Panda chocolate cookies.

I think not being able to use manufacturer's coupons makes saving easier.

There was a deal on nasal mists and lip balms the last time I was at Costco. Gretchen Gales

Each warehouse store provides customers with discounts in slightly different ways, but Costco's methods and prices are the best for me.

BJ's accepts coupons from manufacturers (Costco and Sam's Club do not) and has its own coupons. Instead of automatically applying all deals, BJ's customers can clip digital coupons on its website or page through physical booklets.

Although I love clipping coupons and finding great deals at BJ's, in my opinion, Costco's prices are already low enough that I don't need to waste time hunting down additional deals.

Plus, at Costco, I've found sales are automatically applied at checkout and additional deals will be advertised directly under the applicable products in an aisle. For example, I was able to snag a three-pack of Flonase Sensimist for $51 with an additional $12 off, making each about $13.

The typical cost for one Flonase Sensimist can range from $18 to $30 at the pharmacy.

Costco's food court has a cult following for a reason.

I love grabbing a bite to eat at Costco's food court. Gretchen Gales

Costco's food court is known for its quality food at amazing prices. The $1.50 hot dog and drink combo has been protected by Costco's founder, Jim Senegal, who reportedly told current CEO W. Craig Jelinek he'd kill him if he raised the price.

Growing up, Costco's food courts could feed our entire family for less than $10, or a little more if we also wanted frozen yogurt. Since then, the price of the pizza at my local Costco still hasn't changed.

During my most recent Costco trip with my boyfriend, we paid a little under $8 for two slices of pizza and a hot-dog combo.

Recently, my local BJ's closed its cafe so getting the food I used to order there isn't even an option. My Sam's Club still has a food court but, for me, Costco specifically brings back the nostalgia of getting a slice of pizza the size of your face for a low cost.

Generally speaking, the prices at the food court at my local Costco are also more affordable than at Sam's Club.

Costco has a better selection and quality of jewelry and accessories.

Costco's watch selection seems of high quality. Gretchen Gales

From watches to jewelry, I've always found great quality accessories at Costco.

My boyfriend  a watch connoisseur  evaluated the store's watch section and was impressed by the selection of Seiko, Citizen, and Bulova watches, noting the difference in quality from typical fashion watches.

Though Sam's Club carries Gucci watches and BJ's has its own jewelry selection, we find we prefer the merchandise at Costco.

Costco gives you a better picture of what appliances will look like in your home.

I like how home appliances are displayed at Costco. Gretchen Gales

All three wholesale clubs display electronics at the front of their stores. But if you want a complete idea of what they'd look like in your home, Costco neatly displays home appliances with accompanying accessories so you can decide if you just need a fridge or the whole set to match.

You're free to touch the display models and get a better grasp of just how wide or big they would be in your home prior to purchasing.

Costco's optical department has luxury frames and name-brand contacts for a fraction of the cost.

Costco Optical is a great service to take advantage of. Gretchen Gale

BJ's and Sam's Club also have optical departments but  at least at my location  Costco Optical has a larger variety of glasses from both reputable and store brands.

You can snag luxury brand frames (like Gucci and Prada) for a fraction of what you would pay at the eye doctor's office. Name-brand contacts can also be purchased at Costco Optical with a prescription.

Whether I'm visiting one of the warehouse's optometrists or simply wanting to purchase some prescription lenses, I've always found Costco Optical ready to help with anything.

The alcohol selection includes popular brands and local favorites.

Costco's wine selection can't be beaten by the other warehouses in my area. Gretchen Gales

My local BJ's and Sam's Club both sell alcohol but I like the selection at Costco the best. Everything is displayed simply and neatly and there's a huge variety of wine, beer, and spirits.

Whether I'm looking for a Pinot Grigio to give to my neighbor or want to try products from local breweries, Costco's rotating variety of beer and wine never leaves me bored.

Read the original article on Insider
'Emotional' victory: Aryna Sabalenka reacts after winning against Marta Kostyuk

Aryna Sabalenka won a politically-charged French Open duel against Marta Kostyuk on Sunday as jeers and boos rained down on the defeated Ukrainian who refused to shake hands with her Belarusian opponent.

World number two and Australian Open champion Sabalenka swept 10 of the last 12 games to win 6-3, 6-2 as she kick-started her push to reach the second week in Paris for the first time.

Kostyuk honoured her pledge not to shake hands with Sabalenka in protest at Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Belarus is a key military ally of Moscow.

The 20-year-old Kostyuk, who has been a vociferous critic of the decision to allow Russian and Belarusian players to keep competing on tour since the invasion of her country, questioned the crowd's motives in booing her stance.

"I want to see people react to it in 10 years when the war is over. I think they will not feel really nice about what they did," she said.

"I didn't expect it. People should be honestly embarrassed."

Kostyuk, ranked at 39 in the world, famously refused to shake hands with Sabalenka's Belarusian compatriot and former world number one Victoria Azarenka at the US Open last year. She opted instead for a cursory touch of racquets at the net.

"It was a very tough match, tough emotionally. I didn't know if the booing was against me but thank you so much for your support, it's really important," said Sabalenka who apologised for her exaggerated, theatrical bow to the Court Philippe Chatrier crowd.

Sabalenka had admitted on the eve of the tournament that she could accept if Kostyuk had feelings of "hate" towards her.

"I never said that I hate Aryna Sabalenka or any of the players. I just don't respect her because of her position in this situation," added Kostyuk, who wants Russian and Belarusian players to individually denounce the war which has raged on since February last year.

- 'Shocking' -

Greek fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, who blew a two-sets lead to lose the 2021 final to Novak Djokovic, made the second round with a 7-5, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (9/7) win over 455th-ranked Czech player, Jiri Vesely.

Vesely, who had previously only played in two second-tier Challenger events this year, squandered four set points which would have forced a deciding set.

"I felt like he started feeling the pressure a little bit more. His serves were not as accurate towards the end, which of course I'm happy with because it gave me the chance to start a few rallies and finally play more than three or four shots. That was it," said Tsitsipas.

Andrey Rublev, the seventh seed and Monte Carlo champion in April, defeated Laslo Djere of Serbia 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Rublev has made the quarter-finals in Paris on two occasions.

Greek eighth seed Maria Sakkari, a semi-finalist in 2021, fell at the first hurdle, losing 7-6 (7/5), 7-5 to Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic.

Muchova, the world number 43, also defeated Sakkari in the second round last year and now has four successive wins over top 10 opponents at the Grand Slams.

The Czech Republic had 12 women in the singles draw at Roland Garros, second only to the United States with 19.

"I think it might be the parents mostly," said Muchova when asked to explain the success of her country on the tennis tour.

"They are taking care of their kids, especially of the girls. I think they can see that we can achieve it, we can be here."

Third-seeded Jessica Pegula won an all-American battle with Danielle Collins, 6-4, 6-2.

Britain's Dan Evans was the highest seed to fall in the men's draw, losing 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 to Australian wild card Thanasi Kokkinakis.

"It's shocking how I played today," said Evans.

Portugal's 80th-ranked Nuno Borges withstood 38 aces and 85 winners from John Isner to defeat the veteran American 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (7/3), 4-6, 7-6 (11/9), claiming victory on a sixth match point after four hours on court.

France's Alize Cornet was another veteran to lose on opening day, going down 6-3, 6-4 to Camila Giorgi of Italy.

Cornet was playing in her 19th Roland Garros and 65th consecutive Grand Slam.

- New era -

This year sees a new era at the French Open where for the first time since 2004 Rafael Nadal will not grace the famous red clay.

Injured Nadal, the 14-time champion, sits out the 2023 edition of a tournament where he has lost just three of 115 matches.

In his absence, Djokovic, a two-time winner, and the man responsible for two of Nadal's three losses, will look to edge ahead of the Spaniard with a record-setting 23rd major.

However, he faces a serious threat from Carlos Alcaraz, the world number one aiming to add a Roland Garros title to his US Open triumph.

Alcaraz and Djokovic begin their campaigns on Monday.

dj/mw
Jersey Shore town to crack down on the mere existence of any kind of alcohol on beach and boardwalk

Officials in New Jersey are banning the possession of alcohol on a popular beach and boardwalk after city commissioners unanimously passed the stricter ordinance.

Introduced during a Board of Commissioners meeting in Wildwood in early May, the new ordinance not only prohibits the drinking and/or open display of alcohol, but also says the mere existence of any kind of alcohol is prohibited, Mayor Pete Byron said in a news release on Thursday.

Alcohol of any kind has always been prohibited on the beach and boardwalk. In fact, there is already a sign at every street entrance to the beach, he continued.

He told CNN the new ordinance was tweaked to include even the presence of alcohol on the beach and boardwalk in the town, some 40 miles south of Atlantic City.

Revelers over Memorial Day weekend will be spared from enforcement, as the new ordinance doesnt go into effect until mid-June. The mayor says the ordinance was passed on Wednesday and goes into effect after 20 days.

Those not abiding by the ordinance could walk off with a warning, a fine of up to $2,000 or potentially 90 days in jail, Mayor Byron told CNN.

The ordinance mirrors those in other shore towns, officials say, and seeks to crack down on the matter of possession, according to the news release.

It exempts designated restaurants or permitted events on the beach and boardwalk, according to the release.

Wildwood Deputy Mayor Krista Fitzsimons cited the numerous complaints about drinking, marijuana use and smoking on the beach and boardwalk received every year as part of the reason for the new ordinance.

This is a matter of public safety, Commissioner of Public Safety Steve Mikulski said in the release. We understand people are on vacation and want to have a good time, he said.

We want everyone to enjoy Wildwood. Drinking, especially in the sun on vacation, often leads to excess and unruly behavior, not to mention increased health risks.

Wildwood is composed of five separate municipalities consisting of Wildwood, North and West Wildwood, Wildwood Crest, and Diamond Beach, according to the Wildwood website.

In the same release, officials say a breach of peace ordinance was also approved to help the police crack down on juvenile curfew violations, excessive noise, littering, vandalism, setting off illegal fireworks and riding bikes on the boardwalk after hours, among other complaints.

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January 6 attack on Capitol building

Jessica Watkins, a transgender Army veteran who joined the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison on Friday for her role in in the January 6 insurrection.

The judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, said that while Watkins had apologized for her participation in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Watkinss efforts were still aggressive and Watkins wasnt initially remorseful for her actions.

Your role that day was more aggressive, more assaultive, more purposeful than perhaps others. And you led others to fulfill your purposes, Mehta said, CNN reports. And there was not in the immediate aftermath any sense of shame or contrition, just the opposite. Your comments were celebratory and lacked a real sense of the gravity of that day and your role in it.

Watkins founded an Ohio milita and coordinated with the Oath Keepers. They went to Washington, D.C., in riot gear, and urged others to attack the Capitol on January 6.

Before being sentenced, Watkins said, I was just another idiot running around the hallway.

She added, But idiots are responsible, and today you are going to hold this idiot responsible.

Co-defendants Steward Rhodes and Kelly Meggs were sentenced the day before to 18 and 12 years in prison respectively. They were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Watkins was acquitted on sedition charges but was convicted in November 2022 of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding  which has a 20-year maximum like a seditious conspiracy conviction. Watkins was also found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding, interfering with law enforcement officers during a civil disorder, and conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging duties.

While Mehta said Watkinss role was not that of Rhodes or Meggs, your role in those events is more than that of just. I think you can apricate that.

Prosecutors said Watkins wasnt remorseful, citing prison calls where Watkins allegedly said boo hoo the poor little police officers, got a little PTSD, waaaa, I had to stand there and hold a door open for people waaaaaa, CNN reports.

The Army vet said during the trial that she often struggled with her transgender identity while dont ask, dont tell was in place. She said she eventually fell for conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory and became anxious and concerned about the U.S. government.

I understand now that my presence in and around the Capitol that day probably inspired those individuals to a degree, she said on Friday. They saw us there and that probably fired them up. Oath Keepers are here, and they were patting us on the back.

Watkins added, How many people went in because of us? Were responsible for that.

My actions and my behaviors that fateful day were wrong, and as I now understand, criminal, she said, according to NBC News. Violence is never the answer.

Prosecutors said Watkinss wasnt the only one who struggled and while prosecutors said the government sympathized with Watkins, they said she does not have an excuse.

It is perhaps an unsurprising fact of human nature that those who are subjected to injustice occasionally bring injustice on others, prosecutor Alexandra Hughes said, CNN reports. We do not dispute what she has been through, but what she did on that day has deep and devastating  devastating  effects on individuals who showed up to work that day and never did anything to Jessica Watkins.

Mehta referenced Watkinss struggles with her identity in the sentencing.

Your story itself shows a great deal of courage and resilience, the judge said. You have overcome a lot, and you are to be held out as someone who can actually be a role model for other people in that journey. And I say that at a time when people who are trans in our country are so often vilified and used for political purposes.

Still, Mehta said, It makes it all the more hard for me to understand the lack of empathy for those who suffered that day.
A woman holds a sign as she takes part in a demonstration against a concert later the day of former Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters in the Festhalle, background, in Frankfurt, Germany, Sunday, May 28, 2023. The Festhalle was the place where in the night of broken glasses 1938 about 3000 Jewish men where gathered to deport them to concentration camps. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

BERLIN (AP)  Several Jewish groups, politicians and an alliance of civil society groups gathered for a memorial ceremony and a protest rally against a concert by Roger Waters in Frankfurt on Sunday evening.

They accuse the Pink Floyd co-founder of antisemitism - an allegation he denies.

Waters has also drawn their ire for his support of the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel.

Frankfurt authorities had initially tried to prevent the concert taking place, but Waters successfully challenged the move in a local court.

The concert is taking place in the city's Festhalle, where in November 1938 more than 3,000 Jews were rounded up by the Nazis, beaten and abused, and later deported to concentration camps.

Against this historical background, the concert should not have taken place under any circumstances, said Sacha Stawski, a member of the Frankfurt Jewish community and head of the group Honestly Concerned, that helped organize the protests.

It's very frustrating" that the concert is going ahead as scheduled even though Frankfurt officials and many others tried to prevent it, Elio Adler, the head of the Jewish group WerteInitiative which supports the protest, told The Associated Press.

His words and imagery spread Jew-hatred and are part of a trend: to normalize Israel-hatred under the protection of freedom of speech or art, Adler added.

Last week, police in Berlin said they had opened an investigation of Waters on suspicion of incitement over a costume he wore when he performed in the German capital earlier this month.

Images on social media showed Waters firing an imitation machine gun while dressed in a long black coat with a red armband. Police confirmed that an investigation was opened over suspicions that the context of the costume could constitute a glorification, justification or approval of Nazi rule and therefore a disturbance of the public peace.

Waters rejected those accusations in a statement on Facebook and Instagram, saying that the elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms.

He claimed that attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated.

During Sunday's ceremony and protests, which took place in front of the Frankfurt concert venue before Waters' concert was set to begin, protesters read out loud the names of 600 Jews who were rounded up at the Festhalle on November 9, 1939, the so-called Kristallnacht  the Night of Broken Glass  when Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.

The organizers also held a joint Jewish-Christian prayer for the victims of the Nazi terror in Frankfurt. The city's mayor as well as the head of the local Jewish community spoke at the protest.

Hatred of Jews is to be condemned everywhere in our city, Frankfurt Mayor Mike Josef said, according to German news agency dpa. There is no reason to hate, insult and attack a person because of his religion.

Before the performance began, around 400 protesters handed out flyers to concertgoers and waved Israeli flags. Others held up banners with slogans such as Israel, we stand with you or Roger Waters, wish you were not here in reference to Pink Floyd's famous song Wish You Were Were, dpa reported.

Protesters in Munich rallied against a concert by Waters earlier this month, after the city council said it had explored possibilities of banning the performance but concluded that it wasnt legally possible to cancel a contract with the organizer.

Last year, the Polish city of Krakow canceled gigs by Waters because of his sympathetic stance toward Russia in its war against Ukraine.

___

Michael Probst contributed reporting from Frankfurt.
Hood

In Washington, Republican lawmakers are insisting that any deal with the Biden administration to raise the federal debt ceiling be accompanied by stricter work requirements for such programs as cash welfare, nutrition assistance, and Medicaid. In Raleigh, Republican state senators tried to make work requirements a condition for expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, though the final deal fell short of what theyd hoped.

For North Carolinians of a certain age  or for North Carolinians of any age whove studied the political history of their state  the idea of requiring work in order to receive government benefits ought to sound familiar. Its a hardy perennial.

In 1992, for example, Democrat-turned-Republican Lauch Faircloth employed the issue to great effect against Terry Sanford, the incumbent Democratic senator. Im for workfare, not welfare, Faircloth said so often that it clearly got under his opponents skin. Weve seen a lot of demagoguery, talking about workfare and welfare, Sanford complained a few days before the election. I honestly dont know what workfare is.

Voters didnt know exactly what workfare might look like in practice, either, though most responded favorably to the concept of requiring employment in exchange for benefits. Faircloth beat Sanford.

A couple of years later, another prominent North Carolinian picked up the idea and ran with it. Our society is based on work, he explained. Work helps us reach our goals. But too many people don't have that sense of pride that comes from working hard and supporting themselves.

While this leader continued to believe government should provide public assistance to needy North Carolinians, he worried that doing so without conditions tended to create perverse incentives. I believe strongly that welfare recipients should be required to work, he announced. They should work for their benefits. The sooner we start moving families off welfare rolls and into the workforce, the better off they and their children will be. We want to change the welfare system so that it builds responsibility instead of dependence. So that it builds pride instead of hopelessness. So that it encourages families to stay together instead of tearing them apart. So that it discourages our teenagers from having children when they are still children themselves.

I let the prior paragraph run long so you wouldnt think I was quoting former Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt out of context.

He wasnt the only state governor to pioneer concepts later enshrined in the landmark 1996 welfare-reform bill. Republicans in Wisconsin, Michigan, and elsewhere got there first. But Hunt was nimble enough to marry his longstanding belief in activist government with a clear-eyed acceptance of personal agency.

Individuals who stay in school, wait until marriage to have children, and work full-time (or marry someone who does) are very unlikely to be poor. This success sequence is easier stated than followed, of course, especially by young people with short time horizons and weak impulse control (we were all young once, so we all know this to be true).

There are no magic wands here. No government program can make us wiser. But governments ought at least not tempt us to act unwisely. For able-bodied recipients of public assistance, it makes sense to require work in exchange. Not that long ago, both Republican and Democratic politicians agreed with this concept, differing only in the details of implementation.

Back in the 1990s, then-U.S. Senator Joe Biden was one of those Democrats who supported work requirements. I voted for tougher aid programs [that are] in the law now, President Biden pointed out a few days ago, though he doesnt think such a condition is appropriate for receiving Medicaid. Does that mean the president would be open to strengthening work requirements for other programs such as nutrition assistance? If he does, that will incense some progressives. At the same time, some conservatives are suspicious of public-assistance programs  especially federal ones  even if they contain work requirements.

Where are voters? Well, broadly speaking, theyre for workfare, not welfare.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: John Hood column: Workfare still superior to welfare
Jordan Neely's family will file a wrongful death lawsuit against Daniel Penny, who is accused of fatally choking a homeless man on a New York City train on May 1.

Penny, 24, is being charged with one count of second-degree manslaughter for allegedly choking Neely, 30, to death. Prosecutors say that Neely was "making threats and scaring passengers."

According to the New York Post, Carolyn Neely, Jordan Neely's aunt, recently hired Manhattan-based Mills & Edwards law firm to file a civil action lawsuit.

"Please be advised that this office has been retainedto pursue a claim for personal injuries and wrongful death. . . . Your action resulted in the death of Jordan Neely," the letter reads.

MARINE VET DANIEL PENNYS GIVESENDGO LEGAL DEFENSE FUND IS SITES SECOND-BIGGEST CAMPAIGN

Marine veteran Daniel Penny, right, fatally choked Jordan Neely, left, on a NYC subway after the homeless man threatened passengers.

The letter is requesting Penny's insurance information.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Penny's attorney, Thomas Keniff, argues that his client was acting to protect himself as well as other passengers who felt threatened.

If convicted, Penny could face a maximum of 5 to 15 years in prison.

Neely had a history of attacks against subway riders , including one 2021 instance where he punched a 67-year-old woman, breaking her orbital bone and nose, according to court records.

WITNESS TO JORDAN NEELY CHOKEHOLD DEATH CALLS DANIEL PENNY A HERO

Daniel Penny leaves the 5th Precinct of the NYPD on Friday, May 12, 2023. Penny is charged in connection with the death of subway rider, Jordan Neely.

A crowdfunding campaign on GiveSendGo set up to pay Daniel Penny's legal fees has raised over $2 million. According to the fundraiser, any excess money will go to a mental health advocacy program in New York City.

Screenshot from bystander video showing Jordan Neely being held in a chokehold on the New York City subway.

"Any proceeds collected which exceed those necessary to cover Mr. Pennys legal defense will be donated to a mental health advocacy program in New York City ," the fundraiser states.

Fox News' Rebecca Rosenberg and Andrea Vacchiano contributed to this report.
Kamala Harris at West Point

At the U.S. Military Academy West Point commencement ceremony in New York on Saturday morning, Vice President Kamala Harris addressed an enthusiastic crowd of cadets, their families, and friends. With her commencement speech at the service academy, Harris became the first woman to give the address in its 221-year history.

The Vice President acknowledged the support of the graduates families and friends in helping get their loved ones to this moment.

Cadets, today you come to the end of what I am sure will prove to be 47 of the most challenging and rewarding months of your life, Harris said. To the families and loved ones here: Thank you for the incredible care and support you have given these leaders. I know you feel an immense sense of pride looking at our cadets. And it is a pride I share and that our country shares.

Harris noted that the military desegregated and integrated women 75 years ago this year while discussing the importance of an inclusive and diverse force.

These milestones are a reminder of a fundamental truth: Our military is strongest when it fully reflects the people of America, she said.

Today...to the Class of 2023: You join the greatest fighting force the world has ever seen, Harris said to cheers and applause from the graduates seated on the field and the spectators in the stands.

Looking forward to the future, it is clear you graduate into an increasingly unsettled world where longstanding principles are at risk, Harris continued.

The vice president warned the graduates of the threats to democratic norms across the world, especially concerns over Russia's and China's military decisions in recent years.

In Ukraine, Russias aggression is an attack on the lives and freedom of the Ukrainian people and an attack on international rules and norms that have served as the foundation of international security and prosperity for generations," she said. "In the Indo-Pacific, China is rapidly modernizing its military and threatening both the freedom of the seas and rules of international commerce.

At the same time, autocrats have become bolder, the threat of terrorism persists, and an accelerating climate crisis continues to disrupt lives and livelihoods, Harris said, adding, All a threat to global stability and security."

She said the U.S. is uniquely positioned to help the world confront these issues.

And heres how I see it: In the face of all these challenges, America plays a singular role of leadership, Harris said.

She noted that for more than 200 years, the country has relied on West Point officers for their strength of conscience, capability, and courage.

Today, our nation turns to each of you for the strength that you have built here at West Point, she said. The physical strength, the mental strength, the emotional strength, and the strength of character.

Harris explained that the challenges that face the world through technology, like artificial intelligence, would be met by skills that cadets learned while at the institution.

Technology that might be intimidating or unfamiliar to other generations, to you, is exciting and intuitive, she said. You see what can be, unburdened by what has been. And you have the agility and the ability to bring that potential to life.

She added, You have trained in cyber, in robotics, in artificial intelligence, and systems engineering. And now, you will take this experience and apply it as officers. You will enable rapid adoption of new technology into every aspect of war-fighting, which might mean using A.I. to predict the movements of our adversaries; might mean autonomous vehicles to support and supply our forces; or virtual reality to train our soldiers on new weapon systems.

While Harris received many cheers from the crowd, and it was evident who among the graduates had earned their peers support, the class "goat" received raucous cheers.

Braheam Shaeed Murphy, this years goat  the graduate with the lowest grade point average  took the stage and was handed a bag that contained about $1000  a dollar from each of the fellow graduates for the student with the lowest grade point average.

Cheers erupted from the crowd when Harris gave the cadet a Vice Presidential coin as sheshook Murphys hand while smiling empathetically. Harris remained onstage until each of the 941 graduates received their degrees, shaking each of their hands as they passed by.

Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth joined the VIPs on the dais during the ceremony.

The Advocate served as the White House press pool representative and accompanied the Vice President on Air Force Two from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York and back. The official ceremony began in the 10 oclock hour and concluded before 1 p.m. on a beautiful sunny day with blue skies, low humidity, and a breeze with temperatures in the low 70s. Round-trip flights and motorcade routes were uneventful.

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, accompanied the Vice President on Air Force Two. Reed, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, graduated from West Point in 1971.

The ceremony concluded with Second Lieutenant Lauren Drysdale, First Captain of the U.S. Military Academys Corps of Cadets for the 2022-2023 academic year  the highest position in the cadet chain of command  dismissing the class.

As is tradition, all the cadets tossed their white caps into the air, embraced, and families rushed to hug their graduates as the Vice President and entourage departed.

After a short and, at times, bumpy flight, Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff, who accompanied the vice present to the graduation, stepped off the plane at Joint Base Andrews and boarded Marine Two to fly to their home at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
Trump and Putin

America's allies are getting nervous. As more Republicans jump into the race for president, and the 2024 election kicks into high gear, some European leaders have their eyes on brewing storms in the transatlantic waters.

First, America is about to turn inwards, as countries tend to do during major elections. The push to prioritise domestic voters could well lead to some candidates in the Republican party campaigning on the promise of cutting US support for Ukraine. That's not something most Europeans are happy about.

The Republican Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, once warned that he doesn't intend to grant a "blank cheque" to Ukraine.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is running to be the Republican nominee for president, described the war between Russia and Ukraine as a "territorial dispute". His Republican rival, the former president, Donald Trump, told CNN he didn't see the war in terms of winning or losing - a concerning statement for Ukraine's allies who clearly do want to win.

European allies made little effort to disguise their problems with Mr Trump when he was the 45th president of the US. The prospect of him being re-elected as its 47th is seen, in the words of former EU foreign policy advisor Nathalie Tocci, as "catastrophic."

But even before we get to the first presidential debate, the ongoing clashes between Democrats and Republicans over the debt ceiling have rocked confidence in America's political system. "I think Europeans are getting increasingly used to the fact that this broken system, in many ways, impacts the US' global standing," says Ms Tocci.

Raising the debt ceiling to avoid America defaulting on its bills should be a routine matter of government - but partisan politics here have made it a high-wire act with potentially devastating consequences, for the US and the global economies. Even if the two parties eventually reach a deal, the chaotic process has undermined America's reputation for competence. As one senior European official, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, phrased it: "The visuals don't look good."

Christine Lagarde, the head of the European Central Bank, was even more frank when she called the prospect a "major, major disaster". The German Finance Minister, Christian Lindner, bluntly suggested American politicians just needed to grow up. When your friends are telling you to grow up, you wonder what your enemies are thinking.

A battle over the debt ceiling could have global consequences

There is consternation - "astonishment" is the word I heard - over how badly America is handling this budget round. Angus King, the Independent Senator from Maine, is aware of how it looks abroad: "America pays its bills for the debts we incur - three short years ago we had bipartisan understanding of this fact. We need to get back to that - and fast."

If Washington can't get this task right, anxious allies ask, what else might it be unable to handle?

The row has already directly impacted America's national security interests. Last week, President Biden cut short his trip to Asia, in order to focus on the negotiations, skipping planned visits to Australia and Papua New. The itinerary change drew scathing comments from the Sydney Morning Herald's Matthew Knott, who said the "snub" played straight into China's hands.

Australia - a key US ally - had planned a meeting during Mr Biden's trip of the so-called Quad countries (India, Japan, the US, and Australia) to discuss regional security. It's hard not to imagine Beijing enjoying the spectacle of its regional adversaries rearranging their summit because US domestic politics got in the way.

Which gets us to perhaps the most profound source of worry among America's European allies - a growing divide over how to best handle China. While Washington has taken an increasingly hawkish tone, Europe has a sense that it may need to forge its own path.

Europeans don't want to annoy Washington, but they aren't convinced either that their security or economic priorities are the same as America's. Trade between Germany and China rose to a record level last year, solidifying China as Germany's largest trading partner. Some European leaders are vocal about not wanting to be bullied into choosing sides.

When he travelled to Beijing in April, accompanied by a bevy of French business leaders, President Emanuel Macron voiced that ambivalence - especially on the thorny issue of Taiwan. "The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America's followers," he told the Politico news site, "The question Europeans need to answer  is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No."

This divergence has led to some clashes with US politicians: "Our European allies need to make a decision. They must choose whether to stand with China or to stand alongside the United States, and we cannot allow them to continue to play both sides," Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina, told the US network NBC. As the 2024 election approaches there's little indication either Republicans or Democrats will soften their stance on China.

American elections are always closely watched, both by adversaries and allies. The global consequences are enormous. Most allies would say they want a US that is competent, stable, and engaged. But a potentially catastrophic battle over the debt ceiling, a possible shift in the Ukraine war effort, the chance of a second tumultuous Trump presidency and differences over China don't seem to point in that direction.
KCK teacher goes above and beyond: Meet the winner of The Stars first Honor Roll

While her family was vacationing in Disney World, Lesley Lard reached out to her sons first grade teacher with bad news: Lards father, who her son Cameron was close with, had died.

Cameron didnt know the news just yet, but his teacher Mary Krejci at Piper Prairie Elementary School in Kansas City, Kansas, made several plans before the young student returned, including contacting the schools counseling team to support him.

After he returned, Krejci kept Lard updated through texts and emails about how her son was doing and checked in on her and her family, as well. It helped, Lard said, to not have to worry about her sons well-being as much while she processed the loss herself.

Over the summer, Krejci kept in touch with Lard and still looks out for Cameron even though shes not his teacher anymore. She reaches out during difficult milestones, like his grandfathers birthday or Veterans Day, and offers support or hugs.

She went down to see him and got him to come to her class and just went way above and beyond what I think most teachers would, even if hes not in her class anymore, Lard said.

It is because of outstanding efforts like this that Lard nominated Krejci for special recognition this spring in The Stars Honor Roll.

In April, we asked readers to nominate teachers and other school staff who made a difference in their lives, or their childrens lives, for our first-ever Honor Roll, an effort to celebrate local educators. Readers submitted nearly 90 nominations and voted each week for the person they wanted featured in The Star.

After several rounds of voting, Krejci was named the winner.

Other finalists included Kim Miller, a special education teacher and boys basketball coach at Benton Elementary; Keelin Althoff, a speech therapist in the Piper school district and Jessica Dain, superintendent of the Piper school district.

Miller has been an active part of the school and greater community as a basketball coach and other service efforts around Independence, the person who nominated her wrote. Althoff is a mentor who helped her nominators son build self-confidence in speech, and advocates for her students to family, teachers, coaches and others. Dain created a positive culture in the Piper school district and puts the needs of her students in preschool through 12th grade first.

And while all of the candidates were lauded for the differences they make in the lives of Kansas City area students and families, it was Krejci who came away with the top honor.

First grade teacher Mary Krejci was nominated for The Kansas City Stars Honor Roll by Cameron Lard, 8, and his mother, after he spent first grade in her class last year at Piper Prairie Elementary. When Cameron lost his grandfather last year, Krejci was a strong source of support for him and his mother, Lesley Lard.

Student-centered and relationship-focused

Creating relationships with students and getting to know them on a personal level, Krejci said, is part of her job.

She pointed out she often spends more time with her kids at school during the week than their parents can. Krejci said she also sees her students more during the week than her own daughter, who goes to bed a few hours after her mom gets home from work.

She knew Cameron and his grandfather were close, and noticed that his passing was difficult for him. At school, Krejci wanted to help Cameron in any way she could, whether that was to distract him through jokes or to provide a support system so he could process his grief.

Growing up, Krejci never wavered in her career path. She always said she wanted to teach and is recorded in her high school yearbook saying she hoped to become a kindergarten teacher.

I loved the kindergarten so much that I never wanted to leave, she said.

Decades later, Krejci said she still remembers all of her elementary school teachers, who felt like cheerleaders for her success. Their positivity made her excited to come to school each morning, and even now she said she loves what she calls the indescribable smell of a new school year.

One of her favorite teachers in sixth grade noticed her love for teaching and invited Krejci to return that summer and help set up her classroom for the following year. She and her mom went shopping for a nice outfit with a skirt to commemorate the occasion.

That same teacher stays in touch on Facebook and messages Krejci sometimes to let her know shes proud of her.

Krejci has taught for 12 years, spending the first decade teaching kindergarten then first grade in Kansas City, Kansas,Public Schools. Last year, she started teaching first grade at Piper Prairie Elementary School.

Piper Prairie principal Darcey Bast started at the school this year and has observed Krejci in the classroom several times.

Mary is incredibly student-centered and relationship-focused, Bast said. She runs a very structured and nurturing environment in which students thrive. She really excels at maximizing instructional time in her classroom, and she does a great job accommodating all types of learners.

Mary Krejci, a teacher at Piper Prairie Elementary School, shares a smile with her daughter, Sawyer Krejci, 10, after she was announced as the winner of the Kansas City Stars Honor Roll teacher poll. The announcement was made during a school board meeting May 8, 2023 at Piper East Elementary in Kansas City, Kansas.

All that empathy

Andrea Hicks saw Krejcis ability to adapt lessons and plans for each student. Three of her kids had Krejci as their kindergarten teacher over the years at Quindaro Elementary School.

Her daughter Paiyton spent part of the school year with Krejci online during the pandemic, and Hicks saw firsthand how Krejci kept her students attention and changed course based on their needs.

When she didnt get called on to answer questions, Paiyton would pout and move out of the cameras view. Krejci told her that she might know the answer, but she needed to hear from other kids, too.

After they returned to in-person learning, she gave Paiyton tasks around the classroom so she felt special and involved.

During the school year, Hicks kids also lost a family member. When their uncle died, Krejci updated Hicks on how Paiyton was doing daily, made sure she had support at home and in school and gave her time and space if she needed to cry or take a break.

On the playground or in the hallway, Krejci would find TaNiyah  Paiytons older sister whom she taught the year before  to offer her support processing the loss, too.

Shes that teacher, but shes also that human being that has all that empathy that she knows how to execute very well, Hicks said.

Students raise their wipe boards with their math equation written on it for first grade teacher Mary Krejci on May 10, 2023, at Piper Prairie Elementary School in Kansas City, Kansas. Krejci was announced as the winner of the Kansas City Stars Honor Roll teacher poll.

Balancing silly and serious

Sitting in a classroom for close to 40 hours a week can be difficult for kids ages 5 and 6, so Krejci creates silly moments to make the time pass. Every day, she asks the kids questions in a morning meeting to get to know them better, and they can also ask her anything they want. The only rule is that Krejci has to answer.

Recently, her students felt stumped when she told them she doesnt like pickles. They even asked her if shed rather eat a pickle or a spider. The exercise also makes students more comfortable sharing information about themselves with Krejci and the class.

Every day, Paiyton and TaNiyah said, Krejci and the students sang a classroom theme song. Depending on how much time they had, she might also slow it down or have everyone sing as fast as they could. They also remember that she taught everyone to love themselves and give themselves a hug or a pat on the back.

Inside jokes helped Cameron bond with Krejci, Lard said. She started calling him Ron, a funny nickname that stuck with the class and into the next school year, and did other bits that made him laugh until he cried.

Cameron even said that Krejci was funnier and more dramatic while reading stories than his mom, who works as a childrens librarian. He always wanted to check out books from storytime later because he said Krejci made them more interesting with dramatic readings and voices.

It takes strong classroom management skills to balance jokes with learning, Krejci said, but by the end of the year her students know how to have fun while getting their work done.

Her class spends most of the year learning the boundaries between silly moments and more serious times like math or phonics lessons, and it pays off. Krejci makes time throughout the day for the kids to earn breaks, classroom parties and other rewards if theyve followed the rules.

Students who exemplify the classroom rules and values, like being respectful, responsible and good friends, will get a stuffed koala (Krejcis favorite animal) pencil topper and be designated koala care leaders as a special reward.

Abu Saidov, a first grader, high-fives teacher Mary Krejci, after she used Google Translate to translate a word from English to Russian so Abu could understand her question on May 10, 2023, at Piper Prairie Elementary School in Kansas City, Kansas. Krejci was announced as the winner of the Kansas City Stars Honor Roll teacher poll.

Taking that extra step

While volunteering for field trips and class parties, Lard also noticed how Krejci connected with all of her students. Whether theyre outgoing or shy, Lard said Krejci manages to form a close relationship with every kid in her class.

You didnt worry about our kids there because she was always paying attention in case something was wrong or somebody was having an off day, Lard said. Taking that extra step to make sure every kid had a good experience.

At a birthday party they went to recently for one of Paiytons friends, Hicks said all of the kids started talking about their memories in Krejcis class. Since Krejci moved to a new district, many of the kids hadnt seen her for a while, and they were all excited when Hicks FaceTimed her at the party.

They hear her name, Hicks said, and their faces just light up.

This year, Krejcis first students at KCKPS are graduating from high school. Some of the kids have reached out to her on Facebook, and she loves seeing who theyve become 12 years later.

One of those students is Hicks son Todd. While he doesnt remember much from kindergarten, he said Krejci was always funny and energetic.

Parents like Hicks have also friended Krejci on Facebook over the years, which allows her to keep in touch and watch her former students grow up from afar. Sometimes, they message her to say hi or let her know their kids liked her latest post.

It doesnt feel like it was that long ago, Krejci said. Watching them become grown-ups is pretty neat because when I have them theyre so little.

As the school year comes to a close, Krejci is holding her second annual Camp Krejci, a memory that she hopes will stick with her students long after they leave her class. On the last day of school, she sets up a fake campfire and turns every desk into a tent. She reads spooky stories while everyone snacks on fake smores.

First grade teacher Mary Krejci displays the Dundie Award she received from a parent and her son who nominated Krejci for the Kansas City Stars Honor Roll teacher poll, which she won. Krejci, a teacher at Piper Prairie Elementary School, displayed the trophy in her classroom on May 10, 2023, in Kansas City, Kansas.

A thankless job

Being a teacher has also come with its hardships, Krejci said. In her former school district, she spent a good amount of her own money to get games and resources for her students and found ways to save, like having a few pairs of dice and using them for classroom activities throughout the year.

She felt drained when the pandemic hit, and teaching kindergarten online, she said, was the worst experience of her career.

Krejci told her husband she wanted to leave her profession, but she applied to a job in the Piper school district on a whim and scheduled an interview the next day. Within a week, they offered her the job.

Coming out of the pandemic, she said she needed the change in environment to refresh her love for teaching.

Shes learned new methods and activities from her new team of fellow first-grade teachers, and the Piper administration supports her with resources, Krejci said. Because the district is smaller, the Piper superintendent knows her name and even covered for Krejci one day when she got sick and needed to leave school early.

During the pandemic, Krejci said, parents saw the various roles teachers play everyday, but she said it still doesnt feel like teachers are as respected now as they were when she was growing up. Contentious political issues are put on teachers shoulders sometimes, as well, even though they dont have the tools to solve them.

Its often a thankless job, she said. Being nominated for something like this and having so many people hear about the effects you can have as a teacher is pretty special.
A recent column (My opinion? Time to get real about revenue and debt) argues that Congress should pass a clean debt ceiling increase. Then, to fix our ballooning $32 trillion national debt crisis, Congress should pass even more tax increases despite record high revenues in 2022 and the fact that $450 billion tax hikes were approved just last year.

That position echoes the beliefs of my Democratic counterparts in Congress. I believe House Republicans have taken steps that are more in line with the position of a growing number of Americans.

Last month, we passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which would lift the debt ceiling into next year, limit Washington's runaway spending to levels in place just five months ago and rescind billions of dollars in unspent COVID emergency funding. The legislation also expanded some work requirements for able-bodied, working-age adults without children who receive federal benefits  a step that will put more people to work, increase payroll taxes, and strengthen Social Security.

These policies are not extreme. In fact, a recent CNN poll found a bipartisan majority of Americans agree with House Republicans that raising the debt ceiling should be linked to a reduction in spending  58% of independents and even 45% of Democrats surveyed share our position.

I agree with most Americans that we have a spending problem, we need to raise the debt ceiling, and we need to get our fiscal house in order. There arent a lot of opportunities for bipartisan agreement in Washington, D.C. these days, lets make a deal while we can.

Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona

Does Gov. Newsom care about us veterans at all?

There are approximately 2 million veterans, many of whom are disabled, now residing in the state of California. However, Gov. Gavin Newsom, in my opinion, has yet to acknowledge their presence or even express an interest or concern for their well-being.

I attempted to bring this matter to the governors attention in a very detailed letter, followed by a number of phone calls to the governors office. While the conversation with the office personnel was civil, with the exception of the last call that ended rather abruptly, one thing was made unmistakably clear; veterans are not highly regarded in California, they are not even afforded the respect and consideration given to undocumented immigrants.

Under the circumstances, it occurs to me that the governor doesnt know what a veteran is. Perhaps the following description will serve as a much-needed tutorial. Simply put, a veteran is either on active duty, in the reserve or retired, who at a point in time made a critical decision and wrote a blank check made payable to the United States of America for an amount up to and including his or her life. All of which is to say, as veterans, we have already paid the price.

Maybe the governor should take his eyes off the White House for a minute and take care of business in his own backyard.

Chuck Gabriele, Bermuda Dunes

As a Vietnam veteran, I want to honor my doctors who keep me alive

I joined the Army in 1966. In 1968, I was sent to Vietnam and served with the 101st airborne division on a reconnaissance unit. I was wounded two times  the last time I had surgery at a portable hospital in the jungle and thanks to those doctors, I recovered.

I was contaminated with Agent Orange. As a result, I developed multiple myeloma, and have been fighting it for the last 15 years, so on this Memorial Day I want to honor my doctors at the hematology department: Dr. Adamson, Dr. Park, and the San Diego and the El Centro Veterans Affairs health care systems. They are so dedicated and keep us veterans alive. Thanks.

Luis Zendejas, Calipatria

Who are we to judge someone else's identity?

Years ago, a syndicated advice columnist was asked (paraphrased): With the plethora of books and columns on manners and etiquette one can be overwhelmed with minutiae and often confusing advice, can you give us a basic maxim that captures the essence of manners? Her response was one that has stuck with me since: Manners is not saying or doing anything that would make the person youre with uncomfortable.

A persons self-identity is so closely tied to their well-being and their perception of self-worth that to have it challenged is extremely uncomfortable. Whether its as simple as preferring to be addressed as William rather than Bill or more fundamental to ones core as Black rather than African American, Indigenous rather than Indian, Gay rather than Queer or expressing a preference for personal address such as he, she, or they.

We should respect that; besides, who are we to judge and dis someone elses self-identity?

Showing such respect to another person is not the contrived and undefined term political correctness; rather it is the manners about which that long-ago advice columnist advised her readers. Lord knows we would all benefit by the exercise of better manners.

Michael Bouffard, Cathedral City

Keep the positive student stories coming

Terrific story about Ms. Belinda Castenada headed to Stanford on a full scholarship in Friday's Desert Sun  thank you! And more power to her. Happy to learn she was also a member of the Interact club while at Indio High, a club sponsored by the Sunrise Rotary Club of Indio.

Keep the positive student stories coming, please!

Dennis Sheehan, Indio

Palm Desert's proposed sales tax increase has consequences

Aside from the wholly misleading headline stating that the Palm Desert city council is considering raising the sales tax by "a penny," I worry that the magnitude of the proposed increase is being glossed over by the city staff with the council itself possibly not really understanding the size of the proposed jump. Or if they do, they're keeping quiet about it.

While the story correctly states that the actual increase to taxpayers is nearly 13% over what we are paying now, it is actually a doubling of the sales tax revenue to the city. Yes, you heard that right. According to the city's website, the current sales tax of 7.75% is divided in the following manner: the State of California receives six of the 7.75%, Riverside County receives .75% and the City of Palm Desert receives 1% of the current rate. So, if the city raises the tax to 8.75% and keeps the entire increase, then the amount going to the city is now two percentage points of the total instead of one percentage point.

Isn't that double the revenue? In fact, the article states that the increase is estimated to generate an additional $26 million in sales tax revenue, but neglects to mention that the current estimated sales tax revenue is projected at $25.6 million. Yep, that's double! Let's call a spade a spade.

Bill Clawson, Palm Desert

Repeal the Second Amendment? Spot on.

The recent op-ed piece by Mr. Goldstein on repealing the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights was clearly written and spot on in the thesis.One needs to understand the history of the Second Amendment. It reads: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. In 1789, when it was written, there was no standing national military, no state and County law enforcement and virtually no local law enforcement. The nation depended on local militias to defend it, using such lethal weapons as handmade single-shot black-power muskets. This is clearly not the case today, so basically the original intent of the Second Amendment is obsolete. If you were able to transport the Founders from 1789 to today and have them look at the current situation, does anyone think they would say the Second Amendment is needed? Remember these were smart people.In contrast, the First Amendment states that Congress will not restrict freedom of speech, the press and assembly of the people. It is inconsistent when free speech is routinely regulated yet serious gun control is resisted. What is more lethal to society  a citizen in public waving a high-capacity automatic weapon, or a citizen participating in a nonviolent protest? This is not a trick question.Alexander Schriener, Jr., Bermuda Dunes

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Ken Calvert: 'We need to get our fiscal house in order'
King Charles pays musical tribute to Tina Turner during the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace

King Charles III honored the late Tina Turner with a musical tribute during the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.

The "Queen of Rock n' Roll" died at the age of 83 Wednesday at her home in Kusnacht, Switzerland, after a long illness. Following her death, the recently crowned 74-year-old monarch authorized the Band of the Welsh Guards to play Turner's song "The Best" during the famed ceremony in London Friday.

The Band of the Welsh Guards was accompanied by the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards Corps of Drums as they performed a rendition of the 1989 hit, according to the Mirror. The Changing of the Guard is the ceremony during which the King's Guard hands over responsibility for protecting Buckingham Palace and St. James's Palace to the New Guard.

Charles and his late ex-wife Princess Diana first met the music icon during the Prince's Trust All-Star Rock Concert at London's Wembley Arena in June 1986.

TINA TURNER MOURNED BY HOLLYWOOD AFTER ICON'S DEATH AT 83: SIMPLY THE BEST

King Charles III paid tribute to Tina Turner following her death at the age of 83 earlier this week.

In a 2021 appearance on the "Time to Walk" podcast, Prince William revealed "The Best" has special meaning for the royal family. He recalled that Diana would play the song for him and his younger brother Prince Harry to soothe their anxieties over heading back to boarding school.

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"When I was younger, Harry and I, we were at boarding school," the Prince of Wales, 40, remembered. "And my mother used to play all sorts of songs to kind of while away the anxiety of going back to school.

"And one of the songs I massively remember and has stuck with me all this time, and I still, to this day, still quite enjoy secretly, is Tina Turner's 'The Best' because sitting in the backseat, singing away, it felt like a real family moment.

"And my mother, she'd be driving along, singing at the top of her voice. And we'd even get the policeman in the car, he'd be occasionally singing along, as well.

"You'd be singing and listening to the music right the way out into the gates of school when they dropped you off," William remembered. "And, and that's when reality kind of sunk in that you really were going back to school because, before that, you're lost in songs. You'll want to play it again just to keep that family moment going.

"When I listen to it now, it takes me back to those car rides and brings back lots of memories of my mother."

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Charles and his late ex-wife Princess Diana first met the music icon during the Prince's Trust All-Star Rock Concert at London's Wembley Arena in June 1986.

In 2021, Prince William shared that Diana used to pay "The Best" while taking him and Prince Harry to boarding school.

In August 1997, Diana died at the age of 36 following a car accident in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris. William and Harry, now 38, were 15 and 12 at the time.

Turner's death was announced in a post shared on her official Instagram page.

"It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Tina Turner," the statement said. "With her music and her boundless passion for life, she enchanted millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow.

"Today we say goodbye to a dear friend who leaves us all her greatest work: her music. All our heartfelt compassion goes out to her family. Tina, we will miss you dearly."
King Charles III has reportedly turned down the temperature in the swimming pool at Buckingham Palace as he continues to find ways to reduce the royal familys energy usage.

The newly crowned monarch, who was once described by his son, the Duke of Sussex, as a stickler for turning the lights off, is known for his environmentalism and implementing energy-saving policies that are climate-friendly.

A source told The Times: A few people using the pool have noticed that the temperature of the water has dropped, and it is quite a bit cooler than it used to be. They have been told the King has had the heating turned down.

They were further quoted as saying: He probably thinks the whole thing is environmentally unsound, because the palace pool water has chemicals and has to be heated. It doesnt fit with his exercise regime or his world view.

Charles, whose coronation ceremony took place on 6 May, has also reportedly been keen for staff not to light fires in the palace unless there was a very good reason.

Another source said the King would want to know why you wanted to heat a room beyond room temperature, whatever the weather outside, adding: He would see it as wasteful.

Last year, during his first overseas visit to Berlin as Britains new monarch, the King spoke of the vital efforts being made by the UK and Germany to reach net-zero emissions.

He said in a speech that the move to alternative energy sources is vital in combating the existential challenge of climate change and global warming which confronts us all.

His Majesty has put his words into practice at some of his properties, having installed solar panels on Clarence House and using bath and waste water to care for his beloved gardens at his country residence in Highgrove.

(Matthew Childs/Reuters)

According to the newspaper, staff have often observed the King checking that no lights are left on in the palace if no one is using the room. He is also known for keeping his windows open even in the winter.

The palaces energy bills are funded by the taxpayer through the sovereign grant, with the bill reaching 3.2m last year. It has been reported that the King wants to achieve net zero emissions in the royal household ahead of the UK governments goal of 2050.

Last year, Charles was hailed by the chair of Natural England as possibly the most significant environmentalist in history.

Following Charless ascension to the throne after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Tony Juniper said: For 50 years, hes been involved with discussions about tropical rainforests and deforestation, sustainable agriculture and farming, water, food security, climate change, the plight of peatlands.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4s Today programme, Juniper continued: Hes accumulated vast knowledge on these subjects and has been extremely driven and hard-working in making a contribution on it I would go so far as to say that he possibly is the most significant environmental figure in history, considering the breadth and depth that hes gone into over so long.
What we know about the impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

The Texas House of Representatives voted 121-23 to send articles of impeachment against Attorney General Ken Paxton to the Texas Senate.

The vote came after hours of debate on the articles, that began Saturday with members of the House General Investigating committee laying out their case that Paxton abused his office and broke the law. The committee members and those who oppose the impeachment resolution had a set amount of time to present their arguments and debate the coming historic vote.

Paxton, 60, is immediately suspended until his trial in the Senate, where his wife, Angela Paxton serves.

The embattled attorney general, who took office in 2015, has faced legal troubles for years: Troubles that were outlined by a panel of House General Investigating Committee lawyers who addressed lawmakers in an hours-long Wednesday hearing.

Paxton has been under felony indictment for securities fraud since 2015, but has not gone to trial in the case. Separately, the FBI is investigating him for allegedly abusing his office to aid a campaign contributor, real estate investor Nate Paul, the Associated Press reported. The former employees who reported him to the FBI for corruption also filed a whistleblower lawsuit.

The committee, it was revealed Tuesday, had been investigating Paxton for months after he agreed to settle that lawsuit with $3.3 million in taxpayer dollars. Money for the settlement is subject to legislative approval.

What do the articles of impeachment say?

The document includes 20 articles: Seven for disregard of official duty, three for false statements in public records, two for constitutional bribery, two for obstruction of justice, one for conspiracy and attempted conspiracy, one for misapplication of public resources, one for misappropriation of of public resources, one for dereliction of duty, one for unfitness for office and one for abuse of public trust.

Among the findings, the resolution laying out the articles says Paxton fired employees for reporting his unlawful actions to law enforcement. He misused public resources when he had employees conduct a sham investigation into the whistleblower complaints.

Paxton concealed wrongful acts connected to the whistleblower complaints when he entered the settlement agreement, delaying the discovery of evidence and trial testimony which deprived the electorate of its opportunity to make an informed decision when voting for attorney general, one article reads.

Paxton benefited from having Paul, the campaign donor and real estate investor, employ a woman with whom Paxton was having an affair. Paul in turn got favorable legal assistance or special access to the attorney generals office, the document reads. Paxton also engaged in bribery when a man named Nate, presumably Nate Paul provided Paxton home renovations in exchange for legal help and access, says another article.

Paxton had his staff intervene in a lawsuit against Paul, harming a charitable organization, and had his office issue an opinion to help Paul avoid sale foreclosures on some of his properties or businesses. He also had an outside attorney look into a business complaint to benefit Paul, for which he issued more than 30 grand jury subpoenas, an article says. Those subpoenas were ultimately quashed, according to Wednesdays testimony.

Paxton obstructed justice when he benefited from the filing of a lawsuit by a political donor that disrupted the pay of prosecutors in the criminal case against Paxton, causing delays in the case, the document reads.

Paxton also made false personal statements to the State Securities Board, the Texas Ethics Commission and in public comments responding to whistleblower allegations, it says.

The final article says Paxton brought the attorney generals office into scandal and lowered the publics confidence in Texas government.

Paxtons response

Paxton posted a statement on Twitter immedately after the vote.

I am beyond grateful to have the support of millions of Texans who recognize that what we just witnessed is illegal, unethical, and profoundly unjust, Paxton said in a post on Twitter. I look forward to a quick resolution in the Texas Senate, where I have full confidence the process will be fair and just.

I am beyond grateful to have the support of millions of Texans who recognize that what we just witnessed is illegal, unethical, and profoundly unjust. I look forward to a quick resolution in the Texas Senate, where I have full confidence the process will be fair and just. pic.twitter.com/fEiAroA2DW  Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) May 27, 2023

Mistress at heart of allegations in impeachment papers

At the heart of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxtons recent troubles is that he used his office to help a political donor  Austin real estate investor Nate Paul  in exchange for allegedly helping the attorney general remodel his home and giving Paxtons mistress a job in his company.

According to thedailybeast.com, Paxton reportedly acknowledged the affair with the woman, who worked as an aide to a Texas state senator, to his staff in 2018 and said he had ended it.

Paul has denied that his hiring of the woman was as a favor to Paxton.

Resignations of seven senior members of Paxtons staff followed, accusing their boss of accepting bribes and abusing his office. Others were fired. Four of his former employees filed suit, arguing that Paxton and his agency improperly retaliated against them. A $3.3 million settlement was reached earlier this year.

Each of these four men is a conservative Republican civil servant, investigator Erin Epley told the House committee. Interviews show that they wanted to be loyal ... and they tried to advise him well and strongly. When that failed, each was fired after reporting General Paxton to law enforcement.

Where articles of impeachment against Ken Paxton mentions his mistress

ARTICLE IX

(Constitutional Bribery-Pauls Employment of Mistress)

While holding office as attorney general, Warren Kenneth Paxton engaged in bribery in violation of Section 41, Article XVI, Texas Constitution.

Specifically, Paxton benefited from Nate Pauls employment of a woman with whom Paxton was having an extramarital affair. Paul received favorable legal assistance from, or specialized access to, the office of the attorney general.

Who is Ken Paxtons wealthy donor, Nate Paul?

Nate Paul is a real estate investor based in Austin. He is the son of Indian immigrants.

He founded his company, World Class, in 2007 telling Forbes: I was buying at the pit of the crisis. In many of those deals, there was no other bidder.

He bought storage facilities, land in Austin, a marina on Lake Travis and a building being used by a call center in south Austin  exploiting the low prices and low-interest-rate opportunities after the 2008 financial meltdown.

Less than a decade later, institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies helped grow his business into the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the Austin Business Journal. His success got him on Forbes 30 under 30 list. By 2017, Forbes estimated his net worth to be about $800 million.

What is the court of impeachment in Texas?

The Senate accepts the articles of impeachment from the House. Then it meets in a court of impeachment for a trial. It is up to the Senate to determine the day and time of the trial. The body may decide to go over the time allotted to the current session.

If the Senate is not in session, the House will deliver by messenger or certified mail the articles of impeachment to the governor, lieutenant governor and every senator. Then a date will be set for the Senate to reconvene.

Every member of the Senate must attend the court of impeachment.

Like any court, the court of impeachment in the Senate may compel testimony and send for persons, papers, books and other documents.

A two thirds vote of the Senate is needed to convict.

What happens to the post of attorney general?

Under Texas law, Gov. Greg Abbott can can make an appointment to temporarily fill the vacant attorney general position.

How many Texas politicians have been impeached?

Only two other Texas politicians have ever been impeached and removed from office.

James Ferguson is the only Texas governor to be impeached and convicted. Ferguson was indicted on nine charges in Travis County, with a majority related to misapplication of public funds and another for embezzlement. He was impeached and removed from office in 1917, according to The Texas Politics Project.

State District Judge O.P. Carillo is the second and last elected official impeached in Texas. Carillo was impeached and removed from his position in 1976 for using his office to improperly spend county funds, according to Justia US Law.
The car zips by on the road, a rush of air blowing under my coat. I release the breath I just realized I was holding. These cars are really close.

My husband pokes his head out from under the truck. His legs still crossing the white line into the road. You should go sit in the car.

Kristin Slater

But how will people see you under the truck? If Im not standing here, someone might run over your legs. We need him to keep those.

He seems to be mulling over this problem when a van comes to a stop on the other side of the road. A man in the drivers seat rolls down his window, You need some help?

We think its the fuel pump, I call back over. It died here this morning. Fortunately, the truck died close to our house, and we had a second vehicle for me to go and pick my husband up in.

With absolutely no hesitation, the van pulls a U-turn, and the guy is crawling under the truck with my husband. After a few minutes, they both come back out. The guy from the van wipes his hands on the back of his shirt, Do you have everything you need to change it? He motions to a driveway just behind the truck, We could push it in there and I could have it done in about 45 minutes.

My husband shakes his head, We dont have the fuel pump yet, we were hoping just to get it off the side of the road before tonight so it doesnt get towed.

The guy nods, feeling in his pockets, Aah, I left my phone at home. Id call my buddy, he could get you home. Wait a minute. His mouth breaks into a smile, and he waves at a truck passing by. That truck grinds to a halt in the gravel on the side of the road about a hundred feet in front of us and two men get out, coming over. Hey, we were just on our way to your house to see if you needed help with that chicken coop.

Do you have your tow rope in the back? The guy from the gray van asks.

Sure do. One of the men runs back to his truck. Where do you live? The other one asks me.

I tell them the nearest corner and how many houses in, and they know our house; They even know our neighbor, who once threw a huge cookout for the entire neighborhood when he lost electric with half a cow in the freezer; and they know our turkey, who theyve admired from the road. And they live straight through the woods on the next road.

Our turkey pen is in the front yard and we just met more of our neighbors.

Five minutes later everythings hooked up and I lead the way in the strangest parade Ive ever been in. My little green Kia Soul in front, A pickup truck towing our suburban in the middle, and the gray minivan in the back. Down the dirt roads we go, slow and sticking to the middle.

When I was in my early 20s, I was walking my dog near my parents house, fell and sprained my ankle pretty badly. The first person who happened by just happened to be a doctor. I remember at the time a friend of mine said, Only in that neighborhood is the first person who comes past going to be a doctor.

Now, I live in a neighborhood where the first people who come past know how to swap out a fuel pump in 45 minutes on the side of the road and drive around with a tow rope in the back of the truck.

Its different. But both are important. Both times a neighbor saw someone in need and stopped to help, no questions asked, no compensation expected. Maybe some would see this as me being at the opposite of where I came from, I see it as more of my journey. Learning how similar people are, no matter where you are.

 Community Columnist Kristin Slater is an Allegan County resident. Contact her at kristinslater@yahoo.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Kristin Slater: It's amazing when a community cares for its people
As a result of a massive Russian attack on Kyiv on the night of 27-28 May, two fires broke out, including the one in Pecherskyi district, causing destruction and killing one person.

Source: Vitalii Klitschko, Mayor of Kyiv, on Telegram; Kyiv City Military Administration

Quote: "Explosions in Solomianskyi district. Emergency services are on their way.

Air defence is operating in Sviatoshynskyi district.

A fire on the roof of a nine-storey building in Pecherskyi district as a result of the fall of UAV debris. All services are on their way to the scene."

"Explosions and fire in Holosiivskyi district of the capital. The next wave of UAVs is coming to Kyiv.

Stay in shelters. This attack is large-scale!"

Update: Kyiv City Military Administration has reported that debris fell on the territory of a petrol station in Holosiivskyi district.

According to preliminary reports, three people were injured and one person was killed.

Later, Klitschko said that "air defence forces have already destroyed more than 20 UAVs that were moving towards Kyiv. But a new wave of drones is coming to the capital".

Update from 03:08: "Groups of UAVs are moving towards Kyiv from Vyshhorod district (the city of Ivankiv) and from the south of the oblast. Some drones have already crossed the administrative border of the oblast.

Air defence is already operating in the Vyshhorod district," Klitschko said.

At 03:14, Klitschko reported that the services had responded to a call about a fire at a facility in the Holosiivskyi district.

Update from 03:19: The Kyiv Mayor added that groups of Russian UAVs were moving toward Kyiv from several directions at once.

Update from 03:28: Klitschko said that the following consequences of the drone attack are currently known:

In Pecherskyi district, a fire broke out on the roof of a nine-storey building.

In Solomianskyi district, a drone fragment damaged the second floor of a seven-storey building.

In Holosiivskyi district: search and rescuers are putting down a fire at a facility.

Update from 03:43: Klitschko clarified that the roof of a three-storey warehouse building in Holosiivskyi district of the capital was on fire as a result of the fall of UAV debris.

Update from 04:05: After 04:00, loud explosions were heard in Kyiv again. At 04:05, Kyiv City Military Administration reported that air defence was operating in the capital.

Update from 04:40: Klitschko said that, according to updated information, the fire in Holosiivskyi district is being contained on an area of 700 square metres. The destruction of building structures as a result of the Russian attack took place on a total area of 1,000 square metres.

Update from 04:46: According to Kyiv City Military Administration, a drone fragment smashed windows and damaged doors in a shop in Darnytskyi district.

At 05:19, Klitschko said that the fire in Holosiivskyi district had been contained.

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Several buildings were hit by falling drone fragments, Kyiv officials say

Russia has carried out a new massive drone attack on Ukraine's capital Kyiv.

Kyiv's mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said a man died when drone wreckage fell near a petrol station. A woman was injured.

Overall, Russia launched a record 54 so-called kamikaze drones on Ukrainian targets, 52 of which were shot down, Ukraine's Air Force reported.

Russia - which launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 - has stepped up its attacks on Kyiv, seeking to overwhelm the capital's defences.

At least two high-rise buildings in different districts of the capital caught fire after being hit by falling drone fragments.

Kyiv officials also reported that warehouses in the southern Holosiyivsky district had been set ablaze.

More than 40 drones were downed over the capital overnight, Ukrainian officials said. This information has not been independently verified.

But President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the air defence and rescue services, saying: "You look up to destroy enemy missiles, aircraft, helicopters, and drones. Every time you shoot down enemy drones and missiles, lives are saved... you are heroes!"

Kyiv resident Anastasiia said that she was asleep at home when she was woken up by the sound of a drone flying "very close" to her window.

"I then saw a big flash of light inside the flat. At first it was yellow, then bright orange and then blinding white. It was so bright that I could not see anything in the flat," she told the BBC, adding that it all went "very quiet" during the flashes and that the sound of the explosions came "two or three seconds after the flash. It was very loud, like thunder."

"Those two or three seconds felt like a very long time," she said. "The bright light was transformed into total darkness. I wanted to check if there was any damage. I could not understand what happened. I was in shock so I did not feel scared. I could not understand if I and my flat were OK."

Anastasiia said she only realised she was still alive when she heard the sound of car alarms in the street. "When people read the news about drones being intercepted, this is what it means in reality. Then I went back to sleep until my friend brought me breakfast and I realised that we have to appreciate every moment of life."

Some officials accused Russia of targeting Kyiv deliberately as residents prepared to celebrate Kyiv Day - the anniversary of the city's foundation more than 1,500 years ago and a popular holiday before the war.

Earlier on Sunday, air raid alerts were activated in 12 regions of Ukraine, from Volyn in the north-west to Dnipropetrovsk in the south-east. There were also reports of explosions in the city of Zhytomyr, west of Kyiv.

In its recent attacks, Russia has been using so-called kamikaze drones as well as a range of cruise and ballistic missiles.

The frequency of the Russian attacks on Kyiv and elsewhere has been increasing as Ukraine steps up its preparations for a counter-offensive.

On Saturday, one of Ukraine's most senior security officials told the BBC the country was ready to launch such an operation.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the powerful National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, said an assault to retake territory from President Vladimir Putin's occupying forces could begin "tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week".

Ukraine has been planning a counter-offensive for months. But it has wanted as much time as possible to train troops and to receive military equipment from Western allies.

In the meantime, Russian forces have been preparing their defences in the seized regions of south-eastern Ukraine.

Drone attacks by both sides have been rising. Russia has been targeting not just Ukraine's critical national infrastructure but also military targets.

In particular, Russia seems to be trying not only to deplete Ukraine's stock of air defence missiles but also to damage the launch systems themselves.

In turn, Ukraine has been targeting key locations in parts of the country occupied by Russian forces. Those include command and control sites, logistical supply lines including oil storage centres. Ahead of Ukraine's much expected counter-offensive, the tempo of military exchanges between both sides appears to be rising.

In recent weeks, Russia has blamed Kyiv for heavy artillery and mortar shelling on the region of Belgorod. On Sunday, Belgorod's governor ordered all schools along the border with Ukraine and in Belgorod city to close for the summer with immediate effect.

Speaking to the BBC, Andrei Kelin, Russia's ambassador to the UK, said his country had "enormous resources" and it was yet to "act very seriously".

Warning that supplies of weapons to Ukraine risk escalating the war to levels not seen so far, he added: "Sooner or later, of course, this escalation may get a new dimension which we do not need and we do not want."
Lakeshore Advantage announced plans for the Next Center, located at 65 E. Seventh Street. The new building will house a business incubator, community education space, and the offices of Lakeshore Advantage.

HOLLAND  During its recent 20th anniversary celebration, Lakeshore Advantage announced plans that will impact entrepreneurship in the West Michigan area for years to come.

In the announcement, it unveiled plans to build the Next Center for entrepreneurship and innovation. The plan is for a three-story, 20,000-square-foot office building that they will operate, to serve as a business incubator, community education space and the home of Lakeshore Advantage.

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The startup community is important to the ecosystem of even mature businesses, said Neil Boehm, chairman of the Board for Lakeshore Advantage. We work with startups all the time. Many times, they are thought leaders in technology. I think its going to add so much into the community.

Lakeshore Advantage is located in Zeeland where it serves as a nonprofit economic development organization serving Allegan and Ottawa counties. In 2022 alone, the organization supported 33 business growth projects made up of $2.38 billion invested by local companies.

The Next Center will be in Hollands SmartZone, at 65 E. Seventh St., and will feature a multifunctional first-floor business incubator with space for up to 50 tenants. There is currently an existing warehouse at the location but the plan is to demolish the current structure to make room for the new building.

The second floor will house Lakeshore Advantages headquarters to go with a home to second-stage startup companies and the third floor will house an anchor company and partner to incubating startups.

Lakeshore Advantage's Jennifer Owens said the organization has been working towards a center of innovation since 2015 when the Holland SmartZone was created. The hope is for the new space to be a welcoming place where start-ups can thrive while also being showcased to local employers.

Owens said it will also contain a 50-person learning lab to be used by K-12 schools, colleges, universities and nonprofits, allowing for entrepreneurial, innovation or technology education.

Total construction and operational costs are estimated to be $15.3 million. Lakeshore Advantage is seeking to raise $2.3 million in funding to finalize the project.

"This Center will be a visible, accessible technology hub in the heart of downtown Holland, Owens said. It will allow us to accelerate our next generation of business but also our established employers. To bring this dream to a reality and ensure it is world-class, we need to secure our final foundational funding.

Construction is expected to begin this fall and be completed by the end of 2024.

 Contact freelancer Austin Metz at ametz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Lakeshore Advantage announces plans for new downtown Holland space
On the night of 27-28 May, Russia launched the most massive Iranian kamikaze drone attack on Ukraine: the Russians fired 54 loitering munitions, and Ukraine's air defence forces destroyed 52 of them.

Source: press service of the Ukrainian Air Force Command

Quote: "On the night of 28 May 2023, the enemy attacked Ukraine with Iranian attack drones Shahed-136/131 from the northern Bryansk Oblast and the southern Krasnodar territory.

In total, a record number of 54 kamikaze drones were launched.

The Russian night attack targeted military facilities and critical infrastructure of the state in the central regions of the country, in particular Kyiv Oblast. Here, in the area of responsibility of the Air Command Centre, most of the drones were destroyed."

Details: It is noted that the forces of the Air Command South and West of Ukraine's Air Force and air defence troops of other components of the Defence Forces of Ukraine were also involved in repelling the attack.

As a result of successful combat work, 52 Shaheds were destroyed.

Background:

An air raid siren was announced in Kyiv and a number of oblasts of Ukraine on the night of 28 May. In the capital, it lasted for more than 5 hours. The air defence was working hard, Kyiv residents could not sleep due to the explosions.

The Kyiv City Military Administration reported that on the night of 28 May, according to preliminary data, more than 40 Russian drones were destroyed. The drone's falling debris in the capital caused at least one death and one injury. There is damage and destruction in the city.

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When my teenage sister died in a car accident, friends and neighbors blessed our family with oodles of food. The large dining room table, used only on holidays, was covered with food, enough to serve all the out-of-town family members who crowded in the living room. In the aftermath of a horrific death, community support was abundant and healing, a source of comfort, both emotional and practical. Our familys grief was recognized and honored; it was official grief in the eyes of the world.

This is in sharp contrast to what happens when a spouse develops dementia. In her November 2019 New York Times article, The Loneliness of Frontotemporal Dementia, Dr. Sara Manning Peskin quoted a spousal caregiver as saying:

This grief is not official ... Casseroles do not appear at the front door, flowers are not delivered, condolence letters are not received.

At a time when a spouse has lost a partner, the community often retreats rather than rallies around. Its well known that spousal caregivers end up isolated. What is less well known is that in their isolation they are grieving alone.

Their spouses are alive and yet no longer present. It is what family therapist Pauline Boss calls an ambiguous loss. During my husbands long years of decline, it often felt as if someone had kidnapped him. Id look at the stranger in the familiar body and ask myself, Who are you? And what have you done with my husband?

Friends disappear. At first I wondered what was wrong with us that our friends had disappeared. Then I realized it was normal and happens to most people. I learned to treasure those rare people who stayed or re-appeared. When my husband was in skilled nursing care, it was a great comfort to me when other people recognized his existence by visiting or sending him a birthday card.

To engage in conversation with someone with dementia it helps to let go of expectations. The person we once knew is no longer present. If we recognize that loss and acknowledge our grief, we are better positioned to engage with the new person before us. Visiting with someone with dementia can be an opportunity for creativity and to practice cognitive flexibility. It can be good for us, a different form of exercise and meditation.

When my husband was still well, he had a lovely dinner with his mother at a Chinese restaurant when her dementia was quite pronounced. They ordered two entrees to share. My mother-in-law took some of the first dish, declared it excellent, and then did the same with the second. Next she returned to the first dish and said, Oh, I havent tried this one. And try it again she did, once again for the first time. Each dish she tried, no matter how many times shed tried it before, was for the first time. By the time dinner was over, my husband estimated shed enjoyed a full Chinese banquet. He exercised cognitive flexibility in not correcting her.

If you know someone whose spouse has dementia, please reach out. Take the person to lunch and listen, really listen. Ask the spouse what he or she misses the most. Acknowledge that their life has changed, that they have had an unofficial loss. Sometimes it may be more helpful to take the person with dementia out for lunch or for a walk, to give the caregiver some precious alone time.

It can be especially hard to comfort a caregiver who denies their loss, and many do. This semi-heroic stance seems admirable, but the pain is present nonetheless. Its a delicate balancing act to acknowledge both the presence and the absence of the person with dementia. Of course dementia is a gradual loss not a sudden death and the caregivers needs change over time and sometimes even from day to day. Staying in touch helps you know what kind of support is most helpful.

What happens when the person with dementia dies? Does the community rally around the bereaved spouse? Unfortunately no. Often the community consoles the bereaved spouse with words such as Its a blessing. Or, I know you wouldnt have wanted him to live much longer. Or, He didnt really have much of a life any more, did he? Now youre free. Youve been so burdened with caregiving.

The spouse is denied support when the person with dementia is living and denied support again when the person with dementia is dead. We can and must do better. When someone with dementia dies, the bereaved spouse has still lost a beloved person whose death merits the same compassion any death does.

Lauri Perman, who lived in State College for many years, recently relocated to her native Minnesota, where she has three living sisters. This column is coordinated by www.learningtolivewhatsyourstory.org , whose mission is to create educational and conversational opportunities for meaningful intergenerational exchanges on loss, grief, growth and transformation.
One person arrested after New Mexico motorcycle rally shooting that killed 3 and injured at least 5

Three people were killed and at least five others were injured  one of whom has been charged with murder  in a shooting Saturday at a popular motorcycle rally at a New Mexico resort town, officials said.

The shooting broke out around 5 p.m. on Main Street in the town of Red River among members of outlaw motorcycle gangs, New Mexico State Police said Sunday. The Justice Department defines the gangs as "organizations whose members use their motorcycle clubs as conduits for criminal enterprises," including weapons and drug trafficking.

Officers found two people dead at the scene, and six injured people were taken to hospitals, one of whom was airlifted to a Denver hospital, state police said. One of the injured who was taken to a local hospital was later pronounced dead, said police, who said all eight victims were members of the motorcycle gangs.

State police on Sunday identified the dead as Anthony Silva, 26, of Los Lunas; Randy Sanchez, 46, of Albuquerque; and Damian Breaux, 46, of Socorro.

One of the injured, Jacob David Castillo, 30, of Rio Rancho, was charged with an open count of murder, state police said. He was hospitalized and will be booked into the Taos County Detention Center upon his release, police said.

Another injured person, Christopher Garcia, 41, of Texas, was charged with cocaine possession and booked into the detention center after his release from the hospital.

Mathew Charles Jackson, 39, of Austin, Texas, was also booked into the detention center after he was charged with unlawful carrying of a firearm in a liquor establishment. It is unclear whether he was counted among the injured.

Police said "the remaining four individuals" who were injured have not been charged. That would bring the total injured to at least six; police said earlier that there were only five surviving injured victims. A state police spokesperson could not be reached by phone or through multiple emails to explain the discrepancy.

The extent of the injures was not immediately available.

There are more than 300 active outlaw motorcycle gangs across the country, according to the Justice Department, which says five of the gangs  the Hells Angels, the Mongols, the Bandidos, the Outlaws and the Sons of Silence  "pose a serious national domestic threat" and conduct most of the criminal activity, including international drug smuggling. It was not immediately clear which gangs were alleged to be involved in Saturday's shooting.

Police said earlier that the scene was secure and that there was "no ongoing threat to public safety."

The Phoenix field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the federal agency is assisting state police in the investigation.

Red River, a resort town of 675 northeast of Taos in a range at the southern end of the Rocky Mountains, was expecting nearly 30,000 people over the weekend as part of the 41st annual Red River Memorial Motorcycle Rally.

Events connected to the rally include music performances, according to a website for the event.

Mayor Linda Calhoun said on the towns Facebook page that the crime scene included most of Main Street. State and local law enforcement agencies recommended that only essential businesses outside the investigation area stay open and requested that others remain closed Sunday, she said.

Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina tweeted that he is originally from Red River, which is about 170 miles northeast of Albuquerque, and that he was having dinner with his wife in the town at the time of the shooting.

"Prayers for all impacted by todays shooting in my hometown," Medina tweeted.

"What a helpless feeling not having a badge, gun or radio as State Police officers and others enter the restaurant and slowly everything closes down and you dont even know if you can get to your car or if its in the scene," he added.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she was in contact with Calhoun and law enforcement. My thoughts are with the Red River community following this violent incident, she tweeted.

In a joint statement, U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan and Reps. Teresa Leger Fernandez, Melanie Stansbury and Gabe Vasquez said they are "heartsick," saying the shooting "desecrated a decades-old, cherished community gathering."

They called for greater action to prevent gun violence, noting that the shooting came less than two weeks after an 18-year-old gunman fatally shot three elderly women and wounded two police officers in Farmington, a city 230 miles west of Red River.

"We cannot let these events become normal," they said. "We must do more to prevent gun violence.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Letters to the Editor: Colorado River pact isn't much of a solution. What L.A. must do to save the river

Lake Havasu is impounded by Parker Dam on the Colorado River and shared by California and Arizona. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: While the announcement by the U.S. Department of the Interior regarding the proposed Colorado River conservation agreement is an important first step toward managing the river, it is a temporary solution.

The proposal relies heavily on payments to agricultural growers to save water  but not nearly enough water to protect the river over the long term. Finding a sustainable solution for the Colorado River will require long-term federal leadership and funding, plus a more integrated approach to water management.

The Los Angeles region relies on imported water for nearly two-thirds of its supply. To help reduce the region's reliance on the Colorado River, we must reduce water waste, reuse urban and stormwater runoff, recycle purified wastewater, and restore contaminated groundwater. These are all critical elements of a sustainable water future.

We can and must move toward water independence for both the sake of the Colorado River and our own future.

Justin Breck, Los Angeles

The writer is a fellow at Los Angeles Waterkeeper.

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To the editor: The idea that this short-term solution represents a "big win" for California overlooks the public health impacts that changes in the Colorado River will bring. This "big win" only delays a sustainable solution, endangering the public health of communities that rely on the Colorado River for water.

As a Latinx public health professional, I fear for the well-being of marginalized communities that receive water from the Colorado River.

The river provides water for one-third of the Latinx population in the United States, as well as 30 tribal nations that live across the river basin. Many of these communities currently do not have enough drinking water, and this will only intensify if a more sustainable policy is not implemented to manage the river.

Centering these communities diverse voices in future discussions may help educate others about current water challenges and alleviate some of the problems that arise from changing water management.

Daniela Morales, Clovis, Calif.

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To the editor: No politician is going to make the hard decision. But a great leader could. The fact that California's population is decreasing is prima facie evidence that it is unsustainable. And when one looks at the root cause of all the reasons why people are leaving, one arrives at water.

Considering that one person can live sustainably on about one acre of arable land, California is at its sustainable population limit. But California produces nearly half the food of the nation and it needs that water to do so. This is a problem.

The bottom line is, the Colorado River and all the other water sources will be in crisis until we step up to the plate and face the underlying cause of the crisis.

Gregg Ferry, Carlsbad

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Dismantle the structures of sexual violence, NOT the protesters tents!

We, concerned citizens, are absolutely horrified to see the violence unleashed by the government and police today, to suppress the powerful grassroots support for our brave wrestlers and their struggle against Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who stands accused of sexual harassment of women wrestlers stretching back over a decade. The wrestlers have been protesting since 18th of January, 2023. They had given a call to all womens organisations, activists and all other civil society organisations to join a Mahila Samman Mahapanchayat outside the new parliament building today, i.e 28 May 2023.

Thousands of women from Delhi and nearby states responded to the call. Fearing the collective strength of Indian women - the police pre-emptively blocked all border roads, shut down proximal metro stations, and cordoned off roads. This is how scared a patriarchal State is of the sight of the women of India standing shoulder to shoulder with each other. Despite this crackdown, the government was unable to block the flow of solidarity; activists and concerned citizens found ways of trying to reach the protest site.

But in a rerun of how peoples protests have been stifled in the past few years, many women have been taken into custody and many have been subjected to physical and verbal violence by the police. As we write this statement with fury, we learn that the wrestlers tent at Jantar Mantar has been dismantled, and the wrestlers have been taken into custody. Not only has their minimum demand of holding proper inquiries not been met, but they and the thousands from across India, speaking up with them for justice to women, are being treated like criminals; while the actual criminal, Brij Bhushan, remains scot-free. Fittingly for this anti-women regime, this is happening even as a new parliament building is being inaugurated by a Prime Minister whose Beti Bachao slogan never rang hollower. This parliament belongs to all of us; it belongs to the women of this country, as does their right to demand justice!

We stand in complete solidarity with the wrestlers and the people who have been detained.

We demand:

Immediate arrest of BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh

Release of the detained wrestlers and activists

Respect the right to protest against injustice

A statement in solidarity with the wrestlers and the protestors who have been taken into custody.

Dismantle the structures of sexual violence, NOT the protesters tents!

Please endorse by 5 p.m today and circulate

https://forms.gle/wbm7MAKzQdfdnvbr8

o o

A final version with signatures has been released and is available at More Than 1,150 Civil Society Members Demand Immediate Arrest of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh https://thewire.in/rights/more-than-1150-civil-society-members-demand-immediate-arrest-of-brij-bhushan-sharan-singh
I don't want an electric vehicle

Everyday I read The Free Press I am irritated by the idea of all the money time and effort put forth by our governments and auto manufacturers in the development of electric vehicles. I don't want one. It will change the way Americans move from place to place, and it appears it will be far more expensive than gas combustion engines. My electric bill has more than doubled since the COVID-19 pandemic. What will it be when millions of people are plugged in? Try driving great distances for vacation, as many in Michigan do. Add on two to three days for your Florida trip, not the 18to 20 hours it takes to get there now. I smell a rat between manufacturers and our politicians.

Larry CroninTroy

A lone, unsold 2022 Bolt electric vehicle sits on a lot at a Chevrolet dealership on Feb. 27, 2022, in Englewood, Colo.

Wear orange for Gun Violence Awareness month

As of May 18, our country marked its 236th mass shooting of 2023. Three of those shootings were in Michigan. The daily horror, long-term impact, grief and devastation of the Oxford High School shooting still reverberates in our community. This year, the United States has averaged more than one mass shooting per day, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The growing list of tragedies underscores a troubling trend in the U.S. firearms are the leading cause of death in children between ages 1 and 19, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation data.

As a member of Christ the Redeemer Catholic Communitys Peace and Justice Committee, we are committed to educating, facilitating and advocating for common-sense gun safety. Over 350 of our parishioners signed letters addressed to Michigan legislators in support of this approach.

We urge your readers to join us in supporting Gun Violence Awareness Month in June by wearing orange, speaking out about common-sense gun safety and contacting their local legislators. Together, our voices can generate the necessary changes that will help everyone feel safe again.

Susan Hiltz CarrollOxford

Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters

James Earl Jones never shied away from sharing his story

Your article "Michigan community raising funds for statue honoring James Earl Jones and his teacher" (Detroit Free Press, May 17) was right on target about how the actor overcame his severe stuttering. You did a service by publishing this article, and emphasizing the role that his teacher Donald Crouch had in helping him embrace acting and work to overcome his stuttering. Jones is a role model for all people who stutter, and especially people of color who stutter.

James Earl Jones is a past spokesperson for the Stuttering Foundation and is one of the most prominent names on their list of "Famous People Who Stutter" on their website. James Earl Jones has never hid his struggles with his stutter because he knows his compelling history can help others.

Juan FernandezBronx, New York

Hey, Second Amendment conservatives: get over it

When discussions regarding the Second Amendment pop up, it sure seems that conservatives invoke the words "freedom" and "liberty" an awful lot. As if these words should only be used to describe an unfettered right for anyone to have and stockpile all the guns they want. I feel sorry for you if you feel this is what freedom is all about. In response to a letter from a writer in Grand Blanc in last weeks paper, I have this to say regarding the Second Amendment: Give it a rest.

Most of us normal people would like to enjoy the freedom to go about our day without the fear of getting shot. We want to send our kids to school, go to the shopping mall or grocery store without getting gunned down in a hail of bullets. We would like to feel safe attending our places of worship or go to a night club or attend a college campus without getting mutilated by an AR-15.

For those of us who served in the military and swore an oath to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution, these were the simple liberties that we were fighting to preserve. The safety and wellbeing of our fellow countrymen and women and those we love. We knew who the enemy was, they were far away, and they were not here on the home front.

The mission was to bring the fight to them somewhere over the horizon, so we wouldnt have to fight here on our own soil. We were not led by self-serving politicians to believe the enemy were members of the opposing political party, or by white nationalists to believe the enemies were fellow citizens who happen to have different color skin or worship in a different manner than we did. We were not whipped up in a state of paranoia by the NRA to believe the enemies were all around us here at home.

Strict constitutionalists want to keep the words of the Founding Fathers intact, while allowing guns to become more and more lethal. This doesnt make sense. Im quite certain that the writers of the Constitution intended that we would be guided by rational-thinking people who would at least shape policies that would maintain parity with advances in weapons technology. Although guns have been with us since the colonial era, we have always set limits on what weapons were available to the civilian public.

The Second Amendment was written during a time when we were under the boot of British rule. Colonists were called to arms at a moments notice and mustered at an armory where the guns were kept. The writers of the Second Amendment would have you know that the well-regulated militia is plainly the Minutemen who were called to duty from civilian life. Today we call them the National Guard, and they are in every state of the country. Any deviation from this is a misinterpretation of the true intent of what the Second Amendment is all about. When it comes to the safety of all of us who want to live in a civil and safe society, your freedom ends where mine begins.

Eddie DeeNovi

Biden should debate Marianne Williamson, RFK Jr.

Did you know that author Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr have both filed with the Federal Election Commission to seek the 2024 Democratic Party nomination for president versus Joe Biden? Did you also know that the Democratic National Committee is refusing to allow for primary debates, and is actively attempting to keep these two viable candidates from appearing on state caucus & primary ballots next year?

The more you know, our side isn't perfect. We can't pretend to be the party of democracy and fair elections when we are not allowing for it to happen internally. Open up the primaries, and make Joe debate.

Jason R. GattiesDowagiac, Mich.

Social and emotional learning isn't 'woke,' it's normal behavior

People use social and emotional learning (SEL) to teach social and emotional skills every day. Parents, for example, teach their children to be nice to each other, to be kind to their pets, to never give up, to respect their elders and to accept responsibility for their actions. Also, parents teach empathy when they say how would you feel if that happened to you.

American citizens use SEL when they model civility, use peaceful means (i.e., Bill of Rights) to change something they consider morally wrong (i.e., duty; Declaration of Independence); and, vote for policy that promotes health and economic fairness, (i.e., general welfare) as espoused in the Constitution. When people of God act in a loving, caring manner for all creatures created by God, they are living social and emotional skills. When cadets at West Point say the school prayer choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never be content with a half truth when the whole truth can be won they are learning good decision-making skills. Employers use SEL by preparing their employees to be good team members. Educators use SEL to create caring classrooms that encourage learning and achievement, to resolve conflicts peacefully, and to encourage students to accept personal responsibility for their learning and behavior.

We all use SEL skills every day and this is what makes our country great.

Denise "Chip" BlackBrighton

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Letters to the Editor: I don't want an electric vehicle
Oakland Bay marked for Taylor Shellfish takeover

Sheltons Oakland Bay has joined Burley Lagoon in Gig Harbor as a takeover target by Taylor Shellfish.

Taylor has filed for a permit to install a precedent-setting 50-acre oyster farm in the middle of the deep water of Oakland Bay. This proposed farm would obliterate what is now a peaceful, uncluttered, beautiful environment where whales, seals and salmon move about freely and which is also used for recreation by the community.

The size of the proposed installation would be greater than the footprint of the combined acreage of the Mariners and Seahawks stadiums in Seattle! The infrastructure would be installed in this space, blocking navigational paths, recreational safety and blemishing the simple aesthetic we now take for granted. Who knows what a 99-year lease granted by the DNR  whose current leader, Hilary Franz, accepts campaign contributions from Taylor  would actually do to the ecosytem already made fragile by the sawmill?

One would hope the 90 acres in the bays Chapman Cove that Taylor already owns and appears to be developing into an oyster farm would be enough of an intrusion.

Taylor was granted an extension on the public hearing regarding this case until 1 p.m. June 14 in Shelton. We ask friends of Oakland Bay to pay attention to this action and support the denial of this proposed permit. Send letters against the proposal to Lviscusi@masoncountywa.gov for submission to the Mason County Hearings Examiner.

Ginny Douglas, Shelton

Parties failing

Americas vaunted but polarized two-party political system is failing and needs a serious recharge to get this country back on track. Im not naive enough to believe a third party is the answer because that would only further divide us and keep the dysfunctional parties locked in a futile, self-serving power struggle to the detriment of our best national interests.

Polls show a majority of Americans now identify themselves as independent from and alienated by both parties.

Additionally, majorities of those who identify with a party do not want to see a rematch of the 2020 presidential election. And yet, it appears thats exactly what were going to get, leaving us to again choose the lesser of two evils. We should be able to do better than this.

The hard-core unyielding Republicans supporting the dangerous Donald Trump likely will succeed as they did in 2016 when a crowded field divided the votes rather than coalescing around a centrist attractive to independents. Democrats are betting that Joe Biden  despite low ratings and concerns about his age and health  will conduct a near-invisible campaign again and deservedly defeat Trump by default, setting up the probable presidency of the ineffective Kamala Harris.

Ugly picture. The inescapable truth is that the majority does not rule in modern America. When will we wake up?

Bettter matchups would be, in the GOP, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich or New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu., and among the Democrats, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar or retiring Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin. Now were talking like serious centrists!

Dick Nichols, Olympia

Congress should protect ordinary Americans

Unless you and everyone you care about are very wealthy, you should be deeply concerned about the dangerous game MAGA Congressional Republicans are playing by making a hostage crisis out of paying our bills.

Their proposed exchange for raising the debt ceiling slashes nutrition services, taking food off the table for 400,000 people who count on those meals. It cuts energy assistance programs, meaning seniors and families could pay 20% more for their heating bills next winter. It slashes Medicaid, jeopardizing health care for 21 million people who count on it, especially children with disabilities and seniors in nursing homes. It eliminates 108,000 teachers jobs, which will impact over 32 million kids. It claws back tax rebates for renewable energy while protecting the previous administrations tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy.

Defaulting on the national debt by Republicans in Congress would take away the hard-earned financial control that working and retired Americans have regained after the pandemic. I am grateful that Rep. Marilyn Strickland is working to ensure that our nation meets its current obligations while protecting her constituents from an unnecessary default crisis that sticks 99% of us with the bill.

Lisa Ornstein, Olympia
Letters to the Editor: Do McCarthy's Republicans have any real beliefs on the debt or federal spending?

Speaker Kevin McCarthy leaves the House Chamber on May 24 as debt-ceiling negotiations with the White House continue. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: I appreciate how columnist Jackie Calmes exposes Republicans for the fiscal hypocrites they are.

This fight over the debt ceiling is a ploy only to hurt President Biden. When former President Trump ran deficits, the Republicans went along with it. Now they decide to cut spending on the backs of the poor.

Congress has had more than 30 years to pass legislation addressing immigration since President Reagan gave amnesty to millions living in the U.S. in the 1980s. Now, the Republicans are stalling bills that would fund border protection and homeland security.

Their hearts bleed for veterans, but they stalled a bill to help those who served and were exposed to toxins.

If that isnt enough to set your hair on fire, the Republicans want to cut education spending, nutrition programs for children, money for Alzheimer's research and more. Of course, Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy are off limits.

The Republicans in Congress have convinced unsuspecting people that they care about them. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Deborah Wright, Rancho Santa Margarita

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To the editor: At his recent town hall Trump said about defaulting on the debt, "Congressmen, senators, if they don't give you massive cuts, you're going to have to do a default." Many members of Congress regard him as the legitimate president

Furthermore, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) required 15 rounds of voting to secure his position as speaker of the House, and he had to make significant agreements with the conservative wing of his party to win.

Given all this, it will be surprising if any plan that McCarthy puts to a vote in Congress that has any compromises with the Democrats will win enough Republican votes to pass.

Alan Rosenberg, Dana Point

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To the editor: I thought the Republicans were supposed to be responsible fiscal conservatives. Yet here they are threatening to not pay America's bills, which they also incurred as members of Congress.

Governing is lost on a party that supports insurrection, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declaring that he might pardon Trump if elected president.

What an unreal world. You couldn't write it with scab labor during a writer's strike.

Michael Frishberg, Torrance

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., warned House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., against slashing the defense budget in order to reach a deal on the debt ceiling.

"Number one, I respect Kevin McCarthy. I want to raise the debt ceiling. It would be irresponsible not to do it. I want to control spending. Id like to have a smaller IRS. Id like to claw back the unused COVID money. I know you cant get the perfect  but what I will not do is adopt the Biden defense budget and call it a success," Graham told "Fox News Sunday" host Shannon Bream. "Kevin said that the defense is fully funded. If we adopt the Biden defense budget, it increases defense spending below inflation  3.2% increase in defense is below inflation."

Graham said the "Biden defense budget" would cut the number of ships in the U.S. Navy from 298 to 291 at a time when China is going to increase their Navy by nearly a third.

"The Biden defense budget was a joke before, and if we adopt it as Republicans we will be doing a great disservice to the party of Ronald Reagan. The biggest winner of the Biden defense budget is China because theyll have a bigger navy; and it will be Putin," Graham claimed. "Theres nothing in the budget for Biden to help Ukraine win a war that theyre on the verge of driving the Russians out. So I like Kevin a lot, but dont tell me that the Biden defense budget fully funds the military."

DEBT CEILING AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE REACHED BETWEEN DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS

Sen. Lindsey Graham during a press conference at an exhibition of destroyed Russian military vehicles in Kyiv, on May 26, 2023.

"The overmatch with China is real. The Biden defense budget makes it even worse for us. I look forward to the details, but if you send me the Biden defense budget to the United States Senate and declare it fully funds the military, you will have a hard time with me," Graham told "Fox News Sunday."

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

"This is sequestration, potentially, 2.0. In 2011, my good friend Mitch McConnell negotiated the deal with Joe Biden that virtually destroyed the Defense Department in the name of raising the debt ceiling. If this is another round of sequestration, not only will I vote no, I will not be intimidated by June 5," Graham said.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy speaks to members of the media after arriving at the U.S. Capitol on May 26, 2023.

SPEAKER MCCARTHY DEFENDS BUDGET COMPROMISE AS CONSERVATIVES BALK: A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

"If you dont see the connection between Ukraine and China, youre missing a lot," Graham said. "We need more defense spending. Theyre right about the weapons. We need to increase our arsenal. We have multiple threats. Lets help Ukraine defeat Putin. End the war on favorable terms in Ukraine, youll make China less likely to invade Taiwan. The defense budget that theyre proposing as part of this deal makes it impossible for us to do the things we need to do. Youre reducing defense spending at a time we need more of it."

Sen. Lindsey Graham said he would not be threatened by the June 5 deadline in choosing whether to support the agreement House Speaker Kevin McCarthy brokered with Democrats on the debt ceiling.

Though the details of the deal remain unclear, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a statement that President Biden has announced an agreement in principle regarding the debt ceiling and that the agreement will be finalized once legislative text prepared by House Republicans has been reviewed by the Biden administration.

Biden and McCarthy are scheduled to speak in order to complete the agreement no later than 2 p.m. ET.
The Coca-Cola 600 has been officially postponed.

The biggest NASCAR Cup Series race run at Charlotte Motor Speedway has been postponed to Monday at 3 p.m. after rain washed out all on-track activities on Sunday. The last time North Carolinas biggest NASCAR race ran on a Monday was in 2009.

The Coca-Cola 600 will still be on FOX.

Gates open at 9 a.m. Monday to fans. The NASCAR Xfinity Series race, which was postponed after rain Saturday, will run at 11 a.m. Fans can watch it on FS1.

In a Twitter video at 9:21 p.m. Sunday, Charlotte Motor Speedway general manager Greg Walker said that any fan who has a ticket to either race is allowed entry for both the Xfinity race and the Cup race on Monday. (This a change from the policy the racetrack released at 6:30 p.m.; now there are no requirements for fans to exit the grandstands following the Xfinity race.)

Fans with unscanned tickets to either the Xfinity race or the Cup race may exchange them ticket-for-ticket for equal or lesser value toward any other Speedway Motorsports NASCAR or NTT IndyCar race during the next calendar year, per a release.

Additional details can be found at www.CharlotteMotorSpeedway.com.

Live updates from Charlotte Motor Speedway

6:30 p.m.: Race is called. See you tomorrow!

6:08 p.m.: Air Titans descended on the track around 5:45 p.m. to dry the speedway pavement, and theyve stayed out there as the rain has slackened. Fans cheered when they settled onto the track. Still a long ways to go until we go racing tonight. A reminder: Engines were supposed to be fired about eight minutes ago.

A NASCAR Air Titan 2.0 drives by poncho-clad fans awaiting the start of the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday, May 28, 2023 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

4:43 p.m.: A message from Marcus Smith, CEO of Speedway Motorsports, which owns Charlotte Motor Speedway: Weather meeting update from (Charlotte Motor Speedway). Heres what I heard. Spotty showers from now to 6 p.m. Then things lift, and we start drying the track. Projecting 8-8:30 p.m. start time. No guarantees, but I hope they are right! We shall see.

Related: The average time of NASCARs longest race is 4:33:56, per the sanctioning body. Again, only half of the race has to be completed for it to be official. The 2022 Coke 600 was the longest in modern history, at five hours and 13 minutes.

Weather meeting update from @CLTMotorSpdwy  Heres what I heard . Spotty showers from now to 6pm. Then things lift and we start drying the track. Projecting 8-8:30 start time.

No guarantees, but I hope they are right! We shall see. https://t.co/WnxtXjTEzL  Marcus Smith (@MarcusSMI) May 28, 2023

4:27 p.m.: Realistically, there looks to be no way this race will begin at its scheduled start time at 6 p.m. Its still raining, and it generally takes 2-3 hours to dry the track  and thats after it stops raining, which so far it hasnt.

The track and NASCAR have made no announcement about changing the start time, but unofficially, it appears we will be looking at a time much later than 6 p.m. for a start time  if the race gets run at all on Sunday. If it doesnt, a mid-afternoon start time Monday seems possible, but again, theres nothing official.

4:17 p.m.: The Indy 500  which people around this track like to consider the warm-up act to the Coke 600  has concluded in Indianapolis. It had been playing on the Charlotte Motor Speedways big screen and in various places around the track. Josef Newgarden was the Indy 500 winner. It remains to be seen if that was the last big race to actually be run on this Sunday. A steady rain continues.

Fans walk in the garage area in the rain before the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., Sunday.

The Indy 500 did contain one frightening moment, when a tire got loose from its wheel tether and sailed completely off the track. Fortunately, it hit a parked car instead of flying into the stands. No one was injured.

4:06 p.m.: Brad Keselowski and RFK Racing announced a partnership with BlueForge Alliance, the non-profit integrator for the U.S. Navys Submarine Industrial Base Program on Sunday. BuildSubmarines.com will be featured as a primary partner for 10 races across RFKs two Cup cars this year and in 18 races next season.

Helping out @alexzietlow05 at rainy Charlotte Motor Speedway. Brad Keselowski and RFK announcing sponsorship with BlueForge Alliance non-profit organization and U.S. Navy's Submarine Industrial Base Program, https://t.co/rDo2y5mNPf pic.twitter.com/VAxPQ6wReu  Lou Bezjak (@LouatTheState) May 28, 2023

4 p.m.: On a sadder note: the Doobie Brothers pre-race concert has been canceled due to safety concerns related to the weather. Fans who purchased a Track Pass upgrade will receive credit toward a future Track Pass, racetrack PR said in a statement. Also from Charlotte Motor Speedway staff: We are prepared to launch a full-scale track-drying effort to get the Coca-Cola 600 started. Our goal is to do everything possible to race tonight!

3:54 p.m.: When will a decision be made about the races start time? Hard to say.

NASCAR generally doesnt make any calls for postponements until well after the races original start time if theres a chance that a window of dry weather could crop up. Case in point: It took the sanctioning body until 3:47 p.m. yesterday  several hours after the scheduled 12 p.m. start time  to officially postpone the Xfinity Series race to Monday at 12 noon. (That said, the race at Dover was postponed at 11 a.m., a few hours before the Cup race.) Its worth noting that rescheduling this big race isnt the easiest endeavor due to TV obligations, particularly with the aforementioned Xfinity Series race to consider, too. A Monday doubleheader is certainly possible. Its also worth noting that only half of a race needs to be completed to be official.

A crew member shelters from the drizzle and cold weather at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

3:34 p.m.: Rain began drizzling on Charlotte Motor Speedways pavement just after 10 a.m. Saturday, and it hasnt stopped since. Its only escalated, in fact. Sundays NASCAR Cup Series race is slated to begin just after 6 p.m., but an on-time start would require a few hours of Air Titan track-drying work as well as several hours of no precipitation  something Sundays forecast doesnt seem to entertain. Local forecasts predict that rain will continue to fall until about 9 p.m. (Then, once and if it clears up, the 600-mile race will need to happen.) A long day could be ahead of us!

Heres an insightful look at the radar from WCNC meteorologist Brad Panovich:

How to watch NASCARs Coca-Cola 600
Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Sunday delivered the commencement address to her alma mater, Colorado College, amid questions about her political future, encouraging students to vote, run for office and defend democracy.

After the 2020 election, and the attack of January 6, my fellow Republicans wanted me to lie. They wanted me to say that the 2020 election was stolen, that the attack of January 6 wasnt a big deal, and that Donald Trump wasnt dangerous, Cheney told the graduating class at the Colorado Springs-based liberal arts college.

I had to choose between lying and losing my position in House leadership. As I spoke to my colleagues on my last morning as chair of the Republican conference  I told them that if they wanted a leader who would lie, they should choose someone else, she said, prompting applause.

The commencement address comes amid speculation about Cheneys future political plans after she lost her reelection bid for the House last year to a Trump-backed challenger. The former Wyoming congresswoman was on the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol that criminally referred former President Trump to the Department of Justice  and she drew Trumps ire for her work.

Think about this: Cleta Mitchell, an election denier and an advisor to former President Trump, told a gathering of Republicans recently that it is crucially important to make sure that college students dont vote. Those who are trying to unravel the foundations of our republic, who are threatening the rule of law and the sanctity of our elections know they cant succeed if you vote. So Class of 2023, get out and vote, Cheney told the audience.

She encouraged the students to run for office, defend our Constitution and defeat those who deny the sanctity of our elections.

Some have questioned whether Cheney could enter the 2024 presidential race, joining Trump and a number of other candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, in the GOP primary contest. Shes appeared as a possible presidential candidate option on some recent polling.

Cheney said earlier this year that she was undecided about her political future, including whether she wants to run for president.

And I want to say a particular word to the women in the audience. This country needs more of you in office. You may have noticed that men are pretty much running things these days. And its not going all that well, she said in her address.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko claimed Russia will give nuclear weapons to any state that joins the Union State of Russia and Belarus, Russian state-controlled media said.

Its very simple. The union of Belarus and Russia should be entered into, and thats all: There will be nuclear weapons for all, he claimed.

Russia and Belarus are formally part of a so-called union state, an agreement aimed at deepening the two countries integration both politically and economically.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Belarusian counterpart Viktor Khrenin signed documents on May 25 in Minsk on placing Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. Putin had first threatened to do so on March 25.

Shoigu said control over the tactical nuclear weapons, as well as decisions regarding their use, remain with the Kremlin, adding that Russia may take additional measures going forward to ensure the security of the Union State (of Russia and Belarus) and respond to the military-political situation.

Lukashenko claimed on May 25 that the transfer of some Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus had already started.

Belarus Weekly: Moscow, Minsk sign agreement on nuclear weapons in Belarus Eduard Babaryka, the son of jailed ex-presidential candidate Viktar Babaryka, goes on trial after spending three years in a pre-trial detention center. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison. In an unprecedented move, Belarusian authorities pardon jailed Belarusian activist Raman Pr The Kyiv IndependentMaria Yeryoma

NATO, the EU, and the U.S. have condemned the decision to transfer nuclear weapons to Belarus.

NATO called the move dangerous and irresponsible, and EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell said it is a step which will lead to further extremely dangerous escalation.

Any attempt to further escalate the situation will be met by a strong and coordinated reaction, Borrell added.

However, the White House noted on May 26 that it had not changed its nuclear threat assessment following Russia and Belarus nuclear agreement, as it had not observed any indications Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons in Belarus.

In its assessment on May 26, the Institute for the Study of War suggested the move is part of a longstanding effort to cement Russias de facto military control over Belarus. The American think tank said it believes it remains extraordinarily unlikely that Putin will use the nuclear weapons deployed to Belarus in Ukraine or anywhere else.
Lukashenko says Putin will give nuclear weapons to anyone who joins Union State

Self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has said that Russia will provide nuclear weapons to any countries that join the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

Source: Lukashenko in an interview with Russian propagandist Pavel Zarubin

Quote from Lukashenko: "If anyone is worried I don't think Kassym Tokayev [Kazakhstan's president  ed.] is worried about this, but if something suddenly happens, then no one minds Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation.

It's very simple. [Countries  ed.] should join the union of Belarus with Russia, that's all: there will be nuclear weapons for everyone."

Details: According to Lukashenko, these countries have a "unique chance to unite".

For reference: Zarubin posted the video on 28 May, although it was evidently filmed during the Eurasian Economic Council meeting held in Moscow on 25 May.

Background: Valery Tsepkalo, Belarusian opposition leader, said that after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko was taken to the Central Clinical Hospital of Moscow in critical condition.

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Man accused of stealing a backhoe to make a 10-mile drive to an airport to catch his flight

A man stole backhoe for 10-mile drive to Illinois airport to catch his flight, police say. Williamson County Sheriff Office Facebook screenshot

Police believe a man stole a backhoe and drove it to an airport in Illinois to catch a flight.

Footage appears to show the man arriving with the equipment and leaving it outside the airport.

Timothy J. Baggott was later charged with theft, authorities said.

A man from southern Illinois has been charged with theft accused of stealing a backhoe and driving it 10 miles to an airport to catch a flight to the West Coast, authorities said earlier this week.

Security camera footage posted on the Williamson County Sheriff's Office Facebook page appears to show a man arriving at the Veterans Airport of Southern Illinois in the digging equipment.

He then parks the backhoe and jumps down holding a guitar case, leaving it and calmly walking into the airport, police said.

"Deputies were informed that a backhoe was parked in the airport parking lot, which was suspicious in nature," authorities said in a statement.

The owner of the vehicle later arrived at the scene and identified it as belonging to his company. It had been parked at a job site nearby.

"You hear of people either getting rides from other people, borrowing cars, stealing cars, but a backhoe being stolen from a job site, driven 10 miles to an airport for an individual to catch a flight all the way to the West Coast carrying a guitar, that is unique," Sheriff Jeff Diederich said, according to local news outlet KFVS12.

The man who is alleged to have stolen the backhoe, a piece of machinery weighing many tons that is used to move heavy debris, was identified as Timothy J. Baggott of Carbondale. Baggott flew to the West Coast and was later arrested in Nevada.

Baggott was charged with theft in excess of $10,000, police said. The charge is a felony, and he is currently being held in the Elko County Jail in Nevada on a $40,000 bond, KFVS12 reports.

Facebook users seemed to support the backhoe driver, however. One user joked, "The guy just was trying to make it on time for his flight. What's the big deal?"

"Well, at least he didn't do anything stupid other than borrowing the backhoe to go to the airport, and for safety, he did put the bucket down," another user wrote.

It wasn't as if he took the equipment to "keep it or be destructive, come on, give the man a break."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Man dead and an arrest is made after reported arson, stabbing at a Plumas County home

A Quincy resident was killed in a stabbing that was discovered after deputies responded to reports of an arson fire.

One person has been arrested in connection with the incident.

About 7 a.m. Saturday, the Plumas County Sheriffs Office went to the scene of an arson incident at a home on the 600 block of Edwards Avenue in Quincy. Upon arrival, the Sheriffs Office said, deputies found a man had been stabbed.

James Cross, 71, was pronounced dead after being taken to the hospital, authorities said.

The Sheriffs Office said a suspect was apprehended and taken into custody. The fire was contained by the Quincy Fire Department.

Plumas County officials said the department is conducting an investigation and to ensure a comprehensive examination of the crime scene, the California Department of Justice is assisting with processing the area.

We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the victim during this tragic and difficult time, Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns said.

The Sheriffs Office asks anyone with information to call 530-283-6300.
Man found dead in parking lot of vacant Kansas City Applebees Sunday, police say

Update: Police identified the homicide victim as 51-year-old Eric Preston.

Police are investigating a homicide after a man was found dead Sunday morning behind a vacant Applebees in Kansas City.

Officers responded around 8 a.m. to the former Applebees at 4181 Sterling Ave. after a witness called police while driving past the scene, said Capt. Corey Carlisle, a spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department.

Police found an unresponsive man lying in the parking lot behind the building. He was suffering from unknown bodily trauma.

Emergency medical crews declared the man dead at the scene.

The killing was the 70th homicide in Kansas City this year, according to data tracked by The Star, which includes fatal police shootings. At this time last year, there had been 66 killings.

Officials are investigating the homicide. Police ask anyone with information to contact the homicide unit at 816-234-5043 or the anonymous TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477.
Mariska Hargitay, Molly Ringwald and more step out for Taylor Swift's New Jersey stop on the Eras Tour

Taylor Swift's stop in East Rutherford, New Jersey, brought plenty of fans from neighboring New York City, including some of her celebrity friends.

At MetLife Stadium, located just 12 miles from Manhattan, Swift kicked off a three-night run of shows May 26. On the first two nights in New Jersey, rapper Ice Spice has joined Swift on stage for a finale performance of Karma. Her last show at this venue before heading to Chicago starts at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, May 28.

Night Two Of Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour - East Rutherford, NJ (Kevin Mazur/TAS23 / Getty Images for TAS Rights Mana)

On Friday, Swift released a special edition of her 10th studio album, Midnights, featuring Ice Spice, more vocals from Lana Del Rey and new break-up track Youre Losing Me."

But plenty of other celebrities could be found in the crowd and shared sweet footage from the event on social media.

Here's who we know attended Swift's New Jersey shows (so far).

Aaron Rodgers

Aaron Rodgers visited MetLife Stadium May 27, not for a game or practice with the New York Jets, but for Swift's concert.

Taylor time, he captioned a video on his Instagram story, showing the final countdown of a clock that runs down before the concert begins.

Aaron Rodgers posts from the Eras Tour May 27. (@aaronrodgers12 / Instagram)

In a video from the concert, Rodgers is seen dancing along to her 2014 hit, Style, holding his hands up in the air and swaying to the beat as Swift belts the lyrics, Just take me home.

Rodgers also tagged Keleigh Teller, Miles Teller's wife, in his post. The Tellers, who notably starred together in Swift's 2021 music video I Bet You Think About Me, were spotted in the audience by fans.

Jenny Han and Lola Tung

Author Jenny Han attended the May 27 show with Lola Tung, star of the TV series adapted from her book, The Summer I Turned Pretty.

Guess where were headed, Han captioned a photo of the duo on her Instagram, each decked out in sparkles. Tung wore a white lace halter top with sparkles around her eyes, while Han wore pastel beaded, heart-shaped sunglasses paired with bright red lipstick, seeming to channel the Lover era tied to her 2019 album.

Lola Tung and Jenny Han. (@jennyhan / Instagram )

At the Saturday show, Swift played False God from Lover as one of her surprise songs, meaning it is not part of her setlist. False God was also featured in Season One of The Summer I Turned Pretty.

Season Two of the hit Prime Video show premieres July 14  just one week after Swift releases Speak Now (Taylors Version).

Mariska Hargitay

Mariska Hargitay attended another concert of Swift's Eras Tour, after stopping by in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star's character also provided the inspiration for one of the Swift's cat's names  Olivia Benson.

Her first appearance on the Eras Tour initially confused fans, with several fans asking, Whos Olivia Benson?

Another chimed in, I thought Olivia Benson was the cat.

Hargitay also notably appeared in Swift's 2015 music video Bad Blood, which also starred Selena Gomez, Jessica Alba, Ellen Pompeo (Swift has another cat named Meredith Grey) and Cara Delevigne.

Hargitay and Delevingne posed for a sweet selfie together at the Friday Jersey show for a lil Bad Blood reunion.

Lin Manuel Miranda

Near-EGOT winner Lin-Manuel Miranda attended the May 26 concert in New Jersey with his wife, Vanessa, and sat with actor Molly Ringwald and Hargitay.

what if I told you Im a mastermind (@taylorswift ftw, what an incredible show), he captioned a photo and video roundup, referencing one of the songs from Midnights.

Molly Ringwald

In addition to posing with Miranda, Ringwald also shared sweet videos from the concert of her daughter, Adele, watching Swift's performance.

Molly Ringwald and her daughter attend the Eras Tour. (@mollyringwald / Instagram )

There are certain moments in a girls life that are unforgettable ..., Ringwald captioned a photo of Adele on her Instagram story. Thank you Taylor Swift.

She also shared a video of her and Miranda jamming out to We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, decked out in an Eras Tour hoodie.

Gal Gadot

Gal Gadot attended the May 27 show with her children.

Even with one happy and sleepy child, I had the best time. @taylorswift youre an inspiration, the Wonder Woman star captioned a video shared to her Instagram story.

Gadot has three daughters, Alma, Maya and Daniella. In the video, one of her daughters clings to her mom as Gadot dances along to Shake It Off.

Gal Gadot. (@gal_gadot / Instagram )

Simply an amazing performer and fantastic role model, she captioned another pic of Swift on stage.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com
A Massachusetts man is being held without bail and will spend 20 days being observed at a hospital after he was charged with bludgeoning his female neighbor to death.

Dinis Moreira, 69, pleaded not guilty Friday to one count of murder of Valerie Oakhem, 58, a mother and grandmother, according to the Plymouth County District Attorney's Office.

Police received a call from a relative of Moreiras just after midnight Friday, and said he arrived at his Bridgewater, Massachusetts, home to find a woman on the kitchen floor with severe trauma to her head and face.

"The victim was trembling and gasping for air and appeared to be attempting to roll over," prosecutors said, according to WFXT-TV.

FLORIDA DENTIST ACCUSED OF BLUDGEONING DOCTOR WITH CLUB ON RITZY GOLF COURSE

Oakhem was transported to the hospital where she was pronounced dead.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Investigators believe Oakhems attack was targeted, not random.

The DAs office said Moreira and Oakhem were friends, and he invited her over for a drink the night she was killed.

DAD BEATEN TO DEATH BY ANGRY MOB WHILE PROTECTING KIDS AFTER SCHOOLYARD FIGHT: REPORT

"Who expects their family member to murdered with a hammer?" Gail Teed, a friend of Oakhems told WFXT. "There was no need. Absolutely no need. This woman helped him all the time since his wife passed away. All the time. She didnt deserve this, nothing. She didnt deserve none of this."

Oakhems ex-husband reportedly shouted at Moreira in the courtroom Friday: "Ill see you in hell, Dinis!"

Neighbor Peter Schneider told the TV station he couldn't imagine Moreira killing anyone.

"Nice guy, hed wave to you," Schneider said. "Come over and gave us some bread a couple of weeks ago. Nothing wrong with the guy."

Moreira's is scheduled to be in court June 14.
Mayor explained the unusual vibrations in Kyiv this night: Weapons are going to the front

Mayor of Kyiv, Vitalii Klitschko, explained the unusual vibrations felt by the residents of the capital on Sunday night as the movement of powerful weapons to the front.

Source: Klitschko on air during the national joint 24/7 newscast

Details: The mayor was asked if he knew what caused the vibrations that residents of the city of Kyiv and its oblast confused with an earthquake.

Quote from Klitschko: "That is weapons going to the front, new and powerful ones. The vibration may be caused by that."

Background:

On the night of 28 May, an air-raid warning, local residents felt unusual vibrations reminiscent of an earthquake in the city of Kyiv and its oblast.

However, as reported by UP.Zhyttia, no earthquakes were recorded by the Main Center of Special Control in Kyiv Oblast that night. The international services that monitor the activity of seismic phenomena on Earth also did not report earthquakes in Ukraine in recent hours.

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McCarthy on debt deal: Jeffries says theres not one thing in the bill for Democrats

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Sunday that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told him that Democrats dont see one thing in the debt ceiling deal in their favor, as lawmakers on both sides blasted the framework of an agreement reached late the night before.

Right now the Democrats are very upset, McCarthy told anchor Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday. But one thing Hakeem told me: theres nothing in the bill for them. Theres not one thing in the bill for Democrats.

He noted that while some Democrats are upset with the tentative agreement reached, he believes both parties can work together to get it passed.

But every time that there is an agreement and negotiation between the president and Congress, both parties when they have an agreement come together and vote for the bill because both of them talk about it, McCarthy said.

Jeffries later said that he had no idea what McCarthy was talking about, particularly because I have not been able to review the actual legislative text.

All that weve reached is an agreement in principle, Jeffries told CBSs Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation.

A source close to McCarthy later told The Hill that he misspoke that it was Jeffries said that to him, but that other Democrats have told him as much.

Later at the Capitol, McCarthy appeared to walk back his remarks about Jeffries, telling reporters theres a lot in here for both sides.

McCarthy and President Biden came to an agreement in principle late Saturday to cap spending and raise the debt ceiling to avoid a national default on trillions of dollars in debt. With the bills text set to be released Sunday, it faces an uphill battle in Congress as both Democrats and Republicans have voiced criticism about the deal reached.

McCarthy said he expects the House to vote on the bill as soon as Wednesday before it heads to the Senate. While Republicans hold a slim majority in the House, the legislation may be held up if enough House Democrats and conservative GOP members oppose the bill.

Jeffries had warned last week that the Democratic caucus would not automatically approve a deal between McCarthy and the White House if the agreement undermines our values.

Its a miscalculation to assume that simply any agreement that House Republicans are able to reach will, by definition, trigger a sufficient number of Democratic votes  if that agreement undermines our values, he said last week.

Updated at 3:27 p.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
House Republicans and the White House unveiled the text of a two-year bipartisan budget deal on Sunday that would lift the $31.4 trillion debt limit through the 2024 election and limit federal spending.

Congressional leaders will now embark on an aggressive whip operation to pass the bill in both chambers and put the legislation on President Joe Bidens desk before the June 5 deadline, when the U.S. could breach its borrowing limit.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy said members will have 72 hours to review the legislation ahead of a likely Wednesday vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, warned senators in a letter that they should prepare for potential Friday and weekend votes.

Negotiators and staff worked through the night to finalize about 100 pages of legislative text, which would raise the debt ceiling through January 2025, limit federal spending on domestic programs, provide modest funding increases for the military and veterans, and impose tougher work requirements for certain federal benefits, among other things.

Asked about the already simmering discontent among conservatives for the bipartisan deal, McCarthy said Sunday that over 95 percent of the Republican conference is overwhelmingly excited about what they see.



This is a good strong bill that a majority of Republicans will vote for, the California Republican told reporters during a briefing outside of his office.

McCarthy, who briefed House Republicans on Saturday night, said he also plans to brief Senate Republicans on Sunday. Administration officials plan to unpack the agreement with House and Senate Democrats separately on Sunday night.

Biden will likely need a substantial number of Democrats to back the bill, with McCarthy already hearing from a number of conservatives decrying the deal as a betrayal of the Republican debt package passed by the House last month.

Both sides were busy selling the framework of the deal on Sunday, putting their spin on its provisions ahead of the text release.

The budget agreement would hike the debt limit through January 2025, teeing up another potential standoff over the nations borrowing cap in the months after the presidential election. When accounting for certain appropriations-related adjustments, the deal would also keep non-defense funding roughly flat for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1, while slightly increasing funding for those programs by 1 percent in 2025.

McCarthy and his allies contend that non-defense funding would be much closer to the fiscal 2022 levels Republicans had originally sought for the coming fiscal year, however. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), a lead GOP negotiator, said funding for domestic programs would be set at $704 billion for the coming fiscal year, not including funding for veterans, which will see an increase, he said.

Republicans had initially demanded $130 billion in cuts to government funding in fiscal 2024, in addition to a decade of strict budget caps. The budget bargain struck by Biden and McCarthy would limit spending for two years, then set four years of funding targets that could be undone by future spending agreements.

For us to draw them down and actually have spending restraints year over year, and within a Congress, is truly transformational and different than what weve experienced in recent years in Congress, McHenry said.

This is the most conservative spending package in my service in Congress, and this is my 10th term, he said.

The deal would also cap military funding at Bidens budget request, at $886 billion, about a 3.5 percent increase. Veterans medical care would also match the presidents request, at $121 billion in fiscal 2024. And the agreement includes a provision aimed at compelling Congress to pass a dozen appropriations bills on time, threatening a funding cut if lawmakers fail to pass the measures.

The Pentagon spending level isnt sitting well with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a Republican appropriator who sits on the Senate defense spending panel.

I know you cant get [an agreement thats] perfect. But what I will not do is adopt the Biden defense budget and call it a success, Graham said on Fox News Sunday. Kevin said that the defense is fully funded. If we adopt the Biden defense budget, it increases defense spending below inflation.

There were rumblings of a revolt against the agreement by House Freedom Caucus members shortly after it was announced on Saturday night. While conservatives likely cant kill the agreement on their own, they can make McCarthys life miserable depending on how far they take their displeasure.



The White House will likely struggle to sell Democrats on some limited new work requirements for SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, and federal aid through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

Conservative lawmakers, however, didnt all come out in opposition. Ohio GOP Reps. Jim Jordan and Warren Davidson, both Freedom Caucus members, liked what they saw of the deal.

In a win for the administration, the budget agreement includes no new work requirements for Medicaid, preserves clean energy tax incentives included in Democrats signature climate law last year, and wont touch Bidens plan to cancel up to $20,000 of student debt for tens of millions of Americans.

The deal does, however, codify Bidens plan to end the ongoing freeze on monthly student loan payments and interest at the end of the summer, while clawing back a portion of Democrats new IRS funding and yanking back billions of dollars in unspent Covid relief.

Burgess Everett, Jordain Carney, Jennifer Scholtes and Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday described the student loan payment pause as gone as part of the debt ceiling deal announced by the California Republican and President Biden late Saturday night.

The pause is gone within 60 days of this being signed. So that is another victory because that brings in $5 billion each month to the American public, McCarthy told anchor Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday.

McCarthys remarks came after he and Biden came to an agreement in principle late Saturday to cap spending and raise the debt ceiling.

What the president did, he went unconstitutionally and said he was going to waive certain people part of their debt for student loan[s], but then he paused everybodys student loan. So everybody who borrowed a student loan within 60 days of the signing is going to have to pay that back, McCarthy said Sunday.

The Supreme Court is taking up that case. But if the Supreme Court came back and said that was unconstitutional, the president could still say hes pausing, not waiving it. But now that this is in law, the Supreme Court decision will have to be upheld, that they would have to pay, he added.

The Biden administration has already indicated that borrowers should expect the student loan payment pause, instituted at the start of the pandemic, to come to an end, but the timing of that depends on how the Supreme Court might rule in the next month on a case challenging the policy. Should a pause on payments come to an end under the debt deal, it would mean student loan payments could restart about a month earlier than expected this year.

Biden said in November that payments would resume either 60 days after the Supreme Court rules on his student loan forgiveness plan  which would permanently eliminate some debt  or 60 days after June 30 when the courts term ends, whichever came first.

A source familiar with the negotiations told The Hill that the administration was able to protect its ability to pause student loan payments in the future in the case of an emergency, but also codifies the administrations plans to end the pause on loans at the end of the summer. The source said the deal also protects an income-driven repayment plan option for borrowers making certain salaries.

McCarthy said Saturday that the text of the bill could be released Sunday, with a vote expected in the House as soon as Wednesday.

Updated at 1:41 p.m.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Martez Hill is superintendent and CEO of the NC Cyber Academy.

For most Americans, Memorial Day signifies the beginning of summer, with beach trips and time off from work. Yet it remains an official day for honoring the sacrifices of U.S. military personnel who have laid down their lives while serving in the armed forces.

So how do we remember them this weekend? Our memories may be expressed through stories, memorials and rituals. We often engage in remembrance to teach and instruct  to express what is important and learn from it. But its also a day where we collectively remember to support each other, and I believe that should include action that supports the heroes who are still fighting for our country today.

More: Why do we observe Memorial Day? The somber true meaning behind the national holiday

Today, I reflect on the impact that educators can have in supporting the families of military members. In my 20 years of experience working in public policy and education across the states of Georgia, Missouri and North Carolina, I have had many connections with military students and families.

Memorial Day is even more poignant to observe for me here in North Carolina, a state with the fourth-largest military population in the U.S. and home to over 52,000 children of active-duty military personnel. I think, too, of the educators at North Carolina Cyber Academy (NCCA), who strive to create a network of support to military children and family members.

More: D.G. Martin: Goodbye, Fort Bragg

Mackenzie Thomas, my friend and colleague at NCCA, is our schools social worker for 10th- and 11th grade students. Coming from a military background herself, Thomas is a daughter of a veteran and grew up at Fort Bragg. She eventually married a special forces soldier, Staff Sgt. Adam Thomas, who served in Afghanistan and was killed in action.

More: Are Cumberland, Fayetteville officials considering removing Bragg references?

Thomas draws upon her own experiences as a military child and spouse to support NCCAs military students and families.

Its really a culture of its own, Thomas said. My driving force is for our military students to understand that we have a person who speaks the language.

As a virtual school, NCCA has more flexibility to provide resources and advocacy for military students to succeed. We have people like Thomas to offer students wraparound services to support the educational journey that works best for them. This is part of our commitment to meet students and families where they are.

Military families are often asked to change locations throughout the course of service, which in a traditional brick-and-mortar institution can disrupt a childs educational path. Through specialized staff members and individualized academic accommodations, virtual schools can support and serve these students.

Among the numerous educational options available to students, we are proud to be listed among just 10% of North Carolina schools that qualify for the Purple Star designation from the state. This recognition identifies K-12 schools that advocate and support the military community, ensuring our military community is thoughtfully included and accommodated in school plans and curriculum.

Leslie Bryant, NCCAs Student Services & Community Engagement Officer, is one of the staff members who helps us think intentionally about our military families. Her son, Isaac Armistad, currently serves in the Navy.

One of our goals as a school was to focus on military families because of the natural transitions that take place within their lives, Bryant said. We wanted to go after the Purple Star Award because of what our kids, who are connected to the military, could be going through.

We recognize that our school has a profound role in shaping the experience of military children. This is why our staff receive annual professional development regarding special considerations for military students and families. Our community of teachers, educators and social workers volunteer to serve as liaisons and advocate for military students to feel a sense of community.

Having this network of support at school would have been helpful when I was a kid, Thomas said.

NCCA is proud to provide these students with accessible, well-rounded online education to support their unique academic needs.

On this Memorial Day, I want to thank our staff for their commitment to our military families, and our state legislators for their continued support of innovative models of education like ours  which aids service members and their children. We also recognize the important work of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction in maintaining the Purple Star award, which raises awareness of the educational options among military families. Through our institutions and public policies, our society can be flexible, open and welcoming to those who serve.

Martez Hill is superintendent and CEO of the NC Cyber Academy, one of the two statewide virtual public charter schools.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: This Memorial Day, support military families at Fort Bragg and around
By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's most powerful mercenary said on Sunday he was convinced that senior Kremlin officials had banned reporting about him on state media, cautioning that such a misleading approach would lead to a backlash from the Russian people within months.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary group, is the most striking member of President Vladimir Putin's circle to gain widespread notoriety in the 15-month war in Ukraine.

Prigozhin, a restaurateur who quipped last week that his nickname should be "Putin's butcher" rather than "Putin's chef", took the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut earlier this month but his role in the victory was played down on state television.

The 61-year-old has made a name for himself by imposing brutal discipline on his mercenaries and by using obscene language and prison slang to insult Putin's top military brass including Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

In a sign of just how far Prigozhin is perceived to have breached the taboos of Putin's Russia, state television ignored the fall of Bakhmut for 20 hours, and did not air Prigozhin's victory speech.

Asked about what appeared to be a ban on coverage of him on state media, Prigozhin used a series of Russian proverbs to poke fun at those responsible: "What is forbidden is always sweeter."

"Wagner is not a piece of slippery soap which the bureaucrats have got used to shoving all over the place; Wagner is an awl, a stiletto that you cannot hide," Prigozhin said. "I am absolutely convinced they have forbidden (coverage)."

"That high-level bureaucrats, those very towers of the Kremlin, are trying to shut the mouths of everyone so that they don't speak about Wagner will only give another shove to the people."

Such an approach, he said, would provoke a backlash from the Russian people.

"In the long term - long term is two or three months - they will receive a finger-slap from the people for trying to shut everyone's mouths and ears," Prigozhin said.

The Kremlin and the defence ministry have ignored Prigozhin's outbursts, which appear to break the rules of the tightly controlled political system crafted by Putin since he won the top job in the Kremlin on the last day of 1999.

The Kremlin, which did not respond to a request for comment, says all the aims of the "special military operation" in Ukraine will be achieved despite what it says is a proxy-war being waged by the West against it.

After Prigozhin claimed victory on Bakhmut, it took the Kremlin 10 hours to release a 36-word statement congratulating Wagner and armed forces units for "liberating" Artyomovsk, the Soviet-era name for Bakhmut used by Russia. It did not name Prigozhin.

Prigozhin said in his Sunday audio message that 72,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the "meat grinder" of Bakhmut and around 100,000 to 140,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been injured.

Reuters was unable to verify battlefield accounts of either side. Neither Ukraine nor Russia publish death tolls, but Kyiv has said Russia's losses in Bakhmut were vast as it was the attacking side.

Kyiv has insisted that its forces still control a small part of the city.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
New Mexico State Police confirmed that three people are dead and five are injured following a shooting Saturday evening in New Mexico during a Memorial Day weekend parade.

In an update on Sunday, May 28, state police shared that the scene is secure and that there is no threat to public safety. Earlier, on Saturday at 8:30 p.m., the agency warned residents in a Twitter post that the, "scene is active."

In an update on Sunday at 3 A.M., police shared that the death toll had risen to three people deceased and five injured following the deadly shooting. They have previously confirmed two dead and six injured, but did not specify if one of the injured had died from their injuries.

The New Mexico State Police confirmed it is investigating a shooting in Red River Saturday evening, New Mexico, northeast of Albuquerque.

Authorities said that the shooting in Red River, New Mexico, northeast of Albuquerque, happened during the annual motorcycle rally that takes place Memorial Day weekend.

According to the event page, the annual motorcycle rally has as many as 28,000 bikers participating in a four-day event with live music and vendors.

"Get ready for the rumble as 28,000 bikers from all different backgrounds line Main Street for one crazy party," the Red River official tourism website said.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

5 INJURED IN COASTAL GEORGIA SHOOTING DURING HOUSE GATHERING

State police said that five of the six injured victims were transported to two local hospitals-the Holy Cross Hospital in Taos, New Mexico and the University of New Mexico Hospital (UNMH) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

One of the injured victims was airlifted to a hospital in Denver, Colorado for treatment, police confirmed.

Following the deadly shooting, both hospital were secured by local agencies. State police said that additional officers were stationed in Red River following the incident.

Authorities requested that the public to avoid Red River as they continue to conduct an investigation. Police did not share if they have arrested the individuals responsible for the shooting

This is a developing story.
TEHRAN, May 28 (Xinhua) -- Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tariq Al Said arrived in Tehran on Sunday, a week after his trip to Cairo, sparking widespread speculation over Muscat's intention to act as a mediator between Iran and Egypt, whose relations were severed since 1980.

Amid a strong Mideast rapprochement recently, analysts believe that the Iran-Egypt reconciliation will bring political and economic benefits not only to the two countries but also to the entire region.

In recent years, Iran has announced readiness to mend ties with Egypt by settling differences on certain issues.

Following the March agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia on the normalization of their bilateral ties and the former's efforts to improve relations with regional Arab states over the past months, the likelihood of restoring relations between Tehran and Cairo has grown.

In mid-May, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency said negotiations between Iran and Egypt are underway in Iraq and the bilateral ties will be restored in the near future, citing Fada Hossein Maleki, a member of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee.

Maleki further said the Iranian and Egyptian embassies in the two countries will reopen in the next step, followed up by a meeting between the two heads of state.

As was the case with the Tehran-Riyadh agreement, Oman and Iraq are mediating between Iran and Egypt, signifying regional interests at play.

Mir Javad Bayat, a Tehran-based Middle East affairs expert, told an Iranian local media that the resumption of Iran-Egypt relations will help ensure regional peace and security, contributing to a balance of power in the region.

Concurring with Bayat's opinion, Mohammad Mehdi Mazaheri, a former Iranian diplomat and political affairs expert, stated in a commentary published by the Iranian Diplomacy website on May 17 that Iran and Egypt are of great contribution to regional security, given their dominance over two of the world's strategic straits, namely Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb.

He added Iran and Egypt are two important states in the Middle East, as Iran plays a significant and indispensable role in West Asia, Central Asia, and Caucasus regions while Egypt has a similar role in the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and North Africa.

Speaking to the al-Araby al-Jadeed website on March 14, Abdullah al-Ashaal, the former assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister, said the resumption of ties with Iran will also bring economic benefits to Egypt, such as a boost in tourism and trade transactions, which could be a boon to Egypt's economy.

Ghafour Karimi, a political affairs expert, said in a commentary published by the Iranian Diplomacy website on March 15 that despite all their differences, Iran and Egypt share common stances toward certain regional issues, noting that with relations restored, the two sides could work more effectively toward their common political and security objectives. 
Migrants with children stuck at Poland's border wall; activists say Belarus won't let them turn back

Members of a group of some 30 migrants seeking asylum are seen in Bialowieza, Poland, on Sunday, 28 May 2023 across a wall that Poland has built on its border with Belarus to stop massive migrant pressure. The group has remained stuck at the spot for three days, according to human rights activists. (AP Photo/Agnieszka Sadowska)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) 

A group of some 30 migrants seeking asylum, including small children, has been stuck at Poland's border wall with Belarus for three days, Polish human rights activists said Sunday.

Although the migrants were outside Poland's border wall, activists from Grupa Granica (Border Group) said they were on Polish territory and Belarus was not allowing them to turn back.

In Belarus, they are not safe," activist Marta Staniszewska said.

The Belarusian services, as this group has told us, threaten them that if they return, they will be beaten, or that they will kill them, Staniszewska told The Associated Press.

The migrants say that several among them are sick, one girl has a toothache, and the children have mosquito bites, according to Staniszewska.

A representative of Polands ombudsmans office visited and talked to the group on Sunday, but later told reporters that the decision about whether to allow them into the country belongs to the Polish Border Guard.

If these persons are indeed within the jurisdiction of the (Polish) Border Guard and declare their willingness to apply for international protection, then .... such applications should be accepted," Maciej Grzeskowiak said.

Last year, Poland put up almost 190 kilometers (117 miles) of tall metal wall intended to stop thousands of migrants from Asia and Africa entering the country from Belarus.

The European Union has accused authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of aiding illegal border crossings in retaliation for EU sanctions. Lukashenko denies encouraging migration to Europe.

Poland's most powerful politician, the head of Polands right-wing ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said recently that building the wall was a good decision. He said it was protecting Poland and the EU against hostile moves by Belarus and Russia.

Despite the wall, up to 150 migrants of various nationalities, often with Russian visas in their documents, try to cross illegally into Poland each day, according to the Border Guard.

On some occasions, such groups threw stones and sticks from behind the wall at the border guards, but then apparently moved away. It is not possible from Poland's side to determine what happens to the groups.
Ahead of Memorial Day 2022, Navy Aviation Electricians Mate Blaine Click was among hundreds of military members, veterans, family and community members who helped place small American Flags at each of the 22,000 veteran's headstones at Jacksonville National Cemetery.

In the summer of 2019, a group of veteran advocates in Northeast Florida met to brainstorm new and innovative ways to end the scourge of veteran suicide. From this meeting, the concept of The Fire Watch was born. The premise? End veteran suicide by preventing veteran suicide.

In spring of 2020, The Fire Watch launched its key initiative  the Watch Stander program. To date, 4,000 Floridians have taken our free training to learn to (1) recognize the signs of veterans in crisis and (2) connect at-risk veterans to the resources they need. In doing so, they became Watch Standers. More than 3,000 of those Watch Standers live here in Northeast Florida.

Gen. Mike Fleming: 'Stand watch' to honor veterans and learn warning signs of suicide

Jacksonville Humane Society: Paws & Stripes programs offers volunteer and career development opportunities for active-duty military and veterans

Letters: Jax Beach voters say NO to taller buildings, 'YES' to thriving future

In parallel to the launch of the Watch Stander program, we also began tracking county-by-county veteran suicide data provided to us by the Florida Department of Health. In 2019, our baseline year, there were 78 veteran suicides in Northeast Florida alone. In 2021, with two years of programming in place, there were 42. That is a 46% reduction. For perspective, during that same period, the veteran suicide reduction rate was 4% statewide.

The American Association of Suicidology estimates that up to 135 people are emotionally affected by every suicide. By this estimate, there were 4,860 fewer people in our community mourning the loss of a friend, battle buddy or loved one in 2021 than there were in 2019.

This is remarkable progress. And it is the result of an amazing community, strong political will and fantastic veteran organizations. Without doubt, Northeast Florida is the most military and veteran-friendly region in the nation. Our efforts are working.

But the fight is far from over. While overall veteran suicides have dropped dramatically, we are experiencing a rise in female and minority suicides. The Fire Watch will adjust our programs accordingly to reverse these trends, but we need the communitys help. Our Watch Stander program is free, online and takes just 45 minutes. Anyone can join the fight. Visit TheFireWatch.org to sign up today.

On behalf of Northeast Floridas veterans, thank you for your support. Together, we will end veteran suicide.

Fleming

Howland

Brig. Gen. Mike Fleming (retired), a U.S. Marine Corps and Army veteran, is chairman of the Northeast Florida Fire Watch Council. Nick Howland is a Navy veteran, executive director of The Fire Watch Project Inc. and a member of the Jacksonville City Council.

This guest column is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of the Times-Union. We welcome a diversity of opinions.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Veteran suicides dropping but more Watch Standers needed in the fight
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Facebook

In his 15 years at Mercy Hospital, Dr. John Forsyth never missed a shift without letting someone know. The 49-year-old emergency medicine physician even parked his luxury RV outside of the Cassville, Missouri, hospital so he would always be steps away from his patients.

So when Forsyth did not show up for his 7 p.m. ER shift on May 21, alarm bells immediately went off. When his colleagues couldnt reach the father of seven, they got worried and alerted authorities, a hospital spokesperson said.

He wouldnt miss a shift even if his eyeballs were hanging out of their sockets, Forsyths younger brother, Richard Forsyth, told The Daily Beast. It was an immediate red flag.

And the red flags kept coming. Authorities found Forsyths black Infiniti sedan parked at the Cassville Aquatic Park, less than a mile away from the hospital, on Sunday afternoon. Inside the unlocked car, police found Forsyths wallet, passport, and work briefcase, his brother said.

Johns RV was found unlocked [at the hospital], which is very uncharacteristic, he said. His cellphones were inside, which is also very uncharacteristic because he always has his cellphone.

The next day, Cassville Police Department searched the 90-acre park with the assistance of over a dozen different agencies. But investigators did not find the doctorwho also moonlights as a cryptocurrency creatoror any evidence, according to police.

It has now been a week since Forsyth vanishedand authorities are scrambling to find answers in the case that has shocked the small Missouri town about an hour outside of Springfield. The Missouri State Patrol confirmed to The Daily Beast that it is assisting in the case but that local authorities are still in charge.

My dad is a very logical person and I kind of tend to be that way as well, Forsyths 23-year-old son, J.R. Forsyth, told The Daily Beast. And I cant think of any logical conclusion as to why he would just vanish like this.

The last time J.R. spoke with his father, whom he described as a loving person whose main hobby is mathematics, was about a month ago. During the call, J.R. said he told his father that he was grateful for everything he had done.

I just wanted to let him know that he was a big influence on me and I was thankful for everything he had done, he said, admitting that it was a random call after a very hard semester in school.

After the heart-to-heart, J.R. said he was not initially worried after he did not hear from his father again. Especially since J.R. was planning to see him this weekend in Utah and he knew that Forsyth was insanely busy with work and the crypto company he ran with his brother.

Forsyth had been into cryptocurrency for over a decade and spent most of his downtime trying to determine how to make the digital currency beneficial to society. Richard added that sometimes their shared passion got them into trouble online, including one hacker battle with some internet dude. Weve made some enemies, he added.

But Forsyths family admitted that it did not seem like crypto on the doctors mind as he prepared for his trip to see several of his family membersincluding his eldest daughter, who had just completed her Mormon mission in Provo, Utah.

He seemed very excited to come out, J.R. added. We were all looking forward to seeing him and being together again.

Forsyth's son, however, did not know that his dad was also coming with news of his own.

Richard said that Forsyth had recently gotten engaged, just days after his divorce from J.R.s mother was finalized earlier this month. (Forsyths fiancee did not respond to a request for comment. J.R. said that he first learned about the engagement two days after his father went missing.)

The last time he saw Forsyth, Richard added, was at a nearly two-hour dinner just last week.

He seemed really happy and excited, Richard said, adding that most of the dinner conversation was focused on math. Still, he saw no indication that Forsyth was anxious or preoccupied.

Nothing seemed weird, he added. Which makes John vanishing that much weirder.

While police have not publicly revealed details of Forsyths investigation, Richard said his family has some insight into his brothers movements on Sunday after his morning shift at the hospital.

His fiancee was texting him around 7 a.m and as he was leaving he was texting her things like Hey, my shifts over and Ill see you a little bit later, Richard said. And then minutes later, he stops responding to text messages and is seen walking toward his RV.

A little while later security footage shows Forsyths car pulling into the aquatic park parking lot. A white SUV showed up a few minutes later and parked near him, Richard said. It leaves a few minutes later and [John] is seen walking around maybe 10 to 15 minutes after that, Richard said police told him. And then he walks away from his car.

Richard said authorities discovered Forsyths Infiniti at the park on Sunday afternoon in a very hidden location, in a place where it seems like cars are not supposed to go. He added that police told him the car was partially hidden by a gate and a pile of wood.

Where the doctor went afterward remains a mystery that has evoked panic and sympathy among the Missouri community. Since Monday, dozens of residents have taken to Facebook to recount their experiences with Forsyth and encourage the police to continue their search.

He just treated me 3 weeks ago for strep, I was miserable, one Facebook user wrote on Thursday. He went above and beyond and just had the best attitude and bedside manners. Hes very respected and our community is so worried. We are willing to do anything to help, it's only right after all hes done for so many of us. Please come home safe Dr Forsyth we all need you!

Forsyths family has since created a Facebook page dedicated to spreading the news about any updates in the case and urging the public to send in tips. J.R. said that his family is optimistic that Forsyth will be found soon. For now, he has a message for his father.

I think the biggest thing I want to say to him is that I love him and I would do just about anything to see him again and talk to him again, he said. All of my family, I think we were all just giving about anything to see him one more time.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Modi inaugurates new parliament building as part of New Delhi's makeover

View of India's new parliament building in New Delhi

Modi inaugurates new parliament building as part of New Delhi's makeover View of India's new parliament building in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated India's new parliament building on Sunday, a modern complex which is part of his Hindu nationalist government's grand plan to give a makeover to the British colonial-era architecture in the nation's capital.

The inauguration, and the ongoing revamp of the heart of New Delhi based on Indian culture, traditions, and symbols, comes a year before parliamentary elections in which Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will pitch its strong Hindu nationalist credentials, and its performance in office over the last decade, to seek a third term.

Early in the morning, Modi held traditional prayers outside the complex in a ceremony that was also attended by top cabinet ministers. He then lit a traditional lamp inside parliament.

Later, the prime minister entered parliament to loud cheers from guests, government officials and lawmakers, with many welcoming him with chant of "Modi, Modi".

"This new complex will be evidence of self-reliant India," he said in an address.

The event was boycotted by 20 opposition parties who said Modi had violated protocol to inaugurate the new complex and grab the spotlight when it should have been done by the president, the highest executive of the country.

"To open a new parliament building without the opposition, it does not mean there is a democracy in the country. It's an incomplete event," Supriya Sule, an opposition leader, told news agency ANI.

During the inauguration ceremony, a parliament official read out a note written by President Droupadi Murmu in which she welcomed that Modi had inaugurated the complex.

The Modi government has rejected the opposition argument, saying no protocol has been violated and that the prime minister respects the constitutional head of the country.

The new parliament complex is the centrepiece of a $2.4 billion project aimed at eclipsing the significance of colonial-era buildings in the capital's centre, paving the way for modern buildings with a distinct Indian identity.

Late Saturday, Modi on Twitter said the new parliament is "truly a beacon of our democracy".

Besides modern technology, the new parliament has a total of 1,272 seats in two chambers, nearly 500 more than the old building, and at least three times as much space to accommodate new lawmakers in the world's most populous nation.

The triangular-shaped parliament complex is just across from the old, circular heritage building built by British architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker in 1927, two decades before India's independence.

The old parliament will be converted into a museum.

(Reporting by Rupam Jain and Aditya Kalra; Editing by YP Rajesh, Kim Coghill and Himani Sarkar)
(Bloomberg) -- Indias corridors of power are getting a makeover  part of Prime Minister Narendra Modis efforts to cement his legacy as he looks to a third term in office in national elections next year.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Modi, who is spearheading a sweeping revamp of the colonial-era center of the Indian capital, inaugurated a new parliament house Sunday  a four-story modern structure built at a cost of 9.7 billion rupees ($117 million). About a third of the countrys federal lawmakers  including those from the main opposition Congress Party  boycotted the ceremony.

The new building is expected to replace the century-old one where independent Indias constitution was adopted. Its part of the Central Vista project  a redesign of a historic stretch of monuments and government buildings between New Delhis famous India Gate and the sprawling red sandstone presidential palace  designed by British architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker in the early 20th century. The project kicked off soon after Modi returned to power with an even bigger mandate in 2019 and is set to cost 200 billion rupees.

Ahead of the unveiling, Modi urged Indians to share a video he posted on Twitter of the new parliament.

The redevelopment has become one of the most controversial urban architectural projects since independence. Theres criticism it erases a part of New Delhis heritage that has spanned more than a century, and Modi is accused of using it to promote his ruling Bharatiya Janata Partys Hindu nationalist ideology.

Sundays ceremony was held on the 140th birth anniversary of Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, popularly known as Veer Savarkar. Modi had marked the start of the construction of the new building with a Hindu prayer ceremony in December 2020. On Sunday, Modi inaugurated the new building in the presence of Hindu priests chanting ancient Vedic scripts.

The inauguration of the new parliament building by Prime Minister Modi marks a key moment in his efforts to establish himself as the head of a new Hindu nationalistic India, said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a New Delhi-based political analyst and a Modi biographer. The inauguration is part of the symbolism underway to rid India of its inclusive heritage and adoption of a unitary, or Hindu, legacy as Indias only past.

Modis administration said the project will help meet the need for more office space and create modern residences for the prime minister and vice president. The redevelopment is a testament to Modis vision of creating a new India, which combines modernity with our heritage and traditions, Home Minister Amit Shah said in a recent presentation.

Last year, Modi inaugurated a redeveloped boulevard that was once named in honor of British monarch George V, who was the Emperor of India at the time the avenue was built. It was called Kingsway after a similar arterial path in London and later renamed Rajpath following Indias independence in 1947, a loose translation into Hindi.

The boulevard is now known as Kartavyapath  or the Path of Duty  and Modi said the decision to rename it erases another symbol of colonialism in India.

Nevertheless, criticisms linger that the new parliament is a vanity project to help boost Modis image ahead of the 2024 national vote. Lawmakers from the opposition parties said Indias president, who is the head of state, should have inaugurated the parliament building instead of Modi.

The parliament is a hallowed institution, Modis governing coalition said in a statement. Such flagrant disrespect towards this institution betrays not only intellectual bankruptcy but a disturbing contempt for the very essence of democracy.

--With assistance from Ronojoy Mazumdar and Anirban Nag.

(Updates with opposition boycott in second and penultimate paragraph.)

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Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/HBO Max

The Other Two may be the funniest show on TV right now. So why do we keep crying while watching it?

Season 3 of the Max series continues to follow siblings Brooke (Helene Yorke) and Cary (Drew Tarver), who weather incessant exasperation when the professional success and personal fulfillment they feel they deserve keeps eluding themall while navigating the tension between their deep love for their family (Case Walkers Chase Dreams and Molly Shannons Pat) and their jealousy of their respective good fortunes.

(Warning: Some spoilers for Season 3 of The Other Two.)

Especially in the most recent episode, Cary & Brooke Go to an AIDS Play, The Other Two has been a master work of emotional extremes.

The ballsy, brutally accurate skewering of the show-business obsession with gay trauma is sent up with shocking laughs, while a cynical PR orchestration of a celebrity relationshipcomplete with a cameo from Mad Mens Kiernan Shipkais a chefs kiss-worthy addition to the comedic meal. The episode also happened to feature the realest relationship fight Ive seen on TV in a long timeapologies to Successions Shiv and Tomand a final note about how familial relationships you never thought mattered end up being profoundly important.

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At the center of that balancing act between the shows outrageous humor and surprisingly grounded themes are Molly Shannon and Ken Marino, The Other Twos most unlikely and perhaps strangest couple who have in turn become its healthiesteven if that means understanding that the healthiest decision is to be apart.

Shannons Pat and Marinos Streeter, at first glance, are emblematic of The Other Twos wanton lunacy, characters at the center of the shows most delightfully strange plot arcs. Pat, Brooke and Carys mother, was an earnest, naive stage mom, tickled by her son Chases breakout success as a YouTube star, and oblivious of what that would mean for their lives. Streeter was Chases manager, desperate for validation from Pat and Chases family, and humiliatingly devoted to the career of a pubescent celebrity.

Over the course of the series, Pat accidentally became a media mogulfirst, hosting a wildly popular talk show, and, now, running her own network. Shes so wildly famous that she is forced to don prosthetics and drug her security detail so she can sneak out of her mansion to go to brunch with her kids without being mobbed by fans. Streeter has successfully guided Chase to superstardom, happily swallowing each indignity that entailsincluding, this season, driving a photo of Chases armpit across the country for a magazine cover that will herald his 18th birthday and ensuing sexualization.

The Secrets of The Other Two: The Show Everyone You Know (With Taste) Keeps Saying Is So Funny

Along the way Pat and Streeter became a committed couple, to the mortification of Cary and Brooke. The pair survived the COVID years together, emerging as poignant voices of reason for the Dubek kids, as well as, when they make the decision to break up in the most recent episode, for themselves.

The Daily Beasts Obsessed talked with Shannon and Marino about the origins of TVs wackiest couple, how two outrageous characters have managed to also be the shows most human, and their own experience bushwhacking through the jungle of extreme celebrity that The Other Two lampoons. Like their characters on the show, they are hilarious togetherand then, too, astute and surprisingly moving.

Watching this season, Ive been struck how remarkably healthy the relationship between your two characters seems to be, in ways that I never would have expected, given how outrageous their pairing seemed when it began. How did you settle into that dynamic?

Shannon: I think that this is a really big relationship for Pat. Her husband was an alcoholic, so this is a big chapter two for her. He died on the roof, having drank too much. She really loves Streeter. I think they have the same values about family, and she knows what a good person he is. Its really her first big relationship in her life!

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They truly love one another, and its so easy to play that with Ken, because I feel that way about him in real life. I just adore him. Hes a brilliant actor and so funny. Kevin, he makes me laugh harder than anybody. Its easy because I love him so much in real life.

Marino: Well, the feeling is mutual. I think one of the reasons that its easy to play the love that Streeter has for Pat is because my love for Molly is so large. But I think the reason theyre in a healthier place, although there are issues, is that Pat set some boundaries and Streeter abided. He heard them and adjusted. In my head, after COVID hit and in those three years, they learned to spend time with each other, but also give each other space.

Shannon: Kevin, this is kind of a funny thing. It wasnt originally that way when we shot the pilot.

Oh really? Their relationship wasnt?

Shannon: I think it was the pilot, or maybe it was a little later in the first season. There was a scene where we all met, and its where Ken has this big monologue about how he loves Chase Dreams. Our characters werent together as a couple yet, but my character was so delighted with him at that dinner. She just thought he was the most charming. [Creators] Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, I think, saw our real chemistry in real life and how much our characters clicked, and they decided they would write [the relationship] based on that scene.

The Other Two Star Josh Segarra Is the Reigning King of Hot Idiots

Its wild to see Pat have everything you would think a person could want, and how much of a prison that is for her. What was it like to put on the prosthetics that she has to use to go out in the real world?

Shannon: It was crazy. I walked around at lunch in Brooklyn with the prosthetics on. I was like, This is so fun. I was really hoping that I would bump into somebody I know. Or trick somebody and say, Come and meet me for lunch, and not let them know that Im in disguise. But it was the weirdest. Its like one of those acting things, where I walked around at lunch in Brooklyn, and I went and ordered a sandwich. The butchers were kind of rude to me. I was like, Oh, this is such an interesting thing. Normally people are really polite and sweet to me, and they were kind of rude.

Thats so sad, but also kind of illuminating.

Shannon: I saw Ken outside by the trailers, and I was like, Ken! I forgot I had the prosthetics on, and he kind of ignored me. I was like, Oh, maybe hes distracted or something today. Ken, tell the story. Its so funny.

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Marino: There was a woman hanging around, smiling at me from like five-to-10 feet away, waving. Im like, Hi, how are you? And then I went on with my day. Then they called me to the set. Im walking to the set and theres a woman whos like 10 feet away from me, just following me and waving. Im like, Hi, yes. Hi, how are you? At no point did I know it was Molly. Then we shot that scene at the bar, and this woman is there sitting at the bar. She says her lines and I hear Mollys voice, and I just lost it. Because I honestly thought it was just some crazy person following me, and I didnt know what to do. It was Molly in prosthetics.

Shannon: We were laughing so hard. Oh my god.

Marino: I find Mollys story arc interesting, because shes trapped in this mansion. Its like, money cant buy you happiness, if you have nobody to share it with. She doesnt have time for the thing that brings her joy, and thats her family. I thought that that was such an interesting arc for her character.

Shannon: I remember, Kevin, when I was first on SNL, I met Drew Barrymore for lunch, because wed done Never Been Kissed together. We went out for lunch somewhere in New York City, near the White Horse Tavern. I was like, Oh, do you want to sit outside? She was like, Actually, I might get hassled. Can we sit inside? It was before I even understood that [level of fame]. But I remember thinking, Oh, thats right. Because youre Drew Barrymore!

The Savage Ellen DeGeneres Joke on The Other Two Proves Its Heroic Level of Showbiz Satire

Yeah, that makes total sense!

Shannon: You would go out with her at night, and just so many people come up to her. I remember, she would get kind of tired of it. People would be like, Are you Drew Barrymore? And she just would start to say no, and then theyd look at her face really closely: You sure look like Drew Barrymore. And their faces would be like this close to her [puts her hand to her nose], and she would go, No.

Its such an interesting parallel to whats happening on the show. Theres Cary, who is striving so hard for success and that fame. Then theres Pat, who knows that achieving that isnt always wonderful, as that Drew Barrymore story proves. Have you experienced that in your own lives: that push and pull of striving for the thing that you thought that you wanted, and then maybe once you get there, its not what you thought it would be like?

Marino: Its taken me a long time to learn that fame, success, or the monetary things will not bring you happiness, if youre not at peace with yourself and who you are. If youre not happy with you, just in a bubble, without any of that stuff. I try to appreciate that and live by that definition of what happiness is, because thats, for me, the only way to be at peace and find true joy.

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Shannon: I felt that way too. I talked about this in my memoir. I thought that when I got super famous, everything was going to be fine. But I remember falling into the worst kind of depression when I was at the peak of Saturday Night Live. I was like, Oh, it doesnt fix anything. It doesnt bring my mother back. Then it was kind of a relief, because I felt like, Well, now I can just enjoy being on Saturday Night Live and working on being creative, living a creative life. And it doesn't matter if youre number one, if you could just enjoy where you are.

That must have been such a relief to realize.

Shannon: Me, Molly, I dont believe that theres some perfect life that somebody is living. I think thats a fantasy. I think if you just embrace your own life and the people you haveand you only need a few people who you're close to one or two really close peopleyou can feel so fulfilled. I was raised that way by my dad. He always felt that if you just sit in a coffee shop talking to somebody, thats happiness: connecting. You dont have to have all this stuff. I was raised with good values, so I think Ive been able to carry that with me through showbusiness.

Marino: Just family. Molly has a beautiful family. We talked about our children all the time. Thats where the joy is, and thats the part of The Other Two that is so relatable to me and I would think to Molly, which is that it always comes back to family and the kids.

Case Walker and His Sexy Armpit Grow Up on The Other Two

Shannon: I dont want to say who this is, but early on at SNL, I went to somebody very famous house in Malibu. It was, like, chefs and staff, and it was so lonely. I was like, Oh, god, this is so sad. It was the most beautiful white house, everything perfectthings you would dream about. And the people there did not seem happy. It just shows that sometimes you see people with all the money in the world, but then thats not enough, because they want power. It seems like it could never stop. I just thought, I dont ever want to live that way. I feel like I can find happiness just in small ways. I do try to always focus on that, and remember that, and get back to that.

Marino: Other than Oprah, most people with a lot of money are just jerks.

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False claims about the spread of a cholera outbreak in northern Mozambique have led to violent protests and deaths, according to health officials.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has highlighted instances in which misinformation about the disease has contributed to the unrest.

Through social media posts and local media reports, we've looked into some of these protests to understand what was behind the trouble.

The death of a man in Gurue was recorded in a video obtained by the BBC

In one recent incident, a man was beaten to death in the town of Gurue in Zambezia province by people who falsely accused him of spreading cholera, according to health officials.

The event was captured in a graphic video seen by the BBC that has been circulating on social messaging apps and shows the body of a man with a large crowd looking on.

In another protest, four people were killed as police battled a group attacking homes and property belonging to local officials in Nacala Porto in Nampula province.

Further north in Cabo Delgado province, police fired into the air to disperse a crowd trying to attack a health centre in Meluco district.

Map of Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Zambezia provinces

What do people believe?

It is unclear what is fuelling the misinformation - which is largely spreading through word of mouth - although our monitoring of social media has provided some insight.

Cholera thrives in conditions where water sanitation is inadequate.

Some online posts claim falsely that measures implemented by local health officials, such as adding chlorine to water supplies and the use of purifiers, are in fact spreading the disease.

The BBC's Jose Tembe in Maputo says almost all violent cases related to cholera stem from misinformation.

"Also targeted are grassroots leaders who mobilise people to use the purifiers. The leaders are falsely thought to be part of the alleged group spreading the water-borne disease," he says.

In a caption accompanying the video of the killing in Garue, the victim was alleged to have distributed infected "dust" at a property in the area.

The WHO Africa representative in Mozambique, Severin von Xylander, says misinformation is dangerous because it can fuel behaviour that drives the spread of disease.

Mozambique has been battling an outbreak of the disease since September last year.

It's just one of many countries in the region facing rising cases of cholera, including South Africa, Malawi, Zimbabwe, DR Congo and Kenya.

"This, in turn, undermines trust in health authorities, which hampers public health responses and ultimately prolongs outbreaks."

Chart showing 30,943 confirmed cases of cholera and 135 deaths so far

Additional reporting by Evelin Uachave and Jose Tembe
The music industry is freaking out about AI  but this artist is embracing the 'new tools'

"patten," aka Damien Roach. Damien Roach

A musician made an entire album using only AI-generated samples.

"patten" said AI can widen access to music and allow more people to express themselves creatively.

The legality of commercializing AI-generated music is a gray area, experts say.

When Damien Roach first discovered the AI-music tool Riffusion in December, he had no intention of releasing an album.

But four months later, Roach, who performs as "patten," released "Mirage FM," the first album made entirely from text-to-audio AI samples.



"I set about exploring and spent 48 hours intensively working with this tool and recording lots of material," he told Insider.

London-based Roach built up a catalog of AI-generated music samples before eventually releasing the 21-track album through his creative agency and label 555-5555 in April.

He said every sound on the album was generated with AI tools from Riffusion, and he spent weeks searching for interesting tiny fragments, as well as cutting and editing samples.

The album can be streamed for free on a number of platforms, including SoundCloud and YouTube, and covers genres including house, garage, pop, and grime.

The album is available for purchase on Bandcamp for 7 ($8.64) and Roach said he could see a future for the commercialization of AI-assisted music-production methods  and he's encouraging others to embrace the new technology rather than oppose it.

AI music is divisive

AI-generated music is booming  but many people aren't happy about it. The music seems to be getting more sophisticated and the possibilities are unnerving some creators who also fear the financial impact.

A song generated in the style of Drake and The Weeknd went viral in April, sparking a fierce debate and a wave of imitations that picked up millions of views on TikTok. Some Frank Ocean fans were also recently duped into buying "leaked tracks" that turned out to be AI-generated.

An AI song in the style of Drake and The Weeknd caused a stir in April. Getty Images

Major record labels and streaming platforms have indicated that they will work to stamp out AI-generated content or protect artists from unwanted imitation.

Spotify, for example, has removed thousands of songs generated with the AI-startup Boomy, which allows users to generate music and then earn royalties from streams.

Roach, however, doesn't think the use of AI in music should be a "black-and-white issue."

He said that although it's important to address concerns about deep fake songs made in the likeness of other artists, AI tools also offer the potential for increased accessibility.

"The idea that more people are able to express themselves with the assistance of tools like this I think is really important," he said. "We should embrace these new tools for expression and think about how widening the means of expression for as many people as possible can benefit our society as a whole."

Commercializing AI-generated content is complicated

There's been mounting anxiety over the legality of AI-generated content across creative industries.

Mark Weston, a partner at the law firm Hill Dickinson LLP specializing in intellectual property law, told Insider: "We're seeing concern in music and in text. We're seeing it in anything which has traditionally been the preserve of creative geniuses in the industry."

"It's causing concern because a lot of the issues around ownership and the ability to make money from creative content are gray areas," Weston added.

Although the US copyright office has said that content generated entirely by AI lacks the human authorship necessary to pursue a claim, some work has still slipped through the cracks.

In February, the copyright office said it was wrong to grant copyright protection to certain images in a comic book, as the images had been made with the generative AI art tool, Midjourney, for example.

But "Mirage FM" was not trying to imitate anyone.

Riffusion lets users input a textual description of a genre or type of sound and then it spits out sound bites based on the prompts. It's trained on a large number of pieces of recorded music that have been labeled with certain descriptors like "R&B" and "rap."

"It analyzes characteristics that those pieces of music have from the text description that you put in and produces new music based on that data set," Roach explained.

Weston said that for AI-generated music to be protected, a creator must do something significant with the output.

"If you've got music and lyrics and you put them together, the combination may be copyrightable. If you edit the music substantially, then the output might be too," he said, noting issues were currently being considered on a case-by-case basis.

Nick Eziefula, a music and intellectual property lawyer at law firm Simkins, said that although the technology driving these concerns was new, the legal questions were not entirely.

"We've always had in the creative sectors where sometimes a new piece of work is actually based on someone else's," he said, noting that the new issues were around AI-powered imitation.

If it is directly copied from the work of another artist without permission, then it would likely be an "infringement," he said, adding that "copyright protects the expression of an idea, rather than the idea itself."

But Eziefula, who also makes music, was optimistic: "I think we'll have AI-powered styles and approaches to music which could be great to enjoy as long as it's done in a fair way, in a lawful way, and in an ethical way."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Nancy Pelosi had her ups and downs with California Democrats. Now it's a love fest

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), 83, has not announced if she intends to seek another term or retire from the seat she has held for nearly four decades. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

For the record:

4:05 p.m. May 28, 2023: An earlier version of this story stated that left-leaning Democrats at the California Democratic Party convention this weekend interrupted Gov. Gavin Newsoms speech with chants for Medicare for all. They chanted CalCare now.



Even before former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her first appearance at the California Democratic Party convention this weekend, she was an inescapable presence, dangling in cartoon form off the shoulders of the party's politicians and most dedicated activists.

The official swag bag  a canvas tote illustrating Pelosi's instantly meme-able furious clapping during President Trump's State of the Union address  was the most colorful tribute to the San Francisco congresswoman, but it was hardly the only one. Between an ecstatic ovation for her brief Saturday-morning address and the ballroom-size dinner held in her honor that evening, the party's first in-person gathering since 2019 was an unabashed love letter to one of the state's most prolific politicians.

Pelosi, who at times has been a polarizing figure even within her own party, was an uncontroversial focal point for state Democratic officials wary of weighing in on California's budding Senate race or fraught questions about Sen. Dianne Feinstein's health.

But underlying the celebrations was a lingering uncertainty about Pelosi's plans. The 83-year-old, who stepped down from House Democratic leadership this year, has not announced if she intends to seek another term or retire from the seat she has held for nearly four decades.

Democrats have assiduously sidestepped even a hint of speculation about Pelosi's decision. Still, the subtext was so unavoidable that Gov. Gavin Newsom said he found himself briefly wondering if the weekend-long homage meant he was out of the loop on the speculation about his lifelong friend and political ally.

"[I thought], 'Am I missing something? Did she announce something that I didn't know about?'" Newsom said in an interview.

"I haven't seen any evidence that she's stepping back or down or slowing down," he hastened to add. "Obviously, we're celebrating her speakership. That's certainly a worthy cause."

Since Pelosi handed the House Democratic leadership to New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries in January, admirers have piled on the accolades. In recent months, she has received awards from LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality California, the New York Historical Society, the American Hospital Assn. and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who bestowed her with the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic.

Addressing the convention Saturday morning, Pelosi made clear how much she has enjoyed her post-speakership victory lap.

"Do you know what 'emerita' means? It means happiness," she said to an audience waving signs reading "House of Pelosi."

Her speech otherwise contained no hints of her future. Instead, she rallied Democrats in a cavernous Los Angeles Convention Center hall for a strong showing in the 2024 elections and took swipes at Republicans in Congress.

"As we speak, extremist Republicans have pushed America to the brink of unprecedented default on America's full faith and credit," Pelosi said, alluding to the efforts to raise the debt limit before a tentative deal was struck Saturday.

She was preceded by a glowing video tribute extolling her as a pioneering politician and superlative House speaker, with paeans from party stalwarts such as former Gov. Jerry Brown and former Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Later that evening, Pelosi was honored at a party-sponsored dinner; the press was barred from attending.

Though Pelosi was immersed in politics from childhood as the daughter of Baltimore Mayor and congressman Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., her ascent was rooted in the state Democratic Party. Rising through its ranks, she was party chair from 1981 to 1983, four years before she was first elected to Congress.

"She understands the party. She understands what motivates them," said Bill Carrick, a veteran Democratic operative. "She has a strong feeling for the party structure and the work they do in terms of the grassroots kind of stuff. She's got a real insight into all of that, and not a lot of elected [officials] do."

A volunteer at the California Democratic Convention shows support for Pelosi on Saturday. (Melanie Mason / Los Angeles Times)

But her relationship with party activists, particularly the left flank, could be rocky at times. She angered advocates for single-payer healthcare when she called for a public healthcare option instead of a more sweeping state program to provide coverage for all residents.

During her speech at the state party convention in 2019, the audience shouted, "Impeach! Impeach!" with regard to Trump, at a time when Pelosi was wary about pursuing such an option. (The House, under her leadership, made history by impeaching the then-president twice.)

The left made a show of force at this weekend's convention, interrupting Newsom's speech with chants for "CalCare now." But there was little visible pushback for Pelosi.

"I think that it has been an evolution for many of us to fully appreciate what she has done," said David Campos, vice chair of the state Democratic Party and a former leader in San Francisco's progressive politics.

He recalled the initial skepticism when Pelosi defeated Harry Britt, a progressive who would have been the first out gay member of Congress from San Francisco.

"In many respects, I think that she has been so much more progressive than anyone thought. She has actually accomplished more progressive outcomes than just about anyone," Campos said.

The shifting sentiments among some party activists reflect changing opinions from the broader California electorate.

In 2018, a poll from UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies found that large pluralities of California Democrats wanted someone other than Pelosi to lead their party in the House.

In March of this year, the same polling outfit found that Pelosi was the second-most popular politician in the state, behind Newsom. Three-quarters of California Democrats viewed her favorably.

One factor driving her popularity was her emergence as a foil to Trump, barely concealing her distaste for the "previous occasional occupant of the White House," as she obliquely referred to him Saturday.

"We're grateful that she led and fought and had those iconic images that made us all feel a little bit more secure in the last couple of years that were really difficult to get through," said Jodi Hicks, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of California. "People don't know what she's doing next, and certainly if it is that she decides to do something different, they don't want to miss the opportunity of showing gratitude."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
By Sabine Siebold

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg called on Kosovo to tone down tensions with Serbia on Sunday, two days after clashes between Kosovan police and protesters who are opposed to Albanian mayors taking office in ethnic Serbian areas.

Stoltenberg, the transatlantic military alliance's Norwegian secretary-general, said he had spoken to European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell about Kosovo and that Pristina and Belgrade must engage in the EU-led dialogue.

"Pristina must de-escalate & not take unilateral, destabilising steps," Stoltenberg said in a tweet.

Serbs, who form the majority of the population in Kosovo's northern region, do not accept its 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and still see Belgrade as their capital more than two decades after the war ended in 1999.

Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90% of the population in Kosovo as a whole.

Serbs refused to take part in local elections in April and Albanian candidates won all four municipalities with a 3.5% turnout.

Local Serbs, backed by Belgrade, said they will not accept the mayors and that they do not represent them.

On Friday, three out of four mayors were escorted into their offices by police, who were pelted with rocks and responded with tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters.

Heavily armed police in armoured vehicles were still guarding the mayors' offices on Sunday.

A joint statement from the embassies of the United States, Italy, France, Germany and Britain, known as the Quint group, and the EU office in Pristina warned Kosovo against any other measures to force access to the municipality buildings.

"We strongly caution all parties against other threats or actions which could impact on a safe and secure environment, including freedom of movement, and that could inflame tensions or promote conflict," Quint and the EU said.

"New unilateral actions will negatively impact relations with the Quint countries and the EU."

The United States, Britain and the EU are Kosovo's main backers as the country is still not a United Nations member due to objections from Serbia, Russia, China and others.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, additional reporting by Fatos Bytyci in Pristina, writing by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Alexander Smith)
NOVI SAD, Serbia, May 28 (Xinhua) -- The Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad marked its ninth anniversary on Saturday with a series of cultural activities.

The celebration was attended by around 100 people including Serbian government officials, university professors and students, and representatives from the Chinese embassy and Chinese enterprises.

The cultural activities covered recitation of Confucius quotes, Chinese martial arts show, Chinese traditional painting, Serbian children's choir singing in Chinese and an exhibition of Serbian landscapes painted with traditional Chinese methods.

Bojan Tubic, Serbia's assistant minister of education, said in his address that education cooperation between Serbia and China has achieved continuous progress thanks to the great contributions made by the Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad.

Noting the cooperation between the two countries in various fields, Tubic said he would especially like to emphasize the participation of Serbia in the Belt and Road Initiative.

"In this way, the two states confirmed their commitment to strengthening the comprehensive strategic partnership in order to further improve bilateral practical cooperation in various fields," he said.

Zhang Zhe, minister counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Serbia, said the Confucius Institute plays an important role in promoting equal exchanges and mutual learning between the cultures of the two countries as well as in deepening the Belt and Road cooperation and jointly building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Chinese director of the Confucius Institute, Chen Hui, said that along with the progress of the Belt and Road Initiative and the deepening of the bilateral cooperation in various areas, young people who are learning Chinese now will certainly become a new force in the friendly exchanges between China and Serbia in the future.

The Serbian final round of a Chinese language skills competition for college students was also held on the same day.

The Confucius Institute at the University of Novi Sad, founded in 2014, is the second such institute in Serbia.

Produced by Xinhua Global Service
SAN DIEGO  A Navy contractors aircraft caught fire before it crashed off the California coast earlier this month, killing three people on board, federal investigators said Friday.

The twin-engine Gates Learjet 36A plunged into the Pacific Ocean near San Clemente Island on May 10 while trying to make an emergency landing at a Navy airfield there, according to a preliminary investigative report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

Search suspended for 3 people aboard Navy contractors downed plane

The wreckage of the plane was found underwater but the two pilots and additional crew member  all civilians  havent been found and are presumed dead, the report said.

The jet was one of two that took off from Point Mugu Naval Air Station in Oxnard and headed south towards San Clemente Island, which is owned by the Navy and is west of San Diego. They were going to take part in training exercises with the Navy.

Shortly after arriving at the exercise site, the crew in the first plane, which was leading, radioed that they smelled an odor in the cabin and the crew of the plane behind radioed that they saw white or gray smoke or gas coming from the left side of the cabin, along with some kind of liquid trailing the jet, according to the NTSB report.

At this point the lead airplane was not maintaining heading or altitude, the report said.

The crew of the second plane then saw flames coming from around the rear equipment door of the first aircraft and told the crew to declare an emergency.

The troubled plane planned to land at an auxiliary Navy airfield on San Clemente Island and the other jet maneuvered in front to lead it to the field, the report said.

However, contact was lost as the jets descended.

Broadcast data from the first airplane showed that it made a series of descending turns and was at an altitude of 1,338 feet (408 meters) and about a half-mile (less than a kilometer) from the island when the information stopped, according to the report.

The Learjets wreckage was located a mile (1.6 kilometers) offshore in about 300 feet (91 meters) of water, and some of the debris showed evidence of a fire before the crash, the report said.

The report didnt mention a possible cause for the fire or the crash.
The Navy SEAL training course is rife with overzealous and unchecked instructors, spotty medical care and students who were so determined to pass that they would either lie to doctors or turn to doping, according to a newly released and highly critical Navy report.

The report, commissioned in the wake of the death of Seaman Kyle Mullen, an aspiring SEAL who died in 2022 just after completing the course's notorious "Hell Week," details a "near perfect storm" of issues that included a "degree of complacency and insufficient attentiveness to a wide range of important inputs meant to keep the students safe."

The Navy ordered the investigation into how the training course, known as the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course, or BUD/s, came in the wake of comments by Mullen's mother and New York Times reporting that exposed some of the problems detailed in the report.

Read Next: Army Secretary to Remind Commanders They Can't Deny Soldiers' Parental Leave

A spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Command told Military.com that the investigation is being reviewed, "however, it is too early to comment on any potential accountability actions at this time."

The report itself points to the need for some Navy accountability for the problems in SEAL training, and it notes that Naval Special Warfare Command intended to take action, though that section of the document is redacted.

A statement from the Navy released alongside the report said that "Naval Special Warfare Command has already implemented many improvements to its training programs and policies," and specifically cited greater instructor oversight and training as well as more thorough medical screenings for cardiac conditions.

In 2021, before Mullen and his fellow recruits of Class 352 began their training, leaders at Naval Special Warfare Command and the schoolhouse running BUD/s were already dealing with one problem on their hands. Candidates were dropping out at a far greater rate than normal.

While normally, about one in three candidates would drop during the first -- and toughest -- part of the training pipeline, between 2021 and 2022 that figure spiked to almost one in two.

Rear Adm. Hugh Howard, at the time the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, told the leaders and instructors at the Basic Training Command, or BTC, the unit that runs BUD/s, that it was important to not relax standards to solve this issue.

"Zero is an okay number on the berm -- hold the standard," Howard is quoted as saying in the report.

However, investigators noted that some "may have misunderstood his intent." What followed instead was a change among the instructors to a mindset "focused on 'weeding out' candidates and 'hunting the back of the pack.'"

The report found that many of the instructors, who had no formal training for the role, "felt the quality of SEAL candidates making it through the pipeline had declined" and it was their job to uphold what they viewed as the standard.

Capt. Brad Geary, the officer in charge of BTC at the time, thought the increased drop rate had a few causes but he largely chalked it up to the fact that "the current generation had less mental toughness," the report said.

Meanwhile, the cadre of civilian instructors at the school, veteran SEALs put in place to be a check on the active-duty instructors, were sidelined after Geary made a deliberate decision to reduce their role in the training.

As a result, the investigation found that leaders at BTC ignored the civilian instructors' warnings about an incredibly tough curriculum and a "lack of perspective on the intent of the evolutions."

Compounding the problem was a medical team that was led by an officer -- unnamed in the report -- who, according to the report, "was inexperienced and ill-suited for leadership and yet was left responsible for ensuring the health of candidates at all BUD/s evolutions." Instead, two "overtasked" 1st class petty officers were overseeing medical care for all the SEAL candidates.

The lack of leadership and oversight in the medical department meant that no one at BTC or the overseeing Naval Special Warfare Center clinic had a full view of what treatment, problems or concerns any one candidate was facing, putting candidates at significant risk.

At the same time, recruits like Mullen were being overseen by wholly unqualified personnel.

Both this report as well as the Navy's investigation into Mullen's death noted that after the sailor finished Hell Week, he was given a cursory medical check and handed a flier that explicitly said "DO NOT go and see other/outside medical providers" before explaining, in all capital letters, that "if you go and see other medical personnel who do not understand Hell Week, they may admit you to the hospital or give you medicines that are not compatible with training."

As his condition worsened, the only people around him were other recruits who the Navy's investigators noted weren't even trained in CPR. Concerned by Mullen gasping for air as though he was "being drowned," sailors around him called the duty medical provider, who left them with the impression they should not go to the hospital, the report said.

According to the report, the very fact that sailors like Mullen would be hesitant to seek out medical help and downplay or hide issues in an effort to not be seen as weak was a challenge to the Navy's Special Warfare commands medical departments that "they were unprepared to meet."

That zeal to pass also meant that some recruits started turning to performance-enhancing drugs. The investigation revealed that the Navy has actually grappled with doping in the SEAL training pipeline at least twice in the past decade.

After both instances, one in 2011 and another in 2018, the Naval Special Warfare Command asked for permission to be able to test recruits for performance-enhancing substances more freely but was denied both times.

After Mullen's death, the investigators found a stash of performance-enhancing drugs in his car, including testosterone and human growth hormone. His blood and urine were unable to be tested for the drugs, the report noted.

Two candidates in Mullen's class ended up testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs ,and 20 other candidates are in limbo while the Navy gathers more evidence, according to the investigation.

For the time being, leaders at Naval Special Warfare Command are relying on tests that can suggest but not definitively prove use of performance-enhancing substances. But the report notes that "without a rigorous testing program producing timely results," the Navy "will be unable to effectively deter use."

In the wake of Mullen's death, the Navy has offered some accountability for the failures and oversights that have been exposed.

In October, the Navy issued administrative "non-punitive" letters to Geary and an unnamed senior medical officer. Geary's boss, Capt. Brian Drechsler, the commodore of the Naval Special Warfare Center, also received a letter.

While the letters themselves carry no punishment, they typically render an officer unpromotable.

Drechsler would go on to leave his post early in May. A spokesman for Naval Special Warfare command said at the time that the change was made in part "to better focus on addressing some of the lingering issues identified" by this very report.

Geary would be replaced by Capt. Timothy Sulick in June 2022, according to the report. The Navy does not appear to have publicly announced this turnover or said whether it occurred ahead of schedule.

According to the report, Sulick "emphasizes with instructors that their role is to raise the candidates up to the standards, not drive them to quit."

-- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @ktoropin.

Related: 'Instructed Not To Call 911': Report Reveals Confusion, Failure and Fear in SEAL Candidate Death
Teacher pay

Regarding NC Governor declares state of emergency due to GOP school voucher expansion, tax cuts, (May 24):

When I read that the N.C. Senate is giving veteran teachers a $250 raise to be spread over two years, I was appalled. Its totally insulting. Its obvious that teachers are not being appreciated or respected with this token raise. We need our public schools to be as desirable as possible because good public schools benefit everyone. Do the Republicans not get that? Driving good teachers away from public schools is a horrible thing to do  and its happening.

Ann Whitehurst, Raleigh

School vouchers

The state budget now before the legislature proposes to favor private education over public education. The GOP underfunds public education across the state and proposes to give wealthy families in North Carolina free subsidies to send their children to private schools. The wealthy do not need our tax dollars to send their children to private school. The middle income and less fortunate N.C. families need better public schools and increased state funding to pay public school teachers a fair wage and properly educate our children. Why does the GOP reward its wealthy donors with tax subsidies and relegate your children to poorly funded and understaffed public schools?

Richard Lane, Raleigh

Voucher recipient

I am a retired nurse and mother of five children, four of whom are Opportunity Scholarship recipients. I can only hope that every single family in North Carolina could have access to private schooling  which cannot be shut down by politicians during a pandemic. Taking children out of the classroom damaged them. This scholarship is the vehicle that gives parents choices for their kids education. Every family should have the opportunity to decide what is best for their own children.

Elizabeth Shenk, Erwin

NC abortion bill

Of all the bad measures the N.C. General Assembly has passed this year, Senate Bill 20 regulating abortion in our state may be the worst, and eventually may rival the ill-fated bathroom bill of several years ago as the most damaging for our state. No matter your position on abortion, most every one of us will be negatively affected in some way by this measure. Sensible North Carolinians must band together and not reelect all those who voted for this bill before other rights and freedoms we hold dear are also taken away.

Dr. Leon Woodruff Jr., Raleigh

NC pay raises

The recent disclosure of a 23% vacancy rate of state jobs, surprised me. The surprise was that the figure wasnt closer to 33%.

On May 17 there was news about a proposed 22.5% pay raise for the governor and significant raises for Council of State members. I thought to myself, this is a perfect opportunity for the governor and Council of State to decline any pay raise that is higher percentage-wise than what state employees will receive.. By setting this example, Gov. Roy Cooper and the Council would demonstrate their recognition that that the states budget should not be balanced on the back of state employees.

The current governor has demonstrated his willingness to go to bat for state employees, unlike a former governor who once referred to some on the states payroll as seat warmers.

Greg Bruhn, Raleigh

School lunches

The writer is a former Wake County PTA Council president.

Regarding Wake school lunch prices are going up again, (May 18):

I echo Wake County school board chair Lindsay Mahaffeys common sense hope that we could eliminate the cost of school meals for all of our students once and for all.

Such a move would take the pressure off of families who have to pinch every penny but make more than the threshold for their children to receive free or reduced price lunch. It would also remove the stigma of children incurring meal debt or receiving alternative meals that put financial status front and center with their peers.

I encourage our elected officials at all levels to prioritize our childrens health, nutrition and potential to learn by making school meals available to all students at no cost to their families. Hungry students struggle. Nourished students thrive.

Sarah B. Martin, Cary

Pat McCrory

Former Gov. Pat McCrorys announcement that he will work for No Labels should make everyone sit up and notice!

Many allies of No Labels oppose a third-party presidential run. A co-founder, William Galston, recently opined in the Wall Street Journal that a No Labels ticket that receives a tiny share of the vote could put Trump back in office.

McCrory claims that he is not a radical extremist Republican, but his efforts on behalf of No Labels could result in a radically extreme Republican president.

Helen Wolfson, Durham

Debt ceiling

Sen. Thom Tillis should be using his influence with his colleagues in the U.S. House to convince them to raise the debt ceiling. Hold him to his word when he says he is in Washington to solve problems. Failure to raise the debt ceiling will harm every citizen of our state, but it will hit small businesses and the poor harder and faster.

Cheryl Mitchell-Olds, Durham
NC soldier got misidentified and buried in someone elses grave. Finally, he came home.

In 1918, a 22-year-old soldier from Raleigh went charging across the French battlefield until a German shell burst over his head, knocking him back so forcefully that it shattered the bones in his feet.

Harry Watson got all the honors a young lieutenant could expect on the Western Front  a hasty burial under a fruit tree, laid shoulder-to-shoulder with three other men.

But when the guns went silent and the grass grew back at Cantigny, Watsons mother wrote the Army and asked to ship her boy back to Raleigh, where she could bury him with family at Oakwood Cemetery.

And suddenly, nobody could find him.

The fate of Harry Watson became a detective story that took 10 years to solve  a case of mistaken identity that required interference from N&O Publisher Josephus Daniels, the detailed recollections of a gravedigger and a letter from a Raleigh dentist describing the missing soldiers gold tooth.

Thomas Harry Watson lies in the World War I section of Oakwood Cemetery, having been mistakenly buried in Kansas.

He was just a kid, said Robin Simonton, Oakwoods executive director, preparing for Mondays Memorial Day service. As complicated as it is for us, it must have been just as complicated for them.

Watson grew up on North Person Street in Raleigh, and as a young man, he worked for what is now First Citizens Bank. He enlisted in the Army in 1917, seized by the fervor that struck men of his generation. He quickly rose to lieutenant before meeting his end at Cantigny, the first major American offensive in World War I.

The front lines of World War I

As a young officer on the front lines, he would have witnessed hand-to-hand fighting around the trenches, and experienced shelling so severe that it leveled the entire village for which his battle is named.

But by 1922, the country had largely moved on, and Lillian Watsons letters to the government asking for a single soldiers whereabouts did not turn many bureaucratic wheels. Little reached the grieving mother other than a request that she furnish dental records, which she did, thanks to Dr. H.O. Lineberger, who forwarded information about the gold inlay on Watsons incisor.

And time dragged on.

Until Josephus Daniels personally wrote to the Secretary of War.

News & Observer publisher Josephus Daniels personally intervened in a Raleigh mothers quest to bring her sons body home from World War I. But it still took until 1928 for Thomas Harry Watson to return.

Former Secretary of the Navy gets involved

Watson, it turned out, had an uncle who was the N&Os business manager  a right-hand-man for the Raleigh publisher. And because Daniels had just finished his stint as Secretary of the Navy, finding Watson became one of Washingtons top priorities.

She is a widow, Daniels wrote of the missing soldiers mother, and has not yet recovered from the shock.

While the Army quartermasters office went busily shuffling through files, Daniels made it easy for them with a second letter: Talk to C.R. Huebner at Camp Benning, who served alongside Watson, and to Jim Quinn, who buried him and has a map.

The young mans mother is greatly distressed, Daniels wrote.

The Army quickly found Huebner, who recalled his comrades burial beneath a fruit tree and confirmed Quinn as gravedigger. in the months and years that followed, the tree-shaded grave would be located, as would records of the soldiers inside being relocated to more permanent resting places in a Castigny cemetery.

In one of those graves, No. 28, investigators discovered an officer with USR ornaments on the collar, leather-lined breeches, pigskin puttees, size 8 shoes and, significantly, a gold inlay on the second tooth from the center. In addition to all this, the Army learned this soldier had a bullet hole in his skull with the left side of his face shot away.

The quartermasters office fired off a letter to Quinn: Sound like our man?

A gold tooth, but also a face

But it would take until 1928 to find Quinn, who had bounced around Memphis without a forwarding address.

When he finally turned up, the former officer penned a four-page letter by hand, detailing the trench he dug for Watson, Curry, Bodenstab and another officer whose name I have forgotten.

The uniform all sounded right, as did the gold tooth, but Watson had no marks on his body except from the skin under each eye, which had bled from the shells concussive force.

The Raleigh lieutenants face was otherwise intact, not shot away, but Quinn gruesomely theorized that perhaps Watson had been blown apart by a shell after hed been buried.

Quinn told the Army hed seen it happen before.

A case of mistaken identity

What followed is confusing to follow and grisly to imagine.

But somehow, through its efforts, the Armys investigators learned that one of those soldiers in that mass grave had a piece of identifying material on his body, which included the name Lt. E. Comeford.

And somehow, by trying to track down what became of Comeford, they learned that he wasnt dead at all, let alone resting in a trench in northern France.

And somehow, as they sorted through the paperwork, they concluded that someone must have found Comefords property among the dead, checked the name against muster rolls and determined that the body belonged to Capt. Willis E. Comfort, who was also killed in action.

Close enough.

So when Comforts family in Kansas asked for their boys body, the Army returned to the fruit tree and dug up the man marked Comeford, shipping him home to be buried Manhattan.

But it wasnt Comeford, who was very much alive, and it wasnt Comfort, who was buried miles away.

It was poor Watson, howling in protest from the great beyond.

Army Quartermaster General B.F. Cheatham wrote to Lillian Watson, a decade after her sons death, apologizing for one of those sad errors that are bound to occur in a great war.

Comforts family, in Kansas, got one, too.

Thomas Harry Watsons body, mistakenly sent to Kansas, didnt return home to Raleigh from World War I until 1928 -- 10 years late.

Today, Watsons grave sits in Oakwoods northwest corner with this wish chiseled on the stone: May he rest in peace and light perpetual shine upon him.

He is recognized as Raleighs first casualty in the world war. But more would follow  casualties and wars alike.

Oakwood Cemetery Memorial Day observance

Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh will hold a Memorial Day service at 4 p.m. Monday. All are welcome.
Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer in the poster for The Witcher season 3.

The last several months have been tumultuous for Netflixs The Witcher. After its third season hits next month, Henry Cavills time as Geralt of Rivia will come to a close as Hunger Games Liam Hemsworth steps into the role for the foreseeable future. But even with the actor change, Netflix still wants the show to stick around, as the streamer quietly renewed it for another season.



In a recent Deadline interview, casting director Sophie Holland casually broke the news, saying that season four is just about to start filming...and there will be a short gap, then we go straight into season five. Presumably, this is something that was meant to be officially revealed by Netflix closer to the launch of season threes first halfor after its second half already airedbut now that news is just out there. Holland offered up no other real details beyond that, other than looking forward to Hemsworths take on Geralt. He has a big fanbase, she said of the Australian actor.

Read more

The Witcher has been one of Netflixs big draws to its service in recent years along the likes of Stranger Things and Squid Game. Giving it another season ahead of season fours production (hopefully) shows Netflix has a lot of faith in both the show and Hemsworths performance. And with the streamers aims to create a Witcher TV Universe thats planned to have various spinoffs and prequels thrown into the mix, maybe well see Hemsworth in one of those as well.

Season three of The Witcher (aka, Henry Cavills final season) will premiere its first part on June 29, and part 2 in July 27. Hemsworths first full season will presumably release in 2024, unless the production is impacted by the Writers Strike or anything else.

[via The Verge]





Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, whats next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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A Royal Oak judge ruled Friday that a Clinton Township woman charged in attacks against two religious centers in metro Detroit will undergo a competency and criminal responsibility evaluation.

Randi Lucille Nord, 35, whose case has garnered national attention in recent weeks from security experts, remains at the Oakland County Jail after appearing via video for a probable cause conference Friday in 44th District Court before Judge Derek Meinecke.

Randi Lucille Nord, 35, of Clinton Township, appears from jail via video on a Zoom broadcast during her arraignment May 3 in connection with vandalism of the Woodward Avenue Shul, a synagogue in Royal Oak, Michigan, on April 27, 2003. A Nazi swastika and the word "AZOV" was seen spray painted on the Jewish center. She said she wanted to pin the blame on Azov, a Ukrainian militia, police said.

Nord faces a felony charge of ethnic intimidation and a misdemeanor charge of malicious destruction of a building in the April 28 antisemitic vandalism of a Royal Oak synagogue, Woodward Avenue Shul, where a Nazi symbol and the phrase "AZOV" was spray painted on its wall. Nord told police she was trying to pin blame for the attack on Ukraine by trying to implicate Azov, a militia in Ukraine some have said has neo-Nazi beliefs.

Nord is also charged in the March 15 arson of a Scientology center in Farmington Hills. In that case, Nord had her bond revoked this month by Judge Nanci Grant of Oakland County Circuit Court. Her court-appointed attorney, Kerry Phillips, said Friday during the brief court hearing that she has been referred for a competency and criminal responsibility evaluation, also known as a psychiatric exam, in the Farmington Hills case. Phillips did not respond to an email this week seeking comment on Nord.

Nord lived for two years in Serbia and then returned to Michigan in March, Royal Oak Detective Dan Pelletier testified earlier this month. Her family has said she made violent threats to them and was homeless, Pelletier said. She also said she has traveled to Yemen and Turkey and wanted to foment a war in Hamtramck by importing weapons from Turkey, Ukraine and Russia, Pelletier said.

Pelletier said Nord told him: "I'm trying to commit a slew of hate crimes and blame all of them on Azov battalion.'"

He testified "Nord explained that she was blaming Azov, 'so that everybody gets pissed at that the United States is involved in Ukraine.' She stated 'I'm trying to get everybody scared and trying to get everybody hyped up.' ... Nord said her goal was, 'pretty much trying to foment a war in a lot of ways.'"

More: Police: Woman charged in synagogue vandalism wanted to blame Ukraine, start Hamtramck war

Her case has drawn interest because of its ties to the war between Ukraine and Russia. The image in the header of her Twitter profile reads "Visit the USSR."

Aric Toler, director of training and research at Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group whose work has appeared in the New York Times this year on other cases, wrote a thread on Twitter about Nord. Others dug through her various online profiles that indicate her membership in far left groups such as Workers World Party; she gave a speech in 2017 with a conference held by the group criticizing U.S. policy in Yemen.

Nord has written often over the years about foreign policy issues for leftist publications such as Mint Press and some Iranian media outlets such as Tehran Times and Press TV, according to her profile on Muck Rack. She was outspoken against the U.S. government's foreign policy and criticized U.S. allies such as Ukraine and Saudi Arabia. In a 2018 interview with the online outlet Black Agenda Report, she described herself as "from a working-class family in metro Detroit." She said she cofounded a media website called Geopolitics Alert.

Randi Lucille Nord, 35, of Clinton Township, appears from jail via video during a court hearing on May 12, 2023 in 44th District Court, accused of vandalism of the Woodward Avenue Shul, a synagogue in Royal Oak, Michigan, on April 27. A Nazi swastika and the word "AZOV" was seen spray painted on the Jewish center. She said she wanted to pin the blame on Azov, a Ukrainian militia, police said.

Nord said observing people struggle economically in Detroit and Hawaii influenced her politics.

"All of this and watching the Iraq war unfold as a teenager really set the anti-imperialist path for me," she said. "I know that US imperialism is really the biggest threat to not only world peace but sustainability and growth around the globe."

Pelletier said Nord has a high degree of intelligence and was plotting to attack the Scientology center while in Serbia. Nord was on a tether in the Scientology case, which she cut off when she committed the attack on the synagogue, he said.

"Nord stated, 'the whole spray painting thing, that's just one small part, that's more like a propaganda aspect of what I was working on," Pelletier said. "'I was also trying to work on something to import weapons into Hamtramck, like military grade weapons from Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, so I could foment, start an actual war in Hamtramck.'

Meinecke said he will later set the next court date for Nord.

Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com or Twitter @nwarikoo.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Randi Nord appears in Royal Oak court hearing, referred for evaluation
Trump and Putin Are in Deep Trouble and Need Each Other More Than Ever

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Reuters

Times are tough for both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Since they are two of the worlds most repulsive and dangerous people, that might be considered good news.

But, not so fast. Because there is one thing that can save Trump from the dark realities of legal accountabilityand it happens to also be the only thing that is likely to turn the tide in Putins disastrous war in Ukraine. That is the reelection of Donald Trump.

Once again the interests of Trump and Putin are aligned, but this time the stakes for both are much higher than they were in 2016. That should worry us all. It should worry us a lot.

The GOP Is the Party of Fuck You

Worse still, there are others for whom the 2024 election is of existential importance. It includes Trumps close allieswho may face jail unless Trump is reelected and can pardon them. It includes extremists and their allieswho also see a Trump victory as a get out of jail (or avoid jail) free card. It includes advocates of MAGA wingnut policy views, for whom four more years of Joe Biden appointing rational jurists could undo many of their initiatives subjugating women, criminalizing love and identity within the LGBTQ community, and impeding the ability of voters to participate in a democracy they would like to see weakened or done away with altogether.

There are still others for whom the stakes are high, if not quite existential. These include countries that have thrown in their lot with Trump. (The disgraced former presidents business ties to these are now reportedly an investigative target of special counsel Jack Smith.)

It also, of course, includes politicians in the U.S. who have declared their loyalty to His Roiled MAGAsty himself and whose political fates are likely to mirror his.

Taken together they will be an unholy alliance that poses a real threat to next years elections being fair, while also increasing the likelihood that the results of next years elections will be contested in ways that may make the Jan. 6 insurrection (and Trumps nationwide false electors campaign) seem mild by comparison.

You can see the situations of both Trump and Putins fiasco in Ukraine getting more dire daily.

AG Merrick Garland Needs to Get Out of the Business of Defending Trump

His New York hush money trial now has a start date, March 25, 2024. Smith is reportedly putting the finishing touches on his conclusion regarding the former presidents alleged mishandling of classified documents. Hes also looking into Trumps involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection and has expanded the ambit of their inquiry to look at possible wrong-doing associated with Trump fund-raising. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has signaled that any charges in the case she might bring regarding election interference by Trump and/or his allies are just around the corner, due in the first three weeks of August. More charges may come from other states on election fraud. And the verdict against Trump in the defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll may be compounded as she expands her claims in a second, related case.

As for Putin, while he has declared victory in the battle for Bakhmut, it has come at an enormous cost to his military. It is unlikely that his forces will be able to hold the smoldering remnants of the devastated city for much longer. What is more, the U.S. and allies have agreed to provide Ukraine with advanced F-16 fighters and the training needed to fly them. Ukrainian militia have also launched attacks across Russias border.

Russias military is depleted. Putin has effectively committed his entire conventional force to Ukraine where it is getting pummeled. A major Ukrainian offensive is expected to commence soon. Even one of his former buddies, Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin, has said that Putin could face a revolution at home and defeat in Ukraine if Putin doesnt turn things aroundwhich seems unlikely.

Prigozhin, of course, played a central role in helping Putin in his efforts to compromise U.S. elections in 2016. He even admitted it publicly. Whatever reasons Putin may have had for trying to help get Trump elected in 2016, they are clearly much greater today. And whatever reasons Trump may have had for running, they too are transcended by those he has right now.

Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and the Apocalyptic Centrists

With so many trials and such serious crimes being discussed, the odds that Trump faces not only conviction but possible jail time, may make delaying the trials and verdicts until he can win the election his only defense. And it is clear he will try anything in that regard, from whining on social media that the New York case has been brought to interfere with his campaigning, to revealing himself to be MAGAs true Karen-in-chief with a letter whining about his mistreatment and asking for an audience with U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland so he could make his feelings known to the manager.

As for Putin, his last chance to turn his epic blunder in Ukraine into something he can claim is a success is also a Trump victory. Trump, during his CNN pep rally, made it clear he does not see Ukraine as a special ally of the U.S. and he wont condemn Putin war crimes.

Putin critics have already demonstrated they view Trump as Putins best hope. (During the CNN event, Trump also refused to say he would accept 2024 election results.)

So here we are again, only more so. Trump needs Putin. Putin needs Trump. They have plenty of cronies and bad actors and fellow travelers who need them both. Which is why this is a moment to prepare for the shape their collaboration might take.

Unfortunately, dangerously, this is also the moment that Trumps GOP is once again promoting the lie that Trump never colluded with Russia. This time, they are seizing upon the recent report by Special Counsel John Durham to say that it proves that the whole Trump-Russia affair was, as Trump so often asserted, a hoax.

Of course, it said nothing of the sort. In fact, it was a big nothing burger that offered a mild critique of the FBI without actually even saying the FBI shouldnt have investigated Trump and Russia.

And we know that every investigation conducted in the pastincluding those by the intelligence community, the U.S. Senate, and special counsel Robert Muellerindicated that Russia actively intervened in 2016 to help Trump. In fact, the intelligence community also concluded Russia tried to help Trump in 2020.

Putin has proven he will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Trump has done the same.

Kevin McCarthys Support for Ukraine Is Meaningless If He Lets the U.S. Default on Debt

Given the intersection of their interests in 2024, and the profound urgency with which both see a Trump election as essential, now is the time to mobilize to anticipate, identify, and stop both foreign and domestic interference in our upcoming electionand potential initiatives to undo the results of those elections.

That is why it is so essential not to shrug off the misinformation about the Durham report as just more spin. It is precisely the kind of effort to convince us to drop our guard that serves the interests of the enemies of our democracy. It is also why efforts to hold Trump accountable must proceed unimpeded by the elections that Trump sees as his best legal strategy.

Finally, it is why the administration needs to make it clear that it is preparing for whatever may come and that whenever threats are seen, they are stopped as early as possible.

No election in our history has been either more important or more imperiled. We have plenty of evidence to support that view. Now, we must act on that evidence with unwavering resolve.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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NH woman accused of driving wrong way while intoxicated on I-293 with 2 children in car, police say

A New Hampshire woman is accused of driving the wrong way while intoxicated on Interstate 293 with two young children in a sedan early Sunday morning, state police said.

Sulma Canales Cabrera, 26, of Nashua, is facing charges of reckless conduct, aggravated driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, and endangering the welfare of a child, state police said.

At approximately 12:40 a.m. Sunday, New Hampshire State Police received reports of a silver sedan traveling the wrong way on Interstate 293 in Manchester. Initial reports indicated that the sedan was traveling northbound in the southbound lanes, in the area of Exit 6.

As troopers tried to intercept the sedan, police received another report that the driver of the sedan had made a U-turn on the Interstate at the upper split of Interstate 93/293 and was now traveling southbound.

Troopers were able to stop the sedan as it approached Exit 5 in Manchester, and they arrested Cabrera, state police said.

State police said two young children, ages 10 and 6, were inside the sedan when it was stopped.

Cabrera is scheduled to appear in the Superior Court in June.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is being asked to contact Trooper Bryan Taylor at 603-223-4381 or Bryan.L.Taylor@dos.nh.gov.

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FILE PHOTO: Cuba commemorates the 18th anniversary of the creation of ALBA-TCP

(Reuters) - Nicaraguan police said on Saturday they are investigating several dioceses of the Catholic Church for money laundering, a day after local media reported that the bank accounts of parishes in the Central American country had been frozen.

The police, loyal to the government of President Daniel Ortega which has clashed fiercely with Nicaragua's bishops, said that since May 19 they found "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in Church facilities in various parts of the country.

Investigations "confirmed the unlawful removal of resources from bank accounts that had been ordered by law to be frozen," the police said in a statement.

Ortega's government has intensified attacks against the Catholic Church in the wake of 2018 anti-government protests in which some 360 people died after what human rights groups call police repression. The government accused the bishops, who mediated talks between the government and protesters, of attempting a coup.

The police statement said the bank accounts were linked to religious figures convicted of treason and other crimes, and that the investigations confirmed the funds entered the country irregularly.

The police said the investigation also confirmed "other illicit activities, which are still being investigated as part of a money laundering network that has been discovered in the dioceses in different departments."

Reuters sought comment from several Nicaraguan bishops, but did not receive a timely response.

Since the anti-government protests, Ortega has imprisoned and expelled priests and nuns, banned pilgrimages and religious processions and shut nursing homes and soup kitchens that had been run by nuns.

Last February, a Nicaraguan court sentenced high-profile government critic Bishop Rolando Alvarez to 26 years in prison for treason and cybercrimes, after he refused to board a plane amid the expulsion of 222 other political prisoners.

The expelled prisoners were promptly stripped of their nationality, including six priests from Alvarez' diocese who had previously been convicted of the same crimes.

Ortega also suspended ties with the Vatican in March, shortly after Pope Francis compared his administration to the Nazi dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.

(Reporting by Ismael Lopez; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
Russian military

The number of Russian troops in Belarus is not enough for a new invasion of Ukraine from the north, he confirmed.

"Now the number of Russian troops in Belarus is much smaller than it was a few months ago. Previously, there could have been 10,000-11,000 of them, and now there are several thousand soldiers," Demchenko said.

Read also: Russian occupiers claim overnight drone attack on Sevastopol

Ukraine continues to beef up security at its border with Belarus, he added. In particular, the area is being mined to prevent the breakthrough of enemy military hardware.

"No matter what, we continue to strengthen our border, both directly along the border and near it, so that the SBGS and other units in that area are able to respond to any threat or attempt to invade," Demchenko said.

The State Border Guard Service reported on May 1 that the number of Russian occupiers in Belarus had decreased. There were about 2,800 Russian troops there at the moment.

Read also: Over 150,000 Russian troops in southern Ukraine's occupied territories  Ukrainian intelligence

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
ACCRA, May 27 (Xinhua) -- At least five people died and dozens went missing after a boat carrying dozens of people sank in the Savannah Region of Ghana, an official confirmed late Saturday.

Bavuk Adams, the Savannah Regional Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), told Xinhua that the accident happened when the boat heading to Kpandai struck a tree stump along its path, resulting in a crack.

The vessel was then flooded and sank "after frantic efforts by the passengers and boat operators to save the situation proved futile," said Adams, adding five bodies have been recovered.

He said the specific number of people on board is yet to be confirmed, but friends and relatives kept reporting missing persons to NADMO.

Adams added that the search and rescue team had saved some passengers, and the search was still underway. 
Texas teachers lose pay raises in voucher fight. Do they have another chance for an increase?

A bill that some saw as the last remaining vehicle for teacher pay raises isnt going to pass this session, as the Texas House and Senate feud over a voucher-like program, the bill author said.

The House bill included an increase in the amount of money schools get per student and increased the minimum salaries for teachers, said Ken King, a Republican from Canadian Texas who authored the proposal. But it was amended in the Senate to include a program for education savings accounts, which would let students use public money to help pay for private education.

Teacher pay raises are being held hostage to support an education savings account plan, King said in a Saturday evening statement.

School choice for parents, particularly the program, has been a top priority of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott who has warned hed call a special session if lawmakers adjourn without passing meaningful school choice. The comment came after the House narrowed a different bill that included education savings accounts.

Many supporters of education savings accounts supported Abbotts State of the State address comment that he was going to fully fund public schools and the accounts, King said.

King also noted that the state budget this session allocates money for state employee pay raises.

Only teachers are being punished over a political fight, he said.

Kings bill was sent to a conference committee made up of House and Senate lawmakers to negotiate the differences, but King said the Senate wouldnt budge. It was education savings accounts or nothing, he said.

I am truly sorry that HB 100 did not pass, but in the end I believe students, teachers, and schools are better off with current law than they would be if we accept what the Senate is offering, King said.

The office of Sen. Brandon Creighton, the bills Senate sponsor, didnt immediately return an emailed request seeking comment.

In a Saturday statement to The Texas Tribune, Creighton criticized the House for not giving the Senates school choice bill that included the education savings accounts a real vote. The House made a mockery of and killed the Senates version of the bill that included teacher raises, he said.

I learned today that the House had no intention of negotiating, the statement reads. I stand ready to make a deal and put politics aside because the 6 million children in Texas schools and our teachers deserve it.

Abbotts office did not immediately return an emailed request for comment Sunday.

Teachers will not forget their raises became a bargaining chip, unlike raises for state employees, said Monty Exter, the Association of Texas Professional Educators governmental relations director in a written statement. They wont forget that fact during a special session, and they wont forget that fact at election time.

The Texas State Teachers Association cheered the the death of the voucher bill but lamented that part of the states nearly $33 billion surplus wasnt used to boost pay for teachers and other school employees.

We hope that Gov. Abbott understands the message from the voucher bills failure and the strong anti-voucher vote in the House earlier this session and gives up his plans to waste legislators time and taxpayers money on a special session for another futile attempt to pass a voucher bill, the associations President Ovidia Molina said in a written statement. But if he renews his voucher attack against public schools, we will be ready to continue our fight to protect public education.
North Korea infant jailed for life after parents found with Bible according to recent report

North Korea infant jailed for life after parents found with Bible according to recent report

A two-year-old along with his entire family were sentenced to political life imprisonment after North Korean officials found a Bible in their possession, the US State Departments International Religious Freedom Report 2022 found, documenting the regimes crackdown on people having religious beliefs.

The report provided estimated figures on religious persecution, stating that approximately 70,000 Christians, as well as individuals from other faiths, are imprisoned in North Korea.

"The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion [in the DPRK] also continues to be denied, with no alternative belief systems tolerated by the authorities," Antonio Guterres, the United Nationa's (U.N) secretary-general said in the report outlining liberty religious atrocities that have occurred in North Korea in the past years.

In this photo taken on April 15, 2023, people visit the statues of late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on Mansu Hill, as part of celebrations marking the 111th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, known as the "Day of the Sun", in Pyongyang.

The U.N said that the COVID-19 restriction on travel reduced information about religious persecution conditions, making details about cases of abuse difficult to verify. The State Department said that they eventually confirmed the details from the report from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights groups, and the U.N.

The report noted that a few registered institution, including churches, existed in the cut-off country-especially in the capital of Pyongyang. However, visitors reported that the church "operated under tight state control and functioned largely as showpieces for foreigners."

NORTH KOREA COMMENDS RUSSIA'S 'SACRED STRUGGLE' IN HOLIDAY MESSAGE

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

The Department of State said that the scope and quantity of underground, or secret, churches remained difficult to quantify due to the government forbidding private religious activity.

Defectors told officials that the North Korean government encourages citizens to report anyone engaged in unauthorized religious activities or if they own any religious materials-like Bibles. The defectors shared that Christians often hide their religious activities from family members, neighbors, coworkers, and others due to fear of being branded as disloyal to the North Korean government and reported to authorities.

Passages are highlighted in a Korean language bible belonging to a worshipper attending Sunday Service at Gangneung Jungang Methodist Church on February 18, 2018 in Gangneung, South Korea.

In October 2021, Korea Future released a report based on interviews with 244 victims of religious freedom abuses.

Of these, 150 adhered to Shamanism, 91 adhered to Christianity, one to Cheondoism, and one to other beliefs. The victims ranged in age from two to more than 80 years old. Women and girls accounted for more than 70 percent of documented victims.

NORTH KOREA PLEDGES TO FURTHER 'DEVELOP' RELATIONSHIP WITH CHINA

According to the report, the government charged individuals with engaging in religious practices, conducting religious activities in China, possessing religious items, having contact with religious persons, and sharing religious beliefs.

Individuals were subject to arrest, detention, forced labor, torture, denial of a fair trial, public execution and sexual violence.

A woman and her grandson wave North Korea's national flag in Pyongyang on March 8, 2023.

One of the incidents highlighted was the 2009 imprisonment of a family based on their religious practices and possession of a Bible. The entire family, including the two-year-child, were given life sentences in prison camps.

NORTH KOREA LOOKS TO THE FINAL FRONTIER AS KIM JONG UN READIES LAUNCH OF SPY SATELLITE

Another incident from the NGO Korea Future reported a shocking incident where a man caught praying and nearly beaten to death by guards. Another incident involved a Korean Worker's Party member who was found with a Bible, taken by authorities out to an airfield, and executed before thousands of people.

North Korean soldiers patrol next to the border fence near the town of Sinuiju across from the Chinese border town of Dandong.

Christians described the horrific conditions of North Korean prison camps include extreme malnutrition, forced feeding of contaminated food, verbal and physical abuse and execution.

One NGO, Open Doors USA (ODUSA), has reported that for Christians in North Korea, life is a "constant cauldron of pressure" and "capture or death is only a mistake away."

Christians, ODUSA reported, are regarded as the lowest in society and are constantly "vulnerable and in danger."
Notes on faith: Jesus is on the mainline  and so is your therapist

You can have Jesus and your counselor too; Rev. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones and Rev. Calvin Taylor Skinner discuss finding harmony between the divine and the therapeutic.

Notes on faith is theGrios inspirational, interdenominational series featuring Black thought leaders across faiths.

Recognizing Memorial Day and May as Mental Health Awareness Month, a recent episode of TheGrios Dear Culture podcast featured host Panama Jackson conversing with Tonya Oxendine and Wilton Williamson of the Wounded Warrior Project to discuss veterans mental health. The trio agreed there is a particular intraracial resistance in the African diaspora to pursuing professional counseling services.

If you cant pray it away, [Black people] dont want no parts of it, usually, Jackson commented. We are not big on therapy  or if God aint your therapists, then get them off the line.

Yooooogive me God and a counselor, we thought. Jesus better be on the mainline WITH my healthcare professional.

Photo: AdobeStock

The crucial quest to achieve and maintain wellness

The podcasts commentary called us into a conversation about maintaining a faith enhanced by therapy. We have to admit Panama was spot on when he talked about the prevalent intracultural attitudes toward mental wellness he saw while growing up. Our people have faced systemic and societal barriers throughout history, making it difficult to conceive of, achieve, and maintain solid wellness practices that heal our minds, bodies, and souls.

With one in four American adults dealing with a diagnosable mental issue, this is a common issue in our society  and arguably, an underlying cause of myriad health issues African Americans disproportionately face is due to mismanagement of stress and trauma. According to the American Psychological Association, we are 20% more likely to report serious psychological distress than our white counterparts. Yet, among Black Americans, only 25% seek mental health treatment.

Several factors contribute to that lack of engagement, such as a pervasive lack of access to resources. However, what cannot be ignored is that stress and trauma mismanagement is detrimental to the average person, let alone those of us who are marginalized or need targeted attention.

Instead, many of us have relied on hiding behind a facade, but dressing in our Sunday best when we feel a mess doesnt cut it. We are in crisis, family. Prayer is a balm, but it is also a primer for more profound work. Attitudes within our religious circles that entirely reject professional mental healthcare as a spiritual practice are dangerous.

As married, trained theologians who both grew up as pastors children, we have firsthand experience with fellow faith leaders who avoid discussing mental health or seeking psychological help out of fear of being perceived as inadequate or improper spiritual leadership. However, whether in the pews or the secular world, attunement to those needs can save lives.

A conversation about ascertaining what stress and grief look like is one we need to have, as evidenced by the responses to a recent tweet by Pastor West of Baltimores Faith Empowered Ministries, in which he seemed to encourage using prayer as therapy instead of opening up to someone.

Credit: @Pastor__West (Twitter)

Although some comments endorsed the rejection of therapy in favor of prayer, it was refreshing to see many commenters acknowledge that we can benefit from Jesus and a therapist too. That engagement reveals there may be a significant and long overdue shift towards embracing faith and therapy as companions.

The Black Church has long functioned as our clearinghouse for the African-American communitys issues. Accordingly, that institution must be where we focus our attention on building a new type of sanctuary within  and when we take a closer look, models of prayer working in tandem with therapy already exist.

Heeding the call to fill a need

Imagine the Black Church getting past the stigma of mental health services and becoming critical in creating a pipeline for developing faith-centered holistic counseling. By engaging in open and honest communication with the therapist, Cheryl A. Clarke, a licensed marriage and family therapist, reminds us, individuals can ensure that their faith is honored and integrated appropriately within the therapeutic process.

To be sure, prayer is an essential aspect of ones spiritual life  it can be a catchall phrase for meditation, contemplation, silence, and other centering practices. When understood correctly, prayer enhances our connection to the Divine through listening more than merely speaking. In that time of introspection and stillness, the personal homework provided in therapy can take hold.

In this Mental Health Awareness Month  and for life  our desire is for our people to embrace both a robust prayer life and the option of mental health therapy to achieve optimum holistic well-being. May we be patient and diligent as we walk alongside our family, friends, and community who desire help  and may we encourage them to find it wherever they need to.

If you or someone you know is in crisis in the US, call 988, text 741741, or visit www.speakingofsuicide.com/resources/ for additional resources.

TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, and Android TV. TheGrios Black Podcast Network is free too. Download theGrio mobile apps today! Listen to Writing Black with Maiysha Kai.

The post Notes on faith: Jesus is on the mainline  and so is your therapist appeared first on TheGrio.
Allison Sandoval, Public Affairs Specialist for the Bureau of Land Management receives reports justifying immediate phase out of fossil fuel production and a letter signed by over 270 groups calling for an end to federal fossil fuel leasing, delivered by Kayley Shoup of Citizens Caring for the Future in Carlsbad, May 25 in Santa Fe.

A contentious auction of public land to the oil and gas industry brought in about $78.8 million to the federal government this week, amid outcry from New Mexico environmental groups calling for a halt on using the lands for fossil fuel drilling.

The Bureau of Land Management offered 10,123 acres on 45 parcels in southeast New Mexico in Eddy, Lea and Chaves and in Cheyenne County, Kansas in the sale.

In total, the agency told 37 of the parcels, totaling in 8,596 acres that can now be used by energy companies to produce oil and gas.

More: Oil and gas 'done right' means higher costs for New Mexico operators, study says

The leases last 10 years or as long as fossil fuels are produced.

There were 3,279 acres sold in New Mexico and 5,316 sold in Kansas.

While there were more acres sold in Kansas, the Permian Basin acreage sale resulted in $78.7 million in total revenue compared to about $90,000 in Cheyenne County.

More: New Mexico leaders want to block oil and gas on some public lands. Feds consider proposal

The most revenue produced by any parcel in the sale was $16.2 million brought in by a lease of 280 acres in Eddy County to Devon Energy, followed by two leases to Federal Abstract Company for a 240-acre parsel in Lea County and a 320-acre parcel in Eddy County expected to generate $10.1 million and $10 million, respectively.

The next-most revenue from a lease sold at the auction was $8.1 million coming from the lease of a 320-acre parcel in Lea County to Promontory Exploration.

The most lucrative parcels in Kansas were two 560-acre parcels in Cheyenne County, each sold for $7,465, to Murffin Drilling Company.

More: Protests rally ahead of federal oil and gas lease sale in southeast New Mexico

Protestors rally against fossil fuel production on federal public land, May 25, 2023 at the Bureau of Land Management office in Santa Fe.

Sale spurs debate in New Mexico on fossil fuel's climate change impacts

Despite millions in revenue generated from the sale, it drew the ire of New Mexico environmental groups who in the days leading up to the sale delivered letters to the BLMs local offices throughout the state, demanding the agency cancel the leases.

An environmental analysis filed by the BLM in advance of the sale noted operations on the lands offered would alone have "no significant impact" on pollution in the region.

But Kayley Shoup of Citizens Caring for the Future, which led the Carlsbad protest, said the economic benefits were coming at the expense of human health and the environment.

More: $141M Permian Basin oil and gas deal finalized as more companies move into region

The Permian Basin, where Carlsbad is centered, is the busiest oil and gas field in the U.S., forecast to produce about 5.7 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) in June, according to the Energy Information Administration, after a growth of 15,000 bpd by the end of this month.

Shoup said that growth was imperiling her community and those in southeast New Mexico that dwell alongside fossil fuel operations.

Not only does oil and gas production in the Permian have a profound impact on the climate, but it also greatly affects public and environmental health in the region, she said. I fear we have no idea just how contaminated our water, land and therefore our bodies may be by these highly toxic and health harming fracking chemicals. Its shameful that our health and well-being are up for sale.

More: Oil industry buying more public land in New Mexico. Feds hope to prioritize conservation

Rebeca Sobel with Santa Fe-based WildEarth Guardians said oil and gas production must be stopped as she argued it exacerbates climate change by polluting the air and water in New Mexico and across the nation.

Sobel said organizations would continue fighting federal use of public land for the industry, both through demonstrations and litigation.

Every new well drilled is another nail in the coffin, and communities cannot afford to wait for an end to the destruction of our clean air, clean water, and healthy lands, she said. In the courts and in the streets, the calls to end the era of fossil fuels are resounding.

More: $540M oil and gas deal in Permian Basin latest of fossil fuel investments in region

New Mexicos northwest natural gas fields in the San Juan Basin region are surrounded by lands sacred to the Navajo Nation in Chaco Canyon, said Julia Bernal, executive director of the Pueblo Action Alliance.

She said continued extraction was damaging to indigenous communities and their relationships to the land, which should be better considered in federal land management decisions.

Many Indigenous nations in New Mexico have cultural connections and relationships with lands being sacrificed to oil and gas, like the Greater Chaco landscape, when they have stewarded these ancestral lands since time immemorial, Bernal said.

It is imperative that Indigenous people and their knowledge of the landscape be centered in land management decisions to address the oil and gas industry, the global climate crisis, and to ensure better land and water practices that absorb the shock of climate change, but this collaboration has yet to occur.

More: Oil and gas sends $16B to New Mexico's economy, industry reports. Health concerns linger

In the face of pressure from environmental and government organizations to reduce its impact on climate change, oil and gas industry leaders recently put goals in place to reduce emissions and their environmental footprint.

In its 2023 progress report, ExxonMobil  one of the Permian's largest operators  said it intended to invest $17 billion in lowering emissions through 2027, reporting the company already reduced methane releases by more than 50 percent in 2022, compared to 2016 levels.

In a letter from Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods, he said ExxonMobil remained committed to help the world transition to less-pollutive energy production while continuing to meet the demand he said could only be satisfied by fossil fuels.

For too long, the conventional wisdom about ExxonMobil was that we had to make a choice to either meet the worlds energy needs or play a leading role in the energy transition. That view has always been flawed, Woods wrote in a letter accompanying the progress report.

The fact is, it is an and equation  one in which we can produce the products societies need and lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, both our own and others.

Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Oil and gas land sale nets $79M amid New Mexico climate concerns
Olathe fatal crash leads to street closures near Greenwood and Pflumm Road Saturday night

Police are investigating after a crash between vehicles Saturday left one person dead and closed an Olathe street near Greenwood and Pflumm Road.

Authorities are warning people to avoid the area due to traffic.

Officers reported a fatality crash around 6:07 p.m., according to the Olathe Police Departments social media.

Following the crash, police closed 151st Street in both directions between Greenwood Street and Pflumm Road.

TRAFFIC ALERT: 151st Street is closed in both directions between Greenwood and Pflumm due to a fatality accident. Please avoid the area. @CityofOlatheKS @OlatheFire pic.twitter.com/T6QAPT4GjM  Olathe Police (@OlathePolice) May 27, 2023

By 9:27 p.m. Olathe police reopened 151st Street, according to the departments social media.

A spokesperson for the department did not immediately respond to requests for information regarding the crash.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information is made available.
One dead after sleepless Kyiv hit with biggest Russian drone attack of war

Ukraine's defense forces destroy 52 out of 54 drones during the night attack

Air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv for over five hours during the night as there were several waves of attacks.

The work of air defence was heard in all the capital's districts while 40 enemy drones were downed over the city.

There were victims and damage reported in three districts.

In Holosiivskyi District:

A civilian was killed and another was taken to hospital due to fragments of the intercepted drone falling on a seven-storey utility building.

Another person was injured after a 1,000 sq. m (10,800 sq. ft) product warehouse caught fire. The blaze was promptly extinguished.

The roof of a shopping mall and a building site were also set ablaze.

The roof of a residential building was set on fire in Pecherskyi District.

Windows were shattered and a door damaged in a store from falling drone debris in Darnytskyi District.

NV publishes pictures of the aftermath of the Russian overnight drone attack on Kyiv.

Gleb Garanich/Reuters

Gleb Garanich/Reuters

Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

The drones were launched from the north - Russia's Bryansk Oblast - and from the south - Russia's Krasnodar Krai - while targeting military objects and crucial infrastructure facilities, according to the Air Forces report.

Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron!

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Police in Ontario, Canada were involved in a negotiation with a landlord who allegedly shot and killed two of his tenants following a landlord-tenant dispute then barricaded himself indoors for hours.

The Hamilton Police Departments shared in a press release on Saturday, May 27, at approximately 5:40 p.m that police responded to a home in Stoney Creek, Ontario where they found two people dead who had been shot.

Hamilton Police Department in Ontario, Canada

Authorities shared that the individuals, a 27-year-old female and 28-year-old male, were tenants and renting from a 57-year-old landlord. The three individuals were allegedly in an argument, when the landlord allegedly shot and killed his tenants.

QUEBEC POLICE SOLVE NEARLY 50-YEAR-OLD COLD CASE MURDER OF TEENAGER USING DNA ADVANCEMENTS

Police said that when they arrived at the scene of the crime, the landlord refused to cooperate with police and barricaded himself inside his property with firearms that were registered to him. Police blocked off the residential area and negotiators were in talks with the man throughout the night in attempts to "peacefully resolve the incident."

Negotiations came to an abrupt end at approximately 10:30 P.M. when the landlord fired at the Hamilton Police armored vehicle and later fired additional rounds at police.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Authorities said that following the landlords confrontation with authorities they "invoked their mandate" and "there is no longer a threat to public safety." They did not clarify if the suspect was deceased or taken into custody.

Police said they notified families of both victims, though their names will not be released.

Throughout the negotiation and eventual confrontation, police emergency units contained the residential area and warned neighbors to stay indoors.
Austin Vevurka

A bill in the North Carolina General Assembly would cut government red tape so some businesses like Blue Cross NC can more efficiently invest its resources, so long as those investments go toward lowering health care costs, increasing access or improving the consumer experience.

Unfortunately, a small but loud minority has made several false claims against the legislation that would lead one to believe the bill does many things it does not and cannot do.

False claim No. 1 is the bill would raise insurance premiums. Not only have opponents failed to support this claim with facts, but it also shows a fundamentally flawed understanding of how insurance premiums work.

Health insurance premiums are subject to state and federal oversight. Federal law requires that at least 80 cents of every premium dollar be used to pay health care bills for policy holders. If a health plan collects too much money and falls below this threshold, then individuals and businesses get a rebate. No state law can override this. In addition, insurance rates must, and will continue to be, approved by the N.C. Department of Insurance.

More: Opinion: Proposed bills threaten affordable health insurance in North Carolina

If anything, House Bill 346 will put downward pressure on premiums as investments are made that lower health care costs.

Take, for example, new investments that reduce emergency room use and instead help consumers find appropriate level of care in more affordable setting. By providing people who use an emergency room with access to less expensive sources of care, you can lower the cost of health care.

If health care costs are lower, then premiums must be lower as required by law. This is a good thing for consumers and small businesses who struggle with high cost of care.

False claim No. 2 is individuals and businesses will not get rebates they are owed since those dollars will be used for new investments. Again, this claim shows a lack of understanding about insurance rebates and laws surrounding them.

Rebates are not based on how much a business has in its savings or reserves. Reserves are used to pay for unexpected medical expenses, should they arise like during the pandemic. Insurance companies are required by law to keep a minimum amount of dollars in these reserve accounts. Reserves and rebates are not related in the way opponents of the bill have described.

More: Opinion: Doctors, not politicians, understand transgender health care NC families need

More: Opinion: Let's learn to put down the phone and be present and focused on our children

Rebates are required by federal law if an insurer fails to spend a minimum of 80 cents of every premium dollar on health care. State law cannot change this.

False claim No. 3 says the legislation will weaken oversight and transparency.

There is no language in House Bill 346 that changes the fact the N.C. insurance commissioner maintains all authority to regulate health insurance companies. The bill even goes so far as to say any investments made because of this bill must be publicly disclosed so the state can ensure resources are going towards lower costs and improved access. Ensuring transparency, while allowing better products and services to be offered, is a win for people who buy health care and run businesses in our state.

False claim four is the bill sidesteps decades-old laws causing a blow to small businesses and individuals buying insurance.

The fact is the bill removes government overregulation so companies like Blue Cross NC can more efficiently use its resources to lower costs, improve access and offer new products and services that consumers demand. A more efficient setup that lowers costs and provides value to consumers should make sense to anyone who runs a business in NC.

House Bill 346 is backed by Republicans and Democrats. A majority of legislators in both Chambers are behind it.

And why wouldnt they be?

When you read the bill and examine facts, you quickly find the claims against House Bill 346 are incorrect and uninformed.

The bills authors have made sure that North Carolina consumers are the beneficiaries of this legislation. They have written specifically into the bill that any investments must be made towards improving health care and lowering costs for individuals and businesses.

The members of the General Assembly who support this billincluding Western North Carolina Representative Jennifer Balkcom and Senators Ralph Hise, Warren Daniel, Tim Moffitt and Kevin Corbinshould be commended for doing what is best for their constituents and not falling victim to falsehoods, no matter how loudly and repeatedly they are stated.

Austin Vevurka is Executive Director of the Affordable Healthcare Coalition of North Carolina, a nonpartisan, nonprofit grassroots organization focused on lowering healthcare costs for individuals and businesses in the state.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: North Carolina House Bill 346 may help lower health care costs
The new parliament can seat 1,272 MPs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated India's new parliament building amid protests and boycotts.

Most opposition parties did not participate, saying they wanted the president instead of Mr Modi to open the building.

During the ceremony, some of India's top wrestlers were detained when they tried to reach the new parliament to protest.

The new building has replaced the British-era parliament.

Ceremonies leading up to a formal inauguration began at 07:00 (02:00 GMT) on Sunday.

Mr Modi unveiled a plaque dedicating the building to the nation and later addressed a gathering of lawmakers.

"This is not just a building. It is a reflection of the aspirations and dreams of 1.4 billion Indians. This is the temple of our democracy and it's giving the message of India's determination to the world," he said.

Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the main opposition Congress party, tweeted that Mr Modi was treating the parliament inauguration as a coronation ceremony.

Last week, 19 parties - including the Congress - announced their "collective decision" to boycott the ceremony.

They criticised the government for not asking President Droupadi Murmu, who is head of state, to open the new building. They also denounced the decision to hold the event on the birth anniversary of Hindu nationalist ideologue VD Savarkar. Opposition parties consider Savarkar a divisive figure, while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hails him as a hero.

The BJP said the opposition's boycott was a "disrespect to democracy".

Police detained protesting wrestlers as they attempted to march to parliament

Mr Modi also installed what the government said was a historically significant gold sceptre, called the sengol, in the new parliament building.

He said that the presence of the "holy sengol" in the new building would inspire lawmakers.

The government said the gold sceptre was given to India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru by priests from a prominent Hindu sect. It added that the sengol was "the symbol of the transfer of power to India from the Britishers on the 14th of August in 1947".

Opposition parties, however, said that the government's claims about the sceptre's importance were exaggerated.

Mr Modi installed a historically significant gold sceptre called sengol in the house chamber

The new parliament building is part of the government's ambitious project to develop the Central Vista complex in Delhi to replace colonial-era government buildings.

Built in front of the old parliament, the new four-storey building - built at an estimated cost of 9.7bn rupees ($117.1m, 94.2m) - is much bigger and has the capacity to seat 1,272 MPs.

The Lok Sabha chamber, which will seat the lower house of the parliament, is designed in the likeness of a peacock, India's national bird. The Rajya Sabha chamber, which will seat the upper house, is designed to resemble the lotus, India's national flower.

The current parliament building will be converted into a museum.

The government said that the new parliament was necessary as the older building was "showing signs of distress and over utilization".

The government said the new parliament building was necessary

But it was criticised by many opposition politicians, environmentalists and civil society groups. They decried its cost, its construction during the pandemic and alleged that the government had not consulted other lawmakers and the public.

The Congress had also stayed away from the foundation stone-laying event of the new parliament in 2020.

Commentators said that the ongoing political row reflected a fractious milieu where India's ruling party and the opposition were unable to reach an agreement on most issues.

"Both sides need to find a way out of the separate corners they have backed themselves into. They must do so because history will not forgive them if they won't," The Indian Express newspaper argued in an editorial.

Read more India stories from the BBC:
People will be responsible without yearly car inspections? Have you driven in Texas? | Opinion

Responsibility on Texas roads? Ha

In its editorial on eliminating car safety inspections, (May 25, 11A, Texas can safely drop yearly car inspections) the Star-Telegram Editorial Board writes Personal responsibility will be crucial, though. Thats the reason for my strong skepticism.

There are too many irresponsible drivers on the streets today. We know them as the ones who litter our highways, dodge in and out of their lanes, speed on even icy or wet roads and secure bogus inspection stickers.

The majority of drivers will likely act responsibly, but it will take only a very few irresponsible drivers to cause death on our roads.

- Thomas Lupinacci Sr., Arlington

They dont know how to work

Ive been an employer in Fort Worth for more than 34 years, and its so disturbing to see the state of todays young labor market. Most young job seekers we see do not even know how to complete an application, much less have a resume. Are the schools not teaching them how to create a resume?

So many are not thinking about their long-term careers and want to work only certain days and restricted hours.

What has made this generation think jobs are just a gig nowadays?

- Keith Clem, Fort Worth

Democrats do just the same thing

Paul Waldman wrote a good piece on the wasteful probes that seem to be required in Washington when control of the House changes. (May 24, 9A, House GOP probes are a joke, but dont count them out) However, it must have pained him immensely to not mention how both parties are guilty of this.

Had he just made a one-sentence effort to provide a caveat indicating the glaring truth that both parties do the same thing when they are in power, his commentary could have been taken a little more seriously.

GOP probes are the only way for the public to see some of the holier than thou unethical transgressions the Democrats gleefully rack up every day.

- Stephen Ryle, Grand Prairie

Election integrity really a blockade

I found the facts in the May 21 front-page story about the Tarrant County Republican Party panel pushing for paper ballots and precinct voting appalling. (Tarrant GOP panel pushes for paper ballots, precinct voting)

First, party leaders force out an outstanding election administrator, Heider Garcia, then they unilaterally form a so-called election integrity unit to do who knows what. What are they scared of? People voting for the other party?

Tarrant County elections have been well-run and found to be fair and honest by numerous organizations, including Texas Republican secretary of state. All the GOP is trying to do is make it harder to vote and discourage people from doing so.

- Tom McCraw, Fort Worth

Why is bishop targeting nuns?

Why is Bishop Michael Olson really going after the Carmelite nuns in Arlington? (May 20, 1A, Nun sues diocese after bishop accuses her of adultery) Is the Catholic diocese of Fort Worth in financial trouble?

These blessed women spend their entire adult lives in silence, praying for the needs of others. Why are the sisters no longer answering the phone calls of those who need prayer? Why is a priest no longer sent to the monastery to offer the daily Mass?

Is this retaliation because the sisters are resisting the sale of their property? It cant be because the nuns are costing the diocese money. They support themselves through donations.

It seems to me, and to many other Catholics in Fort Worth, that it is time for the bishop to abandon this attack and seek another source of revenue.

- Paul Ray Jr., Fort Worth

Librarians are right to be scared

I read with growing alarm the news about efforts to criminalize public school libraries as dens of pornography and grooming. (May 21, 24A, Librarians face new penalty over banned books: prison)

But I read with absolute dread what Republican Idaho state Rep. Jaron Crane said on the subject: If teachers and librarians are scared to do their jobs, that confirms the fact that there is indeed material in their libraries that is harmful to minors.

By that logic, anyone fearful of homicide must be a murderer, anyone fearful of getting COVID-19 must be a spreader and anyone fearful that his or her child is being targeted by a pornographer must be hiding a XXX studio in the basement.

In todays political climate, librarians, doctors and local officials are scared because they might go to jail just for doing their jobs.

- Caryl Sherman-Gonzalez, Fort Worth
MANILA, May 28 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines needs a new "hard-hitting independent watchdog" against rampant police corruption and misconduct, a lawmaker said on Sunday.

"The illegal drug trade, in particular, is clearly having a monstrous corruptive influence on police officers, and we must counteract this," said Johnny Pimentel, vice chairperson of the House of Representatives good government and public accountability committee.

"We need a tougher watchdog that can swiftly carry out administrative and criminal investigations of police wrongdoing without fear or favor," Pimentel added.

Ongoing inquiries by the House of Representatives and the Senate have spotlighted the alleged complicity of police officers in drug trafficking, including stealing and selling confiscated methamphetamine.

At least 49 senior and junior officers, including a general and five colonels, have been implicated in the alleged whitewash of unlawful and unethical police actions during a 6.7 billion pesos (roughly 119.85 million U.S. dollars) drug bust in Manila.

Pimentel said Congress should pass new legislation detaching the Internal Affairs Service (IAS), a service investigating infractions allegedly committed by the police, from the Philippine National Police (PNP).

"We should separate the IAS from the PNP and put the service directly under the control of the Secretary of the Interior and Local Government," Pimentel said. 
Phillip Schofield

This Morning will run on Monday as normal and there are "no plans" to axe it, ITV has said, as it faces questions over Phillip Schofield's affair with a younger male colleague.

On Friday, Schofield confirmed he had a relationship with an employee while married and lied repeatedly to hide it.

He quit ITV, saying the relationship had been "unwise but not illegal".

The broadcaster said it had investigated in 2020 but found no evidence of the affair beyond "rumour".

Both Schofield and the junior colleague had at the time "categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours", ITV added.

On Sunday, lawyers representing Schofield confirmed to the BBC that the pair had met when the younger colleague was a 15-year-old boy.

They stressed there was no sexual relationship of any nature between Schofield and the individual until after he had started working at This Morning.

He was 18 by the time he joined the programme.

The Mail on Sunday first reported the pair had met when the presenter was giving a talk at a theatre school which the 15-year-old attended.

Schofield later arranged an interview for him at ITV before he started there, and "some time afterwards" the affair began, the paper said.

ITV bosses have been facing questions about whether the programme can survive the scandal.

Former ITV daytime figures, such as Eamonn Holmes and Dan Wootton, said confirmation of the affair raised questions about how much the network's managers knew about the relationship.

An ITV spokesperson said on Sunday: "As we said on the record yesterday, This Morning is not under review and there's no plans for the show to be axed."

They confirmed it would return as normal on Monday, with Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary presenting.

ITV did not respond to the BBC when asked about a report in the Sunday People that some daytime staff were planning to go to HR next week to threaten a mass walkout over a series of "ignored complaints".

Meanwhile Dr Ranj Singh, who worked for This Morning for a decade, criticised the "toxic" culture at the programme, saying the issues "go far beyond" Schofield.

He said he last worked on the show two years ago, having found himself used "less and less" after raising concerns about how people were being treated there.

Speaking on Twitter, he said he "did not know the truth about what was going on with Phillip", but added: "It takes more than one person to create a culture."

On Sunday evening, ITV responded saying it was sorry to read the post. It added that after a complaint from Dr Ranj there had been an external review which "found no evidence of bullying or discrimination".

Schofield had already quit This Morning last weekend after reports of a rift with co-star Holly Willoughby. Schofield has insisted his departure was unrelated to the affair.

She said on Saturday it was "very hurtful" to discover her former co-host had lied to her about his affair.

"When reports of this relationship first surfaced, I asked Phil directly if this was true and was told it was not," she said.

Willoughby is on an "extended half term break" until 5 June.

'So, very, very sorry'

On Sunday, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries said ITV had questions to answer.

She told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme there appeared to be an understanding that everything would move on following Schofield's "grovelling apology".

"It's not the case, I'm afraid, because what it does is ask questions about what happened.

"We know there were complaints lodged with ITV over a long period of time - what happened to those complaints?"

She continued: "And how did that young boy get a job at ITV - what were the processes that were involved and what were the safeguarding processes that were in place for someone who was so young at that age?"

Responding to Ms Dorries' reference to the employee as "young" an ITV Spokesperson said: "We do not employ anyone under 18 for paid work on production at This Morning or indeed ITV."

Schofield resigned from ITV on Friday after admitting to the affair with the man.

He said he had "met the man when he was a teenager and was asked to help him to get into television", describing the subsequent relationship as "unwise, but not illegal".

In a statement to the Daily Mail on Friday, he said: "I did have a consensual on-off relationship with a younger male colleague at This Morning."

He was still married to his wife Stephanie Lowe at the time. They separated in 2020 after he came out as gay.

Schofield said he was "so, very, very sorry" for being unfaithful to his wife, and for lying to his colleagues, agents, employers, friends, the media, the public and his family about the relationship.
"It's our responsibility to document history," says Carwyn Rhys Jones. "If I hadn't done this project, these stories would have been lost."

He is talking about his most recent photography exhibition: Chwarelwyr - Quarrymen.

The exhibition consists of five large portraits, each of a Welshman who spent his life working in the quarries of Wales.

What sets them apart from traditional portraits is the use of double exposure, where the image is layered on top of another, which in this case are landscape images.

"When I started this project it was about the natural landscape," Mr Jones said, "and how industrialisation has changed that landscape."

"And then I thought: 'Well, these [quarries] wouldn't exist without the people'.

"I had a few family members that were quarrymen, but when I was younger I didn't appreciate what they had achieved.

"But now, every time I visit a quarry, it feels like you're walking through history, because you realise what these men achieved on a grand scale without the machinery or the health and safety [we have today]."

Mr Jones interviewed each of the men beforehand, to learn more about their lives in the quarries.

Two of the men have since died - something which Mr Jones said made the capture of their faces, and the stories within them, all the more important.

"We do need to document what's going on, and our culture, because it's important for the next generation to be inspired by that."

First shown in the National Slate Museum in Llanberis, the exhibition has gone on to Swansea, Pembrokeshire, the Railway Museum in Gwynedd, and is now on display in New York.

It will stay there for six months before moving on to Vermont, and Mr Jones hopes he can eventually take the images on to Pennsylvania.

"I know that's a big area where the Welsh immigrated to, but anything from New York is a bonus, so we'll see how it goes."
Photos show the most beautiful beaches across the US

Beaches in New Hampshire and Washington. DenisTangneyJr/Getty Images; Deb Snelson/Getty Images

Some states like Florida, California, and Hawaii are known for their beautiful beaches.

Others have lesser known  but equally breathtaking  beaches, including Michigan and New Hampshire.

These are some of the most beautiful beaches across the US.

Surrounded by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes, more than half of states in the US lie on at least one of the country's gorgeous coasts.

With close to 100,000 miles of shoreline, not every noteworthy beach in the US gets the recognition it deserves. While California's and Florida's beaches attract tourists from across the world, many other states are home to beaches that provide visitors with stunning views and ample opportunities for waterfront relaxation.

Here are some of the most beautiful beaches on America's coastlines.

Sand Beach at Acadia National Park in Maine is surrounded by breathtaking greenery.

Sand Beach at Acadia National Park, Maine. dkm725/Getty Images

Source: Visit Maine

Not only does Shackleford Banks have some of the clearest water in North Carolina, but majestic wild horses freely graze on the beach's grass.

Shackleford Banks, Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina. Frank Staub/Getty Images

Source: Addicted to Vacation

Marconi Beach, which lies along the Cape Cod National Seashore, is one of Massachusetts' best beaches, according to Touropia Travel Guides.

Marconi Beach in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Ronald Wilson Photography/Getty Images

Source: Touropia

Travel + Leisure named Crandon Park in Key Biscayne Beach one of Florida's best beaches in 2022.

Crandon Park in Florida. Artur Debat/Getty Images

Source: Travel + Leisure

According to US News & World Report, Cape May is home to New Jersey's best beaches, in part due to its stunning 19th-century architecture that lines the seashore.

Cape May Beach in New Jersey. Richard T. Nowitz/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

The remote Sandbridge Beach in Virginia is one of the state's most gorgeous beaches and popular among locals.

Sandbridge Beach in Virginia. Tim Pennington/Getty Images

Source: Virginia Travel Tips

US News & World Report called Kiawah Island "the closest you'll come to paradise in South Carolina."

Kiawah Island in South Carolina. KathyKafka/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

Weathered trees can be found along Georgia's unique Driftwood Beach, which has been featured in "The Walking Dead" and "X-Men: First Class."

Driftwood Beach in Jekyll Island in Georgia. Daniela Duncan/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

Travel + Leisure calls Sandy Point State Park one of Maryland's best beaches because of the gorgeous views of the bay.

Sandy Point State Mark in Maryland. Shackleford-Photography/Getty Images

Source: Travel + Leisure

Hammonasset Beach State Park in Connecticut is the No. 1 beach in the state, according to TripAdvisor.

Hammonasset Beach State Park in Connecticut. Bob Gundersen/Getty Images

Source: TripAdvisor

California's Laguna Beach is full of beautiful cove beaches  one of the reasons US News & World Report named it the state's best beach.

Laguna Beach in California. TraceRouda/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

Biloxi Beach is a great place to cool down in Mississippi during the hot summer months.

Biloxi Beach in Mississippi. DenisTangneyJr/Getty Images

Source: Traveling Lifestyle

Washington's Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park is home to unique rock formations.

Ruby Beach in Washington. Deb Snelson/Getty Images

Source: Washington Trails Association

Rotary Beach "offers visitors a chance to experience Southeast Alaska at its best," according to Alaska.org.

Rotary Beach in Alaska. Carlos Rojas/Getty Images

Source: Alaska.org

Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware is home to pine forests and more than 6 miles of coastline.

Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware. ymn/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

Mohegan Bluffs in Rhode Island provides stunning views from 150-foot cliffs that line the shore.

Mohegan Bluffs in Rhode Island. j76n/Getty Images

Source: Town & Country

Park Point, which is home to beautiful views of Lake Superior, is Minnesota's No. 1 beach, according to TripAdvisor.

Park Point Beach in Minnesota. John_Brueske/Getty Images

Source: TripAdvisor

A visit to New Hampshire's Weirs Beach will bring you "some of the most beautiful lake views you've ever seen," NewEngland.com wrote.

Weirs Beach in New Hampshire. DenisTangneyJr/Getty Images

Source: NewEngland.com

Kohler-Andrae State Park in Wisconsin has sand dunes, clear blue water, and more than 2 miles of sandy beaches.

Kohler-Andrae State Park in Wisconsin. Drake Fleege/Getty Images

Source: Travel Wisconsin

US News & World Report called Gulf Shores one of Alabama's most popular coastal getaways.

Gulf Shores in Alabama. larrybraunphotography.com/Getty Images

Source: US News & World Report

Hawaii's "postcard perfect" Ka'anapali Beach is the "creme de la creme of beaches," according to Hawaii Magazine, which named it the state's No. 1 beach.

Kaanapali Beach in Hawaii. ejs9/Getty Images

Source: Hawaii Magazine

Michigan City Beach in Indiana is home to 2 miles of beach, a lighthouse, and peaceful waters.

Michigan City Beach in Indiana. Jeffrey K Collins/Getty Images

Source: TripAdvisor

South Padre Island in Texas is "beloved by generations of spring breakers," Travel + Leisure reported.

South Padre Beach in Texas. Hundley_Photography/Getty Images

Source: Travel + Leisure

Thrillist described Grand Haven state park in Michigan as "arguably the grandest Michigan beach town of all."

Grand Haven State Park in Michigan. Leene/Shutterstock

Source: Thrillist

Visitors to Ohio's Huntington Beach can take a swim in the vast, beautiful Lake Erie.

Huntington Beach in Ohio. Jeff Greenberg/Getty Images

Source: 365 Cincinnati

Presque Isle State Park in Pennsylvania offers gorgeous views of Lake Erie.

Presque Isle State Park in Pennsylvania. Thaddeus OConnell/Getty Images

Source: Only in Your State

Its soft sand and "rugged beauty" are just a couple of reasons that TripAdvisor ranked Cannon Beach as Oregon's No. 1 beach.

Cannon Beach in Oregon. Francesco Vaninetti Photo/Getty Images

Source: TripAdvisor

Jones Beach State Park is one of New York's best beaches thanks to its gorgeous sandy shoreline and variety of facilities.

Jones Beach State Park in New York. Vicki Jauron, Babylon and Beyond Photography/Getty Images

Source: I Love NY

A "perfect getaway for camping, picnicking, and surfing," Louisiana's Grand Isle offers beautiful views over the Gulf of Mexico, according to Travel + Leisure.

Grand Isle in Louisiana. Cavan Images/Getty Images

Source: Travel + Leisure

Read the original article on Insider
The Jacksonville Sheriffs Office (JSO) reported an altercation in the Woodland Acres neighborhood on Saturday evening that resulted in a shooting and left one person injured.

Responding to the incident at around 6:00 p.m., JSO officers arrived at the intersection of Century and Galveston following a report of a person shot.

Upon reaching the scene, officers found a man in his 40s with a gunshot wound to his hand. They immediately transported him to a nearby hospital, where medical professionals assessed his injuries as non-life-threatening.

JSO revealed that the shooting occurred as a result of a violent altercation between the victim and a suspect. Prior to the shooting, the two individuals had engaged in a previous verbal dispute. During the altercation, the victim was struck on the head by the suspect with a firearm before being shot in the hand.

After the shooting, the suspect fled the scene, prompting a search by JSO officers.

Fortunately, patrol officers already in the area for an unrelated matter located the suspect inside another residence on Free Ave. They successfully apprehended the suspect and took him into custody.

The current relationship between the victim and the suspect remains unknown, and it is reported that they did not know each other prior to this incident.

JSO is actively investigating the case, gathering further details, and seeking to establish the motive behind the violent altercation.

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Police in Maine show up to boy's house for most surprising reason: 'Can't even articulate'

Police in Maine show up to boy's house for most surprising reason: 'Can't even articulate'

For most people, the arrival of the police at a birthday party would mean the party is over.

Yet for Myles Roman, age 4, of Scarborough, Maine, the arrival of the police at his birthday party meant the guests of honor had finally arrived.

"About a month ago, a young man named Myles came to the Scarborough Police Department with something special in mind," the department wrote in a May 25 Facebook post.

Scarborough is a town in southern Maine located near the city of Portland.

WORLD'S OLDEST DOG TURNS 31 WITH A TRADITIONAL PORTUGUESE BIRTHDAY PARTY: BOBI IS SPECIAL

"He dropped off an invitation inviting the ENTIRE POLICE DEPARTMENT to his birthday party! Myles mother told us how excited Myles was to have special guests come to his party, so of course, we couldnt let him down," the department also wrote.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

Three officers, as well as Tucker  a police K9  and members of the town's fire department came to the party to celebrate the boy's fourth birthday.

Myles Roman's fourth birthday included some very special guests: the town police department. "It's not a party until the cops show up," says the sign the boy is holding.

"Myles and his friends were very excited to see the police cars, fire trucks, ambulance and obviously K9 Tucker," said the post.

"Sgt. Flynn presented Myles with some birthday gifts (PAW Patrol, of course) and Ofc. Greenleaf brought some Scarborough PD SWAG for Myles and his friends. Everyone had a great time at the party and enjoyed hanging out with Myles and his friends and family!"

The child invited the entire Scarborough Police Department to his party after he met them last year during a National Night Out event, his mother Alyssa Roman told Fox News Digital.

POLICE CALLED AFTER 'COUSIN EDDIE' HOLIDAY DISPLAY SPOOKS NEIGHBOR

National Night Out "is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie," the organization's website notes.

Myles Roman of Scarborough, Maine, posed for a picture in a police car during his 4th birthday party.

His mother called Myles a "very smart, very outgoing kid" and said he was particularly starstruck by meeting the officers.

"Ever since, hes always saying he wants to be a police officer," she said.

He "always stops every cop he sees out and asks them questions."

POLICE WARN PARENTS ABOUT 'SCHOOL PHOTO' TREND OF OVERSHARING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Myles Roman is a big fan of the show "PAW Patrol," said his mother, and likes to "pretend to get the bad guys" when playing, his mother told Fox News Digital.

Unbeknownst to the boy, the appearance of the special birthday guests at his party was planned far in advance.

Myles Roman, age 4, was given a PAW Patrol toy from the Scarborough Police Department as a birthday present this year.

When the Scarborough Police Department shared a picture of him from the National Night Out event in a Facebook post, mom Alyssa Roman commented, thanking the officers for their kindness toward her son.

JUST IN TIME FOR EASTER, A RABBIT HAS BEEN ADDED TO POLICE FORCE IN ONE CALIFORNIA CITY

The department then asked if the boy would be interested in having an officer make a visit to his birthday party in the future.

"I can't even articulate how great their whole department is," said Roman.

When it came time to print out invitations, the boy said he had someone special in mind he wanted to invite: the entire department.

"Myles had asked if we could invite the police station, not knowing that I had already been speaking with them," she said.

"So we went by and invited them and they gave us a whole tour of the station. It was great."

Myles Roman got a tour of the Scarborough police station when he dropped off an invitation to his birthday for the entire department.

Sgt. Andrew Flynn, who worked with the Roman family to coordinate the visit, even brought a "big PAW Patrol toy" for him, something Alyssa Roman said was "so unexpected."

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER

"Im so glad that we live in such a great place," she said.
One person is recovering in the hospital after being shot in the shoulder on May 23, according to the Rock Hill Police Department.

Around 11:20 p.m., officers on patrol heard multiple gunshots from a parking lot on Cherry Road.

Police saw two men run to a white sedan and leave the parking lot.

The department says officers tried to stop the vehicle, but the driver kept going. Then the passenger and the driver got out of the moving vehicle on Patriot Parkway and ran from the police.

ALSO READ: Arrest made in duplex shooting that killed Rock Hill mother, police say

At the same time, police learned that these were the suspects involved in the shooting, and one person had been taken to the hospital with a gunshot wound.

Police began investigating the area and used the K-9 unit to try to find the suspects, but couldnt find them.

Officers found the 36-year-old victim at the hospital with a gunshot wound and say he is expected to recover.

The department says the investigation is open and ongoing.

This is a developing story; check back at wsoctv.com for updates.

(WATCH BELOW: CMPD investigates officer-involved shooting in east Charlotte)
Texas Rep. Charlie Geren held up a letter that he had placed on lawmakers desks earlier in the afternoon, as a swarm of reporters took photos of the sheet.

A headline in bold, serif font: Honor and Humility. Where are they?

The letter was from former House Rep. David Simpson, a Longview Republican, and was dated Saturday: The day members of the House of Representatives would take a historic vote on whether to impeach the three-term Texas attorney general.

They voted 121-23 in favor of the 20-article impeachment resolution, with most Republicans supporting sending the articles to the Senate.

The mood in the chamber was uncharacteristically somber for a House that has a reputation for being lively. Heated debate, chatter from members as they roam the floor and even the occasional lighthearted prank usually plays out over the course of the session. But on Saturday afternoon, while lawmakers considered impeachment, most stayed put in their desks, focused on their colleagues who made the case for or against Paxtons impeachment.

The Republican majority who voted for the articles said they couldnt look past that evidence warranted a Senate trial. Those who opposed had concerns with the procedure and timeline.

And Paxton and his office have said the attorney general hasnt had the opportunity to share his defense and pointed to politics as the motivating factor for the impeachment proceedings.

We understand the gravity and importance of this vote, said Rep. Craig Goldman, a Fort Worth Republican who chairs the House GOP caucus. No one in there took that vote lightly. Whether they fought, voted for it or against, not one person voted lightly on it.

Paxton, who first took office in 2015, has been under indictment for securities fraud since that year. The case hasnt gone to trial. The FBI is also investigating him for allegedly abusing his office to aid a campaign contributor, real estate investor Nate Paul.

Paxton has been a subject of a related whistle blower lawsuit by four former employees. The House investigation came after Paxton settled that suit for $3.3 million, which would be paid with taxpayer dollars if approved by the Legislature. The articles of impeachment relate to the years of legal troubles and claims that he abused his office to benefit Paul.

All but two of Tarrant Countys House lawmakers voted to impeach Paxton.

Its certainly a stunning reversal of Reagans 11th commandment, where thou shall not speak ill of a fellow Republican, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor.

Rottinghaus has studied political scandals, and a common thread in a polarized era is that partisans stand up for fellow partisans, he said.

He thinks the millions for a settlement payment didnt sit well with the lawmakers, in addition to the overwhelming evidence against Paxton, acts that could be seen as a stain on the state.

Political theater?

Inside the chamber, much of the opposition centered on the process itself: The amount of time lawmakers had to consider the resolution and concerns that Paxton and his team hadnt had the opportunity to share their defense.

Outside the chamber, over the past two days and in the hours after the impeachment vote, Paxton cast the investigation and proceedings as political theater and a politically motivated sham. Saturday evening his office shared a news release that included a report from the attorneys representing him in the whistleblower suit that disputed the findings of the House General Investigating Committee.

I am beyond grateful to have the support of millions of Texans who recognize that what we just witnessed is illegal, unethical, and profoundly unjust, Paxton said a Twitter post. I look forward to a quick resolution in the Texas Senate, where I have full confidence the process will be fair and just.

Some Republicans disputed the idea that the proceedings were political.

I dont believe the people in that room that voted today believe that it was political theater, said Rep. Stephanie Klick, a Fort Worth Republican. People outside the building were trying to make it political theater. We took our jobs seriously.

Geren, a Fort Worth Republican who served on the investigating committee, told his colleagues from the floor that some members had received telephone calls from General Paxton personally, threatening them with political consequences in their next election.

He later said Paxton does not deserve to be in office.

Even as Arlington Republican Tony Tinderholt shared concerns about the proceedings being political  on the floor he questioned the credentials and party affiliation of attorneys who laid out the case against Paxton before the House General Investigating Committee and noted that both former President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz had weighed in  the opposition was centered on impeachment process.

We want this process to be unquestionable, Tinderholt said. We want it to be the highest standards. And I think today what we did is cheapen impeachment in the state of Texas.

Others who supported the impeachment vote pointed out that the Houses job is to act as a grand jury of sorts and determine if theres enough evidence to warrant a trial in the Senate, where Paxton would have an opportunity to give his rebuttal.

There was enough evidence, said several Tarrant County lawmakers in statements or interviews with the Star-Telegram.

Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, a Southlake Republican, said the same in a written statement.

Having watched the committee hearing, scrutinized its transcript, and devoted hours to listening to testimonies and debates, there is no doubt that the evidence against the Attorney General is substantial and compelling, he said.

Rep. David Cook, in a written statement, stressed that the Houses job is to determine whether there are sufficient grounds to justify further impeachment proceedings. And while he did have concerns about Paxtons removal from office as the proceedings continue, even though there hasnt been a full evidentiary trial in the Senate, he ultimately decided his oath of office compelled him to vote for the impeachment resolution.

They were among the nine Tarrant County representatives to vote for impeachment.

Euless Democrat Salmon Bhojani said the evidence was overwhelming.

The decision to impeach an elected official is one that should never be taken lightly, he said. This vote is historic  one that shows no one is above the law in our state, even at the highest levels of government.

Grand Prairie Democrat Chris Turner, whose district also includes Arlington and Mansfield, agreed that the evidence warranted impeachment.

For years, I have called the Legislature to investigate Mr. Paxton and hold him accountable, he said in a written statement. The Attorney General is the top law enforcement officer in the state of Texas, yet for years, Mr. Paxton has conducted himself as if he is above the law, prioritizing his personal and political interests above the very important duties of his office.

But for others who voted against the resolution and Rep. Harold Dutton, a Houston Democrat, who took a neutral position by marking himself present not voting, there were still the concerns about a lack of due process.

The process lacked transparency, said Tinderholt.

Fort Worth Republican Nate Schatzline was concerned that members were not given access to evidence or allowed to question witnesses. It was Thursday night when they were presented with copies of the articles of impeachment and a transcript of Wednesdays House General Investigating committee hearing when committee lawyers laid out their findings.

I think anytime were dealing with impeachment, I think naturally, politics is going to play a role. I tried to silence the noise on that, Schatzline said.

The freshman lawmaker said he spent the couple of days after getting the articles and transcript combing through the material and watching the video of the hearing. Most of the constituents he heard from wanted him to vote no on the impeachment, he said.

However, what I let every single one of my constituents who asked me know is heres my intention ... I want to get all the facts, he said. I want to get all of what they say could be potential evidence, read through it, and have my own conviction tell me whether or not I believe that he should be impeached or not.

Whats next?

The articles now head to the Senate for trial. It hasnt been said when those proceedings could begin. Several senators issued uniform statements noting they would act as a jury and therefore not discuss the matter.

Know that we will faithfully follow the constitution and the law, and we will honor our sworn oaths, the statement reads.

Geren told lawmakers hed given them a copy of the Simpson letter early in the hours-long debate on the impeachment resolution.

Honor and Humility. Where are they?

Republican leaders and loyalists are attacking Speaker Phelan with ad hominem instead of dealing with the fact that our attorney general has asked the Legislature to appropriate funds to ameliorate his misconduct while being the highest law enforcement officer of our state, the letter reads. How can legislators do that with honor?

Honor demands that those in authority use their power to try him and remove him from office, not out of vindictiveness, nor to seek to gain political advantage, but out of compunction; not from condescension, but in humility believing that with the grace of God we would resign if we fell into the same circumstances and betrayed those we are sworn to serve.
Will Politics and Hate Rain on Florida Tourism?

By Melissa Mahtani, CNN

(CNN)  Florida boasts hundreds of miles of beaches, warm temperatures year-round, and is home to Walt Disney World, the worlds most famous theme park.

Tourism is a major driver of the states economy, bringing in an estimated $101.6 billion, according to Visit Florida, as well as supporting over a million jobs. But political battles that have been heating up in recent months could cast a shadow over the Sunshine States tourism appeal.

A recent travel advisory by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) warning that Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans is one of several advisories issued by minority groups. Equality Florida, the Human Rights Campaign, and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) have also cautioned against travel, citing a host of laws that demonstrate how the state is hostile to the communities they represent.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who officially announced his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday, has implemented a conservative agenda while in office, including bans on teaching about critical race theory, sexual orientation and gender identity in schools and loosening restrictions on concealed-carry weapons.

While its too soon to say whether the tense political climate will have a substantial impact on the states tourism industry, some travelers are factoring advisories and policies into their decisions. Some industry experts say the advisories could backfire  hurting minority groups who make their living through tourism.

Travel boycotts often impact the wrong people

Matt Berna, Intrepid Travel president and managing director for the Americas, said his company unequivocally condemns Governor Ron DeSantis recent policies, but that Intrepid doesnt believe in travel boycotts.

While the intention behind a boycott in Florida is to do the right thing, the reality is that travel boycotts often impact the wrong people. Travel boycotts often isolate vulnerable people even more, including many of our close partner BIPOC owned businesses that rely on those tourist dollars and are by no means hostile in their approach to other BIPOC travelers.

The Future of Black Tourism, Blacks in Travel & Tourism and the Black Travel Alliance also criticized the travel warnings saying they would hurt Black businesses.

The NAACPs travel advisory contradicts with the efforts of industry organizations and initiatives such as the Future of Black Tourism, Blacks in Travel & Tourism, Black Travel Alliance, and others that have been intentionally working to level the playing field for small Black businesses in Florida and across the country, they said in a joint statement on Monday.

The efforts of these organizations have led more Black travelers and others to be intentional in seeking out and doing business with Black businesses in the industry to help sustain and scale this underrepresented segment of travel and tourism, the statement added.

Kelley Robinson, president of Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for LGBTQ+ equality, has criticized DeSantis and his frenzied appeal to extremists. Robinson said the organization saw issuing an advisory as a duty to provide guidance to our community.

DeSantis called the advisories a political stunt on Wednesday during the announcement of his candidacy on Twitter Spaces.

He said Florida has just had its highest quarter for tourism in its history, and our view is we want everybody to succeed regardless of their skin color.

Dana Young  president and CEO of Visit Florida, the states official tourism marketing corporation  echoed calling advisories a political stunt that would impact the hardworking hospitality professionals in Florida.

It is disappointing when partisan organizations attempt to weaponize travel in pursuit of political ends. Travel advisories issued with blatant factual misrepresentations are a disservice to the traveling public and are disrespectful to the incredibly diverse visitors and residents that are proud to call Florida home, Young said in the statement, adding that Florida had the largest market share of any state in the country among African American vacationers with 21.4% last year.

Ive consciously stopped traveling to Florida

There are some would-be visitors who refuse to travel to Florida while DeSantis and his politics remain as they are.

David Wagner of Pennsylvania is one of them.

Every week, theres new legislation more shocking than the last, and Im genuinely concerned about the legislative changes driven by the Florida Governors office. These changes appear politically motivated and dont seem to align with the wishes of the majority of residents - and I have a huge problem with this trend generally in our politics, Wagner says.

Its alarming to see more and more representative offices become partisan battlegrounds instead of serving the needs of the people. As much as I adore Miami and usually visit Florida three to four times a year, Ive consciously stopped traveling to Florida to express my opposition.

While the travel advisories may be making headline news, theres no indication yet that they will translate into less tourism traffic on the ground.

In 2022, Florida welcomed 137.6 million visitors, the most in the states history, according to Visit Florida estimates. Just last week, the governors office touted that the state attracted a record 37.9 million visitors between January and March 2023.

Scott Keyes, founder of Going.com  an airfare tracking site  says hes seen no impact so far in demand for flights to Miami or Orlando, both in the top 10 for US tourist destinations.

Florida has seen insatiable demand for travel, especially in the past few years, and that doesnt appear to be reversing, he said.

Furthermore, big destinations such as Tampa and Orange County, where Orlando is located, have been quick to mitigate any fallout by making it known that all tourists will be welcome.

The day after the NAACP issued its advisory, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor tweeted: As Mayor of Tampa, I can absolutely assure anyone and everyone considering a visit or move to Tampa that they will be welcomed with open arms. Diversity and inclusion are central to what makes Tampa one of Americas greatest and friendliest cities. That will never change, regardless of what happens in Tallahassee.

Similarly, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings Office issued a statement saying, Hate is never welcome here. We look forward to working with the NAACP to reassure them and others that Orange County is a caring, compassionate and welcoming community.

The politics dont help

The travel advisories have made some minority communities more determined to travel to Florida.

New York resident, Michael Galbe, who had booked his travel before the advisories were released, said he never considered changing his plans.

I especially feel like I want to be MORE out and proud in Miami to give visibility to the gay tourism dollar, said Galbe.

But dings to the states tourism credentials may end up being more of a trickle than a flow, and may fall on both sides of the political divide.

Pete Werner, owner of Dreams Unlimited Travel, a Disney-centric travel company based in Orlando, says his business hasnt seen many cancellations but the handful that have, have been people who dont like Disneys politics, or LGBTQ+ travelers who dont want to spend their money in Florida.

Disney has been in a long-running feud with Floridas governor since the company objected to legislation that DeSantis signed last spring dubbed by critics as the Dont Say Gay bill. It restricted the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.

Werner sees the travel advisories as political hyperbole on both sides but says, the politics dont help.

He attributes most of the decline hes seen in bookings to Disney World as a reaction to the companys increase in prices, rather than their politics, because his bookings for Disney Cruise ships have doubled since last year.

Where Werner does see cause for concern is with international visitors, who he says have been hurt by the increase in prices and strong dollar, and who have voiced concerns to him about gun violence and Floridas lax gun laws.

As a Florida resident, though, Werner says nothing has changed. Im a gay man, Ive lived in Orlando since 1998, while I dont feel my government is very welcoming or accepting of me, my life on the ground hasnt changed.

There is concern about what will happen next

Other Floridians agree that they havent noticed any big changes in tourism yet, but some are concerned about where the state may be heading.

Kristen Panebianco, a 31-year-old woman who lives in Miami, says she sees the travel advisories as less about minority groups being in more danger in Florida, but as organizations taking a stand against an extremist viewpoint that seems to be taking hold in the state.

She explains how DeSantis crackdown on things such as drag shows  through his signing of SB 1438  diverts attention from the real issues at play in the state, such as gun legislation. Men dressed up as women on the street is not dangerous to children and families, but guns are.

What makes Miami particularly special is how diverse and eclectic it is. People are worried that there is a small minority of people who are making decisions that are not necessarily representative of the state, trying to whitewash it, and there is concern about what will happen next, especially when it comes to schools and legislation, Panebianco adds.

African-American travel blogger Jameela Malcolm, who lives in Fort Lauderdale and blogs about places to see throughout the state, says shes seen no impact to her business so far.

While she is concerned about how these advisories could affect her community, she says shes determined to not let it impact her ability to travel.

Malcolm says she wants to encourage others to follow her lead and come explore the various communities and cultures that make Florida beautiful.

The-CNN-Wire

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Former President Trump leads Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a new poll of California Republicans. (Associated Press)

Former President Trump has vaulted back to a substantial lead in California over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, as the partys voters brush aside his legal travails, a new poll finds.

Trump has the support of 44% of Californias likely Republican primary voters, while DeSantis was backed by 26%, according to the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by The Times. Thats a notable reversal of their standings three months ago, when DeSantis led Trump by 8 percentage points among the states GOP voters.

The former presidents rise shows his ability to use the media to galvanize the voters most likely to back his third White House bid, said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll.

Trump dominates the news, and I think he enjoys that, and I think he gets the sense when he is dominating the news, hes probably expanding his messaging to his base, DiCamillo said. I think this poll pretty much proves that. Even when the news isnt necessarily great, hes able to give his own opinion about why things are the way they are, and the Republican base pretty much believes him.

Although Californians are overwhelmingly Democratic, the state has millions of Republican voters. They could play a critical role in selecting their partys nominee.

The states presidential primary is scheduled to take place in March 2024, relatively early in the electoral cycle, and California will send 169 delegates to the Republican National Convention, the most of any state.

Twelve other Republicans were tested in the poll, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has formally declared her candidacy, and prospective candidates former Vice President Mike Pence and former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. None received the support of more than 4% of the states likely GOP voters. About 13% were undecided.

Trumps surge in the poll comes after he was indicted by the Manhattan district attorney on fraud charges related to hush-money payments during the 2016 campaign and after a jury ordered him to pay $5 million to magazine writer E. Jean Carroll for sexually assaulting her in 1996 and later defaming her.

Nearly 3 out of 4 California Republican voters said it was impossible for the former president to receive an unbiased trial in New York. Two-thirds discounted the significance of the sexual assault verdict.

Thats a view rejected by the rest of the states voters: Roughly two-thirds of California voters overall said Trump could get a fair trial and the verdict should be taken seriously.

What was striking to me, in this three-month period, Trump was getting all this negative publicity from the sexual-abuse trial, and his image actually went up among Republicans, DiCamillo said.

Since February, the share of Republican voters with a favorable view of Trump has gone from 69% to 74%.

DeSantis favorability rating declined from 79% to 75%. The largest drop occurred in the share of Republicans who have a strongly favorable opinion of him, which went from 54% to 43% over the last three months, the poll found.

By contrast, only 27% of the states voters overall have a favorable view of Trump; 69% view him unfavorably.

A large majority of Republican voters, 86%, said the multiple investigations of Trump were more about politics and political revenge than about law and justice, and 70% said the probes should be stopped for the good of the country because they are worsening the nations political divisions.

That position, too, was rejected by a large majority of the states voters overall. Just over one-third of California voters said they believe the investigations are more about politics than law, and 37% think they should be halted. About 6 in 10 said the investigations aim to hold Trump accountable for his unlawful actions.

In addition to the Manhattan district attorney, a U.S. Justice Department special counsel is investigating Trump over his alleged mishandling of classified documents and possible obstruction of a federal investigation at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and alleged schemes to fraudulently solicit donations to his campaigns.

The district attorney in Atlanta is also investigating Trumps involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.

Seven in 10 California voters say its at least likely that Trump committed a crime in one or more of those cases, with half saying he definitely did, the poll found. Among Republican voters, 23% say thats likely, and 62% say its unlikely.

Three-quarters of voters overall also say that its important that Trump be held accountable for any unlawful actions he may have committed after the election. Republican voters split on that question, with 41% saying that it is important and 46% saying it is not.

As his legal problems have mounted, Trump intensified his attacks on DeSantis in recent months. That appears to have given him a boost as the Florida governor prepared to officially announce his presidential bid, a step he took on Wednesday with a glitch-filled session on Twitter.

Trump was disparaging DeSantis, trying to push him outside and discount his potential candidacy. And DeSantis image went down among Republicans, DiCamillo said.

DeSantis supporters have argued that he could be a stronger candidate against President Biden than Trump would be. That argument, however, does not appear to have much sway with the states GOP voters. Among likely GOP primary voters, 71% say its most important to pick a candidate who best represents their opinions on major issues. Just 26% say its most important to nominate the candidate with the best chance of defeating Joe Biden.

DeSantis has sought to appeal to conservative voters, staking out positions as a prominent voice in the Republican culture wars.

He signed legislation banning the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity with elementary and middle school students, forbidding the teaching of critical race theory, reducing tenure protection for teachers, prohibiting gender-transition care for young people and banning drag performances in front of minors. He has also engaged in a high-profile war with the Walt Disney Corp., among the states largest employers, after the company opposed some of his education restrictions.

But the conservative voters to whom those policies might be expected to appeal arent turning to him, the new poll indicates.

Trump leads DeSantis 62% to 23% among likely California Republican voters who identify themselves as strongly conservative. The former president also has a wide lead among men and among likely GOP voters who did not graduate from college.

The strongly conservative voters also are the most likely to have a favorable view of Trump, with 87% of them having a positive image of him, the poll found, compared with 56% of those Republicans who describe themselves as moderates.

DeSantis does better with those moderates  he runs roughly even with Trump among likely Republican voters in that group. He has a small edge among those who are younger than 40 and runs close to Trump among college graduates.

All that suggests that a significant share of his support is coming from Republicans who are not fervent DeSantis supporters, but are seeking a viable GOP rival to Trump.

This is a theory backed by history  educated and affluent Californians who have traditionally voted for Republicans in suburban areas such as Orange County turned away from the party because of Trump in the 2016 presidential contest and in every election since then.

Those moderates are looking for someone other than Trump, DiCamillo said.

The Berkeley IGS poll surveyed 7,465 California registered voters online in English and Spanish, including a weighted sample of 1,835 registered Republicans, from May 17 to 22. Because the survey results are weighted to match census and voter registration benchmarks, precise estimates of the margin of error are difficult; however, the results are estimated to have a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points in either direction for the full sample and 3.5 percentage points for the Republican sample.





This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Valery Tsepkalo, Belarusian opposition leader, said that after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko was taken to the Central Clinical Hospital of Moscow in critical condition.

Source: Tsepkalo on Telegram

Quote: "According to the information we have, which needs additional confirmation, Lukashenko, after meeting with Putin behind closed doors, was urgently taken to the Central Clinical Hospital of Moscow, where he is now located. The best specialists were sent to return him from a condition assessed by doctors as critical. [His - ed.] blood was purified, Lukashenko's condition was proclaimed not transportable.

The organised measures to save the Belarusian dictator were intended to ward off speculation about the possible participation of the Kremlin in his poisoning. It does not matter whether he returns to working condition or not, doctors warn of a possible recurrence of relapses. "

Details: Later, Tsepkalo added that there is an attempt to explain Lukashenko's stay at the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation with a medical examination.

"The appearance of such a version is quite natural, as an attempt to hide the real condition of the patient, which is still critical. Previous cases of faltering health were also attempted to be silenced. And in this case, in order not to arouse suspicion, his plane was even sent to Minsk," the opposition leader says.

Earlier: On 24 May, Lukashenko participated in the Eurasian Economic Forum in Moscow. There, in particular, he said that Russian nuclear weapons had already begun to be transported to Belarus within the framework of bilateral agreements.

Background:

There had been no information about Lukashenkos whereabouts or the state of his health for a long time. He had not appeared in public or participated in official events since the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow and Minsk on 9 May.

Independent journalists reported that on the evening of 13 May, Lukashenkos convoy, accompanied by a State Road Patrol special unit, arrived at the Republican Clinical Medicine Centre of the Presidential Administration

In the light of rumours about Lukashenkos illness, Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has said that the opposition should be " well prepared for every scenario ".

On 23 May, Lukashenko announced that he was absent from public space due to illness, but was not going to die.

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(CNN)  Murderers. Criminals. We are watching you.

These are just a handful of the threats and abuse sent to meteorologists at AEMET, Spains national weather agency, in recent months. They come via social media, its website, letters, phone calls  even in the form of graffiti sprayed across one of its buildings.

Abuse and harassment have always happened against the agencys scientists, Estrella Gutierrez-Marco, spokesperson for AEMET, told CNN.

But there has been a rapid rise recently, coinciding with extreme weather in Spain. A severe drought has shrunk water levels to alarming lows, exacerbated by record-breaking April temperatures.

The abuse got so bad that in April, AEMET posted a video on Twitter calling for an end to the harassment, and asking for respect. Even the government intervened. Teresa Ribera, Spains minister for the ecological transition, posted on Twitter in support of the agency: Lying, giving wings to conspiracy and fear, insulting  It is time to say enough.

The harassment of meteorologists by conspiracy theorists and climate deniers is not a phenomenon confined to Spain.

National weather services, meteorologists and climate communicators in countries from the US to Australia say theyre experiencing an increase in threats and abuse, often around accusations they are overstating, lying about or even controlling the weather.

In Spains case, much of the trolling revolves around the rehashing of an old conspiracy theory: so-called chemtrails.

Under many of the agencys Twitter posts, especially those that refer to more extreme weather, users have posted images of blue skies, crisscrossed with wispy, white trails. They falsely claim the trails contain a cocktail of chemicals to artificially manipulate the weather  keeping rain away and causing climate change.

Its a theory roundly rejected by scientists.

Airplanes do release vapor trails called contrails, short for condensation trails, which form when water vapor condenses into ice crystals around the small particles emitted by jet engines.

But scientists have been clear: There is no evidence chemtrails exist.

One of the hardest experiences

In April, meteorologist Isabel Moreno wrote a tweet saying rain skips Spain, with an image of a band of rain stretching across Europe but missing Spain almost entirely. She was completely unprepared for the response.

It was one of the hardest experiences in social media in my life, said Moreno, who appears on the Spanish TV channel RTVE. I received HUNDREDS of responses to an (apparently) inoffensive tweet, she told CNN in an email.

Many accused her of covering up weather manipulation.

Do not take us for idiots, said one. They dry us up, and you are the spokesperson for those who do it, said another. And on, and on.

While there were plenty of supportive messages, too, it was scary, Moreno said. I have never seen either that amount of responses nor that level of aggression. It took days for her to be able to go onto Twitter again without feeling anxious or stressed.

This phenomenon may be particularly pronounced in Spain, but it spreads much wider.

In France, meteorologists have been accused of exaggerating the countrys drought and heat.

Meteo France, the French national meteorological service, said the agencys communications are the object of more and more repeated attacks, a Meteo France spokesman told CNN.

Climate misinformation on social media is particularly widespread, he said. It seems to be on the rise, both in terms of the number of attacks directed against scientific publications but also the increasingly aggressive tone of the insults.

In Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology has been bombarded with criticism of its reporting of temperature records, with claims they have been inflated to make climate change seem worse. A spokeswoman for BOM called these claims inaccurate. The Bureau transparently reports on and provides access to its very large climate data records, she said.

And in the UK, meteorologists reported unprecedented levels of online harassment during last years record-breaking heat wave, which led to the first-ever red warning for heat.

As scientists communicated this information, they were accused of instigating a nanny state hysteria, Liz Bentley, the chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, told CNN.

The Met Office was even accused of changing the color palette of its maps to make them look more dramatic. We hadnt, it was just really hot, Oliver Claydon, a communications officer at the Met Office, told CNN.

US meteorologists and climate communicators have not escaped the barrage of abuse and conspiracies.

Whenever I posted about global topics, like the yearly temperature report, the comments section would be filled with political jabs and conspiracy theories, said Elisa Raffa, a broadcast meteorologist with Queen City News, based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

As a woman in the media, she more often receives comments about her appearance than the science shes communicating, she told CNN.

Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, said shes seen a ramp up of abuse lately.

I receive almost daily verbal declarations of my ignorance and climate alarmism, she told CNN.

An erosion of trust

Some disinformation experts draw a straight line from the conspiracies that flourished during the Covid pandemic  when experts faced a slew of abuse  to the uptick in climate conspiracies.

People need trending topics on which to hang these theories, said Alexandre Lopez-Borrull, a lecturer in the Information and Communication Sciences Department at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain.

As Covid-19 fades from the headlines, climate change has become a strong rallying point. Theres been a big increase in insults directed at all organizations related to the weather, he told CNN.

Its a logical evolution of the broader trend around pushback on institutions, and the erosion of trust, said Jennie King, the head of Climate Research and Policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank focused on disinformation and extremism.

These kinds of conspiracies are usually grounded in the idea that a set of institutions is using the pretext of climate change, or the pretext of solving public policy issues, to enact some insidious agenda, she told CNN.

And the weather is an easy way in. Many aspects of climate science can feel very technical or abstract, but the weather is something people interact with frequently, said King.

Its a much more immediate way to bring a wider audience into that skepticism  planting seeds of doubt against the climate agenda writ large, she said.

The role meteorologists have in explaining how climate change affects the weather, especially extreme weather, is a particular flashpoint.

Extreme weather can be alarming, especially when there are consequences and sacrifices, such as Spains water restrictions.

Conspiracy theories feed on this fear by offering a simple, enticing explanation, said Lopez-Borrull. Its easier to believe climate change is fake, or a manipulation by powerful people, than get your head around the complex problem and what it means for society.

Change is hard and scary, Francis said

Im just trying to do my job

Its difficult to combat conspiracy theories when they bubble up. Some experts say they offer simple charts and rebuttals when they can, but try to ignore those who come in bad faith.

Doug McNeall, a climate scientist and statistician at the Met Office Hadley Centre, a UK research center, said that, as a scientist, he welcomes being challenged. If people come with better evidence, and you change your mind, thats good, he told CNN.

But thats not been his recent experience. These people were not coming with better evidence, he said. They were coming to stop us talking about climate science. He now relies much more on the block button.

Moreno echoed this. I find it very difficult to change the minds of people that really have strong beliefs in these conspiracies, she said. Its easier to prevent the ideas from taking hold in people in the first place by tackling the myths and explaining how the atmosphere works, she added.

This kind of communication can really help, said King. Some of the best initiatives are when media outlets or scientific institutions really try to demystify the process of how they produce public interest data, she said.

King worries about the impact of these conspiracies on climate politics. If we want to implement any policies, ambitious or not, around the environmental agenda, and the acute crisis of climate change, it does now seem that this is going to rear its head, she said.

Lopez-Borrull hopes meteorologists and climate communicators will persevere and not be pushed away from online spaces.

The answer is not disappearing or closing social media profiles  they have to remain on social media because they are really useful, Lopez-Borrull said.

But as the climate crisis causes more extreme weather, harassment could increase even further.

And it takes a toll, said Raffa.

I think its easy for people to forget Im human, some of those comments can be hurtful. Im just trying to do my job.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Murderers and criminals: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists"
Prigozhin to be sent to Sudan: What fate awaits Wagner leader?

End of mission. The head of the PMC, Wagner, most likely, will soon show less public activity

The current hysterical actions and statements of Prigozhin are a consequence of his attempt to save himself from the anger of the Kremlins top leadership.

The public activity of Prigozhin is associated with the fact that at some point he realized that his privileged position as Putins favorite grandson was shaken, said Lev Kadik, a journalist specializing in foreign affairs at the Latvian portal Delfi.lv and former political editor of the Russian newspaper Kommersant.

Read also: Biden claims Russians suffered over 100,000 troop losses in Bakhmut

Experts surveyed by NV are convinced that the only function the Wagner Group leader served during the large-scale invasion was to issue calls and mobilize prisoners, followed by their deployment on the front lines.

Now, Prigozhins services have become unnecessary, as the Russian army has learned since last August to independently carry out the same tasks since last autumn, said Kadik.

The Wagner Group chief was also unable to capture Bakhmut after months of fighting, despite receiving Putins approval to recruit criminals strictly for the purpose. So, Prigozhins recent statements about withdrawing his group from Bakhmut and his extensive interview on the topic of how we can f**k up Russia thanks to the Kremlin elite are nothing more than an attempt at self-defense.

Prigozhin is a product of the Putin system, but now his position as Putins chef has weakened within it, as he is no longer fighting against Ukraine but for his own skin, Maxim Reznik, former member of the legislative assembly of St. Petersburg, told NV.

You see, Prigozhin is a patriot of his own hide, said Reznik.

Read also: Russian leaders wont let Prigozhin withdraw his forces from Bakhmut, Ukrainian military says

Figures similar to Prigozhin have already emerged in the history of Putins Russia, said Fyodor Krascheninnikov, a Russian political scientist living in Lithuania, in an interview with NV.

For example, after the annexation of Crimea, the popular mayor of Sevastopol Alexei Chaly and former prosecutor Natalia Poklonskaya received their share of popularity from the Kremlin, but their influence quickly waned without Putins support.

As an example, the political analyst uses Ramzan Kadyrov, the "leader" of Chechnya. He was previously one of Prigozhins main public allies, supporting the Wagner Group in its conflict with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. However, once the Wagner Group leader began his own game and crossed a certain line in his criticism, Kadyrovs support dissolved.

Krascheninnikov explained that within the Putin system of power, alliances or coalitions are impossible as they are shattered from above.

It is most likely that Prigozhin will be removed, not physically destroyed, but sent into a kind of exile, such as Africa, where the Wagner Group has several ongoing missions, concluded the journalist from Delfi.lv.

Prigozhin will go to Sudan, and what will happen to him there is anyones guess. In any case, he will be removed from the stage where everyone dances, sings, and shouts.

Read also: Ukrainian intelligence explains conflict between Prigozhin and Shoigu

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Protestant Christians have been debating -- and more often than not, supporting -- modern contraceptives since they first appeared. Bettmann/Bettman via Getty Images

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, many Christians have celebrated the prospect of an America where abortion is someday banned entirely.

Meanwhile, other conservative Christians have been working on a related target: limiting access to some contraceptives.

In July 2020, when the Supreme Court ruled that organizations with sincerely held religious or moral objection are not obligated to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees, many conservative Christians applauded. Six years before, the evangelical owners of crafting chain Hobby Lobby took their objections to covering the IUD in their health insurance plans all the way to the Supreme Court. Hobby Lobby argued  incorrectly, according to most medical authorities  that it was a form of abortion, and therefore they should not have to cover employees health insurance for it. The justices sided with the chains owners.

Yet as access to both abortion and contraception comes under threat, the vast majority of Protestants use or have used some form of contraception. Their actions are supported by almost 100 years of pastoral advocacy on the issue. In my work as a scholar of religous studies, gender and sexuality, I have researched the Protestant leaders who campaigned to make contraception respectable, and therefore widely acceptable, in the mid-20th century.

History, I have found, provides a different story about the relationship between Protestants and birth control.

Responsible parenthood

As new contraceptive options emerged in the first two-thirds of the 20th century, from the diaphragm to the birth control pill, Christian leaders wrestled with what to think. Many came to see birth control as a moral good that would allow married couples to have satisfying sex lives, while protecting women from the health risks of frequent pregnancies. They hoped it could ensure that couples would not have more children than they could care for, emotionally and economically.

Women with children stand outside Sanger Clinic, the first birth control clinic in United States, in Brooklyn, New York in 1916. Circa Images/GHI/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

They looked inward, considering the consequences of birth control for their own communities, and hoped that planned or responsible sex would create healthy families and decrease divorce. They also looked outward, thinking about birth controls wider implications, at a time of widespread concern that the global population was rising too quickly to handle.

By the time the pill came on the market in the 1960s, liberal and even some conservative Protestants were advocating for birth control using new theological ideas about responsible parenthood.

Responsible parenthood reframed debates about family size around Christian duty. To be responsible in parenting was not only to avoid having more children than you could afford, nurture and educate. It also meant considering responsibilities outside the home toward churches, society and humanity.

Protestant leaders supporting contraception argued that the best kind of family was a father with a steady job and a homemaker mother, and that birth control could encourage this model, because smaller families could maintain a comfortable lifestyle on one income. They also hoped that contraception would help couples stay together by allowing them to have satisfying sex lives.

Multiple denominations endorsed birth control. In 1958, for example, the Anglican Communion stated that family planning was a primary obligation of Christian marriage, and chastised parents who carelessly and improvidently bring children into the world, trusting in an unknown future or a generous society to care for them.

The big picture

Religious leaders support for responsible parenthood was not just about deliberately creating the kind of Christian families they approved of. It was also about heading off the horrors of population explosion  a fear very much front of mind in mid-century America.

In the middle of the 20th century, with increased access to vaccines and antibiotics, more children were living to adulthood and life expectancies were rising. Protestant leaders feared this so-called population bomb would outstrip the Earths food supply, leading to famine and war.

In 1954, when the global population stood at about 2.5 billion, Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick, one of the most prominent Protestant voices of the age, framed overpopulation as one of the worlds basic problems, and the birth control pill, which was then being developed, as the best potential solution.

Richard Fagley, a minister who served on the World Council of Churchs Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, argued that in family planning, science had provided Christians with a new venue for moral responsibility. Medical knowledge, Fagley wrote, is a liberating gift from God, to be used to the glory of God, in accordance with his will for men.

These responsible parenthood ideas held that religious couples had a responsibility to be good stewards of the earth by not having more children than the planet could support. In the context of marriage, contraception was viewed as moral, shoring up a particular form of Christian values.

Yesterdays arguments

These ideas about good and bad families often rested on assumptions about race and gender that reproductive rights advocates find troubling today.

Early in the 20th century, predominantly white, Protestant clergy were very interested in increasing access to contraception for the poor, who were often Catholic or Jewish immigrants or people of color. Some scholars have argued that early support for contraception was predominantly about eugenics, particularly before World War II. Among some white leaders, there was concern about so-called race suicide: the racist fear that they would be overwhelmed.

Apart from some eugenicists, however, most of these clergy wanted to give people access to contraception in order to create healthy families, regardless of income level. Yet many were unable or unwilling to see how they were promoting a narrow view of the ideal family, and how that marginalized poor communities and people of color  themes I am studying in my current book project.

Moreover, many proponents were advocating for womens health, but not reproductive freedom. Their priority was setting women up for success to attain their ideal of the middle-class, Christian motherhood. With fewer children, some hoped, families would be able to get by on just a husbands salary, meaning more women at home raising children.

A battle won  and lost?

Over the decades, Protestant leaders have, in large part, disappeared from pro-birth control arguments.

There are many reasons. Mid-century agricultural technologies reduced fears of overpopulation  which have only recently been reawoken by the climate crisis. Meanwhile, mainline Protestant churches, and their public influence, are shrinking. Conservative leaders eventually grew concerned that birth control would lead to more working women, not fewer. And since the 1970s, evangelicals have grown increasingly opposed to abortion, which was increasingly linked to birth control through the broad term family planning.

In other words, since the population bomb was no longer ticking, contraception no longer seemed like such an urgent necessity  and some of its other implications troubled conservatives, breaking an almost pan-Protestant alliance.

Meanwhile, liberal Protestants had so embraced contraception that they no longer viewed it as turf that needed defending. Today, 99% of American girls and women between the ages of 15 and 44 who have ever had sex use or have used a contraceptive method. Reproductive rights advocates turned their attention to abortion rights  largely leaving religious views on birth control to their opponents.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

It was written by: Samira Mehta, University of Colorado Boulder.

Read more:



Samira Mehta 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.
Putin Poisoning? Belarus dictator Luakashenko in critical condition in Moscow hospital, says opposition figure

Lukashenko met with Putin in Moscow on May 27

Following a closed-door meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko was swiftly transported to a Moscow hospital in critical condition.

Blood purification procedures have been conducted, and Lukashenkos condition has been deemed non-transportable. The orchestrated efforts to save the Belarusian dictator aimed to dispel speculations regarding Kremlins alleged involvement in his poisoning, Tsepkalo wrote on Twitter.

Lukashenko himself addressed his absence from public life on May 23, attributing it to an illness.

Read also: Over 2,000 Ukrainian children abducted to Belarus, says Belarusian opposition

Adenovirus or whatever it was? Adenovirus. Its nothing... But since I didnt have the opportunity to receive treatment... all of it accumulated.

So Im not planning to die, guys. Youll be tormenting yourselves with me for a very long time, added the dictator.

While the exact nature of Lukashenkos illness remains undisclosed, adenoviruses can elicit a broad spectrum of ailments in humans, ranging from acute respiratory infections to severe conditions in individuals with weakened immune systems.

Lukashenko was present at the parade in Moscow on May 9 but was unable to walk several hundred meters to the flower-laying ceremony alongside Russian dictator Putin and the presidents of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, as well as the Prime Minister of Armenia.

Read also: Lukashenko pardons Belarusian journalist sentenced to eight years in prison

A bandage on his hand was also noticed, and upon his return from Moscow, he unexpectedly abstained from delivering his customary speech at Victory Square in Minsk.

Konstantin Zatulin, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, later stated that Lukashenko simply fell ill.

Previously, Pavel Latyshko claimed that the dictator might have infectious-allergic myocarditis.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin

Putin is in a panic over the expected Ukrainian counteroffensive, which may already be in its preliminary battlefield-shaping stage. He doesnt know, any more than the rest of us do, when the offensive will be launched, where it will strike or whether it will succeed. What he does know is that if it achieves significant success, his own days might be numbered, with fissures already opening inside the Kremlin and between its most important henchmen.

The Russian armys thinly stretched troops have been preparing strong defensive positions all along the front line to repel an attack or series of attacks, and planning their own spoiling operations. But, aside from the balance of forces, critically important to Ukraines success or failure is morale.

Putin knows it is fragile among his own troops, many of whom dont know why they are expected to fight a war they dont even begin to understand. He knows he has to break the morale of Ukrainian soldiers on the battle line and civilians on the home front. That is why he has recently intensified air attacks on cities and towns. They are intended to kill civilians, destroy infrastructure, disrupt the war economy and make life a misery  both for those in the cities and their relatives at the front.

On Saturday night, Russia launched the largest wave of explosive drone strikes since the full-scale invasion began. Fifty-two of the 54 Iranian-supplied Shahed drones were knocked out of the sky. Forty were aimed at Kyiv, the most intensive barrage targeting the city so far, killing one.

The next day, Kyiv, celebrating the 1,541st anniversary of its founding, was straight back to normal. No mass panic, no serious disruption to life. Putins attempts to intimidate the Ukrainian people and their leaders simply dont work. He tried it first in February last year, expecting Kyiv to fall in a matter of days simply with rocket fire and Russian forces heading towards the capital. Like London in the Blitz and later under Hitlers rain of V1 and V2 rockets, these Russian war crimes have the opposite effect to what is intended, serving only to harden the peoples will to resist.

Ukrainian soldiers at the front know all about the Russian armys atrocities against local civilians in areas they have occupied, as well as the industrial-scale kidnapping of thousands of children. Determination to keep the Russians from their doors and thrust them back behind their own border makes these troops fight even harder. One of the most common requests of the West that I have heard in Ukraine, from commanders and soldiers, is that our countries dont put pressure on their government to make an accommodation with Russia. And no Macron-style off-ramp for Putin.

The Russian president doesnt want peace talks, either  but for very different reasons. How can he agree to stop a war that has achieved so little at such enormous cost in blood and roubles to his own people? But he does want to hold out the false hope of a ceasefire. It is part of a good cop/bad cop strategy that has just been clumsily articulated by Andrei Kelin, the Russian ambassador to London, who threatened escalation in a new dimension which we do not need and we do not want, adding, we can make peace tomorrow.

These remarks follow Putins characteristically duplicitous words a couple of days ago to the Brazilian president, expressing the openness of the Russian side to dialogue on the political and diplomatic track, which is still blocked by Kyiv and its Western sponsors.

The objective is to lure Western governments into appeasing Moscow by pulling back on military support in the hope of peace and the fear of an expanded conflict. Chinese officials may have been put to work, as well, with reports that Li Hui, Beijings special representative for Eurasian affairs, has urged European diplomats to end the conflict before it escalates further.

As well as recent promises of modern jets for the longer term, Putin is rattled by the continued flow of munitions into Ukraine as it prepares the counteroffensive. That is another reason for the increased frequency of drone attacks against Ukrainian cities  to exhaust air defences and deplete scarce ammo stocks that will be so critical in major offensive operations.

Despite Russias diplomatic offensive, Western leaders, now acclimatised to Putins standard threats, seem to be holding up strongly, for the moment at least. But as well as providing military and economic support, and resisting fake talk of peace negotiations, they need to be more aggressive in helping Ukraine counter the entirety of Putins war effort. One way of doing that is to bear down hard on Russias Iranian quartermasters, who have played an important role in Putins aggression, supplying drones, deploying troops, promising ballistic missiles and helping Moscow evade sanctions.

Greater resources should now be applied to interdict drone shipments, as well as harsher economic sanctions against Tehran and setting up a tribunal to deal with aiding and abetting Russian war crimes.

Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army officer. He was an infantry battalion commander and saw active duty in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan



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A Quincy man who was shot in a Stoughton road rage incident has been arrested

A Quincy man who was shot during a road rage incident in Stoughton has been arrested, Stoughton police said.

Police said Anh Kieu, 39, of Quincy, was arrested shortly before 4 p.m. Saturday at his home and charged with four counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, negligent driving and marked-lanes violations, WCVB reported.

Kieu entered a plea of not guilty at his arraignment before Judge Brian Walsh in Stoughton District Court on Tuesday. He was ordered held on $2,500 cash bail and is due to return on June 20.

Commonwealth was represented by ADA Mark Assad.

As with all defendants, Mr. Kieu enjoys the Constitutional presumption of innocence.,

Defense attorney was Chris Perruzi

An argument between Kieu and another man at the 7-Eleven on Washington Street in Canton at about 9 p.m. Wednesday led to the shooting and a crash at the intersection of Plain and West streets in Stoughton about 15 minutes later, police said.

Stoughton police said the man said Kieu pointed a gun at him inside the 7-Eleven. The man ran to his friend's car, a black Nissan Altima, and told the other three occupants of the car what happened.

The Nissan left the parking lot and Kieu, who was driving a white Cadillac, followed that car, police said. The Nissan driver told police he drove at a high rate of speed because he feared he and his friends were being chased by Kieu.

Police said the Nissan made it to the intersection of Pearl and Central streets in Stoughton. Kieu's car crossed the double-yellow line into the opposite lane of traffic and pulled up to the Altima, witnesses told police. Kieu pointed a handgun at the people in the Nissan, witnesses said.

More: Quincy man accused of drug, weapon crimes after package searched

The Nissan driver, who police said has a valid license to carry a gun and a properly registered firearm, yelled for his friends to get down. Police said the Nissan driver fired seven rounds into the Cadillac because he was "fearing for his life," and that one of the bullets struck Kieu.

Police said the Nissan driver drove away and Kieu continued to follow it in his Cadillac. The Nissan driver told police he remained fearful of Kieu and continued to speed, which led to the crash at Plain and West streets.

Five people, including Kieu, were taken to hospitals and later released.

Stoughton police said a black pellet gun, an SNR 357 revolver, was seized from the Cadillac that Kieu was driving.

After his arrest, Kieu was taken to Stoughton police headquarters and was held on $20,000 cash bail.

Stoughton police said they do not plan to file charges against the Nissan driver at this time.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Quincy man shot in Stoughton road rage incident arrested
While GOP presidential candidates still have eight months before the first nominating contest, a more imminent battle is emerging online for small-dollar donors.

These donors, who can both signal campaign strength and provide funds to help sustain a candidate through next spring, have become a vital part of a modern campaign operation. The jockeying over them comes against a backdrop of Republicans long trailing their Democratic counterparts when it comes to online fundraising.

Former President Donald Trump, the leading Republican primary candidate, was generally an exception.

Now, as a growing field of GOP candidates sets out to build small-dollar donor bases of their own, they also have an opportunity to rewrite the playbook.

Trump won his base through an aggressive brand of messaging: Promises of donation matches that never seemed to materialize or all-caps urgent language. But the burgeoning GOP field sees an opportunity to approach fundraising differently. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley are all using slightly different tactics to dethrone small-dollar Don.



They have to. Their political futures depend on it. And the limelight of the primary provides a unique opportunity for Republican digital fundraising, with implications for 2024 and beyond.

Its going to expose more donors to these candidates who are rising stars in the party, said Eric Wilson, managing partner of Startup Caucus who also worked on Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump starts off as the small-dollar king

No one has a better history with small-dollar donors than Trump, who has led in every major poll of the GOP primary field so far. His various committees reaped online donations from more than 780,000 distinct donors in 2021 and 2022, according to a POLITICO analysis of FEC data from WinRed, the main Republican donation processing platform, more than any other federal candidate or committee.

Still, Trumps fundraising since his campaign launch has been uneven. He saw a massive surge in contributions to his joint fundraising committee after the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago property last August, but also spent significantly more on text messaging and other donor outreach methods over that period, according to FEC filings. His November campaign launch yielded lower daily fundraising than after the Mar-a-Lago search.

But the former presidents indictment by a New York grand jury in late March helped revitalize his fundraising, his latest FEC report showed. Further legal troubles  including the possibility of another indictment related to classified documents held at Mar-a-Lago  could again boost him when it comes to raising money online.

DeSantis big first day

DeSantis, who formally jumped into the race on Wednesday, raised $217 million during his last reelection, the most of any gubernatorial candidate ever  although not all of that translates to the federal level. Florida campaign finance law does not cap donation amounts and allows contributions directly from corporations, which is banned for presidential candidates.



Still, DeSantis campaign said he raised more than $8 million in the first 24 hours after launching his presidential campaign via a technically-challenged Twitter Space, although its not clear how much of that share was driven by small-dollar donors. His campaign also spent thousands of dollars on Facebook ads in the days after his launch, mostly asking for donations of $47, a nod to his hopes of becoming the 47th president.

An early fundraising email from his campaign used the subject line unlike any other presidential campaign, friend, and promised to treat donors as part of our team rather than a piggy bank. Such an appeal certainly does not mirror Trumps fundraising emails. But it did make DeSantis sound a lot more like a few of his other Republican opponents, with Haleys campaign noting similarities with an email she had sent months earlier.

Haley leans into family and policy

For candidates new to a federal campaign, there is more work in building an initial list of supporters. Haley, who raised just shy of $800,000 from small-dollar donors in the first quarter, has similarly targeted donors with ads on Facebook, and her joint fundraising committee spent more than $200,000 on list rentals in the first quarter.

Her campaign has been among those most active via texting, with the content often featuring updates, surveys and messages from her husband. A recent 213-word text message themed around the upcoming Memorial Day holiday included bullet points on the former U.N. ambassadors policy plans for veterans.



"Building a reliable low-dollar donor base requires patience, honesty, and a candidate who understands that relationship building cant rely on fear and intimidation. Whether it be policy updates, notes from the campaign trail, or personal touches from Haley family members, honesty matters, and we make sure every donor feels a part of the team, said Haley spokesperson Ken Farnaso.

Scott looks to build on Senate strengths

Scott, whose campaign said it raised more than $2 million after his formal launch on Monday, has been among the top GOP congressional fundraisers with small-dollar donors. In the 2022 election cycle, he raised $15.7 million from contributors giving less than $200, according to FEC data  a greater total than several other Republican incumbents who faced more competitive challenges. His Senate campaign also had a bit more than 160,000 distinct donors on WinRed in 2021 and 2022, according to a POLITICO analysis of FEC data.

His presidential campaign released fundraising-oriented digital ads coinciding with his launch this week. The ads were largely positive and biographical. His then-Senate campaign also spent more than $150,000 on online advertising and list rentals in late March, shortly before he announced his presidential exploratory committee, FEC records show.



A Scott adviser, granted anonymity to speak candidly about fundraising strategy, said the now-presidential campaigns fundraising messaging sought to focus on the South Carolina senator rather than generic Republican lines. The campaign emphasized respect for donors, which likely means sending fewer text messages than some other campaigns.

We may not have the biggest gross numbers, but Im confident that were always going to have the highest net, the adviser said, referencing how some campaigns use up a large share of their fundraising on finding and contacting donors.

A strong fundraising history is a good starting point, but donors from previous cycles might not always translate to a presidential run  in terms of money or votes. About 45 percent of donors who gave to Scott in 2021 or 2022 also gave to Trumps joint fundraising committee over the same period, a POLITICO analysis found. (For Trump, the figure works out to roughly 10 percent of donors to his group having also given to Scott.)

One vote, but multiple donations

Fundraising professionals note that political giving, particularly in the primary stage, is driven by different motivations than voting, with donors sometimes feeling compelled to give to one or more candidates based on an inspiring debate performance or a desire to see them advance in the field  even if the donor might be undecided when it comes to casting their eventual ballot.

A strong performance among small-dollar donors can also be an indicator of a campaigns longevity. Donors who give only a small amount have the potential to donate to a campaign again. Recurring donors, who often give once a month, have been pivotal to both parties online fundraising strategies.

The Republican National Committee has floated a donor threshold for participation in debates that will begin later this summer, a tactic that could help fringe candidates make the stage if used instead of other requirements, such as a polling threshold, while still excluding those with little online support. (No specific threshold has been publicly set; the RNC did not respond to requests for comment.)



A similar requirement for Democratic debates during the 2020 primaries led to an explosion in first-time donors  although the drive for $1 donations also led some lower-tier candidates to spend more than they raised around this time in the cycle.

We know that once someone donates for the first time they are more likely to come into our ecosystem and support other candidates. So I think it's going to really help the Republican Party generally, said Wilson, the digital strategist.

Longshots look to make the debate stage

A few lesser-known candidates, such as entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have directly referenced a possible debate donor threshold in fundraising appeals. More established candidates appear unperturbed by it, with several campaigns indicating they have already surpassed whatever the threshold is likely to be.

Ramaswamy, the longshot biotech entrepreneur with no political experience who has poured millions of his own fortune into his campaign, has been more experimental when it comes to small-dollar donors. His campaign has rented email lists from conservative sites such as the Daily Caller, sending sponsored emails with links that allow him to collect potential supporters contact information and solicit donations.

He also spent heavily on digital advertising, including being the only GOP presidential candidate so far to advertise on Twitter, according to data from the social media company. (He has also spent more than $92,000 on Facebook ads.) Recruiting small-dollar donors to meet the potential RNC requirement has been at the core of his pitch.

$1 to get these ideas on the debate stage, he said in a tweet.
Officers with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department are asking for the publics help to find a car associated with a shooting in east Charlotte.

The incident happened around 2 a.m. on Saturday morning on Arnold Drive after police got a call for a large party with several armed people. When officers got to the scene, people from the party scattered, but one car stopped and started firing rounds. An officer returned fire, but no one was hurt.

One officer perceived an imminent deadly threat and shot at that vehicle, CMPD Major Thomas said.

A viewer told Channel 9 they heard the gunshots and also saw a heavy police presence on their street.

ALSO READ: 1 killed, 1 charged after shooting outside club in north Charlotte

As of now, CMPD says they do not have a cause for the shooting and dont understand why the suspect chose to open fire.

Right now, theres very little motive as to why the shooting occurred; a lot of times at these parties, people just start shooting over the smallest incident, so sometimes we dont get to the root of it, Thomas said.

Major Thomas also told Channel 9 that the suspect was able to get away, but there is a chance their car could have been hit by the multiple rounds of gunfire during the incident involving the suspect and an officer.

It is possible; thats why its a vehicle of interest until we get some more information and are able to get into the depths, the weeds of the investigation, to get the bigger picture, Thomas said.

The only description of the car from CMPD at this point is a four-door silver sedan with a sunroof.

Anyone with information is asked to reach out to the police.

(WATCH BELOW: Man accused of trying to break into Gastonia home shot, killed, police say)
This month marks 75 years since the murder of legendary CBS newsman George Polk. Our remembrance comes from CBS News' Steven Portnoy, host of the radio documentary, "Who Killed George Polk?"



You may have heard his name before, probably from the George Polk Awards, given out each year for courageous journalism. Polk was very likely killed because of what he was bravely reporting.

During a civil war in Greece in the late 1940s, Polk depicted the right-wing Greek government as corrupt. At the time, the U.S. had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up that government as it battled communist guerillas. Our reporter had reason to suspect the Greek authorities were hoarding that U.S. aid.

The legendary CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow called Polk a "34-year-old, tall, lean, blonde American, full of courage and an insatiable appetite for truth."

George Polk of CBS News, pictured in August 1946. / Credit: CBS via Getty Images

George Polk wanted to bring Americans the full story. He aimed to interview the leader of the Greek communists. A week later, Polk's body was pulled out of Salonika Bay, shot in the back of the head.

The Greek authorities tortured a suspected communist until he falsely confessed a role. He was sentenced to life in prison. But compounding that injustice, documents show U.S. officials conspired to suppress doubts about the man's innocence  a Cold War coverup.

Today, around the world, journalist killings and detentions are on the rise. The Committee to Protect Journalists says 67 media workers were killed last year alone.

Report: Deadly year for journalists as killings rose sharply in 2022 (CPJ)Data on 2022 killings of journalists and media workers

From Jamal Khashoggi to Austin Tice to Evan Gershkovich, reporters are increasingly being targeted because of the work they do for readers, viewers and listeners, just as Polk was targeted 75 years ago this month.

It's important that we not forget.

Stream the CBS News radio documentary "Who Killed George Polk?" here:



For more info:

More on the CBS News Radio documentary "Who Killed George Polk?"Follow Steven Portnoy on Twitter



Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: Emanuele Secci.

Austan Goolsbee says debt ceiling deal coming in the 11th hour is a "little dangerous"

GOP Rep. French Hill says debt ceiling deal "absolutely follows the goals of House Republicans"

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says he expects Democratic support for debt ceiling deal
The Facts

Know More

 Why was it important to write a book about the week of Chris Hani's death now?

Hanis assassination by a white supremacist on April 10 1993 set off a crisis on top of an ongoing polycrisis in South Africa. Mandela had been out after 27 years imprisonment for three years and the democracy talks were proceeding slowly. Four thousand people were dying every year due to political violence. In that week, Mandela and others had to show extraordinary leadership to frustrate the right wings attempts to spark a race war while calming down Black citizens angered by Hanis murder. At a time when people-centered, values-driven, leadership is in short supply across the globe, it is important to celebrate and remember Mandela and others display of such leadership. It is also a rebuke: remembering Hanis principles and Mandelas leadership in that week should remind leaders today just how low many of them have come.

 You seem to suggest this is the week when Nelson Mandela really became South Africas president, is that fair?

The triumph of democracy over apartheid in South Africa was never guaranteed. There was huge resistance, even by 1993, to the establishment of a truly non-racial democracy. In the week I chronicle, what became clear was that without Mandelas leadership and a Black governments ascendancy South Africa would implode. [Then President] FW de Klerks attempts to establish some kind of veto power over a new government crumbled. Mandela wrung out an election date and a transition agreement from him. White minority rule died that week. Mandela, and the people, won.

 What did you learn about Hani that you didn't know and perhaps how he could have made a difference to South Africa if he had lived?

A: From a young age, Hani used his voice to stand against injustice and abuse of power. It didnt matter where he was: as a young ANC soldier he stood against the ANC leaderships ill treatment of combatants, for example, while relentlessly fighting the apartheid system at the same time. Speaking truth to power is a bit of a cliche today, but in studying his life I was struck by just how much of that he did. Today, as South Africa falters in fulfilling his and Mandelas dream, we need as many Chris Hanis as possible to speak and speak again against misgovernance, corruption, and abandonment of the poor. I landed in South Africa this week as media reported 21 people had died of cholera in the area where I grew up. Chris Hani would have been appalled  and would have spoken up and done something about the corruption and negligence that led to those deaths.

Courtesy: Justice Malala

 Is the tension between South Africas born frees and those who were already of age under apartheid understandable or justifiable?

It is understandable, but most of the criticism of Mandela and the democracy negotiators is unjustified. Youth unemployment in South Africa is at abominable levels and it is the most unequal country in the world, according to the World Bank. South Africas leaders after 2009 have failed young people spectacularly. But this cannot be Mandela, Hani, or the 1994 settlements fault, as many frustrated young people allege. South Africas woes are because of the ANCs misgovernance of the last seventeen years. The Mandela generation gave us a transformative constitution. The post-1994 leadership chose to use the constitution to loot, instead of building a new ethos and a vibrant economy.

 Does todays South Africa understand its place in the world or in Africa?

No. The last time South Africa knew and could articulate its place in the world was in the mid-2000s when [former presidents] Thabo Mbeki and Nigerias Olusegun Obasanjo united large chunks of the continent around what was called the African Renaissance. This was a practical, purposeful, Africa-led and focused program of political and economic reforms that saw major victories being scored. The South Africa of today does not know what it stands for or what it wants to achieve. It dances when Vladimir Putin says so, and associates itself with dictators across the globe. Mandela and Hani are turning in their graves.

 Which writers inspire you to write books?

I recommend all books by JM Coetzee from the 1980s and 1990s for the beauty of the writing. I wish everyone could read , Jacob Dlaminis incredible book about the violence of the apartheid state. Its a classic.

 Where are you most at peace in South Africa?

The most peaceful and beautiful place in the world is a virtually unknown, hard-to-reach, wilderness retreat on a mountain top in Limpopo, South Africa. Leshiba Wilderness is wondrous, has been used by presidents to write and be alone, and I hate myself for even telling you about it.

 Springboks or Bafana Bafana?

Are you mad? I worked in Lagos in the early 2000s and the only time I really ever feel alive is when the two greatest football teams in the world, Ghana and Nigeria, face each other. Super Eagles forever. Bafana Bafana puts me to sleep.
Republicans are crowding the 2024 race. It boosts Trump, but may help the GOP in the end

South Carolina's Sen. Tim Scott announces his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination last week at Charleston Southern University in North Charleston, S.C. (Mic Smith / Associated Press)

The race for the Republican presidential nomination, once a two-man battle between former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is getting more crowded.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the Senates only Black Republican and a favorite of many GOP donors, declared his candidacy last week. A few nights later, DeSantis belatedly made his own candidacy official in a chaotic Twitter event. That brought the number of major candidates to six, and more may join soon.

Trump holds a commanding position in the polls, but he is attracting serious rivals who think he can be beaten. Over a yearlong campaign, plenty can change: Eight years ago, at this point in the 2016 contest, Trump was the favorite of only 4% of GOP voters.

The growing number of entrants is good news for the front-runner, who benefits from facing fragmented opposition as he did in 2016. But it's also good news for Republican voters, who are not only getting more candidates to choose from, but also more ideas about their partys post-Trump future  even though that may not arrive until 2028.

Are we going to continue to be a populist party as Trump has pushed, or are we going to move back to being a more conservative party? GOP strategist Alex Conant said of the primary.

To no ones surprise, Trump is offering four more years of the grievance-fueled politics that gave him his first term. He has promised supporters: For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.

As president, Trump broke with Republican doctrine on Social Security and Medicare, promising never to cut the benefits. On free trade, he declared himself a tariff man, and on foreign policy, he criticized traditional alliances and cozied up to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But he stuck with traditional GOP policies on other issues including lower taxes, even for the wealthy; lighter environmental and safety regulations on businesses; and tougher restrictions on abortion.

Trump's rivals have embraced most of his policies, but with variations that fall into three rough categories:

Trump 2.0: DeSantis has offered a hard-edged version of Trumpism that focuses on culture war issues, denouncing what he calls the woke mind virus.

He endorsed a state law banning abortion after six weeks, a measure Trump suggested was too harsh.

He has championed laws banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors and classroom instruction about sexual orientation.

And he has attacked the Walt Disney Co. over its political positions, a battle Trump derided as ill-advised.

Trump Light: Scott, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence (who hasnt formally announced) are promoting mostly Trumpian policies, too, but in a kinder, gentler tone.

Scott is the clearest example, calling for a return to the optimistic big-tent conservatism perfected by Ronald Reagan more than a generation ago.

Republicans must decide between grievance and greatness, the senator said in his announcement last week.

"We need a president who persuades not just our friends and our base," he said. "We have to have a compassion for people who don't agree with us.

Unlike Trump and DeSantis, Scott, Haley and Pence have all called for a strong U.S. commitment to NATO and Ukraine.

Trump Critics: Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and current New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu are this packs leading renegades. All three are thoroughgoing conservatives, but all have condemned Trumps attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Donald Trump has a moral responsibility for what happened on Jan. 6, said Hutchinson, the only one of the three who has announced his candidacy. Whenever you look at what he wants to do as president, its more about getting even with his political enemies than leading our country.

Christie has called Trump "a puppet of Putin."

All three appear way out of step with their partys voters, and they barely register in the polls. In a CBS News survey last month, 61% of Republican voters said they wanted a candidate who affirms their belief that Trump won in 2020.

But even if these renegades go nowhere in the polls, they could play a significant role in the election.

As DeSantis, Scott, Haley and Pence have hesitated to confront Trump directly even when it came to his readiness to violate the Constitution when he sought to overturn the 2020 election  theyve steered themselves into a Catch-22: They want to displace the former president as their partys leader, but they dont want to alienate his followers.

That leaves them arguing that they would make better nominees than Trump, but unable to explain precisely why  a hard way to make a sale.

Its the same dilemma the GOP faced in 2016, when a stage full of candidates hoped Trumps candidacy would fail without anyone pushing.

That wont happen. If the front-runner is to be taken down, someone will have to do it. Hutchinson, Christie and Sununu appear willing to try.

For that, they deserve a measure of admiration whether you agree with their views or not.

It will be a thankless mission with little prospect of success and a guarantee of abuse. But it may also be an event too rarely seen in a presidential campaign: a decision to put principle before ambition.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Pennsylvania and national Republicans are breathing easy after state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) surprised many by announcing that he will forego a run for Sen. Bob Caseys (D-Pa.) seat and support whomever the eventual nominee is.

Mastriano made the announcement after days of speculation that he would jump into the primary race and make life difficult for national Republicans. Last November, he lost to Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) by nearly 15 points in the gubernatorial race, which the GOP establishment viewed as proof that the hard-right lawmaker is not viable in a statewide general election.

One Pennsylvania-based GOP operative told The Hill that politicos in the state universally were pretty shocked by the decision.

But it will be considered good news for Republican leadership in the Senate. Many, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), blamed Trump-backed candidates who questioned or denied the results of the 2020 election for the partys losses in the midterms. And Mastriano was a leading voice advocating for overturning Trumps loss.

The anonymous Pennsylvania operative said Mastriano remaining on the sidelines was the best outcome for potential candidate-in-waiting David McCormick, who could be looking at a mostly clear path through the primary and into a general election against Casey, the three-term senator with one of the most famous political names in the commonwealths history.

It means everything, the operative said about the importance of Thursdays announcement for McCormick. Mastriano served it up on a silver platter by saying, I dont care who the candidate is.'

All eyes now shift to McCormick, who lost the Senate GOP primary narrowly to Mehmet Oz last year, as he continues to mull over a potential run for the seat.

McCormick for months has been doing everything a prospective candidate would be doing  meeting with county chairs and influential Pennsylvania GOP leaders, and keeping his name in the news with a book and an ongoing book tour. While Mastriano announced his plans Thursday night, McCormick was headlining a book event in Harrisburg, a Pennsylvania Republican source told The Hill.

The ex-Bridgewater Associates CEO has said that he remains undecided about a bid but he remains the focus of national Republicans. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has already indicated that he is prepared to back him, as has the Senate Leadership Fund, which is run by allies of McConnell.

However, multiple Pennsylvania GOP sources indicated that if McCormick does officially enter the fray, he does not plan on self-funding his campaign with anywhere close to the $14 million he spent on the primary last year against Oz.

Hes not going to spend what he spent last time, a second Pennsylvania-based GOP operative told The Hill, adding that he believes McCormick will have to raise $100 million in total to be competitive against Casey.

Rob Gleason, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, added that McCormick has met with a number of donors as part of his legwork for a second bid. Gleason supported McCormick last year and plans to do so again, arguing that McCormick is putting himself in a much better position this time around than he was last year.

Hes experienced now.  Hes spent a whole cycle running, developing relationships. Hes really understanding how to be successful statewide, Gleason told The Hill, noting that unlike last cycle, he will not be running against a fellow multimillionaire. Being educated about being a candidate makes you much stronger this time around.

If he runs, McCormick is expected to make an announcement in late summer or early fall, a source close to him said.

Until then, strategists believe McCormicks main job has to be coalescing Republican voters behind him, even if he does end up receiving a primary challenge. Included in that group are supporters of Mastriano, whose turnout could make-or-break his chances in a general election Casey.

The first Pennsylvania-based GOP operative said it was smart of McCormick to thank Mastriano specifically in the beginning of his statement reacting to the state senators announcement.

He needs to at least hold hands  with Mastriano to bring his supporters along with him to the general. They need to come out for McCormick, the operative said. There is no second option. There is no Plan B. There are no other candidates that can match up with Casey.

The operative added that Mastrianos decision will pay financial dividends for McCormick and speculated that he could be saving upwards of $15-20 million that could be used ahead of next November.

Every resource will be needed to take down Casey, the three-term senator who is widely viewed among Pennsylvania Republicans as a vanilla candidate and an extremely inoffensive and unproductive senator. However, many are clear-eyed about how difficult it will be to defeat him in a presidential year; he has handily fended off two reelection challenges, including in 2012 when he outperformed then-President Obama.

Its absolutely going to be a very, very difficult job to beat Casey with anybody, because hes more popular than people think, the second Pennsylvania-based GOP operative said. Theres not many people that dont like Bob Casey. Theres no reason to hate Casey.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
River Stour: Hundreds take to the water for clean river campaign

More than 350 people have taken part in a mass swim to support a campaign for bathing water status.

Wild swimmers are applying for the status for the River Stour in Manningtree, Essex, meaning water quality would be monitored.

A total of 369 took to the water on Saturday afternoon, including swimmers, children paddling and those on boats.

Helen Whitehead, who helped organise the event, said: "It goes to show how many people love and use the Stour."

"It's such a precious resource and we must keep it that way," she added.

The S.W.I.M (Safe Water in Manningtree) team has to count the number of people who use the water on 20 different days over the summer to prove it is a popular bathing spot.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs considers how many people bath there, whether the site has suitable facilities and where investment would have the most impact when making its decision.

Manningtree Beach is impacted by three sewer storm overflows which spill into the Stour, but only one has been monitored by Anglian Water since last April, which recorded eight sewage spills for 15.5 hours last year.

Catherine Arnold, from the S.W.I.M team, said: "People are absolutely fed up with our waterways being polluted and they want action to stop it. We'll keep going until we know we can swim and use the river safely."

If the application is successful, the Environment Agency will take regular samples during the bathing season to give swimmers a clearer picture and to assess whether action is needed.

Anna Helm Baxter, from the campaign, said: "Bathing designation helps the public make informed decisions about where to enjoy our inland waterways safely. It will help us hold polluters to account."

More than 400 coastal locations around the UK have been given the designation, but this only includes a handful of rivers. Only 14% of rivers are considered ecologically healthy in England, according to The Rivers Trust.

Sir Bernard Jenkin, MP for Harwich and North Essex, swam during the event and said he fully supported the campaign.

"I'll take the message back to the government. I've always enjoyed wild swimming and it is everyone's right to swim in clean water.

"Rivers should be as nature intended, not used as waste receptacles for our society," he said.

An Anglian Water spokesperson previously said: "We're already working alongside community groups on several rivers in our region who are keen to apply for bathing designations, to help them monitor local water quality and understand other factors which contribute to river health."

Follow East of England news on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Got a story? Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp on 0800 169 1830
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a recent interview that former President Donald Trumps allegations about crime purportedly soaring in the Sunshine State were "delusional."

"Floridas crime rate is at a 50-year low. Thats just a fact, and it hit a 50-year low during my administration," DeSantis said during an interview on "The Ben Shapiro Show" Friday. "Its hit a 50-year low while crime has been spiking in other places around the country."

"One of the main reasons families have moved to Florida since Ive been governor is because of public safety, because they know were a law-and-order state. So thats delusional to say that somehow Florida, you know, has bad crime," DeSantis continued. "You can see that in the migration patterns. People are leaving high crime areas, and theyre coming here. When the Floyd riots were going on in Minneapolis, I called out the National Guard in Florida immediately. I had state law enforcement deployed. We worked with our local partners. And we said very clearly, Youre not burning cities down here. Well put a stop to it if it happens. And sure enough, it didnt end up happening."

In a TRUTH Social post in March, Trump went after DeSantis on crime and COVID-19.

DESANTIS ARGUES ATTACKS BY TRUMP SHOW HE UNDERSTANDS IM THE CANDIDATE WHO CAN BEAT HIM'

Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov, Ron DeSantis are considered top candidates vying for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

"Remember, I left that decision up to the Governors! For COVID Death Rates Per State, Ron, as Governor of Florida, did worse than New York," Trump wrote on March 22. "In Education, Florida ranks among the worst in the Country and on crime statistics, Florida ranked Third Worst in Murder, Third Worst in Rape, and Third Worst in Aggravated Assault. For 2022, Jacksonville was ranked as one of the Top 25 Major Crime Cities in the Country, with Tampa and Orlando not doing much better"

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

DeSantis said Florida also enacted legislation to crack down on rioters with tougher penalties and prevent local governments from defunding the police.

By contrast, DeSantis noted that the Trump administration approved the First Step Act, or what he described as the "jailbreak bill." Trump signed the bipartisan criminal justice measure that expanded early release programs and modified sentencing laws in 2018 amid urging from his son-in-law Jared Kushner. But according to the New York Times, DeSantis and allies considered the bill a point of political weakness for Trump and have planned to center on the matter amid the 2024 GOP nomination fight.

RON DESANTIS SIGNS BILL CHANGING RESIGN-TO-RUN LAW, CLEARING ANY HURDLES FOR 2024 RACE

Ron DeSantis announced he would challenge former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination.

"It has allowed dangerous people out of prison who have now re-offended and really, really hurt a number of people," DeSantis told Shapiro on Friday. "So one of the things that I want to do as president is go to Congress and seek the repeal of the First Step Act. If you are in jail, you should serve your time, and the idea that theyre releasing people who have not been rehabilitated early so that they can prey on people in our society is a huge, huge mistake."

DeSantis also defended his own record on COVID-19, while ridiculing Trump for following the mandates recommended by Dr. Anthony Fauci.

"I think the fact that President Trump gave Anthony Fauci a presidential commendation on Trumps last day in office, that was gut punch to millions of people around this country who were harmed by the presidents lockdowns," DeSantis said.

"I think its interesting because hes been attacking me by moving left," DeSantis added, noting how Trump has been criticizing the Florida governor for opposing a congressional amnesty bill for illegal immigrants and voting against an omnibus spending package.

"I think its odd that hes doubling down on those positions because those were instances in which his actions did not match his campaign rhetoric," DeSantis said.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  When Ron DeSantis first ran for governor in 2018, waves of red tide, dead fish and even manatee carcasses were washing up on southwest Florida beaches. Elsewhere, guacamole-green toxic algae blotted the coastline, sending residents and tourists fleeing in disgust.

DeSantis took advantage of those optics. He hammered his Republican primary opponent for his ties to Florida's sugar industry, which is often blamed for South Florida's water quality woes. DeSantis also called on Republicans to take a stronger stance on conservation, saying the party has a great opportunity to really claim this as our mantle.

And it worked. DeSantis won the primary and election, in part by riding the tide of environmentalism in Florida.

But four years later and after officially launching a presidential bid, environmentalists and others offer praise and disappointment  sometimes simultaneously.

Hes proposed billions of dollars to restore waterways and state treasures like the Everglades but has also pushed legislation banning local environmental regulations. He famously rejects climate change while championing spending to address the effects of sea level rise. And he's signed a long list of bills championed by developers and industry.

Jane West, policy and planning director at 1000 Friends of Florida, called DeSantis' record on the environment "confusing  and hypocritical."

"You can't just concisely say it is terrible or it's great," West said. "It's more nuanced than that. And I think that was probably done on purpose."

Florida has a rich environmental and conservation history in part because it grew so rapidly after World War II, from a backwater swamp to a gleaming state of beachfront towers, theme parks and sprawling neighborhoods and farm fields. The state has more than 825 miles of beaches and dozens of state and national parks that draw millions of tourists each year, fueling Floridas reputation as one of the countrys top tourist destinations.



DeSantis is well aware of the important role that conservation plays in Florida. He often describes his conservation initiatives in economic terms: Backing the Mom-n-Pop restaurants, bait shops and boat captains that support the broader tourism industry, which brings in billions of dollars to the state.

A day after he officially entered the presidential race, he told conservative radio host Erick Erickson that I want to conserve Florida, leave it to God better than we found it.

"What I care about is the environment people enjoy," DeSantis said.

In the same interview, he said electric vehicles make Americans dependent on Chinese manufacturing and noted that he pressed Florida Republicans to pass tax breaks for people who buy gas stoves  a product thats become a culture war issue.

One of DeSantis big supporters is the Everglades Foundation, a 30-year-old nonprofit that focuses on protecting the Everglades. The organization often praises DeSantis for focusing on Everglades restoration and shirking off the sugar industry's outsized political influence.

Everglades Foundation CEO Eric Eikenberg has called DeSantis a "true champion" on the environment and said that "dollars matter" when it comes to infrastructure, including Everglades restoration. This year, the Republican-led Legislature allocated more than $624 million for Everglades restoration.

"A governor has a tremendous bully pulpit on a variety of issues," Eikenberg said in an interview. "He came into office and actually on day one  on the inauguration itself  he made it very clear this was going to be a priority."

Yet other groups are much more critical of the governor.

Sierra Club Florida last year gave DeSantis a D-minus grade on the environment, citing various legislation that authorized toll roads through 330 miles of undeveloped land, blocked local cities from adopting clean energy goals in new construction and other measures.

The day DeSantis announced his presidential bid, Sierra Club Floridas director, Emily Gorman, accused DeSantis of mismanagement and failing to address the causes of climate change, among other environmental harms.



Rather than prioritizing the wellbeing of our people and environment, the governor and his administration have focused on culture war signaling and spending taxpayer dollars on political stunts that harm real people, she said in a statement.

The governor's office on Friday did not respond to a request for comment.

While calling himself a "Teddy Roosevelt Republican" during his 2018 campaign for governor, DeSantis has consistently rejected taking action on climate change, labeling it as left-wing stuff.

"I can't control the climate," DeSantis told Erickson this week. "I'm not doing mandates on any of that.

But at the same time, hes helped allocate hundreds of millions of dollars to help cities and municipalities begin mitigating flooding and rising sea levels.

And DeSantis won cheers from environmentalists last year when he vetoed a trio of bills that threatened Everglades restoration, local environmental regulation and rooftop solar energy  irking the states powerful Florida Power & Light Co. in the process since it had fought against paying for residential solar.

One benchmark is DeSantis predecessor, Rick Scott. Republican and Democratic governors alike pushed for growth management controls and increased land purchases to buffer beaches, lakes and rivers from encroaching development. But that changed when Scott was elected in 2010 on a promise of creating jobs and dismantling the state's growth management agency.

Scott appointed sugar industry supporters to the South Florida Water Management District Board and balked at supporting the Everglades reservoir until he secured money for strengthening the Lake Okeechobee dike, which was a priority for agricultural communities around the lake. DeSantis cleaned house at the water management district, appointed a new board and made the reservoir a priority.

"If you just look at a whole host of environmental issues across the board, he doesn't have a great environmental record," Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, said of DeSantis. "And again, relative to Rick Scott when DeSantis came in, even most environmentalists who don't think DeSantis is great would give him higher marks than Rick."
Here's a roundup of recent incidents and announcements from Ventura County agencies:

Theft ring allegedly targeted high-end cars

Weapons and cash seized by Ventura County Sheriff's detectives on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, as part of a regional investigation into thefts of high-end cars.

Ventura County Sheriffs detectives were part of a multiagency investigation that lead to arrests of nine suspects who allegedly stole high-end cars as part of a sophisticated operation, authorities said.

The ring targeted Dodge Hellcat-equipped vehicles, each estimated to be worth $90,000 or more. In Ventura County, 16 Hellcat vehicles have been stolen since November, with 10 since recovered, officials said.

Detectives with the sheriffs Thousand Oaks unit worked with authorities in San Bernardino County, where similar thefts have occurred. One suspect was a target of both agencies.

On Wednesday, authorities served search warrants at 18 Southern California locations, including in Los Angeles and in San Bernardino and Kern counties. Nine suspects were arrested, including four Los Angeles residents arrested by Ventura County detectives.

Authorities also seized evidence including 28 suspected stolen vehicles, fraudulent registration and smog certifications for stolen vehicles, more than $100,000 cash, four handguns, a rifle and high-capacity magazines.

The ongoing investigation remains active. Anyone with information is asked to contact Deputy Mike Loth 805-797-7134.

Fairgrounds burglary suspect pleads guilty

Alexander Piceno

One of four men accused of taking part in the theft of about $570,020 from the Ventura County Fairgrounds in August has pleaded guilty.

Alexander Piceno, 28, changed his plea Thursday in Ventura County Superior Court. The Baldwin Park resident had previously pleaded not guilty in March to charges including burglary, theft of public money and conspiracy.

Prosecutors previously said Piceno was employed by a company that contracted with the fairgrounds and alleged he conspired with the other suspects by unlocking a door to a fair building and helping unlock a safe so two of the men could take the money. The fourth man allegedly served as a lookout and driver.

The early-morning burglary took place during the heart of the 12-day fair at the seaside grounds in Ventura.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Marc Leventhal, who is prosecuting the case, said Friday there was little he could share about the plea agreement. Piceno pleaded guilty to three of the four charged counts, he said.

A grand theft charge will be dismissed when Piceno is sentenced next month.

The other three defendants have all pleaded not guilty to various felony charges: Carlos Alberto Aranda, 44, of Los Angeles, Rafael Morales, 56, of La Puente and Jesus Rios, 56, of El Monte. A preliminary examination for the three will continue in court on Tuesday.

Piceno will be sentenced to three years in state prison, Leventhal said, adding that prosecutors had sought a longer term. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on June 28 in courtroom 23.

Items may be upated.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Roundup: Theft ring allegedly targeted high-end cars, more news
Russia claims UAVs tried to attack oil refinery in Kuban

Russian authorities have reported that several unmanned aerial vehicles attempted to approach the territory of the Ilsky Oil Refinery in the country's Krasnodar Krai.

Source: Kremlin-aligned news agency TASS; Telegram news outlet Baza

The drones were reportedly destroyed, and the plant's infrastructure was not damaged.

The media reports that some of the UAVs wreckage fell on the plant's territory.

Background: On 27 May, two kamikaze drones attacked an oil refinery in the village of Yerokhino in Russia's Tver Oblast, damaging the roof and walls and breaking windows.

Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!
FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2016 file photo, Iranian drone Shahed-129 is displayed at a rally in Tehran, Iran. The White House on Monday, May 15, 2023, said that Russia is looking to buy additional advanced attack drones from Iran for use in the Kremlin's war in Ukraine after using up most of the 400 drones it had previously purchased from Tehran. Iran also continues to provide Russia with one-way attack UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). Since August, Iran has provided Russia with more than 400 UAVs primarily of the Shahed variety, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP)  Ukraine's capital was subjected to the largest drone attack since the start of Russia's war, local officials said, as Kyiv prepared to mark the anniversary of its founding on Sunday. At least one person was killed, but officials said scores of drones were shot down, demonstrating Ukraine's air defense capability.

Russia launched the most massive attack on the city overnight Saturday with Iranian-made Shahed drones, said Serhii Popko, a senior Kyiv military official. The attack lasted more than five hours, with air defense reportedly shooting down more than 40 drones.

A 41-year-old man was killed and a 35-year-old woman was hospitalized when debris fell on a seven-story nonresidential building and started a fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Debris from a drone damaged the building of the Ukrainian Society of the Blind. On Sunday morning, organization member Volodymyr Golubenko came to pick up his things. He was helped by his son Mykola, who searched for his fathers belongings among the rubble and at the same time tried to describe to his father what his office looks like now.

This wall on the right is destroyed and on left also, said Mykola to his father.

Volodymyr Golubenko worked at this place for more than 40 years. He says it is a home for many blind people, because they come here to talk and support each other.

If you dont even have a job, its difficult to get a job now, because these events (war) have been going on since last year. At least people come here to chat," said Volodymyr.

Like Golubenko, many people in his district heard the sound of Shahed drones for the first time. Among them was 36-year-old Yana, who has three boys. The family hid in a corridor all night.

Something started to explode above us. The children ran here in fear," said Yana.

Ukraines air force said that Saturday night was also record-breaking in terms of Shahed drone attacks across the country. Of the 54 drones launched, 52 were shot down by air defense systems.

Russia has repeatedly launched waves of drone attacks against Ukraine, but most are shot down. Ukraine has also claimed this month to have downed some of Russia's hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has touted as providing a key competitive advantage.

In the northeastern Kharkiv province, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said a 61-year-old woman and a 60-year-old man were killed in two separate shelling attacks.

Kyiv Day marks the anniversary of the city's official founding. The day is usually celebrated with live concerts, street fairs, exhibitions and fireworks. Scaled-back festivities were planned for this year, the citys 1,541st anniversary.

The timing of the drone attacks was likely not coincidental, Ukrainian officials said.

The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians, Ukraine's chief presidential aide, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram.

Today, the enemy decided to congratulate the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), Popko also wrote on the messaging app.

Local officials in Russias southern Krasnodar region said that air defense systems destroyed several drones as they approached the Ilsky oil refinery.

Russias southern Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, also came under attack from Ukrainian forces on Saturday, local officials said. Regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported Sunday that a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy were wounded in the shelling.

Drone attacks against Russian border regions have been a regular occurrence since the start of the invasion in February 2022, with attacks increasing last month. Earlier this month, an oil refinery in Krasnodar was attacked by drones on two straight days.

Ukrainian air defenses, bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied systems, have been adept at thwarting Russian air attacks  both drones and aircraft missiles.

Earlier in May, Ukraine prevented an intense Russian air attack on Kyiv, shooting down all missiles aimed at the capital. The bombardment, which additionally targeted locations across Ukraine, included six Russian Kinzhal aero-ballistic hypersonic missiles, repeatedly touted by Russian President Vladimir Putin as providing a key strategic competitive advantage and among the most advanced weapons in his countrys arsenal.

Sophisticated Western air defense systems, including American-made Patriot missiles, have helped spare Kyiv from the kind of destruction witnessed along the main front line in Ukraine's east and south. While most of the ground fighting is stalemated along that front line, both sides are targeting other territory with long-range weapons.

Against the backdrop of Saturday nights drone attacks, Russia's ambassador to the U.K., Andrei Kelin, warned of an escalation in Ukraine. He told the BBC on Sunday his country had enormous resources and it was yet to act very seriously, cautioning that Western supplies of weapons to Ukraine risked escalating the war to a new dimension. The length of the conflict, he said, depends on the efforts in escalation of war that is being undertaken by NATO countries, especially by the U.K.

Kelins comments are typical of Russian officials rhetoric with regard to Moscow's military might, but contradict regular reports from the battlefield of Russian troops being poorly equipped and trained.

Also on Sunday, the death toll from Fridays missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional capital of the Dnipropetrovsk province, rose to four. Regional. Gov. Serhii Lysak said that three people who were considered missing were confirmed dead. There were 32 people, including two children, wounded in the attack, which struck a building containing psychology and veterinary clinics.

___

Elise Morton reported from London.

___

Follow the APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Russian attack on medical facility in Dnipro: death toll rises to four

Three people who were reported missing after the Russian attack on a hospital in the city of Dnipro have been found killed, Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration, has said.

Source: Lysak on Telegram

Quote from Lysak: "The three people who went missing during the missile attack on Dnipro have been found. Unfortunately, they have been killed. We have the results of the examination of body parts found at the scene of the tragedy.

Overall, the attack claimed the lives of four people."

Details: The official specified that after examining the body fragments, the deceased were identified as a 56-year-old doctor and a 64-year-old employee of the ruined medical facility, as well as a 57-year-old employee of a neighbouring veterinary clinic.

Background: On 26 May, Russian forces launched a Geneva Convention-banned missile attack on an outpatient clinic and veterinary clinic in the city of Dnipro, killing at least two people.

Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!
Russian state media calling for unpaid 6th day of work to fund Ukraine invasion, Western intel says

A Russian propagandist said citizens should work two extra hours after their regular shifts, according to intelligence from the Ministry of Defense. NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP via Getty Images

Russian state media and businesses are petitioning for a 6-day work week to fund war in Ukraine.

The extra work day would likely come without additional pay, according to UK intelligence.

Multiple 4-day work week trials in the UK and Spain have reported positive results for employees.

Russian state media and some Kremlin-linked businesses are proposing a six-day work week in order to fund Russia's war in Ukraine  without additional pay.

According to an intelligence update from the UK Ministry of Defence, the state-backed media and business groups "have petitioned the Economic Ministry to authorize a six-day week for workers in the face of the economic demands of the war, apparently without additional pay."

The intel didn't say which groups were proposing the change or whether or not it would be approved.

The ministry also cited Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of state media broadcaster RT and a prominent Russian propagandist, who said last week that citizens should clock into munition production factories for two hours each day after their regular jobs.

The additional work day is marking a shift towards "mandating citizens to actively make sacrifices in support of the war effort." The ministry suggested that this reflects a "Soviet-style sense of societal compulsion" and also creates a broader tone around the war as a communal Russian effort that all citizens are involved in.

Other countries, such as the UK and Spain, have recently experimented with 4-day work weeks and found positive results for workers. Employees reported that while the extra day off was an adjustment, it improved their mental health, eased stress levels, and made returning to work easier.

This move comes as Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin warn of a potential revolution as Russian elite families refuse to send their children to die in Ukraine.

Last week, Prigozhin went on a profane rant hitting Russian President Vladimir Putin for how the "fat, carefree" lives of Russia's wealthy could spark a "revolution" similar to the Russian Revolution of 1917, leading working-class citizens to storm the elite's "villas" with "pitchforks."

"The children of the elite smear themselves with creams and show off on the internet, while ordinary people's children come home in zinc [coffins], torn to pieces," he said. "I recommend that the elite of the Russian Federation gathers up, bitch, its youth and send them to war."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Scientists have discovered over 5,000 new species in the Pacific Ocean, from sea cucumbers to 'gummy squirrels'  check them out

A large "gummy squirrel" in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. ROV Isis, SMARTEX project, Natural Environment Research Council, UK, via the Natural History Museum

Scientists have discovered thousands of new species in an area of the Pacific Ocean.

They found 5,578 species in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a 1.7 million square mile region.

88% to 92% of the creatures that they discovered were "new to science," they said.

Scientists researching an untouched area of the Pacific Ocean have discovered over 5,000 new species, according to research published in the journal Current Biology.

Of the 5,578 new species discovered, around 88% to 92% were "new to science," the report says.

The new species were found in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), an area of the ocean floor between Hawaii and Mexico that spans 1.7 million square miles. The area, which is rich in minerals, has been identified as a target zone for future mining, and scientists have set out to research the area's ecosystem before such mining begins.

Dr. Adrian Glover, a researcher at London's Natural History Museum and a co-author of the study, said, "It is imperative that we work with the companies looking to mine these resources to ensure any such activity is done in a way that limits its impact upon the natural world."

According to the report, the CCZ was first explored in the 1960s, while informal lists of species were created from the late 1970s to the 1990s.

A squat lobster discovered in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. SMARTEX project, Natural Environment Research Council, UK, via the Natural History Museum

"In a way, I am surprised about how little we actually know," said Muriel Rabone, a deep-sea researcher at the Natural History Museum and the lead author of the study.

"Considering we have been visiting the CCZ since the 1960s, and it is actually the best-known abyssal region, yet we still know only 10% of species-level diversity," she added.

An array of crustaceans found in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. SMARTEX project, Natural Environment Research Council, UK, via the Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum says that the CCZ is home to a wide variety of species, including sea cucumbers, sponges, crustaceans, worms, "and even the odd fish." One of the incredible discoveries in the region earned nicknamed the "gummy squirrel" due to its jelly-like appearance, Glover told The Guardian.

A discovery in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. ROV Isis, SMARTEX project, Natural Environment Research Council, UK, via the Natural History Museum

Nineteen contracts have so far been awarded to deep-sea mining contractors to explore the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, according to the International Seabed Authority.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Secession is here: States, cities and the wealthy are already withdrawing from America

Acts of secession are happening across the U.S. Vector Illustration/Getty Images

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, wants a national divorce. In her view, another Civil War is inevitable unless red and blue states form separate countries.

She has plenty of company on the right, where a host of others  52% of Trump voters, Donald Trump himself and prominent Texas Republicans  have endorsed various forms of secession in recent years. Roughly 40% of Biden voters have fantasized about a national divorce as well. Some on the left urge a domestic breakup so that a new egalitarian nation might be, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg, brought forth on this continent.

The American Civil War was a national trauma precipitated by the secession of 11 Southern states over slavery. It is, therefore, understandable that many pundits and commentators would weigh in about the legality, feasibility and wisdom of secession when others clamor for divorce.

But all this secession talk misses a key point that every troubled couple knows. Just as there are ways to withdraw from a marriage before any formal divorce, there are also ways to exit a nation before officially seceding.

I have studied secession for 20 years, and I think that it is not just a what if? scenario anymore. In We Are Not One People: Secession and Separatism in American Politics Since 1776, my co-author and I go beyond narrow discussions of secession and the Civil War to frame secession as an extreme end point on a scale that includes various acts of exit that have already taken place across the U.S.

GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wants red and blue states to separate. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Scaled secession

This scale begins with smaller, targeted exits, like a person getting out of jury duty, and progresses to include the larger ways that communities refuse to comply with state and federal authorities.

Such refusals could involve legal maneuvers like interposition, in which a community delays or constrains the enforcement of a law it opposes, or nullification, in which a community explicitly declares a law to be null and void within its borders. At the end of the scale, theres secession.

From this wider perspective, it is clear that many acts of departure  call them secession lite, de facto secession or soft separatism  are occurring right now. Americans have responded to increasing polarization by exploring the gradations between soft separatism and hard secession.

These escalating exits make sense in a polarized nation whose citizens are sorting themselves into like-minded neighbhorhoods. When compromise is elusive and coexistence is unpleasant, citizens have three options to get their way: Defeat the other side, eliminate the other side or get away from the other side.

Imagine a national law; it could be a mandate that citizens brush their teeth twice a day or a statute criminalizing texting while driving. Then imagine that a special group of people did not have to obey that law.

This quasi-secession can be achieved in several ways. Maybe this special group moves off the grid into the boondocks where they could text and drive without fear of oversight. Maybe this special group wields political power and can buy, bribe or lawyer their way out of any legal jam. Maybe this special group has persuaded a powerful authority, say Congress or the Supreme Court, to grant them unique legal exemptions.

These are hypothetical scenarios, but not imaginary ones. When groups exit public life and its civic duties and burdens, when they live under their own sets of rules, when they do not have to live with fellow citizens they have not chosen or listen to authorities they do not like, they have already seceded.

Schools to taxes

Present-day America offers numerous hard examples of soft separatism.

Over the past two decades, scores of wealthy white communities have separated from more diverse school districts. Advocates cite local control to justify these acts of school secession. But the result is the creation of parallel school districts, both relatively homogeneous but vastly different in racial makeup and economic background.

Several prominent district exits have occurred in the South  places like St. George, Louisiana  but instances from northern Maine to Southern California show that school splintering is happening nationwide.

As one reporter wrote, If you didnt want to attend school with certain people in your district, you just needed to find a way to put a district line between you and them.

Many other examples of legalized separatism revolve around taxes. Disney World, for example, was classified as a special tax district in Florida in 1967. These special districts are functionally separate local governments and can provide public services and build and maintain their own infrastructure.

The company has saved millions by avoiding typical zoning, permitting and inspection processes for decades, although Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has recently challenged Disneys special designation. Disney was only one of 1,800 special tax districts in Florida; there are over 35,000 in the nation.

Jeff Bezos paid no federal income taxes in 2011. Elon Musk paid almost none in 2018. Tales of wealthy individuals avoiding taxes are as common as stories of rich Americans buying their way out of jail. Wealthier Americans, Robert Reich lamented as far back as the early 1990s, have been withdrawing into their own neighborhoods and clubs for generations. Reich worried that a new secession allowed the rich to inhabit a different economy from other Americans.

Some of the nations wealthiest citizens pay an effective tax rate close to zero. As one investigative reporter put it, the ultrawealthy sidestep the system in an entirely legal way.

Spectators applaud after the Buckingham County Board of Supervisors unanimously votes to pass a Second Amendment sanctuary resolution at a meeting in Buckingham, Va., Dec. 9, 2019. AP Photo/Steve Helber

One nation, divisible

Schools and taxes are just a start.

Eleven states dub themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries and refuse to enforce federal gun restrictions. Movements aiming to carve off rural, more politically conservative portions of blue states are growing; 11 counties in Eastern Oregon support seceding and reclassifying themselves as Greater Idaho, a move that Idahos state government supports.

Hoping to become a separate state independent of Chicagos political influence, over two dozen rural Illinois counties have passed pro-secession referendums. Some Texas Republicans back Texit, where the state becomes an independent nation.

Separatist ideas come from the Left, too.

Cal-exit, a plan for California to leave the union after 2016, was the most acute recent attempt at secession.

And separatist acts have reshaped life and law in many states. Since 2012, 21 states have legalized marijuana, which is federally illegal. Sanctuary cities and states have emerged since 2016 to combat aggressive federal immigration laws and policies. Some prosecutors and judges refuse to prosecute women and medical providers for newly illegal abortions in some states.

Estimates vary, but some Americans are increasingly opting out of hypermodern, hyperpolarized life entirely. Intentional communities, rural, sustainable, cooperative communes like East Wind in the Ozarks, are, as The New York Times reported in 2020, proliferating across the country.

In many ways, America is already broken apart. When secession is portrayed in its strictest sense, as a group of people declaring independence and taking a portion of a nation as they depart, the discussion is myopic, and current acts of exit hide in plain sight. When it comes to secession, the question is not just What if? but What now?

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. Like this article? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

It was written by: Michael J. Lee, College of Charleston.

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Michael J. Lee 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.
Senator Dianne Feinstein has full-time aides to help her when she gets confused, report says

A New York Times report has amplified questions about the refusal of Democratic US Senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, to step down from office  claiming the Californian politician relies heavily on aides and at times seems uncertain of where she is or what is happening.

They push her wheelchair, remind her how and when she should vote and step in to explain what is happening when she grows confused, congressional correspondent Annie Karni wrote in a New York Times article published on Sunday. They stay with her in the cloak room just off the Senate floor, where Ms. Feinstein has taken to waiting her turn to vote, then appearing in the doorway to register her aye or nay from the outer edge of the chamber.

In an example of how Ms Feinstein has occasionally expressed confusion about the basics of how the Senate functions, the piece continued: When Vice President Kamala Harris was presiding over the chamber last year in one of many instances in which she was called upon to cast a tiebreaking vote, Ms. Feinstein expressed confusion, according to a person who witnessed the scene, asking her colleagues, What is she doing here? Staff members have been overheard explaining to her that she cannot leave yet because there are more votes to come.

The trailblazing senator, who first took her seat in 1992 and established a reputation for having one of the most efficient offices in Congress, announced in February that she would not seek re-election in 2024 but would finish out the remainder of her term.

In that intervening time, she promised to do as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends.

Each of us was sent here to solve problems, she said. Thats what I have done for the last 30 years, and thats what I plan to do for the next two years.

That time, however, has been plagued by frail health and memory problems.

Earlier this month, the senator returned to work in a wheelchair following a two-month-long absence to recover from shingles which sparked encephalitis and Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which causes facial paralysis. Her refusal to step down has engendered significant and heated debate touching on everything from partisanship to ageism and sexism.

Senate Feinstein returned to work following a two-month absence (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Since returning to Washington, Ms. Feinstein has missed six votes and has not participated in any committee hearings or caucus lunches, the New York Times reported. Still, there is a sense among her staff members that the office needs to keep functioning. And the reality of the Senate is that, even with a senator sidelined, an office can run in a fairly normal fashion.

Those who work with the senator defended her and emphasised her stubborness.

All senators rely heavily on staff to do the job, particularly a senator who represents 40 million people, the senators chief of staff, James Sauls, told the paper. While staff advise her, she ultimately is the one who makes the decision about how to best take action for the people of California.

The New York Times report, however, sparked a flurry of continued dialogue on social media on Sunday.

If she steps down the GOP senators wont allow the Dems to replace her on the judiciary committee, wrote Twitter user @Carybees1. So no other judges will be confirmed. Hope she stays on the committee until her term ends.

Conversely, one southern California constituent tweeted about her reluctant belief the senator should resign.

She has to retire today, and I say that as someone who voted for her every time, @housesandme tweeted. And who deeply admires her service all the way back to San Francisco and how she stepped up.

A spokesman for Senator Feinstein told The Independent on Sunday that her office would not be making additional comment.
One of Russian Shahed attack drones was shot down over the water area of the Kyiv Reservoir during Russias large-scale attack on the night of 28 May.

Source: press service of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook

Quote: "On 28 May, during the missile threat, one of the artillery boats of the river flotilla of the [Ukrainian  ed.] Navy detected a UAV flying over the water area of the Kyiv Reservoir.

The decisive and confident actions of the personnel of the artillery boat destroyed a Shahed-136."

Background:

On the night of 27-28 May, an air-raid warning was issued in Kyiv and a number of Ukraines oblasts. It lasted for more than five hours in the countrys capital. The air defence systems worked intensively, and Kyiv residents were kept awake by explosions.

The Kyiv City Military Administration reported that preliminary information indicates that on the night of 28 May, more than 40 Russian UAVs were destroyed. At least one person was killed and one injured in the Ukrainian capital due to the falling debris. There is damage and destruction in the city.

On the night of 27-28 May, Russia launched the largest-scale Iranian-made kamikaze drone attack on Ukraine so far; Russian forces fired 54 loitering munitions, and Ukraine's air defence forces destroyed 52 of them.

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Shahed drones, ammunition, and UA Flight 752  Ukraine wants to sanction Iran for 50 years

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

The draft is being considered by the Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence.

The proposal is to approve the decision of the RNBO of May 27, 2023 "On the application of sectoral special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions) against the Islamic Republic of Iran, enacted by Presidential Decree No. 308/2023 of May 27, 2023."

Read also: Russia attacked Kyiv with drones from both north and south in massive attack

Iran has supplied Russia with over 300,000 artillery rounds and about a million bullets with the help of cargo ships in the past six months, as it was reported in April.

Iranian officials has consistently and categorically denied that Teheran supplies Russia with Shahed-136/131 suicide drones, though Russia continues to fire the Iranian-made drones at Ukraine, including a record amount on May 28.

Iran has also taken responsibility for its military shooting down Ukrainian International Airlines flight 752 in 2020, killing all 176 passengers and crew on board.

The Government of Ukraine submitted on May 25 proposals to RNBO to impose sectoral sanctions against Iran for 50 years.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy introduced a new sanctions package against the aggressor country of Russia during his evening address of May 27.

Read also: Iran will help Russia avoid sanctions, Western analysts warn

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
A Sharon couple is celebrating a major milestone.

Sonny and Charlotte Freedman are celebrating their 75 wedding anniversary, they got married on May 26, 1948.

Sonny is a WWII veteran who just turned 99 last week, and Charlotte is 94. The love birds live together in Sharon and have lived there since 1955.

The couple has raised their three children in Sharon and have 7 grandkids and 7 great-grandkids.

The couple shared the story of how they met to Boston 25. Charlotte is from Malden and Sonny is from Roxbury. Charlotte, who is an identical twin, happened to be friends with Sonnys younger sisters, who are also a set of twins. One day Charlotte went over to her friends house and said she was immediately smitten with their handsome older brother (Sonny).

Shes always right: Sharon couple celebrates 75 years of marriage

The couple are very active members of the local community throughout the years and have even worked in the schools later on after their retirement just to be able to see more of their grandkids during the week!

She is what kept me alive all these years, Sonny said.

When asked what is the secret to being married 75 years, Charlotte said You have to respect one another, and you never go to bed mad.

Do whatever she wants to do, shes always right, Sonny answered.

The couple celebrated the major milestone in Sharon on Saturday afternoon surrounded by friends and family.

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A 26-year-old Wichita man is the fourth person to be arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder in what started as an early morning robbery in April, according to court records and a Saturday arrest report.

Joseph Edward Fiedler was arrested Friday at a west Wichita apartment in connection to the April 29 killing of 36-year-old Christian A. Santiago of Wichita. Santiago was found shot dead outside of a Toyota Rav 4 parked on the curb in the 2800 block of East Stadium. He had been shot multiple times in the chest and stomach.

A handgun was found on the passenger floorboard of the SUV. Santiago had a digital scale and a plastic container with a crystal-like substance in his pocket, according to an arrest affidavit.

First-degree murder charges have already been filed against 48-year-old Jorge Romero, 47-year-old Adonis Christopher Andrews and 41-year-old Shaun Micah OBrien in connection to Santiagos death. An arrest affidavit in the case shows how those three, either through text messages or by their own statements, allegedly planned the robbery of a female drug dealer, but it doesnt definitively tell the role Fiedler played in the killing.

Santiago went with the female to the home before he was shot.

She was severely beaten and robbed.

She had a broken jaw, traumatic brain injury, and a hematoma on her forehead, the affidavit says. What all was stolen from her was unclear. The affidavit mentions a bag being stolen from her or the vehicle she drove. A duffle bag was found in one of the suspects homes with 3-5 pounds of methamphetamine.

Fiedlers role in the killing will be better known if he is charged and an affidavit is released in the case. Fiedlers involvement in the case is obscured by the fact that the current affidavit has multiple names redacted.

He has previous convictions from 2018 and 2019 in Sedgwick County of aggravated weapons violations, forgery, theft, burglary and criminal possession of non-firearm weapon by a felon, according to Kansas Department of Corrections records. Additionally, he was also charged in March for criminal possession of a firearm, court records show.

Contradicting accounts by the people involved make it unclear if anyone else will be arrested.

The female who was beaten told police that OBriens girlfriend pointed a gun at her and demanded money, but the girlfriend has a different account.

Police would not say Saturday if they expect any more arrests.

Here is what the affidavit says about what happened:

Planning a robbery

There were seven people in the house, while Santiago was outside, before the shooting outside.

Three of the people who were in the home have been charged. The other four include OBriens girlfriend and three people whose names are redacted, including the female who later told police she sold methamphetamine.

Text messages from OBriens phone show he texted Romero an address just around 12:30 a.m. on April 28. It appears that April 28 is a typo by police since the incident happened on April 29.

Additionally, the last three numbers of the address are redacted. The first number is a 2 and the rest of the address is E. Stadium. The shooting happened in 2800 block of East Stadium where OBrien and his girlfriend live.

OBrien also texted: She has a lot of (stuff) on her G.

Romero tells him to stall. And OBrien replies: I was going to lay her down and take everything but I wanted to wait for u I want u to get some of the blessings.

Romero says back: Then keep her tied.

OBrien replies: Yeah Im going to do that as soon as I get her out of the car shes in there knocked G lol out cold.

Romero says he will be there in 15 minutes.

Andrews also texted OBrien that we on the way. OBrien says that she is about to be there any minute and they will split everything in thirds.

The last message prior to the shooting was sent by OBrien at 12:46 a.m., the affidavit says.

She just tried to run me over G in her car (I dont know) where she is going and regardless I got something real nice for u G u gonna like it.

Its unclear what happened next. The shooting wasnt reported for another three hours.

Its also not clear if anyone was still at the home when police arrived.

One male, who is only identified as person 4 in the affidavit, said they all left the residence because they were scared.

Accounts of what happened

A couple of days after the incident, the female who had been robbed and beaten was interviewed by police. She said she took Santiago to unknown location before the robbery and shooting, the affidavit says.

The woman said she sold methamphetamine and that OBrien and that person 4 were known to rob people.

She had a pink K-State purse, wallet and phone that she no longer has, the affidavit says. She didnt remember being beaten, but recalled OBriens girlfriend pointing a gun at her demanding money.

OBriens girlfriend told police that the female was standing next to the dresser when Romero came up from behind and put a pistol to her head. The suspect had on a black bandanna over the bottom part of his face and a hoodie, but she still knew it was him, especially because of a tattoo next to his eye.

Romero grabbed her, pushed her to the ground, and stomped on her head.

Another man, who she knew to be Andrews despite a bandanna on the bottom of his face, came and grabbed the females purse and a bag off the floor. She told police she heard the gunshots outside after Andrews left the home but while Romero was still inside.

OBrien also said Andrews took the females bag.

Person 4 said he and one other person were on the living room couch when two masked men busted into the house with guns and told them not to move.

They went to the back bedroom where OBrien, his girlfriend and the female were.

He heard (a) scream and then a thud, the affidavit says. The men left the residence. One of the males was carrying (the females) pink purse.

He followed and saw one of the suspects shoot Santiago.

The man said: You been here the whole time? and then fired five or six shots into the drivers side vehicle, person 4 told police. The suspect ran off with a ruffle bag that he thought came from the SUV.

Multiple gunshots were in the front drivers window, the affidavit says.

Santiago opened the door, fell out and said help, he said.

Person 4 said they all left the residence because they were scared, according to the affidavit.

The female who was beaten and robbed then ran to a neighbor around the corner and had him call 911. She said she and the person she was with were robbed and then the person was killed.

Finding a bag of drugs

Andrews was later arrested at his home. He had on him a black bandanna. There were spots on it that tested positive as blood.

Inside his home, police found a handgun with an extended magazine and a duffle bag with 3-5 pounds of methamphetamine. A paycheck with his name on it was found in one of the pouches on the bag.

Andrews told investigators the bag and drugs belonged to someone else who lived at the home.

Andrews denied being at the home when the robbery and killing occurred, but admitted to having a part in what happened.

Andrews said he heard OBrien, his girlfriend and two unknown males talking about the female shorting them and making a plan to rob her. Andrews was supposed to just walk in the area and be given a bag.

For this, he would get $500.

Andrews said he threw the bag near 21st and Erie when he heard police sirens. Officers found an empty bag in that area with makeup products nearby.
Two Iranian border guards and one Taliban fighter have been killed in a shooting near a border post between Iran and Afghanistan.

Source: Reuters; Iranian news agency IRNA

Details: While it was not immediately clear what triggered the incident, which also left several people injured, it came amid tensions between the two countries over water rights.

Iran has accused the Afghan Taliban of violating a 1973 treaty by restricting water flow from the Helmand River to Iran's arid eastern areas, but the Taliban deny the accusation.

A spokesman for the Taliban's Interior Ministry said that Iranian border guards had opened fire on Afghanistan.

In response, Iran said that "the Taliban forces initiated the assault in contravention of international law and principles of good neighborliness" and were met with "a decisive and courageous counteraction from the border guards" of the Islamic Republic.

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Out of class





If Missouri parents are keen to have their schoolchildren learn about the Bible, they should take them to their preferred house of worship. Our public schools are not meant to make up for the failure of religious institutions to attract people to join their congregations or to raise their children according to their particular religious beliefs. (May 24, 8A, In Bible courses, whose version of religion rules?)

- Nancy Fox, Overland Park

We remembered

When I was a little girl living in a small town in northern Minnesota, aunts, uncles and cousins from nearby farms joined us on a special holiday at the local town park. We shared a huge picnic lunch. This special day was called Decoration Day.

In my teens, I lived in Minneapolis. Decoration Day was spent with family members. We had a picnic, played Ante I Over (throwing a ball over our house, saying Ante I Over! and running to the other side of the house before being tagged.)

Later in the day, we went to a graveyard nearby. It was called Fort Snelling National Cemetery. The grave markers, tall and white, could be seen for miles. We read family names of those who died in our nations service. James Allen. Gerald Emil. Frank. We spoke their names.

We placed flowers on their graves.

- Betty Swisher, Kansas City

Bad advice

I appreciate The Stars reporting on Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Haydens antics since being voted into office in 2016 and again in 2020. (May 26, 6A, Sheriff wasted Johnson Countys time and money) Basically, he is a disgrace to our county and the 600-plus wonderful employees of the Johnson County Sheriffs Office.

However, not once have you admitted that you, The Kansas City Stars editorial board, endorsed this man in his initial 2016 run for sheriff. It would be good for us to hear you say you made a grave mistake in doing this.

- Elizabeth Resman, Olathe

Our real needs

During the current troubled times of the national debt limit dispute, each side pitted against the other, one cant help but wonder what our countrys political leaders are thinking. Are we playing games with Americas future economic strength just so political extremists have a voice that loudly resonates over the will of the people? Is there genuine fear America will default on its debt?

The men and women who represent us were elected to solve problems, not create them.

These words of wisdom we read many places online aptly describe our current political failure: Where theres chaos, theres ambiguity. Where theres ambiguity, theres fear, and fear gets manipulated. Seems as though whoever originally said this may have a point.

Most of us, I am sure, hope our government leaders would abandon manipulating our fear and reach for the common good for the citizens of our country. Solve the problem, and lets move on to find solutions to other challenges facing us for the welfare and common good of the people.

- Robert V. Blaine, Blue Springs

Misused guns

Activists around the country will observe the eighth annual National Gun Violence Awareness Day on June 2.

Youd have to be a 21st century Rip Van Winkle to be unaware of the nations foremost public health epidemic. In 2021, gun violence claimed nearly 49,000 lives from homicides, suicides and preventable accidents. Its a moral outrage that gun violence is now the No. 1 cause of death of children in America.

On June 2, as in previous years, many people will wear orange, the color of the gun violence prevention movement. (Its the same color hunters wear to avoid being shot.) Others will demonstrate in public parks and on street corners.

Clearly something much stronger is needed. Again this legislative season, lawmakers in Kansas and Missouri refused to strengthen gun laws that could keep people safer. Reforms such as expanded background checks, requirements for safe storage of firearms and red flag laws are supported even by gun owners.

When you cant change the minds of closed-minded legislators, the only recourse is to change the legislators. Lets all remember that on another special day: Election Day.

- Judie Becker, Missouri-Kansas Grandparents Against Gun Violence, Leawood

No to tax hike

I received my notice in the mail recently about a June special election (via mail-in ballot) in Overland Park to implement a 3/8-cent sales tax for infrastructure. Apparently, the current 1/8-cent sales tax for infrastructure expires in March of next year. Rather than holding an election to renew the 1/8-cent tax, city leaders decided that an increase of three times the current rate is required.

I probably would have been receptive to supporting the current tax since there would be no new money out of pocket. However, increasing the rate by three times is unacceptable.

Bear in mind that the city receives funding from your property taxes and will receive a windfall because of the recent increases in reappraisals. Couldnt some of that be used for infrastructure?

I urge all Overland Park residents to join me in voting against this proposal. Gov. Laura Kelly just approved removing sales tax on groceries, and now we are being hit with a local tax increase. The sad thing is that if this fails, could the city go to the county and raise its property tax mill rate next year to get the money one way or another?

- John Ware, Overland Park
South Africa period poverty: 'I don't want anyone else to use rags for sanitary pads'

Tamara Magwashu wants to make sure that young women have access to sanitary pads

Tamara Magwashu was bullied at school as her family was not rich enough to afford sanitary pads.

Now 27, she grew up in a poor township in South Africa's Eastern Cape province and watched her single mother use old rags during menstruation.

Tamara would take at least a week off school while she was on her period, and had to learn how to fold and use the rags, which were very uncomfortable.

That scarring experience has motivated her as an adult.

"I made a choice deep within me that I didn't want anyone else to go through what I did," she tells the BBC.

"So I had the idea to create my own company, to eradicate period poverty."

She now delivers sanitary pads to hundreds of schools in the Eastern Cape.

'Grew up in a shack'

Her work has been recognised by her community and she was nominated for this year's Forbes magazine 30 under 30 list, which showcases young campaigners and entrepreneurs from around the world.

Describing her upbringing in the township of Duncan Village in the city of East London, Tamara says she has lived her entire life "in a shack - never had any windows, never had any [piped] water".

She decided to get part-time jobs after school to try and make ends meet for her family - and to help when she was on her period.

"I started to work whenever I could around my studies so that I could buy sanitary pads because for me those rags were very uncomfortable."

Tamara also says that as a teenager she found it very difficult to understand why she was getting period pains, because there was very little education about menstruation.

She was not alone in this struggle.

Anti-poverty NGO The Borgen Project estimates that seven million South African girls cannot afford to buy sanitary products.

Across the globe, the World Bank says that at least 500 million women and girls lack access to the facilities they need during their periods.

UN Women reckons that 1.25 billion women and girls worldwide have no safe, private toilet to go to.

And that is the case for Tamara and her family. They share a public toilet with around 50 others in her township.

Despite South Africa being one of the wealthiest countries on the continent, the young businesswoman thinks it only really "shines from the outside".

When she went to university in Johannesburg to study public relations, Tamara managed to start saving some money from her student loan as well as income from her part-time jobs in order to start her own business, with a view to changing things for women and girls in her community.

She had to be self-sufficient as she had tried to get a business loan but no-one would take a risk on her as she did not have any assets to her name.

She eventually launched the business in 2021 with the aim of selling period products at an affordable price for disadvantaged women.

She called it Azosule, which means "to wipe away every tear from their eyes" in South Africa's Xhosa language.

It also has a charitable arm, using a portion of its profits. Tamara created the "She needs you" campaign where she goes into schools in rural areas to deliver pads for free.

The Borgen Project estimates around 30% of girls do not attend school there while they are on their period because they do not have access to sanitary products.

'It was like Christmas'

Her former secondary school headteacher is proud of her work.

"She has helped the girls so much. She has brought so many pads that the girls have enough for six months - it was like Christmas for them," Thazea Mnyaka says.

"These girls come from disadvantaged backgrounds where their only meals can come from school, how can they buy sanitary products?"

In addition, Tamara does local pad drives on the street, where she hands out her products in marginalised communities.

Yazini Kuse is a journalist, also from Duncan Village, and she was the first reporter to cover what Tamara was doing.

"I was captivated by her work. She's advocating for the dignity of young girls and women's human rights because we don't have much.

"She's working towards restoring that," she tells the BBC.

"Despite being in that situation of poverty herself, she's trying to improve the lives of others, which is amazing - she's a walking testimony of the importance of this."

Tamara has also been highlighting the need for access to clean and safe toilet facilities

There are others in the country working on the same issue.

Nokuzola Ndwandwe is a campaigner from Durban who successfully got a sales tax on tampons scrapped in South Africa, and is working to get a bill passed that focuses on menstrual hygiene.

The Menstrual Health Rights Bill is backed by a collective of 31 organisations which are campaigning for free period products and want the South African government to recognise menstrual health as a human rights issue.

She says: "We wanted [the tax] scrapped on products because they're expensive. We are in discussions with key members of the state and UN women.

"It's important that we empower young women to take action. Women and girls in rural areas like Tamara's should continue to raise their voices and come forward."

Tamara is ambitious and wants to eventually expand her work to other African countries. She also wants men to be aware of the importance of breaking down taboos.

"Period poverty is not a women's issue, it's a societal issue," she says, "and until we can understand that we are not going to move forward."
South Carolina tried to ban abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy  but every woman in the state Senate voted against it

Republican state Sens. Penry Gustafson and Katrina Shealy. Sean Rayford/Getty Images

A South Carolina judge temporarily halted a law banning most abortions after six weeks.

The legislation was passed in the state Senate with the support of 27 men.

Five female lawmakers, named the "Sister Senators," previously filibustered a similar abortion ban.

South Carolina's governor signed a bill into law that would ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. One day later, a judge temporarily halted it.

The "Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act" was passed in the state's Senate with the support of 27 men, per The Daily Beast.

After fierce debate over the ban, the "Sister Senators, five female state senators   including three Republicans  blocking the state from passing a near-total ban on abortions, all voted against it.

The law, signed on Thursday, bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, except in cases of "rape or incest during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy, medical emergencies, or fatal fetal anomalies."

But the state has temporarily reverted to its previous law, which bans abortions after 22 weeks, per the BBC.

There have been months of heated debates in the South Carolina Senate on the issue, and the five women lawmakers had already filibustered an attempt in April to a near-total ban on abortion in the state.

Even though the law is halted for now, Sen. Sandy Senn  one of the Republican lawmakers who voted against the bill  told Insider in an email that the past two weeks had been "rough and tough."

"We will regroup and try and fix this mess," Senn said.

Another lawmaker, Sen. Penry Gustafson, changed her mind about her stance on the six-week ban  which she voted for in February  a version of the bill that also failed to pass.

"Funny thing, when you learn and gather facts over time, sometimes your perspective evolves," Gustafson recently told The Daily Beast.

While she does support some restrictions on abortion, "I've heard from too many women that six weeks is not long enough," Gustafson said.

Katrina Shealy, another Republican state senator, tried to introduce an amendment to the latest legislation that said abortion care should instead be banned after 12 weeks.

"Men are 100 percent responsible for pregnancies," she said while introducing the amendment, per the Daily Beast. "Men are fertile 100 percent of the time. So it is time for men in this chamber  and the ones across that hall and all across the state of South Carolina  to take some ejaculation responsibility."

Despite protests from the women, the amendment was voted down.

The newly proposed law comes after a slew of abortion bans across the US followed the overturning of Roe v. Wade last year. Earlier this year, South Carolina proposed the death penalty for women who get abortions, Insider previously reported.

Vicki Ringer, the director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic in South Carolina, called the signing of the bill "unconscionable" on Twitter.

Earlier in the week, she wrote, "Twenty-seven Republican men (all of them) voted today to ban abortion in SC. I'm gutted. Because women will die. Full stop."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Southeastern Grocers Inc. (SEG), the parent company of Fresco y Mas, Harveys Supermarket, and Winn-Dixie grocery stores announced the launch of its sixth annual community donation program benefiting Folds of Honor.

Folds of Honor is a nonprofit organization that provides educational scholarships to the children and spouses of fallen and disabled military members. This initiative aims to support the legacies of Americas heroes and honor their sacrifice.

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<

Starting May 24 and running through June 20, customers of Fresco y Mas, Harveys Supermarket, and Winn-Dixie can contribute to the cause while shopping at their local store. Customers have the option to donate $1, or $5, or to round up their grocery bill to the nearest dollar during checkout.

Anthony Hucker, President and CEO of Southeastern Grocers, expressed his gratitude for the sacrifices made by military families.

He said, As we remember and pay tribute to those who have served and sacrificed this Memorial Day, we stand alongside their families who have endured tremendous loss and continue to demonstrate resilience. The Southeast is home to some of the largest veteran and military populations in the country, and we embrace the immense responsibility to lift up our neighbors who have given so much for the freedoms we enjoy. Together, we can make a significant impact and help create a brighter future for military families.

Since partnering with Folds of Honor in 2018, SEG has raised over $6.75 million through its generous customers, associates, and charitable arm, the SEG Gives Foundation. These contributions have already provided more than 1,350 educational scholarships for the children and spouses of fallen and disabled U.S. military service members.

Lt. Col. Dan Rooney, CEO and Founder of Folds of Honor expressed his gratitude for Southeastern Grocers dedicated partnership and support.

[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]

He stated, Each and every donation advances our mission, enabling us to make a profound difference through educational opportunities for the families of those called to duty. Our brave military and first responders answered the call, and many have paid the ultimate sacrifice; thanks to great American companies like Southeastern Grocers, we are able to give hope to the bearers of their legacy.

Every donated cent from SEGs community donation program will go directly to Folds of Honor to support its mission of honoring Americas heroes by equipping and educating their loved ones. Folds of Honor scholarships provide private education tuition and tutoring for children in grades K-12, as well as support for college, technical or trade school, and post-graduate programs.

Folds of Honor, established in 2007, has already provided over 44,000 educational scholarships totaling approximately $200 million for children, spouses, and dependents of fallen and disabled military service members. In 2022, the organization expanded its mission to include first responder families.

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Members of an electoral table count the ballots of the local elections, in Ronda

Spain's conservative PP elbows Socialists out in regional elections Members of an electoral table count the ballots of the local elections, in Ronda

By Belen Carreno and Jessica Jones

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's ruling Socialists suffered heavy losses to opposition conservatives in Sunday's local election, with around 95% of the votes counted, showing their electoral vulnerability ahead of an end-of-year general election.

Only three of the 12 regions holding elections will retain Socialist dominance by very narrow margins, with the rest likely go to the conservative People's Party, albeit with coalitions or informal support agreements with the far-right Vox party.

"The map changes completely and is a boost for Alberto Nunez Feijoo - the new leader of the PP - ahead of the elections at the end of the year," said Ignacio Jurado, professor of political science at the Carlos III University.

The gains for the People's Party (PP) indicate the conservatives could unseat the current left-wing coalition led by the Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol (PSOE) if they replicate the performance in national elections by December.

The numbers showed few clear majorities, except in the Madrid region where regional president Isabel Diaz Ayuso of the PP looked set to win re-election with an absolute majority.

"In votes the right-wing bloc expands but not dramatically. But that swing is enough to shift the centre of gravity from the left to the right," Jurado said.

The main setbacks for the Socialists came from losses in the Valencia, Aragon and Balearic Island regions, as well as in one of the most important Socialist fiefdoms, the southwestern Spanish region of Extremadura.

"The tsunami that has swept through all the Spanish regions today has also swept through us," Javier Lamban, the outgoing Socialist president of Aragon, told a press conference where he admitted defeat.

Leadership in the Canary Islands will be decided by pacts but PSOE have few chances of retaining power.

PSOE spokesperson Pilar Alegria told a press conference that the results were not "what we hoped for."

In big cities such as Valencia and Seville, where mayors were also elected, the count turned in favour of the PP, which also won an absolute majority in the city of Madrid.

Barcelona was an outlier among big cities, with a pro-independence party winning the most votes by such a narrow margin that it will need an agreement with the Socialists to unseat the current mayor, far-left Ada Colau.

Campaigning had been marked by several controversies, from allegations of voter fraud in small towns to an unprecedented case of kidnapping.

The counting showed a return to a two-party system dominated by the PSOE and PP after a decade of greater involvement by smaller parties such as the left-wing Podemos and centrist Ciudadanos, which appeared largely to have lost its seats to the PP.

(Reporting by Jessica Jones and Belen Carreno; Writing by Jessica Jones; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Howard Goller and Deepa Babington)
Barry Gilligan, who lives in the Hartville area, has spent the last few years attempting to research the life of Kenneth T. Smith Jr., a Ravenna resident who enlisted in the Navy and died on his ship in September 1957. Here, Gilligan is shown at Reed Memorial Library in Ravenna, where he has done some of his research.

Barry Gilligan only encountered Kenneth Smith once, but he left an impression that lingers more than 65 years later.

More: 'We don't honor our fallen veterans often enough': Ravenna Memorial Day Parade to return

The Lake Township resident believes it was around 1956, the year he turned 14, that he went to a farm outside of Warren for a gathering of the Warren Astronomy Club, now the Warren County Astronomical Society.

That was where he saw Smith.

Kenneth T. Smith Jr., who died while serving in the Navy in 1957, is shown here in his Ravenna High School sophomore year photo around 1951. Barry Gilligan, who is exploring Smith's life, was able to acquire the photo while doing research at Reed Memorial Library in Ravenna.

Gilligan did not speak to Smith and does not remember whether Smith was wearing his Navy uniform or civilian clothing. What he does remember is the way others treated Smith.

"He seemed well known by various [people], and in conversations with him, they seemed to defer to him, even the older and more experienced club members," Gilligan wrote in notes he has taken in his research of Smith's life.

Kenneth T. Smith Jr. is shown in his Navy uniform in the photo which ran with his obituary in the Sept. 30, 1957 edition of the Record-Courier.

Like Smith, Gilligan was not only an amateur astronomer, but he also built telescopes to sell to other amateurs. Following Smith's death while on his ship off the coast of Greece in September 1957, Gilligan went to the Ravenna home of Smith's parents to purchase telescope parts that Smith stored there. He also acquired business documents, including copies of correspondence between Smith and others.

"I had the impression that he was a good writer," said Gilligan. "And a bit of a go-getter."

Kenneth T. Smith Jr's. gravestone in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

The memory of Smith and those documents have stuck with Gilligan, now 80, and over the last few years, he has been attempting to research Smith's life, with the eventual aim of writing a definitive obituary for Smith to post online. This includes Smith's somewhat mysterious death, leading Gilligan to wonder whether Smith's parents were ever even told how their son died.

"There was something his parents said that led me to believe he died in a ship's fire, but if I'm to believe the ship's log, he died by suicide," said Gilligan.

From teenage businessman to sailor

Kenneth Theodore Smith Jr. was born on Aug. 16, 1936, and died Sept. 27, 1957, according his gravestone in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

According to an obituary published in the Record-Courier on Sept. 30, 1957, Smith was born in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, a town about 35 miles northeast pf Pittsburgh. Gilligan said he looked at Pennsylvania census records but had difficulty finding useful information.

"The way they're organized, I could not make any sense of them," he said.

The obituary only mentions Smith's parents, a grandmother and grandfather in Ravenna and a grandmother in Kittanning as survivors. Gilligan said it appears Smith was an only child.

It is unclear when the family moved to Ohio, but Smith attended Ravenna High School. Gilligan was able to find Smith's sophomore year photo, taken around 1951, while doing research at Reed Memorial Library in Ravenna.

The only other photo of Smith that Gilligan was able to find during his library research was one of him in his uniform that ran with the obituary. However, Smith's face was in shadow and did not reproduce well enough to make out significant detail. The original is likely either lost or was returned to his family.

Sometime during high school, Smith started his telescope business. Gilligan was able to find several advertisements that Smith placed in Sky and Telescope magazine in the early 1950s. Over time, Smith amended his business name, going from K.T. Smith to K.T. Smith & Co. to K.T. Smith Jr. & Co. Gilligan speculated with a laugh that the "Jr." was eventually added because Smith's father was tired of receiving "unsolicited phone calls" meant for his entrepreneur son.

"SMITH PRESENTS A sensational new 4" Newtonian telescope," reads the heading for a March 1953 ad.

Smith enlisted in the Navy while still 17 in January 1954. From June to September that year, he trained to repair binoculars and telescopes, becoming an opticalman II. Gilligan said this would have been an ideal job for Smith, who apparently had settled on a career in optics.

"Reading between the lines, he never graduated from high school," said Gilligan.

Smith was stationed for a time in Norfolk, Virginia. re-enlisted in 1956 and served aboard the U.S.S. Amphion, a 500-foot repair ship. He had attained the rank of petty officer second class and was on board when it set sail for the Mediterranean to service ships of the U.S. Sixth Fleet.

What exactly went wrong after that is something Gilligan is still trying to figure out.

Research has been slow going

Besides his library research, which was with the help of Kevin Gray, an adult services and genealogy librarian, Gilligan has made a number of Freedom of Information Act requests to both the Navy and the National Archives.

Legally, an individual's service records become public information 62 years after the person dies, as Smith's did in 2019.

But tracking down the location of records has been a bit of a slog, with the pandemic slowing things down even more.

One useful document outside of Smith's own records that Gilligan was able to acquire was the Amphion's log for August, September and October 1957.

In an entry at 7:50 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28, while the ship was off the coast of Greece, it was noted that Smith was absent when the crew was mustered.

The next entry, at 8:05 a.m. states that "Smith, K.T. Jrwas found dead in compartment C603A apparently as a result of self inflicted hanging."

A board of investigation was immediately appointed, but Gilligan said he has not been able to find any additional details of that investigation. If the date of death on Smith's gravestone is accurate, it was apparently determined he had died sometime before midnight.

And if Smith did take his own life, the main question remains unanswered: Why?

The obituary is only five short paragraphs.

"A telegram was received Saturday by Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Smith Sr., 128 Wall St., Ravenna, from the U.S. Navy Department, Washington, D.C., notifying them of the death of their son, Kenneth JrDetails pertaining to his death have not been learned by the family," the obituary states.

A search of Portage County property records did not come up with any results for the address in the obituary.

Gilligan said services and burial were on Oct. 9.

A 'poignant' discovery

Every grave in Arlington National cemetery has a story, said Gilligan, and he is in the position to tell one of them. So he continues his research of Smith's life as he can. He said he would really like to find someone who knew Smith, a family member or perhaps a friend, but so far he has been unsuccessful.

Gilligan studied physics at Ohio State University in early 1960s and considered a career as an optical engineer, designing lenses, but decided he enjoyed computer programming more. He worked for an aerospace engineering firm in Princeton, New Jersey, authored a number of technical papers, and worked in California before retiring early in 1992.

Gilligan says that when he looks back at his own experiences, he thinks of Smith.

"In some sense, I had the life that could have been Ken's," he said, noting that the Russians launched Sputnik I less than a week after Smith's death, an event that spurred the United State's own push into space.

"He missed Sputnik I and the launch of the space age," said Gilligan.

Among the documents Gilligan acquired from Smith's parents is a rendering of a non-existent astonomical observatory. The drawing includes a sign that says "Smith Observatory."

"It struck me as rather poignant because that was obviously a dream he had for himself and it obviously never came to pass," Gilligan said.

Reporter Jeff Saunders can be reached at jsaunders@recordpub.com.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Stark man seeks answers to 1957 death of Ravenna sailor aboard ship
State Rep. William Bruck, R-Erie, is looking forward to coming home.

The freshman legislator was elected to his first term in office in November but has had little opportunity to get started. Bruck has been on deployment with the U.S. Army Reserve to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, since October.

State Rep. Will Bruck, R-Erie

After a longer than expected delay to his medical discharge, Bruck finally expects to return to the Michigan Legislature early next month.

"I was placed on orders last October and I've been down here in Virginia this whole time, for the past eight months," Bruck said. "It's not how I planned it. It was very unexpected."

Bruck enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1992 and has deployed overseas on four tours of duty. He has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria and reached the rank of chief warrant officer 4. He also is the owner of Visiting Angels, which provides home health care and assisted living. He started the company in 2013 after his second tour of duty in Iraq. He sat on the Monroe County Community College Board of Trustees from 2016-22.

Bruck represents District 30, which covers portions of Monroe and Lenawee counties. During the November 2022 elections, Bruck defeated Democrat Suzanne Jennens of Lambertville before assuming office on Jan. 1. He has attended just two sessions of the House since that time.

Bruck was deployed last year to Fort Belvoir to start the Medical Evaluation Board (MEB) process for his discharge. He was injured in his final tour in Iraq in January 2021 and returned in March of that year. The MEB process can take up to 100 days, but Bruck originally expected the process to be quick.

"It can be a very lengthy process with months in between the different steps," Bruck said. "I did not expect it to take this long. Back at the beginning of the year I thought I would be back in April, but there were some snafus in the process that extended it longer."

Bruck has been able to do some of his work while on deployment. He was appointed to the Insurance and Financial Services Committee and the Transportation, Mobility and Infrastructure Committee, and he has attended all but one meeting virtually along with every caucus meeting. He said he also has made an effort to interact and converse with constituents whenever possible.

Bruck thanked his staff for making their hard work during a difficult time  legislative director Mike Goschka and legislative aide Andrew Sebra. Goschka is a former state legislator with more than 20 years of public policy experience.

"They've been able to set up a lot of meetings with different associations and individuals that have allowed me to have that interaction," Bruck said. "But the biggest drawback is missing that personal interacting and not being able to sponsor bills. That's one thing I could not do on active duty."

While Bruck has not sponsored any bills, he has been able to co-sign on two which are both in committee, including House Bill 4158 which would designate a portion of M-50 as "Animal Control Officer Darrian Young Memorial Highway" in honor of the Monroe County officer who was killed in 2020 by a drunken driver.

Bruck was able to return to Michigan to personally co-sign on those bills. He also was present for the opening session of the Legislature in January and the State of the State address by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer later that month.

Barring any other delays, he expects to be able to return home for good June 6 and return to the House the following day.

"It's been a hard few months down here," Bruck said. "I've had four combat tours and I've been in the military now 31 years as of April. I've served the country in a lot of ways, been gone a lot, and this is the culmination of all that. I'm looking forward to finally being retired out of the Army and I'm definitely ready to serve up in Lansing."

Bruck also is excited to put his military career behind him and focus on being with his family and serving the community. Bruck and his wife, Natalie, have raised nine kids from their home in Erie.

"I'm looking forward to being back in the community as much as I was before," he said. "That's one thing I do look forward to is reengaging and being a part of the community. And being with my family. That's definitely No. 1, and not having to leave for the military again will certainly bring a smile to their faces."

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: State Rep. Bruck expects to retire from Army, join House soon
The British Storm Shadow long-range missiles recently supplied to Ukraine are showing impeccable results on the battlefield.

Source: Oleksii Reznikov, Defence Minister of Ukraine, on the national joint 24/7 newscast

Quote: "I can say that of the total number of Storm Shadow launches that have taken place, all 100% have reached the targets determined by the General Staff [of the Armed Forces of Ukraine  ed.]. 100 out of 100, absolutely impeccable."

Details: The minister also noted that Ukraine is negotiating with all countries that have similar long-range missiles.

In addition, Reznikov stressed that Ukraine must strengthen its air defence for the winter.

Quote: "For the winter it is important to strengthen the air defence system, because we need to make our sky safe...

This is a very important task, and we are working on it. We need to cover all the major conurbations: not only Kyiv, but also Kharkiv, and Dnipro, and Odesa, and Lviv, and Zaporizhzhia, and expand this map so that the whole of the Ukrainian sky is safe. I am not talking about one particular [air defence] system, but the number of these systems, which will be equipped with missiles accordingly."

Background:

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There has been a massive increase in TikTok videos promoting the use of sunbeds and tanning products such as nasal sprays, a Belfast content creator has warned.

Shannon Mitchell, 27, has advised her 150,000 followers not to use such products after her own bad experiences.

She said she has used sunbeds and nasal sprays in the past but gave them up over the potential harm they caused.

TikTok is popular with lifestyle influencers and content creators.

A search on the platform for "sunbeds" reveals thousands of results.

UV radiation from sunbeds is widely acknowledged to damage the skin, with no safe limit for exposure according to the European Commission.

People who have used a sunbed even once at any stage of their life have a 20% higher risk of developing melanoma skin cancer than people who have never used a sunbed, Dr Louise Herron from the Public Health Agency (PHA) told BBC News NI.

This risk is increased significantly when you use one before the age of 35, she added.

'People easily influenced'

Ms Mitchell said she started using sunbeds four years ago and continued on and off until she stopped in July 2022 - she experienced side effects including skin ageing and an increased number of moles.

"There were stages where if I was going on a big night out or if I was going on holiday, I would have went every other day on sunbeds and not thought twice about it," she said.

"I can't even judge other people for doing them because I was being told the dangers of them.

"My back is covered in moles. I've had them checked to thankfully they're all fine.

"But if anything does happen in the future with that I've only myself to blame because I was the one that went on sunbeds."

Ms Mitchell also said she regretted using nasal sprays, which are often promoted along with products such as tanning injections.

It is illegal to sell tanning nasal sprays containing melanotan in the UK

Both contain melanotan, a synthetic hormone designed to stimulate cells to produce more melanin - the pigment that darkens skin.

It is not illegal to use or promote these tanning products but it is illegal to sell them in the UK.

"I think promoting it (on social media) is very, very wrong because people are so easily influenced by what they see online, myself included," Ms Mitchell said.

She believes social media platforms should be stricter when it comes to monitoring posts advertising these products.

TikTok told BBC News NI that any content on its platform that violates its community guidelines will be removed or banned and that it also makes it easy for users to report problematic content for review.

Damage, ageing and cancer

Ms Mitchell said she was fully aware of the risks of using sunbeds - she partly blames the pressures of social media to have a glowing tan, as well as recommendations from friends, for encouraging her to use them.

Dr Herron at the PHA said: "Many people think having a tan makes them look more attractive but we know having a tan is actually a sign that our skin has been damaged by overexposure to UV radiation."

According to the charity Cancer Focus NI, short periods of intense UV exposure on sunbeds can speed up skin damage and skin ageing. They can also irritate your skin, causing redness, itchiness and dryness, as well as damaging your eyes.

Ms Mitchell said her skin aged very quickly and its texture completely changed soon after starting to use sunbeds.

As well as these risks, Dr Herron said exposure to UV radiation from sunbeds or the sun is the leading cause of skin cancer.

Overexposure to UV radiation from sunbeds can cause skin cancer

"Skin cancer is the most common cancer in Northern Ireland and accounts for over 31% of all cancers diagnosed. More than 4,000 people develop skin cancer each year and almost one in 10 of these are malignant melanoma, the most serious form," she said.

"Malignant melanoma rates have risen over the past 30 years from an average of 103 cases per year in the mid-1980s, to 382 cases in recent years."

It is illegal for people under the age of 18 to use sunbeds in every part of the UK.

'10 minutes of fake tan'

Laws regulating sunbeds came into force in Scotland in 2009, in 2011 in England and Wales and in 2012 in Northern Ireland.

Sunbed regulations were signed into law in 2014 in the Republic of Ireland.

Ms Mitchell urged those considering starting sunbeds to "really, really think about your future".

"Think about the people that are having to go and spend hours on end at doctors and hospital appointments to get moles removed, people getting cancer treatment because of sunbeds," she said.

"Realistically, spending 10 minutes in your evening putting a bit of fake tan on really isn't a big deal."

Dr Herron from the PHA said: "If you are concerned about skin cancer, for example a mole that has changed in shape, size or colour, you should talk to your GP.

"Early detection of skin cancer can significantly improve survival so regularly checking your skin is important," she said.
Hi, Quartz members!

We hope youre enjoying Sunday Reads and the long weekend if youre in the US, UK, or anywhere else observing a holiday tomorrow (or a regular-size weekend if youre not). Tell us: Is there a news site you absolutely love that youve never seen cited in our 5 Great Stories From Elsewhere section? Let us know.

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5 things we especially liked this week on Quartz

 Sam Altman crosses the pond. After charming lawmakers in Washington DC at a hearing on regulating artificial intelligence, OpenAIs chief went to Europe and found a much icier reception. Scott Nover explains where Altmans appreciation for AI regulation begins, and where it ends, while Michelle Cheng looks at how Altman thinks AI should be regulated once its smarter than humans.

 When the Moon hits your ispace. What really caused the Hakuto-R moon lander to fail in its mission last month? Tim Fernholz wades through the post-mortem by its manufacturer, the Japanese spacecraft company ispace, which offered a detailed explanation as to how its lander ran out of fuel. (BTW, if youre not already reading Tims Space Business newsletter, you can sign up for it here.)

 Party poopers. Since banning parties at its listings around the globe in 2020, Airbnb has seen a big dropoff in complaints about revelers at its rental units. But the party policing continues. Julia Malleck reports on the companys latest strategies for cracking down.

 If at first you dont succeed... From bank collapses to box office bombs, failure is always part of the business landscape. In our latest Obsession newsletter, Morgan Haefner takes a deep dive into the stats on failure and examines how humans experience whats become a favorite pastime for some, while remaining a misery for others.

 Seasons for succession. With HBO set to air the series finale of Succession tonight, Sofia Lotto Persio offers an extremely well-timed roundup of how real-life CEOsincluding Morgan Stanleys Jim Gorman, GMs Mary Barra, and Disneys Bob Igerhave approached the thorny challenge of designating their replacements.





Reads for your ears

Image: Vicky Leta / Shutterstock

This week marked the last of the Quartz Obsession podcast, season 5, and we leave our listeners with some good news and some not so good news.

 Public tech bank: The rash of bank collapses of late is an excellent time to reconsider how we fund the tech industry. Quartz economics reporter Nate DiCamillo proposes a national public tech bank that could not only add stability, but focus on projects that will actually improve the lives of generations to come.

 Algorithmic hiring: Using AI to hire saves time and money, but when it just learns the biases of its human overlords, subjectivity becomes mechanized. Quartz at Work deputy editor Gabriela Riccardi is here to inform you though that, most likely, your next job-seeking process will involve artificial intelligence.

 Listen wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Stitcher | YouTube







5 great stories from elsewhere

 Beep beep. Amsterdam may be known for bicycles, but microcars like the Italian Biro are also a common sight on its roads. Theyre not to be confused with mobility vehicles like the two-seater Canta, which people with disabilities can use to zip across town. Bloomberg takes a look at how the Dutch capital has shaped policies to ensure the metropolis is truly multimodal.

 AI decides. What would happen if AI controlled your life? Maxwell Strachan, for Vice, puts that question to the test, allowing ChatGPT to dictate his schedule for three days. It starts off promising enough, with the chatbot designing an agenda that factors in self-care and work-life balance. But after many sessions of deep breathing and hydrating, and several awkward GPT-scripted text messages, Strachan cant wait to be free.

 From afar. In the hip neighborhood of Moda in Istanbul, the Chernousov family runs a bookstore called the Black Mustache. The couple, along with their young daughter, fled St. Petersburg in March 2022, following Russias invasion of Ukraine. A story from New Lines explores the stories, and history, of dissident Russians who have fled to Turkey seeking safe haven.

 New in town. With the rise of work from anywhere, tech professionals have dispersed across the globe seeking out beaches, sunshine, and cheaper digs. But that trend has also led to the rise of nomadificationa phenomenon where locals are priced out of their own neighborhoods when Silicon Valley money rushes in. A story from Rest of World talks about how digital nomads are reshaping cities, but not necessarily for the better.

 Icy report. The Antarctic Sun is the longest-running newspaper on the worlds coldest continent. Founded in 1955 at the McMurdo Station research site, the paper has a full-time staff of one. Esquire ventures to ends of the Earth to speak to former editor Lauren Lipuma (she left the job in April) about her experience.





The most surprising discoveries

Michelangelo's statue of David in a gallery

Each weekday in our Daily Brief newsletter, we share five surprising discoveries, taken from all over. In case you missed them, were showcasing our top five favorites from the week. Check out this weeks picks, which includes some odd behavior from Betelgeuse, a hope-bearing snapping turtle, and renewed scoffs at a familiar statue.







What to watch for this week

The camping accommodation shaped like a flying saucer is surrounded by the Welsh woods

These are some of the events our newsroom will be paying attention to in the week ahead.



Tuesday: Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes reports to prison, and the US reports its latest numbers on consumer confidence

Wednesday: NASA hosts a public meeting to talk about UFOs

Thursday: Pride month kicks off; Thailands tourist fee kicks in; and Lululemon hopes to kick its earnings past analysts goalposts

Friday: The US releases its latest employment stats and celebrates National Doughnut Day 





Thanks for reading! Heres to the week ahead, and dont hesitate to reach out with comments, questions, feedback, Moon landers, microcars, and celebratory Dunkin Munchkins. Sunday Reads was brought to you by Susan Howson, Morgan Haefner, Heather Landy, and Julia Malleck.

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New survey finds the lives of Chinese Americans are heavily impacted by racism and puts renewed focus on Asian hate crimes

Lucy Lee, of Marietta, Ga., holds an American flag while rallying outside of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta during a unity "Stop Asian Hate" rally Saturday afternoon, March 20, 2021. AP Photo/Ben Gray

A study by Columbia University spoke to 6,500 Chinese Americans.

The study found that nearly 1 in 10 said they had been physically assaulted or intimidated in the last year

The latest FBI data shows that anti-Asian hate rose +167% between 2020 and 2021.

A new study indicates that the lives of many Chinese Americans are being negatively impacted by racial hate and discrimination.

The first and largest project of its kind, the "State of Chinese Americans" survey of 6,500 people by Columbia University's School of Social Work and Comittee 100 found that nearly 75% of Chinese Americans have faced racial discrimination in the last year and 55% worry about their safety relating to hate crimes or harassment.

In addition, the research found that 1 in 5 had been called a racial slur or harassed in the past year, and nearly 1 in 10 have been physically intimidated or assaulted.

According to data from the Department of Commerce, 5.4 million Chinese Americans live in the US.

The latest FBI data shows that anti-Asian hate rose +167% between 2020 and 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic fuelled this surge in hate crimes against Asian Americans, with a study from the Anti-Defamation League finding that the pandemic corresponded with a rise in hate speech and harassment on social networks aimed at Asian Americans.

Although it's difficult to link this hatred to one cause, the study said some of that rise could be attributed to former President Trump's comments about COVID-19, which he called it the"Chinese virus," the "Kung Flu."

Earlier this year, Asian American communities in California were hit with two back-to-back mass shootings.

The suspects in both shootings were later revealed to be Asian men, diminishing fears that the attacks were hate crimes, but advocates say the violence adds to the dread that Asian Americans have experienced the past several years.

When May Lee asked her University of Southern California students about their initial reaction to the shootings, she told Insider the first thought on everyone's mind was the fear that a hate crime occurred.

"It is a collective fear that all of us have gone through and continue to go through," Lee said. "And even though this shooting was not your typical racially charged hate crime, it still was an act of violence. And so that's going to trigger any kind of fear and anxiety."

On May 2022, the Department of Justice released a new report to raise awareness of hate crimes during the pandemic, citing a "surge of hate crimes and hate incidents against Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities."

Read the original article on Business Insider
Teen fatally shot after confrontation at graduation party in Georgia, officials say

One teenager was killed and another was injured in a shooting outside a Georgia high school, officials said.

The shooting at Benjamin E. Mays High School in Atlanta stemmed from a confrontation at a graduation party, police told TV stations WAGA and WSBTV. Atlanta Public Schools said in a statement to McClatchy News that the two teens were shot during an unauthorized gathering at the end of the schools exiting driveway.

The school system told Atlanta News First that the gathering took place following an earlier graduation party at a separate location. Police had broken up the party.

Officers were called to the high school just before 2:30 a.m. Sunday, May 28, and found two people who had been shot, the Atlanta Police Department said in a news release.

A 16-year-old girl in critical condition was taken to a hospital, where she died, police said.

The other victim, a 16-year-old boy, was taken to a hospital in stable condition, according to police.

The shooting is under investigation, police said, and no other information was available early Sunday afternoon.

Atlanta Public Schools said it requested that police lead the investigation due to their access to more extensive investigative resources.

Even during Summer Break, the safety and well-being of our students and employees remains a top priority for Atlanta Public Schools, the school system said.

Drag racing driver shoots person in chest after they honked horn, Tennessee cops say

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Man gunned down in parking lot didnt notice gunman stalking him in store, Texas cops say

Fight over Hot Pocket ends with man shooting roommate from behind, Kentucky cops say
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) decried his impeachment by the GOP-led Texas House on Saturday as a politically motivated sham.

The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just, Paxton said in a statement posted to Twitter. It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning.

The Texas House voted 121-23 to impeach the state attorney general after a monthslong investigation produced a variety of allegations against him, including bribery, dereliction of duty, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust. Paxton is suspended from office while he awaits a trial in the state Senate.

Paxton claimed that his office made every effort to present evidence that would have disproven the allegations against him and accused the House of refusing to consider anything that would interfere with their desired result.

What we witnessed today is not just about me, he said. It is about the corrupt establishments eagerness to overpower the millions of Texas voters who already made their voices heard when they overwhelmingly re-elected me.

I am beyond grateful to have the support of millions of Texans who recognize that what we just witnessed is illegal, unethical, and profoundly unjust, Paxton added. I look forward to a quick resolution in the Texas Senate, where I have full confidence the process will be fair and just.

The Texas attorney general was reelected in 2018 and 2022, despite being under criminal indictment for securities fraud since 2015 related to conduct from before he took office.

Former President Trump, who threw his support behind Paxton on Saturday, took aim at Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan after the impeachment vote.

So this is the RINO who is responsible for the Impeachment of a just re-Elected Attorney General of Texas who has done an outstanding job? What is our Country coming to? the former president said in a post on Truth Social.

The post was accompanied by a video of Phelan, in which he appeared to slur his words while at the state House dais. Paxton called for his resignation on Tuesday, alleging that Phelan presided over lawmakers in a state of apparent debilitating intoxication.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
SEA, a consortium of French engineering companies Setec, Egis and Assystem, has opened its new office in Saudi Arabia.

Its current responsibilities cover the entire infrastructure development cycle of AlUla, including high-quality operation and maintenance activities, professional capabilities development, localization and community development as well as adoption of innovative digital practices.

The technical and programme management joint venture led by Egis, a global player in the consulting and construction, comprises international engineering firms Setec and Assystem as its partners.

The company will contribute to a sustainable, innovative, and inclusive development model, designed to benefit the local population and visitors from around the world, said a statement from Egis.

The establishment of the new office will cultivate SEAs capabilities and support its ongoing and anticipated infrastructure development projects of AlUla, supporting on-time delivery of its most urgent projects and long-term development, it stated.

With its diverse engineering expertise, Egis has contributed to significant projects across the Saudi Arabia aligned with Vision 2030, such as Riyadh Metro, Green Riyadh, NEOM, DGDA, and Riyadh Airport, it added.

The new office was inaugurated in the presence of Egis Saudi Arabia Managing Director Robert Hope as well as senior representatives from RCU and the consortium partners.

The establishment of SEAs new office underscores the companys dedication to supporting Saudi Arabias vision of becoming a global hub for business and tourism.

"Over the years, SEA has played a pivotal role in facilitating the development of AlUlas infrastructure," remarked Hope.

"With the opening of the new office in AlUla, SEA is dedicated to harnessing innovative, digital and world-class practices, tools, and methodologies to deliver infrastructure projects efficiently and promptly. We are also committed to empowering the talented local individuals in AlUla, leveraging their skills and knowledge to further enhance our capabilities," he stated.

"This expansion follows the partnership between RCU and SEA, which was reinforced last October through a ten-year alliance and a significant increase in SEAs workforce presence from 40 to 200," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
US-NEWS-TEXAS-PAXTON-IMPEACHMENT-THREATS-FT - Credit: Eleanor Dearman/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Its Memorial Day weekend, when ostensibly the U.S. puts aside its differences and unites to pay respect to military members who died while serving the country. This weekend, however, a segment of the right wing are freaking out about the impeachment of one of its own, who has demonstrably given enough pause in his alleged conduct that his fellow party members voted he be impeached. The Texas GOP-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach state Attorney General Ken Paxton on Saturday. The Republican AG was impeached on 20 articles including bribery, firing those who reported the alleged bribery, and abuse of public trust.

Eric Trump, one of Donald Trumps sons and EVP of the Trump organization, weighed in on Twitter: This should never be allowed to happen to @KenPaxtonTX, he wrote, though he gave no explanation as to why the 20 articles against Paxton should be dismissed out of hand. Meanwhile, Trump pundit and Donald Trump Jr.s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle said on Twitter prior to the vote that it was absolutely disgusting and called Paxton a GREAT ally to the former president and the MAGA movement, which Trump Jr. retweeted. She added: Texans should stand with Ken Paxton because he always stands up for you!

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Despite the Trump familys objections to the proceedings, per state law, the 121-23 vote finds Paxton immediately suspended from office as he awaits the ensuing trial in the state Senate, where his final removal would require a two-thirds vote. Paxtons wife, Angela, is among the senators who may vote. In the interim, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott can appoint another individual to serve as attorney general.

Paxton, who has become the third sitting official to have been impeached in Texas, has been a controversial figure for several reasons. He challenged President Joe Bidens win against Donald Trump in 2020 in the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2015, he was under criminal indictment on securities fraud charges prior to his taking office, after he allegedly defrauded investors in a tech startup (he pleaded not guilty to two felony counts). He had also been under FBI investigation for allegedly using his office to help a donor, allegedly opening a legal defense fund and accepting $100,000 from an executive who was under investigation by Paxtons office for Medicaid fraud. Last year, he sought to get data on transgender residents from the Department of Public Safety.

Ultimately, what led lawmakers to impeach Paxton were his interactions with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, with eight top aides telling the FBI in 2020 they had concerns over Paxton misusing his position and office to help Paul. The developer claimed there was a conspiracy to steal $200 million from his properties. The FBI searched Pauls home in 2019, but he has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, Paxton confided in staff members that he had an affair with a woman who worked for Paul.

The impeachment charges allege that Paxton attempted to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and other legal issues to help Paul, that the Paul hired the woman who had the affair with Paxton in exchange for the legal benefits, and that Paul paid for renovations at Paxtons home.

A senior lawyer for Paxtons office, Chris Hilton, told the Associated Press on Friday that Paxton paid for all repairs and renovations.

Prior to the impeachment vote on Saturday, Trump  alongside his family members  came to Paxtons defense. The RINO Speaker of the House of Texas, Dade Phelan, who is barely a Republican at all and failed the test on voter integrity, wants to impeach one of the most hard working and effective Attorney Generals in the United States, Ken Paxton, who just won re-election with a large number of American Patriots strongly voting for him, Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Hopefully Republicans in the Texas House will agree that this is a very unfair process that should not be allowed to happen or proceed  I will fight you if it does, Trump wrote in a separate post. It is the Radical Left Democrats, RINOS, and Criminals that never stop. Following the vote, Trump returned to spewing vitriol against his rival Ron DeSantis.

Earlier this week, Paxton called for an investigation into Phelan, who appeared to be intoxicated as he presided over a House session. Phelan presided over Paxtons impeachment on Saturday.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) impeached by Texas House of Representatives 121-23 pic.twitter.com/wlNtCgGlB2  Acyn (@Acyn) May 27, 2023

The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just, Paxton said following the vote of impeachment, while his office pointed to internal reports that found no wrongdoing. It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning.

This article was updated at 9:11 p.m. ET to include comments from Trumps family.

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The Texas House of Representatives voted Saturday to impeach Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton over charges of bribery, disregard of official duties and abuse of public trust after hours of debate in an afternoon session -- sending the case to the state Senate.

The House voted 121-23 to impeach him, meaning he will step down temporarily as he faces trial in the upper chamber. A simple majority was required to impeach him.

The Houses Committee on General Investigating had initiated an inquiry in March after Paxton and his office asked the legislature for $3.3 million to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by whistleblowers in the office. The former employees had called in 2020 for an investigation into Paxtons actions regarding an Austin real estate investor who had his home searched by the FBI. They accused Paxton of using his office to protect him by authorizing an investigation into the FBI.

SEN. CRUZ DEFENDS TEXAS AG PAXTON AMID IMPEACHMENT EFFORTS FROM SWAMP IN AUSTIN

The articles of impeachment allege that the settlement delayed the discovery of facts and testimony to Paxton's advantage.

"Over the course of several months, the Committee and staff set out to determine if payment of the settlement was warranted because of the lack of discovery in the litigation and because Paxton and his office were not forthcoming about his conduct regarding the whistleblowers good faith reports of his violations of his constitutional and statutory duties," a committee memo this week said.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

The Republican-led investigation has presented findings that Paxton recommended the developer, Nate Paul, employ a woman with whom Paxton was allegedly having an affair, and that Paul aided Paxton with a renovation of his home in exchange for favorable legal help from Paxtons office. Paxton is also accused of obstruction of justice and false statements in official records.

It is the latest allegation of wrongdoing against the conservative firebrand -- who has launched a number of high-profile lawsuits in support of conservative causes and against the Biden administration. He was indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, but has yet to stand trial.

Paxton has dismissed the impeachment push as "political theater" based on "hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims."

TEXAS HOUSE COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS IMPEACHING ATTORNEY GENERAL KEN PAXTON FOLLOWING INVESTIGATION

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at the 'Save America' rally on October 22, 2022 in Robstown, Texas. The former president, alongside other Republican nominees and leaders held a rally where they energized supporters and voters ahead of the midterm election.

Ahead of the vote, Paxton secured the backing of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who called the proceedings "a travesty."

"For the last nine years, Ken has been the strongest conservative AG in the country. Bar none. No attorney general has battled the abuses of the Biden admin more ferociouslyand more effectivelythan has Paxton."

TEXAS AG PAXTON SLAPS BIDEN ADMIN WITH LAWSUIT OVER USE OF CBP ONE APP: 'PRE-APPROVING MORE FOREIGN ALIENS'

"Thats why the swamp in Austin wants him out," he continued. "The special interests dont want a steadfast conservative AG. I understand that people are concerned about Kens legal challenges. But the courts should sort them out."

Paxton posted a statement to Twitter after the impeachment, writing "I look forward to a quick resolution in the Texas Senate, where I have full confidence the process will be fair and just."

"The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just. It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning," he said.

Former President Donald Trump also gave his backing to the AG, saying on Truth Social: "Free Ken Paxton."

"Hopefully Republicans in the Texas House will agree that this is a very unfair process that should not be allowed to happen or proceed -- I will fight you if it does," he warned.

Democrats in the House had presented their case against Paxton, with Rep. Ann Johnson accusing Paxton of being "desperate to keep this case in the court of public opinion."

"Because he has no ability to win in a court of law. See, in a court of law, a judge will provide over that case and he will be treated just as any other civil or criminal defendant," she said.

While some Republicans have backed impeachment, others had expressed concern about the method of the investigation and impeachment, calling it rushed and politicized.

"I don't think today is about whether there's guilt or innocence, it's about process," Rep. Tony Tinderholt said.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks to Fox News Digital

A two-thirds majority is required in the Senate to remove him from office. As the trial goes on, Gov. Greg Abbott will appoint an interim replacement.

Fox News' Kyle Morris and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seen in November 2021, is one of the few sitting officials to have been impeached in the state's history

Texas Republican lawmakers on Saturday overwhelmingly voted to impeach the southern state's attorney general on corruption charges, suspending him from office until he faces trial in the Senate.

Attorney General Ken Paxton's temporary removal marked the stunning downfall of an ardent defender of former president Donald Trump with an ascendant national profile.

After an all-afternoon debate, lawmakers considering Paxton's impeachment voted 121 in favor, 23 against with two not voting.

"The evidence is substantial. It is alarming and unnerving," said legislator Andrew Murr, a Republican.

Paxton did not back down despite the overwhelming vote against him.

"What we just witnessed is illegal, unethical, and profoundly unjust," Paxton tweeted after the vote.

Trump took to his Truth Social platform and said those who impeached Paxton were "radical left Democrats" and "RINOs" -- or Republicans in name only.

The 20 articles of impeachment against Paxton were for corruption, misuse of public funds, unfitness for office and obstruction of justice.

The indictment alleged that Paxton pressured his staff to protect a friend and donor from prosecution.

In exchange, the donor gave a job to a woman with whom the Republican had an extramarital affair and financed work on his house, the document asserted.

It was not immediately clear when the Republican-led Senate would put Paxton on trial. His permanent removal from office would require a two-thirds vote by the Senate.

While the outcome is uncertain, Paxton, 60, has seen his support evaporate among Republicans in recent days, including from Governor Greg Abbott, who declined to support the ultraconservative attorney general in the runup to the vote.

Abbott, also a supporter of Trump, now must appoint a temporary replacement for Paxton.

Elected in 2014 to head the Texas judiciary, Paxton was indicted for financial fraud in 2015, and his trial is pending. This did not impede him from winning reelection in 2018, and again in 2022.

In 2020, members of his team had warned of his abuse of power, and they were fired. These "whistleblowers" later filed a wrongful dismissal claim.

Earlier this year, Paxton reached an agreement to end their lawsuits in exchange for $3.3 million.

He had asked Texas to foot the bill, which prompted a congressional committee investigation and the impeachment vote that saw his suspension from office.

Paxton is now only the third sitting official to have been impeached in Texas history, and the first since 1975.

tjj/bfm
Three people were wounded and a gunman was shot and killed at Temptations Cabaret strip club in west Tarrant County early Sunday morning, according to a news release from the Tarrant County Sheriffs Office.

The first deputies to arrive at the scene were told a fight inside the club ended with gunshots when a patron was asked to leave and started shooting, according to the news release. Deputies found three people in the parking lot who were shot, and discovered an armed security guard at the club returned fire and shot the suspect.

According to the news release, the suspect died at a local hospital. His name has not been released. The three other people injured are being treated at hospitals and are expected to survive.

The shooting comes as the countys elected leadership considers options for terminating the sexually oriented business permit of the adult nightclub, at 12291 Camp Bowie W. Blvd.

Tarrant County Commissioner Manny Ramirez two weeks ago presented the commissioners court with statistics from the sheriffs office he said shows a pattern of dangerous crime at the business that poses a threat to the community.

The move was prompted by incidents including when two people were stabbed at the club around 3:45 a.m. May 6, leading both victims to be hospitalized.

In Tarrant County we will not stand idly by while the public is placed in danger, Ramirez said in a news release Sunday.

When we recognize that there is a clear and present danger to the public, we have the legal and moral obligation to do something about it ... I have requested that the County Administrator of Tarrant County and the District Attorney of Tarrant County take all necessary and legal steps to immediately shutter this dangerous establishment.
Man charged with murder after 3 dead in New Mexico biker shootout

Three killed in biker gang shootout in New Mexico

Man charged with murder after 3 dead in New Mexico biker shootout Three killed in biker gang shootout in New Mexico

By Andrew Hay

TAOS, New Mexico (Reuters) -A biker was charged with murder after a shootout between rival motorbike gangs at a motorcycle rally in Red River, northern New Mexico, on Saturday in which three gang members were killed and five wounded, police said.

Members of the Bandidos and Waterdogs groups traded gunfire around 5:00 p.m. (2100 GMT) on the packed main street of the mountain resort town 75 miles northeast of state capital Santa Fe, State Police Chief Tim Johnson said on Sunday.

"It was just gangbanger on gangbanger," Johnson told a press conference in Red River, adding that no bystanders were injured.

Of the three killed, two were Bandidos and one was a Waterdog, the police chief said.

Jacob Castillo, 30, a Waterdog from New Mexico was charged with murder, while Matthew Jackson, 39, of Texas, a Bandidos chapter leader, faced a count of unlawful carrying of a firearm and Bandido Christopher Garcia, 41, of Texas, was arrested on suspicion of cocaine possession.

The confrontation began in Albuquerque, New Mexico's largest city, over a photo involving another gang, then spilled over to Red River's annual Memorial Day motorcycle rally, Johnson said.

Bandidos have been involved in at least three shootings in Texas and Oklahoma in the past two months, he said.

Some 28,000 bikers from across the country had been expected to attend the Memorial Day rally, which featured live music and remembrance ceremonies at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in nearby Angel Fire.

Red River Mayor Linda Calhoun advised local businesses to close.

The incident came eight years after nine bikers were killed and 18 wounded in a shootout in Waco, Texas involving members of motorcycle groups such as the Bandidos and Cossacks.

Some of the wounded were transported to a hospital in Taos, New Mexico, around 25 miles to the southwest, where officials banned alcohol sales and established a curfew.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
Three men in a 'throuple' are sharing what their daily lives are like in one relationship in an effort to destigmatize the alternative lifestyle

The hashtag #throuple has over 869 million views on TikTok. TikTok: @campthrouple, @thatadamlguy, Adam Joshua, @dailythrouple

People in a throuple, or a relationship between three people, have gained major followings on TikTok.

The hashtag #throuple currently has over 869 million cumulative views on the app.

One TikToker told Insider that fans frequently thank him for normalizing the unique relationship type.

On March 3, Adam Joshua, a 27-year-old from Vancouver, British Columbia, posted a video kissing his partner in front of a snowy backdrop. On-screen text read, "We should try out an open relationship!" The video then playfully cuts to a clip that included a third person, as all three of them are seen smiling to the caption, "Falls in love and starts a closed throuple months later."

Videos featuring three people in one relationship have become increasingly common on TikTok. The term for the unique relationship type, and its complementing hashtag #throuple currently has over 869 million cumulative views on the app.

Popular polyamorous TikTokers like @CampThrouple and @DailyThrouple have amassed 237,000 followers, and 45,000 followers, respectively, by sharing insights into their romantic triads.

Joshua's March upload gained 1.8 million views. Over 70,000 followers tune in for his and their relationship updates. He told Insider he regularly receives messages from viewers thanking him for shining a spotlight on the throuple lifestyle, but he's also been subjected to hateful comments from those who say the dynamic is doomed to fail.

Joshua has led viewers along his journey from monogamy to polyamory

Back in May 2022, Joshua made TikToks with his monogamous partner of five years, Zeke, documenting their travels and outdoor adventures. He told Insider he was following a "very traditional, normal lifestyle" at the time on a trajectory to marriage and kids.

Then they decided to try an open relationship. This lasted around five months, which is when they both met Derrick, fell in love, and a final "what are we" conversation led them to all agree to be in a relationship, he said. Derrick hadn't been in a throuple before, either, but the trio decided to "take a leap of faith" and see what would happen.

Joshua said he was "really nervous" to start posting about his new relationship status on TikTok.

He posted a few uploads, which featured the three of them spending time together, and made lighthearted videos that addressed how they dealt with jealousy. His confidence grew as he received positive responses from viewers. Some commenters cheekily asked if they were looking for a fourth.

Then the more personal messages came. Joshua said members of the polyamorous community began directly message him praising him for shining a light on the alternative lifestyle.

"Every couple days, I have throuples or people in open relationships ... message me privately and thank me for posting," he said. "For showing some representation, just showing the stories of this part of the community online because they just don't see this thing. It's always so hush-hush."

Despite widespread support, not all responses have been positive

Joshua said he was braced for criticism, too. Viewers have also left judgemental comments to say throuples were simply couples with unresolved relationship issues, or that their three-way relationship was doomed to fail.

"I think when people see something different, they kind of get scared and immediately put up a barrier and throw hatred at it," Joshua told Insider.

He said most of the negativity didn't bother him because he was confident in his relationship. However, a recurring comment that suggested he was giving the gay community a bad name has stuck with him.

"I definitely thought about that one for a bit," he said. "I don't wanna cause more hatred anywhere. I want to spread positivity and love in the world."

Joshua said he came to the conclusion members of the LGBT community shouldn't have to fit a singular mold to be accepted, and encouraged others to support "smaller parts" of the community.

Although he's hesitant to become the face of throuples, he understands he's one of a few TikTokers highlighting the different dynamic and he plans to keep posting about it.

"If I can be that representation for people, I'm actually really happy to do it," he said.

For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.

Read the original article on Insider
As we head into the week, let's take a look at the news from this past week.

Vineyard Wind's first turbine has arrived in New Bedford. The UHL Felicity heavy load carrier will become a familiar site in New Bedford as it makes repeated trips from Portugal to deliver parts of Vineyard Winds offshore wind turbines to the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal. The turbine blades will start arriving in mid-June.

The pair of piping plovers have returned to New Bedfords East Beach and are getting ready to hatch some eggs. An endangered species, New Bedford Conservation Agent Chance Perks watches over the plovers with help from two paid Massachusetts Audubon Society monitors under contract with the city and with the help of neighborhood volunteers. The area of East Beach where the birds are under surveillance has been closed to the public to give them space.

Keep up with high school sports with scores, game highlights, and player of the week voting at https://www.southcoasttoday.com/sports.

Here are the most-read stories of the week on https://www.southcoasttoday.com:

The same black bear believed to be the one spotted in Taunton, Freetown, Fall River and Dartmouth, was in New Bedford's far North End Tuesday, as Mass. Environmental Police guided it into the nearby woods at a dead end on Philips Road.

The resident SouthCoast black bear has surely been causing a stir making appearances all over the area.

A Dartmouth police social media post from 10:05 a.m. Monday includes a picture of what appears to be a black bear, reportedly from a home surveillance system in the area of Collins Corner Road.

Massachusetts Environmental Police were in New Bedford on Tuesday trying to convince a black bear  believed to be a two-year-old male  to make its way into the woods in the city's far North End.

After a long morning hunting for bird feeders through backyards in New Bedford's North End on Tuesday, SouthCoast's apparent resident black bear reemerged through the woods in the town of Acushnet just after noontime before popping up yet again in Marion on Wednesday.

Monday: A black bear has been spotted in Dartmouth. Here's what we know.

Tuesday: SouthCoast's infamous black bear was in New Bedford on Monday, Tuesday.

Wednesday: After a busy morning in New Bedford, SouthCoast's black bear took a nap in Acushnet.

Fishermen repair the dredges aboard the Daddy's Girl scalloper docked in New Bedford.

As offshore wind companies seek permits for new projects, officials in New Bedford are weighing in on the impact on the fishing industry.

New Bedford Port Authority Executive Director Gordon Carr is calling for SouthCoast Wind to follow Vineyard Winds lead in support of local fisheries programs and projects. Vineyard Wind is closing in on construction of its wind farm.

The DEIS states that Mayflower Wind would implement a compensation program for lost income for commercial and recreational fishing interests during construction and for a minimum of five years post-construction.

More: New Bedford Port Authority weighs in on fisheries mitigation for offshore wind

That is, "What's New Bedford?" was the answer to a "Jeopardy! Masters" question highlighting the Whaling City's national park on Wednesday night.

During ABC's final night of "Jeopardy! Masters" hosted by Ken Jennings, an answer during double jeopardy for $400 read, "A historical park devoted to the whaling industry in this Massachusetts city features a museum & then Schooner Ernestina" was correctly questioned by Matt Amodio.

Game show: New Bedford featured as question again on 'Jeopardy!'. Here was the Whaling City answer.

Paul Giammati's New Bedford-Fairhaven filmed movie "The Holdovers" to premiere November 10.

Featuring scenes at Fairhaven High School and the Wamsutta Club, the upcoming Paul Giamatti film "The Holdovers" sets to release in November 2023.

In February 2021, actor Giamatti and director Alexander Payne reunited, since collaborating on the 2004 film "Sideways," to start filming "The Holdovers" in the New England area.

According to a press release by Focus Features, the film is officially heading to theaters this fall, and will open in limited release on November 10.

Giamatti: Movie filmed at Fairhaven High School and Wamsutta Club announces release date

All of these stories can be found in their entirety at Southcoasttoday.com.

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: Top stories black bear on the SouthCoast, Giamatti film, offshore wind
(Bloomberg) -- Chinas decision to bar Micron Technology Inc.s memory chips has escalated tensions with the US, fueling worries over what other technology firms Beijing may target.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Policymakers in the Asian nation, however, have limited scope to find alternatives to US firms in the semiconductor supply chain that ranges widely from chip design, manufacturing, equipment to materials. For now, itll be almost impossible for China to replace some key products made by top American companies including Qualcomm Inc., Nvidia Corp., Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc., analysts say.

The spat over semiconductors between the worlds two biggest economies has been hurting investor sentiment since the US in October imposed a sweeping ban on exports of advanced chips and know-how to China. That said, the scale of decoupling between the two nations is likely to be smaller than feared given Chinas reliance.

Head-on against the US in semiconductors is a costly, if not losing move that is not strategically sound for China, said Redmond Wong, a strategist at Saxo Capital Markets based in Hong Kong. China is not seeking decoupling nor deglobalization. It is only seeking gradual changes to the global order to be less American dominant.

Logic Chips

Logic chips are deemed as the brains of electronics. This segment includes central processing units (CPUs) that are built for general functionality of equipment, and graphics processing units (GPUs) which are optimized for visual displays and AI computation.

This sub-sector is deemed as one of the most difficult areas for China to ban American components. The US has a more-than 60% market share in the logic chip segment, according to a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. report.

Mainstream components such as Intel processors and mobile phone processors from Qualcomm are integral to PCs and smartphones. However, it seems unlikely they would be banned at this point, given the lack of viable local alternatives, said Robert Lea, Bloomberg Intelligence.

Huawei Technologies Co. and other firms have developed their own processors, though Im not sure they are as advanced as US products currently, nor are produced in sufficient volume, said Lea.

CPU manufacturer Intel generated 27% of its revenue from China and Hong Kong, while the China exposure of GPU maker Qualcomm and Nvidia is 64% and 21%, respectively. The US banned Nvidia from exporting high-end products to China last year, but its still selling the country low-end chips. Even for the latter, itll be hard to replace, according to Lea.

For Qualcomm, China has no domestic capability and it still has to rely on Mediatek Inc., which is Taiwanese. So pick your poison, said Vey-Sern Ling, managing director at Union Bancaire Privee.

Chip Design

China needs to balance sending a message to the US and hurting its own domestic enterprises, said Ling. It has fairly capable domestic memory chipmakers that can step up to replace Microns supply, but in other areas like chip design, logic chip manufacturing and semiconductor production equipment, China is not able to ban the US without hurting themselves.

Another challenging group to replace includes Synopsys Inc. and Cadence Design Systems Inc., which provide software design services for chipmakers. Although they dont generate revenue directly from China, their customers include Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. that get a big portion of sales from there, Bloomberg-compiled data show.

Shares of Synopsys and Cadence dropped over two sessions following Chinas decision to ban Micron. All the three stocks had recouped those losses by Thursday, thanks to a rally spurred by optimism over Nvidia Corp.s bullish sales forecast.

READ: Asian Chip Stocks Climb Second Day After Nvidia Sparks AI Rally

Manufacturing Equipment

The US banned China from buying advanced chip-making equipment or employing American citizens without a license late last year, causing firms like Applied Materials Inc., KLA Corp. and Lam Research Corp. to withdraw their businesses from China.

The choices left are quite limited for China. Dutch company ASML Holding N.V. is the only manufacturer of extreme ultraviolet machines needed to print every advanced microchip. Japanese companies like Nikon Corp. also make chip-making equipments.

In March, Japan said it will expand restrictions on exports of 23 types of leading-edge chipmaking technology to China, though Japans trade minister said the move isnt in coordination with US and wasnt a ban. Japanese chip stocks slid earlier this week as the trade ministry said the previously announced chip curbs would take effect July 23.

The Dutch government is seeking a middle ground between the US and China, as it announced plans in March to expand semiconductor export restrictions, though thats seen to fall short of measures the Biden administration took.

READ: China Chip Firm Seeking to Rival ASML Is Said to Mull IPO Filing

With the US ban, its been quite challenging for China to make breakthroughs in advanced chips below 10 nanometers, said Dale Dai, Taipei-based analyst at Counterpoint Research. Even if they obtained the equipment machines, they still lack the designing capacity.

--With assistance from Gao Yuan.

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Mesa police officers are investigating four separate shootings that left three people dead and one person recovering in the hospital.

Officers believe the shootings are related and have identified an investigative lead. Investigators are in the process of questioning that person, police said.

On Friday just before 10:30 p.m., officers were dispatched to Beverly Park near Alma School Road and Main Street for a report of a person found dead. Officers discovered the body of a 41-year-old man.

While still at the park, officers heard shots fired nearby and other officers began to search the area, police said. About 12:15 a.m. on Saturday, officers found a 36-year-old woman with injuries at Stewart and Main Street. The woman was transported to the hospital where she is in stable condition and will undergo surgery for serious injuries, police said.

Another person called police just before 1 a.m. on Saturday to report a dead man near a bus stop at South Country Club Drive and Second Avenue. Officers arrived and found the body of another 41-year-old man.

Officers saturated the area in search of the suspect and other victims and ultimately discovered another body just after 2 a.m. near South Extension Road and Main Street. This person has not been identified but is believed to be a man, police said.

Phoenix-area homicides in May 2023: Felix Espino-Garcia, 26, shot dead in west Phoenix home, 2 others injured

All four victims had gunshot wounds. Their names will not be released until next of kin notifications have been made, said Sgt. Brandi George, a spokesperson for Mesa Police Department.

"While this case is very complex and still in the beginning stages, the Mesa Police Department has identified an investigative lead, who is currently detained," George said.

Mesa Mayor John Giles released a statement Saturday evening to say he was deeply disturbed by the overnight violence in Mesa and that "this is a tragedy felt throughout the city."

"Mesa residents deserve a safe and peaceful city," Giles said. "Unfortunately, incidents like this are all too common in large and small cities throughout the country."

My statement regarding the shootings that occurred overnight in the @CityofMesa: pic.twitter.com/4K1ryZZdlj  Mayor John Giles (@MayorGiles) May 28, 2023

Search warrants are being served and interviews of potential witnesses are still being conducted. Anyone with additional information about these cases can contact the Mesa Police Department at 480-644-2211.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 4 related shootings in Mesa leave 3 dead, 1 injured
The following is a transcript of an interview with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that aired on "Face the Nation" on May 28, 2023.



MARGARET BRENNAN: House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries joins us now from his district in Brooklyn. Good morning to you. Let's get straight to it, can you deliver a majority of Democrats?

DEMOCRATIC LEADER REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES: Well, good morning Margaret. I do look forward to the White House briefing that's going to take place later on this afternoon with the House Democratic Caucus. We'll be able to have a robust discussion, but let me say this, President Biden has delivered a result that avoids a catastrophic default, that prevents us from- our economy crashing and stops the extreme MAGA Republicans from triggering a job killing recession, which as we've seen over the last week or two increasingly seemed to have been a position that they were taking for political reasons.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, well, we'll only avoid a default if you can get the votes to get it through. Speaker McCarthy predicted this morning he can get a majority of Republicans he says some Democrats he thinks will vote for it. But he also quoted something he says You told him. Listen.

SPEAKER REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY/ FOX NEWS/ SOUND ON TAPE:

I think there's gonna be a lot of Democrats who vote for it too. Right now, the Democrats are very upset. But one thing Hakeem told me, there's nothing in the bill for them. There's not one thing in the bill for Democrats.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Did you say that? And how do you convince Democrats?

REP. JEFFRIES: I have no idea what he's talking about, particularly because I have not been able to review the actual legislative text, all that we've reached is an agreement in principle. Now what I've consistently said both privately and 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Did you even talk to him?

REP. JEFFRIES: I talked to him yesterday afternoon, but I haven't talked to him since that point in time. What I've consistently said, however, privately and publicly was that the extreme MAGA Republican negotiating position, and that the extreme bill that they passed on April 26th, the Default on America Act contained nothing that was consistent with Democratic values or American values. And it was unreasonable to think that that negotiating position was going to be able to result in a resolution that would make sense for the American people when he understood and everyone understood that a bipartisan resolution was the only way forward to avoid a catastrophic default.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, and that's a bill that is going nowhere. In terms of the one that was or is being written as we speak. The head of the Progressive Caucus Pramila Jayapal said on CNN this morning, you need to worry about the left flank of the party. She has 102 members in that caucus. How many Democratic defections do you expect?

REP. JEFFRIES:

Well, I've had several conversations with Pramila Jayapal over the last several days and will continue to do so. I expect that she'll be part of the caucus briefing that takes place later on today. Here's what I can say, is that the agreement that was reached in principle by President Biden does several important things. In addition to avoiding a devastating default that would hurt everyday Americans. It protects Social Security. It protects Medicare, it protects Medicaid. It protects veterans. It protects the American people.

[CROSSTALK]

MARGARET BRENNAN: She's concerned about environmental - environmental policy changes and food stamps.

REP: JEFFRIES: Hold on, I'll get to that. It protects the American people from the types of devastating spending cuts that were proposed by Republicans in their Default on America Act. Those are incredibly significant steps forward. Now in terms of the permitting issue, I haven't had the opportunity, nor have any of us had the opportunity to review what the proposed language may ultimately be, in terms of the permitting situation. In terms of SNAP as I understand it, and again, we'll have the opportunity to review that language in a few hours when it is released, but as I understand it, it will actually result in an expansion of eligibility for people like veterans and the homeless because of changes made to exemptions as a result of what will be in this agreement, in terms of the original 1996 law that was passed.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, according to the White House it is going to relax work requirements for veterans and homeless people, but it still pushes up the age to 54 from 49. Are you implying, do you mean to say here that the White House hasn't kept you fully briefed on the details?

REP. JEFFRIES: The White House has, of course, kept all of us fully briefed every step of the way. However, I do think that as the White House has indicated, this is only an agreement in principle.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.

REP. JEFFRIES: There will not be a final agreement until we all are able to review the actual legislative text.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. The White House is still calling this a budget deal and a separate debt limit increase, but McCarthy says it's a 150-page bill and not a clean debt ceiling increase. Is just one vote, one bill?

REP. JEFFRIES: Well, that remains to be seen, and ultimately, that's a decision that House Republicans have as their prerogative to make. I do hope and expect to see a significant number of House Republicans voting for this agreement. It's my understanding that they are committed to producing at least 150 votes, if not more. They were the ones who negotiated this agreement with the White House. And I expect that they will provide a significant number of votes to get it over the finish line.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, so 150 Republicans, you need something in the range of 70 Democrats? Do you think you'd have that?

REP. JEFFRIES: Well, I do expect that there will be Democratic support once we have the ability to actually be fully briefed by the White House, but I'm not gonna predict what those numbers may ultimately look like. We have to go through a process consistent with respecting every single member of the House of Representatives and their ability to fully understand the resolution that has been reached.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay. Well, Jim Himes of Connecticut, not a progressive, said this morning, if this vote fails, I think we're going to see the kind of market reaction that none of us want to see. Can you deliver a vote? Can you deliver someone like him? Can you deliver a vote that wins on the first try? He's talking about a market crash.

REP. JEFFRIES: Well, we have to of course, avoid a market crash. We have to avoid tanking the economy. We have to avoid a default. The reason why we're in this situation from the very beginning is that extreme MAGA Republicans made the determination that they were going to use the possibility of default to hold the economy and everyday Americans hostage. Period, full stop.

[CROSSTALK]

MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood but that's- that's where we are right now. And that negotiation happened.

[CROSSTALK]

REP. JEFFRIES: That's right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You negotiated with them. So here we are.

REP. JEFFRIES: And that's why I'm thankful that President Biden has reached a resolution. And that's also why I'm thankful that notwithstanding the fact that they were trying to jam 10 year spending caps down the throats of the American people, we were able to apparently match up a freeze in spending consistent with 2023 levels- 2023 levels, not the 2022 levels, that's what they were trying to extract, and thankful that we avoided a catastrophic default.

[CROSSTALK]

MARGARET BRENNAN: There's some disagreement on those but we don't have the text. So we will just have to wait on that. But I want to ask about the backup plan. 213 Democrats voted for this discharge petition, this idea of being able to vote to lift the debt ceiling, even if Republicans- if the Republican leader doesn't do it. You'd need five Republicans. Can you do that? Can you guarantee people that we will not see a default?

REP. JEFFRIES: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. Hakeem Jeffries, glad to have you with us. Hopefully we see you here in person next time.

Christopher Krebs said bad actors can take advantage of U.S.' cybersecurity "vulnerabilities"

Face The Nation: Smith, Krebs

Austan Goolsbee says debt ceiling deal coming in the 11th hour is a "little dangerous"
Travel to the top 10 bluest waters in the US to relax and unwind

A relaxing vacation often includes calming blue waters.

Travel experts at SIXT studied more than 50 of the countrys best bodies of water, from lakes to cenotes to hot springs and more. From that batch, they found the top 10 bluest waters  what they call the "perfect" shades of a vacation.

"The world is full of stunning natural wonders, but there's something unique about recharging while enjoying blue waters," said David Woody, country development and travel expert at SIXT.

Their top 10 findings include locations in Alaska, Florida and many states in between, with blues ranging from friendly shades of periwinkle to commanding shades of cobalt.

Blue Hole in New Mexico, along with the color swatch that matches its blue waters.

In eastern New Mexico, youll find a desert oasis with a sapphire cenote named Blue Hole. According to SIXT, Blue Hole has incredible visibility and remains at a temperature of 62 degrees. Given its name and blue waters to match, its no wonder Blue Hole rose to the top of the list.

Visitors looking to savor the waters of the cenote this summer can enjoy average high temperatures between the mid-70s and mid-80s. Rainfall amounts each month only rise to 1.62 to 3.24 inches on average.

TOP TRAVEL MUST-HAVES, ACCORDING TO THE EXPERTS

A winter scene at Chena Hot Springs in Alaska, along with the color swatch that matches its blue waters.

Far up north in Alaska, Chena Hot Springs takes the silver medal on this list. The geothermal hot springs were discovered more than a century ago during a gold rush, and today, its warm waters remain a popular attraction for those looking to relax and unwind.

The hot springs have some of the coolest temperatures on the list. Summer months at Chena Hot Springs usually see high temperatures between the mid-50s and low 70s with an average rainfall of 2.26 inches of rain a month.

HERE ARE THE TOP SUMMER VACATION DESTINATIONS IN THE US

Las Olas Beach in Florida, along with the color swatch that matches its blue waters.

In the other corner of the country, travelers can find the blue waters of Las Olas Beach, which rank at No. 3 on the list. Travelers can enjoy the blue waters of this Florida destination while basking in the sun and surrounded by palm trees.

The weather at Las Olas Beach can be quite warm as high temperatures rise to the high 80s and low 90s on average. The weather can also be wet, as average rainfall amounts bounce between 8 and 9.30 inches each summer month.

TOP 5 MOST COLORFUL BEACHES IN AMERICA

Image of Grand Lake in Colorado, along with swatch for its shade of blue.

Nestled within the Rocky Mountains is Grand Lake, the largest natural lake in Colorado. Surrounded by mountains, visitors will be immersed in nature, which they can explore by swimming, paddling and boating in the deep blue lake.

Summer weather at Grand Lake is pretty mild, with average high temperatures in the low to mid-70s with average rainfall between 1.36 and 2.09 inches a month.

TEN LARGEST US LAKES WORTH VISITING DURING YOUR NEXT VACATION

Image of La Jolla Cove in California along with swatch for its shade of blue.

Not to be outdone, the West Coast boasts its own blue water paradise with La Jolla Cove. Located in southern California, the beach is part of the San Diego La Jolla Underwater Park Ecological Reserve. Water visibility at the Cove can sometimes exceed 30 feet, according to the City of San Diego.

Visitors looking to travel to La Jolla Cove this summer will enjoy average high temperatures up to the upper 70s with little precipitation.

HOW TO WATCH FOX WEATHER

Map of the top 10 bluest waters, according to SIXT.

Rounding out the list were Sail Bay in California, Lake Conway in Florida, Lake George in upstate New York, Coeur dAlene Lake in Idaho and Glass Beach in Washington.
Trump Looks Like He Will Get the 2024 Crowd He Wants

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis greets people at the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, N.H., May 19, 2023. (Sophie Park/The New York Times)

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida officially entered the presidential race last week, but he appears further than ever from the one-on-one matchup that his allies believe he needs to wrest the nomination from former President Donald Trump.

Former Vice President Mike Pence is burrowing deeper into Iowa, crucial to his effort to dislodge the Republican front-runners, even before he has announced his bid. Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is intensifying preparations for another campaign, with an expected focus on New Hampshire. And Republican donors and leadership on Capitol Hill are showing fresh interest in Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who kicked off his campaign last week. Even candidates who have barely been mentioned are suddenly expressing interest in 2024.

The rapidly ballooning field, combined with Trumps seemingly unbreakable core of support, represents a grave threat to DeSantis, imperiling his ability to consolidate the non-Trump vote, and could mirror the dynamics that powered Trumps takeover of the party in 2016.

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Its a matter of math: Each new entrant threatens to steal a small piece of DeSantis potential coalition  whether it be Pence with Iowa evangelicals or Scott with college-educated suburbanites. And these new candidates are unlikely to eat into Trumps votes. The former presidents base  more than 30% of Republicans  remains strongly devoted to him.

President Trump  he should go to the casino, hes a lucky guy, Dave Carney, a veteran Republican strategist based in New Hampshire, said of the former casino owner, Trump.

Its a gigantic problem for DeSantis, added Carney, who has worked on past presidential campaigns, because whatever percentage they get makes it difficult for the second-place guy to win because theres just not the available vote.

Trumps advisers have almost gleefully greeted each successive entry as part of a divide-and-conquer strategy that his team has spoken about since 2021. And many of the candidates seem more comfortable throwing punches at DeSantis than at Trump.

The DeSantis campaign sees the landscape differently.

We dont believe its 2016 again, Ryan Tyson, a senior adviser to DeSantis, said in an interview.

And in a private briefing for donors this week, Tyson described a Republican electorate split into three parts: 35% as only Trump voters, 20% as never Trump and the remaining 45% as the DeSantis sweet spot.

Tyson told donors, in audio that was leaked and published online, that every entrant besides the two front-runners were isolated in the never Trump segment. If your name is not Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump, you are splitting up this share of the electorate, he said.

In the months leading up to his campaign launch, DeSantis and his allies framed the 2024 primaries as a two-man race. But as he has stumbled in recent months, amid questions about his personality and political dexterity, rivals have become emboldened. And some have the cash to stay relevant deep into the primary calendar.

Scott entered the race with nearly $22 million on hand, and he raised $2 million more in his first day as a candidate. The wealthy, little-known governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, now sees a 2024 opening, filming ads recently to prepare for an imminent campaign, according to two people involved in the planning.

Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, has invested $10 million of his own money in his campaign. Like DeSantis, Ramaswamy sells a similar anti-woke sentiment, but he does so with the charm of a natural communicator.

Trump has welcomed the non-DeSantis entrants to the race. In January, when Nikki Haley, who served as Trumps ambassador to the United Nations, called to tell him she planned to run, Trump did not rant about her disloyalty, as some had expected. He sounded unbothered, telling her to do what youve got to do, according to two people briefed on their conversation.

And in the days leading up to Scotts announcement, Trump was watching Fox News in his Mar-a-Lago office when he said, I like him. Were just going to say nice things about Tim, according to a person familiar with his private comments.

The conventional wisdom at the beginning of the year was that the field would be relatively small, perhaps as few as five people running. Republican anti-Trump donors were working to thin the herd to prevent a repeat of the divided field that guaranteed Trumps victory in 2016. Now, after DeSantis early stumbles, there will likely be as many as 10 candidates competing for attention and vying for the debate stage.

For DeSantis, the squeeze was apparent on the day he entered the race.

In New Hampshire, Haley mocked him on Fox News as merely copying Trump, down to his mannerisms. If hes just going to be an echo of Trump, people will just vote for Trump, she said.

In Iowa, Pence sat down with the type of mainstream media outlets that DeSantis has shunned, including The Des Moines Register. Pence also met with Bob Vander Plaats, the same evangelical leader DeSantis had recently brought to Tallahassee, Florida, for a private meal.

The split screen was a reminder that DeSantis is being pinched both ideologically and geographically, as the field expands.

Pence and Scott have made plain their plans to vie for influential evangelical voters in Iowa. In New Hampshire, both Christie, who focused his campaign on the state in 2016, and the states sitting governor, Chris Sununu, a moderate who has left the door open to a run, threaten to siphon votes from DeSantis. And in South Carolina, he will be sandwiched between two home-state candidates, the former governor Haley and Scott.

Many Republicans who want to defeat Trump are aghast at the exploding field  along with DeSantis underwhelming performance in recent months. DeSantis has slipped in the polls and now trails Trump in all states and by an average of more than 30 percentage points nationally.

All Republicans have to be hitting Donald Trump, said Sununu, who described himself as 50-50 about entering the race. Any Republican that isnt hitting Donald Trump hard right now is doing the entire party a disservice because if only one or two people are willing to take a shot at Donald Trump, it looks personal. It looks petty.

So far, Christie has gotten the most attention for his direct attacks on Trump, which he has signaled would be crucial to his candidacy. But he also has delighted in needling DeSantis at times, an acknowledgment of the Florida governors position in the race.

The reluctance to go after Trump, for many Republicans, feels eerily like a repeat of 2016. Then, Trumps rivals left him mostly alone for months, assuming that he would implode or that they were destined to beat him the moment they could narrow the field to a one-on-one matchup, a situation that never transpired.

The two Florida-based candidates in that race, Sen. Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, a former governor, spent millions of dollars strafing each other. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who wound up as Trumps top rival, gloated privately to donors that he was bear-hugging Trump while also patiently waiting for the moment to pounce. It never came.

Trumps current rivals seem exasperated by their collective inability to crack his foundation: Trumps supporters have been trained for years to come to his defense whenever he is under fire.

Trump has another asymmetrical advantage: Current and potential rivals have sought to avoid criticizing him too harshly so as not to alienate Republicans who still like Trump and are automatically suspicious of anyone attacking him. By contrast, other 2024 contenders have shown no hesitation in going after DeSantis.

His team  maybe him  is excellent at manufacturing the veneer of courage without actually delivering on the real thing, Ramaswamy said in an interview last month. And that can work across TV and even social media, he added. But once you poke a little bit, its like a little bubble in the air: A little touch, and its burst.

Ramaswamy, who has criticized Trump, has aimed most of his fire at DeSantis. A close friend of Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Ramaswamy dined with Trump and Kushner at the former presidents New Jersey club, Bedminster, in 2021, according to two people familiar with the event.

And while the field grows, there is the matter of the debate stage, where Trump eviscerated his opponents in the 2016 primary.

The chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, said earlier this year that she did not expect to need two debate stages as the party required in 2016, with the tiers of candidates determined by polling.

But there could be as many as a dozen declared candidates by August, and many are already racing to collect the 40,000 donors and 1% polling threshold the party has indicated will be needed to get onstage. This pool includes longer-shot candidates such as Larry Elder, the talk radio host who got walloped in the California recall election.

Everyone says, We have to keep people from getting in. Sununu said. Thats the wrong message, the wrong mentality, and thats not going to work.

But he acknowledged that consolidation will eventually be needed to defeat Trump.

The discipline, Sununu added, is getting out.

c.2023 The New York Times Company
Trump said he's 'just going to say nice things' about fellow presidential candidate Tim Scott: report

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, center, speaks in front of then-President Donald Trump, left, and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina during a campaign rally in North Charleston, S.C., on February 28, 2020. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File

Trump had kind words for Tim Scott in the lead-up to the senator's WH campaign launch, per The Times.

"I like him. We're just going to say nice things about Tim," Trump reportedly told the newspaper.

While Trump has shown kindness to Scott, he's gone full speed ahead in attacking Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Former President Donald Trump for months has scorched Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida over his now-declared presidential campaign, calling his onetime ally "disloyal" and dismissing the ex-congressman's readiness for national office.

But on the opposite end, Trump has had nothing but kind words for Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, whom he worked with during his term in the White House.

And according to a recent New York Times report, Trump still had positive feelings regarding Scott in the lead-up to the conservative lawmaker launching his presidential campaign last week.

While watching Fox News at his Mar-a-Lago club in South Florida recently, Trump reportedly passed on any sort of negative words about his longtime ally.

"I like him. We're just going to say nice things about Tim," Trump said, according to an unnamed individual who spoke with The Times.

After Scott held his campaign announcement in North Charleston, South Carolina, last week, Trump wished him luck in the GOP contest and said that the senator would be a "big step up" from DeSantis  whose presidential announcement came during the same week.

Read the original article on Business Insider
ISTANBUL  Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday won re-election, surviving the toughest test of his two-decade and increasingly hardline rule.

The news was greeted by a slew of international congratulations. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the victory was the result of Erdogan's work supporting Turkey's "sovereignty and pursue an independent foreign policy.

Although Turkey is a NATO ally, under Erdogan, 69, the country of 84 million has grown closer to Russia and slipped further toward authoritarianism. The results will have ramifications outside Turkey, which enjoys a strategic location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia.

The Turkish Supreme Election Council officially declared Erdogan the winner of Sundays presidential runoff against Kemal Klcdaroglu.

Soon after the results were announced Fellow hardliner, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, also congratulated Erdogan for an unquestionable election victory.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won reelection Sunday, extending his increasingly authoritarian rule into a third decade as the country reels from high inflation and the aftermath of an earthquake that leveled entire cities. (Ali Unal / AP)

President Joe Biden also congratulated Erdogan, who said at a rally after the election results were announced that he wanted to express my gratitude to my people who made us live this democracy holiday.

Erdogan won in the Turkish Republics centenary year after one of the most hotly contested presidential elections in recent times.

Voters returned to the polls for the runoff election after Erdogan and Klcdaroglu, the leader of the opposition Republican Peoples Party, each failed to secure more than 50% in the first round of voting May 14.

Klcdaroglu, the joint candidate of an alliance of opposition parties, vowed to reverse the country's tilt away from democracy.

For many disillusioned with Erdogan's religiously conservative rule, this election looked like the chance for change. Erdogan's AK Party has been in power since 2002, became prime minister the year year and began serving as president in 2014.

Erdogan had trailed in opinion polls after a campaign dominated by the fallout from the devastating earthquake this year and the countrys economic turmoil. But he led the first round of voting and only narrowly fell short of outright victory.

The steep cost-of-living crisis dominated the agenda, along with a backlash against millions of Syrian refugees, as both candidates sought to bolster their nationalist credentials ahead of the runoff.

Klcdaroglu has led the secular, center-left Republican Peoples Party, or CHP, since 2010. He had previously said he intended to repatriate refugees within two years by creating favorable conditions for their return, but he subsequently vowed to send all refugees home if he were elected president.

Erdogan, meanwhile, courted and won the backing of the nationalist politician Sinan Ogan, the former academic who was backed for president by an anti-migrant party but eliminated after finishing third in the first round of voting.

On the campaign trail, Ogan said he would consider sending migrants back by force if necessary.

Ahead of the first round, Erdogan increased wages and pensions and subsidized electricity and gas bills in a bid to woo voters while leading a divisive campaign in which he accused the opposition of being drunkards who colluded with terrorists. He also attacked it for upholding LGBTQ rights, which he said were a threat to traditional family values.

Turkey also held legislative elections on May 14, and Erdogans alliance of nationalist and Islamist parties won a majority in the 600-seat Parliament. Some analysts suggested that would give him an advantage in the second round, because voters were unlikely to want a splintered government.

Klcdaroglu, a soft-spoken 74-year-old, built a reputation as a bridge builder and recorded videos in his kitchen to talk to voters.

His six-party Nation Alliance promised to dismantle the executive presidential system, which was narrowly voted in by a 2017 referendum. Erdogan has centralized power in a 1,000-room palace on the edge of Ankara, and it is from there that Turkey's economic and security policies and its domestic and international affairs are decided.

Along with returning the country to a parliamentary democracy, Klcdaroglu and the alliance promised to establish the independence of the judiciary and the central bank, institute checks and balances and reverse the democratic backsliding and crackdowns on free speech and dissent under Erdogan.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won reelection Sunday, extending his increasingly authoritarian rule into a third decade as the country reels from high inflation and the aftermath of an earthquake that leveled entire cities. (Ugur Yildirim / AP)

Turkey boasts NATOs second-largest armed forces after the U.S., it controls the crucial Bosporus Strait, and it is widely believed to host U.S. nuclear missiles on its soil.

Together with the United Nations, Turkey brokered a vital deal that has allowed Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea to parts of the world struggling with hunger.

Neyran Elden reported from Istanbul and Henry Austin from London.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
ANKARA, Turkey  Its one of the most hotly contested presidential elections in recent times, but at the Arjantin Ilkokulu elementary school in Turkeys capital, Ankara, the mood was quiet, orderly and calm.

There was no pushing and shoving as voters waited in short lines to decide whether the countrys longtime leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan stretches his rule into a third decade or is unseated by challenger Kemal Klcdaroglu, who has promised to restore a more democratic society. Continuity or change?

I hope it will be good for Turkey, said geologist Salami Toprak, 67, shortly after he voted. Lets see whats gonna come out. He said that he was thinking about the next generation as he cast his ballot.

Watched closely from Washington and Kyiv to Moscow and Beijing, the runoff in the Turkish Republics centenary year comes after neither candidate was able to secure more than 50% of the votes in the first ballot on May 14, with Erdogan falling short by a minuscule amount.

Klcdaroglu, 74, has described the runoff as a referendum on the countrys future. The leader of the secular, center-left Republican Peoples Party, or CHP, since 2010 is a starkly different figure from Erdogan, who is known for his bombastic speeches. Soft-spoken, Klcdaroglu has a reputation as a bridge builder.

Along with returning the country to a parliamentary democracy, Klcdaroglu and the alliance have promised to establish the independence of the judiciary and the central bank, institute checks and balances and reverse the democratic backsliding and crackdowns on free speech and dissent.

Ballot papers for the Turkish presidential election at the Arjantin Ilkokulu elementary in Turkey's capital, Ankara. (Paul Goldman / NBC News)

But Erdogan has been favored to win, especially after his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, retained a parliamentary majority in the elections earlier this month.

Initially, however, he had trailed in opinion polls during a campaign dominated by the fallout from the devastating earthquake that left more than 50,000 dead earlier this year and the countrys economic turmoil.

Erdogan increased wages and pensions ahead of the elections first round, and subsidized electricity costs and gas bills in an attempt to woo voters who have faced a steep cost-of-living and currency crisis precipitated by numerous rate cuts by the government in an attempt to boost exports.

Immigration has also been high on the agenda, and both candidates have sought to bolster their nationalist credentials before the runoff.

Ahead of the first vote, Klcdaroglu said he intended to repatriate refugees within two years by creating favorable conditions for their return. But he has since toughened his stance and has vowed to send all refugees home once he's elected president.

Erdogan, meanwhile, courted and won the backing of the nationalist politician Sinan Ogan, the former academic who was backed for president by an anti-migrant party but was eliminated after finishing third in the first round of voting. On the campaign trail, Ogan said he would consider sending migrants back by force if necessary.

While the economy and migration were important issues, Erdogan managed to securitize the elections and convinced his base that national security was at stake, said Dimitar Bechev, a lecturer on Turkey at Oxford University and author of Turkey Under Erdogan. He added that identity politics revolving around ethnicity and religion had determined much of the allocation of the votes.

The results will also have myriad ramifications outside Turkey, which enjoys a strategic location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Turkey boasts of having NATOs second largest armed forces after the U.S. Controlling the crucial Bosporus Strait, Turkey is widely believed to host U.S. nuclear missiles on its soil.

Despite being a NATO member, the country has maintained close ties with Russia and has blocked Swedens membership in the Western military alliance.

An Erdogan win would likely deepen the countrys relationship with Moscow, according to Nilgun Arisan Eralp, the director at the Center for E.U. studies at the Economic Policy Research Institute of Turkey in Ankara.

Given the dire straits the economy is in, Russian money will be needed for the regime to continue, Eralp said, adding that it was likely he would continue to reject Swedish membership in NATO, damaging relations with the United States and drawing the country closer to the Kremlin.

Ankara has long accused Sweden of harboring militants from the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, which is a designated terrorist group in Turkey, Sweden and the United States.

In Istanbul Emre Turkoglu, 36, said he was waiting for the results with enthusiasm.

This is important to be here today, said the travel agent. But I think that there was no need for a second round because we all know that the president Erdogan is going to win anyway. The past two weeks was an unclear period. I dont like uncertainty in politics.

Matt Bradley and Paul Goldman reported from Ankara. Leila Sackur reported from London.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Two Fresno-area athletes repeat as state track and field champs. Plus, third athlete is crowned

Theyd been on the gold medalist podium at the state championship before.

It was a year ago.

But this time, it was different for both Clovis Sydnie Vanek and Caruthers Nailea Fields.

Both entered the CIF State track and field championships as a defending champ, as well as owner of the top high school mark in their respective event for the year throughout California.

So this time, the entire field was out to surpass Vanek and Fields.

No one, however, would come close.

Vanek and Fields each would make sure of it.

Clovis Highs Sydnie Vanek lands in the Girls Long Jump at the 2023 CIF California Track & Field State Championship finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.

Vanek won the state championship in the long jump for the second straight year, clearing 20 feet, 7 3/4 inches to outdistance the runner-up mark by more than 4 inches.

Fields, too, repeated as the state discus champion after throwing 167-6, which was more than 6 feet farther than the best mark of the runner-up.

Clovis Norths Loie Madsen, left, pretends to bow to Nailea Fields from Caruthers, center, during the awards for Gir;s Discus at the 2023 CIF California Track & Field State Championship finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.

There also was a third state champion from the Fresno area as Hilton Green of Buchanan won the pole vault with a mark of 16-6, which was 4 inches greater than the second-place finisher.

For Green, Saturday marked his first state title, and it comes a year after finishing state runner-up.

Green entered the state meet with high expectations, too, having established the highest mark in California this season.

But Green made sure all would fall behind him as Green broke his previous personal best of 16-1 by nearly a half-foot.

The Fresno area also had a few Top 3 finishers.

In the girls discus that Fields won, Clovis Loie Madsen placed third after launching 156-5 on her last throw.

Buchanans Jordan Leveque placed second in pole vault, clearing a day-best of 13-1.

Buchanan 800-meter runner Noah Ray placed third.

Clovis North sprinter Nikolas Miller took third in the 200.

Clovis North discus thrower McKay Madsen and Buchanans Derek Smith placed second and third, respectively, in the discus.

Tulare Western shot putter Jose Soto placed second with a mark of 60-7 1/4 Madsen competed in the event, too, placing seventh.

Team champions

Granada Hills-Los Angeles won a four-way battle for the boys team championship with 36 points ahead of JSerra Catholic-San Juan Capistrano (33), Long Beach Poly (32) and Buchanan (30). Clovis North tied for seventh with 20.

Wilson-Long Beach won the girls title with 44 points ahead of runner-up Culver City with 31. Buchanan finished eighth with 19.

Other individual highlights

Serra-Gardenas Rodrick Pleasant backed up his 2021 sprint sweep with the 100-200 double gold. His 10.20-second 100 was a tenth of a second under the previous state meet record.

JSerra Catholic-San Juan Capistrano senior Brendon See doubled in the boys discus and added the shot put title.

Ventura sophomore Sadie Engelhardt pulled off a difficult double, successfully defending her 1,600 crown and adding the 800 where she relegated defending champ Mackenzie Browne of J.W. North-Riverside to second.

Montgomery-Santa Rosa sophomore Hanne Thomsen won the girls 1,600 but DNFd in the 3,200, which she won last year.

Tualre Westerns Jose Soto in the Boys Shot Put at the 2023 CIF California Track & Field State Championship finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.

Bullards Kyle Hughes in the Boys Long Jump at the 2023 CIF California Track & Field State Championship finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.

Dinubas Julian Ramirez releases in the Boys Discus at the 2023 CIF California Track & Field State Championship finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.

Clovis Highs Sydnie Vanek in the Girls Long Jump at the 2023 CIF California Track & Field State Championship finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.

Clovis Norths Loie Madsen, right, celebrates her latest throw for the Girls Discus at the 2023 CIF California Track & Field State Championship finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.

Caruthers Nailea Fields laughs with her coach between throws at the Girls Discus finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.

Clovis Norths McKay Madsen in the Boys Discus at the 2023 CIF California Track & Field State Championship finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.

Clovis Easts Alyssa Murillo in the Girls Triple Jump at the 2023 CIF California Track & Field State Championship finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.

The crowd reacts to runners crossing the finish line at the 2023 CIF California Track & Field State Championship finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.

Granada Hills celebrates its top Mens Team ranking at the 2023 CIF California Track & Field State Championship finals Saturday, May 27, 2023 in Clovis.
FILE PHOTO: The company logo is seen on the Micron Technology Inc. offices in Shanghai

By David Lawder

DETROIT (Reuters) - The United States "won't tolerate" China's effective ban on purchases of Micron Technology memory chips and is working closely with allies to address such "economic coercion," U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Saturday.

Raimondo told a news conference after a meeting of trade ministers in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework talks that the U.S. "firmly opposes" China's actions against Micron.

These "target a single U.S. company without any basis in fact, and we see it as plain and simple economic coercion and we won't tolerate it, nor do we think it will be successful."

China's cyberspace regulator said on May 21 that Micron, the biggest U.S. memory chip maker, had failed its network security review and that it would block operators of key infrastructure from buying from the company, prompting it to predict a revenue reduction.

The move came a day after leaders of the G7 industrial democracies agreed to new initiatives to push back against economic coercion by China -- a decision noted by Raimondo.

"As we said at the G7 and as we have said consistently, we are closely engaging with partners addressing this specific challenge and all challenges related to China's non-market practices."

Raimondo also raised the Micron issue in a meeting on Thursday with China's Commerce Minister, Wang Wentao.

She also said the IPEF agreement on supply chains and other pillars of the talks would be consistent with U.S. investments in the $52 billion CHIPS Act to foster semiconductor production in the United States.

"The investments in the CHIPS Act are to strengthen and bolster our domestic production of semiconductors. Having said that, we welcome participation from companies that are in IPEF countries, you know, so we expect that companies from Japan, Korea, Singapore, etc, will participate in the CHIPS Act funding," Raimondo said.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
KAMPALA (Reuters) - Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni said late on Saturday there had been casualties during an attack by Somalia's Islamist group al Shabaab on a military base manned by Ugandan peacekeepers in the Horn of African country on Friday.

Museveni did not say how many soldiers were killed or wounded but it was the first official admission of losses in the attack among the Ugandan troops who are serving in the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS).

"Condolences to the country and the families of those who died," Museveni said in a statement, adding the country's military had set up a panel to investigate what happened.

Al Shabaab has since 2006 has been fighting to topple Somalia's Western-backed government and establish its own rule based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Museveni said during the attack "some of the soldiers there did not perform as expected and panicked, which disorganized them and the al Shabaab took advantage of that to overrun the base and destroy some of the equipment."

The assailants numbered about 800 and during the attack the Ugandan troops were forced to withdraw to a nearby base, about nine kilometres away, he said.

Al Shabaab fighters targeted the base early on Friday in Bulamarer, 130 km (80 miles) southwest of the capital Mogadishu.

Al Shabaab said in a statement at the time that it had carried out suicide bomb attacks and killed 137 soldiers at the base.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the casualties. Al Shabaab tends to give casualty figures in attacks that differ from those issued by the authorities.

ATMIS has so far not said how many troops were killed or wounded in the attack.

The peacekeeping mission has been in Somalia since 2007 and helps to defend Somalia's central government against the Islamists.

(This story has been refiled to change the day to late Saturday, from Sunday, in paragraph 1)

(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; editing by Jane Merriman)
UK health minister says will not negotiate on pay with nurses' union

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's health minister, Steve Barclay, said on Sunday that the government would not negotiate on pay with the nurses' union, as the threat of further strikes looms.

The government's offer, which includes a one-off payment equivalent to 2% of salaries in the 2022/23 financial year and a 5% pay rise for 2023/24, was rejected by the members of the Royal College of Nursing in April.

When asked by Sky News whether the government would resume talks with the union, Barclay said "Not on the amount of pay."

The union is already balloting its 300,000 members on further strike action over the next six months.

The union did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for a comment on Barclay's remarks on Sunday. It has said that the government must pay National Health Service (NHS) staff "fairly."

The relationship between the union, which has staged multiple strikes that have disrupted patient care, and the government became strained in late April when the health department limited the length of a strike after legal action against the RCN.

(Reporting by Muvija M;Editing by Alison Williams and Jane Merriman)
Top Ukrainian officials hinted on Saturday that the country may be nearing the launch of its long-awaited counteroffensive.

Its time to get back whats ours, Ukraines chief military officer, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said in a Telegram post on Saturday, accompanied by a video of Ukrainian troops who appeared to be preparing for battle.

Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraines National Security and Defense Council, also said in an interview with the BBC that Kyiv is looking at when to launch its counteroffensive to have the best result at that point of the war, noting that it could potentially begin tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week.

We are always ready, Danilov added, when asked if Ukrainian forces were prepared for the counteroffensive. The same as we were ready to defend our country at any time. And it is not a question of time.

Ukraine had previously signaled that it was preparing to launch the offensive before pumping on the brakes.

Preparations are being finalized, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in late April, adding that Kyiv was mostly ready for the offensive.

However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in early May that the military needed more time to prepare, adding that it would be unacceptable to start the counteroffensive at the time because Ukraine would lose a lot of people.

So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time, Zelensky said. In terms of equipment, not everything has arrived yet.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Ukraine will put an end to the history of Moscow's despotism against various peoples  Zelenskyy

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine will put an end to the history of Moscow's despotism, which has enslaved various peoples for a long time.

Source: President's evening address

Quote: "Kyiv and all our cities, our entire Ukraine, will put an end to the history of Moscows despotism, which has been bringing enslavement to many different peoples for a very long time. Neither Shaheds nor any other means of terror that it humiliatingly seeks around the world will save it.

Because strength is in people, it is in cities, it is in life, and when life, people, and the most important cities for culture are despised, Russia will only face defeat. And even hundreds of Shaheds will not save it from this. They will only enlarge Russia's disgrace.

Because power is in people, in cities, in life. And when life, people, and the most important for the culture [cities] are neglected, there will only be a [defeat]. [Defeat] for Russia. Even hundreds of Shaheds will not save it from this, they will only add [to Russias shame]."

Details: Zelenskyy noted that during the next Russian attack on Sunday night, the quantitatively most powerful blow was directed against Kyiv Oblast.

"During this terrorist attack, the most powerful strike was aimed against the Kyiv [Oblast]. Within the city of Kyiv and the [oblast], 36 drones were shot down. This is how Russia celebrates the day of our ancient Kyiv... Throughout its history, Kyiv has seen various meannesses from invaders. It has survived them all, and it will survive the [R]uscists. None of them will be here!", stressed the president.

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Ukraine strikes Russian targets at least 5 times in Berdiansk

Explosions were heard in occupied Berdiansk on Sunday afternoon  Armed Forces of Ukraine struck Russian positions in the surrounding hromada [an administrative unit designating a town, village or several villages and their adjacent territories  ed.].

Source: Berdiansk City Military Administration, local telegram channel Berdiansk Today

Quote: "At least five more hits from the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Russian positions in the Berdiansk hromada!

Russian air defence showed its inefficiency once again. We rejoice with you and wait for details and official confirmation from the General Staff."

Details: According to Berdiansk Today, "it was very loud in the village of Andrivka, a column of smoke is rising in the area."

Loud noises [strikes  ed.] were also heard thrice in Novotroitske.

A column of smoke was also rising near Berdiansk. Local residents reported that the sounds of explosions were heard from the airport.

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Key developments on May 28:

Russia launches biggest drone attack on Kyiv, 1 killed, 2 injured

Ukraine likely to sanction Iran for 50 years

Lukashenko claims Russia will give nukes to any state that joins it

Ukraine's air defense shot down 58 out of 59 Iranian-made Shahed loitering munitions overnight on May 28 as Russia launched a massive drone attack across Ukraine, the General Staff of Ukraine Armed Forces reported in its evening update.

When first reported, Ukraine's Air Force said it downed 52 out of 54 Russian drones.

The infrastructure site was hit in central Zhytomyr Oblast, Governor Vitalii Bunechko reported, without providing other details.

Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, was attacked for the 14th time this month.

The May 28 attack, hours before the start of Kyiv Day celebrating the city's founding, was the largest since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.

The air defense shot down over 40 Russian drones in and around the capital.

However, a civilian was killed by the drone's debris.

Drone parts hit a gas station, killing one and injuring two civilians in Kyiv, local police reported on the morning of May 28. The injured have been hospitalized.

According to the Kyiv City Militarily Administration, the debris also caused a fire in three districts.

President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ukraine's air defense and first responders following the Russian drone attack across Ukraine.

"Every time you shoot down enemy drones and missiles, lives are saved," Zelensky said.

Russias centuries-long quest to conquer Ukraine Editors Note: This is episode 2 of Ukraines True History, a video and story series by the Kyiv Independent. The series is funded by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting within the program Ukraine Forward: Amplifying Analysis. The program is financed by the MATRA Programme of the Embassy o The Kyiv IndependentIgor Kossov

Sanction against Iran

President Volodymyr Zelensky filed a draft resolution to the Ukrainian parliament to impose sanctions against Iran for 50 years following the National Security and Defense Council decision.

Sanctions include a complete ban on trade with Iran, investments, and transferring technologies, as well as stopping Iranian transit across Ukraine and preventing the withdrawal of Iranian assets from the country.

The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, must approve the bill for it to become law. The vote hasn't been scheduled yet, according to its website.

Iran has supplied Russia with military hardware, including the Shahed loitering munition that Russia has launched at Ukraine by the hundreds.

The U.S. and the EU have imposed sanctions against Iran for supplying Russia with these drones.

The parliament usually adopts resolutions based on the National Security and Defense Council decisions, thus, Ukraine is likely to impose these sanctions against Iran.

On the battlefield

The General Staff warned that the probability of missile and air strikes throughout Ukraine remains high.

The military reported that the Russian forces conducted 91 airstrikes and 25 shelling across Ukraine on May 28.

According to the report, the Russian forces continue their main efforts in assaulting eastern Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.

Russia controls almost the entire Luhansk Oblast and occupies over half of the Donetsk Oblast.

In addition, Russian forces attacked multiple settlements in Sumy, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts on May 28, the military reported.

Meanwhile, multiple explosions were reported in Russian-occupied regions.

Ukrainian media outlets reported explosions in occupied Berdiansk, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, on the morning of May 27. Several explosions were also reported in occupied Berdiansk earlier on May 25.

Belgorod incursion: Meet the anti-Kremlin militia behind the attack inside Russia Editors Note: The Kyiv Independent, together with a number of journalists, was taken to a location in northern Ukraine to interview the members of the units that took part in the military operation inside Russia. Not revealing the exact location was the only precondition for the interview. Norther The Kyiv IndependentAsami Terajima

Nuclear proliferation

Belarus' dictator Alexander Lukashenko claimed Russia would give nuclear weapons to any state that joins the Union State of Russia and Belarus, Russian state-controlled media said.

The Union State, a supranational union consisting of Belarus and Russia, was created in 1999 and aimed at eventually making the two countries into one by deepening political and economic integration.

"It's very simple. The union of Belarus and Russia should be open for entry, and that's all: There will be nuclear weapons for all," he claimed.

Moscow and Minsk signed documents on May 25, allowing the placement of Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.

Lukashenko claimed on May 25, Russia started transferring some of its tactical nukes to Belarus.

Putin had first threatened to do so on March 25, adding that a special storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons would be ready by July 1.

However, control over the weaponry and decision on its use remains with the Kremlin.

NATO, the EU, and the U.S. have condemned the decision to transfer nuclear weapons to Belarus.

The EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell called the decision an "irresponsible escalation and threat to European security."

The Institute for the Study of War suggested on May 26 that the move was part of a longstanding effort to cement Russia's de facto military control over Belarus.
Police officers stand next to missile debris in Kyiv

The head of Ukraine's military intelligence has warned of a swift response to a series of Russian missile strikes on Kyiv.

Gen Kyrylo Budanov said Monday's attacks failed to intimidate people in the capital who just got on with life.

All the missiles were shot down, officials said, and there were no reports of casualties.

However, flaming debris from the intercepted missiles landed in residential areas in central Kyiv.

Monday's attack followed two nights of heavy drone strikes, the latest in some 16 air attacks on the Ukrainian capital this month.

The latest was unusual because it came during the day and seemed targeted at the city centre, whereas other strikes on Kyiv in May have been at night and directed at key infrastructure or air defences on the outskirts.

Gen Budanov said he wanted to "upset" Russia's supporters by letting them know people in Kyiv were undeterred by the attack and had continued working after it.

"All those who tried to intimidate us, dreaming that it would have some effect, you will regret it very soon," he added in a statement published by Ukraine's intelligence ministry. "Our answer will not be long."

According to reports, only one person was injured and all missiles were destroyed by Ukrainian air defences. Russian authorities claimed all their targets had been hit.

Air raid sirens reportedly also rang out across several other Ukrainian regions.

Local military commanders in Kyiv accused Russia of changing its tactics and deliberately targeting the civilian population. It certainly appears that Moscow wants to step up its pressure on Ukraine even further ahead of any counter-offensive.

Kyiv residents take shelter in a metro station

Oleksandr Scherba, ambassador-at-large at Ukraine's ministry of foreign affairs, told the BBC that the last few days had been very difficult for Kyiv residents.

"Almost every night, the skies look and sound like another Star Wars episode, but we don't feel much of Russian rockets hitting their targets here within the city area. And this is all thanks to the decent countries, decent people of the world who gave us this air defence," he said.

Living in the capital was anything but normal at the moment, Mr Scherba said, adding that the drone attacks and sleepless nights had become "part of our routine".

On Sunday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky praised his country's air defence forces after Kyiv sustained the largest drone attack since the war began.

"You are heroes," said Mr Zelensky, after military commanders said most of the drones launched by Russia were brought down.

In its recent attacks, Russia - which launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 - has been using kamikaze drones as well as a range of cruise and ballistic missiles.

Analysts say Moscow is seeking to deplete and damage Ukraine's air defences ahead of its long-expected counter-offensive.

Ukraine has been planning a counter-offensive for months. But it has wanted as much time as possible to train troops and to receive military equipment from Western allies.

On Monday, in Russian region of Belgorod, the governor said that several frontier settlements were being shelled simultaneously by Ukrainian forces.

In the meantime, Russian forces have been preparing their defences in the seized regions of south-eastern Ukraine.
Russian forces control Iranian-made kamikaze drones via satellite, so these UAVs are trying to mislead the Ukrainian air defence system. Due to the threat of Shahed drone attack an air-raid warning may last for a long time.

Source: Colonel Yurii Ihnat, Spokesperson for the Air Force of Ukraine, on air at Espreso.tv channel

Details: A large-scale and long-lasting air-raid warning was issued almost across the entire territory of Ukraine on the night of 27-28 May due to the record-breaking attack by Russia's Shahed drones. Ihnat explained the insidious nature of the kamikaze drone attack.

Quote: "They [Shahed drones  ed.] were launched from the south and the north (usually these fronts are used by Russian occupiers to launch Shahed attacks). Then they fly in groups, in batches they fly towards different fronts. Each drone has its own route, each UAV has a GPS navigation [system], [and it] is controlled via a satellite, thus it can fly even in circles, and then strike at a certain moment.

This way, the enemy tries to confuse and mislead our air defence system; it uses the topography of the area to disappear from radars.

Both kamikaze drones, such as Shahed, and cruise missiles are designed to overcome the air defence system, but as we can see, the Ukrainian air defence is getting stronger and stronger every day. We would like to have more equipment to get a 100% success rate. And perhaps the F-16 aircraft, which we have been waiting for so long, can cope with this better."

Details: According to Ihnat, the most effective equipment against Iranian drones at night are anti-aircraft guided missiles, which have a large area of damage, compared to short-range anti-aircraft defense weapons. Aviation is used, too. Of course, it would be better to destroy Shahed drones with less expensive mobile fire groups, explains the Air Force spokesman, but unfortunately, their effectiveness at night is not so great. On the other hand, some of the drones were actually destroyed by these groups last night, the officer added.

Background:

On the night of 27-28 May, an air-raid warning was issued in Kyiv and a number of Ukraines oblasts. It lasted for more than 5 hours in the countrys capital. The air defence systems worked intensively, and Kyiv residents were kept awake by explosions.

The Kyiv City Military Administration reported that preliminary information indicates that on the night of 28 May, more than 40 Russian UAVs were destroyed. At least one person was killed and one injured in the Ukrainian capital due to the falling debris. There is damage and destruction in the city.

On the night of 27-28 May, Russia launched the most massive Iranian-made kamikaze drone attack on Ukraine so far; Russian forces fired 54 loitering munitions, and Ukraine's air defence forces destroyed 52 of them.

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Ukraine's invitation to NATO may become a key factor in ending the war  Head of President's Office

The head of the Office of the President, Andrii Yermak, said that the key factor for ending the war could be the invitation of Ukraine to the North Atlantic Alliance.

Source: He said this in an interview with Voice of America, European Pravda reports.

Quote: "Yes, I believe that inviting Ukraine to NATO can be a key factor in ending this war," Yermak said.

Details: According to Yermak, Russia must accept Ukraine's accession to NATO.

Quote: "And it [Russia] won't have a choice. Russia will accept it. Because they changed [our] reality. They were the ones to attack Ukraine," said the head of the Office of the President.

Yermak also stated that joining NATO is not only Ukraines wish, but "absolutely such a reality that the modern world, modern Europe, needs."

Quote: "Europe needs a protected world. And that cannot be done without Ukraine," stated the head of the Office of the President.

Regarding security guarantees, Yermak added that Ukraine needs them while on the way to NATO membership. "Because the main guarantee is membership in NATO. Today, NATO is the strongest alliance in the world. Everyone admits that. And I am sure that it will be like that [i.e., Ukraine will have security guarantees as a NATO member state  ed.]," he said.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that the member states of the Alliance are divided on the issue of Ukraine's accession to NATO.

According to media reports, NATO member states are inclined to offer Ukraine an expanded partnership format and thus demonstrate political support but not to give a concrete "roadmap" for accession.

Background:

Following the results of the summit of Ukraine and the Northern European states, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine should become the next member of NATO after Sweden joins the Alliance.

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Oleksii Danilov, Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council Secretary, has called Russia's largest Shahed UAVs attack a demonstration of stupidity and stubbornness.

Source: Danilov on Facebook

Quote from Danilov: "I checked the morning operational report at 05:30 and just shook my head in bewilderment.

The Russians keep demonstrating their two main 'virtues'  stupidity and stubbornness in their various variations".

Previously: On the night of 28 May, an air-raid warning was issued in Kyiv and a number of Ukraines oblasts. It lasted more than 5 hours in the countrys capital. The air defence worked intensively, and Kyiv residents were kept awake by explosions.

The Kyiv City Military Administration reported that preliminary information indicates that on the night of 28 May, more than 40 Russian UAVs were destroyed. At least one person was killed and one injured in the Ukrainian capital due to the falling debris. There is damage and destruction in the city.

On the night of 28 May, Russian forces fired 54 loitering munitions, and Ukraine's air defence forces destroyed 52 of them.

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During the largest-scale Russian attack by Iranian kamikaze drones to date, one of the invaders deadly UAVs was destroyed by border guards of the Chernihiv detachment named after Kniaz Volodymyr the Great, together with the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Source: State Border Service of Ukraine

Details: First, the soldiers of the State Border Service received information about a possible attack by drones, and after some time, they heard a characteristic sound and saw the drone visually.

They opened fire with small arms and other available means of destruction. As a result, the Shahed drone exploded and fell into a field without reaching the designated target.

Quote: "Such UAVs are known to carry tens of kilograms of explosives. So, a deadly drone could hit anywhere and cause death, maiming and destruction.

During an air raid, we ask everyone to go to the shelters!"

For reference: The Air Force explained the specifics of the kamikaze drone attack. According to Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, the most effective means against Iranian drones at night is anti-aircraft guided missiles, which have a large area of damage compared to small anti-aircraft missiles. It is ideal to destroy Shaheds with less expendable forces of mobile fire groups, but at night, the efficiency of their work, unfortunately, is not great.

Although this night, some of the drones were also destroyed by these groups, Ihnat added.

Background:

An air-raid warning was announced in the city of Kyiv and a number of oblasts of Ukraine on the night of 28 May. In the capital, it lasted more than five hours. The anti-aircraft defence was working hard; the explosions kept up the people of Kyiv.

The Kyiv City Military Administration reported that on the night of 28 May, according to preliminary data, more than 40 Russian drones were destroyed. As a result of falling debris, there is at least one dead and one injured in the capital. There is damage and destruction. Law enforcement officers are documenting the consequences of the attack.

In the morning, the Air Force reported on the results of their work against the largest-scale Russian attack by Shaheds to date: 52 out of 54 Russian attack drones were destroyed.

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Russian invaders lost 400 of their soldiers, 3 tanks and 11 artillery systems in Ukraine in the course of the last day.

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook, information as of 28 May 2023

Details: Total combat losses of the Russian forces between 24 February 2022 and 28 May 2023 are estimated to be as follows [figures in parentheses represent the latest losses  ed.]:

206,600 (+400) military personnel

3,797 (+3) tanks

7,456 (+7) armoured combat vehicles

3,425 (+11) artillery systems

574 (+0) multiple-launch rocket systems

329 (+0) air defence systems

313 (+0) fixed-wing aircraft

298 (+0) helicopters

2,993 (+3) operational-tactical UAVs

1,056 (0) cruise missiles

18 (+0) ships/boats

6,192 (+9) vehicles and tankers

451 (+2) special vehicles

The data is being confirmed.

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Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut say fighting regular Russian troops will be 'not as hard' as fighting Wagner troops because they're inexperienced

Ukrainian officials including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have asserted that Kyiv's forces are still active in Bakhmut and could stage a semi-encirclement on the flanks of the city. Photo by SERGEY SHESTAK/AFP via Getty Images

Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut say fighting regular Russian troops will be easier than Wagner forces.

Troops told The Washington Post that Wagner Group's "unorthodox strategies" were hard to deal with.

Fighting in Bakhmut has mostly stalled, with most Ukrainian forces settled in the city's outskirts.

Ukrainian soldiers in Bakhmut are hopeful that Wagner Group forces will be replaced by regular Russian troops, saying the latter are easier to fight because of youth and inexperience.

In an interview with The Washington Post, one drone operator identified as Chuck said Wagner troops use "unorthodox strategies" that make them difficult to predict, while regular Russian forces didn't have the same qualities.

"Fighting with regular Russian forces is not as hard as fighting with Wagner," he told the Post.

Ukrainian troops are bracing for a changing Russian presence in Bakhmut, as the Wagner Group's leader Yevgeny Prigozhin announced last week that his soldiers would withdraw after Russia claimed full control of the city.

By June 1, Prigozhin said, Wagner mercenaries would be fully replaced by regular Russian battalions.

"We hand over positions to the military: ammunition, positions  everything, including ration packs," Prigozhin said in a video, according to a translation from The Kyiv Independent.

A Ukranian commander in Bakhmut known as Chichen told The Washington Post he's looking forward to that switch.

"It's interesting because the Wagner guys were sitting back in their little bunkers not coming out," he said, the Post reported. "Whereas the Russians, they're young, they're fresh, they're new, and they basically just walk out. Then we give them hell."

Russia claimed victory over Bakhmut  which has seen some of the war's deadliest fighting  earlier this month. While it may be a meaningless victory, the intense combat has left Russian forces exhausted ahead of Ukraine's long-awaited counteroffensive.

Ukrainian troops told The Washington Post that most of their forces are located on the city's outskirts, and there's a potential plan for "semi-encirclement" of Bakhmut and even retake the city after the Wagner withdrawal.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Docks on Lake Brooklyn in Keystone Heights have been dry and far from the water for years, as this 2017 photo showed.

As Floridians, we are surrounded by water. From our famous beaches to the vast and diverse Everglades, water is a vital part of our lives. However, the looming global water crisis threatens to disrupt our world as we know it, with catastrophic effects on all aspects of life. By 2030  just seven years from now  half of the world's population could be without access to clean and safe water if drastic measures are not taken.

With a growing population, a large agricultural sector and a heavy reliance on tourism, water is vital to Florida. It's time for the United States to step up and become a leader in the global response to this impending crisis.

The U.S. Global Water Strategy was mandated under Congress in 2014, and the Biden administration launched its White House Global Water Security Action Plan in 2022 to provide universal access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene.

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The original strategy promotes the management and protection of water resources to support economic growth, reduce the risk of instability and promote sharing of water resources to avoid future conflicts. However, the world is still facing a crisis less than a decade later.

This semester, our class studied todays crises and chose to elevate the water crisis. We presented our recommendations to officials across Washington and demanded progress to save the planet. At the start of this semester, we had no idea of this looming catastrophe, so education is key. The White House must raise awareness by launching a social media campaign focused on galvanizing the youth to take action.

Global efforts have been most successful when the youth are engaged, such as Singapores successful water conservation campaign. Celebrities can help, such as MrBeast and Selena Gomez, who are involved with organizations such as the Arbor Day Foundation and UNICEF.

It isnt common knowledge, but water is used to produce almost everything. For instance, it takes an average of 40,000 gallons of water to produce a car and 2,000 gallons of water to produce a pair of jeans. The U.S. should require labels on all manufactured goods specifying how many gallons of water were used, labeled Water to Produce. Similar to cruelty-free labels, they will help raise awareness and promote conservation.

Women and girls suffer most from lack of access to clean water, as well as menstrual hygiene products, which keeps them from work and school. One in 10 girls miss school due to lack of the latter. The U.S. should push the United Nations to integrate providing free menstrual products globally as part of its effort to meet the Sustainable Development Goals designed to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.

This will help put women at the table where the decisions are made, at jobs to support their families and children in school. History shows that when women are involved in solutions, the outcomes are better and solutions last longer. They should be front and center at local solutions on water resources, as well.

UNF political science students are shown on the National Mall during their April trip to Washington, D.C. There they met with various government officials and pressed the case for solutions to the global water crisis.

Sadly, we are wasting this precious resource. The average U.S. household leaks about 10,000 gallons of water a year  about 1 trillion gallons total. The U.S. loses 17% of its utility water to leaks and the global agricultural system is quite inefficient.

It is time we put a cost to water wasted. We should pilot a project such as the one in Aarhus, Denmark, which charged utilities for every cubic meter lost above 10 percent. It reduced its water usage substantially to just half of what the U.S. still loses. Aarhus alone saved $35 million in one year as opposed to their conventional methods. The U.S. can phase in costs over the next decade from 15% to 10% of leaked water for all utilities, agriculture and corporations.

We need to put a price on water here at home, as well. Floridas precious aquifers spring water is being given to companies almost for free, part of a $94 billion industry using these public resources. For instance, Nestle, which owned Zephyrhills until 2021, is one of the most egregious examples of water thievery in Florida. The multi-billion-dollar company paid a paltry one-time fee of $115 for unlimited access to the aquifer, one of multiple such deals in our state.

This happens across Florida, indeed all over the country and the world. Not only should companies pay a fair price for the water used, but over time this practice should end, so this resource is preserved for families (not corporations). This means our generation must end its use of plastic bottles.

We have no time to waste. As Floridians, we are on the front lines of the water crises, uniquely positioned to lead in water conservation. Bold actions are required not only from our politicians but also from our business leaders and everyday citizens. Our generation inherited this crisis  but it is now our job to demand a solution.

UNF students visited Washington, D.C., in April and presented their recommendations to officials at the Defense and State departments; the National Security Council; the Environmental Protection Agency; the staff of Senator Rick Scott; the Woodrow Wilson Center; and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as well as UNF alumni currently working in D.C.

This guest column is the opinion of the author(s) and does not necessarily represent the views of the Times-Union. We welcome a diversity of opinions.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Half of world's population could be without water by 2030
US debt ceiling: Democrats and Republicans agree deal in principle, Joe Biden says

President Joe Biden (left) with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

President Joe Biden and his Republican opponents have announced they have agreed in principle to raise the US debt ceiling and avert a default.

The president described the agreement as a "compromise", while House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said it "was worthy of the American people".

The deal, after weeks of bitter negotiations, still needs to be approved by a divided Congress.

The Treasury has warned the US will run out of money on 5 June without a deal.

The US must borrow money to fund the government because it spends more than it raises in taxes.

Republicans have been seeking spending cuts in areas such as education and other social programmes in exchange for raising the $31.4tn (25tn) debt limit.

Details of the tentative deal have not officially been released - but CBS, the BBC's partner in the US, reported that non-defence government spending would be kept flat for two years and then rise by 1% in 2025.

It was unclear how exactly a government programme that provides food-purchasing assistance for people on low or no incomes would change.

In a statement, President Biden described the agreement as a compromise which was good for the country "because it prevents what could have been a catastrophic default and would have led to an economic recession, retirement accounts devastated, and millions of jobs lost".

Mr McCarthy, for his part, referred to "historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce".

"There are no new taxes, no new government programs," he said.

Mr McCarthy added that he planned to finish writing the bill on Sunday, before having a vote in Congress on Wednesday.

But he faces a challenge to push it through the House, where it may be opposed by some diehards among both Republicans and Democrats. On Sunday, Republican Representative Chip Roy of Texas said in a tweet he and some others were "going to try" to stop it passing.

Republicans control the House by 222 to 213, while Democrats control the Senate by 51 to 49.

Mr McCarthy told Fox News on Sunday that more than 95% of House Republicans were very excited about the deal.

A US default would upend the US economy and disrupt global markets.

In the US, the immediate effect would be that the government would quickly run out of funds to pay for welfare benefits and other support programmes, for instance.

Over a long period, the crisis would tip the US economy into recession - and this would result in unemployment rising.

A US recession would have big knock-on effects for many countries around the world, for which the US is a key trading partner - they would not be able to sell to an economy that does not buy as much.

And because the US dollar is the reserve currency of the world, a default would send panic across the world, eventually leading to prices of many commodities rising.
A US federal court this week gave final approval to the $50 million class-action settlement Apple came to last July resolving claims the company knew about and concealed the unreliable nature of keyboards on MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro computers released between 2015 and 2019. Per Reuters (via 9to5Mac), Judge Edward Davila on Thursday called the settlement involving Apples infamous butterfly keyboards fair, adequate and reasonable. Under the agreement, MacBook users impacted by the saga will receive settlements between $50 and $395. More than 86,000 claims for class member payments were made before the application deadline last March, Judge Davila wrote in his ruling.

Apple debuted the butterfly keyboard in 2015 with the 12-inch MacBook. At the time, former design chief Jony Ive boasted that the mechanism would allow the company to build ever-slimmer laptops without compromising on stability or typing feel. As Apple re-engineered more of its computers to incorporate the butterfly keyboard, Mac users found the design was susceptible to dust and other debris. The company introduced multiple revisions to make the mechanism more resilient before eventually returning to a more conventional keyboard design with the 16-inch MacBook Pro in late 2019.

Apple wont have to admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement agreement. Before this week, some members of the class action lawsuit attempted to challenge the deal on the grounds that a proposed $125 payout for one group in the class was not enough, an appeal Judge Davila rejected. The possibility that a better settlement may have been reached  or that the benefits provided under the settlement will not make class members 'whole'  are insufficient grounds to deny approval, Davila wrote in his ruling. The judge also rejected a request for compensation from MacBook owners who experienced keyboard failures but did not get their computers serviced by Apple. Theres no word when claimants can expect their payment to be sent out, but the lawyers involved in the case said they look forward to getting the money out to our clients.
The White House has made an extraordinary intervention in the case of an Afghan pilot threatened with deportation to Rwanda by pledging to look into his case as the UK government continues to stall.

The air force lieutenant, who flew combat missions in support of UK and US forces and was praised by his supervisor as a patriot to his nation, fled to the UK in a small boat after the fall of Kabul because it was impossible to find a safe and legal route.

In Britain, dozens of military chiefs, celebrities and politicians from across the political divide have pledged their support to The Independents campaign to allow him to stay, including the former head of the British army General Sir Richard Dannatt, the former head of Nato George Robertson, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, and former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

The pilot believes he is one of many Afghan forces personnel to have been forgotten by the US and British forces (Supplied)

But the government is dragging its heels in making a decision on whether to grant him asylum.

Now, in a dramatic turn of events, White House spokesperson John Kirby, who is the strategic communications coordinator for the US National Security Council, has promised to investigate whether the man would be eligible for asylum in America, in a move that puts further pressure on the UK to act.

When asked by The Independent whether US president Joe Biden believed that Afghan veterans who fought alongside coalition forces should be deported, citing the case of the Afghan pilot in the UK, the former US Navy rear admiral said: Its the first Ive heard of it, so well have to look into it, to check it out.

Military chiefs say the UK has a duty to help the airman instead of forcing him to seek refuge elsewhere, and that the US intervention should increase the pressure on the UK government to do the right thing.

The pilots details have now been sent to the White House, and officials are looking into how the US Department of State can help.

Mr Kirby said the Biden administration is committed to resettling Afghans who fought alongside coalition forces to the United States.

We continue to work to bring our Afghan allies out of Afghanistan and into the country. We continue to believe down to our marrow that thats a responsibility and an obligation we take seriously  its not stopped and its not going to stop, he said.

Mr Kirby said the US had already welcomed more than 100,000 Afghan refugees and stressed that the Biden administration would continue to do everything we can to help the brave Afghans and their families get out of Afghanistan.

John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, has said that the White House will look into the pilots case (Getty)

We encourage anyone who wants to try to seek asylum in the United States to use those legal pathways, and those legal pathways are open, of course, to former Afghan allies. Weve established these legal processes ... the programme is called Enduring Welcome, and so it still exists. So for those Afghan allies that want to claim asylum in the United States, there are existing processes to do that, he said.

The Afghan pilot applied for sanctuary in the US days after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, and his details were sent directly to the US embassy by his former American supervisors. He said he heard nothing back and was forced to flee Afghanistan in fear for his life.

The pilot says he is one of many Afghan forces personnel who have been forgotten by the US and British forces they served with, and believes that the promise of friendship and cooperation has been abandoned by leaders in both Washington and London.

The airman has so far been told by the UK Home Office that his asylum claim could be dismissed because he passed through a number of European countries to get here. He has been threatened with removal to Rwanda, and UK defence ministers have said that he, along with other members of the Afghan air force, would not qualify in principle for help.

Lord Dannatt, the former head of the UK armed forces, responded to the latest development, saying: Right-thinking people in the US, like those in the UK, can see the justice in supporting this Afghan pilot to receive asylum in a safe country like the UK or the US. Sending him to Rwanda would be an outrage.

Lord Dannatt is among those backing the campaign (PA Archive)

Lord Robertson, a former defence secretary and a former general secretary of Nato, said: It is truly sad and demeaning for our country to see the US picking up our obligations to people who bravely served us. Hopefully, a sense of decency and embarrassment will force a change of policy.

And Alf Dubs, a child refugee who fled the Nazis before the Second World War, said he hoped the willingness of the US to investigate the case would increase the pressure on the UK government to do the right thing.

Lord Dubs added: [The pilot] is here in the UK and we have a responsibility to him. It shouldnt matter how he got here  there arent enough safe and legal routes for Afghans to seek safety. Were treating someone who helped our military and mission in Afghanistan very shabbily.

Senior Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence committee, said: This is spilling into White House press conferences when it really should have been handled behind the scenes in the UK.

Mr Ellwood expressed his hope that the apparent intervention in the US would mean that the pilots case would be dealt with quickly by the government and the Rwanda threat removed.

Admiral Alan West, now Lord West, who was chief of the UK naval staff from 2002 to 2006, said the UK has a moral duty to look after the pilot, and urged: We cannot send him elsewhere and he cannot go back to Afghanistan  he is under huge threat.

Steve Smith MBE, CEO of charity Care4Calais and a former British army colonel, said that the pilot has been abandoned all over again by the UK government.

He said: He worked alongside UK and coalition forces but was left behind as the Taliban seized control of the country, and now, having made it to the UK, our government thanks him for his service with the threat of deportation to Rwanda.

The prime minister and defence secretary both asked for the pilots details. Theyve had them for weeks and neither has acted. Its a damning indictment of the governments disrespect towards Afghan refugees that the White House is now pledging to look into the case due to their inaction.

A government spokesperson said: Whilst we dont comment on individual cases, we remain committed to providing protection for vulnerable and at-risk people fleeing Afghanistan, and so far have brought around 24,600 people impacted by the situation back to the UK.

We continue to work with like-minded partners and countries neighbouring Afghanistan on resettlement issues, and to support safe passage for eligible Afghans.
US, Saudi Arabia call for Sudan cease-fire to be extended

U.S. officials and their Saudi Arabian counterparts have called for an extended ceasefire between military factions in Sudan.

In their joint statement, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia called for the Sudanese military government and its rival, paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), to extend their current ceasefire which is set to expire Monday night.

The U.S. and Saudis brokered a week-long ceasefire agreement with the Sudanese army and RSF last week, as the two sides have been battling for control of the country since mid-April.

While imperfect, an extension nonetheless will facilitate the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people, the statement said, also urging the Sudanese government and RSF to continue negotiations and reach an agreement on a ceasefire.

In a separate statement, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia both accused the military sides of violating the cease-fire, saying that these violations significantly impeded delivery of humanitarian assistance and restoration of essential services.

The statement also mentioned the recent airstrikes launched by the Sudanese military, one conducted on Saturday that resulted in the deaths of two people in the capital of Khartoum, and the RSFs continued effort to occupy civilian homes, private businesses, and public buildings.

Both parties have told facilitators their goal is de-escalation to facilitate humanitarian assistance and essential repairs, yet both parties are posturing for further escalation, the statement said.

This comes as the recent string of fighting between the two military factions occurred in Khartoum and other parts of the country.

Its been two years since Sudanese military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF leader Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo led a coup to overthrow the Western-backed government of then-Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

The conflict has resulted in the death of hundreds of people, wounded thousands, and almost led to the collapse of the country.

According to the United Nations (UN) migration agency, the conflict also forced nearly 1.4 million people out of their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, or to neighboring nations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
A Utah toddler playing at his daycare got struck in the head by a bullet, police say

Lane Mugleston, the owner of Leap Ahead Daycare, points to a bullet hole as he speaks to reporters Tuesday, May 23, 2023, in Spanish Fork, Utah. Rick Bowmer/Associated Press

Police in Utah are investigating how a 2-year-old boy was struck in the head with a bullet at daycare.

Authorities said they've identified a person of interest who was shooting birds nearby.

Daycare staff said the child was playing outside when he suddenly stumbled and began bleeding.

A 2-year-old Utah boy was hospitalized this week after being struck in the head by a stray bullet while he was playing with his friends in daycare, according to police.

The Spanish Fork Police Department said in a statement that the toddler is "in stable condition and improving," and that investigators have identified a "person of interest" suspected of firing the bullet.

Police said an adult male is cooperating with investigators, and told them he was shooting birds with a .22 caliber air rifle just west of the daycare. The man has not been identified because no charges have been filed yet.

The incident occurred on May 22 when daycare staff noticed that one of the children  who was playing outside in a fenced portion of the daycare  "appeared to stumble and was seen bleeding from the face," according to the police statement.

The daycare notified the child's parents, who brought the boy to the hospital. Doctors then took scans and realized the child "had a small caliber bullet lodged in its head."

"It appears this was a tragic accident," police said. "Open fields are directly west of the daycare and it is believed the round may have come from that area."

One of the daycare owners told CNN affiliate KSLTV he was "absolutely surprised" and "dumbfounded" over the incident, adding that staff initially had no idea the boy's injury had been caused by a stray bullet.

Mugleston later pointed out a tiny hole in the daycare's fence that was caused by the bullet.

"We thought he just had tripped and hit his head," Lane Mugleston told KSLTV.

Police told the news station that doctors have decided to leave the bullet inside the toddler's head out of fear they'll cause more damage by surgically removing it, but that they believe the child will make a full recovery.

Read the original article on Insider
AFTER 10-YEAR-OLD AMERIE JO GARZA WAS KILLED AT ROBB ELEMENTARY, KIMBERLY GARCIA AND ANGEL GARZA HAD TO FACE UNIMAGINABLE LOSS WITHOUT THE SOLACE OF PRIVACY.

Kimberly Garcia could not bring herself to watch the videos that made her remember, like the one in which her daughter surprised her with packets of ranch dressing, Kimberlys favorite condiment, one day after school. She avoided certain places, like the sea foam green house where they lived when she heard the gunshots. She avoided talking about her grief with other people, who sometimes said well-meaning things that hurt. Kimberly also understood that in Uvalde, Texas, in the aftermath, avoiding was a game that did not last long before someone, something, forced her to remember. Increasingly, when the inevitable happened, she reached for her phone and began typing. On Twitter, at least, she could let it out. She could remember on her own terms.

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When people made comments saying that Amerie Jo was in a better place, that time healed all wounds, Kimberly posted: No shes isnt, SHE SHOULD BE HERE; This kind of wound will never heal. When the world was asleep and she lay awake aching, she confided: Life will never be the same without you Amerie. The thoughts that run thru my head are crazy. When time messed with the memory of her daughter, she grasped at it with words: I have yet to move or wash any of her things. I just cant. But her scent on her clothes is slowly fading away and Im so [expletive] sad. And when words fell short  there were widows and widowers, but what did you call a parent whose child was murdered the way hers was?  she let a photo say it instead: Amerie, snacking and watching a video, molding clay; Amerie, holding her 3-year-old brother, Zayne, on Easter; Kimberlys new tattoos, of the messages Amerie wrote her for Valentines Day and Mothers Day.

Kimberly, who is 30, and her partner, Angel Garza, who is 29, had chosen to move to the sea foam green house in part because it was so close to Robb Elementary School, which Kimberly attended as a child. They were unpacking boxes and hung Ameries posters in her bedroom the day before May 24, 2022, when Kimberly heard two sets of gunshots, the second set so loud that she ducked. Angel, a medical assistant at a clinic a few blocks away, was with a patient and met Kimberly at the school.

They paced around with other parents, pleading with officers who told them that what was happening inside was more of a hostage situation. How calm they were as they said the kids were safe. When Kimberly and Angel saw children climbing out of the windows, running and screaming, some of them covered in blood, the couple worried how they would comfort Amerie when they finally embraced her.

Even after Angel tended to a little girl who cried out that her best friend was no longer breathing  he would soon find out she was referring to Amerie  there was still reason to believe that she could be alive, hiding somewhere. Officers kept reassuring the parents that their children were fine and saying that they should try looking for them at the hospital, or the town square, or the civic center. I need all the prayers I can get right now! I still can not find my child! Please prayers everyone, Kimberly tweeted roughly seven hours into their search, hoping one of Ameries teachers would see it.

She wasnt sure about posting it at first. Until then, her tweets mostly griped about bad customer service and the work she had to finish for cosmetology school. She rarely posted about her intimate feelings. She believed some things in life were better left private. She never imagined how much she would come to share.

Every mass shooting leaves behind more families whose worst nightmare transforms them into sudden, reluctant figures of national tragedy. Overnight, Kimberly and Angels family became one of them. Over time, they found that some families in Uvalde coped by throwing themselves into their new public role, while others retreated from it entirely. For Kimberly and Angel, both paths led to more suffering  the kind that came with putting their grief on display, and the kind that came with knowing that the world would forget if they didnt.

WITHIN HOURS OF the shooting, people descended on Uvalde from all over the country. Camera crews joined the police vans crowded around the school. Strangers drove in to lay flowers where 21 white crosses stood, bearing the names of the victims  19 fourth graders and their two teachers. Days later, the Bidens visited the school and attended Mass nearby. Letters and packages arrived at the school and at city offices addressed to the families  blankets and shirts and posters with the childrens and teachers faces, books about grief. Reporters roamed the area, knocking on doors, asking people what they saw and how they felt when they found out, what kind of change they now wanted to see. The only people the couple did not hear from in those early days were parents of past school-shooting victims, who perhaps understood too well that what these families also needed was space.

Kimberly didnt know what to do with all the attention and generosity, how to appreciate it while wishing none of it was real. After learning that Amerie was gone  My baby, why why why did you have to leave me why, she tweeted  she thanked the thousands of people who replied with condolences and broken-heart emojis. I am grateful for each & every one of you all! she wrote. Later, she would regret not slowing down and being more present, not crying more, not lingering a little longer with Amerie before the pallbearers lifted her away. But in the moment, she feared what would happen if she didnt weigh in as much as she could: that someone else would do it for her, or worse, leave Ameries story behind.

Kimberly and Angel couldnt understand what had happened, how it was possible that they had lost a child, when they agreed to their first media appearances. They didnt know much about Anderson Cooper, but Angels mother said everyone watched him. Angel put on a pair of sunglasses and a backward cap and met the anchorman by the school, clutching a framed photo of Amerie holding the honor-roll certificate she received the morning of the shooting. He told Cooper that she turned 10 just two weeks earlier, that they had surprised her with a cellphone, the same one she used in her final moments to call 911. He told a CBS journalist the same story that morning. They stood in front of the sea foam green house and cried together on camera, as Kimberly wailed inside.

A few weeks after Ameries funeral, Good Morning America came to Angels mothers home, where the couple moved with their son after May 24. Kimberly, already having postponed the interview once, somehow got herself out of bed and into a pair of sweatpants and a white shirt that she didnt remember receiving, with an image of Amerie with angel wings. She sat on a couch in front of the camera, without shoes and with barely any makeup. Each time she tried to say something about how sweet Amerie was, she started thinking about how the memories she tried to recall were the only ones she would ever have. She asked to stop the interview a few times, struggling to collect herself.

Kimberly and Angel pushed their grief into public all summer. They drove to Austin to rally at the Texas Capitol and flew to marches in Washington demanding gun reform. The shifting official narrative about the massacre and the smattering of details that leaked to the press only raised more questions. Because we dont get answers, it makes our minds show us the worst [expletive] imaginable, said Brett Cross, whose child, Uziyah Garcia, was killed in the same classroom as Amerie.

When news broke in July that surveillance footage showed officers waiting in a hallway for 77 minutes before confronting the shooter, the couple flew with Angels mother to CNNs studio in New York. Wearing jeans and Amerie T-shirts, they demanded accountability. We dont know what she did in her last moments, we dont know what she was thinking, Angel said, his voice cracking, as Kimberly wiped her eyes.

That week, the couple met with an F.B.I. agent, who handed them a box of Ameries belongings. Inside, Kimberly found a pair of gold hoop earrings, a jacket and a sunflower backpack that smelled sterile. She wondered what had been cleaned from it and began sobbing. I just received my daughters backpack from the F.B.I. ... with bullet holes on it. No parent should go thru this, she tweeted. She decided against adding a photo, thinking it would be too much.

Kimberly couldnt keep up with all the messages people wrote her, but she tried to respond to the ones from other parents of little kids. She got to know one mother, who also had a 4-year-old son named Zayne and had mailed Kimberly a pair of tiny Crocs with charms memorializing Amerie: an art palette, a Starbucks cup (her favorite drink was vanilla Frappuccino). Occasionally, people came up to Kimberly and other Uvalde mothers at rallies to say that their social media posts had compelled them to protest for the first time. It touched her to know that people out there cared.

In Uvalde, the couple saw signs of mourning everywhere  paper angels and hearts and the phrase Uvalde Strong all along Main Street. But they also felt that the citys sympathy extended only so far; residents were deeply divided when it came to questions about gun reform or holding police officers and other officials accountable. Ive been losing friends and finding peace, Kimberly tweeted.

Thanksgiving landed on the six-month anniversary of the shooting. As the holidays approached, the couple stopped leaving the house even for simple errands. They had their groceries delivered. The only place that brought a measure of comfort was Ameries grave. Kimberly went almost daily to trim the grass and clean the debris, to make sure the wind and rain hadnt knocked over the pinwheels or flowers or decorations, while Zayne ran around picking up petals that had fallen off their stems.

When Dr. Phil invited the couple to Los Angeles to speak before a live audience, with Ameries best friend, Khloie, and her parents, they agreed to one of their last interviews that year. But they told the producers that there were certain things they would not discuss, including the shooter. Kimberly came up with the idea to wear matching button-down shirts in lavender, Ameries favorite color. It was strange how natural these decisions had become.

IN MID-APRIL, almost 11 debilitating months after the shooting, Kimberly and Angel decided to join some of the families who were trekking to Austin every week to speak with legislators and the media. The Texas House of Representatives convened a bipartisan committee that agreed to hear a new set of gun-reform bills, including one that the Uvalde families had been backing, H.B. 2744, which proposed raising the minimum age required to purchase large-caliber semiautomatic rifles to 21 from 18. (The shooter in Uvalde bought his legally the week he turned 18, days before he went to Robb Elementary.) The hearing offered a rare opportunity for the families to speak directly to lawmakers.

The families had just lived through their first Easter without their kids, and through the news of yet another mass shooting, this time at a private Presbyterian elementary school in Nashville, where three children and three adults were killed. The shooter, like the one at Robb, was a former student. Kimberly watched a video of the Nashville police response and started bawling. All I can think about is those parents, those families, she tweeted. I remember sleep wasnt even an option, honestly still isnt. Id doze off for a bit and just cry, & scream, asking why. I still do. Id scream Ameries name. Didnt eat for days, hated the world. I wish this pain on no one. In a few months, Zayne would be old enough to start kindergarten. Angel had been trying to persuade Kimberly to consider private school because public schools no longer felt safe, but after Nashville, he stopped. Home-schooling was their only option.

In Austin, Angel would testify at the House committee hearing, knowing the tears would paralyze Kimberly. She would sit with him, and they would face the moment together. They debated what he should say, discussing one particular detail about Ameries death that they had not shared with anyone, having locked it away because it was too awful. But this time, they agreed, the world needed to hear it.

They arrived at the Capitol steps the next morning, a few minutes past 9. In a windowless waiting room in the basement, they greeted the other Uvalde families. Kimberly wore a black T-shirt with a colorful illustration of the 21 victims smiling faces. Angel wore black slacks, a navy button-down, a tie and dress shoes, and some of the parents teased that he wasnt wearing his usual shorts and backward cap. They hugged and arranged photos of the children on a small table under a TV that was showing the hearing.

Christina Delgado of Community Justice Action Fund, a gun-violence-prevention group, briefed the families on the day ahead. A 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, blocks away from where her daughter attended junior high, prompted Delgado to become an activist. She told Kimberly and Angel that Representative Rhetta Andrews Bowers had family who lived near Santa Fe. Representative Justin Holland had two daughters. Representative Jarvis Johnson also had children. Make eye contact with each of them, she urged.

Kimberly sat and bounced her knee, making her whole body tremble. She rested her head on Angels shoulder and closed her eyes. Someone covered her with a baby blue blanket dedicated to another victim, Jackie Cazares. Three hours passed. During a lunch break, the families walked down the hall to a Moms Demand Action rally. A mother whose daughter was killed in the Santa Fe shooting spoke, as did several others who turned to advocacy after losing someone to gun violence. The Uvalde families stood in a line, staring into the distance in silence. When the crowd dispersed, Angel rushed back to the waiting room, buried his face in his hands and cried. Kimberly rubbed his ears and dabbed her eyes.

Eventually it was dinner time, and someone offered to order food, but no one had an appetite. All the waiting was starting to remind the families of May 24.

The hearing finally resumed around 7 p.m. The committee discussed a few more bills before Representative Tracy O. King, a Democrat whose children attended Robb Elementary, introduced H.B. 2744, which he had drafted.

Earlier, a lobbyist with the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety sat with some of the families to preview a speech that Representative Joe Moody, a Democrat from El Paso  where 23 people died during a mass shooting at a Walmart in 2019  had prepared. Moody helped lead the House investigation into Robb Elementary. He was one of the few people who saw the inside of the school in the aftermath. As the families listened to the lobbyist read Moodys speech, one part made them collapse into tears, one by one, like dominoes.

Im going to tell you something that hasnt really been shared outside of those who investigated the shooting, Moody said during the hearing. In the classroom where the shooter tore those kids apart is a whiteboard. On one side of that whiteboard was a banner that said lovebirds and had the names of some of these innocent kids who were dating. It listed four puppy-love couples. Three of those pairs included kids who were murdered. The whiteboard was otherwise blank, with one exception. The attacker scooped up the blood of his victims and smeared it into a disgusting message there. What he wrote in the innocent blood right next to that lovebirds banner was the phrase LOL. Laughing out loud. The room was quiet save for the sound of the families gasping for air.

Only then, more than 13 hours after they arrived, was it time for the families to speak. One father said he found his daughters body draped in a white sheet, cold and alone in an operating room. One mother said she had to identify her sons body based on what he was wearing that day. Sitting at a table with Ameries last school portrait, Angel stuttered as he tried to describe the image that haunted him and Kimberly all this time, the one they had never spoken about publicly. The gun that killed Amerie was so powerful, he said, a single bullet was able to enter her lower back, and traveled up through her diaphragm, piercing two organs, while ripping through her myocardium, the muscular tissue of her heart. He said he imagined her little body clutching onto a friend, wishing she could be with her parents. Was it my fault? What could I have done? Why didnt I take her home? What was she thinking? What did she do wrong? Just a few of the many questions that drive you insane in this horrible reality.

As they walked back to their car that night, Kimberly thought about the whiteboard, how tomorrow it would be all over the news.

ONE MORNING earlier this month, a few cousins and friends came to Angels mothers home to help Kimberly prepare for what would have been Ameries 11th birthday. They stuffed glitter pens and notebooks and neon markers into lavender gift bags, and they loaded their cars with canvases and paintbrushes and watercolors. Kimberly planned an art-therapy event  Amerie wanted to be an art teacher when she grew up  at the town square. She had been reluctant to have a party. The couple had returned from Austin, where the raise-the-age bill was finally voted out of committee. The details of another mass shooting, this time at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, circulated in the news. The bill never made it to the House floor.

Kimberly and Angel drove around to place balloons and flowers at the school and at one of the murals in the center of town memorializing the victims. In hers, Amerie stands smiling with one hand on her hip. At the cemetery, they met a small group of family, friends and reporters, who wore lavender shirts and shoes and bracelets and bows, and shared sandwiches and cake pops, one of Ameries favorite treats. Kimberly directed people as they helped decorate Ameries grave and posed for group photos. When they huddled around her to sing happy birthday, she cried into Angels shoulder.

More than 80 people gathered at the town square that evening. Girls and boys around Ameries age painted at long tables. Khloie drew her best friend against a bright blue backdrop, dancing like a robot. A few guests gave their paintings to Kimberly. She planned to display them in a new house they were building at the edge of town, in a room dedicated to Amerie.

The night before Ameries birthday, the couple visited the cemetery alone. Angel snapped a picture of Kimberly sitting at her daughters grave, surrounded by glowing lights, her back to the camera. You were supposed to bury me, I wasnt supposed to bury you, she tweeted. Im sorry sweet girl, Im forever sorry. I hate leaving you, but dont worry baby, you rest and well be back in the morning. Everything I do is for you and your baby brother. You will ALWAYS be included. I love you.

AFTER 10-YEAR-OLD AMERIE JO GARZA WAS KILLED AT ROBB ELEMENTARY, KIMBERLY GARCIA AND ANGEL GARZA HAD TO FACE UNIMAGINABLE LOSS WITHOUT THE SOLACE OF PRIVACY.

Kimberly Garcia could not bring herself to watch the videos that made her remember, like the one in which her daughter surprised her with packets of ranch dressing, Kimberlys favorite condiment, one day after school. She avoided certain places, like the sea foam green house where they lived when she heard the gunshots. She avoided talking about her grief with other people, who sometimes said well-meaning things that hurt. Kimberly also understood that in Uvalde, Texas, in the aftermath, avoiding was a game that did not last long before someone, something, forced her to remember. Increasingly, when the inevitable happened, she reached for her phone and began typing. On Twitter, at least, she could let it out. She could remember on her own terms.

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When people made comments saying that Amerie Jo was in a better place, that time healed all wounds, Kimberly posted: No shes isnt, SHE SHOULD BE HERE; This kind of wound will never heal. When the world was asleep and she lay awake aching, she confided: Life will never be the same without you Amerie. The thoughts that run thru my head are crazy. When time messed with the memory of her daughter, she grasped at it with words: I have yet to move or wash any of her things. I just cant. But her scent on her clothes is slowly fading away and Im so [expletive] sad. And when words fell short  there were widows and widowers, but what did you call a parent whose child was murdered the way hers was?  she let a photo say it instead: Amerie, snacking and watching a video, molding clay; Amerie, holding her 3-year-old brother, Zayne, on Easter; Kimberlys new tattoos, of the messages Amerie wrote her for Valentines Day and Mothers Day.

Kimberly, who is 30, and her partner, Angel Garza, who is 29, had chosen to move to the sea foam green house in part because it was so close to Robb Elementary School, which Kimberly attended as a child. They were unpacking boxes and hung Ameries posters in her bedroom the day before May 24, 2022, when Kimberly heard two sets of gunshots, the second set so loud that she ducked. Angel, a medical assistant at a clinic a few blocks away, was with a patient and met Kimberly at the school.

They paced around with other parents, pleading with officers who told them that what was happening inside was more of a hostage situation. How calm they were as they said the kids were safe. When Kimberly and Angel saw children climbing out of the windows, running and screaming, some of them covered in blood, the couple worried how they would comfort Amerie when they finally embraced her.

Even after Angel tended to a little girl who cried out that her best friend was no longer breathing  he would soon find out she was referring to Amerie  there was still reason to believe that she could be alive, hiding somewhere. Officers kept reassuring the parents that their children were fine and saying that they should try looking for them at the hospital, or the town square, or the civic center. I need all the prayers I can get right now! I still can not find my child! Please prayers everyone, Kimberly tweeted roughly seven hours into their search, hoping one of Ameries teachers would see it.

She wasnt sure about posting it at first. Until then, her tweets mostly griped about bad customer service and the work she had to finish for cosmetology school. She rarely posted about her intimate feelings. She believed some things in life were better left private. She never imagined how much she would come to share.

Every mass shooting leaves behind more families whose worst nightmare transforms them into sudden, reluctant figures of national tragedy. Overnight, Kimberly and Angels family became one of them. Over time, they found that some families in Uvalde coped by throwing themselves into their new public role, while others retreated from it entirely. For Kimberly and Angel, both paths led to more suffering  the kind that came with putting their grief on display, and the kind that came with knowing that the world would forget if they didnt.

WITHIN HOURS OF the shooting, people descended on Uvalde from all over the country. Camera crews joined the police vans crowded around the school. Strangers drove in to lay flowers where 21 white crosses stood, bearing the names of the victims  19 fourth graders and their two teachers. Days later, the Bidens visited the school and attended Mass nearby. Letters and packages arrived at the school and at city offices addressed to the families  blankets and shirts and posters with the childrens and teachers faces, books about grief. Reporters roamed the area, knocking on doors, asking people what they saw and how they felt when they found out, what kind of change they now wanted to see. The only people the couple did not hear from in those early days were parents of past school-shooting victims, who perhaps understood too well that what these families also needed was space.

Kimberly didnt know what to do with all the attention and generosity, how to appreciate it while wishing none of it was real. After learning that Amerie was gone  My baby, why why why did you have to leave me why, she tweeted  she thanked the thousands of people who replied with condolences and broken-heart emojis. I am grateful for each & every one of you all! she wrote. Later, she would regret not slowing down and being more present, not crying more, not lingering a little longer with Amerie before the pallbearers lifted her away. But in the moment, she feared what would happen if she didnt weigh in as much as she could: that someone else would do it for her, or worse, leave Ameries story behind.

Kimberly and Angel couldnt understand what had happened, how it was possible that they had lost a child, when they agreed to their first media appearances. They didnt know much about Anderson Cooper, but Angels mother said everyone watched him. Angel put on a pair of sunglasses and a backward cap and met the anchorman by the school, clutching a framed photo of Amerie holding the honor-roll certificate she received the morning of the shooting. He told Cooper that she turned 10 just two weeks earlier, that they had surprised her with a cellphone, the same one she used in her final moments to call 911. He told a CBS journalist the same story that morning. They stood in front of the sea foam green house and cried together on camera, as Kimberly wailed inside.

A few weeks after Ameries funeral, Good Morning America came to Angels mothers home, where the couple moved with their son after May 24. Kimberly, already having postponed the interview once, somehow got herself out of bed and into a pair of sweatpants and a white shirt that she didnt remember receiving, with an image of Amerie with angel wings. She sat on a couch in front of the camera, without shoes and with barely any makeup. Each time she tried to say something about how sweet Amerie was, she started thinking about how the memories she tried to recall were the only ones she would ever have. She asked to stop the interview a few times, struggling to collect herself.

Kimberly and Angel pushed their grief into public all summer. They drove to Austin to rally at the Texas Capitol and flew to marches in Washington demanding gun reform. The shifting official narrative about the massacre and the smattering of details that leaked to the press only raised more questions. Because we dont get answers, it makes our minds show us the worst [expletive] imaginable, said Brett Cross, whose child, Uziyah Garcia, was killed in the same classroom as Amerie.

When news broke in July that surveillance footage showed officers waiting in a hallway for 77 minutes before confronting the shooter, the couple flew with Angels mother to CNNs studio in New York. Wearing jeans and Amerie T-shirts, they demanded accountability. We dont know what she did in her last moments, we dont know what she was thinking, Angel said, his voice cracking, as Kimberly wiped her eyes.

That week, the couple met with an F.B.I. agent, who handed them a box of Ameries belongings. Inside, Kimberly found a pair of gold hoop earrings, a jacket and a sunflower backpack that smelled sterile. She wondered what had been cleaned from it and began sobbing. I just received my daughters backpack from the F.B.I. ... with bullet holes on it. No parent should go thru this, she tweeted. She decided against adding a photo, thinking it would be too much.

Kimberly couldnt keep up with all the messages people wrote her, but she tried to respond to the ones from other parents of little kids. She got to know one mother, who also had a 4-year-old son named Zayne and had mailed Kimberly a pair of tiny Crocs with charms memorializing Amerie: an art palette, a Starbucks cup (her favorite drink was vanilla Frappuccino). Occasionally, people came up to Kimberly and other Uvalde mothers at rallies to say that their social media posts had compelled them to protest for the first time. It touched her to know that people out there cared.

In Uvalde, the couple saw signs of mourning everywhere  paper angels and hearts and the phrase Uvalde Strong all along Main Street. But they also felt that the citys sympathy extended only so far; residents were deeply divided when it came to questions about gun reform or holding police officers and other officials accountable. Ive been losing friends and finding peace, Kimberly tweeted.

Thanksgiving landed on the six-month anniversary of the shooting. As the holidays approached, the couple stopped leaving the house even for simple errands. They had their groceries delivered. The only place that brought a measure of comfort was Ameries grave. Kimberly went almost daily to trim the grass and clean the debris, to make sure the wind and rain hadnt knocked over the pinwheels or flowers or decorations, while Zayne ran around picking up petals that had fallen off their stems.

When Dr. Phil invited the couple to Los Angeles to speak before a live audience, with Ameries best friend, Khloie, and her parents, they agreed to one of their last interviews that year. But they told the producers that there were certain things they would not discuss, including the shooter. Kimberly came up with the idea to wear matching button-down shirts in lavender, Ameries favorite color. It was strange how natural these decisions had become.

IN MID-APRIL, almost 11 debilitating months after the shooting, Kimberly and Angel decided to join some of the families who were trekking to Austin every week to speak with legislators and the media. The Texas House of Representatives convened a bipartisan committee that agreed to hear a new set of gun-reform bills, including one that the Uvalde families had been backing, H.B. 2744, which proposed raising the minimum age required to purchase large-caliber semiautomatic rifles to 21 from 18. (The shooter in Uvalde bought his legally the week he turned 18, days before he went to Robb Elementary.) The hearing offered a rare opportunity for the families to speak directly to lawmakers.

The families had just lived through their first Easter without their kids, and through the news of yet another mass shooting, this time at a private Presbyterian elementary school in Nashville, where three children and three adults were killed. The shooter, like the one at Robb, was a former student. Kimberly watched a video of the Nashville police response and started bawling. All I can think about is those parents, those families, she tweeted. I remember sleep wasnt even an option, honestly still isnt. Id doze off for a bit and just cry, & scream, asking why. I still do. Id scream Ameries name. Didnt eat for days, hated the world. I wish this pain on no one. In a few months, Zayne would be old enough to start kindergarten. Angel had been trying to persuade Kimberly to consider private school because public schools no longer felt safe, but after Nashville, he stopped. Home-schooling was their only option.

In Austin, Angel would testify at the House committee hearing, knowing the tears would paralyze Kimberly. She would sit with him, and they would face the moment together. They debated what he should say, discussing one particular detail about Ameries death that they had not shared with anyone, having locked it away because it was too awful. But this time, they agreed, the world needed to hear it.

They arrived at the Capitol steps the next morning, a few minutes past 9. In a windowless waiting room in the basement, they greeted the other Uvalde families. Kimberly wore a black T-shirt with a colorful illustration of the 21 victims smiling faces. Angel wore black slacks, a navy button-down, a tie and dress shoes, and some of the parents teased that he wasnt wearing his usual shorts and backward cap. They hugged and arranged photos of the children on a small table under a TV that was showing the hearing.

Christina Delgado of Community Justice Action Fund, a gun-violence-prevention group, briefed the families on the day ahead. A 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, blocks away from where her daughter attended junior high, prompted Delgado to become an activist. She told Kimberly and Angel that Representative Rhetta Andrews Bowers had family who lived near Santa Fe. Representative Justin Holland had two daughters. Representative Jarvis Johnson also had children. Make eye contact with each of them, she urged.

Kimberly sat and bounced her knee, making her whole body tremble. She rested her head on Angels shoulder and closed her eyes. Someone covered her with a baby blue blanket dedicated to another victim, Jackie Cazares. Three hours passed. During a lunch break, the families walked down the hall to a Moms Demand Action rally. A mother whose daughter was killed in the Santa Fe shooting spoke, as did several others who turned to advocacy after losing someone to gun violence. The Uvalde families stood in a line, staring into the distance in silence. When the crowd dispersed, Angel rushed back to the waiting room, buried his face in his hands and cried. Kimberly rubbed his ears and dabbed her eyes.

Eventually it was dinner time, and someone offered to order food, but no one had an appetite. All the waiting was starting to remind the families of May 24.

The hearing finally resumed around 7 p.m. The committee discussed a few more bills before Representative Tracy O. King, a Democrat whose children attended Robb Elementary, introduced H.B. 2744, which he had drafted.

Earlier, a lobbyist with the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety sat with some of the families to preview a speech that Representative Joe Moody, a Democrat from El Paso  where 23 people died during a mass shooting at a Walmart in 2019  had prepared. Moody helped lead the House investigation into Robb Elementary. He was one of the few people who saw the inside of the school in the aftermath. As the families listened to the lobbyist read Moodys speech, one part made them collapse into tears, one by one, like dominoes.

Im going to tell you something that hasnt really been shared outside of those who investigated the shooting, Moody said during the hearing. In the classroom where the shooter tore those kids apart is a whiteboard. On one side of that whiteboard was a banner that said lovebirds and had the names of some of these innocent kids who were dating. It listed four puppy-love couples. Three of those pairs included kids who were murdered. The whiteboard was otherwise blank, with one exception. The attacker scooped up the blood of his victims and smeared it into a disgusting message there. What he wrote in the innocent blood right next to that lovebirds banner was the phrase LOL. Laughing out loud. The room was quiet save for the sound of the families gasping for air.

Only then, more than 13 hours after they arrived, was it time for the families to speak. One father said he found his daughters body draped in a white sheet, cold and alone in an operating room. One mother said she had to identify her sons body based on what he was wearing that day. Sitting at a table with Ameries last school portrait, Angel stuttered as he tried to describe the image that haunted him and Kimberly all this time, the one they had never spoken about publicly. The gun that killed Amerie was so powerful, he said, a single bullet was able to enter her lower back, and traveled up through her diaphragm, piercing two organs, while ripping through her myocardium, the muscular tissue of her heart. He said he imagined her little body clutching onto a friend, wishing she could be with her parents. Was it my fault? What could I have done? Why didnt I take her home? What was she thinking? What did she do wrong? Just a few of the many questions that drive you insane in this horrible reality.

As they walked back to their car that night, Kimberly thought about the whiteboard, how tomorrow it would be all over the news.

ONE MORNING earlier this month, a few cousins and friends came to Angels mothers home to help Kimberly prepare for what would have been Ameries 11th birthday. They stuffed glitter pens and notebooks and neon markers into lavender gift bags, and they loaded their cars with canvases and paintbrushes and watercolors. Kimberly planned an art-therapy event  Amerie wanted to be an art teacher when she grew up  at the town square. She had been reluctant to have a party. The couple had returned from Austin, where the raise-the-age bill was finally voted out of committee. The details of another mass shooting, this time at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, circulated in the news. The bill never made it to the House floor.

Kimberly and Angel drove around to place balloons and flowers at the school and at one of the murals in the center of town memorializing the victims. In hers, Amerie stands smiling with one hand on her hip. At the cemetery, they met a small group of family, friends and reporters, who wore lavender shirts and shoes and bracelets and bows, and shared sandwiches and cake pops, one of Ameries favorite treats. Kimberly directed people as they helped decorate Ameries grave and posed for group photos. When they huddled around her to sing happy birthday, she cried into Angels shoulder.

More than 80 people gathered at the town square that evening. Girls and boys around Ameries age painted at long tables. Khloie drew her best friend against a bright blue backdrop, dancing like a robot. A few guests gave their paintings to Kimberly. She planned to display them in a new house they were building at the edge of town, in a room dedicated to Amerie.

The night before Ameries birthday, the couple visited the cemetery alone. Angel snapped a picture of Kimberly sitting at her daughters grave, surrounded by glowing lights, her back to the camera. You were supposed to bury me, I wasnt supposed to bury you, she tweeted. Im sorry sweet girl, Im forever sorry. I hate leaving you, but dont worry baby, you rest and well be back in the morning. Everything I do is for you and your baby brother. You will ALWAYS be included. I love you.

c.2023 The New York Times Company
Venetian authorities are investigating after a patch of fluorescent green water appeared in the famed Grand Canal on Sunday morning.

This morning a patch of phosphorescent green liquid appeared in the Grand Canal of Venice, reported by some residents near the Rialto Bridge. The prefect has called an urgent meeting with the police to investigate the origin of the liquid, Veneto regional president Luca Zaia wrote on Twitter.

The local prefect spokesperson told CNN that they immediately took water samples, reviewed CCTV surveillance tape and asked local gondolier pilots and boat drivers if they saw anything suspicions, before calling an emergency meeting to investigate the cause of the green water, noting that no environmental group had claimed responsibility.

The verdant blob was first noticed around 9:30 a.m. CET (3.30aET) and grew slowly, according to multiple images posted on social media, which showed gondolas, water taxis and water bus boats skimming through the emerald substance.

Gondolas navigate by the Rialto Bridge on Venice's historical Grand Canal as a patch of phosphorescent green liquid spreads in it, on Sunday, May 28, 2023. - Luigii Costantini/AP

People observe Venice's historical Grand Canal as a patch of phosphorescent green liquid spreads in it,. - Luigii Costantini/AP

City councilman Andrea Pegoraro immediately blamed environmental activists who have been attacking Italian cultural heritage sites in recent months.

The group Ultima Generazione, which poured charcoal into the Trevi Fountain in Rome last weekend, told CNN when asked if they were behind the green water, It wasnt us.

Italys fire brigade tweeted that they were assisting with providing samples and technical assistance to the ARPA Veneto, the regional agency that oversees the environmental state of the Grand Canal, which are conducting analysis to establish the nature of the substance in the water.

Various theories surfaced online, including that it could be algae or a substance illegally dispersed in the canal.

This is not the first time Venices Grand Canal has experienced a color alteration.

In 1968 Argentine artist Nicolas Garcia Uriburu dyed the waters of the canal green with a fluorescent dye called Fluorescein, during the annual Venice Biennale. The move was designed to bring attention to ecological issues and the relationship between nature and civilization.

The curious coloring comes as the city is celebrating the Vogalonga boat event, created to combat wave motion and to restore Venetian traditions and help spread attention for the environment and nature as well as the architecture Biennale, which opened last weekend.

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It is not the first time the Grand Canal has been turned green.

A stretch of Venice's Grand Canal turned bright green Sunday, prompting police to investigate amid speculation about a stunt by environmentalists.

Gondoliers could be seen punting through the phosphorescent waters, while tourists took photographs of the green area, from the Rialto Bridge up and along part of the Canal.

The colour was first spotted by local residents, the Veneto region's president Luca Zaia said on Twitter.

"The prefect has called an urgent meeting with the police to investigate the origin of the liquid," he said.

The Italian fire service said it was helping the regional environmental protection agency take samples for testing.

It is not the first time the Grand Canal has been turned green.

In 1968, Argentine artist Nicolas Garcia Uriburu dyed the waters of Venice's Grand Canal green with a fluorescent dye during the 34th Venice Biennale in a stunt to promote ecological awareness.

Police were looking into whether Sunday's action could be a protest by climate change activists, local daily La Nuova Venezia said.

ide/bp
Viktor Medvedchuk, The Professor  SBU recalls some of its biggest catches after nabbing 300 Russian agents since Feb. 2022

Vasyl Malyuk

Counterintelligence is a constant job, a search for a needle in a haystack. Some enemy agents are recruited and utilized for disinformation and intelligence gathering, while others face prison sentences ranging from 13 to 15 years.

Malyuk highlighted the case of Viktor Medvedchuk, a suspect in state treason and a close associate of Russian dictator Putin, who worked with the 5th Service of the Russian FSB (Department for Operational Information  ed.).

Read also: NABU candidate Komarova shares details of hiring scandal at anti-corruption body

They even had a plan called Promin, where Medvedchuk personally adjusted how they worked in Ukraine  referring to their (hostile) deep infiltration, the creation of occupation regimes on Ukrainian territory, and so on, he said.

During the investigation into Medvedchuks case, the security service uncovered numerous additional enemy sources.

Malyuk recalled the arrest of a prominent agent known as Professor in Odesa. Russian agents from different regions shared information with him, which he passed on to the aggressor country. The Professor was apprehended while engaging in activities related to military-civil management and SBU management with the intention of planning missile strikes, at the behest of the FSB.

Read also: Zelenskyy reveals to journalist why he stayed in Kyiv after start of full-scale war

Malyuk also mentioned the discovery of another agent network in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, involving seven spies who gathered information about Ukrainian defenders and civilians and helped prepare missile strikes on the region.

He also cited the arrests of SBU Colonel Oleh Kulinich, who worked for the FSB; Colonel Yuriy Riabukha, head of the Kharkiv Institute for SBU Staff Training; and the leader of a division in the SBUs Zaporizhzhya Oblast office, all of whom were found to be working for the enemy.

Read also: Long way to go before victory, says Zaluzhnyi

The SBU Chair emphasized that counter-intelligence efforts extend to other law enforcement agencies as well. For example, at the onset of the full-scale invasion, a prosecutor from the Mykolaiv District Prosecutors Office was arrested for gathering information about the Defense Forces and law enforcement officers on behalf of the occupiers.

Malyuk underlined that these incidents do not indicate a wholesale shift to the enemys side. Recognizing Putins expertise as a security service specialist who infiltrated Ukraine for two decades, he stressed the importance of effectively identifying, documenting, and holding such individuals accountable.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
The Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. In December 2021, the then-director of the city's child welfare agency quietly struck a deal with the hotel's operators to house foster youths and their social workers at the cost of $89 a night. (Los Angeles Times)

A woman stumbled into the palatial lobby of downtown Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel earlier this year, pleading for someone to call the police.

Deep bruises were starting to form around her eyes. Blood crusted around her nostrils and mouth. She was so dazed that she didnt notice a telephone cord wrapped around her neck.

She was a social worker with the Department of Children and Family Services who said a 16-year-old foster boy battered and sexually assaulted her in one of the hotels guest rooms.

The boy was one of hundreds of foster youths who Los Angeles Countys child welfare agency has placed in rented hotel rooms because it has no foster homes for them, according to reporting by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and The Times that included dozens of interviews as well as county records obtained under the California Public Records Act.

The alleged attack  as well as another on a social worker by a foster youth at a different hotel weeks later  has sparked criticism from those within the agency who say that such violence was inevitable.

One high-level DCFS administrator wrote to Supervisor Janice Hahn earlier this year to tell her that the situation was a crisis and totally out of control.

The children placed in the hotels are usually among those with some of the most significant untreated trauma and the gravest histories of violence.

Though group homes frequently have security and teams of staff members, children in the hotels have often been supervised by a single social worker, sometimes with scant knowledge of their backgrounds, little training to de-escalate potential violence and no on-site colleagues when things go wrong, according to DCFS policy documents and interviews with staff.

State law prohibits housing foster children for extended periods in places like the Biltmore that are not licensed to provide foster care. Over the years, state and county child welfare authorities have repeatedly promised to halt the practice of warehousing youths in unlicensed places that are unable to meet abused and neglected childrens need for safety, education and mental health services  yet its happening again.

The reason this time, according to government data and experts throughout the system, is the states most severe shortage of licensed foster homes in memory.

In 2015, then-Gov. Jerry Brown responded to complaints of substandard care in group foster homes by signing landmark legislation to move thousands of foster youths out of group facilities and into new foster family homes. The group homes now house a fraction of the youths they once did, but the additional foster parents to take them in have not materialized.

Until a solution is reached, DCFS Director Brandon Nichols said, the Biltmore is the last resort for social workers who can now find no other place for children experiencing some of the most vexing problems with drugs, sex trafficking, violence and mental health disorders.

It is just an emergency and better than a kid sleeping on the street that night, Nichols said.

His agency has 18,000 foster youths but fewer licensed beds. Licensed foster parents and group homes also have the right to reject any foster child before or after their arrival. In dire circumstances, social workers sometimes look for beds in homeless shelters, but those are scarce. The only places willing to accept anyone without exception are the unlicensed hotel rooms.

We didnt quite anticipate how difficult this was going to be, Nichols said.

When the Biltmore opened, it was the largest hotel west of Chicago, covering half a city block. All those rooms were a big liability at the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

In December 2021, Bobby Cagle, then the director of Los Angeles Countys child welfare agency, quietly struck a deal with the Biltmores operators to house foster youths and their social workers at the cost of $89 a night. The contract codified a practice of using hotel rooms to place foster children that had begun in late 2020. DCFS also has housed foster children at a Comfort Inn in Pomona and a Holiday Inn in Lancaster.

Since January 2022, the agency has placed at least 220 foster youths in hotels. Some stays were only a few days, while others lasted months.

The county social worker who reported being injured at the Biltmore said she rarely interacted with youths in her usual job, so she offered to occasionally staff the hotel. The Times is withholding her identity at her request because she is a victim of an alleged sexual assault.

Initially, she said, she found the hotel stunning. There were always tourists milling around the lobby. One time, she spotted a famous boxer. Another time, a crowd of costumed guests were attending nearby Comic Con.

Its a really nice hotel, she said. The feeling is beautiful.

The once-exclusive hotel possesses a rich history as a venue for the Academy Awards in the 1930s and 40s, where Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart received Oscars. They were surrounded by murals and frescoes by Giovanni Smeraldi, whose work also adorned the White House and the Vatican.

The suites were once used by President Kennedy, the Beatles and Al Capone. Hotel advertising still promises guests a five-star experience with classic elegance steeped in Hollywood glamour. The hotel bar was designed in the style of Spains royal hall where Queen Isabella first heard of Columbus discovery of America.

Until the January incident, the social worker said, none of the guests seemed aware there were foster children in the rooms next to them. She wasnt sure how much the hotel staff knew. The youths were not allowed to order room service, she said. (The Biltmore declined to comment, referring questions to DCFS.)

Social workers were responsible for monitoring the children coming and going from the rooms and holding on to the hotel room keys. Foster youths would have to knock on the supervisors door when they returned to the hotel so they could get swiped into their room.

The social worker was sometimes paired with another who would stay with her in a room across the hall from a foster youth, but she was the only one on duty in January when she was assigned to look after the 16-year-old boy.

I didnt question it because I didnt hear of any stories of him being physically assaultive with anybody, said the social worker, who did not reveal any identifying information about the boy.

In reality, according to sources familiar with the boys history, he had been placed under psychiatric holds more than 20 times because authorities deemed him a physical threat to himself or others. The Times is withholding his name because he is a minor.

On Jan. 16, the boy awoke agitated after misplacing his video game controller, according to the social worker. She said she took him to breakfast and boxed his leftovers to bring back to her room while he left to attend a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade.

Hours later, she said, the boy burst into her room, falsely accusing her of stealing $600 while he was away.

He started yelling, You have my stuff! she said.

The social worker said the boy began pushing her. She phoned her supervisor, who agreed to call the police. The social worker then tried to use the hotel phone to call down to the lobby, but she said the boy disconnected the receiver from the phone and later tied it around her neck.

For the next 40 minutes or so, the social worker said, the teenager assaulted her physically and sexually. She said the youth groped her over her clothes and smothered her face with a towel.

I thought somebody was going to save me, she said, but they didnt.

She said she escaped the room by promising to go get him money at an ATM. The two of them went down to the hotel lobby, where she waved down hotel staff.

The social worker shared photos with The Times taken a few days after the incident that show dark purple bruising around her eyes and yellowing bruises on her arms and legs.

She partly blamed DCFS for failing to warn her that the teenager she was supervising could be violent, leaving her vulnerable to an attack. But she said shes also concerned about the larger child welfare system, which leaves nowhere to safely send youths with severe mental health needs who do not get placed in foster homes.

They close the group homes, so we dont have placements, she said. The idea was everybody should be in a foster home, but not all the kids can function in a foster home.

Weeks after the alleged attack, Timothy Varvais, an assistant regional administrator based in the DCFS Lakewood office, wrote to Hahn, the county supervisor who represents the area.

Varvais wrote that he had just struggled to place another 16-year-old boy who was gang affiliated, [had a] mental health diagnosis, uses drugs and has violent tendencies. He boasts of killing animals and tells social workers about a recent incident in which he raped a young lady. He has no remorse and doesnt want any help.

The challenge was to find him a place to live after his foster mother said he was no longer welcome in her home, but no licensed home would take him and even the agencys emergency shelters were full. The only choice at 4 p.m. was to get a hotel room for the boy and station social workers nearby.

This is an impossible task, Varvais wrote. Often staff have already worked a full day and now  I am asking them to work all night to watch a child. The risk to our staff is tremendous.

Hahn's office did not respond to a request for comment. The other members of the Board of Supervisors did not respond or declined to be interviewed. Varvais did not respond to requests.

Three days after Varvais sent the letter, the department suffered another incident at a hotel sometimes used as an alternative to the Biltmore.

A minor in foster care allegedly physically assaulted a social worker who was supervising him at a Lancaster hotel, said DCFS spokeswoman Shiara Davila-Morales, who declined to identify the hotel or detail the social workers injuries.

Sources familiar with the youth alleged to have been involved said he suffers developmental disabilities that require a much higher level of care than the social worker at the hotel could provide.

Police arrested the boys suspected in both hotel incidents, and prosecutors charged them under the juvenile delinquency code. The proceedings are confidential because of their ages. The boys declined interview requests submitted via their attorneys.

When the county previously used unlicensed facilities to house foster children, state authorities stopped the practice. Gov. Gavin Newsoms political appointees have so far declined to do the same with the hotel stays. Newsom and his social services secretary, Kim Johnson, declined interview requests.

Nichols, the DCFS director, said the county has little choice but to use the hotels until it gains a licensed foster care site that wont reject children.

Such a facility would require approval in Sacramento that lawmakers have been reluctant to grant out of fear that it might undermine the push to get children out of group homes and into family homes.

The one psychiatric facility that state lawmakers have approved for Los Angeles County would be able to reject particular children and is far from completed. Nichols noted that lawmakers gave regulators two years to develop licensing requirements before an operator could even apply for final approval. Im saying, Hey, guys, is there any way we can speed that up, he said.

Nichols said he is also organizing specialized mobile teams that can travel to group homes, shelters and hotels to help stabilize children suffering from the most difficult behaviors. As a result of the past incidents, the agency now requires at least two caseworkers for every foster child in hotels, as well as security guards nearby, he said.

Until we develop a better solution  were still relying on hotels, Nichols said. Theyre not going to go away immediately, but I think we need to use them better.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Want to become a judge in Kansas? A high school education is all you need. | Opinion

Help wanted: Kansas Magistrate Judge. Must have high school diploma (or equivalent) and (possibly) be willing to relocate. For more information, visit www.kscourts.org/judges/Become-a-Judge .

If you get arrested or sued in Kansas, the judge who hears your case doesnt necessarily need to be a lawyer, or even have seen the inside of a college classroom or a courtroom.

I am not making this up. Its state law.

As laid out in Kansas Statute 20-334, here are the total qualifications required for consideration for a magistrate judges robe and gavel  the applicant must be:

 a resident of the county at the time of taking office and while holding office.

 a graduate of a high school, a secondary school, or the equivalent.

 either a lawyer admitted to practice in the state or able to pass an examination given by the Kansas Supreme Court to become certified within 18 months.

Theres a training program and a manual to help you pass the required certification exam. If youre selected for the job, you take office immediately and can stay for at least the next 18 months, or until the next general election.

Magistrate judges make from $76,000 to more than $100,000 a year. There are 85 of them, about half split between legally trained and lay judges.

They dont have all the power and authority of a full state district court judge. But they can do lots of things, including conducting trials on traffic infractions and misdemeanor crimes, and conduct arraignments and preliminary hearings in felony cases. They can decide civil cases up to $10,000.

Comparing this to other current government job openings, it seems odd to require less qualification than to be a spot-duty substitute teacher (60 hours of college credit) or a dogcatcher in Derby (a year of experience working with animals).

I put this question to two members of the judiciary committees in the Kansas Legislature, state Rep. John Carmichael of Wichita and state Sen. David Haley of Kansas City, and they both gave me the same analogy: Andy Griffith.

In the classic Andy Griffith Show, he played Sheriff Andy Taylor, who kept the peace in the fictional town of Mayberry, not with guns or formal legal education, but with corn-fed common sense and the esteem of his community.

I think Sheriff Taylor would meet the standard of being a good magistrate, said Haley.

They also said lay magistrate judges are generally appointed in remote and lightly populated counties, because there arent enough lawyers, and the ones who are out there are needed to represent suspects and clients.

The question is: Can you find enough people to fill these jobs? Carmichael said. Thats what happens when you dont have enough lawyers.

There are only two law schools in Kansas, at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and Washburn University in Topeka. An attempt to establish a law school in Wichita, Presidents College School of Law, died in 2003 because it couldnt muster $25 million to get accredited.

Carmichael said the one requirement hed like to see added to the qualifications for magistrate judge would be a criminal background check, to eliminate the (admittedly slim) possibility that someone could earn a GED in prison and then become a magistrate judge when released.

In the larger counties, magistrate judges are usually lawyers. Theres an opening right now in Johnson County and theres a selection committee to recommend candidates to the governor. That application form is heavily weighted toward applicants legal training and experience.

After years of trying, Sedgwick County finally got a slot at the courthouse for a magistrate, to take some of the low-level caseload off the district judges.

So far, its been kind of a disaster.

Former state Rep. Jesse Burris, hand-picked by Republican leaders to essentially inherit his father-in-law Pete DeGraafs s seat in the Legislature when DeGraaf resigned in 2017, was the GOPs nominee for magistrate judge last year.

He won the November election without opposition.

But then he turned down the job hed just been elected to, to go work in the attorney generals office for Kris Kobach, his former boss when Kobach served as secretary of state.

So here we are, seven months later, with no magistrate judge and the governor will have to appoint one.

And to the USD-259 high school class of 2023, sorry, you missed your chance. The application period closed April 21.
A fire at a medical facility in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro after a Russian strike

When bombs are falling, can writers from across the warring sides still talk?

That question was brought into sharp focus this month when freedom of expression group PEN America became embroiled in controversy over Ukrainian and Russian dissident writers appearing at the same event.

Three Ukrainian authors, two of whom are active duty servicemen, were to speak at the PEN's World Voices festival in New York, but they raised objections on learning that Russian writers -- who are anti-war -- would be on a different panel at the event.

One of the Ukrainian writers, Artem Chapeye, a private in the military police, told AFP that appearing at the same festival as Russian writers could be seen as disloyal by his commanders and comrades.

"I realize that these people do not support (Vladimir) Putin's government, but I have obligations as a soldier," he told AFP.

PEN Ukraine president Volodymyr Yermolenko, who was involved in organizing Chapeye's trip, said no dialogue was possible until the war is over.

"While we're sitting in a chair with Russian representatives, our friends can die from Russian bullets," Yermolenko said.

Unable to find a compromise, two Russian writers and New Yorker journalist Masha Gessen called off their panel. Chapeye described the decision as "tactful."

Russian panelist Anna Nemzer said that although painful, she accepted the Ukrainians' refusal to engage with her.

"I have this damned passport, and with my language, with the fact that I lived there my whole life I am part of this, I cannot escape it," Nemzer, who left Russia after the war started, told AFP.

"It's a trap, it's unfair, but how can I even say the word unfair when we know what unfairness is: bombs flying."

- 'I would be too ashamed' -

Gessen, who emigrated from Soviet Moscow as a child, resigned from PEN America's board in protest at how the situation was handled.

"I believe that an organization that defends freedom of speech cannot cancel someone's speech," Gessen told exiled Russian TV channel Dozhd.

PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said she regretted the incident. "We should have found a better approach."

Earlier this month, a similar dispute unfolded in the Estonian city of Tartu where two Ukrainian poets declined to take part in a literary festival because Linor Goralik, a prominent Russian writer who publishes an anti-war magazine, was also invited.

Goralik, who was born in the city of Dnipro in then-Soviet Ukraine and holds Israeli citizenship, has launched a digital journal called Resistance and Opposition Arts Review, or ROAR, to counter Russian war propaganda.

Marja Unt, coordinator of the Prima Vista festival, told AFP that organizers disinvited Goralik after a spiraling social media storm over her participation led attendees from other countries to threaten to withdraw.

"The war crimes being perpetrated in Ukraine are being perpetrated in the name of Russian culture," Ukrainian poet Olena Huseinova told AFP of her refusal to speak at the festival.

"If I were a representative of Russian culture, I wouldn't find the strength to speak, I would be too ashamed," said Huseinova, who last February fled the besieged Ukrainian capital with only the clothes on her back. She has since returned to Kyiv.

Goralik declined to comment.

- Boycott Russian culture? -

The disputes highlighted the complexities faced by international organizations as they look to show solidarity with Ukraine but also engage with dissident voices from Russia.

While many opposition artists fled Russia, others have stayed and continued to speak out, losing jobs, facing harassment and arrest.

Shortly after Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February last year, PEN America's Nossel spoke out against a wholesale boycott of Russian culture.

"Cultural dialogues with independent-minded Russians are essential to illuminating the current crisis and conjuring paths past it," Nossel wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

Georgy Urushadze, who resigned as head of Russia's main literary prize and left the country after the war erupted, last month launched Freedom Letters, an independent digital publishing house to give a voice to anti-war Russians.

"I believe it is my duty to publish books that capture the sad Russian reality, it is important now and it will be important for future historians," Urushadze said.

How difficult any cultural reconciliation will be was evident at the Eurovision song contest this month, when Russian missiles hit Ternopil, the hometown of Ukrainian electronic music duo Tvorchi shortly before they took the stage in Britain.

Could dialogue between Ukrainian and Russian dissident artists be possible, even after the war is over?

To PEN Ukraine's Yermolenko, that would depend on whether there is "a process of repentance, true repentance."

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EMTs Meagan Parker, left, and Daniel Avena buckle Ernesto Chavez onto a gurney. Chavez is a patient at MLK Community Hospital who is being transferred. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

When the pain kicked in again in February, Lahisha Marquez-Soto held off on going to the hospital for days, until she was struggling to walk out of her college dorm in Carson.

Eight days into her stay at MLK Community Hospital, doctors knew she needed another facility. She needed a medical procedure that would allow doctors to peer inside her digestive tract and perform a biopsy to find out what was wrong with her pancreas. That was something that the small hospital in South Los Angeles could not do.

But week after week, the 20-year-old lay waiting in frustration. Stranded in her hospital bed, she missed college classes, birthday celebrations, a scheduled visit with her siblings in foster care. She read novels, watched HGTV and tried not to think about what she was missing.

It messes with you mentally, she said. Youre just stuck in a room.

Lahisha Marquez-Soto is a patient inside MLK Community Hospital. Eight days into her stay, doctors knew she needed to go to another hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

Marquez-Soto was at the mercy of a haphazard process that plays out through phone calls and faxes, as smaller hospitals try to find help for patients who need medical procedures that those hospitals cannot provide.

Hospitals are generally required under federal law to accept transfer patients suffering from medical emergencies if the facilities have space and capability; but federal officials said that does not obligate them to accept those like Marquez-Soto, who have already been admitted to a hospital. Hospital employees armed with phone lists often need to call, and call, and call until they can secure a spot. One MLK staffer likened it to throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if it sticks.

"This is a mess right now."

Dr. Michael Gertz, president-elect of the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians

Delays in transfers can put people at higher risk of complications and derail day-to-day life for patients. Hospital officials from around the state say that transferring patients has generally gotten harder as many health facilities struggle with staffing, which cramps hospital capacity to accept transfers. Some said that in Southern California, demand for ambulances is also exacerbating delays.

"The general public has no idea of what it takes to transfer a patient," said Dr. Ferdinand Panoussi, medical director of Horizon Multicare, which provides hospitalist services for Antelope Valley Medical Center in Lancaster. "They think that it's just as easy as picking up the phone."

At Antelope Valley Medical Center, some patients who need to be transferred have grown so tired of waiting that they have decided to leave against medical advice, hoping to show up and get in through the emergency department at another facility, Panoussi said.

Ernesto Chavez, a patient at MLK Community Hospital, is transferred to Keck Hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

"This is a mess right now," even for emergency patients, said Dr. Michael Gertz, president-elect of the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He also works at Antelope Valley Medical Center. Even if another facility accepts an emergency patient, "we're often holding that patient for 12 to 24 hours until we can actually get an ambulance that is willing to take them."

Gertz said the state does not collect data on such delays in transfers, making it difficult to quantify the problem. MLK hospital officials said their data show that over roughly a year, patients admitted to the hospital had an average wait of more than three days after their transfer had been requested  and that average waits have been longer for those covered by Medi-Cal, the California Medicaid program.

Marquez-Soto, who has Medi-Cal coverage, said she had held off on going to MLK because she expected to end up waiting. In fall, she waited to be transferred to another hospital for the same kind of procedure, but it took so long that she was discharged and told to follow up for an appointment.

She hadn't gotten that procedure before the pain sent her back to the hospital.

"It makes me feel very helpless," said Dr. Maita Kuvhenguhwa, who treated Marquez-Soto at MLK. "Even when we're doing our best and putting in a ton of work, if the patient can't get to where they need to go, then we're not helping them."

::

Elena Padilla, left, speaks with Dr. Jason Prasso inside the intensive-care unit at MLK Community Hospital. Elena's brother needs to be transferred to a different facility for a medical procedure. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

Decades ago, federal lawmakers passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act to prevent emergency rooms from refusing to treat uninsured patients or "dumping" them on other hospitals. The law requires emergency rooms to treat people who come in suffering from a medical emergency.

If a transfer is medically appropriate, it also requires hospitals to accept people with emergency conditions from another hospital if they have space and specialized capabilities to help those patients, as long as the transfer is medically appropriate. But nothing in federal law requires a hospital to accept a transfer patient who has been admitted to another hospital as an inpatient, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Every day a little bit of my heart is chipped.

La Shaunta Harris, manager of emergency department care management and transitional care at MLK

When patients need a medical procedure that their hospital does not offer, but are not in an emergency state, there's not a whole lot of guidelines to direct hospitals in terms of how to manage those transfer requests," said Dr. Stephanie K. Mueller, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The process "is in no way systematically thought out," and bias can creep in when clear standards are lacking, said Dr. Evan Shannon, an assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He and Mueller found in one study that Black patients were less likely to be transferred out of hospitals than white patients, as measured among Medicare inpatients with medical conditions that typically benefit from transfer.

Another study found that once they were admitted to the hospital, uninsured patients were less likely to be transferred out than those with private insurance. Insurance coverage can decide where a patient goes or slow the process, community hospital officials told University of Michigan researchers.

Nurse Sophea Soth, right, keeps an eye on patient Ernesto Chavez as EMTs wheel him down the hall at MLK Community Hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

La Shaunta Harris, manager of emergency department care management and transitional care at MLK, said that as she tried to transfer an inpatient, one hospital told her that theres only so much charity we have." That hits her especially hard because she is from this community, she said.

Every day, Harris said, a little bit of my heart is chipped.

Under federal law, nothing prohibits hospitals from turning down an inpatient transfer because of the insurance coverage of the patient, a CMS spokesperson said. The problem spilled into public view during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Wall Street Journal obtained emails indicating that some California hospitals refused or delayed accepting COVID patients from overrun hospitals because of their insurance status.

Doctors said some patients suffered lung damage and other complications because of delays, the newspaper reported.

The back-and-forth over relocating patients usually happens out of public view, but the emails became public because California had hired a contractor to help relieve the pressure on overwhelmed hospitals earlier in the pandemic. The California Emergency Medical Services Authority also steps in to help transfer patients during disasters such as wildfires when hospitals must be evacuated, but does not get involved with transfers on a day-to-day basis.

Many hospital systems have set up their own centers to manage requests to transfer patients into their facilities, including the hospitals run by Los Angeles County. Some hospitals have agreements with others about accepting patients. But there is no central clearinghouse to check every nearby hospital for suitable beds.

Gertz argued that COVID-19 "was a crisis, but now we're in a permanent crisis. There's going to have to be a government intervention."

::

At MLK Community Hospital, Lourdes Beltran strategized before her computer monitor, trying to figure out how to free Marquez-Soto from her misery. She pulled out a weathered piece of paper from a folder  a printed list of phone numbers jotted with handwritten notes  and dialed.

Lahisha Marquez-Soto begins to cry as she lies in a hospital bed at MLK Community Hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

Good afternoon. My name is Lourdes. I'm one of the case managers here at Martin Luther King Community Hospital, she said when someone answered at a medical center, explaining that she was following up on a transfer request.

She listened, her pencil hovering over a printed summary of the case, as someone at the medical center explained they were still awaiting paperwork. After she hung up, she dialed up the health plan to ask if it could push things along. Were still trying to move that patient," Beltran told them.

Beltran glanced at the row of names on her screen, many tagged with a red bar labeled Exceeded because they had stayed longer than expected. The health plan said it already sent the needed paperwork, so she dialed the medical center again. It had taken nearly half an hour, she said, to get a "non-answer.

I want to cry and scream, but I have to put up with it.

Ernesto Chavez, MLK patient

Beltran then turned her attention to Ernesto Chavez, a 65-year-old man who had arrived at the hospital more than a week earlier after enduring many days of vomiting. He had lost 10 pounds in two weeks, he told them.

The problem was a giant obstruction in his small intestine, but we cant do anything about it here, said Dr. Tiffany Maggi-Maidinetti. We dont have the surgical specialists to remove or biopsy it safely.

If it turned out to be cancer, Maggi-Maidinetti worried, a holdup could delay the care he needed. And if the thing inside him grew, she feared it could damage his intestine.

It had been three days since MLK issued a transfer order, and Beltran had no luck. She dialed another number and punched in digits on an automated menu before someone picked up and she rattled off his medical details. Then came the question of health insurance: Chavez was in the process of getting Medi-Cal coverage.

Ernesto Chavez, 65, is in a considerable amount of pain as he waits to be transferred to a different hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

Chavez is in a considerable amount of pain, hospitals are generally required under federal law to accept transfer patients suffering from medical emergencies. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

In a dimly lit room, Chavez lay with an arm draped over his forehead, grimacing with pain. He strained to speak, his throat painfully dry. The patient, who had been working as a carpenter, had spent days at home, unable to eat or drink anything without vomiting, before his co-workers took him to the emergency room.

I want to cry and scream, he said faintly in Spanish from his hospital bed. But I have to put up with it.

One week later, Beltran said Chavez had been approved for Medi-Cal and another hospital had agreed to accept him. But they were still waiting on an available bed. So Chavez remained in limbo. Doctors at MLK were trying to quell his pain and nausea, keep him hydrated, and stave off any complications or infections from the tubes threading his body, including one snaking from his nasal passages to his stomach to clear out bile.

Were at a standstill, basically, Maggi-Maidinetti said.

That evening, Chavez was finally transferred. Chavez, reached weeks later, said he had undergone an operation there and that he was finally able to eat and drink again without vomiting.

Before he was transferred, "I felt desperate," he said.

::

Transferring patients has long preoccupied smaller community hospitals because their patients may need medical interventions that they do not offer themselves. But getting patients where they need to be has become a concern for hospitals of all kinds as they grapple with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Elena Padilla visits her brother Juan Carlos Flores Esquivel at MLK Community Hospital. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

People have returned to hospitals after years of delaying care, but a staffing crunch has limited the number of beds available, hospital officials say. Medical centers have lamented that because nursing facilities are also short on staff, hospitals cannot discharge patients who no longer need a hospital bed but still need nursing care. That ties up beds in the hospital, gumming up the usual flow of patients from the emergency department into inpatient beds.

UC Davis Medical Center said it accepted more than 7,600 transfer requests in a little over a year  but turned down more than 9,900 due to limited capacity. And it too is struggling to move patients to other, less specialized hospitals once they can be safely cared for elsewhere.

"We run over 100% occupancy essentially every day of the week," said Dr. J. Douglas Kirk, chief medical officer. "We absolutely have to get those patients out of the hospital because we have to produce that bed for the next patient who needs it."

And "moving Medi-Cal patients typically is more sluggish than the commercially insured patients," Kirk said.

Statewide data on median lengths of hospital stays show that Medi-Cal inpatients spent one day longer before transferring to another hospital, compared with transfer patients who have private insurance. At MLK, the average wait for a transfer was more than 50% longer for Medi-Cal inpatients than those with other coverage, according to figures provided by hospital officials.

Ambulance availability can also delay transfers, hospital officials said. Antelope Valley Medical Center Chief Executive Edward Mirzabegian said he has grown so frustrated with the waits that he is trying to create an ambulance company dedicated to his facility at an annual cost of more than $2 million. The Los Angeles County Ambulance Assn. faulted low reimbursements for ambulance providers to transport Medi-Cal patients, especially those not suffering a medical emergency.

"Very few people are willing to accept reimbursement rates that low, so there's a limited pool of contractors that serve this patient population," association president Chad Druten said. Last fall, American Medical Response said it would stop providing nonemergency transport in Los Angeles County, blaming low rates under Medi-Cal.

In January, MLK hospital officials were so worried about how long one patient had lingered there that the chief executive, Dr. Elaine Batchlor, got on the phone herself to try to find him a bed at another hospital. Because of its small size, MLK doesn't offer cardiothoracic surgery, which physicians feared he needed.

"I'm doing my best, but I can't do any more than what I can do here."

Dr. Eriko Masuda, an infectious disease physician at MLK

As he waited for a transfer, "he just sat here and sat here," growing sicker and more lethargic, said Dr. Eriko Masuda, an infectious disease physician at MLK.

The man was suffering from a bacterial infection that his blood was ferrying throughout his body, showering the infection to his brain and elsewhere, Masuda said. As the weeks passed, the man suffered kidney failure and needed dialysis. His family members asked Masuda when he could leave. She had no answer.

"I'm doing my best, but I can't do any more than what I can do here," Masuda recounted.

Batchlor called physicians together to figure out what else they could do to help him transfer, and staff worked to upgrade his insurance coverage. Three weeks after MLK started trying to transfer him, the patient was finally taken to another medical center for heart surgery, and he survived.

Others in L.A. County have not been as lucky: Gertz wrote that in one case, a 45-year-old man who suffered a sudden, agonizing headache had been taken by his family to a San Gabriel hospital, where he was diagnosed with a ruptured aneurysm.

Because the hospital did not offer neurosurgery, it hustled to transfer him elsewhere, but arranging for transportation took so long that the man ended up in a vegetative state and was taken off life support, Gertz wrote to a Los Angeles County supervisor.

"Had the family taken him to the other hospital," Gertz wrote, "he would have likely survived."

Marquez-Soto was transferred to UCLA one month after MLK started trying to move her. There, she said, she was told her pancreas was too inflamed to move forward with the procedure that would have examined her digestive tract.

But doctors there spotted a rash and ended up diagnosing Marquez-Soto with a rare inflammatory disease that could be treated with an infusion of antibodies, she said. Finally, she started feeling better.

Times staff writers Sandhya Kambhampati and Hanna Sender contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Studies suggest more young people are drawn to vaping (stock image)

"The horse has bolted now, they are addicted," says Chris, a high school teacher in New South Wales.

He's talking about students in his class, teenagers, who can't stop vaping.

He sees the effect of the candy-flavoured, nicotine-packed e-cigarettes on young minds every day, with children even vaping in class.

"The ones who are deepest into it will just get up out of their seat, or they'll be fidgeting or nervous. The worst offenders will just walk out because they're literally in withdrawal."

Those who are most addicted need nicotine patches or rehabilitation, he says, talking about 13 and 14-year-olds.

Earlier this month the government decided enough is enough and introduced a range of new restrictions. Despite vapes already being illegal for many, under new legislation they will become available by prescription only.

The number of vaping teenagers in Australia has soared in recent years and authorities say it is the "number one behavioural issue" in schools across the country.

And they blame disposable vapes - which some experts say could be more addictive than heroin and cocaine - but for now are available in Australia in every convenience store, next to the chocolate bars at the counter.

For concerned teachers like Chris, their hands have been tied.

"If we suspect they have a vape, all we can really do is tell them to go to the principal's office.

"At my old school, my head teacher told me he wanted to install vape detector alarms in the toilet, but apparently we weren't allowed to because that would be an invasion of privacy."

E-cigarettes have been sold as a safer alternative to tobacco, as they do not produce tar - the primary cause of lung cancer.

Some countries continue to promote them with public health initiatives to help cigarette smokers switch to a less deadly habit.

Last month, the UK government announced plans to hand out free vaping starter kits to one million smokers in England to get smoking rates below 5% by 2030.

But Australia's government says that evidence that e-cigarettes help smokers quit is insufficient for now. Instead, research shows it may push young vapers into taking up smoking later in life.

'Generation Vape'

Vapes, or e-cigarettes, are lithium battery-powered devices that have cartridges filled with liquids containing nicotine, artificial flavourings, and other chemicals.

The liquid is heated and turned into a vapour and inhaled into the user's lungs.

Vaping took off from the mid-2000s and there were some 81 million vapers worldwide in 2021, according to the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction group.

Fuelling the rise is the mushrooming popularity of flavoured vapes designed to appeal to the young.

These products can contain far higher volumes of nicotine than regular cigarettes, while some devices sold as 'nicotine-free' can actually hold large amounts.

Some disposable vapes have also been shown to contains formaldehyde and acetaldehyde - which have been linked to lung disease, heart disease, and cancer.

There's also a suggestion of an increased risk of stroke, respiratory infection, and impaired lung function, and experts warn not enough is known about the long-term health effects

A close up of a woman vaping

In 2020, US health authorities identified more than 2,800 cases and 68 deaths linked to vaping-related lung injury.

Subsequent studies found these were likely caused by illegal vapes containing THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, but did not rule out a link with other chemicals.

In Australia, a major study by leading charity The Cancer Council found more than half of all children who had ever vaped had used an e-cigarette they knew contained nicotine and thought that vaping was a socially acceptable behaviour.

School-age children were being supplied with e-cigarettes through friends or "dealers" inside and outside school, or from convenience stores and tobacconists, the report said.

Teens also reported purchasing vapes through social media, websites and at pop-up vape stores, the Generation Vape project found.

"Whichever way teenagers obtain e-cigarettes, they are all illegal, yet it's happening under the noses of federal and state authorities", report author and Cancer Council chair Anita Dessaix said.

"All Australian governments say they're committed to ensuring e-cigarettes are only accessed by smokers with a prescription trying to quit - yet a crisis in youth e-cigarette use is unfolding in plain view."

In addition to the government's move to ban the import of all non-pharmaceutical vaping products - meaning they can now only be bought with a prescription - all single-use disposable vapes will be made illegal.

The volume and concentration of nicotine in e-cigarettes will also be restricted, and both flavours and packaging must be plain and carrying warning labels.

But these new measures are not actually all that drastic, says public health physician Professor Emily Banks from the Australian National University.

"Australia is not an outlier. It is unique to have a prescription-only model, but other places actually ban them completely, and that includes almost all of Latin America, India, Thailand and Japan."

'We have been duped'

Health Minister Mark Butler said the new vaping regulations will close the "biggest loophole in Australian healthcare history".

"Just like they did with smoking... 'Big Tobacco' has taken another addictive product, wrapped it in shiny packaging and added sweet flavours to create a new generation of nicotine addicts."

"We have been duped", he said.

Medical experts agree. Prof Banks argues that the promotion of e-cigarettes as a "healthier" alternative was a classic "sleight-of-hand" from the tobacco industry.

As such vaping has become "normalised" in Australia, and in the UK too.

"There's over 17,000 flavours, and the majority of use is not for smoking cessation", she tells the BBC.

"They're being heavily marketed towards children and adolescents. People who are smoking and using e-cigarettes - that's the most common pattern of use, dual use."

Professor Banks says authorities need to "de-normalise" vaping among teenagers and make vapes much harder to get hold of.

"Kids are interpreting the fact that they can very easily get hold of [vapes] as evidence [they're safe], and they're actually saying, 'well, if they were that unsafe, I wouldn't be able to buy one at the coffee shop'.

But could stricter controls make it harder for people who do turn to vapes hoping to quit or cut down on tobacco?

"It is important to bear in mind that for some people, e-cigarettes have really helped. But we shouldn't say 'this is great for smokers to quit', says Prof Banks.

"We know from Australia, from the US, from Europe, that two-thirds to three-quarters of people who quit smoking successfully, do so unaided."

"You're trying to bring these [vapes] in saying they're a great way to quit smoking, but actually we've got bubble gum flavoured vapes being used by 13-year-olds in the school toilets. That is not what the community signed up for."
In a special section of a cemetery in Arcadia, 23 headstones stand in formation, just as the men laying beneath them did 70 years ago.

On Memorial Day, people will gather there under the Union Jack, amid bagpipes and anthems, to honor these British air cadets who died during flight training in Florida during World War II.

The first of 1,800 Royal Air Force cadets  a group of 99  arrived in Arcadia by train on June 8, 1941, six months before the United States entered the war. The U.S. Army Air Forces had just recommissioned Carlstrom Field, a primary training center during World War I, as well as Riddle Field in Clewiston for advanced training, according to RAF Wings Over Florida, a book written by the late Will Largent of Sarasota.

The RAF chose Florida for its reliable weather and the generosity of the U.S. Lend-Lease Act which provided American military equipment to any nation deemed vital to the defense of the United States.

Along with American expertise, the cadets also got a huge helping of Southern hospitality.

This newspaper clipping shows the day British cadets arrived in Arcadia for training.

The Brits became instant celebrities. There was a tremendous patriotic feeling, among small communities to help England fight fascism, said Largents editor and son-in-law, Tod Roberts.

The town embraced the young flyers. Of course they did, said Carol Mahler, of the DeSoto County Historical Society. They loved it.

Mahler said families would invite the cadets to their homes for Sunday dinners. Of course, the cadets also found pleasant diversions in Sarasota, whether it was a bar, the beaches or companionship at Lido Beach Casino.

Largents book quotes a diary entry from one 19-year-old cadet:

Went into Sarasota at 1300 as tomorrow is my open post day. Booked a room at the Cypress Inn. It only cost me $1 and was very nice. Bought quart of Mr. Boston whiskey for $2.49 at Gator Liquors and carton of Camel cigarettes for $1.19 at B & B, took them back to Cypress Inn and opened Old Boston. It is not Scotch.

Royal Air Force flight cadets arrived in Arcadia by rail, beginning in the early days of World War II.

The cost of war

The Arcadia cadets lost their first comrade barely a month after they arrived. Ironically, his death  as well as the only other cadet who died at Carlstrom Field during the war  were not directly related to flying.

On July 22, 1941, 19-year-old Charles Russell of Dublin, Ireland, died of meningitis. The city recorder at the time, Paul Speer, set aside a plot at the city-owned Oak Ridge Cemetery, where Russell could be buried, Mahler said. He subsequently had to get another plot, and added on, as it was needed.

The second death at Carlstrom Field was a hazing incident gone wrong.

On Jan. 4, 1942, Alfred Lloyd of Randor, Wales, completed his first solo flight over Arcadia and executed what was described as a near perfect landing in a Stearman PT-17 biplane, the cadets primary training aircraft.

About 1,800 Royal Air Force cadets learned to fly at several fields in Central Florida during World War II.

It was a custom that after a cadets first solo, classmates would throw him into the swimming pool on the base.

Four of his friends slipped over to Lloyds bed that night, carried him outside and tossed him into the pool. The 19-year-old drowned just seven hours after his solo flight.

Among the other deaths, a cadet stationed in Clewiston also died of meningitis; another died in a car crash in LaBelle. The 18 others were killed in aircraft incidents near Clewiston. Since burial plots were already secured in Arcadia, the Clewiston casualties were also buried in Arcadia.

The last of the Arcadia 23 died on May 4, 1945, four days before Germany surrendered. Horace Bowley-Booth, of Stafford, England, and Thomas Calderhead, of Fife, Scotland, were killed when their AT-6 Texan trainer crashed in Belle Glade.

It was the families decision to keep the 23 cadets in Florida, Mahler said. The United States government did offer to send the bodies back after the war and all of the next of kin and families said, please leave them where they lie.

A city remembers

Memorial Day observances for the RAF cadets began in 1956, organized by the local American Legion post. In the 1970s, the Rotary Club also got involved, said Rotary member and City Councilwoman Judy Wertz Strickland.

These are the people that made the option to stay here and be buried here. So we as citizens here should honor that decision ... a wartime decision and honor those people at least once a year.

Even though these gentlemen never actually fought, we still appreciate the sacrifice that they gave for the fighting for the war effort, Mahler added. There are many, many United States citizens who are buried all over the world, who also fought in conflicts and we would like the people in other countries where our men are buried to do the same for us.

Twenty three British air cadets are buried in Arcadia.

The ceremony begins at 10 a.m. at Oak Ridge Cemetery, 601 N. Johnson Ave., with the raising of the British Union Jack and the RAF ensign. The ceremony also involves reading the names of the 23 cadets. Crosses will also be placed on their headstones.

This story is courtesy of the Community News Collaborative, made possible by a grant from Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation.

Roger B. Crosskey is among the RAF pilots buried in The Royal Plot in Arcadia.

John Thomas Fannelly successfully completed his RAF training in Central Florida.

Walter Besol successfully completed his RAF training in Central Florida.
Woman crushed when wreck sends cement bags flying off overpass, California cops say

A freak accident on a San Diego freeway left a woman in her 70s dead, the California Highway Patrol told news outlets.

A small truck hauling construction equipment and bags of cement crashed on an Interstate 805 off-ramp, overturning and spilling its load, at about 1 p.m. Friday, May 26, CHP officers told KSWB.

The wreck sent cement bags flying off the overpass onto Highway 52 below, officers told KNSD. Some of the bags crashed through the windshield of an eastbound Mercedes Benz SUV, killing a woman in the passenger seat.

The drivers of the Mercedes and truck were unhurt, according to the station.

Drugs or alcohol do not appear to be a factor in the bizarre incident, CHP officers told KFMB.

The fatal crash closed the highway connector for several hours, the station reported.

Riders dangle in midair as roller coaster evacuated, California video shows

Falling rock pillar kills 16-year-old celebrating end of school, Utah officials say

Woman trapped down manhole is rescued from sewer, California firefighters say
A black bear attacked a woman in Minnesota, seriously injuring her, state officials said Saturday.

The woman was staying at a cabin near Gull Lake when she let her dog outside early Friday, the state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said in a release. She went out to check on her dog and was attacked. The bear swiped at the woman, "striking her in several places," then left the area, the DNR said.

The woman was taken to a hospital for treatment and has since been released.

There were no reports of bear activity in the area before the attack, authorities said. Wildlife officials believe the bear was startled by the woman's dog and attacked the woman as a way to defend itself.

"Dogs and bears don't mix," according to a department advisory. "Letting dogs chase, lunge or bark at bears is asking for trouble - don't force a bear to defend itself."

Officers with the DNR are monitoring the area for bears that could pose a threat to public safety, officials said.

This was the 10th bear attack involving serious injuries to a human that the state's DNR has documented since 1987, according to the department. None of the victims have died.

In Pennsylvania last week, a black bear attacked two young children who were playing in their driveway outside of their home, officials said. The children sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

While black bears are rarely aggressive, Minnesota's DNR advised people to remove sources of food outside their homes to avoid attracting bears to their property. If you see a bear before it notices you, allow the bear an escape route. Stand still, then quietly move away. If a bear spots you, back away slowly. Running could trigger a chase response. If a bear approaches you, hold your ground, wave your arms and yell until it leaves. Use bear spray if the bear keeps approaching.

If a black bear makes contact, do not play dead, the DNR advised. Fight back aggressively.

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Julia Roberts displays a (gasp!) hairy armpit at the Notting Hill premiere in 1999  its still considered a radical act (Shutterstock)

The premiere of Notting Hill in 1999 was upstaged by Julia Roberts underarms. Wearing a sequined cowl neck Vivienne Tam dress on the red carpet, Roberts waved to her adoring fans by lifting up her arms, revealing two dark tufts of hair. The tabloids were in disarray. The next morning, conversation was more focused on Roberts armpits than her actual performance, as people questioned what had possessed the glamorous Pretty Woman star to go against the ideals of femininity so publicly.

Speculation about her motives ranged from it being a radical feminist statement, to the preferences of her then-boyfriend Benjamin Bratt. Except it wasnt calculated. Roberts revealed almost 20 years later that it wasnt a revolutionary feminist act  she simply didnt shave.

More recently, Mean Girls actor Rebecca McAdams bared some fluff as she draped herself across a chaise lounge on the cover of Bustle magazine  people similarly gawped. There was nothing gargantuan or obscene about the size of the tufts underneath her arms, yet they were all anyone could seem to talk about. Depending on what social media accounts you looked at in the hours after the shoot dropped, McAdams was either disgusting and unkempt or a feminist icon.

Both pit displays unintentionally or intentionally went against the hair removal culture thats told women to have all of their skin as smooth as a dolphins  the more likeness to a newborn baby, the better. Its discouraging to think that despite their respective hair incidents occurring two decades apart, Roberts and McAdams both received similar reactions. And though there have been many attempts from women in recent years to normalise it, we cant seem to get away from the idea of femininity equalling hairlessness.

How did we even get here? New evidence unearthed by English Heritage suggests we should blame the Romans for our compulsion to wax, laser and epilate our way to silky skin. Last Thursday, dozens of artefacts went on display at Wroxeter Roman City in Shrewsbury  once the fourth largest town in Roman Britain  revealing the beauty habits of our bath-obsessed ancestors. Prominent among the collection were tweezers made of bronze or copper alloy, with historians concluding that Roman men and women similarly plucked themselves to perfection.

Cameron Moffett, English Heritage curator at Wroxeter, tells me that Roman men were keen on removing their body hair, apparently to partake in their sport of choice: wrestling. There was a particular wrestling aesthetic where the men would only wear a loincloth, she explains, pointing towards the nappy-style briefs worn by the wrestlers. If you were exposing your body, particularly your armpits and your back, you were expected to have had your hair removed. Its at this point I picture gaggles of Roman men lounging around a Roman bath innocently tweezing the hairs from each others backs.

Moffett tells me that more than 20 tweezers were found in the excavation process nearest to the bathhouse and basilica (where exercise would take place), which has led archaeologists and historians to conclude that hair removal was part of the communal bathing culture that the Romans took pride in. For the men, the standard was to be hairless and muscular and to exercise to keep healthy. The women, Moffett says, were expected to work even harder.

People would use a chemical made out of thallium acetate [to remove hair], which turned out to kill several people and caused permanent damage to a lot of other people

Rebecca Herzig

It is thought that women were encouraged to remove their underarm hair to appear attractive to men, while also paying attention to their facial features and hairstyle. The idea that women needed to shave to be desirable was embedded in Greco-Roman culture, explains Moffett, adding that women devoted time to styling their hair  something evident in hairpins found during archeological excavations. The women were seeing coinage coming from the Mediterranean and they were following the hairstyles of the heads appearing on the coins. They had something to work from. Moffett also speculates that women may have pruned their pubic hair when they attended the public baths, but theres no concrete evidence to confirm whether the bush was mowed or embraced.

Hair removal was not unique to the Romans, though, with others using chemicals and peculiar tools to remove hair up until the modern period  sometimes going to extreme lengths. A lot of people have died for this, says Rebecca Herzig, professor of Gender and Sexuality studies at Bates College in Maine and author of Plucked: A History of Hair Removal. Herzig tells me that in the early 20th century, people would use dangerous materials to remove hair. People would use a chemical depilatory made out of thallium acetate, which turned out to kill several people and caused permanent damage to a lot of other people. Herzig dedicates a whole chapter of her book to the ways people have endured painful and potentially lethal methods of hair removal  a far cry from the sulfurous stench of Veet. One of the things that struck me during my research is that peoples intensity of feeling about body hair is very high, she says.

The classification of hairlessness as a requirement for women still goes hand-in-hand with the assumption that being hairy also means being radical or undesirable. But, as Herzig tells me, there has long been an interesting relationship between unshaven women and feminism, linking back to the second-wave feminist movement in the United States in the 1970s. Feminists who pushed back against the idea that feminine bodies needed to be hairless  and thus embraced their natural fluff  were often stigmatised for being disgusting hairy women.

Roman women talking to each other in a wood engraving circa 1880  maybe about body hair... who knows? (iStock)

The normalising of hairlessness has been most prominent in mainstream porn, where women are often shaved from the shoulders down, much like Barbie dolls. But women continue to rally together to remind the world  and each other  that hair growth is nothing to be ashamed of. In 2017, American model Amber Rose shared a now-removed nude picture in which she could be seen reclining on a shallow staircase and showing off her pubic hair, captioning the post #bringbackthebush. The tuft was styled in what experts might call a landing strip (Google will be your friend here). Then, in 2019, the unicorn armpit trend went viral, in which women began dying their underarm hair in different shades of the rainbow. Today, armpit hair has become the latest performative feminist accessory, just like wielding a copy of a Florence Given book, or women posting pictures of their best girlfriends on International Womens Day.

Some may argue that Gen Z  my generation  will be the ones to normalise body hair once and for all. Im sceptical, though. I fear that as long as we celebrate hairiness as some kind of triumph of womanhood, it erases the middle ground for normalcy. Sure, it takes a certain bravery to conquer the embarrassment weve been taught to attach to body hair, but what about those who just want to grow their hair in peace? Does it have to be political? Julia Roberts didnt intend to make a feminist statement in 1999; she just didnt really care. And simply not caring doesnt have to be a victory for the masses.
Another fine mess: Justin Theroux and Woody Harrelson make for a clownish double-act in White House Plumbers' (HBO/Sky)

We all know the story of Watergate. At least, we all think we do. The 1972 scandal  in which a team of Richard Nixons subordinates burgled the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office Building in Washington, DC  as well as the ensuing cover-up, constituted a controversy so monumental that it toppled a presidency and coined a whole new suffix.

Watergate has been the focus of many films and TV series before, from All the Presidents Men to Oliver Stones Nixon. Most of these films tackle the story from the top down, framing the scandal as a tale of Machiavellian politicians and heroic investigators. White House Plumbers, a new five-part miniseries premiering on Sky and NOW, flips this narrative on its head, and looks at the men actually responsible for the break-in (or, to be more accurate, four separate break-ins). Here, Watergate becomes the story of bungling dogmatists run amok.

Specifically, White House Plumbers is about two of them: E Howard Hunt (Woody Harrelson) and G Gordon Liddy (Justin Theroux). Hunt was a former CIA agent whose reputation was shredded by his involvement in the Bay of Pigs debacle; Liddy was a lawyer and ex-FBI agent who had a disturbing fascination with Adolf Hitler. White House Plumbers was a name euphemistically given to a covert Special Investigations Unit, established after the Pentagon Papers leak in 1971. The group served as the Nixon administrations de facto fixers, ostensibly charged with preventing further data leaks. [White House Plumbers] is about this budding bromance, Theroux tells me. Two guys with enormous egos who had such a glorious downfall. Its a love story, really, he adds. Im joking, but Im half not joking.

Watergate storytelling is often treated with a kind of po-faced sense of democratic indignation; White House Plumbers is best characterised as a black comedy. David Mandel, who directed the series, was an apt choice in this regard, having previously worked on sitcoms such as Curb Your Enthusiasm and Veep. I like to call this story a very funny tragedy, Mandel says. Theroux agrees: Its all so absurd and ridiculous. We didnt ever wanna lean too hard into the comedy of it it was just funny by itself. The miniseries belief-straining comic details are indeed its strongest suit. Liddy, in particular, makes for a captivatingly off-kilter antihero.

One particularly outrageous scene sees Hunt and his ex-CIA wife, Dorothy (Lena Headey), attend an intimate dinner party thrown by Liddy, who begins playing a vinyl record of old Hitler speeches. In another scene, the click of a toy gun around a breakfast table prompts Liddy to point his weapon in the face of a small child. Theroux is utterly transformed in the role, which involved a number of physical prosthetics (including a mouth plumper) and a bizarre, pathologically intense manner of speaking. The real Liddy was even stranger. You had to like dial back from what Liddy was really like, Theroux explains. If I did a real Liddy, it looked like a cartoon  because he was kind of a cartoon in and of himself.

Harrelson, meanwhile, opted against mimicry. Eschewing Hunts boring speaking voice for a loose impression of General Patton, the former Cheers star gives a solid if relatively unshowy performance as the straight man of the pair  a bitter, jilted ex-spook with shades of Burn After Readings Osbourne Cox. Politically, Harrelson has described himself as purple and more Marxist than fascist: he could hardly be more different to the staunchly right-wing Hunt. I used to be zealous, Harrelson tells me. In fact, I was a zealous Republican at one point, when I was 18. So I kind of get that ideology. But I dont relate to it anymore.

Adapted from the book Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices, and Life Lessons from the White House by lawyer Egil Bud Krogh and his son Matthew Krogh, White House Plumbers takes the cold, hard truths of what happened and bounces them around a little. Many of the nuttiest details were in fact true; the vague suggestion that Liddy was involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy is one of the wilder conspiracy theories entertained. Of course, things do not quite work out for Hunt and Liddy, both of whom are now dead after serving prison time for their role in Watergate.

Headey, best known as the scheming Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones, describes her character as the smartest person in the room, surrounded by idiot men. Getting to do some comedy is something Ive always wanted, says Headey. [Creators Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck] wrote such great scripts, and we had Justin, and Woody, and Judy [Greer, who plays Liddys wife, Fran] to play with. It was the first time Ive been able to do that, instead of being angry on a throne.

Man on a mission: Harrelson as Howard Hunt in White House Plumbers' (HBO/Sky)

When White House Plumbers was first announced in late 2019, Donald Trump was still in office. As a series of legal battles involving the twice-impeached president continue to intensify, the significance of Watergate has only sharpened. Its a lesson in the perils of zealotry  people who will do anything to die for their own cause, says Theroux.

Mandel, too, alludes to this lesson, which he fears is not being heeded. There is a danger that people have forgotten the lessons of Watergate, he says. Thats why we made this show. Even in the last few months, with a former sitting president [Donald Trump] getting indicted here in New York.

Lena Headey as Dorothy Hunt in White House Plumbers' (HBO/Sky)

Earlier this month, the US Department of Justice announced that more than 1,000 Trump supporters have now been charged in connection to the 6 January, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol Building. Nearly 600 of these have pleaded guilty. Today, as half a century ago, the consequences of zealotry can be ruinous.

Says Mandel: There are lessons from Watergate about the abuses of power, about true believers  this idea that people support this guy so much they will go against their best interests  that have become more relevant today than they even were 51 years ago.

All episodes of White House Plumbers available from 30 May, Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW
Workers value paid time off more than health insurance, survey suggests

Paid time off is important to many workers. Kena Betancur/Getty Images

More workers said paid leave was extremely important to them than those valuing health insurance.

That was one finding of a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.

Almost half of workers who get paid time off don't usually use up all their allocation, it found.

Workers appear to value paid time off even more than having employer-funded health insurance, a recent study found.

The Pew Research Center report called "How Americans view their jobs" found 62% of the 5,900 people surveyed felt it's "extremely" important to have paid time off for vacations or minor illness, with a further 27% saying it's "very" important.

That's higher than the 51% who said employer-funded health insurance was extremely important, with 28% saying it's very important.

The study also found that almost half of workers who get paid time off don't usually use up all their allocation.

Reasons include not wanting to burden colleagues with additional tasks, or potentially falling behind.

Just over 90% of upper-income workers surveyed by Pew had employer-funded health insurance, dipping to 82% for middle-income workers and just 60% for those on lower incomes.

Only about half of the workers surveyed said they were extremely or very satisfied with their job, with just 34% happy with how much they're paid.

However, two-thirds (67%) said they're either extremely or very satisfied with their relationship with colleagues, with 65% saying they have at least one close friend at work.

Almost 80% say they're treated with respect at work, while 65% their contributions were valued a great deal or a fair amount.

Workers above aged 65 and above were the most likely to be extremely or very satisfied with their job (67%), with those under 30 the least likely (44%).

The nationally representative survey of 5,902 workers, including 5,188 not self-employed, was conducted between February 6 and 12 using Pew's American Trends Panel.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Pre-rolled joints are displayed alongside marijuana paraphernalia. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

New York City teachers say children are increasingly coming to school high, per The New York Times.

In 2021, New York State legalized recreational marijuana, a longstanding goal of many lawmakers.

But the proliferation of unlicensed smoke shops has become a major issue among city officials.

An increasing number of students are showing up to class high, and in many cases late, which in turn has created discord in public, private, and charter school classrooms, according to teachers who spoke to The New York Times.

While there is no absolute data on marijuana usage among schoolchildren, data from the New York City Department of Education showed a 10% increase in the number of drug and alcohol-related offenses in 2023 compared to figures from 2019, The Times reported.

In 2021, New York State legalized recreational marijuana, with much of the tax revenue set to be directed toward communities of color, which for decades bore the brunt of marijuana arrests.

But more than two years after the massive policy change, teachers reveal that many students are struggling to handle the aftereffects of cannabis given its widespread availability. Many instructors point to the growing number of smoke shops in the city, as well as the ease of obtaining and using vape pens, in reasoning why some kids are unable to focus once they're in the classroom.

Several teachers told The Times of kids taking out vape pens when their backs are turned to the students, as well as bathrooms and stairwells that smell of marijuana.

But given how quickly students can hide cannabis or vape pens, teachers often have to use their judgment when assessing whether or not a pupil is high.

"It really feels like this unstoppable tide that we're futilely trying to suppress," America Billy, a public high school in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, told the newspaper, adding that she couldn't tell if a student was lethargic because of sleep deprivation, personal issues at home, or potentially drugs.

Gale Brewer, a New York City council member, pointed to the growing number of unregulated vape shops in the city  using her own Upper West Side district as a barometer. The Manhattan public official said that last September, she counted less than a dozen vape shops in her district, but by March, the number had climbed to 64 shops.

"We were all saying we need social workers, we need psychologists, we need mental health support in the schools," Brewer told The Times, adding that tackling the growing number of smoke shops "was not on the list."

New York City Eric Adams has pledged to go after unlicensed smoke shops, but he has not yet taken broad steps do so, per The Times.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. has also taken a firm stance against unlicensed shops by floating evictions, but his office has not yet gone through with such actions.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Zelenskyy thanks Ukrainian Air Defence Forces and State Emergency Service after most massive Russian drone attack so far

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the air defence forces and workers of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine after the Russian attack that had occurred in the small hours of 28 May, when it launched 54 Shahed drones at Ukraine.

Source: Zelenskyy on Telegram

Quote: "The Air Defence Forces of Ukraine. You hear the air raid alarm in a different way from most people. You look up to destroy enemy missiles, planes, helicopters, and drones.

Our rescuers who are involved in eliminating the consequences of enemy strikes. You do your best to save others."

Details: Zelenskyy emphasised that every downing of Russian drones and missiles saves lives of Ukrainians.

Background:

On the night of 27-28 May, an air-raid warning was issued in Kyiv and a number of Ukraines oblasts. It lasted for more than 5 hours in the countrys capital. The air defence systems worked intensively, and Kyiv residents were kept awake by explosions.

The Kyiv City Military Administration reported that preliminary information indicates that on the night of 28 May, more than 40 Russian UAVs were destroyed. At least one person was killed and one injured in the Ukrainian capital due to the falling debris. There is damage and destruction in the city.

On the night of 27-28 May, Russia launched the most massive Iranian-made kamikaze drone attack on Ukraine so far; Russian forces fired 54 loitering munitions, and Ukraine's air defence forces destroyed 52 of them.

Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!
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Johnson Health Center (JHC) has been awarded a teaching health center residency planning grant.

The grant aims to position JHC to establish its own dental residency program, expanding its comprehensive health care services and advancing its commitment to education and training.

Dr. Janna Laverdiere, dental director at JHCs James River Dental Clinic, said she is excited for the potential impact of the program and said the grant was highly competitive.

The $500,000 grant was provided by the Human Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) to build a brand new dental residency program which will be housed at JHCs new 10-operatory expansion in Madison Heights.

According to the HRSA website, the program aims to increase primary care and physician and dental residency training in community-based patient care settings by providing funds to support the development of new programs in these settings, which are often located in underserved areas where resources may not be easily attainable.

Laverdiere said there is a big demand for dental services for Medicaid patients in the area which is why the residency program is needed.

Our clinics are for everybody, she said. So we accept anybody whos uninsured. We accept anybody whos on Medicaid, we accept anybody that has insurance. Our clinic is the only clinic in a two-hour radius that accepts Medicaid. So a lot of the times we have patients driving two hours because nobody else will take them and that has put a lot of demand and pressure on our clinics. So we need more providers.

Often most patients have their teeth pulled because they cannot find a provider to help save their teeth, or JHC refers them to VCU Dental School because there are no other providers who accept Medicaid or can offer these services, she said.

A recent Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services report to the Virginia General Assembly and Department of Planning and Budget on dental access found about 73% of Virginias dentistry workforce did not treat any Medicaid or Family Access to Medical Insurance (FAMIS) patients in 2022. That number was up 1.5% since 2018.

According to that report, only about 30% of all dentists in the state are enrolled in Medicaid.

Laverdiere said the grant will allow the clinics to bring in more hands to help with high patient demand.

Funding will provide reinforcement to JHCs dental program as well as new top-of-the line dental equipment, CAD/CAM scanning, top tier technology for dental treatment, using a scanner instead of impressions, allowing for same day crown placement instead of waiting three weeks between appointments as well as milling and endodontic equipment, she said.

The program will also help increase high demand services such as endodontics, crown and bridge procedures as well as denture procedures.

Currently it only offers exams, cleanings, emergency services, extractions and fillings.

The dental residency will last one year and will be an Advanced Education in General Dentistry program.

Laverdiere said dental residency for general dentists is optional and is designed to help develop confidence and technical skills, similar to an extra year of clinical practice prior to entering real world dentistry, with guidance under a supervising dentist.

From now until 2025, staff will be planning and developing curriculum for the incoming dental residents with the first class starting in 2026 or 2027.

She said shes hopeful to work with local specialists in the area to support the program and provide clinical guidance for dental residents.

Now, JHC has three dental clinics with four dentists and three hygienists as well as one mobile dental unit which serves more than 30 elementary schools in Lynchburg and the counties of Amherst, Bedford and Campbell.

Laverdiere emphasized the potential benefits of the program for both the dental residents and the local community.

She said HRSA is providing the grant with hopes that providers will stay in public health.

Public health concerns are growing across the country nationwide so this was an emphasis to help keep dental providers where theyre needed in rural areas, she said.

She said theres a misconception in the community that patients will receive low quality care at places such as JHC.

But were really providing the same quality care that you would find in a private practice, she said. Were really expanding our dental department and putting an emphasis on quality and increasing our services.
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As if possessed

I recognize the developments in our complex world can be profoundly unpredictable. Chance events and the eruption of invisible forces can shove the world onto some unexpected track.

Nonetheless, it seems a good bet the Democrats have the wind at their backs  as we move toward the 2024 Elections  because the Republicans have put themselves on a strategically disastrous course.

The Republican Party seems unable to act rationally: although it seems driven by a lust for power, it also seems unable to follow strategies well-designed for achieving power.

The 2022 Elections sent the Republicans a clear message: the majority of Americans reject the crazy MAGA direction.

But the Republicans have flagrantly disregarded that message.

We can see that in the way the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is presenting itself.

Like someone possessed, the House Republicans have chosen to go all out to accentuate precisely what the majority in the 2022 election rejected. Despite the majority voting against the more crazy and fascistic MAGA nominees the Republicans nominated in 2022, the Republicans in the House put their craziest and most fascistic members in charge. (The likes of Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Green.)

The less crazy majority of House Republicans could have prevented that outcome. As Kevin McCarthy was selling his soul to the most MAGA element, in order to become Speaker, they could have at least threatened to make common cause with the Democrats. But they just stood by while the face of their party got defined by foolish conspiracy theories, outright falsehoods, political stunts, and allegiance to a leader whod driven the party into a string of elections disappointing to the GOP.

Political madness of a kindred sort was displayed by the recent conduct of the Republicans in the Tennessee legislature. Having all the power, the Republicans had nothing to gain from trampling on their weak opposition in flagrantly un-American ways. But, in the apparent grip of something that overpowered rational calculation, those Republican indulged themselves in actions that pretty predictably resulted in strengthening their opponents and bringing national and international opprobrium down on their own heads.

In that same they cant help themselves manner, the Republicans are responding self-destructively to the changed politics on abortion. Despite the election returns in states as different as Kansas and Wisconsin, showing how large and activated is the majority to oppose the banning of abortions, the Republicans  far from stopping with the unpopular overturning of Roe v. Wade  have been criminalizing abortion ever more stringently at the state level (and arranging for a Texas judge to ban an FDA-approved drug that can be used in abortion).

Once again, in a nation where voters give power and take it away, the Republicans seem driven to go ever-further in a direction that the majority of the electorate opposes.

Again, there comes to mind the word possessed.

Tying themselves to a sinking rock

When it comes to the question of who will be the Republican standard-bearer in 2024, the Party appears similarly determined to choose a losing strategy.

Not only are normal conservative Republican candidates nowhere to be seen among the likely scenarios, but more specifically it seems increasingly close to certain that the Republican nominee will be Donald Trump  who lost in 2020 and gives every sign of becoming ever weaker with the overall electorate.

In the wake of Trumps Manhattan indictment, the Republican base  and Republican officials  rallied around him. Meanwhile, Trumps indictment  by a grand jury of regular citizens  weakened Trump with the American public at large.

Only 25% of Americans now see Trump in a positive light.

And this decline of Trumps electoral strength is likely to only get worse, as other indictments are piled on  particularly as the cases in Georgia and with the Special Counsel highlight Trumps having committed the most serious crimes in American history.

The Republicans are hurtling toward an election where their chosen standard bearer will be a candidate a growing majority of Americans seem increasingly inclined to reject.

(With winner-take-all primaries, Trumps major chunk of the Republican base seems all-but-sure to suffice to defeat the multiplicity of rivals for the nomination.)

The Democrats will doubtless have their own vulnerabilities in the 2024 election. But the public will likely regard them as more easily overlooked than the risks of returning to power a man who already has shown hell use presidential powers to assault American democracy.

Political actors normally strive to win support from a majority of voters. Thats how elections are won, and winning elections is how political parties gain power.

Its not normal for a political party to double-down on what the evidence says is a losing strategy for getting such majority support. But, in a whole variety of ways, thats what the Republicans seem to be doing.

The Republican conduct brings to mind the famous line from Euripides: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

The basic race

To the extent the Republican strategy is sane, it boils down to their attempting to institute minority-rule faster than majority-rule can strip them of power?

The evidence (from recent elections around the nation) suggests that the Republicans will lose that race.

Andy Schmookler is the author of The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution.
head of the May 29 inauguration, Pastor Tunde Bakare, the Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church has said he will never call Bola Tinubu, his president.

The cleric stated this during a webinar titled Building the New Nigeria: The Role of the Diaspora organised by the PTB4Nigeria, a diaspora group, which was monitored by TRIBUNE ONLINE on Saturday.

When asked if he would be happy to work for the new government as a Minister of Diaspora Engagements, he laughed and said; Last Wednesday, I was at the Glass House where he (Buhari) has been restricted now because the main house is being renovated.

I said I have done that for you. I want you to know that, because of the circumstances of your flying into power on the wings of integrity and incorruptibility, but youre now passing onto someone who does not have that value.
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Blanca Dominguez is putting her language skills to work.

Fluent in both English and Spanish, she provides bilingual support at the Pottawattamie County WIC office, as she has for nine years now.

Two of us can interpret for clients when they come in, she said.

That involves checking their income to make sure they qualify  if they qualify for Medicaid, they automatically qualify for WIC  and explaining the program to them.

WIC serves women when they are pregnant and until six months postpartum, Dominguez said. It provides breastfeeding support for up to a year and nutrition support until a child is 5 years old.

Nutrition support includes formula for infants who are not being breastfed and fruit, vegetables, fruit juice and whole grain cereal for children ages 1 to 5, she said. During the summer, clients can get vouchers to buy fresh produce at farmers markets.

Dominguez was born and raised in Council Bluffs, attended Longfellow Elementary School and Kirn Middle School and graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School.

Before starting at WIC, she was a receptionist and interpreter at an eye clinic in Omaha. She saw the WIC opening online and applied.

Its very close to home  convenient  and then I like being around kids, she said.
Businesses operating in Africa are grappling with an unprecedented rise in disruption, linked to protests, demonstrations and rioting, according to a latest research by risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft, which also suggests that the situation will deteriorate over the course of 2023.

The surge in civil unrest in Africa, driven by political tensions, food insecurity, and government inefficiencies threatens stability, disrupts businesses, and stirs up social and economic crises in the region, according to Verisk Maplecrofts Civil Unrest Index. The report reveals that 36 African countries experienced an uptick in risk over the past 12 months, the largest annual increase seen in the region since the dataset launched in 2017, which underscores the mounting challenges facing businesses operating on the continent. The number of African countries now categorized as high or extreme risk for civil unrest has also risen to 37, a significant jump from 28 just six years ago.

The impacts have been felt across the continent, with the DRC (ranked 94th highest risk on the index globally), Angola (52nd) and Kenya (33rd) being among the countries that registered the sharpest declines on the index in the past year. For Africa, these global risk dynamics are placing further strain on countries that are already contending with some of the worst consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war, including deteriorating food and energy security and spiraling living costs.

As the region grapples with mounting food shortages, widespread government inefficiencies and a swathe of contentious elections, the frequency and magnitude of protests is set to increase in the months ahead. The report ultimately warns businesses to brace for an extended period of unrest across the African continent.
TotalEnergies has abandoned the polypropylene plant project at Arzew, located on the Algerian coast, near Oran. However, no official announcement has been made by the French group. It was until May 18 that the British oil services company Petrofac revealed that STEP Polymers SPA (a 100% subsidiary of the Algerian state company Sonatrach) had awarded it the contract to build the Arzew plant. If the document also indicated the names of the two companies associated with Petrofac in the project, the French major was not mentioned at any time.

TotalEnergies confirmed to Africa Intelligence news outlet that it had actually sold its shares in the project and specified that as part of the strategic cooperation between the two companies, TotalEnergies has offered Sonatrach to provide it with its technical expertise in the execution of the project as well as its commercial skills in marketing polymers on the European market.

TotalEnergies held 49% of the Arzew project alongside Sonatrach. Africa Intelligence had revealed, as early as August 22, 2022, the French groups intention to leave the project imminently. The context was particularly sensitive at the time, with French President Emmanuel Macron due to visit Algiers four days later to consolidate the bilateral relationship. TotalEnergies did not wish to comment on the information at the time, before denying any withdrawal via Reuters.

This discreet departure from Arzew is not likely to strengthen relations between TotalEnergies and the Algerian state. In 2019, the refusal of the authorities to validate the acquisition by TotalEnergies of the Algerian assets of Anadarko  acquired by Occidental Petroleum (Oxy)  had already strained relations with Sonatrach.

The abandonment of Arzew is not only linked to this particular context. The signing by TotalEnergies, on December 15, 2022, of an agreement for the construction of a polypropylene plant in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, also contributed to condemning the Algerian project. Totaling $11 billion, this larger investment helped eclipse Arzew, which was much less profitable, and whose projected construction costs had skyrocketed by almost 50%.

The contract awarded to Petrofac, announced by the AI outlet at the end of April, will be around 1.5 billion dollars. The company has beaten the Koreans of Samsung and the Spaniards of Tecnicas Reunidas. Initially, the cost of building the plant was to be closer to a billion dollars.
British Justices rejection of pro-separatist action, a victory for both countries businesses, CGEM says

London Court of Appeals rejection of the case brought by pro-separatist NGO WSC against the Morocco-UK trade agreement is a victory for Moroccan and British companies, says the General Confederation of Moroccan Businesses (CGEM).

The CGEM welcomed in a press release the British courts rejection of the lawsuit, stressing that this is a victory for Moroccan and British companies, which will continue to trade calmly and take full advantage of this agreement, which illustrates the friendly relations between the two countries.

Trade between Morocco and the United Kingdom is thus definitively protected, the CGEM says, deeming that this will also create growing business opportunities, offering additional value to consumers and businesses in both countries and supporting joint economic development.

In December 2022, the legal attack on the UK-Morocco Association Agreement by the pro-separatist NGO was categorically rejected. Today, in a further strong endorsement of the UK-Morocco trade relationship, the appeal has also been rejected, the CGEM says.

In a related development, Spanish expert on Maghreb affairs Javier Fernandez Arribas said the appeal rejection by the London Court is a new victory for Moroccos interests and territorial integrity.

This irrevocable rejection marks a new political triumph for Morocco and international support for its autonomy proposal for the Sahara, which aims to strengthen national territorial integrity and enhance the value of the southern provinces, in order to promote regional development in various fields, such as the economy, infrastructure, and social development, Arribas commented.

Morocco is consolidating its position as a very important political and economic partner for Europe, he said, noting that the North African country constitutes a gateway to the African market and offers legal guarantees and stability that favor a good business and investment climate.

In addition, the London Courts decision consolidates the Association Agreement between Morocco and the United Kingdom, and constitutes a guarantee for Moroccan and British companies which maintain economic and commercial relations in all sectors of cooperation and covering the entire Moroccan territory, he said.

On Thursday, the Court of Appeal in London irrevocably dismissed the appeal by the pro-separatist NGO WSC against a previous decision by the Administrative Court, rejecting its application to challenge the association agreement linking Morocco and the UK.

This third setback since last December for the enemies of Moroccos territorial integrity confirms the validity of the association agreement linking the two countries, which benefits the populations and development of all the Kingdoms regions, from north to south.

This decision can no longer be appealed and therefore removes the legal threat to trade flows between the UK and Morocco, which has always been prioritized by the UK government, leading to a 50% annual increase in Q4-2022.
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From a grave situation arose Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

The states largest cemetery, for size and souls, dates to 1886 with its first burial  of the previous landowner.

It was the first in Omaha professionally designed.

Its part of the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum and a bird sanctuary.

The need was foreseen in 1883 by one of Omahas pioneers, real estate magnate Byron Reed.

Prospect Hill is within the corporate limits and too near the center of population to be available for a permanent cemetery, he said at a City Council meeting. The rapid growth of the city within the past few years proves this beyond question.

It will be necessary to discontinue all transient burials at Prospect Hill within the coming year and unless other facilities are provided by that time the public will be put to inconvenience.

Expansion of Prospect Hill was out of the question, he said. The adjoining land was more valuable for development.

The Nebraska Legislature helped the city think big for its next general-population cemetery. In 1885, it increased the number of acres a cemetery association could own from 100 to 320.

West of Florence was the farm of Irish-born John H. Brackin. He came to Omaha by way of Ohio, traveling across Iowa with future Omaha banker Augustus Kountze. Brackin was in retailing in downtown Omaha while farming his preempted land of rolling hills and wooded areas.

The Forest Lawn Cemetery Association bought that land after its formation in 1885 and made Bracklin a trustee. James B. Brown was association president, Jacob Denise chairman of the board, Simeon T. Josselyn treasurer and Eben K. Long the clerk.

Other trustees were Herman Kountze (Augustus brother and a co-founder of what is today First National Bank of Omaha), William R. Bowen, Charles H. Brown, Orlando S. Wood, Arthur P. Wood, John A. Creighton, John J. OConnor and James Forsyth.

After touring the site with Bracklin, an Omaha Bee reporter gushed about the lands attributes:

(A) rolling expanse of level land broken by the hills and valleys which serve and furnish diversity to add to the beauties of the landscape. There are about 90 acres of tree growth on the land, consisting of oak, elm, walnut and other varieties.

The location is high and dry, and from the various spurs of the hills one commands views of the Nebraska fields and forests on the west and of the Iowa bluffs and prairies on the east, which for grandeur of sweep and scenery, is unsurpassed.

It is not at all an exaggeration to say that there could be no site better adapted for the city of the dead, so far natural as attributes are concerned, when art shall have cooperated to tone the rough beauties of lawn and woodland and to supply the few missing points of a perfect landscape, there will be in all of the broad land of America no more beautiful resting place for the dead.

Enter Joseph Earnshaw of Cincinnati, the artist of Forest Lawn. Among his works is Hollywood Forever, the final resting place for many a Tinseltown celebrity.

Earnshaw spent six weeks in the fall of 1885 laying out Forest Lawn. In the age of horse and buggy, he had the foresight to make the roads wide enough for todays two-way vehicular traffic.

His final site visit might have been May 1886, when the trustees opened lots on the most southeasterly eight acres. Lakes were built from a stream that meandered through the grounds.

For his efforts, Earnshaw received $2,800. And picked up another project here. South Omaha hired him to design Spring Lake Park.

Brackin was the first interred at Forest Lawn. At the time of his death in March 1886, he was working for the Union Pacific and had moved to California for his health, only to succumb from the aftereffects of a bad cold.

Note that Forest Lawn wasnt ready for burials. Breckins first gravesite was at Prospect Hill, where his wife and two children were buried.

On Sept. 18, 1886, his remains were moved to Forest Lawn as its first burial along with those of his family. Brackin left a request when he went to California that he be buried near an old oak tree on an elevation near the southern limit of the land he farmed.

The citys Typographical Union was the first organization to purchase a lot. Less than two months after the Brackins re-interment, Forest Lawns first gravesite service was for printer W.J. Clary on Nov. 12.

C.Y. Craig oversaw Forest Lawns construction and was its first superintendent, serving until his death in 1926. So respected was he that that Omaha renamed a street in Florence for him after annexing its northern neighbor.

In 1909, he recalled the Clary burial:

Clarys mother was heartbroken and her grief was great added to by the lonely and God-forsaken look of the spot where the grave was dug. Not a tree or a shrub was anywhere near the grave, not even a blade of green grass. It looked an unfit place to bury any human being. The mothers anguish was as keen that many were compelled to walk away from the scene, myself among others.

Incidentally, the dates of the Brackin and Clary burials are blurred to make incorrect the state historic marker placed at the cemetery during its centennial in 1985.

Andrew Larsen was the first to be cremated in the state, in 1913, and the funeral for A.J. Manderson the first held in the cemeterys chapel.

The crematory, now retired, and the chapel, returned to service, date to the early 1910s. Omaha architect John McDonald and general contractor Walter Peterson collaborated on the 40-by-60-foot marble-exterior chapel that was built over the crematory. The chapel was renovated in 1990.

The cemeterys original gate was at 40th and Forest Lawn Avenue. The road followed Spring Creek to 30th Street. The road first was paved in 1909. Streetcars ran to the cemetery from 1905 to 1947  in early years they went inside the gate  before giving way to bus service.

That gate was closed in the 1980s when the cemetery relocated its offices and entrance to the west side off Mormon Bridge Road.

Those who remember the east gate also may recall the many peony sellers for Memorial Day along the avenue and the Minne Lusa Greenhouse near 30th Street.

The burial list is a whos who of the city  Kountzes, Paxtons, Barkers, Storzes, Joslyns, Kiewits, Doorlys, Hitchcocks and so many more. Many of the gravesites and their monuments are along the north drive, from which branches off Kountze Circle and its overlook of Forest Lawns earliest resting places.

Whos not buried there? Byron Reed. He kept his plot at Prospect Hill.

Memorial Day: Remembering Nebraskans loved and lost CSM William Mefford From Grand Island NE Harlow I. Brewer Christian W. Lyster Carl Breed Carl Davison Frank Atwater Johnny Vlcek George K. Hansen Private Kenneth Pirnie and 2nd Lt. Leo Cooksley 1941-42 Leroy H. Luth Philip A Luckert Ensign John Parle Harvey Hubka Hank Krass Clair Geiger Sgt. Jed Marsh Pauley, Betty J. Thompson, William Bill Rollin Fritch Wittrock, Raymond R. "Red" "Woody" Bopp, Walter D. Blum, Harry J. Wachtel, C.L. "Vern" Martin, Eugene R. Hoppe, Frank Henry Doran, Ivan E. Jack Allsman Hunter Hogan 'Searching for Stanley' Spc. Dustin L. Workman II Sgt. Wayne R. Cornell 1st Lt. Kevin Gaspers Sgt. Kenneth E. Locker Jr. John Douangdara Jeffrey Chaney James E. Moore Esther & Gus Peters
Dont be too sure a Democratic majority can be built on the grounds of abandoned houses of worship. Photo: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

One of the big predictions in American politics lately, of infinite comfort to embattled progressives, is that the increasing number of religiously non-affiliated Americans, particularly among younger generations, will spur a steady leftward drift. Perhaps that will mean, we are told, that Democrats will be able to build their elusive permanent majority on the grounds of abandoned houses of worship. Or perhaps, some hope, the religious roots of todays Republican extremism will begin to wither away, allowing American conservatives to resemble their less intemperate distant cousins in other advanced democracies, ending the culture wars.

Both propositions may be true. But its a mistake to treat so-called nones as an undifferentiated secularist mass, as Eastern Illinois University political scientist Ryan Burge explains with some fresh data. He notes that in 2022, 6% of folks were atheists, 6% were agnostics, and another 23% were nothing in particular. This large bloc of nothing in particular voters may lean left, all other things being equal, but they tend to be as uninterested in politics as in religion, making them a less than ideal party constituency. He explains:

To put this in context, in 2020 there were nearly as many nothing in particulars who said that they voted for Trump as there were atheists who said that they voted for Biden.

While atheists are the most politically active group in the United States in terms of things like donating money and working for a campaign, the nothing in particulars are on another planet entirely.

They were half as likely to donate money to a candidate compared to atheists. They were half as likely to put up a political sign. They were less than half as likely to contact a public official.

This all points to the same conclusion: they dont vote in high numbers. So, while there may be a whole bunch of nothing in particulars, that may not translate to electoral victories.

As Burge mentioned, however, there is a none constituency that leans much more strongly left and is very engaged politically  indeed, significantly more engaged than the white evangelicals were always hearing about. That would be atheists. In a separate piece, he gets into the numbers:

The group that is most likely to contact a public official? Atheists. The group that puts up political signs at the highest rates? Atheists. HALF of atheists report giving to a candidate or campaign in the 2020 presidential election cycle.

The average atheist is about 65% more politically engaged than the average American.

And as Thomas Edsall points out in a broader New York Times column on demographic voting patterns, atheists really are a solid Democratic constituency, supporting Biden over Trump by an incredible 87 to 9 percent margin. Its worth noting that the less adamant siblings of the emphatically godless, agnostics, also went for Biden by an 80 to 17 percent margin and are more engaged than nothing in particulars as well.

So should Democrats target and identify with atheists? Heres the problem: Despite the trends, there are still three times as many white evangelicals as atheists in the voting population. And there are a lot more religious folk of different varieties, some of whom have robust Democratic voting minorities or even majorities who probably wouldnt be too happy with their party showing disdain for religion entirely. Theres also a hunt-where-the-ducks-fly factor: If atheists and agnostics already participate in politics and lean strongly toward Democrats, how much attention do they really need? Theres a reason that politicians, whatever their actual religious beliefs or practices, overwhelmingly report some religious identity. Congress lost its one professed atheist when California representative Pete Stark lost a Democratic primary in 2012; the only professed agnostic in Congress is Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, whose political future isnt looking great.

Its a complicated picture. Conservative columnist Ross Douthat argues that American liberalisms increasing identification with secularism is keeping a lot of conservative Christians from politically expressing their reservations about Donald Trump. And religious people beyond the ranks of conservative faith communities may feel cross-pressured if Democratic politicians begin to reflect the liberal intelligentsias general assumption that religion is little more than a reactionary habit rooted in superstition and doomed to eventual extinction.

Perhaps it makes more sense for Democratic atheists and agnostics to spend time educating and mobilizing the nothing in particular Americans who already outnumber white evangelicals and ought to be concerned about how theyll be treated if a Christian-nationalist Gilead arises. Only then can nones become the salvation for the Democratic Party.
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Gold Star Mom Janet Crane will never forget the date April 26, 2012  the day she lost her son Army specialist Jason Edens.

For many people, Memorial Day just means a long weekend, time at the beach and barbecues. For Gold Star family members, Memorial Day often goes much deeper.

Growing up as a kid honestly, I didnt really know what Memorial Day meant, Crane said. It wasnt until I was older that I realized that the whole thing about Memorial Day is remembering military heroes or military veterans who have been killed in action.

That point was driven home for Crane on a spring day in Bethesda Maryland at Walter Reed Hospital. Surrounded by family, Edens laid in a hospital bed suffering from a traumatic brain injury at the age of 22. A stray bullet pierced his head during a small arms firefight in Laghman province, Afghanistan. The doctors prepared the family for the worst. He died 11 days after the attack.

Edens was assigned to the 1st Armored Division out of Fort Bliss, Texas. He was on his first tour of duty in Afghanistan and had only been in country for a few months. Crane said her son was 80 days away from coming home. The Franklin, Tennessee, native was looking forward to spending his three-year wedding anniversary with his wife, Ashley, after his tour was over. He never made it.

Edens said her son was a great kid who loved his family, animals and life in general.

We really miss him every single day, she said. You always think about the what-ifs, you know? What would he be doing now?

Edens didnt always want to join the Army. He graduated from high school and attended college at East Tennessee State University for a year. He met Ashley and they got married.

Joining the Army was a practical decision for Edens. He joined to afford college. He made plans to join the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation after he finished with his time in the Army and school. In 2009, he joined the Army at the age of 21. He did his basic training and advanced individual training at Fort Moore when it was known as Fort Benning.

Edens deployed to Afghanistan in the fall 2011. Edens unit was visiting a village when people from the Taliban took them by surprise. Crane said the villagers set them up. The soldiers took cover, but a bullet ricocheted and went under Edens helmet, leaving him with a severe brain injury. He was the only one in his unit who was wounded that day.

Edens was flown to an Afghanistan hospital where he was stabilized. He was then sent to Landstuhl, Germany. His family had been receiving updates during his care. They were eventually told to prepare to fly to Germany.

When Crane and her family arrived, they learned Edens would be flown to Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Edens never regained consciousness.

A neurosurgeon determined that he had a lot of damage to the upper portion of his brain and would not regenerate, Crane said. We had to make the decision whether to keep him on life support. We removed life support and he passed away a couple of days later.

Gold Star family members continue to stand for those theyve lost. She said its important that our specific people are remembered and they all are remembered.

We think about them every day. We never forget that theyre gone. So for us, its just what we live with every single day of our lives, she said.

Crane lives a few miles from where Edens military service began. Since his passing, Crane has continued to memorialize her son. She has been running since 1991. She has organized multiple Team Jason races over the years in the memory of her son. She once did an Ironman race where the organizers bent their rules and allowed her to carry a poster memorializing Jason across the finish line.

You know a lot of parents, they start doing scholarships that type of thing or start organizing nonprofits. I thought this was my way to kind of keep his memory going, she said.

Edens wasnt a runner himself. He raced her one time and cheated by taking a shortcut down the railroad tracks in the middle of town to catch her.

Hed been practicing and he wanted to run with his mother. Yeah, he couldnt keep up, Crane said with a laugh. Him and my stepdaughter, theyd both been training. They were gonna run with me, and I ended up leaving both of them.

Its these kinds of memories that stick with Crane the most  the silly, fun times. Its the times military veterans sacrificed their lives for civilians to enjoy, especially on Memorial day.

We just want people to remember what this day is about, and remember these freedoms that they enjoy and take for granted. Somebody paid a price for them to have those freedoms, she said.
Despite big promises of a green transition and the creation of ambitious climate pledges, some countries are continuing to support the development of new coal mines. The U.K. and Australia both have coal facility plans that could go against their climate pledges, while there is no sign of slowing down Chinas coal industry. So, just what does this mean for the green transition of these countries and globally?

In December 2022, the U.K. announced plans to build its first new coal mine in three decades. The $204 million project will be constructed in Whitehaven in Cumbria and is expected to produce 2.8 million tonnes of coking coal annually, as well as create 500 jobs. The plan is to export most of the coal produced, as the U.K. expects to increase its renewable energy capacity to stop the need for domestic coal use.

Many U.K. steelmakers have already stated that they will not be using coal from the development. And several European steel producers are also transitioning away from coal in response to mounting pressure from governments to decarbonize operations. Companies working in the heavy industry sector are now looking to renewable energy to power their facilities, where possible.

The mine is expected to produce 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, equivalent to around 200,000 car emissions. This will contribute heavily to the U.K.s carbon emissions at a time when it is expected to shift away from carbon-intensive energy production in support of an accelerated green transition. Although the government has stated that the development is still possible within the scope of the U.K.s climate legislation, with no doubt that it can achieve the net-zero scenario by 2050 following the closing of all coal operations by 2049. However, an analysis published in January suggested that this view is overly optimistic and that the coal project will likely break U.K. climate pledges. Related: Oil Prices Stuck Between Debt Ceiling Uncertainty And More OPEC+ Cuts

Laura Clarke, the CEO of environmental law firm Client Earth, said the move is unforgivable and Makes no sense in terms of the science, the economics, or indeed the UKs legally binding netzero commitments. This is a widely felt sentiment and many believe that the government will face a legal battle if it wants the development of the coal mine to go ahead.

In May, in Australia, the government approved a new coal mine for the first time since it was elected last year. The Isaac River mine will be constructed near Moranbah, in the Queensland Bowen basin, with a projected production capacity of 2.5 million tonnes of coal over five years. Much like the U.K. project, the development will be aimed at extracting coking coal used for steelmaking.

Environmental groups quickly responded to the news, asking the government to reconsider the mine as it does not align with Australias climate pledges. Several organizations have suggested that it could be detrimental to the habitats of several endangered species, such as the koala, the central greater glider, and the ornamental snake. If the development goes ahead, it could lead to the emission of 7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in its lifetime.

The approval of the mine came as a surprise to many, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won the 2022 election with his Labour government on his campaign for greater climate action. The government has announced the ambitious target of a 43% reduction in emissions by 2030, as well as introducing a carbon cap. However, Albanese is continuing to back new coal and gas projects, with the announcement of the approval of a $1.5 billion investment in Darwin harbors Middle Arm precinct, which could include two natural gas fields and petrochemical production, this month.

And we must not forget the worlds biggest coal player  China. In 2022, the Asian superpower approved the equivalent of two new coal plants a week, making its highest approval number since 2015. according to a study from earlier this year. Despite promises to cut its carbon emissions, China is continuing to rapidly build new power plants. The report from the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and the Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found that the coal power capacity starting construction in China was six times as large as that in all of the rest of the world combined.

Flora Champenois, a research analyst at GEM stated: China continues to be the glaring exception to the ongoing global decline in coal plant development. She added, The speed at which projects progressed through permitting to construction in 2022 was extraordinary, with many projects sprouting up, gaining permits, obtaining financing and breaking ground apparently in a matter of months.

Despite ambitious promises to transition away from fossil fuels, particularly the most polluting energy sources, several countries around the globe are continuing to invest heavily in the development of new coal projects. While the governments of the states assure the public that these projects will not hinder the achievement of their climate pledges, studies are repeatedly showing that this is not the case and that new coal projects are highly inconsistent with their carbon targets.

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By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

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Back in February of 2021, Qatar laid out a plan to ensure its dominance in liquefied natural gas exports for at least two decades. Already the worlds top exporter of LNG, Qatar shocked the world with an announcement that it would expand its production by more than 50% to 126 million tons a year through 2027. In doing so, Qatar essentially ensured that no other nation could hope to match its output, thereby establishing dominance in the sector for the foreseeable future. Now, Qatari leaders very well may be regretting that move.

It goes without saying that a lot has changed since 2021. The pandemic dragged on longer than almost anyone could have predicted, causing massive ripple effects through virtually every economic sector on the planet. And then, when economic outlooks were already as foggy as they had ever been, and energy sectors were experiencing extreme volatility while trying to match unpredictable levels of supply and demand in an unprecedented context, Russia  the second biggest oil and natural gas liquids exporter in the world after Saudi Arabia  invaded Ukraine. The result was chaos. Threats of energy sanctions turned into an all-out energy war, Europes energy sector plunged into crisis, and geopolitics were forever changed.

Now, Qatar is stuck with vast amounts of LNG and a changing market that might not want its wares. The issue isnt low demand  far from it. The problem is that no one wants to sign a long-term deal locking in LNG prices when the market is so volatile, and so many other big energy producers are making their own ambitious energy plans. The world needs LNG now, but not so much from the middle of the decade when the start of the projects is likely to coincide with those in the US and several other places, Bloomberg recently reported. And Doha insists on particularly strict contract terms with long timelines, which are currently scaring off would-be buyers. Related: Oil Prices Stuck Between Debt Ceiling Uncertainty And More OPEC+ Cuts

And Qatar is not alone with its massive LNG projects and an uncertain future for prospective buyers. The reality is that its a buyer's market for LNG right now. On top of Qatars massive LNG output, massive multi-billion dollar projects are underway to boost production in Australia, and the United States is well on its way to regaining its position as the worlds top LNG exporter, overtaking Australia and Qatar. Once all of these major projects come online around the same time over the next decade, the market will be flooded with cheap and plentiful natural gas, and these big three  the U.S., Australia, and Qatar  will likely have to keep their prices relatively low to stay competitive with each other.

All of these LNG super-producers are ramping up production with the expectation that Asian markets thirst for natural gas will be virtually unquenchable in the coming decades. As major economies including China and India continue to expand and struggle to maintain energy security in the face of rising demand, they face what is known as the energy trilemma: how to ensure a secure and reliable supply of energy while also keeping energy prices affordable and minimizing negative environmental externalities.

It is expected that natural gas will be key to balancing the trilemma on a global scale. While its a non-renewable fossil fuel, natural gas is considerably lower in carbon emissions than oil and coal. Its also relatively cheap, plentiful, and has significant existing infrastructure to support its growth in the global energy mix. Liquefied natural gas, the most transportable form of the fuel, is therefore considered to be a critical stepping stone between dirtier fossil fuels and zero-emissions energies on the global path to decarbonization. According to the International Energy Agency, given the time it takes to build up new renewables and to implement energy efficiency improvements, [natural gas] represents a potential quick win for emissions reductions.

However, with so many countries jumping on the LNG production bandwagon, there is serious concern about whether the demand for gas during the global energy transition will really keep up with the increase in supply. There are also concerns from environmentalists who contend that we dont have time to include a stepping stone phase between coal burning and renewable energy infrastructure, arguing that developing nations must leapfrog this phase instead. But the current projects underway in Qatar, Australia, and the U.S. all but ensure that natural gas will dominate many national energy mixes over the next two decades, as its almost certainly going to be affordable, plentiful, and close enough to sustainable to get the green light from policy leaders.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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As tepid demand for gas from power generation and industry has sent European natural gas prices into a freefall in recent weeks, traders and industry officials are not ruling out the possibility that Europe may see a brief dip to below zero for day-ahead prices in some markets this summer.

The combination of ample inventories at the end of a mild winter, steady imports of LNG, and weak demand has led to eight consecutive weeks of weekly losses in European benchmark natural gas prices, the longest weekly losing streak in more than six years.

While the benchmark price is unlikely to drop below zero, some regional day-ahead natural gas prices in Europe could see sub-zero prices briefly this summer, if demand remains weak and renewable power generation holds high, traders and industry officials at the E-World energy fair in Essen, Germany, told Bloomberg.

Individual regional gas markets in Europe could go negative when you have hours and days with renewable production, Peder Bjorland, vice president for gas trading and optimization at Norways energy giant Equinor, told Bloomberg.

There is quite a big distance from the price level we see now and to the single-digit and negative prices, and a lot can happen on that route, Bjorland added.

The front-month futures at the TTF hub, the benchmark for Europes gas trading, crashed by 10% on Thursday to settle at $26.78 (24.94 euros) per megawatt-hour (MWh), the lowest price since the start of the energy crisis in the autumn of 2021. Related: U.S. Shale Production Is Set For A Rapid Decline

The price trend in European natural gas prices is in stark contrast with last year, when benchmark prices soared to as much as $322 (300 euros) per MWh in August, after Russia slashed supply via pipelines and governments and industry were spooked by potential gas shortages in the winter.

Thanks to milder winter weather, reduced consumption on EU level, and demand destruction in industry from the high energy costs, Europe made it through the 2022/2023 winter without gas shortages or gas rationing.

Currently, gas inventories are comfortably high for this time of the year. As of May 24, natural gas storage sites in the EU were 66.71% full, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe. The level of gas in storage is the highest for this time of the year in at least a decade.

Europe could fill up inventories as early as September, well ahead of the winter, analysts have told Bloomberg.

Demand for natural gas in Europe is now weak after the winter heating season ended and peak summer power demand is yet to begin. Gas consumption from industry, which went through a very rough patch last autumn and winter, is also weak.

Despite falling gas prices, industrial consumption of the fuel is not taking off, although it is possible that large industrial energy consumers wait for a further drop in gas prices, analysts say.

Further price declines could put a floor under prices as more power plants could switch to gas from coal, Goldman Sachs said earlier this week.

This substitution process can work as a temporary floor to gas prices until industrial demand and Asia LNG imports start to improve more visibly, which in our view will ultimately pull gas prices higher into late-summer, Goldmans analysts wrote in a note carried by Bloomberg.

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The near-term outlook on natural gas prices in Europe looks bearish. But things could swiftly turn if demand spikes in summer heatwaves with low wind speeds that could cripple wind power generation. Industrial customers could also start using more gas if prices continue to fall, ultimately supporting the prices. A recovery in Asian demand for LNG could also result in higher European prices as Europe will have to compete with Asia for spot cargoes.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Just one tooth. A wisdom tooth. That's all that's left for Chief Warrant Officer 3 Larry Zich's family to bury a week after this year's Memorial Day  51 years after the Army helicopter pilot from Lincoln disappeared along with three members of his crew during the Vietnam War.

His sister, Waltina "Tina" Mueller, and his widow, Debbie Zich Peters, both of Lincoln, will join the Patriot Riders and a large contingent of veterans when those last remains are buried at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery on June 5 at 10 a.m. near the grave of his infant son, Shane.

Zich's identification is remarkable, considering the tooth has been in the possession of the Department of Defense for 35 years, and the crash site has never been found. It took advances in DNA, and some boltfrom-the-blue insight by a forensic dentist at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lab in Hawaii to conclusively link the tooth to Zich. He is the 10th of 24 Vietnam War MIAs from Nebraska who has been accounted for, according to DPAA.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  The Taliban and Iran exchanged heavy gunfire Saturday on the Islamic Republic's border with Afghanistan, killing and wounding troops while sharply escalating rising tensions between the two countries amid a dispute over water rights.

Iran's state-run IRNA news agency quoted the country's deputy police chief, Gen. Qassem Rezaei, accusing the Taliban of opening fire first Saturday morning on the border of Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan province and the Afghan province of Nimroz. IRNA said Iran inflicted "heavy casualties and serious damage."

Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafi Takor accused Iran of shooting first. The semiofficial newspaper Tehran Times said the fighting killed three Iranian border guards.
A Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner flying from London to Los Angeles was forced to divert to Canada Friday due to engine failure.

Virgin Atlantic Flight VS141 carried over 250 passengers on a routine flight when it landed at Goose Bay Airport, a Canadian air base within the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

"All impacted passengers have been notified of their reprotection options and can also be viewed when they log into 'My booking' on our website," the company said in response to a query regarding the flight's status.

Engine failure

The pilots decided to divert the twin-engined plane to Goose Bay as a precautionary measure upon discovery of the failure on its left engine, which was shut down mid-flight. They also requested for inspection due to "damage" and "leakages" found on the crippled engine.

A Virgin Atlantic representative told The Daily Mail VS141 was diverted to the Canadian air base to ensure the "safety and security" of its passengers and crew.

"We will be sending a recovery flight to collect all customers from Goose Bay which will transport them to New York JFK [Airport], where customers will be provided with accommodation, and our teams will help with their onward journey to Los Angeles," the spokesperson said.

The Royal Canadian Air Force, which operates Goose Bay, has yet to be contacted regarding the flight diversion.

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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BEIJING  Taiwan's Defense Ministry said Saturday that it detected three Chinese warships, including the Shandong aircraft carrier, passing through the Taiwan Strait, as Beijing keeps up pressure on the self-ruled island it claims as its own.

The ministry said it was monitoring the movements of the ships and will respond accordingly. In a tweet, the ministry said the three vessels headed north along the Taiwan Strait at noon and were steering along the west of the median line  an unofficial boundary once tacitly accepted by both sides.

The ministry also said in the 24 hours from 6 a.m. Friday to Saturday, it detected 33 of China's People's Liberation Army aircraft and 10 navy vessels around Taiwan. Some aircraft crossed the median line or entered the island's air defense identification zone. Taiwan's armed forces deployed aircraft, navy vessels and land-based missile systems.
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UNITED NATIONS  Over the past 75 years, the United Nations has sent more than 2 million peacekeepers to help countries move away from conflict, with successes from Liberia to Cambodia and major failures in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Today, it faces new challenges in the dozen hotspots where U.N. peacekeeping has operations, including more violent environments, fake news campaigns and a divided world that is preventing its ultimate goal: successfully restoring stable governments.

The organization marked the 75th anniversary of U.N. peacekeeping and observed the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers on Thursday with a solemn ceremony honoring the more than 4,200 peacekeepers who have died since 1948, when a historic decision was made by the U.N. Security Council to send military observers to the Middle East to supervise implementation of Israeli-Arab armistice agreements.

For the 103 peacekeepers added to the list in 2022, medals were accepted by ambassadors from their 39 home countries.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asked the hundreds of uniformed military officers and diplomats at the ceremony to stand for a moment of silence in their memory. And at the start of a U.N. Security Council meeting on peace in Africa, all those in the chamber stood in silent tribute to the fallen peacekeepers.

The secretary-general told the ceremony after laying a wreath at the Peacekeepers Memorial that what began 75 years ago "as a bold experiment" in the Mideast "is now a flagship enterprise of our organization." For civilians caught in conflict, he said, peacekeepers are "a beacon of hope and protection."

U.N. peacekeeping operations have grown dramatically. At the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, there were 11,000 U.N. peacekeepers. By 2014, there were 130,000 in 16 far-flung peacekeeping operations. Today, 87,000 men and women serve in 12 conflict areas in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

There have been two kinds of successes, U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said Wednesday. Those are the long list of countries that have returned to a reasonable degree of stability with the support of U.N. peacekeeping, including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Mozambique, Angola and Cambodia, and the countries where peacekeepers are not only monitoring but preserving ceasefires like in southern Lebanon and Cyprus.

As for failures, he pointed to the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to prevent the 1994 Rwanda genocide, which killed at least 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and Hutus, and the 1995 massacre of at least 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica during the war in Bosnia, Europe's only acknowledged genocide since the Holocaust during World War II.

The U.N.'s reputation has also been tarnished by numerous allegations that peacekeepers charged with protecting civilians sexually abused women and children, including in Central African Republic and Congo. Another high-profile blunder was the cholera epidemic in Haiti that began in 2010 after U.N. peacekeepers introduced the bacteria into the country's largest river by sewage runoff from their base.

Despite that, Richard Gowan, the International Crisis Group's U.N. director, said "U.N. peacekeeping has a surprisingly decent track record."

While many people understandably focus on the Rwanda and Srebrenica disasters, he said, "the U.N. has done a good job of tamping down crises, protecting civilians and rebuilding broken states in cases from the Suez crisis in the 1950s to Liberia in the 2000s."

Looking ahead, the U.N.'s Lacroix said the major challenge peacekeeping is facing is the divided international community and especially divisions in the U.N.

Security Council, which must approve its missions.

Lacroix pointed to other challenges peacekeepers are facing: The environment in which they are operating is more violent and dangerous and attacks are more sophisticated. Fake news and disinformation "is a massive threat to the population and the peacekeepers." And old and new drivers of conflict  including transnational criminal activities, trafficking, drugs, weapons, the illegal exploitation of natural resources, and the impact of climate change exacerbating competition between herders and farmers  are also having an "absolutely massive influence."

The U.N. needs to better address all the challenges, he said. And it needs to keep improving the impact of peacekeeping and implement its initiatives on performance, combating fake news, improving safety and security, and recruiting more women to be peacekeepers.

The Crisis Group's Gowan told AP it's pretty clear that the U.N. is "trapped" in some countries like Mali and Congo where there aren't enough peacekeepers to halt recurring cycles of violence.

"I think we should be wary of dumping U.N. operations outright," Gowan said. "We have learned the hard way in cases like Afghanistan that even heavily armed Western forces cannot impose peace. The U.N.'s track record may not be perfect, but nobody else is much better at building stability in turbulent states."

Soldiers line up before the arrival of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in Asuncion, Paraguay, on Feb. 26, 2015. The organization marked the 75th anniversary of U.N. peacekeeping and observed the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers on Thursday.
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ATLANTA  When Destiny heard screams, she raced to a hospital room where she saw a patient assaulting a care technician. As a charge nurse at Northeast Georgia Health System, she was trained to de-escalate violent situations.

But that day in spring 2021, as Destiny intervened, for several minutes the patient punched, kicked, and bit her. And by the time a team of security guards and other nurses could free her, the patient had ripped out chunks of Destinys hair.

We are not protected on our floors, she said as she recapped the story during testimony later that year to the Georgia Senate Study Committee on Violence Against Healthcare Workers.

In May, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law that boosts criminal penalties for assaults against hospital workers and allows health care facilities in the state to create independent police forces. The law is a response to that testimony as well as hospital lobbying and data documenting a rise in violence against health care workers. In enacting the law, Georgia joined other states attempting to reverse a rise in violence over the last several years through stiffer criminal penalties and enhanced law enforcement.

Nearly 40 states have laws that establish or increase penalties for assaults on health care workers, according to the American Nurses Association. And lawmakers in 29 states have approved or are working on similar laws, as well as ones that allow the creation of hospital police forces. Members of those forces can carry firearms and make arrests. In addition, they have higher training requirements than noncertified officers such as security guards, according to the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety.

Groups representing nurses and hospitals argue that such laws address the daily reality of aggressive or agitated patients who sometimes become violent. Still, such interventions are relatively new. Critics worry that establishing hospital police forces will escalate violence in health care settings and could have downstream effects.

I worry about all the reasons patients have to not trust me and trust the health care system, said Elinore Kaufman, a trauma surgeon at the University of Pennsylvania.

Health care workers are five times as likely to experience violence as employees in other industries, according to federal data. The day after Kemp signed the Safer Hospitals Act into law, a person opened fire in a midtown Atlanta medical office, killing one woman and injuring four others, including workers at the medical practice.

Verbal and physical threats, which increased during the pandemic, are exacerbating a dire nursing shortage, said Matt Caseman, CEO of the Georgia Nurses Association. Destiny testified that one of her co-workers left nursing after the 2021 assault, in which the patient smashed the care technicians face into a wall and the floor.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services noted the alarming rise of violence in health care settings last November. The federal agency recommended hospitals implement a patient risk assessment strategy, increase staffing levels, and improve training and education for staffers. There was no mention of boosting law enforcement presence.

Having a dedicated police force helps hospitals better train officers to work in a health care setting, said Republican State Rep. Matt Reeves, who co-sponsored the Georgia bill. Officers can get to know staff members and regular patients, as well as the layout and protocols of hospital campuses. If you have a specialized police department, they are more in tune with the needs of the facility, he said.

Unlike other businesses, hospitals cant merely throw out patients who misbehave, said Terri Sullivan, an emergency nurse in Atlanta. A patient once punched her in the chest, fracturing two ribs, before running out of the room and trying to punch his physician. Sullivan said that, in her experience, the presence of hospital security can prevent patients from acting out.

Still, little data exists on whether such forces are effective at preventing hospital violence. Ji Seon Song, a University of California, Irvine law professor who studies policing in health care settings, worries about the unintended consequences of legislation that boosts the presence of law enforcement in places people receive medical care.

You can see where there might be a lot of problems, she said, especially if the patient is African American, undocumented, Latino  something that makes them prone to being criminalized.

A ProPublica investigation found Cleveland Clinics private police force disproportionately charges and cites Black people. And in March, a video emerged showing police and hospital staff members in Virginia holding down a patient who was experiencing a mental health crisis, leading to his death. In 23% of emergency department shootings from 2000 to 2011, the perpetrator took a gun from a security officer, according to a Johns Hopkins University study.

Law enforcement should always be the last resort, argued Kaufman, the trauma surgeon.

Our primary lens shouldnt be that our patients are a danger to us, she said. Its a harmful lens and a racist one. We should develop safe and healthy workplaces through other ways.

Photos: 1 dead, 4 hurt in shooting inside Atlanta medical facility
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FREDERICKSBURG, Va.  Constance Guthrie is not yet dead, but her daughter has begun to plan her funeral.

It will be, Jessica Guthrie says, in a Black-owned funeral home, with the songs of her ancestors. She envisions a celebration of her mother's life, not a tragic recitation of her long decline.

As it should be. Constance has lived 74 years, many of them good, as a Black woman, a mother, educator and businesswoman.

But she will die of Alzheimer's disease, a scourge of Black Americans that threatens to grow far worse in coming decades.

Black people are more likely to develop Alzheimer's than white people in the United States. They are less likely to be correctly diagnosed, and their families often struggle to get treatment from a medical system filled with bias against them.

About 14% of Black people in America over the age of 65 have Alzheimer's, compared with 10% of white people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disparity is likely even more, because many Black people aren't correctly diagnosed.

And by 2060, cases are expected to increase fourfold among Black Americans.

While some risk factors may differ by race, the large disparities among racial groups can't be explained just by genetics.

The problems start much earlier in life. Health conditions like heart disease and diabetes are known risk factors. Both are more common among Black populations, because of where they live in relation to polluting industries, lack of healthy food choices, and other factors. Depression, high blood pressure, obesity and chronic stress can also raise the likelihood of developing Alzheimer's. So can poverty.

Across the board, Black people don't receive the same quality of health care throughout life as white people.

So they don't get high quality treatment  or any treatment  for all those conditions that are risk factors. Then, at the end, they're less likely to get medication to ease the symptoms of Alzheimer's and dementia-related disorders.

And there's the insidious impact of a life experiencing racism.

Racism is trauma that can lead to increased stress, which can in turn cause health problems like inflammation, which is a risk factor for cognitive decline, said Dr. Carl V. Hill, chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer of the Alzheimer's Association.

"But because of this structural racism that creates poor access to health, medication, housing, those who experience racism and discrimination are not provided a pathway to lower their risk," Hill said.

It is, he said, "a one-two punch."

For Jessica, it has meant the final years of her mother's life have been filled not with peace, but heartache and frustration, as she navigates doctors who don't believe her when she says her mom is suffering. In the slow, plodding walk that is her mother's final years, she has few health care partners.

"It has been pervasive across multiple doctors, emergency rooms and hospital doctors," Jessica said. "Not being listened to, not believed, not given the full treatment."

"To be a caregiver of someone living with Alzheimer's is that you watch your loved one die every day. I've been grieving my mom for seven years."

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is part of an AP series examining the health disparities experienced by Black Americans across a lifetime.

***

The salon was called "Hair by Connie," and for 18 years it was the place to go in Alexandria, Virginia, if you were a Black woman who wanted to look her best. Reigning over the shop was its owner, Constance Guthrie.

She traveled the world, attending hair shows. She opened her salon to fashion shows like the "Tall, Full and Sassy" event advertised in an old flyer she now keeps in a box of mementos. She donned dazzling, colorful and flamboyant outfits to match her larger-than-life personality.

In the 1990s, she made the difficult decision to move and close her beloved salon. She bought a home in Fredericksburg so her daughter could attend the best schools, and later became a paraprofessional in the local school district, which allowed her to have a schedule where she never missed oratorical contests or choir recitals.

She was always there for Jessica, who is her only child. They often stayed up into the wee hours of the night working on school projects together. Despite meager means, Jessica grew up surrounded by encouragement and love.

"My mother gave up everything to make sure that I had the greatest support, the greatest opportunities," Jessica Guthrie recalled. "We were like two peas in a pod."

Her mother's hard work paid off. Jessica became a teacher and later moved to Dallas to build her own life and chase her dreams, where she was a successful chief program officer for an education service.

Then, seven years ago, Constance began her descent into dementia.

She started to forget simple things, like where her keys were. She lost her way coming home from work on a familiar route she traveled almost daily for 18 years. She got into a car accident.

The frequency of troubling incidents began to increase, worrying Jessica who was still hundreds of miles away in Texas.

They tried to use Post-it notes to remind Constance of daily tasks. Some of the colorful notes still line the walls of the family's home.

For a woman who had grown accustomed to being so independent, it was hard for her to accept that she needed help.

"She spent so long trying to hide it," Jessica said. "Like, 'Oh, I'm good, I'm fine. I just forgot.' But you could tell that a lot of her anxiety and stress was because she was trying to cover this up from other people."

She began to wander around her neighborhood. Jessica and nearby loved ones tried to bolt the door to prevent her from wandering.

A neurologist confirmed she was suffering early cognitive decline and that it was likely Alzheimer's.

She was just 66 when she was diagnosed.

Soon after, Jessica made the tough decision to pack up and leave Dallas behind to care for her mother full time. She recently began working remotely again after taking an extended leave of absence to care for her mother.

Constance never had diabetes nor high blood pressure  which are common risk factors. She was fairly active and healthy, and would often walk around her neighborhood. But in 2015, Constance suffered a transient ischaemic attack, or a "mini stroke," which is a brief disruption in the blood supply to part of the brain.

Jessica believes the mini stroke could have been caused in part by the heavy stress her mother endured at her job, where she worked for 18 years as a special education paraprofessional.

She also questions the role genetics played in her mother's diagnosis. Her mother's aunts are all living with the disease. Her mother's brother, who was a doctor, has started to experience cognitive decline.

***

Lost in her own mind, Constance can no longer testify to the difficulties she endured  as a mother, a Black entrepreneur running a business on her own.

But her daughter, Jessica, can attest to the struggles she's had, as a Black caregiver, trying to ensure that her mother receives appropriate care.

In 2018, her mother started pointing at her stomach, repeatedly, trying to tell her daughter she was in pain. Jessica took her to her primary care physician, who is white and brushed the concerns aside.

"My mother couldn't articulate that there was significant pain in the moment and the doctor of the practice basically said, 'Oh, well, you know, sometimes they just come in and put on a show and it seems like she's fine,'" Jessica said. "They asked, 'Are you sure she's in so much pain?'"

They sent her home without performing further diagnostic tests. But the pain persisted.

Jessica took her mother to the emergency room the next day and a Black male doctor ordered the necessary imaging. She needed emergency surgery to correct a painful, protruding hernia.

Then there was the time she took her mother to the emergency room for intense leg pain. She had arthritis in her knee but Jessica suspected something more serious.

The doctor told her she likely just needed rehab for her bad knee. Jessica advocated for more testing and it turned out Constance had a blood clot in her leg.

"Racism is implicit and deeply rooted in the air that we breathe," said Jessica, who has started an Instagram account to chronicle her experiences.

The problems Black people face getting medical care are pervasive. Black people living with serious illnesses get less help managing pain and other symptoms, and they have worse communication with doctors, according to the Center to Advance Palliative Care.

Studies show they are less likely to receive dementia-related medication that can help ease symptoms like hallucinations and depression that make the disease particularly terrifying for families.

Among non-white caregivers, half or more say they have faced discrimination when navigating health care settings for their care recipient. Their top concern: Because of their race, providers or staff do not listen to them.

And there are barriers to even being diagnosed properly. A recent study found that Black participants in Alzheimer's disease research studies were 35% less likely to be diagnosed than white participants. Part of the problem is a lack of Black doctors. Just 1 in 3 of the nation's physicians is Black, Indigenous, Hispanic or Asian. That lack of representation has had a compounding effect on the care that Black people receive  especially later in life when older Americans suffering from illnesses like Alzheimer's lack the ability to advocate for themselves.

All these things put an outsized burden on Black families providing care.

Through her Instagram, Jessica regularly hears from other Black caregivers, mostly women, who have eerily similar stories of not being heard, feeling isolated or being denied proper treatment.

"I think that part of my journey would have looked significantly different if I were a middle-aged white person or a white male," she said. "I would have been listened to the first time."

***

Jessica has spent the past several months preparing for her mother's imminent death, making sure every detail is perfect.

But in an unexpected twist, she learned in February that her mother would be discharged from home hospice care in early March. Medicare typically covers hospice care for those who are terminally ill, with a life expectancy of six months or less.

Although she remains in the last stage of Alzheimer's disease, Constance has been deemed stable.

Both her appetite and water intake are great. Her skin is glowing. She still has glimmers of her sassy spirit.

On the surface, this is good news. Jessica's relishing every extra day she has with her mother.

Still, the discharge feels like a slap in the face.

Several studies have found that Black patients, across various serious illness diagnoses, are less likely to be referred to hospice or use hospice.

Losing hospice services means Jessica will lose all equipment and supplies, including the hospital grade bed that her mother sleeps in, the lift she uses to get her out of bed and her wheelchair. She has lost the weekly nurse visits, vital checks, the social worker and the extra services that her mother loved  music and massage therapy.

Jessica is concerned about how she'll handle the next medical emergency. She'll have to rely on local hospitals that provided her mother with problematic care before.

"Everything's gone and it feels like I'm back at square one again," she said. "I feel like the system's failed us and has failed so many other caregivers."

It's the latest, but maybe not the last, burden, and it's taking its toll.

At 34, many of her friends are married, starting families, traveling and investing money for the future.

But she's had to spend money on her mother's care and largely put her life on hold.

"When you think about how I spent so long trying not to repeat this cycle of poverty, now I'm sitting in a place where I make a pretty good salary, and yet I'm not setting myself up for the future that I know that I should have," she said.

Some days she mourns the life that could have been and everything she has had to sacrifice. She sees undeniable parallels between all that her mother sacrificed and what she now has given up. But she wouldn't change a thing.

Her exhausting experience as a caregiver has added purpose to her life. She feels she is also helping other Black caregivers to be seen and heard.

For now, she is happy to spend time with the woman she calls "CG."

Every morning after Constance wakes up, Jessica flips on the TV in her mother's small room to the gospel music station. "Music brightens my mom. She would sing no matter if she was on key or not."

Now, the daughter sings to her mother as she's changing or feeding her. On a recent day Jessica tried making it through "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," as she massaged her mother's fingers, before her voice cracked and her shoulders bounced as she cried.

"You saying goodbye?" her mother mumbled.

Constance doesn't sing or clap along anymore, but she lightly tapped her feet under her blanket. And she let out a low, steady hum.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio  To her students who need the most support, India Strother is rarely just "Ms. Strother"  she's a family figure they call "Mom," a trusted guide as they negotiate their teenage years.

They open up to her about their dating lives. About pregnancy scares. About their fights with their parents, about the trauma they experience outside school. She keeps a mental list of those at risk of self-harm or suicide, and checks to see how they are doing. It's just part of the job of being a counselor at any American high school.

But at predominantly Black schools like the one in Columbus, Ohio, where Strother works, students' mental health is further tested by pressures and discrimination they endure because they are Black, as well as poverty and violence in some communities that have faced years of disinvestment.

"Anytime you deal with African American mental health, you're not dealing with one thing," Strother said. "It is several things. It is trauma that has not been addressed."

The drivers of the mental health crisis for Black children begin early and persist through a lifetime. Black children's first encounters with racism can start before they are even in school, and Black teenagers report experiencing an average of five instances of racial discrimination per day. Young Black students are often perceived as less innocent and older than their age, leading to disproportionately harsher discipline in schools.

Black adolescents are far less likely than their white peers to seek and find mental health care. In part, that's because Black families often distrust the medical system after generations of mistreatment  from lack of access to care to being subjected to racist practices and experimentation like the Tuskegee Study. The country also has a shortage of providers who understand the roles that racial identity and racism play in shaping young Black people's mental health.

Research and health surveillance data point to a growing mental health crisis among Black youth over decades. Between 1991 and 2019, Black adolescents had the highest increase among any racial or ethnic group in prevalence of suicide attempts  a rise of nearly 80%.

About 53% of Black youth experience moderate to severe symptoms of depression, and about 20% said they were exposed to racial trauma often or very often in their life.

These disparities and lived experiences have systemic roots, including discrimination in housing, education and health care, and they have led to Black people experiencing higher rates of poverty and being underinsured. But financial stability does not shelter Black youth from the toll of racism on their mental health, said Dr. Alfiee Breland-Noble, a psychologist and founder of the AAKOMA Project, a mental health nonprofit focused on youth of color.

"Socioeconomic status adds another layer to it, but that's not the thing that's driving a lot of the behaviors that our young people are experiencing," she said. "It's the fact that people make assumptions about Black kids, based purely on their stereotypes."

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is part of an AP series examining the health disparities experienced by Black Americans across a lifetime.

***

For 17-year-old Lillian, navigating a predominantly white school as a high-achieving Black girl wore heavily on her mental health. The AP is only publishing her first name to protect her privacy in discussing sensitive topics.

At its worst, anxiety isolated Lillian from her close-knit family. She sometimes went days without sleeping, kept awake by her schoolwork and the pressure she put on herself to excel.

All the insensitive comments and racial microaggressions felt relentless, and often came just as she was starting to become closer friends with someone. This school year alone, at least four people have tried without warning to touch her hair, which she loves wearing in puffs, braids and other natural styles.

Others told her she didn't seem like what they expected, leaving her wondering what exactly they expected of Black girls like her. With few teachers who were people of color at her school, she often felt like she had to work harder to prove herself capable and deserving of the same opportunities and recognition that white students easily received. But in advocating for herself, she worried about coming across as too aggressive.

"I think in predominantly white spaces, we naturally code switch. We're softer," Lillian said. "I had to have this large patience for things that I wouldn't normally have. Because it was my school, it's like if I'm so aggressive, and it becomes known that I'm the aggressive Black girl, it's gonna be terrible, and it's gonna follow me."

Although many of Lillian's family members supported her in seeking more intense support for her anxiety  she was ultimately diagnosed with two anxiety disorders  others were less receptive, dismissing her mental health as a need to focus more on her faith.

As young as 4 to 6 years old, children of color begin to experience race-based traumatic stress, said Dr. Steven Kniffley, a licensed psychologist and senior associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

Racism affects mental health on multiple levels. Besides direct hostility and microaggressions, experts said seeing people of color subjected to racist violence also takes a toll. Called vicarious racism, research has found it can result in greater symptoms of depression and anxiety.

"When we think about our young folks specifically, because of the strong influence of social media on their lived experience, they're constantly inundated and really overexposed to all the bad things that are going on in our society," Kniffley said. "You see a police shooting, and they're retraumatized over and over again."

In the Columbus area, where Lillian goes to school, the killing of 16-year-old Ma'Khia Bryant brought the feeling close to home for Black girls in the city. Bryant was holding a knife during a confrontation with a woman at her foster home when police shot the teen. But Bryant's family later revealed it was Bryant who had called for police to come to the scene, saying she was being attacked and needed help.

The shooting made Fran Frazier, founder of the Columbus-based Black Girl Rising, want to do something for Black girls in the city, who she said felt denied of their girlhood and "adultified"  viewed as older and less innocent. She bought time on a radio station and asked Black women in the area to read love letters to Black girls on the air.

"Our girls have the assumption that, 'If we don't look like you think we're supposed to look, then you can address us as adults,'" Frazier said. "'You're not thinking about us as actual girls.'"

Frazier led a 2011 study into the lives of Black girls in Ohio that forms the basis of her work now with young Black women around mental health, leadership and resilience.

Through the Black Girl Think Tank, Frazier said participants identified six key areas affecting Black girls' mental health: colorism, bullying, body shaming, lack of conflict resolution skills, depression and LGBTQ+ issues.

While nearly all the girls who responded said they liked being Black, and liked being a girl, they felt they had been treated unfairly for being both.

"When you are walking around every day, being reminded that you are a female, that you are a female of color, and nobody in the world actually likes you, that helps you see what the future could be like," Frazier said. "Our girls have a lot of hope, but not necessarily what they need to get there."

Suicides for all Black youth between the ages of 5 and 17 climbed between 2003 and 2017  but the increase was sharpest for girls and 15- to 17-year-olds. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found that 22% of Black youth had considered suicide in the past year. For Black youth who are also LGBTQ+, that number was 44%, according to the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization.

If you or someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide, call 1-800-273-TALK, text 741741 or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

Individually and systemically, barriers to accessing mental health care disproportionately deter Black teens from getting the support they need.

The cost of care  sometimes hundreds of dollars for a single therapy session if providers don't take insurance, and many do not  can make services inaccessible, but poverty and insurance rates do not fully explain the disparate outcomes.

The fear of being misunderstood or even mistreated by the medical establishment is not without foundation. Most mental health care providers are white  only 4% of psychologists are Black, according to the American Psychological Association. And 80% of mental health providers are not trained in treating race-based trauma, said Kniffley, the psychologist.

Racist treatment of Black people in medical care dates to slavery, and psychiatry and psychology are not exceptions. In 1851, physician Samuel Cartwright hypothesized that mental illness was what drove enslaved Black Americans to escape to freedom. Termed "drapetomania," the belief was rooted in the idea that slavery was such an improvement to Black peoples' lives that only those who were mentally ill would wish to escape.

And in 1968, psychologists Walter Bromberg and Franck Simon developed the theory of "protest psychosis," the idea that Black male participation in the Civil Rights Movement caused violent, schizophrenic symptoms.

"That legacy has contributed to a mistrust that Black and brown folks have where their experience has been pathologized," Kniffley said.

Psychologists have taken steps to acknowledge their profession's history. In 2021, the American Psychological Association issued a public apology and resolution noting psychology's roots in eugenicist and racist ideas and the negative impact that the field has had on communities of color.

Though Black parents, activists, clinicians and teens said in interviews that while they feel the stigma of mental health has lightened overall, individual experiences are still shaped by pressure to keep personal struggles private.

A distrust of formal systems still lingers among Black Americans in response to decades of medical mistreatment, said Dr. Michael Lindsey, professor of social work at New York University. In response, families may seek support through informal systems in their communities such as churches, Lindsey said, rather than speaking of their personal affairs to people outside the family.

Society still treats those struggling with mental health differently, Lindsey said. And for people of color who are already marginalized because of their identity, admitting they are struggling with their mental health adds a "double consequence," he said.

Counselors and therapists must overcome those hesitations with young people before they open up about their needs. But in schools  often the only places where many teens can access mental health support  social workers, psychologists and counselors are frequently overwhelmed by the number of students in their caseloads.

In Columbus, there are an average of 465 students for each school counselor, which is not uncommon in U.S. schools, even though the recommended ratio is one counselor per 250 students.

Even if students say they're ready for more intensive mental health support, staff still may face resistance and distrust from parents.

One girl told Strother, the counselor, that she thought fighting with her mother at home might be the root of her anger issues and that therapy might help. Strother told the girl she was brave to advocate for herself, and the girl's face lit up.

But when Strother said she needed her mom's permission, the girl's face dropped. The girl had asked her mother about counseling before, but was told no. Strother called the mother but got no answer. And when she eventually returned Strother's call, it was to say her daughter was just being dramatic and didn't need counseling.

"And at that point, what do you do?" Strother said. "You can't harass a parent to make them give their child counseling."

***

Through hip-hop, Archie Green hopes to create a safe space for young Black men to unpack their lives.

In 2021, he started a 10-week program called Cope Dealer for young boys in Kent, Ohio, offering them a space to discuss how gender, race and mental health intersect for Black boys and men and ways to cope with daily stressors.

"For Black men, it's so hard for us to open up, to be vulnerable to know it's OK to cry," Green said. "It's OK to feel."

Schools should be that safe space for kids. But symptoms of depression, anxiety and traumatic stress in Black students are often viewed by adults as disobedience, anger or insubordination.

Those perceptions lead to Black students being policed or disciplined rather than protected in schools, said Tai Collins, associate professor of school psychology at the University of Cincinnati.

"Oftentimes in schools, students have these racialized experiences," Collins said. "And they don't experience a safe space where they can be supported."

On the first day of the Cope Dealer program, officers entered a room where participants gathered and arrested a boy, who was between homes, for having an unloaded pellet gun that he used for protection. And on the last day, the group was accused of stealing a wallet that had gone missing at the school.

"Of course, they're gonna knock on the door where all these Black boys are meeting, to profile us as if we're automatically the suspects," Green said.

Program participants have grown in their mental health and their ability to speak up for themselves, he said.

"They were very vocal with the principal and the police officer, saying: 'We don't feel served or protected'," Green recalled of the wallet accusation. "And they were very diplomatic in their approach. And when our facilitator asked them again, 'All right guys, how are you feeling?' One of them said, 'I think we handled that better than last time.'"
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Two clashing climatic behemoths, one natural and one with human fingerprints, will square off this summer to determine how quiet or chaotic the Atlantic hurricane season will be.

An El Nino is brewing and the natural weather event dramatically dampens hurricane activity. But at the same time, record ocean heat is bubbling up in the Atlantic, partly stoked by human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas, and it provides boosts of fuel for storms.

Many forecasters arent sure which weather titan will prevail because the scenario hasnt happened before on this scale. Most of them are expecting a near-draw  something about average. And that includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, saying theres a 40% chance of a near-normal season, 30% chance of an above-average season (more storms than usual) and a 30% chance of a below-normal season.

The federal agency announced its forecast of 12 to 17 named storms, five to nine becoming hurricanes and one to four powering into major hurricanes with winds greater than 110 mph. Normal is 14 named storms, with seven becoming hurricanes and three of them major hurricanes.

It's definitely kind of a rare setup for this year. That's why our probabilities are not 60% or 70%, NOAA lead hurricane seasonal forecaster Matthew Rosencrans said. There's a lot of uncertainty this year.

No matter how many storms brew, forecasters and Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Deanne Criswell reminded U.S. coastal residents from Texas to New England and people in the Caribbean and Central America that it only takes one hurricane to be a catastrophe if it hits you.

Thats really what it boils down to is: Which is going to win or do they just cancel each other out and you end up with a near-normal season? said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach. I respect them both.

The two forces couldnt be more opposite.

El Nino is a natural temporary warming of the Pacific that happens every few years and changes weather worldwide. Climate models predict as the world warms, El Ninos will get stronger.

Decades of observation show that generally the Atlantic is quieter with fewer storms during El Nino years. El Ninos warmer waters make warmer air over the Pacific reach higher up in the atmosphere, influencing winds and creating strong upper-level winds that can decapitate storms, killing them, Klotzbach said. Its called wind shear.

El Ninos effects are not direct and its not as in-your-face as a very warm ocean, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy. El Nino and its variations are the single biggest yearly factor in NOAA's forecast, accounting for up to 38% of its prediction, Rosencrans said.

The Atlantic, especially hugging the African coast to the far east where storms form, is about 1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 2 degrees Celsius) warmer than the average of the past 30 years and is the warmest it has been for this time of year, Klotzbach said. Warm Atlantic waters not only make storms stronger and more able to withstand El Ninos shear but they create an opposite direction upper-level wind that could counterbalance El Nino.

Its starting to outpace 2010 by a decent margin, which is sobering because 2010 was stinking hot, Klotzbach said.

The anomalously warm ocean temperatures unquestionably have a human fingerprint on them, said former NOAA hurricane scientist Jim Kossin, now of the risk firm The Climate Service.

Scientists dont even have past years that look the same to help figure out what will happen, Klotzbach and McNoldy said.

So which is going to win between El Nino and the hot oceans?

I know its not a satisfying answer to say we just dont know, but we dont, said University of Albany atmospheric sciences professor Kristen Corbosiero.

The pioneer in the field, Colorado State, is predicting a slightly below normal 13 named storms, six hurricanes with two of them becoming major. All but a handful of nearly two dozen private, university and government forecast teams and models call for a near normal Atlantic hurricane season with between six and eight hurricanes.

But they hedge their bets, too.

AccuWeather is expecting a near normal to slightly below normal season due to the onset of an El Nino, said AccuWeather senior hurricane forecaster Dan Kottlowski, who then added that the warm Atlantic complicates everything. Due to extensive warm water, there is still a higher than normal chance for a high impacting hurricane to affect the U.S. this season.

The University of Arizona looks at the same two clashing forces and sees a different outcome, predicting a higher-than-normal nine hurricanes, 19 named storms and five major hurricanes because it expects "the Atlantic side to be dominant, leading to a very active season, said University of Arizona atmospheric sciences professor Xubin Zeng.

Forecasters ran out of names during a record 30 Atlantic named storms in 2020 and with 21 storms in 2021. Last year was normal. Earth had a La Nina for the past three years, which generally increase Atlantic hurricane activity. Hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30.

25 costliest hurricanes of all time Costly storms #25. Alicia #24. Opal #23. Fran #22. Georges #21. Floyd #20. Jeanne #19. Matthew #18. Frances #17. Irene #16. Hugo #15. Charley #14. Laura #13. Rita #12. Florence #11. Wilma #10. Michael #9. Ivan #8. Ike #7. Andrew #6. Irma #5. Ida #4. Sandy #3. Maria #2. Harvey #1. Katrina #25. Opal #24. Fran #23. Georges #22. Floyd #21. Jeanne #19. Frances #18. Irene #17. Hugo #16. Charley #15. Laura #14. Rita #13. Florence #12. Wilma #11. Michael #10. Ivan #9. Ike #8. Andrew #7. Irma #6. Ida #5. Sandy #4. Maria #3. Ian #2. Harvey
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Just one tooth. A wisdom tooth.

Thats all thats left for Chief Warrant Officer 3 Larry Zichs family to bury a week after this year's Memorial Day  51 years after the Army helicopter pilot from Lincoln disappeared along with three members of his crew during the Vietnam War.

His sister, Waltina Tina Mueller, and his widow, Debbie Zich Peters, both of Lincoln, will join the Patriot Riders and a large contingent of veterans when those last remains are buried at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery on June 5 at 10 a.m. near the grave of his infant son, Shane.

Zich's identification is remarkable, considering the tooth has been in the possession of the Department of Defense for 35 years, and the crash site has never been found. It took advances in DNA, and some boltfrom-the-blue insight by a forensic dentist at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lab in Hawaii to conclusively link the tooth to Zich. He is the 10th of 24 Vietnam War MIAs from Nebraska who has been accounted for, according to DPAA.

I look at it as kind of like a miracle, Mueller said.

The long-delayed burial will be a way to say goodbye to the younger brother she had hoped for years would someday, somehow, come home alive.

Its closure, in a way, she said. But then, its not.

'Need for speed'

Larry Zich was born in Sturgis, South Dakota, the middle child out of five. The family moved to Lincoln by the time he was in high school.

Tina, the oldest, remembers him as a quiet kid, smart  and with a need for speed. He liked drag racing, and was a whiz with a wrench.

He loved working with his hands, working on cars, Mueller recalled.

Debbie met Larry while both were attending night school in Lincoln. They were married May 29, 1969, when he was 21 and she was 19. He sold the engine out of his beloved '57 Chevy to buy her engagement ring.

Zich was incredibly creative at fixing things, Peters said. Like the time they were driving through rural Kansas, and their cars fan belt broke.

He took the shoelaces out of his boots and rigged a fan belt that got us into Marysville, she said. Failure was just not in his vocabulary.

When the Army came calling in early 1969, Zich knew he wanted to be a pilot. He enlisted so he had a better chance to get the assignment he wanted: flying helicopters.

"He has a fascination with engines, anything that went fast, Debbie said. He wanted to fly.

Mueller said she was relieved that he had dodged an infantry assignment, unlike another brother who recently completed a combat tour shortly before Zich deployed.

I thought, Hes a helicopter pilot. Hes not going to be in much danger,' she said.

Debbie said neither she nor Larry had any such illusions.

Anyone involved in flight school, we knew it was extremely dangerous, she said.

Zich was assigned to a communications unit, the 37th Signal Battalion. He was scheduled to go to Vietnam, but his deployment was pushed back after their son, Shane, died just hours after his birth in Nov. 6, 1970.

The couple had mixed feelings about his deployment seven months later.

No ones happy about it," Debbie said. "But he had the attitude hed rather go fight a war someplace else and keep it out of our country.

Zich came home the following February after Debbie required emergency surgery. He had just 45 days left in his deployment. There was talk of him cutting his tour short because of the hardship, but he wouldnt hear of it. He didnt want to leave his men behind.

He felt he had a responsibility to return to Vietnam, Debbie said.

'They lost contact'

Zich had been back only a few days when on April 3, 1972  his 24th birthday  he was assigned as a co-pilot on a UH-1H Huey along with the pilot, Warrant Officer Douglas L. ONeil; the crew chief, Spec. 5 Allen D. Christensen; and the gunner, Spec. 4 Edward D. Williams.

These were the first days of the North Vietnamese armys Easter Offensive, a months-long attack on South Vietnam across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that separated them.

Zichs crew was ferrying a load of explosives from Da Nang to a South Vietnamese base near the DMZ, in Quang Tri province, that was about to be overrun.

The crew left Da Nangs Marble Mountain airfield, flying above a heavy cloud cover. They got lost looking for the base, despite the urgent efforts of ground controllers to find them, and guide them.

They couldnt get a ground fix because of the clouds, Mueller said. They lost contact.

DPAA investigators theorize the Huey was hit by a North Vietnamese shoulder-fired or surface-to-air missile. Other 37th Signal Battalion pilots broke off their mission to search for Zichs helicopter. They never found a trace.

That helicopter was the only one they lost, said Mueller, who has connected with several of the soldiers who served with her brother. Not a day goes by that they dont think about it.

Debbie was driving home from the store with her mother when she saw an Army staff car cross their paths once, then a second time. The third time, the car pulled in behind and followed them.

I had a gut feeling, Debbie recalled.

The officers in the staff car broke the news that Zich was missing. From that moment, she said, her "whole world stopped."

"How do you process it, when you don't even know what happened?" she asked.

Mueller said she was in shock, too. But she took comfort that he hadnt been declared dead.

I remember hoping, almost certain that he was alive, she said. That when they made the deal, bringing back the prisoners (of war), he would be among them.

The U.S. negotiated its withdrawal from Vietnam in early 1973, and North Vietnam released the prisoners it was holding.

Larry Zich was not among them.

Two years after Zichs disappearance, Air Force ROTC cadets from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln planted a Freedom Tree at a rest stop along Interstate 80 in Milford in Zichs memory. Lt. Gov. Frank Marsh presented Debbie with a plaque.

The country was very much ready to put Vietnam behind it, particularly after North Vietnam invaded its neighbor in 1975. The South Vietnamese regime quickly collapsed, and the country was reunited under a communist government. Tens of thousands of refugees fled, many of them coming to the United States.

Debbie moved to San Diego to attend college and earn a degree in social work, but she still tried to keep the plight of missing soldiers in the public eye.

She joined the National League of Families of POW/MIA, and joined a lawsuit to prevent the Defense Department from declaring Zich and the other Vietnam War MIAs to be dead. They lost.

Eventually she remarried and raised a new family. But she never forgot her first love.

I can guarantee, not one day in 51 years this has not been on my mind, Debbie said.

For a long while, the loss of Zichs crew dropped off the Defense Departments radar screen. Even as relations with Vietnams government thawed, no one came forward with information about the helicopter or a crash site.

They were just gone.

Nine packets

But one thing did happen. In 1988, as Vietnamese refugees were processed in nearby countries, one refugee in Malaysia told an intriguing story to a military debriefer seeking information on missing U.S. service members.

He presented a military debriefer with nine small packets containing bone chips and teeth. He said the packets had been given to him by his uncle and came from a crash site in Quang Nam province, near Da Nang.

At the time, DNA technology was in its infancy. The DoD didnt begin using DNA for identifications until the first Gulf War, in 1991, said Timothy McMahon, director of DNA operations for the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System.

About that time, the Defense Department took on an organized effort to find and identify missing service members from the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The nine packets were sent to the departments forensic laboratory in Hawaii, in the care of a predecessor organization to the DPAA. (A second laboratory was opened at Offutt Air Force Base in 2013.)

But anthropologists had little to go on. They had no information about when or where the remains were found, or family reference samples to which they could compare the DNA.

They didnt even know for sure whether the teeth and bone chips were actually the remains of U.S. soldiers. At the time, there was a busy black market in illicit remains, fueled by rumors that they might be worth money to the Americans, or boost a refugees immigration bid.

A lot of times this turns into a dead-end lead, said Franklin Damann, director of DPAAa Offutt laboratory.

Between 1993 and 2014, 12 investigations were conducted without making an identification.

Anthropologists determined through DNA testing that almost all of the meager remains came from people of Asian heritage. Most likely they were Vietnamese.

All except one tooth, which came from someone with European heritage.

Thats why this one tooth remained in the system, Damann said.

By 2014, the Defense Department had gathered family reference samples for 85% of MIAs from the Vietnam War, McMahon said. And anthropologists had just developed a way to test the DNA in a tooth without destroying it.

The DNA in the tooth matched two Vietnam MIAs: Zich, and one other soldier. But even after pulling the two mens dental x-rays, they could not determine whose it was.

So the tooth returned to storage.

An 'a-ha' moment

Last year, a new forensic dentist at DPAAs Hawaii lab, Lt. Cmdr. Ryan Takeda, took a fresh look at the case.

Takeda knew the tooth was a wisdom tooth. But Zichs x-ray showed no tooth in that spot.

At the time, dentists stamped a physical dimple on x-ray film so it would be oriented properly. But Takeda had an idea: what if Zichs dentist had stamped the dimple on the x-ray the opposite way?

So he flipped the x-ray over. And it matched, perfectly.

He realized the dentist was from a different school, Damann said. Thats what broke the case wide open.

It took somebody to look at it a different way, McMahon added. He was able to provide that a-ha! moment.

Takedas inspiration allowed the accounting agency to officially identify Zich last October. Mueller  his official next-of-kin  received a briefing on her brothers case in March, allowing the family to plan for his funeral next week.

In my mind, the service that were having on the 5th of June will be a celebration of his life, Debbie said. Larry deserves to be celebrated. He was a fantastic person.

The family has decided to open up the graveside service to the public, so that the community can celebrate his memory, too. Mueller said she has contacted local American Legion and VFW posts, along with motorcycle veterans. Some of the soldiers her brother served with are expected, too.

They said its going to be big, she said.

But the burial of a single tooth is not quite an end for those who remember Larry Zich, and loved him.

You have a tooth. To me thats not his remains, Debbie said.

After years of seeking information from the military about the fate of her husband, she was upset to learn about his identification from a TV news report  though Damann later met Debbie to brief her personally on the agencys findings.

She also still questions where the tooth came from, and why the Defense Department hasnt been able to trace the refugee who turned it in.

Theres too many holes in the case for me to find peace, Debbie said. "Even with this new information, it has raised more questions than answers."

Mueller is concerned for the fate of Zichs three crew mates, who are still missing.

Were in a hard place here. We have no idea, she said. Im doing a lot of praying that they do find these guys.

Damann said the case illustrates the lengths DPAA will go to find and ID missing service members. Advances in DNA technology allow forensic anthropologists to attach names to remains that were unidentifiable just a few years ago like Larry Zichs.

Were going back to some of the earliest cases in our lab, he said. Were going to keep pushing the science.

For Debbie Zich Peters, late May is a bittersweet time. Memorial Day and the anniversary of her wedding to Larry are always close together. This year, they are one and the same.

Soon after he disappeared, Debbie wrote a poem about the plight of the families of the missing that read, in part:

The war is over, so many will say

But to us its a mass of endless days.

No one understands the life we live

Waiting for answers others wont give . . .

So lets band together  Unity is the word.

We will bring back these men

Who so gallantly served.

This report includes material from the Lincoln Journal-Star.

Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of May 2023
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The inmate was agitated. He was aggressive. He refused to comply with directives.

In December 2020, as the man banged on the doors and yelled at staff members at Nebraskas Tecumseh State Correctional Institution, a cell extraction team was assembled to remove him from the mini-yard he was refusing to leave.

Over the course of hours, corrections officers fired a barrage of projectiles  at least 110 pepper balls, 20 bursts of pepper spray and a dozen rubber bullets  into the small room until he finally surrendered. In a follow-up report provided to the warden after the incident, staff explicitly stated that alternate actions should be considered when dealing with this particular inmate because of his tolerance for chemical exposure.

But less than six months later, in June 2021, it happened again.

Instead of a new strategy, corrections officers blasted the man with even more projectiles than the previous time. And at no point during either incident did the prison bring in a licensed mental health professional to speak to the man, who is seriously mentally ill and has a long history of volatile staff interactions.

In a report issued earlier this month, Doug Koebernick, inspector general for the Nebraska Correctional System, highlighted the lack of contact with a licensed mental health professional as one of a number of issues with the way officials handled the two incidents. The report details how the inmate was hit with hundreds of less-lethal munitions like pepper balls and rubber bullets, suffering extensive bruising, a broken finger and three rubber bullets embedded under his skin.

Koebernicks external review, as well as two internal reviews within the Nebraska Department of Corrections, or NDCS, found that the level of force used was excessive and non-proportional to the level of resistance shown by the inmate. Two NDCS staff members were disciplined as a result of the investigation, and the former warden at Tecumseh was abruptly reassigned after a recorded phone call caught him saying that hed love to shoot the inmate with a semi-automatic rifle.

In a statement, current NDCS director Rob Jeffreys said that he was made aware of the incident and the immediate need for change has been addressed. The department has agreed to consider adding additional mental health training for corrections officers, and issued a new policy directive calling for mental health providers or crisis negotiators to be called to assist in de-escalation if time and circumstances permit.

Despite the critical findings of its own internal reviews, NDCS did not report either incident to Koebernicks office, which acts as a watchdog over the states prison system, in part by investigating serious injuries and deaths occurring in custody. Scott Frakes, the NDCS director at the time, told Koebernick that he reviewed photos of the injuries and did not consider them to be serious.

Koebernick found out about the injuries by chance as he was visiting Tecumsehs restrictive housing unit in August 2021. The inmate, dressed only in boxer shorts and still covered in welts from the June 14 incident that year, sought Koebernicks attention and informed him of the recent use of force incidents.

The inmate, who is not identified in the report per Nebraska law, has a long history of misconduct and an unnamed serious mental illness. Throughout more than a decade of incarceration, he racked up more than 450 misconduct reports and lost all of his good time.

The June incident began after staff reported that the inmate was acting unusual and aggressive during evening mealtime. The corporal in the unit feared for his safety and exited the gallery at about 4:30 p.m. Remaining staff were evacuated from the unit, and other inmates were ordered to return to their cells.

At 4:50 p.m., a use-of-force team was assembled. Meanwhile, the inmate  now alone in the gallery  began barricading the doors and crafting small weapons. According to Koebernick, those weapons included the handle of a metal soup ladle, a shard of Plexiglas and a piece of metal.

The team began to fire pepper balls into the gallery around 7:40 p.m. They first fired ten rounds from a pepper ball launcher to saturate the area, and then fired pepper ball rounds at his chest. As the inmate continued to refuse to drop his weapons and lay down on the floor, they intermittently pelted him with pepper balls.

Around 9:30 p.m., about five hours since the unit was cleared of staff and inmates, the sergeant in charge requested permission to use less-lethal weapons  shotguns that fire rounds like rubber bullets or beanbags meant to injure or incapacitate a target without killing them  as well as lethal force. In this case, Koebernick said, authorizing lethal force meant staff could shoot the inmate in the head with those less-lethal weapons.

The request for less-lethal shotgun rounds was granted, but the request to use lethal force and shoot him in the head was denied. This directive came from Robert Madsen, the deputy director at NDCS, who passed the message to then-Warden Todd Wasmer, who informed the major, who informed the sergeant in charge.

This game of telephone seemed to create confusion among staff. Neither Wasmer nor Madsen approved the request for lethal force, but the sergeant in charge of the incident believed that lethal force was allowed if necessary, according to the report.

With this misunderstanding, two use-of-force teams staged to enter the housing unit from separate doors at about 10:40 p.m. As they entered and surrounded the inmate, they shot at him almost incessantly with pepper balls, 40mm foam rounds and various types of less-lethal shotgun rounds.

There had been some shots fired at him before they entered the gallery, but it was very limited, Koebernick said. When they all were coming at him, they were shooting quite a lot. Thats when he was shot in the head.

Shortly before he surrendered, the inmate was shot in the head with pepper balls an unknown amount of times. He attempted to seek shelter in the shower area, but was cornered and hit with another barrage of rounds to his torso, hands and legs.

At 11 p.m., he dropped the last weapon.

He was just hit so many times, he finally gave up, Koebernick said.

Medical staff evaluated the inmate and noted multiple shallow open wounds oozing blood all over his body, significant bruising on his left side, a broken finger and additional abrasions. They did not note, likely due to his lack of cooperation, that three of the rubber bullets had become embedded in his skin.

He was then placed in five-point restraints for at least three hours and involuntarily medicated before being moved to a mental health unit. Multiple other inmates in the area required breathing treatments due to chemical exposure.

NDCS completed a series of internal reviews after the June 2021 incident. The first, which was completed in July 2021, found that the amount of force used was not justified. In August, NDCSs Use of Force Review Committee agreed that the amount of force used was not proportional to the amount of resistance shown by the inmate.

The committee did, however, justify the use of lethal force since the inmate had weapons, and concluded that everyone acted in good faith.

Koebernick disagrees.

Theres no way we should have to shoot somebody 200 times to get them to submit and have this escalate in the way it did, Koebernick said. You just cant do that. Theyre lucky he wasnt really seriously injured.

As part of Koebernicks investigation, he requested recorded telephone calls between Wasmer, the warden, and the major, who is unnamed in the report. The phone calls were not released to Koebernick for more than a week after his request because Frakes said he needed time to process.

In the phone call, Wasmer allegedly told the major that he would love to shoot (the inmate) with a Mini-14 and be done with it.

A Ruger Mini-14 is a semi-automatic rifle.

This phone call was released to Koebernick in mid-October 2021. By November, Wasmer had been reassigned to work as an assistant warden at a different Nebraska prison. He left NDCS shortly after to run a county jail in Indiana.

Koebernick could not confirm if Wasmers comments on the phone call had something to do with his abrupt reassignment. Two other staff members were disciplined as a result of the internal investigations.

The report raises questions about the treatment of mentally ill inmates  who make up a substantial amount of the incarcerated population  in Nebraska prisons. Correctional facilities have become the mental hospital by default, Koebernick said, creating serious problems for both staff and inmates.

The challenges that staff face every day dealing with people who are in crisis, or have a serious mental illness, or just have a mental health issue  Its overwhelming, he said. And when you combine that with the shortage of mental health practitioners, it just makes it really difficult for everybody.

Throughout the six-hour interaction in June, the inmate never spoke directly with a licensed mental health professional. The only person with a behavioral health background who dealt with him during the incident was an unlicensed mental health caseworker who was dressed in full gear and acting as part of the use-of-force team.

Licensed mental health staff within NDCS do not work on evenings or weekends. A mental health provider is always on call, but not provided with any additional compensation or mileage reimbursement if they report to a facility outside of normal work hours.

In the report, Koebernick recommended a reimbursement policy for on-call mental health staff. NDCS rejected this, saying that reimbursement policies are governed by labor agreements and state regulations.

Three other recommendations in the report also pertain to best practices when working with severely mentally ill inmates: update the use of force policy to include attempts at de-escalation by a licensed mental health professional prior to using force; develop individualized de-escalation plans for individuals with a history of volatile staff interactions; and provide additional mental health training to staff.

NDCS accepted parts of the first and third recommendations. The use of force policy was edited to include that staff should consider calling in a licensed mental health provider or trained crisis negotiator, if available, prior to using force. The department will also consider adding additional mental health-related training during the next annual curriculum review.
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For many Americans across our country, Memorial Day means a long weekend of barbequing, spending time with family and friends and celebrating the kick-off of the summer season.

Its well-deserved for hardworking people to dedicate extra time to their loved ones and earn much needed rest and relaxation. But it is also important to remember that for others, Memorial Day is a far more somber day because of its true meaning, to honor the fallen who have died defending this nation. Its a day of reflection. Its a day to remember and honor the sacrifices of the 1.2 million American service members who gave the ultimate sacrifice since 1776.

Throughout my nearly 30 years in the U.S. Air Force, and since being sworn-in as a member of the United States House of Representatives, it has been a key passion and priority of mine to remember our nations fallen and care for the families left behind by our fallen heroes and my fallen brothers and sisters. I love advocating for our Gold Star families, because for them Memorial Day is every day.

Our men and women in uniform and those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice are interwoven into the fabric of this nation  their blood is in the very red of the American flag. We honor them by not just remembering, but how we live our lives as Americans, and how we care for this nation that they fought, bled and died for.

We want to ensure their sacrifices were not in vain by doing everything we can to ensure our nation remains free, just and strong.

In all of known history, only 5% of mankind have had the freedoms we enjoy in America today. It is all weve known, but yet historically freedom is rare, precious and it is fragile. Our freedom did not come free, but it was paid for those who gave their last full measure of devotion.

In recent wars, nearly 3.5 million men and women in uniform have deployed during the campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the Middle East, and more than 7,000 lost their lives. I encourage each family to learn the stories of some of our fallen and remember their names. I am in awe of the stories of our local heroes who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. I often think of the incredible and inspiring stories of Specialist Jeremy Jones, Major Franklin L. Knudsen, Staff Sgt. Tricia L. Jameson and Corporal Daegan Page.

SPC Jeremy Jones, 25, of Omaha, was killed June 27, 2006, while he was serving in Iskandariyah with the 1st Battalion of the 67th Armor Regiment based in Fort Hood, Texas. He had been in Iraq since November after re-enlisting in the Army in April. Jones graduated from Millard West High in 1999 and was the father of two.

Staff Sgt. Tricia L. Jameson, 34, of Omaha, was killed July 14, 2005, near Trebil when a roadside bomb exploded near her ambulance as it approached wounded Marines. Jameson, a member of the 313th Medical Company of Lincoln, had been in Iraq for just three weeks. She was a 1989 graduate of Millard South and attended Central Community College in Columbus.

Corporal Daegan Page was one of the last people killed as we exited Afghanistan on Aug. 26, 2021. He died trying to help people escape the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Or, a deeply personal story from my very own team, American hero Major Franklin L. Knudtson. Major Knudtson was an airman who was killed in November 1952 in England when his aircraft went down during a mission. He was from Lincoln and is the very grandfather of our legislative director, Jeff Kratz. He had three daughters and left behind and amazing wife who gave everything she could to raise them into incredible women.

There are many, many others we can remember today. These are just a few.

I ask that we reflect upon those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, pay tribute to the fallen and never forget the families they left behind. It was an honor to serve, but it is an even greater honor to care for, using the words of Abraham Lincoln, the widows and the orphans of our fallen heroes.

To Gold Star families: My heart is with you on this sacred day  today and every day. We will never, ever forget your heroes because they are our heroes too, and you are our nations treasures.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued an emergency order to ground Boeing 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 aircraft after a crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 people.

We are going to be issuing an emergency order of prohibition to ground all flights of the 737 MAX 8 and the 737 MAX 9 and planes associated with that line, Mr Trump told newsmen at the White House.

According to him, the FAA is prepared to make an announcement very shortly regarding the new information and physical evidence received from the site, and from other locations and through a couple of other complaints.

Boeing shares, which were up earlier in the session, fell two per cent to 367.70 dollars.

The shares have fallen about 13 per cent since the crash, losing more than 25 billion dollars of market value.

Meanwhile, Germanys federal agency responsible for investigating air accidents will not analyse the black box from the Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed on Sunday, casting uncertainty over the process of finding out what may have caused the disaster.

This is a new type of aircraft with a new black box, with new software. We cant do it, said Germout Freitag, a spokesman for Germanys Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation (BFU).

The move leaves unclear the destination of the black box, which may yield vital details of what caused the Boeing Co 737 MAX 8 to plunge to the ground, killing 157 people.

A spokesman for Ethiopian Airlines had said earlier that the black boxes recovered from the crashed plane would be sent to Germany for analysis.

Canada also grounded 737 MAX jets, saying satellite data suggested similarities to a previous crash involving the same plane model.

Countries around the world have grounded the 737 MAX jets or banned them from flying over their airspace since the Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed soon after taking off from Addis Ababa on Sunday.

The still unexplained crash followed another involving a Boeing 737 MAX in Indonesia five months ago that killed 189 people.

Although there is no proof of any link, the twin disasters have spooked passengers, led to the grounding of most of Boeings 737 MAX fleet and hammered shares in the U.S. plane maker, the worlds largest.
According to a report by the US State Department, North Korea sentenced a toddler to life in the prison camp after his parents were caught owning a bible in the home.

The report says the two-year-old boy and his parents are now facing jail time over their religious beliefs.

North Korea Sentences Toddler to Prison Camp Over Parents' Bible

Kim vowed to complete North Korea's nuclear force despite sanctions, saying the final goal of his country's weapons development is "equilibrium of real force" with the United States, state media reported on September 16.

According to Mirror UK, the report, the State Department's annual assessment of religious freedom worldwide, sheds light on the state of religious freedom or the lack thereof in North Korea. It shows multiple cases of North Korean facing jail time, torture, and execution over their religious beliefs.

In the case of the two-year-old boy, the report said that he and his entire family were sentenced to life in prison after his parents were found with a Bible. The shocking revelation came from the International Religious Freedom Report by the US State Department.

Besides sending a toddler to the jail camp, the report exposes other torture and execution cases for North Korean Christians. In 2011, a firing squad killed a woman alongside her grandchild over their religious beliefs.

Other Christians in North Korea reportedly grappled with pigeon torture, suspended for days while their hands were tied to their backs. One of the victims in the reports says it is "better to die" as the torture is excruciatingly painful.

Mirror UK notes that roughly 70,000 Christians in North Korea faced imprisonment under the regime of dictator Kim Jong-Un. Estimates show that there are around 400,000 believers in the country.

Read Also: South Korea and US Troops Gear Up for Massive Live-Fire Drills Near North Korean Border

Why is the Bible Banned in North Korea

It is worth noting that North Korea's constitution ensures religious freedom in the country amongst its people, according to NBC News. To prove it, Pyongyang has built churches, Mirror UK notes. One of which is the Chilgol Protestant Church in the capital city.

But despite that, authorities continue to crack down on Christianity in the country, which is deemed a practice influenced heavily by the West. Thus, the government considers believers as a threat, NBC reports.

North Korean defectors told NBC News that the mere distribution of Bibles in the country could end up sentencing a person to a labor camp or even execution. The same goes for secret prayer services in the country.

Aside from bible distribution prohibition, Fox News reports that North Korea is throwing parents to prison for allowing their young ones to watch Hollywood films.

Related Article: North Korean Hackers Stole $721 Million Worth Crypto From Japan, Report Says



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Chelsea Officially Announces Mauricio Pochettino As New Manager

Webby - May 29, 2023

Mauricio Pochettino has signed a two-year deal with the option for an additional year, giving him the opportunity to make
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says the ex-depot price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as petrol remains N133.28 per litre.

Ndu Ughamadu, the NNPC Group Spokesman, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Abuja on Tuesday.

He said Nigerians should ignore any speculations that pump price will soon increase.

The ex-depot price of PMS remains N133.28 per litre as at today and this is according to the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) template.

NNPC remains the sole importer of the product and we have not increased the price we sell to marketer.

There is no plan to increase pump price, Nigerians should know that, he said.

He said the corporation had robust stock pile of products that would last the country for several days, adding that there was no need to engage in panic buying.

He said the corporation over the weekend had strengthen the partnership with Major Oil Marketer Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) to ensure adequate supply of products in the country.

We also told them not to increase price but if they engage in that, it is illegal and we have instructed the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to sanction them.

Members of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) had recently warned that the pump price of the PMS may sell above N145.

The IPMAN Chairman of Ore Depot, Shina Amoo, who gave this hint, added that the price of the product has increased at the private depot.

According to him, the private depot owners now sell the product between N136.50 and N137 per litre instead of the former N133.28 per litre approved by the NNPC.

IPMAN may soon start selling beyond N145 per litre if depot owners continued to sell between N136.50 and N137 per litre, he said.

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The chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Bola Tinubu has explained yesterday his position on the race for the leadership of the Ninth National Assembly.

Tinubu was earlier accused of meddling in the APCs nomination for National Assembly leadership positions ahead of the 2023 presidential race.

However, in a statement issued by his Media Office aide, Tunde Rahman, Tinubu said he has no ulterior motives in so do.

According to Tinubu, all he has done in respect of the impending election of presiding officers of the National Assembly is to support the partys and the Presidents position.

The APC stalwart stressed that he is focused on supporting the President Buhari-led administration in achieving the shared vision of a flourishing economy and a prosperous people.

He said he would have committed a terrible political blunder by navigating against the Presidents position. The former Lagos helmsman said those casting aspersions on him were, in reality, bucking against President Buharis position.

He urged rumor-mongers to court greater discipline and wisdom, stressing that it is too early to decide on a political dispensation that is still four years away.

There is no action a person can take that constitutes a political guarantee as to what may come four years from now, Tinubu said, dismissing the claim that having allies in the National Assembly leadership positions will greatly enhance someones presidential ambitions as spurious.

Noting the importance of the National Assembly to the fulfillment of the Presidents agenda, he lamented the painful lessons learnt in respect of the last four years, with the Senate and the House of Representatives under the control of those who did not embrace the Presidents vision.
AFRICAS richest man Aliko Dangote has been ranked 11th in the club of Worlds 50 Greatest Leaders for this year.

The rating was announced by Fortune, a multinational business magazine based in New York City, United States. It focuses mainly on privately-run businesses and how their promoters have used them to impact their society positively.

The magazine, which had its maiden edition published in February 1930, said the worlds greatest leaders (both men and women) are transforming the world and inspiring others to do so in business, government, philanthropy and the arts.

It said: These thinkers, speakers and doers make bold choices and take big risks  and move others to do the same.

It was learnt that Fortune magazine was recognising and including Aliko Dangote in the annual ranking for the first time. Specifically, Dangote having popped up in the magazines radar earned nomination after being adjudged as having used business to acquire wealth and converting the wealth into impactful philanthropy through his Aliko Dangote Foundation.

The top 10 greatest men and women, according to Fortune are: Bill and Melinda Gates; Jacinda Ardem (Prime Minister, New Zealand); Robert Mueller (Special Counsel, Department of Justice); Pony Ma (Founder and CEO, Tencent); Satya Nadella (CEO, Microsoft); Greta Thunberg (Student and climate activist, Sweden); Margrethe Vestager (Commissioner for Competition, European Union); Anna Nimiriano (Editor-in-Chief, Juba Monitor); Jose Andres (Chef/Founder, World Central Kitchen); and Dough Mcmillon and Lisa Woods (CEO; Senior Director, Strategy & Design for U.S. Benefits, Walmart).

Dangotes rating as one of the greatest business leaders has attracted comments by eminent persons around the world, who described him as worthy of the nomination going by his business acumen and philanthropic gestures.

Global business giant and founder of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr. Bill Gate, extolled the efforts of Dangote in making businesses play roles in provision of sound public health through his various interventions in health care issues, especially in the fight against malnutrition and routine polio.

Gates, who tops the list of Worlds Greatest Leaders, said: Aliko Dangote, through his leadership at the Aliko Dangote Foundation, is a key partner in the Polio eradication effort, strengthening routine immunisation and fighting malnutrition in Nigeria and across Africa. Aliko bridges the gap between private business and public health in a unique way and our shared belief that Nigeria will thrive when every Nigerian is able to thrive drives our partnership.

Renowned activist and co-founder of ONE, Paul David Hewson (popularly called Mr. Bono), said he was not surprised at Dangotes feat globally, describing his vision as big as the African continent.

Bono, a global campaigner on taking action to end extreme poverty, especially in Africa said: Aliko has a vision just the size of his continent, but with humility of somebody who has just started his first job. Its no surprise to me that Fortune would recognise his leadership because we have seen first-hand, through his service on ONEs Board, the benefits of his wise counsel and grace.

Also, economic analyst Bismark Rewane, stated: Aliko remains understated but very potent and Africas most successful and decorated entrepreneur. He is a global financial and managerial behemoth.

Dangote as Africas richest, with a networth of $16.4 billion according to Bloomberg, and four publicly traded companies under the umbrella of his Dangote Industries now account for about a third of the value of the Nigerian stock exchange.

That wealth is based on a big bet on Nigerias economic independence: Dangotes peers give him credit for helping the country become self-sufficient in the sectors in which his companies compete (cement, agriculture and mining)

The Aliko Dangote Foundation (ADF) is the Philanthropic endeavor of the business mogul. The main objective of the Foundation is to reduce the number of lives lost to malnutrition and disease. The Foundation is poised to combat Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) in children, as the core of its programming. It has also resolved to use its investments in health, education, and economic empowerment to help lift people out of poverty.

Dangote was last year ranked among 75 most powerful persons on the planet. He was rated ahead of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.

He has been named among most powerful persons in the world for the past five consecutive years. According to the Forbes 2018 ranking of the World Powerful people, Dangote ranked among world leaders like Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump  all of whom were ranked first, second and third respectively.

He was the only Nigerian on the list and one of the only two Africans who made the list with the other being the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was ranked 45th most powerful.

He was named among the 100 most influential personalities in the world in 2018 byTime Magazine, a leading business broadcast organisation. The CNBC had earlier in same year ranked Dangote as one of the 25 people that have had most profound impact on business and finance worldwide.

He was rated the most influential African by Jeune Afrique in their classification of the most influential 50 Africans in 2018, and was also named the 6th most charitable person in the world in the same year according to Richtopia, a United Kingdom-based digital platform. He is, in addition, the richest African, according to Forbes.

Dangote stepped up his humanitarian activities recently spending billions of to build hospitals and critical hospital equipment, the lack of which has promoted medical tourism among the few privileged.

He recently donated a N1.2 billion Business School complex to the Bayero University in Kano and another one for the University of Ibadan Business School. Last month, he donated 10 blocks of hall of students hostel with capacity for 2,160 beds to the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State

Dangote has, through the Foundation been disbursing N10 billion to vulnerable women across the 774 local governments in the country.

Dangote made a donation of $2 million to the World Food Programme as part of efforts to help Pakistani nationals devastated by floods in the year 2010.

He was made the chairperson of the Presidential Committee on Flood Relief, which raised in excess of N11.35 billion, of which Dangote himself contributed N2.5 billion, an amount higher than the entire contribution from the 36 state governors in Nigeria.

The Foundation has spent over N7 billion in the troubled Northeast for the reintegration of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
The governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, and the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, have reconciled, following a peace meeting held on Friday night in Abuja.

This was following a reconciliatory meeting initiated by Alhaji Aliko Dangote and the Chairman of Nigerias Governors Forum, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.

The intervention came, 24 hours to the expiration of a query issued to the emir by the state government, seeking answer on alleged misappropriation of the emirates finances amounting to N3.4bn.

Crisis started between them due to the emirs alleged support for the opposition PDP candidate, Abba Yusuf, in the last general election.

In order to cut down the emirs influence, the governor went ahead to create four rival emirates and appointed emirs in each.

Things got more tense after Gov. Ganduje initiated moves to suspend the Emir, based on the recommendation of a panel set up to investigate the emirates finances.
An Orphanage in Jos has advised Nigerians to invest in training the less privileged, orphans and disabled in the country or be ready to harvest terrorists in the future.

The Orphanage known as The Kwamkur Samuel Foundation, celebrating children with special needs at the Open Doors For Special Learners Education Centre in Jos at the weekend called on the government to also pay close attention to orphans and the deprived children so as to build a healthy nation.

Speaking at the occasion President of the Foundation, Mr Kwamkur Samuel says the Childrens Day Party is aimed at putting smiles on the Childrens faces because they are a major part of the family and the future of a nation.

Kwamkur further stated that it is important to take proper care of every child in order to have a thriving society as he calls on government, society, parents and teachers to put in their best in playing their roles.

Director of the School, Dr Roselyn Yilpet says taking care of children with disabilities is a divine call from God which requires a lot of patience.

She also notes that every child is a gift from God including those with special needs and should not be neglected because of their inability to perform well.

Yilpet appreciates the foundation for Identifying with the children and making them happy.

This years Childrens Day is tagged, More money for Primary Education, our correspondent reports.
President Muhammadu Buhari will give his farewell nationwide broadcast to Nigerians on Sunday, May 28.

A statement issued by Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said Buharis farewell broadcast will take place tomorrow by 7 am.

Femi Adesina urged all electronic stations to link up with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) for the broadcast.

The statement reads, President Muhammadu Buhari will make a farewell broadcast as President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces on Sunday, May 28, at 7 am.

Television, radio stations and other electronic media outlets are enjoined to hook up to the network services of the Nigerian Television Authority and Radio Nigeria for the broadcast.

KanyiDaily recalls that Aisha Buhari, the wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, had recently discussed her tenure as the first lady and the performance of her husband in office.

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He noted that the future of Nigerian children must remain a top governance priority to leaders.

Obi said this in his message on the occasion of the countrys 2023 Childrens Day on Saturday.

According to him, the parameters of national development continue to point towards uncertainty for the future of Nigerian children, owing to the failure of governance at different levels.

The former Anambra governor argued that the non-investment in critical areas of development, especially in health and education, impacts directly on the children.

Consequently, we have the highest number of out-of-school children and the highest number of infant mortality, he added.

The government at all levels have a statutory responsibility to protect Nigerian citizens, and therefore, must ensure deliberate and aggressive investment in health and education,

with a strategic formulation and implementation of policies targeted at giving every Nigerian child access to both.

The LP presidential candidate also called on children to remain law abiding so that they can grow into responsible citizens, contributing to national development.

He wished all children a Happy Childrens Day.

As the nation celebrates 2023 Childrens Day, I urge Nigerian leaders at all levels of government to consider the future of Nigerian children in all their political decisions. The future of our children must remain a top governance priority to us. pic.twitter.com/GPvBo0QJcj  Peter Obi (@PeterObi) May 27, 2023

Childrens Day, which is celebrated in Nigeria on May 27 annually, is dedicated to celebrating children all over the world, and for adults to remember their childhood experiences.

In other news, Kanyi Daily reported that former President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday, charged Nigerias President-elect, Bola Tinubu to be a uniting force in the country.

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New Act increases the total CBN advances to FG from 5% to a Maximum of 15%

By Henry Umoru, ABUJA

The Senate has set aside its Standing Orders 2022 as amended to hold an emergency plenary session over the amendment of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act, 2004.

At the emergency plenary session yesterday, the Senate passed a bill to amend the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act to increase the total CBN advances to the Federal Government from five per cent (5%) to a Maximum of fifteen per cent (15%).

The amendment was a sequel to the presentation and consideration of the CBN Act( Amendment)Bill, 2023( SB. 1125 by the Senate Leader, Senator Ibrahim Abdullahi Gobir, APC, Sokoto East.

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The bill which was read the third time and passed was read for the first time on Wednesday, May 24. seeks to amend the CBN Act to increase the total CBN advances to Federal Government from five per cent to a maximum of 15 per cent.

The CBN Act says the CBN may grant temporary advances to the federal government in respect of temporary deficit of budget revenue at such rate as the bank may determine. It, however, says the total amount of such advances outstanding shall not at any time exceed five (5) per cent of the previous years actual revenue of the Federal Government.

In addition, it stipulates that, All advances shall be repaid as soon as possible and shall, in any event, be repayable by the end of the Federal Government financial year in which they are granted and if such advances remain unpaid at the end of the year, the power of the bank to grant such further advances in any subsequent year shall not be exercisable, unless the outstanding advances have been repaid.

Section 38 of the CBN Act states: Notwithstanding the provisions of section 34(d) of this Act, the Bank (CBN) may grant temporary advances to the Federal Government in respect of temporary deficiency of budget revenue at such rate as the Bank may determine.

The total amount of such advances outstanding shall not at any time exceed five (5) percent of the previous years actual revenue of the Federal Government.

If such advances remain unpaid at the end of the year, the power of the bank to grant such further advances in any subsequent year shall not be exercisable, unless the outstanding advances have been repaid.

Specifically, Section 38 of the CBN Act states: Notwithstanding the provisions of section 34(d) of this Act, the Bank (CBN) may grant temporary advances to the Federal Government in respect of temporary deficiency of budget revenue at such rate as the Bank may determine.

The total amount of such advances outstanding shall not at any time exceed five (5) per cent of the previous years actual revenue of the Federal Government.

The very essence of this bill is to enable the federal government to meet its immediate and future obligation in the approval of the ways and means by the National Assembly. And advances to the federal government by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Earlier in his lead debate on the General principles of the CBN Act( Amendment)Bill, 2023( SB. 1125), Senator Gobir, APC, Sokoto East said that the proposed amendment would enable the Federal Government to meet its immediate and future obligation in the approval of the Ways and Means by the National Assembly and advances to the Federal Government by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Gobir said. Mr. President, my respected colleagues, permit me to lead the debate on this Bill which seeks to amend the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act to increase the total CBN advances to the Federal Government from five per cent (5%) to a Maximum of fifteen per cent (15%).

The Bill was read for the first time in this Chamber on Wednesday, 24th May,  2023.

The very essence of this Bill my respected colleagues is to enable the federal __ Government meet its immediate and future obligation in the approval of the ways and means by the National Assembly and advances to the Federal Government by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

This amendment is very consequential and it needs the support of us all. This is to enable the Federal Government to embark on very important projects that will inflate and rejig the economy.
Ruqayya Aliyu Jibia, a female journalist based in Katsina state, has cried out for justice.

She cried out, saying her life is in danger following her encounter with the Nigerian police in the state.

Ms Aliyu, who works for Tambarin Hausa TV in the state, took to her Tik Tok account and shared a two minutes and 50 seconds video from her place of hiding.

While narrating her ordeals in a video obtained by SaharaReporters, Rukayya said she was arrested for criticising the police public parade of four girls allegedly arrested for prostitution on her personal Tiktok account.

She said she had suggested to the police in her Tiktok video that they should have taken them to the court instead of subjecting the young girls to media trial.

According to Rukayya, A few days back, the Nigerian Police, Katsina State Command, paraded four suspects, young ladies between the ages of 19 to 23, claiming that they were into prostitution.



Upon seeing that video, I recorded a Tik Tok video on my personal Tik Tok page, where I quoted a section in Nigerian Constitution which I suggested to the police that they should have taken the girls to the court until they are proven guilty before parading them to the press, she said.

She said the spokesperson of the police in the state, Gambo Isa, invited her to the palace of the Emir of the town, after the video was published and violently assaulted her,

I was on my way to the emirs palace when Gambo Isah and his boys came with four cars, blocked my way, they dragged me out of my car, and they broke my phone and I sustained injury as you can see, and they dragged me to the emirs palace where Gambo Isa told the emir that Im sabotaging their efforts in the state, Rukayya said.

The journalist said the emir asked the police to remand her but she was taken to court and eventually taken to the police area commanders office.

She said she was made to write a statement and asked to return the following day.

I went there around 11:00 am Thursday and I was hoping that Ill be taken to court. Unfortunately, the area commander told me I would be taken to police headquartersI was so scared of what happened to me the other day. Gambo Isa assaulted me, so I ran for my life, she said.
Coinciding with Kyiv's preparations for the yearly commemoration of its founding, Russia launched the largest drone strike of the war so far against the city overnight.

Officials from Ukraine's military, however, claim that almost all of the planes were shot down.

New Massive Drone Attack by Russia

Even though Ukraine's air force claimed to have shot down 52 of the 54 Shahed drones that had been fired in waves against the city, one man was killed, and two others were wounded due to falling debris. Moreover, the roof of a shopping center was set on fire.

According to The Guardian, it seemed like the assault was coming from the north and south at rather low heights. A representative from Operational Command South said that the Russians appeared to be looking for methods to get through the increasingly effective air defenses of the Ukrainian government.

The spokesperson informed reporters that the enemy traditionally used the eastern coast of the Azov Sea to attack but that the planes' trajectories were somewhat unconventional. As far as possible, they made an effort to avoid the Southern air defenses. Reportedly, most of them spread out throughout Ukraine after flying over the regions now under control.

She also noted that the Shahed gangs tend to congregate near riverbeds in an effort to conceal their movements. "We continue to study new approaches in tactics to be as effective as possible," the representative said.

Also Read: Heavy Bombardment Happens in Ukraine After Russia Attacked Dnipro Medical Facility, Killing 2, Injuring Dozens

Celebration of Kyiv's Foundation

There were street festivals and live performances planned for Kyiv Day, the annual commemoration of the city's establishment 1,541 years ago. However, the drone assaults happened early in the morning.

Andriy Yermak, the director of Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office, remarked on his Telegram channel, "The history of Ukraine is a longstanding irritant for the insecure Russians."

City military chief Serhiy Popko made the following statement on the Telegram messaging app: "Today, the enemy decided to 'congratulate' the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) ... The attack was carried out in several waves, and the air alert lasted more than five hours."

Those who had become used to the Russian air strikes would stand on their balconies and yell anti-Vladimir Putin and anti-Russian sentiments in support of the Ukrainian air force.

As Ukraine ramps up its defensive preparations, BBC said Russia had increased the frequency of its assaults on Kyiv and other cities. Meanwhile, military analysts believe that one reason Russia is launching so many airstrikes is that it may use inexpensive Iranian drones to wipe out Ukraine's air defenses.

Also Read: Donald Trump and Boris Johnson Discuss 'Importance of 'Ukrainian Victory'

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Yemi Osinbajo, the Vice-President of Nigeria, has talked about his time in office.

He said his eight years as Vice-President of Nigeria have gone by very quickly adding that his desire alongside President Muhammadu Buharis was to fix Nigeria.

He stated this on Friday evening in his remarks at a valedictory dinner organised in his honour by the staff of the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

The Vice President was accompanied to the dinner by his wife, Mrs Dolapo Osinbajo, whom the VP described as my most potent weapon.

According to a statement on Saturday by his spokesman, Laolu Akande, Osinbajo said, Im honoured to have worked with such incredible people; everyone put in exceptional hard work. I personally interviewed most of you that worked with me. I wanted people who had a heart for this country, a genuine love and concern about the progress of this nation.



Eight years have gone by very quickly, I must say. Here we are today a few days to the inauguration. There are many great experiences, great things that have happened and Im glad weve come this far.



Commending the OVP staff for their dedication and patriotism  while highlighting the selfless service of his Police and Security Details, civil servants, his Chief of Staff, Special Advisers, Senior Special Assistants, and Special Assistants among others, Prof. Osinbajo expressed gratitude to everyone for their support throughout the eight years of the Buhari administration.

He was also presented with gifts at the dinner event including hand written valedictory notes from staff members.

The statement added that the VP also recalled how God saved him and 11 others with him from the helicopter crash on February 2, 2019, in Kogi State.

He also recalled a similar chopper forced landing in Gwagwalada in June 2018. Then, the chopper conveying him and members of his Main Party from the Nigeria Customs Command and Staff College, Gwagwalada, made a forceful landing a few seconds after take-off.

Im truly grateful to the Almighty God, the VP said.

Earlier Friday afternoon, the Vice President, at the Presidential Villa, had gone round on a farewell visit to the respective offices of the staff in the Office of the Vice President.
TheCable reports that the Nigerian Senate has amended the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) act  increasing the ways and means borrowing threshold for the federal government.

During an emergency session held on Saturday, the senate raised the limit from a 5 percent threshold to a maximum of 15 percent that the government can get from the CBN.

Ways and means is a loan facility through which the CBN finances the governments budget shortfalls.

The facility allows the government to borrow from the apex bank if it needs short-term or emergency finance to fund important projects.

According to Ibrahim Gobir, senate leader, the amendment was necessary to enable the federal government to meet its immediate and future obligation in the approval of the ways and means by the national assembly and advances by the CBN.

Mr President, my respected colleagues, permit me to lead the debate on this bill which seeks to amend the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) act to increase the total CBN advances to the federal government from 5 percent to a maximum of 15 percent, Gobir said.

The bill was read for the first time in this chamber on Wednesday, 24th May, -2023.



The very essence of this bill my respected colleagues is to enable the federal government to meet its immediate and future obligation in the approval of the ways and means by the National Assembly and advances to the federal government by the Central Bank of Nigeria.



This amendment is very consequential and it needs the support of us all. This is to enable the federal government to embark on very important projects that will inflate and rejig the economy.



I, therefore, urge you all to support the passage of this bill.



Section 38 of the CBN act, 2007, stipulates that the total amount of ways and means advances outstanding shall not at any time exceed 5 percent of the previous years actual revenue of the federal government.

But the federal governments borrowings from the apex bank have repeatedly exceeded the 5 percent threshold.

All advances shall be repaid as soon as possible and shall, in any event, be repayable by the end of the federal government financial year in which they are granted and if such advances remain unpaid at the end of the year, the power of the bank to grant such further advances in any subsequent year shall not be exercisable, unless the outstanding advances have been repaid, the act reads in part.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, disclosed this in a statement on Saturday.

The Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari is set to address Nigerians for the last time as president.

Buhari will make a farewell broadcast as President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces on Sunday, May 28, at 7am.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, disclosed this in a statement on Saturday.

He enjoined television, radio stations and other electronic media outlets to hook up to the network services of the Nigerian Television Authority and Radio Nigeria for the broadcast.

Buhari will hand over the baton of leadership to the President-elect on Monday as the 16th President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The presidents last nationwide broadcast was in February when he addressed the lingering naira scarcity issues at that time.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday. morning, addressed the nation in his last farewell speech as Nigerias leader.

Buhari will on Monday, May 29 hand over to the countrys new president, Bola Tinubu.

Below is a full text of the presidents speech

My fellow Nigerian brothers, sisters, and friends of Nigeria.

I address you today, in my last assignment as a democratically elected President of our great and well-endowed nation, with a deep sense of gratitude to God, a great deal of appreciation to the Nigerian people, and a modest sense of fulfilment.

Today we mark and celebrate another peaceful transition of power from one elected government to another in our steady march to improve and sustain Nigerias democracy.

This year we witnessed the most keenly contested Presidential Elections since the first Republic and this demonstrates that our democracy is getting better and more entrenched with each election.

We must as a nation improve and sustain gains we make in the electoral process, on an incremental basis for Nigeria to take its rightful place among Nations.

Our democracy provides for, allows, and encourages seeking redress for perceived injustices, enabling some candidates and political parties that did not agree with the results to go to court.

Irrespective of the outcome of the various cases, I urge all parties involved to accept the decision of our courts and join hands to build a better Nigeria.

I salute the doggedness and resilience of all the Presidential Candidates and their political parties for believing in our judicial system by taking their grievances with the election results to the court.

In the course of the campaigns, we had argued and disagreed on how to make Nigeria better but we never disagreed or had any doubts that Nigeria has to be better.

As your President, I call on all of us to bring to bear the strength of our individualism, the power of our unity, and the convictions of our beliefs to make Nigeria work better and together with one spirit and one purpose.

To my brother, friend, and fellow worker in the political terrain for the past ten years  Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu -, I congratulate you on the realisation of your dream, which was propelled by a burning passion to put Nigeria amongst the leading nations of the world.

You have indeed worked for this day and God has crowned your efforts. I have no doubt that your passion for excellence, reliance on competence, fairness in relationships, commitment to equity, loyalty to the country and desire for Nigeria to be globally relevant would come through for you, under Gods guidance, as you lead our country to levels higher than I am leaving.

You are the best candidate among all the contestants and Nigerians have chosen well.

The last eight years have been an exciting experience in my desire and commitment to see a Nigeria in which public goods and services are available and accessible within a united, peaceful, and secure nation.

Fellow Nigerians, on the strength of your overwhelming support for me and my political party, I started this journey with a great deal of promise and expectation from you. I never intended to be just politically correct but to do the correct things that will make a meaningful impact on the lives of the common Nigerian.

This high expectation was not misplaced because, like the ordinary Nigerian, I had grown tired of watching the country progressively moving away from the path of correctness.

To ensure that our democracy remains resilient and our elected representatives remain accountable to the people, I am leaving behind an electoral process which guarantees that votes count, results are credible, elections are fair and transparent, and the influence of money in politics reduced to the barest minimum. And Nigerians can elect leaders of their choice.

We are already seeing the outcome of this process as it provided an even playing field where persons without any political God-Father or access to money defeated other well-resourced candidates.

The Nigerian economy has become more resilient due to the various strategies put in place to ensure that our economy remained afloat during cases of global economic downturns.

You would all recall the supply chain disruptions and economic downturn that the world witnessed between 2020 and 2022 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The deftness of our response to the pandemic still remains a global best practice.

Furthermore, we increased the ability of the poor and rural Nigerians to earn a living, provided more food for millions in our villages and gave our women opportunities to earn a living.

Young men and women in urban centres were also supported to put their skills into productive use. Our administration also provided an enabling environment for the private sector to engage in businesses for which their return on investments is guaranteed.

The private sector proved a strong partner in our drive to build a resilient and sustainable economy as evidenced by the growing number of turn-key projects in various sectors of the economy.

In the course of revamping the economy, we made some difficult choices, most of which yielded the desired results. Some of the measures led to temporary pain and suffering for which I sincerely apologised to my fellow countrymen, but the measures were taken for the over-all good of the country.

Mindful of the need to ensure adequate infrastructure to drive economic growth, we completed age-long projects and processes notably amongst which are the Petroleum Industry Act, completion of some power projects, completion of the second Niger bridge and various important roads linking cities and states.

Our battle to ensure that all Nigerians live in a safe and secure environment has achieved considerable results. As I complete my term in office, we have been able to reduce the incidences of banditry, terrorism, armed robbery and other criminal activities considerably.

To sustain the gains made so far, I call on all Nigerians to be more vigilant and support the security agencies by ensuring that our values defined by being your brothers keeper govern our actions.

Up-till now, I still grieve for our children still in captivity, mourn with parents, friends and relatives of all those that lost loved ones in the days of the senseless brigandage and carnage. For all those under unlawful captivity our Security Agencies are working round the clock to secure their release unharmed.

Fellow Nigerians, you know how dear the desire in my heart is, to rid the country of corrupt practices that had consistently diminished our efforts to be a great country.

I did pursue this commitment relentlessly, in spite of the expected push back. I am happy that considerable progress had been made in repatriating huge sums of money back to the country and also taken over properties illegally acquired from our common wealth.

To improve service delivery, we began the implementation of a number of reforms aimed at producing an Efficient, Productive, Incorruptible and Citizen-oriented (EPIC) Federal Civil Service and the results are beginning to show.

On the international scene, Nigerias influence continues to grow as exemplified by notable Nigerians occupying headship and leadership positions in renowned global bodies.

Our democracy is built on and continues to thrive on the principles of separation of powers. The leadership and members of the National Assembly deserve my appreciation for their patriotism which did not detract from their roles as a check to the executive arm.

I also want to use this opportunity to express my appreciation to a good number of Nigerians who provided their support and encouragement to help me navigate the exciting journey in moving Nigeria forward.

I cannot and will not forget the millions who prayed for me during my illness in my first term of office. I am constantly praying for you and for Nigeria to thrive in peace.

As I retire home to Daura, Katsina State, I feel fulfilled that we have started the Nigeria Re-Birth by taking the initial critical steps and I am convinced the in-coming administration will quicken the pace of this walk to see a Nigeria that fulfils its destiny to be a great nation.

I am confident that I am leaving office with Nigeria better in 2023 than in 2015.

I thank you all. And may God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Being the full text of the farewell speech by President Muhammadu Buhari on May 28, 2023.

Meanwhile, Kanyi Daily reported that the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi has called on Nigerian leaders to consider the future of the countrys children in all their political decisions.

He noted that the future of Nigerian children must remain a top governance priority to leaders.

Obi said this in his message on the occasion of the countrys 2023 Childrens Day on Saturday.

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Madu Chikwendu frontline film maker, member of International Film Producers Association, member Cinema Professionals Association in Africa affiliated to Cinema Professionals International has apologized to Lagos Island indigenes, who are aggrieved over the depiction of the Eyo masquerade in the movie Gangs of Lagos.

Mr. Chikwendu tendered this apology on behalf of cinema professionals during an interview session on Naija FM monitored by this medium. He explained that Eyo is one of the African traditional masquerades, which should be preserved and her ethics respected, despite the art and theater being acknowledged as assumption of roles, and movies being works of fiction with disclaimer.

In his words I acknowledge that this matter is not as simple as hiding under creative license and disclaimer. The industry owe the Eyo masquerade and her custodians an apology.

The producer ought to have consulted with Eyo masquerade culture experts and custodians, before going ahead to shoot the movie.

READ ALSO: Notorious gang leader arrested in Lagos

Film making has various levels of gate keeping from scripting to locations, in these: Gang of Lagos failed in doing proper research on the Eyo masquerade, they failed to engage knowledgeable culture experts. You dont trample on the culture, beliefs and values of indigenous people in the bid to tell a story. Where your rights stops is where those of others begin

Isale Eko Descendant Union, IDU, has been on the forefront of public advocacy to right the wrongs they felt was done to the Eyo heritage with the Amazon funded Gangs of Lagos movie. Hon Prince Adewale Ojora an indigene of Lagos Island (Isale Eko), and a member of IDU and Eyo Adimu Orisha had challenged the other guests on the Nigeria Info 99.3FM Danfo Conversation with Ireti Bakare Yusuf program.

Ojoras main submission is that the movie Gang of Lagos left the audience with the impression that the Eyo Masquerade is a criminal gang. This he insisted is a false narrative which Lagosians had wanted the producers to quickly correct initially, before the recourse to litigation.

Eyo is a spiritual cultural festival that is staged to herald the passage of high achieving Lagosians to the realm beyond, the movie Gang of Lagos wrongfully depicted the cultural heritage of Lagos aborigines.

READ ALSO: Rival gangs attack Lagos community, block Lagos-Badagry Expressway

The move is insensitive to indigenous Lagosians, Eyo cannot be used to herald the passage of a gangster and Eyo is not the first gang of Lagos as depicted in the movie. Eyo play has no time table, it is staged on request and from 1854 till 2017 you can count the number of times it was staged. We cannot have a movie telling an erroneous story of Eyo as a stop gap and to millions of people who have not been informed about Eyo.

The cost to mobilize and stage the Eyo masquerade play is humongous in terms of time, logistics, regalia it runs into hundreds of millions of Naira, a three month preparation is needed for the play, and aside the Adimu, Okolaba, Oniko, Ologede and Agere traditional Eyo groups, there are hundreds of others who will participate in the procession.

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This play is exclusive and synonymous with Lagos Island, Isale Eko is not a den of gangsta and Eyo is not the first gang of Lagos. We cannot sit back and let anyone defame Eyo for profit in the name of artistic and creative license. Ojora concluded.
Suspected Yoruba Nation agitators on Sunday hijacked Amuludun 99.1 FM in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital

According to a staff member, the station, owned by the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), was hijacked around 6am by the suspect with various forms of charms.

That is what we witnessed this morning. They hijacked the station around 6 am. But they had been at the station before that time.

They came with various forms of charms. They woke our staff, who were sleeping. Some of our staff have fled. We are yet to see some of our staff. But the security personnel are on ground now, the staff said.

READ ALSO: Police arrest Yoruba Nation agitators in Lagos

Another source said that the station has gone off the air.

Its General Manager (GM) Stephen Agbaje confirmed the development but said the situation has been brought under control by security agencies.

He added that some arrests have also been made.

Some group of agitators came around in the night, and took over the station but the situation has been brought under control by the security agents. They were able to recover the station, and some arrests have been made, he said.
There is emerging disquiet over perceived self-defeatist suit the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) filed against the newly elected President, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and the vice president, Kashim Shettima, on double nomination of Shettima for the 2023 elections.

A concerned stakeholder in Nigeria expressed discontentment that the PDP always lack strategy.

The stakeholder scolded the PDP for not engaging strategic thinkers to guide the party in power contest. This, the stakeholder said, would lead the party into extinction, if not checked.

According to the stakeholder, if the PDP do not change and embrace strategic thinkers in their rank and file across the country, and especially at the national level, they will become extinct in a few years time. He cautioned that money and might cannot win war without good strategy.

And, in every venture, strategy is more of a critical ally than money or might. As important as money and might are, they cant win a war on their own without strategy.

The stakeholder lamented: How can a party with a national legal adviser and with all its years in politics present a feeble case of this nature before the court and expect to win.

It is already a settled matter at the Supreme Court that you cannot become a party to a suit if you dont have direct interest in it or in the case of a party, if you are not from the same party, yet, PDP filled the case expecting to win.

Ignorant of the law is deadlier than a grenade. It will not only kill you, it will also kill everyone associated with you.

He declared: PDP could have made entreaties to some APC presidential aspirants who were aggrieved with the way the primary went and struck an agreement with them to take the case to court and they could have easily won the case.

Only PDP could tell why they took the route they took, knowing it would end in a painful but expected end for them.

He noted that a look at the falling numbers of PDP Governors across the state shows how fast the PDP is fading and dwindling in the countrys politics.

The PDP had challenged the nomination of Shettima for senatorial election in Borno State before he was picked by Tinubu as running mate for the presidential election. However, the APC after Tinubu chose Shettima as vice presidential candidate, replaced Shettima with another senatorial candidate at the INEC headquarters.

The Supreme Court had in its judgement dismissed the suit, saying that the PDP has no locus standi in the suit, for not being a member of the APC, or an aspirant in the APC primary election.
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State on Saturday bestowed highest state honorary awards of Grand Service Star of Rivers State (GSSRS), on Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, Senator Godswill Akpabio, former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, the newly elected Governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, among others.

Governor Wike conferred the honours on the recipients at the State Awards and Pre-Inauguration Dinner at the Banquet Hall of the Government House, Port Harcourt.

The Governor also conferred the second highest honour of Distinguished Service Star of Rivers State (DSSRS) on 160 recipients.

The Governors Medal of Service (GMS) wards, which constitutes the third award category, was given to 15 recipients, who include security aides of the governor and drivers in his convoy.

The fourth category of Rivers State Medals Award (RSMA) was conferred on 11 recipients, including five dedicated primary school teachers.

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Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has inaugurated a newly designed access roadway linking four local councils in Lagos State, to solve a major traffic problem and ending decades-long wait for the beneficiary communities.

Crowd of jubilant residents of Kosofe Local Government Area joined Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, at the ceremony where Ogudu-Alapere Link Road and a bridge were officially commissioned.

The dual carriage infrastructure cuts through Ogudu into Alapere in Agboyi-Ketu Local Council Development Area (LCDA) and drops on Lagos-Ibadan Highway. At its Ogudu end, the link road leads motorists to connect Ikorodu Road.

The Ogudu-Alapere Link Road, designed with interlocked concrete blocks, was part of 12 other capital projects commissioned by the Governor in Lagos East Senatorial District, as part of pre-inauguration activities lined up to usher in Sanwo-Olus second term.

Besides, the Governor commissioned the newly rehabilitated Prince Adesoji Ajose Street in Ogudu, just as he inaugurated two international markets in Ikosi-Isheri LCDA.

Sanwo-Olu said the delivery of the road project testified to his administrations prioritisation of purposeful governance. He stressed his Government deployed a two-pronged approach towards addressing gridlocks being experienced in the area by prioritising rehabilitation of strategic roads and link bridges, as well the development of new roads.

The governor declared: As a Government, we have worked assiduously to bring respite and succour to road users in the state by putting in place an enduring framework for the delivery of road infrastructure, as well as provision of supporting drainage infrastructure to sustain these roads. Ogudu Community in Kosofe Local Government Area is a strategic settlement with a fast-growing population with a huge need for infrastructural renewal. This prompted our administration to embark upon the construction of a Reinforced Concrete deck on a pile culvert to address the challenge of flooding.

The effort has resulted in significant progress, as we are gathered here today to hand over the OguduAlapere Link Road and Bridge, and Prince Adesoji Ajose street in Ogudu. Providing easy connectivity to Ikorodu Road, Third Mainland Bridge and Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is one of the benefits recorded by this intervention. This extraordinary journey of commitment, trust, and partnership for economic growth and development has once again yielded a milestone achievement, as we have not only improved traffic efficiency on this axis, we have also lowered the environmental impact of flooding in Ogudu.

Sanwo-Olu reiterated that his administration would continue to work on infrastructure renewal programme to improve the quality of life of the citizens and enhance socio-economic development.

He urged residents of the beneficiary communities to protect the road facilities and ensure the drainage system was maintained and free of refuse.

Special Adviser to the Governor on Works and Infrastructure, Engr. Aramide Adeyoye, said prior to the intervention, the existing roads were without drainage facilities and disconnected by an existing wetland, thereby subjecting the communities to perennial flooding with consequent negative impact on transportation.

The delivery of both the 545m long Ogudu-Alapere Link Road with an average with of 14.6meter and a 22-meter Bridge, as well as the 60m-long Prince Ajose Street, would serve as good alternative roads for motorists, especially the residents of Ogudu GRA Estate Phases I & Il, Ogudu-Ojota and the third axial underpass. This will in turn help in reducing travel time and man-hour loss in traffic gridlock around Ogudu Roundabout, she said.

Kosofe LGA chairman, Hon. Moyosore Ogunlewe, described the intervention as historic, noting that Sanwo-Olu became the first Governor of the State to open the link route to other communities.

He urged the Governor to accelerate construction work on pending State projects in the Local Government Area.

While opening Ikosi International Market and International Fruit Market in Ikosi Ketu built by Ikosi-Isheri LCDA chairman, the Governor said commercial activities in markets had a great impact on the State economy. Building a befitting environment for traders, Sanwo-Olu said, remained a noble initiative to drive grassroots democracy and socio-economic growth.

The Governor said: I commend the vision and leadership which facilitated the delivery of these two ultra-modern markets befitting the status of our State and resonate with the vision of a Greater Lagos. The impact the markets have had on the economy of Lagos is invaluable, as they serve as focal points of economic activities in the State. These are the real examples of initiatives of grassroots democracy and socio-economic growth. The interventions are part of several examples of people-oriented and development projects that have been initiated and actualised by local councils across the State.

Chairman, Ikosi-Isheri LCDA, Hon. Samiat Bada, said the markets were built in the quest to improve the standard of trading and to serve as alternative to existing market.

She said the delivery of the markets also solved major security problems in the area, as the land on which the structures were constructed used to be the hideout for miscreants terrorising the citizens and passersby.

She said: The markets were built in phases. The first phase was commissioned last year by Mr. Governor, which consisted of key-clamp shops (fruit section) where all old occupants and fruit-market shop owners were conveniently relocated, with more than 3,000 units of spacious key clamps. Today, I am delighted that the second phase has been completed and being commissioned by Mr. Governor. The shops will be allotted to old users.

Other projects commissioned in Lagos East Senatorial District include Ndubuisi Kanu Housing Estate in Gbagada, Lagos Homs in Odo-Onosa Ayandelu, Ikosi-Ejinrin LCDA, a resettlement scheme in Agbowa, Ikosi-Ejinrin LCDA, and a jetty with waiting shelter and shoreline protection at Offin, Ikorodu, a jetty at Ito-Omu in Epe.

Sanwo-Olu also opened Shams-el- Deen Junior Grammar School (Education District II) in Ikorodu, Elepe Community Junior High School (Education District II) in Ikorodu and Kosofe Senior College (Education District II), Kosofe.

In Lagos West, the Governor commissioned Water Treatment Plant at Gbaji-Yeke in Badagry.
President Muhammadu Buhari, says though he made difficult choices which brought pains to many Nigerians, they were however, meant for the good of the country which has now seen Nigeria move from a country of dependency to one of self-sustenance as he is leaving the country better than he met it in 2015.

Buhari, who made the assertion in his last address to the nation on Sunday morning, said he is leaving behind a legacy of economic resilience after eight years in the saddle of leadership in the country.

In the course of revamping the economy, we made some difficult choices, most of which yielded the desired results. Some of the measures led to temporary pain and suffering for which I sincerely apologise to my fellow countrymen, but the measures were taken for the overall good of the country, Buhari said.

READ ALSO: Goodbye, President Buhari

I am leaving behind a legacy of a country where its economy has resilience despite the global economic crisis and challenges due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Despite the pandemic, we created opportunities for Nigerians to create wealth both in the rural communities and in the urban areas.

We put in place a lot of intervening measures to cushion the effects of the challenges so that we can provide enough food for our teeming population in every part of the country.

Some of the policies and measures may have brought pain and hardship to many Nigerians, to which I apologise. But those policies were taken in the interest of the nation and our people and to make Nigeria a self-sustainable country.

We developed a lot of infrastructure in every part of Nigeria to ensure food sustainability and sufficiency and I am happy to say that as I am leaving Abuja to Daura, I am leaving Nigeria in 2023 better than I met it in 2015, the President said in the farewell speech to Nigerians.
The Electric Vehicle Innovation Summit (EVIS) next week will bring together leading EV institutions and professionals to discuss the innovations, launch new products and services and explore the challenges and opportunities of this sector.

The event will take place in Abu Dhabi from May 29 to 31. As per the International Energy Agencys EV Outlook, the EV markets are seeing exponential growth as sales exceeded 10 million vehicles in 2022.

Some 14% of all new cars sold were electric in 2022, up from around 9% in 2021 and less than 5% in 2020. The Middle East region is one of the fastest-growing EV markets globally and there are many opportunities ahead for businesses and investors in this region to unlock.

Variety of topics

Eng Naser Albahri, EVIS Director, said: As we prepared for EVIS2030, we made sure that the events attendees will have the opportunity to learn about a variety of topics related to the electric vehicle industry, including the latest advances in battery tech, charging infrastructure, and vehicle specifications and design. In addition, the conference will feature keynote speeches, panel discussions, and workshops that will provide a platform for global experts to share their insights and for attendees to connect with like-minded individuals from across the industry.

The summit will also explore the business opportunities of this sector in the Mena region and the challenges facing the industry, including financing, marketing, and supply chain management. Finally, speakers will cover the future of e-mobility, including autonomous vehicles, ride-sharing, and the intersection of transportation and urban planning.

One of the highlights of the summit will be the opportunity to see some of the latest electric vehicles and charging technologies on display, including innovative new designs, cutting-edge technology, and sustainable solutions that are transforming the industry, said Albahri.

EV adoption

The conference will give attendees the chance to discuss government policies and incentives, including policy frameworks, incentives, and partnerships to promote EV adoption. Sustainable transportation will also be a key topic, covering public transportation and urban planning.

Now in its second edition this year, EVIS has already become a must-attend event for seasoned professionals, EV global manufacturers, local investors, and everyone who wants to explore the electric vehicle industry. It offers an unparalleled opportunity to learn from experts, connect with peers, and gain insights into the future of sustainable transportation.

Arthi Srinivasan, Director of EV Charging Solutions at Powertech Mobility, said: The UAE is paving the way for Electric Mobility with its ambitious vision and we are excited to be a part of its journey while contributing to its sustainability goals. We have witnessed rapid growth over the past five years and expect it to continue as the EV market matures. The UAE already has a network of charging stations and with favourable policies and strategic initiatives continually being implemented by the government, we aim to support the nation to become a positive testament for the global energy transition.

A major contributor to sustainability, this years edition coincides with the UAEs announcement of 2023 as the UAE Sustainability Week and as the country is getting ready to host the climate change COP28 conference later this year.-- TradeArabia News Service
Spain is holding elections Sunday for its 12 regional governments and 8,000 municipal councils ahead of its general election in December.

The local elections would likely be a close race between the country's major parties - the governing Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) under prime minister Pedro Sanchez Perez-Castejon and its main opposition, the conservative People's Party (PP), headed by Alberto Nunez Feijoo.

The results of this election will set the tone for the Spanish general election in December, where national posts will be up for grabs.

Ahead of the election, some polls suggest a particularly close race in Valencia, Aragon, and the Balearic Islands.

Feijoo: PSOE relies on "sanchismo", supports ETA candidates

The PP is using the local elections as a referendum on Sanchez's style of government, which they colloquially called "sanchismo." The opposition party depicts the current government as incompetent, overreaching, and hellbent on remaining in power.

Feijoo accused Sanchez of "[having] no limits" and that even his own party "has been unable to stop him."

The comments were made after it was revealed the Basque party Euskal Herria Bildu (EH Bildu) was harboring 44 convicted members of the defunct separatist terror group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) - or Basque Homeland and Liberty in English - who were running for local positions in this elections for several regions in northern Spain such as the Basque Country, Navarre, and Burgos.

EH Bildu later announced they would stand down seven of its ex-ETA candidates who were convicted of murder.

Feijoo also accused Sanchez of his reliance on EH Bildu, Catalan pro-independence parties, and its junior coalition partner, Podemos, in holding sway in the Spanish parliament.

Podemos introduced legislation allowing more than 1,000 convicted sex offenders to reduce their sentences and more than 100 of them to get out of jail early.

"You're the great electoral hope for rapists and pederasts, for mutineers, squatters, corrupt people, and now for those who used to go about in balaclavas with pistols," Feijoo addressed Sanchez. "And I will never be that."

Meanwhile, Sanchez urged people to ignore the allegations that "a minority is trying to stoke" and to vote calmly.

"I'm convinced that the majority of citizens will vote positively, respectfully, and thoughtfully," he said.

Regarding Feijoo, Sanchez retorted that the PP's reliance on using ETA to dismantle his government was proof of its lack of electoral initiatives.

"When ETA is nothing in Spain, it is still everything to you," Sanchez said of Feijoo. "Because, in your desperation, ETA is all you have, even though it doesn't exist."

Voter fraud

In addition to spats over ETA, Spaniards were also concerned about electoral fraud after 10 people were arrested in the Spanish North African enclave of Melilla for participating in an alleged mail-in vote-buying fraud.

Police are also investigating similar incidents in Andalucia, the Canary Islands, and Murcia.

Future PP-Vox alliance likely

Meanwhile, polls suggest PP is likely to have to rely on the far-right party Vox in forming regional governments across the country, except for Madrid. However, political analysts say the alliance would allow left-leaning parties to paint PP as a party willing to compromise with its ideals and make deals with the far right to win more seats.

According to Carlos III University political scientist Pablo Simon, Vox's influence is growing in all regions, resulting in more power and seats in more councils than in 2019.

"...Vox, which is running a very discreet campaign and is trying not to make any mistakes, will be seeking to enter into coalition governments," he said.

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has sent out a message to the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

SERAP urged Tinubu to start with a clean slate by promptly making public details of your assets, income, investments, liabilities, and interests and to encourage your Vice-President-Elect to do the same.

SERAP also urged him to immediately prioritise the full and effective respect for human rights, media freedom, the rule of law and the countrys judiciary, including by promptly obeying countless court judgements which the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has repeatedly treated with utter contempt and disdain.

In the open letter dated May 27, 2023, and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation said, SERAP notes your recent promise to kill corruption. However, this rhetoric is nothing new: the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari used similar hollow anticorruption phrase in 2015.

SERAP said, As Nigerians have witnessed for eight years, Buhari has neither killed corruption nor obeyed court judgements on transparency and accountability.



According to SERAP, widely publishing details of your assets, income, investments and liabilities and encouraging your Vice-President-Elect and others to do the same would allow Nigerians to know your worth and the worth of other public officials.

SERAP said, If your election is upheld by the judiciary, your government can use transparency in asset declarations as a means of promoting public accountability and ending systemic corruption in the country.

The letter read in part, Buharis broken promises to make specific details of his assets public and to kill corruption have opened up the countrys political and electoral processes to a money free-for-all, discouraged political participation and contributed to impunity for corruption.

Although President Buharis march to Aso Rock was predicated, in large part, on his campaign rhetoric to kill corruption, corruption remains widespread among high-ranking public officials and in ministries, departments and agencies [MDAs].

Making public details of your assets, liabilities, and interests would reduce unjust enrichment of public officials, ensure integrity in public offices and promote transparency and accountability as well as good governance.



Nigeria is very rich, but its wealth is gravitating rapidly into the hands of a small portion of the population, and the power of corrupt enrichment has continued to threaten to undermine the political integrity of the country.



The tendency for politicians when trying to persuade Nigerians to vote for them is to conceal or hide traits that might make voters reluctant to vote them into power and to hide what they want to do with that power. But once voted into power, politicians become trustees of public wealth and resources and must remove the camouflage.



Effective enforcement and implementation of court judgements is critical to the national interest and to the restoration of the rule of law in the country.



The incoming government therefore has a responsibility to improve citizens trust and confidence in government. But it will be difficult for the new government to be trusted if its leaders do not come clean about their assets and incomes.



Disclosure of income, assets and conflicts of interest can serve as powerful tools to draw attention to the abuse of public office, help prosecute corrupt offenders and create a culture of scrutiny in the public sector that deters corruption.

The Buhari administration has neither killed corruption nor obeyed the rule of law. The outgoing president seemed barely able to hide his disdain for the rule of law and judicial integrity and independence.



Under the Buhari administration, the country has witnessed a general concentration of wealth in the hands of a few politicians and elites perceived to be enriching themselves at the expense of the general public.



The Buhari administration turned the idea of the rule of law and judicial independence on its head by persistently disobeying court judgements, including those ordering him to stop life pensions for former governors, and to pay journalist Agba Jalingo N30 million as damages for violations of his human rights.



The Buhari administration has also refused to obey the judgements by Justice Hadiza Rabiu Shagari ordering his government to tell Nigerians about the stolen assets it allegedly recovered, with details of the amounts recovered; and by Justice Mohammed Idris, ordering his government to publish details on the spending of stolen funds recovered by successive governments since 1999.



SERAP urges you to emulate the late former President Umaru Musa YarAdua, who consistently published his asset declaration forms as president and governor of Katsina State. He also planned legislative reform to make it mandatory for all public officers to declare their assets publicly. He believed that publishing his assets would put pressure on other public officers to do so.



According to the Code of Conduct for Public Officers, contained in Part I of the Fifth Schedule to the 1999 Nigerian Constitution [as amended], all public officers are to declare their assets.



Paragraph 11(1)(a)(b) of the Fifth Schedule provides that every public officer shall immediately after taking office and thereafter (a) at the end of every four years; and (b) at the end of his/her term of office, submit to the Code of Conduct Bureau a written declaration of all his properties, assets, and liabilities and those of his unmarried children under the age of eighteen years.



Section 15(1) of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and Tribunal Act also requires all public officers to declare their assets.



Article 8 of United Nations Convention against Corruption provides for the codes of conduct for public officials and requires states parties, including Nigeria, to ensure probity in public office. Article 8(5) particularly requires states parties to establish systems that require public officials to declare their outside activities, employment, investments, assets and substantial gifts or benefits.



Article 7(1) of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption also provides a similar requirement for public officials to declare their assets before, during, and after serving in public office.



The Nigerian Constitution and the anticorruption and human rights treaties show the significant role that asset declaration by public officials plays in promoting transparency, accountability and preventing and combating corruption in the public service.



Section 39 of the Nigerian Constitution makes provision for the fundamental right to information. Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also guarantee access to information.



We hope that the aspects highlighted will help guide your steps in taking steps to publish your asset declaration form and to encourage others to do so.
Some Yoruba Nation agitators, on Sunday morning, seized Radio Nigeria, Amuludun FM 99.1 in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, taking over broadcast for more than one hour.

A source told The PUNCH Metro that the agitators, who besieged the station around 5:40 am in an 18-seater bus, were armed with dangerous weapons and charms, threatening to deal decisively with any staff member who refused to cooperate with them.

However, four out of the agitators, among whom was a woman, were arrested by the police with the assistance of the Nigerian army, while others ran into different directions to evade arrest.

One of the arrested agitators, who sustained gunshot wounds, had rushed into the studio to tell others that security operatives had taken over the nooks and crannies of the station. The blood stain was seen in the studio.

An investigation by our correspondent revealed that after holding some night duty staff and security guards hostage, the agitators hijacked the studio and announced live on radio Welcome to Yoruba Nation.

An impeccable source further said they continued threatening staff members to remove all Nigeria flags in the station and replace them with Yoruba Nation flags as they have already taken over the Government Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan.

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It was further learnt that they initially hijacked some commercial vehicles (Micra) to block the main road.

When our correspondent visited the station at J&P Bus-stop, Moniya in Akinyele Local Government Area of the state, more than 20 operational vehicles of security agents, including Department of State Services were sighted at strategic locations to forestall any eventuality.

Confirming the invasion, the most senior staff on duty, Ajayi Omotola, stated that, They told us that they are Yoruba Nation agitators. And in their T-shirt, there was that inscription there. They wrote Yoruba Nation. Only six persons came inside the studio with different charms threatening to kill us if we failed to cooperate. Others were outside manning security at different areas within the premises.

They collected all our phones and threatened to kill us if we made any noise or phone calls. They said they wanted to broadcast live that Yoruba Nation has taken over. We should remove all Nigeria flags in our studio and replace it with their own. They didnt allow anybody to go outside. The Area Commander came, addressed and even pleaded with them but they ignored him. We later heard sporadic shooting outside. So, one of our staff members then came inside to inform us that police and soldiers had arrived, Omotola stressed.

As of press time, normalcy had returned while stern-looking security operatives were still manning the station.

The PUNCH Metro reports that the radio station was established on October 10, 2007, and commenced transmission in pure and undiluted Yoruba language on October 22, the same year.
Some Yoruba Nation agitators, on Sunday morning, seized Radio Nigeria, Amuludun FM 99.1 in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, taking over broadcast for more than one hour.

The agitators who besieged the station around 5:40 am in an 18-seater bus, were armed with dangerous weapons and charms, threatening to deal decisively with any staff member who refused to cooperate with them.

However, four out of the agitators, among whom was a woman, were arrested by the police with the assistance of the Nigerian army, while others ran into different directions to evade arrest.

One of the arrested agitators, who sustained gunshot wounds, had rushed into the studio to tell others that security operatives had taken over the nooks and crannies of the station.

After holding some night duty staff and security guards hostage, the agitators hijacked the studio and announced live on radio Welcome to Yoruba Nation.

They continued threatening staff members to remove all Nigeria flags in the station and replace them with Yoruba Nation flags as they have already taken over the Government Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan.

They initially hijacked some commercial vehicles (Micra) to block the main road.

Confirming the invasion, the most senior staff on duty, Ajayi Omotola, stated that, They told us that they are Yoruba Nation agitators. And in their T-shirt, there was that inscription there. They wrote Yoruba Nation. Only six persons came inside the studio with different charms threatening to kill us if we failed to cooperate. Others were outside manning security at different areas within the premises.

They collected all our phones and threatened to kill us if we made any noise or phone calls. They said they wanted to broadcast live that Yoruba Nation has taken over. We should remove all Nigeria flags in our studio and replace it with their own. They didnt allow anybody to go outside. The Area Commander came, addressed and even pleaded with them but they ignored him. We later heard sporadic shooting outside. So, one of our staff members then came inside to inform us that police and soldiers had arrived, Omotola stressed.

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May 28, (THEWILL)  The outgoing Governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, will perform the official handing over of the affairs of the State to the Governor-elect, Abba Kabir Yusuf, this Sunday, May 28.

THEWILL reports that the inauguration is coming a day ahead of May 29 when Gandujes tenure will officially elapse.

A statement by the outgoing Commissioner for Information and Internal Affairs, Muhammad Garba, said the event is billed for 9:00pm on Sunday night at the Government House, Kano.

Garba said the Kano State Government Transition Committee had communicated the development to the Transition Committee of the Governor-elect.

The statement explained that Governor Ganduje would, shortly after the event, depart for Abuja, as the head of the Kano State delegation to the inauguration of the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, slated for Monday, May 29, 2023.

He said the Governors departure was also necessitated to beat the deadline for the closure of Nnamdi Azikiwe Internation Airport, Abuja for the President-elects inauguration ceremony.

The Governor urged Kano people to continue to pray for peace and development in the State.
President Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday morning, addressed Nigerians in a televised farewell broadcast a day before he leaves office.

Buhari in his broadcast said that he is confident he is leaving office as president better than he met it in 2015 when he was first sworn in.

He said that he feels fulfilled that his administration started the Nigeria Re-Birth by taking the initial critical steps, adding that he is convinced the incoming administration will quicken the pace of this walk to see a Nigeria that fulfills its destiny to be a great nation.

Here is a full text of President Buharis broadcast;

FAREWELL SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY, MUHAMMADU BUHARI, PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA.

My fellow Nigerian brothers, sisters and friends of Nigeria.

I address you today, in my last assignment as a democratically elected President of our great and well-endowed nation, with a deep sense of gratitude to God, a great deal of appreciation to the Nigerian people and a modest sense of fulfillment. Today we mark and celebrate another peaceful transition of power from one elected government to another in our steady march to improve and sustain Nigerias democracy. This year we witnessed the most keenly contested Presidential Elections since the first Republic and this demonstrates that our democracy is getting better and more entrenched with each election. We must as a nation improve and sustain gains we make in the electoral process, on an incremental basis for Nigeria to take its rightful place among Nations. Our democracy provides for, allows and encourages seeking redress for any perceived injustices, enabling some candidates and political parties that did not agree with the results to go to court. Irrespective of the outcome of the various cases, I urge all parties involved to accept the decision of our courts and join hands to build a better Nigeria. I salute the doggedness and resilience of all the Presidential Candidates and their political parties for believing in our judicial system by taking their grievances with the election results to court. In the course of the campaigns, we had argued and disagreed on how to make Nigeria better but we never disagreed or had any doubts that Nigeria has to be better. As your President, I call on all of us to bring to bear the strength of our individualism, the power of our unity, the convictions of our beliefs to make Nigeria work better and together with one spirit and one purpose. To my brother, friend and fellow worker in the political terrain for the past ten years  Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu -, I congratulate you on the realisation of your dream, which was propelled by a burning passion to put Nigeria amongst the leading nations of the world. You have indeed worked for this day and God has crowned your efforts. I have no doubt that your passion for excellence, reliance on competence, fairness in relationships, commitment to equity, loyalty to the country and desire for Nigeria to be globally relevant would come through for you, under Gods guidance, as you lead our country to levels higher that I am leaving. You are the best candidate among all the contestants and Nigerians have chosen well. The last eight years have been an exciting experience in my desire and commitment to see a Nigeria in which public goods and services are available and accessible within a united, peaceful and secure nation. Fellow Nigerians, on the strength of your overwhelming support for me and my political party, I started this journey with a great deal of promise and expectation from you. I never intended to be just politically correct but to do the correct things that will make meaningful impact on the lives of the common Nigerian. This high expectation was not misplaced because, like the ordinary Nigerian, I had grown tired of watching the country progressively moving away from the path of correctness. To ensure that our democracy remains resilient and our elected representatives remain accountable to the people, I am leaving behind an electoral process which guarantees that votes count, results are credible, elections are fair and transparent and the influence of money in politics reduced to the barest minimum. And Nigerians can elect leaders of their choice. We are already seeing the outcome of this process as it provided an even playing field where persons without any political Godfather or access to money defeated other well-resourced candidates. The Nigerian economy has become more resilient due to the various strategies put in place to ensure that our economy remained afloat during cases of global economic downturns. You would all recall the supply chain disruptions and economic downturn that the world witnessed between 2020 and 2022 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The deftness of our response to the pandemic still remains a global best practice. Furthermore, we increased the ability of the poor and rural Nigerians to earn a living, provided more food for millions in our villages and gave our women opportunities to earn a living. Young men and women in urban centres were also supported to put their skills into productive use. Our administration also provided an enabling environment for the private sector to engage in businesses for which their return on investments is guaranteed. The private sector proved a strong partner in our drive to build a resilient and sustainable economy as evidenced by the growing number of turn-key projects in various sectors of the economy. In the course of revamping the economy, we made some difficult choices, most of which yielded the desired results. Some of the measures led to temporary pain and suffering for which I sincerely apologized to my fellow countrymen, but the measures were taken for the overall good of the country. Mindful of the need to ensure adequate infrastructure to drive economic growth, we completed age-long projects and processes notably amongst which are the Petroleum Industry Act, the completion of some power projects, the completion of the second Niger bridge and various important roads linking cities and states. Our battle to ensure that all Nigerians live in a safe and secure environment has achieved considerable results. As I complete my term in office, we have been able to reduce the incidences of banditry, terrorism, armed robbery and other criminal activities considerably. To sustain the gains made so far, I call on all Nigerians to be more vigilant and support the security agencies by ensuring that our values defined by being your brothers keeper govern our actions. Up-till now, I still grieve for our children still in captivity, mourn with parents, friends and relatives of all those that lost loved ones in the days of the senseless brigandage and carnage. For all those under unlawful captivity, our Security Agencies are working round the clock to secure their release unharmed. Fellow Nigerians, you know how dear the desire in my heart is to rid the country of corrupt practices that had consistently diminished our efforts to be a great country. I did pursue this commitment relentlessly, in spite of the expected pushback. I am happy that considerable progress had been made in repatriating huge sums of money back to the country and also taking over properties illegally acquired from our commonwealth. To improve service delivery, we began the implementation of a number of reforms aimed at producing an Efficient, Productive, Incorruptible and Citizen-oriented (EPIC) Federal Civil Service and the results are beginning to show. On the international scene, Nigerias influence continues to grow as exemplified by notable Nigerians occupying headship and leadership positions in renowned global bodies. Our democracy is built on and continues to thrive on the principles of separation of powers. The leadership and members of the National Assembly deserve my appreciation for their patriotism which did not detract from their roles as a check to the executive arm. I also want to use this opportunity to express my appreciation to a good number of Nigerians who provided their support and encouragement to help me navigate the exciting journey of moving Nigeria forward. I can not and will not forget the millions who prayed for me during my illness in my first term of office. I am constantly praying for you and for Nigeria to thrive in peace. As I retire home to Daura, Katsina State, I feel fulfilled that we have started the Nigeria Re-Birth by taking the initial critical steps and I am convinced the in-coming administration will quicken the pace of this walk to see a Nigeria that fulfills its destiny to be a great nation. I am confident that I am leaving office with Nigeria better in 2023 than in 2015. I thank you all. And may God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

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By Okechukwu Onuegbu

Crisis has rocked Ebenebe community, Awka North Local Government Area, Anambra State following dethronement of the communitys women leader otherwise referred to as Chairperson or Women President General, Mrs Favour Nworah, by the State government.

Nworah, who has been the Women President General of Ebenebe Town Union Women Wing (ETU WW) since April 2019, was sacked by governor Chukwuma Soludo on April 2023, few months after the 2023 general elections.

According to sources, the Women PG was sacked from office because she appeared in different photographs with the uniforms of Labour Party (LP), including posing with and at political events attended by the Presidential candidate of the party, Mr Peter Obi, the LP Awka North House of Assembly candidate, Mr Ferdinand Onwuje and others.

The development has degenerated into factionalisation of the womens group, with one led by the government appointed Interim Women Leader, Mrs Josephine Okafor, even as supporters of the embattled Women Leader (Nworah) have been staging peaceful protest in Ebenebe and Awka respectively.

Leader of one of the protests staged at Ebenebe, Mrs Florence Nnatu, accused some stakeholders of Ebenebe including the leadership of Ebenebe Town Union (men wing) of having hands in the crisis and urged them to back out to avoid creating crisis among their wives.

A petition obtained during the protest dated April 25, 2023 filed by Bar. P. I. Chukwudebelu of Kirkland Solicitors, Awka, the counsel to ETU WW, and signed by 8 Chair ladies from 8 villages of Ebenebe, showed that the women leader had on March 24th, 2023 written to the Women Affairs commissioner, explaining that her tenure would expire on April 11th and her executive wanted the ministrys presence at an election scheduled to hold on April 13th, 2023.

The petition read, Our clients were taken aback when the scheduled election was called off and/or suspended supposedly on the instructions of your esteemed office albeit upon wrong presentations from politicians. The feelers now is that the same political forces are at the verge of imposing misfits and unsuitable persons as a proposed caretaker Committee of Ebenebe Town Union Wing Wing without even consulting the relevant stakeholders to that effect.

That the stoppage of the democratic election processes and its attendance constitution of caretaker Committee in the Ebenebe Town Union Women Wing would bring about unpleasant and avoidable crisis in this union and this, our clients seek to prevent through your good office which they expect to do justice in this regards.

In an interview, the embattled Women Leader, Mrs Favour Nworah, while collaborating the content of the petition, presented a copy of the ETU WW by-laws to our correspondent, which among other things indicated that their principal offices were elected positions whose tenure last for four years and renewable for another four years (if voted for again), as well as free from political interferences and appointments.

Nworah, however, admitted to have supported Onwuje during the 2023 House of Assembly elections because he is my husband and always by my side. APGA (All Progressive Grand Alliance) candidate have not called me even once talk more of coming to me as his woman PG upon I am from the same ward with him. The day he visited Awka North women wing he meets Amansea Woman PG instead of me.

She further maintained that she remains an APGA and worked for APGA and Soludo during the 2021 governorship elections, adding that I couldnt sleep because I know what I did for APGA and soludo. I used my money, my products, my strength and time for my party APGA to make sure soludo won. I visited all the wards in Awka north to make sure women votes count. 

But the President General of Ebenebe Town Union (ETU), Hon. Chukwudi Okonkwo, said his office was not responsible for Nworahs removal although he was aware of an appointment of Mrs Josephine Okafor to act in her place as Interim Women Leader/Chairperson for the community.

 Anambra State government has appointed an Interim Executive led by Mrs Josephine Okafor to lead Ebenebe Town Union Women Wing. I dont have the power to do it or question the government for taking such steps. I learnt that Mrs Okafor was appointed by the ministry after considering various petitions filed against Mrs Nworah by her fellow women. I have some of the petitions copied to me. The government has power to also announce election for the women whenever it deems it necessary, Okonkwo stated.

A copy of the petition from anti-Nworah (supporters of removal of the Women Leader), dated March 31, 2023 signed by a different set of eight women from eight villages made up of Ebenebe community and addressed to the Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs Ify Obinabo, accused the woman of high-handedness and anti-government.

It reads Another reason for this petition is that our woman leader (Mrs Favour Nworah) who is in payroll of the State government has been working against the interest of the State party, All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA). During the last state House of Assembly elections, Nworah and her group worked tirelessly against APGA and her candidate, Hon. Chimezie Ikwunne to the knowledge of everybody in Ebenebe. We have proof.

The tenure of Nworah expired since April 2022 but she refused to conduct elections because she wanted to use her position to campaign for the candidate of Labour Party in the last House of Assembly elections, Hon. Ferdinand Onwuje who lost in the APGA primary election and detected into the Labour Party. All efforts to have her change her mind proved abortive. The constitution states that each leader has only tenure of three years.

Speaking on authenticity of the Women Wing By-laws, the immediate past President General of Ebenebe Town Union, Mr Paul Nnatu, said he knew when it was constituted and endorsed by the women only.

Nnatu also dismissed the claims in the petition that Nworah was appointed by him, explaining that his executive witnessed her election on April 2019 as an observer when it was conducted at the palace of His Royal Highness Igwe Christopher Nnaegbuna and supervised by representatives of Anambra State Ministry of Women Affairs.

When contacted on phone (recorded), the Anambra State Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs Ify Obinabo, said she was not free to comment and ended the call. A message earlier sent to her WhatsApp since 9.48pm on Saturday was not replied to date even though she acknowledged receiving them during the call on Sunday.

Similarly, the Interim Chairperson/Woman Leader, Ebenebe Town Union Women Wing, Mrs Josephine Okafor refused to respond to our calls.

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From Ahmad SAKA, Bauchi

Arewa Youths for the Sustenance of Democracy and Good Governance (AYSDGG) has explained that the senator-elect representing Imo West, Senator

Osita Bonaventure Izunaso is the best to lead the 10th National Assembly as Senate President.

The group advised and pleaded with the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Vice President elect Senator Kashim Shettima and the National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC) Abdullahi Adamu to look for technocrat who has no any case or allegations of curruption , a true democract who can unified the National Assembly they will see no one bit Izunaso. National President of the group Alhaji Alhaji Salihu Magaji stated this when he addressed reporters at Hazibal Conference room today in Bauchi, He said We have very great respect for the president-elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his vice Senator Kashim Shettima, and we know as people of integrity, they need a Senate and National Assembly leadership that will assist them to give optimum performance to the nation in order to leave a lasting legacy in nation building. Magaji said after examining the credentials of all the senators-elect eying the presidency and concluded that Izunaso ranked the best,

He said  our position is not based on partisanship; we cut across all the political parties that fielded people for the Senate. But our own based on the respect we have for Tinubu and Kashim we want their success as president and Vice President is of utmost importance to us.  I believe they needs the goodwill of the ordinary masses that elected them into office; they should bring new people on board. This man, Izunaso, has been everywhere around the executive and the National Assembly, both chambers for that matter, He is brilliant, capable, experienced, level-headed, intelligent and a person that understands our socio-religious intricacies. He has no baggage of controversy and he is not a person that will be at loggerheads with those in power in other arms. We have to be well guided this time around, he is not a corrupt leader As our leaders President elect, Vice President elect ,the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) we want then to consider fairness, competency and experience in the selection of the senate president in the10th National Assembly.

Magaji said its now time to douse the tension generated by the controversial zoning formula already fouling the political atmosphere of the country by coming up with a zoning arrangement that would guarantee unity and national cohesion, a new zoning arrangement that would not only produce the best among the senators and House of Representatives Members-elect as their presiding officers, but be seen by Nigerians and the world at large meeting the best practices in legislative norms and satisfying the political exigencies of the present Nigeria.

He explained that what the country needed now was a brand new assembly chaired by a competent, capable and experienced man of proven integrity, without any blemish whatsoever. Magaji said Izunaso was the highest ranking Senator from the South-South and South-East with a robust and outstanding legislative and National Assembly experience spanning from 1992 when he served as the Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker of House of Representatives to 1999 when he was appointed as the Chief Press Secretary to the President of the Senate.

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The General Officer Commanding (GOC) 81 Division Nigerian Army Major General OC Ajunwa has urged soldiers and their family members to totally abstain from the abuse of drugs, describing it as an ugly trend capable of destroying their lives.

General Ajunwa made this call during a sensitization lecture on substance/drug abuse organized for soldiers and their family members held at the Command Day Secondary School Auditorium, Ikeja on 27 May 23.

The GOC represented by Commander Division Equipment Support, Colonel Emmanuel Omoba, while giving his remarks at the sensitization lecture said the event was designed to create awareness on the increasing incidences of drug abuse amongst soldiers and most especially their family members as well as its effects within barracks community.

Gen Ajunwa emphasized that abuse of drugs amongst military personnel and their family members has eaten very deep which if not urgently addressed headlong, could lead to a serious catastrophe. He advised the participants to be careful in making decisions as such could make or mar their future.

He further encouraged parents to put in more effort in their parental responsibilities, ensuring a good upbringing for their children by keeping close watch on them, saying, it takes a collective approach to curbing this ugly trend.

Delivering a lecture at the seminar, Dr Odigie-Akpataka pointed out that depression, despair, the feeling of hopelessness, and other stress-inducing factors are not enough reasons to indulge in drug abuse which according to her exposes victims to mental and health risks. If any of you is struggling with something, go to the MRS and seek help and learn to cut your coat according to your cloth. She advised.

The workshop witnessed a huge turnout of soldiers and their families from units within 81 Division Area of Responsibility.

Highlights of the seminar were the presentation of souvenirs and group photographs.

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Indian prime minister, Shri Narendra Modi has sent a special delegation led by the Defence Minister, Rajnath Singh to the inauguration of Nigerias president-elect, Bola Tinubu.

The Indian High Commission in Nigeria disclosed in a statement on Saturday that Mr. Singh will arrive in Abuja today ahead of Tinubu as Nigerias 16th President on Monday, May 29.

The statement reads, The visit of Mr. Rajnath Singh reflects the growing bilateral relations between India and Nigeria and signifies Indias commitment to strengthening ties with Nigeria.

Mr. Singh is accompanied by a high-level delegation comprising senior officials from the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of External Affairs of India. Mr. Singh is the most senior Minister in the Government of India.

It is significant that given special relations with Nigeria, the Government of India has invited Nigeria as a guest county to participate in all the G20 meetings during her G20 Presidency in 2023.

Minister Singh is expected to have a special message to the President-elect of Nigeria regarding the G20.

The G20 summit, 2023 will be held in New Delhi on 9-10 Sep 2023 with the Heads of States of the member countries & Invited guest Countries.

As India continues to enhance its engagements in Africa, the visit of Defence Minister Singh to Abuja marks a significant step in deepening the bilateral relationship between India and Nigeria, setting the stage for a new chapter of cooperation and partnership between the two nations the statement added.

KanyiDaily recalls that the Federal Government had declared Monday, May 29, 2023, as a work-free day for all employees to commemorate the inauguration of Bola Tinubu as Nigerias 16th-elected President.

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Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the president-elect, has been urged by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) to start with a clean slate by promptly making public details of your assets, income, investments, liabilities, and interests and to encourage your Vice-President-Elect to do the same.

SERAP also urged him to immediately prioritise the full and effective respect for human rights, media freedom, the rule of law and the countrys judiciary including by promptly obeying countless court judgments which the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has repeatedly treated with utter contempt and disdain.

In an open letter dated 27 May 2023 and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organization said: SERAP notes your recent promise to kill corruption. However, this rhetoric is nothing new: the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari used similar hollow anticorruption phrase in 2015.

READ ALSO: Probe missing 149m barrels of crude, SERAP urges Buhari

As Nigerians have witnessed for eight years, Buhari has neither killed corruption nor obeyed court judgments on transparency and accountability.

Widely publishing details of your assets, income, investments and liabilities and encouraging your Vice-President-Elect and others to do the same would allow Nigerians to know your worth and the worth of other public officials.

If your election is upheld by the judiciary, your government can use transparency in asset declarations as a means of promoting public accountability and ending systemic corruption in the country.

The letter, read in part, Buharis broken promises to make specific details of his assets public and to kill corruption have opened up the countrys political and electoral processes to a money free-for-all, discouraged political participation and contributed to impunity for corruption.

Although President Buharis march to Aso Rock was predicated, in large part, on his campaign rhetoric to kill corruption, corruption remains widespread among high-ranking public officials and in ministries, departments and agencies [MDAs].

Making public details of your assets, liabilities, and interests would reduce unjust enrichment of public officials, ensure integrity in public offices and promote transparency and accountability as well as good governance.

READ ALSO: Reverse unjust hike in electricity tariff, SERAP tells Buhari

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Article 7(1) of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption also provides a similar requirement for public officials to declare their assets before, during, and after serving in public office.

The Nigerian Constitution and the anticorruption and human rights treaties show the significant role that asset declaration by public officials plays in promoting transparency, accountability and preventing and combating corruption in the public service.

Section 39 of the Nigerian Constitution makes provision for the fundamental right to information. Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also guarantee access to information.

We hope that the aspects highlighted will help guide your steps in taking steps to publish your asset declaration form and to encourage others to do so.
Shonna Graham - the estranged wife of convicted sex offender Adam Graham, who now goes by the name of Isla Bryson - has filed for divorce after seven years of searching.

The transgender was convicted of raping two women on separate occasions in 2016 and 2019 while still a man.

Graham delivered the divorce papers to HMP Edinburgh, where Bryson was to serve eight years behind bars.

Prior marriage and domestic violence

According to Shonna, she met Adam on the dating app Badoo in 2015 and got married at Falkirk a year later.

She went on to experience abuse from her former husband, including an alleged incident where Bryson stabbed her in the hip while trying to rape her.

Shonna, who was now engaged to a new partner, explained she tried to file for divorce but got delayed in doing so since Bryson left without a trace.

"I don't want to be reminded," she told the Daily Record. "I don't need someone like him keeping me down. I've moved on."

Ex-wife: Talks about which jail to put Bryson sidelined victims

Shonna previously criticized Bryson's eight-year sentence, saying it was "nowhere near enough."

She told the Daily Mail the debate on whether to imprison Bryson in a men's or women's prison due to the gender transition overshadowed the two victims.

"He - and I will always call him a he - will be out of prison in four years, but his two victims will have to live with this for the rest of their lives," she said. "It's an insult to them that their whole ordeal has hardly been discussed, and it's all been about him and what kind of prison should he go to."

Controversies over Bryson's transition while on trial

Bryson, a former DJ prior to transitioning, first appeared in court as a male. The High Court of Edinburgh heard he was taking hormones and seeking surgery to complete gender reassignment while awaiting trial.

Bryson was initially remanded in custody at Cornton Vale, Scotland's only all-female prison in Stirling, but was later moved to a men's facility in response to public outrage. The sex offender was eventually put in a men's prison upon sentencing.

After being sentenced, Bryson was placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.

Public discussion regarding the Bryson case escalated when the Scottish Parliament passed the controversial Gender Recognition Reform Bill, making gender change easier for people.

Scottish Secretary Alister Jack eventually used a Section 35 order in January to block the introduction of legalizing the controversial reforms.

As a result, the Scottish Prison Service reviewed its policy regarding transgender detainees and prisoners, resulting in recommendations that include placing all new transgender prisoners in accommodation determined by their birth gender.

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A nine-member delegation from the US Presient, Joe Biden, billed to attend the inauguration of Bola Tinubu, Nigerias President-elect, has arrived in Abuja.

The team was welcomed to Nigeria on Sunday by the United States Mission in the West African country.

Welcome to Nigeria! We are excited to receive the delegation from @POTUS Biden, led by @SecFudge from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as they join us in Abuja for the inauguration of President-Elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the U.S. Mission tweeted on its official handle around 5 pm on Sunday.

The U.S. President, Joe Biden, had named the nine-member delegation to attend the inauguration of Tinubu scheduled for Monday, May 29, 2023 in Abuja.

Meanwhile, Tinubu still faces stiff opposition at the Presidential election tribunal amid a February 25 presidential election adjudged as highly compromised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Already, the Labour Party and the Peoples Democratic Party have criticised the US seemingly biased opinion on the contentious election, especially after the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, recently called Tinubu on the phone.

Also expected at the nations seventh transition ceremony are past presidents, diplomats, heads of international organisations, prominent Nigerians and representatives of foreign governments and agencies.

The delegation will be led by Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Marcia L. Fudge.

Other members of the Presidential Delegation include Mr. David Greene, Charge dAffaires, a.i., U.S. Embassy Abuja; The Honorable Sydney Kamlager-Dove, United States Representative (D), California; The Honorable Marisa Lago, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, U.S. Department of Commerce; General Michael E. Langley, Commander of U.S. Africa Command; and The Honorable Enoh T. Ebong, Director, U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

Others are The Honorable Mary Catherine Phee, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State; The Honorable Judd Devermont, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs, National Security Council and The Honorable Monde Muyangwa, Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Africa, U.S. Agency for International Development.
A WhatsApp number has been released by the Anambra State Command of the Nigeria Police Force to report the unprofessional conduct of its personnel in the state.

SaharaReporters reported on Saturday that the Command had directed the Divisional Police Officer covering 3-3 area of Onitsha, Anambra commercial nerve Centre, to fish out the police officer captured in a viral video collecting a bribe from a commuter in the area last week.

The police commissioner, Mr Echeng Echeng, who gave the directive in a statement issued by the Commands spokesperson, DSP Ikenga Tochukwu, ordered a thorough investigation into the incident.

Describing the behaviour of the policeman as unprofessional which should be condemned, Ikenga said the video had been sent to the DPO in the area, to identify the officer for internal sanction.

However, in a statement issued on Sunday, the Commands spokesperson, DSP Ikenga, announced a WhatsApp Number 08039334002 for Nigerians to report police unprofessional conduct especially the extortion of motorists and commuters in Anambra state.

The PPRO who took to the official Twitter handle of the state command to announce the new measure to combat police excesses, assured that there would be transparency, accountability and utmost confidentiality of information conveyed through the channel.

He said, In the spirit of citizens advocacy to build a better relationship & improve citizen-led policing, all videos of Police conduct & otherwise actions that wish to be reported especially as it concerns Anambra State Police Command should be forwarded to WhatsApp number 08039334002.



Be assured of transparency, accountability and utmost confidentiality of information conveyed through this channel*



Note: Do not get tired of assessing us. It is from your comments we improve and re-strategize, he said.
A consignment of 32 pieces of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), has been seized by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in Niger state.

In a statement on Sunday, Femi Babafemi, NDLEA spokesperson, said the intercepted explosives were headed for camps of bandits in the state.

He added that one Musa Muhammadu was caught with the IEDs on May 22, and the suspect was transferred to the military for further investigation.

NDLEA said its operatives also seized 379 grams of methamphetamine at a courier company in Lagos.

The consignment was heading for Cyprus and was concealed in the false bottom of six black soap containers, packed in a carton containing local hand fans.

The agency added that one Ndawai Emma Ngalou, a Cameroonian, was apprehended with a pair of Nigerian Army camouflage uniforms along Michika-Bazza road in Adamawa.

The suspect was also caught with two automated teller machine (ATM) cards belonging to Turaki Mohammed and Ekene Izuegunam.

Two ladies: Bilkisu Yusuf, 33, and Kauna Katsina, 25, were on Monday, May 22 arrested in Ningi town, Bauchi state, with 11,080 pills of tramadol, while Uche Shadrach, 22, was arrested with 20,480 pills of the same pharmaceutical opioid on Wednesday, May 24 along Okene-Lokoja highway, Kogi state on his way from Onitsha, Anambra state to Minna, Niger state, the statement reads.

In the same vein, two suspects: Surajo Adamu and Muhammad Ali, were arrested on Friday, May 26, with 379,200 tablets of Diazepam in the Alimosho area of Lagos, while the MMIA Command of the Agency took custody of 22 cartons of Tramadol 225mg weighing 1,144.30 kg and 12 cartons of Tramadol 120mg with a total weight of 320kg, all containing 2, 317, 400 pills transferred to the agency by the Airport Command of the Nigeria Customs Service, on Thursday, May 25.



In Delta state, NDLEA operatives supported by men drawn from the Nigerian Army. NSCDC and the Police on Wednesday, May 24, raided the notorious Abbi town, Ndokwa West LGA, where three suspects: Eunice Eneh, 52, Animan Ifeoma, 26, and Chuks Webema Dennis, 35, were arrested with a total of 343.9kg cannabis recovered from them.



A similar mop-up operation in Bayelsa has led to the arrest of a wanted suspect, Ozoemena Egbochue, 38, at the Swali market in Yenagoa on Monday, May 22, following the earlier arrest of his sales boy, Morgan Eredeowel, with 11,748 pills of tramadol and diazepam.
Five Yoruba Nation agitators have been arrested for invading and hijacking Radio Nigerias Amuludun FM 99.1 in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Naija News reports that the state Police Public Relations Officer, Adewale Osifeso, stated this on Sunday while addressing newsmen at the commands headquarters in Eleyele, Ibadan.

He stated that the suspects were Noah Atoyebi, 30 years; Gbenga Adeleke, 25 years; Abdulganiyu Mustafa, 35 years; Fajola Elija, 45 years and a woman, Kehinde Bashiru.

Recall that some youths had stormed the station around 5:40 am, seized the airwaves, and announced their separation from the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Speaking further, Osifeso said the youths hijacked the radio station to announce their separatist agenda, but police operatives rebuffed the move by the agitators.

Osifeso said no personnel from the radio station or any other person was hurt as the command responded swiftly in a well-coordinated rescue operation.

He, therefore, called on parents, and guardians to prevail on their children, wards, and proteges against being used to disrupt tomorrows inauguration event as heavy sanctions await defaulters and other unpatriotic elements sharing the same sinister motives.

He said, The preliminary investigations about today (Sunday)s incident revealed that at about 0600hrs the valiant and eagle-eyed operatives of the command while on intelligence-driven patrols intercepted a distress call about some members of a group driven by a separatist agenda who had forcefully hijacked a radio broadcast station, Amuludun 99.1 FM located around Moniya, Ibadan with the intent to declare liberation from the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Thankfully, no personnel from the establishment or any other person was hurt as the command responded swiftly in a well-coordinated rescue operation.

I have personally detailed an investigation team led by the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the State Criminal Investigation Department to demystify circumstances around the incident and as well expand the network of arrests through thorough, painstaking intelligence-driven investigation.

While declaring this act as criminal, unpatriotic and a clear case of terrorism which would be meted with adequate sanctions under the laws of the land, I assure good citizens of the state that the security architecture of the command in contact with relevant sister agencies has been strategically modified for optimum effectiveness not only for tomorrows (Monday) epoch-making ceremony but beyond.
From Davido landing the longest-charting Nigerian single in Billboard history to Tiwa Savage signing a deal with Universal, Nigerian artists are gaining more traction globally, and this has had a hugely positive effect on Nigerian-international collaborations.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Don Eazi (@mreazi) on Apr 16, 2019 at 2:20pm PDT

Owing to the growing global popularity of Nigerian music at the moment, our stars are now breaking into exciting new genres, particularly Latin music, and delivering more dynamic collaborations than weve ever gotten from them before.

Not only are we witnessing more Nigerian acts being enlisted on foreign projects, but the increased visibility Nigerian musicians are gaining has also made it possible for a rising star in Nigeria to feature two Grammy-nominated acts on his debut album.

So, to commemorate the far-reaching exploits of Nigerian musicians this year, weve compiled a list of the best Nigerian-international collaborations of 2019 (so far)  from GoldLink and Wizkids No Lie to Odunsi and RAYEs Tipsy.

Location  Dave ft. Burna Boy

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No Lie  GoldLink ft. Wizkid

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Next To You Part II  Becky G ft. Rvssian & Davido

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COMO UN BEBE  J Balvin & Bad Bunny ft. Mr Eazi

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Eda  Michael Brun & Belo ft. Adekunle Gold

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No Negative Vibes  Walshy Fire ft. Runtown & AlkalineGo

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RX-64   Santi ft. KrisIrie

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2AM  Cassanova ft. Tory Lanez & Davido

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Tipsy  Odunsi (The Engine) ft. RAYE

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Zulu Screams  GoldLink ft. Maleek Berry & Bibi Bourelly

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The Senior Special Assistant to the President, Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, has assured that the Buhari administration will not give up on the safe return of Leah Sharibu.

She was one of the students of Government Girls Science and Technical Secondary School, Dapchi kidnapped by a faction of Boko Haram terrorists in February 2018.

Speaking to a group of journalists on Saturday in Abuja, Shehu said: Instead of giving up, the government is carrying forward processes that should hopefully yield her release by her captors.

The presidential spokesman was responding to worrying cycle of speculations on whether Leah Sharibu, the kidnapped Dapchi school girl had been harmed by her abductors.

He told reporters emphatically that much of what is written about the girl in the press is false news.

Read Also: We are confident Leah Sharibu is alive  ECWA

Lines of communications remain open with the kidnappers, ISWA, to secure the release of Leah Sharibu.

Contrary to false reports, she is alive  given assurances from our security agencies-, and the government is committed to her safe return, as well as all other hostages to their families.

Kidnapping for ransom should never be encouraged. This means not capitulating to the demands of terrorists: refrain from rewarding their heinous crimes with payment.

With the abduction of loved family and friends, the government understands how difficult these time are for them, but government is pursuing many options to ensure the safe return of Leah Sharibu.

We must commit to law and communication, using the breadth of strategies at our disposal: legal initiatives, stakeholder cooperation, involvement of all relevant parties and the use of the latest hostage negotiation techniques.

Kidnapping for ransom is rising across the Sahel. We must  collectively  make sure we implement best practice to prevent its exploitation, he said.

Appealing for patience in dealing with the challenge the case poses, the Presidential spokesman assured that the administration is fully conscious that any misstep on a delicate issue as this can be costly.
Wedding anniversaries are a very special occasion for married couples and many couples take time to plan their celebrations well.

This Nigerian couple definitely didnt want to be left out as they clock five years together. The couple who are marking their 5th wedding anniversary today September 20th, took some time to do so with Coming to America themed photos.

Apparently, the husband and wife are huge fans of the movie and have recreated costumes from the film for their anniversary.

The photos have caught some attention on social media because of their uniqueness.

See more images below:
The Vice President of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo SAN, at a thanksgiving service at the RCCG, City of Grace, Lokoja, Kogi State, on Sunday, February 3, 2019, testified that he and people in his entourage survived the air mishap on Saturday because of an unusual prayer for him by the General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, Pastor Enoch Adeboye.

The Chopper conveying the Vice President crash landed in Kabba, Kogi State, on Saturday while on official assignment in the state.

Tbet Media Assistant to the Vice President, Olaolu Akande, in a statement, indicated that Vice President narrated: On Friday, we went to (RCCG) camp; usually, I attend our Holy Ghost service. We came in very late from Akwa Ibom State. In fact, we arrived just in time for the grace at the end of the service.

Thereafter, our daddy in the Lord, (G.O) Pastor Adeboye, wanted to speak to me. He asked me how things were going on, the campaign activities and all that, and I explained everything; what I was doing on the campaign trail and all of that, some of the challenges.

He then said, I am going to pray for you. He said a prayer that turned out to be very interesting because usually, as you know, he doesnt pray for long.

He said Lord God Almighty, I want you to protect this man. He said it three times and paused, then, he continued. You know how very dear he is to my heart. I want you to protect him.

Osinbajo remarked: I found it very funny that he repeated it several times and then he prayed for favour and other things. So, when the crash happened, immediately it dawned on me that the Lord God had led him to say that very special prayer. And the Lord God Almighty delivered us in accordance with His word that, even when 10,000 fall by our side, no harm whatsoever, will come near us.

I just want to thank the Almighty God for His grace and mercy that has been so abundant in my life and in all of our lives who are here.

People in the Chopper with the VP include Labour Minister, Stephen Ocheni, Femi Osinbajo, VPS elder brother; Babafemi Ojudu, Ambassador Abdullahi Gwary, Laolu Akande, Dr. Biodun Adelowo, Doyin Adetuberu and Ayoola Oladunni, the ADC.

This is my older brother, the same father, same mother. Our father passed on long ago, but our mother is alive. If both of us had lost our lives on the same day, that would have been an absolute tragedy, but God saved that from happening. We are truly grateful to the Almighty God and we bless the name of the Lord. And for all of you who are rejoicing with us today, your homes will be filled with rejoicing. You will not know tragedy, you will not know harm, all the days of your lives will be filled with rejoicing, Osinbajo declared
Justice Jide Falola of a High Court sitting in Ikirun, Osun State, has sentenced three armed robbers to death by hanging.

The convicts  Nuhu Jimoh, Ndubisi David and Aderibigbe Oluwasenu  are among the armed robbers who simultaneously attacked First Bank, Union Bank and Skye Bank located on the same street in Ikirun, and carted away with N7,486,300.00 from the banks.

During the attack which happened on February 12, 2016, about 32 persons lost their lives, including two policemen on duty.

On June 29, 2017, the accused persons were arraigned on a 10-count charge of conspiracy, armed robbery, murder, illegal possession of firearms and others contrary to Section 6(b), 1(1) & (2)(a) of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Act, Cap R11 L.F.N, 2004, Section 319 of the Criminal Code Law Cap 34 Laws of Osun State, 2002, and Section 3 of the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Act, Cap R11 L.F.N, 2004 respectively.

The prosecution counsel from the Ministry of Justice Barrister Biodun Badiora, in proof of the charge, called five witnesses and tendered about 30 exhibits.

The first defendant, Nuhu Jimoh, testified in his own defence, while the second and third defendant  Ndubisi David and Adeibigbe Ouwaseun, called three witnesses each, including themselves.

Justice Falola said that the prosecution counsel had proved his case beyond reasonable doubt and found them guilty.

The counsels to the convicts, Barrister Sunday Atofarati, and Ajibade Omoyajowo pleaded with the judge to tamper justice with mercy.

Justice Falola sentenced them to death by hanging. They also forfeited the guns recovered from them to the Nigeria Police as well as the money recovered to the Osun State government.

ALSO READ: Rivers University Lecturer Murdered Inside His House By Arm Robbers Who Knew Him
President Muhammadu Buhari may have on Monday responded to the rising insecurity and the associated tension in the country when he held a special meeting with Service Chiefs and the Inspector-General of Police at the State House, Abuja.

The meeting was said to be held at the council chamber. Details of the meeting were not disclosed but President Buhari had at the weekend assured that the Boko Haram terrorism in the northeast which has been tormenting residents of several communities will be terminated within some weeks.

Those at the meeting included the Chief of Defence of Staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin; Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant Tukur Yusuf Buratai; Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok Ekwe Ibas; Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar and Inspector General of Police, Mohammad Adamu.

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Authorities confirmed a shooting incident at a Red River, New Mexico, motorcycle event that resulted in at least three deaths and multiple injuries.

Mayor Linda Calhoun reported that five persons were injured, one of whom was evacuated to a Denver hospital by the New Mexico State Police on Saturday, according to CNN.

The Red River mayor and New Mexico State Police said that all shooters were caught, assuring public safety and securing the situation. According to Mayor Calhoun, the people involved have been recognized as part of motorcycle gangs.

The shooting incident happened during the Red River Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally, a yearly gathering of participants that fills Main Street in Red River during the Memorial Day holiday weekend.

According to the state police, other wounded people were sent to Holy Cross Hospital in Taos and the University of New Mexico Health in Albuquerque for medical care.

Mayor Calhoun praised law enforcement's quick action, with the first officer responding 30 seconds after getting the call. Additional officers from the New Mexico State Police have been sent to Red River to assist with the continuing inquiry.

Read Also: US Treasury Pushes Back Debt Ceiling Deadline

Investigation Underway

Mayor Calhoun underlined the need for a thorough investigation at the location of the crime and advised the public to refrain from the area of the shootout incident, which takes up most of Main Street.

Footage of the New Mexico shootout incident shows a lady attentively watching her surroundings next to a stopped pickup vehicle in the middle of traffic, according to TMZ. After hearing gunshots, she flees and crosses the road as a worried driver tells her to stay away.

Another clip shows people in a car filming the shooting's aftermath as ambulance vehicles, including a rescue truck with flashing lights, gather near a building as cyclists pass by.

#BREAKING: Shootout Erupts at Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally, Multiple People have been shot #Redriver | #NewMexico



Multiple authorities and emergency crews are on the scene to a mass shooting that occurred during a shootout, that took place during a pic.twitter.com/izdD69jj0n  SA911 (@JustdoitZee) May 28, 2023

Over 28,000 motorcyclists attended the Red River Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally, which drew a sizable crowd.

According to information provided by the Phoenix Field Division through Twitter, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is committing to assist the New Mexico State Police with their continuing investigation, per ABC News.

In a Sunday morning announcement, law enforcement officials revised the death toll from two to three.

Related Article: Bomb Threats in Target Utah Stores Amid LGBTQ Collection Backlash

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Muhammadu Sanusi

The Chief of Fulani in Nasarawa (Sarkin Fulan in Nasarawa) Senator Walid Jibrin has said that Emir Sanusi Muhammadu Lamido Sanusi II of Kano was treated like a common rat by the government of the State following his dethronement and banishment.

According to Jibrin, who is also a Second Republic lawmaker, issues that antecedents to Sanusis removal clearly showed that politics is ruining traditional institutions in the country.

This was contained in a statement on Thursday by Jubrin, who is the current Chairman, Board of Trustees (BOT), of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, where he called on the Senators to amend the 1999 Constitution to provide a strong procedure in removing Emirs, chiefs and other traditional rulers in the country.

Emir Sanusi, the traditional ruler of the highly respected traditional stool of Kano shouldnt have been treated like a rat as is being pursued, the traditional title holder added.

What happened in Kano recently where the governor within two hours only, dethroned the first-class emir and banned him to far away Nasarawa State is very disturbing.

Politics in Nigeria is fast ruining the highly respected traditional institutions in Nigeria.

I am therefore calling on more traditional title holders to participate in politics in order to protect the highly-respected institution.

Even the colonial masters couldnt have succeeded in ruling and managing Nigeria without the full involvement of traditional rulers.

It is very unfortunate that our current traditional rulers are only used as a fire brigade to solve conflicts.

As a traditional title holder, my primary aim of joining politics is to protect the integrity of traditional institutions.

In Nigeria, many governors involve traditional title holders to assist them in running the government.

Past governments could not have succeeded without bringing in some traditional title holders to assist them in running their governments.

May I, therefore, call on the respected Senate in their efforts to amend the 1999 Nigerian Constitution to provide a strong procedure of removing emirs, chiefs, igwes and obas, and equally give them official roles.
Magistrate court II sitting in Dutse has remanded two people who specialized in defrauding innocent people of their Automatic Teller Machine card in Jigawa State.

Those remanded include Abba Abubakar of Unguwar Muazu quarters in Kaduna State and Mohammed Mohammed of Unguwa Uku in Kano State.

Presenting the culprits to the court, the Prosecutor narrated that, the suspects were arrested in one of the Bank premises with 24 different ATM cards and 150 thousand Naira in their possession.

He said that the suspects were defrauding people that are unable to withdraw their money by exchanging the victims ATM card with the fake one after they have helped them.

The suspects admitted to have been defrauding people in Dutse, the capital city of the state.

Magistrate Muhammad Lamin Usman said the suspects were charged for conspiracy and fraud.

He ordered the suspects to be remanded in prison for one week for the final hearing of the case.
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BLOOMINGTON  The Salvation Army, 611 W. Washington St. in Bloomington, will host a fan distribution this week.

Seniors ages 60 and up and individuals with documented medical conditions may pick up a fan Tuesday, May 30, from 9 a.m. to noon, or Thursday, June 1, from 2 to 5 p.m.

The distribution will then open up to the general public from 9 a.m. to noon on Tuesday, June 6, and 2 to 5 p.m. Thursday, June 8.

Fans will be distributed between the Family Services building on Washington and the Safe Harbor Shelter on North Oak Street. Recipients are asked to enter the alley from Oak Street, heading west.

Recipients must present a photo ID and a piece of mail. Fans will only be given to those who did not receive one in 2022, due to quantity limitations.

Call 309-829-9476 for more information.

Donations to purchase more fans can be made at sabloomington.org.

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PEORIA  A former insurance company for Reditus Laboratories is asking a federal judge to declare it does not need to defend the company or former CEO Aaron Rossi in a lawsuit filed by Rossi's business partner.

At issue is litigation filed in February 2021 by Rossis business partner, Dr. James Davie of Texas-based Davie and Associates Dermatopathology. Davie accused Rossi of "pillaging" Reditus, which secured more than $220 million in state contracts for COVID testing, to fund his own lifestyle.

Last week, Capitol Specialty Insurance Corp. filed a complaint in federal court asking for a judgment declaring that the the insurer has no duty to defend or indemnify Rossi, Reditus, Davie or DAAD.

The company said it issued a policy to Reditus for the period from April 17, 2020, to April 17, 2021. Only Reditus was named as an insured party, but the company acknowledged that coverage extended to managing members.

However, it said, such coverage would only apply when the person was "acting within the capacity and scope of his or her duties on behalf of an Insured Entity." Davie alleges that Rossi sought to steal from Reditus and squeeze DAAD out of the business, conduct that the insurance company said was not within the "capacity and scope" of Rossi's role.

Further, the insurer said, the conduct alleged by Davie did not meet the criteria established for coverage in its policy  for instance, it did not involve patients or allegations of sexual misconduct.

The insurer said it must be notified in writing of any claims made against the insured parties no later than 60 days after the end of the policy period. While the lawsuit was filed against Reditus and Rossi on Feb. 2, 2021, the insurer said it first received notice on Jan. 13, 2023  636 days after the policy expired.

Additionally, the company said coverage is not provided under the policy for any claim made by one insured party against another, and the alleged wrongful acts took place before the policy's retroactive effective date.

In an unrelated case, Rossi is awaiting trial on federal charges of tax fraud and mail fraud. He has been accused of filing false tax returns in 2015, 2016 and 2017, and of using funds from his former employer, Central Illinois Orthopedic Surgery, for personal deliveries.
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BLOOMINGTON  The Illinois Soybean Association announced its 2023 class of summer interns.

The interns are five students representing Illinois State University and the University of Illinois. They will work with directors, managers and coordinators throughout the organization.

The interns include Ainsley Peterson, UIUC; Shelby Stoner, ISU; Mattie Lieb, ISU; Emma Peters, UIUC; and Anita Sharkey, ISU.

Peterson has a bachelor's degree in agricultural and consumer economics, and agricultural leadership, education and communications. She will serve the ISA Government Relations and Communications Department, assisting with Illinois Field & Bean magazine production, creating social media content and attending ASA board meetings and hill visits.

Stoner has a bachelor's degree in agronomy management and plans to pursue a master's in applied science with a focus in agronomy. She will support the ISA agronomy team by assisting with field days, crop reports and Soy Envoy content, and will help create blogs on the ILSoyAdvisor website.

Lieb is a senior at ISU studying agriculture communications and leadership, and plans to pursue a master's after her December graduation. She will join the ISA communications team and assist with creating social media content, Illinois Field & Bean magazine production, and press release development.

Peters is studying agriculture and consumer economics with a minor in animal science. She will work with the ISA market development and government relations teams, assisting with trade team visits, industry contact building and Farm Progress Show planning.

Sharkey is studying public relations and marketing. She will work with the ISA agronomy and communications teams, assisting with Illinois Field & Bean magazine production, agronomic-focused communications, ILSoyAdvisor media relations, and Soy Envoy content.

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Before State Farm entered the scene, the Paul F. Beich Candy Co. reigned as the largest employer in town, nationally known for making many sweet treats, including the famous Whiz Bar.

In 1919 the Pantagraph published an advertisement for "women and girls" encouraging them to fill open positions at Beich. "Making and packing candy is an agreeable occupation," it said. "It is easily learned and pleasant. Our plant is bright and airy, the surroundings of the best, one's associates congenial."

This ad went to print just a year after the conclusion of World War I and before the onset of the Great Depression  two catalysts to women joining the workforce.

For employers, there were many perceived benefits for hiring women. Women were considered cleaner and more capable of attention to detail, and their wages were almost always significantly lower than men's.

The jobs available for women at Beich were respectable, coveted positions and had the added benefit of union representation. Female workers belonged to the Bakers and Confectioners Union while male workers belonged to the Teamsters and International Machinists.

However, work wasn't always sweet for the female employees at Beich, and collective action through their union proved vital in advancing all workers' rights.

Women made less than their male counterparts and worked irregular hours, and some were only allotted one 10-minute break per nine-hour shift.

One female worker, Dora Giese, reported making 1 cent for every 24 candy bars she packed. Giese, who started working at the company at the age of 15 in 1934, was part of the union organizing efforts and eventually the strikes.

More of Gieses story is told in the Museums Working for a Living permanent exhibit.

On April 29, 1937, organized Beich workers walked out in protest of their working conditions. Of the 205 employees that walked out, 183 were women.

These workers banded together to request time-and-a-half pay for all work continuing beyond an eight-hour workday, a five-day workweek and an end to piecework (work paid for by the amount produced rather than hours worked).

On May 6, 1937, The Pantagraph seemed to side with their loyal advertiser, publishing a prepared statement outlining the Beich company's opposition to the request. It stated that the company previously offered wage increases, actively provided life insurance, and worked hard to keep people employed during periods of economic strife.

The workers opposed this claim, arguing that as production increased post-Depression, the working conditions became unreasonable and working hours increased without increases in breaks.

The company and unions agreed on a six-month contract on May 12, 1937, which lifted the strike. A closed shop agreement was granted in the contract, meaning that all workers were required to be part of the union.

The Bakers and Confectioners also received a wage increase, but there was still a disparity in their wages. The new minimum wage for women was 35 cents an hour, while the men received 45 cents per hour.

Both the men and the women would be granted a 1-cent increase each month over the next five months until they reached 50 and 40 cents per hour, respectively.

With the contract only guaranteed for six months, their victory was short-lived. During negotiations for the new contract, the company proposed reducing wages for women by 20% and revoking the closed shop agreement.

The union took immediate action, and approximately 300 workers walked off the job at noon on Dec. 11, 1937. Employees dropped what they were doing to head to the picket line, leaving the factory machines still running as fresh candy fell to the floor.

The strike continued into the new year, as pickets faced miserable conditions, sometimes standing in 5 inches of snow. Temperatures were frigid, dropping close to zero degrees several times throughout the strike.

Despite the difficult conditions, the pickets held the line.

On Jan. 18, the company posted a help-wanted ad in The Pantagraph. Stating that the plant would reopen, the ad served as a threat reading, "Those of its former employees who went on strike December 11 and also those who were laid off prior to that date and who have failed to apply for reinstatement will be considered as having decided not to return to the company employment, and their names will be permanently stricken from our records."

The striking workers remained steadfast, and the next day, Jan. 19, an estimated 450 workers and spectators showed up at the plant. The picketing women formed a human chain to block the factory's main entrance on Lumbar Street. This prevented applicants responding to the help-wanted advertisement from entering the building.

Their blockade was so strong that company President Otto G. Beich and Superintendent Albert Hale could not access the plant.

Despite the insistence of the striking workers, the company would not move on its refusal to allow a closed shop. This was the central sticking point between the unions and the company.

Wanting an end to the strike, Bloomington Mayor Mark B. Hayes called for a meeting with union and company leadership, saying, "The continued operation of the Paul F. Beich factory is of vital concern to all of the citizens of this community."

The mayor, the union, and the company met on Jan. 26, 1938, and after four hours of deliberation, the parties failed to reach a contractual agreement.

The offer presented to the workers was 35 cents an hour, a 48-hour workweek and an open shop. When representatives took the proposal back to the union for a vote, the results overwhelmingly favored continuing the strike, 145-15.

After another seven hours of deliberation, the strike ended on Feb. 2, 1938. All parties agreed to a 44-hour workweek and an eight-hour workday.

Men and women employed over six months were guaranteed a minimum wage of 50 and 37.5 cents, respectively. Most importantly to the workers, Bakers and Confectioners Local 342 was recognized as the sole collective bargaining agent for all employees involved in the manufacturing and production of candy.

The Beich strikes in 1937 and 1938 illustrate the significant role of women in the local labor movement. Despite their jobs and futures on the line, they steadfastly pursued justice and better working conditions for all.

Their local efforts contributed to the national labor movement, ensuring many of the benefits we take for granted today, such as weekends and lunch breaks. Although worker exploitation still exists in many industries today, we can learn a great deal about the power of collective action from the stories of these women.

After the strike, a reflection from writers at The Pantagraph read, "In the meantime, the Beich Strike is over. The lessons learned from it will, we hope, have a beneficial effect in future discussions between employers and their employees in Bloomington."

To learn more about the labor movement in Bloomington, visit blono-social-justice-tour.org or join the McLean County Museum of History for a free guided tour of downtown Bloomington's historical sites with local labor activist Mike Matejka at 5:30 p.m. June 1. To register for the tour, visit https://forms.gle/gKrPctGvVVhrChfs7.

Highlights of Pantagraph Collection at McLean County Museum of History
The Minority Caucus in Parliament has requested for the details of the judgement on James Gyakye Quayson, a former Assin North MP to be made available by June 7 before it can pass a vote on the presidents Chief Justice nominee, Justice Gertrude Torkornoo.



In a statement signed by Minority Chief Whip, Hon. Kwame Governs Agbodza, the Caucus refrained from passing a vote on the nominee after the Appointments Committee of Parliament met after vetting the Supreme Court Justice.



"It is important to state that the Appointments Committee not long ago in 2019 vetted and approved this same nominee as a justice of the Supreme Court. However, it was imperative for Members of the Minority on the Committee to evaluate the decisions of the nomince on all other cases, including the James Gyakye Quayson case since the vetting in 2019," he stated.





Read below full statement



MINORITY POSITION ON VETTING OF CHIEF JUSTICE NOMINEE



The Minority Members on the Appointments Committee of Parliament did not vote on the President's nominee for the position of Chief Justice today due to the unavailability of the reasoned judgement of the Supreme Court in the matter of Hon. James Gyakye Quayson.



It is important to state that the Appointments Committee not long ago in 2019 vetted and approved this same nominee as a justice of the Supreme Court. However, it was imperative for Members of the Minority on the Committee to evaluate the decisions of the nomince on all other cases, including the James Gyakye Quayson case since the vetting in 2019.



We successfully evaluated the nominee on all relevant criteria except the outstanding matter of James Gyakye Quayson which would enable us come to a decision. We expect the reasoned judgement of the court on this matter by 7th June, 2023 to finalise our decision.



We have duly communicated our challenge to our colleagues on the Majority side and expect their cooperation.



















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I have just seen a news report titled Really Sad What Politics can do to a fine mind.



In this report, Ex-President Mahama berates me for calling on him to stop taking Ex-Gratia. It is my view that, ex-President Mahama can show he means business with his pledge to scrap Ex-Gratia enjoyed by article 71 office holders if he will forego his own Ex-Gratia benefits



I used the term "ex gratitude loosely to refer to what is officially titled: Facilities, Privileges and Benefits for Article 71 office holders.



In his rebuttal, Mahama says what he collects is not Ex-Gratia but a monthly pension. But I take President Mahamas assertion that what he now takes is strictly, not Ex-Gratia, but a monthly Pension.



But President Mahama knows he does not just receive only some monthly pension.



The Article 71 entitlements or Facilities, Privileges and Benefits as enjoyed by an ex-President includes free fully furnished residence / or (40% of his salary in lieu), free fully furnished office, four staff paid by the state at the level of Deputy Minister, 24 hour security, four new chauffeur  driven vehicles changed every four years comprehensive insurance, two fully paid vacations with three other people every year, free water, free electricity, free telephone services, free medical and dental services.



The concern expressed by Ghanains has been about the burden on the taxpayer from this whole Article 71 perks, or Facilities, Privileges and Benefits. I wholly support a thorough review of this whole Article 71 burden.



So I fully endorse President Mahamas sentiments. I only asked him to show leadership by reviewing his own entitlements in the light of the burden these present to the taxpayer and his plan to scrap the Ex-Gratia.



Even if President Mahama disagrees with me, I am sad that he chose to lace his disagreement with insults to my person, by implying politics had caused me to lose my fine mind.



The last time other citizens commented on this same sentiments of President Mahama, he met them with similar insults, calling them Silly.



I urge President Mahama, that if he wants to be President of Ghana again, he should refrain from insulting citizens.



I assure him I am still his friend and I still have a fine mind.

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This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

The Neuzelle Kloster Brewery is looking to sell its powdered beer within around four months.

With its golden hue, bittersweet notes and frothy head, Stefan Fritsche's latest brew looks and tastes like any other beer.

But the revolutionary tipple, developed at Fritsche's brewery in the German town of Neuzelle, was made with just two ingredients: powder and water.

"Everyone can have their own home brewery" with his new invention, Fritsche told AFP at the premises near the border with Poland.

For now, the recipe finalized earlier this year is non-alcoholic and also contains no carbon dioxide, meaning it has no bubbles.

But Fritsche, 56, is also developing an alcoholic version and eventually planning to add bubbles to make it even more beer-like.

The main target market will be African and Asian countries, since a powder is far easier and cheaper to transport over long distances than bottles of beer.

But the product may not go down too smoothly at home in Germany, which has a 500-year-old purity law around beer known as the "Reinheitsgebot".

"We know that pilsner drinkers and craft beer enthusiasts, especially in Germany, will initially be skeptical about our product," the brewery admits on its website.

It is unclear whether the product could even be marketed as beer under the strict rules, which limit the ingredients to malt, hops, yeast and water.

Fritsche declines to reveal his recipe but argues that his invention is necessary in a world that needs sustainable solutions.

The brewer is still working with investors to roll out the powder commercially, but is hoping to start selling it within around four months.

Sustainable ambitions

The powdered format, developed with European laboratories over the past two years, makes the beverage 90 percent cheaper to export than traditional beer, he said.

The brewery believes that the powdered format, developed with European laboratories over the past two years, makes the beverage 90 percent cheaper to export than traditional beer.

"We want to become the first sustainable brewery in the world."

According to the Impact CO 2 carbon footprint calculator, packaging and transport account for 70 percent of the environmental impact of a liter (around two pints) of beer.

The powdered format also saves time, as laboratory production is faster than traditional brewing, which takes two months on average.

But German experts are skeptical about whether the idea will catch on.

Powdered beer is a "nice innovation", but "it will not endanger or even challenge our traditional breweries", said Benedikt Meier of the Bavarian Private Breweries Association.

The "Bier und Wir" brewers' association also has doubts.

"The enjoyment of beer is primarily about conviviality, as it is enjoyed in pubs, in your local, at a party or among friends and like-minded people," it said.

"A beer powder whose use focuses on preparation at home is not a serious alternative for this target group."

Previous attempts to market powdered beers have fallen flat.

In 2016, a Danish brewery announced the creation of four varieties of powder with different flavorsbut no trace of the project remains on its website.

And in 2014, US company Lipsmark made headlines with its hard-liquor sachets, but the product was banned in most states and then withdrawn before it even hit the shelves.

But Fritsche is determined that his product will succeed where others have failed.

"We want to go down a new path, so to speak... to make a real, normal and good-tasting beer out of powder," he said.

 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:

The South Col route used for the first ascent of Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, on May 29, 1953.

Seventy years ago, New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepali Tenzing Norgay Sherpa became the first humans to summit Everest on May 29, 1953.

The British expedition made the two men household names around the world and changed mountaineering forever.

Hundreds now climb the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak every year, fuelling concerns of overcrowding and pollution on the mountain.

AFP looks at the evolution of the Everest phenomenon.

What is the mountain called?

Initially known only to British mapmakers as Peak XV, the mountain was identified as the world's highest point in the 1850s and renamed in 1865 after Sir George Everest, a former Surveyor General of India.

On the border of Nepal and China and climbable from both sides, it is called Chomolungma or Qomolangma in Sherpa and Tibetan"goddess mother of the world"and Sagarmatha in Nepali, meaning "peak of the sky".

How has climbing Everest changed?

The 1953 expedition was the ninth attempt on the summit and it took 20 years for the first 600 people to climb it. Now that number can be expected in a single season, with climbers catered to by experienced guides and commercial expedition companies.

The months-long journey to the base camp was cut to eight days with the construction of a small mountain airstrip in 1964 in the town of Lukla, the gateway to the Everest region.

Gear is lighter, oxygen supplies are more readily available, and tracking devices make expeditions safer. Climbers today can summon a helicopter in case of emergency.

Every season, experienced Nepali guides set the route all the way to the summit for paying clients to follow.

But Billi Bierling of Himalayan Database, an archive of mountaineering expeditions, said some things remain similar: "They didn't go to the mountains much different than we do now. The Sherpas carried everything. The expedition style itself hasn't changed."

What is base camp like?

The starting point for climbs proper, Everest Base Camp was once little more than a collection of tents at 5,364 meters (17,598 feet), where climbers lived off canned foods.

Now fresh salads, baked goods and trendy coffee are available, with crackly conversations over bulky satellite phones replaced by wifi and Instagram posts.

The daily number of climbers who reached the summit of Mount Everest since the first successful climb in 1953.

How does the news of a summit travel?

Hillary and Tenzing summited Everest on May 29 but it only appeared in newspapers on June 2, the day of Queen Elizabeth's coronation: the news had to be brought down the mountain on foot to a telegraph station in the town of Namche Bazaar, to be relayed to the British Embassy in Kathmandu.

In 2011, British climber Kenton Cool tweeted from the summit with a 3G signal after his ninth successful ascent. More usually, walkie-talkie radios are standard expedition equipment and summiteers contact their base camp teams, who swiftly post on social media.

In 2020, China announced 5G connectivity at the Everest summit.

What are the effects of climate change?

Warming temperatures are slowly widening crevasses on the mountain and bringing running water to previously snowy slopes.

A 2018 study of Everest's Khumbu glacier indicated it was vulnerable to even minor atmospheric warming, with the temperature of shallow ice already close to melting point.

"The future of the Khumbu icefall is bleak," its principal investigator, glaciologist Duncan Quincey, told AFP. "The striking difference is the meltwater on the surface of the glaciers."

Three Nepali guides were killed on the formation this year when a chunk of falling glacial ice swept them into a deep crevasse.

It has become a popular cause for climbers to highlight, and expedition companies are starting to implement eco-friendly practices at their camps, such as solar power.

What is the impact of social media?

Click, post, repeatthe climbing season plays out on social media as excited mountaineers document their journey to Everest on Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms.

Hashtags keep their sponsors happy and the posts can catch the eyes of potential funders.

That applies to both foreign climbers and their now tech-savvy Nepali guides.

"Everyone posts nowadays, it is part of how we share and build our profile," said Lakpa Dendi Sherpa, who has summited Everest multiple times and has 62,000 Instagram followers.

Mountain of records?

Veteran Nepali guides Kami Rita Sherpa and Pasang Dawa Sherpa both scaled Everest twice this season, with the latter twice matching the former's record number of summits before Kami Rita reclaimed pole position with 28.

There are multiple Everest record categories for first and fastest feats of endurance.

But some precedents are more quixotic: in 2018, a team of British climbers, an Australian and a Nepali dressed in tuxedos and gowns for the world's highest dinner party at 7,056 meters on the mountain's Chinese side.

 2023 AFP
South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa has created a panel to look into claims made by the US that a Russian ship sailed to a naval base near Cape Town last year and transferred weapons. This was announced in a statement released by the president on Sunday, May 28.

"The President decided to establish the inquiry because of the seriousness of the allegations, the extent of public interest, and the impact of this matter on South Africa's international relations," as stated in a press release.

Report That Russian Ship Landed in Cape Town to Take Weaponry

While South Africa has refuted the allegations, US Ambassador Reuben Brigety claimed on May 11 that he was confident a Russian ship arrived at a military port in Simonstown in the Western Cape in December last year and had taken onboard weapons from South Africa.

According to NBC News, South Africa's non-aligned stance on the Ukraine crisis has been put into doubt in the wake of the allegations that sparked a diplomatic spat involving the nation, the US, and Russia.

Despite its claims of being impartial, South Africa has consistently voted against anti-war resolutions at the United Nations.

Reportedly, President Ramaphosa established the probe due to the severity of the claims, public interest, and the effect on South Africa's foreign relations.

Also Read: Russia Carries Out Largest Air Strike on Ukraine as Kyiv Honors Founding

President Appointed Three-Person Independent Team to Investigate

Judge Phineas Mojapelo, a former deputy judge president of Gauteng province, will preside over the three-person panel. Former evidence leader for a state corruption investigation Advocate Leah Gcabashe and former deputy minister of basic education Enver Surty make up the other two members. The committee has been given six weeks to complete its probe.

The terms of reference for the panel include determining who was aware of the cargo ship's presence, the goods that were loaded and off-loaded, and "whether constitutional, legal or other obligations were complied with in relation to the cargo ship's arrival."

A final report is scheduled to be sent to President Ramaphosa within two weeks after the conclusion of the probe.

"The panel will finalize its investigation within six weeks of its appointment and will be expected to submit its report to the president within two weeks of concluding its work ... The panel may request an extension of this time frame should it be necessary," the president's statement indicated.

If the study is completed on schedule, Bloomberg said it might be presented to the president before August's BRICs Summit in South Africa. The said event includes Russian President Vladimir Putin and is another political affair that could undermine the rand currency.

Also Read: Heavy Bombardment Happens in Ukraine After Russia Attacked Dnipro Medical Facility, Killing 2, Injuring Dozens

@ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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A state inspector generals report raises concerns over the workers compensation lost wage benefits available to corrections officers, a provision the watchdog says appears to have created a strong motivation for fraud.

The report, released last week, followed hundreds of complaints submitted to the state inspector generals office accusing corrections officers of abusing the lost wage benefits, which are available to employees who sustain a work-related injury.

Under the contract that recently expired, corrections officers may receive up to six months of full pay from the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision for an injury or illness that occurred in the workplace. The officers do not have to use leave time or other pay through the state Insurance Fund to obtain the benefits.

The inspector generals review found that the generous workers compensation benefits may be contributing to staffing shortages at state prisons. Over a seven-year period, an average of one in three corrections officers at 10% of prisons filed a workers compensation claim.

In the 2020-21 fiscal year, DOCCS covered nearly 1.8 million hours of staff time due to workers compensation absences  a 61% increase over a 10-year period and a 9% increase compared to the prior fiscal year, according to the report. The inquiry also found that about two out of three workers compensation claims submitted by corrections officers in the 2019-20 fiscal year were for injuries unrelated to contact with an incarcerated individual.

Not only have these increases brought with them a dramatic rise in spending for overtime, but also a dramatic decrease in morale for those officers compelled to perform it, the inspector generals office wrote in its report.

The apparent problem is ongoing. According to the inspector generals findings, eight prisons had 10% or more of their security staff on workers compensation leave. Three facilities had 17% of security staff on leave. Most of the claims  about 70%  were for injuries unrelated to contact with incarcerated individuals.

Inspector General Lucy Lang has directed the attorney-in-charge of workers compensation fraud and the attorney-in-charge of DOCCS matters to review the workers compensation-fueled staffing crisis to determine the extent of any potential fraud and to identify possible underlying causes.

My office is committed to identifying systemic failures that compromise state governments ability to serve vulnerable New Yorkers, Lang said. Our report highlights the volume of workers compensation abuse that has occurred under the existing incentive structure of the labor contract. We will continue to do our part to ferret out fraud and encourage anyone with information to reach us at 1-800-DO RIGHT.

The inspector generals office acknowledges the dangers of working as a corrections officer. A record number of assaults on staff were reported in 2022 and violence has been increasing in state prisons over the past decade. While the agency says it does not seek to impugn the integrity of hardworking and dedicated public servants who are legitimately injured at work, it adds that workers compensation claims made by corrections officers dwarf those of other security personnel.

The timing of the reports release is also noteworthy. The unions representing state corrections officers are negotiating a new contract. With those talks ongoing, the inspector generals office recommends that the state Office of Employee Relations modify the lost wage benefit in the new contract.
Nearly three-quarters of more than 100 law enforcement agencies across much of the U.S. don't reflect the racial makeup of their communities, data supplied by the departments to Lee Enterprises shows.

As part of a seven-month investigation by Lee and Type Investigations, agencies were ranked based on the gap between the proportion of officers and leadership in the agency who identify as people of color and the percentage of people of color in the communities they serve.

Lee reporters sent surveys to more than 170 law enforcement agencies and then zeroed in on "diverse" communities, defined in this research as places where at least 10 percent of the residents are non-white.

Of 105 agencies that provided demographic data and served diverse communities, 76 underrepresented the percentages of people of color in their communities by 10 points or more. Some had gaps of more than 30 percentage points.

Diversity underrepresentation in policing Data gathered from October 2022 to May 2023 from nearly 120 law enforcement agencies in 14 states shows frequent disparity in the racial and ethnic makeup of the agencies compared to the communities they are hired to protect and serve.

Data gathered from October 2022 to May 2023 from nearly 120 law enforcement agencies in 14 states shows frequent disparity in the racial and ethnic makeup of the agencies compared to the communities they are hired to protect and serve.

These are among several key observations drawn from data submitted by state and local law enforcement agencies largely in the Midwest and East, near areas where Lee properties are based. The data show that thousands of people of color live in communities where the force looks nothing like them, despite calls for increased law enforcement diversity that echoed through U.S. streets three years ago following the murder of George Floyd.

Twenty of the 105 agencies serving diverse communities have no people of color or only one such person on the force.

Also, in nearly half of the 93 agencies serving diverse communities that gave data on leadership, there were either zero or only one person of color in leadership.

Why police diversity matters

Experts within and outside law enforcement say the continued representation gap  the subject of discussions that go back decades  underscores existential questions about how police protect and serve people of color.

A study released in November by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that collected data in 2020 about interactions with police over the previous year showed that Black people were three times more likely than white people  6 percent vs. 2 percent  to have experienced the threat of force or use of nonfatal force during their most recent police contact.

The report also showed that during that time frame, Black people had the highest likelihood of experiencing any type of police misconduct (5%), more than double that of white people and Hispanic people combined.

While improving diversity doesnt solve issues like excessive force or biased policing, it can begin to cause a shift.

The more diverse we are as it relates to race and ethnicity, the more diverse we are also in life experiences, which helps agencies to better inform policies, also better inform their training, and better inform their support systems as well, said Darryl McSwain, chief of the Maryland-National Capital Park Police force and a 2021 finalist for the post of top cop in Lincoln, Nebraska. So I think that's why it's so crucial that we continue to diversify.

Most agencies surveyed underrepresent communities of color

The Lee law enforcement survey is an update and expansion of a similar effort launched in the Midwest in the summer of 2020 as the nation was reeling from weeks of protests after Derek Chauvin, a white then-police officer in Minneapolis, pressed his knee to the neck of Floyd for more than 9 minutes, according to prosecutors who won a murder conviction against Chauvin.

For the current investigation, police and sheriffs departments along with state patrols in more than a dozen states responded to a two-page survey seeking data on topics including the demographic breakdown of the sworn personnel and leadership, the use of body and dashboard cameras, and the number of racial profiling and excessive force complaints.

Nearly 120 agencies provided demographic information on race and ethnicity. Most also provided information on the gender breakdown of the department. In 14 of the communities, people of color  identifying as Black, Hispanic/Latinx, Native American/First Nation and Asian American/Pacific Islander  made up less than 10 percent of the population served. Not surprisingly, the law enforcement agencies there were all or largely white.

Lee also received demographic data from 105 agencies serving diverse areas based on 2020 U.S Census data, which Lee also used to draw comparisons with their respective police-force demographics:

Seventy-six of the 105 agencies, or about 72 percent, underrepresented their communities of color by 10 percentage points or more. In Martinsville, Virginia, more than half of the community  roughly 57 percent  was composed of people of color, while people of color accounted for about 12 percent of the force. The largest agency to respond to the survey was the 4,741-member New York State Police. People of color made up about 45 percent of the population in the departments jurisdiction and 12 percent of the force  a gap of 33 percentage points.

Twenty-eight departments came within 10 percentage points of matching the diversity levels of their communities. They range in size from the seven-member Hebron Police Department in Indiana to the 488-member police department in Madison, Wisconsin.

In Hebron, about 12 percent of the population and 14 percent of the force were people of color. In Wisconsins capital, 28 percent of the community and 23 percent of the force were made up of people of color.

As a group, the 119 agencies  police departments, sheriffs offices and state police  that supplied diversity data appear to skew whiter than local law enforcement across the U.S. overall. This is based on part- and full-time personnel numbers provided by the 119 agencies compared with the latest law enforcement demographics for full-time personnel collected by the Department of Justice in 2020.

In the 82 police departments in the group, nearly 79 percent of sworn members identified as white versus about 69 percent of full-time sworn officers in local police departments in 2020.

Lee found similar disparities among the 31 sheriffs departments in the group. Eighty-seven percent of sworn members identified as white, 16 percentage points greater than the roughly 71 percent of full-time sworn officers in sheriffs departments nationwide who identified as white in 2020, according to the DOJ.

So what do all these numbers mean?

In Martinsville, Virginia, which describes itself as a city without limits, the lack of diversity on its police force has not gone unnoticed. Of a force of 41 sworn members, the Martinsville police department has four Black officers and one Hispanic officer, said Maj. Chad Rhoads, part of the department's leadership team.

I certainly do acknowledge the gap, Rhoads, who is part of the department's leadership team, said. It's certainly not representative of the community, but we want to get it there. But it's just something that we've always struggled with.

Rhoads said the department tried attending job fairs at nearby historically Black colleges and universities but got no applicants, a problem it has experienced at college job fairs in general. He said the department does not have a specific program to recruit people of color. It relies on grassroots efforts including using school resource officers to forge connections with students.

Of course, Martinsville is far from the only city with a force that does not reflect the population. Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith, a police trainer and spokesperson for the National Police Association, an educational and advocacy group, links the quest for diversity to law enforcements challenge of attracting applicants overall.

Since 2020, American law enforcement, we, have (had) a very difficult time just recruiting and retaining police officers of any race and any gender, said Brantner Smith, who was a police officer for 29 years beginning in 1980. So right now, as a country  we're just trying to get people to come to the law enforcement profession. People are leaving in record numbers. They are leaving prior to receiving their retirement, and its becoming a real crisis.

Departments are increasing their use of technology and social media and beginning to recruit more broadly to boost ranks, Brantner Smith said, but whether we're talking post-George Floyd or we're talking in general, not everyone is attracted to this profession.

Call for police diversity reaches zenith after George Floyd's death

Long before Floyds murder sent thousands of protesters into the streets, community activists and private citizens had called for a more just and representative law enforcement system.

That chorus reached a crescendo after Floyds Memorial Day 2020 murder and included a 21 pillar proposal outlined in 2021 by the National Urban League, which, among other demands, called on communities and law enforcement leadership to increase diversity and equity in both the leadership and ranks of local, state and federal law enforcement.

Most law enforcement leaders and experts interviewed for this story listed similar reasons to push for more diversity in police forces, including helping to establish better relations with diverse communities and having role models who can attract other diverse candidates.

If we want to have a relationship with our community, and we want our community to be a part of this ecosystem of public safety, then we want our police force to be reflective of the communities that we're in, said Regina Holloway, vice president of community impact for Axon, maker of equipment for law enforcement, notably Tasers and cameras.

I think it's not impossible by any stretch. We want all officers to be equitable across the board, but I do think that there's this opportunity for an officer of color  a Black officer, a brown officer  to have lived experience that they can relate to community members that are having challenges around public safety, challenges in the community, right? There's going to be a kinship there, possibly, that will create a deeper relationship at the on-site of that interaction.

She referred to a study of the Chicago Police Department, published in Science magazine, examining data on officer demographics and behavior from 2012-2015 that found that when compared with white officers, Black and Hispanic officers made far fewer stops and arrests and used force less often, especially against Black civilians.

What we know is that Black and brown officers are less likely to stop people for low-level offenses, Holloway added. And they're less likely to have sort of these negative interactions with community.

High-profile deaths in 2023 fuel debate over 'biased culture'

That assertion fueled major debates earlier this year in two highly publicized deaths of Black citizens following interactions with law enforcement members, most of whom were people of color.

In late April, the family of Tyre Nichols filed a $550 million federal lawsuit against the city of Memphis, the citys police department, and what the suit described as unqualified, untrained and unsupervised officers who severely beat the 29-year-old Black man after a traffic stop and brief foot chase Jan. 7, according to news reports and video that was later shared with the public. He was hospitalized and died three days later.

Five former Memphis police officers  all Black  were fired within weeks of the incident. Each faces multiple charges, including second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression, according to news reports.

In Virginia, in a death that conjured images of Floyd pinned beneath Chauvins knee, Henrico County deputy sheriffs piled onto Irvo Otieno, a 28-year-old Black man in shackles suffering a mental health crisis, as he was being admitted to Central State Hospital. He died of asphyxiation, a medical examiner found.

Otieno, whose family said he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, died March 6 while in custody of the Henrico County Sheriffs Office.

Hospital video shows the group pinning him down for close to 12 minutes, and theres no audio. The sheriffs office told Lee it does not use body cameras.

Of the seven sheriff's deputies charged with second-degree murder in the case, five are Black, two are white. In fact, Henrico County's sheriff's office was among the most-diverse departments in the Lee survey when compared to the population of the county. People of color made up 49 percent of the population and about 68 percent of the force, for an overrepresentation of nearly 20 percentage points.

In the Nichols case, Benjamin Crump, a noted civil rights attorney representing the Nichols family, told ABC News that he believes Nichols was a victim of an implicit bias police culture that exists in America.

Crump said Nicholss death occurred despite recent police reform in Memphis because of the institutionalized police culture that makes it somehow allowed that they can use this type of excessive force and brutality against people of color. And it doesn't matter if the officers are Black, Hispanic, or white. Its part of the culture, this biased culture that said this is allowed.

Leaders seek change, professionalism and better data

Attempts to steer departmental culture in a more inclusive direction often fall to the chief or sheriff. It can be a daunting task regardless of their ethnicity.

Jamal A. Simington, chief of the Bloomington Police Department in Illinois, identifies as African American and is the only person of color in leadership in his 123-member department, with less than 10 percent of the force composed of people of color. Thats in a community where 27 percent of residents are people of color.

Simington, who said he has been called the N-word and Uncle Tom, thinks leaders must foster and model a culture of professionalism regardless of race.

You need the representation with high levels of professionalism, said Simington, who was drawn to law enforcement by family members who served. When asked about the roles of officers of color in the deaths of Otieno and Nichols, Simington said, It does reflect horrible on the badge. It tarnishes everything we stand for, right? It's supposed to be a noble occupation. So the nobility comes from our capability and our mindset on how to treat people [in a way thats] fair and appropriate. That's if you're a person of color or not.

There has been limited research on the role of officers' race on their interactions with citizens.

The latest report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics on encounters with police did not list the race of the officers involved.

A database by the Washington Post tracking fatal police shootings since 2015 shows that Black Americans, who account for about 14 percent of the population, are killed by police at more than twice the rate of white Americans. The database also does not list the race of officers.

The Lee survey asked agencies to share numbers for excessive force and racial profiling complaints logged between 2017 and 2022. More than 100 responded. Some declined to provide data or suggested other sources for it. Thirty-nine agencies surveyed said they had no complaints fitting in either category in any of those years. There is also variation in how each agency categorizes complaints. Some responded with numbers for allegations described in broader terms such as "biased policing and use of force.

The Greensboro Police Department in North Carolina, which is nearly 70 percent white in a community that is less than 40 percent white, had 121 biased-based policing allegations, including bias other than race, between 2017 and 2022. It also had 14 allegations of excessive force during that same period. Allegations are not always sustained by the department once investigated. In an email, the department said its investigations found that three of four allegations of excessive force were found to be valid in 2021-22, and no allegations of biased policing initiated by citizens were sustained in that period.

Stephanie Mardis is captain of the Greensboro Police Departments Professional Standards Division, which handles matters related to internal affairs. She told Lee she recognizes the need for improving diversity in the departments ranks.

Having a force that was more representative of the community may not necessarily mean that our complaints will decrease, she said. It may not necessarily mean that we will have less use of force, but on its face, if a police department reflects the community in itself, it inherently gains trust with people from all walks of life.

The department gives the public access each year to its complaint numbers via an annual report; however, it does not list the race or ethnicity of the officer.

Tracie L. Keesee is COO, president and co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity, which uses data and science to help law enforcement look at harm reduction when it comes to issues of race and reimagine public safety in a way that centers community.

She feels there should be more robust, peer-reviewed studies that look closely at the differences in negative outcomes for people of color when interacting with diverse vs. non-diverse departments.

The science is so scant, she said.

For starters, Keesee said, law enforcement agencies need to better track both the diversity of their members and how they interact with citizens. We want law enforcement departments to start collecting data appropriately, and we want to make it available to everyone so we can do exactly what you're talking about, she added. So we can look at and be able to try to begin to answer those questions."

Lee Enterprises reporters Alison Burdo, Lauren Cross, Lizzie Kaboski , Analisa Trofimuk and Patrick Wilson contributed to this report. Research by Emma Davis of Type Investigations. Karen Robinson-Jacobs is a member of the Lee Public Service Journalism team and a Type Investigations reporting fellow. 
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WILDWOOD  Cape May County has no cannabis dispensary, although it seems inevitable that one will open eventually.

When it does, it will not open in Wildwood, which like many beach towns has opted out of allowing cannabis sales in the community, and out of the chance to charge an additional local tax on weed sales.

Which has led to some surprise and confusion with the opening of Kannavis Botanicals on New Jersey Avenue, with images of a familiar spiky leaf on the sign and Licensed marked under the name.

The business is licensed by the state to sell hemp and hemp-derived products, not cannabis, a distinction that has more to do with legal definitions than with plant biology. Both are from the buds of the same plant, but hemp, by definition, has less than 0.3% of THC, the chemical in marijuana that gets you high.

Many cannabis dispensary strains boast THC concentrations of more than 20%.

But that distinction gets blurrier still with the assurance from Dill Nelson, who owns Kannavis with her husband, Ken, that if you smoke their hemp, you will feel it. As Ken Nelson explains it, the process of burning the hemp flowers changes the nature of other cannabinoids in the plant.

Atlantic City enters era of green investment ATLANTIC CITY  Christina Casile stands in the lobby of Design 710 at 112 Park Place, the la

Once you light it, it changes, he said.

Then its game on, added Dill Nelson.

The New York Avenue shop is their third location in Wildwood. The first opened on the Boardwalk in 2020, a tough time for any new business, and there is also a location on Pacific Avenue. The other locations remain open, and the New Jersey Avenue site opened April 20, often described as a weed holiday for its connection to 420, which has become cannabis culture slang for consumption.

This shop is in a former bank, with a drive-through in operation. The hemp and hemp products are dispensed from the old teller stations, while lighted boards show the available strains and their relative potency, much like one of the cannabis dispensaries.

The buds available for purchase at the shop are indistinguishable, by sight or smell, from the cannabis sold at a licensed dispensary, or for that matter from weed bought on the still-thriving underground market.

Presumably, a lab test could find a difference, or an experienced smoker. Ken Nelson has compared the difference between hemp and dispensary cannabis as similar to the difference between beer and whiskey, with one offering a much stronger impact.

Legal Pot Is More Potent Than Ever  And Still Largely Unregulated As marijuana has become far more mainstream, potent, and sometimes dangerous, uneven regulation at the state and federal levels leaves consumers at risk.

Its an option for somebody who does not have the $60 or $70 to spend on an eighth at a dispensary, he said. An eighth of an ounce is close to 3.5 grams, which is a standard measurement of sale at licensed dispensaries. Kannavis offers 5 grams of a hemp flower called Sour Haze for $20, or $5 for a single gram, which would be enough to roll about three cigarettes.

The store also offers gummies and other edibles, as well as a barbecue sauce. Several of the products in the store included the label Contains THC.

The store has raised concerns in Wildwood, enough so that the municipal government issued a news release this year stating that they were selling hemp, not marijuana.

These stores are not selling anything with THC in it, part of the release states. The products could be legally sold in a vitamin store, for instance.

The Wildwood Board of Commissioners had an appearance from the Kannavis store on the agenda for its Wednesday meeting, with a request for the owners to explain their business plan.

The name of the business, which Nelson described as Greek for hemp, and the mention of a license on the sign created confusion, said Mayor Pete Byron. The city wanted to let the public know it did not issue any licenses.

Scooby doobie don't: Discarded joints pose hazards for dogs Veterinarians are growing alarmed by an apparent rise in marijuana poisonings among dogs that ingest discarded joints and edibles on city sidewalks.

Honestly, as long as its not illegal, theres nothing we can do about it, Byron said.

Nelson said his business does have a license, from the New Jersey Department of Agriculture. That means he gets an annual inspection, he said, and has to comply with other regulations that do not impact other Boardwalk stores or vape shops that offer hemp-derived products like CBD and Delta 8.

No one from the Department of Agriculture responded to requests for an interview for this story. A spokesperson for the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission, the agency that issues licenses to the now-legal cannabis dispensaries, said the CRC does not regulate hemp-derived products, and directed questions to the Department of Agriculture.

As many have pointed out, hemp has been used for clothing, food and in manufacturing for thousands of years. Its the same species of plant as marijuana, and for decades, that kept hemp products off American shelves.

In 2001, early in President George W. Bushs administration, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration cracked down on hemp in foods, from cereals to granola bars to protein powders, even though the seeds that were used did not contain enough THC to possibly have an effect.

A federal court later rejected that effort, and in 2018, a federal farm bill made clear that hemp with under 0.3% THC was as legal as apples or any other agricultural product.

Brittney Griner gets emotional discussing Russian detainment Brittney Griner got emotional quickly while speaking to reporters for the first time since her nearly 10-month detainment in Russia on drug-related charges. The WNBA star had to take a moment to compose herself after being asked about her resiliency through the ordeal. Griner's first news conference drew more than 100 people, including Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, members of the Phoenix Mercury organization and her wife, Cherelle.

That cleared the way for products containing CBD, another part of the plant, to be sold across the country so long as it was derived from hemp. Proponents say CBD has anti-inflammatory properties and other benefits.

But the DEA says THC Delta 8 and its cousin THC Delta 9 are not hemp, but instead are schedule 1 drugs, just like marijuana. The DEA has proposed changes to federal drug laws that would take Delta 8 off the shelf, and 14 states have issued an outright ban.

The potential for a legislative change that could upend his business keeps Nelson worried, he said. He added he is phasing out Delta 8 products, instead using more products that use the entire hemp flower.

Delta 8 appears in nature, but only in very small quantities. It is concentrated from hemp plants to reach effective levels.

Scott Rudder, with the industry group the New Jersey CannaBusiness Association, described hemp as a useful and beneficial plant, but he expressed concerns about the sale of products containing Delta 8 and other potential intoxicants, insisting it is not just because they are taking sales from association members.

Most of the products being sold are not tested, and consumers may have little information about what they are buying. In some instances, someone may think it is similar to CBD, which may or may not have a mild, calming influence like a cup of chamomile tea, and instead find themselves feeling intoxicated behind the wheel.

When you see these products being sold at gas stations and at convenience stores, theres a good chance that most of those products have not gone through a testing process, he said.

In many instances, he said, there appears to be little care to ensure only those over 21 are buying the products, he added.

At a recent open house at the new Wildwood location, a local classic rock station blasted Tom Petty in the parking lot while staff offered samples of hot sauce, presumably infused hot sauce. Nelson said he remains scrupulous about checking IDs and will not sell anything to someone under 21.
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ATLANTIC CITY  Jeff and Lisa Ronca exchanged looks several times Saturday.

As they peered into the mass of music fans in front of the main stage, somewhere in the middle of the crowd was their 15-year-old daughter, Bella, having the time of her life seeing one of her favorite bands, Beach Bunny, perform.

They saw their younger selves in that crowd.

About 25 years ago, the Roncas werent much older than their daughter is now when they were watching Blink-182 perform.

The Roncas joined Bella in the pit Saturday night for Jimmy Eat World and were ready to dance among the crowd again Sunday when Blink-182 headlined the two-day Adjacent Festival on the beach.

Saturday was her day, and Sunday will be ours, said Jeff Ronca, 46, of Brigantine. Ive seen (Blink-182) since I was in high school, and now Im bringing my daughter, who is in high school, to the same concerts.

Lisa said they began taking their daughter to these concerts at a young age. She laughed at how all of Bellas teachers at Egg Harbor Township High School thought it was so cool she was going to see some of the music they also grew up on.

Thats what the weekend was for many in attendance. About 20,000 people filled the beach Saturday, with another 20,000 coming out Sunday, according to public relations specialist Ike Richman. Alternative rock band Paramore headlined the first night, with Blink-182, whose music blared from many teenagers car stereos in the 1990s and 2000s, on tap for Sunday night.

Adjacent was a part of a busy Memorial Day weekend in the city, kicking off the summer tourism season. It was supposed to be the second big outdoor music festival of the year in the resort. But the first, Bamboozle, scheduled for May 5-7 at Bader Field, was canceled after city officials said its organizers failed to do everything needed to secure permitting. No major incidents or police transports were reported through Sunday afternoon, according to city public information officer Andrew Kramer.

Mayor Marty Small Sr. said in a statement Sunday the city should be in store for an epic season after seeing the success of this weekend.

The Adjacent Festival brought in massive crowds to our world famous beach, and trust me when I say this is just the beginning, Small said. Once again, well be Live, Lit and Outside in Atlantic City all summer long. I just want to give kudos to our law enforcement and all public safety personnel who did a tremendous job keeping everyone safe this weekend. Thats why they are the best at what they do.

The nostalgia runs deep

Joe Cocola and Kali Mortwood came from San Diego to sit on the Atlantic City beach, look out at the ocean and listen to music.

On Saturday, huddled under an umbrella to shade themselves, they enjoyed looking at the crowd and seeing the different generations of fans as they waited for the arrival of their friend, Eric Watts, 35, who grew up in Garfield, Bergen County.

Excited to see Andrew McMahon and the Wilderness on Saturday and Blink-182 on Sunday, they were happy that a lot of the bands they listened to as teenagers are still around.

PHOTOS Day 2 of the Adjacent Festival in Atlantic City

You see a lot of people with their families here, sharing that music with the younger ones, said Cocola, 34, who is originally from North Jersey.

McMahon has been well-known since the late 1990s with the band Something Corporate. He also is known for his solo project, Jacks Mannequin, that was big from 2004-2012.

Blink-182 became a smash hit with the 1998 album Enema of the State, which features their anthem All the Small Things. The Roncas were excited to see the original Blink lineup back on stage with the return of vocalist and guitarist Tom DeLonge.

Brittany Mills and Shawn Wood, of Wilmington, Delaware, dug themselves a nice little lounge area in the sand just outside the thick of the crowd in front of the main stage. They were ready to listen to Beach Bunny, a newer group that went viral with the hit song Prom Queen on TikTok in 2018.

The couple only planned to attend Saturday, mainly to watch Paramore. Mills, now 31, said they were there for her 19-year-old self, while Wood grew up listening to a wide variety of music, not just the genres that played the festival.

This is old person music now, Mills joked, saying that her daughter listens to a lot of that music now.

When we were kids, we wouldnt dream of listening to our parents music, Wood added. But kids from our generation are listening to this kind of music. Its transcending generations.

Cocola and Mortwood, the visitors from San Diego, remember watching Long Island, New York, rocker Jeff Rosenstock, who performed early Saturday on the main stage, play at VFWs in the 1990s.

The nostalgia runs deep, Cocola said. Its powerful, nostalgia, and Im here for all of it.

Cooperative weather

Three stages were set up along the beach. Shortly past the general admission entrance at Kentucky Avenue were two stages  the Boot Stage and Thimble Stage. Keeping with the Monopoly board theme, the main stage was dubbed the Top Hat Stage and was backed up against the north side of the Playground Pier.

Single-day tickets started at $189 for more than 11 hours of music. Two-day packages started at $359. Many concert-goers said it was a great price for the festival, especially when comparing those prices to just seeing some of the major acts like Blink-182 and Paramore.

Jim Rude, 38, from the Poconos, and Ryan Collins, 39, of Easton, made the trek from Pennsylvania with a group of friends. Though they were happy with the price point, it still wasnt $30 for Warped Tour, Rude said shortly after checking out I Am the Avalanche on one of the smaller stages Saturday afternoon.

We got stupid lucky with the weather, Rude added.

There was plenty of room between the stage areas for people to enjoy the beach, get refreshments and wander. Many found spots along the surf, enjoying a beach day in the 70-degree weather while listening to the music emanating from the stages on either end. It was more overcast Sunday with temps in the high 60s during the day.

We just came by from listening to a couple bands over there (at the smaller stages) and migrating our way to the main stage, said Bryan Maganan, 23, of Rockland County, New York, who found a nice spot along the water with Gabby Cabral, 21, on Saturday.

Maganan had never been to Atlantic City, but Cabral came to the resort for the Warped Tour in 2019.

This is the perfect way to start off the summer season, the relaxation and enjoying music with friends, Cabral added.

Mills and Wood, still lounging in their sand hole, found some enjoyment in people watching. Mills joked that much of the crowd didnt look like they were beach people.

A lot of people dressed in their Doc Martens boots like theyre going to an underground concert, said Wood, 29.

Few tried the cold water, some only dipping their toes in the ocean. Atlantic City Beach Patrol lifeguards were on duty for anyone who went in.

This is definitely my first time out in the sun this much in quite a long time, Mortwood joked. San Diego goes through a May grey, and then a blue June.

Ingrid Sitner, 27, of Staten Island, New York, wasnt deterred by the cold water. She had just gotten done taking a dip when she and Luca Lombardo, 27, decided to cuddle up by the ocean and listen to Rosenstock from the main stage Saturday.

It was about as cold as I expected, Sitner said.

The two have been to several music festivals, but this was the first time Lombardo went to one on the beach, he said.

Its a little different from the hard ground, thats for sure, Lombardo said.

Sitner wished the weekend had more of a festival atmosphere with more food options, games and merchandise.

But were having a great time, she added.

Across the generations

The Roncas, of Brigantine, were at the festival with their daughter Saturday and made their way back to the beach Sunday afternoon, ready to be front and center for Blink-182. Jeff Ronca praised the city and the event organizers for a fun-filled weekend.

They hoped Blink-182 would put on a performance, much like one of the bands hits, that could ask the elder Roncas, Whats My Age Again?

Seeing all ages come together and discovering new bands, Jeff said, and sharing the music that we grew up with the next generation while discovering new music from groups we have never heard of is the best part of the festival.

Adjacent Music Festival in Atlantic City
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"Taco Tuesday" has become such a wildly popular catchphrase that it's probably uttered millions of times a week in homes across America.

The roots of the phrase can be traced back to the Jersey Shore and Gregory's Bar and Restaurant more than 40 years ago.

Now, an effort by Taco Bell to claim the phrase for all people  and so the chain can use it in advertising  has rekindled that story.

The bar owns the trademark to the phrase in New Jersey. Taco John's, a Wyoming-based eatery, holds the trademark everywhere else in the country.

Taco Bell's argument is that anyone should be able to use the phrase. Not letting them do so is like "depriving the world of sunshine itself," the company claims.

While the legal battle looms, Gregory's has enjoyed another moment in that sunshine in terms of media coverage:

Owner Greg Gregory told the Wall Street Journal the bar's salsa recipe was taken from a recipe published in Playboy magazine.

Gregory also said he created the night to stay ahead of the competition, including a rival bar that promoted a "Drink and Drown Wednesday."

He may have been referring to a December 1979 promotion for a competitor's "Drink and Drown week," (a worse promotion, if you ask us, in terms of personal and public health).

A review of The Press' archives turned up a few "other" nights that didn't have the staying power of Taco Tuesday, like:

"Won Ton Wednesday," another Gregory's promotion that coincided with Taco Tuesday in the '80s.

An Atlantic City bar's weekly "Steak-on-a-Stick" special.

Early returns on Taco Tuesday weren't clear that the night would last, but soon it became a hit and the bar has made more than 2 million tacos since.
Civic workers found the body of the girl infant when they were clearing waste near the hospital

By: Ankit Shukla

A newborn was found dead in the garbage bin placed near the main gate of the Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital (YCMH) in Pimpri. The incident came to light at 10 am on Saturday when some civic workers were clearing garbage.

Workers Sushil Damodar Bhalerao, Rangnath Mahamuli and Dushya found the dead female infant in garbage.

Bhalerao told Mirror, We were on our daily routine. We were clearing garbage around the overflowing bin in the area. We saw the body of a female infant.

I immediately informed our seniors, who alerted the authorities. Later, the police investigated the matter, added Bhalerao.

Mohan Waghmore, sanitary staff supervisor, YCM Hospital, told Mirror, Cleaners informed us about the incident. I intimated the matter to Rajendra N Wabale, the dean of the hospital, and police officials. Police took the body in their custody for postmortem and are probing the matter further.

Rajendra Wabale, dean, YCMH, said, A 6-7 month premature infant was found dead in the dustbin. The police have checked CCTV footage. They are investigating the case. There are a few suspects. CCTV cameras are installed at the out gate for MRI and blood bank. Hoteliers and outsiders dump garbage there.

We checked the maintenance register of the birth ward. However, no female birth has been registered on Saturday. The police are investigating the case and culprits will be arrested soon, added Wabale.
Three persons were detained by the Mahalunge MIDC police for illegally possessing weapons. This operation was conducted on Friday, March 26 at about 3.30 pm in Kuruli, Khed Taluka.

The accused have been identified as Uttar Singh Ramkumar Rathod (age 48, Bhose, Khed), Kalyan Singh Tejas Rathod (age 21, Talegaon Dabhade), Vicky Murali Rajput (age 25, Bhose, Khed).

According to the police, Nitin Lokhande, an officer of the anti-robbery squad, was informed that three individuals were residing at Ghadge's farm in Kuruli and that they were in possession of illegal firearms. As a result, the police set a trap and took the three suspects into custody.

Weapons worth Rs 35,400 have been seized, including a pistol and a koyta worth Rs 5 lakh. A case has been registered under sections 3 and 4(25) and sections 37(1), (3) and 135 of the Mumbai police act. The Mahalunge MIDC police are further investigating the case.
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A Davenport man is facing charges after he allegedly sexually abused a 10-year-old girl, police said.

Randy Allen Schutters II, 31, is charged with two counts of second-degree sexual abuse. Each of the charges is a Class B felony under Iowa law that carries a prison sentence of 25 years.

According to the arrest affidavit filed by Davenport Police Detective Sean Johnson, on March 7, Davenport Police took a report of a sexual assault that had occurred.

According to the affidavits, Schutters sexually abused a girl multiple times since November of 2022. Johnson stated in his affidavit that the victim was between 10- and 11-years old when the abuse occurred.

Schutters was arrested Friday on a warrant and booked into the Scott County Jail.

Former East Moline firefighter pleads guilty to federal child pornography charge A former East Moline firefighter entered a guilty plea to a federal child pornography charge during a hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court, Davenport.

During a first appearance on the charges Saturday in Scott County District Court, Magistrate Cynthia Taylor scheduled a preliminary hearing in the case for June 6.

Schutters was released Saturday from the Scott County Jail after posting 10% of a $50,000 bond through a bonding company.

Sex offender's petition to get off sex offender registry denied A Davenport mans petition to be removed from Iowas Sex Offender Registry was denied by a Scott County judge after hearing Thursday.
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One person is dead after a fire at a Davenport home Friday night, Davenport Fire Marshal Jim Morris said in a news release issued Saturday.

Firefighters were sent to 2316 W. 2nd Street at 8:09 p.m. Friday.

Upon arrival, firefighters found light smoke showing from the west side of the building.

The small home is set back from the street with a total gross living area of 452 square-feet, according to electronic records at the Scott County Assessors Office.

The fire was burning in the living room of the home.

Fire crews attacked the fire from the exterior and extinguished the main body of the fire within about two minutes.

A fire crew assigned to search the house found a victim in the house. Firefighters quickly removed the victim and began resuscitation efforts.

The victim was taken to Genesis Medical Center East, Davenport, where the victim died. The name of the victim was not released Saturday.

Firefighters were on the scene for about two hours checking for any hotspots and to investigate the cause of the fire.

The investigation into the cause of the fire continued Saturday.
Unclaimed funds may be waiting for you to be discovered, which can help you achieve your financial goals.

Unclaimed money or assets may include sums you have yet to receive from various sources, including tax refunds, previous paychecks, or money from bankruptcies. These funds, which might be cash, checks, security deposits, and more, often go undetected until they reach a dormant stage, at which point the government could claim ownership.

A well-known consumer technology specialist, Kim Komando, emphasizes that the US Treasury Department must help people claim lost money. You can reclaim old bank accounts, safe deposit box contents, uncashed checks, insurance policies, CDs, trust funds, utility deposits, stocks and bonds, wages, and escrow accounts, whether yours or a deceased relative's.

Fortunately, these unclaimed funds can be accessed without using shady services or shelling out cash. Avoid anyone who demands money in exchange for their assistance in finding unclaimed property. You may search and claim for free.

Here are some tips to help you retrieve unclaimed funds that may help you reach your financial objectives:

Start with Your State Treasury

The best place to look for unclaimed money is the state's treasury website. Each state's treasury website has a specialized unpaid dues search tool. Find the link to your state's treasury website on the National Association of Unclaimed Property website, then adhere to their step-by-step instructions, per USA Today. Also, avoid Google and other broad search engines to avoid scams.

Be careful to look for several spellings, monikers, and previous identities for your name while looking for unclaimed money. Expanding your search might boost your chances of discovering money that is entitled to you since unclaimed cash databases sometimes depend on precise identification.

Former Pension and Retirement Plans

Visit Pbgc.gov/search-Unclaimed-Pensions, a Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation website, to find an unclaimed pension from a prior employer. PenChecks Trust also maintains a record of unclaimed retirement benefits. Both companies and workers may use this tool to find unclaimed retirement funds.

Life Insurance Policies: If you believe you may be entitled to an unclaimed life insurance policy payout, visit the US Department of Veterans Affairs insurance.va.gov/UnclaimedFunds website. Search for unclaimed life insurance money at eapps.naic.org/life-policy-locator, operated by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

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Old Bank Accounts & Investments

Check the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or credit union failures for unclaimed funds from bankrupt banks. To find unclaimed money in banks, go to MissingMoney.com or Unclaimed.org, which the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators runs, per CNBC.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lists investor debt lawsuits involving businesses or people. Additionally, you may search for matured savings bonds on TreasuryHunt.gov and get details on replacing lost or damaged savings bonds there.

Federal Tax Returns

Use the IRS-run "Where's My Refund" website to determine whether you're due a refund if you think the IRS owes you one. Remember that the IRS refund claim period is limited to three years. To prevent undeliverable checks, file your taxes at the correct address, per US News.

Refrain from letting your laboriously earned money go unclaimed. Take aggressive measures to locate and recover unclaimed funds that are legitimately yours.

Search for pension, life insurance, bank account, investment, and IRS refund databases on your state treasury website. You may find hidden treasures that might change your financial path by tracking these unclaimed funds.

Related Article: Mass Medicaid Loss: Low-Income Americans Suffer as Pandemic Policy Expires

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Tuesday, May 30th, is Memorial Day. At least, it used to be.

Thats the date picked by Major General John A. Logan back on May 5, 1866, when Union veterans of the Civil War met as the Grand Army Of the Republic (GAR) to honor their fallen comrades.

The group assembled at the former Arlington, Virginia, home of the defeated Confederate leader Robert E. Lee, just across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. The large estate had been seized by the federal government to serve as a burial site for veterans of the war. At the time, it contained the bodies of both Union and Confederate soldiers.

Lees imposing mansion had been draped in mourning colors for the observance. General Ulysses and Mrs. Grant were in attendance along with many Washington notables. After speeches were given, adults and children moved through the graves, scattering flowers.

Logan, who headed up the GAR, declared that the practice of decorating veterans graves with flowers should be formalized as Decoration Day and observed on May 30th each year. He reasoned that flowers should be available in abundance by then.

As it happened, another, rather more elaborate ceremony was in process on May 5th that year in Waterloo, New York. It was a community-wide event organized to honor local Union soldiers, with businesses closed and flags displayed at half-staff throughout the town.

One hundred years later, in 1966, Congress declared the New York town the official birthplace of Memorial Day, a resolution signed by President Lyndon Johnson. The decision turned on the idea that previous observations were informal and isolated.

There has a fair amount of genteel bickering over where and by whom the practice actually began. Several communities, north and south, claim the honor, including Carbondale, Illinois, the wartime home of Gen. Logan. A stone marker claims that the first such celebration took place there on Aril 29, 1966.

Other places claim to be the first, from southern states such as Virginia and Georgia to Pennsylvania, where the town of Coalsburg insists that it started the practice of decorating the graves of Civil War dead in 1864.

The best claim is probably that of Columbus, Mississippi. On April 26, 1866, some women of the town decided to place flowers on the graves of Confederate men killed in the Battle of Shiloh.

According to records of the event, they were disturbed by the sight of bare Union graves and scattered some flowers there as well. The practice spread rapidly through the south and became known as Decoration Day. It kept that name until additional wars enlarged the occasion to Memorial Day, including all veterans of all our wars. Today, the two terms are used interchangeably.

The May 30th date remained in place until 1971, when Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, to keep from interrupting the work week with moving holidays. Only Christmas and July 4th have escaped the laws confines. When May 30 shows up Tuesday this week, it will have missed everything.

Of the many traditions associated with Memorial Day, perhaps the most impressive is the practice of installing individual American flags on the graves in national cemeteries. Volunteers began working at National Cemetery on Arsenal Island this past Thursday and you can see just how impressive it is if you visit the island tomorrow.

The Memorial event begins at 10:45 a.m. The keynote address will be given by Davenport Mayor Mike Matson, a former U.S. Army Ranger, after an invocation by Rev. Scott Culley. An honor guard will be present, with additional speeches, music, the National Moment of Remembrance, followed by taps and a rifle volley.

Its an important occasion, one of those traditions that we often overlook in these distracting times. I had the honor of speaking at a Memorial Day observance at the Arsenal in the '70s and found it a moving experience.

If you miss that morning observance, Public House in Davenport will have a shorter ceremony at 11:45 a.m. Later in the day, Bettendorf will honor the holiday at 2 p.m. in the citys Veterans Memorial Park.

We hear a lot about Memorial Day sales, but less about the ongoing local traditions associated with the day. Several communities are holding weekend events, many of which end today. Colonas celebration extends through tomorrow with its 50th Memorial Day parade at 2 p.m.

Perhaps the oldest continuing observance is at Davenports historic Summit Church which will hold its 104th annual service at 9 a.m. tomorrow, hosted by the Davenport County Historical Society.

What with the annual bicycle criterium, weekend gatherings at Savanna, Eldridge, Galesburg and other communities, there is ample evidence that we remember. Exactly what is hard to define. It depends on personal experience and awareness of our nations history.

We no longer have a draft and thus no longer are defended by a citizen army. The military is thoroughly professional these days and thus more remote from our consciousness. Thats another thing to remember as we decorate the graves of those who gave their lives to defend our democratic republic.
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Sealand is a micronation located on an abandoned British military platform in the North Sea. It was founded in 1967 by Roy Bates, a former British army major and pirate radio broadcaster. Originally called Roughs Tower, the platform was situated in international waters, allowing Bates to claim it as his own territory.

The story of Sealand and Roy Bates is a fascinating one that involves intrigue, piracy, and international politics. Bates was born in 1921 in India, where his father worked as a colonial officer. He later moved to England and served in the British army during World War II. After the war, Bates became involved in pirate radio broadcasting, which was popular at the time because it allowed people to listen to music that was not available on mainstream radio, especially rock 'n' roll.

In 1965, Bates acquired a World War II-era naval platform called Roughs Tower, which was located in international waters in the North Sea. He decided to use the platform to broadcast his pirate radio station, which he called Radio Essex. However, Bates soon discovered that the British government was cracking down on pirate radio broadcasters and would not allow him to continue broadcasting from Roughs Tower.

Bates then had a stroke of genius. He realized that if he could establish his own independent state on the platform, he would be able to bypass the British government's restrictions and continue broadcasting from there. He declared the platform to be the Principality of Sealand and appointed himself as its prince. He also created a flag and a national anthem for the new country. He even appointed a German supporter as his prime minister.

However, Bates' new micro-nation was not recognized by any other country in the world, including Britain. In August 1978, Alexander Achenbach, who was the designated Prime Minister of Sealand, hired several German and Dutch mercenaries to lead an attack on Sealand while Roy and his wife were on the continent. After arming themselves, the family re-took the platform and decided to keep one of the Germans as a hostage. The German government implored the British government to intervene. But the Brits claimed they had no authority over Sealand, forcing the Germans to negotiate directly with Bates to secure the release of their national.

In the years that followed, Sealand continued to operate as an independent micronation, with Bates and his family living on the platform. They even issued their own passports and currency, although these were not recognized by any other country.

The story of Sealand and Roy Bates became well-known in the 1990s, when a group of hackers attempted to take over the platform and establish their own independent state. The hackers, who called themselves the "Sealand Liberation Army," were eventually arrested by British authorities, but not before they had caused a great deal of disruption and gained media attention.

Despite its status as an unrecognized micro-nation, Sealand has continued to exist to this day. In 2012, Roy Bates passed away at the age of 91, but his family continues to maintain the platform and the Sealand nation. They have also established a website and online store, where people can buy Sealand passports, coins, and other merchandise. The story of Sealand and Roy Bates is a fascinating one, and it raises some interesting questions about the nature of sovereignty and the role of micronations in the modern world.
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The operations and day-to-day control of 121-year-old Montana State Capitol changed hands Thursday, somewhat unceremoniously, coming under primary control of the state Legislature.

House Bill 856 from House Speaker Matt Regier, a Kalispell Republican, cleared the Legislature easily; its final vote in the House of Representatives was 95-1. The bill was perhaps the most tangible distillation of the Legislature's efforts to establish equal footing as a branch of state government. The body meets for just 90 days, often less, every two years. And while proposals to move to annual sessions have quieted in recent years, lawmakers have established new duties  such as interim finance committees to conduct oversight of agency spending  in order to harden its presence throughout the year.

The bill landed on Gov. Greg Gianforte's desk May 12. By law, the Republican governor had 10 days to sign the bill into law, veto it or a follow a more passive route he elected to use here  taking no action on the bill in that timeframe, allowing it to become law.

Since the Legislature adjourned May 2, Gianforte has curbed other efforts by the Legislature to gain ground from its biennial status. The governor vetoed pay raises for lawmakers, which would have raised wages from $16 per hour to $24, as well as a bill to sharpen the Legislature's ability to muscle the executive branch into compliance with its audit functions.

The second floor, where the governor and the Secretary of State offices are housed, remains under the executive branch's purview. The arrangement came after some amendments to the bill during the legislative process to ostensibly win over the support of the executive.

The Department of Administration, which previously managed operations in the building, raised numerous concerns about the bill during the session, including issues about maintenance, cleaning, liabilities and more.

DOA previously handled everything "soup to nuts" from the snow removal to power, lights, water, internet and emergency repairs like when two basement bathrooms in the Capitol flooded during the session that just ended, department director Misty Ann Giles told lawmakers earlier this year.

There's no doubt the legislative and executive branches have enjoyed some harmony over GOP priorities like tax reform and abortion restrictions. Still, tension remains. Early in HB 856's process the governor publicly said he had concerns about the bill and a spokesperson for Gianforte said Thursday the governor's inaction on the bill was intentional.

"As with all bills that reach the governor's desk, the governor carefully reviewed HB 856 and chose not to sign it," press secretary Kaitlin Price said in an email. "While there are many successes from the legislative session, from tax cuts to pro-housing reforms to pro-student, pro-parent education reforms, some legislators' commitment to putting Capitol parking space assignments into Montana law and spending $25 million to renovate their space is not on the list."

Regier in a phone interview Thursday said the bill was about equal footing as a coequal branch.

"I think no matter who's in the Legislature and who's in the exec(utive), I'd imagine the executive would want control of everything  like they have in the past," Regier said Thursday when asked to respond to comment from the governor's office. "That's not equitable. We're two branches of government, we should be in control of our space and the executive should be in control of their space and that's the way we set it up."

The Capitol complex proposal, drummed up by legislative leadership in both parties before the session, maintained its bipartisan support even during an increasingly divisive session. While the Republican supermajority of the last session had the votes to shepherd the proposal through the Legislature on its own, Democrats made up 46 of the bill's 81 co-sponsors.

The bill allocates $50 million to be split between executive and legislative branches for long-range maintenance projects for the Capitol building that will be available by the end of June. The Legislative Council, made up of legislative leadership, will serve as a long-range building committee to recommend construction and remodeling priorities to the Legislature and Department of Administration.

"For too long, the legislative branch has ceded too much of its power to the executive branch, including the right to decide how we use our own space," House Minority Whip and Butte Democrat Derek Harvey said in a statement. "With this bill, I'm hopeful we'll be able to bring about changes that make the Legislature more transparent, accessible and open for public participation."

"Republican leadership is excited to get to work on long term planning for better and more efficient use of space in the state Capitol building," a spokesperson for the Senate GOP said Thursday.

The speaker said he has no personal rift with the governor's office, but added lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed some frustration with other legislation being vetoed, particularly transparency measures. Earlier this month the governor vetoed House Bill 693, which would have barred state agencies from withholding public records that were part of litigation; Gianforte wrote in his veto letter the bill would only benefit trial lawyers, not bolster the public's right to know.

The governor last week shot down a separate attempt by the Legislature to sharpen its oversight of the executive branch by vetoing Senate Bill 73. That proposal, from Sen. Tom McGillvray, a Billings Republican, would have made executive branch officials subject to an official misconduct charge if they withheld materials sought by the Legislature's audit division. The charge was a misdemeanor, but could have resulted in a government official losing their job.

During the last interim session, McGillvray and Legislative Auditor Angus Maciver raised concerns about "increasing" resistance from agencies.

During the legislative session, the executive branch maintained its opposition to McGillvray's SB 73, even after he had amended the bill to clarify only an intentional withholding of materials could result in an official misconduct charge.

In his veto letter on May 19, Gianforte was adamant that the bill could lead to the audit division's work trampling personal privacy rights of state employees. His veto letter was accompanied by a letters from officials with the Department of Administration, Department of Public Health and Human Services, Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and Montana Federation of Public Employees  the state employees' union  urging him to reject the bill.

"The Montana Constitution directs that I, as governor, 'see that the laws are faithfully executed,'" Gianforte wrote. " Giving an unelected bureaucrat such unfettered authority, especially without safeguards for Montanans' privacy interests, is unacceptable."

Maciver had, during the bill's hearings, pushed against this notion that the bill would disrupt the status quo. He provided to the committee a contract signed in January for a third-party contractor to review personally identifiable health information in order to properly conduct its claims audit. Despite the Department of Administration's testimony against the bill, he noted, the department had cosigned the audit contract.

"That's been occurring for three decades," Maciver told lawmakers. "It's never been an issue that that was how the work was done and it's done that way because it has to be done that way in order for it to be a valid audit. So the idea that we're embarking in new territory, I just wanted to make sure the committee understood that this work is going on right now, has been for a long time and we do it in cooperation with the Department of Administration."

McGillvray's bill reached the two-thirds support threshold to trigger a poll of lawmakers to attempt a veto override. Regier said several veto override efforts are already underway; he had just returned three votes to override vetoes this week.

"I'd like to see that one overturned," Regier said of the veto on SB 73, giving teeth to the legislative auditor. "That's the foundation of good governance."

According to the Secretary of State's Office listing online, lawmakers have been polled on 16 bills that were vetoed but met the two thirds support threshold. The override polls are due back 30 days after the veto. The first round of override polls are due June 2, with following batches of polls due back to the Secretary of State on June 8, 13 and 15.
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As the Montana Insurance Commissioner, I am often asked about high premiums in certain lines of insurance. One example is rising premiums in wildfire risk areas. This makes intuitive sense  if the risk of fire and loss is higher, the premium increases to ensure the insurance company can cover their potential losses.

An area of insurance that is not always as obvious is liability coverage. In public policy, it is important the law addresses damages to someone when there is obvious negligence that contributed to loss or injury. However, sometimes the law is too broad and covers more than what a normal person would consider reasonable.

One simple example in Montana is liquor liability  the liability of a bar or restaurant if they serve a patron and there is resulting injury or loss. In recent years, several bar and restaurant owners reached out to me regarding the growing costs of insuring this liability. The premiums were quickly growing, and these small business owners faced the very real problem of not being able to afford their premium payments to stay in business.

The question begs itself  if a server at a restaurant serves an apparently sober customer a drink, and that same customer goes elsewhere and drinks more until intoxicated, and then harms another due to their intoxication should the server at the original restaurant be held liable?

The first step in addressing issues like these are to look at liability laws on the books and decide if they make sense. If not, the next step is to clarify and modify these laws to rein in what may be unreasonably broad while still maintaining the ability for a victim to seek restitution and damages when warranted.

This session, Senator Steve Fitzpatrick sponsored Senate Bill 107 to address this liquor liability issue by delineating the circumstances when a server may be liable. This still allows a wronged person to pursue recovery of actual lost economic damages, while still allowing punitive damages under certain circumstances. SB 107 protects consumers and small businesses and gives clarity to liability exposure to help slow increases in liability premiums.

If we can find places where reasonable tort reform will help reduce liability, while still protecting the public interest, we have the potential of making it easier and less expensive for businesses to operate, grow, innovate, and hire more employees in our great state.

I applaud Senator Fitzpatrick and the Montana Tavern Association for addressing this root cause of rising premiums, and Governor Gianforte for signing this into law.
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The tribal grounds in King William County came to life Saturday when hundreds of artists, dancers, community members and tribal leaders gathered as the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe kicked off its 34th annual powwow.

A powwow is a traditional event that Native American tribes have hosted for thousands of years.

Its a celebration of culture, families, renewing kinships and is an integral part of our culture, said Keith Anderson, chief of the Nansemond Indian Nation.

The celebration commenced with a traditional grand entry, in which dancers dressed in traditional regalia and led by veterans and head dancers enter into a round arena to the sound of drumbeats. Once everyone entered the arena, flags including the U.S. flag, POW flag and the Upper Mattaponi tribes flag were raised before a traditional honor song and opening prayer were performed.

It is also customary to honor veterans and of any and all cultures who attend powwows, Anderson said. Veterans of all ages and who served in a variety of wars were invited into the arena and walked in a circle while audience members applauded to honor them for their service.

Following the grand entry, the arena was filled with performers of all ages representing several Native American tribes as they competed in dancing and drumming competitions.

Attendees could also stop by dozens of vendors selling Native American clothing, jewelry and art. Along with the vibrant dancing, singing and shopping, attendees could enjoy Native American foods  most notably fry bread, a fried piece of dough that is usually served with sugar or honey or can be enjoyed as a taco.

Anderson emphasized that anyone is welcome to attend powwows, no matter their culture or background.

We love our people and are inclusive, Anderson said. Ive never met someone who attended a powwow that didnt feel inspired or encouraged that we as people have a lot of similarities instead of differences.

The powwow continues Sunday on the Upper Mattaponi Tribal Grounds from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the grand entry starting at 1 p.m. Admission is free, and donations are accepted.

Close Julia Hunter, a shawl dancer, participates in the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribes powwow on Saturday. Cory Ridgeway, the head lady dancer, participates in an Upper Mattaponi Powwow on Saturday. Upper Mattaponi Powwow Julia Hunter, a shawl dancer, participates in the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribes powwow on Saturday. Cory Ridgeway, the head lady dancer, participates in an Upper Mattaponi Powwow on Saturday.
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Ongoing debt ceiling negotiations in Washington currently include proposals to cut domestic spending that would result in at least a 23% reduction in funding for key housing programs that the lowest-income Virginians rely upon to survive.

Housing programs are already negligently underfunded, and further cuts will have devastating impacts here in Virginia. It is not an exaggeration to say that the number of people forced to live on the street will skyrocket, along with the number of people barely able to keep a roof over their heads. These proposed cuts will be visible in every community across our commonwealth.

Everyone deserves a place to call home. Using the threat of pushing people into homelessness to reach an agreement on our nations debt ceiling is wrong. The Virginia Housing Alliance urges Congress and the White House to leave intact funding for housing programs.

In Virginia and across the nation, more families are struggling to make ends meet. Rents are rising, eviction filings are reaching pre-pandemic levels and homelessness is increasing in our communities. Our nation has a severe shortage of affordable housing: Research shows that there are only 35 affordable apartments for every 100 extremely low-income families in the United States. With such few options, the vast majority of these households pay more than half of their limited income on rent. In Virginia alone, more than 300,000 affordable rental units are needed to ease the housing cost burden for low-income households.

Programs such as the Community Development Block Grant , the HOME Investment Partnerships Program , and the Housing Choice Voucher and Public Housing programs all provide critical resources to keep families in their homes and build new affordable housing. These programs have been chronically underfunded for years and are once again the target for draconian cuts.

Further disinvestment will only exacerbate our housing crisis. For example, only 1 of 4 families eligible for federal rental assistance currently receives the help they need due to this underfunding. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the proposed budget cuts would widen this gap, likely eliminating rental assistance for nearly 1 million of the families that receive it now. In Virginia, the cuts would eliminate over a quarter of the total Housing Choice Vouchers in use. Such severe funding reductions will likely result in mass evictions. Furthermore, the proposed cuts would reduce the already limited capacity of our countrys homeless assistance programs, meaning that nearly 120,000 fewer people experiencing homelessness will receive services.

Even if these specific budget proposals do not become reality, funding for these programs should not be up for negotiation. As a country, we are still recovering from the last time similar cuts were proposed in 2010. The resulting compromise, called the Budget Control Act of 2011, had a devastating impact on HUD funding for 10 years. Because current negotiations stem from such an extreme proposal, Congress may attempt another compromise with less severe cuts, but the consequences for our nation will be dire regardless. Rather than disinvesting in affordable housing during a crisis, we must expand such investments to:

Ensure rental assistance is available to everyone who is eligible.

Build more homes that are affordable to people with the lowest incomes.

Create permanent tools to help stabilize families in a crisis.

Strengthen and enforce renter protections.

Investments in affordable housing and homelessness programs are not just numbers on a page, they represent critical support for real families, for our neighbors. If approved, these cuts would mean the difference between thousands of Virginians having a safe place to call home or being forced to sleep on the street. We call on Congress to fully fund and prioritize affordable housing and homelessness resources.

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If you were to survey recent graduates of American law schools and ask them to describe the third (and final) year of their formal education, superfluous would undoubtedly make the top of the list. But being good lawyers, they would likely argue that their 3L year was a hard-earned respite before the impending tribulations of passing the bar exam and practicing law.

Such was my mindset as a 3L at William & Mary Law School nearly 20 years ago. Weary of the analytical rigor and cut-throat competition, I settled into a more languid existence of less demanding (afternoon) electives and internships.

Ironically, one of these electives  a spring seminar devised and taught by the dean of our law school, W. Taylor Reveley III, which he styled The Citizen Lawyer  had a profound impact on my development.

Unlike most law professors, let alone most law-school deans, Reveley, despite possessing a sterling academic pedigree and clerking on the U.S. Supreme Court, was not a career academic. He practiced law for 30 years at what was then called Hunton & Williams (now Hunton Andrews Kurth), one of Americas largest law firms, serving as its managing partner for nearly a decade. (Reveley was later president of William & Mary before retiring in 2018.) In the eyes of his impressionable 3Ls, Reveleys unusual combination of brilliance, polish and real-world achievement provided a certain legitimacy to hold forth on this topic.

As Reveley has spoken and written about at length, the ideal of the citizen lawyer was inspired by the law schools founders, namely then-Gov. Thomas Jefferson and his former tutor, George Wythe, whom Jefferson later persuaded to lead the fledgling law school at its inception in 1779. Wythes enduring ambition for the law school and its graduates is inscribed into the base of his statue, which adorns its modern-day entrance: Here hence we will form such characters as may be useful in the National Councils of our country.

Through his Citizen Lawyer seminar, Reveley put flesh on Wythes ideal. As he instructed us then  and later explained in an article on the subject  the law is much more than a profession or a way to make a living. According to Reveley, it is also a calling, and one in which a lawyer uses her analytical, rhetorical and persuasive skills to make a difference for the better in the life of the entity that pays her salary, and in the lives of her community, state, nation, and even the world. Put simply, Reveley challenged his students to be public spirited, meaning actively engaged in civic affairs, whether through pro bono work, community involvement or government service.

But more importantly, Reveley imparted to his students that effective citizen lawyers also exhibited certain virtues in how they practiced law and treated others. Drawing from Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendons seminal work, A Nation Under Lawyers (required reading that semester), Reveley outlined what he viewed as essential lawyer virtues. Because many of the details have faded over the past two decades, I have taken license to tailor some of these core virtues based on my own experiences.

Citizen lawyers are, without fail, civil to their adversaries. They actively listen and attempt to understand an opponents argument, crediting its potential merits before responding with steely resolve, but always in temperate fashion. And they resist the urge to deliver cheap shots or engage in ad hominem attacks.

Citizen lawyers are tolerant of opposing viewpoints, including those that are antithetical to their own. They recognize that free expression and debate are among the bedrocks of our society. It should go without saying that citizen lawyers (or law students) do not form a mob to drown out  or cancel  those whose views make them uncomfortable or even angry.

Citizen lawyers are also practical and, when warranted, willing to compromise to reach mutually beneficial resolutions. They apply common sense and are willing to relegate lofty (but sometimes unattainable) goals for workable, but nevertheless meaningful, solutions.

Citizen lawyers are also compassionate and empathetic, recognizing the cruel legacies of poverty, broken families, abuse, addiction, mental illness and despair in our society. They are willing to lend their time and talents to ameliorate the plights of others. And citizen lawyers who serve as prosecutors and judges should consider these mitigating human factors before condemning and meting out punishment.

In my current role, I occasionally serve on committees related to the practice of law. My favorite is one composed of Virginia-based lawyers, judges, academics and civic leaders from across the political and ideological spectrum that identifies issues of national and state importance and provides forums for wider discussion.

Although we typically focus on broad legal topics, during a recent meeting, civility (or a profound lack of it) was top of mind.

That incivility pervades modern discourse and debate is not a controversial proposition. Neither is the premise that this general lack of civility is worse today than in years past. Fortunately, though, our committee has largely avoided politicized debates about the numerous causes of this phenomenon, focusing instead on practical solutions that transcend political polarization, demagoguery and toxic social media.

Teaching younger generations (not just third-year law students) about the importance of civility in debate should be an integral part of our efforts. Fittingly, Reveley  long-since retired from his role as a law-school dean and college president  serves as a member of our committee. His involvement reflects the continued relevance of the citizen-lawyer model, which should serve as our lodestar and provide the basis for meaningful reform of civics education more broadly. If nothing else, the virtues of aspiring citizen lawyers should be drilled into our younger generations  early and often.

As we undertake this important task, it is my hope that Dean Reveleys work will continue to serve as a beacon for those committed to civility in public affairs and future generations of aspiring leaders  those in law school and anywhere else where public discourse serves a vital pedagogical and civic function. We have a reached a pivotal point on this issue, and it could not be more timely.

Thomas Cullen serves as a U.S. District judge for the Western District of Virginia. Contact him at cullen.ecf@vawd.uscourts.gov.

Close 10-06-1988: The Capitol Hotel. 02-14-1958: Fire at Capitol Hotel. 02-15-1958 (cutline): Firemen spray water into burning hotel room at Eighth and Grace streets. 01-10-1991 (cutline): It's Almost Gone. Rubble is all that remains of the Capitol Hotel at 720 E. Grace St. as demolition, which began in mid-December, nears completion. The nearly 90-year-old structure was owned by Dr. Fred T. Shaia, who plans to convert the site into a parking lot. The 120-unit hotel, which has rented rooms to low-income people in recent years, became a symbol of the decline in affordable housing in the city and rallying point for advocates who sought assist the homeless and poor. The effort to save the structure failed. 01-18-1991 (cutline): The dilapidated Capitol Hotel was razed to make way for a parking lot and the first vehicle on the uncompleted lot has license number SHAIA 1. The property at Eighth and Grace streets is owned by Dr. Fred T. Shaia. It is managed by his son Lawrence, who has said they do not have detailed plans for the site but would entertain proposals from developers. 12-17-1990 (cutline): The Capitol Hotel played host to the wrecker's ball yesterday. The rundown hotel at Eighth and Grace streets had become a symbol of the decline in affordable housing in the city and a rallying point for advocates who pressed the housing needs of the homeless and poor. They failed however, to save the hotel from destruction. A parking lot will be built on the site. From the Archives: The Capitol Hotel The Capitol Hotel was located on 720 E. Grace St. Street in downtown Richmond. The 120-unit hotel was built in the early 1900s and served as a hotel for decades until the late 1980s when rooms were rented out as affordable housing. When the structure started to decline, the property owner decided to raze the hotel and build a parking lot in its place. Advocates who sought to assist the homeless and poor rallied to stop the demolition but the effort to save the structure failed. The hotel was ultimately emptied and closed in 1990. Residents were given 120 days notice to vacate. The Capitol Hotel was razed in 1991. Capitol Parking expanded a 30- space lot to hold 100 cars in its place. Today, the United States District Court Eastern District of Virginia Courthouse stands in the former Capitol Hotels location. 10-06-1988: The Capitol Hotel. 02-14-1958: Fire at Capitol Hotel. 02-15-1958 (cutline): Firemen spray water into burning hotel room at Eighth and Grace streets. 01-10-1991 (cutline): It's Almost Gone. Rubble is all that remains of the Capitol Hotel at 720 E. Grace St. as demolition, which began in mid-December, nears completion. The nearly 90-year-old structure was owned by Dr. Fred T. Shaia, who plans to convert the site into a parking lot. The 120-unit hotel, which has rented rooms to low-income people in recent years, became a symbol of the decline in affordable housing in the city and rallying point for advocates who sought assist the homeless and poor. The effort to save the structure failed. 01-18-1991 (cutline): The dilapidated Capitol Hotel was razed to make way for a parking lot and the first vehicle on the uncompleted lot has license number SHAIA 1. The property at Eighth and Grace streets is owned by Dr. Fred T. Shaia. It is managed by his son Lawrence, who has said they do not have detailed plans for the site but would entertain proposals from developers. 12-17-1990 (cutline): The Capitol Hotel played host to the wrecker's ball yesterday. The rundown hotel at Eighth and Grace streets had become a symbol of the decline in affordable housing in the city and a rallying point for advocates who pressed the housing needs of the homeless and poor. They failed however, to save the hotel from destruction. A parking lot will be built on the site.
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What happened to Sally Gravelys former safety deposit box at Well Fargos Tanglewood branch? What was in it? Where are its contents?

Those are a few of the outstanding questions being raised by her surviving brother, Archer Twig Gravely III.

Wells Fargo Bank apparently doesnt know the answers, either. But a bank spokesman said theyre looking into the matter.

Gravelys sister, a retired copywriter, was 70 when she passed away Dec. 30. Sally Gravely lived in Grandin Court and had held her checking account at that bank since long before it became a Wells Fargo branch. Her brother, whos retired from Cox Communications, was a signatory on her account.

He had no trouble accessing her funds because he was listed on the account. But to get into her safety deposit box, Gravely needed Sallys key. That was hard to find. The search process started early in January, he said.

For roughly a month, Gravely hunted fruitlessly. Then he informed personnel at the branch he had looked everywhere and couldnt locate the key.

Bank personnel offered to have the lock drilled, but initially they gave him one or two runarounds, he said.

Finally, Gravely said, on the third occasion he inquired about drilling, someone at the branch informed him that to begin that process, he needed permission from Wells Fargo corporate. To get that, he needed to fill out a formal request to Wells Fargo corporate. He didnt get a copy of that form when he finally completed and submitted it, he added.

Ultimately, Wells Fargo corporate approved drilling the lock, Gravely told me. And sometime around mid-March, he got a call from the Tanglewood branch informing him a locksmith would be there at 8:30 a.m. the next day  and he should be there too.

Gravely said that on drilling day, he was at the branch on time. He entered the vault with a locksmith and two or three branch employees.

There, they found the lock on Sallys safety deposit box already had been drilled, and the box inside was empty.

Bank told him no records

Gravely said at that point, the branch employees seemed to scatter. They didnt act shocked or surprised, he added. Gravely asked if they could find out who had drilled the box and when, which seems like a simple question.

The branch rebuffed the question, he added, with one person there telling him the locksmith didnt keep such records. Instead, someone at the branch assisted him in filing a complaint with Wells Fargo corporate in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Hes been going back and forth with them over the safety deposit box ever since.

The latest communication from Wells Fargo was May 12. That consisted of two separate letters, bearing the same date and typed signature, Micah R. According to the letters, Micahs job title is executive office case specialist in the banks Enterprise Complaints Management Office.

One letter was addressed to Archer H. Gravely III (Twig Gravelys formal name). It said that in order to help him, Wells Fargo required probate documents, a court order, or completion of a document the letter termed a Small Estate Affidavit.

The second letter was addressed to Representative of Sally A. Gravely. It stated, Currently we dont have authorization to speak with Archer H. Gravely III about this customers account. As a result we have closed the existing case as of the date of this letter.

Twig Gravelys the administrator of Sally Gravelys estate.

A possible interpretation of those two letters is that Wells Fargo is offering to help Gravely on one hand but telling him the case is closed on the other.

Meanwhile, many questions remain unanswered  such as the ones that launched this column. What happened to Sally Gravelys safe-deposit box? Where are its contents now? Nobody at the bank seems to have any clue, Gravely said.

Aside from those questions, when was the box drilled? Didnt somebody from the bank have to order that? Who?

Also, the locksmith had to be allowed into the vault so the drilling could occur. Which branch employee provided that escort? Typically, banks dont allow unaccompanied outsiders into their vaults.

Gravely doesnt know what was in his sisters safety deposit box. But it was a small one, he noted. He assumes it contained family birth certificates, perhaps his own, maybe a life insurance policy held by Sally, and her will.

Of the latter, I have no other copy, Gravely said. I dont think she had any bars of silver in there.

Even if there was anything valuable, its unclear whether the bank is liable. Unlike checking and savings accounts, safety deposit box contents are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Gravely told me hes searched online and found many other news stories about Wells Fargo drilling open the wrong safety deposit boxes and/or missing contents. Thats true.

I have been extremely patient

Gravely also doesnt quite understand the two letters he received May 12, telling him two different things. For example, it now appears that Wells Fargo is setting conditions for investigating his complaint that the bank didnt bother to impose before agreeing to have the box drilled. And that seems a little backward.

On May 10, Gravely mailed Wells Fargo corporate the legal documents appointing him as the representative of Sallys estate, along with a letter. By Thursday afternoon, those hadnt arrived in Sioux Falls, Gravely told me. But that wasnt Wells Fargos fault.

He sent the package through the U.S. Postal Service  Certified Mail, return receipt requested.

I wanted to know who at Wells Fargo got the documents, Gravely said.

So far, hes received no return receipt. By Thursday (May 25), the May 10 letter hadnt been delivered. And the only tracking data available was the date Gravely had sent it.

He assumed it had gotten lost in the mail. So last week he sent Wells Fargo an identical letter and legal documents in a second package.

I have been attempting to resolve this issue since January of this year with no success, Gravely wrote. There is no question of whether I am or am not entitled to the contents of this box.

Wells Fargo has been procrastinating over this matter for several months, since I was called to come in for the opening of her box (drilling), at which time it was discovered the box had already been drilled, the contents removed, and the employees had no information on when this occurred, or where the contents have gone.

Kenrick P. Thomas, a Wells Fargo spokesman, said the bank has robust requirements related to safe deposit box security. We are continuing to research this matter and we will contact Mr. Gravely directly.

Late Thursday night, Gravely once again checked the tracking on the first Certified Mail package hed posted to South Dakota. Guess what? It indicated his first package was finally delivered to Wells Fargo corporate in South Dakota  at 11:30 p.m. Thursday.

I have been extremely patient in this matter, but I think six months is enough time, Gravely also wrote in the letter.

Hard to disagree.
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After George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020, Roanoke Police Chief Sam Roman said his department became more focused on recruiting and training officers who are culturally intelligent.

From Michael Brown to Freddie Gray, all the way to Tyree Nichols, its our obligation to look at those and learn from those incidents. What could have been done better? Roman said in a recent interview. We try to also broaden our training, as well, and get that training outside of the classroom.

Roman said Roanoke Police Department recruits visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., earlier this year to help officers understand how law enforcement tacitly participated in some of those activities.

We want our officers to be very aware of things like that. We will be visiting the African American museum and the Indian American museum, Roman said. We believe that the more culturally intelligent our officers are, the better they perform while theyre out keeping our communities safe.

Roman is one of four police chiefs in the Roanoke and New River valleys who are non-white; three of them are Black. In July, he will begin a new job as an assistant city manager.

Roman grew up in New York City, but his counterparts in Salem, Chief Mike Crawley and in Roanoke County, Chief Michael Poindexter, are Roanoke Valley natives.

We have a great group of people here that I have worked with, and now I have the opportunity to lead them, said Poindexter, who began as Roanoke Countys chief on Jan. 1. For me, its fulfilling to be chief of police. But I think all three of us have worked hard to get where we are today.

The stakeholders and the city administrators and county administrators that put us in these positions, I would assume that they have the trust and confidence in us to take the helm, regardless of the color of our skin, Crawley said.

Vinton Police Chief Fabricio Drumond, a native of Brazil who is Latino, is the fourth chief of color in the region.

The four men are unique in the Roanoke and New River valleys, defined as containing the counties of Roanoke, Franklin, Botetourt, Craig, Montgomery, Pulaski, Giles and Floyd, the cities of Roanoke, Salem and Radford. It includes the towns of Vinton, Rocky Mount, Christiansburg and Blacksburg.

The majority of law enforcement agency leaders in the region are white men. Virginians rarely elect sheriffs who are non-white.

At least 22 of 123 Virginia sheriffs, or about 18%, are people of color, according to The Roanoke Times observation of the directory of sheriffs on the Virginia Sheriffs Association website.

But in the Roanoke and New River valleys, Roanoke Sheriff Antonio Hash is the single Black sheriff. The other 10 sheriffs are white.

While sheriffs in Virginia are elected, most police chiefs are appointed.

Of Virginias about 235 police chiefs, including those who operate at universities or colleges, airports and small towns, at least 32, or about 14%, are of color, according to a statement from Dana Schrad, executive director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police.

Other than Roman, Crawley, Poindexter and Drumond, the 17 chiefs  including those who serve Ferrum College, Radford University, Virginia Western Community College, Virginia Tech and the Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport  in the Roanoke and New River valleys are white men.

Many of the police chiefs of color identified by Schrad serve in Virginias more urban areas, including Petersburg, Portsmouth, Bristol, and Alexandria.

Crawley said he and Poindexter are graduates of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, the Cardinal Criminal Justice Academy in Salem and Bluefield College in Bluefield. Crawley said serving the community that raised him is not a burden.

It is an honor when people find themselves needing some assistance and they trust a police officer, he said. Thats what we want. The fact that they find some trust in me, I take that as an honor.

Roman served in the U.S. Marine Corps before he became a police recruit.

Roanoke was one of the police departments that came to my base doing some recruiting, Roman said. After one visit to Roanoke, and seeing the landscape here in Roanoke, and comparing that to what is commonly referred to as the concrete jungle, I certainly thought that this is where I wanted to be.

Roman began his career as an officer in Roanoke in 1992. He was Lexingtons police chief before his April 2020 appointment by Roanoke as its chief. One month later, Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, and protests erupted in cities across America, including in Roanoke.

We just tried to work even harder to really distinguish ourselves from the criminal activity that occurred in that incident compared to the work we do here locally. And that was the biggest challenge, Roman said. Our goal and our focus is always to distinguish ourselves apart from that criminal activity that occurred.

Our community is made up of various different cultures, and people of different backgrounds, and being able to provide officers who have the empathy, patience and understanding to know that we all have different backgrounds is important, Crawley said. Every community, I dont care where you are, deserves a professional, high-functioning police department.

Diversity underrepresentation in policing Data gathered from October 2022 to May 2023 from nearly 120 law enforcement agencies in 14 states shows frequent disparity in the racial and ethnic makeup of the agencies compared to the communities they are hired to protect and serve.

Data gathered from October 2022 to May 2023 from nearly 120 law enforcement agencies in 14 states shows frequent disparity in the racial and ethnic makeup of the agencies compared to the communities they are hired to protect and serve.

The racial makeup of Salems police department nearly reflects that of the city, which according to 2021 census data is 84% white, about 7% Black, about 4% Hispanic or Latino, about 2% Asian or Pacific Islander and about 4% biracial.

According to data reported by the Salem Police Department in December, it has 66 sworn members. Of those, 82% are white, about 11% are Black, 3% Hispanic or Latino, 3% Asian or Pacific Islander and about 2% other or biracial.

The racial makeup of Roanoke Countys police force does not as clearly track with its jurisdiction, which 2021 census data shows is 84% white, about 7% Black, about 4% Hispanic or Latino, about 4% Asian or Pacific Islander and about 2% biracial.

According to data reported by the Roanoke County Police Department in October, it has 132 sworn members. Of those, 90% are white, about 7% Black, less than 1% Hispanic or Latino and about 2% other or biracial.

Poindexter said that while the reflection isnt perfect, the department has senior officers that are very diverse in their background.

Were a young department, and we get younger every year, but its important that we hold on to our employees that have experience, because we need and we value those employees, as well, he said.

In Roanoke, according to 2021 census data, about 60% of the population is white, about 29% Black, about 7% Hispanic or Latino, about 3% Asian or Pacific Islander and about 6% biracial.

According to data reported by the Roanoke Police Department in March, it has 247 budgeted positions. Of those, the department provided racial data for 202 personnel. And of those 202, about 84% are white, about 7% Black, about 5% Hispanic, less than 1% Native American or First Nation, about 2% Asian or Pacific Islander and less than 1% biracial.

Its always our endeavor to make sure that we at least mirror our community, Roman said. Thats one of those things thats easily said, but its very difficult to accomplish.

The chief said his department has employed recruiting strategies that target and attract a qualified, diverse pool of applicants.

Were recruiting today for tomorrows officers. Those relationships really begin when were at the Melrose Branch Library and making a positive impact and partnership with young at-risks juveniles who may be African American, Roman said. Those neighborhood officers were in my neighborhood building those relationships with me, which is in part why I wanted to become a police officer.

Crawley said anyone can be trained to be a police officer, but prospects who are good fits for the jobs demands are harder to find.

Where weve had some success is utilizing our personnel to be our recruiters. Those are the officers on the street, Crawley said. Were challenging them to find good people, because at the end of the day, we feel really, really confident in our ability to train anyone to be a police officer. We cant train somebody to be a good person.

Poindexter said his department has four core values that recruiters look for in every officer: integrity, courage, accountability and respect.

If they can understand the meaning of those values, it helps them go a long way in this career, Poindexter said. We look for everyone. Weve had great success with former military and had great success with college graduates. But you have to have a calling to be a police officer. Its not necessarily a job. Its a career path, so we look for any individual who is looking to build a career.

Roman said good police officers have the ability to empathize and understand the plight of the people they protect, but also understand the laws that are designed to keep our community safe.

The chief said one of the citys toughest areas recently saw shoplifting go through the roof. But officers used their emotional and cultural intelligence to think beyond the crime to remedy the problem.

Folks in a particular housing project [were] experiencing some food desert issues and food availability issues, and as a result, they were resorting to shoplifting food, Roman said. Officers looked beyond the crime to try to look for the root cause and then participated in helping to facilitate resources coming to that area, which in-turn reduced crime.

Photos: The 85th class of the Roanoke Police Academy does physical training
(Photo : SAMUEL CORUM/AFP via Getty Images)

President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy expressed optimism for ending the government budget impasse soon and avoiding a US economic disaster.

US President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have agreed to increase the debt ceiling after prolonged crisis negotiations that brought the country near its first default.

Although there are obstacles, the solution has the support of President Biden, a Democrat, and Speaker McCarthy, a Republican, providing optimism for ending the protracted budget impasse and preventing a US economic mishap, according to a report from The New York Times.

President Joe Biden has given a late-night message from the White House pleading with both chambers of the US Congress to approve the deal to avoid a disastrous default. The POTUS stressed that preventing a recession, a collapse of retirement funds, and massive job losses is the primary goal of the deal.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy called the US debt limit deal historic, citing expenditure cuts and measures to reduce poverty and boost economic development. He promised no additional taxes or government initiatives, per the BBC.

However, Speaker McCarthy might have to maneuver behind-the-scenes conversations to win support while efforts to finish the debt ceiling accord continue.

Read Also: Discover Unclaimed Funds

What's in the deal?

The US debt ceiling measure will be approved on Sunday, but staunch Republicans and Democrats may oppose it in the House. On Twitter, Texas Congressman Chip Roy expressed his plans to block it.

In the US Congress numbers, Democrats dominate the Senate (51-49), while Republicans have a narrow edge in the House (222-213).

The US debt ceiling accord includes a two-year budget plan restricting expenditure in 2025 and freezing spending in 2024 to satisfy Republican requests for lower spending. The debt ceiling will be increased for two years after the election. The package also streamlines environmental law evaluations for new energy projects and modifications to food-stamp employment requirements.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the nation's financial obligations risk defaulting if the federal debt limit is not raised by June 5, according to The Guardian. She stressed that failure to raise the US debt limit before the deadline would shake financial markets and plunge the United States into a devastating recession.

Related Article: Low-Income Americans Suffer as Pandemic Medicaid Policy Expires

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For United States military service veterans like Paul Chip McCauley, the Memorial Day weekend is not about pool parties and picnics.

Today is about the fallen, the ones we left behind, McCauley, a retired U.S. Marine Corps first sergeant, said during an observance service Saturday at Evergreen Burial Park in Roanoke. The ones that we left behind are the ones that gave it all. They wrote a check to the United States for any amount up to and including their lives, and some of them paid it ultimately. I cant forget those people. I cant forget my friends that one minute Im talking to and the next minute theyre gone.

McCauley was injured in the October 1983 bombing of American and French barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The detonation claimed 241 lives.

That event was the largest fatal bomb detonation in U.S. military history, Evergreen Memorial Trust President Donald Wilson said Saturday. As I look around at the cemetery and see all of the flags had been placed this week, Im reminded of the sacrifice and service of so many people. And thats why we observe Memorial Day. Evergreen is proud to be the final resting place of over 3,500 veterans.

Wilson said McCauley enlisted when he was 17 years old and retired as a first sergeant 17 years later after sustaining an injury.

He spent his career fighting the war on terror in the Middle East, and that included two tours of Fallujah, which was door-to-door, he tells me, Wilson continued. Chip accompanied one of his buddies caskets back to the states on a C-130 Angel Flight. He saw that as his solemn and sacred duty to a fallen comrade and friend.

McCauley stood in front of a battle cross  a rifle topped with a soldiers helmet, footed with combat boots and resting between crossed flags  and told the small crowd that wherever that plane landed was holy ground.

War is very violent. And losing a friend is a solemn, very somber thing to have to deal with, he said. To pay tribute to these men and to say thank you, its just not enough. Its not enough. It never will be.

Weve spent billions and billions of dollars overseas, and weve got homeless veterans living on the street. Thats wrong, McCauley continued. Somethings got to give. Somethings got to change to protect these men and women that sacrificed so much for our freedom. I get emotional when I think about them. Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to all veterans. Not me. Not just me, but to all veterans that have gone over there and paid the ultimate sacrifice.

McCauleys friends and fellow veterans, Matt Burke of Narrows and Grattan Reynolds of Roanoke, said they believe their sacrifices have been taken for granted.

Being a veteran is a big responsibility, Reynolds said. And our cultures gotten a little irresponsible, with a lack of respect. Those are the things that Ive been able to retain.

Burke said the flags placed on veterans graves in the cemetery shows that there are still some of us out there who really care about our veterans and our troops.

At least theres still some people that believe in what we were founded on, Burke continued. If I could change anything, I would say have more people actively involved, but we did fight for their rights, whether they wanted to be here or not be here. But I do think people, by not being here, they miss out on something theyre not going to get anywhere else. All of us as veterans are brothers. Ive learned in the last few years that thats really true.

Both McCauley and Burke were members of a Cigar Box Guitar Making Group at the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center last year.

McCauleys guitar, which he built and learned to play as a part of the program, honors the 241 lives lost nearly 40 years ago in Beirut. He said many veterans are still fighting but fall victim to suicide because they cant get rid of the thoughts of the war out of their heads.

Were all still fighting that war, and its not anything that anybody wants to do, he said. Today is the day that we do think about our fallen comrades and our brothers and sisters in arms. I think about them constantly because theres a lot of faces that I have to sleep with every night.

If I could speak to my friends again that are gone from us, McCauley concluded, I think they might say that, Whenever you think of me, think of all your liberties, and remember some gave all.
" " The "Baker" explosion, part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, July 25, 1946. United States Department of Defense

Crazy as it might seem, there was a time when the U.S., the Soviet Union, and other countries tested nuclear weapons by exploding them in the atmosphere. From 1945 to 1963, when such tests finally were banned by an international treaty, more than 500 nuclear bombs were detonated, releasing radioactive fallout that spread far and wide across the planet, causing harm to the environment and human health.

For example, everyone born in the U.S. after 1951 has been exposed to nuclear fallout, and for some, it's resulted in an increased risk of thyroid cancer, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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But for scientists that fallout also has provided an important measuring tool. The tests caused what's known as the 14C bomb pulse because of the spike in the atmospheric concentration of carbon-14, a carbon isotope that also occurs naturally. The excess carbon-14 was distributed throughout Earth's atmosphere, peaking in 1963 when the test ban went into effect.

That radioactivity, which has gradually been declining since the 1960s, has been absorbed by plants, animals and people, creating a sort of time stamp that's enabled researchers to measure when things occur  from the longevity of white sharks to the growth of human knee cartilage and even brain cells. It's also enabled forensic investigators to estimate the age and year of death for human remains with much greater precision than previously possible.
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Clemson University researchers are determining how to develop a higher-yielding, better-quality cotton by altering plant growth habit and form.

Led by molecular biologist Sachin Rustgi, the researchers are looking at how regulating certain genes can transform cotton from a perennial plant to an annual plant, as well as genes that control the number of bracts, small leaf-like structures that protect the plants floral buds, or squares, against bollworms and other pests.

Right now, cotton is planted and grown as an annual plant, but it is really a perennial plant, said Rustgi, a scientist in the Advanced Plant Technology Program at Clemsons Pee Dee Research and Education Center (REC) near Florence, South Carolina. If we can develop an annual variety for cotton, we believe South Carolina farmers will benefit by seeing a higher yielding cotton with higher quality fiber.

The United States is the worlds leading cotton exporter, providing about 35% of global cotton exports in recent years. Figures from the United States Department of Agriculture show almost 18 million bales of cotton were produced in the United States in 2021. In addition to South Carolina, other major cotton-producing states are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Kansas, and Virginia.

Cotton takes from 130 to 160 days to grow. During this time, the plants go through several stages  planting to emergence, emergence to first square (bud), square to flower, flower to open boll and harvest.

The cotton plant growth habit and structure determine its productivity and influence management strategies for production, said Salman Naveed, a Clemson doctoral student working with Rustgi.

The researchers are looking at how plants use environmental and hormonal cues to transition from vegetative growth to reproduction. Reproductive development begins 4-to-5 weeks after planting when squares form. During this stage, bracts surround the squares.

Typical cotton plants include three bracts. A fourth bract can form on some cultivars under certain conditions. This extra bract is undesirable because it can provide openings and allow thrips and other pests access to the squares.

During this study, researchers injected the tobacco rattle virus into cotton plants to finetune the balance between vegetative and reproductive growth. The virus was used to manipulate a cotton gene associated with bract development to help prevent a fourth bract from appearing.

When injected into a cotton plant, the tobacco rattle virus knocks down the gene associated with the fourth bract and just three bracts are produced, Rustgi said. Compactly packed bracts make it more difficult for insects to attack the bolls.

The tobacco rattle virus also was used to manipulate a cotton gene associated with plant growth.

Perennial crops usually grow in environments that may have limitations such as short growing seasons or dry climates, or where plants ability to access resources may be limited. Perennial plants store reserves such as carbohydrates, fats and proteins to use for regrowth. In many plant species, this process produces root and shoot buds that can grow into new plants. This is called vegetative reproduction.

Because of its growth habit, cotton continues to add vegetative growth at the same time as reproductive development, diverting the plants energy away from lint and seed production. The researchers believe an annual cotton variety will help cotton plants use more energy to produce higher-quality lint resulting in more profits for growers.

In addition to Naveed, other researchers collaborating with Rustgi on this project include Clemson graduate student Seyi Toyinbo and Clemson technicians Nitant Gandhi and Sarah Rawlins. Mike Jones, Clemson Extension cotton specialist, and Todd Campbell, USDA-Agricultural Research Service research geneticist, also are involved.

This research is supported by the South Carolina Cotton Board and Cotton Incorporated.
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FLORENCE, S.C.  Trinity Collegiates Class of 2023, 67 graduates, processed into Francis Marion Universitys Performing Arts Center as high school students and left, diplomas in hand, ready to pursue their futures.

In all the students accounted for $15,575,952 in scholarships.

Decked out in medals, stoles and cords, the graduates crossed the stage while a highlights video of their lives to Saturday played overhead, accepted their diploma and then took a second to watch some of the highlights projected onto a screen on the stage.

Two graduates, Jonathan Andrews Jeffords and Kinady Marie Ella Pierce, received appointments to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Pierce, the student body president, led her classmates in the Pledge of Allegiance.

First honor graduate McDaniel Henry Faile delivered the ceremonys invocation.

Della Bradshaw Avent spoke as the class salutatorian while Sophia Tianyu Freeman spoke as the valedictorian.

Students honored Marqueis Smith for his work with them as a math teacher while the school recognized Samantha Pollett as the schools teacher of the year. She will go on to compete to become the SCISA teacher of the year.

Because of the bad weather this years class did its cap throwing inside.
 "Voices Of Redemption: A National Survey Of People With Records" | Main | "The Animal Crushing Offense Loophole" 

May 27, 2023

New GOP Prez candidate DeSantis pledges to repeal FIRST STEP Act

I noted in this post a few month ago a press report that Florida Gov Ron DeSantis was planning to assail former Prez Trump for his support of the FIRST STEP Act back in 2018. And, sure enough, with days of announcing his candidacy for President, Gov DeSantis has attacked Trump's signature criminal justice reform achievement. This Fox News piece, headlined "Ron DeSantis rips Trump over First Step Act, vows to repeal it: 'Basically a jailbreak bill'," provides these details:

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed Friday to seek a repeal of President Trump's signature First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that aimed to reduce recidivism, allowed a pathway for non-violent prisoners to shorten their sentences, and reduced mandatory minimum sentences. "Under the Trump administration  he enacted a bill, basically a jailbreak bill, it's called the First Step Act. It has allowed dangerous people out of prison who have now re-offended, and really, really hurt a number of people," DeSantis said in an interview with the Daily Wire. "So one of the things I would want to do as president is go to Congress and seek the repeal of the First Step Act. If you are in jail, you should serve your time. And the idea that they're releasing people who have not been rehabilitated early, so that they can prey on people in our society is a huge, huge mistake," he added. DeSantis voted for the first version of the bill as a member of the House of Representatives in 2018, the same year he was elected as Florida's governor, but had resigned before the final, more moderate version of the bill came to a vote in the chamber. Trump's campaign responded to DeSantis by pointing to his original vote, and argued he was basically criticizing his own supporters in Congress who also voted for the bill. "Lyin' Ron. He voted for the First Step Act. Would be a shame if there was video of him praising it in an interview with a local FL television station..." Trump campaign spokesperson Stephen Cheung tweeted following the DeSantis' interview. "DeSantis supporter [Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.] voted for the bill as well. DeSantis is calling out his own Congressional supporters and throwing them under the bus," he later added in a separate tweet.

May 27, 2023 at 11:22 PM | Permalink

Comments

There were lots and lots of reasons to prefer DeSantis to DJT and this is one more. Note that Trump's spokesman does not even make an effort to defend the FSA on the merits.

Posted by: Bill Otisw | May 28, 2023 1:19:00 PM

Bill - what is your specific objection to the First Step Act? It was a noteworthy and commendable piece of legislation that attempted to serve a laudable societal goal (reducing excessive sentences and attempt to allow more and more former prisoners to return back to society without reoffending)

Posted by: Brett Miler | May 28, 2023 3:25:07 PM

Brett,

Your comment is based on the assumptions that the sentences are excessive and these people will not reoffend if let out earlier.

I reject both.

Posted by: TarlsQtr | May 28, 2023 5:10:35 PM

Unfortunately, there are always a handful of people granted clemency who reoffend and make the world far more difficult for politicians and other inmates. Recently, Alton Mills, 54, was charged with 3 counts of attempted murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm, following a road rage incident where he fired a pistol into another car on I-57 (in Illinois), seriously wounding a man in the back seat, but narrowly missing the other 2 occupants. In 2015, Mills was serving a life sentence for dealing crack cocaine, when his sentence was commuted to "time served" (23 years) by President Obama. Since then, Mills has had his pic taken with several Congressmen and Senators, but now he is embarrassing everyone by behaving most badly. IT seems that this small number who reoffend ruin the idea of mercy and clemency for everyone else.

Posted by: Jim Gormley | May 28, 2023 6:04:04 PM

To Bill Otis,

We were engaged in back and forth postings on May 23. If you recall, you had asked me, amongst other things, of my "record in court as an attorney", which you well know that I am not. You also summarily dismissed the three cases that I had cited of innocent men who had been executed. After responding to your inquiries, you quite rudely failed to acknowledge or repsond in kind. Of course, you either forgot, overlooked my posting, got busy with something else, etc. etc. In the end, I'm SURE there was good reason not to answer. So, I am taking the liberty to re-post my response to you, for your benefit and to give you another opportunity to repsond. Here it is:

SG previously wrote to Mr. Otis:

"I assume you will contest these 3 cases as "inconclusive", or "faulty" in some respect. No shock there."

And sure enough...and as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west...

As to your question re: murderers who murder....duh. Doesn't take a genius, or even a former AUSA to figure this one out.

But if you should ask the critical question, "How could this have been prevented?" Yes, the criminal could have not murderered. Again, duh.

That IS but one answer.

Other answers:

You (collectively, those running the 'system') had your bite at the apple and failed. If the system had been effective, and the 'system' worked the way you envision, then the murderer would hvae been sentenced to death, or at minimum, LWOP.

So who shares in the responsibility besides the criminal and their dastardly, evil defense attorneys (as well as all those liberal politicians and soft-on-crime judges)?

Either the evidence was just not there to convict beyond a reasonable doubt, OR there was some type of failure or errors on the part of the police/prosecution (most typically police misconduct or prosecutorial misconduct. Rarely is it judicial misconduct or jury misconduct).

And so in the final analysis, your system failed not only the criminals, but all of society, and most importantly the subsequent victims.

Do those running this system ('tough on crime politicians', law enforcement, prosecutors, parole/probation, govt. experts, judges and justices, media surrogates, etc.) EVER publicly admit fault, or take a shred of responsibility for their role in the subsequent murders? No way, Jose. Almost to a person, they will sit back and point their collective fingers at the criminal and defense attorney, and anyone else that may get in their way.

We'll soon read it in one of your postings, I'm sure: "It's ALL their fault, not thine. We are the heroes wearing the white hats. Don't you dare ever challenge us, fault us, or criticize us". Come on, Bill. You can admit it. We all know.

Oh, as far as my record in court as a defense attorney? I do have one case that I can tell you about. I was conscripted by the Federal court judge to act as the pro per defendant's investigator (deft. was a young alleged neo-Nazi prison gang member [and me, an old Jew. We got along famously], who was in doing double-life sentences for a murder and attempted murder. He was certainly no saint). He was accused of attempted murder in a federal prison (allegedly attacked another inmate with a shiv). After I investigated the case, I sat with him throughout the trial, coaching him along the way, acting as a surrogate defense attorney, in effect. The jury was out 45 minutes. Came back with a 'not guilty'. The veteran prosecutor and FBI agent investigator were certainly 'disappointed' to say the least. They just couldn't prove their (weak) case.

So I am batting 1.000. Not bad for a HS drop out/recovered addict, eh?

Now you may respond. Or not.

Posted by: SG | May 28, 2023 6:50:07 PM

Bill,

Correction. Our posting communiques were on May 24th. SG

Posted by: SG | May 28, 2023 6:54:15 PM

SG --

I have found that from time to time I'm able to talk to you and have done so repeatedly. So I feel like now I should tell you this: I do not owe you or anyone else here any sort of communication, ever. I like some back-and-forth with people who are honest, polite, and respectful. Knowing the field doesn't hurt either. If what I'm getting back meets those criteria, there's a decent chance I'll respond, given, however, the constraints of my time and interest. If you want more than that, my time bills out at $1400 an hour, with ten hours payable in advance as a retainer.

There are lots and lots of people in my world who are plenty honest, polite, respectful and knowledgeable for whom I regret that I don't have nearly enough time. Your recent remarks to me don't put you in their category, so you can figure out for yourself how much of my time from now on you're going to get. If the character of your remarks to me changes, I might reconsider.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 28, 2023 10:20:40 PM

Bill,

I suggest you review ALL of your previous comments to me.

I have been no more uncivil to you than you have been to me. And in some instances, I was far more civil and polite. This is a fact, not opinion.

Posted by: SG | May 29, 2023 8:14:19 AM

Alton Mills' 1994 life sentence was based on a crack conspiracy involving less than 5 grams of crack. Mills also had 2 prior felony drug convictions, also for small amounts of crack. He had no record of violence then. He probably received a section 851 life sentence enhancement because he wouldn't debrief and tell on the people above him in the drug distribution conspiracy. He never even had 5 grams or more of crack, which would have triggered a 10 year mandatory minimum sentence (20 years for the second crack conviction). He may not have deserved a life sentence in 1994, but he does now. He killed a woman (she is brain dead already) and almost killed 2 others in a road rage incident -- impulsive and sheer stupidity. No more sympathy for him, but much anger over what he has done to hurt those who should receive clemency and shorting sentences. And pity for the politicians who trusted him and had their pictures taken with him after his life sentence was commuted.

Posted by: Jim Gormley | May 29, 2023 1:58:22 PM

Jim Gormley --

Alton Mills is a particularly bad case and my colleague Associate Professor Shon Hopwood is a particularly good one. Because each is exceptional, neither should tell the tale on clemency.

There are three main reasons that politicians should mostly leave judicial outcomes where the are. The first is that politicians have an established track record of grandstanding the issue -- Trump and Obama both did, and of course Bill Clinton. The second is that most inmates, on release, do not become big contributors to society and the majority recidivate. BJS statistics are unambiguous on this point. The third is that "second look" theory runs in only one direction, i.e., we don't look at those who have become worse and more dangerous in prison and only look at those who (their side will argue) have improved. Second look theory would have more of a claim on broad support if it operated to protect the public from inmates who've gotten worse and well as to seek public benefit from those who on release would probably contribute to the public good.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 29, 2023 3:20:55 PM

Bill Otis is an unmitigated elderly racist. He has apparently had a bitter life and may have sadistic tendencies, which may explain his incessant pleas for harsher sentencing. For those who don't know, he was rejected as a nominee for the Sentencing Commission because of his draconian views and suspected Nazi tendencies (despite being married to -- an apparently self-hating -- Jew). Bill you are a disgrace to well-educated people, should know better, and are a coward who disgracefully caters to rubes and ignorant scumbags.

Posted by: Mark | May 29, 2023 4:23:24 PM

One way in which Otis caters to the rubes and scumbags is by relying on stories of the occasional person who was granted clemency and then re-offended in a notable way. Bill, you cite no evidence that the First Step Act, was a bad piece of legislation. Of course, any program of leniency is going to result in some unfortunate events. But that obviously does not prove anything about the widsdom of the program.

You, of course, understand that an occasional bad story does not make it a bad piece of legislation. What evidence do you have that, on the whole, the Act has been a bad thing. Go back to your self-hating Jewish wife and spare us the bullshit and pandering and feeding false information to white working class racists and rubes, who unlike you can't be expected to know better. What is your problem, you old white racist? Nothing better to do with yourself? Go earn some keep at $1400/hour you bitter old bastard.

Posted by: Mark | May 29, 2023 4:31:32 PM

Mark --

Hey, look, I love you too.

There are lots of commenters here who have reason to hide their last name, but I have to admit you're at the head of the pack. On the other hand, it's only Monday.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 29, 2023 5:53:30 PM

Bill,

I once had to go to the local hospital for some medical tests at the same time I was working in the prison. I was walking from the dressing room to the radiology department with my a$$ sticking out of a gown, and I suddenly hear, Hey! Mr. G! I turn to see one of my inmate students who was brought to the same place for his medical appointment. It was quite awkward.

This is your awkward moment. You clearly just ran into someone you kept in prison.

Posted by: TarlsQtr | May 30, 2023 12:02:19 AM

Bill: I am just now seeing the vitriol from Mark. I would be inclined to delete his comments if you wanted me to do so, notwithstanding my general hands-off approach to comments, though I generally sense that you see the virtues of allowing ugliness to show itself. I know in the past that ugly family attacks led you to leave this forum, and I am especially disinclined to foster heckler vetoes.

Posted by: Doug B | May 30, 2023 8:59:11 AM

Doug --

Thank you very much for your comment. It's unfortunate that you should have to deal with something like this on such a wonderful day for you and the Bermans.

On reflection, I think the best among bad choices is to leave it up, perhaps with a note to commenters that ugly references to another commenter's family are not welcome and not appropriate to the kind of discussion you want to encourage here.

If you're fully committed to free speech, as you and I are, there's a price to be paid. "Mark," if that's his name, shows us the price, and it's disgusting but educational.

Again, I appreciate your concern, and I hope (and am quite sure) that the rest of your day will be a gloriously happy celebration.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 30, 2023 9:21:27 AM

TarlsQtr --

Those hospital gowns are an invention of the Devil. When I'm in the hospital, which I'm happy to say is next to never, I wear two of them just to make sure everything that needs covering gets covered.

I doubt "Mark" was one of my "clients." The crooks I dealt with were generally better behaved and not that bitter. They understood that possibly going to the slammer was part of the cost of doing business and took it in stride. Of course more than a few of them had been there before.

"Mark's" kind of bile is something you see mostly from ideologues who've stayed in the game too long. There may be some mental disturbance issues too, but I don't know.

The main thing I'm curious about is how "Mark's" fellow soft-on-crime folks will react. My guess is that most will just pretend they didn't see it. It's possible a very few will say that I (and my wife) have it coming. A few will criticize it. Like I say, I'll be curious.

P.S. Mark is right about one thing, though: I'm old. That's what you get to be if you're lucky.

P.P.S. I guess I'll take this opportunity to brag about my wife, since she seems to be of interest. She's a cum laude Yale grad, Chicago Law, a co-founder and Director of the Federalist Society, former clerk to Judge Antonin Scalia of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia of SCOTUS, former Associate White House Counsel (George H. W. Bush), former General Counsel of the Department of Energy, former Associate Deputy Attorney General, an elected member of the American Law Institute (ALI), and presently Director of the Federalist Society's Faculty Division and (with me) Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University. In other words, she is more intelligent and accomplished than anyone who has ever written in the comments section here, certainly including me.

Her father, also a Yale grad, fought in WW II and later became the name partner in a successful Manhattan law firm.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 30, 2023 9:48:17 AM

Although I completely disagree with Mark's personal attacks on Bill's family, doesn't he make fair points about Bill's method of argument? To begin, Bill labels anyone who disagrees with his point of view as "soft on crime." That is just rhetoric and shows disdain for those of use who are advocating for what we see as the right balance in the criminal justice system. Bill, at what point is someone who favors lower incarceration rates than you do "soft on crime" and therefore easily dismissed? Is it everyone? Also, Mark is right to call out Bill's approach of just condemning any piece of legislation that relaxes incarceration rates or duration as a "jail break." Bill, you have to admit that you are not providing any empirical-based or other reasoned basis for claiming that the First Step Act was bad legislation. You are just engaging in bald rhetoric. Finally, why does the fact that second look legislation might be one-way mean that the legislation is bad? Are folks who deserve a second look -- and the benefits that can come to society from lessening sentences for those who are good bets to become productive citizens and not reoffend -- to be sacrificed because there might be something to say for making second looks a two way ratchet? What does the lack of appetite for two-way have to do with considerations regarding a one-way reform? At bottom, Bill, I deplore the personal attacks, but you engage in an awful lot of ad hominem attacks and unsupported attacks on reforms and reformers, which I think can be rightly called out.

Phil Shapiro

Posted by: Philip Shapiro | May 30, 2023 11:10:26 AM

Phil Shapiro --

1. "To begin, Bill labels anyone who disagrees with his point of view as 'soft on crime.'"

False. I disagree with a number of federalist's more libertarian stances, but have never called him soft on crime (since he isn't). Your side routinely calls my side "tuff and tuffer," but I understand that is shorthand. You should (and I suspect do) have a similar understanding.

And then there's the fact that there ARE people fairly described as soft on crime -- people who think the whole American model, lock-stock-and-barrel, is cruel and punitive and that a softer medical model ought to replace it in toto.

2. "Jailbreak bill" is similar shorthand. When I support tougher sentencing, it's routinely called "and throw away the key." Again, it's shorthand, and no one who follows these debates is confused by it. I might add that the true extremist positions are on your side -- for example, the issue of the HLR about four or five years ago devoted to the theme that prison should be abolished. Not reduced, abolished. It would hardly be unfair to call that "jailbreak," would it?

The basic divide is between people who see incarceration as the problem (your side) and those who see it as part of the solution (my side). But it's convenient to have a short label for that.

3. "Bill, you have to admit that you are not providing any empirical-based or other reasoned basis for claiming that the First Step Act was bad legislation." The FSA lowers sentences and thus reduces incarceration (which is its whole point). But incarceration incapacitates criminals and thus enhances safety in civil society, as it did in spades for an entire generation starting in the early Nineties. I have produced the documentation for this dozens of times and it's plenty easy to find in any event. I'm not required to keep repeating myself and decline to do so simply because you're a late comer to the debate.

4. "Finally, why does the fact that second look legislation might be one-way mean that the legislation is bad?" Principally because it's dishonest and, on account of its dishonesty, ignores a big part of the problem.

The insight that some people in prison warrant a second look because they've changed is true, but is deceitful if we refuse to recognize the known fact that, while some get better, others get worse, and thus should be kept away from society for LONGER than originally thought wise. Accordingly, I won't be buying a theory of second-look sentencing that, for pro-defendant ideological purposes only, ignores half of its own reality.

5. If you want facts, fine. Here are the two main ones: The recidivism rate is through the roof (https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2019/may/3/long-term-recidivism-studies-show-high-arrest-rates/) and crime fell massively during the time when we substantially increased incarceration (https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm). Over the past nine years, however (starting in 2014), the number of persons incarcerated is significantly down and the number of crimes committed is significantly up.

The people on your side routinely dismiss or minimize these facts, but it's not because they're not true. It's because of the ideology that criminals are victims (of racism, militarism, capitalism, class structure and on and on) rather than victimizers. That is not an ideology I share because it does not comport with the actual reasons people behave as they do. But it's an ideology that people like Mark buy, and so I'm to be run off the blog (he erroneously thinks) with his filth.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 30, 2023 12:53:51 PM

Bill,

First, as to Mark...if anyone should be "dismissed" from this website, obviously it should be him, not you. I found his comments to be uncalled for and offensive. And if you think 'the opposition' endorse comments such as that, you are very wrong. And it's equally as wrong for you to assume otherwise.

Secondly, you need to step back just a bit and examine some of your own behaviors, which I have found to be at times (and with just some people who may challenge your philosophies, positions, rationales, etc.) excessive and uncalled for. Remove that timber from your own eye? (You, in the past, have called me 'stupid', 'crazy', 'insane', and various other demeaning and insulting characterizations).

Thirdly, assuming arguendo, that all of your statistics are 100% accurate as to crime rates, incarceration rates, fluctuations thereof, etc....and this is where I believe the argument should be centered upon...where does your 'harsh punishment' scheme, which you vigorously promote, get us? It seems to me that the only benefit of harsh punishments is the "personal satisfaction" one attains, a satisfying of one's desire for vengence. This lust for vengence is understandable, and human. But it is the application of this emotional response that leads us astray.

Critical thinking and analysis seems to be given nothing but 'lip service' from those on 'your side'.

So what is the point if the crime rates are not lowered, and as you have pointed out, are actually rising?? And this is the result after we have spent $$billions over the decades?

And I've made this point time and again...yes, some on the CUSP of criminality are sometimes, but not always, deterred as a result of this scheme. And certainly, the most dangerous and violent are incapacitated, which those on BOTH SIDES of the debate agree is a good thing.



But then, there are the recidivism rates, which I hold as the "true results" of this present scheme. As the harsh sentences increase over the years, shouldn't both the recidivism rates and crime rates GO DOWN? I think you would have to agree it is not working as expected. Sooo..what to do?

(And by the way, suich failure is not the fault of defense attorneys, or those who call for CJ/prison reform, nor a failure on the part of police, prosecutors, or the judiciary).

If you bought an expensive car, and it broke down repeatedly, belched exhaust and used quarts of oil per month, was always in the shop, and turned out to be far more expensive to maintain than you had envisioned, wouldn't you go get a different car?

On a personal note, you can certainly choose not to respond to me as it seems that my prior comments in response to your postings were not of your liking. So be it. I speak my truth irrespective of your likes or dislikes. I'm sure you do the same.

Posted by: SG | May 30, 2023 3:20:07 PM

SG --

1. I explicitly did not call for "Mark" (it that's actually his name) to be kicked off the site. It's worth it for all to see his method of "argument," and think about in whose behalf that method of argument is employed. By contrast, tell me a single time a conservative commenter has taken a crack at someone's wife or made crude references to her religion.

2. I don't know how many of the soft-on-crime crowd (to use shorthand) agree with him. Thus far I've heard only from you and Phil Shapiro. There are lots and lots more out there -- dozens just on this blog.

3. Some of the things that side has said are in fact crazy. Such as: there's no difference between the USA and Russia or China. Or that all cops lie, it being a "job requirement." You didn't say that, but you did say that I was "specious", "disingenuous", and full of "B.S." for stating that liberal Democrats, and not conservatives in any sense, are in charge of the criminal justice systems of the federal government, New York, California, Illinois and quite a few others. In fact my statement is true unless the governors and state legislatures or all those places changed overnight. Did they?

You also said that I'm "cowardly" -- your exact word -- even though I sign my name to everything I write while you persist in hiding your own name. There's lots more, but it's scarcely worth the time when you just walk past points you prefer not to answer.

4. "Thirdly, assuming arguendo, that all of your statistics are 100% accurate as to crime rates, incarceration rates, fluctuations thereof, etc....and this is where I believe the argument should be centered upon...where does your 'harsh punishment' scheme, which you vigorously promote, get us?"

A massive improvement in public safety, mainly. Unapologetic accountability from criminals also helps.

5. "It seems to me that the only benefit of harsh punishments is the "personal satisfaction" one attains, a satisfying of one's desire for vengence."

Then what seems to you is quite incorrect. And it's notable that you want to ascribe only unworthy, nativist emotions to your adversaries, not anything that might resemble thinking. Profs. James Q. Wilson and Barry Latzer, to name two, might beg to differ. Unless you know more than they.

6. "So what is the point if the crime rates are not lowered, and as you have pointed out, are actually rising??"

But they WERE lowered, and dramatically, when tough-on-crime ideas held sway. Over the last few years they have lost ground under "progressive prosecutors" in many big cities, and you can read about the results in the morgue roster.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 30, 2023 4:51:50 PM

After a wonderful day doing things far more meaningful that wading into blog comment venom, I just wanted to stress that I am always comfortable with sharp comments, especially when they are "on point," and I am always eager to discourage gratuitously noxious comments (especially when they are "off-point" and/or ad hominem). I hope all who comment here will respect --- and ultimately see that positions are bolstered by --- these commitments.

Posted by: Doug B | May 30, 2023 5:00:00 PM

Turning back to substance, here's my problem with Section 404 of the First Step Act: if a judge sentencing a defendant under the Fair Sentencing Act's reduced crack-powder disparity would have given a defendant 10 years, instead of 15, why does the judge get to lower the sentence all the way to time served (maybe 5 years)? That is a windfall remedy no other defendant gets. At least when the Commission lowers a guidelines range and makes the change retroactive, the lowest the judge can go is the bottom of the new Guidelines range. The First Step Act should have contained a similar limitation.

Posted by: Da Man | May 30, 2023 5:20:16 PM

Doug --

You had a day you'll remember for a long time, and, may God be praised, not for anything having to do with blogging.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 30, 2023 5:21:07 PM

Da Man --

I agree with your observation, and would add one more. The FSA was another step away from the original Congressional intent in the SRA of 1984, to wit, to change an indeterminate sentencing system into a determinate one. That goal took its most harmful hit in Booker's remedy of making the Guidelines "advisory only." Since Booker (now 18 years ago) things have continued to slide downhill to the point that we're pretty darn close to being where we started decades ago -- luck of the draw sentencing.

Discretion has a place in sentencing, sure, and it had a place in the Guidelines as originally envisioned. But it's grown back to an unhealthy extent. The FSA continued to push it in the wrong direction.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 30, 2023 6:56:12 PM

ANY GOP in the top seat is a devastation to Democracy in this Country. DEsank will bring more hate and our lives with be similar to "The handmaid's tale" Trump will bring a corrupt Dictator into power and fleece America and it's law into a sink hole...stay away from all GOP and may they all be voted out. GOP=HATE. Period.

Posted by: Randy Cowan | May 30, 2023 7:07:21 PM

Randy,

If you want to read about hate, look at your own comment. If lucky, you may find the irony.

Kudos for not using the word fascism.

Posted by: TarlsQtr | May 30, 2023 9:19:37 PM

Well, I think Mark is pretty far out of his element.

By many standards, I would be considered "soft on crime" although I don't see it that way. I believe we have laws falling all over themselves that make it difficult to know what the law is. I also observe that prosecutors determine what laws are prosecuted and thus what the sentence is.

Why would I want to only entertain discussions with people who agree with me? What would I learn about the flaws in my argument - Nothing. Bill Otis has taught me a lot about opposing views and I'm grateful for that. He is a hard push, but that only crystalizes the argument. He is not without compassion and would never use a phrase like "white working class racists and rubes".

Posted by: beth curtis | May 30, 2023 9:40:15 PM

Well, I think Mark is pretty far out of his element.

By many standards, I would be considered "soft on crime" although I don't see it that way. I believe we have laws falling all over themselves that make it difficult to know what the law is. I also observe that prosecutors determine what laws are prosecuted and thus what the sentence is.

Why would I want to only entertain discussions with people who agree with me? What would I learn about the flaws in my argument - Nothing. Bill Otis has taught me a lot about opposing views and I'm grateful for that. He is a hard push, but that only crystalizes the argument. He is not without compassion and would never use a phrase like "white working class racists and rubes".

Posted by: beth curtis | May 30, 2023 9:40:15 PM

Beth --

Thanks. I'm quite sure I've benefited more from getting to know you than you have from getting to know me. And your gentle but unyielding tenacity is a lesson I saw first-hand. Very few people could do it.

Posted by: Bill Otis | May 30, 2023 9:56:16 PM

Bill,

Come on. You have walked past many, many points that I have made, just as I have with you.

To respond to your comment as to what we, as a society, get out of your 'harsh punishment scheme', you stated:

"A massive improvement in public safety, mainly. Unapologetic accountability from criminals also helps".

However, we do NOT get a massive improvement in public safety, since crime rates rise according to your numbers, and over-all recidivism rates are (and always have been) hovering around 50-60%. By the way, the lowest recidivism rates are those of sex offenders, aside from murderers (3-5% recidivism rate for first time sex offenders who get slammed harder than just about every other sub-set of offenders). What does society get out of that, other than increasing the risk of these folks re-offending?

So, no - I see no "massive improvement in public safety". In fact, the numbers you site leads one to conclude the opposite.

Parenthetically, I have never argued that violent offenders should be released early or given lighter sentences. Quite the opposite.

As far as your argument as to who has built and presently operate the CJ system, I strongly disagree with your take on it. I think you're wildly wrong, and it's hard to imagine that anyone would endorse your position here.

Politicians (on both sides) have for decades cowtowed to those who lobby for the "prison-industrial complex". They actively seek endorsement from police unions, D.A. unions, and similar 'tough on crime' proponents. In California, the CCPOA (California Correctional Peace Officers Association...the prison guard union) as well as the California D.A. Association have weilded "undue influence" over government policy for decades, and have gotten many politicians either elected (e.g., Arnold Schwarzenegger), or defeated and/or recalled (e.g., S.F. D.A. Chesa Boudin).

Should a progressive D.A. get elected, we can count on the local police union and D.A. association, etc. work themselves up in a lather, immediately starting media campaigns to subvert and undermine new 'progressive' policies ASAP.

It's a fact that similar law enforcement and prosecutors' associations/unions weild similar influence on politicians in every state of the Union, as well as influence upon federal office holders.

Posted by: SG | May 30, 2023 10:20:08 PM

The supreme irony of all of this is that FSA was mostly a GOP initiative to begin with before Trumpism took hold. Kushner made this a personal priority because of his personal experience and sold it to Teh Donald as increasing his appeal among African-American voters and getting him some press with other relentless self-promoters like Kardashian and her psycho ex. Trump doesn't mention it because that was a failure, not because FSA was a failure.

Our prison systems are notoriously devoid of rehabilitative programs. At least FSA incents inmates to participate in what rehabilitative programming exists.

So, of course Meatball Ron, in keeping with his and the GQP's current brand of performative nonsense masquerading as policy, is going to speak out against the FSA simply because it shortens prison sentences, without regard for whether that is a bad or a good thing.

Posted by: Fat Bastard | May 31, 2023 8:01:32 AM

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 "The Animal Crushing Offense Loophole" | Main | "Restorative Justice as a Democratic Practice" 

May 28, 2023

Start-of-summer update on the relatively good homicide news from cities in first half of 2023

In this post from early April 2023, I flagged the AH Datalytics collection of homicide data from police reports in nearly 100 big cities to note that, after significant increases in homicides throughout the US in 2020 and 2021, homicide declines in 2022 were continuing into the start of 2023. Of course, homicide declines for 2022 followed particularly high homicide rates in many locales in 2021, and we still have a way to go to get back to pre-pandemic homicide levels. Still, I found the nationwide city homicide data to be encouraging for 2022 and early 2023, and now we have even more data suggesting positive recent homicide trends are continuing and perhaps even accelerating across big cities.

As we head into the unofficial start of the summer months, according to this AH Datalytics webpage, there is now so far cumulative 12% decline in murders across the nation's cities for more than the first third of 2023. And, as I have done in some prior recent posts on homicide rates, I find it interesting (and now encouraging) to took a closer look at a updated police reports showing 2023 homicide trends in our very biggest US cities:

Chicago homicides down 14% in 2022, and down another 7% over nearly five months of 2023

Houston homicides down 9% in 2022, and down another 28% over the first fourth months of 2023

Los Angeles homicides down 5% in 2022, and down another 28% over nearly five months of 2023

New York City homicides down 11% in 2022, and down another 13% in first three+ months of 2023

Philadelphia homicides down 9% in 2022, and down another 15% over first five months of 2023

As I have said before, these homicide data from cities are likely not fully representative of what may be going on with homicides nationwide, and homicide trends always seem to be unpredictable and data can change in lots of ways in coming months. Still, the latest nationwide homicide data from the AH Datalytics webpage continue to reinforce my hope that the surging number of homicides in just about every part of the US through 2020 and 2021 were mostly a pandemic era phenomenon and that homicide rates may nor be trending back toward pre-pandemic norms.

May 28, 2023 at 05:28 PM | Permalink

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Homicides are way down here in Lexington, Kentucky. There were 0 homicides in January 2023, compared to 7 homicides in January 2022. So far, we now have 9 homicides during the first 4 months of 2023, compared to about 15 in 2022's first 4 months. The city and the churches have been working to steer young men away from guns and violence, and it seems to be working. A private foundation is working to match young black men whose fathers are away in prison with mentors and surrogate fathers. Last night's shooting homicide here was disturbing, however. A man in his 30s was shot dead at the intersection of West short Street and North Limestone Street about 2:40 a.m. This location is in the middle of the restaurant and bar district, and is also across the street from both the District and Circuit Courthouses, and 1 block from the Federal Courthouse. A suspect has been arrested, but so far there is no public explanation of the crime. About a month ago, a 19-year old with a gun tried to steal the pistol from the belt of a 16-year old, who resisted, in a public park. Shots were fired, and two 19-year olds were wounded. The 19-year old aggressor was shot and wounded by the 16-year old, who died from a gunshot fired by the 19-year old -- who is not charged with 1st degree robbery, murder, and possession of heroin and possession of meth. Too many of our shootings involve relatively young men and drugs and/or gang activity. For those not involved in the drug business (or trying to rob a drug dealer) and not involved in a gang, the odds of being shot here are almost 0%. Exceptions are 1-3 domestic violence homicides per year.

Posted by: Jim Gormley | May 28, 2023 5:46:05 PM

In recent years, Lexington has experienced the following numbers of homcides:30 in 2019, 34 in 2020, 37 in 2021 and 43 in 2022. By contrast, Louisville, Kentucky had more than 173 homicides in 2022.

Posted by: Jim Gormley | May 28, 2023 5:52:46 PM

These are encouraging figures and I hope homicides continue to drop for the remainder of the year. I too think the homicide spike in 2020-2021 occurred due to the Pandemic and institutions closed, unemployment increased and people grew angry and scared of the perceived "new normal." Homicide rates will drop eventually drop to pre-Pandemic levels though.

Posted by: Anon | May 28, 2023 11:15:23 PM

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IDA GROVE, Iowa -- Kenneth L. Van Kekerix, president and chief executive officer of Ida Grove Bancshares, Inc. and chairman of the board of United Bank of Iowa, will retire May 31 after 36 years of service, the bank announced this week.

Van Kekerix started his career with United Bank of Iowa (formerly Ida County State Bank) in December 1986, when he accepted the role of president.

During his tenure, Van Kekerix served as chairman of the board, president and CEO of United Bank of Iowa, as well as President and CEO of Ida Grove Bancshares, Inc. In April 2008, he stepped back from the day-to-day operations and transitioned to president and CEO of Ida Grove Bancshares, Inc. and chairman of the board of United Bank of Iowa, serving in this role for the past 15 years, the bank said in its press release.

Owen Bolte, former president and CEO of United Bank of Iowa, will replace Van Kekerix as chairman of the board of United Bank of Iowa and president and CEO of Ida Grove Bancshares, Inc., effective June 1.

Bolte, who has a 32 year career with United Bank of Iowa, served as president and CEO of United Bank of Iowa from April 2008, until May 2022, when he announced his retirement. Bolte has served as a director for the past 22 years.

Van Kekerixs plans for retirement include frequent trips with his wife, Lisa, including a much-anticipated trip to Israel this summer, the bank said in its press release. He also recently obtained his pilots license and enjoys flying whenever he has the opportunity. The couple looks forward to spending more time with their four grown children and their families, which includes twelve grandchildren with one more arriving in July.

United Bank of Iowa entered many new markets during Van Kekerixs tenure; the bank now has offices in 35 western Iowa communities. The banks assets have grown to $2.3 billion, and the bank currently has 339 employees. The bank changed its name from Ida County State Bank to United Bank of Iowa in 1996.

United Bank of Iowa has a strong financial posture and is positioned to continue to thrive and grow into the future. I am confident that President and CEO Dan Dotzler and Chairman Bolte will provide a seamless transition. This leadership team is committed and equipped to carry forward United Bank of Iowas success," Van Kekerix said in a statement.
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Scores of Northeast Nebraska residents turned out Saturday afternoon for the long-awaited dedication of an expansive memorial in downtown Hartington that honors the regions veterans.

Six granite columns bear the names of 1,060 area veterans who served from the Civil War to the present. Culminating over three years of planning and fundraising, the memorial also lists the nations wars and the number of casualties each side suffered.

A bronze soldier kneels at a monument in which A Soldiers Prayer is engraved. A second soldier kneels and embraces a folded American flag before the bronze helmet, rifle and boots that mark the tribute to a fallen soldier.

The solemn scenes are a reminder of the ultimate sacrifice so many of our fellow citizens have made in the defense of our country. Its also a stark reminder of why our nation began observing Memorial Day over 150 years ago.

Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the leader of an organization of Union veterans  the Grand Army of the Republic  established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of war dead with flowers. After World War I, Decoration Day was expanded to honor not only the Civil War dead, but also U.S. soldiers lost in the Great War and subsequent wars  World War II, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War and, more recently, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968, Memorial Day was no longer celebrated on May 30, in order to create a three-day weekend for federal workers. Starting in 1971, it was designated for the last Monday in May.

The total number of Americans killed in all wars, including the Civil War when nearly 500,000 soldiers perished, is more than 1.1 million.

As we celebrate the end of another school year, graduations and the traditional beginning of summer on this long holiday weekend, take time to remember the ultimate price they paid. In addition, reflect on the sacrifices of all who have served and continue to wear Americas uniform, as well as their families.

Veterans are a symbol of what makes our nation great, and we must never forget all they have done to ensure our freedom and way of life, organizers of the Hartington Area Veterans Memorial said in the official program for Saturdays dedication ceremony.

WE WILL NEVER FORGET.

Indeed, we wont.
Anyone who finds themselves smitten in the year 2023 isnt wanting for ways to shoot their shot. Obvious next steps might include a DM slide or the time-honored late-night u up? text. Or they could go in a completely different direction: They could order a custom-written love letter from a stranger.

Do you long to put into words how you feel about someone? Are you seeking the perfect expression of your love to give to your husband or wife, your bride, fiance, or friend? Thats how one ad offering love-letter services on Fiverr, the freelance gig marketplace, begins. And you dont have to look hard to see that the platform is chock-full of people peddling these missives, starting at $5 a pop. But who would sell such a thing in this economy? And who would buy it? I decided to find out.

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My experience is that people have a hard time expressing themselves, a Fiverr seller named Terry told me. Shes 74, she lives in Maryland, and shes been on Fiverr for about 12 years, touting a variety of gigs, as do most of the love-letter sellers I spoke to.

Kevin, a writer in Chicago and another seller of love letters on Fiverr, told me, Were in a world of instant gratification, so when you see that somebody hasnt taken the easy route of an impersonal text or a dating app to get your attention but instead has taken the time to compose something to thoughtfully convey their feelings for you, well, that just hits different. He likened it to the difference between a microwave dinner and a home-cooked meal made with loveonly the latter can fill you up.

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Several sellers told me that the vast majority of their love-letter clients are men, which Terry prefers. In her experience, men want to communicate more than they feel theyre capable of or that they have the skill to, she said. They dont want to sound wussy or mushy.

Thats where she comes in. She has them start by filling out a questionnaire, which seems to be standard practice for love-letter purchasing, asking basic things like who the letters for and what the occasion is, but also trying to draw out details that will make it feel specific. I kind of dig a little bit sometimes because, bless their hearts, men  they really look to me, in a lot of letters, as an adviser on what they should write, she said. So we communicate back and forth with questions until I get a clear idea of where were going. Then I go to town.

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Some questionnaires are more probing than others. The first thing I ask is what theyre like, what their personality is, what quirks that you like about this person, Pao, a writer in the Philippines, told me. Then I ask, What do you like about them physically? The reason why I ask about the quirks first is that it will force the person to look beyond appearance and realize, Oh, I love this person. 

Common letter forms include confessions of crushes, appreciation on occasions like birthdays or anniversaries, and apologies. But Terry has encountered lots of other types of letters too. She said the ones from fathers to their adult children tend to be heartwarming. She even once wrote a letter to a dog.

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Alessandra, who sells letters on both Fiverr and her website sendlovewords.com, told me she has a special affinity for writing apologies: I simply adore when a manand Ive had so manycomes to me and says, I fucked up in my relationship for a while. And now I understand everything Ive done wrong. 

Alessandra said she thinks what sets her letters apart is their emotional acuity. Shes read a lot about things like relationship dynamics and attachment theory and considers herself a bit of an amateur psychologist. I really feel I can deliver not just nice words but the right words for the situation, she said. A few samples are available on Send Love Words TikTok account. One, a letter begging forgiveness, begins, Do you remember the amazing moments together when we met, before things got wild? Laughing was easy then, and we couldnt wait to see each other, spend time together.

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Noor, an electrical engineering student in Pakistan, also prefers apologies. It just kind of feels nice to let it out and let the other person know that you are aware that you did something wrong, she said. Her letters have a certain flair for the dramatic, as is evident in this snippet from one she shared with me, a rare apology from a wife to a husband: I am sorry my love, no amount of guilt and sorrow dwelling in my heart can undo the pain I have caused, just know that I hurt to see you hurt.

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Of course, her more blatantly romantic offerings are just as musical. One letter, which announces itself tidily with Here is a letter that pours out my feelings in words, goes on to say, Our love will be made for movie screens. I want to finally say it out loud. I have fallen in love with you, my precious  I will follow you, my love, to the edge of all our days, to our very last tomorrows. 

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When her letters work, Noor likes knowing that she made a positive impact. She remembers hearing back from an early client about one such letter. They were quite impressed that maybe this letter could help keep the relationship going on for maybe a little more, she said. I think that was the moment that it clicked that maybe Im actually helping people.

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As Noor, Alessandra, and Pao demonstrate, there are people from all over the world offering their love letterwriting services on Fiverr. Some of the ads I came across on the service were clearly written by non-fluent English speakers, adding an additional level of confusion to the enterprise: Its hard enough to understand why someone would buy a love letter on Fiverr, but why would someone buy a seemingly shoddily composed one? Rather than worry about things we dont have answers to, though, lets circle back to: How does someone end up selling their love letterwriting skills on a gig website in the first place?

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For Terry, it was a circuitous path that began after she decided to offer tea-leaf readings at a party about 15 years ago. She had no experience reading tea leaves; she just thought that it would be fun. It wound up being a hit, and she started doing the readings regularly, which led to a friends suggesting she offer them on a then-new platform called Fiverr.

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Except she couldnt figure out how to offer online tea-leaf readings, so she pivoted. I just switched it up and said that I will bring you messages from your angels, and that took off like crazy, she said. (What are messages from your angels? The description reads, In the Basic offering you may ask two questions that you need help with. I will connect with your Angels and mine, and bring you their guidance. OK then.) This services performance on Fiverr was good enough that Terry was permitted to add another gig, so love letters (and wedding vows) followed.

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Everybody tells me I dont charge enough, but Im happy with what Im doing, she said, and thats what matters to me. Her letters start at $35, and its safe to say that no one is getting rich on writing these alone, especially the people who charge only $5. The most expensive ones I encountered went up to around $120.

Juliet, a writer in Ghana, seemed just as surprised that she ended up selling love letters and poems on Fiverr as I was to find people selling them there. When I started on Fiverr, I had no niche at all and I really didnt know if it was even possible to make money there, she told me. I just tried out a bunch of random things. I probably did a Google search and went, What type of creative writing are people ready to pay for? And I got a number of options. And I said, Well, I can do these. So let me just put them all up and see how it goes.  She also writes a variety of other things on the platform, which shes been on for six years. She said her current most profitable gig is custom childrens stories.

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Initially I felt it was very weird, she said of the love letters and poems. I found it strange that people would ask a stranger to do something that personal for them. But later on, from the feedback, I understood where it was coming from. Because, I mean, you think about it: If you want to buy a present for someone, youre not gonna manufacture the product. Youre gonna buy it from someone you feel like does a good job on that product, and then you gift it to someone. I get it now.

She knows that her work may not always be in demandJuliet was among the writers I spoke to who were nervous about services like ChatGPT potentially taking away business from them. I have seen a considerable drop in gigs on Fiverr, and I know for sure its because of A.I., she told me of recent months. But other writers I talked to felt that A.I.-written letters would never be able to replicate a human touch.

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It certainly takes human discernment to know when to decline an assignment, as Terry occasionally does. If I dont like where something is going, I send them their money back because there are just certain things I wont do, she said. Like what? If theyre getting too aggressive or too assertive in what they want to saythey want to marry somebody after being online for a weekno thank you. Im not going there. She said she has also turned down men in their 20s writing to girls under 18.

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Other times, she has had to find ways to gently suggest that her clients take things down a notch: Ive had to tame some of the guys down. This sounds a little too much for what youre telling me the relationship status is. They always say, Yeah, youre right. Thank you for mentioning that. Or if they start to sound like erotica, Im like, OK, lets kind of just make this a little more mysterious rather than overtly sexual. 

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Noor said she also sometimes finds it awkward to work around her clients ineptitude. For example, sometimes clients show her texts theyve gotten and ask for help composing letters in response. At that point, shes had to explain, This is not a time you need a letter. This is the time you need just to text back.

Another tricky issue to navigate is that the people buying these letters are, in all likelihood, trying to pass them off as something theyve written themselves.

I just feel weird about it, Noor said of that aspect. It would mean more if the person wrote it himself. I just sort of understand that maybe they dont have good enough skills for that sometimes. Thats where Alessandra comes down on it too: People who put money into this service are generally people feeling a lot of feelings and care for someone else, she said. The words we use are, I would say, a refined or better version of their emotions. Never fake, never ever.

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Pao said he finds it confusing but tries not to think about it. If you want to pass it off as your own, I dont mind because Im just offering the service of writing you a poem, he said. Once you paid for it, thats yours. Im sure their girlfriends give them incredulous looks like, Really? I did not know you were capable of writing such beautiful poetry. 

To find out how that interaction goes in real life, I tracked down someone who had actually purchased a love letter: one of Alessandras clients, a Texas businessman named Michael Kelly.

Kelly was initially planning to write a love letter to his wife of 12 years and have someone mail it with a Paris postmark, another service Alessandra offers. Then I started reading some of her letters, and her poetic style of writing was beautiful, he said. He particularly liked the fancy words she used. So I was like, You know what, Im not even going to try to write it. Ill just let her write it for me. 

When he gave the letter to his wife, he said, she knows my writing style, so she knew that it wasnt me. My writing style is more of a point-blank type of writing. But she still thought it was cute that I did it. A textbook example of its the thought that counts.

Kelly has since bought another letter, and hes recommended the service to men in one of his church groups. Whats so great about it? In his estimation, You can say I love you to your spouse, and then its gone. You say it and it ends. A love letter will last forever, as long as you have it. All that for just $5? A bargain.
An electricity meter is fastened to a telephone pole in downtown Seoul, May 15. Yonhap



Moody's lowers KEPCO's rating amid financial strain



By Lee Yeon-woo



International credit rating agency Moody's has recently downgraded the baseline credit assessment (BCA) of Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO).



It moved from Baa2 to Baa3, which is the lowest within the agency's investment grading system.



"The downgrade of KEPCO's BCA takes into account Moody's assessment that the pace of recovery of KEPCO's financial metrics will be much slower than previously expected, given the low visibility of further increases in retail electricity tariffs or of further debt reduction," said Mic Kang, a Moody's Vice President and Senior Credit Officer.



Despite the lower evaluation, the agency maintained KEPCO's rating at the Aa2 level. It stated that the "high likelihood of the company receiving extraordinary support from the government of Korea (Aa2 stable) in times of need" led to the seven-notch uplift from the original BCA.



Still, the agency added that it could downgrade KEPCO's ratings if its debt-to-capitalization ratio increases to 85 percent or above, or if the relationship between the government and KEPCO significantly deteriorates. This indicates KEPCO's credit rating has nearly dropped to the speculative grade without the government's intervention.



This is not the first time that KEPCO's ratings have been downgraded by international credit agencies. Last May, S&P lowered KEPCO's standalone credit profiles from the lowest investment grade, BBB-, to the speculative grade of BB+, citing a massive deficit. Fitch held its rating at BBB-.



Unlike private corporations, KEPCO's BCA will not affect the issuance of corporate bonds due to a government guarantee. The long-term credit ratings from international credit agencies, which take this guarantee into account, are the same as Korea's national credit ratings.



However, market watchers caution against dismissing the downgrade made by international credit agencies, noting that, as Daishin Securities researcher Kong Dong-rak asserts, the "decline in credit profile serves as a warning sign to foreign investors about KEPCO's unfavorable financial condition."



Meanwhile, KEPCO's operating loss recorded 6.2 trillion won ($4.6 billion) for the first quarter of this year, following a loss of 32.6 trillion won last year. Even though the government announced a 9 won per kilowatt hour (kWh) increase in power rates in May, it is thought that these latest price hikes will not be sufficient for KEPCO to recover from its mounting losses.


On Saturday, Croatian police officers arrested two people in the vicinity of Rijeka, who are suspected of setting explosive devices. They are connected to several explosions that have occurred in recent weeks near the stores of the Plodine retail chain. No one was injured in the explosions, but there was some material damage.



On Saturday, the police of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County arrested two people suspected of having links to a series of planted explosive devices in the Reka area, the last of which exploded overnight. Croatian Minister of the Interior Davor Bozinovic said the cases were clearly related, and the arrest of the suspects had removed the immediate danger.

Around midnight, the police arrested two people, citizens of Germany and Croatia, in front of a shopping center in the area of Kostrena pri Reka. They are suspected of having previously planted an explosive device near the Pecine shopping center, which then exploded, the Primorje-Gorski Kotar police administration announced today. No one was injured in the explosion, reports the Croatian news agency Hina.

According to the Croatian newspaper Jutarnji list, the suspects planned to plant an explosive device in Kostrena, where the police arrested them.

The police are also linking the suspect to the explosion on May 21 in Vezica in Reka, where an explosion occurred in front of the local shopping center shortly before midnight. In the process, the glass on the door of the center was destroyed, while no one was injured in the incident.

The investigation of the mentioned events is still ongoing, as well as a criminal investigation in order to determine the facts and circumstances related to the planted explosive devices.

According to Jutarnje List, investigators believe that the bombs were planted with the intention of putting pressure on the Croatian retail chain Plodine. All the explosive devices were placed in front of the centers of this merchant.

Interior Minister Bozinovic said today that the cases of placing explosive devices in the Reka area are clearly connected and have an international dimension. He added that by arresting the two suspects, the police removed the immediate danger.

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Comac, which plans to produce 150 aircraft annually in five years. Photo: EPA



For decades, China has struggled to compete with Western rivals in aviation. Commercial Aviation Corporation of China (Commercial Aviation Corporation of China respectively Comac) thus, hoping to break the dominance of Airbus and Boeing aircraft, embarked on its project, which the Chinese president Sew Jinping described as one of Chinas most innovative achievements.

It created the first passenger plane of domestic production. Although the country is trying to reduce its reliance on foreign technology due to deteriorating relations with the West, 164-chairlift however, it still relies heavily on Western components, including engines and avionics, the BBC reports.

The C919 has finally passed its baptism of fire and made its first commercial flight  taking to the skies in Shanghai and flying to the capital, Beijing. More than 130 passengers, chosen by lottery, received red airline tickets and were treated to a sumptuous meal on the large plane. They arrived in Beijing in less than three hours.

Comacwhich in five years is planning to produce 150 aircraft annually, it is said to have already secured more than 1,200 orders for the C919. State airline China Eastern The airline ordered five planes.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230527/air-raid-sirens-go-off-in-several-regions-of-ukraine-including-kiev---authorities-1110644030.html

Air Raid Sirens Go Off in Several Regions of Ukraine, Including Kiev - Authorities

Air Raid Sirens Go Off in Several Regions of Ukraine, Including Kiev - Authorities

Multiple air raid warnings were issued in multiple parts of Ukraine, including in Kiev, according to air raid data.

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Air raid sirens went off in the Ukrainian region of Nikolaev, Kirovograd, Chernigov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kiev, as well as the Ukraine-controlled parts of Kherson region, shortly after midnight, the ministrys online map showed. Precision strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure have been carried out by Russia since October 10 (two days after the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge). Later in the night, an air raid alert was issued in Ukraine's capital of Kiev, as well as in the regions of Zhitomir and Sumy.In February, the head of Ukrainian power grid operator Ukrenergo said that direct damage to Ukraine's energy infrastructure caused by Russian strikes may amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, with economic losses ranging in billions.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230527/ukraine-loses-over-260-troops-near-donetsk---mod-1110636299.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/argentine-economy-minister-goes-to-china-to-discuss-extension-of-currency-swap---reports-1110654965.html

Argentine Economy Minister Goes to China to Discuss Extension of Currency Swap - Reports

Argentine Economy Minister Goes to China to Discuss Extension of Currency Swap - Reports

Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Massa will go to China on Sunday to discuss the extension of its $5 billion currency swap line, Argentine media reported.

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Argentina's minister will also try to negotiate a $3 billion expansion of the deal, media reported, citing official sources. The currency swap agreement between Argentina and China has been in force for years and has been revised several times by both sides. In November 2022, Argentina negotiated the expansion of the swap agreement to maintain central bank reserves. Argentine President Alberto Fernandez then said that the country was given the right to "freely dispose" of 35 billion yuan, or $5 billion.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230427/argentina-switches-to-payments-for-imports-from-china-in-yuan-1109869592.html

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argentine economy minister, sergio massa, currency swap, china
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/current-tensions-in-kosovo-could-escalate-into-armed-conflict---serbian-defense-minister-1110656149.html

Current Tensions in Kosovo Could Escalate Into Armed Conflict - Serbian Defense Minister

Current Tensions in Kosovo Could Escalate Into Armed Conflict - Serbian Defense Minister

Tensions in Kosovo are at their peak and could escalate into armed clashes, with Serbia continuing to send its troops toward the Kosovo border to respond to possible provocations, Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic said on Sunday.

2023-05-28T12:53+0000

2023-05-28T12:53+0000

2023-05-28T12:53+0000

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serbia

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"The situation is peaceful only in appearance. There are currently no incidents. Tensions are at peak, the indicator of tensions is in the red zone, particularly among the Serbs who are directly under terrorist threat of the regime of [Kosovo Prime Minister] Albin Kurti," Vucevic told Serbian broadcaster. The current escalation could turn into a direct conflict at any moment, the minister believes. On Saturday, the Serbian National Security Council condemned the NATO-led peacekeeping force, KFOR, for standing idly by as the Kosovo police used force to install ethnic Albanian mayors in Serb-majority northern provinces. Later in the day, Vucevic said that the Serbian army was deploying its units near Kosovo in anticipation of provocations. Serbia, which never recognized Kosovo's independence and continues to refer to it as its Kosovo and Metohija province, put its armed forces on full combat alert following the storming of municipal offices in northern Kosovo on Friday after the Kosovo police used tear gas to break up peaceful demonstrations staged by ethnic Serbs to protest the outcome of the April 23 elections. The polls were boycotted by ethnic Serbs and declared valid despite the 3.5% turnout.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230119/serbian-president-calls-european-parliaments-demands-on-kosovo-shameless-1106476329.html

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tensions in kosovo, armed conflict, serbian defense minister
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/french-interior-minister-says-countrys-migration-laws-not-strict-enough-1110656703.html

French Interior Minister Says Country's Migration Laws Not Strict Enough

French Interior Minister Says Country's Migration Laws Not Strict Enough

France's laws on migration are not strict enough, as they should allow more deportations of immigrants convicted of crime, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has said.

2023-05-28T13:41+0000

2023-05-28T13:41+0000

2023-05-28T13:41+0000

world

france

migrant crisis

migrants

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"Are we demanding enough with foreigners coming to France? No. Do we have the capacity to ensure sufficient integration? Not really, it appears. Do we have a reasonably tough approach on deportation of foreigners who have committed crime? Not yet," the minister told a French newspaper. At the same time, the number of expulsions of foreigners who have committed crime doubled in 2022, Darmanin stated, adding that existing laws do not allow the authorities "to go beyond that." In February, the French government presented a new bill on asylum and migration. It provides for the measures to facilitate expulsions of "delinquent" foreigners, a structural reorganization of the asylum system, and a mechanism to integrate certain undocumented workers. This is the "toughest" bill on immigration ever presented by the French government, Darmanin said. The draft law is actively criticized by French non-governmental organizations supporting migrants and a number of trade unions. The critics of the bill published a petition urging the government to scrap it since it is a "fundamental violation of migrants' rights." In late April, French Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne said that the government had postponed the consideration of the bill until fall due to a lack of support among lawmakers.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230228/france-spends-twice-as-much-on-ukrainian-refugees-as-on-other-migrants--1107875846.html

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french interior minister, migration laws, immigrants convicted of crime
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/germanys-afd-surges-on-back-of-growing-mistrust-of-greens---poll-1110656411.html

Germany's AfD Surges on Back of Growing Mistrust of Greens - Poll

Germany's AfD Surges on Back of Growing Mistrust of Greens - Poll

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Support for the German AfD party has surged to its five-year high on the back of voters' growing disillusionment with the Greens, a poll published by the Bilds Sunday edition shows.

2023-05-28T13:21+0000

2023-05-28T13:21+0000

2023-05-28T13:21+0000

world

alternative fuer deutschland (afd)

germany

olaf scholz

european union (eu)

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The same poll showed that the number of respondents who said they would never vote for AfD dropped from 60% in December to 53.9%. The Greens, a junior partner in the three-party governing coalition of Social Democrat Olaf Scholz, have been having it rough since their economy minister, Robert Habeck, was accused of cronyism. The Insa poll of 1,207 eligible voters showed the opposition conservative CDU/CSU bloc on top with 28%, followed by Social Democrats with 20% and their business-friendly coalition partner, the Free Democrats, with 9%.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230319/german-opposition-party-afd-pulls-ahead-green-party-first-time-since-2018-poll-1108576684.html

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german afd party, disillusionment with the greens
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/internet-sickened-as-us-senator-says-russians-dying-is-best-money-ever-spent-1110650526.html

Internet Sickened as US Senator Allegedly Says 'Russians Dying' is Best Money Ever Spent

Internet Sickened as US Senator Allegedly Says 'Russians Dying' is Best Money Ever Spent

Social media users have been sickened by US Senator Lindsey Graham saying that "Russians dying" was the "best money ever spent".

2023-05-28T07:04+0000

2023-05-28T07:04+0000

2023-05-28T12:12+0000

us

lindsey graham

volodymyr zelensky

ukraine crisis

americas

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"Disgusting" and "sickening" were some of the responses on social media after footage was posted online showing Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other senior officials in Kiev on May 26.A video of the encounter was purportedly released by Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian presidents office. In it, Graham, who led the United States delegation's visit to Ukraine, appears to say:Sputnik cannot confirm the authenticity of the video and if it had been redacted.Needless to say, users on social media were disgusted with the words of the American senator. Many commented that this was the "true face of American politics."Others slammed the politician for being a "warmonger", and found such words coming from a sitting US senator very "concerning."Others wondered what the US response would be "if Russia was saying this about American citizens."The current trip to Kiev was Senator Lindsey Graham's third since the start of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine. This time, upon his return, he called on the administration in the White House to ramp up weapons deliveries for Kiev, besides the billions of dollars-worth already provided, saying:"There are weapons that matter and we've been too slow getting weapons that matter to the Ukrainian military ... my message to the Biden administration is, I appreciate what you have done. You need to do more."Western countries have been supplying military aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The aid evolved from artillery and training in 2022 to heavier weapons, including tanks, later that year and in 2023. Just recently, Washington gave allies the go-ahead to transfer US-built F-16 jets to Ukraine. Biden also informed his G7 counterparts at a summit of the group that the United States would support a joint effort to train Ukrainian pilots on fourth generation fighter aircraft, including F-16s.In turn, Moscow has repeatedly warned against continuously funneling arms to Kiev. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said any cargo that contains weapons for Ukraine will become a legitimate target for Russia. The Kremlin has emphasized that the heavy levels of military aid being handed to Ukraine is only prolonging the conflict.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230426/which-countries-are-sending-weapons-to-ukraine-1109854081.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/is-aukus-weaponizing-drone-swarms-against-china-1110752233.html

Is AUKUS Weaponizing Drone Swarms Against China?

Is AUKUS Weaponizing Drone Swarms Against China?

The AUKUS military alliance has placed special emphasis on swarm drone technologies in what appears to be an effort to gain the upper hand vis-a-vis China in the Asia-Pacific region.

2023-05-28T17:10+0000

2023-05-28T17:10+0000

2023-05-28T17:10+0000

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us

china

pacific

australia

aukus

defense advanced research projects agency (darpa)

pentagon

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Earlier this week, the British defense minister revealed that AUKUS  a trilateral security pact between Australia, the UK, and the US  held its first artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy trial on April 28 with the aim of "rapidly driving these technologies into responsible military use."The trial, organized by the UKs Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), brought together Australian, UK, and US AI-enabled assets in a "collaborative swarm" in order to detect and track military targets in real time.The swarm drone group consisted of British and Australian Blue Bear Ghost and Boeing/Insitu CT220 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The joint deployment also included Challenger 2 tanks, Warrior infantry fighting vehicles, Viking uncrewed ground vehicles (UGV), as well as 105mm FV433 Abbot self-propelled howitzers and Czechoslovakia-made OT-90 derivatives of the Soviet BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle.What are Drone Swarms?A drone swarm is a hybrid warfare technology that envisages a group of drones working together to achieve common goals. Drone swarms have a number of advantages, including increased survivability on the battlefield, enhanced accuracy, better coverage, and adaptability. They could be used for surveillance missions, targeting enemy troops and military assets, overwhelming enemy air defenses, etc.According to tech experts, drone swarms work exactly like bee swarms, separated into "queens" and "workers": "queens" use sophisticated onboard algorithms to analyze data and assign tasks to "workers" in accordance with the circumstances. For their part, the worker drones act on the orders the "queens" provide. This simplifies the task of the pilot or programmer, who assigns a general task to the group of UAVs, instead of operating each drone separately.AMASS: Pentagon's 'Secret Weapons'In February 2023, the media reported that the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) had kicked off a top-secret project named AMASS (Autonomous Multi-Domain Adaptive Swarms-of-Swarms).The program envisages thousands of drones, equipped with weapons as well as communication and navigation tools, providing the US and its allies with capabilities of jamming radars, penetrating adversaries' air defenses, and launching lethal attacks.DARPA documents say that, "AMASS will create the ability to dynamically command and control (C2) unmanned, autonomous swarms of various types (i.e., swarms-of-swarms) with a common C2 language." Separately, DARPA is developing the OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics program with the aim of training small groups of operators to manage large swarms of aerial and ground-based drones. As of February 2023, AMASS was said to be in the initial stages, with an estimated cost of $78 million.AUKUS Trials, AMASS, and RAND's Taiwan WargamesThe UK Defense Ministry's announcement of AUKUS artificial intelligence-empowered swarm drone tests prompted international observers to suggest that the development is primarily aimed at gaining the upper hand in a hypothetical conflict with China.In particular, they referred to DARPA's AMASS pre-solicitation documents, which expressed concerns about "peer-state adversaries" that could "invade" neighboring states. The documents emphasized that "this program will be oriented around demonstrating this capability for some specific regional Theater-level scenarios."In addition, observers refer to the US Air Force's war games, carried out by the Pentagon in conjunction with independent think tanks, which showed drone swarms particularly effective in scenarios involving the "defense" of the island of Taiwan against a "Chinese invasion."In particular, the influential think tank RAND carried out Taiwan war games in cooperation with the Air Force's Warfighting Integration Capability office (AFWIC) in 2020. RAND's modeling as well as AFWIC's simulations suggested that large numbers of UAVs organized in "swarms" could become instrumental in thwarting China's anti-access and area denial capabilities.The latest AUKUS trials also appear to suggest that drone swarms could be used in the Asia-Indo-Pacific theater: the US has recently doubled down on forming regional military alliances in the region with the aim of mitigating "challenges" posed by China, which Washington has clearly defined as its greatest long-term threat.China and Russia regard AUKUS as an instrument for destabilizing the Asia-Pacific region. Together with NATO's increasing military drills with Pacific nations, the latest drone swarm programs and joint trial send a worrisome signal of potential escalation of tensions in the region.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/russia-developing-swarm-attack-drones-for-battlefield-rostec-ceo-reveals-1106765908.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230526/uk-us-australia-hold-aukus-first-ai-military-tests---uk-ministry-of-defense-1110603373.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230511/natos-liaison-office-in-japan-part-of-plan-to-destabilize-china-and-russia-1110263884.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/israeli-foreign-minister-to-travel-to-central-europe-to-bolster-ties-with-eu-allies-1110753899.html

Israeli Foreign Minister to Travel to Central Europe to Bolster Ties With EU Allies

Israeli Foreign Minister to Travel to Central Europe to Bolster Ties With EU Allies

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen will travel to Central Europe on Sunday in a bid to bolster relations with the allies of the Jewish State in the European Union and seek their support of Israeli policy on Iran.

2023-05-28T16:56+0000

2023-05-28T16:56+0000

2023-05-28T16:56+0000

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eli cohen

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european union (eu)

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"The diplomatic visit to Central European countries is strengthening strategic coordination with our friends, allowing Israel to promote our political and economic interests on the continent," Cohen said in a statement. Cohen will visit Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary and Austria and meet with senior government officials. This will be his seventh trip to the region in five months and the first ever visit to Slovakia of an Israeli foreign minister. He will also take part in a meeting of his Slovak, Austrian and Czech counterparts.

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Korea Financial Investment Association (KOFIA) Chairman Seo Yoo-seok / Yonhap



By Lee Min-hyung



More than a dozen leaders of local securities firms embarked for the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, Sunday, to inspect potential business opportunities and risk factors in real estate markets in the region.



Korea Financial Investment Association (KOFIA) Chairman Seo Yoo-seok will accompany a group of 17 CEOs from local brokerage houses for the seven-day overseas business tour. The event is part of the New Portfolio Korea (NPK) program operated by the association. KOFIA has annually held the event with top management of securities firms here, but it was temporarily suspended for two years from 2020 during the pandemic era.



The group will visit Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland, and meet with officials from the country's industrial development authority. They will receive a briefing on how more and more global companies are setting up their European headquarters in Dublin.



The delegation will then have a meeting with officials from real estate service companies  Savills and Hines  and exchange opinions on the potential risk factors in the European real estate market. They will also have a field inspection on major commercial properties in Dublin and seek possible opportunities there.



From Ireland, they will move to London for meetings with various global asset management firms such as PGIM, M&G Investments and Next Energy Capital, according to KOFIA. Both sides will share their insight on the next global investment paradigm and seek potential business partnerships. The Korean securities leaders are also scheduled to meet with officials from the London Stock Exchange and Equities First to find opportunities for new global businesses.



"This year's NPK will be a good chance for us to check whether Dublin and London can serve as an important bridgehead for Korean financial firms to expand their presence in Europe," Seo said. The NSK is aimed at encouraging more local financial firms to jump into the global market by catching up with the latest global investment trends. The program temporarily resumed last year to only some countries including the United States due to then-prevalent entry restrictions abroad.



In April, a group of 15 leaders of local asset management firms also traveled to Paris in France to monitor escalating uncertainties in European commercial properties whose vacancy rates are on the rise after the European Central Bank pushed for hawkish rate hikes. The asset management leaders are also scheduled to travel to the U.S. in the latter half of 2023 on business.


https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/lavrov-on-f-16s-for-kiev-some-in-us-led-west-grasp-this-as-unacceptable-escalation-1110652192.html

Lavrov on F-16s for Kiev: Some in US-Led West Grasp This as Unacceptable Escalation

Lavrov on F-16s for Kiev: Some in US-Led West Grasp This as Unacceptable Escalation

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that escalation over arms supplies to Kiev is unacceptable and many people in the West understand this.

2023-05-28T10:27+0000

2023-05-28T10:27+0000

2023-05-28T11:17+0000

russia's special operation in ukraine

sergey lavrov

ukraine

russia

nato

f-16

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the recent escalation over arms supplies to Kiev is unacceptable, and many people in the West comprehend this fact. Earlier, the US-led military bloc pledged to supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, the latest addition to the list of lethal weapons the West has provided to Ukraine as it gears up for a large-scale offensive against Russian forces. Yuri Sak, an adviser to the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, said that Kiev hopes to receive the first F-16s from foreign donors in late September or early October.During the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, US President Joe Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Washington, along with its partners, was going to launch a program to train Ukraines military pilots to operate fourth-generation fighter aircraft, including F-16s.Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said the potential transfer of F-16 jets to Ukraine raises the question of NATOs involvement in the conflict.Moscow had earlier sent a note to NATO countries over arms supplies to the Kiev regime. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that any cargo containing weapons for Ukraine would be a legitimate target for Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that NATO countries were "playing with fire" by supplying weapons to Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that flooding Ukraine with weapons from the West would not contribute to the success of Russian-Ukrainian talks and would have a negative effect. Lavrov said the US and NATO were directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine "not only by supplying weapons, but also by training personnel... on the territory of [Great] Britain, Germany, Italy and other countries".

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230522/why-does-ukraine-want-f-16s-1110518595.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230527/ukrainians-may-fly-f-16s-with-wing--prayer-but-wont-be-effective-in-combat-1110641779.html

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russian foreign minister sergey lavrov, arms supplies to kiev
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/lavrov-says-milleys-doubts-about-kievs-ability-to-return-lost-lands-realistic-1110653194.html

Lavrov Says Milley's Doubts About Kiev's Ability to Return Lost Lands Realistic

Lavrov Says Milley's Doubts About Kiev's Ability to Return Lost Lands Realistic

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley's doubts about Ukraine's ability to recapture the territory it has lost to Russia since February 2022 in near future is a step forward toward the West's understanding the reality on the ground, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday.

2023-05-28T10:00+0000

2023-05-28T10:00+0000

2023-05-28T10:00+0000

russia's special operation in ukraine

sergey lavrov

mark milley

ukraine

russia

kiev

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"He [Milley] said that Ukraine is likely unable to return all its territories within the 1991 borders in foreseeable future. That is a step forward toward understanding the reality on the ground," Lavrov said. The top Russian diplomat also called Western military supplies to Ukraine an "unacceptable escalation," adding that this understanding exists even in the West. Earlier in the week, Milley said that in the short term Kiev is likely unable to achieve its strategic objective, which is to return control of all the territory it has lost to Russia.

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russian foreign minister sergey lavrov, ukraine's ability, recapture the territory
Foreign Leaders Congratulate Turkiye's Erdogan on Presidential Win

Foreign leaders lined up on Sunday to congratulate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after preliminary results of a presidential runoff put him in the lead over his opposition rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

"They are all calling me one after another. And they are telling me: 'If needed, say it, invite us, and we will come right away,'" Erdogan said in an address to his supporters in Istanbul after the release of preliminary results.

The Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, took to social media to congratulate Erdogan on his reelection, even as the Supreme Election Council was still analyzing returns from polling places.

"I wish you a successful new term and that you achieve what the brotherly Turkish people aspire to in terms of progress and prosperity and for the strong relationship between our two countries to further develop and grow," he wrote.

The leaders of Hungary, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan were among the first to congratulate Erdogan on winning a third consecutive term as president.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban praised Erdogan on social media for securing a clear victory. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan called Erdogan to congratulate him on his "historic win" and discuss outlooks for a comprehensive partnership, while President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Turkiyes key ally in Central Asia, invited Erdogan to visit his country. Erdogan accepted the invitation, the Azeri presidency said.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was among the first European leaders to congratulate Erdogan, Serbian news agency Tanjug reported. Vucic called Turkiye a crucial partner of Serbia's both economically and politically and invited Erdogan to visit the Western Balkan nation.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro also congratulated Erdogan, tweeting that his country is looking forward to continue working together with Turkiye "to build the new world." Belarusian President also extended his congratulations to Erdogan on the reelection, adding that he expects to meet with his Turkish counterpart soon in accordance with the agreements reached in October 2022 in Astana.

French President Emmanuel Macron congratulated Erdogan on Twitter, while noting that "France and Turkiye have immense challenges to face together."
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/nato-chief-warns-kosovo-against-making-destabilizing-steps-1110658195.html

NATO Chief Warns Kosovo Against Making Destabilizing Steps

NATO Chief Warns Kosovo Against Making Destabilizing Steps

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned Kosovo on Sunday against making unilateral, destabilizing steps after Kosovo police clashed with ethnic Serbs in the Serb-majority north.

2023-05-28T13:52+0000

2023-05-28T13:52+0000

2023-05-28T14:56+0000

world

jens stoltenberg

kosovo

serbia

nato

european union (eu)

belgrade

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"Pristina & Belgrade must engage in the EU-led dialogue now, as the only way to peace & normalisation. Pristina must de-escalate & not take unilateral, destabilising steps," he wrote on social media after speaking to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. Kosovo police used force on Thursday to install ethnic Albanian mayors in northern Kosovo following an election in April that was boycotted by a vast majority of voters. The polls were declared valid despite the turnover of less than 3.5%. Serbia's National Security Council accused the NATO-led peacekeeping mission KFOR of inaction. Serbia put its armed forces on full combat alert and moved them close to the border following a Kosovo police crackdown on peaceful anti-government protesters.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/current-tensions-in-kosovo-could-escalate-into-armed-conflict---serbian-defense-minister-1110656149.html

kosovo

serbia

belgrade

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nato secretary general jens stoltenberg, nato, kosovo, ethnic serbs, clashes in kosovo
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/new-chinese-made-passenger-plane-c919-makes-first-commercial-flight---state-media-1110654111.html

New Chinese-Made Passenger Plane C919 Makes First Commercial Flight - State Media

New Chinese-Made Passenger Plane C919 Makes First Commercial Flight - State Media

BEIJING (Sputnik) - The first commercial flight of China's mainline passenger airliner C919 successfully took place on Sunday, Chinese television reported.

2023-05-28T10:32+0000

2023-05-28T10:32+0000

2023-05-28T10:32+0000

asia

science & tech

shanghai

c919

commercial aircraft corporation of china (comac)

china

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The official China Eastern Airlines app said that the aircraft took flight MU9191 from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport to Beijing Shawdu International Airport on May 28, departing at 10:32 local time (02:32 GMT). The plane has already landed in Beijing. Chinese state-owned aerospace manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) on December 9, 2022 handed over the first C919 to China Eastern Airlines, one of the largest Chinese airline companies. The registration number of the aircraft is B-919A, with "B" meaning it is a Chinese civil aviation aircraft, "919" corresponding to the model name, and "A" meaning it is the first one in the series. Its capacity is 164 seats: eight in business class and 156 in economy class. Model C919 is China's first long-haul airliner with a seating capacity of 158 to 174 seats and a range of up to 5,500 kilometers (3,417 miles). The project was launched by COMAC in 2007 and is being implemented with extensive involvement of Western suppliers. In total, COMAC plans to sell at least 2,000 C919 airliners. In 2018, the corporation reported that at that time the total number of orders for the purchase of C919 from 28 Chinese and foreign customers reached 815 airliners.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20221109/chinas-comac-receives-over-300-new-orders-for-home-grown-c919-airliner-after-zhuhai-air-show-demo-1103948644.html

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china

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/over-half-of-britons-want-uk-to-forge-closer-ties-with-eu---poll-1110658307.html

Over Half of Britons Want UK to Forge Closer Ties With EU - Poll

Over Half of Britons Want UK to Forge Closer Ties With EU - Poll

Slightly over a half of people in the United Kingdom want the government to negotiate a closer relationship with the European Union, a poll commissioned by pro-internationalist campaign group Best for Britain has showed.

2023-05-28T15:00+0000

2023-05-28T15:00+0000

2023-05-28T15:26+0000

world

european union (eu)

brexit

united kingdom (uk)

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The survey of more than 10,000 adults, conducted by Focaldata between April 20 and May 9, found that 53% wanted London to pursue closer ties with Brussels, compared to 14% who wanted a more distant relationship and 23% who wanted it to remain uncharged. Almost two-thirds of those sampled said they believed Brexit had created more problems than it had solved, up from just 57% recorded in December 2021. Only 21% of respondents said the United Kingdom's departure from the EU solved more problems than it had created. A majority  52%  also said that the UK should keep its standards and regulations aligned with those of the EU past the end-of-year deadline, while 35% said it should diverge. At least 600 EU laws will expire automatically on December 31 under the UK's Retained EU Law Bill.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230405/uk-authorities-to-introduce-new-model-of-post-brexit-trade-checks-on-eu-goods-reports-say-1109157716.html

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united kingdom (uk), britons wants closer relations with eu, brexit, opinion poll
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/republican-lawmakers-criticize-mccarthy-biden-debt-ceiling-deal-1110754135.html

Republican Lawmakers Criticize McCarthy-Biden Debt Ceiling Deal

Republican Lawmakers Criticize McCarthy-Biden Debt Ceiling Deal

Fellow Republican legislators of US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy criticized on Sunday a tentative debt ceiling deal reached with the administration of US President Joe Biden and vowed to sink the bill when it is put up for voting.

2023-05-28T17:01+0000

2023-05-28T17:01+0000

2023-05-28T17:01+0000

economy

white house

kevin mccarthy

samuel house

joe biden

north carolina

us

us debt ceiling crisis

republican party (united states)

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Earlier in the day, McCarthy confirmed that Republicans had reached an agreement in principle with the White House on raising the US debt ceiling to avert a possible default. He said that the text of the bill would be posted on Sunday and put for re-voting on Wednesday. Chip Roy, US Congressman of Texas, was among the first to speak against the deal, tweeting that "we're going to try" to stop it from passing the House. He also called on fellow Republican lawmakers to "hold the line" and not yield to the White House. The deal drew criticism from Georgia Republican Representative Andrew Clyde, who wrote on Twitter the tentative debt ceiling increase was a "hard pass" and also called to "hold the line." US Congressman Dan Bishop of North Carolina also opposed the agreement on Twitter. CNN cited its sources as saying that the deal would increase the debt limit for two years in exchange for capping spending. The agreement provides for non-defense spending in fiscal 2024 to remain "relatively flat" and increase by 1% in fiscal 2025. The United States is teetering on the brink of a default of its obligations if the White House fails to get Republicans in Congress to agree to raising the nation's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced on Friday that the deadline for congressional leaders to reach a compromise was pushed back to June 5. She warned that the US risked running out of cash to pay the bills if no agreement was reached.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/biden-says-budget-agreement-represents-compromise-not-everyone-gets-what-they-want-1110646504.html

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us house speaker kevin mccarthy, us debt ceiling, us president joe biden, us republican party
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/riyadh-holding-talks-on-joining-brics-bank---reports-1110652600.html

Riyadh Holding Talks on Joining BRICS Bank - Reports

Riyadh Holding Talks on Joining BRICS Bank - Reports

Saudi Arabia is in talks on joining the BRICS New Development Bank as the ninth member, media reports.

2023-05-28T09:13+0000

2023-05-28T09:13+0000

2023-05-28T09:13+0000

economy

new development bank (ndb)

brics

riyadh

saudi arabia

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"In the Middle East, we attach great importance to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and are currently engaged in a qualified dialogue with them," a representative of the New Development Bank told media in a statement. The newspaper said that the addition of Saudi Arabia would reinforce ties between the BRICS bank and the worlds second-largest oil producer.BRICS is an association of the world's major developing economies that was formed in 2006 to enhance cooperation among the member countries and elaborate common approaches to global economic challenges. The association comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa but is looking to accept new members. Besides Algeria, the list of potential candidates for accession includes Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/russia-may-increase-grain-export-to-egypt-1110654410.html

Russia May Increase Grain Export to Egypt

Russia May Increase Grain Export to Egypt

Russia has "potential production capacity" to scale up grain exports to Egypt as long as it overcomes logistical challenges, the chairman of the Russian-Egyptian Business Council told Sputnik on Sunday.

2023-05-28T11:01+0000

2023-05-28T11:01+0000

2023-05-28T11:01+0000

economy

russia

egypt

grain exports

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"It is a difficult, complex issue. Will Russia increase grain exports? The answer is yes, because Russias output is on the rise," Mikhail Orlov said. Demand for grain in Egypt is on the rise in parallel to the country's growing population. Orlov said Russia needed to solve maritime freight and other logistical problems stemming from the Wests sanctions on Moscow. "But Russia has a degree of resilience, so exports will continue," Orlov added. Russia and Ukraine reached a UN- and Turkey-brokered deal in summer 2022 to facilitate exports of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports and lift Western curbs on Russian grain and fertilizer exports. Russia has warned it may not extend the pact past the July 17 deadline as long as its export capacity remains constrained.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230517/moscow-confirms-grain-deal-extension-for-two-months-1110422393.html

russia

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grain export, exports to egypt, production capacity, logistical challenges
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/russian-ambassador-to-uk-we-havent-yet-started-to-act-seriously-in-ukraine-1110653044.html

Russian Ambassador to UK: We Havent Yet Started to Act Seriously in Ukraine

Russian Ambassador to UK: We Havent Yet Started to Act Seriously in Ukraine

Russia has not even begun to act very seriously in Ukraine, Andrei Kelin, Russias ambassador to the UK, stated in an interview.

2023-05-28T11:57+0000

2023-05-28T11:57+0000

2023-05-28T11:57+0000

russia's special operation in ukraine

andrei kelin

ukraine crisis

volodymyr zelensky

joe biden

nato

donbass

donetsk people's republic

lugansk peoples republic

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Russia has not even begun to act very seriously in Ukraine, Andrey Kelin, Russias ambassador to the UK, stated in an interview with the BBC.As Britain, the United States, their other NATO allies continue to pump Ukraine with weapons to prop up the regime of President Volodymyr Zelensky, like the UK-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles, they risk bringing a new dimension to the conflict, the envoy warned.The Russian envoy clarified that to understand the true nature of the regime holed up in Kiev, one should recognize that Ukraine's authorities have been waging war on the residents of Donbass since 2014. The ambassador also reiterated the position of the Kremlin regarding weapons shipments to Ukraine as prolonging the conflict, saying:Indeed, as the Russian envoy to the UK stated in the interview, when the legitimately elected president of Ukraine was forcibly toppled by the violent US-backed opposition and neo-Nazi paramilitary groups in 2014, the mostly Russian-speaking people of Donbass did not accept the coup d'etat. For refusing to comply with its Russophobic agenda and banning of the Russian language, the Kiev regime subjected Donbass to relentless attacks that claimed thousands of civilian lives over the years. Moscow was forced to finally act, and in February 2022, after the DPR and LPR appealed for help to defend themselves against Ukrainian provocations, it launched a special military operation aimed at stopping the eight-year-long extermination of Russian-speaking people by the Ukrainian leadership.Since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, Western countries have rolled out a comprehensive sanctions campaign against Moscow and have been supplying weapons to Kiev. In a recent development, the US President Joe Biden administration announced a new weapons package for Ukraine at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, while also giving the green light to its allies to provide training and F-16 aircraft for the Kiev regime. The Kremlin, in turn, has repeatedly warned against continuously funneling arms to Kiev. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said any cargo that contains weapons for Ukraine will become a legitimate target of Russia. Moscow has repeatedly emphasized that the vast amount of military aid being handed to Ukraine only prolongs the conflict.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230506/over-126000-donbass-residents-recognized-as-victims-since-2014---investigative-committee-1110137676.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230525/scott-ritter-sending-f-16-to-ukraine-will-backfire-1110582931.html

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Mistake to think that Ukraine will prevail: Russian Ambassador to UK tells British media Mistake to think that Ukraine will prevail: Russian Ambassador to UK tells British media 2023-05-28T11:57+0000 true PT0M39S

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LG Electronics has expanded social contribution activities in the Middle East and Africa as it seeks business opportunities there, according to the company Sunday.







LG Electronics recently donated highly fuel-efficient air conditioners to a local general hospital in Nigeria through its African operations as part of efforts to promote its products, the company said in a statement.







Demand for fuel-efficient and high-end home appliance products is rising in the Middle East and Africa.







LG Electronics has operated production facilities in Saudi Arabia and Egypt in order to meet the rising demand in the regions, the statement said.







In March, LG Electronics introduced its home appliance products at an event held in Dubai where its partner companies from 76 countries in the Middle East and Africa attended for potential business deals, it said. (Yonhap)


https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/russian-forces-prevent-ukrainian-attack-in-south-donetsk-direction-1110645156.html

Russian Forces Prevent Ukrainian Attack in South Donetsk Direction

Russian Forces Prevent Ukrainian Attack in South Donetsk Direction

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian forces have thwarted an attempt by Ukrainian troops to attack in the south Donetsk direction, a Russian Defense Ministry... 28.05.2023, Sputnik International

2023-05-28T03:16+0000

2023-05-28T03:16+0000

2023-05-28T03:16+0000

russia's special operation in ukraine

russia

donetsk

ukraine

solntsepek

tos-1a

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"An attempt by the enemy to attack the advanced positions of the Vostok group of forces was thwarted in the south Donetsk direction. Motorized rifle units, with the support of artillery, destroyed two mortar crews, an anti-tank grenade launcher crew and manpower," the spokesperson said. Crews of high-power self-propelled mortars 2S4 Tyulpan have eliminated a temporary deployment point of Ukrainian troops, while Russian TOS-1A "Solntsepek" (Blazing Sun) thermobaric rocket launchers inflicted manpower damage in the Novomikhaylovka area. In addition, a Russian Lancet kamikaze drone has destroyed a Krab self-propelled tracked gun-howitzer in the southern Donetsk direction, the Defense Ministry spokesperson told Sputnik.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230527/ukraine-loses-over-260-troops-near-donetsk---mod-1110636299.html

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russia, donetsk, ukraine, solntsepek, tos-1a
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/tehran-slams-delusional-claims-by-ukraines-zelensky-as-anti-iranian-propaganda-1110646635.html

Tehran Slams Zelensky's Delusional Claims as 'Anti-Iranian Propaganda'

Tehran Slams Zelensky's Delusional Claims as 'Anti-Iranian Propaganda'

Tehran has slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for baseless claims about Iran supplying Russia with drones for the sake of fueling anti-Iranian propaganda.

2023-05-28T06:27+0000

2023-05-28T06:27+0000

2023-05-28T10:37+0000

iran

ukraine crisis

volodymyr zelensky

world

hossein amir-abdollahian

drones

uavs

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Tehran has slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for regurgitating baseless claims about Iran supplying Russia with drones for the sake of fueling anti-Iranian propaganda.Kanaani emphasized that the Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly called for finding a political solution to the Ukraine crisis. However, according to the spokesman, Ukraine, had "specific political goals and motives behind such accusations" and was "avoiding expert negotiations with the Iranian side to investigate the claims."Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who recently made a surprise visit to the G7 summit venue to plead with Western leaders for more weapons, went on a tirade against Iran in a video address on Wednesday. He urged the Iranian people, everyone able to influence government decisions in Iran, against siding with Russia. Why are you on the side of the evil state? asked the Ukrainian leader, who has been using NATO-made weapons to target hundreds of innocent civilians.Zelensky has been repeating these claims with fervor. He echoed the very same statements when he visited Saudi Arabia to attend an Arab League summit.Last year, despite the lack of any concrete evidence, accusations of supplying Russia with drones for use in the Ukraine conflict brought Iran under a barrage of sanctions by the US, UK, and European Union. EU spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said at the time that the bloc had collected evidence of Iran's alleged deliveries of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). France, the United Kingdom and Germany had asked the UN to investigate the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 endorsing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran's nuclear program. The resolution, among other things, prohibits Tehran from selling certain types of items able to "contribute to the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems" without prior approval from the UN. France, the UK and Germany believe that Iranian drones fall under this rule, but Tehran insists that this is not the case.Iranian and Russian officials have consistently dismissed all the allegations. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman denied US media reports late in 2022, reiterating his government's position that Iran was not exporting weapons to any party to the conflict. Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian also rejected the drone supply allegations. Moscow, in turn, accused the US media of spreading baseless allegations about drone sales. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Moscow and Tehran gave "exhaustive explanations" to the UN Security Council on the alleged use of Iranian drones in Ukraine. Furthermore, Russia and Iran also maintained that the possible UN investigation into the case was "illegal" as the UN has no mandate to conduct it.Russia also pointed to the flagrant delivery of tens of billions of dollars worth of NATO military hardware to Ukraine, turning the conflict into a Russia-NATO proxy war.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20221122/iran-requests-expert-meeting-with-ukraine-to-remove-confusion-about-drones-report-says-1104541081.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20221122/iran-requests-expert-meeting-with-ukraine-to-remove-confusion-about-drones-report-says-1104541081.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/ukraine-loses-up-to-340-troops-near-donetsk---russian-military-1110655100.html

Russian Air Defenses Intercept Three UK-Supplied Ukrainian Storm Shadow Cruise Missiles

Russian Air Defenses Intercept Three UK-Supplied Ukrainian Storm Shadow Cruise Missiles

Ukraine lost up to 340 military personnel in combat with Russian forces near the eastern city of Donetsk in the past day, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a daily update on Saturday.

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"In the direction of Donetsk, up to 340 Ukrainian service members  were eliminated by strikes conducted by the operational-tactical and army aviation, artillery and in combat with units of the 'South' group of armed forces in the past 24 hours," the Russian military said. Russian troops also destroyed three armored vehicles, a Polish-made Krab gun-howitzer and several ammo depots near the cities of Kramatorsk and Georgievka. During the same period, Russian air defenses struck down three Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles, six HIMARS long-range guided missiles, and four Ukrainian combat drones in Donetsk, Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions. In the Kharkov Region, Russian troops eliminated two sabotage and intelligence-gathering groups near the villages of Liman Pershiy and Berestovoe, eliminating more than 30 Ukrainian military personnel and destroying their vehicles.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230527/ukraine-loses-over-260-troops-near-donetsk---mod-1110636299.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/ukrainian-command-finishes-selection-of-pilots-for-f-16-training-1110755001.html

Ukrainian Command Finishes Selection of Pilots for F-16 Training

Ukrainian Command Finishes Selection of Pilots for F-16 Training

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Sunday that pilots for training on F-16 fighters have already been selected and the training will start when everything is "technologically" prepared.

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"When all the conditions are technologically ready, we will start training. The main thing is that our pilots are ready, the air force command has already selected candidates  an appropriate number of pilots and also engineers, technicians, mechanics, because such equipment needs not only piloting skills but also maintenance," Reznikov told an all-Ukrainian telethon. On Friday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that Kiev required 48 F-16 fighters in order to return the 1991 borders. Reznikov refused to comment on the number of fighters and possible terms of their delivery to Ukraine. An international coalition has been formed in recent weeks to provide Ukraine with F-16, the fighter jet of its choice, and training. Several countries have volunteered to host the training of Ukrainian pilots, but it has not yet been decided which of them and when would do it. The deliveries of fighter jets are planned for the long term, not for Kiev's immediate operations, the White House said last week. Russia calls possible deliveries of F-16s another stage of escalation and warns that the equipment will become a legitimate target for Russian forces.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230527/ukrainians-may-fly-f-16s-with-wing--prayer-but-wont-be-effective-in-combat-1110641779.html

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https://sputnikglobe.com/20230528/why-nato-has-no-right-to-complain-about-russian-nukes-in-belarus-1110654526.html

Why NATO Has No Right to Complain About Russian Nukes in Belarus

Why NATO Has No Right to Complain About Russian Nukes in Belarus

The Russian and Belarusian militaries signed agreements this week on the deployment of Russian tactical nukes at a special storage facility in Belarus. The deployment will mean a significant security boost for Minsk, and threaten to unravel NATOs entire missile defense strategy, says international relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda.

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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has confirmed that Russia has moved ahead with the deployment of tactical nukes to Belarus.We had to prepare storage areas and the like. We have done this, so the movement of nuclear weapons has already begun, Lukashenko said, speaking to Russian media in Moscow on Thursday.The Biden administration responded predictably, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre slamming the nuclear deployment as yet another example of making irresponsible and provocative choices by Russia, and reiterating Washingtons commitment to collective defense of the NATO alliance.Jean-Pierres remarks echo those made by NATO in March, when Moscow and Minsk first outlined plans on the transfer of tactical nukes to Belarusian soil. At that time, an alliance spokesperson called Russias plans dangerous and irresponsible, and dismissed any suggestion that the decision was a response to longstanding NATO policy  including the stationing of US nukes on European soil.They are located in a number of NATO countries, including Belgium, Italy, Germany. Theyve been there for decades, and Russia has long complained about it. And that longstanding grievance, combined with other NATO escalations, convinced Russia that if you set the precedent and you dont consider it a violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, then you can hardly accuse us of doing the same if we do it in Belarus. But of course, hypocrisy knows no bounds, the observer said.Russias move isnt an act of escalation so much as it is an act of equity, according to Sleboda, with the decision sending a definite signal on Russias commitment to Belarus security, and the future of any potential NATO-Russia conflict.Combined with the deployment of Russian Iskander-M missile systems and the modification of Belarusian jets to carry nuclear weapons, the analyst hopes the move will cool any hotheads in the Pentagon, Warsaw, and NATO as a whole.Inoculation Against Color RevolutionPointing to Belarus alliance with Russia, including its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Russian-Belarusian Union State, is something thats not often talked about with the West because they dont like to acknowledge its existence, Sleboda said, recalling the regular threats to Belarusian security from the West, including an attempted color revolution in the country in 2020.On top of that are the strategic considerations, both given NATOs nuclear provocations  like staging nuclear-capable bomber drills near Russias borders over the Black and Baltic Seas in recent years, and longstanding efforts to create missile defenses in Eastern Europe to try to render Russias nuclear deterrent obsolete. The nuclear deployment in Belarus should counter these threats, from Moscows perspective, Sleboda believes.Along with the increased security, the nuclear agreement might mean the transfer of additional advanced military hardware to Belarus, and perhaps some undercover economic sweeteners for Minsk, like cheaper gas prices, the observer suggested.Change in Russias Nuclear Posture?Asked about what the nuclear deployment in Belarus means for Russias nuclear doctrine, and whether it signals a shift in Moscows willingness to preemptively use nuclear weapons  including in Ukraine, as written about ad nauseam in Western legacy media and by DC think tanks, Sleboda stressed that until Moscow announces otherwise, Russias nuclear doctrine does not allow for a first strike capability.I would say that there have been a number of Russian officials and political figures that have been very loose with nuclear talk. They talk about the casual use of nuclear weapons like US congressmen do, you know, its like [late Arizona Senator John] McCain saying we should turn something into a glass parking lot. But those statements of bluster and rhetoric have nothing to do with reality. And I have to say that in this particular situation I find such use of nuclear threats (that are not part of Russias nuclear doctrine and so are meaningless) to be less than constructive, Sleboda noted.Otherwise, the international security observer noted, Russias nuclear doctrine is clear, and that unless someone uses nukes or other WMDs against Russia first, a nuclear response will not follow, including in Ukraine.For more of Mark Sleboda's interview with Radio Sputnik's The Final Countdown, click here.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230327/us-nukes-in-europe-where-are-they-stationed-1108844053.html

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On Higher Ground, who lowered the local seasonal standard on the trot to 1:51.4 last Saturday, lowered it again this Saturday (May 27) while lowering his own mark in the $25,000 Preferred Handicap Trot at Pocono Downs at Mohegan Pennsylvania.

The mare P L Notsonice was taking no prisoners early from the pole, going :27.1 to put Rich And Miserable in the pocket and On Higher Ground into third. In front of the stands the first time, Jason Bartlett gave the Cassis gelding the word and he quickly took off, making the lead into turn two before the :55.1 half.

The three-quarters was reached in a moderate 1:24.1, but there was nothing moderate about the :27.1 finishing split, in which On Higher Ground stormed off to win by 3-1/2 lengths over P L Notsonice in 1:51.2. The fast trotter has now won three straight for trainer Jennifer Bongiorno and owner Robert Weinstein.

There was also an $18,500 fast-class co-feature on each gait. The pacing co-feature rates the higher position in the story, as the 1:48.2 clocking put up by Jacks Legend N equaled the fastest mile anywhere, on any size track, in North America so far this year.

Matt Kakaley directed the winner of $921,286 to the lead, and the Bettors Delight gelding posted fractions of :27.1, :55.1, and 1:22.3 before pacing home in a devastating :25.4 to leave a good field far behind for trainer Travis Alexander and owner Symmetry Stables LLC. The 1:48.2 at press time has been reached by three horses in 2023, including South Beach Star here earlier in the meet.

In the trot, the Chapter Seven gelding Special Prosecutor rode a fine pocket trip behind fractions of :28.1, :56, and 1:24.1, then utilized the Pocono Pike and was up over closer Kinda Lucky Lindy by three parts of a length while taking a new mark of 1:52.4. Jason Bartlett, who swept the trotting highlights en route to tying with Simon Allard as leading driver on the day with three, handled the Saratoga invader for trainer David Dewhurst, who is also co-owner with Phillip Hale.

Live harness racing will resume at Pocono at 6 p.m.; there are also Monday and Tuesday cards slated for 1 p.m. Program pages for all Pocono races will be available on the PHHA website.

(PHHA / Pocono)
The trip was different for Kiss Me Im Irish in the top class on Saturday (May 27) at Northside Downs, but the result was the same as last week's.

A field of seven pacers in the $1,600 Winners Over Pace was scratched down to six on Saturday, with rail starter Rockemsockem Scott getting the bulk of the public's attention after a 1:58 qualifying debut at Northside one week ago. The six-year-old was sent right to the top by owner/driver Gerard Kennedy, with the duo employing catch-me-if-you-can tactics in the afternoon feature.

After a :29.3 opener, Rockemsockem Scott faced pressure in the form of Gentry Seelster (Mark Pezzarello) through some solid middle panels of :58.3 and 1:28.1. By this point, second-over Mando Fun (Ryan Campbell) started a three-wide approach with second tier starter and first week Winners Over victor A Better Man (Greg Sparling) looming the danger in the pocket.

Following that three-wide brush of Mando Fun was Kiss Me Im Irish, with driver Adam Lynk angling four-wide around the final turn. All six of the pacers were in contention turning for home, but Kiss Me Im Irish had the most pace late and mowed down her male counterparts to prevail in a 1:59.3 thriller. Mando Fun was a half length back in second while Rockemsockem Scott rounded out the top three.

Ian MacNeil trains and co-owns Kiss Me Im Irish (Big Jim - First Lady Of Art) along with Bernie MacNeil of Miscouche, P.E.I. and Joseph MacNeil of Ingonish, N.S. The six-year-old mare notched her 27th career victory with earnings now at $42,427 lifetime. Despite a win and a second at the North Sydney oval this season, she was let go at nearly 6-1 odds, paying $13.80 to win. Those odds will most definitely be lower in her next appearance.

To view the full results from the Saturday card of harness racing in Cape Breton, click the following link: Saturday Results - Northside Downs.
The Canadian and U.S. two-year-old pacing filly of the year last season, Sylvia Hanover, made her sophomore debut an electric one on Saturday night (May 27) at Woodbine Mohawk Park.

Starting from the pylon post in a $22,000 conditioned event which featured older mares, driver Bob McClure got away sixth with Sylvia Hanover to a :26.4 first quarter set by Shes Got It All, who soon yielded command to Intothemysticmoon. McClure stayed put with the daughter of Always B Miki through a :55.2 half before floating onto cover to race third over to the final turn.

Trafalgar led the charge along the rim with Better Be Donna N sitting second over moving to three-quarters in 1:24.1. Trafalgar took the lead from Intothemysticmoon in the stretch while battling Better Be Donna N. Though McClure gave Sylvia Hanover her head in the stretch and, once given clear racetrack, she bulldozed her rivals to win in hand by three-quarter lengths in a 1:51.1 mile; pacing her final quarter in :26. Trafalgar settled for second and Better Be Donna N took third.

Sylvia Hanover races for owner Hudson Standardbred Stable Inc. David Drew looks after the now nine-time winner from 10 outings who marches towards millionaire status with $914,300 already banked. She paid $3.30 to win.

Pepsi North America Cup hopeful Moment Is Here also made a splash on Saturday night when delivering as the even-money favourite against older foes in a $21,000 conditioned pace. The Bob McIntosh-trained gelding by All Bets Off raced third as speed was dealt from The Legend Hanover through splits of :27.2, :55 and 1:21.4. Driver James MacDonald waited for the pacesetter to tucker out before launching Moment Is Here to action, and the favourite sprung to the lead with ease and powered home wrapped up to stop the clock in 1:49. He finished two lengths better than pocket-sitter Dragon Energy while The Legend Hanover finished third.

Moment Is Here races for owners Robert McIntosh Stables Inc., Al McIntosh Holdings Inc., Frank Baldachino and Mardon Stables. He won his fourth race from 15 starts and has now earned $248,778. Moment Is Here paid $4.20 to win.

The mile time ties Moment Is Here with Ken Hanover as the fastest sophomore pacer of 2023 to date.

To view Saturdays harness racing results, click the following link: Saturday Results  Woodbine Mohawk Park.
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The current exhibition at the Science Museum of Virginia, Space: An Out-of-Gravity Experience, is trailblazing in many ways. While paying tribute to the history of space exploration and the milestones reached, this traveling exhibition probes the future of space exploration and the discoveries that may lie before us.

The exhibition features dozens of hand-on stations where visitors can explore the fascinating and thought-provoking environment of space. Interactive elements are included to help visitors learn through play, as well as NASA video footage that highlights both the challenges and accomplishments of space exploration.

One element of the exhibition highlights the dangers of space exploration and the challenges of living in space, said Science Museum astronomer Justin Bartel. This exhibition features displays that illustrate how we have tried to solve those problems and the feats of engineers and scientists with a mission to protect and empower astronauts. Examples include a display of the different layers of a space suit that protects the astronauts from dangers such as radiation and temperature extremes, and visitors will also have an opportunity to try on an astronauts glove.

The exhibition also includes the science of getting to space, such as the physics of the launch and the power needed on a spacecraft. Guests can use a 16-foot drop tower to investigate how different objects behave differently in a weightless environment. The displays will also include a tabletop demonstration of the balance of speed and gravity that makes it possible to stay in orbit around the Earth (or another world).

The exploration of aspects of living and working in space is enhanced by displays of the International Space Station, which has been in orbit around the Earth for two decades. One display features a doll-house-sized model of the complete station and all its nodes and attachments. Another display, which is certain to make a powerful impression, is a life-sized replica of the ISS Destiny Lab, which is a larger module, and one of the primary workspaces for the stations crew of seven. Visitors can enter the lab to experience a four-minute tour as the module rotates around them. This motion mimics the aspect of weightlessness that involves a constantly shifting perspective.

It is striking to realize that this big lab is just one piece of the ISS. As they explore the lab, visitors gain a sense of the actual size of the entire space station, said Jennifer Guild, Science Museum Communications and Curiosity Director. The exhibition also reveals the answers to questions about how astronauts in space, eat, sleepand go to the bathroom!

The longer-term experimentation aboard the ISS is significant not only because it is an achievement in itself, but also for the role it can serve in progressing to the next stage of space exploration, residing in an extraterrestrial outpost for a prolonged period. In fact, NASAs Artemis program, which is currently underway, has a goal of establishing a sustainable presence on the moon to prepare for missions to Mars.

If you are talking about living and working in space, you have to talk about the International Space Station, Bartel said. Many of our other space explorations had a specific mission to go somewhere, do something, and return. With the ISS, we are witnessing people continually occupying a space vehicle for more than 20 years.

A series of questions and discussion topics are presented to guests as they leave the exhibition.

This can spark conversations among families about space that will continue long after they leave the Science Museum, said Bartel. Our journey to space is ongoing, and there is so much that is yet to be discovered. Everyone can dream big when it comes to pondering what the future might hold in our lifetime, and for centuries to come.

Throughout the summer, the Science Museum of Virginia will also feature a spectrum of programs and activities related to the Space: An Out-of-Gravity Experience exhibition, including experiments in The Forge makerspace, Science After Dark gatherings, and special films in The Dome, a state-of-the-art theater and planetarium. Featured films are We Are Guardians, which gives insights about the way in which ecosystems are intrinsically connected, and Astronaut: Ocean to Orbit, which reveals the high-tech ways that NASA uses subaquatic environments to mimic life and work in space. Each showing of a film will be followed by a live journey through the cosmos presentation by one of the Science Museums astronomers.

The Space exhibition was designed and developed by the Science Museum of Minnesota, in partnership with the International Space Station Office of NASAs Johnson Space Center, the California Science Center and partner museums.
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The City of Kimball will welcome its newest police chief when he is formally sworn in on June 1.

Incoming Police Chief Jose Ruiz will be sworn in during a ceremony at the Kimball County District Court, at 2 p.m., with Kimball County Clerk Magistrate Michelle Woods.

The Kimball City Council unanimously approved hiring Ruiz, who is a former member of the Kimball Police Department, during a meeting on Thursday, May 25. The council acted quickly to approve the appointment, with the special meeting only lasting about 15 minutes.

During that meeting, Kimball Mayor John Morrison indicated that Ruiz was eager to get started as soon as possible. He said Ruiz was already pursuing housing for his family, and anticipated starting quickly.

Ruiz was one of two candidates that Morrison considered for the position.

I had an interview process, he said. I had two very good candidates and when it came down to it, based upon the recommendation from the selection committee and my interview, Jose was the candidate that I wanted...

The specific persons on the selection panel werent identified, but council member Christy Warner noted that other law enforcement officers were on the panel, so she approved of of his selection.

According to Ruizs resume as provided by the City of Kimball, he worked for the Kimball Police Department just shy of two years, working for the department from October 2020 to September 2022, holding the position of corporal. He has worked for the Imperial Police Department since September 2022.

Prior to coming to Nebraska, Ruiz worked for the Cheyenne, Wyoming, Police Department for nearly 14 years.

According to Ruizs resume, he gained experience as a lead defensive tactics instructor, a field training officer and a squad leader while with the Wyoming department. While in Imperial, he said he became a pepperball instructor and armorer, instituting the system at the department.

The council also approved an employment agreement with Ruiz, with Morrison noting that it was similar to the agreement with the former police chief, with the exception of salary and insurance. Ruiz will be hired at a starting salary of $80,000 and the city also offered him insurance for his family.

He is anxious to get here, Morrison said.

The Kimball Police Department is currently in flux, with previous police chief Andrew Bremer having stepped down in April. After his resignation, it was revealed that the Nebraska State Patrol had begun an investigation of the Kimball department, with allegations that staff who had not yet completed law enforcement training as required by Nebraska state statute were serving in the capacity of officers.

Those officers are seemingly no longer employed by the department, as it has been noted that the department is currently at a staffing level of two officers, including interim police chief Dwain Murdoch, who is a sergeant with the department.

During its May 16 meeting, the council approved the hiring of Michael Younquist, who is a certified police officer who has worked at a number of Panhandle police departments, and Damien Martinez, who is anticipated to attend the NLETC in September, according to council minutes. However, the council didnt approve the hiring of Greg Taylor, a former Kimball Police officer and a current Kimball County Sheriffs Office deputy.

Morrison said that recruitment of officers had been an important part of his discussions with Ruiz, who he said discussed attracting good officer candidates to the department even before negotiating his own contract.

He was more concerned about how to get good people here and keeping them here, he said.

In recent years, the Kimball Police Department has seen police chiefs come and go, with five different police chiefs since 2007. Even so, the council has high hopes and expectations for its next police chief, with councilman Don Muench saying that he saw Ruizs hiring as a positive step.

This is the first process to cleaning up this town, and getting the drugs out of this town, he said. I think it (hiring Ruiz) is a really good move. I have heard nothing but good things about Jose and I think were on the right track.

During Thursdays meeting, City Administrator Annette Brower said that Ruiz had indicated that he had potential candidates for officers and she expected them to complete the application process following the appointment of Ruiz.

We may have a full police department very soon, she said.

Those candidates would be lateral hires, meaning they are already officers who are certified as law enforcement officers in the state of Nebraska. Councilmembers expressed that they were supportive of those hires, as those officers would not have to undergo training at the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Academy, which is in Grand Island, and they saw it as a cost savings. As part of state statute, officers must complete a required training course and other requirements before they are allowed to function as officers,. Lateral hires are also a benefit as new hires as they are able to begin serving in an officer capacity sooner.

A discussion of the number of officers who had gone through the training process was part of that discussion, with numbers in the double digits. However, Brower later clarified to the Star-Herald that a turnover of 17 staff members since August 2021 mentioned during the meeting included civilian office staff. She did not respond to an inquiry about how many of those 17 were specifically officers, but she had said some of those persons who were no longer with the department were officers or officer candidates who had been sent to the academy. Brower said some staff had been let go or left on their own decision, including officers who had been sent to training, completing successfully and not staying, and some didnt successfully pass training.

Morrison said that recruitment of officers had been an important part of his discussions with Ruiz, who he said discussed attracting good officer candidates to the department even before negotiating his own contract.

He was more concerned about how to get good people here and keeping them here, he said.

The council approved the hiring of Michael Younquist, who is already certified and has worked at a number of Panhandle police departments, and Damien Martinez, who is anticipated to attend the NLETC in September, according to council minutes. However, the council didnt approve the hiring of Greg Taylor, a former Kimball Police officer and a current Kimball County Sheriffs Office deputy.

The City of Kimballs listing advertising for its position says it is taking applications of certified police officers for part-time and full-time positions.

The Kimball County Sheriffs Department is also advertising for a chief deputy.
A typical village on the outskirts of Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, in 1976 / Courtesy of Steven L. Shields



By Steven L. Shields



I met archivist Lee Shin-ja of the Cheongju City Archives in a serendipitous turn of events. We discussed an entirely different matter when my history with Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province , came up.



I was a lad of 20 when I lived in the city for almost a year, back in 1976 while studying the Korean language. Being an avid hobbyist photographer and an inherent anthropologist, I took photos of the city and its environs, places, buildings and seemingly random scenes.





The bridge into Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, in 1976 with an international flair was always a welcome sight. / Courtesy of Steven L. Shields



Ms. Lee was enthralled and asked if I would share some of those photos with her. I sent some, and soon that few became almost 100 scenes of the city and daily life in the mid-1970s. Ms. Lee facilitated the city archives acquiring my collection, which I gladly donated for their historical records.



During my first visit to the archive a few months ago, I noticed a couple of late-model Hangeul manual typewriters in a hands-on corner. I stunned the staff when I sat down at one and began typing. Most of the staff are too young to remember manual typewriters. I had learned to type Hangeul on an even older model. I also was able to fix the ribbon mechanism on both machines so they would type properly.



I also had the chance to meet Cheongju Mayor Lee Beom-seog, and share some of the photos with him that I had taken in 1976. He and I discussed my memories of living in the city almost 50 years ago.



When I came to the city in 1976, a handful of U.S. Peace Corps volunteers were already at the language training school I attended. I also befriended a Roman Catholic priest there from Brooklyn, New York. He arrived in Korea toward the end of the Korean War and remained in the country until retiring in the early 2000s.





Steven L. Shields, age 20, tries his hand at rice-planting in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, 1976. / Courtesy of Steven L. Shields



The city was then quite small, with the population below 200,000 (it's now above 831,000). Along its outskirts were kilometer after kilometer of strawberry fields and rice paddies. Here and there, a small village of thatched-roof houses occupied the hillsides above the fields. Only the main streets in the city were paved. Roads in and out of the city were often quite rough, depending on how much mud there was after a rain. I recall the train station (no longer extant) in the northern part of town did not have a paved plaza in front.





Lunch with the farmers after planting rice was real food at its most honest and spicy best! / Courtesy of Steven L. Shields



I lived near City Hall, built in the early 1960s. So in 1976, it was not an old building. It was done in a modern style (for the times) of three stories of concrete and block. In succeeding years, the city added a fourth story on the roof. After more than 60 years of service, the building will be demolished, and the city will build a modern facility. In the meantime, the city government is in temporary housing.





Cheongju City Hall in North Chungcheong Province displays the prominent motto on the roof-line reading "Destroy Communism for Reunification," in 1976. / Courtesy of Steven L. Shields



In those days, government buildings and schools carried giant-sized mottos about opposing or destroying communism to reunify the country. Every morning at dawn the loudspeakers would blare out the Saemaul song, the Yebigun song and Park Chung-hee's classic "Nadui Joguk."



Life in the city was rather slow-paced and laid-back. The region is known for its particular "drawl" when speaking. Sometimes walking across town was faster than waiting for the city bus. Since the city's oldest parts were generally flat, walking was easy. The narrow, tree-lined city streets are long gone, but the newly widened streets with a few trees along the path evoke that distant memory.



At the behest of Mayor Lee, Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea and Cheongju City have signed an agreement of cooperation. RAS Korea is honored to work with organizations with common goals. We will work together to collect and preserve Korea's important documentary history.





Rev. Steven L. Shields shows Cheongju Mayor Lee Beom-seog some of his photos in the Cheongju City Archive holdings. / Courtesy of Steven L. Shields



The archive's collections are extensive, including official government documents and ordinary citizens' documentary history and artifacts. Many collections are available for research and viewing, but digitized collections are not generally available to the public. The archive, located in its recently opened headquarters building adjacent to the former police headquarters (which has been turned into a citizens' services center), sponsors regular lectures about the city's history.





The headquarters of Cheongju City Archives in North Chungcheong Province, opened about five years ago, has hosted the Citizens' Archive Hall since December 2022. / Courtesy of Steven L. Shields



The staff comprised of both civil servants and trained professional archivists work aggressively to preserve the official government records and collect artifacts and documents from ordinary folks like me.





Archivist Lee Shin-ja, Rev. Steven L. Shields and Archives Department Head Lee Gyung-ran stand below the author's plaque on the wall of the Archive Hall. / Courtesy of Steven L. Shields
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Twenty years ago, the town of Haigler didnt have a single museum.

Fast forward to today, and the town of about 150 people known as the cornerstone of Nebraska  or the place where the borders of Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska intersect  has a complex of museums that covers half a city block.

Theres a country schoolhouse museum, an old filling station, an art house and the Cornerstone Museum  all run by volunteers.

Its part of keeping this part of Nebraska alive and well for the future, Haigler resident LaNeta Carlock said of the museums.

Carlock said visitors are amazed at whats happening in the small rural community thats rich in history. Its also a beautiful countryside, especially at night.

We have beautiful night skies, Carlock said. Many, many stars.

Haigler is just one of the many towns and cities across the state participating in the 2023 WanderNebraska Travel Adventure Program. The program is put together by the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation and kicks off this Memorial Day weekend.

The program, which is in its second year, increases awareness of what is found in the local sites along Nebraskas backroads and in communities that are often overlooked by the typical tourist, a press release said.

The program begins this weekend and runs through May 2024. This year, 150 organizations from around the state are participating.

Theres a lot to see out there, said Leslie Fattig, executive director of the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation. The foundation raises money in support of the cause of history, including projects of History Nebraska.

Nebraska already has a popular travel program, Nebraska Passport, which encourages people to get out and visit the states hidden gems. Unlike that program, WanderNebraska is specifically focused on museums, historical societies and libraries  although some of the locations have appeared on both lists.

There is no paper booklet for the WanderNebraska stops. Instead, information about all the stops, their hours of operation, contact information, a map and list of nearby stops can be found at wandernebraska.com.

They all have a story to tell, said Sue Quambusch of the stops on the list. Quambusch is the director of special projects for the foundation.

Theres just so much to do out in Nebraska when you get off I-80, she said.

To help people plan their trips, the state is broken into seven regions. The idea is visitors will slow down and check out other spots and explore what these cities, towns and villages have to offer.

In the programs Lewis and Clark Trailhead region is the Angel De Cora Museum and Research Center. It is the official museum of the Winnebago Tribe, and visitors can learn tribal history and see the work of past and present artists.

The 1840s-era Florence Mill is in Omaha in the programs Heartland Hub region. Built of timber from a mill the Mormons used during the 1840s Winter Quarters encampment, the restored structure is home to a museum with a history of the Mormons and the mill.

Visitors will have to schedule appointments to see some spots on the list, like the Angel De Cora Museum. Many of the museums and historical sites are run by volunteers who have other jobs and rely on donations to keep going.

That volunteerism is also why Fattig and Quambusch said WanderNebraska comes with a caveat.

Its about the survival of our history, Fattig said of the program. Its about the preservation of these community histories that are so important.

Some of the museums featured on the list are run by people in their 70s and 80s who want their museums to continue but cant make that happen on their own.

Theyre looking for younger people in their area to learn from them and then take over the reins of the artifacts, the museums, Quambusch said.

Maybe WanderNebraska will create more interest in the museums in order to keep them open for the next generation or two.

Were hoping this program helps, Fattig said.

With 150 stops on the list this year, the program has more than five times the number of stops as last year. Some places, like Falls City, have multiple stops on the list.

The citys stops include the John Philip Falter Museum. Falter, a graduate of Falls City High School, was a world-renowned illustrator. The museum features his Philadelphia studio, a collection of his 129 Saturday Evening Post magazine covers and more.

Dobey Falter Haws, who helps run the museum, said the museum has been featured on Nebraska Passport in the past and hopes participating in the WanderNebraska program will encourage more people to come see Falters work.

More than that, Falter Haws and others organizing and participating in WanderNebraska want Nebraskans to explore different parts of the state.

We need to preserve our shared history, Fattig said. This is our effort to do so.

Photos: WanderNebraska program features the Florence Mill wandernebraska-0003 052723-owh-new-wandernebraska-kc-0002 052723-owh-new-wandernebraska-kc-0004 wandernebraska-0005 052723-owh-new-wandernebraska-kc-0006 wandernebraska-0007 052723-owh-new-wandernebraska-kc-0008 WanderNebraska promotes the state's museums, libraries and history WanderNebraska promotes the state's museums, libraries and history
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Gov. Jim Pillen on Thursday hailed enactment of legislation that will extend mental health and behavioral health services throughout the state as a transformational improvement in health care services in Nebraska.

We have to do more for mental health, Pillen said as he applied his signature to a bill (LB276) sponsored by Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln, that cleared the Legislature on a 46-0 vote.

Joining the governor at a bill-signing ceremony, Wishart said the legislation will do a lot of good for a lot of people and she thanked the governor for his support, which included testifying before the Legislatures Health and Human Services Committee.

The new program is scheduled to be launched in the 2025-26 fiscal year with up to $4.5 million in state general fund support.

Dannette Smith, CEO of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, said the bill will increase mental health access, care and services statewide with a focus on a community-based perspective.

Pillen said the state will convene an advocacy cabinet this summer to make sure Nebraskans are aware of access to extended services.

We want a major breakthrough for mental health, the governor said.

We can help (and) theres a need, he said.

Topher Hansen, president and CEO of CenterPointe in Lincoln, a nonprofit that specializes in mental health and addiction treatment for low-income and homeless people, praised Pillen for his support.

No governor in 50 states did what you did, Hansen said.

The new legislation clears a path for certification of community behavioral health clinics that would provide increased access to medication-assisted treatment while expanding community partnerships with law enforcement, the justice system and schools.

In the process, the proposal could fill gaps in communities where access to care is lacking while providing more holistic care.

We need to help each other, Pillen said.

In an answer to questions on another topic, the governor said his veto of millions of dollars of appropriations approved by the Legislature in its two-year state government budget package expresses his conservative political beliefs.

Im a fiscal conservative, he said. I dont just talk it; I walk it.

If I was a politician, I would have signed it, Pillen said, without any objections.

State government needs to embrace fiscal restraints, the governor said, and quit chasing our kids and our grandparents away from Nebraska.
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Brig. Gen. Craig Strong, a 30-year veteran of the Nebraska National Guard who has worked at the Pentagon for the last four years, was named Friday by Gov. Jim Pillen to become Nebraska's next adjutant general and director of the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency.

Strong will succeed Maj. Gen. Daryl Bohac, who has been adjutant general since 2013 and is retiring after a decade of leading more than 4,500 Army and Air National Guard personnel.

The change of command will take place during a ceremony at Pinnacle Bank Arena on July 8.

Strong will immediately face a recruitment challenge to bring Nebraska Guard personnel numbers back to full strength.

"COVID compromised our ability to recruit in the schools for about two years," Bohac noted during a news conference at the Capitol, "but recruiting is turning around now."

"There is no better civics education than service in the Nebraska National Guard," Strong said, and he will lead a statewide effort to "secure the future pipeline of soldiers and airmen."

Under Bohac's leadership, the Guard was a vital resource in responding to record flooding, tornadoes and storm damage, helping implement the state's response to the COVID pandemic and responding to some civic unrest.

"It's been an amazing journey," he said.

Pillen saluted Bohac and members of the Guard for their public service.

Bohac, he said, is the longest-serving adjutant general in the 50 states, having worked under the command of three governors.

Strong currently is assigned to the National Guard Bureau in Washington and has served in Iraq.

A graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Law and former practicing attorney in Lincoln, he is a former president of the Lincoln-Lancaster County Board of Health.

Photos: National Guard Sendoff held at Memorial Stadium
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LINVILLE  The North Carolina General Assembly has declared 2023 the Year of the Trail, encouraging the state to emphasize showcasing, promoting and celebrating its unique and extensive trail systems while getting people outside and immersed in nature.

Grandfather Mountain, the not-for-profit nature park run by the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation, is joining in this celebration by recognizing the American Hiking Societys National Trails Day. A premier hiking destination in the Southeast, renowned by trail enthusiasts, Grandfather has historically hosted a Trails Day event and is bringing the festivities back for N.C.s Year of the Trail.

On June 3, the Linville, N.C., nature preserve will host various interpretive tables and programs at the Woods Walk, located about a third of a mile from the Grandfather Entrance Gate.

From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., included with park admission, guests will have the opportunity to learn about a diverse range of topics such as how to plan a hike, the principles of Leave No Trace, essential hiking items to bring and more. Additionally, interpretive park guides or resource management technicians will lead multiple guided hikes.

John Caveny, director of conservation and education for the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation, stated that the hikes will focus on the mountains unique natural resources as well as how participants can prepare themselves for expeditions of their own.

The hiking trails on Grandfather Mountain have a long history of attracting hikers for the ruggedness, views and natural beauty that this place has to offer, said Caveny. We are happy to offer this event to showcase our trails and assist participants in being better prepared for all of their outdoor adventures.

As some programming will occur concurrently, guests are encouraged to move from table to table to gain the widest extent of information. The full schedule of the days events is listed below.

11 a.m. to 2 p.m.: Interpretive Tables around Woods Walk

Noon to 12:30 p.m.: Woods Walk guided hike

1-1:30 p.m.: Woods Walk guided hike

2-3 p.m.: Black Rock guided hike

Grandfather Mountain Trails

Grandfather Mountain offers a variety of hiking trails suitable for all fitness levels, ranging from easy and moderate to more dynamic and technical.

Looping from a picnic area near the parks entrance gate and just under half a mile long, Woods Walk is perfect for a leisurely woodland stroll.

Beginning from the Black Rock Parking Area, hikers can take on a few more moderate and scenic trails. The Bridge Trail ends at the Top Shop by the Mile High Swinging Bridge, just under half a mile each way. The Black Rock Trail, offering stunning views and extending to a rock outcropping, is about a mile each way. The Grandfather Trail Loop utilizes three trails, taking visitors through towering boulders and underneath the bridge with an elevation above 5,000 feet.

For experienced hikers looking for a more adventurous trail, the Grandfather Trail offers a 2.4-mile trek into Grandfather Mountain State Park featuring cables and ladders for hand-over-hand progress, and ends at the mountains highest point, Calloway Peak, at 5,946 feet.

Backcountry trails, including the popular Profile Trail and Daniel Boone Scout Trail, have separate trailheads accessed from the state park off of N.C. 105 and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Always remember to have a plan before you leave for a hike. Let someone know where you are going and when you intend to return, read signage at the trailheads for important information and regulations about the trail you are going on and be prepared for all different weather conditions.

To view Grandfather Mountains hiking guides, visit www.grandfather.com/hikes.

For more information on the National Trails Day event, visit www.grandfather.com/event/national-trail-day.

The nonprofit Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation strives to inspire conservation of the natural world by helping guests explore, understand and value the wonders of Grandfather Mountain.

For more information, visit www.grandfather.com.
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There was an accident, so traffic was at a standstill.

The gravitational pull of the moon causes the tides of the ocean.

I stuck to a training plan, so I finished my race strong.

Cause and effect is a concept we all learn in grade school, and we see it play out in hundreds of circumstances every day. The older we get, often the easier it becomes to game out scenarios. Sometimes we can almost predict the future based on the simple rules of cause and effect we learned when we were children.

Last week, text messages of the current ISS board were revealed to us, the voters of Iredell County. Clear instances of breaking open meeting laws (and making light of it), attempts to stifle student-led after-school events because they didnt like the content, discrimination against LGBTQIA+ students and the struggles they may face, and dehumanization of students at Statesville High and the faculty and staff. Any one of these is terrible, but taken together it truly makes one question why any of these people chose to serve on the I-SS school board, a group whose stated mission is to enable ALL students to achieve their academic potential and lead productive and rewarding lives.

Historically in North Carolina, school boards have been nonpartisan. In this system voters choose school board members based on their qualifications, their previous experience, their reputation in the community  instead of a letter beside their name. Until 2016, Iredell-Statesville Schools had been a nonpartisan school board. Since that time, there has been a rise of partisan school boards across North Carolina. It took four years for the school board here to consist entirely of one political party, and two more years to deliver a majority of extremist members from the far right-wing of said party. Cause and effect.

Why, you might ask, is it a bad thing simply to identify political party in a school board race? People already identify themselves as some political party, from Democrat, Libertarian, Republican, Unaffiliated, etc. If they are running for office, why shouldnt voters see that? The problem is when people ONLY see that, and SOLELY use it to make their decision. School boards are about inherently local issues. Partisan labels distort these local issues and allow for distraction from them. Candidates arent forced to take a position on a local issue they will actually impact, when they can ride the partisan wave of an election cycle. This leads to ideological candidates who care more about an extremist agenda than the work in this case of improving schools, encouraging teachers and educating ALL students. Cause and effect.

Four of the stars of the text messages, Brian Sloan, Abby Trent, Michael Kubiniec and Anita Kurn were elected in this most recent election cycle. They won their elections, but did they win because of the campaigns they ran or because of the R beside their names? This school board is a picture, the dictionary definition, of extreme partisanship run amok. Every one of those school board members involved in the illegal text meetings should resign, their conduct is far too egregious to continue to serve as a leader in our community.

If this is the effect of partisan school board elections, shouldnt we instead be pushing our local leaders, who can impact bills in the North Carolina General Assembly, to point to this school board as a cautionary tale? Instead of pushing for more partisan school boards, push for a system where the best, most qualified candidates win. There is currently legislation pending in the General Assembly to make MORE school board elections partisan contests. We need to encourage our state senator (Sawyer) and state representatives (McNeely, Setzer or Mills, depending upon where you live) to vote against this, but also to lobby their colleagues to do likewise.

Most people across the state (and I would venture to guess most people everywhere) actually want less partisan politics in their daily lives. Republican lawmakers are hurling it upon the unwilling people of our state, and last week here in Iredell we saw the consequences. Tell your legislators to roll back the party politics  school boards are too important to be left to the mercy of partisan politics. The effects are far too dire.